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#they should have had more of a discussion about this and hashed it out more and

livwritesstuff · 5 months

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Steve is home one day with his daughters when he realizes that his oldest, Moe, is ten.

Okay, obviously, he knew she was ten. She’s been ten for a while, as her birthday is in July and it’s now December, and the girls are discussing Christmas as they perceive it in their little girl worlds.

It’s really that Steve realizes that Moe is the same age Erica had been when he’d asked her to climb through air ducts and infiltrate a Russian military base.

It’s a realization that has Steve feeling a little nauseous, because Moe is ten and she’s plotting with her little sisters about how they’re going to stay awake on Christmas Eve to catch a glimpse of Santa (their conspiring has Steve worried for his and Ed’s own role in Christmas Eve and the way it hinges on the girls falling asleep as early as fucking possible), and she’d lost another baby tooth this morning and hasn’t stopped talking about what the tooth fairy might leave for her overnight, and she still sneaks into his and Eddie’s room after nightmares looking for snuggles, and she’s afraid of car washes and bugs, and she still wants to be read to before bed every night.

He’d been struck suddenly by how little Moe still is. Maybe he’s only thinking that because she’s his daughter – his first daughter, at that – but he still looks at that kid’s face and sees the newborn baby who’d made him a dad ten years ago.

He can’t imagine looking at her and seeing someone equipped to take on Erica had been asked to do, never mind actually asking her to do it, which is precisely what Steve had done twenty-five years ago.

It eats at him for the rest of the day.

“Just call her, Steve,” Eddie urges him after Steve brings it up for the sixth time that evening, “You clearly need to air this shit out.”

So Steve calls Erica.

Erica is in her mid-thirties now. She’s a kick-ass lawyer at a private firm in Indiana, and she picks up the phone on the second ring.

“This is Erica,” she says.

“Hey, it’s Steve.”

“What’s up,” she replies, still never one for beating around the bush.

“I just – I need to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For Scoops,” Steve says, “For Starcourt.”

Erica is silent for a while.

None of them really talk about any of that stuff anymore. They’d hashed everything out ages ago, until all that was left behind was the understanding that none of them would ever be able to truly move past it, that there would always be guilt and fear and pain they could never shake.

“Okay?” she finally says, question in her tone.

“I just…” Steve hesitates, “Look – I didn’t get it. I didn’t fully get how fucked up it was. I was the grown up in the situation and I should have put a stop to it but I was stupid and reckless, and now that Moe is ten, I can’t stop thinking about how insane it was for us to even consider roping you into that.”

“I agreed to it.”

“You were a kid.”

“You were a kid,” Erica insists.

“Eighteen isn’t a kid anymore.”

“Say that to me again when Moe’s eighteen and maybe I’ll believe you.”

Steve doesn't have anything to say to that, because Erica is probably right (though only time will tell, he supposes). Their phone call ends only a few minutes later with Erica telling him to go easy on himself and Steve saying he’d try before apologizing one more time.

“You gonna take her advice?” Eddie asks after he’s pulled a begrudging Steve into his arms.

“No,” he tells him, curling into his husband’s side and sticking his nose in Eddie’s neck so he doesn’t have to look him in the eye.

“Figures.”

#steve is still THE martyr all these years later #give that man a situation and he’ll decide he was the problem #they had a much longer conversation but we don’t have time for that #steddie #liv’s steddie dads verse #steve harrington #eddie munson #erica sinclair

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queerly-autistic · 3 months

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Right, I think it's time for some positivity, and also a reality check (and I mean that in the most loving way possible) regarding the campaign to save OFMD. I've seen a lot of people saying 'it's been nearly a month, we should have been picked up by now', and whilst, yes, some cancelled shows have received very quick movement to other streamers, it's absolutely not the story for all of them. We've seen numerous shows follow different journeys from cancellation to pick-up, and there's no way of knowing what journey we might be going on.

Are we in the fast lane where we get picked up the next month (lookin' at you, Lucifer and The Expanse)? The middling lane where it takes months for a pick-up deal to be hashed out (lookin' at you, One Day At A Time, The Tourist, and Warrior)? The slow lane where we keep pushing for years and then eventually crowdfund a film (lookin' at you Veronica Mars)?

I think we have to consider the fact that OFMD being cancelled was a last minute thing that blindsided the cast and crew (and shocked people across the industry). So we're going into it in a different position to other shows that had maybe had a hint/suggestion that cancellation was coming before it happened. This is because if there are rumours of cancellation circling, it gives a chance for feelers to be put out to other networks/by other networks before the actual cancellation is confirmed. That didn't happen here. Which is important.

It's not just wham bam thank you ma'am and now you've been picked up by Netflix (or insert streamer of your choice). It's a negotiation. It's a process. It takes time. There is a very good reason that people heavily suspect that Brooklyn 99 had already been picked up before the cancellation was officially announced, and that the cancelled-to-new-home-in-24-hours thing was pretty much just a marketing stunt. No way was that all negotiated to the point of announcement within a day,

There are many reasons why any potential pick-up elsewhere might take a bit more time. For example, if David is (hopefully) juggling interest from multiple different networks, then that has to be hashed out and negotiated to make sure the best deal is reached for everyone. Also, OFMD is potentially a more complicated show to negotiate than we imagine: at a very basic level, it has a large ensemble (a large international ensemble), which would need to be discussed and negotiated, and it's filmed in New Zealand, which would need to be discussed and negotiated. That doesn't work against it in terms of 'it's more complicated, so it won't be picked up' but it could very well mean that the time needed to negotiate a pick-up is longer.

Remember: One Day At A Time had a much smaller cast (which wasn't an international cast) and it basically had one single studio set (being a sitcom), and that took three months to be saved.

I chatted with my friend, also a fan, who has worked in television production previously and is currently working as a screenwriter, and she confirmed just how much time, discussion and negotiation this stuff takes. She basically said: yep, this all takes time and this is very normal. And this is coming from someone who is very firmly in the 'I am refusing to get my hopes up because I can't bear to get hurt again' camp of trying to save the show.

On that note, I think it's important to address David's silence, because I've seen a few people panicking about that. There's a very good chance that if he is in negotiations right now (and I do not know if he is, he might not be!) then there would be a lot he wouldn't be able to talk about. And he knows that we dissect every single syllable of his posts, so posting anything would be risky. Negotiations are tricky things that involve juggling multiple balls (and torches and knives and chainsaws), and a lot of push-and-pull, back-and-forth, variables-upon-variables, and so going silent on social media would be absolutely what I would expect from him if that was happening.

It's eerie for us because we had a burst of activity from David, a lot of noise and a lot of confidence, and then...nothing. That's jarring, and anxiety-inducing. But I want us to think of it this way: David did a big post about being back in New York, about things looking up, and then he went uncharacteristically silent, which is what would happen if things were going on that he couldn't talk about. I have no idea what, if anything, might be going on, but it's important not to see this as a bad thing.

As someone on Twitter, who also works in the industry (they work as an actor) said the other day: in this business, no news is good news.

(also important to note: if he suddenly reappears on social media, that also doesn't mean that any negotiations have fallen through, and we should all panic; anything could be happening, and I know we're little anxiety gremlins - me included, bigly - but until we are definitively told that this is over and there's no hope, then it's not over and there is hope)

There's no way of knowing what is going on, or how long whatever is (or isn't) going on might take. This might be a sprint, but it could just as easily be a marathon. The show not being picked up immediately does not mean there is no hope, as we have seen with numerous other shows. Look at fandoms like Shadow and Bone, who are still fighting tooth and nail for their show because they refuse to give up on it. They haven't given up, and neither should we.

We need to decide if we love OFMD enough to fight for it long-term, to settle in for a long battle, and keep pushing for as long as it takes. And I think, as difficult as it might be, we all know that this show, and its cast and crew, is worth it.

#ofmd #our flag means death #save ofmd #save our flag means death #renew ofmd #renew our flag means death #adopt our crew #be a lighthouse

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amysgiantbees · 5 months

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I just find it strange that the developers chose to rewrite Wyll. I love new Wyll I think he's fantastic and I don't necessarily want the previous version. But I find it bizarre that there was somehow so much negative feedback about old Wyll that they risked completely rewriting him.

Now I love all the companions. This is not Dragon Age Orgins where I debate recruiting Ogrun every time. But I just find it strange that the reason given was Wyll's negative feedback when most of the other characters have been unpopular too. Like Lae'zel is infamously unlikable to a great many people.

People love to bully Gale and there's even lines in game that call him pathetic. The DEV's in the IGN interview even agreed that Gale killing himself can be a good ending, " I really liked Gale setting off the bomb with the brain, and actually that felt like the right ending to me.

AS: In many ways it is, yeah." Which feels problematic to say the least, like I get supporting player choices but suicide is never the "right" way to do things.

Or even I'm pretty sure I remember Neil Newbon talking about how he was sure a lot of players had killed Astarion permanently in their playthroughs.

Then there are people being absolute freaks on the internet about Halsin all because he's polyamorous.

Like these characters are wildly popular too but they certainly have their haters. So why did they lack such confidence with Wyll? The best source I could find on early access Wyll is this article https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-wyll-early-access-story-change-karlach-explained/. It says that this change was made to make his story stronger, make him more unique, and give him more complicated emotional ties. Unless he was really basic before they did not accomplish this. He has less content so his story lacks the depth the other's do. It's also inconsistent, with you being able to put him off being a duke by telling him he'll be too power hungry which he has never been. His emotional ties are rushed. He never really confronts his father, having the tadpole do most of the work and never hashing out his feelings beyond that he's fine.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. According to the article he was meant to have a dark side like Shadowheart "According to the panel, depending on whether players allow him to go through with killing Karlach, he will become a radically different companion instead of if she is recruited." Which would have been cool but if they didn't have enough time to do that maybe they should have tweaked what they had.

Plus, according to the article in early access he was "a straightforward hero who develops a violent side regarding his patron or goblins." This article too show's that his early approval matches current Wyll pretty well except for dealing with Aunty Ethel and more goblin hate https://fextralife.com/baldurs-gate-3-early-access-companions-guide-wyll/.

I just don't know I just find it so frustrating that it was the black main character they chose to tweak and ran out of time to complete his story and still haven't fixed it with a patch. And in the IGN interview the devs kind of sounded like there wouldn't be anymore patches and it's just frustrating. Wyll deserves just as much content as any one else.

#dnd #bg3 #balders gate 3 #baldurs gate #bg3 wyll #wyll #wyll ravengard #myanalysis #larian pls #larian critical #larian why #bg3 meta

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litnerdwrites · 1 month

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So, about Morrigan...

We all know that Morrigan's life was spent with others lording power over her, her body and her autonomy. When she tried to regain power and control over her own fate and body by sleeping with Cassian, she wound up tortured and brutalised at the boarder of the Autumn court, while the first person to find her, Eris, left her there. I don't like Morrigan either, but nobody should have to go through something like that, least of all at the hands of their own parents.

However, we see later in ACOFAS, that Mor's father still holds a lot of power over her.

The fact her father still holds this kind of power over her is a problem to her. So what does she do? Instead of working harder to overcome her trauma, talking about it, trying to face her fears, or doing anything else productive, she decides to become just as bad.

Mor lords power over Nesta, knowing Feyre and Cassian would chose their and their court over Nesta in a heart beat. Instead of empowering Feyre by encouraging her to hash things out with Nesta and take the first step to rebuilding that relationship, or telling Cassian not to disrespect Nesta's boundaries (the way males constantly disrespected her own boundaries), Mor decides to go on a power trip, by helping to isolate Nesta.

She constantly insults Nesta at every opportunity, getting off on the power she holds over her, despite the trauma and pain Nesta's gone through. During her first dinner with them, Nesta refuses their (unreasonable) request (felt more like a demand imo) to share her story at the HL meeting, and leaves the room before strangers who, best case scenario, don't give a shit about her, or worst case scenario, despise her, can peer pressure her into it.

It's been insinuated more than once that the IC doesn't know the whole truth about what transpired between Morrigan and Eris. Cassian, in silver flames, called Eris a 'good male' but also a 'coward' trapped by terrible circumstances (which is another topic I'd like to discuss later on), despite knowing what happened to Mor. It's becoming clear that one of them, or both of them, are lying about what happened. Which, personally, I think is fair, to some extent. Mor is under no obligation to share the truth in it's entirety with anybody if she doesn't want to.

(Although letting them believe a selective truth that paints Eris as a villain and letting her family insult him if that's not the case is so fucked up of her to do, and yet so on brand).

However, one would think that, because of this, Morrigan, of all characters, would understand not wanting to talk about your traumas, much less in front of an audience. Especially given the prejudices between humans & fae, Beron's general disposition, and the NC being disliked by most of the other courts, it seems obvious Nesta wouldn't want to talk to them at all, much less share something so deeply traumatising.

Instead, she passes Feyre a bottle of wine, as if she's the one being the most inconvenienced by Nesta's trauma and her response to it. She does the same in ACOSF, deciding that Nesta should be trapped in the CON while taking immense pleasure in the torture Nesta's going through. She even gloats about it to Nesta when coming to see Nesta being humiliated in Illyria.

Mor has suffered immensely, but as I mentioned in my previous post, trauma is an explanation for cruel behaviour, not an excuse. Much like Nesta, while Mor's actions may, to some extent, be explained by trauma, it doesn't excuse them. It should open a door to empathy and understanding.

Perhap's Nesta's human values, being somewhat similar to the values of the CON, may contribute to Mor associating her with her father. Or perhaps she wanted to feel powerful by protecting Feyre from horrible family the way she wished someone had protected her. Perhaps, in taking away Feyre's agency and power over her own forgiveness and relationship with her sisters, Mor was able to feel powerful. It's possible she see's Keir in her, which may be why Mor feels Nesta would 'thrive' in the CON.

Instead of stepping into her own power by facing her abusers, she faces other victims, takes power away from her own friends, and lords it over other victims. She takes power and agency from her friends, and for all she tells Feyre to stay out of the situation between Elain and Lucien, she continually inserts herself into the situation between Nesta and Feyre.

Mor used to hold power over Cassian and Azriel by using Cassian as a buffer between Az and her, knowing they both would do whatever she asked, pretty much. Now, she now lords power over Nesta and actively helps to isolate her, while also flaunting her relationships with Feyre and Cassian in order to hurt Nesta, knowing that Cassian and Feyre would let it happen without a care in the world. (I mean, what else do you call that scene at solstice where Mor and Cassian happily exchanged lingerie in front of her, while Feyre herself didn't even get Nesta a gift, after forcing her to come to solstice against her will).

