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ravenelyx · 11 months

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WIP list

Sebastian Sallow

More Than a Friend (angst, perceived unrequited love, emotional infidelity, fluff, sexual tension, eventual smut, drunken kissing - adding this only to avoid spoilers) - ON-GOING

"Are you going to stay? We're having so much fun!" Sebastian struggled to turn around in her arms, and maybe he should have just stayed where he was, for his own sake if not for his heart's. The girl's smile widened once she realised she could lay her dizzy head on his shoulder, and she slid even closer into his arms. Burning leads to melting. And that's exactly what Sebastian's body did, once he was sure hers would catch him. "You're warm," came her voice, muffled in his chest, his own head hung low against hers in a gentle embrace. A smile pulled at his lips when her scent filled his lungs, and he tightened his arms ever-so-slightly around her smaller frame. "Are you cold?" he quietly asked, brushing his lips against the conch of her ear and making her giggle. "Not anymore."

Homely (insecurities, body issues, body worship, smut)

"I know, right?" said Bulstrode. "D'you reckon she'd give me a chance?" Avery snickered. "Not if I ask her first!" That did it for Sebastian. His eyes widened, his heart thumping in his chest as he heard the boys talk about asking her out. They thought she was pretty. They liked her. His lips trembled as he looked down at his body again, his quivering hands once more coming to touch his stomach. He felt even more ridiculous about having thought he might have a chance — he wasn't handsome, he wasn't sculpted, he wasn't enough.

Quid Pro Quo (crack fic, body swap, fluff, sexual tension, suggestive)

From the very first time she had set foot into that school, rare were the instances she had been certain of anything. With the exception of one. She would never drink a concoction made by Garreth Weasley. A few apples from a sketchy house hidden in a corner in Hogsmeade? Perfectly edible, if not a bit chalky. A glass of Firewhiskey lying around in a Scriptorium that hasn't been opened for thousands of years? Only a little sour. A soupçon of whatever Garreth had conceived while watching Poppy Sweeting accidentally drop a string of her hair that caught up in her hands into her cauldron while adding Newt spleens to her Everlasting Elixir? She would get a stomach pump for less.

Love is not quantifiable, and therefore not finite (fluff, angst if you squint, falling in love/friends to lovers)

The girl sighed, dejected. She had always had a good relationship with the librarian, given her thirst for knowledge and love for reading. It wasn't rare for the woman to let her stay just a little more than necessary, or allow her to borrow more books than it was practice — but now it seemed Madam Scribner had forgotten about the real Anne just like everyone else, and all that was left was the newly-cured Ann Sallow, who only deserves pity and commiseration.

Arranged Heartbreak (angst, hurt/comfort, courting) - COMPLETED

"You're special, you know that? Thank you, Sebastian. Only..." She pulled away to look at him. "Don't even think about doing something drastic should it ever come to that point, like marrying me or something. Your freedom is yours." "M-marry you?" he stuttered, the idea slowly forming in his mind at her words. Could that… Would that be a solution? "I didn't even think about it... why would... Is... is that what you want? I don't want... I just want to do what makes you happy." She smiled reassuringly. "I don't want that, Sebastian. I want to do things the... wizarding way, if so to speak." She sighed. "I want to keep being your friend, to know you properly, to maybe… fall in love."

Best Served Cold (cheating, angst, emotional manipulation and abuse, psychological harassment, smut, dub/con)

"Give me one reason to get over this." She said coldly, staring down at him. "I…" His voice broke. Because the truth was: he didn't have any. He wasn't worthy of another chance, he didn't deserve it. But he was a selfish bastard. And he needed her. He only realised it too late. "I just…" He looked at her, eyes wide and glistening with unspilled feelings. And then, his judgement was gone. "I'll do anything you want." He declared, clearly not weighing his words properly. Because that was a dangerous thing to say. Especially to her. And he should have known better after all these years.

Sonnet XI (smut, semi-public, pwp analogue)

"Advanced Transfiguration." He read the title of the book she was holding with a smug smile. "I would say 'impressive', but you certainly don't deserve that type of credit." "What are you staring at?" She sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at his presence. "The book in your hands," he replied. "I don't expect someone like yourself to understand, but that is a complicated and extremely difficult field of study with applications beyond most wizards' comprehension." Now she couldn't stop herself. And her eye sockets hurt. "And tell me," she said sarcastically, "what exactly, in your opinion, is so difficult about this book to someone like me?" "It takes years to develop the precision and subtlety of touch required for Transfiguration. Your simple mind can't comprehend the complexity of the spellcrafts required." He shrugged. "You know, just because you use a lot of words, it doesn't mean your speech makes any sense."

Taglist is open <3

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navree · 19 days

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I'm constantly baffled how many writers seem to overlook and mischaracterize Jason when he has arguably the most potential of all the Batkids, or at least the Robins! Like, so much can be built upon wrt his life as an impoverished youth and how that informs his perception of vigilantism, law enforcement, drug abuse, etc. Hell, his resurrection itself is something he had over the rest of the Batfamily for the longest time, before everyone else got a take a turn and it became so overused that Jason's own trauma became a footnote. Alas, most people at DC just treat him as the "Angsty Bad Boy™️" who doesn't play nice with the other kids. He's so wasted, Jason Todd deserves better.

I've always felt that if you're going to try and write a finite narrative out of Jason's story (as opposed to comics) then at some point he should quit vigilantism. His entire adult life has been solely about that and, as someone who for a long time was most famous for dying, he should get the opportunity to live, especially for himself. BUT, so long as he remains a vigilante, he offers a really interesting perspective on vigilantism that you don't really see anywhere else.

Jason, like some of the people I feel have the most reason to be in this life in Batman media (such as Bruce and Dick), has experience being a victim of criminal behavior, yes, but he also has the experience of being on the other side of the window. He knows the criminal element intimately, and from a young age. His father was a low-level criminal, it got him sent to jail and eventually murdered while in jail; Jason grew up in a low-income neighborhood that has been by and large overlooked by Gotham and that allows criminal behavior to breed there to the point where the name Crime Alley no longer refers to a singular event (the murders of the Waynes) but all the other issues there; Jason himself has committed criminal acts when weighing the option between obeying the law and ensuring his own survival. He has a different perspective on criminality and law enforcement and outside enforcement of legal codes than anyone in his life, because he's lived on both sides of the lines and they've both had profound effects on him and should shape how he views the world differently than other people he knows.

Jason's vigilantism, and honestly even how he deals with stuff during his crime lord era, should be motivated by at once knowing that issues don't pop up out of nowhere and that even criminals have interiority, but also a deeper understanding than most as to how the actions of criminals affects not just innocent bystanders but innocents in their own lives. It's a unique perspective that not only enriches Jason as a character but can also provide some pretty thought-provoking conversation about vigilantism and Batman's role in the world and even the concept of extra-legal justice we find in most superhero comics in general that DC could honestly use.

Like yeah, ok, I did find Stephen's monologue about his role as a doctor being that of a healer at the end of the General Strange arc in this year's Doctor Strange hokey, but the way a superhero's personal life informs their actions as a hero is an interesting concept that only gets shallow explorations most of the time, and Batman media could really use it in more depth given how shallow people's understanding of Batman is (Batman's a capitalist Batman's a fascist Batman beats up the mentally ill Batman victimizes the poor, dear God shut up).

And when it comes to Jason's death, it is pretty obvious that, when it comes to the Batfam, DC is trying to recapture that feeling that came with A Death in the Family every time they kill a character off, to try and tap into what made Jason's death such a big thing. But the problem is that they fundamentally do not understand why Jason's death was so big.

For one, and the most shallow reason for it, Jason's death wasn't just death. At the tail end of a series of difficult issues for him, like finding out his dad was murdered in prison and Bruce lied about it, to the debacle with Felipe Garzonas, to Bruce benching him as Robin (which, given that Dick being benched ended with him no longer being Robin and leaving Wayne Manor, it's reasonable to infer that a formerly homeless kid who experienced a significant amount of trauma due to that homelessness would start to worry that no Robin=no longer being able to live with Bruce and having to live on the streets again), Jason ends up trying to find his mother. And when he finds her, this adult woman, who he should be able to trust, if only because she's a grown woman and he's fifteen, deliberately leads him into a trap with someone he is deeply aware is dangerous, points a gun at his head, and tells him that what's about to happen is his fault while he tries and fails to fight his way out of what he knows is going to be a really bad set of minutes. Honestly, more people need to read ADitF, because the sequence of events is a lot more horrifying than pop culture remembers it. Jason is already beaten into the ground by Joker's henchmen before the Joker gets started on him (while Sheila stands back and watches, God) and by the time it's done, half of Joker's suit is colored red instead of purple to represent blood and everyone in that warehouse thinks that Jason is already dead. And then he gets blown up. Jason's death resonated so much not just because of the fact that it happened, and that Bruce felt upset about it, but also because what happened to him was horrifyingly brutal and to date remains one of the truly most sadistic things the Joker has ever done.

For two, Jason's death had an impact because it was meant to stick. Unlike Bruce getting lost in time or Damian getting stabbed, where it was pretty clear that the characters were not going to stay dead, and then by the time you get to Dick and whoever else has died recently, where the audience (and the characters) have no reason to believe that this will be permanent, Jason's death was meant to be the end of the story. Due to Starlin's hatred of Jason as a character (which is weird) and DC in general wanting to move away from kid sidekicks at the time, Jason was supposed to die and then stay dead forever; there's a reason why the saying was "nobody stays dead in comics except for Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Uncle Ben", because he was meant to, you know, stay dead. It hits because the audience itself, along with Bruce and Dick and Alfred and Barbara and everyone else in Jason and Robin's life, thought that this was the last we would see of Jason Todd alive and that he would never come back ever again. It's also why his resurrection packs so much more of a punch than anyone else's either, both in universe and out of universe.

For three, Jason's death was greatly helped by the meta-narrative in a way that nobody else's has been. Because, the eighties was a period of a lot of change for DC, and especially for Batman due to the popularity of The Killing Joke (which wasn't even supposed to be canon, yet by the time Jason died Barbara was already confirmed in canon to be paralyzed and therefore have the events of that book take place) and especially The Dark Knight Returns. Which means that the eighties was when people started writing darker Batman stories, and they kept going from there, and the characterization got darker along with it (seriously, read something from the early eighties and then something from, like, the 2010s, the difference is insane) as Batman slowly just because a darker and more sullen character. And because that change coincided with Jason dying, and there was an initial attempt to push a sort of "Jason's murder is turning Bruce into a crazy person" message to really show audiences how badly Bruce was dealing with the situation, it creates this sort of in-universe progression where Jason's murder fundamentally altered Bruce in a way that has, so far, proven utterly irreversible.

It's not just that Bruce's son was murdered and that he's had to deal with the grief and trauma of that loss, it's that the grief and trauma of that lost basically completely shattered Bruce and he is never going to be able to put himself back together again. He is never going to return to who he was before Jason died even though the initial hurt has literally been reversed because Jason was resurrected and subsequently re-entered his life. Jason's death was so calamitous, so monumentally awful, that it changed who Bruce was as a person in a way that can never be undone or reversed, and most of the people in his life these days don't even know what Bruce was like before, while the people who do know just have to live with the fact that Bruce as he was then is as dead as Jason was (this fic by @damianbugs really gets to the unique tragedy of the whole thing so go read that). None of the other Batfam deaths have that, not even Stephanie's, which was also meant to be permanent before it got retconned, and so they don't hit as hard because they not only don't have much impact on the audience, they don't even have much impact on Bruce as a character, certainly not anywhere near that Jason's did in both intensity and longlasting effect.

The problem is that DC didn't really didn't expect Under the Red Hood to be as popular as it was, so they kept Jason around without really knowing what to do with him or having any plan for him, which is a choice we're still feeling the consequences of today in that they both still don't really know what to do with him and really resent him for it, along with his longterm popularity in all of his iterations. And fandom itself likes to just hew to tropes with no basis in canon whatsoever based on the shallowest understanding of all characters, including Jason, so that's not even helping matters much, and why I stick to my own bubble.

#personal #answered #anonymous #jason todd #wow this got long #unfortunately you got me talking about the impact of jason's death #which if you look at my ao3 you'll know is something that really gets me raring to go

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whovianbuffalo · 5 months

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Evil Morty: Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons

To expound upon this post

It's no secret that Evil Morty's theme is tied up with the album Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons by Blonde Redhead: It's the album where For The Damaged Coda comes from, but the lyrics of the rest of the album fit into his characterisation, too.

“In Particular”:

Some place safe I would imagine Someone new would be so cruel Incurable paranoiac Hysterical depression

- Even when Evil Morty has escaped the central finite curve, he still can't imagine himself forming any new friendships or relationships because of his lasting trauma

Everyone else is really boring

Anyone else won't be good enough

Despite this, the only people that Evil Morty is drawn to are Rick C-137 and Prime Morty. Again and again he keeps returning to Rick because anyone else won't be good enough.

Sometimes I spin around for days Skip and chase and say Forget about tomorrow Until I realize This valid and logic motion Is what keeps me from moving

EMorty tried doing what all other Mortys do: he pushed it down and tried to ignore it, until one day he finally snapped.

“Melody Of A Certain Three”

Crawl, crawl as a child and move like a man Pushing like a father, pulling like a friend Whatever it takes, forever it seems But despite of all that, all is well, all is well

As @trucknoisettes said in a post, Rick Prime is the only adult/only Rick we have seen who actually acknowledges that Evil Morty is still a child...

In S5E10, Rick also says the only "man" who ever hacked his portal gun was EMorty, which reiterates this fact.

