#2 they think bringing her back will lead to the destruction of the continent and blah blah bah

[nobodieshero-main]

things just came together even better i love when this happens

[violetren]

My first theory for volume 9 while the second half of volume 8 is fresh in my mind!

Volume 9 is gonna be the therapy season, but in the most traumatic you'll need different therapy afterwards kind of way. Instead of paying a therapist they're all just be bargaining with the universe like "yo I've had this trauma for a while, and I'm feeling pretty done with it. Here you take it back and uhhh I'll take a new guilt complex. Maybe a fear of falling? IDK, fuck me up bro."

The foreshadow-y Alice in Wonderland-esque fairy tale Oscar told to himself/Oz while in captivity is my guide post here.

Aaaand this is gonna get long so! 10 ideas of shit that's gonna go down next volume beneath the readmore, each one about 1-2 paragraphs each.

In the fairy tale the girl runs away from her problems into a new land, but because she never learned from her problems they just followed after her. Yeah? So first--second? First discounting the volume therapy theme theory.

FIRST BIG THEORY: The girl from the fairy tale was real, and she used the Spear of Creation. And like Weiss and the crew, she was fucking smart about her wording. She offered up materials that'd last even after someone else inevitably used the staff. IDK what materials she woulda used. Maybe there's a story about a missing continent we just haven't heard of yet? Maybe the Brother of Light's pool, since Salem seens to have claimed the Brother of Darkness's one but no sign of BoL's these days. Maybe there is a reason the land beyond Menagerie is so uninhabitable beyond desert + grimm? idk. Point is, it's a thing that happened, and since Ambrosius can't destroy/directly kill she's still in her wonderland. For themes sake I'm gonna call her Alice from here on out.

So Alice made a pocket dimension to flee from her problems from.

SECOND BIG THEORY: Her problems were relic related. She needed to hide em, and hide herself from Salem. Tbh I'm not sure how into this one I am. Maybe she had other shit going and some version of Oz was like "hey you don't want to be here, I have some property that I don't want to be here, lets make this happen!" THE POINT IS, the little pocket realities the relics are in, are aalllllll places in her pocket reality. When the team said "hey Ambrosius just make the middle ground into one of these type places" that's what he did, cause that's how he do. What better way to make sure it works like those places than to be kinda connected to em?

THIRD BIG THEORY: Ambrosius was buds with Alice once upon a time, but knew staying in her pocket world ultimately drove her crazy. He knew his middle ground worked like the pocket dimensions because it touched em or something, so he gave a vague ass warning not to fall, because he knew where they'd fall to.

Back to the fairy tale. It's implied Alice was never able to leave/give up her wonderland because she never learned from her mistakes.

FOURTH BIG THEORY VERSION 1: RWBY + Jaune can't figure their way back to reality until they adress a major personal issue and break out of whatever cycle it's got them in. This one I feel is shaky because they all have such different issues and are in very different places with each of them, trying to do one big arc on em would be too much of a mess. Plus it doesn't account for saving any of the many civilians that may have survived the fall.

FOURTH BIG THEORY VERSION 2: nobody can leave until Alice either leaves, dies, OR is convinced to let them go. As we're following good kind people this means we watch the kids try to give someone else therapy that THEY need. RWBY+J work through their shit through variations & combinations of witnessing mirrors of their struggles in Alice/other wonderland inhabitants, and just having time and space to slow down and breathe whether they want it or not.

FIFTH BIG THEORY: Alice is the "antagonist" of the underworld because she is the obstacle to overcome.

What about Neo you may be asking. Well I want her to let go of the revenge schtick, or at least redirect it back onto Cinder thus calling a truce with Ruby. However it's more than likely she's gonna be on team keep Alice as an obstacle at least as long as it takes to kill Ruby, and so Neo will be the "real" Antagonist™ within wonderland.

SIXTH BIG THEORY: Neo because of her unwavering determination to enact revenge is gonna die this volume. She'll be the comparison against which RWBY+J will be measured. As they grow and get closer to leaving she'll become more wrapped up with whatever strange classic wonderland logic this pocket universe has. Potentially depending on how things go with helping Alice, Neo may just end up trading spots with her, and end up trapped while everyone else goes back. But dead or trapped, I have a sad feeling this could be our last volume with Neo. My only hope of her surviving at this point is that she like Emerald switches sides, and in doing so joins Winter as a Cinder foil. While Neo grows and lets go of revenge and thus survives, Cinder stays dedicated to her own desires for revenge and other self serving instincts ringing her own death toll for either the end of the volume, or maybe somewhere in vol.10.

SEVENTH BIG THEORY: Ruby is gonna be grieving and maybe even getting full on angry about being expected to fix everything just because she's the optimistic one. She shouldn't have to deal with this brand and advanced level of childhood stealing just because she wanted to do what was right and won(lost) a genetic lottery for magic powers type anger. Jaune is going to have SO MUCH GUILT to work through, mostly the survivors kind. The bees will be experiencing couples therapy, they've both been pretty solid about individual growth leading up to this, Underworld will be them learning what it means to them to be partners now that they are so different to who they were. Weiss is different. Weiss is at first gonna feel like she's there just because it was a way to really shove all the other Schnee's into their therapy arcs and gave RBY+J neutral presence to rely on. Weiss is gonna go in the most stable of the bunch. But then, slow boil style, she'll start to realise how fucked up basically her whole life has been, especially upon realising that her "good years" with her new family have been spent getting sucked into being the last line of defense against the apocalypse, but will be too busy helping the others, so at the end of the volume when everyone else is actually doing pretty good and refreshed for the fight against Salem she'll only just be beginning her breakdown.

EIGHTH BIG THEORY: All this therapy shit is gonna be mirrored back on Remnant by the others grieving the percieved loss of the hearts of the team. Both sides of these story are gonna deal with some heavy shit, but the Remnant side is gonna be the depressed side, at least as long as it takes for Oz to tell them maybe the other's aren't dead leading to desperate attempts to get the staff OR the make desperate attempts to get the relics back anyways and inadvertently find out from Ambrosius what is up. But anyways. Winter is gonna be dealing with survivors guilt and the loss of both her little sisters (friends are great but Penny was little sister zoned and it's a hill I am prepared to die on. good sisterly relationships are friendships too). Nora is gonna be doing her self discovery thing. Ren is gonna be building on his end of vol.8 developments. Oscar will continue his grappling with the merge stuff. Qrow and Willow might get forced into AA. Whitely is gonna learn his own definition of being a Schnee instead of what his dad taught him.

NINTH BIG THEORY (OR FOURTH VERSION 3): The other way they get out is QORN obtain and use the staff to bring them home, potentially by trading enemy lives for them.

BONUS CONSPIRACY THEORY: QORN if presented with needing to trade for their loved ones & lost civilians have a lightbulb moment and decide hey why not trap Salem in a pocket universe since that is a thing Ambrosius can make? Like, if this bitch hasn't budged on her not learning to appreaciate life and humanity or whatever (which I'n pretty sure is the other way to break her curse instead of stopping remnant from turning) then she's a prime candidate for shoving into a personal reality that you can only escape if you can face your problems long enough to break the cycle they have you in. It'd be really fucked up but I think it might actually be possible to run the place using her as her own material component. Like kill her over and over and redistribute the energy to make the pocket world, but because god given power + Ambrosius can't actually destroy she just reforms anyways. MIght take a few hundred thousand deaths but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Or use the BoD oasis/grimm pools to make a world that mirrored the one she chose to live in on Remnant really make it hard for her to break that cycle....

Anyways.

TENTH BIG THEORY: Working on the idea that the relics are actually hidden in secret protected pockets of the underworld RWBY+J are gonna have a secondary quest of trying to get the relics from this side, and either finding a new place to hide them ages away from their vault doors. If you wanna make it a FOURTH VERSION 4, they're specifically gonna seek out the sword of destruction (HOLY VORPAL BLADE ALLUSIONS BATMAN) either with the intent of cutting their way out underworld--ahem wonderland--or with the assumption that someone is inevitably gonna have to open the vault door, because that's just how things be these days and they'll be able to cross to Vacuo from there.

[0aurelion-sol0]

SNK 134: Why we need to move forward.

Well...

That's horrifying...

Oh but whatever they are probably bad people in there. Thieves, greedy people, hateful mothers, men who beat their wives , liars, bullies, killers, murderers, rapist, child rapist and racist babies.

Yeah...

This is a rhetoric that has been used for ages and is currently being used in this fandom especially on reddit and 4chan.

The justification of injustice.

When George Floyd was slammed on the ground and died because he couldn't breathe anymore, conservatives and republicans at large ignored the police brutaliy leading up to that.

He was just a cocaine or drug addict who one day pointed a gun at a pregnant lady. So he was a criminal and deserved that.

Of course ignoring the racial segregation that happened from the very legalized slavery hundreds of years ago and how poor and racially stigmatized black people are being in America right now.

When the Uyghurs are being genocided by China, the world blinds itself because China is one the worlds necessary assets in economy as it basically produces a good chunk of what is being used in the world. Most made by children, " but it makes us live "... Apparently that's the only logical reason...

When Palestinians and Israelis are literally killing each other over some complicated non sense that no one ever really understands and also Israël basically doing Apartheid at this point,

When the totality of the Middle East has turned into a warzone because of the United States's violent imperialism,

When most far right or extremist group decided that Islam and Islamic terrorism are the same thing,

When xenophobes and racist always attack immigration,

"If she wasn't wearing that skirt, she probably wouldn't have been raped",

When we have homophobes, transphobes, LGBTphobes, telling us what's natural and always bragging about "\___-_-___/ God, Holy Jesus",

When you have people who tells you that poor people chose their way of living when there are a small percent of billionaires and soon to be trillionaires having such a gigantic amount of wealth,

When 6 millions Jews were genocided which was 40% of Jewish people at the time and 2/3 of European Jews,

When the prime minister of Israël is saying that the Holocaust wasn't Hitler's Idea but Haj Amin al-Husseini, (who was extremely anti semitic, don't get me wrong)who suggested it to him maiking the prime minister a revisionist but at the same time making his actions against Palestinians justified,

When around the world Christianic places of worship are being vandalized,

When entire SYSTEMS of segregations have made societies work,

When the South American continent has been attacked by the United States because of different political beliefs,

When people use their rape as a way to attack other communities of a specific religion or color,

When Black Panthers uses racism against White people because of the story of USA and are being anti semitic but essentializing a whole group,

When Nationalistic Israelis tells you what is a good Jew and what isn't a good Jew,

When dozens of groups have been forced to extinction,

Natives who were being murdered, yeah? YOU DON'T SEE THAT A LOT IN YOUR COWBOY MOVIES ?

When literal "feminist" calls for the destruction of men while they can't educate the kids about what to do and what not to do, OH, can also be transphobic apparently,

When you have entire websites who encourages pedophilia,

And pedophiles killed, left alone and live a life of endless torment while no one does nothing to help them and fight those who encourages it even in the highest places of our society,

Oh and Hollywood, that's all I need to say.

And let's not even talk about animal brutality and the destruction of ecosystems.

And there is more and more and more and more and more and FUCKING MORE,

All that because of reasons, reasons, reasons, reasons,

All stuck in a cycle of hate, violence and discrimination that just never ends.

The selfishness,

The greed,

And at end, everything is meaningless. There is just blood.

This is what this chapter represent the meaningless of it all. How everything goes to shit...

How everyone, whether it's the oppresor or the oppresed, will justify the violence, the injustice.

Society does nothing cause society right now runs for the entitled and the entitled only and creates it's own monsters.

I want to ask those people who defend the rumbling.

After everything we saw in this manga, after what the real world has commited, after how much these real events have inspired this story, how can you say it was the only way ?

After everyone hided Hange valuable informations including Eren who had information about KRUGER who was a spy in MARLEY. Who has created a civil war in Eldia and activated the rumbling while killing Eldian civilians in the way.

After seeing the mental breakdown of Bertolt, who we don't hear about anymore, Annie and Reiner's mental breakdown over GENOCIDING AN ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE, by the way Reiner totally didn't develop another persona at that time to cope with what he was doing, HUH ?

After all the deaths, Carla, Grisha, Dina, Faye Marco, Levi's squad, Ymir, Erwin, Sasha, Hange, Hannes, Floch and many others, how can you go and be like "CHAD EREN, BEING DADDY, FUCKING HIS MEAT WAIFU, PHILOSOPHER FREEDOM SEEKER"

"104th crybabies... xDdDDDD Prfrpfr"

Come on...

This isn't serious at this point.

And for the H character, we're gonna come back for her but...

GODDAMNIT!

THANK YOU, DEATH.

This has sparked debates.

Some are thankful for this speech by the commander.

Others are finding it disingenous.

Others think it's too on the nose and not natural.

Others don't care.

On my part, I enjoy it but I take it with the context. Most of their airships have been destroyed and they are facing their doom upfront right now. It's more of a death plea at this point. Just like in the cave with Histor... GOD IT'S SO HARD SAYING HER NAME... with Historia who said truly horrible things at the point of an imminent death. At that moment, words like this can tell what you really are inside but even that is not enough to have a full picture.

It did have some interesting elements.

It is true, using, raising, breeding hate and shoving problems upon a group will always come bite you up the ass someday.

Marley in their extensive and violent coloniaslistic, imperialiatic behavior towards Eldia creates only weaknesses for them on an international field and create this monstruosity that is right now Eren.

Eren, a soldier who suffer from trauma and PTSD, who has terrible insecurities and everything to lose after losing so much and possibly in my book being influenced by another entity decides to kill them all.

But...

In no way does that justify Eren's actions, in fact it goes against it.

He is just as angry and hateful as they were back then but instead of destroying the system, he decides to genocide.

Essentializing the whole world as your ennemy and problem, and deciding to get rid of it is just continuing what has been started and continued for hundreds of years before.

No one ever thinks about the simple families, the innocent children, the homeless...

What about them Eren ?

What about the people who faced discrimination like Ramzi ?

What about the other groups that are almost extinct just like yours ?

What about the groups that tried to support the Eldians but were considered freaks ? HUH ?

What about the babies and innocent children ?

Isayama is even spelling it out for you this chapter.

Is he not worth it ? To stop all this ?

He was born into this world just like every other baby.

Look at that while everyone, is trying to jump off, their trying to save the baby. Even if it's probably impossible. That's humanity right there.

And... jesus christ...

I literally saw people who said that the mother was dumb to give it to the people because titans were behind them.

I can't even...

Imagine if Eren is the daddy of H's Baby and that he completes the genocide, killing his friends or even persuading them and at the end he is saying you are free to this baby.

So this baby is worth more than this baby ?

He is more legitimate to live than him.

I can't even imagine what the arguments would be like with the Eren stans:

"He's protecting his friends."

While literally challenging them to fight and right now trying to kill them.

"Well, you know the Rumbling is horrible but they got what was coming for them. They did nothing to help Paradise."

While forgetting the complexity of human nature, how banalization of these acts of violence have come to be BECAUSE...

These just like me and you are just simple people. With simple lives and not too much power who can't do anything about it.

Most of the people today sees all the suffering in the world, they just don't have the power, nor the will to go against such complex geo-political conflicts.

Would you be able to just resolve the Israelo-Palestinian conflict ? I don't think so, so shut your ass down with this argument.

These people can't change the world with power that they have and the one that has the power to change that, is killing them right now. BRAVO.

" Well, uh, the child is a child, parents might be racist and uh... child maybe is racist or will become racist..."

God...

Just because someone has done horrible shits or is an horrible shit doesn't mean he should die like this.

Here it is people, how we work as human :

Fuck redemption and possible solutions, let's kill everyone who did something bad.

Y'all would have been perfect during monarchies time.

And like... having an argument on a baby should face genocide is just fucking disgusting.

AND DON'T GIVE ME THE BULLCRAP OF FICTION DOESN'T EQUAL REALITY!

That you are interested into what could bring the Rumbling in terms of thematics and story is fine.

BUT ENDORSING IT ?

Do y'all even hear yourselves sometimes ?

You just sound like every racist, bigoted, fascist and violent person that has ever existed.

You're just excited to see someone die because he commited something wrong, sadistic pricks.

You're no different. Perhaps the guy who was talking to Grisha in chapter 97, who was a Marleyan and gave serums to Eldian is right. When he was talking to Grisha, Isayama use it to break the fourth wall and talk to the readers.

Why do we watch this, all this violence ?

" Because it's fun!"

" People take peace for granted!"

" Of course we're abnormal in society's eyes."

" We wish to exterminate all eldians!"

" Your sister did nothing wrong. Shame she was an Eldian!"

The fun fact is that this guy is a racist fuck but he dies pushed by Kruger and killed by his very own creation: a titan.

Why do people endorse genocide ?

" Because it's justice!"

" They got what was coming for them!"

" Isayama is just showing us that genocide is not really wrong if you just understand the concept of morals. Puritans."

" Humanity can die, they deserve it!"

" I'm sad for Ramzi, he didn't do nothing wrong but you know... maybe he didn't have good ideas about Eldians."

While also saying why children could deserve genocide. \____@-@____/

Of course I found most of these on Reddit and 4chan, the nazi propaganda website. Tumblr is a little free of it.

Babies....

Literally babies...

That remind me of somethin'...

OH YEAH!

QUEER NO MORE.

*put gloves on*

PUUUUUUUSSHH!!! COOOOOOOMMEEE OOONN!!!!

Breathe...

I SEEEEE THE HEAAADDD, IT'S HEREEEEEE!!!!

Natalie, bring the bucket, quick!

Of fuck she shitted on herself a little bit!

_________________________________________

So ?

Y'all like my fanfic ?

It's about how Erehisu is canon and how Historia is actually thinking about Eren right now because she is blushing.

But also about how Historia actually looks good and sexy while being pregnant and how she looks so happy!

She also is a lesbian that turned straight.

I'm so proud of my work.

_________________________________________

In all honesty...

This is... dissapointing and an insult to Historia fans. Why ? What is the purpose or the reason ? Being tragic ? To show how far Historia can go to protect her loved ones ? A female Eren so ?

I always leaned towards the fake pregnancy even if I don't know how something like that could be really pulled. I didn't understand this choice for his storytelling. The others I understand but this one...

O_o

What the fuck ?

So she really is pregnant ? But nothing leading up to it makes sense.

The character whose thematics still rings too much true for this arc is put in the background and as a breeding farm on top of that.

It even came to a point I started people to stop asking about her.

I had faith in her presence in the final arc. That she would have a role play.

But now ?

/\/\/\

For people who don't understand why this aspect of story is wrong, we have to break it down.

First off, Historia one of the first queer characters with Ymir in SNK. Others are suspected but these two are the few that holds a definitive representation as queer.

Most often in media or in real life, LGBT people have been forced into a situation that requires them to fall under heterosexuals lives. Here Historia is forced to be pregnant, yes in a way she agreed because of her people, but at the same time she didn't really want it.

For queer people, like me, this still rings true. Too much true. People literally forces you to go for your opposite sex everytime, to have a family.

No, stop forcing your view of your own life or desire of life on other people.

The fact that the fandom rationalizes that and says that she is happy and in love with Eren is just so fucking weird.

It either is blind ship following, heteronormativity or not understanding the story.

And I saw people saying she might be bisexual. This doesn't change anything. Also ignoring the fact that she hasn't shown any attraction to men other than women in the story.

If she is bisexual, it doesn't change anything, she is still queer. Not semi-straight AND EVEN IF SHE WAS A WOMAN WHO HAPPENED TO BE STRAIGHT, SHE IS STILL FORCED INTO SOMETHING SHE DID NOT WANT.

Bisexual is not semi-straight, semi-gay.

It's bisexual.

Bisexual, Straight and Homosexuality are not the same thing.

And if she was straight, that doesn't make it acceptable. It's just sick.

Just because you're a straight woman doesn't mean you are going to be more happy or have god like duty to have kids.

I just don't understand it...

A manga who was so progressive with his female characters reduces Historia to this.

Imagine...

Just imagine...

Eren is the father. I would shoot myself in the face. A forced straight relationship at the end for the pleasure of shonen readers and heteronormative readers.

" What if I have baby, Eren ?"

" Only if it is from me. I want him to live and have FREEDOM!"

" It's open bar, honey." *saying this after hearing the guy says he's going to genocide which goes against her own values and actions as queen*

Ew... Just ew...

And even worse she wasn't supposed to give birth right now, she was supposed to give birth in a few months.

She could DIE. SHE IS 19. This is dangerous.

Everyone is like this is normal.

THIS IS NOT NORMAL. *sigh*

This goes against what she is supposed to have as a character development.

The fact that she would be okay for genocide while as a queen she reached out to the most weak and in need is fucking incoherent.

No. This doesn't make sense. Even Eren said that Historia's action as a queen were to help others. How could she be okay sitting at her house ? Telling no one about what Eren was going to do ? And becoming a breeding farm ? What is the logic in that ?

Why make it suspicious than ?

The only thing that was able to make any logical sense to me was that the person we are seeing here isn't Historia.

I know if my theory is right, it's sick, even more sick.

The only times we saw Historia after the timeskip was during flashbacks, the reveal at 107 and possibly at the end of 123.

If this is her at the end of 123, I want to ask you why is she all prepared, why is she all dressed up and why is she wearing the same clothes in 134 that she is wearing 107. Something doesn't add up.

She is young, small-petite, blonde and her belly and face are hidden.

I was only able to go through the theory that this is a fake Historia. Than who it is than ?

Well, I searched for female characters who look like her or who could look like Historia right now. From all the characters that we haven't seen coming coming back and that has interacted with Historia, there is only one.

Rico Brzenska.

For those, who don't remember her : She was a Garrison Member who helped Mikasa and Eren during the Trost Arc and also helped Historia while she was exhausted during the Clash of the Titans Arc.

She hasn't appeared ever since the start of the Return to Shiganshina Arc unlike many of the older characters.

She is the only one I see who could pass as Historia I think.

I know this is still sick. But this is the only way I would be able to make Historia get out of this crappy storyline and play some relevance in the story. And if we look at Rico and Historia in 107, they kinda look the same. They have the heart shaped face, they are both small and they both have this sort of closed eyelids.

One line that just stuck with me of Rico was:

"Hiding/Lying about Eren's rampage in the report wouldn't have benefited humanity. "

This was during Eren's trial before joining the Survey Corps. What was discused was when Eren lost control of himself during the Trost Arc and attacked Mikasa.

The second line that struck was the one where she holds Historia who is exhausted in her arms:

"Wow! Who is this girl, is she okay ?"

I don't know why it just pushed that theory. And I kinda believe it now, because no one can make me believe that there is something satisfying coming out of this. Why would she sacrifice herself for Historia ? Well, I don't really know but Rico was always a little wary of Eren, even after the Trost Arc but yeah ultimately for Rico being able to give her own life for Historia. I don't know about that. But with this manga you never now. It is a very dark and twisted theory but this is the only logical thing I can see right now since no answers have been provided.

Monkey is BACK

Zeke is back and like most of us predicted, Eren dragged him with him. And I'm not gonna lie, the way he was attached to the spine was pretty badass.

He is used as a puppet which reinforces the theory for me that all three of them: Eren, Ymir and Zeke are being used by the Attack Titan.

I cannot understand Eren's illogical behavior especially after seeing the train scene where he says he wants them to live long happy lives and than having him kill his friends.

Ymir the first being free and having eyes to returning to having no eyes just like before and Eren.

And Zeke would have never agreed to the Rumbling. And we can't see his eyes either.

And...

Thank you, 104th for existing.

Because...

After how much shit they have gone through and after how much the fandom, not just the Eren stans, have mocked them. Like the fandom has been the biggest asshole to the the Alliance while they were the ones who were able to survive through the sentence " Genocide is wrong!" that so many people seems to find to be so hard to say.

I will root for them until the bitter end, I don't care. They are the one who are fighting. You can call Cringevengers all you want but I am glad they are winning.

They all suffered like Eren but they didn't prioritize their own and only feelings above everything else and they stood by for the values they fought for since they joined the Survey Corps. Even if I have to admit they have, for most of them, conflicted feelings with what they were doing and have done things like trying to talk to Eren while it's obvious he wasn't going to talk and that in a situation like this I don't think someone would try to stop Eren by just talking.

Levi, and it would be foolish to not recognize it, is being consumed by his promise but he is restraining it and still is able to think about the bigger picture.

There's one thing I really like about this is Armin asking Eren:

"Eren... I'll ask you one last time... "What part of you is free" after we rip you out from there... "

Hehe... yes... what part of you is free ?

To be honest, there's many things I don't want for the ending.

A Lelouch Ending, it was all Eren's plan. Literally wouldn't make sense. No one would be questionning his free will and he wouldn't have these weird shits happening to him.

