something something the villain of the season (the one about how fear can give way to extremism if you're not careful and how easy it is for many, many people to become radicalized by one person's radical hate and how genocide is a bad thing actually regardless of whether individuals of the targeted group have themselves done terrible things) being a black woman who survived an incident of indiscriminate mass murder is perhaps. not the best idea considering the themes involved

Cops arrest suspected murderer of Black trans woman who appeared in Sundance documentary

Rasheeda Williams, a 35-year-old Black trans woman who appeared in a recent documentary on trans sex workers, was murdered last week in Atlanta, Georgia. Police have arrested an unnamed 17-year-old male suspect. On April 18 at 10:42 p.m., police officers found Williams at a west-central shopping center. She had an apparent gunshot wound and was not alert, conscious, or breathing. Homicide investigators pronounced her dead at the scene, the Atlanta Police Department (APD) said in a statement. --- Related Stories Amazon may be removing t-shirts supporting trans people’s right to own guns The shirt proclaimed “Trans Rights or Else” with four rifles in the colors of the transgender Pride flag. --- “Homicide investigators responded and are… working to determine the circumstances surrounding” her murder, the APD said. No motive was given for her slaying nor did the police release details about the 17-year-old suspect and his possible connection to the murder. Their statement noted its active investigation into Williams’ shooting death as well as those of two other local trans women. One woman was killed in a “dispute” on April 11, barely a week before Williams’ murder. The other was slain, possibly by a male suspect, on January 9. The APD said that the murders are unrelated and don’t appear to be “random acts of violence.” APD investigators hadn’t found any indication that the women were targeted for being trans. The Atlanta Police Department(APD) is actively investigating three violent crimes involving transgender women this year. While these individual incidents are unrelated, we are very aware of the epidemic-level violence black and brown transgender women face in America. pic.twitter.com/GOH6gOZCa7— Atlanta Police Department (@Atlanta_Police) April 20, 2023 Williams and three other trans sex workers appeared in the award-winning 2023 Sundance Film Festival documentary Kokomo City. In it, Williams (aka. “Koko Da Doll”) and three other Black trans women from Atlanta and New York City spoke frankly about their lives. The three other women in the film are Daniella Carter, Dominque Silver, and Liyah Mitchell. In an Instagram statement, the film’s director, D. Smith, called Williams “beautiful and full of life.” Smith, a musician, is also a Black trans woman. “I created Kokomo City because I wanted to show the fun, humanized, natural side of Black trans women,” Smith wrote. “I wanted to create images that didn’t show the trauma or the statistics of murder of Transgender lives. I wanted to create something fresh and inspiring. I did that. We did that! But here we are again.” “It’s extremely difficult to process Koko’s passing,” Smith continued, “but as a team we are more encouraged now than ever to inspire the world with her story…. She will inspire generations to come and will never be forgotten.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by D. SMITH (@truedsmith) Smith’s film debuted at Sundance, winning the Audience Award in the festival’s NEXT section — the section showcases “bold, pure,” and “innovative, forward-thinking” storytelling, the festival’s website said. Kokomo City also won the Berlin Film Festival’s Audience Award for panorama documentaries. The APD urged people with any information about the women’s deaths to contact Crime Stoppers at StopCrimeAtl.org or via phone at 404-577-TIPS (8477). Callers don’t need to provide their names or personally identifying information in order to qualify for the $2,000 award for any suspect’s arrest and indictment. According to Everytown for Gun Safety’s 2017-2022 Transgender Homicide Tracker, 73 percent of all confirmed homicides against Black trans women involved a gun. Two-thirds of trans and gender non-conforming gun victims were killed by an acquaintance, friend, family member, or intimate partner. http://dlvr.it/SnHVD4

Taste of the Bloodline

Summary: kokushibou and akaza find fascination with the last descendant of a fabled warrior

Pairings: kokushibou × black!fem reader | akaza × black!fem reader

Warnings: blood, mentions of assault, kokushibou low-key victim blaming, tiny makeout

she ignores the pain. every ache and sting riddling places that had been injured at random, each source of smarting coming from deep in her muscle and radiating through the skin--all of it, she pushed from her mind.

no. that was a lie.

she used them.

they kept her angry enough to not pity herself and slump down by the road. they heightened her fear, drove away the weight of sleep so she was sharp enough to make it home.

home. just make it home. it is far. ...it is so far. but it is there.

the loss of her wages could be addressed at another time. the theft of this week's goods, she could deal with. her death, however, was not a scenario she was willing to face. not under these circumstances, not pathetic and alone on a barren road. her family's name deserved better than what she had already drug it to. such a tarnish as to die poor and of weakness could not be added to this weight she bore on her shoulders. so she utilized every sharp cut through her nerves, the pounding in her head. they let her know she was not dead yet.

as did the deafening sound that exploded before her.

it came with a shudder driven through the earth at her feet, sending her jumping backward with a wince from how deep the shockwave shot up through her bones.

but as she cleared the dust from her clothing--waiting for it to settle from the air, she could only see the form of a man some distance ahead. he faced outward, not meeting her eye, and too far for her to make him out clearly. the night was silent after... eerily moreso than before. he said nothing, made no move. then out of the quiet stillness, his arm snapped outward. her coinpurse hit the ground at her feet, soiled and frayed at the drawstrings.

"if you choose to keep acting as a fool, you will end up a corpse in these outskirts."

his words were harsh--enough for her to feel a blow from them. but they were the truth, so there was no fault she could find in him for having said them as he had. "the men who had this..?"

"they are dead."

he answered with such indifference... coldness like she had never heard. it would have frightened her. it should have frightened her. but there was not enough in her to spare the pity for such life as that--as those who had robbed and accosted her.

"good."

she swore she felt his demeanor change, for the smallest of moments. she even felt his eyes shift to her briefly. but the second her own gaze flitted to his form again, it was as though she'd dreamt it all. the woman was struck dumb, making quickly to collect her money, but frozen at the indentations clearly left in the ground by this man's weight. "i can't..." she felt perplexion frowning over her face, "i don't know how to--"

"i have no use for your gratitude," he interrupted. he spat the word like it was vile to him. and while his sentiment confused her, he was effective in bringing her to silence, "take it and leave this road."

she cast a glance behind her, feeling shame creep into her with a nauseating warmth, "this is the road to my home."

"find another," he countered, quite pointedly, "you ask for no less, being in such a slum on your own."

impossibly, he'd managed to clear her confusion and replace it with utter offense... thus peaking her rage once more. against every instinct within her, she wanted to approach him where he was shrouded at the road's edge, ready to defend herself with words as sharp and brutal as his. but her most fundamental intuition humbled her. making to speak, in midstep, she managed to stumble over her body's refusal to move. her loss of balance brought her hurdling to her hands and knees--making her bite heavily into her tongue. the words she'd meant to hiss to the stranger, she only choked on. the taste of blood came directly after the shock and paired with the pain, her broken muscle filling and refilling her mouth in a constant stream.

then, in the time for a breath to enter her lungs before her face was tightly in the man's grasp. he'd appeared in front of her so swiftly that she hadn't the time even to react before being hauled to her feet, cheeks squeezed into his massive hand. a massive hand that lead up to a face and eyes that were borne of nightmarish design. his appearance petrified her, so deeply that her eyes could only widen. it was clear to her now that this was no man as she had previously thought... certainly no savior of the night, despite his acts thusfar. she was frozen in horror. whereas he, he looked her over with genuine intrigue--as one would examine porcelain in a market... but a piece that they were ready to bargain down to the lowest price if they were to make away with it.

"this line..." he trailed, eyeing smeared blood at her lip. she was lifted off her toes when he lifted her face to his and, as a result, helpless to clutching at his forearm as he held her. wordlessly, he lowered his nose to her lips,

smelling the corner of her mouth where it was stained. the small huffs of his breathing dusted over her skin-- close enough where she could hear the depth of his studious grumbles, feel their warmth and breathe them in for her own. she was trembling from how hard her heart pounded--the force of her pulse sending audible knocks to both their ears. but whatever assessment made from smell alone wasn't enough for him, not from the dissatisfied groan he gave. his eyes narrowed to slits as he sniffed again, searching over her yukata as if it might instead hold his answer. decidedly, it did not.

so the feeling of his tongue came next, drawing painfully slow across her bottom lip, accumulating, savoring every bit of the tiny droplet of her blood on it. the intimacy of it made her mind go blank... her eyes flutter... her knees fail. and all of it flew either under his radar or over his head, as he seemed not to care. truthfully, he seemed not to notice at all. the wetness he left on her lower lip was washed over in warmth now, over and again with each of his breaths. a shiver rattled down her spine, to her embarrassment. and, to her horror, the dissatisfaction still did not lift from his expression. he only mumbled the same unfinished phrase to himself before opening her lips with his.

she was stunned at the bombardment. his mouth was sinful--inhumanly hot, equally wet and demanding. his tongue glided into her mouth and along hers, seeking the spot from where she bled and locking her to him by the small of her back once he found it. the strength in his arm holding her drew a whimper. his height made her crane her head just to maintain contact, his air was treacherous--the male clearly was lethal without concern. but her eyes were being rolled to the back of her head from his kiss alone. he drank from her at his leisure, making her nerves light up in a sensual trail that swelled and clenched between her thighs. his tongue stroked at hers, coaxing out every drop he could and licking it up, utterly consumed. she was whispering moans past his lips once he finally pulled away, leaving them connected by the saliva he'd worked up in her mouth.

"it is samurai..." he concluded while she panted under his heavy gaze.

he moved them both into the light of the moon with the same blinding speed, taking in her face again, now with a clearer picture of her deep skin. only then did his expression seem to click. the dissatisfaction fell away. the fascination, however, absolutely did not.

"yasuke."

part 2 ▷▷

10 Anti LO Asks

1. theres so much unrealistic stuff in LO but rachel is a fool if she thinks people would totally be ok with hades wanting to be with a 19/20 year old who acts like a child. yes i am aware relationships can happen at any age (BETWEEN ADULTS) but theres a lot of legitimate reasons why people are disgusted by huge age gaps, and LO just makes it worse by emphasizing how childish and immature persephone is compared to hades yet all of three people in comic approve of it? what world is RS living in?

2. At anon 2 from the recent bunch of critiques, I had to chuckle at your keen eye! Honestly, Artemis' "dress" is just a slightly oversized shirt for her, since it barely covers Persephone's bits.

3. you know the "my wife" slip would actually be kinda cute if they had bee secretly dating for months/years and he just gott too excited over the future, as opposed to only knowing she's existed for all of a month at most, their first kiss being under un-romantic circumstances, not even going on a single date, and their marriage possibly only happening not out of love, but rather to keep persephone out of jail. what could be a cute slip is instead super creepy and possessive in the actual context.

4. lets be real here, rachel learning greek doesnt mean shit. she can be fluent in it and it wouldn matter when her whole MO is taking greek stories and culture to make it an american knock off. its like her claiming to be so well researched on myth, it doesnt matter when she just makes up whatever she wants anyway. she could use that time to actually making the comic good instead of trying to market herself as the next Madeline Miller (who actually has the credentials and none of rachel's ego)

5. im sorry, im greek and i dont want more greek stuff in lo. she cant even keep the actual myth or basic relationships in line, her adding random lines in greek wont do anything besides make herself and her fans feel like she now has more claim over a mythology she's already messed up beyond belief and constantly insults us with with her entitlement and bad attitude. she does not seem to love or respect our myths or culture, and learning our language (if she actually tries) will not change that.

6. i always see it as a bad sign when the only way to even try and make sense of a piece of work is the author(s) having to fill in the gaps via tweets, so the fact rachel has to constantly clear up confusion and try and fill in plot holes or just add stuff we never see in comic via her twitter is bad?? like she already drags it out so much and most readers arent going on her social medias, so why not just put this actual info and work into the actual comic? i dont understand that mentality at all.

7. IDK if this is just the issue of the romance genre itself, but it's bad writing that Persephone is only really defined in importance via Hades only. Her status and power in only being his wife. Her fertility powers are not defined in what it brings to her, just in how it can be useful to Hades (like his want for heirs). Even the comparison to Hera is not in that it shows she's queen material, but that she reminds Hades of the woman he wanted first and she won't reject him like Hera did.

