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wen-kexing-apologist · 5 months

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ngl i am waiting for you to write about physical touch and HANDS in last twilight *insert manifestation circle.gif here*

Not gonna lie, as much as I have been enjoying Last Twilight, I haven't felt all that inspired to write about it, but it has been making me feel all warm and fuzzy now that people are reaching out and asking for my thoughts. Turns out people actually seem to enjoy my horrendously long posts!

Alright, I will talk about physical touch and hands in Last Twilight, but before I get too far in to it, I just want to say, I love the use of physical touch in shows, but I will dare to claim the use of physical touch seems particularly important, and especially complicated in Last Twilight, compared to most of the other shows I've written about. Why?

Because Day is blind, and Mhok is his caretaker, and if you are remotely aware of disability, the autonomy of disabled people, the privacy of disabled people, the survival of disabled people are often disrupted by abled bodied people. I saw a post somewhere, sorry I can't find it, where someone mentioned the rates of abuse of disabled people by their caretakers and how that might weigh in to Day's reaction to touching a shirtless Mhok in Episode 2.

So.

With Day's blindness, grief, and intentional isolation, as well as his family's anxiety, how much control has Day really had over his own life in the last year? As @bengiyo said in Episode 1, "Day's brashness in the interview when he asks Mhok if he's hot sounds like a gay man knowing that he is about to be touched a lot by a stranger" [not a direct quote, apologies].

Episode 1

gif from @dragonsareawesome123

The first physical touch we get between Day and Mhok is when Mhok touches Day's chin, making a comment that essentially boils down to Day having a punchable face. You can see how shocked Day is to feel Mhok's thumb on him. But the motion is quick, light, and slightly flirty (though maybe I'm reading a bit in to that last one since I know this is a BL). While Day seems taken aback, he doesn't seem uncomfortable with the touch at all, moreso, to me at least, he seems surprised that Mhok *isn't* shying away from touching Day after Day so loudly and blatantly declared his queerness and hit on Mhok.

photo from @thescrumptiousstuffs

The second physical touch we get is when Day leaves his car and winds up on the street with traffic whizzing past. Mhok pulls Day off the street when Day gets overwhelmed and Day goes crashing in to Mhok. I don't remember them staying pressed together for too long, but there is a moment where Mhok is embracing Day. Mhok's hands go to Day's hips while Day's hand rests on Mhok's chest near his collarbone. From my view, this is a decently intimate position for relative strangers, but they don't feel uncomfortable in it. Which is a great hint that Mhok and Day are going to become more to each other. Mhok does something here that I do think is important, which is to tell Day who is he, so Day knows he isn't being manhandled by a *complete* stranger. And though I suspect the biggest reason why Day ends up being driven home by Mhok is because Day wants to be away from Night, it cannot be denied that Day already has some modicum of trust in this random, crass man that burst in for an interview just the other day. Because, as we know, Mhok was really the only person who interacted with Day without falling victim to pity, inspiration porn, or infantilization.

The third physical touch I consider important is when Day's mother stops him from standing up. I've been reading @waitmyturtles PhD level thesis on Bad Buddy so filial piety and saving face is pretty present on my mind. I think it is important to acknowledge that Day does have some autonomy, but where he exercises it is very clear. He can leverage his blindness and his bad experiences with past caretakers to get what he wants out of his mother, and he can double, triple, quadruple the caretaker salary without consulting his mother. But when it comes to physical movement, he listens to his mother, but not to Night. Night tells him to stay in the car, and Day almost immediately leaves the car and goes in to the Society. Day gets out in the middle of traffic after a fight with Night, even after Night begs him to stay in the car. But that moment of challenge from Mhok where he tells Day to come get his ID himself, and Day starts to stand, everything stops dead in its tracks at the first light touch of his mother's hand on Day's chest. So, despite the moments of anger and rebellion we see from Day, he still listens to his mother.

gif from @dragonsareawesome123

And then Day moves to get his ID, and here is where I will mention a moment where there was not any touch. Which, probably could be an essay in and of itself, but I don't have the capacity at the moment, on this airplane, to comb through all the scenes and look for it. But here, this one feels important, because Day takes the ID from Mhok, but Mhok does not let go right away. Their fingers are so close, and in a lot of movies, the handing over of an item would usually involve some sort of moment where fingertips brush and a shockwave of electricity ripples through the future couple. But we don't get that here. The moment of connection, the moment that Day really knows he can trust Mhok, the moment Day decides he is going to hire Mhok has nothing to do with touch, and everything to do with sound. He hears Mhok read Chapter 21 of The Little Prince, a book that is desperately important to Day, and that is that. And I do think it is important that these little touches that we've had, and where we break from the romance tradition for touch are important. Because, I think it is totally fine for feelings to grow between Mhok and Day rather quickly, but I do not think it would have been wise to show Mhok having some sort of actual crush on Day from the beginning. If Mhok had some sort of romantic or sexually attractive feelings for Day before he started working there, that would, in my opinion, read as predatory in some sense. Especially looking ahead to Episode 2, when Mhok is shirtless in Day's room.

Because, the thing about physical touch in television is that a lot of different elements go in to selling it as romantic chemistry. One of the most important components is timing and close up. As a side note, I think timing is a huge factor in to why I did not enjoy Perth and Chimon together in Dangerous Romance (before I dropped it) because the camera just never lingered long enough on their faces or on their touches for me to believe they had feelings for each other. But, by Episode 3 of Last Twilight I can see the care and the chemistry between Mhok and Day. I can see the comfortability that Mhok and Day have from almost the very beginning of knowing each other, but I don't take much of their physical interactions to be sexually charged or romantic in Episode 1. Why would they be? These two don't know each other. By generally avoiding zooming in on just Day and Mhok's hands when they touch, by having Mhok grabbing Day's chin with his thumb quickly and lightly you aren't building to tension. Aof is merely demonstrating that physical touch between Day and Mhok is welcomed and Day is not going to be uncomfortable with having Mhok take care of him.

So we head in to Episode 2 with the understanding that there is some fundamental aspect of Mhok that Day is drawn to, and that Mhok and Day are going to get along.

Episode 2

Now, as much as I have loved the rapidly developing relationship between Mhok and Day, I do kind of wish we had had a full episode's worth of two angry, grieving people coming head to head. But, regardless, Aof handles the transition between casual touch and Something More with expert precision. Unsurprising, considering his oeuvre.

gif by @mooninaugust

So we get absolutely my favorite touch moment to date in Episode 2 with the absolutely terrible secret handshake between two blind people. I love how Mhok is witness to this moment of excitement and friendship between Day and Aon, and that we are too. Because it shows us where Mhok currently stands in Day's hierarchy of relationships. Mhok at the beginning of Episode 2 is still an acquaintance, some dude they hired because he cursed the family out and read The Little Prince during his interview process. The cut scene between Mhok saying Day might not want to see him, and Aon and Day hugging and doing their stupid loser handshake (I love them) shows Mhok and the audience that Day does have joy within him, and that Day is starting to build friendship and connection within his new (read: blind) community. We won't know until a little later in the episode how much Day has been cutting himself off from his old life, but for the time being Mhok knows his place in Day's life.

And Aon picks up on the fact that there is *something* even if it is not necessarily romantic there between Mhok and Day, again not by seeing anything physical between them because a) Mhok and Day did not touch in front of Aon and b) Aon would not have been able to see it anyway. But instead calls out the fact that Day has never talked about a single one of his caregivers before. We know now (and definitely should know already) that Mhok is different from other people Day has engaged with since he started going blind. We just haven't had time for their relationship to mature.

photo from @thatgirl4815

If I recall correctly, the first physical touch between Mhok and Day we get in Episode 2 is when Day accidentally touches Mhok's titty while searching for the eye drops. You can see Day recoil in shock a bit and he questions Mhok almost immediately as to why his shirt is off. Mhok is incredibly matter-of-fact in explaining that Day said he didn't like the smell of cigarettes, so he took his shirt off so as not to stink up Day's room (we can ignore the fact that he would still smell like cigs, but we ignore it For The Vine) and Day relaxes and makes some sort of annoyed comment. Again here, there is no romantic attraction in this rather intimate touch. I mean, this is Mhok's what? Second or third day? Mhok and Day barely know each other, Mhok is constantly fucking up the Whole Routine because he isn't communicating with Day about what Day's needs are, and here he is in his employer's room having his pec fondled. This is supposed to read as funny, and ultimately I think it does, but it doesn't read as romantic, and it definitely should not. What has Mhok done up to this point that would cause Day to have Genuine Romantic Feelings for him? Nothing.

photo from @moonchildridden

Again, the first hint that feelings may be approaching comes outside of the touch, with Mhok seeing how excited Day is to use those few precious seconds of better vision to watch his goldfish. And even moreso, it's not just the action that I think start the train rolling, but the conversation that Mhok has with Day where he asks if the goldfish is lonely. Mhok is able to con Day in to leaving his room by leveraging the health and safety of one of the few things Mhok has seen Day care about and connect with in the short time they've known each other. Day gets outside for the first time in god knows how long, to find that the jasmine is in bloom and to have a lovely conversation with Mhok about it. Mhok asks about Day's vision, how he sees, what he can see, and he tries to adapt to Day's necessary distance requirements. Day of course, has his head turned away and thus does not see Mhok coming in to Day's eyesight range, and bumps his nose against the top of Mhok's finger.

This little, accidental movement is one of my favorites of the episode, mostly because it opens up the conversation where Day asks what Mhok is doing and Mhok asks if Day wants to see his face. And this scene establishes exactly what I mean about timing as it relates to building sexual tension. Day ponders for a moment, the camera lingers on his face, the audience begins to feel like Day is caught off-guard, like maybe he does have some sort of crush on Mhok and he does want to see his face. Only for Day to break that tension right before it gets awkwardly long and tell Mhok he does not. This is closer to the shit that friends would pull. And thus we see that in a very quick period of time Mhok is becoming more important in Day's life as a waypoint. He is listening to Mhok, he has a slight bit of banter going with Mhok when they watch a movie, and even after Day fires Mhok (for the physical touches I will talk about next) Mhok's influence on Day's general day to day (haha) existence is clear in the fact that Day is sitting on the couch and trying to pick a movie entirely independently of anyone.

Things are starting to go smoothly, when Day's friends show up asking when he got back from America. Day panics at the unexpected arrival of friends who seem not to know about his condition, spills his popcorn, and falls to the floor, where he is desperately scrambling to get back on his feet and Get The Fuck Out. Mhok tries to help him up, but he's pretty quickly brushed off. This is the first time we see Day reject a touch from Mhok. Knowing what I know now about where we end up in Episode 3, I am realizing how important this entire scene (from Day tripping to Mhok getting fired) is for establishing a comparison point for change. Because the unwanted touch continues when Mhok breaks in to Day's room, also in a panic when Day is bathing.

gif by @btwinlines

We get such a juicy moment of Mhok and Day's trauma clashing with each other in a way that is unintentionally terrible all around. Day does not know about Mhok's backstory, Day does not know that by putting in his headphones and intentionally ignoring Mhok he is accidentally triggering Mhok regarding the death of his sister. Mhok knows that Day is upset, but only hears the room fall quiet, he does not know that Day is in the bathtub (read: naked) when he comes barging in. Again, to reference the post whoever it was made that talked about the rates of abuse/assault of disabled people by caregivers, this is a horrifically vunerable position that Day finds himself in. Mhok is far enough away from Day's range of vision for Day to see him immediately duck behind a wall to give Day privacy while he wraps himself in a towel. And before Day can really process what is happening, with both his emotions and Mhok's running high, Mhok is grabbing at Day's wrists to check them for cuts. A beautiful (and terrible) detail.

Personally, I do not think anyone's reaction to that situation is wrong, but it does give Day a second round of extremely uncomfortable and unwelcome touching from Mhok, when he's already escalated, and trying to process the fact that Mhok just barged in to his room while Day was naked and got a little peek. Here Day demonstrates that he does have autonomy, and that Mhok respects that autonomy with Day firing Mhok after two particularly awful physical interactions, and with Mhok not even saying a word in protest and just accepting his termination and leaving the house.

photo from @thescrumptiousstuffs

Now. Mhok isn't completely going out fighting, and Mhok I think has really started to realize that he cares for Day (even if he doesn't necessarily have feelings at this point) because of how badly he was triggered by Day falling silent. Mhok is a thoughtful person and respects Day's boundaries by sending Porjai to the house instead of going himself. Much to Day's chagrin, because the second the doorbell rings, you can see this hopeful look that maybe Mhok is going to walk through that door. Porjai hands Day the present Mhok bought him, and Mhok does hold the slippers close, but he relies heavily on his hands to feel the slippers to figure out what they are and what they look like. He knows immediately that Mhok has been paying attention and trying to get to know Day immediately because the slippers solve the problem Day has had with hitting his feet on furniture corners, and the slippers look like goldfish, one of the few things Day has seemed to care about since knowing Mhok.

Beyond the fact that I think Day already felt bad about what happened the other day and regrets firing Mhok, this really does demonstrate to Day that people still care about him, want to get to know him, and understand that adaptation is a constant in Day's new reality. But Mhok takes it further, by committing to the motherfucking bit to understand Day better.

Aside: I fucking *love* Aof for how often his stories focus on the overlooked or disenfranchised people, and I think that while it is going to be a feat for Last Twilight to become my favorite Aof piece considering how important Moonlight Chicken is to me, the backstories of Mhok and Day and the way they inform character decisions is perhaps my favorite of all of the shows I've seen of Aof's. I *love* the conversation that Mhok and Aon have where Aon says Day is scared of being looked at and judged by people, and how Mhok is like "why?" because he has spent the last year a visible criminal, trying to get a job, and being constantly rejected for exactly the reason he thinks. Mhok has spent so much time and energy over the last year trying to reintegrate himself in to society, while Day has spent so much time and energy over the last year trying to remove himself from society as completely as he can. Even if I am not sure that he believes it wholly, I do think Mhok understands that he isn't an inherently bad person because he was locked up, but that he is a victim of circumstance, and yet even reformed from his truancy past, Mhok found it impossible to get a job because people stopped caring about him as a person the second they saw his ankle monitor. Thus, Mhok knows exactly what it is like to be written off, to be abandoned, to be forgotten and I think it is for precisely those reasons that Mhok decides to spend the time and effort to understand the world that Day is living in.

The ankle monitor has served as an embarrassment for Mhok in such a way that I truly do not think Mhok is concerned about seeming like a complete and utter fool. And even so, he starts to understand the fear that Day is living with existing as a blind person in public, because Mhok is extremely used to seeing what people think of him without them having to say anything, and now he has no idea.

gif by @btwinlines

Which I think is a good segue in to the next physical touch we get, which is Day feeling Mhok's face in the marketplace after he asks Porjai to take him there. Again, the distance of the camera, the timing of the movement does not come off as romantic, at least to me. But it does come off as comfortable. I think Day is fucking with Mhok a little bit when he touches his face, and we don't actually acknowledge or get any conversation around the way Day has just demonstrated what it feels like to be touched without warning.

And YET AGAIN Aof has their bond strength not through touch, but through conversation. Because they aren't falling for each other yet, they are still learning about one another. And so they have a conversation where Mhok apologies and Mhok explains what he was trying to do and Mhok identifies what it is that makes Day so afraid of being in public. And we end Episode 2 with Mhok being re-hired as Day's caregiver. But wait!

Remember the last touch we get in Episode 1 is not a touch at all, it's Day taking his ID back from Mhok. Well, the last touch we get in Episode 2 is not a touch at all, it's Day throwing his hands to the sky on the back of Mhok's motorcycle and letting the wind hit his face. It's Day sitting on the complete opposite side of a glass tank, and using his moment of improved vision to catch a glimpse of Mhok. They aren't touching, yet we end the episode with the understanding that Day and Mhok have strengthened their relationship and are on the fast road to friendship. Personally, I feel like it is extremely responsible of Aof to not treat touching a blind person or having a blind person touch you as inherently romantic, and to have the more stomach swoopy moments come from actions and observations entirely devoid of touch. But, I'm not blind so I don't know how much something like that might actually matter to blind people who are engaging with this story.

Episode 3

IT IS TIME FOR FEELINGS!

There are so many physical touches in this episode. The first we get is Mhok unwrapping a bandage on Day's foot, with Day looking extremely at peace with the action. The second we get is Mhok kind of poking at Day and then jokingly moving to pick Day up when he refuses to start cleaning his room. Day doesn't seem like a person generally fond of man-handling, but you can tell very easily that Mhok is just fucking with Day because Day fucked with Mhok. We are witnessing friendship! Which persists throughout the entire episode.

photo by @athousandbyeol

I like too that Mhok using the blindfold to better understand Day is not a one and done situation. Again there are a few friendly touch moments that do not at all read as romantic.Mhok steals Day’s sunglasses and is perfectly at peace with Day feeling up his face to try to see if the sunglasses Mhok is wearing are his; and when Mhok's hand envelopes Day's when they are trying to guess the shirts in Day's closet by feel alone. Day does not tense up, he doesn't suck in a breath, he doesn't really let that touch linger. He shakes it off quickly and is like "that's my hand". And again, as an aside (I hope this does not come across inappropriately but) I kinda like that Mhok is almost gamifying Day's blindness. What I mean by that is that Day and Mhok are engaging in friendly competition to see who can accurately guess the article of clothing. It seems like a great way to bring some joy and levity to helping Day get better at understanding his surroundings without the use of his vision.

I am an absolute sucker for couples in shows that have an established friendship beforehand. I don't mean friends to lovers necessarily, but too often in BLs I have noticed that romantic interests are only ever that and we don't get a lot of moments of stupidity, tomfoolery, and fun. So you better believe I was living my best life in the next physical touch scene when Day and Mhok are fighting with the dinosaur costumes on. And this is where the physical touches start to change, because we start without physical touch and end with it, where we have up until this point been ending every moment of connection and relationship progression ending without touch.

gif by @raypakorn

For the dinosaur fight, we get the non-romantic, entirely platonic assistive touch of Mhok helping (poorly) to guide Day to the driveway (this fucker was so ready to wrestle he forgot to tell Day to mind the stairs at first lmfao). The actual point of connection starts with Mhok intentionally trying to dive out of the way of Day’s touch. And once again Mhok Day’s blindness to elevate a game between them, by clapping and then diving out of the way to try to avoid Day’s movements. But that avoidance of physical interaction very quickly devolves in to a wrestling embrace, laughing, having fun, and then settling on the ground to chat until Day hears his mother’s car and they run back inside to hide the evidence of childish glee.

Day’s mother returns to find a very different Day from who she left, he’s out of his room, he’s eating in the dining room, he’s seeming much more confident in his ability to navigate around the house. And of course, she has to go and ruin the moment by pushing too quickly on a nerve about going back to school. Day wants to withdraw from school and he needs to go in person.

Now.

We have seen Day taking massive strides in his own healing process in the last few episodes because he is starting to ask for help when he needs it, and Mhok is getting better at caretaking because he is started to ask if Day wants help for certain tasks or if Day is going to do them himself, thus allowing Day to set his limitations. Knowing that Day is going in to school, he asks Mhok to help him fix up his hair, and we get the first of many more crush-level physical touches in the show.

gif by @jimmysea

I’m not Thai, so forgive me if this is wrong, but I am pretty sure that in Thai culture the head is considered sacred and having people touch your head carries a significance that I do not think Western audiences really understand (speaking as a Western viewer). If this is indeed true, then the scene where Mhok is fixing Day’s hair gets even more intense, even when there is a clear change in Mhok’s view of Day from friendly to starting to see something more. Mhok even makes a comment about how Day is a stunner (or something) when his hair is done, and when Mhok asks Day if he likes it and Day returns the question, there is a pause that is not at all dissimilar to the pause Day had after Mhok asked him if Day wanted to know what Mhok looked like.

But where the tension from Episode 2 when Mhok asks the question is broken in a way that makes it seem more like Day is just teasing, I don’t think Mhok’s deflection of “it’s alright” really returns the same level of dismissal. Because Mhok is starting to realize something about the way he is feeling for Day.

We get the inside of the Thai subway for the first time in maybe ever? As Mhok and Day make their way to Day’s college. And thus the not-a-date-kind-of-a-date adventure begins. Day is clinging on to Mhok’s arm as they navigate on to the subway car, at which point Mhok breaks off from Day to try to ask for a seat for Day. But Day grabs him and pulls him back, choosing instead of hold on to Mhok’s arm. Like I have been saying, Aof has been doing a really great job at differentiating the types of touches, and up until this point, the more intimate touches between Mhok and Day, such as when Day feels Mhok’s titty in his bedroom or Mhok’s face at the market, don’t read as romantic, because Day is taking in information to supplement his vision. Similarly, the moments where Day is holding on to Mhok for assistance in environmental navigation, such as when Mhok helps guide Day to his professor’s office or helps him down the stairs the physical touch is matter-of-fact on both ends.

photo by @athousandbyeol

But here, in the subway, we get the first instance of physical touch from an environmental navigation standpoint that reads more like a man who is developing a crush rather than Day just being guided…

…but that comes from Day, not from Mhok. Which I appreciate massively from the standpoint of ensuring that Mhok as the caretaker does not appear to be taking advantage of Day. In the subway, Day could have sat down, he didn’t need to stay standing, he didn’t need to continue holding on to Mhok. But he chooses to do that. He chooses to keep his arm linked tightly with Mhok’s, he chooses to get a little flirty with Mhok when he says as long as Mhok stays close to him, that’s all Day needs. And we get the close up of Mhok and Day’s hands when Mhok moves to tap Day’s hand gently, and the shot lingers. Because things are starting to change.

I said in a previous reblog last week when Episode 3 came out that Aof does this really interesting thing in his direction and cinematography when characters share intimate moments, in that he breaks from his standard visual format. The lighting often changes, the camera isn’t held as steady, the moments are zoomed in much closer than we are used to. We get it with Heart and Li Ming playing that spider game with their fingers the night that Li Ming sleeps over and we get it in the subway when Day stumbles slightly and swallows hard, embarrassed and avoiding eye contact while Mhok looks at Day kind of fondly.

gif by @taeminie

So we see the spark in the subway and then watch that spark begin to catch when they end up in the dressing room together. Day and Mhok both establish that they have never been in a dressing room with another person to cut the tension and nerves a bit. Afterall, this is the first time that we’ve seen where Mhok is getting up close and personal with Day’s partially nude body, when they are both calm, collected, and not amidst a panic attack about a potential medical emergency. No one is feeling violated, no one is feeling scared, no one is having their privacy forcibly removed from them. But that makes them all that more aware of how they are feeling, physically, when they are touching and being touched.

And we get a secondary Aof Camerawork Moment where the style of shot changes and we get that gorgeous zoom in on Mhok’s hands and Day’s chest when Mhok helps Day back in to his shirt. And isn’t it wonderful that the most sensual and intimate moment that we have seen from Mhok and Day so far is putting Day’s clothes back on?

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

Check out @btwinlines’ post about this scene.

Day and Mhok continue their day, find the Last Twilight book, and are hanging about the market where Mhok leaves Day standing against a pole while he runs to grab a drink. As a result, we get a bombardment of physical touch, the most overwhelming to date because Day is getting just absolutely shunted around, bumping elbows and shoulders with the people at the market with no idea of where he is or where he is going. And this is where we really get an understanding of how terrible physical touch can be when you don’t have any bearing of your surroundings and can’t see where people are coming from or anticipate contact.

We got a scene in Episode 1 where we see how dangerous being blind has the potential to be, but Day isn’t being touched by anybody at that point until he is pulled off the street by Mhok. But this time while Day does have a moment where he is in more physical danger because he stumbles on to the street, he is relatively much more safe getting lost in the marketplace than when he ran out on to the street in Episode 1, cause the few cars that are present are moving slow and know to be looking out for pedestrians. Day is grabbed and directed by random strangers who are trying to help him and kind of just…drag him along until he is out of the street when he is visibly panicking and then just…left on the side of the road with an offhanded statement from strangers that he is “safe now” and they just…leave him alone and continue on their way. Even there, with a helpful touch, there is no safety or comfortability in Day’s posture, he is not calmed by hearing that he is safe. Which serves as a really great comparison point for how comfortable Day has pretty much always been with Mhok (minus the one moment of severe dysregulation after being surprised by his friends and then by Mhok when Day was buck ass naked).

Especially when compared to the relief that just rushes through Day’s body when he and Mhok are reunited and they embrace.

AND LIKE OKAY, CAN I GO ON A BRIEF TANGENT TO TALK ABOUT THE PINK SHIRT?

gif by @tomystars

You know how in a lot of romances you get that moment where you get the like, love at first sight thing? Time slows down, one half of the romantic pair picks the other half of the romantic pair out of the crowd? WE GET THAT HERE, WITH THE BLIND CHARACTER BEING THE ONE WHO PICKS THE FUTURE LOVE INTEREST OUT OF THE CROWD.

The pink shirt is brilliant, and I love how it both acts as an anchor point for Day who is able to calm down upon seeing it, and not panic or freak out when being grabbed and embraced by Mhok after having a decently traumatic experience with physical touch just minutes before while also reaffirming that Mhok is learning and internalizing the adaptations he needs to incorporate in to his own life to make Day’s daily life easier and more accessible. Mhok understands how Day’s vision functions, he remembers that Day has said he could see that shirt from Mars it’s so bright, and he provides an in for Day to maintain his autonomy by making it possible for Day to potentially see Mhok before Mhok sees Day.

ANYWAY

@athousandbyeol

The embrace they share when Day and Mhok are reunited is not charged, is not romantic, at least not to me. But what it does show is how much care Day and Mhok have for each other, how quickly their friendship is developing, and the safe spaces these two will find in the other. Day calms so quickly the second he and Mhok are touching, as soon as he has an anchor. And he won’t let go of Mhok either.

Aof and co have been playing well with dichotomies, here, a situation that pulls Day and Mhok physically apart ends up bringing them emotionally closer together. It is clear that Day does not blame Mhok for what happened, even if Mhok was gone much longer than anticipated, and that is affirmed by Day defending Mhok to his mother when she questions Mhok’s caretaking skills and holds his criminal record over his head.

And, let’s not forget, this is just writing about the physical touch, this post does not discuss whether or not the lack of touch is important. I wrote a decent chunk of this in the airport without wifi, so I could only talk about physical touch from memory, I didn't rewatch anything like I normally do, so apologies if I missed stuff.

#last twilight #last twilight the series #last twilight meta #last twilight analysis #jimmysea #mhokday #mhok x day #morkday #mork x day #physical touch in last twilight #sorry for the delay anon I know you sent this ask the other day #but fun fact it does take me an ungodly number of hours to write things so I hope you did not feel ignored #wka long post

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nburkhardt · 10 months

Text

Of Scissors & Wild Curls

Trying to beat out my writers block by writing an au troupe I absolutely love reading and haven’t written before. Just a heads up, it’s in modern times just so I don’t have to worry about being accurate to anything in the 80s ✌️ (this was stated on June 16th, when I started it)

anyway enjoy!

It’s the worst day of his entire life.

Right now. This is absolutely the day to end all bad days. It’ll be in his autobiography, it’ll be written in news articles and maybe a movie someday.

He wants to die a million deaths, truly.

It’s The Worst.

…. Or he might be exaggerating a bit. Just a little. Really, it’s not the end of the world.

This time at least.

Look, he’s had a long ass week and had a fight with some idiot taking pictures of him absolutely not falling on his ass. And the record label just told him that they need at least another album before letting the band take a much needed break.

Also, if he’s being truthful here, his writers block is a killer.

