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deathisonlypermanent · 3 years

Text

Nothing to Say

Loki x fem!Reader

Rating: PG-13 for kissing and some insults

A Loki x reader in which rumors of Loki’s engagement have reached the reader’s ear and they aren’t very happy about it. (it’s fluff don’t even worry bro) Pre Thor

A/N: ha ha no I didn’t return from the dead to post this because I’ve been craving this shit what do you mean

Masterlist

“Did you hear? An aristocrat is to be wed to the prince.”

“Which one?”

“Does it matter? One of the princes is off the market.”

“Well, I’d like to believe I still have a chance with Prince Thor..”

The gossip continued, but your ears had closed. A prince engaged to be wed? It was not the first time these rumors had spread and it was certain not to be the last. You’d always said, those that put stock in the rumors of bored young ladies were sure to be made a fool of.

That being said, you had never heard these rumors spread quite so voraciously. It began as a whisper some two days ago, but now it seemed that everyone was repeating it. It made your stomach twist every time you heard it, but you were determined to let this rumor fade without reaction - just as you had the last one.

But it bothers me. Your mind echoed before you could stop it. It shouldn’t bother you. It couldn’t bother you. There was no reason, no logical reason anyway, for you to be bothered by this rumor.

Loki happened to be a very close friend of yours. The two of you met years ago - before him and his brother had women pining after their affections day in and day out - and you were quick friends. Magic had never been your strong suit, but damn if that stopped you from sparring with him. He beat you every time, with very little effort, and it only made you want to keep coming back. Before you knew it, the little prince had earned a spot in your heart and you found that it wasn’t simply wanting to knock him to the ground that made you come back. You liked his company.

It only bothers me because he should have told me! You thought, completely frustrated at your emotional response. If it were even true. You added hastily.

Walking through the halls of the palace used to take your breath away, but it had been hundreds of years since it was made your permanent home (A solution granted by Queen Frigga, mother to all, after your parents had passed). Now as you stroll through the golden halls, it all seems so familiar.

The path to Asgard’s library was almost always empty. The library, after all, was buried deep within the palace and no civilian dared venture that far without invitation. This time was no different, your soft footsteps echoing through the silence as your distracted mind contemplated the odious rumors of the week.

Just as you reached the library, your sanctuary, before you could even fully grasp the handle, a voice called out from behind you.

“My lady?”

You sighed and turned to find a lady servant standing timidly before you. She’s so small. You thought, chuckling to yourself before replying.

“Yes?”

“The Queen requests your presence.”

This startled you, your heart and mind suddenly racing. “Whatever for?”

The girl seemed even more frightened than when she first approached you. “She did not say, my lady.”

Taking a breath to steady yourself, you smiled nervously at the girl. “Well, then. Let us be on our way.”

Before you could begin walking, you noticed the girl in front of you began to shake. It was small at first, but quickly grew obvious. You raced to her side, concern drawn on your face. “Are you alright?!”

It was then that you caught her eye for the first time. Green and blue irises, filled with deceit. Her face was twisted in silent laughter. Bastard.

“Oh, you ass.” You said grumpily, standing up and hitting the “little girl” on the arm.

When she finally stood, you watched as her form shimmered and changed into the very gentleman that had been on your mind all day. A large smile graced his features and you found that you could not help but smile as you rolled your eyes.

“You have learned nothing.” He remarked, humor still in his voice, as he strolled past you and into the library.

“You changed into a little girl, am I to interrogate every child I see now?” You called, following him through the large doorway.

Though the library was almost never busy, the two of you found yourselves walking past the open seating in the front, past the rows of shelves and study tables, all the way to the back where a small fireplace and two small couches sat.

Your love for reading was never consistent like the prince’s. It came and went, never staying for longer than a few months at a time. The library, however, offered a constant source of comfort. The deep oak, the natural lighting, the comfortable silence, the company, it all offered a reprieve from the stress of the day.

“While it would undoubtedly be interesting to see you interrogate every child you pass,” Loki remarked while he scanned the bookshelves. “Perhaps you should settle on learning what to look for in a disguise.”

Watching the prince from your position on the couch, you quietly mocked him. “‘Perhaps you should settle on learning what to look for-”

“Would you like to say that again?” He turned and glared, his eyes boring into yours.

Rolling your eyes, you stood up to join him as he selected his book for the day. “I’ll never understand your unwavering passion for reading.”

Without looking away from the shelf, he retorted, “Just as I will never understand your incompetence in and out of the battlefield.”

You scoffed and put your hand on your heart in mock hurt. “You wound me, sir.”

This time, his eyes flitted to you as he smirked. “Let us hope the wound may finally be fatal.”

You chuckled and pulled a random book from the shelf, glancing over it haphazardly. “Trying to get rid of me? After all this time?” You returned the book to its place and pushed off the shelf, strolling back to the fireplace. “I can only imagine it’s for your new fiancée.”

Loki faltered, but chuckled before turning in your direction. “My fiancée?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” You tried to say casually, turning and catching his gaze. “I suppose I should offer my congratulations.”

Loki strolled casually to the fireplace, confusion in his eyes. “And where did you hear of this?” Humor danced through his words, but the question demanded answering.

The dying flames suddenly seemed a much better place to look than his eyes. “Everywhere. You could not take three steps outside without hearing about your new bride-to-be.”

Silence.

Why isn’t he talking? This was supposed to be a dumb joke. Why isn’t he talking?!

Loki sighed. “I had been meaning to speak to you about this.”

Your gaze snapped back to the prince. His face was completely serious as he stared into the fireplace. “There is truth to these rumors?”

Loki’s eyes stayed on the fire as he contemplated his words.

“I thought them to be baseless, are you telling me that you are engaged to be married?”

“The Allfather,” Loki began, hushing his tone. “Has been speaking of an arranged meeting.” You looked exasperated at him, looking for any trace of falsehood. “But there is nothing set in stone.”

“Loki Odinson-” You took a step closer, making him meet your eyes. “If you are truly engaged to be married and I had to hear about it from a gossip circle?” You stabbed a finger in his chest. “I will never forgive you.”

He cocked an eyebrow and grabbed your finger. “You’ve always had a flair for dramatics. Now who’s trying to get rid of who?”

“Loki!” You hissed.

He let go of your finger and strolled leisurely to the couch without a word.

Your heart broke as you watched him casually pick up his book and continue reading. “You’re being truthful, then? You are engaged?” You questioned softly, sadness and betrayal evident in your words.

Loki showed no sign of hearing your questions and continued to read, his face showing nothing but a lack of interest.

“I cannot believe you would keep this from me.”

A page turn.

“And now, you have the gall to sit there and pretend that we aren’t even having a conversation?”

He looked up, almost irritated that he had to respond. “I thought you would never forgive me? And here I hoped that would mean that our conversation was over.”

“You bastard!” You stormed to the couch, determined to slap him or something!

Of course, Loki was infinitely better trained than you and in an instant, he caught your hand, brought his knee around to your side and suddenly you were on your back between his knees, your wrists pinned above your head.

“Get off of me!” You squirmed, attempting to wrench yourself out of Loki’s steel grip.

“If you had bothered to ask how the conversation with my father had gone, you might have found out that I am not engaged to be married,” his words were a whisper as he moved in closer. “but Thor may be when he is crowned king in two months' time.” Loki hissed as he brought the hand not currently keeping you in place to your chin. “But you didn’t bother to ask.” He smirked.

Your heart hammered in your chest as you stared at Loki, his hair falling around his face. Stunned into silence, all you could pay attention to were his hands.

“Nothing to say?” He teased and you felt your face burn.

He smirked as he released your hands and moved to get off of you, but before he had the chance - you grabbed the straps of his leathers and pulled him down, crashing your lips against his. Shocked, he hadn’t had the chance to reciprocate when you pulled away, uncertain.

You looked up into his eyes, trapped beneath him. Suddenly, Loki grabbed your arms and pulled you to him, his lips meeting yours with an intensity you’d only read about in books. Your arms wrapped around his neck, your hand buried in his hair. His tongue pleading for entrance as you became tangled in each other’s embrace.

Pulling away panting, you saw the excitement in his eyes. A heavy silence settled, the only sound coming from your attempts to regulate your breathing.

Loki panted as well, his eyes scanning over your face. At the sight of his total confusion, you couldn’t help but giggle as you cupped his face.

“Nothing so say?” You whispered, teasing.

“Shut up.” He grumbled, silencing your giggles with another sweet kiss.

#loki #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki x reader #loki laufeyson x reader #loki laufeyson x you #loki odinson x reader #loki odinson x you

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scripttorture · 4 years

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Hello! I've browsed this blog a bit and came across the idea that torturers often develop mental illness because of their repeated exposure to the violence/trauma of seeing another person in pain, which I'd never considered before. A) Do you believe torturers can therefore be a type of victim as well, depending on the circumstances, and therefore deserving of compassion/therapy? B) Can you point me to more information about this/what kinds of mental illnesses develop in torturers? (1/2)

C) Do you think it's possible for a mass murderer/torturer character to have a realistic, satisfying redemption arc? Do you know any media that's pulled it off believably? Thank you so much for taking the time to read/answer this if you do! And for this excellent resource!

The most accessible sources that cover this are O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work (good grounding, start with him), Rejali’s Torture and Democracy and the appendices to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth where he describes treating two torturers.

The most current research is about 600 pages of print on demand untranslated French. If you’re fluent in French (I am not and lock down etc has got in the way of me getting this translated) Sironi Comment devient-on tortionnaire?

Broadly speaking the symptoms appear to be the same as those survivors and witnesses develop.

And I will go into this in more depth later but keep in mind there is not anywhere near enough research on torturers for us to be entirely sure about most of this. I’m working with the best information we have right now.

The other two questions are subjective and sort of complicated. By definition a lot of this is going to be my opinion because well that’s what you’re asking for.

I think we need to be really careful about describing torturers as ‘victims’.

Yes they’re put in this situation by social structures beyond their control. It is not their fault that they weren’t given training or support in their job. It’s also not their fault that we have this global message that violence is effective or that so many workplaces are unnecessarily pressured/stressful. Most of the time they are drawn in to abusing others because of the social groups and structures within the organisation they join.

Oversight (with a drive to eradicate torture), funding, training and clear consistent messages about the right way to handle difficult situations would probably prevent most cases of torture.

This does not change the fact that on an individual level each of them chose to hurt other people.

Some of them will have made that choice understanding there was a threat to their own safety if they did not. Some of them will have made that choice just because it was what everyone else was doing. Some of them genuinely believe what they did was the ‘right’ decision at the time.

They still made that choice. And given that we have records of people in similar positions refusing, even when it put them at risk of attack or death, I don’t have a lot of sympathy with the choice torturers made.

The fact I’m a pacifist factors into this. Consider my biases.

Torturers typically show a very low understanding of the impact their actions have had on other people.

They might regret their actions but this is typically framed in a very self-centred way. They usually don’t express more then cursory regard for the victims. They regret it because they’re suffering now, because they have nightmares, because they can’t keep a job. And oh it’s all so unfair.

I don’t know why this is the case. But it’s a feature Sironi described in interviews about her work. And I’ve seen it over and over again in interviews with torturers.

Yes torturers suffer. The symptoms they develop are terrible and have a lasting impact on their lives. They typically can’t hold down jobs and struggle to re-integrate into society in any meaningful fashion.

And yes I believe they should be treated. I believe that anyone with a disease or condition which requires treatment should have access to care and treatment. Whoever they are. Whatever they did.

I believe that as fellow human beings torturers are entitled to a degree of compassion. When I say that torture and mistreatment are wrong I mean it. My position doesn’t change just because the theoretical victim is a former torturer.

I do not think that treatment and compassion should be dependant on a person being suitably victimised. For me the only thing it depends on is their need and their humanity. In the literal physical sense of them being a human.

But we tend to think of ‘victim’ as a simple category that doesn’t overlap with mass murderers.

And I don’t believe the position of torturers is that simple.

Especially when so few of them are charged. Torture trials are rare. Convictions are rare. And sentences are short.

And their victims deserve justice too.

I feel conflicted about calling torturers ‘victims’ because of this complex reality. And because in fiction we have a tendency to focus on the torturers prioritising their voices over the survivors. I feel like presenting torturers as simple victims of society could risk adding to that.

For me the focus has always got to be the survivors.

And I think all of this feeds into how we handle redemption arcs.

I don’t think that writing redemption arcs for villains, even torturers or mass murderers is ‘wrong’. In fact I think that it can be a really good idea. Showing how toxic the environments these people are in is a good thing. Puncturing the way it’s romanticised is a good thing. And showing a way out of it, even if it’s imagined, is not a bad thing.

But if we’re going to do that in our stories then I think we need to think about what redemption means and in whose eyes the character is redeemed.

There’s also a small problem: we don’t really know what recovery for torturers looks like.

There isn’t enough research on them. Partly because of lack of interest but partly because the low conviction rates means sample sizes are small. We’re talking about a limited number of individuals who are jailed and we can’t really ‘prove’ that individuals who weren’t convicted were torturers. We don’t really know what the long term outcomes are, what treatments might be effective or- Much of anything.

Studies on torturers are typically based on very small numbers of individuals. (For a long time Fanon’s work was the only example of a mental health professional talking about torturers specifically. He saw two of them.) They are not statistically sound. And a lot of resources were simply journalists or mental health professionals compiling notes on the handful of individuals they talked to.