However, every Rick has underestimated Evil Morty at some point (and paid the price for it), so "move like a man” really nails home the fact that EMorty is able to get the upper hand because he 'crawls like a child's and then strikes when they least expect it.

Pushing like a father, pulling like a friend

The Ricks and their neediness and their fucked up relationship with Mortys: “an infinite crib around one infinite fucking baby”

Rick is the patriarch of the family, in S3E1, C-137 even declares himself the new head of household in Jerry's absence.

We also saw in the Rick And Two Crows arc that Prime Morty and C-137 Rick played out the same dynamic we see in EMorty's flashback: the arguing. Rick says "it's abusive" but he really does seem to consider teenagers to be his peers more than people his own age are (a point I believe @thesoftboiledegg has made before). He is often more like a friend or sibling to Morty than a grandfather, and certainly not a figure of authority.

“Hated Because Of Great Qualities”

I was worried I might be rude to you So worried that I was It's a lie to serve the truth And I'm still guilty

“A lie to serve the truth” certainly sounds like EMorty's entire election campaign.

“Loved Despite Of Great Faults”

The only secrets We talked about Were all the fears In all these years We spent together That you refuse to fade away I hide to stay the same

EMorty had to leave to protect himself, and similarly, Ricks refuse to hide or fix their 'great faults', but EMorty can't help but love them despite it.

“This Is Not”

So she left everything and traveled to the other world

Evil Morty left the CFC.

But life was like a dream

A series of meaningless movement

Yet Morty still feels the same sense of detached nihilism and hopelessness that Rick feels.

“A Cure”

Oh I see how his life resembles yours

And you somehow are like him

I see I know I've been too good for you You know he's just like me Pleasing you and now all You do is wish I was more and more like him If so, would you consider keeping me closer?

If the Freaky Mortys theory turns out to be true this lyric adds so much... But even if Evil Morty and Prime Morty did not switch places, it's clear that Evil Morty longs for it on some level.

So now I call myself a pleaser This time sitting on a secret One secret everybody knows

Evil Morty gets the plans for the Omega Device so he can deter future threats against him

“For The Damaged”

And here we have the most important track on the album:

Maybe again He will be alone Guess we're both equally damaged Find your name Do it all the same, equally Signal when you can't breathe no more

Ultimately, every Morty has suffered similarly at the hands of a Rick, and EMorty tortured and murdered several Mortys in order to achieve his goal of escaping the CFC, therefore perpetuating the cycle of abuse.

Then you could see the view You'll know we are equally damaged Don't be a fool, make it easier You'll learn to say when Signal if you can't say, "no more"

Morty already knew all-too-well that getting revenge didn't make him feel whole again, but Rick C-137 was ultimately incapable of letting go of his vendetta and that's what got him killed. Now resurrected, not only is he in EMorty's debt, but he's now all the more aware of the similarities between the two of them.

#Evil Morty #Rick And Morty meta #Evil Morty meta #Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons #Blonde Redhead #Freaky Mortys

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2xplusungood · 9 months

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My personal interpretations of Cruelty Squad

Firstly: The Triagons gave birth to each other, hence why "X triagon was born of Y" where Y is usually what the previous one represented. I mention this specifically becuase I've seen a lot of people assume the trigons represent what they are born from, which A. The wording seems to say otherwise and B. I have reason to believe otherwise.

Like the whole idea of peeling an onion at the end of the game, the key to understanding them is to start from the outside and work inward, going backwards.

The Third triagon was born of Death. With life now being finite, the energy being given to the earth (Organism) was suddenly more than was needed to sustain life, thus creating wealth. With the creation of wealth, conflict was born.

It takes the form of Abraxas in the Archon Grid (Or rather a part of them that was planted as a "seed" hence his flower like form). He is Capitalism and the spirit of the free market. The idea of wealth as a very concept. He is also your boss, both philosophically and physically.

To explain this, I first have to explain my theory about how the world of Cruelty Squad works. You see, CONTROL, the building you raid in Office, is the parent company of every other company. Each company fights, thrives, lives and dies in competition with each other, but in reality they are little more than the various tendrils of CONTROL, who manages this whole ecosystem to make Abraxas continually grow in power (Again he's literally a flower).

Elsa Holmes "The Archdemoness" and the 4 subarchons essentially act as gatekeepers to Archon grid, and once they are dead, the grid opens up and you kill Abraxas.

By doing so, you eliminate all wealth, and by extension conflict from the world. You live among friends and spend the rest of your life in idle contentment. Everyone is equal, represented by an infinite flat plane. But without conflict, you are now trapped and unable to change anything. Change cannot be brought about without conflict and youre now stuck in a world of emptiness, the tower you're walking to is infinitely far away, much like how you will now never reach a better understanding of the universe.

The Third Triagon's color is Red. Worn by the wealthy people in Idiot Party and the CTO in Office.

The second Triagon was born of Life. Its death, nice and straight forward. An end to the previously infinite expanse of life. This leads nicely into my theory about "Divine Link"

Now a lot of games that have respawn tend to invoke the philosophical question "are you really still you?" Cruelty Squad does not. Once you die and have your divine link severed, thats it. You are now nothing but a flesh automoton driven by neurotransmitters. A flesh golem implanted with the previous memories of you. Your literal soul is gone. This is why trying to enter divine link doors say "something feels missing"

The Divine sphere heals you spiritually and physically. It undoes the experimental power in misery modifications and restores you as you.

But what if, instead of a soul, you supplemented it with... something else? What if you turned away from the light entirely and embraced the fact that you're nothing more than an instrument of death? What if your soul was made of negative energy? What if every breath you took was only a means to spread as much death as physically possible.

So yes, I am saying that Hope Eradicated is basically you becoming the Lich from Adventure Time and filling the spot where a soul should be with something thats not a soul.

The "Life" ending is interesting to me. The big face with LIFE written on it says you're meeting the Triagon of life, but everything else says otherwise. To meet him, you must first KILL THE FEW FRIENDS YOU HAVE (This is 100% canon too. Once you enter Cruelty Squad HQ on Hope Eradicated, all the NPCS who were nice to you suddenly die and will not respawn and the face will even say "Your friends are in Hell, yet you smile), pass the hallway toxic to all life and then kill the CEO to take his place, either by the ZKZ transactional rifle (Which is powered up by your CEO mindset) or with the Bolt ACR, a weapon that no longer affects you.

My theory is that this is actually the Triagon of Death, the LIFE sign simply being irony. Life is a joke to are . You spread death and suffering all in the name of your own desires. Nothing is more important.

The second Triagon's color is Blue. Worn by the security at idiot party, and the CSO in Office, as well as the color of the Hope Eradicated border.

Confronting Death, they are in awe of you. You become the new CEO and now have the final piece of the puzzle to face the First and Final Triagon.

The Third Triagon was born out of Malice, but is life itself. This is horrendous to think about considering the implication is that life in and of itself is evil. By entering the trauma loop, you make your way over to the Cradle of Life, where life itself came from. In doing so, you've basically launched yourself into the very inner workings of universe. You fuck everything up so bad that the value of life becomes negative, but you, as a being of DEATH instead grow to be so much more. A "being of pure grace"

You look upon the vast cosmos that are now your kingdom and you begin to peel an onion. As you go layer by layer, the laws of the universe begin to break down and it becomes an infinitely dense spec once again.

Remember that life was born of Malice. The universe itself is an organism of Malice. It hates you. It hates itself. It does not want to exist. So you grant it mercy. By doing so you've deleted existance itself. What was once the universe is now empty but content with itself. A "Golden Age" The color of first triagon is Green, worn by the high priest in Idiot Party, Human Resources in Office, your landlord and several other people who are uniquely tied to the "greater meaning" of the game.

#cruelty squad #spoilers

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mistytpednaem · 4 months

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wow!!! that was a year

as I begin to write this post I'm not even sure if I'm going to post it, lmao. I guess it depends on how much of a bummer it turns into. and if it helps me sort out some thoughts, then it won't have been a complete waste of time.

waste, huh...

on one hand, I don't... reaaaally?? want to talk about what's been going on in my life? but on the other hand, there's a part of me that's like "wow, Naem, that makes it sound like you've been struggling with some serious shit, which is straight up not true, do you just want people to feel sorry for you?" and then on the third mutant hand (I have a lot of those, it turns out) there is a different part of me that does acknowledge the way this other section of my brain jumps straight to accusatory self-flagellation is something many people do not, in fact, struggle with

I've been doing remote therapy this year! it's alright. my therapist has some wild ass takes from time to time, and it is perhaps one of my most substantial monthly expenses (note: yes I still live with my parents so, you know, I don't pay rent), but she IS insightful and a good professional so like. I feel, on the whole, it's working out well for me. a-aside from the part where I still can't seem to love myself consistently but unfortunately I don't think anybody else can fix that for me. I just... have to keep working on it.

speaking of therapy, maybe I should tell her in the next session "hey, cool new year, uhhh I keep finding myself thinking it isn't worth getting excited or feeling hopeful for anything because as time goes on there will only be more and more things to be sad about, because everything is finite and loss is a constant, and it's kind of bumming me out?" maybe I should. honestly, that was the thought this post was going to center around initially, but I've found other things to talk about, thankfully.

ah man. heck. I JUST narrowed down the exact thing motivating this post. "the dread I feel when i see everyone on social media post about their Year In Review." so much of this is about the unrelenting passage of time.

not everything is a huge bummer. experienced some good-ass media this year. Hi-FI Rush was really cool, Midnight Mass was so good it got me to watch it three times in spite of how bad I am with horror, Across the Spiderverse was as good as everyone said - speaking of Spider-Man, I think I've come to terms with adopting Curt Connors as a blorbo, which has nothing to do with Spiderverse but is, perhaps, a baby step in the direction of Accepting The Trash I Like. excited for more Jojolands. Jujutsu Kaisen S2 was really fucking good, so much so that I'm afraid no future arcs will grip me the same way. oh yeah, I got really into Will Wood this year, which is a bit embarrassing because his fanbase seems to be composed primarily of teenagers, but hey. sort of circling back around to me needing to accept what I like, I guess.

I've been taking other baby steps, namely towards Drawing More Often. I... have, right?? I know I haven't posted everything I drew, but it was definitely more than, say, two years ago. which is nice. hope I can keep that up or, even better, Do It Harder.

I don't have a habit of making New Year's Resolutions. I do have a couple of wishes, but I'm frankly not sure if they're anything I can control. Financial stability? Well, there are certainly efforts I can make in that direction, as much as I hate even looking at LinkedIn. To stop finding myself trapped in the middle of interpersonal conflict that I care about too much even when it doesn't directly concern me, resulting in weeks of heightened anxiety at a minimum? I think if it were within my power to stop that, I would have already done it, but uhhhhhhhhhhhhh

ah man. I should have found a nicer note to end this on. ummm.

I deeply appreciate all of my friends, not only for being generally rad people but also for seeing nice things in me when I can't. This goes quadruple for my girlfriend, who manages to do all that while also struggling with brains that are very mean and unfair to her.

I feel like I said this last year, but I hope I can learn to depend on you all a little less going forward. Not in a "get out of my life you LOSERS" kind of way, but in a "thanks for the support, here, I can stand on my own two feet, so don't worry about lending me another one" kind of way.

#oh yeah guess i should use a certain vintage tag on this post:#my brain malfunctions #glad i remembered that before i took it out of the oven

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the-one-where-casey-watches-tv · 1 year

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Abbott Elementary episode 2.16 "Teacher Conference"

Quinta has said she’s not trying to reinvent the wheel with this show, Janine and Gregory in particular, and I think she’s proving that she doesn’t need to. Abbott is cozy and cute and laugh out loud funny, all precisely due to the sense of familiarity that it evokes. I can go into every episode knowing that everyone will be kind to each other, live happily ever after, and maybe even score some new glue sticks.

I’ll come back around to everyone else, but let’s get right to it: the kiss! Gregory is my favorite character, but to be honest I don’t think I would actually enjoy being friends with either him or Janine. But Abbott walks the fine line of character personalities that I wouldn’t want to encounter in real life, but that I love to see on my TV. They’re great characters for a will-they/won’t-they because they’re both so intensely innocent that the smallest hints of sexuality have me like “woo! Get it!”. The two of them grinding in the club was one of those moments, and so was Janine grabbing Gregory by the lanyard (lol) for another kiss.

It was inevitable that they would chalk that up to a mistake and try to get back to business, but I almost wish they wouldn’t. Janine is still dating Maurice and of course she wouldn’t cheat on him, but at this point I feel ready to see them together. Which is why I was kind of surprised to see that the question everyone seems to be asking this week is if Abbott jumped the shark with the kiss, if it happened too soon.

I say no, but maybe the skepticism of others means they’re right to at least not have Janine and Gregory leaping into a whole relationship right now (though who knows what next week holds). Regardless, I think it brings up an interesting conversation about audience involvement with story.

I read a lot about story structure, and as a writer I’m extremely wary of books that are so specific with their breakdown of story structure that they can tell you the exact page every piece of action needs to occur on. I think structure is really important- it can almost always explain why something worked or didn’t work- but I see it like musical notes. There are a finite number of notes, and rules to be followed when writing and playing music, but is there a way to put them together that hasn’t been done yet? There better be, or a lot of people are out of a job.

Part of new and innovative storytelling is, of course, the creativity of the storyteller, but it’s also an awareness of the audience’s own grasp of story. Fight Club, in its time, was doing something brand new. Watching it now, though, I find it to be a kind of exhausting three hours. We just don’t need to go that slow anymore; we’re an audience who’s already been taught all the clues to look for, and we can keep up just fine.