TLDR: Mor's on a power trip because she unfairly associates Nesta with her father for no reason and uses it as an excuse to be almost as bad as Kier to Nesta. The cycle of abuse at it's finest people.

(Also, does anyone else come to post, intending for it to be short and sweet, only to end up going on a long ass tangent and writing a whole essay? Cause I do that. IDK how to stop though😭)

#anti acosf #anti ic #anti inner circle #anti rhysand #pro nesta #nesta deserves better #nesta acotar #anti amren #anti mor #pro nesta archeron #anti morrigan #Seriously Mor needds to take her own advice and mind her own business.#cycle of abuse through and through

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 22 days

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WIBTA if I restart an argument with a friend?

🌊⚓ <- so I can search for it.

So, a while ago, a friend was over and we talked. She is from South Germany while I am from North Germany, where we are both living (this'll be important in a sec).

I don't really remember why we were talking about the topic, but we started talking about regional dialects and sayings and then she called Low German* a dialect. Which tldr: big no-no. But I don't think she was being malicious, she just didn't know about the topic at all.

So naturally I explained: "You absolutely cannot call Low German a dialect to peoples faces around here. People will take offense to it. I don't really, because I consider the difference between dialect and language is arbitrary to begin with. But you will provoke incredibly unkind reactions from other people."

Her response was "Yeah but like. Doesn't everyone think their own dialect should be a language."

And... Idk why that one hurt but it did. It just felt incredibly dismissive. And I didn't really know how to respond other than "but this is the one case where it is true" which felt weird so I just. Didn't. We kinda moved on to other topics. But in hindsight, I really wish I hadn't?

Because I wish I had explained it in depth to her so she understands why what she said is considered unacceptable. But also for her own sake, because she will piss people off if she says the same thing to other people. And honestly for my sake so I can make peace with the conversation.

So I'm considering either finding a way to restart the argument/ conversation when we are together or go the cowardly route and send her a couple screenshots explaining the topic. But I also feel like restarting a fight we never really had and really doesn't matter is kind of a dick move.

Additionally I tend to be a person that corrects people when they are wrong and starts discussion way too much. Because in my family academic debates are a love language.** So I tend to reaaaaaally overestimate the amount of debating/ arguing people are comfortable with. They tend to perceive me as being upset with them while I am just having fun hashing out a topic from different angles.

So Tumblr. WIBTA?

Footnotes

* Low German is the regional language of North Germany. The definition of North Germany is actually pretty much "wherever they are speaking Low German". There is some controversy if Low German is a dialect or a language. Which like... People often describe it as closer to Dutch and English than Standard German, it's a recognised language in every state it is spoken in, it is recognized as a regional language in the fucking European Union WHY is it still controversial.

It is also very much an endangered language because in the past decades especially it has been looked down on as being "lower class". No that's not where the name comes from, low german is spoken where the terrain is flat/ low and high/ upper german is spoken where the mountains are. This attitude towards Low German is shifting a lot recently but it is entirely possible it's too late to prevent it from dying out.

** I felt like this part needed some clarification too. I can't count how many dinners in my childhood were spent eating while getting into the meat of whatever topic caught our attention. Politics or science or more spiritual stuff. Ask questions about things we were wondering about. Absolutely tear into each other when we had opposing positions, but concede when we were convinced. Oftentimes I'd get up to grab pen and paper, or demonstrate orbital dynamics with the jam container, a bowl and my plate, or use the butter as an impromptu drawing board.

But that doesn't mean we were fighting in the normal sense even if someone got upset occasionally. It was really just communicating with one another. It was connecting. Exercising our debate skills. Play-fighting but make it academia. It was genuinely fun to us and still is. An alternative outlet for sibling rivalry. There is no need to fight over the TV remote when you can just reason it out together.

So yeah. That's how academic debates can be a love language (and simultaneously absolutely destroy your conception of what is considered arguing).

#aita #am i the asshole

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psiroller · 11 days

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cheesecake date (◡‿◡✿) (18+)

slight cw for disordered eating irt chilchuck's weight management possibly being an extension of his self loathing (im being a little dramatic sorry its really not that serious here they are just boys sharing a gay meal)

another piece of a larger fic ive been working on, a more freeform, relationship-oriented sequel to break the lock

The idea had been to linger around the tavern long enough for the rest of the party to wander out on their own, but Laios’ entrée arrived and Falin had made herself quite comfortable across the table from Chilchuck. Laios munched away cluelessly at his croquette as Chilchuck slumped further and further behind the protective shield of his beer stein.

“Falin,” Marcille whined. “Are you really going to chaperone them all night?”

Chilchuck’s eye twitched and he considered, not for the first time over the course of this eventful night out, just bailing and walking home on his own. If he tapped out now, Falin would probably back off, he wouldn’t have to try to make conversation with Laios, and everyone could move on with their lives, but he also wouldn’t maybe get his dick wet, so.

“I just want to know Laios is going to be okay,” Falin said, slow and deliberate. Chilchuck could feel his movement speed and defense dropping. Could a cleric debuff somebody without chanting or touching them? Falin was an exceptional mage, of course, but that wasn’t exactly reassuring.

“I’ll be fine,” Laios said, giving her an affectionate punch to the shoulder. “Really. Chilchuck and I were just going to—discuss the hunt, hash things out. Go over strategies to keep this kind of thing from happening again.” Chilchuck’s eyebrows raised. Even if nobody was buying it, it was a more graceful attempt to skirt the obvious implication than he would have given Laios credit for. “You’ve been wanting to catch up on The Daltian Clan with Marcille, right?”

Falin’s judicious gaze shifted to Laios; Chilchuck sucked in a breath of air, suddenly aware of how badly his lungs hurt. Marcille, meanwhile, shook Falin’s shoulder.

“Y-yeah! I have a new relationship chart drawn up and everything. We haven’t had a girl’s night in forever, Falin, please?”

Falin softened, closing her eyes gently. “Very well.”

The mood had gone icy, but Laios was undaunted. He cut out a long slice of his croquette and plopped it on Chilchuck’s plate, which had accumulated a few peanut shells over the course of the evening and little else.

“Ah.” Chilchuck waved the helping away. “I’m watching my—” “It’s a special occasion,” Laios said. “Go on.”

Chilchuck leered at Laios, took a rebellious sip of his ale before indulging him. He stabbed a hitherto unused fork into the cutlet and took a big bite out of it. His sour expression softened up as he chewed.

“Not bad,” Chilchuck ceded, and Laios seemed suspiciously happy about that. Falin stood up from the table, and Marcille hiked up her skirt to jump from the bench. She was trying to play it cool, but there was a certain giddiness in Marcille’s restrained smile that Chilchuck recognized.

“We’re meeting up next week at the usual time, right?” “That’s the plan,” Laios nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on job postings over the weekend, so I should have a lead by then.”

Marcille and Laios grinned at each other in an unspoken agreement as Marcille looped an arm around Falin’s elbow. “See you then!” she giggled, tugging Falin along. Chilchuck decided to fixate on the delicate crust of the pork cutlet instead of whatever that meant; there were a few spices he recognized from home, some rosemary rubbed into the pork.

“See you around, Chilchuck.” A heavy hand clapped on Chilchuck’s shoulder and shoved him playfully, nearly making him choke. “Don’t be too rough on the guy, alright? He’s learned his lesson.” Namari let out a raunchy laugh when Chilchuck whipped around, scandalized. Laios didn’t flinch; he dropped another slice of his croquette onto Chilchuck’s plate.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Red pulsed at the edges of Chilchuck’s vision as he was redirected off of Namari’s back to Laios’ face, flushed from drink and sporting an easy smile. Chilchuck’s blood pressure was beginning to become a problem here. “They make the breadcrumbs in house.”

“Melini pork is something else,” Chilchuck muttered around his mouthful. “It’s fattier here than it is back home. Pigs are living free and easy in this climate, I guess.”

“It’s really interesting how the environment an animal is raised in affects the meat,” Laios said, staring off into the blurry space just beyond their table. Chilchuck grimaced as he realized what he’d just done to the conversation. “Up north, the pork’s tough. We have long-haired, hardy pigs. They get lean and mean and muscular once the winter comes.”

Chilchuck chuckled, despite himself. “You were raised on a pig farm? That explains a lot.”

“We had a variety of livestock,” Laios shrugged. “I guess it still counts as being raised in a barn, though. I slept in the hayloft quite a few times.”

Chilchuck snorted into his ale. “I don’t get you,” Chilchuck leaned forward onto the table, not having to go very far, and folded his arms on the damp, yeasty wood. Laios, for whatever reason, leaned in with him.

“You’re not the first person to tell me that,” Laios laughed, a painful edge to his smile.

Chilchuck’s throat went dry, and he washed it down with more ale. Laios reeled in the plate of cheesecake he’d been saving for dessert. The frozen raspberries on top had melted a bit, pink juice staining the immaculate eggshell white of the cake itself and pooling in the center of the plate. He thought about it for a second, then pushed it over to Chilchuck.

“You want the first bite? You paid for it.”

Chilchuck swallowed hard and coughed up some panko. “Why are you feeding me like some kind of—never mind. I have to stay light on my feet. Keeps me from triggering pressure plates inadvertently. You eat it.”

Laios cocked his head quizzically, his flushed high cheekbones pressed into his knuckles. He held out a clean fork, handle side out. Safety first. “A bite’s not going to kill you, Chilchuck. You gotta put weight back on before we head back in anyway.”

Chilchuck opened his mouth to yell, but something stopped him. Laios waggled the silverware expectantly, and Chilchuck snatched it out of his hands. He stabbed straight down the middle of the slice, through a soggy raspberry and the wedge of cake, and carved out a piece, getting the most out of his begrudged portion. Laios watched unblinkingly as Chilchuck wrapped his chapped lips around the tines of the fork. Chilchuck’s eyes glittered.

“Well?”

“It’s alright,” Chilchuck shrugged, quickly stealing another bite before handing the fork back to Laios. There was a smug look on his face that Chilchuck wanted to wipe off. Laios finally had a piece and melted when it touched his tongue.

“Tastes more than alright to me,” Laios hummed. “You’re funny.” “Funny how?” “It’s just cake, Chilchuck.” Laios passed the fork. “You bought it, you like it, but you can’t say so.” “Are you calling me a coward?” “I’m saying that we can share. It’s not such a big deal.”

Chilchuck grumbled something in his mother tongue. He scooped up another piece and focused on the sour tang of the cream cheese instead, the delicate crumbled crust soaked through with fruit juice.

“It’s probably the best cheesecake I’ve ever had,” Chilchuck admitted. Laios clapped his hands and cheered.

“There you go! Wasn’t that nice?” “It’d be nicer if you could shut your cakehole so I can enjoy this in peace.”

Laios grinned. “Why’s it so hard to admit what you want?” Chilchuck’s eyes rolled, but he wasn’t getting up from the table. He chewed on an extra-large piece and passed the fork back to Laios to finish it off. Laios took his time to savor the last, eyes closed and mind distant from the overwhelming chatter around them, drunken jeering and bubbling laughter.

“Most people don’t ask,” Chilchuck said. Laios’ eyes opened. “So I’m asking. What do you want?”

Chilchuck flushed from his ears to his throat and slammed the last of his ale.

#ficroller #dungeon meshi #chilaios #preview #laios' autistic swagger is getting to him majorly

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morallyinept · 2 months

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Shoot: The Rake Magazine, October 2016, Issue 48

Photographer: Anders Overgaard

Interviewer: Tom Chamberlin

Grooming: Jessica Ortiz

Full interview, behind the scenes, outtakes & shoot photographs below. 👇🏻

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

• Cover shot and original images used in the magazine

• Outtakes and behind the scenes images.

• Full Interview

As a stickler for timing, it was a tad disconcerting for me that half an hour into an hour-long interview, Pedro Pascal was still barely a year old. The family history of this actor is a story in itself, one that Pedro intends to write one day.

Happily, Pedro was very generous with his time, and, as with our photoshoot at The Carlyle Hotel in New York, and with every role he has played, he understands the difference between a hash-job and a job well done. Perhaps this is why Pedro will be on screen pretty much non-stop for the next year and is fast building an enviable C.V.

His roles as a protagonist span big-budget Hollywood movies and the finer works of subscription television, namely Game of Thrones and Narcos, whose second series is currently available on Netflix. It turns out he is also the epitome of America: an immigrant who has taken his talent and ambition and made a success of himself in a country that takes people in and gives them a chance to succeed. And The Rake was given the opportunity of an in-depth discussion with this star player.

I should firstly elaborate on the extraordinary tale of his early life. His family name is Balmaceda, his father is a doctor, and his late mother (whose maiden name was Pascal) welcomed José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal into the world on April 2, 1975 in Santiago, Chile. Those of you familiar with the South American governments of the time will know that this was not a simple epoch in which to be born in Chile. It was less than two years since Augusto Pinochet had deposed Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected head of state in Chile, in a coup d’état. Allende killed himself in the coup but his supporters remained a thorn in the junta’s side. So, as any self-respecting dictator would, Pinochet found opposition members, rounded them up, and tortured them for information on other dissenters who could be found, rounded up, and so on.

One such occasion was some years later, when our cover star enters the fray. A cousin of Pascal’s mother was Andrés Pascal Allende, a powerful revolutionary and supporter of his uncle. One day, during a gunfight, this freedom fighter would be given medical aid and shelter chez Balmaceda, and it would be this gesture that put the family on the ‘list’. Pedro recalls (through no memory of his own but that of his father’s) that, “the Pascal family wasn’t particularly safe." He adds: “There was a priest who was brought [Andrés], who had been shot in the leg, to my mum and dad’s house. My father took him in, hid them for a few days, and patched up his leg. I was a baby, my sister was just three, and she says she has a vague memory of being really angry that our parents had put strangers’shit in her bedroom, including guns and stuff.”

The innocence of youth! But the story becomes more and more like a Bourne movie: “The priest was taken into custody and tortured; he gave names, and they went looking for my father at the hospital he worked at. By chance it got to him that they were downstairs, asking where to find Dr. José Balmaceda. My father sneaks out the back and gets my mum, his sister gets my sister and me. They work out that their only option is to go into hiding, which they do for about six months, and they end up sneaking into the Venezuelan embassy and sought asylum.”

You can see why we spent so long on the subject. His light-hearted approach to talking about this may be because he was too young (about nine months old when they came out of hiding) to have been affected by the process, but there is pride in his parents’ actions, the way in which they carried him and his sister to safety in a climate in which even children were not safe. The solution wasn’t ‘doing an Assange’ and locking themselves in the embassy - they had to leave.