8. i think lo fans just range too privileged to realize how bad the LGBTQ+, class system, and POC rep actually is. It's not a big win that Psyche is a WoC when she was introduced with non-black features, she's illiterate, and had her story was taken from her to focus on Eros, it's not a win that nymphs are low class who oppress the rich and are hated unless they're a "good one" (echo, daphne) to defend the rich, and its not a win the only LGBTQ+ rep is between two asexuals who just "got over it".

9. rachel would rather attempt to learn a new language (she literally can just ask a greek to translate lines for her also webtoons literally have translators on staff already) than use that time to make character sheets or double check her work for spelling errors. like she constantly always picks the dumbest ways to waste her time that she thinks will improve the comic than the stuff she could actually do (like fix the writing and art) like??? hello??? ma'am???

10. yeah im also confused bc the AOW happened but persephone doesnt actually seem to care. like she snapped bc the nymphs died, but she doesnt even tell us their names or mourn them, and her trying to pay for the dead mortals was not out of the goodness of her heart, and that was dropped for her to party and make out with hades. i love morally complex characters, but LO persephone isn't that, she's a spoiled child who cries she's the real victim as she gets away with figurative and literal murder.

Thrilling Fiction: book recommendations 

Dream Girl by Laura Lippman

After being injured in a freak accident, novelist Gerry Andersen lies in a hospital bed in his glamorous but sterile apartment, isolated from the busy world he can see through his windows, utterly dependent on two women he barely knows: his young assistant and a night nurse whose competency he questions. But Gerry is also beginning to question his own competency. As he moves in and out of dreamlike memories and seemingly random appearances of a persistent ex-girlfriend at his bedside, he fears he may be losing his grip on reality, much like his mother who recently passed away from dementia. Most distressing, he believes he’s being plagued by strange telephone calls, in which a woman claiming to be the titular character of his hit novel Dream Girl swears she will be coming to see him soon. The character is completely fictitious, but no one has ever believed Gerry when he makes that claim. Is he the victim of a cruel prank—or is he actually losing his mind★ There is no record of the calls according to the log on his phone. Could there be someone he has wronged★ Is someone coming to do him harm as he lies helplessly in bed★ Then comes the morning he wakes up next to a dead body—and realizes his nightmare is just beginning...

The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson

A promise could betray you. It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past. Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a traumatic incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.

The (Other) You: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates

A powerful reckoning over the people we might have been if we’d chosen a different path, from a master of the short story In this stirring, reflective collection of short stories, Joyce Carol Oates ponders alternate destinies: the other lives we might have led if we’d made different choices. An accomplished writer returns to her childhood home of Yewville, but the homecoming stirs troubled thoughts about the person she might have been if she’d never left. A man in prison contemplates the gravity of his irreversible act. A student’s affair with a professor results in a pregnancy that alters the course of her life forever. Even the experience of reading is investigated as one that can create a profound transformation: “You could enter another time, the time of the book.” The (Other) You is an arresting and incisive vision into these alternative realities, a collection that ponders the constraints we all face given the circumstances of our birth and our temperaments, and that examines the competing pressures and expectations on women in particular. Finely attuned to the nuances of our social and psychic selves, Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates here why she remains one of our most celebrated and relevant literary figures.

A Million Reasons Why by Jessica Strawser

When two strangers are linked by a mail-in DNA test, it’s an answered prayer―that is, for one half-sister. For the other, it will dismantle everything she knows to be true. But as they step into the unfamiliar realm of sisterhood, the roles will reverse in ways no one could have foreseen. Caroline lives a full, happy life―thriving career, three feisty children, enviable marriage, and a close-knit extended family. She couldn’t have scripted it better. Except for one thing: She’s about to discover her fundamental beliefs about them all are wrong. Sela lives a life in shades of gray, suffering from irreversible kidney failure. Her marriage crumbled in the wake of her illness. Her beloved mother and lifelong best friend passed away. She refuses to be defined by her grief, but still, she worries about what will happen to her two-year-old son if she doesn’t find a donor match in time. She’s the only one who knows Caroline is her half-sister. That Caroline may be her best hope for a future. But Sela’s world isn’t as clear-cut as it appears―and one misstep could destroy it all. After all, would you risk everything to save the life of the person who turned yours upside down? From the moment Caroline meets Sela, both must reexamine what it really means to be family, the depths of a mother’s love, and the limits and the power of forgiveness.

Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 22: Cleansing Grimfire

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he’s tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

The Coven Elders deal with the consequences of their actions. Taylor and Elric participate in a father-son activity. The Council takes some responsibility.

[READ IT ON AO3]

The bloodwraith’s neck cranes back at an unnatural angle and it howls to the wind, bloodstained talons reaching out and forward; compelled to attack.

His breath catches in his throat and Taylor squeezes his eyes shut. He braces himself—

For the pain that never comes. The icy grasp of a fate worse than death that he still can only imagine; still must only imagine.

Peeks a tentative eye open to the sight of Cassiopeia’s severed hand stretched out in Vera’s quivering grasp.

A firsthand witness to how the small and humble sparks in Vera’s breast ignite into a blaze that consumes her soul.

“You will not.”

The entire Garden watches in bated awe as the wraith obeys. Hovers back far enough where Taylor can breathe without the scent of rancid flesh in his mouth.

Oh he’s still scared shitless — and rightly so. But just like he can feel the bad things hovering in an aura around them so too can he feel the good.

And the sudden rush of adrenaline, defiance, bravery in Vera is incredible.

The Elders are still together, still united, but their understanding is unmistakable. They know whose hand Vera wields. They realize what has changed with its discovery.

The only thing that hasn’t settled in to their collective hive mind is that it’s over.

“You killed Cassiopeia because she was the necromancer — she was the one in control of whatever creature she summoned and you needed that control to be yours and yours alone. You didn’t realize that you screwed yourselves.”

“‘Cause they were busy screwin’ everyone else,” huffs Nik behind him.

Millet has gone pale, the dark circles under her eyes pronounced against her almost skeletal pallor. “Her body became a totem.” Is that a hint of resignation in her tone? Or maybe just wishful thinking.

“Specifically her hand,” Cadence confirms with a nod, “like the trophies Reimonenq kept in his mortal life. If you had conjured up any random malevolent soul instead of going for sick, twisted irony maybe it would have been different but…”

“But she who holds the Hand holds the power.”

There was a lot about the plan that had been left up in the air. When, or if, the Coven Elders would even arrive. If they would summon the wraith immediately or attack in some other form. If there was even the smallest chance they could be convinced to stop the needless violence; their grab for power stayed in favor of the cooperation that should have happened in the first place.

But the one thing they had all been forced to agree upon was the one thing no one wanted to think about.

They had the totem, now what?

An eye for an eye was the most logical, solved the most problems. But then how were they any better than the Elders?

They may have been forced to agree but that didn’t mean it was without argument.

Cadence had been the last one to exit the underground tomb, his gruesome work finally done. Cassiopeia’s hand had been wrapped in Cal’s flannel and held out between them all as an unholy relic.

It made sense for Nik to take it — for a Nighthunter to be the one to make the final blow whatever that blow may entail.

Instead he held it out to Vera; insisted she take it. “You’re the one who’s suffered the most here. He’s your kin.” And polite Vera, kind Vera; Vera who had been tangled up in this out of fear and a desire to save Kristin and had resigned herself to suffering a curse she could never lift, took the bloodied bundle and made her peace with accepting the burden.

Never said what she planned on doing — it was just assumed she’d send the creature after the Elders; wield the totem the way a hero wields a sword to deal the dragon a final blow.

Maybe it was something Vera didn’t know herself. Couldn’t know until she was in the moment and had to make the choice before hesitation was their undoing.

Well they’re in that moment now. Taylor watches her square her shoulders, her bare hands grasping real flesh for only the second time in her entire life, and knows she’s chosen.

The wind rustles her curls silently as Vera holds out the severed hand in offering to the bloodwraith.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” The words come out of Daniels’ mouth but they don’t sound like her at all — there’s no restraint in her fear now.

Vera doesn’t deign the woman worth an answer. Just watches, waits for the creature to move. But even it doesn’t seem to understand what her intentions are.

Vion sneers — but even that wavers. “Foolish mortal child. If you wish to live you will keep that thing away from its totem.”

“I won’t do it —” —she whips around to Taylor behind her, tears stinging where they well at her eyes— “— I can’t do it, Tay. I can’t kill them.”

She can’t. If she does, she’s no better than they are. She’s the monster her mother is, the monster her ancestor is. Whether it’s true or not it’s how she feels so he feels it too.

“Baby girl if there was ever a time to grow a spine… now’s it.”

Vera stares over his shoulder to her mother’s wavering figure straining down the garden path.

They knew taking her out of the hospital was a necessary evil. She was the wraith’s last true victim. Her presence made some of the uncertainties of the plan less so because they knew it would come to finish what it started. But the fight, rushing her out of the fray; it’s proving to be too much. Ashen-faced and every muscle in her body screaming let me rest but she doesn’t.

Lady Smoke does not run from her enemies.

“Momma…”

Yet even with everything they’ve been through, despite her daughter refusing to leave her hospital bedside, there’s the furrow of command in her hardened face. She looks at Vera in the same way she had back at her club. Not a mother; a mob boss.

“Tonya, don’t —” Katherine tries to stay her advance but she’s shrugged off; hand batted away like a bothersome fly.

“Your whole life you’ve been runnin’ from who you are, Vera Claire. I shouldn’t have indulged it, that’s my sin to bear; lettin’ you make yourself weak. But now there’s lives at stake, includin’ your own. Maybe you still ain’t got the sense to use your gift for me but would you forgive yourself if your weakness killed everyone else?”

Vera can’t believe it. Frankly neither can anyone else. “What — Momma, stop. Why’re you doin’ this now of all times?”

“Because you’ve always been too stubborn to see what needs to be done!”

“No one else needs to die!”

“Then they’ll kill you first!”

“I won’t do it, goddammit —” if Smoke thought scolding her daughter would shame her into acting she has another thing coming, every word pulls Vera back from the murderous edge, “— I won’t be you! I refuse! I refused then and I refuse now!”

Vera’s voice cracks and the dam breaks; tears down her cheeks with the hovering shadow of pure evil behind her and a lifetime of rage and loathing coming out at the wrong moment but it wasn’t she who chose to rip open these old wounds now — so why should she have any mercy, any sympathy for the frail woman who did this to herself.

“We were both here that night. But it went after you — and if you weren’t so obsessed with gettin’ back your damn Touch you’d realize why that is. I won’t do it. I won’t take a life, even like this. I won’t be you — I won’t be a monster.”

And it’s final this time; when she turns away from her mother to face her decision right in the bloodstained face. “Derek Reimonenq was a monster too. I won’t use him and I won’t become him to get what I want. I know there’s another way.”

“You know nothing of the craft,” all of Daniels’ malice shoved into one last push; one last attempt. Her hands twitch at her side but the witch knows better than to act. Acting runs the risk of losing the totem holding the bloodwraith bound — or the wraith itself.

All her power and all the misery she’s orchestrated up to now and she’s reduced to nothing but words. Words that cause Vera to look up at her with pity. The ultimate insult.

Taylor sucks in a breath as she takes a step closer to the creature; can’t help himself even though he trusts her. Trusts she knows what she’s doing and believes in the path she’s taking.

So he has to believe in her, too. Their lives depend on it.

“I know the misery it’s brought. And I know I won’t have a hand in it anymore.” On silent command the bloodwraith opens its ghoulish talons held aloft. And with all of her fear and grief and anger put aside Vera lays the dead witch’s token upon them.

The skin fades sickly pale and bloodless veins spread black and ruinous. A horrific sight not unfamiliar — and Taylor knows in a part of him that’s still tied to the grief of Cassiopeia’s misplaced trust that the unknown magics preserving her body in the tomb lift and allow her to finally rest.

Even accepting the reality that there was a tortured soul powering the bloodwraith like Satan’s battery — he still couldn’t think of it as something with thoughts; something beyond a mindless killing entity. Which probably explains the weird feeling that comes with watching the creature as it looks down at the totem with a curiosity that could almost be called human.

Behind it the Elders close even tighter ranks. He’s not entirely certain they shouldn’t be doing the same.