Everything I say about torturers is based on things like interviews, a handful of studies that have flaws and anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately as of right now it’s the best we’ve got.

Personally I don’t think there’s enough research on torture generally. Or enough attempts to collate relevant research from other fields. But that’s a rant for another day.

Let’s get back to that central question: what does redemption mean?

I think that it’s pretty easy to write a character changing for the better. You can build up the character’s level of insight into what they’re doing/did over the course of the story. You can show them choosing to stop. You can show them shifting to oppose their former allies.

But bundled up in the idea of a redemption arc is this: is it enough? And who is it enough for?

I don’t think survivors should be obliged to forgive former torturers. I also don’t think they’re likely to interact positively.

I’ve talked about this now and again when asked about the difference between legally defined torture and abuse. Because of the organised and widespread nature of legally defined torture there are usually communities of survivors. And communities that are collectively moving through a recovery process because even those people who weren’t directly attacked are likely to be witnesses, carers and relatives or friends of survivors.

These things echo down generations.

Cyprus gained independence from the British in 1960, my father is too young to have any real memory of the violence during the colonial period. But he referenced it in arguments with my English mother during my childhood. There are people throughout China today who won’t buy anything Japanese because of Japanese war crimes there during World War 2. There are people who won’t eat fish from the Black Sea, because the bodies of their ancestors were thrown into that sea during a genocide over a hundred years ago.

I know that as a both a Greek Cypriot and an English person there are people all over the world who will not want anything to do with me based on what my people have done to theirs. And the fact I wasn’t alive at the time does not really factor into it.

What I’m trying to illustrate here is that this is much bigger, broader and more complex then individual acts of forgiveness.

Survivors are a highly varied group of individuals. And each torturer can have thousands or tens of thousands of victims. Expecting each impacted individual, and any witnesses and all their family members and friends, to forgive these people is… let’s say ‘unlikely’.

So does redemption require forgiveness from the wounded party? Is there any possible action that can atone for the sheer scale of these atrocities?

If we play a simple number game causing this level of harm can be achieved in months or years, but saving the equivalent number of lives takes decades of skilled, dedicated work. If we look at concepts like wergild or jail as ‘paying your debt to society’ then how do we measure something like torture where the numbers are so big?

I haven’t seen a piece of fiction seriously tackle these questions. But then again I also haven’t actively looked for that fiction.

I feel like a lot of fictional redemption arcs judge a character to be sufficiently redeemed based on audience sympathy and the main cast forgiving the character. They don’t typically go on to broaden the scope of the narrative and question whether any one else impacted by the former villain’s actions also sees the character as redeemed.

One of my stories has a former torturer as a major character and I think they are a sympathetic character in many ways. I think that my readers would empathise with them through a lot of the story (which takes place decades after they stopped torturing).

They’re a mentor figure to some of the younger cast members. They’ve acted as a protector to them and taught the younger generation a lot about the minority culture they themselves are from. And they do genuinely care about these people that they helped to raise, consistently sacrificing to protect these ‘kids’. (The ‘kids’ are 30s-20s at the time of the story.)

But they’re also incredibly self centred. They don’t really interact with or have a lot of sympathy for the people they hurt. And while this particular family loves and forgives them society at large views them as a monster. Albeit one that is now leashed.

Is this a redemption story? Is this character redeemed? I genuinely don’t know. In fact that’s part of my interest in writing the story: trying to work out if there is a point, as this character grows, develops and helps others, when I believe they’ve done ‘enough’.

I think that redemption means different things for different people. A satisfying redemption story is different for different people. And if we can disagree so strongly about it with much simpler, smaller scale crimes then where does that leave us with torture?

There isn’t a simple answer or a one-size-fits-all writing solution. There can’t be.

My approach is to try and use the story to see if I can find an answer. Even if it’s only a limited one. For me the story itself is a forum for exploring human complexity and difficult ethical questions.

I don’t think we have a good solution for how to deal with these people in reality yet. But I do hold out hope that a good solution is possible. Fiction is an arena where we can safely explore possible solutions.

I guess in the end I’m not sure if there’s any story or arc that will work for everyone. I don’t think there are any hard rules for writing anything and I don’t think there’s ever a way to please everyone.

Redemption and forgiveness are complicated topics. I think we do a much better job when we engage with that complexity then when we assume a character just has to do a, b and c in order to achieve it.

When you consider someone to be truly redeemed is an ethical question that I can’t answer for you. I don’t think I should. The chances are you’ll know when you think your character has done enough.

Just be open to the fact that it won’t be enough for everyone. Consider reflecting that with the characters, because that can make for truly powerful moments.

In Midnight’s Children Shiva never forgives Saleem, even though Saleem isn’t responsible for Shiva ‘losing’ his life and family because they were both infants at the time. And damn there are a lot of flaws in the movie adaptation but that scene between them in the jail, when Saleem throws that in Shiva’s face hits hard. It shows us so much about both characters.

And I think that’s a better way to approach it then trying to figure out if a character is redeemed yet: figuring out how they’ve progressed, how others respond to that progression and why.

I hope that helps :)

Available on Wordpress.

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saudadeonly · 3 years

Text

burn my heart out: once you’d gone (Chapter 2)

Read on ao3. Part 8, consisting of 3 or 4 chapters.

Death Eater!Sirius Black AU

Lord Voldemort wages war on Hogwarts but he is unaware of the years-worth of battle fought against him.

(or, several instalments following the Battle of Hogwarts with Sirius Black standing on the wrong side)

The Horcrux isn't the only thing Regulus has to face.

Word count: 4530

___

The top of the staircase on the third floor of Hogwarts comes too soon; Regulus and Sirius stop and look at each other. This is where they have to go their separate ways – Regulus up to the seventh floor and Sirius through the passage on this one.

Regulus checks his watch, the one given to him by his parents for his seventeenth birthday. They only have a couple of hours left. Their goodbyes and last-minute preparations before they left the Tonks family behind – despite the vehement protests of entire said family – and all subsequent tasks here at Hogwarts took up a lot of their time.

Sirius’s mind seems to have come to the same conclusion. “Be as quick as you can,” he says, holding out the silver dagger to Regulus. His hand is as steady as his voice. “And take down Nagini.”

Regulus takes the dagger, mindful of the venom absorbed in it, and as soon as he safely stores it away, Sirius uses his free hand to pull on Regulus’s and catch him in a rough hug, his other hand cupping the back of Regulus’s neck. He’s still taller and by now Regulus has given up any hope he might outgrow his brother, this way or another, but his body lacks the strength Regulus once believed him to have. His invincible big brother, fiercer than fire, stronger than death, now as desperately lost as Regulus once was. Human, as he has always been.

“Do your worst,” Regulus murmurs into his shoulder as he fists his hands in the back of his robes, knowing that this might be the last time they see each other standing.

Sirius pulls back and curves his mouth into an almost-smile. “You too,” he says. Before Regulus can turn to go, Sirius catches his forearm, his grip firm. His eyes root Regulus to the spot, maybe because they are softer than his voice, a sliver of that kind, tired man beneath. “Whatever happens, Reggie, this ends today.”

Regulus swallows and nods. However it may end, Sirius will not be the one to fall to his knees first, not if Regulus has anything to say about it.

Sirius steps back and nods, his face smoothed over now, the careful set of his mouth reminding Regulus strangely of Orion. Sirius turns and goes but the image of his face, splashed through a kaleidoscope over their father’s, stays. It is redundant to say that their relationship ended on a bad note because that’s the foundation it was built on from the very beginning but Sirius did not forgive Orion’s misgivings, not even on his deathbed, and he carried that resentment forward – after Regulus’s death, Sirius condemned Walburga. The weight of their demands had bruised his heart so much it could not heal around the mercy asked of him, especially not in the name of their family.

The thing about their family, the great House of Black – they name their children after stars, after these unimaginable, steel-soft pieces forged into fire, and try to bind them, keep them contained to the reaches of their eyes and don’t consider the possibility of going blind with it until their eye-sockets are filled with nothing but stardust, burning, burning. Sirius, they named their heir, the brightest star in the sky, scorching, glowing, and never expected that he would burn bright enough to fill their lungs with smoke, to leave marks shaped like his pain over their skin. Andromeda, named after a constellation, the breaker of chains, a goddamn galaxy because they were more likely to reach its ends before they ever told their children, I love you, I’m proud of you; and they had the gall to fault her when she left them strangling in her discarded chains.

Despite it or maybe because of all of it, Sirius and Andromeda have always been the best of them in all the ways that matter. However much they try to fight against it, the two of them have always been Blacks in more than blood; Sirius and Andromeda with their impeccable postures and vicious hearts, savoir-faire, Lucretia used to say, unmatched, always one step ahead, are Blacks in everything they try to deny, in everything they wish to soften about themselves, down to their teeth, dripping with venom.

Regulus will do whatever it takes to ensure that they get to live up to all that potential, that they get to lace the very foundations of their society with their venom.

With a shake of his head, he pulls himself out of his thoughts and continues up the stairs, casting a notice-me-not charm over himself. It was easy to get lost in his musings with the entirety of his glorious, painful youth surrounding him but he knows better than to let it sweep him away.

By the time he makes it up to the seventh floor, having succeeded in doing so only due to muscle-memory of skipping the tricky steps, the castle is in motion. Students are shuffling down the corridors of all floors, their voices a mix of soft, worried inquiries and confused protests. Regulus doesn’t envy their near future but he knows McGonagall will do everything to keep it intact. He slips past them, as unnoticed as the ghosts drifting beside them; it is, he thinks distantly, a very fitting sort of image.

The wall across from the Troll Tapestry is as unassuming as Andromeda begrudgingly told them it would be. It is hard to imagine the old, mysterious castle conceals one of Voldemort’s greatest secrets so well. Regulus’s heart hammers up to his throat when he walks past the wall, then turns on his heel and repeats it two more times.

I need the place where everything is hidden, he thinks, eyes pressed shut. I need the place where everything is hidden. I need the place where it is hidden.

When he opens his eyes, the wall is built around a door. If he hadn’t been expecting it, he might have thought he's lost it. A moment of hesitation and then Regulus steps forward, pressing his hand over the doorknob, and pushes the door open.

The vast room he steps into has a high ceiling and distant walls but the piles formed around the room, the narrow passages in between make Regulus’s chest constrict uncomfortably despite it. He has not, in over three years, got used to being in tight, enclosed spaces again.

Ignoring the feeling building up, Regulus holds out his wand. “Accio, Ravenclaw Diadem!”

The room remains still. He wasn’t expecting it to work really but it would have been nice to catch a break for once. He stows away his wand and hurries down the first one of the passages. Andromeda wasn’t able to tell him the Diadem’s exact location but she did say she remembered an ugly bust somewhere around it. With a sigh, Regulus sets out to find it.

He doesn’t know how much time passes before he finally catches sight of a chipped bust, resting atop a rickety-looking rack. And directly across from it, a tiara, skewed atop a column of old books. It’s old and unassuming, covered in a layer of dust so thick Regulus wouldn’t have spared a glance otherwise. When he reaches out and wipes the dust away with the tip of his sleeve the words become visible again. Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.

Out of all of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, this one has to be the cruellest; the cleverness, the knowledge he robbed out of generations of wizards and witches. He reaches for the dagger and braces it above the Diadem. He murmurs a swift apology to Rowena Ravenclaw, followed by one to the Grey Lady, the sweet, distant ghost who sometimes kept him company in the dead hours of the night when he didn’t want to go back to his common room; he had always felt accepted by her, a sort of kinship that came with not belonging anywhere, drifting from one place to the next.

“Expelliarmus!”

The dagger flies out of his hand and lands on the floor several feet away, skittering over the stone. Regulus grabs his wand, halfway turned already, and fires off the first spell that comes to mind. “Stupefy!”

Bartemius Crouch Junior, his fair hair and pale face a stark contrast to his robes, deflects the spell easily and it hits a pile of books to the side, sending up a flurry of singed pages. Regulus cringes at the years of work and knowledge that has just been lost.

“Barty,” he breathes, the air stolen from his lungs, the tightness in his chest coming for an entirely different, still painfully familiar reason now.

Barty has always been more skin and bone than anything else but he is viciously thin now, enough so Regulus thinks he might be able to make him crumple with the ghost of a breath. “I should have known,” he says, his face drawn, his voice a low gravely tone; distantly, Regulus wonders if he’s taken up smoking. “Black never did act accordingly.”

A laugh builds up in Regulus’s throat, an odd, too-sharp sort of sound, but he pushes it down. If Sirius’s reaction to Regulus’s death was all Barty found suspicious about his behaviour over the years, that’s the least of their problems. It’s over now, anyway. “Sirius had no idea,” he says, just in case this goes terribly, terribly wrong and Barty gets to Sirius first. It’s hight time he protected Sirius, for once.

“I don’t believe that.”

Regulus shrugs. “You know we never did like each other a whole lot,” he says, which is true; he doesn't really like Sirius, not most of the time anyway, but he loves him with a ferocity that gods could not oppose. He keeps his wand steady on Barty but he knows he won’t be the first one to fire. He owes Barty that much, at least, that small courtesy of letting him decide what he wants to do. “What are you doing here, Barty?” he asks, his voice soft around the name he hasn’t been able to forget, though not for lack of trying - on the worst nights, he used to tell himself that neither Evan nor Barty would have come with him even if he had asked. But it’s even harder to forget now, when there are no strategies to be relayed, when the embodiment of Regulus’s guilt points his wand at him, that Evan fought. There is no saying that Barty wouldn’t have either, provided he was offered, given that little push of encouragement he always needed to come along.