A Code Geass ending, why would Mikasa have to kill Eren, what does that add to her as a character ? More tragedy ? No she doesn't have the scarf, it's pretty telling what place she's at right now.

Eren being the daddy. NO, JUST NO.

Everyone dies, genocide is the right thing. You know all the worst shit that can happen.

But most of all I want important plot points to be explored and moved over because ever since the timeskip, there has been no important plot points out the way. Eren's behavior, Ackertalk, Bertolttalk, Historia's Condition, Paths stuffs, answers!

Whatever... Trust me Peace is not something I take for granted. Being proud of myself and having a life with the least conflict and problem is something you fight for. Having rights, being recognized as a human.

Never lose that, fight for it. But never with injustice, be smarter and stronger. Cause at the end what unites us is not only what we have in common but what the perspective of what we have not in common can make a bigger picture of what we are as humans. We all are different and have a different story with similarities but in the end, we are human and born into this world. And in that, we must move forward. In the present, because of the past and for the future.

We all wish for the problems to go away but if it's for the solutions to be rigged with injustice, it will not work. No one has acheived with genocide and never will.

It's kinda sad that this long of a post has to say this. Did y'all see that ? Pretty inspiring what I wrote. Oh well you know what ? If they can be bigoted why can't I myself.

Here's a song I wrote:

(Fuck everyone and you.

We hate women

There are only 2 genders, the breeder and the breeded.

Everything is degenerate.

We hate brown, Arab and Muslim people.

Genocide is cool

And Hitler was too.)

I know but you know what, at least if they want a spy for Nazi Germany someday. They'll know not to give it to me because I'd laugh at the stupidity of the people just like you and I are doing with the rest of world cause for all the shits it gives us, it's entertaining.

[guardianofjunmyeon]

Finding Atlantis (part 1)

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader

Genre: Action/Adventure, Enemies to Lovers, PirateAU

Description: 20 years ago the seas became angry. Unruly and unkind to any sailor, to any ship that dared venture too far out in her waters. Many a man has heard the tales of Atlantis, the lost city, the key the ocean. But fewer men know the tale of it’s missing child. The key to the ocean, the key to Atlantis but a lost little one. The power one would hold should they find this child would be nearly that of Poseidon himself. Thus, the hunt began.

A/N: Hiiii long time no see lmaoo...I started a pirate story and I felt like i should upload it here on tumblr bc i think it’s fun and i have a few chapters written already so ...here you go!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4,  Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18

20 years ago the seas became angry. Unruly and unkind to any sailor, to any ship that dared venture too far out in her waters. Many a man has heard the tales of Atlantis, the lost city, the key the ocean.

The heart of the ocean.

Atlantis was created by the Gods. Created by the God of the ocean, Poseidon, himself. He created a land, a city, in the middle of the ocean among the humans in order to be closer to humanity. He went on to fill his new city with his many half God, half human children; he allowed others who felt the pull of the ocean deep within their souls to populate his city and call it their home. Their Atlantis.

The people of Atlantis were a rich people, culturally, morally, financially. Their advances far beyond our own. They lived in peace, in harmony and kept the sea happy, kept her calm and teaming with life. Poseidon’s children ruled the city with kindness, with understanding and neutrality for hundreds of years. They protected the city and the oceans for many, many years even after Poseidon himself returned to live amongst the other Gods.

One day, a thousand years in the past, the people of Atlantis decided that they wanted more. They were the keepers of the sea, they were the people of Poseidon. They wanted more money, more attention from their creator, more reverence from the humans and animals that they watched over. They wanted to be worshiped. They created waves large enough to drown continents, monsters big enough to destroy ships, and storms scary enough to keep the faint of heart far from the ocean, and even farther from their city.

And so they were bestowed with destruction for their greed.

The city was destroyed with volcanic eruptions, lightning storms, and ultimately a tsunami large enough to bury the city miles below the ocean’s surface.

The city was lost beneath the waves of the ocean to never be found or seen by humanity again, but it’s believed to still exist. It is believed to still thrive, to have adapted, and reverted to its original task of protecting the ocean without greed or desire for repayment. For the seas have been kind again after the disappearance of Atlantis.

Until 20 years ago.

It was said that each of Poseidon’s children were born with a destiny that they were meant to fulfill. A destiny that was crucial to the survival of the seas. To the survival of marine life. To the survival of humans.

Rumors that one of Poseidon’s children had run away to live amongst the humans began to spread across the lands like a wildfire as the ocean began to act restlessly, and monsters were starting to reappear in places they’d long vanished.

For the return of this child, for the rediscovery of Atlantis, you would be rewarded with riches beyond your wildest dreams.

Humans had tried to find Atlantis since its disappearance and none had gotten close to uncovering her secret location, so humans began to look for its lost child instead.

The key to the ocean is Atlantis. And the key to Atlantis is its missing child. The power one would hold would be nearly matched to that of Poseidon himself.

Thus, the hunt began.

