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more-better-words · 18 days

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My continued mission to flood the world with Trip/T'Pol sweetness continues unabated!

They had been on Earth together for a month or so, falling into the patterns of a domestic life, when T’Pol began to feel what she could only describe as an itch.

She wasn’t displeased with Trip, not at all – living with him was proving enjoyable in unexpected, fascinating ways. It was comfortable; she was comfortable, and after spending so much of her life laboring against a sense of restive displacement, that comfort was a wonder.

So why did she feel this way?

She pondered the sensation, considering it in her meditation, and one evening, the answer revealed itself, a truth she had not been prepared for, but could not dispute.

She wanted to go on a date with him.

While they had been on Enterprise, they had not had the opportunity to ‘go out’ in the sense that humans typically meant. And since being on Earth, Trip had not pressed the issue, but he could be sometimes almost too deferential to her natural reserve. If this was going to be done, she would have to do it. So she gave the matter what she felt to be due consideration, and prepared a plan. And having done so, she approached him about it.

“Do you have any plans for tomorrow evening?” she asked at breakfast. He shook his head.

“Tomorrow? No.” He looked at her over his coffee, smiling. “Why? You askin’ me out?”

“Yes.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

She nodded, wondering at the slight flutter in her abdomen, and slid her personal PADD across the table towards him. “I would like you to meet me at this address at 2030 tomorrow.”

He looked at the PADD, and then at her, his eyebrows still high. “Is there a dress code?”

“I believe that more…formal attire than standard would be appropriate.”

“Gotcha.” He nodded slowly, then smiled. “Now I’m gonna be wonderin' all day today and tomorrow what you've got cooked up.”

“I hope you will find it worth both the anticipation and the mystery.”

“I’m sure I will,” he said. She finished her tea, but his smile warmed her more than it ever could.

The next evening she remained late at the lab, outlasting even the indefatigable Lieutenant McAllister. Finally, with the place entirely to herself, she drew the blinds on her office windows and changed into her outfit for the evening – a dress of dark, hearts-blood green, with a bias cut and cowled back that reminded her of Vulcan fashions. She straightened the skirt and hastened to the tram stop. It wouldn’t do to keep her date waiting.

She knew he was already there when she arrived at the jazz club; she could feel his presence within, but wasn’t sure whether the nervous expectation was his, or her own. Perhaps both.

He was at the bar when she entered, his back to the door. He turned at her approach, and she was gratified to see his faint smile shift into an expression of stunned amazement. His mouth opened, his throat moved, but speech seemed to have failed him. She held out her fingertips to him, and he touched them almost shyly. “T'Pol…you look-”

“You look very handsome,” she said, and it was absolutely true. He’d paired a dark blue shirt with cream colored pants and jacket, and both the fit and color combination suited him very well. He smiled at her, his confidence revived.

“I can clean up alright when I feel like it. And you did say to dress up. I didn’t wanna disappoint you.”

“I am not disappointed,” she said, and he adjusted his cuffs with a self-satisfied grin before his eyes swept over her again, appreciating what they saw. The cockiness faded as he let out a breath.

“But you…Wow. I gotta be the luckiest man on this whole planet.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” she said.

“If you say so. Next, you’ll be tellin’ me I deserve to walk in here with you lookin’ that good.”

“If you do not, who does?”

He looked at her for a long moment, then reached out, brushing his fingertips against hers again, the corner of his mouth quirking wryly. “Oh, you’re good,” he chuckled. He turned back to the bar and retrieved a glass, which he handed to her. “By the way...got you some scotch.” She accepted it, taking a sip. It wasn’t quite as good as what they’d drunk the night he’d asked her to marry him, but perhaps the circumstances had sweetened it in her memory.

It was still quite good regardless.

The bar was on the opposite side of the club from the stage and the open space of the dancefloor. Tables ranged around the room, and little seating alcoves were cut into the walls, providing comfort, a slightly greater degree of privacy, and a place to set down drinks. They made their way to one that promised a good view of the stage. Trip settled into the cushioned seat across from her, sipping his drink, and giving her an inquisitive look. “So what’s the occasion?” he asked.

“There is no particular occasion,” she said. “I simply wished to take you on a date.”

A little smile played at his lips. “Why?”

The evening’s live act was introduced, a quartet who took up their instruments, thanking the patrons before starting their first number. “I...wanted the experience. For both of us,” T'Pol said, glancing down at the table, then back up at him. “I enjoy your company. Always. And I hope that you enjoy mine.”

“Of course I do!” he said, offended that she might think otherwise.

“And I thought that we might enjoy one another’s company even more in this setting. Is that not the purpose of a date?”

“That and wonderin’ if you’re gonna get lucky at the end of the night,” he said, his smile spreading.

She took a demure sip of her scotch. “You might.” He laughed, leaning back in his seat and looking at her with that endless affection that never failed to make her beloved and prized, and for a moment they simply drank in the sight of each other, the music swirling exuberantly around them. Trip tilted his head.

“I shoulda known you like jazz,” he said.

“There is something about the genre I find...compelling.”

“It’s very human,” he pointed out. “All that improvisation.”

“That may be why it compels me,” she admitted.

“Maybe,” he said, and his smile warmed her again.

The quartet was very good, sliding between pieces with practiced skill, the quick tempo of the first few songs easing into a slower, more measured pace. T’Pol felt her eyes being drawn to the dancefloor, where the circling couples transformed the sound of the music into motion. Trip noticed. “I remember askin' you once if Vulcans dance. You never did answer that.”

“Choreographed movement, perhaps,” she said, glancing at him, “but nothing like that.”

“Do you want to?” he asked softly.

“I don't-” She looked back at the dancefloor, and a strange blend of uncertainty, longing, and anxiety whispered in her mind. She tightened her lips and straightened her shoulders. It was illogical to feel shame in response to inexperience. “I do not know how.”

“That’s okay,” he said, a small smile hovering on his lips. “I can show you.” He stood, extending his hand. “We don't have to go down to the dancefloor. We can stay right here.”

“I-” Her hand reached for his, apparently of its own volition. His eyes held hers, warm and gentle.

You'll be fine, they told her.

“We'll start simple,” he said aloud. “Won't even worry about footwork yet. Though I’m sure you'll pick it up.” His smile deepened, a teasing wickedness lurking at its edges. “I mean, I know from firsthand experience you have excellent rhythm.”

She couldn’t bring herself to reprove him for that, and he flicked the tip of his tongue at her, still smiling, hugely pleased with himself. “Okay,” he said, guiding her a few steps from their table, deeper into the alcove, “put your hand right here.” He placed her hand on his waist. “And I’ll put mine here.” He mirrored the placement on her own waist. “And these hands stay here.” He gave their clasped hands a squeeze.

“And now?” she asked.

“Right now we just sway.”

Swaying. She could do that.

“Gotta loosen up your shoulders, sweetheart,” he said after a moment. “I know this gonna sound funny, but think of it as squarin' up to spar. You wanna be relaxed.”

Actually, she thought, it made perfect sense. Sparring was responding to the movements of one’s partner, and so, it seemed, was dance. She rolled her shoulders, relaxing in his hands, and he gave her an encouraging little smile. “Yeah, like that.”

They swayed together a while longer, and she realized that even this limited motion matched the underlying pulse of the music.

“Feel the beat?” he asked softly. She nodded. “Are you ready for the next part?”

She nodded again.

“I’m gonna take a step to the side, with my right foot, and you're gonna step with me. Okay?”

“Alright.”

That seemed simple enough, and she realized as they moved from one step to the next that it really was just action and response. Why had the dancers in front of the stage filled her with such awed apprehension, when that was all there was to it?

“Well,” Trip said, laughing softly, “they do know some fancier moves than me.”

“That is simply a matter of practice,” she pointed out. “I have no doubt that you could attain such a level of skill. After all, I know from firsthand experience that you have excellent rhythm.”

He blinked at her, then smiled one of those slow, pleased, intensely intimate smiles that always sent a shiver through her. His hand slid from her waist to the small of her back, pulling her closer to him. “Damn, you are on a roll tonight.” He pivoted on the ball of his foot; some intuition told her he would, and they turned together without missing the step. He tilted his head, gazing at her with such unadorned affection it made her pulse quicken. “You sure I deserve this?” he murmured. “A classy night out with the most beautiful woman on at least two planets?”

“I cannot think of anyone else who does more.”

“Then I guess there's only one other question.”

“Which is?”

His eyes held hers, the dim amber light of their alcove giving the blue a golden sheen. Can I kiss you?

Yes.

His head bent, his lips touching hers gently. They turned slowly, and she let her hand move from his waist, up his back to hold the nape of his neck, her tongue parting his lips for a brief instant before they separated. Their eyes locked, and the light in his had changed from warmth to a smolder. “So what are my chances of gettin' to go home with you tonight?” he whispered.

“As we share a residence,” she said, enjoying the opportunity for pedantry, “they are quite high.” He pursed his mouth at her, which had been her aim, and she stroked a slow circle of the back of his neck. “Your chances of… ‘getting lucky’ are also quite high,” she murmured.

He smiled faintly. “No matter what, you sure know how to show a guy a good time.”

“Then…you would consider this date to be a success?”

“Why?” he teased. “You wantin' to get a good grade?” It was her turn to make a disapproving face; he laughed softly and turned again, bending her back over his arm in a dip. “A plus,” he said, smiling. “Full marks, no notes, top of the class. You don't even have any competition.”

#fic #trip x t'pol #star trek enterprise #don't say you weren't warned re: sweetness

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warrioreowynofrohan · 5 months

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Also going on about the 25th anniversary performance of Les Mis - there are so many brilliant subtleties in the performance of Javert. (It’s not that I don’t love the performances of the heroes, but I seriously find Javert and Thénardiers the absolute highlights of that performance, I can’t imagine either being done better anywhere; and the contrast wth that is what makes the film musical so hard for me to watch in parts, despite it having some very good other elements.)

Javert’s words in dialogue are always very firm amd clipped, but there’s one moment in the scene with Fantine:

She will answer for her actions

When you make a full report

You may rest assured, monsieur

That she will answer to the court

The tone in which ‘monsieur’ is spoken is audibly different from everything else; it’s less sharp and clipped, more polite and deferential, and it speaks volumes about how Javert sees the world and how he sees his job. He knows nothing about what has actually happened, and it doesn’t matter two him, because for him society is divided by class, not actions: “this good man here” and “monsieur” against “this nest of whores and vipers” and (later, in Paris) “this swarm of worms and maggots”. The poor - specifically, those who are not working-class (peasants, labourers) but underclass (homeless, prostitutes, convicts) are literally subhuman to him; for Javert, a gentleman is automatically in the right and a prostitute automatically in the wrong simple because they are a gentleman and a prostitute.

#les mis #les miserables #javert

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paperbunny · 8 months

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S2, E1: The Arrival, Pt. 1

Not a Meta, Just a tribute.

(Eldritch tendencies) Aziraphale could not give less of a shit about the rent, and doesn't appear to even realize that he should. It's waved away seemingly because as soon as he's there he is thinking about getting his records. He completely dismisses the rent with the air of someone who is keeping a record shop for the sake of not learning how to find records elsewhere? Money seems to be no object, but it also seems to hold little value. It's like he's been playing The Sims with this neighborhood and has it just how he likes it, thank you very much.

(Van Life Crowley) There's no way that Crowley has been living in his car that long. Less than a year. Not only was he in his apt seemingly during Lockdown, but Shax is delivering mail and it seems like the first time that she's telling him about the issues with the bills. 4 to 6 months seems reasonable, up to a year if it took awhile for them to establish this communication.

(Boss!Shax) She's not able to get the bills paid because her signature isn't being accepted as his replacement. . . . Why? Is she squatting in the apartment? Is this promotion through sheer force of will via takeover? Also if she can't get the bills paid does that mean the apartment is going to get the utilities shut off? Are there no lights in Crowley's flat, Shax? Was the wifi cancelled? Why isn't her signature good enough, if she's a valid replacement?

(Eternal Beings Don't Get It) Shax doesn't get why the mail service can't be forwarded to the Bentley. I enjoy the total lack of understanding that is maintained both textually and subtextually.

(Fashion) I love Shax's whole outfit. She looks fantastic.

(Existential Crisis Crowley) Confirms that Hell doesn't know Shax is checking in/seeking advice. Crowley doesn't seem adverse to talking but isn't taking it seriously either. Hell doesn't care how jobs get done. Why does any of it matter if ... they don't even care? It's all a sham. Nothing matters as long as the numbers are good and everything appears as it should. The bureaucracy is always a secret favorite part of mine.

(Boss!Shax) She really wants to do a good job. She's planning things! She's trying to get thngs done! but.... it's secretly easy and the humans basically self-punish constantly in new and ingenious ways. Feels very First Grownup Job where you realize that no one is actually a grownup and office politics are worse than you thought but the job itself is easier and it feels like a confusing look behind the curtain.

(Existential Crisis Crowley) Crowley is still on the outs, yeah, he knows. Doesn't care. But he still wants the information. Protective/Defense Crowley. I know he's called Protective a lot, but I lean toward it being much more of a hyper-vigilant defense mode. Not as worried about being attacked as he is about disrupting his small piece of existence where he finds meaning, peace, or happiness.

(Boss!Shax) (Afterlife Conspiracy) Half rations for demons? Is this Beeze being upset or more Hellish cutbacks? Why is Hell having so many issues? We know people don't become Demons when they die, they go to an afterlife, but we have very little to suggest that anyone actually ends up in Heaven. Is everyone going to Hell, possibly except a very few? Is this going to be a problem? All the musicians that Crowley lists in season one are said to be in Hell, plus all the nazis we saw, but no mention that I can recall of someone actually going to Heaven. Shax is excited to have some juicy dirt. She's so willing to play the political/office game of favors here, and in 1941, and later. Someone wants Employee of the Month.

(Best Buddies Mentioned) Shax wants him to report back if his "contact" in the bookshop mentions anything. Is she playing nice and not suggesting anything untoward? She's clearly still somewhat deferential/intimidated by Crowley (who by all accounts was considered a star employee until he wasn't, so that makes sense for our Non!GirlBoss).

(Boss!Shax) Bless. She tries too hard. There's an attempt to get Crowley to agree to trade info or to give up some in the moment. Though it's an understandable try, Crowley is not phased. He is, as per usual, thinking about ducks. This non sequitur is enough to throw her off balance.

(Future Hopes) I would really love a mini origin moment where we find out how Crowley learns about feeding peas to ducks. I would like it to be something that Aziraphale tells him, as a gesture perhaps, since Aziraphale knows Crowley loves ducks. Even so, any origin would be fun.

(Maggie/Nina) She's a skinny latte but it feels like they've never had much interaction? Is this maybe the only time she's come in when it wasn't the morning rush or something? How is she a regular and Nina knows her order, but it seems like they've never even said hello? It's not wild, just a little odd.

(Fashion) Maggie's sweater is so cute. I particularly love the embroidery on the back. Not into the rockabilly look but she wears it well.

(Jim!Gabe) (Nina The Shit Stirrer) People are straight up filming Jim!Gabe and I wonder what happened to that footage. Is public nudity legal in SoHo? If not, why isn't anyone concerned that a naked and seemingly unhinged man came out of the pub (that's where the elevator is) totally naked. Maybe there's a reasonable assumption that he lost a bet or took a dare? Maggie seems shocked and Nina seems delighted. Do the tomatoes mean anything? Just a standard fruit stand gag?

(Bookshop Omens) The Book with the story of Job is on display next to Aziraphale as he listens to his music. It is open to three dancers? Not sure. The music is Shostakovitch Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op 47 - Allegro Non Troppo. Fast, not too fast. Are you listening, Crowley?

(Aziraphale the Comfy) The Bookshop Owner, supposed seller of books, during what is clearly working hours, is very annoyed that he has to answer his shop door. He is made very uncomfy by the visitor and seems alarmed but not embarrassed by the crowd? Like he's more worried that he's on Heaven's Candid Camera than just a horny bookseller getting a Sex Delivery (as per Nina). He stands there talking to the naked man on his doorstep for what feels like an eternity. No attempt to cover him up or even the very reasonable closing of the door and leaving. Also Jim!Gabe asks to come in. Could he enter without permission I wonder? Bless Jon Hamm for being so silly. I don't know what sort of modesty garment he was wearing but his whole ass was out and there were SO MANY people on that set.

(Maggie/Nina) First soft moment, laughing about the Stripper-deliver-o-gram, and Nina smiles, enjoying the moment, only to instantly push Maggie away when she introduces herself. (Wouldn't it be funny if I did the right thing and you did the wrong one? Hahaha... NO!) Mirror moment to Az/Crow shutting down their soft moments with harsh turns.

(Heavenly Scandal) Michael is talking to someone on the phone about Jim!Gabe. Is it Beeze? Xray doesn't indicate. She neither confirms nor denies whether Heaven is complicit in his absence. First mention of Extreme Sanctions and the Book Of Life.

(Aziraphale the Comfy) Gives Jim!Gabe some hot cocoa in his own mug. Seems unlikely that there were no other mugs. Is this THE cocoa mug? Or is it a good host sort of move? Why give Jim the mug that he clearly uses for himself and was purchased as some kind of joke or nod to his Angelic identity? Aziraphale seems upset at the idea of Jim not knowing who he is and then relieved at the thought that does, only to be tentative and confused when Az realizes that no Jim is still saying that he has no idea. He's playing carefully, neither wanting to give information or to get in trouble. A trepidatious host.

(Aziraphale the Company Man) He's only half listening. It looks like half his brain is dedicated to damage control/wondering what is happening. "Why did you come to my shop?" Thoughts nervously immediately seem to wander. He's nodding along absently until Jim!Gabe's words sink in about wanting to be near one person. Everyone knows there's at least some kind of ... loose co-worker relationship with Az and Crowley, but Az still instantly has to stomp any possible thoughts of recognizing that relationship into the ground. "No. Certainly not! I have no idea what that feels like." Buddy. Come on. Nothing louder than a guilty conscience. He's fired but he still wants to stay in line with company policy. Eating and drinking aren't against company policy it seems, just not really encouraged. Like people who microwave fish or use someone else's defacto mug in the canteen. Instantly moves away and gets defensive. Seems ruffled and flustered, very aware of the actuality of the situation IMHO. I fully believe that Aziraphale knows exactly how he feels about Crowley and is, like an asympote on a graph, constantly trying (albeit verrrrry slowly) to get as close as he can without actually making their situation a reality. He's passionately dedicated to that fine line. I don't see it as a homophobic Heaven (and that wouldn't track with GNeil's comments) but more of a divided loyalty, anti-personal relationships sort of Jedi mindset. It weakens one's resolve and dedication to The Cause if there is a worldly attachment, even if it's to an otherworldly creature. Doubly so, I imagine, since Crowley is a demon.

(Heavenly Scandal) The Something Terrible. Do we know exactly what this is? Is it the Re-Pocolypse, or is it his memory being wiped?

(Aziraphale the Comfy) Az is of course instantly trying to get more information but also treading somewhat carefully still. Both boy-shaped-creatures are very worried about protecting their peace. He's trying very much to not snap at Jim!Gabe, but also very frustrated. Is this Aziraphale more tightly wound than before? He seems more stressed. Are both the Husbands feeling very precarious about their precious niche of peace? I feel like S1 Aziraphale was more confrontational?

(Jim!Gabe) Ever an optimist. Things will be fine! Also he carried a very nearly empty box down an elevator and less than half a block. Maybe even just across the street basically? If his arms were tired, that says a lot about Gabriel's use of the Heavenly Gym facilities.

(Existential Crisis Crowley) He throws away all his junk mail. Or all his mail. What kind of mail is it? What lists is he on? Does he park on the same street always? He still gives advice to Shax though. A reluctant mentor. He's so pleased to hear that there's something wrong with Gabriel. It's kind of nice to see him get a bit of good news, considering. He immediately gets in the Bentley and drives off. Clearly already heading toward the bookshop to deliver the news.

