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my-hyperfixation-trash-can · 3 years

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Hetalia’s Russia and DID/OSDD 1-b

Hey! So @autistic-hetalia your blog said you accept neurodiverse head canons and I thought maybe I could share this one with your blog!

I believe the Hetalia character of Russia has OSDD 1-b (Otherwise Specified Disociative Disorder or possibly DID, being Dissociative Identity Disorder) and this is why.

Just a note,

There is no such thing as an evil alter. Do not demonize people with DID or Other Dissociative Disorders! Those with this disorder are victims of Trauma and are likely to continue being victims of abusers, rarely do they become abusers!

Anyways, -cough cough- I’d love if anyone wants to add to this with more evidence!

1. Russia had a traumatic childhood

He is shown to have had abusive bosses who would punish him. He is threatened by one to invent steam power by the end of the week or be punished. Tartar Yoke mentioned by Lithuania as one of his bosses was also known for his cruelty. So the Authority figured in his youth were often cruel and held power over him.

His environment is cold and unforgiving much like an abusive home. Russia often describes his home as cold, quiet and lonely. He rarely found support from his land and often struggled to get by. The environment and home were harsh with little support. It is also implied he froze to death each Winter, and celebrated the year he didn’t.

This is on top of having to deal with other nations attacking him, making him feel helpless. Many nations “bullied” him in attempts to conquer him. He was mobed and pursed every day by Mongolia. That is exhausting to have everyone around you be a threat. (Lithuania and his sisters were the only nations kind to him in his youth) Early on, he learns that force and strength are what matters.

Next point tw sexual abuse and assault

He also felt a great deal of responsibility to care for his sisters. He was close to them, as they were experiencing similar issues and not violent to him. He had to be the strong one. Belarus and her unhealthy attachment to Russia depending on the age she started her behaviors may have also contributed to his trauma. All of the siblings have unhealthy attitudes towards boundaries with their bodies and the bodies of others, implying another type of abuse. Ukraine and Belarus took victim roles. Russia took on an abusers. Ukraine only ever suggests using her body to get what she wants as if never taught anything else, even as a child that’s what she knows. Belarus I don’t know where to begin, but her staring off is certainly dissociative like, paired with other trust issues. In a diary entry she is stated to have possibly messaged Ukraine’s breasts, once again showing more unhealthy boundaries with attachments to loved ones. Someone taught her that. And Russia, who internalized his abusers, acted out his abuse on others as implied with Lithuania looking distressed dressed as a maid and Russia holding a whip. In another non canon game Himaura worked on, Bulgaria in the bad ending is shown tied up and naked implied to be whipped by Russia as Russia says this is “tradition” or possibly more routine implying this is something he does often.

The idea with dissociative disorders is that the repetitive trauma that happens has to be too much for the mind of that individual child in comparison to the culture they’re raised in, and it conflicts with getting their needs met. And to the countries, all of them know Russia has had a life with far more conflicts in his youth than most, and a great deal of pain.

2. Russia has General Winter (GW for short)

General Winter manifests when Russia is being attacked by other nations in order to defend him, or to be a tormentor to Russia himself (such as freezing him to death each Winter).

This is oddly similar to what is known as a persecutor alter. These alters have the goal in mind to protect the host or body, but they’re a bit misguided in how to do that. They might take on the form of an abuser, or something outside the body, this turns into being an Introject. I’ll post a link to more info on DID/OSDD at the end of the post. The educational videos playlist will have a video on alter roles.

Russia’s bosses often abused him, and if he had an alter like this it would make sense that it would take the form of a general, someone in power who feels so much bigger and stronger than him. A boss who can push him around and make him behave in a way that will avoid further trauma from the real abusers. Winter the season, being another tormenting force of the environment, is another abuser, and it makes sense GW would take that into his identity. Russia feels helpless to it. It is also worth noting that other nations who also had to deal with Harsh winters do not have General Winter as an ally. He only protects Russia.

It would also explain why General Winter protects Russia from others attacking him. He took the ideologies of his abusers to heart, so GW pushes people away and treats them like threats. He feels strong by holding power and fear over others and force. If I can be stronger, no one can hurt me or would dare try, this is the mentality.

I believe GW can manifest as he does because Russia has magic. It’s canon that Russia can do magic or has a strange magic of his own, so whose to say GW can’t utilize it too. Perhaps even to let himself manifest sometimes in his spirit like form. This is more a headcanon or idea though.

Russia himself however is shown to be very passive with his bosses. These are people who hold power over him that he can’t really run away from or fight. So his response is to faun or freeze. This is basically stated in the comics (picture below.) and it’s often that alters have a specific role. Russia’s would be to people please those who he can’t fight. Making General Winter’s job to defend from attack.

3. Russia is shown to dissociate

When he is told to do an impossible amount of work, he just straight up loses himself in a fantasy immediately to escape the reality of the situation. There are other instances too, some in his childhood directly, but this was the most overt. This is from To your Hearts content, Russia!

4. Russia Is Inconsistent

There are times when Russia feels very different from moment to moment.

He goes from open about himself to swiftly sadistic and cold. He has moments of childish behavior to moments of maturity. These, when combined with the rest of my points, are worth noting. He both wants to hurt (possibly destroy) the others, but also be liked by them?

You can’t destroy people and have them like you.

The baltic Trio who lived a substantial amount of time with him still are confused by his unpredictable behavior. Each encounter The Baltic’s have with Russia is marked by a fear of what he might do. And not having certainty, thus they say things without knowing if it’s safe or not.

Even to Lithuania, (Whom Russia often shows Vulnerability to, in moments like bloody Sunday and Sharing his dreams in Outsourcing Sequel)living with Russia feels a strange theme park where he never knew what to expect. Lithuania has been shown to be great in strategy and games of wit, and a commendable leader with great people skills, yet he only has a general idea of Russia’s behavior? He is seen advising Prussia and Moldova that Russia likes it when people laugh or cry easily (This being predictable to Russia and thus easier to navigate social situations with) so it’s not like Lithuania isn’t paying attention. Russia shows moments of vulnerability and his thought process in panels like Bloody Sunday, which is quite telling as to what he believes are his responsibilities, and how the world works.

Now the real question is “why is he like this?”

He only understands the world from the point of view of someone who still lives in the abuse and knows no other options. He never had anyone teach or show him different. His world is ruled by who is the strongest, and if you can obey the strong you won’t get hurt or discarded. “We don’t want children who can’t play nice,” sounds like something an abuser told him frequently in his youth.

Russia just doesn’t have a support system due to his strained relationships with everyone. So he keeps relying on old defense mechanisms, hence letting General Winter step in when something threatens his sense of safety.

Nearly Every time (at least that’s what I noticed) Russia is emotionally vulnerable to someone, he suddenly changes to be sadistic or scary. It successfully pushes the person away and Reestablishes the fear of Russia in the individual, returning him to a state of being feared and alone where none of the other countries can hurt him. Examples below.

France talking to Russia after meetings and asking him personal questions would result in Russia ending the conversation by scaring him with a scsry remark and aura suddenly.

Russia Comforting China after Japan turns on him, he is kind and compassionate at first, but suddenly changes at the end.

The Baltic Trio never knows what to expect. He frequently uses fear and force to keep them.

This behavior seems directly contradictory to wanting friends and having a warm and lively home. So GW still reacts with a trauma response, and Russia reacts in line with his wishes of making friends and having others around him. The Use of force and intimidation is naturally the middle ground between their wishes. Russia believes everyone is his friends, and doesn’t see how his behavior is pushing people away. Other times he seems to want friends to like him back, like when he sent France an anonymously written letter to his radio show. However he has wishes that contradict.

Now, I think he sees friends as people he can keep near him that he enjoys the company of. (This doesn’t need to be mutual or involve trust, just force) but those wants directly contradict.

I think GW is passively influencing him with some of the behavior rather than switching out right, but either option still would have the same effects. Passive influence is when an alter is close to the front, or feels/thinks something strong enough that it affects the person at the front. Making them behave in a way that is ooc for them, but not the other who intentionally or unintentionally influenced them.

This would explain sudden shifts to a cruel threatening position with other nations, something that will most likely always be a threat GW needs to defend against. He is particularly cold and defensive with anyone that has a chance to hurt him, (or tries to look into his psyche) regardless of if they made a move to do so.

More on passive influence can be found in the sources at the bottom under educational playlist.

5. Misc. Points of knowledge

Russia’s character originally was meant to be a cry baby, and only when he drinks, has a complete switch in personality. Frankly I’m glad he was changed to the complex guy we have now. However I think this concept wasn’t fully lost.

His character song, Winter, seems to talk of him experiencing freezing to death each Winter. Further adding to his repetitive trauma.

It is not unheard of for nations to have disorders and conditions. Australia has ADHD, Prussia is Albino, Lithuania has severe anxiety (and possibly PTSD), so who is to say a nation like Russia can’t have a dissociative disorder?

It is stated in one of Russia’s character bios that “General Winter is always with him”, however where? I don’t physically see him, but perhaps we can’t because he’s sharing a body with Russia.

In summary

Russia dissociates under stress

Russia has repetitive traumas and an ongoing history of abuse all his life

Russia has inconsistent behavior and attachments

General Winter could certainly be a separate personality and functions exactly like an introject/persecutor alter would to their host.

Russia acts out and damages relationships, acting in inconsistent ways that might play out his own abuse, and/or reflect his desires to keep others near him.

As a note, I actually have DID, so this could be my projecting, but please don’t yell at me about how I made a “villain” have DID and feed into evil alters and split Stareotypes. I would only like to raise interest and provide an example of what a misrepresented disorder can look like. And the links below are there if you want to make your mind up for yourself and educate yourself if this inspires your portrayal of him! This isn’t meant to be insensitive, I’ve been working on this post for months to word it as sensitive as I could while also acknowledging Russia is still responsible for his and GW’s actions. Saying he has DID isn’t to excuse it, just explain it.

Don’t erase his victims, but don’t erase that he also is one.

(This blog below was also really helpful, but this post covers a lot of Russia’s earlier trauma and his mentality)

https://ellawritesficssometimes.tumblr.com/post/175060886956

Research for DID and OSDD 1b below: (along with links to comics)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm56LzW0BA_P7-yL3rK7INZDDozTayJvJ

https://www.hetarchive.net/blog/tag/russia/

http://hetarchive.net/tag/russia/

http://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2013/10/11/blog-entry-1411/

https://hetalia.fandom.com/wiki/Russia

https://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2019/01/29/about-the-fact-that-russias-history-is-too-scary/

Below is for an example of dissociation:

http://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2019/02/28/to-your-hearts-content-russia/

https://youtu.be/ZV3ToVA5BqQ

youtube

https://did-research.org/origin/comorbid/dd/osdd_udd/index.html

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belphegorbillickin · 3 years

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Honestly, I love Mammon but I'm sick of his sweetness. I see him EVERYWHERE, and it's like the others don't exist. I like it when characters lose their calm you know? Esp that time when we reject Satan's pact, I really liked how he got worked up over such a thing lmao. And of course, most of the ones who tried killing mc had stupid reasons, except for Lucifer imo, but since when did demons make sense?

Alright, sure, they can still be sweet, but imagine if they ACTUALLY were dark characters. Corrupting human souls, selfish desires, blah blah. I'm not saying they can't love mc, ofc they can be sweet and lovable, but that doesn't mean they'd lose their normal habits and quirks. You cannot differentiate between them and normal humans now. The traits that would portray them as demons isn't there.

And perhaps yes, routes would've been fun. Right/wrong answers? Seems legit lmao. But like you said, the characters could've been done so much better.

I liked them at the start, now that I think of it asmo was never really what he seemed to be at the start, but in the recent events to me, at least, he's all but that. Diavolo, Barbatos, they have potential to be dark characters lmao. Asmo too, esp abt Helene, he sure was manipulative. Seeing Satan just be about cats/books upsets me bcuz he's one of my favs, and like you said, I feel he could've been a MUCH better character, plus idk he seems like he could be dark too. Other than beel & mammon, and I really don't know about belphie since he's become pretty sweet now, I feel everyone else could be written as characters with darker, more fitting demon personalities.

Though I love how we can go on about one topic for ages lmao. Lmk if my rambles become too annoying lol – 🍹

Don't worry about it, I really enjoy talking about it and I'm the queen of rambling lol. It's actually kinda hard for me to be concise when it comes to things like this.

And yes! Satan's reaction to rejection was exactly what I was thinking about when I mentioned that. I don't doubt most of the others would've reacted the same either tbh, but the difference between his reason for wanting to kill MC and his brothers' felt very different imo.

I'm kinda repeating myself, but I think people really overlook how cold Asmo was regarding getting MC killed. In that sense I can see how they get along with each other so well. I think I huge part of that is people coming in knowing that they're all gonna love MC and MC can't die so they don't even think about threats or subtle manipulation, but he's one of the most malicious imo since it was so cool-headed and planned.

Kind of like the theories about Barbatos and/or Diavolo purposefully sending you to a traumatic death because executing Belphie would cause the brothers to revolt. (Which I believe to extent btw.) Those four stand out as a lot more demonic imo because they can't be called crimes of passion. I miss the days where they both just casually admitted to taking part in a torture dungeon.

Personally I love the idea of unavoidable demonic corruption. Like the "tragic lovers suffering from fate" trope but where the demon isn't just an innocent victim that can't control it at all and MC doesn't just take it happily without consequences.

I'm not against MC suffering the consequences of a demon boyfriend, far from it, but even if you don't go the direct route there's so many ways to do it.

Even just slowly losing your morals because all the demons (and old-ass human with some most likely odd moral quirks, if only from being alive so long in horrible times) around you treat horrible things as something as mundane as breathing. Even if they snap back at least acknowledging it is a huge step up.

I'd be terrified and paranoid 24/7 knowing everyone around me wants to literally eat me and has eaten humans before. Even if they hated the taste or something knowing they're capable of it is scary af.

Like a Beelzebub who truly doesn't mean to hurt MC but doesn't think twice about breaking their beloved pet's bones right in front of them. A Beelzebub that finds it just as hard to avoid eating humans as he did in the intro even when he knows he shouldn't harm MC's family.

Or even just a Beelzebub so wracked by guilt and light on morals that can't bring himself to not always enthusiastically take Belphie's side even when he knows it's hurting MC. A kind of parasitic relationship where Beel guilts MC into staying and helps Belphie trap & manipulate them in ways Belphie could never do by himself.

A Leviathan that finds it increasingly hard to keep his jealously inwards now that he has someone to fight for and can't feel secure unless he can feel their envy. A Belphegor that slowly manipulates MC into abandoning all of their responsibilities and friends until their life is ruined and they have to depend on him.

I get that some of them are a bit harder to do without reminding people of irl abuse they may have faced, namely Satan, Levi, Lucifer, and ofc Asmo, but there are ways to make it more supernatural and less mundane. Besides there are way, way worse otomes out there that don't even market themselves as dark like Obey Me did.

I find it interesting that so much of the fanbase absolutely hates those kind of themes when they're so hard to avoid in otome and it was kind marketed towards people who like it. Like I genuinely wonder how they heard about it and got through demons insulting & trying to kill them in the early days of Obey Me before you knew they got better.

In the end though none of that can really happen without routes imo. Those kind of storylines can't be done well in the 10 seconds of individual interaction we get, even a whole lesson is too little time. And again even people who like darker things might freak out when Asmo's the one doing it or get turned off by Levi so they won't risk their money. It's so frustrating seeing the lost potential and knowing it's probably never gonna happen.

Speaking of I always thought Mammon was pretty robbed too. Not only did he never have the same freedom to harm MC as the others, but he was also directly responsible for their safety. Like sure they'd all be punished, but you have a different mindset when an authority figure constantly makes you aware and you have more chances to bond.

I think even cannon Mammon would've been more dangerous and a lot more rude if he wasn't their babysitter. The others, except Satan & Belphie ofc, probably would've been "nicer" and more controlled knowing Lucifer was breathing down their neck too imo.

Like he does seem less violent and hot-headed than the others, but they're not the same circumstances. Even a while after the pact he'd probably sell MC in an instant if he knew he wasn't going to be severely punished.

A lot of his possessiveness feels like a dog guarding a bone rather than true jealously imo, even when they're doing it as endearing thing. People automatically assuming he was lying when he said he'd rather MC die than be saved by someone else, but was he really at that point? Just because someone is tsundere at times doesn't mean they're incapable of being honest or not that into someone.

That's also kinda what I meant by infatuation too. Like sure they could like a human, but that doesn't mean they'll be that upset when they die or will never get bored. It's kind of like those people that immediately get a new pet after theirs dies, or even before so they don't have to be without a dog for a single second. Or the kind of demon that wants to "ruin" you with their sin until you can't go on as the ultimate act of love, even though they know it'll kill you.

#asks #personal

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shadowfae · 3 years

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1- Not much tbh, just what you've posted, and 2- To be honest I quite like your long answers. It can definitely wait though, you should get some sleep.

Is your warpriest link a constant thing? Does it ever fade into the background? I'm contemplating forming a second link, something happier than my copinglink, and I'm not sure how to tell when to tell when the line of a link vs a persona is crossed when not worn out of necessity.

And the original ask so I have it on hand. I did take a look at your original context, and if you're cool with it, I'll edit this post with a link for those who may find this is a useful answer and need that on hand. Otherwise, it'll stay a mystery.

But yes, it seems like my Sabe experiences would be a useful thing to talk about here. And in order to do that, I need to go over four things: who and what Sabe is, why he exists the way that he does, what that does for me, and lastly what I think he is in terms of terminology and why.

To start, here is his toyhou.se profile, if you want to read more about his actual story and thoughts and whatnot. But I doubt you'll have the necessary context for that, so let me go into it. RuneScape (RS) is one of the oldest MMORPGs in existence. WoW might be older but I doubt it. Basically it's a medieval magic fantasy that's very long running and you the player end up the World Guardian, aka the guy that stops the gods (who are very powerful folks who just don't die of natural causes and typically stand for some philosophy) from blowing the world up because Guthix, the dead god of balance, asked you to. Well, he voluntold you. And that makes you a major chess piece, Elder Gods get involved, it's a big mess.

But before all that happened, back in 2006 when I was introduced to the game and very shitty at it, well. I liked the lore insofar that I've always liked the lore, it was interesting and I liked thinking about it. I didn't have membership and I sucked at playing so I just read the wiki and the God Letters over and over and sometimes the Postbag from the Hedge. Alongside my two friends, we played at being children of the then-triad of main gods: Saradomin, Guthix, and Zamorak.

I liked Zamorak best, but I didn't think his ideas would be the best for society as a whole, so I ended up playing child of Guthix. Eventually we grew up and grew apart but every couple of years I'd go back to RuneScape, read the lore, settle on what choices I'd make if I could play, and think about being the player character. In 2010 I discovered a fic - dawn by khayr, it's on Ao3 and dA - about Iban, son of Zamorak, right around when I was reading Percy Jackson. Cue him showing up as a soulbond and an older brother figure and guiding me right up until the end of sixth grade. Iban got me through the ruthless bullying that would later set the stage for all my major suicidal-ideation and self-hatred for the entirety of high school: even then, I was more stable than I might've been otherwise, because he interfered.

Saradomin stands for strength through order. Procedures and law and diplomacy and war strategy. He was originally kind of a ripoff of the Christian god, but he's grown to be more of an order-over-peace character and is quite well-written. Guthix stands for strength through balance, and has been all over the board in terms of what he's done and will do. He's kind of a dick, actually, but his heart's in the right place.

Zamorak, as you've heard, is strength through chaos and personal strife. It's no "the strong over the weak" or "the strong take care of the weak", it's flat-out "everyone is strong, and just need the right circumstances to tap into it to be the best they can possibly be". Now, his philosophy is kind of more for warriors and scholars, but if you tilt your head, it applies to everyone. Chronically ill folks will find their chaos in fighting to get up every day and maintain a life. Folks in traumatizing, abusive situations find that chaos in their very survival. Scholars challenge themselves and their fellows and their predecessors trying to find the answers they so need. Nobody in lockstep, no such thing as "we've always done it this way."

A lot of human Zamorakians and Saradominist propaganda says that Zamorak is simply absolute evil: and to be fair, when most of that was written, he kinda was because he was based loosely on the Christian devil. Later writing says that they're typically mistaken on that. Zamorak isn't evil. The very first thing he did upon becoming a god was fulfill a promise and lead a slave rebeliion. (The Avernic uprising, if anyone's curious.) He stands for the downtrodden and says "You are never going to get your dignity by going through the motions and trying to peacefully show you're worth respect. Burn some shit down and prove that you won't stand for this bullshit."

Zamorak in a Saradominist's eyes is someone whose banner you wear when you want to be a crazy murderer. Zamorak in a Zamorakian's eyes is the singing voice who murmurs "Get up, this isn't enough to kill you, you can still do this," when transphobic laws get passed or you hear a slur thrown your way on the street.

And as someone who grew up queer and nonhuman, yeah, that resonates, and the older I get the more I think "Guthixian philosophy is best for a society at large, but Zamorakianism for individuals is good." Because Zamorakianism can't really apply on a theocratic level. It really doesn't. It turns into American bootstrap culture and no social services and all that shitty stuff.

The funny thing is that Zamorak himself has no issues helping out if he thinks you need it. (If he didn't, he wouldn't be cool with asking for help, or giving it when he's asked. Which he does do repeatedly so. The man has more kindness in him than people want to admit.) What I do find fascinating is what he thinks of the actions of some of his longtime subordinates, who clearly support him, but I don't think support his actual philosophy. Because if you ask me, he'd side with the downtrodden humans of Meiyerditch, not the vampire lords that treat them like cattle. He's proven that he likes humans, and doesn't see them as unworthy. I do wonder if Jagex will show us what he might do about that.

Either way. Ahem. Over the course of a decade and a half, I keep going back to RuneScape, refining my philosophy and side, thinking again what I would do playing the game proper. About... I want to say five years ago, Jagex opened up the Sixth Age and I finally noticed, and they rewrote every god's philosophy because they wanted every single one to be actually playable. Not just "hurr durr evil" but actually have a logical line of thought. They probably didn't have pop culture paganism in mind, but the gods of RS are incredibly well-suited to it.

Well, I found that out, and immediately went through every god's philosophy, and reasoned my way through it. What does a worshipper of this god look like? What sort of life would they lead? If i apply this to me, what does that look like from that perspective? Do I understand this? Is it comfortable to exist in?

And as it turns out, I understand Zamorak the most, followed a close second by Armadyl, which was quite surprising. Zaros remains incomprehensible and I don't trust like that. (That's another story.) So I thought about it more, and it stuck even when I wandered off to different fandoms and interests. But what happened was that I ended up internalizing it, unknowingly and without meaning to.

It meant that when, two years later, I ended up in a horrific and traumatizing situation, the anchor I hit that held me together was a mixture of being a Devil - I am a fucking God you will obey me and recognize my power - and Zamorak's core philosophy: this cannot kill me, this cannot stop me, this is pure fucking hell and I am going to laugh in the face of death because people are forged in hellfire and I will walk away knowing what I'm made of.

And I was right. Honestly, out of everyone who was there with me, I think I'm the only one that was that deeply entrenched and walked out without trauma. I do not believe I could have done that had I not internalized Zamorak's philosophy. (That isn't to say if the others had that philosophy they wouldn't be traumatized, because there were absolutely other factors I wouldn't know about and some that I do and didn't do them any favours; but I am saying that it saved my ass and without it, I might not have been okay.)

I walked out of that with zero regrets. Zero. Even now, I don't regret a thing. Because it doesn't matter what happened or how much I was lied to or if he deserved my kindness. I know what I perceived to be happening, and I know how I reacted, and when the pieces were down I was stronger than steel, gave kindness without considering the cost, and I walked away unscathed.