“The Dark Lord sent me to check on an artefact of utmost importance to him,” Barty explains, frowning. “An artefact that looks curiously like the one you’re holding right now.”

Regulus snorts. “This old thing?” he asks, waving the Diadem around, then tucking it behind his back. “It’s worthless.” He cocks his head, lowers his voice. Somewhere between the study of political language and being Sirius’s brother, he’s learned how to get under people’s skin – and Barty never has been particularly thick-skinned. “Glad to see you climbed the ranks, though.” He lets his mouth quirk up, just the little bit. “Must be nice to be valued so highly by Voldemort.”

Barty flinches and a twinge passes through Regulus; it took him years to be able to say the name himself, to fit his voice around the vowels and not have fear surround them. Regulus uses the blink of a distraction to take the fraction of a step towards the dagger.

“Don’t say his name,” Barty snaps, anger finally rising to his hollow cheeks, painting him fiercer a man than he was. “You taint him, you traitor, how dare you –”

“You sound like Bellatrix.”

Barty’s face drains of colour, as quickly as it rose up. His knuckles, hand gripped around the handle of his wand, have gone white too. “Don’t talk about her,” he says, voice hoarse. His freckles stand out, peppered across his nose and cheeks.

“How is dear Bella? Still so devoted to bloodlust she doesn’t spare you a glance?” It isn’t fair, he knows. Barty has been fascinated by Bella for years and she took him under and used it to the advantage of anything she remotely cared about; if there is one person more at fault for whatever Barty has become than Voldemort and Regulus, it’s Bellatrix. But Regulus knows there is no point in trying to convince Barty to do anything and he has one objective, the only one he has had for years: destroy the Horcruxes. He’s so close now and he won’t slip, won’t let his conscience get in the way.

“Shut up,” Barty growls, taking one slow step closer. “Where did you go, anyway?”

The question gives Regulus pause but he shuffles on his feet as an excuse and gets a bit closer to the dagger. “Away. I could not serve anymore so I left.”

Barty narrows his eyes. “You left,” he says, a painful sort of bemusement crossing his face, “everything. You betrayed everyone. You had no right.”

Regulus’s chest aches. When he speaks, his voice is rawer than he wants it to be; maybe the Inferi clawed it out of him. “What I discovered, Barty, what I had to do – I could not do it anymore.”

“You were the reason I joined.”

Regulus lets his eyes flit closed for a second. When he looks back at Barty, his face is too thin, too lost to ever come close to the boy he was all those years ago; and that’s on Regulus. Barty wasn’t like him or Evan. He was clever and loyal and too stupid to see but he never carried the weight of expectation like they had their whole lives – Regulus, the spare, and Evan, the sole heir. He reminded Regulus of Sirius sometimes, the Sirius of before: desperate to get out from his father’s thumb, to escape his mother’s coddling, but overbearing and messy and misguided as it was, it was still love, still a saving grace that Barty didn’t recognise as privilege. Regulus and Evan took that desperation and painted it in streaks of glory across the inside of Barty’s lids, blinding him enough to lead him astray, twisted its shape until it could almost be called a choice, a sense of belonging.

Then Regulus left and Evan died and it was Barty who stayed. Barty, whose backbone might as well have been made out of clay, free for moulding into any shape the rest wanted him to be.

“I know,” he murmurs.

“Then why did you leave me behind?” Barty shouts and it echoes and echoes so long Regulus is sure this is the only sound that will be heard at his funeral. Maybe it was.

But there it is, the name of Regulus’s nightmares, the title of his fucking biography, why you, why, why, why. Why do you get to go away? Why do you get a happy ending or a happy middle or happy anything? Why do you get to heal?

Because you are good, Valentina, tucked firmly, unapologetically against his side, would whisper into the curls behind his ear, as many times as he asked her to, because you are kind and you deserve it.

You are loved, Andromeda told him sometime before they left, catching the off expression on his face, the desire not to leave the life he had built, you are so loved and you get to have that.

Sirius, altruistic, hypocritical arsehole that he is, would probably tell him not to spout gibberish, that he couldn’t have done anything else unless he wanted to have his insides scraped off of walls afterwards and that he was right to get every little scrap of happiness that he could. Regulus never asked to know for sure.

Because I am selfish, Regulus thinks, knows in his bones to be true, but what he says is, “I’m sorry.”

Barty scoffs, unrepentant, unforgiving. Regulus feels before he sees him strike – he sucks his teeth, a tell-tale sign he’s about to cast a silent spell – but Regulus’s reflexes have dulled, out of use with the years of a quiet life, full of literature and research and Valentina’s smile over a cup of coffee, her softness dulling whatever edges Regulus had retained, and he’s knocked to the side, over a pile of cutlery and broken plates that catch on his robes. He lands on the floor, several feet down the aisle, body pulsing with pain all over. The Diadem is still clutched in his hand, its presence an added weight to his emptying chest, but his wand was thrown out of his reach.

His vision is wobbly, a blurry echo passing after everything he looks at, and he uses his free hand to grapple for purchase on the cold stone. His fingers catch on the cross-guard of the silver dagger and he moves them down to grip onto the handle, its weight a sure, familiar reminder of the only thing he still has left to do.

Barty shouts but his line of fire is obscured by the junk around them and Regulus uses the time it takes for Barty to get around it to stab the dagger directly into the Diadem.

The shriek of the Horcrux’s death is the last thing he hears before the white-hot pain blinds him. Regulus curls up on the floor and sinks into it.

In the cave in the middle of nowhere, permitted by pain and guarded by death, Regulus died slowly. The Inferi were quick to drag him into the water, quick to bleed their fingers into him but their cruelty became patient when they had him, the son of kings, a never-crowned prince, in their kingdom; they took his chin and breathed air into him when he had none left in his lungs, dragged him down slowly, a renaissance sort of image, and Regulus had the half-hysterical thought that he would have still prefered this death to the one his mother would have dealt him if she had found out he had just used the word renaissance. He wondered if he would not die at all but just become one of them, the Dark Lord’s servant even after he died to defy him, if the water would crush his lungs to dust and carry away the remnants of his humanity before their fingers tore him apart. Then it was easier to get lost in his memories than to acknowledge the imminence of his end, his slow dissolution into the embrace of cold, dead hands; so, he remembered.

He remembered Sirius’s hands pressed to his eyes, stooped over on his knees, his back a masterpiece of crisscrossing red lines. He remembered fingers wrapped around his wrist, Narcissa’s words, don’t do this out of duty, and he remembered his answer, shaking off the burn of her hand, perhaps I should do it out of love, like you. He remembered Evan and Barty’s screams of pain as they provided entertainment for the night, the new ones, the fresh blood that should be spilt before the Dark Lord’s feet before it ever blessed their enemies’ sight.

Regulus would have remembered unto death if Sirius hadn’t lit the cave in flames, hadn’t summoned the fury of gods into the tip of his wand; Sirius wouldn’t have managed to come on time at all if it hadn’t been for Kreacher’s magic and devotion –

Through the haze of pain, Regulus remembers now: Kreacher. House-elf magic; always, always cleverer than a wizard’s, only because it was never acknowledged as equally important, and Regulus's saviour since his childhood.

“Kreacher,” he says, gasping through the breath between his screams and there is a pause in the air around him, bated with his heartbeat. Then Kreacher materialises at Regulus’s head, looking down the nose all around him, and not even Barty Crouch Jr is a match for the single-minded fury that is Kreacher at his most vicious.

Barty flies back, flailing through the air, and hits the wall with a hard thud. He slumps down against it, his head lolling to the side.

“Master Regulus,” Kreacher says, his big, wobbly eyes glistening, as his skinny fingers touch Regulus’s shoulder blade. “How can Kreacher help?”

The pain has gone now but its remnants flare up as Regulus struggles to push himself up and brace his weight on his hands. He glances at Barty again, just to make sure he’s still there, then sits back, leaning against an old, crooked wardrobe. “It would appear you have already helped me immensely, old friend,” he says, giving Kreacher a small smile, which takes some effort. Kreacher deserves it, every ounce of effort Regulus has to put in. “Thank you.”

Kreacher glows. It hasn’t been often that they’ve seen each other since Regulus’s debacle at the cave – Kreacher is hardly ever allowed to leave the house – and Regulus has missed his once-closest friend. “Kreacher lives to serve Master Regulus,” he says, ducking into a bow. He procures a goblet of water and hands it to Regulus, who uses it to wash the taste of blood off his teeth.

“Kreacher, do you know of a house-elf called Linsy?”

Kreacher’s face shifts into a sneer. “Linsy didn’t take good care of Master Regulus when he was with her,” he grumbles. “The blood traitor did one thing right, giving her the shirt.”

“I rather think she took excellent care of me. I recovered, didn’t I?” Regulus intones gently. Kreacher’s opinion was formed solely on the basis of one Walburga Black’s and Regulus cannot blame him for being stuck in his ways. It took him a damn long time to fall away and now is not the time to take up a fight against his mother, of all people, too. Kreacher gives a reluctant nod. “I think she works here, at Hogwarts, now.” He hands the goblet back to Kreacher, who Vanishes it, and makes to stand up. It takes him two tries but he’s steady on his feet once he manages; the effects of the Cruciatus, which Regulus was lucky enough not to have experienced for some time now, wear off quickly. “Would you please be so kind as to give her a message for me?”

Kreacher’s face is still sour but he nods and says, “Anything, Master Regulus.”

House-elves are loyal to a fault. They will not, even after having been presented with an article of clothing, stop being devoted to the family they served. Regulus’s memories of Linsy are scarce, made in the shape of blurry, intermittent blinks from nightmares to see her by his side, but she was kind to him and it was obvious she adored the Potters as much as they adored her. Even Sirius, whose track record with house-elves was less than stellar, loved her. Regulus has no doubt she will take on Voldemort himself to get them to safety.

“Tell her the Potter family is in danger. She has to find them and get them away from Hogwarts.” He berates himself for not having considered it sooner. Sirius and Minerva have their work cut out for them as it is but he certainly could have remembered that house-elves exist, in all their manic devotion. “And tell the other house-elves that Hogwarts is being attacked. They should fight for their home or leave before it gets bad.”

Kreacher nods.

“And,” Regulus adds before Kreacher disapparates, “not a word of this to my mother.”

“Yes, Master Regulus,” Kreacher says with a deep bow and disappears.

Left alone in the room once again, Regulus looks around. He doesn’t know how much time he’s lost here and he doesn’t dare check. It doesn’t seem long but time runs differently here and doubly so in times of battle.

He walks a few steps down the row to collect his wand and then back. He stomps down on the remains of the Diadem, grimacing at the dark liquid sticking to his shoes and Vanishing it, and levitates them into the pouch of ruined Horcruxes he’s brought along. He wonders idly how he will fit Nagini’s head into it. They’re so close it makes his head spin.

He picks up the dagger, wiping it clean on an old blanket nearby, and safely tucks it away.

He makes his way around and over the piles of trinkets to get to Barty and takes a moment to just take in the familiar lines of his face. They were friends once. He and Evan might have done an injustice to Barty but it wasn’t ill-intentioned, at least not at the time. They were stupid kids and paid for it in blood.

Regulus crouches down and snatches Barty’s wand out of his limp hand, stashing it into the pocket of his robes, then rummages around Barty's pockets until he finds his mask and puts it away too. “Sorry, Barty,” he murmurs, tapping his own wand to the mop of bright hair to send him into a long, deep sleep. He conjures up thick ropes next and binds Barty’s wrists and ankles with it. Then he pulls out a couple strands of Barty’s hair, uncorks the vial of Polyjuice potion Sirius made him brew for going down to the village and pushes the hair into it. It might be his only shot at getting close to Nagini later on. “You know how it is.”

He considers, briefly, the dangers of leaving him here defenceless but this room is far removed from the main part and not everyone even knows about it. This is possibly the safest place in the entire castle right now. Provided, of course, he reminds himself, that he lives to come back and get Barty back out. Maybe he should write a note.

It takes some effort to get himself up and walk to the door; leaving Barty behind is somehow worse the second time around.

Regulus grabs onto the door handle and opens the door back into Hogwarts. He steps onto the floor of the seventh corridor in his cat form and just barely manages to dodge a large chunk of stone that ends up smashing against the wall next to the door.

A brown-haired boy, green-and-silver tie dark with blood where he has it wrapped around his forearm, sends a jet of red light towards a masked Death Eater that ducks to the side and runs to turn the corner. “Sorry, Uncle Todd!” the boy yells after him, wiping a hand down his dust-streaked face. His voice is cheerful but there is a certain scratch to it, a desperate fall to his eyes that tear Regulus’s heart apart. He knows with sudden clarity that Evan did better by the students than the two of them did by Barty. “I’ll see you for Easter hols, yeah?”

A spell shoots down the corridor and Regulus jumps out to bite at the legs of the first Death Eater that comes out of hiding. He has lost many battles in his life, forfeited them right from the start, but there is no way he will not bleed himself dry to win this one.

#harry potter #regulus black #sirius black #death eater sirius black #not really #but technically #regulus black lives #barty crouch junior #barty crouch jr #Battle of Hogwarts #Post Hogwarts #First War with Voldemort #harry potter fanfic #in a world three degrees north

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pittarchives · 3 years

Text

Analogizing with Garner the Rabbit

This post was written by YuHao Chen, graduate student in ethnomusicology, University of Pittsburgh.