(Good for me) I saw the fly. I didn't make any connections but I saw it and I knew it meant something.

(Aziraphale the Company Man) This makes me so sad. One of the ways that G&B bond is kind words and actions that are so clearly lacking in their respective departments. Az is tickled by Jim!Gabe saying he loves Az, but can't say it back. These words going unsaid feel like foreshadowing to refusing to speak things aloud (their precious niche) and being unable to speak things later (A group of the two of us).

(Aziraphale the Comfy) he's at war with himself a bit. He wants to throttle Jim!Gabe, but also isn't sure what is happening. Not sure why he doesn't call Heaven to clarify the issue, except that I definitely think his instinct is to protect his niche until he knows more. I don't feel like he's protecting Jim!Gabe yet, I feel like he's trying to figure out the problem and protect their little oasis. There's no softness towards Jim, just questions and fretting and finally the start of "hiding" Jim!Gabe by giving him a different name. And, naturally, calling his Good Pal Crowley.

(Jim!Gabriel) Jon Hamm. Just. Love.

(Domestic Moments) I'm convinced that Crowley drives to the Bookshop almost every day. This call is to re-route him, not to call him over. I know Crowley moans about the reasons that Az calls, but honestly. He's clearly already driving and if he's two minutes away then he is 3 miles away, assuming he is going 90 mph. Obviously they spent more time apart during lockdown, but there's way too much casual intimacy with the space of the bookshop to be only a rare visitor. Others have covered this deeply and well. Small note, Az is calling on the store phone, and while he is able to call via both dialing and just talking to the phone, it seems like the Bentley has some kind of call feature? Crowley hangs up by pressing something in the rearview mirror region. If he was speaking through the radio like others have, the switch would be on the dashboard instead.

(Pratchett) We see Jim!Gabriel through a bookcase and the shot is framed with what I assume is PTerry's hat. Also, the sound of a fly. The clues are really up front in retrospect.

(Muriel!!) She's still a Scrivener, we find out later, but she's walking the heavenly halls so she isn't by herself in that office allllll the time. She immediately notices the matchbox. How many others passed it?

End: 22:22

#good omens 2 #aziraphale #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #aziracrow #crowley #good omens #ineffable dumbasses #meta #good omens meta #muriel #bible verse #bible #amazon #amazon pride video #amazon prime #reaction

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shotbyshe · 7 months

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Cool Words from "The Morning Show"

hinterland:

The land directly adjacent to and inland from a coast.

A region remote from urban areas; backcountry.

A region situated beyond metropolitan centers of culture.

genuflect:

To bend the knee or touch one knee to the floor or ground, as in worship.

To be servilely respectful or deferential; grovel.

bleary-eyed:

With eyes blurred or reddened, as from exhaustion or lack of sleep.

Dull of mind or perception.

Having eyes sore or unfocused, due to weariness or excessive drinking; same as blear-eyed{1}.

libel:

The legally indefensible publication or broadcast of words or images that are degrading to a person or injurious to his or her reputation.

An incidence of such publication or broadcast.

The written claims initiating a suit in an admiralty court

onslaught:

A violent attack.

An overwhelming outpouring.

Attack; onset; aggression; assault; an inroad; an incursion; a bloody attack.

shrewd:

Having or showing a clever awareness or resourcefulness, especially in practical matters.

Disposed to or marked by artful and cunning practices; tricky.