Then, like all living things the wraith crosses, the hand begins to wither. Flesh pulled taut against skeletal fingers before eating away at itself the way maggots do; reveals the muscles underneath and the tissue between bones until those desiccate too. Until all that’s left are pale off-white bones that fall in little thunk-thunks to the dirt at its… levitating burial wrappings.

Uncertainty hangs over their heads crisp and icy, prickles like needles at Taylor’s skin and tries to choke him from the inside with every breath.

Now what?

The witches strike first. Try to get the jump on the bloodwraith while its back is still turned with three right hands extended and three burning spheres of fire brought together in Daniels’ power and sent hurtling forward.

Like that’ll make a difference.

The blaze collides against the creature’s spine and even manages to set a few tattered edges of it’s billowing wraps alight. But fire is like all things; needs oxygen to breathe and live. And nothing lives that close to the wraith’s existence. Cassiopeia’s hand proved that.

What would have happened if they’d done nothing; if they had fled, or held their breaths and stayed very still? Would they have been spared? Would Reimonenq’s soul take its newfound freedom and flee beyond the Veil?

It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Because they act — they lash out first. So technically there’s nothing against the retaliation coming.

Maybe if they’d kept Cassiopeia alive she could have banished it before the slaughter.

And it is.

The ghastly, gleeful grin Taylor swears he can see twisted back upon its lips will haunt him for some time; whether it’s really there or not.

The bloodwraith makes quick work of the ones who bound it to bone. It may have enjoyed the hunt every other time before but this — this it has been waiting for from the moment it was birthed in blackness and greed. Taking no time to savor their screams.

Not that the Elders go quietly — each new barrage of magic changes the air pressure and makes Taylor’s eyes swim dizzy and confused. They send spell after spell and chant after chant at the bloodwraith’s face, it’s torso, the space between it and the ground. They try to swallow it up with a tear in reality, send blood from their open veins to slake its thirst; things magic might not even be capable of but are made real in those desperate last moments.

As if the universe, the forces Beyond, the things that bind The Fate in rules against intervention give the witches all the power their mortal bodies can hold. In the same way a death row inmate is given a feast for his last meal.

The wraith’s tainted touch is too good for them. Keeps them whole, maybe even alive long enough to continue toying with. It can’t have that.

So it plunges through Millet’s abdomen bodily. Cleaves her in two uneven pieces and the rest of her splattered on the stone wall at her back. The viscera is dark, almost black against the bleach-white bones that emerge like a butterfly that could only come from the mind of H.G. Wells.

Vion’s cloudy eyes are plucked from his skull with veins and nerves snapping like taut strings. His mortal mouth isn’t wide enough to fit the wraith’s claw until it is — but only after flashing the onlookers with the bottom half of the smile he never learned how to give. Like scooping stew out of the pot with knives his organs come out mangled, misshapen.

The smell is awful and Taylor wants to look away but he doesn’t. Forces himself to watch each new torture and indignity those husks are subjected to. Because they are husks now. There’s no way anyone could be alive after that.

Even when he feels Nik’s tension closer than before and a hand inches its way up to the corner of his eye he brushes it aside. “You shouldn’ have to see this,” the Nighthunter whispers. And he’s right. He shouldn’t have to.

But the Coven Elders only have themselves to blame for that. They were the ones who pulled him into the dark and horrible. “I will anyway;” his equally voiceless reply.

And then there’s Elder Daniels. Made to watch the evisceration and mutilation of her kin. The last witches to fall to The Bloody Hand. That’s her fault, too.

It backs her into the Millet-strewn wall but she does not cower. It rakes talons through her throat her gut her four limbs but she does not scream. It hovers in the air over the pile of her it created but she does not look away — eyes brighter in death than they ever were in life.

The hardest part comes after. Waves of nausea and anguish and the taste of blood at the back of his throat that leave him shaking, crying even though he knows there was no other way — that someone had to die. It takes time but the feelings and all their overwhelming wrath do fade.

Belatedly he realizes — the last of the Coven Elders, those tiny wisps of purpose and ill, have left this world.

The fallout of them remains.

The bloodwraith hovers there among its finest work. Takes them in maw dripping blood and tissue stained red and reeking of death and righteous revenge — but still, silent as the grave.

Without tether or ruling hand there is nothing left inside its hollow ribs. Its great work is done.

Elric is the first to speak, voice cracked from exhaustion, and Taylor isn’t the only one who jumps slightly at the broken silence.

“We must destroy the creature before its nature overpowers the echoes of its former self.” Not that he has to tell anyone twice.

“Think it’ll sit still long enough fer us to put it through a woodchipper?” Kristof isn’t joking.

But Elric shakes his head; doesn’t humor even outlandish ideas. “I… do not know.”

Katherine favors her left side as she hobbles close enough for Ryder to prop her up. “We could pursue another necromancer — but the odds of one being close enough to get here in time…”

“An’ I definitely don’ have enough arrows to banish it to the Veil.”

“So we’re fucked?”

“Every passing moment deteriorates its complacency. It will go rabid.”

“If we had the totem —”

“— the Elders would still be alive, so stop lookin’ at me like that mother.”

Through the din of arguments and ideas tossed forward and debunked Taylor sees their guest again. Watches as The Fate holds his gaze then looks out, slow and with purpose. Over the grass and gravel stained black that now shines like glass under the revealing moonlight.

The stars shine much the same but the trails left by Elric and Garrus’ valiant effort in cornering the witches are a different beauty. Something ethereal and as bright as it is dark. Scorched trails of obsidian creating beauty in destruction.

With all the weird and cryptic help they keep giving, he’s gonna need to get The Fate a fruit basket delivered or something.

“Do you have enough strength to do it one more time?”

Elric looks at him with a furrowed confusion — takes a moment to understand before he withers further. “I worry not even Garrus’ aid will be enough to burn the beast. Not alone.”

Taylor’s heart sinks, but Nik catches it before it gets too low.

“So help ‘em out, Rook.”

“Me?”

“You did it before.”

“Yeah but not on purpose.”

“So get Elric to channel it to you again.”

Then his father is at his side with pale palm turned up in offering. “You are not the same person you were then. You may not need my help.”

Everyone’s stopped arguing now; listening intently. Talk about stage fright.

“Yeah I — I don’t think so. The other fae, the ones inside…”

“Not all of us have the touch to do such wonders.”

And isn’t that just great. “Obviously. Why would it ever be easy?”

He throws a look to Garrus, still half-caught in Krom’s arms though looking far less on the verge of unconsciousness. Not that Krom worries over him any less. They catch him looking and their smiles are matched; happy, relieved, sheepish. Makes Taylor have the just-barely resistible urge to shake his head and say “those crazy kids.”

What’s the use arguing at this point?

“Okay. I mean — however I can help.”

Of course the stone troll is reluctant to let Garrus go, takes more than a fair bit of coaxing from Ivy but he does. “I haven’t stretched these muscles in a century,” comes the anticipated complaint, “and now you have me conjuring twice in one evening?” But Garrus doesn’t hesitate as he takes his position back up.

Elric directs Taylor nearest Isadora; doesn’t argue when Nik follows like an extension of him.

“I’ll be okay.” Not that he doesn’t appreciate the support.

“I know —” then, after a beat, “— still. Don’t have to leave you, so I won’t.”

A hush falls with the fae men in their positions. The outcast, the Lord, and the halfling in a triangle around the dormant wraith.

He knows he shouldn’t but that’s never stopped Taylor before. Cautiously reaches out with that feeling inside and tries, more out of curiosity than anything, to search for anything that remains of Reimonenq within its cursed bones.

But he’s just met with a void. Blacker than black — no revenge, no vendetta to carry out; nothing at all.

So he pulls it back… and feels the faint whisper of death like velvet on his cheek.

It’s as ready as they are for all this to be done with.

Not that he was expecting a lesson on a chalkboard or anything — Conjuring Grimfire 101 — but there’s a distinct lack of any kind of instruction that leaves Taylor more than a little lacking. Has him looking back and forth to mirror the men in everything he can see.

One minute the uncertainty is there; building inside of him a threatening mass of the unknown — and then it isn’t.

It’s just gone.

Whatever takes its place—not confidence, not quite—is enough, somehow. He knows it’s enough.

Looking down Taylor isn’t surprised to see wisps of black flame licking at his palms. Both enveloped and not, but not a burn in sight and so so beautiful.

It doesn’t take much. Barely even a gesture but moreso the power to let the grimflames take to the world beyond him.

Taylor, Garrus, Elric — they aren’t three people and three flames anymore. They’re one in the same; send their combined will forward. Rushing, racing on still winds lapping and hissing at one another until they seek home in the only thing they can.

A column of midnight fire erupts towards the sky as the bloodwraith is consumed. The last of its flesh, the tendrils of cloth, the thrice-burned bones engulfed in a fire that bathes the entire garden in light.

Taylor prepares himself — muscle memory — for a stinging wave of heat that never comes. And the sight is as captivating as it is terrible, as magical as it is destructive. Colors without names taking the wraith’s shape within the black — aberrant and awe-some.

Higher and higher the grimfire clamors for the abyss; seeks home in a darkness just as endless. The colors within grow to a blinding brightness as, within, the creature is devoured.

The Council of New Orleans watches as one. Blooded and bruised and alive. Shadows of light in lashes across every face like a ritual of cleansing.

Cadence shoulders the combined weights of Kathy and Cal; holds them up with tears in his eyes.

As Kristof watches, jaw slack, Octavia lumbers up to him with blood-matted fur and noses at his palm, turns a golden gaze up to the place where the fire and the heavens meet. Even Isadora finds herself held captive by the sight.

Vera’s hands cup her elbows, the glowing shadows catching on her curls and every teardrop that collects at her chin. Behind her Tonya stands shrouded in the dark of her daughter’s figure. The only one focused on something else.

But it makes sense. Don’t ask him how but it does. It isn’t just the bloodwraith that is forced to make peace in the fae fire’s glow. It shines on all of them and chases away every shadow left in the chambers of their hearts. Leaves within Taylor a feeling of profound peace; of understanding.

From tip to temple the remnants of the bloodwraith scatter upwards, rainbow embers scattering to every corner of the city — further even.

Upturned palms slowly close with curled-in fingers; Garrus, then Elric. Elric who looks at his son with pride to which nothing can compare. Taylor almost doesn’t want to let it go. Wants to let it build and stay in this beautiful monument to everything… everything.

Instead he closes his hands and snuffs out the light.

The curtains close.

Cade pulls away gasping; covers his mouth with the back of his hand with something akin to shame burned into his red eyes. Katherine gives him time; lets the vampire come back to himself with her bare arm still offered; just in case.

It isn’t lost on Taylor — or anyone, really — that the huntress was content to push half a wine glass of her blood towards Isadora de la Rosa. That the vein was a luxury only Cadence was allowed.

Cadence who holds her arm gingerly as he smears blood from his nicked thumb along the skin and lets it heal.

All around them the Mardi Gras decorations still shimmer with delight. Enticing them to forget their worries and relax; to enjoy themselves in a way they might finally be allowed, now. But the night isn’t done yet. Neither are they, no matter how much they might wish otherwise.

Two ashtrays pass between hands. Inside; a thin layer of blood shared among them like a church sacrament. The unspoken rule — take just enough to heal your wounds, because the likelihood that either vampire was willing to part with more than they could afford was slim.

And he cares about the rest of his friends — he does. He’s glad to see the bruises fading from Kathy’s ribs where her shirt is hitched up; to see Cal testing the motion of his arm where Octavia had helped relocate his shoulder. He’s glad — yet it doesn’t stop him from devoting the majority of his attention to Nik.

“No physical signs of a concussion,” mumbles Cade through his careful examination of the man’s pupils; flashes the mini-light from Taylor’s keys between them just in case, “and as any possible wounds would be internal there isn’t much my blood can do that it wouldn’t have done already.”

But Ryder will only humor them for so long. The frustration is already starting to tick in his brow. “Cool, then will you lay off?”

“Nik —”

“I’m fine Rook, see?” He gestures with arms spread wide and what is that supposed to prove? Can anyone blame him for worrying? Would anyone dare to try?

No, not like this. Not when the events of the night still hang over those gathered like an anvil on a very thin rope. Only when it drops it won’t be for comedic effect.