How many people can say they've looked death in the eye and laughed? More than there should be, not too many that knowing what I'm capable of when put into pure chaos isn't somehow impressive. Because it is. And Zamorak's words proved themselves, or rather, I proved him entirely correct.

And when I last went back to RuneScape, and thought about it with enough time to put it all into hindsight, well. Aw, shit, he was right. Then vaguely around that time I went back and read Dawn, which was unfinished, tracked down the author and demanded to know how it fucking ended. (She told me and we're still friends like three years later. xD) Then I went back and found my old OCs, and decided fuck it, I'm making my own World Guardian.

So first thing I did was log in and jump over to the Makeover Mage and make myself into a boy. Kept the plateskirt though, I wanted to have the RS equivalent of a limp wrist to prove I'm Very Queer. Then I went about remaking my character. I wanted to make a self-insert, I was old enough to know it wasn't cringey, it was just fun, but I didn't want to use my default avatar with the black hair over one eye and the Chaorruption. I wanted to make a new self-insert based in nothing I was already using.

So I made the most beautiful man I could! Long, dark brown hair, pretty semi-dark skin, looked Kharidian, and then I said fuck it and made him Zamorak's youngest son. Originally, he was adopted when he was young by Iban and Clivet, and suffered serious imposter syndrome when being WG meant he'd never get demigod powers. But as I grew more confident in myself, he ended up getting powers? And then eventually I rewrote his backstory, and then wrote about his mother, and her relationship with Zamorak, and then he had friends like Blaire and Icthlarin (who was also my furry awakening, rip me).

Then with the most recently questline I've been getting a bit more into RS magical theory, and I've been mulling it over lots, and Seanan McGuire's Middlegame definitely helped; and I figured out how I wanted him to handle being World Guardian: it didn't make sense for him to be openly Zamorak's son, the other gods would just target his family to manipulate him. So I had him play neutral openly and Zamorakian to his friends, effectively living a double life.

Then he just looked up one day and said "Oh, by the way, my father won't acknowledge me to keep me safe but I don't know that so we have a very unsteady relationship because I don't know if he loves me", and then Children of Mah came out, and he was all "Oh and I think I just got disowned (I didn't, Zamorak was protecting me, but I don't know that) so my relationship with Zamorak is Fucking Shitty" and he was stuck that way until I figured out how to save their relationship.

It culminated in Sabe not knowing how his Mahjarrat powers worked and guessing, and hating himself for being half-and-half, and missing everything about being a Mahjarrat, and literally you couldn't have gotten more obvious in order to tell me I was having Fucking Issues coming to terms with the fact I didn't have any understanding or knowledge of my own heritage, but whatever, eventually I noticed that.

And as I've been working to understand myself and my heritage, so too has Sabe been doing that with his Mahjarrat heritage. But for the longest time, no matter how I put him and Zamorak in the same room in a scene to try and get them to talk it out, it wasn't working. Something wasn't right. Sabe resented being World Guardian, hated having to betray his family, didn't know if he was wanted, and hated himself for having to kill Mah, the mother of his species.

Not that long ago, a few months actually, he informed me (which is my shorthand for 'I suddenly figured out this happened, and it genuinely feels like remembering that one fucking word you have on the tip of your tongue, I always knew and just forgot for a while') that no, he'd been ripped in two by a hope devourer, brought to his father's stronghold, and Zamorak split his magic between mortal and divine in order to get around his godproofing and heal him. Zamorak's intense worry for his youngest son was what caused Sabe to break down and tell him honestly what was going on and how he was feeling, which caused Zamorak to do the same, and they finally, finally made up.

A week later, I noticed the connection between Sabe's Mahjarrat issues and my Irish issues, and started to wonder if he was a linktype.

I mean... he's a self-insert. He makes the choices I would, the me in the here and now, that I think are best. He's not a person I was and still know myself to be, he's not someone I grow into, he's not living his life beside me like a shadow. He's me, choosing the things I do, because I say so. But he's also me in the things he reflects, the things he struggles with, and things I had zero fucking conscious input on.

Sabe is the person I am when a crisis hits and I have to deal with the chaos. Sabe is the person I am when I need to lead. Sabe is the person I am when I am desperate to be known and loved by those I consider family. Sabe is the person I am when I want to be sure in where I came from, where I will return to, and the things that I will always be. Sabe is a man of darkness who knows the light as an acquaintance and nothing more, who is cruel and careless and kind.

Sabe is a warpriest of Zamorakian philosophy, because it took me twenty fucking years to put into words how I see the world, and now that I know, I will argue them to death and use them to help others. Drakath may have wanted a messiah to share the hivemind with others. Sabe is a warpriest, spreading the word and calling home the broken and the damned. He is the Last Rider, not the last of the Ilujanka but the one who keeps riding towards the chaos and never falls, no matter what.

Some of who Sabe is I have conscious input on. A whole lot of him was unintentional and perfectly reflects me.

So when it comes to terminology... I don't know what he is. A self-insert, yes. A linktype, maybe. A kintype, also maybe. Sabe doesn't feel like my past linktypes, because Sabe isn't always catharsis and comfort. Until he made up with his dad, Sabe was brutal and hurt a lot and constantly yearning for his foundation and slowly going mad. It wasn't fun. I just refused to do anything but see the story through. I was going to get it right. I wanted to see it to the end. I wanted to be the Last Rider, even though I didn't phrase it that way.

But to answer your actual question, of what he feels like when I'm not actively being him out of necessity, desire, and active thought. If it fades into the background.

And like... it can? Sabe as he is, recognized for what and who he is, is kind of a new thing. Sabe as a concept is very old, but Sabe as what he is right now is new, and confusing, and honestly I'm still trying to figure out what to make of it.

Like, seriously. Sabe is Zamorak's son. Am I Zamorak's son? Is he keeping an eye on me as I am? Would he be proud of me? Would he offer his approval of my progress? Does that make me, in some way, the World Guardian?

I have not a clue, buddy. Not a goddamn clue.

So what it means is that I've been paying attention, really. I don't just become strong in times of crisis. I've been trying to do better. Be better. Learn, and listen, and rethink myself. Break out of lockstep, of doing things the way I've always done them. Try to always do better than I did, build habits I like, stop waiting for things to change and just do it. Become the chaos, instead of waiting for it to hit me.

It means I need to live up to what Guthix told Sabe to do. It means being gentler, being kinder, not burning bridges when I'm not sure. It means keeping an eye out for any sign Zamorak's listening, in case I am his son, in case I really have to decide what I'm gonna do about being the son of chaos incarnate.

But other than the questioning, what it feels like is just... what I was already dealing with, just a little more at arm's length and easier to deal with. Once I recognize that his issues are reflective of mine, if I solve his, I have a pretty good idea of how to solve mine. Some of it won't work exactly right - Zamorak will always forgive him for not being the son he expected he might have had, my own parents may not, yay I'm queer and pagan - but it's a good rule of thumb.

It's also just comforting to know that when in doubt, nothing can kill me, because I simply refuse to die. I am World Guardian, I am a demigod of chaos incarnate, all the hellfire in the world can do nothing but strengthen me. And if I present those to myself as unshakeable beliefs, because for Sabe they are, then I'll be okay. It probably couldn't stop most disasters or tragedies, but I got hit by a car, broke five bones, and walked away with a record recovery time, so I mean... I can't prove that I can't die by some accident or tragedy, but you also can't prove that I can. (Trying to do so usually falls under what we call 'murder', and I personally believe I can't be murdered. Only assassinated.)

But really, I think the worst that could possibly happen with a new linktype is that you learn what not to do. It's new, it's scary, it's chaotic, and from where I'm standing, that's the best way to learn.

#asks #anonymous #on copinglinking #on voluntary identities #on questioning #my experiences #here have me yelling about runescape and complaining about questioning #You Asked For This #essays of the skyrose garden #actually yeah this is an essay

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miracle-sham · 4 years

Text

Plan D for Dicey.

| {MaribatMarch2020 – Week 1, Day 6: Unconventional Weapon} |

| [Ao3 Link] | | [Masterlist Link] |

| Triggers/Warnings: D&D typical Violence, kidnapping/imprisoning of Player Characters, Explicit Language/Swearing, (Also not so much a Trigger/Warning but this a gen/platonic fic). |

| The Wayne (bat)family attempt to play their first streamed session of Warriors and Warlocks. Unpredictably, things go surprisingly well. |

| Word Count: 4323 |

==–==

| A/N: So firstly, I got really carried away writing this so it's being posted a day late. Sorry! But fun fact, this means I'm posting this on my birthday, so wooh! Also if you can't tell yet, I'm a massive D&D geek (been playing for roughly five years now but I still fell like a complete noob whenever I play or DM :P). And DC has its own version of D&D (W&W/Warriors and Warlocks) and upon reading Day 6's prompt, my immediate thought was the improvised weapons mechanic from D&D. Also also, I originally intended for this fic to be MariTim (hence the tags) but I got caught up in all the platonic fun of the family playing D&D I kinda forgot to write in the shippy bits? |

| A/N cont.: Writing this was actually a massive challenge because at the start of this I had absolutely zero idea on how to write a D&D session as a ficlet. So this might be a bit more clunky and unrefined compared to my normal work (or that could just be my self-doubt talking). As I mentioned earlier, I got really carried away writing this because I love D&D so much. I would have written more but this ficlet is long enough and late enough as is. But if I were to continue this ficlet in additional parts, I definitely can already think of so many ways to improve writing this sort of fic (and maybe next time I won't forget to add in shippy stuff). Anyway, thanks to those who read these A/Ns, and I hope you guys enjoy reading this! |

| If you want to be tagged in future oneshots/fics, or a specific Au, then comment or send me a DM/ask! |

| Also side note, Don't Like? Don't Read. Also also, please do not criticise any of my writing. This was written for fun and receiving criticism, even in a compliment/criticism sandwich, is the exact opposite of fun. |

==–==

Marinette, with Tikki on her shoulder, bursts into the Wayne Manor games room, barely able to contain her excitement. As the first in the room, she can't help but glance across the square conference U-table already set up with everyone's character sheets, dice equipment, other equipment, and snacks and drinks. Bounding over to her designated seat (right side, place nearest to the DM's section of the table), she pulls her chair out and sits down.

The rest of the Wayne (bat)family, including Steph but sans Alfred and Barbara, slowly filter into the room and take their designated seats. Jason takes his seat next to Marinette whilst Dick takes the seat directly opposite. Steph nabs the seat beside Jason, Damian stakes a claim to the seat next to Dick (despite it already being his designated seat), Cass sits down in the seat beside Steph, leaving Bruce to take his seat next to Damian.

Tim's the last of the family to enter. He slips into his seat, the DM's seat—as he is the most experienced Warriors and Warlocks player at the table—and grins downright ferally at his players.

He looks up at the cameras and recording equipment that is set up in the middle of the open space in the square U-table. “Hello and welcome to Plan D for Dicey, the first-ever Wayne Family Warriors and Warlocks fifth edition stream. We weren't quite expecting so many people to petition that we stream our sessions after a few people—” Tim fake coughs twice, “—Dick and Marinette—” Tim fake coughs twice again (whilst Marinette and Dick both grin and wave cheerfully at the cameras), “—rambled about their characters and some highlights from previous sessions, on Twitter. So we decided to give this a go and see how the session pans out whilst being streamed. So as a word of warning, prepare yourselves for the Venators, probably one of the most dysfunctional parties in W&W to miraculously band together.”

As soon as he says this, the rest of the table burst into grins and cheers (excluding Bruce who despite also smiling, looks like he's just aged five years). Marinette's side of the table all high five each other in their excitement.

Tim pauses for a second. “For anyone unfamiliar with who I am, I'm Tim. And as you can probably tell from the table set up, I'm the Dungeon Master for this campaign. That's because I've been playing W&W for just over five years now and have had experience DMing before. But for the rest of the players here, this is their first campaign and by extension first time playing. So before we begin our session, first let us introduce our players and their characters.” He nods to Marinette's side of the table.

She immediately slaps her hands on the table, pushes her chair out and stands, she waves at the cameras again. “Hi, I'm Marinette and my character is Nella Septa-Punctata. She's a Protector Aasimar Celestial Pact of the Chain Warlock, and she has a Sprite Familiar called Tikki. Nella's Chaotic Good and a little anxious but she tries her best to be a kind and heroic adventurer.” She then sits back down, scraping her chair back in again.

Jason raises an eye at Marinette's antics but shrugs. “I'm Jay, I play a Winged Variant Feral Tiefling Gunslinger called Rehodros. He's Chaotic Neutral, verging on Chaotic Evil at times, and he only joined the Venators because they helped save him from backstory related stuff and he ended up getting reluctantly attached to them.”

Deciding to also stand up from her chair as well as slap the table with both hands, Steph smirks at the cameras. “I'm Stephanie, my character's Speilsol Leyer, and she's a Chaotic Good Variant Human Ancestral Guardian Barbarian with the Tavern Brawler Feat. She lives for beating up bad guys and doing good, even if it goes against the law.”

Cass decides to take things one step further and moves to sit on the back of the chair, balancing it carefully as to not let herself fall. She waves at the cameras. “Hi, I Cass. Play Balabitara. Neutral Good, Kalashtar Shadow Monk.” She then sits back down on the chair normally.

With one half of the table introduced, Tim nods towards the other side of the table.

Dick winks at the cameras, “I'm Dick and I play Niriwyse, a Chaotic Good Eladrin Glamour Bard who's along for the ride and just wants to have a good time.” At that, he wiggles his eyebrows.

Scoffing, Damian glares at the cameras. “I am Damian and my character is Rokian. He is a Firbolg Circle of the Shepherd Druid and is Lawful Neutral in the sense that he believes the only laws that should be obeyed in the world, are that or the laws of nature. He begrudgingly joined this party of adventurers after they saved an animal friend of his.”

This leaves Bruce as the only one to have not introduced himself and his character yet. He smiles his Brucie Wayne smile at the cameras. “My name's Brucie and my character is called Chirop. He's a Chaotic Good Bugbear Swashbuckler Rogue. He comes across as very gruff, but he's just a big old teddy bear at heart.”

Tim coughs under his breath. “Alright, with our introductions over, let's get on with the show.” The lights in the room suddenly dim and turn a dark red shade whilst creepy echoing organ music begins to play from hidden speakers. “Last session, our brave party of seven adventurers were captured by the evil Lich Dreldaz whilst trying to rescue the beautiful princess Theophania—”

“—Timothea!” Corrects the rest of the table.

Rolling his eyes, Tim continues. “—from the cursed castle in which she has been trapped in, by Dreldaz.” He pauses, steepling his fingers as the dim red lighting becomes a dark grey shade. “The Venators awaken, only to find themselves shackled to the walls, in individual stone brick cells and stripped of any and all equipment bar the clothes on their backs. From what you all can immediately tell upon waking, these cells are small, cold, dark and dingy. What do you do?”

The seven players all exchange glances between themselves.

“I'd like to look around my cell, see if I can find anything or if I can get an idea of what the cellblock we're in looks like?” Jason announces after a few seconds.

Tim nods. “Roll a perception check, please.”

Jason narrows his eyes Tim. He reaches towards the red and black dice set beside his character sheet and picks up the D20. He shakes the dice in his hands before rolling it into the dice box. It lands on a 7. “Alright so because I don't have my gear any more, that means I don't have my eyes of the eagle right?”

“That's right,” Tim responds.

“Mmk, that's a seven then, plus my perception modifier… Fourteen total.” Jason glances up at Tim once he finishes calculating.

Humming, Tim glances down at his Mysterious™ DM notes. “With your Darkvision, you manage to make out that there are two small barred windows on the walls adjacent to the wall with the cell door. The door luckily has a barred window in it too, but you're too far away to glean anything from peering at it.”

Marinette purses her lips and double-checks her character sheet. “Is there anything magical about the darkness in these cells?”

“Roll an Arcana check to see.” Is Tim's response.

She reaches over to the pink and gold dice set beside her character sheet and picks up the D20. She shakes the dice in her hands before rolling it into the dice box. The D20 lands on a 16. “Sixteen! Wait, plus my arcana modifier, uh…” She scans her sheet for the relevant modifier, “plus six, so that's uh… oh heck maths, uhh I think that's twenty-two total? Yeah.” She nods to herself at calculating the maths.

Jason snorts and addresses the cameras. “This is why you should stay in school kids!”

��Huffing, Marinette elbows him in the side. “Fight me!”

Not evening flinching at the elbowing, Jason pats her on the top of her head. “Friendly fire, Mari! Friendly fire!”

Tim waits for silence with his best poker face on. “As far as you can tell, there is nothing magical about the darkness!”

“Really?” She furrows her brows. “Alright then.”

He smiles in response.

Dick glances down at his character sheet then up at Tim, he taps his fingers against the table idly as he speaks. “The walls of the cells are stone? So I can use my Cli Lyre to cast Stone Shape and create a hole in the stone where the metal shackles connect, which would free me, right!”

Clicking his tongue, Tim shakes his head. “Nope, you don't have your Cli Lyre on you right now, so you can't cast any spells from it.”

Cursing under his breath, Dick frantically scans his character sheet for anything. He reaches his spells and freezes and slaps the spell sheet (and by extension, the table). “Ah hah!” He crows, “I will cast Knock on the shackles!”

Tim raises an eyebrow, then looks down to flip through his spell cheat sheet. “When you cast the spell, it makes a loud knock that's audible for up to three hundred feet. Are you sure you want to cast this?”

Dick falters and furrows his brow, then glances around the table at the rest of the party. “I think I'll wait and see if anyone else has a way to escape this first? Wait we can all hear each other speaking from our cells, right?”

“You can indeed.” Tim answers.

“I got nothin',” Jason admits, putting on his Rehodros voice, which is just his normal voice but deeper and with a raspy—almost hissing—clipped tone.

Steph, using her Speilsol Leyer voice (which sounds like she's putting on a weak German accent), shrugs. “I could try breaking the shackles? I'm strong enough to do cool things like that?”

“But that will also be fairly loud.” Bruce points out, speaking with a gruff tone of voice (which is significantly different from his gravelly Batman tone of voice) for Chirop. “If I had my lockpicks, it would be easy to escape stealthily. But without them, I can't see a way for me to get out of these shackles.”

Damian wrinkles his nose. “I might be able to summon creatures, elementals, or fey but what I get is determined by the DM and may not be entirely helpful. However, I could try wildshaping?”

Tim smiles cryptically and the lighting behind him changes from dark grey to lime green. “You could.”

Damian nods. “Alright then, I will use my wildshape ability to transform into a spider.”

The lime green light fades to flickering orange-red light. “As you try to use your druidic abilities to magically assume the shape of a spider, you feel a burning sensation around your wrists, right where the shackles are. You are unable to transform and take…” Tim pauses as he pulls out his black and red dragon dice and rolls a D6 behind the DM screen. “Five points of fire damage.”

Cursing under his breath in Arabic, Damian glares at Tim. He crosses out his current hp and writes down the new amount.

Jason taps Marinette on the shoulder. “What about Nells, Mari? She got any tricks up her sleeve to escape?”

Marinette startles at that, having been chewing her lip and staring intently at her character sheet since her arcana check. She licks her lips then glances up. “I might…”

She taps a small stat block card with a pencil and turns to Tim with an intense stare. “Is Tikki nearby?”

At that, Tim grins widely and raises a finger. “That,” He says, flipping through his notes, “is a very good question.”

“Because on my notes, here it says that last session Tikki was invisible when we all got captured.” Marinette picks up her session notes journal and shows it to him.

“Would you say Tikki followed after you when you got caught?”

Marinette tilts her head to the side and Tikki whispers in her ear. Of course, the cameras inability to record kwamis means it just looks like she's thinking instead of listening to a flying red bug deity. “Yep, I would say that. I would also like to telepathically communicate with Tikki and ask if she can come and pick the locks because we gave her a spare Thieves' Tools kit last shopping session in case she needed to pick the locks during an invisible scouting mission!”

“Indeed you did, so Tikki flies over to your cell and will try to pick the locks on your door first. So roll a d20 and add Tikki's Dex bonus.” He instructs.

Marinette nods and picks up the dice, cupping her hands underneath it so Tikki can shake then roll it without it looking suspicious on camera. Tikki shakes the dice and drops it as Marinette separates her hands. The dice lands in the box and rolls a 16. “Plus Tikki's Dex mod, that's uh…” She scrambles for the Sprite Familiar statblock card, “Plus four, so dirty twenty!”

“That's enough to pick the lock. Do you want Tikki to enter the cell and try to pick the lock?” He asks.

She nods and repeats the roll with Tikki, this time rolling an eleven. “With mods, fifteen.” Tikki then returns to her place on Marinette's shoulder.

“Tikki barely manages to get the locks open. The shackles open and you land on the cell floor.”

Marinette punches the air. “Wooh! Freedom!”

Cass then waves her hand in the air. “Shadowstep out?”

Tim cocks his head to the side. “As you don't have Darkvision, you can't see outside your cell but you manage to use your shadowstep ability to escape the shackles. Then by peering out the barred window in the door, you manage to shadow step into the cellblock corridor.”

Marinette and Cass share a high-five.

“Let's go free everyone else!”

==–==

It takes them ten minutes to finish freeing everyone else, and start making their way out of the dungeon cell block. The Venators now make their way through the bowels of the castle, searching for the armoury in which all their belongings have been stored.

“As you push open the grand oak doors, the faint scent of sickly sweet rotting food and fire hits your noses. The doors reveal the next room to be a grand dining room with a long oak table, set as though prepared for a grand feast expecting many a guest. It's adequately lit but the two corners of the room above the door seem to glow with a dim greenish glow.” Tim pauses in his description as lighting changing to a dim greenish light behind him; he rolls a D8 four times (6, 7, 2, 4), behind the DM screen, followed by the rolling of a D20 four times (3, 19, 13, 18).

“Oh god…” Dick mutters,

Jason huffs. “What are you going to torture us with now, oh great DM?”

Tim smiles cruelly. “Four rays of fire are shot towards the party from somewhere within the dining room. First attack is an eight versus Chirop's AC?”

Bruce sighs in relief. “That's a miss.”

Tim continues to smile. “Mmk, the rest of the attacks are, twenty-four versus Balabitara's AC, eighteen versus Niriwyse's AC, and twenty-three verses Rokian's AC. I assume those hit.”

Damian narrows his eyes at Tim, whilst Dick winces and Cass pouts.

Tim rolls a D6 nine times, behind the DM screen. “Balabitara takes four points of fire damage, Niriwyse and Rokian both take eight points of fire damage.”

The three all jot down the damage taken.

Still smiling, like the truly evil DM that he is, Tim clasps his hands together. “Two skulls, enveloped with green flames, descend from the ceiling. One hovers over the grand table and the other hovers but the top of the opened doors, giving itself cover.” He pauses, then grins. “With the surprise round over, everyone roll initiative!”

Out of habit, all seven players, and Tikki, roll their D20s in almost perfect sync. Dick rolls an 18, Cass rolls a 9, Jason rolls a 14, Bruce rolls a 16, Steph rolls a 17 with advantage, Damian rolls a 2, Marinette rolls a 10, and Tikki rolls a 14.

“Twenty or above?” Tim asks.

“Twenty three,” Bruce announces.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Twenty-one.”

Dick grins, “Twenty one as well!”

Tim scribbles down the rolls on the initiative table. “D'awww, you both rolled twenty-one. Anyway, fifteen or above?”

“Tikki rolled an eighteen.” Informs Marinette.

“I got nineteen!” Steph exclaims.

