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flickeringart · 3 years

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Satanism - a way to embrace Pluto?

My mind has been occupied with Pluto lately, the planet, god and symbol of “the hidden things”, the occult, the underworld, darkness, fate, rage, destruction, transformation, abduction, man’s primitive nature, life and death, power and powerlessness, fear, violation and fertility. There’s so much nuance to all planetary (archetypal) principles and there’s always more to explore. Pluto especially is a mysterious and threatening figure (force) in our lives and in the world at large. I have talked about it in previous posts, here / here and here… I’ve also explored the 8th house, which is the astrological house of Scorpio and Pluto here and here.

Many people understandably avoid anything that has to do with the darker elements of life and human nature until they are forced to deal with them. This is possibly why Pluto has been associated with violence because we are typically dragged into the depths; we don’t go there willingly. Some people, however, have lives that are marked by Pluto to such a degree that they can’t pretend that he doesn’t exist. By deciding to consciously accept him and embrace his influence it is possible to live a richer life. After all, Pluto is not only a god of destruction; he is also a god of riches. It seems to me, that the worship of Satan (as practiced by members of the Church of Satan) is very much in line with Pluto’s gifts and his riches. It’s an attempt to embrace the carnal nature. However, this Plutonian carnality is not as basic as it seems. It has its own intelligence, its own spirituality and its own laws. It seems to me that Pluto has to do with survival – psychological, emotional, spiritual and physical. He stands for survival and life at all levels of the being. As stated on the official website, “To us, Satan is the symbol that best suits the nature of we who are carnal by birth—people who feel no battles raging between our thoughts and feelings, we who do not embrace the concept of a soul imprisoned in a body. He represents pride, liberty, and individualism—qualities often defined as Evil by those who worship external deities, who feel there is a war between their minds and emotions.”

I think, that this philosophy attempts to treasure the whole (hu)man, to recognize his divinity even in his subjective thoughts and feelings. It’s an attempt to honor the darker aspects of human nature – anger, rage, and instinctual responses. It’s essentially to honor the earth, the dark void, and the merciless existence. Putting faith in external deities is robbing the individual of his divinity; it’s separating him from life. Christianity has, at least in part, made people think of Evil as an autonomous force (an external deity), corrupting good souls and creating fear and panic. By avoiding seeing reality as a whole, Christianity perpetuates fear instead of confronting it. As I understand it, Satanists don’t invest belief in any gods (symbolic of human drives and instincts) because they see that these mind-made constructs are part of their own psyche. Satanists place themselves at the center of their own subjective universe without seeking to befriend or worship mythical entities that are separate from them.

It seems to me though, from studying astrology, that there’s no way to escape deity. In the effort to not have any god, to place the self at the center, as is characteristic of the Church of Satan, one is in fact aligning or siding with an archetype. It’s impossible not to. I think this is made quite obvious when using astrology and analyzing natal charts. The archetypal energies are expressing themselves through and as the individuals.

In fact, let’s take a look at the chart of the founder of the Church of Satan, Anton Szandor LaVey. I would expect him to have a strong Pluto because of the emphasis on embracing the carnal side and the spiritual dimension of it. There’s also a big emphasis on being whole (a solar principle) through recognizing the totality of life, facing the strength and power within oneself and using the necessary tools to improve one’s own life. This would include consciously using symbols and images (like the image of Satan) in order to get the desired effect. If symbols are given autonomous power it’s a problem only if it puts the individual in a disempowered position. Personal integrity and liberty is also of utmost importance, which sounds rather Aquarian to me. Let’s have a look.

The chart of Anton Szandor LaVey, as found on astrotheme.com.

The Sun is in Aries, which is not surprising considering his strong faith in individuality, his initiative to start a “new religion”, to provide a contrasting influence, to place himself at the “center”, to go by no other rules than his own, to welcome opposition, the desire to be his own master and a leader of his own life. Aries as a sign is strongly linked to the warrior archetype, of fighting for what one believes in without compromise, to claim authority in spirit, to conquer, to place subjectivity over objectivity (because there’s no real difference from the perspective of Aries). Selfishness is the basis for existence; it is through honoring the self that one can honor other people’s independence. Mars, which is the planetary ruler of Aries, is concerned with personal strength and potency (note; Mars is sometimes referred to as the lower octave of Pluto). It seems like LaVey lived on his own terms, relying on his own natural instincts and gifts to get by in life. This is all very typical of Aries people, to live of off a self-generated optimism and conviction of one’s own ability. “The rules don’t apply to me” is the overall sentiment – the rules originated somewhere and that which originates from my own self is no less valuable or divine, even if it’s raw, ugly or imperfect it is still of “The Self”, the force that animates existence.

To no surprise, Pluto makes a square aspect to his Sun. He would’ve lived with the threat of his own destructive rage, his own inner violence and uncompromising desire. To him, it was probably difficult to consciously accept this side (the square aspect always represents a conflict) but he certainly tried to acknowledge his “darkness” through founding the Church of Satan. A person with a trine aspect between Sun-Pluto would not have been as motivated or pressed to bridge the gap between the self and the primitive and taboo because there wouldn’t have been anything to bridge. The square relationships between two planets usually motivate the individual to try to solve dilemma of conflicting principles within the psyche through external work. Squares usually force work in a very concrete fashion. When a person is serious about something, and is trying to make something happen it’s usually indicative of a square aspect within the personal chart. For example, I have a Neptune square Mercury aspect. I try to read and write and educate myself to some kind of higher state, some transcendent and elevated experience because the connection is not smooth between these planets. I try to articulate things properly in order to bridge the gap between personal mind and the nuance of collective feeling. I try to reflect the essence or feeling tone of energies through my writing.

The interesting thing about LaVey is that he truly took on the appearance of a devil – he was probably aware of the power of looks, the impact that certain clothing or symbols have. He was undoubtedly theatrical. Pluto in the 5th house might have something to do with this, as it’s the house of individual expression. The 5th house is all about personal creation; it’s the realm of children and play. In a sense, he was no different from a child dressing up in costumes and playing “the dark one”, which is probably why people mocked him for it. Even when Pluto is in the 5th house it is never light-hearted, he is all in, ruthlessly determined. Pluto placed in this house takes play seriously. He takes personal expression seriously. His creations are his and he should be at the center of them. The individual should be credited for his abilities, not the other way around, just as the individual shouldn’t be appreciated because his gifts are “of the gods”. They belong as much to the individual as it does to the deities. This is certainly the spirit of Pluto. He answers to no other god than himself and he sees life as it is, in its most vile forms, without flinching. Life is in all expressions, in the primitive as well as in the sophisticated. This is, in many ways, a deeply honest way to live. Another thing that catches my attention is the bi-quintiles Pluto makes to the MC (public image) and the AC (personal image/persona). The bi-quintile aspect is generally considered to say something about a certain talent or style, a mercurial quality or skill. He truly has the style of Pluto, both in his countenance and in his societal achievements. He looks dark and mysterious, preoccupied with the occult side of life. Perhaps he even had a certain talent for “magic”, at least he claimed to.

Satanists believe in indulgence (which doesn’t imply compulsion) over abstinence, primarily because there’s no belief in heaven or an after life. The individual is placed at the center of his own universe as his own master – through and through. Although many people would agree that self-mastery is a good thing, many also tend promote, in the same vein, that “people make mistakes” and that they “should be forgiven”. As I understand it, Satanism as a philosophy would state that mistakes are only mistakes if the self-mastered individual firmly believes it to be so in complete honesty and integrity. Self-deceit is considered to be a sin, unless of course it’s done intentionally - it would then not be a sin. Going along with roles that other people have cast one in is self-deceit – that is, for example, shouldering the role as a “sinner” because other people have imposed that label or role onto you is not indicative of self-respect, it’s a betrayal of your own reality. Notably, LaVey has an Aquarius Ascendant, Lilith in Aquarius in the 1st house and Uranus widely conjunct his Sun (both in the independent sign of Aries). He is definitely not a person to follow the herd – in fact “Herd Conformity” is one of the Cardinal Sins in Satanism. He leads life through the principle of being his own godhead, his own intellectual genius, and his own unique and separate individual, detached from the norms and conventions enough to go against them if he pleases. Aquarius is a sign that considers the map of life in an intellectual sense. This sign is also the sign of the progressive individual, someone who wants to make a difference on a larger scale. He certainly did, through constructing a thought-system that could benefit people. It’s no wonder that the first of the Nine Cardinal Sins (as found on the official website) is Stupidity. Of course it would be to an Aquarius Rising! “Think for yourself; don’t go along with everything you’re told” is the plea.

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scrawnytreedemon · 3 years

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Neurodivergency, and Sephiroth

Right, I’m going to see if I can try and explain why this reading appeals to me.

For some background, I’ve watched a full silent LP of the OG, watched Advent Children, and am largely familiar with his characterisation in Crisis Core(though it gets a bit patchy in some areas). I am not familiar with his characterisation in KH, Dissida, or any other spinoff appearances.

I’m going to be looking at this with an autistic lens, as, hey, I’m autistic, however much of these patterns aren’t exclusive to autistic people by any means and thus are fairly applicable to other labels.

This is an explanaition on why I find this element worth considering, and while I hope that others can relate or take away something from this, in many ways it is highly personal and not intended to be a decleration on Sephiroth’s ‘true nature,’ as it were. I’m not claiming that this was intended by the writers-- Infact, I’d be very surprised if they considered it, at all --As many of the traits he exhibits could be brushed aside as due to his upbringing.

That being said, let’s get into it!

1. Alienation

A common thread in neurodivergency, autism in particular, is some form of alienation. This doesn’t necessarily mean being outcast-- I, for one, have been largely accepted by those around me, and yet there is still that sense of being ‘other‘ that’s always been there, long before I even had a word for it.

Now, of course, in Sephiroth this is more related to his lineage, and how it’s expressed in... well, everything. Even still, I find value in expanding that, and considering just how getting the sense you’re implicitly divided from your peers.

There is, of course, the matter of Sephiroth’s literal isolation-- However, as fun as those scenarios are to play around with, I don’t think Sephiroth was raised wholly, or even mostly in the labs. The reason being that it would be nigh impossible to have hid just what made Sephiroth different, especially knowing how observant he is. It’s clear that Sephiroth had had extensive contact with other children, as epitomised by the line:

“I knew ever since I was a child, I was not like the others. I knew mine was a special existence. But this is not what I meant!”

Sephiroth was painfully aware that he is different, even if he didn’t know exactly how. It is at once an oddly thrilling, and lonely sensation. Thrilling, because-- Hey! --You can do and see things others can’t and/or wouldn’t; and lonely, because it makes it hard to relate to others or have them relate to you.

2. Socialisation

I would like to start off by saying that, while I find it a tad more faithful and endlessly less grating than Sex God Sephiroth, Sephiroth is not a complete and utter social failure. While it’s clear he has difficulty articulating emotions and understanding others, it’s very clear even still that he knows how the game works, and knows how to play it.

This is going to dip far more into speculation territory, so buckle up.

A thing that, perhaps, I don’t see talked about often enough online when it comes to neurodivergent experiences, is that many things that are considered ‘normal‘ get experienced as systems that we need to actively learn and maneuver-- Socialisation especially!

Now, of course there is always some degree of social interaction being a give and take, a step forth and step back, regardless of neurotype, but it’s dialed up far more when you deviate from ‘the norm.‘

If I can give my own example, a thing I struggled with when I was little was humour! Not because I didn’t find things funny, or didn’t know what it was, but because I had issues grasping at the machinations of what made something funny. This lead to alot of nonsensical jokes that left my siblings confounded, until I picked up a joke-book, and started analysing from there. It was mostly alot of puns, which! Due to their simple structure, are a great way to learn the basics! I didn’t even know this was unusual, until my mother pointed it out to me years later.

And that method goes for alot of things.

Sephiroth, above all else, is observant. He makes efforts multiple times throughout the OG and Crisis Core to check up on others and ask how they’re doing. He asks Cloud how he feels returning to his hometown, and about seeing his mother, and urges Zack to check up on Aerith in Crisis Core, to name some notable examples. Even if you get the sense that his attempts are, perhaps, a little ungainly, it makes it clear more than anything that Sephiroth tries.

I think the reason that people have leaned alot more into the overly-awkward perception of Sephiroth in recent times, is because it humanises him. I feel there’s been far more of a shift within fandom to focus on the mundane, on relatability, on humanity. A veneer of endless, effortless confidence really isn’t that sexy anymore-- When sexual-appeal even comes into the matter, at all.

That being said, this section more than anything, I think, is very easy to brush aside due to his... interesting upbringing. Depending on how you construe the timeline, Sephiroth got sent to war as early as twelve, and wouldn’t have had much of an oppurtnity to develop these skills in a healthy and timely manner.

Even without that, a degree of social awkwardness is far from exclusive to any particular neurotype-- It’s the way it arises in him, though, that piques my interest.

3. Analysis and Obsession

This... I think, is the one where I’ll be grasping at straws the most.

While, yes, the obsessive research demonstrated in the OG during the Nibelheim incident and even before that to a lesser extent in Crisis Core could be some indication of a degree to absolutely immerse yourself in a subject in that Very Autistic WayTM, more than anything these are brought on by dire circumstance(the former especially by the question of his very humanity), and as we don’t see Sephiroth as a child, it’s uncertain as to whether he displayed these behaviours as such and to this degree under ‘normal‘ circumstances.

Even so, I get the feeling that Sephiroth is very analytically-minded, in a very Stranger In A Strange World sort of way(not in any way referring to the 1961 novel by a similar name, lmao). I get the feeling he’s the type of person to pick up some highly-esoteric text just for fun and come away with a menagerie of strange and unusual and obscenely specific factoids that he’ll remember for the rest of his life.

Like, someone might mention a topic offhandedly, and though he’d keep his mouth shut because He’s Like ThatTM, a slew of all the little bits and pieces he’s seen or read on the matter over the years would just jump to mind.

What I’m trying to say is, I think Sephiroth would take joy in painstakingly pouring and mulling over topics that not many people would have the consideration nor the mind to hold any long-term, inimate interest in.

If the last point was easily brushed aside, then this one you’d merely have to breathe and it’d fall apart. Nonetheless, I feel that within fandom’s current common framework with how we perceive Sephiroth, this wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

I, however, want to make it clear that I can see the issue with labelling Sephiroth as neurodivergent. He could all too easily fall into the cliché of cold, emotionally and socially-inept, often rather callous depictions we see all too often in the heavily-neurotypical media that sees us as Missing Something; less than. Things have gotten better, but even still, there’s such a tendency to flatten us down to the things we can’t do, or lawd as us Potential Einsteins in spite of it-- Which, just, while it happens, on the whole it isn’t very helpful or realistic to expect this from us.

We are by no means a monolith, and while I take comfort in the idea of a neurodivergent Sephiroth, I understand that for some, it can feel like taking on a label to a character that vaguely fits the stereotype, and thus, perhaps, insinuating that to be autistic you have to look Like That-- And when it comes to villains in particular, it’s all too easy to dip into demonisation.

This isn’t even getting onto some of the issues that’d have this fall apart, were we to look at other symptoms. The first that comes to mind, and one that even I, as innocuous as I am, experience: sensory overload.

While it is entirely possible that Sephiroth learned to deal with it accordingly in life, or was forced to surpress it, because Shinra’s Science Department(cough cough Hojo) has been shown time and time again to force its subjects into little boxes and blame them for any failures expressed, the fact is that such a symptom could make fighting on the battlefield downright impossible.

Again, this is something that could’ve been given a ‘solution‘(as much as you can or even should think about long-term surpressing your basic thresholds), it nonetheless remains an issue.

I just hope that, on the whole, this served as some food for thought.

TL;DR: Sephiroth is autistic because I Vibe With It.

Also, happy Disability Pride!

#ffvii #sephiroth #character analysis #theory #scrawny speaks #ff7 #autism #neurodivergency #scrawny draws

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meimae · 3 years

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Language Learning Through Immersion: One Year Japanese Update

11/03/2021

I did it, you guys! I’ve successfully reached my very first year of Japanese language immersion! I honestly thought that I would have given up by now, but this really has been a fun and ultimately rewarding endeavor.

Studying the language has been at the back of my mind for years since elementary school, I just never really knew how to go about it before, and I always thought that I could learn it in a classroom setting someday. That someday for me was in two elective courses in university, and while those were fun as well, it did not give me the same gains that I have achieved in this past year.

It’s probably easier to quantify learning a language in a classroom setting, especially when going through a program to earn a language degree. Learning through immersion, however, I had to really consider what my goals should be on my own. Eventually, I stumbled upon an article saying that for an English speaker, Japanese was exceptionally difficult to learn and that at least 2,200 hours must be spent with the language to reach a certain level of proficiency. So I said to myself, “well okay internet, if you say so!”, and set that as my long term goal going forward.

Spoiler Alert: I did not hit that goal in my first year. I am not crazy and will never listen to Japanese in my sleep regardless of what Khatzumoto (the creator of All Japanese All the Time) says.

I did, however, hit a total 1,226.65 active immersion hours in my first year, so I guess I’m still a bit nuts. That is 874.96 hours of active listening and 351.69 reading hours. I also did 270.59 hours of passive listening, also known as the time in the very beginning of my immersion where I was using Japanese subtitles (therefore not really concentrating on listening alone). That’s a cumulative 1,497.24 hours spent with Japanese. That’s more than halfway towards my goal!