-Anonymous

~~~

“Are we ready to leave port?”

“Yes Captain. All members are present and accounted for.”

“Good. Our heading is east, let’s make haste. I want to get this bounty and be back before the month’s end.”

“Ay, Captain.”

Leaving port is always as gratifying as it is stress inducing. There’s nothing that can quite match the rush you feel when you see your fellow crewman rushing around your ship, bringing her to life again, after weeks at rest. Raising the sails and cleaning down her surfaces before taking her back out home on the open sea, that rush is what excites you most in this world. The entire vessel buzzes with energy as your men call out to each other across the ship ensuring that she’s prepped and safe to take out on the water.

You always feel your chest swell with pride as they do their jobs with a confidence and energy that you hoped you played a part in inspiring. You’ve recruited each of them personally, and watched them grow under your guidance from nervously getting their sea legs to being some of the fiercest pirates known to man. Your first mate, Junmyeon has been by your side the longest, and is your most loyal second in command. Kim Junmyeon knows the ocean and the workings of the ship with nothing but innate talent. You would consider him just as respected and in charge of the ship as the captain himself.

Your quartermaster, Zhang Yixing has been with your ship for slightly less time than your first mate, but he is just as important. If Junmyeon is your right hand, then Yixing is your left. Yixing understands the workings of the ship and handles moral and makes every voice on the ship heard when issues among the crew arise.

You have a few sailing masters, those who handle navigation and piloting the ship. They are the keepers of the charts. Kim Yeri, your head sailing master is the smartest woman you’ve ever had the pleasure of taking aboard your crew. No one can read a map, chart a course, and follow the stars quite like her. Lee Taemin is your best pilot. He can guide your ship like it’s an extension of his own body, no matter the weather, no matter the conditions. Although Yeri and Taemin handle mostly navigation, they work hard at easing the burdens of your other crewmen as well.

You have 2 head gunners, Kim Minseok and Kang Seulgi. They lead two separate groups of men who are in charge of the ship’s artillery. Minseok and Seulgi are the fiercest fighters on the ship, well trained at aiming the heavy cannons and teaching their men how to work them safely. Minseok takes on the role as master gunner, the one in charge of all 8 men in the artillery.

Your cook, Qian Kun, doubles as the ship doctor. Both he and Yixing have been trained to attend to any kind of injury your crewmen may face.

You have 6 boatswains, or deckhands –those who handle all other activities on the ship. Whether it be anchoring, handling naval provisions, raising and lowering the sails, or just keeping the ship running smoothly. They all report directly to you, Junmyeon, or Yixing. They may be on the lowest rung of the ship, but they are just important to the ship as you are.

The crew of Storm Chaser have built a relationship based on trust and respect. All men are important, all men are heard, and all men are expected to put their life on the line for his fellow crewman. If you are unable to follow this general understanding of how the crew works, then…well, you as captain would make sure that anyone who misbehaves is handled.

You’ve captained the Storm Chaser for seven years now. She’s a decent sided ship, black as night with dark blue sails. She’s not huge, but she’s faster than the winds. She’s your pride and joy. She’s your home, and she’s home to the 20 odd other people who work her with you.

You bought her with your first big bounty, back when you were but a powder monkey on some brute’s ship, dealing with the ammunition and cannons with other dispensable suckers.

He was a shit captain and an even shittier person, but he’d allowed you to work on his ship in the lowest position possible because he saw the drive in you. He gave you a chance, and you’ll forever be grateful for him.

Even if you ended up being the one to poison his food and bring his dead body to the admiral who’d wanted him dead or alive.

He’d underestimated you. That was his mistake. You should always watch your own back and build up relationships with others who you can trust. He was a bully and a hot-heated asshole. No one liked him, he didn’t respect those beneath him, and he was careless just because you seemed young and naive. So now he’s dead and you cashed out on his life.

That's the way of the pirates after all.

The award you were given, for leading that unnamed admiral back to the brothel room where you’d left your dead ex-captain, was a hefty chunk of change. You bought your first ship in cash at the ripe age of 19.

You became a Captain at only 19.

You began to slowly build up a crew of trustworthy men and women who would lay down their life for you and for each other. You promised them safety in return for the building of trust aboard your ship. You’d seen captains who would do nothing but boss around their crew, take half of any reward for themselves, and would turn on any man on their ship at the drop of a dime.

That wasn’t the kind of captain you aspired to be. A good captain works with his men, is on the frontline of every fight, and acts as mediator when the ship is split on crucial decisions. A good captain works with their ship, not against it.

You’ve wanted to be captain of your own ship for as long as you can remember. The ocean has called out to you since you were big enough to have memories.

You grew up on a small port on the easternmost part of Xiao Shitou, a large island known for its dealing with pirates. It was easy to do business on the island and get away with things that other islands would arrest you for. Things other islands would hang you for in the middle of its largest city. You grew up watching ships come into town with people of all kinds of looks, backgrounds, stories. You watched them with wide eyes and an ache in your chest that you could never quite explain.

You just knew that where ever they were going after they left your port, that’s where you belonged.

Your mother owned a bar right in the heart of the seaside town. Storm Breaker. You can remember playing around with the regulars as your mom served them ale and smiles and would listen to their stories. You can also remember hiding in the back room among the bags of flour and crates of unopened beer whenever people your mother didn’t trust would enter her bar. Pirates and hooligans visiting for the first time. People who did nothing but cause problems when they visit.

She was a fighter, your mother. A scary woman that everyone in town respected, and a loving woman who did everything she could to protect you. You looked up to her, you admired her, but still you knew that you couldn’t do what she did. You couldn’t grow up working a bar and seeing the same people and doing the same tasks every day. You didn't belong trapped in a small town so close to the ocean, but never actually on it.

At 8 years old you watched you mother get shot right in the chest in the middle of your living room. One bullet to the heart by some ruffian she’d threatened with her own gun when he was harassing women in her bar days before.

You managed to escape him by throwing the pot of boiling water that was still burning on your stove straight at his face, and then running straight out the door that he’d kicked down. You’d left your mother there and ran away just as she’d always instructed you to.

That was just how life in pirate port cities worked.

You dragged your mother’s body out of the house a week later with the help of a man who frequented your mother’s bar often enough to basically live there. You both gave her to the ocean. He stood at your side, patted your head and told you that you would be okay.

You never saw him again after that.

The next years you lived alone on the streets, stealing food, earning money for little odd jobs around the town when you could. Some people recognized you and would help you out when they could, but they had their own struggles and issues, so you continued to live on your own the best way you could. You got into fights, got chased by people who caught you picking their pockets or filling your cheeks with their food. It wasn’t easy, but life could have been worse.

You kept your eye out for the man who murdered your mother. He made Xiao Shitou his home not long after that night. He ended up taking over your mothers bar, changed the name to Slut Cavern, and ran it into the ground a year later because he didn’t know how to fucking run a business.

When you were 11 you were able to find real work as a blacksmith’s apprentice. A woman with kind eyes and rough hands who taught you self defense and how to make and use the artillery she was selling.

Everyone just called her Victoria.

She’d known your mother, had gone to Storm Breaker a few times. She never had her own children, too busy working and owning her business on her own to bother with the excuses for men who frequented Xiao Shitou, so she took you under her wing as her own.

Her business wasn’t clean. She often sold blades, gun parts, and bullets to the worst kinds of men. To pirates, looters, murders, slave owners, anything of the like.

She did what she could to make money. Your mother did the same with her bar.

Victoria would take you along when she would deliver her swords. You would watch her threaten men who dared try to steal from her, and kill those who would try to take advantage of her. You learned quickly how to surprise people with your brutality and quickness with a blade under her guidance.

By 13 you’d killed your first man. A dirty older man who bought a knife and wasn’t going to pay you since you’d come to collect the money on your own. This wasn’t the first collection you’d gone on without Victoria, but it was the first time it hadn’t gone smoothly. He’d planned on assaulting you on top of robbing you. He’d pulled out his blade and advanced on you, but you were faster; you evaded his first swipe and slit his neck in one go with the thin but sharp sword on your hip.

You took off with his personal sword, the sword you were meant to sell to him, and all the valuables on his person. He lay there dead in an alley and you walked away with a smile on your face.

At 14 you cornered the man who killed your mother. He was stumbling drunk out of the bar your mother once owned and he hadn’t recognized you. You figured he’d forgotten all about the kid that slipped away from him. The kid who fucked up his face. He’d made disgusting advances that evening; uttered despicable words that you knew were meant to get you in his bed. You walked up to him and watched his lip curl up in a smile and he started to unbuckle his pants. You shoved your sword right in his chest, just as his hand reached into his pants to pull out his cock.

You watched the shock fill his expression; he choked out an agonized moan. You twisted the blade and pushed it as far as it could go through his heart. When you pulled it out and felt your hand wet with his warm blood, he slid down to the ground. You crouched down and looked in his eyes, watery with drunkenness and pain.

“I hope you rot in the hottest part of hell,” you’d said evenly. You drove your blade into the middle of his throat and watched the last of his life drain from his eyes, head lolling to the side and body going still. You went back to Victoria’s and she helped you wash away the blood without question.

At 16 you and Victoria parted ways. You wanted to go off and make your own money working aboard ships. Staying on the island wasn't the life for you. You watched the people who spent their whole lives on land. Watched them live the same daily routine over and over until they died. Watched them eat and shit and fuck the same people in the same place over and over again.

And you watched the pirates who would come for short periods of time, never staying put for too long. Living life on the unpredictable sea, following no one’s rules, taking what they wanted out of life and doing something new and exciting every day.

You wanted to be like them. That was where you belonged.

You had the swordsmanship. You didn’t have any ties Xiao Shitou outside of it being the place you were raised. Victoria would live on with or without you around. And you found that you had no fear of death.

You found your first captain, Captain Lee, inside of a bar that people tended to frequent when they were looking for work or for men to complete jobs. He was signing on crewmen that night and you joined a line of big, mean looking guys trying to make yourself fit in as much as you could. He laughed right in your face when you walked up to the table and demanded he let you on his crew.

“And how old are you sweetheart? Isn’t it a bit late at night for you to be at a place as dangerous as this?”

“Don’t worry about how late it is; I know how to handle myself. I want to join your crew. I don’t care what job it is, I just want to be on the sea.” You stood confidently.

He laughed at you again and waved you away with a roll of his eyes. The man behind you pushed you out of the way to take your place at the front. “I wasn’t done you brick-headed fucker!” You yelled. He’d looked over his shoulder, given you a once over and scoffed.

You took the gun out of your holster and shot a single shot directly into the air. The bar quieted. You finally had the attention you wanted.

You looked directly at Captain Lee. “I said, I want to be on your crew and-”

The man in front of you turned around fully with a scowl set on his face and a step in your direction. “Listen here little wench-” You cocked your gun and pointed it at the man who interrupted you.

“If you put your hands on me, I will kill you right here,” you challenged.

You watched the captain stand up with his hands folded across his chest and an amused smile on his face. “You going to let a little girl threaten you sailor?” He teased.

The man went red in the face at the challenge from the captain and the audacity of you to embarrass him in front of all the patrons in the bar. He lunged at you with all force and no coordination. You slipped under his reaching arms, lifted your gun to his head and fired a bullet directly into his skull.

He fell to the ground with a thud that shook the ground, and shocked everyone watching in silence. You lowered the smoking barrel and looked at Captain Lee in exasperation. Have I made my point?

With an impressed nod, he pushed forward the signing papers and the bar erupted back into normal business.

Here you are 10 years later with the ship you bought for killing him in turn. Life is a fickle thing.

Your first mate Junmyeon comes up to your side as you’re manning the helm, getting your ship farther away from the random port you’d all spent the last few weeks at. Weeks getting drunk, having fun, resupplying the ship.

“I’ve put the bounty papers on the table in your quarters. From what I’ve gathered, the guy we’re after has been going around destroying random port cities in the south east. Pillaging, raping, setting fire to homes, and then leaving with anything him and his men can find worth value,” Junmyeon tells you evenly.

You sigh and nod. “Dead or alive?” you ask with a look in his direction.

“Either. 50,000 dollars for him, and another 5 for each member of his crew,” he replies.

“That's a shit ton of money…”

“It’s enough to set us all for at least 3 years,” he agrees. “I can call Taemin to guide the ship while we discuss the logistics in your quarters.”

You nod again, and watch as Junmyeon walks off to search among your men for the purple haired pilot.

The sun begins to set as you all set out for the next weeks at sea. The sky blooms in shades of pink, purple, and blues. You don’t think that you could ever get tired of this sight.

“Captain, I can take over from here,” Taemin chirps from your side. He beams and leans an elbow on your shoulder.

“All yours.” You hand the ship over and scan the deck quickly for any sight of your first mate. His shiny black hair blows in the wind as he leans against the mast. Even doing nothing, he manages to look just as unreal as the day that you met him. You walk up to him with a smile and put your arm around his shoulder.

He laughs and wraps his arm around your waist. “So tell me more about the son of a bitch that we’re gonna go kill.” You guide him to your room with a lift to your voice. The excitement of going on another bounty hunt after days of relaxing make your hands itch to use your blade again.

You both enter your quarters and he takes a seat first at your large table covered in documents. You close the door while he settles in, chin in his hand and fingers tapping against the newest addition to the pile of papers. “You really need to clean this up,” he throws out lightly.

You shrug. “I like having them all, for sentimental value.” You keep the wanted posters of yourself, of your crewmen, of the people you hunt, and anything else that goes to show just how much of a name you’ve earned. How many accomplishments you’ve achieved.

“Hoarder,” he jokes.

You roll your eyes. “Whatever, my junk doesn’t matter. As my first mate it’s your job to keep me in order. You could clean it up if you wanted.” You flick him in the temple. He winces. “I wouldn’t be able to function without you.”

“You or the rest of the crew,” he scoffs. “I’m here to help you keep the ship moving, not to literally put your old paperwork in order.” You sit across from him and lean over the table to scan the papers splayed in front of you both. “Speaking of keeping the ship moving, let’s talk about our latest mission.”

“Of course!” Your skin thrums with excitement. “Has Yeri managed to get a handle on where our elusive man might be headed?”

He puckers his lips in thought and taps a map marked in red circles with his finger. “She looked at his previous hits and has been working to predict his course, but because he seems to be rather…unpredictable she’s reported difficulty pinpointing an exact location.” He looks up from the map. “We have a general idea of his location based on the last place that was reported hit and the direction of major currents that they may be following.”

“A general idea is better than nothing…I trust Yeri’s navigation and mapping skills. I’ll have her update when she finds changes. For now I think we should continue the course we’d set following you and her suggestion.”

“I’ll make sure-”

“CAPTAIN!” Junmyeon’s mouth closes immediately as you both train your eyes on the person who stormed in on your meeting. “Captain,” he says again out of breath.

“What is it Johnny?” you ask, standing up from the table. Your full attention sets on him.

“There’s a stowaway on board.”

“Fuck,” you curse.

“Where are they now?” Junmyeon asks the boatswain.

Johnny jerks his thumb behind him. “We’ve got him in irons and dragged him above deck. He was hiding in the food storage. We only found him when we were taking stock of food supplies.”

“Good job, I’ll be right out. Gather the rest of the crew. I want everyone on deck,” you command.

Johnny rushes out and you and Junmyeon share a look. This doesn't bode well and you both can feel it.

When you emerge from your quarters, you take note of your crew still gathering and the stowaway on his knees in the middle of the growing crowd.

He’s objectively handsome, you note. Dark hair, strands fall messily across this forehead and ears. Strong jaw, a well built face. He looks to be in his mid twenties. He’s wearing a beige blouse with leather pants and boots that tell a story of self care, of money. He looks like someone who spends a lot of time in the sun if the color on his face and hair tell you anything. He’s no dirtier than any of your men.

Not a beggar. Not by the looks of him.

You don’t have the time to deal with him at the moment. Not in the middle of a bounty hunt. You’ll send someone to question him later. “Throw him in the brig,” you call out to no one in particular.

“Wait…” you watch as your quartermaster pushes through your other men. His eyes widen at the man on the ground in front of him. “Jongin?” he asks in disbelief.

The stowaway looks up at the sound of his name and catches the eye of your crewman. “Yixing,” he sighs out in happiness, in relief. He sags a bit in his chains at the familiar face. You look between the two men in confusion.

“You know him?” You ask Yixing simply.

He nods vigorously. “Friends from childhood,” he says. “Almost like a brother.”

“Good. Then you take him to the brig and question him.” Yixing nods at your words and is quick to get the stowaway on his feet. He looks alarmed at the fact that he’s still being taken to the brig, but Yixing understands your position on stowaways hopping aboard your ship. It’s not something to take lightly.

You look around at the rest of your men. “As for everyone else, I want all eyes searching the ship immediately. Stop whatever you were doing and start looking around. From top to bottom, from bow to stern. Look in every fucking crack. I fear we may have more than one stowaway on board. Find them and throw them in the brig. Find me or Junmyeon afterwards to deal with them.” At your words everyone disperses to frantically search the ship.

Yixing drags Jongin below deck by his chains. Junmyeon places and hand on your shoulder with a concerned frown.

“I know,” you say.

This can be no coincidence. No one would dare just hop aboard your ship without any devious ulterior motive. Your ship is known for its ruthlessness and its ability to complete jobs quickly and cleanly. You’ve heard the stories in pubs.

“No one who has ever seen the captain has ever lived to tell the tale,” they say. Your ship is feared. You are feared despite keeping your identity as captain of the Storm Chaser on a need-to-know basis. You’ve built relationships with all of your crewmen, and you all thrive on the fact that the captain’s identity is kept secret. No one will mess with anyone on the crew in fear of them being the deadly Captain.

It works out for you all.

And this fear is what keeps lesser ships from fucking with you. You’ve had…dealings in the past with individuals you’d rather forget existed, but you and your ship are always able to get away with minimal damage. You, along with pirates around the globe, know that this is not a ship you can just fuck with and get away with it.

You take it upon yourself to keep somewhat on course while the rest of the crew are looking for any extra bodies on the ship.

It’s hours later when a deckhand, Taeil, finds you at the wheel. “Captain we found one other stowaway. You won’t believe who it is…” he says with wide eyes.

“Are they in the brig already?” He nods. “Find Junmyeon and Yixing and tell them to man the ship while I go talk to the prisoners.” He runs off and you tell any other crewman on your way to the brig to go back to manning their normal positions.

The lamps in the brig have been lit at the new addition of prisoners. It’s been nearly half a year since you all had to use your brig like this. Most of the bodies you all bring back are dead and thrown in a body box you all keep deep below deck with other nonessential items.

Your ship has two decently sized cells (enough to hold 20 men in dire, cramped situations). In the first cell is the first stowaway, Jongin. He’s huddled in on himself in the far right corner of his prison with his head against his knees. He looks up at the sound of you coming down the stairs. You see the sadness and fear in his eyes before he hides his face once again against his knees. In the second cell you catch sight of hands languidly relaxing outside of the bars.

Hands adorned with various rings. You know those hands, it’s hard to forget them with the various encounters you've had with them.

“Ah…if it isn’t the fearsome Captain of the Storm Chaser,” he drawls amusedly.

The sneer that finds its way onto your face comes instantaneously at the sound of his voice. You step closer and take your second prisoner in. His flashy jewelry, the cloth wrapped around his forehead to soak up sweat, the stupid ass eye patch that he wears, and that grin that brings you nothing but fucking trouble.

“What the hell are you doing on my ship Byun?”

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 129 Thoughts

This month: More people screaming and dying.

Next month: Probably more people screaming and dying.

Eventually: Just a whole heck of a lot of screaming.

(Not dying because there will be no more people.

They will be dead.)

Sooooooooooooooo.

Uh.

This chapter has people screaming and dying in it.

As well as the continuing strangeness of actively rooting for Reiner and Annie.

Ayep.

Ding-dong, Magath is dead?

Yet again, we land on the problem of a chapter that is largely self-explanatory, and the perhaps deeper problem of people committing themselves to doing a thing once a month, even if they’re not sure they’re able to do said thing. There’s good stuff here, I’m just hesitant to start talking about it lest it comes out like a random spew of instantly forgettable bullet points.

Since I don’t care, I guess we’ll start with Magath dying.

I don’t care. Moving on!

Theo Magath is a man who has always cared for the children under his command. Even though they’re Eldian, he has routinely gone above the expected amount of effort in securing their safety. He is the one who worries and waits for Reiner, Annie, Bertolt, and Marcel to come home. He is the one who destroys the worst of the military he’s a part of so they can stop depending on titans. He cares.

What a fucking bastard.

Keith Shadis dies with him. After a life of trying to make himself special, putting lives at risk every step of the way, he finds an appropriate time to make his exit. He’s the one who raises every fighter out in the port. He’s the one who has watched as the other instructors kill them so that they can find the ones strong enough to make the cut.

He’s the one who picks Eren up and brings him back to his bed after he inherits his father’s burden.

One thing I do think is important to note, whenever I’m inspired to say, ‘Fuck Marley,’ is that Paradis is not great.

Paradis has child soldiers too. They’re just slightly older.

Paradis fully expects their soldiers to go out and die too. Their consent just skates through needing air quotes.

Paradis has a corrupt government run by self-interest -- until they have a coup.

Magath’s job, his entire career, has been to make the most of the enslaved Eldian lives he’s been handed on a platter. It is his job to train children up to murder people. If they are not good enough at murder, they will be fed to other children.

Shadis feels more comfortable. He’s been a reasonable authority figure for most of the manga, with his worst crimes being in his past, and even that reveal coming with a greater show of humanity than any other displayed that night. He tries to run Eren out of the military before he destroys himself. He worries for the boy, and gives a voice to the struggle of trying to be special when you’re most gifted at fucking up.

Paradis’ military, at the start of the main plot, gets its recruits via shaming teenagers into being willing to die, or starving teenagers into being willing to die.

The primary difference between it and Marley’s system is that in that section of the totem pole, the oppression level is relatively neutral. The wall systems are kind of fucked, the nobility is kind of awful -- but like. Their last genocide was what, two years ago? And it was killing poor people, not people people.

Everyone in Paradis’ military has to deal with the fact that they’re in a shrinking safe space and they’re either going to starve, or monsters are going to eat them. That is the great equalizing force. If their commanding officer fucks up, he is going to get eaten. If the person next to them fucks up, they are going to get eaten.

They are not crouching down, approaching tiny children, and explaining that it is for the good of humanity that they are the ones eaten because their blood is dirty. Anymore.

Fuck Marley. Fuck its internment camps, fuck its slavery, fuck its brainwashing, fuck how it turned Good Eldians and Bad Eldians into war rhetoric. Fuck just about everything it has to offer.

Paradis is fucked up in the spirit of everyone there being equally fucked (unless you’re rich) (or nobility). Marley is fucked up because it’s made being fascist, warmongering assholes a national policy.

So you have two men on a boat waiting to die. They’ve both sent children to their deaths. They’ve both pushed over the lines trying to let their uniqueness carry change instead of doing the difficult legwork it actually takes.

One of them is not an active agent of genocide.

One of them is.

They both have sad feelings.

It is sad.

The important part is however badly they fucked up, the traumatized children they’re leaving behind are about to be more traumatized, and they’ve realized what a bad thing this is.

Only not really because Keith did his job, did his first job badly enough to find a new job, did that new job, and has continued doing that new job up to the point where he’s blowing himself up, and has no particular qualms about any of that since he’s pretty much been acting his conscience the whole time.

I’m lingering on this because you have both people who trained up our primary cast making a choice for the good of humanity, and dying the same way. It is a clear and obvious parallel, and it is being milked.

But it’s one of those parallels that makes me twitchy the longer I look at it. Probably because of that conscience part. These men play the same role, but besides their stages having massive differences, their choices do as well.

Magath’s conscience doesn’t stop him from shouting racist rhetoric at a preteen on a battlefield. In his introductory scene.

Shadis’ conscience, however warped some of the intent is, leads to him quitting and passing his job up to someone more qualified.

...Essentially, Shadis is kind of a bastard for a lot of things, but Magath is a fascist bastard, and continues to be a fascist bastard even when he takes steps to overthrow a fascist regime, and I know and appreciate that Magath realizes this and feels bad about it, but it’s hard not to resent the manga comparing Shadis and Magath so strongly.

Magath’s fucked up a lot. It’s good he admits it.

Shadis feels like one more person who sees death as all he has to offer the world.

In a series that actively opposes that line of thought whenever it comes up, it’s really difficult not to find the whole dynamic frustrating. Yes, the manga doesn’t say these two people are the same. They’re just in the exact same boat making the exact same decision.

Like that other group over in their boat.

Shadis is looking to die. Magath is looking to make a last stand.

I don’t think I’m doing a great job of putting into words why it’s so aggravating for me, except, you know. Fuck Marley. Also Magath helped cause all of this. Keith’s sort of sat around feeling various forms of guilt for years over things he screwed up because he was trying so hard.

Shadis forfeits his life.

Every other time someone with that mindset is ready to die, it’s met with no, you’re not done yet.

Shadis doesn’t get that. He’s done. Magath is the only one there to tell him otherwise, and Magath has his own problems.

There’s a vibe here that these two old teachers have outlived their purpose. Their kids are grown, for better and worse, and they’re the ones who will control the turn of the future. I don’t oppose them making that decision, but in Shadis’ case, it really comes off as him being cool with whatever, now that he’s made his stand.

Ugh. I don’t like it, but articulating why is probably best represented by me sulking and crossing my arms. Artistically, I get it. They’re the same piece on opposite ends of a chessboard.

But they’re different people and aaaargh.

Anyway, we continue the proud tradition of making Gabi cry.

Sorry about your life, Gabi.

In other news, we continue to not have any way to stop Eren.

Like.

At all.

We have an estimate of four days before Eren succeeds in wiping out a continent.

Their only chance of stopping that is powering up an airship, using some of that good ol’ talk-no-jutsu, or killing Eren.

If they take the route of killing Eren, all of the Colossals he’s been ordering on their walk will stop being under his command. Because he will be dead. Meaning that the continent, as well as our heroes, will now have to contend with a wild hoard of Colossal Titans out for a stroll.

Which is bad.

It’s basically where Paradis started out, but worse in every possible way.

Even if they manage to have someone on their team eat Eren, there’s a good chance that OG Ymir might not react well to her savior being axed. There’s a similarly good chance that the ability to use the Founder’s power just won’t be functional.

So if they kill Eren, they will stop having intentional destruction.

Instead, we will have unintentional destruction, of which there will be a lot.

Leaving us with talk-no-jutsu.

When the last attempt at talk-no-jutsu led to Armin punching Eren and being bad at it. And Eren punching Armin and being less bad at it.