I’ve written before about Frasier- Niles and Daphne’s will-they/won’t-they went on for about eight years. Abbott isn’t reinventing the wheel, and, as viewers, this isn’t our first rodeo with a sitcom romance. I would be tearing my hair out if I was going to have to wait another six years for this kiss, the one everyone knew was coming by episode 3, if not the pilot. This is one of those times where we can slide our hand across the piano keys and get there a little quicker.

But Abbott Elementary is more than just Janine and Gregory! And I would like to talk about Jacob, who I actually find myself thinking about a lot when this show comes up. I’m not gonna say he’s not corny, but he is definitely a really great friend to Janine. They’re platonically perfect for each other, and the two of them jumping up and down about this conference, while I’m sure it would annoy me to witness for real, made me smile.

He's a dork, but I was happy to see him making some other friends outside of the Abbott crew, and to see him appreciated for who he is. I actually thought this storyline was going to take it a step further: he and the teacher from Addington hit it off so well that I thought she was going to mistake their chemistry for flirting and try to kiss him.

Maybe they didn’t want to step on the toes of The Kiss of this episode, but thinking that was going to happen made me realize that I actually would like to see that happen. I love every glimpse we get into the pureness of Jacob’s heart (the way he stood up for Janine when she was out sick was sooo sweet), and I bet him letting this girl down easy would have been a really cute moment. It’s also not too often that we get to see Jacob in his element where he’s actually popular among the people around him.

I hope this isn’t the last we see of that dynamic. Addington is just a couple blocks away, after all, maybe there’s an arc to be seen where the Addington teachers try to poach Jacob. Now that I’m thinking about it, there would be a lot there with Melissa’s sister and Barbara’s surely hurt feelings of not being the desired teacher. I can already feel my heart growing like the Grinch at everyone wanting to prove to Jacob that he’s valued at Abbott.

Well if that happens, you heard it here first folks! And what do you think, was the kiss too soon? Do you still think Fight Club is the right length? Let me know!

#abbott elementary #quinta brunson #tyler james williams #janine x gregory #jacob hill #gregory eddie #janine teagues

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nokingsonlyfooles · 11 months

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youtube

Brigitte Empire is on her way out of the UK, hopefully on to a better place with bluer skies and less genocidal rhetoric, but good real estate is hard to find! If you'd like to support her with a click, or some money, or some other form of social currency, that would certainly be appreciated right now!

And while I have your attention, how 'bout a brief, Vicky Day dive on how scared people are prone to shooting themselves in the foot?

You know, if life is a zero-sum game and you may have what little you need to live and be happy snatched away from you at any time, you're not wrong to feel a bit nervous. Like this good boy here:

But, uh, I don't know if you can tell... There seems to have been a bit of a miscommunication between the front end of the doggo and the back end of the doggo. The back paw seems to be doing nothing more sus than straining to scratch an itch, but the eyes detect something stalking them from the peripheral vision, so the dog snarls, bites, grabs the bone, and twists away. It happens so fast, he has no idea he's being menaced by his own ass, and he's all set to bite again when the GIF resets.

So watch the doggy, and picture the front end with King Charlie's head on it, and the back end with the face of that poor, dumb monarchist who got arrested for attending the coronation. Or with Nintendo's logo on the front end, and "video game streamers providing free advertising" on the back. Or "Christian University" and "cis, het Christians willing to work for a Christian university." Ha-ha, sometimes a metaphor is worth a thousand words!

Yeah. Ha-ha. Dry your eyes, blow your nose, and unfreeze your schadenfreude, because you're not immune to biting your own ass, my fellow progressives.

This cat knows about chasing your own tail, I guarantee it. All kidding aside, getting you so scared that you'll do anything to feel a little bit safer is the essence of propaganda.

Is someone else being used as a wedge issue, getting killed, and getting hit with legislation designed to make it as hard as possible for them to live? Someone who doesn't look like you, or belong to what you consider your family? What are you and your finite amount of human empathy doing for them? Beyond that, do you kinda resent them for taking up the oxygen in the room and talking about their thing when you need people to focus and direct their attention to your thing?

This is just among the trans community, let alone the queer community in general! And what about Black folks, immigrants, poor folks, mentally-ill folks, or any other type of marginalization?

You do not have enough attention, energy, or empathy for everyone who is being murdered by the State right now. The transitive property is true, and they don't always have enough attention, empathy, or energy for you either. So do we kinda wave hi from across the street and go, "Hope you win! But I can't help you myself!" "That's okay! Hope you win too!"? Nope!

Somehow, we find the strength to reach out and harm a perceived threat that we can reach. Even if actually catching it and biting it would hurt like hell. It's just so damn temping, and it's right there.

We are not operating from a position of power like Nintendo, a King, or even a jerk HR department at a podunk religious school. It isn't cute or funny when we do it, it's just a waste.

But it's super hard to comply with a negative, so let me give you some magic words to hold in your head when you see your back end creeping up on you: "You are valid. You have value. You deserve to live and be safe as much as I do. Harming you will use up energy I need to protect myself. As long as you are not trying to harm me or others, your struggle is my struggle. I'm sorry there's so little I can do, but I hope you'll be okay." If you have the energy, say it or type it out. If you don't, just walk on by and focus on your own shit for a while. Y'all need a stable place to stand before you can help lift anything, that's just how gravity works.

We are all out there making trolley problem decisions in realtime. Most of us are not willing to hip-check a stranger onto the tracks to save our friends. But if we can pull a lever...

...or just sit back and allow it to happen, a lot more of us are willing to be complicit in a few murders. As long as it's not the folks who really matter.

It's not my right to demand you get out there and throw a brick at a cop. It's not my right to demand you risk your life trying to fix something that was broken before you were even born. It's also not my right to demand you hand a mandate to a politician who says, "Maaaybe you can have abortion rights or healthcare, but you have to let us kill a few more Black and brown folks. It's a zero-sum game! Somebody has to die!"

...But you can't stop me from vomiting text on the internet in vague hope that you'll wake up, realize how bad it is, and put your nervous energy towards getting safe.

Leave your back foot alone. It's just trying to scratch where it itches.

#brigitte empire #crab bucket mentality #you are not immune to propaganda #deep dive on a real simple concept #the simple things are the hardest to understand #i'm not above shooting myself in the foot either and sometimes i ain't even KNOW #brigitte is doing what she can to get safe now how bout you?#Youtube

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 1 year

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OK, my main point is that my earlier post was very off-the-cuff, not really intended as a fully fledged defense of my position. It's been a few days and I think it's worth taking a more serious look at that now.

There are at least two obvious problems with the moral intuition that leads to "if there's some harm, then there's some utility":

One of these problems is the one that was pointed out before, that if you have an unlimited amount of utils, your decision has no impact on them. If everyone were to become immortal, the world could be destroyed by their collective choice of whether to blow up a star. If we have infinite utility, we can't hope to measure them. (Or at least we can't hope to measure them accurately enough to be confident we've "calibrated the utility").

A second problem I want to point out here is that if we have some number of utils which is finite -- perhaps only a billion or two -- then a sufficiently large amount of people can have an impact. To make my point, I'll assume that everyone gets to choose between two alternatives, and say that 1% of the population will choose option 1 and that 99% of the population will choose option 2 (that is, 1% of a billion people). This means that the expected utility for everyone in the 1% who chooses option 1 is 10^-9 of the expected utility of everyone who chooses option 2. By the standard formulation, this means that even 1 person's decision to choose option 1 can cause infinite harm to everyone. This seems obviously wrong to me.

(Note that I am not claiming that this is always wrong. I have a more general argument that is here. I'm not claiming that the standard formulation has no problems, I'm just saying that these are probably the two most egregious ones.)

The argument in the link above seems to me to be more persuasive, and to avoid these two problems. I don't have the time to get into it now but I want to write down what I see as its main points.

The argument basically makes three assumptions:

(a) Each person has an instrumentally rational utility function, in the sense that they care about what will make them happy, and not just about their own pleasure.

(b) A utility function is utility-monotonic: a person's utility can only increase with time, and only decreases in things that cause them pain. (Utility-monotonicity has the nice properties that "I will be happy when you are happy" is consistent with people having different preferences, and also consistent with an agent having different levels of happiness than another agent in different circumstances, which seems like an important thing to claim.

(c) Some people have different preferences, but these preferences are consistent: they assign equal weight to each other's pleasure and well-being.

Based on these assumptions, we can have an argument which shows that in a scenario with 1 billion people where no one is in a coma but some number of people have made a choice, if the people who have made the choice have sufficiently high utility, the rest of the people with their utility functions have to choose the coma-ed people over the non-coma people. As a result, even if each individual chooses option 2, there's enough utility that option 2 will be chosen over option 1.

(I don't think these assumptions are implausible. For instance, it's at least plausible that there is some kind of "brain utility function," and that this utility function could be such that utility-decreasing things also decrease one's brain-utility, whereas other things don't. And it seems plausible that if you could modify a utility function enough (i.e. so it assigns higher utility to things the brain would find pleasurable) that the agent will choose options that make their brain happy.)

If we want our agent to make decisions which maximize the world utility function, then the best way to do that is to simply choose the option that makes everyone else's utility function (and therefore the world utility function) highest. This was basically the original argument.

(Again, I'm not claiming that this is an "unassailable" argument -- it just seems to avoid the two objections raised in the earlier post. But I think it does go some way towards answering those objections. I don't have any other arguments that these questions aren't difficult, and there is plenty more I could say on this issue.)

(For those who are worried about possible counterexamples, there are various ways one can modify the axioms to create counterexamples. These counterexamples would have to be very bizarre for it to matter -- for instance, I think if we take a very high credence in the brain utility function, they're irrelevant. But the model where people only do what makes them happy and avoid what makes other people unhappy is sufficiently non-obvious that it could easily escape the kind of scrutiny we'd need to apply to philosophical arguments, IMO.)

#speckgate 2015

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echologname · 20 days

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How do I know I'm saved?

This is a question that's been bugging me for a while now. And it's not easy to find an answer that satisfied my doubts. If there was evidence of being saved or not as clear as day, like some sort of marking on my body, though that would be convenient, that would be too easy wouldn't it? No one can truly know divine knowledge of whose names are in the Book of Life for all Eternity, so, if you struggle with this question too, it's probably because there's no definitive answer but here's how I rationalized it for myself.

If I don't know definitively whether I have salvation or not, it seems wrong to assume I do, because IF I don't then praising God for saving me would be a lie. Thing is, God ALWAYS gives us a reason to praise and worship Him. I think of the song, "I thank God" by Maverick City: "Hell lost another one, I am free," and we in fact are more than allowed to sing this without lying because in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that IF Christ had not been raised from the dead then our faith is useless and we are still in our sins, but He WAS and THAT'S what we know with all definity, and because that's true, then everything else must be true as well.

If you declare with your voice and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you are saved (Romans 10:9). Before Jesus, all Abraham did was trust and obey God and that was enough (Romans 4:3). I've had people tell me my heart would tell me, but, I don't think my heart says anything, so, how am I to know it believes and not just my head?

If you are reborn, you're saved (John 3:3), but how do I KNOW I'm reborn or not? Jesus marks who are His by giving them the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:15), but how am I to know the Holy Spirit is with me? I could try and find out if I have any spiritual gifts as evidence but I suppose the Holy Spirit must be, because if He wasn't, that'd make it pretty difficult for me to carry out the Lord's work.

There's someone being defined by The Fruits of the Spirit (Matthew 7:15), but even people who are the sweetest angels with love, joy, peace...etc. wouldn't be spared punishment for their sins if they reject God so, I kept thinking.

And I realized God has saved me COUNTLESS times of things known and unknown like getting hit by a car with only a tiny scratch, not being harmed when I ran into questionable strangers, from tachycardia attacks...etc. So, if God was with me and saved me from all those things, would He not also spare me from the fires of Hell?

My parents are confident I'm saved when I asked them. My Mom said because she was there when I asked Jesus into my heart at 4 years old and Dad says he just knows I have a good heart and the Grace of God inside me. I suppose I have no choice but to trust God gave them these things to say, because I still don't know how they know without a doubt even when there's nothing concrete anywhere for us to read that says, "So-and-so is saved no matter what they think, feel or do."

And Jesus loves you, He doesn't WANT to send anyone to Hell (Ezekiel 33:11), not even evil people because He still loves them too, that's why He suffered so much for salvation and grace to be a free gift you don't have to do anything to earn, just make Him the Lord of your life.

The other day, I asked myself, if I were God, would I save me or condemn me? Of course I'd want to save me and everyone else! Everyone who doesn't deserve it but NEEDS it. It's not a fate I would even want my worst of enemies to endure, I want everyone to be happy. And if me, as small and finite as I am feels that way, then surely God who is infinitely bigger and more abundant in compassion and mercy can too.

I can't believe Jesus endures suffering so great a new word had to be invented to describe it: excruciating meaning "out of the cross." He went through all of that and looks back and says, "Worth it."

I still SHOULD go to Hell, same with everyone else, but somehow, others have found a way to escape that fate we're all destined for and I don't know how they did it. Jesus is the answer, but there are still some Christians who aren't saved even though they believe, their downfall was not turning away from their sin and denying themselves like we're told to, they didn't really love God. So, how then, do I tell my heart to love God more? For He works for the good of all those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Apparently even not doing what I know I SHOULD do is sinful! (James 4:17). So, I still can't seem to crack the code on how to break this curse, to just NOT sin, it's a negative statement, positive statements tend to work better, like "DO something," with no negating words like, "no" or "not." A lot of habits can't just be taken out and need to be replaced with better alternatives. I can't stop altogether, we're not called to perfectly sinless but to sin less. And I'm not sure how to do that. It reminds me that being Christian IS hard work. Salvation is a free gift that doesn't need to be earned but I'm under the impression it can take work to keep (just my opinion).