To further break that down for curious animanga fans out there, that’s 973 episodes from 109 anime, 765 episodes from 33 dramas, 7 movies, and 967 chapters from 107 volumes of manga (21 series). Here’s my anilist and mydramalist to see what I’ve read/watched.

During all this, I was also doing my daily Anki reps and now I have a 530 day SRS streak (includes the time prior starting immersion and only doing RTK and some vocabulary cards) and a total 8,857 sentence cards. I’ve been averaging 406 cards daily (because I’m trying to cure my leeches) and I spend about an hour per day doing reps and learning new cards. I don’t really track my time on Anki, but I do have a set timer that goes off after 1-1:30 hours.

What I haven’t touched upon at all is output. I have not gone out of my way to find a tutor or a language partner. There’s still plenty of input out there to immerse in before I even consider outputting.

Graphs, stats, and more thoughts:

Here's my current card count in my main deck (minus the cards in my new/learning queue and leeches I've been relearning which are in separate decks):

That one day in 2019 where I did not do my cards because I was seriously doubting whether I can actually stick with language learning this time around will forever haunt and inspire me to keep going everyday.

Workflow and Tips

You might be wondering, how do I have a lot of time? I started this whole endeavor in the middle of a pandemic, which eliminated the option of me going to a language school, and a slew of other things I were considering doing last year became impossible (and if anything, very scary to do in a pandemic). All I can say is that, things work out eventually if it is His will, and if I can learn a skill before everything properly settles back down again, then why not?

I wake up at 5 in the morning everyday to either do my Anki reps or read until the time when I need to get up and I listen to compressed audio throughout the day. The biggest tip is to switch the time you spend watching/reading in your native language to your target language instead. Listen to a podcast during your commute, watch an episode during lunch break, read before going to bed, do your Anki reps in the bathroom if you have to.

But, if you’re feeling burnt out, there is no reason for you to not take a break! I have been watching a lot of Among Us streams before bed, and I chat with my friends from time to time. Language learning is not a race.

More Stats

Here are a couple of grids of the kanji characters that I have encountered at least once in my immersion and how well I have answered them in my vocabulary/sentence cards.

It's interesting that after almost 9000 words, I have yet to encounter every single character from the Remembering the Kanji 1 (RTK 1) book by James Heisig, which teaches you the most common use characters that are part of the 常用漢字. Which brings me to the question, was writing down every single character being taught in RTK worth it every time it came up in my reviews for the first 3-ish months I was reviewing them? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly removed my anxiety whenever looking at blocks of text in Japanese, but the longer I think about it, the more I feel I should have switched to Recognition RTK earlier. Still, being able to write in proper stroke order is cool I guess, and it also helps me when looking things up in the dictionary.

Here’s the same grid but in JLPT order:

I clearly need to grind those N2 and N1 level cards! Speaking of which, I have apparently almost covered every single character that could possibly appear in the JLPT (except for the N1 which I have only covered half of) in just a year's time. If the JLPT word frequency lists I’m using are accurate, I have about 2,000 words more to go to to cover most vocabulary that could appear in the test. This makes the "10,000 sentences/words to fluency" argument a reasonable milestone to aim for for Japanese learners if said aim is only to pass the test. That said, 10,000 words is just that, a milestone. It's more akin to a comfortable level of comprehension, but not my own concept of fluency which is being able to read with ease, speak articulately, and write comfortably.

READING IMMERSION GRAPHS

My biggest motivation for tracking my stats is for the purpose of seeing whether my reading speed is improving over time. Reading speed is also easier to measure than listening comprehension which is kind of subjective, so I had a lot of fun making these. What I found is that for the first volume or chapter of whatever it is I’m reading, I always take the time to get used to the writing style of the author. My speed really improves whenever I keep reading the same topic over and over again. On the other hand and quite obviously, looking up many new words in a row and trying to parse sentences slows me down.

Manga: Reading Speed Progression per Volume

I clearly love ちはやふる and I am not ashamed to admit it.

I need to start reading longer manga. When I do, I’ll probably split this graph into less than and greater than 20 volumes. Imagine if I start reading something ridiculously long as 名探偵コナン or ワンピース, these graphs will start breaching the bounds of time and space.

Novels: Time Spent Reading per Chapter

#neverforget the time I read chapter six of Norwegian Wood for 9 hours when it took me less than half that time in English RIP. Also, my interest in Kitchen plummeted LOL. Still planning to finish it don’t worry.

I also need to start branching away from manga and start reading more novels and light novels, too just so I can make more pretty graphs.

Visual Novels: Time Spent Reading and Daily Word Count

Also known as images that clearly show that I’ve already spent several days only reading the prologue of Island. I’m not sweating. 切那 needs to stop using words I don’t know in succession. More thoughts on this VN far into the future.

Thoughts on Immersion

I can’t really say anything else other that that it works for me, and needless to say if you’re considering this method, remember that the SRS is your friend but immersion should be your one true love.

Prior to all this, I couldn’t even read a sample paragraph from Genki without being confused to my very soul. Yes, I know, it’s embarrassing, but that’s the truth. I was way more scared of failing my Japanese classes than my actual thesis for my bachelors degree, I kid you not. I would quite literally spend all my free time in university trying to understand grammar, memorize vocabulary, and answer my workbook exercises with little to no success.

I tried so hard to get all the grammar “formulas” into my head for 1.5 years and it only brought me more confusion. I’m never going back to traditional classroom study for language learning, but I will still refer to grammar books when I need to, and not because I feel like I need to answer 4783342 different workbook exercises like my life depended on it.

I still can’t believe it, but with immersion this statement is actually true to a point, don’t try shadowing anime/or calling your boss anime language slurs, use your common sense:

study anime to understand Japanese > study Japanese to understand anime

Future Goals/Plans

2,200 immersion hours was my initial goal, but honestly I feel like that number could be much higher. There’s still a lot of stuff I don’t understand (news, politics, sciences, etc.), so I’ll make attempts to cover more of those things in my immersion.

I’ll continue reading more, because that’s a natural SRS in itself. Try to read longer manga, more novels, visual novels, and light novels, and maybe news articles.

I’ll try to mine as much “JLPT vocab” as I can before making any attempts at taking the JLPT. I noticed that a lot of the words I know don’t appear in the JLPT word lists as much, even though they appear a lot in media/daily conversation.

Continue mining all words I don’t know because all words are useful anyway. There is no such thing as useless words. I never really understood mining only “interesting words” or words that “pop up” in your immersion. As I said in my previous blog post, 美人局 is an interesting word and I certainly caught it being said in my immersion, but in the three languages I know, I wouldn’t know when I would be able to use such a word, as compared to something like ジャガイモ which is a significantly less interesting word, but is certainly useful to know.

I have managed to talk up a storm, but if you have any questions regarding my process or recommendations for new immersion material, please feel free to send an ask/reply to this post. I love hearing about other people’s language learning/immersion journeys.

See you on my next post!

#language learning #japanese language #language acquisition #study blog #langblr #studyblr #graphs #language immersion #japanese #visual novels #manga #novels #anime #dramas #movies #youtube #podcasts

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not-poignant · 3 years

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Do you think many things have changed about you being a writer online since the beginning of the Fae Tales Universe compared to now? Not only writing style, but including how you are online, or how you think about fandom?

Oooooo

*thinks*

Actually yeah, I mean writing style yes, but in terms of how I think about fandom and how I am online, that has changed a lot. (Adding a Read More because oh god this got LONG).

I used to like, try and be 100% kind all the time, since firstly that comes very naturally to me, and secondly because I was so like...happy and thrilled that folks were communicating with me in the beginning.

But then I was taken advantage of, and one person in particular was abusive, and at the time I didn’t see it for what it was. I’ve also been stalked. I’ve had someone turn up on my doorstep uninvited. And over time I think I’ve become no less grateful (if anything I’m more grateful for the amazing readers), but also more wary? Like, I’m more likely to delete troll messages, than I used to. And sometimes I think it will be more obvious if I’m impatient or if I’m asserting a boundary in an ask response.

Radiotherapy to the head/neck for the cancer I have also really altered things there. I realised I could die at any moment, life is really short, my tumours could metastasise at any time (I actually have one that’s growing at the moment, which is alarming) and that I don’t really have the...patience I guess, to spend time constantly saying ‘this isn’t a music rec blog’ or ‘please don’t recommend books to me because most of the time I don’t like them and people tend to resent me for it’ (as an example) year after year after year. Or to deal with bad faith anons, or anons who just enjoy the novelty of getting me to answer incessant questions about space or something else that has nothing to really do with me. I can’t tell you how many asks I’ve gotten about ‘will you ever make Augus and Gwyn dads, could they adopt a baby’ but it’s a lot and I’ve deleted most of them.

So I actually think I’m more realistically human than I used to be, online. Which is a weird thing to say, right? And maybe that pisses people off. I’ve always been very opinionated, probably to my detriment, that’s never really changed. I’m still going to tell antis to go fuck themselves.

I try and stick to a policy now with messages that piss me off, which is ‘take time before you reply to this.’ I don’t always succeed, but I usually like to wait 12-24 hours before I reply to those messages (or delete them), so I can at least give a fair and moderate response. I really hate feeling like I just got angry at someone who’s possibly only 18 years old and doesn’t really know how to articulate themselves well on the internet, and it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between ‘troll’ and ‘someone who really just is nervous and shy and doesn’t know how to phrase their question.’

In terms of fandom, I love replying to comments more than ever, actually. Like I love it. I love kudos even more than I used to. I really am grateful for all reader engagement. But I don’t have as much time and energy as I used to respond to every ask, so I respond to asks less, and I respond to them in a less timely manner. I really hate that, but sometimes it’s like ‘I can’t spend all of today replying to asks, I literally have to write the chapters that people want to read.’ I also get social anxiety around asks, and people can be impatient - like no one sends a second comment on AO3 going ‘heyyyy you haven’t replied to my comment yet’ - but you’d be surprised how much people put pressure on you on Tumblr sometimes, as though I also don’t have social anxiety and things might be really stressing me out. :(

In terms of my priority, it’s always 1. Writing content, 2. Replying to comments / being active on the Discord, 3. Replying on Patreon when necessary, 4. Replying to asks. If I’m behind on writing, everything else gets hit. I think when I first started out, I actually put comments and asks ahead of writing content sometimes, but now I know I will literally spend all my time responding to folks and that’s a me problem, and I’ve worked on that since lmao.

I’ve realised over the years that instead of just writing for myself, like I always used to, I also just want to deliver so many of you wonderful people good stories. This has come to matter to me more. The best way, I think, to repay some of the amazing faith and love you’ve all showed me, is to try and give you the best possible writing I can until like, my cancer makes that impossible. And so I’ve become a lot more focused as a writer, and a lot more like ‘this is where I want to be.’

I’ve also realised I care a lot less about traditional publishing, I really love serials! Er, that was a big one, I thought one day I’d transition from writing serials online to publishing books, but now I would like to always be writing serials, and publish books on the side. In a perfect world, I could also publish the serials as books too, so people could own them if they wanted to.

I’ve also seen over the years the rise of antis, and puritanical censorship, and more, and that’s made me angrier, and also much, much stronger re: feeling centred in what I write and what I have written. So I feel like I am much more like...genuinely not bothered by what antis have to say to me, and ironically I get less bothered by antis than ever before, probably because they know that I’m Teflon with claws whenever it comes to any of their rhetoric. I have a media degree that says they have no idea what they’re talking about, and I’m angry on behalf of all the readers who feel ashamed for reading certain content, and who deserve not to feel that way. So that’s like...a thing that’s changed over the years - my anger, and my anger on behalf of readers who might feel guilty or ashamed for liking noncon or incest or underage in fiction. It’s fiction. They’re allowed to engage in that without being afraid of being bullied for it. But that’s not the world we live in.

To be honest, a lot of the changes have been positive! I’ve become more sure and focused, I’ve actually become happier as a writer and a person, and I enjoy the fandom experience more, as well as writing fanfiction and stuff. I wish I had more time to like... chat about AUs and stuff and write Tumblr posts like I used to, but radiotherapy hit me pretty hard with some permanent energy loss and side effects, and so where things have changed in a bad way, it’s almost always because of health and not because I love fandom any less. And where I’ve changed in terms of sometimes being a bit more cynical about anon asks I try and remind myself to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and to just remind myself that I have my boundaries, and I’m safe/okay. I hate that I have to do that nowadays, but it was kind of stupid that I didn’t do it before.

I can’t believe how like... how lucky I am to be here. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to write for you all. Lucky to write stories I love. Lucky to reply to comments and asks like this one. I don’t ever want to lose sight of that or the gratitude.

I think the day I stop being grateful, is the day I need to walk away. It’s humbling, honestly, and I feel that more and more over time, and not less. Even when I’m an opinionated dumbass who writes too much most of the time, lmao.

(I didn’t even get to talking about how my writing style changed I’m sorry anon THIS GOT SO LONG FUCK)

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legionofpotatoes · 3 years

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alright here’s ma thoughts on that flick I mentioned

we hatewatched a*my of the dead because we were CONVINCED “zombies in las vegas” would be an impossible concept to screw up, but in so assuming we obviously invoked a holy wager with the universe and got reminded, once again, that hoping for improvement from someone who’s dependably put out bad art is never a wise choice 😐

but we were honestly kinda roped in by the marketing??? and expected a goofy fast-paced flick with the odd traditional undead metaphor thrown in, framing some sort of relationship drama maybe or hell even nothing at all! we’d have taken pure indulgent storytelling, idk italian job with zombies in las vegas, I don’t know fucking anything but??? whatever this was???? spoilers below for it is time for One Of My Rants

I mean the main reason I really want to write all this and complain. this film here probably has the most unappealing cinematography I have ever experienced in my life and that is saying something. who the fuck signed off on that CONSTANT shallow-ass depth of field that imprisons your eyeline and turns every shot into bokeh paste???? and I mean every shot almost!!!! I promise if you think I am overreacting just throw a dart at the seek bar and watch twenty seconds from wherever it lands. it is horrifying to look at. at least it gave my girlfriend a good visual shorthand for what it’s like when I lose my glasses

why was sean spicer in this movie. did they pay him to be here. was sean spicer paid hollywood money for his scene in this film because fuck everyone who was involved in that decision

the legitimately baffling hints at the extraterrestrial origins of the infection that went absolutely nowhere and had no dramatic or plot-level bearing. we love to see the franchise sprouts fellas

yet another big budget waste of everything hiroyuki sanada has to offer. and bautista too I guess? I like him but man was this an odd career move

what was the crux of his conflict/resolution with his daughter btw. I understand it was rooted in miscommunication over their forms of grief irt mom but uhh… it was all rather clunky and didn’t land for me. I tried I really tried to buy in but something was wrong fundamentally with the groundwork there, it did not click and their catharsis felt unearned. I know there’s massive amounts of tragic baggage being projected there from the author so I’m not slapping any judgment down really;

but again it would be an easy thing to wave off if they just had a vibrant cast of lovable simpletons with good chemistry and the kinetic sense of plotting the trailers promised (and this premise never discounts good drama, either). but instead it was just two and a half (!) hours of meandering into situations the filmmaking instincts had no idea how to flow in and out of

to wit. I know talking about “bad pacing” is associated with armchair bullshit but consider the example of the scene were dieter does an out of nowhere little dance after childishly screaming but then still-killing a zombie, with the film framing this as a micro character triumph, and not a second later the bg soundtrack instantly fades into an orchestral score dramatizing a nearby mcguffin reveal, completely 180 degreeing the tone without a semblance of deft insert shot stitching or even I dont know a fucking jump cut maybe. now imagine this whiplash for 2.5 hrs uninterrupted

I will keep complaining about the length yeah because this was not a story requiring this much real estate to be told. Uhh in my humble and personal opinion, of course

