#'perpetually seven' as my sister would say

[sufferu]

It's always bugged me because yeah yeah Subaru and Flugel have some sort of connection sure but like there's just so many ways to do it without some boring and thematically disaonant au/timeloop sort of thing?

Reincarnation is literally and explicitly a thing, we have multiple characters who are already the reincarnation or spiritual successor to some big name important figure from the past and Subaru being another one of them but also refusing to let it define him and making his own path better fits with who he is and the story itself.

Reminds me on how way back before we really had anything about him beyond some suspicious similarities between Kararagi and Kansai that people thought that Hoshin had to have been some sort of AU Subaru as well.

I'd rather believe Flugel is an AU Kenichi or Subaru's maternal grandpa or whatever than Flugel is literally just Subaru and this is all just some greater part and plot of a ginormous timeloop.

I had never heard it before but I'm actually super into the idea of Al as Subaru's displaced younger older brother? Especially since we're now at Al's arc and everything.

Yeah imma be honest I hate basically all Subaru == Flugel theories, and all Subaru == Aldebaran theories, too (though really those are one and the same, because Aldebaran == Flugel seems pretty much canon at this point lmao: there are too many signs, and also they act so similar to one another that it really doesn’t feel like nearly as much of a stretch to say that they’re the same guy as it is to say that Subaru is either one of them). This includes timeloops, reincarnations, etc.: it’s just — “Oops, all Subaru” isn’t an ending that I am very partial to, and if that’s where this is going then Tappei is gonna have to sell it HARD in order to get me on board.

But my favorite theory is ABSOLUTELY the Younger/Older Brother Aldebaran theory.

Evidence:

Subaru is explicitly referred to by Kenichi as his “eldest son” in every translation of the First Trial, despite the fact that he doesn’t have any siblings. (Honestly even if this DOESN’T end up being canon I’m gonna go the rest of my life headcanoning that Naoko was pregnant when Subaru got Isekai’d just because of that line alone)

Subaru has gone out of his way to mention that he is afraid that his parents had more kids when he got spirited away, which sure smells like foreshadowing to me

In a side story, Aldebaran is mentioned to have had many of the same insecurities regarding his family members as Subaru. These family members are not named. (In the shadow of his perpetually missing older brother, perhaps?)

Garfiel talks about Al and Subaru smelling similar in the same volume where similar scents indicate a familial resemblance between him and his mom

The Pleiades Constellation references seven sisters, bringing the idea of siblings right front and center

In astronomy, Aldebaran is the Following Star, specifically following Subaru

Aldebaran has been literally calling Subaru “bro” every time he shows up, which is currently just a speech quirk but has the potential to get recharacterized HARD

Pros:

Keeps Subaru and Al connected without making them the Same Guy

Brings the focus of the story right back to the character-centric drama of the Natsuki Family and how Subaru left them behind, which I can basically guarantee has to come up again at some point anyway

All of Subaru and Aldebaran’s scenes become so much funnier if it’s revealed that they are actually siblings

We can get Subaru and Aldebaran fighting with one another over who gets to be the older brother

So many Cain Instinct memes

Cons:

?

Please. It would be so, SO good.

[justforbooks]

Christina Hendricks

The star of Good Girls discusses Mad Men, sexual harassment and squaring her glamorous reputation with her ‘weird, goofy’ personality

Christina Hendricks appears on our video call with the most dramatic backdrop. Art deco gold peacocks bedeck a black wall, making her look, as she has so often in her career, a bit too good to be human. Perfectly poised, perfectly framed, perfectly lit, she is more like a dreamy vision of what humans look like. “I, erm, like your wall,” I say, pointlessly. She flashes a smile, as if to say: “Obviously.”

We are here primarily to discuss the comedy-drama series Good Girls, the fourth season of which will resume in the US this month after a midseason break. The elevator pitch would be Breaking Bad for girls: three suburban women, each hovering on the edge of bankruptcy, unite to embark on a life of cack-handed crime, only to discover they are good at it. The ensemble – Hendricks, Mae Whitman, who plays her sister, and Retta, their friend – works strikingly well, their pacey comic rapport instilling a sense of perpetual motion. You just can’t imagine Good Girls ending. Every time a plot line seems to be reaching its climax, something worse – and funnier – happens.

“It’s funny you say that, because originally, when I read the pilot script, I thought: ‘I love this, but I can’t imagine this being more than one episode,’” says Hendricks. “It felt like it finished itself.” She is unsentimental about it. Hendricks wasn’t looking for a new show – “I was happy doing films, taking my time” – but went into it with her eyes open. It is a network drama, for NBC – it is shown on Netflix in the UK – so producers are always aware that “it’s going into every house in the US on a Thursday or a Sunday and a family is watching it. They’re much more careful about numbers and advertisers and people being offended or not getting it. A cable show is much more: ‘We trust this creator – they’re a visionary.’”

It has a conventional tone – however dark the material, it is handled very lightly. Yet you can’t help but notice some hard-boiled social commentary from the off – if it weren’t for the bracingly callous US health system, the generation of wage-stagnation casualties and the patriarchy, none of the characters would have gone anywhere near a supermarket heist. More than Breaking Bad, it reminds me of Roseanne and the golden age of US mainstream comedy, when you could be poor on TV without that being a breach of good taste.

The 48-year-old has been a household name for almost 15 years, thanks to Mad Men. She was born in Tennessee, where her mother was a psychologist and her father worked for the Forest Service, and educated in Oregon and then Idaho. She didn’t have time for formal acting training; by the time she was 18, her modelling career had taken off. Later, when she had a manager, she took acting lessons: “I did that for almost a year and a half and put auditions on ice. Then I was watching a film – I don’t even remember what film it was or who was in it – and I thought: ‘I’m ready. I can do this.’” She has the most insistent work ethic; as she describes her life’s trajectory, she notes diligently the jobs she had while she was at high school, at a hair salon and a menswear shop.

In 2007, she appeared as Joan Holloway in Mad Men. She played the role for the next eight years, her character growing around the depth she brought to it, until by season seven she was almost the central part. In the early 2010s, Hendricks was talked about constantly, although she says the original focal points of obsession were the male characters: “Men started dressing like Don Draper and Roger Sterling. Suits came back in, skinny ties came back in. It took three to four seasons and then all of a sudden people wanted us [the female stars] on magazines. We were like: ‘This is strange – we’ve been doing this for a while.’”

Hendricks, along with January Jones, who played Betty Draper, came to represent so much. There was a great deal of rumination on their physicality, Jones as elegant as an afghan hound, Hendricks like the pin-up painted on the side of a bomber. What did it mean, people asked, that in the middle of the 20th century there were multiple ideals of the female form, whereas in the 21st century there was only one? How did that complicate the perception of gender equality as a steady march towards the light? Thousands of column inches went on that question – but, from the actor’s perspective, it was an annoying distraction. “There certainly was a time when we were very critically acclaimed, and getting a lot of attention for our very good work and our very hard work, and everyone just wanted to ask me about my bra again. There are only two sentences to say about a bra,” she says.

The signal impression the show left was of an ensemble at the peak of its creativity: actors, writers and the creator, Matthew Weiner, working in almost telepathic unison. It won the Emmy for outstanding drama series four times in a row, but the more notable year was 2012, when it was nominated for 17 Emmys (and didn’t win any of them). The take-home was: everyone involved with this is absolutely brilliant.

That harmonious picture was blurred two years after the show ended, when one of the former writers, Kater Gordon, accused Weiner of sexual harassment. Marti Noxon, a consulting producer on Mad Men, concurred that Weiner had created a toxic environment and said that he was an “‘emotional terrorist’ who will badger, seduce and even tantrum in an attempt to get his needs met”.

Hendricks takes this head on, in a considered, straightforward manner. “My relationship with Matt was in no way toxic,” she says. “I don’t discount anyone’s experience if I wasn’t there to see it, but that wasn’t my experience. Was he a perfectionist, was he tough, did he expect a lot? Yes. And he would say that in a second. We were hard on each other.”

It is impossible, from this distance, to adjudicate on Weiner’s character, but Hendricks’s response reveals something of hers. The easiest response in this situation, and the one 90% of actors give, is: “No comment.” Hendricks is always collected, never evasive, doesn’t gabble. She reminds me powerfully of Joan Holloway – and I am sorry to say it, because she insists throughout: “I’m an actress. I am completely not Joan. Not in any way. I wish I was more like Joan.”

I wonder if, while we were all fixating on Joan’s bras and whether or not, in the asinine words of Lynne Featherstone, the UK’s equalities minister in 2010, she represented a “curvy role model”, the audience was responding to Joan’s deeper life lesson – that self-possession is 9/10ths of the law.

What Hendricks emphatically doesn’t do is minimise the existence of sexism and sexual harassment in the industry: “Boy, do you think anyone in the entertainment industry comes out unscathed and not objectified? I don’t know one musician or one model or one actor who has escaped that. I have had moments – not on Mad Men; on other things – where people have tried to take advantage of me, use my body in a way I wasn’t comfortable with, persuade me or coerce me or professionally shame me: ‘If you took your work seriously, you would do this …’

“Maybe it was my modelling background, but I knew to immediately get on the phone and go: ‘Uh oh, trouble,’” she says. “That’s where it’s very much a job. We need to talk to the producers and handle this professionally.”

Yet, at the same time, she is defensive of her industry. “It gets a lot of attention because people know who we are. I’m sure there’s a casting couch at the bank down the street, I’m sure the same thing happens in management consultancy, but people don’t know who the management consultants are.”

Modelling always sounds like a harsh environment – predatory photographers vying with stringent agents to give everyone a complex about their thighs and stop them eating carbs. But that is not how Hendricks describes it at all. Her career sounds like one out of an 80s Judy annual: innocent and hearty, good for pin money and travel opportunities. “I think I was lucky – I didn’t start when I was 14. When I was about 18 or 19, I went to Japan for the first time, I went to Italy. We’d be lots of girls, sharing a house, and I sort of became the den mother. I’d make everyone egg salad sandwiches and Greek salads, going into this mother hen role.”

That is what they say about being taken hostage: if you want to survive, choose someone to look after. “Oh,” she says, coolly. “I wouldn’t consider being a model as being a hostage.”