If you're seeing this then, I sincerely hope Jesus will take you into His loving arms and call you His forever and ever no matter what you do, think, feel or who you'll change into and be with you no matter what.

I think if you call on Jesus to save you, you'll just have to trust that He will and that's it. Ask and you shall receive (Matthew 7:7).

#christian #trust god

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j-graysonlibrary · 5 months

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The Xiang Chronicles: Book Four Chapter 32

Title: The Xiang Chronicles: Book Four

Author: Jay Grayson

Word Count: 118k

Genres: Fantasy, adventure, drama, LGBT+

Available on: my website

Synopsis: In order to save the world from the continuous subjugation and potential annihilation at the hands of Tiandi, hard lines must be drawn. The Great Spirits that were imprisoned ages ago must be unsealed and awakened, no matter the consequences.

The players are divided—those who stand blindly with Tiandi, such as Xiang Merra and her disciples versus those who want to tear the system down and give the power back to the people. Even a few of the most religious Lords change their minds when they learn the truth of the world—that Tiandi is no more than a dictator with no love in his heart.

It is up to the last, real Xiang and the ill-fated Chaaya to put everything they have into tearing God from his throne and creating new possibilities for the future.

Full chapter 32 under the cut

Chapter XXXII:

Two of the candles in the room burned out but the residual light was still enough to see. Even if all the candles flickered out entirely, the couple of glowing mushrooms that had started to grow in the far corner would keep it from being too dark.

Or, perhaps, Kaz was just getting used to the darkness.

He considered the possibility as he adjusted his body underneath the warm, soft blankets on the bed. Since Viren was resting most of the time now, he had taken to keeping him company. Though he was not used to caring for someone else, May aside, much of what he had done for the Terran lord felt like second nature.

Viren asked for little. Maybe he needed food or drink brought to him, a little help getting in and out of bed, or, last of all, someone to talk to while he was recovering.

In the days since he had come back from Gnoma, he seemed to only be getting worse.

Kaz was aware that Gnome was taking his share of Viren’s energy but sometimes he worried that it was too much. Viren was only human after all and his strength was finite. When he started to entertain thoughts like that, suddenly he felt unqualified for caring for him and he would wish that Pangu—even Baiya—was back to help.

Viren probably wished for the same thing, only he was too polite to say it.

“How are you feeling?” Kaz asked once he was sure the lord was awake from his nap.

His eyes struggled to fully open but he was cognizant. “Mmm okay,” he grumbled and then sighed, slow and sustained.”Did you sleep any?”

“A few minutes,” Kaz lied.

“How long has it been?”

“Three…maybe four hours.” He shrugged as best as he could with one shoulder as he was laying on the other. “I am not sure.”

“That is longer than I expected to be out.” Viren rubbed his eyes and then rolled closer, onto his side as well.

“You need the rest.” Kaz set his hand on top of Viren’s and caught his eye. In the dark, he could not see any details but he still tried to study him as he asked, “Does it feel like Gnome has gotten any stronger?”

“To some extent. I believe as they grow stronger, I become weaker.” His voice was quiet and his eyes drifted to the side. “It is as I expected and I do not believe there is anything to be concerned about.”

“If you insist…” Kaz could not help but feel he was being placated. However, he supposed there was no way for Viren to know, exactly, what would happen. Unless, of course, Gnome was somehow communicating with him and he was keeping their conversations secret. That seemed unlikely and, on top of that, he did not enjoy speculating all the different ways he could be lying.

It was just as unfair to Viren as it was distressing to him.

In the time they had known one another, Kaz had grown attached. His mind still struggled sometimes to process all the changes in his heart since the start of the year and, sometimes all he could scrounge together was that he was a completely different man now than he was then. Pangu had started the transition but meeting everyone else had blown the doors off of his closed-in world and, from there, many of them had made their homes within.

Viren was one of them and it had happened almost immediately. Kaz blamed his kind, diplomatic approach to their open relationship. Before he knew it, he had been won over and an alarmingly deep affection had taken root.

There was a soft squeeze on his hand, getting his attention back. Viren smiled in the dark. “Tell me about your father.”

The turn was so sharp that Kaz faltered for a second and only managed to respond with a mumbled, “Huh?”

“Fujin mentioned, not too long ago, that your father was an elite guard, like the two of you. Tell me about him.”

Viren, for his part, could tell that Kaz was in his head. He was probably thinking about the fact his condition had slowly been getting worse and not better, as they had all hoped for. Not only that but, selfishly, he wanted a distraction.

Gnome was drawing in more of him and there was a constant stinging, all through his body. Having something else to focus on, like a story, would be appreciated.

“Oh, um…” Kaz audibly gulped. “He was more of a mentor than a father. That is to say, he trained Fujin and I for our positions. We did not spend much time with him as a family.”

Viren recalled Fujin saying he had been particularly attached to the man as a small boy. Some of that hurt was evident in his voice but he kept a wall up. “What of your mother?”

“Died. Not sure when but I must have been under three years old because I remember nothing of her. Fujin says she had some accident at the castle. Some mishap with training. She was a guard too. I do not know though—I stopped asking when it clearly upset our father.”

With a squeeze of his hand, Viren dug a little deeper, “Do you think that is why he was distant with you both? Why he focused so much on making you as strong and capable as possible?”

“I assumed as much,” Kaz responded, easily, “That and the fact our family line was made up of elite guards. We had to succeed to prove our worth. Otherwise, having us was a waste of time.” That made him chuckle, for some reason. “If he could see us now, abandoning our posts like this…he would die a second time.”

Viren understood, even more than he expected to. He gave a quiet, breathy laugh, and switched from squeezing Kaz’s hand to running his thumb along the back of it. “My parents, too, would likely have some pushback to my current position if they were still alive.”

“When did they die?”

“I was in my mid-teens.” Viren exhaled slowly. “We were visiting a border town for some negotiations and a scrimmage broke out. Father was killed instantly and my mother was grievously injured. We fled to my aunt where my mother passed after a few months and then I buried myself in my studies.”

“I am sorry, Viren.” Kaz gave him a sympathetic look which was clear to read, even in the dark.

“It is quite alright. Like your business oriented relationship with your father, my parents, too, saw me only as a future lord. We did not spend quality time together and I was often sent away with my tutors. I had no emotional connection to either of them. In fact, I was horrified with myself over the lack of tears I shed for their deaths.” He paused for a moment and then said, “But, I could also hear them in my mind, telling me to return to my studies and prepare for taking over their legacy.”

“You did not take Ultimos from them though,” Kaz pointed out, knowing that it was Oli who was, technically, to be the lord there.

“Yes, well, my aunt took over my parents’ duties while I continued learning—much like Oli, actually. Had Oli picked up the torch after his parents’ death, I would have never been a lord at all.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“Kaz, you have not even known me as a lord.”

He chuckled. “Maybe not but…you seem lordly. Especially considering what I am used to with May and her parents. You carry yourself in a dignified yet approachable manner. I do not think I even need to see you in action to know that you ran Ultimos with grace and ease.”

“Definitely not ease.” Viren laughed though he immediately regretted it with the sharp pain that shot through him. Instantly, Kaz could tell something was wrong and his hands were on him.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Viren said, catching his breath and holding onto his new lover by the arms. “I got too carried away, forgetting my condition. Thank you.”

Kaz’s eyebrow quirked, almost making the lord laugh again. He held back and settled with smiling.

“You distracted me well. But, also, I am glad to know you better.” He squeezed his bicep—far fuller and firmer than it appeared. “It seems as though you and I shared a similar childhood, in a sense. At least, I understand the loneliness and pressure of taking up a hereditary mantle.”

It was something that Pangu and Baiya did not know. Although Pangu had, obviously, been raised in isolation and to become something very specific, there was a big difference between his high calling and their more earthly duties. There was certainly a particular wound left behind by having parents who, by all rights, could have been loving and attentive, but actively chose not to be in order to mold their children into the perfect heir.

“Do you think Oli will take over Ultimos once all of this is settled?” Kaz asked after a long silence.

Viren had almost fallen back asleep but he snapped to attention right away. “Um, I do. He has been readying himself, especially since we were chased out. I would still be around to help, of course, but…”

“I may leave my post after this,” Kaz cut him off, surprising him. “May will not need me like she used to. Not only will she have Fujin but she has her resonance and Sylph. I…I would like to spend more time with you and Pangu. And I guess Baiya.

Gnome will…or should…be out of you by then. So, your strength will come back, Tiandi will be gone, and things can start to actually change for the better. We can go, as a group, to Pangu’s hometown and you and Baiya can meet his parents. I had the impression they would be accepting but, even if they are not, Baiya’s family is, right? Or we could stay in Enlil or Ultimos. At the very least, I would like to see Ultimos after everything I have heard…”

His dream for the future painted a vivid picture in Viren’s mind, one he could be transported into if he only closed his eyes. Kaz never presented himself as an optimist but it was clear he had high hopes for everything and only entertained the best case scenarios.

It was agonizing, like a knife to Viren’s chest.

A tear slipped down the side of his face, hidden by the dark as another candle burned down. “That sounds lovely. I would gladly show you around my home…”

***

“Here you are,” Gong said as he handed Raine his crate of beers. There were only eight in the wooden box but, with his continued weaning, he hoped it would last him a couple of weeks.

He went ahead and took a bottle out and popped it open. “Thank you,” he said and took a sip.

“This may be my last trip out before…” Gong trailed off and glanced to Parvati who gave a short, terse nod.

“And to think it is just to get booze for this alcoholic,” Kali mentioned, her arms crossed over her chest.

“He has an illness he is overcoming,” Devi instantly came to his defense.

As sweet as it might have been, Raine did actually agree with Kali. It might have been the only thing they could ever see eye-to-eye on but, after another drink, he sighed and said, “It is a shame that Gong needs to potentially expose himself to Tiandi just for my bad habit. I was hoping to be free of this by now.”

Gong, however, shook his head. “I did not just retrieve drinks for you, although that would be reason enough in my mind. As Devi said, you are still ill. If you suddenly stopped, even at this stage, there could be greater health risks. Pangu needs you. We all do.”

“Do we?” Kali cocked her head to the side and then, suddenly, let out a howl as Chandes stomped on her foot. “You little—!”

“I tripped.” Chandes shrugged.

“While I understand all the reasons you despise me, Kali,” Raine spoke to her directly, having no reason to hide behind a front, “Shakti needs all of the help she can get for the coming fight. And, though I do not value myself as some irreplaceable ace, I do have high resonance, decent fighting skills, and the desire to see this through to the end. I would hope that you could see every person on our side as useful even if it is just as another body.”

“Do not forget that the King of Kyrie’s help and, by extent, his entire army’s help, is tied, conditionally, to Raine being here. That man is bound to Undine. We need him.” Devi gave her younger sister a pointed look.

“King Raime is also bound by loyalty to Pangu,” Raine countered.

“He would fight for Pangu, yes, but he is most attached to you.”

Kali opened her mouth again but then closed it. Her brows furrowed and then she said. “Mother wants to speak with you…”

Raine pointed to himself. “Me?”

“Oh, I hear her too,” Chandes said, closing her eyes.

“She does not just come up here?” Gong asked.

Parvati, with her eyes cast down to the floor, started to nod. “She asks that you go to her room by yourself, Raine.”

Had such a request come at the beginning of their stay, Raine might have been nervous or uneasy but, knowing Shakti as he did now, he had zero hang-ups. The only oddity was that she requested him to come alone, as she often did with Kira.

Because of that, he had a feeling that his lover would be the topic.

He downed his beer and left the bottle behind before walking down the stone stairs to get to Shakti’s room. Purple lit his vision and he spotted her form, already risen above the rocks and towering over him. Some miasma liquefied and dripped from her, at a slow but steady rate. Other than that, however, she was quite solid.

“You asked to speak with me?” Raine opened.

She turned around, showing her bright eyes and the momentary flash of her teeth as she smiled, half-hearted. “Yes. Hello, Raine.” He waited for her to continue, her hands twisting together. “I…I would like to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For assuming the worst in you.” Shakti did not look directly at him. “From what I saw of Kira’s memories of you…before…I expected that you would reject his feelings and possibly even resent him—fight against him, on the principle of your beliefs and duties. Yet, you have surprised me at every turn. Not only have you treated him tenderly but you devote yourself to our cause.”

Raine resisted the urge to argue that he was not, necessarily, going to war for her cause. While he did understand, far better, what had happened between her and Tiandi, now that they had three of the four Great Spirits as definitive proof, and, because of that, he had shifted his opinion on her and the Mistresses monumentally, he still would not say he was fighting for them. He was, as always, doing whatever it was that Pangu needed of him.

And, of course, with Kira on the same page, he was doubly dedicated.

“I could not stubbornly hold onto old beliefs when the proof was presented to me,” Raine replied instead though he did add, “Plus my loved ones are on this side.”

Shakti smiled and slid closer. “Yes, there is that too. I would thank you for how you have taken care of Kira. In the time since you have joined us, he has been full of life…a side of him I have not had the pleasure of seeing until now.” She fidgeted with her hands again. “He…he means much to me. I would ask that, at the end of this, no matter what happens, you care for him for the remaining time he has.”