There’s a wall just planted in his brain, cutting off any and all lyrics the band needs for another fucking album.

Where was he again? Oh, worst day of his life.

“We’re going to stop in the next town, maybe we can find a place to- help?”

He groans and throws his head back, looking over at Gareth, “dude, my hair is a fucking disaster. There’s no helping that!”

Gareth crosses his arms with a deadpan look, “Ed, I think you’re overreacting a little. It’s just a little piece of gum! It’s not even that far in your hair, maybe this can be a little-“

“Don’t say it!”

“-trim”

He glares at him, “a little trim? This piece of shit is near my goddamn neck, Gare! I CAN FEEL IT! That fucking asshole did it on purpose too, I just know it!”

There’s a little five foot asshole out in the world, that’s his number one enemy now. Slapping him on the back with a “great show, my man!” Before walking away with a snicker. At the moment he didn’t think anything of it, too busy focusing on the fans around him trying to get his attention. His adrenaline and energy buzzing too much to realize something off with that guy.

He didn’t even notice it, it was a goddamn fan to point it out. Because they felt it when they took a picture together.

See? Worst day ever.

Right now they’re in the bus already moving onto the next city for the next concert. He isn’t even sure what’s the next one, all he knows is his hair has fucking gum in it and it’s the worst thing to ever happen to him.

“I still think you’re overreacting just a little, look, maybe there’s a way to get it out without cutting anything. We just have to find a place, there’s a two day break before the next concert. Ok?” Gareth pulls his hands away from his face, “Chris even told our driver to be on the lookout for places already.”

Sighing, he leans back and looks at his best friend, “I guess you’re right”

“I’m always right, dude.”

Rolling his eyes, he gets up and decides to take a nap face down because there’s no way he’s making it worse and getting stuck to his sheets.

Okay so, he’s overreacting a little bit. But he’s been growing his hair out for years now. It’s the perfect length and just wild enough that everyone knows him just by the hair.

It’s his thing, okay?!

A phone is slammed down and he flinches before looking towards the front, “did the phone kill your dog? Or was that-“

Robin whipped her head around a pinched look on her face, “that was goddamn Fran asking for a perm, I swear to god I don’t know how you deal with her! She actually had the nerve to praise you about letting her go so long without paying! She’s scheduled for Friday, because and I quote ‘my hair is straight as a needle’ she doesn’t do shit with her hair, Steve!”

He shakes his head and grabs his water before walking towards her, “Truthfully? I kinda zone out when I’m working on her hair.”

Robin blinked at him before she burst out laughing.

Being one of the only hair salons in their tiny town has some benefits, which is taking some customers that only pay after ranking up to nearly $300. That and he can hire anyone he wants and having a crew of just their friends is a perfect way to deal with the few crazy customers they get.

Oh, and he gets to hang out with them all the time while doing something he actually loves.

When he decided to go to cosmetology school instead of whatever place his dad wanted, he didn’t think he’d end up here. Honestly. His mom told him there was a chance it would go no where, that it’ll just be another thing to add to his list of hobbies.

Baseball, basketball, swimming, drawing and lastly cutting hair.

According to his dad, all of that was pointless. Well, not basketball. To his mom, it just made him look good for future partners. Thankfully their opinions don’t matter to him much anymore, they’re long gone from this tiny town and he’s twenty five now.

Really, he doesn’t need their support or opinions anymore.

“Woah! Dingus come here!” Robin calls out without needing to, the shop is small and he’s just at his station, “there’s your dorky kids jumping around like actual kids”

Rolling his eyes, he stands next to her to find that; yes across the street is the kids- now teenagers jumping around some parked bus. He can’t quite make out what’s on the bus, his vision is shit with letters even with his contacts in. Whatever they’re excited about is probably related to their dragons game.

So definitely nothing he’d understand. Right?

His attention is drawn away from the teens because of the door opening, he spins around with a smile already on his face. “Hello, do you have an appointment today?”

Standing half way in the door is a tiny blonde with a high pony tail and clearly not from around here. He pretty much knows everyone in Hawkins, or at least he knows everyone that comes into his shop.

This person definitely hasn’t been in before, she is adorable though. Totally Robin’s type, actually. Glancing at his best friend, and yep, there’s already hearts in her eyes.

“Hi! No, actually I wanted to see if you did have any openings?” Tiny Blonde smiles and he can see her glance at Robin, “either of you?”

If he could, he’d totally leave Robin to handle this by herself. It’d be pay back for when she ditched him at the bar a few weeks ago, but he’s not that petty. “Technically she can’t cut or color anyone’s hair, but I’m free later. I got a person coming in like twenty minutes. What did you-“

“Actually, it’s for a friend of mine!” She shakes her head and pulls her phone out, glancing at it and typing something quickly before looking back at him, “Can you do like a quick, consult maybe? Not like now, but later?”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Robin nod her head as if she’s the one going to do it. Rolling his eyes he smiles and moves to the appointment book, taking a quick glance he can technically squeeze in something. “Just a consult?”

“Maybe a trim if all goes well, we could even come in tomorrow if you can’t today. We did just get into town, I’m sure my friend will understand if you can’t” her phone beeps and he can’t tell but it seems like she’s grimacing at whatever was sent, “or maybe you know another place?”

Technically he could send them somewhere else, but he’s curious plus from the glare he can feel from Robin- he glances at her and yep, she’s glaring a hole in his head.

He doesn’t need to ask her that she wants this pretty blonde to come back.

“Nah, you can come back at four. We can chat and figure out what needs or can be done.“ he smiles at her before handing over an appointment card, “I’m Steve, by the way. That’s Robin”

She takes the card with a smile, “Oh! I’m Chrissy, you don’t realize how much this will make my friend’s day. We’ll see you then, it’ll just be you two, right?”

“Yep! See you in a few hours!” Chrissy flashed a bright smile at him then Robin before opening the door and walking away.

He doesn’t even bother looking towards Robin to tell her, “You’ve got it bad”

There’s a loud shriek and then a laugh as Chrissy walks away. She smiles before looking down at her phone to text the good news.

‘Best news of your life right now, four o’clock. Dummy’

‘THANK YOU ❤️🖤’

It’s inching closer and closer to four and Steve isn’t sure if Chrissy just forgot or that her friend decided it wasn’t worth it. Either way, he’s going to clean up now because it’s been a long day and all he wants now is to drink some wine while relaxing on his couch.

He’s listening to Robin vent from across the salon, while cleaning the mirrors. “Despite how pretty she is, if they don’t show up soon I’m closing this place up!”

“It’s not even officially four yet, Robs.” He laughs and turns away from his mirror to clean the chair, “we have like five minutes before we give up on it.”

Robin let’s out a groan, spinning around to point at him with a glare, “It’s Friday night and I have plans, Steven!”

“I hope these plans don’t involve me, Robin. I have to be in here at fucking eight in the morning, I��d like to get at least five hours of sleep” he glares over at her, “the last time we went out and I had to work in the morning, I almost didn’t make it in”

Because of Robin’s loud laughter he nearly misses the door opening, he bounces up with a smile, “hi can I- Chrissy!”

Standing by the front desk is of course, Chrissy along with her is a tall guy with long wild curls standing next to her. He has a pair of sunglasses on and his hands shoved into the leather jacket he has on.

“Hi guys, sorry we didn’t get here sooner there was a crowd and this one couldn’t get passed it withou- ow! Eddie!” She glared at the man, Eddie apparently, and rubbing her arm.

It’s confusing but he’s not going to question it, his relationship with Robin is weird, probably weirder actually. So instead of questioning that he moves closer, “it’s fine, we were just cleaning up real quick. We said just a consult right or did you figure out what you wanted?”

Wordlessly, the two of a conversation right there. Hand movements, head nods and shakes before there’s a bright satisfied smile on Chrissy’s face appears. Eddie looks not upset per-say but definitely like he lost whatever was said in their conversation.

“Yep! He’ll do a trim, but there’s a little problem. You see, someone decided to put gum on his back and-”

Robin’s laughing again while he’s just horrified for Eddie. He can’t help but feel bad for the hair, well, maybe Eddie too. But he hasn’t said a word to them yet, still standing there with his glasses on and now crossing his arms with what looks like a pout on his face. Chrissy’s still talking about the gum and how it’s ruined Eddie’s day and they couldn’t figure out any other way to get it out.

He shakes his head, moving towards his chair and patting it, “well, I can’t figure anything out until you’re sitting in the chair and I get a closer look at the hair”

Eddie looks between the chair and Chrissy, before moving towards him and sitting in the chair. Sunglasses still on his face, a pout very much there as well. Up close, his hair is even more wild than he originally thought. The curls are a mess, that’s clear as he sticks his hand to figure out how much the gum is stuck.

It’s not too terrible, definitely bad but not enough where if he does cut it out, the hair wouldn’t be much different.

There is however, the fact that this guy is clearly not taking proper care of his hair. For as wild as it is, the curls are frizzy and not defined.

“Good news, I could cut the gum out and you’re hair won’t lose too much length or I could also try getting it out using some oil without taking scissors to your hair.”

“And the bad news?”

“You’re not taking proper care of your hair, these curls could be so much more”

He hears Chrissy let out a giggle and Robin’s definitely laughing with her, but his gaze is on Eddie, who’s mouth drops and nearly rips the glasses off to show that his eyes are wide with shock.

Steve can’t help himself, he smiles and lets his own little giggle out.

Eddie looks absolutely ridiculous and Steve might know him, like, at all. But he’s definitely someone he’d like to know eventually, being this dramatic over a little comment? That’s someone worth knowing, he thinks.

———

Ending it there lol.

Wanna know what’s funny? I started this to get out of my writers block and ended up getting it WITH THIS.

So I used wip wednesdays/weekends to push myself along and finally after also talking with @i-less-than-three-you & @strangersteddierthings I’ve decided to make this a two parter! I get to share what I already wrote AND give myself a way to write them actually getting together.

I also wanna shout out @artiststarme for helping me a bit too! They gave me a few suggestions and helped out so thank you to all three of them 🩷 you all are amazing and I love you!!

Tag list! (If you’d like to be added let me know)

@spectrum-spectre @itsfreakingbats @mysticcrownshipper @artiststarme @thereindeerlady @justforthedead89 @ronniescontinuum @freyaforestafay @littlewildflowerkitten @estrellami-1 @gregre369 @zerokrox-blog @bookworm0690 @flustratedcas @carlprocastinator1000 @marvelmwah @solliesolesito @navnae @i-less-than-three-you

@yikes-a-bee @sc00ps-ahoy @geekymagicalpotato @thesuninyaface @penny00dreadful

PS: if you made it this far you get to know that the thing with someone not paying until the bill is up to $300 is a true fucking story. There’s a lady that comes into my work (a hair salon btw) and gets away with coming in for a hair wash or color or perms and doesn’t pay! Idk why my boss continues letting her do this but she does 🤷‍♀️

#steddie #steddie fic #implied buckingham #nburkhardt writes #hair salon meet #steve harrington x eddie munson #rockstar Eddie Munson #hair stylist Steve Harrington #platonic stobin #platonic hellcheer #corroded coffin #stranger things fic

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hms-no-fun · 2 months

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i just want you to know that i read... i think Most of godfeels and had to stop because i was not enjoying it. but i think its really good and i really respect what you do. i think it's all too easy for people to mix up "this is not my cup of tea" with "this is bad and/or problematic". they dont take the time to see the artistry in it, why it is what it is, what it might be saying beyond their surface level read and the kneejerk reaction to it.

i also wanted to note that ive always been kind of scared of sharing fanworks for fear of writing "out of character" - and ive also even been afraid of it in original works. character isn't real and concrete, so anyone can decide something's out of character. so your exploration of that concept gives me more confidence as a writer. i really appreciate that and everything else you do. :)

thank you so much for this message! i'm glad you tapped out rather than force your way through something you weren't enjoying, that's a very mature response and something i wish more folks would recognize as a perfectly valid option. in fact i think pushing through and reading long after you've given up on the material, so to speak, is a great way to wind up angry at a writer for having "forced" you to endure such a trying experience. as i've said before, an author can't force you to do anything. you can close the book any time you like.

as far as the tension of "in character/out of character" goes, i think a lot of people in fandom struggle with the fact that "character" is very much in the eye of the beholder. sub-groups form within fandoms based on identities, politics, sexual predilections, etc, and typically gather around the fire that is their particular interpretation of a character. but from within that sub-group, it's rarely considered "an interpretation" so much as the obvious intended truth of the text. it's that intoxicating mood of finding people who share a perspective you rarely see elsewhere, like oh my god, you GET it, finally someone GETS it!

in homestuck fandom, for instance, quite a lot of people hate vriska and think she sucks, with a vocal sub-group of that sub-group still actively beating the drum that everything about her arc after [S] Game Over is the worst part of homestuck. but i love vriska, and my corner of the fandom very much organized around a full-throated defense of her. some folks think homestuck did tavros and gamzee dirty and that this is a fatal flaw in the text; when i countenance these people, i am convinced we read two very different comics. who's right and who's wrong? there are degrees. i can pull out any number of quotes from andrew hussie about the importance of vriska and the weenieness of tavros, but then, authors love to say things, and there's plenty of stories i love in ways that directly oppose to the authors' stated intent. the debate can never end because we are only ever talking about the version of a character or story that exists in our heads, based on the things that stuck with us when we read the thing (however long ago that was-- which is important because i find a LOT of people adamantly defending their headcanons haven't read the source text in a number of years. as time passes, your perception of the media you've experienced in the past morphs and distorts. someone who was right five years ago can be wrong today and not even notice the difference).

something i've realized in the last year is how much godfeels emerged from a very specific milieu, not just in terms of how we interpreted certain characters but in our approach to analyzing and talking about the text altogether. i believe most of the important stuff in godfeels is "in character" in most of the ways that matter, but it's built on a very specific meta that centered vrisrezi and transness and radical leftist politics and experimental hypertext. really, it's a post-Epilogues fanwork even despite the fact that godfeels 1 predates their release by a few weeks. and i think to this day a lot of homestuck fans haven't read the epilogues but have read fandom posts about how terrible they are (quite a lot of which will have either been written by teens, by people who already didn't like homestuck very much, or by one of the regressive stalkery weirdos prominent in the homestuck reddit/discord), and that misapprehension keeps them in the dark about just how many amazing tools the epilogues introduce to the homestuck formula that exponentially expand the expressive possibilities of attentive fanworks. and it of course elides the fact that the homestuck epilogues are a story about being in your 30s. i think we'll be getting a big re-appraisal of the epilogues in 5-10 years. it'll be the "twin peaks: fire walk with me" of homestuck, just you wait.

so these readers see my version of dirk being an unhinged murderous dick to a newly-out trans woman and go "he would never do that." then if i point at the epilogues, they'll say "i didn't read them/they're not even canon/that wasn't in character either." at which point there's nothing really to say, because we have two completely different perceptions of the text. who's right and who's wrong is almost always infinitely subjective, a circumstance that humans are notable for being very good at handling in a mature and politely discursive manner.

so i've got an "author's introduction" to godfeels baking in my docs to provide some context about the meta this story is built on, the milieu it came out of, that sort of thing. it won't make much of a difference in practical terms, but it'll at least be something i can point to.

in any event, thanks for this message. all i ever want is for people to give it an honest shot. i hope you can continue harvesting confidence from wherever it can be found. it takes a lot of audacity and backbone to be an artist, especially when you have something worthwhile to say. remember that you're not writing for the haters, you're writing for the kind of person, like you, who wants to see more stories like the thing you're writing. they're the ones who'll get it, they're the ones who'll stick around long after the haters have lost interest.

#sarahposts #in character #out of character #homestuck #godfeels #fanworks #writing advice #headcanon #fandom #long post

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bluginkgo · 3 months

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Quick announcement (before the diarrhea of information):

I'm gonna go on a semi-hiatus for a week or so. I'll still be around, just not posting any drawings. Need to replenish my energy and drawing reserves cause I'm dead >_<

Sleep behind scenes!

So... Ginkgo why the hell did this take you so long? Sorry, sorry 😅 Here's what happened. I got burned out after like 10 pages (specifically the manor backgrounds killed me, plus having the full gang in the story) and then got sick and was not feeling all that great. Working through the burn out, sick, AND college work on top was quite hard not gonna lie though, but I wanted to finish it ^^

Alright, now as for little unnecessary Easter eggs, I added as nods to the show and my other interests. ^_^

1. Undertale save point. Undertale had me sucked in for a good long while, and for some odd reason decided to re-emerge in a form of the star save. Made it purple for Uzi's effect over N. She made him more rebellious, so he started to question why is it his memories and dreams are strange/corrupted/missing instead of just going with the flow.

2. Ep3 nod. V and N have history, history that I wish we get to see. V was nicer, kinder, in my opinion, prior to the absolute solver going rampage. So it makes sense for them to have some sort of friendship at the VERY least. So I decides to give it a small spin to it too. A direct quote from ep3 ^_^

3. Ep 2 + 5 nod. I kinda pulled the moment when James dismissed N from ep2 together with events that follow after N leaves library in ep5. Chronologically, these events don't fit together, seeing as ep2 is when N first meets Cyn and ep5 is when she's already set up the massacre. But this is exactly what I was going for. N's memories are jumbled at best, so I took liberty in mixing, matching, and editing his memories just as the admin program would probably.

4. Absolute Solver symbols nod. My chats with @absolute-solver (sorry for annoying you with tag 😅) made me realize that the absolute solver ought to have more presence now. It's activated and running systems in the background for Uzi. Whiiiiich means that drawing absolute solver should start now. BUT, it's rudimentary at best. Symbols don't really make sense and are not completed for most of the time. Not until Uzi at least sees the error message in ep2, when she truly starts questioning what that weird symbol on her visor is. I headcanon that N does know or at least feel that the absolute solver symbol is familiar, hence the little comment.

5. Absolute Solver Nori. Why is there so many absolute solver Nori around? I'm certain she went back to normal, just like in pictures Khan showed us in ep4 post core collapse. But I connected the solvers together here. Uzi's absolute solver string is up and running, and because the solver is a hivemind, it'd connect the memories and warp them a little. So that's why Uzi's doodle of her and Nori at the end (and during memory recall) was so full of absolute solver. It's slowly taking root, whether she wants it to or not.

Personal touches/added/cut ideas:

N's tail wrapping around Uzi like a hug. Originally, Uzi was supposed to look more nervous, but not for the reasons you might think. I cut the nervous look to a more upset look so it wouldn't be confused for fear. Uzi's never scared of N (yes, I don't count ep2 either, that was a lot of events at once and very little time to process them). The nervous look was more of a "Why are you butting in?" type, you know? Being a loner makes you cautious, so when N prods at feelings, I figured Uzi would be a bit defensive.

Cyn is fully rendered and yet I glitched her so much I felt bad. So here's full absolute solver Cyn eldrich monster thingy. ^_^

I pulled a Hazbin hotel moment. Did you see it? Abracadabra GONE! All the scraps from first couple pages with NUzi chatting POOFED out of the existence. Did I get lazy and tired? Yes, that was the tell tale sign of burn out, when I stopped keeping track of background details and just kept the pod.

These progress shots show pretty well how the story boarding goes and how I change my mind too easily. 😅 storyboard is still as much of a mess as ever, sketch shows you I was gonna keep Uzi's hat, but decided against it in final product. I figured this. Nori gave Uzi the jacket whenever Uzi got a bigger body + hair. These are the same jacket and hair Uzi has in canon. Uzi's body is just upgraded again and her hair gets shorter in that regard. The jacket would be big on her, and cover her hands, but what's up with the fluff if I draw canon jacket more spiky? And where's the death battery drawing? I headcanon Uzi drew those on once she got into the angsty teenager stage. The jacket is more spiky from wear and tear.

Fun fact! You can sorta tell who's gonna show up in the comic by what memes I post prior. Here's some examples ^_^ Cyn showed up, and that was first practice with maid outfits and Cyn's eldrich form. Closely followed by manor gang, the second/final form of maid and butler outfits and prime practice for those scenes. This example is a bit spoiler for a meme I'm working on right now! I've never drawn Nori before, so I quickly sketched out the idea and continued on with the comic (otherwise, I'd lose my steam and procrastinate on it again). Memes are filler for you guys while I work on the actual projects (comics), and along the way, they give me practice and change in drawing style ^_^

Is it a coincidence that this comic is called Sleep with the release of a certain horror game? Actually, yeah pure coincidence 😅 I had this drafted allll the way back in November, and didn't take particular interest in poppy playtime until I saw lanky boi, which was actually during a stream I watched on release day of the chapter.

(I didn't know tumblr, or at least the phone app, had a tag limit of 30, BOY was I surprised @brookiedaaroacecookie that must have been THE tag city, sorry 😅)

Next comic is Loneliness 1 and 2

This one is split into 2 POVs from both Uzi and N side, thus its 2 separate comics. That one will be more NUzi centered, too, a slight angst and comfort spin to it. That will come... sometime. I have a few more projects I wanna finish up with prior to starting on these guys ^_^

Why are you still reading this? Omg, have a cookie 🍪 you made it. Have a nice day now ^_^

#murder drones #glitch productions #uzi doorman #murder drones fanart #murder drones uzi #murder drones serial designation n #serial designation n #serial designation v #murder drones n #murder drones v #bluginkgo's comics #the absolutesolver #murder drones absolute solver #murder drones cyn

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softpine · 1 year

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behind the scenes 🎬 - compilation

[read the post] + answered questions: [elaine’s trauma] // [elaine’s flaws]

this is one of the first major instances we’ve seen of elaine choosing to keep the peace by not bringing up something that upset her (stevie lying). she’s unsure who is right or wrong, so she’d rather just smooth it over and stop talking about it. we’ll see elaine do this again with austin immediately after this, so it’s becoming a pattern for her.

i wanted this scene to have a melancholy, sleepy, small town feeling, so i thought a church would be a great backdrop. i spent literally hours decorating the church (i gave it a whole kids playground in the back, and a corn field on the other side), but then you only ended up seeing it for one picture lmao. i even had to change the lot size so i could put her car on the road more easily. anyway, there’s this sign out front:

i chose this quote because, to me, it’s a very unhelpful way to look at life: to disregard your own problems because someone has had it worse. like... no, maybe you’re not suffering as much as jesus, but that doesn’t mean you’re not suffering at all. we can see that elaine is choosing to hide her emotions because everyone around her is going through “worse” shit.

tiny thing, but when elaine is about to cry as stevie is walking away, there’s a poster right behind her that says “Don’t let depression keep you down” :)

[read the post] + answered questions: [xena’s dad?] // [why did coco get so mad?]

i learned how to use premiere for this one! it was really simple once i learned the basics. all i had to do was turn the TV into a green screen and then the rest of the editing was fun color grading stuff.

the clip from Xena: Warrior Princess is meant to apply to coco specifically. but i can’t tell you why yet!

“See how calm the surface of the water is? That was me once. And then... [throws rock] The water ripples and churns. That’s what I became.” // “But if we sit here long enough, it’d go back to being still again. It’d go back to being calm.” // “But the stone’s still under there. It’s now part of the lake. It might look as it did before, but it’s forever changed.”

since i had to rewrite some things and i don’t think it will come up later, i’ll just tell you why coco thought she could trust tom in the first place: she takes a business class with him and she thinks the answers he gives during lectures are insightful. she knew tom recognized her from porn, but he never acted like a dick about it, so this was actually a bonus for her. she thought she could use it to her advantage – who wouldn’t want to do a favor for their favorite porn star? lol. she's also noticed him at the sports bar she works at, and he's never caused any problems. he even tends to keep his friends in check when they’re getting too rowdy over a game. overall, she thought he was a pretty decent guy, but unfortunately he ruined that :/

casper has a pill bottle on his desk. you can’t see the label, but it’s xanax. he takes it when he’s actively having a panic attack. that’s pretty much the only thing he’s doing for his mental health at the moment.

[read the post] + answered questions: [was austin’s mom home?] // [suicide tw]

when the scene opens, elaine is rehearsing her apology to austin in the mirror. you could interpret this many ways, but my intention was to show that it doesn’t matter how elaine truly feels about the situation or who was right / wrong, she just wants the fight to be over. in contrast, austin has been giving it deep thought.

truthfully, elaine didn’t want to have a heart-to-heart about her feelings. she’s flattered that austin opened up to her like that, but she doesn’t actually respond to anything he wrote in his letter – she doesn’t talk about marriage or kids or the future, she just kisses him and talks about the immediate future (the dance tomorrow). the interesting thing is that even though austin talking about his feelings is like pulling teeth, he opens up to elaine far more often than she expects him to. he thinks this is what she wants from him, but she’s never actually said that.

okay, so, the gun! it’s the second time we’ve seen it now, the first time being when austin’s grandpa pointed it at elaine’s head in a state of confusion. i wouldn’t blame elaine for being scared of it, even though austin told her it’s fake, but instead elaine has no fear in picking it up and looking at it more closely. she only gets scared when she hears austin coming home. all i can really say in addition is that the gun's placement on the dresser was deliberate, as was the polaroid of austin & elaine being underneath it (in fact, that wasn’t in-game at all, i added it in photoshop).

[read the post] + answered questions: [how many times has jada predicted her mom’s death?] // [sylvia?] // [past/present comparisons]

something i find heartbreaking is that jada has completely warped her memory of her mom due to time, trauma, and guilt. she hardly ever remembers happy memories unrelated to aileen’s death. but instead of feeling any negative emotions for her mom (even if they would be warranted) she directs them all inward. we’ve seen this in her nightmares, where she imagines aileen to be a cruel representation of her own guilt. in this flashback, we see that aileen is concerned, but doesn’t believe that jada’s visions are real, and she even calls her claims “ridiculous” after knowing that at least one of them has come true. jada wanted to lighten her guilt by sharing this knowledge with someone else, but it only made her feel worse when she wasn’t believed. years later, jada still puts none of the blame on her mom and all of the blame on herself.

we have no way of knowing how much aileen really knew. she may have dismissed jada’s claims out loud in an attempt to protect her, while secretly believing her (or at least partially believing her). you can tell that something has shifted in her perception after she hears how the ride operator died, but she tries to use logic to assuage jada’s guilt – and perhaps, her own guilt as well. we know that in death, aileen will repeat “I don’t feel good! Will you take me to the hospital?” – something jada originally said, not aileen. it’s a too-late warning, a constant reminder that she didn’t listen to her daughter and it cost her her life. if jada got her tendency to worry from her dad, she got her guilt from her mom.

[read the post] + answered questions: [who did jada condemn?] // [alisa’s abilities]

i’ve said almost everything i wanted to say about this one, but i do want to expand on why alisa reacted so strongly in this situation. at first, it seems that she’s deeply offended by the insinuation that she would give someone bad advice just to cause chaos. however, it becomes clear that alisa is more offended by jada’s hypocrisy. sure, alisa herself will admit that she does unethical things with her abilities, but jada has killed people with her abilities. except... does alisa actually judge her for this? or does she simply know it will get under jada’s skin? she finishes their conversation by saying “Don’t, for one second, think you’re better than me.” but she doesn’t argue that SHE is the better person. instead, she says, “We’re no different, you and I.”

but i’m not going to tell you how alisa feels, whether she’s being genuine, or if she really does care about jada – i want you to draw your own conclusions :P

#FINALLY!!#let me know if you like the random titles i give these scenes #it's just what i use to organize my notes but i can include the titles in all the behind the scenes posts if you want me to #i mean they're not very creative it's just to jog my memory fjksjds #frozen pines bts

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blessyourhondahurley · 1 year

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Part 1: Morning

After the best (mostly) sleepless night of his life, Dean wakes up to the start of a very special day.