Sharp; penetrating.

~~~~

Randomly decided to give The Morning Show a go. I've known about it for years, via the Emmys, and Globes nominations but I just never cared to watch it. I ended up binging the first season during work and I loved it. I continued to the second season and couldn't stand it. Now I am delaying starting this new season until it's fully aired.

Anyway, all of these words were spoken on the show. These were the ones that stood out to me.

I've always hated the word shrewd (because it made me think of 'shrew') but always enjoyed hearing it in conversation. It resembles 'rude' in sound, but means something entirely different. I used to refer to it as "sure rude", like "you're sure rude"...LOL. I said that internally in my Reese Witherspoon Alabama accent.

Speaking of Reese's accent, a part of why I loved the first season and why I was intrigued to watch The Morning Show in the first place is because Reese has her real-life southern accent and is rocking brown hair. I rarely see her portrayed this way so I was glad to see it. In the second season, you barely hear her accent, she's back blond, and she and everyone else is acting very strangely in their respective characters, in my opinion.

Sidenote: I actually hate when series' do this. They'll establish characters one way then decide they want them to be "more relatable/real" or whatever the fuck and then they're completely different the next time I see them. Anyway, rant over 😎. I'm shrewd. [**]

*I liked seeing Rachel and her little sis reunited.

**I ranted about this with Friday Night Lights, on my other blog, too.

#WORDS of the day #words #the morning show #reese witherspoon #southern accents #alabama #definitions #dictionary #hinderland #genuflect #bleary-eyed #libel #onslaught #shrewd #friday night lights #writings #writing

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cassynite · 1 year

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WOTR Companion Meme: Vonzi

@dragonologist-phd‘s original meme here!

Name: Kallesto Voness (Called Vonzi)

Race: Human

Class: Oracle--Wave Mystery, Blackened Hands

Appearance: A dark-skinned woman with a solid, curvy build and an afro of curly black hair. She wears clothing in blues and purples, in styles that are similar to the southern ocean-faring countries like Sargava, but cut for clolder climates. Perpetually wrapped around her shoulders is a large fluffy wool wrap. Her most striking features are her eyes--which are large, bulging, and flecked with light like a starry sky--and her hands, where her fingers have blackened as if exposed to extreme frostbite.

Favored Weapon/Equipment: Her magic, which tends to be focused on frost spells. Uses a crossbow if needed, though she has disadvantage. Will wear light armor if she wears any at all. Will often also wear gloves, as it makes it less painful to use her hands.

Top Skills: Use Magic Device, Knowledge (Arcana), Persuasion

Alignment: Chaotic Good

General Personality:

Vonzi has two states: the Delirious State and the Lucid State

Her Delirious State is distant, inattentive, and forgetful. She is not fully aware of herself or her surroundings, and finds it difficult to concentrate on the present situation around her--this does not prevent her from being a powerhouse of offensive cold magic when needed. In conversation, she speaks little and sometimes will not make a lot of sense, muttering phrases or fragments of sentences to herself. She will often struggle to understand or speak in a conversation.

Mechanics-wise, delirious state causes her Wis and Int to lower but her Cha to increase.

Her Lucid state is that of a cavalier easygoing woman, one with a witty sense of humor and a matter-of-fact attitude that lets her carry her burdens with far more tact. She is deeply self-confident in herself and her abilities and tends to dislike showing weakness in front of others--her delirious state is a vulnerability she hates showing. She will tell the truth when she thinks it matters, but will also lie for fun about things she doesn't think matter, and what she thinks matters might be different than what a KC values.

What traits/values do they admire?

An ability to stand up to and question authority; in that vein, a willingness to put value on individual's lives and helping those who would not otherwise provide material benefit as a reward. Personality-wise she's drawn to people who are willing not to take themselves too seriously and have a sense of humor about things, as well as people who are confident in themselves and what they stand for.

What traits/values do they disapprove of?

Blind loyalty to any organization, including religion, makes her wary, as she believes all hierarchal organizations are inherently corrupt. Cruelty disgusts her, whether it be self-serving and pointless or borne out of zealotry. Showing a lack of curiosity about the world and the people around them, being overly judgmental, or just being like a stick-in-the mud is likely to irritate her.

Also, while it's not something that will stop her from being friends, being overly deferential or self-deprecating is something she has little tolerance for.

Are they affiliated with any deities?

Explicitly she is an atheist, and shows a distrust toward all organized religion. However, though she no longer remembers this, her quests reveal that her family (or at least her mother) worshiped the entity that gave Vonzi her powers, and she possibly worshiped them as well.

What do they think of their role in the Crusades, and of sharing the Commander’s Mythic powers? What are their reasons for joining the commander’s party?

Vonzi is neutral to the Crusades and their place in it. She is introduced in her Delirious State and barely knows what the Worldwound is, let alone cares. Becoming lucid shows her expressing concern over the danger to the public the Worldwound poses, though she tends to express it in a very cavalier way ("Yeah, a giant demon hole is a problem"). However, she distrusts the Crusade as an institution and will warn a KC that if there isn't corruption on some level of such a large movement, there definitely will be. She doesn't particularly care one way or the other about the fact that she is companion to its leader, however.

Vonzi's attitude toward the KC's powers will be largely positive except in a few mythic paths, as she directly attributes them to her lucidity and ability to function.

Vonzi joins the party as a consequence to actions she no longer remembers taking, and remains due to instincts or half-remembered memories that tell her she either knows the KC (which the KC will refute) or that being in the Crusades is important for some reason. She's looking for something, and thinks that the KC and whatever she's searching for are intertwined. Her main motivation for remaining in the Crusades is to find out what she wanted in the first place.

Who are their friends among the other party members?

Ember: Ember's one of the only people who never gets irritated at Vonzi’s blunt and self-confident attitude, and will often converse with her normally regardless of if she is delirious or lucid. Vonzi enjoys Ember’s can-do attitude and her determined joy, finding it refreshing and an outlook that she philosophically agrees with--life might be shit but getting upset over it won’t change anything, so you might as well find hope.

Arueshalae: Like Seelah, Vonzi wholeheartedly believes that Arue is genuine in her attempts to become better and therefore sees no issue in befriending her and treating her like anyone else. She does struggle to understand Arue’s struggle--she genuinely thinks “just don’t be evil” is sound advice--but is tolerant and encouraging of Arue’s desire to learn more about mortals and trying to be better.

Seelah: While Seelah's devotion to Iomadae is something that Vonzi finds tiresome, her relaxed demeanor is one that Vonzi enjoys. As long as they don't talk about anything too serious, they got along just fine.

Sosiel: Sosiel's Andoran background is something Vonzi is interested in and she enjoys talking to him about ideals, of which they share a lot of commonalities. Sosiel's better about not being preachy about his religion, though he will still irritate Vonzi when he tries to pry into her past or the cause of her mysterious illness in an attempt to heal her.

What about rivals?

Daeran: While Vonzi thinks Daeran is hilarious and "actually sort of self-aware, for a noble," she ultimately finds his contrarian nature hollow and doesn't get along with his overt selfish nature. Daeran enjoys Vonzi's sense of humor and her usual easygoing nature but as soon as she expresses her usual life philosophies he starts to tune out; even if they share disdain about the Crusades and religion it's for different reasons and Vonzi's anarchist leanings are good for a laugh to him and nothing more. They can joke in banter but ultimately Vonzi writes him off as a spoiled, self-centered noble with little redeeming qualities under the surface.

Camellia: Camellia dismisses Vonzi early on in the game and will openly question why her presence is considered more of a help than a hindrance. She will also, conversely, insinuate the Vonzi's delirious state is an act she puts on to hide some dark secret. Vonzi, when delirious, will avoid speaking to Camellia outright; when lucid, she will be very straightforward with the fact that she doesn't like Camellia, but is willing to work together. She doesn't have to like her coworkers, after all. Cam just needs to leave her the fuck alone. When Camellia's secret is revealed, she tries to bond with Vonzi over dark pasts and entities that require so much of them, but Vonzi will tell them they are nothing alike.

Lann: I don't think Vonzi and Lann dislike each other necessarily--Vonzi appreciates Lann's sarcastic sense of humor, and when lucid they get along. However, Vonzi gets very irritated by Lann's self-deprecation streak, finding it self-pitying, and there will be several encounters where she basically tells him to get over himself, and he gets angry and defensive--he's allowed to think he's ugly, because he is, and he's allowed to joke about how short-lived and awful his life is because that's all true. And Vonzi retaliates by letting him know that they've all got it bad, he isn't special, and also he's moaning so much about how no one will ever want him, well that's less to do with his appearance and more to do about how he won't shut up about how ugly he is. You want people to see you as a hotshot? Act like it! Fake it till you make it, bud. (This would occur over several resting banters, ending with her apologizing, "Not for saying it, because it's true. But I shouldn't have said it that way. You're a good guy, you just have to see it in yourself.")

If Lann's quest is completed with him successfully pulling off his plan, there will be dialogue where he and Vonzi will reconcile and become good friends.

Regill: Regill sees Vonzi as an unknown factor with too varying a skillset--her delirious state, in his mind, is an active liability. He treats her with less contempt and wariness than Arue, but not a whole lot less. He'll often vocally wonder why the KC is allowing someone so clearly out of control of their own powers to assist the Crusade. For her part, Vonzi will be rather accepting of Regill's censure, but how much of it is out of actual agreement and how much of it is sarcastic, "Yup, I AM a menace, yet I'm still here and there's nothing you can do about it, neener neener" depends on if she's lucid or not.

Are they on any councils? If so, what sort of advice do they give?

Vonzi will show up for the leadership council--"show up", not "was invited," because she somehow finds out about the meetings and ends up crashing the sessions, much to the annoyance of Captain Harmattan. Her leadership advice basically comes down to recommending the KC be open and transparent about their leadership abilities to dispel dissent. She'll also make not-jokes about keeping an eye out for inherent corruption within the upper ranks; to be quite honest the Wary just sounds like the beginnings of a classic power grab to her. But what does she know?

Where do they hang out in the Defender's Heart? Drezen? In the Abyss?

Defender's Heart: Near Vissaly and the injured. Ambient dialogue when the KC comes near would have Vissaly asking Vonzi diagnostic questions about her state of mind.

Camp to Drezen: Around the edges, close-ish to Seelah

Drezen: Near where the Ziggurat/portal to the Azata court is.

Abyss: Around the campfire near Sosiel and Trever.

What are their idle animations?

Delirious: Rubbing her ears, hunching down and holding her head in her hands, looking around as if she hears something or is confused about where she is.

Lucid: Rubbing her neck, lifting one foot up placing it back down again, massaging her hands, swaying from side to side.

If they’re taken to Areelu’s lab, what is their dream?

Vonzi's dream is pretty sad--even if her act 3 quest is completed before the lab, Vonzi's dream is deeply incomprehensible to an onlooking KC, like a splash of watercolor around her rather than a concrete scene. There are some vague almost-images, sometimes--a farm, maybe, a giant bush of blue and purple flowers. Laughter--some that sounds almost familiar, and sometimes that of a stranger's. A shadow of a child, running along the edges of the vision. Sometimes other figures, which a completed-quest KC might interpret as Vonzi's sisters. The only thing constant and clear is the sky: the purple of high dusk, and yet covered in stars like salt on dark linen.

When asked what she saw, Vonzi will admit she can't really remember.

Do they advise the commander to abandon or keep their mythic powers?She will strongly advise an Angel or Azata to keep their powers--they're clearly not of the Abyss any longer, and it helps them with their goals. They've certainly helped her, literally made her sane, and she can't imagine the KC causing the kind of harm Iomadae is worried about.

"You're joking, right? I don't know, personally I think the powers that have literally given me back my sanity might be good, actually. Go nuts! I've got faith in you no matter what you decide."

If the KC is a trickster, Vonzi will urge them to go legend, equating the mythic path to her own sense of unreality when her sickness untethers her--it's not nearly as fun as it seems, and the KC will lose sight of themselves. She will even say that while the power has allowed her some lucidity, it also makes it even harder for her to stay in the here and now, and she doesn't want to lose herself--or the KC to lose themselves either.

If the Commander is a demon or a lich, Vonzi will consider the power as doing more harm than good--either by being so focused on their own power that they do not care what happens to others, or by thinking the only way to truly gain the power needed to stop the Worldwound is by dominating others' wills (demon and lich, respectively). She will urge them to go Legend.

If the KC is an Aeon, Vonzi will admit to being torn. On one hand, the power of the Aeon is changing the KC in ways she doesn't like, and she's worried about them. However, she understands that becoming a full Aeon could do more than even Iomadae could do to fix what is wrong. She will ultimately tell the KC that they will know what is best, but to ask themselves if they are truly willing to sacrifice everything to walk this path--because that is what their power will demand of them.

How/when do they join the Commander’s party?

Vonzi can be found near the base of Iomadae's statue in the Market Square, collapsed and surrounded by a puddle of what looks like black ink, except strange pinpricks of light emanate from the dark liquid like stars. The tieflings trying to break free their friend nearby will comment on her presence, saying they had nothing to do with whatever the heck happened to her but also that no demons have come near this area since Deskari first attacked. The scrawny tiefling (the one you can help free from the rubble) can be asked about her once he is free, and he'll tell the KC that she just appeared out of thin air right before Deskari attacked, to tieflings shock, and had collapsed. He doesn't know where the inky stuff came from.

The KC can approach Vonzi at any point, triggering a cutscene. She will be unresponsive, both to physical attempts to wake her and to healing, if the KC is a healer. However, the strange wound on the KC's chest hurts looking at her, and the KC can reach out with the strange power to connect with Vonzi. This causes her to wake up. She is shaken and barely responsive; the KC can only ask a few questions before a group of demons attack. Vonzi takes one of them out immediately with a blast of cold, and fights alongside the party to take out the rest.

Afterward, Vonzi can be asked questions again. She's slow to respond, and doesn't have a lot of information. She knows her name is Vonzi. She was here in Kenabres for...something. Something important. But she doesn't remember what, anymore. She doesn't know what the black liquid is. She doesn't know why she's so injured. The KC can then tell her where the Defender's Heart is, and she will offer her services and her magic as thanks for the KC waking her up. If the KC agrees, she becomes part of the party.

Do they have any specific comments or interactions during the main quest (EG volunteering to go to Leper's Smile, reacting to the Queen firing the KC, etc.)

If Vonzi is present during the second attack on the Gray Garrison, when the KC first gains a level in mythic power, she will have dialogue before the fight with Minagho that shows her first shift from her delirious to her lucid state, which the KC can note as her seeming far more clear-headed than before. Afterward, she has dialogue when KC first comes to the camp at the beginning of Act 2 as a formal introduction to her lucid state.

A lucid Vonzi will volunteer to lead the soldiers in Leper's Smile, probably with a comment about how bugs don't like cold much.

Vonzi will be kidnapped during the gargoyle attack; she'll be the last companion found, right before the chapel, encased in black ice that has surrounded her as well as a group of gargoyles. The KC touching the ice will cause it to break, freeing the gargoyles to be fought; Vonzi will be in her delirious state but insist on coming along to fight.

Describe their companion quest:

In Act 2, after Leper's Smile, Vonzi will request to accompany the KC the next time they go scouting. While she's felt much better and more clearheaded ever since the attack on the Gray Garrison and dealing with the wardstone, she is now feeling antsy and out of touch, unable to concentrate. She's worried she's slipping back into the state she was in when in Kenabres. The KC can also note that she's looking far worse, and is distant and distracted. She's hoping that some fresh air away from the camp, as well as concentrating on scouting, will help shake off the cobwebs in her mind, and she doesn't care where the KC is going as long as they go somewhere.

The next time the KC travels with Vonzi after this conversation, a random encounter will occur on the map that forces the party to fight a group of demons who have ambushed them. During the fight, Vonzi will have a breakdown, causing an explosion of power around the party that knocks the demons away in a gust of cold. After she teleports the party, she collapses in a seizure, black liquid with pinpricks of light oozing out of her eyes, nose, and ears. It's a large amount that very quickly pools around her body.

If Sosiel, Daeran, Seelah, or Ember are in the party, one of them will jump in at this point to stabilize Vonzi (in that order if more than one is present). If none are present, the KC has the option to heal Vonzi if they have healing abilities, or use an item if a potion or scroll of Heal Major Wounds or Greater Restore is in the inventory.

If none of these requirements are met, then Vonzi succumbs to her mysterious wounds and dies.

Once Vonzi is healed, the scene immediately cuts back into camp, where Vissaly is examining Vonzi. He will inform the KC that the seizure was not caused by a regular illness, or even a byproduct of some kind of brain injury; instead, it looks like the source of the seizure is magical in nature, some kind of spell that has been placed on Vonzi and is actively causing the condition--and probably her shifting mental state as well. Vissaly cannot determine what the spell is, where it is coming from, or how to remove it; all he can tell the KC is that the strange power they are sharing with their companions is actively healing Vonzi and is probably the only reason she isn't dead yet. Regular checkups and healing can also help mitigate these symptoms and he insists Vonzi visit him regularly moving forward to help with her condition until they can figure out more.

Vonzi herself is little help during this regarding the source of this spell; she not only still doesn't remember anything pertinent, but the seizure has reverted her back into her delirious state, and she finds it difficult to communicate.

Vonzi will remain delirious until the KC gets their next level of mythic power at the Lost Chapel; after that point, their general state will switch between lucid and delirious after several rests, with corresponding buffs and debuffs for each state.

NOTE: If the KC does not take Vonzi with them before the camp is attacked by gargoyles, Vonzi's body will be found during the attack with black liquid seeping out of her orifices and she will be permanently removed from the party, failing the quest.

In Chapter 3, after the key to the Ivory Sanctum is found in Wintersun, Irabeth will approach the KC in a cutscene with Vonzi present, who (currently lucid) was asked to come to the war room. Irabeth will explain that a new civil servant has joined the Crusade, and has specifically been helping to coordinate resources and supply lines to Drezen. She hails from Sargava as a highly recommended businesswoman--she is also, Irabeth had found out when they had met the other day, almost identical in appearance to Vonzi. Irabeth had wanted to bring this to Vonzi and the KC's attention, as this "Viritine Voness" might be related to or know something about Vonzi's past.

Vonzi seems genuinely confused by the revelation. She has no recollection of having any kind of family and doesn't recognize the name of the woman, though that really doesn't mean anything considering the holes in her memory. However, she is also surprisingly unwilling to follow up on this information. If the KC asks why, she says she feels that it just doesn't feel necessary, but this is obviously a super cagey response.

If the KC pushes the issue, pointing out a family member can tell Vonzi about her past, or perhaps know about the spell placed on her, Vonzi shuts down the conversation. "Okay, what I was doing before was a hint--I don't want to meet this Viritine person. Drop it."

The KC can, at this point, seek out Viritine on their own--she will be in Drezen near the soldiers practicing in the yard, near the supply houses (around where Trever can be found). She does look nearly identical to Vonzi, though there are some key differences--she's taller, and looks older, and her black hair is cut short, close to her scalp. She does not have whatever gift Vonzi has, as her eyes are a dark brown, and her hands are unblemished.

Viritine comes across as impatient and intense, with little charm or desire for niceties. She's helping to deal with supply chain issues and even the Knight Commander is just someone distracting her from her job. The KC can try asking her about her past, her life, and where she's from, what her family is like--but after a few questions Viritine, who had only been reluctantly answering before this point, will cut to the chase and ask why she's being interrogated.

The KC can lie about getting to know who works for them, but it requires a high bluff check and even if it succeeds, Viritine is not convinced. The KC can also just explain the truth, that they have a companion named Vonzi who looks like Viritine.

Failing the bluff check or telling Viritine about Vonzi will cause Viritine to get very angry, and she will storm off with little explanation.

Succeeding in the bluff check allows the KC to drag a little more information out of Viritine. She has lived in multiple places through her life, mainly in Sargava, though the last place she lived was in Isger until her mother's death a few months ago. When the Crusade started she traveled north to help with the efforts. Viritine will also reluctantly mention a younger sister, Aerici, and a niece, Laicanis.

After the conversation with Viritine, the KC can return to Vonzi to inform her about what little was learned. Vonzi is uncomfortable and irritated that the KC even bothered to speak with the other woman, reiterating she didn't need to know this. However, if the KC offers to drop the issue, Vonzi will ask for them to just give the information since they already went to the trouble to get it. If the KC told Viritine about Vonzi and informs Vonzi of this, she will become truly angry.

Whether or not Viritine was told the truth, she will appear and interrupt the conversation as either the KC or Vonzi attempts to end it. Viritine is furious, pop-a-blood-vessel furious, either by what the KC told her or about what she found when she followed the KC to Vonzi on a hunch.

She immediately starts yelling at Vonzi, calling her "Kallesto." She accuses Vonzi of playing some sort of ill-thought prank, of being selfish, of abandoning the family. Vonzi will stay silent throughout the tirade, and the KC can at this point step in in various conciliatory or aggressive ways.

Regardless of how the KC jumps into the conversation, Viritine will turn her attention to the KC and ask them if they know who they've been traveling with. She calls out Vonzi as her younger sister, Kallesto, who the Voness family had sacrificed everything to keep safe from the Isger government, who had seen her powers as heresy in a country where worship of all but Asmodeus was illegal. And in return? Vonzi's recklessness had led to the death of their mother. And then, the day after her mother was hanged for her crimes, Vonzi had the gall to leave.

Vonzi will not speak or defend herself during the tirade; at the end, she just walks. The KC can go search for her afterward; the conversation after will have Vonzi not giving a lot of information, but stating that it was important that she leave the family. That seeing Viritine had allowed her to remember enough to know that she'd left them for an important reason and that while the anger was probably deserved, she ultimately feels that her decision is justified even if she can't remember the justification.

The KC can, at this point, urge Vonzi to try and reconcile with her family, tell Vonzi that the KC is there to help if anything is needed, or agree that Vonzi is probably correct in her decision. Regardless, the scene ends.

The next time the KC leaves and re-enters Drezen (or a period of five days passes, whichever comes first), a small cutscene will happen where Irabeth will tell the KC that Vonzi is acting erratic and is demanding to see the KC. Vonzi comes in shortly after, and the KC can tell she's either delirious or slipping into a delirious state; she tells the KC she can't find Viritine anymore and had found out that she'd gone back to Kenabres. She insists that they go after her; under no circumstances should Viritine stay in Kenabres. The KC can ask for reasons but Vonzi will not give them. The KC must either agree to go to Kenabres or disagree; if they disagree the quest fails.