She was only ever medium-successful, she insists – an “unusual and quirky” hire, rather than the slam-dunk face of everything. About as far as it went was that she never had to get another job to supplement her income. Probably the most famous image of that era in which she was involved was the poster for American Beauty. Two models were in the frame, so they took a photo of the stomach and the hands of each. In the end, they used Hendricks’s hand on the other model’s stomach. It sounds like a clunky metaphor, but it is true.

During this period, she moved to London with a friend, for the hell of it, living in a flat on Gloucester Road, “surviving on cider and hummus”. It is a glimpse of the oddball she says she was growing up, the outsider as whom she is rarely cast. This has been the story of her CV. “Early on in my career, I would get auditions and I would call my manager and say: ‘I would never cast me in this – she’s a cheerleader, she’s a bimbo. Can I audition for the other one, the weird doctor?’ And they’d be like: ‘No, they saw your picture.’ And I started realising that people didn’t see the weird, goofy me that I saw.”

She made the jump from modelling to acting via adverts, with what looks like fairytale ease. In fact, it was “a lot of pounding the pavement and showing up for auditions and getting rejected – and learning, as a young woman, to not take that personally”. By the late 90s, she was the face of ultimate female confidence, the woman who drinks Johnnie Walker and doesn’t need a chauffeur (these are two ads, not one for drink-driving). “I always thought of modelling as freeze-frame acting. It felt like a scene, and I still consider it that way. There are so many technical things that I think people don’t notice. They see you playing dress-up.”

From the commercials, she learned “how to hit a mark, how to memorise a line”, but acting wasn’t novel. She had been doing community theatre since the age of 10, and grew up expecting an alternative life, supplementing an art-house existence any which way. She never amplifies her creative urges. She is much happier talking about professionalism and graft, but that is strategic more than anything else. “I am incredibly emotional and I take things very personally. But I’ve learned to be a little bit of a politician and a little bit of a producer along the way. As a female actor, the easy go-to is: ‘She was emotional, she was hysterical.’ It can be a million other people’s fault, but it’s easy to point your finger at an emotional artist. So, I realised: if I’m going to be taken seriously, I need to have professional perspective and I can cry about it to my friends later.”

Yet she cares deeply about creativity, as is clear when she talks about Mad Men. “It may eclipse anything I ever did. And, if it does, it was a good one and I’m proud of it,” she says. “I got to bring who I was as a woman. I think I learned some of how to be a woman from Joan. No one would give a shit about me if it wasn’t for that show. I’d still be doing good work, but no one would have found me. If that’s the best thing I ever do, it was pretty good.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[happybkwrm]

Wentworth and the Crofts

I've been thinking about this for a few days so here goes;

Wentworth and Anne met and fell in love eight years before the start of Persuasion. Admiral and Mrs. Croft have been married for - fifteen years? So, at the time he and Anne met, his sister had been married for seven years. We don't know much about his background, but it's obvious (to me) that he looks up to his sister and brother-in-law. So, you might think that when Wentworth thinks about marriage, he's looking to the Crofts as an example to follow.

*******

"What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am!" said Mrs Musgrove to Mrs Croft.

"Pretty well, ma'am in the fifteen years of my marriage; though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic four times, and have been once to the East Indies, and back again, and only once; besides being in different places about home: Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But I never went beyond the Streights, and never was in the West Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies."

... "I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship. While we were together, you know, there was nothing to be feared. Thank God! I have always been blessed with excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me. A little disordered always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but never knew what sickness was afterwards. The only time I ever really suffered in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself at Deal, when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience."

Persuasion (pp. 45-46). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

****** From Wentworth's point of view; he has to compare his strong-willed, loyal sister, happily married to a Navy man, willing to face the difficulties at his side; loving the travel and fearing nothing but separation.

Then there's Anne, who (in his view) 'noped' her way out of their engagement at the advice of Lady Russell - a woman who openly disliked him.

Anne, who (according to the Musgroves) turned down a perfectly good match because (once again) Lady Russell said 'No'. (WE know that LR wanted Anne to marry Charles, but no one else does.)

I can't blame him for that. I'm not sure I would be so quick to give a second chance to someone who dumped me because of advice from someone who I knew hated me.

He doesn't hate Anne, he doubts her loyalty and strength of mind.

[rubythecrimsonwriter]

There was a point in my early college experience that my meal structure more closely resembled a Hobbit's than a human's, just by virtue of being incredibly busy and also trying to put on weight after I lost a bunch due to a surgery going mildly awry.

This was made incredibly obvious to everyone in my immediate vicinity because i set alarms to remind me to eat because my hunger receptors are basically useless to this day. Perpetually hungry for years because i was growing so fast, compounded with regimented school systems that didn't allow for snacks, plus hyperfixations that don't let me go for hours on end mean that I'm more likely to look up and have to count back the hours on when i last ate and think i should eat than i am to feel hungry.

My best friends had helped me set up the alarms and they had named the alarms appropriately, so when there was a project that resulted in my phone being in someone else's hand when the Elevenses alarm goes off, he looks at the alarm and looks at me and he knows my schedule because he's in most of my classes with me. And then he looks at his watch and the sudden realization that I had trained all of my classmates that had the same four morning classes onto MY schedule was hilarious and it went a little like this:

The alarm goes off. I'm patting down my pockets and bag for my phone because we've been playing swap with each other's phones for almost an hour. I find someone else's phone but not mine. I look up to try and find where the ringing is coming from and its in Josh's hand. Josh has seen the alarm and is staring at it. And he looks at his watch. And oh so slowly, his eyes tick over to mine.

"You're going to say its time for a snack and drag us all over to [coffee shop that sold bagels and a stupidly good chai i was obsessed with that was within easy walking distance]."

Everyone looks at Josh, because Josh doesn't really make prophecies very often. Or ever, really.

"Yes," I say.

And indeed, everyone was mostly packed and ready to go stretch their legs and get coffee and a snack before our next class at 11:45.

Josh just kind of looks at me. You know the one, where its kind of half terrified, half exasperated, with like a sprinkling of admiration like cinnamon powder? "The semester's been in session for a week and we're all already on your schedule?"

"I'm trying to regain fifteen pounds i lost in two weeks, while having 18 credit hours, while being a spotter for my sister. I start my day at 5 and you idiots dont even have a piece of fruit for breakfast, much less anything else. So yeah, when its 9 and I have second breakfast and you guys suddenly realize you're hungry? A snack and coffee to get through until when class lets out at 2? Then lunch? Rehydration and a snack at 4, also known as Tea? Dinner at 6? Our night class doesn't let out until 10, Josh. You're not half as tired as you were a week ago, and that's with three night classes and a seven am class twice a week. You really think that's because you're sleeping?"

I swear to anything you hold holy, you would have thought I'd just outlined my step by step plan for world domination that had an actual chance at working.

[brionysea]

a group including mike tried to follow will into the upside down. el told mike to turn back, lying about why, and when lucas brought attention to how she was messing with their compass she just said that it wasn't safe. el stopped them before they could go into the upside down

the demogorgon trapped a group including mike in the middle school and got stopped by el before it could do whatever it came there to do, and if it just wanted to kill them, they would've been dead in a second. mike was right when he said that fighting it with a slingshot would be suicide. el threw mike back and specifically said goodbye to him before her cryptic "no more" and sacrifice

flayed will (vecna) only knew who mike was. the demodogs trapped a group including mike in the lab but they escaped before the dogs could do whatever they came there for. again, we're just left to presume ("that's presumptuous of you," max says) they just wanted to kill them. kind of because of mike himself, actually, while vecna insisted he was lying

mike brings up the hive mind and dustin names the mind flayer, describing it as "so ancient it doesn't even know its true home". meanwhile, mike still doesn't fit in with the wheelers at all, right down to his hair. i've seen holly's blonde hair get questioned too, but a lot of white girls' hair starts off blonde before darkening over time. it happened with mine, my sister's and a lot of other people i've known, so it's not that weird. mike's black hair, on the other hand, isn't really explainable if he's supposed to be genetically a wheeler

a group including mike goes into the tunnels, following the bait vecna put down earlier of the hub being a trap, and mike gets caught this time by a vine around the ankle. similar to how vecna copied el's power. it doesn't seem to do anything, except that it very shortly follows joyce and nancy getting the mind flayer out of will, and that mike starts acting weird and un-mike-like about a month later at the snow ball

the attempts to trap people get flipped when mike plans the sauna test

vecna lures el into a trap. during their interaction, el calls mike's name like seven times (interesting when she went in there to find the source...) and vecna tells her that he can't hear her

will calls mike the heart and says that without heart they'd all fall apart. that sounds like a pretty good explanation for why the upside down is perpetually dying

[cdyssey]

Would you be willing to write more abt Melissa and having kids?

No Children:

A/N: ANON, I just want you to know that this prompt lit a fire under my ass. I saw it at like 2AM when I first got it, started writing, and banged out like 900 words of the first nearly 4,000 in an hour.

AO3 Link

CW: Heavy Discussions of Pregnancy; Alcohol Mentions; Abortion Mention

—

It’s just another Wednesday at Abbott Elementary. 

Barbara arrives at the school at seven on the dot to prepare for the long day ahead, dragging her sleepy (and therefore ornery) daughters in tow. They’re both currently sitting at one of her low tables, coloring pictures of Blue from Blue’s Clues that she had printed out for them. Her eight-year old, Taylor, a perpetual rebel, is amusing herself by using rainbow colors, while Gina, already somewhat of a perfectionist at only six, is sticking with a more appropriate shade of light blue.

And they’re arguing about it.

Viciously.

As sisters do.

“Stop!” Gina whines, stomping her feet a little beneath the table, distressed at her older's sister's deviations. "Bwue's Cwues does not have yewwow spots, Tay!" 

“So?” Taylor retorts stubbornly, moving her paper out of her younger sibling’s reach as she goes to grab it. “And her name is just Blue!”

“Mom!” Her youngest turns towards Barbara with big, brown eyes. “Tay is being mean!”

“What? I’m not being mean!”

“Yeah, you are!” Gina pokes her tiny tongue out.

“No, I’m not!” And so does Taylor.

