#[and had he been in charge he would have advocated for their destruction right away]

[cxldtyrant]

@long-haired-hottie asked: What are Cooler's thoughts on Saiyans? Are they just barbarians his father lifted from the stones to do his dirty work? Does he agree with Frieza's attempts to completely eradicate them? Does he hope to see a resurgence so he can make use of them in a less overt way?

Initially, when I first started with Cooler, I kind of made him an amalgamation of characteristics from not only the movies, but other forms of media such as the videogames, which did end up exaggerating his hatred for Saiyans to be on par with Freeza. Much as I disliked the exaggeration because it felt too closely aligned with Freeza's personality, I attempted to spin it in a different way: that if Cold had given the Saiyans to Cooler, he would have killed them instantly rather than let them linger for a few years of servitude due to seeing them as a threat to his family's empire. That he recalled the words of warning from his ancestor Chilled, and that rather than risk their threat, he would have eliminated them right away despite their potential. And to him, they do have plenty of potential to be sufficient soldiers and generals for the Cold Empire due to their combat experience. But Cooler, in my mind, is pragmatic. He does not toy with his enemies and will kill anyone he deems a threat. If his ancestor, who was killed by a Saiyan, deemed them dangerous, then he was going to treat them as such and eliminate them.

But then the Dragon Ball Heroes anime and manga came out and showed that Cooler could have a decent enough partnership with Saiyans if he saw the benefit in it. And then XenoVerse 2 came out and if a Saiyan sides with him in the power struggle against Freeza, Cooler tells them they can go ahead and repopulate their race and will leave their planet alone. And then Dragon Ball FighterZ came out and in a team quote with Bardock he states that he was more than willing to let Bardock get his revenge against Freeza (despite the fact that Freeza losing at all is the reason he goes after Goku!).

Let me tell you, my brain broke because it was getting a bit more troublesome to find a middle-ground with all forms of characterization for Cooler given all the inconsistencies. Which is mainly my fault for even trying, but considering how little content we have of him, I was trying to work with what I had. I was tempted not to tweak anything further out of spite.

However, I did end up tweaking some things with Cooler's feelings in regards to the Saiyans. Not just because of the aforementioned examples above, but also because of @risingsouls since Cooler and Turles ended up developing a partnership in universal conquest as a means of overthrowing Freeza, and I really enjoy their dynamic. I think Cooler still deems the Saiyans as a threat overall and loses no sleep in their eradication, but he can be made to see reason if there is an advantage in keeping certain survivors around. He's ruthlessly pragmatic, but that doesn't always mean violence as he can see sparing others as potentially beneficial for himself and his empire. But if he can't, he'll simply exterminate them.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, August 3, 2024

After Biden’s Withdrawal, Other Aged Leaders Get Some Serious Side-Eye (NYT) When President Biden abandoned his re-election campaign this month, citing the need to “pass the torch to a new generation,” some of the most envious accolades he received came from 6,000 miles away. In central Africa, in coastal Cameroon, many are longing for their president, Paul Biya—at 91 the world’s oldest leader—to take a leaf out of President Biden’s book. But most think he never will. “He’ll do everything to remain in power,” said Lukong Usheno Kiven, a human rights advocate based in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, where Mr. Biya has been in power for 42 years. Mr. Biya is just one of dozens of notably aged leaders who are also far older than the populations they serve. Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are both 71. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is 73. Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is 74, while Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, is 88. But it is in Africa—the world’s youngest continent—where the gerontocracies are most stark. Eleven of the world’s 20 oldest leaders are African, according to research done by the Pew Research Center.

Harris won enough votes to be the Democratic nominee (NYT) The Democratic National Committee announced today that Vice President Kamala Harris had secured enough delegates to clinch the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. She will be the first Black woman and person of South Asian heritage to earn the top spot on a major party’s ticket. Harris’s nomination will become official after the party’s virtual roll call vote ends on Monday, capping off a month of chaos for Democrats. Just two weeks ago, they were still debating which candidate would have the best chance of defeating Donald Trump in November.

Fires Burning at ‘Full Tilt’ Across the Western U.S. Stretch Resources (NYT) It took only a week for the Park fire north of Sacramento to grow into the fifth-largest in California history, signaling the potential for a destructive wildfire season across much of the Western United States. Almost 50 other large or notable fires were burning throughout the region on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker. The sheer number of fires currently burning in Western states—both big and small—has threatened to overwhelm firefighting resources at a rate that worries experts so early in the season. “Normally we’re ramping up in July to get to that peak in August, early September,” said Alex Robertson, director of fire and aviation management for the U.S. Forest Service. But this year, he said, “we’re going into August already at our full tilt.”

Extortion and gang violence are hitting even big corporations and business leaders in Mexico (AP) Even Mexico’s largest corporations are now being hit by demands from drug cartels, and gangs are increasingly trying to control the sale, distribution and pricing of certain goods. Well-known, high-ranking business leaders aren’t even safe. On Monday, the head of the business chambers’ federation in Tamaulipas state, across the border from Texas, gave television interviews complaining about drug cartel extortion in the state. Hours later on Tuesday, Julio Almanza was shot to death outside his offices in the city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. “We are hostages to extortion demands, we are hostages of criminal groups,” Almanza said in one of his last interviews. “Charging extortion payments has practically become the national sport in Tamaulipas.”

Maduro and Western Pressure (Clarin/Argentina) Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's decision to declare himself the winner of the July 28 presidential election with 51.2% of the vote, compared to 44.2% for the opposition, has not been recognized by the United States, European Union, some allies in Asia and several Latin American countries. On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken went so far as to explicitly declare that opposition candidate Edmundo González was the winner of the election, saying there was "overwhelming evidence" that Maduro had been defeated. Surely, as happened with the interim government of Juan Guaidó that emerged in 2019 and was recognized by these same countries, the West will intensify its economic sanctions on Venezuela. But it's worth remembering that such sanctions have failed in Cuba for 65 years, just as they have failed in recent years in Iran and Russia. These countries, along with China, have recognized Maduro's reelection claim, which will give Venezuela some ability to resist any sanctions.

Argentina will use AI to ‘predict future crimes’ (Guardian) Under the leadership of far-right president Javier Milei, Argentina has announced plans to use AI to “predict future crimes.” This week, Milei established the Artificial Intelligence Applied to Security Unit, which will use “machine-learning algorithms to analyse historical crime data to predict future crimes,” utilize facial recognition software to track “wanted persons,” and even use AI to analyze real-time security footage in order to catch crimes as they occur. If you know anything about the current state of AI, or have read any articles on the shortcomings of facial recognition software, you’re probably wondering how this initiative could ever end well. Well, so are many human rights groups. Even if the AI detection programs prove less than effective, said a representative for Amnesty International, the use of widespread surveillance programs will force people to “self-censor or refrain from sharing their ideas or criticisms if they suspect that everything they comment on, post, or publish is being monitored by security forces.” Milei has already shown Argentinians that he’s willing to crack down violently on protests, authorizing police to shoot anti-government demonstrators with rubber bullets at close range and warning that parents who bring their children to political rallies will be officially sanctioned by the state.

After much grumbling, Parisians have come to embrace the Olympics (CSM) In the lead-up to the Olympic Games this summer, the French—particularly Parisians—had a multitude of concerns: Would the River Seine be clean enough to swim in? How much would security restrictions take over daily life? And the universal question, would everything be done in time? But after a successfully executed opening ceremony, which took viewers on a virtual journey around Paris’s most iconic monuments, the mood in the city is starting to change. Yes, the sporting venues have been finished. The Seine was clean long enough to host triathletes this week. Olympic organizers said on Thursday that 9.7 million tickets have been sold—an Olympic record. And despite some latent grumbling, the French do indeed seem to be embracing the Olympic spirit. “There is something quintessentially French about cultivating the negative and focusing on what will not go right,” says Éric Monnin, the director of the Center for Olympic Studies and Research and vice president of Olympism at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France. “But now that the Games have started, all I’m hearing from people is how they want to enjoy this moment of togetherness.”

Children of freed sleeper agents learned they were Russians on the flight, Kremlin says (Reuters) A family of Russian sleeper agents flown to Moscow in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War were so deep under cover that their children found out they were Russians only after the flight took off, the Kremlin said on Friday. "Before that, they didn't know that they were Russian and that they had anything to do with our country," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "And you probably saw that when the children came down the plane's steps that they don't speak Russian and that Putin greeted them in Spanish” (the couple had been pretending to be Argentinians).

After Olympics, Turkey’s Erdogan seeks unity with Pope Francis against acts that mock sacred values (AP) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Pope Francis on Thursday about the “immoral display” at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics and called for a unified stance against acts that ridicule sacred values, according to a statement from Erdogan’s office. The Turkish leader told the pontiff in a telephone call that “human dignity was being trampled on, religious and moral values were being mocked, offending Muslims as much as the Christian world,” the statement said. In an unprecedented display, drag queens took center stage at the ceremony last week. The ceremony attracted criticism over a tableau reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” The scene featured drag queens and other performers in a configuration reminiscent of Jesus Christ and his apostles.

Problems in Pakistan (NYT) In almost every corner of Pakistan, anger at the ruling elite is nearing a boiling point. Thousands have protested soaring electricity bills just outside the capital, Islamabad. In a major port city in the southwest, dozens have clashed with security officers over what they described as forced disappearances of activists. In the northwest, protesters have admonished the country’s generals for a recent surge in terrorist attacks. The demonstrations over the past few weeks reflect frustration with Pakistan’s shaky, five-month-old government and with its military, the country’s ultimate authority. The unrest threatens to plunge Pakistan back into the depths of political turmoil that has flared in recent years and that many had hoped would subside after the February general election.

They ran for their lives as boulders and water banged at their door (AP) When Deva Das was jolted awake by the roar of gushing water and boulders banging at the door, he grabbed his parents and his kids and began running for higher ground. The family waded through slush and muck, climbed a hill, and stayed there in the pouring rain for nearly four hours. When day broke Tuesday, rescuers found the family and brought them down. When the 40-year-old agricultural laborer got back to the site of his village in southern India’s Kerala state, there was nearly nothing left. Houses were gone, buried under mud or wiped away. Trees were uprooted, and roads were swept away. Families were frantically searching for their loved ones. At least 201 people have been killed in Kerala since Tuesday after multiple landslides in the hills of Wayanad district sent torrents of mud, floodwater and giant rolling boulders to downhill villages, burying people or sweeping them away several miles downstream. The disaster also left behind a trail of destruction in its wake by flattening hundreds of houses and destroying roads and bridges.

Rights group says 13 killed during protests over Nigeria’s economic crisis. Hundreds arrested (AP) At least 13 protesters were killed during mass protests in Nigeria against the country’s economic crisis that turned violent in several states, a rights group said Friday. Authorities confirmed four people killed by a bomb and the arrests of hundreds in the protests that triggered curfews in several states. The protests were mainly over food shortages and alleged bad governance in the country. Nigeria’s public officials, frequently accused of corruption, are among the best paid in Africa, a stark contrast in a country that has some of the world’s poorest and hungriest people, despite being one of the continent’s top oil producers.

These Italians are walking off their wine (NYT) On Thursdays, Luciano Fregonese, the mayor of an Italian town famous for its Prosecco, goes on a stroll. He began the walks this summer to counter the calories he consumed at social gatherings. After all, he said, his job includes countless wine-and-snack obligations. “It’s not easy to say no,” he said. But word of the health walks quickly spread, and his evening strolls have become a sensation, with hundreds of walkers joining him. As motivation for others, he’s planning to add pizza. Have a vigorous evening.

[themattress]

OK, this post is a little confusing. You constantly speak of rebooting Kairi only to later say "in the new rebooted universe"....which means what you are actually advocating for is rebooting Kingdom Hearts altogether. And yeah, absolutely! I may love Kairi - well, in KH1 and KH2, anyway - and absolutely despise what has been done with her, but she's just one character and not worth throwing everything else out for if that everything else was good. The real issue is that everything else is NOT good. People can hate me all they want for advocating this but I don't care: the corporate heads at Disney and Square need to forcibly take Kingdom Hearts away from Nomura. Its problems are only getting worse the older Nomura gets and the longer he stays in control. It needs someone who can make it the easily accessible, inoffensive franchise that it has absolutely no business not being given its basic concept.

I used to emphasize Sokai, but now I'm more on "meh". Because Sora would not make a good boyfriend based on what happened.

That's because Sora, Kairi and their relationship changed since KH2. Up to that point, they felt like believable teenagers with believably budding feelings of strong friendship turned romantic. But then, Sora just kind of forgets about Kairi. He never mentions her, he never thinks about her, she just doesn't seem like a big concern for him. Sora, meanwhile, is still an all-consuming concern for Kairi, making her look pathetic. That's why even for many former Sokai fans like myself, the sudden push for it in the last few hours in KH3 felt so deeply unsatisfying: it came out of nowhere and after both characters have changed for the worse so much that the chemistry they used to have is nil. And of course, there was no good pay-off for either of them; if anything it kind of ended up showing how them being together was a bad, self-destructive idea, which is as far from the message of the original KH1 as you can get.

@evaundertale: I still think there's hope but your comment about saying Sora and Riku should be sidelined is just never gonna happen. One of the people who worked on kh said the series as a whole involves around Sora and Riku.

First off, there is no hope as long as Nomura is in charge. None. If Nomura wanted to do right by Kairi he would have done so already simply by following the obvious path KH2 had forged for her. Instead he made her OOC and pushed her to the sidelines, then brought her in to sideline her in a different way under the nonsensical justification of "training", and then after all that....well, you know. He then gave her some basic respect when caving to fan pressure with Re:Mind, only to then once again push her to the sidelines, then once again bring her in to sideline her under the "training" justification! Kairi's going in circles and that's how Nomura likes it, I'm afraid, especially after years of vocal Soriku shippers who, unlike you, despised Kairi making their voices heard online clearly caused Kairi deemed to be bad for business among the core consumer base. Why put in effort writing for the most hated character?

Secondly, whoever gave that line about Sora and Riku was bullshitting. Maybe it's true now, but it wasn't true early on in the series. Early on, the series was about Sora, Donald and Goofy. Riku was a major supporting player, but so was Kairi, and Namine, and Roxas, and King Mickey, and the whole Traverse Town / Hollow Bastion crew. Unfortunately, the success of CoM (where Sora and Riku have playable campaigns) and KH2 (where the final boss battle is fought with Sora and Riku) imparted the wrong lessons on Nomura and Square Enix, meaning that, following Days and aside from the whole X sub-series, Sora and Riku became the series' dual protagonists. And that choice has been a disaster for all other characters.

#rebootkairi

I can't say this enough, but Kingdom Hearts really needs to reboot Kairi. Current story has sidelined and mistreated her so badly she's become nothing but "damsel-in-distress" and "useless pink girl" in public eyes. With me being a big Kairi fan, I cannot help but feel skeptical about her future. I'm a firm believer that Nomura will do nothing to develop her character arc and make her a good heroine. Because he never intended to. He hates her and he doesn't want to do anything with her ever again. He's the embodiment of Xehanort and his job is to utterly ruin Kairi.

With Western games emphasizing powers of female lead characters and their cultural impacts, I think Disney needs to wipe the slate clean and reboot Kairi as a whole. She's technically a Disney princess, after all, and Disney itself is dry of a good princess character lately. In the new rebooted universe, Kairi should be a main character, remaining faithful to her origin but being treated as a character, not a plot point. Her troubling background with darkness would give her reasons to fight back and prevent dark entities and masters from taking over worlds.

Now what to do with Sora and Riku? Honestly, I don't care. The two had their fair share of spotlight. They can be put aside to bring fresh characters or other less known KH characters as part of rebooting. I used to emphasize Sokai, but now I'm more on "meh". Because Sora would not make a good boyfriend based on what happened. If I sound like an angry toxic feminist, I'm NOT. I just hate soriku cringe clowns. They act as if Sora and Riku are only KH characters, forcing their shipping in most toxic ways. They, along with incompetent writing, made me absolutely despise KH lately. With more games, even Nintendo's Peach game, emphasizing more on female character development, what they did to Kairi is just an embarrassment. It's better off burnt to the ground and started all over.

[agent-cupcake]

If I could play a whole visual novel about Welcome to Dead House, I will damn it. Good/bad endings for everyone.

OH that’s one of my favorites! I have so many details on that lore hanging around in my brain. 

Like, the internet would be thick with Dimitri blogs that would pop up from the True Crime fanbase, youtube videos detailing his life and decline, shitty recreations in those documentary TV shows. There would be a huge amount of posts and articles about how Byleth was the wicked woman who seduced him into doing bad things, how he wasn’t guilty, he’s so mentally ill the criminal case shouldn’t have been tried like it was, how he’s not responsible for his crimes. Byleth was his professor, there must have been some unhealthy dynamic! Besides, she had a personal vendetta against the Hresvelg’s after they got off the charge of her father’s murder! Or, you know, maybe he was right. Like, Dimitri mostly only killed criminals, he’s not that bad. His court appearances were a circus, the fanmail he got (still gets) is absurd. Conversely, people would advocate that Byleth Eisner was a victim of Dimitri’s abuse and idolize the sexy tragic tiddy professor murderess. 

Blaiddyd Industries (which primarily manufactures weapons and related technologies) is under the joint ownership of Rodrigue Fraldarius, and Rufus Blaiddyd after Dimitri got institutionalized. BUT the board of directors is trying to get it all into the hands of Rufus under the direction of an important board member, Cornelia. Cornelia also has her hand in the Shambhala pie, which is why Dimitri is being kept there in the first place. I mean, he’s never going to actually get better there, which suits them because he and Byleth actually uncovered a lot more scandalous information about the Hresvelg family and Agartha than was made public. There’s some internal struggle as Rodrigue is pretty sure Shambhala is sus, but ultimately Rufus is Dimitri’s only living relative so he can’t do anything.

Despite the fact that Dimitri and Byleth revealed a majority of the Hresvelg family to be criminals, Edelgard got off under the pretense that she was unaware. In reality, she just had a stranglehold on the justice system because the city I’m imagining is just Gotham, corrupt and disgusting and awful. Granted, her stated goal is to clean it up. 

The Nemesis Dream Project is a first step into the world of our AI overlords, they’re purposefully copying mentally ill, intelligent, criminal people. The dangerous wild cards of the world, but also those most susceptible to the conditions they’re using. Anybody who knows of it wants it, although Metodey was acting in Edelgard’s interest in the case of my story. 

After the events of Welcome to Dead House, Dimitri carts the reader off into the world but they’re both counted among the dead after the amount of destruction in Shambhala. He uses the resources Metodey was going to use to escape, bringing the hard drive along. You want a fucked up yet funny visual? Because the reader didn’t have pants, Dimitri steals a pair off of the dead. Since the white scrubs would give him away, he does the same for himself. The first thing he does when they’re out is go to Rodrigue, before Agartha can even begin to suspect that he’s alive. Obviously, he can’t stay there, but that’s where he gets the resources to pick up his revenge quest right where it left off. Once he’s away from the dream experiments, he realizes that the reader is not Byleth. However, you are, presumably, the only one who is able to use Nemesis, and your technological skill is great considering he has very little ability in that regard. Also, and he’d never acknowledge this, he does feel kinda bad for you. The only person more pathetic than him. So he’ll use you. The sequel I mentioned but will likely never write is a night in a shitty motel where I get to indulge in the famed “only one bed” trope. I also think it would be funny if you wind up bleaching your hair to look different, and the super light color makes him think of Byleth all over again. Only this time, it’s not reverence, it’s anger. He faults you for not being her, for not stopping him where you should and allowing him to do what he wants to you. 

Anyway, you didn’t ask but there’s all... that. 

As far as visual novel sort of thing made out of this, would you care to elaborate on what you’re thinking? And which characters would you want?

[real-jaune-isms]

RWBY Volume 8 Chapter 10 Review/Remix

WHAT the ever loving FUCK was that just now RT?? You give us several great answers and scenes we really wanted to see, and then rip all that joy away in the last 3 minutes!!! I want to sue for emotional damages, but I really can’t be mad cuz it’s very masterful writing on their part. After years of shows doing redemption arcs we finally have it... the bastardization arc~

We open, perhaps to the disappointment of some, on Ironwood staring out the windows of his office at the battlefield and city in turmoil below. He’s being given a situation update on the destruction of the cellblock two episodes back, and he takes the news a little differently than might have been expected (read: worse). Jacques apparently stayed right where he was and let himself be put back into custody, while Qrow avoided much harm by being a bird and ending up in a spot where the rubble wasn’t landing directly on him. Robyn was only slightly lucky, she was under some large debris but doesn’t seem terribly hurt and is actually conscious when Atlas soldiers uncover her and say she’ll be moved to a new cell elsewhere. Qrow isn’t about to be put back in a cage though, and flies right at the soldier who finds him. Behind a conveniently placed piece of wall he turns back and, as I was somewhat praised for phrasing it in a discord chat, he tackled that man as a man. We can assume he knocks out the guy about to apprehend Robyn, and the two make a getaway. Ironwood doesn’t like this news one bit, though he focuses more on recapturing the two huntsmen he had arrested on paranoid treason charges than the actual war criminal he lost an arm catching whose dangerous work on the city of Mantle still hasn’t been undone. Not cool, dude. He yells at the soldiers who had come to report this, and they leave to try and find the jailbirds. He stares out the window again in contemplation and tries to calm down a little before turning on his earpiece to get an update on the status of some thing or another, probably the bomb, when something massive happens.

With a blinding flash and an array of gold and green, Oscar’s staff goes off with whatever he was charging up. It’s as bright and forceful as you’d expect a nuclear bomb to be, and it knocks Winter and the Ace Ops off their feet as they were heading towards Monstra lugging their own bomb. Weiss and Nora see it from Schnee Manor, and it seems to do a real number on the Grimm around Monstra and in the city. Rooster Teeth had to give a flashing lights warning at the start of the episode for those it would adversely affect, and I can totally understand why after the crazy display this gave us. When the light fades and the noise settles, Monstra has been snapped and is fading away to dust, and in that dust cloud we hear and barely see Neopolitan skipping away with the Lamp in hand. What a little punk... Winter gets back on her feet and is quick to ask her squad for their status, she doesn’t want to have lost anyone or suffered serious wounds from whatever the hell they just saw/felt. No one is hurt, though Elm’s ears seem to still be ringing. But Marrow is very distressed, realizing they still hadn’t heard back from Jaune and the others and they may have been killed in that blast. Nobody has anything to say that would appease him, so they stay silent. Vine tries to put a reassuring hand on Elm’s shoulder but she brushes him off. Guess after they got called out by Ren she wants to show even less emotion and sentimentality than before. Ironwood contacts them under the false assumption this was the result of their bomb, and requests they return to HQ for an update on the new problem he wants to deal with. Marrow naturally points out that the destruction wasn’t their doing, and Winter decides that will be news best delivered in person, so they load the bomb back on the airship and take off. 

Cutting into the city, we see Watts and Cinder viewing the destruction of their mobile HQ from a distance. Nobody is returning Cinder’s calls but they know Salem will be back so Watts suggests they come up with a plan in the meantime. But Cinder is fully confident that they can still do what they originally intended, that being having her kill Penny and take the Winter Maiden powers after Watts brings the synthezoid to her. But this was a plan made under false assumptions, because apparently she misunderstood the terminology in his message and thought he could puppeteer Penny to go wherever he demands when really he just laid a new prime directive to send her straight to the Vault as we saw two episodes back. Hearing this pisses Cinder off immensely, especially the part about Penny being set to self destruct as soon as the Vault is open since that means the next recipient of the powers will be randomized again and she’ll have lost her chance to yoink them. Watts is too busy grumpily musing to himself about Penny having free will and a spirit that doesn’t want to succumb to his leet hacks to notice Cinder growing more and more enraged, until he turns around and she pulls him in close to yell at him. But Watts is having none of that, he works for Salem not her, and his plans weren’t made to give this flaming whining goth what she wants every single time. He’s just supposed to get the Vault open for Salem, and this is how he’s doing that. This is not the kind of answer Cinder wanted to hear, and she stretches her arm out to shove Watts to the edge of the roof and leave him on the verge of falling over to his demise. He doesn’t seem terribly fazed, calling her bluff and saying her mission was to bring him back and Salem won’t be a bit pleased if he dies. But you know what Salem is not? Here right now to stop Cinder from dealing with this arrogant self righteous prick once and for all. So she fully intends to drop him and then tear up Atlas on a fiery path to the Vault where she can intercept Penny and steal the Winter powers before tearing her to pieces herself and being the triumphant follower getting everything done that Salem really needed. And Watts just... laughs. Chris Sabat must have had a great time in the VO booth for this one, because he gets to have an absolute roast session the likes of which he hasn’t delivered since Majin Vegeta tore that clown Kakarot a new one. Naturally Cinder’s plan would be to brute force her way to victory and get glory for none but herself with her every whim satisfied along the way. Because that’s always her plan. And it always fails. She tried to storm Fria’s hospital room like that and got her ass handed to her by some teenagers and a dying woman before Penny took the powers before she could. She did the same damn thing 2 Volumes ago when she tried to massacre all her enemies under one roof in an alliance with a woman she thought she could outwit, but ended up blindsided by a surprise Maiden reveal and almost died while her outnumbered forces were on the verge of surrendering without her. And did anyone warn her not to do that? YES! WATTS DID!!! WATTS IS ALWAYS RIGHT, YOU FOOL!!! Well, okay, he’s really not. But he’s more clever and meticulous so he saw the flaws her arrogance left her blind to. And then Watts really tears into her by saying she isn’t smart, she isn’t worthy, and she isn’t entitled to what she wants because she’s suffered in the past. The one thing she is is a goddamn migraine. I’m a little mad Tyrian stole the show’s first cuss 4 years back cuz I really would have liked for Watts to cap this off by calling Cinder a bitch. This roasting literally lights a fire under Cinder and she seems ready to snap and kill Watts here and now, but instead she pulls him back onto the roof and stares off blankly into space before her fire fades and she walks off to sit on the ledge of a different side of the building to really think about his harsh words and shed a single tear. It’s a little unclear if she’s just feeling sorry for herself and realizing she’s more of a failure than she wanted to admit, or if she’s just overwhelmed by Watts reminding her of her childhood trauma. Maybe she’s realizing how powerless she’s truly remained all this time after fighting so hard for her own freedom and independence, and crying at the fact that she seems unable to escape that role she hates so much. Whatever the case, it’s real rough for her but I don’t feel like shedding any of my own tears for her sake. She doesn’t seem like she’s gonna change her allegiances so I don’t feel much need to cheer for her, but maybe she’ll reevaluate her strategy and become a force to be reckoned with as a villain because of this. I wouldn’t mind that. We’ll have to wait and see.

Back in the ruins of Monstra, we see Yang Ren and Jaune are all doing alright, and Oscar seems to be as well. Jaune is using his Semblance to help Oscar heal up quicker so that’s good to see too. Yang answers a call and sees Blake anxiously hoping she’ll pick up. The biggest smile comes to her face when she does, and the two halves of the group are ecstatic to hear the other is still alive and well. Neither are quite ready to tell the full tale of what they’ve been up to, but Weiss pulls up a map of the city and lays out a safe route through the subway tunnels that will take OYRJ straight to the mansion so they can actually reunite. Oscar isn’t about to leave Emerald behind though, and we see her knelt in the chaos holding out her hands as if hoping to catch some of the dust that was once her father figure. Yang is vocally against the idea of bringing Emerald with them, but Oscar advocates for her being every bit against Salem as them so the enemy of their enemy should be their friend. Emerald actually doesn’t seem to want to keep hanging around them and says they should just part ways, but Jaune isn’t about to let her walk free without facing any kind of justice for her past crimes. Ren thinks they need to be able to see past their emotional hang ups and consider the value in having her as an ally, and Yang is quick to remind them all that Emerald is part of the reason she lost her arm. Technically that is true, Adam was working with Cinder and if Yang hadn’t been framed as a brutal criminal she would have been around the rest of the team when everything popped off so maybe that first fight would have gone differently. But I do feel like it’s a bit of a stretch. Yang keeps going about why she can’t just forgive and forget when Em had been such a snake in the grass back at Beacon, but that’s not what Oscar is asking of her. He just wants her to try and give the girl a second chance to be better. He gets a little cryptic about how they’ve already gotten help from someone they haven’t had the best track record trusting, and Ren perfectly guesses he means that Oz has reemerged in his mind. This takes the blondes by surprise, and Oscar stands up for the old soul by saying he took the brunt of the beatings and told him how to impede Salem like he did just there. Turns out we’ll be finding out the secret of Ozpin’s cane today: It’s been made into a magical repository for kinetic energy stored over dozens of past lives to be made into a sort of bomb to set off when needed. I don’t know quite enough about physics to describe how exactly that would work, but it seems to make sense that it does. But the blast that took out Monstra used up the majority of what was in there so he can’t rely on it for that kind of attack again. It seems likely that was what Ozpin used against Cinder in the Beacon Vault, but didn’t use very much of it, and again what Oscar used to bust a hole in the bottom of the pit Ironwood shot him into. Oscar finishes making his case that Oz really does want to aid them, and the others seem convinced. What’s worth noting is that all eyes had been on him during this, but Emerald made no attempt to run away or even lower her hands. Guess she might really want to stick around after all... The moment is interrupted by the not so distant sound of a crying baby, and they all run further down the tunnel to find a subway station where the people of Atlas are taking shelter on Ironwood’s orders. Emerald starts to feel the weight of her action and those she used to side with, especially when she sees kids scared and hungry like she was before Cinder found her. They continue past the station on their way to the manor, and Oscar offers some encouragement to Emerald that they need her help in this war considering what she’s capable of. Considering the feats she performed under stress back in Volume 5, I’m inclined to agree. 