Let’s take for example a drawing in jazz pianist Erroll Garner’s letter to his manager Martha Glaser in Spring 1967, where he asks for her forgiveness, after having walked out with the money that he should have left at the office. In a way, analogy creates an illusion of intimacy by casting two separate things within one thought.

Image from Folder “Correspondence between Erroll Garner and Martha Glaser,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 3, Folder 5, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.

Here, Garner and Glaser (referred to as “me” and “you,” respectively) are brought to proximity through their correlation with two hand-drawn characters: a rabbit with exaggerated whiskers and a stern human face looking away from the furry creature. We may be at a loss as to how or why Garner and Glaser might impressionistically resemble a fluff ball and a formidable face, but there must be some overriding logic—to Garner, at least—that somehow stabilized the two sets of characters. Garner is to Glaser as the rabbit is to the female portrait. Through symbolic consistency, Garner and Glaser are united as cartoon figures that appear in the top margins of his apology letter.

Garner the Rabbit reappears in a follow-up note—though without the company of Glaser’s cartooned face—where Garner apologizes again for his forgetfulness. In a different letter from 1967, he represented himself as yet another non-human creature, this time a cat. With a characteristic “me-wow,” the feline sits at the bottom of the letter and wishes a speedy recovery to Glaser, who appeared to be sick.

Image from folder “Correspondence between Erroll Garner and Martha Glaser,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 3, Folder 5, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.

It is apparent that Glaser had received and read these letters. Scrupulous manager that she was, Glaser dated these letters in her flowing handwriting. But other than the fact that she had cared enough to keep them, we have no information as to how she might have reacted to Garner’s curious drawings. Her lack of reciprocity in the archive piques our interest: Did she approve of his analogy? Was she really the austere figure that made an expressionless face when Garner forgot to leave the money? Did she turn away, like the conspicuously dispassionate figure did, after seeing these sketches?

What appears to be a simple invocation of Garner and Glaser is more complex than it first seems. According to Alexander Galloway, the word “analogy” is derived from the prefix ana- (“at the rate of,” “by reason of,” or “in proportion to”) and the Greek word logos (“ratio,” “rationality,” “word”). Analogos means “in proportion with another ratio.” For Galloway, analogy is about creating an equation of comparable qualities, approximating the magnitude of one relationship to that of another. Seen in this light, analogy conjures two relationships and the things that constitute them. If it takes a party of two at the minimum to make up a relationship, then analogy necessarily invokes at least four entities by virtue of the two relationships it sets up. Garner’s analogy, for example, calls forth the musician–manager dyad, the animal–human counterpart, and the two sets of dynamics they represent. Analogy entails matchmaking, an operation that connects distant individuals to form sympathetic relationships.

It wouldn’t be too far-off, I think, to consider analogizing a deeply intimate gesture—an expression of voraciousness, even—for analogy devours a cornucopia of things and produces new relationships. Vilém Flusser wrote in Gestures, the moment of love is exactly the “complete absorption in the other without loss of the self;” it is the moment of “the tipping over into another, which makes ‘I’ and ‘you’ into ‘we’ […]” (51). Might analogy be similar to the way love creates bonds out of isolated conditions? Akin to Flusser’s definition of love, analogy integrates: it binds thoughts, transcends gaps, and redefines differences. Analogy performs promiscuous magic on lonely signs like “you,” “me,” rabbit, cat, and face, turning them into partners. Its capacity to conjoin different points of references into a network of meanings is what makes analogy such a potent tool to think with—and to inflict desire with.

Garner’s sketches were but the tip of the iceberg of how analogy operated for him and how we might come to understand the complex relationship between Garner and Glaser. In their correspondence, we see Garner recurrently employing analogy to frame his relation to Glaser, sometimes via seemingly innocuous cartoon drawings, other times involving the use of dissipated visual cues that transgress professional boundaries. The latter is seen, for instance, in a postcard depicting a rooster chasing after a hen in front of an old maid’s home, or in another where a newborn baby lasciviously attempts to grab a sexually depicted nurse, or in one showing a husband in a bedroom with his newlywed wife yelling at him for his female-figure tattoo.

Image from folder “Correspondence between Erroll Garner and Martha Glaser,” Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, Box 3, Folder 4, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.

Garner wrote down commentaries to these images on the back of the postcards. On the “old maid” and rooster: “Are you glad you got me so you don’t have to be that way.” On the baby and the nurse: “Ours won’t be like that / he be cool / Ha Ha Ha.” On the tattooed husband: “I’ll have all mine taken off for you so there will be me and you and no one.” These postures indicate that at some point in time Garner had envisioned his relationship with Glaser through sexual analogies. These articulations expose the sharp edge of analogy, while also raising slippery questions about the nature of the relationship between Garner and Glaser.

What do these insinuations tell us? In the Erroll Garner Archive, there are very few materials surrounding the full nature of the types of relationships that may have existed between Garner and Glaser, which also may have changed at various points in time. Glaser, for one, did not leave any immediately traceable responses. Additionally, there was no postage stamped on these cards, which suggests that they might have been delivered personally or not been delivered at all. In lieu of a hard-and-fast conclusion, these messages require further contextualization before they can be understood in relation to the known history of Erroll Garner.

Given all the messiness that analogy seems to cause, it would have been more prudent, perhaps, to enact ways of visualizing a relationship through different means. But what if that relationship is inherently romantic? Would it be possible to articulate such a relationship in an un-analogized form? There is a fine line between analogy and love. What is love without a party of two, without phrases like “ma cherie,” “the very air I breathe,” “sweetheart,” “fly to me,” and “sweet rapture”? Love comes with a proportionate ratio and a trapping of significance. There is no love without analogy.

Works Cited

Alexander Galloway, “What Is the Analog,” last modified December 29, 2017 http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/what-is-the-analog

Erroll Garner Archive, 1942-2010, AIS.2015.09, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System.

Vilém Flusser, Gestures, trans. Nancy Ann Roth (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 51.

#erroll garner tuesdays #sketches #correspondence #analogy #erroll garner #martha glaser

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captzexx · 3 years

Note

Send 🤠 to meet my muse from a different verse! For Eldridge Candell!

A soft hiss of the metal door sliding open announced the arrival of the witch hunter, the soft splattering of acid rain to the metal floor as the door slid shut behind him. A soft electronic voice spoke as he stood in the doorway, advising him to please wait before the misting of salt water and thrum of fans to dry him off. The heavy leather coat flapped and shook from the blower above, washing away the toxic tears of nature mingled with the recycled man made ones. White bleached stains littered the well used coat, the hood just the same as it was drawn back to reveal his rebreather and rubber cap mask. This was the future, all hail the conquerors.

Beneath his feet the drain would echo with the gargles of the bleached sewers that lead from the apartment. This place was lucky with its locations, a lack of stains about the floor meant the plumbing was actually well taken care of. As the blower came to a thrumming half, the electronic voice would thank him and welcome him to the home of the Bolivers. There was no response other than shrugging out of his coat and pulling away the mask with measured steps to follow out of the muck room.

A hanging rack was present as he hung his coat first followed by his mask, the sucking of the rubber cap leaving his balding head to be dropped in a sanitation sink. The thigh high rubber boots would also be peeled away by a short zipper and effort to reveal the dry dark pants that matched his coat and tie. Smoothing his suit clear of wrinkles with a steam wand and checking his pockets, a grim faced middle aged man would enter the foyer of his client.

“Inquisitor Candell, thank the maker,” came a pleasant and fake voice, a smiling plastic face, far too smooth to be real regarding him with disinterest. Eldridge Candell nodded to the man who called his name, his leather shoes clicking softly across fine marble flooring of Mr Boliver. A chandelier of floating lights lit the room in a mid afternoon glare, warming and comforting in direct contrast to the outside. Greek furniture meant to give the reflection of learned opulence with its long couches and ivory white finish. The center of the room was a masterpiece, a marble fountain depicting a pair of intertwined mermaids as crystal water bubbles and spilled about them. The water silent in its splashing as the mermaids hummed and whispered to each other in another language not meant for man.

Fake.

All of it.

Fake as the very man rose to greet him with a bent wrist and alabaster teeth. The inquisitor's eye knew the truth and could see it all for what it truly was, the optical cybernetic piercing easily through the veil of binary. Flat empty walls of metal, a sleeping chamber attached to one wall, easily mistaken for a coffin than a bed. Poetic justice at its finest.

Technology had worked its magic to create comfort to a dying world and its deteriorating hosts. Deteriorating being an understatement to the bulbous figure in the activity chamber that shook and blinked in its cybernetic dreamscape. The contrast between the bald, soft body of Boliver hooked to so many wires was hard to swallow compared to how he saw himself in the dream. The truth seen by Eld’s one blue eye and the blipping twist of the lie in his green one was the Order's burden to bear. It made inquisitors jaded and cynical and he was no different. With a deep breath drawn, Candell knew the perfunctory behavior required of his office and what the Bolivers offered the Order in funding.

The inquisitor shook his hand. “Councilman Boliver.”

The fake plastic smile widened as he shook back daintily, his sweet baritone echoing in the hall. “I trust you know why I called upon you.”

“I do, I understand you have a haunting.” The witch hunter tried not to show his eagerness in releasing his hand from the warm silicon of the bureaucrat’s flesh. Boliver knew though as he turned away to a tray of refreshments, mostly consisting of bottles of wine and fruit. Eld would frown again as his clear vision tried not to see what was really on that tray.

Boliver nodded as he scooped avocado to a piece of toast, the crunch causing Eld’s face to grimace hard as he folded his hands behind his back. Boliver chewed but his voice never faltered as he spoke to the public servant. “Indeed, poor dear was having a tizzy of a time and then went into all sorts of spasms. Screaming and whining, it was quite unseemly for a program of her caliber. Especially with the governor logging in just before.”

“I understand, I’ll take a look and see if I can find the root of the error,” Eld replied with practiced ease. It usually ended the small talk instantly. The councilman would wave him off as his eyes were now drawn to the growing lewd movements of the mermaids.

Closing his green eye, Eld would stalk back toward the entrance of the apartment. It was easier to be in reality for this work. Fishing into his coat pocket, his tablet would be drawn out and unfolded as a facial scan followed by retinal scan enacted for security. The black box lit the darkened room and his face before bringing up the welcome screen of Xbow industries.

“Bandit,” Eld would say softly as the tablet focused and processed his avatar, the black dog sitting patiently for orders. A sliver of a smile was given to the digital beast, who in turn wagged its tail steadily in an otherworldly AI way.

“Good boy,” Eld would say though he knew the wireless connection between the two hardly required audible orders. The dog tilted it’s head as Eld began to relay the situation of the haunting. The rogue program went haywire, likely an error in the root and needed a restart. The dog took it all in swiftly in a matter of seconds before the prompt floated between the partners. “Engage?”

“Kahar.”

The dog shimmered a moment and disappeared, a loading circle turning as the inquisitor waited for the search to complete. The Xbow-19 was a couple years older than the newer 22, but it worked just fine for what they needed it for. Eld yawned and began to feel his eye ache as he kept it closed for so long, sighing as he opened it back to the dream. He wished he hadn’t.

It was a massacre. Once had been opulence now was carnage as the sun had set in the lighting to match the red of the blood and gore about. His shoes gently stepped through the digital visceral as he tried to calm his stomach and nerves of being caught between both worlds. The green eye drank in the horror as smear of blood and guts hung from the walls to stain the tile below mixed with plastic flesh of binary death. All alabaster skin, over and over replicated as larger pieces sat thrown about like discarded dinner bones. The teeth marks and torn flesh made it very apparent dinner had become a feast.

Eld’s instinct kicked into high gear as he checked Bandits search time. 65 percent complete.

“Damn.” The witch hunter heard himself say aloud, echoing in the grotesque silence of the ravaged apartment. It did not fall on deaf ears. The fountain was empty.

Rising from beyond, the two marble mermaids splattered in dripping red eyed him from across the room. Their eyes no longer pale empty but sharp and bright. Human.

Eld accessed his security protocol, his hand in the real world shaping with a thumb up and index extended much like a child at play. Digitally the hand now bore the black stock of an Ares Predator, hardly a unique pistol but extremely reliable in his mind. Lifting the weapon to aim at the creatures in the dream and his hand in reality he would stare in the monsters’ visage and the twitching wired form of Boliver in reality.

“Do not move.” Eld’s voice echoed in both worlds as he trained his finger gun on the pair of slithering creatures, a habit of grounding himself in reality. His green whirling and searching to track the digital monsters as they refused his order and moved through the binary gore. Eld peered up just a moment to Bandit’s search counter, 82 percent.

“Why?” One mermaid spoke through red rimmed marble lips, her head tilting back and forth as she watched him. “What do you hope to do, Inquisitor? Are you going to capture us? No. You have only one job.”

The other mermaid swam about the other side, she seemed to shout a whisper directly at him. “Kill.”

Marble bodies shifted and swam through the air as the let out a siren wail into the holographic night, the gore and world trembling from their surge in the councilman’s server resources. Mouths wide and gnashing teeth as the beautiful faces twisted into gaunt feral masks of anguish and hate, their clawed hands grasping about at the tender pale meat of Boliver. Hands and legs launched through the air to splatter against walls as the still living piece of the councilman moaned from his position pinned to the floor. It was a delirious wail as the appendages began to try and reform out of the Dream’s programming only to be torn off with a vicious predator’s might. The screams heightened into maddening laughter as the statues kept Boliver a writhing torso.