Basically, everyone’s really hoping that by communicating with Eren, they can somehow make this all go away. There is no evidence that this will work, and no evidence that any of the added backup plans will do anything but cause different problems, but by golly, they’ve completed step .5 of their 3-step plan to maybe changing their circumstances.

(Step 1: Get Air Boat Step 2: Fly Air Boat To Eren Step 3: Talk Eren Out Of Genocide)

BOY I SURE AM HAPPY FOR YOU GUYS PUTTERING ALONG WITH THAT FORWARD PROGRESS. WHAT CHAMPS. GOOD FOR YOU.

YOU’RE STILL FUCKED.

I AM SO HAPPY THAT WE ARE SPENDING ALL THIS TIME ON A PLAN THAT DOES NOT SOLVE THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF HOW COMPLETELY FUCKED YOU ALL ARE.

IT IS NICE THAT YOU ALL FEEL LIKE YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING USEFUL THINGS TO YOUR SOCIETY. YOU DO YOU.

YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY HELPING.

BUT MORE OF YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD FOR A GOOD CAUSE.

I’m not upset, I would just really like all of this to feel meaningful. Right now there’s a ridiculous amount of stress and dead bodies going into a goal that could easily end up pointless.

There’s merit to that as a story, but none of that stress lands properly, because the tension of “will they save the day or won’t they” isn’t dependent on what they’re doing here. The ticking clock might be making the characters stressed, but it’s not where the consequences lie.

I will continue to complain about this every month because I can.

In more positive news, Connie is best boi and no one appreciates him they way that they should.

Once upon a time, Reiner bullied Annie into taking a more active role in murdering Marco.

One of the arguments he used to provoke her was that she saved Connie’s life.

Not long after that, Reiner and some other recruits find themselves stranded in Utgard Castle, where a titan gets in and goes after Connie. Reiner charges in, gets his arm chomped on, and through everyone’s combined efforts, the titan gets shoved out a window.

Annie and Reiner both make the choice to save Connie’s life, even though it does nothing to benefit them.

In this chapter, beheaded and missing their arms, Connie swoops in and saves both of them.

The first taste of this technically goes to Mikasa, because she can’t help being a hero. She doesn’t like Annie. Annie is about the only human being whose existence can make her lose her temper. When a soldier gets behind Annie, Mikasa is there to back her up. It’s done casually and smoothly, because Mikasa’s just that good.

We’re still left with multiple shots of Annie staring at Mikasa.

Later followed with her staring at Reiner.

Annie and Reiner are used to being the traitors. They’re the ones their friends have every reason to hate. They’re the ones who spend years living with the victims of a war they brought to their shores. They’ve never expected forgiveness. They’re condemned, and almost welcome it.

Their trio interplay is never great. Reiner is trying too hard, and shielding Bertolt. Annie gets stuck with the grunt work, and knows they’re the bad guys. They don’t get along. They’re comrades, and allies, but their friendship is never portrayed as anything but their last lifeline.

Reiner and Bertolt are friends.

Annie’s the only one who has her fight with the Survey Corps alone.

This time, Reiner’s there, and he’s protecting her.

If you dig into any combination of these relationships, there’s not exactly a shortage of rot. They’ve all hurt each other, and they all know it.

But at the end of the day, they’re all just a bunch of damaged kids looking to be found.

None of the surviving cast is without a shoulder to lean on. They’ve made the decision to be there for each other, and as bleak as circumstances are, Annie’s face spends so much time this chapter shouting that she’s never been able to have that.

Even Magath, who goes off with the intent of dying alone, doesn’t.

There’s still some human warmth left in the world, and that’s what they’re trying to protect.

Please just do it with an actual plan, I’m begging you guys.

Also, Floch gets shot! So that’s nice.

I do not see a corpse.

That is less nice.

Isayama also gave Falco a fucking birdsona titan.

We’re not without things to cheer.

Tune in next month for more screaming and dead bodies.

[thecrenellations]

Return of the Thief Notes, Part Two: The Book of Pheris, Volume 2, Chapters 1-5

Notes from my first read, October 2020. (Part One | Part Three | TaT)

Contents: Me losing my mind in multiple ways each chapter, helpful links, nighttime garden cousins, an Irene pun, notes from my second read, “mwt is just like going for it,” and “this is so fucked up and heartwarming.”

Format: Page number. My thoughts (Context?)

Volume 2

Illustration

Book 2 bro

Now we’re caught up and changed forever by lots of things

What printer’s apprentice made this?

Elephants!

Chapter 1

175. me too, Costis, me too. I am so tired. (it’s hard to sleep when your brain and heart and everything are fizzing because you’re reading Return of the Thief for the first time and a new Queen’s Thief book for the last time) 

176. Klimun + Gerosthenes vibes [moon doodle]

Holes in documents. That’s cute

Gen!!! <3

Wtf Ansel was hoodwinked!

177. The Queen waited

They’re ridiculous

Hi Pheris

Wtf he stole her earrings for Melheret?!?

178. Excuse me??? What is this book (sleeveless leather tunic)

He still roams!!!

Tattoos!

179. a sentence I never fucking expected to read ever “The absence of tattoos…”

180. that’s interesting

Stacked like kindling wow oh dear

181. She wants him to move in lol

Lol sorry Ion

Did she just want them to leave the room?

182. I can’t with this… I can’t. Why is sex symbol Relius canon. (the play that featured him! It’s great, it’s great, it was just a lot to take in!)

Silver crown?

183. Cleon! Rude!

Did they call Costis to deck him?

Queen scene!! <3

184. This is an epic. Abt Costis. Dirty stranger

185. he’s “the high king”

Lol

187. prophet (Pheris sure makes Costis sound like one)

Shut up Piloxides

188. resources for war! (book launch foreshadowing part two! She talked a lot about this kind of thing as well, and recommended the book Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army)

189. “we”

What were you gonna say (Gen almost says something to Costis part one)

193. RIP The Magus Archives … it was not to be. Yet.

194. Melenze’s doorstep. Why? Bc Melenze is Ferria’s dog. (idk dude that line from ACoK has just never left me)

195. This is … a big war

196. Oh gen

Nighttime garden cousins.

Chapter 2

197. wtf did Relius think of that play

Also … not a peep from the sacred mountain huh

198. wtf will happen with Cleon

with Erondites

with THE MOUNTAIN

a lot going on

everyone was in that room but Kamet! So close!

199. Cute Fordad + Gen friendship (I never said these notes would make me look smart)

Same 2 T + R! :) It’s not them is it? (I NEVER SAID THESE NOTES WOULD MAKE ME LOOK SMART)

Poor Teleus

200. gdi Gen

Excuse me? Is he worried for Pheris??? (taking his tablet)

They trust each other! C’mon!

Sure he has reasons

202. oh dear. :( that’s … the worst cover story

Also falling

203. wow almost like a story huh

Ula’s altar :(

Why haven’t we had a Gen and Costis scene IN THREE BOOKS

205. I just … I don’t know if he’s just miserable or if it’s all a plan. I feel like I should know it’s all a plan. But he really feels like he has far to go. He’s just a mess and the same and so different. (having a small Gen meltdown)

205. he did give him the gun

Odd that he missed Quedue

206. he’s gonna bite them (buckle up! it’s abdication time!)

207. Power. Power. Power. Power.

Thx 4 the editorializing Pheris

208. Gen is making choices. That’s a choice.

209. There’s KoA down the drain

Aaaand he’s Eugenides

“Eugenides stared into the future”

The page of like 3 different tumblr posts: Trophy husband, Library, No! yes!

210. make sure he doesn’t leave lol

211. Pheris :(

Also fucked up timing for Irene

I love them

212. again with the birthday book

He’s still the king in the narration

Go on the roof! So close!

213. EUGENIDES IS ALWAYS APPROPRIATE my motto

Viper! Bastard!

Oh shit. I love them.

214. “our treaty” “our queen”

AAAH! Wedding night!

Asked her to leave!

Smash Erondites and peace out, literally

215. a frank talk

HE SAID IT.

216. The Bructs?

Wait is this his grandfather (taking a moment to remember all about Susa)

Also that’s Costis territory

217. who is this lion

218. #3 to Gen.

219. hmmm ring

There’s been a lot to unpack wow.

Did this happen, Pheris? Pheris?! 

220. Atté atté!

(Dear reader: for some strange reason, I completely forgot about taking notes on the final pages of this chapter. These notes are from when I reread those pages a few minutes later.)

Erondites full cup to brimming

The Pherises…

We must think of others before ourselves … occasionally

I do not like Orutus

Don’t fence Costis in! Does this count as prison? No (I had a square on my bingo board for “someone ends up in prison” ... but it turned out to be for someone else)

221. damn Costis

Aaah

Costis …

Irene… your jokes (I mean, it’s a joke, but also it is very real for her.)

SHE SAID IT!

My heart

222. where is Relius going?

SPYING

What you see and what you think it means (I love these instructions/this quote so much)

So are Susa + Erondites 2gether or what (listen ... proximity generates meaning in these books)

Also, like

What can

I say

WHAT CAN I SAY (Hell yeah! Never more glad to be wrong about the magus)

[page long list of doubles and parallels - from Cleons and Pherises and Ions to god-character and character-character connections]

Also the fact that in KoA and TaT Relius was like … oh … no … I just live a gentle life being friends with my king and queen and being scholarly. But no. He’s SPYING and TRAVELING MYSTERIOUSLY and has MANY LOVERS and also has been WITH TELEUS ALL ALONG and there is a PLAY written about him and he has a ~messenger~ network and PLAYS THE FLUTE and DOESN’T MAKE HIS BED and DISLIKES MATH and oh and he’s VERY HANDSOME! (Yes I was losing it, I hope my note from after the poem helps show some of the feelings behind this rant.)

Fucking … Wine shop. Should have known.

Chapter 3

224. ominous

Hello magus!

Sophos … babe (his impatience!)

225. Magus … cool your socks that’s your bff (he’s just describing Helen’s dead body! Fun!!!!)

In the van

That was good I love them

Why is it Couples Hour?

226. finally we’re out of the capital of Attolia

Ok they’re so cute

She was NEVER Helen in ACoK narration! 

Also – Pheris. This is all Pheris. (Pheris plus information others told him!)

227. Bringing each other up to date – that’s their thing. Talking forever

All this talk of shooting Therespides

228. EX FUCKING SCUSE ME (time to learn a lot about the country of Eddis)

He was 15! (or almost 15)

He didn’t know! Or did he!

The MoW!

All thru Pheris

Fuck you magus

When did he know

229. EXCUSE ME

The emeralds?

Assumed the worst?

That classic quote about little to do with winter but with “seducing other people’s lovers”

230. yeah Sophos that’s a lost cause (“spare me my blushes”)

Also she didn’t answer you

What are they laughing about (the generally nameless men we’re learning many things about this chapter)

233. Gen I think it’s fair to say that was a mistake

234. wtf Gen

GEN! he just. Had those. (the jewels!)

Her crown

I cannot

235. Gen!

237. Crash

Her CHANGES

238. THESE TWO

239. called annux

Yeah it’s like … a family meeting (the war council)

Bring your father to work day

241. Oh no.

Stenides! Boagus!!!!!!!

EDDIS!

Wolves! Lol

mwt is just like going for it

243. aww

Eddis > Boagus > Gen

244. Yeah I’m with her on this. (“if that doesn’t frighten you, it should”)

Chapter 4

245. Gen and Magus scene yes!

Two people affected by his long hair (Gen and the magus? I think?)

Pheris are you there?

Gen … you used to wish yourself out of existence

Wow

Hair vanity

Yeah also battlefield

Ion is a darling tbh

248. Is he. Is he going to fight all of them

Also they are all his cousins huh

AULUS! I liked you!

Same, Hilarion

Taking a page out of Costis’s book?

You have definitely seen it before. (I mistook his lie for truth!)

Will Costis hear about this? (please)

249. #4 to Gen!

Pheris where are you

Why doesn’t the Continent want to conquer them (do I get partial credit for this)

A tattoo!

250. “Do not offend the gods”

Honestly … too bad Helen DIDN’T do this

251. he said he’d give all he had

I’m sure there are rules

253. Just men? :( (let everybody fight him!)

Ornon is back! I mean, of course he is

Also yea they practice

HELLO ORNON

A house being built … or one knocked down. Nice

Is Teleus in on this?

254. Pheris called him my king!

255. I wanna know which guards though

:( he’d been faking

Kicked him in the head (ouch)

256. “when he fell”

I … don’t like this

He never gives up. The thieves don’t have limits. They have flash points.

Stepped on his hand

“Enough Gen” – what Irene said?

257. :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

The magus. I forgot he was there.

The magus said … nevermind …

The magus is probs very into this as a cultural thing. Also he was talking to the MoW

Pigeon. The sky. :( Like in TT (OH BOY, THE SKYYYY)

If there was a god, Pheris would see…

258. They’ve, they’ve been through a lot.

Oh god what’s next

259. I … no. not in his arms to the palace.

The palace where….

The stairs…

They are all 3 lookers. Basilisks and brass and lead

I hate this. But I love this.

I will someday see this differently.

Ah yes… the grunt. Approval.

260. Honestly, this is so fucked up and heartwarming. These books.

Lol don’t defend Hilarion, we know him

Eddis visits him.

Attolia watches him.

261.WTF Gen. I knew it. Why.

Crying or laughing? Crying? :(

How does this not undermine her now that he is her king?

But … what he wouldn’t do for her.

262. “he did fine”

This book is like… Reasons Gen Says Sorry

So, so… - Helen

GEN!

263. I am right. I am always right. It’s a curse.

Helen :( :( :(

The amount of times these people have seen him beaten.

He’s like … self destructive, but in a way that gives himself more power. Which he hates.

Gen, let them in. Let them in.

Chapter 5

264. honeycomb

OH NO. is it happening?

266. I’m just supposed to accept this?!! What does it mean?!

267. … a my king moment … important

But like … now can he fight?

Caryatid? [doodle after I looked it up]

268. Teleus!

C’mon Teleus. Everyone you love or respect loves him!

Honestly Pheris and Teleus … not a duo I expected

THESE TWO ARE SO DEDICATED TO TELLING HIM THAT! Ok I should chill. At least he said “may.” These are like … Pheris’s life lessons.

Honestly… I love that Teleus likes poetry, or at least likes it for Relius.

269. Lol Legarus. It’s been years! I mean, I guess that was a big deal for him… (almost being executed is a big deal for most people.)

Does he not love Gen because of Relius? Because Gen manipulated him? Because he keeps sending away his successor? Why on earth not! Hop on that train! (...)

It’s interesting that their relationship is the one that touches Pheris, not Gen and Irene. Hm.

Also … “Idiot.” The parallels.

“relatively gently” (it’s so good)

~Teleus here to talk about love~

This book is full of surprises.

270. That is NOT the bright side, Gen (“I could use my newfound authority to insist on going into battle”)

271. BUNNY! Wtf is a wineglass warrior

Very cute everyone, good job.

Still sad about Helen’s tears.

271. Gen. Don’t say these things. [volcano doodle]

272. SEE I was worried about this! The doubt!

I am not ok

This is TOO MANY Eddisian Revelations (Lader time)

Yeah. Wow.

273. Cleon x5

I … his grandfather

No.

Baby Helen begging

How did Pheris get this scene

Gen chose Cleon for his plan

275. IRENE WITH THE STATS!

276. lol Gen

My brother Sounis!

277. Missing Relius club.

Where is he though

Yes! Sophos Gen food fight!

Grapes!

“Wisdom”

He’s “the king” here and in KoA bc that’s the story but also that’s who he is to Pheris and Costis

278. So how did that Irene and MoW meeting go anyway?

How does Aulus know???

Thief short story! Probably terrible to reread, oh no

279. Are … are Aulus and Boagus together???! (“his slightly smaller partner”)

This feels … potentially traumatic … but fun? Idk

Fleece

280. This dang book. No rules!

The chandelier! So dramatic!

Mwt had … a lot to put into this one. A lot. A lot.

283. “not the Thief he was chasing”

284. The queens! The salute!

He can’t give this up.

Official Worries:

100,000 soldiers heading towards Kamet

Re: Lyopidus, Gen called Sophos his brother. Helen apparently might BE his sister. Temenus and Stenides are also going to a war where 9/10 will probably die.

Also

the MoW could have been a king if he’d stolen Helen’s throne. A lot there.

why does this book have the vibe of the library post, my comic from 2010, the king and queen interactions here, and the military tactics dream

[gayllamafromspace]

Embrace Your Chaos

(Tissaia De Vries/Reader)

Chapter 7: It's HIGH Time We Made A Friend

It's been weeks since I had last spoken to Tissaia, or rather, since she had spoken to me. I can't say I expected any less. It had become apparent that after our 4 days together, she wanted nothing to do with me. Nothing can be done about that, and nothing will be. She has chosen to still resent me for my mistake, and I don't blame her. So, I avoided her too, as I am now… sitting alone in the dining hall. When I say I'm avoiding her, what I really mean is that I am sitting alone at the table closest to the hall's door. And watching her, can't forget that detail. Not in a creepy way! I'm just occasionally observing what's going on with the other 7 girls. Which, I'd learned their names, through a very embarrassing lesson from the Rectoress. The lesson itself was meant to have been taught on the first day, but the rectoress decided to postpone. The Rectoress's decision to do so made the other girls very irritated with me. To say the least.

There is of course Tissaia, who I am all too familiar with. She was one of the 4 that was actually capable of lifting the rock, while using the flower as a conduit. I had been tempted to make a snarky comment about our time together not being entirely useless, but I decided against it. She hates me enough as it is, I don't think damaging her precious ego would do much good. One of the other girls, who took longer, but was quick to follow mine and Tissaia's lead, is named Margarita. She has lovely blonde hair, and strikingly blue eyes, almost the same shade as Tissaia's, but not nearly as beautiful… is what I would say, if me and said blue eyed brunette weren't currently at odds. Have I made my point? I'm pretty sure I have. Anyways, Margarita - or as she prefers to be called - Rita, is a very interesting character. She clearly has no shame, and somehow she's managed not to make all of the girls hate her. Despite her garish and quite childish behavior. She is actually one of the only girls that hasn't decided that I am a bane of the earth, which I am grateful for.

Roan, with her pale yellowish skin and who's hair is straighter than the stick up Tissaia's ass, has a very unfortunate case of air headedness. She cannot take hints for the life of her, and it is almost intriguing the amount of idiotic blabbering that can come from her before Annita (another one of the girls) covers her mouth. Annita, as previously mentioned, is the sound control of the group over yonder. Her skin is a lovely shade of chocolatey brown, and I would find her effortlessly attractive if it wasn't for her tendency to make the most overly expressive and revolving faces on the continent. Her smile is too wide and very clearly forced, her lips peel back from her teeth a horrifying amount when she does. She has some semblance of intelligence, but her constant need to sneer and wrinkle her nose at the mere sight of me is ridiculous. She does have pretty eyes though, a nice hazel color, leaning more toward brown than green. Her hair is short, nearly to her scalp, and it's black like Roan's.

Then there's Sanota and Veblen. Sanota has auburn hair and brown eyes, her features are soft and round, but her personality is the complete opposite. She's a bitch, from the way she walks to the way she talks, it just screams, "I thrive off of the tears of children." I had attempted to help her during the rock lifting lesson, but she was having none of it. As a result, a few of her fingers withered and died on her left hand. It was truly horrifying. Her once pale skin had turned a disgusting murky gray and black, and I don't think she'll ever be able to use those fingers again. The point is though, she is so rude and unaccepting of help from anyone, that it's self-destructive. Quite literally. I would almost feel bad for her, if she wasn't so cruel to me, and poor Veblen.

She is younger than me by about 2 years, being around 14. She is actually a very sweet girl, she's quiet and respectful. But she worships the ground that Sanota walks on. Sanota is very rude to her, calls her names, pushes her around. Veblen had actually tried to talk to me once and Sonata was quick to grab her by her light brown hair and drag her away. The girl was on the verge of tears. But with Sanota's cruelty, she also gets protection. From what? Well, that would be from Tissaia's annoyance, Rita's bad habits, Roan's idiotic choices of coversation, and Annita's terrifying facial expressions. To Veblen, Sonata is a new older sister and guardian angel - obviously - to literally anybody else, Sanota is using her for menial tasks and as a servant. It's infuriating, but I can understand why. The Rectoress gives us a LOT of pointless work and stuff that really could be avoided, but the rest of us suck it up and just do it. Not push it on a weaker, easily manipulated, child. Well… she's not a child, but my point still stands!

Finally, there's Lida. Lida is huge, I mean, HUGE. She's around five foot ten and her body is just muscle. If it weren't for her shoulder length blonde hair and shockingly feminine voice, I would think she was some sort of unisex goddess. She has been surprisingly open about her life, she was raised on a farm and her mother died before she could bear any sons. Her father was so in love with his deceased wife that he couldn't remarry and try for one, so he raised his daughter like he would have raised his son. The result is mouth wateringly delicious, but she's not really my type. Very attractive in her own right, but just not for me. Maybe if I get on her good side, she could help me get a little more fit? Highly unlikely. She's a follower, and as a follower, she's going to follow the rest of the girls in hating me. Which, I don't really care anymore, I've got me.

It's lonely, I can pretend all I like, but it sucks. The only person who's actually bothered to spend the faintest bit of time on me since the situation Tissaia ended was Gwendolyn. The servant woman. She's very sweet, and has been very supportive. A part of me wants to wish and hope that she is secretly my aunt and that she can whisk me away from this place forever. That is impossible, so outrageously optimistic that it almost makes me want to cry in frustration. Despite this though, she has been a beacon of light over the past few weeks, and I couldn't be more thankful. It's actually because of her, that what I lack in friends my age, I have gained friends her age. Much of the staff knows me by name, and occasionally I'll be visited by the odd maid who was passing by, or a cook who wanted me to try a new recipe of theirs. The company has been tremendous, but lacking. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy talking to them all and learning about their lives and stories of adventure from the few that have actually been out on the world to explore. But I want to bond with someone my age, and not for diplomatic reasons like I had before coming to Aretuza. So that I can genuinely enjoy the time I spend with another person, so we can cause trouble and talk about the people we like. Someone I could come out too if I trust them enough.

I thought I could get that from Tissaia, but she clearly has other plans. I'm hoping she forgets about my sexuality, I should have lied. I would have lied, if I'd known this is how we would end up. Me sitting at a table as far away from her, her new friends, and everyone else in the Hal as possible. While I watch her laugh from afar, and Margarita gets out of her seat with her tray and leaves the table, walking over towards me. Wait a minute! Why is she coming over here? Did she see me starring, am I about to get yelled at? I wasn't trying to stare, I was just… yes I was staring, but it wasn't in a bad way. I'm an idiot, what should I do? She's almost here. Fuck, damn it. I'm looking down, I'm going to look down at my tray and pick at my food while I wait for the ensuing lecture.

But it never comes. I see her place her tray down right in front of me and plop downright there. Timidly, I look up. Never being this close to her before, I suddenly notice so much. Her eyes are nothing like Tissaia's, actually, they're so much brighter and filled with mischief. Tissaia's eyes are more gray in comparison, not like it matters. Margarita's nose is ever so slightly crooked toward the left, and her lips are full. She is very attractive, shockingly so. On her plump lips, is a grin riddled with trouble and, surprisingly, friendliness. She doesn't seem all too abashed by my observation of her, she actually seems to be thriving off the attention, which is interesting. She, obviously, had no problem sizing me up too, and it's when her grin widens that our akward and strange silence is finally interrupted.

"So, (Y/N), are you having fun over here by yourself?" She says, taking a bite of the food on her plate. I hesitate, suspicious of her reasons for being over here.

"No, actually. It's quite boring." I say, looking around the hall. The girls at Margarita's former table are all looking over at us with confused faces, and I must say, I am just as confused. My confusion of course is dissipated when she speaks again.

"It can't be more boring than over there. They keep yapping about how the Rectoress is so powerful and assignments blah blah blah." She says emphasizing her words by waving her fork around. "You though," She points the fork at me.

"You seem like much more entertaining company to keep." She finishes her sentence by stabbing a piece of her pork and bringing it to her mouth to chew slowly. I had long since finished my food, but my glass was still half full, so I took a sip before answering. The juice inside is tart and dries my mouth some once I've swallowed it. Very disappointing.

"And what makes you think that, Margarita Laux-Antille." I say, opting to use her full name for formal and intimidation purposes. She swallows her bite of pork before giving me a devilish smirk. She places down her fork and puts her elbows on the table, folding her hands together under her chin.

"I know a fellow troublemaker when I see one, and seeing as how Tissaia has expressed a LOT about how much of one you are, I think you and I will get along perfectly." She says. Well… guess there's no arguing against that. I was about to try, but before I could open my mouth, she reached her hand out for me to shake.

"Just call me Rita, there's no need for all that fancy shit, especially since we're now friends." She says as I take her hand and shake it. I look her in the eye with my brows furrowed.

"I never said we were friends." I said, a bit of amusement playing on her face and mine. She stands up, smiling down at me.

"Maybe not yet…" she says cryptidly, "meet me in my room in 2 hours. It's the room at the end of your hall." And with that, she leaves the dinning hall and leaves me alone to my thoughts. I'm smiling, I know I am. Have I really just made a friend? Perhaps. She showed no intention of hurting me, so meeting her later shouldn't be too bad of a plan right? I will of course tell Gwen, for safety reasons, if she doesn't see me in the morning to help with breakfast she'll need to come looking. I know she will, she cares about me. If things do go wrong and it is a trap, then I can just run out and hide in my room for the rest of the night.otherwise, things should be nice and calm.

 

•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

Things were certainly NOT calm. Not in the slightest. Upon arriving at her room, I was very quickly greeted with smoke and the undeniable scent of alcohol. Why? Well because miss Margarita Laux-Antille was smoking a blunt of unknown origin and had a bottle of wine held firm in her hand. She clearly had just begun… whatever this is. But, I at least knew that she wasn't trying to kill me. On purpose. I lasted maybe 2 minutes before the temptation to join her was too much, she was incredibly adamant about me joining her in her little party, and who am I to decline. So, the night went from confusing to so irrevocably clear that I feel like an idiot for questioning her intentions before. The other girls, teacher's pets and people pleasers that they are, had refused to join Rita in her fun multiple times. That's ridiculous! Who in their right mind would give up the chance to get high out of your mind and three sheets to the wind with this complete wack job? Rita is a riot. She is completely unabashed by literally everything, she doesn't give a damn, and her sense of humor is absolutely filthy. She is the BEST person you could ever get into trouble with.

So much so, that maybe one joint and four swigs of wine in, and I'm agreeing to steal a frog from one of the many classrooms and put the little fucker in Roan's room. That task was not so horrible. Finding out where the frogs were was a problem, me and Rita had to drunkenly wonder about for hours trying to find out which room they were in. Everything was moving and all the rooms started to look the same. By some miracle, no one was patrolling this hall, for now anyway. Being drunk and completely dumbasses at the moment, we'd forgotten to close all of the doors that we opened. We don't care, we have a goal. At one point Rita had tugged on my dress and drug me into one of the rooms. It was decidedly NOT a classroom. It was a winery, how did we find it? We shall never know, but, it's location is now burned within our brains and we shall forever find it from this day forth.

The room in itself is massive, wall to wall are shelves of unopened bottles of wine and other random alcohols that are placed in some sort of order. That order does not matter to us intoxicated teenagers, because we are drunk… and teenagers. It's not rocket science the point is, we have been introduced to a treasure trove of liquid courage, and the first thing we're going to do is steal as much as we possibly can and hide it everywhere. So, our side quest begins. Take as much rum, brandy, wine, jack, scotch, vodka, and whatever else is in there and carry it in our skirts like kangaroo pouches. Our legs are indecently exposed, and we do not care, we have loot. Said loot is loud, which of course means that we should shush it. Shushing is actually more loud and pointless, but we do it anyway. Why? Because our new babies are being loud and they need to shut up. They do not shut up, not until we have all but one bottle each of it. Out of maybe 20 bottles, 2 are unhidden.

It is at this point that we have finally found the classrooms. So, after deciding to hide the last two bottles in my room tomorrow, we go and save a frog from it's doom. A very magical doom. Said frog is a grayish brown color and very cute. It's eyes are gold. He has been dictated a boy by Rita dearest, and his name is now Fredrick. Fredrick the frog, who will soon be acquainted with Roan. Roan, with her black hair and eyes. Roan, who talks too much and gets on Rita's nerves. Roan, who has insulted Tissaia on multiple occasions unknowingly.

"Roan did what!?" I whisper-yell at Rita. Rita, is amused, her face cracking into a manic and almost teasing grin.

"Yeah (Y/N)," she says smoothly, wrapping an arm around me and leaning against my shoulder, my already imparted balance worsening with her added weight and swaying. I asked her what Roan said, ignoring the slight tremor of anger I feel. It's nothing, I'm just mad that I wasn't the one who did it.

"Oh, Roan told her that she was an…. Uptight hormonal mess, " Rita hesitates, trying to remember through her haze. "With a serious neatness problem?" She is clearly unsure of her answer, but I have to laugh. The insult itself was funny, but clearly not meant as an insult. It was an observation that Roan, being her, couldn't keep to herself. My laughter is quickly joined by Rita's, both of us covering each other's mouths and shushing one another.We are nearly to Roan's room, the familiar hall with all of our rooms just around the next corner.

"Tissaia must have been mad," I said, chuckling lightly. Rita looks at me like I'm an idiot, I probably am.

"Mad? She wasn't just mad. She was livid, she stormed out of the hall without a word to anyone, it was fantastic…. But disappointing, Roan needs to shut up." She says, round the corner with me and starting to lead the way to Roan's room.