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

As they continue to volley back and forth, their “are toos” and “are nots” ramping up in fever pitch and intensity, Barbara, who had initially been hoping not to intervene and let the girls sort themselves out, finally closes her planning binder with a deep and thoroughly Biblical sigh, prepared to deliver a rousing sermon about appreciating each other’s creative differences before it’s eight o’clock in the God almighty morning.

(Goodness gracious, her coffee hasn’t even kicked in yet.)

“Now, girls—“ She starts crossly, her readers slipping down on the bridge of her nose, but she is immediately interrupted by a low chuckle in the open doorway and a sudden change in both of her daughters’ grumpy demeanors.

“Aunt Mel!” They exclaim at the exact same time, scrambling from their chairs to run towards the second-grade teacher, who is leaning heavily against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest.

Taylor, who had inherited her father’s long legs, reaches her first, wrapping her arms around Melissa’s middle, while Gina arrives a few seconds later and hugs her godmother’s leather clad leg. Barbara swivels around in her chair and smiles fondly at this sight, just as her best friend unbends her arms and pats each of the girls on their backs.

“Hey!” She laughs hoarsely, her hair falling elegantly over one of her eyes. “I thought I heard my little shortstops all the way down the hall. How’ve ya been?”

“We’ve missed you!” Gina says earnestly, resting her small chin against Melissa’s thigh.

“Where’ve you been?” Taylor demands, her lower lip extended in an adorable pout.

It’s an innocuous question that merits an unfortunate response. Melissa has been out for the last two days, sick. When she had called on Monday morning to tell her, Barbara had immediately startled with concern—(for Melissa rarely, if ever, takes a day off)—asking if she needed to come over later that afternoon with soup, medicine, or Gatorade to replenish her electrolytes, but the younger woman had adamantly waved her off, had said that it was probably just a bug. 

No need for her to get any closer than she had to.

And so, Barbara now peers at her friend closely, less-than-pleased to observe that she is still rather pale. There are stark lines beneath her verdant eyes and a pinched quality to her usually rosy cheeks. But more than that, now that she’s examining her with the intent to dissect, she notes the way that Melissa is holding herself. Despite the apparent warmth in her voice, despite the ease with which she is holding Barbara’s daughters, her entire physiognomy is strained, every limb rigid with a clear and visible tension.

Something is horribly wrong. 

“Oh, uh, I was just feelin’ a little under the weather,” she shrugs in habitual understatement, “but I’m better now. No need to worry.”

Barbara ignores this apathetic dismissal, deeply worried.

“Sweethearts,” she addresses her children firmly, “why don’t you start cleaning up your table? It’s almost time for you to head to your classrooms anyway.”

She phrases it as a question, but both of her daughters are well-aware that it’s an order. 

“Yes, ma’aam,” Taylor sighs dramatically, elongating her vowels, and her eldest is the first to detach herself from Melissa and slump back towards the crayon-covered table.

“Can we come and get candy after school, Aunt Mel?” Gina asks, still holding on.

“‘Course, kid,” Melissa chortles, tapping the first grader on the noggin with a bent index finger. “I got a whole jar of Laffy Taffy with your name on it.”

Gina grins sweetly at this, displaying the gap between her two front teeth, before extricating herself as well and skipping happily after her sister, their feud about colors thankfully forgotten (or, at least, temporarily put on hold). Barbara takes the opportunity that she had so perfectly arranged and jerks her head towards the door, signaling that’s where she and Melissa should go. 

And so they do. 

She gently pulls her classroom door closed behind them, crossing her fingers that her girls can hold it together long enough for a five minute conversation in the hall.

“You look like death warmed over, Melissa Schemmenti,” she mercilessly scolds when she turns to face the other teacher, who is now leaning against the brick wall, or perhaps more accurately still, being supported by it. Now that the girls are out of eyesight and earshot, she’s given up the pretext of a sincere and willing smile.

“Pssh,” Melissa snorts lifelessly, briefly glancing away. “You’re not gonna mince words with me this morning, huh?”

“Nope,” she returns, something of a steely smile hardening her mouth. “And I never will. We don’t do that as you very well know.”

Her friend glumly bites the side of her lip.

Yes, she very well knows.

For the most part, the two of them don’t bullshit each other as Melissa herself would bluntly put it, and that’s something that Barbara has wholly loved about their nearly seven-year friendship, the stunning lack of barriers between them, the raw intimacy of their communion. Whatever intangible fabric makes up the particulars of Melissa Schemmenti, then Barbara Howard must surely be cut from the same cosmic cloth.

They may have different clothing styles and grammatical understandings and opinions on when it’s ever appropriate to deploy a curse word, sure, but the hundreds, if not thousands, of differences between them are immaterial when their souls are so perfectly aligned, rotating around the same unchanging axis.

Barbara sometimes supposes that she must have never had a true friend before she met Melissa.

Because in all her nearly forty years, she’s never had a friend who has quite made her feel like this.

(Like her entire body could burst open and sing.)

“Yeah, okay,” Melissa sighs, rubbing one of her vivid brows tiredly. “You nailed me there, Barb.”

“And you would undoubtedly do the same for me if the shoe was on the other foot,” she affirms gently, reaching over and placing a steadying hand on the other’s bicep. She doesn’t like the younger woman’s color.

Or more precisely, the utter lack of it.

“Now, do us both a favor and tell me what’s wrong with you, so I can capably tell you how to fix it,” she continues, smiling softly, with the boundless affection she thinks that Melissa deserves.

She almost immediately regrets extending this open invitation, though, unprepared for the devastating return that so quickly follows.

She'd been expecting the flu, not—

“I’m late,” Melissa laughs bitterly, her eyes overbright, almost black in the glare of the fluorescent strips above. “Can you fix that?” 

Two measly words, and Barbara feels them both land in her gut like a knife—already distressed by Melissa’s distress—her nose upturning at the hypothetical of Joseph Lombardo ever becoming a father.

Melissa would make a good mother, so wonderful with children.

Her students.

Her nieces and nephews.

Taylor and Gina. For as long as she had known them, she has always been their kind and playful Aunt Mel.

But Joseph.

He’s a fun man—and maybe beneath all the booze and the stubbornness and the gambling habits, even a good one—but he’s not the kind of person that should be having a child right now, the disaster that he is.

And she thinks that Melissa knows that.

And she thinks that Melissa knows that she knows that.

“How many days?” She works hard to structure her voice into a passable degree of composure.

“Five, and I’m never late, Barb. Ever,” the second-grade teacher replies, visibly swallowing.

“But you don’t know for sure—you haven’t taken a test. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Melissa says shortly, but there’s a silent plea in her eyes, a desperation that Barbara readily interprets.

For the first time in her life, she needs someone to tell her what to do.

And she trusts Barbara to be that person.

The weight of this is not lost on her, the profundity of it.

“Okay,” Barbara murmurs, arranging her mouth into her best teacher smile, the very same one that she uses when she’s soothing a child who has fallen and scraped their knee. “Well, we’ll take care of that today, so you’ll know for sure. And then we'll go from there. How does that sound?”

We.

She uses the pronoun rather liberally, as though it’s them in this together, not Melissa and Joseph. As though they are the item and the interested parties.

The partners.

Melissa doesn’t seem to notice this verbal indulgence, though, her expression having acquired a terrifying distance to it as she wordlessly nods. 

Barbara squeezes her arm in a futile attempt to re-anchor her.

—

At lunch time, they silently get into Barbara’s sedan. She drives slowly, clenching the wheel so tightly that it’s a wonder that her fingers don’t leave impressions in the sun-beaten leather, while Melissa leans back in the passenger seat, her sunglasses eclipsing the haunted darks of her eyes. They’ll go to the CVS on the corner first to pick up a pregnancy test. They arranged it earlier in the hallway that Barbara would loan her a twenty in cash, and Melissa would buy their lunch with her card as a thank you.

“He’d see it on the next bank statement,” the second grade teacher had only offered in explanation for why it had to shake out like this. He, of course, could only refer to Joseph.

“And he can’t flippin’ know, Barb, okay? Not yet. Even if… uh… it’s um… you know…”

But Melissa had trailed off rather than complete the thought, her cheeks finally regaining a little pinkness in splotchy embarrassment, and Barbara had chosen not to press her at the moment, had opted to be kind. The bell was about to ring, and it was not the time to force the younger woman to be candid about a subject that had always clearly been complicated for her—something that Barbara had been implicitly aware of from the time she was pregnant with Gina, and Melissa had spent a vast majority of those nine months staring sadly at her growing belly out of the corner of her eye when she thought that Barbara wasn’t looking.

They don’t really talk about Melissa’s fraught relationship with motherhood in the same way that they don’t talk about how much Barbara hates Melissa’s idiotic slob of a husband or about the way that they both shiver when they accidentally brush shoulders at their shared round table. For all of their mutual pride about their total honesty with one another, neither of them are particularly keen on ever truly being vulnerable.

(Which is to say, maybe they’re not always honest.)

(Not in the few ways that actually matter, at least.)

But now, in the seclusion of the car, in this five minute liminal space between Abbott and the red-bricked, worn-down CVS Pharmacy, Barbara ignores the seething anxiety in her stomach and decides to wade through the viscous awkwardness between them. She coughs slightly to clear the thickness in her throat.

“Would you like to talk about it, sweetheart?” She asks tentatively, wishing that she’d thought to knob her radio on first. At least with a little background noise, the silence wouldn’t be so oppressive.

“Not really,” Melissa replies bluntly—which is only par for the course—but then, she just as quickly adds, “Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t even know how I feel about it ‘cept that I’m terrified outta my mind, and I got no one to blame but myself. I forgot to take the pill just one day last month.”

As Barbara gets caught by the singular red light between the school and the store, she glances over at her friend and tries very hard not to look indignant and haughty and like she despises Joseph Lombardo for all that he stands for.

“It takes two to horizontally tango without insurance,” she reminds her as neutrally as she can manage. “A one day lapse is not being irresponsible, Melissa. It’s being human.”

A perpetual insistence on having sex without condoms, however, is utter selfishness.

It might even be depravity.

“But I might have to pay for it anyway, Barb,” comes a dull reply. The younger woman refuses to turn her way, looking out of the window. “For being human—whatever the hell that that means—but Joe’ll be so fuckin’ happy. He’ll be the first to forget that I’m miserable…”

It’s another loaded sentence, and Barbara hums indignantly—and perhaps a little indelicately—incapable of pulling her eyes away from the train wreck sitting next to her until the driver behind her honks because the light has turned green.