We fade away from that scene to Ironwood’s office and the camera rises up the stairs as if being held by the Ace Ops as they and Winter come through the still broken doors to give their report to the general. He’s looking at multiple holographic screens projecting from his table: one with graphics telling him the status of all the airships mechs and soldiers, one pulling up news articles and any other info they can get on Monstra presumably for the purpose of cataloguing it in case they ever need to worry about another one, the third seems to be a map of city to monitor the damage so far, and the last is all the info they have on Cinder. He congratulates the team for their work destroying the Grimm, but Winter admits it wasn’t their bomb that did the job, they still have it intact for him. This confuses Ironwood greatly, but he sees an opportunity in this twist of fate. Penny hasn’t come to the Vault like he wanted her to be programmed to do, so he assumes Watts did a shit job of reprogramming her or just intentionally screwed them over. Yet the truth is something he can’t seem to imagine, she has free will and doesn’t want to do as she’s told. Who’s the real tool now Jimmy? He informs them that Cinder broke Watts out, and he seems to consider Qrow and Robyn escaping to be an even worse consequence. Harriet seems ready to sprint out of the room and haul them back here herself, but Ironwood stays her hand... or foot in this case. With Salem temporarily halted, now is the best time they’ve got for him to have the Winter Maiden open the Vault and use the Staff to lift Atlas higher than she can reach like he wanted so badly. So he wants Winter to bring him Yang Jaune and Ren. Winter doesn’t see the purpose of that, or she does and hates to imagine it’s truly what he intends, but either way she knows she can’t do what he’s asking. He plans to make full use of the lives they hold in their hands, and he’s going to use Jaune and the others as leverage to make Penny do what he says. He acts as if he’s actually proud of himself for realizing this is an option available to him, and I think it’s his Semblance that’s partially blinding him to the moral reasons why it should not be an option worth considering. Winter is left wilting under his unaware and proud gaze, and then Harriet pipes up to tattle on her commanding officer. Winter gave the kids a chance to try and rescue their friends from inside the whale(they don’t mention that friend was Oscar so he still doesn’t know the kid survived his attempted murder), and they weren’t seen exiting before it blew up. I want to say I’m shocked and disgusted that Harriet snitched on Winter just for the brownie points of being honest and taking Winter down a peg, but I’m really not. She’s been a loyal bootlicker since this time last Volume, and this feels like payback for that whole “I outrank you so you can’t stop me from giving them a chance” thing in chapter 7. Ironwood removes the proud and probably intended to be comforting hand he had placed on Winter’s shoulder, as if ashamed to be touching her after she let him down like this. This was his last plan for his definition of success, and now it’s ruined so he can’t do anything. In a fit of rage he smashes his table like the goddamn Hulk and the Ace Ops are left to watch and wonder just how in his right mind he actually is. As he tries to catch his breath, the general gets an urgent transmission that dozens of non-military aircraft have shown up on radar. I and probably a few dozen other people watching this hoped this was an Avengers Endgame moment of tons of allies coming to the rescue of the down and out heroes. But no, its the Schnee Dust Company ships Whitley sent out. Almost forgot about that plan, whoops. Ironwood immediately recognizes this as Weiss’ handiwork for the sake of saving Mantle, because nobody would have guessed Whitley would show some humanity and make this plan himself. Winter immediately shows attentive concern hearing her sister has done this, and Harriet gives her a look as if to say “you are such a bleeding heart for these little criminals...” Ironwood makes the very one dimensional assumption that everything Ruby and the others have been doing is simply to protect Mantle, as if they didn’t have a serious conversation with May about helping Atlas as well as Mantle 3 episodes back. With that knowledge in mind, he decides he needs to make a call. 

Speaking of phones, Cinder gets a cheeky text and an accompanying selfie from Neo revealing she has the Lamp and she knows Salem will tear Cinder to pieces if she doesn’t bring it back to her. So she’s proposing a trade; Cinder gets the name to activate the Lamp, and in return she has to bring Neo to Ruby for the revenge she so deeply craves. Watts can’t see Cinder’s screen so he wonders who among their comrades has survived. Unclear if Cinder is going to tell him.

At last, we see Ruby throw open the front doors of Schnee Manor with Weiss and Blake flanking her, to see Yang and the others on the front steps. The sisters immediately embrace and Ruby sheds a tear of relief and joy that they’re all okay. Yang tells her she missed her too, and that seems to be that for the distrust and argument they had back in chapter 1. Ruby goes to greet the guys, and Yang gives Weiss a nice hug too. Then she sees Blake has taken a few steps away from the group and seems ashamed or embarrassed, unable to even look in their direction in Yang’s direction. Yang puts a hand to her cheek, her thumb softly stroking up and down as she turns Blake’s head to meet her gays gaze. Yang blushes and smiles, Bake returns the smile, and the two softly press their foreheads together. The intense sapphic energy of this deeply intimate moment was almost overwhelming, and many couldn’t help but adore it. I know I couldn’t stop myself from being a little giggly. Ren notices Nora isn’t there to greet them, and Weiss seems like she’s going to bring him up to her room and possibly even explain what happened along the way. Ruby takes this chance to go and greet Oscar with a hug, but stops short when she sees Emerald behind him. She seems real mad and is about to go on the attack, but Oscar steps between them and insists he can vouch for her, or maybe he’s saying he can explain? We don’t quite know because they get cut off by the sound of Ruby’s Scroll ringing. May is calling from the crater to say that the SDC freighters aren’t the only thing in the air right now, and she seems very panicked by what she sees. She yells for everyone to run into the mines for shelter, and an explosion is hear before the call is cut short. Before anyone has time to try and puzzle out what they just heard, a loud alarm tone goes off on all their Scrolls. It’s a fun detail that as a Faunus Blake covers her ears cuz the loud noise is especially bad for her. An emergency CCT broadcast is coming in for everyone in the kingdom, and Ruby magnifies her Scroll’s playing of it to be projected into the air for all of them to watch. The cargo ships are shown being shot down by military ships, and then the feed cuts to Ironwood standing ominously under a single light to deliver a downright villainous speech. He claims he has been trying his best to protect the technology and future of the kingdom from those who would do it harm, but I think it is VERY telling he never mentions protecting the people. Because that’s not what matters to him anymore. Not really. He says the only person stopping him from finishing his plans of making sure the currently crippled Salem can’t hurt them anymore is Penny. So he has an ultimatum for Penny and her friends, because he knows they will be listening right now. Either she turn herself over to him so he can have her do her “duty” and save as much of the Kingdom as possible and forget about trying to save Mantle, or he will nuke Mantle as punishment for her selfishness. The more he talks the more angry Ruby and the others get, and we are right there with them. He somehow thinks that if Mantle is destroyed then Penny will be free to only care about Atlas and its protection and will gladly work with him to do so. What a delusional bastard. And if anyone tries anything other than what he has said to do, he will use the bomb. 1 hour to decide how they will respond, and a hell of a lot riding on that choice.

There can be absolutely no question now, Ironwood will be the villain for the rest of the Volume and Salem will probably return at the end to ruin whatever hope putting him down will have raised in our heroes... And I’m kinda excited for how that’s gonna play out. Let’s see how team RWBY get out of this one~

[alirhi]

If I'd written Loki pt 3

(Missed one? Episode 1 Episode 2)

Still can't sleep. I started to doze off a little, but then my fucking brain latched onto this and wouldn't let go lol so...here.

Episode 3 would be where Loki finds the file on the destruction of Asgard. Mobius has been trying to keep it from him, afraid it might be too much for him to handle so soon. He looks across the table and sees Loki frozen in horror, and he knows, because they're researching apocalypses, exactly what he's seeing. Damn.

"Did you know about this?" Loki demands, hiding his shock and grief behind anger. Mobius admits of course I did as he tries to snatch the paper away. You weren't ready, Loki. It was too much- "And what makes you think that was ever for you to decide?!"

There's a moment of charged silence between them, Loki angry and reeling, and Mobius truly frightened of him for the first time. Since getting to know Loki - really getting to know him, not just as a file on his desk but the man himself - he's come to like and respect him more and more, and in the process, privately question the sacred timeline. That's why he keeps advocating for the minimal freedom he can get for Loki, why he told him part of his destiny, why he now isn't sure what to do or say.

"What happened?" Loki quietly demands. He could just read the rest of the file, but he can't quite stomach seeing it laid bare so callously in black and white.

Ragnarok, Mobius tells him softly. You unleash Surtur- "I did this?!" Loki is baffled, horrified, unable to grasp the concept of allowing the only home he'd ever known to be obliterated. To stave off something much, much worse, Mobius murmurs.

Loki shakes his head. "What could be worse than the destruction of an entire planet?" Still unsure how to proceed, Mobius gets snarky and reminds him, Didn't you already try to do that once, like a year ago? Loki is less than impressed lol. He's also privately freaking out. For all his mixed feelings about the place and its people, he just can't wrap his mind around destroying Asgard.

"That's where she is," he decides, lurching up from his seat. Mobius doesn't buy it, tries to stop him. You're not thinking rationally. She's never gone there- "That you know of. You had no idea where she'd ever been until I figured it out." She's a Loki! Wouldn't she have the same feelings you're having right now? Try to stop Ragnarok? "Who says I'm trying to stop it? I thought we were stopping her."

Loki, listen to me! He reaches for Loki's arm, but he's let his guard down; Loki steals his Tempad and sends them both to Asgard. Mobius is partly right, of course; Sylvie has never come back to this place before. She couldn't handle the flood of mixed emotions seeing Asgard again would cause. But Loki, even at the mercy of a lot of those same emotions, is also right. He knows what Mobius doesn't yet realize: Desperation drives Lokis home. Sylvie's plans have been disrupted; she's come here, to her last resort, the place she'd vowed never to set foot in again, to regroup. They don't find her right away, though.

First, they run into someone Loki has known since childhood.

"Loki!" she cries out, shocked to see him just standing there beside a complete stranger. They fly together like magnets, collapsing into each other's arms. "What are you doing here? We have to run; Asgard is being evacuated."

"Sigyn." He squeezes her with all his might, this woman who has meant everything to him, ever since they were small. In his arrogance, he's never told her how he felt. He won't now, either. There's too much going on, too much at stake. He holds her tight, not saying a word, while Mobius watches with a sort of awkward, nervous amusement. Oh. So THAT'S Sigyn! Loki flips him off behind Sigyn's back; a bit uncouth, sure, but any other retort would just be more effort than he feels like putting in right now. (oh wait. Disney. okay, so he doesn't flip him off, just glares I guess XD)

'Loki, we must go!"

"Then go," he murmurs, kissing her cheek and reluctantly releasing her. "I'll find you later." She won't make it to the bridge, Mobius warns as she's walking away. He doesn't know why he's telling him this; warning him of his own fate when he's already derailed it is one thing, but willfully causing a branch in the sacred timeline? What's wrong with him?! But he's already said it, and the stricken look on Loki's face says he heard him loud and clear. Loki grabs Sigyn's arm before she can get too far, and gives Mobius a look daring him to stop him. Mobius only shrugs helplessly and follows them both toward the palace.

"How old was she?" What? Loki rolls his eyes. "How far into her timeline did you abduct her?" Mobius hadn't thought of it that way, but he admits, she was a little girl. At Loki's impatient look, he shrugs. Seven? Eight, maybe? Maybe younger, I don't know.

"That's close enough. I know where to look." So wait... we're really here to find the other variant? Mobius laughs. I thought you were just cracking up! "I don't love the idea of this place disappearing forever," Loki admits in an irritated growl, "but I never do anything without a purpose. You ought to know that."

Sigyn's confused, but she lets this debate play out without a word. She knows Loki well enough to know something's going on, and even if she asks her questions now, she won't get any answers. So she waits. And is even more confused when they find Sylvie, and she recognizes Loki's female form. "What?"

Loki smirks. "Eerie, isn't it?" Before approaching Sylvie, he growls in Mobius' ear, "if anything happens to her, you will suffer more horribly than you can possibly imagine." You ever gonna tell her you're in love with her? Mobius taunts, grinning. Loki challenges, "Will I have the chance?" He doesn't let Mobius answer. He approaches Sylvie cautiously, like she's a cornered animal. The VARIANT jacket he'd forgotten he was wearing until then disappears. He's just Loki again, no visible ties to the TVA. Unfortunately, with Mobius right behind him, he's never going to get Sylvie to trust him. They fight, Loki consistently getting the upper hand because he knows more magic than Sylvie does, and she can't reach anyone to enchant them.

Then the earth beneath their feet shakes. Ragnarok has begun. Sylvie tries to steal Mobius' Tempad from Loki. He turns and races to Sigyn's side, Sylvie on his heels. Knowing they can't stay there, this is where he opens up a portal to a random apocalypse, and he, Sylvie, Sigyn, and Mobius all end up on Lamentis.

They still try the train thing, with Loki conjuring fancy clothes and tickets for everyone (and cuffs on Sylvie, hidden beneath one of those furry hand warmer things). Loki and Sigyn, both reeling from what they've each been through, play some kind of Asgardian drinking game, and Loki sings that beautiful song. He's serenading Sigyn, though, not Sylvie. Meanwhile Sylvie and Mobius stay at the table and talk. They both know better than to reveal any groundbreaking secrets; they just chat. Mobius is fascinated by a female Loki, until he looks over at the other two and sees what appears to be another Sylvie. Sylvie rolls her eyes and causally tells him that Lokis are shapeshifters, and aren't limited to one gender. Drunk and giggling, Loki turns back into himself and kisses Sigyn. Sigyn slaps him (she loves him and always has, but if he's ever going to make a move, she's not tolerating a sloppy, drunken one. Sigyn has self respect, yo! XD).

They don't get thrown off the train. They make it to the port, where Loki looks out over the city and makes the same realization he did originally: "My god. They're going to let all these people die." He won't stand for it. He's done watching worlds burn. After all he's seen and been through, all he's done and been forced to do, he's done. While Sylvie urges him to forget it and find the power source, and Mobius tries to get back to towing the company line and tells him not to screw up the apocalypse, Loki takes one look at Sigyn, his love, his childhood friend, the only person in his entire life who loved him and gave zero fucks about Thor, his moral compass... And she just nods. The two of them race down into the fray. Sigyn rounds people up, herding them away from the worst of the danger the best she can, while Loki focuses on the destruction around them. The episode ends when he stops that falling building and pushes it back upright.

Episode 4

[cass-and-kitt-in-the-tardis]

Speaking with a friend of mine helped me with some perspective on what's going on right now in the world concerning the racial riots. 

On May 25th, 2020, an African American man named George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, due to police brutality. His death has since sparked civil unrest and racial riots that are now spreading across the world. 

That being said however, while I agree that something must be done about racial discrimination, violence, and inequality, I do not agree with the amount of VIOLENT protests that are going on in the world over this. 

"Peaceful protests don't work!" Have they tried for a long enough period of time? Change isn't and doesn't happen overnight. It was roughly around 100 years after President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. won equal civil rights for Black people. However; this isn't the 1960's anymore. We are now in the 2020's. Racial profiling should not still exist. Racial segregation should not still exist. Racial discrimination should not still exist. Racial violence should not still exist. Racial inequality should not still exist. Racial injustice should not still exist. Change is not gonna happen overnight. However, it should not take another 100 years for it to do so. Violence, however, should not and never should be the answer to all those things. Violence will and has only spawned more violence. Violence doesn't solve anything. Violence will not bring back those lives lost due to police brutality. The George Floyd riots are only the latest in a slew of racially charged riots just starting from the mid 1960's. In almost all of those, tens of people were killed, and thousands injured. There are more police out now than there were at the beginning of the year, and it's all because of the riots and the violence and looting, ect. On May 30, 2020, in Visalia, California, USA, what had originally started out as a peaceful protest suddenly became violent as a blue jeep flying a Trump flag was stopped in the third lane of traffic, and was assaulted by protesters throwing water bottles. Two of the protesters came into the middle of the road, right in front of the vehicle to throw water bottles at the jeep, and when the traffic started up again, the jeep had accelerated, hitting the two protesters that had been standing in front of the vehicle. I do not support the actions taken by those two particular people. (Let me make myself clear in that I, in no way, support Donald Trump.) I fully believe that both the driver and the protesters are at fault. The protesters should not be going in the road in front of oncoming traffic and the driver should not have accelerated. Thankfully, the two protesters only came away with minor abrasions and bruises. I do not believe that actions such as those taken by those two protesters are what's going to help towards change of civil equality for all.

On June 1st, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, George Floyds' brother Terrence Floyd publicly stated that he wants the violence to stop. He requested that people "do this peacefully because that's how we gonna get them… do this peacefully, please." And that he knows his brother "would not want y'all to be doing this" referring to the violence, vandalism, and looting, that has been taking place [TIME Facebook page video, June 1st, 2020].

Civil rights activist, and leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would not be proud either. A civil  rights activist and leader from 1955 to the day he was killed in 1968, King did not believe violence was the answer, and was an advocate for peace, being heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, and civil rights activist and organizer Bayard Rustin. After surviving an assassination attempt on September 20th, 1958, his dedication to nonviolence was reinforced, stating, “The experience of these last few days has deepened my faith in the relevance of the spirit of nonviolence, if necessary social change is peacefully to take place.” [https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr]. It was King's dedication to nonviolent ways of leading the Civil Rights Movement that led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which led to him being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize later the same year.

Personally, I believe more people should take a page out of Dr. King's book by taking a more peaceful stand against racial injustice. Most of the racial riots over the past several decades only lasted, what, less than a month? Change takes time. Creating anarchy is only going to set us back. 

Just like how parents are not going to listen to a child having a temper tantrum, those in power of authority are not going to listen to those creating nothing but destruction, until there is peace.

[nugicus]

Top 5 Archaeological Sites and Relics that were Irreplaceably Damaged on Account of Human Stupidity

As a major in the humanities, nothing makes me more livid than learning about the loss or irreversible damage of an immensely important example of cultural heritage due to mankind’s massive propensity to royally screw something up. Reasons for such poorly thought-out actions that lead to the impairment of historical artifacts can be the result of either amateur archaeologists who foolishly believed they knew what they were doing to outright malicious acts of vandalism. Whatever the reason the outcome is still painfully the same: the erasure of a cultural site that is incrementally tied to the fabric of ones cultural identity, preventing those who share that same identity from engaging in their own heritage. Here are some examples I found the most serious.

5. A Bunch of Brits Damaged an Important Irish Archaeological Site Because they Believed they were the Descendants of Biblical Hebrews

Ah, the late 1800s. A time when the European industrial powers had begun to implement foreign policies with an overwhelming focus on dominating other countries, especially those in Africa and Asia, as a means of obtaining inexpensive raw materials to feed their growing economies. In terms of amount of land annexed and political dominance, there was no imperialist power more successful in this complex process than Great Britain. In order to justify such vastly one-sided geopolitical influence, social Darwinian theories were frequently espoused by British statesmen which had the habit of arguing that the supposedly “superior” white race had the right and the duty to civilize nonwhite races that were deemed inferior. However, some Englishmen wanted to take it a step further by advocating an even more ridiculous belief, known as British Israelism.

Influenced by writings, such as John Wilson’s 1840 Our Israelitish Origin, adherents of this theory suggest that the modern day inhabitants of the British Isles are, both genetically and linguistically, the direct descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel. Apparently, according to the pseudo-etymology used by British Israelists, the Saxons are the descendants of the ancient Scythians, a nomadic people who resided on the Pontic Steppe. The Scythians are, in turn, the descendants of the biblical “Isaac,” due to the phonetic similarity between what the Persians called the Scythians, the Sacae, and Israel’s patriarch. The name, Saxons, is also further interpreted to mean “Sac’s sons” or “son of Isaac.”

If all this sounds preposterous to you, that’s because it pretty much is. The languages of the British Isles, such as English, Welsh, and Gaelic, and Hebrew belong to two completely separate language families. The former is Indo-European, while the later is Afro-Asiatic. However, these hints that their theory was nothing more that pseudo-linguistic drivel didn’t stop British Israelists from damaging one of Ireland’s most important archaeological sites, the Hill of Tara.

Considered one of the most sacred locales in Ireland and an important symbol of Irish nationhood, the Hill of Tara had been used for three thousand and a half years as a pagan burial site and, during the early Middle Ages, it served as the seat of the High Kings of Ireland. Between 1899 and 1902, British Israelists led by judge Edward Wheeler Bird began to frantically dig up the site, mutilating much of it, in hopes of, get this, discovering the legendary Ark of the Covenant. Because if the Ark of the Covenant would be anywhere it would be in a place ancient Hebrews had no idea even existed. As one could imagine, Irish cultural nationalists, including professional archaeologists and journalists, were furious but ultimately couldn’t do a thing to stop them since the excavators paid off the local landlord and guarded the site with firearms as a means of keeping a group of protesters away from the dig site.

4. A German Amateur Archaeologist uses a very “Unconventional” Method to Excavate Troy

Archaeological fieldwork, especially excavations, are an incredibly meticulous process. The long, painstaking procedure of acquiring grant funds, organizing staff and equipment, mapping out the appropriate dig site, removing earth one layer at a time, and sifting through buckets of dirt looking for artifacts may take months if not years to fully accomplish. There’s a perfectly good reason for such scrupulousness since attempting to excavating a site without the proper know-how is extremely haphazard and can potentially damage the very thing you’re trying to uncover. A perfect case of this are the actions of one Heinrich Schliemann.

Born in 1822 to a relatively poor family in northern Germany, Schliemann had been obsessed ever since he was seven years of age with discovering and excavating the legendary city of Troy. After acquiring a sizeable fortune working as a businessman, Schliemann traveled to western Anatolia where Troy was vaguely believed to have existed. He was then pointed to a to nearby tell (an artificial mound formed by the accumulated debris of generations of people who once resided in a settlement), called Hisarlik, which, according to an Englishman named Frank Calvert who owned the land the mound was located on, as a possible location of Troy. In 1870, Schliemann then gathered a team of about one hundred local laborers and began digging at the site for about three years until he made an astounding discovery: Hisarlik wasn’t just the site of a single, important city, but multiple ones layered on top of one another formed after millennia as the settlement had been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt by inhabitants.

In order to reach the lowest layer, which he believed was Troy from the Iliad, Schliemann relied on a very unorthodox method that other archaeologists wouldn’t even consider using and for good reason: dynamite. Ancient cities and priceless artifacts were literally obliterated into dust due to his recklessness and poor record keeping until eventually Schliemann thought he found what he was looking for. When he finally reach one of the lowest layers, he discovered a cache of golden objects and jewels, which he proclaimed to be the treasure of Priam, the king of Troy in Homer’s poem. However, there was a serious problem. Not only did Schliemann destroy countless finds on his destructive mission to reach what he believed to be Troy, but the treasures he recovered were actually from a city that existed centuries prior. According to dating methods, the Troy from the Illiad was actually located in the strata Schliemann annihilated with dynamite.

3. The Great Pyramid of Giza is Vandalized by Two German Amateur Archaeologists because they Believed they were Built by Aliens

Currently, one of the primary disseminators of pseudoarchaeological and pseudohistorical theories is undoubtedly the New Age movement. Beginning in the 1960s, this philosophy, which suggests that the world has become too materialistic and has turned away from the spiritualism that is the heart of creation and that there is a non-physical reality than underlies our physical world, is largely responsible for much of the spread of evidence-less beliefs that are related to history and archaeology. These assertions include claims regarding lost, technologically advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, Lemuria, or Mu, or the theory that aliens have visited us in the Earth’s past and influenced our culture. Such fantastical notions have largely exited the fringe and have become more accepted since the late 20th century thanks in part to being picked up and discussed the History Channel.

Generally speaking, these theorists are typically harmless when it comes to their presence at archaeological sites, that changed in 2013 when a couple of German amateur archaeologists decided to vandalized Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza in order to prove that the monuments weren’t built by ancient Egyptians. In April of that year, Dominique Goerlitz and Stefan Erdmann, as well as a filmmaker, were, for some reason, given permission to enter the inner chambers of the pyramid that’s normally closed off to the public and proceeded to take a number of samples from a cartouche, which is a hieroglyphic inscription that normally represents the name and title of an Egyptian monarch, and smuggle them out of the country to Dresden University for further study. Neither men were professional archaeologists, nor were the associated with any institute involved in the field.

Apparently, the purpose of their defacement was to prove their “alternate theory” that the pyramids weren’t built by ancient Egyptians. Rather, they proposed that the Egyptian pyramids were build by a technologically advanced civilization that had existed much earlier than around 2500 BCE, which is when the Great Pyramid of Giza is believed to have been built.

As you can imagine, both German and Egyptian government authorities were absolutely furious over their actions. The three German hobbyists, as well six Egyptian guards and inspectors who let them into pyramid in the first place, are now facing serious charges. Lastly both Goerlitz and Erdmann tried to apologize for their vandalism in a letter directed to Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities but it has been rightfully rejected.

2. Museum Workers use Epoxy Glue to Repair Tutankhamun’s Mask

Without a doubt, archaeological restoration and conservation is a delicate and arduous task that demands a considerable amount of research. Besides it requiring a professionally trained team of conservators and restorers who’re capable of making sure the object matches its original condition as close as possible while using a variety of methods, it is also highly dependent on that team to be aware of the materials used when the object was constructed. Completing such work can take what seems like ages as the restorers meticulously reverse or preserve the appearance of famous works of art, while following a strict code of ethics and scientific guidelines. Interestingly, employees at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo decided to ignore all that nettlesome repair work when they accidently damaged one of Egypt’s most important works of art.

Back in 2014, the famous Mask of Tutankhamen was clumsily damaged when it had it’s beard broken off while employees were busy fixing a light in it’s display case. Instead of following protocol by relying professional restoration methods and acquiring an expert in art restoration, they made the astonishingly poor decision of hastily gluing the beard back on with a quick-dry epoxy, that is normally used for wood or metal, in order to conceal their crime. This was followed a reckless scrapping by using a spatula in order to get some of the excess glue off, which ended up causing a scratch. They then placed the mask back into the display case with the hopes that no one will noticed. Unsurprisingly, however, guests did notice in 2015 when, on closer inspection, the beard appeared off center and that there was clearly a visible layer of glue between the face and the beard.

Despite fears that the damage was completely irreversible, German restoration specialist, Christian Eckmann, along with a team of conservators, archaeologists, and natural scientists successfully removed the glue and reattached the beard in a delicate operation that took nine weeks. First, they took a 3d scan of the mask to document it and then they raised it’s temperature in order to safely remove the epoxy glue with wooden tools. They then proceeded to fasten the beard by recreating the same technique the ancients would have relied on using beeswax. Now, the mask has been put back on display since late 2015 after a lengthy procedure. Meanwhile, eight of the employees who botched the repair job have been referred to trial by the Administrative Prosecution and are accused of negligence and unrefined restoration of the mask.

1. Greenpeace Damages the Nazca Lines due to a Publicity Stunt

Located in the arid Nazca Desert of Southern Peru, the Nazca Lines are an impressive series of large geoglyphs that span an area of about 19 sq mi. Created sometime between 500 BCE and 500 CE, these expansive markings that were etched in a pebble-covered, windless landscape, vary in design, but they the majority normally come in the form of straight lines that, when combined, are eight hundred miles long. They also appear to depict a myriad of plants, animals, and humanoid figures, such as a hummingbird, monkey, and a whale, that are usually composed of a single continuous line. Since they were first intensively studied in the 1940s, the reason for their existence has largely escaped modern scholars, though there have been numerous theories as to their purpose.