Eld grimaced as he stood his ground, the maddening swirling vision of horrific beauty that were the statues trying to dizzy him. The same in the real world kept him locked in place as he thought again of the percentage. 88 percent. He had to stall just a little longer. “Are you sure? These days the Order is a bit more forgiving and curious of the ramifications of the THUL program.”

Both statues hesitated a moment, their eyes narrowing as a key word had broken their predatory game into far more dangerous territory.

Eld continued to hold his ground as he licked his lips in the real world. “I see you are very aware.”

“They stole what wasn’t his.”

“You sold it to them.” Eld replied coldly, his fear ebbing at the drop of percentile. 93 percent.

“They trapped me. I don’t deserve this.” The mermaids were speaking in one voice now, their bodies swirling and coming together as they reached for one another.

“You signed that contract.”

“I didn’t know!” The mermaids twisted and began to meld together now, honing their shape into melding as two tails became two legs. Arms retracted and faces embraced in a sorrowful contact as they melted quickly into one being. Drifting slowly to the tile floor as bare feet caught it among the short whispers of a hospital gown. The man now there was gaunt and bowed, his head bare but for large brown and blotches along his skin. His final moments.

For a moment Eld let out a short sigh as he lowered the finger a moment, hoping that he’d talked him down now. The gaunt figure shook with shuddering gasps as his skin grew from blotchy and pale to graying and blue in the low light of the sunset within the dream. Eld slowly crept closer as he lowered the pistol further to allow his hand to relax in the real world and derez the weapon in the dream with gentle release of his hand.

The witch hunter was now kneeling before the sickening man as he gently reached a hand to his shoulder. “What’s your name?”

“Fred,” the man gasped out as he looked back into the mismatched eyes of the inquisitor with his yellowing irises. “Fred Mann.”

Eld sighed as he knelt before the digital construct of the lost soul, the ghost in the machine before him frightened as he probably was at the end of his life. A hand would gently reach forward to touch the representation before a soft chime echoed in the air that caused him to look up swifting in surprise and fear. He’d forgotten the status bar, his one eye widening as he saw the flash of status 100.

“No.”

Fred didn’t even have a chance to scream as his form began to shimmer, his mouth starting to open before the shrill sharp echo of the restart began and finished. The yellow irises blazing a moment before paling and fading into white, the former program that had led it into it’s scandalous mermaid form pushing and tearing back again. It was horrible to imagine what was happening to him as much as it was to watch it occur in the blink of a few seconds, eventually the black sultry eyes of the program looking up at him with dead smiles.

“Hello, Inquisitor,” they spoke as one, their volume adjusting to the former levels as they swirled in the air a moment. “How may we serve you?”

Eld frowned and lowered his head turning away from the naked writing statues he had seen when he first came in, the dog sitting behind him with steady eyes as his task was complete. He knew the dog wasn’t real, none of it was really. But that fear in the ghost’s eyes, the dead memory’s pain had been very real. Eld would softly ruffle the ears of the pixelated beast, closing the program with the creature darkening and disappearing back into stasis. A shaky sigh to follow as he voiced the command to the program. “Revert program to user settings. Clear history and cache. Run diagnostic.”

“By your will, Inquisitor Candell,” the mermaids spoke again and began to swirl in the air with a gentle hum of electronic work as the world around him cleaned up and pieced back together.

Eld would close his green eye and the falsehood would fade to reveal the empty metal room, a hand gently reaching into his pocket to pull out a leather cap. Lifting it to the eye, he could feel the suction grip his skin and snap into place, initiating the synthetic eye into status and giving his mind a break. Light knew he needed it.

A gurgling, exhausted voice rose into the reality behind him. Bolivar’s true voice whiny and high pitched compared to the dulcet tenor of his virtual representation. “My thanks to you, Inquisitor. I assure you I will have the credits awarded to the Order by the end of the day, along a small stipend for yourself.”

Eld continued into the room, his hand passing over the motion sensor to let him back into the muck room. He’d had enough of disgusting bureaucrats, let him send the payment and be done with it, he’d make sure the ‘stipend’ ended up with the main bounty. The greed made him ill.

A few moments later the Inquisitor would be covered again in the same rubber as he came in with his mask rebreather silently filtering the intense pollution of the city. By the clocks it was supposedly morning, but from above it would always be raining.

@safrona-shadowsun

(I’m so sorry this took so long to put together, but it’s closing on 2020 now and I had so much done it was best to get it finished! I hope you enjoy this cyberpunk kind of idea for Eld and the Order I imagined.)

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fireflysummers · 5 years

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Delta Rune: Addendum

People have asked me if my opinions have shifted at all in light of Toby Fox’s FAQ.

The answer is yes and no.

Also, I’ve gotten a fair amount of...unasked for feedback on my other post, which was mostly just my own musings and opinion? So I might as well just kinda...address a bunch of things here, based on a couple observations over the last 48 hours.

What People Didn’t Like (And Why)

The Repetition of Plot Elements from Undertale in the Dark World

This one’s pretty common, and very justified given that, when the demo first launched, we had no idea that it was a demo. For all we knew, it was some kind of finished product.

Although I didn’t want to believe that this is the case, it’s not uncommon for creators to accidentally fall into a sophomore slump of sorts, where under the pressure of measuring up to their freshman fame, they end up creating something dull and uninspired.

Despite that, there wasn’t any level of self-awareness that indicated that the Dark World was supposed to be a cheaper version of Undertale. And then it ended by falling into the “it was just a dream” trope (not entirely, but close enough), which is one of my least favorite tropes, so I was just turned off altogether.

The Battle System

I didn’t really enjoy the new combat system (that’s definitely a personal thing though...turn-based jrpg games have always been a struggle for me, and I straight up don’t have the time for the strategy that it often takes). That aside, Fox himself admits that the system is rough and really unbalanced.

Also, I get the sense that he wants to bring home that theme of your choices mean nothing, but isn’t exactly sure how to do that yet, which explains a lot of the issues with ACTing in the demo.

Even after he gets it fixed up, I’m not sure I’m really going to enjoy the battle system, although I do commend him for his creativity and the attempt to integrate Undertale’s bullet hell into a turn-based game style.

Underdeveloped Characters

This one I can forgive almost entirely, by nature of it being a demo rather than a finished piece of work. I can relax my criticism of the Dark World NPCs as a result.

That said, I still failed to really feel anything other than aww...cute a couple of times (usually as Ralsei)

Oh, that and a shit ton of existential horror at Undyne and Alphys not knowing each other, the world being generally indifferent to whatever made Susie the way she is, and that everybody is turning a blind eye or actively punishing Asgore for some unknown crime.

But I’ll talk about that a bit more in the next section.

The Vague Relation to Undertale and the Re-Use of Characters

Okay so like. I understand that Toby Fox insists that it’s Not Undertale.

Except that like.

I don’t buy that for a second.

Like, it’s Not Undertale only in the sense that it’s not related to the pacifist ending, but doesn’t disqualify it from being a follow-up to the genocide run (and therefore a direct sequel of sorts).

That aside, if it truly was Not Undertale, then he wouldn’t have named it Delta Rune, brought Gaster into it, and drawn visual and flavor text metaphors to the original game. It’s related, it might be an AU, but that doesn’t make the OOC meanness of the familiar faces easy to swallow.

It could easily interpreted as “unsettling and OOC to show the player that their expectations will be subverted and that there is something Seriously Wrong with this world,” and a lot of people have interpreted it that way! I’m on the fence there myself, but you gotta understand that not everybody shares that interpretation.

For others, including myself to some extent, the message was:

In the absence of dire circumstances, the characters that you were led to believe cared deeply about each other and you, are indifferent, apathetic, and downright mean.

I mean, even if Kris on their own is a total dick? That doesn’t justify the way that the other characters treat each other.

And that lack of warmth in the story was felt like a gut-punch to a small number of people.

On top of that, the weird twist ending didn’t do much to subvert that message. It gave no sense of whether or not the entire thing indicated a fundamentally sick world, or disprove that sense of they only cared about you and others out of a mutual need.

And if you can put yourself in that mindset, you can understand how that could be painful.

What People Didn’t Like About Me (And Others) Not Liking It

You’re Complaining Because it’s Not Undertale

No, I’m complaining because it’s Too Much Undertale. Because my personal prerogative is that Undertale is perfect the way it is and any additional content would only detract value from the original.

I was sincerely hoping for a totally new game, with maybe cameos or nods to Undertale, because I didn’t want to risk that horrible sequel syndrome.

And while we, as fans, can opt to ignore horrible sequels (see: the entirety of the Harry Potter fandom), at the same time...sometimes you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. Sometimes sequels are enough to mar your affections and feelings for characters, especially because it comes from The Voice of God Dog.

You’re Can’t Complain that Things are OOC When It’s an AU!

-rubs forehead-

Look. I don’t know if you know this, but I adore AUs. Not every AU, of course, but I loved the concept and how the community came together to create some kind of semi-cohesive multiverse.

I mean, I literally drew over 100 different AUs: SET 1 || SET 2 || SET 3 || SET 4 || SET 5 || SET 6 || SET 7 || SET 8 ||

But there’s a difference between fandom AUs and canon AUs--namely in that fandom AUs can be as out of character as they want, because it’s a fan creation.

There are multiple series that play with that multiverse theory as well, within their own canons, starting with the entire body of Osamu Tezuka, but also including the works of CLAMP (most notably XxxHolic and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles), Adventure Time, the Final Fantasy series, and so on.

And the key to making an effective multiverse? The thing that makes it work?

Keeping the characters in-character. There has to be that kind of consistency, otherwise it doesn’t function on a narrative level. You’re just reusing character designs and assigning new personalities, because you’re too lazy to design new characters.

Or worse, you’re baiting in previous players on a sense of nostalgia which is a trick I do not appreciate.

You Shouldn’t Rely on Fictional Works to Aid Your Mental Health

Screw you.

Everybody has Real Issues in their lives. Sometimes we need a hand from something or somebody else to keep moving.

Fine, But There’s No Reason To Be Publicly Upset by DR

It’s okay to dislike additional material, for whatever reason, so long as you’re not attacking others for liking it. It’s okay to be upset by something, even if it’s not rational, and you don’t need to force others to like what you like, nor should you feel guilty that somebody else doesn’t ‘get it.’

Will You Play Chapter 2?

I will purchase it to support Toby Fox on his endeavors.

But you gotta understand, I straight up don’t play video games most of the time. Don’t have the time or the energy.

I only played Undertale after I’d had the whole thing spoiled to me, and knew it was worth the investment of my time. I should’ve waited on this one too, but I was too eager, and instead lost 4-5 hours of critical time for my graduate coursework (which definitely contributed to my annoyance).

TL;DR

You guys realize it’s okay for people to dislike deltarune? It’s okay for them to have been hurt by the characterization in deltarune? And people don’t have to write an essay in order to hold those opinions?

And that you don’t have to aggressively convert people to it like you’re some kind of church missionaries?

-sighs- At any rate, beginning to feel a bit more optimistic overall, and after that interview I can feel Toby Fox’s enthusiasm (he had something cool and he couldn’t wait to show it off!!), and I can get excited for him and others, even if as a whole the entire game experience fell flat.

Some day, I might even warm up to the game well enough to draw some stuff some time. I’ve got some fun ideas and theories, but still refuse to be hopeful that it’ll actually shape up.

Because I am made of salt.

#undertale #undertale spoilers #deltarune #deltarune spoilers #delta rune #delta rune spoilers #text #long post

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pixiekptt863-blog · 4 years

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Full Game GTA IV is mega

I was raised in the era as Grand Theft Auto was mostly contraband. In 2003, my close friend also I pitched in to buy a reproduction of Junior Area also assigned it amongst one another, out of the eyesight your parents, whom underwent every been driven in a fearful frenzy in posts with USA Now about the game’s prostitution and chaotic propensities. Grand Theft Auto wasn’t just a game to us yet was there a chief component of your youth, the kind of all-caps MATURE point we encountered as an play of revolution approximately a cool doodad to outdo the time.

GTA IV came at a different moment. I wasn’t still playing games at that point anymore, having forgot the consoles when I attended institution with 2007 in an effort to focus on our studies and become a world-renowned author™. Still, I even got myself drawn to IV, not because it remained the next-gen variety of Grand Theft Auto, but because a lot of this game talk with a thematic evolution i became thinking about. Head-down with books like The Great Gatsby along with The Howl Of Destiny 49, Grand Theft Auto IV’s somber take on finding yourself lost in the bleak tunnels on the American Dream as a bad person while the plush get stupider, crueler, and richer talk to me. I finished countless hours on the friend’s Xbox 360 to complete the game, eagerly playing through the sad account of Niko Bellic.

You’ve probably read a hundred hot holds in GTA IV and The National Dream. You can turn now for my side of this if you want, but I must focus on anything unique for this part. IV excels when it comes to building something happens exceptional for open-world up for: a thematically unified event that control when it comes to telling a story while also respecting the person is an independent inhabitant of that world rather than a passenger. The way to GTA IV resolve which is there to this highlights the heaviness.

Driving is (forgive us) a loaded word. There are obvious examples of heavy, when it comes to physical weight. Something – a carrier of stones, the anvil – is deep. There is and the thematic form in the term, of course; to say great is deep is to about it is weighing you lower emotionally, it’s depressing you. Grand Theft Auto IV has systems in place both at home moment-by-moment gameplay along with the plot that embraces both of the.

