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You said in another post you don’t believe the Knights of Walpurgis (aka Death Eaters 1.0) were all that plausible. Why is that?

Oof, this is a larger ask than I think you intend that gets into a lot of controversial things. Though, I suppose that’s what this blog has become.

Remember when I just talked about my weird fanfiction? Remember those days? I remember those days.

I guess to start out we need to go at a high level and acknowledge a few things.

For all we know about Tom Riddle’s life we know very little that came from himself. Most of what we know came to us via The Halfblood Prince, in Dumbledore’s lessons to Harry.

Think what you will about Dumbledore, benign or evil, but we can all acknowledge that the man had a clear goal and agenda in Halfblood Prince. Dumbledore was facing his imminent death, suddenly he no longer was looking at years but a few months to accomplish everything he needed to. He knows Harry is a horcrux, knows he himself no longer has time to hunt down Tom’s horcruxes himself, and instead must leave all his work to Severus and, partly, to Harry Potter.

Specifically, he has to groom Harry for suicide.

By the time Severus relays the truth to Harry (never mind that this very nearly didn’t happen in canon and what would Dumbledore do then) Harry must be prepared to sacrifice his own life to stop Voldemort. That, or Severus will have to murder the shit out of him, and that was probably plan B but Dumbledore would prefer it if Harry went along willingly so that the whole thing’s a little less shady. Dumbledore’s not murdering children if the children murder themselves!

This means, in part, convincing Harry that Voldemort is such a monstrous evil that his presence on this earth cannot be tolerated. Voldemort cannot be allowed to survive, even if Harry’s death does not guarantee Voldemort’s destruction, Harry must do it because Voldemort is that bad. There must be no hope, no recourse, and the only action Harry can take is martyrdom. 

And so, that is essentially what Dumbledore does. 

He gives Harry a series of lessons, hand selecting memories of Tom Riddle’s past (often shockingly innocuous), and then narrates them to tell Harry exactly why Tom Riddle is so evil today. The flimsy excuse of Harry wheedling information out of Slughorn is nice, but not necessary, as Dumbledore has no reason to believe this memory contains information he himself doesn’t already know (indeed, that Tom actually did make six horcruxes as he told Slughorn is a very strange coincidence as we rarely end up doing what we thought or being where we thought we would when we were sixteen). 

Per Dumbledore, Tom Riddle was born evil by his very conception, is doomed to be a lowly miserable creature, and that murdering him is effectively putting him out of his misery.

Right, how does this relate to this post?

Well, neverminding what JKR says outside of canon, we learn about the Knights of Walpurgis/Tom’s schoolboy syncophants from Dumbledore. Per Dumbledore, Tom Riddle, while a highly respected and charming student was Evil McEvil who had junior cultists galore. So, you see Harry, the man must die (ergo you must kill yourself).

However, this is frankly ridiculous and not in any way believable.

First, the Hogwarts era when Tom’s in school.

Personally, I believe Tom was regarded 100% as muggleborn. Tom went into Hogwarts with the last name Riddle coming from the muggle world. When he gets sorted into Slytherin he can point to know family members at all (and even if he could would, at best, be considered a low class halfblood). Tom doesn’t know the significance of parseltongue and likely tells no one (I’ll get into this in a few paragraphs). Tom may insist that he could be a halfblood, he knows nothing of his father, but given his origins he himself probably believes he’s muggleborn until he stumbles across the hereditary nature of parseltongue.

Regardless, Tom is impoverished, comes from lower class muggle London, has the last name Riddle, no relatives to vouch for him, and you want me to think that the purebloods sign up to be his cult members?

Even though Tom is terrifyingly talented and brilliant, he will be fighting for respect every inch of the way. At best, I see the Slytherin’s tolerating his presence. Riddle’s tolerable, for a muggleborn, it’s a shame that he has such dirty blood but they’ll admit he’s a talented sort.

However, as soon as he’s out of Hogwarts they’ll drop him like it’s hot.

This is evidenced by a few things. Upon graduation, Tom Riddle struggles to secure employment. He tries for the Defense position but is unvested and a recent graduate, and so is rejected (and when he later tries again Dumbledore laughs in his place and says, “Bitch please, I will never hire you, I just accepted your application so I could spend this interview laughing in your face!”) He does not enter the ministry, which would likely have been far more beneficial to getting him a leg up in society.

No, Tom instead secures employment as a clerk and purchaser at Borgin and Burke’s the wizarding world’s shadiest pawn shop equivalent where he spends his time miserably wooing older women so they’ll sell him their fine goods. Dumbledore tries to convince us this was Tom’s plan, that he somehow knew about the locket beforehand, but this is bullshit. How the hell would Tom know that the heirloom undoubtedly locked away under safe and key had been sold to Borgin and Burkes? And even if he did, why would Tom take up this miserable position doing nothing he wanted to do? 

Whatever minions Tom is supposed to have, whatever friends, they dropped him completely, pretended they never knew him, and did nothing to secure Tom’s future.

Now, back to the parseltongue bit since I made a promise. I believe Tom told no one. Had Tom told the Slytherins he was the Heir of Slytherin, this would have spread like wild fire not only across the house but the school. All the staff would remember Tom as Tom Slytherin, Tom would likely have changed his name, and frankly Tom probably would have been able to get into the ministry with a name like that. Tom Riddle’s life would have looked very different.

More, had the Chamber of Secrets episode happened in a world where Tom proves his heritage, he would have immediately been caught. Someone in Slytherin, even if only a few dormmates knew, would have narked on him. Someone would have been jealous, scared, etc. and would have turned him easily over to the authorities. A secret like that simply cannot be kept, it would spread, and there would be no needing to frame Hagrid and none of Tom getting off. 

More, I always got the feeling very few knew that Voldemort had once been Tom Riddle. First, it would make recruiting very difficult. Voldemort is the mysterious, beautiful, heir of Slytherin who has come back from abroad to save their country. Tom Riddle is a dirt poor mudblood who comes from decades of incest and squalor.

Given the wizarding world at large does not know who Tom Riddle is (proved by The Chamber of Secrets) I would suspect the vast majority of Death Eaters and Order members didn’t either. Dumbledore was the one who pieced it together thanks, in part, to a ten-year-old Tom Riddle confessing his parseltongue abilities.

If Tom Riddle had told most people he was a parseltongue, far more would have made the connection, it would be common knowledge. Which means, of course, Tom Riddle has no ability to prove his heritage and is thus muggleborn swine.

More, I think Tom wouldn’t want Tom Riddle to be associated with Voldemort. When he becomes Voldemort, he will transcend his lackluster origins and become far more than an ordinary, mortal, man. He will leave the name Riddle behind and no one will remember that boy. He will eclipse his past.

Not to mention, that if Tom gave them the excuse of his heritage, it means giving himself the easy way out in Hogwarts. They won’t be forced to acknowledge him, acknowledge that he’s better than them despite his roots, but instead given the easy excuse of “oh, it’s because he’s the heir of Slytherin, duh”. And I think Tom would loathe the idea of that.

Tom wanting to eradicate the memory of Tom Riddle is especially why I think Voldemort came out of nowhere in the 70′s.

Tom doesn’t want to be recognized as Tom, he wants to be mysterious and originless, to give the purebloods everything they want to believe in. If it’s people he went to school with, they’ll recognize him, he’ll be just an ordinary mortal to them. If it’s their young, stupid, children well then he has a real chance. 

Voldemort is a figure of myth, something that appears to come out of legend itself, the savior of his country.

He cannot have origin let alone Tom Riddle’s. 

Not to mention the idea that multiple people waited on Tom Riddle for generations, even for decades where we know he went abroad and travelled the world, is utterly ridiculous. Why would they ever do this? What do they even gain from this? And why would it take so long to take over this ridiculously incompetent country THAT ALL OF TOM’S RECRUITS ARE PRACTICALLY SET TO CONTROL (the beauty of the Death Eaters is that they form a good chunk of the Wizengamot, and in using them, Tom Riddle effectively destroys the country from the inside out, which I believe was his true goal the entire time). 

If Tom Riddle is so terrible, so horrifyingly competent, then it can’t have taken him fifty years of constant work to topple the country. 

So, yeah, there were no Death Eaters 1.0.

Cactus Juice

This is for @doinmybesthere ATLA Collab the line up is amazing!!! I’m so excited to read all of them!

Pairing: Before Dabi and the reader get together (Reader is gender neutral)

Warnings: Slight angst, talking about abuse (dabi’s end, there’s not too much detail but it’s still talked about), brief mention of death, pining, becoming closer, Au, Dabi is the avatar and a water bender(basically if Zuko was the avatar but was a water bender before figuring it out), spoiler containing Hawks’ real name

Genre: Fluff and hurt/comfort

Word count: 2.6k

Summary: “Do you want to know the real reason I’m afraid of fire?” 

You nodded.

“I’m afraid that when I wield it, it will bring nothing but pain and that I’ll be just like him.” His eyes held a familiar gleam to them. “I don’t want to be like him.”

“Again.” Dabi almost yelled in the empty arena. Crimson flowed from his lip, gliding down his chin but he only wiped it off with a huff. He wanted, no he needed to get this technique right. The lives of his friends all depended on it. He couldn’t afford to be a failure, not again.

From the other side of the arena, you hesitated before putting yourself back into a fighting stance. Even though you were far away the outline of his chest heaving for breath was visible. There was no doubt he was pushing himself. You gulped at the way his eyes took on an animalistic gleam. It wasn’t that Dabi necessarily scared you because he saved your life on more than one occasion, but when he got like this there was no telling what he would do.

It reminded you of the way he was when you first met, he was brash, distant, and above all cruel. It took a lot of time, but he gained all of your trust and changed from the boy he used to be to the man he is now. 

Even though he was on your side, you were still hesitant towards him. You got along as well as expected considering you were a firebender and he was a waterbender who also happened to be the avatar. He made it known he didn’t like you and you weren’t about to go head to head with him. 

“Why don’t we take a break for now,” you tried to reason, rolling your shoulders. “I’m getting pretty tired and after we can train again, how’s that sound?” It wasn’t a complete lie, after all the two of you had to have been training for a few hours now. You wouldn’t mind being able to relax.

Taking his silence as agreement you turned your back and began to walk towards the stands, where the water pouch was. It wasn’t until you opened it and went to hand it to Dabi that you realized he didn’t follow you.

Turning back around, you noticed he was still rooted in place. “Hey man, you okay?”

No response. 

Slowly you began to approach him. You knew something must’ve happened to him in his childhood, having fire lord Enji as a dad of all people must’ve been more than difficult. He never told any of you what happened and you were fine with that: if he wanted to tell you that should be his choice.

Sometimes however, you wished you knew something other than the fact that the fire lord drove his wife to burn Shoto, the youngest. Part of you wished he was with you, he’d know what to do while you were left in the dark.

“Dabi,” you made sure to keep your voice even and soft. “Can you hear me?”

His head was facing the ground almost as if he wished it would swallow him up while his body trembled underneath the sun’s glare. You kept your distance, not wanting to startle him before you called his name again.

“You think I’m weak, don’t you?” He refused to look at you, his tone holding the same edge but there was a sense of vulnerability behind it. 

You stopped in your tracks. 

“What?” You choked out. Your eyes widening at his words. He wasn’t serious was he? Him, weak? There was no way.

“Don’t make me say it again.” He focused his gaze back on you and the sight made your heart drop. There were noticeable bags under his eyes as well as a scrape on his lower lip. He looked tired, defeated. 

Taking your silence as agreement, he scoffed, mumbling out a ‘forget it’ before he began to walk away. 

No no no no no no, you were just making progress too! Without hesitation you grasped his wrist. It wasn’t until he glared down at you that you realized what you did. He raised an eyebrow as you heard the sound of a nearby rock being lifted from the ground.

“Got it,” you said, “removing the hand, but that’s not it at all!” 

The two of you were basked in silence until he smirked.

“Well?” 

It wasn’t the same as his usual ones, but it was a start. You watched him for a second longer before he let out a sigh.

“I’m listening.”

“Oh,” you rubbed the back of your neck. “Right.”

He stood still, waiting for you to continue. On the outside you were completely composed, but on the inside you were internally screaming. Great, what were you supposed to do now? You better have one damn good speech if you want Dabi to stay.

Deciding to wing it, you began to say whatever came out of your mouth in hopes it would be the right call. You told him about the countless times he saved you, the way he’d encourage Keigo, how he always gave into Toga’s antics and made her feel better, how good he was with Shoto, all of it. How strong he really was, and how after everything you’ve gone through with him there was nothing you didn’t think he could do.

“That’s why,” you concluded with a smile on your face. “I know that you’ll be able to firebend, and not just be able to, you’ll fucking ace it.”

You were breathless after the long winded speech, satisfied until panic took over. You glanced up at Dabi with wide eyes. That was probably way too much, what if you just overwhelmed him? What if he thinks your weird now-or even worse what if he hates you again.

A sharp laugh broke you out of your thoughts. Dabi’s head was thrown back revealing his forehead. The sound was genuine and full of life. If you weren’t so shocked by it, you would’ve been in awe. Alas, you were still prepared for imminent doom.

Once he calmed down he could only shake his head at you. 

“You really are something.”

With that he started to walk away once more. Your expression fell. You must’ve messed up, until you heard the familiar nickname. ‘Cactus Juice.’

You gasped rushing after him. “That was one time!”

“Still counts!” He yelled, disappearing into the landscape. 

You looked around the area, the vibrant green making a home in your mind as you tried to find him. “We were in the desert and I was thirsty!”

“Still did it!”

“You weren’t even there!”

“Keigo told me.”

You groaned. Of course he did. He was the first to bring Dabi in with open arms, he was an optimist that way. He believed anybody could change if they really wanted to which is why he was the group’s heart.

The two of you continued to race after each other throughout the day until the sun began to set. Collapsing in the shade of a tree near the arena you attempted to catch your breath while your heart beat tirelessly against your chest. 

You focused on the way explosions of purples and blues and pinks as well as a vibrant orange colored the sky. It was beautiful.

Beside you, Dabi fell on his back, hitting the ground with a soft thud. You laughed slightly.

“Same,” was all you could say, but you knew he got the gist. 

You didn’t know how long you stayed there, under the summer breeze as the sun was replaced with glowing stars. You would’ve stayed there forever. It was warm and for one moment you wished you could stay in the moment forever. 

“Thank you,” Dabi’s voice broke you out of your thoughts.

You leaned up on your elbows and looked down at him. “For what?”

He gestured around, eyes still looking above him. “All of this, I haven’t uh-” he cut himself off with a cough. “I haven’t been this relaxed since I can’t remember when.”

Oh. You laid back down. “You’re welcome I guess, I mean I didn’t really do anything.” You laughed slightly.

“Believe me, you’ve done more than you give yourself credit for.”

Silence fell between the two of you like the summer breeze, only this time it was colder than before. Getting up the courage you turned to face him. His black hair was out of his face, an easy smile replaced the usual smirk. You gulped. 

“I can hear you thinking over there,” he cracked an eye open. “You can ask me about my childhood, I’m not going to crush you.”

You snorted, the tension leaving your shoulders. You took a deep breath before you spoke, “Why are you so afraid of fire?”

He looked away once more. “A good question, look I don’t know how much you know about my dad, but he wanted the avatar, or at least he wanted one of us to be it. I used to want to do anything to make him proud,” his voice contained nothing but sadness. 

You grasped his hand, your body moving on it’s own for the second time that day. You were about to remove it with an apology once more, but he beat you to it. He interlocked your fingers together. The small smile appeared once more.

He continued. “It wasn’t until Shoto had two quirks that my father believed he was the avatar, he tossed my sister, brother and I to the urb and began to “train” him. I couldn’t do anything, all I could do was listen to his cries and our mom screaming.” Tears began to fall from his face causing your heart to twist.

“Dabi-” You wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he didn’t have to continue, that you shouldn’t have asked, but he only shook his head.

“‘S okay. I want to tell you.”

With that you fell silent and instead opted to run your thumb over his in what you hoped were reassuring circles. He squeezed your hand in return.

“I remember being at the fountain, thinking I didn’t have any bending abilities, and that I was a failure just like the firelord said, but that’s when I realized I could bend water. I told my mom with a smile on my face thinking that I’d finally be worth something, but you should’ve seen the look on her face. She was terrified and told me to keep it a secret. I didn’t understand it at the time, but that decision saved my life. She saved my life.

Fast forward a bit and Shoto is still forced to train and one day the burns were so bad that I finally had enough,” his voice breaks. “I healed him, I didn’t know I could do it, but I just didn’t want to see him hurt anymore. Long story short the firelord found out and he knew it was Rei, he knew it was my mom who told me not to say anything and I-”

His body racked with sobs, you wrapped your arms around him and pulled him to your chest. Tears of your own were falling, but you refused to let him go. He kept all of that to himself, while you were traveling and taking the fire nation down he was carrying that too. You wanted to take his pain away even though you knew it was impossible. You wanted to try even if all you could do was stand by and support him. How did somebody so strong think they were so weak?

