#// though it's fascinating to think he took on administration duties when really he should be out there

[pr4yerp0sition]

There's something so glorious about Isamu having the Sorcerer name of the Iron Heart. It's not because of his strength but his genuine pureness when it comes to giving. Isamu is meant to represent a love that shall never ask, he can recognize suffering && all those who are unlovable, marred, or scared tend to be recognized by him. It stems so deeply from his abilities as a medium who at a young age heard the dead speak, sing, wished to be acknowledged. Though it terrified him, he did just that, sung right back. He's so utterly terrifying looking at times, cold, scathing, then he smiles with a warmth of the sun && remembers all the little details you think he will forget.

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Fever Dream

(Written for @sicktember prompt #1 - Fever! I finished it in time for the first but didn't have the energy to edit.)

--

Angels didn’t get sick, precisely

They didn’t have bodies that were, strictly speaking, physical, and therefore couldn’t harbor any of the illnesses that plagued mankind and other earthly creatures.

An angel could, however, burn through enough of his own grace that his corporation began to malfunction.

He would then, as it were, fall ill.

This happened to Aziraphale far more often than to other angels.

A weak constitution was the general explanation; too much time mucking about on the strange old planet, not enough time bathing in the glorious healing light of the celestial sphere.

When he was down on Earth, he was always prying, poking, trying new things, many of which had never been approved, could have any manner of ill effects. He knew he should show some proper restraint, withdraw a bit more from the world, but he couldn’t help himself.

And when he did return to huddle miserably in a recovery ward, waiting for the chills to pass and his temperature to stabilize, Gabriel would always visit, dropping broad hints about the pressures of fieldwork and the under appreciated glory of a solid administrative career. Offering all kinds of advice as to what, exactly, a proper angel would cut out of his life if he wished to better focus on his ordained duties.

And so, when the symptoms next came upon him—muscle aches, irritability, sweat and chills until he didn’t know if he was hot or cold—Aziraphale decided to wait it out on Earth. It would only take a few days to recover and, anyway, he had business to attend to. Important business that could not wait.

“Angel, are you sure you’re alright?” Crowley demanded, a glint of gold just visible between black lenses and furrowed brow.

“Yes, I’m perf—” he turned his head to cough lightly, but an odd spasm came over his throat, transforming it into something deep and hacking that left his ribs aching and his brow dripping with sweat. “…tickety-boo,” he muttered, turning back to his mug.

“Keep it down,” hissed the demon, glancing around the common room of the inn. Perhaps one or two people had glanced over, but nothing out of the ordinary. “People will think you have the plague.” The last two words he barely mouthed.

“My dear fellow, do be serious. I have hardly any symptoms of the plague.” Only the last part sounded more like sybtobs otha blayyyg.

He cleared his throat and tried to sniff, which started a complicated chain reaction that ended with a mouthful of what he hoped was spit.

As Aziraphale’s eyes went wide with alarm, Crowley quickly pulled out a deep red handkerchief, which the angel gratefully spat into. Unsure what to do next, Aziraphale folded it over and offered it back, but Crowley leaned away, face contorted in horror.

“Oh, ah… thank you, then?” He took a quick glance inside and immediately wished he hadn’t, grimacing at the color of what his body had produced.

“Just… just eat your soup,” Crowley muttered, waving a hand at the bowl he’d been toying with until it was hardly above room temperature.

Aziraphale had ordered it thinking a bit of warmth would be lovely, as he’d been shivering fit for midwinter morning. But after one mouthful, he’d found himself sweating, tugging at his collar to relieve some of the heat. Now he could feel the shivers coming on again, but he couldn’t warm it back up. Until the illness passed, any miracles would just make it worse.

“Right,” Crowley said as Aziraphale poked at something that might have been a parsnip. “I’m going to be out of town for the next few weeks. Temptations all up and down the continent. Might take the rest of the season. Unless…” Using that lilting voice that suggested a coin flip might be imminent.

“Mmmh.” Aziraphale looked mournfully into his beer, finally hazarding another sip. The taste of hops struck him at the back of the throat and he quickly expelled the rest back into the mug. “Sorry, m’dear. Not this time. I got…” he waved his hand, waiting for the rest of the words. They didn’t appear to be forthcoming. “Things,” he finally said. “In the city. Until at least…” He rubbed his forehead, but it was hard to think when it was so cold. He pulled his heavy coat back on, bundling up.

“Oh, well. Things. Obviously can’t take you away from things.” Aziraphale nodded miserably, trying to focus on his bowl. “Angel, look,” and as Crowley leaned close, there was something new in his voice, something that sounded rather like concern. “You sure you’re alright? I mean, there’s nothing… nobody…”

Aziraphale blinked, his eyes feeling… sticky. What was Crowley getting at? He should really be more direct, clever Serpent, it was hard enough to think in all this heat. He struggled out of his coat, dabbing uselessly at the sweat on his forehead.

“Oh for Satan’s—are you cursed?” He hissed the last word even softer than he’d said plague.

“No,” the angel said, resting his head on his hand until his neck recovered enough strength to hold it up again. “M’not. S’just… things!”

In his attempt to gesture with both hands, Aziraphale forgot one was already occupied and very nearly wound up face-first in the soup.

“Azir—!” Crowley rounded the table in an instant, tugging him upright again. “What has come over you?”

“S’rry. People staring? S’not… not… proper.”

“Angel, you’re—you’re burning up!”

“Not. S’cold.” Then an icy hand touched his forehead and cheek, and Aziraphale groaned, trying to pull away.

“What the Heaven is going on?”

“Toldya. Things. Illness. From… from…” he tried to gesture with one arm, but it weighed too much to lift. “Being a… bad angel…”

A heavy sigh. “C’mere, you.” Crowley hauled him to his feet.

Aziraphale was pleased to find he could stand, just that his spinning head and aching limbs made it unpleasant. He couldn’t remember where he was supposed to go, but there was something solid nearby to lean on and a hand on his waist, guiding him forward.

It wasn’t until they reached the stairs that he realized something wasn’t right. “Crowley! This is—we—we can’t—where—what are you—”

“I’ve got a room upstairs.”

Aziraphale squinted dimly towards the upper floor. “Yes…?”

“Yes. And you, Angel, are in need of a bed.”

But.

But it was improper! Scandalous, even, talking of rooms, and beds, or rooms andbeds, or any combination thereof, particularly in the singular form. What if someone saw? An angel and a demon, bad enough, but two allegedly respectable gentlemen?

Or, wait, was one of them currently presenting as a woman? Likely not Aziraphale, though he sometimes lost track, but Crowley, well, that could also be hard to tell, but he seemed to have a good amount of jewelry and no facial hair, so there was a chance.

Still, male or female, angel or human, there would be rumor, gossip, talk about the town! It would get back to Heaven! This was worse than being thought weak and improper, Gabriel would think him some sort of reprobate!

Crowley paused, one hand on a door. “This is me. Um. I’ll go back down if it makes you feel better.”

What? And have all the rumor with none of the satisfaction? The shame of spending a night in a demon’s bed without the pleasures—oh, he knew what Crowley got up to. One of the Seven Sins that was, and Aziraphale would not be tempted into joining. No, not he!

“Right. Nh. Going to help you out of some of these layers, then I’ll go.”

Go? Go?After Aziraphale had come all this way, come so very close? No, he’d spent centuries imagining how it would be, and he’d never be truly satisfied until he had a reality to compare it to. Aziraphale very much wanted to know what Crowley looked like while he slept.

Yes, Crowley, Sloth is one of the Seven Sins, a demon should know these things.

And while Aziraphale had the general idea clear enough, he still had questions. Did Crowley snore, or did he breathe softly? He certainly would sleep on his side, curled up, but how heavy would his head be, pillowed on Aziraphale’s chest? If they talked, would his words become slurred as he drifted off, or would he listen quietly while Aziraphale spoke, running his fingers through bright red hair?

Come to that, how did his hair feel, or his cheek, or his lips? Aziraphale hadn’t thought much about lips, generally, but now that Crowley was always hiding his eyes, well, they had become the focus of his face, and that presented fascinating possibilities, ones that Gabriel certainly wouldn’t approve of, but he’d always been too curious for his own good. And really, what was a harmless little experiment between—

Oh, good Lord, was Aziraphale talking out loud?

He clapped his hand over his mouth, eyes wide with horror.