[man sees zombie tiger] “this is crossing the line!” you can in fact write dialogue that is not utter nonsense that falls apart once you drill down its single fickle layer of referential meta winking. what line are you talking about. you have rules in this insane situation you’re in? total nitpick moment I know but it got burned in my brain for some reason. like a microcosm of the mismanaged dramatic instincts paired with weird writing that dots this movie. I am sure the director calls this either satire or genre deconstruction. I am SO sure

tumblr domino meme that goes from “dude getting sucked off while driving” to “entire las vegas literally nuked”

tig notaro is always great to see but once you know she’s been filmed as a separate greenscreen plate months after photography wrapped - cause she had to apparently replace some abusive asshole but that’s a whole other pig not worth fucking - it becomes impossible to unsee her odd detachment from everyone else in the movie lmao. it doesn’t really “ruin” anything on its lonesome but it is hard to unsee

why. was. sean. spicer. in. this. movie

a very simple key ingredient missing from fully turning lip service sympathy for main uruk hai dude into actual empathy that would generate meaningful conflict with hero family would be to spend a bit more time articulating what he internally wanted the most. because he was obviously trying to do something here with pointed agenda. a family, to have kids, build a caste system, save his wife’s head, return to his planet??? all of these could represent the bigger context in his psychology that spurred his vengeance but none of them are dramatically emphasized long enough for you to cheer him on. I’m not asking too much I promise. Articulating interiority of a mute character is pretty doable with deft cinema language, just gotta linger and hold a shot here and there for a few seconds, frame as his POV, donezo. I know this is also one of those like. “who cares” moments but the movie does, very evidently so, in making this guy an actual character. you can kinda piece it together and create a framework of sympathy for him, sure, but then again he ultimately becomes a foil to be killed and not defeated, so. Ehh whatever

quarantine zone stuff was not a wildly childish covid allegory quarantine zone stuff was not a wildly childish covid allegory quarantine zone stuff was n

the rooftop helicopter fakout at the end was such an ass-backwards, manufactured moment of what could be a simple setup/payoff it just pissed me off??? you gain nothing by giving sad dad five seconds of pointless crisis that flips right back to previous status quo ANYWAY, except for a weaksauce waste of runtime, which could be used instead to get inside notaro’s head and actually SHOW the remorse form as she took off, literally maybe even a frown playing on her face as she’s headed for safety right before we cut back to drax and the kid. just a simple-ass, minimal, momentary setup for what is the most basic filmmaking trick of creating macro catharsis moments. Just???? g o d if you can’t even land that shit why are you even doing any of this

that lil run final pam did was very very charming and super choreographed in a way that was the tiiiniest bit overdone

the whole intro with the simul-backstories and posing with family photos was just… oddly motivated. what was the goal? “here’s what we’re fighting for” vignettes? why? it’s not a functional setup in that vein. what was all that

also I am sorry if this is insensitive but the reasons most characters end up articulating to justify going back into the hell that destroyed their lives makes them sound seriously insane

I dont like complaining about CGI (honestly) but so much of it in modern movies can achieve higher fidelity if the animation is simply subdued. Do not overengineer and over-apply 2D cell methodologies and kinematics to each tiny twitch and movement in a hyper 3D model and I promise you. it will look a thousand times more natural. look at thanos in those last two movies. your rendering and detail are absolutely perfect with the tiger you just have to let stuff sit instead of constantly simulating swaying hair strands and firing off all facial muscles at once. great moment at one point where makeup zombie horse and CG zombie tiger are both in one shot together and just by unnecessary amounts of movement alone you can tell who doesn’t belong. again; detail, rendering, compositing, lighting, all picture-perfect; but y’all just gotta let the animation breathe sometimes, and chill it out

plot holes don’t really matter to me but it was kinda funny how lilly decided not to mention the enormous wrinkle in intel pertaining to an actual territorial tribe of intelligent zombies that require human offerings to let you pass, just so that reveal could play out in real time through the joyous punishment of the cartoonishly misogynistic dude

total chad move for mister uruk hai and final pam to rule from a rusted swimming pool complex

the ending with vanderohe oh my god. with the. cash stacks at the airport register. and specifically them working in his favor. that is literally something you do to get arrested under suspicion of theft. it was almost played for laughs and I respect that. coulda been goofier. make these movies goofy ya dorks

anyway, weird, weird movie. bad marketing. message unclear (something something sins of the father???), baffling editing instincts, literal worst-looking cinematography I ever laid eyes upon. Confidently dying on that last hill

#text #long post #aotd spoilers #aotd critical

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aveyna · 4 years

Text

The Seal of Approval

SUMMARY: In which Nuru liberates a seal, Yong gets adopted, Hugo is a gay pining disaster, and Varian is the sole voice of reason.

Alternatively, Nuru partakes in the age old tradition of toppling a monarchy.

[NOTE] Apparently the desire to see Varian get slapped by a seal was strong, judging by my last post.

AO3 LINK

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“Can I at least take him for everything he’s worth?”

“For the last time, no, Hugo. You cannot be rude to the king, you cannot antagonize him, you cannot make fun of his beard, and hell, you definitely cannot kill him.” Varian sighs. After their last run in with Donella and her goons, they had just barely made it to the kingdom of Equis. He is only so close to choking this brilliantly stupid idiot with those dumb goggles he refuses to wear like they’re intended to. “I’d like to sleep under a roof for one lousy evening.”

“Oh, come on, hairstripe. If not thievery, can’t I commit a little murder?” Hugo whines, placing his arm dramatically over his eyes. “What else do I have to live for?”

It’s during times like these that Varian almost wishes he could go back to the way he used to be, before he and the princess had made amends. His younger self would not have hesitated to kick this sorry excuse of an alchemist to the curb. He loves him, truly, he does. The same can be said for Nuru and Yong, but he has just about had it. He had left on this journey in-search of his mother, but instead, he was stuck on babysitting duty.

Distantly, he wonders if this is how Eugene felt with his past failures on the hot water boilers. He visibly shudders at the memory.

No, let’s not think about that.

“Then die.” Varian glares up at the taller man who was currently leaning on him. Scowling, he removes the other arm that he had perched on-top of his head.

“Don’t be so heartless,” Hugo laughs. He smirks at Varian, but it softens ever so slightly. It seems almost fond and gentle, but quickly, it is wiped off from his face. “Huh, you really do make for a very nice armrest.”

“Glad that’s all I’m good for,” Varian grumbles, brows furrowed in annoyance.

Yong jumps up, waving his arms erratically as if he needed to expend that much effort in garnering Varian’s attention.

“Yes, Yong?” Varian asks, smiling pleasantly at his shorter friend.

“You’re also pretty!” Yong says. The color from Hugo’s face immediately drains.

“Wha—” Varian laughs, but it does nothing to dissuade the complete awkwardness of this situation.

“That’s what Hugo always says!”

“Haha, no, my dear Yong,” Hugo exclaims, speaking a bit too fast and loud. He had rushed over to the pyromaniac, clamping his hands over him. “He’s got it completely wrong. I never said you looked pretty.”

“No, but I heard—” Yong breaks free Hugo’s grip, only to be interrupted.

“Boys, boys, as entertaining as this may be, we’re drawing a crowd,” Nuru says, lips upturned in a half smile. Her golden eyes are lit up in mirth. Clearly, Varian can tell she finds amusement in his misery.

He raises his head, and…it looks like her assessment was correct. Surprisingly, a large number of people had gathered, eyes boring into the strange group with varying degrees of confusion and judgment. Yong had immediately jumped at the chance to talk with some kids his age who were conspiratorially whispering to one another as they pointed towards Varian.

Yong nods, easily blending into the crowd. His expression is resolute as he earnestly listens before turning his eyes towards Varian.

His feet are nailed to the spot, unable to shirk away from the attention. He feels as if he is a fish out of water, but…he cannot move. His two so-called friends had an iron-clad grip on his arms. “Let’s hear what they have to say. Afterall, we wouldn’t want to disappointment Yong,” Hugo concedes in a mocking fashion.

If I must suffer, I won’t do it alone, his eyes seem to say.

“Varian, hey, Varian, guess what—!!” The pyromaniac looks towards his new friends before nodding in understanding once more. “They just told me something really cool! Apparently you’re famous!?”

Immediately, his reality comes crashing down. With Yong’s well-meaning statement, Varian stumbles back as if he were scathed by boiling water. He has done many things he wasn’t proud of over the course of his life. Varian…he had been hurt. He had hurt others, but, here, in this time and place, this family that he has found…it will all come crashing down. It hurts to look at Yong’s bright expression with the knowledge that it’ll soon morph to one of contempt or even pity. He lowers his head, bangs shrouding his downcast eyes.

“Hugo, didn’t Varian kidnap the Queen of Corona?”

His head immediately whips towards Nuru, eyes wide in bewilderment. What in the world—

“He sure did,” Hugo replies in a dispassionate tone. “What a hypocrite you are, goggles. You forbid me from stealing a single jewel, yet you get to commit attempted murder?”

They’re…they’re not disappointed in me?

“Way to hog all the fun for yourself,” Hugo lightly chides, glancing down at Varian in a condescending manner.

Varian’s eyes are glassy. He feels tears begin to prick at the corner of his eyes, but he hastily wipes at his face. There is so much to unpack here. Does he even deserve their understanding? Like his father and the king, he had been keeping secrets from his friends. They’d traversed across countless kingdoms and nearly died in the process. They had laughed, cried, shared good and bad moments, but for reasons unbeknownst to him, they still remain by his side.

With everything they have done by merely staying by his side, he—

Wait.

How did they find out!!?

Hugo adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses as he nonchalantly states, “Don’t shoot us that look, goggles. You’re acting like we kicked your raccoon.”

At this, Varian’s initial agitation at the infuriating man returns ten-fold.

“Why you—don’t bring Ruddiger into this!!” Varian seethes, standing up on the tips as he grabs Hugo by the goggles placed over his neck. His threat had come full-circle. Now, he is this close to murdering his fellow alchemist.

Nuru looks between her two older companions. Earlier, she had found a disconnected amusement in their bickering. She had always been alone growing up; it was hard to find someone close to her age to forge a genuine connection with. But here, with these two moronic geniuses and a kid who would most likely commit grand arson in a few years tops, she felt…included, complete…as if she were not a princess burdened with a heavy task and instead, a normal girl.

Still, it would be best to calm Varian before he gets a one-way ticket to prison. She cannot possibly understand how he thought they would never find out; the signs were obvious enough!

“You would not believe how popular books on recent Coronian news are,” Nuru articulates, thinking back to her initial surprise upon finding chapters upon chapters on Varian’s initial [clearly not one-sided] betrayal of their princess and eventual redemption. Under most circumstances she would have had him thrown out of her kingdom, but she had seen his kindness first-hand.

He had been abandoned when he was young; cast aside by those he had once admired. His problems were definitely more complicated than that, and its connections were deeply entrenched within the machinations of his kingdom and beyond, but—

If he had gone out of his way to right his wrongs, she could tell he was a good person at heart, and certainly one she would not mind to have right by her side when traversing the great unknown.

“You also talk in your sleep,” Yong mentions, eager to help out.

Varian’s jaw drops, mind reeling at their confessions. Various expressions flicker across his face, but his words…clearly do not do his thoughts justice.

“Oh, shit,” he says.

Hugo playfully goads the shorter alchemist, attempting to rile him into another argument. “I thought you said no cursing around Yong?”

The blue-eyed alchemist merely looks past the taller man and points. Curious, Hugo turns.

“Oh, shit,” Hugo hisses.

---

Underneath the sunny, brightly lit sky of Equis, Hugo…is confronted with his worst nightmare. No, even that would be too kind a word. Nothing can describe the complete loathing and disgust he feels at this very moment, not when he is face to face with the vilest person he has ever had the misfortune of encountering again. Even six years is not enough time away from this madman.

Clearly, time had not been kind to him. Not that it had ever been, if Hugo were to be honest.

Though…now he has a seal.

That’s new, Hugo offhandedly mutters, staring at the seal wearing a lavish necklace and golden crown while…still hideous, actually shoots him, unlike this man glaring daggers at him.

Nuru, however, her eyes…they are the brightest that they have ever been. She looks as if she had been struck by an arrow. Hugo looks at her, clearly disturbed at the princess’s…unusual behavior. “What. Is. That!?”

She is shaking Varian’s shoulders, eyes filled with stars as gazes at the seal in an awed reverence.

“A seal…?” Varian responds, somewhat worried by Nuru’s words, until…realization dawns on him. “Oh.”

“He’s…majestic,” she practically shouts, smile impossibly bright. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”

We’ve lost her, Hugo deadpans.

“What are you four miscreants doing in my kingdom?” the king of Equis, Trevor, demands as he narrows his eyes at the four friends. Quickly, he looks towards the crowd, only to have them quietly disperse, but—

Not without shooting another curious glance towards their pathetic excuse of a traveling group.

“I’m sorry about my friends, King Trevor,” Varian murmurs, casting a small glance towards Hugo and the others, as if beckoning them to remain calm and quiet. He looks at Nuru, but she has clearly lost herself to this newfound discovery.

“Clearly,” the king guffaws. “Wait, I know you from somewhere…”

His attention immediately snaps towards Varian, who is doing his best to hide behind Hugo. “Save me,” he says.

I’m sorry. You’re on your own, Varian. Hugo relents, glancing between the alchemist and king.

“You must be mistaken, I—”

“Yeah, you’re that alchemist from Corona,” King Trevor utters, voice laced in suspicion. “You’re not working for that fool, Frederic, are you? Trying to steal the secrets of my great kingdom—wanting to overthrow my rule and displace all of my people? Good, hard-working, law abiding people, might I add.”

Him? Willingly work for the king? He’d rather die.

Varian’s eyes crinkle in disgust. He may be on good terms with Rapunzel, but it doesn’t mean he wants anything to do with her father. “What, of course not!”

At his words, King Trevor marches past Hugo, red cape swishing as he levels his eyes with Varian. “You’re lying. Trevor Jr., come here—!!”

Hugo inaudibly chortles. He named his seal after himself?

“Arf,” the royal seal states, slowly moving its flippers as it waddles towards them. Its movement is so languid that anxiety begins to fester among their group until…eventually, it finally reaches the king.

“Go on,” he says, urging his pet seal towards Varian.

It turns its head towards Varian as it stares into the alchemist’s blue eyes. The alchemist cannot breathe as the seal regards him with a contemplative expression…at least, he thinks the seal is contemplating.

A moment passes, until, “Arf,” Trevor Jr. says once again.

He raises a flipper.

Yong’s hands are pressed to his face; smile impossibly wide as he awaits the royal seal’s verdict.

“Arf,” the seal barks. The flipper comes down and a resounding slap is heard.

Varian cannot believe this. Did he…

Did I just get bitch slapped by a seal!!?

“Arf arf,” Trevor Jr. huffs, head raised high as he turns away from Varian. The king’s eyes light up with a mirthless glee as he clears his throat.

“Trevor Jr. has spoken,” the king extrapolates. “He is displeased, and for this…you, Varitas, will be sentenced to death.”

“Actually, his name’s Varian,” Hugo corrects, helping Varian to his feet after he had been knocked over by the seal. He shoots a look towards Nuru, but her hands are pressed against her face, sporting the brightest grin he had ever seen on the princess.

He should be more sympathetic, but this is just too good to pass up. Sniggering, Hugo says, “Can’t believe a seal rejected you.”

Varian glares at the older alchemist, but…screw this. He is too done with this day. All he wanted was one peaceful day. Just one, but instead, here he was…public enemy number one again…and Trevor Jr.’s surprisingly hard slap certainly didn’t help.

He makes a move to retort, only for his words to be broken off by laughter.

“I think he likes me,” Yong cackles, petting the seal, eyes starry in wonder and amazement.

A whirlwind of thoughts goes off in his head; the weasel-like king seems genuinely conflicted, before casting a fond smile at the seal. He visibly sighs. “As much as it pains me to this say this, your execution…will be put off for now. Your little friend has gained the trust of Trevor Jr, so—”

No.

“He has gotten—” Time stands to a halt as Varian stares at the king in horror.

Don’t say it, he and Hugo internally scream. Yong seems oblivious, but Nuru…she has lost herself to the cuteness of the seal.

“—The seal of approval.”

Varian cringes. “Just kill me now.”

The taller alchemist merely pats his back in understanding. He, too, is visibly shaken by…the king’s choice of words. “Only if you kill me first.”

King Trevor looks towards Yong as if he were an ant. “Feel blessed, child. I do not know why, but my Trevor Jr. has taken a liking to you.”

“Do not disappointment him,” he yells at the sky, both fists curled into balls at his sides. “He is my baby; the only person in this world that I hold near and dear to my heart. Whatever Trevor Jr. says is the law.”

“I’m Yong,” the alchemist exclaims an introduction. He looks up at the king in amazement. “Woah, are you two wearing matching clothes!? That’s. So. Cool!”

The king audibly deflates, at a loss for words.

“I like your beard; it’s fancy! Do you think I’ll get a fancy beard when I grow up?”

No, no, please don’t, Varian laments. He had gone that route once upon a time. Those fingerless gloves, fanged bandana, the goatee. Yong should not commit the same mistakes he had committed in his past.

“Oh, you do?” King Trevor says, twirling his mustache. “You never know, eh, but…probably. You look just like me in my youth. Just, nowhere near as tall. Or handsome.”

“He does?” Hugo deadpans.

“Of course he does! Can you not see the resemblance, boy?” the king barks. “We look exactly alike. Why, he’s practically the son I never wanted.”

“Does this mean I have two dads now? And a mom?” The pyromaniac tilts his head in confusion. “I don’t remember them getting a divorce.”

King Trevor pauses, contemplating Yong’s words for a moment. “I guess you do now.”

“Well, eventually, I will need a successor, and seeing that I have no children, why not?” He glances at his seal. “If Trevor Jr. approves of you, who am I to judge?”

Yong’s hands are clasped together, clearly ecstatic. The sight is so blinding that Varian almost has to shield his eyes. “Which one of my parents did you marry?”

“Eh, who cares,” King Trevor dismisses.

The pyromaniac presses his hands to his face, mouth forming a silent ‘o’. “Just wait until I tell my siblings!”

“Follow me, Yoshi,” the king says, as he walks away from the other three teens. “There’s so much you must learn about Equis if you want to rule over my kingdom with an iron fist.”

“Don’t you mean kind and just?” Yong says, eyes starry and impossibly bright.