Jotting down those rolls as well, Tim asks “Alright, anyone ten or above?”

Cass signs her roll, ‘fourteen.’

“Thirteen.” Marinette answers.

Tim glances at the initiative table, then at Damian. “And you Damian?”

Damian scoffs. “Three.”

“Okay.” Tim then rolls a D20 twice. “Chirop! You're up first!”

Bruce looks slightly bewildered. He clears his throat. “Can I grab the nearest sharp pieces of cutlery and sneak behind a chair?”

Tim nods. “Roll stealth.”

He rolls an 18. “My stealth modifier is plus thirteen, so thirty-one to stealth.”

Tim whistles, “To the rest of the Venators, it looks like Chirop just vanishes into thin air.”

“Are any of the enemies close enough that I could move into melee range?” He questions.

“There's one floating Flameskull hovering five foot in the air, with your Long-Limbed trait, it's well within reach,” Tim informs.

Bruce narrows his eyes. “I would like to stab the Flameskull with the sharp cutlery, knives are preferable.”

“Roll to hit. As knives are close enough to daggers, I'll say you can get away with adding your proficiency bonus as well.”

Bruce rolls, with advantage, a 19. “Plus my modifiers, that's twenty-eight to hit.”

“That hits.”

Bruce rolls for damage, 2. “That's two, so seven.” He then rolls for Surprise damage, 8 (5, 3), and Sneak Attack damage, 24 (6, 2, 5, 6, 5). “That's a total of 39 piercing damage. Then I'll use my bonus action to stab it again,” He rolls a 16, “Twenty-one to hit.”

Tim puts on his best poker face. “That also hits.”

“Then that'll be…” He rolls a 1. “One damage from the second attack.”

“The Flameskull you hit screeches in fury as it crumbles to bone dust.” Tim then proceeds to make a horrific screeching sound, for immersion of course.

“What the fuck, Timbo?” Jason asks, wincing.

Dick cringes. “At least you aren't right beside him! My poor ears!”

“Rip us closest seats.” Mumbles Marinette, wrinkling her nose.

“Rehodros, you're up next!” Tim announces gleefully, ignoring his suffering players.

Jason narrows his eyes at Tim, “I want to run over to the table, grab any food on the table that's not rotten, and yeet it at the nearest Flameskull.”

Tim hums, “Okay, the only non-rotten food you can find, is a block of aged cheese and a bowl of hardened sugar cubes.

Snorting, Jason cracks his knuckles. “Oh, I have to pick the block of aged cheese.”

“Roll your attack then. But make sure you only add your Dex modifier to the attack as you're not proficient in improvised weaponry.”

Jason rolls to attack and also gets a 19. “Twenty four to hit.”

Tim snorts. “Yeah, that definitely hits, go ahead and roll damage.”

Jason nods and rolls a 1D4, managing to get max damage. “Four! Wooh! Plus my Dex mod, that's nine damage!”

“You lob the cheese at the Flameskull, managing to cause a couple of cracks to form on its skull. It turns it's furious gaze to you, intending to intimidate you but the effect is somewhat hindered by the melting cheese covering half of its skull.” Tim flips through his notes and marks down the damage taken.

“Okay, then I want to grab the bowl of sugar and using my extra attack to throw that at the Flameskull, in the jaw.” Jason smirks and switches to his Rehodros voice, “You look like you've got a sssweet tooth, bonehead!” He rolls to attack and gets a 12. “Seventeen to hit?”

“That will hit.”

Jason rolls a 3 on the D4. “That's eight damage total.”

“As the bowl of sugar starts to melt from the heat of the fire, the sickly sweet scent of hot sugar begins to emanate from the Flameskull. The Flameskull does not look happy.” Tim pauses to glance at the initiative table. “Niriwyse! You're up.”

Dick glances down at his spell list and beams. “I'm going to cast Vicious Mockery. And say,” he puts on his Niriwyse voice, which is just his voice but higher pitch and with a British Estuary accent, “Green is so not your colour!”

Tim hums, then flips through his notes. “What's the spell Save DC on that again?”

Quickly checking his spell sheet, Dick answers, “DC 16.”

“Mmk,” Tim responds non-committally, before rolling a D20 twice from behind the DM screen. “That, unfortunately for you, is a nat 20. Which means it takes no damage and suffers no disadvantage. The Flameskull turns to you briefly, to cackle in your face, before turning its attention back to Rehodros.”

Dick frowns. “Aww that failed, welp I'll use my bonus action to give Speilsol Leyer inspiration.” He clears his throat and puts on his Niriwyse voice to sing. “Let's get down to business! To defeat, this skull! Did they order heroes, no they asked for none! We're the saddest party you'll ever meet! But you can bet before we're through, Flameskull, we'll make dust out of you!”

The rest of the table burst into cheers and groans.

“Beautiful, Speilsol Leyer, you get 1D10 bardic inspiration,” Tim confirms. “And now it's your turn. Show the audience what you've got.”

Steph giggles. “Okay, okay, I've got a really dumb idea.”

Tim raises an eyebrow at her.

“So, firstly, is there anything on the walls, like paintings? Wall sconces? Y'know.” She asks.

“There's a painting of a naked elven lady on one wall, and a taxidermied fox head on the other,” Tim informs.

Steph bounces in her seat. “Cool! So I'm gonna rage! Rip the taxidermied fox head off the wall, then run and leap up into the air to bludgeon the Flameskull with the fox head!”

“Right. Make an athletics roll.”

Rolling a D20, she gets 13. “Twenty one!”

“You manage to jump into the air with expert grace. Roll to hit.”

She rolls a 16. “That's a twenty-four to hit because I've got the Tavern Brawler Feat so I've got proficiency with improvised and-slash-or unconventional weapons!”

He snorts. “That'll definitely hit, roll damage.”

Steph picks up her D4 and rolls it, getting a 3. “Do with my strength modifier and Rage damage, that's ten damage! And uh, that's the end of my turn!”

Tim scribbles down the damage taken, he then checks his notes quickly. “The sugary cheese-covered Flameskull starts to cackle madly. It casts fireball on the party, everyone make dexterity saving throws.”

On cue, everyone in the party rolls their D20s. Tikki rolls an 18, Damian and Marinette both roll 16s, and Dick rolls a 4.

Before Bruce rolls his dice, he proclaims, “I'd like to use evasion!” He then rolls and gets a 5. “Fourteen total.”

“Evasion too!” Cass declares with a smile, she rolls her D20, getting 18. She then signs her result, ‘twenty-seven

“Shit!” Jason mutters, staring at his roll of 2.

“Nat one?” Tim questions.

Jason shakes his head. “Natural two, so seven total.”

“I also got seven,” Dick adds.

“Seventeen,” Damian announces.

“I rolled a nineteen and Tikki rolled a twenty-two.” Marinette pipes up.

Steph frowns at her roll of nine. “Eleven…” She glances at her character sheet again. “Wait, no! I get advantage on dexterity saving throws!” She shakes the dice in her hands and blows on it for good luck, then rolls it into the dice box. It lands on an 18. Fist pumping the air, she cheers. “Yes! Dirty twenty, fuck yeah!”

“Alright. Niriwyse and Rehodros both take…” Tim rolls a D6 eight times, behind the DM screen. “Twenty-three fire damage. And everyone else except Chirop and Balabitara take half that, so eleven damage. And of course, Chirop and Balabitara take no damage whatsoever.”

“Wooh,” Bruce cheers.

“Wait a second!” Jason interrupts, triple-checking his character sheet, “I've got fire resistance!”

“Then you also take eleven damage instead of the full twenty-three.” Tim corrects. “And that's the end of the Flameskull's turn. Tikki's up now.”

Marinette tilts her head to the side as Tikki whispers in her again. “Tikki is going to hold her turn.”

Tim nods. “Okay then, it's Balabitara's turn.”

Cass smiles sweetly. “Jump and punch?”

“Roll an athletics check then, please.”

She rolls a 13, and signs her results, ‘eighteen.’

“You barely manage to leap within melee range of the Flameskull,” Tim narrates. “Roll to hit.”

She rolls her dice again, rolling a flat 17. Again, she signs her result, ‘twenty-six.’

“That will definitely hit.” He acknowledges.

Cass then rolls damage, gets a 4, and signs the total, ‘nine.’ She glances down at her character sheet, and then back up at Tim. “Second attack?”

Tim nods again, still jotting down the damage taken. “Go ahead and roll.”

Rolling again, she gets a nine, so she signs the result, ‘eighteen.’

He hums, “That'll also hit, roll damage.”

She rolls and gets a 3. ‘Eight,’ she signs.

Tim chuckles, “As you punch the Flameskull twice, the skull shatters and turns into sugary and cheesy skull dust.”

Cass grins and fist-pumps the air as the rest of the table breaks into cheers.

“Everyone breathe a sigh of relief! Encounter over.” He comments. “And I think we've reached our halfway mark, so we'll take a quick five minutes break to grab something to eat and drink, and we'll continue on after the break.”

==–==

| Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little oneshot! Comments, likes, and reblogs are much appreciated! |

| @maribat-march2020 | | @vixen-uchiha |

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illegiblewords · 4 years

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5 Questions for Writers!

5 Questions for Writers

I got tagged by @kunstpause, it looked like fun so figured I’d go for it! THANKS TO KUNST!

Tagging @wouldyouliketoseemymask, @nilim, @azwoodbomb, @peregrineroad, @frostmantle, @autumnslance, @strangefellows, @redbud-tree, @nozomikei, and @rivenroad. No obligation to anyone but full permission to steal granted to anyone else who might like to. I’ll literally be delighted if you pick this up spontaneously and blame me as an excuse lmao.

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

I made long answers so have a cut!

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

It depends heavily on what fandom and where I am mentally, but I’ve figured out I tend to love writing angsty lameass dudes with blonde hair who are prone to doing really silly things despite taking themselves entirely too seriously. Honestly, I have a pretty huge track record at this point. Harvey Dent, Vexen, Dmitri, Lahabrea, probably more besides. Every one of them fits the right balance of lameass to angst. I like seeing them grow and find fulfillment as people and they are very very cute while still having an edge of badassery and cleverness. Also they’re funny.

Lahabrea is my favorite at the moment, and him reaching that position is an accomplishment considering how stiff the competition is in FFXIV. Loser tricked his way to the top while I was busy laughing at him.

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

I really, really, really love redemption arcs and people recovering from fucked up experiences. Latter case especially I love seeing characters in those situations successfully connect to the people and world around them, especially if they get to grow together with a partner. I also LOVE “hero saves the villain and villain takes it to heart”.

(You may be sensing a theme here haha.)

There are a few reason these concepts resonate with me, the first being I think they’re really hopeful, inspiring, and something I always wanted to see growing up but rarely did.

People fuck up in life. People get hurt in horrible ways that bring out the worst in them. Sometimes when that happens they dig themselves deeper and deeper into ugliness. The more a person’s bad side comes out, the more hopeless it can feel. And for mental illness especially I’ve found this can be a major issue.

Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has flaws, but I think there’s something really significant in seeing someone who has hit rock bottom, who can no longer imagine a way out, get offered a hand for support and take it. While recovery and redemption (not synonymous of course) ultimately need to be carried by the individual struggling, I really can’t understate how important it is to know in those situations that you’re not alone and someone believes in you.

I think a big part of why this theme is important to me is because mental illness, both genetic and due to trauma, is something unbelievably difficult and painful not only for the sufferer but those around them. The most mentally ill characters in fiction tend to be villains, and are disproportionately more likely to be suffering severe trauma. It frustrated me since I was pretty young to see over and over again cases where a mess could have been avoided if there was any support system in place.

Seeing compassion and connection given that kind of power means a lot to me, as does recognizing that villains are people before they are villains. It’s also very reassuring in the sense of “If this person fucked up that badly but still tried to better themself, I can too. And odds are I’m also worthy of love and compassion, even when my issues make things harder for others. I just have to keep working to improve.”

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

Eff.

Straight up I think I’ve written too much to have just one favorite description. It’s been a lot of years and I have hundreds of fics and I’m lame. So I’m going to put a few of my favs.

Anytime there’s a gap in block quotes it’s a different section within the same fic.

22 - A Batman Fanfic

He trembles beneath the weight of their expectations but his smile never fades flashes before cameras microphones under his nose crowds screaming questions bleeding together he answers like clockwork the District Attorney who must bring justice to us all paying tribute to false idols with golden hair and silver tongues we the people bow down in worship to this guardian of the law with words and deeds I believe in Harvey Dent so he swears in hallowed halls to bring prosperity to smite the wicked to damn the criminal with authority invested in him by Gotham’s dutiful children and himself.

***

On the precipice of victory we stand united our voice raised like a torch like a spear like a golden arrow against the beast of Lerna we are gods and monsters we are so much more than good and evil we are order in the court cauterizing corruption our head held high and mighty manifest in Harvey of the doubletalk Harvey who writes himself into the fabric of Gotham’s history Harvey who will not bend before the Roman we command you the unworthy we condemn you the unrighteous we will not be merciful and you will fall before our eyes.

***

I am Dionysus divided at the altar of Tyche O Fortuna O Fortuna give me guidance in the light of the moon you dance sacred silver dollar I see and obey the wax and wane your whim Wheel of Fortune the card I am dealt your servant your slave venerated puppet of flesh blessed is your wisdom bestowed upon I am your disciple wine-mad twisted chanting your word becomes law holy splendor against gavels desecrating your name defiant in denial extend your will through me and we shall strike the innocent enlighten the ignorant or spare them all for now.

Doppelganger - A Spider-Man Fanfic

She asks him to tell the story of himself, and like Scheherazade he begins anew each day.

As with many other things, this comparison is imperfect. The Ravencroft Institute is hardly a palace and neither of them could pass for royalty. She sits in a chair across from him over a carpet the color of sawdust. Her walls are lined with insects pinned on display. Not many butterflies, quite a few beetles. On a bookshelf Dmitri sees The Metamorphosis nestled between non-fiction texts more relevant to her profession. He thinks maybe it's an inside joke she has with herself, but doesn't say so.

He's received an invitation to call her Ashley instead of Dr. Kafka and doesn't know whether to accept. It might be to make him more comfortable. It might be something else. In her late fifties Kafka is built from delicate features, and he suspects the lines around her eyes mean they crinkle when she smiles. Short black hair, beige suit, only jewelry a pair of diamond stud earrings. Dmitri thinks she looks like a mother, but not his.

Her weight sinks into leather, darker than the floor. The couch he rests on matches. He finds himself leaning forward with one elbow propped on his thigh, the other locked in a cast suspended by his neck. There is something reassuringly empty in the gray fabric of his uniform, cheap and utilitarian and harmless. Dmitri’s wrists are thin, but then he's lost a lot of weight recently. He probably wouldn't be able to run as fast as he used to, but then circumstances would be the same anywhere he went so that really doesn't matter. His espionage days are over. His free arm is shedding in flakes but at least his skin is dry. Clean.

Dmitri no longer looks like anyone, unrecognizable to himself. A face without much in the way of edges, short nose. Weak chin. Mismatched eyes that shift between green and blue and brown and every other natural hue as moments pass into minutes pass into hours. Dark blotches interrupt his forehead and chin. They will peel in new patterns across a span of days. For the most part though, he is pale enough to trace veins where his body seems on the brink of spilling out.

It's been a while since he shaved his head and the hair that grows back is almost foreign. An unruly mess of black, blond, brunet, and red—strands as unlike in texture as anything else. The mask that made him Chameleon was white plastic embedded with hardware. Left deformed after trying to resemble others in flesh too many times, it allowed him to duplicate any face, any body he could remember. More than holograms, the most complete sensory illusions technology could perform.

Without it, Dmitri feels stripped.

When Kafka looks at him she’s receiving constant signals and missing none of them. The moments he needs to turn away, flat monosyllabic turns of phrase he chooses or resorts to or blankly accepts as his own. It doesn’t have to be this way. It isn’t comfortable and he doesn’t even trust it’s not calculated. But she’s going to notice no matter what he does at this point, and lying about it doesn’t do anyone much good. They both know why he’s here.

***

“We were poor. We worked hard to keep ourselves fed and clothed and less than an embarrassment. I probably could have worked harder. Mother,” he begins before stumbling over himself.

The story he’s telling isn’t hers. Whatever else she was, Sonya Smerdyakov wasn’t Mrs. Bates. He remembers her voice as the beginning of an echo, forever following someone else’s lead.

And so he followed her.

She was bright like a light going out. She was gentle without being kind. Her fingers were short and delicate and she touched him as little as possible. He found her attention in the way she avoided his name.

***

In the privacy of his room, Dmitri began talking to himself.

Celebrities. Teachers. Children. The flat, steady rhythm of his father’s voice. The words and intonations favored by mother. Sergei’s laugh. He lost himself in a fantasy of conversations, strode through space to mimic confidence he didn’t feel, flashed teeth in front of his mirror like other people.

Once, Dmitri raised his voice. And when his older brother came, eyebrows knitting in confusion, he found himself full of stammered explanations, hands fumbling at his elbows, stumbling over his tongue to make sense of it.

Just making stories for himself. A game with no ending. That was all.

***

He would have died in that town under the eyes of speechless parents. Dmitri remembers the confusion that took his peers when he found a job for people who spoke for themselves. They thought he might be growing up.

He could lie. And when he began he understood it would always be a game with no ending.

Dmitri lost himself in a fantasy of conversations with real people and a voice that didn’t belong to him.

They asked a stranger to sign their yearbooks without even realizing it.

And then he was eighteen, and he left to continue elsewhere.

He didn’t announce his departure.

From Umbra - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

It was probably a dream.

Lukewarm water crept down his throat, nearly making him choke. A skin pressed to his lips, insistent. He coughed, and for the first time there was moisture enough for resistance.

The face that obscured his vision was shrouded in white cloth. Cenric found he couldn’t focus on it. Mismatched eyes, one light and the other dark. Impossible to say if blindness caused the inconsistency.

A string of shells dangled from the figure’s neck, rattling gently. The skin pulled back for a moment. Careful. Patient.

It returned only once he'd grown quiet. Cenric drank for as long as he could. Impossibly, a great deal remained by the time he relinquished his hold.

There wasn't enough of him present to say thank you. Cenric barely registered being dragged, being carried onto a cart. Awareness was altogether gone by the time they started to move.

***

…to the blessed traders who enrich our lives we’re bound to pay with our lives in turn aether born fire-walker your will sees us to rest we entrust ourselves to your sight forged of oschon for peace and prosperity and an ending you do not weep for father azeyma lives in the earth with you her fan brings no breeze the air is hot and thick and breathless your domain a silent place that does not stir have you forgotten the sound of your own voice have you known what it is to live and fail have you been alone do you know what it is to die how can a god pass judgment without being judged nald’thal lord of departures of flame and sand whose coin purse overflows who knows not what it means to starve what it means to spoil the legacy of one who loved you nald’thal who holds shells and souls and precious stones as if their worth were equal nald’thal who cannot know mercy without knowing pain who are you to weigh mortal affairs?

***

In darkness he unwinds the black bandana, steps first from his slops and then his kurta. Yuyudana has provided robes, which rest neatly on a small rock nearby. It crosses Cenric’s mind that the bones of his knees, his hips, his wrists, even his face have all started to protrude strangely. He looks less hyuran than before, maybe less than he ever has. Closer to something priests would exorcise than anyone deserving aid.

He wonders if this idea has occurred to them.

The water, when he advances, is cold. Goosebumps raise across his skin as slowly, gingerly, he wades in to his waist.

Cenric ducks under.

His hair is a long and tangled wreck. Being wet only disguises this slightly. It drifts past his neck, comes to float near the surface. Cenric holds himself in silence, eyes open, watching the silver scatter of light over stones and plants and fish. He remains for as long as he can bear.

His vision stings afterward. Gasping, he can’t tell if the cause is exposure or something else. For a time he simply waits, breathing hard through his nose, hunched so that his lips are partially submerged.

He thinks of nothing, pretends that this time instead of no future he has no past.

Only one moon remains. Maybe the sky aches for losing Dalamud, but better that than the blow which scarred Eorzea.

Stalemate - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

He is presented with impressions of a horse, gaunt and fetid and decayed. Spreading ruin wheresoever it goes. Occasionally it sloughs off portions of its own flesh, which collect flies and blacken any land that surrounds. On its back rests a world, and alongside it does the herd struggle under their own burdens. But even beasts of such endurance have limits. Theirs are reached. When the rotten steed lags, its companions cannot afford to falter. Cannot turn. Without its ability to bear loads, this aberration has no place. Falling is inevitable.

Yet a heart still beats and lungs yet swell.

The Ascian shivers in his grasp, but does not attempt escape.

Here, something festers. Something bleeds. An old wound exacerbated over time.

Fevered, coated in a film of self-disgust, the core of Lahabrea convulses.

Don’t…

Don’t leave me like this…

***

Teeth and tongue. Lingering, wet, disembodied. Another finds his hip. Another his thigh, slipping beneath what clothes remain.

And another.

Warm, human, seeking. The Warrior tightens his hold, uses the moan crawling from his own chest as incentive. Barred by naught but fabric, driving close as he can manage. Lahabrea makes a strangled sound, his gasp crushed empty. A new mouth finds the dark knight’s ear in response.

These are parts of him no one dares touch, no one dares acknowledge. Slick now, attended with something like reverence. Supplication.

He resolves to fuck the Ascian senseless for this, presses his intent deep into Lahabrea’s aether. He is going to steal all his fancy words away. Make him squirm.

“I… I…” Tight, airless, like a plucked string. The Warrior feels Lahabrea’s voice reverberate against the roof of his mouth.

The feeling is difficult to describe. Cracked ice. A fraying rope. Such is Lahabrea's response, fumbling and disoriented as it is.

The Warrior lets go.

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

Just imagine me weeping over here lmao. Same deal as before, I’VE DONE TOO MUCH SHIT.

Spare Change - A Batman Fanfic

"Stop," he gasps, "I wouldn’t—"

"You would Harvey. You did. It’s what makes you such a damn good instrument. You had to test yourself, prove that you’re not a real person.” He can feel fingers grinding against bone. His knees bend. Harvey kneels, shuddering, gazing up into the destruction of his own visage. Two-Face meets his eyes, blue on blue. “People are weak. People are ruled by what they want and don’t want. You’re capable of anything if the wind blows just right. You can’t even stop yourself.”

"I wouldn’t," he repeats, numbly.

"Did you," demands Two-Face, forcing him down further, "or did you not flip for their lives, Harvey Dent?"

"We…We aren’t the same people anymore."

"Of COURSE we’re the same people!" Another shove and he’s on the ground, Two-Face sitting on his chest, teeth bared, coin clenched tight between them. "Do you really think you can close your eyes and pretend you aren’t capable of these things? They’re alive," and there is something hideous in his expression, something certain, "because they were lucky. No other reason.”

"The coin is gone! Even if I wanted to listen to it—I can’t!”

"If you’re so sure," says Two-Face, "then how about you improvise?”

And with one motion the silver dollar is under his tongue, forced back so hard he feels himself gag and begin to choke before his eyes open.