In the past few decades, the extremely fragile geoglyphs have come under threat due to changes in global weather patterns brought on by climate change. Disturbances caused by human actions is also a risk, since the ground is notoriously sensitive due to the fact that the ground is made up of nothing more than black rocks atop white sand. So far any damage the Nazca Lines have attained due to either environmental factors and human impact have been regarded as minimal. However, in December 2014, they sustained damage from an unlikely source which managed to infuriate the Peruvian government. As part of a publicity stunt, individuals affiliated with the environmental organization Greenpeace, of all people, entered an area near the geoglyphs that is strictly prohibited due to the fact that a single step can cause permanent damage. Then, as part of a message meant for a highly important, UN-sponsored meeting regarding global warming that was occurring in Lima at the time, they proceeded to lay down big yellow cloth letters near the hummingbird geoglyph that read: “Time for Change, The Future is Renewable.” After observing drone footage taken in the aftermath of the stunt, it was revealed through visual evidence that new lines were formed after the activists hiked to the site and what appears to be an outline of the letter “C.”

In response to such recklessness, Deputy Cultural Minister Luis Jaime Castillo has threatened legal action against the activists for what he rightly referred to as a “slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred.” The Peruvian government was also seeking to prevent the participants from leaving the country and sought to identify the careless activists. Meanwhile, Greenpeace did its best to apologize for their actions in a statement they issued which states they plan to entirely co-operate with any investigation Peru has planned out. Unfortunately for Greenpeace, the apology did go over well with the people of Peru, which prompted Castillo to refer to it as a “joke,” since Greenpeace had initially refuse to identify the vandals or accept responsibility. After mounting pressure, however, Greenpeace decided to release the names of four of the activists involved by giving their names to prosecutors in the hopes that they will drop the charges against two journalists who were also at the event.

[may-not-my-flesh-fail-on-me]

An argent heart painted red.

Part 1:

Gazing upon the state of the once vibrant building in shambles melts the heart inside of a woman’s chest. The vibrant colors flickering across her eyes as she stares at the burning embers fluttering away from the bright flame. As much as she tries to deny it, her stomach twists in a knot and the heaviness of her body weight would trample her legs should she dare a movement.

Dizziness and nausea overwhelm the senses as she reaches out towards the burning debris once a shriveled cry echoes away from the decrepit canvas painted with fire. She cries out the boy’s name as her own enters her eardrums from the boy’s fatal shriek.

“—Excuse me, Miss? Are you Emilia Argentum?” The woman jerks herself awake from the sudden summoning. Quickly making it seem like she had not drifted off into a sleep state, she sits up straight on the chair in the waiting room of Shinra Headquarters.

“Yes, I am.” she speaks groggily but does her best to hide it behind a forced tone. The man who addresses her smiles welcomingly before motioning an arm towards the door.

“Very good, a Shinra advocate will see you in regards to your complaint.” Emilia finds that comment a bit straightforward but allows it to fade away as she realizes that is exactly what she intends to do. Complain.

With a bag draped over her shoulder, the headstrong woman grips it securely while heading into the Urban development wing of the Shinra building with only one thing in mind: to win her case and Gaia save anyone who gets in her way.

With many twists and turns distorting her legs as the man leads her to the destination of the Chairman, her mind stays impeccably focused on her goal. Entering the office, she meets a man who introduces himself as Reeve Tuesti and grips his hand firmly while they share a respectful handshake.

“Please take a seat,” he gestures towards the chair parallel to his own and when she follows his instruction, he speaks to the woman again. “How can I help you this morning?” Emilia respects the formal and friendly tone he emits and returns this with her own.

“My name is Emilia Argentum. I am part of the board of education and a teacher at the Sector 7 school for orphans from the ages five to seven.” Emilia pauses and Reeve gasps lightly to the new revelation, his hands folded twitching as he nods.

“Yes, I am aware of the many successes that school has given for the young youths of the slums. Very well done, I must say Miss. Argentum.” His smile demonstrates the affable nature of his soul clearly but it does not bring Emilia any contentment. Instead, the opposite occurs.

She does not return his notion with her own; her lips remain in a distinct frown in remembrance of the event that has taken place nearly a week prior to this meeting.

“If you know the school I work at, then you must also be aware that the funding for renovations to fix the damages of the plate-fall have been cut.” Reeve’s eyes fill to the brim with dismay and the smile that permeated his face melts into a similar frown that is on hers.

“No! That cannot be right—why, would the funds have stopped?— Ah, unless...” Emilia is distraught by this newfound information as it proves that he, also— the very man who is in charge of this department of Shinra— is not conscious of the dilemma that has conflicted Emilia, her coworkers and the children she teaches.

‘That changes matters to a much more challenging playing field.’ Emilia muses and in the blackest depths of her mind, she is reminded of who she lost that day.

She can still feel the heat of the flame, the choking scent of the blackening smoke and the cries of the boy she couldn’t save. Her incompetence stains her memory with black tar as she tried to enter the burning building but was unable to do so by the burning rubble. There was no way for her to enter and both she and the boy knew it. She watched, aghast as the boy’s flesh singed while holding his hand as his consciousness slowly faded away.

“—Miss?” Emilia blinks away the terror to find Reeve’s tender eyes watching hers carefully. “Are you alright, Miss. Argentum?” The woman clears her aching throat and complies by nodding her head once, doing all she can to keep the tears in the corners of her eyes at bay.

“Yes, I was just... Thinking of a boy I lost in the burning wreckage of the school your President cut the funds to assure its renovations.” Reeve’s sympathetic expression wounds Emilia’s heart as she feels guilty for mentioning the boy’s death as a tactic to achieve what she needs to be done but every action she takes to improve the status of the broken institution will be for him.

“I am truly sorry that you lost someone, Miss. Argentum.” Reeve hesitates, as if in deep thought before continuing quietly. “I’m sure many... Lost their lives to the destruction of the plate.” The two remain silent, a way to show respect for the ones lost in that fatal act caused by the very corporation housed in this building Emilia resides in and little does Emilia know, Reeve holds even more guilt than she does. Granted, she lost someone who was close to her but he has the blood of every single person he couldn’t save on his hands by not being able to stop the President’s ultimate decision of dropping the plate.

“He was six.” Emilia blurts without a thought, feeling secure in this man’s presence enough to give him the details of the young boy who died as she held his hand in hers. “His name was Troy, and oh was he a troublemaker.” Emilia giggles somberly, Reeve returning the comment with an attentive but condoling smirk. “He was so kind when he put his mind to it though. He would always give me flowers he plucked from a flower girl’s garden and oof, he got a stern talking to by her let me tell you.” Reeve and Emilia share a small fit of laughter but sadly, Emilia now gets to when he heard his cry. “His screaming echoed through the rubble and at first I didn’t even hear him. In the debris, I saw his burned skin reaching out of the burning building. I tried my hardest to get him out but it was futile. The fallen metal shards had locked him in with the fire.” Reeve finds his hands trembling to this story. Out of dread, as he knew the consequences but still could’ve tried harder to act against his fellow leaders, but also out of anger. Rage for his failure to intercept the Turks. Animosity for the President who ordered the drop in the first place. “When he took my hand, he said ‘don’t worry Miss. ‘Tum. I’m going to return to the Planet now. I’ll miss you.’” Reeve’s trembling has gotten to the point where he needs to remove his hands from the desk to hide them under the table lest he risks her seeing his regret. Emilia’s head lowers towards her lap and when she twists her hand around to gaze at the sears from the boy’s own burning skin left on hers as scars, she quietly finishes her statement. “He died after that sentence. I felt his burning hand lose its grip and become lifeless in the hold of my fingers.” Reeve is unaware of what to reply to the hurting woman despite feeling a sense of familiarity with her in this current situation.

Hesitantly, he utters soft, concerned syllables.

“I truly am sorry that you lost Troy. You should not have had to go through that, nor should the boy have lost his life especially at such a young age.” His jawline almost pierces his skin as he knows what he unfortunately must say next. “It pains me to say this, considering what you have just informed me of, but you will not be receiving the funds needed to renovate the schoolhouse.” Emilia’s head shoots upward to stare into the man’s brown eyes with bewilderment.

“What!? Why!?” Reeve is quick to disperse the truth to this woman as he feels she deserves nothing but exactly that for what she has gone through.

“It is because the President of the Shinra Corporation—“

“—is dead.” A new voice enters the room, making the two seated at the desk shift their heads towards the source. When Emilia sets her sights on the man who stands in the doorway of Reeve’s office, his sapphire eyes have already become acquainted with hers. “I overheard your story and I am interested in your conflict. Why don’t you follow me to my office.” The man uses an authoritative tone so close to the one Emilia adorns when approaching a meeting done with her fellow members on the board of education and once discerned, she points out he must also be a high official of this company. “That is not objected by you, I assume?” The man’s eyes raise to address Reeve who stands on his feet for a reason unknown to the woman.

“Of course, Mr. President!” Emilia’s perplexed gaze moves between the two men but holds on the President’s once his eyes latch onto hers again, painting her with a look of affirmation. “It was lovely meeting you Miss. Argentum. I truly hope you’re able to get whatever you need.” His sense of honesty gives Emilia a semblance of courage she needs to manifest in order to succeed. Another handshake is shared between the two before the woman follows the new President of the Shinra Corporation.

@quicksilver-fair for you love ☺️

[dustedmagazine]

Punk’d History, Vol. VII: Sick Tunes*

In 1977, when punk rock was coming to the attention of institutional politics and mass media, the music and its culture were frequently compared to illness. In an infamously priggish rant about the Sex Pistols, English MP Bernard Brook Partridge used the word “nauseating” three times in forty seconds. Even the tentatively friendly coverage the Pistols were getting in some venues in the American musical press was informed by the comparison. In October of 1977, a Rolling Stone cover story declaimed, “Rock Is Sick and Living in London.” Charles M. Young, the cover story’s author, insistently characterizes the Pistols and their punky kin as suffering the effects of some sort of physical malady. When he meets Paul Cook, he notes that Cook’s “skin [is] pallid” and “his hand is limp.” Malcolm McLaren has “a pale face”; his assistants at the Sex Pistols’ Piccadilly Circus office space “are also dingy and gray.” Young’s description of Johnny Rotten is spectacularly rife with the imagery of disease: “All misshapen, hunchbacked, translucently pale…the vilest geezer [Young has] ever met.” Rotten is a “sickly dwarf.”  

It’s not surprising that music so rigorously focused on negation should be at least metaphorically associated with illness and decline. By now it amounts to obviousness to note that the mid-1970s Anglo-American historical milieu (during which punk suddenly became fodder for political hysteria and journalistic hyperventilating) was not especially possessed of health or vigor. In England and in the States, multiple economic recessions, seemingly countless governmental scandals and failures and a general sense of social malaise constituted the dominant structure of feeling and informed the cultural environment. But punk wasn’t only subject to comparisons to disease. Punk songs were also deploying the imagery and concept of sickness to effect a variety of responses to their times. Sickness became a symbolic weapon.  

Few bands were more fascinated and freaked out by weaponized sickness than Dead Kennedys. “Chemical Warfare” was a mainstay in the band’s live set from its formation in the late 1970s. The song’s focus on militarized and terroristic applications of bioweaponry was exemplary of Dead Kennedys’ deep-seated dread for dark perversions of scientific research and the medical rationality of the clinic. “Chemical Warfare” seeks some satiric recompense: its demented lyric speaker raids an armory and unleashes mustard gas on a fairway “full of Saturday golfers”; the tune acquires an even more vicious, antic charge when East Bay Ray plucks out “Sobre Las Olas” as the gas wafts toward “The stuffed country club / Effervescent ladies, so carefree….” The bitter, sardonic humor is characteristic of Biafra’s desire to invoke violence, even as he ironically distances himself from it. From such a distance, one can more broadly claim just desserts: Who better to suffer from the effects of such insidious illness than those who have benefited from the weaponry’s production?  

More frequently, Biafra would assume the guise of a corrupt apparatchik or evil undercover agent, doling out disease-laden punishment to enemies of the State and brainwashed rubes alike: see his speaker’s command to “Die on organic poison gas” in “California Uber Alles” (“organic” is a key element there); or “Trust Your Mechanic,” which observes, “TV invents a disease you think you have / So you buy our drugs and soon you depend on them.” Biafra gives those various anxieties a song-length treatment in one of the band’s most truculent recordings.

The buzzy, muscular opening riff of “Government Flu” is as close to crossover metal as Dead Kennedys ever got, and the rest of the song is suitably breathless, matching the song’s descriptions of sickness. The band plays with razoring precision, a zippy sprint, as Biafra barks, “Got a head cold, got a chest cold, and it’s three days old / Goin’ on forever / Make you hazy, make you lazy, drive you crazy / For days ‘n days ‘n days ‘n days ‘n days and years!” Yikes. A dire prescription. But Biafra’s technocratic voice assures us that it’s all for a good cause: “Slip it abroad / Keep a-slowin’ down the USSR!”  

The lyrics’ conspiratorial extremities oddly presage some of the crankier contemporary commentary on coronavirus. On March 13th, Jerry Falwell, Jr., joined the jolly morons on Fox and Friends and winked-and-nodded his way through a typically paranoid routine, speculating that North Korea and China had cooked up and loosed COVID-19 on the world in a plot to bring down the Trump presidency. There’s a weird symmetry to the way Falwell, Jr., and Biafra follow their visions out to geopolitical scales, especially given the frequency with which Falwell’s father was a target of Biafra’s wrath. History is always stranger than fiction.  

California’s punk history runs wide and deep, and numerous hardcore and crust bands further explored the symbolic and political ramifications of Biafra’s fixations. Bay Area band Christ on Parade’s first EP, Sounds of Nature (1985), featured “The Plague,” a song that associated humanity’s presence on the earthball with biological malignancy: “Civilization’s a cancer… / People are only mindless cells / Spreading a terminal disease.” Band member Noah Landis would eventually move on to join Oakland heavies Neurosis, whose first LP Pain of Mind (1987) included the grimly titled instrumental “Geneticide” and a song called “Self-Taught Infection”: Scott Kelly sings, “Our world’s a disease / The germ is us.” A few years later, and some miles farther south in Orange County, crust band Dystopia added to the chorus on its excellent EP The Aftermath (1999).

“Population Birth Control” delivers an apocalyptic elaboration of the symbols and themes: “Malignant cancer of the ecosystem / Gnawing at a mother / Children she loves / Cankered womb and body.” As the song progresses, the metaphors clarify: the “mother” is the earth, her “children” are humans and humans are a cancer. The song grinds and crawls and pummels away, like the machinery and industries it excoriates. Dino Sommese howls, “The tumors feed and grow / All the land turns to stone / Biodiversity reduced / From a parasite’s abuse.”  

Of course, punk and crust bands didn’t invent these rhetorics and discursive maneuvers. Any number of SF novels—from Huxley’s Brave New World to Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz to John Brunner’s excellent The Sheep Look Up—have inventoried, gamed out and riffed on human technologies run amuck and their production of profound ecological collapse. But we should note that crust punks who are serious about their crustiness have always been an earnest bunch. They don’t just produce art; they live it, inhabiting real, material austerities: squatting, assiduously following a vegan diet, releasing music outside of capital’s mainstream markets for exchange. Even the more performative elements of the subculture that other folks might label with the awful term “lifestyle” have material consequences for consumption: not bathing frequently, wearing the same denim and leather for weeks on end, dreadlocks.  

Soon after releasing the EP version of The Aftermath, the crusty boys in Dystopia would record a cover of Rudimentary Peni’s “Cosmetic Plague.” Much of Rudimentary Peni’s work can be thought of as an extended meditation on social alienation and psychological illness, and it’s all pretty brilliant. But a number of bands active in the English anarcho-punk scene that Rudimentary Peni drifted through engaged with disease in a more politically materialist fashion.

“Myxomatosis” concerns a disease caused by a pox virus, which proves particularly devastating to various European species of wild rabbit. In the 1950s numerous national governments intentionally introduced the virus into their populations of European rabbits to curb species proliferation. Like many of their fellow anarcho-punks, Flux of Pink Indians were strident advocates for animal rights. The band was disgusted by the deliberate spread of the virus; they saw it as exemplary of Western modernity’s insatiable desire to control nature, to impose destructive forms of human will upon other critters: “Experimentation, vivisection, devastation, starvation, torture, war / All mindless slaughter are basically the same / Manmade oppression, manmade pain.” Perhaps the most effective refrain in the song is “Oppression stinks” (and “Myxomatosis” isn’t the first song in which Flux of Pink Indians focused on a corrosive smell). Oppression signifies the idea of a coercive, politically motivated behavior. The term necessarily abstracts, a cognitive action that helpfully sets parameters for a general category; less helpfully, the abstraction operates at a distance from the lived reality—frequently a violent reality—of the behavior itself. “Stinks” is a powerfully organic term. It invokes the piles of bunnies, riddled with pox and writhing, dying and rotting. It vivifies our awareness of the full force of oppression, of how it impinges on and damages and debilitates bodies. It’s horrific.

Another 1980s English anarcho-punk band, Subhumans, recorded numerous similarly themed songs: “Us Fish Must Swim Together,” “Pigman,” “Evolution.” But more relevant are the band’s songs that address illness. “Germ” is a song from the Evolution EP; Dick Lucas sings, “I play with your health, I destroy all there is / I’m the germ in your mouth when you give her a kiss!” He almost cackles with glee—it’s a typical punky demolition of conventionally saccharine sentimentalization of bodily experience. The song’s skepticism about the efficacy of “the National Health” indicates the band’s ideological opposition to government and institutionally dictated forms of normativity. In the spring of 2020, it’s hard to hear that skepticism clearly, when we are in dire need of nationally and internationally coordinated responses to massive public health crisis.  

A glib response (powered by an impoverished notion of anarchism, all too common in some reactionary punks’ selfish appropriations of the term) to that need might be some version of “reap the whirlwind.” To briefly give that perspective an airing: late capital’s systems of production have indeed propagated uneven development and ever more efficient global interlinkage, as well as industrially scaled agriculture and fossil fuels consumption, all of which have issued in world systems and climatological conditions ripe for pandemic. The less glibly observed fact must be that many of the people who will suffer the effects of COVID-19 have not benefited from the operations of late capital. They suffered them, and they will suffer more.  

Subhumans address those issues with greater complexity on Worlds Apart (1985), one of the best punk records of the 1980s. “Someone Is Lying” revisits themes and symbols that are familiar by this point: careless manufacturing of toxic, hazardous substances; the substances’ escape into the lifeworld; the working class’s disproportional immiseration, both by the mode of production and the diseases that spring from it. The crisp, brisk riff underscores the song’s growing anxiety. More stirring is Dick’s vocal performance in the song’s closing minutes. He repeats, ad nauseum, “These people are dying! / Someone is lying!” The band swirls behind him with growing intensity. People are dying. Someone is lying. In 2020, the scenario has loosed itself from the song and infected our reality. To be sure, the Real is stranger than fiction. Throughout the winter and spring, institutional powers worldwide have lied and obfuscated, always in rank self-interest, in ruthless effort to maintain their grip on power. It is sick, diseased, repugnant. And the lies grow from and exacerbate deep social problems.

In England, in 1985, the song’s phrases gestured toward specifically English ideas, with specifically English resonances: “inbred snobbery,” “wipe out the ghetto,” “the civilized nation.” It seems that we are no longer worlds apart; Dick sings about a “British Disease,” but America in 2020 suffers strikingly similar symptoms. At the song’s crescendo, when Dick is diagnosing the illness, he shouts, “Ignorance is your disease! / Ignorance and apathy! / Ignorance and bigotry!” That turns out to be an apt depiction of a significant portion of the American citizenry, credulous boosters of a “PATRIOT law” (my caps), idiotically basking under the glow of fluorescents on the floor of Target or Whole Foods, whining about an unbelievable access to plenitude: “What? No fresh jicama!” It’s easier to bask and whine than it is to consider all of the crushing injustice and violence that have made that plenitude possible. Or to live in a way that struggles to fashion an ethical response.  

Some folks are more vulnerable. They have no choice but to become intimate with those crushing forces. Try walking out into the Target parking lot and adjusting your vision. You’ll likely find a car somewhere along the fringes, its driver gorked out, needle hanging from a vein. Another victim of the American disease, another person in malignant, soul-destroying pain, trying to self-medicate. You’ll walk past, plastic bags bulging. “You thought this country was so great.”  

Perhaps our new disease will provide a change in perspective. Current conditions suggest otherwise. At the time of this writing (22 March 2020), in spite of the callow cynicism, repulsive preening and empty macho pose of our newly self-declared “Wartime President,” the Trump Administration’s national job approval numbers are ticking up. Ignorance and apathy. Ignorance and bigotry. When does the disease become terminal?  

* N.B. This essay was written at furious pace, at the close of the first week of social distancing as COVID-19 arrived in Philadelphia, PA. There are many, many punk bands and songs that address sickness that haven’t been included: the Germs, Flipper’s “Survivors of the Plague,” GBH’s “Sick Boy,” and so on. But the essay is not interested in offering any sort of survey or comprehensive account of punk’s symbolic treatment of illness—and “Sick Boy” is a thunderingly stupid song, anyways. Additional apologies for the essay’s fast-and-loose organization. Furious writing bears the marks of the psychological dissonance its writer (ahem) suffers. And angry words likely should not be prettily put.  

Jonathan Shaw

[tjkiahgb]

Episode Recap: 3.15, “Unloading Zone”

Two recaps in two days? The things I do for meaningless internet points.

Bex, Bowie, and Andi sit around the apartment looking at their phones when Bowie suddenly declares it movie night. Everyone’s like, kinda excited about movie night, but not enough to move or do anything about it.

That’s the way we like to movie night.

Bowie says it’s a family night, where they all stare at the same screen. They debate what to see and where to see it but basically realize everything is bad.

Backed into a corner, they realize their only recourse is to take to their phones and the internet to try and find something to watch.

Andi shoots that idea down with a sarcastic “Sounds riveting.”

I take it she’s never seen footage of a swarm of monarch butterflies tearing a cow to shreds in a matter of seconds. I’m talking down to the bone!

They all go back to their phones with the sort of silent resignation that they aren’t going to watch a movie that night and also that they, and frankly all of us, will never stop staring at our phone screens from now until the moment we die. We are prisoners to technology. It is a cage we constructed by mistake and trapped ourselves in permanently by reforming our society around it. It is a karmic form of punishment for our hubris and it will one day be our destruction.

Anyway, please follow me on tumblr dot com, and don’t forget to give my posts likes and reblogs as my self-esteem is built almost entirely upon this.

Speaking of self-esteem: Cyrus.

He and Buffy watch TJ and Kira from afar at the park, where Kira attempts to blind TJ.

Buffy’s trying to figure out if they’re together now, but Cyrus doesn’t know, as they haven’t been hanging out lately. Kira’s been around him almost non-stop and Cyrus is not interested in being around her.

Kira jumps on TJ’s back, providing another stunning metaphor.

My God, she’s got him in a chokehold. She’s attacking him in public! Won’t someone do something?! Basketball boys in the background! Help!

Buffy reassures Cyrus that this won’t last. Kira’s not a nice person, she says, and TJ will figure that out eventually.

At Cloud 10, Andi checks to see if Bex and Celia have made up. Bex doesn’t know, so she checks with Celia to see if they made up.

No.

Bex tells Andi to stop using all the non-sample makeup. Andi’s like, ok, I’ll just take the ones I used. Bex wants to charge her.

Andi, look around! Once again, there are no costumers in the store, just employees and family members. The business cannot afford to bleed money like this!

Andi implores Bex to go talk to Celia, partly because she wants the two to mend their relationship and partly because she probably wants to sneak some more makeup out.

Bex tries to talk to Celia but Celia is cold as ice. Andi makes a joke about it.

That, surprisingly, doesn’t help the situation, so Andi sees herself out.

Bex tells Celia that she knows she’s furious with her for cancelling the wedding, but she would like this whole thing to be over. Celia says it is over. Bex asks her to say something nice to her to prove it.

I dunno, something like, “You are my only daughter and I love you no matter what. I’ve had at least a day to think about it and realized that barn weddings surrounded by alpacas aren’t the most important thing in the world, your happiness is. I would never want to force you into a marriage you weren’t ready for. You have to do what feels right to you. It’s your life, not mine.” I mean, you know, whatever. That’s just a rough draft. I’m open to notes.

But Celia instead sighs and says she’s got nothing.

At the park, TJ sneaks away from Kira long enough to talk to Cyrus alone.

TJ feels like Cyrus has been avoiding him but Cyrus says he hasn’t, TJ’s just been so preoccupied with Kira. TJ’s like, I’ve just been spending some time with her, but Cyrus says it’s the bulk of time. He thinks the two are hitting it off and he’s happy for them.

Don’t put that on me! TJ’s like, we just talk about basketball, the least romantic of the sports! Cyrus asks about the piggyback ride, but TJ says that was because Kira bet him he couldn’t do it and he was like screw you, I have a strong back. I can lift things!

TJ proposes Cyrus hang out with the two of them, but Cyrus isn’t so sure, and to reinforce that point, Kira tracks down TJ using the GPS chip she hid in his pocket and gets real cold, real fast with Cyrus.

TJ’s like, Cyrus should hang out with us, right?

Wouldn’t that be fun if all three of us hung out?

Kira says yes through gritted teeth and TJ’s like, boom! Great! Cool! We can all hang out.

But Cyrus gets the message and decides to scoot.

Do’s to thing.

TJ is sad to see Cyrus go, which Kira notices. She tries to cheer him up by reminding him that she’s still around.

To which TJ is like...

...oh. Yes. Yes, you are.

Later, at The Spoon, Andi comes bursting in and tells her friends to take a look at this!

And they’re like, that’s a phone! And Andi’s like, oh.

The point is not the phone, it’s what was once on the phone: words. And those words tell the story of a clothing store called Mint Chip which burns all the clothes they don’t sell.

The gang enter into a long discussion about capitalism and branding which I don’t understand because I got a C- in my Econ 101 class.

Then Buffy says Mint Chip burned $35 million worth of clothes last year and everyone gets outraged.

Can I just play devil’s advocate here? Maybe they were burning it for warmth?

Buffy says there’s a way to settle this, and they all head to the Rage Cage to smash junk.

No, wait, I mean, they head to a junk cage to... rage smash? Shoot, I feel like I almost had something there.

Point is, the kids get in the dumpster. Buffy tries to but her foot betrays her. Wonder if this has to do with trying to run a marathon on nothing more than moxie.

She plays it off like not a big deal. She says she’s fine but I’m not so sure a-boot that.

Cyrus, now in the dumpster, finally asks if they’re allowed to be doing this.

Ignoring the trespassing charge? The crime is called garbage theft. It’s real. I know that because I got an A- in my Criminology 101 course. Feels like someone should’ve done a quick Google search to make sure they weren’t doing something illegal.

But I guess the time for Googling was before everyone got into the dumpster, because everyone just laughs off Cyrus’s suggestion that maybe they could get in trouble for this.

They find bags and bags of new clothes and wonder what to do with them. They all stare at Andi.

Because this was your thing! You made us care! You’re the reason we’re in the dumpster!

Andi says they all need to figure this out. It’s a group project. Then everyone gets real quiet and stares at one another and a few seconds later, Andi comes up with an entire plan by herself. Go team!

They return that night and steal all the clothes out of the dumpster and ride away with their treasures.

I like how they each got their own special vehicle for the job. Jonah’s got his skateboard. Andi has her quirky wagon. Buffy has a practical cart. Cyrus has an awkward wheelbarrow. Perfect.

Well, okay guys, you’ve committed a crime. A couple, actually. Trespassing and garbage theft, but I think you can still get away with this if you play it cool. I assume the next part of the plan is something low-key. Go around town making anonymous donations to thrift stores and shelters probably. Gets the clothes to people who need it, gives them a new home. Mission accomplished, right?

Oh, no? Not that? Put up a huge, extravagant public display in the middle of the sidewalk on the main street of town instead? Big ol’ gaudy signs saying where you took the clothes from? Large, colorful signs that scream “FREE TO TAKE”? Great idea! Nothing gathers more attention or raises more suspicion than big signs with the word FREE on it.

By the way, where is Mint Chip? Is it nearby? Within walking distance? Within seeing distance?

This is like newlywed bank robbers robbing a bank and their getaway vehicle is their wedding car with all the cans dangling off of it and big writing on the back window that says “JUST MARRIED! DAN AND TIFFANY JOHNSON”

This is like a guy throwing a brick through a department store window but wrapping his photo résumé around the brick. And when you unwrap the résumé it has his name and phone number and email address, and underneath “Special Skills” it says “Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Doing Crimes”

This is like a kidnapper mailing the finger of the person he kidnapped to the police and putting his home address on the package in the return space.

I assume this is all to prove a point to Mint Chip but the way it’s executed, it just feels like they want to get arrested for doing crime.

This lady comes by and rubs her two brain cells together.