Traveling to Kenabres, the KC can enter the Market Square once more, with a cutscene starting in front of the church where Vonzi was first found and recruited. Viritine will be there, along with another woman described as looking like Vonzi, as well as a child about four years old--Vonzi's second sister, Aerici, and her daughter Laicanis. Aerici comes off as far more even-tempered than the angry Viritine, but is clearly hurt by Vonzi's actions.

They will together resume the argument that started in Drezen, with both sisters expressing anger/disappointment at Vonzi's behavior. The KC can either side with the sisters, urging Vonzi to open up to them and explain her reasoning, or side with Vonzi, noting that the sister seem to demand a lot from her and that they clearly don't know the whole story. Either way, the sisters refuse to listen to the KC's excuses, and Vonzi will tell them to leave the Crusade immediately, that they're not wanted--she will be very cold and downright cruel, which can cause the KC to either agree or intervene. Both sisters will express confusion and anger at Vonzi's behavior.

Then, there argument gets cut short by sounds of shouting and terror--and the subsequent arrival of a group of very powerful demons. Vonzi will freak out and immediately start attackign them with powerful cold spells; the KC and party will join in to help defeat the demons, with the sisters running away.

After the fighting is done, Vonzi is delirious from the energy expended. The sisters return and notice her change in behavior and demand answers. The KC can give a little bit of information regarding how Vonzi's mental state has shifted, which leads Aerici to ask Vonzi to please tell them what is happening.

The KC can ask Vonzi to tell them what is going on; if they have not been supportive of reconciliation or agreed that Vonzi's mindset is correct before now, Vonzi will refuse. Otherwise, she will tell the sisters that she left to protect them, that she didn't want them hurt the same way their mother was hurt because of her. This will cause the family to reconcile.

Alternatively, the KC can continue to support Vonzi's desire not to say anything, saying that she doesn't really owe the sisters anything and the sisters aren't obligated to forgive her. There are some things you can't fix, and this rift feels like it is one of them. This, as well as Vonzi refusing to say anything, leads to the family not reconciling.

After this quest, whether or not Viritine and Aerici are reconciled are not, they join the Crusade as NPC helpers, both providing buffs to Crusade management. Viritine ostensibly helps Dorgelinda with the supply line and rationing issues, while Aerici starts a "comfort circle" with other noncombatants in Drezen to send letters and gifts to soldiers on the front line, giving them a boost in combat.

Both of them can be spoken to in Drezen. They will share more detailed stories of their childhood and the complicated feelings they have toward each other, though what they exactly say will change depend on if they've reconciled with Vonzi.

If reconciled and Vonzi is in her delirious state, one or both sisters will move from their usual spots (Aerici is in the lower quarters near the mongrels, while Viritine is in the marketplace) to next to Vonzi, and will provide additional dialogue if the KC tries to speak to her letting the KC know she's not "feeling well" that day.

Vonzi's Act 5 quest activates after Iz. At the beginning of Act 5, the KC's first conversation with Vonzi will have the KC noting she looks far worse--sallow with dark bags under her eyes, and an unfocused gaze. Even lucid, she starts drifting off more often in conversation. However, if you ask her about it directly, she'll insist she's fine.

After the big post-Iz speech, Aerici will show up and say that something is wrong with Vonzi--the exact speech will be slightly different depending on if she's reconciled with Vonzi or not, but it will basically amount to Aerici attempting to visit the house Vonzi lives in and finding the door won't open, and black liquid is seeping out from underneath the frame.

She will then hand the KC a note, one with a short and simple message: "Thank you for helping me accomplish what I came here for. I tried to hold on until after we closed the Worldwound, but it looks like that won't be possible. Goodbye."

Aerici will insist they immediately go to Vonzi's house; if the KC refuses to, the quest automatically ends and Vonzi is permanently removed from the party.

If the KC agrees it cuts to her house, where the KC can break down the door. They will find the interior in a black expanse with dim lights twinkling in the distance.

When the KC tries reach into the blackness, it will coalesce on the doorstep into the shape of a vaguely humanoid figure with stars twinkling in its form. It will tell the KC that Vonzi is dying--the mythic power had been keeping Vonzi alive for far longer than she should have been able to hold on, and for that it thanks the KC. But the KC needs to convince Vonzi to let go. Otherwise, Vonzi will not survive the night.

The KC can ask questions--what the entity is, what is relationship to Vonzi is, but it will not answer. Aerici will guess that it is Vonzi's patron. The patron will reiterate that Vonzi needs to "go back," and that Vonzi needs to know she "cannot fix this."

The KC can express distrust at the entity's motives but will ultimately have to move forward with what it asks. The KC can ask what needs done and the entity will telll them that they need to "find her where she lies and tell her to let go."

The KC can walk into the house after this point, with Aerici asking the KC to get her sister.

Walking in finds the KC in Vonzi's memories--back when she was Kallesto Voness in truth, the youngest child of a woman who picked up her children and ran away from the community she grew up in when Kallesto was blessed with powers from the stars. There are several scenes the KC has to walk through showing Kallesto as a child, chafing under the understanding that the poor conditions her family has to endure is a direct consequence of her existence and her powers; that her family loves her, but they all might have been better, happier, if she weren't around.

Rigid and controlling Viritine, who expresses her fear and concern through anger; sweet and placid Aerici, who takes until she's married and left the family to sail with a Sargavan pirate to find any sense of identity outside of caregiver; and of course the matriarch Zapphine, whose overbearing nature, paranoia, and intermittent rages are all layered over the overwhelming sense that she had given up everything for her children and would die for their happiness. Vonzi is the one they revolve around, for better or for worse; the one chosen by their mysterious god, the smartest and the strongest and the one destined for greatness.

This information is given in discordant, out-of-order scenes from Vonzi's life, where the KC is forced to watch her interactions before being able to speak to Vonzi, who is able to point them in the direction they need to go to get to her--walk through a door, crawl under a bed, even fall off a cliff at one point, to get to the next scene.

While many of these pieces of her life are from the past, some are strange and conflict with what has happened in the story: scenes from Vonzi's life where she apparently joined the crusade alongside her sisters months after Kenabres was attacked, after the KC had led the army to Drezen and retaken the city. This Vonzi has no illness and helps her sisters with reconstruction efforts, with plans to head to Drezen after. There's no indication she has ever met the KC in these scenes--in this version of events, the Voness family fled together after their mother's death, when Vonzi retaliated by killing an entire church of Asmodean worshippers and putting a bounty on their entire heads.

The confusion with these scenes is eventually explained in a scene from Vonzi's earlier childhood; she and Aerici are cooking together when Vonzi stumbles and breaks a figurine that had been on the shelf, ostensibly the only nice and expensive looking decoration in the room. While Aerici tries to comfort Vonzi, Vonzi insists that she'll "fix it," closing her eyes and holding the broken glass sculpture. The world around her warps and turns liquid, then restructures itself; when Vonzi opens her eyes, she's still in the kitchen, but the figurine is back on the shelf, unbroken. There is a puddle of black liquid at her feet, one that Aerici expresses confusion about. Vonzi excitedly tells her sister that she learned a cool new trick with her powers.

Everything seems to be fine, until several hours later when Vonzi collapses, black liquid seeping out of her ears. Her mother helps Vonzi up and demands to know what's going on, but Vonzi can't answer. Eventually, the liquid pouring out of Vonzi turns into a puddle with a slick, mirror-like consistency; in it, Vonzi's patron tells her mother that she must 'go back', or she will die. Her mother, caught between rage and terror, demands that Vonzi do what their god has told them and go back. Vonzi, still seizing, seems to lose her grip, and the world snaps back--she is in the kitchen, with the broken figurine in her hands. She faints shortly after.

When Vonzi awakens, it is to her furious mother, who demands an explanation. Vonzi says that she broke the statue and had just wanted to fix it; she knew how important it was to her mother. And she'd realized that when she concentrates, she can go back in time, though she'd never tried to stay there before.

Zapphine tells Vonzi that she can never, under any circumstances, do that again. Their god has spoken and explained what had happened; Vonzi is too young to use this power, and if she tries to stay in an altered timeline she will die. She cannot make any meaningful changes in the past that will stick, because her powers will slowly crush her mind and soul until she dies or snaps back to the unaltered present she left.

Right afterward, it devolves into one final scene: Vonzi in Kenabres again, with her sisters and her niece. She and Viritine are fighting about how they had to join the Crusade because of Vonzi when the demons that had attacked in Vonzi's Act 3 quest show up. This time, though, unprepared and without the KC's help, Vonzi is only able to protect herself; the rest of her family is killed in the attack.

Vonzi has a breakdown at the deaths, her powers exploding out of her and killing the rest of the demons. She then tries to revive her sisters, without success. After a moment, seemingly numb, she tells their bodies that she will fix this, that she can fix it. And then the world warps and melts again, restructures once more with a puddle of black ink--Kenabres, months in the past, right as Deskari attacks.

The scene ends, and the KC has finally found Vonzi in the middle of a black expanse littered with stars. Her power is a tangible thing here, a weight on her back that is slowly crushing her to death: it was her own spell, her insistence on staying the past, that has caused her delirious state, and what is killing her now.

Vonzi expresses surprise at the KC's presence and thanks them for their help, but saying that she knows she has to die to preserve the timeline and keep her family alive. Dialogue will vary slightly if she reconciled with her family or not, but either way she asks the KC to leave so she can make sure she properly fixes things.

At this point, the dark figure from before will reappear, this time a more coherent silhouette of stars--it identifies itself as an aeon (an Aeon KC will be able to recognize it as a rogue aeon, one that has gone against the natural order), and insists that Vonzi is "too young" to do this properly. That she must return back to her timeline, and let the past go.

The KC, at this point, has three options:

Let Vonzi die: the default, which requires no convincing on Vonzi's part, and can be done whether or not her family reconciled with her or what her relationship with the KC is. The rogue aeon will grow furious and attack; the KC must defeat it, with Vonzi helping. When it is gone, Vonzi dies, and is permanently removed from the party. The KC leaves the house and delivers the bad news to Aerici, who is tearful but understanding; both she and Viritine remain as important NPCs to the Crusade, with their corresponding buffs.

Convince Vonzi to return to her timeline: Requires the KC to have pushed Vonzi to letting things go/not destroying herself for the sake of fixing things in her dialogue and quests, as well as have high trust. She and her family must not be reconciled, and a persuasion check must be passed. If successful, Vonzi agrees with the idea that even if her family is gone, life is still worth living--that there is something on the other side of the tragedy. Vonzi will let go, causing the stars to wink out and fade into darkness. When they fade, the KC will be in an empty room; Vonzi will not be present, and outside, neither will Aerici. Both Aerici and Viritine will have disappeared from the Crusade and their buffs will also be gone.

After a rest, a cutscene will occur in the war room where Vonzi appears. She is calmer, more grounded, and looks much healthier--lucid, permanently. She at first presents herself as a stranger and a new recruit; after the KC tells her they remember her, she thanks the KC for helping her come to terms with what happened and for convincing her to revert the timeline. She asks to rejoin the party, which the KC can agree to or not. There is special dialogue regarding Vonzi with several NPCs, as while the KC's mythic power allows them and the party to remember Vonzi, no one else does. The KC can also talk to Vonzi after this quest to discuss her decisions and her grief.

Convince Vonzi not to let go and accept help from the KC: requires very high trust, the KC to be on a non-evil mythic path, and for the KC to have convinced her in her quests that her efforts weren't pointless even if they came at a high cost. Her family must be reconciled and the KC will have shown her they can be trusted to support her. When Vonzi agrees the KC will use their mythic/legend powers to permanently join Vonzi to the KC's power. However, the patron informs the KC that this will not stop the pain and the delirium brought on by remaining in this alternate present, and that even with their power it will grow worse for her and she will never fully recover from what was done.

At this is done, the stars fade to black, and then the darkness recedes to find the KC in a room with Vonzi lying on the bed, covered in the black tar of her powers. She is barely unable to speak, having reverted to her delirious state; however, she will thank the KC for their help and express gratitude at what they have done for her.

Viritine and Aerici will burst into the room shortly after the KC starts talking to Vonzi and begin take care of her. All buffs they bring to the Crrusade remain and Vonzi remains part of the party, oscillating between lucid and delirious states with corresponding debuffs.

Are they romanceable? Describe their romance quest/scenes if you want!

Vonzi is not a romance option; however, she will sleep with a female KC following her Act III quest. Vonzi makes it clear that she is not interested in any kind of relationship, and the sex is a no-strings attached arrangement; the KC can speak to her more in general dialogue about this, where she admits she just doesn't really see the point of romance. She's got friends, she can get sex if she needs it, and sex with friends in particular is fun. But she doesn't want anything like a romantic relationship with the KC and she will encourage the KC to seek out another partner if that's what she's looking for.

If the KC has romanced another character and slept with Vonzi, while there is no jealousy confrontation, Vonzi will stop sleeping with the KC in Act V, letting the KC know that while she doesn't care about who else the KC sleeps with, it's clear the other love interest does and she's not going to step on anyone's toes. There is no option to continue sleeping with her past this point if another romance is active.

However, if the KC did not romance anyone else and continued the friends-with-benefits arrangement with Vonzi, Vonzi will have special dialogue at Threshold, basically telling the KC that she's sorry she wasn't able to give the KC the kind of romantic relationship that other people could have given her, and that she hopes the KC will find that one day after this.

The KC can respond basically saying that she hopes so as well, or by saying that the close friendship she has with Vonzi is more than enough; this second dialogue option leads to an additional bit of information in the ending slide, where Vonzi and the KC meet up frequently for the rest of their lives and their close friendship is a point of discussion, though whenever asked directly they always deny a romantic relationship. "We're best friends," Vonzi will say. "Isn't that enough?"

What would their ending slides be like?

Vonzi dead, timeline preserved: A small slide regarding the rest of the Voness family, who leave Drezen after the end of the Crusade and mourn the final loss of their sister.

Vonzi alive, timeline reset: Vonzi travels after the events of the Crusade, acting as a mercenary and a bodyguard for travelers that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford the protection--her focus is on families. She will regale her clients with stories of her family now long gone, finally able to confront their loss while still moving forward from it.

If KC chose to leave Drezen: Occasionally, Vonzi will be joined in her exploits by the former Knight Commander, who will share tales of their own travels.

If KC chose to stay in Drezen: Sometimes, Vonzi's wanderings will take her back to Mendev, where she will visit her old friend.

Vonzi alive, timeline preserved: The Voness family settles down in Drezen, Viritine heading a lucrative shipping and transportation business and Aerici starting a daycare. Vonzi, for her part, spends her time helping her sister with guarding shipments in her business, volunteering as a child wrangler at the daycare, and being a menace at The Half Measure during off-nights. Both of older sisters work to take care of Vonzi when her episodes of delirium grow longer and more frequent; Vonzi will always brush off their concerns, saying that the delirious episodes don't even hurt anymore. Besides, the episodes are more than worth it to see her family alive and together.

Ascended: Godhood suits Vonzi. She becomes something akin to a trickster goddess, an enemy to rigid organizations and corrupt hierarchies. If someone is planning on burning down the system, Vonzi is who they pray to.

Timeline reset: Vonzi also ends up traveling, exploring the vast expanses of the planarverse. Eventually, she comes across what she's looking for--the hidden home of the rogue Aeon who was her patron as a mortal. What she discussed with them is known only between the two of them, but after that first encounter Vonzi often disappears for periods of time to visit them.

Timeline preserved: Beyond her usual patrons, there is one group of mortals that Vonzi can always be found reliably helping out--the Voness family. Even after her sisters go into Pharasma's arms after long and fruitful lives blessed by the gods, Vonzi keeps a close eye on Laica and then all her descendants afterward, making sure her family is safe.

True Aeon: In a word where the Crusade never took Vonzi's family away, the Voness clan move to Andoran and settle down in a far more democratically minded society. Vonzi turns her attention to speaking out against the iron hold over common lives that Cheliax still has over its citizens, and is vocally supportive of rebellion groups in the country. Eventually, to her family's disapproval, she goes to Cheliax herself to help with the rebellion's efforts--gone in the middle of the night without a word, silent for years, and believed dead, until she comes home with gray in her hair and stories about the people she has helped the adventures she has had. When her family does not welcome her back, she only smiles and expresses understanding before leaving again, never to return.

True Aeon (memories preserved): [Last sentences of previous slide are replaced with this] Eventually, to her family's disapproval, she goes to Cheliax to help with the rebellion's efforts, stating only in her defense that it would be better for all of them if they had distance from her. Despite her work and the attention it demands of her and her powers, Vonzi still regularly writes to her family over the years, making sure they are all happy and safe, and when they call for her to visit, she makes the effort.

Any other fun facts?

If Lann was recruited but not romanced, and Vonzi reconciles with her family in Act 3, there can be party dialogue activated by speaking with Aerici a few times that suggests she and Lann have been spending a lot of time together--Aerici's late husband was a sailor himself and they had traveled on sea together until Aerici became pregnant with Laica. Lann has, apparently, been asking her a lot of questions about it, and other things as well.

Eventually, party banter will have Lann awkwardly bring it up to Vonzi, who will immediately shut Lann down: no, she does not want to know ANYTHING about what he and Aerici are doing. Her older sister is a paragon of beauty and purity who has never touched a man. She conceived Laica through some kind of divine intervention and, in Vonzi's opinion, that will be how she will stay. She will give Lann a very laid-back version of a shovel talk, though, and warn him to expect to get shit from Viritine for it.

If this ends up activated, Aerici survives, and Lann gets his good ending, his ending slide will reflect that his adventures on ship are always punctuated by trips back to Drezen to visit his wife and adopted child, who both eventually join him on his adventures.

Vonzi describes the difficulty she experiences communicating in her delirious state as like "finding words underwater--they're always two inches to the left of where you think they are."

Provide some dialogue/bark examples!

When clicked on (lucid):

"Where do you need me?"

[When clicked on too many times][annoyed] "What--what? Yes?"

"Fun fact: some of the greatest atrocities committed in history were done by people fighting for a good cause. Why did I bring that up? Oh, no reason."

When clicked on [delirious]:

[Audible sounds of shivering]

"I missed that...what?"

"Where are we?"

Conversation start:

[lucid] Vonzi looks over to you and yawns. "Feeling pretty good today. What do you need?"

[delirious]: Vonzi's gaze is in the far distance, unfocused and feverish. She jerks her attention to you only when you are close enough to touch. "I don't--I'm here. What did you need?"

Conversation end:

[lucid] "Well, don't let me keep you."

[delirious] Vonzi turns her attention back to the far distance, her gaze unfocused.

Skill check success:

[lucid] "Ha, nice."/"Yeah, you're welcome."

[delirious] "It worked..."/"I did it. I fixed it."

Skill check failure:

[lucid] "Well, that sucks."/"I'm not trying again."

[delirious] "No..."/"What...was I doing again?"

Combat start:

[lucid] "Well, let's get this over with."/"You really think you can take me on?"

[delirious] "You won't hurt them!"/ *screaming*

Low Health

[lucid] "Hey, healer please!"/"I'll put down my weapon if you put down yours!"

[delirious] "I have to stay!"/"No, I won't go back, I can't--"

Knocked unconscious:

[lucid] "You absolute shitheads..."/ "It's too soon..."

[delirious] "It's so cold..."/"I can't go back..."

#oc: vonzi #pwotr #wotr #theeeee companion meme for the actual companion i made. only took me like 84 years #'where are the camp banters cassy' they're wherever you need them to be with the power of imagination #i got too tired and couldn't muster up the energy it takes to make accurate character voices for banters ok #the quest is complete and that's really the thing i wanted done most of all tbh #now you finally have the necessary context when i talk about her lol #pathfinder wrath of the righteous

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haggishlyhagging · 11 months

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Defiantly, Frances Power Cobbe contends that men have made the world to suit themselves and to serve their interests and they have forced women to fit into their scheme. They have fooled themselves with a poetic vision of marriage which they find pleasing and, without reference to the demands and denials it exacts from women, have proceeded to act as if their vision were true. They have created a structure in which they are made strong and have asserted ‘that a woman's whole life and being, her soul, body, time, property, thought and ease ought to be given to her husband; that nothing short of such absorption in him and his interests makes her a true wife’ (1868, pp. 18-19). Only men could propose such a reality, asserts Cobbe; only men who took no account of women as part of humanity would have the gall to suggest that this was a satisfactory arrangement.

Frances Power Cobbe's analysis is astute and bold: the centrality which she gives male violence against women makes her views very much contemporary and the scorn which she pours on male logic places her firmly in the tradition of women who have for centuries seen that men attempt to pass off their own interests and views as human interests and views. But the same old question arises - where did she go? What has happened to this daring and disagreeable woman who repudiated the male version of reality, who rebelliously asserted her independence of men and their approval, who for thirty years lived with her female companion, Mary Lloyd, who mocked male authority and exposed the ludicrousness of male logic and the limitations of male intellect? How was it that an unmarried woman, in Victorian times, found the confidence and courage to assert her autonomy and to ridicule the idea that a sensible woman would want to make a man the centre of her universe and find herself content to be legally robbed and raped? What influences were at work which allowed her to so clearly see that men took women's soul, body, time, property, thought and ease and used them for their own advantage?

And what does it mean for us today when both deferential Lydia Becker and defiant Frances Power Cobbe have disappeared? To me it suggests that while women do not control their own resources it doesn't much matter whether we try and seek men's approval for our actions or not - there is no evidence that seeking male support makes achievement of our goals more likely, for we are damned if we do, and damned if we don't, and I think Frances Power Cobbe probably gained more self-esteem from her defiance than Lydia Becker did from her deference. For my part, I do not think I will ever again accept the validity of the argument that caution, conciliation and male approval are either desirable or necessary. Given that men rob women of their resources, I'm not going to make it easy for them: I'm not going to be willing.

Frances Power Cobbe challenged male authority and, unlike Lydia Becker, saw some positive results for her efforts. Partly in response to her public protests magistrates were empowered in 1878 to grant separation orders which afforded women some small protection from violent husbands. But her work was not consolidated over the next century, and in 1978 women were fighting many of the same battles again, having to ‘prove’ as she had done, that ‘wife battering’ and ‘wife torture’ was not confined to the exceptional few (who probably did something to provoke it), but was a widespread pattern of behaviour among men, and was likely to remain so while men accorded themselves the right to appropriate women's resources of mind and body for their own unaccountable use.