Though they would ultimately settle in the United States, it was Denmark that took them in first. Pascal was still too young to recall a great deal; after a year his father was contacted by a Chilean professor in San Antonio, Texas, and was offered a job. San Antonio was a great place for South American immigrants. With a large Spanish-speaking population, it wasn’t as much of a departure, or culture shock, for the family as Denmark had been.

They lived there until 1986, and it was during this time that he developed a love of movies and the desire to become an actor. He says of that time: “Strangely it was my father’s fault, because he was a huge moviegoer and he would take us to the movies a few times a week throughout my childhood. Of course, we got cable television and HBO came into the fold. Uncensored, uninterrupted movies in your living room: it was some kind of fucking miracle. I remember sitting there and it feeling like absolute magic to me. I remember perfectly watching my first movie on HBO and thinking it was magic.”

While television was developing its appeal, cinema was the family craze, and his father was the most zealous disciple. Pascal adds: “I am telling you, we would go several times a week. And it wouldn’t matter, if my dad wanted to see a movie, and there wasn’t a babysitter, we would go with him or he’d just want to take us. It is my father and Steven Spielberg’s fault - Spielberg being the ruling aesthetic of Hollywood at that time. Throw MTV and Nickelodeon into the mix, and public school systems in San Antonio and very cool parents - these were socialising us and forming us. It is in such stark contrast to what it would be in Chile. In Chile I have 34 first cousins. And in Texas it was just us.”

Though he is a self-confessed “dork”, his hinting at loneliness, and his circumstances as an immigrant in a poor neighbourhood in San Antonio being a psychological burden, is an interesting passage through which he developed his sense of imagination, fantasy and the requisite skills as an actor. “I spent so much time alone and I wasn’t allowed to watch cable from morning into night, so my options were me and my imagination and it was all so completely ruled by the idea of being on these movie adventures,” he says. “I remember seeing Rambo and The Big Chill. I was fascinated by [The Big Chill], as JoBeth Williams was the mother in Poltergeist, which I had seen seven times already in the movie theatre, and I was shouting, ‘That’s the mum from Poltergeist, this movie is amazing!’ I was a big reader as well. I read Stephen King from a very young age.” He tellingly concludes that movies “ruled my imagination and to an extent my identity."

His isolation grew when his father moved the family to California when Pedro was 11. His father was part of a team of fertility experts that had pioneered an advanced form of I.V.F. called gamete intra-fallopian transfer, or GIFT. But this move took him away from a Spanish-speaking neighbourhood and into Newport Beach, Orange County, “which is about a 99.9 per cent white town." He found it hard to fit in, though not because of how he looked. “It was more a matter of me being a nerd and a movie geek and not a good surfer and interested in art,” he says. “I already knew I wanted to be an actor.” His determination had been made manifest by spending his free time reading plays and going to see Search and Destroy by Howard Korder at the South Coast Repertory, which left him “fucking floored."

This problematic period in his youth might explain why he decided to move to the other side of the country, to New York City, to study theatre, where his inclination to academia was compromised by metropolitan life. He says: “Once I made it to New York I wasn’t reading the things I was supposed to read. I was a terrible student.” The Tisch School of the Arts, a school with an impressive list of alumni, including Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin and Billy Crystal, nevertheless provided a stable platform for him to pursue his acting ambitions. He could break out from being the little child in a strange town and muck in with like-minded people in a city founded on immigration and pluralism.

This time in his life ushered in the beginning of a long-standing friendship with American Horror Story and (gravely underappreciated) Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip star Sarah Paulson. Pedro’s charisma made it very easy to become friends with him, Paulson tells The Rake, explaining that it was a “just-add-water friendship." What drew her to Pedro, she adds, was that “he had an enormous amount of gravitas and at the same time a great deal of levity. He would be the first person to fall on the floor laughing.”

After Tisch he found himself working plenty in theatre, too. One particular play, Beauty of the Father, at the Manhattan Theatre Club would begin another friendship with an acting luminary, Star Wars and Ex Machina star Oscar Isaac. Isaac told The Rake, in regards to both of them achieving recognition around the same time and at similar ages: “We started off-Broadway, so for both of us it has been a parallel path where we have been treading the boards together and facing a lot of uphill climbing and rejection and trying to make a living here in New York. To be able to go on that journey together and for me to be able to see him explode on to the scene, I couldn’t be prouder of him.” He says of Pedro: “He is someone who has a very profound depth to him. He wears his heart on his sleeve and he has a great mind and incredible empathy, and he is also incredibly sharp-witted and fun to be around.”

Pascal would find that achieving the kind of success he had imagined was to be parked while he worked solely to support himself. He did the rounds, doing irregular slots on long-running U.S. television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Without a Trace and CSI. He says: “The idea of experiencing exposure or being on the cover of a magazine like The Rake was totally abandoned at a certain point well into my thirties, once I’d learnt how to live and support myself as an actor and be unknown outside a small community. I had come to terms with the idea of just hoping to work.” This is the fate of 90 per cent of actors who graduate from drama schools, and frankly the realisation and acceptance of living a life in which you support yourself with work speaks to a very grounded, grateful and pragmatic individual.

Fortunately for us, his prospects soon changed.

In 2014 he appeared in the world’s biggest T.V. show since Friends, Game of Thrones. It was the fourth series that saw the arrival of a new kind of Alpha male in a series with no shortage of them. Pascal played Oberyn Martell, the Prince of Dorne. However, where Charles Dance’s anti-hero ne plus ultra Tywin Lannister commanded the ‘patriarchy’ side of masculinity, and there was the brutish, drinking and farting muscle mass that was Rory McCann as The Hound, Pascal’s Oberyn was a more complex and interesting personification of masculinity and sexuality. Oberyn was affecting from the start, and even before we see Pascal’s incarnation he is described as “not a man for welcome parties” who is famous for “fucking half of Westeros."

His demeanour was a refreshing change to the grimy, armour-clad male leads that were a mainstay of the storyline: colourful, well-groomed, softly spoken yet threatening. You get an idea of the nature of the character from Tyrion Lannister’s face (threatened, anxious) when he discovers who had come from Dorne for the royal wedding. Then, when we meet Oberyn, in long, elegant robes of mustard and gold, there is a menace and intent; the audience salivates as it waits to find out what he is capable of. And we are kept waiting. What is most interesting about Oberyn is that his lust is not limited to the fairer sex. Oberyn is a sexual omnivore: he has what he describes as his paramour, Ellaria Sand (played by Indira Varma), who acts as both angel and devil on his shoulders, reminding him that he can take whatever he wants.

His fluid sexuality is culturally under-represented in film, television and certainly music. The co-creators of the show, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, have used the fantastical setting of Westeros to curate a fascinating experiment into what a ‘man’ really is and how audiences react to sexual behaviour. It is not controversial to say that even hinting at homosexual tendencies can put off a chunk of the male audience, sad as that may be. The fact that Oberyn is convincing as masculine, strong and fierce, without any suggestion that his sexuality will undermine his masculinity for the audience, is a real feat in developing cultural norms. It is a benchmark for progressive leading men, and considering the success of this one, we hope there is more to follow.

Not only is Oberyn bisexual, he is openly so. His arrogance and comfort with himself means that he needn’t hide it like many other characters in the series do. Pascal says: “It’s fucking hilarious because straight guys fucking love Oberyn. In talking to D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, I was really surprised to hear that through the audition process there were takes on Oberyn that, because in the audition scene it is revealed that he includes a man in the mix of his orgy and reveals himself to be bisexual, they would immediately interpret him as more effeminate and add that quality to the character. What had been so right for them was my not having done that. It is interesting because it never even occurred to me that he wouldn’t be so completely male and have the quality of something Alpha and archetypically masculine. It made complete sense that the world was his and every part of it was his, and everything he wanted to partake of, it is very much in the writing.”

Benioff took the time to speak to The Rake to lend some words of praise to Pascal. He says: “It was a very difficult part to cast because [Oberyn] encompasses so many contradictions: he is charismatic, he is ferocious, he is sexy, but also he can be quiet and intimate. It can be very hard to find someone who can do everything. He can be hard to pin down because he is so multi- faceted. A big problem was that no one felt quite sexy enough.”

And then along comes our cover star, who “did a very cheap video on his iPhone. It couldn’t have been more low-rent, but it was incredibly compelling. It’s interesting, as it’s not that we had a particular look at the time. We didn’t know what we wanted until we saw it, and with Pedro it was pretty clear.” He adds of Pedro’s interpretation: “He brought a sense of humour to the part. There’s something fun about someone with a sense of humour who is utterly fearless. There is also something a little insane about that.”

Pedro enjoyed the rakish side of his character; the costume designer Michele Clapton helped him tap into the character’s braggadocio. He says: “Stylistically, what Michele did, I’m never going to look that good again. I mean, that fucking mustard robe with the leather belt and sometimes a sash. These are all feminine garbs that could not have been more masculine. It made me feel so powerful and male.”

Pedro waxes lyrical about his employers on Game of Thrones: “To be honest with you, my take on the part had everything to do with what was on the page. I looked up Oberyn in the books and it’s all told through the perspective of Tyrion Lannister - it’s a very cool character, but the way David and Dan [Weiss] fleshed him out on the show was a pure set-up for success for me. I give all credit to them: it was their idea to create a progressive, radical badass that two straight married men have a crush on. You could tell they loved this guy. That was why it ended up being so good, and I understand that it could have gone in the wrong direction by being interpreted differently, but I didn’t see it in any other way.”

The demise of Oberyn was the first time in four years I wanted to pack in watching the series. There was a sense of having had enough with the show for not giving me enough of this character. They held back on how exciting Oberyn could be, with his athleticism and the insouciant cool of fighting a man wielding a sword that was, as Pedro puts it, “quite literally my height” - and, of course, the way in which he ‘dispatched’ him. Going from that high of poetic justice - from being everyone’s favourite spear-wielding hero - to the crushing low of the red-porridge mess of his head crushed on the floor in the space of five minutes was genius television making; never was an audience so crushed as well.

Even Pedro hated it.

When I shared with him my frustration, he related by saying: “Yes, because it feels terrible. Why should I go to bed with this horrific feeling in my heart? I love that people felt that way about Oberyn because I had felt that way about the Red Wedding (a shocking scene in which several major characters were killed off at a wedding feast). I almost stopped. I was in the process of auditioning for Oberyn and I had already had my heart crushed. I remember thinking very specifically, ‘Soon it’s time for bed and I’m in a place of such darkness because of watching television - this isn’t good for me’.”

Fortunately, Pascal’s particular brand of bravura masculinity returned in 2015 with Narcos, Netflix’s true events epic about Pablo Escobar and the rise of the Colombian drug trade. It is a show The Economist describes as “doing a better job than most narco-dramas in getting across the brutal seediness of the drugs business.” Pascal plays Javier Peña, a man who isn’t afraid to break a few eggs to make his omelette, a man very much part of the aforementioned brutal seediness.

In an era in which scrutiny of our institutions is critical, a show set in a time when there was plenty brushed under the carpet conducts an interesting moral waltz with the audience’s empathy. Pedro says: “I don’t see him as moral. I see him as pragmatic and work obsessed. It is all due credit to the creators of the show, who allow me to interpret the character in the most interesting way possible. I love that Peña and the writers of Narcos and Netflix are totally game for him being a character who exists more ambiguously and represents the greyer elements of this drugs war that the U.S. gets involved with. I think he, as a character, is definitely wanting to get the job done however he sees fit, and this is a guy who never got married, who never had attachments, who could easily disappear into this world with nothing to lose, and I think that’s what makes him good at it and helps him achieve some of his objectives - because he can assimilate, he can participate, he can get on the inside culturally and psychologically, and be totally badass, of course.”

He has plenty more to do in the second series, so the challenge for Pascal is to elevate the performance and not leave it still and stagnant, a challenge he revels in. He says: “I feel like, in a way, the first season is, in terms of the character, somewhat of an introduction and opens up the opportunity to see more in the second season. When you meet him he’s already on the inside, he’s having sex with a gorgeous prostitute who he has this strange relationship to: they are lovers, she’s his informant, they are friends, and we don’t get that many private adventures of Peña in the first season. I would say in the second series there is more opportunity to spend a little more time with that character, so it almost feels like season one and season two is a two-act play, and in the second act Peña has more to do.”

Now, as expected, momentum is very much in Pedro’s favour. Next year will be a big year for him. We have seen a trailer for his first feature film, The Great Wall, the first attempt by anyone at joining the forces of eastern and western cinema. He teams up with Matt Damon in this cross-cultural epic directed by Zhang Yimou. He says of the film that, “We shot it in China for five months. When I was just graduating from college, Matt Damon turned into a comet as an actor, and rightly so, so he has been very famous for most of my adult life. It was a big deal to go work alongside someone as famous and talented as he is. From my perspective he has always been much more an actor than a celebrity.”

When he began talking about Zhang Yimou, his unashamed inner nerd came to the fore: “When I expanded my curiosities as I got older, I was reading plays but I was also getting into independent and foreign cinema. I saw Raise the Red Lantern in 1991, and saw The Story of Qiu Ju by myself because I was that much of a fucking dork - I walked by myself to see the Chinese movie that was playing - and I saw Shanghai Triad four times at the Angelika [in New York] while I was at college. I saw it early and said to friends, ‘Have you seen this?’ I took two friends and I took my mom when she visited New York to go see Zhang Yimou’s films. I had a period in the nineties when I was really quite obsessed with his movies. He showed what he could do with Hero and House of Flying Daggers, which were very different from his arthouse films he made in the nineties, which are all brilliant, and now this is taking it a step further because it is a big Hollywood ‘creature-feature’ that meets epic Chinese cinema. So for me it was very surreal, because I had admired him as a filmmaker and one I never expected to meet or work with - and then in my first film. I was working with him alongside Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe and Andy Lau and an amazing Chinese crew and brilliant Chinese actors. I had no idea how it would turn out but it was a very surreal experience.”

Damon was able to talk to The Rake about having Pedro as a teammate on the movie. It may be obvious as to why Damon, one of the most respected and loved men in Hollywood, would have been picked for the part, but why the relative newcomer Pascal? Damon without hesitation answers: “He was picked because he was the best actor available for the part; he is a fantastic actor.” He cited Pedro’s time acting in the theatre in New York as the way in which he developed his craft. He says: “He came out of [Tisch] 20 years ago and just started doing theatre. If you can last into your forties doing that - he had his 10,000 hours a decade and a half ago. He’s really mastered his craft and you can see that with the level of technique and how agile he is as an actor, he can really do anything. I’d say he can dial up or dial down whatever the director needs. When you are that versatile, it is a real boon to a director because they can temper the piece exactly how they like. It’s really fun to play off him because he does different things, he has a lot of fun and there is a lot of joy in his work, and we laughed a lot. I have always said about great actors that they are good enough for both of you - they’re so overwhelming that they pull you right into the scene. Personally I end up not having to work because I am being taken, like you board a train and you go along for the ride. That’s what it is like working with Pedro, he is a really uniquely talented guy, but that comes from years of theatre in New York. It is not just the raw talent, he has honed his technique over the last couple of years.”

