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bcitisthelight · 3 years

Text

So.Where to begin.

What you should know is, this isn’t my fault. It’s @misskirby who is to blame for this. She has this AMAZING fic, it’s called Benediction. I like to read it weekly, for sustenance. Go read that first if you want...literally any of this to make sense. So there’s this passage which stole every marble I had, wherein Anakin is explaining the etymology of the Huttese he uses to refer to his children (with a really thorough explanation on Luke’s name.

Anakin scrubbed the back of his neck. “Huttese doesn’t have—words of love. It doesn’t have… benedictions. It’s kind of a cruel language. There’s a whole case for groveling and then—there’s really only the word for love.”

“And that’s abiya?” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin’s grin was crooked. “No. That’s luke. In the Tatooine dialect, at least, it’s luke. We used—things, mostly, to—you know.”

“Luke,” Obi-Wan said, tasting the word, looking down at the sleeping child he’d just been holding, one who carried his parents’ love for him in his name. For the first time in all his life, he wondered what his own name meant, and who it was who had given it to him.

“Abiya is the milk from a flowering cactus,” Anakin said. “It’s very sweet. And rare. I only ever had it once, with my—my mother.”

Obi-Wan turned to look at Anakin again. The expression on Anakin’s face was raw, intense, but Obi-Wan forced himself to look at it, out of respect for the memories of a woman he owed all of Anakin to; the one who had protected him, loved him, when Obi-Wan hadn’t known he had existed at all.

“It also means the morning rain,” Anakin said, waving a hand. “A lot of words in Huttese have many definitions. Abiya, though—it’s a relief. A respite. Pure joy.”

Obi-Wan swallowed around the burning in his throat. “I see,” he said, strangled.

Anakin looked away, his throat bobbing. “Luke only has the one definition, though. There’s only one word derived from it, too, lukkali. Noun and a verb. A krayt dragon whelp, or—krayt dragons, the mothers, their carry their whelps in their mouths, because there’s no place on Tatooine that’s safer, so it’s also the act of doing that.”

I LOVE this passage. I love all of the work it does emotionally, narratively, etc. It’s the best. And yesterday morning, I zeroed in on a specific line. “In the Tatooine dialect” Except hold on, I thought to myself. Anakin was born a slave. What if, when he says the Tatooine dialect, what he means is...the dialect of the slave class?

So here’s the thing. The Hutt society is based on the idea that the Hutts are the prime race, there was the whole Hutt empire thing, I mean the holiday the Boonta Eve Classic is supposed to commemorate is literal holiday that commemorates a Hutt ascending to godhood, during the process of which all of his slaves renew their vows of fealty. It’s not just a class system, where you can you know, in theory move between classes. This is a strict caste system, which you are born into or are captured into. Which got me thinking - what if the language of Huttese has a dialect system...based on caste? We see examples of this sort of socio-linguistic pattern in actual real life!! Tamil and Arabic are some pretty famous examples where certain historical societies who use that language break down that language based on caste, with their different varieties having all sorts of different meanings and cultural connotations, but there’s a ton of them. And in fact, there’s tons of societies which base their dialects on social or other cultural factors.

There’s even a name for it: diglossia, where a society as a whole uses one language but different parts use radically different dialects and forms of that language in different circumstances. Now, strictly historically, how diglossia typically works is that one dialect is seen as a low (L) dialect and one is seen as a high (H) dialect. And get this - in diglossic societies which also contain really severe social inequality - in some cases the dialects can seem almost unintelligible to those who speak the opposite dialect And then based on that passage I posted above, I thought...what if the unintelligibility in this certain case, specifically the unintelligibility between “high” huttese and the dialect spoken by slaves wasn’t surrounding the actual words or structure...what if it was /context/.

So basically in the last thirty six hours I’ve....I’ve made an entire headcanon on Huttese as a trifold diglossic dialect system. I’m putting it under the cut because God its, its a lot guys. Its a lot. Also? It’s written as though its an entry in sociolinguistic glossary of sort, because of course it is. Who wrote that glossary? Space nerds. Nerds in space. Nerds in space from Coruscant University who need research credits for their space masters degrees.

For the purposes of this glossary, the modern caste system of the Hutt Clan has been recorded below. 1. Masters 2. Servants* 3. Slaves The reader should be aware that there is technically a high caste called “Grand Masters”, which historically was comprised of members of the Grand Hutt Council and their families. This caste used a dialect usually referred to as “Archaic Huttese”, and is the source dialect of Huttese, originally developed on the Hutt home planet of Nal Hutta. However, this language has long fallen out of common use. The reader should also note that belonging to the Servant caste does not imply any quality of servitude per se. Rather, this is the caste of all ordinary free people who live under Hutt Rule. This designation is believed to have originated in the understanding within the ancient Hutt empire that any being who lived under Hutt dominion was by rights a servant to any Hutt who should need them. The dialects of the castes are as follows. 1. The dialect of the master class is also known as “High Huttese”. The common dialect of all high-born Hutts, and widely adopted by non-Hutts who own slaves or hold positions of authority within Hutt society. This dialect is used in all interactions involving a master, whether between a group of masters or a master and a lower-caste member. With Hutt families whose bloodlines have been regarded as a part of the master class for several centuries, there is a curious strain of monolinguism in an otherwise highly polylinguistic society, with many high born Hutt families refusing to learn even the fundamentals of standard Basic. The reasoning for this seems to be a cultural belief held by the masters that any person of a lower caste bends to the needs of the masters, rather than the other way around. The historical risk of a master’s displeasure upon improper address has led to this dialect becoming the default in conversation unless you are absolutely sure of another person’s caste, since historically the risk of offense should you choose wrong was often very high. There are at least three different cases of blood feuds between members of Hutt Master families which involved the use of a lower caste dialect as a cause of offense.

This default status of this dialect means that when a person in the Republic references “Huttese”, they are almost always referencing the master dialect. The master dialect is what is taught in the schools of the Republic. This has led to a sort of self-perpetuating cycle. As interactions with the rest of the galaxy have shifted to singular dialect, the use of the master dialect has become more solidified within common Hutt Society, even when the speaker is aware that Low Huttese would be acceptable.

It should be noted that this exception applies only to free people. Slaves are required by Hutt law to use this dialect when speaking Huttese to any non-slave they interact with, even if that person does not belong to the Hutt caste system. The Hutt law imposing this requirement famously reads, “Because all beings are above a slave, a slave should speak to every being in the tongue of their masters.” The penalty for a slave addressing a master in anything but the high dialect is often some sort of physical punishment. A rather gruesome tradition which is kept in force to this day. 2. The servant dialect is also called “Low Huttese”. While originally it was relatively distinct from both the dialect spoken by the masters and the dialect spoken by the slaves of Hutt Society, it has since suffered a bit of stagnation. There are many factors which could cause this to occur. As the Republic opened up more and more channels of commerce to Hutt Space, and the Master dialect has become the norm outside of Hutt Society, true enforcement of the linguistic standard for non-enslaved beings has fallen much to the wayside in the last two standard centuries or so. Modern Low Huttese dialect is thus mostly similar to the Master dialect in grammar and generally accepted vocabulary. However, a remaining diversion exists which is based on pronunciation, and a significant reliance on rather course slang on the part of those who speak Low Huttese. It has been said by Huttese linguistic scholars that while High Huttese is a an excellent dialect for threats, Low Huttese is an excellent dialect for swearing. 3. The slave dialect has no name in any official Hutt or Republic record. It is not recognized by any authority in either written or spoken form. In fact, generally the only beings who know or speak the slave dialect are those who are or who once were enslaved, and their loved ones. The dialect differs rather severely from high huttese - though primarily through meaning and cultural context, rather than actual structure.

It seems that this “hidden” diversion was born of necessity, rather than choice. The masters didn’t like the idea of their slaves having a way of communication the masters were not privy to, and so would punish any slave caught speaking a dialect which was immediately recognizable as being outside of the master dialect. The slave class in the ancient Hutt empire adapted to this by taking the dialect forced upon them, and manipulating a large portion of it for their use. Rather ingeniously, they seem to have developed an entire dialect specifically ordered so that they could express themselves freely without being automatically targeted by a passing master or authority figure. This is the vital distinction: words in the master dialect often have vastly different or even opposite meanings when used in the slave dialect. Added to this complexity are the wide range of connotations and contexts for each word. An interesting note to the slave dialect is that generally, the more abstract a word is, the fewer meanings or connotations it has, whereas often the most culturally impactful words and concepts are taken from simple or every day words. There is only one word for love in the slave dialect - “Luke” - because it is seen as pure, and when given, unconditional. When this word is used, there is no linguistic distinction between platonic or romantic love - the slave class instead relies on idioms or proverbs to express the difference in feeling. In direct contrast, there are nine different ways a person can use the verb which means “to attach”, ranging from the mundane (“Attach these two machine parts together”) to the taboo (“to cause another person to be enslaved”) There are some words which are unique to this dialect, however. One example is the word for “freedom”, which in the slave dialect is “telena”.

The master dialect’s word for freedom is the same as their word for authoritarian power. Freedom within the master caste, then, was specifically associated with the ability to exercise dominion over the world around them. Members of the slave class, as individuals who constantly suffered under that same authoritarian power, showed a collective repugnance for the association between freedom and the very dehumanization they themselves suffered. Drawing from the use of the anakin plant as one of the most culturally and spiritually significant symbols in the caste (See entry on Anakin, a flowering plant which originated in the deserts of Tatooine but which has since been domesticated throughout the Outer Rim) they instead chose to develop a word based off the Hutt verb “to bloom” One common expression amongst the slave class is “Telena telen ali anakin” - “Freedom blooms with the anakin” Those interested in the study of this dialect, then, are well warned that they should take great care in attempting to communicate in this dialect (if they can find a teacher, that is - many slaves or even those who were formally enslaved are understandably reluctant to give up what is likely one of the only means of expression of not only agency, but of caste solidarity. I have seen two former slaves go from total strangers to kindred spirits in the space of five minutes, upon discovering by means of dialect each others mutual experience.)

#I made an entire headcanon on Huttese as a trifold diglossic dialect system #she said #like a LOSER #do you ever write a sentence so insane it immediately deals you psychic damage #and what makes it worse is that #this is something i did in my free time today #this is what i do for FUN #anyways #I will be writing more to come lmao #Huttese #star wars #conlang #sociolinguistics #but you know #in space #please don't take the actual structure too seriously i am strictly here for the social connotations #i dont know linguistics #and frankly #i dont care

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septiembrre · 3 years

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Really enjoyed your nuanced post about respect for Latinx characters on the show. Why do you think there’s such a divide between the respect Rio commands from the majority of the audience versus the how the show treats him? I have empathy for all the characters but the longer the show goes on, Rio is the standout “main” character that receives the least amount from the show itself. I’m interested to see how this shifts with the introduction of Nick as the bad egg, but was thrown by bill kreb’s response that Beth will never soften to Rio because of the situations he puts her in. And not that #brio is the entire show but Beth is the person/lens who we see Rio through, so her opinion/attitude is by default the one that matters here (petition for first person Rio POV). I’m not totally sure what I’m asking hahah but would love your thoughts on any of it if you wanted to share. 🧠

Hi Anon!

When I got your ask yesterday I realized that damn it, I finally needed to track down this post I wrote last April in the middle of Season 3 airing. Back in the day (lol, a year ago, but a year in pandemic terms, okay?), I didn’t tag anything in purposefully -- I mean I only meagerly tag things now -- and thought I had lost it forever, but I’m so glad I found it. I didn’t do all that emotional labor for it to fall into the Tumblr abyss. 😭I fucking transcribed something from a Youtube video (so extra.)

It’s weird reading it now because so much it still feels salient. I hate that. But, even though it’s time-stamped from a year ago, I think it still gets to your question:

Why do you think there’s such a divide between the respect Rio commands from the majority of the audience versus the how the show treats him?

1. I think there isn’t enough support for writing Latinx characters on the show. I wonder if there are any Latinx writers on the show, and if there are, whether they are junior writers/what their power looks like in the writing room. The conversation doesn’t have to stop at writers either, just how many Latinx creators allowed to have voices in the decision-making involved in the show?

2. I still think MM lacks the traditional star power to have Rio’s character get more narrative weight. I think there are certain things within his control, pieces he can lobby for and effect -- but not larger narrative choices. While Rio is the fan favorite, MM is still the least prolific, known of the cast, hasn’t paid his acting dues to get higher billed, etc. I do laugh tho every episode when MM is billed right above Lidya Jewett the actress who plays Sara, Ruby’s daughter, who has barely been in this season (but kudos to her and her ppl for advocating for her billing spot).

Importantly, MM doesn’t seem to have allies in the three leads. For example, I would argue Reno’s professional relationship and friendship with Retta and Matthew’s relationship with Christina (lol, Matt seems to be a set favorite) have very much paid off for both of them (especially Matt). It feels strange to watch classic work dynamics play out like this on the show bc you would think it would be more effected by NBC’s bottom line. But I’m getting that classic workplace read, that your job standing is based on who you’re allied with and who is your advocate. And this is just pure speculation, my personal read, but I think there are also vibes of ~unconscious bias~ discriminatory stuff around MM being a Latinx actor from a working-class BIPOC community layered in all of this.

I don’t want to fully get into the subject of MM but I feel like this ask would be incomplete to not mention the following. Something else that stands out in this situation is MM’s public shade towards the show, and social media presence overall. *sigh* At this point, I can’t imagine MM hasn’t been come across as unpalatable to his castmates. From the little glimpses we get on social media it hasn’t looked pretty. However, as much as he makes me cringe, I see his work vibes, and I feel a sad echo of my own experiences as a brown Latinx person trying to get my white coworkers to recognize my fuller humanity.

Anyway, NBC’s gripe is that Good Girls doesn’t make them enough money and the thing is we know how it could. With a few tweaks (not making GG the Rio!Show but giving Rio more narrative weight, putting him in even one substantive scene with Annie or Ruby for example) Good Girls could more easily get renewed, be more popular etc. I don’t think shifts like this would have to compromise the integrity of the story Jenna Bans originally wanted to tell with the focus on the three female leads. There can be more effort put into the Latinx representation without it breaking the premise of the show.

But, on the bright side in Season 4, Rio has a new scene playmate~ Little by little we are populating Rio’s world, and we finally have someone he can work against one-on-one in scenes independent from Beth. Love for that for him!~* Idk, I’m still skeptical about this Nick storyline. I really enjoy aspects of it, but I feel like it’s pinging a radar re:poorly thought out representation in a way I haven’t fully processed yet.

Thanks for the ask! (I will take no further questions about MM at this time.🙈)

#good girls and latinidad #preguntitas #adding that this v much speculation

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bloomingnono · 3 years

Text

meant it. (part 2)

pairing: jeno x reader

genre: angst, fluff

word count: ~ 1.7 k

warnings: language (like one curse word akjds)

intro l part 1 l part 2

a/n: im so sorry for the long wait:( i wanted to make sure i did my best, and wrote something i was overall pretty content with! but here’s the second, and final part to “meant it”!! i hope you all enjoy, especially my dear 🍿anonie<3

also not me making major adjustments 5 minutes before posting💀

taglist of my loves: @luvlyjaemin @vera-liscious @lenaluvs

Your bed felt cold. The type of cold that left your body weak. And yet again, you found yourself fighting to let sleep consume you.

You hesitantly turned to your left side, hoping that maybe, this was all just one big nightmare. That maybe when you turned around, he’d be there.

But you were only met with the other side of your bare bed; your lamp casting an amber tinge on your snow-white sheets.

Four weeks had passed since those final words had been exchanged. He had left you broken.

To say you missed him was an understatement.

You longed for the way your heartbeat quickened at his sight. You longed for the way your stomach fluttered as your name effortlessly slipped out of his lips. You longed for his touch; the way his fingers lingered against your skin.

You missed him.

But at what cost? To hear those three empty words leave his mouth?

No. Never again.

It was unfair to Jeno. But most of all, it was unfair to you.

You didn’t deserve to be told such idle lies.

Especially not from the one person you would give up your entire life for.

Jeno was a naive soul; so sincere and trusting of what only met the eye.

Mistakes were a daily occurrence in his life; learning and growing from them as he paved his way through.

But the second you left, he knew he had made the biggest mistake yet.

On the night when everything ended, there was an inexplainable feeling of void growing within him.

He didn’t have a reason to smile, nor the energy to cry.

Unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, he felt incomplete. It left him numb.

Before he knew it, four weeks had already gone by.

Four weeks since he last held your frame in his grasp. Four weeks since he last saw the face he once fell in love with. Four weeks since he left you utterly broken.

But in those four weeks, Jeno wasn’t living. He was simply existing.

He was merely left in his world; his actions and their consequences, being his sole companion.

He knew it was unfair to continue to lie and prolong the inevitable. But, why did it feel so wrong? It was the right decision to choose... right?

‘To choose.’

It seemed like such a simple action. It was something we did on a daily basis; nearly every second of every day.

Yet it held so much influence.

Jeno had finally realized that now.

Everything in life was purely a choice.

Everything.

You lie on your bed, your mind lost in all the bumps and ridges that painted your cream-colored ceiling.

It was late into the night, the moon peeking its way through the slits of your window blinds. The silence was peaceful, yet deafening.

Despite the unsettling aspects of the stillness, you’re ready for it to devour you; yearning for that feeling of tranquility that you haven’t felt in weeks.

But just as you are about to give in, you’re abruptly interrupted by frantic raps on your front door. Jostling up into a sitting position, you force yourself off your bed to check and see who was causing such a fuss.

The knocks on your door persist, not allowing for a single moment of intermission.

Apprehension quickly overtakes your body, frightened at what could possibly cause such actions to befall at this ungodly hour.

You hesitantly grab your doorknob, carefully turning it and opening the door just a fraction of the way.

You are met with a hunched figure; their hands on their knees and their hair damp with —what can only be assumed as— sweat. Their labored breathing leads you to believe they had run here, and hastily at that.

After a few short-lived seconds, you carefully try to assess the situation; fear still coursing throughout your body.

“Can I help you..?”

The figure instantly tenses at your tone, as if taken aback by the sound of your voice.

You watch in confusion as they begin to catch their breath, and stand to their full height. Straining your eyes to try and identify their face, you’re left frozen at the single feature that was recognizable even in pitch darkness.

His eyes.

You instinctively take a step backward, distrusting your vision.

But your presumption reigns true, as the figure tentatively takes a step forward through the doorway; his face now fully illuminated by your foyer light.

Lee Jeno.

He seemed to be in a terrible state: his hair a mess from the sweat, his clothes violated by the wind, and his breaths still quite uneven.

You attempt to try and form a coherent sentence, but the words seem to die in your throat. You could only look up at him, staring blankly with your mouth hung open.

“Wha... What are you doing here...?”

“I came to see you. I needed to talk to you. Immediately.” His expression was unreadable, yet his tone held the familiar hint of desperation. “I miss you. I want— No. I need you back. Nothing in this world seems right when I’m not with you. I’m not who I am without you. I need you…”

The silence that follows is unbearable.

It takes a few moments for his words to sink in. You feel your eyebrows furrow in confusion, contorting your features into a frown.

But the confusion is quickly replaced with the dreaded feeling of anger. It swiftly fills your entire soul, kindling a flame. The one emotion you tried so hard to repress, viciously engulfs your entire body.

The words that had once died in your throat, quickly resurrect and force their way out of your mouth.

You find your voice again. However, this time, it is nothing but cold and bitter.

“Lee Jeno, I love you. I’m not ashamed to say that I’m still hopelessly in love with you, because I am. But you aren’t. And that’s why I let you go.”

The floodgates were finally opened. There was no going back.

“As much as I still loved you, and as much as it killed me to accept that you didn’t return those feelings for me anymore; I let you go. Want to know why? Because your happiness means so much more than my own. I let you go because I love you so fucking much.”

Jeno stares at you with wide eyes, unable to summon a statement that could somehow ease the pain in you eyes. “I-“

“No, listen!!” Your voice begins break, unable to keep your emotions at bay. The words flow out of your mouth quicker than your mind could process. “I wanted to blame you. I wanted to hate you and resent you so badly for everything you put me through, but I couldnt. Because I still fucking love you!!”

The last statement leaves your throat raw. But you persist.

“You really got some nerve, Lee Jeno.” You laugh humorlessly at the pure audacity, before turning back to him with a renewed flame.

“You left me absolutely shattered. And I couldn’t even hate you for it. I refuse to let you hurt me again. I refuse to watch, as the love for me floods out of your eyes again. I REFUSE!!!”

Every last bit of your energy is wasted on your final words as you scream them at the top of your lungs.

The angry tears streaming out of your eyes seem endless. Your whole body trembles with pure fury as you collapse to the floor, legs giving out beneath you.

Jeno instinctively scrambles to your side, supporting your fragile form with his own.

Too weak to fight against his hold, you allow yourself to be braced by him; the touch being all too familiar for your liking.

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” You purposely avoid his gaze as you ask, your voice impossibly faint. You’re left completely exhausted; the anger quickly transforming into pure defeat.

There’s a moment of hesitancy. You feel the sharp intake of breath that he takes before the reply is given.

“I... love you.”

Those three words that you once adored, and now despised... Those three words that had eased all your pain, but now caused your suffering...

Those three words... were no longer hollow.

He meant it again.

A chill swiftly travels down from the top of your spine to the tip of your toes, leaving you senseless.

He promptly proceeds; the hesitancy in his tone now replaced with a new-found determination.

“I love you. And not because I have to, but because I want to.” Cold fingers gently grip your chin, tilting it up to meet his gaze. “Loving you is not merely a spark. Loving you is not lust or simple desire. Loving you is a commitment. I want to wake up every day, and choose to love you.”

There’s another moment of silence; tears of regret traveling down to drip from the point of his chin.

“I’m so sorry for... everything.” He chokes back a sob as the words get caught in his throat. “I loathe myself for being the cause of all this. I will never forgive myself for hurting you and... and I completely understand if you aren’t willing to forgive me either-“

Before he could finish, you crash your lips onto his; successfully silencing his statement. Tears continue to descend both your guys’ cheeks, unable to subside from the overwhelming sense of comfort that came with being in the others’ warmth again.

You sense a familiar arm snake around your waist, pulling you deeper into the contact. Your own arms loop around his neck, absorbing the touch that you had longed for, so intensely.

You pull away from the kiss, coming face to face with the love of your life.

“You have no idea how much I missed feeling those words.” The sentence is muttered, speaking to yourself more than anyone else.

But he heard them nonetheless.

You feel his slender fingers encase either side of your face, his cool touch sending a wave of shock throughout your body. Keeping your face steady in his hands, he slowly leans his forehead against yours.

With his eyes closed and without a single waver in his voice, the words slip out again.

“I love you.”

You soak up the comfort that alluded from such simplicity.

You know that you guys aren’t perfect. Nowhere near it.

But what mattered, was that you were in each other’s hold again.