Very good question, lady! Why are these children giving away clothes free to whoever walks by? Why do all these pieces of clothing still have their tags on them, as if they were stolen? Why--

IS THAT A WINTER COAT?! NO MORE QUESTIONS!

Andi assures her she can have the coat and that’s good enough for her.

Andi meets back up with Cyrus and Buffy and they all delight in how nice it is to give people stuff that isn’t yours.

We get a fun montage here of the gang committing crime with smiles on their faces.

Jonah gives answers to three telepaths, who wordlessly asked him questions about the clothing.

Look at these criminals.

Laughing at what they’ve done. Thinking they’ve gotten away with it. Makes me sick.

Bex, meanwhile, arrives home to find Bowie and a package. It’s addressed to both of them and Bex realizes it’s a wedding present. Bowie jumps back like Bex just said the box was full of spiders.

They’re going to have to get one of those bomb disposal robots to come take care of this.

They decide to open it. They’ll return it but have to know who sent it first.

Bowie sees it’s from Celia. She sent it with a beautiful note. They open the box and pull out--

JESUS CHRIST!

An exact recreation of the proposal?! Down to the clothing, hair, and camera angle? How in the world?! I mean, really? Even if they described the scenario to her, HOW?! She even placed the pillows on the couch exactly as they were on the night!

The level of detail on this is haunting.

She even put in the Cat!

This was a really cute idea that’s just unsettling in its execution. This is a supernatural occurrence. This is the kind of thing someone stumbles upon in the attic of spooky house and realizes it contains the trapped the souls of these people inside of it. If you hold your ear to it, you can hear them faintly shouting “Help! Get us out of here!”

Bex and Bowie are far more taken by this display than I am though. Bex gets emotional. She goes to get the Thank You note stationary Celia gave her. Bowie gives her some space to write a message.

Back at the pop-up crime scene, Cyrus approaches Buffy with a shirt. He wants to give it to TJ.

He texts TJ a picture of it. Cyrus hopes TJ will like him it. Buffy asks why not just give it to him, but Cyrus says he’s not sure how much he’d want him it. Buffy’s like, he wouldn’t want a free shirt? Cyrus is like, I don’t know if he’s gay he’d like me giving him a free shirt.

Buffy figures it out. She’s like, you know how you can find out if he’s into you he wants a free shirt? Go for it Give him the shirt. Maybe it’ll mean something to him, or maybe it won’t, but either way it’s a nice thing to do. Cyrus agrees.

TJ texts back at that moment.

No, he gives the shirt a thumbs up. Cyrus invites him to the crime show he and his friends are putting on, but TJ tells him he’s at the park.

Cyrus wonders what that means. Buffy tells him it’s that he wants to meet him. Cyrus waffles on whether to bring the shirt.

Yeah, I mean, the shirt’s a thing now, you gotta bring the shirt.

At the park, Kira wants to know who TJ’s texting with. He tells her no one and suggests they go feed the ducks. Kira suggests they go on the swings first. TJ’s like, are you sure I can’t interest you in some ducks? But she wants to swing.

TJ resists but Kira persists. She taunts him that he can’t swing as high as she can. That works, somehow.

Guess his competitive spirit is such that all you have to do to get him to do something is say he can’t.

“I don’t want to give you a piggyback.”

“Why, ‘cause you can’t?”

“Get on my back! But I swear I’m not getting on the swings.”

“Because you don’t know how to swing?”

“Get out of my way, I’m getting on them swings!”

Boy, if either Reed or Lester had figured out this weak spot, they could’ve just said “Bet you can’t not say anything to the police about this gun, chicken!” and they’d be running free somewhere right now instead of locked up in supermax.

So TJ gets on the swings, just in time for Cyrus to come walking by and see.

Heartbroken at seeing his crush being heterosexual in public, Cyrus takes his shirt and does a sad Charlie Brown walk away.

He looks back first though.

Which, as we know, indicates he likes TJ, though it feels kinda superfluous because it’s following an episode where he was watching TJ from afar, being jealous that TJ was hanging out with someone else, and getting TJ a gift for no reason other than he thought it would look good with his eyes. Yeah, man, we get it. You like TJ.

Cyrus returns to the theft shop. Buffy asks him what happened and he tells her he found TJ with Kira.

Buffy promises him it won’t last, but Cyrus is like even if it does... he’s still straight, though.

Buffy asks him what he’s going to do with the shirt. Cyrus decides to give it to the last straight boy he crushed over. He asks Jonah if he wants it.

I know that this is more to complete a metaphor of sorts, but Jonah has to know that’s one of the shirts they pulled out of the dumpster, right? He’s like, oh, this is awesome, where’d you get it? The trashcan, Jonah. With you. Last night. We’ve been giving them away all day. There’s eight more over there on the rack.

Andi shows up and is like, it’s weird no one got mad at us for this whole thing, right? And Jonah’s like, oh yeah, someone came by and asked a lot of questions about it and I told her everything!

They’re like, no, you shouldn’t have done that. Which, I mean, yeah. He needs to keep his mouth shut. That’s the first rule of crime doing. But in fairness to him, what was this plan anyway? If someone came around asking, what answers were they planning on giving that wouldn’t implicate them in wrongdoing?

They don’t have time to think about that because a cop shows up. Andi tells everyone to stay calm, because they didn’t do anything wrong, but Buffy’s like, we might have. Bet we feel foolish we didn’t stop for a quick Google before all this, huh?

Officer Penn, a.k.a. Budget Clint Eastwood, wants to see their permit, but they say they’re not selling anything, so no permit necessary. Budget Clint Eastwood then tears through their legal arguments fairly quickly.

They say Mint Chip is a store that destroys the clothes they don’t sell and if you really think about it, isn’t that the real crime?

No. No, it’s not. Garbage theft is the real crime. Garbage theft. Officer Penn hauls four children off to jail.

Vivian the Winter Coat Lady, meanwhile, walks into Cloud 10 to look around. Celia compliments her winter coat. Vivian thanks her, saying she just got it under mysterious circumstances, but didn’t bother asking any questions.

In fact, all she really wants to do is go back and get more clothes under mysterious circumstances.

Bex pulls Celia over and tells her she loved the wedding present. She gives her an envelope full of thank you notes she started and stopped because she couldn’t put into words all her feelings.

But Celia is still pretty cold about all this. Bex wants to know how long it’ll take to be forgiven.

Can I knock it down to two if I run some errands for you? Take you to the airport or something?

Bex’s phone buzzes. It’s someone calling from jail, telling her they have her daughter. Bex panics. Celia steps up.

Looks like Andi’s going to have to bring them back together once again. They head off for jail.

The episode ends and then we get a sneak peek at the main title sequence of the spinoff show featuring the Good Hair Crew and Jonah in prison.

Andi Mack: Lockup, coming this fall.

[nathjonesey-75]

2021 in Electronic Music: A New Hope?

A long time ago in a galaxy far away…there was the nineties system. In that system, folk came together in happiness to celebrate together at places called nightclubs, where DJ masters would enthral, guide and entertain the folk by composing and conducting a range of sounds. The people would dance throughout the time of the stars, until the great star would rise – and folk would rest. Or they would fly to another dimension and be led by other masters to more happiness.

                                                ____________________

 It all sounds like a fairy-tale, doesn’t it? The world which was once a reality feels like it needs Jedi-style leaders to save it from the abyss, otherwise known as traditionalist business hell. The abyss which sees concrete futures made without character, without expression, art or creativity – where culture could be as one-dimensional as the spurious garbage emanating from the mouths of those supposedly in charge of moving nations to brighter futures.

 Also, without too much finger-pointing, 2020 in itself has been like a meteor which has hit the creative world like an alien rock with no direction. Furthermore, without conspiracy theorising (about custom-made laboratory viruses in secretive lands – oops, got sucked in there) and observing the hard, indigestive facts of October 2020 – where no end date is presentable as to when the uninvited virus will be vanquished. Can we either look to the future with hope for electronic – and indeed, all live music? Or are we to fight the good fight for as long as we can, to abate the ‘dark side of the force’ in corporate-led governments and cold business?

 During the damaged and lost eighties – socially and politically – times were hard unless you were a yuppie whose “enterprise” in the way of sole trading was rewarded on the stock exchange. Yet, what came from that mass hardship for everyone else – was what made us not only dream – but live out our dreams. Make dreams for others.

 Music was in the post-punk, electro-pop era. Hip-hop was sky-rocketing across the world, from New York – across the USA and over to every Western nation. As was House Music. As was Techno. The DIY ideal which once applied to Punk Rock in the mid-to late seventies now had been adopted by DJs. Is that a pair of Technics 1210s? Is that a Roland synthesizer? Ok, let’s do something.

 As Resident Advisor’s mini-documentary “How Punk Shaped Electronic Music” - about the two genres’ correlations – it says

      “The most radical part of it was an idea – if you want to make music, You don’t need a big record deal; a big, fancy studio – or even much musical talent. You just need the sheer force of will - to get out there and do it.”

This was never more prevalent than in both Chicago, where House Music was developed – and in Detroit, where technology’s advances in electronic devices saw Techno appear in the latter part of the decade. Still, the concept of not having to possess “much musical talent” was not necessarily true when it applied to some of the most celebrated electronic musical doctors. Larry Heard played several musical instruments from a young age. Underworld played instruments even before forming their first band, Screen Gemz – back in 1975. Sasha was a classically-trained pianist before ever seeing a DJ. I could go on.

So, in light of recent debates as to whether these performers, their industries and followings are “viable” for financial support during this degraded and destructive year  – I don’t need to revisit the figures of economic value for which our industry produces. As for The Stranglers’ Hugh Cornwell interview on Good Morning Britain on October the 9th – he said, “House Music is the worst song writing….there isn’t any song writing skills in House Music, for me.” Regardless of his own successes in the late seventies and early eighties – this is as moot a point to be found, as would be for anyone over sixty-five who have never understood – or tried to understand electronic music. Except by now, you must have been self-isolating from the wider world out there, where times have moved on from only guitars in song writing.

   Larry Levan was instrumental in writing music for Grace Jones, while The Stranglers were at their peak of popularity. Why did Madonna recruit both Sasha and Paul Oakenfold to help compose her tracks over twenty years ago? Why did Danny Boyle curate the 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony with the musical aid of Rick Smith from Underworld? Why did Kendrick Lamar win awards for tracks with lyrics which read; 

"Shit on anybody, I'm a rappin' Porta-Potty/And I probably gotta dump right now". 

Hardly poetry. You could throw mud and hit anything if it’s about “bad” music nowadays. Ironically, John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk magazine described that genre as "rock and roll by people who didn't have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music". Except Punk Rock lives on in this anthem-led society of 2020. 

While Cornwell’s empty shot at House Music was filmed seemingly at home in West London, I would urge him to use his ideal location and visit the Design Museum in Kensington, where the Electronic Music exhibition is held until February 2021. The opinion of lack of skills required in writing songs – would surely be under further threat at the display of Jeff Mills’ instrument engineering, or Aphex Twin’s multi-level track and video choreography. The words “out of touch” are, I feel – valid in this case. Granted, every genre has producers who don’t try hard but write cheap, catchy songs – think of all the one-hit-wonders in the seventies and eighties. “Shaddap You Face”, “Star Trekkin”, “Puppy Love”…

These were songs made for either fun, children’s television, or for undisclosed reasons by each composer – suffice to say that none involved House Music. Yet over thirty-five years of House Music walking in unison with the rise of technology and evolution of nightclubs and festivals – has meant that all instruments and now software are taught and developed at schools, colleges and universities across the world. I would be highly confident of being able to write a cheesy, tacky and bad track in one day – whether I wanted the financial profit from it or not – would be a matter for my bank balance after 2020 (wink-wink, nudge-nudge…)

For future reference, with mists of all colours being spread across the musical galaxy as we enter the last two months of what has been an abysmal anomaly year, the anger generated by punk was closed down quickly by the governments of the late seventies. It was beyond saving as a regular, viable movement by the time the eighties commenced. Its direct anti-establishment nature would have made sure of that, were it in the situation we now face. 

But that did not stop its musicians from carrying on making music. Post-punk continued its energy and old regime defiance through bands inspired by what came before. Bands such as New Order, Public Image Limited, Talking Heads and The Fall - all had messages and attitudes carried from previous years. Genres were reinvented and music adapted. Moving into the unknown may be unclear and unnerving right now. Yet, fighting for what we can recreate should be a binding motive for DJs, promoters, clubbers, electronic artists and everyone involved in our scene. 

From recently looking back at a haul of 1990s editions of Mixmag and Ministry magazines I had stowed away, it’s clear we had it “damn good” at that time. We may – and highly likely never will return to that level of hedonism, heights of being spoilt rotten for wealth of music heard for the first time, the talent and progress of the producers guiding us through, skills of DJs and grandiosity and grunginess of clubs which we visited. We do, however, have these imprints on our brains and know what works. Living solely from memories is not what I am advocating – using memories and what we have today, as a global community to post flagposts of how the “underground will live forever” – in believing our clubs can be reopened and that celebrating our own culture at future parties, is worth the time spent in doing so. Do it yourself can work, as was ever the case. 

[nerdygaymormon]

Gospel Topic Essays

In 2013 & 2014, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a series of essays that address a number of question and criticisms. These essays have been approved by the First Presidency and Quorum of 12 Apostles. The stated reason for the essays is gathering accurate information and making it available.

I added a few thoughts in italics

Are Mormons Christian - Members of the Church believe in and teach of Christ, but they don’t believe in the post-New Testament Creeds, and have scriptures in addition to the Bible. The LDS Church also is not a direct descendant of an existing Christian church.

What Mormons mean by the word “Christian” is different than the rest of Christianity. Mormons are Christian in that they believe Jesus was the Messiah and redeemer of the world.

Becoming Like God -  Since people are the spirit children of God, we have the potential to develop and grow to become like God. The essay includes some Bible verses to support this teaching, but most of the world interprets them differently.

The essay leaves out Bible verses that would seem to contradict this teaching. The Bible, at best, is mixed. There aren’t any verses from the Book of Mormon included because this concept is absent from that book.  

God was once like humans are now. And people can become gods. We teach God is married, so there are godly roles for both men & women. Does this make us polytheists? Yes, in that there are many gods, but really no because we only worship our Heavenly Father and will continue doing so even when we become gods ourselves.

How does someone become like God? It’s the covenant path we hear so much about. Baptism, Melchizedek Priesthood (if you’re male), temple endowment, sealed to a spouse, obey temple covenants.

Sounds pretty good, except...

What about if your spouse or children are unworthy? If you’re gay? If you get divorced? A widowed husband gets married & sealed to a 2nd wife, what if the 1st wife isn’t into polygamy?

Book of Mormon and DNA Studies - The purpose of the Book of Mormon is spiritual, not historical. There’s no DNA evidence to confirm that Middle Eastern people came to the Americas prior to Christopher Columbus. This essay goes through many possible excuses for why no DNA of the Jaredites, Nephites or Lamanites has yet been found in the Americas.

The introduction page to the Book of Mormon used to say that the Jaredites & Nephites were destroyed, leaving the Lamanites who are "the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” DNA evidence forced a change, it now says, Lamanites are “among” the ancestors of the American Indians.

Book of Mormon Translation - Joseph placed either the interpreters (Urim & Thummim) or his seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out light, and read aloud the English words that appeared. He dictated the words, not punctuation, to the scribes. The scribes wrote their own punctuation and that is what was printed. Most changes in the Book of Mormon have involved punctuation and creating verses & chapters.

It’s not a “translation” in the usual sense of that word. An examination of the characters on the plate wasn’t typically involved (despite much of the artwork that suggests otherwise), in fact, the plates often weren’t visible. There’s no way to test the accuracy of the translation.

Also, some other changes beyond punctuation and creating chapters/verses has taken place, like having some of the more racist language toned down.

First Vision Accounts - Joseph had a vision (not necessarily an actual visitation) in which 2 heavenly beings appeared to him.

Joseph published 2 accounts of this vision during his lifetime. Two additional accounts (from his autobiography and from a journal) have been found and published in the 1960′s. There are also 5 descriptions of Joseph Smith’s vision recorded by others who heard Joseph speak about the vision.

That makes 9 different accounts, and there are some differences between them. The essay explains that different accounts emphasize different details. Memories fade over time and things get remembered differently.

There is a generally consistent theme across the different versions, but the first written account comes many years after the vision is supposed to have occurred, which makes me wonder how accurate or reliable it is.

Joseph Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple and Women - During the 19th century, women frequently blessed the sick by a prayer of faith, and many women received priesthood blessings promising that they would have the gift of healing. In reference to these healing blessings, Relief Society general president Eliza R. Snow explained in 1883, "Women can administer in the name of JESUS, but not by virtue of the Priesthood."

That’s because the priesthood was new & fresh, but understanding changed as Joseph Smith received more revelations. 

I think they stuck to Joseph Smith’s teachings so they wouldn’t have to go into the misogynistic teachings of Brigham Young or Spencer Kimball. At the time of Joseph’s death, women were still doing healings & had control of the Relief Society.

Priesthood power is given to women in the temple as part of the endowment ceremony. When a couple is sealed in the temple, together they enter into an order of the priesthood. Women can officiate in the priesthood in ordinances for other women. Women can officiate when only women are getting the ordinance, when it is for men & women then the men are in charge.

Women and the Priesthood today - well, they still can do stuff in the temple.

Mother in Heaven - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that all human beings, male and female, are beloved spirit children of heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. This understanding is rooted in scriptural and prophetic teachings about the nature of God, and the godly potential of men and women. The doctrine of a Heavenly Mother is a cherished and distinctive belief among Latter-day Saints.

According to things taught through most of church history, this essay could have been titled Mothers in Heaven. We each have a mother & father in heaven, we each have the same father but there could be many different mothers in heaven. Good old polygamy, interwoven into our theology.

6 paragraphs, that’s all? Shouldn’t we know more? What is heaven like for women?

Peace in Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints - The Latter-day Saints were persecuted, often violently, for their beliefs. Several incidents are discussed.

Well, to be accurate, it was more for their actions than their beliefs. We weren’t exactly great neighbors to non-members of the church.

And, tragically, some Church members participated in deplorable violence against people they perceived to be their enemies. Joseph Smith had the Danites, and a stake president ordered the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Brigham Young taught that some sins were serious enough that the person should be killed as part of forgiveness process (blood atonement).

The early Mormons had many threats and violence done against them, and they also did the same to others. It was a rough time.

Imagine all the things said & done against the LGBTQ+ community by the Church--denying they exist, electro-shock therapy, advocating for laws to limit & take away their rights. In a real sense the church isn’t a good neighbor to this group. In an earlier time, this might get settled via guns and violence.

 Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo - God commanded people in ancient Israel to have polygamous marriages. As part of the restoration of all things, God commanded Joseph Smith to introduce polygamy.

The verses cited just indicate that polygamy was practiced in Old Testament times, not that God commanded anyone to have such marriages. 

Joseph really didn’t want to do it (or worried about how his wife Emma would react), so God had to send an angel 3 times between 1834 and 1842 to command him to proceed with plural marriage. During the final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully. 

The concept of polygamy was part of the revelation on eternal marriage and is how to be exalted with God.

The essay says there wasn’t much instruction on how to do polygamy, I think this is meant to suggest that mistakes happened because people didn’t know better. D&C 132 does have a number of instructions, some of which were ignored. Such as the 1st wife had to give permission for any additional wife, and the additional wives each have to be virgins. 

Joseph kept most of his marriages secret from Emma, and he married other men’s wives who most assuredly weren’t virgins. 

Joseph had 30-40 wives. His oldest wife was 56 and the youngest was 14. 

Polygamy was illegal. Most people who participated were told to keep it secret. Also important for married women to keep it a secret from their first husband. Rumors spread and so “carefully worded denials” were issued in which they’d switch one word, or change the meaning of a word. Basically it looks like they were lying because it would mean trouble.

Wilford Woodruff issued a manifesto in 1890 which led to the end of polygamy (eventually...it took a second manifesto in 1904 to end it officially). 

A form of polygamy still survives. Men who remarry may be sealed to their additional wives. People can do temple work to seal women who were married to more than one man during their lifetimes but not sealed to them. Only men are allowed to be sealed to more than one person whilst alive.  

Plural Marriage and Families in early Utah -  Church members do not understand the purposes for instituting the practice of plural marriage during the 19th century. The essay heavily suggests that having a lot of children was a primary purpose. 

Footnote 6 says “Studies have shown that monogamous women bore more children per wife than did polygamous wives except the first.” In all likelihood, polygamy led to fewer children than probably would have been born in a monogamous society

Accounts left by men and women who practiced plural marriage attest to the challenges and difficulties they experienced, such as financial difficulty, interpersonal strife, and some wives’ longing for the sustained companionship of their husbands. Virtually all of those practicing it in the earliest years had to overcome their own prejudice against plural marriage and adjust to life in polygamous families. 

Few would have entered into plural marriages if leaders didn’t emphasize that polygamy was required for a man’s highest exaltation in the life to come, and women who refused plural marriage could find themselves single & a servant in heaven. Polygamous wives were so unhappy that Brigham Young eventually gave an ultimatum, 2 weeks to freely leave the territory or stop whining and fully live their religion. 

Plural marriage was an illegal practice and members engaged in civil disobedience against such laws. In direct violation of the 12th Article of Faith

The essay shows Mormon polygamy in a very favorable light.

The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage - Polygamous marriage was illegal in the United States and the LDS Church fled to Mexico but the United States took the territory they were fleeing to. The Church felt that polygamy was protected under the Constitution’s freedom of religion but the Supreme Court disagreed. 

Given the importance polygamy to the church’s beliefs about heaven, the members were encouraged to disregard the law and obey God. After 2 decades of increasing troubles, many polygamous families headed to Canada or Mexico to escape US justice (nevermind polygamy was just as illegal in those countries).

When the US Supreme Court upheld the legality of confiscating church property, this could mean that temple ordinances would end when those buildings are seized. Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto to ban polygamy in 1890. This calmed things with the US government and within 3 years Utah was admitted as a state. 

Members continued entering into new plural marriages for about 15 more years, but in declining numbers. In 1899 the newly-elected senator from Utah was not allowed to take his seat in Congress because he had 3 wives, including one he married after the manifesto. When an apostle was elected in 1903, he also was not allowed to take his seat as an investigation took place into the church & polygamy, even church president Joseph F. Smith testified before Congress. 

President Smith testified that the Manifesto removed God’s commandment on the church to practice polygamy, but didn’t forbid individuals from choosing to continue to be polygamous.  He issued a Second Manifest at the April General Conference forbidding members from entering new polygamous marriages. 

Race and the Priesthood -  The Church was established in 1830, many people of African descent in the United States lived in slavery, and racial prejudice were believed by most white Americans. 

From the mid-1800s until 1978—the Church did not ordain men of black African descent to its priesthood or allow black men or women to participate in temple endowment or sealing ordinances.

This is true, but one would hope a church which claims revelation through prophets would be able to overcome cultural norms that aren’t in line with the gospel. 

Church leaders taught many things to explain the ban, and today, all of that is rejected by the church and considered error. These weren’t just teachings, they were doctrines. And the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham were used to justify bigotry, such as stating that the curse of Cain was a dark skin.

International expansion of the church, especially in Brazil, forced the church into difficult situations. The Church in the USA was also under heavy pressure for the priesthood restrictions. 

Church president Spencer W. Kimball spent many hours praying for revelation to undo the priesthood ban. The essay makes it sound like some big revelation was received, but it wasn’t that way. It was a process, a statement drafted and changes made to it and voted on. 

Today, the Church disavows all teachings that teach any race or ethnicity if inferior in any way, or that mixed-race marriages are wrong. Church leaders unequivocally condemn all racism.

No reason for the priesthood ban is put forward in this article other than racism. The past leaders were racists and that blinded them to what God wanted for black people. There’s a big lesson in that. 

Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham -  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embraces the book of Abraham as scripture.

A traveling salesman sold several Egyptian papyri and mummies to Joseph Smith. He was excited to learn one papyrus was scripture from Abraham and set to translating it. 

After the church left Nauvoo, Joseph’s family sold the Egyptian artifacts and they eventually ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In 1967, the museum transferred these fragments to the Church.

Discovery of the papyri allowed an examination of Joseph Smith’s translation.  Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham. 

Joseph’s translation was not a literal rendering of the papyri as a conventional translation would be. Rather, the physical artifacts provided an occasion for meditation, reflection, and revelation. They catalyzed a process whereby God gave to Joseph Smith a revelation about the life of Abraham, even if that revelation did not directly correlate to the characters on the papyri.

The essay mostly tries to explain how it is possible for Joseph Smith to have called the process for bringing forth the book of Abraham a "translation" when it is obvious that it was not a translation of the Egyptian papyri in his possession

[trylonandperisphere]

Though media reports of the protests have dwindled, organized demonstrations for racial justice are still underway.

By Fabiola Cineas 

on July 16, 2020 8:30 am

In the weeks following the police killing of George Floyd, millions of Americans marched in the streets. Many had never attended a protest before, and some lived in historically conservative towns. At the peak of the protests — around June 6, according to publicly collected data from the Crowd Counting Consortium — people across all 50 states and dozens of cities around the world had participated in demonstrations that called for racial justice and an end to police violence.

But with the protests came a nonstop news cycle that seemed to fixate on burning cars and buildings, and clashes between police officers and protesters. As long as there were riots and looting, television news helicopters descended upon their respective cities, with organizers lamenting online that the media wasn’t interested in stories beyond those of broken windows, pepper spray, and vandalized storefronts.

And now, almost two months after the first protests erupted, national news cameras have fled, which makes it hard for the general public to recognize that protests are still going strong in cities and towns across America.

In Louisville, hundreds of protesters continue in their mission to bring to justice the police officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s death. Protesters have engaged in a number of large-scale public actions, from converging on the steps of the state’s capitol building to disrupting a mayoral press conference and hosting “blackout” marches.

On Tuesday, which marked day 48 of protests in the city, activists traveled to the home of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, where they sat on his lawn and demanded he bring criminal charges against the officers. More than 100 people were reportedly detained at the demonstration for trespassing, according to organizer Tamika D. Mallory, co-founder of the social justice organization Until Freedom. Even Wanda Cooper-Jones, the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, traveled to Louisville to advocate on Taylor’s behalf. (She also spoke to local reporter Senait Gebregiorgis while she was there.)

The momentum is similar in other cities across the country, such as Minneapolis and New York, where multiple demonstrations happen every day. However, mainstream news stories about the protests seem to only emerge now in the event of isolated violence (including multiple instances of suspected or avowed white nationalists running their vehicles into protesters) or protester clashes (like the recent spat between “Blue Lives Matter” protesters and counterprotesters in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn).

Local activists say the waning media attention is expected, but the work must continue. “We are in the biggest social movement this country has ever seen,” said activist Oluchi Omeoga, co-founder of the Black liberation nonprofit Black Visions Collective based in Minnesota. “When we say this is what will be written in the history books, it’s not an exaggeration. The folks calling for change in this moment are the folks who are going to be on the right side of history.”

The early news cycle’s focus on violence and destruction

Early news reports of the protests focused heavily on images of fires, overturned vehicles, and elevated scenes that distorted what was really taking place on the ground, with some pointing out that coverage seemed to exploit Black pain and violence.

On June 1, the front page of the New York Times read, “Twin crises and surging anger convulse U.S.” above a photo of protesters with their hands in the air and another showing police dressed in riot gear in a cloud of smoke. The same day, the Washington Post published an image of Minneapolis protesters crying and hugging one another after a truck ran through the crowd, with its own front-page headline reading, “U.S. at a precipice as demonstrations intensify.” (The bottom two images depict demonstrators at protests in Kansas City, Missouri, and Washington, DC.) And a San Francisco Chronicle headline on May 31 read “Riots, shooting rock Oakland” above an image of a protester standing with a fist raised in front of a dumpster fire.

The early coverage seemed “breathless,” Kanisha Bond, assistant professor of political science at Binghamton University, told Vox. “But that is not an unfamiliar tone when it comes to media coverage, specifically of urban uprisings involving both violent and nonviolent protest activity, and particularly when people who have been historically excluded from the traditional centers of American power are engaged in any sort of unrest.”

This was seen in the media coverage of the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police shooting of Michael Brown. A Race Forward analysis found that news reports at the time largely lacked context explaining the “patterns of racially skewed police violence” that sparked the protests, with some not even mentioning the word “race” at all, Vox reported in 2015. Race Forward research director Dominique Apollon, who authored the study, told Vox that part of his advice to journalists was to “not take police accounts at face value.”