“Oh, silly, naïve Yoro,” the king chides. “You have so much to learn.”

“Hold on, you can’t take Yong,” Varian exclaims in anger, placing himself between the Yong, the king, and Trevor Jr.

A moment passes…complete and utter silence. The king raises his hand, but—

“It’s fine, Varian!” Yong beams. “Guess this is my life now.”

“No, Yong, it’s not fine—”

“Trust me,” the shorter boy says. His expression darkens, but Varian must have been imagining it. “I need to make my father proud; I’m sure you understand.”

The alchemist makes a move to run after Yong and the king, but Trevor Jr. had gotten in the way—lethargically following after the unlikely duo, but not before casting one final look of complete loathing at Varian. He shirks back on himself, the memories from the previous grueling minutes replaying in his mind.

As he watches their retreating forms disappear into the distance, Varian makes a vow. “I’ll save you even if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

“May the moon have mercy on his soul,” Hugo snarks, slightly concerned…but not for Yong. Oh no, definitely not for him.

“I’ve met the moon,” Varian responds. “Personally, not her biggest fan.”

---

Meanwhile, Hugo is waving his hand over the dazed princess. “Goggles, I think she’s broken.”

“I’ve never seen anyone so perfect in my life,” Nuru squeals, hugging Varian as she recalls the wondrous sea creature. “We don’t have anything like him back in my kingdom.”

“Have…you seriously never seen a seal?” Varian asks, dumfounded.

“When you grow up in a kingdom constantly bombarded by meteors, you…don’t get much in the way of wildlife,” Nuru responds, an intense gaze in her eyes as she jumps up. Resolutely, she looks forward, determination laced in her voice. “I’m going to rescue Trevor Jr. from that wretched king.”

“You’ll start a war if you do that, Nuru.” Perhaps it had been the stressful day that he has had. Afterall, he was slapped by a seal, only to be nearly executed. Yong was whisked away by a king, and Nuru wants to steal a seal. Somehow, his only ally in this madness was the source of his many, many migraines. Varian leans in to Hugo, sighing as he closes his eyes in tiredness. “The king will be after our heads.”

A luminescent blush forms on his face as Varian leans against him. The alchemist had always been oblivious to his attempts at courting him. That, or downright sadistic in his dismissals. He’d rather be turned down right then and there rather than holding onto false hope. Even if he were to tell Varian directly that he liked him, the alchemist, bless his poor, oblivious heart, would merely smile and say, “I like you too, Hugo. You’re a good friend.”

But now, with Princess Nuru on the hunt for blood, and Yong somehow becoming royalty, he…can make his move. Finally, this will be his one and only chance. The perfect moment to ask the shorter alchemist out on a date.

“No fair,” Nuru says, sticking her tongue out at Varian.

Since when has she been such a brat, Varian wonders in sheer exhaustion and annoyance.

“Worry not, goggles,” Hugo laughs, glancing over at Nuru as she makes a hasty [and certainly not discrete] exit. “She’s at that age when there’s only one thing on her mind.”

“Homicide?” Varian mumbles, burying his face onto Hugo’s arm.

“No. Well, yes, but aren’t we all?” the bespectacled man replies sincerely. “She’s partaking in the age-old tradition of over-throwing the monarchy.”

“Oh.”

“Absolutely right you are, hairstripe,” Hugo responds, squinting as he gazes up at the sky. Quite some time had passed; he’s sure it’s well past lunch with the insanity that they had been pulled into. “So….”

“Sooooooo,” Varian says. “Want to grab a bite to eat?”

“Hell yes,” Hugo beams.

---

After breaking away from Varian and Hugo, Nuru had made off towards the castle. Certainly, it was not easy to miss—the sight of its gaudy walls was impossible to not see even from a distance. She was never one for physically taxing activities such as running across a large populated city, but with the powers of sheer determination and spite, she was ready as she would ever be.

With a seal to save, Nuru knew she could accomplish anything.

Sneaking into the castle was easy enough…surprisingly, or not. King Trevor did not have much in the way of military or police, but what he did have…were portraits of himself. A chill ran down her spine as she avoided the smarmy gaze of the portraits, who, while a fraction as annoying as the king…did not amount to much.

“I’ll save you, Trevor Jr.,” she promises, as she crosses past yet another seal statue.

Only the sounds of her nimble footsteps break the paper-thin stillness of the castle. For a place that should be brimming with life [especially as it is the daytime], she had not seen eye or flipper of any humans or seals. The lunar princess continues to walk in silence, but there it is. She detects movement at the corner of her eye.

It is soft, quiet, as if…someone else were sneaking around. Could this be an ally or a foe? Both outcomes were possible in a kingdom with a king like Trevor.

Nuru darts behind a seal statue, waiting quietly, anxious as to whom she will possibly see. She waits and waits…

Another moment passes, but the mystery person never arrives.

“Guess I was worried over nothing,” Nuru laughs, still feeling a bit uneasy and agitated over what could have been.

“Hiya, Nuru!!”

She certainly did not jump up in surprise at the sound of Yong’s voice. If anyone asks, she…saw a spider. Yes, that was it. That was definitely, most certainly the one and only reason.

Somehow, without her notice, he had snuck past her…and has discovered her hiding place behind the gaudy [begrudgingly cute] seal statue.

“What are you doing here?” they both simultaneously ask.

“You first,” they both say.

Yong beams up at her, hand pressed over his heart. “I want to make my father proud.”

“Oh,” Nuru responds, struggling between her emotions of rescuing Trevor Jr., destroying Equis, and not disappointing Yong…which would be an inexcusable in and of itself. She’s about to say more, but the shorter boy merely pulls at her sleeve.

“Are you planning to take Trevor Jr.?” Yong is not looking at her. Rather, his gaze is directed somewhere far ahead.

“What if I say I am?” the princess inquires, arms crossed in defiance. Her loyalty towards him is great, but the seal…it beckons to her with its smart, inquisitive ‘arf’. “What will you do then, Yong?”

He is silent. Nuru feels beads of sweat roll down her face in anticipation. Another moment passes, and then another, until…Yong beams up at her with the cheeriest expression she had yet ever seen on him or any other person. “Will it make my father proud if we release Trevor Jr. into the sea?”

She narrows her eyes at Yong, searching his face for any signs of betrayal or trickery. But…there is nothing. Only a hint of mischief in his smile. “Yes,” she concedes. “I suppose it will make him proud.”

At this, Yong cackles, hands raised to his sides as one would see on a mad scientist. Maybe…he has been spending too much time with Varian, Nuru notes, slightly disturbed and yet…impressed.

---

Honestly, Hugo does not know what to make of this situation. They had been off in-search of the perfect sandwich shop [he wanted to spend time with Varian, but he wasn’t lying. It was well past three and he was starving], but…he got neither a date nor a sandwich. Instead, he was granted the fortune of sneaking into a stupid king’s castle and no lunch. He at least had Varian by his side, but…he really wanted food. Even a cracker would do at this point.

He had originally thought the princess to be prissy and snuck-up like the nobles back home, but she had quickly gone above his expectations. Hugo could nearly cry at the proud feelings he felt as he saw her sneak into the castle.

Nuru was completely insane. She was feral in her attempts to rescue this seal through and through, and he could not get any prouder.

Truly, he was proud of her. He would very much like to shake her hand under any given circumstance and take her under his wing, but now…he is just irritated and very hungry. How long they had been wandering the corridors of this castle, he does not know. He eyes glance down towards Varian, and…yeah. The shorter alchemist definitely looks to be on edge, not that the [creepy] portraits the king had ‘decorated’ the castle with have done to help.

Hell, they…had stumbled upon one room in-which King Trevor had taped his face on top of a family portrait…which he had somehow stolen(?) from the king of Corona. It was very, very creepy. He and Varian are both convinced that he is stalking the poor queen, but…that is a disturbing problem for another day. Faces blank, they both sped walked out of that room, eyes downcast underneath the watchful gaze of the Queen Arianna and his royal travesty, King Trevor.

“Ugh, where do you think Nuru ran off to?” Hugo complains, cringing at yet another excessively ornate and gaudy portrait of the king.

Varian shoots him a quick glance. “If I knew, we wouldn’t be here.”

Their steps continue across the empty castle…really, the sight is rather eerie if Hugo were to be honest. Unfortunately, their luck had just about run out. Rounding a corner, there…are two guards sporting the official crest of Equis.

“Great, just our luck,” Varian sighs. The guards seem to have heard their voices. Quickly, the younger alchemist grabs his hand before shoving the both of them into a broom closet. It’s rather small, and uncomfortable, but…hopefully, the guards will not think to look here.

“This cannot possibly be your brilliant plan, goggles,” Hugo deadpans, trying no to stammer at how close they are.

Varian merely rolls his eyes at the taller alchemist. “Oh, just shut up and kiss me.”

Hugo locks eyes with Varian, mouth agape as the goggles he wears around his neck are grabbed until he is at eye-level with the alchemist. His mind is floundering. He cannot think, cannot speak, and Varian…his eyes had always been so blue. But, they almost seem to be glowing…or maybe it’s the theoretical sparks that he had always heard about literally igniting in his head. He had always prided himself on his persona—the suave playboy act that he had crafted for himself.

And yet, all it took was for a smart, stupid, but surprisingly kind alchemist to undo all of his hard work.

He makes a move to say something, but Varian merely glares past him.

“Do you mind?” the shorter alchemist drawls, voice as sharp and scathing as a freshly sharpened knife. Hugo inwardly protests at Varian’s withdrawal, but he is still reeling. Had…Varian finally realized his feelings for him? Were his affections finally reciprocated?

“Ahem,” a guard coughs into the crook of his arm, eyes averted from Varian’s icy gaze. “Sorry for interrupting you two. Uh, carry on……”

"Lousy teenagers,' Hugo hears them say.

Varian listens to their footsteps fade away before devolving into a fit of laughter. He wipes at his eyes, grinning brightly at Hugo as he helps him out of the broom closet. “I can’t believe that worked!”

“Yeah, I’ll say,” Hugo responds, still clearly dazed. Wait…worked? Was this a setup!?

As he listens to Varian drone on about ‘The Adventures of Flynn Rider’, his face must be undeniably crestfallen. All it takes is one look for the dark-haired alchemist to immediately shut up. Now silent, the duo continues to walk across the marble floors of the castle with only the gaudy decorations adorning its walls for company.

Varian wants to break the silence somehow, but there’s something off about Hugo. His demeanor had soured, but it’s not even just that. He seems more agreeable and not at all his usual sarcastic self. There are no taunts or joking retorts. The bespectacled man merely seems to be lost in his own thoughts. It should be a welcome change, but considering everything that they had gone through this day, he cannot help but worry. He raises his head and reaches for Hugo, only to jump up in surprise at the large cacophony of wild laughter and screams coming from down the hall.

Their senses are immediately filled with the bitter scent of smoke, and…yeah. Looks like they found Yong, and…judging by the sound of rushing water, they’d bet Nuru was there with him.

Without giving it a second thought, Varian grabs Hugo’s hand and races down the hallway with him in tow.

In other circumstances, Hugo would complain. But with Varian, he would follow him til’ the ends of the earth.

“REVOLUTION!! FREEDOM FOR ALL!” Nuru cackles as she races down the hall with not just Trevor Jr. following her, but another seal with a slightly smaller crown. “We will not stand for this tyranny any longer, isn’t that right, Yong!?”

“Stick it to the man!” Yong pumps his fists into the air. He, too, has decided to partake in this bout of teenage rebellion. The hallway is billowing gray smoke, and they can hear the angered screams of…what appears to be the king.

Varian stares at Trevor Jr.

The seal stares back.

---

Somehow, despite everything, they have finally made it out of the kingdom of Equis [relatively] unscathed. Varian is sure he may have lost a bit of his sanity, but…that would not be the first time it happened. And he is sure it most certainly will not be the last.

As he looks back towards Nuru and her new seal brethren, he is sure of it.

The kingdom of Equis may have sworn vengeance against them and their descendents for generations to come, but…Varian can live with that. But what he cannot possibly understand, however, is Yong’s toothy grin. It is unsettling with just how plain cheery this boy can be. If he could, he’d ignore it. But, Yong’s incessant wide-eyed gaze will not cease until he gets to say whatever it is in that strange, strange, terrifying mind of his.

“Yes, Yong, what is it?” Varian sighs for the umpteenth time that day.

Yong beams up at the alchemist. “Do you think my dad will finally be proud of me?”

Why, I don’t know, Yong, he murmurs to himself. He had set King Trevor’s castle on fire, lied, cheated, and stolen his royal seal… “Yeah, I guess.”

“Great,” Yong chirps. “Maybe now I’ll be the favorite child!”

At this, the three older teens stop in the tracks, staring mouths agape at the would-be arsonist.

“Dad hates King Trevor,” the short boy explains, grinning up at his friends. “Something about a fireworks deal gone wrong…”

His sentence falls into obscurity. But, these are words best left unsaid.

“Well, you’re my favorite,” Hugo quips, patting Yong on the head.

“Agreed,” Nuru replies. “You can do no wrong.”

Varian looks from Hugo to Nuru to Yong.

He shrugs.

Yeah, he can do no wrong.

#Tangled #Tangled the Series #Varian and the Seven Kingdoms #Varian #Varian Tangled #Hugo the Human #Nuru Tangled #Yong Tangled #Varigo #Fanfic

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years

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Ten Sides (Part 26)

Sometimes she lies awake and thinks about it all. Every little thing. That which has already happened. And that which is to come both in the near and distant future. And when she lies awake she begins to wonder if she has done herself any favors by coming back to the palace and speaking with Zuko. By declaring that she would talk things over with Mai and TyLee. She begins to wonder if she had done herself favors in letting Aang walk her through opening her chakras. She begins to wonder if she had done herself any favors in realizing that she has more shame than honor and more weakness than strength. That the pride and strength she did have was a lie as good as any of her others. She wonders if she did any favors in admitting it to herself.

Azula has been thinking about it time and time again, tossing it over and over in her mind and she is only slightly closer, if even, to making anything good of what her introspection has uncovered.

She knows that she needs love. She knows, just as well, that she can have it. That the Avatar wants to love her. She knows, however resentfully, that she wants to return that love as best as she is able. Though she isn’t sure that she is capable at all with her attention so divided.

She knows that there is pride in shame but she doesn’t know how to find it. She thinks that she has faced it, at least to some degree. But she has yet to make anything of it. And that is the important step, the step that counts.

In the same regard, Azula knows that she has only just begun to find the strength in weakness. At least she thinks that she has. If nothing else, she can see strength in having gotten herself back to a point where her mind is her own.

And yet… Her stomach tingles with unease. It is still there in her mind festering and waiting to flourish; she knows that she takes strange comfort in being controlled. And in that regard, she will be her own downfall, but only if she lets herself succumb to this weakness.

She won’t. She can’t. She has already established with herself that she has, with or without her father’s influence, has done a good number. With or without his help she is shouldering the blame for everything she has done. Really there is nothing that allowing someone else to give her command after command can protect her from. Nothing aside from a crushing guilt, the very sort that she feels anyways. She supposes that it is well past time to take full control not just over herself but her life as well and the direction it is heading in. She realizes that it isn’t that she likes being controlled, but rather that she likes being blameless...feeling blameless.

What is feeling blameless if it is hollow? She pulls her knees up to her chest. The avatar has given her so many things to think about and he can’t fathom how quickly it gnaws away at her. How overwhelming it all is as it clashes with her itch for vengeance. He has given her so many things to think about and she can’t bring herself to ask him for more help. She thinks that this is something that she will have to work through on her own, anyways. At least until she manages to forge herself some sort of support system. Until she has more people than just Aang.

She realizes that she has her priorities in the wrong places; she realizes that she has to face all of these things before she can even think about facing Sangyul. She needs a powerful body and a capable, stable mind.

.oOo.

She has acknowledged her shame and guilt, the things that induce it, and now it is time to face it. To make something of it little by little until it amounts to something grand.

To achieve the sturdy mind she needs, she has to make something deeper of the introspection her chakras had forced. She supposes that she has options; the fire, water, and air lessons will be the hardest to work with now that she has accepted her truth. But they are the most critical as well. And she is almost certain that they go hand in hand--that one will lead to the others. She has several options but love seems like the best place to start; if she can get it then she can forgive herself, then she can shake away some of the shame and guilt that so heavily rests upon her. “You can try to talk to them again. Is it really that hard for you to believe that they might just like you if you let them know the real you.”

Sitting uneasily in the chair across from both of them, it really is that hard. It seems impossible really. She still isn’t sure that her authentic self is the sort of person that people can like, let alone love, with sincerity. And maybe this is because she has yet to find her authentic self, untainted by meddling hands. There is only the Azula that Ozai wanted. And the Azula that Ozai wanted is the Azula that no one else does.

She bunches her fingers around the hem of her sleeve. She wishes that Mai and TyLee would talk to her one at a time. The both of them at once is...intimidating somehow. One wrong move with either of them will sabotage things with both of them.

And so she finds herself sitting rigidly in her chair, her throat somewhat dry. She looks from them to her hands and then back to them again. She can’t seem to find the right way to begin, nothing seems like it would be the right way.

Mai sighs, “is there a point to all of this or are we just going to be sitting here in silence?”