Pedro feels his rise to fame in his early forties comes as a double-edged sword. On the one hand fame at a young age “fucks you up. I don’t think that as a rule, but it can fuck you up.” On the other hand, “in my experience I feel quite naïve. I was doing plays and guest spots and some bullshit indie films that no one will ever see. It is interesting to be completely grown up and feel like a freshman.”

Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which is due out next year, was the same for him. He says: “I was just in some kind of strange candy shop doing Kingsman 2, finding myself in a scene with Jeff Bridges and Colin Firth and Halle Berry and Channing Tatum and getting to meet Julianne Moore. It was really kind of a movie experience on crack." And reveals that Jack Daniels, is the biggest badass of them all.

This is all to say that Pedro Pascal, the political refugee who employed all of his talent, all of his ambition and passion to create a success of the opportunity given to him in the land of the free, is very much Mr. America. His old friend Sarah Paulson says that, “It is a very sweet thing - watching him land where I always thought he should land. Proud doesn’t begin to cover it; it feels righteous.”

America is built on the type of tolerance, kindness, humility and skill that Pedro Pascal embodies. And his rise to prominence comes at a time when there is a narrative - one that is extremely close to executive power - suggesting walling off Central and South American immigrants, a suggestion Pedro says is “revealing some of the ugliest things of which we are capable as a nation”. Damon agrees with The Rake, saying, “I’ve often thought, especially listening to Donald Trump do his thing, that Pedro’s is the quintessential American story, and that’s why we don’t build walls.”

Perhaps it is the responsibility of magazines like ours to make clear that no one is more American than Pedro Pascal. And it is only fitting that, as America continues to seek progress - the repealing of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’, its first black president, perhaps its first female president, a fairer medical system - Pedro embodies everything beautiful about a beautiful country, and it feels righteous.

Jett's Pedro's Shoots Masterlist

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal photoshoot #pedro pascal the rake #pedro pascal interview #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal photos #pedro pascal words #pedro pascal magazine

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the-bi-space-ace · 2 months

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Hey so I just read your mini essay on the complexity of Crosshair’s beliefs and experiences with loyalty (rip my heart out, why don’t you), and I’m curious about your insights into Hunter’s personality, because out of all of them, he’s the most difficult for me to get a read on. Like, he cares about Omega and the squad, but do we actually see much of his personality beyond the caregiver?

To me he doesn’t show emotional clarity/steadfastness like Wrecker, or loyalty like Crosshair, or duty like Echo, and ambition like Tech. He generally takes things in quietly and seems to have become more indecisive as the show progresses (which makes sense cuz the batch suddenly went from a 100% success rate on missions to “everything that can go wrong does go wrong”). But I want to know Hunter better!! What are your thoughts and opinions?

Hi! I'm sorry it took me so long to reply. I just really wanted to think it through and post something in depth. I’m glad you read the Crosshair post (even if it did rip your heart out, I’m so sorry <3). To be completely honest with you I had no idea what to say about Hunter at first but I’ve given it a few days to think and I actually have a few things that I want to discuss.

Caveat that when I watch The Bad Batch I’m not usually focused on Hunter. Primarily because I just connect with the personalities of the rest of the batch more. There’s no problem with connecting with certain characters more than others, it is just personal preference 😊

Regardless, I have some thoughts, and I am genuinely so excited to talk about this after giving it a few days to think about what my full opinion is.

With the caveat in mind I have some opinions on Hunter that fuel my own viewpoint on his character and how I tend to write him in my own fanfics. To me Hunter has always been very… closed. Even in the Clone Wars he tends to stand back, be silent, only really speaking to give orders, question plans, or occasionally make fun of the rest of the 99. Despite the batch’s tendency to disregard orders and regulation (for better or for worse) Hunter has always thrived under direct understanding of where he stands. That’s why he works well with people like Cody and Rex. They give him clear… not exactly direction but something similar. He understands the rules. He knows how to break them. When the rules change with Order 66 he is thrust into something uncomfortable and instead of taking the problem and tackling it he just doesn’t do that. I am certainly not the first to point out that Hunter is avoidant. He always was.

He lets the batch get into fights and he doesn’t step in until he absolutely needs to. He doesn’t jump to defend immediately - typically, although there are exceptions.

(The way he defends Crosshair from Howzer in S3 E6 comes to mind. I’m still tossing that moment around as a repair attempt tbh. They’ve fought and hashed out some of the messy bits and now they are quietly proving to each other that they’re willing to patch things up.)

He lets his squad sort things out on their own and when it gets out of hand he’ll step in. Hell, I think the best example of this is actually when Rex punches Crosshair. Hunter never actually steps into that fight and I think it is partially because of this avoidant tendency. (The rest maybe because he knew Crosshair bit off more than he could chew and he was willing to let a swift right hook teach that lesson.) We actually see Wrecker step up to defend the squad more than Hunter does. This makes sense to me - Wrecker is big and intimidating and Crosshair and Tech tend to be mouthy. Hunter might be the sergeant of this squad but he certainly isn’t the sole protector nor should he be. (Hunter is still protective - the clones we meet tend to be - just not in the exact ways the rest of them are.)

This avoidance is why we see him ignore the Crosshair situation and latch onto giving Omega a normal life. I am not going to pretend that I like the way he ignores this situation but he reacted exactly how I expected him to. He was thrust into the unknown and without the proper rules he ended up throwing all of his attention onto one thing he felt like he could control. I’ve known plenty of people who do that. Hell, I’ve done that. That doesn’t mean it is the healthiest way to deal with pain or loss or grief. It’s a coping mechanism.

Once he’s sure it’s the chip controlling Crosshair he really latches onto this idea that if they just take the chip out then everything will be fine and dandy. In the same way that Crosshair latches onto this idea that if the batch just joins the empire that they can be whole again.

They’re both wrong.

You can tell he’s really internalized this idea of taking out the chip and everything fixing itself and when that dream is shattered he continues to disappear inside of himself. When things aren’t as simple as taking the chip out to bring Crosshair home he’s angry that suddenly this is more than just a simple fix and he doesn’t know where he stands anymore. There’s anger and hurt directed at him and the rest of the batch and he gets defensive because he thinks there shouldn’t be. He gets increasingly angry and much more confrontational than we’ve seen him be with Crosshair so far. Another worldview shattered, another chip in his already fragile armor, another reason to be fucking pissed. His anger at Crosshair finally pushed him into action, away from avoidance. Is it healthy? Still no. But none of them are really experts at coping. At least he’s letting it out. At least it is in the open. At least we are seeing his emotions bubble over onto the surface. That is what makes me personally interested. Those messy, painful, unhelpful emotions wreacking havoc and making things worse.

We see Hunter buckle down and let his anger fester. I think he continues to do that all the way through season 2 and his conflict with Echo isn’t helping. I have an entire post somewhere in my drafts about Echo and Hunter’s joint leadership but I’ll boil it down to a few points to focus them on Hunter.

Hunter needs a second in command especially now. He isn’t at his best as a leader and maybe that’s not really what the batch needs right now. The GAR is gone. Their lives are upside down. He needs support but he won’t ask for it - stubborn as hell he is. That’s why Echo really helps. I rewatched the seasons specifically to focus on Echo and I think we can see signs of his and Hunter’s joint leadership from the very beginning even before Hunter needs him for support. In a world of uncertainty you need someone to hold on to, someone to help make decisions. His conflict with Echo in season two is just making him more unsteady. The prospect of losing someone else and losing his voice of reason is wearing on him and it only gets worse as time goes on. Sure, he knows they can get by without Echo around but I don’t think he wants that. He was leaning on Echo and once they started disagreeing he realized that maybe he was going to either have to open himself up to relying on everyone else or close up again.

I’d wager that he chose the latter for the most part.

Hunter doesn’t like relying on others. He has this big idea in his head that he’s meant to be the one who has it down but… come on. None of us can do that. I’ve seen a lot of people compare Hunter to an oldest sibling and as the youngest of four I’m not sure I really have much insight into that particular notion but as the sibling who took on the greatest responsibilities in my home I feel this tug of responsibility to the detriment of yourself and others and I see you, Hunter. I see you and you need to stop.

Maybe that’s why I get so frustrated with Hunter in particular. I want him to grow out of this. I want him to change and develop and be angry and show his care more often. That’s part of why I loved S3 E5 so much. Hunter got fucking pissed. He was angry and he let it out and he shoved Crosshair and he showed just how badly he was hurt by everything. Fuck I love that. This is what I wanted to see. Finally he’s forgetting to keep it together and in front of Crosshair he is finally willing to lose his temper. Something really tells me that they used to lose their temper at each other because it was safe to. They clearly don’t know how to talk about their emotions and sort it out like many of us know or learn to - that will hopefully come with time and maturity - but they sure did know how to yell and use their strength against each other. So they fight. And they hurt each other. Then they make up and move forward because what else are they meant to do? They’re going to forgive each other. It’s how it always is - a given.

Hunter’s relationship to loyalty is not anywhere near the same as Crosshair’s but all of the batch end up having some relationship with it one way or another. There’s an excellent post floating around tumblr somewhere and I couldn’t find it to save my life (if you know what I’m talking about and can find the post feel free to link it somewhere) but it says something about how eventually the batch is going to embody the idea that they ‘don’t leave their own behind’ because they simply haven’t remained true to that sentiment yet - through lack of choice or active avoidance. They’ve repeated it a few times and yet the sentiment feels flat as they keep having to leave members of their squad behind or let them walk away themselves. Eventually they’re going to have to prove this sentiment and only then do I really think the show’s true theme can be accomplished.

I want to touch briefly on Hunter’s relationship to touch because I think it comes into play here (and it is admittedly one of my favorite things about him.) He uses touch a lot more than I think we give him credit for. Yes he’s closed off emotionally and he’s not great at talking but he does use touch a lot. He uses it with Echo for reassurance and as a factor to convince him of things often. A plan Echo doesn’t like? Shoulder touch. Echo is still new and Hunter is telling him he’ll get used to things? Shoulder touch. Saying goodbye, serious chat, acknowledging his worries? Touch touch touch. This man doesn’t always know how to use his words but he’s good at putting what he means into a physical reminder. What does the touch say? Loads of things. That he’s there, that what he is saying is not meant to hurt, that he’s pissed, that he’s listening. He does it with Wrecker and Omega and - thinking of their fight - Crosshair but I can’t actually think of an instance where he uses touch with Tech. I could have just missed it so let me know if there are scenes where he does this. He’s relied on physical reminders for so long that maybe words just… aren’t what he uses to communicate. You can feel the way his mood shifts when him and Echo are disagreeing by the way he moves him physically. It’s really those moments that I feel Hunter shines most because those moments are where he feels most open as a character - at least from my perspective.

I use his relationship to touch when I write him and, specifically, when that touch is rejected, what does that feel like for him? When I write him I look at it from a perspective of how he interacts with the world and what he thinks he can give to it. When his most comfortable form of communication - that shoulder touch we all tease about - is rejected and he can’t rely on that anymore what does that look like? Could just be the fact that I lean very heavily towards touch as a form of communication and repair but I focus on it a lot and it deserves a mention while talking about Hunter.

In truth, Hunter is hard for me. I see the avoidance, I see the anger, I see his pain, and yet I still have this feeling that I don’t really see him. What does Hunter really want? Because we’ve only ever seen him talk about what he wants to do for other people. But what motivates Hunter? We can say that it’s keeping his people safe or that it’s settling down or even just boil it down to Omega but what is actually under the surface there? For everyone else I can pretty much pinpoint what it is that motivates them but Hunter is a blank area for me. He says what motivates him but I am much more inclined to believe there is something else really eating at him underneath it all. I also want to suggest that maybe he hides behind doing things for other people to avoid feeling selfish. If he’s doing all of this to protect his squad then he’s not doing all of this because he wants to and it’s not a selfish decision. While I don’t think finding somewhere safe to settle down is selfish I get the feeling that maybe Hunter thinks it is for him specifically. Like he is not allowed to but maybe if it’s about everyone else then it’s fine. It’s always ‘Omega deserves better’ and ‘you betrayed us.’ Never ‘this is what I want and this is how I feel.’

Crosshair’s value system is very strict and at times harsh and unmoving. Echo has a sense of duty and protection that is strong enough to push him into action. Wrecker is motivated by the thrill of things but also by supporting his loved ones. Tech is curious and intelligent, seeking out new experiences and an interest in preservation. But what is Hunter’s motivation aside from ‘settle down’? That’s a goal, sure, but I’m not sure it’s really the right word to place on what he really wants deep down outside of what he wants for other people. I’m not sure I really know the answer to that question.

To make a long post even longer I’d like to see what Hunter wants when it is not connected to his service to other people. What is it that fuels him? Is it the serene calmness of safety that he craves? Being free from worry? Is it the freedom to make choices that he never would have gotten in the GAR? I’m almost inclined to say it’s a bit of everything but I still don’t really know and I would love to actually hear what people think the baseline motivator is for him personally.

#the bad batch #tbb hunter #tbb season 3 #tbb spoilers #sorry this is so long I had too much fun and got carried away

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factorialsotherfandoms · 6 months

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its 6am and I'm complaining myself through the ending of purgatory k? This is just the bitching not a full balanced analysis, bits I genuinely enjoyed are missing so it looks like I have a worse opinion than I did, its below a cut because a lot of people don't want that and that's absolutely good. I'm just processing through.

I think purgatory ending feels bad because we were promised by the way it was advertised and treated the end of the arc, and what we got was another fucking mid point instead. A mid point which after this going on for so long nobody really wanted. Setting up new project cool! But it felt miserable to watch the end. Probably could have been helped if the CCs had more info on a meta level - just the timescales and that this wasn't actually the end of the arc - so they could pace themselves and us better. The eggs missing has gone on for far too long, we've been given far too little to work with, and it's just not fun viewing any more. Which is why my engagement is so dependent on the next little while.