Their eyes met and a potent understanding settled in the room. She, too, knew there was a shorter time limit on Kira than previously thought. It was unclear if she knew when, exactly, it was coming or if it was just sooner than she would like.

“Of course,” Raine did not skip a beat, “There is much I still wish to do and see with him. No matter when the end comes…I will fill that time with as much joy as possible.”

He suspected the battle against Tiandi would take much out of Kira and his strength would be all but stripped from him. That would not deter Raine from taking Kira wherever he wanted to go or from doing whatever his heart desired.

“I wish I could embrace you, for a second or two,” Shakti spoke with a sigh, “but I know I would only harm you. Just as I did with Viren.”

Raine’s mouth dipped down, into a frown. “How badly did that affect Viren?”

“I am sure Gnome absorbed much of it but you, Raine, do not have such a failsafe.”

It was a relief to hear that Viren was likely not poisoned by her miasma but the lingering doubt, mixed with the general somber energy in the room, caused Raine’s heart to sink like a stone.

He did not wish to bring Shakti down anymore, however, and offered something he wished for but did not, necessarily, believe was possible, “Perhaps, once Tiandi is gone, your miasma will dissipate and you can enjoy your life with us and the Mistresses. I could hug you, as though you were Kira’s mother—my own mother, even.”

A faint smile broke through and the Goddess nodded, silently agreeing to that future. Raine did notice, however, a plume of fresh miasma rising up around her body. She, the same as Raine, was likely not as hopeful as she pretended.

#the xiang chronicles #my novel #my writing

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thelemmallama · 1 year

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random thoughts

[ i like individualism, but i'm skeptical of markets. it seems like a 'game of chicken', where people are incentivise to care less than they actually do and 'play hard to get' in order to leverage more out of others

e.g. everyone wants roads, but everyone also wants everyone else to put in the work of building roads. therefore they pretend to care less about roads so the people who care more would do most of the work

perhaps can be fixed with a culture of rigid boundary-setting? e.g. 'this is what i'm willing to put in, any more is not worth for me' and stop bargaining right there because continuous bargaining is exhausting? still skeptical though; people can still play hardball by under-bidding

(or maybe this isn't really an issue as people who actually care a lot would eventually have to relent if they tried to play hardball, and people who 'bid' low woul generally be the ones who actually don't care much (like me, in a lot of situations) ?????????????)

perhaps gather more data on this via my large scale projects under the 'coordination without coersion' banner, like the bitwam public anime project ]

[ i find it easy to be generous when i have surplus. surplus time/energy (boredom, having energy but not particularly feeling like playing or working on my projects atm), surplus food from dumpster diving, etc. it requires no effort from me, no self sacrifice

it's the people who give even when they're stretched thin that i consider 'altruistic'.

conversely, i also think altruism is overrated. you may not be able to pour from an empty jug, but it's kind of sad to fill your jug for the sole purpose of immediately pouring it back out to others as well. i prefer to overfill my jug, and whoever's around can collect the overflow :D ]

[ do not preach cooperation, do not preach competition. do not teach kindness, do not teach ambition.

teach only the importance of defending one's ability to do what one wants, whether that be helping, sharing and caring; achieving, winning, and being the best; or simply relaxing, playing and exploring … … without treading on others' ability to do likewise. ]

[ (on competition) competition for fun - good competition with stakes - bad

(on cooperation) more efficient than competition; covers more ground, less redundancy. there's not much reason to choose competition over cooperation except for the funzies (and below) bad when peeps are forced to stay and collaborate on something they're no longer interested in; at that point they should be allowed to leave with no consequences or hard feelings. (e.g. even if they're still interested in the ends but disagree with the means, they should be able to leave and go about aiming for those ends with their own means. this would also be a good sort of competition. sure the ends might get achieved faster if the leaver instead stayed and continued being an addition to the original project, but the actual output rate of this potential leaver is lower than if they're doing something their heart is actually into, even if it's 'redundant' in a sense)(but if they're literally doing the exact same thing with the exact same means and ends but are doing it separately just because someone want to be acknowledged as the one to 'do it better'; then that's dumb (unless it really is fun for them and they really do get joy from measuring up against each other that would be absent if they worked together, and not resentment and a win/lose situation where someone must necessarily end up disappointed)) ]

[ the root of morality is some sort of non 'archiness'; where 'archy' probably can't be finitely axiomatized with there being a set of rules it can be reduced down to that is still a completely faithful representation. but that doesn't mean it's completely arbitrary* or an 'i know it when i see it' deal in the naive sense. it is a direction one can aim for, and there are measurable ways to objectively determine if something is closer to 'archy' than not, which can be explained without just insistently screaming 'i just know it is', even if the explanation isn't always in terms of discrete, predetermined principles

in particular, there are discrete systems of principles that are necessary but not sufficient; that provide a '(upper?) bound' or 'covering' for what archy is. that if one does not cross the bound, one is guaranteed to not be committing archy - but there are some things that cross the bound that is nevertheless not 'archy'. forbidding others from doing such things that cross the bound but is not 'archy' is in itself an act of 'archy' (example of a bound in the other direction (lower?) - things that are definitely 'archy')

(put this in atwws to explain politics/ethics alongside topology/analysis!) ]

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makeste · 3 years

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but I just feel too tired to be fighting

this is a follow-up post to what I said in my recap the other day about this arc being the Deku Angst arc, as opposed to the Villain Hunt arc or the Deku SIXQUIRKS Exhibition arc. I feel like the fandom discussion tends to focus on the flashier parts of the chapters -- the sexy villains and the new quirk reveals and the Shindous -- each week, and so the quieter emotional beats sometimes get overlooked, especially since the character arc here is playing out in little bits and pieces over time rather than all at once.

this has always been a very reactionary fandom, and there’s a tendency to judge the chapters week to week without ever going back to look at how they all fit into the big picture. so I figured I would try to attempt that, and basically go chapter by chapter here to look at what exactly Horikoshi is setting up and how it all fits together.

so let’s start with the end of chapter 306, which is when the arc officially kicks off. specifically with the very last page:

this is imo one of the best pages Horikoshi has ever drawn. I got the sense that this was a scene he’d had in his mind’s eye for quite a long time, and that he was excited to finally get to this part of the story. it’s extremely effective as both a chapter-ender, and an arc-opener. like, look at this:

it establishes the initial premise of the new arc -- the world is in chaos, and Deku is now seemingly on his own

it leaves the readers with a number of questions. why did Deku leave U.A.?? is he really on his own now?? why does he look so beat-up and exhausted?? what is he up to?? what is the world like now that all these villains have been unleashed and the heroes have been decimated?? and most importantly of all, what the fuck is going to happen next??

it pays homage to some of Horikoshi’s comic book influences -- Batman in particular

it dramatically hits us with that “THE FINAL ACT BEGINS” and lets us know that shit is getting real now

that’s some good shit. so much so that I think people tended to overlook the other notable thing about this page amidst all of the initial excitement and discussion and speculation about where the series was headed. and that is the fact that the final panel in this chapter is NOT the panel of Deku standing above the city. the very last panel, the one that this chapter actually ends on, is instead the close-up of Deku’s face. his face, which is covered in shadow; and his eyes, which have dark circles under them and are prominently missing the usual flecks of light that give him his signature “sunny optimistic shounen protagonist” look.

not to mention this last line here, which is a call back to the very first time we saw the 14-year-old Deku way back in chapter one.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Horikoshi chose to throw this reference in. nor is it a coincidence that THIS is the scene he actually chose to end the chapter on. what this does is show us the drastic shift in Deku’s emotional state of mind, and his attitude towards being a hero. he’s gone from being thrilled and excited to being jaded and exhausted. he’s matured, but at a great cost. it’s always been his dream to be a hero, but “be careful what you wish for” is a popular adage for a reason. and right now he looks the furthest thing from happy.

and this is the emotional beat that Horikoshi chooses to end the chapter on. this is the panel that closes out the War arc, and begins the final act. to me the message could not be clearer -- this arc will be about the exploration of Deku’s character, and his struggle as he tries to live up to the expectations that have been placed on him as the Last Holder of OFA and quite possibly the World’s Only Hope.

it’s a character arc that builds on a lot of the things we’ve already learned about Deku over the course of the series, such as the fact that he is reckless, and that he focuses on others often at the expense of himself. but more importantly, it’s an arc that finally expands on the dark side of what has up until now been a net positive for Deku -- the power of OFA. up until this point, despite its ups and downs, it’s been a boon for Deku overall and has allowed him to pursue his dream. but now we’re finally reaching the point where the monkey’s paw part of the OFA blessing/curse finally starts to come into play. OFA gives Deku more power than he could have ever dreamed of, but it also comes with a built-in destiny that he can’t opt out of whether he likes it or not. AFO is on the loose and out there trying to destroy the world. and now everyone has pinned their hopes on this sixteen-year-old kid, and the question of whether or not the sixteen-year-old kid is ready is apparently not one that anyone feels inclined to ask (possibly because they’re afraid that the answer might be “no”).

he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. he has to do it, because there’s no one else who can. that’s the kind of pressure that is on Deku now.

and on that note, we begin the Deku Angst arc.

chapter 307

this in hindsight was mostly just a set-up chapter to better establish the current state of the BnHA world at large (spoilers: it’s not good), while also providing an answer for one of the big initial questions of the arc -- namely, “what happened to all of those villains that AFO released from Tartarus?” these are important things to touch on, but the pacing could definitely have been better, and the bulk of the chapter was dedicated to providing fanservice to all of the Shindou fans who spammed the most recent popularity poll (which, whatever lol). anyway, so this was the sole chapter thus far with absolutely no Deku development. thankfully the arc picks up from there.

chapter 308

on to the next one! this was the one and only chapter thus far which I think actually qualifies as an “exhibition fight.” this was definitely all about showing off Deku’s current powerset, as well as introducing us to another of the SIXQUIRKS. however, there was Deku development here as well, most notably in this scene:

this is the scene that got a lot of people speculating that this arc was going to focus on Deku hunting down all of the old villains. but I think people got so caught up in that speculation that they overlooked what this scene tells us about Deku’s mindset. and yes, there is new information being revealed here, and it’s not just a rehash of the stuff we already knew. like yes, we know that Deku was shaken up by the recent encounters with Dabi and Tomura, and we know that made him start questioning why villains become villains in the first place, and all that good stuff, and that’s great. however, there are two additional important things that this scene helps establish for us.

the upcoming battle with TomurAFO is weighing heavily on Deku’s mind. this is something that will become a recurring theme in this arc. Deku is thinking about this constantly. the question of what to do when he finally encounters TomurAFO again is knocking incessantly at the back of his mind, and this won’t be the last time it comes up.

Deku is using these villain encounters as test runs. can Tomura be redeemed?? is he just being stupid and naïve?? or is this really something worth attempting?? the interesting thing about this is that Deku’s resolve to save people is usually so strong and unwavering that it’s more than enough to overcome any doubts that he might have. but this time it seems like the repeated objections posed by the Vestiges and Gran Torino have really gotten to him. it’s possible I’m just reading way too much into things, but to me it really feels like Deku’s recent attempts at Talk no Jutsu were meant to do more than just show his growing awareness that the line between heroes and villains is thinner than he once imagined. they’re also serving as trial runs for the real test, when it finally comes. if he can “save” even a villain like Muscular, there’s hope for him being able to save Tomura as well. and so that moment when Muscular rejects him out of hand is all the more disappointing to him, even if it wasn’t really unexpected. basically it wasn’t the answer that he had been hoping for.

aside from those little notes though, like I said, this was unquestionably an exhibition fight first and foremost. which is fine; we needed to establish where Deku is currently in terms of strength, and it was also just fun to see him kick some ass, ngl. in terms of story purpose this chapter was similar to 219, which showed us how Shouto and Katsuki had powered up after getting their provisional licenses. people who don’t care about those characters might argue that these fights weren’t necessary, but as someone who stans all three characters hard, I would disagree! but anyways, moving on.

chapter 309

in contrast to the previous chapter, this chapter focuses more on establishing Deku’s current mental state, as opposed to his physical state. and this is what we learn:

(1) Deku is ~technically~ being shadowed/accompanied by All Might and the Hawksquad (but in practice he’s avoiding them).

(2) it was Deku’s own decision to leave U.A., and he did it because he didn’t want anyone else getting hurt in order to protect him.

and finally, (3) Deku’s game plan is to stop Tomura and All for One before they reach full power.

this last part is very important, because it means there’s a countdown in effect. as far as Deku is concerned, there’s only a finite amount of time before TomurAFO becomes unstoppable. which means that he’s not only under “gotta get stronger” pressure, but time pressure as well. he doesn’t have the luxury of taking his time and training in safety. he’s being rushed now; this is do-or-die.

this chapter is also the first in this arc in which we get to see Deku’s expressions without the hood covering up his face, and what we see is very telling. as previously stated, the light is gone from Deku’s eyes. he keeps his expressions very neutral, and the only time we even see a hint of a smile is when he hugs his mom in the flashback, and it’s clear from the dialogue (“it’s okay, I’ll come home to you”) that he’s doing it for her sake in order to comfort her.

but aside from that, this is very much not the Deku we’ve grown accustomed to. this is the chapter that really establishes his current mental state imo. above all else, he’s afraid that more people will get hurt because of him, and so he’s distancing himself from everyone around him. and he’s also morbidly preoccupied with the inevitability of having to face TomurAFO again, and soon. the chapter ends on the flashback of Gran giving him his cape, and telling Deku that “killing can be another way to save someone.” there’s a lot on this kid’s mind, to say the least.

chapter 310

this chapter opens with a gang of civilians who are trying to open fire on a nice fox lady whose only crime was walking around in the rain at night. Deku intervenes to save her, and it’s the first time in this arc that we see anything close to the “old” Deku, who just wanted to save people with a smile.

but it’s bittersweet, because all the lady can talk about is how scared she was, and how horrible everything is right now. and so Deku, who feels responsible in a lot of ways for everything that’s happened, just feels that much more pressure to somehow make things right again.

there’s also this extra throwaway line which is especially heartbreaking:

“I can’t afford to be around anyone.” fucking ouch. just reinforcing once more how incredibly isolated Deku is right now -- not by choice, but because he feels like it’s not safe to let anyone else get close to him. and so he’s out here running around this dystopian cityscape in the middle of the night in the pouring rain all on his own, and neglecting himself to the point where All Might practically has to force a bento on him.

but does he complain? of course not. because his focus is never on himself. instead, when he settles down to eat, his thoughts immediately drift back to, guess who...

it’s that time pressure once again. “unless I draw out One for All’s full power, I can’t stop any of this.” it’s just nonstop, I have to get stronger, I’m running out of time, I have to do better, and constantly thinking about that inevitable confrontation.