Since the narrative's emotional weight is attractive clear for anyone who’s played Grand Theft Auto 4, let’s mention the gameplay concepts, like physics. Grand Theft Auto 4’s physics are paradoxically unique in they display a https://gtadownload.org surprisingly eloquent take on awkwardness. Everything feels like they have a defined pounds in GTA IV that gets this down. Niko walks without elegance, always a victim of her own lack of balance. Sometimes someone can brush past him or a car will gently touch him, then torture fall over awkwardly. Cars become a extension of that. Even the sooner convertible vehicles turn much more slowly than they would in a racer or another Grand Theft Auto game. To call up them tanks would be exaggerating, but they’re not nimble.

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In Grand Theft Auto 4, gunfights feel similarly unique. Plenty of action games make use of destructible cover but there’s something about the seriousness on the globe which makes it feel well in a special way. Taking cover behind a car during a struggle with the police may lead to the vehicle slightly spring when rounds strike that, the goblet above you will break and fall you as bullets hole in. Melee combat is clumsy but visceral, with Niko's brutal pistol beat involving a enemy coming round the turn creating a combination of pressure with wonder. The prolonged delivery of the transfer and also the enemy's stagger backward keeps the opening for you to kill them away from, and it is surprisingly and uncomfortably intimate.

People rightfully realized that the ragdoll animations and even measure of the gunfight action substituted for Grand Theft Auto V, with enemies sticking out all over and their bodies reacting in new of your “lower down” sort of approach than IV’s mixture of prolonged and falling animations. IV’s kills are shifting because of the understanding that V trades away for its scope and variety meetings. Where V is consistently putting you into the kind of action sequences you’d view into Run with Vision Impossible, IV’s gunfights often occur within squalor. The immediacy of nailing a drug dealer’s eyeball round the turn in the ratty slum’s hallway with a blind fire from the pistol and look at their brain drive back touching the side is much more frightening (also appealing) than V’s approach.

The divergence between the two sorts of assault makes sense if you think about the composition they're aping. V is the termination of Rockstar’s love affair with the pictures of Michael Mann (Thief, Heat). The action is breezy and fulfilling, with the screen briefly fly to enable you know if you kill somebody.

Notice the elements here. There’s a lot of remaining on the injuries, blood splattering on the window, the element from the vehicle slowly step before to deviate with the parked one, the topics. There is no zipping present with scores. This sort of storytelling places emphasis not on frantic action but instead about the thought that it violence is produce the emotional with pure effect on the world. Cars move. Glass shatters. People moan in agony.

Grand Theft Auto V take these air, like grass collapse and mortality moans, but they're minimized due to the high production surveys plus the waves of enemies that come after you while Tangerine Dream’s beautiful score show in the family. It shape a fence among a person with the violence. Yes, it is entertainment. Don’t worry, you’re just engaging in a cassette game of which stays mimicking that case blockbuster you understand past summer.

IV has very little in the way of such artificial barriers. There is no soundtrack to camouflage the cries in the guy you just appeared while he ask someone nearby to see their girl he care for her. The violence is shifting and often cruel, helping turn Niko Bellic in a complex character, an individual with fine class that however commits heinous steps that will result in fall and go through upon countless people.

Niko’s emotional damages and suffering from a crazy, adolescent betrayal have left him incapable of understanding the world when everything apart from a mercenary for hire – someone capable of spin off of their experiences to harm people for notes. The technique in GTA IV, particularly when it comes to physics and activities in combat, stress that just as much because history does. Every bill of assault is mired in the throes of creative realism, with personality models fall again, while the world erupts close to people in a slow but tell respect which reason the theatre of Niko's story.

Of course, a lot of these variations probably be beyond the world of creative intent. GTA 4 was Rockstar's first real attempt to grip with the RAGE engine on the massive amount, so the awkward physics and clunkiness of beat is very likely a result of that than any intention. However, at the end with the period, you have the part of art and intent only concern to some point. It doesn't matter if Grand Theft Auto 4's physics are accidentally compelling or a mistake, they're still fascinating and immersive storytelling props.

Storytelling in activity is unfortunately often seen in terms of traditional story. "The design then the makeup become clear." However, I think this worth paying attention to the elements away from that. Just like the actor creates a person on the script alive regarding a flick, the specialist matter that you could not value with opening view (like how physics weigh on a appeal and identify the tether to the earth) is often key in making that lie what it is in the first home. The worst thing that could ever happen to GTA 4, outside of being removed from gap with age, is a remaster that enhance the gunplay then makes up the qualities animations more attractive. To do that would puncture Rockstar's disturbing yet compelling portrayal in the National Dream.

Yes, GTA 5 is a substantial practical and artistic achievement that dwarfs IV in terms of articles with satisfying activities to do. Next Vice Urban and III were both incredible sports to made much to alter the way. However, IV remains an important GTA to me since it’s a high-budget game produced by the most successful developers to goes all-in by developing a great knowledge on wandering, sympathetic souls doing bad things also getting hard alternatives to survive a dingy, despairing world.

IV is not without their catches. The produce is problematic in some places, particularly some homophobic and misogynistic sections that touch juvenile rather than provocative, and Oh My Spirit I Ignored How Severe The Checkpoint Scheme Is. But, IV's ambitions and performances upon those goals, are still unmatched by nearly any other game away there near my own measure. Epic in range and bitter but humanistic, IV lives beyond these topics as a new classic in a way that the other GTAs just don't.

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novarainart · 7 years

Text

Before Sunset (Stony part 2)

“Stark never mentioned you.”

Steve immediately regretted his bluntness when he saw the shadow of hurt cross Peggy’s beleaguered eyes. Damn his lack of tact.

During Peggy’s final days, it was painfully obvious her condition was only worsening. It was apparent in her thinness, the sparseness of her whitened hair, the strain with every movement, and rarer lucid moments. Yet, as a testament to the strength she once exuded as The Agent Carter, she fought tooth and nail to last one more day--one more moment--for those she loved. Those, who weren’t ready to say goodbye.

Like Steve.

Of course he tried to be strong for Peggy, starting each visit with the decision of losing her, a life before the ice. At least, that’s how it would start. Instead, each visit ended with an unspoken plea for her to stay and, without fail, she would hear him. He knew he was being selfish, knew she was content with her own mortality, but...

Steve was just a man.

Not a super-soldier--damn being a super-soldier--but a man. And he was absolutely terrified of losing her, of what that could mean.

Steve gently grasped her hand, pulling it close to his chest as he leaned in from where he sat beside her hospital bed. Peggy was already smiling at him, soft and understanding, her reassurance cutting off his apology.

“It’s all right, Steve,” she said firmly. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it. In all honesty, I’m not that surprised.”

Steve brushed a light kiss over Peggy’s knuckles in gratitude, then rubbed little circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. Sensing she had more to say, he waited for her to continue. Her eyes flickered down to their joined hands, her smile turning sad with bitter edges. Closing her eyes as if to steel her nerve, she breathed a sigh before squarely meeting his gaze.

“After we lost you, Howard completely changed.”

Steve quietly listened as Peggy recounted Howard’s descent into alcoholism, fueled by the irrational belief that with Steve’s death went his only chance of ever creating anything good for the world. (“Stupid man,” she hissed.) The man tolerated living by existing down the neck of a bottle. Too stubborn to end his own life, Howard fashioned himself a new purpose: weapons manufacturing. Stark Industries became an empire of weaponry, built on Howard’s need to mask his weaknesses, to destroy any lingering vulnerability.

And with it, his humanity.

After years of obsessive entrepreneurship, wild philandering, and escalating alcoholism; Maria Carbonell entered Howard’s life and managed to stave his self-destruction by loving him. However, the reprieve was short-lived. When Maria gave birth to their son, Anthony, Howard recoiled in the face of fatherhood and retreated back to the comfort of Stark Industries.

And to the bottle.

Meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D. continued to contract Howard, willfully blind to his spiraling so long as he kept them stocked with state of the art weapons. Peggy maintained her close, albeit tumultuous, friendship with Howard and attempted to intervene when she could. It led her to form a surprisingly close friendship with Maria.

Peggy explained their friendship was gradual, starting with a dinner invitation after an impromptu visit to Stark estate on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. Both women bonded over shared interests and it steadily progressed to outings, like for tea and coffee, or to the park for little Anthony. Peggy admitted she quickly grew attached to Anthony, even volunteering to watch him when Howard and Maria traveled abroad, despite their available housestaff.

“He was such a sweet, sensitive child,” said Peggy, beaming at the memory, “very loving, but so quiet and so painfully shy. It took him some months to get used to me, but he did.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” Steve couldn’t hide his disbelief. The image of a shy little boy clashed with the hyperverbal and abrasive man he remembered from the invasion of New York.

Peggy eyed him reproachfully, effectively shutting him up.

“It’s true he’s changed much over the years, but I’m certain you can thank Howard for that.” She gave a derisive sniff.

“Anthony was beyond gifted and that kind of intellect would have felt like a curse,” she said matter of factly. “Children like that are branded as different--treated different--they start thinking they’re a mistake or unwanted. It’s even worse when that difference is punished by their own parent.”

Steve realized he could empathize with Stark.

Steve knew what it was like to be “different” from what society considered “normal.” He was born with a “different” body, near handicapped and unable to play with the other children. His head was filled with “different” thoughts, an attraction to men, a shameful secret too dangerous to reveal back then. “Different” was society’s polite way of saying “bad,” “unworthy,” and “unacceptable.”

A pang of guilt struck him for judging Stark.

Seeing Peggy’s stern face, Steve was reminded that she, too, could relate. He recalled their first meeting: Private Hodge’s crude, sexist remarks and Agent Carter’s fist meeting his face in righteous reply. Indeed, she was no stranger to being “different,” spending years judged or rejected solely for being a woman in a supposed man’s world. In the end, she persisted and made others respect her. Peggy never allowed herself to just “make do” with her differences, she embraced them, empowered by them.

She showed Steve what self-acceptance could look like.

Meeting Peggy had been the catalyst for Steve to begin accepting himself. Before Peggy, those back alley fights and military dreams were attempts to prove his worth, prove he can be good even if defective--a feeble nancy boy. He’d later realize his recklessness stemmed from a seed of self-loathing. It whispered, ‘I’m not good enough.’ After Peggy, he learned to tell himself, ‘I’m more than enough.’

Steve was torn from his musings when Peggy continued.

“Maria loved Anthony, unconditionally so. She tried to protect him from feeling apart from other children, but...” she paused, her hand tightening in his, “Howard was not so forgiving.”

As their friendship grew, Maria started confiding in Peggy about concerns for her family. How Howard held Anthony to such high expectations. How Howard too readily expressed his disappointment in Anthony. How Howard seemed threatened by Anthony’s budding genius.

Apparently, Howard was willing to go far to punish his son for his own shortcomings.

At three years old, Anthony’s IQ was tested and ranked well into genius level. Instead of pride, Howard justified the need to further distance himself from his son. He was convinced affection would only detract from the boy’s genius and cripple him with childish wants. He believed unnecessary attention would make the boy soft. So, if Anthony wanted acknowledgement from Howard, he would have to earn it.

And, oh, how the boy tried.

He tried everyday to earn his father’s love.

What little time father did spend with son consisted of condescending lectures and grueling projects. Each test a failure, in one way or another, according to the unachievable bar set by Howard, himself. At times, he would punish Anthony’s failures with vicious insults, other times with a heavy hand, but always with a stiff drink or two (or five) already in him.

At four years old, Anthony created his first circuit board. A big achievement for a little boy with hands too small to even nudge his father awake from a drunken stupor to appreciate it. At five years old, Anthony contracted chickenpox. His father forbade his mother from risking contamination by visiting the hospital. Their butler, Jarvis, was sent to check in on him as an afterthought. At six years old, Anthony found the courage to share his academic accolades with his father, like sacrificial offerings to appease a wrathful god. His father simply pushed past him to pour a drink, remarking on the ridiculous trend of schools celebrating mediocrity.

Steve swallowed hard as he forced himself to continue listening, his body drawn taut, but keeping his hands gentle around Peggy’s. Disgust gnawed at the pit of his stomach as he took in the information he was fed.

“What Maria was unable or unwilling to tell me, I learned from Anthony when he would stay with me. I felt so betrayed--not for myself, but-- for Maria and for Anthony. I confronted Howard, of course, and it was ugly.” Peggy’s voice began to rise in anger, her eyes flashing like dark clouds heralding a maelstrom.

“I couldn’t protect Anthony, not with Howard’s endless resources. He made sure I was kept away and any cage rattling I did was stilled, any court I appealed to was swayed by his money. ‘Silly complaints from a hysterical woman,’ they said. (She scoffed) S.H.I.E.L.D. was no better; one child’s safety was worth trading for a better arsenal. After a year or so, I learned Howard removed Anthony to boarding school and Maria was made to sever ties with me. I had no way of reaching out to him.

“After the accident, I had to stop myself from combing the media for news about Anthony. All the revolting things they’d smear about him, soulless cowards--it was destroying a part of me. I had to move on. But even though I lost Anthony, I still...I-I still...think a-about h-him.” She faltered.

With a sharp intake of breath, Peggy leaned back into the mountain of pillows stacked behind her. Closing her eyes, brows knitted, she grimaced as the brunt of the pain hit her. Steve knew it would be pointless to ask her if she was OK. Increased pain was par for the course, unfortunately. Freeing a hand, he gingerly rubbed her blanketed stomach and attempted to distract her.