(Read on AO3)

Dean can't sleep.

He's had sleepless nights before, of course. Hundreds, honestly thousands of them. Nights when his blood screamed with adrenaline left over from a recent fight. Nights when the pain of fresh wounds throbbed with every heartbeat. Nights when his head spun from whiskey, and cigarettes cadged off of friendly strangers. He's lain awake in anger, in despair, in loneliness, in exhaustion so deep it drove away the very cure it craved. He's spent bleak hours watching the numbers change on a cheap motel's cheap clock, too overwhelmed with dread for the coming day to allow himself even the respite of a long blink.

Today, though, for the first time in his harrowed life, he is wide awake with joy.

It's a few ticks past 4 a.m. according to the pretty nice clock on his pretty nice dresser. He is curled on his side in his bed, wrapped in warmth, listening to the pre-dawn birdsong, and he's so full of joy he thinks he might cry with it. He'd turned in shortly after midnight, but sleep so far hasn't come to him. He's just been lying there all night, smiling into the dark like a crazy person.

It's the sweetest vigil he's ever kept.

~~~~~

To his own great surprise, he must actually manage to fall asleep at some point, despite the joy (and the birds), because when the alarm rings at quarter of six, it jolts him out of a gauzy dream. The blankets shift and the form beside him unfurls. Cas gives a low, rumbling groan that Dean can feel in his spine as he's spooned snugly from behind. An arm wraps around his waist, a broad hand flattens on his belly, possessive.

“Too early,” the love of his life grumbles. Dean can't help but grin.

“You're the one who set the alarm, baby,” he chuckles, nudging a gentle elbow back into his bed mate's ribs. “We've got a busy day ahead of us, remember, and you said it was important that we had, and I am quoting you here directly, 'enough time to eat a filling, nutritious breakfast'.”

Cas drops a dry kiss, sleepy and slantwise, onto the side of his neck. “I regret every word,” he rasps.

“Oh really?” Dean says. “Because I also remember you including a slot in the agenda for morning sex. You regret that part too?”

Another kiss, this one firmer and with a hint of teeth. Cas's hand slips down Dean's tummy and insinuates itself under the elastic of his boxers. “On second thought I stand by my earlier statement in its entirety.”

It never takes Dean long to get riled up in the mornings, not when it's Cas doing the riling. Twenty minutes later, they're giggling in the shower, bodies flushed and blushing with post-coital glow. The day already feels golden, and his body feels weightless, like decades of fatigue and wear have fallen away from him. He's starting to contemplate a soap-slicked round two, his dick plumping a little between their bellies, when Cas slaps his ass hard and shoves him out of the spray.

“Go make me pancakes. You promised.”

“Bossy,” Dean says as he reaches for a towel. “You're lucky I love you.”

Cas turns off the water and gives him a gummy grin. “Yes, I am. I want mine with chocolate chips, thanks.”

Grumbling good-naturedly about eons-old entities with palates like a toddler's, Dean pulls on a clean pair of boxers and heads to the kitchen.

~~~~~

“Are you sure we have everything we need?” Cas asks him again. It's ten or fifteen to 9:00, and they need to get on the road soon if they want to be on time. On cue, the last-minute jitters have shown up. Cas is standing in the middle of the kitchen, wringing his hands together and looking around like he's never seen the place before in his long, long life. “I just feel like we're forgetting something,” he says plaintively.

Dean slots the last of the breakfast dishes in the drainer and turns to wrap him up in a hug. He kisses the spot on his beloved's forehead where his eyebrows are drawn up with worry.

“We're good, babe,” he soothes. “I checked and triple-checked. The car's packed, the calls have been made, the paperwork is all filed, I even took the trash out already.”

He can feel Cas's body relax in his arms as he runs down the list. Once the worst of the tension has dissipated, he pulls away (because they really are on a schedule here) and pecks out one more quick forehead kiss. “Today is gonna go off without a hitch,” he promises.

Cas smirks, puts a little tease in his voice. “Not even one hitch?” he asks.

Dean laughs. He has to kiss him for real then. They let it go on a bit too long, but, well, fuck it. It's their day. “C'mon, sweetheart,” he says, grabbing his fiance's hand and tugging him towards the garage. “Let's go get married.”

Continues here

#destiel #destiel fanfic #destiel fluff

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kadavernagh · 4 months

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Brokenspine Hill || Regan & Jade

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Eternal Light Cemetery PARTIES: Jade and Regan SUMMARY: Begrudgingly, Jade agrees to show Regan these vampires she goes to out to slay. She slays. CONTENT: It gets spicy, surprise. Happy holidays!

After an agonizingly long car ride through switchbacks and mountain passes, Regan trying to keep her focus on the road as much as possible and almost losing that battle, she and Jade finally made it, and the ornate, elegant gates of Eternal Light Cemetery stood tall in front of them. It felt like a reward for the trek here, and for not accidentally driving the car right off the mountain just so she could see batting eyelashes. Blue mist seeped from between the vertical barring like long fingers beckoning them in, and mushrooms were dotted around the gate. Her belly swam with the death of it all, or maybe that was something else. Regan turned to Jade, expecting her to be a lot further away than she actually was. Oh. Her breath snagged. Again. How many times was that? “I’ve, uh, never been up here, you know. Probably the only cemetery in town I haven’t visited. It’s…” The word lingered on her tongue as she looked at Jade, and she decided to speak it after a moment’s hesitation. “It’s beautiful. Shining like moonlight on fresh viscera.”

She was going to see Jade’s “vampires”. And in her bones and in her heart, she wanted Jade to be right – wanted them to be monsters. Not human. Not people. Not Metzli. And not cadavers. Creatures she could kill that wouldn’t make Regan fly into a frenzy about homicide. Jade wanted to be a protector, not a killer. Regan wanted that for her too. She wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t sure why she cared enough to do any of this. She could try to convince herself it wasn’t about Jade at all, that she just needed to see these “undead,” understand what they really were, and continue on with her life – all two months or so of it before she was dragged back in front of her grandmother and her life would practically start anew again anyway. But Jade, not knowledge, was at the center of this.

As they tracked through the gates, it was not the “vampires” she was thinking about.

Winter winds mixed with mountain air and the cold made her flesh prickle. Or maybe that was the blanket of death over the cemetery, with little but the glow of mushrooms and twinkling of fireflies able to shine through it. And Jade, glowing in her own right. Every once in a while, the mushrooms caught the glint in her eyes or the sheen of her hair and made her look almost ethereal. But Regan kept her admiration close to the chest, stealing glances that could have just as easily been admiration for the mushrooms. Not obvious at all. Hopefully the blue glow would counteract however inflamed her cheeks were.

“How does this work?” Regan tilted her head, and death wrapped itself around her, practically stroked her cheek. “Can you feel it? The death. Does it pull you toward it, show you where to go?” Her eyes were wide with curiosity and more excitement than she’d allowed herself in some time. Jade obviously wasn’t thrilled about the purpose of their outing, but Regan thought she might jump at the opportunity to teach, to show off, potentially.

How exactly did she want the night to go? To quote one of the greatest poets of their generation: She was indecisive. She couldn’t decide. (Sean Kingston, a lyrical genius. Misunderstood like all the greats) (Herself included). It would be ridiculous to pretend Jade didn’t love a good ‘I told you so’ moment. Please, it was one of her favorite feelings in the world. And to do it to Regan? Yup. She didn’t care how childish it sounded, she loved being right. Well, she knew she would be, of course. Vampires flocked to cemeteries like girls flocked to Claire’s to get their ears pierced back in the day (or still did? She wasn’t sure). They would find something without fail.

So why was it then, that she was clenching her jaw and grinding her teeth like a divorced middle-aged father of three working inhumane hours at two jobs just to afford his kid's braces? She was like, one second away from pulling out a cigarette she didn’t have to begin with. No joke. And… fine. Maybe, maybe she could handle… being wrong (this once). She could handle looking like a crazy person if vampires didn’t show up. Cause being wrong meant Regan was safe. And Jade was really digging the idea of keeping her safe over being right. (A momentary lapse, surely). In the end, it wasn’t her choice one way or the other. Vampires would be there or they wouldn’t, and what Jade felt about it didn’t matter (it hardly ever did).

She decided to engage with whatever was bubbling inside her while they were in the car, going up the mountain. She intended on getting it out of her system before they reached the top and she had to be what she was trained to be. She couldn’t be the girl who made mistakes this time. Top of her game only, or Regan could pay the price. Speaking of Regan, boy was she a lousy driver, by the way. Jade was a little concerned about the amount of fleeting glances she kept throwing her way. Did she… not drive often? Did she need advice or something? Like, she almost considered asking if she wanted to swap seats at some point, but nope… she kept quiet, wringing her hands a little more as she took in the scenery. They couldn’t start bickering now. Which she was certain they would, if she brought up her poor driving skills. (She was totally teasing her about it after, though).

After one last painful curve, they arrived at the gates of Eternal Light. There was a good reason Jade had chosen this place and unfortunately, it had nothing to do with how romantic the stroll was. Not this time, at least. If Regan wanted to see vampires, she’d let her see one… maybe two, tops. Meaning, a few of Jade’s usual spots were absolutely out of contention for this little research trip. Even the idea of bringing Regan to infested places like Gallow’s Grove or Eluria had her spiraling a little bit. (Just a smidge) (She was a chill gal, she didn’t spiral). The isolated nature of this cemetery was what pushed it to the top of the list. And… All the time spent thinking (yuck) and planning (ew) should better pay off.

But of course, Regan noticed how stunning the ground was. She had eyes. (Except when it came to Jade, apparently) (It was totally fine, though. So extremely okay). She was surprised by Regan’s sudden turn, but her reflexes were sharp enough to stop before they bumped each other. She huffed a humorless laugh at the observation, biting her tongue not to say something inappropriate like ‘you’re beautiful’ and nodded. “Yup! Took the words… right out of my mouth!” It was a poor attempt at sounding chipper, cause at this point she didn’t care if Regan saw right through her. She had expressed several times that she wasn’t happy about any of this. (Grumbling in the car totally counted too)

So she did not let Regan sway her mood despite the excitement in her voice, which would’ve been adorable if… nope, stop it. Not going there. Geez. It was so easy to slip, but Jade was getting better at catching herself in time. Vampires. It was the only thing that should be running through her mind. “How it works is that I go first, and you stay close behind” She asserted her position with quick strides, leading the way. She no longer felt conflicted, as soon as they walked through the gates she was thinking and moving like a slayer. The crossbow slid off her shoulder, smoothly into her hands. The quiver was loaded, but just in case (Ruby would’ve said), she always remembered to check twice. All good. She made a mental rundown of every other weapon she was carrying: The two knives on her belt; the secret one, strapped to her ankle. The small satchel with her stakes and extra bolts.

Jade stepped with caution as they wandered inside the cemetery, just a faint thrum running through her arm at the moment. Nothing to worry about yet. Except, the hair on the back of her head stood on end for no freaking reason. She surveilled the area, but her spidey sense didn’t tingle. And actually… She wasn’t sure if she was on edge cause of potential vampires nearby or cause she was acutely aware of Regan trailing close behind. Maybe trying to ignore Regan was backfiring. Cause she felt even more…receptive to her presence. Which, apparently, was possible. Perfect. It would’ve been an exciting discovery had she not been trying to be good and focus on the task at hand. Focus. “I sense their presence, I know they’re here already…somewhere. Not close, it’s not… strong enough.” A small smile pulled at her lips, feeling more like herself than she had during the car drive. She turned to Regan, just barely. Evading her gaze as she had done all evening. “Maybe the service up here isn’t so great. Get it? The… like phone reception but… ” Jade sighed, not bothering to laugh at her own (amazing) joke. She shifted her gaze, back to the path, musing on spidey senses and death radars. She knew how hers worked, but Regan hadn’t explained her banshee abilities in depth. Maybe they could complement each other (it was nice to think that maybe a part of them would, at least) (Cause…nope. No, no, back on track) “You…feel it too. Not butterflies like I do, so what exactly?”

This was the most controlled and reserved Jade had ever acted around her, and Regan didn’t have to wonder why. She was surprised they had managed to come to an agreement on this at all, and half-expected it to be rescinded before they reached the peak of Mount Ime. Jade was barely even willing to appreciate the scenery, instead marching through the gates like a debriefed soldier – one who had done this a great many times. This was a different Jade – not the breezy flirt Regan had met first, not the one she’d met later whose fingers Regan still felt curling around her cheek at times – it was a persona she’d only had glimpses of. The one who spoke of monsters, and duty, and had unapologetically, unflinchingly described murder dressed up as possible delusion. The one who Metzli was surely familiar with. But hearing about it was different than seeing it.

Jade’s gait was tight, serious, and the crossbow didn’t even bob in her hands. Expert fingers knew exactly where to go. Regan recognized the familiar ease of it; her own tools belonged in her hands the exact same way. It was a strange weapon to choose, however, and not the only one in her arsenal. She didn’t know what the bag slung over her shoulder contained. And the way Jade’s hands drifted to her waist like she was taking inventory told Regan there were others on her person. Regan watched silently, her head tilted, and a cloud of questions forming in her mind. Better to ask them now than later, right? Her understanding of what was going to happen tonight was shaky, but she suspected nothing would happen if loud conversation permeated the cemetery. “I have never seen anyone use a crossbow before.” Which was somewhat of a relief, actually. Jade hadn’t fired crossbow bolts into any of her decedents. “Why choose it? And do we – I mean, do you – do anything to draw them out? The, uh, vampires.” Fearg an chinniúint, just what was Jade going to show her? “You’ve made yourself clear. I’ll follow. Closely.” Regan loped after Jade. Specks of blue spores dotted the night air as they pushed a path through them.

She hadn’t expected a surge of adrenaline at the mention of vampires being present. Regan had gone on hunts before. Her dad never would have allowed it, would have had a fit if he’d found out, but Liam offered her the escapism. And wearing an orange safety vest that was too large for her small body, alone in the Maine woods with only her brother, a shotgun, and wild animals, she remembered the spark of excitement when he would announce the bird. She could never watch. She was a child; she hated the violence, hated the noise of the blast echoing in her skull, but there was also that moment, that rush. And then a new death would dot her horizon, and the animal’s purpose made sense. When she learned that her brother couldn’t feel that, hunting, and the reason for it, made less sense. But in hindsight, the shotgun seemed like a kindness compared to the animals that–

Regan blinked at Jade’s question. She had been lost in her thoughts – the memories of someone else, really – which might have been for the best considering Jade’s evasiveness and strange behavior. The absence of Jade’s eyes looking into hers was stark. “Right. I… not butterflies for me, no.” It was a feeling banshee poets (of which there were surprisingly many) had attempted to capture for centuries, but it made clear the limitations of language. She didn’t want to leave Jade without a sufficient answer. She could aim for sufficient even if not perfect, couldn’t she? For once she’d allow it. “It’s… like it’s the only thing there. It’s familiar. A comfort that goes deeper than the dermis, deeper than the bones. It’s warm and cool at the same time. It demands everything, but it gives itself to me in its entirety.” Regan’s body relaxed at the thought, and she stopped, breathing in the earthy cemetery air. “I used to find it overwhelming. Couldn’t go near graveyards, and certainly not morgues. Now it’s easy. Is it easy for you? Can you tell how many there are? How far?”

Regan was about to start following again, but she nearly stepped on a bouquet of flowers that had rolled away from the grave they’d been left by. Dried out by the elevation and weather, but carefully chosen and cherished. Some of Conor’s, maybe. She picked it up, tidied it, and set it down in its proper, intended spot with a small nod of self-satisfaction. She wasn’t sure if it was the atmosphere, the death, or even the mushrooms, but it was like some of her pent up tenseness deflated out of her. That wasn’t right. This was an expedition, a business venture, and she needed to be as sharp and ready as Jade. Not distracted.

“Nope. It’s not super popular these days,” Jade replied without looking back, too busy scanning the field for creepy shadows amid the stones or silhouettes beyond the treeline. There was nothing drawing her attention, except for the mushrooms and their trippy glow. “I dig the aesthetic…” she added after a beat. Cause really, that was what slayers were lacking these days. Where was the flair anymore? The swag? And yeah, fine, on a more serious note, her marksmanship compensated for her less-than-perfect combat skills, and was maybe (possibly) the real reason behind her preference for ranged weaponry. But admitting she wasn’t a good fighter when they were about to encounter supernaturally strong creatures wouldn’t go over very well, would it? Nope. She needed Regan to believe she was nothing but an expert at this.

The two of them lapsed into more silence, but Jade wasn’t unsettled by it like she would any other time. Talking while hunting was hard, okay? (There was a valid reason why it was the one thing she’d rather do alone). “My training was…um, a little unconventional,” Regan didn’t know what the standards for that were, anyway. Her imagination could run wild, ‘cause Jade wasn’t sure she could ever breach that conversation without her stomach turning. Though, if she crammed ten jokes per sentence she could totally make it work. Another question led to another quick answer. “Blood draws them out, babe. A beating heart is a good start”.

With no apparent threats ahead of them, Jade lowered the crossbow and moved with more ease down the path, mulling over Regan’s words. Her skin crawled, there was no doubt about it, but with the entire field of vision at her disposal, she could confidently say there was no risk of being ambushed, for now. So… where were they? Right, words. The whole death sense sounded super beautiful, actually. Romantic, even. Like, did Regan realize it wasn’t too far from what humans wrote about devotion… or love. Her heart clenched. (Unknown reasons). She bit back a joke about Regan making it as a writer if medicine ever failed her. And yeah, it was a bummer not to share one of her wonderful quips, but it would’ve spoiled the moment, anyway. How many times had she asked Regan to talk about herself and her duty? Yup, she better listen when it happened.

Jade had already gathered a few pieces of the puzzle that was Regan’s life, but she couldn’t put them together yet. She was missing a few of those annoying, single-colored pieces that literally connected everything. And she seemed to be close to snatching one. “How…um, how did you get better?” Jade hesitated over her own question. There was an inkling. A gut feeling more like, by the way something soured in her belly. If banshee training paralleled slayer training in any shape or form, it couldn’t have been easy peasy lemon squeezy to hone those skills. (Not that she was like, complaining though! Hunting was the best job in the world.) “I didn’t struggle. I could just feel it…” And though she wasn’t the quickest to develop her undead sense (that was Ruby, obviously), it had come pretty naturally for her too. “But it did totally freak me out when I was at the park and the nice lady letting me pet her dog made me all tingly”.

Regan's bajillion questions were far from overwhelming. If she were to follow through with her list of reasons why the two were actually a good fit, their matching curiosity would’ve been close to the top. (And yeah, it was more like… they were both super nosy, whatever) (She would twist anything to make it sound romantic, alright?). The only problem was, it wasn’t the time to answer questions. Not when her spidey sense intensified with each step they took toward the second section of the graveyard, walking past a tiny pond to reach a row of well-kept headstones. She had to focus on the monsters. “I’ll answer anything you want when…” Regan was gone. Jade didn’t have to look to feel her absence. She simply knew, her muscles instantly relaxed, and her lungs were finally able to take a full breath when the woman vanished from her side (or well, back). She whipped around quickly, a wave of concern crashing over her and ebbing as soon as she spotted Regan, not only safe, but also standing there fixing a bouquet like… they were taking a leisure stroll. What?

A huff, equal parts shudder and laughter escaped her lips, caught off guard by the sight of Regan in her own little world. Happily arranging some flowers, as all those… uncaring people did. And like, what was Jade supposed to do? Not notice how the woman was perfectly framed by the blue glow. And the flowers. And the night sky? Even the pathetic little branch from the nearest tree was putting in the work. It was a freaking masterpiece and she was supposed to what, ignore it? She had never seen Regan like that, unconcerned with her presence or her surroundings, tension barely weighing on her shoulders and… Come on! Jade had restrained herself from looking all evening. She could indulge for a moment, she deserved it. She wasn’t at a kissing distance, it was totally chill. So she stole a tiny glance, then another, eyes setting gently over her favorite face, brushing over pale skin, and then she was locked in.

Jade was no banshee (duh), but boy if that death-sense description from before wasn't resonating super hard with her now. For… whatever reason. The warmth spreading in her chest could’ve heated the entire ground. (Which was actually? pretty nice cause it was super chilly and she didn’t bring a jacket). Her heart pounded a little angry, and a lot sad. Why would this feeling be wrong? She couldn’t (shouldn’t) question it, but it was as tempting, it really was. That door kept opening and she didn’t know if closing it was possible anymore.

Regan was done with tidying up the bouquet, which meant she could lift her gaze and notice her any time. Jade made no effort to look away, instead bracing herself for that moment she’d denied herself all evening. Something new came alight between them the second their eyes met. Her belly swooped, her knees wobbled a little. But that was like, 'cause the ground must’ve been uneven. (Lazy groundskeeper). Had she trusted her legs a little more, (or had the field been firmer), Jade would’ve closed the distance and crashed their lips together right there, put an end to the agonizing will-they/won’t-they dance they were currently stuck in. Yet she stayed, taking in Regan a little longer. Giving her some time to gather herself as well.

Whatever notion of control she’d been holding onto couldn’t stop her eyes from twinkling, and not even attempting to bite the side of her lip helped conceal her smile. “What were you doing?” it came out in a bated breath, words wrapped around a layer of tenderness instead of frustration, which she should’ve aimed for. ‘Cause monsters and vampires and… why did the splash of color on Regan’s cheek have to look so soft, and why did her eyes have to shine so intensely blue at night? (Stupid mushrooms). Jade was once again, betrayed by impossible desire. But maybe the sweetness in her voice wouldn’t carry all the way to Regan’s ears. Of course! She was counting on her years-long dry spell to work in Jade’s favor. Maybe Regan had no memory of what smitten sounded like. Wishful thinking.

Plus, there was still time to rectify and steer the ship away from dangerously homoerotic waters. Jade could stand her ground against Regan’s adorable hijinks (which these days involved just existing, really). She was no lovesick fool. She broke their reverie, her entire being still shaky. “I have something for you” she tried, more cooly this time as she drilled the word vampire into her skull. She moved her crossbow to the side, her right hand reaching inside her bag and pulling out Niall. She waved the wooden stake between them, gaze darting around to find a safe spot on Regan’s face. Not her eyes and definitely not her lips. She settled for her right eyebrow. Yup, so unsexy. (If her fingertips burned to trace the arch, it was neither here nor there). “It’s this or a knife. I’m not negotiating”. She had never spoken like that to Regan. There was no anger behind her words, no teasing, no affection not… any of the registers usually reserved for the woman. Just assertiveness. She was in charge here. “You know better than I do where the chest is, so. A little stab there and they’re dust,” she inhaled at the same time Regan opened her mouth to protest, and she got ahead of her apprehension. “I’m not telling you to use it, but if… If. At least keep it in your pocket, please” She had a lot of those in that annoying winter coat of hers.

“Of course you were a natural.” A hint of warmth softened Regan’s face. “Bloodworth. It’s no surprise. Even among your siblings, I bet.” That nice-lady-tingling could have meant something else, but she kept that thought to herself. And what atypical training had been layered on top of Jade’s innate proficiency? It was a threadbare description, really not one at all, and Regan didn’t need to be a banshee to feel its ghost lingering across Jade’s face. The downtick of her eyes, the way her words came out just a couple miles-per-hour less than usual. We’re more alike than you want to admit, Jade had said, and as Regan had formulated her own mental bullet points for that statement, there was one on the very edge of her mind that she refused to humor. But as Jade turned to Regan’s own preparation and training, that thought plummeted from her mind and gnawed at the lining of her stomach. “Another time, maybe.” Regan said noncommittally, thinking decades ahead.

With the flowers placed where they belonged (all in a night’s work, Linda Marshfield, beloved mother and grandmother, 1962-2022), she glanced up, expecting to need to trot back to Jade, who probably went on ahead without her. She could slip in, and Jade wouldn’t even know she’d lost pace. Except, that was wrong, and Jade was standing right there, watching like a sentry, with the moon behind her like she commanded it, and an expression on her face that Regan couldn’t quite place. Bemusement, maybe, if it were stifled under a layer of barely-managed self-restraint. Regan knew that one pretty well.

And it wasn’t until Jade’s question – light, almost playful, despite technically being accusatory – batted at her cheeks like a cat’s paw, that she realized this was even something she wanted to hide. Not that she could. She raised her palms. “Nothing.” She had been caught, like when her father clenched her backpack by the straps and shook out all of the forbidden bones; her stomach seared at the lie even though no true effort had gone into it. Fine. “Okay, something. I –” She wanted to look down to the bouquet, now carefully placed by the headstone, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away from Jade. Her silhouette practically glowed. Regan cleared her throat, breaking the charged silence. “They were displaced, and I thought they deserved to be where they were meant to be. They held significance to someone, their memories of the deceased. That’s all.” Her voice was soft, but tinged with something that was most certainly not nervousness. Not her. “You know… somebody came all this way to leave them. Even the smallest expressions of remembrance should be treated with dignity.”

Her slow heart pounded as she felt the weight of Jade’s eyes still on her. She tried to read them but the moment ignited an indescribable something within her that went beyond the simple mechanics of her body. Which was also failing her. The temperature inside her coat soared and she felt slickness in more than just her palms. A mad thought gripped her brain right through the dura mater. Not even a thought. An instinct, one that even the sharpest tools and most vicious drownings had not completely disintegrated. It would be both incredibly easy and incredibly stupid to approach, lean in, and dispel this torture in a simple, daring kiss. It would also mean eight years toppling to nothing, because she hadn’t been entirely scraped out of herself, and Jade knew it.

Unfair. There was that word again, permeating her thoughts, spoken aloud last time they had grazed this close to intimacy. She wanted to breathe Jade in, to run her fingers through her mushroom-lit waves, to feel Jade’s warm skin against her lips. But she didn’t want any of that, because she couldn’t. So her useless chest ached, and she wondered how something so hollow could feel so full.

I have something for you. That statement delivered in that tone – strange, abrupt, all business – was jarring, and Regan didn’t quite know what to make of it. She toed closer to Jade, tragically without intent, and tilted her head. Then realized that was a mistake as something hot poured through her. No head tilt. Too close. She righted herself. That’s right. The gift. Focus. And why was Jade looking at – Regan’s fingers went up and quickly brushed across her eyebrow, and she gave Jade a quizzical look. A bug? Spores stuck to her skin? “Did I get it?” She could smell something fruity, maybe gum. Mixed with the scent of freshly-turned cemetery soil, she couldn’t resist a deep inhalation. And missed what Jade had said (had she said something?), because apparently she couldn’t focus on breathing and listening at the same time this close to her face. The full-body buzz of the air around her didn’t help. Was it too late, now? To reel that moment back in, to act on it?

Speak, òinseach. Her tongue hesitated. Then sputtered to life. “Oh, um, sure. What is it?” Jade’s hand darted into her bag and suddenly a stake of wood was being waved like a windshield wiper across her vision, and her eyes widened as they were wrenched away from Jade’s. Her face probably would have gushed disappointment if she wasn’t so confused. What was the wood for? How was that an alternative to a knife – which she’d brought at Jade’s urging, thank you very much? The atmosphere had shifted, Jade had shifted, and when she mentioned stabbing a “vampire” in the chest, it clicked. Stake to the heart. Jade didn’t expect her to actually use it, right? “But–” A step ahead as always.