Because you loved each other...

And you meant it.

end.

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novantinuum · 3 years

Link

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences

Words: 6.3K~

Summary: In another world, he doesn’t have his mother’s sword or shield to hide behind when Bismuth lands her strike. The bubble pops.

Steven falls apart.

Chapter summary: In which freedom is a future worth fighting for.

Finally finished this chapter, yay! I promise I throw canon off a ravine entirely next chapter, I just needed to set up some stuff. Hopefully the Ruby POV makes things somewhat fresh.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3. Thank you! <3

____

Chapter 13: system/REBOOT, Part 1

The whole mission is Garnet’s idea.

By this point, they’ve known about Homeworld’s rushed Beta Kindergarten project for about fifty years. Frankly, its composition leaves much to be desired. The area is rich in the iron and silicon deposits necessary to produce a strong batch of quartzes, but the foundation they incubated all their new soldiers within is red clay cemented sandstone; it’s soft, and in constant danger of erosion. According to all the rebellion’s peridots, many of them top Homeworld kindergarteners before their eventual defection, this type of stone is critically unfit for Gem production. It can’t compress the inclusions of injector fluid at the correct pressure, can’t reliably bar the excess from draining through the porous material. As a result many of the individually incubated sites are predicted to ‘weep’ and lose critical volume, which will inevitably cause the emergent quartzes to be ‘off-color’ in some fashion. Some may be under regulation height, some may exhibit crystal twinning, some may be incapable of standard abilities like shapeshifting or weapon summoning, so on and so forth.

As a fellow off-color herself, Garnet carries a deep empathy for all those who are forsaken and unwanted. She can foresee the dire fate of these Beta Gems creeping over the dawning horizon even without the benefit of future vision, can foresee that despite all of these soldiers’ loyal programming, they’re ultimately cursed to be eliminated within the cruel machine of Homeworld. One day beyond the battlefield, the so-called Great Diamond Authority will see no further use in their existence, and then they’ll be purged. Harvested for scrap. Trapped within a myriad of Gem-powered objects. Crushed and used within their drop ships for fuel.

It’s pure tyranny.

Thus, she refuses to let their cruelty stand without a just fight. They have to give these Gems a chance beyond Homeworld’s rule, because abandoning them would be abandoning everything that their brave rebellion stands for, that she stands for. She refuses to stand powerless and idle in the face of a Diamond’s commands like the Sapphire and Ruby she once was, refuses to let another tragedy slip by without at least attempting to mend its damage. She is Garnet, she is freedom, and she is love.

And deep within her core, she believes these soon-to-emerge soldiers deserve the same opportunity for renewal and hope as any other Crystal Gem.

For all Ruby’s aware, a whole geological era could have passed between that fateful moment she first set eyes on Jasper and the shards-late arrival of Amethyst and the others. All three of them duck behind the low rock formations she’s hiding in the shade of, Steven still breathing heavily from the no-doubt harried and concerned exertion of their sprint towards her. Hard light coursing from the gem in her palm to all other extremities at random intervals amidst crackling cinders of immobilizing terror, (she’s almost surprised her form isn’t flickering at this point), she desperately attempts to babble an explanation. She’ll admit— it’s not a particularly coherent one. Ask her mere minutes later, and there’s little chance she’ll be able to repeat what she said. Heck, she’s not confident about her words now, in the heat of the moment. It’s probably something about holes, something about injector scrap, about all those Gem monsters, a-and—

"Whoa, what the heck!” Amethyst blessedly interrupts, raising her head above the rocks and pointing across the clearing at the orange and red striped quartz diligently prowling the area like a true squadron leader. “Jasper’s here, too? Did everyone decide to skip on over to Beta today, or somethin’?!”

Peridot’s face scrunches in confusion as she regards her former mission partner. “What is she doing?”

“She’s got all those corrupted Gems in cages,” Steven murmurs with realization, a tiny spark of outrage lighting up behind his eyes on those creatures’ behalf. “They’re not even bubbled, they’re just… trapped, and scared!”

Ruby brings her fist to her mouth, nervously nibbling at her fingers for a moment to anchor herself back to this present. Above all else, ignoring every thread of trepidation and insecurity she bears, there’s one burning question that pulses at her core with an unmatched luminosity about this whole scenario:

“B-but why would she want so many corrupted Gems in the first place? Doesn’t she know she can’t tame them?”

The purple quartz growls, the fringe of her hair casting a dark and menacing shadow over her features as she tilts her head down and glares at her self-proclaimed rival. “I don’t think she knows nothin’.”

And as— instinctively, mistakenly, running off of over five thousand years of deep engrained habit— she attempts to open her third eye towards the winding tributaries of potential futures they may soon find themselves wading through and fails, it slowly dawns on her just how isolated and lost they all are, without Sapphire’s sight. Without her love.

“Neither do I…” she says softly, her stature shrinking in the throes of that suffocating inadequacy. Riding an abrupt wave of frustration, she slams her foot into the coarse dirt, gripping thick chunks of her coily hair between her fingers. “Aughhh, this is a terrible time to not have future vision!” she huffs, spitting out each word staccato.

“Pipe down!” Jasper hollers at the poor corrupted Gem cornered in the distance as she kicks one of the bars of its cage, her booming voice easily reverberating off the cliffs’ curvature.

All four of them can’t help but bite back their gasps upon this clamoring startle. Peeking her head just above the rim of the rocky outcropping, Ruby watches the fur covered quartz visibly shrink back at the soldier’s command. Jasper continues, her unwavering act of confidence currently undeterred by this reaction.

“You take orders from me now. You used to be a quartz too, didn’t you? What happened to you?”

Utterly failing to comprehend any of her words in this vulnerable, animalistic state, the corrupted Gem merely snaps its fangs at the bars, and then tilts its head sideways to begin chewing on one of them. Jasper scoffs, her lips rising in a mild sneer. Taking the risk to edge closer, she continues to verbally berate the poor thing, talking the same sort of smack Ruby’s former Homeworld commanding officer, Condor Agate, used to dish out. Ruby grinds her teeth together so hard as she watches this display that the pressure and heat alone might be enough to form a brand new batch of Gems. Jasper even finds a moment to rope Amethyst into her insults, which almost has the stone in question summoning her whip in pure unfiltered fury. It’s only Steven and Peridot’s quick clutch on her shoulders that holds her back from steamrolling into the clearing with zero preparation and potentially making a terrible mistake. Still, she’s gotta admit, the temptation to whoop this Homeworld brute’s butt right this minute is devilishly hard to resist.

Ruby growls, one of her gauntlets emerging into existence on her clenched fist with a burst of light. “Oh-hoh, do I wanna launch this baby right into her dumb, chalky face…!”

“But maybe first we should go back to the temple and grab reinforcements?” Peridot whispers hastily, whirling around to face her. Panic visibly tightens its grip on her form with each passing second.

She pauses a moment to let the logic of this suggestion sink in, gaze hardened, and self-consciously aware of how her fellow Gems are (wrongfully) looking towards her as their leader in this chaos. What options do they even have? They can choose to fight, that’s one. They could disengage. They could retreat to Beach City and seek backup. If they were truly desperate, they could surrender. (Although she’s not confident Jasper would gracefully accept anyone’s defeat, not until it ended with their poofed— maybe even shattered— gemstones littering the coarse sand.)

As the gears are still pirouetting in her mind, she turns towards Steven, who nods in vehement agreement of Peridot’s strategy, his mouth stretched thin.

Sighing with frustration, she loosens her grip, recalling how even Garnet was barely able to match up with Jasper’s might. “Yeah, you’re right. She’d beat us into the dirt without Pearl or Sapphire.”

“Okay, so far we got three votes for retreat,” he says, holding up the appropriate number of digits as a visual. “Amethyst?”

In sync, the trio turn towards where the quartz just stood and find nothing but faint granules of recently upended dust filtering through a beam of sunlight. Both Peridot and Steven let out a fearful squeak at her absence.

“W-where is she?” the former Homeworld technician cries, craning her neck over the top of the rock formation to try and secure a visual.

“Up there!” Steven exclaims under his breath, pointing at a ridge a good ten feet above them that crosses from the arched entrance of this natural amphitheater all the way to the other side where Jasper stands, her back still turned to them.

Following the path of his index finger, Ruby catches a flash of purple, black and lavender stealthily advancing along the narrow rim towards the very soldier who reportedly poofed her with a single strike about a week back. The light sustaining her form nearly drains from all her limbs and rushes back to her gem.

“Oh, shards no…”

Stars above, what the hell is her problem? she thinks, her mind riding in a narrow track between exacerbated vexation and dread. Does she have a death wish, or something?? Surely the last place a rational person would choose to run is directly into the arms of the Gem who clobbered them into a senseless cloud at their last meeting. Surely a rational person would instead choose to retreat and regroup. However, as she glumly reflects upon the dour happenings of the past few days, Amethyst’s actions prove she’s currently unable to think rationally about Jasper or any other kind of conflict. She’s been markedly sullen at everyone around her ever since she first got her butt whooped. Obsessed with her private training sprees. Emotionally stand-offish. Prone to making rash decisions, like letting her mouth run off at poor hapless Steven about matters that aren’t his fault, or slashing her whip right at people’s feet to push them away, or… or rushing directly towards Jasper in an enclosed space with little to no backup just because she’s desperate to show her up for the sake of her own self-worth, or whatever.

And Ruby gets it, to an extent. She understands how cripplingly powerless it can feel to be written off as ‘the weak one,’ as nothing but an expendable. She understands the vivid temptation to let one’s anger drive such antagonistic confrontations. However, she’d also like to believe that she carries enough self respect in this gem to not throw herself right on an enemy’s anvil. Whether or not Amethyst possesses the same level of restraint is another question entirely. She flexes nervous, twitchy fingers at her side as she watches her dear friend creep further along the rim, ever closer to what she fears will be her unquestionable demise.

With the corrupted Gem’s racket still occupying Jasper’s undivided attention, Amethyst leaps from the cliff’s edge and into the clearing, pulling her whip from her gem in midair. The moment her toes touch the ground again, she slashes its barbed ends at the bars of the cage, right next to the quartz soldier’s hand. Jasper yanks her digits back. Her entire body snaps tense upon this disruption. Watching from behind their rocky cover, Ruby, Steven, and Peridot bite back the urge to gasp in shock.

“HEY!” Amethyst yells, lowering on her haunches right behind her opponent.

Now, there’s obviously no way to prove it without somehow obtaining intimate knowledge of her headspace, but upon external observation, Ruby swears that this big, buff Beta Kindergarten quartz is masking surprise. The sentiment is visible in the alignment of her shoulders, lifted high and tight against her neck. It’s visible in her narrow stance, light years away from the proper form of a soldier expecting battle. Flexing her thick, dexterous fingers at her side, she makes a blatant show of puffing out her chest before she turns to face her challenger, an almost predatory smile curving upwards on her lips as she regards her.

“You back away from her,” Amethyst hisses, nodding towards the Gem in the cage.

Jasper lets out a hearty chuckle. “Oh-hoh, what do we have here? You finally decide to crawl back for a rematch, runt?”

She grits her teeth, tightening her fist around the pommel of her weapon. “That’s right. I’m back, and I’mma wipe you all over these cliffs!”

“Perfect,” her opponent practically purrs, cracking her knuckles in anticipation. “I’ve been needing a light warmup.”

Rose approves her mission without question, when she first brings her the idea. Of course she would, in retrospect— the hidden diamond she was.

Garnet takes forty of her fellow soldiers and friends with her to the Beta Kindergarten. They don’t wield any weapons. These Gems are brand new, stepping into the light for the very first time. There’s no need to threaten them; all she wants is to peacefully talk, to introduce them to the concept of freedom, of choosing their own path beyond the Diamonds’ rule.

At the time, all she wanted was to follow her beloved leader’s example and choose peace and harmony over subjugation and brutality.

But with the bitter truths they know now, and reflecting upon the horrid atrocities they themselves participated in amidst the war… despite Rose’s self-proclaimed ‘pacifism,’ despite the shaky justifications of their cause being different than Homeworld’s brand of violence... she’s increasingly unsure if any of them ever had a choice.

Tragically, it only takes mere seconds for the initial triumphant beats of Amethyst’s war against Jasper to devolve into a one-sided thrashing.

With a mighty, almost frenzied yell, Amethyst moves one foot forward for counterbalance and slings the weighted, barbed tip of her weapon directly at her opponent’s face. Jasper catches it midair, mere inches from her gem. An arrogant smile paints her visage. After winding the whip’s end around her hand, she yanks its user towards her with a snap of her wrist, swings her in a wide arc, and effortlessly slams her into the nearest cliff wall, blowing up a huge plume of pulverized rock and dust. It all happens so fast that the rest of the party barely has any time to react. As the rubble settles, Ruby finally spots her friend amidst the chaos, collapsed on hands and knees in the dirt. The poor Gem’s hands are nearly trembling as she vies to rise to her feet again, vies to stand her ground and keep fighting.

There’s only one thing she knows for sure, watching all this: if hard light were consumable rather than indelible, she would quite literally be chipping away at her knuckles with her teeth by now.

His expression blown wide with fear, Steven breaks their communal silence to holler Amethyst’s name. Hands flexing in and out of fists, he darts away from their hiding spot. And they tried to stop him, they really did— it’s simply that he’s far too nimble for either of them to catch in time.

“Steven!” Peridot cries, trying and failing to grab his hand to hold him back.

“Steven, no!” Ruby yells, arms outstretched, as he sprints into the clearing— entirely blowing any remaining amount of cover the three of them had, placing his gem at Jasper’s mercy, and causing a thousand living nightmares to flood into her consciousness in but a millisecond. “Come back!!”

“Wait! Wait,” he gasps, waving his arms wildly to catch the larger quartz’s attention as he passes into the center of this natural coliseum, firmly planting himself at Amethyst’s side. “Stop! We don’t need to do this!”

Giving a growl that would rival that of a corrupted Gem’s, Ruby clenches her fingers around thick coils of her hair at either side of her head and yanks. “Aughh, why does nobody listen to me when I’m short??”

A faint trail of glowing embers marks a record of her path as she leaves Peridot by their rocky outcropping and storms right into the open after him. Oh, hoh, hoh— that boy can disobey her clear, simple orders all he wants, but in his folly he’s forgetting one very important fact: rubies are stubborn Gems. And she’ll fight to protect him from the crossfire of Jasper’s hubris and Amethyst’s self-destruction even if that means braving her deepest terrors to run out there and drag him back to safety herself.

(Ideally, she’d be able to drag Amethyst with her out of the thunderdome as well, but she’s also quite the stubborn one. So try as she may, that’s not likely to happen.)

Ruby strides towards the middle of the clearing and defiantly plants her feet in the sterile soil right in front of Steven, and adjacent to Amethyst. She summons her gauntlets, her features twisting in a scowl. “Stand down and let them go!” she shouts up at that bulky orange quartz with all the Garnet-like confidence she can muster. “This is not a Homeworld controlled planet!”

“Steven, Ruby, get out of here!” Amethyst hisses under her breath, her battle-ready stance solidifying with a strange mixture of apprehension and anger as she regards the two of them.

“No!” she shoots back, tugging at her arm. “Come on, you know I can’t just leave you here.”

Jasper’s molten amber eyes narrow, her steely gaze colliding right into her.

“ You,” she says, enunciated as sharp as a dagger. “One half of that vile war machine.”

“War machine?!” Steven cries, distraught by the very implication. “She’s not a war machine! Garnet fuses for love!”

“Yeah!” Ruby jabs her fist in the air loud and proud.

The Homeworld warrior scoffs, seemingly not impressed by their display of solidarity. She folds her arms solid across the Yellow Diamond insignia emblazoned upon her chest and steps closer to address her directly. “And where’s this love now?” she spits, mockingly stooping to her level.

And despite the faint, triumphant memories of her last incursion with this quartz, (well… Garnet’s last incursion), she can’t help but cower in her presence, can’t help but crumble like the deficient sandstone of this very kindergarten under the cruel, personalized precision of her blunt words. Because... she’s right. Because that’s the whole problem, the pulsing heart of life’s cruel game. Fusion offered her a tantalizing taste of freedom, a glimpse of a reality where, together, a lowly guard and her sapphire could achieve literally anything through the strength of their love!— but that world feels like nothing more but an unobtainable mirage now. She’s absolutely useless on her own, just some pathetic waste of resources! No authority, no power, no wisdom of foresight— she brings nothing to the Crystal Gems’ cause. She never did. It was always her. Tears bead at her widening eyes, her gauntleted fists already beginning to tremble at her sides.

“I-I…”

“Where’s any of your power now?” Jasper continues as she raises back to her full height, lifting both open hands towards the empty, cloud-streaked skies. She throws her head back as she offers them all a bright, boastful chuckle. “To think I used to view you traitors as a threat, but now even your disgraceful cause is falling apart, isn’t it… Rose?”

Still standing a step behind her, Steven’s immediate reply brims with tones of frustration. “I’m not—“

“But you’re wrong!” a high, familiar voice urgently calls out from behind them all.

This whole messy confrontation breaks to a halt as everyone turns to gape at the lone Gem poking her head out above the rocky outcropping. Peridot gasps at the sudden influx of attention, and hastily ducks for cover again.

“What are YOU doing here?” Jasper growls with annoyance, grinding one of her feet in the dirt as if inwardly hoping she could shift the very earth they stand on and finally gain the advantage of surprise once more.

“I-I…” the green Gem stammers, slowly creeping out from her hiding spot, summoning newfound confidence as she lays her eyes on each and every one of her friends. “I’m here because our cause hasn’t fallen apart! We live on Earth to be free, to learn new things about ourselves. Like how I can bend metal to my bidding!” she exclaims, tossing enthusiastic fists into the air.

On the cliff face over twenty feet away, a skinny length of metal from one of the injector’s legs slips from the device, falls straight down, and noisily clatters as it collides against the rocky soil. Amethyst facepalms. Meanwhile, Jasper appears so underwhelmed by this display that in any other circumstance, her glazed-over expression could be comedic.

Peridot briefly scowls at her botched handiwork. “And sure,” she shrugs, nodding towards that shard of metal, “nothing’s ever perfect here, but together, we work to help and support each other, just like we’re supporting Amethyst now. Isn’t that freedom worth fighting for?”

A few beats pass as the heart of this proclamation sinks in, the ticking seconds seeing Steven beam in pride at his friend’s progression since the beginning of her stay on Earth, and Jasper’s features scrunch inwards in an almost sour manner. Between the stifling roots of her own despair, even Ruby herself can’t help but feel a little uplifted by this hopeful sentiment. It’s a well-timed salve to an old burn, a naive yet ultimately truthful promise of lighthearted days to come. After all, hasn’t her time as a Crystal Gem taught her by now that no circumstance is permanent? That a single unifying cause can collapse empires like a wildfire, can continually reshape one’s entire understanding of existence? Her gauntleted hands shift at her side as a new spark of timid confidence ignites at her core. What was she thinking, letting this brute of a quartz tower over her and define the very pillars of her own story? She’s better than this. For the very sake of her friends she has to be!

But alas, before this newfound bravery can see its hour of triumph on this secluded battlefield, she finds herself once again cast aside by one of the very friends she’s vying to protect.

Amethyst growls in frustration at their continued presence, and summons her weapon. “UGH, you GUYS!” She slashes its barbed tips against the cliff face right above Peridot, not close enough to hit her, but certainly with enough force that it spooks her into diving behind the low rock formation again. Scowling, she then turns and plucks an actively protesting Steven right off the ground. “Get out of here!” she yells, tossing him back towards the clearing’s entrance. “This isn’t your fight!”

Ruby gives a sharp yelp as she just barely leaps backwards to dodge the business end of her whip, swinging low in a vain attempt to tangle up her feet. “Hey—!”

“It’s just you and me, Jasper,” the purple quartz breathes heavily, and abruptly whirls around to jab her finger towards her opponent. “ONE-ON-ONE!”

Silently, a consenting smirk riding over her lips, the taller Gem summons her ramming helmet in a glittering flash of light.

The mission is— in the terms of the brave humans they sometimes fight alongside— a bloodbath.

When they first warped in, Garnet only expected to find a small handful of disoriented jaspers, citrines, and carnelians roaming about. Gems they could talk to. Gems they could reason with, just as Rose reasoned with her fellow quartzes at the very start of this bold rebellion. Instead, what emerges soon after their arrival is more shocking and unpredictable than any future Garnet could’ve ever visualized.

Bursting from the very heart of this slapdash, rushed Kindergarten, despite every single locational and structural disadvantage this place stacks against one’s favor, is Her.

The strongest, most perfectly formed jasper she’s ever laid eyes on. She’s seven feet tall, built as solid as diamond, her flawlessly faceted gemstone gleaming bright and proud in the rising sun. She wastes no time in following the miserable orders the Great Diamond Authority cruelly embedded deep within her soul, immediately calling the hundreds of scattered and confused off-color Gems surrounding her to action.

Garnet and her squadron simply don’t have enough time to intervene, to try and settle this skirmish halfway peacefully. They don’t have the numbers.

Twenty three Crystal Gems are shattered that day. Numerous more on both sides are cracked or poofed.

And yet one of the greatest tragedies, in her mind… is that these emergent Gems never got the proper chance to consider any purpose beyond their assigned station. Never got a chance to glimpse the promise of their own freedom.

Everything happened so fast.

She took this place for granted— thanks to her own preconceived notions about the kinds of Gems that could emerge here, utterly failed to foresee this potential turn of events— and in the end it cost lives. Both those of her fellow Crystal Gems, her friends … and those of the Beta quartzes she failed to save from Homeworld’s damaging influence.

That night, as she bitterly weeps for the recovered shards of the beloved they lost, clenches her gauntleted fists tight around her gemstones, she vows to never let such a harrowing tragedy escape her vision again. No more.

A leader like her is not allowed to fail.

With the mighty roar of a lion, Amethyst stamps her leading foot to the ground to center her balance and rears her weapon-wielding arm back, wholly intending to defend her pride from this boorish bully. The first and second slashes are fruitful, one striking Jasper in the face, and the next hitting her chest with such intense force that it slams her into the cliff wall a few feet back, but Ruby can’t help but dread the litany of unknown possibilities haunting their future as she watches, powerless in her lack of second sight to influence their present. Could Amethyst win this fight? Sure. There’s gotta be at least one river of time where that occurs, where Jasper is so wrapped up within that facade of insufferable hubris that she fails to take her seriously as an opponent and pays the price. But on the other hand, she senses so many chinks in Amethyst’s armor that she can’t help but fear the opposite. She’s blinded by her anger, unable to consider consequence rationally. Her form in battle— compared to her usual performance— is notably sloppy, as if she’s throwing herself at this fight with such an explosion of tangled, raw emotion that her years of training and refinement have all but melted away in the inferno. Her fingers are trembling as she tightens her grasp on the whip’s pommel.