Deku is a thinker, you guys. and when left to his own devices he will overthink, every time. his mind will run in endless loops while he mentally works his way through all of the possibilities. and that’s one of his greatest strengths, don’t get me wrong, but at a time like this it’s also one of his greatest weaknesses. it’s just so fucking easy for him to get stuck in his own head, in his endless rambling thoughts and analyses. and without anyone else there to help distract him, or help him focus, he’s become fixated on his mission, and it’s slowly consuming him.

this, incidentally, is also the chapter in which we finally see Two and Three’s faces, and learn why Two in particular is so reluctant to lend his power to Deku. he appears to be the lone holdout at this point, so stay tuned on that, because I don’t doubt this will wind up being crucial to Deku’s future development, however it winds up playing out.

chapter 311

this chapter flips back to the Hawksquad for the first half, so we get a brief respite from the ongoing Dekuangst. right before we switch back though, we do get confirmation of something we had pretty much already guessed:

like, that much was already apparent based on what we’d seen (the bags under his eyes; the fact that he refused to sit still in any one place for very long even at night), but it’s always nice to get the official confirmation so that people can’t dispute it lol. so yeah, Deku isn’t sleeping much. and not eating much either, if all he’s getting is the occasional bento from Dadmight. so basically not taking care of himself at all, huge shocker there. but this is something that’s important enough to the story that Horikoshi took the time to point it out in the dialogue, in addition to all of the visual clues we’d already gotten.

and just in case we needed to drive that point in any further, this chapter ends with the appearance of Lady Nagant! like yeah, no shit Deku isn’t getting much sleep, what with him having to fend off racist civilians and hired assassins every five fucking minutes. smdh. can he live??

chapter 312

so this is the chapter that properly introduces Lady Nagant, who maaaay or may not be one of the primary antagonists of this arc?? like, it’s really unclear right now tbh, but she gets hyped up by Hawks and AFO, and has a flashback and a mysterious past and a weird trump card (where did you go, Overhaul) and all that good shit, so yeah? one can hope at any rate.

but anyway. so to his credit, Deku’s first thought is to retreat, but he quickly abandons that plan once he figures out Nagant’s location. this is played off like a logical strategic decision at first, but the subsequent chapter quickly makes it clear that Deku’s decision to take the fight to Nagant is less rational than he might have you think.

chapter 313

so yeah. last but not least, the most recent chapter, in which Deku’s real reason for targeting Lady soon becomes apparent:

what’s more, it quickly becomes clear that he miscalculated and probably would have been better off following Hawks’s advice, seeing as he promptly gets himself shot, and subsequently realizes that AFO gave Nagant an extra quirk, something he hadn’t taken into account. but instead of cutting his losses and running at this point, he doubles down instead and not only breaks out Smokescreen, but also the Third’s quirk which he has never even used before.

it’s worth noting that both En and the Third start telling him to chill at this point, and warn him that what he’s attempting is too dangerous. but tbh if they were expecting him to listen, they haven’t been reading the same arc I’ve been reading. once again, Horikoshi makes it clear that Deku has one thing and one thing only on his mind right now.

of course. once again it all comes back to this. hunt down AFO. it doesn’t matter that he’s exhausted. it doesn’t matter that he’s just been shot twice. it doesn’t matter that Hawks, despite knowing what Deku was capable of with his OFA abilities, specifically warned him away from this one person only. it doesn’t matter that even the Vestiges are trying to tell him you’re going too fast and you’re trying to do too much and it’s too dangerous.

he just doesn’t care. long story short, the only thing that matters to Deku right now is tracking down and defeating TomurAFO. and as the person who knows him best once so aptly put it, “he doesn’t take himself into account.” and therein lies the major challenge of this arc.

and so this is where we’re currently at now. and this has been a very long post, but if nothing else, I hope I was able to get this one point across: there is absolutely no way that Deku will be able to defeat TomurAFO as he is now. not a chance in hell. somehow he’s managed the uncommon feat of waging a war of attrition against himself, which is really quite an accomplishment. he’s not taking care of himself, and he’s refusing to listen to sound advice from the people surrounding him, and is trying to skip ahead to the final boss battle before he’s ready, because the guilt and pressure from feeling responsible for the current situation are eating him up. the only way that the world can go back to normal is if he can defeat AFO; therefore he has to do it as soon as possible, because time is running out and everyone is counting on him. this is who Deku is. and this is what inevitably happens when his saving mentality is taken to extremes, and left unchecked.

anyway so to wrap up this post now, I do think this arc is a lot more cohesive than it’s gotten credit for thus far, and Deku is the glue holding it all together. I for one am loving the exploration of his character and all the subtle little angsty touches as we build up to the big moment, whenever it finally comes. just keep in mind though that if his decisions right now seem reckless and short-sighted, it’s because they’re supposed to seem that way, because Deku is not in a good mental state right now. the cracks are finally showing in our perfect protagonist, just like everyone has been wanting this whole time. he is just a kid. he is doing his best. he is trying far too hard to do his best, and it is hurting him so badly, but he doesn’t even realize. this arc is not an endorsement of the Angsty Nomad Hero lifestyle, lol. it’s the exact fucking opposite, and I think it’s being wildly misinterpreted with all of the emphasis on “oh look at that, he mastered another quirk with no effort”, as opposed to “oh look at that, he is shutting down emotionally and is a few more missed nights of sleep away from a complete and total breakdown.”

tl;dr the overarching storyline of this arc is all about Deku slowly falling apart due to his trauma from Jakku, and the subsequent pressure that was put on him by the Vestiges with their whole “GUESS WHAT, YOU’RE THE LAST USER OF OFA, THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S ALL ON YOU BUDDY” pep talk. and mark my words, things are not going to go according to plan. something is going to go terribly wrong here. whether it’s something happening to All Might, or AFO setting up a trap for him, either way Deku is being set up to fail in a major way. unless of course, someone (or a group of someones) manages to intervene first, and possibly stage an intervention or something. it’s what he needs right now, but idk if Horikoshi is going to make it that easy.

anyway, but in other words, the point of this arc is not to show how much stronger Deku has gotten and how he doesn’t even need his friends anymore. it’s the exact opposite -- the point of this arc is to show that Deku needs his friends now more than ever. that in spite of OFA and all of its mystical trappings and fancy SIXQUIRKS, Deku can’t do this alone. he needs his friends. that’s the core message. and right now, we are at the “I can get by on my own” part of the story. and the part we are all waiting for, but which is coming -- I guarantee it is coming, you guys -- is “the thing is, you don’t have to.”

and that shit is going to slap hard you guys. and I for one can’t wait. but until then, enjoy the angst.

#bnha 313 #midoriya izuku #bnha meta #deku meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #long post #like 'long' is really an understatement here lol #our little green protagonist is really going through it you guys #and I just have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it

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fipindustries · 2 years

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lovecraftian borges

i’ve talked about this in the past, one of my most famous posts was me riffing off borges rumiations on the poem kubla khan by coleridge

in here i want to ennumerate some other of his more eldritch ideas which more often than not they seemed to be sinister. this is not exahustive in any way, i havent read his entire bibliography but they are some of his greatest hits.

*the book of sand- an infinite book, no matter how many pages you turn or where you wedge your fingers you will never reac the cover, it has infinite pages within itself. the guy who finds this is rather disturbed by it and thinks of burning it but then he worries it will burn forever and its smoke will cover the skies and its fire will consume the world

*the aleph- a point in space where you can simultaneously observe all other points in space, including the aleph itself which means if you arent careful you will end up caught in a recursive fractal loop of observing yourself observing the oint that contains the universe that contains yourself observing the point...

*the zahir- sort of similar to sauron’s one ring, is an object that once you observe it you become forever obsessed with it and all the minutia details that compose it, never being able to think of anything else but the zahir, occupiying your every thought and even your dreams

*babel’s library- everyone knows about this one, a library that contains all possible combination of letters that can be held withing a specific book of a specific size, it is speculated while this number would be finite the library itself is endless, constantly repeating the same pattern over and over. theoretically it should contain the book with all the answers one may wish but it is virtually impossible to find and the librarians are driven to madness spending their life time finding a book with all the answers

*babel’s lottery- this one is a bit more obscure and a bit harder to descrive, if i remember correctly in the city of babel all citizens participate in the lottery, the problem is the “prizes” range from things like “stubbing your toe” to “becoming king” to “get executed” for no rhyme or reason. it is not clear what is the authority that regulates or conducts the lottery or that doles out the prices though its seemingly omnipotent since they can make anything happen to the winners.

*Thlön- a fictional world that a group of accademics put as an entry on an enciclopedia they printed. the enciclopedia descrived this non existent world as if it were real, going in granular detail about its culture, tis economy, its geography, etc. soon afterwards articles of Thlón start appearing in the real world, this keeps progressing until the real world is subsumed by thlön and thlön becomes reality

*Funes- a man who acquires the ability to remeber everything he sees in perfect absolute detail, problem with this is that he becoes progressively unable to communicate and think because for hims every object in all its detail is so particular and unique and different from every other object that he can no longer form cathegories, generalize or think abstractly

there are other things like the guy who reads a message from god in the lines of a tiger, or the guy who creates a man by thinking really hard about him and so and so on.

to bring it back a little, a lot of these things are really cool worldbuilding tibdits and they all seem to follow a theme, i would love it if much like lovecraft, borges world were mined for other mediums such as tabletop rpgs or videogames,with the same dusty, sober, faux european aesthetic of argentina in the 40′s - 50′s.

imagine an borges inspired call of cthulhu session where instead of fighting nyarlathotep in a dank cave beneath o victorian mansion or whatever you have to explore a giant abandoned semi buried library in an arrabal of buenos aires and you have to escape from tigers that trap you inside mirrors and replace you with a copy of you that will act exactly like so faithfully such that your companions will never be able to tell the difference or whatever, but you yourself will remain trapped inside the mirror

#writing #borges

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jjkpls · 3 years

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the wishlist (m) - 5

“She broke up with me.”

> genre : Angst, fluff

> pairing : jeon jungkook x reader (f)

> words : 4k

> content/warnings : back at it again w/ the bff2l; one sided love, lot of pining; explicit language; ambiguous infidelity; jjk heartbroken & crying; some wholesome flashbacks to make you swoon

previous - next

The next box arrives about a month or so later. You haven’t seen Jungkook in a while. He had been out of town, hopping from shop to shop, completing a series of long-awaited guest positions.

He’s kept you up with his days and his appointments as much as he could, sending you dorky selfies, little videos of city landscapes you’ve never seen before, and exhausted late vocal notes made in tiny, with dragged on, mumbled words, to wish you luck and send you some courage for work.

You did not expect that the day you’ll meet again, he’d be so different from the Jungkook you prefer and left a month ago.

It takes you a few seconds to realize. At first, you’re preoccupied with the sudden set of needles stinging your insides when you hear the peculiar sound of your front door being unlocked. There’s a very finite amount of probability that it’s not him, he's the rudest of your tiny group of friends and the only one that feels comfortable enough in your home to invite himself without any prior warning.

It’s him, your best friend and subject of too many of your both daily and nightly thoughts and preoccupations.

Once he appears in the door frame, with his heavy coat on his heavy XXL sweatshirt, in his heavy military pants, face turned down hidden by his hair, the magic thing, that grows so mysteriously quick. There’s the little explosion of warmth in your chest. The one that makes you smile tenderly without meaning to. He’s allowed to see how happy he makes you, as a friend anyway. Everybody smiles this way when he walks into a room.

Your eyes catch sight of a box, all white, that fits in his hand. Your eyes roll on reflex. You’re about to curse again. It’s not nice, you don’t want to, to attack him as soon as he returns to you but he’s asking for it, isn't he?

He’s still in the hallway, slowly slipping his shoes off, focus fixed on the present in his hand. The time he takes doing it and the seemingly seriousness you feel irradiating from his aura, confuse you.

Jungkook shakes his head twice, the way he does, kind of like a wet puppy would, before setting the box on the counter of your open kitchen.

It’s only when he starts walking towards you, that his head raises up, just a bit, enough for his eyes to meet yours through his hair. He has a tiny smile as a greeting. He looks really upset.

He should be bouncing on the balls of his feet, he should be doing some TikTok cringe dance moves to make you laugh or yell some greetings in a dialect. He has a lot of peculiar, very Jungkook ways to celebrate meeting you again after a while. Even if neither of you has ever said the words, you do miss each other a lot when you can’t see each other, and the excitement that blooms during your reunions translates that.