“There’s a point.” She answers quickly. She just isn’t sure which way to get to it. She isn’t sure that there is a good way at all.

“Well get to it.”

She lets her face remain impassive while her stomach tingles with heightened unease. She hasn’t said more than five words and her chance is already slipping. TyLee fidgets with her braid. “Why are you mad at me?”

“Seriously?” Mai asks. “You really don’t know.”

She shakes her head. To a degree she thinks that she understands. For all of the control she was under, she had managed to take it over someone else. But she isn’t sure that this is what they are angry about. It could be many things, really.

“You’re terrifying, Azula.” TyLee answers before Mai.

She wishes that were true. If it were, then she wouldn’t be terrified herself. She supposes that it could be possible to be both terrified and terrifying. To be terrifying because she is terrified. And maybe that is just what it boils down to.

“You’re a liar and a manipulator and we were just things for you to put in positions when it suited you best.”

She doesn’t know what manipulation truly is.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Mai.”

Mai snarls. “Dramatic? TyLee left the circus because of you. That was her dream. She was happy.”

“Isn’t she happy now?”

“I am.” TyLee admits.

“Don’t you dare.” Mai hisses.

Azula furrows her brows, “don’t I dare what?”

“Try to put thoughts in her head! She’s happy because of you and the ‘calling’ you gave her. She’s happy because she made her own choice; to leave you and find something new that made her happy.”

The realization is suffocating. The connections and parallels she draws make her head dizzy. Of course they resent her. She tries to tell herself that she had given TyLee a choice. But really her choice had been no more genuine than putting aside pretty armor for festival silks. And so she knows that this is a lost cause. There is nothing to salvage because there is nothing for them that is worth salvaging. She wouldn’t forgive herself either. She isn’t particularly different from the man she seeks to destroy. And now that the comparison has been drawn, she isn’t sure that she will be able to sever it.

Agni, she thinks that she has just broken herself further.

Her head hurts so terribly. She wonders where the Avatar has wandered to--hopefully not far.

She clears her throat. “I suppose that I’ll leave her to that. You can go.”

Mai blinks at her. “That’s it? You took up our time for that?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You can start with an apology.” TyLee replies.

Azula shakes her head. “That won’t do any good.”

“You didn’t even try.” Mai grumbles. While TyLee replies, “It will be good enough for me.”

But it won’t be for her. It will be better, healthier if TyLee cuts ties. She wants to tell her to just go back to her Kyoshi girls but that would be just one more command. She once again finds herself unsure of what to say. Really there are no good options. The truth would be the best choice but from her lips even the truth is a lie. She isn’t sure that she can articulate the truth in a satisfactory way anyhow. And so silence is the closest she can get to a victory; maybe they will take the hint and leave her. She feels sick. Dizzy, almost.

She leans herself heavily against the sofa. She thinks that Mai might have said something else but she isn’t so sure. Her head hurts so terribly… She rubs her hands over her face.

“Have you seen the Avatar anywhere?” She asks finally. “I need the Avatar.”

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Aang #Azulaang #Fanfiction

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ms-m-astrologer · 4 years

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Transiting Mercury enters pre-retrograde shadow

Timeline (current events in BOLD)

Wednesday, September 23, 20:55 UT - transiting Mercury enters Rx shadow, 25:54 Libra

Sunday, September 27, 07:41 UT - transiting Mercury enters Scorpio

Thursday, October 1, 15:49 UT - Mercury’s greatest eastern elongation, 4:36 Scorpio

Wednesday, October 14, 01:05 UT - transiting Mercury stations retrograde, 11:40 Scorpio

Sunday, October 25, 18:23 UT - Sun-Mercury inferior conjunction, 2:47 Scorpio

Wednesday, October 28, 01:33 UT - transiting Mercury retrogrades back into Libra

Tuesday, November 3, 17:50 UT - transiting Mercury stations direct, 25:54 Libra

Tuesday, November 10, 17:00 UT - Mercury’s greatest western elongation, 29:47 Libra

Tuesday, November 10, 21:55 UT - transiting Mercury re-enters Scorpio

Thursday, November 19, 21:04 UT - transiting Mercury exits post-retrograde shadow, 11:40 Scorpio

I know, I know, it royally sucks that Mercury stations direct on the US’s election day. It did the same thing back on November 7, 2000: Mercury started the day retrograde, then changed signs (from Scorpio to Libra), before stationing direct very late (US time) that night. If you weren’t born yet, can’t remember what happened, or have blocked that unpleasantness out of your memory - there was much angst involving vote counts and recounts in Florida, and the election wasn’t officially decided until December 12, 2000. So, gang, don’t expect any instant results on November 3, 2020, either. Brace yourselves now.

Anyway. I really loathe these multi-sign retrogrades, because there’s twice as much work to do. What essentially happens, is that we somehow muff the final passage of the planet through the first sign, which makes it impossible to “do” the next sign well (or at all).

Especially given the Capricorn pile-up of unpalatable realities, the trouble with Mercury/Libra is a failure or refusal to admit the truth. We have our rose-colored glasses practically welded to our eyes, and we aren’t going to take them off. Our current situation is described in an uncannily prescient way by Chrissie Blaze, in her book Mercury Retrograde. About “Mercury Retrograde in Libra,” she wrote:

Your sense of justice and equality may be challenged through apparently unfair events that are out of your control. Actually, life is now compelling you to view things from a perspective other than your own. Try walking in someone else’s shoes and see how it feels.

I’m personally not sure how far I want to walk in racists’ shoes - but understanding how racists got that way (e.g., susceptibility to being “played” by monied elites) can help me fix the problem.

The main thing you should do for now, is to identify which of your natal houses contain the span of 25:54 Libra through 11:40 Scorpio. (That’s tucked away in Ms M’s 12th House.) Next, see if this is going to trigger anything in your chart. Will there be aspects to the Sun, Moon, angles, Nodes, important planets? (Quite a few things for Ms M, with the main one being a three-peat conjunction to her natal North Node.)

I’m going to limit myself to the first Merc/Libra part of the proceedings. That’s enough for starters.

Wednesday, September 23, 10:38 UT - Saturn Rx/Capricorn square Mercury/Libra, 25:21 (25 degrees 21 minutes); Thursday, September 24, 09:53 UT - transiting Mercury opposite Mars Rx/Aries, 26:36 (26 degrees 36 minutes)

Technically, that Saturn square happens about 10 hours before Mercury enters its retrograde shadow. I’m including it here because it’s the first of three squares between them. And although Mercury’s opposition to Mars happens after the shadow begins, we lucked out - this is a one-and-done situation. All together, though, it sets the unsettling tone for the entire Mercury Retrograde period.

Saturn Rx/Capricorn and Mars Rx/Aries are both very stubborn and difficult. “Intractable” and “implacable” come to mind. This isn’t a new situation (cardinal sign affliction), but rather something we have as yet failed to deal with properly, or healthily. Remember the Lennon lyric: “I couldn’t walk, but I tried to run”? Another way to look at it is an angry populace (Mars of course) versus a shady power structure (Saturn of course).

My thought is that this Merc Rx may start out as some kind of argument - bearing in mind that oppositions work through other people. Someone (perhaps a partner or an “authority”) says something extremely outrageous, offensive, inflammatory, etc. Maybe we hear it when watching the news, maybe while in the store, at work, on the bus. But those angry words set off the Merc Rx process for us. Do we try to understand it from the person’s point of view? Do we clasp our rose-colored glasses even tighter? Do we ignore it and hope it goes away? It’s impossible to mediate between two sides that want to obliterate each other - perhaps that’s the lesson we need to grasp.

For another take: Cam White, a YouTube (and other places) astrologer, mentioned this gnarly start. He thinks it’s going to manifest as Merc/Libra trying to harmonize everything, and Saturn/Cap just saying, “Nope. I’m not going to do that.” What does a peacemaking Mercury/Libra do, in the face of evil?

Placements lie between 24:21 and 27:36 of the cardinal signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn; and between 9:21 and 12:36 of the mutable signs Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Aquarius.

Sunday, September 27, 07:38 UT - Ceres Rx/Aquarius trine Mercury/Libra, 29:59

Interesting “blink and you miss it” set up here. At 07:20 UT, Ceres retrogrades back into Aquarius; Ceres trines Mercury at 07:38 UT; Mercury enters Scorpio at 07:41 UT. Twenty-one minutes total, and most of us in the US will sleep right through it. (Aussies, will you please tell us what we missed??)

Fortunately, this is also the first of three trines between Mercury and Ceres. The second one, on October 28, is also in Libra/Aquarius; but the third one, on November 10, sees Mercury moved back into Scorpio and Ceres back into Pisces.

Demetra George (in Asteroid Goddesses) wrote that flowing aspects between Mercury and Ceres “signify the ability to communicate empathetically with others and have rapport with beings who exhibit various levels of intelligence: children, the mentally disabled, plants, and animals.” In a natal chart this helps us develop “new communication skills that enable (us) to clearly articulate (our) needs and actively listen to and receive the response of others.”

So, yes, it’s a good thing that we’re going to have three tries! I’m still blown away by the brevity of this first pass, though. Those of us who won’t be awake, can ask for some dream guidance.

Placements affected lie between 28:59 and 29:59 of the yang signs Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius.

#Astrology #Transiting Mercury enters pre-Rx shadow #Ms M astrologer

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ariella884 · 4 years

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Voyager Book Club - February Favorite Fics

So I put forth a challenge of sorts to our Voyager Book Club. I asked everyone to pick ONE Voyager fic that they consider to be their favorite. Now, you can imagine, this is pretty freaking hard! There are so many incredible fics out there. I didn’t say it had to be the best written, or the most in character. I gave examples such as: the one you read over and over or your go-to fic, however you want to phrase it. It was pointed out that a favorite fic can change every hour based on your frame of mind and what you are in the mood to read at any one moment. I get it. Even so....I challenged everyone to only pick ONE. And they did it! Or most of them! I got around 20 different favorites picked! So here is the list of our Favorite Voyager Fics, why they were chosen and by whom. Happy Reading!!

Note: Click on the name of the fic for a link to it! Also, this list is in no particular order.

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@curator-on-ao3: ‘Fragile Things’ by @mia-cooper

“Fanfic is about exploring possibilities. That’s what put this fic over the top to be my favorite. In Fragile Things, MiaCooper examines multiple versions of one relationship, pulling different threads to see how things unravel or knit together. It’s thoughtful, it’s meta, it’s realistic as hell, it’s damn good writing — it’s MiaCooper and it’s excellent.”

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@ariella884(yep, that’s me!): ‘2013′ by PCBW (@pcbw)

“I had a hard time choosing my favorite (like most people here), mostly because as i was gathering them all from everyone else I kept seeing ones and going, ‘Oh! I love that one!’. I also didn’t want to have any duplicates so I had to change mine a couple times, that being said, 2013 is easily one of my top three (which of themselves is almost impossible to pick just one. I’m lucky that my other two were chosen already and I didn’t have to!). I love 2013 because it is a modern AU, without being a completely modern AU. No, that doesn’t make sense. But you get our Janeway and Chakotay, Starfleet officers and all, and you get them in the modern world. It’s incredible! We see the challenges they go through of being taken from everything they know and put into a world that is pretty much unknown to them. Add to that the personal differences they have to work out together. Splash in the normal challenges that we all go through when trying to live a life in this day and age (jobs, house, money, love, family, etc). This is just an incredibly beautiful story that I have read many times and will continue to read over and over. It’s also a long fic and those are my favorite because I like to get completely involved in stories!”

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@mia-cooper: ‘Deceiving’ by QuantumSilver

“Because it starts with a canon event that is absolutely devastating and shows just how devastated Janeway and Chakotay are by it (and Tuvok and Ayala as well, though they only make a brief appearance). It shows Janeway at her absolute best - every last inch the captain, going above and beyond for her crew not just physically but emotionally in spite of the absolutely gut-wrenching cost to her - and it really kicks off with one of my absolute favourite tropes: mutual pining to the Nth Fucking Degree.

It has Chakotay being every bit the commander, backing her up even though he's dying inside, and REFUSING to let her shut herself away even though he KNOWS she's going to want to murder him for pushing and pushing and pushing at her.

And then OH MY GOD, he's deliberately getting on her every last nerve just so he can wrench honesty from her because he knows if she doesn't tell him how badly he's hurt her, how she's absolutely bottomed out because of him, she will never open up to him or anyone else again.

AND THEY DRINK WHISKEY OMG GIVE ME KJ AND C UTTERLY MISERABLE AND DRINKING WHISKEY LIKE IT'S WATER AND PINING LIKE FUCK AND NOT SAYING A WORD BUT BLEEDING TO DEATH FROM THE HEART AND I WILL DIE HAPPY FOREVERRRRRRR

I'm sorry for yelling but this fic makes me want to rip off my clothes and run up and down the street screeching how everybody should read it and they are just BRUTAL with each other and they STILL do not understand, refuse to, CANNOT understand, that the other would not just die for them but MURDER WHOLE FUCKING ARMIES FOR THEM and it's tragic and devastating but then oH MY GOoOoOODDDDD

So that is my favourite fic and the one i read approximately every two months or more if i really hate my writing that day and want to torture myself with How It Should Be Done.”

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@bizships: ‘Fealty’ by MsDisdain

“My favorite story. I honestly don’t have to think about it. It’s one I always go back to.

I love the way the crew pledges their loyalty to her and the way subtle way they tell her that it’s okay that she’s happy too in that they effectively give her Chakotay for her birthday, by way of him “fighting” Tuvok(Starfleet) for her hand.”

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@arcadia1995: ‘The Space Between’ by lauawill ( @joyful-voyager)

“The Space Between is a story I return to time and time again when I'm feeling down. I like that it realistically portrays what might have happened between Janeway and Chakotay right after the returned home in Endgame. I like that no one in the J/C/7 triangle ends up being a bad guy. I like the hopeful ending and imaging what might have happened after the fade to black (lots of sex!!!)“

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@wishful-thinker-87 : ‘if you came this way’ by tree

“It’s always a go to for me, even though I don’t usually like AUs. The sex is intense and emotional. The characterization is pot on. And we get Phoebe being an awesome sister and some Chakotay/Molly bonding too. What’s not to love?!”

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BlackVelvet: ‘Bluffing the Crowd’ by @ralkana

“Even after years since i read this, just thinking about this story brings a warm fuzzy feeling to my heart and a huge silly grin to my face. I simply love it.”

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@purpledog47: ‘The Future is Ours’ by Dawn

“My favorite is most definitely Dawn’s ‘The Future is Ours. This is my one fic. It’s super long and it tells us what happened after Endgame and it has a little bit of everything in it: angst, romance, hurt/comfort, Q, babyfic, romance.”

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@amoderngirl: ‘Time and Distance’ by northernexposure

“If I am ever loosing the thread with J/C, I can always read this and I am immediately in love again.”

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@coffeeblack75: ‘Soft Light’ by northernexposure

“There are so many reasons why I love it that I can't even, haha. I'll start with: it was the first piece of fanfic smut I read, so I love it for that reason - my first time haha. More importantly, it is just beautifully, beautifully written - it's plotted beautifully, it flows beautifully and the pacing is spot on. The author has complete control over all of that & over the language, which is just used masterfully. There's so much subtley going on in this story too - the author doesn't spell everything out for us and instead draws us to the details that reveal what is important - the beginnings of these two getting to know each other. Gosh, it's so hard to articulate haha! But lines like this just make me shiver in delight for their beauty and what they reveal: "he was kissing her, with a lot more sweetness than was wise. Ah god, I could go on and on but perhaps I'll finish with my favourite bit, which is when C feels that first stab of lust & realises she might too & tests his theory by blowing softly on the back of her neck. This moment, omg, the moment is just so beautiful, so quiet, so pointed and private and intimate. You really feel that moment as if you are there. Ahhhhh :)

Also….there are two sequels to it that are equally as wonderful ;)

Oh and one more thing I adore about this story is the way that the C thinks he is lusting after KJ but it is quite obvious he loves her - even before they come together - but he hasn’t realized it yet. The way the author does this is just incredible - so deft! Everything for C is about taking care of KJ … it’s just beautiful.”

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@caladeniablue: ‘Lifeline’ by helenagray ( @picking-daisies-in-the-outfield)

“Why do I like that fic? An unfinished WIP at that (Started in 2013; last update in Jan 2019. No indication how many chapters to go.) The perfect serial story and that's part of the attraction for me.

The first chapter sets the scene: raw Janeway, alone, without the backup of her ship, her crew or Chakotay. Bare of essentials and with only her courage and intelligence and sheer determination to help her survive, and even she wonders how long those will last her.

And while we learn about Chakotay and how he seeks her while the crew has to move on, I am drawn to Janeway most of all.

The fic jumps back and forth across locations and in time from that first chapter to catch up with it again some 20 chapters later, but there is no jarring. The reader knows immediately what KJ is experiencing , but the past events that led to that situation are as important, and that's one of the many attractions of this story. No overlong flashbacks, no tedious info dump. It's all layered, making one wait for the next chapter and the next one, while knowing all the time where KJ has ended up.

The writing is gorgeous, which is a bonus. And it is pure J/C, distilled to its purest by separation. Perfect.”