All they need is someone to cut the cord.

Good thing Nik Ryder has never been one to sugarcoat anything. Or hold his tongue for that matter.

“They weren’t wrong, you know, the Coven Elders.”

Which is so the wrong thing to say and gets a couple hundred pounds of angry sweaty werewolf in his face, growling; “The fuck’d you just say, Ryder?”

Even Isadora’s disapproval isn’t so easily contained. “Poor taste, Nighthunter.”

But he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t waver. Looks Kristof square in the eyes with a matching frown and a set jaw.

“You could ignore it before, but you sure can’t now. Things around here have gotten way outta hand. Each one’a you only cared about what was right under your noses. I ain’t sayin’ they went about it the right way but to walk outta here with nothing changed would be almost just as bad.”

That he doesn’t end up with a broken jaw is surprising on its own. When Kristof actually steps back as if to listen? Well Hell went straight from frozen over to a winter wonderland.

“Continue,” prompts Elric then, since no one else is willing to offer the floor to him. Why would they? Who wants to be told everything they’ve done wrong? Especially when it leads to… well.

“I didn’ think about the state of things until I saw what was goin’ on inside Persephone. Told myself it wasn’t any of my business —”

“— which it is not,” Tonya interrupts, and meets the glare Vera snaps at her with a hard set to her jaw. “Nighthunters have always been a complicated party. No allegiances, no code of conduct but their own. And now this one wishes to dictate to us all of the things we are at fault for as though he stands on some sort of higher ground?”

Vera just shakes her head, dislike rotting into distaste on her tongue.

“Unbelievable. You still don’t think you have any blame to take in any of this.”

“Do you have any idea what I’ve done to keep this city safe?”

“Oh I’m well aware, mother,” the words lash out on the tip of her tongue; make Tonya recoil however slight. “In fact — that, that right there — that’s half the problem here! That’s exactly what Ryder’s talking about. You stand there actin’ like a martyr when all you’ve done—all you’ve really done—is bully, bribe, and threaten your way into power. How long do you think it’ll keep now?”

She’s no longer the woman who went running at the smallest sign of danger. It’s a thing to behold, really.

And Vera isn’t the only one. Even with all of his huffing and puffing Cal steps up and looks Kristof square in the eyes. There’s a set to his jaw and his eye is still a little purple but hell if he’s backing down now.

“Now don’t you go makin’ trouble for yerself, pup,” his kin warns, but what else could he possibly lose that he hasn’t already?

“Anyone who disagrees with you makes trouble.”

“Yeah, and?”

The younger wolf’s joints pop and crack as he cranes his neck from side to side. Both of them rearing to go even after everything.

“That’s no way to lead a pack.”

Kristof snorts through a cherry-red face. “An’ I take it you’ve got a lotta thoughts you been holdin’ in.”

“You could say that.”

“Until you’re an Alpha I don’t think you’ve got much of a say.”

“He may not, but I’ve a few thoughts, cher.”

There’s a very Et tu, Brute? vibe in how Octavia places herself in the familiar space between the argument. Back then and here in the now Octavia remains a voice of reason to compensate for the one her Alpha just doesn’t seem to have been born with.

His nostrils flare. “Tavvy…”

“I ain’t sayin’ the pup’s right, but you an’ I both know he’s got a point. Things have been good for us, Kristof. Good for the pack.”

“Yeah, why the hell d’you think that is?!”

“I’m not sayin’ you ain’t sacrificed to keep us goin’. An’ I’ve backed you up on every single thing to date. But Kristof Jensen so help me if you raise your voice at me again I will whoop your furry behind to kingdom come and that’s a promise.”

The Alpha and his Beta square off, eye to eye. She commands the space around her despite behind several heads shorter than him. Being part of a pack means something deeper than most can understand and it radiates out from them in viscous tension.

He’s an Alpha; he can’t back down. But she’s his partner — so she won’t.

And Cal, who can’t tell if he has the other wolf on his side or just not on Kristof’s, refuses to let himself be pushed out of the conversation.

“Uncle,” one word that snaps all attention back to him, “you picked up the pack when we needed it most. You know they’re grateful — you know I’m grateful —” and there’s something hidden unspoken in Cal’s words, something from before all this but can’t be held back any longer, “— you were the Alpha they needed when I couldn’t be.

“But the pack can’t be more important than the community it’s part of. You can’t pull away from the rest of New Orleans and call it keeping everyone safe. Not when it leads to shit like this.”

There’s so many emotions and reactions twisting on the Alpha’s scarred face; Taylor doesn’t even attempt to reach out to feel them for fear of empathy whiplash.

So he’s just as surprised as everyone — Cal and Octavia included — when the wolf deflates; sags his shoulders and reaches out for the Beta to find a home crooked under the weight of his arm.

“Now ain’t the time to get into the nitty-gritty.”

Before Cal can object, Octavia squares him away with a single glance. Maybe not now, but soon. And that’s more than before, so he’ll take it.

To everyone’s surprise Isadora steps forward with a steely eye.

“My father was no saint. Since inheriting his seat and estate I have come upon a number of… gruesome things; things he was content to keep from me, and no doubt from the rest of the Council.”

If anyone notices the way her eyes flick to Cadence, they don’t mention it. “But I think that is the point Ryder makes; we, this Council, are supposed to be the ones making decisions for the betterment of this proud city. Instead we have burrowed our heads in the sand, contented ourselves with turning a blind eye to one another’s wrongdoings lest our own come to light.

“We cannot continue like this. The Council will not survive it. New Orleans will not survive it.”

Murmurs of agreement echo throughout the foyer; Elric stands.

“We are tired; we are battle-worn. Yet we have ignored our obligations to the city for long enough I think. If we are to be the ones to bring about a positive change then the time to act is now.”

“Now?” asks Tonya in protest, “don’t you think we should postpone this — at least until Mardi Gras has settled?”

Nik drags two stools forward. Taylor takes the hint and he isn’t the only one — Krom and Ivy join him in grabbing chairs and other seats until everyone has a place to get comfortable.

“No time like the present.”

THE MISSING PIECE

Original title: Il pezzo mancante.

Prompt: mistery, action, hacker.

Warnings: A.U., OOC.  

Genre: romantic, action, mistery, friendship.

Characters: Luke Alvez, Penelope Garcia, Derek Morgan, BAU team.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot.

Legend: 💏😘👓🔦🐶🎲👻.

Song mentioned: none.

Translated by my lovely sister of delirium @theshamelessmanatee ❤

The Missing Piece- Masterlist

MY OTHER GARVEZ STORIES

THE MISSING PIECE - Part 2

-What? Me? In danger?- she protested. -I need no bodyguard!- unfortunately she had no choice. This is why he was standing at her door waiting to enter. He wasn't in a formal attire: a plain white shirt and a pair of jeans. He had with him a little shoulder bag in which she was sure he was hiding his gun. But she tried to not think about it, actually she tried to think about nothing at all. - I told you I don't need protection.- she said even if she knew she already had lost that battle. He smiled back at her as he entered the apartment. The place was as colourful as its owner: there were little things and puppets and posters everywhere. It looked more like an art installment than a proper home. -I prepared the couch for you- she said showing it to him. -tell me if you need anything else...- she started heading towards her bedroom but he stopped her.

-But it's early. Would you like to take me company?- he proposed with one of his brightest smile. She looked away.

-And what you had in mind?- Luke was thinking about a couple things he couldn't say out loud. So, he shrugged and watched as she closed the door of the bedroom behind her.

He was sure he'd have a sleepless night ahead of him, so he was really surprised when the strange ringtone of her phone woke him up. He tried to listen for a moment, feeling bad about it but it was his duty. He couldn't hear anything clearly, just some random words but as soon as he heard a broken cry coming from the opposite side of the door he knocked -Everything ok?- he asked but she didn't answer.

-Miss Garcia, I'm coming in...- silence again. When he opened the door, she was sitting on her bed hugging a pillow. Without the bold dress she was wearing in the morning she looked younger and fragile. She raised her head from the pillow to properly look at him and he noticed the tears on her face.

-What are you doing here?- she tried to look strong. He walked closer to her instead of replying.

-I heard you crying...something happened?-

-It was the clinic... Flick...- she sobbed -...he was really old, but he seemed to be better and then...- Luke realised she was talking about an animal of the clinic. -It's nothing. you are probably thinking I am stupid... I am really...emotional...- she tried to smile. Luke didn't think she was stupid. Without a word he got closer and hugged the woman letting her head rest on his shoulder. He had always been bad at consoling people in his job, not knowing what to say or do when they were crying for a lost loved one in front of him. But in this case, he wanted to be there for her. He caressed lightly her back as she cried. He couldn't believe she was responsible of Lynch's disappearence, couldn't believe she was an enemy to capture. He couldn't believe she was acting now.

Finally, after a while, she calmed down. The clock showed it was 3 a.m. -You feeling better?- he asked, formal attitude long gone. She nodded.

-Yes... I know what you are thinking: I sure did love Kevin so much if I couldn't cry for him and here I am, drowning you in my tears for an old dog.- Luke looked down at the wet patch on his shirt and shrugged because he didn't care.

-Everybody suffer their own way... they say.- he smiled at her trying to lighten the mood. He knew he should go back to the couch, but something told him to not leave her side.

-Will you be able to sleep?- she didn't answer. -Do you want to go to the clinic?- he noticed that they were still hugging.

-No... there is nothing I can do. Doctor Smithson called me because he knows how much I care about our animals... Flick had no family, no home, he was our mascot.- she smiled sadly.

-Are you a vet?- he knew she wasn't, he had read it in her file, but he was curious to hear her answer.

-Oh no! I have a degree in computer technology but… some circumstances prevented me from using my knowledge and since I love animals...- she shrugged.

-Good night then, or almost good morning.- it was close to 4 a.m. now.

-Good night Luke.-

 -I forgot to tell you last night that you shouldn't go to work for your own safety until we solve the case...- Penelope shot him a judgy look since she had just finished to get ready, make up and all.

-And what I should say to my boss? They want to kidnap me but I don't know why...do you think he is gonna pay me anyway?- she rolled her eyes and left the room to make a long phone call. When she was back she had an enigmatic look in her eyes -Problem solved.- she said ironically. -What now?- Luke had an idea but again it would have been not professional to say it out loud.

-My teammates will do anything to find Kevin, but you must be real honest with me- she scrunched her face like a kid and Luke tried to not smile. -you haven't told me everything. And I haven't been totally honest to you too.- Penelope was surprised and worried by his admission. -I am not here only to protect you. We know about your past and the reason why they are after you. We think Lynch was just a decoy to get your attention not the real target.- she didn't say anything but she turned paler. -The name black queen rings any bell?- she buried her face in her hands and then gestured Luke to sit down.

-Ok. I am a hacker. This is what you wanted to hear? But I still don't know why someone would kidnap me..- she was lying. She blushed- Ok, I know why. I was one on the most dangerous people on a CIA blacklist... but that was a long time ago.- she sounded like she was telling the truth. -Oh my God it's my fault, if something bad happens to Kevin...- she bit her lips to stop from crying.

-Hey hey listen to me. It is not your fault, anything that can happen would not be your fault...- he grabbed her shoulders trying to calm her down but in the hurry of the movement her jacket slipped down a little revealing a bruise. They looked each others in the eye as she tried to convey silently the same argument of the day before. At the same time, he received a text. He let her go to look at his phone.

Evidence of abuse at Lynch's. He wasn't the little angel we thought. News?

He decided to not answer the message. He tried to look at Penelope from another point of view: those bruises couldn't be caused by her clumsiness. Kevin bit her. Probably regularly. He wondered how she managed to have kept her own home for so long, to have kept some sort of independence from him. Only thinking about it made him mad.

-What happened?- she noticed something was wrong

-Why didn't you tell me he was beating you?- he grabbed her arms and revealed the several bruises and cuts she had on them. -Penelope you can trust me.- why was he saying something like that? If their roles had been reversed would he trust her?

-Of a fed?- she tried to compose herself and withdraw from him. -If you think I make Kevin disappear because he beat me, you are wrong.- her tone was terribly bitter. -You have no idea about the situation.- she adopted the formal tone too.

-Then tell me.- he got closer again. Penelope looked scared.