But he’s sad today. It’s obvious.

When he takes a seat beside you on the couch, he avoids your gaze. You’re agape, watching him with probably too much insistence, a hand holding a spoon half-filled with yoghurt in the air.

These few moments are decisive. They’ll determine rather he’ll talk or not. Jungkook, for someone who cries easily, is not good with feelings and sharing them aloud. Sometimes he can, often he can’t. He’s told you not to worry about it before, that it was fine because sometimes he just didn’t need to, he just wanted a shoulder to lay his head-on.

“You okay, Guk?”

He shrugs. You just have the time to catch his upper lip sucked in, a twinkle in his eye before he’s switching position, bumping into you and hitting his own shin against the coffee table like a giant dog, unaware of his own growth, would. Only to settle for an impressively tiny huddle against your side, cheek pressed to your shoulder.

So that’s how it’ll be.

It’s heartbreaking, torturesome. You always feel miserable when you know he’s sad but not knowing the reason makes it a thousand times worse. You might be the same vengeful kid you used to be. The one who’ll inquire straight away who made him cry and immediately went on her way to beat that reason up -it being another child or the troll of a tree that made him trip.

Except you are grown-ups now. He knows he can deal with his problems on his own and he would probably not let you go and try to beat up everyone -he probably doesn’t believe you can too, even though he’d be wrong about that.

Jungkook tears his hand out of his pocket only to mime you to turn up the volume of the television. You do so and the pretty hand is gone and if it wasn’t for his quiet sniffling and the heavy press on your side, you wouldn’t know he’s really here with you at all.

Your heart hurts the whole duration of the shitty afternoon movie, even if having his warmth next to you helps a little. He leaves later the way he entered, mostly silently, only smiling a bit when you smooch the side of his head and squeeze his forearm in a wordless comforting effort.

Guk

Sorry for earlier

Guk

It was nice seeing you though

You

Don’t be sorry. Can you call?

Guk

Yes, in 5

The five minutes turn out to be twenty. You wonder, hoping to be wrong, how numerous those tears were that he needed twenty minutes to dry them.

When he finally calls, voice quiet and throat dry, whispering through the phone straight in your ear, uneasiness settles deep and heavy in your stomach as you know, you were right.

“What happened, Jungkook?”

He must not have heard you this soft and gentle for a while because you can hear a humourless chuckle you recognize as incredulity. He clears his throat a first time, inhales deep and has to clear it a second time before he can start, still choking out on a syllable or two.

“She broke up with me.”

The gasp that escapes you, loud and obnoxious, could not have been faked. This news is hardly believable to you. First of all, because, to your greatest guilty despair, Jungkook and his girlfriend, who’ve been dating for almost a year, are probably the embodiment of The Power Couple. There’s no doubt, in all the people that know them, that they are meant to be. They look good together. They are on the same page, always, it seems. They’re beautiful and enviable, an example of a match from Heaven, healthy and aesthetic if that's even a mentionable point.

You can’t, even in your deepest, darkest fantasies, have imagined them to break up.

But the thing that makes it all the harder to comprehend is that she is the one who did it. The girl is great. She’s beautiful, she’s smart and funny, so you heard. She has that glamour to her, with her dainty pretty milky hands and long thin milky neck, with her silky, shiny black locks wondrously floating over her shoulders. She is great, matches him well.

She is not that far behind him but she's still not Jeon-Jungkook-great.

How could she have broken up with him? Someone dumping him makes no sense to you.

“That’s-“ You catch yourself before the words slip out clumsily. You’ve never really been talented at comforting people with words, especially a crying Jungkook which is the equivalent of your very own kryptonite. “I’m so sorry, Jungkook.” And you mean it. Even more so when you hear him snivel hard. You’ve never allowed yourself to, even just for yourself, in the quiet and discreet comfort of your own head, wish for that to happen. Because if there’s one thing that you want more than anything else, more than having him for yourself, more than your own fulfilment, it’s his happiness. And he was happy with Jiyeun. He’s got the girl he had a crush on for months and they went so well together. “But why? Did she give you a reason?”

You hate how eager you sound asking. The question is so pressing though. You wish to know so bad why, in what circumstances, Jeon Jungkook gets dumped.

“She-“ There’s a sob he swallows back. “I know what you’ll say,” Your eyebrows dip low on reflex. You couldn’t imagine the reason. He must have really fucked up but Jungkook is not the kind to fuck up. Even when he’s annoying, even when his mindset on something turns a bit auto-centric, he’s too compassionate, he’s too considerate and loving, to suddenly stop wondering how the person facing him is feeling and act without care, hurt them, in any way. It’s just not his kind. So what did he do that even you’ll have a word to say about it. “Spare me because she’s done enough.”

It takes another set of minutes for him to gather himself, find most of his voice back clear enough for you to decipher. You show yourself patient, not saying anything and leaving him all the time that he needs. In all honesty, in the darkness of your curtain closed bedroom, tucked comfortably in your mountain of pillows and blankets, with your phone stuck to your ear and just the quiet sound of his breathing and humming to himself to break the silence, but rock it rather than disturb it, it’s easy to be patient. Feels like an ASMR. A class A type of ASMR, his breathing to your ear could so easily lead you to sleep.

“Yesterday, she came to welcome me back and-“ Rather than hurt, his tone sounds weakened by shame now. What the hell did he do? “She found the- the thing I brought for you today.”

The fucking idiot.

“Oh my God.” You feel instant nausea. It's not like you never thought about it. You wondered, multiple times, if she was aware that her boyfriend was buying you these. You never allowed dipping far in the questioning because what would be the point? Ultimately, it's his relationship. And it's his way of shaping your friendship. If she kept smiling pleasantly, asking politely, as she always would, how you're doing whenever you happened to cross her path, leaving his apartment, or visiting his shop, it was fine by you. It must have been fine by her. She might have known about it, or she might not, didn't really matter. Jeon Jungkook is a grown-ass man, who's allowed to make his own decisions, no matter if they make sense to you, or her, or whoever.

But he's a fucking idiot.

If she didn't know, if he didn't warn her, and now she's mad after learning about it, and he's surprised and he's sad then he's a fucking idiot.

“She asked if it was for her, I wasn’t gonna lie!” Fantastic. He's passed the shock, soaked in wrath now. That was quick.

"For fuck's sake, Jungkook!"

"What?" He sounds a bit hysterical on the phone, voice rough and angry, incredulous, even mad that you might suggest he's wrong. Obviously, he already knew you'd react this way, hence the primary warning. "You're my best friend. I get to gift you whatever the fuck I want." He whisper-yells, suddenly very much aware again of the late time and the quiet calmness he'd perturbed. "She-"

"I don't think that's the issue, is it? Did she- Did you tell her that- Like, nothing was up?" You don't know how to articulate what you mean to ask. It sounds so bizarre, so irrealistic, the idea of something romantic or sexual going on between you two. It sounds so ludicrous you can't even say it. And again, you're scared to say the words. You don't know how they'll sound leaving your mouth. Suspicious, maybe revealing.

You owe to ask the question though. Because the cause of the sudden nausea comes from one surprisingly major reason, you would hate for her to hate you. To think of you as the bad guy, the massive bitch who stole her boyfriend. It shouldn't matter but it does.

"What do you mean?"

"That it was just friendly. Did you say that to her?" You stutter, largely on edge.

"Of course, I did." He doesn't seem to notice. Or to pay attention to the, evident to your ear, change in your tone. "She said that it didn't matter." You bite your tongue, along with the couple of words threatening to slide off it. Quite frankly, Jungkook is a weirdo with his own intake on the world surrounding him, she chose to date that special, in a lot of different ways, one, however, you can fairly understand that she wouldn't accept any explanation, of any kind, for this situation. "Do you get that? If she thought I was cheating, I'd understand that she'd be mad but- it's not even the case!"

You try to focus on the essence of the conversation, annihilate the faint words you can read in between the lines. The ones that say that even his girlfriend, in those strange circumstances, couldn't imagine the two of you as more than friends. Just as he couldn't. Just as you can't either.

"She knows and she's still mad. But- I do- I was just curious about it."

"About what?"

"The toys." He pouts, barely articulate like the kid he really is.

"Why didn't you get them for her, then? She's your girlfriend."

There's a pause after your words coming from him.

"She hates those." The pout sounds so thick now, in between the sniffs, you wonder if his mouth won't stay stuck in this position, like a cute permanent raspberry on his cute little dumb face. "I did once and she- threw it in my face and called me a freak."

"Jungkook." You sigh. "That explains a lot, by the way." This comment might be mainly for yourself. He doesn't need an explanation, as it seems. He doesn't seem that troubled about the whole deal, about that new hobby he's picked for himself. But you did. It's hard to simply content yourself with a "well, it is what it is" and nothing more.

He's been curious about them, couldn't buy them for Jiyeun because she wouldn't use them and make him feel guilty about his interest. He's sort of living it by procuration this way.

Now you feel guilty. He can't have found much satisfaction from your reviews if you ever have given him any. And she called him a freak. What a bitch. You wouldn't have imagined that coming from her.

Your mind is a mess.

"And it makes you happy. I see the way-" You hear the friction of tissues, the squeaking of his bed, and the deep sigh that follows when, as you picture, he finds a comfortable position on his back. "You seem much better. Less stressed and-" You cannot deny that. Even though it's partially frustrating, to think that he has this very unpleasant picture of you, of the version of you preceding the very first orgasm brought by him - sort of. You are feeling considerably better. Even if you have to force yourself not to abuse the masturbatory habits, not wishing to turn into a jerk off crazed teen like you once was when your hormones were fucking you up, it helps a lot. Sometimes it's a late-night quickie, other times a longer seance to celebrate the start of the weekend, or find force for the beginning of a new week.

"What was that again? Youthful?" You wonder aloud, an annoyingly amused smile on your face.

"Rejuvenated." He's laughing a bit. And for that, all the turmoil he's been putting you through feels fine and worth it. When you think about the heartbreaking tone of his voice when you first heard it through the phone, it eases an incredibly heavyweight to your heart, enchants you to know that he can still laugh, and you can still be the one reminding him how to. Unfortunately, his heart's just recalled how to hurt and the ache is back as quick as it pretended to leave an instant ago. "She said to never call her again." He confides with a hearable sorrow.

"She didn't mean it." It's surprisingly easy to be a good friend to him. The words you know he needs to hear not even hurting that bad.

"I don't know. We never fought like that before."

"Of course, you didn't. But it's been a year, it ought to happen at some point."

"But if she won't even let me talk to her, how am I supposed to make it better?"

"Be patient and leave her time to cool down." He sighs, already defeated. "Maybe send her a vocal note, she'll listen when she's ready.” They're awfully nice when he sends some to you. “It'll be fine." You're made to be together, probably, you should add. You could add, it might help him immensely, to dry the tears you can picture filling up his eyes. It's a little too much though. You're not that strong of a masochist to force this on you.

"How do you know that?"

"I just do. Don't worry too much." He can't. His heavy silence precisely screams that. "Do you wanna come to my island? I'll let you run in my flowers if you want."

It makes him laugh once again. The lovely, most satisfying sound to your ear.

"That's sweet of you." And it is, extremely sweet of you. If there's one thing that you despise is him sprinting through the mindfully planted flower beds of your Animal Crossing island. It pisses you off. Even more so when he does it by accident than on purpose, because this shit happens way too often. And now, you're allowing him to do so. You're definitely too good at being his friend. "It's fine though. Turnips sell at 138 on mine if you're interested."

It's your turn to be laughing now. You love how even with his heartbroken, upset and crying, he still picks up his Switch to check where's the turnips' stock at.

"Jungkook." I adore you.

You have for seemingly ever. Since the very first time you met.

You'd never forget it. How you almost passed out from laughing because of the street sign that nearly knocked him unconscious. His forehead was already bruising dark, eyes unfocused and shiny with tears. You didn't mean to laugh but he was adorable and funny, and even if you felt guilty for enjoying it, people don't run their faces into street signs every day. You called it in your own head a miracle.

He had to sit for a little while from how dizzy he felt. His ears were burning with embarrassment too, your uncontrollable giggling not helping. He just sat there, on a bench you had dragged him to, hands tucked in the pocket of his sweatshirt, waiting for you to allow him to leave.

The kid stood unbalanced the four times he tried to walk and even if at eleven, you had nothing close to a doctoral degree, you still felt like it was wrong to just let him stumble his way back home straight away. You had to hold him hostage for a little while. You had shared your homemade cookies with him, the ones you hid deep in your bag for you didn't want anyone to ask for a bite at school. You made him drink the whole content of your water bottle because drinking water is never an unhealthy thing to do, therefore, it felt like a good idea.

He was so shy that your own timidness quieted down enough to allow you to make conversation to him. Or more accurately talk over the silence and distract him. He giggled a lot and smiled with cute bunny teeth. Kept saying thank you for every bit of cookies you'd given him and once you had walked him home and he arrived safe and sound, he bowed very low, apologized and thanked you again.

You thought it'd be the end of it. He pretended to be going to the same school as you but you had never seen him also he was a few years younger.

The next day, and every single day after that, at recess, he would appear out of nowhere. Wearing his adorable smile, and a tint of red on his ears, a bunch of homemade cookies of his own filling up his pockets. As a puppy would, he'd follow you around with a certain distance until you waved him over, rolling your eyes, because if he was going to stick by your side, he might as well actually play with you.