She reluctantly returns her attention to the road again and eases on.

But endlessly stubborn, she doesn’t let the freighted moment go.

“You have very strong feelings about not wanting to be pregnant,” she states the obvious first because she might as well. In the near decade that they’ve been friends, they have never broached this subject so closely before, so it’s all new territory—uncharted and untrespassed, and therefore, uniquely terrifying. 

Barbara has never felt in more danger of alienating her best friend by accidentally saying something insensitive. After all, both of her pregnancies were very much wanted and meticulously planned, as were her own mother’s. Her husband is a good and precious man, a devoted parent to their beautiful girls. So was her father when he was still alive. She has no intimate paradigm for any other way of being.

But she suspects that Melissa does.

She suspects that her best friend sometimes looks at the particulars of her admittedly idyllic life and feels a sharp pang of longing, and that hurts Barbara a little inside.

She doesn’t have comparable experience to ever relate. 

“I have strong feelings about not wanting to be my poor ma,” she snorts tartly, shifting heavily in her seat. “Poppin’ out redheaded kids left, right, ‘n center and raising ‘em all by myself because their dad’s a—well, Joe’s not a deadbeat, you know, but he’s just not as good with children as he thinks is. Won’t even change our nephew’s diaper when he comes to visit.”

And now that Melissa has started talking, she keeps talking; it’s clear that she’s bottled up these feelings inside for years upon innumerable years. But now the stopper has finally been unsealed, and these are the ramblings of a drained unplugged. 

“And that same lump of a husband wants a big household ‘cuz he was raised in one too,” she says, pointedly gesticulating with her hands, “but because he’s such a lump, he doesn’t realize how that all works.”

Melissa looks at Barbara for the first time since their conversation began, and the intensity of this gaze, the profound sorrow in it, grips her where she sits, even though she can’t entirely return the gesture, and maybe that’s precisely the point. The other woman is only staring at her when she can’t stare back. 

“My mom's body wore out so damn quickly, Barb,” she continues hoarsely. “It was up to me and Kristin Marie half-of-the-time t’make sure the little ones were clothed and fed because she was so tired all the time—either that or pregnant again.”

It’s a horrific image that Melissa has conjured, a body swelling with child after child after child, an entire household becoming populated by this unending labor, and Barbara knows—just from the small tidbits that Melissa has thrown out here and there—that the Schemmentis didn’t have a lot when she was growing up. They were constantly trading favors and IOUs with their guys who knew a guy to get furniture, clothes, and whatever else that they needed, which more than contextualizes Melissa’s present-day resourcefulness. She grew up with the understanding that this is what it takes to survive: always being the smartest one on the street, intimate with its brutal economy and a ruthless player within it.

Hearing the whole story laid out so plainly is harrowing, though; it makes Barbara vaguely sick to watch all the puzzle pieces firmly click into place.

“Melissa,” she exhales as they pull into the CVS. She neatly slides into a parking space at the front, cuts off her engine, and turns her entire body to face the other woman, to be as physically present for her as the geometry of their realities will currently allow. She wishes that there was not a console between them because she’d surely lean over then; she would envelop her in a maternal embrace as an apology to the inner child in Melissa Schemmenti who had been forced to grow up way too fast.

“I’m so sorry.” She contents herself with placing a hand on her friend’s forearm. “I’m sorry that I didn’t know.”

That you've been shouldering this burden all by yourself, that you've been so hurt.

I can't stand it when you're hurt.

For some reason I cannot rationally fathom nor explain, it absolutely ruins me.

“Nah, don’t be,” Melissa frowns, looking down at the hand covering her wrist, her fiery hair spiraling over her shoulder and forming a curtain that shields half of her face. “I don’t think I could have talked about it before today anyway.”

And she unclicks her seatbelt, bending over to grab her purse from the floorboard and making a meal out of doing so. Barbara reluctantly withdraws her hand, knowing that this is her clear signal to disengage. The second grade teacher is close to breaking, and she doesn’t want to do so in front of a live studio audience. She’s never wanted to invite pity through her tears.

It’s something else that they so perfectly share in common.

“Do you have the twenty?” Barbara asks, feeling helpless. She re-grips her steering wheel with stiffened fingers. 

“Yeah, thanks again, Barb.”

“And are you positive that you don’t want me to come in with you?” This is something else they established in the hallway mere hours ago; it feels like days now. Melissa is going to do the test in the CVS bathroom—too impatient to wait until they get to the restaurant—and she wants to do it alone.

(She always insists on doing the tough stuff alone.)

“No need,” she adamantly shakes her head and opens the door, swinging her legs out into the pleasantly cool air. Her combat boots slam against the pavement with a crunch. “I’ll be in and out before ya know it.”

Barbara is a little reckless then, inexplicably desperate even, as she lobs the next words at Melissa’s backside.

“You know I’m always here for you, right?” She asks, watching as her friend’s spine stiffens, her perpetually slumped shoulders squaring as though they’ve just received a knife between them instead of a tender acknowledgement of care. “I love you dearly, Melissa Schemmenti."

Melissa bows her head at this, white-knuckling her purse.

“I know. I love you too.”

A long beat then.

They love each other. It’s as simple and as utterly complicated as that. The acknowledgement of this crucial fact stretches profoundly between them for what feels like an eternity before Melissa finally sniffs once in a singular concession to the turmoil that must surely be broiling inside of her: the pain, the confusion, the complete and utter horror.

“I’m so scared, Barb. I’d make a shit mother,” she whispers, and it’s an entirely different line of thought from all the ones that she had so clearly laid out earlier. And there’s something in her strangled voice that makes Barbara instinctively understand that this is the main reason.

This is the fear that consumptively haunts and torments her usually unshakeable friend.

She doesn't trust herself.

She loathes herself even.

“And he’d be a shit father, and we could really fuck a kid up. I don’t think I could live with myself if I did that to another human being,” she rasps, every syllable tortured and broken. She pulls an agonized hand through her hair. “I wouldn’t. I can’t.”

Barbara calcifies where she sits, altogether freezes, listening to this, not quite digesting it. She’d nearly stopped breathing at even the barest hypothetical of Melissa being unable to live with herself. What in God’s name does that even mean?

“Melissa—“ She starts, her own voice powerfully constricted, but her friend viciously cuts across her, apparently not done.

“There’s a place on Comly, I think.” The words come out in a painful and congealed rush. “I’d need someone to drive me home. Joe won’t do it—not if it’s that.”

Barbara blinks once and then twice, immediately understanding what is not quite being asked of her but hinted at in a roundabout way. Hoped for. Keenly wanted. The euphemism isn’t exactly ambiguous. But then again, Melissa has never been the most subtle person in the world.

She’s always liked that about her.

Loved that even.

She deals enough in negotiating subtleties within herself as it is to be able to appreciate the art in others.

And so here they are, two women in a light-filled sedan, having just affirmed their love to each other. And here, just as plainly, is the opportunity for Barbara to prove that she absolutely means what she says, that her love is not another masterful calculation that she makes, but rather, it is a verb that she commits again and again and again.

“It’s okay t’say no,” Melissa goes on hurriedly, every word tripping over itself in a haste to be articulated. “I get it. I could just strong-arm Kristin Marie into doing it. Hell, I don’t know if I’ll even need—“

But it’s Barbara’s turn to interrupt now.

She may blink, but in the end, she doesn’t hesitate. In this pivotal moment, she frankly does not care what her sisters in Christ would probably say if they knew.

God’s love is more abundant than their judgment. 

And their judgment means absolutely nothing when she loves Melissa Schemmenti the way that she does.

(If she’s being completely honest with herself, they’d probably judge her for that too.)

“You never have to ask me to drive you anywhere,” she says firmly, stopping the deluge before it can begin, and she watches, with exquisite tenderness, as Melissa’s entire body unfurls in silent and visceral relief at this simple answer: her shoulders relax, she exhales all over, she shudders.

For this is apparently all that she needs.

An affirmation that she is unconditionally loved.

She nods once, still not looking at Barbara, and finally straightens up from the car and into the sun-slathered day, but when she goes to close the door, she turns and reveals her red smile through the window glass.

It is both a radiant gesture and a sad one.

The most meaningful exchanges between them often are.

[loquaciousquark]

4-Sided Dive Highlights - Critical Role C3 up to E58 (May. 17, 2023)

Rolling right into the next one, tonight’s guests are Aabria, Christian, Sam, and Travis. We open with Christian wearing sunglasses inside due to one eye being very light sensitive. Travis wins host and hulas his way into a monologue about an increasingly frantic recap of the recent plot, capping off with a ventriloquism segment and a French puppet wolf. It's...not...good, haha.

What the Fuck is Up with That? Sam reveals he verbally bleeps curse words when his kids watch the show, ha. Sam absolutely loves having the guests and mixing up the company. Sam to Aabria: "How do I know you?" Aabria: "What?" It turns out he means how did they meet? Aabria did a D20 game with Matt and Marisha (Pirates of Leviathan). Christian slid into Sam's DMs on Instagram, ahahahaha, and asked him for coffee with Marisha. Incredible! He just felt that Christian had a good heart! Sam, what in the world!

Aww, Christian is still such a fan of the show! (The way he's talking right now is very much like Jeremy Dooley from AH right after he first got hired.) He & Aabria got together for a Session Zero at Matt's place and feel like brother/sister now. They built the characters together. FRIDA came first & Aabria wanted to explore some holes in the world and was able to match elements around FRIDA's build. Plus they didn't know which members of the regular cast they'd be with. As Aabria developed the character Matt instantly decided she'd be paired with Travis. Christian knew FRIDA's color palette before anything else, ha! He knew he wanted to build a complementary character for Sam because he's grateful to the opportunities Sam had given him.

FRIDA has the level of rogue because they'd wandered around for a while on their own, and the cleric levels from Deanna's influence.

Aabria was determined to be a nice generous cleric to counteract any expectations of hard-ass-ness from Laerryn, ha! She picked the Dawnfather because he's one of the most hardline Prime Deities; she's a full cleric with off vibes. She wanted a contrast to FCG, who's in the position of a supplicant; she wanted someone more under the thumb of a deity in order to bring more facets of those relationships. Travis: "A perpetual IOU."