-No. You wouldn't understand and... - she shook her head- if you want to arrest me just do it.- she changed her behavior, showing her wrists. Luke grabbed them only to take her closer -It'd had been better if we never met.- she whispered but Luke heard it.

-Penelope what else are you hiding from me? There is something that scares you, I can see it in your eyes..- the blonde tried to look away -Do you know who took Lynch?- she then looked him in the eyes.

-No... but I have an idea.- for a moment he couldn't concentrate about anything except of her kissable lips -Please, Luke, I don't want you involved in this. It is dangerous.- who did she think she was talking to? Did he have a gun and a badge for nothing?

-I am already involved.- he said in a small voice, before touching her back and giving her a clear idea of his intentions but letting her pushing him away if she didn't want to. That was completely wrong. Firstly, she was a potential victim or perpetrator in an open. Anyway, she was involved in an open investigation. Secondly, she was the girlfriend of one of his coworker. But said coworker was hurting her and tossed her in some obscure mess with very dangerous people, if she was concerned about Luke being involved too. He thought that her lips were as soft as her voice and her eyes. He would never let anything happen to her. Something about her have attracted him since the beginning. A fragility hidden behind a thousand shades.

He had never done something so crazy before. Always in time, always respecting the rules, never cheated, not even in elementary school. And now he had fucked up in the worst way possible, like in a low badget soap opera. He fell in love with the woman he must protect and suspect at the same time.

His phone ringed again. Recognizing the number he answered -Alvez.- Penelope looked at him still a little shocked from what had happened. -How? You wouldn't believe...ok.- he closed the call annoyed. -They are coming to take you. The proofs of the physical abuses are a motive to make you a suspect. They are gonna still you until they can.- she noticed him referring as his coworkers as they were strangers. Like he didn't agree with them. -Without a real evidence they can't do anything.- he caressed her face, trying to give back some heat and colour to it. -Listen to me Penelope, I won't let anything happen to you...- but she wasn't listening anymore, shaking her head like in a trance state.

-They are gonna kill me. They are gonna kill me.- she looked shocked. -I didn't do anything to Kevin.- someone knocked at the door. She grabbed his hands desperately. -Luke, do you believe me?- everything was at stake in his reply. His future, his career...

- Yes-

New study: college students drink more before casual sex than relationship sex

Sex events measured against intimacy level (for women only)

It turns out that college students use MORE alcohol and drugs when they have sex with strangers, and LESS alcohol and drugs when they have sex with people they are in a relationship with.

This study was reported by the far-left Psychology Today.

Excerpt:

A recent study published in the Journal of Sex Research sheds some light on these questions. A research team headed by Jennifer Walsh analyzed alcohol use in almost 500 casual and 1400 romantic sexual intercourse events that happened to 300 college women on a monthly basis over a period of 12 months. Alcohol use was not very common during romantic sex: 20% of romantic encounters involved some drinking and only 5% involved heavy drinking (defined as four or more drinks). Hookups, on the other hand, were a different story: Women drank during 53% of their hookups, and drank heavily during 38% of all hookups.

But not all hookups are created equal. There was an almost perfect linear relationship between drinking and partner closeness: The less known the partner, the more likely women drank before sex, and the more likely they drank a lot. Look at the graph I created based on their data. When the casual partner was an ex-boyfriend, for example, only 30% of hookups involved drinking and 17% heavy drinking. When the partner was a random stranger, however, 89% of hookups involved drinking and 63% involved four or more drinks!

The writer explains why this happens:

Alcohol also provides an excuse to those who need one. In a world that encourages hooking up but also judges those (especially women) who engage in it too much, many seem to need it. You’re a slut if you hook up with people just because you want to: Good girls don’t actively want to hook up, and being sober means taking full responsibility for your actions. But if you can blame it on the alcohol, you’re absolved of guilt. You can still be a good girl who just happened to make a mistake.

This study agrees with a study I blogged about before from the University of Virginia, which explained that college students drink before hook-ups in order to be able to explain to their friends why it wasn’t their fault:

A Rutgers University student commented, “If you’re drinking a lot it’s easier to hook up with someone… [and] drugs, it’s kind of like a bonding thing… and then if you hook up with them and you don’t want to speak to them again, you can always blame it on the drinking or the drugs.”

Other women observed that being drunk gives a woman license to act sexually interested in public in ways that would not be tolerated if she were sober. For instance, a University of Michigan student said, “Girls are actually allowed to be a lot more sexual when they are drunk…”

A University of Chicago junior observed, “One of my best friends… sometimes that’s her goal when we go out. Like she wants to get drunk so I guess she doesn’t have to feel guilty about [hooking up].”

Now, the first thing I thought of when I saw this article in Psychology Today was: “I wonder what criteria these college students are using in order to decide which strangers they have sex with”. And then I realized. For perfect strangers, it would have to be something obvious, like physical appearance. A study found that it takes a woman 3 minutes to decide if she likes a man or not. Whatever assessment is being made in that 3 minutes surely isn’t adequate for long-term plans for marriage, children and church attendance.

Don’t judge me, it wasn’t my fault

It reminds me of something I read a while back in a Theodore Dalrymple book. Theodore Dalrymple is the famous psychiatrist who writes books about culture in the UK. One of his books about the complete lack of personal responsibility among criminals is actually posted online.

In the chapter “Tough Love“, he talks about the nurses he works with:

All the more surprising is it to me, therefore, that the nurses perceive things differently. They do not see a man’s violence in his face, his gestures, his deportment, and his bodily adornments, even though they have the same experience of the patients as I. They hear the same stories, they see the same signs, but they do not make the same judgments. What’s more, they seem never to learn; for experience—like chance, in the famous dictum of Louis Pasteur—favors only the mind prepared. And when I guess at a glance that a man is an inveterate wife beater (I use the term “wife” loosely), they are appalled at the harshness of my judgment, even when it proves right once more.

This is not a matter of merely theoretical interest to the nurses, for many of them in their private lives have themselves been the compliant victims of violent men. For example, the lover of one of the senior nurses, an attractive and lively young woman, recently held her at gunpoint and threatened her with death, after having repeatedly blacked her eye during the previous months. I met him once when he came looking for her in the hospital: he was just the kind of ferocious young egotist to whom I would give a wide berth in the broadest daylight.

Why are the nurses so reluctant to come to the most inescapable of conclusions? Their training tells them, quite rightly, that it is their duty to care for everyone without regard for personal merit or deserts; but for them, there is no difference between suspending judgment for certain restricted purposes and making no judgment at all in any circumstances whatsoever. It is as if they were more afraid of passing an adverse verdict on someone than of getting a punch in the face—a likely enough consequence, incidentally, of their failure of discernment. Since it is scarcely possible to recognize a wife beater without inwardly condemning him, it is safer not to recognize him as one in the first place.

This failure of recognition is almost universal among my violently abused women patients, but its function for them is somewhat different from what it is for the nurses. The nurses need to retain a certain positive regard for their patients in order to do their job. But for the abused women, the failure to perceive in advance the violence of their chosen men serves to absolve them of all responsibility for whatever happens thereafter, allowing them to think of themselves as victims alone rather than the victims and accomplices they are. Moreover, it licenses them to obey their impulses and whims, allowing them to suppose that sexual attractiveness is the measure of all things and that prudence in the selection of a male companion is neither possible nor desirable.

Often, their imprudence would be laughable, were it not tragic: many times in my ward I’ve watched liaisons form between an abused female patient and an abusing male patient within half an hour of their striking up an acquaintance. By now, I can often predict the formation of such a liaison—and predict that it will as certainly end in violence as that the sun will rise tomorrow.

At first, of course, my female patients deny that the violence of their men was foreseeable. But when I ask them whether they think I would have recognized it in advance, the great majority—nine out of ten—reply, yes, of course. And when asked how they think I would have done so, they enumerate precisely the factors that would have led me to that conclusion. So their blindness is willful.

If Dalrymple’s observations about female patients and nurses can be applied more broadly, then it explains why women initiate 70% of divorces. Women who don’t want to be “forced” to be self-controlled and responsible with their choices will want an easy way to get out of it. According to Dalrymple’s experience, it’s not that women don’t know that bad boys are lousy at marriage and fatherhood. They know it, but they choose to blind themselves to it, because it’s just too much self-denial to have to be serious about making responsible choices with men and sex and marriage.

Right now, we are $20 trillion in debt, half of that thanks to Barack Obama’s administration. I believe that the majority of this debt was accrued because people wanted to do what felt good to them in the moment, and then pass off the costs of their “unpredictable” mistakes onto their neighbors. The truth is that these costs will be paid by generations of young people not yet born. People shouldn’t talk about how much they care about children, if their voting will force all the children of tomorrow into slavery.

One last piece of advice to men. My best friend Dina told me to always evaluate women based on their past choices, not based on the picture of themselves that they paint with words. Wise advice.

Go to the article

on the Deities of Qarqa

The recent bit of side story was the first time I overtly named any of the deities the people of the land worship. This was because, while Cypora’s Guide to Becoming an Evil Queen is a story based in Jewish folklore and culture, I didn’t want religion to be the focus of the first novel. My background is super agnostic (comes from being from Commie stock, yanno), and my sense of Jewishness isn’t informed by devotion to G-d.

So, neither is the world i’ve devised. 

The people of the land are a people of a covenant, yes: their ancestors swore to honor no one god above all others. Some interpret this more conservatively than others, and there are those who devote their lives to learning of even the most minor, obscure deities in order to offer proper attention to them. There are endless debates about how this relates to the monotheistic Icosan religion of the Icarian Empire, and at what point something counts as honoring one above all others. Many make the argument that the covenant applies to the people of the land as a whole, and individuals may have a patron deity, and so forth.

A list of but a small number of prominent deities follows:

Avzaman/haShantah Epoch-Father/The Year

The tireless embodiment of the passage of time, god of mortality, aging, and renewal. Turner of the wheel of the five seasons, who is also the feminine embodiment of the year, a relaxed and contented figure bearing great tusks. Both aspects and forms are one and the same being, even when appearing separately and acting in opposition to each other. In leap years, Avzaman rests while haShantah labors, and it is said by some that her work in these years is greater and more productive than Avzaman’s in all others together. Avzaman’s tusks point downwards into his bear, like a walrus, while haShantah’s rise upwards, like those of a hog or mammoth.

Baal’apar Lord Dust

Else called Al Bey, the fertile and barren earth, embodiment of useful soil and the act of creation and the work of art. A golem who became a living human before there was history or words, and the first to be killed at another’s hands. Achingly, horribly handsome, at all times not yet living, living, and deceased, or else according to the season.

Baal Tsachor The Strange Moon

Patron of loups-garous, bandits, outcasts and the disabled. The moon of loneliness, said to appear as a man with a full bosom, skin of a deeper black than any human, and hair of silver. The embodiment of those nights when the moon howls back, and the god of deep, dark nights where the moon hangs high. He is enjoying tormenting the Icosans.

Chamah Queen of Locusts

A goddess of the sun, especially at its highest, hottest times. She is heavily associated with the droning of cicadas during the hottest months of summer, and is a goddess of both life and death, illness and abundance. The final, ultimate judge above all others.

Choiot Life/Serpents

Choiot is said to be eighteen-handed, though whether this means on a single form or as nine figures with two hands each depends upon who you ask. The goddess embodying life as a force, she is prayed to for health, fertility, safe birth, long life, bountiful crops, and many other things. Her form is an interwoven mix of humans and snakes.

haGevurah The Lady

Embodiment of random chance, the most beloved and loathed of deities, said by some to be the one whom to you must not pray, and by others to be the most rewarding. Golden and shadowed, in the likeness of a shedah.

El Guerko Yunus Devil of the Deep Sea

A god feared among sailors, the ruler of the bottom of the parts of the ocean too deep and dark for any human to swim to and survive. A vast, shaggy entity with eyes like two great lights, he is both dreaded and somewhat esteemed as a companion, and some rare prayers speak of him favorably. He is at once a god, a haint, and a se’ir, a capricious dybbuk who can be of impossible size or tiny enough to squeeze into the smallest canoe.

Imatevah Mother Nature

The embodiment of the natural world and of uncorrupted green spaces, as well as the reclamation of ruins and urban space by nature. Equally gentle and terrible, she is said to often appear as no less than twice the stature of any human. 

