#>wilderness

[novaursa]

I love your writing! Could you please do one where Targaryen reader (it can be Rhaenyra's sister) is taking Gwayne for the first time to meet her dragon and takes him for a ride. Thanks

The Wild Heart

- Summary: You introduce Gwayne to your dragon, Grey Ghost.

- Paring: targ!reader/Gwayne Hightower

- Note: The reader is the younger sister of Rhaenyra and bonded to the dragon Grey Ghost. I've broken my own rule about 1000 words here, but since you guys like Gwayne so much, I've decided to expand this a bit more. Enjoy.

- Rating: Mild 13+

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @deniixlovezelda @duck-duck-goose2 @aadu2173 @holdingforgeneralhugs

You stand on the edge of the ridge, the sea breeze tangling itself in your silver-blonde hair, lifting strands into the crisp, salt-filled air. Below, the waters of Blackwater Bay shimmer like molten silver, catching the light of the setting sun. Behind you, the Red Keep is barely visible, a hulking shadow against the vast sky. But it's not the castle that holds your attention today—it’s the man beside you, Gwayne Hightower, and the dragon that waits in the distance, somewhere between the clouds and the sea, hidden in the wilderness just beyond the Dragonpit.

He stands close, his expression serious, but you can feel the underlying excitement radiating from him. Gwayne has heard the tales, the whispered stories of your dragon, Grey Ghost—wild, elusive, temperamental. Unlike the dragons housed in the Dragonpit, Grey Ghost has never truly been tamed. He lingers along the coast and cliffs, only returning when he chooses. Not a single rider before you had ever claimed him, not until you.

You glance at Gwayne, studying his face as the wind picks up. His strong jaw is set in a determined line, and his eyes, a bright shade of blue, seem darker in the fading light. He’s dressed in his Hightower armor, though you both know he’s not here for battle. The armor is more a shield for his nerves, a thin veil of control in the face of what’s to come.

"Are you ready?" you ask, your voice quiet but firm, just loud enough to be heard over the gusts of wind.

Gwayne turns to you, and for a moment, a flicker of something—perhaps doubt, or wonder—passes across his face. But it’s gone in an instant, replaced by a faint, teasing smile. "As ready as a man can be to meet his future wife's dragon," he replies, the words tinged with amusement, though there’s a touch of nervousness there too.

You smile at that, a small curl of your lips. "Grey Ghost isn’t like the others in the pit. He won’t simply obey because I will it. He’s… unpredictable." You let the words hang in the air for a moment, hoping to prepare him for what’s coming. "But he’ll listen to me. Trust that."

Gwayne nods, though you can sense the weight of his uncertainty. He’s seen dragons before, of course. As a member of House Hightower, he’s familiar with their majesty and their danger. But this is different. This is your dragon, your bond. And Grey Ghost is no mere dragon of the pit. He is wild fire made flesh, with wings of smoke and ash.

You take a step forward, motioning for him to follow as you descend the rocky path that leads to the clearing below. Your boots crunch against the stones, the sea below crashing against the cliffs. Gwayne is right behind you, silent now, his presence a steady warmth at your back. Together, you approach the place where you know Grey Ghost waits.

As you round a bend in the path, the clearing opens up before you, vast and wild, with tall grasses swaying in the breeze. And there, at the far end, resting in the shadow of a massive stone outcrop, lies Grey Ghost.

Even from this distance, the size of him is breathtaking. His scales, a smoky grey that gleam faintly in the dying light, seem to blend with the rocks around him, making him appear almost ethereal, as though he’s part of the landscape itself. His wings are folded close to his body, but you know their full span would darken the sky if he chose to spread them wide.

Gwayne inhales sharply, and you feel his awe as though it were your own.

"Gods," he murmurs, almost under his breath, as he gazes upon the beast.

You step closer, your heart quickening with the familiar pull of your bond. Grey Ghost stirs, his massive head lifting as he senses your approach. His eyes, burning like molten gold, lock onto yours. There’s recognition there, an unspoken understanding, but also a warning—a reminder of his wild nature.

You stop a few feet from him and extend a hand, palm up, in a gesture of peace. "Come forth." You speak in the High Valyrian tongue, your voice steady, commanding.

Grey Ghost watches you for a moment longer, then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he rises to his feet. His wings unfurl slightly, the leather-like membranes rustling in the wind as he stretches his neck toward you. There’s a rumble deep in his throat, a sound that vibrates through the ground beneath your feet. But he does as you bid, moving forward with a grace that belies his size.

Gwayne stands frozen at your side, his breath caught in his throat, though his hand instinctively moves to the hilt of his sword—a gesture of protection more than aggression. You place a calming hand on his arm, shaking your head gently.

"He won’t harm you," you whisper, though you’re not entirely sure if you’re saying it to reassure him or yourself. "Not if I’m here."

With slow, deliberate movements, you step closer to Grey Ghost, your fingers brushing against the rough texture of his scales. He is warm beneath your touch, like the heat of a roaring fire contained within his massive frame. Grey Ghost’s eyes never leave you, and for a moment, there’s a connection, a silent exchange of trust and respect.

Turning back to Gwayne, you gesture for him to come closer. "It’s alright," you say softly. "He knows me. And now, he must know you."

Gwayne hesitates, his hand still hovering near his sword, but after a brief moment of consideration, he takes a step forward. His gaze never leaves Grey Ghost’s hulking form, his caution palpable. Slowly, almost reverently, he reaches out, his fingers brushing against the dragon’s side, just as yours had moments before.

The air between the three of you seems to still, the wind dying down as though the world itself is holding its breath. Grey Ghost rumbles again, a low, deep sound that resonates through the ground, but he doesn’t move. He allows the touch. 

Gwayne exhales, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly as he keeps his hand on the dragon’s scales. "He’s… magnificent," Gwayne says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I’ve never seen anything like him."

You smile softly, feeling a swell of pride for both your dragon and for the man standing beside you. "He is," you agree, your voice filled with warmth. "And now, he knows you. We are bonded, all three of us."

Gwayne turns to you then, his eyes meeting yours, and for a moment, the world around you seems to fade away—the cliffs, the sea, even the dragon. It’s just the two of you, standing on the precipice of something new, something shared.

"I never thought…" he begins, his voice trailing off as he searches for the right words. "I never thought I could be part of something like this. With you, and with him."

You step closer to him, your hand finding his, your fingers intertwining. "You are," you say softly, your voice full of certainty. "We’re a family now, Gwayne. You, me, and Grey Ghost. Nothing will come between us."

The wind whips around you as you stand before Grey Ghost, the great dragon looming like a mountain of muscle and smoke. His golden eyes, burning with an otherworldly light, follow your movements as you step back, placing yourself beside Gwayne. The sun has set below the horizon now, leaving the world bathed in twilight, and the only sounds are the crashing of the waves far below the cliffs and the steady, rhythmic breathing of the dragon.

Gwayne stands beside you, his hand still resting on the dragon’s rough scales. His expression, a mixture of awe and anticipation, is hard to miss. He’s faced battle, seen the dangers of war, but this—this is something entirely different. You can sense the excitement beneath his calm demeanor, the way his hand trembles ever so slightly as he brushes his fingers against Grey Ghost's side.

"You’ve never flown before," you say quietly, watching him as his eyes trace the dragon's form.

He turns his gaze to you, the corners of his mouth lifting in a faint smile. "No. Never." His tone is light, but there’s a seriousness beneath it, a readiness that makes your pulse quicken.

Grey Ghost shifts his weight, the massive bulk of his body rumbling like distant thunder as he crouches low, the leathery membranes of his wings unfolding slightly. He is waiting, waiting for your command, and though you feel his wildness, his untamed spirit, you know that in this moment, he will listen to you.

You take Gwayne’s hand, feeling the warmth of his skin against yours. "Do you trust me?" you ask, though you already know his answer.

He doesn’t hesitate. "Always," he replies, his voice steady, his eyes locked on yours.

You squeeze his hand gently, then release it as you step toward Grey Ghost. With practiced ease, you place one hand on the dragon's flank, the other gripping the harness that’s fastened around his neck and shoulders. You swing yourself up onto his back, settling into the familiar place between his powerful wings. The leather beneath you is warm, and you can feel the rise and fall of his breathing beneath your legs.

You look down at Gwayne, who is still standing at the dragon’s side, his expression now unreadable.

"Come," you say, holding out your hand to him. "You won’t fall. I promise."

For a moment, he hesitates, glancing from you to Grey Ghost’s immense, heaving body. But then, with a nod of determination, he steps forward, gripping the harness as you had shown him. With a bit of effort, he hoists himself up behind you, his arms instinctively wrapping around your waist as he settles into place.

You can feel the tension in his body, the uncertainty of being so high above the ground, but there is also trust—trust in you, trust in the dragon.

You glance back at him, offering a reassuring smile. "Hold on tightly. The first flight is always… exhilarating."

Before he can respond, you lean forward and place your hands against Grey Ghost’s neck. "Fly!" you command in High Valyrian.

With a roar that shakes the ground beneath you, Grey Ghost unfurls his wings, the massive span of them catching the wind in a sudden, powerful gust. The muscles beneath you ripple as the dragon gathers his strength, and then, with a single, mighty leap, you are airborne.

The world falls away beneath you, the cliffs and sea nothing but distant shapes as Grey Ghost ascends, his wings beating with a rhythm that you can feel deep in your chest. The wind tears at your hair and clothes, the rush of air so loud it drowns out all other sound, but you don’t mind. This—this is freedom, the sky opening up before you, endless and vast.

Behind you, Gwayne holds on tightly, his arms firm around your waist. You can feel his heart pounding against your back, the thrill of the flight coursing through him as it does through you. The dragon rises higher, soaring above the clouds, and for a moment, you are suspended in the sky, weightless and free.

Grey Ghost lets out a triumphant roar, a sound that echoes across the sky, and you laugh, the exhilaration of the moment filling you with joy. You glance back at Gwayne, his face flushed from the wind, his eyes wide with wonder.

"Are you alright?" you shout over the wind, your voice barely carrying in the rushing air.

He grins, a wide, genuine smile that lights up his entire face. "This is incredible!" he calls back, his voice filled with awe and exhilaration. "I never imagined…"

His words trail off as Grey Ghost dips suddenly, his wings folding slightly as he begins a rapid descent, plummeting toward the sea below. You feel Gwayne’s grip tighten around you, his breath catching in his throat, but you don’t panic. You know Grey Ghost, know his every move, and this—this is part of the ride.

At the last moment, just before you reach the surface of the water, Grey Ghost flares his wings, catching the air and leveling out. The sea stretches out beneath you, the waves glistening in the moonlight, so close you can almost touch them. The dragon skims the surface, his claws barely grazing the water, sending up sprays of mist as you fly.

You laugh again, the sound of it lost to the wind, and Gwayne’s laughter soon joins yours. His tension is gone now, replaced by the sheer thrill of the flight. He leans into the movement, trusting you, trusting the dragon, and for a moment, it feels like the three of you are one—a single being soaring through the sky, untethered and wild.

After what feels like an eternity—and yet, not nearly long enough—Grey Ghost begins to climb again, his powerful wings lifting you up, up, up, until you are soaring high above the sea once more. The land is a distant memory now, the world below nothing but a blur of blue and grey.

You turn your head slightly, glancing back at Gwayne, who is still grinning, his eyes alight with excitement. "This is only the beginning," you say, your voice soft, though you know he can hear you over the wind.

He meets your gaze, his expression suddenly serious, though the joy still lingers in his eyes. "I’ll follow you anywhere," he says, his voice steady, filled with quiet resolve. "Wherever you go—whether it’s the skies or the earth—I’ll be with you."

Your heart swells at his words, and for a moment, you are overwhelmed by the depth of his devotion. You reach back, placing your hand over his where it rests at your waist, your fingers intertwining with his.

"And I’ll always have you by my side," you whisper, though the wind carries your words away.

Grey Ghost lets out a soft rumble, a sound that vibrates through both of you, as though he, too, understands the significance of this moment. Together, the three of you fly on, the stars beginning to twinkle above, as the night stretches out endlessly before you.

[hanahaki-disease]

You Can’t Recall My Name

Hell or High Water - Percy Jackson/DC crossover

Summary:

“I’m not talking about Dick, or Cassandra, or even Stephanie—I’m talking about Jason! I saw him. When I was in the Labrynth with Grover. I saw him.”

“I thought you said he was dead?” She asked.

“That’s why I need to go back,” Percy unlatched the door to Blackjack’s stall, the hinges creaking as he led the pegasus through. “I cant—I can’t stay here knowing that Jason might be alive.”

The title of this one is from the same song used for arc 2, “Descending,” but this is the beginning of arc 3. Hope you like it!

*****************************

Logically, he should not be in his cabin packing. He should be out in the camp, checking in on the other campers and those in the infirmary. He should be with the other cabin counselors, planning and preparing for the next attack or theorizing about what Luke and Kronos were up to. He should be preparing the shrouds with the others, painting and weaving the tapestries to send their fallen campers into the underworld.

Percy should not be running away when the camp needed him here.

His body was screaming at him to stop what he was doing. Being hunched over the trunk that held his clothes, knees touching the ground and straining his already sprained ankle. His shoulder burning as he dug through the miscellaneous clothes he’s gathered over the years. An old camp shirt from his first summer, the hoodie that was now too small from this past winter break—even the old Meriweather prep gym shirt was still in the trunk. How had that survived?

Maybe he should have gone to the Apollo cabin before he started to do this. Stolen a shot of nectar or just swallowed an ambrosia square whole like a seagull. It wouldn’t heal his injuries completely, but it would be enough to make him not clench his teeth so hard as he lifted his Gotham bag out of the storage. Or perhaps he should just jump into the ocean for a quick minute, let the saltwater close his wounds, heal his torn ligaments till he was left healthier than when he jumped in. He’d need it if he was to survive the trip back home.

“Percy?” Annabeth knocked on the cabin door. For a second, he was reminded of last summer where this had happened before. Annabeth, hesitant at the threshold of his cabin as he dug through the stuff that came from home. But in the span of a year, so much has changed. Grey streaked their hair, scars littered their skin, and they weren’t as unsure of themselves as they once had been.

They were stronger now. Soldiers in an army. Generals in a war.

“Where are you going?” She asked eyeing the black bag on the floor. She hadn’t seen it before, no one really had. Percy had brought it with him at the beginning of the summer and quickly stashed it in the false bottom of the trunk. It had everything Percy needed to make a bat-level emergency leave. Dominoes in case he needed to hide his identity (one made specifically for him) and Batarangs for quick and easy weapons. Bat approved rations and water treatment drops in case he was in the wilderness. Even the bag itself could be worn as a chest plate if strapped the right way, it was made of Kevlar and other lightweight, but still sturdy, material.

He didn’t think he would need to use it this quickly. Maybe in a few years or something, pickup a distress call in the area for some reason, grab the bag, and leave. Or it could’ve just sat at the bottom of the trunk waiting to be used but never needed to. He would have cleaned out the storage case, chuckled at the outdated tech, and continued on with his life since he didn’t need to stay at camp anymore. That he was grown and strong enough to survive outside the magical barrier that kept camp safe.

“I gotta go,” He hissed as he stood up from his crouched position. The straightening of his back made his ribs ache and he didn’t think he could put weight on his bad ankle if he tried.

“Go? Where? To Gotham?” Annabeth walked further into the cabin, worry and confusion on her features as she tried to stop him. “It’s not the end of the summer yet, and we just finished fighting Luke’s attack. It’d be suicide to go out there right now!”

Percy wasn’t paying much attention to her, which was rude, he knows. Alfred would be very upset he ignored a lady like that. But he can’t get that scene out of his head. Can’t get the clear as day image of those two, blurred by the rain on the dirty window pane, face to face, with a gun pointed at the other and the Joker tied on the floor.

Was it the labyrinth playing tricks with his head? Was it the adrenaline making him see things that weren’t real? If it was the labyrinth, why hadn’t Annabeth or Grover been affected, or had they just kept their hallucinations to themselves? It wasn’t making sense!