Deanna was one of the names from Chetney's vision; she was fully a Matt invention. Aabria loved the idea of being a past relationship and sent notes to Matt; then the day before they started filming Travis sent more notes to Matt saying she was a fling. "Damn it, I got downgraded to a fling before I even walked in!" Travis had to firm out Chet's backstory as they got to Uthodurn.

Sam really wanted to see Travis kill Santa, but Matt made Oltgar too regretful. Travis loves taking the dark routes in video games when available, but "with Mercer there's so much heart. I feel bad."

They had probably more god advancement in the last seven episodes than the entire campaign. I'm realizing this is about where I am in my show watch, which is why it all feels so current to me! Everyone loved the Changebringer stuff, except Travis could do without the Ring girl hair.

Ludinus was behind it from the start?! What the hell does the leather armor do? He caused the corruption of the Savalirwood 500 years ago, which means he's been planning this for a long time. He tried to kill them with Molaesmyr and corrupted the land, founded the Cerberus Assembly; he's constantly reaching back for the glory of the Age of Arcanum. Everyone hated the freaky animals.

The Rexxentrum Toy Authority was a beautiful moment! Sam: "Why would you come up with a three-letter moniker that was actually standing for something else??"

Sam is very grateful for this arc because it gave a lot of meat to his character. He feels that he's been asking so many questions: who am I, what are dreams, am I alive, who are the gods, I want answers. Now he has a connection with his god, a connection with FRIDA--it doesn't really matter what his original design to kill was for because he has such a bright path forward.

Deanna was built to complement many characters, and Aabria leaned into certain facets for this party over others. "The dying and come back was very built in for Laudna and Ashton and Orym especially" because she spent a lot of her life constantly bringing her husband back from 0 hp. She liked playing with the weird, unresolved feelings of knowing that the dead person isn't gone, just static and waiting. The husband is still alive but is super old???? Ha! "Dustyl" is his name.

Everyone's enjoyed exploring the haunted areas of Exandria. Travis describes several locations on the maps in detail from memory and everyone ribs him a little; it's really cute! Everything was a little wrong in the Savalirwood.

Sam thinks Fearne should have the staff. Fearne having teleportation would be incredible. FCG's coin has a once-a-day power that can cause distractions, ask the Changebringer a question, or get a luck point (which everyone's sure he'll use right away).

The last two interactions with the gods were fascinating because they weren't requests for help, they were demands. Deanna thought she'd died for a second at the end.

Aabria went pure life cleric specifically because she wanted to lean into the drama of resurrection magic being off the table. "Someone's dead? Oh, I'm great at this! Oh...wait..."

Jerry stole the show. Everyone agrees the goats are giant food.

Travis is sad they didn't fight the pterodactyl thing. FRIDA is intentionally built like a tank & has had Death Ward most of the time, so they intentionally drew aggro.

Travis intentionally pulled Chet away from the group when the moon started changing him specifically to avoid endangering the guests, and then Christian went after him! I have spelled "intentionally" wrong as "intentially" every single time. Christian knew it wasn't a "smart" play but thought it would be fun to interact with Chet, and that'll trump optimization every time for him.

The Tower of Inquiry! Favorite encounter so far? Travis: the Ludinus showdown. Sam: Laudna going down and not knowing how to Revivify. (Aabria asked if she could play Otohan and Matt was like, what? No!) Christian: the heist race where Ashton got the bust! Aabria: the same fight as Sam.

How does it feel being part of a larger group? Sam: FCG's entire first group died, so this new group is a lot of pressure. FCG's been one event away from berserkness multiple times. Every time they long rest, Sam can roll a d4 to reduce stress points, but he's self-imposed a rule that he doesn't do so on non-active days.

Sam literally leans over to Travis about his old age rules. Travis has to roll a 100 on the dice (three 0s) in order for Chet to drop dead. He's not concerned at all that it'll happen; Sam is hilariously concerned.

The Deep Dive, sooner than usual! Sam absolutely loved the interaction with the bull. He's delighted "the power of friendship" mattered.

Travis has been sitting on the RTC reveal for a while. He sat down a while back and really mapped out a lot of Chet's backstory and where he traveled, and again pulls out tons of map details like the Wuyun Gorge. The one place he hasn't been yet is Issylra.

FRIDA is a little nervous about turning into a werewolf; being around the group made them more comfortable, but the reveal of killing all those people is concerning. FRIDA also felt they were able to see Chet inside the beast during that fight & loves the idea of being unadulterated & free. Christian texted Matt & asked what it all meant that night, and just got in return, "ahahahahahahahaha". Ha!

Aabria is fascinated that developing these relationships with Bell's Hells has changed the previously friendly ease Deanna had with FRIDA. It's not quite a strain, but it is a reevaluation which is not settled; it's painful. FRIDAY had a strong opinion on the absence of pain and the absence of sadness; he hadn't appreciated how important current relationships were before FCG. Sam: "We have so much in common. We're both metal. We're both murderers."

Sam butchers the FRIDA acronym, which Aabria of course nails. Far-Ranging Integrated Defense Aeormaton. FCG is scared about the Changebringer's lack of clarity, and fears for the future. Travis suggests that if FRIDA dies, FCG should incorporate their body parts. Christian: I'd give you FRIDA's legs.

Everyone laughs at the size differences/similarities in their partners. Dani's (female) SO and she share clothes. Sam shrinks things in the dryer and gives them to Quyen. Alissa is taller than Christian so she can't wear his clothes; same for Aabria and her husband. Travis rolling over in bed is a literal health hazard for Laura, ha!

It took Travis forever to realize Deanna was his Deanna; Aabria even pointed to her name & he didn't get it. When it did click, the panic was real; he had acid reflux and realized she knew the backstory and he didn't! He didn't know if he should be angry or happy or neutral to see her; he had to wait until he had more context clues.

The romance for FCG and FRIDA was organic in nature. Originally they'd thought Deanna & FRIDA might have something, but it didn't pan out. Sam did text Christian to make sure they could lean in after.

Aabria loved getting to play with a character she helped develop in ExU (Fearne).

Tower of Inquiry, Redux: character's favorite board games? Chet: Chutes & Ladders. Deanna: Pandemic. FRIDA: Risk. FCG: Operation.

Post-Break Shenanigans: Super Smash Brothers! Sam: Dark Samus. Travis: Wolf. Aabria: Kirby. Christian: ROB.

Travis thought Oltgar was going to be more of a shit, but he's 100% okay tracking Drixlich instead.

Deanna is concerned after the conversation with the Dawnfather because while it's on brand, she fears losing her powers/life. She'd rather pay it forward first.

Sam wins round one! Huh! Round two: Sam: random (Falco), Travis: Ganondorf, Aabria: Ganondorf, Christian: ROB again.

FCG is weirdly comforted to have direction from the Changebringer; Sam likes her vibe. He was little freaked out by how demanding she was at the end but looks forward to exploring that relationship.

Christian wonders if FRIDA belonged to Ludinus. All he gave Matt was the dream of the child's legs. Time runs out on the second round and Christian takes it by percentage!

Round three: everyone picks random. Sam: Diddy Kong, Travis: Terry, Aabria: Kirby, Christian: Bayonetta.

How does Chet feel about the gods? It's only a matter of time before Chetney takes the gods' place.

FRIDA was very freaked out by fighting Aeormatons, but Chet's gift especially helped a lot.

Deanna feels that while the gods aren't a nascent part of the world, if it weren't them, it'd be someone else. Sam found it hard to play a religious character because his instinct is to be subversive.

Sam asked Matt if FCG had his initials carved on him somewhere after FRIDA revealed theirs. Matt said, "you don't know," then let Sam throw out a handful of suggestions for what the acronym stood for. He didn't know which until the moment, though. The entire conversation was inspired by Christian's play; "Christian did a cool thing and I wanted to steal it."

Christian's best friend Jack was helping him with acronyms; Christian had come up with "FRIDA" and Jack defined it in about thirty seconds, haha. Backronyms!

Travis loved the first Catha transformation. Now he has to decide who to transform into a werewolf. Everyone loves "Bells Heals" as a minigroup name, and "LoveLetters" and "Body Count" for the FRIDA/FCG ship.

Aabria found the two relationships with Deanna/Laerryn very different; with Sam she planned it out, and with Travis she knew she was surprising him. She is fully embracing the "we've already banged" dynamic for all her characters now.

The post-credits scene is a cutout of Sam spinning into the abyss.

That's that! One more 4SD is out right now (came out yesterday), but I'm going to catch up on the show first!

[blithesometrait]

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WE GOT A NEW ONE BOYS

I'm gonna rate this one 2/10. I like the words, but once again it's not coherent, and not even a fun story! In fact it's literally just used for words for test articles if you Google it. Be more creative!

[sins-of-the-sea]

As Ruixiong argues with Phoebus and Giovanni at the docks by La Demonia Roja…

By this point, Rashid has given two glasses of arak–no more, no less. “Will that do, lad?”

Guy hiccups. “It’ll do for now. I would like more eventually.”

“Don’t become like me, Guy. Or Lady Lyna.”

“I’m not going to add a third alcoholic problem to this Crew, don’t worry.”

“.........Don’t drink yourself to death on purpose, Guy. 

“I ought to let you know that as much as I intended for you and Ruixiong to be so drunk you couldn’t aid me during the Valentine holiday, the intention was just that: to get you drunk. Death by alcoholic poisoning was not at all my intention. I had no idea that amount of arak could kill you.

“You especially had a nasty death. Don’t put that scene in my head again. Please.”

Guy grumbles as he downs his second glass of arak. “Immortal.”

“It does not matter! My lad! You may be the only one in the Crew to take full advantage of our inability to stay dead, but death is still a highly horrible experience for the lot of us! I am not talking about waking up as a corpse or the possibility of enduring pain until it’s over.

“It’s a reminder of finality. A finality that we are denied as long as we are in service of the Devil. And therefore unable to reunite with those whom we lost years ago.”

“........”

“You dearly miss your mother, sister, and beloved. I dearly miss my wife, and son. As much as, unlike them, we cannot stay dead… the experience of death—or just witnessing it–reminds us-.... reminds me of how we are denied a spiritual reunion with those we so very cherish and treasure. But above all else… It also reminds us… and me… of how fast that love can be taken away. Especially if the last words spoken to them were unhappy.