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@keiraniels: ‘Bad Ensign’ (Series) by @curator-on-ao3

“Ok so I chose Curator’s ‘Bad Ensign’ because I come back to it often - - it’s such a freaking brilliant idea that I can 100% imagine being canon, and it inspired so many Voyager Bookclubbers to write Bad Ensign stories”

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@cnrothtrek: ‘War Torn’ by @curator-on-ao3

“Why? I had the pleasure of beta reading this story, and I am so glad that I did. It has a great plot, is well-written and perfectly paced, and is hard to put down. The way it pulls together two pieces of canon backstories for Miles O’Brien and Kathryn Janeway is genius. The characters feel so real and their voices can be clearly heard in the text. And the supporting characters of Captain Benjamin Maxwell, Will “Stompie” Kayden, and Molly Walsh are incredible. The story is intense, absorbing, and emotional. I just can’t say enough good things about it.”

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@theshortywrites: ‘The Dragonfly Oath’ by Koneia

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@emmikamikatze: ‘All the Good Things We Never Did’ by northernexposure

“This story brings me to tears, makes me smile and shiver and fear and worry. It's given me phrases that won't leave me, that keep repeating itself in my head even months (years) after first reading it. There's just the right amount of show trivia to make it a fanfiction, but little enough to make it a unique and original story. ne makes me fall in love with these characters all over again as if I didn't know them beforehand.

This story is special and precious and it speaks to me on so many levels I can hardly comprehend how genius it is. It's a literary masterpiece of fanfic if there ever was one.”

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@missmil: ‘Here I Stand’ by lauawill

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@manalyzer13: ‘Gravitation’ by northernexposure

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@grace-among-the-stars: ‘Filling the Void’ by Spiletta42

“Filling the Void is the one fic I always return to. It has my fave ships, JC, PT and D7. Minor characters play major parts and it is just funny. It makes me laugh every time.

JC’s relationship is really explored from all angles, this is not just your average, ‘the crew get them together fics’, it is so much more. It has sexual tension, smut, humour, sadness and is pure JC BLISS. It always cheers me up and I was so happy when Spiletta42 added it to Ao3 because this meant so many more people would find it.”

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Anonymous: ‘Bent, Not Broken’ by @killermanatee

“This is an incredible hurt/comfort Janeway/Chakotay fic. The story is painfully written from both characters' perspectives, showing how each is suffering in a different way from the traumatic event that has occurred. In the end, their love for each other will help them come together and they will both be able to heal with time, comfort, and support from one another. This is a beautifully told, emotionally heavy story of one couple's love overcoming tragedy. It is my favorite Janeway/Chakotay fic, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read a heartbreaking yet fulfilling story.”

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@minakotenjou: ‘Mysterious and Curious’ by @h4t08

“It was so hard to choose - there are a lot of incredible fanfics out there. This was one of the first...shall we say spicier J/C fics I read and for some reason I still think of it often. It's great smut for sure, but I think it stuck with me because of how it all gets tied together at the end.”

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@leisylaura: ‘The Bitter End’ by @mia-cooper

“We have post endgame books but not one about the original timeline, I remember reading “The bitter end” and thinking “this is it, this is what happened”. I cried from beginning to end.”

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@killermanatee: ‘The Dying of the Light’ by @cnrothtrek

"This fic is such a gorgeous piece of art. I hadn't seen the TNG episode before reading it and when I did watch it I was very disappointed because this fic is just on such a completely different level. The storytelling is so delicate and intriguing, that combined with the poignant and elegant writing style, so that it was impossible to put my phone down. I can't recommend this fic highly enough."

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@cheile: ‘Marooned’ by Soliquilii9 (aka Running Horse)

“I love how she makes the story unfold in slow steady measures. Also, she filled in the gaps left by the writers in regards to his heritage by using information from her own Cherokee background and it is done naturally (not in an info dump type manner). “

__________

What do you think of our list of Voyager favorites? Do you have a favorite that isn’t on this list? Reply to this post with your favorite!! And if you haven’t read ALL of these fics yet, I strongly suggest you get started!! Have fun and enjoy!!

#voyager #star trek voyager #voyager fic #voyager book club #Voyager Favorite Fics

216 notes · View notes

mr-entj · 4 years

Note

Hi Mr ENTJ, How do you deal with doubt? That gripping feeling that you're just not enough and you should be better? How do you look for answers from the inside rather than just patch in on from the outside? Thanks.

Related answers:

Can you talk about the quality(ies) or trait(s) that contributed most to your success?

What do you think is required from a person to succeed ?

Dealing with failure and overcoming adversity

You’re referring specifically to self-doubt. This is a great question that took me a long time to properly articulate a response because I didn’t want to dismiss it with a stereotypical: “I don’t feel self-doubt. I just fix the problem, power through it, and move on!” like every other ExTJ out there. I want to properly explain why this is the case so let me try:

I don’t often experience self-doubt or the gripping feeling that I’m not good enough, not because I’m a perfect human being (far from it-- here’s a greatest hits collection of some of my biggest failures), but because of my general approach to life that’s shaped by a few key beliefs.

1. I know where the world ends and where I begin

This means that I know where the line exists between what I want and what the world wants, between who I am and who other people want me to be, and between my expectations for my life and other people’s expectations of me. I see this boundary crystal clear and I enforce it. I set my own goals and I hold myself accountable to them.

This helps fight self-doubt because I don’t attach my self-esteem and self-worth to externally defined goals or assessments, I don’t accept unwanted input into my personal life from people who don’t matter, and I don’t compare myself to other people in destructive ways. If I compare myself to other people, it’s for the purposes of data gathering and not validation.

For example, the knowledge that most students graduate college in 4 years tells me that 4 years is the average amount of time. My key takeaway is that 3 years is above average speed and 4+ years is below average speed so I should aim to get my degree in approximately 4 years. My key takeaway is not that I’m a disastrous failure if I don’t graduate college in 4 years. And FYI, I ended up graduating in 6 years because I dropped out for 2 years and I still turned out fine.

Self-defined and self-enforced goals are critical to combating self-doubt because they mute all the outside noise; pushy parents, nosy friends, aggressive colleagues, and fickle societal standards. Life is very difficult by itself without the added complexity of multiple people pulling you in different directions that you don’t even want to go. Set clear boundaries and take the time to self-reflect what’s important to you so that you can be happy with the results of your efforts even if they don’t yield acknowledgement from anyone else.

tl;dr:

Find peace with the life you create for yourself because it’s you that has to live it.

2. I keep the big picture in mind, always

This means perspective. In the grand scheme of things, small losses here and there don’t amount to much because life is a marathon and not a sprint. This means that if you screw up today, there’s a high chance you can fix it tomorrow. If not, then know the world isn’t going to end because of it. The sun will still rise, babies will still be born, puppies will still be cute, your family will still love you, Tumblr will still be toxic, and the earth will still spin on its axis. I have failed classes, almost got held back in school, screwed up at work, infuriated important people, been rejected from 100+ jobs, lost important scholarships, and things still worked out because those failures didn’t matter in the long run even if they felt enormous at the time I was experiencing them. I know mistakes can be fixed, they’re not permanent, and they don’t sabotage the grand vision I have for my life. It makes the times I fall on my ass less painful which consequently makes me less fearful of trying to fly over and over again until I get it right.

This helps fight self-doubt because I attach failure to individual outcomes (actions) but I do not attach failure to me personally (identity).

For example, if I applied to Harvard University but got rejected, my interpretation of that outcome is this: “I failed to get into Harvard.” Yes, I failed to get into Harvard (action) but no, I am not a failure (identity).

The failure starts and stops at the end of an outcome, I don’t let it escape its container and infect other parts of my life by internalizing this kind of garbage: “I failed to get into Harvard so I’m dumb, I’m unworthy, and I suck.” This prevents self-doubt because I know failure is an isolated incident and I don’t take it personally. I don’t absorb failure as a personal identity-- I attach it to the specific event, action, or outcome and then store it in my vast library of knowledge as a lesson learned.

tl;dr:

Life is long and screwing up is part of the journey. Remember that you can fail at things (action) without being a failure (identity).

3. I accept that life is a game of probability

This means that I view life as a statistics game with events on a sliding scale between low probability of success and high probability of success. Probability of success is influenced by many variables such as my preparation, my natural abilities, the economy, my competition, timing, etc. I adjust the probability of success based on those variables to make better predictions:

I know that if my goal is to join the National Basketball Association (NBA), my probability of success is lower because my basketball skills and physical traits are below the average of a typical professional basketball player.

I know that if my goal is to get accepted to one of the best universities in the world, my probability of success is higher because my grades, test scores, and academic profile are above the average of a typical applicant.

Low probability of success doesn’t mean low effort. I don’t half-ass things that are unlikely to happen, I put high effort in all my endeavors if I really care about them and an obvious example of that is my life. Everything I’ve achieved in my life has been statistically improbable because I come from an underprivileged background where it was highly unlikely for me to have the life I have now. I beat the odds and achieved my goals anyway because I maximized my chances of success.

This perspective influences how I interpret success and failure:

Low probability of success that results in failure: “This outcome is what I expected so I’m not surprised, but at least I tried, gave it my best shot, and I know the answer. I’ll learn where I can improve and take that knowledge forward into the future.”

Low probability of success that results in success: “This outcome is not what I expected but I’m pleased it went my way. I understand this was an exception to the norm and I’m grateful it leaned in my favor.”

High probability of success that results in success: “This outcome is what I expected and I’m pleased it went my way. I need to continue doing the things that worked well and keep that knowledge for future reference.”

High probability of success that results in failure: “This outcome is not what I expected so I’m disappointed. I need to evaluate why I failed, understand how I can improve, and try again until I get it right.”

This helps fight self-doubt because it does one very crucial thing for me: it makes it impossible for me to lose.

I tell people all the time: “I’m undefeated because I’m still standing and I’m still going.” I can’t lose, I can only learn. It enables me to set realistic goals, have realistic expectations about my chances to achieve them, understand why I failed, and feel grateful when I succeed. Success is never guaranteed and failure is always accounted for in my calculations so I’m never blindsided. I know that I can be “perfect” and still fail, but I also know that I can be “imperfect” and still succeed. If I’ve done everything within my power and it’s still not going my way, then I’m not plagued with self-doubt because I can accept it was beyond my control and that it’s time to try something else.

tl;dr:

Many things in life are out of your control but try your best so you have peace of mind that you’re not quitting-- you’re moving on.

I’m not invincible, but for these reasons, it’s rare for me to feel self-doubt because I don’t view life as a game of “am I good enough or not?” I view life as a game of “what’s the best way to get what I want and did it work?” My two options are then: 1) Succeed, learn, and move on or 2) Fail, learn, and move on. There’s no third option to spiral into uncertainty and crippling self-doubt. I focus my energy on identifying the problem, the variables I can control, and the learnings from my outcomes.

In the rare times I do feel self-doubt, I go through a rigorous self-reflection exercise to identify the cause whether that’s concerns about personal decisions I’ve made, thoughts on my professional trajectory, or the state of my relationships. I identify the outcome that I want, gather information on how to secure that outcome, and give it my best shot. The result of that effort provides knowledge, wisdom, and opportunities to either 1) continue on the same path or 2) stop and try something else.

Ultimately, I always feel like there’s something wonderful in life waiting for me just around the corner and agonizing over past failures or self-doubt-- instead of getting up and trying again-- only delays me getting it.

#doubt #self-esteem #self-confidence #self-doubt #psychology #strength #personality #failure #success #personal #faq

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katelynn-a-fan · 4 years

Text

Why We Do What We Do (3)

First | Previous | Next

Five hours earlier

“Here we are!” Patton piped up as Logan, Roman, Virgil and Patton arrived at the location of their FamILY dinner, as Patton called it.

This is the 3rd time we’ve been to an Italian restaurant this month and we’re not even 3 weeks into the year. Honestly the only thing that we agree on with this place is their pasta. But as long as we’re here, the pasta is going to be delicious! The boys love their pasta.

Patton rolled his eyes as they entered into the restaurant’s immaculate foyer, passing the line of people going out the door.

“Wow! It’s really busy tonight! Wonder what so special about today!” exclaimed Roman, who surged up to where the hosts were waiting, getting a few side-eyes from the line they had just passed. Patton just gave them a subtly, almost cheeky smile, as if he didn’t understand why they were looking at him..

Luckily for the little group, they had made a reservation early enough to be seated within minutes whereas there was a line out the door for the unfortunate majority that did know about the online reservation system the restaurant had. But then again, coming to this restaurant in particular at least once every 2 weeks since they were kids, if not more often, would get you swiftly accustomed to their way of doing things.

Their host’s eyes lit up as they had approached to confirm their reservation and Patton swore that she had done something to bump them up because with how quickly they had been seated and where they were seated, it should’ve been a quarter hour.

“I’ve wondered when you boys would be coming back next, anything new to speak about?” their host, Kiki bubbled as they neared her podium.

“Nothing more notable than last time Kiki.” Virgil snarked playfully, but as he said it, a blush creeped up on his cheeks. Roman’s face also turned a similar shade of red at Virgil’s words.

“Oh, don’t get me started about last time! When you told me you and Roman had finally planned to go out as a couple, I was over the moon! I don’t know how you two were so clueless about each other’s feelings when you have spent every day since you both started high school together.” Kiki snarked back as she automatically grabbed the menus and steered them to what they had claimed as ‘their’ booth, a semi circular booth, the kind that made it impossible to get out of if you were in the middle.

The Death Trap. They had come to call it that after many friendly squabbles and refusals of whoever was on outside to relent to move out the way of another person. Patton himself didn’t remember who first coined the moniker, either Virgil or Roman, but had stuck and Patton couldn’t think of anything more fitting to call it.

“We don’t know either.” Logan replied as Patton felt Logan instinctively grab Patton’s arm, which Patton responded to by intertwining their arms together instead, earning a gentle, playful glare from Logan as they walked along. Patton felt Logan rub a finger over Patton left ring finger where their wedding band resided.

“Damn right! ...Wait, Don’t you have midnight lab today, Logan?” Kiki enquired as she instinctively weaved through the tables and servers, but her head turned looking at Logan. Impressive.

“Yes, but you know I can’t possibly pass up our bi-monthy escapade to our most delectable choice of cuisine when there is no reason to refuse as is a tradition not easily thwarted.” Logan articulated as Patton felt him subtly squeeze his hand, which then earned Logan a glare of his own from Patton.

You lovable nerd.

“Nerd.” Patton mumbled loud enough for Logan to hear, but both Logan’s response and their impromptu glaring game came to an end as they finally reached their destination at The Death Trap.

“Well then, I must spread the message that our 4 favorite boys are here and to give them the best service they can.” Kiki affirmed with a wink as she placed the menus on the table and then walked briskly out of sight.

Everyone was seated in The Death Trap with Logan and Patton to the left, Roman and Virgil to the right. Logan and Roman being on outside.

All of them got their usual, which their server didn’t even have to ask each of them in turn, just uttering a short ”Y’alls usuals?” And when they answered in the affirmative, the server quickly picked up the menus that were still in the same pile that Kiki had brought them in, which made Patton wonder why Kiki bothered with giving them the menus every time they came in. They knew the menus forwards and backwards.

After they were seated with drinks, the meal became a blur. Appetizers, then main meal and then the check was suddenly on the table

They were discussing the semantics of when jello became a solid, with Logan arguing the scientific side when the jello was uniformly under 0 degrees Celsius as a large component of jello was water (Logan had a large distaste for America’s measurement systems and refused to use Fahrenheit). Roman argued that it was only when it was at a certain consistency, which he could not define, but insisted on challenging Logan’s assertion with his own nonetheless.

Patton was never one to argue like this, but he enjoyed seeing Roman and Logan’s mental sparing. It was an interesting, no, entertaining thing to watch. Like a metaphorical gladiator battle, only Logan was almost always the winner and there was no blood to be shed. ‘Almost always’ being something Logan would deny to this day, but a little after all 4 of them had met as a group of friends, they had gotten into a debate about the size of the universe.

Roman, as stubborn as ever, had brought up that the universe was around 100 billion light years in diameter, smug that he knew a scientific fact that would make him right. Logan quickly shot back that it was only the observable universe that was referring to and that the complete universe was much bigger. Roman retorted something along the lines that there was no way to measure how big the universe really was, so by default, Roman was right.

“No! The physical limit of the speed of light and the fact that you know the limit of the observable universe does not change the fact that the universe is no doubt infinitesimally big, unlike your brain!” Logan had huffed in frustration.

“Hey, that was uncalled for!” Roman had exclaimed before they both went silent glaring at each other in what Patton had learned was not malice, but a mutual respect of each other’s debating ability. Virgil had not yet figured that out so he was bug-eyed and trembling slightly at their increasing intensity.

Patton had let the silence permeate for a moment or two before he piped up with a “Wait, doesn’t infinitesimal mean really, really small, not really, really big?” along with his signature head tilt he used for when he didn’t understand.

Logan had paused in what he going to say as Patton interjected and then started again, “No, Patton, I know my wo-”, before he froze with a look of realization that turned him beet red, which Patton realized later he had found really cute (Flustered Logan was best Logan in Patton’s opinion). Logan had run off to escape embarrassment while Roman bragged to Patton and Virgil that the infallible Logan had lost to the magnanimous Roman, who was giving him mercy by not pursuing him after Roman’s victory.