Layli Night

Red-skinned, dark-eyed goddess embodying the dark hours, as well as the lights set against the darkness. Hers are the screech owls, and she shelters all in a warm blanket or a cool sheet. Beautiful and awful, her teeth are brown with blood.

L’vanah The Birch-White Moon

The moon of mystery and the illuminatrix of dark nights, the weaver of the tides and the snarer of the Icosans who keeps them trapped away from the world. A special patron of women regardless of the circumstances of their birth. 

Malkath Ha’Shamayim The Queen of Heaven

A goddess of love, war, royalty, family, the sky, livestock and plants. At once the bride, the mother, the maiden, the matron. Many-faceted, many-winged, her nature is both deeply personal and ultimately unknowable.

Q’dushah Holy One

The first thing in all of time to die, and the embodiment of death as a force. Q’dusha is said to have a true name, but it is never to be spoken amongst the living. She appears as a lion-headed woman whose hands and arms are made up with henna, and whose nails and teeth are as sickles. A patron of those whose love is forbidden or secret, and a protector of victims of sexual assault, she is followed by a band of twenty-eight bloody-mouthed beasts.

General Yodlebeymer He of Fir-Frost

A god of winter chill whose breath marks windows around the world, especially known in the north. Once simply known as Yodlebeymer, he became involved in the campaigns of the outlanders to battle the Icarian Empire, often riding out in all his terrible white-haired might astride a bull moose, and rose to an esteemed military rank.

More content is coming this week, but if you’d like to see illustrations, writing, and development continue into next week, feel free to click here to donate! Every cent ensures that everyone gets to see new content, and a higher total per week will mean even more created in the following week. Check here for the whole breakdown. 

Unsure about doing this... here goes

I have announced on this blog before that I am an MRA, well yes, that does mean at times I will pause to talk about issues relevant to that. That being said, here is a warning that the following will contain mature subject matter. Only read if you can handle adult discussions.

This is my own experiences with sexual harassment.

 Over the last several months something has been called to my attention, an aggressive series of social justice movements seeking to divide people based solely on born traits or otherwise superficial identifications. One of the most dangerous trends I’ve seen is the concept of trying to say who can and cannot suffer in certain ways, for instance saying only women, transsexuals or other sexual “minority” groups can experience sexual harassment or at least their suffering is more important because they are “marginalized”. To be clear, if you are the victim of genuine harassment, rape, sexual or violent assault, murder, discrimination-anything like that- your suffering is real and understand there is no circumstance that makes it less important. We should not be governing ourselves by who we can forget, the children starving in Russia do not need our help more than those starving in the US. Each person has to decide who they will help for themselves, but do not mistaken such choices for evaluations of who is or is not important. The suffering of a white man is no less important than the suffering of a black woman. When you help someone, you really do need to be mature and realize your choice should not be based on who is or is not important, but rather what your heart leads you to do.

So here goes, my sexual harassment experiences, yes plural… they all kinda blur together over the course of a five year period. You see, about ten years ago now, I joined the army. I was told me being a virgin would be a problem, but I never understood to what degree until I entered. Outside the army some people would ask questions and maybe be a little rude trying to guess the size of my penis, but never anything I couldn’t handle… it was just seriously awkward is all. (There were a few times when the teasing got out of hand to the point of me running and crying from bullies who thought it was funny to constantly badger me about sexual concepts and positions when I was in the sixth grade for some reason, but my parents eventually homeschooled me so that stopped all together.)

(A warning, anyone even thinking of finding out who was in my units and going after them let me be clear- you try and I find out, I will ruin you. Those guys could be mean, but a damn lot of them would have willingly laid down their lives for me so screw the hell off. Maybe that’s why I sometimes hesitate to bring this up, because I know some jerk will always try to say something nasty about soldiers using this as evidence. This is not something against the army. The army has problems and this centers on one of them, but the people in there can be good people. Reform it by all means, but don’t try to hurt the people in it.)

The army was a different story though. One of the major issues with sexual harassment in the army is the frequent imposition of not being allowed to leave certain areas coupled with group punishment. This means if someone thinks it’s funny to constantly ask questions about your genitals you cannot demand he or she leave, nor can you leave yourself. Demanding they knock it off and trying to get them in trouble usually causes just as much trouble for you, if not more. If a woman, knowing you’re a virgin, begins to insist that you are therefore a pedophile, and you rightfully snap at her, you are punished right along with her and the rest of your unit. The idea is that this should create cohesion by making the unit suffer together. What it really does is silence victims because other members of the unit see it as easier to silence them, than address a trouble maker. This means, like me, many people in the army and similar services are subject to nigh and sometimes actual daily sexual harassment or other forms of harassment (people with mental handicaps have it far worse generally BTW) with little to nothing they can do about it.

It’s hard to say what was the worst of it either. Maybe it was AIT where I was constantly told I needed to compare my penis size to other men, which of course I never did nor did they want me to do, I was just an easy target because I was a virgin and they could use the “curiosity” excuse to get away from being called the dreaded “gay”. (Ironically this was a problem word even among those who were staunchly anti-homophobia.) Maybe when I turned people down to visit bars with them and constantly had to defend myself against accusations that I was either hiding the fact that I was a pedophile or fantasized about rape. Maybe it was because at times I subjected others to the same treatment because it was the only way I was ever able to be relieved from it myself (not excusing that, I never should have given in, but I did). Maybe it was experiencing the same harassment from women as men, when feminists and most of society had always taught me this was a “gendered” issue. Maybe it was my loss of innocence regarding women entirely when I slowly found out that women treated each other and other men exactly the same and only men could ever be expected to get in real trouble and only if they were harassing women. Maybe the worst was when a homosexual man grabbed me in public, rubbed his genitals on me and when I threw him off me, I was shouted down by him and my peers for “homophobia”. Maybe it was the constant need to explain to even the more rational people that no, there is no connection between penis size and virginity, nor worse yet, pedophilia, rape, serial killers or other forms of violent crime- why would there fucking be, how did that line of questioning even make sense to them anyway?!!-. Guess they thought they were “just making sure”.

Go ahead folks, tell me, which is the worst sounding of all that? Some of it was near daily, some weekly, some of it got better over time, some got worse and to tell the truth it was all so frequent it all blurred together. (To be fair the gay guy was a one time experience, though as you can imagine it stuck out.) It was worst when I first went in and didn’t know it was coming. Over time I did learn to redirect conversations and how to make people just as uncomfortable discussing my sexuality as I was. (A favorite trick of mine was to question the insecurities that must obviously be present in someone so afraid of virgins.) Maybe the worst of it was knowing no one else really had it much better and no one who wanted a solution had any idea what it would be.

I suppose I should address something that happened as a result of all this. If I were to trace the origin of this, it probably was experiences like this- but I suppose it’s possible I’m just self-diagnosing-. For whatever reason, I have lost all interest in being sexually active, even in a marriage relationship. I suppose that makes me part of a legit minority group officially recognized by a social justice group- a-sexuals… no. I refuse to play that game. You can care about me because I was human and hurt, I will not let you pretend I’m “one of you” so you can continue to neglect concern about my brothers. (Make no mistake, all men are your brothers and all women your sisters.) To LGBT, I remember how you guys acted years ago before you started adding letters. Virgins, by choice or by biology were pariahs to you guys. I have no problem with gay or trans people themselves, but advocacy groups associated with them... I was your enemy ten years ago because I didn’t want to have sex before marriage, and five years ago because I said I wasn’t interested in having sex. Now suddenly you speak for me because you wanted to add a vowel to your dumb acronym? No, you don’t get that privilege. I’m not a-sexual, I’m a virgin. It was mostly people on the political left even in the army who attacked me for my sexual choices. The left gave me the label “virgin” and refused to let me forget it, now I won’t let them forget it. I’m taking that label to my grave.

If anyone feels the desire to apologize to me who didn’t do anything to me, don’t you dare. That’s nothing more than virtue signaling. The only reason to apologize for something you personally were never involved in, is to be seen by others as being sorry, it’s profanity in my book. I hold no grudge against random gay people because one molested me, nor do I hate the sexually active because so many people of that persuasion couldn’t leave me the freak alone. If you feel sorry for me, just say that, but know that I’m fine and moving on, but don’t you dare try to legitimately apologize for something someone else did.

Do I feel like a victim? Objectively myself and many others at the time were, but now, not really. It was years ago and there’s no reason for me to demand anything now, just recognition that my problems were real and therefore, the problems of other men are too. I’m not demanding justice, nor apologies, I’m just asking people to finally realize equality means equality. My suffering is the same as yours, whether I’m part of your group or not. I guess that’s another reason I refuse to identify as an a-sexual, I refuse to give the social justice movement that kind of an out. No, I’m not an a-sexual that you can now pretend to care about when before you thought I was scum of the earth because I was a white male virgin. You either care about me as a human being regardless of my identity or you can get lost.

               So yea, that’s my story and my feelings. Do with them what you will.

RIFF 2018: Phoenix, Styx

Iceland’s first art house cinema, Bíó Paradís (Cinema Paradise), is the cozy central venue of the Reykjavík International Film Festival. Upon opening for business in 2010, the theater has screened the latest independent productions from Europe and the U.S. as well as Icelandic narratives, documentaries and shorts. Covering one of the lobby walls is an eye-popping assortment of custom-made posters for each classic movie screened at the theater’s Svartir Sunnudagar (Black Sunday) retrospectives. The witty designs of these posters, some of which can be viewed here, resemble Criterion covers produced by Mad Magazine. I especially loved the mash-up of “Star Wars” and “The Night of the Hunter,” pasting the faces of Lillian Gish and Robert Mitchum onto Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker, respectively. Gish’s immortal line, “It’s a hard world for little things,” certainly applies to one of the most haunting pictures at RIFF 2018, Norwegian writer/director Camilla Strøm Henriksen’s debut feature, “Phoenix.” Newcomer Ylva Bjørkaas Thedin delivers a deeply moving performance as Jill, a girl on the cusp of celebrating her 14th birthday, who has taken on the role of her family’s sole parental figure. 

Like Ola, the astoundingly mature child single-handedly keeping her family afloat in Anna Zamecka’s great Polish documentary, “Communion,” Jill must perform all the duties normally reserved for adults, serving as the primary caregiver for both her younger brother, Bo (Casper Falck-Løvås), and her unstable mother, Astrid (Maria Bonnevie). The film’s superbly claustrophobic first half takes place within the shadowy confines of the family’s apartment, as Jill goes about her daily routine of coaxing Astrid out of bed, encouraging her to embrace a new job opportunity, reprimanding her for staying out late drinking and finally wrestling her to the ground after she endures another meltdown. It’s no coincidence that Jill happens to be watching “Pan’s Labyrinth” prior to this frightening episode, since her journey is fraught with peril that threatens to unspool into surreal fantasy. Though Astrid’s mental illness is never specified, Bonnevie’s wide eyes convey the desperation of her character as she strains to keep her volatile temper in check. Any given interaction can swiftly derail into chaos, with Astrid only finding temporary solace in crafting artworks, some of which threaten to take on a life of their own. Henriksen is sparing in her use of horror imagery, thus making their inclusion all the eerier, such as when the tendrils of a painting come alive, or when a John Carpenter-esque creature scuttles across the floor. Spawning each of these nightmares is the young protagonists’ palpable fear of being trapped in a world indifferent to their needs. No matter how much Astrid is loved by her children, she grimly informs them, “You aren’t enough.” 

After a galvanizing turn of events, traces of psychosis start to emerge in Jill’s own behavior, as she does everything in her power to protect her brother, who sees through all of his sister’s charades. Eventually their estranged father (Sverrir Gudnason) enters the picture, providing them with a dreamlike escape made all the more painful by its fleeting nature. Any hope that can be found in this story is personified by Jill herself, who is the phoenix rising from the ashes left by two parents unable to deal with the life they brought into the world. Her fierce self-sufficiency in on par with Jennifer Lawrence’s heroine in “Winter’s Bone,” and Thedin is exceptionally skilled at conveying emotions that her character finds too difficult to articulate, even early on while sitting next to a cute guy in class. An educational movie about rainforests projected onto the screen before them makes it appear as if the pair are being doused with water, externalizing the bracing sensation of Jill’s budding crush. It’s a brief yet potent example of Henriksen’s mastery as a visual storyteller. When Festival Director Hrönn Marinósdóttir founded RIFF with a group of cinema experts in 2004, his main desire was to champion fresh faces in cinema, reserving the annual event’s top prize—the Golden Puffin (shaped after the signature animal of Iceland)—for films by first or second-time directors. It would be quite fitting to see this year’s Puffin awarded to a most deserving “Phoenix.” 