All of this stated, Ruby may not possess the gift of Sapphire’s future vision, but she has more than enough experience on patrol and on the battlefield to recognize a soldier who is woefully unprepared for a fight. Something terrible is about to happen, she can just feel it.

“Be careful!!” she cries, cupping her hands around her mouth.

“It’s fine, she’s totally rocking this!” Steven says with a huge grin, seeming uncharacteristically calm, given the circumstances. He whoops, and punches his fist in the air. “Go Amethyst!”

Ruby and Peridot briefly match eyes, the noted concern in their gazes pointing towards the fact that they both think that Amethyst’s insistence to fight is reckless and naive. In retrospect, of course her friend would agree with her. She spent a lot of time cohabiting with Jasper on their journey to Earth, so she’s bound to be well aware of her fundamental nature.

At the moment however, given the shorter quartz’s tunnel vision, she’s certain that any of their valid concerns would fall upon deaf ears.

“Who’s weak now, huh?” Amethyst spits from across the clearing, flicking her wrist to activate the triplet spiked balls at the ends of her whip, an upgrade gifted by Bismuth she surprisingly hasn’t seemed to have abandoned. With a holler, she swings her leading arm back and around to build up momentum and then slashes at Jasper’s chest three times in succession. The last hit comes with enough force to push her backwards in the dirt a few feet. “Who’s powerless NOW?!”

Then, just as Ruby fearfully predicted, the winds shift.

The firestorm doubles back upon them, Jasper merely swatting the flail ends away like they were nothing more but a momentary nuisance. Her expression narrows into a scowl. Emergent shock mingles alongside the dark cloud of Amethyst’s anger like wayward lightning bolts as she growls in frustration, the side-swept fringe of her hair shadowing her features. In retaliation she summons a second whip and immediately slashes them both against the soil, endowing them with a crackling, purple-tinged energy, almost a fire of her own making. She tucks into a ball and literally hurls herself at the quartz warrior, her form only recognizable in the heat of that moment via a dazzling blaze of light.

The resulting collision throws up so much dirt and smoke that Ruby has to throw her small body in front of Steven’s to shield him from the worst of the debris.

When the thick curtains of dust finally part, the consequences of this overly-impulsive move are revealed. Jasper still stands proud and tall, her mettle unaffected by this attempted show of strength. Barely a scuff even marrs her uniform. Meanwhile, Amethyst lays hunched over on hands and knees, hacking up fragmented remnants of sandstone she likely swallowed amidst the impact. (Alas, that’s the price she pays for choosing to always reform with an semi-operational digestive system.)

“Is it sinking in yet?” Jasper queries pointedly, advancing towards the trembling Gem on the ground.

Amethyst is so exhausted she can’t even muster the strength to respond, her arms quivering beneath her as she vies to hold up the simulated weight of her hard light form.

Her foe roughly kicks her in the chest, her foot striking mere inches under her gem. Ruby visibly cringes at both the shallow huff of distress that this hit elicits from her, and Steven’s cries of fear in response.

“It doesn’t matter how long or hard you fight,” Jasper boasts, her imposing figure hovering like a bad omen over her quartz sibling’s, “because I’ll always be stronger! Runts like you never had a chance. Runts like you are worthless.”

Angrily, she grinds her teeth together, cradling the vulnerable gemstone on her hand.

Worthless.

Who the hell does this square hunk of stone think she is, slinging such heavy-handed words around like the blunt end of a mallet?

“Get your worthless, sorry forms back in formation!” wretched old Condor Agate used to scream at her and the others in her squad, back when she spent eternity guarding empty corridors, back before she was eventually reassigned to Sapphire’s personal guard. “You’re an embarrassment to your commanding agates, all of you!”

Ruby growls, finding her resolve. That’s it. No more. She can’t bear to stand at the sidelines gripped in fear while some bully is literally beating her friend into the ground, both physically and emotionally. She can’t bear for Amethyst to fall prey to the same type of unwavering torment she herself experienced all those years ago on Homeworld, torment that utterly deformed her sense of self-worth until recognizing any ounce of good in herself became a gargantuan, near-impossible task. Admittedly, she still hasn’t healed from those days. Not entirely. Sometimes she’s unsure she ever will. But it’s her duty to put an end to this, to what’s happening in the here and now. After all, what’s the point of being a Crystal Gem if you don’t look after the people you love?

“We have to separate them,” she says firmly, turning towards Steven and Peridot. “She’s gonna get clobbered!”

The former kindergartener’s expression warps to despair under her visor. “But how? She doesn’t even want us to be here! And none of us are strong enough to face Jasper…”

“Could we make a distraction?” Steven suggests, his voice tinged with the same sort of urgency she feels thrumming like a frantic drum line at the depths of her core.

Humming in thought, Ruby considers the status quo. To no success, she attempts to ignore her friends’ expectant gazes, trustingly falling upon her exactly like all those fellow rebellion soldiers used to look at Garnet… as their de facto leader. But she’s no leader, far from it. Garnet would barely have to think before coming up with a genius, foolproof plan, but she’s going into everything blind. She can’t weigh out potential consequences before rushing into action. She has no ability to pinpoint the most ideal outcome and work backwards from there. With all this in mind, it’s really no wonder that Garnet passed command of the group to Pearl instead of her. At least Pearl has experience leading missions solo.

And yet desperate times call for desperate measures.

She scans their surroundings for inspiration, considering what options may be open to them. At this point there’s no time to double back to the barn or the temple for reinforcements. (And she strongly doubts Lapis would care to so much as match eyes with Jasper, anyways.) One or more of them could always charge into the fray to attempt and break up this small skirmish by force, but that would risk their safety, too. The last thing she wants is to knowingly throw her friends into harm’s way. No, the best option would be breaking the two quartzes up using something in their immediate environment, something large and heavy but capable of being quickly moved, something like...

Her eyes snap wide. “That injector!” she whispers excitedly, pointing to the hulking piece of junked equipment precariously hanging from the cliff wall, only stabilized by a few legs that still penetrate the cracked sandstone. “It’s right above them. If we knocked it down, then maybe…”

Peridot flashes a hopeful smile, and nods.

“We’re on it,” Steven says, summoning his shield. The two of them glance at each other, perhaps silently coordinating their plan, and then leap into action.

“Metal powers activate!” she exclaims, and throws her hands up in the direction of that rusted injector.

Subtly but noticeable, its legs begin to shift and creak under the force of her ferrokinesis, loosening from the eroding stone. Licking his lips, Steven aims his weapon and hurls. It strikes the device directly at its center, clanging against solid metal. The injector wobbles for a moment, its delicate balance obviously destabilized by this force, and then begins to slide free from the porous kindergarten wall. One still-impacted leg snaps under the torque as the cylinder’s immense weight plummets towards the ground.

“Heads up!” Steven calls out, causing a bemused Jasper to flick her gaze skyward, towards the falling object staining the soil with an ever-growing shadow.

The collision of the junky old injector almost appears like a small explosion, flinging dirt a good ten feet into the air and resolutely separating the two quartzes. But Ruby barely has time to high five Peridot and celebrate their success before the kid she’s supposed to be keeping safe darts off into the clearing once more. She hisses a small curse under her breath. Drat, of course he’d run straight to Amethyst’s side again at his first opportunity! She should’ve seen that coming a whole star system away. At least Jasper’s been temporarily marooned on the other side of that busted Gem tech, though.

The real question is, for how long?

Nibbling at her lip, she hastily sprints towards the edge of the injector to keep a watchful eye on their opponent as Steven attempts to have a mid-battlefield heart-to-heart. (At least, that’s what she assumes he’s doing. Admittedly, they kinda failed to hammer out the fine details of their plan before sprinting into action. Her fault.) Thankfully though, at first glimpse it seems the impact’s force has effortlessly knocked Jasper clear off her feet. She seems slightly dazed, but beyond that remains unscathed. Time will only tell if this strategy was a beneficial one. Briefly turning back towards the group, Ruby watches Steven crouch next to Amethyst. She’s muttering something to him, she thinks— her expression raw with fresh tears— but her words are far too hushed to make out. Whatever she shares, however, it’s clearly enough to elicit a strong emotional reaction from her companion.

“No, no!” he pleads, hurt painting his features. “My mom- Rose, she doesn’t matter. Whatever Jasper thinks doesn’t matter. She's the only one who thinks you should be like her!”

“But-”

“Stop trying to be like Jasper. You're nothing like Jasper! You're like me!”

“But even you’re different!” she explodes at first, but any anger present in her form immediately evaporates into something more innately hesitant, more self-conscious. Her fingers claw thick troughs into the reddened soil as she curls them inwards. “I’m not like you at all, I’m not some di—”

“No, that’s not the point!” he says, tears of his own budding at the corners of his eyes. “You’re like me because we’re both not like anybody. And yeah, it sucks. Everyone always expects us to be someone we’re not, but you know what? At least I've always got you. And you've got me! So stop leaving me out of this!”

Slowly pushing herself to her feet behind the junked injector, Jasper groans, her voice strained with newfound exhaustion Ruby never imagined she possessed.

“Y’guys, she’s getting up!” she calls out to her friends behind her, equally a warning as it is a call to action. After all, if this bold stunt finally managed to crack through the first layer of their opponent’s armor, then they might genuinely stand a chance now.

She’ll never know if they heard her, though— because in the same split second she turns back to check on them, the now embracing pair is engulfed in a blinding white light.

Even in the absence of a soldier's fire, everything turns to smoke.

#su #steven universe #ruby #amethyst #jasper #peridot #su fanfiction #my writing stuff #crack the paragon

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buglife · 3 years

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Bend and Not Break - Ch 1: A Mark

Anonymous said: Not sure if someone has requested this yet, but I’d love to see how the cast would react to an assassin coming after Ghost or Quirrel. I mean, there’s gotta be some bugs out there who don’t adore the new sovereigns right?

Anonymous said: If your still doing these (if not I’m really sorry and please just ignore me) may I request 17: “Ok, well… Fuck.” With Quirrel and Ghost being his knight in shining armour.

Read here on AO3 :3

Quirrel looked in the mirror, sighing to himself as he regarded his reflection. He was due to make a public appearance today along with Ghost, so he had to look the part of a King. He still didn’t feel much like a king, not really. He felt more like he did when he was helping his mother run the archives, which was a lot of running around and keeping people from losing their fingers to explosives. It wasn’t all about preventing disasters, it was also about fostering the love of learning and the curiosity that makes society better. So in a way...he felt the same now as he did then. There was more paperwork, of course, but he was happy. It helped that he had a spouse to share the load with.

He fiddled with the ring on his left hand, the pale ore gleaming in the light. It had been made from Ghost’s old nail, with them having a matching ring. They had long since outgrown the old nail, and most of it was used in making the pure nail he now carried. Still, it was something special that their rings were made with the metal that helped kill a god and started the rebirth of Hallownest. Smith and Sheo were absolutely delighted to work on them, and now the both of them had completely unique nails and rings that will probably last forever.

Today was going to be a rather emotional day for Ghost. He remembered them telling him snippets about the Soul Sanctum here and there. They could only mention what they were comfortable talking about, and it wasn’t much of it that qualified as such. Sometime during their journey to end the infection, they had entered the Soul Sanctum and put down the mad scientist within along with his equally mad followers. Grandeurs of immortality and power was enough to corrupt any bug, but from what he heard, the ones involved went far beyond corruption. It was evil. Pure evil. Ghost usually stopped talking at around that point, and Quirrel found himself cuddling them as they sought comfort to ease what they cannot forget.

The worst day perhaps, was when the Kingdom had established themselves enough to expand beyond bare necessities. As soon as the funds was available, Ghost had the Soul Sanctum completely stripped down to the bare walls and floors. They had gone that day to oversee it all and when they returned, they could barely hold themselves together. They spent the night crying, mourning the lives lost in the pursuit of power. They had given the dead within rest, but it still destroyed them on the inside to have to return to that place. Quirrel did his best to help, and many a sleepless night was spent together, attempting to heal deep wounds within.

They had recovered, in time. Stripping the place had done a lot to help them move on from the experience, and they had decided to turn it into something new. Something useful that would help bugs and not harm them. Something that promoted life, not take them away.

Its where they were going today, to officially open it up to the public. Quirrel would be there not only as a fellow ruler, but as support for Ghost. Despite it all, it was going to be hard for them.

Quirrel smoothed back his antenna and tied his silk kerchief around his head. It was a necessary habit he picked up while growing up with his mother. After burning his antenna one too many times due to splashes of acid or a chemical reaction gone wrong, he tended to pin them back. They got in the way sometimes, but once in a while he felt safe enough to let them out. The palace didn’t really have acid, or volatile chemicals, but old habits die hard.

He clipped on his cloak, letting the study fabric fall around his shoulders as he pinned it in place. It was a lovely blue, nearly iridescent, and clasped with a pale ore brooch that designated him as king. There was no way he could ever bring himself to wear something as tacky as a crown. Hell, Ghost wouldn’t even be able to fit one on their head. Instead, brooches seemed to fit a whole lot better.

Once he made sure his nail was strapped to his side, he deemed himself ready, and exited the room - only to nearly smack into his spouse, who was opening the door at the same time.

“Oof!” Running into Ghost wasn’t as fun as it was when they were little. Back then their shell was soft and kinda squishy like any other grub. But once stasis ended and they caught up on all their missed molts, their chitin had become tough and hard.

“Are you alright?” Ghost’s telepathy was soft and gently breezed by his mind. It’s just something gods could do, apparently. Their sire could, Quirrel knew that as a fact, but the fact they also ate a god boosted their ability to communicate without relying on sign language. They only ‘spoke’ like this to family and friends, a little too nervous to use it on the public. Quirrel hoped that would change with time.

He didn’t blame them, though. They were terrified of being considered scary. They were certainly imposing, but not as much as their sibling, Hollow. There were those that will always be scared of them, with them being a god and immensely powerful. But enough of their subjects loved them enough to not care. He just wished they could see it. Quirrel considered them handsome and cute, but then again, he was biased.

“I’m okay love, I was about to go and find you.” Quirrel smoothed down the front of his cloak and picked at Ghosts, adjusting it around a little. “It’s nearly time.”

Ghost was silent for a moment, and then leaned down to softly bonk their forehead against theirs. “I know.”

“You’ll be fine. That place doesn’t exist anymore.” He did his best to soothe any lingering nerves. Being around Ghost for so long as alerted him to their various tells. “It’s a better place now. Much better.”

They nodded slowly and let out a deep breath. “You are right. It is just hard to let go of what it was.”

“I understand, it will take a while, but you are doing great.” Quirrel took Ghost’s claws in his and gently squeezed. “Come along then, we don’t want to be late to the dedication.”

Ghost tilted their mask up in a smile, and then nodded. They bent down to steal a quick kiss, one that Quirrel returned, and together, they headed to the Stag Station.

----

The Capital was bustling, like always. It no longer was the City of Tears, not with the new revitalization of Hallownest. The rain had been stopped, redirected with new plant life growing on the ceiling. Lurien himself helped renew the spells that kept the water from outright pouring out of the lake above. Without being constantly rained on, more bugs were out and about. Today however, they were gathering in front of what used to be the Soul Sanctum, waiting around a platform where their rulers would be giving a speech. Most bugs were eager to enter the newly renovated building, because it was for them, and them alone.

The Soul Sanctum, which had brought so much death and misery to so many lives, had been converted into a multi-level communal greenhouse. There, farmer bugs would grow a verity of food, which is then free to be picked and used by the public. Taxes from the upper members of society will be used to keep the place running. That way, no bug would have to go hungry. The intimidating and Gothic architecture of the building had been transformed into a pillar of glass and green. It was now friendly, the oppressive air from before banished into a place of shelter. Not only could you go there to eat, but you can go there to rest among some of the floors dedicated to flowers. It was a gift, from the rulers of New Hallownest to the people, and the people were waiting to be allowed in to enjoy it.

The five new knights of Hallownest stood in various places around the crowd. So far, they didn’t need to do much but remind some citizens to calm down and not crowd each other. With Xena on her beast (named Pickles, but only she can call them that), it was easy to keep everyone in line. Cloth stole a quick moment to wave to Myla in the crowd, temporarily breaking protocol, but it wasn’t like Tiso was going to scold her for that, since he did the same thing. Once he finished his quick wave to his other date friend, he scanned the crowd and recognizing a few folks from Dirtmouth as well. A lot of people showed up to this dedication, hell, he even spotted a few spiders and bees in the crowd. It just made him scan the crowd more thoroughly. Threats could come from anywhere, and he took security very seriously.

It wasn’t long before he spotted the Kings approach the platform and climb on, waiting for the crowds cheering to die down before they began the ceremony. Quirrel was doing the speaking today, Ghost standing beside them and holding his hand. Tiso remembered when Ghost was small enough to pick up and throw. It was lots of fun, but now they were too big for that. Oh well. As soon as the crowd’s noise died down, Quirrel tapped a speaking stone on the provided podium and his voice was projected outwards to be heard by everyone.

“Hello to you all, our dear subjects. Today we continue to do our very best to provide for you, our people, whom we dearly love and cherish. This site was a place of tragedy, and pain, part of the past of old Hallownest that was rife with corruption and oversight. But today we have washed away the dark and terrible past, to bring in the new, which is full of hope and life. We have -”

Quirrel had always been a good speaker. But Tiso wasn’t here to hear a speech. He heard it before, when Quirrel had asked him and his fellow knights to hear it and give honest feedback. Tiso had suggested Quirrel get to the damn point because nobody liked just standing around, so he thankfully cut the speech down by half.

There were bugs everywhere. Bugs in the square, bugs that could climb were hanging on buildings, bugs looking out windows, bugs on roofs, everywhere. Tiso scanned them all, eyes narrowed. It was no lie that there were bugs out there who didn’t agree with the direction the new government was taking, especially having another god as a ruler. Ghost and Quirrel had managed to piss off the right people. They were the folks that enjoyed profiting by gaming the system, and that system came tumbling down once Ghost claimed the throne. It got even worse when they married Quirrel, who was scarily smart. Quickly it became obvious that nobody was going to get away with old hustles anymore.

Quirrel continued talking, and Tiso continued watching. Then, something caught his eye. A glint of metal shined on one of the rooftops, a figure crouched down behind it. The glint moved, and Tiso’s heart went cold.

“GET DOWN!” He shouted, and with a heft, threw his shield as hard as he could. Bugs instantly dropped to the ground and the knights gathered to the podium. The shield whistled through the air, and with a satisfying clunk, impacted the bug on the roof. There was a brief shout of pain, and then came the thwip as a crossbow bolt lodged itself in the podium. It was obviously aimed for the pillbug’s head, and it missed him by scant inches. Someone in the crowd screamed and it started a chain reaction of panic. Cloth and Ogrim took crowd duty, ushering the crowd into nearby buildings to get them off the streets and away from the danger.

Xena was already heading up to the roof atop her beast, the creature climbing up the sides with frightening speed. Tiso flashed his soul and recalled his shield, just in time to hear the bug on the roof start screaming once the beast reached it’s fanged maw out and grabbed them. He trusted Xena to keep at least enough of them alive for questioning later.

To add more chaos to the mix, some bugs in the crowd dropped their cloaks, revealing nails, and rushed the podium.

“No more gods! No more masters!” Some of them shouted. The sentiment was echoed by the other assassins as they parted through the crowd, not caring about who they knocked over or trampled in their haste. Bugs continued to scream, struggling to get out of the way as some were simply tossed aside to make way. Tiso could hear grubs wailing and the sharp clang of metal as some of the bugs in the crowd took up their own nails. They were valiantly trying to hold back the assassins, who cruelly cut them down and left them to bleed out. Thankfully medics were among the guards, and they quickly raced out to try and save the injured civilians.

So this was a coordinated assassination attempt, usually they were done by singular bugs. They must have gotten a little smarter. Tiso was about to jump into the fray, only to hold back when Hollow sped past him and body checked an assassin so hard that he could hear the chitin cracking from where he stood. Ouch. He let Hollow do their thing and barked out orders to his guardsmen. They had to get everything under control, and fast.

However, the Kings of Hallownest were no pushovers. Quirrel practically teleported, moving with an insane amount of speed to kill an assassin with a flash of their nail. Since the crossbow bolt was aimed at him, Ghost was especially pissed. They were trying their best to not change into their true, terrifying form and completely destroy the square they worked so hard to rebuild. Judging by the extra three pairs of eyes that opened on their mask, they were barely holding on. Tiso did not blame them.

One assassin got lucky, moving at just the right time to scratch their nail along Quirrel’s side. He let out a hiss of pain and leapt backwards, ignoring the wound for now. He moved to retaliate, only to see said assassin become a smear of hemolymph on the platform. He glanced up to see an absolutely furious Ghost retract a void tentacle back into their body, still coated in a thin sheen of gore.

“Are you okay?” Ghost’s mental voice was now tight, louder. Quirrel could hear the rumbling of the void in behind, overlapping as the power of a god began to leak through Ghost’s control.

“Yes dear, just a scratch.” Quirrel sidestepped another assassin, bringing his nail around to cleanly slice off their nail arm. The assassin screamed, now missing an arm, and was quickly grabbed by Ghost and slammed bodily into the ground. Ghost then proceeded to kick them into the nearest building, cracking the stone slightly and leaving said bug a quivering mess.

As quickly as it all began, it was over. In total there were eight assassins. Three were outright dead, most due to Ghost. The rest were maimed and beaten bloody, but were alive. They weren’t too sure if the ones Hollow got to would survive or not. Either way, they weren’t going to get out of the situation alive, either by the executioner’s axe or dying from their wounds. Tiso had ordered the spare guard out, and there was a city wide search for more conspirators. There was no way to tell how many were out there, at least, until the prisoners were questioned. Something Tiso was going to enjoy doing so very much.

Ghost was panting, trying to calm down after losing their control for the bare moments it took for the fight to finish. Quirrel shivered, also breathing heavily. Adrenaline was surging through his body still and he doubted he’d be able to calm down anytime soon. Ghost had grabbed him, holding him tight as they too, shook. For a being designed to have no emotions, Ghost sure wore theirs on their sleeve, frantically patting Quirrel down for injuries. He knew what they were afraid of, and he stopped their hands with his to prevent their anxiety from taking over their rational thought.

“I’m okay love, it’s just a scratch.” He had time to look at his wound, bleeding blue. It wasn’t even terribly deep. It would just need some cleaning and some shell paste. If anything, it was making a mess of his cloak. The cleaners were going to have an absolute fit about it. He sighed as Ghost moved their hands to the wound, clearly worried.

“Your Majesties!” Ogrim hurried over. “Are you okay?”

“We’re fine, thank you. What of the assassins'?” Quirrel again, moved his hands to hold Ghost’s as he listened to Ogrim.

“Captured. We have guards scouring the city for anything suspicious.” The dung beetle looked about the now empty square, watching the assassins that were dead being dragged away. “Tiso and Xena are going to head an investigation once they interrogate-”

Ghost whistled, stopping Ogrims words. “I will interrogate them.”