Just Logan being Logan and Roman being Roman.

However, Patton was pulled from his reminiscing by Virgil chiming in with a third opinion, that jello was both and neither, it was like a cat. It could conform to any container it was placed in, but was a solid that didn’t run when it was freestanding.

Patton reeled back out of surprise from whatever position he had been while he had been spacing out and turned to his left to stare at Virgil.

In all his years, there had never been a third contender in the ring of debate, this was new and exciting territory. Patton waited almost pensively for the other’s responses.

“But it does that when it’s liquid! If you take the jello out it stays in the same shape, and plus something can’t be both phases!” Roman retorted without hesitation.

“Concur with both of you, I still believe it only becomes a solid once the optimum temperature is reached, but when it is in the process of cooling down, I would agree with Virgil.” Logan proposed with expression of surprise probably similar to Patton’s.

“But that doesn’t make sense, neither of you are right! Jello is solid when you can stick your finger in and your finger doesn’t come back covered in liquid jello, that’s a foolproof theory!” Roman interjected, which cause Logan to raise his eyebrows.

“No it’s like a cat!” Virgil restated with a fire Patton had never seen in his eyes.

Oh, that’s new.

“No it’s not, cat is a living thing and jello is a food! Why have you chosen now to start debating with us? I would’ve understood joining us earlier, but Logan and I have been doing this for years ever since we’ve met. Why don’t you leave the debating to the professionals?” Roman snickered as he seemed to turn himself full force against Virgil.

Virgil’s froze for a second before his eyes bugged out, reminding Patton of that infamous argument Logan and Roman had.

“What?” Virgil growled, causing Patton’s heart to seize, this... this was something different. This argument was turning into something dangerous.

“What? I’m just saying that we’ve been doing this a whole lot longer than you have so you’re not going to win the first round on your first time out.” Roman declared with pride.

Abort! Abort! Abort!

Logan tried to say something, to defuse the rapidly escalating argument, but was interrupted by Virgil.

“Well I’ve been listening you two bicker for years, you think I’m dull enough to not pick something up from your silly show?!” Virgil scowled as Patton saw his hands morph into fists.

Patton gently grasped Virgil’s arm in an attempt to calm him down, but Virgil brushed him off with glare as he waited for Roman’s response with a much harsher glare that Roman didn't seem to register at all.

Roman seemed unperturbed as he responded with “Our debates aren’t silly! What would make you say that?” and a sly smile.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say and do, as Virgil exploded past Roman and all but ran out of the restaurant, causing Roman to curse as Virgil squeezed past him uncomfortably. Roman shot a glance of confusion at Logan and Patton as he quickly followed after his boyfriend, careful not to make a scene of himself.

Patton gestured for Logan to exit as well, but Logan shook his head. “Someone needs to pay the check, if you want to follow them you can, I can’t stop you, but I need to stay.” Patton squeezed Logan’s hand and nodded before scooting out the other direction and walking as briskly as he could to catch up with Virgil and Roman.

When he reached them in the parking lot, Roman was grabbing Virgil’s hand to stop him.

No Roman, no!

“Virgil, wait-”

Virgil pulled his hand back like Roman’s touch burned him, wheeling back to face Roman.

“Get the fuck away from me! I need some fucking time away from this bullshit!” Virgil snarled as his knuckles turned white from how much he was squeezing his hands into a fist.

Roman made a strangled noise before retaliating, matching Virgil’s intensity in response. “Well, this bullshit is your fucking boyfriend Virgil! I don’t know what’s gotten you so worked up, but apparently I was wrong to let you into our debate at all if it’s going to make you this worked u-”

Roman was interrupted by Virgil punching him square in the jaw.

“Fuck you! You never did respect me. Your head’s always been too far up your ass to ever respect me like a proper boyfriend.” Virgil spat as Roman staggered back both from the punch and the surprise of Virgil hitting him and Virgil turned continuing back to his car.

Patton held Roman’s shoulders for a beat as he had almost fallen, but Roman angrily shook him off. Patton’s heart dropped as he realized thing had gotten way out of hand.

Roman’s gaze quickly hardened into a fury matching Virgil’s, “Well when you get the balls enough to come back to me I can assure you that we are done!” Roman rose his voice to shout as Virgil opened the door to his car.

“Fine!” Virgil’s car door slammed.

“Fine!” Roman snarled as he stalked over to his own car, ignoring Patton’s pleas for him to stay. Only pausing to turn back to give a Patton a glimpse of the growing bruise on the left side of his face and Roman’s contemptuous expression.

“Some best friends you are, I thought you would care enough to protect me, or at least do something.” Roman snapped as he got into his car and slammed the door.

Patton could swear he heard his heart break.

Patton felt helpless as he felt Logan’s hand settle onto his shoulder. Without hesitation, he turned to bury his face into Logan’s shoulder. Logan’s hand instinctively held the back of Patton’s head as he spoke.

“It’s going to be okay, Patton, they just need time to cool off. You know how we were when we were young, their tempers just need time to back down and let what they both said sink in. You know they love each other, this won’t stop them.” Logan consoled him as Patton trembled in his arms, shuddering but Patton was somehow to hold back his cries.

Distantly, he heard two engines start up and then go in opposite directions until he couldn’t hear them anymore over his shuddering breaths.

For both Roman and Virgil’s sakes, Patton hoped Logan was right.

Taglist:

@lefaystrent @ironwoman359 @delimeful @supersoftsupersleep @altruistic-skittles @007ardra @illogicalthinking

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etirabys · 4 years

Text

// do not reblog

My manager asked me send her more info when I told her I was on the spectrum, and I came up with what felt like a satisfactory draft outlining what that meant for me and the related challenges I had at work. At 9:30am this morning I thought I’d have it ready by 10am, and posted the most delicacy-requiring excerpt from the message to my Discord work channel, asking for opinions. Multiple people said, “I wouldn’t send that.” I ended up soliciting much more feedback than I thought would be necessary, rewrote extensively, and finished composing the message at 2pm or so.

I... well, I cried a lot in the process. I’m not scared of being fired. I am scared of being A Problem, but employees are or have Problems sometimes and that’s part of my manager’s responsibilities. What did get to me was the impossible-feeling task of writing an email that articulates “I am confused by some things that I know are against the social rules to ask, but that means I just guess, and sometimes I can’t afford to guess” and being told that the way I wrote it itself breaks a social rule. Any useful example I could give to explain what Forbidden things I had trouble with, itself is generally Forbidden to discuss. It was torture to write.

Here’s an excerpt from the almost-final version I produced:

My issue at work isn't that I cannot deal with these things, it's that I think I'm putting too much effort into acting like someone who doesn't find this difficult, and it is making me less effective at work. I don't want to be rude or difficult, but I think the degree to which I'm overclocking to avoid being rude or difficult is preventing me from learning or collaborating effectively. ...

// List of things that are causing issues for me, including:

6) I have trouble with social subtext, and try to guess what people 'really mean'. I think I'm okay at this, but the stressful part is when there's ambiguity && I perceive that it's 'against the social rules' to try to resolve the ambiguity. I do best when expectations are communicated explicitly, and will tend to over or undershoot if they are conveyed through subtext, because I have to put more effort into good guesses and am still wrong more often than other people. An example of this is that when I had my job orientation, the speaker said, "We want you to be your authentic self here. I knew a guy who was from the east coast who was used to wearing business suits at work. He saw that his coworkers here wore t-shirts and jeans, so he did the same, but was miserable about it. Eventually he talked to his manager, and the manager said 'be your authentic self and wear suits', so he went back to wearing suits and has been happier since." This struck me as a surprisingly superficial example, and I thought the subtext was "it's okay to be weird up to a certain level, and that level is dressing differently. Please don't be different beyond this level". Although I don't know if this is what the speaker meant, it seemed 'against the social rules' to discuss directly if this was the case, so I have erred on the side of abiding by the instruction I thought they were giving me.

The last paragraph is watered down from what it was – e.g. it originally said “This struck me as a surprisingly superficial example – so superficial it had to be deliberate –” and the giant told me to take it out. I also managed to fit somewhere else a very cautious treatment of the overtime pressure that hopefully won’t get me in trouble.

I’m angry. Normally I try to remember that people work the way they do because it makes sense for them given their minds and culture, and if they do things in a weird way, that’s not cause for me to judge them. NOT TODAY! Today I am good and sane and right, and the people who would punish me for asking “so it actually the case that you don’t want employees to show more weirdness than dressing differently? (So, can I be out as poly, or what?)” or “is it actually the case that you want me to work more hours?” are wrong and bad and their culture is broken. Writing this email made me feel like a diplomat delivering a missive to a people known to kill you if you got some grammar wrong. I live on Planet Gibberish, where it is not only mandatory to nod along with gibberish but to produce it yourself.

I’m also, less strongly, hopeful. I didn’t like the process of sending this message, but I sent it because I want to learn more at work from my coworkers and get more work done at a job I sometimes quite enjoy (and think I could enjoy much more), and maybe this is a step that is going to help rather than hinder me from doing that. Certainly I feel like I set down a heavy load; I feel like I’ve been binding myself to lying all the time because that was what I assumed was required from me, and I’m probing to check if it’s not required.

The last part is ridiculous so I’ll keep it short. After a bout of sobbing with despair at one point, I tilted my head up and looked at my two boyfriends on the bed, one of them reading the latest draft to help me with edits and the other one holding my hand, and had a splendid, spellbinding moment of waterlogged calm. It felt like: “Ah. This, too.”

#rambl #eti vs employment #eti's giant #partner cj

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convivialcamera · 5 years

Text

Curiosity Killed the Cat

“I know Brianna told you what—what we are. Do you believe it?”

“No,” he said, “but I give you my word that I will of course behave in all respects as if I did.”

—Written in My Own Heart’s Blood

Wilmington, Colony of North Carolina, 1776

“What did Da tell you about Mama? Before she came back?” Brianna asked her guest, Lord John Grey, who had come by her family’s rooms at the tavern, apparently with the intent of satisfying his curiosity.

“He said that she was gone,” Lord John replied, “and I assumed she was dead. But later, he confessed it was only likely that she had died and that he had escaped Ardsmuir on a chance to find her.”

Briana’s eyebrows raised in alarm as she passed him a whisky. “Da escaped prison?”

“He did return,” Lord John said, affronted.

“You didn’t tell me that when you told me about Ardsmuir before.”

“I have been more forthcoming with you than is proper already, my dear.”

But Briana waved it away, clearly getting back to the thrust of the conversation. “And when she returned?”

“He and your mother put about a rather thin story about her escaping the battle at Culloden by sailing to France. I was at Culloden, and know this to be nearly impossible, but I — prudently, I believe — did not pursue the matter.”

Briana snorted. “And, obviously, I was not raised in France.”

Lord John gave her a look of pathetic agreement, but took a sip of his drink.

“Yes, you said you and your mother lived in Boston, which as I said, explains your political attitudes but —”

“It doesn’t quite fit, does it?” Her blue, slanted eyes shined with a mischief that Lord John fancied had shone in James Frasers eyes more than once as a child. Lord John was becoming more perplexed, even as he knew that a simple childhood in the colony of Massachusetts was not enough to explain the many mysteries of Brianna Fraser MacKenzie and her mother.

“My dear, I am in suspense.”

“We’re time travellers,” Briana revealed, with the air of a conjurer revealing his trick. “Da didn’t send Mama to France, he sent her, well, back to the future — to when she came from.”

Lord John was both startled and even more puzzled than before. “And where, excuse me, when did your mother come from?”

“Nineteen forty-six.”

“I’m sorry, she’s from the year of our Lord nineteen-hundred and forty-six?” He quickly made the calculations and his jaw dropped. “That’s 170 years from now!”

“Is that so unbelievable?” Brianna asked, looking rather amused.

Lord John did not deign to answer directly. “And you? If you were living,” he cleared his throat meaningfully, “in the future, how did you come to be here?”

“Well, Mama and Roger and I went looking for Da, after Roger figured out he didn’t die at Culloden.”

“You thought he died at Culloden?”

“Well, he meant to, and he sent Mama away before he did it, so how were we to know?” She shrugged, but then brightened. “He’s going to be a legend in the Highlands you know, the laird who hid from the English in a cave and saved his estate by arranging for his capture, and all that. They’ll call him The Dunbonnet.”

“Of course they will,” said Lord John, seemingly overcome.

“We found the records of his stay in prison, and then he was paroled in England — how much did you have to do with that?”

“Just about everything.”

“And then he went back to Edinburgh….” Brianna stopped suddenly. “Wait. England. Oh, of course. William.”

“Yes, William,” Lord John confirmed. He watched as the realization turned into resolve on her face.

“Well, to make a long story short,” Brianna continued, “we found Da’s printshop and Mama went back to him, and then I found a notice in a newspaper that said they died and realized I could, maybe, warn them, after I finished college I went through the stones to find them, and Roger followed me, and well, you know the rest of that.”

“I do.” Lord John pondered her last statement. “What do you mean by ‘went through the stones’?”

“Have you ever seen a circle of standing stones? Like, Stonehenge?”

“Yes, but —”

“Some of them, or maybe most of them, or only a few, are portals through time, for some.”

“Portals through time?”

“Yes,” Brianna said. “Although not everyone can do it — Da can’t — and it only works at certain times of the year, and you probably need gemstones to protect you, even though Mama didn’t have any when she went through the first time on accident, and —” Lord John was looking pale, and clutched the glass of whisky tightly in his hand. “This is too much, isn’t it?”

“It is quite the tale,” Lord John said, remembering his drink and taking a gulp. Composing himself with effort, he continued: “You said you found your parent’s obituary? When will they die?” He looked distressed at the thought.

“The Big House was supposed to burn down in January, but it didn’t. Praemonitus praemunitus, after all.”

“Forewarned is forearmed, indeed,” Lord John said. “And what college, pray tell, would admit a woman to read, even one of your intellect?”

“Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which won’t be founded for another ninety or so years. I’m a licensed engineer, you know.” She smiled at Lord John’s astounded face — he clearly had never heard of such a thing. “It’s how I made the matches. And Mama’s got a medical degree from Harvard.”

“That is one of the least outlandish things you have told me tonight.”

“Of that, Lord John, I have no doubt.” But she sighed, and earnestly went on, “Do you believe any of it?”

The shock of her pronouncements was wearing off, and Lord John was feeling more himself. “I must admit, I can provide little assurance of my own apprehension of such a thing,” he said.

“I didn’t really expect you to, honestly. I didn’t believe Mama, when she first told me about it. I even threw a fire poker through a window.” She smiled in remembrance. “Although that was more about Da, and less about the time travel.”

“I have yet to have the pleasure to see you in a true temper, my dear, and it is a pleasure I hope to long forego.” He stood to leave, and Brianna rose from her own chair.

“It’s where we’re going. Or when, I should say — not just away from here, or to France. We’re going back to when we came from.” Despite his total disbelief in her story, her distress was entirely real. “It’s why I’m so sure this will be the last time we’ll see one another.”

“You know I shall miss you particularly, my dear.”

“Me too.”

As he walked back to his own lodgings through the streets of Wilmington, Lord John reflected on the many ridiculous and totally fantastic things Brianna had told him about herself and her mother and thought that curiosity did indeed kill the cat.

Author’s note: I am indebted to @futurelounging, who gifted me a line of Lord John's dialogue and also the best articulation of his manner and mode of expression that I’ve seen yet.

#Curiosity Killed the Cat fic #Outlander fanfic #Outlander #Lord John Grey #Brianna Fraser MacKenzie #A Breath of Snow and Ashes #An Echo in the Bone #Missing Moment

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chaniters · 4 years

Text

Masquerade

The next part of @kruk-art‘s Awan Cormac fic. Writing the final parts of this finally!

Infiltrating GeniTech’s party, the rangers attempt to change the board’s mind about the riot, but things on the inside aren’t as calm as they initially seem.

Spoilers ahead for Rebirth, as usual.

__________________________________

You glance nervously to your left, as a whole platoon of soldiers clad in articulated carapace armors scrambles through the corridors ahead of you.

In your mind, GeniTech’s Arcology is now the Trojan fortification, the rioters are the greek, and the lot of you are a an improvised rebellious third party refusing to let history repeat itself, hidden inside the wooden horse Ortega asked you to build. All you can do is hope it won’t get burnt before crossing the gate.

“You’re clear.” the guard announces. “Excuse me for the delay, we didn’t think anyone would be joining this late… especially with what’s happening…”

Ortega watches him without a word, before putting his mask back on.

“...Enjoy the party” the guard states drily, opening the gate.

All of you walk past, putting your masks back on, not stopping until the elevator’s doors close. It quickly fires upwards, taking you to the upper floor, where GeniTech’s Halloween celebration takes place.

“Well done everyone,” Ortega says when it seems no guards are listening.

Elyise disabled the dampeners, Steel used your scrambler to deactivate their retinal scan and you made them think you were legitimate party guests and that everything was in order. Anathema added fake zippers and other details to your suits so they have a Halloween-costume flair to them.