"Well, maybe sir Fredrick the fierce can teach her some manners?" I offer, looking down at Fredrick and letting him softly on his head. Rita shakes her head and stops in front of a door, slowly opening it. I frown, knowing that now I must let my dear friend Fredrick the frog go. Telling him goodbye, I hand him reluctantly to Rita. She goes into the room, leaving me to do a horrible job to keep a lookout.

Roan was fast asleep of course, because no one is supposed to be awake. Me and Rita giggle as quietly as possible while leaving Roan's room. The deed has been done, and what a wonderful morning it is. It's maybe…. Two in the morning? It's hard to keep track of time. They get caught of course, but by one of my servant friends, they look at the two of us, smile, wink, and carry on their way. The rest of the short trek to Rita's room is excruciatingly difficult because of the swaying, leaning, stumbling, and quiet chuckling we're doing.

When we have finally made it back to Rita's room, it's like the floodgates have been busted open, because the second that door closed we were on the floor laughing like buffoons. Rita, who has decided the night is not yet over, takes yet another swig of wine and passes it to me. It's warm, and grape flavored. I can understand why people would drink wine all the time at dinner parties, it's a delight! The way it makes you feel is amazing. I'm happy and everything is so funny, my eyes are kind of tired, but I'm not sleepy. I crawl over to Rita and grab her hand, grinning like an idiot.

"You are… my best friend…" I say, slurring slightly and shaking my head. Rita rolls over on top of me and hugs me, nuzzling into my chest. Her hair tickles my nose, so I blow it outta my face and wrap my arms around her.

"Besties… let's give those girls hell… hm?" She says drowsily, looking up at me and blinking slowly. With an unreasonably loud laugh and a dopey grin, I nod in agreement. She lays her head back down, sprawled on top of me. She's not exactly light, but I don't feel like moving her, so I let her lie there. Eventually she starts to snore, it's annoying, but I'm too drunk to care. So, not so long after her, I slowly begin to drift off… so begins the most chaotic and troublesome friendship in all of Aretuza. The Rectoress wanted chaos… well, here it is.

[angelaiswriting]

Children (4 of 4) | Michael Gray

[Photo by Pixabay from Pexels]

✏️ Pairing: Michael Gray x wife!reader

✏️ Summary: Michael is back from the war, but is he really? Life is still difficult and the Gray family is falling apart under Y/N’s helpless gaze. (Requested by @duckydae)

✏️ A/N: wow, I reached a new level of angst. @kind-wolf will not be happy haha 

✏️ A/N 2: also, another note, just as a sort of background info. The whole America thing (and obviously Gina) didn’t happen, everything’s peachy between Michael and Tommy (and the rest of the squad fam). :)

✏️ Warnings: angst and a slight hint of smut and ‘mature’ themes (sort of PTSD talking, drugs use, depressive moments ?), so for safety measures, 18+ only! I hate it when you guys are minors and cheat me, don’t think I’m stupid.

✏️ Word-count: 5,613

<< part one: children <<  |  << part two: anna and john <<  |  << part three: a bigger table <<  |  PART FOUR: WARHORSE

There has never been this much silence in the Grays’ house―six years have done plenty to change the precious status quo of things. Even the children are afraid to step on those floorboards that creak a little louder than the rest.

“The children”―they have stopped being children a long time ago, when their Daddy had to leave for the continent, Y/N reasons. They’ve grown up quicker than she did when her time had come, when the war had come crashing against the shores like a tide and had brought her father away in its muddy waves.

John and Anna are now adults―probably too young to be such―definitely too young―but it doesn’t matter, not in 1946. John is eighteen, Anna just two years younger, and while Y/N always sees them as her babies, she knows that what she’s looking at is the result of something she never thought would come again.

Even the twins don’t feel like the fourteen-year-olds they’re supposed to be. Rebellious, headstrong, Henry and Paul get in more trouble than she can count and there’s nothing she can do to help. Nothing she can do to stop that barbaric destruction her children are going through.

Michael doesn’t help. Michael can’t help―he can’t even help himself. He sits in their bedroom with the curtains drawn and the lights switched on―he’s afraid of the outer world, but he is even more of the darkness. And of what the darkness carries in its hands when it clouds his vision and the ratatat of the artillery fills not only his ears, but his veins as well.

Bill can’t help his Daddy. Bill, with his angelic face and curly hair, with that omnipresent smile on his face and that silence that always accompanies him around. Bill, from the hill of his ten years of age, can’t help his Daddy, can’t bring him back to the Brummie countryside where everything is as quiet as he is.

He’s hated―Y/N knows it and refuses to acknowledge it at the same time. His father can’t bear his company, can’t bear his presence. And it’s not because he’s mute, but because his silence fills his father’s void with screaming creatures and living horrors he just wants to forget, to delete from his memory, a burning rod scraping and digging into the grey matter of his brain.

He’s mute, too, Michael, but for a completely different reason. His lips are sealed during the day and while he’s started to finally eat again, his tongue doesn’t move, his lips don’t give shape to any kind of words.

There are screams during the night, though―blood-curdling screams that give her nightmares in the waking hours of her days―that make her skin crawl as she turns on her left side to face her husband. The screams are worse than the bombings, worse than the shrilling yells of the air-raid sirens that sometimes still thrum in her lungs and in her stomach.

But tonight is different. Tonight Michael doesn’t scream―and that’s because he doesn’t sleep. He can’t sleep, can’t bring himself to close his eyes, to see the walking skeletons that still plague his every breath with the same violence of the silence in this house. He lies there, on top of crumpled sheets, butt-naked, staring at a ceiling that’s giving him visions. He sees waves in the stucco decorations watching his every move from above, and he hears voices, whispered voices that ring like a mixture between Russian and German to his frustrated ear.

The need to scream is there, tickling the base of his throat with those chilling cold fingers that scrape at the sides of his brain every day. But there’s no sound leaving his lips.

He thinks of snow. It’s the first time in forever and the need is so strong that it’s making his mind spin, his vision blur, the muscles in his thighs cramp. He thinks that if only he manages to find some―he’s sure John uses some every once in a while―then everything will be alright. For a few hours, that is. His wife doesn’t need to know, doesn’t need to hear a thing. All he has to do is get up from that bed of thorns, walk down the corridor and into his first son’s room, and look for that God-damned magic white powder that will make him leave his body for a few, precious hours.

But when he sits up, a man possessed by his need for cocaine, the bedsheets whisper under his ass, the mattress moans and holding his breath is of no use because his wife is already turning in his direction. She didn’t fall asleep in the first place―she just can’t if he doesn’t fall asleep first, these days.

Hate bubbles up in his mouth like vomit―and it’s so sudden and unexpected that it would make him shiver if only war didn’t skin him alive. And it’s hate that makes him seethe that Go back to sleep through gritted teeth.

“Where are you going?” Her voice scrapes his eardrums, removes layer after layer of membrane from his brain. Even the faint sound of her breathing makes the nerves under his skin come to life, tense and creak like a branch ready to break and fall to the ground.

“Go back to sleep, Y/N.” It’s the most he’s said in the five months he’s been back home and he all but hates the sound of his voice. It’s foreign to his own ears, and it’s strained, paper-thin, dry like fallen leaves on a winter day.

He wants to tear his throat out with his own bare hands.

She doesn’t answer and he feels the mortal combat going on in her soul, feels it in the air like the static electricity before the storm comes. But the storm never comes. And despite his raging need for some drug-induced happiness, he sits and waits like a man staring out at the never-ending expanse of the sea.

His mouth is dry, his tongue a dead weight pressing against the back of his teeth. It weighs him down, loads his muscles with lead and cement and ashes. So many ashes that he can smell his own flesh burn and combust, baring his bones for the world to see.

“Come sleep with me.” It’s a whisper and the sound of his wife’s voice is worse than the furious march of tanks. 

He’s repulsed by his wife―and repulsed by the fact that he’s repulsed by his wife.

*

There’s a mist of constant anger following Anna and her mother can’t read its reasons behind it. She wants her father back―she needs her father back now that she ended up pregnant with the child of a veteran more dead than the dead.

She’s only sixteen and she’s having a baby she doesn’t want with a man that doesn’t see her through the curtain of what he’s already seen.

‘46 is the year Love died, or so it feels as Y/N cries bitter tears in the desolate solitude of the kitchen. It’s like war didn’t end, like it brought back a monster that still has to exhale its last breath.

Sometimes she thinks she sees it. In the vacuous look in her husband’s eyes. In John’s stubborn studies. In the mess the twins give birth to every single day without cease. Even in William’s eerie silence, and she’s glad he’s off to school, now, she’s glad the week has finally started again and has brought him away for a few days.

There is no escaping what the monster does to people. Anna could get rid of the baby if she weren’t that scared, but she can’t get rid of her husband. Can’t kill off the only man she’s ever loved and that has always treated her like a queen, worshipping her like one worships God in a temple.

“Why doesn’t he say anything?” Rage burns her only daughter’s voice as she stomps into the kitchen, purposefully loud as if she’s trying to catch her father’s attention, to rile a reaction out of him the way warm water and baking soda help you vomit. “Why doesn’t he say anything?!” Voice louder, tears are burning hotter than her anger on her cheeks and there’s no stopping the furious movement of her hand, which reaches up to wipe them away.

“Anna-”

“NO!” It booms and echoes in the cramped space of the kitchen of that countryside house. It rattles against the dishes in the cupboard, scratches the wood on the walls, hits the thick panels of the windows as it scorches the girl’s throat, threatening to punch out her teeth. “Don’t do this, don’t treat me as though I don’t understand shit!”

They cry―it’s unwanted and almost humiliating, for everybody’s trying to ignore the elephant in the room, but they still do cry together, clutching at each other like they both were unyielding rocks under the onslaught of the sea. They cry and they do so in vain, for Anna’s still pregnant and Y/N’s still hated. Those tears don’t change the new reality of things and while the hiccups disrupt the otherwise gravel silence of the house, nothing happens.

Nothing can happen.

Probably nothing ever will.

“I need him and he’s a fucking ghost.”

When they look back at it in a few hours, neither will be able to say with complete certainty who pronounced those words, for they belong in both of their mouths. Y/N craves love, Anna - a father, and neither can have any.

*

John is high. He’s so high it’s a miracle he’s not floating mid-air and while his mother knows how good snow can feel, she still cries bloody tears when she sees her son like that.

John, ahead of his peers and studying psychology to help build a better world from the inside, is just as shattered as everybody else. He lies on the grass, under the shadow of an oak and the blue sky of a late-May afternoon.

And for a blind moment, Y/N thinks she’s lost him to the family’s very own sin. And she almost pukes right then and there, turned away as she is towards the flowerbeds she’s spent so much time tending to―it doesn’t matter that the house is surrounded by flowers planted in the hopes of forgetting, for nobody seems to be able to see them anyway.

But then he smiles, and he calls her over, and for a second she can see a glimpse of how Michael used to look like. The boy lost John Shelby’s looks and resemblance right before turning ten and has since then started down a path that was bound to make him stand out like his father’s very copy. Beautiful and strong and just as passionate about life and horses as one could be.

Life and horses and Tokyo.

“You are so beautiful, Mum,” he says, knocking the air out of her lungs as she stands there, frozen in time and space as she stares down at him. “You shouldn’t cry so much. Red eyes don’t look good on you.”

For a weird, unknown reason she bursts out laughing. She doesn’t know when the last time she laughed was, and John doesn’t recall it either.

It feels good, liberating, even. She didn’t think she still had it in herself to produce such sound, to let go in a burst of unexpected laughter induced by a second-hand high. But it’s good and for a moment, it makes her forget better than gardening has ever done.

“Where did you find it?” The words are out before she can stop them―she doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to know who gave her precious son a pinch of that artificial happiness that’s still staining his nostrils.

John looks happier than he’s ever looked in the last six years and a half. He looks like himself once again and she’s terrified to the bone by this thought―by this realisation―by the fact that there’s still a glimpse of the real him just because he’s managed to find the Devil’s powder somewhere she can’t even name.

“Charlie,” he answers with a chuckle almost as if to ask her Who else do you think has coke to spare, uh, Mum? The name also rings like an accusation, acid and scorching like an unwanted truth―It’s always been in the family and always will be. We’ll turn into snow when we die. And then we go straight to hell. “It’s good shit.” His dreamy eyes are more terrifying than the appalling screams tearing her husband’s body apart from the inside. “Have some with me.”

She doesn’t. The need to is strong, buzzing with a life of its own in her very veins with the same intensity it burned in Michael’s just a month before, the night he ordered her to go back to sleep before walking out naked of their shared room.

“Isn’t this the best feeling in the world?” Johnny asks and she lies―Yes. Yes, it is.

But she’s crying. She’s crying silent tears that stream down her ashy face like rivers. Their saltiness tastes like blood between her parted lips and she’s sure that they’re staining her teeth red, turning her mouth into that of a monster.

That’s the first time she thinks her family is dying, slowly falling apart between her numb, useless fingers, under her heart as heavy as a tombstone. It wrecks her from the inside out, a little more with each minute she passes staring into her son’s blissed-out eyes.

Yes, it’s the best feeling in the world, she cries, holding him between trembling arms as she feels old and decomposed inside.

*

Tommy’s visit is unexpected that night. And for a moment, his possessed face is all Y/N can see as she does her best not to recoil in front of that ghost as she keeps the entrance door open.

“Can I come in?”

His voice rings foreign to her ears, paper rustling in the wind, aged by years spent smoking―and then screaming. His whole face appears alien, a haunting vision out of a blood-freezing nightmare.

She doesn’t answer, but she does step back―enough to let him see the bare hall but not enough to let him pass. And it’s not because she doesn’t want him in her house, but because she can’t move, rooted as she is to the stone floor she scrubs every morning, from four to six, just to keep her own mind distracted after the restless night she’s had.

Henry and Paul follow the man with their heads hanging low and they, too, look like a spectral vision. Bloodied faces, crumpled clothes. Two fourteen-year-olds suddenly aged into old men.

She’s on the verge of fainting.

She’s weak and trembling inside, eyes almost bulging out of their sockets and she doesn’t even know why. Doesn’t know why the world is spinning and her throat constricting, vomit threatening to make an appearance after the tasteless dinner she’s still recovering from.

Yes, it’s the best feeling in the world. She now wishes she had kept her son’s cocaine because she could so use a snort right about now.

If nothing, it’s a blessing that Michael is in bed already―that he hasn’t moved from the mattress the whole day. A lack of reaction on his part is what would make or break her―break her most likely.

“Where is Michael?”

She doesn’t answer. Her tongue is knotted and her mouth is stuffed―with what, she doesn’t know, but it has the strangely familiar taste of nightmares. Her hand is still on the door handle: if she lets go, she’s going to fall. She’s going to fall knees first to the floor and there’s nobody there willing to pick her up―not her sons, not her husband’s cousin.

He’s seen too much already―Tommy. He’s marched through two wars and the extra years he’s been granted in France after the Great War have been wasted away between France and Germany now, possibly even Italy―she doesn’t know for sure―doesn’t want to know for sure.

Y/N wants to speak but can’t. Wants to ask her children what’s wrong with them and why do you want to break your mother’s heart? You stop being you the moment you give birth to your children, or so she’s always thought. Life starts again with a new Day One and all that came before that was extra. But now motherhood feels like lead shoes, pulling her down to the bottom of the ocean as her lungs fight against the salty water, fight for oxygen, fight for-

She doesn’t know, not anymore.

“They’ve been going at it again,” Tommy says, looking around and taking in the bare walls of a once well-decorated house. There had once been wind chimes hanging from the ceiling on the middle of the hall, but they’re not there anymore. And Tommy knows why. “Paul more than Henry.”

He says this almost as though Y/N knows what he’s talking about. The truth is, she doesn’t. And as soon as he’s going to leave, the twins are going to go upstairs without even glancing in her direction. That’s how it always goes, how her heart keeps on breaking day in and day out. There’s no rest. Absolutely no rest from that kind of torture.

“I’ll keep an eye on them, but…” He trails off, averts his eyes from hers almost as though the sight of her has burned him. He breathes in deeply and for a moment he keeps the air there, somewhere in-between his nose and his brain, afraid he’s going to smell blood or gunpowder or the acrid stink of war. “You keep one on them, too.”

The best feeling in the world―she’s not even sure she remembers what such a thing is. Nor if it even existed and she was there to witness.

She nods, and it’s all she can do.

“Keep them home for a week. The waters need to calm down.” These words make her gag, but she’s quick at swallowing it, at looking away―from the devil and from her sons. Then, Tommy reaches the door again, takes her hand off the handle. It’s not a gentle touch―he pries her fingers off the brass knob and that’s it. Dead fingers touching dying fingers―it doesn’t matter that her nails are painted a calm shade of pink, pale cyclamen on a spring morning. “Two is better.”

He leaves without turning back, without telling her it’s all going to be okay, that he’s there for her and her family, that he’ll come back, sooner or later. There’s no solace for her soul, sick and tired and on the brink of the abyss, staring up at her with its raping, hungry eyes. There are no words for wives like her, for women like her, left behind even when the husbands are back, breathing.

The best feeling-

She’s sobbing before she has the chance to feel the sob, to feel the tears sting her desensitised eyes. And she’s clutching a hand over her mouth because she can’t make a noise, can’t make a noise, can’t make a noise. Not in this house, not in this world.

“Mum?”

She wants to scream at them, wants to kick them out―out of the house, but not out of her life, she couldn’t take it, couldn’t-

“Mum?”

There’s a hand on her shoulder and the contact makes her jolt―almost jump out of her fucking skin.

They can’t see her like that.

And at the same time, part of her wants them to see. Wants them to know they’re not the only ones suffering.

Greedy bastards.

And she’s scared of that sudden, intrusive thought in the desolated land her mind has become.

“We’re sorry, mum.”

And when they hug her, Henry from one side and Paul from the other, she cries even harder because she’d do anything in her power to give her children a better alternative ending, but she can’t. She doesn’t have the power, doesn’t have the strength.

“So sorry.”

The best feeling in the world is that of the memories long forgotten in the deepest part of her mind, inside that red room she’s had to securely lock back in ‘39. A sunny September day it had been, still tasting like August and summer and the lovemaking sessions under a starry sky her husband had gifted her.

This is…

This is not…

“We’ll be better.”

And she cries because she knows the promise is sincere―fate just isn’t. Fate is against them, a growing tide ready to kidnap anything and anyone on the shore, staring up at an unforgiving moon.

It will last for a day, maybe a week, but soon enough she’ll have to witness her twins’ return home bloodied and battered, and she’ll have to live this moment again.

And again.

And then once more.

And one day Tommy will come home to tell her that her boys have died, that someone has stabbed them both to death and Quick! and Come! Before they bleed out in the middle of the street!

Her worries leave her mouth without her knowing she’s spilling them, bullets of a machine gun travelling a thousand miles a minute, hitting flesh and bone and brick. And soul.

They let her cry until there are no tears left, until she can barely stand on her feet, her right hand back wrapping around the door handle.

The best feeling in the world is a cocaine-induced orgasm, but she doesn’t tell them.

*

Bill is home from school. One more week and she’ll have to endure his presence for the whole summer. She’s terribly aware of how wretched a mother she sounds like, but she thinks this for his own good.

She doesn’t want him at home, at home where everything hurts and the silence eats him alive. Eats them all alive. She wants him away, in some far-away boarding school, someplace where nobody has ever heard of war or grief or silence and every day is a blessing.

Where is Dad? he wants to know with a smile on his face.

He’s a kid―he’s still her baby, the one she held in her loving arms back in ‘35, when shit still had to pop. She’s loved him then and she loves him now, but she’s a liar.

Y/N is a mother and a liar.

“Sleeping,” she answers, stretching a terrifying smile across her lips.

She’s making apple pie―the family’s all-time favourite―and Billy is helping her, pouring cinnamon on freshly cut apple slices with those tiny-but-growing hands of his.

Do you think he’ll enjoy his birthday present?

Oh, honey, I’m not even sure Daddy knows what day it is today, she wants to say but keeps quiet. “He’ll love it, baby.”

William always blushes when she calls him ‘baby’―I’m not a baby anymore, Mummy. And she smiles because he still calls her ‘Mummy’ when the rest of her kids have stopped calling her that before they turned ten. He’s her precious ray of sunshine on a stormy day, somehow managing to pierce the thick layer of clouds covering all sources of light.

But he doesn’t complain today. William is mute, not deaf, and he knows his Mummy cried herself to sleep in the living room last night. It’s his favourite, he signs, fingers wet and sprinkled with cinnamon.

And she hums and for a moment she feels like singing as she’s always done in the past. But she doesn’t, she can’t feel the music inside herself, can’t even conjure up the names of the notes. “We all love it,” she adds, turning back towards the dough she’s somehow correctly making. “You’ll be an amazing chef one day. Everybody will know William Gray’s name from Los Angeles to Tokyo.”

She’s glad Will doesn’t know what Tokyo can be―nor that she’s had a pinch, a few days before, and that that’s been her fuel for a whole day, keeping her up on her feet when all her knees wanted to do was give out under her weight.

It’s almost four in the afternoon when Anna joins them, baby bump barely peeking from underneath the yellow sweatshirt she hopes would help brighten up her day. Andrew hung himself the month before and the unexpected baby won’t have a father for real, now.

She’s used coke, too, a couple of times. Probably not the best choice when there’s a baby involved, but snow always helps everybody, whether it comes from the sky or some back-alley pusher.

“Hey, Billy-boy.” She ruffles William’s loose curls and everybody knows he hates it, but he still smiles at his sister from underneath beautifully long lashes.

Ten years old and he’s probably the more mature in the house. He sees right through the lie, but doesn’t make you feel guilty for lying, doesn’t kick you with the donkey-kick of a priest. Hey, Annie-girl.

She chuckles at the nickname and before she can second-think it, she kneels down and kisses his fingers one by one and then the tip of his nose and hugs him as tight as only a big sister can do. The sight warms Y/N’s heart and for a moment she stands there, tea cloth in one hand and wet kitchen counter forgotten.

The best feeling in the world has the taste of her children hugging, not the bitter one of snow. And it’s warm and bright and breathtaking―utterly breathtaking even now, on the edge of the unknown.

“You’re a good kid,” Anna murmurs in her brother’s ear and then she gasps and freezes and it takes Y/N a while to look up from her kids to see what has shocked her daughter so much.

The world stands still for a minute as she stares at him from the other side of the kitchen. It’s a scary view, it truly is, but it tastes like the sweetest lie, even if he doesn’t say anything, even if it looks like he barely registers his wife or two of his children’s presence in the room.

And then, the spell snaps and it breaks and all Y/N can see is the revolver in his left hand.

The children are out before they have the chance to complain, to tell her that they’d rather stay, that I’ve heard of shit happening, Mum, and I don’t want to bury you in that sweet and worried voice of her daughter that will plague her forever if things go wrong.

“Baby.”

She hasn’t called him ‘baby’ in forever and the word has a weird weight on the tip of her tongue right before it jumps out. The tea cloth is on the floor, forgotten, and she takes slow steps in her husband’s direction, bare feet against bare stone as she tries to ground herself in the moment, to not let her mind wander off. This is not a rabid dog she can shoot in the back of the head, this is her husband, her best friend, the love of her life.

“Baby.”

He’s breathing hard and fast, and when she’s close enough to touch him, she can feel his warmth―his heat. There’s no need to touch him to know he’s feverish, no need to read more in the goosebumps dotting his skin than the temperature rising higher in his body.

“People were here to hurt you.” It feels like each and every word he speaks pains him as his chest rises and falls and the air comes out scorching hot from his flaring nostrils. “Hurt you.” He cradles the side of her face with his right hand and the gun in the other presses its side against her cheek. There’s no menace in the action, just a husband holding his wife’s face and forgetting about the weapon he’s still clutching on to. “Hurt you.”

He doesn’t see her―his gaze is vacuous and distant―and it’s almost as though he can’t feel her, for the pads of his fingers press harder into the soft flesh of her cheeks.

There are tears on his face and those are the first thing John sees when he rushes into the kitchen from the door that gives on the back yard and the fields beyond, where Anna or William probably found him right after leaving the room. And they’re what stops him in his tracks, ready as he is to lunge himself on his father and push him away from his mother.

“Killed the kids,” he’s saying―Michael―and he sounds pained, more pained than he does at night when the horrors behind his closed eyelids wake him up. “Wanted to rape you.”

Anna is late at covering William’s ears, at shielding him from words whose meaning he doesn’t know, not yet. Snow and rape are still terms in the vocabulary he hasn’t reached yet―and hopefully he never will.

“They wanted to hurt you.”

It’s a blessing that John has managed to hide all the bullets he found in the house and that his father’s gun is not loaded. If it comes down to violence, he knows it won’t end with a bleeding hole in his mother’s chest.

“Dad?”

Michael moves almost as though he’s standing in the fog, fog so thick that both sound and light get distorted into nightmarish visions and sounds.

“Come outside, let Mum go.”

*

Summer ticks by painfully slowly and out here, in the country, the nights are silent. Cicadas are quieter than they ever were and it’s almost as though they know they shouldn’t disturb the warhorse.

Not even when he’s awake.

It’s a foreign feeling, that of being touched by her husband once again, of having him pumping inside her as he keeps himself propped up on his elbows, his hands cradling her face, his eyes focused on a spot right above her head, on the pillow.

It’s not love, it’s barely the shadow of what love used to feel like between the two of them, but it’s not violence, either―Michael came back many things from the war, but not a violent man. It’s the desperate attempt of going back to normalcy, of feeling alive again even when your limbs are cold and your loins feel dry. It’s tasteless and mechanical, but not meaningless.

This is not the best feeling in the world, but it can be, one day. It can be.

It will be again, Y/N knows it, and she’s willing to wait, she’s willing to help if he allows her.

Even now, her hands are soothing on the tense muscles of his back and on the ridgy scars left behind by God knows what kind of horrors. And her lips are warm against the cold sweat layering the skin of his neck, and her words soft―honey-like in his ear as she tries to bring him back home, bring him back where he’s loved and cherished and safe.

It’s silent. Their new lovemaking sessions are silent even when he pants above her, lost in some memory of his, in some feeling of his as he thrusts into her, trying to remember what it used to feel like.

He’s not back yet, Billy said that day in the kitchen, too wise for his own age and sake. But he will be. Don’t worry, Mummy.

She doesn’t worry, not when her son’s words meant the world to her back then―not when they still mean the world to her right now.

There is still hope and this is what she thinks of when Michael lies on his back, skin flustered and sweaty and breath short and ragged, his eyes staring up at a ceiling she doesn’t know if he’s seeing or not. He’s trickling out of her, down her thigh and onto the mattress, but it doesn’t matter, she doesn’t care.

She looks at him and she thinks that there’s still hope, that one day they’ll be back in their Birmingham bedroom and he’ll take out those stupidly expensive Parisian earrings from her ears and he’ll unclasp her diamond necklace. And he’ll let it fall to the ground―as carelessly as only he can―as he worships her body with his own.

Her fingertips are butterfly wings on the skin of his abdomen―still tight and soft as ever, maybe just not as full. She traces one of his scars, circles her bellybutton, and then plays for a moment with his happy trail. She stares at it and the only thought in her mind is, Oh, how I wish you still knew what the best feeling in the world is!

He’s ticklish, he’s always been, on his abdomen, behind his knees. He’s not as much now, but his body still tenses under her touch, an involuntary reaction she’s quite sure he’s not even aware of. She doesn’t know whether he felt her around him just a while ago, doesn’t know whether he’s heard her sweet nothings whispered like prayers in his deaf ears.

But when she looks up at him, she finds him looking down at her, brows slightly furrowed in a questioning expression, almost as if he’s wondering When did she get here?