“Your majesty, are you sure, you-”

“I am very sure.” They had since hunched protectively over Quirrel, arms like a gate around him. The malice in their 'voice' wasn't hard to miss, something Ogrim picked up on. He was always able to pick out the tiniest of details.

Ogrim bowed his head, but spoke plainly. “With all due respect, as your knight, and as your friend, I urge you to at least let the captain and his lieutenant do their job first before you decide to do anything.”

“Ogrim is right, love.” Quirrel reached up to cup Ghost’s cheek, hand oddly feeling weak. Perhaps he was still worked up? He started feeling a little dizzy, maybe he needed somewhere quiet to de-stress for a little while. He wouldn't mind retreating back to their bedroom to cuddle for a while. That should be able to do the trick nicely. Still, he continued with his advice. “You are too worked up right now. You need to calm down first. We both do.”

Ghost shook for a moment, and then took a few deep breaths. “Okay. Please tell Tiso and Xena to get as much from the prisoners as they can. I will be there shortly.”

Ogrim nodded. “Of course, Cloth and Hollow will be here soon and they will be able to escort you back to the palace.”

Quirrel started to say something and then was hit by a sudden wave of light headedness. He grabbed onto Ghost’s arm to steady himself as he momentarily lost feeling in his legs.

Ogrim and Ghost noticed that for sure. “Your majesty?” Ogrim questioned, reaching out a claw to offer support.

“No no- I’m fine...I’m..” The world twisted and a spike of pain and nausea punctured his gut. He suddenly couldn’t tell which way was up or down anymore. His legs gave out and through an increasing and concerning wave of numbness, he felt himself being caught.

“QUIRREL!!” The mental shout was loud, and with it came more noises he couldn’t quite make out.

Ok, well… fuck.” The pain seemed to get worse, now a burning sensation that spread from the wound on his side to the very core of his body. His lungs hurt. His heart hurt. A disturbing wave of pain twisted around his limbs and went right into his brain. It suddenly got more difficult to breathe as he clutched his spouse with his claws.

He was dimly aware of someone screaming desperately, echoing around his head as he lost the ability to understand it, he was too busy gasping for breath.

The noises blended together until finally, there was nothing but darkness.

-----

“In you go, ya fucker.” Tiso not so gently tossed one assassin, a particularly nasty looking cricket, onto the stone floor of the dungeon cell. They had given just the bare amount of medical care necessary to keep them alive. The worst injury was the stump where their nail arm used to be, cleanly cut in half by the biggest nerd in the kingdom. “This’ll be your new home for a while, but it can get a little nicer if you decide to talk.”

“It won’t make any difference,” The cricket spat a wad of hemo on the floor. “I’m dead anyway.”

“True…” Tiso mused, leaning on the bars to stare the other bug right in the eyes. “But would you rather prefer a quick death, or being dragged kicking and screaming into the void? Cause let me tell you, I’d rather take a beheading over that. That shit is fucked up.”

“Typical of a tyrant.”

“You seriously calling the squirt and the nerd tyrants? I mean, they literally were about to open a public greenhouse so that everyone can eat before you idiots crashed it.” Tiso tapped his shield against the bars, making the metal ting in the most annoying way possible. He absolutely loved messing with prisoners like that, it made them slip up more often than not. Tiso learned more from pissing off the prisoners than he ever did 'nicely' interrogating them. “I don't know about you, but that don’t sound like tyrants to me.”

“All gods, are tyrants.” The doomed assassin moved to sit up, resting their back against the cold stone walls. Their movements were awkward, now that they were missing an arm. “The Pale King was. The Radiance was. Even the White Lady. Now we have an even more powerful tyrant as our king! We can’t keep letting ourselves become playthings for monsters!”

“Call them a monster one more time and I’ll feed ya to Xena’s beast, and the beast chews slowly.” Tiso narrowed his eyes at the bug on the other side of the bars. He could roughly hear the other prisoners being tossed in their cells as well. Judging by the echoes, they were spouting the same nonsense and getting zero sympathy for it. “You’re a fucking idiot, you think you can just kill our Kings like that? King Ghost killed the Radiance, for fucks sake!”

The cricket smiled through their broken mandibles, dribbling hemo over their cloak. “No, we can’t kill the tyrant, but we can hurt them.”

Tiso stared, shocked by the words. A very bad feeling sat in his gut, and was quickly vindicated when Cloth rounded the corner.

“Tiso!” she shouted. “It’s Quirrel!”

“Yeah?” The bad feeling grew stronger and he desperately prayed to whatever was listening, that the next words out of his love's mouth wasn’t going to be bad news.

“Quirrel...he's...He’s been poisoned!”

Tiso’s world went numb, and all he could hear was the insane laughter of the prisoner behind him.

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queerbrujas · 3 years

Text

all the light that you possess

pairing: mason x cordelia watson wordcount: 2.4k rating: T, just because mason swears a lot, but this is pure softness

read on ao3

this is a gift for one of my favorite people, thank you @elmshore for being an incredible friend and inspiration. i hope you enjoy this and that i did mason and cordelia justice <3

and all my thanks to @narrativefoiltrope for looking this over for me!

—

Mason has been here before.

Cordelia brought him here once, months ago now, and he remembers it well. The trek up the hill, the smells and sounds of open air. Quiet, peaceful—as peaceful as it gets, away from the loud noises of the town that constantly grate on Mason's ears.

So he knows the place. But tonight is the first time the two of them have been here since they are together.

Together. The word, the idea behind it echoes, bouncing around in his mind.

How it actually happened is anybody's guess (though if he asked Nate, he probably would have something to say—but that's one thing Mason would rather not do, thank you very much. He’d rather not have to deal with the older vampire’s knowing smile, that insufferable glint in his eyes).

But he glances at Cordelia, strands of red hair falling loose around their face and hazel eyes trained on the sky above, even as they walk, and he doesn't really care to understand how it happened, not one bit.

He's never been one for dwelling too much on the how of things, after all. It only matters that they are.

(And what they are, right now, what they have—it's fucking good. Even he knows that much, can see that much.)

It's a cloudless, almost moonless night, only a bright sliver of white shining against the black sky—and here, as they continue their hike to the spot Cordelia has chosen for them to watch the sky, they mention this too, voice light and brimming with excitement. Mentions how lucky they are, though of course a new moon would have been preferable, but at least the satellite’s glow won't get in the way of the stars, of the planets they're here to see—that they are both here to see.

(Last time, when he asked Cordelia why they'd brought him along, they'd only said they thought he might enjoy it, brushing aside the question, though both of them knew they were not speaking their mind.

This time, they had just smiled that wide, bright smile of theirs that had made him wrap his arms around their waist and bring them close to him, the warmth of their skin under his hands, heat rushing to their cheeks as they let out a delighted gasp.

That had been enough to get him to join them.

He's sure, by now, he'd go anywhere with them, stars or no stars.)

The crescent moon, thin as it is, gives off enough light—especially for Mason's enhanced sight—that it casts a glow on Cordelia, making them look as though it comes from within them instead, bright red hair shining and eyes sparkling.

(For a moment, Mason is sure he sees, senses something different—something in the way their skin catches the light, in the way their freckles and their eyes seem to glow a little too bright with the reflection of the moonlight. He catches a whiff of something in the air, too, a scent he almost recognizes before it gets lost in the more familiar lavender and amber, in the soft grassy smell of the field. He shakes off the thought without thinking about it further, and the feeling, whatever it is, doesn't come back.)

His attention stays on them, though; he can’t seem to look away for long, his gaze drawn back to their form every few seconds. Cordelia is bundled in what looks like a million layers, with their thick NASA sweater (the one that hides their curves, and while he'd groaned and made a comment about it when he saw them wearing it, he finds he doesn't really mind that much), and not without reason. It’s fucking freezing, the winter cold seeping into his bones and making his teeth chatter as though his jacket is made of nothing, but at least it’s dry, and he has realized it’s not as bad as it could be, not if he stays close to them.

Especially when they take his hand and tug him in the direction they're headed in—and that, that makes him feel a kind of warmth he hasn't felt before.

They reach their destination a while later, and they settle as they have before. A thick blanket on the grass, Cordelia’s telescope and journal and other instruments scattered around them.

The night is quiet, the sky almost alive with stars, their crystal sound filling the air. The scent of the woods, of the fresh air, and above all the scent of lavender, of amber. Of Cordelia.

As soon as they arrive, Cordelia begins to talk about the conjunction of the two planets, about the last time this happened (they weren't alive yet then, he wasn't alive yet—shit, Ava was barely a hundred years old); they talk about movement and orbits and calculations and things he doesn't understand, but he listens. Listens to the wonder in their voice, the sweet, lilting tones that drown out all the sounds of the nearby forest.

(And he knows now that it's because of them, the way everything goes quiet. But even in its soothing peace, it still makes him feel off-balance, how the constant noise that is the only thing he has ever known dies away. It's soothing and peaceful and new—and sometimes he doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't know what to do with the silence. Because part of him doesn't know what it's like not to be constantly on edge. But Cordelia has taken those edges and softened every single one of them until he's enveloped in something... something he doesn't understand but that he doesn’t want to question.)

Mason listens, and notices (of course he notices) the way Cordelia speaks faster than normal, more animatedly, less... less careful about what they say and how they say it. Like they don't spend ages thinking about every word that comes out of their mouth, like they're comfortable enough with him to just be.

(And what a difference it makes from the first time they met, and something like pride swells up in him, that they don't try to be something they aren't anymore.)

Cordelia keeps talking—about other conjunctions, now, more recent ones, ones their father wrote about in the journal he kept—and the words tumble out of them in a way that shouldn't, really shouldn't be so damn endearing, shouldn't make him feel this warmth, but it is and it does.

Mason watches the way their eyes sparkle and the way they flush a little, the way they have to stop to catch their breath because they're speaking so fast and a half smile tugs at his mouth. He listens to them and he watches them and takes in everything that is Cordelia, soft and bright and soothing, warm, glowing.

He finds himself listening to the words, too (when would he ever have thought that he would give a damn about these things? He doesn't, and yet he does, because of how much Cordelia cares. He'd listen to them talk about anything, space and planets and math or whatever the fuck else they wanted to talk about).

He doesn't offer much more than small noises of assent, can't follow a lot of what they say if he's being honest, but he listens anyway, is content to let them speak, and it’s their turn then to smile at that, a smile that has his heart leaping in his chest (still new, still unfamiliar. Still fucking terrifying but not something he would choose to run away from, not now that he's settled into it). They smile even wider when he makes a rare comment, or asks a question, and they launch themself into a clarification with renewed energy.

(And he doesn't know how to do so much of this, but it hardly seems to matter to them. It hardly seemed to matter to them even before—and he is drawn to them as though they are the sun, warmth that he didn't know or care existed or at least didn't ever think he needed.)

He takes fumbling steps, falters, but even if he is unsure of what he does he is not unsure of what he feels—and the one thing he is even less sure of is of what he would do if he couldn't stick by their side.

(Of what he would do if they left, if they decided they didn't want this, not after all. The memory of the way he royally fucked up at the bakery, of his conversation with Ava afterwards, still makes something in his chest tighten.)

The both of them remain like this, sitting as they have before (except now Cordelia's hands find his own and they twine their fingers with his; except now he sits close enough to touch them, to trace lines and patterns on their legs through their clothing and they laugh, the sound like bells, clear and musical.)

They sit like this and Cordelia continues to talk about the stars, talks about their father (more easily than they have in the past; of the memories this brings them, of the way he would have loved to witness this and so they are here, witnessing it for him). They say how happy they are that he is here with them (and for this he has no answer, no name for the feeling it elicits in him, so he simply smirks and pulls them close and tells them what a sap they are, sweetheart. Cordelia smiles at that, too, affection almost making their eyes glow.)

They stay like this, with nothing but the stars for company, in a silence that says everything he doesn't know how to say.

They stay like this—until clouds start to gather.

The first sign of disaster is a dissatisfied noise from Cordelia as they look through the telescope. One they are quick to cover, Mason notices, but they shouldn't have bothered. There's a shift in the air that he feels, a change in the smell and the pressure.

Wisps of clouds gather around the crescent of the moon, a faintly colored halo against the darkness of the sky. It could be nothing, nothing more than a passing inconvenience, and yet—

"Mason, maybe we should—" Cordelia starts, eyeing the telescope warily.

After that, it takes at most five minutes.

Five minutes until they've gathered everything they had and are running, soaked, until they find themselves under the roof of an abandoned little shelter along the path, the first place they could find that afforded them some respite from the rain.

Now the water has seeped into his boots.

Oh, fuck this.

Fuck this, especially, because Cordelia is not looking at him, they're looking at the bag with the telescope and back to the sky and the rain keeps on getting stronger.

"You all right, sweetheart?" he asks, almost out of reflex.

“Oh, of course,” they answer. “I just wasn't expecting… no, it's fine.”

A scowl forms on his face. Disappointment is clear in their tone, in the way they blink a little faster than normal, in the line of their mouth, tighter than usual (but they won't say it, he knows they won't). In the way they shake their head as if to clear it.

And he can't stand it.

He can't stand the dimming of that light he'd seen in their eyes, all because of some stupid fucking clouds, stupid fucking rain.

Once again, words are out of his reach (stuck in his throat, in his chest, something like a weight and a formless tangle he can't begin to make sense of—he has never tried, never had the need for it, but fuck it if he wouldn't do anything to make them feel better, he just doesn't know where to start) and so his immediate reaction is to lash out—not at them, no, not this time at the very fucking least. He's learned that much (again, the memory of what happened at that bakery still echoes within him, the way they ran out and he knew, he knew with as much certainty as he's ever known anything that he'd been this close to fucking up beyond repair.)

But he lashes out because how fucking dare the rain ruin this thing that Cordelia was looking forward to. Because there isn't anyone he can pin the blame on for this, anything tangible he can fight or get rid of.

It's just fucking rain.

His lips are pursed—no, he is not pouting—and he looks away from them with a low growl, frustration almost spilling out of him at the rain having ruined the illusion in them and fuck, it shouldn't matter this much but it does.

(A part of him, that he doesn't look at too closely, thinks he ought to know. Ought to be able to find words, find something to make it better.)

"Mason, what is it?"

They say his name and draw him back to them, grey eyes meeting hazel and there is still disappointment there, yes, he sees it, but there is so much more too.

“I don't know what you mean, sweetheart, I'm fine,” he says, looking away again, gruff nonchalance in his voice that he doesn't feel.

And then Cordelia laughs.

It's soft, a twinkling sound like the stars themselves, but it catches him off guard and he turns his gaze back on them—and they're looking at him with a soft smile on their lips.

“What’s so funny?” he snaps.

“It's okay, Mason,” they say, their smile growing. “I don't mind the rain.”

“Yes, you do,” he replies immediately, any pretense of nonchalance completely gone, replaced by irritation. “You've been talking about this for weeks.”

Their smile grows even more at that, and they place a hand on his arm. Warm, even through the thick material of his jacket and his clothing. He is drawn to them yet again, his own hands immediately circling their waist, drawing them closer and even his own irritation starts to fade a little.

“I don't mind.” Their voice is soft, almost a whisper, and the smile still sits on their face. His own unease dissipates at the warmth, at the sincerity of their expression. “But thank you.”

“If you're sure, sweetheart.” His own voice sounds softer, lower, as though he can’t bring himself to break the moment they’ve fallen into. “You could still let me take your mind off of it,” he adds, pressing his hands tighter on their waist, bringing them flush against him.

They laugh more loudly this time, over the sound of the pouring rain, and throw their arms around his neck.

#the wayhaven chronicles #qbwrites #twc mason #qbwritestwc

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yusuke96universe · 3 years

Text

Turles and Lord Slug Team Up Pitch

Introduction

Hello guys, after watching MasakoX's What If Turles Turned Good parts 1 and 2 [which act more like an origin story for him within the frameworks of modern Dragon Ball similar to Super Broly] I thought I would share an old headcanon origin I had for another Dragon Ball Z movie Villain, Lord Slug and how it could make for an excellent part in this What If story that has captured my imagination. Also, it opens up a lot of potential avenues for ood DBZ storytelling.

I know he's considered one of the most uninteresting Villains in the franchise since he is essentially King Piccolo from space, but rushed in an hour long movie. Let's face it, a lot of DBZ villains aren't inherently interesting characters and usually are introduced as Pure Evil tropes

Trope Talk: Pure Evil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-XprjlATEo

Irrelevant backstory

very simple motivation

enthusiastic, zestful villainy

Pure self-confidence

Third -Act Breakdowns (where they are faced with what they truly fear and usually fail)

Afterward, they could be open to becoming a more nuanced character to explore as we've seen done time and again with cast of redeemed or evolved villains in Dragon Ball

A lot of the movie villains from the franchise would be more interesting if they weren't rushed or were expanded on and boy does Lord Slug bring a lot to the table if he is expanded on.

1) You could have Turles and Lord Slug form a dynamic duo that counterparts Goku and Piccolo. Turles is a trouble-making youth-filled underdog who has taken a shine to the crabby old man that is Slug. Turles could use a lot more modern methods to contrast Slug's far more traditional warmongering that he's developed over the centuries. (They did it a little in Xenoverse 2, but you could really expand upon it in a MasakoX styled What If) Plus, the Tree of Might likely has the ability to restore Lord Slug's youth since it canonically resurrected fossils, so Turles literally has the solution to Lord Slug's main problem plaguing him and is an open-minded businessman by nature. This hypothetical team-up of working together to gain more power, invade planets for their resources and overthrow the Universal order by killing Frieza before returning to enemies, acts as an inverse counterpart of Goku's and Piccolo's initial alliance against the Saiyans invading the Earth interfering with Piccolo's own conquest, but opened the doors for change in him and others.

2) Most likely these 2 would start off as enemies and have their forces face off against one another, but this struggle is a good thing in the long run because they could potentially provide each other, their own personal Third Act Breakdowns or at least teach each other recognize their own flaws and weaknesses to help each other grow as characters.

Lord Slug's backstory, retooled

Planet Slug

The most fun thing I found was that they gave Turles a proper origin story to build a character around, well I have a suggestion for a similar concept for Lord Slug that I think you guys could use in many different ways, but before that. Here are the facts. In the backstory I found in supplemental materials, it is stated by Guru that Lord Slug and other Evil Namekians could have possibly escaped the crisis on Namek and moved to far-flung planets in other parts of the Universe. One Super Namekian named himself after the Demon inhabited world he found himself on, known as Planet Slug. And judging from the movie, Planet Slug is most likely an icy or snow-covered planet since the Demons needed special suits to withstand the Earth's temperature.

By the way, I imagine that Planet Slug and its people could have a Mongolian theme. (I have a sketch I did for an alternate costume for Slug, but I don't remember how to post atm)

If say Lord Slug came to this planet and eventually took it over in the King Piccolo style, then I could see him having birthed a clan of Evil Namekian children to help him in this endeavor. So let's say there are about as many Namekians children as Guru or King Piccolo birthed, then they are likely different clans of Namekians on the Planet, including a Dragon Clan member capable of creating their own set of Dragon Balls. In this way, Planet Slug could act as an alternate substitute for Planet Namek, but one closely resembling how the team initially pictured Namek as a planet full of evil Piccolos, instead of the peace-loving farmers of Namek. Now, why would Slug be in space expanding his Empire and searching for Dragon Balls when his planet likely already has a set? In the movie, it's best not to think about it, but here is my idea.

Why Lord Slug is REALLY in Space

One of Lord Slug's offspring usurped him from the throne due to his old age and sickly body. So Slug was humiliatingly forced to flee his home or was looked down on as a non-threat banished him and his most loyal men off-world to live in shame and to never be seen again. So he is conquering other planets, partly because he is a refugee, but mostly because he is overcompensating for his lost and trying to help his ego by living in denial and reassuring that He is the Baddest Baddie who ever lived and terrorize/kill those weaker than him as he ever expands his empire, lamenting his old age and sickened body. He believes that if he was in his prime, he could take his throne back no problem and make them all pay for wronging him. Luckily, Slug doesn't need the Dragon Balls to regain his youth. If the Tree of Might's Fruit is capable of reviving fossils, it should be able to restore the Super Namekian to his former glory once again.

Turles's Crusher Corps vs Lord Slug's Army

A fun way they could introduce the factions to each other is as competition for a lush planet. Turles wants it for the Tree of Might, and Slug wants to freeze it for them for their conquest. They both are in each other's way, so they all fight it out. I think Slug has stronger minions, but Crusher Corps have better teamwork, and with Turles being in prime fighting condition, he would tip the scale in their favor much like Goku did in the movie.

At first, I thought Slug wouldn't be much of a match for Turles in his old and sickly state, a little trouble sure since he is the strongest, but that aged body wouldn't do him any favors. However, the first Google search result I got on Old Slug's Power level said he was at 79,000 so he's stronger than I first thought. (I thought he was around Nail's power level roughly in the 40,000) I also heard that Turles was around 19,000 but by the end of the movie was like 300,000. These power levels don't mean too much when reimagining the stories, just that Turles might have more of an uphill struggle. So, Turles would first have to eat some Fruit to win in a landslide and hopefully, the Terrafreezing process didn't ruin the Tree of Might's process.

Right before the killing blow, Old Slug might've mentioned something In desperation to save his own life. He could've brought up the Dragon Balls on his home Planet Slug/ Namek could grant any wish he wanted. This is just enough to stop Turles from following through with his attack, but it takes a little more coaxing for Slug to sell the legitimacy to Turles. A part of Turles thinks this might just be hogwash, but if this is anything like the Tree of Might, this could be a huge find. Another game-changer. He has his men take Slug with them as he checks in with the Heaters' database and finds there could be a kernel of truth to this tall tale. So Turles generously spares the old Slug's life for this useful tip which is met with some impatient ire.

If you hate being old so much, why don't you just use these Dragon Balls of yours to make yourself young again? -Turles

I would if I could, but... but I can't. I've been banished from my homeworld by my own children after they usurped me from my throne.-Slug

hahaha So you're just some washed-up old geezer trying to feel tough by throwing your power around at a bunch of weaklings. -Turles

Watch it! If I was in my prime, I wouldn't have ever let that rebellion get that far and even made short work of you and your men. If it weren't for that Fruit of yours, you'd be nothing. -Slug

WHAT WAS THAT. (composes himself) Interested in the Fruit are you, well I am not naive enough to let you ever sink your rotten teeth in one. At least, not for free. We, the Crusher Corps, are branched off of the Heaters' group who are known to deal in intelligence. If you have some more valuable information to pass on then, I could be convinced to trade off a leftover Fruit from our latest venture. Do you have anything else to offer me, old man?

(Slug’s low growling sounds are giving Turles just the biggest shit-eating grin on his face)

Slug could tell Planet Slug's coordinates, could act as their guide, or how to use their Dragon Balls, or even that they need a native speaker to use them and a password.