The Inquisitor’s Letters - A Dragon Age: Inquisition Fanfic

To His Worship Inquisitor Mahanon Lavellan of Skyhold, My name is Isell from Amaranthine and I’m seven. My mum is helping but says I can send you all by myself. Thank you for fixing the hole in the sky and also the one by the dead man’s house. There were demons but they’re mostly gone now and people are going outside now. Da says Amaranthine has been through too much and can survive anything and he says you’re an elf like us and the Hero of Ferelden was an elf too. He says people used to think elves can’t be heroes but now they don’t. Have you met the Hero of Ferelden? Also I heard that even though you’re Dalish Andraste helped you in the Fade and that humans let you be in the Chantry because anyone Andraste likes must be a really good person. What’s Andraste like? The Chant says a lot but it’s different meeting someone I think. Also I think I saw you a little before but Mum wasn’t sure because you had a helmet on and we were far away and there were a lot of people but I bet it was you. Da wasn’t sure I should write because he says the Dalish don’t like city elves like we are but I think you must be nice and Mum agrees with me. I’ve been playing demon hunters with my brother Arrion (he’s just five still) and Da said templars are who fights demons usually and elves can’t be templars. People thought elves couldn’t be heroes and inquisitors though and we are so I bet I could too. Is it hard fighting demons? Da says they’re real scary but I’m not scared. Thank you for helping us and everyone and I hope you kill lots of demons. Sincerely, Isell U’venlan

From Umbra - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

Cenric sits on the floor, draped in a white cotton tunic. It might have been snug on a Roegadyn but anyone else would find ample room. Behind him, Memesu stands on a cot holding shears. Gold earrings dangle on either side of her face.

“I fought at Carteneau, you know,” she mentions casually. There is a soft hsssssshhhh. Click.

Hair hits the floor. Coils.

He starts to shake his head, aborts the gesture partway through. Stills. “…you saw Bahamut?”

Memesu snorts. “I’m sure everyone this side of Hydaelyn saw Bahamut.” Click.

“That’s probably true,” he concedes. The dragon is what everyone knows, everyone remembers. He can't imagine the proximity. “What about the Warriors of Light?”

“Pff.” Gentle tugging at his scalp. Cenric does not open his eyes but leans into the motion. “I wasn’t of rank to see their like. Not that I’d remember. Stop moving.” Click.

Cenric hesitates.

“What do you remember, then?”

For a time, the only sound comes from blades and a thousand strands cut short. This lasts for several minutes. Cenric resigns himself to secrets.

Then, “I used to think I was special too. As a twin. My sister was Memeni. We studied together.”

Was.

The exhale hits him slowly, quietly.

“She died?”

He can feel the shrug in her hip against his shoulder.

“It was Carteneau,” says Memesu. “Of course she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Click. “It had nothing too do with you. If you keep trying to claim responsibility for every misfortune you find, you’re going to get self-important.”

Cenric only grunts, quiet and non-committal.

Click.

“Carteneu was so much worse than people remember. Only four years later and already we hurry to dispose of details.” There is a hard undercurrent to Memesu’s voice, but what contact she makes remains light. Careful. “I remember the arcanist from Limsa who didn’t dodge a magitek canon in time. Miqo’te. Spells come faster in that discipline, so there’s less stress on distance than thaumaturgy. Girl got careless.” Click. “The mess smelled like rotten eggs and charcoal. Her face was… melted.” Click. “I try not to look in those situations. They only make casting harder. But she was so close.”

Cenric doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word.

Memesu continues. “One of our own gladiators, an Ala Mhigan, took to mutilating any pureblooded Garleans he could catch. The man had a string of eyes hanging around his neck. I’m pretty sure one enemy officer wet himself before he started to beg. Not that it particularly mattered.”

Click.

“Memeni… didn’t anticipate what she was getting herself into. She saw magic as a way of being useful to craftsmen. My focus has always been theoretical. Right side.” Startled, Cenric lets her guide his jaw to get a better view of his profile. Click. Click. “Meni used to think I was a priss. She preferred to develop magitek kettles alongside alchemists. See if she could find a way to capture light like the Mhachi did. She still enjoyed fishing when she could, even though it smelled awful. Never outgrew the braids she wore growing up. ” Memesu sighs. “…just understand she died afraid, in pain, and with things left undone. My sister didn’t even resemble herself at the end.”

Cenric is very still. Thinks carefully.

“…I wish it could have gone differently,” he says at last.

Memesu’s mouth slides up in a small, crooked smile. She tousles the neat, ear-length hair before her. “So do I.”

Eclipse - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

It ends at Elidibus’ untimely arrival.

“Lord Zodiark,” he says, so smoothly that were he not searching for it that the anger would be undetectable, “appreciates your attentions.” His gaze does not waver from Lahabrea as he speaks. “But there is work to be done and I’m afraid there are words I would have with your Speaker.”

They disperse.

Nabriales, careful and curious, folds himself out of sight beyond the chamber then makes his way back to its edge.

Lahabrea, farthest from the exit, attempts to steal some small dignity. Turns to face Elidibus.

The Emissary makes him wait. Expressionless red masks matched by those who wear them.

Then, with more speed and force than typical for his demeanor, the Emissary closes distance to trap his colleague against the wall.

“It was my error,” hisses Elidibus, leaning in, “to have stayed silent upon rescuing you. A mistake I will remedy now, so we can be on no uncertain terms.”

Lahabrea lowers his eyes. Nabriales notes that despite the dread they all share of such reprimands, the man does not brace.

“You know as well as I that these words offer less succor to our Lord than action,” continues Elidibus, his fury quiet and no less sharp for that, “just as we both know your thoughtless action is the cause of repeated missteps these past centuries. Make no mistake—for all the strides you’ve made, your fixation and your impatience have cost the rest of us considerable time.”

Silence.

“Do you truly think this is your best service to Him?” asks Elidibus. “To us? Compromising your ability to fill the hours? Even Emet-Selch agrees these displays are disgraceful. You have ever borne them poorly, but being a 'paragon among paragons' naturally you continue ignoring your own better judgment with ours to continue this exercise in futility. Idiot.”

A twitch of the head. Almost a flinch.

It is one of few moments Nabriales has seen the Emissary express his anger so openly. Even after the Thirteenth fell to Igeyorhm’s error, Elidibus allowed the Angel of Truth to lead and voiced his own reproach with a more typical icy demeanor. Scathing though it was.

“I can be of use,” says Lahabrea softly. “Only three of us remain, and I—“

“You,” Elidibus snaps, “cannot follow the most simple instructions for the good of us all. Not for Him, not for Amaurot, not even for yourself. Your pride has made you not simply an embarrassment but a liability.”

Neither man speaks for several moments after that.

And then, at length, Elidibus exhales.

Says the Speaker’s name.

Receives his attention.

“What would you have me do?” the Emissary asks. His tone now is almost weary. “Clearly it would be unreasonable to trust you’d simply listen. Must I mind you like a child?” This is what breaks Lahabrea’s composure.

Knowing the man’s temper, Nabriales had expected him to lash out. Even on the back foot their orator is perfectly capable of defending himself from insults.

Instead, he embraces Elidibus fiercely—face just within the bounds of his pauldrons. Jaw locked shut firmly enough to hurt. Expression downcast.

Elidibus remains perfectly still at first. In the absence of conversation it is possible to hear the rush of Lahabrea’s breathing. Only through the nose, withheld briefly between each inhale as if that offers some means to steady himself.

As if that would make it better.

Tentatively, Elidibus holds him back. Lahabrea's fingers contract, and though he remains upright when his knees begin to give it is the Emissary who helps him kneel.

“Easy,” he murmurs, and Lahabrea removes one hand to run it reflexively over his face—coming against the mask.

Nabriales finds himself staring, searching. A puzzle with missing pieces whose image he may yet divine

“It was not,” says Lahabrea roughly, “my intention to…”

Elidibus reaches beneath the other man’s cowl, finds the hair and skin beneath. Draws him in once more.

Naught that would be shared with or among the Sundered. Nothing so personal as that.

Nabriales has worn his own share of flesh. Bedded lovers, adopted companions and families of vessels to fulfill a purpose. Passable enough, perhaps, but never for him. Not in truth.

It’s as if he looks upon two strangers.

Parched - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

The door closes behind them. Lahabrea, projecting his preferred likeness over the host, waits on a couch within.

It’s admittedly a surreal sight. Ishgardian finery with its gilded edges, its elaborate wallpapers and marble floors. A collection of creams and blues and greens, fine furniture with velvet seat cushions. All ostentatious in the extreme… and then Lahabrea. Masked and cowled. Pouring three glasses of La Noscean arrack.

Elidibus freezes, and though none of them can see his eyes the confusion is clear enough.

“What is this?”

“Your turn,” says Emet-Selch, lightly but less flippant than he might have been.

Lahabrea proffers a cup from where he sits.

Elidibus neither moves nor speaks.

Emet-Selch approaches. Takes the drink. Presses it carefully into the other man’s hand.

“Don’t think,” he says smoothly,” that I won’t let you drop it.”

Mercifully, Elidibus has a good grip.

“Sit,” says Lahabrea, gesturing with his own glass to the sofa across from him.

Elidibus sits.

Emet-Selch sits.

Takes his own glass, perhaps a bit pointedly.

Elidibus’ mouth is pressed tight. It opens briefly, as if to speak. Shuts again.

“Explain,” the Emissary manages eventually.

Lahabrea meets his co-conspirator’s eye. Downs his arrack in a single attempt.

It is a long attempt.

It lasts several moments.

The other Ascians watch.

“Elidibus,” says Emet-Selch as Lahabrea endeavors to catch his breath in the aftermath, “Lahabrea and I are concerned that you may be experiencing some difficulties in recent years.”

“I’m fine,” replies Elidibus coldly. Holding his drink. “Why did you think this necessary?”

“Because—“ wheezes Lahabrea.

“Because you’re practically a mammet,” says Emet-Selch, picking up Lahabrea’s glass. Moving it just out of reach. “Truly. It’s been what, two hundred years? Three? Neither of us can remember the last time you so much as spoke of matters unrelated to the Rejoining.”

Lahabrea reaches. Elidibus pours his arrack into the other man’s glass before nudging it back toward him.

Elidibus makes eye contact with Emet-Selch.

“I remain focused,” he says evenly. “Nothing more.”

Emet-Selch gestures to the bottle.

Elidibus sighs.

Refills his own glass.

“There are matters I must attend myself. As is the case with each of you.”

“Undoubtedly,” replies Lahabrea more evenly. “But with few exceptions, you haven’t done so.”

A hard stare from behind the mask.

“What would you have me do? I can’t very well take time off.”

Emet-Selch sips.

“A negligible amount of time,” he says, “taken sparingly, may be forgivable.”

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

Lmao see this is a plus side/minus side deal. Minus side, it’s being asked just before I embark on a MASSIVE ASS FANFIC. And I basically am excited for all of it. Plus side, there are things I refuse to spoil.

So... putting it vaguely, in no particular order:

- Lahabrea and Hydaelyn meet a second time after Praetorium.

- Moonfire Faire

- Thancred

- Conversations over mulled wine

- Silvertear Lake

Some of these are sex scenes. Most aren’t. But I am very hyped.

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volturisecretary · 5 years

Note

What alignment would you give the volturi? I think lawful neutral(even though they’re good in my eyes), but caius kind of edged towards lawful evil

As an organization, I would describe the Volturi as “Lawful Neutral,” but I have included an individual breakdown for the different characters.

I’m a really big fan of the alignment system, but I feel like they can be interpreted differently by different people. For that reason, I’ll include a short reasoning of why I personally place them into the particular alignment. For some characters, I may include a quote regarding the alignment that demonstrates why I characterized them as such. Because the Volturi is a “Lawful Neutral” organization in my characterization of them, I tend to assume that the vampires within are not of the chaotic alignment, since chaotic characters see laws as restrictive and I couldn’t imagine someone wanting to join up otherwise.

Volturi Coven

Aro: True Neutral

Because of Aro’s gift (and his general personality tbh), he’s seen how being bound by a particular alignment isn’t good. True neutral characters are known to advocate for the “middle/balanced” way, which is how I see the formation of the Volturi beginning.

Caius: Lawful Evil

Throughout the Twilight Saga, Caius was pointing out how Aro was allowing gifted vampires to skirt around the law because he was interested in their gifts and had a friendship with Carlisle. A Lawful Neutral ruler believes everyone should be judged by the same rules and no one should get special treatment. I think that’s why Caius comes off as really harsh when you read Twilight because he is against the protagonists because they have broken rules, and continue to break the rules; this is why I would characterize him as “Lawful.” I lean more towards Lawful Evil for Caius rather than Lawful Neutral for one major reason though. For me, I slide him a little more towards the “evil” axis since he tends to advocate for the most “severe” form of punishments in order to get vampires to comply with their laws.

Marcus: Neutral Good

Neutral Good characters are known to try to do what they think is best rather than sticking to a closely held belief system. Out of the Volturi Coven, I think Marcus is the member that is most likely to advocate on the behalf of a vampire that may have made a mistake or didn’t know their laws.

Sulpicia: Neutral Evil

Based on Sulpicia stealing Aro’s ability using Mele in Life and Death AU, I characterize Sulpicia as Neutral Evil. These types of characters are known to find the most painful way to get their revenge on those who have wronged them; I had a headcanon here that I think in the Life and Death Universe Sulpicia kept Aro alive to watch him suffer (without his gift) for his wrongdoings. Neutral Evil characters will do what they can get away with to advance their own interests, and our out for themselves.

Athenodora: Lawful Neutral

“Lawful neutral characters are only interested in maintaining or expanding laws to cover every foreseeable problem within society without compassion or moral judgment. Lawful neutral characters will apply laws in a rigid manner, not worrying about whether the spirit of the law is upheld. It is the letter that is important to them. The language of the social compact and the wording of laws are all they are interested in, since that is all that is apparent from written documents.”

Didyme: Lawful Good

Characters that are Lawful Good believe there are rules that everyone should obey, and will encourage individuals to follow them. I think Didyme, like her brother, really believed in the “goodness” of the Volturi when she saw how the Romanian and Egyptian Covens were functioning. She legitimately believed that a well-organized Volturi-government could make life better for the majority of vampires.

Volturi Guard

Afton: Neutral Good

Afton is just trying to do what he thinks is the best, and Aro hates it for little to no discernible reason.

Alec: Neutral Good

“True neutral characters will behave altruistically when it comes to friends, relatives, and allies, but for the most part will return the kind of treatment they receive from others. The true neutral character will use any means to benefit themselves, but will not follow this philosophy to its extreme conclusion through an unrestrained pursuit of self-interest.”

Chelsea: Lawful Neutral

Chelsea is a character I have difficult in selecting an alignment. Since Chelsea hasn’t completely ripped apart the Volturi for fun, I’d assume she isn’t a “Chaotic” alignment, and probably sees the Volturi’s laws as serving some greater purposes. Additionally, she is described to use her ability to assist the Volturi separate innocent coven-members from guilty ones during conflicts/trials to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. For these reasons, I consider Chelsea to be a “Lawful Neutral” alignment.

Demetri: True Neutral

“A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil-after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. True neutral characters are concerned with their own well-being and that of the group or organization which aids them. They may behave in a good manner to those that they consider friends and allies, but will only act maliciously against those who have tried to injure them in some way”

Felix: Lawful Neutral

Although I usually characterize Felix and Emmett being similar, I think their alignments are where they differ. Since Felix has been apart of the Volturi for so long without being supernaturally gifted, I have to believe that he feels the laws he are enforcing are necessary. Therefore, I think I place him as Lawful Neutral.

Heidi: Lawful Neutral

Although Heidi is the “fisher” of the Volturi, I think she has a code of conduct that she closely adheres to while performing her duties. She avoids certain types of people when finding tourists too.

Jane: Lawful Neutral

Jane is all about “the law,” and does not seem receptive to exceptions- see Eclipse.

Renata: Neutral Good

Similar to Marcus, Renata tries to do what she thinks is the best, and is devoted to helping others. Neutral Good characters value a balance between personal freedoms and order, without overly restrictive laws. Since Renata has family members that “act as guardians” to her human family, I would assume she’s more “Neutral” than “Lawful.”

Santiago: Lawful Neutral

I place Santiago as “Lawful Neutral” for the same reasons that I place Felix here.

#volturi guard #volturi coven #my headcanons #headcanons #volturi #volturi culture #((i guess?))#ill tag all these character later but it's too much effort now lol

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taotrooper · 5 years

Text

Reasons to live and die for

AO3 link Title: Reasons to live and die for Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi Characters: Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian Genre/tags: Gen, friendship, introspection, character study of sorts, banter Summary: Post-canon and novel spoilers up to Exiled’s translation. After that long honeymoon and returning to the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian decides to visit Wen Ning to see how he's faring, and what he wants from the future. It turns out that Wen Ning's conclusions about life and death and love weren't so different to his own. Notes: Written for my sweet boy’s birthday. For @modaozushi‘s prompt: choices. I feel WWX and WN’s relationship is quite underrated even in canon, so I wanted to fix it a bit into something that shows how much both of them have grown during the book and how they could still overcome the previous master-servant awkwardness and their individual sadness as well.

"Even if I'm not a natural part of it," Wen Ning began, "life is beautiful. Don't you agree?"

"Yeah."

"So I wish to enjoy the time I have left as much as I can. I cannot change what I've done, I cannot atone for all my sins, and neither can you, but I think it's alright... to feel selfish and want to exist and be loved. To see the sunrise or hear the crickets. To feel the rush of adventure. To look forward to smiles and laughter and hugs. It's alright. Even if my heart doesn't beat, it still feels those blessings."

Wei Wuxian blinked.

"If I may be so bold, doesn't young master feel the same?"

It wasn't hard to find the modest wooden cabin at the foot of the mountain, barely hidden in the shade of the forest. Following Sizhui's directions, Wei Wuxian managed to navigate across a lagoon of trees, green canopies allowing shining rays of light to shimmer above his dark hair. Crickets and birds sang around him, and they was the only sounds his boots interrupted.

As he reached the place, a strong feeling of nostalgia filled him. That shabby little hut looked exactly like the ones back in the Burial Mound. Not like it was a surprise, as a good part of them were built by Wen Ning himself. He had followed the suggestions of the rest of his family, of which none of them knew a thing about architecture. Just a rooftop and walls to cover against the weather and possible corpse attacks. Those were the luxuries they could afford.

The fact his friend had even built a place was a pleasant surprise, in fact. Sizhui had told him he hid in a damp cave at first, not unlike Wei Wuxian back in the day. Maybe he was bored and wanted to make something. Maybe the cave was inhabited by bears or some other beast. Regardless, this was a good thing.

Before he knocked on the misshaped plank that could be called a door, it swung open and his eyes found an ashen face receiving him. By instinct, he jumped two steps back.

"Young master Wei!" While his expression hadn't changed, his voice expressed joy.

"Hey! It's been a while, Wen Ning," he smiled.

"Yes. A-Ah... Please come in..."

The man moved to let the other pass inside. The interior actually had more things than Wei Wuxian expected. A large bed and some cushions and mats to sit. A solid table, and on it there was a lamp and candles, despite the fact Wen Ning could see in the dark. A big wooden chest that stood against the wall.

"Please sit," Wen Ning said, his fingers straightening his shirt. "Would you like some tea? I have leaves for black tea, your favorite type."

That's when Wei Wuxian saw the makeshift kitchen in the farthest corner. Inside the half-open cupboard, there was an old teapot and several cheap cups and dishes. There was a large jar of water, half full.

"Sure," he replied. "You're treating your visits well, huh?"

"Um, I try." Shyly, he moved and got the teapot out.

The reason for that house and all those basic commodities, of course, had become obvious. They were not for Wen Ning's sake, but for the boys'. A place to hang out with the junior disciples when they weren't night hunting. A bed when any of them was wounded or had to stay for the night. Just in case they were needed.

"I would've liked some wine better, but I doubt you can afford it," Wei Wuxian joked while his friend filled the container with clear spring water. "Let me help, I have a fire talisman."

Both of them stared at the fire while the teapot simmered. Wen Ning shook his head.

"Even if I had money, I wouldn't buy wine," he carefully replied. "The boys are too young for that, and young master Wei drinks too much."

Wei Wuxian glared at him. "Okay, one: no, they're not. I had alcohol for the first time when I was fourteen, almost fifteen." It was Wen Ning's turn to frown at him. "Two: I've seen some of them drinking in secret! Don't let them fool you. You'll be so popular if you sneak booze for them. Three: I do not! I'm fine!!"

"For now. It slowly destroys your liver," Wen Ning retorted. "Studies prove it."

"And spicy food will destroy my digestive system. I know." He had heard the same speech from Wen Qing's mouth for months, and it was just as annoying.

"You just got a body and you have to take a better care of it," Wen Ning said, now with a sad tone.

"I've done worse things to it, what's one more thing?" A shameless grin was on his lips. He doubted Mo Xuanyu would mind about a slowly poisoned liver more than the stab on his stomach or the frequent wounds or the intense love making. "In any case, I'll probably drink less for the time being. Have you heard?"

"I've heard a lot of stories about young masters Wei and Lan's adventures, but I can't say I know what you mean." Wen Ning took the then hot teapot and one cup to the table. Wei Wuxian noticed he wasn't holding it by the handle. They sat down on two mats and he watched the fierce corpse put the leaves in the cup and serve. They let it soak.

"What a coincidence! We've also heard about you and the kids plenty! Three night hunts, huh?"

If Wen Ning could blush, he was sure he would be after that comment.

"I... see. Regardless, what brings you to Gusu? Is there anything you wanted to hunt? I could give you a hand if you need it so... Ah, but maybe I'd get in the way of you two..."

Wei Wuxian chuckled.

"Don't fret so much! Nah, that's what I was going to tell you. I'm not here for a night hunt. We're staying in the Cloud Recesses for the time being."

"Wait, really?" Wen Ning's jaw dropped. "But Senior Teacher Lan..."

"He missed Lan Zhan so much that he reluctantly allowed me in. I don't think he'll remove that stupid new rule about talking to me soon, but no one's going to obey that one anyway."

"When did you come back?"

"Three days ago. Lan Zhan is busy helping out with clan stuff, so I'm incredibly bored and I asked Sizhui about your location. I figured you'll be bored as well."

"It's relaxing by myself, but I'm honored you decided to visit me." Wei Wuxian mentally called bullshit. As much of an introvert Wen Ning was, he knew he was happier surrounded with his closest people. The same could be said about Lan Wangji. Even Jiang Cheng back then and Jin Ling nowadays, in his opinion. Wei Ying always ended up winning the affections of people with low social activity somehow.

"I would've come sooner but we were dragged into a family banquet just as soon as we got here."

"Ooh, that sounds so nice!" Wen Ning forced a kind smile that wasn't fake.

"It wasn't," Wei Wuxian shook his head. "It tasted as bland to me as it would probably taste to your dead tongue. I remember your sect's over-the-top banquets from that archery competition, and let me tell you: you wouldn't have called that dinner a Banquet at all either!"

"...Oh."

"It's alright, I just had delicious food delivered later, in private." Wei Wuxian sipped his tea. Not bad, not bad. Could use some snacks, but he wasn't going to push it on Wen Ning's limited hospitality.

He glanced at his former servant again. His dark clothes were brand new, no longer the rags he had been wearing the last time they saw each other, three months before. The hole in his chest was gone, too. The boys had a hand on it, surely. He could see some holes sewn, as if Wen Ning had teared it apart during their fights and had it fixed. One of the boys' hand too, perhaps: fingers of a corpse would have a hard time holding needles.

"Wen Ning." The sound of the long teacup clanging on the table echoed through the shack.

"Young master Wei?"

"What are you doing?" Wei Wuxian's question was said with a serious stare, no smile on his lips.

"Young master Wei..." he looked down, avoiding his eyes.

"It's not my place, but I worry you're revolving your existence over one person once again. Don't replace me with Sizhui, Wen Ning."

"I'm not!!" Wen Ning shouted. His hands curled into fists and hit the table, thankfully just a touch that wouldn't break it.

Wei Wuxian just stared in silence, allowing his friend to get upset.