Once his sobs turned into sniffles he pulled away and stared into your eyes. “He killed her. Right in front of us, so that night I took all of my siblings and fled. Natsuo and Fuyumi are taking refuge in the Earth kingdom while Shoto and I went where we could. We couldn’t stay in one place for too long or else they’d find us. They had spies everywhere, firebenders who wanted the bounty he put on our head, That’s why-”

“That’s why you didn’t trust me when we first met, isn’t it.”

The silence was enough of an answer.

“Do you want to know the real reason I’m afraid of fire?” 

You nodded.

“I’m afraid that when I wield it, it will bring nothing but pain and that I’ll be just like him.” His eyes held a familiar gleam to them. “I don’t want to be like him.”

“You won’t be.” 

You could tell by the way his eyes widened that those were the last words he thought you would say. Wiping away your eyes you shrugged. “What? It’s the truth. You don’t want to be like him so don’t. He only uses fire to bring pain use it for something else. Find your own meaning behind your fire.”

He spluttered on his words. “It’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is, after all Shoto is a firebender and you don’t think he will turn evil, do you?”

He was about to speak before he closed his mouth once more, forming it into a pout. “No.”

“See! It’s easy,” you perked up and clapped your hands. “We’ve been going about this all wrong! Instead of training we should focus on what your fire means to you. Ooh, we can make a list or even brainstorm or-”

A splash of water snaps you out of your rambling. 

“Alright! That’s enough, geez I forgot how annoying you are sometimes.” You would’ve been insulted, but the words didn’t hold any mirth and his expression was back to peaceful, only this time it looked like the weight of the world was lifted off his shoulders.

“That’s fair.” 

“If you tell anybody what I said-”

“You’ll skin me alive?” You looked in his direction snorting at the way he instantly stopped what he was about to say. “I got it, besides what happens between us stays between us. Thank you,” he raises a questioning brow causing you to continue. “For trusting me I mean, that was a lot and I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to tell me.”

You didn’t miss the blush dusting across his cheeks as he turned away from you. “Don’t mention it.”

You might’ve been crazy, but you could’ve sworn you heard a faint. 

“Thank you for being somebody I could trust.”

-Bonus-

“So,” Keigo started with a grin at seeing the two of you come back to the site the four of you had set up. His blond hair was messy but blown back out of his face. He stood tall and from what you could tell was well rested. Good, he was going to need it for the ass kicking he was about to receive. “How was your field trip?”

He fixed his gaze to Dabi with interest. “Learn how to firebend yet?”

Dabi smirked and slung an arm around his shoulder. “Nope, but you might want to run.”

“Run?” He snorted, nose crinkling slightly. “Why would I need to?” His eyes lit up in recognition before he tsked. “Oh Dabi, you really want to try and chase me again? I’m not the fastest air bender for no reason you know.”

That earned a genuine snort out of the man. “It’s not me this time, you see I may have told a little somebody that a birdie told me about the Cactus Juice incident.”

Keigo’s expression fell from shock, to panic to utter horror in five seconds flat. “Oh shit.”

“Keigo!” You screeched, rushing towards the two men.

Dabi could only watch in mild amusement before leaning down and whispering, “I think you should start running.”

With that Keigo took off with you in toe shouting for him to come down from the air and fight you himself. He could only shake his head when Toga got involved, joining your side immediately while Shoto looked towards Dabi with furrowed brows until he gestured for his brother to join the chaos.

Eventually he’d be roped into it too, but for now he’d silently thank his lucky stars for having the friends he did and as he watched you tackle Keigo shouting about how you won and to taste defeat like the traitor he was he hoped the two of you could be something more in the future.

For reference: Shoto is 15, Dabi and Hawks are 23, Reader is around their age and Toga is 17

taglist: @yixxes @chaos-night @hoefornanami @oilivia @renegades247

@febuwhump day 21: torture

a phone call away 

summary

“Tony,” he said. He opened both eyes just as Tony put the Gatorade and the pills on the bedside table. “What happened?”

“Don’t remember?” asked Tony, with a smirk that told Peter doom was imminent.

Peter stared at the Gatorade bottle, then looked down at the bright red cast on his arm. He wondered how he was expected to open bottles using only one hand. “This really sucks.”

“Yep,” said Tony. “Sounds about right. That’s what happens when you drink half your weight in alcohol.”

OR

Peter copes with his post-snap trauma by drinking. Tony worries, and helps. 

Peter opened his eyes, only to quickly shut them after being assaulted by the lights.

His headache blared to life, and his right arm was encased in a cast. He couldn’t remember what he’d done to earn this trouble. What he’d done to merit this rude awakening in Avengers Tower medbay, but he had a sinking suspicion it had all started with Flash and Abe bringing out the keg.

He groaned and pushed his head into the pillow and wished he was literally anywhere else.

“He’s alive.”

Peter popped one eye open and saw Tony by the doorway with Gatorade and a bottle of pain relievers in his hands.

“Tony,” he said. He opened both eyes just as Tony put the Gatorade and the pills on the bedside table. “What happened?”

“Don’t remember?” asked Tony, with a smirk that told Peter doom was imminent.

Peter stared at the Gatorade bottle, then looked down at the bright red cast on his arm. He wondered how he was expected to open bottles using only one hand. “This really sucks.”

“Yep,” said Tony. “Sounds about right. That’s what happens when you drink half your weight in alcohol.”

A memory hit him. One of the white hot pain in his arm, and one of having his head in the toilet, puking, while Tony hovered somewhere above him telling him to get it all out.

Peter groaned again. Maybe it was better not to remember.

“From the baby-monitor cam-”

“-really wish you’d stop calling it that-”

“-it looks like you were swinging under the influence,” said Tony, ignoring his complaint about the name, “and at some point you swung into a building, fell, hit the sidewalk and landed on your arm, all before trying to fight a trash can.”

“Did I at least win the fight?” asked Peter, miserably.

“You tell me.”

It was obvious, even to Peter, that he’d lost.

Peter vaguely remembered a swirl of streetlights, the impact of a brick wall, and flailing his legs and arms as he fell. It was clear from his harsh landing on the pavement that in his drunken state he hadn’t been quick enough to save himself from the fall with his web shooters.

“And if you’re a little foggy on the first part of your evening,” said Tony. “You might wanna turn your attention to Thomson’s Instagram.”

Peter closed his eyes, and muttered, “He didn’t.”

“Oh, he did,” said Tony.

“I’m gonna kill Flash.”

“If May doesn’t kill you first,” said Tony. “Or me, for that matter. What were you thinking?”

“I dunno. Maybe I wasn’t. It was just, a party, you know? It was fun. Was being the keyword I think,” said Peter. He lifted up his broken arm. “This definitely isn’t fun. How long do I have to have this on?”

“Forever.”

“Funny,” said Peter. He sighed. “So much for super healing.”

“Yeah, well, all that alcohol probably put a damper on your freaky spidey healing, so you’re just gonna have to heal like us normal folks, at least for a couple of days,” said Tony. “Which is just as well considering your aunt is probably gonna ground you.”

Peter groaned, threw his head back into his pillows, and stared at the unattainable, frosty Gatorade bottle. He tried to ignore his pounding headache, the way his eyes hurt and begged for the lights to be dimmed.

This hangover was torture. Though he probably deserved it.

“Do you mind, uh, opening that?” asked Peter, pointing at the Gatorade with his free hand.

Tony took the bottle from the nightstand, opened it, and handed it to Peter, who accepted it with his good hand and gulped down half the Gatorade in one drink. He left it open when he put it back down on the nightstand.

“Are you sure this was really just about a party?” started Tony. “That you really just having fun, because I -”

“-Tonnnyyyyy,” said Peter. The headache was torturous enough. He didn’t need a lecture to come with it.

“Kid, I’m just saying,” said Tony. “Take it from someone who was lucky Instagram didn’t exist during his party years.”

“I’m not you.”

“I know you aren’t,” said Tony. “But it can happen to the best of us, and Pete, this is the third time in a month you’ve been caught with alcohol. I’m supposed to believe there were times you weren’t caught?”

“You’re not supposed to believe anything,” said Peter. He closed his eyes, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Can you dim the lights, please?”

Tony did what Peter asked, and dimed the lights. He sat back down in the bedside chair with a sigh. “I’m just worried about you. This isn’t like you at all -”

“-Can I please just rest?”

“Fine,” said Tony. “Fine. But we’re gonna have to talk about this sooner or later, and you know, I’m always a phone call away.”

Peter didn’t open his eyes again until he heard the doors just, until Tony was gone, and he was no longer at risk of having to talk about things.

*

Peter was supposed to be grounded.

May had reacted exactly the way Tony had told him she would, and sentenced him to two weeks in his apartment with only schoolwork and chores to keep him company. Chores that he couldn’t even properly do with one arm.

That hadn’t been such a big deal after a couple of days, which was the amount of time it had taken Peter’s arm to heal and for his cast to get taken off.

And when his arm became free, breaking grounding became easier, so he did, to escape his quiet apartment and his loud and menacing and threatening thoughts.

He crashed a party.

Someone at Midtown hosted it. He didn’t know who, really, and didn’t care to ask. He noticed none of his circle were around. Not even Flash, who usually got invited to every party and rarely turned down an invitation. He didn’t like it. The way parties and large rooms felt lonely and desert when they were absent of his friends.

Peter stayed only long enough to get a buzz going. It wasn’t the good kind, either. His thoughts stayed loud, only they were also swimming, and he’s sloppy as he stumbles around on the dark, New York street.

It occurred to him that was lost, and he was hit with that familiar dread that had occupied him while he was in space. That he may never get home. That he might disappear into the wind before he’s got the chance.

He shook and his breath came fast. He sweated, and wanted to cry, and wanted to be back in his bed or just stay in his apartment, watching TV with May.

“You know, I’m always a phone call away.”

The memory of Tony’s words broke him out of his panic, and slipped his hand into his pocket and fumbled around with his phone until he managed to press on Tony’s contact.

“Peter? What’s wrong?”

“I’m so sorry, Tony,” said Peter. He didn’t like the sound of his own voice. How desperate it sounded.

“It’s okay,” said Tony. “Where are you?”

“Lost.”

“Sit tight, alright? I’m gonna find you.”

They hung up, and Peter sat on a bench under a streetlight. He waited.

*

Peter didn’t throw up, but he wished he could.

He woke up the next day at Tony’s penthouse. He was nauseous, and shivered, even from under a pile of blankets, and he wished desperately that he could forget the night before. That wasn’t possible. His memories might have gaps in them, but he’ll never forget the paralyzing fear of being moments away from vanishing.

Tony must have been alerted that he’d woken up, because he pushed open the door to the guest room almost immediately.

“How’re you feeling?”

Peter sat up, slowly, and hugged the blankets closer to his body. “Like shit.”

“Sounds about right,” said Tony. “We still gotta talk about it, though. I let it slide last time, and it was a mistake.”

“My mistake,” said Peter. He shivered. “And don’t worry. I’m never going to drink again. Not after last night.”

Tony let the uncomfortable silence settle over them, and Peter didn’t like it. He had to fill the air with his explanation.

“Maybe I was using alcohol to escape,” he admitted. “You know it’s like sometimes my head is just so loud, and it feels like I’m going to be obliterated at any second, and alcohol numbed that. Made me forget.”

“Until it didn’t?” Tony had phrased it as a question, but Peter had no doubt the man knew where it was going. That maybe he’d been there and experienced it himself.

“Yeah,” said Peter. “Last night it just made anything worse.”

“That happens,” said Tony. “Alcohol magnifies your emotions. Not a great way to deal with your trauma.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me.”

Tony squeezed his shoulder in a sign of support, and there was relief written on his face. As if he’d been worried that entire time, but instead of helicoptering over him, had let him work it out on their own. Maybe they were both growing.

“Now the question is,” said Tony. “How do we prevent it from happening again?”

“I’m never going to-”

“-but you might. Shit happens, and if you don’t figure out a way to deal with these feelings, they’ll eat you alive, or make you turn to some pretty desperate solutions.”

“Talking to you and May helps.”

“Yeah,” said Tony. “But I think you may need to talk to someone else, like a professional.”

“You want me to go to therapy?”

“I think it would help you,” said Tony. “I speak from experience, I go, and it helps me, and if it can help me, it’ll help anyone.” He paused, chewed on his lip. “And hey, you’ll have someone to complain about me to.”

Peter laughed. “I don’t know if any therapist has that much time or patience.”

“Brat.”

“Just being honest,” said Peter.

“I’m gonna make you an appointment,” said Tony, quickly, before Peter could even properly make a decision either way.

“Yeah, okay,” said Peter.

He didn’t know if he would’ve agreed if Tony hadn’t made his choice so easy and clear, and although he was sure therapy would be difficult, he was content, thankful even, that he had people like Tony pointing him in the right direction.

In the Shadows : Ten

Summary: Jughead Jones, resident werewolf, just wants to protect his family and his pack from the incoming doom of The Red Circle. Sweet Pea and Lily join him to help keep the Southside safe from human tyranny. Meanwhile a demon princess named Myra and succubus named Lavender had a plan to bring on the apocalypse. <ao3> <masterlist> <playlist>

Rating: Mature // Explicit

Pairings: Jughead Jones x OC, Sweet Pea x OC, Kurtz x OC

Warnings: Violence, Torture

Word Count: 5k+

A/N:  ahhhhhhhh, I'm so sorry this took me four days to write. I feel so terrible but I've been very busy this week. One of my pets needed surgery and another needed a vet visit in which a lot of tests were done (she'll need surgery too, ugh) so I haven't had as much time as I'd like to sit down and write. Hopefully the action of this chapter makes up for it?

Chapter Ten : Wrong Moon

A week before the next full moon, Jughead and Lavender finally made amends. Lily had forced the two to sit down and talk out their problems, as everyone was getting along beautifully except for the two of them. Lavender explained to him what her plan was, and he agreed that it would more than likely work. Archie wasn’t particularly smart and didn’t know anything about demon magic or shapeshifters beyond werewolves. So when she proposed that she disguise herself as Reggie, he thought the idea was rather brilliant in and of itself.

Today was the big day. Seven days until the three would need to perform another protection spell. There was not much room for error. Luckily Lavender had stolen some of Reggie’s clothes before she left his house, having already foreseen herself needing to do this. Sweet Pea had been adamant about going with her, watching her dress into Reggie’s clothes looking like the man himself. It was very strange to see his partner as a man. “You need to let me go with you.” He said for the hundredth time. “It’s not safe.”

“Sweet Pea,” She said, her voice deep and masculine. “I’m a powerful sex demon. Mortals are of no threat to me.”

His eyes narrowed, the phrase throwing him back to their first night at the Wyrm when they met. She had said it multiple times. It seemed as if she thought no one was a threat to her and the fact that she was pregnant didn’t change that. “You’re a hybrid with a soul. Your magic isn’t as strong as it used to be.” He argued and watched as she shrugged her now broad shoulders.

She continued to primp herself in the mirror, “my demon magic is weaker, yes. But my witch magic isn’t. It’s stronger since our souls have bonded. It evens out. Plus I have the baby’s magic on top of that. Just wait here. I can take care of myself.”

Sweet Pea let out a sigh of defeat, knowing he would be unable to convince her to change her mind. She was stubborn as a fucking bull when she wanted to be. At least the form she had taken was very convincing. “Fine. Call me when you’re done.”

Lav walked over and kissed him on the cheek. A disgusted look crossed Sweet Pea’s face, making her laugh. “Sorry, habit. I’ll call you, don’t worry.” She turned and left, leaving the house they now shared and getting into a car to go over to Archie Andrews’ house that he had inherited from his father some years ago.

She parked her car a few blocks away and walked up to the house, hoping that the redhead didn’t see her exit the vehicle. She couldn’t get her hands on Reggie’s beloved car, so she hoped the sight of him walking up without it wouldn’t look too suspicious.

She rang the doorbell and a few minutes later, Archie opened the door. “Reg?” He asked, his jaw slack with disbelief. “Come in! Dude, where have you been?”

Lavender walked in, glancing around the house for any signs of imminent danger. There were none that she saw. “You know that chick I helped out last full moon?”

“Yeah…” Archie said, not following.

“She needed help getting back to her family in Centerville and I told her I’d help. It was kind of a wild ride and it’s a long story but...there’s a lot of shit going down there and I think I’m going to help her through it. We really connected that night.” Reggie said, plopping down on the couch in the living room. “I’ve never felt this close to another human being before.”

The redhead stared, his eyes calculating as he scanned over the man on his couch. “And you couldn’t call or text me?”