That, plus getting to the boat on foot was impossible without near perfection - something they were never going to all have. I like giving qMaxo his big sendoff with the nuke which solves nothing! But people who were legitimately trying to escape (Cellbit, Tina, off the top of my head - Cellbit just legit got lost in the underground. He said after he decided to stay but like... really? We'll have to wait and see next time he plays qsmp. If nothing else he legit had shit to do planned, and I feel like he would discuss it more with Roier if he was going to perma-kill Cellbit as that's massive to put on someone else's character. Pretty sure ccCellbit was just teasing like he fucking does but we'll see. Also changes what Maxo did if any of them die to it /significantly/. I'll be genuinely worried for ccMaxo if his characters actually pretty neat death arc resulted in a fan favourite character permadying in a game without permadeath) should have had a legit chance to do so. If they were supposed to be able to. I really hope the admins smooth that bit over one way or another, because it just made shit feel extremely bad. Kinda expect the /actual/ ruling to be if one person made it they all did, but dear god they needed to tell the players that immediately after or whatever if so. Failing that you could maybe have the others in the Nether or something, but youd need to coordinate everyone who didn't make it and that'd just suck logistically. The sensible answer is if one person got there they all did because this isn't a high legality sort of game. For players.

Like the other eggs were probably kidnapped by something and reported out? And I'm betting on black concrete plot as that's the plot actually associated with them disappearing in the first place, but for all it's cool moments up until then it just... dropped the ball. Tbh the entire thing with the eggs being involved was a massive ball drop which lead to /one/ cool conversation but otherwise just made everything infinitely less enjoyable.

Poor BBH. Like cc wise. He's one of a whole lot of them who have horrific rp safety practices, but also there's not really anyone to teach them that and that's nothing to punish someone for. Hope it gets hashed out with him. All of them but especially him.

Having players of another project as "advertising" for a new project without them knowing more in advance tastes kinda shitty. Very shitty. We'll see how tied it ends up being but that's just not comfy.

Quackity saying about big stuff planned is absolute ass. Like legitimately and out of character the CCs genuinely need a break for a bit you can't just throw them back into heavy stuff immediately. They need space to breath oc and find their footing ic. Most of them have streamed far more than usual this fortnight, and even for those who do stream daily usually it's been intense. You can say if its hurting them they can just take a break but you cannot convince me they can when their literal irl incomes depend on this. Some more than others, but they do.

Also like the tension just genuinely doesn't hold that long. Most of what I run is combat heavy fantasy events, but I've done horror too. And a big bit of running horror events is studying how pacing and tension works, especially over an extended period (horror events locally tend to be multi-day). You /can/ change the usual layout, but you have to know your fucking shit and be really careful if you do, and the admins and Quackity just don't seem to - as a collective whole, some individuals may - have the experience necessary to fuck with the formula. Like. I'm burnt out, the players are ooc burnt out, the fandom generally seems burnt out - not giving the players a win here was already a mistake, but the tension /has/ snapped. Too many people are too burnt out from playing more than usual and all that, under very high stakes circumstances, for very little reward. There needs to be a break where players who do other stuff can play other stuff and players who don't can take the time to find their footing again. Tension levels are not sustainable and they broke them open. If they hadn't revealed the eggs you could have stretched it another few days, but they did. At which point losing the eggs again is genuinely so fucking unsatisfying. They could have only been shown the winning egg. Like sure fuck with people, that's what's going on IC and OC maybe it was supposed to be reassurance, but it just ended up feeling ghoulish. It was so obviously playing on feelings it just fell flat for me. Not even the fun playing with feelings, just a fuck you.

Also communication has been fucking atrocious. Yes keep twists in the bag, I can see arguments for all plot points, but the players needed to know the timescale, the fact it was a PvP not a lore event, and that this wasn't the end of the eggs missing arc rather an interlude waaaaaaaaaaay earlier. Like they found out as these things became obvious, but given the time commitment it demanded they needed to know like weeks before it started. As soon as it was announced. We can tall all we like about trusting the admins, but the admins have got to fucking trust their players to still make good viewing times even if not everything is a complete surprise. It fucked over Cellbit and Roier and their murder plot planning, it fucked over a lot of people ooc and their streaming schedules and their ability to do actual life things. Forever when given the Judas plot should have been told in advance when it would be activatable. The players - not the characters or the audience, the players - should have known it was 15 days, PvP, only 1 egg was on the cards for now, that the chance to save the others will come later (I have no doubt it will), and that they would need to escape fast at the end. Not the why, not the how, not the plot, but you need to know the fucking stakes.

Like okay let's look at shit I run a sec. Its nor perfect, but we've been building on a 20+ year tradition of larp in the same place and learning from what does and doesnt work. Info players have in advance:

date and time. for things run for and at the university, dates generally are announced start of the year, and which system will be which day is the start of every term. For events for the uni but at an unusual place or time (often an IC dinner party or similar), 3 weeks in advance. For stuff not associated with the university (I help with fewer of these, as far fewer happen and theyte the ones i can still play with my disability)... well, they tend to be multi day in a hired venue and players pay a lot of money to be there, so its usually about a year and a half in advance. The stuff below about pitches are for saturday ones - paid for multi day events all that info is announced at least a year in advance, and for single day non-university ones at least 6 months. But like qsmp is a constantly running thing so the university stuff is a fairer comparison.

Every event has a "pitch". This goes up the Tuesday before for Saturday events - theres a couple of different teams running different genres but same place same time theres a larp every termtime saturday just 9/30 are run by my team. The pitch will contain the information the characters know going into a mission or social or whatever. If theres a twist the twist isn't mentioned, ofc, just the initial setup. Then, there's an out of character section, with stuff like date and time and reminders to weather weather appropriate clothing and sturdy shoes.

If the event is /not/ in the format players expect, in the out of character info including things like the time, we say that. We run combat heavy stuff. If it's purely social, we say so. If it'll be more Freeform than usual, we say so. If the party is getting split we - you guessed it - say so.

Our events have different levels of IC rewards. The basic reward can always be assumed (3 gold, iirc). Theres also 4 and 5 gold days. If its not 3 gold, it says so in the pitch, and players know this is a difficulty rstinf system. 3 is normal, 4 is "this is designed to be challenging for late end high xp characters and is likely to kill lower levels", 5 is "we are actively trying to kill someone". Death is always an option, but the ref team don't usually want it.

Sometimes there are RP rewards too. These are not explicately stated, but are alluded to "you will be paid so long as you eliminate the monster. If you capture it and deliver it to the university, however, the chancellor promises an extra something for you" sort of thing. "The Dowager Duchess is well known for rewarding those in her favour. Impress her, and she may do the same for you".

If there's distressing content that isn't covered by genre and game style, we include a warning. Last time was "this session will include horror elements. A list of content warnings is available from any ref on request", and we DMed players we knew have triggers on that list the same day pitch went out to liase with them. Yes even when the trigger is a plot twist or a spoiler because fuck you player safety will always be most important. One which had content warnings but was not horror "this session contains potentially distressing material. A list of content warnings is available from any ref on request".

And like... call me naive but this is the sort of info the players should have? In advance they should have a summary (yes it's also given IC at the start of the event, but it means they can prep properly), dates and times well in advance (so they can prep their lives and other projects), expected rewards (even if vague), and any particularly common triggers (like say a third party intentionally sewing paranoia and fucking with mental health of characters) should have a "theres triggers here please put a message in your help channel for a list". I'd say also some indicator of where on a plot arc something falls.

We dont give this because our pacing plot arc wise is determined by how we run them. Paid events are all always one offs (I run them with a different group of people but same circle) - except when they aren't in which case this is made clear at the pitching stage- and uni ones its dictated by the university schedule - we run nine main events a year, 3 each term. There's a small climax last linear of every term, and a major one at the end of a year. Yearly arcplots do not always exist but when they do they end with the last linear of term. There are some other plots brewing over longer periods - when those come to a head, they will become the main plot for a year and their climaxes run on yearly arcplot rules. It is never the case that all sessions in a year are arcplot related, to give players not interested in a specific thing something to do.

Other things they could probably do with include a safe word and establishing a way for an admin to indicate a fuck up due to glitch or mistake - probably an "ignore me" emote only admins have access to.

This all being said - the admin team want people to have fun and for it to go well, and the medium is much younger than traditional LARP. Information for their specific media does not exist, and while they maybe should look at rp for ideas they probably look at tabletop and don't even consider LARP - let alone larp styles more common in Europe. I can say things all I want, but I'm just a guy over here. The admins are trying their best and do want the best for their players, and will have a plan. It's just infuriating sometimes.

#fandom neg #qsmp neg

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theflyindutchwoman · 6 months

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I read your reply to an ask about Tim and Isabel laughing together about the meditation and I think there are quite a few strange things in that episode. I do not really understand what the writers were trying to do, because to me Tim and Lucy’s communication is all off this episode. And communication is what they are so good at and really their strong point. It starts with Tim inviting Isabel to Lucy’s place and forgetting to tell her (I can forgive him on that, he had a good reason to forget..). But Lucy thinks it is weird, but says it only to Tamara. Isabel’s presence affects both Tim and Lucy’s behavior in a space (Lucy’s apartment) they are usually so comfortable. It is such a contrast to how close and cosy they were just before she arrived.

Later Tim expresses to Isabel that Lucy is different, but does he communicate this to Lucy really? When Lucy and Isabel are in the car waiting, Isabel suggests they should turn off their mic, so Tim cannot hear and they talk about what being undercover entails. When Tim asks later what that was about and Lucy makes a joke instead of being honest, it gave me an iffy feeling. Cause no wonder he is already a bit defensive when Lucy wants to be vulnerable and says she is worried he won’t be able to handle her being undercover. I think he might suspect that the conversation he was cut out from was about discussing undercover experiences. On the one hand I think it is great that Lucy brought up her worries about how going undercover will affect their relationship and that she cares how it affects him (which is kind of how I read what she said). On the other hand she is not involving him in how she feels about it and what worries she was for herself.

Also a bit sad that an episode that involved a lot of them not communicating well with each other ends on that note too :(

Sorry, this was a a lot of thoughts and I do not if it makes sense. I am very curious what your take on it is :)

The way I see it, Isabel was used as a catalyst to propel this part of the UC storyline : how this is going to impact their relationship. Up until this point, Lucy and Tim had avoided that topic like the plague. Even after Noah's remark that UC was a relationship killer or his question as to why she hadn't done any op since finishing UC school… Isabel's return is what forced them to finally start this conversation. So I get why their communication was a bit off : this is only the beginning, where they themselves are trying to figure out how they feel and are unsure on how to proceed.

In some ways, it is a parallel with 1.01, when Isabel crashed back into Tim's life, pushing him to open up to Lucy. This is how their bond started… And this is the same here : Isabel showed up (almost) unannounced and soon after, Lucy and Tim started to be more open about their feelings. You can see the progression between 5.20 where he shuts down and try to pretend that everything is alright and 5.21 where they actually start to hash this out.

But yes, like you said, there were a few strange things… And I'm not sure if that was on purpose or if something got lost in the execution. Let's start with Tim inviting his ex-wife to Lucy's apartment… I get the idea behind this. By having Isabel coming over, it sent a clear message : Tim is basically living with her and he didn't want to hide anything from her. 'A place of honesty'. Plus, it made the transition in the scene easier. Just like I can understand why he didn't tell her… It's not like there isn't a precedent of his brain going blank when he sees Lucy in the shower. Don't get me wrong, it would have been preferable to ask her if she was OK with this beforehand… But as it was a last minute thing, I can get over it. The problem is that all these points were negated right away. If this was supposed to show them as a united front, then having Lucy being weirded out a bit changes the narrative. Especially since, like you said, it goes unaddressed. And that's really where the scene goes downhill for me. She is not only relegated to prepare the coffee while Isabel and Tim go to the living-room to talk (they could have stayed in the kitchen), she also has to sit on the floor, practically at their feet… Let's just say that this image made me very uncomfortable. I doubt it was intentional but still. And even without all the implications behind this, having Tim and Isabel sitting together with Lucy on the side contradicted this idea of united front. It completely threw off their dynamic and as it directly followed that lovely scene at the very beginning, it made the contrast even more jarring.

And it didn't end there… I feel like the writers suffered from a tunnel vision problem. They were so focused on making Isabel friendly that it sometimes came at the detriment of Lucy and Tim, as individuals and as a couple. The thing is, I really appreciate that they wanted her to be friendly with the both of them. She wasn't used as a device to come between them (not in a love triangle way) and that is so refreshing. But the execution didn't fully come through. Her scene with Tim at the station, where she laughs with him about the meditation, felt too much like a joke at Lucy's expense. And her scene with Lucy in the car, when they turn off the mic just to mess with Tim, came across as almost callous in light of his insecurities regarding secrets. And I don't think that was the intention at all in both cases. The scene between Lucy and Isabel was great on paper : Lucy has always looked up to the other female agents (Capt. Andersen, Nyla, even Angela though we don't have as many scenes). And she was already curious of Isabel when she met her in 1.03. So it made sense that she would want her opinion. And I liked that she felt comfortable enough to joke with her or that there was no jealousy/rivalry. But the camaraderie went a little too far when Tim or Lucy became the butt of the joke - at least, for me. Although the 'keeping secrets' part was addressed a bit in 5.21… So there's that. And it was clear during the episode that Isabel was overcompensating : I can't imagine how hard it must have been for her to go back to her old life, facing the people who saw her at her worst. It just needed a few tweaks here and there to make it more seamless.

As for that final scene in 5.20, I actually get where Lucy is coming from. She does open up first by sharing how much she loves undercover. She is being vulnerable here. She is aware that this is a sore subject with him and I believe a part of her might be afraid of his reaction as well. And that's why she wants to know how he feels. She knows his baggage here. Besides, that's her MO. They always focus on the other. Had she touched on how she felt, Tim would have jumped on that, instead of his own fears. There's also the fact that it is her choice to pursue UC, so she might consider her own worries to be her burdens, if you know what I mean. They are both learning how to be in this relationship, so they are bound to make some mistakes. Since 5.20 served as an introduction for the undercover mission in 5.21 and for that whole UC arc, I didn't mind that their communication was still off by the end of that episode (though I get it). I think the hesitation and the fear that were palpable helped a lot as well. So is the fact that they took a step in the right direction in 5.21 : they kept maintaining a line of communication and they both shared some of their fears. It's a work in progress in so many ways and there should be more to come. Maybe once we get to the bottom of this arc, everything will fall into places. I hope this helps a bit :)

#Sorry for the late reply : it's been a long week #And I wanted to rewatch the episode first #To my other anons who also asked questions re. that episode : I didn't forget you either I promise :)#ask & ye shall receive #chenford #the rookie

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emotionalcadaver · 10 months

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Part 14: Everything

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Grace Burgess x OC

Summary: Lucy doubts her place in Tommy and Grace’s life in light of some new developments.