"Not anymore. At first... perhaps I did... He was like sunshine in the darkness." Wen Ning finally admitted.

He gave him more time to sort himself out and drank more tea.

"While Sizhui and the others are back at home, I've had time to think. About being alive, about what I want to do, about whether I deserve this chance or not."

"That's good. So, what's your conclusion?"

"I think I have the same reason to live than you, young master..."

"Ha?" Unless Wen Ning had suddenly gotten a gorgeous bride or groom, he honestly doubted it.

"Let me show you. Do you mind if we walk around?"

Wei Wuxian agreed, his curiosity piqued. The trip out of the woods was annoyingly silent while he waited for Wen Ning to speak again. It didn't happen until they were past the exit, standing on a plain with tall grass caressed by the wind. The sky was clear and the same hue of blue as the embroidery of clouds on the Lans' uniforms and ribbons.

"Even if I'm not a natural part of it," Wen Ning began, "life is beautiful. Don't you agree?"

"Yeah."

Wei Wuxian blinked.

"If I may be so bold, doesn't young master feel the same?"

With a tug in his heart, Wei Ying remembered the first day in his new body. How much fun he had when he shocked the Mo family and the Lan juniors, his time wandering at that village. And despite the bad moments, living remained fun for the next days, for the next months. He agreed and nodded with a cackle. Yes, life could be wonderful by itself.

The fact Wen Ning, so taciturn and melancholy, also reached that point of view even with his limitations could only be good. Maybe bringing him back wasn't so bad, after all.

"Of course, I do feel more alive when I spend time with A-Yuan and young master Jingyi and young master Jin and everyone else. And I do want to do everything for them and protect him with my life. That's not all there is to it, though." His eyes smiled where his lips couldn't. "However, yes, I do think that after losing all my family, my main reason is being with those I love when possible. I'll have no regrets when I finally leave this world if I'm allowed to stay with them, and young master Wei too, for as long as I can. Also... I never found night hunts fun when I was alive, but now I look forward to them so much it hurts."

"That I can understand," Wei Wuxian beamed. "Night hunts are better with people you love."

"Is that so?"

"I mean, I've always loved them but it's true. Jiang Ch—" he stopped, not wanting those memories of happy times to resurface. "Anyway, not limited to cultivation partners. Family hunts are awesome, too."

"Sizhui and the others would love to go with you, too. Uh, so do I..."

"I'd love to!" He felt tenderness when he thought about the brats. Yi City with them had been relatively amusing. "Old man Qiren will have a heart attack, but I'm in. Hanguang-jun will be there as well." He probably should ask if it was okay to drag his husband to that, if Wen Ning would mind, if Lan Zhan would mind. But Wei Wuxian wasn't the kind of person who asked for permission. "The kids are fun to be around and so easy to tease."

"Young master Wei, don't tease them so much..."

"They need to learn how to deal with teasing. You know what's sad, Wen Ning? We're adults, but our the rest of our friends and allies are teenagers! We should probably fix that."

"I don't mind much."

"Haha! They are way better than our generation, aren't they?"

They kept walking towards the foot of the mountain, where the long road back to the Cloud Recesses stretched upwards.

"What do you mean with the 'rest of our friends', by the way?" Wen Ning asked.

"Let's see. Lan Zhan is my friend but he's also my lover and husband so I guess that's not really just a friendship anymore."

"I suppose not?"

"And then there's you and me! So, the rest of my friends is everyone else."

The range of emotion a fierce corpse with years of rigor mortis had was next to null, but Wei Wuxian could tell the ones Wen Ning was feeling as clear as day. Incredulity, relief, affection, joy. Not unlike the first time they had met and he had defended his archery skills, perhaps. They had gone through so much together, and yet Wei Ying hadn't realized until that moment how important Wen Ning's silent presence was to him. He didn't treat him as well as he deserved, and he had to work hard on improving that so the other would accept they weren't master and servant anymore, but equals.

"Take care of yourself, Wen Ning," he said with his hands on the man's stiff shoulders. "I'll visit more often, okay?"

"You mean when you're bored, the boys are in class, and young master Lan is too busy to, uh, do things with you?"

"Stop calling me and my sex life out!" He punched Wen Ning's shoulder, with no reaction. "But... yeah, pretty much."

"That's good enough for me, thank you." Wen Ning's lips lifted up as much as they could.

"Ah, and don't sacrifice yourself for the boys, okay?"

"..."

"Yeah, sure, I get it!" Gods if he got it. Most of his two lives were consequences from his constant sacrifices to help people out. "I'd probably die for them in a heartbeat too, especially Jin Ling. And Sizhui, he's my son now—"

"Actually—"

"Shush. By marrying his father I've been promoted from Brother Xian to Dad." He ignored the skeptic reaction, just as he ignored the fact Sizhui had never called him that way. "And you know what, Jingyi isn't related directly to me but fuck it, I'd die for him too. And Ouyang Zizhen, he defended me from a mob. And— I'm losing my point. Listen, let me give you an advice because I just learned this lesson the hard way."

"...What is it?"

"Be less reckless. Avoid dying. For all the cultivation world would love it, you leave behind the ones who love you. You want to stay with them and they want to stay with you. And even when that's no longer the case, and paths separate, new people to love will be here with you. No one is going to think your second death is enough redemption anyway, you know. So! Don't make Sizhui cry, you hear?"

"I'll try... Did your relationship with young master Lan teach you that?"

"In big part. I sure don't want him to mourn me again so soon! But he's not the only one who missed me, was he?"

Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian looked at each other in the eye.

"He wasn't."

Wei Wuxian leaned and rubbed Wen Ning's hard back. He thought about making a comment about how while he didn't cry when he thought Wen Ning and Wen Qing had been burned, he did start to lose his mind from that point. But that wasn't precisely nice to hear, and the other man likely could feel his pent-up anger and loss of control from whenever he had been locked in. Feeling awkward, he finished the short hug with a couple of pats.

"See you around, then! I'll bring my own wine and snacks next time!" he beamed.

"See you around, young master. And don't die either!"

"I sure won't. This pig has cabbage to eat."

Whistling a cheerful, hopeful tune that he knew Wen Ning could hear and feel on his way back to his hut, he ascended through the mountain path.

#mo dao zu shi #wen ning #wei wuxian #mdzsnetwork #$fanfic

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thinkingaboutyoungroyals · 5 years

Text

The Perfect Moment (Chapter 4)

Summary: When Cyrus is assigned to create a modern re-telling of “Romeo and Juliet” for English class, he decides to produce a movie. His stars, however, may pose some trouble. Will he finish his movie on time?

If you’d like to be on the tag list, please let me know here or send me a DM or a message! Or, you can also find my story on AO3 and subscribe!

Thank you!

(Last time, the chapter didn’t show on the tags so I figured it might have been because of the links. So, I’m trying not to add any in but if you need the other chapters, just go on my tyrus perfect moment tag or DM me!)

Despite his little accident, Cyrus was still ready to continue filming the next day. Time stopped for no one and neither did his deadline. If he was to become a real filmmaker, he couldn’t let something as small as getting hit in the face with a basketball and a bleeding nose stop him. Besides, his dad had taken him to the hospital the day before to make sure his nose wasn’t broken (it wasn’t).

So, the next day, after filming a short Dance scene at the gym (which Andi had decorated), he gathered his cast and crew and headed off to the park to film one of the most important scenes in his movie.

(And by cast and crew, he only really meant Buffy, T.J., Andi, and Jonah. The others were done shooting for the day and had gone home.)

“Okay! In this scene, Logan will do his monologue while watching Quinn from afar,” Cyrus explained to them. “Buffy, you’ll stand at the gazebo and look contemplative. Jonah, your camera will do a wide-shot, with T.J. close and Buffy in the background.”

Jonah gave him a thumbs up.

“Andi, will you fix Buffy’s makeup, please? We’re starting in five.”

The equivalent of the infamous balcony scene, Logan and Quinn agree to meet up. Quinn sneaks away to the gazebo and Logan follows her after. Then, the two do their individual monologues and then their confessions.

“You ready?” Cyrus asked T.J., who was standing on his spot, reading his script.

He was dressed in a lavender button down, black slacks, matching suit jacket, and a purple tie to match Buffy’s purple cocktail dress.

The taller boy shrugged. “As ready as I’ll ever be. You know… as long as Buffy doesn’t kill me after.”

Cyrus chuckled. “Well, then, you’ll be thrilled that I replaced the kiss with a hug.”

T.J. scrunched his face, looking disgusted. “She really would have killed me then!”

Shaking his head in amusement, Cyrus stepped forward and reached up to take hold of the purple tie.

“Your tie is all crooked,” he stated, fixing it. Then, he smoothed T.J.’s suit jacket, picking off some stray lint. “There, all handsome.” He looked up to smile at the other boy.

T.J. was red as he stared down at him.

Cyrus’ eyes widened in alarm. “Are you okay?!”

He placed a hand on the other boy’s forehead, wondering if he had a fever. Was he sick?! Had Cyrus been pushing him too hard?!

Despite his panicking, T.J. just chuckled and shook his head. “I’m fine. Really. I think it’s just a little hot out.”

Well, that made sense. It was a little humid that day. They better wrap up this scene so they could all go home soon. Plus, they all had a pretty long day at school. And it was Friday!

“I’ll get you some water, then! Don’t want my star to be dehydrated!”

And with that, he bounded off to get T.J. a bottle of water. (He was well-prepared with snacks and hydration!)

…….…….…….

He practiced his monologue all night, in front of his cat. Sure, Simon didn’t give a damn about the words he was saying to him as long as T.J. gave him his dinner, but still, he had felt confident.

So, when the time came to shoot, T.J. was proud to say that it went flawlessly. Okay, maybe he stumbled once and forgot a few words the second time, but by the third and fourth take, he had perfected it.

“Cut!” Cyrus called out. “That was great T.J.!”

His heart swelled with joy at the other boy’s compliment.

“Buffy! Get ready for your scene!”

As they moved the cameras closer to Buffy’s spot, T.J. found himself staying by Cyrus’ side. He subtly leaned in and pressed their shoulders together while the other boy adjusted his camera. Cyrus briefly turned his head to smile at him before going back to his task.

“Okay, Buffy! You ready?”

“Yep!” The girl gave them a thumbs up.

“And… action!”

“Logan… where are you?” Buffy said out loud as she looked out into the distance. “Is this really okay? Can we be together like this and not hurt our friends?” She sighed, loudly. “Does it really matter whether you’re in their team or not?”

Buffy’s voice droned on in T.J.’s ears. He knew he should be watching her because everybody else was. But, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Cyrus.

The director’s concentration was firmly on the camera screen, barely breathing as his teeth subtly gnawed at his lower lip. He had really plump lips that stood out whenever he pouted.

Not for the first time, T.J. wondered what it would be like to kiss Cyrus.

“Cut!”

His voice broke through T.J.’s thoughts. Realizing what was just running through his head while staring at Cyrus, he blushed.

“Okay, that was great!” Cyrus called out to Buffy, oblivious to T.J.’s red face. “One more take! This time, try to act a little more…dreamy! You’re in love, remember? You’re daydreaming about him!”

T.J. knew all about daydreams.

Then, Cyrus turned to him. “We’ll do two more takes and then we’ll do the next scene, if you want to look at your script again.”

“Okay!”

He was smiling but on the inside, he was groaning. He and Buffy were supposed to hug in this scene after spewing some flowery stuff at each other.

But, he had to keep remembering that he was doing this for Cyrus. It was all for Cyrus. Just like in all of his other scenes, he just had to pretend that the person in front of him is the person he liked…which was Cyrus.

So, while Buffy continued to film her scene, T.J. read through his script again, memorizing and feeling the emotions behind those words. And even though the words were cheesier than The Spoon’s mac-and-cheese, they were words written by Cyrus…and he had a way with them that just reeled T.J. in.

Soon, he found himself standing under the gazebo, Buffy across from him and Cyrus in between them, explaining what he wanted them to do.

Walk to Buffy. Stand close. Take one of her hands and put it against his heart. Then… hug.

“Ready? And… action!”

T.J. got into character and sauntered over to Buffy. “Quinn,” he called out.

Buffy spun on her heels and smiled at him. “Logan. I thought you would never come.”

“Of course, I would.” T.J. took a few steps forward. “I promised you I would.”

“Are we doing the right thing? Keeping us a secret from our teams? Our friends?”

“You know what will happen if we tell them. They won’t forgive us.”

“I know but…”

This was the moment when T.J. was supposed to take Buffy’s hand and put it against his chest. So he reached out to do exactly that.

“Cut!”

They both turned to Cyrus, confused. Neither of them made a mistake on their lines.

Cyrus sighed. “You’re standing too far, T.J.”

The athlete looked at the distance between him and Buffy. It seemed like a respectable distance. He took a step forward.

“Like this?” he asked.

Cyrus left his camera to walk up to the both of them. Situating himself in between, the shorter boy gently placed a hand on T.J.’s back and pushed him closer to Buffy, who took a step back. Cyrus took her arm and pulled her back in her original place.

“Like this,” he stated, matter-of-factly.

Buffy looked up at T.J., lips in a tight line and hands clenched in fists at her side. He knew that she was holding herself back from punching him in the face and running away.

“Buffy, why do you look like you want to punch him?” Cyrus asked, looking at her. “You have to be in love!”

“I’m sorry! But his face…”

T.J. sneered. “Yours is no work of art either, Driscoll.”

“Why you-.”

“Guys!” Cyrus stepped in between them. “This is supposed to be the perfect moment and you’re ruining it!”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Perfect moment?”

Cyrus sighed again. “In every story, there is a perfect moment. The timing is right, the mood is set, and everything else fades away into the background. It’s the moment that captures the audience and sticks in their memory the most. This is the scene where Logan and Quinn pledge their love for one another and swear not to let anything get in between them. The perfect moment! So, please… get this right? For me?”

He was practically pleading at that point and T.J. felt guilty that his lack of romantic chemistry with Buffy was causing problems.

“I’m sorry, Cy, it’s just… really hard,” Buffy explained, looking sorry. “I mean… look at him!”

She gestured at T.J.’s face.

Cyrus looked up at him. T.J. grinned. And Cyrus blushed and cutely looked away.

“I see nothing wrong with his face,” he stated. “In fact, he looks quite handsome... and you’re very pretty!”

T.J. resisted the urge to blush.

“How about this?” Cyrus continued. “Close your eyes, both of you.”

“Why?” Buffy asked.

“Just do it, please.”

Obediently, T.J. shut his eyes. It took a moment but Buffy must have closed hers too as Cyrus cleared his throat and began to talk.

“Now, imagine that the person in front of you is the person you like.

T.J. pictured it in his head.

Cyrus standing in front of him, wearing that cute eye smile as he looked up at T.J. like he was the most amazing person in the world.

“The words on the script are the words you want to say to them.”

I’d give it all up for you. The team. My position. Everything if it means I can be with you.

“Picture how they look at you when you do. Are they happy to hear you say those words?”

No, Cyrus wouldn’t be happy. He knew how important basketball was to T.J. and would never let him give it up. In fact, he would probably be angry if T.J. tried. He would still look cute, though. Like a puppy trying to bark.

“How do you feel about them?”

T.J. would still give it all up if Cyrus asked him to.

“Now, open your eyes.”

T.J. obeyed and the first thing he saw was Cyrus looking up at him with a soft smile.

“There’s the look I needed,” he said, turning his head away to look at Buffy too, who now looked less tense than she was earlier. “We’ll resume in five, okay? Take in those feelings just now.”

He patted them both in the back before walking back to his camera. T.J. watched him go, worried because Cyrus just looked stressed out. He wanted to help him.

“Let’s get this right this time, okay?” Buffy’s voice interrupted his thoughts and he turned his head back to look at her.

The girl no longer looked like she wanted to kill him, which was a relief, honestly. That would make this scene easier to act out when she wasn’t glaring at him. It was just so easy to banter with her. He supposed that that was just what their relationship would always be like.

“Yeah, definitely. We should,” T.J. agreed. “I don’t want to make this any more difficult on Cyrus.”

Buffy flashed him a strange look. “You know… you should just hurry up and make a move.”

That caught him off-guard and he immediately felt the blood rush to his cheeks. “W-What?” was all he could manage. “W-What are you talking about?”

Buffy snorted. “Oh, please, you’re not exactly subtle. Practically everyone knows.”

His throat was suddenly dry and he swallowed. “E-Everyone?”

Buffy shrugged. “Everyone with eyes.” Her eyes softened. “Look, T.J., I may not be… fond of you.” She wrinkled her nose. “But, me and everyone else can see that you care about Cyrus. And Cyrus cares about you, too. Trust me, I’m his best friend.”

He almost felt touched at that. But, that didn’t mean she was right…was she? Could Cyrus care about him in the same way? Or maybe it was the kind of care that he felt for all of his friends. Cyrus was a caring person, after all.

“I don’t know…”

Buffy snorted again and punched his arm. “At least try to make a move on him or something!”

He resisted the urge to rub his arm (damn, this girl could punch!) and, instead, ran a hand through his hair.

“I should…” he agreed. “But… what should I do?”

Buffy snorted again. “Well, don’t expect me to help you there.” She smirked. “Unless you beg.”

T.J. huffed. “I’m good, thanks. I’ll figure it out myself.” He hesitated before asking in a soft voice, “You think he cares about me?”

Buffy laughed. “You… are… oblivious,” was all she said before punching his arm again.

…….…….…….

“They seem to be getting along well now,” said Andi, looking towards the gazebo.

Cyrus followed her gaze and watched Buffy laughing before punching T.J. in the arm. From Buffy, that was practically a sign of affection.

Something twitched inside his chest and Cyrus turned away to look at the script again. “T-That’s good,” he said.

“You okay, Cy?” Andi asked, concern in her voice.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just seem… bothered.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted before clearing his throat. “Anyway, we should start soon.” He turned back to the two under the gazebo, ignoring the way his chest twitched again. “Get ready!”

The two paused their conversation and got in their place. Cyrus positioned himself behind the camera and checked to see if Jonah was ready, too.

“Okay… Ready… And… Action!”

Up ahead on the gazebo, T.J. began.

“Quinn.”

Buffy turned around smiled. “Logan. I thought you would never come.”

“Of course, I would.” T.J. took a few steps towards her. “I promised you I would.”

Buffy looked down at the floor. “Are we doing the right thing? Keeping us a secret from our teams? Our friends?”

T.J. moved a few more steps closer until he was at the spot Cyrus had shown him. “You know what will happen if we tell them. They won’t forgive us.”

“I know but…”

T.J. reached out to take Buffy’s hand.

Cyrus’ heart was pumping hard and fast against his chest as Buffy raised her head to look at T.J. And, there it was… the look. The look that Cyrus wanted. The soft, loving look that spoke volumes, even through a camera screen.

“I’d give it all up,” T.J. said.

Buffy’s lips parted, slightly, in shock at the declaration.

Cyrus felt himself swallow as he zoomed in on T.J.’s face.

“I’d give it all up for you. The team. My position. Everything if it means I can be with you.”

And with those last words… T.J. leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Buffy, who wrapped her own around his torso.

Cyrus felt the breath leave his lungs at the sight.

It was beautiful.

Perfect.

And, then, T.J. lifted his eyes to look at him. The look brought him back to reality.

“C-Cut!” he managed to call out.

The two broke their hug and stepped away from each other.

“T-That was great!” he called out, with a small smile. “We’ll do one more take from another angle! Great job, you two!”

He turned his back to them and slapped his cheeks a little. They felt way too warm. He needed water.

…….…….…….

After two more takes of the gazebo scene, Cyrus had T.J. and Buffy do a few scenes around the park for a montage.

They took a walk around the park while holding hands. Sat on the swings while talking (they didn’t have a script for this one but Cyrus wasn’t planning on having any conversation for the montage anyway so the two just talked about basketball). And sat by the pond, watching the ducks.

It was cute. Adorable. Sweet, even.

It stressed Cyrus out, for some reason.

But, after all that was done, they packed up everything and got ready to go home.

It was Friday so they weren’t shooting over the weekend. His project was due next Friday so he had a max of three or four more days to finish shooting everything. Plus, Mr. Spencer had asked him to re-write the last scene and so far, Cyrus hadn’t come up with anything.

“You okay?” T.J. asked, breaking through his worries.

The jock was walking him home, still dressed in his formal clothes but with the suit jacket neatly folded in a bag. Both tripod bags hung from his shoulders, as they didn’t want to go back to school to return them so Cyrus was keeping them and the cameras for the weekend.

“Yeah, just… worried,” he confessed.

“About what?”

“Not finishing this movie on time.” Cyrus sighed. “I have to start cutting the clips and editing tonight. In fact, that’s what my weekend will consist of.” He let out a frustrated groan. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

T.J. gently bumped his shoulders with his. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sure you’ll finish on time, you never leave anything up to the last minute like I do.”

Cyrus felt his lips twitch into a smile.

“And I can help you, if you want.”

He raised his head to meet T.J.’s gaze. “Really? You would?”

“Yeah, totally! I mean, I’ve never edited a video before but if you tell me what to do, I can learn. I wanna help!”

Cyrus considered it. T.J. had been a big help to him throughout this entire week. And he just couldn’t resist when the taller boy looked so hopeful and excited.

So, he agreed.

Fifteen minutes later, they were both on Cyrus’ couch, glasses of lemon water sat on coasters on the coffee table and laptop computers in each of their laps. Cyrus showed him how to scroll through the clips, pick out the best clips, write them down for Cyrus to keep track of later when he edits, and move them to a new folder.

Side-by-side, with headphones on and barely any space between them, they spent an hour doing exactly this and mostly in silence, the only sounds coming from the clips and the scratching of pencils against paper.

A few times, Cyrus couldn’t help but peek at T.J. from the corner of his eye. And each time, he felt that same twitching in his chest that he swore to ignore. But, how could he when seeing how seriously the jock was with helping made him feel all warm and fluttery? It wasn’t T.J.’s grade on the line, but he was taking precious time to make sure Cyrus would pass with flying colors.

T.J. turned his head to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

Cyrus blinked and realized that he had been staring too long this time. “Sorry, I spaced out,” he half-lied before removing his headphones. “I’m a bit tired now. Let’s take a break.”

He moved the computer from his lap to the coffee table and leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes. He felt T.J. moving beside him. Soon, a shoulder pressed against his.

He opened his eyes and turned his head to T.J. “Thank you for everything. Once this is all done, you are definitely getting free milkshakes from me.”

T.J. grinned. “It’s a date.”

Cyrus blushed and looked away. He knew that T.J. didn’t actually mean a date. But, his heart was weak and he tried to quell the brimming hope threatening to take over.

“Besides, I’m having a ton of fun,” T.J. continued, oblivious to Cyrus’ turmoil. “Maybe I can help you with your next video project, too?”

Cyrus’ body betrayed him once more and he felt his ears heating up. Nonetheless, he turned to the boy next to him and smiled.

“Really? I won’t let you back out, you know.”

“I won’t back out,” T.J. swore, looking serious and determined.

Cyrus laughed. “What if it’s a film about two men falling in love?” he joked.

“I’d still star in it.”

He blinked, surprised. “Really?”

T.J. nodded, eagerly. “If it means helping you out, Underdog, I’ll play any role.”

Ahhh, he was so sweet. Cyrus wished his heart would stop beating so fast. It was way too loud and he was afraid T.J. would hear it.

They continued working on cutting clips throughout the rest of the afternoon until night fell. Cyrus’ parents arrived on time for dinner and they invited T.J., who accepted the invitation. They talked about Cyrus’ project, asked T.J. questions about school, and whatever topic came up.

After dessert, T.J. announced that it was time for him to leave for home as his curfew was approaching.