“It’s so weird, the whole town has like no cell service.” Reggie said casually. “I think they might need our help more than Riverdale. The killings seemed to have stopped. There’s been no new activity lately, right?”

Archie’s eyes narrowed, “You would know if you had been around. There hasn’t been a new body, Reg, but there’s been plenty of other signs of foul play. Men disappearing without a trace. I got a tip that there was some...demonic activity going on here. I think that might be even worse than a rabid wolf.”

Lav stiffened, “demonic activity? Bro, there’s no such thing as demons.” She watched as he pulled out a thin blade, something dripping off the end. The smell was clear as day - myrrh, sweet cinnamon, olive, and a few other scents mixed. It could only be one thing: holy oil.

“Dude, what do you have that for?” She asked, pretending as if she didn’t understand why Archie was slowly coming towards her with the silver dagger. She tried to mutter a quick spell but found that her magic was not working. It was as if he had warded the house against it. Her heart dropped and terror rose as she stood quickly, ready to dart. Archie was faster, the blade sinking deep into Lavender’s right shoulder.

Her form shifted back to the one she took more often than not. Her human face, hair purple and eyes black. While oil wasn’t as harmful to her than it might be on a regular demon, it made it impossible for her to heal her own wounds. She needed to get out and fast.

When she tried to pull away, Archie grabbed her roughly by the arms. “You killed him, didn’t you.” He asked, his voice sounding deadly in her ears. “And you thought I wouldn’t notice a cheap knockoff. You were wrong.”

Lav tried to grab the blade but even the handle burned her skin. She hissed in pain, trying to fight the angry tears that threatened to fall. She willed her magic, her baby’s magic, anything to help her out of this situation. Nothing worked. That’s when she noticed the glowing runes on the walls. Her eyes looked around, wide with terror. Both black magic and demon magic were barred here. The only thing that appeared permitted was white magic and Lav had no actual skill in it. She used her demonic energy to heal herself normally and she couldn’t even tap into that.

As the demoness screamed out in pain at trying to get the knife out of her, a black cat ran in. She had entered from the doggy door on the backdoor. The cat quickly transformed back into the white witch who pried Lavender from Archie’s hands.

“A witch?” He asked, his mind reeling. “There’s witches here too?!”

Lily ignored him as she wrenched out the knife, earning a pained sob from her friend. Lily did her best to soothe her as the front door was kicked in. Archie readied himself, trying to find a nearby weapon. The only thing he could easily grab his hands on was an old brass table lamp.

Sweet Pea was in the room in an instant, having also felt Lavender’s distress due to their newfound connection. He tried to cast a spell but immediately noticed that his magic wouldn’t work here.

Archie swung the lamp in the dark witch’s direction, hoping to hit him. Sweet Pea merely grabbed the end, wrenching it from the redhead’s grasp and tossing it behind him without a care. He brought up a large fist and punched the mortal man hard enough to crack both of their bones.

“Sweet Pea!” Lily called out to him, “We need to get her out, even my magic is being choked here!”

Sweet Pea abandoned Archie and picked Lavender up in his arms, much like he did when she nearly fainted after getting her soul back. She was on the edge of consciousness, her adrenaline keeping her awake but it wouldn’t hold out much longer if the shock got any worse.

He darted out of the house, Lily right at his heels as Archie struggled to stand from being hit such a heavy blow. Blood poured from his nose as he reached for a phone to call for backup.

Once outside, the two witches crammed themselves and their demon’s car. Sweet Pea quickly found her keys and started it up, driving fast to their home in Sunnyside. Lily was in the backseat, doing her best to heal her with magic alone. She knew that she’d need some kind of potion to counteract the oil burns.

“How is she?” Sweet Pea asked, his voice shaking, “The baby?”

“The baby is fine,” Lily said, panting as sweat collected on her brow. “I put a white magic protection spell on it weeks ago. The runes didn’t affect it. She’ll only die if her mother dies.”

“Is she going to die?!” Sweet Pea asked much more frantically as he chanced a look back at them. His girlfriend looked incredibly pale.

“No, Pea, She’s not going to die. Watch the road!” Lily snapped at him as she pressed against the stab wound. Lav groaned in pain. Sweet Pea pushed the gas pedal down further and the car jerked forward under the increased power. They were back in the trailer park in hardly no time at all.

Sweet Pea carried Lavender inside. “I need to work on a neutralizer for the burns. Don’t stop. Shanna, don’t go to sleep.”

“Don’t...call me...that,” She huffed at him between staggered breaths. Sweet Pea had taken to calling her by what had been her human name when he learned it from Myra. It drove her crazy and he knew it.

He put her on the couch so Lily could continue working as he ran to the room he had set up a makeshift potions lab in. He quickly began to work, going through his ingredients and checking his grimoire for his ratios list.

Lily’s energy was fading fast. The wound wouldn’t heal fully due to the holy oil. Every time she nearly had it mended, it seemed to rip back open with some kind of magical energy. She had to figure out how to counteract it and fast. She was praying to her matrons for some kind of guidance and praying that Sweet Pea could find a solution quickly.

Lavender struggled to breathe, her lung kept collapsing and as soon as Lily would heal it, it would just collapse again. She was wheezing, holding onto her stomach as if that would somehow protect her child. How could this have happened? How did Archie know?

Ten minutes later (only it felt like ten hours), Sweet Pea came in with a potion for Lavender to drink. She looked at him, the light in her eyes fading fast as he forced her to sit up and drink.

Lav nearly threw up at the horrid taste in her mouth. The potion was gritty against her teeth and tongue. When she finished drinking she coughed as hard as she could with one functioning lung. Lily placed her hands back on the demon’s chest and muttered spells under her breath.

The wound finally remained healed as Lily collapsed onto the floor, feeling as if she may pass out at any moment. Sweet Pea was looking between the two of them, trying to figure out who to help first. In the end he crouched down and pulled Lily against him while brushing hair out of Lavender’s face. “I have to call Jughead.” He told his soulmate, who could only half hear him as she began to drift into the unconscious. “I’ll be right back.”

Sweet Pea carried Lily to one of the spare bedrooms and laid her down on the bed that Daisy slept on when she stayed over. He took out his phone and quickly called Jughead, bringing him up to speed on what had happened. Jughead told him he’d be over with Daisy as soon as he possibly could.

Once satisfied with that answer, he checked Lily’s pulse. It was still strong. Good, he thought to himself. Healing magic could be dangerous if overused. The user could bring the damage onto themselves if they weren't careful. Luckily it seemed that Lily would be alright with some rest.

He returned to the living room to pick up his sleeping soulmate to take her into their shared bedroom. He laid her down onto her plush duvet and began to take off the clothing that was soiled in blood so he could try to clean her up and access any permanent damage.

The jeans she was wearing were falling off of her hips due to the difference in sizes.  He went ahead and pulled them off as well, noticing she wasn’t wearing any underwear underneath...not that that should have really surprised him.

He looked over her chest, noticing a now jagged scar over her right breast. He traced it with his finger, the raised line was hot to the touch. Sweet Pea let out a sigh before grabbing her favorite plush blanket and covering her body with it so that she wouldn’t get cold. He didn’t want to risk waking her up by redressing her at the moment.

His hand traveled to her stomach, hovering over it through the blanket. He could just barely sense the new source of magical energy. Another little girl that he prayed night and day wouldn’t get taken from him. Daisy was his world. He could only imagine how much he’d love her little sister.

Sweet Pea didn’t hear the window in the other room opening. He didn’t notice the shuffling of feet as he was much too concentrated on his new lover and unborn child. The feeling of possibly losing them today distracting him from his duty to protect both women. While he should have been tending to both Lily and Lavender, he focused more on the demon. It wasn’t on purpose, he simply got lost within the depths of his mind when he questioned the safety of Riverdale for the thousandth time that week.

In fact, he didn’t snap back into reality until Jughead arrived, pounding on the front door. Sweet Pea opened it and took Daisy as she was shoved into his arms. Jughead followed his nose but found what he thought may be true as soon as he pulled up. He couldn’t feel her anywhere and her scent trail was decimated by the sudden onslaught of icy sleet outside.

“Where is she?!” He cried out, panicking as he retraced his steps to go back to Sweet Pea. Sweet Pea looked at him with confusion before going into the room where Lily had been. The bed was empty, the window open. Lily was gone.

“She was right here!” Sweet Pea yelled, setting Daisy down so he could maneuver around easier. “There’s no way she could have gotten out on her own! She was too weak!”

Jughead stared out the window solemnly. “They took her.” He mumbled, mostly to himself. “The Red Circle has her. Look.”

Sweet Pea joined him at the window and saw a sloppily painted red circle on the grass, the paint smearing from the new sheet of frozen rain. His frown only deepened. “Fuck, I was right across the hall. How did I not hear them?”

Jughead wanted to snap at Sweet Pea for just leaving her, but knew that Lavender had been hurt badly. He didn’t blame him for having his attention focused more on his pregnant girlfriend than his ex. Still, it was careless to not have tried to watch both at the same time. “I have to find her. I have to do...it.”

“No.” Sweet Pea said firmly. “You can’t change on the wrong moon. You know what you’re risking doing that? You could lose yourself and be stuck. Think about it, Jones. We can use magic to find her.”

“I’m weak in this body, Sweet Pea!” He shouted back, finally losing his temper. “I can’t fight them off like this! I can as a wolf, I can tear them all apart! Give me the potion, I know you know how to make it! I’ve seen it in your book!”

“No.” The dark witch repeated himself. “I’m not doing that to you. Lily would murder me if I ever let you do that to yourself. We will find her, we just-”

“Can Lavie move? Is she still hurt?” Jughead asked, pleading. “She can help, I know she can.”

“She’s out cold, Jones.” Sweet Pea said, his voice sympathetic. “I can do a locating spell. I just need some of Daisy’s hair and I can do it. She’s got enough Lily in her that it’ll work.”

The wolf tried to take a deep breath but failed miserably. “Can you do it now?”

“Yes. Look, Shanna will have to be in bed for at least a few days. We can’t depend on her for this and I can’t leave her. If Myra comes while she’s weak then she could take her soul back or worse. You have to do this, Jones, and you can’t do it by turning.”

Jughead swallowed down a ball of anxiety that threatened to explode out of him. He nodded his head, not trusting his voice in that particular moment.

Sweet Pea noticed Daisy had left them and had found her way to Lavender. She had managed to climb on the bed and was sitting next to her, playing with her cat. “Lavie nap time!” She said with a toothy grin.

He smiled at her and approached, “Daisy, I need to pluck a hair from your head okay? To find mommy. It might hurt.”

Daisy just shrugged before going back to playing, pretending that the cat was licking Lavender’s shoulder. Sweet Pea shook his head and plucked out one of her hairs as painlessly as possible. The littlest witch didn’t even flinch.

He went into his workroom, knowing that Daisy would alert him if something happened, and began the spell. It should have been quick and easy. It was one of the simplest ones in the book. As long as you had some DNA or a treasured item, it was foolproof.

Unless there was outside magic that canceled it out. Sweet Pea, cursed, the pendulum swinging circle upon circle over the map of Riverdale. It wasn’t working. Lily was being kept in a place that was strictly stripped of magic. There was no way to locate her this way. It would be impossible.

He cursed under his breath as Jughead came in, eyes dark as if he already knew the bad news. “It is the only way. I can find her as a wolf. I can save her. This one time won’t make me sick. One time won’t hurt…”

“There’s no guarantee that you’ll even change back.” Sweet Pea warned, the need for the mother of his first born to be found alive and well was quickly outweighing his need to keep Jughead from doing something incredibly stupid. “You could be stuck as a wolf for the rest of your life.”

“That is the risk I am willing to take.” Jughead growled, he knew all the possibly horrible outcomes. He knew how this could end. However, despite all that, he also knew that his chances of finding and saving Lily were astronomically higher as a wolf than as a human. He was much more attuned to her very essence as a beast. He didn’t need a scent to find her.

Sweet Pea caved. He stood from his spot on the floor and went to his work table to start the potion. “This shift is going to be the most painful thing you’ve ever experienced.” He said. “Turning back...will be even worse.”

Even working at the fastest possible pace, it still took him twenty minutes to finish the brew. Jughead paced impatiently the entire time, his mind reeling with all of the possible things Archie and the others could be doing to Lily. She was too weak to use her magic, and even if she could then where she was being held was guarded against it. He didn’t even hesitate when Sweet Pea announced that it was done. He immediately ran to him, took the cup and drank it down in one wolfish gulp….

Lily let out a pained groan as her eyes fluttered open. Wherever she was, it was pitch dark. She attempted to move, only to find that she was tied in place. Her struggling stopped when she felt the cold flat side of a knife press against her throat. “One witch set to burn at midnight.” A voice said, warm breath fanning against her cheek. “One last thing to plague Riverdale.”

She tried to speak but her mouth and throat were far too dry. She noticed a light flicker on and multiple torches began to illuminate the room. Lily’s eyes swept the room, pupils shrinking to adjust to the new light. Her heart stilled in terror as she realized she was surrounded by members of The Red Circle, their leader the one holding the knife to her jugular. “But first, we have to make sure she is of the devil, as my source says.”

Her brow furrowed, having no idea what he was talking about. Who was his source? There were witches that got their power from worshiping Satan, however she wasn’t one. There was no way to actually test that though, so what was he even proposing that they do to her?

It started off slow, simple tests of her reflexes and sensitivity to temperature changes and even small amounts of pain. None of her totally normal reactions seemed to pacify the hatred looming in the room. Archie seemed more and more enraged at the end of every test. It didn’t take long for him to resort to violence, hitting her when she didn’t respond in the way he wanted.

Eventually the waterboarding began. Over and over Lily thought that she might give in to the horrid drowning sensation. She pleaded with them, begged them, cried to them, however it all fell on deaf ears. There was no one on her side in that room. No one that wanted her to see the light of day. She couldn’t use her magic, she couldn’t sense anything outside of the room.

When there was nothing left for her to say to her captors, she began to scream for Jughead in hopes that he’d somehow be able to hear her, to feel her. Maybe...just maybe he could locate her and break her from this nightmare.

A large black wolf was racing through the ice, crossing the railroad tracks and sprinting as fast as he possibly could. The change had been just as Sweet Pea has said it would be. It hurt so bad that he couldn’t even think of what the return trip would feel like. That was, if he could ever return. He would happily live the rest of his life in this cursed form if it only meant that Lily would be safe.

He could sense her agony, it pulsed in his mind like a beacon that he immediately honed into. He forced himself to move faster, feeling muscles pull and tendons strain. He didn’t feel the pain, couldn’t think about the pain. His needs didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting her home safe.

He had so many questions as to how this all went wrong. What happened at the Andrews’ house that led to this unfortunately set of events. Sweet Pea had told him the bare minimum, only that Lily had used up too much of her strength and he needed help getting her back to normal. Jughead had sensed her weakness then and knew that he had to come fast. Still, he was not quite fast enough. Archie and his league of human filth had gotten to her first.

Jughead stopped and howled loudly to signal members of his pack to come to him. He wouldn’t make them turn but he could use the help. Luckily for him, a spry young boxer came to his call.

Charlie had been out running, and while it seemed ridiculous to be running in this kind of weather, she thought it to be good endurance training. She crossed paths with her future alpha in no time at all. He had already begun to run again when she joined him.

She didn’t comment on his form, choosing to save it for later. Certainly he already knew of the hazards of changing at a time like this. It must have been for a very good reason. “What’s wrong?” She asked instead, “Is it Lily?”

Charlie knew all about the soulmates, having learned it all from a certain demon that acted as her friend with benefits. She also knew that Jughead only did irrational things when it came to her. He was not his usually thoughtful self and threw danger to the wind. Case and point was fighting the vargulf on his own without any backup during the last full moon.

“Yes,” He said and she could only understand him without the use of touch because she the language was embedded deep within her. “The Red Circle has her.”

The female wolf let out a low growl of detest. No wonder Jughead took the plunge and donned his suit of fur. She’d do the same if they had a hold of her loved one, a vampire by the name of Fangs Fogarty. He was asleep right now otherwise she’d call him in for help too.

Charlie kept pace with him, not having any issue despite him having four legs to her two. She had an extremely athletic build, having to keep in shape for fights. Still, it would have been nice if she could change too although she wasn’t entirely sure if she could handle the thought of possibly never changing back. But her loyalty to her pack made the uncertainty nearly waiver in her heart. If it had been asked of her, then she would have done it in a heartbeat.

She asked no more questions. She didn’t need to. She’d fight tooth and nail for Lily just as she would have for Jughead. Her importance to her pack was just as great as his. She had saved all of them once already by protecting the forest. Charlie felt as if it were now her turn to return the favor.