But Crowley chuckled, resting a hand on his shoulder; in only his undershirt, he could feel it so clearly—ice cold, but not unpleasantly so. “Your secrets are safe, Angel. Lay down.”

Too embarrassed to object, Aziraphale crawled into the bed and let Crowley pull a blanket over him. “Keep that on, yeah?”

“S’hot,” the angel whined. His voice sounded very odd, slurred, weak. Perhaps that meant Crowley hadn’t understood his rambling before.

“I know. Just try.” Something cool and damp wiped his face and Aziraphale sighed with relief. “Has this happened before?”

“Mmmh. Over an’over an’over.” In Heaven, they would assign him a recovery room, to sit alone and reflect on what he’d done to earn himself the illness, on what he could do to better serve in the future. Gabriel always had good suggestions.

The being alone. That was the worst part. Hated that.

Crowley was talking. Something would be right there, beside the bed. That was probably important, but the angel was already asleep.

In Aziraphale’s dream, Gabriel told him over and over that he’d failed again, that this was his own fault, that he was a terrible angel who didn’t deserve… something.

Possibly anything.Again and again, the Archangel took everything he valued—his books, his sweets, his day at the theater, the beauty of the sunrise, the way humans smiled at each other after many days apart, and something else, something far more important, but the name was forbidden—

Again, something cool pressed to his forehead, his chest. Fingers raked through his hair, helping the sweat to evaporate. “See?” A voice murmured. “Better already.” But everything was getting grey and distant again.

Now Aziraphale was in a room, an enormous room, empty but somehow still cluttered. All the things he loved were here, hidden, and Gabriel ordered him to find them all or they’d be destroyed. He searched frantically, among endless piles of brown packages, and found most of them—books and smiles and sunrises—mixed in with kettles, mittens and (for some reason) cat whiskers. But the last thing, the final thing, the important thing was still missing, and the room grew hotter and hotter—

“Try this now.” Something supported Aziraphale’s back as he sat up, leaning against… a thing… a thing that meant warmth and safety. A mug pressed to his lips. He wasn’t sure what he drank, but it felt good. “Now let’s get you settled again.”

He didn’t go down easily, though, reaching and writhing, somehow grasping the safe thing, pulling it close. If he let it get away, Gabriel would destroy it.

“I see. Alright. You stay there.” Fingers through his hair again, more resting lightly on his shoulder. “I got you. Nothing’s going to—”

Reality tumbled away and he was falling, possibly Falling, the voices of Gabriel and Michael and Uriel all around him, insulting him, taunting him, asking him why he hadn’t filed form HX-3 in triplicate. He clung desperately to the thing he needed as the temperature rose, more voices joining in, every voice. The Hellfire licked at him, even as he trembled and shook uncontrollably. This was the end, he would die here, he’d never said—

“Crowley!” He called, desperate. “Crowley don’t—don’t leave me!”

The thing he held shifted, and now there were arms wrapped around him, protecting him. “There we are. Not going to leave.”

It was too hot to bear, but still he burrowed closer. “Crowley, please. I can’t—I—I need you!”

“Not going anywhere, Angel. Not ever.”

“Crowley!” The Hellfire burst within him, a flash of heat up and down his body, his limbs, his soul—

And then he was… exhausted.

The shaking faded, the heat and cold gone, though he still found himself covered in sweat. Nothing remained but a strange sense of calm.

Still clinging to his lifeline, Aziraphale drifted off into a proper restful sleep.

He opened his eyes to find the late evening sun slanting through an open window. The blanket was largely twisted around his legs and the bed below him was oddly hard and lumpy, even if it was nice—

“You’re looking better.”

Aziraphale scrambled up in horror to find that the thing he’d been laying on—clinging to for dear life—was six feet of rumpled, uncomfortable-looking demon. A demon he vaguely recalled saying some very revealing things to…

“Oh, good Lord.” Aziraphale’s face burned again, but not from fever. He covered, his eyes turning away. “Crowley—you—you—how—”

“Gah! M’sorry!” He heard Crowley push himself upright, sliding away. “I—I—I shouldn’t have—didn’t mean—”

No of course not. It wasn’t as though Crowley shared his strange desires, his secret obsessions, his awful curiosity. Crowley was a—a perfectly normal demon who would have no interest in prolonged contact, particularly with a most clingy, damaged angel…

“What must you think of me?” he moaned.

“Stupid, stupid demon,” Crowley grumbled. “I saw you panicking but I didn’t know—shouldn’t have assumed—”

“What is wrong with me?”

“Crossed a line, and—and now look—”

“I’m a terrible, foolish, needy…”

“Didn’t want to take advantage—I’m sorry!”

“I’m sorry! Wait…” That wasn’t right. Aziraphale cautiously lowered his hands to see Crowley sitting frozen with the glasses halfway to his face. “You’re sorry?”

“Mnh. Yeah. Cuz… cuz I’m the one who…” his eyes dropped. “You seemed upset. Scared. I just… I made it worse, didn’t I? Shoulda known you wouldn’t want…”

“But…” Aziraphale swallowed, trying to recall anything clearly. “I… I seem to remember… propositioning you. Repeatedly.”

Crowley’s face turned red, but he smiled. Not his confident swaggering smirk, but something awkward and genuine that Aziraphale hadn’t seen since Eden. “Not… repeatedly. N’I’d hardly call it… besides it was… you know. But!” His fingers twisted on the metal frames of his glasses. “But, look—I don’t—you aren’t responsible for—for the things you say when you’re sick, ‘specially things you don’t mean—and I—s’my responsibility not to—” He ducked his head even further. “Just wanted to help. Shouldn’t have assumed… that you meant… what I wanted…”

“What…” Aziraphale reached out but couldn’t quite touch him. “What you want?”

“Um.” Golden eyes flicked up. “You’re… not the only one who wondered about… the sleeping stuff. Who doesn’t like to be… alone.” He cleared his throat. “Or, at least, I thought—”

“I believe I told you I needed you.” His hand hovered over Crowley’s shoulder. “I meant that. Precisely the way you took it. I—I meant most of it.”

Crowley’s eyes blinked, very slowly.

And the next moment, they were swept into each other’s arms, Aziraphale once again clinging to his friend like a lifeline. “I don’t think you’re stupid,” he managed.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”

“Thank you,” Aziraphale pressed closer. “Thank you for staying.”

When they broke apart, Crowley was as bright red as Aziraphale had felt at the height of his fever, glasses back in place, staring fixedly at his own legs. “So. Mmmmh. Now what?”

Aziraphale considered that question more carefully than he’d ever considered anything.

“I think… I’m recovering…”

“S’good.” Crowley shifted as if to stand.

“…but still very tired. I should probably rest another night?”

“Yeah. Um. Yeah. Do you—I can go?”

“Do you have somewhere to be?” His heart started to fall, until Crowley shrugged.

“I do, but… not urgently.”

“If you have the time there’s… there’s something I’m curious about.”

“Well. Big fan of knowledge, me.”

Aziraphale carefully lay down again, keeping his arms wide. A moment later, Crowley took a deep breath, set aside his glasses and joined him.

It turned out that Crowley’s head on his chest was the perfect weight. That he did indeed curl up, though in the most convoluted ways. That in his sleep, Crowley’s breaths were gentle and soft, much like his hair, and he tried very much to keep talking on the edge of consciousness even when he didn’t have much to say.

As for the kissing, well—certain observations did not need to be made public.

(AO3 link later today...)

[jessbakescakes]

I wish you would write a future fic where Josh and Donna kind of argue about future careers and Josh tries to convince Donna he has a whole plan laid out for her future in politics (because I’m convinced he does).

This took forever and I'm so sorry! This was from the 'I wish you'd write a fic where' game that I started over a month ago and then... didn't finish. Anyway. This is a post-series fluffy future Josh/Donna fic.

May 2014

“I think I need a vacation to recover from our vacation,” Donna says, pulling the nearest child-sized duffle bag toward her and unzipping it.

Josh laughs. “Leave that until tomorrow. Seriously.”

“I do feel compelled to at least check to be sure one of the barn kittens didn’t accidentally hitch a ride back with us,” Donna says, employing air quotes around the word ‘accidentally’. “Nora was a little too fascinated by them.”