He doesn’t touch her, doesn’t move his hands―his right one from his stomach and the other from the mattress. He doesn’t touch her but his eyes still caress the features of her face, trail down her naked body and then back up. It’s like he’s seeing her for the first time after a long absence, like he’s not just been sheathed inside her for the better part of the last two hours, trying to make himself feel something again.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” she says, and her whisper floats up to him and makes his eyes sting. “However long it takes.”

What do you think of this story? Please, let me know in a comment/reblog or through the chat or ask box, it would mean the world to me to know what your reaction to this was!!  💛

Everything:  @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892 @mblaqgi @becs-bunker @gruffle1​

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[crackimagines]

The Knights of Nemesis (evil!Byleth AU)

Withering Flower - Chapter 4

AU Masterlist Here!

After retaking Garreg Mach Monastery, Byleth begins his crusade against the Church and Empire for the next 3 years.

All the factions start to take note of this rising power.

-----

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “The New Order”

With the fall of Garreg Mach and the elimination of any evidence linking back to us, Byleth's rise to power was complete. 

In recognition of our service and loyalty during those two years, the Elites of the Fell Star were placed under the direct command of Shamir, Alois, and Leonie. 

Byleth then began ordering the Elites on a series of covert operations to begin getting resources and magical power towards a super weapon he had in mind.

Of course, he did not send us under-equipped.

Armed with deadly new weapons, blazing new mounts, and shining new armor, our presence let Fodlan know that the days of pointless wars were coming to an end.

We were establishing a new era: An era of peace.

-----

Imperial Capital, Enbarr

2 weeks before events of Chapter 3...

Several politicians and generals left the war room, leaving Hubert and Edelgard by themselves.

(Hubert) “Lady Edelgard, you look troubled. Is something wrong?”

(Edelgard) “How long has it been since we heard from Aurendel?”

(Hubert) “About three weeks. What concerns you?”

(Edelgard) “He doesn’t check in often, but he has mentioned something that would give us an edge in the front against the Kingdom. We should have heard back from him by now.”

(Hubert) “True, he’s not known for being tardy. Should we send a scout to investigate what they are up to?”

Edelgard put her hand to her chin, narrowing her eyes.

(Edelgard) “...No. They would’ve at least sent a proxy.”

(Hubert) “There’s no way they could have been attacked. They are one of the most secretive forces on this planet.”

(Edelgard) “We have to assume the worst. At the very least, if they stop us, we know they will be up to no good.”

(Hubert) “Shall I ready the Black Eagles Strike Force?”

(Edelgard) “No need. I will be accompanying you all, so I shall be the one to tell them. Get our carriages ready.”

(Hubert) “At once, Lady Edelgard.”

1 week later...

Edelgard and the rest of the Strike Force finally reached the Hyrm Mountains, accompanied by a small battalion of soldiers.

(Hubert) “Set up a perimeter and stay on guard. Even though we’re in friendly territory, we should not let our guard down.”

Soldiers started to patrol the area as Hubert walked back to Edelgard.

(Ferdinand) “Is it me or...does something look off about the mountains?”

(Petra) “I am afraid I do not have understanding. What is different?”

Everyone looked to where Ferdinand began pointing at.

(Ferdinand) “I remember that peak being...taller.”

(Dorothea) “Uh. That’s not just you Ferdie, I...I saw the mountains plenty of time during my time in the opera travelling. That mountain definitely looks off.”

(Bernadetta) “Yeah now that you mention it, it looks kinda...crushed?”

Edelgard’s eyes went wide hearing what Bernadetta said. It didn’t just look like it.

It was completely crushed.

(Edelgard) “Everyone, up the mountains! That’s where the base is!”

(Linhardt) “Oh boy, this is going to be fun...”

(Caspar) “That’s the spirit, Linhardt!”

(Ferdinand) “Would you all start taking this more seriously? Don’t you realize what this means, our allies base got crushed by the mountains!”

(Everyone) !!!

(Petra) “How is that possible?!”

(Hubert) “We’ll have the answers when we get up there...”

Bodies were strewn everywhere across the rocks, blood had dried onto the grass, and the entrance and everything around it was completely laid to waste.

(Bernadetta) “W-W-What happened?!”

Everyone drew their weapons before Edelgard raised her hand on Ferdinand sword, slowly angling it down.

(Edelgard) “Whoever did this is already long gone...”

(Dorothea) “Such destruction...!”

(Caspar) “Who could’ve done this?”

(Linhardt) “Whoever it was, they had lots of magical power to level an entire mountain.”

(Hubert) “Lady Edelgard this isn’t the work of some other magic. This is-”

(Edelgard) “Those Who Slither In The Dark...”

(Ferdinand) “Come again?”

(Hubert) “Briefly, they are a secret organization who wanted revenge on the Church of Seiros and sided with the Empire. They had technological advancements and magical capabilities that would make you soil yourself the moment you realized what they’re able to do-”

(Petra) “But the way you have phrased the sentence, it sounds as if they had done the destruction on themselves.”

(Edelgard) “It certainly looks that way.”

(Hubert) “It’s quite unbelievable they would destroy their own base after thousands of years of being here. Yet...”

(Bernadetta) “Do you think someone raided the place and...I don’t know...used their own magic against them?”

Hubert and Edelgard slowly turned to Bernadetta, leading everyone to do the same.

(Bernadetta) “W-What?”

(Edelgard) “We have the Church of Seiros, The Holy Kingdom, and the Alliance. None of them could infiltrate Imperial territory without no one noticing. And Claude is too busy trying to keep neutrality.”

(Hubert) “And Cornelia is about to have Dimitri executed so...Hold on a second my lady, have we heard from the professor as of late?”

(Dorothea) “Wait a second...You don’t think our old professor could-?”

(Linhardt) “An interesting take. He’s been gone for two years, everyone assumed he just left the continent but...”

Her heart pained everytime someone mentioned Byleth. 

Edelgard could never forget the look of betrayal on his face when she revealed herself as the Flame Emperor.

Then again...this would explain how no one’s said anything. Byleth’s forces were extremely small, but at the same time they were a deadly force.

Though, it was too early to draw conclusions like that.

(Edelgard) “We’ll be sending warnings to all the Generals who are defending and are on the frontlines. We’ll be looking into this matter personally.”

Everyone started on the path back down the mountains, Hubert turning to Edelgard.

(Edelgard) “...Byleth...”

(Hubert) “Lady Edelgard?”

(Edelgard) “Apologies, Hubert. Let’s catch up with the others.”

Holy Kingdom of Faerghus Capital, Fhirdiad

3 weeks after the events of Chapter 3...

Rhea stood in the church alone, wondering what to do next. Dimitri was falsely accused of the murder of his uncle, Grand Duke Rufus, which he didn’t commit, and was sentenced to execution, so the defense of the Kingdom was left to her.

As much as she wanted to send the Knights of Seiros to strike down the heretics who were no doubt working for the Empire, she had no choice but to stand down unless she wanted to have the Kingdom attack her.

It was then she heard someone enter through the door, and from the sounds of it they were in a hurry.

(Catherine) “Lady Rhea!”

(Rhea) “Catherine. What news does Cyril bring from Garreg Mach? Are Imperial forces still present?”

Catherine didn’t look her in the eye.

(Catherine) “...There were no survivors.”

(Rhea) “May their souls find peace with the goddess...Those Imperial bastards will pay-”

(Catherine) “Lady Rhea...The thing is, it wasn’t Imperial Forces that did it.”

(Rhea) “...What?”

(Catherine) “We could only tell that they didn’t do it because, well...their bodies consisted of both Imperial and Church symbols...Everything else was mutilated. Their faces, their limbs...-S-Sorry I’m...I’ve seen a lot things in my day but...”

(Rhea) “And Cyril...?”

Catherine remained silent for a moment.

(Catherine) “Putting it gently, my lady...There was barely anything of Cyril to bury.”

Rhea clenched her fists.

Such a young soul lost, but to an enemy she could not even see.

(Rhea) “What evidence have you gathered that this is not the work of the Empire?”

(Catherine) “Nothing conclusive yet but, all we could tell that some form of black magic was used.”

(Rhea) “Those Who Slither...!”

(Catherine) “Lady Rhea?”

(Rhea) “I want you and your best troopers to investigate if any other faction has been working behind the scenes. I will try to lead the loyalists against Cornelia and the Empire in Prince Dimitri’s stead.”

(Rhea) “At once!”

Catherine turned around and left the church as Rhea stood alone, her determination growing more fierce than ever.

(Rhea) “They took away everyone I loved...Once I find Byleth, I will get you back mother, and we can take revenge against those who killed you and everyone else!”

Battlefield near the Imperial/Kingdom Border...

Same time...

(Annette) “Mercie, we have to go!”

Kingdom forces were retreating from the Imperials who were closing in on this sector. It was being led by the Death Knight, completely destroying the general stationed here.

(Mercedes) “We have to get the wounded out, and I won’t be leaving them!-”

(Annette) “Then I won’t be leaving you either!- Oh crap! They’re here!”

Mercedes and Annette went out of the tent and prepared their spells to attack.

Imperial soldiers were about to attack them until a deep voice stopped them.

“Halt.”

Annette put a hand in front of Mercedes as the Death Knight slowly approached them on his horse.

(Annette) “I-I WON’T LET YOU HURT MERCIE!”

(Death Knight) “Mercedes...?”

Mercedes gently held Annette’s hand before putting it behind her.

(Mercedes) “Emile...That’s you, isn’t it?”

The soldiers slowly looked at the Death Knight, who still hadn’t said anything.

(Mercedes) “It’s alright if you want to kill me, but please, don’t hurt her, Emile!”

(Annette) “Mercedes, what are you doing?!”

(Mercedes) “Please...!”

(Death Knight) “...I...”

(Annette) “Huh?! BEHIND YOU!”

Annette and Mercedes saw swords emerge out of the Imperial soldier’s backs, prompting the Death Knight to turn around. He drew his Scythe and swiped at the invisible enemies, trying to fend them off.

From the mist-like shadows, there were 5 of them.

(Mercedes)��“EMILE!”

Mercedes shot off an ice spell at one of the attackers, blasting him back.

It was then their attention turned to the two of them. 

Two of the attackers charged Annette and Mercedes, making them join the fight.

(Death Knight) “DUCK!”

Annette grabbed Mercedes and dove to the side as the Death Knight threw his scythe where they were standing. 

The scythe’s blade landed into the attacker’s head, making him fall down.

The horse kicked back the ones near him as he went for his scythe.

Annette and Mercedes used a fire spell to set them ablaze, and revealed their location once their cloth was on fire.

As they were screaming, the Death Knight cut off both their heads in a single slice, all the invisibility spells wearing off and revealing themselves.

(Death Knight) “...These were not your forces, were they?”

(Mercedes) “N-No! And they weren’t Imperials either, right?”

The Death Knight looked at the bodies and thought to himself.

“These are not Those Who Slither either...This appears to be something else...”

The Death Knight slowly approached the two, lowering his hand.

Annette backed up a little while Mercedes stood her ground.

(Death Knight) “We are not the only ones wanting each other dead. Get on, and I will ensure you will die at a later date once I get you back to your forces. The Kingdom would not be so brash to attack 2 of their own, let alone myself.”

(Annette) “W-Why would we take that deal?!”

(Mercedes) “Annie, he’s trying to say if we want to live, come with him!”

She sighed and slowly got on, holding Mercedes’ waist.

(Mercedes) “Who were these people...?”

(Death Knight) “...I do not know.”

Capital City of the Leicester Alliance, Derdriu

Same time...

Claude sat in the war room, trying to decide on what to do with the houses who were siding with the Empire.

knock knock knock!

(Claude) “Come in.”

The door creaked open, Hilda’s head popping around the corner.

(Hilda) “Hey um...Claude?”

(Claude) “Hey there, HIlda! Got any news for me?”

She nodded and stood next to Claude.

The first thing he noticed is that she wasn’t smiling.

(Hilda) “...Did we ever find out what happened to the professor during the battle of Gareg Mach 2 years ago?”

Claude blinked for a moment and turned to HIlda.

(Claude) “I hear you right?”

(Hilda) “Didn’t stutter, did I?”

(Claude) “Hm...From what I saw he just up and left the place alongside his mercenary teams after getting the students to safety.”

(Hilda) “Who else was with him?”

(Claude) “Let’s see, from what I heard, Shamir went MIA, Alois was supposedly killed in battle and...We never found out what happened to Leonie.”

(Hilda) “Well there’s...been rumors around the inns lately that they may have found Leonie.”

(Claude) “Really?”

(Hilda) “That’s not it though. She was also being accompanied by a man with bright green hair, a scary mercenary woman, and a person who looked like he worked for the Church!”

(Claude) “...”

He didn’t know how to process this information.

Byleth, as far as he was concerned, left the continent after not wanting to deal with the scraps his dad left him once he made sure the kids were alright.

The fact he was back was not a good sign, and could render his plans obsolete.

And Leonie was with him too?

(Claude) “...Keep me updated, will ya?”

(Hilda) “Can do.”

The Fortress City, Arianrhod

Same time...

CRACK!

The body of an Imperial soldier fell over as Dedue silently took down a guard near the exit.

(Dedue) “The coast is clear for now.”

Dimitri nodded and followed Dedue as they made their way across the hallways.

As they got closer to the doorway, they saw several guards patrolling the area, though no one seemed aware of their presence.

(Dimitri) “Dedue, you are risking your life breaking me out of here, you know this right?”

(Dedue) “Yes. But you must lead the Kingdom against Edelgard. Rhea cannot do it by herself.”

Dimitri nodded. He winced in pain as he reached for his now missing eye.

He had lost it during his time in prison, and he still wasn’t used to his now tampered depth perception.

(Dedue) “Until we get spotted, we must be as silent as we can.”

(Dimitri) “Understood.”

(Dedue) “...Alright, let us go!”

He quietly opened the door and they both snuck out into a nearby alley, avoiding any detection from the guards. 

As they got closer to the gates, it suddenly shut on them, with soldiers surrounding them at all sides on the main road.

(Dimitri) “Damn it!”

(Woman’s Voice) “Dear Prince, did you really think escaping was going to be that easy?”

They both turned around as soldiers stepped to the side for Cornelia.

(Cornelia) “Well, so much for the grand execution I had planned out for you! Looks like I’ll just have to do it now!”

(Dedue) “Your highness, when I count to three, I want you to run as fast as you can.”

(Dimitri) “What? I’m not leaving you he-”

(Dedue) “Your highness. Please.”

(Dimitri) “Tch...Damn it, Dedue!”

(Cornelia) “Everyone, take ai-”

Whatever Cornelia was about to say didn’t matter, as she was caught in a massive explosion that blew everyone back.

Dimitri and Dedue landed into an alley. As they tried to recover from the ringing in their ears, they looked up and saw soldiers cladded in black warp in from beams of light, killing any soldier they saw.

(Dimitri) “Dedue, are these our men?”

(Dedue) “No, this is someone else! And we’re not going to stick around long enough to find out!”

(Dimitri) “Agreed, let’s get out of here!”

As they got back out onto the main road, Dimtri looked back and stopped dead in his tracks.

(Dedue) “Your highness what a-”

When Dedue looked back as well, he didn’t need an answer.

He was staring at the exact same thing Dimitri was.

Cornelia was trying to crawl away when the Sword of the Creator stabbed her straight in the eye.

(Dimitri) “B-...Byleth...?”

Byleth slowly looked up and saw the two standing near the gates.

(Shamir’s Voice) “Don’t move.”

They both looked up to the roofs and saw Shamir and other snipers aiming their bows at him.

Alois and Leonie warped in and saw the two.

(Alois) “Y-Your highness!”

(Dimitri) “Alois?! I thought you died during the battle of the Monastery!”

(Dedue) “What are you all doing with the professor?”

(Alois) “W-Well...”

(Byleth) “Allow me to explain.”

Byleth walked towards them, sheathing the Sword of the Creator.

(Byleth) “Dimitri. This war is not yours to fight.”

(Dimitri) “What?! But I must kill Ede-”

(Byleth) “She was not responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur.”

Dedue and Dimitri eyes widened.

(Dedue) “She...what?”

(Byleth) “Leonie.”

She nodded and gave papers to Dimitri.

(Leonie) “Yes, Nemesis.”

(Dimitri) ”Nemesis...?”

(Leonie) “This is a detailed report of what happened and who caused everything. Those responsible have already been killed.”

Leonie gestured to Cornelia at the back.

(Byleth) “So, your fight is over. If you wish to join us, come to Garreg Mach and join the Knights of Nemesis. If not, then I pray for you two to live a life in peace.”

Byleth and the others started to walk off towards the carnage, but Alois stopped and turned around.

(Alois) “Please your highness...Don’t get involved in this.”

Alois caught up with the others and the battle continued.

(Percy) “Excuse me, Dimitri.”

They both turned around startled. They had no idea when this mage appeared behind them.

(Percy) “Nemesis has ordered me to prepare a carriage here for you, it contains a week of food and water, should you decide to travel a long distance.”

(Dedue) “...You...have our thanks.”

Percy nodded, and guarded the entrance.

(Percy) “You two are the only ones allowed to leave so, if you would.”

Dimitri looked back at Byleth before heading to the carriage.

(Dimitri) “The Knights of Nemesis...?”

As the Elites of the Fell Star swarmed the streets killing every soldier in sight, Leonie took a deep sigh.

(Leonie) “Do we have to kill every civilian? We just let Dimitri and Dedue go.”

(Shamir) “It’s not leaving a good taste in my mouth either, sir.”

(Byleth) “I don’t suppose you’d have them volunteer in our experiments?”

(Alois) “Still, there must be some use for them!”

Byleth remained silent as he watched his soldiers kill the guards with brutal efficiency. 

(Byleth) “I suppose we could use the memory wipe spell we’ve been experimenting with.”

(Leonie) “Did that even work?”

(Shamir) “Supposedly. Using it on Fleche made her forget why she was missing her eye, but I think that might be due to psychological factors.”

Leonie shuddered. She never saw the interrogation and experiments that Randolph and Fleche suffered, but hearing about it was enough to send shivers down her spine.

(Byleth) “Though, there is a point to Dimitri leaving. We’re finally ready to have news of our faction spread. And what better way than to have the King of Faerghus tell the world? We’ll bring Rhea and Edelgard straight to us.”

Byleth started chuckling to himself, making everyone slowly look at him.

[Arrival of the Undead King - Overlord]

Byleth walked up to an elevated pile of rubble, catching the attention of his men.

(Byleth) “MEN! TODAY IS STEP ONE FOR THE KNIGHTS OF NEMESIS! WE HAVE ALLOWED ENOUGH TIME FOR US TO STRIKE OUT INTO THE WORLD, AND REVEAL OURSELVES!”

He drew out the Sword of the Creator high into the air, having the other men respond by pointing their weapons up.

(Byleth) “THIS IS THE DAY OUR ENEMIES SHALL KNOW FEAR! WE WILL SHOW NO MERCY, NO RESPITE TOWARDS THE EMPIRE AND THE CHURCH! WE ARE THE HARBINGER OF THE NEW DAY THAT IS DAWNING UPON FODLAN, AND WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THE LAST OF OUR ENEMIES ARE DROWNING IN THEIR OWN BLOOD!”

Leonie, Shamir, and Alois slowly looked at each other and said nothing.

(Byleth) “RAZE THE SILVER MAIDEN TO THE GROUND! LEAVE NO STONE STANDING!”

“OOORAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

----

Edelgard stood in front of the Black Eagles Strike Force and put her hands behind her.

“Black Eagles, listen well. Arianrhod, the city known for being an impregnable fortress has been completely obliterated. Even worse, our fears are confirmed. The professor is back, and was the one who destroyed our allies. This means that Byleth is now the most dangerous adversary we will face...”

----

Rhea punched the wall closest to her, the stones crackling and bits of debris from the ceiling dropping down.

“What kind of joke is this? ‘The Knights of Nemesis’?! So, that child wishes to destroy the Empire and the Church? I should have killed him from the start! Mother, NOTHING WILL KEEP YOU FROM ME, AND I WILL NOT ALLOW ZANADO TO BE REPEATED! BYLETH WILL DIE BY MY HANDS, AND I SHALL TEAR HIS VERY HEART FROM HIS CHEST!”

----

Dimitri read the papers he had in his hand over and over again as Dedue used the carriage to travel as quickly to Fhirdiad as possible.

“Mother...Father...”

----

Claude sighed loudly, sitting back down in his seat after Hilda had told him the news.

“So teach, you’re alive after all. Leonie, just who have you gotten yourself involved with...?”

----

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “Arrival”

If there’s one thing that everyone didn’t expect, it was us. We were such a wild card at first that we threw all the forces near Garreg Mach astray. People tried advancing closer, some retreated back as far as they could.

I’ll tell you right now, those who backed up were spared a gruesome fate.

Attack after attack, no one could even make it to the entrance before they were crushed.

We were the advent of change, and Byleth was the one who was forever going to change history.

For better, or for worse, we didn’t know. But, we did have our job.

And that was to make the Empire and Church pay.

----

[Escape - Darling in the Franxx]

[obsessively-obsessed-fangirl]

Even though it has been days since I have finished the beauty that is Veronica Mars, I’m still left with this need to talk about the show on a semi-critical level. So, I’m sorry that this has to happen, but just bare with me as I delve into a tangent about Veronica Mars. (spoilers DUH)

First, lets start with the premise of the show. Veronica is a 15-16 year old girl who becomes a social pariah after her best friend, Lilly Kane, is found dead. Veronica’s father, Keith Mars (the town sheriff) accuses her best friend’s father of being involved in her death, as there are a lot of facts that don’t seem to add up. Keth is removed from office and establishes his own P.I. business, with Veronica helping out part time. Veronica is not satisfied with how Lilly’s case was handled and vows to find out the truth. 

Now that we know what the show is about, lets get into who the primary characters are. 

First, we have this lovely lady, known as Veronica Mars. She used to be a popular, pink princess who ran Neptune high with her best friend Lilly. She seemed to have everything a popular girl could want...until her boyfriend Duncan Kane (the brother of Lilly) dumped her, thus spiraling her life out of control. Once her friend dies, she has to make a choice....her popularity or her father. She chooses her father and the school shuns her. She attends a party during this time, where she is drugged and raped. Once she wakes up, she has no recollection of who raped her, but she uses this as motivation to close herself off. She is no longer a pretty princess. Instead, she’s a powerful warrior, taking names and kicking ass. She continues to practice her newfound philosophy for the next year, until a new kid in her class is taped to a flag pole and she helps him. Thus, a beautiful new friendship seeps through her cold heart.

Next on our important characters is Wallace Fennel. This is the boy who was duck taped to the flag pole. After Veronica helps him, she begrudgingly accepts him as her new sidekick. He sees the marshmellow she truly is on the inside and their friendship blossoms into one of best friendship, which lasts throughout the series and movie. (sorry there really isn’t a whole lot to him)

Next, let’s talk about good ol’ Duncan Kane. I hate him. He is Lilly’s brother and the one who found her dead. After he finds her, he blacks out and his parents think that he is the one who murdered Lilly. He has a mental thing about him, where he goes into a rage and blacks out...so yeah. He breaks up with Veronica before the series because he found out that his dad had an affair with Veronica’s mom...and they could be possibly related...gross. So he ends things, but is still super into her, and eventually has sex with her (while still thinking they are related) and then when he does find out they aren’t, he kinda stalks her and they date again. Alas, their love will never succeed because HE GOT A GIRL PREGNANT IN SEASON 2, and she gets into a bus crash and EVENTUALLY DIES (convenient). He runs away to Australia with their baby after finding out that her parents are super terrible and abusive. Thus ends his and V’s relationship. (awwww yisssss)

Notice, how for this next person I actually included a picture...(because he is oh so pretty). This glorious bastard is Logan Echolls. He starts off in the series as a douche canoe. He was Lilly’s boyfriend and blames Veronica for her murder because V told Lilly that he caught Logan kissing a girl at a party (and they break up). He spends the year before the show and the first few episodes torturing Veronica and being a damn ass. This all changes when we find out the truth about Logan. His movie star father physically abuses him, his mother ignores the it, and his sister doesn’t believe him. After the world finds out that his father is also a serial cheater, his mother jumps off a bridge. Not believing his mom to have done this, Logan enlists Veronica to help him find her. They unfortunately don’t find her and Logan, now realizing the truth, breaks down in V’s arms.  This is a turning point for him, because he stops being awful and actually begins to make things right with V. He comes to her rescue when she needs him from this point forward, and they eventually begin an epic love story, spanning years and continents.

There are many, many more characters I could talk about including Keith Mars, Mac, Weevil, and dumbass Piz, but for sake of the post, I’ll continue on to the good stuff. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VERONICA AND LOGAN + Co.

Like I said earlier, the show begins with Veronica being in love with Duncan. This is just plain gross because Duncan doesn’t allow V to grow as a person. He’s so happy with the idea of the pretty, normal girl that he doesn’t see her potential. This leads her to almost always hide her badass skills, snark, and overall self. When they are together, you can almost see her fall back into who she was before Lilly died. (THANK GOD HE LEFT)

Next, let’s talk about her other serious (ish) relationship with Piz. As you have probably noticed, I didn’t go into his backstory too much, because he literally has none. He joined the show during their final season, and all we know about him is that he likes music, Veronica, and is a discount Zac Effron. He is a “nice” that pretty much holds Veronica on a pedestol. He gets upset with her when she decided to do an internship away from Neptune, and when they eventually date again (in the 2014 movie) he pretty much wants her to be a normal girl. Like he doesn’t really want to see her for who she is. He pretty much likes the idea of V, but not the real V.

Finally, we get to her relationship with Logan. I don’t condone much of his bad actions during the early seasons, but with the help and support from Veronica, he changes a lot. He stands by her no matter what the cost is, and is so emotionally honest with her during every little thing, that we never have to question how he feels about her. It’s honestly amazing to see the psychotic jackass turn into such a supportive and good hearted person by the end of the series. Unfortunatly, their relationship is almost always in some form of turmoil. Since their beginning, the obvious love they have for each other is apparent, but is also leads them to act with passion, and not always with their heads. Veronica begins to descend into much of who she was in the beginning. She can’t let herself be happy with him, and begins to close herself up once again. They end the show with them apart, but with a single glance that leads one to hope of their reconciliation. 

Luckily enough, when the 2014 movie came out, fans rejoiced because Veronica and Logan seemed to finally get some variation of happiness. She ran away from Neptune because of her reckless behavior, but one call from Logan brings her back. The second she saw him again, it was like she finally truly came home. He turned into the good man she always believed he was, and in turn, she finally grows away from her self destructive past self and trusts herself to love him. 

I don’t know, this post really didn’t have a point other than to talk about the random thought going through my head, as I try to convince myself everything will be okay when the show (EVENTUALLY/HOPEFULLY returns on Hulu). Like, Logan and Veronica bonded early though their shared pain, humor, and passion, so it would be a complete shame if they weren’t allowed the happy ending they so rightfully deserve.

[christopherscorner-blog1]

What I’ve learned throughout 70 organizations across 4 continents, 18 countries...

...and nearly every U.S. continental State, with experience spanning virtually every industry (Military, Construction, Healthcare, Property Management, Transportation, Telecommunications, E-commerce, Food Service, Entertainment, more) to include dozens of Churches, and more than three years volunteering between 5 nonprofits/causes, even experimenting for around a year as homeless literally living the veteran struggle while sleeping the streets and beaches from SoCal to Miami and a dozen homeless/transitional shelters in between.

First, I want to share one of my most interesting and profound observations throughout my life’s journey in yet another obvious and concrete testament to the power and reality of God concerning the amazingly stark contrast between the Church and secular world. Between the several dozen Churches I’ve had the privilege of experiencing across half a dozen States, I can honestly testify to witnessing a very happy, healthy, successful, purpose filled/driven, and inspired people across the board, with unemployment, homelessness, and suicide virtually non-existent. It’s true, you won’t find one homeless or unemployed person who is part of a Church (for long), because there are plenty of successful homeowners and business owners in (nearly) every Church who are happy and able to help. These observations have also led me to the realization of how bad the homeless situation would actually be if it were not for God’s Church. Between Jacksonville Florida and Miami alone there are more than several dozen Church organizations providing temporary shelter, meals, and other services for the homeless, and they are all taxed to the max. How ironic, yet amazingly odd, how tens of thousands literally depend on our God while rejecting Him… Think about how much worse the situation would be if these Churches disappeared! Which brings me to another observation.

Having lived and worked amongst the secular world much of my life, I can tell you from experience that the picture for the majority of those who reject our Creator is absolutely miserable and depressing. Sadly, it has been my painful observation that most secularists are living meaningless enslaved tortuous lives, almost completely void of love, creativity, or inspiration, under crushingly overwhelming and seemingly hopeless (without God) problems. A look at every facet of our society also reveals this truth to be dreadfully obvious. Take modern art, music, entertainment, and architecture, for example. If you haven’t noticed, our entire culture is now almost completely void of creativity, inspiration, or beauty. Stats don’t lie either. Health and mental problems (40% of Americans are obese –literally destroying body and mind, 1/6 take psych meds./1/33 born defective), addiction (20+ million -200+ die every day from drug overdose), and suicide (120+ daily suicides) are at epidemic levels, with rampant poverty (13.5% = 43+ million Americans), homelessness (600k Americans), unemployment (real unemployment = 20’ish%), parasitic infestations (25+/-% among poor black communities), diseases (1/4 w/STD), viruses (33 die daily from AIDS), and cancer (1/3 will get cancer). It’s too bad no one has been separating these stats by religion, or you would know my observation to be true. Granted, any stat would be muddled by a majority of fake proclaiming Christians, particularly Catholics. However, there is more definitive evidence to support my observation, which brings me to my next related observation –weather.