The two wolves arrived at an abandoned warehouse on the very edge of the Northside. They paused long enough to catch their breaths and formulate an attack. “No offense, Jug, but you don’t have any hands right now.” Charlie said between pants. “Let me break in so you don’t hurt yourself. Then we can divide and conquer. Are you sure she’s in there?”

“Yes,” He growled lowly. “She is. It’s protected against Magic, she won’t be able to help us.”

Charlie nodded and jimmied the lock on the door before opening it slowly. The two crept inside, giving silent looks to one another in order to communicate non-verbally. The group was located down in the basement, but they could hear Lily’s cries for help. It took all of Jughead’s will not to go down there without any sort of plan.

His pack-mate noticed his impatience. “I don’t have claws and teeth, but you know my right hook can knock out a grown human man. I’ll get her out while you fight them off. I think that’s the best way if she’s too weak to move on her own.”

He let out a huff before nodding. Charlie opened the door on the floor of the first level that led downwards. They hesitated for a split second before Jughead sprang down the stairs, letting out a howl so loud that the windows rattled in their frames.

There were loud curses and shouts of fright as Jughead attacked without any sort of restraint. Blood filled his mouth as he teeth tore into anyone that came within reach of his jaws. He took out as many as he possibly could, downing one mortal before leaping onto another.

Charlie made several take a hard seat with one hit of her fist as she made her way to the table that Lily was strapped to. The witch was in a daze, clearly confused about what was happening in the uproar. Charlie untied her, helping her up with an arm around her waist. Lily grabbed onto her shoulder for support. “We’re leaving, Jughead! Hold them off until we’re outside!”

She heard a strange mixture of bark and growl which was definite affirmative. Charlie dragged Lily up the stairs and outside, the chaos down on the inside of the warehouse growing louder and louder, hitting a crescendo before falling abruptly. Jughead leapt from down below and raced out to meet the two. Charlie had not stopped, she kept moving to try and get Lily as far as she possibly could. She only stopped when Jughead finally joined them.

“Jug,” Lily said, still breathless from the water being poured intermittently over her face. “What have you done?”

They heard shouts behind them, and the three knew that there was no time to stand and talk. This would all need to be discussed once they were safe.

As soon as they crossed the tracks, Jughead let out another howl for help. The sleet had ceased for the time being. Various members of the pack ran to meet him, the first being his father.

FP Jones picked Lily up so that they could run. While they had a decent lead, it was still poor judgement to not try and create more distance. He ran with her laying uncomfortably in his arms while a few wolves stayed behind, armed with various blunt force objects just in case. Charlie stayed behind with them, ready for more bloodshed.

They didn’t stop until they were inside of the Jones’ trailer. FP set Lily down on the couch before turning to Jughead, face red with anger. “Boy, what in hell’s name have you done to yourself?!” He roared as Jughead jumped onto the couch to rest his head in Lily’s lap. He let out a low whine, the only answer he could muster.

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Untitled Goose Story (Part 3)

Summary: Remus overhears an interesting conversation. 

Warnings: Sympathetic Remus, mention of sickness, threat of hanging, implied warfare, goose shenanigans (tell me if I missed anything)

A/N: Longest one yet!

Word Count: 1710

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3 

---

Part 3

Remus tugged at the tapestry with all their might, determined to tear it down before the servant returned to show her supervisor. But alas, fortune was not in a humble goose’s favor today, and the tapestry stayed firmly attached to the wall. Remus honked indignantly and waddled away to find something more cooperative to steal. 

Tapestry was a new word for Remus. They were learning a lot of new words the longer they stayed in the human’s stone burrow, or castle as they had learned. They’d learned words like ‘the soldiers coming back from the front bear dour news’ and ‘that goose is getting away with the Prince’s supper’ as well as ‘the enemies are figuratively at our gates’ and ‘how did a goose get into the armory?’

Speaking of new words, Remus heard a few as they walked past another tapestry. 

“Honk?” They honked under their breath and swerved over to investigate. 

Human voices, shouting, drifted out from the dusty tapestry at the end of the hall, muffled by stone and cloth. Remus gently slid their head behind the tapestry. A few inches past the cover of the cloth, a Remus-sized opening was cut into the stone. Slatted beams of light shone from the other side. Remus honked, pleased to have discovered a possible new roost for their nest. The library nook was getting boring. The librarian never noticed when they stole books, which was just no fun. 

Remus stopped in the hollow in the wall. Cozy. Plenty of space. Hidden from evil groundskeepers. They could make a home here for sure. 

The voices flared again, overlapping. Remus cocked their head and tried to peer into the room on the other side of the window. They were partially blinded by the light shining out from between wooden planks, but that faded. 

Fifteen feet below, a dozen humans were gathered around a long table in the center of a torch-lit hall. The humans were not sitting at the table, contrary to their usual custom. Instead, the majority of them stood, flapping their arms. Their shouts swelled louder and louder, mostly directed at two people at one end of the table. And those two people were glaring at each other. 

One was wrinkled, lines stretched deeper with silent fury. Remus was well acquainted with glares that would pluck and boil them alive if given the power, usually from the groundskeeper. The old man’s glare simmered with that same hatred. 

The other person was young, easily the youngest human in the room, yet he was sitting in the biggest chair and dressed the most lavishly. Stripes of red, white, and gold wrapped his body. His entire being glittered. Remus stared, enraptured by the glint of gold glinting on the human’s head. They needed that gold. 

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A new human, this one with shadowed eyes, banged a staff on the table with a flash of bright light. The shouts died instantly. 

“You utter morons!” He boomed, voice magnified strangely, like he was shouting into a bell. With mild surprise, Remus recognized Virgil, the groundskeeper��s husband. “We didn’t gather here to argue. We are here to make decisions. The next person to raise their voice or talk out of turn will find themselves wrapped in vines and fed to my carnivorous coneflowers faster than you can say, ‘The fate of the entire goddamn kingdom rests on this goddamn meeting.’ If you want to speak, raise your hand. Prince Roman or I will call on you.” Virgil ripped his staff off the table with a spout of sparks. He glared down the crowd. “If one of you morons have a problem with this, I goddamn dare you: Object.” 

No one objected. Slowly, one by one, they sat down. The only sound in the cavernous hall was of chairs squawking awkwardly against the stone floor as people took their places. The furious old man with the death glare was the last to sit, never breaking eye contact with the golden man. The golden man stayed standing. He gulped as he surveyed the table. 

“Right- uh, thank you Magician Ambassador Virgil. Yes, back to what we were talking about before we got… angrily sidetracked. Uh, let’s review the important business. My mother’s health continues to decline, uh…” he trailed off, voice pinched, “but my brother, um, Prince Reginald is doing… fine… on the front. Alive, at least with the army-”

“Prince Roman-” a lady in green started. Virgil’s staff exploded in warning sparks. She gulped and thrust her hand into the air. 

“I’ll get to you in a minute, Lady Tiffany. I want to get through this list, uh, first, before we discuss anything else. To make sure we don’t miss anything,” Prince Roman, the golden man, said with a forced smile. His hand shook slightly as indicated the paper he was reading from. “Um…” he found his place, “The army is running low on food, supplies, and medicine. The magical plague has weakened, if not incapacitated, nearly all our spellcasters. The drought continues, so the fall harvest will likely be insufficient to get the kingdom through the winter… And our enemies grow stronger by the day.” He cleared his throat as he reached the end of the list. Immediately, a dozen humans shot their hands into the air. 

The human discussed their boring matters in loud voices for hours longer. Remus took the opportunity to examine the hidey-hole they’d found. Once their eyes had fully adjusted to the torchlight, they were able to see that it was a disused fireplace, boarded over and forgotten. They tested the boards when the humans got loud again and discovered that the wood would jiggle loose if given time. 

“But Prince Roman, banning the trade of magical items will cripple our economy even more than it already is!”

The angry old man was shouting again. Remus peeked back into the room, wondering how much longer the humans would argue with each other. Surely they needed to get up and stretch their wings at some point. 

“Lord Briar,” Prince Roman responded in a clipped tone, “we don’t know how the magical plague is spreading. Until we do, I have to insist that we take all necessary precautions to protect our remaining spellcasters, because, currently, their dedication to preserving our grain stores is the only thing that will hold us through the winter-”

“If we don’t have money, we can’t pay our soldiers-”

“If we don’t have food, we won’t have soldiers, Lord Briar, let alone ordinary people to purchase your magical merchandise.”

“With all due respect my prince,” Lord Briar said scathingly, “I can’t trust your judgment in matters relating to the economy of this kingdom. You’re too young and inexperienced to be making these important decisions.”

“With all due respect, Lord Briar,” Prince Roman shot back, seething, “It is my duty to hold this kingdom together through times of crisis. So it is my duty to expunge any hint of mutiny. I welcome your counsel in areas relating to economic issues because you have proven yourself capable in them. But I am your sovereign leader and highest authority until such a time as my mother recovers her health or my brother returns from the front. Do not mistake your deep pockets for true power in my court. If you continue to undermine my authority, I will have you hanged. Do I make myself clear?”

The entire room held its breath. Lord Briar glared so intensely at Prince Roman the feather’s on the back of Remus’ neck bristled. Roman waited patiently for Briar’s reply with cold indifference cocking his head. 

At last, Briar nodded. 

“Yes, my prince.” His hands curled into fists. Roman nodded, content. 

“Right, now that all that drivel is out of the way, let’s discuss the true threat to this kingdom.” All heads snapped to the voice at the opposite end of the table, a familiar man in dark blue robes. Remus’ eyes widened as they recognized their nemesis, the groundskeeper.

A smile flickered in the corner of Roman’s mouth. 

“And what might that be, Sir Logan?”

Logan leaned back in his chair. 

“The tyrant at our gates. The beast who threatens our very way of life. The bane of this land and all who dwell within.” He dropped forward, the legs of his chair smacking against the stone floor with a crack, “If left unchecked, our imminent doom is assured to come swiftly under an empty, pitiless gaze. Every accomplishment will be reduced to ash, which that monster will scatter with a flap of their terrible wings. I speak, of course, of that blasted goose.” 

The tension in the room broke as all the humans burst into laughter. Remus froze in their nook, a splash of emotions running through their head. After a moment, they decided they were flattered. 

Roman gave Logan a begrudging smile. 

“I’ll assign two of my personal guards to track down the goose. How does that sound?”

“You underestimate the bastardity of this goose if you think two guards will be enough,” Logan pressed. 

“Two guards, Sir Logan. And they can’t put off their normal duties for this.” 

Logan crossed his arms and said in a very petulant mutter that carried through the hall:

“On your own head be it.” 

Roman inhaled sharply, looking very much like he wanted to be mad, but couldn’t. The rest of the humans were covering their mouths to muffle their laughter (with the exception of Lord Briar and a few others). Evidently, Logan brought up in issue of Remus often enough for the entire court to be familiar with their rivalry. Remus was definitely pleased with this turn of events. They were a celebrity!

“Two guards, Logan.” 

“Thank you, my gracious prince.”

“If that’s it, then I call this meeting to a close. Any questions can be directed to Sir Patton, our dedicated scribe. Thank you for your time. I hope to see you all at tonight’s feast.” 

The humans got up and left in groups of two or three, talking amongst themselves. Remus watched them with mild interest before shrugging and turning to exit their cubby. If two guards were coming to catch them, they wanted to prepare a warm welcome for them. 

---

Part 1 Part 2  Part 3

Dirk: => Theorize

TT: You know a lot about Sburb, don't you? TT: In the short time that I was a sprite, I cataloged as much information as I could, thinking it may come in handy. You could say that the knowledge granted to me could be categorized as "a lot". TT: That being said, I only know what a sprite would know. I’m not fucking omniscient. TT: Why? TT: I’ve been thinking about my future self.

TT: Ah. It’s not good to dwell on events out of your control or out of the realms of possibility TT: But it is still possible, is it not? TT: Under specific circumstances, I can foresee you becoming the you we were able to catch a glance of. Extremely specific circumstances. TT: And what about not becoming him, but becoming someone who ends up playing? TT: There is a greater possibility there. TT: That’s enough for me to want to do a little digging. TT: Fine. What is it you were looking to know? TT: Derse and Prospit are the two planets on which your dream self can appear, I know that already. Are there any conditions which must be met to appear there, and can they exist outside a session? TT: The game decides which planet you inhabit based, for the most part, on core parts of your personality, and just a bit of fuckery. TT: Alternates of myself have never appeared, separate from you or not, nor have any civilians, so I would deduce you must be an active player with their own form to appear. TT: I've known instances in which the moons and planets can be removed from their session along with its players, as well as instances in which a moon may be transferred to a new session, but there are no records of either Derse or Prospit existing independently from a session. TT: And my dreams? TT: They match very closely with accumulated descriptions of Derse. A purple planet, populated by black chitinous folks, violent in nature, and sensationalizing nobility not yet awakened. TT: A prince, a knight, a rogue, and a seer, tucked away in towers high above the general population, while a war stirs in the tabloids between the Dersites and Prospitians. TT: It is likely that your dream self has awoken early on Derse, but keep in mind that the possibility that these dreams are a reflection of your fears of the future taking form in rumors you’ve heard of a death game is also present. TT: Sure. TT: So. We may yet play the game. TT: We knew that the moment we realized who your future self was. TT: But the differences were large enough to disregard that future. What about now? TT: Now, it’s the same story. Nothing has changed, save for your newly acquired knowledge. TT: What about his cause of death? TT: That’s a different matter entirely. TT: Is it? Burnt to a crisp by a psionic. Have I pissed off any psionics that you know of recently? TT: The alternian empress has psionic capabilities. TT: Why the fuck would we be fighting the empress? TT: I’m not sure. TT: Who do you think it’s more likely would have killed me? An angry psionic from a separate timeline, unaffected by whatever may happen in this timeline but certainly affected by where I stick my nose and how far I take it, already known to be on bad terms, or a far off empress who barely acknowledges the Earth anymore, targeting some random fuck off already slated for death by a game created by who knows what. TT: We don’t know if it was just or heroic. TT: We can make a pretty good guess. TT: It could go either way. TT: One possibility is more likely than the other. TT: Perhaps. Don’t rule out other factors. You’ve met other psionics, we may meet more yet. TT: He was years in the future. We don’t know who killed him or for what reason. TT: We only know the cause. If that. TT: Didn’t he say you and Sollux were on relatively good terms? TT: He said that they were okay, but he fucked something up. I’d say this is as good of a fuckup as we’re going to get. TT: Fuck. I don’t want to see a worse fuckup than this. TT: Neither do I. It was pretty bad, dude. TT: Fuck off. TT: Oh, are we done? I can fuck off quite easily if you’re done wasting both of our times. TT: And by that I mean fuck off right back here, I’m not done. TT: Picking up on some of Vantas’ vocabulary, are we? TT: Pick up the pace. I may have all day but that doesn’t mean I want to spend it talking to you. TT: It’s still likely to turn out similar to the future we’ve seen. TT: It’s a possibility. One that’s more likely than, say, you turning into a murderous psychopath and killing everyone you know and love. TT: That’s comforting. TT: What else do we know? TT: He and Bo were matesprits up until his death. He and his session had yet to win. At some point he and Wig vacillated pale and pitch. TT: I can’t help but feel that last part is unimportant. TT: That’s all we know. What else do you want me to say? TT: Something more substantial than my imminent relationship drama would be nice. TT: I’ll be sure to let you know when you decide to talk about anything other than that. TT: Seriously, you do not shut up. TT: I’m lonely, I’m sad, I’m feeling angry and betrayed, can’t you find someone to vent to that isn’t me? Like Joanne! Or Roxy! Or Cass, I’m sure she’d love to know about how in the few hours after you came home and celebrated, you managed to fuck everything up! TT: Can we get back on topic? TT: Uncomfortable because you don’t want to confront your mistakes, aren’t we Dirk? TT: The future version of myself that we saw isn’t a self in which I’m able to become, at this point. TT: Correct. TT: But something similar is possible. TT: Likely, even, depending on how much of your dreams are real. TT: So. TT: So? TT: What do we do? TT: Don’t ask me, dude. you're the one this affects. I'm just the guy that runs the numbers and tries to keep you from getting too far into your own head. TT: By the way, I’m pretty sure that’s a thing you’re doing right now. TT: Is there a way to prevent the game if it’s already slotted to begin, or to stop it once it’s started? TT: Those two questions are, really, asking the same thing. TT: If it’s meant to begin, it’s already started. TT: In a sense, it’s always been running. TT: It’s already here, and all that. TT: The only solution I can see for now is to abandon this universe to be destroyed by the coming meteors, and escape to a new one. TT: Still, that is entirely hypothetical. Perhaps you’re doomed to play and it would simply follow you to your new world, dooming every subsequent place you choose to hide out in until the weight of the worlds you’ve killed drives you to face your fate. TT: Perhaps it doesn’t matter what you do. TT: ... TT: Too much? TT: I’ve been reading a lot lately. TT: You have a flair for the dramatic. TT: It has to have a beginning point, doesn’t it? TT: If it’s some sort of loop, there has to be a starting and ending point, even if they create themselves. TT: I have some theories regarding loops and Bro that you may want to hear out some time, by the way. TT: As if this conversation couldn’t get any more lighthearted. TT: The starting point would be the creation of the game itself, kickstarting events that would lead to the empowerment of the final boss, as well as the creation and destruction of the universe. TT: You’re getting a little off track. TT: Right. TT: The closest thing you could get to a starting point is the development and revitalization of old codes by the companies Skaianet and Crockercorp, depending on the universe. TT: Of course, those were only found, not created. TT: Those both sound pretty fucking familiar, dude. TT: They sure fucking do, man. TT: So Jane and Jade or Jake are responsible for the apocalypse game? TT: They had nothing to do with it in timelines I’ve studied. Plans for their development and release were far in development before either of them would have even be aware of their inheritance.  TT: So they could be in development now. TT: If they are, they won’t be released for a while yet. It’s kind of a big fucking deal in any timeline when they’re announced. TT: Great. TT: So the bottom line is, either I’m fucking delusional and seeing things where they’re not, TT: Entirely likely if you ask me. TT: I didn’t. TT: Or, we’re completely fucked, my dream self is awake, one of those companies are going to release a death game that we either ignore and go down with the rest of the world, or play and have an extremely high if not guaranteed chance of dying in some other horrific manner. TT: That sounds about right. TT: And even if we survive, that only heightens the chance that I’m going to fuck up yet again and piss Sock off enough that he burns me to a crisp. TT: The future is bright. TT: Fuck! TT: Lmao. The chances of any of these things happen individually are low enough, but the longer you go on the worse the chances get. TT: BUT. TT: If you’re so worked up about this then we can plant a copy of myself in Mom’s lab. TT: Skaianet has a subdivision studying and predicting meteor paths, that’s what she does. TT: Kind of suspicious that a company responsible for the end of the world VIA meteors has a branch dedicated to looking at them. TT: Or, it’s a major company that deals with all kinds of fields, the largest of all being the development of new technology, which happens to line up with the massive influx of advancements regarding space travel that communication with trollkind has brought upon us as a society.  TT: I like my theory better. TT: You would. TT: This is something that you’ve had on your mind for a while, yeah? TT: I’ll tell you right now, it’s not going to happen, and if it does, we’ll be able to figure it out in time to make a real plan about it. TT: So stop fucking worrying about it. TT: If there were a problem, I’d tell you. TT: You’ve made sure of that.