“You have no idea how much you turning into salt scared us, Guy Duchamp. The very thought of one of our own losing their mortality to harsh words would have been a sorrow too great to bear for the rest of our eternal lives. Especially one so dearly beloved.”

“Did… I scare you all that badly when I ran away?”

“Terribly, my boy. Ruixiong couldn’t stop crying. Giovanni couldn’t prepare anything and not break down when there was an empty chair at the table. Abena kept rocking back and forth while holding Arcelia’s doll close to her chest–because you were Arcelia’s favorite uncle. Even Josep was deeply affected, pacing around the top deck in deep worry over you and watching out the horizon hoping… and praying you’d return.”

“And Phoebus? W-What did Phoebus do when I ran away?”

Rashid hesitates to answer. He is unsure of how to answer this. It’s not like Phoebus was proud of what he did or happy that he said words so harsh it prompted Guy to run away. But he wasn’t sure of how to tell Guy that Phoebus didn’t just suffer, but he even lashed out at the rest of the Crew. That would just upset Guy more. But then again…

“Phoebus was the first to search for you.”

“...He was??”

“Hopped on Mercure like a horse and dashed off like mad. It took him a while to have the courage to see you again after wallowing in guilt for what he said.”

“He… took initiative?”

“Got up his butt on his accord. No one held his hand or yelled at him to do so. All his own.”

That’s all Guy ever wanted. All he sold his soul for: for Phoebus to be okay. “He took initiative! Phoebus did something on his own! Without having to be pushed!”

“I wouldn’t say he wasn’t pushed. He was. For his love for you and your safety.

“Not to mention the many gifts that are awaiting for you. Ruixiong has them all. Throughout the holiday, assorted friends have come by to drop off Christmas gifts and many were specifically tailored to your likes. One was even a perpetual motion machine and a dragon tooth sword. Good for your fencing!”

There is quiet sobbing behind the door.

“See, Guy? You are loved. You are remembered. You are not always seen as something to be ashamed of. You’re one of us. One of Seven. We cannot be complete without you. We want to be there for you for every time your heart aches. We want to help you lift your burdens. We do not want to be cut off like we had to be with our friends and families of the past.

“We are a family, my boy. All Seven of us. Let us be there for you. As you have for us.”

“We will not abandon each other. We will not abandon you. So please... don’t abandon us.”

[eviesessays]

35. What are your favorite memories of each of your children growing up?

Whenever I think of the funny and memorable things my children did growing up, I always end up wishing I had enjoyed them more and worried less about feeding, clothing and educating them.  They were cute, funny, intelligent lovable children who did heart warming things.

For eleven years we lived on Lansing Drive.   It was a neighborhood of young families with children in every home.  One day I was at my easel painting when the doorbell rang and two older ladies said they were there for the concert.  They showed me their tickets drawn perfectly in Heather’s seven year old script.  Indeed there was a concert in my backyard.  Heather had gathered all the outgrown costumes from past recitals and taught the younger children dances.  Our patio was their stage and everyone generously applauded all the efforts. 

Jaylyn was my pensive one.  She seldom spoke up since Heather always spoke for both of them when necessary or not.  She once was invited to join Heather and their daughter, Joanne on an early Spring ride to the beach.  I told Jaylyn she could go but she had to talk to everyone.  On return she reported talking the entire conversation.  Joanne’s Mom asked if anyone wanted gum and Jaylyn reported saying, “I do.  I do”.Jaylyn once asked me if the back of our head was our three head since the front was our forehead.  She wondered if there were little hands in the dishwasher that washed our dishes when we closed the door.  

Heather was a girl scout and went off to Camp May Flather in Virginia, one summer.  She dutifully got all her things together by herself.  She very conscientiously checked her list and had everything.  I was so proud of her.  She recently told me she had kept all the letters I wrote to her and has scanned them into perpetuity.  Jaylyn was not interested in scouting.  She had no interest in sleeping on the ground with bugs running freely everywhere.  She wanted to take guitar lessons.  I signed her up with a teacher recommended by my neighbor.  She quickly lost interest saying he played with is head nodding sideways and his mouth open.  Definitely not a good match. In later years Jaylyn took up the dulcimer.  

About this time Robin was in second grade and came home one day bursting with the great news that her teacher’s cat had kittens and she could have one free if her Mom allowed this.  My response was an emphatic, “NO”.  I explained to Robin that she would lose interest in her kitten and fifteen years hence she would be off at college and I would still be living with that cat.  Her teacher then allowed the children to come and see the kittens and I agreed we could all go and look at the kittens.  Three weeks later we brought Ida Grey Pussy Cat Joss home and 18 years later I was still living with her.  At this same time Heather’s friend down the street had a miniature Schnauzer who had puppies and they would certainly take much better care and interest in a dog.  We named her OttenBritt and called her Britt.  It seemed a perfect name.   My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Anna OttenBritt.  She was born in Germany.  It was a great name for our new family member.  Peter was a senior in college in  May of 1985 when I had to have Britt euthanized.  She was a great pet.  her stub of a tail wagged at the mere prospect of play time.  All the children loved Britt.  Once when Jaylyn was in high school, she brought home an exchange student for dinner.  His name was Yugi and he was from Japan.  Britt was lying on her cushion under the desk in the kitchen and Yugi asked, “Is your pet a cat or a dog”?  She was just a cute little bundle of brindle grey fur but everyone loved Britt.  

Robin made every effort to keep up to her older sisters.  She played school with them.  She wanted to learn all they learned.  One day as her Dad was having breakfast she asked if he would like his paper to read and he agreed that would be nice.  She then asked if he would like today’s or tomorrow’s ?  Well, given a choice, he would take tomorrow’s.  Robin was at the coffee table shuffling papers and then tearfully said, “I can’t know what is tomorrow’s.  I’m too little to read”. Robin was not often stumped.

I clearly remember Heather’s first day of school.  She went off full of confidence that she could handle this.  She seemed so little to be sent out into the world.  When I waited for her after school she assured me she knew all the right answers.  The questions were, “What is your name? and Where do you live?’  My wee scholar knew all the right answers.  I was very proud of her.

Peter was about four when he was invited to our neighbor’s birthday party.  He had a fever the night before but seemed fine at party time.  In his best clothes he went off, gift in hand to Robbie’s party.  He was brought home about an hour later feverish and vomiting.  Peter was convinced the potato chips were bad and for many years did not eat a potato chip.  When Peter was in kindergarten he told me his teacher was very beautiful.  She in fact, was quite plump, had red hair and freckles.  She was a marvelous, kind and gentle teacher and I was proud Peter saw her beauty.

Only Robin escaped broken bones and Heather didn’t break her leg til she fell on the ice at the University of Maryland. When we lived on Lansing Jaylyn fell off her bike one day and came home complaining about her arm hurting.  Like a good mother and nurse I applied ice.  The next day there was no relief and Dr Shaver confirmed the arm was broken.  We went on our usual week at Rehoboth Beach with Jaylyn’s arm in a cast.  On a summer visit to Sioux Lookout Peter was playing on a self propelled merry go round and fell off.  He had a greenstick fracture  of his right wrist.  He was in Sioux Lookout General Hospital.  The next day under general anaesthetic if was realigned and a cast applied.  Peter was amazed that he went to sleep and he was not even tired.  The doctor I had known since childhood had made things right.

I cannot stop thinking about this story.  I think about the Mother’s Day breakfast in bed with eggs scrambled in peanut butter.  Then there was the time they tasted Miracle Grow tablets  and as I as looking up the poison center telephone number Robin,  was doing arabesque across the kitchen.  She assured me she had licked some and didn’t die.  

They were such great kids. We made trips to Canada to visit my brother Kip and his family of four.  One trip was in my Triumph T3 .  Heather was my copilot and Jaylyn, Robin and Peter sat on that wee ledge in back all the way from Washington, DC to Kingston, Ontario.  Kids do not come any greater than that.

[snugglyporos]

The gripe most people have with DW9 is thr voice acting. A common theme with Dynasty Warriors - that I've found at least, your experience may differ - is the voice acting is like they're acting in a play. It's theatrical and dramatic.

DW9 casts aside Lu Bu's iconic growly voice, and the actors just don't care as much as they did, that with being a drop in quality. Dw7, in my personal opinion, had it best. And that's someone whose heard both dubs.

Theres also the fact that one scene with Liu Bei, learning of the deaths of Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, that was reduced to a JRPG style interaction as opposed to the emotional cutscenes we know. It's one glaring example of just... missing heart, you know?

But yea, if you're playing in Japanese or Chinese the voice acting isn't a big deal. It's just that I've noticed. To be fair I haven't played 9 myself, but I have seen enough to have something. All the same, I'm happy you're enjoying it. (That said I think you'd like Dw7)

// Okay so... Here's my issue: I've been playing the game for years and 'emotional' is not what I would associate with this series. The voice acting has never been good. There are individuals who have good voice actors, Lu Bu for one, but a lot of them end up like Xu Shu's voice actor, or the ear bleeding sounds of the Qiao sisters...

I can put up with bad voice acting. I can. I need it to be passable and understandable. The fact that DW9 even HAS a dub puts it above Samurai Warriors 5, because while the VA is probably better overall, it fades into the background because my brain does not realize speech is happening.

I can also say that Samurai Warriors 5 tries to be 'dramatic' and it ended up farcical. No throwing herself in front of a bullet to save Nobunaga SHOULD be emotionally impactful, but I laughed my ass off because it was SO over the top and it was NOT earned. Meanwhile characters like Hideyoshi are perpetually stuck as 'eager moron' and... Well it's not good.

I have played, and beaten (by which I mean unlocked every character, completed all campaigns, max leveled, and completed ever side mode) in every Dynasty Warriors mainline game since 5.

5 is my favorite of the 'classic' games. 6 is not THAT bad. Seven is a game that I beat, but I can't remember anything about it, but I know I played a lot of it. 8 was fine, but I felt that it was kinda lacking with how anyone can use any weapon.

Here's my view: I think that Dynasty Warriors should veer away from 'dramatic' and embrace the camp to some degree. Remember when it was fun? I mean, I don't think it should be terrible, we don't need Shenmue levels of bad. I think expecting dramatic actors to play the roles is kinda... counterproductive.