Turles throws him a Fruit as he is a businessman and honors his deals. This not only works in reviving the Elder Namekian, but the results are far better than expected by restoring Slug to his prime. Turles is both impressed and a little unnerved by this so he opens up a dialogue as he scans Lord Slug's new power. (he thought it would add a few decades back onto his old life since he seemed ancient, but it straight up made him young again) They discuss what had just happened and Turles's operation using the Tree of Might's Fruit to amass enough power for him and his men to kill Frieza and possibly overthrow him. Lord Slug in the meantime has been enjoying his youthful appearance and renewed vigor during the conversation, not looking Turles in the eye, but still expressing interest in this operation and compliments the plan. Turles offers a proposition to Lord Slug to join them on this endeavor if he helps them get those "Dragon Balls" he mentioned right before.

That's right. You're interested in the Dragon Balls, are you? Well, I am interested in that Tree of yours. It could keep someone young and strong forever, and this whole operation of yours is simply remarkable! -Slug

So you're in? -Turles

Remarkable enough for me to take it for myself! So I'll be doing just that! - Slug

Round 2 Super Namekian Rampages

The Super Namek overwhelms all of them, even Turles, after just eating a bunch of fruit, the gap is just too wide. He sadistically tortures them and strikes fear into their hearts. Turles isn't just put on the backfoot, he ends up on the brink of life and death. He needs to reach down deep, and something in him snaps, could be his Saiyan pride, could be becoming helpless and at someone else's mercy, could even be one of his men, that unbeknownst to himself, he had grown fond of perished, his regret for overly relying on outside gains to accomplish his ambitions. Don't know, don't care, but something doesn't sit right with Turles and this something acts as the catalyst for him to transform, but not into the traditional Super Saiyan we've all come to know. No, Turles goes into the False Super Saiyan state and overwhelms the Super Namek almost beat for beat like FSSJ Goku vs Slug from the movie, but this time, it lasts the duration of the fight. It's more of a SSJ Goku vs Frieza kind of fight with Turles's victory.

Turles diet of Tree of Might fruit has affected his body's genes and so when he transforms it's not the traditional SSJ form like everyone else, but the False Super Saiyan state that Goku used against Lord Slug. (The Saiyan loses their pupils and also uses SSJ's original color scheme with the flickering red and black hair and the orange skin with a lingering Aura effect) They could have a lot of fun with the benefits and drawbacks this form and its potential evolutions could have. False SSJ potentially falls into the theme of using Fruit as a shortcut to power vs earning the power legitimately or as a simple means to contrast with Goku.

Post Fight ~ Alliance?

Slug doesn't die though, or if he does, Turles is smart enough to revive him with the Tree of Might's extract in a similar way as the fossilized twins were. The reason is simple, Turles believes that Slug's knowledge of his people is going to be essential in the nearby future, and since he's shown whose boss by dominating the Super Namekian, they can now work together to overthrow stronger enemies like Frieza by using his Planet's Dragon Balls. The Crusher Corps gets a guide and an ally; Slug gets his revenge and the prospect of taking Frieza's empire for himself by joining this operation is too much for him to pass up. This is a temporary truce to defeat stronger opponents and gain power, but once that is over, they are going back to killing one another similar to how Goku and Piccolo formed an alliance against the Saiyans invading earth.

1) A Super Namekian could exploit their race's fusion ability through some method of Mind Control like in the original Broly movie. So Slug or his evil offspring could literally absorb one another or even someone as powerful as Nail or Piccolo if the influence is strong enough to join together. And Turles with the Heaters' resources might just be able to provide a means to provide Slug this, with some precautions of course.

2) Slug might have knowledge of Kai and Demon Realms considering he is both an older Namekian like Guru, and the fact that he Planet Slug is literally inhabited by Demons, a different breed of Demons, but still Demons nonetheless. In the games, the Tree of Might's Fruit had its effects amplified in the Demon Realm, but the same might be said if the Tree is planted on the World of the Supreme Kais or Beerus' planet. It's just a possible option for later down the line, but if there was ever a planet that could sustain that Tree and boosts its effects it would be one of these places.

This is it, I know MasakoX likes to do the space opera thing with multiple factions and also like to mix things up from the original story from time to time, so I thought Planet Slug would be an interesting means to do so and giving Turles a partner to bounce off of is typical Toriyama writing, could even open up new avenues to explore.

Am I expecting this to happen. Honestly, I have low expectations MasakoX and his team would do this and they got their own plans of inserting Turles into the main story likely connected to the character in the hood (who is probably Zamasu for some reason like in the Gero What If) or one of the Saiyans from Turles' team or even eager to get him into the main story with the Z-Cast, possibly trying to win Gohan to his side, but getting converted by him like what happened to Piccolo, but I don't mind. My expectations are low, but my hype is through the roof, and needed to share my fan theories with someone.

#dragon ball z #dbz #dragon ball #lord slug #turles #slug #tree of might #masakox #what if #dragon ball what if #false super saiyan #false ssj #super namekian #super namek

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ghostmartyr · 4 years

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SnK 133 Thoughts

They’re trying to stop the apocalypse but they’re dummy traumatized and the clap of their sins keeps alerting the glow tree.

Kids, just remember: Body count doesn’t matter, it’s how you feel while producing that body count. If you’ve killed people to stop genocide, you are not immune to being party to genocide. ⭑⭒⋆

I’m being reductive because I’m not too eager to go over how not all murder is created equal again.

Going by a good faith read, I do think what the narrative is attempting to establish is that these characters all know what it’s like to be backed into a corner and do desperate things they’re horrified by.

Putting aside the extra psychological difficulties of his childhood preceding the choice to knock down the wall, Reiner believes he’s saving humanity. There’s an island full of devils, and he’s attacking them. He, Bertolt, and Annie are dumb kids who do what they’re told. Because they think it’s right, or because they want to go home, or just because they are dumb kids.

Armin’s killed plenty of people with the power of the Colossus. He can’t plead innocence; he attacks Liberio’s port intentionally, knowing exactly what terror the people on the ground will be going through.

Connie kills the friends he’s trained with for years, when the worst thing about Reiner and Bertolt revealing themselves is feeling betrayed by comrades he loves.

None of this is directly equivalent. Dumb children at war are trying their best. Always, this conflict has been orchestrated above their pay grade. RAB get abandoned behind enemy lines and are told to make the best of it. Armin destroys Marley’s port because Marley will not stop going after Paradis, and Eren has forced a renewed conflict that they need to move against fast. Connie betrays his friends because they’re okay with letting the rest of the world die.

No one on this ship has enjoyed any of this. They have consistently been doing their best with the information given to them while people with more power drag them into fights that never should have happened.

Shiganshina falls because Marley chooses to murder Paradis.

Liberio falls because Eren turns himself into Paradis’ only hope and puts himself into a situation he can’t win alone.

In the crudest way of putting it, these people are grunts. They’re not the ones who picked the game being played. They’re the ones being manipulated into war after war.

That’s why they look at each other without counting the bodies. It isn’t the scale of their actions that hits at this moment, it’s the decisions they’ve made to be part of it. They choose to keep fighting. When it creates an outcome they hate, what can they say? ‘Look what you made me do’?

Whatever their reasons, and whoever set up the board, they are the ones who participate. In this case, pure moral imperative is the driving force. Daz and Samuel die because they’re willing to let genocide go uncontested. That’s on them.

Guilt doesn’t work like that, though. Daz and Samuel die because they are killed. Connie kills them. He betrays their trust.

All of this is to say that the people on the ship truly do understand each other perfectly, even despite the difference in scale. It’s a bit on the nose, but I don’t think anything they’re going through is at odds with the people they are.

Applying that feeling to Eren is a feat of misguided grace that... hell, I don’t know.

As a human person, I like grace as a concept and want more of it. I don’t want the world to burn, I want the burning to stop, and for everyone to be okay in the end even if they don’t deserve it. A world where we all get precisely what we deserve seems an incredibly dark place to me. That doesn’t leave room for mercy or kindness. You get what you earn, and nothing more.

The more time we spend on this portion of the story, the more I’m inclined to think that the themes agree with me. Our heroes at this point aren’t full of the rage they’re entitled to. Every inch of them is tired, and they’re not here for more death. They’re willing to keep going, but even the thought of killing Eren, when he’s massacred thousands, makes them all hesitate.

Everyone wants to go home and have the fighting stop.

That’s all.

Whatever happened, and whose fault it is -- forget all of it, just give them a place to rest and have it be over.

Thematically, yay. I approve. Beautiful. We start out with a series that makes a name for itself almost entirely on the back of the spectacle of violence, and after years of participating in that violence, the main cast wants nothing to do with it anymore. Love it.

Within the plot, I am not in the mood to have Eren’s traumatized friends apologize for not understanding him.

I get it.

I get why they all feel this way.

I do not like reading it.

They’re projecting their own guilt on someone who has shown a reckless disregard for their lives and sanity.

They’re trying to reach Eren as a human being and friend when he’s done his absolute best to make himself unreachable.

That’s sort of the point Reiner thinks is being made. Eren has intentionally set them up as his adversary so that if he has to be doing all of this, maybe there’s still a chance someone can stop him.

Okay, fine.

It falls short for the same reason all of Eren’s stuff is falling short.

We don’t actually know what the fuck is going on with him. We’re guessing.

You know those picture puzzles you do as a kid? Draw a line from bubble 1 to bubble 2 to bubble 3, and eventually you will make a bunny. Or a dog, or flowers, or something that looks like a picture in the sloppy mess of numbers.

Eren’s general portrayal matches that of a toddler who doesn’t yet know his numbers, and understands the instructions to be that he’s trying to get to the last bubble by scribbling lines through all the other bubbles.

Look, it’s a bunny.

And Eren’s friends are all like, oh wow, that’s such a good job! We’re going to put it on the fridge!

Then people come over and are like, why is there a constellation of a deer jumping through a house on the fridge, but they hear the child did it and immediately are like, oh yeah, that’s the best bunny I’ve ever seen, I can’t draw like that.

The child, being a child, is like, ‘Damn right. I’m going to be in bunny museums.’

Meanwhile, I’m just going to come out and say it.

It’s not a fucking bunny.

What it is, I don’t know, but it is not a bunny, stop calling it a bunny, it is actively erasing the knowledge of what a bunny looks like in my mind.

So ends this skit on what Eren’s portrayal has been like.

Eren has decided that this is all necessary. He doesn’t like it, and wants someone to stop him, but he is totally going to do it, and he knows he’s going to do it because future vision told him so and he’s really sad about that even though he’s emotionally in a place where genocide sounds like the only way out but that is wrong.

I think I’ve said before that Eren getting to this place mentally isn’t too off the rails. His sanity has been deteriorating with each mission, and he’s nineteen. Snapping like this could arguably be expected.

But the last we see of Eren’s thoughts, we still have this back and forth of how he refuses to yield the future to fate, but he already feels condemned by that future because he chooses to cause it.

Eren is clearly trapped by this web of contradictions, but his motivational core is so obstructed that it’s hard to actually connect to. It is easier to say that Eren’s gone off the deep end than it is to spend any amount of time asking how Point A became Point 3.

That’s frustrating, as a reader. I don’t want to be told a story, I want to experience it.

Eren’s experiences are not universal.

I need some hand-holding here. There needs to be a few more clear indications of Eren The Person, and how the individual we know wrapped around to making these choices.

Hooray, he’s not taking away their powers.

The guy he let run his cult still nearly killed all of them.

Hooray, he’s protecting his island.

He just actively courted an international incident so everyone wants the island dead.

Yes, Eren thinks that hope is lost before he makes these choices. That’s how moving forward drags him to this place; he doesn’t have the vision to imagine a world where this isn’t happening.

If you don’t fight, you can’t win, and Eren’s still fighting. But he’s forgotten what winning looks like. All he knows is the dreary march forward.

I would like for that to be explicit, not me extrapolating. Because even as I’m typing all of that, and feeling like it makes sense, it has the confidence of tissue paper, and I know my numbers, but half the numbers making this bunny were missing, and I’m not an artist.

The story I’m digging around here for is one I could like, but I don’t trust that it’s actually the one being told, because too much feels unexplained and weird. You can’t just make your main character nuts and use that as an excuse for anything.

Well, okay, you can.

You shouldn’t.

Please don’t do that.

Which I guess leads us to Eren and OG Ymir doing a Shining twins thing.

Here is my wild speculation.

The Attack Titan is the only Titan capable of resisting the Founder. It cannot be controlled, it simply continues forward, fighting for freedom.

When Eren talks to Ymir, her eyes losing their shadows are the cue for him taking full control of the Founder.

Now we’re back here, and her eyes are shadowed again, with Eren’s joining the ride.

I think that where we’re going to end up is that Eren’s mental fragility made him incredibly susceptible to the Attack Titan’s core nature, and enough of that nature aligned with Eren’s that everything except pursuing a way forward fell away. The Attack Titan is Ymir’s furious will, and she’s had it suppressed for 2000 years. I don’t think either one is emotionally capable of surfacing and deciding to resist the urge to march forward and destroy this world that has cursed them so.

Making my theory that yeah, okay, Eren’s lost it, but he lost it with the help of ancient plot magic, which we are now seeing the full extent of.

Does that have any basis in anything?

Who the fuck knows.

But one thing is very clear: Eren’s not free.

“In order to gain my own freedom... I will take freedom away from the world. [...] You are all free.”

The Attack Titan “has always moved ahead, seeking freedom. It has fought on for freedom.”

Eren, embodiment of the Attack Titan, is the first one to hear Ymir in 2000 years. Going with the vaguely logical theory that Titans are all pieces of Ymir herself, the Attack Titan is the part that rebels against every indignity she bows to in life.

Zeke frees the Founder from its promise of peace. Eren frees Ymir from the chains tying her to the royal family’s will.

All that’s left is 2000 years of trauma, and the ability and will, for the first time, to lash out.

It’s not what you’d call surprising.

It’s the getting here that I take issue with. Now that we’re here, yeah, got it. But I really don’t feel like Eren’s journey here has been done well enough to capture the emotional rawness that is trying to be accessed. His friends are shouting for someone who is effectively dead, for all the presence he’s showing.

Then you’ve got Annie and Kiyomi sad.

ON A BOAT.

While Falco wants to be a Titan with WIIIIIIIIIIINGS.

Kiddos, you’re very cute, and I support you not wanting to sit still and do nothing while the world is ending, but I can’t begin to express how little I care.

Except that your families are alive and you two and Annie deserve to be reunited.

SO FINE, OKAY, FALCO CAN HAVE HIS WINGS AND SAY HI TO HIS PARENTS AND GABI CAN SAY HI TO HER PARENTS AND ANNIE CAN SAY HI TO HER DAD AND IT’LL ALL BE FINE DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THE FUCK WE’RE GOING TO DO ABOUT EREN?

BECAUSE YEAH, I’M SURE THE AIRSHIPS ARE JUST GOING TO SPLODE HIM AND END ALL OF THIS AND EVERYONE WILL HOLD HANDS AND SING SONGS THAT THE EVIL HAS BEEN DEFEATED AND THAT WILL BE THE END OF IT.

Conversation: FAILED

Attack: probably FAILED

GO AHEAD, MANGA. SHOW ME THE DEUS EX MACHINA. I’M NOT GOING TO LIKE IT, BUT I AM PREPARED FOR IT.

inb4 yeah they just are going to bomb Eren with Armin that’s how we end this.

133 status: Still Looking For A Win Condition (This Ain’t It Chief)

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 133 #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #Survey Corps #tl;dr #chapter post

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pensivetense · 3 years

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A List Of (Mostly TMA) Fic Recs Sorted By Vibe

Not an exhaustive list by any means, just a few favourites that caught my fancy. I shortened many of the summaries for space.

I’m going to pin this here and update it as I go.

Also, I’m pensivetense on ao3

MELANCHOLY VIBES

for when you want to feel comfortably muted

(sad but not utterly bleak endings here)

Hope, Etc. (Dickenson, et al.) by yellow_caballero

Jonathan Sims, six months after the Unknowing, wakes to find himself without a daemon - without humanity, without a soul. It’s a cursed half-life, but existence as a shell without a heart isn’t so bad: between solving the mystery of a persistent illusion cast over his friends and some light pseudo-cannibalism, a life as a monster is better than no life at all. At least, it would be, if it wasn’t for the fucking Owl.

A freaking. Amazing. Daemon au. Ties the lore of Dust with TMA lore very satisfyingly, but is mostly about Jon navigating what it means to be human, or, in the absence of that, a person, and doesn’t require prior knowledge of His Dark Materials. Cannot recommend highly enough.

after one long season of waiting by nuinuijiaojiao

Annabelle is not used to having nice things. or, Annabelle heads to Upton House, muses a little, and gets some well-deserved rest

I love survivalist Annabelle and also the concept of the Web as kind of a horrible Patron, actually.

i love you. I want us both to eat well. by SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse

At the safehouse with Martin, Jon decides it's time to quit statements once and for all. The Eye disagrees. Martin just needs Jon to be okay. It's quite possible that nobody is going to get what they want.

Scottish Safehouse Era, Jon and Martin coping with their respective Entities... really, really good.

the friend by doomcountry

He always greets a new spider when he meets it. It’s instinct, born in childhood, the same way he instinctively counts magpies, or flicks salt over his left shoulder. A little harmless superstition. A bit of politesse.

A great Martin character study with eldritch spider horror included. The imagery regularly haunts me (in a good way).

autumn’s rare gift by bee_bro

Annually, the two meet, renewing the binding ritual where it had all started. The procedure simple: a waltz.

Singlehandedly made me ship Gertrude/Agnes so there’s that. It’s so bittersweet and bee_bro’s writing is, as always, incredibly poetic. (I’d recommend everything they write, actually.)

smile, you’re trending by Goodluckdetective

During an encounter with another Avatar of the Eye, Jon faces his past, Martin takes a turn at playing Kill Bill and Basira has a second look at the monster she’s determined to see. For three people associated with the Eye, they could all use some perspective.

Features an original Eye Avatar character who’s a YouTube personality; she is infuriating and inspired and genuinely frightening and I cannot say enough good things.

Humility by The_Lionheart

have you no idea that you're in deep?/i've dreamt about you nearly every night this week,/how many secrets can you keep?

An OC centric story but don’t let that put you off, it’s amazing. Very heavily focused around Jonah Magnus and the other Avatars as they change through the years. Also, I’d die for the OC.

oh, for one sweet second without the eye series by faedemon

Beholding does not like in the way humans do, but it likes its Archivist all the same.

I’m just so fond of the way this is done stylistically. I have a great weakness for dialogue only/dialogue heavy writing, not to mention all of the wonderful character beats and interplay of humanity/inhumanity for Jon and Melanie.

Rewind by WhyNotFly

It takes eight days of forced confinement for Jon to start hallucinating. [...] It’s Martin, though, that his exhausted brain conjures, because of course it’s Martin. After all this time, of course it’s Martin.

Jon willingly allows himself to be confined rather than hunting for statements, and examines his relationship with Martin.

for a firmament series by supaslim

There is beauty in destruction. There is art in becoming. In which Jon becomes the Archive, and the Archive becomes Jon.

Part two posted this morning and uhhh. Good. Also if you’re here for weird eldritch body horror (I am), this one’s for you.

ONES THAT JUST HURT

for when you want to feel sad

(somewhat bleaker endings here/everyone is NOT okay)

Feste by yellow_caballero

If asked, Martin would say that he became the shadow director of the Magnus Institute by accident. But nobody ever asked, and nobody ever cared, and it was in this way that Martin stopped lying to himself. Or: break free, Martin. All you have to lose are your chains. And your sanity.

Oh, this one totally didn’t go the way I expected it to. A study in isolation. Could go into the category above, as the ending is not bleak, but the tone of the whole is somewhat more depressing than most there.

Ghosts of Love by RavenXavier

Nothing made Martin more grounded in the world than yearning for Jonathan Sims.

Lonely!Martin that really captures a sort of visceral ache. Hurts me and yet I keep rereading.

i do desire (we may be better strangers) by godbewithyouihavedone

For ages, it only knew how to worship, taking human bodies and living off the fear of those who remembered. It never knew love until it became Jonathan Sims. Now it must fight against every instinct to save Martin Blackwood. Archivist Sasha, Not!Jon/Martin, and the worst kind of Fake Dating AU.

Oh, this one just made me sad. The poor not!them, which is something I never thought I’d say.

Apple Of Your Eye by fakeCRfan

In which the Eye is fond of Martin. Perhaps a little too fond for comfort.

Somehow manages to be both sweet and horrifying—the characterisation of the Eye is incredible. ‘The Eye loves Martin’ is a scenario that’s so utterly doomed to failure and yet the writing is packed with so much pathos that I just want them all to be happy. A fantastic use of themes of agency and choice, and the single best use of Beholding as a source of horror I’ve read.

The Last Press by copperbadge

Jon Sims is awake, and has begun preparations for the Rite of the Watcher's Crown. Peter Lukas, who woke him, would be content to rule at his side. Martin is very upset about all of this, and the Lukases aren't thrilled with it either.

I really can’t say anything without spoiling the end and it’s so good. An alternate take on the Watcher’s Crown. Not a pairing that I ever thought would work for me, but this made it work.

watch the blood evaporate by 75hearts

It starts, like so many things in Jon’s life have started, with a nagging itch of curiosity. Jonathan Sims uses his healing abilities throughout s4. Read the tags.

Dear God please read the tags. But this is some high quality pain if it’s for you.

the lighthouse series by low_fi

Peter Lukas is a lighthouse keeper. One evening, he gets a call from a cryptic overseer tasked with monitoring his work.

This is such a vivid and yet subtle story—from the setting to the emotions portrayed, it creeps up on you slowly. The ending was like the gentlest possible gut-punch. The sequel just completed, and yeah, just as wonderful. This one is very much LonelyEyes but I listed it here because it is just exquisitely painful.

SATISFYINGLY HOPEFUL VIBES

for when you want to feel cozy

Clutching Daffodils by Gemi

Martin has always liked the idea of love at first sight. It’s such a romantic idea, the whole thing of it. Seeing someone and instantly feeling that strange, twisting feeling deep inside that every single media likes to obsess over. Of knowing you are in love within the day, petals falling from your mouth and warmth filling your chest as love burrows deep, vines twisting through your lungs. He always liked the idea of it. And then Jonathan Sims starts working at the Magnus Institute.

Somehow manages to be lighter and fluffier than most hanahaki fare, despite the setting. I’ve reread this one a lot.

the least he could do by Prim_the_Amazing

Martin should in fact not pick this man, specifically because of how attracted he is to him. It would be the responsible thing to do. Except he’s already following him. And he’s hungry.

Fluffy vampire au which everyone’s probably already read, but was too good not to mention.

rather interesting by bee_bro

Jonah Magnus realizes that, for some reason, when he comes in contact with weed, Elias Bouchard's consciousness will come into his life banging pots and pans.