“I’m not going to use that.” But her hand still curled around the wood, fingertips brushing against Jade’s, and now it was her turn to cut in because if she didn’t reject it now she was pretty sure they’d both stand there holding a piece of screadaíl wood together for an hour, and would that really be so bad? “It’s a piece of wood, and I don’t need – look. I listened when you told me to be prepared, okay? I did. Even though it’s not necessary. I’m capable of listening. Excellent at it, really.” Nevermind her inability to do so 30 seconds earlier. Regan reached into her pocket – one of too many – and pulled out a small, sleek dagger from its concealed sheath. The glint of steel caught the ambient glow. It was a favorite, with etchings of twisting vines carved into it and a double-edged blade. “It’s real, in case you’re about to ask. I didn’t make it out of cardboard. But I don’t intend to ever use it on anyone.” Only on animals. Only on things. “I know where to aim,” Regan said, meeting Jade with an equally resolute gaze.

And then silence. Regan breathed out a sigh, and became acutely aware that their breath was mingling in the small pocket of cold air between them. Again. She pushed her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes. It was the cemetery, she decided. They didn’t have this problem in the car. Except for that time Regan almost drove off the – no, it was the cemetery. Above, the clouds pulled back, revealing bright stars. And Regan thought she might scream.

She could fix this, bury this agony right here with all of the dead. Her words rushed into each other, frantic. “You know, I’ve delayed us. We should go find some of the, uh, the vampires. Right? It’s getting late, and I’m sure they need to, uh, sleep.” Her eyes were hopeful as she looked between Jade and the path ahead. Mostly at Jade.

Whether it was a delightful pun with her last name (Regan made a pun, hopefully on purpose), or the sudden care for messy bouquets, Regan had zero intentions of making this easy for Jade. She just didn’t. Wasn’t this supposed to be a joint effort? A collaboration, if you will. “Something,” it didn’t escape her how two months ago, that one word would’ve been twisted to tease the other woman. A trademark: The mocking tone, the eyebrow wiggle, and bam! Someone was riled up. But she was gentle now, patient. All she wanted was for Regan to share the mushy bits of that jumbo-sized heart she was still adamant didn't exist, of course. Vulnerability wasn’t a weakness, not with her. Another breath squeezed past her lips when Regan conceded. And Jade hung onto every word in a way she couldn’t when they met. Back when the only obstacle to this was their night and day styles of communicating. Her smile stretched, wondering if Regan’s ultimate goal was to ensure no air was left in her lungs. Or if she needed it all to herself. Whatever the intention, she was killing it (her). “That’s very sweet of you,” she whispered, a knowing look crossing her face. She left it at that, rather than running the moment with out-of-pocket commentary.

Having successfully maneuvered her way out of another highly charged exchange with more finesse than Regan had as she took on the curves up Mount Ime (‘cause seriously, what was that about?), Jade put all her efforts into doing her job. Or so she thought. Any time she tried, Regan derailed her (let the record show, it took great strength not to joke about railings). But really, what was this freaky Friday thing going on? Eyebrows pinched together, she watched as Regan fussed over something on the right side of her face. What was she doing? The hand rummaging through her bag to find Niall almost redirected toward Regan. Almost brushed the hair off her face, and whatever else was bothering her. It would’ve been mistake number two. Alas, vampires. “Stop it, you’re perfect,” she let out a chuckle, nose crinkling in confusion, unaware she was responsible for the odd behavior.

With the invisible threat gone, another attempt at getting things on track followed. Regan wasn’t thrilled with the stake (duh). Jade had the rebuttal on the tip of her tongue, but what followed was possibly the biggest plot twist of the night and the century. Regan… listened? (Cut the cameras!) Her eyebrows rose in slow motion, all bets off as to where this was heading. She fixated on Regan’s eyebrow for as long as she could, but the ruffling of the coat got to her. What was that about? Well, she had to peek now, it was like, calling to her. And she did, ever so slowly, conscious of the way their fingers met on the stake (there was no need for it, except… yup) (Neither of them made any effort to acknowledge it) but she had to keep it moving, to the other hand, the one pulling out… a blade? “You…” Jade swallowed, the heat in her chest traveling south. When she dragged her eyes back up, she didn’t know about rules or restraint (duty registered, but faintly) as she held Regan’s gaze. “You brought a…” Well, if Regan holding a dagger wasn’t the hottest thing she’d ever witnessed, it was totally up there.

Crap. Time and place. A time and place for everything, right? Wrong. Jade wasn’t sure she’d ever wanted Regan this badly before. (There had to be a ceiling for that) (Pretty please? She couldn’t take this torture two extra months). It was unnerving how effortlessly the woman pushed the right buttons. And, like… what other buttons could she… nope. Keeping PG. (For Linda). There was nothing PG about the sudden rise and fall of her chest, or the glint behind her eyes as they flickered unabashedly to Regan’s lips, zero pretense vampires mattered anymore. It wasn’t the first time she’d been… in the mood at a cemetery (she and Owen had a lot of fun with that). It wasn’t the first time she felt this with Regan either. Booty calls were booty calls for a reason (except for Regan, of course). This was so different, so intoxicating. It had stopped being a purely physical affair some time ago. Which made every little movement, every scent, every intake so heightened it would be glorious, if only they could act on it. Her lips parted and her eyes climbed back to Regan’s, hoping to confirm they were finally on the same wavelength.

Oh. Yup. Linda was about to witness unspeakable things. Things that might bring her back to life. (If only to ask them to please not do it in front of her headstone). And when Regan asserted her hypothetical stabbing competence? Her eyes glazed with need. (This totally counted as dirty talk in her book). Her brain misfired, overcome by... every emotion. All of the ones in Animal Crossing, at least. And like the idiot she was when her brain was no longer behind the wheel, she took a step forward, pushing the stake into her bag. Even if that meant losing touch, ‘cause she needed a free hand for…

Shoot, the vampires! The shiver running down her spine had nothing to do with the way Regan’s breath trembled against hers and everything to do with her skin screaming danger. Her hand made it to Regan’s waist, original intent scraped as she pulled her down to crouch. Jade cowered behind Linda’s headstone. And okay, it barely hid them, but it was something. And no. it wasn’t super girlbossy of her, alright? But no one could accuse her of being rash. Rash was for when she wasn’t next to… ugh, she didn’t know what to call Regan at this point. It was a testament to how scrambled her brain was after that moment, that she couldn’t think of words. Hazel eyes inspected the field, finding nothing of interest in the headstones, but the mushrooms glowing in different corners of the ground helped her catch a beastly creature amid the trees.

“Spawn” Jade whispered in the shakiest voice. The mood was clearly ruined, but her body was still reeling from the kiss that wasn’t. Struggling to cool down. She couldn’t ignore the way her nose almost brushed against Regan’s cheek as she spoke. “It happens when a vampire lets their blood thirst override them. They lose all human capacity, so it’s like…It’s just a beast” she squinted, trying to make out its movement, crossbow perched atop Linda’s stone. “I think… it's got a meal” she hummed, pushing away the worries of what a fresh body could mean for other creatures lurking. “I can hurt it from here. Seal the deal up close”.

The way Jade jolted at the dagger had Regan thinking she might have done something wrong. That thought winked in and out of existence faster than a blowfly finding a fresh cadaver. No, that was not it. That definitely wasn’t it. She wasn’t even sure kissing was the plan here. The space between them had become excruciating and Regan wasn’t going to question Jade’s sudden distractibility, the way she no longer cared about the stake, or the vampires, or, apparently, the duty they’d discussed into the ground. She met Jade’s eyes – the green flecks practically glowing, matching the spores peppering her hair; she was the brightest thing in the cemetery even with the moon behind her – and heat flushed inside Regan from stem to sternum. Regan’s hand moved without her permission, tentative at first, then certain. More certain than of anything in recent memory.

When she returned to Saol Eile, her grandmother might just kill her. She would know. Because it was obvious, wasn’t it? So obvious… a rib-cracking scream was easier to keep at bay than Jade, and rocked her heart less, too.

“Bás glac chugam,” Regan breathed, the last of her resolve turning to dust like the piles of bones beneath her feet. She could feel Jade’s wonderfully soft skin against her fingertips as she traced them slowly along her mandible, creeping up right behind her ear. She was so warm in every way, a glorious little pit of heat like a maggot mass in the winter, and even Regan’s lungs made no objections. Her wings might have fluttered if they could. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d even tried to touch someone like this, with this tenderness. Physical contact of any kind was typically reserved for handshakes and the dead (which, to be fair, was there anything more intimate than an autopsy?), but all the death in the cemetery was inconsequential noise as she closed in on Jade.

Regan inched closer, could feel Jade’s hand by her waist, gentle, compelling. Apparently this was more important than a stake or a crossbow. Regan wasn’t going to ask. No, didn’t even wish to think about it… as if she could think right now. Jade’s eyes were pleading, checking with her, sweeping her away. Regan could feel Jade’s breath against her skin as she closed her eyes, Jade’s hair curled around her fingers, and –

Something was wrong. A ripple ran through Jade’s body and Regan’s eyes shot open, suspicious that she had not been the cause. There was something else, too – a drop of wrongness soaking into this place of perfect death, a fray in the tapestry. She was on the ground before she could process what that was, what was happening, what was not happening. Regan tamped her mouth shut to keep a sharp whine from escaping. And there was something else there, beyond that twisted, almost unrecognizable death in the distance – a flare of something raw and exposed. And large. It almost drowned out the perversion of the other presence, and Regan latched onto it. There was a body. She blinked at Jade’s lips. Then Jade’s eyes. It was good they were crouched because she was dizzy enough to fall over. How had Jade reacted so quickly? Did she live in a perpetual state of ready-for-anything-ness? Probably.

Vampire. Of course. The reason they were here, and what Regan had requested to see, and what Jade was only somewhat willingly showing her, and nothing to do with what they had been about to collaborate on. “Yeah, I think I get it,” Regan said breathlessly, feeling pretty absent of capacity herself. She tried to follow Jade’s line of sight (once it had moved off of her) into the trees, but she couldn’t make anything out, seemingly unlike Jade. Slowly, she was able to pull shapes from the shadows as her eyes adjusted. A big creature moved, and as it turned, spores revealed what she hadn’t been able to see. The grotesque, upturned nose, the huge, fanned ears, the leathery wings. The glistening teeth. It was monstrous, looked as though it couldn’t be real, but the impact of it was lessened by the fact it was also familiar.

Understanding flashed through Regan. “I’ve – I’ve seen them before.” Her voice tightened. “Not here. I mean, not – forget that.” She hadn’t explained her asfís bháis to Jade yet, and right now, cowering behind a headstone (thank you, Linda, for returning the kindness), was not the time. Her fingers curled around the top of the grave as she peeked at the creature, the spawn. It was moving closer, dragging something with it. And Regan knew exactly what it was. The nose of the crossbow was inches away, readied, and though Jade seemed to be reeling, too, she was expertly focused. How quickly she could change. Regan stayed hushed, but her voice wavered with the realization. “They’ve killed my decedents, put dozens in the morgue. It has one now.” Something danced too close to anger inside of her. “I will not allow this. Either it dug someone up and is parading the body around, or it killed someone who had come here to mourn. It has what is mine.” Regan shifted, ready to spring up. Even after the whole display of the dagger, Regan had no intention of reaching for it. An unnatural weapon, as far as she was concerned. She gave Jade a desperate look. There was a plan forming behind Jade’s eyes. Ranged weapon strike. And then what? She’d tackle the huge creature? These things had killed people. But Regan had made a promise to Jade, and… Jade understood, right? The cadaver was important, more important than anything. So Regan stayed low, resisting what her body wanted to do, hoping her trust would not shame her.

The word focus had never played so many times in her head before. (And she like, had a whole Ariana Grande phase, so that was saying something). But it was a must to keep that word in heavy rotation, cause Jade kept seeing Regan’s face inches away from hers every time she blinked. It was basically ingrained behind her eyelids. She was cold (colder) now too, with no hand tracing her face or tangling in her hair. So cold. And…Did that truly happen? She never would’ve expected Regan to indulge in something like that. The walls were crumbling. (They were). She needed to like, rewind that moment, and confirm it had been real, not some fluke of her desperate imagination. She had to know if Regan was ready to give this a chance for real. Except, nope. Cause… UGH. Wait, what did she say? She stared at Regan, eyes wide at the revelation. (She focused on her mouth. Nope, crap. The eyebrow, she had to look at her eyebrow. Her shoulder maybe. Yup) (Better). “You have?” She frowned, confusion etched in her features even as Regan made a poor attempt to brush off her comment. What? Where? A knot formed in her belly at the possibility of Regan existing close to any of these monsters in the past. And yup, this confirmed this was a bad, no good, terrible idea. She couldn’t back down though. She never backed down, ever. Why would Regan do this to her? (Making her cautious or whatever?) (How dare she?)

Regan. Who looked about… two seconds away from going to square up with the spawn herself. And Jade? Having a terrible time. Seriously, was this Freaky Friday? Her hand squeezed Regan’s waist like a warning, hoping to snuff out the fire in her eyes. She trailed gently up her back, pushing against her shoulder. “And we’ll get him.” At least, judging by the height and the build, the dead body on the ground was a man. It was probably irrelevant to Regan, but if Jade kept her busy with words, and the flutter of her eyelashes, then there were no hands being thrown (Regan wouldn’t like that very much anyway). “I’ll take care of it,” she looked into desperate eyes, unable to stop her hand from moving higher. Her knuckles brushed tenderly against a cold cheek: An unspoken promise. (Definitely better that way… all things considered). When her mind was a little sharper, she reached for the crossbow. She was focused. Finally. The sooner she disposed of the spawn, the sooner Regan was safe. (And free to like, hold her face again, if she wished).

Jade had a clear goal. She raised her index finger, signaling ‘one second’. The grip on her crossbow tightened, eyes narrowed to aim. The first bolt flew straight to the spawn’s knee, destabilizing it. The second followed a second later, directed at the beast’s ankle. She always loved the exhilarating moment when the bolt pierced through the tendon and the spawn tumbled. Jade knew it wasn’t enough to incapacitate them, but it was good enough to weaken them. Experience had shown, it was her most solid strategy so far. Jade shot a third and final bolt to the neck, and she jolted off the headstone, dropping her weapon to the ground, swiftly replaced with Niall and one of her blades. It was her window to pounce. Except, she wasn’t pouncing just yet. She turned to Regan first… ‘Cause she’s ever-present in her mind. “Only follow once I’m at a safe distance. I have this, trust me.” Her heart pounded in her chest, knowing there was no need to invoke the promise. And boy, did she want to kiss her right then, too. (Just in case, Ruby would’ve said). But her legs understood the assignment far better than her heart, picking up the pace toward the trees.

Her window began closing once the spawn figured out where the bolts came from. Its feral gaze zeroed in on Jade. (Good) (Linda better be hiding Regan). She ran, hoping for a strong collision, one that would send them both tumbling to the ground. And yup, it went exactly like that. She was even a little winded as she maneuvered herself on top of the monster. It was so much easier while it was recovering, though. While it pawed its bloodied neck desperately, screeching in pain. This was going to be an easy one. Maybe she could try and look a little hotter in front of Regan. Show off. Niall twirled in her fingers, taunting the spawn underneath her, but sharp claws swung at her face, slicing in retaliation (so rude). Jade braced her full weight forward, plunging the stake straight into its chest, catching herself with one hand against the ground. Dust coated the night air, mixing with the glowing spores. Whew, that almost got away from her. For like, a tiny moment. She was still in control though. She scrambled to her feet and glanced back, a smug grin playing on her lips. Her worries vanished (they have been totally mild anyway) (worrying was for losers). Regan didn’t look like, super entertained… but she assumed it was down to the ‘creature turning to dust’ of it all. “Okay, you can come and get it” she panted, gaze dropping to the cadaver.

Entrusting the protection of the body to Jade made Regan’s lungs grow with protest, but she wouldn’t scream it. If anyone understood how precious that cadaver was to her, it was Jade. Jade who rolled into action like a gurney being rushed through the ED, leaving Regan to wonder if she’d felt her hand against her back at all, leaving just the ghost of fingers against her lumbar and a dab of warmth on her cheek. The only thing worse than the asphyxiating amount of tension in the air between them was the pulling away when someone finally managed to take a gasp. Croí ag cur fola, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could do this. Saol Eile would set that limit for her, but firm as her mind was on the matter (will of iron, she reminded herself), it still felt abstract, faraway. And Jade was solid, here.

Regan’s nails scratched against the headstone as her grip tightened. Jade had signaled that it was about to begin – whatever it was. The sound of the crossbow firing made her flinch, but the sound that followed was even more unsettling: a bolt sinking into flesh, and a roar of pain. When Regan killed, it was near instant. She couldn’t tolerate things being in pain. Even Liam shot to kill, always to kill, on those trips into the woods. This was no bird in the crosshairs or deer tethered outside of her cabin, though, and before the thing could seemingly even comprehend what had happened, a second bolt secured itself in the Achilles… assuming this creature’s anatomy was even somewhat familiar. Another roar. Regan shrank back, but Jade was drunk with life. The crossbow clicked to reload so quickly she barely registered it, and there was an immediate third third bolt fired in the trapezius. The thing staggered and stumbled, dragging its injured leg behind itself as it flailed its remaining limbs, narrowed eyes scanning for whatever had made it suffer. As it finally turned toward Jade, its upturned nose huffing, Regan saw how bright and red its eyes were.

Jade turned to her, and the unknown felt a little more known. She wasn’t frightened. She had expected this, all of it – to her, it was probably just another night out. A protest died in Regan’s mouth; Jade’s reassurance sounded almost believable. She had this, right? Regan thought of the body, how vulnerable it was out there, still within grabbing distance of the monster. But it was Jade making her stomach clench with concern. “I am stepping in if things go south. I don’t care what I promised.” Her voice was quiet, and Jade had already turned away, claimed by a duty that was becoming slightly less opaque by the second.

So Regan did what she said she would, and listened, watched. Jade moved so fluidly, possessing the kind of beauty Regan so scarcely admired in a live human, and usually appreciated only when they were dead and open on an autopsy table. She had perfect command over her body – was that really a surprise? – and Regan watched with a mixture of apprehension and awe at her practiced agility and focus. Jade was incredible, close to pushing the bounds of what Regan thought was even possible outside of Olympic events. It was too easy to forget about the target. The monster, the spawn. As Jade closed in on it, Regan’s visibility suffered. They became a tumbling mass, both hitting the ground in a manner that looked painful enough that Regan shot up to her feet from where she was concealed, trying to get a better look, itching to run over. But gravity reminded her of the promise she made, and she was pulled back into place. She could fight it if she had to. But when she looked up from her traitorous feet, back at Jade, she got a surprise – Jade was on top. “Winning,” if that could be said. How was that possible? She was so small, and that beast was a brute, yet Jade was fully in control of the situation.

Or, she was. What was she doing? Why was she spinning the – Regan winced as the creature slashed at Jade’s face. She couldn’t see well enough to spot any blood, but Jade’s body shuddered and she had a feeling the claws made impact. It didn’t stop her for long. Actually, it kind of looked like it pissed Jade off, and she made it the last thing the monster would ever do. There was an explosion of fine powder, of dust, and it took on a blue glow as it dispersed into the night. Regan stared at where the remains should have been. Her brain halted, froze over like the freezers in the morgue. “The math was not mathing,” as Jade liked to say. There was nothing but a dark, empty space, and Jade propping herself off the ground like she’d seen this hundreds of times before. There was a look on her face, a cheeky one. Pleased with herself, Regan realized; this had been fun for her in some way. Something about that made her stomach churn, but that was to be addressed later, or never. Besides, Jade’s safety and the invitation to approach gave her more than enough to think about – the body, Jade had saved the body. Well, one of them. The other was dust.

Regan was able to charge over with the ivy of a promise bind pulling her back, and despite the circumstances, she was reeling a little less now that she was closer to Jade. Still reeling plenty, though. Her voice wobbled when she was able to speak, and the droplets of blood on Jade’s cheek only shook her more. “That – the – that was a vampire? Where did it – how? How?” Okay, try that again. “It was huge. And you tackled it. And then you used the wood, and it vanished. Or… the dust. And the spores. What was that? Explain how that’s possible. How can there be no remains? How many times have you done this? How much did that thing weigh? What happened to the bolts? Why wood? Why did you twirl the stake around? Was that part of it? How much preparation did you need in order to learn this? Actually, forget all of that. Just let me see your face.” Too many questions. They came out in a flurry. She doubted she would have absorbed anything. She didn’t have a clue what else to say about the spawn and the lack of evidence it was ever there to begin with, save for the claw marks on Jade. But she did know injuries. She could do injuries.

It wasn’t deep, but cuts and scrapes on the cheeks always stung, always swelled. The crystal clear goal of examining the wound made Regan bold. There wasn’t a second of hesitation this time. She slipped her fingers back behind Jade’s ear and gently steered Jade’s gaze toward hers. She had intended for her eyes to jump to the scratches, to get a better look at them. She really had. But they wouldn’t budge from Jade’s eyes, until they so foolishly fell to her lips, and then Regan was gone, the cemetery was gone, and there was only Jade. Well, and the cadaver – she could feel that, too, mixed in with the buzz against her skin as she inhaled Jade’s breath and pushed closer.

Her lips were so warm, Regan thought her own might just melt. Or maybe her whole body would just dissolve into the ground and she’d rest here with all the bones. Jade seemed fired up, too, her breathing fast, her heart pounding enough for both of them. Regan’s hand wound itself back into Jade’s hair and that iron will of hers instantly corroded. She leaned in further, soaking in as much of Jade as she possibly could, and when she gasped this time, that tension was no longer asphyxiating, but exhilarating. Her body remembered this, somehow. The rest clicked into place like a bone popping back into its socket. Her breath hitched. What was this? That lightness in her chest, in her lungs? She needed to force the corners of her mouth to stay where they were, not curl upward, as they brushed against Jade’s skin. Losing battle.

When her lungs burned, she pulled away, and her face felt strange in a way she didn’t recognize, especially when her eyes opened to find Jade’s, spore-bright and… surprised, maybe.

There was a silence she didn’t know how to fill. She counted breaths. All audible. Close, warm, filling her like death. Finally, Regan couldn’t stand it anymore. “I – I forgot about your scratch,” she admitted, clearing her throat a little. Can I forget about it again? She had nearly asked it. And then, reality came barreling in, and she thought of the future. And Ireland. And her heart sank like the stone she wished it was. She looked down, the implications of what had just happened tearing through her like an aortic dissection, that lightness being snatched away by a cold fist. The chilly air of the cemetery seemed to snap around her again. I should not have done that. It was a cruel thought, maybe crueler than what she had actually done, and she refused to speak it to Jade. It was a hollow thought, too, more out of necessity than her own mind – she wasn’t sure she actually regretted anything.

Regan flicked her eyes back to Jade, and then toward the cadaver, who was waiting so patiently for anyone to inform the police. “I should… you know, call my office. So they can get him.” Her voice knotted. “Thank you for that. For showing me, and helping him, and –” Regan bit the inside of her lip, stopping an apology in its tracks. She fished into her pocket for her Blackberry, couldn’t locate it, and then realized it was in the other one. “I’ll make that call.”

Jade pushed the knife back into its sheath, slipped Niall inside her bag, and waited for Regan to make her way over to them. Her mischievous grin was perfectly in place (as always). She could almost see the wheels turning inside Regan’s head, maybe a little smoke coming out of her ears too, like a cartoon character. It was a lot to process, to be fair. But she was not prepared for so many things to come out of her mouth all at once. “Spawn, technically yes, but…” she rushed, and it was all she got out before Regan charged with a number of questions that gave her own word-per-minute rate a run for its money. Geez. Could she rewind a little? Or slow down, or, actually, scratch that. Jade totally would’ve asked Regan to pick one question to answer first, but then gentle hands cradled her face, blue eyes demanded her full attention and well, her brain got scrambled, alright? Like, badly. So scrambled she couldn’t grasp why Regan would have such interest in a simple scratch.

‘Cause wait, had anyone ever worried over her wounds before? Um.

Like… Onyx loved to hype her up, make her feel proud of them (battle scars, duh). It meant next time she could endure more, she would be tougher to break. And her big bro trained her to be tougher than the rest. On the other hand, Ruby rolled her eyes, even when she always took on the chore of mending her. A sign of sloppiness, she’d call it. Sloppiness that made her a nuisance on the field, a risk to her siblings' lives (which were far more important than hers was unsaid, but understood). Jasper had no nuance, he was always blunt. He downright questioned her skills, whether she had any real talent to call herself a Bloodworth (the answer was no, according to him). And Amber watched in silence, always stoic and resigned to the fact that duty equaled brutality. But at least she’d always check on her after, offer to bring her to TacoBell or something (It was one of the reasons she was her fave). And Regan?

Jade’s eyebrows pinched together in confusion, trying to decipher her look. Oh. Of course: Medical concern. Regan was a doctor, she was like… doctoring and stuff. Yup. Did she give the same thirsty look to all her patients though? (She hoped not, ‘cause they were like… dead and all) (Not ‘cause she’d be jealous. Nope). “You like what you see, huh?” A teasing smile stretched her lips, ready to deflect now that she connected the dots. The scratch barely stung anyway, and it’d heal in no time. It didn’t mean she couldn’t delight in the attention, though. “It hurts so much, doc. Can you kiss it better?” She mocked with a pout, trying to step away from Regan’s scrutiny despite how daring words were.

And… So. About that… (Plot twist).

Jade was ready for it. Her. Only ‘cause years of experience made it easy to spot that glint behind blue eyes, that switch flipping when the decision was made, either consciously or unconsciously. Jade’s hand slid smoothly to the small of Regan’s back, bringing their bodies together, gasping at the contact. Nothing about herself felt composed or smooth, though. She was a mess as soon their lips brushed, all her pent-up tension released in a whimper. Her fingers dug into Regan’s lower back, the only sign of how desperate she was for it. Feening for closeness when there was no more space between them. Regan was so soft, it was a little unfair. Her lips were a little cold, but the warm, shallow breath against her more than made up for it. Jade breathed her in, mouth seeking more of her, but almost pulled away when she felt the smile against her lips. Her heart skipped a few beats, the flutter in her belly was incessant. Regan was smiling and she couldn’t see it.

She was also, gone too soon, and Jade tried chasing her lips, extend the moment just a little (or a lot) longer, but all she felt around her was the cold night air. Cruel. How was she supposed to settle for boring Reganless air now? Her eyebrows were still stuck a little high, the only proof Regan had taken her by surprise. But she schooled her expression, gaze setting on Regan. Post kiss Regan. Which had now catapulted to the hottest Regan had ever looked. (And like, she had seen her hold a knife moments ago). She was all flushed cheeks and parted lips, chest still heaving, eyes darker than usual as black melted over blue. Not so different from the Regan she initially met. The one who had totally wanted her but chose the ulcers instead.

That brief trip down memory lane gave Jade a reality check, slowly deflating her spirit. Crap. They shouldn’t have done that. She stayed quiet, all the jokes she had already lined up for this moment, if it ever happened, taking several seats. Instead, she tried deciphering what was going on with Regan. If the first thing she’d blurt out would be: ‘This was a mistake’. If she’d claim she thought Jade’s scratch needed assisted breathing or some other insane rationalization. Or if she would never address where her mouth had been the moment before at all. And then Jade wondered what that meant. Why now? What about Regan’s duty? What about all the things she insisted could never happen between them? Her freaking… Iron will! Was she fine making mistakes then, failing? Was it even a failure, technically? It so wasn’t. But for the sake of… science, maybe they should give it another go and confirm her suspicions. (Science was great, Regan would agree). And wow, she really hated having to second-guess a kiss. Especially that kiss. How did people live with so many questions inside, by the way? It was super scary.