As Morgan State University politics and journalism professor Jason Johnson wrote for Vox in May, news coverage of uprisings often fails to show the full scale of protest activity — just because a few trash cans are on fire in one location doesn’t mean the entire city is on fire. Moreover, news reports of the Floyd protests didn’t always cover the cause of much of the violence: the police themselves. In many instances caught on camera, police used inordinate force against protesters who were silently marching or otherwise engaged in a peaceful group demonstration.

“Much of the damage attributed to protesters is often the result of police action or inaction in the face of lawful public behavior,” Johnson wrote. “Sometimes buried at the end of post-protest reports by local authorities is the fact that police munitions often start fires at protests, but this is seldom reported by the press, and there have been surprisingly few protesters arrested for arson relative to the fires that erupted during the unrest.”

Johnson also noted that news reports didn’t do much to highlight the presence of “run-of-the-mill opportunistic criminals” who seized on the moment to raid local businesses. For example, the media didn’t distinguish these actors from the protesters who, in a targeted effort, burned down the Third Police Precinct in Minneapolis, which was “a specific act of revolt.” The focus on damaged property over lost lives illustrated the media’s “misplaced priorities,” Johnson wrote.

Now, nearly two months after the first protests, a quick scan of the front pages of newspapers and digital media outlets would likely have one believe that the protests have altogether stopped. While they have surely shrunk in number and size, the social media accounts of activists and organizers continue to show compelling images of daily demonstrations.

In the past two weeks, there have been demonstrations in Sartell, Minnesota, and Keystone, South Dakota. Protests also carry on in Philadelphia, Houston, and Washington, DC. Meanwhile, in New York, the Instagram account JusticeforGeorgeNYC lists a collection of daily rallies, marches, protests, and vigils for Black people who have lost their lives to police brutality. On Wednesday, July 15, there are nearly a dozen events planned across Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan — from 8 in the morning to just before sunset.

News coverage can both help and hinder ongoing demonstrations

According to activists, the lack of coverage both hurts and helps protest movements as they continue through the summer.

On one hand, the absence of widespread protest coverage creates a false sense that the demonstrations have largely come to an end. “Some people do get their political cues from what makes its way into the general public discourse, which is largely shaped by what’s in the news, so media blackouts or withdrawals can give them the impression that either the ‘newsworthy part’ of the protests has expired or that there are simply no more events to be covered,” Bond told Vox.

The importance of protests as a tool for shifting public opinion is already evident in national polls. Monmouth University found at the end of May that 76 percent of Americans believe that racism is a big problem now, up from 51 percent in 2015. Other polls show that more people support the defunding of police than ever before. A June poll from the research firm PerryUndem found that 72 percent of respondents supported reallocating funds away from police and to other services like health care.

As political scientist Megan Ming Francis told Vox last month, systemic change begins with a shift in public opinion that’s brought about through protest. “The history of protest in this country is that when there’s more people, politicians pay attention,” she said. “If you want legal change, if you want political change, then it means you need to, at the same time or before, shift public opinion. That is crucial.”

On the other hand, some activists believe the constant presence of news cameras could hamper progress. If activists are constantly under the gaze and watch of the state, this could invite more violence on protesters and open up the opportunity for derailment.

“When the mainstream media steps away, we see even more clearly the vital function that independent media — including social media livestreamers — plays in providing a comprehensive and well-rounded accounting of protest and social mobilizations,” Bond told Vox. “The ubiquity of social media might attenuate any negative effects from a lack of media coverage — but how much is likely heavily determined by what sorts of information you allow across your online boundaries and within your social network.”

The most recent protest headlines at mainstream outlets — including the New York Times’s “Drivers Are Hitting Protesters as Memes of Car Attacks Spread” and USA Today’s “‘I would be very careful in the middle of the street’: Drivers have hit protesters 66 times since May 27” — focus on violence or arrests. Then there is CBS’s “87 people charged with felonies after Breonna Taylor protest at attorney general’s house” following Tuesday’s events, framed around protesters trespassing on an elected official’s property. When news outlets cherry-pick moments of violence to cover or criminalize protesters, they are choosing drama and sensationalism over the larger narrative — that the biggest anti-racism movement in a generation is still happening in the US.

“It comes down to what is considered newsworthy, which is often action, large numbers, and apparent mayhem,” Bond told Vox. “Burning buildings, smashing glass, and bleeding people are often visually riveting and can add a sense of vicarious danger and unpredictability, while direct actions like sit-ins, public education sessions, street parties, and/or meal distributions don’t offer people that sense of ‘ooh, what’s going to happen next’ the way that other actions might.”

The fight for justice lives on

Activists recognize how much has changed in public opinion since the first Floyd protests — and that’s why they haven’t stopped organizing. According to Omeoga, protests have taken place every day in Minneapolis since Floyd’s fatal arrest. Omeoga told Vox that part of what’s been missing in the coverage that has existed is expanding what we mean when we say “protest” or “public demonstration” to fully capture how people are mobilizing.

“The occupation of ‘George Floyd Ave,’ the place where he was murdered, is an act of resilience or a protest. We have been occupying that space every day since George Floyd was lynched. Folks are protesting for change in the simplest terms,” Omeoga said. “Folks are protesting for Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Riah Milton, and Dominique Fells. Folks are protesting against police brutality and state-sanctioned violence and for interpersonal violence against Black trans women. Folks are out protesting for Black lives.”

According to Omeoga, the media largely focused coverage on the peak of the protests because “that’s what they think people are interested in,” she said. “We have been conditioned under this capitalist society to only find value in things for very short, transactional periods of time. The media affirms that in the ways they show what is worthy of news and what isn’t.” For Omeoga, left-friendly platforms like Democracy Now and Unicorn Riot are alternative media outlets that can help people stay up to date.

Ashton P. Woods, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Houston, recognizes that while coverage may now only extend to protests that feature celebrities or to protests where politicians are present, he can’t get comfortable and rely on politicians to do the work. “We have a responsibility to protect what we have secured for ourselves and dismantle white supremacy,” Woods told Vox.

That work, he said, doesn’t mean having to show up in the streets. With the number of coronavirus cases surging across the country and its disproportionate impact on Black, Latinx, and Native American communities, Woods acknowledges that people have to mind their health and the health of friends and family and community members. The work can take place in online seminars and gatherings that educate people who are new to the movement. For Woods, in Houston, it also includes showing up to courts and to city hall to pressure Texas lawmakers to sign legislation that tackles systemic racism. And moving forward, he said, protests must continue to create safe spaces for all Black lives, including women and trans, queer, and nonbinary people.

“There’s been an erasure of what we are really protesting for, like the Black LGBTQ community or the Black immigrants — all Black lives matter,” Woods told Vox. “We’ve been doing this anti-racism work since before Trump got into office. We’ve been planning, coordinating, and doing the type of work that doesn’t get on the news for a long time.”

The lack of attention and accountability by lawmakers means protesters have to keep elevating their message, whether in the streets or online, he said.

[witchqueenofthemoon]

BODY AND SOUL Part 20 (Duncan Shepherd/Mackenzie Stone Millory AU)

BODY AND SOUL MASTERPOST

Author’s Note: MILESTONEEEEE I’ve made it to Part 20! Loved writing Kenzie finally dreaming about the interrogation between Michael and Mallory at Outpost 3 (imo the best AHS scene of all time--I studied it carefully to write that part and WHEW do I love that scene, the birth of Millory!!!). I mentioned this in an ask recently, but I see Duncan as the Michael who chose the path of light, and Michael as the Duncan that chose darkness--I believe the duality of human nature is all about autonomous choice, and thus the Outpost Michael Kenzie sees has lost his nature of goodness, therefore has lost his “Duncanness” to her. She forgets that he called her “Mallory” upon waking, but she’ll hear the name again and be puzzled by it. The way Duncan helps Kenzie breathe is the real breathing technique to help comedown from hyperventilation--breathe in slowly through your nose, count to three, breathe out from pursed lips, repeat. The pomegranate smoothie is something like this recipe. Y’all know I had to reference this at some point. Lindy and Gabby are the ones who started DUCKENZIEFANS.com--they’re both high schoolers (they’re 16), and they--and their fan club/website--will show up again. I based Kenzie’s cool demeanor with them on the many videos people have taken of Keanu Reeves being lovely and polite to fans (I’m a huge Keanu fan)--the paps are going to start to notice how lovely Kenzie is to people, start picking up on her aura, so to speak, and it will have an effect on how they behave around her. Ben is my Billy Porter/Behold AU, as I’ve mentioned, and irl he is a married gay man and an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights--he’s done a lot of work with GLAAD, so it seemed fitting to make that his charity of choice. A reminder that the black tulle geometric lingerie looks like this. Ben’s glasses. His wine-colored blazer. His rose pin. Kenzie’s blouse. Kenzie’s skirt. Kenzie’s shoes. Duncan’s shirt. I listened to this remix of Lana del Rey’s BLUE JEANS a lot while I edited this part, it has a Duckenzie cosmic vibe. @neonlacrima made the most beautiful aesthetic moodboard for my fic and posted it today, please go give her love for it, I’m DYING over it. @deanfinite made one too, here, that I’ve been losing my mind over for days. The Duckenzie love is real, y’all, and I FUCKING FEEL IT.

Kenzie was dreaming again.

Duncan was kneeling before her. Duncan, but...not Duncan. The man kneeling in front of her had Duncan’s face--his blue eyes, though these were strangely dark and she could not see his soul behind them--his beautiful mouth and straight nose and chiseled jaw, but he had long, flowing golden hair--Duncan’s hair is coppery brown, like autumn leaves, waving down around his ears, falling back from his face, Kenzie thought in the dream--not knowing she was dreaming, but knowing that it was him, and also not him. And this man, who was Duncan, her beloved, and also not her Duncan, not her beloved: darkness coiled around him, thick like smoke--redness hovered around his eyes and he was dressed all in black, and this other Duncan, this dark Duncan, frightened her to the pit of her being. She smelled burnt ash and sharp, sickly sweetness, like the center of an overripe fruit. He smelled like destruction to her--like the end of something, like the end of everything. My Duncan doesn’t smell like that, she thought, a terrible chill in her mind. He smells like the woods in the rain and the sweetness of jasmine and summer grasses coming down as the light fades. You are not my Duncan. You are a shade of him, another side of him, one that does not exist in this world, and she still did not know she was dreaming, but she did know that, knew it, and knew she was inside the self that sat in front of his man, but was also outside of that self, as if she were looking over her own shoulder. The man was reaching out for her face, his other hand hovering on her knee, and the pressure of his hands filled her with sickly fear--you aren’t my Duncan, you really aren’t my Duncan, because his touch is healing to me, in his touch I can feel the fibers of his soul and it’s like sweet kisses on my skin, kisses full of tenderness, full of his love for me and your touch is not his, your touch is like death, your touch chills my soul to the core.

“You’re afraid,” this other Duncan was saying, “aren’t you? Of accepting who you are.”

“I don’t know who I am,” she heard herself say.

“What do you mean?” She felt caught in his gaze; as cold as ice, as harsh as a terrible blaze, a gaze that she could see none of her Duncan’s love inside--a gaze that wanted to consume only, devour only, rend, ravage. She heard herself speak again--as if she was only able to listen to herself--as if this other Kenzie was from the past, or the future, or some other Kenzie altogether, her doppleganger with a different mind entirely. “Sometimes, I feel like there’s someone buried inside me, trying to claw their way out.”

“Who?” The man’s hand was hovering at her chin now--not my Duncan, no, not him, this man is dark, he is Darkness Itself, he is the Beast, and she heard her other self say “I don’t know, I just wanna go--” and felt herself--her other self--stand and try to run away from the man--the man came after her and Kenzie’s heart went into her throat (no not him not him YOU ARE NOT HIM) and that other man with Duncan’s face grasped her arm and she heard herself say let me go and he said “Don’t be afraid, Mallory, I’m offering you a chance to live--”

And then she felt hot fire, heat so bright and so golden and so vast like the entirety of the sun and she thought YOU ARE NOT HIM DON’T TOUCH ME TAKE HIS FACE OFF IT’S NOT YOURS YOU TOOK HIM WHERE IS HE WHERE DID YOU TAKE HIM and Kenzie heard her other self scream this time, scream “I SAID LET ME GO--” and the fire, the sun of the feeling surged out of her, like the way she pushed her love and her feelings and thoughts into Duncan but this time it was charged, a thousand times stronger, a feeling so vast it felt as though it would rend her mind in two and something exploded, a fire burning behind them burst and extended and licked around the man and he staggered back from her, his face a mask of utter shock.

The room went dark, the fire snuffed--then the man with Duncan’s face rose from where he’d been knocked back, his golden hair tossed around his face, his expression full of wondrous awe, anger, and incredulence, his eyes inside hers. He advanced on her; his face became a terrible white mask, monstrous, distorted--and Kenzie felt herself, that other self that was her and not her, pull the golden sunlight, the energy made of wild, powerful brilliance, out towards him again, her fear floating away from her for a moment that felt like an eternity, and the fire flared up and was rekindled, swelling around him, forcing him to retreat once more, and Kenzie knew she was doing it, that it was her power that forced him back.

He lifted his face to her again, the veneration in it even more pronounced, the white monstrous pallor having disappeared from it, and Kenzie thought she saw a flash of Duncan finally in his eyes--a flicker of light, a spasm of his loveliness, his love, then it was gone. “Who are you?” His voice had lowered from its haughty cruelty, and was now tinged with astonishment. More like Duncan’s voice.

“I don’t know. Who are you?” Kenzie looked into the other Duncan’s eyes--I saw you for a moment there, my love, I saw you trapped inside him as though buried beneath the terrible weight of the crushing earth. Then the cold hand of fear gripped her heart again, and Kenzie felt herself, that other self, run from him as though there were ravenous wolves on her heels--

-------

She was coming back, resurfacing from a pool of dark water, and felt someone shaking her, shaking her arms and touching her face with a sweet, warm hand, a hand that she knew was Duncan’s before she even opened her eyes because she could feel the calm and the relief and the love in it, flowing into her, even while she was still drifting up from that dream, from the dark pool, from the other self she had been inside--and then her eyes snapped open and she was staring into his face, worry-creased, his blue eyes so earnest, Duncan was saying something but she couldn’t hear him at first then her hearing came back in a rush and she watched his lips (my Duncan, his eyes, his mouth, his warm and soothing hands, oh god, he took you away from me, he had destroyed you, my beloved, he had taken you away from me) and he said again “Kenzie, baby, Kenzie, wake up, you’re dreaming, you’re dreaming, it’s not real--”

Then she was jerking up and her breath shuddered out, and she gasped, harshly, and she felt the hot tears on her face, and Duncan’s hands were on her cheek and at her waist and the fear in his eyes shook her, shook her into intense relief, so intense she thought she might faint with it--”Oh god, baby, he didn’t take you, he didn’t take you away from me--you’re here, you’re okay, you’re here--your eyes, your soul--” and she burst into a sob that made her shoulders wrack forward into him and Duncan’s hands were in her hair as she cried, her face pressed into that space under his arm, her space, where she fit, where she’d been cut away from him, long ago at the beginning.

“Kenzie, Kenzie, baby love, everything’s okay, everything’s alright, you’re at home in our bed and I’m here, whatever was in your dream--it was just a dream baby, it’s not real--I love you, it’s okay, you’re okay--” she closed her eyes against him, hot tears coursing down her cheeks, lost in the soft whisper of his mouth at her ear, the feeling of his hands in her hair, his large body cradling her into his lap, and she breathed in--not the ash and rotten fruit of her dream, oh thank you, gods, Fates, thank you, he smelled like sandalwood and his jasmine soap and the musky earth-smell of him and Kenzie sobbed again, lost in his consolation, lost in the reality of him, the dream fading, that man made of Darkness Itself fading from her mind, bleeding out into the edges of her consciousness, mercifully. After awhile, she quieted, breathing him into her, breathing in the love she could feel coming off him in waves into her, and her heartbeat slowed, and Duncan was shushing into her hair, and saying “baby, it’s okay, baby, you’re okay, angel, Kenzie, shhhh, it’s okay,” and his hand was brushing the tears from her cheeks, the warmth of it, the shape of it soothing the harshness, the redness, the salty sting.

“Dunny--that dream--you were someone else, you were--a man with your face--”

“It wasn’t me, Kenzie, it wasn’t me. I’m here. It was a dream. I’m here. Your Duncan. I’m right here. I love you. I love you and you’re safe, you’re at home, you’re with me.”

“That man, he was so dark--he was evil--he was like a black hole in the void that sucked everything into it and howled in the face of the deep, serpent, the destroyer--” for a moment, it was as if someone else was speaking through Kenzie’s voice and she lost herself in the flow of her fearful words, then crashed back into herself, still babbling--”he scared me so much, it was like he had eaten you and was wearing your face, like you were screaming inside him--fuck, Duncan, oh fuck--he grabbed me and his hands were like a burning brand and I made the fire explode, I was so afraid and angry and confused--I don’t--” her breathing had risen back to a frenzied panting, and Kenzie gasped, hyperventilating, darkness at the edges of her vision.

“Shhhh, baby, shhhh, breathe, okay? Breathe slow, just breathe, in and out, watch me.” Duncan closed his mouth and breathed in through only his nose--he nodded at her slowly, holding onto her waist carefully and very tenderly, and Kenzie closed her mouth, watching him, mimicking the rise of his body, breathing in--she held her breath as he did, and he nodded to her again, holding up a finger--then one more--and a third, then they breathed out at the same time, Kenzie mimicking the way he pursed his lips as they did, and his hands rubbed gently at her waist, against her little pink satin pyjamas, the ones he got for me, soothing. “Good, baby, that was perfect, one more time--” and Kenzie and Duncan both breathed in carefully once more, and Kenzie felt the low, drifting calm of her mind float down against him, pushing the fear and the anxiety away--she could feel the golden bursts of his love flowing over her, waves of his affection in the sunlight over the bed, feel the warm convergence of his thoughts, tinged with fear for her, swirling around the corners of her mind. Kenzie, I love you. Kenzie, I’m here, no one will take me away from you, I won’t let anyone take me away from you. Feel me and look into my eyes. I’m here.

“Mom taught me to breathe like that, a long time ago,” Duncan’s voice was very quiet, soothing into her ear, his hands trailing up and down her body, around her arms and back and forth, feeling at the rise and fall of her, his head dipped down against her, the smell of him almost medicinal to her now--soothingly shielding her from the dream, pulling her away from it, and Kenzie was happy to leave it, happy to let it slip away, anxious to forget it. “I used to have panic attacks when I was little, over the paps following us around and taking pictures of me, I used to burst into tears and scream at them, and she taught me to breathe carefully like that--taught me to come down from my anger and just breathe.”

“Momby always told me to breathe, too…” Kenzie’s voice was a tiny whisper now, and she felt another wave of golden love fall over her like rain from Duncan’s tall, large body holding her against him, enveloping her, holding her at the side of the big dark-sheeted bed. My beloved, my One, my Duncan, oh god, I thought you were gone. “I can’t--that dream, baby--that nightmare--”

“It wasn’t real, Kenz. It wasn’t. Nobody will take me away from you. I won’t let them.”

Kenzie couldn’t keep a little whimpering sigh from escaping her lips--she let her eyes fall up the sunbeam that fell over the bed--daylight, not firelight, no fire--and lifted out of his arms now. He was gazing down at her, that terrible tenderness in his eyes, my Duncan, here he is, right here, right here with me, and he’s gonna go to work with me today, Ben’s gonna interview him, and more relief washed over her and she sniffed hard, willing her hidden tears back. The memory of last night was coming back to her now, too--making dinner together, strapping her body with nervous, shaking fingers into the tulle lingerie, his passionate kisses all over her body, buckling the choker around her neck and twisting her wrists into the velvet trappings, fucking her so achingly hard, their passion so needy, staring into each other with soul-shattering lust in their beautiful mirror--and the way he’d brought her a little bowl of green tea ice cream after because she’d asked for it, and they’d spooned it into each other’s mouths, kissing each other slowly and carefully between, their lust hazy and low by then, and she’d savored the way he’d looked at her as she licked the silver spoon in his hand, and they’d laid here in bed for a little while after, just holding each other quietly, until she’d begun to drift off into sleep--and Duncan had woken her softly to lead her to the bathroom where she washed her face and brushed her teeth and hair and soothed a damp wipe between her legs from a drawer under the long, spotless counter of the sink--she’d watched him do the same around his cock, wiping the residue of their combined rapture away, and had shivered, hands reaching out to him, and he’d pressed his lips against her forehead.

Kenzie could feel the soreness in her body now that she was coming back from the nightmare, coming back from the dulling of her senses inside that other place; her ass ached where he’d penetrated her and come deep inside her, and ached where he’d left redness smattered across her buttocks, and she could feel the raw wetness inside her cunt where the memory of his needy cock still lingered, the ache at her clit from his fingers and the egg and the incessant pressing there. But she didn’t mind--the soreness reminded her she was back here, in reality, in his arms, reminded her of the ardor between them last night and her ecstasy inside it, and that the dream hadn’t been real after all; that her fear inside it was unfounded.

“Do you want some water, baby?” Duncan spoke down into her softly, again, as she drifted in his arms, lost in her thoughts.

“Uh huh, please, baby. Can I have a coffee too, please? I’m okay now. I promise, I’m okay.”

Duncan stared at her for a little longer, as if to be sure, and then nodded at her. “I’ll be right back, okay? Just breathe like I told you if you feel upset again.” He kissed her, hand in her hair, then eased out of her arms--he was in just his briefs, the way he seemed most comfortable in sleep, and Kenzie couldn’t help but stare at his back as he walked away--the fall of his wavy hair on the back of his neck, the outline of his shoulder blades, the ripple of muscle in his arms, and the rise of his ass under the briefs, the thickness of his thighs, the fine hair on his legs. He is so beautiful. He really is. He’s like a statue come to life--almost too beautiful to be real, but he is. Kenzie sat there on the bed, feeling dazed, the dream still drifting at the edges of her psyche--but the sick, icy-hot feeling the man had given her, the fierce burning of the fire she’d kindled in her mind, and the panic at not being able to find Duncan--not being able to see him in the man with his face--were melting away. But these fucking dreams, Kenzie thought, troubled, remembering the ones she’d had over the past few days--Claire choking, the one where she was in the bathtub, the one where she brought a dead deer back to life--and Duncan’s dreams too, the one where she was dying, or the one where he was dying as she hovered over him (your hair was dark, you called me Michael, he’d said, she’d looked different--the way the dark man had had his face), or seeing her as an angel, with actual wings, comforting him--I was dark, he had said, your touch was healing.

We started having them after we met each other. Maybe we’re just really stressed by everything and our nerves are heightened lately...or...maybe it’s something else…

Kenzie got up from the bed, her tiredness eking away with the details of the dream--I don’t know who I am, she remembered herself (or that other self who was her but not her) saying, and then she thought of the way she and Duncan could hear each other’s thoughts sometimes--she stared at herself in the long mirror and was struck again with the feeling that it had always belonged to her, and she thought of Duncan dreaming that she was an angel. Maybe all of it does mean something. If the universe can help me find my Soulmate--and I’m really starting to believe it did--maybe it’s trying to tell us something else. Or show us something. Or...something. Maybe I don’t know who I am. Maybe there’s a whole other part of me I don’t know about.

Kenzie went to the closet--the silky black kimono Duncan had gotten her with the other things from Agent Provocateur was hanging near the front of her side. She’d put it there yesterday when she’d had the penthouse to herself--and had carefully hung the black lingerie beside it, to wear at a later date. Her tulle white lingerie from last night was on hangers lined up in the laundry room off the side of the living room, and she’d left a note on them for the housekeepers--I’ll wash these by hand myself, thank you. Kenzie was trying to get used to the idea of other people cleaning her living space for her, but there were some things she simply wouldn’t allow. Someone else washing my sex-stained lingerie by hand is one of them. Kenzie pulled the kimono down, sliding it over her shoulders and wrapping it around her waist; the lace fell beautifully around her thighs, and Kenzie looked down at herself with delight, pushing her hair behind her ears from where it had fallen into her eyes. My baby got this for me, and it’s so beautiful. I’ve always wanted something like this. Kenzie moved out of the closet and into the living room, where her eyes immediately fell on the coffee table with her roses and peonies--the roses were drooping quite noticeably now beside the other fresh flowers, and Kenzie lifted the Waterford vase up to bring it into the kitchen. Duncan was standing by his Keurig, waiting for a second cup of coffee to filter into it as he threw fruit into his Vitamix--hers was on the obsidian island, a tall glass of filtered water beside it.

“I was making you a smoothie,” he said as she came up behind him, and he turned to her, smiling. “Anything in particular you want in it?”

“I trust you, baby.”

Kenzie went up on her tip-toes and kissed him (he tastes like berries, she thought, noticing the open carton of blackberries on the counter beside him), admiring the way his hair fell down over his forehead as he leaned down to her; admiring his wide bare shoulders, the stubble ever-present on his chiseled jaw. “You’re wearing it,” he said, his smile widening, eyes flashing over her (burst of blue sky). “God, you look beautiful. I have to get you more pieces from them. One for every day at least. Do you feel any better, baby?” His hand came down the silkiness at her arm; trailed to her hand and grasped it, bringing her palm up to his mouth and kissing it, slowly, his eyes still in hers, sending a shiver down Kenzie’s spine. Last night was like a dream, but it was real, wasn’t it, baby, he thought into her, the wave strong as they touched. I worshiped you with abandon, your sweetness folding into me, your body trembling under my touch, the way you told me what to do to you, that choker around your neck, how hard I fucked you. Angel. Baby.

“Mhmm,” Kenzie breathed, bringing the hand he held up against his cheek, her thumb trailing over his lip. Duncan kissed her fingers--turned his head, closing his eyes. No, he thought into her, I’ll never get tired of kissing you, and she pushed it back towards him, I’ll never be tired of your kisses. “I feel okay now. Thanks for breathing with me, baby. That helped a lot. It was just...the way I felt in the dream, you know? Like you’d disappeared and someone else had taken over your body and that person was evil. And I was full of fear--there was another version of me there too, almost, one that didn’t know you--but I was there too, and I was full of despair.” She felt the tears in her eyes at that--wiped her cheek with a hasty hand. Duncan pulled her closer--she gripped onto his ass, only the smooth fabric of his briefs covering his sex between them--then tickled her hands up his torso and he barked with laughter, and the fear eked out of her again. How can I be sad with this beautiful boy here with me, kissing his devotions into my skin, smelling of the wild wood and the sweetness of berries.

“You better stop fucking tickling me or I’m gonna tie you up again,” he laughed down to her mouth. “I’m gonna spank you again, Princess.”

“Nuh uh, it’s my turn to spank you.” And Kenzie brought her little hand down and smacked Duncan’s ass as hard as she could, laughing and flinching away as he tried to grab her wrist. He was about to come after her around the island when his phone, sitting on the table, chimed out a text message. Kenzie ran to where her coffee sat, gripping the handle of the mug and bringing it up to her lips, sipping carefully as he picked the smooth iPhone up, grinning at him as he glared facetiously at her. “Gonna get you back for that later, baby. I’m gonna throw you over my knee for that.”

“Big talk, Mr. Shepherd,” she stuck her tongue out at him and wiggled her hips.

“Wait till later, Princess Kenzie. Still need to see you in that black set I got for you.”

He looked down at the text, then frowned. Kenzie had a good idea who it was from without needing to see it--Annette. Duncan put his phone down and turned it over.

“Your mom?”

He nodded, turning away from her back to the Vitamix, his good mood seeming to dissolve. He went to the fridge and pulled out a jug of pomegranate juice, pouring it carefully into the blender, snapping the lid and pressing the highest setting--a few seconds later the ingredients were blended perfectly, and he poured the rich magenta contents of the Vitamix into a tall tumbler, bringing it over to her, his eyes clouded.

“Is everything okay?” She leaned up to kiss him and he put the smoothie down, his hands suddenly coming up to her cheeks and pulling her into him, needy. Kenzie pressed her fingers through his, loving the richness of his smell as his tongue came against hers--she could feel a strange sadness from him now, and longed to brush it away.

“She’s angry about you moving in here, of fucking course--” he scoffed a little, then his face went soft again, soft to look at her, wistful and anxious--”I just wish she could see how extraordinary you are,” he whispered into her. “It’s so obvious. I don’t know how she can be so blindly stubborn. It hurts me to see her treat you unkindly. I hate it. I really fucking hate it.”

“Baby, it’s okay. I love you. You love me. That’s what matters.”