Oh boy. So these are all favourite fics but this one is a favourite amongst favourites. The way Jonah is characterised (i.e. incredibly sensitive to scrutiny) is my favourite depiction of him, and the slow-burn between him and Elias is far sweeter than it has any right to be. Also, it’s hilarious.

The Magnus Records series by ErinsWorks

In a world parallel to that of the Archives and the Institute, a supernatural sanctuary stands against a cruel and uncaring world: A world of bureaucracy and tyranny, of murder and carnage, of loneliness and surveillence, of plague and death. But in this world of fear and misery, 14 entities born of the hopes of the world have emerged. And one of them has made their home here, at The Magnus Sanctuary. Perhaps, the employees within may lead happier lives than their counterparts did in the Archives.

This is just so goddamn pure. The author writes a really imaginative, fleshed-out alternate world and alternate Entities with engaging, well-written short statements. All of the character voices are absolutely on point, and it’s overall absurdly hopeful without ever feeling overly saccharine. I love this series so much, you guys, you don’t even know. I want to print it out and paste it on my wall. I love it.

HARD APOCALYPSE

for when you want to feel dark and angsty (and eldritch)

Most of these are shorts/oneshots because it’s just that kind of genre, y’know?

Ashes to Ashes by marrowbones

A conversation at the end of the world.

Oliver Banks is one of those minor characters that I am overly attached to. Love him here.

Employee Benefits by equals_eleven_thirds

The Magnus Institute offered some normal employee benefits: a pension plan, holidays, travel subsidies, free lunch on the last Friday of each month. Rosie makes it work.

This manages to hit that perfect sweet spot of satisfying and hilarious. Rosie gets to torment Elias, as she well deserves.

a rose by any other name by Duck_Life

Part of Jon blooms in Jared Hopworth’s garden.

This one was sad and honestly too gentle to really belong in this category, but I love it.

Eye to Eye by Dribbledscribbles

In which Jonah Magnus attempts a post-apocalyptic pep talk.

Unreliable narrator at its finest, and the implications are suitably horrific.

commensalis by doomcountry

The tower is endlessly, impossibly tall, but Jon’s work is taller.

If you’re here for the eldritch imagery, then this has some of the best.

SOFT APOCALYPSE

for when you want to feel gently triumphant

apocalypse how series by sunshine_states

Humanity adjusts. The Entities have Regrets.

Some nice vignettes set in a kinder apocalypse.

ceylon series by Sciosa

The one in which Jonathan Sims decides that no, actually, he isn't going to let the world just end.

I include this only for the sake on completeness, as everyone has no doubt already read it.

rituals by doomcountry

Martin is the first person to knock on the Archivist's door since it arrived, fully, into its little waiting temple. The Archivist saw him coming from down the hall, but decides to feign interest when the knob turns, and Martin—still a little bit smaller, a little more translucent than before—stands uncertainly just outside the room.

This one’s a little less focused on the world at large and more on JonMartin specifically.

we raise it up by savrenim

Jonathan Sims reads a book and saves the world; although maybe the real salvation is the friends he makes along the way; (although perhaps the world itself and the darkness that exists behind it isn't quite as out to get everyone as it seems).

More ‘soft revolution’ than ‘soft apocalypse’, but has the same vibe. A time travel fix-it. Incomplete but worth it if this is a mood that appeals to you.

Scarred Ground by DictionaryWrites

“You see," Elias said softly, "people always have this idea that only living things can be scarred - and they're right, of course. But a building is a living thing, Martin. And the ground can be scarred, too." "I don't have any scars," Martin said. "Yes, you do," Elias said. "You just need the right light to see them.”

Falls somewhere between ‘Apocalypse’ and ‘Soft Apocalyse’ but I’m putting it here because I feel like it. Also technically a LonelyEyes fic. I found it hard to follow at first but it’s worth sticking with; things will eventually begin to make sense and come together.

LONELYEYES

for when you want to feel lonelyeyes

marrying anguish with one last wish by procrastinatingbookworm

In which Elias isn't Orpheus, and Peter isn't Eurydice, but Elias brings Peter home anyway.

Lives in my head rent free forever. My favourite lonelyeyes fic.

ouroboros by Wildehack

“You know,” Jonah says, a muscle in his calf quivering agreeably where it’s slung over Mordechai’s shoulder, “it’s really quite--fortunate--that I don’t care for you at all.”

Oh, this one hurts in the best possible way. The endless cycle of their relationship, the way it comes full-circle... yeah, good. Actually, no, this one might be my favourite. It’s a tie.

Breaking all the Rules by Thedupshadove

Elias proposes a somewhat...unusual wager.

Soft lonelyeyes? In my recs? It’s more likely than you think. Short, sweet, and... sweet.

Threefold by Sprinkledeath

Peter Lukas breaks three rules.

I’m just a slut for mythology allusions I guess.

Luck Be A Lady Tonight by prodigy

In 2014, Elias Bouchard takes a rare trip outside of his comfort zone. Peter Lukas wastes a bunch of money. You'd be surprised how many things can go wrong for two beings of cosmic power.

I love the sense of the history of them you get while reading this.

love is just a word (the idea seems absurd) by kaneklutz

"Something's wrong. It's stopped hurting" An avatar of the Lonely and an avatar of the Beholding walk into a bar relationship. It was bound to blow up in their faces.

Short, sweet, painful. Excellent exploration of their priorities.

Victor by penguistifical

elias tries something with his powers that he hasn't attempted before

The one where Elias tries to raise the dead. Not incredibly LonelyEyes centric but that’s still the pairing.

Simon Says by penguistifical

“Peter asked me to drop by and have a word with you, and, so, here I am.” Simon chuckles at Elias’s disbelieving stare. “Well, he asked in his own way. He’s not a complicated man, you know. He either comes from your arms looking like a stroked cat that’s been given a dish of cream or looking like he’s been in that toy boat of his out in an unexpected storm. He was far angrier than normal, so I daresay you weren’t cream today.”

I mean personally I’d just go ahead and rec all of penguistifical’s LonelyEyes fics but this is a standout for me.

AROMANTIC AND ASPEC MOODS

for when you want to feel Seen

The Aro Archives series by WhyNotFly

These are all just really really good. From Aro!Peter to two different aro-spec versions of the Scottish Safehouse to a long and beautiful aro hanahaki fic, this series is uniformly wonderful. The two Scottish Safehouse ones (Torn Edges and Murky Water) are my comfort fics.

and now all fear gives way by j_quadrifons

Before he can think it through, he murmurs, "Is that what it feels like? Being in love?" Martin's hand stills in his hair and Jon's stomach drops.

This one just. Wow yeah this is how it be. Another absolute comfort fic of mine.

Sweet As Roses by Prim_the_Amazing

Jon takes Martin by the shoulders, leans up on the tips of his toes, and kisses him.

I’m going to be honest—I didn’t know where to put this one. But it ended up here because the real standout of this fic for me is the portrayal of Sasha, and especially her portrayal as an aro character. So I’m putting it here. Mind the content warnings with this one!

HUMOUR

for when you want to feel delight

The Torment of Sebastian Skinner by Urbenmyth

After the Eye's victory, the statement givers are trapped in their horror stories, living them over and over again. Naturally, this works out better for some then for others.

Premise? Delightful. Execution? Fantastic. I read this one to cheer myself up when I’m sad.

Unlucky by VolxdoSioda

Jon’s dice betray him

Short, sweet DnD au, and the reason I cannot get DM!Elias out of my head now.

Voracious by beetl

A bird hits the window. Jon experiences The Flesh's thrall.

“Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” but make it literal.

The Stupid Endings by Urbenmyth

There are a lot of very deeply thought out and creative AUs on this site. These aren't among them. These ones are how the story could have ended, if Jonny Sims was a dumbass.

These are just uniformly hilarious, I cannot recommend them highly enough.

PODCAST CROSSOVERS

for when you want to make one of those “if I had a nickel for every time...” posts

The Sabbatical by morelikeassassin

Nicholas Waters is in need of an all-knowing eldritch entity beyond the confines of human imagining to help with his latest ritual. He'll have to settle for Jonathan Sims, who happens to have nothing better to do.

Crossover with Archive 81 (s3, specifically). Both fun and bittersweet.

The City And Its Sorrows by cuttooth

“What makes you think your friend is in Eskew?” David asks. He feels he can risk the scrutiny of the city that far. “I read that this is a place people end up when they get lost,” says the man. “This is a place people end up,” David agrees./The Archivist comes to Eskew.

Contemplative piece, and I love the way it presents David’s relationship with Eskew, the way he finds it horrible and hates it and yet belongs to it, is almost proud in the way he shows to to Jon. Great little vignette of two people oppressed by eldritch powers, intersecting.

Hiatus by bibliocratic

My name is Jonathan Sims, and I am in Eskew. (Jon gets lost in a Spiral city. It is not as easy as escaping.)

This one is far more focused on Jon than David, and is honestly more Eskew-weird than Spiral-weird. In the best way. Told in Eskew episode style, and is very good.

Sweet Music by Shella688

Eskew has a music to it, if you know how to listen. The percussion beat of thousands of footsteps, the melody in the squealing of the trains overhead. Today, the music of Eskew comes in the form of nine musicians, playing outside my office. My name is David Ward, and I am in Eskew.

Not TMA, but since a lot of Mechs fans go here—this one’s a Mechs/Eskew crossover. Short and simple, mostly David Ward centric, just a little well-written one shot I had to mention because I enjoyed it but it doesn’t have much traffic. Nice portrayal of the Mechs from an outsider’s perspective, and how genuinely strange and frightening they’d come across (especially if you’re already being haunted by and eldritch city). If you like Eskew-style storytelling, check it out!

NOT TMA

...but good enough that I physically cannot make a recs list without including them. Here!

#tma #the magnus archives #fic recs #long post #i'm not kidding you guys it's long #so be warned before you click read more #pinned on my blog

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lawrenceop · 3 years

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HOMILY for the 7th Sunday of Easter (B)

Acts 1:15-17. 20-26; Ps 102; 1 Jn 4:11-16; John 17:11-19

Today, Jesus is praying for us his friends: “Consecrate them”, he prays, that is to say, sanctify them, or “make them holy in the truth”. But what does this mean? There’s a tendency to think of holiness – if we think of it at all – as essentially an individual endeavour; we strive for it as a personal life-long project, albeit with God’s help. But in today’s Gospel, Jesus prays to the Father for “them”, meaning his apostles, who stand for the entire Church; for all his disciples and friends. So, he is also praying for you and me – for us, as members of his Church, present here in this parish, inside this beautiful church.

This reference to “them” is important because we don’t become saints alone but as part of a communion of saints. For holiness is not an individual project but a communal one, and for us this means the community of the parish here at St Dominic’s. This is why I have decided as parish priest that Baptisms should ordinarily take place on the 1st Sunday of every month at the 10am Mass, within the context of a parish Mass so that we as a community can support our families and their children who will be baptised. But also because there is a mutual commitment that we make to one another: that we will welcome the children and mums and dads of our parish, and help them to grow in holiness, help them to grow to know and love Jesus better. And our parents, therefore, make a commitment to us as a community: that they will bring their children up in the Faith, which means, as a minimum bringing their children to Mass every Sunday.

So, as a parish and as Christ’s disciples here in Haverstock Hill, we are bound to one another, with all our various weaknesses and strengths, but we are bound together in love. So St John says: “We ourselves have known and put our faith in God’s love towards ourselves.” (1 Jn 4:16a) And because God loves us, so he wants to make you and me holy because God is holy, and we cannot be united with him if we are not holy, if we prefer sin, and if we do not love the way that Christ has loved us, that is to say, purely, sacrificially, without self-interest, putting others before oneself. Hence St John states: “God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him.” (1 Jn 4:16b)

My hope is that as a parish, and as we recover from this pandemic, St Dominic’s will be a place where we will learn to love one another, and indeed, really love the people who live in this area whether or not they are Catholics. We are called, as Christians, to witness to Jesus Christ who loved us so much, even while we were still sinners, that he became Man, and died for our sins, and shed his blood for us. So St John says: “since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another.” I have plans for the renewal of our parish hall and its facilities, and I hope that soon we can resume our coffee and cakes after Sunday Mass, but also that during the week we can have social events for senior citizens, after-school reading programmes for children from St Dominic’s School, meals for the homeless and hungry, and other ways to exercise love for one another. Because a Catholic Church is called to shine with beauty: not just architecturally – and I am so grateful for the beauty of this church and its restored windows, stonework, and artwork – but we are called to shine with good works. As Jesus said: “Let your light so shine before all, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:16) So, for these good works, these beautiful things I hope we can do together as a parish, I will need your help; I will need families to come and to stay, and for you all to want to shine out with us.

And what does it mean when Jesus prays that the Father will consecrate us, make us holy in the truth? In the first place, Christ himself is the Truth. So, we are made holy through our union with him through the grace of Baptism, through the grace of the Sacraments, especially through Holy Communion. This is why we need to come to Mass every Sunday because, quite simply, we need to see Jesus in the Eucharist; we need to worship and love him in the Holy Eucharist; and we need to receive Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist. Jesus gives himself to us, at every Mass, in this precious way not for his own sake but entirely for our sake because we need him. As Jesus says in St John’s Gospel: “He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5b) Or, as we hear in today’s Gospel, the Lord says: “I have watched over them and not one is lost except the one who chose to be lost.” (Jn 17:12)

How beautiful it is to be part of a parish, to be gathered together as a community of Christ’s friends, for it is here, within the church and bound to one another in the love of Christ that Jesus keeps watch over us. It is here that we abide in the Lord, and it is here in our parish that we can grow fruitful through good works. There is a tone of admonition in the Lord’s words: we can choose to be lost, that is to say, we can choose to stay away from the Church, to prefer other Sunday activities to Sunday Mass, and so we can choose ways that will, ultimately, lead us away from Christ. Thus Jesus says: “If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.” (Jn 15:6)

Therefore, Jesus calls us to be mindful always to stay close to him; to go to him week after week, day after day, and so to remain in him, and this happens primarily in the context of the parish and especially through the Sunday Mass. The Bishops of England and Wales thus said recently: “The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the lifeblood of the Church. It requires our active participation and… our physical presence… At this moment [after the pandemic], then, we… need to restore to its rightful centrality in our lives the Sunday Mass, encouraging each [other] to take his or her place once again in the assembly of our brothers and sisters… We [need to] nurture the sense of Sunday as ‘a weekly gift from God to his people’, and something we cannot do without; to see Sunday as the soul of the week, as giving light and meaning to all the responsibilities we live out each day; to see the Sunday Eucharist as food for the unique mission with which we have been endowed.”

And finally, when Jesus prays that we will be consecrated in the truth, he is praying that we will be set apart for God. So we Christians will think differently, and behave differently, and see things in a different way from others around us. We just have to accept this. Why? Jesus is clear: “They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.” (Jn 17:14) No, through Baptism, we now belong to God; he is our Father, and so we, his children, are given grace to behave and think and act like God who is Love. We are empowered by God to love. For each of us, learning to love like Christ will take a lifetime, but we can help our young ones and our families through solid catechesis. This is why I plan to renew the catechetical programme in this parish, from Baptism up to Marriage, and I am delighted to welcome Sr Lucy and Sr Carino from the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph to our parish as our new parish Sisters. They will work alongside our current catechists as well as any new volunteers who want to serve as catechists with them, and they will start in September. I am delighted, though, to welcome them here today as they’ve come specially to meet you. Truly, they are an answer to my prayers, fittingly granted in the Year of St Joseph that we’re currently celebrating.

For as your parish priest, I make my own the prayer of Our Lord, that in these various ways I have mentioned you and I will be consecrated, made holy, in the truth; that you will deepen your friendship and your walk with Jesus Christ; and that St Dominic’s will be a place where God’s love is made obvious to anybody who visits us! Please, I ask you to pray with me, and to help me in realising the Lord’s prayer for us. During these days before Pentecost, let us pray: “Come Holy Spirit, and renew the face of the earth: renew my heart, renew my life, and so renew this parish.” Amen!

#parish #renewal #truth #catechesis #Baptism #Sunday mass

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dailychapel · 3 years

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Lord, I ask that You protect our minds. Father, the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the Spirit is life and peace. (Romans 8:6) O God, set our minds on You. Let us not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we may prove what Your will is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2) Help us by the power of Your Spirit to think on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything is worthy of praise, let our minds dwell on these things. (Philippians 4:8)

[Psa 42:1-11 ESV] 1 To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?" 4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. 5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation 6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. 8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. 9 I say to God, my rock: "Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" 10 As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?" 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

[Jer 22:1-10 ESV] 1 Thus says the LORD: "Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, 2 and say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. 3 Thus says the LORD: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. 4 For if you will indeed obey this word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people. 5 But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation. 6 For thus says the LORD concerning the house of the king of Judah: "'You are like Gilead to me, like the summit of Lebanon, yet surely I will make you a desert, an uninhabited city. 7 I will prepare destroyers against you, each with his weapons, and they shall cut down your choicest cedars and cast them into the fire. 8 "'And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, "Why has the LORD dealt thus with this great city?" 9 And they will answer, "Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and worshiped other gods and served them."'" 10 Weep not for him who is dead, nor grieve for him, but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he shall return no more to see his native land.Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

[2Co 1:12-24 ESV] 12 For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. 13 For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand and I hope you will fully understand-- 14 just as you did partially understand us--that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you. 15 Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a second experience of grace. 16 I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. 17 Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say "Yes, yes" and "No, no" at the same time? 18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. 20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 23 But I call God to witness against me--it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth. 24 Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years

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03/08/2021 DAB Transcript

Numbers 10:1-11:23, Mark 14:1-21, Psalms 51:1-19, Proverbs 10:31-32

Today is the 8th day of March welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today as we do what we do. We gather, come around the Global Campfire, we release, exhale all the cares of this life that we’re draggin’ around, and we just allow God's word to do what God's word does. It washes into our lives and informs us, directs us, guides us, assures us, corrects and comforts us. So, let's dive in. We are reading from the New International Version this week. Numbers chapter 10 verse 1 through 11 verse 23.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the Old Testament, we need just a little bit of a catch-up because we've gone through the book of Leviticus and through this much of the book of Numbers and so we've been focusing on the giving of the law and the customs in the rituals and the holy days, just the entire tapestry of an emerging culture that is being made out of these former slaves. So, that's been tedious, and we've been in it for a little while. So, today it's…it's easy to miss that today we packed up camp and moved out. Like we’ve been camping out at Mount Sinai for a long time, and we moved out. So, let's remember. There was Abraham then there was Isaac, and there was Jacob. Jacob's name was changed to Israel. He had children. They were the children of Israel. They would grow up in each of those names will become a tribe of Israel. We remember one of those sons was named Joseph and he was trafficked into Egypt by his own family. Of course, he became second-in-command eventually and brought 70 of his household including his father from Canaan to Egypt to save their lives from the famine. They stayed in Egypt. Joseph died and they continued to stay in Egypt. In fact, they stayed in Egypt for 400 years. So, the people that are coming out of Egypt, they have never known any kind of identity other than slavery. That's all they really know to be. Even though God has miraculously with a powerful hand demonstrated what He's capable of to protect his people they still grow weary. And it's interesting because God when He frees them from Egypt doesn't take them straight into the promised land by the coastal route. He takes them into the wilderness because their identity has to change from slave to chosen one and they need to receive the law. They need to receive what will govern them as a people to remind them of this identity. This is accomplished now. God has told them to move out and go to the promised land. They have moved out, but we can't hardly get a few miles before the complaining begins. And that's what we read about today, the complaining, and it's so discouraging. I wouldn't presume to speak for God, but it has to be so discouraging for God who has set His people free with an intention to fulfill a promise to listen to what those people are saying. And it has to be so discouraging from Moses. In fact, it was discouraging enough for Moses to say, “this is too big of a burden, I didn't have all these people, they're not my kids. You’re asking me basically to be a father to them and carry them like they were my kids, and I can’t do it.” And the people start complaining, “you remember when we were in Egypt when we were slaves. We got free meat and cucumbers and melons leaks and garlic and onions. Remember that? It was all free. We were just slaves and it was wonderful.” After all that God has gone through, that we’ve borne witness to as we’re reading through these stories, that would be such a slap in the face. That would be so discouraging. And then the mirror comes up out of the Bible and we find we’re not looking into an ancient story anymore. We’re looking into our own eyes. We had been enslaved and we were brought into the wilderness and we hate the wilderness. We ate the wildernesses of our lives. We spend all of our energy trying to escape them. When the…the truth of the matter, at least as borne out in the stories in the Scriptures is that we should embrace the wilderness. It is shaping our identity and teaching us to be utterly dependent upon God, which…which is in itself complete freedom because we are dependent upon God. But we’re seen that God is taking care of his people. It was the wilderness that God chose as the backdrop. And if you think about the wildernesses of your life, you can think of very, very difficult times that you don't ever want to experience again but that is the time when we learn the most, the most deep bed rock things about our existence and who we are. And, so let's begin as we continue to travel with the children of Israel toward the promised land. As we go out further into the wilderness, let's remember the wilderness is not purposeless. This is where we learn the most valuable things in life and the most valuable thing we can learn is our utter dependence upon God. That changes our identity from trying to be a sovereign to trying to fully be a dependent.

Prayer:

Jesus, we invite You into that. In fact, we…we move toward the Psalms because they speak so clearly what our hearts need to cry, “have mercy oh God, according to Your unfailing love, according to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions wash away all my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sins. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Create in me a pure heart oh God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.” This is our cry from the wilderness or from times of great prosperity. Come Holy Spirit and renew us, even as we continue this journey through the…the season of lent, designed to help us focus, focus our dependence upon You and lament the things that we have allowed that would separate us from You. Create in us a clean heart. In Jesus’ name, we ask. Amen.

Song

White as Snow – Jon Foreman

Have mercy on me, oh God According to Your unfailing love According to Your great compassion Blot out my transgressions

Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of my salvation

The sacrifices of our God Are a broken and a contrite heart Against You and You alone Have I sinned? The sacrifices of our God Are a broken and a contrite heart Against You and You alone Have I sinned?

Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of my salvation

Wash me white as snow And I will be made whole Wash me white as snow And I will be made whole Wash me white as snow And I will be made whole Wash me white as snow

Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation Would You create in me a clean heart, oh, God? Restore in me the joy of Your salvation

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immaculate-benediction-batch · 5 years

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Sorry this is so long......How TV Creators Are Handling Subtext And Shipping

TV series creators have a hard time not tailoring content towards a strictly heteronormative audience, refusing to lean in to queer context, no matter howlarge an LGBTQ following a show may have.

Once a fictional character is put out for public consumption, it ceases to be the one thing it’s described as on paper. This is especially the case with TV and film, where said character goes through so many hands before hitting the screen and becoming public property.