Annabeth ripped the shirt from his hand, jerking his bad shoulder and made pain jolt through him. “Perseus Jackson, you better tell me right now what is going on!”

“I have to go to Gotham, Wise girl, I need to know,” He strained his arm for the shirt. “Gimme back my shirt. I need to go.”

“No, I’m not letting you go until you tell me what is going on!” Annabeth dove for the bag, almost falling over because she wasn’t expecting the weight of it. Percy could seed her eyes widen when she glanced at the objects inside. The masks and Batarang, the grapple guns with its extra hook and rope, one of Tim’s collapsible staffs.

“I have to see my brother, Annabeth!” He was frantic now. Desperate to get the bag back, to leave and see if what he saw was right. Because it couldn’t be right. There was no-fucking-way that what he saw was real.

Percy was on coms the day Jason died. He could hear the wind and the engine from Bruce’s com, he could see the white of the snow in the valley. Hear Joker’s voice tease and taunt the bat. And for a split second in that chair, Percy could feel the heat of the blast. The fire on his skin, the smoke in his lungs. Alfred didn’t want him to go down there that day, the butler having a bad suspicion of what was to come. But Percy wasn’t really known for listening to orders. He had snuck downstairs, placed on the headset, and watched his brother get blown up.

“Give me my bag, Annabeth” Percy hissed when he stood, but he needed to get that bag and get home. How he doesn’t know, but he was going to figure it out, though Annabeth withholding his bag wasn’t helping. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you to get it, but I will if I have to.”

Her hands tightened around the strap, eyebrows furrowed and gray eyes hardened in their stare. She was really not helping. He didn’t want to use the training Bruce had drilled into him, the disarming techniques meant to confuse and leave the opponent unharmed. Didn’t want her to know that he was far better in hand-to-hand combat than he let on for the past few years. He may trust Annabeth with information about his life in Gotham and his status as a Wayne—but he doesn’t know if he can trust her with the knowledge of Batman. That secret had layers to it, it wasn’t just Bruce who’d be exposed. It be his whole family.

He knows how much she was willing to go for information, their journey through sirens’ bay last summer was the first that came to mind. And he trusts her with his life, obviously, he’d be dead if he didn’t. But this was a big part of Percy’s life, almost, if not, bigger than his life as a demigod. How many supers did he know simply because his adoptive father is Batman? How many of his friends in Gotham did he know because his brothers were Robin and Nightwing?

That was a whole other world that he doesn’t know if he ready to bring to camp. Worlds he’s tried to keep separated for the safety of both sides.

Annabeth didn’t budge in her stance, and while his ankle was very upset with him, as was the rest of his body, Percy dropped and swung her legs out from under her. Reaching for the bag with his good arm and twisting it out of her grasp with the ease that came from being trained by a bat.

“What the—” She said as she hit the floor. “Wait! Percy!” He didn’t stop though. He continued his way to the stables where he knows Blackjack will take him to the edge of Long Island so Percy can go the rest of the way home. The bay between New York and New Jersey wouldn’t take long to swim, a few hours maybe. And the salt water will heal him on the way too, so that helps.

Percy felt Annabeth’s arm grab hold of his uninjured arm, pulling him back enough to stop. “Listen, please.” She said, worried and a bit upset that he yanked his appendage out of her grasp. “Can you just explain what going on? You’re hurt and panicked after the fight and I wont let you leave unless you tell me. Your muttering something about your brother and it doesn’t make sense. Tim’s fine, you spoke with him right after you showed up for your funeral.”

“That’s the thing, Annabeth! It’s not Tim I’m talking about,” he pulled her towards the back of Blackjacks’ stable, telling him to keep an eye out. “I’m not talking about Dick, or Cassandra, or even Stephanie—I’m talking about Jason! I saw him. When I was in the Labyrinth with Grover. I saw him.”

“I thought you said he was dead?” She asked.

“That’s why I need to go back,” Percy unlatched the door to Blackjack’s stall, the hinges creaking as he led the Pegasus through. “I cant—I can’t stay here knowing that Jason might be alive. If he’s out there in Gotham looking for me and I’m not there.” He climbed on, wincing from the weight of the bag on his shoulder and the way his back had to curl forwards while riding.

“Wha—” She trailed after him. “What am I going to tell the others, to Chiron?”

“I don’t know and I could fucking care less, wise girl,” Percy tightened the straps. “You’re smart, you can figure it out.” With a silent command, Blackjack took off, leaving behind the battle worn camp.

——

Percy rose from the Gotham harbor with his injuries left behind on the shore of Long Island and his Bat go-bag draped across his torso. The ‘water’ clinging to his now ruined camp shirt and splashing onto the dock in a way water shouldn’t. There was still a debate on weather or not the water in the harbor was still water. The amount of toxins and waste spilled into it was beginning to show in the deepest part of it, the bed of it looking much like the Mississippi. Filled with trash and mud that made him sink up to his thigh. But there was still a bit of the original saltwater in there. The last remnants from when the water was still water.

To a native Gothamite, it was easy to tell when something was going to happen. The city would hold it’s breath. Anxiously awaiting to the snap of a gun or the crack of a bomb somewhere within its borders. Those not involved with the looming attack would take shelter in the dilapidated buildings that made up the city.

And if Percy wasn’t a native Gothamite, he might’ve thought twice about stealing some random guy’s bike. But Percy was from Gotham and he’s learned to not really give a shit about it. That guy probably stole it from someone else anyway, so he was doing a justice by stealing it from him. Karma and all that.

The drive to the manor let him rethink what he saw the other day. With dirty, and ancient walls surrounding him in the labyrinth, just barely taller than he was and scrapping the top of his head if he stood on his toes. Dried and dead vines would crawl up the walls and disappear into the cracks along the floor or down corridors that gave Percy a bad vibe by just looking at it, like still water in Crocs’ territory or silence in the halls of Arkham.

He had been following Grover as they tried to find Pan, the fresh breeze and the smell of cut grass leading them through twists and turns that would surely leave them lost had it not been for the satyrs’ nose. They had stopped at a t-shaped junction. The trail to pan Pan was straight ahead and Percy could see bright green tufts of plants beginning to dot the floors, but the sound of a gunshot halted Percy in his step. The exit of the maze was barely ten feet from where he stood at the entrance of the side corridor. The plastic of an old, worn tarp billowing in a cold and rainy breeze from the other side.

Percy recognized the smell of the rain from the other side, the all too familiar twinge of wet, rusted metal and smog. Of lingering toxins and various other poisons that never seemed to disappear. Percy knew where the exit lead to, he recognized the chipped and crumbling brick of the building on the other side. The hastily drawn graffiti on the wall and the shattered light bulb of the singular lamp at the end of that alleyway.

Grover tried to keep him going down the right corridor. Persistent on having his best friend return to the quest at hand, but it was as if Percy had been hypnotized by the scent of the rain and the sound of the gun. He knew that Percy had to know what was on the other side.

There, in the window of the building across from him, stood two people. The first he knew was Bruce. The pointed ears and rubber of the cowl, still with beads of rain dripping down the back of his head and onto his shoulders and cape. He was tense as he stared down the other person. Shoulders square and feet an equal distance apart, ready to spring into action should he need to fight or defend. Bruce was blocking his view of the other man, but Percy could see the very edge of what he looked like. An armored compression shirt, dark gray and tucked into (probably) armored cargo pants. Pockets filled with gadgets and weapons surely. A holster empty of its weapon that was clearly in the guys’ hand.

The other guy was talking, his voice growing louder with each word, to the point where Percy could hear him from where he stood. Something about him dying, about letting someone go free. And even with the sound of the rain and two brick walls, Percy could hear the gun cock and load another round.

Bruce moved to his right, letting Percy see who it was he was talking to.

Had it not been for Grover beside him, Percy’s ass would’ve hit the floor. Had it not been for Grover, Percy would have stepped out of the labyrinth and confronted them. Had it not been for the seeker and former protector, Percy would have gotten hurt in the blast of the bomb that shattered the windows and made the walls crumble as the exit closed.

Because there, with a loaded gun towards their father in one hand and other holding the captive Joker at his feet, was Jason.

The chittering of the bats in the cave overhead and the bright fluorescent lights shook him out of his thoughts. Percy could see Dick tinkering away at something in the vehicle bay, a pair of crutches leaning on a chair and his foot propped on pillow. Tim was at the computer beside Bruce, an arm in a sling and the Robin cape still clasped around his shoulders. And Bruce—well, he simply kept his eyes glued to the screen. No doubt analyzing some kind of footage for a case or something.

“When were you going to tell me?” Percy demanded as he let the bike clatter to the floor. To his left he could see Dick scrambling to get his crutches and Tim backing away from Bruce, wanting to stray away from Percy’s angered glare. He was angry at Tim too, obviously, but he can wait till they weren’t in the cave. Percy’s dramatic enough to cause a scene in the cave against Bruce, but not enough to drag Tim down with him. “Huh? When were you going to tell me Jason was alive?

“When were you going to tell me my brother was back from the fucking dead?!” He spun Bruce around in the chair, forcing the older man to look at him. “Or were you just never going to tell me?”

“How do you expect me to tell you when you disappear every few months,” Bruce stood. “If you want me to trust you with this kind of information, I need you to be present when it happens.”

“This kind of infor—That’s my brother!” Percy yelled. “You were going to to keep this from me? You have no right!”

“I have every right to keep his well being in mind,” Bruce commanded. “He is my son.”

“And I’m not?”

There was a silence that hushed the four of them. Dick was speechless where he stood, a mix of anger to his mentor and confusion to his brother swirled through his head, because surely Percy didn’t mean that. He was Bruce’s son just as much as Tim and Jason and he himself were. Tim could only watch as his best friend stood eye to eye against the older Wayne, a reoccurring argument that never seemed to end. Only put on hold till they can revisit the rageful words and hurt hearts once again. Tim knew how both of them felt towards the other, having become the designated listener to their rants.

Because he knows how hurt Percy is towards the man, he knows about the blatant disregard he once had for the younger of the two Todds had been bordering on the same kind of neglect Tim’s own parents had done to him. Tim had been told time and time again, every time Percy and Bruce butted heads, how Percy believes Bruce’s affection towards him was only because of his relationship to Jason. How he was totally convinced that Bruce would never have taken Percy in had Jason not been his brother.

But Tim also knew that Bruce cared for Percy just the same—if not more—than he had for Jason in the years after his death. The man had doubled down on making the Robin suit as safe and guarded as he could in the possibility that Percy had ever wanted to continue Jason’s legacy. He always made sure that the tracker they all had was kept up to date in terms of software and models, every communicator would be able to connect to the main bat-computer from all around the globe. All because Bruce doesn’t want to loose Percy the same way he had lost Jason.

And the fourteen year-old knows just how badly Percy wants to be told that Bruce still wants him as his son. Tim knows that Bruce would do anything to keep Percy alive and by his side.

If only the two of them could actually tell each other that, then this needless argument wouldn’t have happened.

Bruce didn’t speak for almost a minute after the statement and he didn’t seem too keen on backing down in the argument either. Percy didn’t want to take the high ground this time, he didn’t even want to continue this stupid fight. He just wanted to know if Jason was alive or not and arguing with Bruce wasn’t going to give him the answers he needed.

He stood back from Bruce, irritation and anger still coursing through him, but he had more important things than this. “You know what?” Percy dug into the bag he carried, pulling out the comm device and one of the dominoes, tossing the bag carelessly to the side, before walking back to the bike he brought. “Fuck this. I’m gonna go see him myself.”

——

Two weeks had passed since Percy’s return home. Two weeks since he stormed out of the cave. The dirty clothes on his back, a domino hastily placed across his eyes, and a stolen bike as his only possessions.

He would be fine on his own while he looks for his brother, Percy knows this. They had a bunch of different safe houses dotted around the city and a few on the edges of Bludhäven and Metropolis in case of emergencies. The one he was currently at was one Jason had set up in his last year as Robin. One he picked and planned and stocked himself, with only himself and Percy who knew of it’s location.

The grubby attic space hadn’t been touched since it’s debut as a safe house. Dust and dirt covered the smuggled pillows and blankets, moths had taken to consuming the very old Robin suit and civvies stored in the trunks. Half a decade old MREs and various other expired rations in a rusted metal box, he didn’t really need those though. He had enough mortal money to last him and he could always guilt Dick or Tim into bringing him food. But if he does that then they might follow him and find out where he was and Percy doesn’t want that.

Percy stared at the map in front of him, a red marker entwined in his fingers as he lined the ruler against the other marks he had made. To the unassuming eye, one might think Percy was just drawing random lines on the map. A dotted line from one street to another, a circle around a few sporadic blocks in the Crime Alley area, a random arrow at a random section. And the people who could figure out that he was trying to locate something, they would accuse Percy of thinking that he didn’t know what he was doing or wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. But they were so very wrong.

Yes, it’s true, Percy may not be at the top of the class and his grades may not be the best, but he was taught by the Bat. That had to account for something right? Both of his best friends were geniuses, a daughter of Athena and a kid with eidetic memory, and his older brother was the best when it came to literature. Not to mention the mandated Robin training he had gone through with Jason—not because he wanted to be Robin, no, but because it was good knowledge to have.

Which was how he was here, map of Gotham and a red stained ruler, trying to triangulate all the possible places he could try to find Jason.

Some days he wouldn’t show, other days he would. On the days he did, he was all over this poverty stricken and drug filled side of town. Jumping from the Narrows one day, then down to the harbor, and up again to the Bowery. Jason wouldn’t stay still and it was making Percy the tiniest bit frustrated.

He looked up to the shabby excuse for a pin board in front of him. He had assembled every newspaper article of Red Hood sightings that he could find. Bits and pieces of what happened between him and Batman that last week he was in the labyrinth. The duffle bag of heads, the explosion of ACE chemicals and the midtown bridge—even the op-ed about him and his control over the drug trade by Vicki Vale.

A part of Percy didn’t want to believe that Jason was the one who had done all of that. That his brother’s name was just attached like a footnote, a scapegoat to release the true criminal of the blame. But Percy knew what Jason was capable of, what he himself was capable of as well, outside the sphere of the demigod world. Jason was trained personally by the Batman to be a lethal fighter with enough mental discipline to knock-out an enemy instead of kill, which was harder to do when you know exactly the strength of your own punches. Jason was clever, a natural-born trickster that would have him fit in great with the Hermes cabin. Smarts like that could be the deciding factor in a fight.

“I thought I told the bat to keep his little birds in their cages.” Percy sprang into action, the domino already adhered to his skin from his attempt to track down his brother earlier that night and two Batarangs in hand as he kept a good distance between him, and the other person.

It was one thing to see his brother through the glass of the window earlier, when he was able to believe that it was just the magic of the labyrinth messing with his head and trying to trick him into believing it was real. It was one thing to see the pictures of him in the newspapers and on TV screens, with an announcer talking about his latest chase through Gotham or a spotting in an area he didn’t frequent much. But to see him this close—to he see his chest moving with each breath and his hands tighten, ready for a fight—was something Percy didn’t think he was ready for.

His hesitation seemed to be Percy’s downfall in their stand-off. A thirty second head-start that made him drop his defenses and let Jason spring forwards at him, a fist pulling back to try and knock him out. But Percy has taken enough hand-to-hand combat at both camp and the cave to not be able to dodge as a reflex. And he does have to commend himself a little, just a wee pat on the back, but he was very skilled when it came to his type of fighting. He was able to go against a fair few of the Ares and Hephaestus kids who preferred the close range style, but it seemed as if his brother as on another level. One to stand a chance against Bruce.

Back and forth they swiped at each other, kicks aiming to sprain ankles and push the other back. Gods, when did Jason get so big?! When Jason had been alive, when he was Percy’s age right now (and wasn’t that a sad thought?) he wasn’t exactly cut out for the wrestling team. They were made of lean muscles. Toned lats and wide shoulders, a swimmers physique since the water was their domain. Made to cut through the waves and ride the currents with ease. Jason, however, was big and bulky.

He was taller than Percy by a good few inches, and Percy was no small kid either hitting the five-foot-ten mark with ease and room to grow still. His shoulders were broader than they used to be and his chest was wider, no doubt a strong man type body. Large arms loaded each punch with power, and thick thighs channeled strength in every kick. And despite being quite huge, Jason was quick on his feet. Side stepping his own attacks with ease and redirecting them to disarm Percy or knock him down.