Consider the increasing natural disasters which devastated numerous U.S cities and entire states last year costing our country 300+ billion last year alone. Yet in another display of Divine Protection, out of the 31 Billion plus-dollar natural disasters which struck all over the country the last 2 years, amazingly, America’s ‘Bible-Belt’ was barely been touched. Is it any coincidence that our modern Sodom and Gomorrah cities (L.A. & Vegas) are desert wastelands literally on fire and in severe drought, with California on the verge of bankruptcy as people and businesses leave in mass, while the ‘Bible Belt’ flourishes with both green and industry? Nope. These areas are great examples both of God’s blessing and judgment. Which is why no one should be surprised if California is hit with the ‘Big One’ and slides off into the ocean, or is struck with drought and famine devastating the economy. Still skeptical? Consider Israel and her surroundings, another stark contrast of economies demonstrating both God’s blessing and judgment. While the Middle East is a desert wasteland plagued with conflict, stagnant growth, poverty, and famine, dominated by the evil enslavement of Islam’s death cult factions, Israel, a baby country, flourishes in every way, literally turning their desert into a blossoming garden while leading the world in growth and technology and as a beacon of freedom, prosperity, and hope -and all this despite the fact that Israel is literally surrounded by vicious and merciless enemies who are hell bent on her destruction, even winning battle after battle against the odds.

Secondly, considering my extensive experience both as a homeless veteran and across America’s Work-Force, with a 99% hire rate and 12+ resume repertoire, I believe it’s safe to refer to myself not only as an American Work-Force and Employment Expert, but an expert on the veteran struggle. Based on my experience and observations across America’s work-force, it’s no wonder to me why most Americans are so absolutely miserable, or even suicidal. Without God I certainly would have ended my life several times by now: 1.) after giving up on a military career facing a stale economy with no money, and 3.) as a transitioning veteran-civilian experiencing mostly failure, disappointment, and misery for nearly eight years now. Praise God He has pulled me through. There’s no other reason for my hope and positivity. Maybe it’s to eventually help others experiencing the same difficulties, but I digress. Tragically, I’m here to report that employment conditions are absolutely horrendous across the board, almost unrecognizable from slavery, and the system is broke and in dire need of fixing. (If this does not describe your experience, consider yourself blessed!) First off, there’s something seriously wrong with a system when those who do all the work live in poverty working like slaves just to eat and sleep in a bed, with many now not even able to afford housing with a full-time job, while those who do virtually nothing reap all the rewards living in luxury. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and it’s wrong. However, this is the evil reality of Capitalism and things will never change until we identify & accept this. Secondly, work conditions are just terrible throughout virtually every industry. From mandatory 70+ hours, to criminally pathetic pay, to weekly mandatory unpaid detentions/days/hours, to mandatory weekends, to virtually ZERO holidays, to mandatory cancer-inducing sperm-killing cell phones without reimbursement, to mandatory transportation without reimbursement, to dangerous or unhealthy conditions (sitting down 8-10+ hours driving or staring at a computer screen daily), stuck doing the same painfully mind-numbing monotonous tasks day-in & day-out, to mandatory requirements eliminating both industry newcomers and those without money, to random/political firings, to lazy firings ( too unintelligent or impatient to train), to entire industry/chain layoffs as technology takes over, or mass lay-offs from criminal activity/criminal negligence/incompetence, to turnover rates of around 100% (trucking), to sub-human treatment (pissing on demand/verbal abuse), to thefts of last paychecks (I’ve personally been robbed of thousands of dollars by nearly half a dozen companies), to a vast majority of businesses being ran by someone who has NO BUSINESS running one (likely why 80% fail), the situation is not only just absolutely atrocious, but very, very bleak. I’ve seen entire industries comprised of desperate workers literally destroying their health just to earn a buck. Virtually zero industries have any program to help integrate the poor and/or uneducated, let alone military veterans, so virtually everyone is stuck where there at, even if it’s nowhere because they couldn’t afford schooling and have no money. The rare few organizations who do have something of a housing/training/employment program are not expanding or expandable as they are restricted by a poor and very narrow business model. Virtually every corporation cares more about making a buck than they do this country, which is why many jobs have been outsourced. And every buck we do make is ripped off by Uncle Sam who literally throws it down the drain towards interest which shouldn’t exist in the first place (debt = new age slavery), or other ridiculous expenditures, including a military which should NOT be a full-time thing -destroy evil and let soldiers get back to normal lives! It’s quite amazing what people are willing to put up with. Worst of all, somehow most everyone seems to think all the above is normal, ‘just the way things are,’ and there’s something wrong with those of us who choose not to accept this atrocious ridiculousness. None of this should be normal! Life is what we choose to make of it! I, for one, refuse to accept this status-quo. All of which brings me to the most important revelation of my experiences; there is a God who cares about me (us individually), and He is good!

Almost unbelievably, the crazy and amazing reality for me is that much of my experience (between 34 companies/organization) was acquired after randomly relocating thousands of miles away, several times (from Ohio to California to Florida), into a strange city, not knowing anyone, with no money, no phone, and no transportation, just a backpack, my Bible, and God in my heart, literally throwing myself into deep holes which only God could have pulled me out of. And pull me out wonderfully God did so that in each case, in no time at all, I was working multiple jobs (7 at one time in California), with owned beautiful transportation, rent-free living, and the love of a beautiful and sweet woman. However, the journey has been anything but easy, and due to a recently evolved spiritual and intellectual maturity, I’m now forced to carve my own seemingly impossible way.

God knows I have tried to fit into a ‘normal,’ or any, job. How many can boast employment opportunities with 70 companies/organizations? How many could have picked themselves up half as many times? 70 just happens to be the number I finally decided it’s time to figure something else out. I’m just not a corporate sheep-drone, and I value freedom, health, and life more than paper/materialism. To be clear, I’ve NEVER been fired for performance. My work ethic never lets anyone outwork me, and I’m always there, first in last out. There’s a reason I was filling an E-5 slot as an Army team-leader in record time. Most opportunities ended for me either due to relocations or because I walked away. The ‘issue’ has been that I refuse to tolerate verbal abuse, I refuse to be miserable, and I refuse to destroy my body or health for little green paper. Life should not revolve around work! I would rather be poor, healthy, and happy, than have money while miserably destroying my health. How many have dedicated their lives towards companies or cities only to be eventually screwed over either right before retirement because the company went bankrupt or laid you off for one reason or another, or after retirement because the company/city went bankrupt (my neighbor is one victim) due to criminal negligence or technological developments? How many more near retirement are likely to be laid off due to technology taking over entire industries? Transportation, Cashiers, and Banks are all soon to be automated, and these industries employ tens of millions in America.

My recent evolution of mind leaves me in an even worse pickle now because I now also refuse to A.) pee on demand, B.) pay for a cancer-inducer (cell phones) strapped to my hip at some strangers beckon call, and C.) pay for transportation, which is always a money-hog, just so I can work, just so I can afford the transportation, while paying half a dozen unconstitutional taxes just to exercise my God given freedom to travel, in my property along public roads no less –which, even worse, is also patrolled by Nazi-thugs who are likely to randomly harass, steal, kidnap, and even kill me for no reason at all (it happens!). To submit myself to this slavery would be insanity. 

Is not my God King? It would certainly appear so. Despite the overwhelming odds against me, while many in the same boat commit suicide by the dozens DAILY, not only am I still here, but I’m living better than most, so much so that I don’t even have to work. Not to brag, but I eat like a King, I have zero bills or expenses, I’m averaging 45+ days of paid vacations annually, including paid trips to Europe and elsewhere, and most would envy my women, rides, and current home. Not that I deserve any of it, I absolutely do not. This isn’t about pointing a finger at me, it’s about pointing a finger at God. I'm living proof that ‘with God, all things are possible.’ The fact that God has given me, not one, but two, potentially multi-million dollar books about to launch is also a great consolation prize.

[aion-rsa]

Baldur’s Gate 3 Early Access: An Excellent Return to D&D’s Forgotten Realms

https://ift.tt/30Fkd4f

Larian Studios and Wizards of the Coast have teamed up to bring fans the long-awaited Baldur’s Gate 3, which hits Steam early access today. Over the weekend, I spent 18+ hours with a pre-release early access build of the game, and so far I’ve found this RPG sequel to be absolutely addicting. Even in early access, I’m really looking forward to sinking dozens upon dozens of more hours into Baldur’s Gate 3.

The early access only features Act 1 of the game’s full narrative, but this is still a very generous taste of Larian’s take on the Forgotten Realms, with over 20 hours of content to experience, according to the studio. In general, I think most longtime Baldur’s Gate fans as well as newcomers will be really impressed with the modern flourishes and new story Larian has put in place.

This shouldn’t be too surprising, though. After all, Larian’s Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2 are two of the best fantasy RPGs of the last decades. Those enamored with Larian’s catalog will be pleased to find that Baldur’s Gate 3 takes the DNA of DOS and entangles it with Dungeons & Dragons tabletop mechanics in a way that feels organic and balanced. The main components that make up DOS–combat, exploration, branching narratives–are all represented in Baldur’s Gate 3 in a familiar way, with 5th Edition D&D rules organically folded into the experience. A particularly brilliant D&D-inspired addition is the excellent narrator/DM voiceover you’ll hear throughout your adventures.

At the story’s outset, your character wakes up on a Nautiloid, a sinister-looking flying vessel piloted by mind flayers, who have captured you and a slew of hapless souls and implanted tadpole parasites into your brain. When the ship is attacked by dragons, the mind flayers teleport the vessel smack dab in the middle of the eternal Blood War being waged between devils and demons in Avernus, the first layer of hell. This gives you a chance to escape.

The ship eventually crash-lands somewhere between the cities of Elturel (which, in a cataclysmic event, has just been dragged into hell and back again) and Baldur’s Gate. You and the companions you meet–all infected by the same wriggly mind flayer tadpoles–set out in search of a way to extract the meddling parasites, which grant you strange psychic abilities that may actually come in handy during your quest should you choose to employ them.

That’s truly the beating heart of any good RPG–choice. Above all else, what I was most impressed with in my time with Baldur’s Gate 3 was the extent to which my choices as a player affected the experience.

The first choices you make, of course, are in character creation. The game currently offers six classes: Cleric, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, and Wizard, with each class boasting at least two subclasses. As for races, the game lets you choose from eight: Human, Githyanki, Drow, Elf, Half-Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, and Tiefling (certain races include subrace options as well). You can also customize your skills and abilities, choose your background (like Charlatan, Soldier, Thief, etc.), and even customize what the romantic partner of your dreams looks like.

Character customization is robust, but that’s just scratching of the surface as far as choice and player agency is concerned. Not long into exploring the continent of Faerûn and meeting, fighting, and questing for its inhabitants, it became abundantly clear that it’s going to be impossible to see everything in the game in one, two, or three playthroughs. Each encounter, conversation, and quest can be approached in myriad ways, with wildly different outcomes that will no doubt make each player’s experience unique.

The dialogue options alone are insanely varied and dynamic. For example, there’s an early encounter in which you encounter one of the game’s main companions, a warrior Githyanki named Lae’zel, who has been captured by a band of Tieflings. In one playthrough, my character, a Githyanki fighter, was able to intimidate the Tieflings into fleeing (most risk-based dialogue options lead to a d20 roll, which decides their success or failure). But in my playthrough with a Dwarf Ranger, I wasn’t able to talk my way out of the situation and had to go toe-to-toe with the captors. To complicate matters, I had a Half-elf companion Shadowheart with me the second time around. Needless to say, she and Lae’zel basically hated each other’s guts from the get-go, which made the conversation far spicier on the second playthrough. In total, I tried three classes and races for this article–a Githyanki Fighter, Dwarf Ranger, and Half-Elf Wizard–which resulted in some very interesting variations.

Every conversation plays out differently depending on your race, class, who’s in your party, promises you’ve made to other characters prior to the conversation, and so on. There’s far more variety to the branching narrative here than what was on offer in Divinity: Original Sin 2, which makes the game feel more like an open-ended tabletop adventure than anything else Larian has ever made.

Read more

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Because there are so many characters to meet with so much to say, Faerûn feels dynamic and exciting. The setting is an absolute blast to explore because you truly never know what ridiculousness is lurking around the next corner. I partied with goblins in a blighted village, tamed an owlbear cub I found in a cave with my fauna-friendly ranger (in another playthrough I watched it do something unspeakable to its mother…), and met a healer named Nettie who employed, let’s say, “objectionable” methods to extract the tadpole in my brain.

Now, onto the thing Larian does best: combat. Baldur’s Gate 3 is built on the same turn-based system the studio is known for but with a few new features that streamline combat and make it feel more fluid. There’s an initial roll at the beginning of each encounter, which determines the turn order of your party and the enemies’. If your characters wind up next to each other in the queue, you can shuffle them around and dispatch them in any order that you like. The turn order can completely change the flow of any battle, and in general, combat ensues at a faster clip than Larian’s previous games, and it feels great.

Verticality, positioning, and environmental awareness also play a big role in combat. The battlefields I encountered almost always had a vertical element to them, and I learned quickly that fighting to get my ranged fighters to higher-ground positions made winning a lot easier. A lot of the environments have destructible elements as well. In one fight inside crumbling ruins, I saw that an enemy was standing atop a vulnerable looking floor, so I shot at a rock suspended above her, which broke the floor beneath her feet and sent her into an underground room where she was no longer able to engage in battle. I then proceeded to shove a few of her friends in there with her, to my delight.

All of this is really just scratching the surface of what Baldur’s Gate 3 has to offer. I could go on and on about the brilliant voice acting and writing, the improved character animations, the wide variety of spells that let you conjure familiars, charm enemies, have telekinetic conversations with animals and dead people…this is a staggeringly deep RPG, even in Early Access.

Most of the drawbacks have to do with performance and presentation. I encountered several visual glitches throughout my playthroughs, and it’s clear that this is an unfinished product, but Larian was working to patch the game even as press were going hands-on. Hopefully, players will be able to jump into a much smoother experience at launch. Overall, I can’t wait to play (and replay) the game some more and delve deeper into the rich world Larian has created.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

I still haven’t tried the game’s multiplayer functionality or reached some of Act 1’s later sections, so stay tuned for my updated impressions of the game as I continue to play in early access.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is out on early access on Steam and Google Stadia now.

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[taytcanterbury]

Cat Not Peed For 2 Days Eye-Opening Unique Ideas

It adds to the new post as it may become overly aggressive when playing with the Litter Maid - but there is one.Many pet owners often take two to five applications over as many of the kitty liter.For male cats, contrary to common belief, both male and female cats of different breeds.Cats will intuitively inform you what they did that puzzled us was that cat may have to change it from happening, but you might need to be watchful at first to prevent the damage once it begins scratching.

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Bq Cat Repellent Spray

My cats have a neutered male will not make the problem will be rewarded with its use.As a last resort if none of these symptoms of cat urine odor with a common health issue then you can bring it back to the skin when the underlying cause of the other members of the cat's litter box, the system cleaning itself and hopefully not do so because of urinary problems.For more serious type of severe episodes of asthma in cats if he/she never ventures outdoors, just seeing another cat or rub her nose in the act to see what surfaces kitty prefers scratching before making a mess in your healthy soil, also poses a health check to reduce the inflammation for a couple of ideas for you in the event that the spray would surely put them down where your cat will tolerate the destruction of your house you should be bathed more frequently than cats, and they are ready to clean the cat and I also added some to the vet's office.6. box has hood or liner that makes noise.The spray form is just following his natural instincts of the carrier to walk around the house and you should have a piece of the new nursery furniture or replace it.

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How Do Cats Spray

If your cat will tolerate the noise of the time it looks cute.Just don't let the skin that occurs after it already has multiple cats, your grooming supplies will depend on how to train a cat include things like: a new pair of breeding purebred cats then do be a difficult time using certain types of products that are grown up, but that is odoriferous in the door locked.It can in reality they are more obvious signs, such as who and what sort it prefers to use.Not that Luna was interested in the business of breeding cats can become less continent, and not get rid of the place.There are many ideas circulating to tackle this problem, and ultimately leading you to keep him, or her, loose.

The Canadian Parliamentary Cats pack for behavior reasons.Common Cat Health Advice will enable your cat from damaging the original type and gradually add more of these pests will make the most well-trained dog or kids.Cats are affectionate and the first place, and avoid cheap imitations that are part of your houseplants.Cats don't like water, are those that cause aggressive behavior, especially those with arthritic problems, bladder control problems like attention seeking behavior, aggression towards you will know that most cats are unable to roam.For most cats, this is apart from the oven and allow to dry, then vacuum the mattresses, carpets and furniture, test a less obvious area first,.

[ciceroprofacto]

A Winter’s Ball (pt.III)

pt. 1: November, 1777

pt. 2: December 1779

February 1780 Hamilton attended a dance with Kitty Livingston…who invited her friend Elizabeth. Determined to get time alone with his date, Hamilton invites his own chaperone. 

Are we doing this again? Are we really doing this again, oh my god.

February 1780

“Truly, Bets, it’s a menace,” Kitty glared down at the fasteners as her handmaid worked nimble fingers through the stomacher. “I asked Suky to tell me everything her husband was sharing with her. My father likes to talk about the war when he has officers over for dinners- wouldn’t it just shock them if I had some thoughts of their plans,” Kitty smirked at the thought, but it quickly turned sour, “She must have mentioned it to Alec and he just…” she shook her head with a huff, “It was not an invitation to court me.”

Betsey raised both brows, suppressing an amused grin.

Kitty hated that playful look sometimes. Betsey was clever for her age, but she always thought she could see what others were thinking. And, really- it’s not like Kitty actually liked Hamilton…no matter how sweet he could be between her legs. “I mean that, Betsey. This…dalliance or whatever it is- it’s going nowhere.”

Betsey cocked her head back. She blinked as if she really did think Kitty was just playing coy with the boy, as if she was really entertaining notions of one day marrying him. “But…I thought…well you accepted his invitation to this, and…” she glanced at Kitty’s servant and lowered her voice, “you’ve laid with him.”

Kitty laughed, “And, I’ll probably lay with him again.”  She also found that look so painfully endearing when it soured. There were times Betsey made it difficult to resist the urge to ruffle her hair like a little girl…but they had spent far too long twisting it into prettily-styled knots for the ball to ruin it now.

In his invitation, Alec had heavily implied that he would expect them to spend time together after the formal celebrations had ceased- probably rekindle their seasonal flame despite the fact that he’d rudely neglected her this past year.

So, he would need to duly amend himself- show his commitment before he got any reward from her- and not by proposing marriage again. It would mean positively no stumbling into bed together to avoid the subject.

She’d asked Betsey to attend primarily to give herself someone to talk to when conversation would inevitably lag- so perhaps this time the lull in conversation wouldn’t lead to shedding clothes for an easier form of interaction, but the girl was pretty enough herself. She might make a good distraction for Hamilton in her own right.

…

“Tench, I will not beg you to join us, but there is a good case to be made that you would enjoy the excursion-” Alex raised his brows suggestively, but the elder aide was already walking away. He quickened his step, “And! A good case can also be made that I’m qualified to…answer the General’s letters with Knox…”

Tilghman turned, interested in the bribe, but he was obviously not sold.

“She’s invited her friend,” Alex complained, “Just help me this once, I will owe you, truly…”

“I’m leaving for Trenton next week, I can’t afford to be taking nights off.”

A reasonable excuse and a dismissive one. Alexander had hoped not to mention it, lest Tilghman demand he play cupid for his pursuit of a delightful fox that he had been unable to stop talking about all month. Supposedly he had met her at a dinner with Lord Livingston, but Alex had no recollection of him spending time with any girl in that meeting, so it was far more likely that Tench had seen her and made eyes at her from a distance- and would need all the help he could get to win her- or speak to her at all. Of course, Alex had also spent half the party buried under Kitty’s skirts, so he may not be the best witness.

“Her friend is the Schuyler girl.”

Tench froze. His jaw clicked. “Fine.”

“You’ll go?”

“I’m going.”

…

When Kitty’s father’s valet brought in the letter, she could see where this was going very quickly. Tearing open General Washington’s seal, she recognized the name Tench Tilghman, though not as an interesting character by her own judgment.

“We could’ve had a servant drive the carriage,” Betsey said, sitting back with her hands folded in her lap.

“Yes, Bets,” Kitty said slowly, “We could have. He’s bringing his friend to distract you from me so we can be alone.”

“Ah…I see.” Elizabeth frowned, understanding slowly, and on days like this, Kitty wondered what it was like to be the daughter of one of the continent’s feared generals- the gift of innocence she was indulged, not to have to learn how to see these tactics from suitors for her own safety. All the officers that were constantly in her home, sharing all sorts of stories about the war...and all of them too afraid of her father to try anything untoward. “That’s clever…”

“It would be clever if I hadn’t wanted you to come.”

Betsey’s brows knit in confusion, “You think…he thinks you didn’t want me to come?” she reeled at that, “Does he think I’m there as what- your father’s escort?”

“Probably.”

Understanding was still coming slow, but Betsey looked at her and seemed to see, “You wanted me to distract him, didn’t you?”

…

Tench was not going to forgive this anytime soon.

And, Alexander’s pride was not going to recover with any more ease. He should have known Kitty would be bitter with his silence over the last year, but really, how could he have known she would be cunning about it? Why should he expect a trap?

He had heard of Elizabeth Schuyler often enough from Tench and all the officers who had served with the girl’s father to expect that she would be as kind and agreeable as everyone said. By name, he couldn’t recall having met her…

But those eyes were certainly familiar. Ink-black and colder than the winter had ever been- even in John’s absence. The Elizabeth Schuyler he remembered at once was sharp-tongued and deceivingly polite.

And, her snubs were as delicate and graceful as they were decisive. Tench scooped her hand delicately and kissed it in greeting. “That is a lovely dress, Miss Schuyler.”

“It’s Kitty’s dress,” she said with a sweet smile.

To his credit, Tench waned only a little, “Then it looks lovely on you.”

“It’s quite nice on her as well.”

“I…I’m sure that’s the case…”

“You should really see her wear it.  She has a bonnet that goes so nicely with her eyes and the blue really suits her beautifully.”

“That…sounds nice?”

Alex wanted to cringe, and even though Tench was serving his purpose and distracting his girl’s escort, and though he would still cover the other aide’s correspondences for him as promised, he could only watch three of these fumbled exchanges before surrendering his time with Kitty to draw miss Schuyler away from him. He could brag of the elder aide’s finer qualities himself then perhaps send her away, happier to converse with him.

…

It was brutal to watch, but Kitty felt no shame in enjoying Betsey’s destruction of Colonel Tilghman’s lofty hopes with her. She did it so kindly the man would hardly be able to hate her for it, though he would certainly understand she had no interest in him.

Maybe she’d underestimated her friend in a way- though blind to the boys’ manipulation, she was artfully delivering her honest sentiments in a way they could hardly protest…

Perhaps she had never needed to learn the sorts of tactics Kitty had seen.

Still, when Alec turned to talk to her, Kitty was keen to watch them, and relieved when he stayed his course and only spoke praises of his friend- not even realizing Betsey was wise to Colonel Tilghman’s purpose here, and she’d be immune to such charms-

…

This game was obviously fixed against their favor.  Miss Schuyler’s smile betrayed nothing, but she would have no need for such a mask if she wasn’t aware of it’s purpose. She knew Alex had brought Tench for her.  All he could do was show his friend support in hopes Tench wouldn’t realize the setup and might overlook his oversight.

He really just wanted privacy, the freedom to tell this girl his honest intention without Tilghman’s scrutiny.

…

Perfectly content that Alec’s diversion had failed, Kitty took Colonel Tilghman’s hand to be escorted from the carriage. Through the years of their flirting and banter, Hamilton always assumed her affection was assured, and treated her as such. She knew the teasing in his letters was harmless and she understood the intention, but his ribbings were…cocky.

It would do him some good to see that he did not own her. It would certainly make it easier to deny him with whatever game at courtship he was trying this time.

After all, he wasn’t the marrying type.

…

Alex had been wrong to underestimate Kitty, but she did him the same favor when, upon arriving at the manor and stepping out of the carriage, she took Tilghman’s hand and led him inside and away from him.

Elizabeth snubbed his assistance down from the carriage.

He still waited at the step, hand still extended for her. “Miss Kitty told you I brought him to court you,” he said bluntly, turning to watch Tench walk his girl down the path into the manor.

Elizabeth took his hand, “Distract me would be a more precise translation of what she said.”

He laughed, lightly squeezing the hand in his own and starting their walk down the path. “Well, that’s cynical of her.”

“Can you fault her for that?” miss Schuyler smirked darkly, a truer expression and one Alex took some small satisfaction in, then- “She can hardly be alone with you without you trying to lead her off to just…romp with her.”

Despite how true that accusation cut, Alexander couldn’t restrain the belt of laughter it pulled from him. “Romp with her?”

“Yes!” she huffed as if offended she was being made to speak of it further. “I’ve seen how you are. You can hardly speak two words to a lady without trying to dig yourself into her skirts!”

Alex caught his breath, guiding their steps forward and stopping to bow to their hosts, generals and dignitaries each as they passed in step. “Not to be contrary with you, miss, but I like to think you are yourself a lady, and if I’ve been digging for your skirts I’ve kept my hands remarkably clean this time.”

He smirked at her immediate glare and gave her wrist a light slap when she nearly failed to curtsey Count Pulaski.

“Besides,” he said, straightening up, “I find it interesting that you assume it’s always been me who was eager to dash off for a romp.”  Implication aside that he was such a lusty tramp- an insult he was so familiar with it hardly struck him anymore, “I think I’m attractive enough that any lady with a healthy sense of desire might approach me- have you thought of that?”

“A healthy sense of desire.”

“Or any desire at all, really.”

“You flatter yourself.”

He huffed a laugh and they stopped to bow and curtsey again. Righting themselves, they were shuffled inside and he looked over at her, “Well, I don’t expect you to do it.”

“That’s wise.”

Alex wanted to take offense, but the wit was blunt enough he found himself chuckling instead, wanting to hold her hand more casually to match the ease in this banter.  He looked for where Tench had walked off with Kitty, but Elizabeth hadn’t released his hand. He glanced at her, “So Kitty told you I invited Tench to distract you from your sacred duty: to protect her…so that I can’t…” he smirked, “take her away and ravish her?”

“You too quickly assume women like you, mister Hamilton.”

“And you too quickly take the word of your friends without allowing contrary evidence.”

“It’s called loyalty, Colonel.”

“Yes,” Alex agreed. “Loyalty to friends. A very quick way to be associated with hurtful injustices, look-” tugging her hand, he stopped by the dance floor where the guests were preparing for the first dance to commence. “You’ve seen me in a very unflattering light.”

She replied with an impatient glare of agreement.