Regan suddenly spoke, pulling Jade out of the daze. Thanking her for… the kiss? Oh, nope, the vampire, right. Yup. Totes. ‘Cause that was why they came to this place. That made a whole lotta sense. Not that it would’ve been the first time someone thanked her for kissing them. She was nothing if not a pro at her craft. Jade waited patiently for Regan to cave again, she even asked silently, her eyes hopeful. But Regan wanted to go back to the body, apparently. “What?” Jade didn’t bother hiding her disappointment. And actually? Nope, screw that, she was having none of it. Like, the body was already dead anyway, why did he have to cockblock them? Regan fumbled in search of her phone at least, which told Jade her mind might be elsewhere too. That she didn’t want to sweep this under a rug. Right? She moved into her space again, testing the waters. (Good, no pushback). Her hand grasped Regan’s wrist firmly, preventing her from pulling the phone. She hoped Regan saw the intention behind her piercing gaze, hoped she’d stop her if this wasn’t what she wanted. But all she saw was her own intensity shining back at her. Jade felt like she was inside Regan’s head for a second, nothing standing between them. No commitments, or soul-crushing duties, or unattainable expectations or… Just them, seeing each other completely in that moment. Yes.

Normally impulse would’ve taken over. In fact, the only reason it hadn’t yet was ‘cause she was still a little ‘shook’. (Regan kissed her?). But her body hummed, warmth spreading in her chest, down her abdomen as Regan’s stuttered exhales brushed against her skin again, so keen for more. If this was the only chance Jade got to do this, she wanted to get it right. Be memorable. Give Regan a little something to remember her by while she played with her dumb sheep and… whatever else she was gonna do back in Ireland. (It was whatever, she didn’t even care). She closed the small distance Regan had put between them, taking her time. Building up that glorious tension again. She was good at this after all, even if she was almost caught off guard the first time. Her nose brushed against Regan’s, savoring the proximity even if all their lips did was skim over each other. She held off a little longer, ready to reward Regan for her patience. Jade let go of the wrist she’d been grasping, gently redirecting the hand to her waist, inviting her to touch. She let out a pleased sigh against Regan’s skin when fingers curved around her body. And wasn’t her body so much nicer to hold than a Blackberry anyway?

Jade reached for Regan’s face this time, pulling her into the warmth of her mouth. They fell into a different rhythm, slow, blissful. And so sweet. It was wandering fingers, teasing fingertips that had no goal other than to trace delicate patterns along Regan’s jaw, down her neck. Learning, exploring. Her heart softened at the sweet, small puffs of air that hit her lips. Too loving, too tender. She took her time, encouraging Regan’s impatient bouts of boldness with tiny sighs, her body bowing toward Regan’s every time she squeezed her waist just right, shivering under the attention. (But also ‘cause it was like, super chilly and she didn’t bring a jacket, so). It came to a natural end, until there was nothing but the lovely sensation of their lips barely grazing, extending the moment, unwilling to break the magic.

She pulled away, though not entirely. She couldn’t. Her forehead touched Regan’s, nose pressed to her cheek, and she felt the faint flutter of eyelashes against her. A pause. She couldn’t breathe. Not ‘cause… well, yeah ‘cause of the kiss, but mostly ‘cause it was overwhelming to be so completely surrounded by Regan. Her hair, her smell, her touch. This was so, so, bad for them. But like, so, so good for everyone who already thought they were lovers anyway. They were really onto something. (And she was vindicated too, knowing she called their chemistry from day one). It should’ve been over. They should’ve stopped and Jade would’ve been fine with it (well, eh). Correction: She would’ve accepted it. ‘Cause two incredible kisses were far more than she ever expected. Except… neither of them was succeeding at the whole cooling down thing or made any effort to actually let go. If anything, the way they were trying to catch their breath against each other was kinda sorta doing something to her. She wasn’t sure who made the move, if anyone did at all, or if they simply melted into each other. When their lips found each other again, it was urgent. This was her speed. Heated. As if she’d been given permission to be fully herself. No holding back. The dam broke, and she couldn't stop desire from spilling. She poured it all into the kiss. No thoughts, (head empty), only what her body wanted. No, no. There's been enough want already, this was pure need. And it was so nice to finally understand the difference. A throbbing that settled so deep and reached so far within her, she questioned how many times she had even felt something like it.

Her hands, so well-behaved before, started roaming. They touched like they had been tied down, deprived. Jade dragged them along Regan’s arms, to her ribcage. Waist to hips. Everywhere her lips couldn’t be. ‘Cause she was too busy kissing like she’d been starved. She was ravenous. Mouth opening wider, desperate to be closer, to taste more. Regan’s touch changed too. Was she aware? Was it unintentional? The weight. Almost like she was trying to hold on to her. It wasn’t exactly discouraging her advances. Jade answered with a hum at the back of her throat, her stomach coiling tighter. All she could hear was the blood pumping in her ears, and sighs that didn’t come from her mouth, bringing another swell of affection in her chest and a delicious pulse she felt building in her lower abdomen. Building fast and so, so good that…

She should pump the breaks. Soon. Cause Regan’s iron will? Bending under her touch. Pliant against her mouth. And it sure didn’t take Jade too much to get worked up, definitely not with the woman she’d craved for months kissing her like that. But this was a cemetery. A super nice one, mind you. She was positive there were like… beautiful private places, but that was so not the vision (And, yikes. She should NOT be entertaining the vision if the plan was to stop). Oh, and there was a body too, or something. Yup. A dead body they were standing above. Right! Having to break the kiss was definitely the worst thing she'd done since she fell victim to that weird mustache trend during her teenage years. (Possibly even the worst ever). But maybe she didn’t, maybe it was Regan who stopped them. The point was, that they were no longer kissing, and everything felt meaningless and empty. Oh, and her hand still fisted one of the collars of the coat, fingertips inches away from the zipper. (When did she get there?). She released it, smoothing out the fabric. Regan loved the stupid coat, she couldn’t ruin it.

“Body” Jade agreed, not even a little embarrassed by how affected her voice sounded. Like, Regan was right there too, she knew exactly what they got up to. It was her fault anyway. She closed her eyes, and it was so unhelpful, ‘cause all she saw and smelled and tasted was Regan. “The dead one. Mhm,” she was so good with words all the time. She licked her lips, fighting to muster a smidge of composure. Her brain was still vacationing elsewhere. She was so right, she called it so long ago. Not kissing Regan was going to be so much harder now that she knew what it felt like. And, was her heart ever going to stop thundering in her chest? Her gaze was fixed on Regan’s mouth. Still parted, inviting her to…nope. That was over. Done. Poor guy needed to go to the morgue. Yup. “Do your… thingy. I should um. I had a crossbow?” She nodded, intending to go over to Linda’s to pick it up. When her legs like, started working again. Boy, that ride back was going to be absolute torture, wasn’t it?

Regan grappled for her other pocket but the abruptness to Jade’s voice made her pause. What? “Jade, I – I really do need to –” The words came out low, breathy, and her stomach was already clenching with the lie about her priorities. Jade apparently did not want Regan to follow a kiss up with a phone call to the morgue, which was reasonable in an emotional, subjective sort of way, but just about all Regan could do to keep from kissing her again. And she couldn’t kiss Jade again because… because… her hand went limp as soon as Jade had her wrist. Her eyes snapped to Jade’s, which were shining, glowing – and insistent in a way Regan also felt all the way down to her knees. There were so many Jades – the bombastic, in-your-face flirt; the seasoned slayer; the little sister trying to keep up; the one who compartmentalized like she was born for it while Regan denied herself of the whole – but this was her Jade, the one who brought all of the others together and the one who seemed to see right into her, every time. Jade’s intention was clear. And Regan’s attempt to do something else was just too damn flimsy; if her willpower crumbled in such a landslide before, this feeble attempt to make a phone call never stood a chance. “I guess he can wait a few minutes. It’s cold out. His rate of decomp is–”

She barely got the words out before swooping right back to Jade like they were re-articulating bones. Death’s fingers raked through her, too, and Regan’s stomach grew hot with need. Or bile. That had to be bile. Tangy citrus tickled her nose and Jade was so close, right up against her, booping (right?), and Regan knew they had reached some point of no return. Chinniúint, this was just like in Brokenspine Hill, except they were hovering over a human instead of a dead cow, and Jade smoldered in comparison to Regan’s old neighbor, Mildew, who played –

Oh. Regan’s hand was guided around Jade’s waist and perched itself there – uneasy at first, but then more confident as her lips grew bolder, too. They met Jade’s again, warm and ready, and this time with less surprise, which made way for her curiosity. And she had plenty. Jade was surprisingly soft and gentle, letting Regan set the pace – a kindness for how long it had been. Probing turned to exploration and soon she was urging Jade for more. More softness, more sweetness – more than Regan had ever expected from her – and more of what she knew Jade was holding back. One hand dipped behind Jade’s ear, her thumb tracing over the perfect scar above her eyebrow, learning it by touch. Had that been from a – later. As if she could formulate a question right now, with Jade shivering and sighing against her. She had also wanted to ask if Jade was cold – either as a consequence of her own fashion choices or Regan’s lips – but that was impossible, too. It would have meant pulling herself away. And that thought made her grip on Jade’s waist tighten, as Jade’s warm fingers peppered and stroked her chin, her jaw. The only complaint from Regan’s lungs was a mechanical need for more oxygen, but suffocation didn’t seem so bad, when the alternative was parting.

But flesh had its limits. She needed to catch her breath. Her lungs were behaving now, but they could be temperamental. Achingly, agonizingly, Regan broke the kiss, but her hands remained where they were, one hooked around Jade’s waist, the other tangled up near her temple, and her eyes only fluttered open long enough to appreciate the spores glowing across Jade’s rosy cheeks… and the spark in her eyes like she had something to prove. Hadn’t she already proved it? Evidence was collected. Major deviations were committed (did each kiss need to be filed separately, in this hypothetical?). No, Jade always had something more to prove.

Regan could picture her own death certificate. Cause of death: asphyxiation due to obstruction. Manner… well, she wasn’t sure this would be homicide. This was her fault. She started it. Mechanism: abandonment of duty. Her thoughts started to spin more, caught between sheer exhilaration, the right-there-ness of Jade in her hands, and the lingering, nagging responsibilities that tethered her to reality. There were implications to this, consequences. So many they could pile up and asphyxiate her all on their own. But her gaze rested on Jade, tracing the outline of her lips, still tingling from the contact, and regret was so far away – across the sea, even, in Ireland.

“Finally,” Regan breathed into Jade’s cheek, staying close, “I thought death might take one of us first. Not that I wouldn’t cherish your bones.” She hadn’t yet gathered three heartbeats before she dove back into Jade. There were no objections. Jade practically exploded in her direction, months of tension spilling over, and Regan could just barely contain it. No one had ever kissed her like this before – or at least, no one had ever been this good at it. Jade was greedy with her touch and Regan allowed it, relished in it, leaning into the warmth of her palms, even as they dipped below her lumbar, cupping her for insurance, but never staying in one place for long.

There should have been something in her lungs, vibrating her breath, clawing up her throat. The scream was always waiting for moments like this. Weakness. Aneurysms ready to burst. But there was nothing. Where she expected a rattling in her skull there was only the rush of her own blood pushing past her ears and pitiful sounds trying to escape out of her body. How was that possible? Her control wasn’t that good, was it? Jade’s hand slipped down around her back, mingling with the vibrations gifted by death itself, and Regan whimpered into her mouth. No. Not that good. Cliodhna always told her that – no, not right now. She should have cared more, puzzled through what it meant. Her mind was doing anything but thinking, though. Her train of thought crashed and her hand disappeared underneath Jade’s jacket, fingers bunching around her shirt as she reeled her in. Jade had moved so swiftly before, vaulting herself over headstones, sprinting across the cemetery, and Regan needed to feel those muscles against her own. She pressed herself close, closer, her breath more frantic, knuckles curling into cloth, then hand roving up still, underneath, fingers trailing the lace of Jade’s bra. Was the musty earth of a cemetery really so hard, so objectionable? Would Jade let her –

Her eyes rolled back in her skull, closed, and she was pretty sure at some point she’d given them up to the asfís bháis, since she could hear the dead pulsing between Jade’s breaths. Or maybe that was the tattered remains of her conscience reminding herself about the cadaver at their feet. The one Jade saved like a knightess in leather armor and shining spores. Down, where she wanted the both of them. Well, not right next to – Jade’s hands circled around her back again, her shoulders, exactly where –

A shudder ran through Regan, common sense pouring in but riding on a wave of what was surely pleasure, however little she recognized it now. She righted her eyes, her senses. Fuck. Her fingers jumped – cruelly – from Jade’s breasts to her necklace, as if checking it was still there, secured. Of course it was. Regan swallowed her own panting breath, gulping it back like she could deny it existed, deny that it tasted like Jade. Her shoulders heaved and, oriented to time and place now, she watched Jade’s hand flick to her coat. For a second, she thought Jade might have been about to rip the coat right off her body (please)… but she gave it a pat instead, straightening it out, like puffer jackets could even show creases. She hated that stupid coat.

And then quiet, stillness. Regan’s eyes grew wide at Jade’s, which looked so incredibly, deeply pleased, but not content. Jade’s moonlit lips were also still slightly parted, a question or perhaps an invitation waiting to be answered. She had obviously been suppressing rational thought, too, and now they both waited for something to be said that could make any of what just happened okay. Neither of them moved away from each other, but some hold had been broken. Regan’s heart raced alongside her increasingly frenetic thoughts, breaths still heavy, with the chill of the cemetery air starting to settle in around her now that she wasn’t wrapped around Jade… and so many questions. What had they done? With each breath, it sunk in a little more, and she backed away from Jade like a ghost.

The buzz of Jade on her skin slowly faded, and what remained was from the body. Doubt clawed at her mind, uncertainty flickering behind her usual steeliness. It wasn’t about the kiss, not really. That had been – no, the act itself was not the mistake. She would never tell Jade she was a mistake. It was the admission that came with it. Wanting, feeling, and acknowledging something that she had worked so hard to snuff out. “I—” Regan started, her voice small and uncertain, grappling for some edge that wasn’t there. She hesitated, the weight of the implications pressing down on her chest. “Chinniúint, I was not supposed to do that,” she finally said, the words escaping. And then, “I did that.” And then, “What am I going to do? What do I – what are we going to – oh no, bás glac chugam, I can’t – I don’t know what this means. What was this? I should know. I was the one who – damn it.” The pleading look she gave Jade died with the realization that there was no clear path forward.

So much for Jade relying on her to push back any advances. Finally, she had said, realizing the moment had betrayed her thoughts. Too late to pretend this hadn’t crossed her mind once or a dozen times. Leaving it to her had been a terrible plan to begin with. Regan usually failed. Maybe she hadn’t been clear enough to Jade that she was, in fact, not especially good at any of this – she was like forgotten meat that had already thawed out and needed to be crammed back into the freezer; it would never be as good as what had not been left out to begin with, half-rotten and infested. For years, she'd sheared away emotion and grafted herself into a tool devoid of feeling anything, wanting anything. Her duty demanded that she shed all vestiges of sentiment no matter how deeply under the skin they scurried, burying any inkling of warmth. Banshees were cold. Death chose her, and she was supposed to meet it with a heart chillier than the morgue’s storage. What was it all for, then? The asceticism, the pain, the self-annihilation? Primum non nocere was in jeopardy. Regan wanted Jade. She wanted to stay here. She wanted friends. She wanted to be a person. She wanted.

The very thought of it made her stomach swirl, nausea creeping up. What was she going to say to her grandmother? Nothing. She’d say nothing. But Cliodhna would know. And with a heart so full as hers, how long would it take to bleed it out again? How many incisions must there be? If it took not even a year to unspool 7 years of training, how many more years would be necessary to cauterize her mistakes? Her breathing picked up again, this time spiked with raw, exposed panic. She didn’t know what to say to Jade; she didn’t even know what to say to herself. So she defaulted to what she did know, really clung to it – the concrete, her duty, what needed to be done.

Regan’s hand twitched, almost reaching out to touch Jade’s arm from what now seemed like a great distance, before she stopped herself. She swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the situation bear down on her – and still tasting Jade. “I should… I need to call the office,” she stammered, breaking the uncomfortable silence, her voice strained. “Your crossbow. Right, of course. It’s, uh, somewhere. Over near Linda. Somewhere over there.” Except she didn’t want Jade to go anywhere. But – “I will be a minute.” Regan fumbled for her phone again, but her fingers were stiff and the air was so heavy it was like being buried down below the graves. And her hair was in her eyes. She couldn’t see the number pad. Why was – stupid.

Dialing the number felt like a futile attempt to regain some semblance of normalcy. It also took too long to ring. Finally, Marcy’s sweet voice offered salvation. Or it was sweet, until Marcy so helpfully pointed out that Regan’s voice was trembling. Poor reception, Regan explained. “Yes, I know it’s a long drive up here. They need to come quickly.” How quick? Regan grew testy. “Immediately. Twenty minutes ago. What? Two hours? No. Absolutely not. There is a body… um, emergency.” She could hear Marcy smile from over the phone, miles away, and she hated it. She knew. She probably knew as soon as it happened. Regan made a mental note to check herself for tracking devices. Jade, of course, was back as soon as the words “body emergency” had left Regan’s mouth, and the knowingness that bled across her face was worthy of a frame on her desk, along with the ulcers.

Well, that didn’t help smooth out any tension. Regan hung up with a groan and the phone slipped from her hands. It arced right between her feet and into the decedent’s face, resulting in a squelching noise. Regan’s jaw fell open. Again. Different reason this time, though. She lowered herself concussion-fast and snatched the phone out of the dead man’s face, where it had made a rectangular dent in his delicate flesh. Some of the keys left imprints. “I’m sorry,” She yelped, though of course, a corpse could not hear her. Fates, what was wrong with her? How could she let this happen? How could she let any of this happen? Failure burned inside of her but somehow, when she looked at Jade again, it crackled into something that was so painful it circled right back around, her deficiencies becoming defiance.

“Two hours,” she told the dead man, wincing down at the way his skin puckered around the fresh injury. “And don’t give me that look. She saved you, you know.”

#writing #c jade #wrspice

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vitruvianmanbara · 3 months

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just curious but why are you so into st sebastian? like ive been following you for long enough to know your interests in the classical and in eroticism vary far and wide (as a true connoisseur's should 🫡) but why return to that particular iteration over and over

Hmmm this was a harder question to answer than I thought it would be! I think I initially became interested in the various depictions because I noticed how they have been and continue to be reiterated in all types of media, not just the visual arts....artists of all sorts do this with religious motifs, but Sebastian's historical associations with homosexuality (and his role as a plague saint) make those depictions particularly fascinating to me.

It's difficult for me to write a coherent analysis on this, but some aspects of his gay icon status I find really interesting - quotes are pulled from the fantastic article "Losing his religion - Saint Sebastian as contemporary gay martyr" by Richard A. Kaye:

That he is primarily depicted as a solitary figure, something that might seem at odds with the way even classical representations of him are read as gay or sexually ambiguous

A great quote about the above: "The martyr's self-absorbed detachment of visual affect is a fundamental aspect of his intricate mythology, for an archetypal image of an ecstatically self-preoccupied nude male would seem to grant erotic permission to nobody, and, yet, paradoxically to every viewer. In rough psychoanalytic terms, then, the martyr provides the opportunity for an unobstructed, unmediated erotization [...] As with the solitary youth depicted in Michelangelo's David or Hippolyte Flandrin's Jeune homme nu assis au bord de la mer [...], Sebastian's basic narcissism provides for what might be terms a polymorphously perverse response on the part of the viewer." (p.90)

Depictions are so frequently located at the intersection of alternative modes of male eroticism (the erotic as a solo activity, an invitation to freely regard the vulnerable exposed body, the "feminized" posing typical to some St. Sebastian art) and death, lending themselves to associations with gay sexuality and sadomasochism. The facts that 1) in the Bible, Sebastian continue to survive after being shot full of arrows, and 2) is so often depicted responding to penetration with either an expression of calm acceptance or with facial & body language that straddle the line between pleasure and pain, lend themselves to associations of voluntary participation in alternative, marginalized forms of pleasure.

There is some interesting scholarship on the way St. Sebastian's association with gayness track onto the medicalization of homosexuality - early sexologists like Hirschfeld actually explicitly identified images of St. Sebastian as ones that "inverts" tend to be drawn to.

The politicization of Sebastian imagery post-Stonewall and AIDS is something not often talked about (on here at least), but is really fascinating. Some people soured on him post-Stonewall, seeing him as too passive an icon for the politically charged moment.

With AIDS, "Sebastian the historic soldier comes to represent the militant, newly politicized homosexual, beautifully exposed to his fate but non-passively [...] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, one witnesses a double transformation of Saint Sebastian: first, as a saint invoked to ward off the plague [...] and, second, as a politically charged figure signifying not so much sado-masochism as government neglect and social hostility. As such, Saint Sebastian symbolically encapsulates (and partly resolves) what the critic Douglas Crimp has identified as two vital, supposedly irreconcilable, components of gay culture in the age of AIDS: the labour of mourning and the work of political activism." (p.98)

Something I haven't seen discussed in the scholarship on Saint Sebastian and AIDs is an analysis of Sebastian being tended by Saint Irene imagery...not sure if it's unexplored or if I just haven't found it yet, but I think of this a lot in association with lesbian blood drives, as well as a group of nuns & a female pastor I know who have shared stories with me about caring for men with AIDS (and eventually arranging their funerals and burials) when their families would not show up.

Anyway...you get the idea! I love the way the eroticism of Sebastian imagery has been received and richly interpreted in so many ways across history, the explicit tie ins to issues of gay self-identity and politics definitely make him of special interest to me! 🏹

#and of course the other answer is that it’s a sexy little treat for me #sebastianposting

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horizon-verizon · 17 days

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https://www.tumblr.com/wishesofeternity/699562103667851264/daemon-targaryen-rant-incoming-warning-its

curious of your thoughts about this post?

Disclaimers: None of this means you have to like Daemon or approve any of his earlier actions or think he's a good person--bc that was never the argument.

And this post will also be long. There's so much to address, and there's a character limit, so I might miss some or summarize too much.

Them:

Daemon Targaryen, like every other character, possesses the capacity for good and evil and the ability to choose. But morally? Daemon was a child groomer and a pedophile who had physical relations with his teenage niece and a 17-year old girl (he was 50 at the time), and enjoyed sampling young virgins at brothels.

So the quote that they pull, firstly, is this:

“Over the centuries, House Targaryen has produced both great men and monsters. Prince Daemon was both. In his day there was not a man so admired, so beloved, and so reviled in all Westeros. He was made of light and darkness in equal parts. To some he was a hero, to others the blackest of villains.”

And I'll just say that this is written by a character in-world, Gyldayn. It's valuable to keep reminding ourselves that this is a maester who is compiling sources to try to get pictures of who these people were so we can consider how the narrative is being framed. Let's get into it:

Daemon didn't fuck Nettles.

He was however, likely to have been including virgins in his use of sex workers at brothels. I doubt that he only went to brothels for virgins with a Valyrian look, there's no evidence of that. Gross, bc buying sex work itself is already problematic [post abt Mysaria and sex work]. Add deflowering peasant girls maybe as young as 15? yeah...smh

So I would still concede a bit here. Definitely the "darkness" of his past and the "darkness" part of his character.

I've gone back and forth with how we label what he was doing with Rhaenyra after he came back form the Stepstones. Can you put some labels on it, bc under scrutiny there are flaws.

When we think of grooming, we consider it as the older person trying to get the younger psychologically detached from their support system by convincing them that they can only rely on them...and unfortunately, I'd say that of all the people Rhaenyra had then, Daemon was the person who actually was there for her more than any other in her entire life (except maybe Aemma). And I really think he entered KL with the intent to marry Rhaenyra, not to use her up in a similar way that show!Viserys does Alicent. The issue with Dameyra people have is whether or not Daemon married her just to be her consort and rule through her, when by the evidence of F&B, he never tried to overpower her and willfully became her political subordinate similar to how he still followed most and the more important of Viserys' orders (sending Mysaria away the that was literally his first child). A groomer wouldn't tolerate such a gap in power relations.

Rhaenyra didn't follow his advice concerning the Rosby & Stokeworth debacle; his was a kinda suitable compromise even as it shunted the Rosby and Stokeworth girls and I am making commentary on how Daemon tried to plan according for Rhaenyra's future. Daemon might have showed his displeasure, but here and in all their years of marriage, he never seemed to try to overpower her directions until the very last And in that last moment, I suspect that Nettles was either a surrogate daughter or his actual bio daughter.

(I explain about Viserys multiple times, but people can start HERE.)

A difference here is how the relations helped Rhaenrya vs Alicent; Rhaenyra, for better or worse, was Viserys' heir whereas Alicent was a Hightower lady from a second son who could have had any man and still live a better life and has had no other benefit to anyone other than her father, house, herself, and Viserys.

Rhaenyra needed a husband and heirs to be more assured in her queenship role, which in turn could have provided that precedent of female rulership for other women and girls. And quite simply put, the court knowing Laenor had no interest in women presented a glaring problem for the paternity of Rhaenyra' heirs and gave more ammo to her enemies. Yes the Velaryons have their fleet Rhaenyra could use, but a marriage pact with Laena's kids to Rhaenyra's PLUS Princess Rhaenys' relations to Rhaenyra, Viserys, & Daemon had some way of allying Corlys' ambitions to Rhaenyra. It's highly doubtful bk!Rhaenys would just go green, even if Corlys wanted to and neither Baela nor Rhaena existed bc the greens are just more tied to the Hightowers.

Like yes, Daemon giving the gifts to Rhaenyra and spending time with her and making fun of Alicent and her kids for Rhaenrya's amusement--with the knowledge that it didn't come with his pure intentions but partly because he wanted to become her consort--comes across as dangerous for a young girl like Rhaenyra and is certainly has cunning in it. HE also knew that Viserys wouldn't like that Daemon was partly giving such attentions to marry her bc he knows Viserys (stupidly, I might add, again, refer to the post abt Viserys) doesn't trust Daemon to actually work towards the family or really his own political interests, so we can't say that it is exactly Daemon courting her. I also suspect him of being jealous of Daemon, bk or show, bc of their history and what I said about Viserys' insecuriites in the linked post.

To officially "court" someone, their parents or guardians would have to allow the interactions. [again, refer to the linked reblog abt Viserys]. Simultaneously:

Rhaenyra was already being arranged to get married at her age of 15, and by Westerosi larger patriarchal structure she was eligible for marriage even not by being 16, bc exceptions are made for girls in ways they aren't for boys; it's not totally conducive to use her age to something to discourage Daemon from pursuing her IN THIS PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE or this world and in their traditions....which is why I hate real-world modern AUs for ASoIaF characters....her interactions with Daemon before Viserys found out, therefore, arguably display her having more "choice" than otherwise, even though we'd have to now examine how Daemon's specific actions, words, diction, etc. [WHICH WE DON'T HAVE BC THIS SGYLADYN DOESN'T HAVE ACCESS TO SUCH!] are unambiguously him deceiving Rhaenyra, how much are gray-room manipulation, and see how much "choice" Rhaenyra really has and it still wouldn't be the end-all-be all bc of the world they all live in

Viserys would have never let Daemon marry her for the wrong reasons. I don't think Daemon went in with the mind of taking advantage so much as unofficially "court" Rhaenyra in the absence of the permission he'd never obtain to force Viserys' hand. And because of this circumstance limiting both Rhaenyra and Daemon's actions, the whole thing slides into an area of where the already questionable practice of courtship and age gap relations that Westeros already has

One of the best interpretations of Daemon's interactions with Rhaenyra at this time and what I describe are written in sweetestpopcorn's fanfic The Blacks and the Greens HERE. Their Daemon is an asshole who manipulates there. He also becomes, as in canon, devoted to her herself and her cause to become queen, so he willingly serves to be, again, her political subordinate in a way that groomers can't and never can be.