There are three kinds of creators when it comes to queer content on TV. The first (and sadly, most typical) is the creator who will deny any intention of creating queer content, and who will also refuse to acknowledge a queer audience’s interpretation., This often results in an instant backlash, as the Supergirlcast and creators experienced after an embarrassing interview with MTV last summer. When prompted to recap the latest season, the cast broke into a cringeworthy song that mocked fans’ interest in the Supergirl/Lena Luthor pairing, with Jeremy Jordan repeatedly exclaiming that the two will never get together. It continued despite Katie McGrath’s attempt to save the interview saying, “The great thing about what we do is, like any art, anyone can read into it what they want.” Chris Wood then chimed in with “Sexuality is all about others’ perception of yours, right?”

Supergirl is a show with a large female following that from the beginning has gravitated toward the female relationships it portrays, with emphasis on those relationships with strong queer energy. At first, there was a group of internet fans that were drawn to the chemistry between Melissa Benoist and Calista Flockhart, which was maximized due to the characters’ intense mentor/mentee relationship, and that was fine, and for the most part went unacknowledged by the show.

However, upon Flockhart’s exit, Lena Luthor was introduced, played by Katie McGrath. Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor became fast friends, and fans’ fascination with Supergirl’s queer vibes grew strong enough for the the cast to take notice. One would think that by having Alex Danvers and Maggie Sawyer, two queer characters already in their orbit, fan speculation about others wouldn’t be such an inconvenience that it would have to be addressed by aggressively singing “They’re only friends!” over and over, as if the pairing were unfathomable.

But Supergirl hasn’t been the only show to outright reject queer interpretations. In fact, a few years back, the long-running series Supernatural was called out by its fans for purposefully inserting homoerotic subtext within storylines pertaining to male characters Dean and Castiel, and for rather indirectly addressing said subtext in interviews. In one of them, Misha Collins (Castiel) stated that in certain scenes with Jensen Ackles (Dean) he was directed to portray his character as a “jilted lover.”

During a Toronto Con panel in 2013, it was revealed that a line was changed by Ackles — who last year specifically requested no questions about the popular pairing be allowed during the Q portion of a panel for the show at New Jersey Con–from “I love you” to “We’re family. I need you” because the Actor didn’t think it suited his character. Despite fandom’s interest in the pairing, it hasn’t been enough for Supernaturalto follow through with an actual queer storyline, aside from the one recurring lesbian character, Charlie, who was ultimately killed off. It turns out our tolerance for queerbaiting does have its limits.

Another show that failed to address the sapphic energy between its leads, in effect rejecting a great opportunity to add a bonus layer to an already complex relationship between two women, was Damages. The thriller starred Glenn Close as powerhouse prosecutor Patty Hewes, and Rose Byrne as her protégée, Ellen Parsons. The series went on for five seasons and throughout, though it benefitted from incredible writing, its highlight was clearly the tension and undecipherable relationship between Patty and Ellen.

While there was never any doubt that their connection was what kept the the show’s palpable tension dial at a 10, anytime the subject was brought up to either cast or creators it was denied or waved off as “wishful thinking,” as Glenn Close put it. When pressed further, she added, “I think there’s something seductive about Patty and she just seduces people and she’ll lead people on. I think that can come across as pure seduction.”

With Person of Interest, Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) and Root (Amy Acker) first connected under very unique, very dark circumstances in which one was holding the other against their will in a life threatening situation. But there was a sizzle there that the audience immediately responded to, and while both cast and writers admitted that was not their intention, something amazing happenedthey took that audience reaction and ran with it. In the end, Shaw and Root’s romance became one of the show’s more compelling storylines.

Jane the Virgin did the same. When a character, Petra, who wasn’t intentionally written as queer read queer to LGBTQ viewers, the writers saw no problem taking the interpretation and adopting it as canon. After years of keeping Petra as a sort of peripheral player within Jane/Rafael storylines, the character of Jane Ramos was introduced as Petra’s defense attorney and eventual love interest.

The third type of creator is everyone’s favorite. This is the one that takes whatever gay subtext or context there is, embraces it, and expands upon it, recognizing that it’s there from the beginning. In the Flesh and Killing Eve are true representatives of queer entertainment that isn’t trying to steer its characters toward a path they weren’t organically wanting to go.

In the Flesh, a BAFTA-award winning series from BBC 3, was easily one of the best shows that no one watched; a zombie show with depth, which isn’t easy to accomplish. The story takes place years after a virus epidemic that turned the infected into flesh-eating monsters is cured, and the rehabilitated are returning home. Its main character is Luke, one of the former infected, suffering from memories of the terrible things he did while sick, and tortured by his own suicide, which was prompted by the loss of love interest, Rick.

The series ran for only two seasons, with a total of nine episodes. It was inventive and creative and stands as one of the greats right next to shows like Hannibal and The Exorcist, which was unfortunately canceled by Fox this year after only two seasons of sacrilege, beautiful cinematography, Alfonso Herrera (Sense8) and a bisexual Father Marcus, played by Ben Daniels.

Killing Eve is a female-led thriller that proves that the secret to making great TV is treating characters like human beings with the capacity to change. Eve, who, when we meet her, is living a life that doesn’t seem particularly terrible, whose marriage appears to be solid, her job secure, is lured into potentially life threatening situations for the sake of following her inexplicable attraction to a female assassin. As if beneath the surface there is a dormant unrest that is awakened with the arrival of Villanelle in her life, and though she does not stop to examine exactly what she expects to get from it, she craves and wants more of these moments that have stirred her awake. She’s both excited and frightened by Villanelle’s audaciousness, by the intrusion into her life,

both figuratively and literally.

The season’s got a few episodes left, yet the most compelling, and most attentively queer moment is part of the fifth episode, in which the two women finally come face to face in Eve’s home. Eve is sopping wet in a gorgeous dress Villanelle’s purchased for her, she’s cold and visibly uncomfortable, therefore Villanelle suggests Eve should change, before proceeding to peel the dress off her herself. It is a scene that doesn’t downplay the very real danger Eve is in by having Villanelle in her home. However there is also an erotic aspect to it that is very purposeful, and as series creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge points out, the attraction is definitely mutual, “I knew that the first moment they see each other. I labeled that moment as ‘love at first sight.’ But I didn’t want it to be constrained to romance, or to lust, or anything like that. There’s something waking in Eve every day that she spends imagining what this woman is doing.”

This type of storytelling allows characters to evolve the way that they want to evolve as opposed to forcing them into a first page description. There is loyalty to the authenticity of the story, which comes from meticulous attention paid to the writing, which Waller-Green explains is all about going against cliché: “The moment something feels predictable, there’s a roar in me to just go to the most surprising place. I don’t want to bore myself.”

Often times, when female queer characters are introduced, it is done in order to titillate, and their storylines are the product of a male gaze fantasy. Killing Eve manages to avoid all of that with Villanelle, a character who seems to have no specific preference when it comes to sexual partners, and yet doesn’t feel the need to use her sexuality to get what she wants. In addition to that and the meaty tension between the two leads (Villanelle and the titular Eve, played by Sandra Oh), the attention paid to the very queer theme of the show is evident in backstories of characters that would normally go without one, like that of Eve’s former boss and best friend Bill, an older man in a heterosexual relationship who casually reveals he’s loved “hundreds” of men, much to Eve’s surprise, and further reveals he is in an open relationship, and happily so.

The series proves not only that queer characters are marketablethe BBC series was renewed for a second season before the first even airedbut that straight creators are capable of writing queer content that isn’t offensive or over-sexualized. Phoebe Waller-Bridge credits the authenticity of the series to a collaborative effort, stating, “Because it’s all about the characters, the little details that link the two worlds, everyone’s really made it a psychological piece rather than just an artistic painting of two different people’s worlds,” but it really just goes to show that that negative aspects of queer representation that include the dreaded male gaze perspective can be avoided as long as the bar is set high enough by the showrunner.

It only takes a little bit of creativity and imagination, and a willingness to challenge the idea that heterosexual-based television makes for the best and most successful stories.

Alex Velazquez is a writer, photographer, and queer Mexican living in Los Angeles, CA.

#sherlock #killing eve #supernatural #supergirl #queerbaiting #shipping #lgbt #in the flesh #jane the virgin #person of interest

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mayquita · 5 years

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Call Me (27/?) - The Final Countdown

A/N I still can't believe that four years have passed since I started this adventure. But I’m not only celebrating the fourth anniversary but also that with this chapter the story has reached 200k words!!! As always, my apologies for the delay, but to compensate you for the wait I bring you a long chapter. It was supposed to be shorter, but as usual, I got carried away a little. And here’s the result. I prefer not to reveal anything else about the chapter, but there’s a note at the end of the chapter with some explanations.

I’d like to express my gratitude to @saraswans and @onceuponaprincessworld for your advice and perpetual support and @chrissascorner for being my beta, thanks for helping me edit the whole thing. You three are the best. Thank you also to everyone else for your patience and for your support.

Summary: Emma loses her phone after a chase, but she finds a phone in a cafe just when she needs it most. Killian forgets his phone in a cafe when he is about to take a flight to Ireland. Killian makes a call to his own number hoping someone answers on the other end of the line. What will happen when Emma is the one answering the call?

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8Chapter 9 Chapter 10Chapter 11 Chapter 12Chapter 13 Chapter14Chapter 15 Chapter 16Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26

FF.net Ao3

Chapter 27 - The Final Countdown

I was born to love you With every single beat of my heart Yes, I was born to take care of you Every single day of my life

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Queen's song echoed in the kitchen while Killian prepared dinner, the lyrics and their meaning slipping inside his mind and spreading a warm sensation all over his body.

A thought crossed his mind as he hummed and wagged his hips to the rhythm of the music, causing a wide smile to bloom on his lips. There was no doubt that Queen has been part of the soundtrack of his life since he was just a child, accompanying him in his childhood, changing and adapting to the experiences he went through over the years.

The band and their songs had been his only companions on his darkest nights, first when Liam had been about to die and then after losing Milah, when he had entered that spiral where he wasn't able to do anything but drown his sorrows in sex and alcohol, get into fights —in an attempt to replace the heartache for the physical pain— and wallow in misery while listening to the saddest and most melancholy songs he could find.

It's a Hard Life, Too Much Love Will Kill You, Save Me, Somebody to Love... He had listened to these songs in a loop, locked in his bedroom, repeating the same routine day after day until Liam had taken the reins, as usual, coming to his rescue and offering him the possibility of a new beginning on the other side of the ocean.

Now, five years later, he kept marveling at how his life had changed and how that was also reflected in his particular life soundtrack. He felt blessed to have found Emma for many reasons, but the fact that they shared musical tastes added an incentive to their relationship.

The change had been subtle at first, but after confessing their feelings two weeks ago, they had begun to replace their old companions with songs full of feelings and positivity. Once again Queen put the background music to a stage of his life, and this time he expected this stage to last as much as possible, something like forever.

His smile widened when the first chords of the next song resonated in the room, causing him to continue humming, shaking his head to the rhythm of the music while cutting the fresh tomatoes that would serve to make sauce for the pasta they'd have for dinner.

I want it all, I want it all, I want it all And I want it now.

He wanted it all with Emma. He wanted to sleep every night with her in his arms and wake up every morning with her at his side. He wanted the whole package, the happily ever after. He wanted and wanted. He was aware that it was still too soon — they would celebrate three months together tomorrow —but after so many years surrounded by darkness he was eager to grab every little bit of happiness within his reach that would keep him in the light. And Emma was pure light, like a beacon that kept him on the right path.

He couldn't be prouder of her. After her meltdown two weeks ago when she fell injured, she had been able to overcome her own fears, to open up to him even more, to be vulnerable and express her feelings. She was more affectionate, her smiles were brighter, the spark of her gaze more intense, causing his love for her to grow more and more if that was even possible.

That subtle change in her had not only been reflected in her behavior towards him, but towards the people around her. Now she was more willing to spend time with her friends, was more communicative with her boss and even took the initiative when organizing plans with their friends' group.

It was as if after the accident, she had been injected with a renewed energy to the point that it was quite complicated to get her to be on sick leave for more than a couple of days. In the end, she had agreed to stay away from the office for a whole week and do desk work during the following week, but she would start working at full capacity next Monday, now that she seemed fully recovered.

The memory of her accident caused a chill to run through his spine, especially when he thought she would be exposed to those dangers again. He had no choice but to resign himself, though, and trust her and her abilities. At least she had understood that she now had someone always waiting for her at the end of the day, no matter what happened, so it seemed that she was more willing to stay out of unnecessary risks and return to him every day.

That was precisely what he was waiting, for Emma to come home. She had decided to accompany Belle and Mary Margaret to go shopping since, according to the ladies, they needed to renew their wardrobe with the arrival of autumn. It seemed obvious that she was having a great time since several hours later she hadn't yet returned. He had received a message a while ago, though, informing him that she would arrive in half an hour and that it was better for him to have some dinner ready because she was famished — Her words.

A soft chuckle escaped his lips when the next song began to sound. Somehow Emma had managed to include the bloody It's My Life on his playlist, alluding that, whether he liked it or not, that song was already part of the soundtrack of their relationship. She was right, of course, he admitted to himself as he shook his head.

He cast a sideways glance at the wall clock as he filled a saucepan with water to boil the pasta. The music and his thoughts had kept him so distracted that if he didn't hurry, Emma would arrive before dinner was ready.

Something caught his attention before he focused his eyes on the food preparation again. His gaze shifted slightly to the calendar near the clock. September 30th. A strange sensation settled in his stomach, his eyebrows knitting together as he tried to figure out why suddenly that date seemed somehow significant.

The realization came so unexpectedly that he felt as if he had been punched in the stomach while all the air left his lungs. Tomorrow would be October 1st, which meant that in just one month he would be flying to Ireland. For five bloody months.

He shouldn't feel so shocked, not considering that his trip to Ireland was something that had been hovering over their heads from the start. Hell, even the origin of their relationship had occurred when he was there.

He even had a continuous reminder in his usual talks with his family through video calls, in many of which Emma was present. Whenever his niece asked him when he would return he responded in the same way. Soon, sweetheart, soon.

The problem was that that soon seemed so far away at first, so, with the excuse that there was still a lot of time to worry about it, they had chosen to ignore it, not to let his possible departure affect their incipient relationship.

The date on the calendar now marked the beginning of the countdown on his inexorable path that would lead him to separate from Emma.

Just when he left the pot full of water on the counter, the player was silent for an instant before the next song began. He almost expected to hear the first chords of The Final Countdown, as a sign that the universe was laughing at him. Although that didn't happen, the next song did nothing to improve his sudden change of mood, rather the opposite.

Spread your wings and fly away Fly away far away Spread your little wings and fly away Fly away far away

Yes, definitely the universe was laughing at him.

A heavy sigh escaped between his lips as he ran a hand through his hair and swallowed hard in an attempt to drag the bitter sensation that threatened to crawl up to his throat. Unable to concentrate on food preparation, he started pacing the kitchen area driven by the growing uneasiness that had taken hold of him.

Fate was definitely cruel, at least to him. It seemed that all the stars had decided to line up tracing a net that would prevent him from fully enjoying his stay in his hometown, no matter what happened.

Before Emma, the bittersweet sensation and the constant pressure on his chest had always accompanied him a sign that, although he was going to visit his family, the ghosts of his past would always be present, stalking him and making sure to remind him of everything he had gotten and in contrast, everything he had lost.

Now, however, even though he had already left behind — or at least was on his way to do it —his old demons, that bittersweet feeling would still be present, since he couldn't wait to reunite with his family, but the feeling of leaving Emma behind was hard to assimilate.

Killian pressed his lips together to avoid groaning in frustration wondering if his heart would ever be at peace, if he would get the full happiness he thought he deserved, because it didn't matter that he was coming back, he was fully aware that during his stay in Ireland his thoughts would be consumed by a single person, Emma Swan.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not realize at first that a new song began to play. The sounds of the chorus finally reached his ears, bringing him back to reality.

Well, come on and let me know Should I stay or should I go? Should I stay or should I go now? Should I stay or should I go now?

An almost unstoppable impulse to throw the phone against the nearest wall seized him. Instead, he just pressed the stop button, leaving the room silent, the music was no longer appealing to him.

He was being overdramatic, he was aware of it, but he seemed unable to stop the spiral of feelings swirling inside him, while the lyrics of the previous song repeated in his mind in a loop. Should I stay or should I go?

Maybe it was a sign. Maybe he was worrying about nothing. Maybe it was best to stay this year in Boston, in this very flat, with Emma by his side. Why then did he feel that this was not the best solution? The mere idea of not seeing his nephews and his niece caused a twinge in his heart. He hadn't even made the decision yet and he already felt a sense of regret in the pit of his stomach. He not only had responsibilities back in Ireland but he longed to see both his family and his friends there.

He squeezed his eyes closed while rubbing his forehead in an attempt to relieve an incipient headache while wondering how he had come to this situation in an interval of only a few minutes.

He alone was to blame for not having dealt with the subject previously, but there was no point complaining now, He had to make a decision. At least before, he just had to worry about himself, but now that he was in a relationship he should also consider Emma's feelings. If there was something that had become clear after her accident two weeks ago it was that, despite her efforts to be more open, Emma still harbored trust and abandonment issues. His heart clenched at the thought of becoming one more on the list of people who left her behind.

A familiar sound caught his attention, pulling him out of the maelstrom of thoughts that crowded together in his head. The clink of the keys in the lock announced Emma's arrival, as if she had been invoked. Despite his inner turmoil, a soft smile tugged at his lips. She was home, finally. The need to get lost in her, to forget everything for a while, seized him, so he hurried to the front door to welcome her as she deserved — or rather as he needed.

Emma still felt strange with the weight of the keys in her hand. Not in a bad way but rather in an unusual sense. This wasn't the first time she had used the spare keys since Killian gave them to her a week ago, but she still had a hard time getting used to the fact that her boyfriend trusted her enough to allow her free access to him, literally. Perhaps the fact that no one had ever had that deference with her had something to do with that strange feeling.

Details like this made her wonder once in a while if they wouldn't be running too fast. They would be celebrating tomorrow that they had been together for (only) three months and Emma not only had the keys to his apartment — and he had hers —but spent half of her time there — most of her time, actually.

Those thoughts faded quickly, though. She just needed to open that door for a sense of peace to settle in her heart. She would be welcomed by the warmth that emanated from the interior of the apartment, by the aroma coming from the kitchen, and by protective arms that would embrace her, giving the moment of an aura of normalcy, a sense of rightness.

What Emma did not expect was to be received with such intensity the moment she crossed the door. She barely had time to close the door behind her when she was approached by Killian, who wrapped her in his strong arms while pushing her gently against the wooden surface, pressing his body against hers, his lips looking for hers as if he was hungry.

After the initial shock at the unexpected reception, she responded in kind, dropping the keys and the bags she was holding to place her arms around his neck while she returned the kiss with the same fervor.

Emma kept feeling amazed at how her body reacted whenever Killian kissed her. It was as if all her senses stopped working properly, leaving her in a state of daze where everything around her seemed to fade away. Well, that was not entirely true, it wasn't as if her senses stopped working but rather intensified, directing their focus to the sensations that flowed from her body as his lips devoured her.

This occasion was not going to be different of course, but before she fell completely intoxicated and succumbed to the sensations, a glimmer of lucidity crossed her clouded mind. There was something urgent, almost desperate, in the way Killian held her or in the intensity of his kiss. Making a great effort, Emma pushed back a little, her hands cupping his face as she searched his gaze.

"Hey, are you okay?"

His eyes were clearly darkened by lust but Emma also detected a glimpse of something else crossing his gaze. When Killian blinked that subtle shadow disappeared, though. Emma was distracted by his words, her eyes drifting to his lips. "Sure, love. I just missed you." A small smile appeared on his face but she didn't have time to appreciate it since his lips were on hers again.

He lifted her up with barely any effort causing her legs to circle his waist as he held her and began to walk towards his bedroom, his mouth never leaving hers.

Deep down, she suspected that something was not quite right, that his reaction seemed too intense, caused, rather than by pure desire, by something deeper. Whatever it was, Killian seemed to wake up suddenly, since, when they were halfway, he slowed his advance, loosening his grip until she rested her feet on the floor. He pushed back gently, his eyes searching for hers.

This time she did take her time to inspect his features. His brow was slightly furrowed, his cheeks flushed, his lips swollen from their brief make-out session. The shadow of his gaze reappeared more clearly, but again, Killian's hoarse voice caught her attention. "My apologies, love. I got a little carried away... I'm... sorry." He reached out to scratch behind his ear, as he averted his eyes, the blush of his cheeks becoming more pronounced. "Do you want this right now? Or maybe you prefer to just have dinner?" He asked, his voice dripping with uncertainty as he gestured toward the kitchen area.

Something was definitely not right with Killian. Emma tilted her head and studied him again through her narrowed eyes. The desire was evident, radiating from him in waves that reached her, sending electric shocks all over her body, blood running hot in her veins. She, of course, wanted this but she was also aware that Killian intended to use sex as an excuse to avoid, for a while, whatever it was that was troubling him.

She reached out to brush his cheek gently, pressing a little to force him to look at her. "I want this, believe me, but I also need to know what's wrong, Killian."

"Nothing." His lips curled up in an attempt at a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "It's been a long day without you and I... I just need you." The intensity of his gaze caused a shiver to run through her body. Emma was aware that his words hid a deeper meaning. The glimpse of pleading in his gaze contributed to that belief, causing her heart to tighten in her chest. He was saying without needing to express it out loud that he needed her to forget for a while. She couldn't refuse his request, not when she felt her skin burning, craving his touch and her lips tingling waiting for new kisses. She could do nothing but succumb to desire and hope that when the time came he would trust her enough to confess what was going through his head.

"Take me to bed, Killian." She whispered before fusing her lips with his, letting herself be carried away by the sensations in her attempt to offer Killian what he needed and get what her body craved.

Once in the shelter of his bedroom, they gave free rein to their passion so intensely that there was a moment when Emma felt slightly overwhelmed. She had learned from the experience of recent months that Killian was a generous person in bed, always trying to offer her all the pleasure before getting his own. This time it was no different in that regard, but his actions acquired a somewhat more desperate touch as he explored every inch of her skin reverently, recreating himself in every freckle, every corner as if he wanted to etch them in his memory.

Her old ghosts from the past made their appearance in the form of a sense of panic emerging inside her. His longing gaze did nothing to mitigate her growing unease. What if ... But then he muttered "I love you, Emma," her name sounding like a prayer and causing any worry to leave her body and her thoughts. He loved her and she loved him. Nothing else mattered.

From there she dedicated herself to enjoying one of the best sex sessions shared with Killian. He looked like a man on a mission, determined to extract every drop of pleasure from her body, playing it perfectly as an instrument, and paralyzing any coherent thought, her mind focused only on him and the intensity of her feelings towards him.