Keith finds Lance on the roof of the garrison (after the hospital scene) and they have a little heart to heart? I'm a sucker for Langst 💙💙

Keith often found himself wandering during the night. It was a habit he developed shortly after the first time he’d ever heard Blue and shortly after his father died. He liked the feeling of the cool, crisp desert air once the sun had fallen behind the horizon and once he had lost the only stability he had ever had in his life he began to wander, almost lost, chasing a voice he wasn’t entirely sure was real. Space certainly didn’t help. Their circadian rhythms must have been beyond saving at this point. They kept time on the Castle Ship as best they could, but it was all programmed to Altean time. And ever since the Castle was destroyed they had no way of deciphering the time besides a rough estimation based on the constellations they passed.

Needless to say, Keith often found it difficult to sleep through the night if he could sleep at all. 

The others were less prone to wander, though. They would stay in their rooms usually and satisfy themselves with complaining to the rest of the team the next “morning.” Which made for a surprise when Keith wandered onto the Garrison’s roof and found Lance there.

He wasn’t doing anything, really. Nothing so strange as to warrant the gust of breath that was sucker punched right out of Keith’s lungs. He was only sitting and looking at the stars. His face was shrouded by the night but Keith could imagine the anxiety or unease that might have been painting there if he were closer. Keith certainly had trouble looking to the stars these days without wondering about their imminent doom. 

Keith took a few more moments to stare before he walked over to Lance’s perch. He was closer to the edge than some would find comfortable but they all had gotten used to jumping off cliffs and staring death in the face enough that it wasn’t all that strange that Lance wasn’t skittish around a measly handful of stories between himself and the ground. 

“What are you doing?” Keith asked. 

Lance’s shoulders jumped to his ears before he whipped around and found Keith staring at him.

“Warn a guy next time,” Lance said. He huffed but patted the space next to him. “I could ask the same about you though.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Keith sat and crossed his legs. “Ended up here.”

“Same,” Lance muttered into his knees. 

Neither of them spoke any longer. Keith let his gaze drift to the sky and tried to discern if the streaks of light that occasionally passed them by were Galran fighters or just comets. When he tried to shift so he was leaning on one hand and taking some of the strain off his neck, pain shot up his arm. He sucked in a breath and shook his hand out. His wrist wasn’t broken or even sprained, it just suffered a bit of a bruising during their multiple crashes. Maybe it was even because he’d been using his sword so much and his wrist was complaining about the beatings. Whatever the reason, it was tender.

“Hey, are you okay, man?” Lance asked. He eyed the bandages still wrapped around his head. “Is it your head?”

“No, I’m fine,” Keith grunted. He circled his wrist a few times. “Just hurt my wrist, you know, up there.”

There were about a million and one places he could have hurt it “up there” but Lance seemed to understand. He waved at his ribs and nodded. “I broke a few ribs.”

“Shouldn’t you be back in bed then?” Keith asked. He wasn’t trying to be pushy, but he was sincerely worried. What if Lance started having trouble breathing? What if he needed more painkillers? What if he found he couldn’t make it back to his hospital bed and fainted in the middle of a corridor?

Keith tried to breathe deeply. It had been a while since he was this anxious, but something about the fight had created a shift inside of him. Maybe it was because every single one of them had almost died, and had thought they would die. Death wasn’t a stranger to Keith, in fact, he would think that he’s been on his doorstep a number of times, but the others? He had always figured they would outlive him for at least eighty years if not forever.

“I’m fine,” Lance said. “We’ve been healing for long enough.” Lance stretched his legs out in front of him so that his feet dangled off the edge of the building. “I just can’t wait until they figure out the pod tech again so I don’t have to sit around for weeks on end, I’m getting tired of being in my room.

Keith was of the same opinion. The Garrison had kept the one pod they had so they could harness the Altean tech just like they were doing with the ship but that meant that it wasn’t available for use and the Paladins were subject to healing at a normal pace. Keith had forgotten what that felt like. He certainly hadn’t missed it, and he was quickly growing tired of the migraines and dizzy spells that were plaguing him.

“So, is that why you’re really out here?” Keith asked. “You’re restless?”

“Yeah,” Lance said. He was quiet for a moment before he continued, “That, and I also needed some time by myself?”

“I didn’t think you were the type to need alone time,” Keith said.

“I’m not a lone wolf like you, but I still need to, just, get away from it all sometimes.”

“I can at least understand that,” Keith said.

Lance nodded and stared at the stars for a bit longer before turning to him. “Do you wonder what would have happened if we’d died during that fight?”

Keith shrugged. “Most of the time I think people would be okay without me. I worry about my mom now, but I think otherwise the universe would be okay.”

“We wouldn’t be okay,” Lance said. “The team needs you, you know.”

“I’m pretty sure you’d be a better leader than I am,” Keith said.

“Me?” Lance asked. He looked stupefied, with his brows scrunched together and the little shakes of his head.

“Yeah, I kinda figured you knew you’d be the next one to pilot Black if something ever happened to me.”

“No, you never told me,” Lance said.

“It’s kinda obvious,” Keith said. He shoved at Lance’s shoulder. It was much more awkward than he’d imagined it would be, his movements were too jerky and hesitant and the “push” was more a slight touch of his fingers. “You’re my rock.”

“The Keith to your Shiro,” Lance breathed.

“The Lance to my Keith,” Keith corrected. It came out sounding much softer than he’d intended. Like an intimate whisper, barely swirling out there in the night sky. But it was so true. One thing he had learned during their time out in space was that he was nothing like Shiro and Lance was nothing like him, but those were good things. Especially Lance. Keith would have never gotten it together in the first place if Lance had never been there.

Lance laughed, but as soon as he stopped, he curled into himself again and shook his head. “I never thought I would be good enough, especially not to you.”

“Why not?” Keith asked. He resisted scooting closer to put his arm around Lance’s shoulders. That wasn’t something he would do, no matter how much he wanted to.

Lance shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve always wondered if I was good enough I guess.”

“Well, you are,” Keith said. When Lance looked at him with the widest eyes he had ever seen on him, Keith felt good about what he’d said. He realized that he hadn’t exactly been the most forthcoming with Lance about anything really. But this was a nice change. “You’re good enough for me -- more than good enough.”

Lance hid his face in his hands and flopped onto the ground. “You’ve killed me.”

Keith chuckled. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant to do but--”

“I could kiss you, you know,” Lance said. Then he gasped and took his hands from his eyes only to cover his mouth. “I mean, well, no homo?”

“That phrase is about one hundred years out of date,” Keith said. 

“Yeah.” He was back to covering his eyes. But only for a moment before he lowered his hands and caught Keith’s eyes. Keith wasn’t good with eye contact unless he was about to fight someone but this was so, so different. He wanted to look away, but he was enraptured. Lance’s eyes held the entire galaxy and a quiet intimacy he had only ever seen in movies, just before the main characters kissed. “I didn’t mean it anyway.”

“So, you do want to kiss me?” Keith lowered himself until he was hovering just above Lance. There was mere inches between them.

Lance shrugged. “Can you blame a guy? You just swooped me off my feet with all your compliments and junk.”

Keith closed the space between them. He ascended to a different plane when Lance’s breath hitched for just a moment before he breathed deep through his nose and tugged Keith on top of him. His fingers were buried in Keith’s hair and Keith forgot all the worries that had accumulated during their time in space. Lance melted into the ground and Keith knew he was forgetting too.

A Defense of Iron Man 2

With the world currently preparing to probably be somewhat “whelmed” by the upcoming mega-crossover Avengers: Infinity War, I, like most of the film-viewing planet, have been re-watching the Marvel oeuvre in order to enter the correct headspace to really take in what that movie is going to be. The product of a ten-year long waiting game that most audiences have been more than happy to play, built on the foundation of a 2008 film that set the film industry on a path that we’re still going to be following another ten years from now. I’m still early into this project of sitting on my couch and reliving so many memories of speculating with high school friends about what superhero the next end-credits scene will tease, and it has already given me some shocking realizations: the first Iron Man is still the best Marvel movie, Captain America: The First Avenger isn’t the rollicking, Indiana Jones-esque adventure classic I remembered it being, and, maybe most shocking to even the biggest Marvel fans, Iron Man 2 is still just as good as I thought it was when I was 16.

I so often see it ranked in the bottom five of the Marvel listings, and because it has been a few years since I watched it incessantly following the Blu-Ray release, I figured it was a movie that just hadn’t aged well when compared to the more recent Marvel works. Despite my loving it upon release, I never argued for its merits when people declared it the “worst Marvel film”, or “boring”, or “meandering”. I’ve been a life-long Iron Man fan, first of him as a character in video games before getting into the many, many trade paperback collections of his solo comics. My obsession with Tony Stark made me completely eat up anything Marvel Studios put out featuring him until recent years, when I had the realization during my first screening of Captain America: Civil War that I didn’t care that I was seeing Iron Man in a movie anymore. And I realized I hadn’t cared when I saw the Hulkbuster in Avengers: Age of Ultron either. I enjoy both movies fine, but Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark doesn’t give me that same jolt of excitement he did just a few years previous. It could be a writing or performance issue, but I think the real reason is that Tony Stark has stopped growing as a person in any kind of believable way. When taking a look back at the first two Iron Man films, and from my memories of the third, Tony used to feel like a real person that had real issues to overcome.

2008′s Iron Man showed us a man being forced to experience all of the damage he has been causing the world first-hand, and being broken by this. When he emerges from that cave in that armor, he is beginning the journey down a path to becoming a better person. Tony spends a lot of that movie being angry, of course at Obadiah Stane and the Ten Rings, but mostly at himself, for creating the monster that took the lives of Yinsen, his family, and nearly Tony himself. He failed to see that he inadvertently had been arming both sides of the war on terror, taking money from both the military industrial complex and the terrorists that kill young American soldiers, and spending that money on alcohol and sex. That rage is what fuels Tony in that film, and allows him to purge Stark Industries of Obadiah Stane, the first steps into making up for the terrible things he has been doing for his whole life.

Thinking this is enough to be a better person, Tony reverts back to some of his old ways, but now equipped with the Iron Man armor and a whole new level of fame he didn’t even know was possible. This is where we begin Iron Man 2, where he is once again bragging about how he has achieved peace through his designs, and reveling in the fact that he has the press and the public groveling at his feet. It is no question then that he and Pepper Potts have gone back to their familiar dynamic as well, as he is not yet ready for that level of commitment to anything. He is also drinking more than he ever has before, a characteristic that his comic book counterpart had been known for best before any sort of film adaptation came around. Alongside all of this toxic behavior is a handy plot-device of the palladium core in his arc reactor poisoning his blood, which gets worse as his attitude and decision-making does. Of course, the higher the percentage gets, the crazier his decisions and personality become, as he tries to comes to grips with his imminent death, creating a sort of feedback loop that causes things to spiral for him. This is where Tony starts to become aware of the other parts of himself he must purge if he is to complete the journey he began when he stomped out of that cave in that hulking grey armor.

If this weren’t already too much for Tony to deal with, the movie also introduces one of the roots for the various character flaws Tony has under his belt, his father Howard Stark. A mixture of Walt Disney and Howard Hughes, Howard Stark is first introduced as a genial, smiling older man standing next to a model of “the city of the future”, putting on his best face for the American public. But he is later referred to as a “lion” by the Justin Hammer, and as a “thief” and a “butcher” by Ivan Vanko. Like Tony, Howard had a duel life, one as a cheery hero to the common man and another as a death dealing weapons manufacturer. He never got around to being a father to Tony Stark, who was following in his exact footsteps right up until the shrapnel entered his chest. But in a video revealed to him by Nick Fury, Tony sees that Howard went through the same struggle of identity, and also had to come to grips with all of the terror and pain that he has unleashed upon the world. Howard’s method for redeeming his incredibly spotty legacy is Tony himself, and leaves him a secret within the Stark Expo floorplans in an attempt to rebuild the world he once helped destroy. Similarly, Tony realizes that his gift to the world is Iron Man, but has been wasting that gift on himself. This is of course all mixed in with Hammer and Vanko making plays against Stark, as well as Black Widow being set-up for her inclusion in the rest of the franchise.

All of that would be well and good, except for the frustrating fact that not a lot of these very disparate and seemingly unrelated plot threads are not fully resolved till later movies or just not picked up at all. Tony’s drinking comes to a head in this film in a scene in which Tony pilots the suit drunk in order to appease a house full of partygoers and nearly decapitates a few with a repulsor beam, but this is seemingly glossed over by a fight he has with Rhodey minutes later. He experiences no real consequences for being an out of control alcoholic, and it still has not been addressed as of Civil War, and I highly doubt it will come to pass in either of the Infinity War movies. It really seemed to be the big emotional climax that the first two films were building to, the final “demon” that Tony would have to conquer on his road to betterment. Instead, he receives a much needed humbling moment when he enters the wormhole at the end of The Avengers, and sees that the universe is much grander than he anticipated. That continues the arc of his personality issues and carries into Iron Man 3, and we see a much more cooperative Tony from thereon out. Iron Man 3 completes his identity crisis by proving to him that he is not overshadowed by his work, either good or bad, like he fears he will be in that cave in the first film, and showing that he still has things to offer the world despite just being “a man in a can”. The less said about what Age of Ultron and Civil War do for Tony’s character, the better. At this point, his character is completely dependent on what the plot needs it to be. I have already forgotten much of what he does in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but I do remember thinking the mentor role serves him well.

So why defend Iron Man 2 if it fails to deliver on the plots it sets up? Mainly because it dares to address these things in the first place. The only other movies in the Marvel canon to come close to the level of introspection Iron Man 2 attempts to do are Iron Man 3 and Black Panther. The moments we see of John Slattery’s Howard Stark are eye-opening in terms of Tony’s character, and show that he does have something to relate to his father over. The many attempts to recreate the Iron Man armor show Tony that what he thinks is the ultimate arbiter of peace by way of obsolescence is just the opening of a can of worms that may lead to the next arms race. It asks if Tony Stark can truly overcome his immoral past, or if he is doomed to be the leader on the world’s ultimate path to the apocalypse, despite what his intentions may be. That’s not a question that gets asked in your more typical Marvel fare, which many people still claim this movie is.