-Dale Spender, Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them

#dale spender #Frances power cobbe #male violence #female oppression #male entitlement #feminist history #victorian #british history

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clonerightsenthusiast · 3 months

Text

cast a shadow on my soul (the stain remains)

[X-Men Comics, Gen, 5.7k words]

Frost found her outside of Shaw's study, propped up against the wall with her fingers pressed to the stinging flesh of her cheek and tears leaving black tracks of mascara down her face.

Tessa hadn't been undercover in the Hellfire Club for long, but she had very quickly come to recognize the distinctive sound of Emma Frost striding confidently down the hallways, and the brush of her mind like an icy breeze. Tessa had identified Emma Frost as the greatest threat within days of her arrival; there was nothing more dangerous to a spy, after all, than a telepath. Fortunately, Frost seemed to expect a certain amount of fear in those beneath her, and hadn't pried too closely. Yet.

(read on ao3)

The clicking of heels on wood came to a stop in front of her, and Tessa straightened up, clasping her hands in front of her and keeping her eyes lowered demurely. They weren't so far apart in Shaw's hierarchy, but Tessa had quickly determined that Frost was ambitious and vain and responded to deference.

"You're the new girl, aren't you?" Frost asked with cool detachment. The fake British accent was obvious to Tessa's ears. Another data point factoring in to her model of Emma Frost: a woman who would do–or be–anything to get ahead.

"Yes," she replied, bobbing her head without raising her eyes. Her face burned where Shaw's hand had connected. She knew, empirically, because a corner of her mind had already processed all the facts and thrown it back in her face, that it was impossible for Frost to fail to put together what had happened. She prayed silently that she would move on without further comment.

"Pull yourself together," Frost said coldly, dashing her hopes. "You're in public, darling, it's unseemly." Frost's cape swished away from her side as she turned to face Tessa and planted a hand on one hip, drumming her fingers against the bare skin there.

"Of course," Tessa said, biting her tongue. The back hallways of the manor were only open to residents and their guests, which hardly seemed public to her, but Frost said it to be hurtful, not accurate, and she'd run the numbers and her best chance for escaping the encounter quickly was to be as demure and deferential and say as little as possible.

Frost's weight shifted as she stood up taller and sighed, evidently coming to some decision. "You're embarrassing everyone," she said, tossing her hair over one shoulder. "You'll have to come with me."

She strode off down the hallway without waiting for a response, and Tessa hurried after her, her stomach sinking in anticipation of what fresh hell Frost had in store for her. Xavier had warned her this assignment would be dangerous; that the Hellfire Club was evil, and powerful, and would destroy her if they learned who she was (or, more importantly, who she was working for). What he hadn't prepared her for was the casual cruelty that seemed to permeate the building and everyone in it. In the short time she'd been here, working for Sebastian Shaw, she had witnessed things that made her sick to her stomach; and it had only been a matter of time until it was turned on her.

Frost didn't take her far; they were still in the residential area of the manor when she breezed through a door, leaving Tessa to slip inside before it shut after her. In the blink of an eye, she had scanned the room and put together the large canopy bed, imposing bureau, and glimpse of white through the cracked door of the wardrobe and put together that, for some reason, Frost had brought her to her own bedroom. Frost herself stopped beside the bureau and gestured impatiently for Tessa to join her.

Tessa did as she was bade, and Frost put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her forcefully down into the seat. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, skin pale except for the bruise blossoming in florid colors across half her face and black lines of mascara running down her cheeks, before Frost gripped her chin with icy fingers and turned her head towards her, tutting in clear disapproval as she inspected her.

"Shaw is an abominable brute, isn't he," she said in a low tone, almost to herself, clicking her tongue. With her free hand, Frost wiped her thumb across the bottom of Tessa's eye, pressing too hard, and came away with dark mascara, wet with tears, standing out against her pale skin.

Frost released her chin and turned to the bureau, digging through the drawers.

"He is what he is," Tessa said politically. She watched Frost intently, her mind racing as she focused the prodigious resources of her mutant mind to making her behavior make sense.

"Such glowing praise from his new favorite pet," Frost said, the corner of her mouth curling into a cold smile. She placed several small containers on the bureau and said, "Close your eyes."

Tessa obeyed, her shoulders tensing at the vulnerability. She flinched at something cold and wet touching her face. Frost tutted impatiently and gripped her chin again, holding her still as she wiped tears and smudged makeup away with firm strokes.

"If you intend to stick around," Frost said, beginning to dab at Tessa's bruise with something cold and soft, "You really ought to get these things for yourself. I can assure you this won't be the last time dear Sebastian takes a swing at you."

"I was… careless," Tessa said, swallowing around a lump in her throat as her mind jumped back to the incident.

It had been a newspaper discarded haphazardly on Shaw's desk. She'd been in the middle of reciting to Shaw his requested update on the state of his affairs when she'd noticed the article on the front page of the paper – or, perhaps more accurately, the picture: five young people, exhibiting mutant powers, in matching uniforms, with the headline emblazoned above declaring them UNCANNY X-MEN.

She zeroed in on the paper immediately, devoting more and more of her mutant ability to making sense of it, exploring the possible explanations. It was the X that gave it away, that damnable X – it screamed Xavier's handiwork, Xavier's research, Xavier's crusade. But who were these X-Men? Who were these mutants that he had gathered and outfitted like young Avengers and sent out to be the public face of his movement? And the real question, like a dagger in her chest – why wasn't she with them?

Tessa was so focused on thoughts of these X-Men, used to multitasking without effort, that she didn't even realize she'd stopped responding to Shaw until his backhand had sent her flying through a coffee table.

"You'll learn not to be quickly, if this wasn't lesson enough for you," Frost's voice cut through her thoughts, and Tessa breathed a sigh of relief that her psychic defenses were adequate to shield the storm of incriminating thoughts and emotions brewing in her mind. "But Shaw has always had a horrid temper and a tendency to take it out on the women around him. Open."

Tessa obediently opened her eyes, meeting Frost's icy blue gaze. It occurred to Tessa, suddenly, that Emma Frost was her age – or close enough. Surely, Xavier had been aware of her; a young mutant, and a powerful telepath at that – how could he not be? Had he approached her? Or had he simply left her to Hellfire? What had he seen in Emma Frost that had made him write her off?

Had he seen the same in her?

"Look up," Emma murmured, tipping Tessa's head back to apply new mascara to her lashes. "It's waterproof," she added. "If you're going to cry, do go out and get yourself some."

Tessa aborted a nod at Emma's disapproving noise, and instead held still as she applied the new makeup. She didn't bother trying to explain that it was the shock, more than anything, that had brought tears to her eyes – that she would be prepared, now, to better weather Shaw's temper. She took the advice, condescendingly given as it was, as kindness shown in the only way it could be in a place like this. When she was finally released, she turned to look at herself in the mirror and her breath caught in her throat.

There was no sign of the bruise; her face looked as if she'd never found herself on the wrong end of Shaw's mutant strength. She raised a hand and tentatively touched where she knew the bruise was, half-expecting it to have disappeared, and winced at the pain shooting across her cheek.

"You're lucky we have similar skin tones, darling," Emma said, busying herself with putting the makeup away. "It's best to cover them up quickly. Don't let anyone see you weak."

Tessa swallowed until she was sure her voice would come out steady, and then said, "Thank you. I know you don't… care for me."

"It's on all of us to keep up appearances," Emma hummed. She stepped away from the bureau and Tessa took her cue to stand up. Emma straightened her cape until it fell straight, clicking her tongue, then gave Tessa one last, long look.

"He underestimates us, you know," she said in a low voice, lingering with her hands on the hem of Tessa's cape. "Do make of yourself something more than he thinks, hm?"

Abruptly reaching her limit of humane connection, Emma whirled around and took a few steps away, clearing her throat. "As you were, Tessa," she said loudly.

"Good day, Emma," Tessa responded in kind, leaving the room with a businesslike stride, all the while wondering what it was about the two of them that Charles Xavier had seen fit to throw them to the likes of Sebastian Shaw.

–

On Krakoa, the Hellfire Club in many ways felt a world and a lifetime away – and in others, closer than ever. While monitoring the vast transit system, Sage used a portion of her brainpower to track the location at all times of Sebastian Shaw.

It often wasn't hard; Shaw had never been one to mingle with the common people, and when not sitting in session on the Quiet Council, was most often holed up in his habitat on Hellfire Bay, or back in New York rubbing shoulders with the human elite. Keeping track of him elsewhere on the island was difficult at best without help, but a few months into working with Black Tom, he'd picked up the habit of giving her a warning when their paths might cross.

Shaw had left for New York that morning, and Tom had only bade her a glassy-eyed farewell when she'd left the hub to make her way to the Green Lagoon, tired and aching for a drink, so she wasn't at all prepared when she'd walked past a gate on the way and it spat him out right into her path.

He seemed as surprised to see her as she was him, his expression shifting to momentary annoyance at having his path blocked before recognition and a gleeful cruelty sparked in his eyes.

"Tessa," he said smoothly, stepping into her space. His lips curled up into a mean smile. "How lovely to see you. It's been too long."

Sage held her ground, forcing her shoulders back and her chin up to meet his eyes, as far from demure Tessa's default posture as she could manage. He still wore the same overpowering cologne; her brain helpfully fetched a reel of memories, years of standing at his right hand breathing in the same scent as she bore witness to (or the brunt of) his cruelty. Not for the first time, she cursed her own perfect recall.

At the same time, another part of her mind was helpfully reminding her of the gun stashed inside her jacket, and her best odds of temporarily disabling Shaw long enough to escape if necessary. His mutant power made conventional weaponry and hand to hand combat both exceedingly dangerous; but Sage had spent a long time thinking about how to fight him if she had to.

"Sebastian," she said shortly. She took a mean pleasure in the way his nostrils flared at the familiar address. "I'm sure we've both been busy."

Shaw hummed. "Yes, quite," he said. His eyes flicked up and down, taking her in, and Sage resisted the urge to cross her arms defensively. "Stashed away in the transit hub, is it? Does Xavier know he's wasting you as a security guard?"

He raised a hand to her cheek. Sage registered the movement almost before it began and snapped a hand up to catch his wrist before he could touch her.

"Don't," she said shortly.

Shaw raised an eyebrow. Sage stared him down. After a moment, he withdrew his hand, and she let him go. "Well," he said, with a new edge to his voice. "I suppose you're also a part of McCoy's clandestine motley of brutes. Spying for Xavier, now… that is what you're good at, isn't it?" He gave her another once over, this time exaggerating the movement. "Though I must say, Tessa, your last assignment was much more becoming. You really have let yourself go since then."

Sage forced herself to keep a cool exterior while grinding her teeth. It wasn't that she gave a good goddamn about being attractive to Sebastian Shaw; it was the pettiness of it, and the knowledge that he clearly thought she should, that made her want to claw his eyes out.

"If that's all, Sebastian," she said, doing her best to sound bored instead of furious, "I have places to be."

Shaw didn't even have the grace to look disappointed at her lack of reaction. He took a half step back, gesturing broadly with one arm with the same smug smile on his face, and said, "Of course. I wouldn't dream of keeping you. I'm sure our paths will cross again soon."

"Naturally," Sage said. As long as Shaw remained on the Quiet Council, and she on X-Force, it was an inevitability.

How the hell had Charles allowed him to have that seat? And, more importantly, when the hell was Emma going to do something to have him removed?

Shaw's cologne hit her like a punch to the gut as she brushed past him. It was a good thing she was already headed for the Lagoon. Her need for a stiff drink had multiplied.

–

Sage scanned the Green Lagoon like a battle scene. The first order of business was taking note of who was behind the bar. Freddie, as always, but Freddie had expressed just yesterday a concern over her drinking habits, and she didn't have the patience for an intervention today. Not with the headache building at the back of her skull. Instead she used Avalanche as a cover to slide up to the other end of the bar where Anole was working. He was too intimidated by her to ask any questions.

True to form, Anole took one look at her hard stare and hopped to. Sage took her drink and removed herself to an empty table at the edge of the Lagoon, on the far end from the dreadful karaoke performance being put on by a group of teens on the main stage.

And she drank.

It was very loud, sometimes, having her power. Even without her telepathy turned outwards, her mutant mind was always working, always processing, always remembering. Sometimes she just wanted it to be quieter; to sand off the edges of her waking nightmares. When she was drinking, everything slowed down. Just a little. Just for a while. Dukes and Black Tom and Domino and Logan and everyone who was worried about her drinking didn't understand that it wasn't the drinking that was the problem; it was her. It was whatever dark and ugly thing inside her that led her to the Hellfire Club and to X-Force. That wouldn't let her come out of the shadows.

Hello, Sage.

The brush of foreign thoughts against her mind activated an instinctual psychic flinch, a defensive lockdown that she didn't have the wherewithal, after enough alcohol, to tamp down.

"My apologies," the voice said again, this time out loud. Sage looked up from her cup to see who else but Charles Xavier himself approaching, smiling warmly at her from beneath the Cerebro helmet. "I didn't mean to startle you; only to say hello."

"Hello, Professor," Sage said dutifully and then, in a glorious moment of not thinking, snorted loud enough for neighboring tables to hear.

Xavier cocked his head. "Is something funny…?" he asked, still with that smile on his face, just waiting to be let in on the joke.

Sage shook her head, snickering. "'S just," she said, gesturing vaguely with one hand, "your mutant name. 'Professor X'. 'S funny."

Xavier's smile turned indulgent and he folded himself into the seat opposite her. "I suppose it's rather dramatic," he said. "I thought it apropos at the time."

Sage shook her head again, more insistently. An old bitterness crawled up the back of her throat and soured her mood.

"'S not," she said, then swallowed and tried again, speaking slowly and forcing herself to enunciate. It was terribly important, suddenly, that he hear and understand what she had to say. "It's not. Professor X – like being a teacher is who you are, all the time. But you're not. You weren't."

Sage hiccuped and swallowed, staring intently at the bridge of Xavier's nose as his mouth pressed into a thin line. "You're the teacher of mutants – but not all of them. Not me. Not Emma Frost. Not the Hellions – you picked and chose your favorites. The worthy. The heroes. The rest of us you abandoned or found another use for."

Xavier turned his head slightly, and Sage, following the movement, realized with horror that she was talking far too loud, and now the rest of the Lagoon's patrons were openly staring at them.

"Sage," Xavier said in a low voice, "Perhaps we should continue this conversation elsewhere?"

"I–" Sage pushed away from the table, stumbling over her chair's legs. She threw back the rest of her drink to drown the embarrassment choking her. "I have to go."

"Sage–" Xavier reached out a hand towards her as she frantically backpedaled away from the table.

"Don't follow me. Please," she said, turning and running with her head down, pulling the collar of her jacket up to hide her face.

The speed with which she made it back to her habitat was evidence that she was not, in spite of it all, drunk enough. She fished out the bottle of whiskey she'd appropriated from Logan's last Marauders order and set about rectifying that.

What was that? How childish, how – petty, to air decade-old grievances when Xavier had only said hello. Here, in the heart of Krakoa, the whole damn country the man had founded to keep mutants safe. Hadn't she outgrown being angry with him for, what – not being an X-Man at first?

It was X-Force. X-Force, and seeing Shaw, and his petulant comments. It felt, in some ways, like she was back where she started. Doing Xavier's dirty work.

She put a serious dent in the whiskey, and by the time she dragged herself to bed, collapsing fully clothed on top of the covers, her head was swimming so much she could barely think and her mind was terribly, blessedly empty.

–

Sage woke up to a pounding headache, the smell of coffee, and instant regret. She would've rolled right back over and waited for death to take her, except that smell meant that somebody was in her kitchen and she had to make them leave. Her stomach heaved in protest as she rolled out of bed and tugged half-heartedly at her clothes to straighten them, but she managed not to hurl as she shuffled out into the kitchen.

Domino was rooting through her cabinets while the coffee machine on the counter worked away.

"Why do you have loads of coffee and no food?" she asked, balanced on her tiptoes with her head hidden behind a cupboard door.

"The coffee's from Lucas," Sage grumbled, "and I don't cook. Why are you in my house?"

Bishop spent more time off the island sailing with Kate Pryde's Marauders than he spent on it, these days. He made a point to bring her coffee from wherever they'd been last, which was sweet of him. She missed him; missed his friendship and, perhaps even more pressingly, missed having him to watch her back instead of the likes of Arkady Rossovitch.

"Me neither, but at least I have cereal," Domino said, dropping back to her feet and flipping the door closed. She pulled out a pair of mugs just as the coffee machine clicked off. "And I'm making coffee, obviously. What do you eat for breakfast?"

"I don't." Sage plopped into a seat at the island and stared blankly at Domino filling the mugs. "Why are you making coffee in my kitchen?"

"A little birdie told me you could use some."

She groaned and folded over, pressing her aching head to the cool countertop. She wished she could black out properly like normal people, instead of having the events of last night perfectly crystallized forever in her treacherous mutant brain. "Just get me one of the flowers that cures hangovers," she groaned. "Or a bullet."

"You're getting fancy imported coffee."

A mug clunked firmly onto the island beside her head, and chair legs scraped against the floor as Domino took a seat beside her. With a Herculean effort, Sage dragged her head up and pulled the mug towards her, breathing in the bitter fumes. Loathe as she was to admit it, it did make her feel a little better.

The effect was ruined when she glanced at Domino out of the corner of her eye and saw the expectant look on her face. Sage tipped her head back with a groan, closing her eyes. "So everybody knows."

"Mutants are notorious gossips," Domino said, not unsympathetically. "And you picked a fight with Charley Xavier in the middle of the Green Lagoon."

"It wasn't the middle," Sage groused. "And it wasn't a fight."

"The way I heard it, you almost started swinging at the old man." At Sage's glare, Domino put both hands up in front of her. "For the record, my money would've been on you."

Sage pinched the bridge of her nose. "Thank you for your support, Neena," she said through gritted teeth.

"Any time." Domino patted her on the shoulder while Sage begrudgingly sipped at her coffee. "So, you want to tell me why you got wasted and picked a fight with Professor X?"

"No," she said immediately, then sighed. "It's stupid."

Domino snorted. "You're a lot of things, Sage, but 'stupid' isn't one of 'em, and I know enough about Xavier to know plenty of people have plenty of reasons to be pissed at him." She bumped her shoulder into Sage's, jostling her. "So spill."

Sage took a long sip of coffee in the vain hope that Domino might simply evaporate by the time she finished. When that didn't work, she sighed again and reluctantly lowered her mug. "It was a long time ago," she hedged.

Domino only raised an eyebrow.

Sage raised her hands to rub at her temples. "I met Xavier when I was young. Just a kid, really. I saved his life from a cave-in, and he explained what I was – what a mutant was. And then, a few years later, I met him again. And he sent me undercover to spy on Hellfire Club."

She could remember it so clearly; she was young, alone in a cruel world and eager to latch on to the hope of the dream Xavier explained to her. He'd warned her it would be dangerous; what he hadn't gotten across was how degrading it would be, how that much time spent with the inner circle of the Hellfire Club seeped into your soul like a poison.

He also hadn't said there was an alternative.

Sage ran a finger around the rim of the mug. "What I didn't know was that around that time, he was gathering mutants to form the original team of X-Men."

Domino gave a low whistle. "So Chuck doesn't pick you for his team, and instead of spandex, you spend your teen years in lingerie and leather?"

Sage clenched a hand into a fist, staring at the skin stretched white across her knuckles. "I was Sebastian Shaw's personal assistant for years," she said. "Alone, surrounded by some of the worst both man and mutantkind had to offer. And I only got out because he left me for dead – worse than dead." With her free hand, she covered her eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath. The memory of Bogan was like a scar in her mind – a glitch in her programming, making everything around it stutter and warp. "Storm found me, saved me, and brought me to join her team – they were functioning without Xavier's blessing at the time. They didn't know or trust me. Storm was the only one who knew what I had been doing."

She shook her head sharply. That wasn't the point. The X-Men had ultimately welcomed her. As alone as she'd been at the time, their distrust had hurt; but of course they couldn't have known. It would have endangered all their lives to have known.

She tried again, loosening her fist and instead clutching her mug for stability. "It�� when I learned about the X-Men, I asked myself, why did he send me here, instead? What did he – this wise, old, man – what did he see that made him turn me away? What was wrong with me?"

She pressed the meat of her palms, hot from the mug, into her eyes, hard, as if she could push the tears welling up back into their ducts. "It's been years," she said, hoarse. "It doesn't matter anymore. Xavier just caught me at a… bad time."

Domino was quiet for a long moment, then said, "I'm no X-Man. God knows, that is not my gig." She laughed a little at the thought. "But thanks to Cable, I've known a lot of kids that grew up to be X-Men. I watched those kids go through hell and come out – well, to be honest, some of them are complete basket cases." She said it fondly, the corner of her lips curling up into a small smile. She shook her head, turning her attention back to Sage. "But they're still some of the finest young men and women I've ever known, because that's what it takes to be an X-Man."

Sage laughed bitterly. "If your point is that I shouldn't beat myself up because the standard is too high –"

"My point," Domino cut her off, taking one of Sage's wrists and pulling her hand away from her face, "is that those kids had help. They had guidance. Sure, it was mostly grizzled old mercenaries, but there were people looking out for them. You spent all that time in hell with just yourself to keep it together, and you came out the other side an X-Man." She squeezed her wrist. "My point is, it takes a hell of a person to do that. Maybe Xavier saw that in you. Maybe he knew you could handle it."

Sage breathed out and let herself consider what Domino was saying – that maybe, all those years ago, Charles had made a calculated gamble; that he hadn't been worried only with her capacity to carry out her mission, but to come out the other side relatively whole. It was – plausible. "Maybe," she said out loud for Domino's benefit.

Really, it meant more to hear her say it than whether or not it was true. X-Force was becoming a nightmare, another cruel turn in the cycle of her life, but she wasn't alone in it. More than anything the Hellfire Club had to throw at her, what had killed her was going through it on her own. But not here. Not since joining the X-Men.

She leaned over to bump her shoulder against Domino's and swallowed until she was sure her voice would come out even as she said, "Thank you. For the coffee."

Neena tapped their mugs together with a warm click. "Any time."

–

When Sage finally made it to the transport hub, carrying a thermos of more coffee and feeling much better thanks to some Krakoan medicine, there was a present waiting for her on her console. A single stark white rose in a narrow crystal vase. Sage smiled to herself as she traced a petal with one finger. Emma almost never acknowledged their shared history, unless it was to express her disdain for Shaw. Whatever she had seen from him yesterday must have moved her to reach out.

She thought about what Domino had said, about the kind of person to leave the Hellfire Club and join the X-Men. Maybe the two of us had the same thing inside us, after all, she mused, running her thumb over the blunt curve of a thorn.