Jason swung his leg out, the heel of his boot digging into his stomach and sent him crashing into the wall behind him. He wheezed as the air was knocked out of him, the Batarangs falling from his grasp.

Percy didn’t have time to catch his breath it seemed, as only seconds after he was sent back, Jason’s hand found it’s way around his throat. He had to admit—Percy was a little scared of his brother right now. How could he not be? Jason was six-foot-something, had almost a hundred extra pounds of raw muscle and strength against him, and had Percy in a choke hold with one hand. The red helmet he wore gave him no impression what he was thinking and the guns he had strapped to his body made it so Percy could only do so much before his brother deiced to forgo the close combat and switch to firearms.

“How many birds its gonna take to make him realize that kids shouldn’t be out in the streets,” Jason spoke, his grip tightening as Percy clawed at his brother’s arm. “How many birds will I have to hurt to get it through his thick-fucking-skull?”

“J-Jay,” Percy gasped. “St-op!”

“Just because you’re not wearing a robin suit, doesn’t mean you’re exempt.” There was a glint of silver in the corner of Percy’s eyes. The fucker pulled out a knife against him. A knife. “I need him to understand, and this is the only language he speaks.”

Black dots were beginning to flood his vision and he didn’t know if Percy was going to last any longer in Jason’s grasp. He felt the sharp edge of the knife. It stung his flesh as Jason dragged it over his cheek bone when he pried the mask off of him, the adhesive tearing at his skin and leaving behind residue and irritated skin in it’s place.

“I knew who the other little Robin was,” Jason said. “The pretender in a dead kids’ uniform. But who are—”

Jason’s words stopped abruptly when Percy’s mask was fully off. The whites of the helmet widened, the grip around his throat was gone and Percy collapsed to the ground with ragged breaths and coughing spurts. He didn’t see him, but Percy could hear Jason step away from him. The knife he pulled clattering to the ground, his boots tearing and crumpling the map still in its spot.

The helmet distorted his voice, making the stuttered breaths of realization sound choppy in the speaker. “Percy?” He looked up at his brother when he heard the red helmet drop to the floor with a loud thud. Jason stared at him with a wide-eyed look of horror. Green but once blue eyes shifting from Percy to his hands and the knife he had used. His eyebrows furrowed together, as if he was in disbelief of what he’s done. “What—?”

“I came—looking—you,” Percy managed, his lungs slowly regaining oxygen but his throat ached with every word.

“No, you-you shouldn’t,” Jason said. “You can’t—” He looked at the discarded mask. “You shouldn’t be looking for me, Perce.”

Percy shook his head. “I don’t care.”

“You shouldn’t be out in a mask looking for me,” He rose his voice. “I’ve done bad shit, Percy, you know this.”

“I don’t care!”

“You should. Go—Go back to the manor.”

“No!” Percy stood on shaky legs, one hand on the wall. “I have spent the last two fucking weeks chasing after you only for you to tell me to go back to the manor? Two weeks wondering if it was really you under that stupid helmet.” Percy faced him, anger coursing through his veins and bring tears to his eyes. Was it truly anger? Grief? “Two weeks wondering why you didn’t even bother looking for me!”

“I did the math, I counted the days,” Percy pointed to the pin board. “You’ve been back in Gotham for four-fucking-months and not once did you bother to look for me. You chose to put your stupid ass revenge on the Joker and stupid vendetta against Tim—Tim!—before me! What the fuck!”

“I didn’t go looking for you because I didn’t want you to get hurt!” Jason defended. “I care about you too much to be the reason something bad happens to you. You’re my little brother!”

“Bullshit! If you really cared, you wouldn’t have cared about that and still looked for me! You would have confronted Bruce!” Percy yelled. “I watched the feed, I saw you, and Bruce, and the Joker on the video, and not once, once did you ask about me! If I was safe! If I was okay!”

“Perce—”

“Stop! Just…Just stop,” He ran his hand through his hair, the adrenaline fueled anger was wearing off. His limbs were shaking either from exhaustion or residual rage. His throat burned from his yelling.

There was a silence between them. Heightened emotions, regrets, grief and anger all mixing to create a thick atmosphere in the confined space of the safe house attic. He could tell Jason was trying to justify his actions in his head, trying to string together words to make Percy understand why he did what he did. And truly, Percy understands. He knows that Jason would have wanted the Joker dead after his death because he wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt or killed like he did—he didn’t want Percy to get hurt like he did. But nothing could have hurt him more than knowing he wasn’t even a priority on his brother’s Return to Gotham checklist.

“I don’t want to hear any bullshit excuses or half assed lies,” Percy picked up his domino from off the floor and the grapple gun he’d been using to get around. With a shoulder check on Jason, he made his way to the window. “If you wanna pull your head outta your ass and actually give me the real reason, you know where to find me.”

The sharp bite of the late night air pricked his skin as he swung out of the safe house, leaving behind his grief and his stunned brother. The last thing Percy wanted to do was go back to the manor. He didn’t want to see Bruce and start up that argument. Didn’t want to face Tim and his silence on Jason’s return (but he was willing to hear his defense.) Didn’t want to be bombarded with Dick’s worried questioning of his recent disappearance.

But it was a test for Jason. To see if in his second chance of life, if Percy was someone Jason cared enough to push aside his current hatred for Bruce and prioritize his brother.

And if he doesn’t, then Percy can still believe he was dead.

*****************************

So? What’d ya think? I think Percy’s reaction was justified, I’d be the same way. I also need to figure out how to being his Gotham side out more. Maybe in a BtFR (beyond the farthest reaches) ficlet or something.

And!! This is the beginning of arc 3 so be prepared for dynamic shifts and fun stuffs!

Thank you for reading!!

Previous | Masterlist | Next

[chasingfictions]

yellowjackets so circular narrative so ouroboros literally we start in the worst of it we start with pit girl we start with the depths of winter we start with the height of the cult and the peak of desolation and the show and the pilot in particular is defined by telling their story — we open on the interviews trying to narrativize them from the outside, we allie , the woman on the border, who was almost there, who is on the outside but the inside too by being the first blood of the show, before pit girl’s sacrifice in the story but not in the discourse. my personal belief also is that pit girl is right before rescue. if we assume they crash in may, 19 months on from that is december. easily as snowy and desolate as the opening shot. the cult is so established there, the rituals so strong and steady, they know what they are doing. the first winter was so hard but the second winter they understand. and there are so few of them left there. so I think that pit girl is the last death of the wilderness. I think we open with the last blood and then hear the words of the first blood. we close the episode with shauna, looking at her journals. her blood spattered journals. she is trying to narrativize. the first episode is a circle that spans from before the crash, the moment of the crash, just before rescue, and years later. the first episode contains the whole of their story up to that point. and it will always open on blood. they are stuck in a circle. it will always have happened like this. we keep telling the story anyway. we keep telling the story to see if it will ever be different, and it won’t, and we tell the story because we want to see how it will be the same, again and again and again.

[paullicino]

Six Years - On PTSD and Choosing Life

Content warning: This essay very frankly discusses mental health, trauma, gaslighting and suicide. It also links to discussions of abuse and sexual assault.

If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, know that you are not alone and help is available to you or anyone who might need it, such as the Samaritans, the Suicide Prevention Hotline, or this list of other crisis hotlines and this list of international support resources.

This was reposted from my Patreon.

There are blue skies today. The sun bounces off the mirrored windows of a skyscraper downtown. It cuts straight across my balcony and shines onto my wall. A few blocks away, the staff of my favourite café will share their latest gossip with me, as they always like to do, and maybe later tonight I will make good food and play games with friends until unwise times in the morning. Isn’t life full of wonderful things?

You can find them everywhere. And I certainly do. Sometimes I’ve found them in the intimate, up-close details of a famous oil painting, between the notes of a new song heard by chance, even in the rustling at the bottom of a dumpster, which becomes chittering and then fur and a tail and then direct eye contact with a tiny criminal whose only felony was hunger. I’ve found them amongst perfectly crafted sentences that capture thoughts and feelings and hold them forever on the page, in the silence of the impossibly wild mountain wilderness a thousand miles from home, in the first moments that I’ve taken someone’s hand and watched the gaudy lights of some forgettable venue play across the lines and the shapes of their face.

That’s so many wonderful things to live for. And I can get overdramatically passionate about the tiniest, silliest little details.

I’ve been trying to write this for a long time. I had three significant dreams during that period. In the most recent, I had moved into a dark and barren basement, with most of my possessions still in boxes. Some old friends from long ago came knocking. They pressed their faces against the small windows and tried to force the ageing door. “Where did you go?” they kept asking, their voices entering through every crack. “What happened?”

Six years ago this month I destroyed my suicide note. I burned it on a rainy August night and watched it curl into a tiny, helpless twisting of ashes and charred plastic that no longer had any power or purpose. The note was inside of a ziploc bag, a choice I’d made to ensure its integrity and survival against any of the several different plans I’d made to end my life, and this had melted into black strands of hair-like debris that reached up to nothing. One or two of my handwritten words remained half legible in this mess and tried to reach beyond the flames, to share their intent with the world, but they would never again mean anything to anyone.

I made videos of the burning and took a few pictures, a sort of ritual of recording, then I told a close friend what I’d just done, and then, for a very long time, I set the image as the wallpaper on my phone. It would be an ever-present reminder to me of my choice to stay alive. It was supposed to help me feel strong, though the truth is that I rarely did. It was the worst, most harrowing and most damaging period of my life and with help, honesty, insight, therapy, time and invaluable connection with others who have either seen the same things that I have or had comparable experiences, I managed to fumble and fight my way through it all. But I will never be the same. Six years is a long time and I am still profoundly affected by so much. I am still trying to understand things. I am still trying to figure myself out, to make sense of my identity, my situation, my experiences. To work out where I went and what happened. And I am still trying to move on.

These words are something about that ongoing experience, that work in progress, and about the dual significance of a span of six years. It is not so much about causes or causers, but instead about consequences and changes, and that’s for three reasons.

The first is because what happens after and as a result of trauma is so enduring and significant, perhaps even the most significant consideration of all, and it’s how we find ourselves discussing things like spans of six years or, for some people, far longer. I want to try to explain some of that sort of intensity and that sort of timescale.

The second is because it’s my hope that this is the most helpful way for me to talk about all this, the most illustrative to other people, the most constructive. I could have chosen many approaches, some which I believe might have been more harmful and destructive, and I don’t generally want to be a punitive or destructive person. Ultimately I think this is the most positive and productive approach.

The third is because I’m still not ready to unpack many things, as so much is still ongoing. I am not at the end of this, not out of the woods, and I think I need to know that I’ve reached the end of whatever journey I’m on before I can return to the start.

There is, allegedly, a power in choosing how your own story is told. So I’m choosing to tell it this way and, I hope, with the awareness that any exercise of power requires consideration and responsibility.

Six years is a long time, and while I’ve been trying to write and rewrite this thing for months, those months still pale in comparison to more than half a decade. A lot has changed in six years, and yet I also wish some things weren’t still the same, that I would have been able to make more progress, that I would have been able to create more distance.

Because, while I am six years from that burning note, from that summer rain, in my memory and my mind it doesn’t work like that. I still find myself beside that moment in time, like I could open the door to the next room and once again be right there.

---

Writing this has been very difficult. Writing is supposed to be one of the things that I am best at, and in the past words used to spill out of me so regularly that I wrote a tri-weekly diary, but I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that my relationship to writing has changed. It’s not just that this is a difficult topic. It’s that words don’t come as easily or as fluidly as they once did, making it much easier, all too appealing, to simply not push myself. To avoid things entirely.

But I wanted to write this, in part, because it would be another act of not giving up. I wanted to show myself what I could do, what I still can do, and that, even if I’m changed, I’m still stubborn enough to fumble and fight my way through.

---

I want you to imagine a house. It can be any kind of house, that part isn’t important. What is important is that the house is your home and you have lived there for a very, very long time. It is comfortable. It is safe. It is so intimately familiar that it is a part of your identity. Perhaps you grew up there, or you raised a family there, or you retired there. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s your home and that everyone knows you live there.

Next, imagine that you have a terrible day. The worst day. And at the end of this terrible, terrible day, on a bleak and dusky evening, you expect at least to be able to come back to your house, your home. You take the same route back to the same address, where you see the same building stood before you and open the same front door, ready for the comfort of a place you’ve made your own.

You enter this space that you’ve known for so long and you notice something is wrong. The first clue is something small, perhaps a lamp missing from its usual spot, or you collide with furniture moved somewhere unexpected. You feel for a light switch that is now on a different wall. You stumble on the stairs as you make your way to a bed that is hard and unwelcoming. In the morning, the light from the window is not only a different shape, but cast in the opposite direction.

The changes stop being so subtle. After you notice that a carpet is suddenly faded and pale, you open a closet to find it is twice as deep. Some of your possessions are missing. The spare room no longer has a skylight. The kitchen is a different colour, with different appliances, with no back door, half the size it once was because the walls have been moved. There are new rooms whose arrival and contents are both equally inexplicable. Your most cozy corner is now cold and uncomfortable. You must relearn the entire layout, from bathroom to basement, because moving around the way you once would only causes you to stub your toes, to trip, even to fall.

Your friends don’t understand why you no longer enjoy going back to your house, your home. They don’t understand why you screamed at the different closet, why the sunlight on the wall makes you nervous. Being in your own home now hurts and scares you. How can you possibly relax here? But this is still your same house, at your same address, the one that everybody knows. You can’t argue that it isn’t. And if you invite a friend inside, after ranting about everything that is different, they ask “Why did you change all this? It’s so much worse.”

What can you even say in return? “I didn’t”? That shit’s insane.

But that is how it feels, like I live in a house that isn’t my home. Sometimes I don’t recognise myself. Sometimes, on the worst days, I don’t know who I am any more.

“Where did you go?” ask the voices, entering through every crack. “What happened?”

---

Last summer, a man came roaring down my street in his flawless luxury emerald convertible. I remember him well. He had dark sunglasses and a tan suit jacket and a hairstyle slick with oil, like he was being a parody of a rich man from an eighties film. He surged through the stop sign right in front of me and I let him know what I thought of his public display of privilege and indifference.

“Go a little faster, you cunt,” I yelled. “Maybe you can hit a kid.”

He swivelled his head, looked back over his shoulder and stared straight at me.

He also slowed down.

It was then that I realised the volume I must have used to project myself, over the noise of his engine and toward a driver already continuing down the street, meant a few of my neighbours had likely heard me too.

I’m not sure I cared.

I used to be a more modest and deferential person, and often that is still the case. But often it is not. I have less patience. I have less fear. And I have less trust.

The fear thing is great. Last autumn I walked across a narrow, quivering suspension bridge with no care for the drop below. Later, I found another far narrower, far smaller one and, all by myself, alone in the woods sixteen kilometres up a trail, I jumped up and down on the thing until it shook and swung.

I used to be terrified of heights.

My sense of fear isn’t gone. But it’s both so much more manageable and also, quite often, a thrill. It’s taken me a while to realise that I increasingly seek out things that are exciting, risky or extremely stimulating. I am frank with strangers. I am quick to make decisions. I am keen to try new things.

It doesn’t sound so bad, does it? That’s because it isn’t. Not all change is bad and not every consequence of my experience has been negative. Slowly, gradually, I am learning to appreciate a few of the changes, to lean into them. While one part of me feels sad that I’m less trusting than I used to be, another part of me sees this as more practical. I’m far quicker to drop something or someone like a rock the moment I sense things that I don’t like, and my sense for such things is certainly sharper than it used to be. Am I always right? I don’t know about that. Perhaps some people have been casualties of an overabundance of caution. Or paranoia.

That might just be the new cost of doing business.