Three of the titles screening at RIFF have been selected as finalists for the Lux Prize, an award presented by the European Parliament to honor films that shed light on the debate regarding integration throughout Europe. The last four recipients of the prize have been among my favorite films of recent years: Paweł Pawlikowski’s “Ida,” Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s “Mustang,” Maren Ade’s “Toni Erdmann” and Amanda Kernell’s lesser-known yet equally essential Swedish drama, “Sami Blood.” A worthy addition to this list would be the German-Austrian coproduction among the 2018 contenders, Wolfgang Fischer’s riveting thriller at sea, “Styx.” Named after the river in Greek mythology that runs between Earth and the Underworld, this film brilliantly portrays the moral decision facing us all in light of the ever-escalating refugee crisis. Environmental catastrophe spurred in no small part by America’s stubborn reliance on fossil fuels has caused various parts of the world to become increasingly uninhabitable, forcing those who live there to seek a new home, only to be confronted with one border wall after another. Are we to let these souls in need drown as a result of xenophobic protocol or should we lend a hand? That is the question a paramedic, Rieke (Susanne Wolff), must answer while aboard her small sailing boat in the middle of the ocean. Initially the film appears to be little more than another “woman in peril” spectacle, with Rieke battling driving rain and gale-force winds, yet this sequence is simply meant to further illustrate her expertise in acting quickly and effectively amidst daunting circumstances (a fact we see earlier as she tends to the innocent victim of a car accident). 

The desired destination of her ocean journey is the artificial forest created by Charles Darwin on Ascension Island, an enduring example of how the seemingly impossible can be achieved with the necessary effort and ingenuity. It was Darwin, of course, who famous noted, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” These words are never spoken in the picture, yet they reverberate through every scene, as Rieke spots a stagnant boat overcrowded with refugees on the imminent horizon. Her urgent “mayday” calls receive terse responses ordering her not to intervene until help arrives, even as people start falling from the boat and drowning. One injured boy, Kingsley (Gedion Oduor Wekesa), manages to swim to Rieke’s boat, and she helps him aboard, carefully lifting his body which falls limp as soon as he reaches safety. Kingsley’s need to rescue the surviving members on his sinking vessel, a group that includes his sister, intensifies the conflict welling up within Rieke. The emotionally charged moment when Kingsley grab her leg reminded me of a similar scene in the Dardenne Brothers’ “The Kid With a Bike,” where an orphaned kids clings to a random woman as if for dear life (both boys stand out all the more courtesy of their red clothing). Not only does Wolff bear a striking resemblance to the previous film’s leading lady, Cécile de France, she also embodies the bold and determined spirit of the classic Dardenne heroine. 

In a stunning overhead shot, Fischer surveys a triangle of vessels—Rieke’s sailboat firing distress signals, the nearby ship of dying refugees and an enormous boat perched comfortably in the distant mist, prioritizing job security over recused lives. Whereas Baltasar Kormákur fantastic survival drama, “Adrift,” screening at RIFF as part of a retrospective honoring jury head Shailene Woodley, is a triumph of special effects technology, Fischer went out of his way to shoot “Styx” practically, going so far as to having the crew remain below deck (half of them apparently got seasick). During a post-screening Q&A with the director, an audience member voiced her despair at how people often need works of fiction like “Styx” in order to empathize with the suffering of real people. Yet therein lies the profound purpose of cinema. No art form is more adept at lending a human face to emergencies frequently reduced to statistics on the 24-hour news cycle. 

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Interview with Conor Walsh, Author of Little Glass Men

Back in July we interviewed Conor Walsh about his book Little Glass Men. We are excited to be working with him in our upcoming bookstore!

What do you want reader to take away from Little Glass Men? The hope is that the story would spawn more interest in, if not World War I itself, then at least the stories that spawned from it. I find the era fascinating, but feel it's been highly neglected by most forms of media, for the most part. World War I doesn't have the "allure" that the second World War does - that of a distinct good-and-evil struggle, though of course it was more complex than that. The first World War was a meaningless war, for the most part, and one that everyone lost. So the men who fought and died in it can't even say "Well, at least I beat the bad guys." It's always had a sort of poetic merit to me - a war with no point, but one that men still fought and died in. History doesn't really give them a fair shake. ​ In Little Glass Men you explore a diverse group of characters. Was there a particular perspective that was most difficult to explore? What made you choose these particular characters to explore? Garrett's perspective was the most difficult to tackle, I'd say, mainly because I had a vision behind his character that got somewhat "lost in the shuffle". The idea behind his character is that he'd never really had a childhood or adolescence; that adulthood was forced on him, so to speak. I find him the most interesting, for what that's worth, as he's even more alone than the other people in the hospital. Racism was rampant in the era Little Glass Men takes place; he's half-black. He has no family. His only "friends" are years above his age, and all with their own score of problems. As for the cast of characters, I felt each personified a certain outlook in reference to the war and what it took. Lombardi's angry and bitter, O'Brien is secretly wistful and longs for his life before the war, Garrett is a victim of circumstance more than anyone else, Norman's unable to handle the horrors that he's seen. They've been trodden on by life and by the people close to them, and I feel that makes the way they get through each day all the more intriguing. How do they keep going? A fragment of hope on the edge of the horizon, or a deep-seeded will to survive? Do you have a favorite quote or character from your book? If I were any good at talking about myself I'd say something like "There are just so many great ones, I can't pick!" In reality I'd just like to skirt around them a bit. Avery has a few good lines when she's berating Lombardi - as she should - and I like the end of chapter six in general, though I don't know if I can go into more detail than that for fear of spoiling. As for favorite characters, there I will say it's a bit tougher to pick a favorite. I feel like the struggles of Emerson, O'Brien, and Norman are the most poignant, but I don't know that that necessarily makes them my favorite. I do like Avery, though, she's a firebrand. The sanitarium is called Saint Foresters. Is there a meaning behind it's name? To be perfectly honest I don't believe there is. I'm afraid it's just a name I liked. On Goodreads you listed Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, and Edward Carey as influences. How have they influenced you? Why do you find them so influential? And what are some of your favorite works that they've written? Ray Bradbury is the first hard sci-fi I read, I think. Though sci-fi's one of my favorite genres, the main reason I like him is because of his style. You can read something by Bradbury and recognize it as his by the style alone, which is a skill I hope to one day come close to. Asimov has remarkable - stamina, I guess you could call it. In my head I could see him being very methodical in the way he planned his stories out. He's an excellent storyteller - rarely do his works get caught up on unnecessary details or overly philosophical points. Moreover, I first read his stuff without actually expecting to like it, but the more I read the more I wanted to read. His stories sink their teeth into you, rather than the other way around, and putting down one of his works becomes difficult, to say the least. I'm sorry to say I've only read one book by Edward Carey - Observatory Mansions - but conversely I'm pleased to say that it's one of my favorite novels, if not my favorite hands-down. The way he writes is stylistically interesting, the characters are bizarre in a score of ways but remain interesting and sympathetic, and seemingly-strange or otherwise random points brought up always have a reason attached. A lot of writers seem to enjoy being weird to be weird, without any particular reason - it just lends itself to the style. But Carey's characters are something else. You mentioned that you could see Asimov being very methodical in the way he planned his stories out. When you write, do you tend to plan out your story or fly by the seat of your pants? It's almost always the latter. Little Glass Men wasn't planned at all when I began it, though I did start to separate and organize more as it went on. Recently I've been trying the more methodical approach, but I have yet to tell exactly how effective that's been. I definitely prefer to make it up as I go along, but I've written myself into a corner more times than I'd care to admit. So I suppose it's still a bit of a touch-and-go thing. You said scifi  is one of your favorite genres. Have you written anything scifi or are you planning to? What do you enjoy about scifi? I've written some sci-fi short stories, but none recently. I've had some ideas for sci-fi books, but they've all fallen through. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that even though I am a big fan of the genre, writing it has proved a bit of a challenge. The excuse that springs to mind is that the projects I'm currently working on just happen to not be sci-fi, but in truth I think I'd need to settle for a smaller scope than a swashbuckling, galaxy-spanning space quest. Though dystopian wastelands have eluded me too. I'll write something of substance with a sci-fi genre someday, but right now my brain doesn't want to, for some reason. I'm not sure why I like the genre as much as I do. Maybe because it's so all-encompassing. Most think sci-fi and get images of spaceships and laser fights and aliens, but that's only a small snippet of the genre. Dystopian fiction is typically sci-fi, and the sub-genres (steampunk, cyberpunk) can turn already-interesting concepts on their heads. I've always felt like the genre allows a greater creative scope, not limiting writers to what has been discovered so far - or what even might actually work according to the laws of nature. I remember reading an essay by Asimov - the robots in his stories worked because of "Positrons". If I remember correctly, he said in the essay that he never explained them because he didn't need to - doing so would be long, possibly boring (though Asimov could have kept it interesting), and would prevent the reader from using his or her imagination. By never going into detail and working off suspension of disbelief, he was able to tell excellent stories about fantastic things without being bogged down by details. Is that part of the experimenting you've been doing with your writing on Deviant Art? The works I put up on Deviant Art are typically more experimental, yes. I'm mainly working there to hone my short-story writing ability. Currently I don't believe they're up to the level of quality I want, and that particular site gives me an opportunity to get feedback on what worked and what didn't from those I don't personally know. The only reason I don't use a more literature-focused site to post my stories is because I find  Deviant Art's posting process a lot easier to use than that of any other site, despite its reputation for having no strong literature-focused community. Did you always want to write? What drove you to first put words on a page? I started writing when I was in eighth grade - prior to that point I'd enjoyed making things, but hadn't quite pinned it down to creative writing. I fiddled with some narrative-related stuff, but when I was super-young I was more interested in building things than making stories. Exactly how I got it into my head I couldn't quite tell you, but that year I decided I wanted to write something substantial. I brought it up to my English teacher at the time - his name was Mr. Muelmester. Everybody liked him, including me, and I wanted to see if he had any advice. And he did. "Try short stories first," was the gist of it. Smart man - if I hadn't heeded what he said I probably wouldn't have thought of writing short stories, would have tried and failed miserably to write a novel, and would have chalked it up as something I couldn't do. Possibly. Whatever the possible alternative cases, I'm glad things worked out the way they did. Speaking of advice, on Goodreads one piece of advice you offered to aspiring writers was to pay attention and that the strangest things can spawn ideas. Has anything like this happened to you? Can you give an example? Off the top of my head, it's a little tough to come up with a more recent example. Not because it doesn't happen, but because a single story can be sort-of coalesced from a very wide variety of different bits of media. You might decide you like a certain character type from a movie, book, or game - or you might decide that you'd like a character who acts exactly the opposite. To more adequately answer your question, I believe I've had a few dreams that have been clear and normal enough (rare occurrences, both of them) to be worked into stories. To give yet another example, when I was early in my writing career I saw a woman dressed in army fatigues walking through an airport by herself. Peeking out of the top of her army satchel was a stuffed teddy bear. I recall writing a story inspired by that singular interaction. Now, that was when I was very young, and I'm sure the story isn't exactly a literary masterpiece. But, even though that's probably the case, that's the kind of thing I mean. Surprise ideas popping up in unexpected places. On Deviant Art, you mentioned in a forum the troubles that come with self-marketing, especially for self-published authors. Have you found any techniques to help since May or do you have any advice to give in this area? I don't think I do at all, I'm afraid. It's a bit of a stumbling block for me. I can repeat some of what I've been told, though. Do your best to work it tactfully into conversations, get a social media presence, find a way to get people interested and keep them interested. But I'm afraid that much as I might try to give advice, it's a facet of the writing process (if you can qualify it as such) that just doesn't come naturally to me, and I have yet to find a unique strategy that works. One of the things young authors run into is the questioning of supposed lack of experience to write content that could have  any real impact on or wisdom for readers. What is your response? Having the discipline to write at an early age, I believe, displays some maturity. Someone with discipline to sit down and write some five-thousand words with characters interacting and a cohesive plot must have something going for them, even if their work isn't interesting or powerful. So there's that. There's also the fact that there's a wealth of information out there, on the internet, in television and movies, and of course in other books. I actually believe that a perspective on certain scenarios that one hasn't taken part in - even ones as mundane as filing taxes or living in a city - can paint a drastically different picture than might be immediately apparent for someone regularly experiencing such tasks. Give them a fresh, non-jaded outlook. Furthermore, I'd motion to suggest that that criticism is illogical if applied automatically. To explain: I don't see a scenario where a reader could finish an entire work by anyone, and only after finishing it question how invested they were in the book. It's either interesting or it isn't. If it is engrossing or insightful in some way, and the author is young, then despite his or her lack of experience the reader has been impacted or given a new outlook. Now, I could understand part of the effect being lost because of a lack of intimate knowledge with certain subjects, but I feel there isn't much out there - in regards to writing, at least - that can't be learned through practice, research, and consumption of other media. You had such an amazing debut novel. Where are you planning to go from here? I suppose I'm still trying to get the word out there with the first book - self-marketing's a bit of a doozy, as I mentioned. I'm glad to hear the first book was decent, though. ​(As a side note from the interviewer's perspective, decent does not begin to describe how amazing this book is.) Currently I'm working on another novel, which should be finished at some point before the heat death of the universe. In all seriousness, I hope to have it done before the end of this year (though I have no idea how long the editing and other processes will take). The next novel's actually a bit of a departure from what I've tried thus far - the genre is dark fantasy. The plot centers around the stereotypical "hero" of a fantasy story, one whose parents were murdered by a "mustache-twirling" villain when he was too young to defend them or himself. He then goes on to train to fight said villain - the cliche this time is your corrupt king with an iron-fist - and defeats him in the last part of the story. Or, at least, he would. But my novel intends to pick up at exactly the last point - moments after the protagonist has already defeated his foe. As the novel goes on, the protagonist will come to terms with the fact that he's essentially never had a chance to grow, or experience the world around him, and that the King who he once thought to be evil incarnate might have had a reason - a real, constructive reason - for all of his "evil" measures. You cover a lot of history in Little Glass Men. You have the struggle of the Irish against the British, when Heroin was discovered to be dangerously addictive, the KKK, Prohibition, the Russo-Japanese War, just to name a few. How much research went into the making of Little Glass Men? You know, it sounds funny, but I always paid a lot of attention in history classes, and I think more than a good deal of that fed into the information I was able to put on the page. Most of what I wrote about I wouldn't be aware of if I hadn't paid attention to what I was taught. That said, there are exceptions - mainly about specific dates. The internet was very helpful at aiding me in making sure that everything fit together, so that certain events could transpire without upsetting the continuity of the story or the actual events of the period. I think the hardest part was researching how hospitals functioned in the 1920s, because I didn't learn anything specific about that in high school and needed to know as much as I could while writing the book. Do you have any resources you could recommend to people who are interested in learning more about some of the history you mention? My first response to your question is, of course, the internet. My second response would be books - other historical fiction novels, accounts of the first World War, and so on and so forth. Donald Kagan's On the Origins of War was one I read - it compared the ancient wars between the Athens and Sparta and Rome and Carthage (respectively) to the first and second world wars. The discourse is detail-heavy, but more in macro-details, so to speak - that is to say, it tells more of the reasons as to why war broke out, as well as the actions taken in each war by the respective armies. In regards to the portion my book tackles -  namely, society immediately after the first World War came to a close - I don't have any specific books to recommend, I'm afraid. Steinbeck's Cannery Row, perhaps, but that's more Depression-era than my book. I recommend it anyway, though, as it's an excellent book. What advice do you have for writers who are writing historical fiction? Research, foremost, but don't destroy yourself. You need to be as accurate to the period as you can be, but if you feel like bending the truth a little, do it. For me I largely ignored the country-to-country hatred - the chances of as many nationalities as are in Little Glass Men getting along without copious amounts of violence is almost a certain impossibility. I played that aspect of history down quite a bit. I also found the vernacular of the period a bit difficult to emulate, and believed that if I tried it would come off sounding wooden and unnatural. So I did a bit, but not for the most part. So try to pay attention to what the people of the period looked like, and what had been invented, lest you mention something that didn't exist. Try to be aware of the societal views at the time, and the way people should act in the situations that come up throughout the book that they might not in the present day. But don't let it constrict you - move with the confines granted by the time period, and write freely. What are you currently reading? Currently am working on Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li. It's a quasi-drama-thriller what-have-you about three childhood friends who drifted apart after a friend of theirs was poisoned, and the struggles they're having with coping with their adult lives because of the incident. So far I haven't made much headway, but I've noticed that the author is excellent at streamlining her prose. There is not much in the way of unnecessary words, and the writing's much better for it. More than that I can't quite say, because more than that I haven't quite read, but I'm optimistic. ​Is there anything else you would like to add about Little Glass Men, your writing, or being a writer? There are a lot of hurdles standing between me and success, enough to be intimidating. But I think I picked the right passion - or maybe it picked me. If you're a writer and aren't getting a lot of notice, and are feeling discouraged, try to take a step back and ask yourself if you enjoy what you're doing. Success isn't an easy thing to acquire - some, maybe many, never will. But if writing makes you happy, then you should do it as long as you can. And hey! Maybe if you do it long enough without expecting success, it'll be a pleasant surprise when it falls into your lap. Don't let the world discourage you, because it's sure going to try. Follow Conor Walsh on: Twitter Deviant Art Goodreads