"Sage?"

Sage went very still at the sound of Xavier's voice behind her. A rush of shame and humiliation nearly bowled her over as hearing him triggered the memory of last night – somewhere under that, though, she registered that he'd spoken aloud.

"I don't mean to disturb you, but I –"

"I'm sorry," Sage interrupted, whirling around to face him. She braced her hands behind her on the back of her chair. "For last night. It was… shameful."

"Water under the bridge, my dear," Xavier said, waving a hand. He paused for a moment, awkwardly clearing his throat. "In fact, I believe I owe you an apology. One long overdue."

He inclined his head slightly. "We never spoke about your original mission, after you took your place on the X-Men. Had I realized you harbored such… insecurities, I would have broached the topic much sooner."

She opened her mouth to object, to explain away last night's outburst, but he held up a hand to stay her.

"Please," he said. "Let me finish."

He didn't mean to condescend to her; Sage didn't know Xavier as well as many of the other X-Men, but she knew him well enough to know that. It still rankled. But she held her tongue.

Charles continued. "The road to Krakoa hasn't been an easy one, you know as well as I," he said. "But especially in those early days, it was a struggle. Mutantkind had so many enemies, and so few allies. Mutants themselves were still few and far between." He started pacing, a few short steps to either side. "We were fighting a hopeless war. I wanted students, but I needed soldiers. And I needed spies."

He turned on his heel to face her again. "You were right, Sage: I was not your professor. I was your general. I thought it was necessary; but whether history will prove my judgment wrong or right, it should not have been that way. And I am sorry."

Her younger self would have been moved to tears to hear that – to hear any acknowledgment of the injustice of her position from the man she'd pledged her future to. But here and now, the apology felt awkward and hollow. She realized abruptly that she didn't want one. Not from him.

Xavier, standing tall in a sleek bodysuit, with the shadow of the threshold slicing across his face, his eyes covered by Cerebro and his hands clasped behind his back, looked light-years away from the kindly old man in a wheelchair she'd met all those years ago. Or maybe it was the opposite – maybe he looked more like the man who'd sent her away than he ever had.

In another life, a little voice said in the back of Sage's mind, I would see this man as my father.

Maybe that was a gift he'd given her. The gift of clarity; of distance. When she was younger she had clung to the idea of him, the only person she could call an ally. The only one who might mourn her if she died undercover. But she wasn't that isolated child anymore. She could see him through clear eyes. He was not the beloved mentor to her that he was to so many mutants on Krakoa.

This man was not her father. She didn't need his approval.

Sage cleared her throat. "I appreciate the thought, Charles, but it's not necessary," she said in a clear, even voice. "You caught me at a bad time last night. I promise I don't spend all day resenting you for past sins." She said nothing of his present ones.

Xavier paused, perhaps put off by her flippancy, but nodded. "Of course. I'm glad to hear it. Well, I'll leave you to your work. If there's anything I can do–"

"Do better," Sage said, cutting him off. "For the next generation. They deserve better than to be used the way we were."

Xavier smiled a sad, tired smile, and gestured widely as if to encompass all of Krakoa. "That is the goal of all I do. Krakoa is both reward and promise – for our past struggles, and of a brighter future for all mutants."

Krakoa had enough dark secrets – even just that she knew of, and she had no doubt there was more that she didn't – that the thought didn't fill Sage with confidence. But she nodded and turned back to her console, a clear dismissal. After a moment, she heard Xavier's footsteps leaving the transit hub.

Krakoa wasn't perfect. Far from it. There was more hard, thankless work to be done to secure the future of mutantkind – work that, frankly, she didn't trust Xavier to oversee. But she would do it. It was the kind of work she was good at. She took a sip of coffee and looked at the white flower and her lips curled up into a small smile. And she wouldn't be doing it alone.

Sage cracked her knuckles and got to work.

#x-men #tessa sage #emma frost #neena thurman #charles xavier #sebastian shaw #my fic #how do you even tag sage btw. did my best ig lol #have the sage fic that i had to exorcise from myself. i love her. queen of being wronged by xavier

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beatrice-otter · 1 month

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❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

Hm. This is a tough one, because I always have lots of fic ideas, but mostly for stuff I'd write myself. Most of the things I want other people to write are things like "finishing a fic" or "a sequel to a fic of theirs."

But of "fics I would like to exist that I don't want to/can't write myself" I think the biggest is a Downton Abbey AU where Mary got pregnant by Mr. Pamuk in season 1. (He still died, just after instead of before they had sex.) So Mary goes to her mother and confesses, and Cora decides they're going to pass the baby off as hers without telling anybody, even Robert. (And maybe it will be a boy to inherit!) They accomplish this by setting off immediately on a trip to visit Granny in America with only O'Brien as a companion (because leaving her behind would be suspicious). It could go a number of ways from there, but I'm just surprised nobody has written this very obvious AU idea. Lots of other AUs! but not this one.

In my vague ideas of how it goes from there: Back home, Edith is happier with a chance to shine and no Mary to bring her down (and a promise of a special trip with Mama in a year or so). Sybill gets up to more shenanigans because Robert can't reign her in.

On the trip, O'Brien is still a servant but also gives Mary a talking-to; Mary has to treat O'Brien better now, because O'Brien knows her secret. And also, Mary's been feeling really sorry for herself and terrible, and O'Brien's not having any of it. After all, Mary's still going to have an awesome life filled with wealth and privilege, and if O'Brien had ever been so stupid, her life would have been ruined. (O'Brien is still deferential to Cora, because she actually likes Cora.)

Cora has been Visibly Disappointed in Mary this whole time, but when they get to America, Granny isn't; she's very matter-of-fact about the whole thing, which Mary finds very helpful.

From there it goes ... I have no idea where it goes.

That's my idea for a fic that I will never write and wish someone else would, and as for "who would write it best," I'm not sure. I might have to go with alex51324, because they write INCREDIBLE Downton Abbey stuff with wonderful historical detail and interesting OCs, and this is my fantasy fic author casting so why bother with trifling details like "they only write slash" and "their fave character is Thomas Barrow who is Sir Not Appearing In This Fic"

#ask meme #plot bunny #downton abbey

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starsandauras · 7 months

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Prompt: 26: Last

FFXIV 30 Day Writing Challenge Prompt 26: Last

“What surname do you plan on using?”

Brigid blinked, lowering the wine glass she was about to drink from. The inquisitive face of the Lady Dzemael looked back at her, seemingly expecting a swift response.

It had been Aymeric’s suggestion, of course, to invite the heads of the High Houses (and any respective spouses) to her wedding ceremony. A gesture of good will, he had said, and promised that they would be on their best behavior. Brigid hadn’t been quite sure of that, but once Francel, Stephanivien, and Artoirel had offered their assistance in running herd on the nobility, she had agreed.

“Pardon?” was all she had managed, and Lady Haillenarte batted at Lady Dzemael’s arm.

“You can’t ask that of a woman so recently wedded, Trisselle!”

Brigid deeply wished for a distraction. Of any kind. Even Emmanellain coming to attempt to charm the older women would be welcome.

“It’s unusual, Avienne, for a woman to be wedded in such a way!” At least Lady Dzemael’s tone wasn’t judgmental, which Brigid had expected from the woman.

“We’ve nay spoken ‘bout it,” Brigid demurred, finally taking a sip of her wine.

“Clearly the name in higher standing is the one she should use,” Lady Durendaire finally spoke up.

“Oh but that would be her maiden name,” added Lady Haillenarte, “Being the name of the Warriors of Light. But she can’t use that.”

Wait, what?

“No, no, quite right,” agreed Lady Dzemaele, tapping her chin with a finger. “I suppose then it would have to be either Waters or Augurelt.”

“Hm, Lady Brigid Waters, or Lady Brigid Augurelt…” Lady Haillenarte looked over to Brigid, not quite sizing her up, but certainly measuring something. “Which do you think sounds best, dearie?”

Lady Durendaire nodded. “Yes, you’ll be the one carrying it with you for the rest of your life, after all.”

“Why cannae I be usin’ me maiden name?” Brigid asked, trying very very hard not to turn her reception into an international incident, and trying just as hard to remember that the women didn’t mean anything by it. For them it was simple small talk, a small detail to be ironed out for the paperwork.

The three noblewomen looked surprised, having not expected that response. “Would you want to?” asked Lady Durendaire, earning a glare from Lady Dzemael.

“Sofine!”

Did Brigid want to..? She hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t thought about name changes at all, not all that seriously. She had said once that she would keep her name, but that had been when Cred was less than a year old, and he was five now, running around with his sister and Gaia. And it was before Urianger. Things had changed.

And Brigid wasn’t sure now how much she wanted to keep using her father’s name.

“Ah, there’s the lady of the hour!” Artoirel came only a little late to the rescue, bowing deferentially to the women. “Ladies Haillenarte, Durendaire, Dzemael, I do hope you’re enjoying the festivities?”

As the women exchanged pleasantries, Brigid had to fight the urge to throw her arms around Artoirel in a relived hug.

“I hope you’ll forgive me for stealing away the bride, but she’s needed at the high table.” He offered Brigid his arm, which she happily took. After some farewells and well wishes they walked away, and Artoirel patted her hand. “Forgive me, I was delayed.”

“‘Tis alreet,” she murmured. “Just askin’ which name I’ll be usin’.”

Artoirel hummed. “You’re always welcome to Fortemps,” he offered, with a slight smirk, and Brigid lightly batted his arm.

It was something to think on, she decided, after the honeymoon and with long discussions with her husbands. At least it wasn’t an urgent matter.

#FFXIV #FFXIVWrite #FFXIVWrite2023 #Warrior of Light: Brigid O'Donnell #The high house ladies #Artoirel de Fortemps #that moment when you have three last names to choose from #shame triple barreling isn't an option

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themaraudersstory · 2 years

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Renouncing the House of Black

The winter holidays came too soon for Sirius that year. He would have preferred, and usually did find a way to, stay at Hogwarts over the break, but this time, his mother had insisted that he return home for their family reunion holiday.

The thought of it made Sirius want to be sick.

A family reunion, where half of them were secretly followers of the darkest wizard the world had ever faced, working in the shadows against everything muggle, killing muggle-borns at random.

He didn’t tell James, nor Remus, nor Peter when he began to go to the library, looking up spells, spells for wipeouts. He actually found one in the restricted section that was compared to a muggle bomb, the only problem was that the witch or wizard casting it would have as good a chance from dying from it as well as not.

He might have entertained the thought longer had it not been for Regulus.

His younger brother was no Death Eater, not yet anyway and Sirius…well he was still hoping he could be saved, despite being in Slytherin and all, despite the fact of who is friends were, despite the fact that his brother had somehow found himself under the wing of people that hung around with Snivellus.

Sirius’ one weakness in his family, Regulus.

Idiot, though he was.

So, he said goodbye at the train station to his friends, his brothers, and he returned to the place of his black blood with Regulus by his side.

Number 12 Grimmuald Place was exactly the way he had left it from the summer holidays, his mother’s portrait at the end of the hall that his father had commissioned hanging there making it out to be some sort of royal painting.

And it made sense, that’s what his parents thought being a Black meant, what they thought being a pureblood meant.

It was a wonder they didn’t approve of James entirely.

Remus was another matter.

Sirius cast a dark look at Regulus as they entered the Black household.

But there were no parents in the kitchen, nor upstairs as they went to go stash their trunks in their room. Sirius checked, and the imperturbable charm he had put on his door, along with a few others was untouched. His mother had not entered, had not seen his room.

He wondered if he should find what the muggles called a security camera for when he finally moved out after he left school and left the door to his room unlocked, see her face through it when she came in.

He tapped the bikini clad woman in the muggle poster, nodding to her as though greeting an old friend and then retreated back down the stairs before securing the lock on his door, finding two people in the parlor.

Regulus, and Kreacher with a silver platter tea set, offering him tea.

Kreacher glared when he turned around, his expression of admiration turning to distaste when he saw Sirius.

“Ah, Master Sirius is home,” Kreacher croaked in his old voice.

“Where are our parents?” Sirius glared at him in turn as he went to go lounge on the chair opposite of Regulus.

“Master and Mistress Black should be returning from their day in London sometime this evening, after the opera.”

Sirius huffed, but Regulus looked disappointed.

“They won’t be here till tonight? Didn’t they know we were coming today?” his brother asked.

“Of course, Master,” Kreacher said with a deferential nod to Regulus. “They are looking forward to seeing you.”

Sirius hadn’t missed the way Kreacher said you, and that his comment had very specifically been addressed at Regulus. He also didn’t particularly care.

Sirius got to his feet.

“Where is Master going?”

Sirius looked down at Kreacher with a contemptuous look, one that Kreacher returned in kind.

“I’m going out,” he said.

“Master Sirius must be here for the Master and Mistress when they return home.”

“They aren’t waiting up for me and I have no intention on waiting up for them,” Sirius said, a mild bit of anger added to his drawl.

He glanced at Regulus, a question in his eyes. Regulus lowered his eyes, shaking his head as he looked into his teacup.

That was fine then, Sirius had had no real hope.

The sound of voices in the dining room alerted Sirius to what he should expect by the time he got there, very late in the evening indeed.

“Nice of you to show an interest in your family,” Regulus said when he entered the parlor, a cutting edge to his tone, a look of disappointment in his eyes.

Sirius looked back at him haughtily, forced humor in his eyes.

“Sirius,” his mother said, her tone imperious, her black hair falling down her back in careful waves. She was a woman in her middle age, not round, but just beginning to look more plump then she used to. His father, still slender, his black hair streaked with silver, looked at Sirius with his long nose, his lips pursed. “You weren’t here when we arrived,” Walburga’s tone was controlled distaste.

“And you weren’t here when I arrived,” Sirius said, strolling to the table and starting to fill himself a plate of whatever Kreacher had made, the little elf himself pattering in his creaking old body out of the kitchen to bring more, far more than his family could ever eat, as he did so.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Walburga said, her voice reaching a dangerous note.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, mother.” Sirius barely kept his tone in check that time.

Walburga glared at him with her dark eyes, but turned to Regulus, as though deciding ignoring him was the best form of punishment.

“How was your term, dear,” she asked his brother, allowing him to draw out a long explanation of all Regulus’ accomplishments already that year at how many O.W.L.s he believed he was going to get by the time he actually took them. Sirius ignored them until he went to go sit down, stopping just as he placed his plate on the table, at the opposite end of his family, when Walburga spoke again.

“I am so proud of the friends you are making. I can’t believe…you know…Sirius,” she said with a long look at Sirius as though mourning him, “one of my sons having to share a dormitory with mudbloods,” she said the last word like a curse, disgust in her voice.

Sirius’ face turned to stone and halfway into crouching to sit down, he straightened, pushed his seat back in and grabbed his plate with one hand.

He was halfway out the door when his father spoke, “son,” Mr. Black said, warningly, “eat with your family.”

Sirius plastered a sardonically humorous expression as he turned around.

“I’m going to eat upstairs,” his voice a careless drawl.

Mr. Black got to his feet, his chair pushing back several inches as he turned to look at his son.

“You will eat with your family,” not a request, a command.

“I would love to,” Sirius swept out with a smile, causing his mother to actually pause, her expression startled, “but unfortunately, they aren’t here.”

Sirius swept out of the room before his father, mother, or brother had a chance to respond.

Sirius was late to the dinner, and despite the fact that this was the normal circumstance, and Walburga had given up trying to make him on time years ago, the look that she gave him when he walked into Christmas dinner could have matched that of a basilisk’s. But Sirius still felt a twist in the back of his stomach, from where the younger version of himself had known when the cruciartus curse was coming.

Just a little reminder, Walburga had said, just to help him to learn what’s right and wrong.

But it had been years since Walburga could be so brave, not when her son had been a fully-fledged wizard himself.

Sirius ignored her, sweeping past and into the large sitting area where half of the quests were; he could hear the other half already in the dining hall.

Two girls, not much older than him, barely out of their school years themselves, turned their near opposite colored heads.

Bellatrix Black sneered at him.

“Still disappointing the family, Sirius?” she said, her words slick as a snake’s.

“Ah, dear Bella,” Sirius drawled, picking up a glass from the tray Kreacher was teetering around, “killed anybody lately?” He took a swig from whatever was in the glass.

Instead of looking offended, Bella smiled. “Careful, or you might end up going the way of—“

Narcissa, her blonde hair up in a regal knot beside Bellatrix, stopped her sister with a tap on the arm and Bella stopped speaking, glancing over at her parents

But Sirius knew what Bella had been about to say, mentioning their sister, his cousin, Andromeda. The only cousin Sirius had actually liked.

Sirius was about to walk over to where he could see Regulus in the dining hall when he felt the breath of someone on the back of his neck. “I don’t tell little cubs anything,” Bella whispered slitheringly, “but if I did…then I might let them know their ilk don’t last long under the cruciartus curse. I know from personal experience.”

Bellatrix had drawn her wand at the same exact time as Sirius, no doubt saying what she had with the very intention to provoke him and drive him…to this.

The room hushed immediately and Sirius arranged himself as his relatives gazed on in varying expressions of horror so that his back was to the wall. He was stupid enough to let any of them get behind him.

Bella’s wand was brandished, both of their wands hanging in the air between them, held by only their twisted grips, his, black and straight, hers, black and mangled.

He had always hated that wand.

“Aww, little Siri coming out and showing his true colors,” Bellatrix lit her lips, her eyes alight as the other people from the dining hall crowded into the door jam so that all of his relatives were watching. “Crimson and gold, isn’t it,” she said, a flash of the manic look that he saw increasingly in her eyes in her last couple years at Hogwarts.

“How is Voldemort doing these days?” Sirius asked, his own voice raised in manic amusement, “or are you not allowed to see him till you kill so many muggles?”

Bella’s eyes flashed and Sirius only had time to wonder if he had hit a little too close to home when her wand whipped.

“Crucio!”

A shield sharply warped up between them, flashing from Sirius’s own wand without a spell uttered.

And time didn’t stand still.

But his relatives did.

The shimmery surface of the protego spell distorted their features, but beyond them, he could still make out each of their faces, even the distraught boy’s in the back.

But it had not been lost on him what had happened.

Bellatrix had sent a curse at him…and his was the only protection spell put up between them.

Not one of them, not even the black haired boy, his sad eyes looking on in fear in the back, had defended him against Bella.

And with the shimmering spell separating him, protecting him from his family, Sirius turned.

And Sirius ran.

Euphemia Potter busied herself cleaning up the stove. With a few waves of her wand, she had the sponge scrubbing it as well as the dishes, though a bit messily as bits of soap and water went splashing off onto the ground.

Oh well, it was about as well as she usually did. She’d just have to have the mop wipe it all up after the rest of them were done.

She walked to the living room, reaching it just as a loud bang sounded at the door.

She reached the door, opening it just as Sirius Black reached the front steps.

She could see his motorcycle smoking in the street behind him and realized almost immediately that that was what had made the bang.

He was sweaty, wet, and so bedraggled that Mrs. Potter immediately thought he must have nearly drowned, but the light pattering of the rain outside told her that it must have just been from the fly. There was a crazed look in his eye, and for the first time in her life, Mrs. Potter thought she detected a trace of fear there.

“Sirius,” she said, her voice cracking in worry as she reached out to him.

He flinched, and she pulled back for a moment, worried that her touch might be unwelcome, but he calmed almost immediately leaning forward as she bustled out into the street, put her arm around his shoulders, and hustled him into the house as two men stormed down the stairs and into the front room.

She could feel Sirius shaking and breathing heavily beneath her, but when James appeared, he practically fell out of her arms forward, and into his arms, falling onto his best friend as James did what he could to hold him up.

Euphemia looked over at her husband.

Fleamont glanced at the boys before looking out into the street.

“Would you see that Sirius’s bike is cared for, dear?” Euphemia said, forcing a casual tone into her question.

Fleamont nodded before disappearing out into the street himself, closing the door behind him.

“Dear,” Mrs. Potter said to James, “let’s get Sirius into the living room. I was just about to whip up a batch of hot chocolate,” she said warmly as she led the boys into the warmer room, leaving James to help Sirius’ wet form sit on her sofa before she bustled back into the kitchen.

When Euphemia Potter had returned to the living area, Fleamont Potter was already there as well.

She placed a steaming cup of cocoa in each of their hands before she returned to the sofa herself, sitting down on the other side of Sirius from James.

“They’ll come.” The words were so utterly quiet that it was as though they had been spoken through the muffle of a fire, but they had all heard Sirius say it. The words were clear. “They came for Andromeda.”

Euphemia met her husband’s eyes, and Fleamont Potter nodded, setting his cocoa on the side table beside him and rising to a standing position.

“I’ll set the wards,” he said, before disappearing back through the archway that led out of the room.

They waited, the three of them sitting there all in a row on the sofa when Fleamont Potter finally returned.

All three of them looked up at him with a question.

Fleamont gave them a reassuring nod.

“I sent a message to the McKinnons,” he said dully. “They’re in the order.”

“Of the Phoenix?” James asked, looking up, a bit of awe in his face.

Fleamont nodded before sitting back down in his sitting chair.

They waited.

For three hours, they waited, sitting on the couch, their ears tense and listening.

When the shriek finally came from outside, Euphemia Potter was the first to her feet.

She could sense her husband and sons behind her as she opened the door and stepped outside, only a few feet into the nighttime air.

Two individuals stood in the middle of the street.

Sirius’s parents.

Walburga looked like an inferi, her hair in mangles around her, her eyes blazing.

“You will not be taking him,” Euhpemia said, her words as loud as she could get them.

“I suggest you stay out of this, Euphemia,” Walburga Black said, her words roaring with threat, “this is none of your business.”

“Oh, you made it my business when this boy showed up in my living room, barely breathing,” Euphemia said, her voice growing louder. “You won’t touch my son, and I’m not talking about James.”

“An exaggeration,” Walburga said, but her eyes betrayed a menace that spoke of something more than a wind and rainswept boy.

“I know an unforgivable curse when I see one, Walburga,” Euphemia said, just loud enough so they could all hear her as she spoke slowly, her words careful, controlled, laced with threat. “I knew it for three summers when Sirius came to my porch, his body still twitching from the effects. But I said nothing. I did nothing. Not for all that time. But I will not stand silent now. I would take Regulus from you too if I could, before he ends up in an even worse state.”

“How dare—”

“Oh, I dare, Walburga,” Euphemia yelled, her words now almost a roar, “I can’t take Regulus because I can’t take someone who doesn’t want to be saved. But you will not take Sirius now.”

Hazel eyes met raging garnet ones.

Walburga fondled at her pockets.

“We have placed wards over this house, Walburga.” Euphemia said, “And we have alerted the Order of the Phoenix. They will be here soon. And if you don’t leave my home before they are here, they will arrest you, and take you to Azkaban.”

Mrs. Black seemed to want to step forward and put everything she knew into the spells around the Potter’s house, seemed to still want to fight, but her husband held her back, pulling her away from the temptation.

He didn’t look at him as he turned away. Sirius waited for it, but his father didn’t meet his gaze.

His mother, though, she didn’t stop looking until they had apparated away.