Secondly, while there are of course things to tear apart story, character, and performance wise in some areas, the action and effects are top notch. Black Panther this year showed how bad VFX can be in blockbusters, but that is not something Iron Man 2 suffers from, even eight years out. While it is infuriatingly short, watching Iron Man and War Machine fight the Hammer drones works as pure spectacle, to say nothing of the entire chase sequence that precedes it. There have been of course better action sequences out of Marvel since then, but it has been a very close race with the climax of this film always in the discussion for me.

Lastly, Sam Rockwell’s performance as Justin Hammer makes it a true tragedy that he no longer seems to be a part of the MCU in spite of the fact that he is one of the few Marvel villains to survive the entire run-time of a film. He does make a brief cameo in the short film All Hail the King, but it is not nearly enough for what he deserves. Rockwell was in the running to play Tony in the first film, and it’s not too hard to imagine an alternate universe where we see a pre-shrapnel Tony acting very similarly to Hammer in this film. In different moments he can be smooth, buffoonish, intimidating, and weaselly. He deserves to return in Iron Man 4 (if we are ever blessed enough to receive one) for the dance he does onto the expo stage alone.

I’m not calling for a complete critical re-evaluation of Iron Man 2 in order to establish it as one of the best films of the decade or anything, I just wanted to call attention to the fact that there seems to be more going on in the movie than people give it credit for. It of course doesn’t hold a candle to its predecessor, but it does shine some lights on Tony’s character that would have been extremely fascinating threads to follow had things gone differently with the franchise. My only hope is that Infinity War cares enough to make it seem as though Tony Stark is a real person again.

Mauldin: 7 Forecasts from the Brightest Financial Minds I Know

In my fairly upbeat 2018 forecast, I predicted that the US economy and markets will probably hold up well, thanks to tax cuts and deregulation. That’s, of course, assuming the Federal Reserve gets no more hawkish than it already has.

Continuing my series of forecasts, here I’ll look at predictions from some of my most trusted friends and colleagues (subscribe to Thoughts from the Frontline to receive all my forecasts). Some disagree with my own views—and that’s perfectly fine. I want you to see all sides so you can make good decisions for your own family and portfolio.

I’ll let these forecasters speak for themselves in longer quotes than I usually allow, then add my own comments.

The article runs long, but I’m sure you’ll take away a lot from it, so bear with me…

Ben Hunt: No Algorithm Can Predict the Future

Let’s start not with a forecast but with an important story about forecasts from Ben Hunt.

Ben’s wide-ranging essays are hard to summarize or excerpt in a way that captures their breadth and depth.

I’ll give you a tiny snippet, but please, set aside some time this month to read the entire article. It is long but worth your while.

The Three-Body Problem is a famous example of a system which has no derivative pattern with any predictive power, no applicable algorithm that a human could discover to adapt successfully and turn basis uncertainty into basis risk. In the lingo, there is no “general closed-form solution” to the Three-Body Problem. (It’s also the title of the best science fiction book I’ve read in the past 20 years, by Cixin Liu. Truly a masterpiece. Life and perspective-changing, in fact, both in its depiction of China and its depiction of the game theory of civilization.)

What is the “problem”? Imagine three massive objects in space … stars, planets, something like that. They’re in the same system, meaning that they can’t entirely escape each other’s gravitational pull. You know the position, mass, speed, and direction of travel for each of the objects. You know how gravity works, so you know precisely how each object is acting on the other two objects. Now predict for me, using a formula, where the objects will be at some point in the future.

Answer: You can’t. In 1887, Henri Poincaré proved that the motion of the three objects, with the exception of a few special starting cases, is non-repeating. This is a chaotic system, meaning that the historical pattern of object positions has ZERO predictive power in figuring out where these objects will be in the future. There is no algorithm that a human can possibly discover to solve this problem. It does not exist.

And that of course is the basic problem we have in economics and investing. When we say that past performance is not indicative of future results, that aphorism is more than just legalese.

Such ideas can easily discourage us from even thinking about the future. However, the real answer is to think about the future differently.

With that prelude, let’s move on.

Anatole Kaletsky: Inflation and Bond Yields Will Accelerate

If I had to rank economic forecasting groups (as opposed to individuals) for consistent quality, Gavekal would be high on the list.

Here are just a few Gavekal snippets from the opening week of 2018. We’ll start with Anatole Kaletsky, who zooms in on inflation as this year’s key unknown factor.

Will inflation accelerate in the US, but not in other major economies? I think the answer is “Yes”, for the same reasons as above. However, I also expected inflation to accelerate and bond yields to increase last year. Instead, both inflation and growth ended the year exactly where they were.

The simple answer is that US unemployment is now 4.1% instead of 4.8%. I was wrong about 5% unemployment being a non-inflationary growth limit, and maybe 4% isn’t either. But whatever the exact number may be, the US is certainly closer to its non-inflationary growth limit now than it was a year ago. In addition, the Trump tax cuts, if they actually stimulate higher US consumption and/or investment (which they may not do by any meaningful amount) will add to US inflationary pressures, since new production capacity will take several years to boost non-inflationary trend growth.

If the prediction of higher US inflation turns out to be right, it will be a game-changer. It will produce much more volatile market conditions and even greater under-performance by US equities and bonds relative to assets in Europe and Japan, where inflation is not a risk.

The follow-on question, if Anatole is right about inflation, is how the Fed will respond to it. The ideal response would have been to start tightening about three years ago. That opportunity having past, the remaining choices are all varying degrees of bad.

Louis Gave: Financials and Energy Will Be Top Sectors This Year

Now let’s move on to Louis Gave, who gives us some stock market ideas at the end of a long, thoughtful essay on liquidity.

Putting it all together, 2018 does seem to be starting on a different note than 2017. While the bull market may not be in peril, it is a tough environment for a price/earnings ratio expansion to occur. Such an outcome usually relies on excess liquidity moving into equities. Yet in 2018, equity markets are more likely to be a source of liquid funds than a destination for them. It follows that if a multiple-expansion is off the table then equity gains will rely on earnings rising. The area where such an improved profit picture is likely is financials (higher rates and velocity) and energy (higher prices). The fact that both of these sectors presently trade on low multiples also helps.

If you want specific sector ideas, there are two good ones.

David Kotok: A Shift Upward Will Continue

My friend David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors had some New Year’s Day thoughts on the Republican tax bill’s impact.

Once the transitional shock of yearend is absorbed, we think the tax bill will raise the valuation of US stocks. Simply put, the tax bill will generate a permanent shift upward of somewhere between $10 and $14 in the threshold of S&P 500 earnings. Once you adjust for that permanent shift, you may continue to factor in the earnings growth rate that you expect from a US economy that is going to grow at 3% instead of 2%. We believe that growth rate is likely for a couple of years.

So, S&P 500 earnings should range up to and then above $150 by the decade’s end. They will do so while the Fed is still engaged in a gradualist restoration of interest rates to something more “normal,” whatever that word means. And those earnings will occur while a repatriation effect is unleashing $1 trillion of stagnant cash in some form of robust redistribution (dividends or stock buybacks) or as productivity-enhancing capex spending. Bottom line is no recession in sight for at least a few years; and low inflation remains, so interest-rate rises will not derail the economic recovery, nor will they alter rising stock market valuations.

Years ago we projected a 3000 level on the S&P 500 Index by 2020.

That is considerably more bullish than most 2018 forecasts I’ve seen. Rather than argue with David, I’ll say this: Be ready for anything this year. The future is no more uncertain than it always is, but the consequences of a mistake are growing as the bull market and economic expansion grow long in the tooth.

They will end at some point. That means you need a strategy that will let you both participate on the upside and defend yourself when the bear appears. I reiterate that you should be diversifying trading strategies, not just asset classes.

Paul Krugman: Rising Rates Spell Trouble

Next we turn to Paul Krugman, who is not generally one of my favorite economists. I quote him this time because he sounds a lot like, well, me.

So we’re living in an era of political turmoil and economic calm. Can it last?

My answer is that it probably can’t, because the return to normalcy is fragile. Sooner or later, something will go wrong, and we’re very poorly placed to respond when it does. But I can’t tell you what that something will be, or when it will happen.

The key point is that while the major advanced economies are currently doing more or less OK, they’re doing so thanks to very low interest rates by historical standards. That’s not a critique of central bankers. All indications are that for whatever reason — probably low population growth and weak productivity performance — our economies need those low, low rates to achieve anything like full employment. And this in turn means that it would be a terrible, recession-creating mistake to “normalize” rates by raising them to historical levels.

But given that rates are already so low when things are pretty good, it will be hard for central bankers to mount an effective response if and when something not so good happens. What if something goes wrong in China, or a second Iranian revolution disrupts oil supplies, or it turns out that tech stocks really are in a 1999ish bubble? Or what if Bitcoin actually starts to have some systemic importance before everyone realizes it’s nonsense?

That was from Krugman’s January 1 New York Times column, and his assessment is not far from my own view.

The difference between us is that Krugman has made a remarkable turnaround since the imminent doom he predicted right after the election. So I’m glad to welcome his Damascene conversion.

I hope it sticks this time.

David Rosenberg: We Are 90% Through This Cycle

I don’t know any economic forecaster more prolific than David Rosenberg. I don’t know how he even finds time to sleep, frankly. His Breakfast with Dave is often the same length as my weekly letters, and he writes it every working day.

Dave’s December 29 issue of Breakfast with Dave was a tour de force on world markets, which I can’t possibly summarize and do any justice to the original, so I’ll cut straight to his conclusion.

In other words, expect a year where volatility re-emerges as an investable theme, after spending much of 2017 so dormant that you have to go back to the mid-1960s to find the last annual period of such an eerie calm – look for some mean reversion on this file in the coming year. This actually would be a good thing in terms of opening up some buying opportunities, but taking advantage of these opportunities will require having some dry powder on hand.

In terms of our highest conviction calls, given that we are coming off the 101 month anniversary of this economic cycle, the third longest ever and almost double what is normal, it is safe to say that we are pretty late in the game. The question is just how late. We did some research looking at an array of market and macro variables and concluded that we are about 90% through, which means we are somewhere past the 7th inning stretch in baseball parlance but not yet at the bottom of the 9th. The high-conviction message here is that we have entered a phase of the cycle in which one should be very mindful of risk, bolstering the quality of the portfolio, and focusing on strong balance sheets, minimal refinancing risk and companies with high earnings visibility and predictability, and low correlations to U.S. GDP. In other words, the exact opposite of how to be positioned in the early innings of the cycle where it is perfectly appropriate to be extremely pro-cyclical.

So it’s either about investing around late-cycle thematics in North America or it is about heading to other geographies that are closer to mid-cycle — and that would include Europe, segments of the Emerging Market space where the fundamentals have really improved, and also Japan. These markets are not only mid-cycle, and as such have a longer runway for growth, but also trade relatively inexpensively in a world where value is scarce.

Dave gives us some geographic focus, and it’s mostly outside the US and Canada. He likes Europe, Japan, and some emerging market countries because they are earlier in the cycle.

He’s certainly right on that point, though I think we may differ on how long the cycle can persist. The past doesn’t predict the future.

For the record, in my own portfolio design, we are about 50% non-US equities. My managers are finding lots of opportunities outside of the US.

Byron Wien: “Ten Surprises” List

We’ll wrap up today with an annual tradition: Byron Wien’s annual “Ten Surprises” list.

It always causes me a little cognitive dissonance because by definition you can’t “expect” a surprise. That aside, Byron’s list is always a useful thought exercise. Here it is.

1. China finally decides that a nuclear capability in the hands of an unpredictable leader on its border is not tolerable even though North Korea is a communist buffer between itself and democratic South Korea. China cuts off all fuel and food shipments to North Korea, which agrees to suspend its nuclear development program but not give up its current weapons arsenal.

2. Populism, tribalism and anarchy spread around the world. In the United Kingdom Jeremy Corbyn becomes the next Prime Minister. In spite of repressive action by the Spanish government, Catalonia remains turbulent. Despite the adverse economic consequences of the Brexit vote, the unintended positive consequence is that it brings continental Europe closer together with more economic cooperation and faster growth.

3. The dollar finally comes to life. Real growth exceeds 3% in the United States, which, coupled with the implementation of some components of the Trump pro-business agenda, renews investor interest in owning dollar-denominated assets, and the euro drops to 1.10 and the yen to 120 against the dollar.  Repatriation of foreign profits held abroad by U.S. companies helps.  

4. The U.S. economy has a better year than 2017, but speculation reaches an extreme and ultimately the S&P 500 has a 10% correction. The index drops toward 2300, partly because of higher interest rates, but ends the year above 3000 since earnings continue to expand and economic growth heads toward 4%. 

5. The price of West Texas Intermediate Crude moves above $80. The price rises because of continued world growth and unexpected demand from developing markets, together with disappointing hydraulic fracking production, diminished inventories, OPEC discipline and only modest production increases from Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq and Iran.

6. Inflation becomes an issue of concern. Continued world GDP growth puts pressure on commodity prices. Tight labor markets in the industrialized countries create wage increases. In the United States, average hourly earnings gains approach 4% and the Consumer Price Index pushes above 3%.

7. With higher inflation, interest rates begin to rise. The Federal Reserve increases short-term rates four times in 2018 and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield moves toward 4%, but the Fed shrinks its balance sheet only modestly because of the potential impact on the financial markets. High yield spreads widen, causing concern in the equity market.

8. Both NAFTA and the Iran agreement endure in spite of Trump railing against them. Too many American jobs would be lost if NAFTA ended, and our allies universally support continuing the Iran agreement. Trump begins to think that not signing on to the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a mistake as he sees the rise of China’s influence around the world.  He presses for more bilateral trade deals in Asia.

9. The Republicans lose control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the November election. Voters feel disappointed that many promises made during Trump’s presidential campaign were not implemented in legislation and there is a growing negative reaction to his endless Tweets. The mid-term election turns out to be a referendum on the Trump Presidency.

10. Xi Jinping, having broadened his authority at the 19th Party Congress in October, focuses on China’s credit problems and decides to limit business borrowing even if it means slowing the economy down and creating fewer jobs. Real GDP growth drops to 5.5%, with only minor implications for world growth. Xi proclaims this move will ensure the sustainability of China’s growth over the long term.

(https://www.blackstone.com/media/press-releases/byron-wien-announces-ten-surprises-for-2018)

Whatever your predisposition, there’s plenty to both like and dislike in there. On #7, I think 10-year Treasury bonds at 4% or more will look like the end of the world to younger folks.

It’s been more than a decade since we saw any such thing, and at that point they were falling, not rising. But if he’s correct that CPI pushes over 3%, then bond yields have to rise.

Personally, I think I would take the other side of that bet. I think the yield on the 10-year actually has a chance to fall.

On another note: If Byron is right that “speculation reaches an extreme,” the resulting correction will be a lot deeper than 10%. I don’t think we are there yet and probably won’t reach that point in 2018. But we will get there eventually.  

All right, my stack of New Year’s predictions is barely any smaller, but we’ll stop here and pick up next week in Thoughts from the Frontline.

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I love the new King’s Quest game with all my heart, and I’m so thrilled it has become the vehicle leading my son to love this series as much as I do, but I am troubled by the absence of certain characters in it. Logically, I’m sure it’s because of things like budget and time constraints, but in terms of the internal canon... (Spoilers ahead)

I understand the lack of Connor, because the story is pretty hyperfocused on the Cracker family, and, let’s be real, Connor barely knows them and is, for the most part, an Average Daventry Citizen.  I’d have loved to have seen him make a cameo around town (I like to think he and Amaya would have gotten along), but I can understand him not being included.

Cassima’s absence is much more puzzling, especially since her daughter is so central to the story.  She gets mentioned a couple of times, but it’s odd that she never shows up.  I mean, Gart tells Gwendolyn that he’s glad she and her family have made it to Daventry, and, uh, last I knew, that should have included Cassima.  And there’s no obvious reason why she’s missing.  To be honest, if I were Cassima, I’d be more than a little concerned about certain decisions being made for my daughter without me being able to be there and weigh in on them.  My personal theory is that Cassima stayed behind in the Green Isles because she doesn’t trust leaving the kingdom on advisor-autopilot, considering what happened last time both the king and queen (i.e., her parents) weren’t around to keep things under control.  Hopefully things have become considerably more politically stable in the 30-ish years since KQ6, but I wouldn’t blame her for being paranoid enough to insist on sticking around.  Also, maybe she’s aware that Graham has come to the end of his life, and, considering what happened to her parents, she doesn’t feel like she can handle witnessing another parental-figure death.  It’s definitely odd to me, but maybe she’s got a good reason for not being there.  