Word Count: 6,590

Notes: I would gently recommend reading at least the final chapter of Dance of Darkness before reading this, since it picks up pretty much directly after the events of that chapter. Warnings for depictions of miscommunication, pregnancy, angst, insecurity, self esteem issues, infertility, and references to infidelity.

Masterlists: Main • Series

Previous Part • Next Part

The entire walk back to her apartment from the office, Tommy kept shooting her worried, nervous glances. Like he had finally caught onto her subdued, melancholic mood that had set in ever since their discussion in the car.

“Lucy…” he started to say, raising his hand as if to touch her, then dropping it. When she made no indication at having heard him, he sighed. “Can we please talk about this?”

She didn’t understand why he was so insistent that they needed to talk anymore about any of it. It was done, after all. There wasn’t much more they could accomplish by hashing it all out other than causing themselves more pain. “I really think that you should talk to Grace first,” was all she told him. Reaching into her pocket, she sighed. “I gave my key to Grace.”

From his pocket he pulled out a ring of brass keys, handing them to her. They clinked as she fumbled with them, finding the correct one and sliding it into the keyhole. Before she could turn it, Tommy’s hand rested on her shoulder, turning her to look at him.

“I didn’t…mean for this,” he said, eyes searching hers like he was looking for something.

“I know,” she nodded, looking down before she could get lost in the blue of his eyes. Or before she started to cry. The lock clicked when she turned the key, and then they were stepping into the apartment.

The lights were all on, Grace sitting at the table in the small kitchen, smoking and staring out the window. She had removed her hat and her coat, leaving her in just the flowy pink dress she’d worn to the races. Her head snapped around at the sound of the door opening, putting her cigarette down in the ashtray at the center of the table and standing.

Lucy watched as Tommy went to embrace her, his head dropping to rest against her neck, fingers delicately splaying out across her back. Grace put both of her arms around him, eyes fluttering shut in clear relief. Closing the door behind them, Lucy busied herself pulling off her hat and coat and hanging them up.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t meet you,” Tommy was saying to Grace.

“What happened?” she asked, pulling away to look at him.

“I got…kidnapped,” he sighed. “It’s a long story.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he waved away her concerns, shrugging his coat off. Lucy traded places with him as he went to hang it up.

“Lucy,” Grace said, voice cautious, taking a step towards her while her soft blue eyes darted between her and Tommy. “Did you tell her…?”

“Yes, he did,” Lucy cringed internally at how quiet her voice sounded. Forcing herself to smile, she hugged Grace. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Grace murmured.

“I’ll go make some tea, yeah?” pulling back, she didn’t really look at her as she sidestepped her to go into the kitchen. She swore that she could feel both Grace and Tommy’s eyes burning into her back. “You two have a lot to talk about.”

Behind her, she could vaguely hear the sound of Tommy steering Grace towards the couch in the sitting room, the soft hum of their voices as they started to talk. Lucy flexed her fingers, trying to stop the light trembling in her hands, or the lump building in her throat.

This was so much more horrible than she could have imagined it to be.

The feeling of ostracization or exclusion was never something that she had responded particularly well to. Even as a child, whenever she felt that the other children were leaving her out, she would sit alone by herself and weep. Pouting and just generally feeling sorry for herself as she longed to be included.

But this was even worse than that, because before today, she had been included in Tommy and Grace’s relationship. It had been the three of them, together. She knew what it was she was losing. What she would be missing out on from now on.

Sniffing once, she forced herself to focus on pouring the hot water into two tea cups. If she thought about it all too much, she would start to cry.

Wiping at her face, she picked up the tea cups, carrying them to the sitting room where she set them down on the table in front of Tommy and Grace. They were both still looking at her with anxious eyes. Neither of them were heartless; she expected that they both knew that she was hurting. That they felt bad about it. Not that they should have. It wasn’t like either of them owed her anything.

“I think that I have some things in the cupboard, if either of you are hungry…” she suggested, toying with her fingers. She needed something to do. To help keep her mind occupied enough to not be consumed by the aching in her heart.

“Lucy, come sit down,” Tommy urged. He looked genuinely worried. Almost confused as he watched her from the couch. Gulping, she bit her lip, dread over what they might want to tell her building in her gut.

“I don’t–” she was cut off by the phone in the kitchen ringing, all their heads snapping around to look at where it sat in its cradle on a table.

Wringing her hands together, Lucy went to it, lifting it with one pale hand and bringing it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Lucy!” Arthur’s voice slurred from the other end. “I’m at the Garrison. We had a little party to celebrate,” he hiccupped. “The count in the register is short.”

She sighed, tilting her head up in exasperation, the hand not holding the phone resting on her hip. “Did you double check?”

“Yes, I bloody double checked! It’s short! I swear, when I find whoever it was…”

“Arthur, no,” she said sternly. “Just…wait there. I’ll be right over,” she hung up the phone with an annoyed sound.

“What’s happened?” Tommy asked.

“Arthur can’t fucking count,” she rubbed a hand over her mouth, before going to grab her coat from the hook by the door. “He thinks that the cash in the register at the Garrison is short. He sounded drunk.”

“I’ll come with you–” he started to rise from his seat, and Lucy shook her head hastily.

“No need. Besides, you and Grace need to talk. I won’t be long,” she grabbed her key from where Grace had left it sitting on the kitchen table.

“Lucy–” Grace started.

“I’ll be back soon,” she reiterated, swinging out the door and closing it behind her before either of them could say anymore. Almost instantly, she felt a wave of guilt over the way she’d so blatantly brushed them off and practically ran out the door. But it was finally a chance at the moment of solitude she had been searching for ever since Tommy had told her of Grace’s pregnancy. A chance to privately mourn and wallow in the agony of her heartbreak.

It had all just happened so fast. One minute, it was all business as usual, her relationship with Tommy as stable as it had always been over the years they’d been together. And in the next, her two lovers were having a baby and starting to plan the next stages of their life together. Without her.

Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she began the short walk towards the Garrison. She’d send Arthur home, work out what was going on with the register, have a good cry, and come back home. Maybe she would be lucky and they would have already gone to bed by the time she got back.

She didn’t know what she was going to do. She doubted Tommy would fire her. But she also wasn’t sure if she would be able to handle watching the two people she loved so much go off together while she was discarded. It would hurt too much.

Arthur was fumbling with the register when she came in, jumping at the sound of the door.

“Let me see,” she said, not even bothering with a proper greeting. He stepped out of the way to let her look over the stacks of bills spread out on the bar. Gathering them up, she started to count. “You go ahead and go home.”

“No, no. I can stay. Help clean up,” he mumbled. Lucy sighed, wishing that he would just leave her alone, but didn’t say anything more.

“What’s got you so glum?” Arthur asked as he watched her count out the money.

“It’s just been a long day, Arthur,” she said. Setting the last of the bills down, she huffed. “The register is fine, Arthur.”

“No, no, no, no. I was sure that it…”

“Arthur, it’s fine. It’s not short,” she said sternly, putting the money away and grabbing a broom to sweep up the broken glass. Mumbling drunkenly to himself, Arthur tried to help, scooping up three dirtied glasses from the tables, then promptly tripping on his way over to the bar. He didn’t fall, but he did drop all three glasses to shatter on the floor.

“Arthur!” she snapped her jaw shut, trying to reign in her temper. Getting snappish with him wasn’t going to do much good except risk making him angry. “Arthur, just go home,” she said, lowering her voice.

“Right. Yeah. Would probably go faster without me,” he muttered, dejected. Great. Now she felt bad.

“I just need to be alone right now, okay?” she said. Arthur frowned.

“Why? You and Tom have a fight?”

She shook her head. “It’s just been a long day,” she repeated.

Arthur seemed to finally realize just how badly she wanted to be left alone, nodding as he grabbed up his coat. Still swaying on his feet, he hovered near her, looking like he was trying to figure out how to comfort her. Finally, he just patted her twice awkwardly on the shoulder, and headed for the door. She locked it behind him, picking back up the broom and starting to sweep.

Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest, the beginnings of a sniffle building in her nose as she finally was allowed to truly sit alone with her feelings for the first time since Tommy had told her about Grace’s pregnancy.

A small sob burst from her mouth, and then another, and another. Until she was practically clinging to the broom in an attempt to keep herself upright while she cried, vision blurry from her tears.

It was just so utterly, unbelievably unfair. And she couldn’t even really be mad about it. It wasn’t like Tommy had cheated on her. And he certainly hadn’t intended to get Grace pregnant. But it had happened, and now she was going to lose both of them. At least before, when they had thought they’d lost Grace forever to Clive and America, she had still had Tommy. Now, Grace and Tommy would have each other, but she would be all alone.

She didn’t have anyone else but them. Not a single other person. The rest of her family was dead. Her mother had left with the caravans and never wanted to see her again. All the other Shelbys hated her.

She didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Maybe May would take her in. Though she didn’t think she could bring herself to ask her to do that. Certainly not after everything she and Tommy had just put her through.

Still crying, she continued to sweep the floor of the pub, gathering the broken glass and dirt into a dustpan she dumped in the garbage before setting the broom aside so she could begin to clear and wipe down the tables before stacking the chairs on top of them. Only taking breaks to wipe at her eyes or nose with the back of her hand. Going behind the bar to finish putting everything away, she then pressed her hands flat against the smooth surface of the bar, and stared straight ahead. Her bottom lip trembled.

She had cut Tommy off before he could say much more in the car on the way home because she couldn’t handle having to actually hear him break up with her. They both knew that what they had was now over. There was no point dragging it out and making it even more painful for either of them. And she wasn’t about to pitch a fit over it or beg him and Grace to keep her around. They had a shot at something wonderful together. She wasn’t about to mess that up for either of them by trying to interject herself where she was no longer wanted.

When she closed her eyes she could already see it: Tommy and Grace in a brand new, great big house. Tommy grinning as he scooped his child up into his arms, Grace beaming as she watched them. All of them happy beyond belief.

She wondered if it made her awful; how a seed of bitterness bloomed in her chest at the image, despite how deeply she loved them, how badly she just wanted them both to be happy. But the reality that it would be without her was agonizing.

Maybe this was some sort of punishment from the universe. For her stupid, selfish decision never to tell either of them about her infertility. She had lied to Tommy through omission for years about the fact that she could not have children. And at the end of the day, it was Grace getting pregnant with his child that drove the nails into the coffin of their relationship. In a way, it was twistedly poetic, she supposed.

Face crumbling, she crossed her arms on the bar in front of her, laid her head down on them, and once again began to cry.

∗ ∗ ∗

“Is she okay?” Grace asked, still staring at the door that Lucy had just rushed out of. Tommy rubbed a hand down his face, frowning.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Lucy had been…weird since their discussion in the car on the way back to Birmingham. If it could even be considered a conversation. She would barely speak to him. Seemed hardly willing to even look at him.

“Is she…is she upset about the baby?” Grace looked down at her hands. He eyed the glittering wedding bands on her left hand disdainfully.

“I’m not sure,” he sighed. The seed of dread over what Grace’s pregnancy meant for his relationship with Lucy had only grown in the few hours since he’d told her. For a moment, there in the car, he had thought that when she told him not to worry about it that she meant they were fine. He had begun to allow himself to hope, just a little, that this wouldn’t be the end of their relationship. That they would be able to work something out.

But maybe he’d been wrong.

“We never really talked about children,” he admitted. Grace raised her eyebrows.

“Really? At at all?”

Blowing out a stream of smoke from his lips after taking a drag from his cigarette, he shook his head. “We had a small scare, when we first started seeing each other, but…after that it just never came up.”

“Oh,” Grace looked away again, worrying at her lower lip. Reaching over to her, he carefully brushed his fingertips along the back of one of her hands. Throat suddenly dry, he swallowed roughly

“What do you want to do?”

“I–I want to keep it,” Grace said surely. Tommy nodded. He had figured as much already.

“Alright.”

Her lips parted to say more, then pressed closed again. “Tommy…” she hesitated. He braced himself for her to tell him the worst: that she was going to stay with her husband. That she wanted to raise the baby with him instead. Sail away. And he would never see her again.

Reaching across the couch, she folded her warm hand over his, squeezing around his knuckles, scooting closer to him.

“What do you want to do?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. Unsure if he could take the rejection he was almost certain was coming. When he opened them, she was looking at him imperatively.

“I want you to leave your husband,” he told her.

She didn’t seem surprised at the request, looking at him with those shrewd blue eyes. One side of her lips quirked upwards, the faint beginnings of a dimple forming in her cheek. “Okay.”

He reached out to her, hand brushing along her shoulder before curling around it. His lungs exhaled a relieved breath he hadn’t even known he was holding. Grace let him pull her in closer to him, sighing as he hooked one finger under her chin and angled her head up enough so that he could kiss her.

“And I want you to marry me instead,” he whispered against her lips between kisses. Grace smiled widely, leaning back enough to smile at him cheekily.

“Are you proposing to me, Mr. Shelby?”

“Yes,” he said, unable to fight back his own smile. “Yes, I believe I am.”

Grace hummed delightedly, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her forehead to his. “Then I accept.”

He kissed her deeply, hands holding to her waist as his mouth parted against hers, eyes closed as he allowed himself to get lost in the warmth of her. The smell of her perfume and the softness of her dress and skin under his hands.

“Once I’ve got an actual ring, I’ll ask you again properly,” he promised. Grace chuckled.

“As if we’ve ever done things properly,” she continued to stroke his face, their foreheads resting against each other’s. “I’ll go back tomorrow to talk to Clive.”

“Will you tell him the truth?”

“Yes, I think I will,” she fumbled with her wedding bands, staring down at them. “He deserves that much.”

“Alright,” he supposed that he would just have to trust her on that. Another thought occurred to him, chest seizing with it. “But Grace…I can’t leave Lucy. I won’t leave Lucy,” he was aware that it was terribly hypocritical, considering that he’d just asked her to leave her husband for him. But the situation wasn’t exactly the same when it came to Lucy, either.

Grace shot him an incredulous look. As if the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. “Tommy, I love you both. I want her around as much as you do.”

He let out a breath of relief, nodding “Okay. Good,” clearing his throat, he moved closer to her, until his arm was around her shoulders, her head tucked into his chest. “Thank you,” tentatively, he reached out with the other hand, and rested his palm on her stomach. Grace sighed, fingers falling to rest over his.

“We’re having a baby, Tommy,” she said it with such contagious joy that he couldn’t help but smile, thumb stroking over her belly.

“Yeah,” turning his head, he kissed her temple. The way that she rested against him made his heart flutter, eyes closing contentedly. But then he opened them, and his gaze landed on the little wooden carving of a horse sitting on a bookshelf in the corner. Something that Lucy had whittled at some point in her free time. He frowned, the lack of her presence gaping and obvious. Tommy wanted her to be involved in any decisions that he and Grace made. And he needed to know what was bothering her. What he could do in order to help fix it.