Cyrus walked him out. “Thanks, again, T.J.,” he said as they both stood out on the porch.

The jock grinned. “Any time. If you need me to help you out more this weekend, just let me know. I’m working until 3 tomorrow, but I’m free for the rest of the day and Sunday.”

“I’ll make a note of that, thank you. Good night.”

“Good night.”

With one last wink, T.J. turned on his heels and walked away, not realizing that he left Cyrus’ heart doing somersaults.

Tag list:

@lemon-boy-tj @homosexualearthworm

@disastrxlogy

@new-to-the-phandom

@tyrusgoingfast

@tj-cyrus

@multifandom-bxitch

@completelysterling completelysterling

@spike-heels

@thedampjofangirl

@i-am-confussion confussion

@buffyshirley

#tyrus #tyrus fanfic #tyrus perfect moment #andi mack

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luxusnoname · 5 years

Text

Studies of the Heart (Even x Braig)

Summary: Even had never been in love before. Maybe there was some irony in the fact that one who was researching the heart hadn't experienced one of its most powerful emotions. That is, until Braig showed up. The first fic in a collection of drabbles ranging from pre-BBS to post-KH3.

Characters/Pairings: Even/Braig, mentions of the other Apprentices

Rating: T (for like one swear word)

Word Count: 2.3k

Author’s Note: *slides onto home plate at the last second* It’s only 11pm in my time zone so t e c h n i c a l l y still Xigvex day! Not that anyone else really ships these two, but I’m hoping to change that eventually. This is set in an AU of sorts that disregards the revelations in KH3′s epilogue, and this particular bit takes place before BBS so no spoilers here! Enjoy ^^

~~~

Studies of the Heart

When Even walked into the lab in the morning, there were a great many things he expected to find.

He expected the comforting hum of machinery that served as the background noise to his research. He expected an organized stack of notes atop his workspace, exactly where he left them the night before. He expected the coffee pot to have a fresh brew ready and waiting for him.

The one thing he didn't expect was a certain marksman waiting to prank him, standing upside down in the air and paying no mind whatsoever to the laws of gravity. It shouldn't have come as a surprise really, since the man wasn't the sort to obey rules. Nor was he the sort of man to think things like this through. This last piece is especially important, because he wasn't expecting his victim to be preoccupied with reading a textbook that morning as he entered the lab.

So, it came as a great shock to both men when Even turned the corner and, not two steps into the room, collided with the unexpected obstacle that was Braig's dense skull.

Even flailed and dropped his book, the tome hitting the floor with a dull thud. However, it was not quite as spectacular as the thud made by Braig, who had lost concentration and dropped to the ground like a particularly bothersome sack of potatoes. Said potato sack was grumbling curses under his breath as he clutched his newfound bloody nose.

Even was faring no better, a hiss of pain accompanying his usual shrill tone as he massaged his forehead. "What on earth were you doing there?"

Braig gave a halfhearted chuckle from his position on the ground, voice muffled beneath his glove. "Well, was tryin' to spook ya but obviously that didn't work out."

"Don't you have duties you should be performing elsewhere?"

"As if. ‘Sides, who's to say my first duty of the day wasn't to test your alertness?"

Even narrowed his eyes at the man who was still laying on the ground - it was really quite a pathetic scene. "I highly doubt that." And with that, he picked up his book and stepped over Braig.

"C'mon, I don't even get a hand up?" He stretched his arm out toward the scientist but dropped it with a sigh when it was pointedly ignored.

Instead, Even began digging through his supply cabinet and mumbling to himself. Honestly, what a child. Able to wield space and gravity magic and he uses it to prank people. Surely that power could be put to much better use. And his bitterness over this was not in any way related to him being Braig's primary target, thank you very much.

But as much as he liked to complain, the pranks were never actively harmful. He suspected they were the man’s way of socializing in some twisted sense. At any rate, Even had grown accustomed to his presence over the years and his grumbling was really done out of habit than any actual contempt for the man. Braig was a fool, but he was an apprentice to Lord Ansem the same as the rest of them, so he was their fool.

“Got any gauze in there?”

Even startled as the sharpshooter warped next to him, causing him to nearly knock over a stack of glassware. “Heavens Braig, would you give me a moment? That’s what I’m looking for.”

“Anticipating my needs? My hero.” He brought the back of his free hand up to his forehead as if he were a damsel in distress, but his shit-eating grin was far from innocent.

Even didn’t grace this with a response. Instead, when he found the gauze, he shoved it into Braig’s hand and stalked back toward his workspace.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down to review his notes from the previous day, elbow propped up on the desk and fist under his chin. One particular subject had responded to the stimuli while another had not, and careful testing was necessary to determine if it any external variables had snuck their way into the experiment. He absently chewed the tip of his pen.

As he pondered the matter, the surface beneath him shifted with a groan and he nearly faceplanted as his elbow slipped. Looking up, he saw that Braig had hoisted himself up onto the desk, nursing his own cup of coffee.

Pray though he might that the interruptions would end there, he knew he couldn’t be so lucky.

“So, Lord Ansem did actually send me to check up on you this morning, believe it or not. Something about some science mumbo jumbo you’re working on?”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes returning to his notes. “Yes, that is what we do around here, for lack of better words I suppose.”

Braig waved his hand. “Eh, you know I don’t care for the finer details. He just wants a brief report written up so I can deliver it to him asap. He’ll be joining you this evening.”

“And I suppose you’re going to wait here while I compose it?”

“Of course. But don’t you worry about me,” he said with a glint in his eye as he jumped down. “I can find some way to entertain myself in the meantime.”

“Yes, and that’s exactly what I was afraid of,” Even grumbled as he pulled a fresh sheet of paper out of a supply drawer to transcribe his notes onto.

Just as he was about to shut the drawer, he caught his reflection in a small mirror. His attention was immediately drawn to his forehead, which now bore a small but slowly growing reddish mark. Curses. No doubt he’d be sporting a lovely bruise for a week or more thanks to his companion.

As if on cue, there was a crash of metal on tile from deeper in the lab and the marksman threw his hands up in a gesture that was supposed to imply innocence. Even didn’t buy it. But at least Braig had the good sense to look sheepish about it.

~~~

Contrary to popular belief, Even did make it out of the lab on occasion, rare though it might be. His walks usually took him to the fountains in the courtyard. They were a sight to behold and one of the many wonders of Radiant Garden. If he ever hit a stumbling block in his research, spending time pondering there usually managed to provide some solution or new angle to look at a problem from.

Today happened to be one of those frustrating days, and the weather was pleasant enough for a stroll. So he found himself at the fountain, mulling over various disproven hypothesis and how they could be improved. He was on the verge of a breakthrough when a foreign object was thrust in front of his face. A bar of sea salt ice cream, to be exact.

He turned to the owner and of course it was none other than Braig, who shook it playfully in his face. “Apology ice cream?”

“Apology? What for?”

“For this morning.”

Ah, of course. Even eyed the proffered gift warily. The treat itself didn’t pose any threat, but a genuine gesture from Braig was rare, so forgive him for being skeptical.

Gloved hand wiggled the bar yet again. “C’mon, I know you aren’t just eating them for the kid’s benefit.”

A rare smile graced Even’s features at the mention of Ienzo, Lord Ansem’s brilliant young protégé. Once he deemed it safe, he accepted the ice cream with a small nod and sat on the nearby bench. Braig followed suit, wasting no time in eating his. And proceeding to talk with a mouthful, as expected.

“Speaking of Ienzo, I don’t know what you and Ansem have done to that kid, but he has absolutely no concept of fun,” Braig said as he jabbed his ice cream in an accusatory fashion. “I asked him if he’d wanna try sniping an apple that was dangling in a tree just above Dilan and y’know what he said?”

“He said no,” Even deadpanned.

“He said no! Can you imagine? Passing up an opportunity like that?”

Even took a bite of his ice cream as he mulled over his response. “I don’t know Braig, can I imagine being a mature individual with a healthy respect for my peers? It is rather difficult.”

Braig grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Was that sarcasm? And here this whole time I thought you were just a stick in the mud, Ev.”

He opened his mouth to respond but the words died on his lips. Ev. In all the years that Braig had been at the castle, he had never called him that before. And Even wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it. On one hand, it was infuriatingly informal. But on the other, it suggested that the man thought highly enough of him to consider him a friend. Maybe it even held a degree of affection.

Not that it mattered to him, of course. He just wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Speechless? Man, I really did give you a good knock on the noggin, didn’t I?”

Before Even could process what was happening, Braig brought a hand up to his forehead, thumb gently swiping over the blossoming bruise. He studied it for a moment before his dark eyes met Even’s, his expression unreadable but unusually sincere. Had he ever truly looked at the man’s eyes like this before, close enough to notice how the irises were a chestnut brown in the sunlight?

Despite himself, Even felt a blush beginning to work its way up his neck at the surprisingly vulnerable eye contact. He turned away and cleared his throat. “If I remember correctly, you got a bloody nose out of the affair, so I’d say we’re about even.”

“Huh. S’pose we are.”

Both men fell silent at that, content to finish their ice cream in amicable peace. His mind went back to the day that Braig was discovered lurking on the grounds. Dilan and Aeleus were patrolling the gardens that morning when the former spotted him. Even had only heard stories of the event, but they brought him great joy regardless.

Apparently when Dilan moved to apprehend him, Braig had warped away, sticking his leg through a portal to trip the larger man from a safe distance. Doubled over with laughter at his own cleverness, he didn’t notice Aeleus behind him. One swift pommel to the back of his head and he was down for the count.

They took him to Lord Ansem, who was intrigued by his spatial powers and invited him to stay at the castle. His unique control over gravity, coupled with excellent marksmanship, made him an excellent candidate for a guard. Soon after, he became an apprentice much like Dilan and Aeleus had.

Returning to the present, he stole a glance at Braig out of the corner of his eye. The man appeared to be deep in contemplation himself, brow furrowed and empty ice cream stick balanced between his teeth. Even may mock his intelligence, but he suspected he was far more thoughtful and observant than one might assume.

After a few moments, a hand clapped his shoulder and squeezed. “Welp, I better get going now. Some of us have work to do,” Braig added with an infuriating wink before he withdrew his hand and meandered off.

Even stammered as he felt heat rise to his cheeks. Where had that reaction come from?

Surely it was because the man had the nerve to suggest he was slacking off. Surely. It wasn't anything else. It wasn’t because of that wink or that lazy, crooked smirk. Or the way his fingertips had lingered on his shoulder, leaving ghost sensations in the path they had traced over. He just had to get his mind on something else, anything else.