Them:

He was a warmonger and war criminal who began a conquest of the Stepstones, taking all but two islands, ensuring that the people there "learned to fear" his dragon, before abandoning the entire thing because he got bored.

This is what "warmonger" means:

a person who encourages or advocates aggression towards other countries or groups

The Triarchy, or the Kingdom of the Three Daughters (Lys, Myr, Tyrosh), did not manage to keep the pirates they would eventually enable out of this critical piece of land between Essos and Westeros. Traders were getting assaulted and girls were getting kidnapped and trafficked. In the show, Corlys appealed to the crown for years and both bk/show!Viserys ignored the situation in the Stepstones for a long time ("A Question of Succession"):

Yes, Daemon saw in the Stepstones an opportunity to make a name for himself as what is valued in men in this system. But he certainly provoke or encourage the wars' existence because the fighting began 10 yrs before he ever even approached Corlys. There is also no evidence of him manipulating the situation where the fighting actually stopped and it began again due to any action on his part. There simply was a resurgence of enemies to fight.

If they are defining him as a warmonger because he doesn't care too much about stopping fighting or has a bloodlust for it, that's neither what that word means nor is it pathological as they seem to imply it of him. Again this is a feudal world....that rules that the "best" sort of man is a warrior who wins battles. How do young men and boys make names for themselves? By fighting in battles and winning most if not all of the, showing physical and military "prowess". Even Jaehaerys honed his physical skills at 14-15 to prove to others he was a fit king AND tried to get his son Vaegon out of his books and learn more swordsmanship through Baelon. Jaehaerys subscribed much into that warrior-male ideology as most people in their circles did. Rogar sought glory in battle as a way to fix up his reputation from trying to usurp Jaehaerys. Orys Baratheon sought to re-position himself as useful to Aegon I through battling more Dornish. So Daemon's hardly unique enough for his using battle and war to build his reputation or having that desire to use war to advance himself, esp when he knows he's good at it.

This doesn't mean that he is a good person or that we should default back to feudal times or kill people. It means that the OP has a distorted view of Daemon and makes him uniquely evil when he hardly is. If anything, he's in this weird middle area of having that "respect" and having nothing substantial in terms of power on his own besides Caraxes, being good at this one soceity-valued thing, and being related to Viserys or Rhaenyra. So he rather took an opportunity that Viserys left open.

His efforts at the Stepstones actually brought the Stepstones more (if not totally) into Westeros' political hegemony and overall relative "peace" for a time until the new war the greens began ruined it. And unlike Rogar, who died in Dorne and stubbornly refused to go back to his home (bc he didn't want to really face what he did to Alyssa Velaryon AND the "humiliation" of Rhaena's confronting and threatening him), Daemon "tires" of the Stepstones & marries Laena to settle down ("A Question of Succession"):

I mean, if U.S. soldiers cite being "tired" of being away from home, why can't we also assume Daemon was in a similar place? He's been at the Stepstones for more than 5 years, including the time he was exiled afterwhatever happened b/t him and Rhaenrya in 111. I don't see how this perosn thought he left bc "he got bored" when it's still war...you are going to get reasonably tired of being in a battle no matter how good you are at it. Especially when you're also trying to maintain control of an island or two when the larger authority, the government (in this case Viserys and the council) does not send materials for those fortifications. To take HotD at face value, or "Watsonianly, "HotD!Daemon goes off on his own bc Viserys has just now decided to send reinforcements when he could have done so way before but refused to, again, stupidly and pridefully. So Daemon wanted to make a personal point to Viserys as well as a broader one. "Doyistly", or to criticize HotD, that whole situation of Daemon going off on his own was dumb even as it was thrilling: he couldn't have avoided all those arrows or traversed the field all by himself like that. I doubt that bk!Daemon would have done it that way.

And in the show, Alicent presses that he actually hurry up and put an end to the war not "for the realm"'s most vunerable's peace [once again, those kidnapped girls and the traders], but bc it's costing the crown money. She says as much in the 6th episode. Refusing to do as Rhaenrya suggests and build some fortifications to keep the Stepstones as they want them and even ensure future protection and eventually reduce the fighting to almost nil. Alicent's concern was not for people's lives or safety but for money and to maintain a picture of control. Viserys, too. But I digress.

Finally, we see Daemon at the black council saying they shouldn't go to war until they absolutely had to and actually had the soldiers an d support they needed. That dragons are a last resort & he agrees with Rhaenyra "surprisingly" ("The Blacks and the Greens"):

All belies this idea of him being a crazy warmonger with no restraint.

Let's just say that Daemon is definitively a war criminal. Would he be so unique in that? I don't see how Otto, Aegon the Elder, Criston Cole, Aemond, Daeron, the Hightowers, even Alicent, are all "war criminals". Daeron--Bitterbridge and those battle-damaged refugees, the raped people, Lady Caswell's end. Aemond: the Strongs, Alys Rivers, and the burning of the riverlands. And yet OP, again, makes Daemon out to be the instigator of many things....[below]

Them:

He was a child murderer responsible for the brutal murder of a 6-year old boy and the threat of rape to a 6-year old girl. He encouraged the continuation of the Dance and vengeance against his enemies, dismissing his Hand's proposal for peace. He had the selfishness of Aegon IV, the brutality of Maegor, and the tyranny of Aerys II. And that’s just scratching the surface of the things he did, both before and during the Dance.

...Aemond was a child murderer in killing Luke, which prompted Daemon's reaction. Daemon didn't begin that. Again, I speak to this idea that Daemon instigates. No, he responds.

He didn't threaten any rape of a 6 year old, Cheese was quite clearly trying to hurry Helaena up and threaten that. That shows Cheese's character, not Daemon.

Now, that Daemon at all arranged for a murder of a child? Yes, horrible, which shows he's never bene a good person. (As if there was a great and consistent argument people used to say he was?) This is different from him instigating things or causing the war. No, Aemond did that by killing Luke unprovoked. And before people bring up the eye, I already wrote about that HERE, HERE and HERE. Even if I didn't, it had been years, Aemond made as if he was cool with it....so why did he run after teen-Luke or (bk) allow himself to be so triggered by Maris Baratheon's words about his manhood to go for straight up physical intimidation and murder?!

By "his Hand", I'm assuming they are saying HotD!Daemon refused Aegon the Elder's Hand--Otto--'s terms for peace.

Not only was it that in the bk, Rhaenyra refused the terms the green council sent Grand Maester Orwyle to deliver to her (her big speech about his not being a loyal maester/subject -- HotD removes/reduces Rhaenyra's fascinating assertion of power through calling out others' trying to redefine her worthiness as heir)...

This is Otto and Daemon in that last episode.

We need to remember that Otto is just as willing to risk a war if it gets him what he wants. He made that choice as soon as he pimped his daughter out to Viserys and kept insisting that Rhaenyra's position was defaulted once Aegon was born, as he says in this own. He is and never was willing to stave off a war. He is the one to insiste that Rhenyra is not even a "true" heir despite the fact that Viserys, time and time again, reinforced her position PUBLICLY. Otto explicitly says Rhaenyra is not the true heir. He was never about "protecting" anyone, much less the peasants who'd be caught up in this war.

So, again, I find it strange OP missed that and says Daemon is at fault for the war bc of a supposed bloodthirstiness for war and violence itself...when the man even backs off from Otto by Rhaenyra's order of "No" in that scene. Yes he was preparing the castle in case the greens attacked it as they coronated Aegon...wouldn't most of us one we hear news of a someone depowering or usurping the person we are tasked to protect?! Daemon is rather responding to what happening, which is Rhaenyra being usurped and pressing for her rights to the throne as Otto is trying to assert Aegon's right to the throne. Why is Otto figured as this righteous seeker of "order" and "peace" and not someone enabling an event where Rhaenyra is losing a thing due to her gender...esp since Otto is both the guy who suggested her appointment as heir in the first place AND the guy who explicitly said to Alicent that the reason he did so/and is plotting against her is bc she is a woman?!

He had the selfishness of Aegon IV, the brutality of Maegor, and the tyranny of Aerys II

He can't have any sort of "tyranny" if he's not the ruler or final authority of anything...so...

He's certainly self centered and only thinks about his own family's needs or desires. However, to say he's equal to Aegon IV, who willfully and purposefully and consciously set up a situation where a war could happen just to spite his son, wife, and brother out of pure jealousy is disingenuous. Aegon IV betrayed his own family; Daemon died for his family. And again, he canonically allowed himself to be subordinate to Rhaenyra. Can we really say Aegon IV is the same, when he rapes his sister after she explictly told him she didn't want to have sex with him anymore, threw away his various mistresses and daughters for new mistresses, neglected most of his kids?

As for being as "brutal" as Maegor...yeah, he wasn't opposed to torture and he, again, was no stranger nor repulsed or against using violence. He was brutal.

However unlike Maegor who tortured two of his wives and raped another (Rhaena), Daemon doesn't flagrantly use torture against those who--again--haven't already presented themselves as critical enemies. Alys Harroway was completely innocent even if she had had affairs bc she didn't endanger Maegor's life. Tyanna was unequivocally evil and carried out Alys' gruesome murder, even though she absolutely was being sidelined for not giving Maegor heirs--having to become "useful" to him otherwise [which is another discussion about class and misogyny in those spaces]. And she would have done so to the others if she had the chance. Tyland Lannister, though? He was hiding the secrets of the stolen royal treasury. (Aegon stole the throne, the greens moved funds that never should have been in their possession, and they did it specifically so they could diminish Rhaenyra's ability to really establish herself at KL in their absence. Which explicitly shows us that they aren't "legitimate" rulers bc Rhaenyra had still been alive and someone they had to get rid of. So yes the funds were stolen.)

So Daemon's brutality is of a different quality than Maegor's; the slight but very important difference between them is that Maegor hurt those closest to him while Daemon never stooped low, that far nor ever looked for a fight that wasn't there already.

I think there is also a conflation of grey morality with unpredictability. Daemon was unpredictable, with his sudden elopements and kickstarting of wars and general mercuriality. The moral complexity of this, however, depends on his motives, and none of his are particularly complicated or difficult to morally pin down: he is primarily and consistently motivated by self-interest. If they happen to benefit others, it’s purely coincidental, and always secondary. Unpredictability does not automatically make someone morally grey, and it certainly doesn’t with Daemon. [...] If the narrative had leaned into his awfulness, he could have potentially been a fun villain.

I believe that once we realize that the "greyness" of Daemon stems from his insistence to put his family before his own search for power as a man about his being "good" to people not-his family, the greyness works. Because much of the Dance was also about defending the family you think or you really are defending. HotD!Alicent (and for some people, bk!Alicent, too) thinks she is protecting her kids from people using Rhaenyra and harming her kids (lying to herself)...but she really troggers a war that will end with ALL her kids dead and only 4 of 7 of Daemon and Rhaenyra's surviving. A war that lead to many sacks, the Riverlands burning the Strongs going extinct. All because Otto wanted more power and Viserys was an idiot and Jaehaerys was a misogynist and Aerys was stupid and Aegon I didn't take a chance.

Daemon of HotD explicitly says to Otto that he doesn't trust his sons with Aegon, the "drunken usurper cunt of a king"....and he was right to. If the show continues to make Aegon as he was in the bk, Aegon will threaten to mutilate Aegon III, castrate him, etc. so that Rhaenyra's line "must end". Aegon explicitly says as much in his conversation to Alicent abt how to stave off Rhaneyra's supporters.

'I rather think Daemon is one of the most predictable characters of this story. What is "unpredictable" is that because he doesn't try to be a "good" knight or typical protector or try to make people "love" him as Viserys does; or try to flatter others, he's "unpredictable" to those people who would have wanted him to be more like what Loras Tyrell puts out. And that sentiment, that reputation he built as being that more "shameless" bleeds through various tellings of his actions, esp with him & Nettles [refer to the very first link abt Nettles I have above].

There is a morality in how one treats one's family, as I implied through my comparison to Maegor. I also think of Jaehaerys and his treatment of Rhaena, Alysanne, his daughters, how he handled his succession, etc. Jaehaerys--through his abusiveness and sidelining of important, critical women around him--sets up the Dance. Yet many in the fandom think of him as an absolutely good king instead of a relatively good one. And through Jaehaerys and Aegon Iv and the rest, we see how protecting your family and valuing them above their roles contributes tot he overall stability of a dynasty's grasp on power bc all these sidelined women were able to politically contribute...but were sidelined and forced to make separate lives for themselves.

As I said, Daemon is motivated in part by legacy...as much as Visenya was with Maegor. But again, he didn't die at the Gods Eye for selfish ambition...otherwise he would have never allowed himself to die in the first place and even hand Nettles over. Even if he had been just sleeping with her, what would stop him from being totally selfish and handing her over to be killed similar to how several lords abandon their mistresses or one night stands? do we think that Tywin Lannister would advocate or try to help out Shea if she were to ever get into trouble? Sacrifice himself or disobey an order form another force/authority for here to live?!

Daemon was never going to be a villain, bc villains are characters who are amoral antagonists to the protagonist. "Villain" is a specific literary/media term, it's not a term you apply whatsoever just because the person is evil. Even protagonists can be amoral or eveil (Dorian Grey). But Daemon is actually one of the protagonists. The greens are the antagonists; they usurped the actual, main protagonists, Rhaenyra, and Daemon is on the protagonist's side. Once again, who loses more? The greens or the blacks? Whose line ends? Who has their last member (Jaehaera) killed in a manner similar to how Alicent became Viserys' queen consort? The greens. (Unwin Peake had Jaehaera killed to make way for his own daughter to marry Aegon III...Otto may not have killed Aemma or had her killed, but he & Alicent certainly was looking for power through a nonTarg Queen consort). Everuone is certainly punished for the war...but the greens lose utterly and didn't accomplish what they set out to do, which was to establish their own line of rulers.

It's like with Macbeth, who got to be king. But one of his killed adversaries and the scion of the past king he murdered--actually got to propagate the next line of kings. I also have to remind everyone that when Corlys said that Aegon the Elder should name Aegon the Younger as his heir, Alicent got pissed...showing that she and the greens banked on growing their own Targ line...so yeah this matters ("The Sad, Short Reign of Aegon II"):

No one ever said that unpredictability = moral greyness. The moral greyness was that he was a good dad and only cared about protecting his family in a way that many people even now would just think about protecting those close to them.

Perhaps the most damning aspect of this blatant favoritism is how Daemon is turned into the essential protagonist of the Dance of the Dragons.

This line contradicts what the OP said about him being a villain...what gives?

Like I already said, villains in a story are antagonists, never the protagonist! Out of the story, amongst those discussing, we can maybe say that a protagonist is a "villain" in the nonliterary and colloquial sense but these should not erase/overpower the basic structure of the story being told. (if they are "villains" to your own personal set of values, that makes sense. but not for the story written)

And no, he's not the essential protagonist, he's one of them. Rhaenyra is rather the protagonist. The story is about a woman usurped of her throne and position because others took advantage of her being a woman and being the first female heir apparent that was actually intended to be Queen. The question of female rulership (and agency) is the center of the Dance alongside what the "price for power" is, which contextualizes Dany's own struggles from being a woman AND ruler. Learning how to be a better sort of ruler in the face of societies that already say she can never be so because if her gender AND the result of this Dance war that lead to more Targaryen women losing power the more it became embedded in Andal patriarchal culture for the dynasty's grip on power. Rhaneyra's foils are Aegon and his mother, Alicent. "Princess an the Queen"? And Aegon is the model for the Targaryen male royal who exemplifies all the unusual allowances this society gives to men while women like Rhaenyra are subjugated or condemned for doing mush less or simply things no one can say are immoral but somehow trouble the men's grip on power. Which is why Daemon is more of a positive force in her life than a negative and is "morally grey", bc he subordinates himself for her. Again, he fights for her and has his legacy through her winning. Rhaenyra's son Aegon derives his claim through her, not Aegon the Elder nor though Daemon ("Lineages and Family Tree"):

His wives are all overshadowed by him and primarily defined by their relationship with him. Rhea Royce is an unfeatured non-entity who exists solely for him to hate, and conveniently dies in time for him to remarry. Laena is a beautiful, fiery, perfect companion who dies tragically young and in a conveniently gendered manner, once again in time for him to remarry. Rhaenyra is sidelined and eclipsed in her own war and her own story in favor of him. Nor should we forget his lovers: more time is spent describing Nettles and Mysaria’s relationships with Daemon than actually telling us more about them as individuals. Once he’s out of the picture for good, the former completely retreats from civilization, and the latter is gruesomely murdered by his enemies. Once again, all I can say is: Convenient.

Once again, Nettles was never his lover.

If you feel Daemon is more "interesting" than Rhaenyra, that's your own thing. However, again, Rhaenyra is the true center of the Dance, not Daemon. This is the basic structure & purpose of the narrative. Ignore the stupid dudebros. It is the rumors and Mysaria's deciding Rhaenyra that Nettles is Daemon's lover that springboards' Rhaenyra's fall. After Daemon dies, she still lives and has her own tragic end that has its own commentary on women in power and femicide.

For the story of Rhaenyra targeting Nettles to work, it has to be true that DaemonxNettles was never a thing...bc Rhaenyra became paranoid of betrayals after Ulf and Hugh defected and destroyed Tumbleton PLUS her grief from her two sons getting killed before she landed on KL.

Also, again, I very much doubt that he struck up an affair with Mysaria when they landed. Once again, this is a book written by a maester who was not there. Septon Eustace--who hates Rhaenyra...oh look more proof that it's all abt Rhaenyra--says that Daemon slept with Mysaria...he also says that Rhaenyra cut herself on the throne while wearing full armor and tries to say that this indicated she would never be a good ruler...Even f she had cut her palm, us as readers have to remember that even Aegon I was cut. Aegon IV, however, was never reported to be cut. Arguably one of the worst rulers Westeros ever had. This was a superstition, it was a chair made out of swords....come on, now! And if Mysaria were sleeping with Daemon, why would she choose to have him killed?! Especially when she stood to gain so much more from his being alive than dead as the their mistress of whispers? Rhaenyra was also very possessive of Daemon and more likely saw Mysaria as not trustworthy (without the context of Mysaria working for her) as she did Laena those years past. Proven by how she acted with Nettles. I doubt that she would allow Daemon to sleep with Mysaria without going crazy and putting a stop to it so Septon Eusatce can have more to write gleefully about.

What narrative purpose would Rhea Royce serve? What would she do for this purpose of the Dance but to be as she was--a minor character whose marriage to a specific Targ rather shows Jaehaerys and Alysanne bungling marriage alliances? If F&B doesn't give Rhea as much attention as it does Rhaneyra or Laena or Rhaneys or Alicent, it's because the story isn't about these "lesser" lords and ladies who are not there to not build up the central character's characterizations. that's how stories work. But perhaps more importantly, Gyldayn is writing F&B as its onw historical volume. F&B is a work against female rulership. Rhea being so used and so poorly matched with Daemon AND both Alysanne and Viserys' refusal to have this marriage annulled emphasizes the pattern of shallowly-described/de-personed women (like Ceryse Hightower, Alys Harroway, Jeyne Westerling____Yandel of AWoIaF--Barbra Bracken and Bethany Blackwood, Serenei of Lys, etc) are all because their authors--and those who related the tales to various people for the author to write into their histories--are uninterested in them bc they were women made into wombs. Rhea had no other political purpose but to tie Daemon down. That's Jaehaerys, Alysanne, and whoever was responsible for Rhea's faults. And again, it's meant to show us that Andal patriarchy-Targ monarchy paradigm that vicitmizes and suboridnates women.

Similar can be said of Laena, but because she cam from a much more important, wealthier family and was a dragonrider where she's allowed to express herself AND was best friends with Rhaenyra...there was no way she wouldn't have had soem more relative attention than the other women OP listed (except Rhaenyra). Laena was another supporting character, not a main one. And she also dies so Rhaneyra and Daemon will have Aegon III, from which we will have Dany, ASoIaF's savior. Just as Laenor and Harwin had to be removed somehow (Laenor through death bc there was no such thing as divorce) so Rhaenyra will marry Daemon and give us Dany.

Not to say that Laena's death was morally justified nor that it wasn't in a gendered manner...it's that it has a specific purpose in terms of ASoIaF's themes and structure. It's part of a larger commentary than what we just see in front of our eyes in this moment of HotD being the present ASoIaF project everyone's watching now. Basically, I'm saying: yeah, that's the whole point.

Should GRRM have reduced the number of women dying by childbirth? Maybe. Idk, there's a theory out there that I like where the maesters are the ones who stopped the Targ women, including Laena, from having more children or surviving childbirth. Not Alysanne because Jaehaerys was clearly the "dominant" of the two and they both more or less were pretty integrated into Andal patriarchy and supported the Faith, who the maesters have shared interests with. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Let's put it this way: if we say that if you impose childbirthing on 15-17 year olds (Rhaenys and Jocelyn Baratheon were both 16 at marriage; Rhaenyra 17; Alyssa Velaryon 14; Alyssa Targaryen 15; Helaena 13; *Laena 23) AND we see that on average Westerosi noblewomen marry at around 16-19 and start getting pregnant not long after, then why is it that the Targ women (except Alysanne) keep having under 3 kids and/or dying of childirth? But, again, I'll say this is a theory. It could very well be this AND the Westerosi practice of marrying noble girls off & having kids too young. Which is part of the allure of ASoIaF, but that's another thing.

Narratively, the Greens suffer the most from this. All of them are caricatures meant to oppose the Blacks rather than individual characters in their own right

Easy; bc they started the war, their goals were simple, this is a book written by a guy who wasn't there, Alicent and Otto clearly raised their kids to see the blacks as their enemy bc they said the throne was their patriarchal birthright.

...Daemon compared to his nephew, Aemond Targaryen. Both of them are clearly meant to be narrative parallels: second sons, dangerous swordsmen, the heavy-hitting wildcards of the war, one of them claiming Visenya’s dragon and the other one possessing Visenya’s sword. Both of them committed heinous atrocities on equal proportion, the only difference being that Daemon lived longer and thus had the time to commit more. Yet the way they are portrayed could not be more different: Aemond is rightfully depicted as war criminal and a murderer, and is both one-dimensional and over-the-top in his awfulness; Daemon, on the other hand, has far more pagetime, is explored in far more detail, and has all his crimes contextualized as part of his glorified and non-existent “grey morality”. (And while this is not a direct criticism, it’s also a little weird that while Aemond is justifiably called Kinslayer, Daemon is not, despite the fact that he was responsible the death of his young grand-nephew, a suspect for the death of his good-brother, and the eventual killer of Aemond himself.) The narrative rightfully condemns one while painting the other as someone who was “made of light and darkness in equal parts”. The bias is very, very evident.

That's because Daemon is older and grows out of that fighting for glory's sake that Aemond is still in BUT unlike Daemon, Aemond--bc again he was raised by the ambitious greens who are basing their cause on reinforcing patriarchal privilege, Aemond was...unlikely to get where Daemon was bc he was still in that place of "proving himself" a "true" Targaryen warrior. Because he was raised to think a lot less of his own sister and see her as a threat to his own masculinity and power (similar to how Jaehaerys I will see Rhaena), he is that sexist and misogynist. IDK, I rather think he's very much like many men even today.

Daemon never burned down "civilians" just because he was angry and wanted to draw out an enemy. Nor did he have a sex slave. Mysaria, though a sex worker, was not a slave. Alys Rivers was a war prize, thus a sex slave. One that was made into a war prize by Aemond's own doing. Just bc the line seems thin, doesn't mean it's not there nor substantial. Aemond abandoned Alicent & Helaena and refused to go down south with Criston Cole because ("Rhaenyra Triumphant"):

If he had taken Cole's advice, they could have rejoined Aegon and gotten rid of the Winter Wolves...oh well.

Returning to harming civilians yeah, Daemon swept through KL castrating and cutting people's hands off. In terms of sheer scale, no, this still isn't "equal" to Aemond's burning down the Riverlands, killing all the Strongs, etc.

Finally, just as Aegon serves as Rhaneyra's literary foil to emphasize her being the morally & politically better of the two, Daemon's foil is Aemond. As Robert Baratheon was Rhaegar's.

(I’d also like to point out that a 50-year old man challenging his barely 20-year old nephew and winning against him is nowhere near as glorious or awe-inspiring as the book or its fans make it out to seem, but is in fact one of the most pathetically embarrassing things I've ever read about. I also don’t think it was realistic at all, and would have made more symbolic and literal sense for both of them to mutually kill the other. But that would result in GRRM’s favourite character getting the equal end of the stick for once, which is probably why it didn't happen)

...Aemond wanted that battle? He hungered for it?!

Most of All, and before anything else: the reasons why Daemon is considered the winner of his battle with Aemond despite both dying is that:

of the two, it is Daemon who succeeds in his intentions for this battle: to keep Aemond from being a threat to Rhaenrya & their family....Aemond went into battle believing he had a sliver of chance at survival AND winning--he risked it all for his own personal sense of glory and power...and he didn't get what he wanted

Daemon, unlike Aemond, never faltered or hesitates in his plans or intent or the trajectory before nor during the actual battle and its' pretty clear how in sync he was with Caraxes (written and explained below)---it belies a level of self control that we do not see in Aemond

Yes, absolutely this uncle & nephew trying to destroy each other in is terrible by their relations; their battle was one of the conflicts within the war that represented an element of one of the overall tragedies, which was the Targaryens splitting into competing factions and not only losing most of those they loved but also destroying several communities while they were at i for power. However, this doesn't erase the fact that once again, even when we make Aemond and any green more "complicated" and not caricatures...the fact of the matter is that the greens were in the wrong for beginning the war with their insistence on male primogeniture...bc the principles behind their reasons So Daemon is the more admired party precisely because he's defending the person the wrong has bene done to AND destroying the very person who triggered this war in the first place. That's the first layer to the excitement of this scene that dude-bros would probably never appreciate, and I think that because some people do not really think about the implications of many stories about F&B and discrimination even against noblewomen in Westeros (because they take it from granted), many of them end up being so neutral or taking the anti-Rhaenyra/black tone of the narrative as it is instead of examining how and why it's written, section by section. So they also miss the point about how the Targs assimilated into Andal patriarchy and sexism and women losing more and more power and agency and it becoming more and justified, leading to the Dance. And it's bc people do not look at the Dance nor the entire book feministly or at least with a woman-centered lens, they ended up not really engaging with the stories. Putting it all off as "unreliable" on time when they are questioned as to why they think certain things happened despite yada, yada....and then going on to make arguments about characters as if they understand them, read them, and/or have lived in that world alongside them. Again, issue d they claim that we can't understand the characters or th0ier true motives and don't bother to understand how Gyldayn wrote the book for a particular purpose...and then go on the claim that he/the book is telling all truths.

Another layer/reason why it is as glorified as it was was because, as this OP mentions, it was expected for Daemon to lose since Aemond had Vhagar. He new he'd lose his life...but he went in anyway with no backup bc Aemond was one of Rhaenrya's--again, Rhaenyra at center--biggest opps and she had a better chance of winning without him in the picture. Plus, this is the same guy who killed a 14 year old Daemon raised as his own for more than 10 years in the book and 6 in the show. Once again, unprovoked. Does it matter that he was 20 to Daemon's 49 when he killed Luke when he was 19 and Luke was 14? When Aemond pushes a 3 year old Joffrey when he was 10 in his way to get to Vhagar? that he beats up his younger nephews and cousins. Yet somehow many fans say "he had to" or they say he was "cool" and praise him for it?!