Josh, Donna, and their three girls spent Memorial Day weekend with the Bartlets on the farm in New Hampshire. It had become a tradition during the first year of the Santos administration, a way for Josh and Donna to get out of the city away from the fireworks and relax on an otherwise difficult weekend. Donna had always welcomed the opportunity to escape for a little while, and she was incredibly grateful that the Bartlets continued to extend the invitation as their family grew.

Abbey and Jed rolled out the red carpet for their honorary granddaughters on this particular weekend. They introduced the girls to the Bartlet Farm barn cat and her kittens, let them play in the sprinklers until they were pruny, and kept them busy while Josh and Donna relaxed. The entire Moss-Lyman clan had a great time, and the weekend came to a close with only a few minor hiccups.

“I checked as I loaded the car,” Josh reassures her. “Nary a kitten crossed state lines.”

“Okay, good,” Donna says, moving the bag back to its place by the wall and leaning her head on Josh’s shoulder. It was a nice weekend, but going anywhere with their three girls always manages to be exhausting somehow.

“I am intrigued by this ‘vacation from a vacation’ business, though,” Josh says, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.

She curls up close to him, closing her eyes. “Well, coming from a man who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘vacation’ until he was forced to take one, I can understand how the concept is nebulous to you.”

“Donna.”

Donna sighs. “I just… I like my job, Josh. I do. But sometimes it’s a lot of… I don’t know. I feel like I’m not making much of a difference.”

“Of course you’re making a difference. But if you feel like you’re not, then it’s time to move on,” Josh says. “Shake things up.”

“Josh.”

“We haven’t had this conversation in several years,” Josh starts, “and the last time we did, you tried to convince me that you could get your master’s degree in the one-year accelerated program while working and raising two kids under three.”

She remembers this conversation well. After President Santos lost his re-election bid, she was feeling a bit unsure of what to do next. Being Chief of Staff to the First Lady was an incredible honor, but it took her some time to figure out her next move. She’d finished her bachelor’s degree while she was Chief of Staff, so she eventually decided to get her master’s degree from Georgetown, then took a job with the Women’s Leadership Coalition.

Josh, of course, was incredibly supportive, taking on the duties of primary caregiver while doing some teaching at the adjunct level on the side. He did his best not to offer his opinion on her career moves unless he was asked directly, but sometimes, he had to remind her that she could only do so much. Talking her into pursuing her degree on a part-time rather than full-time basis was one of his smarter ideas.

“Okay, yes, doing it in two years was the better decision, but I ended up graduating when I was, what, seven months pregnant with Leah? I’m a very powerful and capable woman, Josh,” Donna says.

Josh stands up from the couch and pulls a binder off of the bookshelf in the corner. “I have never once doubted that. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Thank you.” Donna pauses, watching as Josh flips through the binder. It occurs to her as she watches him leaf through the binder that she has no idea what he’s referring to. “Wait, what do you mean?”

Josh opens the binder and pulls out two sheets of paper. “Each of these pieces of paper contains a timeline for your future in politics.” He taps the page in her left hand. “This one right here is an accelerated version, but I think you could easily manage either one of them.”

She glances down at the pages, a little intimidated by the idea that Josh has planned out her entire career path. Donna can feel the anxiety building as she reads. Words like campaign manager, senior political advisor, and Congresswoman, Wisconsin 2nd stand out in bold font. “Josh? What is this?”

“Which one?”

Donna points to the line that says Congresswoman, Wisconsin 2nd. “This.”

Josh laughs. “Oh, yeah. You’re running for Congress in 2024. Sam’s going to be elected President in 2022, so we’ll have to slip you in at midterms to make sure you can boost his numbers in the second half. At least he’ll know he can count on your vote.”

She smiles to herself. Josh has such high hopes for her. He’s been telling her she should run for Congress since they got married, even going so far as to occasionally send her Zillow listings for properties in the Congressional district. But he’s always done it in his Josh-like, half-joking way. She’s never really taken him seriously when he’s suggested it.

For one, she’s not really given much thought to the idea of being the ‘face’ of the political process. She’s always enjoyed the behind the scenes work, and the idea of campaigning on her own behalf sounds daunting at best. The idea of leaving Josh and the girls behind to spend time in Wisconsin without them immediately makes her a little nauseated. “I don’t know how I feel about all of this.”

“About what? Donna, you can do this. You’re so great at it. And you’d be able to make a difference the way you want to.”

There’s something about the idea of Josh’s enthusiasm toward the idea of her advancing in politics that will never get old. The fact that they’re past the days of being boss-and-assistant and nearly seven years into a marriage and almost eight into a partnership where Josh puts her career first is almost unbelievable. “It’s way too early to be talking about any of this,” Donna finally says, handing him the papers.

“It’s almost too late to be talking about this,” Josh counters. “If you’ll look at 2014 on the timeline…”

Donna leans forward and interrupts him with a kiss. When she pulls away, she gently removes one of the papers from his hand and folds it in half. “You can get rid of this one. I’m not going to be President, Josh.”

Josh looks at her for a moment, then lets out a sigh. “Good. I was trying to be supportive there, but I wasn’t so sure about the idea.”

“You don’t think I could be President?” Donna asks, taking the binder from his hands and putting it on the coffee table.

“You could absolutely be President,” Josh says. “That’s the terrifying part.”

Donna leans forward for another kiss, but stops just short of his lips. “I’m a very powerful and capable woman, Josh,” she says before giving him another kiss.

“Don’t I know it.”

[bloomandcoffee]

Fe3h ABO headcanons

So yesterday I had a lot of fun in the anon meme writing some ABO worldbuilding for FE3H. Some of it was inspired by the amazing @theeeveetamer. I decided to post it here for easier access, and in case anyone wanted to read them/get some inspiration/play in the sandbox.

All questions and comments are welcome!

Let's start shall we?

Faerghus

Faerghus has a tradition to not give a fuck about omegas. Loog was an omega, and all Blaiddyds are as well. Omegas can inherit and can be leaders of their houses or clans. They prize Chivalry and Duty above all else, and with the harsh conditions of Faerghus they can't afford the privilege to dismiss a third of their population. All are trained to fight before they learn how to write, no exceptions. If they want to partake in the battlefield, become part of the royal guard, command armies? They can.

Which means of course Faerghus is the nation expert on omega nature, heats and all subtle intricacies of omegan behavior and its relation with other spectrums. As a nation that values righteous fury and devotion (to the King) Omegas are very prized as well because of their emotions and relentlessness when it comes to protecting their own. This clashes with the other nations and their concept on what is the proper omega behavior. Faerghan omegas find it stiffling to not be openly passionate and determined in the presence of people from the Alliance or the Empire.

Alpha/Omega unions is most desired between crest bearing nobles because they needs the crests (remember The crest of Gautier is the only thing between Faerghus and a Sreng invasion) and a huge litter will up the chances of getting one. But it is far more common outside the nobility for omegas to mate with Betas.

Betas and alphas too are held in high regard, but for different things. There's no hierarchy based on the ABO designation, but on political nobility designation and chivalry.

The Empire has made a long effort to scrub from history the fact that an omega rallied an army, fought the empire head on, and won somewhat successfully. That is, people on the Empire and Leicester (to a lesser degree) belive Loog was an alpha, while it is is common knowledge in Faerghus that Loog was an omega.

Adrestian Empire

The Empire is very conservative with ABO designations. Alphas on top, betas as servants/retainers and omegas ought to be quiet, domestic and be a perfect wife (see Bernadetta).

Omegas cannot inherit Houses, not even if they have crests (See Mercedes' mom) and while it is common knowledge in the Empire that it is not a woman's fault if the child they bear lacks a crest (or is an omega) it is still fairly common to be shunned culturally.

It is fairly recent that the Empire has allowed omegas to enter in fights, though many nobles would first have them married than allow an Omega of the Family join the battlefield and "decrease their value" (because what if they get scars and become undesirable?!), and those that do usually expect the omega to bring home a respectable wellbred mate.

Of course this doesn't mean that the empire never had noteworthy omegas in their ranks, but they easily scrubbed their designation (or outright changed them) when they excelled in fields that were deemed inappropiate. I.e. an omega excelling in the arts was fantastic, but one that excelled in martial arts and warfare was a disaster.

(It also goes the other way around, an alpha that excells in arts but is mediocre in the activities the Empire demands alphas to excell in is a disappointment, and many families have either disinherited their alpha children or tried their best to hide the shame.)