---

It was some time in early 2020, while talking with my GP and taking some evaluations, that we began to look at my behaviour more closely. A year before, I’d talked extensively with a therapist about anxiety and about a growing sense of discomfort and distrust. I had far less patience, particularly for those who pushed boundaries, violated or were exploitative, often regardless of whether these things even involved or affected me. Anything that felt uncomfortably familiar, whether it was something I saw in a film, caught on the news or heard about on social media, could ruin my day. I would become jumpy, irritable, scared, or simply unable to do much beyond lie down and try everything I could to banish the feeling that my chest was being crushed. This might take hours. One evening, an ex found me curled up on the floor, ashamed of my own sadness. On another evening, a routine trip to see an exciting film turned into a sleepless night of panic and distress.

I began taking tests and found myself either dismissing the results or retaking them over and over in an attempt to get different answers. The outcomes kept telling me I had the symptoms of PTSD. This was far too dramatic a result and there had already been enough drama in my life already. I myself was too much drama.

Anyway, I thought, having the symptoms isn’t the same as having.

Sometimes I think about how, during some of my most difficult moments, the toughest weeks and months that I didn’t really know how I was going to get through, I made a lot of haphazard decisions motivated by panic and fear and ignorance, by doing my best to improvise and cope and adapt. Some things worked out. Some things did not. Probably the deciding factor there was luck and I’m not really sure I can look back with any wisdom or insight.

I didn’t always know what to do, what to say, who to trust, or how much to trust, how to respond to new information and changing situations, or what in holy hell might ever work out. My response to all of this was to keep secrets or to be cagey, to avoid places and people, to suddenly and liberally cut others off through a mix of ghosting, avoidance and outright blocking, or to occasionally have three-day long anxiety spikes in which I remained highly activated, oversensitive and endlessly insecure. During one of these, someone teasingly pushed me to take part in something that I didn’t want to, something that wasn’t even a big deal, and I was so close to breaking down that I had to almost run from my friends and find a quiet place to catch my breath, all the emotions in my body somehow pinched into a single point somewhere in my gut. During another, a laptop accidentally nudged half an inch sent me into panic mode, manifesting a feeling like a blade of ice slicing straight through my pulmonary artery.

These sorts of responses and behaviours would happen even in spite of all the various combinations of therapy and medication and support I was cycling my way through. I don’t feel proud of how I handled many of these things. I would love to be able to say that I handle them so much better now, with the aid of wisdom and insight. Perhaps sometimes I do.

Sometimes I have simply made terrible decisions and, looking back, I am still not sure how I might have ever done any different. I am lucky that the vast, vast majority of those decisions didn’t fuck things up further.

---

It’s a magnificent day as I write this. The world is jade and azure and gold. The sky is exquisitely, flawlessly blue. Every leaf is rich with the gloss of summer. The sun is setting into the sparkling sea beside a succession of fading distant mountain ridges, each hazier than the last, the furthest so indistinct it looks almost like mist, a ghost of an idea two thousand metres tall. Container ships the size of city blocks sleep in the bay, their hulls traced and wrinkled with rust from a lifetime of global migration. As the growing shadows of slowly swaying trees reach their way toward me, the last light of the day glides over the ground, over the grass and even over my body itself, like spilled wine gushing from a glass. It colours everything the sweet shade of nostalgia. The air is gently warm and the grass is soft beneath me.

I love days like this. They are one of the reasons why I moved here, why I put so much time and effort and energy into relocating halfway around the world. Into building the life that I wanted, piece by piece.

And I love so many of those pieces. I love my little apartment, with the balcony that I always wanted, with its ragtag assortment of secondhand furniture collected one item at a time, with its shelves tucked in here or squeezed in there, never quite tidy enough to look presentable. I love my walkable neighbourhood, with its shops and cafés and cats that follow me from block to block, or critters that peer out from between bushes in the rustling dusk. I love how low cloud creeps in to cover the tips of the skyscrapers downtown, or how the jagged outline of mountains shape the horizon in almost every direction. I love trying to make things, especially with other people, and the reward of being creative, of being silly or being funny. I love all the things I’ve learned to cook, or the ways I can warm myself up on a cold day, or the late nights I can so often indulge, with no care for what might come tomorrow.

I have so much to be grateful for and so much to be proud of. So much here. So much now.

Pretty soon, the sunset will transform the whole sky into a gradient of colour. Someone somewhere will be playing guitar on the beach, and maybe they’ll be good. Stars will appear in the sky, above the familiar urban zodiac traced out by the city lights of apartment buildings. If I stay up late again, the dawn sky will turn the royal blue of an emperor’s cloak. And then all of this will happen again.

I have so much to be grateful for. So much to appreciate.

---

A few weeks ago I had my first nightmare in some time. They still happen. The specifics matter less than the broad themes. Deception. Gaslighting. Manipulation. Boundary violation. All of it in plain sight, yet still unseen, making me feel like I’m helpless, like I’m crazy, like I have no hope of ever being believed.

I thought about it all day. The situations, the faces and the fears. This is the way it’s always been and once one of these nightmares visits you, it stays for a while. It’s like a small stain, an odour that gets into your clothes, the stink of cigarettes after a party the evening before.

Can you wash out a stain? Sometimes. With the right substances, with the correct regimen. And with some aggressive, persistent scrubbing.

One summer night years ago an ex woke me up because I had been thrashing about in my sleep. I had worried her by rolling around and muttering like a madman. Was I having a nightmare, she asked, and it wasn’t just that I was, but that I had them all the time. Every week, at least, each leaving that same gross feeling of violation and abuse. The anxiety medication that I had been prescribed was helping me sleep more, but it also seemed to make my dreams more vivid and profound. It was either that or barely being able to sleep at all, woken by the slightest of noises, up before the crack of dawn because some unresolved tension in my body overpowered all tiredness and fatigue. Even with medication, the smallest of things could still turn me into a nervous wreck, and one night I cried cross-legged on my bed as I explained to my ex not just that I had interpreted a few of her utterly inconsequential actions as a sign she wanted to leave me, but also that I might always be like this. Forever.

The nightmares began a few months after I burned my note. It was right after I opened up to another friend about what was going on in my life, and their response was to tell me about something else that had happened, the full story of an event from another six years before, from distant 2012.

It’s not my tale to tell, but six years is a long time to not know the full story of something. A long time to be deceived, to find out you’ve been lied to by someone you trust and that your ignorance has affected many decisions that you’ve made. Again, I am lucky that the vast, vast majority of those decisions didn’t fuck things up further. But some did.

Six years. It hit me then how long it can take for people to feel able to talk about something, as well as continue to be affected by it. How far the ripples travel and who they touch. And now, here I am, with my own six years.

That discovery was one of several experiences that transformed me into that person having three-day long anxiety spikes, remaining highly activated, oversensitive and endlessly insecure. That person thrashing about in his sleep. That person yelling “You cunt,” down his street.

---

I’ve written before about my physical health and my relationship to my body. I was anxious about things being wrong with it long before I had thorough examinations and validating diagnoses, but as part of those treatments I wrote about, a trio of doctors warned me about how stress was worsening every condition and symptom I experienced. Stress was ruining my health. I was having so many migraines that my GP sent me for an MRI that revealed how those migraines were changing the white matter in my brain.

I would have to do something about this.

Those doctors would help me do something about this, as would other professionals, and their help was invaluable. This would be impossible to tackle alone.

Sometimes I think about people I’ve heard say such things as “It’s not your responsibility to fix someone else,” and, while I don’t disagree, doesn’t such a phrase also imply it’s surely somebody’s responsibility, in this society that we all share, built from things that help us support one another?

Otherwise we’d be suggesting that people fix themselves.

Sometimes I think about people I’ve heard tell others, or themselves, or sometimes the world via the spontaneous and sneeze-like broadcasts of social media “It’s on you to fix your shit,” and I wonder if that’s where that sentence should terminate, if that’s exactly how it should be phrased, if those are really the words that everyone, or anyone, needs to hear.

Because sometimes I also think of another clumsy analogy I once put together. It’s a scenario in which I describe a pedestrian struck by a car, perhaps one driven by a rich cunt with dark sunglasses and a tan suit jacket, perhaps even one that has mounted the curb or surged into a crossing. The pedestrian is knocked down, maybe immobile from the pain and injury that comes from a broken pelvis or fractured leg. An ambulance is summoned, a customised vehicle equipped to transport them to a hospital. In that hospital, that specialised medical facility, a team of trained experts will use skills and equipment to triage and manage, to analyse the pedestrian’s injuries, to provide relief and to chart a course toward recovery. There will be x-rays, there will be drugs, there may well be physiotherapy. I doubt at any point that the person lying in the street would be told, by someone coming upon the scene, “It’s on you to fix your shit.”

No. Not any more than they’d be expected to walk to the hospital, to interpret their x-rays or to prescribe their own medication. Indeed, if they attempted any of these things themselves I wouldn’t be surprised if someone along the way communicated to them some more polite version of “What the holy fucking fuck do you think you’re doing?” and “You’re in no state to do this yourself, let alone know what you need,” and “Fucking hell. You’re at your most vulnerable right now. Fuuuck.”

Hopefully.

Once, many years ago, I knew someone who broke their pelvis. It takes months to recover, maybe a year or more for a limp to fully disappear. And it requires all kinds of help and oversight. It worked out. Doctors and medical professionals can be remarkable.

I have read a lot of books and papers over the last six years. I have listened to a lot of podcasts and interviews. I have been recommended a lot of material by therapists, by friends, by fellow PTSD sufferers. One well-known trauma expert I was pointed toward is Canadian psychologist Dr. Gabor Maté. And he says this:

”Everybody is born needing help.”

He means that it’s a fundamental element of the human experience.

---

Sometimes I go running and sometimes I go to the gym. The reasons I do this are complex, ranging from wanting to be healthier, to wanting to feel better about my body and how it behaves, to feeling like I am making progress with something. That last one is particularly important, because I’m doing something where I’m objectively able to recognise change.

When I run, an app tells me how far I ran and how long it took. I can’t disagree with the app, because it’s entirely objective, and so when I have a bad day, feel terrible and wonder what the point of anything is, the app still shows me that I achieved a reasonable or even an improved time.

It wasn’t always like this. I was bad at these things. I run better than I used to. I perform better at the gym than I used to. I have the metrics to prove it, and while I’m not a particularly dedicated or regular person with my exercise, I still keep at it and I still see improvements.

Whatever it is I’m doing, these apps and their statistics all offer me the same, very simple analysis:

“You’re doing better.”

I motivate myself to run, to go to the gym, to go on twenty-five kilometre hikes over difficult terrain, but I don’t do these things without some kind of help that comes from either expert resources, advice or training.

I don’t exist in a vacuum. None of us do.

---

Help is important because it offers things like perspective and expertise and informed advice. And don’t all of those things sound so extremely important?

How about we imagine that our immobilised pedestrian wasn’t collected by an ambulance. Let’s imagine instead that the driver of the car that hit them stepped out of their vehicle, shook their head, put their hands on their hips and said “Look what you’ve done.”

And then “It’s okay, I know what’s best for you,” before carrying the inert person into their car and driving away. Perhaps even unseen. No witnesses.

If such a thing happened, in this society that we all share, with that person at their most vulnerable, who is responsible then? Who is responsible for what happens next? Who is responsible when that pedestrian, forever limping, says things like “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have been walking there,” or “I should have been looking out,” or “I should have been more visible,” and so on?

A lot of accidents and injuries and collisions and whatnot can be traumatic, scary, confusing. “How do I make sense of this?” asks that person, whether carried away alone in a car, or surrounded by doctors in the emergency room, or anywhere else they may happen to find themselves. “How do I deal with this?” And who might be around them at that moment to help answer such things?

And what will they say?

Perhaps you know someone who was, metaphorically, struck by such a car, before being then carried away by a driver with all sorts of ideas about what’s best, and who later blamed themselves for everything that happened. I don’t know.

I do know how important it was to receive the right help from the right people.

---

It’s hard to know exactly what to do. You may respond to your trauma with a desire for revenge, retribution or restoration. You may not have the insight or the time or the means to do anything much at all. There is the ideal of what could or should happen when harm has been caused, but there is also the uncomfortable reality of how such things actually play out, of how long justice can take, of who is granted credibility, of how complex social dynamics can quickly become, of how awkwardly and uncomfortably people can react when they discover something they would rather not have, or that they have been misled, or so much more. We’ve all seen such things play out secondhand and firsthand.

I have had six years to consider the most helpful way to respond, the most constructive, the most positive and productive. I am still considering. I don’t have much in the way of answers or advice there.

Sometimes I think about the anonymous Broken Teapot essay, with all it has to say about the complexity of dealing with abuse dynamics, of harm happening within a group or community, about social consequences. It was written over a decade ago now, but it remains a very relevant piece of writing that brings up all sorts of considerations around responsibility, about trying to come to terms with trauma and abuse, and about how people might try to use systems or processes to try to solve things in unhelpful ways or even for their own ends.

People can have a lot of opinions about how to handle trauma, how to respond to abuse and how to leap into some sort of process of justice or accountability or reparation or even plain old revenge. So many opinions.

It’s exhausting.

Back in 2020 I tried to write something about all these complications and considerations that I was going to title The Calculus of Abuse. Like much else, it rots in my drafts folder.

Sometimes I think about how many of the ways that we push people to address both their trauma and the things or people that have caused their trauma only makes things worse. I am sceptical about the practicality, value and effectiveness of processes of justice, reparation and accountability. I think a lot of people believe that they will fix things, that they will be fair, that they will spotlight situations and systems and people that cause harm. That, in this cold and unflinching exposure, justice will be done and books will be closed on long and difficult stories.

And I think that’s because we see this happen now and then. Sometimes it happens very publicly. It seems to at least occasionally all work out.

Sometimes I think about friends who were excluded from social circles because they spoke up about something creepy or problematic, because it mattered less what actions or behaviour someone had demonstrated, even what could be proven, and much more who was more popular, or that the status quo be maintained, or that applecarts not be upset. I think about how different people share or don’t share their traumas and their experiences, what they include and what they leave out. I think about people who weren’t believed, people who were misrepresented, people who were shut down. I think about people who spent so long trying to get a handle on their trauma that any thing or person they might want to stand up to already had so much time to prepare, to seed the ground, to dig in, to get a head start. And I even think about the capacity people have to improve, to feel regret, to move forward as better humans. It’s a potential that I hope exists in us all and the writer Kai Cheng Thom seems to agree, saying that even those who cause harm themselves need help to “exit harmful behaviour patterns.”

Sometimes I think about what a friend of mine said about abusive people just being "regular people with very limited tools." And that’s not so different from a child. Doesn’t that make you feel sad?

I think about all of these things because how could you not? How could you not worry about how taking action to address a terrible thing would, in fact, only make that terrible thing even worse?

There is a paper by the American psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman called Justice From the Victim’s Perspective that touches on how many processes and pushes toward addressing abuse and trauma can be retraumatising, without any guarantee they will lead to a meaningful outcome or significant change. It touches on how legal processes and systems can be manipulated to further harm and harass those seeking redress, or how disparities of power and status and money can immediately put the damaged and disadvantaged people who try this on the back foot. It touches on difficulties presented by such things as burden of proof, especially combined with the challenge of a memory minced by traumatic events. How does someone demonstrate and prove trauma, or gaslighting, or manipulation, or anything else?

It also talks about how not everybody seeks such things as justice, restitution, revenge, or not always in the ways that we think, and for a multitude of reasons. These can vary from worrying they won’t be believed or that the process will serve them, to wanting to move on, to the idea that it may be pointless, as some “offenders are empathetically disabled… not capable of a meaningful apology, so they can never provide anything to victims that would be useful.”

Both this and the Broken Teapot essay also feature people examining how they themselves have handled abuse and trauma. I think this is probably the most difficult part of many years of therapy, reading and reflection. Sure, it sucks to have been harmed by an event, a situation, a person or a system, but at some point you also start asking yourself difficult questions like “How do I avoid something like this again?” and “Did I do anything that made this worse?” and “Was I codependent, did I enable someone or did I perpetuate something with my reactions or my responses?”

“Abuse dynamics aren’t so simple,” says the Broken Teapot essay, at one small but very important moment, not long after “I was not solely ‘a victim’. Is anyone?” And, after all those years of therapy, reading and reflection, I’ve come to believe that abusive people and systems gain at least some of their power from how you interact with and respond to them. If we were, all of us, perhaps better informed, we might understand, avoid or escape so many difficult things so much sooner.