The empty ice cream stick in his hands suddenly became of great interest to him.

~~~

It was shortly after that when Even began noticing little things about Braig, details that had somehow escaped him over the years. Like how the guard uniform’s square shoulders sloped on his thin frame. How his lopsided grin caused the corner of one eye to crinkle. The way he restlessly swung his legs when he was sitting on the lab table that had to be disinfected every time he visited without fail.

And while Braig’s interruptions were almost always pointless and asking him to refrain from visiting the lab would certainly increase his productivity, he never brought himself to ask. He had spent more time pondering this than he cared to admit.

Even had never been in love before. Maybe there was some irony in the fact that one who was researching the heart hadn't experienced one of its most powerful emotions. He liked to believe it was because of the high standards he held not only for himself, but also those he chose to share his company with.

Braig fell short of these standards by a laughably large margin. He was loud, obnoxious, impulsive, childish, and not nearly as clever as he thought himself to be. None of these traits were even remotely close to ideal. But at the same time, there was some sort of affection there, wasn't there?

So maybe he wasn't in love with him. Developing a crush, possibly. He discarded that thought quickly, however, as the word ‘crush’ made him cringe. Crushes were for juveniles, teenagers acting on their physical attraction. Braig might be somewhat handsome, he supposed, with his sharp cheekbones and lean figure. But that was irrelevant. All of this terminology and categorization of his feelings was irrelevant in Even’s mind.

In the end, it didn’t matter what he called it. It was there, and much like the man himself, he just had to deal with it.

And surprisingly, this didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.

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randomnessunicorn-imagine · 5 years

Note

Could I get a Don't ever do that again prompt with Weyoun from DS9 and a female security officer who always gets into trouble? Perhaps fighting a Jem'hadar in order to protect Weyoun? :)

{ I know I’m verylate but I’m still watching DS9 and I was unable to write it before since Ididn’t know the character.

Then his name lookslike Korean, don’t know why, lol, but it’s kind of funny!

If you want a secondpart of this, let me know but you have to tell me a plot, because I’m too lazy to think about it - }

✨ WEYOUN ✨

Peace could not lastforever. Impossible.

For years you hadbeen obsessed with the heaven on earth and the idea that the earth was an Edenbut it was not true. Paradise existed only in the imagination of men, theirillusions. These illusions made them blind.

The earth was apurgatory like any other place and now hostile, mysterious and fickle enemies werecompromising the human race’s safety. Enemies who could take any form, even theshape of your best friend or mother. They did it to know every secret and thendestroy everyone and take any form, take people’s place in the world, and commit crimes and conspiracies under a false name. Sneaky, extraneous, and combative enemies.Enemies similar to the human being of the past when it was still a savage and stilldiscriminated the other human beings just because they had a different skin colouror a different love aspiration. The human race was losing its integrity becauseof these ruthless enemies.

The Earth was notheaven, no planet was because the universe was hell and there was no mercy foranything or anyone. Anymore

You did not want to behavethe same and become like those violent men who had spat on peace and so youdecided to stay on DS9 and help your Captain as much as possible.

The Dominion hadbrought problems everywhere and the panic reached every corner of the space. Noone was safe and no soul could sleep peaceful in the night.

Maybe you were notthe only one who had believed in an awful lie because there were so many otherpeople who still held onto illusions.

They were other kindsof illusions but they still had the same definition: lies told to itself, liesof honey that tasted so good. Beautiful lies that made their lives meaningful,inestimable but they were still lies, and would have dissolved like the morningmist, they would have melted like snow in the sun. Someday, they would havevanished.

At this time, somefanatic aliens who believed that their god was inimitable, fair and perfect, hadinvaded DS9. However, these believers had not even had the possibility ofchoice because the said gods had decided to be worshiped and had decided tochange the original DNA of these races; they modified every individual of thesespecies to reach their dirty and dishonourable purpose. Without consent and morality,defining themselves as gods.

You could not imaginethe changelings, the family of your boss Odo, could be so insensitive andcruel, they only searched for revenge and there was no honour or logic in whatthey pursued. They were only brutal and merciless assassins, anything more. Itwas the horrible truth and truth never tasted like honey, it was bitter anddisgusting.

One of the Changeling’sblind believers was now walking briskly, almost running, on the promenade, hisgaze was focused, serious and composed but you were able to glimpse anotheremotion on his pale face, a feeling that you would define as anxiety. You hadno idea why he was so nervous, but since your duty was to keep the spacestation safe, you decided to keep an eye on him.

The name of thisindividual was Weyoun and you still did not understand if you hated him or ifyou felt sympathy toward him since he was an enemy, but he did not seemthreatening or dangerous, he was not a warrior but a mere diplomat. He lookedso innocent, but you had learned that nothing was as it seemed, you no longerlived in lies and therefore you could not think that he really was innocent.

Nevertheless, youfelt sorry for Weyoun because he continued to obey, believe and submit to thefounders even though they were not real gods because they played with the Vortas’DNA, they genetically modified the Vortas. People who acted in this way couldnot be defined as deities but you also knew that Weyoun and his race would havenever understood this concept and would have continued to adore those changelings,their deities, their masters and jailers.

Afterward, youunderstood why he was running, in fact, he was chased by a Jem'Hadar and thiswas not the first time something like this happened. A Jem’Hadar had alreadykilled Weyoun and so it could have happened again.

You did not helpWeyoun because you were worried about him, you did not want to be a friend ofyour enemy but you helped him anyway because it was your duty. At least, you keptrepeating this motivation to yourself.

You could not feelcompassion for a person like him, just because he had not freely chosen hisfaith and his means and intent were wrong, it did not mean you had the right to be cruel.

Therefore, you ran towardthe Jem'Hadar, you screamed, “Stop! You aren’t allowed to run on the promenadeand any act of violence and harassment is prohibited.” Your voice was authoritative,serious and loud, you pointed your phaser at the Jem'Hadar.

On the other hand,Weyoun did not seem surprised by your reaction but he was relieved because thissituation was stressful, the Jem'Hadars were ignoble slaves, he could not trustthem. While he was listing in his mind all the reasons that made the Jem'Hadar stupidand savage beings, Weyoun hid behind you, without shame or shyness.

Weyoun was sure youwould help him and not just because this was your job but for some other reasonhe was still analysing, he thought you could be particularly interested in him butit was still a mere theory.

Maybe you were drowningin another lie, you were deluding yourself once more but you would never haveadmitted it, or maybe he would have admitted it for you, he would have made yourealizing the truth, your true feelings.

The Jem'Hadar, beforeleaving, looked at Weyoun doggedly, the Vorta would not have escaped forever,and his fate was to dying for the rest of eternity. Actually, Weyoun did notcare about it so much but all these deaths made him wasting a lot of time hecould dedicate to complete his job and help his beloved changelings.

“Oh, Y/N, thankyou very much. That savage Jem'Hadar didn’t want to leave me alone.” Weyoun said,smiling amicably and settled the collar of his jacket that had frayed duringhis ridiculous run.

“I only did my job.”You answered seriously.

“Of course, likeeveryone here.” Weyoun said, looking around with a scrutinizing gaze.

“But why was thatJem'Hadar chasing after you?” You asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, I don’tknow, Jem'Hadars have no manners. Many of the things they do make no sense.Maybe he wanted his ration of ketracel-white, it is not the first time theydisobey to a superior order.” Weyoun said, smiling innocently or perhaps insidiously.

“Or he justwanted to kill you. It seems it’s become everyone’s hobby lately.” Youshowed his same smile, talking sarcastically. Maybe you hoped to hurt him withyour words but it did not happen because he chuckled at your joke.

“Is my presenceso unpleasant?” Weyoun asked and you almost heard a charming tone of voicevoice but you knew it was impossible, he could not flirt with you, and then hecontinued, “People only waste their time, they are not like us, verypassionate about their duty, judicious and willing.”

“The presence ofstrangers and people who are threatening the station is not definable as pleasant.”You said firmly. You were exactly the opposite of him: you always said thetruth, nothing but the truth and as a member of security, you had to be honest.“And we’re not the same.” You answered to his last sentence and said, “Otherthan that, don’t do that again!”

“Doing what?” helooked at you with an innocent confusing look.

“Run through the promenade.It’s not allowed, you know, even if they are chasing after you. You can’t doit!” you declared with a cold tone of voice.

Actually, Weyounreally appreciated the way you spoke and behaved, you possessed a charm, maybe it was your courage or maybe it was your blind honesty, which fascinated him a lot. Hesmirked, gently and then he nodded because he did not want to disappoint you.

“I understand and Iwill be more careful next time a wild Jem'Hadar attempts on my life. I did notmean to offend you, mine was just a compliment, anything else. The care and theperseverance you put in your job is laudable, I wanted to expose myappreciation. I am desolated for this misunderstanding.” He said with a softtone of voice, he half closed his eyes, his smile so gentle and you wonderedwhat his real intentions were.

Secretly, you foundhis deceptive ways very alluring, attractive somehow but it was wrong, you felt inadequateand you could not fall for his fake kindness.

You could not even fallfor his sinister and weird games because it made no sense, he was certainly lyingand he had something in mind but the only way to find it out was playing hisown game and see where it would bring you.

“No, don’t worry, I’veexaggerated.” You said politely, but Weyoun could understand you were forcing asmile. You were unable to hide your true feelings and thoughts. He could read you like a book.

“You know I candistinguish lies and truth.” Weyoun said calmly, since you were a bad liar, thenhe kept saying, “You don’t have to be anxious or preoccupied of me, noreason to be.” He tried reassuring you and he looked you in your eyes as if hewas reading the secrets written in your soul, you were hypnotized and lost inhis purple, deep eyes.

You just nodded,unable of speaking or thinking rationally and you loved every word he said.Indeed, Weyoun never stopped talking with his candid and delicate tone, “I’dlike to show you my appreciation, since you have been so kind with me, you havesaved me from that mad Jem'Hadar. Would you like to spend some extra time in mycompany?” His voice so gentle, low and only you could hear his words, nobodyelse even if the promenade was not so crowded but you already forgot abouteverything, about your job, your thoughts of mistrusting and hatred toward the changelingsand you only saw his bright, wide, insightful eyes, nothing else.

You did not havereasons to refuse his invitation and you did not want to do it, even if yourbrain kept warning you that Weyoun was your enemy, you could not trust a liar but somerisk had never killed anyone and so you followed him wherever he would havebrought you.

And then you decided to fall for another illusion, to believe in another lie that tasted like honey, so sweet, gentle and ephemera because it was human’s nature, to live under the dome of delusions.

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simaethae · 6 years

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quendi and eldar

so i finally got around to reading the Quendi and Eldar section of HoME XI and it was interesting enough that I felt like it was worthwhile writing up notes! no particular coherency or structure here, I’m just pulling out bits I like (but sparing you guys the sections on the evolution of various dialects from Primitive Quendian/Common Eldarin since it doesn’t extract well) ^_^

Hence Hekelmar and Hekeldamar [“Home of the Forsaken”], the name in the languages of the loremasters of Aman for Beleriand. It was thought of as a long shoreland beside the sea (cf. Eglamar under Sindarin below).

This is weird. Surely the Noldor…. remember crossing Beleriand? I can only think that maybe “thought of” means like, “in the popular imagination, the Elves left behind in Beleriand are always staring sadly out from the western shore, singing sad songs” or something like that?

As a prefix the form usually used was ava-, the force of which can be observed in avaquétima ‘not to be said, that must not be said’, avanyárima ‘not to be told or related’ as contrasted with úquétima ‘unspeakable’, that is, ‘impossible to say, put into words, or unpronounceable’, únyárima ‘impossible to recount’, sc. because all the facts are not known, or the tale is too long. Compare also Avamanyar ‘those who did not go to Aman, because they would not’ (an equivalent of Avari) with Úamanyar ‘those who did not in the event reach Aman’ (an equivalent of Hekeldi).

Mostly I just think this is neat. I’m enjoying all these careful distinctions between Amanyar and Umanyar and Avari, though.

In the use of the Exiles Quenya naturally came to mean the language of the Ñoldor, developed in Aman, as distinct from other tongues, whether Elvish or not. But the Ñoldor did not forget its connexion with the old word Quendi, and still regarded the name as implying ‘Elvish’, that is the chief Elvish tongue, the noblest, and the one most nearly preserving the ancient character of Elvish speech.

Of course not.

The Teleri had little interest in linguistic lore, which they left to the Ñoldor. They did not regard their language as a ‘dialect’ of Quenya, but called it Lindarin or Lindalambe.

I’m really enjoying how much the Teleri just keep Doing Their Own Thing.

The Elves of Beleriand were isolated, without contact with any other people, Elvish or of other kind; and they were all of one clan and language: Telerin (or Lindarin). Their own language was the only one they ever heard, and they needed no word to distinguish it, nor to distinguish themselves.

[…] By the Sindar anyone dwelling outside Beleriand, or entering their realm from outside, was called a Morben [“Dark-elf”, “Dark-person”]….The Avari thus remained the chief examples of Moerbin. Any individual Avar who joined with or was admitted among the Sindar (it rarely happened) became a Calben [“Light-elf”]; but the Avari in general remained secretive, hostile to the Eldar, and untrustworthy; and they dwelt in hidden places in the deeper woods, or in caves.

Sindarin isolationist paranoia is so charmingly fucked-up. <3 “We’re not going to let you into Doriath, stay away from us,” “the Avari are so secretive and hostile wow”. Wowwww.

But the form Golodh seems to have been phonetically unpleasant to the Ñoldor. The name was, moreover, chiefly used by those who wished to mark the difference between the Ñoldor and the Sindar, and to ignore the dwelling of the Ñoldor in Aman which might give them a claim to superiority.

I’m not copying out the purely linguistic bits but this whole section is basically a 50:50 ratio of linguistics to terse notes about Elves sneering at each other. This is turning out to be a really worthwhile read.

The Ñoldor indeed asserted that most of the ‘Teleri’ were at heart Avari, and that only the Eglain [Círdan’s people] really regretted being left in Beleriand.

Love you Noldor never stop <3

The first Avari that the Eldar met again in Beleriand seem to have claimed to be Tatyar, who acknowledged their kinship with the Exiles, though there is no record of their actually using the name Ñoldo in any recognizable Avarin form. They were actually unfriendly to the Ñoldor, and jealous of their more exalted kin, whom they accused of arrogance.

1. That’s super interesting that the Avari in Beleriand were more closely related to the Noldor than the Sindar! I love an excuse for some nice complicated cultural tensions.

2. Wait, this implies Eöl’s one of the Tatyarin Avari. Eöl is obviously Tatyar. Godddd.

This ill-feeling descended in part from the bitterness of the Debate before the March of the Eldar began, and was no doubt later increased by the machinations of Morgoth; but it also throws some light upon the temperament of the Ñoldor in general, and Fëanor in particular. Indeed the Teleri on their side asserted that most of the Ñoldor in Aman itself were in heart Avari, and returned to Middle-earth when they discovered their mistake; they needed room to quarrel in.

a;fn;gngn <333333

For in contrast the Lindarin elements in the western Avari were friendly to the Eldar, and willing to learn from them; and so close was the feeling of kinship between the remnants of the Sindar, the Nandor, and the Lindarin Avari, that later in Eriador and the Vale of Anduin they often became merged together.

Lothlórien!! Okay, not just Lothlorien, but it’s so interesting and logical for Galadriel to end up there – someone both Lindarin and Noldorin (and I wonder if that would have been read at all as Tatyarin? but then she’s a little Vanyarin too) married to a Sindarin husband. But I always love seeing reiterated that – okay, they mingle, but the Umanyar are not homogenous any more than the Amanyar <3

In [Sindarin] the word gûl (equivalent of Q ñóle) had less laudatory associations, being used mostly of secret knowledge, especially such as possessed by artificers who made wonderful things; and the word became further darkened by its frequent use in the compound morgul ‘black arts’, applied to the delusory or perilous arts and knowledge derived from Morgoth. Those indeed among the Sindar who were unfriendly to the Ñoldor attributed their supremacy in the arts and lore to their learning from Melkor-Morgoth.

I love this kind of free-associatory etymological slander. Also as always the double-edged and dangerous nature of technology and lore.

This name they first applied to the Nandor that came into Eastern Beleriand; but this people still called themselves by the old clan-name *Lindai, which had at that time taken the form Lindi in their tongue….These names were however later replaced among the Sindar by the name ‘Green-elves’, at least as far as the inhabitants of Ossiriand were concerned; for they withdrew themselves and took as little part in the strife with Morgoth as they could.

Just noting this to help me keep track of the whole Teleri-Lindai / Nandor-Lindi-Laegrim…. thing.

The Valar, therefore, learned Quenya by their own choice, for pleasure as well as for communication; and it seems clear that they preferred that the Eldar should make new words of their own style, or should translate the meanings of names into fair Eldarin forms, rather than [that] they should retain the Valarin words or adapt them to Quenya (a process that in most cases did justice to neither tongue).

I’d actually like to know more about Valarin but this is still really cute.

No Elf of any kind ever sided with Morgoth of free will, though under torture or the stress of great fear, or deluded by lies, they might obey his commands…The ‘Dark-elves’, however, often were hostile, and even treacherous, in their dealings with the Sindar and Ñoldor; and if they fought, as they did when themselves assailed by the Orcs, they never took any open part in the war on the side of the Celbin. They were, it seems, filled with an inherited bitterness against the Eldar, whom they regarded as deserters of their kin, and in Beleriand this feeling was increased by envy (especially of the Amanyar) and by resentment of their lordliness.

I normally try not to take the “unreliable narrator” thing too far but I have to wonder from whose perspective this is being written. The “deserters of their kin” thing is an interesting snippet of the Avari’s own perspective, though.

Eöl was a Mornedhel, and is said to have belonged to the Second Clan

CALLED IT.

It is said also that the folk of the North were clad much in grey, especially after the return of Morgoth when secrecy became needed; and the Mithrim had an art of weaving a grey cloth that made its wearers almost invisible in shadowy places or in a stony land.

The Elven-cloaks Galadriel weaves for the Fellowship! I wonder if she learned it directly from the Mithrim or if it was a more indirect transmission?

#silmarillion #noldor #sindar #teleri #avari #languages #quenya #sindarin #telerin #valarin #eol #galadriel #histories of middle earth #canon #or more accurately #deuterocanon

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passerby-boy-archive · 6 years

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Interview from The Furthest Station paperback - properly this time!

So, uh, several months ago I said that at some point I was going to type up the full interview from the back of the paperback edition of The Furthest Station because I find a lot of it super interesting and it kills me they didn’t put it anywhere more accessible. So this is that, finally! Below the cut because damn, is this thing long.

INTERVIEWER: Hello, I’m Paul Stark from Orion’s audio team and I’m delighted to be joined today by Ben Aaronovitch, author of the bestselling Rivers of London PC Peter Grant series, available in hardback, paperback, ebook and audio narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. Ben, welcome, we’re here to talk about London and magic today. How are you doing?

BEN AARONOVITCH: I’m fine, thank you. Very nice to be here.

I: Fantastic. Well, on to a simple question to start with: What drew you to write about London?

BA: I always find this a very strange question. I’m from London. Should I write about Birmingham, you know? I write about London because it’s my home town, and I’m lazy and don’t like to go outside the M25. It’s what I know. I’d love to see more books - urban fantasy books - set in places like Birmingham - especially Birmingham, which I think is a very neglected city - and places like that and learn about those places.But all the people from those places seem to come to London and write books about London. So perhaps maybe the question you should ask is ‘why do you write?’ I write about London for a very simple reason: I’m a Londoner. I’m not sure why Neil Gaiman and David Carey and everyone writes about London, except for they’ve moved here and now they write about it.

I: And it’s an amazing city. Lots of history, wonderful characters and myth that kind of provides a bedrock for fiction. What prompted you to add magic?

BA: It never occurred to me not to add a magic. This is another one of those questions that’s rather like saying to a man that has set out on a long walk ‘What prompted you to use your feet?’ What prompted me to use my feet - I thought: I want to do magic cops. That was the first thing that came into my head. So, really, the magic is built in. Magic cops implies magic right from the start. So, really, the rest of that was kind of detail. So, we’re going to start with the idea that we’re going to have policemen who do magic and then everything else was a question of who they are and what they are doing. Police who do magic in London was the starting point of the series and so I wasn’t prompted to put magic into it, it was there right from the start. There were several things built in right from the start.

I: Given that you’ve also told us you should ‘write what you know’, is this your way of telling us that you can actually do magic?

BA: No, I am, in fact, a total sceptic. However, magic is a lot of fun to write about. So I can’t do magic. Honest.

I: What made you go beyond the magic cops? To make the rivers one of the key bases? Was that something you knew about, something you were passionate about?

BA: No, I didn’t actually know that much about the rivers. I came up with the idea of Mama Thames for a different project and then I incorporated elements of another project in the initial idea and then for the book. And once you have Mama Thames and look at a map of all the tributaries, you just go ‘ooh they must all be stroppy women’. So that’s where they came from. And if you just look at them you can see their personalities; a lot of them you can just see their personalities from looking where their courses are. So, you know Fleet, you know Tyburn, you know what they’re going to be doing.

I: Are there any that you feel you haven’t written yet that you’re really keen to?

BA: Oh, there are tons! There’s the River Rom, who is the goddess of illegal street racing. There’s the Wandle, who, for historical reasons,is the goddess of used clothes shops and schmutter. Basically the goddess of schmutter. That’s the Wandle.

I: Any beer connection? You’ve got a lot of breweries along the Wandle.

BA: Possibly, possibly. The Wandle was a very popular river for industry so you have the Romantics all setting up their factories down there. What are they called? I’ve forgotten their names. That’s terrible. You know the people who believed in fabric for the masses and beautiful - you see this is the trouble. I do all this research and it goes in one ear and out the other. People expect me to remember little details of Fleet’s course, ‘Does the Fleet’s course-?’ I don’t know! I’ve got to look at my map to know these things. ‘Where does Wandle…?’ Anyway, there’s a ton. There’s a place called Black Ditch and I haven’t really worked out where she fits in, and there’s Hackney Brook and there’s all the history of the Lea - a very complicated river as anyone who has ever looked at a map will tell you. And so there’s tons of people. You know I’m going to be writing for millions of years before I get to the end of the rivers and that’s not even counting going upstream and the Ash and all those. So…

I: Lots of scope.

BA: Lots of scope.

I: You mentioned earlier one of the prospects of writing on Birmingham. Now, I realise I’m asking a very geeky question here, but would each canal have an individual spirit?

BA: I don’t know. I’d have to go to Birmingham and find out. I don’t know, I’m trying to avoid the idea that everywhere has a spirit, a genius loci. Really the question is: would it be fun if it had a genius loci? So, Grand Union Canal has a genius loci. I didn’t mean it to have a genius loci and had no plans for it to be a genius loci and then I wrote a short story and it ended up having an orangutan for a genius loci, and it was like, ‘I didn’t plan that!’,but you know…

I: Stories have a life of their own.

BA: They often just go places I’m not expecting. So, yeah, I wouldn’t like to say what would happen if I went to Birmingham because you’re shaped by the environment you’re writing in and therefore you go somewhere and you find things. That’s the whole point of going somewhere is you find interesting things. There’s no point in saying ‘I’m going to do this’ and then you go somewhere and do it, or, at least, there’s no point for me to do that. It’s much more fun to go somewhere and then have a look around and go ‘ah’ - you’ve got to smell the place, really. I always say that you’ve got to smell the streets before you can write about them.

I: Fantastic, fantastic.

BA: Except the countryside, which always just smells the same.

I: There’s a bit of a different smell depending on what the local livestock is, but yes.

BA: Yes, unless you go downwind of a pig farm in which case it smells like ‘Get the f--- out of here’.

I: So, back on to your magic cops. Peter himself isn’t that great at magic, certainly he’s been slow on the uptake somewhat. Do you find--

BA: I love this notion that Peter is slow on the uptake.

I: Well he’s not slow on the uptake in general, but he certainly has perhaps been slower to develop magic.

BA: Than who?

I: Than certainly Lesley, I’d say.

BA: Are you sure about that?

I: I feel like I’m being lead down a blind alley.

BA: No, I mean this is where you get this weird idea from fanon, where fanon says that Peter is slow at magic, slow at picking up magic. I haven’t said if Peter is slow at picking up magic because aside from anything else Nightingale is a terrible teacher that way, with telling people how they’re doing. No, Peter is as good as you would expect him to be - someone who has only been doing it for four or five years you know, under the conditions like that he’s got two jobs. Remember he’s also a police officer also doing all these cases, occasionally having buildings dropped on him, so he’s not devoting his full time to it. So I think he’s doing all right.

I: So, did you always envision that Peter would be a student, but dealing with Nightingale who is a phenomenally adept magician, but is terrible at teaching as you say? Was that always how you saw the dynamic?

BA: Ah, well, Nightingale is very limited. I wanted to avoid Dumbledore. I wanted to avoid Gandalf. So, whatever Nightingale is, he’s not Gandalf and he’s not Dumbledore. He’s not a teacher. He’s not a mentor character. He is not, as by his nature, a mentor. He’s not the wise man who tells you what to do. He’s basically Bulldog Drummond with magic. He’s like a magical Bulldog Drummond, he’s possibly the most powerful wizard that the Folly has ever produced in terms of being able to do stuff but ask him how it works and he’s like ‘Uh… you know, I don’t know how it works. I just do it. I learn the formulas and am just good at it and can do these spells that no one else can do.’ And he can do them quietly and he can do them fast and silently and all sorts of things. It’s like he was good at sports except the sports was magic. He’s basically that, he’s one of those. I always imagine him in his cricket whites at Casterbrook: ‘Argh, play the game!’ or playing rugby, or the equivalent of rugby, and just charging through, you know, like ‘rraaaawwgh’ and snoozing through the academic part of the curriculum . So, you see, he’s that guy and part of the reason he has to look things up to teach Peter is he can’t remember what he was taught and he has to go back. But he is very very good. He is excellently good, but in some ways this is almost a story about the limitations of power. So there’s a limit to what you can do. If he got shot in the head from a distance he’s buggered. You know, as he said, ‘Shoot me. If you want to stop someone with my skills, just shoot me from a distance with a rifle.’ There is a limitation. I didn’t want - he can rip up a house by its roots and fling it over a garden fence, but he’s not Superman. He’s not a superhero. He has these limitations and magic has these inherent limitations. It does obey the rules of thermodynamics though it does bend them quite severely occasionally. Ultimately, the power has to come from somewhere and it can get dangerous if you overdo it.

I: Is that one of the reasons you’ve kept the top end of Nightingale’s abilities somewhat under wraps? Ultimately, he needs to be careful how much he exerts himself, how much he keeps from the public.

BA: Well, there is that. There’s also that he hasn’t needed to. And also, the more difficult spells and subtle ones like actually putting Toby to sleep in the first book - that was one of the most powerful spells he’s ever done in front of us, so to speak, in front of us in the book. Actually that’s a very difficult spell. Peter’s not going to learn that spell for like five years. Putting a dog to sleep. And Nightingale could probably put a person to sleep although he’d have to concentrate. You see, that sort of thing is very very hard. I’ve just written a passage in Lies Sleeping which discusses this, where Nightingale is doing something incredibly hard and Peter is astonished and it totally is a very simple thing. It’s not complicated at all. See, in a way smashing things is easier.

I: It’s almost like it’s that much more difficult to accomplish good sleight-of-hand right in front of someone sitting with you than perform a big stage illusion.

BA: Well, it’s also that most of the subtle magic involves affecting people and people are very resistant to being affected. If you want to have a fight with someone you tend to just throw something at them, or you knock them down, or you pick them up and you throw them away. But human beings - in the way my magic is constructed - are very resistant. You can’t reach into them and stop their heart. Magic is very bad at that. So, things like the glamour when you affect someone’s mind - those are all really difficult to do. To make someone pick something up, to take control of their hand - that’s really difficult to do.

I: The other side of that is that you've made magic and technology really incompatible as well. Why did you decide to do that?

BA: Well, you have to explain why no one’s recorded it on their mobile phones, don’t you? Otherwise why aren’t we looking at people, why is there no footage of Covent Garden, why is there no footage of half the things that have happened? Because it melts the chips. That’s the reason I did it. Because you’ve got to explain why it’s secret, otherwise it wouldn’t be secret.

I: Once you’d made that decision and written that in had you thought about taking it further? What would happen if someone tried to do a spell on a flight for example?

BA: You wouldn’t. That would be a very bad thing to do. Unless it’s a DC-3 you don’t want to be doing spells on a plane. I’ve considered doing a scene where you have some of the most powerful wizards assembled and none of them can actually use any magic because they’d all kill themselves if they did. Nightingale probably could. Nightingale is so controlled that he could probably get away with it. But most things about the technology - it’s the chips, not the technology. Microprocessors are particularly vulnerable to magic. So, you’re all right if you’re running valves and stuff. Nineteen-fifties Russian technology would be fine. You could launch a Vostok and you wouldn’t have to worry about doing magic with that, but not anything with a microprocessor, which is everything: your washing machine, your toaster, your cooker. And there’s nothing mystical about it. There’s good, solid world-building reasons why this happens, but we may never find out what that is because the point is Nightingale doesn’t know and I think Abigail, with forty years of study, might be able to explain it to you, although you wouldn’t understand the mathematics of why it affects microprocessors. And I did that on purpose so that I would never have to explain it.

I: We’ve already touched on Birmingham, but are there any other cultures and their particular brand of magic that you’d like to explore?

BA: I’d like to explore all of them! That’s my big problem in life: that you cannot just do that. It's not really a question of cultural appropriation, which is what you essentially do when you're ignorant or you're knowledgeable but don't care. If you're honest, you can show what a culture is like: What are the Chinese like at magic tied up with Daoism and stuff like that? But I just don't know enough Daoism to do that. It was quite hard to construct a magic system that was consistent with Anglo-Saxon and post-Norman, Roman Britain let alone one that’s consistent with more than five thousand years of Chinese, of continuous Chinese history, or Indian history for that matter. You have thousands of years of culture in places like Africa and you have to say ‘Can they do magic?’ Everyone does magic, right? What Newton did in my world is he systemised it and created a system that Postmartin calls - ah, I can't remember what he calls it now, but he's got a fancy word for it: syncretism or something like that. He basically took it and systemised it and made it repeatable. He made it a science, basically. He took the things that people were coming up with by accident and he made it a science, because that was what Newton was like, that's basically what Newton did and why I chose him for the guy who did this: because he was interested. We know that. He wrote more about alchemy than he did gravity. We know he was as interested as anyone. As someone once said: if anyone was going to find out if magic was real it was going to be Isaac Newton so I figured, right, he did. That's the whole point. There is a reason why it’s kept secret as well, but I can't talk about that.