“When do you think Lucy will be back?” Grace asked, as if she were thinking the same exact thing that he was.

“I don’t know. Not too long, I would expect.”

“What did she say when you told her?”

“Not much,” he sighed. “She just told me not to worry about it. That you and I would be fine. I thought that she meant that she was okay with it.”

“Tommy, if she really doesn’t want this baby…”

“I don’t know if that’s it, Grace,” he tried to assure, even as he shot a nervous glance at the door Lucy had disappeared out of. “She might just be tired,” he offered, trying to be optimistic for both their sakes. “It was a rough day.”

“Mm,” Grace just hummed, clearly still anxious about it. Tommy rubbed a hand along her arm soothingly. “Do you think…that maybe she feels left out?”

His brows pinched. He supposed it was possible, even though he had never really thought of Lucy as the jealous type. She had always seemed so unbothered when it came to him and other women. It hadn’t really occurred to him that she might feel excluded by this new development between him and Grace. That she might expect them to reject her in favor of something more traditional and conventional.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” he hadn’t thought that he’d given the impression that the baby or the impending marriage to Grace would exclude her from his life. But maybe she just needed reassurance.

Of course, there was always the possibility that a baby was simply something that Lucy didn’t want. That had never been the impression he’d gotten from her, but perhaps he’d read her wrong. Maybe the baby really was a deal breaker for her. Or perhaps the idea of being his and Grace’s concubine did not appeal to her. Maybe she would still feel too much like the odd one out. That if he and Grace were married, with their child, the feeling of exclusion, of not being as important, would eat away at her.

That was all ridiculous, of course. She would never be less important or purposefully excluded. Certainly not because of rings and a slip of paper. And he wanted her to be just as involved as he and Grace were in the baby’s upbringing. If that was what she wanted.

It would be unimaginatively painful to have to let her go. It was unlikely he would ever fully recover from it. But he wouldn’t force her to stay with him, if that wasn’t what she wanted anymore.

Swallowing the lump that formed in his throat at the suggestion, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

“Well, did she seem alright when you asked her about proposing to me?”

Tommy blinked. “She didn’t say much at all when I mentioned it.”

Grace craned her head up towards him, eyes narrowed. “When you mentioned it?”

“Well–”

“You didn’t ask her!?”

“I–”

“Thomas Michael Shelby!” she seized up one of the pillows and aimed a light smack at him with it.

“Oi!” arms raising up on instinct to protect his head, he let out a surprised sound.

“Well, no wonder if she feels left out!” Grace huffed, tossing the pillow aside.

“Lucy’s never wanted to get married,” he tried to defend.

“That doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t have liked to be bloody asked if she was okay with it before her lover proposes to someone else. Jesus Christ,” she settled back down onto the couch. “So she knows that you were planning to propose to me, without you even really discussing it with her?”

“Erm, technically I would say–” he cut himself off at the look Grace gave him. “Yeah, I suppose that’s about right.”

“Men,” Grace huffed, shaking her head.

“I really didn’t think that it would bother her…” he started to say, even as his mind turned over the fact that yeah, it probably did look pretty bad and exclusionary from Lucy’s perspective. He sighed. Shit. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Mhm,” Grace made a noise, but her expression was more fondly exasperated than genuinely annoyed. And she curled back up against his side with her head leaning against his shoulder, so she couldn’t have been that put out with him. Wrapping his arm around her, he kissed the top of her head.

“We’re going to need a bigger house for the four of us.”

“And for any other children,” Grace added. When he looked at her with an intrigued raised eyebrow, she shrugged coyly, eyes sparkling. “If you and Lucy ever were to decide to have some together, I wouldn’t be opposed.”

“Mm,” he hummed at the idea, tilting his head down to kiss her gently again. Grace cupped the side of his face with her hand, resting her forehead against his when they parted.

“I wish that she was here,” she said wistfully. Tommy swallowed hard.

“Me too.”

He noted the way that she very briefly lifted her hand to press her fingertips against her temple, as if she had a headache.

“How are you feeling?”

“A little nauseous in the morning. But not too bad. Sometimes I get these little shots of pain in my temples, but it always passes,” she cut herself off with a small yawn that she tried to hide behind her palm.

“Come on,” Tommy stood up, holding out a hand to her. “You should get some rest.”

She must have been more tired than she was letting on, because she took his hand with minimal complaint, letting him lead her into the bedroom.

“Washroom is in there,” he pointed to the little door. “And, uh, feel free to go through the dresser and see if any of Lucy’s nightgowns might fit you. If not, I have some spare shirts in there. You can wear any of those.”

“Thank you,” she nodded, going into the washroom and closing the door. Heaving out a breath, Tommy ran a hand down his face, before going back into the sitting room and tidying, shooting periodic glances at the door.

He was half tempted to try calling the Garrison and find out what was taking so bloody long, but he forced himself to wait. For all he knew, Lucy could be on her way back already.

Noises from the bedroom caught his attention, and he headed back in to find Grace sliding underneath the blankets and into the bed while clad in only his shirt. The possessive part of him purred in approval at the sight.

“You’re sure this is alright?” she asked, even as her golden hair settled on the pillow.

“Yes, love, I’m sure.”

Nodding, she yawned again, settling into the mattress comfortably.

“Lucy isn’t back yet.”

“No, she isn’t,” a fact that was only increasing the worry that had been building in his mind. “I’ll wait up for her,” he sat down on the other side of the bed, resting his palm on Grace’s leg. “You get some rest.”

Nodding, her eyes were already half shut as she snuggled deeper into the bed. “I love you, Tommy.”

He gulped around the lump that formed in his throat when she said it. “I love you too, Grace.”

Her eyes opened wide at the words, lips curling into a smile that dimpled her cheek before she was closing them again, relaxing into the bed. Tommy remained watching over her in the dim light of the bedroom, very lightly stroking the back of his hand along her cheek and over her hair before pulling it away.

∗ ∗ ∗

Wiping at her eyes, she then splashed cold water onto her face from the Garrison’s washroom, checking herself over one last time to make sure it wasn’t obvious that she’d been crying. Nodding to herself and taking a deep breath, Lucy shut off the lights, locking the door behind her before beginning the walk home.

When she entered the apartment, a light was still on in the sitting room, but it was vacant. The bedroom door was closed. So they’d already gone to bed, then.

Hanging up her coat and hat, she opened the little linen closet, pulling out some of the spare blankets she kept there, coughing lightly into her fist as she did.

To her left, there was the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing, and then the very light creak of the floorboards under Tommy’s feet. She glanced only for a brief, tiny moment at him. He had stripped down to his soft white undershirt, still in his slacks, though his shoes were off.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” she said, not looking at him as she gathered the blankets into her arms.

“I wouldn’t have been able to sleep until I knew you were home alright,” his head tilted, brows pulling together as he watched her begin to haul the blankets over to the couch. “What took so long?”

“The register was fine, Arthur was just so smashed he couldn’t do simple addition. The place was a mess, though. And when he tried to help me clean up, he broke three glasses simultaneously. So I just sent him home and cleaned and locked everything up on my own.”

“You should’ve called me.”

She shrugged, dumping the blankets onto the couch and going back to close the closet door. “You were busy,” returning to the couch, she began to rearrange the pillows. “What did you and Grace decide?”

“She’s going to leave Clive.”

“Mm. See? I told you that you two would be fine.”

“She’s sleeping, now.”

“I imagine she’s exhausted.”

“Yes,” his lips parted, frown deepening as he watched her spread the blankets over the couch. “What are you doing that for?”

She looked up in surprise at the question. Wasn’t it obvious? “Well, I figured you and Grace would take the bed, so…”

Tommy cocked his head. “And what, you’re just going to sleep on the couch?”

She stuttered, not quite sure why he was asking her. Unless…would they prefer it if she went to a hotel or something instead? “That was the idea, yes.”

“Why?”

Blinking hard, Lucy felt her cheeks heat, staring at him a little in disbelief that he was actually going to make her say it. “Well…I mean, this is over, isn’t it?”

Tommy’s eyes widened, the furrow in his brows only deepening. “But I…but I thought…” had it been under other circumstances, she might have been amused at the rare sight of Tommy Shelby stuttering. “You told me not to worry about it,” he said finally. “In the car on the way back.”

Lucy frowned, confused as to what he meant. “Well, I figured that I would just spare us both the pain of you having to break up with me,” she explained. Tommy’s eyes grew wide as saucers.

“You thought that I was breaking up with you!?” his voice rose, she suspected unintentionally.

“I-I,” she stammered, now fully confused herself. “I assumed that since you and Grace are having a baby together and planning on getting married that you wouldn’t–” her voice broke, and she had to swallow hard and try again. “That neither of you would want–” her voice caught embarrassingly on the last word with the beginnings of a sob. Unable to look at him, she turned away, practically crumbling in on herself. On top of the heartbreak, frustration at being unable to stop herself from crying began to build, which in turn only seemed to make her cry harder.

“Lucy.”

She jumped when his hands landed on her back and shoulders, whimpering as he turned her around and folded her into his arms.

“Shh,” he rubbed her back, guiding her to sit down on the couch, practically pulling her into his lap, tucking her face into his neck while he stroked her hair. And despite her better judgment, she clung to him, practically burrowing against him. Because, despite everything, Tommy still was her safe place, where she could always go for comfort.

“You thought that we wouldn’t want you anymore?” he asked. Shuddering, she leaned back and away from him, scrubbing desperately at her eyes, cheeks flushed from her tears and embarrassment. And though she tried to turn away the hands he had anchored on her back didn’t let her get far, holding her tight to him.

“You’re going to go start your real family now, Tom.”

“The bloody hell are you talking about?” he looked almost offended, and Lucy looked down, shrugging. One of his hands cupped her face, forcing her to look up at him. “Hey, hey, look at me. This doesn’t…this doesn’t have to change anything, Luce.”

She scoffed bitterly. “Doesn’t it?”

“Of course not. Why would it?” he wetted his lips, the beginnings of an ember of franticness entering his eyes. “We want you with us,” his thumb stroked his cheek, gathering up and wiping away the tears there. “We love you.”

She shuddered with another sob, eyes squeezing shut at the words. “You said that you plan to marry her.”

“So? We can figure all that out. It doesn’t mean that the three of us can’t be together,” his grip on her tightened. “What matters is that we’re all together,” leaning forward, he rested his forehead on hers. “You’re everything to me. You and Grace,” he said firmly, keeping his eyes steady and stern on hers. “Everything.”

Her hands fell to cover his where they had cradled each side of her face. Still sniffling even though her tears had mostly ceased. She wanted more than anything to believe him.

“So…what? You and Grace get married, she has the baby, you get a house…”

“And you come live with us.”

Her brows flew upwards at such a brazen suggestion. “I think people will catch onto that, Tommy.”

“Fuck other people,” he shook his head. “I don’t care what other people say, so long as you’re with us. If anyone gets suspicious, we’ll tell them that I need my assistant close for days that I’m working late.”

“That’s a terrible excuse,” but she couldn’t hold back the small trill of amusement in her voice at the suggestion, and she allowed her head to lean more heavily against his palms, his thumbs stroking away what little remained of her tears.

But maybe it really could work. Everyone was so scared of Tommy anyway, they probably wouldn’t risk saying anything for fear of losing their eyes.

“Unless…” an unsurety had entered Tommy’s face. “That isn’t what you want,” when she truly looked at him, she was startled at the sudden wave of something that might have been fearfulness that had crossed over his features. His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed roughly.

“Tommy, the last thing I want is to lose either of you,” she whispered. One of the hands he’d had cradling her face fell to rest on her waist, pulling her closer until his nose nuzzled against hers before he kissed her. “You really think it’ll work?” she asked when he pulled back.

“I’ll make it work,” he promised, eyes lowered as he brushed his face affectionately along the length of her neck.

“And Grace is okay with it?”

“‘Course she is. She loves you as much as I do,” his lips ghosted over her shoulder before he wrapped both arms around her waist, hugging her to him as he rested his cheek against her shoulder. “I’m sorry. When we talked in the car, I thought that you were okay.”

Lucy closed her eyes, feeling her cheeks heat up with embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have just…assumed that…” trailing off, she bit her lip. “I’m sorry too.”

When she opened her eyes, Tommy was looking up at her softly. “This is what we get for not talking to each other clearly, eh?” he tilted his head to kiss the hollow of her throat. “It’s okay,” he sighed blissfully as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, carefully running her fingers through his soft hair. “I was worried that the baby was a problem.”

“No,” she said quickly. “It’s not.”

“This child is as much yours as it is mine and Grace’s,” he said firmly. Her bottom lip wobbled violently at that, body going stiff. He could not have known just how much that actually meant to her. “I mean…” he gave her a crooked smile. “You were there when we made it, so…”

A laugh hiccuped from her lungs, head dipping as she giggled towards the floor with it. Tommy lifted his head from where he had rested it against her, though his arms stayed around her.

“And if you don’t want me and Grace to get married, we won’t. We’ll figure something else out.”

“You know that I’ve never been interested in marriage,” she said. “It makes sense for you to marry her.”

“It would mainly be for appearances. And to legitimize the baby. You wouldn’t be excluded.”

“I know,” she nodded, leaning her head against his chest.

“I should have asked you how you felt about it before. I shouldn’t have just assumed…”

“It’s alright.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Grace just about had my balls when she realized I hadn’t properly spoken to you about it.”

A small laugh left her lips. “Really?”

“Just about beat me over the head with one of the pillows.”

The mental image of Grace descending furiously upon Tommy with one of the pillows on the couch made her giggle. Exhaustion, from just the events of the day and the high emotional state she’d been in for a good part of it, had begun to settle in, leaving her to lean heavily against Tommy as he rubbed soothing circles into her back.

“You tired?” he asked as he smoothed his hand over the back of her head. She hummed, nodding as she closed her eyes and he chuckled. “Let’s get you to bed then, hm?”

“Okay,” she let him coax her to her feet and shepherd her to the bedroom. Grace was curled up under the blankets in the bed, her eyes closed, face half hidden in a pillow. Pulling open one of the drawers in her dresser carefully so that it didn’t squeak and wake her up, Lucy set to work changing out of her clothes and into one of her nightgowns. Behind her, she could hear quiet rustling as Tommy shed his slacks and shirt. As she was just finishing pulling the red nightgown over her head and adjusting the way that it laid on her, he came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her shoulder.