As for alphas, they are on top, call the shots and have all the rights -but so are their responsibilities. They must excel in the areas that the Empire has traditionally viewed as given for alphas like science, politics, diplomacy, warfare, management and such. The field is extremely competitive (alpha women are held to a higher standard because the Empire made the notion that Seiros was an alpha woman, so they all are compared to her) and a perfect manners and form of conduct is expected at all times.

This means of course that the Empire has the leading knowledge on alpha supressors, because they can't have their alphas behave like beasts. They are civilized individuals, the land where Seiros and the four saints lived, they must lead by example!

(There's a black market for omega suppressors as well. It moves better in the lower classes, but has higher profit margin in the businesses in the noble class)

Leicester Alliance

The Alliance being mainly a mercantile and business nation holds Betas in higher regard. Time is money and businesses that get postponed because someone got a heat/rut is money lost. The logistics of the whole thing are a nightmare for merchants, and after the third time a big negotiation or deal got frozen because of the biology of one of the parties some rules just had to be set.

So betas that don't have to get into this biological mess are valuable. Though it is also fairly common for commnfolk to procure alpha and omega suppresants to be able to conduct businesses as well.

The only people that look down on the use of suppresors are some noble families because the willful ingestion of something that impairs your body is not very noblesse obligue. They think it is either addictive like alcohol, or poisonous.

It is not uncommon to hear the rumor that ingesting suppresors will leave you sterile as a means to dissuade noble omegas from consuming them. (Of course that doesn't mean they won't ingest them from time to time when there's one big summit or deal on the line. The excuse of "oh it seems my rut/heat is coming late this time" is fairly common)

Nobles of course employ trusted beta families to close negotiations in their name, and it is a major honor for a beta family to be adopted into the noble family as their main negotiator.

The Alliance also gets a few cultural cues from both Faerghus and Adrestia. Namely that Alphas should be exemplar and omegas should use their passion to excel in the arts (which includes oratory and negotiation), but in all Alliance fashion the reason why they shouldd excel is because they must make up for the time they are impaired to support the Alliance.

Also all nobles should act in a maner befitting to their station, which means of course that alphas are hold to the manners and etiquette standards of Adrestian alphas (but without the help from suppresors) and omegas should be outspoken and passionate but in a diplomatic and well mannered way that doesn't include outbursts or displays that can be considered shameful.

Garreg Mach

Garreg Mach has everyone on suppressors, and is very liberal with contraceptives as well. There is no ABO orientation shaming because everyone is a child of Sothis and the monastery is a refuge for everyone, and those serving within the church or in the Knights of Seiros should be available at all times to reprieve and help those in need. (Of course this is mainly because Nabateans don't have ABO designations and what better way to hide it than to have everyone be the same?)

Because they are not affiliated to the church, it cannot force any of the students on suppresors. However they make it available for anyone who wants to have them, and make the transaction discreet and private. It is not uncommon for students to go to a "confessional" and leave with suppresors.

Of course the Monastery also has repurposed heat rooms and rut rooms, but they aren't many. The academy does ask the students to give their rut/heat schedules to the administration so they can properly manage the heat/rut rooms and avoid inconveniences.

As for some people:

Dimitri is an omega. But what has (and had) the Kingdom worried for a long time was the fact that he hadn't presented at the proper age (13) but at 17. (This of course is related to his extreme PTSD, survivor's guilt and the almost mortal injuries he sustained in Duscur and while saving Dedue) His heats are terribly irregular and painful. There's also the fear that he might be sterile given how late he presented and the issue with his heats. He believes he can't be a proper omega on top of not being able to be a proper prince, and that it is one more sin that has to be added to his shame.

(Of course in full Dimitri fashion, he buried all that self loathing and insecurity behind a princely smile)

Claude is an alpha passing as a beta with the aid of suppressors because he needs all the advantages he can get in the Alliance. No one really knows because he was presented as a Beta in the Alliance. (Judith knows of course, and complains that it is a pain in the ass to procure the exact brand of alpha suppresors because not all of Fodlan's suppresors work on someone that is used to Almyran suppresors). He finds it fascinating the strange cultural concepts pertaining ABO in the different countries and Almyra.

(Almyra does have a respect for omegas, with a myth that mostly resembles that of Amazons. Claude has a laugh when he realizes the fabled amazons live in a cold Kingdom and not a tropical island)

Edelgard is an omega turned alpha by Agarthan experimentation, because Adrestia cannot have an omega emperor. Among the mess of things she has, there's some internalized omegaphobia, and part of her hatred with the church stems from the fact that Seiros was an alpha (and never realizes that the Alpha Seiros thing was all Adrestia propaganda).

Lysithea is an omega turned beta. A failed Agarthan experiment (they wanted alpha) but the Ordelia family still took the small victory because Betas are more valuable in the Alliance. She doesn't care much about ABO, though it stings when an omega she knows goes into heat, and is more worried about curing herself.

Ferdinand is in fact an omega on permanent suppresors who knows very well that the only reason he's Ferdinand von Aegir is because he's the only legitimate heir. His competitive behavior and manners is he overcompensating and an attempt to hide the secret.

(Also because I love the idea of two of the most prominent and greatest minds of the empire being fucked over by Adrestia's ABO expectations)

Lorenz is an alpha born out of Beta and Omega parents, who is trying very much to prove that being an alpha in the Alliance should be an asset instead of a burden. He will stop at nothing to do so, but has a pouch of alpha suppresors that taunt him every night.

Marianne is an omega, but she is on suppresors. Margrave von Edmund justified it by saying that the suppresors helped Marianne's health given that her heats were irregular. But in fact, while her heats were irregular, she has them because her heats react strongly with her crest. It was usual for her to vomit blood or destroy the whole omega heat room. That's also another reason why she's terrified of her crest.

[princessanneftw]

The Crown's Erin Doherty on playing Princess Anne – the voice, the hair and the style

By Caroline Leaper, Senior Fashion Editor for Stella Magazine.

As she joins acting royalty for the new series of the hit TV show, the actress discusses her transformation into a princess and just how long it takes to create THAT ’do

Erin Doherty is explaining how much fun it is to pretend to be very, very posh when you’re not. In the lead-up to playing Princess Anne in the new season of the hit Netflix drama The Crown, she says that she spent days practising her best royal voice in mundane scenarios, and offers to order a smoothie at the café we’ve met in ‘as Anne’, by way of demonstration.

‘Anne’s accent, and the whole family’s accent, is so weird,’ she laughs, snapping back into her own south London dialect. ‘It’s alien to me, I’ve never heard anyone else talk like that. My natural voice is the opposite. I watched YouTube videos and would practise when ordering a coffee, or speaking to people I didn’t know. The reactions were brilliant; I’m looking casual with this crazy posh voice coming out of me.’ Indeed, today she looks quite unroyal in her Breton top, khaki trousers and Birkenstocks.

Playing the Princess Royal is Erin’s first major television role. The 27-year-old from Crawley had a small part in the BBC adaptation of Les Misérables this year, and appeared in an episode of Call the Midwife back in 2017, but has otherwise stuck to the stage, graduating from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to The Young Vic and The Old Vic, after being hailed a rising star of her generation. She is palpably excited about being in The Crown, and refreshingly honest about how she’s ‘winging it’ on one of the most anticipated TV shows of the year. She does, I should say now, deliver an incredibly convincing Anne. When casting director Nina Gold told her she had got the part, she celebrated by having a curry.

The Crown season three will span more than a decade, from 1964 to 1977, warranting an all-new cast to play the ageing royals. 
Olivia Colman picks up from Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth, Tobias Menzies follows Matt Smith’s Duke of Edinburgh and Helena Bonham Carter takes over from Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret. We’ve reached the years when the Queen’s children are coming of age; Erin’s Anne is in her late teens when we meet her, and is full of fantastically feisty opinions about being ‘launched’ as an adult in the Royal family.

We all know the plot, or so we think, as The Crown is based on real events. But the brilliance of the show is that we don’t know which bits of history creator Peter Morgan will zoom in on. Season three might cover the time when, in 1974, Ian Ball attempted to abduct Anne and hold her to ransom for £3 million. (‘Not bloody likely,’ she famously said to her kidnapper, and her father Prince Philip quipped, ‘She would have given him a hell of a time in captivity...’). We might get to see Erin in bridal attire, as Anne’s first wedding to Captain Mark Phillips took place in 1973.