And this is not as criticized as much as people saying Daemon "unrealistically" kills his nephew....

Also, I already wrote a post comparing Jaehaerys I v Braxton Beesbury to Daemon v Aemond HERE. It goes into the "realism" of an older dude against a younger one. Excerpt:

Caraxes also making sure he stays connected to Vhagar so Daemon can do his thing

We have to pay attention to the language of the battle. there is a synchronicity b/t Caraxes and Daemon that Aemond lacked with Vhagar AND may clue us in on the Targs and how they view/interact/bond with their dragons ("Rhaenyra Triumphant"):

Caraxes dove down upon Vhagar with a piercing shriek that was heard a dozen miles away, cloaked by the glare of the setting sun on Prince Aemond’s blind side. The Blood Wyrm slammed into the older dragon with terrible force. [...] Locked together, the dragons tumbled toward the lake. The Blood Wyrm’s jaws closed about Vhagar’s neck, her black teeth sinking deep into the flesh of the larger dragon. Even as Vhagar’s claws raked her belly open and Vhagar’s own teeth ripped away a wing, Caraxes bit deeper, worrying at the wound as the lake rushed up below them with terrible speed. And it was then, the tales tell us, that Prince Daemon Targaryen swung a leg over his saddle and leapt from one dragon to the other.

Despite them both falling, Caraxes remains gripping Vhagar and having to know of the danger, Caraxes still holds Vhagar. Daemon won't let Aemond go; Caraxes won't let Vhagar go. Vhagar is trying to get Caraxes off her; Aemond is trying to get his chains off him to escape Daemon. Caraxes is holding onto Vhagar so Aemond cannot escape from Daemon and Daemon has a stable edge over Aemond to plunge Dark sister into Aemond's head. They see to work together and take their final turns to eliminate this threat. These are all why this passage--for all the stuff about how we nor even the few witnesses there (Alys Rivers and some fisherman) can't possibly know it definitely happened this way--is so important, impresses people. It also needed to be there bc the alternative--a mere summary of Daemon killing Aemond and people finding the sword/bodies--is comparatively more boring. (Daemon at Harrenhal, waiting for Aemond, as set up for the narrative value of their deaths)

Why didn't GRRM treat Luke's death the same, with as much detail? Luke had no substantial degree of advantage over Aemond as Daemon did. They were not even close to being on any "equal" or footing? Luke had no chance; the moment was meat to highlight how little chance he had, how much of a victim he was. It wasn't a battle--it was just ordinary murder and served to make Aemond one of the critical the instigator of the war. What would it add/reveal?

Even if he "accidentally" killed Luke, he still decided to fly after him and "teach him a lesson", provoked into killing for glory or proving a point alone even at the cost of endangering his folks at home. It doesn't matter, really, whether he meant to murder him or not. It began the war--the end. What would a details of a victim's murder (in the context of a historical text) do for the story that the murder itself doesn't already? Or corresponding advantages vs disadvantages that Aemond and Daemon had?

Whereas Daemon's killing Aemond has many layers about:

him

dragon bonds

Rhaenyra

the sides' motives and deterioration into the state they were in, of which I already described

I'll say this about HotD!Aemond "accidentally" killing Luke; it may provide a a layer of Aemond deciding at every turn to dig more into his heels about destroying the blacks because then he won't have to justify his errors and wrongs if he just wins. thus his stupidity during the war, esp the one with Cole going south and him staying behind...perhaps he will think he's "making up" for that mistake...idk.

And we know that Daemon managed to get Aemond through the eye bc the text explicitly states that people found said sword in Aemon's eye when he was left there, still tied to Vhagar at the bottom of the lake at the Gods Eye ("Rhaenyra Triumphant"):

Sometimes, in fiction, what seem to be smaller concessions of logic are simply fun and/or have a larger purpose and/or supply basis for something bigger and have ther own valid "logic" that is critical to other themes. This is one of those times.

You may not like GRRM's writing of Daemon and you may hate Daemon no matter what...but to make interpretation errors because of that dislike and allowing that dislike to color how you see what's actually written doesn't make for a sound literary critique. There are fair critiques of how GRRM writes his female vs male characters, especially Tyrion, Shea, the constant childbirth death...Daemon being, say, the "center" of the Dance is certainly not one of them. You have rather bought into some of the propaganda and rumor mongering prevalent that is meant to degrade Rhaenyra. Which I guess make F&B so good; it accomplished what it set out to do.

#asoiaf asks to me #daemon targaryen #daemon's characterization #hotd characterization #hotd fandom #fandom critical #vhagar claim #fire and blood characters

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 8 months

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So, what does everyone else do when there’s really depressing news on a weekend that’s painful and triggering and makes them want to distract themselves with the very silly other things? Does everyone else make a second edition of their thing that was originally meant to be a relatively short compilation but got out of hand and became a feature film?

The original version started out as a way to collect clips from various Bugle episodes in which John Oliver talks about the harrowing experience of existing on the same plane of reality as Sarah Palin, because I thought his absolute devastation about that was funny. But as it went along, I added some Daily Show clips, and then I added pictures over the audio, and then I added some video over the audio, and then next thing I knew, it was 74 minutes long. I had accidentally made a documentary/romcom about the story of John Oliver and Sarah Palin. A story that Andy Zaltzman, at one point during the documentary, acknowledges is like a romcom, and they suggest it’s like John Oliver is living the Groundhog Day movie. So that became the title of my, I’ll say it again, feature film. I called it A Groundhog Day of Hatred.

Today, I needed a distraction from the fact that everyone in the world is a terrible person, so I updated it. I added onto the end a clip from last summer’s Last Week Tonight, and a clip from last week’s Strike Force Five podcast, as both of those had not aired when I originally made this last year. It now runs at 119 minutes. Getting to the point where if this were a real movie, it would be too long.

Here’s the shiny new one, in all its glory. A Groundhog Day of Hatred, second edition:

Okay, that would be a bit of a weird thing to do with my time today, but not that bad. You know what would be worse? If in my search for distractions, I'd created a romcom-style movie poster for it:

Look, I'm being self-deprecating about what a colossal waste of time this was, but I also think this is fucking hilarious. That poster might be the funniest thing I've ever made. I will draw your attention to the top of the page, in which I chose to advertise the film with a pull quote from Richard Ayoade (whom I remembered today was John Oliver's best friend at Cambridge, and God, fuck that guy). Richard Ayoade really did write that exact thing as a pull quote, though in reality, of course, it was for Graham Linehan's book. I think we should all start a trend of quoting that Richard Ayoade statement but pretending he was talking about something besides Graham Linehan. That is a good bit, everyone get on board with it.

There is also a pull quote from the excellent @lastweeksshirttonight, who really outdid themself in capturing the style of bullshit faux-academic language in things like that.

The picture in the bottom right corner also appears in the video itself, and I was so proud of myself for finding it last year. In one of the Bugle clips, Andy Zaltzman talks about opening The Daily Mail website and seeing a picture of John Oliver and Sarah Palin on the front page. I searched for ages to find that picture, knowing I had to put it in the documentary, as visual accompaniment to the part of the audio where they talk about that. After literal hours and hours of searching, I finally thought to use the Wayback Machine, where I spent another hour trying various dates from the week before that Bugle episode aired, before I finally found it, halfway down a page that was actually a link away from the main page. But it was worth the effort, because I managed to find a picture that perfectly encapsulated the spirit of my documentary.

It has all the elements of a great film. It has anger, confusion, one man's descent into darkness. It has a battle for the soul of a nation. It has an educational element about a period of American political history. It has some tasteful nudity (audio nudity only, no visual nudity, that's what makes it tasteful). It has a star-crossed relationship. It has a harrowing journey with a note of hope at the end, followed by an epilogue. What more could you want?

It has one part where Andy Zaltzman makes a somewhat less-than-ideal comment about how she can't be VP because she has five kids to raise. In his defence, he was trying to point out the hypocrisy in someone preaching family values and then taking a job that stops them from raising their family, and I've heard Zaltzman point out that exact hypocrisy in male politicians as well, so this wasn't a specifically gendered comment. But still, I thought I'd acknowledge that it doesn't come off great when someone says something like that about a woman in the public eye. You live and you learn. You cannot hold people to everything they said in 2008.

I do think this is a genuinely interesting relic of a bygone era in American politics, when this sort of ludicrousness seemed shocking and worth being horrified about, rather than totally normalized. So my film has value as an archive for posterity. I shall premiere it at Sundance next year.

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irrigos · 1 year

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Some people in the notes of my recent calligraphy piece said they were interested in manuscripts and stuff, so I thought you all might want to see some of my process pics (there are many! I've been working on this project for almost a year!)

Also, I think my own process is interesting, and I wanted to write it out. Very long post with lots of images under the cut:

I first had the idea for the piece as a submission for a zine that didn't come to fruition. I knew I really wanted to do a piece of text from SMEN, made to look like an illuminated manuscript, but I didn't really know how to... do that. And also I didn't know SMEN that well, so I went through all the text and pulled out some quotes I thought seemed kinda church-y, and drew up a few thumbnails for the finished photo. Honestly, the finished product didn't look that far off from that picture in the middle! Although I guess I was originally planning to use a fork as a prop?

Some of the very first drafts. I'm not great at figuring out layouts and line spacing, so I wrote all the text on a separate paper and cut the words out, so I could figure out where they should go. I kept them all in a little envelope, but it looks like I've lost a few, lol. The capital letter and border designs are from The Bible of Illuminated Letters by Margaret Morgan. I think it's funny to look back on these, because the hands they were done in (Foundational and Gothicized Italic, respectively) are ones I really haven't touched since, and am not good at at ALL. At the time, Foundational Hand was the only broad-edge script I kind of knew, and the Gothicized Italic was just me attempting to copy the exemplar from Foundations of Calligraphy by Sheila Waters (which, if you're interested in learning broad-edge calligraphy, is a book I cannot recommend highly enough)

I tried making a full draft using the materials (I assumed) I would be using in the final version. Seeing it altogether, I could tell that... well first of all, I obviously used WAY too big of a nib because I couldn't get all the lines on the page, but also that I didn't really like... any of it. I don't think it's bad (and I didn't then), but it really wasn't what I was picturing for this project.

I took a workshop on a new calligraphic hand specifically for this piece, because.... that's a good use of my time and money. Anyway, I tried writing out the text in Textura (left) and Fraktur (right). The workshop I took was focusing on Fraktur, but we learned some Textura, too, because Fraktur is just if you took Textura and, well.... fractured it. I think I planned on using this ink for the final version, but I didn't, because I... I think I just forgot to buy more? Maybe it would have been too much red.

Strictly speaking, Fraktur wouldn't be the hand one would traditionally use with the border I picked for the final piece. The white vine style of border originated in the 15th century, in the Renaissance (frequently they're called Renaissance white vines), and Fraktur started in the 16th century. Also (and this might be wrong), I think fraktur was designed to be a typeface, and not specifically for calligraphy? I haven't been able to find any handwritten manuscripts that used fraktur, but I might just be missing something. The white vine style border would probably be used with something more like italic calligraphy! But I don't know italics, and I liked the sharpness of Fraktur. I thought it worked well for a manuscript page that's supposed to represent a sort of... self-harm cult.

I briefly considered, instead of doing the full border and big capital like I did in the final version, doing a large versal with filigree, like the work of Benoit Furet. I took a workshop from him on how to do them, but tbh, when I tried to do it, it looked really messy and childish. I don't have any photos of my attempts at filigrees, but just know that I did consider them.

I decided I wanted to do a full border decoration, instead of filigrees, so I took a workshop on some. This was focused on Renaissance Floral Borders, like the one below, which is (as you can see) from the Visconti Hours (an illuminated Book of Hours from the late 14th century)

I designed one to put on the piece, and I also chose a different design for the capital- a big Roman N, with what was supposed to kind of look like a top-down well behind it. When I finally put everything together, I... well to be quite honest, I hated it. The different design elements didn't really seem to coalesce, instead looking more like I just cut and pasted different stuff than it did that time I actually did that, a few pictures earlier. This design is entirely thrown out, and we start over.

So I took another workshop! I love to learn, and I occasionally even enjoy being taught. This one was on Renaissance White Vine borders, like these ones:

I liked these because they seemed a little bigger and busier than the floral borders, and I thought that might be better for what is, really, a very simple piece. Here's some design attempts! The white dots in the background are actually very traditional, but I chose not to use them in my finished piece, because I thought it made the whole thing look too cute. Also I forgot.

Funnily enough, for all my investigation into manuscripts, the boarder design I used wasn't really from any actual historical piece! I liked this one a lot, so the final border was inspired by it. I'm not really sure who made it, or when. When I took this workshop, the instructor gave us a packet of examples, and this was one of them. The caption just says it's a page from "a beautiful album prepared by the Harris Studio, Chicago."

I don't understand how gilding works and at this point, I'm too afraid to ask. I have a bottle of Instacoll and some gold leaf sitting on my supply shelf, and I think they're there just to bully me. I would give them my lunch money if they told me to. Previous drafts were done with Coliro metallic watercolors (from left to right in the previous draft images, it was Rose Gold, Arabic Gold, and Moon Gold), and I decided I would just use that in the final version, too.

I mostly settled on my vine border/capital, so I did another full draft. Why did I do this one landscape, even though I was going to do the final version in portrait? Well, you see, it's very simple: I didn't wanna deal with my hand bumping into the binding on my sketchbook. And while I COULD have just torn a piece OUT of the sketchbook and used that, uh, well... I didn't.

Around this time, I got an iPad, so I decided to try making a digital draft in Procreate. I'm pretty bad at picking colors, and it was a real pain to have to mix up so much paint every time I wanted to try a different color scheme. And I was running out of red gouache! So I thought that, if I made it digitally, I could mess around with the colors a lot easier, and then use that to mix my paints.

After I did the calligraphy and added my border, though, I thought the whole thing looked pretty empty, so I extended the border below and above the text. I used a bottom border design like the one in this piece, which is from the same place as the other one I was referencing.

As for the top border, I kinda just made it up! I drew some swirls and some flowers and then erased it and redrew it until I decided I liked it.

For the colors, I (as I said) am very bad at colors. I don't know how they work, and they scare me! I ended up coloring the border in grayscale, and then use a gradient map to get colors with the right values.

After that, I printed out the digital version and used my light table to trace it onto a piece of Arches 90lb Hot Press watercolor paper.

The lines were done in a sepia Sakura Micron pen. The calligraphy is mostly done in an iron gall ink with a Mitchell Roundhand nib size 3. The first line was done with a 2.4 mm Pilot Parallel pen, in Pilot Red. (The part that says "The Name" was the Pilot Red ink, but with the smaller nib.) I don't have any in-progress pictures of this part, but I did the calligraphy, and then the gold (in Coliro Arabic Gold watercolor), and then I painted the boarder background in Windsor & Newton gouache.

Then I set up everything for my photo! I draped a piece of black linen over my desk (including my very tall desk lamp, so I could get some verticality/block out the rest of my living room from the photo), and grabbed some of the props I'd been accumulating while working on this.

The resin knife and the candle/candle holder I bought off etsy, the red cup I got at Goodwill, and the ribbon is... I think just something I had on hand? You can't really see the cup in the final photo, but it was just out of frame to the right. I also had a few different colors of candles (one was white and one was clear red with gold foil that actually wasn't able to be lit) but the black candle looked best, AND was the right color for St. Arthur's Candle

I think that's everything I have to say!! Hope this was interesting, but if it wasn't: haha I just tricked you into reading that boring thing.

#long post #is this post interesting? idk but i had fun writing it all up #fallen london #(putting it in the tag so anyone who was interested in the piece can see it)

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shecomesincolors · 9 months

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Tagged by @britneyshakespeare nearly a month ago! Thank you, my dear, and apologies, as usual, for both the delay and the positively deranged length of my replies.

1. Are you named after anyone? Yes, I am! My namesake was my father’s granny, who raised him as a little boy while his parents finished medical school. The senior Helena lived to be 90 and I met her many times when I was a little girl. My other paternal great-grandmother never took it very well that she didn’t get a baby named after her, but I thank my lucky stars for that, because her name is… rather anachronistic and unflattering.

2. When was the last time you cried? I… don’t remember? It was definitely a long time ago. Not only have I been quite happy lately, but also one might say I’m rather stunted; by which I mean, whenever something upsets me, I’m more likely to be catatonic, or spend the night awake, than to cry about it. I don’t know what that says about me, but I’ve always been like this, lol

3. Do you have kids? Goodness, no! Sometimes I imagine I might when I’m a proper grown-up, but I am far too young for that now.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? I tend to modulate my speech according to my interlocutor, so I guess that depends on whom I’m talking to; I think I’m more likely to use deadpan, dry humor than sarcasm per se, though.

5. What sports do you play, or have played? Tennis, on doctor’s orders (this sounds like a ludicrously old-timey thing to say out of context, but when I was in my early teens my physician insisted I get some exercise, and tennis was the sport I hated the least; I am not athletic in the slightest and I still suck at it, but I do play it).

6. What’s the first thing you notice about people? I had to ponder this question for a while. I suppose I’m always inclined to look for something to like in anybody I ever meet; usually something that we have in common (it needn’t be something big; even a converging taste in shoes is enough for starting a conversation). This may be a bit narcissistic of me, but isn’t it easier to build a positive rapport with someone when you recognize something of yourself in them?

7. What’s your eye color? Dark brown, on the verge of black.

8. Scary movies or happy endings? When it comes to movies, I always prefer a comedy. That being said, I’ve been getting a taste for horror lately. I blame Rosemary’s Baby for pulling me into that rabbit hole.

9. Any special talents? I’m often told I can be very eloquent and persuasive, which is a useful skill to have as a law student. I also have a great affinity, and an above average facility, for learning languages (I am fluent in three, pretty decent at an additional two, and know a little bit of many others). Oh, and, not that anyone cares, but I’ve also got a good memory for literary quotes (this may be the worst party trick ever, but I can recite entire stanzas from Les Fleurs du Mal and Byron’s Don Juan)!

10. Where were you born? Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

11. What are your hobbies? As I said, I enjoy learning languages (I’ve been teaching myself Russian and Yiddish since the pandemic; I can already form complete sentences and read simple texts, but I wouldn’t say I can actually speak them yet). I also read a lot of literature, some culture history and biographies and a bit of history, political economy, and philosophy. I like keeping up with current events, too (is “like” the right word for that? It may be more accurate to say that I feel obligated to do so). I watch some TV and movies, especially classics, and I’m always listening to music on my air pods when I’m out and on my headphones when I’m home (I own a record player, too, but that is for special occasions). Besides all that, I also really enjoy singing, but I only get instrumental accompaniment when I have guests over, or during choir practice (I wish I could play the guitar, or the piano, but I’ve always been too woefully uncoordinated for that).

12. Do you have any pets? Three rescue cats, the youngest of whom we rescued ourselves!

13. How tall are you? An embarrassing 1,6 meter (about 5’4’’ in Fahrenheit, or whatever the strange measurement unit it is you use in the USA), made worse by the fact I can’t stand to wear uncomfortable shoes that might make me taller.

14. Favorite subject in school? I attended Catholic school despite growing up in a very secular family (long story, lol) and I hated most of it. But my parents were mindful of making up for gaps in my and my sister’s education by enrolling us in several extracurriculars and getting us some private tutors, including a young English teacher I absolutely adored. She’s still one of my closest friends nowadays, even though she moved abroad almost five years ago.

15. Dream job? Heiress. Socialite. Queen consort. Patron of the arts.

Thanks again, Diana, I had a lot of fun with these! I’m tagging @fancycolours, @sneez, @bbbrianjones, @bilbao-song, @david-watts, @chaoticdesertdweller, and anyone else who wants to do this.

#life hack: you can procrastinate tedious chores by finishing tumblr tags that have been sitting in your drafts for ages #btw hi ned happy belated birthday ily #as usual everyone please feel free to ignore the tag if it looks like to much work to you lol #i made my answers WAY longer than they needed to be but alas synthesis is NOT one of my ‘special talents’#tag game

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whentherewerebicycles · 9 months

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morning with the pups. I have a headache from crying but I bought myself a small treat (orange scone from panera) and managed to get some good work done this morning. I will be honest I feel Bad still but am trying to ground myself so I don’t spiral off into the deep despair again.

here are five small positive things:

I am being actively befriended by this very gruff middle-aged women’s studies faculty member who was on my search committee. I thought she hated me for the entire Zoom interview and the first seven hours of the campus visit but then in the last hour of the visit it suddenly became apparent that she liked me a great deal and just has a very brusque no-nonsense demeanor. we have been emailing back and forth all morning about this faculty pedagogy fellowship she’s leading and I think we are going to co-teach a couple workshops together. also we’re going to start going on walks together because we live so close. it’s nice to be befriended! and it’s nice to think about work as a place where I could build more friendships, especially with people who are there for the long haul.

my best friend lives so close to me now 😭 it was nice to break up the crying jags last night by going over to see her.

I’m genuinely excited to be an aunt. there is a lot of pain around it too and it is going to take some time to work through that but it will be so nice to have a baby in the family. also I am requesting nicely of the universe that if my brother & sister-in-law MUST have a baby before I do, please let the baby to be born on my birthday so we will have a special aunt/niece or nephew bond forever. I do not think this is too much to ask. ugh my heart hurts a lot but I am being brave about it.

last year I wrote a long letter of rec for my old boss/beloved grad advisor for this major mentoring and leadership award she was up for. she won the award and I guess they sent her the file with the letters attached. anyway she sent me a box of woolf & vita sackville-west books, a beautiful handmade glass vase, and a long letter where she said my rec letter made her cry and cry. it was really nice to hear from her—she’s been dealing with really scary long covid health issues since early 2020 and there was a period of time where she was in and out of the hospital so often with such serious issues I thought she might die. she is doing better now though and she says she’s retiring this year, which will be a huge loss to the university but I hope good for her. idk I was happy to hear from her and it was nice to get a surprise package of books (with more on the way, apparently).

oh friends. to quote that tumblr meme from the other day, they should invent a way out that isn’t through. I just don’t want to do the soul-work of trying to break down this grief and metabolize it and integrate it into my sense of self all over again. I’m just sad, you know? I’m sad and I’m tired of feeling sad, I want to feel otherwise, but it’s exhausting to think about clawing my way through these feelings again. I want to be on the other side of this experience and I thought I was there but I see now that I’m not, or maybe that the grief and painful agonizing uncertainty about future losses is going to keep surging back every time something reopens the wound. I feel like I’ve spent the past seven weeks swimming so hard for shore, and I’d finally managed to haul my exhausted self up onto the beach only for a massive tidal wave to crash down over me and pull me back out to sea. and I know it is just the start. liz will be pregnant soon and my SIL will have the baby and people in my social circles will continue to post their pregnancy announcements online and ugh. ugh. I just have this hugely selfish wish that everyone would hold off for like six more months so I could crawl a little further inland before the next wave hits. this is not a positive thing from the day but I can’t quite wrangle myself into feeling gratitude for all the good things in my life today. I think I’m just going to be treading water for a while.

#IUI tag

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wanderinginksplot · 2 years

Text

Clone Trooper Rambles

Why keep my imaginations/delusions to myself when I can share them?

Warnings: grumpiness, I guess?

---

Routine

“Good morning!” a coworker greeted as I walked into work.

It was most certainly not a ‘good’ morning. Technically speaking, it wasn’t morning yet - the sun hadn’t risen and it was too early to be that cheerful. Still, he was being nice, so I pasted on a false smile and gave a slight nod in his direction.

“You look like you’re still half-asleep!” said coworker laughed.

“And you-” I cut myself off, biting back the grouchy comment I had almost said. Instead, I gave that fake smile again. “You are incredibly perky for it being so early.”

“Thanks! Good night’s sleep, lots of coffee… It’s a great day! I’m ready to get out there and make a difference and then go home, sleep, and do it all again tomorrow!”

I stared at him for a moment, then pulled my gaze to the computer. Still a few minutes until it was time to start. Good enough. I nodded blandly and said, “Excuse me, I need to use the restroom.”

The hallway was blissfully quiet as I walked quickly to the restroom. It was unisex and single-person, so there was no chance that I would have to deal with anyone else in there.

Once I was inside, I leaned against the door and pulled out my phone. Surely there was some way to distract myself from the desire to smother a coworker for being too happy this early in the morning.

“Are you okay?” Stone asked from just outside the door.

I could hear Rex laugh even before he started speaking. “Leave it, vod. She’s a grouch this early. She’ll be fine in an hour or so. As long as that di’kut stays out of her face, anyway.”

“I’m in here for everyone’s safety,” I told Stone, choosing to ignore Rex entirely. “I can’t control what I say this early in the morning.”

Stone eyed me incredulously. “Have you ever thought that you might be in the wrong field?”

“Every day of my life.” It came out a little moody but, again, I wasn’t really responsible for my lack of filter this early in the day.

“You thinking about changing jobs?” Stone asked.

Rex frowned. “You love this job. Why is this the first I’m hearing about you being dissatisfied with it?”

“I’m not… I don’t-” I sighed. “I like this job, I’m just bored. I’m not using my degree, which doesn’t matter too much to me, but I know everything every person is going to say to me today. I can take a pretty good guess about everything that’s going to happen. The job is just too predictable.”

"What would you want to do instead?" Rex asked. "Is there something you think would be better?"

I spread my hands out at my sides in a wide, heartfelt shrug. "I don't know what I would want to do instead. I think… I think I just want something different."

"Different," Stone repeated.

A memory sparked and I was half-smiling as I quoted, "Then grant me at least a new servitude."

"Excuse me?" Rex asked, furrowing his dark brows.

"It's from a book," I explained. "Jane Eyre, one of my favorites. She wants freedom from her situation, but realizes that's not really realistic, so she decides on a different kind of servitude instead."

Now Stone was frowning, too. "That's depressing."

"Not… in context," I started, but a soft beep from my watch told me it was time for my shift to start. "I would offer to explain it, but I'd be late. Just trust me."

I went back out, much better able to handle my overly cheerful coworker. But all through my shift, I couldn't help thinking about it. A new servitude indeed.

---

Previous | Next | Masterlist

A/N - I know I've dropped off the map for a hot minute - it's been a week from hell. But it's slowly getting better, so have a Ramble!

Taglist: @rexs-wife @sugarpuffsstuff @just-some-girl-92 @kimageddon @ladysongmaster @carodealmeida @nomercyforthewarrior @bitchylittleredhead @lackofhonor @buddee @salaminus @hikime @808tsuika @ladykatakuri @shawtyitsyou @bikerlorian @torchbearerkyle @frietiemeloen @justanothersadperson93 @leotatombs @rain-on-kamino @itsagrimm @dancingwiththeplanets @theclonesdeservebetter @murder-of-crows-1 @rosmariner @staycalmandhugaclone @marennial @eyecandyeoz @fordo-kixed-rex @lucyysthings

#Clone Trooper Rambles #clone trooper rambles #star wars #star wars the clone wars #star wars fanfiction #ink's fics #captain rex #rex #commander stone #stone #not crazy just creative #clone troopers deserve better #more to come

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blankdblank · 1 year

Text

Poke Pt 5 - Big Red Button

@devilishminx328. @theincaprincess, @lilith15000, @jesevans, @jiminapickle

Poke Masterlist

...

“Hello, Pluto.” Tony said on the other side of the gate for the school outside the car Happy had running and waved from inside. “Wondered if you might be up for a lift. Looks like rain.”