The most precious friendship you have ever experienced bloomed from this seed. A friendship, at the start, mainly based on a shared interest for very sugary treats, marbles, and that common memory of him eating shit in this street sign. You didn't mean to remind him, it made him flush furiously each time and you were not that cruel, but you couldn't help bursting out in laughter whenever you'd walk home -with him or alone- and pass that sign. It's your favourite spot in your home town. You never miss an occasion to take a selfie for him whenever you go to visit your parents.

It's hard to define the moment your feelings, once purely platonic, changed. But there's a memory that feels notably significant.

A guy made you fall. A useless asshole, who in retrospect was not even worth a single crumble of your time. You were confused. As you often get, without really knowing why. Maybe it's just you, maybe it's for everyone the same. People start by being too good in your eyes, too good for you not to give them your all, and maybe build pyramides upon pyramides of expectations.

Until they're not anymore.

Suddenly, they hurt your feelings. They suck ass and you felt so invested emotionally, way too invested for it to be any kind of healthy, and their very human selves harm you straight in the heart, where it is the most painful.

It didn't feel like a mistake this time. Like any of the other times, at the beginning, of course, otherwise, it wouldn't catch you again and again.

You fell hard and it's Jungkook who picked you up. He had cooked for you, one of his mother's infamous recipes because he knew you wouldn't even bother eating otherwise. He had held you close. He had kissed the top of your head, your cheeks and your eyelids when a diehard tear had slipped. He had called you baby and sunshine and his little kitten. Had showered you in an unfamiliar type of loving. Something so soft, so tender and warm. Hands firm when they'd wrapped around you and pulled you in. Fingers gentle when they'd brush the hair out of your face. He took care of you, made you feel good in ways no one has ever had. You had not known him to be like that. Suddenly, he really felt like a man when he touched you, when he talked to you. He wasn't only a dorky little overgrown baby anymore. He was a man, shaped like one but also able to act like one. Able to take care of a woman, please one you were sure of it. And suddenly, you wanted, so desperately, to be that woman. To have the same free access you had on his usual candid-self, on this newly met man.

Of course, it's too ludicrous for you to ever act on it. But deep down, a naive tiny voice kept claiming, in the back of your mind, that you could spoil him. Very few people in this world know him the way you do, surely, no one can please him the way you could.

Guk

She listened to my note!!!

Guk

She said she'll make me miss her a bit more and then she'll call

It took less than a day for her to give him a sign. You're not surprised. It's hard not to miss him. You're not surprised but somehow, still, disappointed.

A/N: tadam!! i needed to include some flashbacks because i know my fellow f2l addicts just adore these, also, i just can’t get over writing kookie as a cute kid.

Guess what guys? there is only one chapter to go *sweats profusely* I- am worried. I hope you keep enjoying it and will enjoy the rest. :] For now, let me know your thoughts. I hope you have a sweet, lazy Sunday and wish you a lovely, peacful week! bises!

As always please ask to be tagged for the final chapter on this post

#btswriterscollective #networkbangtan #ggukienet #bts smut #bts fanfic #bts angst #bts fluff #jungkook angst #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook fanfic #my writing

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oliverwvvd · 3 years

Text

the potential for chaos

For the anon who asked about Yule Ball Flintwood, this is a beginning of sorts for you. This didn’t turn out the way I anticipated originally when you presented the concept, so I offer this as version 1.0 with something softer to follow.

pairing: Marcus Flint x Oliver Wood

premise: Marcus shows up to the Yule Ball solo. So does Oliver. Neither one is especially pleased about it, and the reasons why are personal.

wordcount: 2,194 words.

The Yule Ball. Welcome to the distinct scent of too much teenage desperation in one room.

The snide thought belonged to Marcus Flint, whose dress robes fit just fine, thanks very much, not that the same could be said of some of the people attending. Weasley the younger, for example, looked like a cat crawled onto the front of his robes, rolled around, and then obligingly threw up a lacy hairball before departing. Marcus’ were, shockingly, not green, because Slytherins were in fact capable of wearing colours that weren’t the house colours. Instead, he’d gone for navy blue, and they were tailored to fit. For now, he was leaning with his right shoulder firmly parked against a nearby wall, drink in hand (liberally spiked, courtesy of Pucey’s far too innocent face which had successfully hidden very good Firewhiskey somewhere on his person), and settling into the buzz around him.

He was razor-edged, dark hair and sharp jawline identifying him in the shadows, gaze steady still despite the warm burn of the Firewhiskey, and the growing warmth of the room. The music was alright, he supposed. He could work with this. He could especially work without being forced to find a date he didn’t like just to fit in, because no one dared give him crap about it. That left him with a sour thought of a very different kind he’d already decided not to dwell on. A lot of other people were on the dancefloor, but he was good right where he was, absorbing the potential for chaos and waiting for the lights to go just a little lower and darker. That was more his speed.

Unfortunately, someone else didn’t seem to care what his speed was, when they came up behind him and spoke into his ear. “You look bored, Flint. Looking for someone?”

Marcus didn’t even turn his head, simply took a sip of his drink. “Hardly. You evidently were, if you spotted me back here. Shouldn’t you be with your date, Wood? I’m sure you had a list of invites to choose from.” The words were cool and more than a little antagonistic, holding the pointed hint that he’d been fine by himself, and that Wood was welcome to leave him be now.

The other boy didn’t so much as take the hint, instead spoke more quietly, that hint of Glasgow burr there and gravelly in his ear. “Didn’t accept an invite, so no date. You?”

A little more to drink, but then he caught a hint of Firewhiskey that distinctly wasn’t from him. “So, you’ve also been in a corner drinking from whatever enchanted hipflask you and your mates in Gryffindor came up with, then,” he observed dryly. “Please to Merlin tell me at least that it’s not one with someone’s initials on it for when they inevitably drop and lose it later, at least.”

There was a very nearly painful silence then, and Marcus snorted, soft but still audible. “It figures.” It really, really did. “You know, it’s good form to at least cast a charm to hide the initials, Wood. I’m assuming it at least doesn’t belong to you.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Marcus usually had to shut his eyes and count to ten before he bit the offending person’s head off and told them to mind their business at this stage. The Firewhiskey mellowed him out enough that it took away the edge to some degree, but it was still there.

“Good observation skills there, Wood,” he remarked, aware of other people potentially in earshot. “It’s almost as though it’s not really any of your business. Which it isn’t. But since you apparently can’t let it drop, I chose to attend solo. This is like a knock-off of all the same stuff that half of us deal with on holidays anyway.” The curse of the Sacred 28, old pureblood family gatherings and traditions and parties littered every holiday throughout the year. Inevitably, they all found ways of coping with the boredom after the age of fifteen, and usually that involved finding substances or decent company (preferably both) and vanishing from the scene entirely once it was deemed polite.

Wood moved in front of him then, there in the corner, solidly built shoulders blocking the rest of the room, mirroring the way Marcus leaned against the wall. He didn’t have any choice but to look at him then, and could only be grateful that the warm breath into his ear had stopped. If it hadn’t, he might have had to think too hard about how it made him feel, and he really didn’t want to right now.

“So you didn’t come with anyone.” It seemed like Wood was trying to make a point, but Marcus couldn’t tell what. It was frustrating, so rather than focus on that, he looked at the boy in front of him instead. He’d been lanky when they were younger, a bit skinny and coltish, but Quidditch had bulked him out and he was solidly built now at seventeen. And then there was the choice of dress robes; apparently he wasn’t the only one who made use of a tailor for once. That was a fine outline right there.

Realising he was admiring the view and that that wouldn’t do given the reason why he was in a mood in the first place, Marcus exhaled a sigh. “Obviously. What do you want, Wood?”

Wood seemed to realise he only had a finite amount of patience. That was a years overdue realisation as far as Marcus was concerned. “To dance with you.”

That made Marcus stare for a few seconds. Seeming to register that he wasn’t going to get a response unless he pushed, Oliver tilted his head at him. “One dance, Marcus. Something slow. We can stay right here in the corner for all I care, since you seem to prefer lurking in the shadows.” Then brown eyes examined him far too closely, his lips curled up into a smile that held just a hint of smirk at the edges. “Presuming you’re not too caught up in posing and sulking, of course.”

Oliver was crowding him now, just a little, and Marcus wasn’t entirely certain how he felt about it yet. His immediate response was no longer to punch the other boy in the face, that had been gone for a long while, so that was progress. “You can’t hold your Firewhiskey and you’re seriously misreading things, if that’s the best offer you can give me,” he pointed out bluntly. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll continue minding my own business right where I am. Lurking in the shadows.” That was when he leaned back and away, and took another sip of his drink. No one could see them back here. That thought made his pulse race.

Oliver (Wood, his mind stubbornly reminded him, trying to hang onto it) wasn’t necessarily going to just leave him alone, though, or so it appeared. “Then come out of here with me for a minute,” he said, voice quiet but still carrying through the space between them. “I want to talk to you about something.”

Marcus sighed exasperatedly, and drained what was left in the cup. Obligingly, it vanished the moment he set it down on a nearby table, and at this point, he’d given up arguing with Oliver. “Fine. You get two minutes.”

Once they did get outside, though, Marcus hadn’t quite registered just how much Oliver intended to make the most of those two minutes. He found himself rapidly dragged around a corner and pressed into an alcove hidden behind a statue that he hadn’t even known was there. When he went to ask what the fuck, Oliver put a hand over his mouth. “Shh, someone will hear.”

Beyond annoyed and now suspecting where this was going, neither of which he enjoyed, Marcus dragged Oliver’s hand off his mouth and hissed his next words. “What are you doing?”

Earnest brown eyes were fixed on him then, and this time, Marcus couldn’t get away or give him the cold shoulder. “Are you seriously still mad that someone tried to ask me to this thing?”

Marcus gave him a truly evil glare then. “You mean, am I pleased that someone else asked the person I’m not allowed to walk down the corridor with? I’m absolutely thrilled. Someone else walks up to you and asks right where I can hear; I kiss you in dark corners and Quidditch changing rooms for three months and get ignored when convenient.” The tone was flat, but the sarcasm wasn’t.

He saw Oliver wince, and then, completely annoyed and altogether done with the conversation, Marcus went to shoulder past him. Instead, he found himself pushed back into the stone, found himself being kissed, and he wasn’t letting Oliver think that was the last word on it. He wasn’t about to be lulled into compliance. Rather than lean into it, instead, he nipped the other’s bottom lip sharply, just enough to make him feel it, a kiss like a warning, before he reached up and sunk his fingers into his hair.

If he couldn’t have the evening, he was going to make sure Oliver went back with bruised, swollen lips, hair a mess, and every possible hallmark to show that he’d vanished with someone. Let everyone wonder who.

That it changed when Oliver seemed to yield, to surrender to being kissed rather than one doing the kissing didn’t escape Marcus either. It wasn’t until he could feel him trembling that Marcus released him, leaving him looking faintly dizzy where he stood. He smoothed out his robes then, slow and insouciant, enough to make Oliver watch the trail of his hands. “I’m not going to take whatever scraps you decide to throw me and be happy that’s all I get,” he said, words short, making sure they landed home. This was probably one of the worst sides of him. “You don’t act like it, so you don’t get to call me yours. Because I’m not.” Wasn’t that just the biggest lie he’d ever told, but it was supposed to be, because he was doing it purely to be mean and he knew it.

He lifted his thumb to the corner of his mouth then ran it along to the middle of his own lower lip, as though he could taste Oliver there. He could, Firewhiskey and everything that had become so familiar since they first crashed into trying to understand what this was. The reason he really did it, though, was to be a little bit cruel, to watch Oliver’s pupils dilate some more, to see him want to close the distance again, and then to deny him. Or at least, that’s the intention, right up until Oliver shakes his head. “Merlin help me you’re impossible sometimes,” was the set of words bitten out. “I was trying to apologise. To tell you that I only wanted to go with you, but I also wanted to protect this because it’s ours and people are incredibly nosy. I’m not ashamed of what we’re doing. You might not be mine, but I want you to be.”

Those were a set of words that Marcus badly wanted to be true, and it was enough to stop him cold, to make him rein in the sulking (if he was honest about what he’d been doing, that was it) and register them. The attempts to deflect hard that his feelings had actually been hurt had all ultimately proven to be unsuccessful, and he knew better than to use kissing as a weapon, it too often backfired and this was very much a case in point.

As though Oliver sensed the weakness somehow, damn him for it, the next time he was being touched was much gentler. “We could dance right here, if you wanted.” The words were breathed between them. That was when Marcus realised that they could still hear the music from the hall.

He made a decision. “Nah,” he said, not hesitating to turn down the suggestion. “Come on. Let’s go back inside.” He gave Oliver a pointed look then, and threw down the gauntlet. “Together.” It was a ceasefire, or the closest that they’d get, because they still needed to talk about the actual feelings involved at some point.

There was no phasing a Gryffindor with that kind of challenge, though, so Oliver didn’t even bat an eyelid. Show them anything like a bet you can’t and they immediately decided that not only could they, but screw you who says I can’t. The only reply Marcus got was a hand in his. It turned out he did want to kiss Oliver softly then, so it still took a few minutes longer for them to get back to the hall. When they did, the night sky that illuminated the ceiling had darkened to hold a spill of stars, and the lights had gone down to something far lower and barely there.

Oliver got his one dance. What he also got was a truth in his ear. “I’m only yours if you’re mine. Non-negotiable. What about it?”

The night wasn’t over yet.

#the potential for chaos #yule ball #ol writes things #flintwood #flintwoodnet #Marcus x Oliver #marcus flint #oliver wood

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