Erin is tight-lipped about which events do and do not make the cut. ‘You know what happens to Anne,’ she says. ‘It’s not hard to guess. But Peter makes these people so fascinating because of the way he focuses on stories which might not have been the headlines everyone remembers.’

Anne’s story, Erin says, was largely unknown to her before she began researching ahead of her audition. ‘Princess Anne, honestly, didn’t mean anything to me,’ she explains. ‘Like a lot of people who grow up in Britain, I think, [the Royal family was] always just there. My family watched the Queen’s speech at Christmas, but other than that, you feel a bit removed from it. I had to research her and then I realised, wow, this woman is awesome. I fell in love with her.’

Anne’s reputation as the reluctant, truculent royal, who was more interested in riding horses than wearing ballgowns and playing the part, has come good of late. Where once the tabloid press dubbed her ‘rude’, ‘dowdy’ and ‘austere’, her dependability, cracking wit and commitment to public duty now see her celebrated as the most hard-working royal each year (she completed 180 days of engagements in 2018, 20 more than Prince Charles). And her never-wavering signature style suddenly chimes with the fashion industry’s new drive for more sustainable shopping. ‘At 69, Princess Anne’s country-chic look and penchant for rewearing couldn’t be more on trend,’ a fellow fashion editor of this newspaper wrote back in August.

Erin discovered pretty quickly that her new ‘family’ is full of eccentric, fun and 
complex characters. In one of her first scenes, she is sitting around a television with the Queen and Princess Margaret for tea, cigarettes and whisky, to watch Royal Family, the famously ill-fated 1969 BBC documentary (the reception to it was so bad that it was banished after airing, with the press suggesting director Richard Cawston’s fly-on-the-wall approach had ‘cheapened’ the monarchy). In real life, of course, that meant cosying up with her new co-stars, a cast of national treasures and Oscar-winners.

‘Scenes like that were surreal, but everyone was so normal on set,’ Erin says. ‘Seeing someone like Helena be so calm and cool has been a gift. What makes it weird is that I then go home to my houseshare and my housemates are like, “Your job is insane, did you see Olivia Colman today?” I obviously can’t tell her that they love her in Fleabag every day, that would be weird. And ultimately I’m trying to be like her daughter and build this relationship up with her, so the main goal for me is to forget about the fact that she is Olivia Colman. My dad is the worst for it, he took a flight and texted me, “I’ve just seen Olivia Colman doing the BA safety advert – tell her she’s great in it.”’

As well as the voice, the other thing to get right when becoming Anne was the hair. Today, Erin’s hair is soft, straight and centre-parted. She says it takes a lot of work to mould it into the Princess Royal’s trademark style each day.

‘The hair takes a solid hour and a half,’ she laughs. ‘Most of that time is spent backcombing and setting it with hairspray. Sometimes if it’s not poofy enough, we have to use a sponge doughnut underneath to hold it up more. I’m no wiser as to how she actually does hers. It must be pretty solid, as she doesn’t change it much.’

In Anne’s youth, Erin points out, the Princess typically only set half of her head, leaving some hair down and smooth at the back. For season four, though, which started filming this month, Erin is expecting to double her time in the hair chair, as Anne switches to her mainstay full halo. ‘It takes even more time if she’s wearing any sort of a hat,’ she groans. ‘I brace myself if it’s a hat day.’

Costume was crucial to Anne’s character. This season of The Crown will revisit the Princess’s fashion heyday in the ’60s and ’70s, when she wore sharp checked suiting and chic flares, and was photographed by Norman Parkinson in the era’s Pucci-esque saturated floral prints. Costume designer Amy Roberts recreates some of Anne’s most memorable outfits – many of which would still look relevant and stylish today.

‘She was so on-trend in the 1960s and ’70s. She figured out her style at that age and she has stuck with it ever since,’ says Erin. ‘I created a Pinterest board of her outfits and I saw this amazing thing of Anne throughout the years, reusing her gowns, sometimes rocking it again 20 years later. I love that about her. She must not get rid of anything.

‘My favourite outfit, though,’ she continues, ‘is the one in the first scene you’ll see from me. The idea is that her parents have just pulled her away from riding and she’s 
angry and stressy, so I’m wearing riding boots and stomping around.’

Erin understood that, of all the looks, this would likely be the one that the Princess Royal herself would favour too. ‘So often she’s in these amazing ballgowns, but you can tell that this would be her preference,’ she says. ‘It just feels more like her. Because of her sporting side, I don’t think she gets enough credit as a style icon. You meet some people who remember that she was fashionable, but a lot are like, nope, she’s just horses.’

Ah, the horses. For Olympic athlete and European eventing champion Anne, riding has been a passion since childhood. For Erin, it was a case of all the equestrian gear and no idea.

‘I’d never been horse riding before filming this, it was the first time I’d ever put on jodhpurs,’ she admits. ‘After my initial meeting with the casting team, my agent rang and was like, “Are you OK with horses?” The part was still in the balance, so I said, “Yeah, of course I am.” As soon as I put the phone down I thought 
I can’t believe I’ve just said that. It’s notorious that actors will say they can do something and learn how later, isn’t it? I was petrified. Luckily I had 
a bit of time, so it’s sorted now and I can ride.’

Horses may not have been on the agenda for Erin growing up, but football was. ‘I was pretty good – I was scouted to play for Chelsea,’ she says. ‘I really hated school, so I lived for the weekends; I’d play football on a Sunday morning, and then in the afternoon I would go to stage school. When I was about 14, the schedule was getting so intense that my dad said I needed to choose one. I still do my keepy-uppies in the garden. I’d love it if someone remade Bend It Like Beckham – I’d be totally prepared for that part.’

Erin is one of three children (she has an older sister and a younger brother), and her mother, a retired medical practice administrator, and father, who works in airline operations, split up when she was four and now, respectively, live in Guildford and Folkestone. She’s living in south-east London in a houseshare with strangers who have become friends, and who work in entirely different fields. She grew up, she says, happily hanging around in Croydon wearing a tracksuit. ‘That was our best town to go to with your friends.’

When The Crown was first released, the original cast found themselves famous around the world. Appetite for the show is especially high in the US where, as Erin points out, ‘they flip for the royals.

‘It exploded for the last cast didn’t it?’ she considers. ‘They’re all pretty high-profile now. It’s mental what could happen, but I’m really not prepared for it and I also don’t think it’s healthy to expect it. Imagine thinking your world is going to change then nothing happens, that would be heartbreaking. I don’t think people would really recognise me in the street anyway, I look quite different when I’m not made-up with the hair.’

Claire Foy and Vanessa Kirby, particularly, benefited from the magazine covers and fashion status that came with the territory, as designers from Erdem to 
Gucci vied to dress them on the red carpet.

‘I’ve never really done a red-carpet event,’ Erin says. ‘I was speaking to my publicist and I think we’re going to get a stylist to help. Honestly, these conversations are so alien to me. It’s actually more intimidating to do these things where you have to be yourself. I can get very anxious and I’m more of an introvert if I’m not acting, so the simpler these things are and the less I have to think about what I look like, the better.’

Her photo shoot with Stella is the first that she’s done, an experience that she enjoyed, she says, because she was able to treat it like playing a role.

In her own life, comfort takes priority. ‘My style is pretty androgynous,’ she says, ‘I’m all about not abiding by gender norms, not because I have any particular view of myself that way, but I like messing things around and trying different things. I’ve always been sporty and I’m drawn to clothes that are baggy. What I hope is that you’ll still be able to see me [even when I’m dressed up on the red carpet] and I’ll look back and think this whole experience was amazing and fun, not a surreal period of my life that I didn’t really live in.’

It will be surreal, probably. But Erin seems to have put in the work to ensure that her portrayal isn’t a caricature, and she has got under the skin of one of the nation’s famously-hardy senior royals. She did weeks of research, listened to the historians on set, nailed that voice and even investigated Anne’s Chinese zodiac sign, just in case it gave a crumb of insight to work with. ‘Anne’s a metal tiger,’ she confirms.