And then there’s Edgar.  What happened to Edgar?  I am actually very concerned by Edgar’s absence.  Seriously, where is he, and why is he not around?  He gets mentioned exactly once, when Gwendolyn asks in Chapter 4 why Graham didn’t just make Rosella his heir (sexist addendums not withstanding), and he answers, “She was always off on her own adventures with Edgar.  Then she had Gart, and she was much more interested in training him to be King.”

SAY WHAT NOW?  WHAT.  HAPPENED??  No, for real, I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED HERE.  BECAUSE I AM VERY MUCH BOTHERED BY THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT STATEMENT.

For one thing, Gwendolyn does not follow that statement with “Edgar who?” which tells me that she must at the very least know about him, even if she may or may not know him personally.  Edgar is also the most likely candidate to be Gart’s father (the KQ wiki even lists him as such), though it seems odd that this is never actually confirmed within the game.  But the way Graham talks about Edgar there...  It kinda sounds like he implied that at some point during all that adventuring (which was probably the courtship Edgar asked for at the end of KQ7), Edgar sired Gart on Rosella and for whatever reason was not around to help raise him. Which... does not sound like something the Edgar I have come to know and love would do, at least willingly or purposefully, or without a very good reason.  And I also find it strange that during the dinner scene in Chapter 4, not only is there no chair for Edgar at the table (nor one for Cassima), but there is ZERO mention of him in all that succession talk, and, theoretically, he should have been in the running somewhere??  At least, more likely so than Kyle, as Alexander suggests.  So, again, I ask:  what the heck happened?  I have a few possible theories.

Possible theory #1:  Edgar’s already dead.  There are three possibilities regarding Edgar’s life expectancy:  1) As an Etherian prince, Edgar is effectively immortal unless somebody kills him again (and, who knows, maybe someone did); 2) when Genesta transformed him into a more-or-less human form, she also ended up making him mortal and giving him a human lifespan; 3) since Rosella used the black cat’s extra life to restore Edgar, he has the life expectancy of your average cat, which, for most cats, is somewhere between 12 and 20 years, give or take.  And since it’s probably been 25-30 years since then, it’s possible his cat life has run out, and also possible it may have run out while Gart was still very young.  Morbid, sure, but a tidy explanation.

Possible theory #2:  Fairy shenanigans.  This feels to me like the most likely scenario, because, let’s face it, fairies are jerks.  Even if they aren’t out-and-out evil, like Lolotte and Malicia, they operate on a whole different value system than humans.  And one thing that they value very highly is children.  Consider how Oberon and Titania left Etheria pretty much unattended for YEARS while they tried to track down Edgar, running off on every tiny rumor they thought might be a lead.  Not to mention that both Lolotte and Malicia struck their blows at Oberon and Titania, and Etheria itself, through kidnapping and manipulating poor Edgar.  It would be pretty naive to believe that Lolotte and Malicia are the only bad apples to have ever come out of Etherian society, so who knows what other threats may have emerged since the events of KQ7.  Maybe Edgar got kidnapped again and is being held prisoner or brainwashed somewhere.  Maybe Oberon and Titania THEMSELVES are more or less keeping their son under house arrest for fear of losing him again.  Or maybe, just maybe, this is how “overprotective parenting” has manifested in Edgar.  Because, now that Edgar’s all grown up, he’s probably not as interesting a target for the unsavory residents/exiles of Etherian society, but you know who would be?  His son.  His precious, beautiful, half-human, only son, poised to inherit another kingdom.  That’s like dark fairy catnip right there.  And the best way to protect Gart from them is if they do not know that he exists, forcing Edgar to do the hardest thing in his life: keeping his distance from his family and pretending he no longer loves Rosella, or has a child with her, in order to keep them both safe.  Or, if they have learned about Gart’s birth, that Edgar is on the front lines in Etheria doing all he can to keep them from getting anywhere near his baby boy, because by the time dark fairies start invading Daventry to get to the young prince, it’s too late to do much about them.  Not to mention the fact that if they succeeded, there would probably be war between the two realms, and nobody wants that (or maybe there’s someone who does and Edgar is trying to prevent it).  Or maybe, in a likely parallel to Cassima, Edgar has to stay in Eldritch to help keep its various factions from causing the realm to go hell in a handbasket, which, let’s be real, would be something a disgruntled Etherian would start.  Again.  Thanks, Malicia.

Possible theory #3: Edgar and Rosella’s relationship just didn’t end up working out.  I’m sure they tried really hard, but maybe they realized they were better off as friends.  Maybe it fell apart because it’s unlikely that Edgar has any idea how healthy relationships actually work, and the dynamic they fell into just couldn’t be sustained.  Maybe it’s one of those “faerie bride” (or, in this case, fairy groom) scenarios, that are passionate and romantic, but ultimately short-lived because humans and fairies just aren’t long-term compatible and their relationships are doomed from the start.  And so, with a heavy heart, Edgar just bowed out or maybe he straight-up ghosted, I don’t know.  It’s a sad possibility, but sometimes relationships, even those resulting in children, just don’t make it to happily ever after.

Possible theory #4:  Edgar normally would be there, but is out adventuring *right now* in an effort to find a way to help Graham.  Oh, man, this one is just heartbreaking, but I could see Edgar volunteering to go out and search the ends of the multiverse for a cure, trying to cut deals with the Fates, whatever he has to do, all the while telling Rosella and Gart to stay in Daventry so they can be there for Graham and Valanice.  And just imagine how sad he would be to find out that, despite it all, it’s too late, even if he does make it back to Daventry with something helpful, blaming himself because he just wasn’t quick enough.

Possible theory #5:  Edgar *is* around, we just don’t see him because he’s being shy/socially-avoidant.  Shyness is one of Edgar’s defining traits in KQ4, and, all things considered, he probably never entirely grew out of it.  He didn’t have the opportunity to learn how to socialize normally until adulthood, because Lolotte and Malicia kept him so isolated.  And, bear in mind, during that time, he was never socialized to be around other males (unless you count the goons, who don’t really talk much and may or may not actually be masculine)--it was always women who primarily interacted with him.  The first time we actually see him interact with another guy, he gets into an immediate brawl with him.  Though he does later hug his dad, so that’s good.  But still, I could totally understand Edgar having trouble with social interactions, be it from just a lack of skills, or even up to having severe social anxiety.  Maybe, for some reason, Edgar just doesn’t get along very well with Graham and/or Alexander, and so is avoiding them.  Maybe he gets along with them fine, but only if it’s one-on-one contact, and he just doesn’t handle group interactions well.  This could be why he left his own party prior to the events of KQ7, and maybe why he’s not on the succession list, if he feels too overwhelmed by the prospect of having to do royal functions like meeting with advisors or the public, and so maybe deliberately asked to not be Graham’s heir.  Or, maybe he can handle groups in small doses, but the added stress of Graham’s imminent death is just using up all of his spoons, and having already been through the traumas of both losing a parental figure and dying himself (and being brought back), he simply cannot cope with it AND be there for the rest of the family.  Therefore, he’s spending this time in his own safe space by himself, trying desperately to hold it together.

So, yeah.  I don’t know what happened to Edgar, or why he, Cassima and Connor aren’t part of this story, but I miss them and I’m sad they didn’t make it into the game.

How Going Offline for 10 Days Healed My Anxiety

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a while, including you.” ~Anna Lamott

I wake up anxious a little past 4am. My heart is beating faster than usual, and I’m aware of an unsettled feeling, like life-crushing doom is imminent. For a moment, I wonder if I just felt the first waves of a massive earthquake. Or perhaps those were gunshots I just heard in the distance.

But no, it’s just another night in my bedroom in the Bay Area, and everything is utterly fine. But somehow, my central nervous system isn’t so sure.

The problem is the thick swirl of news media, social media, and talk among friends I carry with me every day. It’s a toxic milkshake of speculation, fear, and anger that I consume, and it has me deeply rattled. I absorb this stuff like crazy.

I suspect I’m not alone.

I know for a fact that my anxiety isn’t just some vague menopause symptom, but the result of my deep immersion in the current zeitgeist. I know this because recently I left the whole thing behind for ten glorious days. I went to Belize, and left my phone and my laptop sitting on my bureau at home.

For most of that time, my wife and I lived on a small island thirty miles out to sea with only a bit of generator electricity. We avoided the extremely spotty Wifi like the plague. Instead, we woke with the sunrise, and sat on the deck outside our grass hut, watching manta rays swim in the shallow water below us and pelicans perch nearby. The biggest thing that happened every morning was the osprey that left its nest and circled above us.

It was life in slow-mo all the way. And it was transformative.

For ten entire days I didn’t think about politics or how America is devolving into an angry, wild place where public figures regularly get death threats, and social media has become the equivalent of High Noon with guns drawn.

The toxic interplay of who is right or wrong, or the future of our democracy ceased to exist as we sailed toward that island on our big, well-worn catamaran. In fact, by the time we reached our refuge, those tapes had disappeared altogether.

Instead, we swam and we rested. We snorkeled. We read. We had some adventures involving caves and kayaks, and we hung out with the other guests. The two Belizian women who cooked for us observed us Americans with our expensive toys, and they took it all with a grain of salt. In their presence, I could suddenly see how silly and overwrought all this intensity has become.

Ironically, when given the opportunity to present a gift to a school in one of Belize’s small seaside towns, I brought along a laptop and an iPad I no longer used. An elementary school teacher received the gifts with gratitude. Yet, as I gave them to her, I noticed I felt wary.

I could swear she seemed wary as well.

What new layer of complexity was I bringing onto these shores? And was it even necessary for life to go on happily and productively?

When we returned to the so-called civilized world, here’s what I immediately noticed:

1. I was now leery of all my previously trusted news sources.

Suddenly I could clearly see the anguished bias all around me, going in all sorts of directions left and right. The newsfeeds I’d previously consumed with abandon now seemed more biased than I’d realized. I was left with one option—either drop out and start reading the classics for entertainment, or proceed with caution.

2. I had more time to sit alone with nothing in particular to do.

Before my media fast, that was a bad idea. Hey, I had social media to check and emails to catch up on. The day’s events were going by in a high-speed blur, and I had to keep up. But now life had slowed to the pace of my emotions. I could breathe again. And so, for a while at least, I enjoyed spacing out.

3. My anxiety disappeared. For a while.

So did my knockdown ambition, and my desire to overwork. Everything had just … chilled. Enormously. For a while I slept easily. I no longer drove myself to do the impossible, and my to-do list now seemed balanced and reasonable. In turn, I no longer woke up with my heart pounding, nor did I have qualms overcome me during the day. Instead, I got ideas. Inspiration landed on me, and I was energized enough to pursue it.

4. Life became lighter and more fun.

Now I found my day-to-day routine to be far more delightful. It simply was, and for no particular reason. I laughed more. I found myself singing while I did chores around the house. Since I wasn’t consuming the same fire hose of media, I now had time to have more fun.

5. I complained less.

Now that I was unplugged, I found that I didn’t have to share my opinion on every last political matter happening around me. Nor did I need to engage in fights on social media. In turn, I didn’t lie awake as much, gnashing my teeth.

6. I thought about things I’d long forgotten.

Like my childhood. I tapped into long buried feelings sitting in that glorious deck chair of mine, like how it felt to be a vulnerable kid at school, and what joy I found in standing in the water, letting the waves rush my legs. I rediscovered the great internal monologue I have going all the time. It had long been forgotten.

7. I had more time just to hang with people.

This was, perhaps, the greatest gift of all. To quietly sit at a table, chatting over empty coffee cups with relative strangers, or perhaps my wife. There we all were, on our island for days on end. So we might as well talk, right? I found people to be fascinating once again.

In fact, I was discovering JOMO—the Joy of Missing Out. Turns out this is a thing. Those exact words were projected on the screen behind Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, at a recent developer’s conference. Apparently even the tech people want to turn off their screens.

So one must ask the question: did all of this good stuff last?

In a word, no.

It’s been several months since this experiment ended, and I am, of course, back online. The pull is simply too great to ignore and avoid. Since I actually make my living online, disappearing off the grid is not even an option. And yet, I’ve learned a lot.

I no longer subscribe to certain reactionary newsfeeds. While I may be more out of touch, this is alarming material, guaranteed to not make me feel better. So no, I no longer read these emails. And I cherry pick what I read in my newsfeeds with care.

I no longer reach for my phone as soon as I open my eyes every morning. I also try not to check my email on my phone at all, something I often did while waiting in the Bay Area’s many lines. In fact, I’ve learned to leave my phone at home when I go out.

Instead, I chat with other people while waiting in the line, or I just look around. Or I zone out and enjoy what brain scientists call the “default mode,” the fertile, random, and enjoyable hopscotch the brain does while at rest. I realized now that I’d been missing that hopscotch. Instead, I enjoy the fertile luxury of a good daydream.

My late daughter Teal would have understood my need to drop out perfectly. Even at age twenty-two, she refused to have a smart phone. She embraced the world, eyes forward and heart engaged, making friends wherever she went. And she did so until her sudden death from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest in 2012.

“Life is now,” she liked to say. Usually she reminded me of this as she headed out the door with her travel guitar and her backpack, on a spontaneous decision to busk her way across the other side of the world.

At the time, I couldn’t begin to fathom what she was talking about. “Too simplistic” I thought, dismissively, as I wrote it off to my daughter’s relentless free spirit. But as it turns out, Teal was right. So now I am left with this very big lesson.

Not only is life now, life is rich, random and filled with delight. The trick is to unplug long enough to actually experience it.

Illustration by Kaitlin Roth

About Suzanne Falter

You can find Suzanne Falter on Facebook at the Self Care Group for Extremely Busy Women or on her podcast, The Self-Care Soother. She is also the author of Surrendering to Joy, a collection of essays she wrote in the year following her daughter’s death. She keeps a blog at http://suzannefalter.com/blog/.

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What’s Your Life Strategy?

There’s a lot of discussion about specific tactics you should use in life to become successful: what productivity app you should use, which exercises to be fit, where to invest your money. Missing from this is the question of how do you think about the big questions in your life? Not just where you spend the hours and minutes, but the months and the years.

I don’t presume to have the perfect formula figured out, but I wanted to start the discussion by sharing how I think about these things in my own life. Maybe my approach might be helpful to you if you’ve been struggling with these questions.

1. Projects lasting 1-2 years should have the spotlight.

When I started out with goal setting, a lot of advice I read suggested making 5, 10 or even 20 year goals for your life. Other authors focused on much shorter intervals—thirty or twenty-one day trials.

In my opinion, projects of a year or two are the most useful scale to focus on for achievement.

Projects of this length are meaty and can actually enact meaningful change. If your focus is exclusively on month-long or shorter goals, you may miss out on the benefits a concerted effort to really make a difference in something might make.

Longer goals, however, I’ve found aren’t terribly useful, either. This isn’t because all successes happen in a timeframe of under 24 months, but because the act of growth causes so much change that plans made for five years or a decade will often be conceived of incorrectly by that time. The assumptions and theories that went into them will change after a year or two’s worth of experience, so it’s better to focus on a project that won’t drift completely in the meantime.

2. Only have one main project at a time. Everything else is a side-activity.

Once you pick your main projects, only have one at a time. This is your priority and it takes precedence over any other goals.

This doesn’t imply that you don’t work on anything else other than your single project. Just that when conflicts arise and you’re forced to choose between working on one or the other, you always side with your main project.

Picking the one project and sticking with it requires a lot of discipline. It’s easy to get halfway through a project and want to skip to something else. Committing in advance has been enormously helpful to me, even if it sacrifices some flexibility, because many projects I start to feel are “duds” end up becoming the ones that make a difference. Patience matters.

3. It’s okay to fail at your side-activities.

A corollary of having a single main project is that your side goals will fail sometimes, due to lack of input or effort. That’s okay. That shouldn’t be viewed as an error or mistake, but a normal part of the process.

If I’m working on a big project for my career, and I slip up and stop going to the gym as often as I’d like, that’s not simply laziness on my part—that’s a side-effect of a system which demands focus. I can pick myself up and try to start a new gym habit, but I can’t expect perfection on every project, or beat myself up about letting side-activities slide.

4. Oscillate between big projects and smaller ones.

My rhythm in life for the last decade or so has been one year, a big project, with 12-18 months of “down time.” The down time here isn’t a time without projects, but one where I fit shorter projects that need doing in the gaps. Since my big projects are usually career or learning related, this is often where I fit in projects for other goals (fitness or travel).

This oscillation is good because the single-project focus, while it does optimize for achievement, often leaves numerous smaller things that get somewhat neglected. Switching between having a big project and a series of smaller projects prevents your life from getting too misaligned from an obsession.

5. When in doubt, build assets.

Often it’s not clear what needs to happen in order to succeed in some area of life. For years working on my business, it wasn’t clear what I needed to do to make it work. I knew I wasn’t making the kind of income I needed, but it also wasn’t obvious what I could do differently to make that happen.