Rather than dramatic, I think that they need voice actors who feel like they fit the CHARACTER. That brings some energy or identity to the character. Having so many characters means a lot of them blend together. Having a strong voice actor helps with that, even if they're only doing generic lines most of the time.

[splendidtext24]

Then again, maybe i won't

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[aegor-bamfsteel]

Twelve years before the Doom of Valyria (114 BC), Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer and moved with all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children to Dragonstone, a bleak island citadel beneath a smoking mountain in the narrow sea. —TWOIAF: The Reign of the Dragons: The Conquest

House Targaryen had ruled Dragonstone for more than two hundred years, since Lord Aenar Targaryen first arrived from Valyria with his dragons. Though it had always been their custom to wed brother to sister and cousin to cousin, young blood runs hot, and it was not unknown for men of the house to seek their pleasures amongst the daughters (and even the wives) of their subjects, the smallfolk who lived in the villages below the Dragonmont, tillers of the land and fishers of the sea. Indeed, until the reign of King Jaehaerys, the ancient right to the first night had been invoked mayhaps more oft on Dragonstone than anywhere else in the Seven Kingdoms, though Good Queen Alysanne would surely have been shocked to hear it.

Though the first night was greatly resented elsewhere, as Queen Alysanne had learned in her women's counsels, such feelings were muted upon Dragonstone, where Targaryens were rightly regarded as being closer to gods than the common run of men. Here, brides thus blessed upon their wedding nights were envied, and the children born of such unions were esteemed above all others, for the Lords of Dragonstone oft celebrated the birth of such with lavish gifts of gold and silk and land to the mother. These happy bastards were said to have been "born of dragonseed," and in time became known simply as "seeds." Even after the end of the right of the first night, certain Targaryens continued to dally with the daughters of innkeeps and the wives of fishermen, so seeds and the sons of seeds were plentiful on Dragonstone. —Fire and Blood: The Dance of the Dragons: The Sowing of the Seeds

I’m definitely not going to say the second passage is entirely true (especially not “rightly regarded” the Targs as godlike), and no Dragonstone woman objected to what is in-universe considered rape by their ruling family, whereas other women objected to “”First Night”” (a completely ahistorical so-called tradition the Victorians invented) in the North and Riverlands. I added the first passage in because that’s the only time it’s mentioned the Targaryens had slaves (though it’s never said when they emancipated them), but considering the alleged esteem the Dragonstone smallfolk had for this family, and that the Targaryens only converted to the Faith (that views slavery as an abomination) with Aegon I’s coronation, it’s my opinion that Aenar’s slaves—taken thousands of leagues away from their homelands by a dragon-controlling lord who foretold doom to the Freehold, which then turned out to be right 12 years later—intermarried with the people already living on Dragonstone, passing on Valyrian attitudes toward the dragonlords as a relationship more akin to master-slave than lord-subject as it was elsewhere in Westeros (which was then perpetuated by Targaryen men preying on the smallfolk women). Dragonstone is also noted by Stannis’ era to not be very wealthy (only in obsidian), so these “”gifts”” given during First Night could be the difference between poverty and some amount of generational wealth (which was Jaehaerys I’s excuse for keeping First Night, with Alysanne just protesting that other lords aren’t like Targs). It does make sense for Dragonstone, which lived under the rule of Targs for over a century longer than the rest of Westeros, without the influence of the anti-slavery Faith, with the influence of a slaveholding family and likely a population descended in part from their former slaves, and a largely infertile region short on luxuries Targs could give them, to have developed a culture (though by no means universal) that the Targs were godlike dragon-riders and prophecy-givers who could do whatever they wanted with the smallfolk. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome for the islanders. But that propaganda wouldn’t hold true for the rest of Westeros, especially the further away you get from the Crownlands.

Do you think people in KL/Westeros actually bought into the “Targaryens were closer to Gods than men…” myth like their stans always suggest?

I think that some probably did, yes, because propaganda is an easy sell for a lot of people. And honestly I don't feel like they had much of a choice, in terms of what kind of power they wielded I'm sure it did seem godlike.

[lunapwrites]

The Unforgiven - LTL Outtake

This was originally going to be a whole ass chapter and then I was having difficulty with it and then realized this Ministry scene itself wasn't actually important, no matter whose POV I try to write it in... so I'm cutting it out entirely. BUT not before I gift you all with the raw version of whateverthefuck I was trying to write lol. So here ya go:

-

It was Monday before Lyall heard about the results of the hearing, and only then by overhearing snatches of conversation on his way to his office.

He hadn't wanted to bother Auror Tonks by asking her on her days off, and no one else seemed to think that perhaps a man might want to know his son was still breathing. Occupational hazard, he supposed; most wizards would have pretended Remus had ceased to exist the moment those fangs had torn into his thigh. Easier to pretend their child had been eaten rather than simply othered.

Not that this was something to be proud of, as his son used to remind him: right, ta for doing the bare fucking minimum, Lyall. Always "Lyall," ever since the truth came out, and that's if Remus acknowledged him at all. His son had inherited his temper and Hope's propensity for grudges, and Lyall still didn't know whether to call that a blessing or a curse.

He picked up the photo of his wife, grinning wickedly at him as she made some wisecrack that Lyall couldn’t hear and never would again. Remus had inherited that, too.

“Word is that our son’s started quite a few fires,” he told her quietly, "so I nicked a copy of the Prophet off Donna in the Floo Office -- I know, I know; I wouldn’t need to nick it if I just took it at home. Only I’m hardly ever there these days.”

(Quiet office or quiet house, it didn’t matter.)

He unrolled the newspaper and showed it to her.

“Our boy made the front page, he did.”

The photo they’d used was the closest look Lyall had gotten at his son in fifteen years.

Dark shadows under his eyes; he hadn't slept, and no wonder given what he was facing. His hair was shorter than he used to keep it, but still longer than when he was a boy. Soft, golden-brown curls all shot through with silver, especially around the temples. He made it look dignified, even while he was bellowing up at someone out of frame.

“Last time I saw him properly, he was shouting at me like that,” Lyall mused. “Merlin knows I earned it -- he was never a shouter, our Remus. Not like I was.”

Apparently, Remus had publicly thrown his lot in with Sirius, and while the Ministry was letting the escaped convict have a retrial, they made sure everyone knew that the werewolf had sided with a mass murderer. (Alleged mass murderer, he corrected himself silently.) There was a whole three-page spread, detailing all the little things about Remus' life that Lyall had tried very hard to bury for him. All pulled from his filing cabinet, of course.

If Remus had just kept his head down -- but, no. He would never, not when one of those boys was involved; Remus would have died for any of them. Little Peter, who was always the first to help with the washing up. James with his heart of gold and his foot perpetually stuck in his mouth. Sirius, the boy with an eye to match his name and a wildfire grin that caught everyone around him.

The boy who, according to Remus, was innocent.

“I never understood why he did it. You always said he’d cut off his hand before he raised it against any of them, and you know what?” Lyall brandished the paper at his wife’s photograph. “I reckon you were right.”

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Azul for the character bingo

***Standard disclaimer: These are just my personal opinions of the character(s); regardless of what I may think of them, sharing my thoughts is NOT meant to offend or to shame anyone that thinks differently.***

***CONTENT WARNING: mentions and discussion of bullying!***

This one’s going to be quite weird 😂 For those of you who may not know, Azul used to be my favorite character back when I first started Twisted Wonderland (JP) upon release. Since then, he has fallen from grace and now sits as one of my least favorite characters in the entire cast (which I know is a very controversial take; I’m well aware of Azul’s popularity both in the Japanese audience as well as in the international audience).

A huge part of the reason why I was initially drawn to Azul was because The Little Mermaid was basically the only Disney movie I had a strong connection with of the ones that the Great Seven were modeled after. I religiously watched that movie and its sequels as a kid. I collected sea creature plushies and listened to The Little Mermaid soundtracks to help lull me to sleep. I dreamed of being a mermaid when I grew up despite not being able to swim. The whole under-the-sea aesthetic enchanted me, and since the original movie didn’t characterize the eels too strongly, I of course gravitated to Azul, who is based on The Little Mermaid’s iconic villainess, Ursula. Little me had always preferred Ursula to Ariel anyway. I really adored her unique lavender skin, her seashell jewelry, her overdone makeup, and her fuller body (it was rare for me to see that kind of body type portrayed in media back then so the variety was great). It was also so cool seeing her tentacles move in the water and how they filled up the space on the screen???? Additionally, I found her to be one of the smarter and sassier Disney villains, which I really appreciated. AND THAT WHOLE THING ABOUT URSULA BEING KING TRITON’S BANISHED SISTER??????? Catch kid me slurping up lore and fan theories about that 😳 

ANYWAY, THE POINT IS THAT I SIMPED FOR URSULA WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID SO I WAS LIKE “okay I guess I’ll simp for anime Ursula now that I’m older” since I anticipated a lot of what I loved about Ursula to also be present for Azul. In the beginning, this was mostly true and I was loving every second of it. I absolutely adore it when a character uses their smarts instead of their strength to overtake their enemies and obstacles, and Azul was really serving that up in episode 3 (and later on, episode 4). He wasn’t exactly like Ursula, but the traits that Azul offered that were uniquely his happened to fall in line with what I usually enjoy, so I had no complaints. Azul was calm, cunning, and above all else, a force to be reckoned with, someone who was always way ahead of you and difficult to outsmart.

Then we got his backstory, and he completely lost me.

I’m sure that this shocks many of you, as Azul’s backstory is one that often garners him sympathy and empathy. I’m NOT saying that I’m apathetic to his situation; I actually empathize a lot with what he went through as someone who has been bullied myself and felt resentful toward those perpetuating the bullying... and I can totally understand why he’s trying so hard to invent a new, more confident identity for himself, but that doubt and insecurities still remain from his past trauma. It’s admirable how Azul didn’t let the bullying weigh him down; he instead used his negative emotions to motivate himself to study hard and get in shape. However, in the context of what Azul would later do with his intelligence and magical abilities, it leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

Truthfully, I dislike Azul’s backstory, and Azul by extension, for very VERY personal reasons. The implication is that Azul improved himself in part because he sought revenge against his bullies. He eventually does get what he wants, robbing his bullies of the traits that they were most proud of in exchange for “helping” them, and continues to run that shady business to this very day. So... what? It’s okay to be driven by spite? It’s okay to seek revenge against people who have wronged you? It’s okay to keep swindling others for personal benefit under the guise of altruism just because you were hurt in the past? I’m sorry, but I just cannot agree with any of that.