Talented, funny, hard-working and, crucially, not at all starstruck by the royals. It is, likely, exactly what the Princess Royal herself would want from the person deemed tough enough to play her.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

CALDER'S SCULPTURES NEVER GET BORING

This is part of what big companies pay extra for is the next Apple, or the market wasn't ready yet, b the founders solved the wrong problem. While writing the prototype, the group has been traversing their network of friends in search of angel investors. I think new theorems are a fine thing to create, but there are few outside the US, startups will do a rolling close, where they can choose for themselves, rely instead on the opinions of other investors. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. I think a bigger problem is that the kind of things most people use computers for, a tenth of your time working on new stuff. The smart ones learn who the other smart ones are, and together they cook up new projects of their own, they'd screw it up. Even worse than the spectacular abuses might be the overall decrease in efficiency that would accompany increased secrecy. You don't have the clean, sparse feel they used to be for getting users. A lot of investors hated the idea, but not because of some right turn the country took during the Reagan administration, but because it gives you another source of ideas: look at big companies, you'd need an impressive-looking sales force to sell it to them as a web service. But with company names there is another possible approach. In fact, the reason startups do better when deprived of this crutch anyway. The first stories about Jaynes cited this source, but now that the things we build are so complicated, there's another way to convince investors to let you do it like a pilot scanning the instrument panel, not like a detective trying to unravel some mystery.

The url is in such cases practically enough by itself to determine whether the email is neutral, the spam probability will hinge on the url, and it was like trying to run through waist-deep water. For some reason this seems to be toward the merely unpalatable. That means it has to stay popular to stay good. As long as you're profitable. Or rather, my inbox is a todo list. After we fund startups we work closely with them for three months outweighs the inconvenience of moving. In such rounds they won't get the 25 to 40% of the company and demand that it take immediate action to cure any past violations of securities laws. At best you end up with a statistical sort of correctness. Can't you just think of new ideas. In fact, the language encourages you to be omniscient, but actually they tend to be about 15? We're just working on search. One of our axioms at Y Combinator is not to try to create a startup hub.

And when people seem to share a certain prickly independence, whenever and wherever they lived. We hated our last TV so much that a competitor will trip them up as that they will trip over themselves. You don't need to raise money, but also as a way of saving you work, rather than carry a single unnecessary ounce. In theory you could stick together ideas at random like this, but others haven't decided what they'll do afterward. To me she seems the best novelist of all time. Don't be evil. But investors are so fickle that you can learn from them. On the other hand, startup investing is a very strange business. When you have the degenerate case. For a startup, then hand them off to VC firms for the next round. Good ideas and valuable ideas are very close to good ideas, use them, but more than full-time.

So the lower we can get the response rate—whether by filtering, or by redesigning the product in the way of redesign. There's a real difference, because an assertion provokes objections in a way that seemed to reflect the personality of the city. And while governments might be able to pinch it off at the point where they're used. And no one can tell you, that requires your complete attention. Only a few do so far, startups that turn down acquisition offers is not necessarily that all such offers undervalue startups. There will be many different ways to learn different things, and some may look quite different from what happens in college. That's orders of magnitude better than desktop software. Our startup begins when a group of people they didn't already know. If you're starting your own company, because you're only replacing one segment instead of discarding the whole thing. Though I'd really like to know how she does what she does, I can't imagine they'll work any less hard to feed stories to bloggers, if they built whole towns, market forces would compel them to pay attention to you. Now survival is the default, instead of paying attention to what users needed, or c the company spent too much and burned through their funding before they started to make the implementation easier to port, but it turned out that many did. You release software as a series A round, the round is going to solve this problem, but it can be good for writing the kinds of programs they want to write desktop software, because desktop software has become a lot less money.

But I think that while stricter laws may not decrease the amount of memory you need for each user's data. One solution to this problem, without waiting for the government. When he rides the Eunicycle, people smile at him. How are they to hear? What a wonderful thing, to be able to reproduce the error and release a fix. US News & World Report. Some time before the release date you assemble a new version of your software by a certain date? And when someone can put on my todo list, I looked to see if there was a problem with acquisitions is that they lead to more ideas.

And then there is the question of what this new Lisp also had powerful libraries for doing what hackers want to do it. Their format is convenient, especially when you're generating code, to have operators that take any number of arguments. This should yield a much sharper estimate of the probability. You have to make their fortunes will continue to work for people with high standards. Last year one founder spent the whole first half of his talk on a fascinating analysis of the limits of the conventional desktop metaphor. And it has to be modified to: stay upwind for as long as you're still actively developing the product. One way of using patents that clearly does not encourage innovation is when established companies with bad products use patents to suppress small competitors with good products. Result: if it can't contain exciting sales pitches, spam becomes less effective as a marketing vehicle, and fewer businesses want to use. This was not how things worked at Viaweb. He said their business model is a down elevator. Another great thing about Web-based applications. The problem is, the USPTO are not hackers.

One easy way to build such a whitelist is to keep a list of the n most admirable people. And the way founders end up net ahead it's not coming out of organs not designed for that purpose. And put this kind of bug is the hardest to find, and also occurs once or twice in a big program is to start from the symptom and hope to fix the underlying causes. It also has to convince instead of commanding. They just want to invest in you, or his only duty is to the advantage of investors. This time the evidence is a mix of good and bad. In effect, this structure gives the investor a free option on the next round of investors can decide in a couple days. You can afford to be candid about what you haven't figured out yet. Writing is the same reason readers like them.

But it's also because money is not the hours but the responsibility. I had to predict now, I'd say that startups will build on, they have to understand the advantages startups get from being in America. Jack Lambert. The defining feature of spam in fact, that would not only not eliminate great variations in wealth, but might even exacerbate them. You might say that it's an accident that it thus helps identify this spam. If anyone is dishonest, it's the reporters. The problem in more traditional places like Europe and Japan goes deeper than the employment laws. A throwaway program is something that more and more programs may turn out to be really useful.

[labbaik-ya-hussain-as]

A must read:

The Lost Jewel – Rediscovering Hazrat Imam Ali’s (A.S.) Letter

This is a fascinating story.

Pakistan’s premier female poet Fahmida Riaz, read a letter by Imam Ali (A.S.) while browsing through a translation of Nahaj ul Balagha. Today via email, she narrated how she was “so touched, and felt so angry for not knowing about it all my life, because really no one talks about the real jewels of Muslim history, they would rather conceal it from one generation after another”. She took notes from the ancient text and recently quoted it in her paper presented at an Urdu Conference held at Heidelberg, Germany.

On her current sojourn in the USA, she showed this text to Dr. Patricia Sharpe who was impressed enough to put it on her website under the title GOOD GOVERNANCE EARLY MUSLIM STYLE.

In her email Fahmida writes further that “Another American friend in Santa Fe is writing a book for the National Geographic about the achievements of Muslim thinkers and men of the sciences and letters. I showed him the text and he has asked me to forward it to him so that he may include it in his book. ‘The Americans should know about it ,’ he wrote. I have sent him the text, sighing to myself, “..and so should the Muslims”.

But really, what are we ever told about Islam or Muslims other than chopping of arms and killing of infidels? Or we are informed that Muslims once had a great empire, a brutal picture of conquest and subjugation of the so-called “infidels”. What do we know of Hazrat Imam Ali (A.S.) except that he was very brave with a legendary sword? Pretty little.

And writes Riaz: “here is this document, written by him,1500 or so years ago. The sheer beauty of his thought, the largesse of his great heart, the incredible refinement of his mind! It takes your breath away and brings tears to your eyes. And then, his understanding of the class structure of society.. long before anyone in the world paid attention to the composition of society! All this is so incredible.

The other ancient classics about governance that come to mind…. tell you how to invite your enemy to dinner and then stab him in the back. They tell you how to perpetuate your RULE. In comparison, Imam Ali (A.S.) is telling you how to create a State that provides the greatest opportunity for the people to be happy. So great was this man that even being remotely associated with him is an honour that we hardly deserve though we are all born in the fold of his faith.

Another thought that comes to haunt you: Hazrat Imam Ali (A.S.) was so close to the Holy Prophet (S.A.W) that he could never say what he did not believe to be the Holy Prophet's (S.A.W) own will? O my God! Then in what unworthy hands his teachings fell! How unfortunate it is for us.”

I wanted to share this excitment and sadness of Fahmida on this space.

Here is the entry in Patricia’s blog where she has reproduced sections of letter and also improved the translations available online:

George W. Bush seems to think that the US political system must be replicated in structure and spirit in order for people to enjoy a decent political system. In fact, the Muslim world also has traditions and texts which establish the principles of good governance. Below are quotes from one such document, a document that might profitably be added to all basic political science syllabi. A close reading might also provide insights and terminology for American public diplomats tasked to engage Muslims in a dialogue about the universal human interest in fair, honest and competent government.