I: Something to look forward to in a future book or interview!

BA: Yes, possibly.

I: You said you'd like to explore more. Is there anywhere outside London and the UK that you're currently researching with a view to writing?

BA: Yes, I'm going to do a novella set in Germany. I don't think it's even going to be a Peter Grant book. Because this novella you’re reading now was successful they want another one. and I thought that if I can't experiment with the novellas what could I experiment with? So rather than taking a risk with a whole novel, I would like to write about Tobi Winter who is essentially Peter's counterpart in Germany. I don't know why but he kind of turned up and started knocking on the door, like all my characters. I came up with this guy and I like him because he's slightly more lugubrious, he's more laid-back than Peter in some ways. He's kind of fun and also he's German so I've had to do quite a lot of research into how German magic works and all that stuff. And I've tried to stay away from recent history, stay away from the Nazis. Not because I feel like letting the Germans off the hook or anything, but I feel you can ram into the ground a bit. It's a bit like the occult Nazis have been done to death and with ignoring the history and stuff, like the Thirty Years War. Germany is a fascinating place, especially pre-unification Germany, when it's like a collection of states and you sit there going they're all Germans, but they don't think they're all Germans. It’s a lot of fun so I'm looking into that for this story, which is going to be the next novella.

I: And will you be basing it around the rivers again? Will be be seeing the Rhine or the Rhone?

BA: I don't know. Rivers of London is one thing, but I'm not sure you want to constantly go there. It's a bit predictable. ‘Oh, look there's a river. Is someone in it? Oh, yes they are. Oh, it's a Rhine Maiden.’ We've established that the Rhine Maidens come visit the Thames for tips, so we know there are Rhine Maidens. It's not going to be the Rhine anyway, because it's going to be Trier. It's not the Rhine, but I'm going for a research visit soon, so I'll ask. Ask the river who she is, or it might be him. You never know in Germany. Could be a guy. It's right on the border; I like it because it's right on the border with Luxembourg, so it's very liminal. It's one of those German cities that’s changed hands quite a lot of times. It's also one of the oldest cities in Germany because it was established by the Romans and there aren't that many Roman cities in Germany. And wine. It's basically about wine. It's basically an excuse - I don't even like wine, but I can't resist this. I've basically just found a way of making it a claimable expense to get a wine tour of the vineyards of Trier.

I: That sounds like fun. I have a feeling I can predict your answer this one because you touched on it earlier, but is magic purely fictional or do you think there are some elements of magic, or specifically your magic system that could be real?

BA: You know what? I was born sceptical. I'm one of those people who didn’t believe in Father Christmas when he was three and my parents tried, god bless ‘em.But I make no claims of superiority. I've just got that kind of brain; I don't believe in any of it. I believe in coincidences. I believe that things happen by accident. A lot. I don't look down on people much who believe in stuff, but I just don't believe in any of it. I'm just really sceptical. Sorry.

I: Do you think that makes it easier to write magic?

BA: Oh, god, yes! It's much easier to write because I'm not worried about whether it's accurate. I only have to worry about whether it's consistent, which is the classic thing in science fiction and fantasy. It's making what you do consistent. Unless - and this is very important - you deliberately don't. If you look at Jack Vance: He doesn't bother with consistency in his writing at all because he likes his magic wild and mad. I like consistency because I essentially I'm a science fiction writer writing fantasy. I don't know how I ended up in this position, but it's how I ended up. But I do like a bit of wild magic, which is why I have the rivers. The rivers are my little bits of wild magic and they do wild things and strange things happen in the boundary of things. The fae are there and they're good for weird things happening on the boundary of things, but as for actual magic, no, I don't believe in any of it. I don't believe in any superstitions at all. I just never have. It's not a considered intellectual position. I just never have believed in any of it.

I: How about the more human magic? Do you enjoy watching magicians work in sleight-of-hand and things like that?

BA: Not particularly. I enjoy watching the work, if they're good, but I don't think to myself: ‘Yay, magician’. I like Jonathan Creek. Does that count? I like the early two or three seasons.

I: As Tim Minchin said, Jonathan Creek is a bit like Scooby Doo because no matter how outlandish things get there's always an explanation for everything that makes sense.

BA: Yes, that's part of the fun. It's much better. It's not doing it as old man Granger did it: In a mask, with glowy paint making glowing light.

I: And to go back to London for a little bit for one final question. We've touched a bit already on London's amazing history and the myths that have built up around the city. Is there any particular legend or historical landmark or historical story that you're looking forward to building into a future Peter Grant mystery?

BA: St. Paul's. St. Paul's is featuring very heavily in the book so far. I didn't mean it to, but in the same way the Royal Opera House became more and more important while I was writing the first one, St. Paul's has become more and more important while I'm writing the eighth one - oh god, I’ve lost track, seventh - it's the seventh. Lies Sleeping, anyway. The one after The Hanging Tree. And suddenly St. Paul's. I thought the climax was going to be in one place and now it's going to be somewhere else. And I thought it was going to be about one thing and now it's about something else and I'm sitting there going, ‘Will you make up your mind!?’ Which, of course is futile. I'm arguing with myself. It's very schizophrenic, arguing with yourself. So, yes, I think that St. Paul's is going to get an airing. But there's so much. You know... I haven't even done the Tower of London! It sits there like a big chunky block of history, just there. The Tower of bloody London waiting for me. There's everything from the Bazalgette sewer system - given that it’s about the rivers of London, I didn't even scrape the barrel, the side of a wall, when I did Whispers Under Ground. I did a whole book about the underground and I barely touched on Bazalgette. There's all that kind of stuff. There's so much history. So much stuff, from the Romans to the continuing debate about whether people actually occupied the inside of the city or they didn't. I met a Romanist and they said, ‘No, no. Of course people lived inside the city, we just haven't found the remains yet.’

I: Because we built on top of it.

BA: Yes, we continuously built on it for the last two thousand years and so it's hard to tell. I don't know... when Deloittes or someone needs a new headquarters no doubt we'll find out.

I: Well, Ben, thank you so much for your time today.

BA: That’s all right. It was my pleasure.

#rivers of london #the furthest station #peter grant #thomas nightingale #ben aaronovitch #rol #.txt #cw casual ableist language

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mst3kproject · 6 years

Photo

520: Radar Secret Service

So here’s a challenge. My stated goal for this blog is to watch and find something halfway intelligent to say about each and every movie the show ever featured. I’m not sure I can say anything intelligent about Radar Secret Service. I’m not sure I can say anything stupid about Radar Secret Service.

I don’t know if I can even describe the plot. The introduction is pretty straightforward, explaining to us that the men of the Radar Secret Service can find just about anything, from a school of fish to a hidden murder weapon. I wonder if anybody’s asked them about the g-spot. With a tool like that, they could go looking for the Ark of the Covenant or Jimmy Hoffa or something, but instead they’re keeping an eye on a shipment of radioactive material. Some crooks manage to steal the stuff despite the high-tech surveillance… and that’s where the movie starts to lose me. I can pay attention to this for about ten minutes, and then my brain just shuts the fuck down.

I mean, I keep trying to watch, I really do. I don’t know why I can’t. Radar Secret Service is only sixty minutes long, for crying out loud, surely I can pay attention to something dull and stupid for sixty measly minutes! I watched the sandstorm sequence in Hercules Against the Moon Men. I sat through the Rock Climbing in Lost Continent. Hell, last Thanksgiving I listened to my Dad and my brother-in-law talk about their unfinished home improvement projects for what felt like six days. Surely Radar Secret Service cannot be the thing that defeats me. I get myself a snack and my knitting and settle down, but without fail, by that ten minute mark I’ve lost track of who any of the characters are or what they’re supposed to be doing. My knitting’s on the floor and I’m playing Marvel Puzzle Quest. Shit.

I start over and try again. This time I turn off my phone. I close the blinds. I do my best to remove all distractions. I still can’t focus. The walls of my living room are more interesting than this movie. I find myself looking at them and wondering what happened to that National Geographic solar system poster I had when I was a kid, the one that showed all the moons to scale. I mean, it’s horrendously out of date now but it was my favourite poster for ages. Twelve-year-old me named all the characters in half a dozen unfinished fantasy novels after those moons. Out of sheer curiosity I googled, and found out that holy shit, you can still buy it! Well, damn, that’s kind of tempting, just for nostalgia’s sake.

Okay, no. I have to watch the movie. By twenty minutes in, I still don’t know any of the characters’ names but ‘radar’ no longer sounds like a real word. In fact, it’s not a real word. It’s an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging. In the UK it’s also the Royal Association for Dis-Ability Rights, and the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago has the Research on Adverse Drug events And Reports committee. I bet either of those would make a better movie.

Wait, I’ve gotten distracted again. This isn’t working. Maybe I can watch it in MST3K form. Radar Secret Service is so short that almost all of it got into the episode. I could cheat and do a review based on just that. I do remember snickering at the skit about the Quinn Martin nature preserve. I should look up some of those people on IMDB. Maybe I can find some material for Episodes that Never Were. It says Lee Meriwether was in a mad science movie called The 4-D Man, which looks remarkably bad. I definitely need to see that…

God damn it.

Okay, clearly having a computer at all is too much distraction for me to watch this movie. I’m gonna have to pop the disk into an actual DVD player and watch it that way. Some kind of drastic measures are definitely needed here because I’ve written almost an entire page of this review and I have not yet actually managed to watch the fucking movie right through in one sitting. There’s nothing there to watch. Where are these people? Who are they? They all look and dress and sound alike. They all have identical mustaches and drive indistinguishable cars – I can’t even tell which is the Radarmobile unless we’re in a wide shot that shows the Christmas ornament on top. The only reason I’m sure that Waitress and Leopard Lady are two different characters is because they had a scene together at the beginning. Are they both wearing the same wig? They’re so alike that when one of them shoots the other I’m tempted to say it counts as suicide.

The characters have no character. The script imparts nothing to us besides minimal so-called plot information and the performances are dismally bland. The music is boring. The direction is listless. It’s no wonder they picked Oh!! There’s a dead man there!!! as the stinger because it’s literally the only memorable moment in the whole film. I’m not using literally to mean emphatically, either. I’m using it to mean literally.

Why did they make this movie? I don’t understand. It’s not an action flick because there’s no action. It’s not a drama because there’s no drama. It’s not a comedy because nothing’s funny. It’s not sci-fi because there’s no science. What are we supposed to take away from this experience? What are we supposed to learn? The movie is like a black hole, sucking in our hopes for entertainment and hiding them away behind an event horizon of boredom and confusion, from whence they can never be retrieved. I feel actively stupider for having seen even part of it.

Even if I were to make myself watch it all the way through, from the finding of the gun to the final arrest, in a single sitting, even if I were to force my unwilling brain to recognize every frame of it, what could I possibly say? There’s nothing to analyze here, no meaning, no metaphor. Even on a technical level, there’s not much I could add to what Mike and the Bots already said. Yes, everybody looks the same. No, I have no idea which side most of these identical gray suits with meaty 50’s men in them are on. No, the people who made this movie have no idea what radar is or what it’s used for. The Radar Men from the Moon were more relevant to radar than this movie and I don’t think they ever even used the word.

I could just talk about the short. The short! A shining beacon of something I can actually pay attention to! Sadly, the very fact that I could fill a review with my thoughts on Last Clear Chance is surely a sign it deserves an entry of its own. Where does that leave me?

It leaves me sitting on the sofa, realizing I haven’t paid any attention for the last few minutes because I zoned out dreaming up flowery metaphors for my struggle. I’m starting to think the only way I could actually watch this is to strap myself into a chair with my head locked in place and tape my eyes open, like something out of A Clockwork Orange. Even then, I might still manage to get distracted. My entire body is rejecting this movie. I think I’m making antibodies to it.

I cannot tell you how much I’d rather be watching A Clockwork Orange than Radar Secret Service. Hell, I’d rather be watching Caligula. Caligula had stuff to look at. It had characters with names.

Maybe… wait. What if Radar Secret Service is actually a brilliant work of art and I’m missing it because I can’t pay attention for long enough? Maybe it’s a satire of 50’s futurism and tedious moviemaking! Maybe the ultimate-spy-tool-radar premise is a comment on the erosion of our privacy in an increasingly technological society! Maybe the reason it’s so hard to tell the heroes from the villains is because the modern world has rendered both concepts irrelevant! There is no good or evil anymore, just men in suits either giving or obeying orders, no one individual identifiable as the reason why something happens! Maybe the two women are identical because the filmmakers are trying to point out that patriarchal society turns women against each other and ultimately against themselves! Of course! It all makes sense! How did I not see it before?

I have no memory of typing that last paragraph. What’s going on?

Oh my god. Oh shit. I know what this is. It’s the hypno-helio-static-stasis! I’m already in its clutches! The world is fading. I need to inject something thoughtful and entertaining directly into my eyeballs immediately. There may still be time if I can only reach Netflix…

And suddenly, there it is, looming over me like a glittering spaceship above Devil’s Tower National Monument… like a saving angel… could it really be? It is! It’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind! I reach out for it. I can already hear its dulcet tones ringing in my ears like a siren song… doo-doo-DAH-doo-DAH…

And then the ship wavers and fades away, leaving only a brushed chrome ball. My browser’s not even on Netflix. It’s on DailyMotion, and all that’s playing is a shitty print of Radar Secret Service.

I hope you guys enjoyed my mental disintegration because it’s all the review you’re gonna get. See you next week. Fuck this movie.

#mst3k #reviews #radar secret service #tw: suicide #fuck this movie #50s

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freedom-of-fanfic · 6 years

Note

Christian anon here, & I was dismayed when a recent reblog post stated in regard to Christian sexual morality & I quote "“all sex outside of marriage is evil” . This is at best a very poor interpretation & I apologize to the poster if they have been exposed to this mindset. For us, sex is something very sacred, so sacred that we reserve it to a man & a woman who have, via Matrimony, promised before God & each other to love, honor and mutually obey each other. 1 of 2

Outsideof marriage, it doesn't make sex "evil", but it does make a sin,something we strive to avoid, not always easy because humans are inherentlyflawed and fallible. Sadly, there are far too many Christians caught up in thepurity culture mentality who make a bigger deal out of sexual sin than theyshould about other sins (sins against social justice as a big for instance). Idon't like this mindset either, and thankfully, there are more Christianspushing back against it. 2 of 2

Hi,Christian anon. I understand where you’re coming from because I am alsoChristian (a queer Christian, which makes for an interesting life sometimes).And I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here regarding a truly Christian perspective on sexoutside of marriage vs the purity culture bullshit (my point of disagreement isthat I think ‘sin’ and ‘evil’ are usually treated as synonymous). It is, in fact, the least Christian thing inthe world to go around trying to control people’s behavior.

But. (there’s always a ‘but’ with me.)

I spent a huge chunk of today writing this and cutting it back because it kept turning into a theological dumping ground, which I don’t want it to be. but I’m throwing the majority of this post behind a cut because it’s inevitably sensitive stuff, considering how much pain (and death, tbh) Christianity-as-law-bludgeon has caused.

tl;dr: Christianity and secular law don’t mix well. Whenever it’s tried, things get real hellish real quick for a lot of people. Especially for people who are judged as ‘sexually immoral’.

(warnings for binary/cisgender language b/c the Bible doesn’t really address being nb or trans in particular.)

In thepost you are responding to, I called the Catholic Church the source ofanti-prostitution law in the United States. I said that it was because the US legislationwas founded on Western Europe legislation, and Western Europe legislation wasfounded on the legislation of the Catholic Church. And to be fair this is aglib and simplistic illustration of cause & effect – for starters, it skipsover Protestantism and the Age of Reason – but I’ll stand by the heart of it. Laws about sex work – sexual interactions ofany kind between consenting people of age, actually – in Western Europe &the US find likely origin in the inevitably disastrous mixture of Christianityand lawmaking, which originated in the institution of the Catholic Church.

Christianityas an organized religion does not playwell with the power to make law.

The inevitable product of trying toenforce Christian values via lawmaking is purity culture, authoritarianism, andviolence. This is because human law cannot enforce having moral character: wecan only judge actions and behavior, not thoughts or feelings. We can’t makekindness or uprightness into law: what is kind and upright behavior towards oneperson may be cruelty to another. (Not to say that Christianity is the only religion that mixes poorly with law,but Christians often deny that a religion founded on benevolence andforgiveness can be totalitarian. But the joke is: totalitarian law is no lesstotalitarian because its author wrote it to encourage ‘morality’ and ‘righteousness’.The joke is: God never forces His morals down anyone’s throat, so who are you to do it on His behalf?

I mean: theologicallyspeaking, one of the central tenants of Christianity is that law is insufficientand ill-fitted to guide our complicated, morally gray human existence. To methis seems like a huge giveaway that Christian principles and the law arefundamentally incompatible concepts.)

In its mostmature iterations, Christianity-as-law is

sexist

misogynistic

patronizing

anti-intellectual

controlling to the point of micromanagement via fear and shame

emotionallyabusive and denigrating individual worth

unforgiving of moral failings

hypocritical

judges others by assumptions about their thoughts and motivations

holds peopleto unachievable standards of ‘morality’ without kindness, and

punishes disobedience/noncomplianceviolently and without mercy.

It takes on God’s role as implacable judge, jury,and executioner, and holds the benevolent forgiveness promised by Jesus hostagein exchange for good behavior. How is the law God supposed to have mercyon you when it’s clear you’ll just abuse that mercy? Prove your worth first. (spoilers: you’ll never be approved.)

TheCatholic Church, born of Christianity shaking hands with the power to make lawvia Constantine's outreach, is my Exhibit A. at the peak of its legislativeinfluence and power, it severely set back human health, education, and wealthin Europe and West Asia and presided over multiple military excursions into theMiddle East in the name of conquering Jerusalem on God’s behalf (the literalCrusades, yes).

And I’d argue that this conquering spirit has been Christianity’sAchilles Heel ever since: a thread of shitty, shitty colonialist bullshit,through Anglicanism and Protestantism and Puritanism, that even now is buildingits latest thunderhead in the shape of ‘dominionist’ Christianity here inAmerica (if you are not familiar with it, suffice to say it is a secretive butwell-spread cultish thinking that straightforwardly holds that Christianitymust be legislated into place all over the world or Jesus can’t come back. Youcan’t make this stuff up.)

Bringingit back into to the sex thing, though: the Old Testament has multiple mentionsof laws forbidding sex work, and the New Testament, at least 50% written by theunmarried apostle Paul, has a lot of recommendations about being married toprevent being tempted by sex outside of marriage and the like. Extramarital lustand sexual immorality are also credited with multiple instances ofjump-starting unfortunate Biblical events and described by Paul as the only ‘sinagainst the body’ (1 Corinthians 6). In fact, Paul was kinda ‘eh’ on the wholehaving sex thing in general. In the same verse, he mentions in passing that itwould be better for men to not have sex at all if it’s possible for them.

Christianity-as-law is thus morally obligatedto make sex outside of marriage and anything that tempts people into sexoutside of marriage illegal. It’s the moral thing to do. Sex work has to go. Andbecause Biblical marriage can only be between a (cis) man and a (cis) woman*, same-gendersex has to go too. And extrapolate Paul’s offhand ‘male celibacy is ideal, tbh’into the harshest and narrowest form of lawful judgement that you can and youget ‘anything that makes men want to have sex is clearly dragging (cis) men down fromthe best possible person they could be. (people cis men see as ) women being beautiful makes men wantsex! (perceived) women are bad! Punish women formaking men want sex!’

Is thiswhat God calls for? I don’t think so.But historically speaking, this is what we get when Christians try to take thelegislative reins on God’s behalf.

And it’sfrankly hilarious that supposed Christians are acting as if it’s possible tosave people from their own sin by making sinillegal. When you check in with Jesus on the interaction between God’s lawand secular law, his response is simply ‘follow both’**. He also hung out withsex workers pretty much constantly during his ministry, never condemning them fortheir line of work even though it was explicitly against Jewish law to be a sexworker, because he recognized that human-enforced law – even law laid down byGod – can’t account for all the circumstances of human life or account for thereasons people do things that are, on their face, unlawful. That grace –literally the opposite of law – was kind of the point of his being born in thefirst place.

*Regardlessof what one’s opinion is about how the Bible defines marriage, that doesn’tmean that secular law has to share that definition. Especially when it createsa religious discrimination against LGBTQ+ people for completely secularmarriage benefits like tax breaks and visitation rights. (that’s the entire pointof this essay, oh my god.)

**ReferencingMark 12:13-17. Jesus also calls out the people asking him for trying to get himin trouble with the Roman authorities.

#christian fundamentalism #dominionism #purity culture #hide the sex work #protect sex workers #christianity and 'christianity'#christian theology #Anonymous

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mon-blanchetts · 6 years

Text

Set If Off, Because You Know You Want To (4/?)

She’s convinced that Jon won’t fight for her, so she decides to fight for herself. He sets out to prove her wrong.

Nothing was going to stop her from getting to her chambers, Sansa decided. She kept her eyes solely in front of her, unmoved by the looks that courtiers and servants threw her way when she passed them. Her ears strained to catch the sound of footsteps behind her; she would run if she had to, appearances be damned. She needed to get as far away from him as she could, and she would do anything to ensure it.

Alys was perched on a seat when she arrived, but the handmaiden was on her feet the instant she realized who had entered.

“I’d like to be alone, please,” she announced before the other woman could voice anything. For a moment she feared that Alys would pry deeper; it was a complete relief when she didn’t. Sansa was sure she would have snapped, but she didn’t need to make anymore enemies here.

Sansa didn’t wait for the door to close before dropping into a bench closest to her. Hair stuck to the back of her neck; she leaned her head against the stone walls, desperate for some respite from the flames that licked at her insides, spreading across all her limbs. She knew better than to blame the southron heat for her current sufferings, much as she wanted to.

Jon had gone mad. That was the simplest way for her to rationalize his behaviour out there, not to mention the only explanation she thought safe to entertain. He had no right to speak of the things he’d brought up, and she desperately wanted to hate him for it. He was out of his mind if he thought he could whisk her back home where they could amend things, not when his aunt and her court were under the assumption that he was ready to offer his hand to another.

It could have been so different, she lamented, pressing her eyes shut. There was no relief from the episode Jon had just forced her to endure; his words crowded her mind with such vivid force that he mine as well be present in her room, echoing the same sentiments he’d done earlier. It was all useless, anyway, because she was right: it was too late. Jon may love her still, but his feelings meant nothing in the face of Northern interests.

It could have been so different.

“A pretty voice, yes, but I’m sure many would say he’s got an even prettier face,” Tyrion whispered. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

Sansa looked away from the singer in question to spare her neighbour a brief glance. “I suppose it’s a matter of preference, my lord,” she whispered back, leaning towards him so he could hear her better. In truth, she hadn’t been paying attention to their current entertainment; it was a difficult feat, considering the weight of Jon’s gaze. More than once during the feast she’d caught him watching her, but it was even worse when his aunt caught them both. No wonder Daenerys thought she might be colluding with him.

The singer had picked a ballad that brought light upon Jenny of Oldstones, crooning yearningly about love in conflict with royal duty before cautioning those willing to listen about the folly of the individual who believed himself above the interests of his family. Fitting enough, Sansa thought, as the performance came to an end; she added her own applause to that ringing through the gilded hall.

“He is a handsome man,” she commented, as soon as the noise died down. “But I do like his voice more.”

The Hand nodded beside her. “I’m sure he’ll be more than pleased to hear that. You know what men like do in order to sound that way after all these years, don’t you?”

She did, and the thought made her blush. When she glanced at her neighbour again, Tyrion was grinning at her.

Sansa didn’t know if it was the change of setting or the potency of the wine, but it seemed that everyone was acting out of turn tonight. If this had all been Percy Falker’s intention, he’d right well succeeded, she thought, turning her head to look at their host. The wealthy merchant sat at the high table to Daenerys’s right, Jon on her other side. It was an honour of the highest calibre to have not one, but two members of the royal family in his manse, and it was clear he was determined to put his guests in awe. It had been a long time since Sansa had witnessed entertainment on this scale, even though the list of attendees was somewhat minimal. The choicest cuts of meat and the rarest of ingredients had been present, but the best of the best had been offered to the high table only.

“How much would you sacrifice for your craft, my lady?”

She played with the napkin on her lap. Now that the performance was over, there was no reason to talk softly, but that didn’t seem to matter to the Queen’s Hand. Sansa nearly didn’t hear him amidst the dense noise of other people’s talk and the clang of pewter.

“I’ve never been passionate enough about any craft to know,” she answered. Gods, she was tired. Her eyes burned from the light and smoke, while the heavy jewels chained around Laetitia Falker’s neck weren’t helping. As protocol would have it, the merchant’s wife was seated beside Jon; she must have been as aware as her husband was what a position she momentarily held. To have the Winter King’s ear for the bulk of the evening—who knew what she was whispering?

Tyrion tilted his head to the side. “But I see you’ve been dabbling in the art of matchmaking, have you not?”

“I’ve made no sacrifices for it, my lord,” she said, in a tone she hoped referenced her boredom. A figure approaching their table stopped her from saying more.

“A piece of the subtlety, my lady?” offered the page who had been serving Jon the entire evening. He presented a golden platter that held generous pieces of the elaborate confection exclusively made for the occupants at the high table. “His Grace says he wishes to bestow a favour upon you.”

“Of course he does,” Tyrion quipped, leaning forward precariously in his seat to grab himself a piece. Sansa stared at the offering; without thinking, she shifted her gaze towards Jon. It didn’t surprise her that he was watching her, those solemn gray eyes boring into her own clear blue ones, silently willing her to accept what he wanted her to have. It was an explicit gesture that none around them missed, least of all Daenerys and her wealthy host. Sansa dropped her gaze as soon as she caught the displeasure on the queen’s face. She’d murder Jon for this, if she could.

“Are you going to accept?”

Tyrion’s question made her look up again. The page was still standing before their table, a thin sheen of sweat over his youthful face.

“Give it to the Septa, please,” she instructed. The page bowed his head quickly before obeying; she stared at his back as he scurried off to the back of the crowded hall. Don’t look at him, she ordered herself, fisting her napkin. Don’t look at him.

The Hand was sucking the ends of his fingers when he spoke. “The smallfolk will have you to thank when they shit gold tonight.”

“That’s not true. They can blame His Grace for that.”

Her neighbour chuckled. “And he has so much on his mind already.” When she looked at him, there was a curious glint in his eye that instantly made her nervous.

“His Grace has summoned you quite a few times for a private audience, has he not?”

Tyrion’s knowledge of that didn’t surprise her, but that wasn’t enough to ease the discomfort in her belly, a nefarious coiling she could not ignore. “Anything Jon wants to me he can say before everyone else.”

Her companion quirked a blond eyebrow at her. “Aren’t you worried you’re courting His Grace’s disfavour?”

Sansa held back a snort. Not when he’s already courted mine. She had vowed that their previous encounter would be the last of that sort, and so far she had made good on her promise. Being alone with Jon was too dangerous, she realized; it was even more so now that she knew how he felt. “His Grace isn’t the kind of man to be offended by such a minor slight as that.”

“Well, may that be a good mark on his character,” he said. Light dance on his silver brooch, like magic was bringing the metal hand to life. “His Grace’s spirits, on the other hand, could use some improvement. I do hope a good match will accomplish that.”

The corners of her lips curled up. “I said something of a similar vein to him once.”

“Did you, now? And what did Jon say to that?”

Sansa shrugged. “Nothing. The idea of having Arianne Martell for a bride would probablt render any man speechless, I daresay.”

“If Jon’s bride is to be Arianne Martell,” he corrected, eyes twinkling beneath the flicker of candle lights. “Did you think your letters to the Princess necessary, Sansa?”

She watched as Lady Hollanda approached the high table, her deep blue skirts billowing behind her. “I thought it was just another way for me to be of service to Her Grace.” She’d written the first letter that same day Jon had spoken with her, only to follow up with another a few nights later. Each correspondence contained the highest praise for her cousin, the King, most of real than not. It had given her pause to remember why she loved him so much, but what had she expected?

“And you would make yourself indispensable to the Princess as well, once she arrives?”

Sansa whipped her had around to scrutinize the Hand. “Are you just as worried as Her Grace is about my loyalty?” The words came out sharp, but she could still hear the exasperation muddled in her voice. No doubt Tyrion did as well.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t doubt your loyalty at all, my lady,” he assured, but he was looking away from her while he spoke. She followed his line of sight until her gaze landed on Jon again. Percy Falker’s wife had diverted his attention elsewhere.

“No, I don’t doubt your loyalty at all,” Tyrion repeated, softly. “If anything, it’s him I ought to be worried about, not you.”

The singer approached their trestle later that night, holding his cap out for any tokens. Sansa dropped in a few coins, but Tyrion offered nothing.

“The man’s a paramour to a wealthy nobleman who just happens not to be present,” he explained, shrugging. “It pays to be warming the right person’s bed, you know, a lot more than what we put in his cap.”

There was a tingle on her side of her face; despite the familiarity of it, goosebumps still rose along the back of her neck. She lifted her gaze to the high table—sure enough, Jon was staring openly at her now, his long face shrouded with what she could only describe as naked want.

AN: There's more to this, but I got to lazy to edit it. You'll just have to wait for the next update to read it (it won't come out next lunar new year, I promise). Thanks for all your support and comments, everyone! It means a ton to me.

#jon x sansa #jonsa #actuallyjonsa #jonsansaff #jonsansasource #this chapter wasn't even long but I wanted to die while I was editing #I still don't know how I had it in me to write a chapter that was 13k words #the op is getting old #writings

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