And while both the Broken Teapot essay and Justice From the Victim’s Perspective talk a lot about sexual assault, their considerations and their examinations of consequence are more broadly applicable. This reflects how I find myself relating to so many stories of trauma and abuse, regardless of what the specifics of any incidents might be. It’s because I recognise the same things in the subsequent developments, reactions and outcomes, much like I might recognise the same chord pattern in different songs. I see people trying to understand their own changing behaviours, trying to articulate why they won’t do a particular thing or go to a particular place any more, trying to both explain and understand how their body or their health has been affected. The specifics don’t need to be the same for so many of the consequences to be. And I recognise and am much more attuned to recognising those consequences.

Both these pieces of writing are also very good at illustrating one of the most important things that you can learn about trauma, and that is, whatever happens or whatever choices you make, things can never be put back in the box.

Trauma is never erased.

---

Here’s what I think is another of the most important things we can learn about trauma, which is that people are generally very bad at dealing with it and are even worse at dealing with it if they are unsupported. And even if they have all the support in the world, they are probably still going to make bad choices, self-sabotage, lose perspective and do things they regret.

They will probably be foolish, be confused and be likely to make choices that could hurt other people. They may not have great insight or work against their own best interests. That doesn’t mean that they get a free pass. It doesn’t mean we are obliged to simply accept these behaviours. But I think these are realistic expectations that we should have.

In his pioneering book The Body Keeps the Score, the psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk writes that many trauma responses are “irrational and largely outside people's control,” coming from people who are “rarely in touch with the origins of their alienation.” An awful lot of the book is about helping such people to find ways past this, rather than disregarding them or pushing them away, even though this will be difficult. I don’t remember anything in the book that comes close to “It’s on you to fix your shit.”

---

While one part of me wishes many things had not happened, feeling both weaker and sadder, another part of me acknowledges that I have gained new skills and strengths. And one of the best things about what I’ve gained is that all this doesn’t just help me, but can also be applied to help others.

That’s a good thing.

I’m a tiny bit wiser than I used to be. A lot of reading and talking to experts and digesting all sorts of media leaves its mark. It’s not just that I know a little more about myself and my experiences, it’s that I can now better recognise parallels to those experiences in other people’s situations, behaviours and pasts. I anticipate slightly better, seeing problems further ahead, and I have a stronger sense of what I need to drop or to avoid.

I’m doing better.

---

I don’t have much that I can write here in terms of the specifics of therapy. I would describe a lot of the process of unpacking and analysing the causes of my PTSD as being extremely painful, like trying to both tidy up and then reassemble broken glass with your bare hands. The things that brought about your PTSD are shameful and harrowing. Their analysis can also be, through a process that can variously be sad, scary, frustrating, educational, validating and empowering. It takes a long time and requires expert assistance, which means the help you need can be a somewhat scarce resource and very, very expensive.

You pay for your trauma for a very long time.

---

I discovered one of the most beautiful sounds in the world some time after 2016, some unknown amount of time after I moved into this apartment of mine, with its balcony and its skyscraper views. I don’t remember now when I first heard it, but it’s been years now and I still adore it whenever it happens. It’s small and subtle and can happen at almost any time of night or day. It’s a sound that makes me think of safety and independence, of making my own space and then occupying it. Of security and stability.

I really, really appreciate security and stability. Much as I increasingly seek out change and crave new experiences or opportunities, these things feel so much better if I can enjoy them with the understanding that I have some sort of foundation under me. Something solid. No matter how small or how far away. Some place of safety.

The sound happens when it’s raining. Whatever metal it is that rings my balcony is hollow, so that when rainfall strikes it, it responds with a kind of subtle but sonorous singing. This ringing isn’t the specific sound I’m talking about, though. That sound is slightly different, something that rises above this other background arrangement.

When a particularly large drop of water hits my balcony railing, it gives a flat, gentle ping of appreciation. The background patter of the other raindrops will continue and then, again, after some irregular interval, presumably as water has collected from the balcony above into a particularly large drop, the ping will sound again.

I heard it one morning this spring, months ago now, right after I woke up and not long after I had started writing all this. I lay there in bed on a day the colour of slate and cigarette smoke and I thought about how the world is made up of so many beautiful, tiny things. Ping, goes one of them, and maybe nobody else on the planet notices or cares. But I try to remind myself of this and how my life is full of so many other probably stupid little things that I like, that I love. Don’t lose these things, I try to tell myself. Don’t forget about them and don’t forget to notice them when they happen. You gave yourself so many more of them when you chose to stay alive.

You get a lot of time to think on days the colour of slate and cigarette smoke.

---

You’ll notice I say “sometimes I think about” a lot here, when reflecting on less positive things, and you might consider this a writing device or a cheap hook or some other writer’s cheat. It partly is, but it’s also a truth. I do think about these things, and so many other things, very often. I think about one or another of them almost all of the time. I find it very hard not to think, to turn my brain off, and the unfortunate truth is that it reminds me about things to do with my trauma almost every day. It has done so for six years now and, as we’ve already established, six years is a long time.

Evenings can be the most difficult time. While I’ve always had a flippant attitude toward sleep schedules, I never used to have trouble going to bed. Some nights my brain will never switch off. My memory is overflowing. It doesn’t matter if I’m tired, it makes no difference if I’m exhausted. The rules around sleep are different now and I think I’m still trying to relearn them.

One therapist described the traumatised mind as like an overflowing wastepaper basket full of difficult memories that are constantly falling out. Any new addition can cause one or many of them to spill and scatter. Time and therapy can help to more properly sort them and make space for other, new things.

What a good analogy.

Occasionally, there might be a suggestion of ADHD sent my way. I can understand why things would look that way and a lot has been said by people more experienced than I about how ADHD and PTSD can seem similar. I think if ADHD had ever been the case some mental health professional or other member of the medical community that I’ve dealt with would have spotted this by now. But no. I’m distracted by some memory or flashback. I’m avoidant, or I’m in need of some thrill or stimulation. I might be full of nervous energy or unusually, intensely focused on something because it feels so good to be thinking about something I enjoy.

And sometimes things are bounding out of that wastepaper basket like clowns out of a clown car. I can feel like I've lost a lot of control over my mind and it's all I can do to rein it in. Some days I have coping strategies and some days I'm sick of it and wish I didn't need to have to cope.

And so I keep myself busy with the stimulation and the novelty that I crave. With people. With events. With runs, with the gym and with twenty-five kilometre hikes. Whatever it takes, whenever I can. It’s not ideal. I’m still figuring out what I need. I don’t always get the balance right. Sometimes unexpected things make me very emotional, either very sad or very frustrated, and I rarely know in advance what might do that. Sometimes I sleep less than four hours a night. Sometimes I want to be alone. Sometimes I desperately need company. I probably seem very strange.

But, let’s not forget, in the past I would lose whole days. For hours, my chest would feel like it was being crushed. I might be found curled up on the floor, ashamed of my own sadness. The nightmares would come every week. So things have clearly, obviously, demonstrably improved.

I’m doing better.

---

I still suck at writing. I don’t know how to fix that yet. I still very regularly feel like there is a gulf between me and so many other people, even my friends. I still have outsize reactions to irrelevant, immaterial things. I still lack confidence in my own personal calibration. "Many traumatised people find themselves chronically out of sync with the people around them,” writes Bessel van der Kolk. Yeah.

Toward the end of its six season existence there is an episode of BoJack Horseman where an actor reacts angrily to some improvisation and unexpected physical contact that happens during filming. Her colleagues are confused as to why she does this, and perhaps she doesn’t understand herself, but we the audience know that this a response to a physical assault by the titular character some time before. She never finds out, but this leads to her missing out on perhaps the biggest opportunity of her life, after a director discreetly describes her as erratic.

There is no further development with this plotline, no resolution to be had. Nobody finds out why she is like this, nor wants to, nor sets things on a new, better course. I try to remind myself that this sort of thing can be happening all the time, to try and grant people some grace and compassion, but also I try to remind myself that this is me. I have my versions of this behaviour. Maybe fewer than I used to, but still. I can be erratic and I have to face the consequences of that, as well as minimise it as much as I can.

I recently stopped buying fresh fruit from my local store because they would repeatedly put mouldy, furry produce on display. The last time I discovered this, I was holding up a box of ostensibly shiny, blood-red strawberries to once again discover the mass of fuzz hidden underneath. Food is expensive enough as it is, I thought, and it doesn’t also need to be garbage. Too late, the look on the face of the customer standing next to me clued me in to how vocal I’d been with my three-word expression of disgust and displeasure.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

---

You’ve read a little about my first dream, about old friends. You’ve read a little about my second dream, the nightmare. Here comes my third, from earlier this summer.

I dreamt that I was trying to get home again. I was confused about where I was, trying to remember a route through unfamiliar Vancouver alleys. It was evening, not yet dark, but the time between when you lose the long shadows cast by the last of the sunlight and begin to wear the rich, jewelled canvas of the stars. None of  the people I stopped and spoke to knew the streets I named. None of the alleyways I walked down took me in familiar directions.

I never found my way home, but I never stopped trying. Perhaps this does indeed mean I haven’t reached the end of whatever journey I’m on, that I can’t yet return to the start. I think it’s both practical and pragmatic for me to accept that the next six years might still present me with many challenges. That I will have bad, directionless days. That sometimes I’m going to fuck up and fall short.

I woke up to another bright, warm summer’s day, far later than I meant to, and I made myself a fine cup of coffee and a rich breakfast that I would be foolish not to enjoy.

Sometimes I think about suicide. Those thoughts haven’t left me yet and I’m not sure they ever will. Sometimes they arrive strong and loud and insistent, from out of nowhere and with all the power of a thunderbolt in a storm. Sometimes I want to be a shining example of how to conquer PTSD and sometimes I'm so sad I can’t get out of bed and sometimes I am just pissed off and angry. Each day is still different. But tomorrow I will wake up and perhaps I will think to myself “There are blue skies today,” or perhaps I will hear ping, or perhaps I won’t need anything at all to feel great. And perhaps there will be some undeniable sign in the day’s events, in my behaviour, even in the world around me, that demonstrates to me how much I’ve improved.

Each day is still different and today the glib part of my personality says “I sure hope you’ve improved, it’s been six years! That’s six years of painful PTSD examination, therapy, medication, reading, research, specialist appointments, many thousands of dollars spent and a god damn MRI of your weird and messed up brain.” And am I being disrespectfully flippant of my own experiences when I add that having an MRI of my brain was, at least, kind of cool?

Because another part of my personality wants to remind me I’m wiser, braver and maybe even a little more able to help others, people who I will remind myself can’t be expected to fix their own shit alone. People who shouldn’t be pushed aside, in this society that we all share.

And I don’t regret calling that cunt a cunt.

It’s been six years and each day is still different and this morning, when I pause to ask myself how I’m doing, I find I have the most simple of answers.

It’s three words.

“I’m doing better.”

[terramythos]

I got tagged by @gunkreads to give 3 book recs. Apparently this was supposed to be 1 sentence a book originally but who gives a shit.

1. A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1) by Arkady Martine

A Memory Called Empire is the first book in the Teixcalaan duology, a scifi space opera which focuses on the intergalactic empire of Teixcalaan, loosely based on the Aztec empire. The first book follows Mahit, a newly appointed ambassador from the independent Lsel Station, who comes to Teixcalaan's home planet after the mysterious death of the previous ambassador Yskandr. She soon finds herself caught up in the brutal yet seductive political intrigue of Teixcalaan as she investigates her predecessor's demise.

Mahit has a deadly secret-- a brain implant known as an imago which is imprinted with the memories of a younger Yskandr. Periodically he 'talks' to her and gives her advice. The imagos are a proprietary technology essential to Lsel Station's way of life-- a means to quickly train each generation to perform and survive dangerous jobs in the void of space-- and are a closely guarded state secret. But they're also a taboo concept to Teixcalaani culture, and discovery would put her and her people in danger.

This book and its sequel A Desolation Called Peace were both such a pleasant surprise to me. The prose is lovely-- elevated and intelligent without being pretentious. Frankly I love everything about these books. The characters are fascinating, and the thematic explorations of empire, identity, and sense of self are exquisite. The writing is so layered and intricate it's a joy to read. Specifically I love how Martine weaves the themes of the story directly into the characters' thoughts and actions. Like it's fucking CONSTANT but in a way that makes me chew at the walls and go crazy. The second book is probably my favorite but the first book is a great start.

You want a book where politics are performed through poetic verse? Fucking read A Memory Called Empire. Ok I love you bye

2. Jade City (The Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee

Jade City is the first book in a trilogy of what I can only describe as a fantasy/mafia/martial arts fusion series. Basically it takes place in a world similar to our own but with one main difference: jade grants people magic powers, and the China analogue Kekon is the only nation with access to and control over it. The story follows the No Peak clan, one of the Kekonese crime families with control and political influence over jade as a resource.

The whole trilogy takes place over a 50 years or so span and it's fascinating to see how the main cast changes over time alongside the country of Kekon and the world at large, and how jade as a resource influences international politics. There's a lot of intrigue throughout the series and I found it super entertaining. It also has some of the best fight scene choreography I've ever had the pleasure to read. Definitely a strong recommendation from me.

It's been a few years since I read it so I'm vague on some of the details, but that's the general gist. Sorry if I totally missed something lol

3. Annihilation (The Southern Reach #1) by Jeff VanderMeer

One of my favorite books ever- Annihilation is a short horror novel following an expedition of four women sent into a supernatural 'pristine wilderness' known as Area X. Told from the perspective of a character known simply as 'the biologist' we gradually learn about the downfall of her expedition and the bizarre happenings within Area X. While some questions are answered, many more remain by the end.

Annihilation is the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy, soon to be a quadrilogy with the surprise release of a new book Absolution this year, which I'm looking forward to. But even on its own it's a solid, creepy ecological horror story. Despite the short length, Annihilation has many layers to the narrative and plays around with unreliable narration a lot. This holds true for the series as a whole, and I HIGHLY recommend re-reading Annihilation after finishing the third book should you decide to continue the series. It's really crazy how much it sets up and foreshadows the later books while standing on its own. It's a short read but I wouldn't call it an easy read, and I mean this as a compliment.

Before you ask-- while I enjoy the movie adaptation, it is very LOOSELY based on the novel. I think the novel is much better, but outside the tone, atmosphere, and basic character setup, the book is a much different experience.

As for tagging people i think the whole mutual group has been tagged 😭 so i tag @mistressofmuses, @heywizards, and anyone who wants to do this!

[brettgilbreath]

Three Incredible African Safari Destinations

Africa is a famous vacation spot, with millions of tourists visiting the continent yearly to go on safari, a word in Swahili meaning trip. Visitors who go on safari have the opportunity to see a wide variety of wild animals in their natural habitat. Among the many safari destinations, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa are considered to be the best places to experience the beauty and splendor of the African wilderness.

For good reason, Kenya has long been regarded as the birthplace of the safari. It is home to the world-renowned Maasai Mara National Reserve, which gives tourists the chance to see the "Big Five" (elephant, buffalo, rhinoceros, lion, and leopard) and other wildlife including giraffes, hippos, and hyenas in one location. The Mara's diverse topography, from expansive savannahs to green riverine forests, provides the perfect backdrop for wildlife observation and photography.

The best time to go on safari in Kenya is during the dry season, which runs from July to October. This is when the spectacular Great Migration takes place, with over 1.5 million zebras, gazelles, and wildebeest moving from Tanzania's Serengeti National Park to Kenya's Maasai Mara in search of greener pasture. To reach the Maasai Mara during the Great Migration—which is recognized as one of the world's new wonders—the animals have to swim across the Mara River, which is packed with crocodiles, and sadly, many of them do not make it through the crossing. Predators such as lions, cheetahs, and leopards that lurk in the Maasai Mara still pose a threat to those animals that survive the Mara River crossing. Every year, thousands of visitors travel to Kenya and its neighbor Tanzania to witness the Great Migration.