This ambiguity about what will create success is incredibly common. You may not know what you need to do to improve your career, your dating success, your health or finances.

Sometimes more education is the answer—read more books, do research. But other times the ambiguity is fundamental. You can’t read the answer in a book because it doesn’t exist there (or the answers are so numerous as to create a new challenge of figuring out which answer is right for you).

In these cases, my default mode has always been to try to build generally useful assets. This is to switch out the question of “what should I do?” with “what would be useful, generally speaking?” The former question may not have a clear answer, but the latter usually has many things which could probably help. Sometimes success is simply answering this question enough times that the accumulation eventually breaks through.

For instance, if you’re luckless in love, you might decide to start working on your communication skills, start building a deeper social network, improve your fashion/appearance or learn improv to become funnier. It’s not clear any of these projects will bring success, but if you build enough assets in this direction, you’ll probably improve your chances.

6. Know how to separate your “cash cows” from your “home runs.”

A cash cow is a euphemism for a part of a business which reliably generates a lot of revenue or profit. It may not have enormous growth potential, but it is something which can pay the bills and solve immediate financial problems.

A home run is something which, if you strike out, may not bring anything, but if you connect, it might push you to a completely different playing field.

Many areas of personal development have a similar dichotomy. Some things are well within your understanding of how to achieve success, and simply require some effort. Other things are new, scary and uncertain, but have the potential to be really big.

You need to split your time between these two types of efforts, and which should be your main focus depends on where you sit. If you’re dealing with immediate crises, a “cash cow” project should be your focus. If you’re not in imminent danger, “home runs,” have the greater long-term potential.

7. If you can endure the worst case, the best cases take care of themselves.

All of my plans are pessimistic. I focus on what might go wrong, not speculating about what might go right.

This may seem like a mindset doomed to fail, but I’ve found quite the opposite. When you manage and control the worst case, fear and anxiety are less likely to overwhelm your thinking. Since you know you can endure the worst outcome, then anything becomes tolerable.

Part of this is asking whether I could sustain a failed outcome. What if a new project completely goes bust? What if I make no progress? Could I keep going, or would failure to reach a certain outcome be a disaster with my plan as it is now?

But an even bigger part of this is expecting a certain amount of behavioral failure. What if I get sick? What if this takes me longer than I had anticipated? What if this turns out to be harder than expected?

When you take this mindset, you start to feel a lot luckier. Why? Because when you’ve planned and prepared for the majority of negative possibilities, then the “random” events you tend to encounter are biased towards the positive. You get a lucky break, or something succeeds more than you had expected.

Fine Tuning Your “Life Strategy”

These are a few concepts that I think guide me in planning and thinking about my life at the scale of months and years. What interests me isn’t that this represents a kind of “correct” answer, but that it forms a particular style, well-suited to my life and tradeoffs.

Articulating your life strategy, even if you don’t think you have one, is quite useful because sometimes you’ll notice contradictions. You’ll claim focus is important to you, but then chastise yourself when you don’t do everything perfectly. You say you want to split your energies between work and personal life, but work always fills the spotlight.

It’s also useful to notice and try to articulate other people’s life strategies. This can open you up to alternatives you may not have considered. One friend of mine operates off the mantra, “Every year something different.” And moves apartments, changes jobs or otherwise does something quite different every year or two. Another friend of mine optimizes for flow, not aiming at any destination in particular, but adjusting slowly adjusting his lifestyle.

What’s your life strategy? How do you feel it could be better to make you happier and more accomplished? Share your thoughts in the comments!

What’s Your Life Strategy? syndicated from https://pricelessmomentweb.wordpress.com/

What’s Your Life Strategy?

There’s a lot of discussion about specific tactics you should use in life to become successful: what productivity app you should use, which exercises to be fit, where to invest your money. Missing from this is the question of how do you think about the big questions in your life? Not just where you spend the hours and minutes, but the months and the years.

I don’t presume to have the perfect formula figured out, but I wanted to start the discussion by sharing how I think about these things in my own life. Maybe my approach might be helpful to you if you’ve been struggling with these questions.

1. Projects lasting 1-2 years should have the spotlight.

When I started out with goal setting, a lot of advice I read suggested making 5, 10 or even 20 year goals for your life. Other authors focused on much shorter intervals—thirty or twenty-one day trials.

In my opinion, projects of a year or two are the most useful scale to focus on for achievement.

Projects of this length are meaty and can actually enact meaningful change. If your focus is exclusively on month-long or shorter goals, you may miss out on the benefits a concerted effort to really make a difference in something might make.

Longer goals, however, I’ve found aren’t terribly useful, either. This isn’t because all successes happen in a timeframe of under 24 months, but because the act of growth causes so much change that plans made for five years or a decade will often be conceived of incorrectly by that time. The assumptions and theories that went into them will change after a year or two’s worth of experience, so it’s better to focus on a project that won’t drift completely in the meantime.

2. Only have one main project at a time. Everything else is a side-activity.

Once you pick your main projects, only have one at a time. This is your priority and it takes precedence over any other goals.

This doesn’t imply that you don’t work on anything else other than your single project. Just that when conflicts arise and you’re forced to choose between working on one or the other, you always side with your main project.

Picking the one project and sticking with it requires a lot of discipline. It’s easy to get halfway through a project and want to skip to something else. Committing in advance has been enormously helpful to me, even if it sacrifices some flexibility, because many projects I start to feel are “duds” end up becoming the ones that make a difference. Patience matters.

3. It’s okay to fail at your side-activities.

A corollary of having a single main project is that your side goals will fail sometimes, due to lack of input or effort. That’s okay. That shouldn’t be viewed as an error or mistake, but a normal part of the process.

If I’m working on a big project for my career, and I slip up and stop going to the gym as often as I’d like, that’s not simply laziness on my part—that’s a side-effect of a system which demands focus. I can pick myself up and try to start a new gym habit, but I can’t expect perfection on every project, or beat myself up about letting side-activities slide.

4. Oscillate between big projects and smaller ones.

My rhythm in life for the last decade or so has been one year, a big project, with 12-18 months of “down time.” The down time here isn’t a time without projects, but one where I fit shorter projects that need doing in the gaps. Since my big projects are usually career or learning related, this is often where I fit in projects for other goals (fitness or travel).

This oscillation is good because the single-project focus, while it does optimize for achievement, often leaves numerous smaller things that get somewhat neglected. Switching between having a big project and a series of smaller projects prevents your life from getting too misaligned from an obsession.

5. When in doubt, build assets.

Often it’s not clear what needs to happen in order to succeed in some area of life. For years working on my business, it wasn’t clear what I needed to do to make it work. I knew I wasn’t making the kind of income I needed, but it also wasn’t obvious what I could do differently to make that happen.

This ambiguity about what will create success is incredibly common. You may not know what you need to do to improve your career, your dating success, your health or finances.

Sometimes more education is the answer—read more books, do research. But other times the ambiguity is fundamental. You can’t read the answer in a book because it doesn’t exist there (or the answers are so numerous as to create a new challenge of figuring out which answer is right for you).

In these cases, my default mode has always been to try to build generally useful assets. This is to switch out the question of “what should I do?” with “what would be useful, generally speaking?” The former question may not have a clear answer, but the latter usually has many things which could probably help. Sometimes success is simply answering this question enough times that the accumulation eventually breaks through.

For instance, if you’re luckless in love, you might decide to start working on your communication skills, start building a deeper social network, improve your fashion/appearance or learn improv to become funnier. It’s not clear any of these projects will bring success, but if you build enough assets in this direction, you’ll probably improve your chances.

6. Know how to separate your “cash cows” from your “home runs.”

A cash cow is a euphemism for a part of a business which reliably generates a lot of revenue or profit. It may not have enormous growth potential, but it is something which can pay the bills and solve immediate financial problems.

A home run is something which, if you strike out, may not bring anything, but if you connect, it might push you to a completely different playing field.

Many areas of personal development have a similar dichotomy. Some things are well within your understanding of how to achieve success, and simply require some effort. Other things are new, scary and uncertain, but have the potential to be really big.

You need to split your time between these two types of efforts, and which should be your main focus depends on where you sit. If you’re dealing with immediate crises, a “cash cow” project should be your focus. If you’re not in imminent danger, “home runs,” have the greater long-term potential.

7. If you can endure the worst case, the best cases take care of themselves.

All of my plans are pessimistic. I focus on what might go wrong, not speculating about what might go right.

This may seem like a mindset doomed to fail, but I’ve found quite the opposite. When you manage and control the worst case, fear and anxiety are less likely to overwhelm your thinking. Since you know you can endure the worst outcome, then anything becomes tolerable.

Part of this is asking whether I could sustain a failed outcome. What if a new project completely goes bust? What if I make no progress? Could I keep going, or would failure to reach a certain outcome be a disaster with my plan as it is now?

But an even bigger part of this is expecting a certain amount of behavioral failure. What if I get sick? What if this takes me longer than I had anticipated? What if this turns out to be harder than expected?

When you take this mindset, you start to feel a lot luckier. Why? Because when you’ve planned and prepared for the majority of negative possibilities, then the “random” events you tend to encounter are biased towards the positive. You get a lucky break, or something succeeds more than you had expected.

Fine Tuning Your “Life Strategy”

These are a few concepts that I think guide me in planning and thinking about my life at the scale of months and years. What interests me isn’t that this represents a kind of “correct” answer, but that it forms a particular style, well-suited to my life and tradeoffs.

Articulating your life strategy, even if you don’t think you have one, is quite useful because sometimes you’ll notice contradictions. You’ll claim focus is important to you, but then chastise yourself when you don’t do everything perfectly. You say you want to split your energies between work and personal life, but work always fills the spotlight.

It’s also useful to notice and try to articulate other people’s life strategies. This can open you up to alternatives you may not have considered. One friend of mine operates off the mantra, “Every year something different.” And moves apartments, changes jobs or otherwise does something quite different every year or two. Another friend of mine optimizes for flow, not aiming at any destination in particular, but adjusting slowly adjusting his lifestyle.

What’s your life strategy? How do you feel it could be better to make you happier and more accomplished? Share your thoughts in the comments!

What’s Your Life Strategy? syndicated from https://pricelessmomentweb.wordpress.com/

What’s Your Life Strategy?

There’s a lot of discussion about specific tactics you should use in life to become successful: what productivity app you should use, which exercises to be fit, where to invest your money. Missing from this is the question of how do you think about the big questions in your life? Not just where you spend the hours and minutes, but the months and the years.

I don’t presume to have the perfect formula figured out, but I wanted to start the discussion by sharing how I think about these things in my own life. Maybe my approach might be helpful to you if you’ve been struggling with these questions.

1. Projects lasting 1-2 years should have the spotlight.

When I started out with goal setting, a lot of advice I read suggested making 5, 10 or even 20 year goals for your life. Other authors focused on much shorter intervals—thirty or twenty-one day trials.

In my opinion, projects of a year or two are the most useful scale to focus on for achievement.

Projects of this length are meaty and can actually enact meaningful change. If your focus is exclusively on month-long or shorter goals, you may miss out on the benefits a concerted effort to really make a difference in something might make.

Longer goals, however, I’ve found aren’t terribly useful, either. This isn’t because all successes happen in a timeframe of under 24 months, but because the act of growth causes so much change that plans made for five years or a decade will often be conceived of incorrectly by that time. The assumptions and theories that went into them will change after a year or two’s worth of experience, so it’s better to focus on a project that won’t drift completely in the meantime.

2. Only have one main project at a time. Everything else is a side-activity.

Once you pick your main projects, only have one at a time. This is your priority and it takes precedence over any other goals.

This doesn’t imply that you don’t work on anything else other than your single project. Just that when conflicts arise and you’re forced to choose between working on one or the other, you always side with your main project.

Picking the one project and sticking with it requires a lot of discipline. It’s easy to get halfway through a project and want to skip to something else. Committing in advance has been enormously helpful to me, even if it sacrifices some flexibility, because many projects I start to feel are “duds” end up becoming the ones that make a difference. Patience matters.

3. It’s okay to fail at your side-activities.

A corollary of having a single main project is that your side goals will fail sometimes, due to lack of input or effort. That’s okay. That shouldn’t be viewed as an error or mistake, but a normal part of the process.

If I’m working on a big project for my career, and I slip up and stop going to the gym as often as I’d like, that’s not simply laziness on my part—that’s a side-effect of a system which demands focus. I can pick myself up and try to start a new gym habit, but I can’t expect perfection on every project, or beat myself up about letting side-activities slide.

4. Oscillate between big projects and smaller ones.

My rhythm in life for the last decade or so has been one year, a big project, with 12-18 months of “down time.” The down time here isn’t a time without projects, but one where I fit shorter projects that need doing in the gaps. Since my big projects are usually career or learning related, this is often where I fit in projects for other goals (fitness or travel).

This oscillation is good because the single-project focus, while it does optimize for achievement, often leaves numerous smaller things that get somewhat neglected. Switching between having a big project and a series of smaller projects prevents your life from getting too misaligned from an obsession.

5. When in doubt, build assets.

Often it’s not clear what needs to happen in order to succeed in some area of life. For years working on my business, it wasn’t clear what I needed to do to make it work. I knew I wasn’t making the kind of income I needed, but it also wasn’t obvious what I could do differently to make that happen.

This ambiguity about what will create success is incredibly common. You may not know what you need to do to improve your career, your dating success, your health or finances.

Sometimes more education is the answer—read more books, do research. But other times the ambiguity is fundamental. You can’t read the answer in a book because it doesn’t exist there (or the answers are so numerous as to create a new challenge of figuring out which answer is right for you).

In these cases, my default mode has always been to try to build generally useful assets. This is to switch out the question of “what should I do?” with “what would be useful, generally speaking?” The former question may not have a clear answer, but the latter usually has many things which could probably help. Sometimes success is simply answering this question enough times that the accumulation eventually breaks through.

For instance, if you’re luckless in love, you might decide to start working on your communication skills, start building a deeper social network, improve your fashion/appearance or learn improv to become funnier. It’s not clear any of these projects will bring success, but if you build enough assets in this direction, you’ll probably improve your chances.

6. Know how to separate your “cash cows” from your “home runs.”

A cash cow is a euphemism for a part of a business which reliably generates a lot of revenue or profit. It may not have enormous growth potential, but it is something which can pay the bills and solve immediate financial problems.

A home run is something which, if you strike out, may not bring anything, but if you connect, it might push you to a completely different playing field.

Many areas of personal development have a similar dichotomy. Some things are well within your understanding of how to achieve success, and simply require some effort. Other things are new, scary and uncertain, but have the potential to be really big.

You need to split your time between these two types of efforts, and which should be your main focus depends on where you sit. If you’re dealing with immediate crises, a “cash cow” project should be your focus. If you’re not in imminent danger, “home runs,” have the greater long-term potential.

7. If you can endure the worst case, the best cases take care of themselves.

All of my plans are pessimistic. I focus on what might go wrong, not speculating about what might go right.

This may seem like a mindset doomed to fail, but I’ve found quite the opposite. When you manage and control the worst case, fear and anxiety are less likely to overwhelm your thinking. Since you know you can endure the worst outcome, then anything becomes tolerable.

Part of this is asking whether I could sustain a failed outcome. What if a new project completely goes bust? What if I make no progress? Could I keep going, or would failure to reach a certain outcome be a disaster with my plan as it is now?

But an even bigger part of this is expecting a certain amount of behavioral failure. What if I get sick? What if this takes me longer than I had anticipated? What if this turns out to be harder than expected?

When you take this mindset, you start to feel a lot luckier. Why? Because when you’ve planned and prepared for the majority of negative possibilities, then the “random” events you tend to encounter are biased towards the positive. You get a lucky break, or something succeeds more than you had expected.

Fine Tuning Your “Life Strategy”

These are a few concepts that I think guide me in planning and thinking about my life at the scale of months and years. What interests me isn’t that this represents a kind of “correct” answer, but that it forms a particular style, well-suited to my life and tradeoffs.

Articulating your life strategy, even if you don’t think you have one, is quite useful because sometimes you’ll notice contradictions. You’ll claim focus is important to you, but then chastise yourself when you don’t do everything perfectly. You say you want to split your energies between work and personal life, but work always fills the spotlight.

It’s also useful to notice and try to articulate other people’s life strategies. This can open you up to alternatives you may not have considered. One friend of mine operates off the mantra, “Every year something different.” And moves apartments, changes jobs or otherwise does something quite different every year or two. Another friend of mine optimizes for flow, not aiming at any destination in particular, but adjusting slowly adjusting his lifestyle.

What’s your life strategy? How do you feel it could be better to make you happier and more accomplished? Share your thoughts in the comments!

What’s Your Life Strategy? syndicated from https://pricelessmomentweb.wordpress.com/