“Kenzie. I think you’re my Soulmate. I think you really, truly are. I think we were written in the stars. I think you’re the only person I was ever meant to be with. I do, baby. I really do. I have to tell you that,” and he looked into her eyes and Kenzie’s heart was full of him, full of the depth of everything he said, she could feel him there, pressing the invisible mouth of his soul, his blue fire, onto the invisible mouth of hers, made of golden moonshine, “It’s eating away at my heart and I have to say it. Doubtless you’ve heard me think it--and we can fucking hear each other’s thoughts, Kenz. That defies all description. That’s impossible, and yet we can. I don’t want anyone else to know about that, I want that to be our secret always--like, that’s too fucking intimate for other people, they won’t believe us and I don’t want them to ever know, I want that to be ours because I am yours entirely, Kenzie, my thoughts belong to you and so do I and nobody else can come close to you, for me, there’s only you now--and this sounds crazy to a part of me, to the Duncan I was last month--but I think we should go see a psychic, or a medium, or something like that, because I don’t understand what’s going on, but you and me and these dreams we’re having, and hearing each other’s thoughts, the Mirror, fucking everything--”

“Dunny. I can feel that you’re my Soulmate, too. I feel that too. I know that too. And when I see your thoughts I can see you beautiful soul, like the sound of rain falling at night, like sweet fire that warms me in the center of my heart and I’ll never tell anyone else about that, baby, it will always be only for me and you. I promise, baby, Duncan, I love you so--” Kenzie was speaking breathlessly into him, quietly leaning into his mouth and then he was kissing her achingly, their thoughts crashing together, strong and sweet. I love you, I love you, I love only you.

“You taste like blackberries,” she whispered, and pressed her tongue against his again, and Duncan’s hands came into her hair and buried themselves there, tangling into it deeper, pulling her head back so her chin rose and he could taste her better, could press her body into him, and Kenzie’s nerves were all on fire, the adrenaline from her dream surging back into the embrace of her lover, his grip both intensely possessive and wildly soft, my Prince who is the most beautiful of all Princes, the most divine of all the Gods, the most beloved of all Angels, Chosen and mine, mine alone.

---------

Duncan was still in the closet getting dressed as Kenzie retrieved the roses from the counter where she’d left them, lifting them out of the vase which she placed in the sink and drying the ends with a paper towel--she’d gotten a length of string from her sewing kit, now to be stowed in a cupboard towards her end of the walk-in closet, which she tied tightly around the bottom of the roses’ stems. She brought them back into the bedroom, past where she could see Duncan finishing the buttons on a textured black cotton shirt, and sliding his arms into a black blazer that was tailored almost alarmingly well--she marveled at his beauty, because it was impossible not to, no matter how often she gazed on him, feeling lost inside it, then turning away, shaking her head, dizzy with him. Kenzie had retrieved several aluminum thumbtacks from one of her various boxes of trinkets--Momby called them doodad boxes--and pressed them into the wall over the bed, wrapping the other end of the string she’s tied the roses together with around the tacks, so they hung with the petals facing earthwards, the better to dry. There. Now I won’t have to throw away any of the flowers Duncan gets for me. And our bedroom will always smell beautiful. And I’ll have my little garden, even if it’s a dead one.

Today she wore a sleeveless blouse in the palest shade of pink, with a peter pan collar and a thin black tying bow at the bosom, and a woven rust-brown skirt that fell just past her knees, which she had hitched up as she jumped on the bed, the better to reach the wall behind it. She’d put on the twisting gold bracelet she’d worn that night she and Duncan met on the balcony, fondly--but no other jewelry today. Kenzie felt nervous at the prospect of Ben interviewing Duncan--wondered if he’d be reasonable with Duncan’s request to postpone publishing it until he was officially in charge of the majority share for Shepherd Unlimited. I don’t know if I’d call Ben a reasonable person persay, she worried. He can be ruthless when he wants something, a great quality in a journalist, a not-so-great quality in someone who could potentially derail our hopes for the future. Duncan came out of the closet, adjusting his black Movado watch as he did, pushing a hand up through his wavy hair as his eyes fell on the roses, now drying upside-down.

“Now our bedroom will always smell like flowers, baby,” Kenzie murmured to him over her shoulder, her bare feet pressing into the bed, still mussed from their sleep. “I can’t bear to throw them away. They are the first flowers you ever got for me--well, besides the ones in the bathtub--and I will always love them.”

Duncan came up behind her, arms snaking around her waist, his face pressing into the side of her stomach as her arm came down around him, falling through his hair, smiling down at him from where she stood on their bed. She could see the happiness shining out of his blue (ocean on a clouded day) eyes as he turned his gaze between the hanging roses and her face--I mean it baby, she thought to him, I’ll love them forever. I’ll love you forever.

“I’ll buy you so many we’ll fill the entire wall. It’ll smell like a flower shop in here.”

“A wall of your love for me to look at every day. That sounds like heaven, baby.”

“You’re fucking heaven.” He pulled her down to him; Kenzie looked up into his face now, that glorious face (someone should paint him, the artists of the ages would claw each other in the face to paint his), then over his shoulder to the mirror that stretched and showed them in the morning light--Kenzie’s tawny hair falling down her back, Duncan’s fingers twisted in it, his face turned down to her in adoration as she looked at their reflection. For a moment, Kenzie allowed herself to imagine them as the royalty Pilar had likened them to--Hades and Persephone, Kenzie thought--a crown made of delicate gold leaves and moonstones on her head, one made of the bones of birds and dark obsidian stones around his, her blouse and skirt turning to a gown of spidery golden gossamer around her body, his dark shirt and blazer becoming a flowing cloak made of dark velvet around his shoulders. King and Queen of the Underworld, he judges the dead, I bring the breath of life. I hang the dry flowers of the land above in our bedroom, for nothing will grow in the Underworld--and though he can never be part of the common world, I can bring it to him, I can breathe life into his lungs, breathe flowers back around his heart. And so I have.

So you have, my love. She heard his thought and turned her face to him--he nodded, his eyes shining down at her, his tall frame towering over her. I heard everything. That was beautiful. My sweet Persephone, I love you more than every blossom of the spring, every growing thing that drops its heady perfume on a summer evening, more than the breath of my own body. Kiss me.

And so she did--as you have given me flowers, my love, so I will give them to you--all the flowers of my body and my soul.

------

Kenzie was delighted to see Harris again--he had rung Duncan’s bell a moment before, and as Duncan opened the long black penthouse door to receive him, Kenzie rushed up and threw her arms around the big man’s broad shoulders, dangling off him in the air suddenly like a kite flying in a gust of wind. Harris let out a little laugh, and Kenzie marveled at the way he held her up like she weighed no more than doll. He set her gently back to the earth, and Kenzie could feel Duncan’s smile on them, feel the blue flames of his mind lick against hers, his warm affection.

“I missed you,” she said up to her bodyguard, and Harris’ sepia-colored eyes were full of emotion.

“Miss Stone, I’ve agonized over what happened on Friday. In this line of work, we know things can sometimes go terribly wrong in a moment despite the most careful planning, but those scenarios are an escort’s worst nightmare. I have to apologize to you again--”

“No, Harris, you really don’t. You’re the reason I’m okay. You very well may have saved my life. I can’t thank you enough.” Kenzie grasped Harris’ huge hand, looking up into his face, her tone serious, affection and gratitude surging through her. “It’s my privilege to have you protecting me.”

“Harris, you did exactly what we hired you to do,” Duncan added. “You put your life in front of hers. You’re priceless to us and I meant what I said before, I intend to triple your salary. I can’t thank you enough.”

Harris was silent; Kenzie could see the overcome expression in his eyes--the burning tremor inside the friendliness. He only nodded a little, mouth closed, looking away from them,--Kenzie’s heart clenched, somehow knowing how close the big man with the wonderfully friendly smile was to tears, and she clutched his hand still, her fingers absolutely tiny, like a child’s, inside his--Harris’ hand was shivering in her grasp--then he said, very gently: “Miss Mackenzie, Mr. Shepherd. I’ll be waiting for you in the foyer,” and Kenzie let go of him, smiling up to him and nodding. “We’ll be there in just a minute, Harris.” She beckoned to him with her hands--Harris leaned down to her, as if she were about to whisper a secret into his ear--he had to bend quite far--and she pressed her lips to his cheek, and Kenzie thought--Harris, thank you, you are as noble as a knight protecting his queen to me, and I cherish you--and she pushed the thought into him, carefully, wondering if she could do it to anyone else, wondering if anyone else could feel something she wanted to give them the way Duncan could feel those things from her, and Kenzie watched Harris visibly shiver, his head still dipped down to her, then he straightened and his eyes were cloudy, confused, but full of warmth to her. He smiled, then--handsome, long, and then he left, and Kenzie could see that he was still shaking: this hugely tall, strong man, shaking because of her, and she knew it.

Duncan came up behind her, his arms coming around her with soft, wonderful warmth. “Baby, what did you do? What did you do to Harris? His face--he was shocked. Did you...did you think something into him?” Duncan’s mouth was at her ear, kissing with aching sensitivity, his breath sweet and the edges of his eyelashes fluttering against her skin. Kenzie sighed and leaned into him--”I tried--” he bit down on her skin, needily, his hands dipping around her breasts, and she moaned a little, arching up into the feeling of his mouth--”oh, baby, don’t leave marks on my neck--” “Too late for that, baby, you already have some from last night--some from me, some from your little rose choker, my little rose--” Duncan whispered into her, biting again, sucking--then Kenzie said “I tried--uhh, Duncan--I tried to tell him how much I cherish him, how he’s like a knight--p-protecting me, and I think he heard me, baby, I think he could hear me at least a little, I think I can push things into people--good things, lovely things, kindness, thanks, my...uhhh, baby--” and Duncan was turning her into his mouth, tasting her deeply, lifting her up into him, and Kenzie thought oh fuck work, fuck the world, I wanna just dissolve back into bed with you, fuck--and she heard him whisper back into her mind me too, Kenzie, me too, I wanna worship my goddess all day, I want to lay down my soul for you, make myself an offering to you as I worship your mouth and your body and the space between your thighs and she pushed down and away from him, their breathing heavy and harsh and drifting between them, and she laughed, “You have to stop, Dunny, we have to go to your interview now, baby, Samuel and Harris are waiting for us--” and Duncan’s hands clutched for her again, and she couldn’t bring herself to push him away again, such was the sweetness of his touch, the rightness of his hands on her body, drifting down to her thighs and the top of her ass, couldn’t deny him the golden melding of their minds as he gazed down at her, his eyes penetrating the center of her soul with their divine esteem for her.

“Fucking goddess,” he breathed. “My Persephone. My moon princess.”

“Baby, fuck--stop saying those beautiful things, we have to go--”

“I won’t, I won’t stop, I want to say every beautiful thing ever said or thought into your ears and into your mind and into the secret spaces of your soul, baby, my angel--” His mouth was dipping down the incline of Kenzie’s chin, to the soft, sensitive, delicate incline of her neck, into the dip of her collarbone (Kenzie’s breath sucked into her lungs, and she felt her heart racing terribly), down to the fabric that covered the space between her breasts, lifting her up into him effortlessly. “Baby,” she said, “god, that feels so good--I think I can make people feel happy if I try to, I can--uhh, baby--I can heal them, inside, I can give them a little part of me, a tiny bit of gold, a sliver of sunlight, and warm them, not their body, but give them peace in their--Dunny, fuck--in their--”

“You can heal people’s hearts,” he whispered, his mouth coming back up into hers, nibbling at her bottom lip, and Kenzie thought oh my fucking god, fuck me, my sweet Prince, turning me into dripping honey in your hands--”you can reach into them and heal the part of their soul that is hurting, my darling, my beloved. It’s extraordinary. You’ve healed me, and you can heal others, and I’m in awe of you.”

“I still don’t know how to do it, though--not really--how to control it--”

“You just did it, baby. You did it for Harris. If you intend to heal, if you’re trying to, I think you can do it better, stronger, but I think you can already do it without trying, without even needing to think about it,” he said, hands in her hair, and Kenzie knew he was right. I’ve healed you without thinking about it. “Dunny--I think you’ve done that for me too, though--I think you’ve healed me just by touching me, just by being near me, over and over--”

“I think I can do it too--not as well as you can, but a little, I can do it if I really try, if I really love the person--as I love you. But I think I’ve never known about it until now--I never knew, because it was hidden inside me before.” His mouth was kissing along her jaw now, his words between, his hands falling through her tawny hair over and over, sending bursts of warmth through her skin. “But I think you brought it out of me, like you opened a secret box inside me, one that was locked with a hundred impossible locks,” Duncan kissed her nose, the delicate space under her eyes, one, then the other, and the radiant happiness on his face made Kenzie want to cry, “and when you first touched me, Kenz--when you did, all of the locks immediately unwound, and my soul, my real soul--the sun that was hiding--it broke out, and you’ve brought me to life for real, Kenzie. You’ve kindled my spirit.”

“And we’ll do wonders, won’t we, Duncan. Now we will. Together, we’ll do wonders, my love.” She could feel her gold dust and his blue fire twisting around each other, could almost see them touching, the essences of both of them, imperceptible to her eyes but visible to her mind, in the early morning light, in the bright kitchen, sunlight falling across her succulents that lined the window, sunlight kissing their skin as they touched and felt each other, their bodies, their souls--

“Yes, baby. Yes, we fucking will.”

-------

Sweet, wonderful you, you make me happy with the things you do, oh, can it be so, this feeling follows me wherever I go...

Fleetwood Mac was on the BMW’s stereo again as Samuel pulled away from the curb; the back of the car was deeply cool despite the crushing heat outside today and he and Harris were chatting quietly in the front seat as the partition floated up. Kenzie was gazing at Duncan (he was wearing his Givenchy sunglasses today, the perfect wave of his hair mesmerizing her), his hand on her thigh, his gaze angled down at his phone (Instagram, and Kenzie smiled, seeing that he had her profile open, admiring the photo she’d taken last night of the dinner they’d made together--typing something, smiling--Kenzie tried to lean over his shoulder to read it, but at that moment she heard her phone trumpet a text from the inside of her Margaux satchel on the seat beside her. She pulled it out, the fingers of her other hand around his where it rested on her over her skirt, warm and sweetly heavy, and stared at the screen--Clairebear.

Clairebear: Kenzie Lou, Morgan is hard at work on your dress, it’ll be finished by Wednesday or Thursday--I’ll send you some photos soon, but make sure Duncan isn’t around when you look at them, we have to keep it a surprise!!! He’s going to lose his MIND. Morgan wanted to know if he’d be open to looking at some sketches she made for a look for him, also, can you ask him? She could work on something quickly if he could come by for measurements today or tomorrow. I think it would be amazing if you could coordinate your looks--America’s new favorite It couple DUCKENZIE have you been reading the stuff people have been posting? Everyone is OBSESSED with you two. It’s insane. Your Instagrams are the top two in trending since you posted those beach pictures over the weekend.

Kenzie saw the text bubbles that indicated Claire was writing again.

Clairebear: Here’s the article that went up this morning on BPF by the way. Then there was a link with a headline: DUNCAN SHEPHERD’S NEW BOO MACKENZIE STONE MOVES INTO HIS PENTHOUSE AFTER ONLY WEEKS OF DATING (yeah, because you found my apartment and swarmed it, Kenzie thought, with a jab of annoyance). The photo in the link was one of Kenzie’s Instagram photos--the one she’d posted of her sun and moon chimes with the long living room picture window in the background. She felt Duncan’s eyes looking at her phone over her shoulder; his large frame pressing against her back, his cheek hovering near her hair.

“Is that Claire,” he said, his lips kissing her temple. “Does she always send you the articles?”

“Not always, I don’t think. But sometimes. I’d rather hear about them from her than someone random person. And it’s not like we didn’t expect this one.”

“Better that everyone knows, they’re less likely to bother you if they know the Shepherd name is protecting you, honestly, baby. I threatened to yank their press credentials from the Gala if they didn’t stop coming around the high-rise, and that seems to have done the trick.” Duncan’s finger trailed down Kenzie’s leg, back and forth.

“Morgan wanted to know if you’d look at some sketches she drew for the Gala for you, by the way,” Kenzie said, looking up at him; he was peering at her over the top of his sunglasses, hair on his forehead, his long elegant hand clutching her leg, his clothing perfectly tailored and dark as evening. So handsome. So fucking handsome. He’s obscenely beautiful and it’s like he’s from another world. Duncan reached for her other hand and Kenzie set her phone in her lap, threading her fingers into his. He’s so warm, so lovely, he smells so good. My beloved.

“Of course I will, Kenz. I’d love for our looks to coordinate, baby. I guess I somehow knew I should put off finding my look until the last minute,” he grinned at her. His teeth are so perfect. His smile is like the clouds breaking on a rosy sunset. Ridiculous, baby. You’re ridiculous. How can anyone be so beautiful? Kenzie could feel the blush on her cheeks--she looked away from him, feeling shy suddenly.

“Stop thinking that stuff about me.” He pulled her into him; his body, so much larger than hers, enveloped her in the cocoon of his affection, and Kenzie felt faint inside it, felt herself go limp with the ardency of his touch. “You’re the one who’s ridiculously beautiful. You’re my moonlight.” Kenzie blushed more deeply into him as he took his sunglasses off, carelessly discarding them on the seat beside them, his hand coming back up to clutch her at the spot under her ear.

“Maybe we could go over there after we’re done with Ben’s interview?”

“Uh huh, Miss Stone. Whatever you want, Miss Stone. May I kiss you, Miss Stone?” His face hovered near her cheek, his breath sweet on her, his smell intoxicating, washing over her in waves, reminding her of his needy sex buried in her, his body pressed against her in the dark as they felt each other a few nights ago, immersed in their other senses, his mouth between her legs, his hands on her neck against the leather choker, all the nights that had passed with them locked in each other’s embrace, and it never felt like enough, it never felt long enough--

“You may.”

Duncan’s lips came against hers with aching velvet-softness; he hovered there for a long moment, his mouth open to her, and Kenzie became acutely aware of the feeling of him, the shivering tenderness of his touch--he lifted his head a little, and the bottom of his lip touched against the upper part of her mouth--he let it hover there for another achingly long moment, and Kenzie felt a deep shudder course through her body, down into her sex. It’s like he’s tasting my heart. She turned her head, lost in the feeling of him--her eyes had fluttered closed, and she felt drunk on him, drunk with his beauty and his attention on her this way; this concentration of his touch, so focused on her, the whisper of his mouth, like the soft flesh of a swollen fruit. The BMW was gliding through traffic with its careful ease, and Kenzie forgot where they were for a moment--she forgot everything except for the way Duncan was hovering against her, teasing her with his mouth. His thumb came up to press against her bottom lip, running along its edge and pressing it down, his lips still hanging on the top of her mouth, clutching her jaw gently but insistently. Duncan moved his mouth down again, his lips closing over just her bottom lip now, just a little, just enough to suck there lightly--Kenzie moaned against him in frustration, and she felt his smile.

“Stop teasing me, baby,” she said.

“Make me.”

Kenzie’s eyes snapped open; he was still nibbling at her bottom lip, his expression both stunningly beautiful and vexing to her, and she grasped his wrists--one at her cheek, the other on her thigh--and pushed his arms back into the BMW’s leather seat, her phone falling off her lap to the car’s floor as she climbed onto his lap, straddling him. Fine, baby, I fucking will. Kenzie knew she wasn’t strong enough to really control him this way--that he was letting her hold his arms down. You want me to do this, she thought, and his eyes opened, wildly bright (the blue of a field of cornflowers blooming in the sun) desirous and hungry. She could hear Stevie’s voice echoing through the stereo, coaxing her on--rock on ancient queen, follow those who pale in your shadow--and Kenzie let go of his wrists and clutched Duncan’s face in her little hands, demandingly, running her nails up his jaw with just enough pressure to force his head up to her, along the stubble there that she loved so, and he moaned against her fingers, and she kissed him, then, roughly, possessively, still clutching his face harshly against her, and Kenzie could feel him leaning into her, greedy and desperate, relieved at her want, starving for it. I want you to tell me what you want, what to do, command me, make me worship you, he was thinking into her, and Kenzie’s nerves were thrilling, singing, her body stoking itself into high flames of powerful desire. You are the light of my life and I long to fulfill your needs, long to fulfill every desire you dream of. I’m your faithful lover, most devoted, most ardent. I’m yours to do with what you will. You are beloved to me--more than anything. Above all things.

Kenzie pulled back and her hand fell down to his throat--she could feel the power of him under her hand, the strength coiled there, strength enough to whip her hand away from him if he desired to--but he leaned into her grasp, eagerly, anticipant. Choke me, baby.

Kenzie squeezed, and she heard Duncan gasp quietly, the air constricted from his lungs. His hands were on the incline between her back and the rise of her ass, clutching her flush against him, grinding his crotch up into the space between her legs. Kenzie lowered her mouth down, near to his, but didn’t let it touch him, not yet--God, you’re so fucking beautiful, baby, and I’ll think it as much as I want, she pressed into him, her thought dusted in gold. I could eat you like cake, Dunny. Lemme eat you, baby. You smell like fucking sex. She saw Duncan’s eyes go wide as he heard her thoughts, saw his tongue come out to his top lip, licking along the edge--go ahead and eat me, Princess, I’m yours to devour, Kenzie, baby, please fucking kiss me.

As Kenzie went to kiss him, though, her hand still on his neck, his grip pressing her into him, his eyes falling closed, she saw, with a jolt of painful disappointment, that Samuel was pulling up to One Franklin Square. “Fuuuuck,” she whined, pressing her mouth onto his in frustrated defiance--Duncan’s eyes were closed and he leaned into her with abandon, his tongue twining against hers, not having realized they had arrived yet--”Dunny, baby, ugh, we have to go,” she murmured into him, loosening her grip on his neck. Duncan groaned into her, his eyes opening, disappointment and longing in his (sky, storm, thunder-heavy clouds) eyes. “Ughhh, fuck, baby…”

“Rain check, baby. I promise. You like me choking you, huh?”

“Yes,” he whispered into her, into the space between her breasts, his mouth moving down there, up again, more hasty kisses pressed to her open mouth. “Yes, baby, I love it.”

“I’ll do it to you later, baby. I’ll tie you up later and let you watch me put on that black lingerie, how about that?”

Duncan’s eyes lifted up to hers and then rolled back a little, his mouth opening as she pressed down onto his crotch, still straddling him, gripping his jaw hard once more, quickly--the car was coming to a stop and soon Harris would be pulling the door open--”I’ll tie you up and choke you and suck your big cock later, baby,” Kenzie whispered into his mouth, and Duncan’s lips trembled under her, and she felt coiled gold power pilling in the pit of her stomach, drunk with the sensation of speaking these fantasies into her lover, so wildly beautiful as he was, so much larger than her, so much stronger, and yet so abject in her hands, so prostrate to her touch. So in love with me. So devoted to me. My Prince. My Hades. His power bows to mine.

“Yes, please, Kenzie, baby--” then she was climbing off him, and she could see the flush in his cheeks, the almost painful look in his eyes at the loss of her touch--they hastily pressed together one more time and kissed achingly as Harris opened the front passenger door, and then broke apart just as hastily as he opened Kenzie’s door, his neck turning away from them to peer at the paps who had begun to notice the telltale BMW.

“Baby, you have lipstick on your face,” Kenzie whispered to Duncan, bringing her thumb up to the side of his mouth, where her pink lipstain had smeared on his cheek. “There.” Duncan quickly gripped her hand, his eyes boring into her (I can’t wait to be alone with you at home, our sanctuary, our secret place where no one else can follow us, where we can worship each other with no distractions), then let go of her as she turned to get out of the car, clutching her satchel. He followed her out and Kenzie watched the tide of paps swarm towards them. Her mind was hot and frustrated from the interruption of their passionate moment--oh, fuck this, she thought. 

Then, Kenzie noticed something--two girls who clearly were not paps standing closeby on the sidewalk, excited expressions on their faces. One of them (short and boxy, in tennis shoes and jeans and a lavender-colored t-shirt with a graphic Kenzie couldn’t make out, a sandy-brown bob haircut and glasses, a pink backpack, and a bouquet of a dozen red roses wrapped in white, crinkly plastic clutched in her hand) was pointing at Kenzie and Duncan, the other girl (tall and thin with freckles and curly auburn hair, wearing a similar t-shirt in pink and a short denim skirt and ballet flats) was whispering to her excitedly, a newspaper clutched in her hand carefully--not just any newspaper, Kenzie thought, the Post. They noticed Kenzie looking at them and waved a little. “Mackenzie, we love you!” the curly-haired one shouted out. Oh my god, Kenzie thought. I have fucking fans. Duncan was looking over at the girls with an amused, indulgent expression on his face. Kenzie could see the tide of paps fast approaching--Harris was reaching for her arm, murmuring “Miss Stone, it’s time for us to go,” to her in a clipped voice. But Kenzie glanced back at the girls who waved to her with excited smiles on their faces again--the curly-haired girl bounced on her feet, and the girl with the bob haircut stepped forward a few paces, hesitant but determined.

Fuck you, paps, Kenzie thought suddenly, defiant. I’m gonna be such an angel you’re going to fall over yourselves. Watch this. She immediately stepped towards the girls, reaching out behind her and grabbing Duncan’s hand, pulling him insistently along as she trotted over to them in the black-tie wedge sandals she’d chosen to wear today. The girls gave her wild-eyed stares as she approached, and Kenzie smiled brilliantly at them.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” the shorter girl with the bob breathed--her cheeks were deeply red. “Oh my god, these are for you, Mackenzie--” she held the roses in the plastic sheet out to Kenzie and Kenzie looked in her face, steadily, keeping the smile in her gaze.

“Oh, wow, thank you, they’re so beautiful! Hi, what’s your name?”

Harris was coming up behind Duncan, a dark look of concern in his eyes. “Miss Mackenzie, we really should go inside,” he murmured down to her as the paps swarmed up, a pudgy-faced man in a leather jacket and his cameraman at his shoulder at the forefront--I think Duncan called him Gary, Kenzie thought vaguely, he’s from BPF. Kenzie ignored Harris carefully, still smiling at the girl. She noticed with a shock of surprise that the girls’ shirts were screen-printed with one of the photos of her and Duncan from their night at Le Diplomate--the first photos the paps had gotten of them and put up on the gossip website--the first one she’s seen on her phone after Claire had sent the link to her, where Kenzie was shyly staring up at Duncan and he was glancing across at her, wildly handsome, holding her hand. DUCKENZIEFANS.COM was printed along the bottom of the shirts, in swirling gold script. Oh my god, what.

“Lindy,” the girl said (at least that’s what it sounded like, Kenzie thought), and Kenzie could see that she was on the verge of tears. “Oh my god, hi Duncan, oh my god, wow--” Duncan was smiling at her indulgently over the rim of his sunglasses, and he reached out for the flowers. “Here, I’ll hold them for her, okay?” The girl passed the roses off to Duncan, her blush deepening to a color almost close to purple, and Kenzie could see the way her hands were shaking. Kenzie reached out to her, grasping her hand--”Wow, did you make your shirts yourselves? They’re so lovely!” The girl nodded and Kenzie saw the first tear spill down her cheek. Kenzie leaned over to the girl and gave her a little squeeze--she felt the tension in the girl’s shoulders soothe as she did. “It’s so nice to meet you, Lindy, it’s okay.”

The curly-haired girl was bouncing on her feet behind her friend, making strangled sounds of excitement. “Kenzie, could you please sign your article for me? Ohmygodohmygodohmygod you’re both sooooo beautiful together,” and she held out the copy of the Post and a blue sharpie to Kenzie as the paps began to swarm around them in a thick cloud--Kenzie grinned widely at her, batting her eyelashes showily as the cameras began to click around them in a cacophony, and Duncan’s hand pressed protectively into Kenzie’s lower back--Harris was giving Gary’s cameraman a dark look as he tried to press closer to Kenzie’s face, angling his camera down on her, and the man skittered back, still clicking. “Back up,” Harris said in a low voice, and the paps closest to him moved back, obediently, at least for the moment. “Miss Mackenzie, we need to go.” His tone was dark. “I agree, Kenz, this is too close,” Duncan said into her ear, but Kenzie didn’t let her expression falter--she gripped the sharpie, still smiling warmly between Lindy and her curly-haired friend. “And what’s your name, sweetie? So I can write it out.”