Sirius did not think he would forget the burning look in her eyes as long as he lived.

The winter holidays went faster from there on out, Sirius valued every moment of his time at the Potters, but it seemed to flee before his eyes. He didn’t forget, not completely, but he was happiest those moments when he did, that he would have to see his brother face to face again in a few days, or at least eventually. Even in different houses and different age groups, Hogwarts Students couldn’t avoid each other forever.

And he found that he wanted to face his brother sooner rather than later once he got there.

But he also found that he wanted to face the rest of his family, not for the same reason that he wanted to face his brother.

He hated the lot of them.

It was upon this thought that he found himself in the living area, a mix of a library with a couch around it in the Potter’s house, a deserted spot of the house that no one would find him in, not unless they were looking.

Mr. Potter walked in about twenty minutes after Sirius had entered.

Sirius didn’t acknowledge him with more than a smiling glance before returning to his reflections of Mr. Potter’s map of dragon sightings in Europe on the wall.

Mr. Potter wasn’t the type to speak first.

But Sirius was.

“Have you heard from the Order, are they making a move toward this house?”

“They have better things to do than track down and punish a wayward son. They are waging a war on the entire wizarding world.”

“Not on all of them,” Sirius thought, thinking that his parents would not raise a hand against any of you-know-who’s followers.

Mr. Potter’s expression softened out of the corner of Sirius’ eye.

“You are no Death Eater, Sirius. They’ll leave you alone until you openly rebel against them.”

Sirius didn’t answer, didn’t reply to Mr. Potter’s words.

The silence stretched between them, like the space between him and his family.

Until Mr. Potter closed the gap.

“You are no Death Eater, Sirius.”

And those words, the repeat of them.

That’s when Sirius broke.

“What if…being a Black…what if it means something is…inherently wrong inside me. I would have…” Sirius paused, his eyes going ghostly still before he squeezed them shut as he bowed his head, “I would have killed them all if Regulus hadn't been there. I might not have even run, even against that many wizards. Not if I could take a few of them with me.”

Sirius looked up at Fleamont Potter then, facing his judgment.

But there was no judgment in Mr. Potter’s eyes, only sadness, pain the likes that one felt only for someone they treasured, treasured like a child.

“I want,” Fleamont cleared his throat, “for you to listen to me very carefully now, Sirius. Are you listening?”

Sirius nodded.

“Good.” Fleamont Potter said gruffly, “You. Are. Not. A bad person. You are a very good person, who bad things have happened to. And you have faced them with the bravery that others chose not to.” Fleamont paused, looking up at the mantel, but Sirius kept his eyes trained on the older man. “We’ve all got those drives,” Fleamont continued, “to good and bad, right and wrong inside us. What matters,” and here Fleamont looked back, catching Sirius’ gaze, “is the part we choose to act on. That is what makes you who you truly are, Sirius.”

Something clicked inside Sirius then, something he had spent most of his life raging against, but in which he actually believed now. His actions…what he did did make him different from his family. He resolved to make the rest of his life be a tribute to that.

I got inspiration for this one from these posts

#sirius black #james potter #marauders #marauders era #house of black #walburga black #marauders fanfiction #hp fanfic #euphemia potter #bellatrix lestrange

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gendernewtral · 1 year

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my bathroom sink isn't working again so it's time for a story about the plumbing in my apartment.

first things first: my shower does not have a door. or a curtain. no, it has an extremely small glass panel, a "physical barrier, that no matter how small, eliminates the need for a shower curtain," you might say (source: article my dad sent me when he saw the bathroom, that my roommate and i used to quote constantly). of course, it does absolutely nothing to keep water from getting on the floor past its reach, which is the toilet and nothing else. this isn't actually relevant to the plumbing issue, but i want you to know my pain.

now, onto my landlord. he is, to say the least, completely incompetent. the man took eight months to order closet doors for the bedrooms, and when he finally did he ordered the wrong size for my roommate's closet. honestly, we shouldn't have been surprised that he gave us the number for a plumber who had declared bankruptcy and no longer worked in the plumbing business.

the world's least functional landlord gave me two numbers when i moved in, one for "small" plumbing issues and one for "emergency" issues. you'd think the second would be generally unnecessary, but the pipes in this apartment complex (actually a converted shitty motel) are so fucking bad there's some kind of problem in someone's apartment at least once a month. as was apparently to be expected, sometime after my roommate and i moved in, our shower drain stopped draining. we attempted to fix it on our own but were unsuccessful. okay, time to call the" small issues" plumber, a task that will be simple and quick. oh, how foolish we were.

the number my landlord gave us went to an automated message saying the line had been disconnected. we checked the number again several times, and then decided to search for the company website since our landlord had obviously given us an incorrect number.

that innocent search started an evening long investigation involving insurance documents, court records, and some light stalking. unfortunately, nothing that happened that night fixed our drain, which continued to somehow worsen the already bad showering experience for about half a week.

that initial search told us that the recommended company was, in fact, not a company, but some guy with a dog. the glaringly bright red website listed an address in the city we lived in as well as the disconnected phone number.

i tried looking up his "company" on google maps to see if there was a phone number there. this search did bring up a phone number! however, it was the phone number for the "emergency" plumbing company my landlord had recommended. this is where the chaos truly begins.

one of the google reviews for this company was posted several years ago by a woman i will now call cheryl; this is an ode to the office desk decoration someone, presumably named cheryl, left at a thrift store that now lives on my living room coffee table. it is a simple yet beautiful wood block thing that spells out cheryl. it’s very important to me.

cheryl is a serial google reviewer, having left many, mostly negative reviews for a variety of companies. the negative reviews tended to be far longer than the positive ones, and frequently included personal attacks.

cheryl's review of this company was decidedly negative, personally vicious to the point of malice. she claimed she was a contractor, and as such recognized they had done a piss poor job fixing her septic tank pipes. she specifically cited the plumber my landlord had recommended, who will now be referred to deferentially as The Plumber, as the offender. The Plumber was apparently not just a piss poor plumber, but an extremely shitty person who had recently filed for personal bankruptcy. my roommate and i were stunned at her ferocious condemnation of this guy who, judging by the other reviews, seemed to be pretty okay.

these decent reviews, however, were much older than cheryl's comment, some by five or so years. it seemed there was a significant gap where The Plumber's plumbing was either too mediocre to warrant review, or he was AWOL. proof that it was the latter arose in an immediate response to cheryl from the business owner, saying that The Plumber did not work for them, and like other commenters she was confusing their company with someone else.

i've presented you with quite a tale so far, so to sum up the facts:

1 .my shower sucks 2. my landlord sucks 3. The Plumber is apparently not a plumber anymore, and bankrupt 4. cheryl has met The Plumber, apparently, and has some sort of personal vendetta 5. there's a poor local company here who has to deal with some mistaken identity bullshit constantly. they are but bystanders in this chaos, regularly fucked over because The Plumber's initials happen to be the same as their (completely unrelated) company name by now my roommate and i were far too deep into this conspiracy to stop, and because we still needed a fucking plumber, i began tracking down both cheryl and The Plumber. the footprints individuals inevitably leave on the world wide web made it somewhat easy, especially since court records are generally public. yes, this is where the court records begin.

the first thing i found was a police report that included insurance information. as it turned out, cheryl and The Plumber were involved in a motor accident. The Plumber hit cheryl with his car while she was riding her motorcycle on a very busy freeway, and she received several major injuries. one included a broken arm that kept her from working as a contractor. so far, the story lined up chronologically- this report was filed about a year before her review, and a number of years after the last review of The Plumber (perhaps when the real company began to notice the mistaken identity?).

even though the responding police officer thought that the insurance remediation was enough to settle this, and no further charges needed to be brought forward, cheryl pushed ahead. she began working with an attorney to bring a case against The Plumber, saying he hit her on purpose, and she deserved more money than his insurance company was willing to pay. initial court proceedings show that the courts agreed with the officer, and her case was tossed out. soon after, new court documents appeared, under a new attorney's name. it seems she switched attorneys in order to have her case heard at trial. once again, it was thrown out. third time's the charm, and she filed one more time with a third attorney. she was, confusingly, successful. i think the civil court here simply wanted to resolve her bullshit so they could deal with more important things, like losing my name change paperwork for a month.

throughout this whole thing, The Plumber was unrepresented. this isn't the sort of situation that would involve the public defender, so he's attorney-less. this was clear in the way he wrote his own documents and responses. somewhere around here, things started to go south for The Plumber. i wonder if an attorney could have saved him from cheryl's wrath.

i went through about eight months of court documents learning shit about this case, but long story short: cheryl won, and the amount of money The Plumber now owed was far more than he could pay on his Plumber's Salary. he ended up declaring bankruptcy, and cheryl didn't receive any money as a result. she was furious.

as of the last time i looked, The Plumber is being sued by a major bank for debt collection related civil charges.

cheryl did eventually go back to her contracting job, as i saw on her (honestly neat and effective) website. she's done several large, successful projects since bankrupting The Plumber, and has left more ridiculously mean google reviews, including more personal attacks. it seems she finds google reviews a forum for rebuking the scum of the world, like an ice cream shop that didn't have lactose free milkshakes.

by the end of it all (about four hours later) i've found more of the personal history of these two people than i could have imagined possible, and was still plumberless.

the next day, my roommate called the plumbing company that is not at all affiliated with The Plumber; the poor company that must bear the burden of cheryl's review, tarnishing their google business page indefinitely as companies cannot remove google reviews. not The Plumber plumbing fixed our shower for a decent, but painful fee. we asked them to bill our landlord since they agreed we were not fully responsible for the problem. they said they had no idea who he is. we accepted defeat and paid them.

i haven't checked on The Plumber's court status in awhile, and as i type the court filing website isn't working, so i cannot share any resolution, despite the dissatisfaction you must feel.

with that, this story has concluded. i'm going to go fix my goddamned bathroom sink now.

#this is nearly 1500 words #more than any essay ive written recently #i need to go get draino now so i dont have to brush my teeth in the fucking kitchen sink #sterling speaks

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shihalyfie · 2 years

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Honorifics and seniority in Digimon works outside Adventure/02

Following up on my Adventure and 02 post! Moving outside Adventure’s universe, the smaller casts and less complicated relationships mean it’s easier to break down how seniority and honorifics work within each group, but they do play an interesting role, especially when you compare group dynamics between series.

(Refer to my earlier Adventure/02 honorifics and first-person pronouns guide for more info on them.)

Tamers

Whenever you talk about the Tamers group, it’s always a bit of a question of which group you’re talking about, because since it didn’t necessarily have specific groups acting together all the time except for some key points in the story, a lot of their relationships are defined mainly by how much these kids hang out in what situations. This isn’t an Adventure case where a large group of kids were forced to bond deeply by being trapped together for months, nor a 02 situation where most of the kids were in the same school and bound to hang out with each other anyway, so the relationships each kid has with each other is largely reflected by their real-life circumstances.

Because the “core” cast of the Tamers trio is so small and because the supporting Tamers don’t always interact with each other or with all three members of the trio, patterns are hard to track, but noticeable ones are:

Takato, Hirokazu, and Kenta, all having known each other prior to the start of the series, are all on yobisute (no honorific, which is considered blunt/rude if you’re not particularly close to the person) basis.

Takato, being more on the deferential side, uses honorifics on anyone he hasn’t gotten to know well enough yet, properly using “-san” on elders and “-kun” with those his age; since he meets Jian for the first time in episode 2, he starts off on “Lee-kun” basis with Jian, before finally opening up to calling him “Jian” starting in the Digital World arc. He did try to use “Ruki-chan” for a moment before Ruki angrily shut him down about it in episode 7, so she was “Ruki” to him thereafter. Juri, whom Takato has a crush on, is “Katou-san” to him even all the way to the end of the series, reflecting Takato’s hesitance in approaching her emotionally closely due to his crush.

Hirokazu and Kenta, on the other hand, aren’t the honorifics type and don’t hesitate to skip to yobisute (Juri, whom they’re more distant from, is “Katou”). Amusingly, Ryou is still “Ryou-san” because of how much they idolize and put him on a pedestal (...well, that and he’s much older than them).

Jian starts off on “Takato-kun” basis with him, but eventually moves to yobisute starting in the Digital World arc. For all of the other more assertive members of the cast, he uses yobisute.

Ruki also isn’t one for propriety and skips to yobisute for everyone. She also hates the “-chan” honorific, and directly snaps at Takato and Juri to not call her that in episodes 2 and 31 respectively (in the latter, her justification being that they’re too old for such cutesiness). Ruki also doesn’t have a tendency to use names with people she’s not very fond of (which culminates in her practically refusing to call Ryou by his name once he enters the story).

Keeping in line with Juri being reserved and polite (and, as we find out later, her fixation with being a “good girl”), she’s diligent about her honorifics and uses “Takato-kun” for the duration of the series (only moving to yobisute with Ruki on her request due to Ruki expressing dislike of “-chan”).

Most of the kids are generally diligent about their honorifics with adults (”Yamaki-san”, etc.).

In terms of hierarchy, Takato, Jian, Ruki, Juri, Hirokazu, and Kenta are all in the same school year; Ryou is three years older, while Shaochung is three years younger, and other than the obvious (Ryou being a respected senior in Digimon matters while Shaochung is very much a young and immature child), the result is that there’s not much of a hierarchy.

Frontier

In line with Frontier having a group of kids practically pulled out of a detention hall, almost everyone jumps straight to yobisute basis because, well, propriety, what’s that? (The fact Kouichi also does this is a sign that he’s not actually a particularly deferential person, and any “shyness” just comes from the circumstances of how he met the others.) The only exception is Tomoki, who’s fully conscious of his status as the youngest and thus properly attaches a “-san” to everyone’s names, except for Takuya who’s “Takuya-oniichan” due to Takuya becoming his honorary older brother for the time being.

In terms of hierarchy, Takuya, Izumi, Kouji, and Kouichi are all fifth-graders, with Junpei as the sole sixth-grader and Tomoki as a third-grader. Junpei being the oldest means that everyone should be respecting him akin to Jou in Adventure or Miyako in 02, but the Frontier kids being the Frontier kids, well...nobody actually does that, and for the most part everyone treats each other like peers. Tomoki, on the other hand, admits to having actively milked his status as a young kid and depending on others in the past (from episode 25) -- and the undeniable fact is that he is that much younger, with a recurring theme around him being the others’ different ways of giving him guidance (such as Takuya and Kouji’s argument in episode 7, in which Takuya’s older brother instincts were up against Kouji’s concerns they were spoiling him too much).

So for all intents and purposes, they treat each other as five peers and one younger kid they need to be role models for. Kouji does start alternating between yobisute and “nii-san” with Kouichi after they’d properly met, but this is more of a gesture of Kouji getting used to the idea of having an older twin brother, because in practice they treat each other as equals because, after all, they’re twins who probably had a very miniscule space of time difference in age. (All of the drama CDs and other post-series material have dropped the “nii-san”.) In fact, Izumi lording a three-month difference over Takuya in episode 2 is absolutely portrayed as petty; it’d be one thing if there were an actual school year of difference, but three months don’t justify why Takuya should suddenly be obligated to treat her like an experienced older sister.

Savers

Savers revolves around a government agency, where a lot of the hierarchy (complete with formal titles and enforced order respect) is enforced by default whether anyone likes it or not, but there’s still some room for leeway in there:

Masaru just does not care for propriety at all; not only does he playfully call himself “Daimon Masaru-sama” at times, he also skips straight to yobisute with both Yoshino and Tohma, despite the fact Yoshino is a whole four years older than him and Tohma is his senior at DATS. (A whole fuss is made in episode 3 about Masaru trying to claim Tohma should be respecting him as DATS senior, only to find out that Tohma predates him in experience, and therefore Masaru should be respecting Tohma in turn -- which Masaru proceeds to not do.) Of course, it’s mostly him being a punk, but he also does end up coming around and becoming genuinely friendly with them. That said, Masaru does respect his mother a lot, calls her the casual-but-not-overly-rude “kaa-san”, and even repeatedly gets irritated at Agumon for using yobisute with her.

Since Masaru tends to be a target of evaluation for a lot of people (and Digimon) in the narrative, they usually refer to him with his full name “Daimon Masaru” with no added honorific (it has a bit of a condescending nuance in that it seems like they’re evaluating him more than they’re speaking with him personally).

Tohma is more diligent about his honorifics, including calling Yoshino “Yoshino-san” and Yushima “Yushima-san” (in contrast, Masaru keeps calling him things like “the old man with the Digivice”), befitting his more formal and proper upbringing. The exception is Masaru, whom Tohma moved to yobisute with once they’d figured out their initial spat.

Yoshino is properly respectful with her superiors and elders, but doesn’t care much for propriety around Masaru and Tohma and refers to them with yobisute (presumably because they’re younger than her...and cause trouble for her a lot).

Ikuto was not raised in Japanese society and therefore never bothers with honorifics despite almost everyone in the narrative being older than him.

Chika is diligent about her honorifics for everyone older, although, interestingly, she starts calling Tohma “Tohma-kun” once they get to know each other, despite the fact Tohma is four years older than her. This is something you can do with an older person if you’re sufficiently close with them, as a way to not be quite as rough as yobisute but not be as distant as “-san” can feel, so Chika’s basically indicating that she’s accepted Tohma’s offer to get along but doesn’t want to be too invasive.

Interestingly, the very polite Sayuri refers to her husband as “Suguru-san”, the implication being that it’s become somewhat of an affectionate nickname she speaks of him with. (Suguru has Sayuri on yobisute.)

Satsuma and Yushima ultimately seem to consider themselves familiar enough with their subordinates to use yobisute, and Miki and Megumi generally do too (barring the “Tohma-sama” when he first returns to DATS in episode 3 and they initially fangirl over him).

The fact Kurata constantly uses polite Japanese and is very diligent with his honorifics (especially with Tohma) to project a veneer of civilized politeness only serves to make him come off as even more sickening.

Xros Wars (including Hunters)

Taiki for the most part treats everyone on yobisute basis, more in a friendly than impudent manner (he just doesn’t really care for propriety). Akari and Zenjirou, meanwhile, have him on yobisute (although Zenjirou, still considering Taiki his “rival”, still likes to call him by full name “Kudou Taiki” quite often), whereas they use “Nene-san” and “Kiriha-kun” for the other two Generals. Kiriha’s blunt enough to go for the yobisute in turn, but Nene is diligent about her honorifics (”Taiki-kun”, etc.), going along with her more elegant and graceful personality.

Things get interesting with Hunters; while Taiki’s juniors (Tagiru, Yuu, Ryouma) use yobisute with each other, they all refer to him as “Taiki-san” due to their respect for him -- really, as much as Tagiru’s rough around the edges, he does seem to implicitly acknowledge and respect Taiki as someone above him. In Ryouma’s case, since he has a very formal and refined personality, his use of yobisute for everyone might just be because he’s particularly close with Ren and Airu, and eventually with Tagiru as a rival of sorts.

As far as school years go, we know Taiki, Kiriha, and Zenjirou are first-years in middle school (second-years in Hunters), Akari and Yuu sixth-graders in elementary school (first-year middle school in Hunters), and Tagiru in the same year as Yuu (first-year middle school in Hunters). Interestingly, we don’t know anything about Ryouma/Airu/Ren’s ages, nor even about Nene’s (other than the fact she’s older than Yuu), so it seems that beyond Taiki, hierarchy never really played much of a role in the story.

Appmon

Appmon has a tight group dynamic not unlike 02 and Frontier, so we get a bit more of a web:

Interestingly, our most honorific-adherent character in the core group is none other than Haru, who’s polite and respectful enough to use honorifics on everyone, with Yuujin as the only exception (because the two of them have been close for such a long time). Amusingly, Haru respects Astra’s desire to be called by his AppTuber name but still insists on attaching the honorific (”Astra-kun”). He also does call Rei “Rei-kun” despite Rei being a year older, but this is likely a case similar to Tohma and Chika in that Haru wants to be respectful with him but also doesn’t want to be as distant as “-san” would imply. (That or he doesn’t know how old Rei is; it’s unlikely Rei’s going to school right now, and there probably weren’t a lot of opportunities to talk about this.)

Astra impudently goes ahead and put everyone on yobisute basis despite the fact they're all two to three years older than him (including Rei), which is especially amusing considering that he uses the most stiffly polite and respectful form of Japanese when at home.

Eri is somewhere in between, using yobisute for Haru, Rei, and Yuujin because of closeness, and even nicknaming Astra "Tora" the way his family does, but she does call Hajime "Hajime-kun" upon meeting him.

Rei, edgelord that he is, insists on calling everyone by full name at all times, without exception. (Well, one exception if you count Hajime.)

Yuujin is a bit more upfront than Haru and uses yobisute for both Haru and Astra (does a nickname count as yobisute?). He does call Eri “Eri-san” in episode 18, but it’s unclear whether it’s because he didn’t really know her that well at the time, since he hadn’t joined the group yet.

Ai and Hajime, our two “guest” kids, are unfailingly polite, with Hajime applying “-san” to everyone and speaking politely in a way that would make Hida Iori proud, and Ai diligently sticking to her "-kun" and "-san". Amusingly enough, everyone who has ever said Ai’s name in-series has always called her “Ai-chan”. (Because she’s just that cute?)

In terms of hierarchy: Eri and Rei are the same age (14 at the start of the series), Haru, Yuujin, Ai, and Watson are one year younger (13 at the start of the series), Astra is the only elementary school student, and Hajime is 8 at the start of the series. In general, though, much like 02, the kids don’t seem to pay much mind to it; despite having the biggest age gap in the group, Astra and Eri bicker like peers, and Eri is in a similar position to Miyako in that despite her position as the oldest, she doesn’t seem to put conscious thought into the idea of needing to take responsibility for everyone -- and moreover Rei has way more things to worry about than propriety. So although the hierarchy is recognized by everyone around them, the kids themselves don’t enforce it at all.

Adventure:

Okay, well, technically this is Adventure brand, but it’s functionally a different series so I’ll put it here. For the most part, the hierarchy mirrors the one from the original Adventure, but there are some differences in accordance with some of the characters’ personality changes:

Taichi does easily acknowledge Jou as his senior and calls him “Jou-senpai” during the series -- something that original Taichi would never (this infamously gave a ton of Japanese fans whiplash). Likewise, Koushirou uses "Jou-senpai" in this series, something he never did in the original Adventure either (in what could be interpreted as him latently not being too enthusiastic to see Jou as a model senior, or at least him prioritizing seeing Jou more as a group member over a school senior).