Between July and October, travelers to Tanzania can also be a part of the Great Migration at the popular Serengeti National Park, which rivals Kenya's Maasai Mara in terms of natural beauty and wildlife. Tanzania is also home to the Ngorongoro Crater, a UNESCO World Heritage that hosts thousands of wild animals, including a large population of lions, elephants, wildebeest, and rhinos, making it one of the most densely populated wildlife areas in the world.

Another must-see destination in Tanzania is Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest peak. While not a traditional safari location, the iconic mountain adds to Tanzania's allure, offering opportunities for trekking and stunning panoramic views of the surrounding landscapes. Travelers interested in a more cultural experience can also interact with the Maasai people, a nomadic tribe living in Tanzania and Kenya who have rich traditions and a strong bond with the land and wildlife.

In South Africa, a well-liked safari attraction is Kruger National Park. This park is one of Africa's largest wildlife sanctuaries, spanning around 20,000 square kilometers. More than 500 bird species and 147 mammal species call it home, and many of the Big Five animals can also be spotted by visitors at Kruger National Park. The ideal time to go on safari at Kruger is also during South Africa's dry season, from April to October. At this time, animals congregate around waterholes and are easier to find because of the scant vegetation.

South Africa provides opportunities to visit wineries, seaside towns, and historical places like Nelson Mandela's jail cell at Robben Island, Cape Town, for people who want to mix a safari with other pursuits.

[nw-of-dark]

Vampire Clan: Gangrel

The Clan of the Beast, Animals, Bêtes, Outlanders, Outlaws, Wolf's-Heads, Beasts, Ferals

The Gangrel, a clan of nomads, maintain stronger connections to untamed landscapes compared to their urban-dwelling counterparts. They possess a profound affinity for the primal instincts of the Beast and excel in the art of fleshcrafting. Originally, they were among the seven clans that established the Camarilla, but as the Modern Nights unfolded, they grew disenchanted with the sect. Eventually, the Gangrel elders made the decision to sever their ties and forge a path as a predominantly independent clan.

Disciplines: Animalism, Fortitude, Protean

Bane - Bestial Features: In frenzy, these Gangrel gain one or more animal features: a physical trait, a smell, or a behavioral tic. These features last for one more night afterward, lingering like a hangover following debauchery.

Culture

The Gangrel, known for their feral and predatory nature, are considered the most solitary and unsociable among the Kindred. Preferring solitude over society, they exhibit reclusive tendencies, animalistic instincts, and a loose organizational structure. Their territorial and possessive nature is so intense that entering a Gangrel's domain without permission inevitably leads to certain death. While they are renowned as formidable warriors, convincing a Gangrel to collaborate, even with their own kind, proves to be an arduous and often impossible task.

The Clan's legends, myths, and methods of gaining prestige are predominantly passed down orally. Storytelling and the ability to captivate an audience hold significant social value, as gatherings in the wilderness offer little else besides entertaining one another with grand tales and songs. While most of these stories contain elements of truth, a satisfying and embellished narrative outweighs the importance of factual details. The Gangrel do not engage in outright deception but rather embellish the truth to appear more impressive, much like a cat fluffing its fur to appear more menacing. Honoring one's spoken word is highly esteemed, as the only barrier preventing another vampire from betraying you is their own sense of honor. This is not to say that socially inclined Gangrel cannot participate in the Jyhad. In fact, many of them derive some degree of enjoyment (or at least begrudging acceptance) from the grand masquerade of betrayal, conspiracy, and power struggles that characterizes much of Kindred existence.

The Gangrel also maintain strong ties with the Romani community and go to great lengths to protect and provide shelter for them, especially from other Kindred. However, the Ravnos claim a similar connection to the Romani, resulting in a deep-seated mutual hatred between the two clans that spans centuries.

Despite the Clan's rural nature, it may come as a surprise that even higher-generation Gangrel possess adeptness in managing modern technology such as cell phones, computers, and cutting-edge vehicles. Recognizing the importance of technological knowledge for survival in the modern nights, the Gangrel have adapted, and even the eldest among them possess the know-how to operate a microwave.

The Gangrel's emphasis on oral history and traditions, including tales of their Antediluvian progenitor, puts them at odds with the Camarilla's official stance that such ancient accounts do not exist.

[soulsuckrrs]

BASIC INFORMATION

Full Name: Ulfred Woden Nickname(s): Ulli Age: 43-47 | true age unknown Date of Birth: April 13th Hometown: Sweden Current Location: varies & thread dependent. Species: Zlatorog (Goldhorn) Powers: from his blood Ulfred can bloom a beautiful flower that holds powerful magical healing properties, due to this he has rapid healing properties as well as super strength & senses (i.e. sight, smell, hearing). He has the magic for illusions & minor mental manipulation that comes with executing illusions. Most of his magic has to do with good fortune & healing but his true worth comes from his animal state. Gender: Genderfluid Pronouns: He/Him or They/Them Orientation: Pansexual, Panromantic & Polyamorous Religion: Pagan. Political Affiliation: n/a Occupation: Wildlife Photographer/Filmographer Living Arrangements: he has a small abode in the woods in Oregon but typically travels for work & stays wherever he is accommodated. Language(s) Spoken: Swedish, Norwegian, English, German, French, Spanish, multilingual. Can usually learn a language quickly. Accent: he does have a subtle Swedish accent. 

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Alexander Skarsgård Hair Color: blonde Eye Color: blue Height: 6’4 Weight: 172 lbs Build: strong, muscular, agile. Tattoos: none. Piercings: none. Clothing Style: comfortable & functional, he’s not the best in keeping up with styles or fashion but he knows what he likes & he wears what he wants. Typically warm colors, browns, greens, & blacks with smaller tones of color here & there. Very much looks like a man who travels in the wilderness for a living but not messily so. Distinguishing Characteristics: has several significant scars on his torso, one on the right side of his rib cage stretching six inches, another by his right ear spanning three inches & another by his clavicle only one inch long. Ulfred also has a birthmark on his left hip, it’s fairly noticeable but doesn’t particularly look like anything. 

HEALTH

Physical Ailments: none Neurological Conditions: none Allergies: none Sleeping Habits: Ulfred sleeps when he can, typically 4 to 6 hours a night or a few hours here & there when he is able to nap. Can last a little longer than normal people on less amounts of sleep. Eating Habits: He eats when he’s hungry & typically he is always hungry, Ulfred has an insatiable hunger & can eat quite a lot when he actually sits down to consume food. He is a vegetarian but has had fish before & would do so again if he needed to but typically stays away from eating animal meat. Exercise Habits: he works out regularly, whether it’s hiking or running, or some long trek required for his job, Ullie is constantly on the move. Emotional Stability: Ulfred doesn’t have a filter when it comes to his emotions, he expresses them freely without fear of consequences or how doing so might hurt someone. Sociability: he’s a bit introverted, prefers less people & certainly does not like large groups, he gets anxious while traveling usually & tries to avoid people if he can. Not that he doesn’t enjoy meeting new people, he’s just not used to the modern & human world quite yet. Body Temperature: warmer than average. Addictions: none. Drug Use: he’s not a big drug user. Had his time experimenting with them though. Alcohol Use: wine, he likes wine, but that’s about all he’s had outside of ale. Ulfred hasn’t acquired a taste for other alcohols like most would expect but he does like trying new things & would be willing to try new alcohols. 

PERSONALITY

Label: The Wanderer Positive Traits: curious, adaptable, protective, loyal, intelligent Negative Traits: stubborn, unfiltered, naive, mischievous, jealous Fears: big cats. Hobbies: spending his time in nature, taking photographs, drinking ale & tea, reading anything & everything, swimming, eating, botany, hiking & running, gardening. Habits: clicks his tongue against his teeth, huffs/scoffs when he’s thinking or lost in thought, hums absently when he’s reading or doing tasks.

FAVORITES

Weather: overcast/rainy. Color: gray, blue, gold. Music: classical Movies: he saw a movie… once. Sport: fighting, rugby. Beverage: tea, water, juice. Food: fruits, grains & salad Animal: ram, buck.

FAMILY

Father: unknown Mother: unknown Children: n/a Pet(s): n/a Financial Status: he makes enough to get what he needs in modern society.

EXTRA

Zodiac Sign: Aries MBTI: INTJ-T (the Architect) Enneagram: the Reformer Temperament: melancholic Moral Alignment: chaotic neutral Primary Vice: envy Primary Virtue: kindness Element: fire Kinks: edging, bondage, orgasm control/denial, oral & cunninglingus, fingering/handjobs, public/outdoors, hair pulling, scratching/marking/bruising/biting, roughness, passion, multiple partners, impact play, power play, choking/breath play, dirty talk (receiving), body worship, more tbd. Position: Switch, top leaning usually.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hi! I loved your post explaining all the different gifts and powers the man vampires have it really helped me understand a bit more about the characters because I haven't read the books yet I've just finished the show but the part you said about louis barely aving any gifts because lestat purposely wants to keep him as human as possible, what did you mean, why does lestat want louis to stay more human than vampire because i thought he wanted louis to embrace himself as a killer like he says in the show but in the book he tries to keep louis more human than vampire which i get like physically to overpower him but is there more oto that? Thanks :)

Hey nonny!

Glad you liked!

Yes, there IS more to it than just being stronger.

(big) BOOK SPOILERS (for The Vampire Lestat) ahead once more :)

Ok, so... in order to understand this I have to explain a bit about Lestat's state prior to IWTV first.

Lestat had been turned against his will, made quite strong, and had been literally ripped from his mortal life. He turned, more or less still reeling, first his mother Gabrielle, and then his lover Nicolas into vampires (there's more backstory in regards to all this, and Armand and Nicolas, but let's keep it relatively simple here).

Nicolas was already depressed and went mad, blaming Lestat. He later burnt himself.

Gabrielle left Paris with Lestat and went and traveled the world with him, but ultimately her wish for her life did not match with Lestat's so she left him, too. Lestat went on alone for a while, quite jaded, and also quite depressed, all the while searching for Marius, who he had heard about from Armand. Eventually the loneliness broke him down though, and he went to the earth, sleeping.

Marius ultimately came to him and raised him, and took him with himself to the island where he was caring for Those Who Must Be kept.

Telling Lestat of what he knew of the origins, and what he knew of the mysteries... and all the while insisting that Lestat could not stay, because he had not lived out a full human life-span yet. Lestat, impulsive as he always has been, goes and gives a private little violin concert to Akasha while Marius is out, more or less awakening her and she offers him her blood, and even completes the circle, but her husband, Enkil almost kills Lestat for it. Marius drags Lestat from the chamber, and hastily gets him off the island and sends him off towards the New World, but not before making him promise to "live a full human life-span"

"If you mean to survive, you must live out one complete lifetime as soon as you can. To forestall it may be to lose everything, to despair and to go into the earth again, never to rise. Or worse. . . "

and advising him to raise his fledglings as human as possible.

"But in this New World wilderness to which you're headed, this barbaric little city called New Orleans, you may enter into the world as never before. You may take up residence there as a mortal, just as you tried to do so many times in your wanderings with Gabrielle. There will be no old covens to bother you, no rogues to try to strike you down out of fear. And when you make others-and you will, out of loneliness, make others-make and keep them as human as you can. Keep them close to you as members of a family, not as members of a coven, and understand the age you live in, the decades you pass through. Understand the style of garment that adorns your body, the styles of dwellings in which you spend your leisure hours, the place in which you hunt. Understand what it means to feel the passage of time! "

And Marius extracts the promise from Lestat to NOT tell. Or else.

"If you tell even one part, " he said, "another will follow, and with every telling of the secret of Those Who Must Be Kept you increase the danger of their discovery. " "Yes, " I said. "But the legends, our origins . . . What about those children that I make? Can't I tell them- " "No. As I told you, tell part and you will end up telling all. Besides, if these fledglings are children of the Christian god, if they are poisoned as Nicolas was with the Christian notion of Original Sin and guilt, they will only be maddened and disappointed by these old tales. It will all be a horror to them that they cannot accept. Accidents, pagan gods they don't believe in, customs they cannot understand. One has to be ready for this knowledge, meager as it may be. Rather listen hard to their questions and tell them what you must to make them contented. And if you find you cannot lie to them, don't tell them anything at all. Try to make them strong as godless men today are strong. But mark my words, the old legends never. Those are mine and mine alone to tell. " "What will you do to me if I tell them? " I asked. This startled him. He lost his composure for almost a full second, and then he laughed. "You are the damnedest creature, Lestat, " he murmured. "The point is I can do anything I like to you if you tell. Surely you know that. I could crush you underfoot the way Akasha crushed the Elder. I could set you ablaze with the power of my mind. But I don't want to utter such threats. I want you to come back to me. But I will not have these secrets known. I will not have a band of immortals descend upon me again as they did in Venice. I will not be known to our kind. You must never-deliberately or accidentally-send anyone searching for Those Who Must Be Kept or for Marius. You will never utter my name to others. " "I understand, " I said.

And so Lestat comes to New Orleans, freshly powered up on Marius and Akasha's blood, with the rather strong impressions of their history and no sense whatsoever that this history has lent to their existence, and... tries to follow Marius' advice. Because he sees it as his only hope to find happiness in his existence (at that point).

Now, Lestat in the books doubts later (probably rightfully so) whether Marius would exact his revenge. But at this point that has just happened, he just met ancients, and he just doesn't know.

And he really doesn't want to risk it. Not with Louis.

And in regards to the "killer" aspect - Lestat does want Louis to be a vampire. But as a member of a family, closest to human as possible. But a vampire. A healthy vampire. He has seen / heard of what hunger does to vampires. Has seen the revenants. Has seen the mad ones of Les Innocents.

As his lover and maker with this knowledge seeing Louis starve himself, lose interest in sex, lose his mental and physical capacities to an extent must have been beyond frustrating.

And, as a last note: Lestat would have never needed to make an effort to keep Louis as human as possible to overpower him.

Because Lestat always was - book or show - much, much stronger than Louis. By sheer history, circumstance, and the very fact that he is his maker. So Lestat toning it down... does carry an immense effort on his part. He could have forced him (and Claudia) at any given moment, but chose not to. Which makes the moment he snaps in the show such a whiplash and brutal experience.

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 3,086

==>

Author commentary: R.I.P. John Egbert. The death of John seems like a good note to end this book on and cap off roughly the first half of Act 5 Act 2. I'm guessing the next book should take us all the way through to [S] Cascade, or the End of Act 5. I sure hope it does, because having the second of two sub-acts end up spanning THREE books frankly sounds like the height of idiocy. And the LAST thing I want Homestuck to be associated with is the height of idiocy. As a closing thought, if I may remark upon the death of John here, some believed that killing off the protagonist of the story at this stage was quite a bold choice. And they were absolutely right. But it's one of those things you can only pull off if you're truly an avant garde storyteller who fearlessly defies narrative formula and all the safe choices in media. But as the loyal fans would see, it made perfect sense to kill John here. The surrounding narrative and cast are more than strong enough to stand without him. They use his memory as a motivating force to drive them to triumph, glory, personal growth, and overwhelmingly satisfying character arcs. At the end of the story, they would all look back on this moment, as would the readers, and see it as kind of an emotional turning point. A massive tone shift in the story, where it was casting off the safety of the known and charging deep into the thick underbrush of the storytelling wilderness. Every now and then we'd get a little flashback, of Rose for instance, remembering some heartfelt and uplifting advice John once gave her. It seemed so crazy to everyone that I would coldly take John out here, without ceremony or even much surrounding explanation. But in hindsight, you'll scarcely be able to find a single reader who wouldn't admit that when all was said and done, it just plain worked. Tune in next book, when we take our first cautious steps into this brave, new Johnless Homestuck. And if you feel nervous or afraid, just remember that I will be with you, holding your hand every step of the way down here in the laugh gutter. Except it won't be the laugh gutter anymore, because it's time to get serious. From now on, it will be the sobbing trough, a deep recess for our most potent feelings of melancholy and sorrow. No more jokes, no more goofs, just a bunch of stone-faced, hard-hitting shit, as Act 5 Act 2 hits a new tonal gear. I'm preparing myself as we speak. My life coach and priest have finally caught up with me, and they've brought along a brand-new friend: my exorcist. I hit the Yankee Candle store earlier and bought a few dozen wax fatties, borrowed a straightjacket from my former psychiatrist's widow, and now I'm ready for whatever happens next. Are you?