“Gabby, my name’s Gabby, with a y at the end, we have a fan club for you, if you could write that too, it’s DUCKENZIEFANS.com, thank you Kenzie, thank you so much--” Gabby tossed her hair a little, another little squeal coming out of her at the end of her words. “It’s so wonderful to meet you, Mackenzie, we love you so much, we love you both so much, you’re like angels!” Kenzie tried to block out the sound of the cameras with a determined stubbornness--she could hear questions beginning to rise over the crowd of paps (“MACKENZIE DUNCAN ARE YOU LIVING TOGETHER NOW WHO ARE YOU WEARING TO THE GALA THIS WEEKEND OVER HERE MACKENZIE DUNCAN OVER HERE OVER HERE”), and she fought to focus on the two girls, leaning over the square of her editorial on the bottom of the front page, writing out To Gabby and Lindy and everyone at DUCKENZIEFANS.COM you’re the best xoxo Kenzie Stone. “It’s wonderful to meet both of you, too,” she said to them, carefully, still smiling, tucking her hair behind her ear, glancing up into their faces--she heard another cascade of clicks as the cameras caught the moment. Duncan was gripping her arm now, his fingers going tight, and she knew he was worried, glancing up at his face quickly--his lips were pressed in a thin line and he was looking at her over his sunglasses, his eyes stormy with urgency. Baby, we gotta go, this is dangerous. “I’ll be sure to look at the website, I’m sure you’ve worked so hard on it,” she said, and Kenzie felt the tingly burst of warm energy from Duncan course through her arm. Angel. My love. You’re so kind to everyone.

“We have, oh my god, we’ve been working on it every day, thank you Kenzie!” Gabby said with another long squeal, and Kenzie handed her the newspaper and the sharpie--she was surprised at how steady her own hand was, as if it belonged to someone else. Lindy had her phone out--the back had a sticker, another printed photo of Kenzie and Duncan, this one of the shot Kenzie had posted on Instagram of them in the back of the BMW with the neon shadows over their faces. Jesus christ, this is surreal, Kenzie thought.

“Can we take a picture with you really quickly?” Lindy pleaded. Kenzie nodded and pulled Duncan against her (you too baby), beckoning to Gabby. “Real quick, first Gabby then Lindy, okay?” She tucked her arm around Gabby’s curly hair and Lindy held her phone up, hands still shaking--Kenzie smiled widely as the short girl pressed the button on her phone a few times in succession, then Gabby reached out to her and they switched--Gabby mimicked her friend’s actions, still letting out little squeals of wild excitement, then Kenzie let go of the short girl and let Duncan begin to pull her away with an iron grip--Harris moved around her back, his arms extended a little as a perimeter around the paps. Duncan pushed past Gary, who was trying to tuck a microphone under his mouth again. Kenzie waved back at the girls (they waved back, more tears falling down Lindy’s cheek, Gabby still bouncing up and down), then turned her body into Duncan’s as they quickly stepped through the loud crowd of paps, which parted for them reluctantly, following behind them closely.

“Mackenzie, are you living with Duncan now?” someone said. Kenzie glanced up, feeling Duncan’s hand tighten on her--they were still a few yards away from the entrance of One Franklin Square. It had been Gary, who had switched his microphone from Duncan’s cheek to hers--Harris was moving around to where the pudgy man was shuffling beside her, and Gary’s watery eyes were dodging between her and the big man advancing on him.

“I am, yeah. It’s Gary, right?” She gave him a little smile, still letting Duncan drag her along--they’d almost made it to the door now..

Gary looked a little surprised, his eyebrows raising, mouth popping open. “Yep--yeah, uh, Gary Spencer for buzzpopfeed. Uhh, can I say, you look lovely today, Mackenzie.”

“It’s nice to meet you, thank you,” Kenzie smiled again, this time with her teeth. Not really, but yanno. Gotta start somewhere. I’m not going to hide from you guys anymore. If this is my life now, so be it. I can do this. “I’ll make sure you get some good shots of us the Gala this weekend, how’s that sound?”

“That would be great, Miss Stone, that would be stellar, thank you--”

“You can call me Mackenzie, that’s okay, that’s fine, Gary.” She nodded at him a little, eyes skirting over to Duncan--he was coming up to the door, his expression unreadable but his grip on her having lessened a little, as though her words to the pudgy man were soothing him, too. “I have to go to work now, but yes, Duncan and I are living together now, and everything is wonderful. Thanks, Gary.” Gary stared at her, a dumbfounded look in his eyes--the other paps around him were still shouting at her and Duncan, trying to get her attention, but Harris was gently pushing her from behind as Duncan pulled her through the doorway of the building--Duncan still wasn’t speaking or showing any sign of how he was feeling, clutching the roses the girl had given her in his long hand. The paps lingered outside, the wave of them coming to an abrupt halt, aware of the building’s recently heightened security as the door snapped shut, cutting off the sound. Duncan continued to pull Kenzie through the downstairs foyer, towards the elevators--Kenzie saw Erin, the receptionist, glance up at them (she had purple eyeshadow today, her shorn bob perfectly styled) and Kenzie nodded to her, smiling. Erin nodded a little back at her, eyes skirting between Duncan and Harris on either side of her. Kenzie shrugged. My knights in shining armor. Erin gave her a nervous smile.

Once they were in the elevator, Kenzie spoke. “Harris, I’m sorry, I needed to do that. I needed to give them...something. I couldn’t just ignore those girls. Thank you for bearing with me.” Harris nodded at her, clearing his throat a little as his huge form stood beside her, Duncan on her left, taking his sunglasses off, staring down at her--his eyes were bright. He’s amazed at what I just did out there, she knew, suddenly shy of him.

“Miss Stone, that could have gone very badly,” Harris replied. “The danger outweighed the benefits, in my view. Excuse my bluntness, but if we’re going to avoid more situations like the one from last week, we have to be more careful.”

“I understand that. But I needed to do that. I needed to show them. And I needed to be kind to those girls.”

“I see, Miss Stone.” Harris’ body had relaxed slightly; his hands were carefully clasped together over his stomach, and his expression was lowering, back to one of neutral friendliness.

“Kenzie,” Duncan said, and his hand came out of hers, pressing against her shoulder. “That was wonderful. You were perfect. I know exactly what you were doing. You were placing the foundations for a rapport. And the way you were with those girls--that was absolutely adept, baby.”

She grinned at him. Yes, baby, yes. I knew you’d understand. “Did you see their shirts? Did you see the sticker on her phone? Like oh my god. Did you know about the fan club thing?”

“I saw a post online about it--I haven’t looked at the site yet,” Duncan laughed, his hand coming up to his jaw, rubbing along his bottom lip. “You were so good with them, baby. You’re such a doll to everyone.” Despite Harris being there, Duncan pulled her against him anyway, pressing a quick kiss into her mouth, the crinkly paper of the roses in her ears.

“Are you ready for the formidable force of Ben Wilder?” Kenzie grinned into his kiss.

“Probably not?” He laughed again, nervously.

“I wouldn’t worry too much. You’re look so good today, he’s going to be distracted.” Kenzie hooked her fingers around the lapels of his blazer, her mouth pressing down onto his chin.

“Every little bit helps to convince him to hold the article until everything’s finalized,” Duncan replied, eyes falling on the elevator doors as they slid open on the 10th floor. Zadie happened to be walking past, her arms full of copies, wearing a long dark pantsuit and block-heeled black boots today, her extremely long, straight, shiny hair swaying down her back. She glanced up and lifted a hand to Kenzie, smiling, eyes skittering over the two men with her--she waved a little at Harris too. They’d met on Friday, before the incident, and Harris gave her a warm smile and a nod. “Miss Zadie,” he said, his voice pleasant and low.

“Zadie, this is Duncan,” Kenzie stepped out of the elevator. Duncan gave the tall girl a brilliant smile, reaching out his hand. Zadie took it, carefully clutching the copies to her chest. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself on Friday,” Duncan said, still clutching the roses in one hand--Harris inclined a hand to them, and Duncan handed them off to the taller man, nodding at him gratefully. “I was so concerned about Kenzie, it was all such a blur.”

“Oh, it’s fine, geez,” Zadie said in her low voice, letting go of Duncan’s hand and tossing her hair off her shoulder, “we were all worried. I’m so glad she’s okay. I guess they’re keeping the guy for a mental health evaluation and a combined trespassing and assault charge. Speaking of which--Kenz, I think there’s a court order on your desk. They probably want you to testify.”

“Oh, great,” Kenzie said, biting into her lip. “Can’t wait.”

Zadie winced at her. “Sorry, babe. Really glad you’re alright. I gotta go--lots of copy to do today. It was nice to officially meet you, Duncan--and nice to see you again, Harris. Thank you for what you did for Kenzie.” Zadie smiled at them, her gaze lingering on Kenzie for the longest, her eyes warm. She’d been Copy Editor at the Post for as long as Kenzie had been working there as a staff journalist, and she’d always been extremely kind and professional to Kenzie. Kenzie could feel that the other girl really was relieved for her. Zadie is a peach.

“Miss Mackenzie, Mr. Shepherd, I’ll be here if you need me,” Harris indicated a row of chairs near the elevators, setting the roses down in one of them. “It’s easier to see everyone coming in and out of the room if I’m near the doors.”

“Thank you, Harris,” Duncan said. Kenzie gripped his hand again and pulled him to where Candice and Ben’s office doors were, across from each other. She could see Candice’s golden head bent over her desk through the clear window into her side, the blinds open--Candice glanced over and saw them, giving them a little smile, nodding at Kenzie. Duncan noticed this exchange and leaned down to Kenzie’s ear. “Should I tell Candice about the plan today?”

“Let’s wait a little longer, baby,” Kenzie replied, pulling him towards Ben’s office door. There was a placard: BEN WILDER, EXECUTIVE FEATURES, ASSOCIATE EDITOR. His outward-facing blinds were closed. “There’s so much going on this week already. Let’s tell her after our trip, our getaway--” Kenzie felt his hands come around her, passionately, at the mention of their trip, and Kenzie felt weak in the intensity of his arms. “Fuck, baby, I can’t wait, I can’t wait to be alone with you for days, away from everyone, our secret place--” he whispered down into her ear, and she leaned her face into him as Duncan kissed under her ear. “Duty calls first, baby,” she breathed. “We have responsibilities, Mr. Shepherd.”

“Fuck responsibilities,” Duncan whispered into her ear, and Kenzie felt her knees buckle a little inside his embrace, the feeling of his mouth (god he’s so tall and so warm and fuck he feels so soft and smells so good)--she twisted out of his hold, catching Candice’s eye through her office window--Candice was glancing at them with a smile around her mouth, pressing her lips together, smirking with interest. Kenzie blushed, pressing an accusatory finger into Duncan’s chest. He was grinning at her with a perverse beauty, and she felt a flash of annoyance at the depth of his charm, his ability to disarm her entirely with a few short movements of his hands and his body against her. “Stoppit, Mr. Shepherd. I demand that you control yourself.”

“Yes, Miss Stone. I apologize, Miss Stone.” She could feel his thoughts drifting against her. Can’t wait for you to choke me with your tight little fingers and tie me to that hook and make me watch you dress in that tight little beautiful black lingerie, baby, can’t wait for you to tease my cock with your little hands and your beautiful little mouth, baby, my Kenzie--”please forgive me, Miss Stone.”

Kenzie let her breath shudder out and stared into his blue (ocean depths, sucking me down) eyes, shaking her head at him. Then she leaned over and knocked on Ben’s door sharply, three taps.

“Come innnn,” she heard Ben’s voice, drawn out. She glanced at Duncan again--his face had lost the mischievous glint he’d been giving her a moment before, and was now a mask of professionalism. A real pro, stony Duncan Shepherd, she thought towards him. But I can see your thoughts still, my naughty baby, I know what you want, my desirous Prince. She could see how badly he wanted to touch her again, see the shape of his need to feel her, and Kenzie opened Ben’s door and turned away from him, teasingly. Be patient. You have to wait.

-------

“So, Mr. Duncan Shepherd, here in my office,” Ben rolled his eyes theatrically, pursing his lips, but Kenzie could see the delight on his face, the satisfied smile hovering just under his dark, flawless skin. He pressed his fingers down into the edges of his long desk, peering at Duncan, who was sitting in one of the seats across from him, Kenzie in the other--Duncan seemed relaxed, his legs crossed, his hands in his lap, but Kenzie could feel the nervous energy of his thoughts beneath his convincing composure. Everything is gonna be fine, baby, she thought into him, and he glanced at her, then back to Ben, not saying anything. Kenzie could already see the mesmerizing effect he was having on Ben, though; the older man was staring at Duncan openly now

Today Ben was wearing a wine-colored velvet jacket with blue lapels, a navy cashmere turtleneck underneath. His glasses were rectangular with tortoiseshell frames along only the top rim, and there was long, beautiful gold-and-black rose lapel pin against his blazer. He looked extravagant and handsome, but all beauties paled next to Duncan, and Kenzie felt sure Ben was aware of that. Duncan’s sublimely handsome face seemed to be shaking Ben’s normally impregnable composure--Kenzie watched his eyes fall down Duncan’s waving hair, pushed back effortlessly from his forehead, into his piercingly blue flame eyes, his straight nose and full lips, the carefully-maintained stubble along his chiseled jaw, the raw masculinity of his throat, to his tailored black blazer and textured button-up, the incline of his long legs and flawless boots, the round, silent face of his black watch--Kenzie noticed Ben’s eyes lingering on Duncan’s beautifully long hands. Aren’t they, she thought. Aren’t they the most beautiful hands you’ve ever seen. She watched Ben’s lips part slightly, his breathing hitch. Yes, they can. Everything you’re imagining, they can do. They’ve made me writhe with pleasure every night. Kenzie blushed down at her phone in her hands, blushed at the wantonness of her own thoughts, sitting here in her editor’s office. She absently opened Instagram as she heard Duncan reply--”I was told you were most insistent with Mackenzie that I see you,” he said, a teasing edge in his voice. “She communicated to me that it was of the utmost importance.” Kenzie blanched at her follower count--1.7k million. She absently went to the photo she’d taken last night of their dinner, curious at whatever he’d left as a comment on it--she scrolled down and saw it immediately. @duncanshepherd: dessert was even better, followed by the heart with an arrow through it. Oh my fucking god, baby, she thought. The comment had thousands of likes already, despite him only having posted it less than an hour before. Kenzie came to another dawning realization at the tone Duncan was using with Ben--Oh my god, Duncan is going to flirt with him. He’s going to make sure Ben agrees to postpone publishing the interview by giving him eyes. Oh my god, baby. You’re fucking sly.

“Well,” Ben said, fingers pressing up against his chest, languidly, drifting along his lapel around the rose pin--god, it’s really working already, Ben’s absolutely flustered, I’ve never seen him this way--”I do tend to be direct, but I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. You are a deeply interesting character, Mr. Shepherd.”

“I suppose I should say thank you for that,” Duncan replied, and then he smiled at Ben--Kenzie watched her editor’s eyelids flutter at the loveliness of her boyfriend’s smile, his white teeth cocked towards the other man, his eyes dancing. You are laying it on thick, Kenzie thought, fighting a wild urge to smack him. “I’m at your disposal, Mr. Wilder. But I have one stipulation, and I do require your discretion.”

Ben leaned forward in his seat--Kenzie could see the interest and arousal in him at Duncan’s careful, suggestive speech. “I’m listening.” His hand was on his chin, his eyes not wavering from Duncan’s (erotically, angelically) handsome face.

Duncan’s tone shifted suddenly--from casual eroticism to one of serious sincerity. “My uncle is fatally ill with prostate cancer. He will likely not live to see August. At that time, I will gain the majority share in the organization heretofore known as Shepherd Unlimited--a 3.5 billion dollar enterprise. When that happens, I will be shifting the prerogatives of the company towards philanthropy, and away from corporate interest. I would like to elucidate on that in this interview--but I cannot do that if you’re planning on making it public before the transfer of majority share happens in real time. I can certainly make it worth your while to wait, professionally-speaking--and if you can confirm your discretion is assured, we can discuss the particulars of that today.”

Ben’s mouth popped open a little. I guess that’s not what you expected to hear, Kenzie thought, still sitting quietly. “What kind of worthwhile are we talking here.”

“Financial or professional worth, it’s up to you. I’m not against one last bribe to help shift the company towards a better and more fulfilling future. Kenzie and I are committed to our goals and I will do whatever it takes to make them a reality.”

“You’re going to make Shepherd Unlimited a vehicle for philanthropy.” Ben’s tone was incredulous. And the Foundation?”

“Agree to the terms, please, Mr. Wilder.”

Ben’s face broke out into a smile that surprised Kenzie utterly--he’s happy. What?

“Mr. Shepherd, my word. Is this her doing?” Ben crooked a finger at Kenzie. “Little Miss Stone convinced you to literally move one of the most successful and powerful companies on earth towards a progressive agenda in the span of a week? I am absolutely speechless.”

“Mackenzie is extremely special. She’s a singular person who defies ordinary parameters of speech. She’s much more than she appears to be at first glance.” Duncan looked over at Kenzie, and Kenzie felt the wave of his affection cascade over her--felt the depth of feeling behind his eyes. Beloved. Exalted to me, most precious among all. “Yes, Mr. Wilder. Miss Stone was the catalyst of all this.”

Kenzie watched, still quiet, now full to the brim with emotion, watching as Ben stood, breathing in deeply, his eyes glittering. “I’m going to accept your terms, Mr. Shepherd--I won’t accept a bribe, at least, not a personal one--but I do want one thing.”

“And what’s that, Ben Wilder?”

“A generous donation to GLAAD, whence you gain majority share. It’s an organization that is very dear to me. With your financial support, it could become an even greater voice in the nation. With the financial momentum of Shepherd Unlimited behind it, we could do work that is truly transcendent for the inclusive goals of the LGBTQ community.”

Duncan replied almost immediately. “Yes. Absolutely. You have my word. As soon as I have financial control, it’s done.” He stood too, reaching his hand out to Ben, and the took men shook warmly. Kenzie felt suddenly overwhelmed with emotion--this is not how I expected this conversation to go at all, she thought, her breath hitching. This is wonderful.

“Then we most certainly have a deal. Duncan Shepherd, he of the piercing blue eyes, and Mackenzie Stone, his redemptive, intrepid love, about to be the most beloved public figures in America--” Ben sat down behind his desk again, a thoughtful expression on his face (I know that look, Kenzie thought: editorial in progress) and pressed the button on the recorder in front of him, picking a fountain pen from a copper holder beside the nameplate that faced outward toward Duncan and Kenzie. He leaned over the notepad in front of him, writing furiously for a moment as Duncan sat once more also, and both of the men were smiling--Kenzie felt the sun come out from behind a cloud, its warmth falling down through the window on them, bursting around her hair like an omen of good will as Ben began the interview. “So, tell me about your hopes for the future, Duncan…”

-----

They were back in the BMW a few hours later, on their way to Dupont Circle and Morgan’s studio. The interview with Ben had been a resounding success--Ben laughed no less than six times by Kenzie’s count, and by the end Ben was shyly touching his face and the rose at his lapel again, long since fallen prey to Duncan’s charm and aching loveliness. Being around Duncan is like a drug, Kenzie thought, like being around a Prince, a circlet of gold around his forehead, draped in dark velvets, smoldering blue fire burning in his gaze. He says I’m divine to him, and that shakes my bones--to be loved so much by someone so beautiful, to be the one he says brought his true beauty out from his soul. It makes me faint with the loveliness of it all. Kenzie had retrieved the roses the girl Lindy had given her from Harris after the interview and put them in a plastic vase from the staff kitchen, placing them on her desk before they left for the studio--they were simple, the kind one got from a grocery store--not the achingly fresh variety Duncan had bought for her. Still, she thought. Not everyone gets flowers from multiple admirers. Those girls were so sweet. It’s so strange to think I have a fan club now. She’d also opened the long manila envelope she found on her desk--the court summons Zadie had mentioned. The court date was two weeks away. Great, plenty of time to gt really nervous about it, Kenzie thought. She was lost in thoughts of the frightening encounter with the strange man when she felt Duncan’s warm, comforting touch on her leg.

“Kenz,” and Duncan was pressing his face down to her cheek, breathing in her smell, and she lifted her head so it was against his mouth. The day was still heavy with heat, the sun too bright and the clouds having disappeared; Duncan had been looking at his phone while Kenzie was drifting in her thoughts, but he had put it away, pressing against her, needy. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Why should you,” and she looked up at him, grinning. “You and all 2 million of my Instagram followers. Baby, that interview went so well, I can’t believe it. And Ben was so nice to you? He loved you. I’m just amazed. And we can do something good connected with it.”

“The interviews tomorrow are going to be hell. Mom already has forbidden us from talking very much, so we’ll likely end up just sitting around while they take photos. I’m sorry. It’s going to be a fucking drag.”

“I’m gonna wear that red dress, I think.” Kenzie looked up into his eyes, her hand coming around suggestively to his thigh. Duncan groaned softly, pressing the pads of his fingers into the soft side of her waist. “Oh my god, baby, yes please. I love that dress. I won’t be able to take my eyes off you.” “You’ll still be thinking about what I did to you when we got home--” and Kenzie pressed her fingers into the mound of his crotch, feeling gently, making his breath fall out in a harsh gasp. “What I’m gonna do to you soon--”

Samuel had pulled the BMW up to the sidewalk and Harris was coming out to Kenzie’s side of the car again, and Duncan groaned into her with frustration. “God, baby, fuck, I just wanna be alone with you, fuck everything else--” “As soon as we’re done here, baby--” and his mouth was crashing against hers again, impatient, devouring, and they pulled apart again as Harris snapped the door open. Kenzie tucked her disheveled hair behind her ears and slid out of the backseat, his scent all over her, like a tattoo that she couldn’t rub off.

Morgan’s studio in a squarish modern apartment building that held several other studios, all for various artists--one was a painter, another a sculptor, and there was a modest dance studio downstairs--Kenzie and Duncan went through the austere front lobby (it had what seemed like a hundred varieties of potted palms), Harris following at a close distance, eyes scanning carefully, and Kenzie led them through a doorway to a stairwell--”We’ll just avoid the elevator, it gets stuck sometimes,” she said to them over her shoulder, Duncan’s thumb trailing over her palm. Kenzie led them to the third floor, through a metal door back into a hallway with a row of studio doors--three in all. She went to the one furthest from the stairwell and pressed a buzzer to the side of it. A moment later Claire appeared, her face alight with happiness--”My babies!” she said gleefully, giving Kenzie a two-armed bear hug, then pressing an arm gently around Duncan’s shoulders for a moment, then, gave Harris an intrigued once-over.

“Clairebear, this is Harris, my bodyguard. He’s an absolute dream,” Kenzie smiled up at him, affectionately. Harris laughed at this, his sepia eyes dancing over Claire. “And who is this delightful creature?” He leaned down and kissed Claire’s hand--Claire’s eyes flashed and her cheeks reddened. “Oh my god, back at you, sir.” Claire waved a hand a few times over her face, as if to feign being overheated. “I’m Claire Anne Augustine, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” She dipped in a little curtsy and Harris laughed again. “Enchanting.”

“Come in, come in,” Claire beckoned to everyone, ushering them inside--Morgan’s studio was as brightly open as ever, the starkness of the black and white stripes immediate. Morgan was coming toward them, her wild orange hair striking against the walls. She leaned to Duncan, her hands in their customary long black gloves, and smiled magnanimously. “What a delight to finally meet the Shepherd heir apparent,” she cooed in her small voice. “And you’re more beautiful than even your celebrity would suggest, I see. I’m Morgan, my dear. Please call me such.”

Duncan dipped his head, shyly. “And please call me Duncan, Morgan. A pleasure.”

“Claire and dear Mackenzie have told me they wish her dress to remain a secret until the night of the Gala, so we’ve hidden our progress--but I think Mackenzie should also approve of my sketches regarding your own accoutrements for the night,” Morgan drolled. “A woman’s eye is everything in these matters, wouldn’t you agree.” She peered at Duncan over her huge, black triangular spectacles, as if to appraise his reaction. “I certainly do,” Duncan said, glancing over at Kenzie. “Kenzie has to love it or I certainly won’t wear it, no offense to you, Morgan.”

“None taken, my dear, in matters of the heart, true understanding is everything, isn’t it.” Morgan moved past everyone, not waiting for an answer--Claire beckoned to them as she followed behind Morgan’s huge orange wig, moving to a oblong, low white table where several sketchbooks were scattered. Morgan opened one with a dark leather cover to a spot she seemed to have marked with a long strip of shiny gold material--Kenzie’s heart thumped wildly at the sight of it, remembering the sketches Morgan had shown her for her dress. Morgan brought the open page over to Duncan, who gazed down at it--Kenzie saw his eyes widen and his head start to nod in approval, a satisfied smile on his mouth.

“Kenz, look,” he murmured to her, gently lifting the sketchbook toward her. On the page Morgan had drawn a dark blazer with wide lapels--down the shoulders dripped cascades of gold, like stars melting out of the sky, like some colossal god had been painting with them and smeared them earthwards with a careless hand. This is how it feels when you touch me, his mind brushed against hers as his hand touched hers under the sketchbook. Like your gold is melting down onto me.

“Duncan, it’s perfect,” Kenzie said, looking up at him and then at Morgan. Harris was standing quietly, surveying the expanse of Morgan’s studio--Claire was watching her and Duncan standing side by side, a look of deep affection in her eyes. In the drawing Morgan had given the model a black high-collared shirt with gold tips, and no tie. Very Duncan. She must have carefully considered his style.

“I agree,” Duncan said, and she could see how pleased he was, how delighted. “Morgan, I love it.”

Morgan breathed an overwrought sigh of relief; “Well, what cause for celebration,” she trilled. “Claire, get the champagne.”

“Whoo!” Claire whooped, running over to where a mini fridge (also painted black and white) was hiding in a curve against a tall fabric dresser. She pulled out a bottle of Moet and glanced up at Kenzie. “Kenzie, you’re only allowed to have one glass after the other night.”

“Oh fuck off, Claire,” but Kenzie was smiling at her best friend. Harris had gone over to Claire and was helping her hold several plastic coupes she was retrieving from a cupboard along the wall further down, a sink adjoining. “This isn’t the first time Morgan and I have had champagne in the early afternoon, so I probably should fuck off,” Claire replied. Harris took the bottle from her carefully, and Claire smiled up at him, coyly. “Why, thank you, Harris. What a gentleman.” Claire fucking loves Harris, wow. I mean--he is extremely handsome for an older man. And he’s...really strong. Kenzie snorted at her own thoughts. Maybe I could play matchmaker for my best friend and my bodyguard. Harris popped the cork of the bottle and poured it carefully into the coupes, and Kenzie watched his eyes follow Claire’s back as she came to where Duncan and Kenzie stood, passing two of the coupes to them as Duncan carefully set the sketchbook out of reach.

“To being on every best-dressed list and the front page of Vogue the morning after!” Morgan said to the ceiling as they all bumped the glasses together a moment later; Claire laughed into her hand as Duncan and Kenzie gazed at each other--this is how it feels when you touch me--his thought was still drifting between them, his eyes falling over her, and Kenzie was longing to be alone with him. I’ll touch you as much as you want, baby, she thought into him, pressing gold dust around his waving hair. I’ll drip my gold into your mouth and down your skin, draw sigils into your body with my gold, mark you as mine, beloved. We’re going to be so beautiful together at the Gala, no one will be able to look away from our radiance, the blinding golden sunlight of our love. Not even your mother.

------

Samuel had driven them home after that--it was early afternoon, just after 5, and the heat was pressing all around them, the champagne they’d had buzzing under Kenzie’s skin--she’d had just enough to kindle the desirous need in the pit of her belly, just enough to feel drunk. Morgan and Claire had had a tray of charcuterie for everyone as well, but Kenzie’s belly was rumbling with hunger--she’d only had a few pieces of the cheese and crackers, and remembered she’d only had the smoothie Duncan made her for breakfast. But I’m hungrier for you, she thought, feeling Duncan’s eyes on her as she stared out the window of the BMW on the National Mall, feeling the tips of his long fingers falling down her hand between them.

I’m starving for you, angel. I don’t wanna wait until tonight. I want you to do all those things to me as soon as we get home, while the sunset kisses us through the window, while I can see it fall over your skin. Then we can order so much take out. So fucking much. How does that sound?

“Dunny, baby, kiss me,” Kenzie turned her head and lifted her mouth to him, and Duncan was pulling her into his lap insistently, pulling her throat into his lips, whispering into her skin. “Kenzie, I can’t wait to see your dress, god, you’re going to look so beautiful, I can’t wait for us to change everything--it’s like everything is holding its breath--” Duncan kissed her mouth and his was so warm and tasted so sweet and Billie Holiday was on the stereo--all of me, why not take all of me, can’t you see I’m no good without you, take my lips, I want to lose them--and then he was speaking into her mind again, the softest, sweetest, most aching thoughts: I can’t wait for us to go to the cabin all alone for days and days and look at the stars while I fuck you in the long grass and by the fire and in the sweet darkness--you’ll see, it’s so quiet out there, no traffic, no shouting people, nothing but the crickets and the frogs at night and the wind and the sound of your sweet little cries against me, oh, baby, you smell so good, my angel, baby love--

Kenzie let out a little whine of frustration as they came up to the high-rise; the partition floated down but Kenzie was already sliding off Duncan and throwing the door open--a burst of warm summer air penetrated the cool cocoon of the backseat--”good night, Samuel and Harris!” Kenzie called behind her, and Harris, who had been about to open his door, stopped and looked after them grinning, turning to say something to Samuel that she couldn’t hear-- Kenzie had already yanked Duncan’s hand behind her, pulling him out of the car, snatching up her satchel. On the sidewalk he grasped her against him, lifting her up into his mouth again; she gasped into him and pushed herself down from him gently, “Come on, baby,” she demanded, her nerves buzzing with champagne and impatience. “I wanna be alone with you, really alone.”