New study: college students drink more before casual sex than relationship sex

Sex events measured against intimacy level (for women only)

It turns out that college students use MORE alcohol and drugs when they have sex with strangers, and LESS alcohol and drugs when they have sex with people they are in a relationship with.

This study was reported by the far-left Psychology Today.

Excerpt:

A recent study published in the Journal of Sex Research sheds some light on these questions. A research team headed by Jennifer Walsh analyzed alcohol use in almost 500 casual and 1400 romantic sexual intercourse events that happened to 300 college women on a monthly basis over a period of 12 months. Alcohol use was not very common during romantic sex: 20% of romantic encounters involved some drinking and only 5% involved heavy drinking (defined as four or more drinks). Hookups, on the other hand, were a different story: Women drank during 53% of their hookups, and drank heavily during 38% of all hookups.

But not all hookups are created equal. There was an almost perfect linear relationship between drinking and partner closeness: The less known the partner, the more likely women drank before sex, and the more likely they drank a lot. Look at the graph I created based on their data. When the casual partner was an ex-boyfriend, for example, only 30% of hookups involved drinking and 17% heavy drinking. When the partner was a random stranger, however, 89% of hookups involved drinking and 63% involved four or more drinks!

The writer explains why this happens:

Alcohol also provides an excuse to those who need one. In a world that encourages hooking up but also judges those (especially women) who engage in it too much, many seem to need it. You’re a slut if you hook up with people just because you want to: Good girls don’t actively want to hook up, and being sober means taking full responsibility for your actions. But if you can blame it on the alcohol, you’re absolved of guilt. You can still be a good girl who just happened to make a mistake.

This study agrees with a study I blogged about before from the University of Virginia, which explained that college students drink before hook-ups in order to be able to explain to their friends why it wasn’t their fault:

A Rutgers University student commented, “If you’re drinking a lot it’s easier to hook up with someone… [and] drugs, it’s kind of like a bonding thing… and then if you hook up with them and you don’t want to speak to them again, you can always blame it on the drinking or the drugs.”

Other women observed that being drunk gives a woman license to act sexually interested in public in ways that would not be tolerated if she were sober. For instance, a University of Michigan student said, “Girls are actually allowed to be a lot more sexual when they are drunk…”

A University of Chicago junior observed, “One of my best friends… sometimes that’s her goal when we go out. Like she wants to get drunk so I guess she doesn’t have to feel guilty about [hooking up].”

Now, the first thing I thought of when I saw this article in Psychology Today was: “I wonder what criteria these college students are using in order to decide which strangers they have sex with”. And then I realized. For perfect strangers, it would have to be something obvious, like physical appearance. A study found that it takes a woman 3 minutes to decide if she likes a man or not. Whatever assessment is being made in that 3 minutes surely isn’t adequate for long-term plans for marriage, children and church attendance.

Don’t judge me, it wasn’t my fault

It reminds me of something I read a while back in a Theodore Dalrymple book. Theodore Dalrymple is the famous psychiatrist who writes books about culture in the UK. One of his books about the complete lack of personal responsibility among criminals is actually posted online.

In the chapter “Tough Love“, he talks about the nurses he works with:

All the more surprising is it to me, therefore, that the nurses perceive things differently. They do not see a man’s violence in his face, his gestures, his deportment, and his bodily adornments, even though they have the same experience of the patients as I. They hear the same stories, they see the same signs, but they do not make the same judgments. What’s more, they seem never to learn; for experience—like chance, in the famous dictum of Louis Pasteur—favors only the mind prepared. And when I guess at a glance that a man is an inveterate wife beater (I use the term “wife” loosely), they are appalled at the harshness of my judgment, even when it proves right once more.

This is not a matter of merely theoretical interest to the nurses, for many of them in their private lives have themselves been the compliant victims of violent men. For example, the lover of one of the senior nurses, an attractive and lively young woman, recently held her at gunpoint and threatened her with death, after having repeatedly blacked her eye during the previous months. I met him once when he came looking for her in the hospital: he was just the kind of ferocious young egotist to whom I would give a wide berth in the broadest daylight.

Why are the nurses so reluctant to come to the most inescapable of conclusions? Their training tells them, quite rightly, that it is their duty to care for everyone without regard for personal merit or deserts; but for them, there is no difference between suspending judgment for certain restricted purposes and making no judgment at all in any circumstances whatsoever. It is as if they were more afraid of passing an adverse verdict on someone than of getting a punch in the face—a likely enough consequence, incidentally, of their failure of discernment. Since it is scarcely possible to recognize a wife beater without inwardly condemning him, it is safer not to recognize him as one in the first place.

This failure of recognition is almost universal among my violently abused women patients, but its function for them is somewhat different from what it is for the nurses. The nurses need to retain a certain positive regard for their patients in order to do their job. But for the abused women, the failure to perceive in advance the violence of their chosen men serves to absolve them of all responsibility for whatever happens thereafter, allowing them to think of themselves as victims alone rather than the victims and accomplices they are. Moreover, it licenses them to obey their impulses and whims, allowing them to suppose that sexual attractiveness is the measure of all things and that prudence in the selection of a male companion is neither possible nor desirable.

Often, their imprudence would be laughable, were it not tragic: many times in my ward I’ve watched liaisons form between an abused female patient and an abusing male patient within half an hour of their striking up an acquaintance. By now, I can often predict the formation of such a liaison—and predict that it will as certainly end in violence as that the sun will rise tomorrow.

At first, of course, my female patients deny that the violence of their men was foreseeable. But when I ask them whether they think I would have recognized it in advance, the great majority—nine out of ten—reply, yes, of course. And when asked how they think I would have done so, they enumerate precisely the factors that would have led me to that conclusion. So their blindness is willful.

If Dalrymple’s observations about female patients and nurses can be applied more broadly, then it explains why women initiate 70% of divorces. Women who don’t want to be “forced” to be self-controlled and responsible with their choices will want an easy way to get out of it. According to Dalrymple’s experience, it’s not that women don’t know that bad boys are lousy at marriage and fatherhood. They know it, but they choose to blind themselves to it, because it’s just too much self-denial to have to be serious about making responsible choices with men and sex and marriage.

Right now, we are $20 trillion in debt, half of that thanks to Barack Obama’s administration. I believe that the majority of this debt was accrued because people wanted to do what felt good to them in the moment, and then pass off the costs of their “unpredictable” mistakes onto their neighbors. The truth is that these costs will be paid by generations of young people not yet born. People shouldn’t talk about how much they care about children, if their voting will force all the children of tomorrow into slavery.

One last piece of advice to men. My best friend Dina told me to always evaluate women based on their past choices, not based on the picture of themselves that they paint with words. Wise advice.

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