Both seemed insatiable that night. They only needed a few minutes to recover and started the second round. This time they made love more slowly sharing soft caresses, loving glances, and searing kisses while their bodies danced in a quiet tune until they reached sweet release.

Killian seemed calmer after their amorous activities. He lay on one side facing her, his fingers tracing delicate patterns up and down her back. His lips drew the first genuine smile of the night while his gaze seemed clearer, more serene, no trace of his previous agitated expression.

Emma was tempted to interrogate him, but she didn't want to risk clouding his mood again. She felt so sated and relieved to see that Killian had managed to relax that she thought it would be better if she left the interrogation for the next day. Even so, she didn't resist addressing him subtly.

"You know I'm here, whenever you feel ready to talk, okay?" She whispered as she gently stroked his hair at the back of his neck.

"Aye Swan. I know." His lips brushed hers for a moment before looking back into her eyes with a significant expression. "Tomorrow. I promise."

"Good." She snuggled against him, feeling a protective arm wrapping her. "I love you." She muttered while resting her head on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her ear.

"I love you, too. More than anything."

The last thought that crossed her mind before succumbing to sleep was that those words hid an even deeper meaning than it seemed. Something told her that she would soon find it out.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

The sun had not yet risen when Emma woke up the next morning, finding the room covered by gloom and a warm body behind her. After letting out a yawn, she cracked an eye open to check the time on the bedside clock. Too early.

Emma snuggled into Killian, feeling his strong arm on her waist and his chest against her bare back, not an inch of space between the two bodies. Although she couldn't see his face in that position, his soft breathing indicated that he was still sound asleep.

She felt like she was in a protective cocoon, all around her inviting her to go back to sleep. Just when her eyelids become heavy, her body decided to betray her, bringing her back to the world of consciousness. Both her bladder and her stomach protested due to the excessive hours of inactivity, making it impossible for her to fall asleep again.

In spite of the fact that her mind was still partly cloudy, some flashes of the activities from the previous night began to appear, causing her cheeks to blush. Emma also vaguely remembered that she hadn't been able to eat any food, since they had started their coupling as soon as she arrived home, just as her stomach was reminding her with a very loud rumble.

It was the memory of what happened a few hours earlier that led her to turn around carefully so as not to wake him up, with the intention of observing his features once her sight had become accustomed to the semi-darkness that surrounded them. Her heart fluttered as she checked his serene expression, only a faint wrinkle between his brows as an indication of his previous agitation.

She had no choice but to attend to her physiological needs, but, since it was Sunday, she wouldn't wake Killian. Not yet. After placing a feather kiss on his forehead, she got up and went to the closet, to the section that had already been reserved for her, and grabbed a shirt and panties, then headed to the bathroom with stealthy steps, so as not to wake the sleeping handsome.

Her stomach did a little somersault when her eyes landed on the two toothbrushes resting together on the bathroom shelf. She still had a hard time getting used to seeing her belongings occupying a space in his apartment. In other circumstances, she would have felt a torrent of panic and an urge to run. Too fast, she would have thought. That hadn't happened with Killian, though. In fact, since the first time she was in his apartment, she felt that sense of belonging, that she was in the right place.

That feeling had increased to the point that she was comfortable enough to have her own section in his closet or even she had now taken over one of the bathroom shelves. It was a matter of practicality after all. If she spent several nights a week there, it was logical that she had at least her toothbrush and a comb. And her favorite conditioner. And a bathrobe. Even a dryer. A girl likes to have her allies around, right?

After relieving her bladder, and refreshing herself a little — she had ended up so exhausted after their passionate lovemaking session that she had not been able to bring herself to remove her makeup —she went to the kitchen, her stomach growls getting louder and louder.

As she crossed the living room Emma noticed the various bags scattered on the floor while the memory of Killian's reception yesterday came to her memory, causing her knees to weaken and a warm sensation running through her veins. What an intense night!

Once in the kitchen, she found a similar scenario. There was a pot full of water on the counter, and the ingredients of what appeared to be the beginnings of a tomato sauce forgotten on the cutting board. It was like watching a scene frozen in time, as if someone, Killian in this case, had felt the urge to suddenly stop what he was doing.

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion, a sense of apprehension settling low in her stomach as she wondered what could have happened. It wasn't like him, someone usually quite tidy, to leave the kitchen in that state. Could he have had one of his panic attacks? At least he had had the good sense to turn off the stove because otherwise, the apartment would have become fire fodder while they created another type of fire in the bedroom.

Emma shook her head to try to get rid of that disturbing feeling. Killian had promised to tell her what had happened, so she had no choice but to wait. After letting out a heavy sigh, she turned on the coffee maker and began to clean the kitchen, continuing with the mess of the living room.

A few minutes later, the delicious smell of freshly brewed coffee reached her nostrils, so after finishing cleaning everything, she went back into the kitchen, prepared a giant mug of coffee and looked for something to eat in the cabinet. Her lips drew a smile of satisfaction when she found the poptarts that Killian kept just for her.

The sunlight was already beginning to seep through the windows, but since it was still early, she needed to find some entertainment while waiting for Killian to wake up. If it wasn't because they were already in October and the temperatures had dropped considerably, she would have been tempted to go up to the rooftop, since it was one of her favorite places. Instead, she grabbed Killian's laptop, the poptarts, and the coffee mug and settled on the couch, ready to do some work.

In recent weeks, she had been feeling more and more involved in Killian's business, especially in the social media section. She could spend hours working on the laptop or with her phone, either managing the website of the business that had improved considerably thanks to her magic — Killian's words — or acting as a kind of community manager running all social media to try to attract more customers, especially now that the peak season was over, but several guided tours and excursions were still available.

Belle had pointed out, on more than one occasion, that Emma worked almost more than herself and that she should be rewarded by being turned into a proper employee with her consequent salary, something Killian agreed with, but she always rejected it. She did not consider what she was doing as a job but as a way to put her knowledge to good use, something that brought her full satisfaction, increasing her self-confidence.

She soon got down to work, losing track of time as usual. Just when she was focused, an unexpected sound coming from the laptop startled her to the point that she almost dropped the device. Liam was calling.

Her eyebrows furrowed while looking at the time on the clock. Wasn't it a bit early for a video call on Sunday? Maybe it was something important. Before answering though, she cleared her throat and straightened her back, placing the laptop on her lap. She didn't mind talking to Liam at all, but she couldn't help her stomach tightening into knots in anticipation before starting a call with Liam, especially if Killian wasn't present. After taking a deep breath, she pressed the answer button while forcing her lips to twist into a smile to mask her nervousness.

The slightly blurred image of Liam appeared immediately on the screen. It was fun, in a way, to watch as his expression transformed several times over the course of just a few seconds. He went from sporting a radiant smile, to changing his expression to one of confusion when he realized that it was she who was answering to finally turn into an expression of regret, probably realizing that it was Sunday, what meant that, obviously, Killian was still sleeping.

"Good morning, lass." The smile returned to his lips, but then his face again showed a worried expression. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

And just like that, all the nerves disappeared and Emma could relax. In these three months, she had been able to learn a lot about the Jones family and she already knew that Liam lived in a state of almost constant concern and had a tendency to overanalyze everything. It was a little exasperating, at first, hence her initial nerves before starting a conversation with him, but deep down she had taken a certain fondness for his behavior.

"Nope." She answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. "But your brother, you know, he's still navigating in the world of dreams."

He chuckled quietly and rubbed his eyes with one hand, as if he wanted to get rid of the accumulated fatigue, before addressing her again. "It's Sunday, I know. Forgive me, love, I have a lot on my mind lately."

"It's okay, I'd been awake for a while." She offered him a cordial smile before continuing. "How are all of you guys over there? How are the kids?"

"All good, but the beginning of the school year is driving me crazy. September has been a very long month." He certainly looked tired, even though it was barely lunchtime there. "Anyway, now it seems that we have all adapted back to the routine, so I hope everything will flow better from now on. But enough talk about me." He waved his hand in front of the screen, his lips drawing a soft smile. "How are you, lass? Is your shoulder fully recovered?"

"Everything's fine." She raised her arm and rolled her shoulder to prove her point. "I'm returning to work tomorrow at full capacity." Emma suppressed the urge to roll her eyes when Liam's brow frowned slightly, wearing the same expression as his brother when he tried not to show his concern. They were so alike that sometimes it became a bit overwhelming.

From there they held a lively talk on various topics, the kids, her new case or the end of the peak season. Despite those nerves of anticipation that always appeared when she started talking to Liam, a warm sensation seized her whenever they talked, as she felt increasingly comfortable and integrated with the Jones family, as if she was part of them too.

What Emma did not expect was that the conversation would take such an unexpected turn.

"Oh god, I almost forgot the real reason for my call." He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand as he shook his head. "See? These children of mine cause me to lose neurons by leaps and bounds." Emma couldn't help a laugh bubbling in her throat at Liam's overdramatic attitude, something he also shared with his brother. "Anyway... there it goes before I forget it again. Do you know if Killian has already bought the tickets?"

"Tickets? What tickets?" She asked tentatively. She honestly had no idea what he was talking about, but that didn't prevent a strange sensation from settling in the pit of her stomach, causing her body to go suddenly tense. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"The plane tickets to travel to Ireland, of course."

Her stomach dropped to her toes while her smile faltered the moment her brain processed Liam's words and their implications. "There's only one month left and if he doesn't hurry the tickets will cost him an arm and a leg. As always."

Her eyes drifted for a moment as she took a deep breath in an attempt to pull herself together. He's leaving. Emma shook away that thought and pressed her lips together forcing a neutral expression before responding. "No, he hasn't bought them yet. I'll tell him later." She managed to reply in a carefree enough tone, or so she expected.

Although Liam continued speaking, Emma felt unable to process what he said, her mind occupied with other concerns. One month left. How had time passed so fast? Emma shouldn't be surprised, though. She knew, even before they started dating, that that was his life, that he spent half the year here in Boston and the other half back in Ireland. She knew that, they were both aware, but they had decided to live their relationship in the present without worrying about what might happen in the future. Also, back in July, November seemed so far away.

"Emma, are you alright?"

Liam's words brought her back to reality. Emma swallowed hard hoping to drag her unease down as she curled her lips up. In no way was she going to put more worries on his shoulders. "Yeah. I got distracted for a moment, thinking there is only one month left and we still have to finish some projects for The Jolly Cruises."

Luckily Liam didn't seem to notice her inner turmoil, as he smiled back at her, his face showing an expression of affection that caused her heart to calm down for a while. "That brother of mine has managed to involve you in his business, hasn't he?" He rolled his eyes, as his smile widened before continuing speaking without waiting for an answer. "You're doing an amazing job, by the way."

His compliment had an immediate effect on her, causing her cheeks to blush, a shy smile pulling at her lips. "Thank you. I was working right now on it while Killian sleeps."

"Oh, sorry for the interruption, lass. I'll let you get back to it, then." The conversation did not end there, though, since suddenly Liam's eyebrows arched and his eyes widened as if he were remembering something. "By the way, when Killian decides to buy his tickets you could take the opportunity to buy yours too."

"Mine?" What was he talking about?

"Well, considering that Killian will spend Christmas here, we assumed that you would come too." A warm sensation began to run through her veins as her heart swelled in her chest when she heard him. Both the expression of affection that appeared on his face and the spark of hope in his gaze only increased that feeling especially when she processed the true meaning of Liam's words.

"Eh..." She trailed off while swallowing hard to try to drag down the lump in her throat. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times but she was unable to make any sound. It was like she was so busy trying to curb the intense emotion that threatened to overwhelm her that her brain seemed unable to form coherent words.

She had never been invited to Christmas celebrations. Ever. She had practically ignored these holidays by keeping busy or locked in her apartment so as not to witness the happiness of others. She hadn't even considered that possibility when she started dating Killian so she didn't know how to handle so many emotions dancing inside her.

"You have to come, Emma. We will all be here." Emma had been so distracted for a moment that she didn't realize that Elsa had appeared on the screen next to her husband. Her expression was gentle, as always, but her slightly maternal tone, as if he were addressing one of her children, had the desired effect, as Emma managed to get out of her trance. "Christmas at the Jones' house is always special. It has been some time since we brought someone new so I'm sure that with you here it will be even more special."

She was totally doing it. Damn it, she deserved for once a good thing to happen in her life. It seemed such good things had not stopped happening since she had lost her phone. Now that her life seemed to have taken the right path she wasn't willing to lose more opportunities to be happy. And if she had to cross the ocean for the first time in her life to spend Christmas with her boyfriend and his family, nothing and nobody could stop her.

"Okay." She breathed out. "I guess I can use a couple of weeks of vacation since I’ve never taken one." She continued in a more firm tone while the corners of her lips rose slightly drawing a timid smile.

"That's amazing, Emma!" Elsa almost yelled, her voice dripping with excitement. "I can't wait to see you in person and finally hug you."

"Wait for the children to hear the news." Liam added, the wide smile on his face matching his wife's and probably also her own.

They continued talking animatedly for the next few minutes. There was something in common in all the members of this family, no doubt, that was their ability to spread their genuine enthusiasm to others. They got her to forget for a while about the implications of Killian's departure by having her focus instead on her own journey.

Only when she finished the call after saying goodbye and promising them that she would talk to Killian to buy the tickets did she realize that the smile hadn't disappeared from her face since they had begun planning her visit.

Her inner calm did not last long, though. The moment the living room fell silent again, the image of Killian made an appearance, causing her smile to fade and a feeling of unease to wash over her.

He's leaving. He's leaving. He's leaving.

After letting out a deep exhalation she set the laptop on the coffee table and laid back onto the couch, with her head on the arm while she massaged her temples in an attempt to eliminate those thoughts.

He wasn't leaving. He would only travel for a few months and then he would come back to her. She was sure of it, but that didn't stop her selfish side from making an appearance. He could always choose to stay. They both could travel a couple of weeks during Christmas and come home together.

No. That was not an option. She may have lived the last years selfishly, looking only for herself because she had no one to lean on, no one to fight for. That stage of her life had been left behind, though. The love she felt for him was so intense that his happiness had become one of her goals in life, because if he was happy she would be too. And she was fully aware that she didn't have the exclusivity of Killian's happiness. She could not take him away from his other great source in that regard, his beloved family.

The sound of footsteps coming from the hall drew her attention, so Emma raised her head slightly, directing her gaze in that direction. Killian appeared at that moment in her sight, as if he had been invoked.

He was... he was many things, but at that moment she could only think that her boyfriend appeared gorgeous in his sleepy state. Emma sat up a little leaning on her elbows to delight in the glorious image in front of her. His eyes were still partially closed giving him an adorable drowsy expression and his hair was completely disheveled. He was shirtless, of course —she wasn't going to complain at all, his bare torso was certainly a vision.

His lips moved subtly up when his eyes fell on her. "Morning." He mumbled in an almost intelligible tone and then, without giving her time to react, he laid on her, pressing his body against hers and burying his face between her breasts.

Emma couldn't help smiling while her hand brushed his hair. If there was something she had learned since the very beginning, it was that Killian despised having to get up early on Sundays. Whenever he had to get up early that specific day he ended up dragging an aura of moodiness for the next few hours. Today was still early for his standards.

"If you wanted to continue sleeping you could simply have stayed in bed."

"Nonsense. This mattress is much more comfortable." He muttered without bothering to move his head, his low voice muffled by her own body sending electric waves all over her skin. "Not to mention the pillow, magnificent." He raised his head, his piercing blue eyes fixed on hers and a smirk blooming on his lips. He then returned to his original position while making a satisfying sound as he settled back against her chest.

So he wasn't in a bad mood today, that was good. They continued in that position for a while, he emitting soft moans as she massaged his scalp and she feeling his warm breath on her skin.

There was something special in these little moments, where everything seemed to be calm and they remained in their own bubble of bliss, both together, enjoying each other, with nothing that clouded their happiness. Emma closed her eyes as she tried to etch this scene in her mind. She decided right at that moment that she was going to treasure as many more moments like this as possible, since they would be her companions when Killian was away, as a reminder that what she had experienced wasn't a dream, and also as a promise of future. They would share these experiences together again.

"Who were you talking to before?" Killian's hoarse voice brought her back to reality.

"It was Liam. The poor guy is still a bit disoriented with the schedule after the start of school." She bit her lower lip, doubting whether it was a good idea to explain the true reason for his call or not. At some point they would have to address the issue. Why not right now? After taking a deep breath, she kept talking. "He wanted to know if you had already bought the plane tickets."

His body tensed above her, while she held her breath waiting for his next reaction. He remained in the same position for a few seconds while her heart pounded so hard that Emma was sure he would be feeling it.

After a moment that became eternal, he let out a heavy exhalation before pulling up and sitting next to her. Without looking at her, he dragged a hand down his face and rubbed at his scruff.

Emma also sat up, crossing her legs in front of her, while carefully watching all of his reactions. "About that..." His voice trailed off as if he was deciding what to say next. He nodded in an almost imperceptible movement that didn't go unnoticed by Emma and then he looked into her eyes, the ghost of a smile adorning his face. "I've been thinking that maybe this year is better if I stay here."

Her eyes widened and her breath hitched as she tried to process the meaning of his words. His gaze remained fixed on hers, those piercing blue eyes capable of reaching her very soul. He was choosing her. He had made a decision. He had chosen her over everything — or rather everyone —else.

"I mean. Maybe I can travel for Christmas, since I wouldn't like to miss the holidays there. Or maybe I can arrange a couple of trips in alternate months. I don't know..." He was rambling, his hand reaching to scratch behind his ear in that characteristic gesture of his, but then, his eyes bore into hers while his features turned into a solemn expression. "I just know that I don't want to be separated from you for five bloody months."

Everything made sense at that moment. She realized what he had gone through the night before, his struggle as he tried to decide what he should do. She also understood how after making love, he seemed much calmer, his expression more serene, as if that inner struggle had ended with a clear winner. He chose her. I love you, too. More than anything.

She felt a lump in her throat, a surge of emotions rising in her chest as the back of her eyes began to sting. She allowed herself a few more seconds to remain in that sensation as if she were floating. Then, she squeezed her eyes to stop the incipient tears as she lightly shook her head in an attempt to not let herself be seized by emotions and to act rationally.

For once in her life, someone had chosen her, regardless of anything or anyone. She already had that, she could already treasure it as something precious. But she couldn't allow him to make that decision, at least not without first expressing what she felt.

"No." The word came out of her mouth before she even had time to process it.

"No?" His voice dripped with confusion as his brows furrowed.

She felt the irresistible urge to touch him, to feel the warmth of his skin under her fingertips, to make that wrinkle between his eyebrows disappear. She did not resist the impulse this time, so without thinking twice, she got up and sat astride him, her hands cupping his face.

"I appreciate your choice. You don't have any idea of what it means to me." The smile that blossomed on his lips almost made her melt into a puddle. She had to blink a few times to break the spell and be able to continue. "But I'm also sure that I won't be the cause of you being separated from your family."

He made an attempt to reply, but she brought her index finger to his lips and tapped them lightly. In response, he pressed a gentle kiss on her finger and remained silent. This was a decisive moment in her life. She was aware that by making this decision, she was ignoring her selfish side, the one who had helped her survive all these years ago. She knew she was taking a leap of faith, but she was also sure that no matter what, Killian would always come to her. After taking a deep breath, she continued talking.

"You should go. Your family loves you, they're looking forward to your return. Your niece asks every day when you're going back home. Besides you also have responsibilities there. We... We will figure out what to do next year, with more time to organize."

Both remained silent for a few seconds, while she watched as endless emotions crossed his gaze, the blue in his eyes more intense than ever. She felt his hands placed on both sides of her waist while caressing her skin under her shirt in a rather distracting movement. It was Killian who broke the silence, his hands never leaving her body.

"Next year... I like how it sounds."

It sounds like a promise. Like a future.

“So…”

He tilted his head and she mirrored him, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He then threw back his head and let out a deep sigh before his eyes fell on hers again. The intense flash of his gaze was a clear indication that he had finally made his decision. "Okay... I'll go with one condition."

This time it was she who looked at him in confusion. “What condition?”

"That you travel to spend Christmas with us."

She didn't even have time to explain, since Killian suddenly seemed extremely motivated, any inner struggle forgotten to focus on a new goal. "You can't turn it down, Swan. I'm sure Graham won't deny you a couple of weeks of vacation." The excitement radiating from his body was such that Emma did not dare to try to interrupt him again. "Think of it as a way to fulfill your dreams. You can finally travel to Europe and you can also live, even temporarily, near the sea. It's a perfect plan, love."

"Okay, I accept." She said simply while shrugging her shoulders in a nonchalant gesture. She pressed her lips together to stop the laughter that had begun to bubble in her throat.

"You do? Just like that, without objections?"

"I mean. You could have saved your speech. Very convincing, by the way. The truth is that I had already accepted before."

"Before?"

This time Emma couldn't help bursting out laughing. It was as if Killian was living in a state of permanent confusion since they had begun this conversation.

"What is so funny?" He asked in an amused voice.

"You keep asking with an expression of confusion like that." Emma made an attempt to imitate his expression with her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes narrowed, causing him to chuckle.

The liberating laugh subsided after a few seconds although Emma could still feel his vibrant body under her touch.

"That's because I can't figure you out today, Swan. You keep surprising me." The sound of his velvety voice and the tone full of devotion did something in her insides. "But you never answered my question, love."

"It was your brother." She admitted. "He and Elsa convinced me to travel and I accepted."

"So is it true? Are you going to travel to Ireland?" She watched his expression of disbelief, his eyes flickering quickly between hers, as if he still didn't believe it.

She nodded with a slight movement of her head, while her lips curled in what she hoped was a reassuring smile, her hand gently brushed his cheek.

The expression on his face became one of pure happiness, his sparkling gaze the last thing she saw before he pushed her against him and kissed her hard.

The last coherent thought that crossed her mind before getting lost in the incredible feeling of being kissed by Killian Jones, was the somewhat startling idea of flying for the first time over the ocean. She better get used to the idea of making the trip, because there would be nothing to stop her from flying to Killian and his family.

The countdown began. But instead of counting the days left for Killian to leave, she decided to focus on the days left to fulfill her dreams. She couldn’t wait to discover Europe, but what she was looking forward to the most was being able to enjoy the Christmas spirit for the first time, something that had been denied to her before but now, thanks to Killian, would finally come true.

Before you yell at me, Killian leaving to Ireland was something planned from the beginning, but hey, Emma is going to travel too and I have plans for them there. They will only be separated during one chapter, I promise (maybe I shouldn't, given my tendency to split chapters, but that's my plan anyway)

Thanks for reading :)

@rouhn @couldnthandleit @teamhook @malec4everr@kmomof4 @resident-of-storybrooke @suwya @thisonesatellite @lfh1962 @let-it-raines

#cs ff #captain swan #captain swan ff #cs au #call me #cs au ff #mayquita writes #my cs writings

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