Yamato starts off on surname basis with the characters, due to putting up an emotional wall; it’s only around the episode 20 mark or so when he starts switching to given name. (This one also gave a ton of Japanese fans whiplash, since in the original Adventure, Yamato was openly friendly enough to go for given name basis from the get-go.)

While Mimi still uses honorifics the same way her original incarnation did, she’s much more willing to talk back to her elders and even drag them around. Since this version of Mimi is very conscious of her high-society status, it seems she uses the honorifics more as part of her high-society, formal upbringing instead of her being particularly deferential to the others in practice, whereas the original version of Mimi genuinely was very deferential and careful to not overstep boundaries.

Jou does use “-kun” with the boys instead of yobisute, implying that he’s not willing to be abrupt, especially since he does try to flaunt his status as the eldest and as a dignified honor student more than the original Jou ever would. The original version of Jou used “-kun” with the girls only, implying that he mainly just wanted to avoid the negative associations with an older boy being too rough with a younger girl, and otherwise he was willing to be casual to an extent and even use “-chan” for the nine-year-old Hikari.

Ghost Game

Like Haru, Hiro has a very polite temperament, but interestingly it seems to also have a nuance of him being less deferential (unlike Haru, he still uses the assertive ore as his first-person pronoun) and more that he’s trying to keep a polite sense of distance. If Ruli hadn't actively told him to cut it out and use yobisute in episode 4, Hiro likely would have kept her on "Tsukiyono-san" basis, especially because he refers to Kiyoshirou purely with a plain “senpai”. Ruli, on the other hand, not only deliberately breaks the ice with Hiro but also goes ahead and starts nicknaming Kiyoshirou, whereas Kiyoshirou, being someone who practically demands propriety, still uses overly formal surname-and-honorific basis “Amanokawa-kun” and “Tsukiyono-san” despite them obviously having gotten quite a bit closer than that.

Hiro and Ruli are both the same age (first-year in middle school), while Kiyoshirou is one year above them (second-year), although his experience in grad school definitely puts him several years of educational experience above both of them. Of course, not only are both Hiro and Ruli actively aware of Kiyoshirou's status as "senior" above them, they also actively milk that status to convince him to be more responsible, which he eats up because (much like Jou before him) he genuinely believes in that concept of responsibility just as much.

#digimon #digimon mutli series talk #shihameta

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homosexuhauls · 3 years

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Joanna Moorhead

Culture of silencing any challenge to prevailing ideology is damaging academic freedom, says professor

The press release that accompanies Prof Kathleen Stock’s new book says she wants to see a future in which trans rights activists and gender-critical feminists collaborate to achieve some of their political aims. But she concedes that this currently seems fanciful. As far as she is concerned, the book, Material Girls, sets out her stall – and she knows a lot of people will find it distasteful.

Stock, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, says the key question she addresses – itself offensive to many – is this: do trans women count as women?

Whatever else about her views is controversial, she is surely on firm ground when she writes that this question has become surrounded by toxicity. But the problem for her is, at least partly, that many people do anything they can to avoid answering it. “Very few people who are sceptical talk about it directly, because they’re frightened,” she says. “It’s so hard psychologically to say, in reply: ‘I’m afraid not.’”

Stock is at pains to say she is not a transphobe, and also that she is sympathetic to the idea that many people feel they are not in the “right” body. What she says she opposes, though, is the institutionalisation of the idea that gender identity is all that matters – that how you identify automatically confers all the entitlements of that sex. And she believes that increasingly in universities and the wider world, that is a view that cannot be challenged.

“There’s a taboo against saying this, but it’s what I believe,” she says. “It’s fair enough if people want to disagree with me, but this is what I think.”

That last statement is loaded, too, because the gender identity row is closely linked, especially on university campuses, with freedom of speech. Campuses are a minefield for those wanting to discuss these issues, she says, and she has faced calls for her university to sack her. So she is supportive of the government’s controversial plans for a free speech bill, which critics including English PEN, Article 19 and Index on Censorship have argued will have the opposite effect.

In a joint letter, they argued that the legislation “may have the inverse effect of further limiting what is deemed ‘acceptable’ speech on campus and introducing a chilling effect both on the content of what is taught and the scope of academic research exploration”.

But Stock backs the bill: “I think vice-chancellors and university management groups have shown that they can’t manage the modern problems around suppression of academic freedom. I think there are some genuine instances of unfair treatment of controversial academics, and those academics should be able to seek meaningful redress.”

This week the University of Essex apologised to two professors, Jo Phoenix and Rosa Freedman, after an independent inquiry found the university had breached its free speech duties when their invitations or talks were cancelled after student complaints.

Stock grew up in Montrose, Scotland, the daughter of a philosophy lecturer and a newspaper proofreader, and studied for her degree at Exeter College, Oxford, going on to do an MA at the University of St Andrews and a PhD at Leeds.

Having come out as gay relatively late in life, she now lives in Sussex with her partner and two sons from her previous marriage. She regards her OBE, awarded earlier this year for services to higher education, as a signal that her views have at least some backing in the establishment.

“Academics being online, students being online – it’s introduced a whole new landscape for dealing with controversial ideas, especially when those ideas are controversial within your peer group or a student body. Threats to academic freedom don’t just come from China, or millionaires trying to buy a library wing for your college; they also come from students whipping up a petition within seconds of you saying something and trying to get you fired.”

Sometimes, she claims, it is more insidious than sackings: “For academics [the gender identity debate] has a chilling effect, because academics believe their careers may suffer in ways that are less visible: they don’t get promoted, or they’re removed from an editorial board.” The net result of all this, she says, is an impoverishment of ideas and knowledge, and damage to the dissemination of information.

Because another of Stock’s key arguments in her book is that her own profession, academia, has failed to look in detail at some claims made by trans activists. She questions some of the data that gets shared regarding violence against trans people, saying that a lot of it is produced by groups that adhere to a particular narrative.

“I don’t doubt that transphobic crime occurs, but I want to know to what extent it occurs in a way that could help the trans community better understand the problem it faces.” She’s disappointed, she says, in some fellow academics for not rising above the fray. “I thought the point of philosophy was that you would be able to argue things without resorting to ad hominem attacks – I thought that was the point of our training.”

How, then, in her view, have we got to where we are? Stock takes issue with Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, which campaigns for trans inclusion and opposes the views of gender-critical feminists. The charity’s Diversity Champions programme is very popular on campuses, and Stock believes this has in part “turned universities into trans activist organisations” through their equality, diversity and inclusion departments.

Beyond this, the introduction of student fees has played its part in the current situation, Stock believes. “As soon as students started to pay, they became customers, and universities became much more deferential. They started talking about coproduction of knowledge, giving them much more choice over the whole experience.” The problem with that, she believes, is that “some young people come along with fixed ideas about gender identity theory, and it’s awkward – especially when universities are branding themselves as LGBT-friendly and queer-friendly.”

Philosophy is a vast space, most of it without risk of abuse. So what keeps her in this particular arena? “I was bullied as a child and I think that gave me experience of social ostracisation and toughened me up,” she says. “I’ve also got amazing support. Sure, some philosophers and colleagues are against my views, but others are very supportive.

“Plus it’s personal for me: I’ve struggled with my body in terms of femininity. I could easily aged 15 have decided I was non-binary or even a boy. And I feel very worried for teenagers who are now foreclosing reproductive possibilities and their future, or damaging their bodily tissues in irreversible ways, based on an idea that they may come to relinquish at a later date.”

One tragedy of the gender identity debate is how hate-filled and polarised it has become. Stock says she has suffered online abuse, but makes it clear that she is going to continue to state her case.

Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock is published by Fleet

#Kathleen Stock #gender critical #material girls #radical feminism #philosophy #radfem safe #was pleasantly surprised to see this in the guardian #although jfc could you walk on egg shells more

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anghraine · 3 years

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While I’m thinking of dream adaptations, some details about my ideal adaptation of Pride and Prejudice:

The tone is lighthearted, with an undercurrent of seriousness.

The 20-something characters are all played by 20-something actors, the teen characters by mid-to-late-teen actors, and Mrs Gardiner by a 30-something actress; the others should be in their 40s or 50s, depending.

Jane is noticeably heavier and more beautiful than Elizabeth, who in turn is mildly pretty; Wickham is staggeringly pretty, and Darcy is very classically handsome and tall.

It’s set in the mid- to late-1790s. Some concessions to modern sensibilities are fine, but that’s the general aesthetic.

Elizabeth’s demeanour is usually lively and courteous, with a slight sweetness that makes it easy to see why she’s so generally liked.

LET. DARCY. SMILE.

(not tight polite little smiles, either; Elizabeth identifies the smile in his painting, done when his beloved father was alive, as the same one he used to direct at her—we should be able to tell that he likes being around her)

coffee scene coffee scene coffee scene

Georgiana a) is not small and delicate, b) is deeply shy and anxious, and c) is aware that Darcy likes Elizabeth, but no more than that. Her manner towards Darcy is both deferential and affectionate, while he’s both protective and encouraging towards her.

Mrs Bennet is neither the lone voice of reason nor a shrieking caricature.

Lady Catherine is also not a caricature (there might be a touch of sympathize-able bitterness to her saying that daughters never matter much to their fathers), though very funny at points.

We feel Mr Bennet’s quirky charm, but it also doesn’t shy away from his essential failures.

Pemberley should be grand and idyllic but not ornate—a very clear step up from Longbourn and Netherfield, but not a palace by any means. We see that Darcy has Georgiana’s crayon drawings stuck with his art collections.

We’d get some of the moments when Darcy talks affectionately of Georgiana, as Elizabeth remembers later.

It would focus on Elizabeth’s character arc above all else, with the central turning point being her response to Darcy’s proposal and then to his letter. We rarely if ever see Darcy where he doesn’t appear in the novel, though Darcy/Elizabeth remains the core dynamic of the story.

Bingley isn’t an intellectual giant, but he’s not stupid or vacuous, and has a lot of personal charm.

The Bingley sisters can be catty, but when they have their good manners on, they seem pleasant enough—not saccharine.

Jane is very sweetly and graciously stubborn.

Justice for Elizabeth’s parasol and watch!!

It’s my dream adaptation, so we actually get some of the engagement scenes (with Elizabeth writing her ‘Jane only smiles, I laugh’ letter) and conclude with the Darcys and Gardiners at Pemberley.

Consequently, the Gardiners would need to be fairly important characters—we’d build up to them actually appearing.

tbh it would be hilarious if we got whatever random people went on to Mrs Gardiner about how hot Darcy is.

It’s not necessary, but I would be really entertained by inclusion of Darcy’s smug gardener + Darcy and Mr Gardiner geeking out over a plant.

Darcy is fully dressed at all times. He is neither shy nor brooding.

Mary’s obnoxiousness isn’t dialed down—she’s not just a tragically underappreciated geek.

We wouldn’t soft-coat Lydia’s personality (she’s still grating, short-sighted, and selfish), but we’d definitely feel how screwed-up her fate is.

Charlotte’s is appalling in its own way, but not a grand tragedy, and Charlotte herself is clearly intelligent and perceptive.

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debbierhea · 3 years

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and the world around us shatters / better call saul / wc: 2392 / kimmy jimmy omaha cinnabon reunion / special thanks to @kimberly-wexler for the beta <3

Summary:

She’d been searching. For years.

She’d been searching. For years. Hired a PI and then another. Scoured every database she had credentialed access to and then a few she didn’t. Even adopted a cat to soothe the loneliness, lull the throbbing emptiness she felt in her chest. She’d had one as a girl once, a stray really, whom she loved. But this cat was as sulky and capricious as she had become and no matter how committed she was to ignoring it, the ulterior motive of pet adoption was glaring, if not to anyone else, to her.

After three months of No. Not like this. You can’t. Leave it alone. Don’t get involved, the ill-tempered tabby was Kim’s foot in the door. It was a Thursday when she sat across from his veterinarian, cat on the exam table, and said, “I need your help.”

“What kind of help are we talking?” He eyed her, stroked the tabby between her ears.

“I’m looking for someone.” Silence followed.

“You’re gonna have to give me a little more than that.”

“You know him. Jimmy McGill.”

His eyebrows rose. More silence.

“Well, can you help me or not?”

“You know it’s not always a matter of can I help.”

Kim tilted her chin, raised her eyes to meet his, unflinching. “Does that mean you won’t help me?”

“Hm?” The cat was purring into his hand, licking his thumb. “Oh, no. Just that my price may be something you’re unwilling to pay.”

She swallowed. “That’s not possible.”

“Okay then,” he nodded, stuck out his hand. She shook it.

Now, she was wandering through a sea of midwesterners in puffy coats and mittens, dusting snow off their shoulders, chattering about the weather. She hasn’t been back to this part of the country in years and it oddly feels like a homecoming, though she stopped considering Nebraska home the moment she left. It was simply a place she had lived, never one that offered family or comfort or love. There were sparse memories of joy with the odd classmate and a fond recollection of the first grade teacher who encouraged her to read, helped her get her very own library card. But now as then, there never existed a sense of ease or belonging for her. Even so, the familiarity of the Casey’s General Store on the corner, the Runzas on menus across state rest stops, the flurries of snow reddening her nose and chilling her bones, fostered a small flame of hope deep inside. She could still recognize, even find comfort in, a place she so detested. After the passage of so many years, this place was still the same and, underneath the new high rises and parking meters and sushi restaurants, she could see the bones of this city. Maybe the same could hold true for other things in her life.

Looking over the map in the lobby, she cupped her hands before her mouth and blew into them. The chill rested deep inside her, the hope she fostered in her heart doing little to warm her weary bones. All her work was to lead to this: trudging up the tiled stairs in damp snow boots surrounded by people who knew nothing about pain, not really. Not pain like hers.

She smelled it before she saw it, curving with the second floor walkway past storefront after storefront of clothes and books and knick knacks. She had just side-stepped the man trying to give free lotion samples when the warmth of cinnamon and sugar wafted over her. Her footsteps stuttered and her gait slowed. It was like watching a car whose engine was stalling out. She was light-headed, unable to string a thought together, parse out what she was feeling in her body besides a deep urge to run. Her therapist would tell her that she wanted to run because of her fear of being vulnerable and then being left behind. Again. Kim pushed hair that had fallen loose of her ponytail behind her ear, took three deep breaths, and followed her nose.

A small line stood in front of the cash register, three or four people, waiting for a treat to get them through their holiday shopping. She contemplated her next step from across the food court. Anticipation fluttered through her, givinggave rise to goosebumps beneath her layers of knit and down. Then further, deeper, beneath the adrenaline, lived something twisting and gnawing inside of her chest. She knew this thing like she knew the location of every security camera at the Hinky Dinky or the route she took home after school when her mom got too lost in the liquor aisle to remember to pick her up. This thing she knew was fear—fear of hope, of the inevitable ache of a further bruised heart. She crossed the food court despite it.

Trying to slip back into her midwestern skin, move through this world unassuming and deferential, she stood to the right of the registers, observing the ebb and flow of workers behind the glass. Dough was being kneaded by one, another opened an oven to check the progress of the bake. A third manned the register. A second till was sat unused, cash drawer open and empty. She stood there, just outside the current of customers, twitching her chapped fingers, tapping them against the inside of her own palm. He used to tease her for it. Five minutes passed, then ten. The line grew longer. Her flame of hope was waning.

Then, a voice—a bellow, more like—broke through the low hum of conversation in the food court.

“Coming! I’m coming, Miranda!” Kim froze.

A man in an apron and mustache came through the door marked “Employees Only” and made his way to the front of the store, a full cash drawer in his hands.

“Sorry! For some reason the safe just wouldn’t open.”

Kim was drifting through the crowd, pulled toward his voice. Her eyes began to burn.

“Here are some quarters for you. I figured you might be running low.” His eyes flicked up, scanning the crowd, estimating how many rolls they should throw into the oven. “I’ll open this one up and—,” his roaming gaze stopped. “And I, uh....”

She swallowed, her throat tight, eyes glassy. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He stood, slack jawed, staring.

“Um, Miranda I—Just, uh, just take this,” he handed the cash drawer to the teenager standing next to him, eyes never leaving Kim’s. “I’ll be right back.”

His shoes squeaked as he made his way around the counter and out into the seating area of the restaurant. Kim hadn’t moved, stunned like a deer in headlights on a Nebraska back road. He seemed as though he was moving in slow motion, each step towards her an eternity, and yet it was still not long enough to prepare herself for him to be standing directly in front of her. She felt like she’d just fallen through the ice into a glacial lake. No, she hadn’t fallen. She’d jumped. On purpose. And broke through.

He stood there, inches from her; she could see the gray in his mustache. He paused, just for a moment, then said, “Follow me.”

And she did.

They weaved in and out of tables and shoppers and janitors picking up fast food wrappers off the floor. He glanced back at her once, as if he was scared she wouldn’t be there behind him, as if she hadn’t been following him, chasing him, for what felt like her whole life. He led them down a hallway, empty save for a woman waiting on a bench between two bathroom doors, one labeled with a dress, the other a tie. Kim gave her a close-mouthed smile.

Jimmy stopped abruptly, reaching for the door to the family restroom. He held it open, looked into her eyes. Kim gave the woman another glance, cheeks reddening, and walked through the door before she could think or feel or do anything that would make her stop herself. She moved towards the far, tiled wall and as she turned, heard the clicking of the door’s latch, then the lock.

He paused then, there, gripping the door handle, his head resting against its grain. His body was tense, coiled and bound and, she realized, foreign to her. Stooped shoulders, billowing polo, slight waist cinched by an apron. Even from behind, he looked bleary, posture like a drooping flower on the sill. What happened to him?

Kim was grateful for this pause he was granting her. Everything seemed to be moving at a pace she was incapable of matching, an emotional marathon she had not trained for; she never did have much emotional stamina outside of simply holding them all in, like a child holding their breath in the deep end of the pool.

Then, he turned.

He was just as unfamiliar from the front as he was from behind, cheeks a bit sallow and stippled with five o’clock shadow, wiry glasses. His nametag read “Gene.” But Jimmy McGill was still the same in his bones and in the time it takes to exhale that breath you’ve been holding under the gentle waves of your childhood pool, the split second it takes for that breath to form a spray of bubbles racing you to the surface, they were in each other’s arms.

Centered on the yellowing, speckled tile, they grasped at shoulders and elbows, knees knocked, tears fell. Finally, Kim slipped her arms around his ribs and clutched him to her chest, nails digging into cotton and, beneath, soft skin. His face caught between shoulder and neck, he inhaled the scent of her, goosebumps rising as her puffy, down sleeves brushed against his bare arms. His hands roamed her back, skidding and sliding across slick fabric. It felt as if his hands had been frozen and he had finally found the fire he’s sought to warm them. Sneaking his right hand up and up and under the thick wool of her scarf, he hesitated just a moment before placing his fingertips to the soft skin of her neck. She gasped, a sob drawn out on a breath. His left hand pushed into the small of her back. She pulled him in tighter.

They held each other there, flushed and desperate and weepy, for a time—how long, neither could say. As the hand rubbing her back would slow, she would squeeze his middle gently as if to say Not yet and he would answer with gentle pressure between her shoulder blades. When her grip on him would loosen, his fingers would drift into the hairs at the base of her neck, pulling her impossibly closer, and she would let him. This is how they stayed, questioning and answering each other as only they could with little more than a sigh passing through their lips.

Then, Kim began to pull gently away. He stiffened the moment he sensed her movement from him, but she did not try to leave his embrace, this wasn’t her intention, not truly. She only wanted to see his dear face, maybe say hello. Placing one hand on his chest, she leaned ever so slightly back as his arms moved to circle her waist. Tears clung to his lashes and dripped from the tip of his nose. He swallowed hard as her eyes roamed his face, different but somehow entirely the same. She felt like she was back in the HHM parking garage bumming a smoke from the new guy in the mailroom. Hundreds of days and miles from then, he was still hers.

Bringing both hands up, cupping his jaw, brushing his cheekbones with the pads of her thumbs, she smiled. “Jimmy.”

At this, his eyes closed, Kim holding him tenderly in her palms. He hasn’t heard that name in years. When was the last time he thought of himself as anyone other than Saul Goodman? Saul the criminal defense attorney. Saul on the run. Saul posing as a Cinnabon manager. More tears fell free.

Removing his hands from her waist, he held her delicate wrists, one in each hand, his thumbs mimicking her caress across his skin. She gave the slightest tilt of her head and he answered with a reed-thin voice, a sad smile, “It’s you.”

She knitted her perfectly arched brows, that tell-tale wrinkle emerging between them, her eyes soft and wet, red-rimmed. She bit her lip and began to shake her head, never removing her gaze from his. After a moment, she smiled again, smaller this time, lips closed, and slipped one hand smoothly into his, the other onto his shoulder, not willing to break contact.

“Sorry it took me so long.”

More tears welled in Jimmy’s eyes as he rolled them to the ceiling, heart aching.

“Kim…I…”

“I know.” A pause. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Baby, I know.”

From shoulder back to his neck, Kim guided Jimmy with her hand, resting his forehead against her own, meeting in the middle, holding him there.

“Oh god—” a sob broke from deep in his chest.

Kim stroked his neck, shoulder, face, back. Jimmy wept.

Tears darkened the collar of his polo shirt and the tremors running through his body prompted Kim to wrap herself around him once more, burying her nose in his neck, focusing on the sickly-sweet scent of yeasted dough rising, cinnamon, and icing sugar over the pain so fierce living in the main between her arms.

As all things do with time, his sobs became weaker and fewer, until his breathing returned to a shallow, exhausted inhale, sniffly exhale. Kim lifted him from her shoulder and he raised his eyes towards hers. Her lips twitched, and then she brought them to his cheek. One, then the other, over and over, like salve to a wound she covered his drying tear tracks with her lips. Gentle and soft, like the flap of a butterfly’s wings did she kiss him. And then, she centered herself, hand threading into his hair, she moved to his lips.

“Kim,” he whispered, a breath from her lips.

“Yes?”

“What if you’ve come all this way to find someone who…doesn’t exist. Not anymore.”

Again, Kim knit her brows and shook her head. She placed her right hand over his heart, lifted her shoulders gently in a shrug.

“It’s you.”

#better call saul #bcs #mcwexler #my fic

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