Ali bin Abi Talib (A.S.) Wali-Allah, the First Imam and son-in-law of the Holy Prophet Mohammed Mustafa (S.A.W), wrote a long letter of guidance after appointing Maalik al-Ashtar to be Governor of Egypt. He advises the new governor that his administration will succeed only if he governs with concern for justice, equity, probity and the prosperity of all.

The passages excerpted below illustrate the timeless applicability of Imam Ali’s (A.S.) admonitions. The letter itself is contained in the Nahjal Balaagha, which is a collection of the letters and speeches of the First Imam.

Manifest religious tolerance: Amongst your subjects there are two kinds of people: those who have the same religion as you [and] are brothers to you, and those who have religions other than yours, [who] are human beings like you. Men of either category suffer from the same weaknesses and disabilities that human beings are inclined to; they commit sins, indulge in vices either intentionally or foolishly and unintentionally without realizing the enormity of their deeds. Let your mercy and compassion come to their rescue and help in the same way and to the same extent that you expect Allah to show mercy and forgiveness to you.

Equity is best: A policy which is based on equity will be largely appreciated. Remember that the displeasure of common men, the have-nots and the depressed persons overbalances the approval of important persons, while

the displeasure of a few big people will be excused…if the general public and the masses of your subjects are happy with you.

The rich always want more: They are the people who will be the worst drag upon you during your moments of peace and happiness, and the least useful to you during your hours of need and adversity. They hate justice the most. They will keep demanding more and more out of State resources and will seldom be satisfied with what they receive and will never be obliged for the favor shown to them if their demands are justifiably refused.

A healthy society is interdependent: The army and the common men who pay taxes are two important classes, but in a well faring state their well-being cannot be guaranteed without proper functioning and preservation of the other classes, the judges and magistrates, the secretaries of the State and the officers of various departments who collect various revenues, maintain law and order as well as preserve peace and amity among the diverse classes of the society. They also guard the rights and privileges of the citizens and look to the performance of various duties by individuals and classes. And the prosperity of this whole set-up depends upon the traders and industrialists. They act as a medium between the consumers and suppliers. They collect the requirements of society. They exert to provide goods….Then comes the class of the poor and the disabled persons. It is absolutely necessary that they should be looked after, helped and provided….at least the minimum necessities for well-being and contented living….

Ensure an honest judiciary: You must select people of excellent character and high caliber with meritorious records….When they realize that they have committed a mistake in judgement, they should not insist on it by trying to justify it….they should not be corrupt, covetous or greedy. They should not be satisfied with ordinary enquiry or scrutiny of a case but…must attach the greatest importance to reasoning, arguments and proofs. They should not get tired of lengthy discussions and arguments.Theymust exhibit patience and perseverance…and when truth is revealed to them they must pass their judgements….These appointments must be made…without any kind of favoritism being shown or influence being accepted; otherwise tyranny, corruption and misrule will reign….Let the judiciary be above every kind of executive pressure or influence, above fear or favour, intrigue or corruption.

Poverty leads to ruination: If a country is prosperous and if its people are well-to-do, then it will happily and willingly bear any burden. The poverty of the people is the actual cause of the devastation and ruination of a country and the main cause of the poverty of the people is the desire of its ruler and officers to amass wealth and possessions whether by fair or foul means.

Corruption undermines national well-being: I want to advise you about your businessmen and industrialists. Treat them well….They are the sources of wealth to the country….One more thing….you must keep an eye over their activities as well. You know that they are usually stingy misers, intensely self-centered and selfish, suffering from the obsession of grasping and accumulating wealth. They often hoard their goods to get more profit out of them by creating scarcity and by indulging in black-marketing.

Stay in touch with the people: You must take care not to cut yourself off from the public. Do not place a curtain of false prestige between you and those over whom you rule. Such pretension and shows of pomp and pride are in reality manifestations of inferiority complex and vanity. The result of such an attitude is that you remain ignorant of the conditions of your subjects and of the actual cases of the events occurring in the State.

Peace brings prosperity: If your enemy invites you to a peace treaty….,never refuse to accept such an offer, because peace will bring rest and comfort to your armies, will relieve you of anxieties and worries, and will bring prosperity and affluence to your people. But even after such treaties be very careful of the enemies and do not place too much confidence in their promises, because they often resort to peace treaties to deceive and delude you and take advantage of your negligence, carelessness and trust. At the same time, be very careful never to break your promise with your enemy; never forsake the protection or support that you have offered to him, never go back upon your word and never violate the terms of the treaty.

History reveals all: Do not reserve for yourself anything which is a common property of all and in which others have equal rights. Do not close your eyes from glaring malpractice of officers, miscarriage of justice and misuse of rights, because you will be held responsible for the wrong thus done to others. In the near future your wrong practices and maladministration will be exposed and you will be held responsible and punished for the wrong done to the helpless and oppressed people.

*The honorific changes, depending on whether the reference derives from the Shia or Sunni tradition. Note also that I changed British spelling to American, have modified some awkwardnesses common to translations into English and have altered some punctuation for clarity’s sake.

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[victorineb]

Alana Finds Out: Zombies!

Another instalment of AFO in honour of Ladies of Hannibal week... in which Alana faces the possible end of the world... and some other unfortunate revelations.

(Also a small warning: there are mentions of offstage character deaths here. None of the major characters are affected, but be prepared in any case.)

Also on AO3.

“…the attackers can be stopped by removing the head or destroying the brain.”

Alana stood watching the television she hadn't even known Hannibal owned, transfixed by the impossibility of what she was seeing. On the screen, a news anchor, sweating through his shirt and a face-full of makeup, was giving details of what no one could any longer deny was the rise of the undead.

“Alana,” Hannibal had appeared behind her silently, his hand on her arm causing her to jump, “I think it is time to go.”

She turned to face him and froze. The man in front of her looked very much like Hannibal Lecter, except he was dressed in jeans, heavy boots and a leather jacket and appeared to have strapped the katana from his bedroom to his back.

“Hannibal, what…”

“The transport is outside, Alana, it is time for you to go.”

She looked up from his unfamiliar ensemble, taking in the firm set of his mouth, the sad look in his eyes. “Why aren't you coming?”

“I have a friend out there who requires my help.”

Alana didn't have to wonder. “You're going to find Will. Even after what he did, what he accused you of?”

Hannibal nodded. “You know as well as I that Will is not guilty.”

In the face of the zombie apocalypse, Alana found it all too easy to accept the truth of this, as well as something else she now knew should have been obvious. “You're in love with him.”

“Yes. I'm sorry if that upsets you but if there still exists a chance to keep him safe, I must take it.”

Alana considered getting upset for a moment but she had never seen her progression from Hannibal's friend to his lover as anything more than a clutch for comfort by either of them. Not to mention, the presence of the armed transport outside, courtesy of Jack Crawford’s calling in of every favour he'd ever earned, rather shortened the timeframe for confrontations. Instead, she simply wrapped her arms around Hannibal, with the words, “Don't be too reckless. Take care of him.” She drew back and met his eyes, “And be honest with him. No metaphors, no literary allusions, no exquisitely crafted obfuscations. Just tell him. I'm reasonably certain you'll get the response you want.”

Hannibal’s eyes lit at this, in a way she'd never seen before. “You are?”

She shrugged, feeling surprisingly light-hearted in the face of the end of both her relationship and, potentially, the world. “The other reason I told him I couldn't date him? When the pair of you aren't trading elegant couplets on the subject of murder, you're eye-banging like no one else can see you. It's not subtle.”

It was this final sentence that meant, as she took her bags to the door, the last thing Alana saw of her former lover, was the unexpectedly beautiful sight of Hannibal Lecter blushing.

Three years later.

Alana would know those curls anywhere.

She was in Florida, helping a colleague to run a week of counselling sessions for traumatised survivors. Given that mostly everyone still alive in the US qualified as such, these events were always utter chaos, a barely controlled swell of emotion coupled with endless paperwork and administration. The chances that Alana would catch glimpse of a living, breathing Will Graham in any context were, she contemplated, microscopic. That she would, through the packed crowds of the conference centre, simply glance towards the refreshments table to see him struggling one-handed with a coffee pot seemed impossible to the point of absurdity.