This would have been pretty standard infiltration were you still at the farm, but it’s blowing your mind for completely different reasons. Most humans wouldn’t know what to say to their creator if that even existed. That’s no dilemma for you, though. The farm might have assembled you, but GeniTech came up with the very idea of you. What would you say to them, the people who invented you? What would you even…-

“Be on alert everyone,” you say coming back to earth. “Steel, will use his scanners to find board members. Elyise will deactivate the scramblers in the area one at a time. The rest, distract them with conversation until Ortega can get into position, and then…” you go on explaining.

You suggested using your powers to change the Boards mind and let the people take refuge in the Arcology, but, it was Ortega who came up with this infernal plan. You have to admit it was a really good one. You still suggested a ton of changes needed for it to actually work, and the Marshall ended up putting you in charge in return. Steel’s glare made It’s painfully obvious everyone now knows you’ve got more experience with covert operations than any of them suspected, a point you had been trying to conceal, but that can’t be helped.

“We’re here. Remember, mingle and wait for Steel’s word. Ready, Marshall?” you ask looking to Ortega, who gives a quick nod, giving this operation the go signal.

___________________________________

“...We appreciate power

I'll evade the human race, putting makeup on my face…”

You being you, the lyrics are frankly disturbing. At least that’s all you can think as you turn your back on the live band, broadcast via a hologram on the stage.

You take a drink from a passing waiter and walk up to the glass wall. The sight is magnificent from atop the central spire of the arcology, even obscured as it is now, possibly to diminish the sight of the fires and the approaching riot. As Ortega Explained, Halloween has a different meaning for the genecorps. They created superheroes and their worship. These parties are an occasion to dress up as their creations, bask in their glory, and the profits they bring. There are posters of all of GeniTechs’ sponsored heroes on the walls. Even with the dampeners online, you can almost feel the gigantic egos of everyone inside.

It’s easy to understand why won’t they just call off the party from up here. This whole building is a pharaonic monument to their vanity and pride, and they won’t let Psychopathor, the public or anyone else get in their way. They own the west coast and will prove their power to anyone who dares interfere. If there has to be a war, they have the guns, soldiers and the technology to win it. They will put the rabble back in their place, or at least that’s what they think will happen.

These people are loaded to a degree you hadn’t even considered could exist. Their impossibly expensive costumes are sometimes better than those worn by some actual heroes you’ve met. There is an Owl walking by that has a reactive armor piece that the original could never afford. You saw someone wearing your own hero persona in a skintight armored nanomesh that could have taken bullets as if they were candy. She scoffed at your own, by comparison, shoddy suit, leaving you with all manner of questions.

Are you the knockoff here?!

“Big party, huh?” someone says, holding a drink next to you. “First time to an event like this”

You turn to see The Void, drinking a colored shot next to you, only his lips visible with the mask partially pulled up.

“You too?” you say trying to strike a conversation, as you were taught to do. “I must confess, I’ve never seen a party like this before.”

“Well, I plan to see many more like this my friend,” he says with a mischievous soft smile. “Many, many more”

As he says that, you notice many things happening at once.

First, you hear Steel on your left ear, confirming a board member is in your vicinity, which means you should pull over. Before you manage a full step back from the glass wall and this man talking to you, you can feel your thoughts relaxing and the dampeners going down.

You expand your mind, ready to home in the GeniTech executive like a hornet… but instead realizing the man beside you is the real-

“Nath?!” you exclaim before bitting your tongue.

“Awan?” he says spilling his drink, glowing eyes on his mask fixated onto you in shock.

Neither of you even think, farm training actings on its own. Your hand reaches forward, trying to bend his arm backward, but knowing you’re better at judo he spins faster to avoid your grab. You took your chance and failed, and there’s no way to avoid the incoming kick that pushes you deeper into the crowd of fancy rich assholes playing armored heroes and villains.

A false Green Blast and Ophidian both curse ruining their looks, and by the time you get free of them, The Void has banished among the other costumes.

“Sidestep! Sidestep, come in?!” Steel’s voice in your ear becomes audible again. “We’ve got the executive! Hurry up”

“I… I just saw The Void,” you say

“What?!” Ortega’s voice floods the channel. “Mierda, who invited that asshole?”

“ I don’t know… He was just standing there and…”

The music goes on.

“Sidestep, are you ok? You’re looking drowsy” Ortega’s question lingers in your ears.

The room seems to be spinning with all these insane people’s minds clashing against your weak shields. You hold on to a tall table for a moment, trying to get the world back into focus.

“I’m ok. Void distracted me, and you know I have to prepare around crowds. These people’s egos are immense, taking it all in after the dampeners went off is too much… and the music’s not helping either.”

“Awan, can you still do this?” he asks

“Yes.” you say straightening up. “I’m ok. Just needed a moment, I’m fine now.”

“Ok… well then I say we go as planned... Everyone keep watch for The Void. We don’t know what’s he’s doing here and…”

The music, lights, and everything seems to go off at once, along with his communication.

Shit.

You’re not caught unaware this time and immediately switch to night vision. All the partygoers seem to be expecting something to happen. Maybe some sort of surprise?

“Use the secondary channel!” you hear Ortega’s voice again, and you quickly adjust, as everyone on the team asks what’s going on.

“Maybe it’s a surprise?” Sunstream asks “I hear these parties can go wild…”

“I don’t think so, this is all too much of a coincidence…” Sentinel says “Something is wrong, I can feel it and...”

The lights go back on, the crowd cheering as Reaper himself is now on stage, wearing his dark cloak, hood and trademark glowing spectral scythe in his left hand. Everybody loves a real legend like him, standing taller than life.

Still, the cheers die off rather quickly, as they follow his right arm, noticing that he is strangling GeniTech’s CEO with his skeletal fingers while his white skull cackles in a decidedly macabre and less than jovial tone. The scream of pain, the skin wrinkling, the hair going white, turning into a husk, a skeleton, and then finally breaking to pieces and disintegrating… It all seems far too realistic. A few people on the front row cough as they are bathed in handfuls of the floating dust, and everyone’s deathly silent by then.

“Sentinel dear, do you ever get tired of being so fucking right?” Elyise asks tiredly.

___________________________________________________

My Fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

The song is We Appreciate Power by Grimes, which of course I do not own.

#fallen hero: rebirth #amazing @Kruk-Art #Awan Cormac #Fanfiction #Fallen Hero Spoilers #Rangers

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psychopersonified · 4 years

Text

Can your AI do this?

Post Are we ever going to talk about this? and Where was the wooing? (AO3)

Highly recommended to read the series first to get emotionally invested in their story arc. This short piece will feel a lot more satisfying once you know their backstory. But you can still read this as a stand alone.

Q-Branch gets a pet (for science! purposes). Bond tests a new vehicle, and Q gets thoroughly... well you know 😉.

Tags: *Ahem* Fun-times content (be responsible), newly established relationship, humour, fluff with feeling, banter.

-------------------------------

SIS Building - Q-Branch

The little bug eyed bright yellow creature stares up at him from inside its glass terrarium. From that angle, it looks like its smiling up at them.

Q closes the cover after replacing the water dish, “We’re studying its movements and ability to adhere to surfaces. With all the sensitives around drone use and anti-drone capabilities these days, we’re thinking a robot that is a little more discrete would be more effective. Something small, quiet, that won’t trigger existing alarm systems and a much longer battery life. Potentially it might not even need to enter the premises, it could make its way up the side walls and observe from outside.“

“You’re just using that as an excuse to keep something cute.“ The creature raises itself on all fours, head head high, staring at Bond curiously.

“Well I’m not denying it’s good for morale as well.” Q waves his fingers at the creature and it responds by licking an eye with a pink tongue.

“Not mine. I’ve seen your little machine learning side project. You’re working on replacing me with an AI, and a robot gecko. So much for job security.”

“Oh don’t worry. Not until we can fit a miniaturised poison dart gun to the robot, we’ll still need you around.”

“Thanks,” Bond huffs, mildly put out. “So is there anything I can do for you at the moment? Or have you called me here just to insult me?”

Q isn’t fooled, he knew Bond was looking for any excuse to cut short his meeting with M and 009. Agent 007 has a low tolerance threshold for bureaucratic meetings; once past the hour mark, his attention span wanes significantly and he becomes disruptive.

Q smiles at him, “Believe it or not, I’ve actually called you here for legitimate reasons. This way please 007.”

——

London River Thames

They’re standing on the dock under the SIS building. Bobbing in the water attached to a boat is what can only be described as a watercraft bearing an uncanny resemblance to a dolphin.

“It’s a modified Seabreacher; we’ve enhanced its submersible capabilities up to 15 ft and of course added a light weapons system. We’ve also given it an electric motor for low speed stealth mode.”

Bond turns him, expression hopeful. Q has to quickly clarify, “Before you get excited, it’s not assigned to you. But I do need a test pilot today.”

Bond exhales; a put upon sigh. As if he wasn’t internally itching to get into the machine. Q waits for him to change into something more comfortable. When Bond returns, he is in a black turtleneck that showcases the muscles of his upper body to great effect. His holster worn over it and he has driving gloves on. He looks every bit the rouge he’s accused of being.

Q nearly looses his tablet stylus to the Thames when it drops out of his distracted hand and rolls perilously close to a gap between the planks of the dock. He saves it by stepping on it quickly.

They tow the Seabreacher a short distance upriver, somewhere between Battersea Bridge and Chelsea Bridge where river traffic is a little less busy. Bond has an excellent time testing out the craft, quickly getting the hang of barrel rolls, executing spin stops and 90 degree surface breaches and finally, porpoising through the water mimicking the movements of real dolphins. The stealth submersible mode works excellent too, but the Thames has disappointingly poor visibility so there’s not much to see. However it gives them a chance to try the newly installed underwater sonar navigation system. Pity they didn’t get to test the weapons system - the London City Council and the London Port Authority wasn’t too keen on allowing that.

All this acrobatic splashing about draws a crowd among the park visitors on both sides of the river and from the few boathouses docked on the northside of the bank. When the test ends, Bond pulls the craft up along side the waiting boat. He exits the cockpit to a smattering of appreciative applause from a passing tour boat - Americans on holiday likely. Native Londoners are unlikely to be this emotive. Bond smirks and gives them a curt wave.

He’s in such a good mood that once he’s jumped on board the tow boat, he stalks over to Q who had just finished tethering the craft, cups one side of his face with a gloved hand and pecks him quickly on the corner of the mouth in front of everyone.

“Can your AI do that?”

“You’re impossible,” Q lightly shoves him away. Mindful that they are still on the clock.

“And you love challenges.”

“Not impossible ones.”

“Says the man who is trying to replace me with a gecko.”

“You know what, I probably could program an autonomous mode into the thing. For starters, it’ll be far less infuriating.”

“I wasn’t talking about the craft...,” Bond reaches for Q again, this time swiping a thumb over the corner of his mouth where the agent just kissed.

“Get a room!… Sirs.” Nish yells at them from the helm of the tow boat. He’s still peeved that he lost money on the bet about them getting together.

——

Quartermaster’s Residence - Sexy times

Bond’s good mood extends all the way to the evening when they get home. Dinner was abysmally quick because a randy agent wouldn’t let Q sit down to eat; pressed up against him from behind, groping and palming him between the legs as he rushed through his food standing at the kitchen counter.

A quick shower later and they‘ve exiled the cats and seconded themselves in the bedroom.

“Talk to me about the Seabreacher again,” Bond instructs as he lowers a well prepared Q into his lap. The entry is tight but smooth. The heat of Q’s waiting body intoxicating.

Q savours the breach, the feeling of invading fullness as Bond pushes in. “Hmm... turns you on does it?“ Q wraps his arms around Bond’s neck and kisses him playfully before sucking on his bottom lip and nipping up the line of Bond’s jaw to give the agent’s earlobe a playful bite.

“How many horsepowers?” Bond rumbles, squeezing a fleshy cheek in retaliation and to prompt him along.

“300 from the twin supercharged intercooled ICE alone…,” Q breathes into his ear, “…another 50 from the electric motor... Ah!” Q grinds down to meet his upward thrust.

-Fuck YESSss-. He didn’t think it possible, but Bond feels himself stiffen further. He snakes a hand from behind, into Q’s hair and tugs his head back. “Weapons?” He mouths against the delicate column of Q’s pale exposed neck, latching on and sucking with every intention to bruise.

“Ngghhh!… Dorsal mounted assault rifle. Ah!... Two rounds of compact mini underwater torpedos.. Ooh... with blast force that could sink a yacht—“ the next thrust sends Q wailing “—Jaaaames!” Feeding right into his ego.

Bond kisses Q deeply. -God how he loves this man-, “Manoeuvrerbility?”

“Jet nozzle trust vectoring— *gasp*…full tail articulation… *gasp* …giving the pilot complete control to execute high speed 360 degree barrel rolls—“ Bond changes angle suddenly, “Fuck! James!” Q’s grip around the agent’s shoulders tightens to brace himself against it. The things this man does to him! The sudden intensity of sensation as Bond hits the right spot brings tears to his eyes.

“Mmm… What else can it do?” Bond demands, pulling Q downwards even as his hips snap up - growling with the force it.

It takes a few seconds for Q to recollect his thoughts, gritting his teeth, eyes squeezing shut. “High speed, 90 degree underwater to surface breaches… Oh God!… Submarine mode up to 15ft dept …*gasp* …electric powered stealth mode up to five…*gasp* …five nautical miles—,” Q buries his face in the crook of Bond’s neck moaning, “… Bullet proof cabin pod.”

Q is panting hard now, fingernails biting into the muscles of Bond’s back, riding through the staccato rhythm the best he can. “James, please. I can’t think anymore…” he begs.

Bond tips them over onto the bed so he’s on top and continues their practiced rhythm. Alternating between deep and shallow thrusts. With most of Q’s weight now supported by the bed, Bond can put all of his strength into his hip movements.

The intensity has Q gasping his name at every inward shove, which just fuels Bond’s possessive fire. It turns into a blaze - spurring him on; harder, deeper. Q’s previously restrained cries turn into outright wails and Bond has to muffle them with deep consuming kisses lest they scare the cats or the neighbours call the police on them.

Soon, the friction between their bodies along with the sweet repetitive drag of Bond’s unyielding girth and length inside him, angled just right, has Q whimpering for release; for mercy. His entire body is shaking -Too much!- “Please James!… Please… I need…. I need…,” Bond swallows every word of his plea with greedy possessive kisses, all the while not missing a stroke.

When Bond finally responds, his voice is low, gravelly and teasing, “Yes love, what do you need?” The gentleness of his tone a direct contrast to the unrelenting strength of his thrusts. The bastard knows exactly what he needs!

Frustrated, Q bites down on a thickly muscled shoulder, but that serves only to stoke Bond’s cruelty. His pumping slows, turning into deep powerful grinds. The pleasure is agonisingly drawn out, the sustained feeling of fullness, arguably more torturous.

“Oh God! Jaa—mees please!… I can’t… Ah!…” Q sobs in desperation, his body strung so tight, clawing for release, wanting, needing.

“Sshhh…” Bond soothes, strong hands caressing the length of Q’s body but his hips do not relent. Then comes more deep claiming kisses - stealing the very breath from him before Bond finally reaches down between them, grabs a firm but gentle hold of him and starts stroking, from root to tip, milking him exactly as he likes it.

Q moans brokenly. Body shuddering. One more deep angled thrust and a slow swipe of a calloused thumb over his leaking tip and Q arches his back in absolute unconditional surrender.

Pleasure rips trough his body, muscles tightening and spasming with his release - clamping down hard around the fullness still inside him for long seconds before slowly going lax. His brain shuts down into safe mode.

When he first comes to, he’s vaguely aware that James is still thrusting into him, face buried in his neck. With a final stuttering push he too tips over the edge, rooting deeply and coming in long spurts. The loud rapturous moan that escapes him is one of unreserved release. Never has Q heard him this vocal on missions, the sounds of pleasure usually only coming from his marks - 007 is himself usually silent, a few grunts and he’s done.

James collapses on top of him, their chest rising and falling in synchronised rhythm. Once they’ve finally caught their breaths, they’re kissing again, slow languid kisses of pure affection. James is still on top, propped up on his elbows, Q’s head cradled in his hands, his heavy warm weight a secure blanket. Q has never felt this completely possessed yet this utterly worshipped at the same time than when he is with James.

With a final noisy kiss, Bond reaches for the towel he’d set aside the bed earlier. Q’s brain finishes rebooting while Bond gently disengages and cleans up the mess between them.

The first coherent thought that comes to Q’s mind is, “You know, I think there might still be space to fit an auxiliary air supply unit to extend the submersible range.”

Bond pauses his clean up ministrations to kiss him again, “Careful love, keep saying those things and you just might instigate a second round.”

Q grins cheekily up at him, “Oh you like that do you? Wait till I tell you about the car we’re planning for you... Ah! James!!”

The next day Q has to wear a hideous brown and grey stripped turtleneck to work and explain to Ops why MI6 received a notification that a police patrol unit was dispatched to his residence at 12:30am that morning.

——FIN——

If anyone would like to name the gecko, I’m open to suggestions.

Notes: If you liked this story, there’s more on the blog or AO3. Please like, reblog, comment etc. Enjoy!

#00Q #00q fanfiction #00q fic #q #quartermaster

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