[weavercobra]

Encounters in the Jungle

A series of smaller, off screen events that happened during the last Pathfinder campaign. They take place over a span of time, so one doesn't directly follow the other.

Gnedaveeck Benyvoc, a gnome dressed in jungle gear with his smooth black hair squashed under a helmet, finished buttoning his shirt. Today was the day the expedition would officially start. Off to find lost Saventh-Yhi.

Of course, for Gnedaveeck, this was far from the start of his involvement with the whole affair. Between the accidents, the battles and the kidnapping, he had been quite busy as of late. But the gnome was not one to let anything get his mood down. Besides, he was an adventurer. People would balk at any adventurer that couldn't handle a little impromptu wilderness survival. And in Gnedaveeck's opinion, they'd be right to.

Leaving the hotel behind, he headed towards the meeting point, the sun-lit streets of the city swarming with people. The recent troubles had certainly done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the citizenry.

What did dampen the spring in the gnome's step however, was the sight that greeted him at the meeting point. Standing in the middle of the expedition giving out orders was a dragon and a dangerous looking one at that. Gnedaveeck had him pegged as a red one, but several things stood out as odd. The colour was far deeper in hue than was usual, the scales looked far bigger and even at a distance, a faint hint of brimstone was carried by the wind.

Yet everyone else was packing up supplies and getting stuff in order at the massive dragon's orders. Ergo, they were either supposed to be there or the dragon had assumed control and no one was objecting.

Either way, Gnedaveeck had a feeling he would know soon enough. “Hello there,” he announced, as he walked up to the ominous giant. “You're new around here, yes? I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed if you had been here earlier. I'm pretty good with faces, see.” The dragon chuckled. “Yes, I am new here,” he replied. “I am Ironhide. I have been sent to lead the expedition.” “Ironhide? Hmm, that does ring a bell.” Gnedaveeck crossed his arms. “I think HQ forgot to mention you'd be a dragon though. But where else have I heard that name?” “Does the Mystical Peacekeeping Society ring a bell?” “Right, right. That's you, then? Amazing. I've heard of your exploits in the news. People would never trust an adventurer that doesn't keep up with the news. And they'd be right to.” He nodded. “So how did you end up with this gig?” “Archaeological interest, really,” he responded. “I started looking for something and discovered a passion for the subject. Collaborated with the Pathfinders and ended up accepting a position among them.”

“Aren't the MPS also here?” “Yes, but they're supporting one of our allies here instead. I'm not here in an official capacity as a member.”

“I see. Quite fascinating.”

“By the way, I was looking for you. From the report, I gather you were essential in discovering the information on Saventh-Yhi,” Ironhide continued, before casually handing out some more instructions.

“Quite so. Though I was hardly the only one.” “What do you think we'll encounter?” “Eh, the usual,” the gnome responded. “Curses, ruins and a whole load of traps. Nothing people wouldn't expect adventurers like us to handle. And they'd be right to.”

“Yes. On a more personal note...” The dragon paused. “How was Vek last you saw him?”

“Vek? That lil' firestarter? He did great. But, ehm, how to put it? The whole ordeal did... Change him. He was way more... I dunno how to put it. I guess savage, maybe? Still nice, still polite, still cute as a button. But also more violent. Wasn't there for the whole thing, had to pick up a lot through the grapevine, but he did end up wrecking some idiots. Permanently.” Gnedaveeck nodded sombrely. “He's strong. Impressively so. But he was in a good mood when we parted.” Ironhide nodded. “That is good to hear.” “Why the interest?” “Well... He's my younger brother.” “Oh? Oh, I see.” The gnome rubbed his arm. “Right. No, don't worry. He's... Handling things. I had to have a serious talk with him, but he was managing.” “Serious talk?” “Ehm... I dunno how delicately I can put this, but... He was kinda freaked out by... How much he ended up liking... Hunting... People.” The gnome vaguely gestured with his arm. “I said that was probably normal for dragons. I'm not an expert, but... You guys can be pretty wild, you know?” “True. Well, he's returning home for the festival. I'm sure Mom and Dad will be able to help him if there's anything.” Ironhide nodded. “Alright then, thank you. For helping him. Shall we get going?” “Of course. People would expect a proper adventurer to be able to leave at a moment's notice.” “And they'd be right to?” “Why, most certainly.”

...

Julius examined his face in the mirror, letting the tip of his claw slide along the scar he had gotten. The sight filled him with a mixture of feelings. On one hand, he had gotten it from Ironhide, a subject which inherently roused the half-dragon's temper. On the other hand, he had gotten it from their newest duel. And while Julius had lost, he had pushed the dragon further than ever before. The gap between them had rapidly closed thanks to his new training. Soon, they'd be equals. And then Julius would exceed him in capability. The thought alone caused the paracount to smile, revealing his sharp teeth.

Just then, the flaps of his tent was disturbed as Harold poked his head in. “We have a guest.” Julius sighed. “Is it another dragon?” “Nope. It's Admiral Bridget.” He stared. “What in the blazes is she doing out here?” he inquired, as he got up from his stool and exited the tent.

Standing by the campfire was their visitor. She had heavily simian features, covered in light brown fur with a tail slowly swaying behind her. A cape of white hair marked her head and she was dressed in a blue uniform, a revolver by her side. Julius was aware of who she was. Her presence in the court was a well-known curiosity. One of the vanara from a mysterious island known as Monloon. His country had briefly entertained the idea of incorporating the land into their empire, but a thorough report on the vanaras' military capabilities had confirmed to all but the most stubborn warhawks that such an endeavor would have been too costly. Instead, an alliance had been struck, with several of the simian people's military personnel being attached to the army. Admiral Bridget had been one such case. Already a famed naval commander in her home, she had quickly proven to be an equal of any Chelish admiral and Her Majestrix had given her a position where she could use that.

So seeing her in the middle of the jungle was quite peculiar.

“Admiral,” Julius greeted her. “I was unaware you'd be visiting us.”

“Heard you were in the area, Julius. Involved with Sargava, of all things,” the vanara responded. “Unusual company for you.” “Not much company anymore,” Xavier remarked. “What with them being blown to bits by that phoenix.” “Indeed. Officially, this is a purely Chelish expedition now,” Julius agreed. “All finds are now solely the property of the Chelish crown.” “I see. Will do little to convince the Sargavans you didn't screw them over, but I hardly imagine you care. I, for one, don't.” She folded her arms. “What I care about, however, is this Ironhide business I heard about. You look like somebody's run you over.”

“To be fair, Ironhide wasn't looking much better,” Harold noted.

“At least he was still standing,” Wan commented.

“Yes, thank you for the observation,” Julius sharply noted. “Ironhide, in case you haven't heard, is an oversized lump of coal who has on several occasions interfered in official business. I have endeavoured to ensure that he will not be able to do so in the future.” She cocked her head, staring at him. “I see. And how do you feel that particular project is going?”

“It's advancing steadily.” “Right.” She sighed. “Julius, you're usually a very sensible man. I don't need to tell you that everything I've heard about Ironhide indicates you'll have about as much luck beating him as eating you way through a mountainside. You do realise this errand of yours is bound to get yourself hurt a lot more”

“Eh, no pain, no gain,” Lena noted. “Besides, those dragons think they can just pull all kinds of shit. It's about high time we took them down a peg, sir.”

“Right. Lena Spinello, yes?” Receiving an affirmative, Bridget continued: “You used to be assigned as a pirate hunter until you recently transferred to the Expedition because, and I quote what you wrote, you had to 'go beat the shit out of the dragon that stole your ship'.” “That's right. We even found her,” the pirate hunter affirmed.

“Well... She found us,” Lillian noted, stirring the camp's massive pot. “And then she ate you.” Lena scowled.

“To be fair, that fight was bullshit,” Wan noted. “I mean, she just covered the entire camp in fog. I couldn't see my hands, let alone anything I was supposed to shoot.” “Sounds like this operation is going splendidly,” the admiral noted, rubbing her temples. “And the dragon would be Vorelia, yes? Look, I'm currently assisting the MPS with the actual archaeology around here. And I happen to have seen her around. This place is far too dangerous and the last thing we need is everyone running around beating each other up. I don't have the authority to order you, but I would strongly suggest that you cease the personal vendettas until we're done with this city. I doubt we've dealt with the last of its dangers.” Julius' mouth became a thin line. “Do not worry, I had no intentions to pursue a second fight with Ironhide,” he noted. “We shall focus on canvassing the area and discovering more finds for now.” “Good to hear. Take care.” “Likewise.” The vanara turned around and shook her head as she walked off again.

“Well... That was unexpected,” Xavier noted. “So I take it from that she's going to shoot us if Lena runs off to try and stab her dragon?” “Most likely,” the pirate hunter grumbled. “Fine. So be it.” She poked Julius' chest. “But you promised me revenge and I now have a double-sized heaping of payback I'm gonna serve that bastard seabeast.”

“Yes, I quite understand,” the paracount noted, gently sweeping the finger aside. “You have my word that we will continue to support you in this endeavor.”

...

Night time had fallen over the jungle, cloaking it in deep shadows. Above, the cloud-less skies were a picturesque canvas of stars. A campfire gently billowed, illuminating the clearing. Harold, Lillian, Xavier and Lena were in the middle of a card game. Julius sat in his chair, thumbing through one of his books. And Wan scanned the darkness of the jungle, looking for dangers.

It was not the most exciting of jobs, but he was a sharpshooter for a reason. By far, he had the best eyesight of them all and it was only natural that he'd often be the team's lookout.

And it was a vital position, trying to differentiate between what was merely darkened shapes and what was the lurking forms of dangers unknown. It took a very specific set of skills not to miss the obvious threats, nor jump at every shadow.

Of course, even the most near-sighted bookworm would have been hard pressed to miss the series of crimson orbs currently staring at him.

Wan's rifle was in his hand in seconds, barrel aimed at the ominous shape. “We've got visitors,” he called to the others, keeping steady and not letting the observer out of sight.

The others were armed and on their feet the moment their sharpshooter had called out, each ready to face the danger. With a few large steps, Harold was next to their lookout, his big shield planted against the ground to safeguard his comrade if the unknown being charged.

“Is that how you greet old friends?” the dark shape inquired bemused.

The expeditionaries paused.

“Hey... That voice,” Xavier stated.

Branches slightly creaked, as the shape slithered down to the ground, revealing by firelight an arachnid shape, the finer details of their body lost in their black colouration. The numerous red eyes stood out, as did a notable red dot on her abdomen. But otherwise, her shape was blurry, the edges of her form wavering like gently flowing water.

Lillian paused. “Fulla?” she finally asked.

“Right, Fulla. There's the name,” Xavier said, snapping his finger. “How's it going? You're blacker than I remember.” “Yes, well, it's been a while,” the spider noted. “On that note, Julius, what did you go and do to yourself?” “I was born,” he noted dryly.

“Hang on, timeout,” Lena interjected. “Is anyone gonna tell me what the fuck is going on here, or am I just supposed to guess?” “Apologies. Lena Spinello this is Fulla. A mercenary whom we had the pleasure of working with some time ago.” He turned his attention back to her. “Though as my associate noted, you have changed.” “Got infused with the power of darkness. Was kidnapped by a rakshasa. Turned tables on his furry ass,” she explained. “Fun times. But, eh, don't care much to repeat myself. Where's Bogdan?” Immediately, an awkward silence descended over the camp.

“Oh. I see,” she noted quietly. “I am sorry to hear that.”

“It's fine,” Julius sighed. “You couldn't know.” He shook his head. “Nevermind. I don't much care to think of it. What brings you to the jungle?”

“I was following a... How to put it, a gut feeling,” she remarked. “Comes with this new body. I can sense things. And something about this place just called me.” “So you found Saventh-Yhi before us, huh?” Harold asked.

“Her and everybody bloody else,” Wan remarked, rolling his eyes. “How many people have we discovered live here now?” “Plenty.”

“I live over in the residential district. Been there for a while,” Fulla noted. “It's been nice.”

“So you've just moved in here?” Xavier asked.

“Pretty much. Haven't found what drew me in yet, but maybe with everyone here, I'll figure it out.” The group arranged themselves around the campfire, as Wan returned to watching the jungle. “I'm helping those MPS guys out right now, but I'll try to keep you all in the loop.” “Much appreciated,” Lillian noted with a grateful bow.

“No problem. Seriously, Julius, what happened to you?” “His mother banged a hermaphrodite dragon and that just kinda blew up recently like a very late onset of puberty,” Xavier explained. “It was awesome.” “I don't remember having to have my body wrapped in gauze for months being awesome,” Julius noted.

“Well, no, but the part where you spat fire was cool.”

“You're actually a half-dragon? For real?” Fulla asked. “Guess that explains why you like collecting things.” “I doubt that has anything to do with it,” Julius replied, after a moment of hesitant consideration.

“And the scars?” “Ironhide. A dragon whom I've... Clashed with on numerous occasions.” He steepled his fingers. “But I've entered a harsh training program to leverage my newly gained draconic powers. I should soon be able to best him.”

“It's a thing they've got going,” Harold noted. “Ironhide got mad because we... Kinda robbed his hoard.” “That's both very brave and very stupid,” Fulla noted.

“Yeah.” Harold went quiet. “That's also when... You know...” “I see,” she replied sombrely.

“So since then, we've been cursed,” Wan noted. “Bloody fucking dragons won't leave us alone. Ironhide constantly shows up to fuck us over or just kidnap Harold for a lark. I got shot by that tunnel-dwelling stick figure of an half-dragon elf, right before that lil' rugrat kobold ran off with my hat. And Lena here keeps getting eaten by this other dragon.” He spat. “I've had it from here to fucking Aucturn with dragons.”

“Wow. Sounds like you guys got stuck with all the bad luck,” Fulla remarked.

“I choose to see it in a less negative light,” Julius commented. “Lord Asmodeus has allowed these things to befall us for a reason. Overcoming these challenges are no doubt part of his design for us.”

“And yes, he really believes that,” Lena commented.

The paracount rolled his eyes. “We'll turn it around soon enough. Our work here discovering Saventh-Yhi is just part of it.” He paused, before admitting: “For a given value of discovering, that is.”

“And afterwards?” “We will continue to get stronger. We will overcome this.” Fulla watched him quietly. “I hope you will,” she remarked. “Anyway, it was fun catching up. I'll probably drop by again soon.” “Yeah, see you around,” Harold noted, as the shadowy spider walked off.

“Don't be a stranger,” Lillian called.

“She's strange enough as is,” Xavier remarked.

The elf paused, before she returned to the card game with the others. “That is not untrue.”

Julius kept staring into the fire, lost in thought.

“What's on your mind?” Wan asked.

“Just... Thinking about how we got here,” the paracount noted. “Before we met Ironhide, I thought I had things figured out. We'd continue digging up amazing finds, travelling the globe, earning honour and accolades. And now... Everything has been turned upside down.”

“Well, prophecy is dead. The future doesn't exist yet.” Wan sighed. “Who knows where we'll end up?” Julius peered deep into the flames, his eyes easily adjusting to the light. He thought back to the things Nashandra had said. “Who indeed,” he quietly echoed.

[doomedandstoned]

UK Rockers FROGLORD Groove on ‘Sons of Froglord’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Since the dawn of time, Mystics have foretold the coming of the Froglord An ancient amphibian with death ray vision and ectoplasm slime...

Behold, the mighty FROGLORD has returned! We first met the Bristol bunch in these pages when they split an album with Bog Wizard, then again for our compilation, Doomed & Stoned in England, Vol. II. Now they're back with 11 new tracks, 'Sons of Froglord' (2023), each one linked to overarching plot (the saga now spanning four records):

500 years before ascension, Froglord tires of wordly trappings and so departs into the wilderness. There, the great Wizard Gonk awaits, a mighty guide through this garden. Together they seek its forbidden fruit: the Road Raisins. Once found, the flesh is consumed, giving way to visions of a coming collapse. The sound of The Amphibian can be heard, calling to the sage, and the Froglady's embrace guides him back to earth. Returning to the world on a Wednesday, he knows he must hold on till the lord cometh. Till that time, the mind must be honed and create a swamp of its own.