Humming, Lucy closed her eyes, leaning back into him for a moment before letting him take her hand and guide her over to the bed. At some point Grace had opened her eyes, watching them softly, lips pulled up into a small smile. Tommy climbed in so that he was in the middle, Grace cuddling up against his side while he pulled Lucy in to lay half on his chest. Leaning over him, she pecked Grace on the lips.

“Hi.”

Grace beamed at her, reaching across Tommy’s chest so that she was embracing them both. “Hi.”

He wrapped his arms around both of them. Grace's eyes began to flutter closed again, while Lucy half hid her face against Tommy’s pectoral. Warm and comfortable. He gave them both a small squeeze.

“I love you,” Lucy told them, voice seeming louder than it actually was in the darkness of the room.

“We love you too,” Tommy said.

“Love you too,” Grace mumbled at the same time, already half asleep. Lucy shared an affectionately amused look with Tommy before she let her eyes fall closed. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had felt so comfortable or at peace. It was okay. They loved her; she wasn’t going to lose them. All three of them were together. Finally.

She was asleep within a matter of minutes.

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tantalizingtopi · 5 months

Text

Foolish

Gortash x Durge (Draela)

Word Count: 783-ish

Disclaimer: Characters are belonging to Larian Studios and Baldur’s Gate 3

Pretadpole. Moonrise Towers, a meeting of the Dead Three’s Chosen. Mild tension as the plan continues.

Enjoy ~

“I still fail to see why you insist on animity, Draela,” Kethric begins, leaning over the table towards me. “It’s not doing you any favors.”

I laugh. “It’s easier for me to keep them in line if they don’t know what purpose I serve, if they remain at a distance and fearful.”

“And they should fear you,” Enver agrees readily.

Ketheric shakes his head. “But how do you expect them to continue to revere you as they should, without knowing how pivotal of a role you play?”

I lean back, steepling my fingers together and take a deep breath. I try to remember that we are only a couple of months from the beginning of the end. Yet I am so tired. I cast my eyes to Enver, watching as he works his fingers against his palm, clearly fighting the stiffness in them from all of his correspondence. He will have to take his leave soon to return to Baldur’s Gate and I am itching to join him, torn between feeling like I need to be here to keep the elder brain functioning properly as well as Kethric’s little minions in check and taking care of temple matters as well as causing further panic in the name of the Absolute. The Banite catches my eyes and smiles guiltily, stilling his hand.

“I prefer some intrigue and mystery, old man. Besides, I doubt your own followers would feel comfortable knowing they remain a heartbeat from death in my presence. I work best in the shadows, and that’s where I will remain.”

“For now, my dear. But you will need to embrace the light at least a little when the time comes for us to rule together,” The tyrant gently reminds me.

“I think we are both looking forward to you taking the centerstage with us as your counterparts, Gortash,” Kethric is quick to respond, and I nod. Kethric has always been a reluctant participant in our partnership, more so since Myrkul brought back his daughter who is disgusted by him. I try to find empathy for him but I simply don’t have it in me. Only an old fool would expect his daughter, whose faith is so strong in an opposing god, to be grateful to be by his side and join him. Especially after all these years she’s lost.

Gortash lets loose one of his famous political smiles, the smile that charms dozens and dozens of elites, and strikes fear in many more. I say very little else for the rest of the meeting as the two hash out intricate details over and over again. The same things we have discussed a hundred times over, with only the tiniest variants that change nothing.

I have been struggling to sleep lately, tucked up in small quarters. Kethric had offered to move Balthazar out of his hole for me, but contrary to popular belief, I prefer sleeping in clean quarters and without the stench of the undead flooding my nostrils. My father visits me while I sleep, visions of a future of rivers of blood and gore, carcasses of the dead piled like mountains on his altar, for him. He wishes for quicker progress, but we are stalled for the time while we track a new lead on something that may prove to be our undoing if we cannot locate it.

I watch my lover as he talks, gesticulating as he goes. I think about what those hands, those fingers, can do to me. What mine can do to him. Suddenly I find myself standing, my hand on his shoulder, freezing him mid-sentence. He looks up at me, concerned. I blink down at him, equally as surprised. I quickly catch myself and turn towards our third. “I think we are done for now, Kethric. That will be all.”

“But—“ Kethric begins, and my grip tightens on Gortash’s shoulder.

“You heard the lady, Kethric. We can continue in the morning. It’s late,” Gortash crosses himself, putting his hand on mine.

Kethric stands, fixing me with a glare. “Fine. But this—“ he gestures to the two of us, “needs to not interfere with our plans.”

“It’s just sex old man,” I retort to his back. “I have told you before I can assist in finding you a suitable replacement if you are interested.”

“I’m not.” He opens the door to leave, looking back at us once more, “you’re both being foolish.”

Kethric’s words echo in my head long after he is gone, long after Enver and I have exhausted ourselves with one another. I lay tucked into my lover’s side, listening to him sleep soundly, longing for that sleep myself, wondering just how foolish I truly am.

#fanfic #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 dark urge #bg3 #bg3 durge #dark urge #durgetash #gortash smut #gortash x durge #lord enver gortash #kethric thorm #bg3 ketheric #bg3 gortash #dark urge x gortash #Draela #bg3 fanfiction #a different type of dark urge

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 2 years

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Hello all, I'm back with another prompt for Werewolf Inclusivity Lore: Round 3

(Previous rounds were about gender and werewolves, and disability and werewolves, in case you're staring at this going 'What the fuck')

Anyway both previous discussions were equal parts fascinating and also super helpful to me personally, so I'm back with another! As ever, if you feel you want to chime in, please feel free to contact me however you wish, including privately and/or anonymously. Also, my standard disclaimer applies: this is for a series of very silly werewolf erotica novels set in Wales, and these discussions are to help me with casual representation - none of these books will be ABOUT these topics, they'll just feature them. Please do not expect a gripping and resonant treatise about what it means to be a trans werewolf. Please just expect some of the sexy werewolves to be trans.

Okay, with that out of the way, Topic Three:

Religion and Werewolves

(Read More to save your dashboards)

Right, now, for the most part this one is straight forward, because they have their own religion, right? They worship a Moon Goddess. The details of that are for me to invent and hash out (the genre I'm writing in has certainly never done so); I am more than happy for there to be regional variants of this religion though. As it's set in Wales I've given her a Welsh name, but I do think outside of Wales she'll have others (I'm also strongly leaning towards her having a cyclical gender presentation these days - most feminine at full moon, most masculine at new moon). All packs do worship her, though, because they're biologically attuned to the moon in a pretty unignorable way, and they believe the bonds between soulmates come from her (v important in an erotica book), and also when all is said and done I really do not intend to overcomplicate this. So far, so simple.

Now, I am trying to make a tidy percentage of characters POC, as I don't want to write a whitewash. But, given that religions can often have heavy interplay between culture and even ethnicity, I would like anyone who is not a mayonnaise-on-white-bread atheist like myself to chime in on what they would feel comfortable seeing integrated (as ever, I fully recognise that milage will differ.) So, for example:

If you wear religious (or religion-influenced) clothing, accessories or makeup, such as a hijab, would you want to see a werewolf character wearing it? I realise some items will be much more likely than others (and some are out of the question anyway - a crucifix is not going to work). If yes, would you be happy with a fake religious in-text reason for it?

If you're part of an ethno-religion like Judaism, how might an explicitly Jewish werewolf work (assuming you're happy to see one)? For context, this is not a genre that has a concept of humans being transformed by bite (although I could if necessary come up with something), but there is very much a concept of werewolves sometimes having human soulmates. So, it is feasible for a Jewish woman to have been mated with a werewolf and had kids, if that helps. However, would you want to see such a character be religiously Jewish? Or some fun new amalgamation? (Alternatively is there anything in Jewish history where you could go "Well, a bunch of groups broke apart from each other at that point and migrated away, so maybe one group became werewolves and that's why they left"? Can you spot them because they use Moon of David iconography instead of the Star? Idk help me pls)

Is there anything you can think of that I haven't even touched on here?

Do you think any or all of this is a terrible idea that should be destroyed with fire and I must be stopped now? I would much rather be told 'no' now, so I don't do it. Please don't feel nervous about telling me this is a bad plan.

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH THAT ALL OF THIS IS BACKGROUND LORE. I will not be writing a book ABOUT this stuff. Just potentially featuring it.

As a final bonus, if your culture has a fun tradition of were-creatures other than wolves that you think would be good to integrate, HMU. Like bears in Scandinavia, for example. The world is full of were-creatures but werewolves specifically are primarily European. Like I know India has a tradition of were-tigers! Which carries with it the fear of accidentally writing racist trash like The Tiger's Curse, but I also wouldn't want to deprive us the glory of a were-tiger character if people would actually want to see one, you know? (If it helps I am happy to write a super objectified and stereotypical Scandinavian were-bear called Björn Vikingson into the same book who only eats fermented herring and blueberries and lives in an IKEA, so that any tiger character is super nuanced by comparison.)

Anyway, all answers appreciated, feel no pressure to chime in unless you want to. Thanks all!

#blood and silver

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hydesjackiespuddinpop · 6 months

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Est: 1972/1973

Members:

First Generation: Eric Forman Steven Hyde Michael Kelso Fez Donna Pinciotti Jackie Burkhart Kitty Forman (kitchen) Red Forman (kitchen)

Second Generation: Leia Forman Gwen Runck Jay Kelso Nate Runck Nikki Velasco Ozzie Takada

Third Generation:

Anne-Marie Kelso Jonah Shaland-Mitchell Martin Martin Kira Kwan June Guzman-Queimada Lois Clarkson Cleo Joy-Martelli

Visitors:

Laurie Forman Mitch Miller Schatzi Mr. Wilkinson Etienne Marshall Leo Chingkwake Andrew Jill Alice Cooper Steven Tyler (cutout) Joe Perry (cutout) Bob Pinciotti Midge Pinciotti Mrs. McGee Jackie's plush unicorn Coach Ferguson Jerry Thunder The Station Manager Waitress Sarah Mitchell Fatso The Clown Schatzi Mitch Miller Delilah Reed Kristie Forman Darline Joy Kelly Shaland Serena Marotti Betsy Kelso

About

The Circle is a way for the creators to showcase a vital component of the '70s – smoking weed. According to the show creators, the blunt or joint is passed around ahead of the person speaking on camera, thus never shown. The circle usually takes place in the basement and features four people, though these rules are bent on occasion. On special occasions, the circle has been used to show the characters partaking in consuming other things than weed, such as dinner, alcohol, ice cream, cigars, hash brownies (accidentally) or nothing at all. During such scenes, adults also participate.

On occasion, the circle scenes are followed by scenes where the characters act sober while being still high, but more often that not, no one seems to suffer any ill effects after the fact. A notable case was the second-to-last episode where a particularly potent "stash" was acquired by the gang when Fez's friend from his homeland visited. Hyde, who was unquestionably the most frequent pot smoker in The Circle, actually quit smoking for a period of time because he got too high.

The Circle also remained in the '90s and '2000s, where the gang would still smoke and occasionally drink.

Rules

The circle is not:

An area where people can talk about their feelings.

A place where people can cry.

For the faint of heart.

A place where people can grope each other.

But it is:

Where laughing occurs.

Where random stuff is discussed.

Where some of the dumbest decisions are made.

Very candid.

One of the most well-known elements of the show.

A place to sing random songs.

Quotes

That '70s Show

Hyde – I would be so pissed at you if I had the ability to feel anger right now...thank God I don't!

Fez – You know guys, sometimes I wish we were cartoon teenagers

Hyde – Zoinks. That'd be super, Fez

Kelso – Alright, guys...I have a confession...I do shave my legs. I just love the way it feels!

Hyde – Man, when two people break up, it's the saddest thing...except for right now, when it's funny!

Hyde – Dude, I can't close my mouth...This is freakin' me out, man!

Hyde – Hahahaa, ohh weather kicks ass

Hyde – No way is Samantha hotter than Jeannie! Hey, I heard there was an episode they never aired.. where Jeannie gets totally naked! The government banned it.

Kelso – You know what's a funny word? Pickle-Weasel!

Kelso – You guys are never gonna believe this. Jackie cheated on me. With the cheese guy!!

Hyde - (dramatically pretends to be shocked) No!

That '90s Show

Gwen - "You're fun!"

Nikki - "You're fun! Should we be funyuns?"

Gwen - "Funyuns!"

That '2000s Show

Anne-Marie - “Oh my god. I just got stoned. Did I get stoned because I feel like I got stoned?

Cleo - Try this leafy mint. It tastes like Fruit Loops

#circle wikis #group wikis #the '70s circle #the '90s circle #the '2000s circle

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ionlydrinkhotwater · 1 year

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In regards to the discussion about Elliots reliance on violence and his friends to promote his pacifism : First I love the complexity. Second I think that to Elliots credit, he’s not wrong, violence is stupid and it sucks that it is the GO TO solution to everything. His opponents are not giving him the opportunity to JUST TALK, Serene and Luke have to step in cause these violent pricks won’t even give Elliot the chance to hash out their differences without being forced to. It says something that the first time Elliot had to negotiate terms of peace he had to get his superior officer drunk, he had to poison another one, he had to act like a bimbo with the elves. Elliot has been forced to compromise from the start. I never got the impression that Elliot believed he was doing all these great things without costing himself or his high ground and he feels like crap about it like when he got scared during his negotiations with that bandit in the dungeons which caused Luke to kill him, he felt that he let his fear ruin potential talks. Elliot dreams of peace achieved through words alone. But for now he will, lie, poison, threaten, flirt and scheme his way to get it and then someday he won’t have to but he might be the lone voice saying that violence sucks in the borderlands cause literally everyone disagrees and so even if he has to compromise he should still denounce it. BUT his teaching the next generation is Not nothing. Kids like Piper, Mark and Illyria might have the path paved for them to do things better.

When the board is stacked against you and the outcome is more important than your morals, CHEAT. But still try and preach those morals cause the kids might be listening and it’s not to late for them

Also want to point out this scene that proved Elliot does not think he's invincible

"The red-haired human opened his mouth in the way men drew axes. Captain Arch winced, but soldiered on. “If forced, I will enact physical discipline upon you. Shall we take the dwarves, or no?” Professor’s gaze moved upon the soldiers, as though memorizing every face. “No,” he answered."

So Elliot backs off and compromises by taking Mark at least and rely on subterfuge to save the others.

Also I want to reiterate how important Elliots presence is to Serene and Luke, imagine who they may have been and how dangerous they could have been without Elliot questioning their values

Had to detach this from the huge thread cause it was super long lol

#iol #in other lands sarah rees brennan #in other lands #sarah rees brennan #twtbd #wings in the morning #elliot schafer

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