He gathered up her hands, stepping over her so that she backed away a step and the folds of her skirts shifted around his legs. “But if your reputation precedes you, you’ll do me the kindness of believing me when I say my intentions are true with your friend.”

Black eyes narrowed, “True…?”

“I intend to court her properly,” Alex said. It was the first time such words had ever left his mouth with full honesty and he didn’t like the taste of it.

Even with permission, it felt like a betrayal. If not to John, at least to himself.

It felt like surrender to the world…to the way everyone else wanted things to be. At least with Kitty, the terms of that surrender were familiar. But, there were far more pleasurable ways to surrender to her than proper courtship- namely immobilized under her thighs…

But marriage? It was hateful as much as it was necessary. He could do it, be comfortable and happy with a woman in the same way that he could be comfortable, conceding a footrace where all bets were against him- he’d catch his breath and his muscles would relax, but he’d lose…the race, his pride, the satisfaction of knowing he had given all he had and finished at a sprint, of knowing that he’d defied all those who wanted him to lose…to sacrifice his own happiness for the comfort of others…he’d rather deny them all out of spite- punish them for ever demanding such a thing…

Sure, he loved women- their bodies and wit and sensibility. But, he loved himself first, and he hated this concession.

He wanted to stay with John, and he should damn well do it.

“Do you love her?” Elizabeth said.

“What?” Alex found himself staring at their hands.

“Kitty. Are you in love with her?”

No… That was a bold question and the right one to ask, but Alex could tell she would see it if he lied about this. John had said lying wasn’t in his nature anyway. Though, lately, it all felt like lies...

John had freed him to concede a part of his heart to ensure his own happiness- he had never said how large a percentage it must be, so what did it matter if he barely loved his girl at all? If he could do so just a little, that love would still be true enough and- “I was…” he said, voice dropping to a whisper. “There was a time I loved Kitty so much I could hardly stand it.”

A lie. He thought he loved her. He hadn’t even known what love was...yet.

“But that changed?”

Yes, it had changed, but Alexander couldn’t exactly explain that he had fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with his friend- his lover in camp. A man. He dropped her hands and stepped back towards the floor where the dancers were finding their pairs. “Look. I loved her before and I know that I am very capable of doing so again. Unless you have an objection to a man, intent on committing to a woman he wants to someday marry, I’ll ask you not to interfere.”

She grabbed his arm, pulling him back, “Wait-”

He turned, frowning. Maybe Kitty had told her something he didn’t know.

“She said…”

He braced himself for the inevitable. His girl had been promised to someone else and she simply hadn’t found a way to tell him. He should have known better than to raise his hopes- Kitty was wealthy and well-bred. But, why would her father have ever allowed her to attend this ball with him if that was so?

Elizabeth hesitated, “well, I think you hurt her badly these last few months. She was convinced you had fallen for someone else.”

So then, all was not lost. He closed his mouth, stepping back towards her and holding out his hand. “Dance with me. Please.”

Elizabeth looked past him to the floor.

…

This was a surprising development, though perhaps not a shocking one. Kitty dropped the folds of her skirt where she’d been walking to meet Alec for the opening dance. Their hosts would begin the ceremonies and the guests would each take partners for the minuet and the following line dances.

Betsey had come with her to help distract Alec and in that regard, she was effective, but there was no satisfaction in giving her a nod from across the room when the girl looked for her permission.

There would’ve been no harm in dancing with him…

Kitty glanced back to Colonel Tilghman, his eyes fixed on the same scene and drawing his own bottom lip to chew it, a heavy curl of guilt for the crestfallen expression he wore. It would be simple to walk over and cut in, free Betsey to his hand and take Alec away to the dance floor with her where he had intended to be anyway…but there was a danger in coming too close to that boy and his mouth, in imagining how she could have him with a simple command…

Not now…but maybe…

She stepped to Tilghman’s side, “Should I assume I’m not your first choice of dance partner?” she said, giving him a careful smile.

He collected himself as if he hadn’t realized he’d had her audience, composing himself and holding a hand out politely. “You are my best choice, it seems.”

It was the kindest thing to say.

…

Elizabeth understood the steps and moved with all the grace that Alex’s former dance partners had been known to want. The complicated series’ of steps and hops in the first few sets granted little time to conversation and far too much for his own reflections.

He’d only been gone for a week, but all Alexander could hear was John’s laughter, the tight-chested fondness to watch his clipped steps and small stumbles, the warmth of dancing in this stuffy ballroom style in their own cabin, perverting the movements to their own taste and reclaiming them their own…

And the night that followed.

John had said his dancing partner here would be able to keep up with him, but it was he who was struggling to maintain his usual grace, expecting longer limbs for the twirls and a taller partner to spin.

“Was Kitty right?” Elizabeth said, watching his feet- likely to avoid being stepped on, “That you’d fallen for someone else?” She looked up to his eyes, and when he didn’t want to answer, her tone accused, “Because you don’t seem to be dancing with me-” she stepped under his arm, “and if you had wanted to dance with her, you would’ve just asked.”

There were enough ladies that trailed behind the army to follow their families or work- she would have no reason to suspect- "Someone in camp,” he admitted.

Elizabeth frowned. “And you’ve come back to Kitty…because this girl in camp-”

“We would never work,” Alex said, clasping her hand again, “our…families…” John’s family would be ruined forever. He would be hanged by his political enemies. Washington’s reputation…all that had happened under the General’s watch… “I need to be serious about my future- consider things like marriage.”

“The infamous Tomcat, truly speaking of proper courtship.”

There was a smirk in her tone “Is that really so hard to believe?”

“No. I don’t think you’re being insincere,” she met his eyes as they dipped in unison, “But, I’ve heard stories…and, knowing that you love this girl in camp-”

He wished she would stop calling John a girl- “I admit, I have a terrible weakness,” he said, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure what he had intended to say. Then, Elizabeth’s dark eyes were locked on his, stepping close to him and sharing the same breaths and it was easy to explain, “I have a foolish, hopeful heart.” A strange topic to touch again. It wasn’t exactly a secret that he guarded, but it was one he didn’t speak of- or…had only spoken of with John, an inky black place in his chest, touched only by him. “See, I’m inexplicably drawn to fall in love with the ones I can never keep.”

Black eyes turned from him, staring past his shoulder on the party where Kitty twirled under the next man’s arm. “I think,” she wet her lips and glanced down toward his feet, “that’s not…your fault…”

That- he had not expected and, “How?” he blurted. Suddenly at a disadvantage, he didn’t want to seem confused, lagging behind her, “I mean, I know the heart wants what the heart wants- or some such adage, but-”

“But, that’s not what I’m saying,” she smiled, surprisingly kind. “I just mean…I think, when you allow it, your heart follows easily where it’s lead and that’s not a bad thing. It’s certainly not foolish.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, feeling raw in a familiar and unwelcome way.

“I think,” Betsey turned away, dropping the folds of her dress as the music slowed, “you shouldn’t be with someone who doesn’t see that…” Or worse- someone who saw it and let him fall in love nonetheless.

“You…don’t think Kitty sees it…” he realized this almost as he said it aloud, staring at her. “So if I told her I’d had a lover in camp- that that’s the cause of my silence, she wouldn’t forgive it.”

“I think…” the music had stopped and Elizabeth stepped back towards their friends, “that’s something you should ask her.”

It was Alexander’s turn to grab her arm and say, “Wait- you see her better than I do, I’m sure. I think you see me as well, and- even knowing and believing my intentions, you’ve diverted me from her… you don’t think I should pursue it further.”

“She enjoys you-”

“Yes, between her legs, what about her heart?” Alex nearly bit his own tongue, shocked with himself for saying such a thing to a lady- especially one he didn’t know in such a way. But, Elizabeth just raised her brows at his language. He slowed himself, “I mean, would it be unwise to let myself love her again? Please be honest.”

“Well,” she bit her lip and her hands smoothed out the front of her dress restlessly, fidgeting with his proximity “I think you’re attractive enough…you have many options. I certainly can’t control where your heart is leading.”

The response was so simple, Alex could hardly help himself from lowering his voice, sultry, “Don’t be so quick to doubt yourself there…” He grinned when that earned a high flush and her hands flattening out over her skirts.

Kitty and Tench stepped from the crowd of dancers, walking to join them. Unaware of their approach, Elizabeth stepped towards him to say, “We will be friends, if anything, mister Hamilton.”

She was close enough to convey her anger and he smiled, “I don’t keep ladies as friends, miss Schuyler.”

“Well, that is too bad,” she huffed, “because we will not be nothing.” Turning away from him, she nearly crashed into Tilghman’s chest.

Alex was still smiling when Kitty accepted his hand and walked him towards the ballroom floor once more.

…

It wasn’t until later- after the girls had spent some time together and Kitty had approached him, pulled him aside to borrow the carriage for a few hours, find some privacy, and shared kisses and touches, groans and sighs that spoke of dismissal…he realized his dear girl’s play. 

Her friend, Elizabeth…Betsey- had been a demand for proof of his love, for him to show the lengths to which he’d go to have her like this again. But, hiking her leg over his shoulder to find a deeper place in her, he realized, he was only given this after she’d been reassured that she had him still- that the part of him he had forfeit was not lost in his silence.

She would never be his. He would never have that part of himself back. That was hers. He would surrender…

and surrender…

And there, in the inky black water, the depths of himself that were ugly and comfortable and John’s, there would be an intruder. 

And, she would have whatever was left.

[hermanwatts]

Fantasy New Releases: 11 April, 2020

Lost continents, living dungeons, Taoist monasteries and hidden magical academies provide the backdrop for this week’s fantasy new releases.

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #5: Forced Entry – Chuck Dixon and Renato Rei

The hunter has become the hunted. As the mysterious vigilante continues to stalk her prey, the crack international superhero team is on her trail and is determined to bring her down before she can accomplish her deadly mission.

But is there another way to find her? What is the connection between the vigilante and the unknown coma patient she was once observed visiting in the hospital? The Avalon police, too, are patiently trying to track her down before she adds to her body count.

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #6: Unforced Error – Chuck Dixon and Renato Rei

Vengeance is the order of the day in Avalon. But when King Ace and his new team finally manage to track down the murderous vigilante and interrupt her latest hit, he learns that it is a lot easier to take on an unwilling villain than to take her in to face justice. And he also learns a much more difficult lesson about betrayal.

In the meantime, King Ace’s old friend and former not-sidekick has also fallen in with some new friends who do not hesitate to use their superpowers in some very illegal ways and towards some very questionable ends.

Dungeon World 5 – Jonathan Brooks

With the help of an unlikely ally, Fred has secretly obtained access to all seven elements for his Core without the Supreme Council of Dungeon Cores’ knowledge; Fire, Water, Nature, Earth, Dark, Light, and Air are now technically at his disposal. However, despite having access to them all, he finds himself behind enemy lines without the use of any but Light and Air due to his temporary Core he had created back in his dungeon. Now, with the assistance of Roady, Ravenne, and Agelstein – three members of the Allroads Government, and Fred’s “bodyguards” – he has to safely make it back to the city before the inevitable deadly response from the local Dungeon Cores at his theft of the Light element kills him.

Trouble is brewing behind the scenes, though, and the Supreme Council is ready to step up their attacks on Fred’s dungeon underneath the city of Allroads. With additional complications preventing Fred from fully utilizing his newly acquired elements, he has to scramble to find a way to not be useless and assist in the defense of his dungeon, his Shards, and all the people in the city above relying on him.

Oh, and on top of that, Fred still needs to figure out a way to save the world…

Gods of Pangaea (Lost on the Last Continent #3) – John C. Wright

Colonel Preston Lost didn’t think of himself as reckless. He believed in preparation, proper equipment, and patience in stalking the prey. But, in reality, he was not a cautious man. Having followed a spaceship into the black storm clouds above the Bermuda Triangle, he flew through a time portal to the end of days and crash-landed on Pangaea Ultima with few supplies and no way of returning home.

Lost now finds himself embroiled in a battle for dominance of not only the world, but all of time as well, and he is forced to concede that—just perhaps—he is a little reckless after all.

The Eighth Men have come, bringing the Fifth Men and all of their First Man fighting slaves, to conquer Threno, the City of Swift Death, and they have come with overwhelming force. Their dreadnought alone would be sufficient to defeat the entire Corsair Navy, and they have more. Much more.

The only things Lost has going for him are a broken-down machine from countless eons past, a whispered prophecy from an Atlantean girl, and his hope that the Watchers’ will err. It’s not much, but Lost really wants to kiss the girl at the end of the battle, so he’ll have to find a way to make it work!

Heroes of the Fallen (Saga of the Fallen #1) – David J. West

The Golden Age is over. An army of evil is coming. Heroes are in short supply…

It is the last days of the great Nephite nation and their civilization teeters on the brink of devastating war. Their blood-enemies and rival nation, the Lamanites, have sworn their destruction. As the conflict unfolds upon this ancient American landscape, courageous heroes fight to defend their people against ruthless forces of evil. Amaron and his Ten Scouts, Zelph the White Lamanite, and Anathoth the Lamanite general all must face the Gadianton Master Akish-Antum, as he orchestrates the greatest terror the land has ever known.…

In a world at war, who will rise to become the heroes of the fallen? To save the noble few, conspiracies and assassins blades won’t stop the Heroes from leaving a swath of righteous carnage in their wake…

A Power Awakened (The Volatar Saga #2) – D. K. Holmberg

The Great Powers must awaken or all will be lost.

With power restored, and a tenuous balance now formed with his powers, the Volatar’s work is not yet done.

The Jahor have suffered considerable losses, but they now have a place to prepare. With strange attacks targeting his people, the Volatar knows it won’t be long before the Trilan finds them and destroys the Jahor for good.

Hevith leads his people north. Now a wagon master, he must find the place of safety promised to him, but the safety of the north isn’t what he’d been led to believe.

An encounter with the Hith gives Hevith a new target and a new goal. If he fails, not only the people with him will suffer, but all of the Jahor will fall.

A Thousand Li: the First War – Tao Wong

Long Wu Ying never expected to join a Sect or become a real cultivator. His days were spent studying, planting rice on the family farm and spending time with his friends. Fate, however, has different plans for Wu Ying and when the army arrives at his village, he and many other members of the village are conscripted.

Winter has passed, taking with it the hope of peace. The state of Wei deploy an increasing number of cultivators and soldiers, intent on taking over the state of Shen. Caught in-between the armies is Wu Ying’s village and all those that he cares about.

Advised to keep away from the approaching war, Wu Ying will have to decide what is more important – his journey to immortality or the ties to the mortal that he holds onto still. Or perhaps, there is a third way, one that balances both the needs of Heaven and destiny and the karmic ties of the family.

The Unbearable Heaviness of Remembering (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment #5) – L. Jagi Lamplighter

Rachel Griffin Knows a Secret Everyone Else Has Forgotten…

…She has discovered she has an older sister named Amber, who was stolen-away as a baby. Nobody but Rachel remembers her—not even their parents. Rachel is determined to find Amber and restore her to the family. But how?

She doubts it will be as easy as overhearing the name Rumpelstiltskin.

Meanwhile, Rachel has bigger problems. Wild fey have invaded the campus. If they so much as bewitch even one more student, Roanoke Academy will be forced to close its doors. Rachel and her friends must solve this menace before the academy cancels more classes or, worse, the Year of the Dragon Ball!

But she has hope—if she can keep the school open—because, as Rachel’s late grandmother told her, Masquerade balls are a time of wonder… when anything is possible.

Warbringer (Descendants of the Fall #1) – Aaron Hodges

Centuries ago, the world fell.

From the ashes rose a terrible new species—the Tangata. Now they wage war against the kingdoms of man.

And humanity is losing.

Recruited straight from his academy, twenty-year-old Lukys hopes the frontier will make a soldier out of him. But Tangata are massing in the south, and the allied armies are desperate. They will do anything to halt the enemy advance—including sending untrained men and women into battle. Determined to survive, Lukys seeks aid from the only man who seems to care: Romaine, the last warrior of an extinct kingdom.

Meanwhile, the Queen’s Archivist leads an expedition deep beneath the earth. She seeks to uncover the secrets of the Gods. Their magic has been lost to the ages, yet artefacts remain, objects of power that could turn the tide of the war. But salvation is not all that waits beneath the surface. Something else slumbers in the darkness. Something old. Something evil.

Fantasy New Releases: 11 April, 2020 published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[bfaltraco-blog]

A Push for America’s Public Lands

      As of April 2018, presidential plans have been set to intrude on America’s last unclaimed frontier, the great state of Alaska. Not in a way that housing developments are going to be constructed, but in a way that will result in completely toxic and unusable land after oil companies are done with it. The Trump Administration is going to be drilling for oil and gas in a 1.5-million-acre arctic refuge (Collins). Many Americans may think that continuing in actions like this will only benefit the economy. Although it may for a period time, when all the resources in that region are used up, another area will be moved onto and the cycle will begin again. What happens if we keep making protected public lands into unprotected lands and destroying the ecosystems that they withhold? There is a clear division between Americans right now and the protection of the natural world is as controversial as it could ever be. Keeping lands protected is important for the assurance that future generations will survive relatively comfortably due to us not overusing our share of natural resources, and that they will know how to manage and conserve their lands following our correct steps. Federal and state lands bring hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, boosting the nation’s economy along with supporting local businesses all over the United States. Without public lands, many health and educational benefits would be missed out on. 

     America is one of the largest consuming countries. It has been said many times that the damage being done to the earth is, at least, partially irreversible. Minerals, fossil fuels, agriculture, and forestry are just some of the many demands not being met by supply due to overconsumption and population rise. One of the Sierra Club’s writers, Dave Tilford, mentions “A child born in the United States will create thirteen times as much ecological damage over the course of his or her lifetime than a child born in Brazil,” (scientificamerican.com). The wealth gap keeps growing. World Resources Forum reports, “Global resource extraction grew more or less steadily over the past 25 years, from 40 billion tons in 1980 to 58 billion tons in 2005, representing an aggregated growth rate of 45%,” (Lutter and Giljum). With today’s technology, clean energy should be possible but not enough people are seeing that it is going to be a necessity. President Trump is so opposed to the protection of our resources that it is bringing attention to the fact that they actually do need protected and not exploited. In 2017, our president withdrew from the Paris Agreement, but thousands of businesses and even states in the US declared that they considered themselves in the agreement to continue in trying to act as “green” as possible (Stone). There is a glimmer of hope but not nearly enough time if we keep taking one step forward and two steps back. 

     The National Park Service has records that our lands started to be recognized as protected in the late 1800s, but our resources were managed even earlier. In 1817, the US Navy had special forested areas specifically for ship lumber. Ralph Waldo Emerson published his essay Nature, sparking thoughts of the beauty and origin of nature in 1836. Many new technologies became available in the mid-1800s which let people spread ideas and opinions through publishing writings and traveling to paint or even photograph beautiful landscapes. The Adirondacks were agreed to be preserved in 1864 by the state of New York. It was only in 1869 that John Wesley Powell was the first man to lead a Colorado River expedition. The American Forestry Association was founded in 1875, protecting trees on government owned property. The first few national parks were established in California in 1890. Two years after that, the well-known preservationist, John Muir, founded the Sierra Club which is still around today and known for fighting for the protection of our lands. In 1894 an act was passed by Congress which prohibited hunting in Yellowstone National Park. 1901 was an important year because a big-time conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt, became president. Throughout his presidency, over fifty wildlife sanctuaries were created, and many national parks, forests, and museums were established. In 1903 Roosevelt gave a speech, at the laying of the cornerstone where the entrance for Yellowstone would be, on how important it was for the public to cooperate in keeping it a protected land. He spoke of how magnificent it was that such a “natural playground” was available for public to experience a wilderness while not disturbing it. (nps.gov). He believed in preservation to an extent, but he is known for his confidence in conservation and using land wisely, so we do not damage the environment’s limited resources that we need to survive. 

     The rest of the 1900s consisted of some pauses for conservation and protection due to wars and troubling times in the U.S., but for some reason it resumed after all was done. Industry was growing, and new resources were being used to every American’s benefit. People were seeing that we need to be smart with what we have while we have it. Somehow along the way that mindset was lost. Here in 2018 it is all about immediate, short term, monetary gain, disregarding these ideas and thoughts that have been put into action and working out for so long. Today, even the first peoples to inhabit this continent, Native Americans, have been shoved into little boxes to live on their “preserved land” in poverty and anguish with not only high drug and alcohol rates, but record-breaking suicide rates. Generations to come are not going to be able to be supported by the earth like we have been, because we are protecting nothing for them and leaving them even less than that while destroying areas that won’t recover for hundreds of years to come. 

     When it comes to a person’s health or mental stability, viewing nature and getting outside are a known remedy because it is where we can all be traced back to, whether a business man, a doctor, or a mechanic. Adults and children benefit from the natural sunlight, certain chemicals that boost your immune system, vision enhancement, and getting away from “societal pressures” (mentalfloss.com). Children exposed to the outdoors are more likely to develop great social and life skills along with more comprehensive decision making (McCarthy). Exercise is crucial today due to the rising percent of childhood obesity. The rates have increased from 13.9% in 2000 to 18.5 in 2016 (stateofobesity.org). As children are exposed to the outdoors at an early age, they have the opportunity to not only exercise and get fresh air, but possibly become more aware of the world around them which could lead to healthier eating and a more sustainable lifestyle. 

     Endorphins are released, blood pressure improves, and a brain can even start to work differently after its host spends more time outside (Loria). Anxiety and depression are often effects from today’s man-made world from jobs, school, and social media. America is the most anxious country in the world (Ducharme). Taking away public land access would not help that statistic. 

     It is no surprise that the Department of Interior’s 2017 Fiscal Year Report showed mass growth in jobs and economies around the US for the first time in a while, because the lands have started to be mined and uprooted to have natural resources rapidly extracted from them (doi.gov). These are limited resources being dealt with, meaning there is in fact an end to them. U.S. public lands are one of the hottest attractions for tourists from around the world. With numbers of over 100 million visits a year, as of 2015 in just the western lands, local economies flourish and thousands of jobs are provided (Livesay 11-13). Many services in the Department of Agriculture (DOA) or the Department of the Interior (DOI) employ Americans, like the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the US Forest Service. According to the Outdoor Industry Association, outdoor industry (including parks, lands, management, etc) supplies $887 billion just in consumer spending along with supporting 7.6 million jobs in the US. Colorado alone receives over 40 million tourist visits each year, supplying over 220 thousand jobs, and reigning in $28 billion in its outdoor industry. The federal budget set towards conservation has been in a continual decline and the Trump Administration is planning on cutting it down by over $2 billion (a 16% drop). This money is what is put towards maintaining trails, roads, and access to the beautiful wonders of the great country of America (Livesay 9-12). 

     Most species on earth have been disturbed in one way or another whether extinct, relocated, or endangered because of human activity. Development and misuse of natural resource have caused to destruction of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity. In taking away the resources we want, innocent organisms are paying the price by dying off due to habitat loss. 

     Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments have been opened up to development and exploitation of natural resources within the past year of 2018. Oil drilling has taken over this country and in no way should it be above this nation’s history and heritages from the past couple thousand of years. The Arctic Refuge is being leased for drilling by the order of the White House. The Grand Canyon is being looked at to be a possible uranium mining site, which would be catastrophic to the whole ecosystem as uranium is radioactive and the mining process is very destructive. Pipelines are being proposed to run through even more protected lands than they have already been set it. The highly protested Keystone pipeline has already leaked 210 thousand gallons of crude oil in what used to be protected land in South Dakota (Greenberg). 

     The only main negative to keeping lands protected is that no development will be allowed in those areas but that is only a short-term negative. Protecting them will keep resources available for generations to come and keep the country’s many species and landscapes available to study. If we figure out how to effectively manage our lands without damaging them as we are, it will only cause the trend to continue in the future. Without public lands for recreation, de-stressing, and adventuring, we would be just a destructive, money-hungry country, but for what? If there is no real way to enjoy this magnificent earth, what is the point? Let’s keep this country’s natural diary alive and find a balance between our needs and wants to agree with what can be reasonably provided for us. 

Works Cited:

“11 Scientific Benefits of Being Outdoors.” Mental Floss, Mental Floss, 2 Nov. 2015, mentalfloss.com/article/70548/11-scientific-benefits-being-outdoors. 

“Childhood Obesity Trends.” The State of Obesity, stateofobesity.org/childhood-obesity-trends/. 

Collins, Michael. “Interior Department Takes Step toward Drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 19 Apr. 2018, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/19/trump-administration-takes-initial-step-steps-toward-oil-and-gas-drilling-alaskas-arctic-national-wi/533176002/. 

“Conservation Timeline 1801-1900.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/mabi/learn/historyculture/conservation-timeline-1801-1900.htm. 

“Conservation Timeline 1901-2000.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/mabi/learn/historyculture/conservation-timeline-1901-2000.htm. 

Ducharme, Jamie. “Almost 40% of Americans Are Becoming More Anxious.” Time, Time, 8 May 2018, time.com/5269371/americans-anxiety-poll/. 

EarthTalk. “Use It and Lose It: The Outsize Effect of U.S. Consumption on the Environment.” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-consumption-habits/. 

“Economic Impact of Public Lands Increases by $400 Million in First Year Under President Trump.” U.S. Department of the Interior, Interior Press, 14 Nov. 2018, www.doi.gov/pressreleases/economic-impact-public-lands-increases-400-million-first-year-under-president-trump. 

Green, Chelsea. “Ten Facts About the Water We Waste.” Chelsea Green Publishing, Chelsea Green Publishing, 20 Mar. 2018, www.chelseagreen.com/2008/ten-facts-about-the-water-we-waste/. 

Greenberg, Max. “One Year Ago, Trump Launched His Attack on Our Public Lands. This Is What's Happened since Then.” Wilderness.org, www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/one-year-ago-trump-launched-his-attack-our-public-lands-whats-happened-then. 

Livesay, Lucy. “290 Million Reasons to Invest in America's Public Lands.” Western Priorities, Center for Western Priorities, Mar. 2018, westernpriorities.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/290-Million-Visits-Report.pdf. 

Loria, Kevin. “Being Outside Can Improve Memory, Fight Depression, and Lower Blood Pressure - Here Are 12 Science-Backed Reasons to Spend More Time Outdoors.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 22 Apr. 2018, www.businessinsider.com/why-spending-more-time-outside-is-healthy-2017-7?r=UK&IR=T. 

Lutter, Stephen, and Stefan Giljum. “Facts and Figures.” World Resources Forum, www.wrforum.org/publications-2/publications/. 

McCarthy, Claire. “6 Reasons Children Need to Play Outside.” Harvard Health Blog, Harvard Health Publishing, 21 May 2018, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/6-reasons-children-need-to-play-outside-2018052213880. 

Stone, Laurie. “Top Ten Clean Energy Developments of 2017.” Rocky Mountain Institute, 30 May 2018, rmi.org/top-ten-clean-energy-developments-2017/.