And yet.

Alana excused herself from her colleagues and crossed the room, almost in a daze. Just before she could reach him, though, she realised with horror that the reason for Will's struggle was the total absence of his left arm. His shoulder simply ended abruptly in a stump, covered with fabric neatly tailored to his altered form. Alana was used to such injuries – there had been far greater call for medics than psychiatrists during the last few years and Alana had found herself in field hospitals all across the country – but she couldn’t keep the words from leaving her lips.

“Oh, Will.”

He turned, clearly surprised to hear his name, still holding the pot in his remaining hand. She watched his eyes light with recognition as he set down the coffee and pulled her in for an embrace.

“Alana, you’re alive! I wasn’t sure, I… I don’t have the connections I had before.” He pulled back to look at her properly. “You’re ok? You’re safe, happy?”

“All of the above.” She felt a huge grin cross her face, the same reflected a second later on Will’s. It faded after a moment, though, as she glanced at the space where his arm should have been.

Will caught her look and said, “It’s ok, it could’ve been so much worse. Should have been. I got bit,” Alana’s head snapped up and she stared at him. “I know. Thought I was done for sure. It was only because of the guy with me, he took my arm off the second after the thing got hold of me. Kept the infection from spreading. Another second…” he trailed off, eyes clouded for a second, then shrugged. “I figure, an arm’s not that much of a sacrifice. And other than that, I’m a hell of a lot healthier than I was pre-apocalypse.”

Alana took a moment to look him over. Will was right – where she had known a scruffy, twitchy, often sweaty mess of a man who concealed his looks behind stubble and poor eye contact, the man before her now was neat and clean, smartly groomed and dressed in simple but elegant clothes. He also looked healthy, well-fed and clear-skinned, with an ease in his posture that she had never seen before. More than anything, though, he was meeting her eyes without hesitation, the expression in them so warm and genuine she wondered how she had ever thought him capable of violence and murder.

She smiled, feeling a prickle of tears in her eyes and then laughed, blinking them away. “The end of the world clearly agrees with you.” Will barked out a laugh, the same one she remembered, and she reflected gladly that some things remained unchanged. Then, without warning, she blurted, “I'm so sorry I didn't believe you, Will.”

He cast his eyes away for a second but then looked back and shrugged. “It's ok. I wouldn't have believed me. It's forgotten.”

“And… you're a free man? They didn't try to put you back in?”

“They made some perfunctory noises about it but, given my exemplary service to the nation in zombie massacring, as well as the fact that pretty much all the evidence against me was lost one way and another, they didn't pursue it too hard. Apparently the going rate for freedom is a couple hundred undead and my total’s well above that, thus I am a fully certified member of the post-apocalyptic society.” He rolled his eyes. “C’mon, I'm not letting you go anytime soon, Bloom,” Will told her, taking her hand and dragging her to a couch in the corner. They sat and he looked seriously at her. “Do you know what happened to the others? Crawford? Katz and her boys?” Alana noticed that he didn't say anything about Hannibal and realised, the thought sinking like a stone within her, that if Hannibal wasn’t with Will, it was because he had died trying.

The tears returned to Alana’s eyes and Will’s expression dropped. She pulled herself together, took a deep breath and told him. “Zeller died early on. He was out on duty when the bodies at the crime scene…” she sniffled, “he went out fighting but he wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on. He wasn’t turned, they just… destroyed him. Price was distraught, of course, Beverly too. He’s still alive, got a partner and kids, named his son Brian. He says if the kid doesn’t develop a terrible sense of humour and a fascination with dead bodies he won’t have done his job right.” Will grinned weakly, his own eyes sparkling with tears.

Alana clutched tightly at his hand with both of hers. She had hoped never to tell this next part ever again. “Jack… Jack’s dead too. He…” Alana was openly crying now. “He made sure he got everybody to safety that he could. Then he… god, Will, he helped Bella to go. They were found in their bed together, there was a syringe next to her and a bullet in his head. He left a note, said that he was tired of fighting monsters and since Bella couldn’t follow him, he’d follow her.” Will pulled her tight against himself and they sobbed together.

Eventually, they quietened and Will leaned back, saying, “He was a great man. A gigantic, bull-headed bear of a great man. I’m glad they were together at the end.” He squeezed her hand and then a frown crossed his brow. “What about Beverly? Is she…”

“Don’t worry. Not all my stories are sad.” Alana took a deep breath and tried to shake off her grief. “Beverly Katz is alive, a decorated hero of the war on zombies and, other than losing an eye in combat, is both hale and hearty and every bit the snarky, badass bitch she ever was.”

The relief in Will’s eyes was dazzling. “Saved the best for last, huh? I bet she really pulls off the eye patch.”

“I think so,” Alana agreed, “it’s really the main reason I married her.”

Will’s stunned expression was a picture. “What?” he nearly squealed. “You and Katz?”

Alana held up her left hand to show off her wedding ring. “She’s pretty amazing. And stupidly hot when smiting the undead.”

Will grinned and launched himself at her for yet another hug. She felt him chuckle against her and say, “Remember when I kissed you?”

“I faintly recall.”

“Really barking up the wrong tree, huh?”

“My finding you attractive was never the problem, Graham.” She smacked him lightly on the head. “Though I must admit, I like the new look better than the flannel.”

“Ah, yeah, there’s a reason for that.” Will released her and held up his own hand, displaying a gold band. “Snap. Wrong hand, of course, but completely official.”

“You got married? To who? Is she here, can I meet her?”

Will grinned, looking pleased with himself. “I believe my darling spouse should be arriving soon. I’ll give you all the gory details when I can make the introductions.”

“You’d better.” Alana decided she had to ask, before Will’s wife appeared and the chance was lost. “Will, I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this but the last time I saw him, Hannibal was on his way to try to save you from Chilton’s hospital. He… he was in love with you, you know.” Will looked down. “I’m sorry, maybe you didn’t want to know that but… did he ever find you, did you ever see him again?”

From behind her, a familiar voice interjected, “Who else do you know could cut off a man’s arm and then convince him to marry them?”

Will’s grin could’ve lit the city. “Alana, I’d like you to meet my husband, Dr Hannibal Lecter.”

Alana turned to raise her eyes along all six-foot plus of her former mentor, finding herself unable to move. Hannibal seemed relatively unharmed, save for a wicked-looking scar that ran the length of one cheekbone. Seeing her shock, he grinned from ear to ear and Alana realised, as he leaned down for a hug, that she had never seen such an open expression on his face. Indeed, as Hannibal crossed to his husband, stealing a kiss before sitting behind him and pulling Will back against his chest, she realised how little resemblance this relaxed, loose-limbed, contented man bore to the one she had known before.

“She looks a little dazed, don't you think darling?” Will asked teasingly.

“Positively stunned, dearest,” agreed Hannibal.

“So, I was right about the eye-banging,” Alana interjected, not wanting to let them win.

As Hannibal smirked behind him, Will exclaimed, “What the hell does that mean?”

After they'd finished laughing, they exchanged war stories for a couple of hours, Hannibal equally delighted to hear of Alana’s marriage and Alana entirely unsurprised it took less than two weeks after Hannibal had rescued Will from the BSHCI for their first kiss to occur.

Eventually, as the venue began closing for the night, Hannibal said, “Alana, we would love to have you for dinner.” Will seemed to choke a little as Hannibal clarified, “For you to come to our house to eat dinner.”

“You still cook, Hannibal?”

Will snorted. “As if the end of the world could stop him.”

“Yes,” Alana continued, “but you always cooked meat and it's so hard to come by now.”

“In fact, my darling husband has adjusted well to a vegetarian diet,” Will told her. “Claims a couple of years killing zombies kinda did for his bloodlust.” His eyes twinkled as he looked up at Hannibal, whose eyes crinkled in response. Clearly Alana was missing some inside joke but she chose not to pry.

“In any case,” Hannibal added, “cutting off a large part of the man you love,”

“With a katana,” Will added.

“…has the unfortunate side effect of making butchery somewhat less appealing.”

Alana began to laugh at that, with the two men joining soon after and it took a couple of minutes for them to compose themselves. Finally, she regained enough breath to say, “A vegetarian dinner cooked by Hannibal Lecter. I knew there was a reason I survived the zombie apocalypse.”

[janeykath318]

Stories Behind The Scars: Kirk/Uhura