“I take it this is your way of keeping me from being ambushed in another park,” you joked making him smirk and turn to open the door behind him you walked towards.

“One way to go about it, certainly.” He said following you inside the car. Luring Peter’s attention from his classroom inside, seeing his mentor here and not for him causing the teen to palm his phone he’d keep hold of in hopes of gaining first view of a message to come in.

Beside you on the bench seat Tony settled and Happy pulled off the curb. “Bit surprised there wasn’t a piece on the park in the Bugle. Veggie rodents, not what I was expecting.”

Smirking at him you said, “You can say what you mean, I won’t quote you on it.”

“You have a substantial press following. Four years you can trail it back like bread crumbs to see what you were up to. I had a team, to manage my press, I know you call him your brother, but even family should have a limit.”

“When the Goliath was stolen Rhodey gave a lovely speech to the press,”

“That is different-,” he tried to say but his voice trailed off as your smirk grew a bit.

“Eddie pays me a look out fee for scoops, 20%. When something happens, it’s all how it’s worded to the public. Pierce tried to gas me and drag me off the street four years ago. I could have chosen any name I wanted, I chose to use my name. Go to school, let the military release my name linked to the Blackhowls, my name on social pages, my hobby videos I post, and when I dance. You vanished, and everyone noticed.”

His lips parted, “This is how you stayed here so long, everyone at the paper, whole military, SHIELD.”

“This is my face, my life, and my name. Eddie found me stuck in a trap someone laid for Misique took me home, patched me up. I hear things, some people tend to not pay me much notice. I thought he was a weird drunk next door with a sleep disorder, but he just likes to pace and verbalize his drafts on a weird sleep schedule. A really great guy, who could have set up some sinister social stalking bond with a kid like me who is a magnet for chaos.”

“You do tend to be in the eye of the storm, don’t you? We can get you security, you know.”

“I think it’d be a bit more detrimental to them at this rate,” you said making him chuckle to himself.

“After your surgery we took a few drives around your block, I couldn’t go five buildings without twenty heads poked out the windows to watch.”

“Same as in Brooklyn, immigrants do look after one another, and a kid working four jobs gains a bit of a fair reputation, even from most criminals with some common sense.”

“We got your designs of the jets underway to the final inner details and are photographing this weekend for press. Upping the price as well, respectfully but it will increase interest.”

“All your business details, Mr Stark.”

“It’s your business too, you get half the profits.” Over your face his eyes scanned taking in the simple linger of your eyes on his, wondering what he was thinking up. “Any plans for a Pear Industries one day?”

“So far I just make and sell keychain pendants out of gemstones and metal I print for something to churn out for profit. Been saving funds since the contract change to have full payment for next semester. I wouldn’t feel right applying for more scholarships.”

“Well I’ll take fifty,” he said making you roll your eyes widening his grin.

“Industry normally implies more than one person or an actual store front or home base or something.”

“All the same, I would think up a name and trademark it now. Jump in especially if it’s a good one.” Pointing a finger at you he teased, “Toss your brother another headline or two in the process. What’s the site called?”

“Pluto Skapa Níu,” you said making his brows inch up, “Níu in Ancient Norse is nine, and Skapa is to create, or make.”

“Pluto Makes Nine, great way to work the name in. Dad tried forever to come up with a slogan for our company that wasn’t ‘Stark Comparison’ then he gave me this look when I said I’d change my name if he went with that.” He said making you chuckle to yourself. “Sorry, you said you print the stones?” he asked and you nodded.

“Stones are mostly metal, my metal printer can also create varying levels of earth and stone as well.”

“So,” he said then gestured to your hand with the moonstone ring on it, “I heard you bought that ring.”

“Not moonstones, or pearls, they have special properties. My ring helps with warding off bad dreams. Some things might be superstitious, but I bought the first one second hand and I thought it would be nice to buy a new one. Other stones are easy to lure effects to them upon creation. Most recent supply is jade actually, and they seem to be taking off. Ladies at the nail salon love them, told their families about them and bought a whole sack full to mail home.”

“See, now that is why dad said it was best you were competition, if anyone had a silver spoon growing up it was me. Fourteen at MIT trying to prove that even without the Stark name or blood I could do it. I don’t know how he did it, made it seem so easy in his early twenties to build his empire.”

“Grown man good at making things go boom with war on the horizon.” You said making him smirk. “That question will forever linger. Probably why he didn’t get to branch out in much more than movie production outside of war goods as that was the backbone of it. You inherited that, I inherited degenerative disease work.”

“Nature vs nurture in action,” he joked. “I would say it would be interesting to see how we both move forward from this point for our companies. Already looking into a place up north to at least move the Avengers out of the city if we need to. Press is a bit wishy washy on that topic. What do you think?”

“I think fate guides us either knowingly or otherwise. Choices are lessons from real estate to the snacks we pick throughout our day. I suppose with a jet you could always respond fairly quickly, the press would certainly have to work harder to watch over your shoulders. Up to you which wins, privacy or response time.”

“I think the space might be good, Capcicle has been stocking up on the art books and we got him a good tutor like I know you told him years ago and Barnes said it once over breakfast. Just casual and blunt to get a tutor to do what you said. I take it you told him about your talks with Steve.”

“We talked about a great deal of things from the past four years. I told him what I noticed about what could be under his behavior. When you lose something so massive, you need to bring new life into your life, hobbies or pets or even friends and passions. I don’t relish seeing people in pain, even if they have hurt me. And for some reason I need two feet and a hundred pounds to gain before he’d take my advice.”

“Highly doubt it’s the size issue.”

“I don’t know, he’d take Sam Wilson’s word before mine too, haven’t seen him much with Clint but I wouldn’t put it past him,” you said making Tony chuckle.

“I’m sure if you were to knock him around a bit he’d come around, how Nat won him over.”

Softly you giggled, “Cooper and Bucky are one thing, whole different strain of the Super Serum and they’ve had second doses. Icing people makes it volatile on occasion. He starts growing skin tag growths on his neck he’s got to be given another dose or his heart will give out.”

That had Tony’s lips part. “Holy, Misique told you the signs?”

“I had to give Cooper chest compressions until he could be retrieved for his dose when I was twelve. Bucky was happy to let me scan him since they had him iced for so long.”

“You, really have a vast pool to dig from,” he said and drew in a breath to say, “Got to be like a can of worms, you mention one thing and people keep wanting to dig for more as some try to wiggle out on their own. Man if people spent a week in your past there would be a lot less complaining in the world.”

“If people spent a week in my past there would be a great deal less people.”

“Your own purge, I get that, a lot of people make the world less safe than when they get here.” His phone cut off the conversation enabling Happy to jump in and cause the billionaire to look between you both when he could hearing about your speech troubles. Though advice was hard to give as you arrived and were let out to keep on schedule. The slight addition of wait time did however enable you to blow a bit more of your pocket money to get a nice warm cider to sip on prior to your first exam.

…

Five foot tall at your side Eldfalls sat inside the chopper that flew you to the same base. Through which he hovered at your side on the walk through while the officer in charge filled you in to how things had been readied to streamline this process. Formerly just a weekend project for you the spare three evenings during the week could hasten the hold they could get on these coveted machines pilots were near to fist fights to be assigned to just like with the prior four. Smooth as ever your team was there, and excited to meet Eldfalls who they’d heard so much about, to get the ball rolling. Though that crater in Asia seemed to lessen the usual stream of heads and bodies who tried steal looks at the new pair to your gradually growing fleet.

Bodies were smoothed already and right up onto a wing when you had put your bag in its usual cubby and pulled on a coverall suit you tied the top half at your waist. To help guard the skin in the open cuts on your worn jeans and tucked into the tops of your boots to not let them hang too low and cause you to trip. Hair braided and tied back and neckline of your t shirt adjusted you sat down to start removing the cover to the right wing behind the propeller to start the conversation of that crucial part. Eldfalls all around the shells hovered to take in the mortal travel vessel even he could tell was saved from ruin by your efforts.

Comfort by lunch however did have the usual officers who came to escort you to the on base diner did have a couple heads poke in then right back out. Echoes of your voice and that of your dragon had calmed a good deal of worries as you went through the steps as second knowledge not flinching or hesitating.

A second visit by new faces however had those worries creep back as the group followed the voice speaking in an unknown language. Loki alongside Rhodey, Bucky, Steve and Sam had arrived half an hour to sunset. The latter stood in awe at the one handed lower of an engine chunk from the wing onto a platform held by a chain pulley three of the team slid an inch and gradually lowered it down to the waiting dolly below to move it aside for reuse later.

Loki however to the side eyed both your stained self and the dragon who spoke to you again in Old Asgardian correcting the sentence you had just stated. And as you reached into the wing to start removing the final mount brackets the Prince spoke to you in the same tongue responding to the statement you had spoken again. “What?” right to him your eyes drifted while Bucky came closer to one handedly give the stuck dolly a nudge for the crew straining at the weight of such a hefty piece.

“Were you not commenting upon the vastness of our empire?” the Prince asked, now smirking slightly as you tossed a mount into a bucket at the base of the ladder you were straddling to sit upon.

“Oh, practicing conversational Old Asgardian actually. My last trip to Vanaheim I had asked Hogun for a book on Asgardian but he gave me one, in, Old Asgardian,” you said making him chuckle to himself. “I have some friends who have been helping me to translate the book and make a sort of translation guide so I can learn the language. Eldfalls has been helping me with speaking it.”

“Thus feeding my next question, where, pray tell, on Odin’s green earth did you find this ship?” He asked now looking at the dragon who greeted him fondly.

“Bottom of the ocean actually. Misique helped to drag it ashore,” off your hair a couple of bees flew down to project images of how he used to look. “Didn’t even know he could turn into a dragon until we managed to get the wings and hull back whole again.”

“And you have flown this craft, I have seen this.”

“Couple times. Happened to hear a distress call last time, though still feeling controls out, still haven’t even found the hull hatch yet. Eldfalls loves being mum on his secrets.” You said with a giggle removing the final part to be able to swing your leg over and climb back down and wipe your hands on a rag there on the rolling stand you settled the tools you had in hand onto first.

Sam said pointing at the plane, “Now this is gorgeous, and you made these, you let Steve or the team fly them yet?”

Steve said, “I’m not a pilot.”

Sam said, “But you said you flew a plane once in the war.”

You answered for him, “He crashed a plane once, into the Arctic to stop a bomb.”

“Oh,” Sam said then looked at his friend, “Why didn’t you bail out?”

“There was no way to do that,” he said and you let out a giggle and turned to fold the ladder and carry it to the nose of the plane. “There was no way to do that, it was on autopilot to New York I had to disengage that to stop it.”

Rhodey said next, “I’ve seen the schematics for that craft, there’s this big button, right in the middle of the far right console that drops the engines off. It’d be a belly slide at worst but you’d have had time to skid down and run for it.”

“None of you were there, big red button or no button, I had to crash the plane.”

Steve said defensively making Bucky pat him on the back to Rhodey saying, “So you admit you saw the button.” They moved with you to the nose to accept the heavy cover you removed and lowered down to him with a hand he added to the tarped area you told Bucky of below.

Loki moved back to your view and asked, “I have been informed you have been, not just to Vanir twice, but Svartalfheim as well. How was that travel obtained whilst the Rainbow Bridge was broken?”

“First time, not entirely certain, we were walking down the street and there were anomalies of physics.” You said and he gave an encouraging nod, “A poster tore off a wall and hit a car causing it to lift up and rotate in a magnetic vortex field is the closest I could assume. Yet we just stepped back away from the car and we fell through an unseen portal into, well it wasn’t sand, but the sand-like surface of Svartalfheim. Found this fortress of a building and spent some time there. We found Jane on the way there and she had something inside her.”

“The aether,” Loki named the living sludge for you. “Rather dangerous substance, I was told it was sealed within a cylinder upon delivery to Vanir.”

“We found the Med Bay, and there was this crystal bed with mist displays of the body beneath it and hovering glass panels. We went through several pages of languages until we found one like Wingdings, it is a font where they have symbols for each letter.” You said gaining another nod from him in gratitude for the explanation, “Venom helped us to sort of guess the meanings of the options off the images and to find some food. Which, the food they have, is beyond disgusting to inspect for possibility of being edible, but some of it was tolerable.” You said making him chuckle.

“Some cultures have no defined palate.” He answered playfully.

“We did find a jar of earth salt there, so they had stolen or found or bartered for it somehow sometime. Anyways, after the aether was in the cylinder,” you paused and his brow inched up at the slight adjustment of the tool in the hand rested upon your lap.

“Yes?”

“When we were looking for food I heard the transporter.”

“You heard it?” the Prince asked.

“Like an automated voice when you come close?” Rhodey asked having turned his full attention to you.

“No, it’s sort of complicated.”

“I would say so most transporters have no audio functions.” Loki replied.

“I heard a root of Yggdrasil through it,” you said and the Prince’s mouth opened slightly.

Looking to Rhodey Bucky explained, “Yggdrasil is the great tree that connects the realms. Doesn’t talk to people usually.”

“It was just a platform with dangling crystals and eight hovering orbs, which had they been in order we would have been sent back here, but we landed in the middle of a field on Vanaheim and Eldfalls came to get us from there.”

Rhodey muttered to himself, “First that Misphisto guy and now magical trees.”

“And you chose to leave Jane Foster there for medical attention as you felt mortal capabilities lacking?” Loki asked.

“No, I just, put her down to try and talk to Hogun, but then a root picked us up to land on Eldfalls’ deck when he arrived and she was still on the ground. Though that seems now like a much better explanation that we left her there for better medical care,” you said making him chuckle ad Bucky in amusement look between you.

His eyes again moved from Eldfalls, who was now hovering to inspect the open wing, to the ship. “This seems a peculiar undertaking. This shell is quite old.”

“What I do. Take older war bird bodies and turn them into kinetic powered flying machines. Bullet and bomb proof, impenetrable for electrical pulses or certain radio waves to override the systems. They have some of my finished ones if you’d want to tour them.”

Sam said, “Oh I am so down for that, can I go?”

Rhodey smirked and nodded his head to the side. “Be back in a bit, Pluto.” Eyeing the Prince who remained still, peering up at you mid reach to have your bees scan the nose components to help you find what you were after before his inevitable step away to see the final product.

“This is quite sublime,” Loki said making the Pilots and Rhodey grin hearing it as he entered the belly, having just examined the outside of the refurbished war bird. “And this is common, Stark’s jet is quite beneath the skill level of this.”

Bucky said, “Well that’s a combat jet, there’s a sort of understanding, what I can tell, these aren’t war birds anymore.”

One of the Pilots said, “Mainly run supplies and transport, the first two are armed but we don’t see the need to arm the whole fleet. Our older Stark fleet are just fine for that.”

“Compared to Asgard, how does this rank up?” Steve asked and the Prince ticked his head to the side a moment.

“This is far from poorly, I would aim to guess this is closer to a Jotun glider engine. The hum is the same pitch. Vastly different bodies, though no less incomparable in skill. Where do you store the others?”

“Pluto is the only one who can make them,” Rhodey said.

And the Pilot chuckled, “Well, only one without causing an implosion. Giant crater in Asia from the last crew who tried.”

“This is the Shieldmaiden’s fleet then, impressive to have such a fleet at one’s discretion.”

Steve said, “No, she sold these to the US Government. For a pretty penny too.”

Bucky said, “Scandinavia did buy use of designs of hers for cleaner commercial aircraft and Stark for smaller private jets for teams and private owners. So that engine is from space?”

“I would imagine a great deal many notions have been shared with one so open to listen through Yggdrasil. Our best minds were found in contact with the great tree. Quite unrivaled.”

Bucky said with a grin, “Least it’ll help pay her way into a nice home. Been helping to show her house styles to pick what she and her brother like. He wants one too nearby to where she picks.”

Steve asked, “She’s buying him a house too?”

“Nah, he’s gonna pay off his place now and buy his own house after.” Bucky said as they filed out of the Blackhowl and went to head back to the hangar where you were cleaned up and out of your coverall.

A second meal at the diner enabled him to dig more into which book you had been given and how many tales you had translated already. Helped along more by the fact you had the book he came close to clasping to his chest at such a coveted piece of home when it was offered to him for inspection.

“You can borrow it, I’ve scanned the whole thing and sent my friends copies when I first got it to help with translations.”

“Thank you, I shall return it in pristine condition.” He said then wet his lips to break their pursed position they found in his confusion. “What friends are aiding in the translations?”

“I met some self exiled Beserkers, turns out two of them I knew as a child, go figure, they wanted to help my parents. But um, we met not long after I moved here and bonded over my necklace. That one has been collecting pieces they find in shops and whatnot.”

“They can be rather dangerous,” he said and asked, “My father assured us no Asgardians were left on Midgard.”

“Well, stragglers might encourage more desertion from loyalty. Exile is exile better to not let others know people have survived.”

“I would imagine that might be a possible choice Father would entertain. They are amiable?”

“Stone masons, crafters, a few have worked on sailcloth before they helped me to water and windproof my sail for Eldfalls. Just have to add the grommets and ringlets to hook it to the supporting beams.”

“Might I make myself of use within that project? The very least I might aid in lessons for mastering the controls.”

“Well you’re welcome to drop by when you please, Eldfalls at least enjoys the company of those who can speak to him fully.” You said with a grin causing his brows to tighten playfully at the final addition.

“You are ultimately prized, truly, he speaks of you quite endlessly. Tale through father stated not even uncle could gain such favor from his ship at the time. I would imagine the lack of a shared language and discovery of his inner workings solidified such admiration and loyalty.” He said then added after a pause, “Then perhaps I might, upon greater capacity of such time of companionship cross paths with this Misique. To thank her properly.”

“Misique doesn’t require thanks,” triggering the corner of his brow to twitch upwards, “From you or anyone else. Action for the sake of action not in reward, as my mother used to say.”

Bucky said with a chuckle, “My Ma was the same way. Pops just used to back that up by saying, ‘Do as she says boy, or I will pop you into next week’, then the skillet would always go flying,” he said with another chuckle, “Still can’t wait to see that sail you made. When’s the big bash to show it off?”

“After graduation to kick the summer off.”

“There is celebration to present the sail?” Loki asked with a slight eagerness to his tone.

“Yes, in Norway at the museum that has an exhibit on Eldfalls and the few chains and weapons we found inside of a few hidden hatches and a broken spear in the hull. And some teeth from the beast that Vili faced off with and downed Eldfalls I pulled from the opening in the hull. It’s actually been quite helpful to tourism to have the full following of videos I’ve sent of repairs. More money has been put into research on more artifacts and preservation for old forests that could be housing more relics yet to be found. Partly why I think they were open to the new aircraft design I let them use. To accommodate more travelers, Thor’s first sighting in New Mexico did spike interest a bit, but this has lasted much longer.”

“I could imagine more insight was gained throughout the process,” he asked then after a glance at his cup of tea he asked, “Would the invitation list be quite exclusive?”

“Oh, I could contact my grandfather, he has a more direct line of contact with the King and Queen of Norway who are hosting. I am certain they would extend invitations to yourself and Thor.” Luring a grin across his lips, “Quite an addition to the press alone, nephews of former King Vili himself there for the big unveiling, and perhaps if you are there I might not have to give a speech.” You said chuckling to yourself and turning focus back to your food as the guys chuckled.

Home alone while watching satellite footage of military vehicles nearing New York you called your grandfather to share the news that would ignite curiosity and excitement of being able to have the Asgardian Princes come to the grand unveiling. Sure as you said, the press lit up at wonder for how this would unfold and interest shot through the roof. No one could have expected them to return so soon or in time for this, but just in case there were back up plans made in case they did end up zapping away off planet like they had in the past.

By morning however familiar faces of soldiers from the Orca box search had found their ways back into your usual paths and onto the base where you were working to setup guard stations again, but this time laxer yet no less annoying.

Several days had passed before the Prince could come by again, due to both distraction from detailing the book he borrowed and the hours spent watching every video posted on the rebuild alongside more scrapped and taped up plans for Thanos had kept him away.

Just leaving you with dinners around gym trips with Bucky, who was pouring himself into this house hunting project to even out his heavy therapy sessions while he adjusted to his new life he would build.

Large stack of drop cloth in hand you turned to the curious Prince while Elliot and another Beserker carried the trunk housing the new sail. The exiled Beserkers here for this who had greeted the Prince formally greatly warmed him into their company. They set the trunk down across the arms of a lawn chair; each of them seeing the curiosity in his gaze at the simple cloth, “It’s a drop cloth.” That had his eyes lift to land on you. “I wouldn’t insult you with invitation to see a simple white sailcloth.”

In amusement he chuckled and helped you to lay out the cloth so the others could open the trunk and really have his jaw drop at the design which over the next three hours of this task he could detail and help the instillation of grommets and ringlets. His magic made ease of the task to hover the sail that could be worked into the supporting arms of the mast then locked in place with the final lock of the hidden rings where the ringlets could slide into the groove.

All around the ship flames danced to Eldfalls’ glee. Silence in this moment of relief and awe Loki had broken by asking you in a joking tone, “Just how have you been managing to get into the hull again?”

“There is an opening around the mast.” Up at him you smirked, “The hull switch is somewhere obvious, right?”

Breathily he chuckled and turned to the dragon head of the ship, right along the curve inside the inner wall of the ship was a hidden panel he gestured to making you grin and lift a hand he respectfully used his fingertips to adjust to the right spot. Flat on the metal wall your hand pressed and his smile spread to the sigh you gave when a split of metal announced the secretive hatch right behind you.

“Now, we can see the true craftsmanship,” and down the steps the doors to the hatch made he led the way, igniting a palm with green flames to light the way to the now patched section of hull. “And you have done well with this mesh. Novice craftsmen upon restorations often forget the new layers require the level adhere to. Myself upon my first crash I was to restore the damage done and nearly sank my ship anew had my teacher not warned me of this mistake.”

“I don’t know how to get the burn stains off the metal though. Tried scrubbing it a few times to no luck.”

“Truly these are not burns,” he said and your eyes snapped up to his as he turned to look at you. “This, is his fire lung. Had there been no burns he would not live.” A fact that would have you apologize later to the far from bothered ship who knew your intentions during the act were to help him and had helped to scrape some sea salt out of some rather uncomfortable spots it had been stuck in for centuries.

The eye contact broke as Eddie’s head came into view of the hatch, “Got the bus ready if you’re up for another test of the controls.” Nodding his head the Prince gestured to let you up first and when the hatch sealed watched you and Eddie lower the mast, in turn folding the sail together to keep it hidden.

“Now you have basic mastery of the steering,” Loki stated, having seen you power the engine to cast off the shore and get out a fair ways into the ocean. “Found anything else?”

“I know this curved spot here controls the levitation beam feature.” Widely the Prince had taken to smiling as in a smooth lesson of sailing he greatly explained more hidden controls and tricks until Thor behind Mjolnir soared up to grab his brother rather rudely without so much as a hello and soar off to fulfill some unshared promise of their attending something that night with the team. An act that had the group of Beserkers chuckle and help you to do a few more maneuvers to make the most of the time you had on the water before taking him back in.

“Would you-,” Mrs Stacy said in her rise up to leave her newest son in your arms so she could head to the bathroom.

Lost in a means not to cry the swaddled infant peered up at you mid broken crackle of a squeal as you just stared back at the pudgy pug like face all their boys seemed to have been born with by their older pictures. Eddie at your side adjusted his arm from his lap to smooth across your back to Captain Stacy’s continued rant. “And then some Sergeant came in and tried to have me pushed out of my own office! I’m a Captain, I outrank him! Even if they try to say the two don’t equate as I didn’t achieve that out of the military. I get it, but still, and they won’t tell us what’s going on!”

“Dad,” Gwen said coming out of the kitchen with a tray of drinks in hand, “They’ll probably say something eventually.”

“Or they’ll just try to put us into Marshall Law again like with the Titans.” He snapped back continuing to pace as he stole a glance your way seeing the stroke of a curled finger against his son’s cheek that tugged a hint of a grin across his lips to the sound the boy made from it.

They didn’t know what it meant, to be so trusted with a child knowing your same hands had killed a hundred at least. True you hadn’t ever hurt anyone under the age of schooling, but all the same you knew had they known this you would be the last person they would ever allow to be within a mile of any of their children. And in holding this boy deep in your chest you had to plan a time later to deal with the sensation of what it might have been for your own mother to have finally held you in her arms.

“What I know is they’re aiming to block up the city again with some plan the Avengers are cooking up.” You spoke up.

That had him pause and look your way again as what you said sank in, “Oh well that’s just lovely. Next thing we know half a block or hell, let’s throw in a bridge or two for them to topple in the process of what they’re up to. I am telling my guys, I don’t care what they say, they are not just taking control one day did not go well last time. Least now we’ll have a heads up and my guys can gripe it out before it happens.”

Mrs Stacy was soon back to claim her son whose telling whine had you and Eddie head out with a hug and goodbye for Gwen and her dad to let the mother and baby sleep after he had been fed again.

Down to the lobby you rode in the elevator. “They at least let you finish your work today before they sent you off the base?” Eddie asked not having been able to ask earlier at the promise to meet you here for this meeting.

“Well they had to, keep looking in like the whole city will blow if they don’t. Still doesn’t stop that one guy from staring while I’m in the diner. Seems like I turned legal and now I’m suddenly able to be hunted. Guys on my team have been keeping them away though. Don’t like it either.”

“Let us know if you need some knee capping done.” Venom hissed and Eddie nodded, continuing, “Certainly no secret that plan is being readied for. Kid let you in on any dates yet?”

“This month, is the best he could slip me. They keep bouncing back and forth on dates, something about a clear sky and they need some rod conductors from something most likely stupid.”

“Of course it’s going to be stupid, they still haven’t called in the big guns yet.” He said with a smirk at the doors opened and you stepped out.

Right to the street you walked to where he’d parked his bike, “Said he heard something about Selvig though.”

“They know where he is now?”

“Loki does,” Eddie nodded and smirked in offering you your helmet.

“Well then maybe me and Buddy should take a look around town. See if we can catch onto anything. Drop you someplace with food and let you know what we find out.” You added the helmet and he asked, “You okay, with the baby and all?”

“If they knew,” you said and he cut you off.

“Every baby I have you are watching and loving. I know, stingers and all, that’s how much I love you, how much I trust you. You’d let Buddy hold your babies wouldn’t you?” he asked and you giggled. “You know the goop monster is taking his fair share of time too.” Guiding you to settle onto the bike behind him to start the ride across town to the diner you frequented. Signs were everywhere that again the walls were going to start closing in.

Eddie had tried to be calm, but as Carnage was now surprisingly inside New York and working his way through Uptown there was a good number of buildings that had entirely shut down driving the elite elsewhere until the menace could be found.

Resounding silence in places like First through Fifth Avenue at certain parts of the day hinted to the effects. While those of the working classes seemed a fraction at ease that they seemed to be below the target list of income. Wall Street already was in the middle of being moved out to a newly purchased area of land in Arizona to keep their billions of imaginary dollars safe and brokers could work either at home or dare to head into the offices without a manager in sight to dictate their orders for the day beyond a morning virtual conference meeting. Even he was in town readying for what came next sensing it might just be too big for a tiny bee to scare away on her lonesome.

Pt 6

#Loki x oc #Escaped Child Assassin #Building Blackhowls #Eldfalls #Rhodey #Sam Wilson #Bucky Barnes #Steve Rogers #Loki #Eddie Brock #Venom #Gwen Stacy #Captain Stacy #Trouble is Coming #Carnage #Marvel #Tony Stark

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