“Race you,” Duncan said, a sudden, dastardly smile falling over his loveliness, and took off ahead of her towards the front door--Jerry swung it open, blinking at Duncan running past him, and Kenzie cried out in frustration, chasing after him. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen Mr. Shepherd run quite that fast--” she heard Jerry say as she skirted around him, her satchel smacking against her hip. Anchaly was staring at Duncan flying past him with raised eyebrows--Duncan slipped into the elevator and Kenzie let out another cry. “Duncan Shepherd, don’t you dare--” but by the time she reached it the doors were sliding closed and she caught the end of his vexing laugh, his blue eyes (the knowing burst of a summer sky) pushing arch desires into her. Come fuck me baby.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna fucking get you for that, baby,” Kenzie murmured under her breath, the wind snatched out of her. She pressed the elevator button in quick succession, a frustrated whine leaking out of her. Anchaly was peering around the corner at her, a look of great amusement on his face. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” he called out to her across the marble foyer. Kenzie gave him a frustrated glance. “Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” she replied. “My minor was in English. Though he can’t have been speaking for my temper.”

“Ah, but for your loveliness, I think so.” Anchaly laughed as the second elevator slid open and Kenzie hopped inside, giving him the finger, playfully. He laughed harder at that. Kenzie’s buzz from the champagne was still riding high--adrenaline was now pumping through her body, desirous exasperation humming under her skin. Baby, I can’t believe you did that. I’m really going to tie you up now. Kenzie stared at her own reflection in the elevator’s mirror--her chestnutty hair in waves around her shoulders, her little mouth, pressed to roses by his kisses, the blush in her cheeks from running, the wideness and shine of her eyes, anticipating the moment she’d touch him again--aching for even the momentary loss of Duncan’s fingers, his burning mouth. How dare you frustrate me so, beloved. She thought of the laugh in his eyes--come to me, Persephone, come into my arms, in the shadow of evening. She watched the elevator climb (19, 20, 21) and thought of the blazer with dripping gold that Morgan was going to make him--thought of them all in gold at the Gala in a few days, cameras flashing, and them together, as it was always meant to be. With a strange wave of deja vu, Kenzie recalled a flash of the dream she’d had that morning--her aching despair to look into the eyes of her beloved, but to not see him there, to see someone else, a person she did not know, a creature of darkness. My darling, even in that world, I’d find a way to save you. I’d find a way to pull you back out of the darkness. I swear I would.

The elevator finally dinged to the 30th floor. Kenzie breathed a deep sigh of relief as the doors slid open--she jumped out--the hall was empty. Kenzie walked swiftly to the penthouse door, fumbling for her keycard, jamming it into the door, her heart racing--where are you, baby, where are you--she pulled the door open with impatience, tossing her head from side to side. “Duncan?” She called. No answer. Oh, you’ve really done it now. “Baby, this isn’t funny.” She dropped her satchel on the spotless stone tile of the kitchen floor--and as Kenzie moved into the living room, the sunset cascading down through the picture window, a sudden, terrible burst of fear flitted through her heart. What if, like in my dream this morning, he’s gone. What if he disappeared, into nothingness, lost in the void, and I can’t find him? It didn’t matter that the thought was wild and unbidden--if I live in a world now where the paparazzi follow me everywhere I go, if I live in a world where I can read my lover’s thoughts, I could also live in a world where people disappear without warning, vanish in a puff of smoke, couldn’t I.

The fear really clenched around her heart then, and Kenzie clutched her arms around her belly, tears immediately coming into her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “No. That can’t--” and then she cried out as she suddenly felt his arms come down around her, his large body envelop hers as he came up behind her--”Gotcha” he sung into her ear, and then Duncan seemed to realize, his face pressed into her and his arms around her, that she was distraught--seemed to feel the fear and the despair that had come over her a moment before through her skin, and his breath caught as he held her.

“Kenzie, baby, what is it?” His eyes came into hers, the playful teasing eking out of them, replaced with confusion and distress for her.

“I thought--I thought you’d--I thought you’d disappeared,” Kenzie felt the horrible despair dissipate, and in its place came a heady relief that brought more tears instantly into her eyes and suddenly she was crying, really crying, her face crumpling in the warmth of his embrace. “I thought of my dream, where there was that person with your face but you weren’t inside him, and then I thought, what if you had vanished, what if you’d vanished like that--” Kenzie’s face was now wet with the cascade of her tears, her lip trembling and her voice strangled with a sob. Duncan’s hands immediately grasped her more tightly, his beautiful face now aching with torment, and he pressed her against him, and his mouth was coming down to kiss hers and his hands coming up to wipe at her cheeks, running his damp hands along his shirt, uncaring.

“No, baby, no, I’m sorry--I was just teasing you--I was behind the door when you came in, oh Kenzie, please don’t cry, fuck--”

“I’m sorry,” Kenzie’s voice was tinged with her tears still, and she felt ridiculous, felt foolish, felt despondent that she’d overreacted this way--she tried to turn away from him but Duncan said “no, baby, it’s okay, let me hold you,” and Kenzie softened in his arms and felt the cool, loving blue flames of him licking into the lining of her and immediately felt herself calming, felt her tears begin to go cool and dry from the edges of her vision.

“I’m not going anywhere, Kenzie. Listen to me. I’m not going anywhere. I love you, I love you so fucking much, I’m sorry I scared you, baby, angel--”  Duncan spoke into the side of her hair, down to her ear, his arms tight around her, and then he turned her face up into him again and kissed her, and Kenzie gripped at his blazer desperately, pulling him down into her. “No, you fucking aren’t,” she whispered into his mouth, and felt him shudder under her, saw the spark that lit itself behind his gaze at the command in her voice. She pushed him back as he went to kiss her again, her fingers gripping onto his jaw then falling to clutch his neck, forcing him to stare into her eyes.

”Go in the bedroom and take your clothes off.”

“Fuck. Yes, Kenzie.” He stepped backwards, eyes still in hers, tugging his blazer off and discarding it to the floor, long hands coming up to his throat to start at the buttons there, turning away from her reluctantly--Kenzie followed behind him, her arms crossed, watching him. He reached the edge of the bed, now remade perfectly by the unseen hands of the housekeepers, dark and silent, the late afternoon sun not reaching this part of the penthouse--the room was bathed in shadow, and Duncan went to turn on one of the lamps, but Kenzie said “No, don’t. I’ll do it. Keep taking your clothes off, baby. Do as I told you.”

“Mhmm, baby.” Duncan turned away from the lamp and kicked his boots off, his tall form facing her now, still working at the buttons of his dark tailored shirt. Kenzie walked past him, and she saw the longing in his eyes, the longing to reach out and touch her, but he continued to unbutton the shirt obediently as she leaned down to the lamp, turning it to the lowest setting so the room was still waves of shadows. She straightened, her eyes moving from his hair to his face, his naked torso emerging from underneath his shirt, his crotch, which she could see growing hard under the fabric of his tailored pants, his long legs and dark socks. She reached forward--she saw his mouth hover open, saw his eyes go dark with need for her. Kenzie’s hands fell on the metal buckle of his belt--looking up at him, letting her eyes fall open and closed slowly, letting her mouth dip open and her tongue slide along her bottom lip, she undid the buckle and eased the belt out from his waist as he pulled the shirt off, discarding it too on the floor, his eyes unmoving from her face--they watched her tongue and a tiny, almost imperceptible moan fell from his lips, and Kenzie drifted her fingers up to his bare skin as his hands came down to grasp hers for a moment, his fingers hot and flushed, then they moved under her to work at his pants, pushing them down, easing himself onto the bed which was now behind them to work them off. Kenzie was still full clothed--she thrilled at this, her nerves burning at his vulnerability to her in this moment--Duncan’s pants came off finally, and he eased his socks off too, then he grasped at the waistband of his briefs for a moment, staring into her face again.

“Take those off,” Kenzie said. She couldn’t stop the smile that played around her mouth--Duncan saw it and he nodded, laying back and pushing them down his thighs. His cock fell out, hard, jumping against his leg. Duncan leaned up now, underwear discarded--he sat at the edge of the bed, his hand hovering near his erection, and his eyes burning on her. Kenzie stood in front of him, her arms coming down to her sides, heart hammering, appraising him. Duncan moved to grip himself, neediness in his eyes, but Kenzie shook her head and he stopped.

“Stop, Dunny. Not yet, baby.”

“Mm, Kenzie. Baby. I’m hard for you.”

“Uh huh. I can see that. Don’t move. Don’t you dare.”

“Yes, Kenzie.” Duncan’s hands gripped the edge of the bed; he bit his lip, his eyes falling closed, achingly. Kenzie stepped into the walk-in closet, untying her wedge sandals, stepping out of them, going to the drawer with the thick velvet ribbon, reaching up to where the black geometric lingerie hung. Her nerves thrilled when she reemerged--Duncan stared at her, his face flushed, his cock still very hard and pressing against his stomach, his hands unmoved from where they still rested on either side of his thighs.

“I wanna touch you so fucking bad, baby,” he murmured. The neediness in his voice made warmth pool between Kenzie’s legs, and she fought to clear her head of the haze that wanted to hang down low in her mind at the sight of him this way.

“Be patient. You need to wait.”

“Uhh huh, angel.”

Kenzie set the ribbon and the hangers with the black lingerie on them beside him on the dark coverlet, then she said “Duncan, stand up,” in a firm voice. Duncan immediately stood, stepping closer to her--Kenzie moved back as he tried to touch her, and he whined quietly. “Go over to the hook and hold onto the chain, baby. Like I did last night. Do it.”

Duncan’s eyes fluttered closed and he bit into his lip--Kenzie could see the coiling pleasure in his face, the fervor building there. He stepped back from her to the chain where it hung down in the mirror--she watched his eyes look up at himself in its surface, at his nakedness and his hardness, his hand coming up through his hair, then over his shoulder into her eyes where she watched him. I need you so much, Kenzie, his thought drifted into her. I need you to touch me so much. Fuck, baby, I’m weak for you, fuck, this is torture, but fuck, I love it, I love your commands, keep going, please, I want you to tie me up so much--

Duncan’s (long, beautiful, graceful) hands gripped the chain, his back facing her, his eyes staring at her in the glass. “Good, baby, perfect, now, don’t move,” Kenzie said, and left the room again. I’m too short to reach him, she realized, I’m gonna need some help. She grasped one of the tall chairs from the kitchen island and carefully carried it back into the bedroom--Duncan noticed what she was doing and a grin broke over his loveliness.

“My Kenzie’s too little to tie me up,” he whispered down to her as she put the chair in front of him. Kenzie climbed into it and reached out--she immediately gripped his throat harshly, and Duncan’s words cut off, a sharp gasp falling out of his mouth. She crushed her lips into his, slipping her tongue against his, and Duncan moaned, the feeling reverberating against her hand. He went to lift his hands down from the chain to touch her, but Kenzie moved her head back with a snap and said “No, Duncan, do not let go of that chain,” and gripped his neck more tightly, making him gasp again. Duncan’s fingers twined back inside the links--he pouted a little. “Sorry baby.”

She climbed down to retrieve the black ribbon; climbed back up onto the chair, Duncan’s eyes watching her every movement. Kenzie moved the ribbon through the links and then around each of Duncan’s wrists three times--her heart ached as she did this, beating wildly, and Kenzie could feel the flush on her skin, the nervousness. I’ve never tied anyone up before, she thought into him. You’re my first, baby.

It’s making me so fucking hard, baby, he thought back into her. I’m fucking aching for you. Please touch me soon.

I will. But not yet.

Kenzie yanked the two ends of the velvet ribbon together--Duncan’s wrists came together with a soft slap of flesh against flesh, and she heard the sharp intake of his breath--then Ken tied the knots tight, and climbed down.

“Move your wrists, baby,” she said, moving the chair to the side.

Duncan struggled for a moment against the velvet.

“You tied me good, baby.”

Kenzie grinned at him; she felt the aching affection in his eyes as she did. My angel, when you smile that way, you set my heart on fire.

“Watch me change, baby.”

Duncan nodded; his eyes drifted closed for another moment, then opened on her again, and his cock jumped against his stomach.

Kenzie undid the button at the back of her blouse and pulled it out of her skirt, lifting it over her head. Now, let’s talk, she thought, only this way, not out loud. I want to see if we can hear everything. Kenzie undid the hook of her bra as he nodded to her.

Okay, baby. You look so beautiful. The light’s so soft on you. Your hair is like gold. I want you so fucking bad.

Prince Duncan, she thought, letting the bra fall to the floor, her little breasts free to his gaze now. Soon to be the King, soon to rule an empire. And how do you feel, my Prince? She moved her hands to the back of her skirt, pulling the zipper down, stepping out of it; she pushed her panties off her hips, turning her back to him, watching his eyes fall down her shoulders and her ass, the backs of her thighs.

Like the happiest and most fortunate man on Earth. For my beloved is most fair, most exalted among all earthly creatures, and she can see into my soul, and she’s the piece of me that was torn away, and is now found again. She’s like the moon rising over the sea, the stars in their endless turning. She is everything to me. Without her, I’m in darkness.

Kenzie shivered at his thoughts--she reached for the delicate black tulle panties first, slipping them slowly up her hips, feeling the gathering wetness between her legs push into the soft crotch of them. She reached for the sheer stockings next, sitting primly on the edge of the bed as she eased them up to her thighs, glancing up to where Duncan was tied every now and then, his back and ass to her from this angle, illuminated in soft light and shadow, his eyes piercing into her through the mirror.

Tell me how much you love me, baby, Kenzie thought. Speak it into my secret soul, press your lips there like you do sometimes. I know you can.

Oh, Kenzie. I love you like the first sweet dawn of spring after the longest, coldest winter.

Kenzie slipped the beautifully geometric bra around her torso, locking the clasps together, then gently pulling the cups around to her breasts, pulling the straps onto her shoulders--she looked up into Duncan’s wildly blue eyes, hands falling through her hair, tossing it back.

More baby, more.

I love you like the coolness of autumn after the harshest heat of crushing summer.

Kenzie slipped the suspender around her waist, the straps hanging down at her thighs; she gently leaned down to the edge of the stockings and clipped the straps into them, first the two in the front, then the ones behind, over the rise at the side of her ass and thighs, and she heard him sigh--sigh with longing.

I love you more than sunlight, more than moonlight, more than I love every star, you’re the rain in the desert, the sweet tide, the wind in the trees in the evening, the haze of sunset colors, you are more beautiful than any art I’ve ever beheld, more delicate than any shivering flower, softer than the sweetness of any fruit, Kenzie, my Kenzie...every moment I’m away from you you intoxicate my thoughts, you fill every corner of my mind--

Kenzie moved towards him now, her hands on her hips, stepping around to where he faced the mirror, his wrists bound together.

“Baby, that’s fucking beautiful,” she breathed up to him, and she trailed her hand down from his chest to the dip between his ribs, and Duncan shivered terribly under her touch. “Keep going.”

Duncan’s eyes fell closed as her hands continued to fall--to his bellybutton, then to where his cock was jumping, achingly hard, against his abdomen, red and shivering with strain. Kenzie leaned her head down and hesitated--then his thoughts began to bleed into her again, and she spit a gush of saliva down onto the head of his cock, her hand coming up to ease the wetness down. You’re like an angel--uhh, angel--you’re like a real angel, sometimes I can see the halo around you, a gold ring more beautiful than anything on earth, and it’s like a secret aura around you, like a secret part of you that only I can see, proof of your divinity--oh, fuck, baby--

Kenzie had knelt on the floor before him, hand still gripping his cock, her mouth hovering just at the head of him, her legs parted so her sex stretched in the tulle panties, her tongue snaking out to probe into the hole at the tip of his length--she lifted a hand up to grip her breast through the delicate black tulle, looking into his (sapphire, lapis, turquoise) eyes, and she said “keep going, baby,” and lowered her mouth onto him, her tongue pressing against the underside of him, and she saw his hands strain against the velvet, straining with his need to touch her. The thoughts from him seemed to muddle into colors for a moment--indigo, midnight blue, plum-wine--then they surged back into her, stronger than ever, and terrible with need.

You’re my Persephone, I snatched you from the world in the great moment of Fortune that fell on me and I brought you here to be with me, to my realm where nothing grew, and you scattered your light all over every part of me and now everything I touch here my hand comes away covered in gold that you left on it--uhh, Kenzie, fuck, your mouth is so small and so wet and so fucking warm around me--and--and all I ever want to do is fuck you into ecstatic euphoria and make you come over and over and--over--fuck--until we forget everything but each other, Kenzie, fuuuck, I wanted you to tie me up because I want you to know that I fucking belong to you, baby, I’m yours, my body is for you and you can do whatever you want to me because I will love you no matter what, I’ll love your sadness and your anger and your frustration, your need and your annoyance, your doubt, your exhaustion, your hidden dark places, your secret self, your shadow--your luxuriant, lovely shadow, I love her too, I love you, fucking fuck me baby, fuck me with your mouth, I love you forever, until the end of time and even when there is nothing but darkness, the memory of my love for you will still echo in the emptiness--

Kenzie sucked at him, eagerly, overcome, a pilling need building in her stomach, but she also felt the tears that were gathering in her eyes again--god, when I write my book, baby, I’ll make it speak like you do into my mind and my heart, baby, I’ll make it sound like you do with your lips pressed against my soul this way. Because I know you mean every word with every part of yourself, because I can FEEL you. I can feel all of you, the beautiful sincerity of you, the light that’s shining out of you every day now--you said I kindled your soul, your real soul, and I fucking see you, baby, I can see it. Kenzie could feel the head of his cock thrusting into the deepness of her throat, feel the delicate veins of his length under her tongue, against the roof of her mouth, and her eyes rolled back. Fuck my mouth, baby, beloved, fuck my little mouth, it’s for you, for your kisses, for your thick cock, for your pleasure, my beautiful Prince.

“Kenzie, can I--can I please come, baby?” Duncan’s voice was weak, pleading, raw with the edge of his release. “Please let me come.”

Kenzie came up for air, her lips slipping down the end of his wet shaft, hovering on his head. “Tell me I’m your princess first, baby, tell me I’m your angel.”

“Fuck, Kenzie, you are my fucking princess, you are my only angel, the only one--”

“Okay, baby, come now, fucking come for me.”

Kenzie dipped his cock down into her throat one last time, then leaned back as she felt him release into her mouth, hot and slick, the taste of him salt and sweet--Duncan shuddered and moaned, his eyes heavy-lidded but not quite shut, staring down at where she kneeled on the floor, letting her mouth dip open so his come fell down her chin and dripped between her breasts and slid in rivulets down her stomach, marking her as his. “Good, baby,” Kenzie licked her lips, swallowing the half of his come that had spurted into her mouth, bringing her fingers down to the white liquid on her skin, scooping it up and pressing it between her lips, swallowing that too. “Fucking good, baby. You sounded so beautiful in my mind. Like velvet. Like your hands were touching me everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.”

“I wanna make you come now, baby.” Kenzie stood as Duncan said it. She looked up at him, still licking her lips.

“I wanna order dinner, Dunny. I’m starving. Then I want us to go to bed. Then, in the middle of the night, I want you to wake me up with kisses and fuck me in the dark with your lips pressed into my shadows. Like you were thinking into me. I want you to kiss my shadows, I want you to kiss them and touch them with aching hands. Will you do that for me, Prince Duncan?” Kenzie pulled the chair over to him, climbing up and reaching to his wrists in the velvet trappings as he leaned into her, his lips kissing everywhere he could reach, her arms and the crook of her elbow and the dip of her shoulders--she worked him free and his hands came down immediately, his desperation snatching her breath away, and he gripped her with hands that she knew could rend her if he wanted it, but they wanted to hold her, and she knew that too, wanted nothing but to hold her and press her into him, which he did now with a softness that made her gasp.

“Yes. I will, I will. Will you kiss mine, too, baby? My shadows?”

Kenzie raised her head and pulled his jaw down to her--Duncan was lifting her, throwing her down into their bed, her hair tossing behind her in a gold wave, his tongue licking her bottom lip where his come had coated her a moment before, his hands pressing at the tulle she was wrapped in. Kenzie’s hands came up to his throat and pulled him into her mouth, roughly--and she thought into him as she gripped him there, tightly, the jut of his adam’s apple pressing into her palm, and he gasped into her kiss.

Yes, yes, baby, yes I fucking will. I will love your shadows as I love your light. I will press myself to them and call them fair and beautiful. For I love you. All of you. 

[bonesgadh]

Melisandre and her Messiah.

Some Biblical stuff coming right up:

Regarding the prophecy of The Prince That Was Promised I honestly don’t give two fucks; I’m only interested in the facts and they say Arya was the one that ended the long night by defeating the Night King and that’s the tea. To me she is a Goddess and from now on I’ll forever address her as Arya Stark of Winterfell, The Princess That Was Promised, Slayer of the Night King and Savior of Westeros.

However, I’m a little pissed because there’s some people out there who are saying there’s no way Arya can be The Prince That Was Promised because she doesn’t fit the criteria. Now I may be wrong about this but I don’t remember the show being that specific about the requirements to be TPTWP, the only thing Melisandre says is it is meant to destroy darkness (if I remember correctly the only additional thing said by other red priestess while advocating for Daenerys being TPTWP was that she was reborn from the fire to remake the world). I know the books give more details about the prophecy but I think it’s pretty clear the show has long drifted away from them.

Anyway, for this post I’m sticking to what the show has been telling us all these years (specifically the Battle of Winterfell episode), and I put a special focus on why I’m convinced my girl is TPTWP based on Melisandre’s scenes.

I was raised Catholic (although I’ve lapsed a bit I still consider myself to be a believer), so I notice some similarities between the faith of R'hllor, The Lord of the Light and Catholicism. TPTWP is seen as some sort of Messiah for the Red Priests, just like Jesus for Catholics and Christians. This almost mythical figure, the reincarnation of a legendary warrior (Azor Ahai) will destroy darkness and end with the treat of The Long Night for good. We have known for quite some time The Long Night = the Night King and the White Walkers, so it was safe to assume whoever destroyed them would automatically be revealed as TPTWP.

Melisandre, the most famous Red Priestess in Game of Thrones is the one in charge of telling us about this prophecy. What I find interesting about Melisandre is her backstory: her life was terrible, she was a slave and then, at her lowest point, she met The Lord of the Light and became her most loyal servant. When we first meet Melisandre it’s pretty obvious she is a bit obsessed with the whole TPTWP. My guess is a good part of her whole belief system (and her life for all that matters) revolves around this prophecy, to the point she is pretty much a fanatical. I can bet you Melisandre dreamed of being the one to find this Messiah and to see firsthand the destruction of darkness. She even has that necklace that has kept her alive for longer than usual.

Do I think Melisandre knew Arya would kill the Night King back in 3x06? No, I don’t. Why do I think so? Well, obviously because by the time they met Melisandre was utterly convinced Stannis was TPTWP (Lol), but also because prophecies and visions aren’t that straight forward. There’s a lot of hidden meaning involved and symbolisms, so the only thing Melisandre saw in Arya’s eyes was what she told her: that there was darkness and the whole brown, green and blue eyes she would shout forever, and that they would meet again. I even dare to say Melisandre didn’t even remember the young girl until they saw each other at Winterfell.

After this encounter a lot of things happened to Melisandre, but one thing that shaped her character for the rest of her storyline was Shireen’s sacrifice. Melisandre wasn’t scared of sacrificing others in the name of the Lord of the Light and she truly believed Stannis to be her Messiah; but seeing him fail the way he did –and the fact that Shireen’s sacrifice wasn’t even worth it– is what shattered her completely. She began doubting her faith and became Buzz Lightyear when he gets drunk on tea.

However, Jon’s miraculous resurrection is what gives her back her faith and trust in her Lord. Now she believes him to be TPTWP because he returned from the dead and he must have a greater purpose to fulfill. Again her desire to be the one to find the world’s savior kicks in, and I dare to say it’s stronger than ever.

After she gets vanished from the North and she meets Daenerys, she tells her the following words:

“The Long Night is coming. Only the prince that was promised can bring the dawn.”

After saying these words Daenerys asks Melisandre if she thinks she is that prince, to which Melisandre answers prophecies are dangerous but she does believe she has a part to play in the upcoming war, just like Jon Snow. Melisandre even mentions Jon’s role in all this, he is the one who united the North against the imminent treat of the darkness (it’s worth mentioning Arya decides to return to Winterfell in the same episode). When Jon goes to meet Daenerys, Melisandre says she has brought fire and ice together and that it’s time to go –albeit for a while– but warns Varys that she will return to die in Westeros.

Now, what does Melisandre do during the time she goes to Volantis? My guess is she keeps doing her stuff. You know, watching things in the flames and having visions. Why does she decide to return to Winterfell right before the battle begins? My guess is she saw something, some sort of message from R'hllor and she interpreted as the sign she needed to return to the North. Maybe she didn’t know what was waiting for her, but she knew it would be her last night alive.

Now let’s fast forward to the moment Arya and Melisandre see each other in Winterfell. Arya looked at her and I’m certain the first thing that crossed her mind was: “that red bitch raped my beau, if I make it through this I’m gonna slice her throat.” But from the moment they locked eyes Melisandre knew this was it. This was the reason why she was meant to return to the North.

I mean, look at Melisandre’s face:

She’s like: “Oooohhh, it is her!” But they don’t get to interact because, you know, an army of 100,000 zombies is thriller-ing it’s way to Winterfell.

Moving forward to the next time they see each other. Arya, The Hound and Beric are escaping from some wights and Beric saves Arya’s life, but looses his flaming sword in the process and is left without a way to protect himself, so he is fatally wounded by the wights. When they find shelter in the great hall Beric finally dies, and Melisandre appears having seen the whole thing.

“The Lord brought him back for a purpose, now that purpose has been served.”

I want to believe, in my heart, that Beric knew it in the end. Right when Arya was hopelessly looking at him die, pure sadness in her eyes, he finally understood why his God had been bringing him back all these years: to save this girl. That’s why he smiles at her, because he knows he accomplished his mission and is ready to die for good.

Melisandre and Arya reminisce about the last time they saw each other, when the priestess told her about the many eyes she would shut forever. Then Melisandre hints at the “blue eyes” being those of the Night King, and Arya doesn’t hesitate. I was seriously expecting a “no, it can’t be me” moment but I’m glad it didn’t happen. When Melisandre repeated her previous words Arya immediately knew what she had to do and embraced her fate. Girl understood the lives of the whole world depended on her and she responded like a boss (you know, like Jesus during his Passion). We all know what happened next: Arya went all savior of the world on the Night King’s ass and our heroes lived to fight another day.

Here’s where a certain Biblical story kicks in:

When Jesus was born there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah (a.k.a. Jesus himself). When Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple courts to introduce him to God, Simeon was there and he took the baby in his arms and claimed he could now die in piece as he had seen the world’s savior.

Does it remind you of something?

Melisandre is Simeon, she wasn’t willing to die before finding TPTWP and she died right after she did.

Now what about Lightbringer, the mythical sword Azor Ahai was said to clasp and use to destroy darkness? What if Azor Ahai wielding Lightbringer is not a literal but a metaphorical statement? Beric used a flaming sword and he gave his life for Arya; it was the reason why the Lord of the Light kept bringing him back. He was “used” by Arya to survive, he even threw the damn sword at the wight that was about to kill her and was left defenseless afterwards. If he hadn’t thrown his sword Arya would’ve died and the Night King wouldn’t have been killed.

What are House Stark’s words? “Winter is Coming”. A warning of the impending darkness. If there’s one family in Westeros that knows the White Walkers and the Night King will return and that they will bring the long night with them, that is the Stark family. The fact that the person destined to end it comes from the same house that has been warning the rest of the world about the apocalypse is poetic.

Another clue in case you think I’m crazy and only wrote this shit down because I’m a crazy Arya stan (which I am but that’s not the point): at the beginning of the episode, Melisandre tells Davos there’s no need for him to kill her because she will be dead before the dawn. The dawn. The prophecy said The Prince That Was Promised would BRING THE DAWN. Arya kills the Night King and then, surprise! A few moments later the dawn comes and, as she had foreseen, Melisandre dies before seeing it, but knowing Arya has ended the Long Night and the prophecy is fulfilled. She has completed her mission and is finally ready to die.