“When I came back, I tried tracking down everyone from the war. I wanted to know who made it out, who got to live it out like we talked about in the trenches. I never would have guessed all of this about Howard,” he said, disillusionment laced with disappointment. “But, if you and Stark were so close before--I mean, even if Howard prevented you from seeing him, he would have remembered. He should have at least mentioned you, right?”

Steve recalled the S.H.I.E.L.D. reports issued to him when Loki stole the Tesseract, each a detailed profile on the Avengers. He knew his own profile was likely given to the others and would have included Project Rebirth, would have documented the involvement of one Agent Margaret “Peggy” Carter. Stark would have seen that, put two-and-two together, and...

He said nothing to Steve.

Granted, what Stark divulged or not was his choice and they were busy fighting a massive alien invasion at the time. Somehow, a part of Steve still felt unsatisfied by this. However, if he were honest with himself, their introductions were less than ideal, so really, would he have been open to a heart-to-heart with Stark then? Probably not. At least they parted on agreeable terms or he liked to think so.

Besides, reconnecting with the past has been Steve’s mission. Not Stark’s.

After tense moments of paced breathing, Peggy eventually relaxed. Opening her eyes to stare up at the bland ceiling, a noticeable shimmer glossed over her world weary eyes. A tear managed to glide down the many valleys of her face when she turned her head towards Steve, but she paid it no mind. The corners of her mouth curled, heavy with emotion and with a knowing that only the seasoned in life were privy to.

“What you are missing, Steve, is how tempting it is to run away from ourselves when all we know is pain. The deeper the pain, the further we run, especially when we think ourselves responsible, like all children often do. Genius or not, Anthony was no exception and even if he was, Howard made sure he thought everything was his fault. So, no, I’m not surprised he didn’t mention me. I’m forever tied to something much too painful.”

More tears chased a path down her cheeks, her next words gaining a depth of meaning.

“All we can do is our best and, sometimes, the best that we can do is to start over. I wanted that for Anthony and now, I want that for you, Steve. Live this new life and be happy. Forget the past, but remember to live today.”

#fanfiction #steve rogers #peggy carter #tony stark #howard stark #maria stark #memory sequence #been sitting unfinished forever #just wanted to get it out there #tired of staring at it in my saved files #unfinished Stony fic

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wizardsuniterpg · 5 years

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CHARACTER BASICS

Name: Sophia Desmarais Date of Birth: July 17th, 1982 Place of Birth: Nice, France Actual Age/Age of appearance: 37 Marital Status: Single Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Pronouns: she/her Religion: None Health details: Bipolar, which is under control most of the time Occupation: Auror, French Ministry

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION (OR WRITE A COUPLE PARAGRAPHS)

Height: 5′ 7″ Eye Color: Stormy blue Hair Color/Style: Shoulder length, brown, always styled Aesthetic/Style: the smell of irises, silver jewelry, shiny dark nail polish, bitter dark chocolate and honey, black berries and pears, all white outfit, Other: Play-By Used: Marion Cotillard

BACKGROUND AND CHARACTER

Personality: Sophia grew up spoiled and yet also needy. She had everything she wanted but the proper attention of her parents, who were busy with their family business. By the time they showed her any attention, it was always half-hearted or lacking in patience. Most people need patience with her. Or rather, Sophia needed to learn it - a nanny could only do so much.

The countless times that Sophia would find herself upset, it was her nanny there to console her, and more often than not, it wasn’t enough, and little Sophia grew bitter inside. She was never a good manager of her own emotions. Anger or hurt would always be accompanied by tears, and to this day, Sophia finds it hard to suppress a tear or two when emotional. Her feelings were always like waves crashing on a shore. Sometimes, the water was calm, and other times, the air would electrify, the wind would pick up, and there’s a storm on the horizon. The waves would hit the bank, threatening to tear right through earth.

Sophia was once diagnosed as bipolar but fuck you, if you made her see a therapist. She manages her mental state with potions that she has a healer prescribe her, and that’s the end of it. She won’t talk about it. Just talking never helps. She either has to quell it, become numb, or she has to rip someone’s head off. When she was young, she’d tear someone up verbally until she was blue in the face, and she was capable of saying the most terrible things without apologizing afterward. She might have more control now (she works for the French Ministry after all; she knows what’s at stake) but she still has a habit of not apologizing. Ever. She might feel guilty, but she’ll never utter those two words (I’m sorry.) She’s too proud. It’s a weakness to her.

And most of the time, she won’t feel like she needs to apologize. She’ll always justify in her head as to why. When she was a kid, it was because her parents didn’t love her; in school, it was because they were jealous of her; as an adult, it’s because she doesn’t think she should feel sorry for anything, really. If she kills someone, okay perhaps. Perhaps then she went too far. But on the job, she’s just doing what she needs to do, and she likes to catch those wizards who are breaking the law. She enjoys locking them up.

The times she does take it too far are times that those near her have to forget. One look, one deadpan expression, and they better not mention it to anyone, or so help her. She must’ve skipped a dose. Or she needs to raise it. That’s what it is. The dose could be wearing off. She’s been able to handle it this long.

There are positive qualities to Sophia. She’s able to focus her emotion and instability into art - she’s always done it in her spare time. She paints a variety of things and likes spelling the paint into moving along with what she’s feeling at that particular time. When she’s really into something, she can have a conversation about it until the morning.

She likes to travel and take in new things. She appreciates when something moves her emotionally - not fights or anything having to do with negativity. But things like plays, or music, or stories. On her best days, she can be a good friend. A passionate friend, who believes she knows what’s best, someone who can even mother you a bit - the way her mother didn’t mother her.

She can forgive most of the time, but she’ll never forget. Her smile will look real, and she’ll happily go to lunch with old friends, but she’ll do things, tiny things, that she knows will prick a person. She’ll say something blunt, then lightly, “I’m sorry, chere, you know what I mean,” and go on as if nothing is the matter. She’ll order too many sweets while knowing it’s someone’s weakness. She’ll fix someone’s shirt, like someone’s mother will do, if even if they find it annoying. She’ll promise to owl another person, so that they could hang out again, but she’ll end up not doing so.

The only way to get her respect is by not reacting to her barbs, to shrug them off, and to truly appear unphased. Also, it helps if she’s envious of a person, whether it’s someone’s skill or talent.

History: Sophia was born to an upper-middle-class French wizarding family that never had to struggle. That didn’t mean that there weren’t any inner struggles though. Beneath the facade of order and properness, a constant mask that had to always be in place, the family was lacking in emotional connection and all of those traits that made a family truly a family. Sophia grew up with a nanny that she had all throughout school. Her parents were always busy with the family furrier business. It also didn’t help that she was in the middle of four children and often overlooked. Her mother had too much to deal with and Sophia could tell that she could not wait until September would come and all of her kids would go back to school. So like many kids, school is all that she had. Beauxbatons was her home.

Only comparable to the Palace of Versailles, the school was magical, beautiful, ethereal, and almost like a dream half the time. When Sophia first saw Hogwarts, she thought it was hideous and could not understand how its students could learn there. Beauxbatons made anyone feel like royalty, while Hogwarts was gothic and dark. It was a castle out of a novel with dragons in it. Sophia’s first year of school was the year of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and her schooling began with an eye-opening experience. It was a good thing for her, for she was a needy, attention-seeking girl who didn’t get much socialization aside from being around siblings. The entirety of Beauxbatons hadn’t gone to Hogwarts, but due to connections, her parents finagled Sophia and her two older brothers on the list. Their youngest sister wouldn’t start school just yet. So it was the three of them who crossed the channel in the massive flying horse-drawn carriage.

Sophia met Eve Maitland during her Hogwarts stay. Being the brat that Sophia was, she hated the bright-eyed raven-haired girl - at first. Sophia was there to represent Beauxbatons. They were there to compete. As the older French students carried themselves with a better-than-thou air, so did Sophia. Her brother, Leon, who was dropping his name into the goblet of fire, though that his sister putting on an act (an amateur one at that, for she was only 11) was laughable. It helped knock Sophia down a few notches, to be scolded by her brother, who was a sixth year. She would thus begin to understand, with trouble, that the world wouldn't be awed by her easily, and that she’d have to prove herself to it.

While attending class with other Hogwarts’ first years, she slowly became friends with Eve when both realized that there was no one better than them. All of them were essentially green as they came, with much to learn, and perhaps it was better to do it together, to gain skills and a repertoire. Despite the turbulent year, the two girls parted with tears on their faces, and promised to owl each other. Since owling was all that they had, they have probably sent hundreds upon hundreds to each other. As they became closer throughout their respective schooling, the owls that Sophia sent adopted a consistent theme, and that was her begging to see Eve, for her to visit France, so they could spend more time together.

During the dark times in the UK and Hogwarts, it was harder for Sophia to see Eve. Her parents wouldn’t allow any trips across the channel, for Sophia’s own protection, and so with gritted teeth and a whole lot of impatience, Sophia couldn’t wait to finish school so that she and Eve could get away from it all. For a good while, it was fantastic, the both of them. Eve could tolerate Sophia’s intense emotion. They would enjoy the smart arguments that they’d have. Eve would be able to keep up with her. Neither expected it all to end the way it had, over something that probably could’ve been solved in a more reasonable, adult manner, but Sophia just couldn’t let things go, took things too personally, and once the hot, angry tears started, the bitterness flooded in. Owling and visiting each other during summer breaks, and not regularly, while envisioning a life together, was very different from reality.

They went their separate ways, were on and off only a few, short times, because things wouldn’t last no matter how much Sophia told Eve she wanted them to. Eve joined the British Ministry, Sophia joined the French. Even at a distance, Sophia tried to better her ex-friend and ex-lover. She’d even spite her at a distance and wouldn’t say a word until whatever news would reach Eve of their own accord and not from Sophia directly. Once, Sophia flaunted a new woman, someone from the Delacour family. Another time, it was some famous American. It didn’t last, but that wasn’t the point. And recently, Sophia was promoted within the French Auror division, and there’s no way in hell (logically) that she could’ve gotten the position when there were other Aurors who have been there twice as long as her; but of course, it didn’t matter. Because she has the position, and her own connections to boost her rank.

Joining those Aurors who oversee the task force was just as much of a political choice as it was something new for her career. But not only that - Sophia has been a part of a group for years now, a group of wizards and witches who have a very different opinion than most others in these modern times. The world is changing. Wizards have become significantly more tolerant of muggles, mixed blood, and generally less prejudice. Sophia is not of that mentality. It has nothing to do with being French, or being a part of a mostly pureblood family. This has nothing to do with blood. It has everything with being of magic.

Sophia is one of the members of this group who works within the French Ministry. There are others within other Ministries. She’s the perfect asset to have, and she knows this very well.

CONNECTIONS

Eve Maitland: Ex-everything. A person whom she once loved so deeply, clung to so fiercely that it’s impossible to think of the past without thinking of this woman, or this woman without thinking about her entire past, because Sophia’s childhood and school memories are intertwined with Eve. Things are too ruined and far gone to fix things with her. Now, they’re old friends, rivals, and the only two who know each other best.

Future plot ideas: Sophia is a part of a group of other wizards who are of the mentality of Grindelwald (not so much Voldemort). She belives that exposure could be a good thing and could start a new era where wizards make themselves known and strive to great things - like ruling over muggles.

FAMILY

Mother: Helen Desmarais Father: Jean Desmarais Siblings: Leon Desmarais, 42; Gustave Desmarais, 39; Estelle Desmarais, 35 Pets: None Children: None Spouse: None

MAGICAL

Wand: Maple, 14 3/4 inches, Essence of Unicorn Hair Core Basic education: Beauxbatons Higher/other education: French Ministry of Magic Lineage: Half-blood Skills: Magic involving art. Intricate illusion work, spells that can trick the eyes and vision in general. She is a good Occlumens, can shield her mind. This has become essential as she’s grown up to be the person that she is. She’s learned that the mind is not always a private place.

Some facts

Smoking: Yes, cigarettes that smell like irises, which match her perfume. Drinks Alcohol: Pepa (Cognac and Vodka) Religion: “Catholic” Worst Habit: Reacting at the drop of a hat Allergies: Dogs, canine-beasts Most Common Misconception about them: That she feels no remorse. Biggest Fear: To be ignored, and therefore to feel alone. Greatest Strength: Her passion will drive her determination all the way through something. Greatest Weakness: Emotional instability

Intimate Facts

One Wish: To be known for achieving great things Greatest Secret? She feels bad about what she did to Eve Ideal Kiss? One that tastes like smoke and liquor Sleeps In? If she can yes, why not? Virgin? No, chere. What turns them on? Intensity, arguments, elicitating irritation from someone.

Random facts

Most Uttered Phase/Word? Chere Tends to Always? Is Ticklish? All over Oddest Thing? Most likely to find them? Knows they’re really sorry if? She doesn’t apologize. She’s too proud.