The content really delivers on the storyline, too. "Wizard Gonk" is a riff-driven romp with foot-shuffling stride and deadpan, shoegazy vocals on the order of Depeche Mode. "Garden" is a dank one for sure, donning bluesy guitar, strident rhythm, and a fist-raising chorus. "Road Raisin" couples humid Kyuss guitar tone with an easy-going desert rock tempo and mysterious, doomy vox. Speaking of singing, "Collapse" features grisly pipes that remind me of Neal Fallon's early work. Many tokes will be taken, surely, early on in this album.

It's not all an anuran fantasy, however. "Wednesday" is an ultra cool rocker a la Velvet Revolver about riding through the midweek blues. And the album closes with a nod to the CCR classic, "Born On The Bayou," giving it the Froglord treatment with gutsy drumming, smooooooth bass work, stinging guitar, and crooning that tells us we're deep into marsh country now and there ain't no returning.

Sons of Froglord is an up-beat romp through the swamp, ideal for baking on your favorite lilly pad. Look for the Froglord's latest release on Friday, July 7th (pre-order here). Stick it on a playlist with Deep Purple, Clutch, Merlin, Geezer, and Forming The Void.

Give ear...

FROGLORD - Sons of Froglord

SOME BUZZ

During the pandemic as a one-man project, Froglord released their first EP in 2020, followed soon after by a full-length album 'Amphibian Ascending.' Through their infectious grooves, storytelling, and DIY music videos, Froglord quickly amassed an online cult-like following. After the release of their second album 'The Mystic Toad' a year later, Froglord developed into a full 4-piece band as live venues began to reopen.

Since then, Froglord have released a further EP, split record, a single, and two more full-length albums: 'Army of Frogs' and 'Sons of Froglord.' During this time, Froglord has quickly gained a reputation for their commanding and theatrical stage performances.

Photo by April Marie

Whilst Froglord's sound leans primarily toward stoner doom, they have been characterised for their genre-bending sound, with each album taking on it's own distinct style, taking strong influences from psychedelia, prog, sludge, grunge, groove and blues to deliver the tale of The Froglord through a concept-based discography.

Rooted also in environmentalism, Froglord has worked closely with Save The Frogs, the world's largest amphibian-based conservation charity, raising over £2500 through 'Save The Frogs' EP sales and campaigning, as well as £300 for the Human Dignity Trust through merch sales.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[mediaevalmusereads]

Wuthering Heights. By Emily Bronte. Dover Thrift Editions, 1996 (originally published 1847).

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: literary fiction, 19th century English literature

Part of a Series? No

Summary: Considered lurid and shocking by mid-19th-century standards, Wuthering Heights was initially thought to be such a publishing risk that its author, Emily Brontë, was asked to pay some of the publication costs. A somber tale of consuming passions and vengeance played out against the lonely moors of northern England, the book proved to be one of the most enduring classics of English literature.

The turbulent and tempestuous love story of Cathy and Heathcliff spans two generations — from the time Heathcliff, a strange, coarse young boy, is brought to live on the Earnshaws' windswept estate, through Cathy's marriage to Edgar Linton and Heathcliff's plans for revenge, to Cathy's death years later and the eventual union of the surviving Earnshaw and Linton heirs.

***Full review below***

Content Warnings: domestic violence/abuse, animal torture/death, misogynistic language, incest

Overview: I first read this book... oh... more than 15 years ago, so I decided it was time for a re-read. It’s hard to rate “a classic,” but there really is something special about the Bronte sisters, including Emily. I love the way she crafts a dark, twisted narrative, using the remote setting of the Yorkshire moors to bring out the “apartness” of characters I love to hate (yet also pity). While 19th century prose might not be for everyone, this is definitely a book to check out if you’re someone who can’t look away from unhealthy relationships, unlikeable protagonists, and decades-long obsession with revenge, and I can’t praise the author enough for doing so with such mastery.

Writing: Bronte’s prose is extremely evocative, utilizing the atmosphere of the wilderness and the forceful, dramatic declarations in the dialogue to make this book feel almost wild and untamed. I adored the descriptions of the settings, from Wuthering Heights (the home of the Earnshaw family) to the surrounding wilderness to the haven-like bubble around Thrushcross Grange (the home of the Linton family). I also very much enjoyed the way Bronte evoked certain regionalisms in her characters’ speech as well as the tiny details that made a scene feel... not quite right. Combined, all of these things came together to produce a novel with a stunning sense of place - albeit a place away from the balls and tea rooms of your typical Victorian upper-class society.

Plot: The plot of this novel can be broken into two parts; the first follows Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw from childhood to marriage, as they grow up together and eventually part, only to reunite years later. The second part follows Catherine’s daughter, Cathy, as she is tormented by Heathcliff as well as her cousins Hareton and Linton. Both parts are told from the perspective of Nelly Dean, a servant who has worked for the family since her childhood, and Mr. Lockwood, a tenant who rents out the property of Thrushcross Grange from Heathcliff.

Part one was perhaps the most entrancing for me because of the strong connection between Catherine and Heathcliff. Bronte describes Heathcliff as being brought to Wuthering Heights as an orphan child, and from the outset, everyone takes a disliking to him except for Catherine. As a result, the two form a relationship that is almost obsessive, and by no means serves as an example of a healthy, romantic tale. What made this compelling was not just the heightened emotion around the relationship, but the complex feelings it evokes in the reader. As I was reading, I found myself sometimes pitying Heathcliff, but then he would do something completely unforgiveable, which made me contemplate things like cycles of violence, nature vs nurture, and the like. Being so remote, the characters have little chance to experience the wider world, so these questions become even more interesting the more variables are eliminated.

Part two was likewise entrancing, though personally, I missed the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine. Part two does follow Catherine’s daughter, however, and continues to put Heathcliff’s obsession on full display, further prompting me to think about generational trauma and cycles of violence. Because Cathy is a little more likable than her mother, her plight evokes a little more sympathy, and I felt distressed whenever Heathcliff would do something horrid to her. I did read the ending as somewhat bittersweet; though there is a promise of hope and escape, I had a hard time getting on board with Cathy’s relationship with Hareton, especially after how they treated one another.

Characters: The most famous characters in this book are Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, though Catherine only appears in part one. Heathcliff is extremely compelling as an unlikeable character; it’s easy to waffle back and forth on whether he should be pitied, though I 100% disagree with any assessment that positions him as a romantic hero. I liked that Heathcliff was presented as simultaneously tormenter and tormented, and his antics were so wild that it was difficult to anticipate what he’d do next. Of course, none of this means his actions are good, per se - some readers might have a lot of problems with his physical abuse, but I’d argue that Bronte doesn’t glorify it in the slightest. Instead, she asks us to contemplate how Heathcliff came to be, though she never settles on a definite answer (much to my delight).

Catherine Earnshaw is likewise deeply flawed, and I loved watching her antics with an almost perverse enjoyment. From a young age, Catherine is a terror to everyone around her, acting selfishly yet is charming enough to ensnare the affections of both Heathcliff and Edgar Linton. I liked the way Bronte walked the line between making Catherine utterly unbearable and utterly captivating; though there were many times where I wanted to see Catherine reaps what she sowed, she never did anything as extreme as Heathcliff (re: violence, abuse, etc), which meant that I always wanted to see what she would do next and how the people around her would react.

Cathy, Catherine’s daughter, is a little calmer and more kind-hearted than her mother. I enjoyed the balance of passion and compassion in her character, and I found it admirable that Cathy would go to such lengths to care for people she loved. This is not to say Cathy is a saint; there are definitely moments in which she does the wrong thing and creates problems because she does not check her passions, but I found her story more interesting than if she had been a perfect angel, and her character was another useful tool for examining questions like whether evil in people is inherent or created through circumstance.

Supporting characters were varied and well-realized, and most of them were memorable in their own way. Nelly, our narrator, was a good storyteller, and I liked that she had a personality of her own, interjecting her own thoughts and feelings while also talking back to her employers, rather than just serving as a kind of faceless mouthpiece for Bronte. Hareton, Cathy’s older cousin, is interesting for his genuine devotion to Heathcliff, despite the fact that he was essentially robbed of his birthright and was mistreated by everyone around him. Linton, Cathy’s younger, sickly cousin, is both infuriating and pitiable in that he never really had a chance to become anything other than a sad, scared boy, and I thought he was yet another interesting example of the dialogue between nature and nurture in the book. The only character I feel like I can’t comment on fully is Joseph, the servant with the thick Yorkshire accent. To be honest, I had some trouble reading and understanding his lines, though I did get the sense that his zealous Christianity was hypocritical, since he hated just about everyone else. Perhaps he’s also some kind of commentary, but I didn’t grow accustomed to his dialect.

TL;DR: Wuthering Heights is a tale about how “evil” is made, yet does so without really offering any definitive answers. Featuring a cast of deeply flawed characters and a setting that evokes a sense of remoteness and wildness, this book is sure to prompt readers to reflect on things like class, nature vs nurture, obsession, and cycles of violence while also thrilling them with dramatic narrative twists and memorable declarations of love and hate.

[jessread-s]

✩🍼🌴Review:

��Babymoon or Bust” is a romance reader’s paradise!

After a wild night with a handsome mountain man leaves Tessie Truelove pregnant, she vows to raise the baby all by herself. But when Solomon Wilder, her brooding baby daddy, crashes her carefully planned babymoon determined to be a constant in his child’s life, Tessie has no choice but to strike up a deal: spend three days together to figure out how to co-parent their son. Three days turn into a week and suddenly Tessie begins to wonder if she has found what she has spent her entire life avoiding—true love. 

This. Book. Is. Everything. I’ve never devoured something so fast. It isn’t easy to execute the unexpected pregnancy trope well partly because it is very formulaic and typically follows the same plot. I LOVED Hunter’s take on it because she zeroes in on Tessie’s babymoon, which I haven’t seen done before. “Babymoon or Bust” is also dual pov and I loved being able to see how Tessie and Soloman’s feelings for each other grow across the span of the three days that they spend together. 

Additionally, I thought that both Tessie and Solomon’s respective internal conflicts added complexity to their characters. Tessie’s emotional wall derives from years of heartbreak. Solomon feels an immense amount of guilt over the death of his first wife. I appreciated that both characters independently worked through their issues while still supporting and uplifting each other.

If you love the “there’s only one bed” trope, steamy moments of intimacy, overprotective grumps, and strong, independent FMCs then I could not recommend this book enough!

Cross-posted to: Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads | StoryGraph

[s1lv3rp4w3dc4t]

okay but did you read Orpheus and Eurydice yet. like actually.

copy pasted this from a website. listen to Chappelle Roan while you read, as a treat.

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice,

as told by Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil and Ovid

(and retold by Edith Hamilton in Mythology)

Orpheus: "On his mother's side he was more than mortal. He was the son of one of the Muses and a Tracian prince. His mother gave him the gift of music and Thrace where he grew up fostered it. The Thracians were the most musical of the peoples of Greece. But Orpheus had no rival there or anywhere except the gods alone. There was no limit to his power when he played and sang. No one and nothing could resist him.

In the deep still woods upon the Thracian mountains

Orpheus with his singing lyre led the trees,

Led the wild beasts of the wilderness.

Everything animate and inanimate followed him. He moved the rocks on the hillside and turned the courses of the rivers....

When he first met and how he wooed the maiden he loved, Euridice, we are not told, but it is clear that no maiden he wanted could have resisted the power of his song. They were married, but their joy was brief. Directly after the wedding, as the bride walked in a meadow with her bridesmaids, a viper stung her and she died. Orpheus' grief was overwhelming. He could not endure it. He determined to go down to the world of death and try to bring Eurydice back. He said to himself,

With my song

I will charm Demeter's daughter,

I will charm the Lord of the Dead,

Moving their hearts with my melody.

I will bear her away from Hades.

He dared more than any other man ever dared for his love. He took the fearsome journey to the underworld. There he struck his lyre, and at the sound all that vast multitude were charmed to stillness....

O Gods who rule the dark and silent world,

To you all born of a woman needs must come.

All lovely things at last go down to you.

You are the debtor who is always paid.

A little while we tarry up on earth.

Then we are yours forever and forever.

But I seek one who came to you too soon.

The bud was plucked before the flower bloomed.

I tried to bear my loss. I could not bear it.

Love was too strong a god, O King, you know

If that old tale men tell is true, how once

The flowers saw the rape of Proserpine,

Then weave again for sweet Eurydice

Life's pattern that was taken from the loom

Too quick. See, I ask a little thing,

Only that you will lend, not give, her to me.

She shall be yours when her years' span is full.

No one under the spell of his voice could refuse him anything. He

Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,

and made Hell grant what Love did seek.

They summoned Eurydice and gave her to him, but upon one condition: that he would not look back at her as she followed him, until they had reached the upper world. So the two passed through the great doors of Hades to the path which would take them out of the darkness, climbing up and up. He knew that she must be just behind him, but he longed unutterably to give one glance to make sure. But now they were almost there, the blackness was turning gray; now he had stepped out joyfully into the daylight. Then he turned to her. It was too soon; she was still in the cavern. He saw her in the dim light, and he held out his arms to clasp her; but on the instant she was gone. She had slipped back into the darkness. All he heard was one faint word, "Farewell."

Desperately he tried to rush after her and follow her down, but he was not allowed. The gods would not consent to his entering the world of the dead a second time, while he was still alive. He was forced to return to the earth alone, in utter desolation. Then he forsook the company of men. He wandered through the wild solitudes of Thrace, comfortless except for his lyre, playing, always playing, and the rocks and the rivers and the trees heard him gladly, his only companions. But at last a band of Maenads [women] came upon him....They slew the gentle musician, tearing him limb from limb, borne along past the river's mouth on to the Lesbian shore; nor had it suffered any change from the sea when the Muses found it and buried it in the sanctuary of the island. His limbs they gathered and placed in a tomb at the foot of Mount Olympus, and there to this day the nightingales sing more sweetly than anywhere else. "

Here is another version, taken from Thomas Bulfinch and retold by Juliana Podd in Encyclopedia Mythica.

Eurydice and Orpheus were young and in love. So deep was their love that they were practically inseparable. So dependent was their love that each felt they could not live without the other. These young lovers were very happy and spent their time frolicking through the meadows. One day Eurdice was gaily running through a meadow with Orpheus when she was bitten by a serpent. The poison of the sting killed her and she descended to Hades immediately.

Orpheus was son of the great Olympian god Apollo. In many ways Apollo was the god of music and Orpheus was blessed with musical talents. Orpheus was so sad about the loss of his love that he composed music to express the terrible emptiness which pervaded his every breath and movement. He was so desperate and found so little else meaningful, that he decided address Hades. As the overseer of the underworld, Hades heart had to be hard as steel, and so it was. Many approached Hades to beg for loved ones back and as many times were refused. But Orpheus' music was so sweet and so moving that it softened the steel hearted heart of Hades himself. Hades gave permission to Orpheus to bring Eurydice back to the surface of the earth to enjoy the light of day. There was only one condition--Orpheus was not to look back as he ascended. He was to trust that Eurydice was immediately behind him. It was a long way back up and just as Orpheus had almost finished that last part of the trek, he looked behind him to make sure Eurydice was still with him. At that very moment, she was snatched back because he did not trust that she was there. When you hear music which mourns lost love, it is Orpheus' spirit who guides the hand of the musicians who play it.

To study text of H. D.'s "Eurydice"

Posted by Ann Woodlief for ENGLISH 384, Fall 2001

cred: https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/eurydice/eurydicemyth.html

[coern]

how is his celebrity crush so strong that he ran across OVER half the country, probably through like the wilderness, through the final route in the game no problem, all in the span of like 5-10 minutes, while, once again, RUNNING, all WITHOUT RUNNING OUT OF BREATH, and to top it all off he LEFT HIS FRIEND ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY in favor of seeing his idol in person