I realize that I may be viewing Azul’s backstory from a somewhat shallow perspective, but when I first read it, my gut reaction was to be hurt on a very personal level. Again, I’ve been in Azul’s exact situation before. I’ve even felt the same disdain toward my tormentors that Azul did, and I used the thought of revenge to fuel myself to excel academically to “prove them wrong”. That might have made me a good student, but it also made me very bitter and haughty for a period of time. I would later come to realize the error of my ways and worked even harder than I initially had to scrub away that hateful version of me and open myself up to others. To see Azul, someone very similar to me, be rewarded over and over for being truly awful makes me feel as though my own efforts to be a better person were somehow for naught. Like, that’s NOT how things work???? I look at Azul and I see what could have happened to me if I continued being resentful; I would have become someone just as bad, if not worse than, my bullies 😔 I’m NOT saying it was okay for them to have bullied Azul, but kids/teenagers are assholes and don’t realize the full extent of how their comments can hurt others in the long run; what is Azul’s excuse, especially when he is older and fully aware of the consequences of his actions?

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t be so offended by Azul’s backstory if I didn’t find myself relating to him so much... I still like seeing him engage with the other characters (particularly when he’s trying to butter them up), but as it stands, I cannot ever see Azul the same way that I initially did. He reads as someone that kid me would have looked up to as a role model, someone who could “stick it to the haters” and make all of his dreams come true at the same time, but now that I’m older I see just how detrimental that line of thinking can be.

I think that Azul works best when paired with good characters he can bounce off of (namely, contradictory characters or people who can push Azul’s buttons). This includes the twins and Jamil, who provoke Azul in their own ways. He’s forced into a vulnerable position with Jade and Floyd, who are aware of the past that he often tries to bury and could bring it up at any moment. Meanwhile, Azul dials up the charm and confidence to 11 when he’s with Jamil which 1) is fucking hilarious, especially with Jamil shutting Azul down while wearing a deadpan expression and 2) makes me think that he wants genuine companionship with someone he can relate to (even if he probably does intend on also using Jamil as an asset to his business if Jamil transfers to Octavinelle). I really feel like I’d like Azul a lot more if he just made more vested efforts to open up (but I understand that he’s not currently in a secure enough position with his identity and trust in others to actively pursue that).

[reidhalstead]

There's so much perpetual talk. He doesn't want his baby sister (though he hasn't seen her, she'll always be) to be speaking a word to Nisha. They're not pawns in this tortuous game. This doesn't get to be a show that Eleazar gets to put on in the theatre.

So Reid's tone is cutting, teeth gnashing harshly: "Exactly, Nisha. We had an agreement." She's just said it; they aren't to be touched. She's to leave them alone. It doesn't look like they've been left all that much alone here in these walls. But no wrath can be channelled without serving a more dangerous detriment to his family. Nisha's aware that she's tied his hands; it's all part of her elaborate act of snaring him at every possible avenue.

A med kit is tossed his way, til it skids to knock his leg. Bloodied fingers are hastily opening it, thumbing for the rubbing alcohol — the disinfectant to make sure when he makes any further attempt at closing the wounds, he isn't locking in an infection. His mind is frantically going in seven different directions; Nisha to his left, Lis at his rear — Belle's blood coating his skin, driving his desire to surface — noise, so much noise. He's a little scatty because he can hear Nisha's taunting and it's contemptuous. Being spoken to so derisively is usually reserved for him; he can take it. No older brother enjoys a sister facing a barrage of goading.

And then the world cuts out to make room for the collapse of the thin veils holding it all together; they're aligning. How dare you both agree on that.

"Fuck no, Lis." Reid hisses — finally swivelling around to face Annalise. He captures this in a tiny polaroid of his mind; the strong-willed image of his youngest sister all grown. Tall, fearless — barking orders at him. She wears his crown, and the gold, gilded in the robes of what he is supposed to be.

But he never would have suggested something so foul in the wake of adversity. Never. "Look at me, Lis." Like she isn't already, as if she won't see him not as her older dead brother, but as just another Nisha. Another thing to put to ground so the world is a little less screwed. "Don't ask me to do that—"

Of course, his mind sinks to the worst of outcomes. He wants her safe — but the cost is astronomical. Reid turns away from his sister opting for the easy, sick method of whatever vampiric blood magic runs through his veins. You can save her. And better him, than her, he knows. Whether he concedes, he cannot fight Nisha and Lis no matter what he kids himself into thinking; one of them will win and only one of them is allowed to die. Time doesn't stop on account of Reid's indecisiveness — or his morals, or acts of humanity.

The only clarity he does have is that Belle doesn't look good.

And Reid throws whatever is in his hands to the side. It smacks the wall as a hiss of frustration rips from him. Reid would never consider this as an option, neither would the Lis he once knew. She doesn't want my blood, if she could speak, she might — she would curse me and resent me and — Perhaps that is better, than her never being able to do that at all. A hospital, he's got hope she'll make it there — he cradles her, deliberating the act of how fast he can run —

BANG.

Reid lets go of his sister as suddenly as he's gripped her, he's not moved.

"Lis!" It's a monstrous sound of gravel and grit as he calls back, anticipating she might have shot him. There's no burst of agony though, even in his shock. She'd have fared better in this war if she had. The derogatory remark that Eleazar spills from her lips doesn't wound him as it might have done once.

Nisha's faster than he'll ever be. And the clatter of wood says enough that Reid's stuck between saving one sister — and another. "Nisha!" It's an equally as firm, but depraved call of dissent. "Don't — Don't do anything." He's no longer sure which of the women he's speaking to.

But his decision has been made. He can't afford another mistake.

(though, perhaps by giving in, that's a mistake in itself.)

Reid breaks gaze to bury his teeth in the palm of his hand, wincing at his choice. The pain is very minor — a pinprick of blood oozes to the surface as he raises his hand towards Annabelle. Gently, he turns her head to face him; she's so cold, and still in her unconsciousness. Reid offers her — in some clueless act — to let the droplets fall into her mouth. I'm so so sorry Belle. He will never allow this to happen again — he vows it. (Like he once took the Hunter's vow; how tragic that ended) And by the time his wound has healed, he notices the shifting skin on his sister's body to know that maybe that'll be enough.

Nisha will not touch her. He'll do anything to be sure of it.

So when he turns back to tentatively rise and abide by Nisha's request to disarm his own sister. Guilt that he won't look her in the eye settles firm in his chest — he unhooks the second gun from the back of her pants, the knives in her sleeves, crouches down to lift the cuffs of her bottoms so he can make a show of removing the thin blades she has fastened around her ankle. Reid knows where she'll hide them — because he taught her to always be ready; like their parents taught him.

He can't pretend either, because her alternative is Nisha. He knows that this is a mercy evil even if she doesn't understand that. This is better because Reid does not need to see his sister stripped bare if Nisha has her way. And he doesn't touch her ribs, but, he bets she has one in a holster there too. Maybe she'll find an opening to use it, and maybe, it won't matter all that much if she tries.

He hooks the majority of weapons onto himself, just to make a point; it's an anti-cathartic gesture. This hasn't been who he is, in a long time. But he wishes it were. By the end — he's stony-faced, struggling with the iron-tinged air and knowing that his sisters have seen the worse parts of him. He warns Eleazar of his terms of this game: "Nobody dies, Nisha. I did all you asked." He fed his sister his blood, and he'll never forgive himself. He disarmed another sister of most of her defences; making her vulnerable. Nisha cannot ask more of him. "And if it's anyone to die tonight. It'll be you or me. Understood?" a beat, "Now let her go."

The absolute pleasure that Nisha was taking in whatever this little game of hers was made Annalise's blood boil. Smiling, smirking, fucking jazz hands; it was enough to make her want to put the bitch down there and then, not that she needed a reason to terminate a leech. Reid's voice cut through, mirroring what the vampire had said and it just made her stomach turn. If Rose wasn't unconscious in this situation, if she was in fighting shape or just not even there at all, her gun wouldn't have faltered and she would've shot by now. Wouldn't be enough to kill a vampire, she knew that, but all of her bullets were especially infused so that they at least slowed vampires and werewolves. Maybe it would be enough to get a window to shove a stake through Nisha's heart.

She had visions of doing it. Of hearing the bullet leave the gun before even really realising what she'd done; of watching it strike Nisha, and the Halstead siblings getting the fuck out of dodge as fast as they could. It wouldn't work like that though, not when it looked like Nisha was almost expecting it.

"It's not a lot to process at all. You've been stalking me, Rose too probably. You weren't just where we met out of coincidence, you were waiting. Which means you're playing some game with him too and I don't believe for a fucking second that you didn't do this to Belle." Still, she wasn't going to risk her sisters life now. Not unless she was left no choice. The gun slowly lowered to her side, but there was no way in hell she was flicking off the safety. Lis kept it gripped in her hand, eyes on Nisha as he spare hand moved to her bag to pull out a medkit, throwing it at Reid.

She didn't want to give Nisha the fucking satisfaction of having it out here and now with Reid. It was a show she wanted, and she wasn't going to get one. Not from her, anyway. Reid hadn't aged a day, so Lis already had all the answers she needed. He wasn't dead, he'd been turned into a bloodsucker. Stayed away for their own good or his own good she didn't know, but it was obvious it was one of them.

"Give her your blood." Lis spoke, quietly but demanding as blue eyes glared at Reid, finally looking at him properly for the first time. "Look at the fucking state of her Reid, a med kit isn't going to help. A healer wouldn't get here fast enough. It's your blood or she dies, and this bitch isn't donating hers and then getting the satisfaction of being our sisters sire if she dies anyway."

Her impulse control is far too poor.

Lis' arm moves in a blur and a shot rings out as she fires the gun. She wonders if he thinks the gun is aimed at him. Brother dearest, golden child, taken too soon and turned monster. She couldn't do that, not yet, but Nisha... She had no hesitations about shooting Nisha. She reclaimed the stake from her bag and stalked towards the vampiress.