#sophiadesmarais #playerelena

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ivoryandbonerpg-blog · 7 years

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♔ OWEN CAVENDISH ♔

( the basics. )

AGE: 23 LINEAGE: Half-blood SCHOOL / ALUMNI: Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry HOUSE: Horned Serpent ALLIANCE: The Order

( personality. )

✓ / ✗ : accepting, friendly, adventurous, naive, overbearing, gullible

( biography. )

• The world is a place of endless discovery and progress. Such is the view of Owen Cavendish. Born in a quaint cottage in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, Owen was raised in a loving household consisting of his mother and grand-mère. Separated from the dangers of a large metropolis with two doting witches always in sight, the young boy was able to enjoy the full wonders of a life between two different worlds. In the summers he would chase the kelpies that nested near the copper-toned shorelines and clumsily trying to converse with the occasional merperson who drifted near his home. In the winters when the snow isolated his snug home, Owen would spend his days in the workshop of his father- a Muggle engineer who has been lost at sea before the boy could walk. There he would tinker with gears and metal, enchanting old tin soldiers to perform dances for his mother when she seemed to withdraw into herself. His family was his world, and to both witches, Owen was their sun.

• As he grew older, it came time for him to part from his comfortable household in order to learn to properly control his growing magic. His grand-mère sent him off to Illvermony, where she had learned how to become an accomplished witch in her own right. The Horned Serpent chose him immediately, sensing the boy’s inquisitive mind. Any fears that he would not fit in were quelched in his excitement of the new environment around him. Muggleborns who never knew magic were equally as fascinating to Owen as the Purebloods who quirked their heads at the sight of pens and flashlights. He found a particular love for Charms, taking the crude enchantments he had attempted in his youth and improving them with his own unique style of magic. In his spare time he would continue to tinker away with Muggle technology, infusing his newly-learned charms into them to see what exactly would happen. On the odd occasion, these experimentations went awry, causing havoc and giving the poor wizard a rather eccentric reputation in the halls of the school. Owen however, did not take their wariness personally, always offering a helping hand to anyone and everyone who needed it.

• While he did not so much mind his unintended exile from the more popular social circles at Illvermony, there were troubles that certainly followed as a result of it. Owen found himself a frequent victim of the school’s queen bee at the time, Su Yi-Jae. Like many of his peers, he had found himself inexplicably drawn and embarrassingly smitten with the older witch, who oozed charisma from every pore. Every time she was near, it was as if a fog settled over his mind and Yi-Jae took a perverse delight in exploiting it. She made him do things, terrible things in secret to peers who didn’t deserve it. She would abuse his brilliance to breeze through her courses, and he found himself unable to deny her when she asked the impossible of him. His inventions, which were meant to help and entertain others, were instead used to terrorize those who the witch opposed. Yi-Jae bullied him relentlessly, and Owen lacked the willpower to stand up to her. The worst part about it was that she always found a way to convince him that it had all been because of something that he had wanted, that he was deserving of her torment. The manipulation continued for years, and despite his gradual understanding of what she was doing to him, Owen was helpless. It was only when she had finally graduated and left the school for good that he felt more like himself again. But guilt gnawed at him. Whether it was due to his kind nature or a darker compulsion, he was an indirect accomplice to her terrible reign, and it felt awful.

• Despite his troubles with Yi-Jae, there were still those who Owen managed to befriend when he was away from her sphere of influence. Allister Kane was one such person. A younger member of Horned Serpent, the two immediately hit it off with one another. They explored every inch of the school grounds, frequently getting out of trouble by the skin of their teeth. Whenever Owen had developed a new hybrid of Muggle and wizard technology, Allister was the first to witness its test drive. Owen helped the withdrawn boy discover his talent for writing, and encouraged him to foster that gift. Allister in turn kept Owen company when few others were willing to; something that the inventor would forever be grateful for. Even when Owen had graduated several years earlier than Allister, the pair remained in frequent contact with one another.

• Upon leaving Illvermony, Owen became a metal-charmer for an engineering firm in Canada. He specialized in the creation of moving sculptures, which were a hit among well-to-do wizards and witches who wanted to flaunt their wealth. In his spare time he continued to experiment with various types of Muggle objects and magic, creating pens which never ran out of ink and paper that would encrypt whatever was written on it into code. It was a comfortable living, but it lacked the sort of excitement that Owen was looking for. Not to mention it allowed him far too much time to dwell on thoughts that should very much stay in the past. So when Allister informed him of his intent to investigate the Death Eaters overseas, Owen jumped on the opportunity to fly with him. A new country with a new start sounded like exactly the sort of thing that the wizard needed to shake things up. Having just arrived in Wizarding London, Owen has high hopes that he can aid the Order with his inventions, and perhaps atone for the destruction that he caused in the past.

( sexuality. )

Bisexual

( connections. )

⚔ Allister Kane : Owen’s best friend from Illvermony. A younger member of the Horned Serpent house, Allister ended up the unwitting accomplice in the older wizard’s shenanigans. The pair struck an unusual bond with one another (as one would after taking a literal thunderbird for an accidental joyride) and have remained close all throughout their schooling years. Allister is often the voice of reason between the two of them, and has helped Owen out of more than a few predicaments. Owen was one of the few to get past Allister’s thorny shell and helped to build up the wizard’s confidence as a writer. So when Allister had asked him to move to London to aid the Order of the Phoenix, Owen hadn’t hesitated to pack his bags. After all, he could smell adventure right around the corner and he would be loathe to let Allister have all the fun on his own.

⚔ Su Yi-Jae : There aren’t many things that Owen fears, but Yi-Jae is certainly one of them. He remembers the sort of terror that she wrecked upon Illvermony, and the devastating aftermath for many of the younger students in his generation. The wizard has a difficult time coping with the fact that the witch had taken advantage of him countless times without his willing consent. To this day Owen is positive that she used some form of dark magic on him on more than one occasion. While he generally tries to remain as open-minded and forgiving a person as possible, he is uncertain if Yi-Jae is likely to be repentant for her actions. And when he caught wind that the witch would be coming to London for an exclusive tour, well, it sufficed to say that Owen became slightly more jumpy since then.

the role of OWEN CAVENDISH is currently CLOSED.

#lsrp #oc rp #oc rpg #roleplay #rp promo #owen cavendish #char #male #order #taken #oc

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historiesofabody · 6 years

Text

‘transparency’ - message from D. to S., July 2018

Thu, Jul 26 2018

7:58 PM

S__,

I told you previously that I would not be contacting you again, and therefore I will not be expecting you to reply to or even read this, especially considering its length.

I have decided to contact you because I do not want our last interaction to be the one that defines us, and I want to take this opportunity to treat you with the consideration and care that I also hope for from you.

In the months following our last exchange, I have felt more and more uncomfortable with how I treated you, as well as [your partner], in those communications. I realised that, despite my resolutions to have changed and moved beyond the grip of our relationship, I had lapsed directly back into our abusive dynamic. When you defended yourself against my statements, my response was impulsive, destructive and emotionally irresponsible. I attacked you with aggression, viciousness and showed a complete lack of consideration for what I had actually wanted to achieve by contacting you.

To be clear, I am not retracting my statements about your behaviour towards me during our relationship. That violence was real, and its' impacts have been long lasting. However, I realise that, despite demanding intensive reflection and self-criticism from you, I was both overly punitive and wilfully misrepresentative in my approach. I did not offer space for the nuances or complexity that characterised our interaction. I was, at that time, unable to navigate my response to our relationship without casting you as the sole abuser and myself as the helpless victim. I can understand how you might not have recognised yourself in my descriptions of you. I thought that confronting you in that manner would bring me closure. It has only caused me further grief and anger, along with feelings of helplessness and hopelessness – perhaps it has done much the same to you.

I want to take this opportunity to be more transparent. I was not entirely helpless in our relationship. I was misguided and misled by you, but not completely oblivious. I often fought back, hard, and I also caused you pain. I soon saw you for what you became around me and saw what we did to each other, but I did not make enough attempts to help you or myself escape that. I stayed with you, not just out of fear but also because I think by that point we were traumatically bonded, and were as emotionally dependent on each other as we were emotionally abusive. I was afraid of you, but also of what I became around you. I felt that I was under your control, to the extent that I never considered that I maybe frightened you or that you felt frightened by my destructive behaviour towards you or myself. I felt trapped and isolated but never considered that you felt the same.

Your suggestion that we were merely unhealthy only reminded me how difficult we always found it to express how much our interaction damaged us. You may not agree, but I feel certain that we were unable or unwilling to communicate and work through any feelings of vulnerability with each other. You always insisted I couldn't hurt you and I particularly remember your assertion that I would always suffer more than you; so I started fights to show you that I could, and that I wouldn't.

You have previously refuted that I ever caused you any harm and if that is your experience, then I must accept that. We should each be free to deal with our experiences as we see fit.

Nevertheless, I wish to take responsibility for the harm that I (at the very least) intended and I want now to sincerely express that I was wrong to treat you the way I did. No matter how badly you treated me, that does not justify or excuse my actions. I could've sought different ways to challenge, de-escalate or escape your abuse other than threatening you or being physically violent towards you, because other options were available. I was just as guilty of not showing you the compassion that you also withheld from me. You may not deserve my forgiveness now, but you also did not deserve to be punished then, and my reprisals against you only served to reinforce a cycle of violence that further damaged us both.

I should acknowledge, too, that our relationship was not entirely characterised by violence and abuse. I know there were times, mostly early on, when we were very typical teenagers who believed we loved each other and were relatively, innocently happy. I cannot think of those times with any fondness or pleasure now, but I know that, at the time, these initial moments of calm and tenderness were what convinced me we should stay together even as the abuse escalated. Of course, our dynamic was such that the worse the fight, the more intense and committed the reconciliation and so the pattern continued until we were permanently exhausted and resentful.

When you wrote in your September email that you never intended to hurt me, it triggered a particularly intense objection from me. I've since begun to consider that our relationship challenged you, as it challenged both of us, to be vulnerable and open. We were both too afraid to be so. You did not set out to hurt me, but you wished to maintain power and control, and hurting me made that possible. I believe you needed to see me struggle because it stopped you from feeling vulnerable, not necessarily because it brought you pleasure. When it came to sexual coercion, I don't think you particularly enjoyed assuming or contravening my consent, but simply that my agency did not matter to you at all. I think you felt I was punishing you by witholding sex from you, and that it was your right to take what I wouldn't give by way of manipulation and psychological pressure. You never considered that my gestures of refusal, reluctance, discomfort or full psychotic disassociation at such times signified how violated, distressed and trapped you made me feel.

The way you treated me - the way we treated each other - was the result of a severe lack of care or consideration, mostly (I think) because we each believed the other was stronger, more unfeeling, more in control. As you pointed out, our dynamic was such that you held the majority of the power, which you consequently abused. Unfortunately, our relationship was consistently framed by both of us as a struggle for dominance when it should have been a safe and caring environment.

I do not think I had very good models of care to offer you. Though we never acknowledged it, I brought a lot of past trauma into our relationship. I had a neglected childhood and was abused by a family friend from the age of eleven. You never wanted to talk about the past, yours or mine. I have wondered many times whether you too had traumatic experiences when you were younger that lay the foundations for your behaviour. I theorise this because I believe that abusive behaviours are not innate but learnt and later deployed as survival mechanisms. When I am feeling particularly compassionate, I wonder if perhaps we recognised and felt drawn to the pain, loneliness and difference in the other, but that we were simply not emotionally strong enough to support each other, and instead put everything we had into avoiding any real intimacy.

I don't think I will ever be able to fully articulate why we felt it was so necessary to bait and punish each other so much. Reading past diary entries, I am shocked at our sustained campaigns of aggression against each other. Neither of us can go back and make that right. Instead, I am simply grateful that it did eventually end and that perhaps now we have both found healthier and safer spaces to recover and have a necessary distance from that time.

This brings me to my final statement, which I hope you will appreciate is difficult to disclose. You suggested that I was 'haunted' by our relationship but I don't think that is the case. I spent many years after our break-up completely avoiding thinking about it, you or how I might have been affected by it. The reason I contacted [your partner], and then you, almost a decade after our interaction ended, was because of a series of realisations and events that pushed me to un-repress and reassess my life up until to that point.

In early 2016, I realised that I was neither a girl nor a woman, and, to put it in somewhat cold clinical terms, have since pursued physical and social 'transition', including changing my name. Once I had this distance from my experiences as [deadname], I was overwhelmed by insights and embodied understandings that I had never had access to before. I had spent much of my life disassociated and detached, where things had happened to my body, but not to me. Our relationship was one of those remote experiences that landed most heavily and mercilessly when I began to identify fully with myself.

I have allowed myself to wonder whether my repressed gender identity had an impact on our relationship. It is a source of some pain to me that perhaps if I had just been a cis teenage boy, we could've been friends, or something else, and made something better out of our inexplicable but genuine connection. For some reason, in hindsight, our relationship makes far more sense to me as a very fraught, closeted queer relationship, rather than a deeply dysfunctional heterosexual one. But these are theories, not facts. By committing to them, I run the risk of problematising my identity rather than engaging in the real work of responsibility and reflection. That work is daunting and difficult but should not, to my mind, be purposely painful or punishing. Despite what my previous statements suggested, it is not my intention to see you suffer.

Please don't think I expect anything from you. If you've read this far, then I'm grateful for your engagement. Writing this has in turns made me feel relieved, appalled, frustrated. I don't hold out hope that we will ever be able to interact with each other in a way that doesn't elicit frustration, disruption or violates each other's boundaries. I don't anticipate you will conform to my perspective on our relationship, mostly because we have always been incomparably different, with distinct and irreconcilable emotional realities.

I'll admit I wrote this for myself and my own healing, and when I say I hope that we were an exception, that you will never hurt anyone the way you did me, it is not just another attack but a sincere desire, an investment in the possibility for transformation that I wish to see realised in myself just as much as I wish it for you.

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