#Dan meanwhile Shines

[radiance1]

"Old fuck!" Said Dan as he kicked down the wall to Vlad's office. Vlad only let out a sigh, apologizing for the noise and then ending the meeting right then and there. He glanced over at Dan and wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Do you truly have no concept of a door?"

"It's more fun this way," He mentioned offhandedly as he stomped his way over the Vlad's desk and slammed his hands down on it. "Do something for me!"

Vlad, silently, moured the loss of another table and those three glorious months of peace. He looked Dan in the eyes and raised an eyebrow. "And what, exactly, do you want me to do for you?"

"So you know Superman-"

"No."

Dan reared back like he'd been slapped. "The fuck!? You didn't even hear me out yet!"

"I don't need to." Vlad calmly sipped at his tea that wasn't there a second ago, and then let out another sigh. "And do stop screaming obscenities at me, it is horribly low-class and you're better than that."

"You're only saying that because I'm a fusion of you." Dan pointed out with a deadpan expression. Vlad snorted. "Obviously."

"Hear me out and I'll think about it."

Vlad sighed again, crunching away at a cookie -seriously where is he getting all of this??- before waving a hand in Dan's direction that basically said "Go on."

"Alright so Superman, you know the guy and you most certainly know his weakness." He swipped a cookie, then continued at Vlad's nod. "Kryptonite, nasty stuff yea. You know who uses Kryptonite the most out of basically everyone?"

"Lex Luthor."

"Lex fucking Luthor."

Vlad placed his teacup onto the desk, threading his fingers together and resting his chin on them as he stared the fusion down. "You know, if you wanted me to... complicate, his gathering of Kryptonite. You could have just led with that."

"Would it have worked?" Dan genuinely asked.

"I would have thought it over a bit more before my refusal." Vlad answered and Dan growled. "Just accept already you old-timer."

"Now, now. If I didn't know any better, I would think that you were perhaps, worried about the Man of Steel himself?" At that, Vlad's eyes turned red as a playful smirk graced his lips.

Dan's eyes narrowed as he lifted a finger towards Vlad acusingly. "Don't you dare try your mind control bullshit on me."

Vlad chuckled. "Oh I would not dream of it, I was merely..." Vlad's eyes shined with mirth as he deliberately paused. "Stating an assumption."

Dan hissed, translating his sheer annoyance through ghost speak while Vlad respond back with a purr. More than throuoghly pleased.

Usually, it was the other way around.

"You can go to hell with your assumptions." He leaned over the desk, destroying it even further as he his claws dug into it. "Either you deal with him or I'll do it myself."

Vlad stared him down for a good few moments, the room falling silent as they stared each other down. Vlad sighed. "Fine, I don't need your little temper tantrum leaving me with such a giant mess to clean up." He tapped a button under his desk -mercifully safe from the destruction- and waved Dan away. "Now if you will excuse yourself, I have a few calls to make, a desk to replace, you know the works."

Dan nodded and over to the giant hole in the wall before pausing. He reached out with ghost speak, sending out a violent threat through intent if he did not follow through.

Vlad simply responded with nonchalance, exasperation, and even a bit of annoyance.

A few weeks later

Lex Luthor is livid.

Someone has been buying up all of the Kryptonite before he could get to it, which should be impossible in itself. But no, then they proceeded to mess with the shipments he managed to get his hands on, interrupt deals to acquire them and even outright destroyed a few.

He has his own stockpile for emergencies, yes. But it's very noticeably dwindling.

Meanwhile with Vlad

"Now what exactly am I supposed to do with all of this?" Vlad asked himself, staring at the large pit of Kryptonite capable of filling multiple warehouses.

Honestly, it was utterly useless to him.

[la2yn0va]

Hello! I hope that you are doing well! Can i request a yandere astral express x male reader x yandere stellaron hunters (self aware au). They have a bitter rivary because despite the reader being with the astral express in their adventures, the reader seems to have a preference with the stellaron hunter members because they are usually on the team especially with the arrival of firefly (little side note: im this little scenario Kafka came home first to the reader's team despite Himeko, being one of the first five stars).

I LOVE YANDERE CHARACTERS!!!! (Sorry got a little excited there)

———

Let’s get one thing straight. The astral express crew LOVES you and will forever be your followers, no matter what.

But..WHY do you love those criminals so much?! It’s like it goes over your head that they kill people on the daily!

You don’t… out right show your favoritism but they can sense it, they can HEAR it. How you talk faster when the topic of the hunters, how your eyes shine when talking to firefly.

It angers them. Pure jealousy and even hatred towards them purely for the fact that you love them more then you love the team your on and trailblazer with!

Meanwhile, the stellaron hunters know of your favoritism. It was obvious, due to the four of them being your main team.

They are nothing but bratty and they gloat every chance they get. And no one can do a thing about it, as they’re fearful they’ll earn your wrath.

The stellaron hunters are always around you in someway, weather it be holographic or in person, they’ll always be beside you.

Which irritates the crew members even more, besides caelus/stelle, they get to hangout with firefly AND you, so they’re the only member that enjoys your favoritism for the hunters.

Himeko feels especially betrayed by this. She was your first Five Star. Then it was Welt. But when you had the opportunity to summon for Kafka, she felt hurt that you actually did it, but then she felt hatred like she’s never felt before when Kafka replaced her in your team.

Dan heng hates blade as he took his spot, march hates SilverWolf and firefly…well, no one hates firefly personally from the express. Just hate by association.

The astral express always try to stay beside you and in a way, gaslight you into liking them more then those deranged criminals, besides the trailblazer (I’ll just use Caelus)

Himeko herself will make up lies about Kafka to you, she’s in the belief that Kafka bewitched you into favoring her and her comrades.

-The End-

This was shorter than I wanted it to be, but I need to relax. This 8 hour drive is a fuckin pain.

Also, PLEASE give me more yandere hsr / self-aware hsr requests! I love them!

[periwinklefemur]

Are we rockin' with violinist Herbert?

Herbert is a violin prodigy who performs in the renowned Arkham Symphony, while Dan, on the other hand, has never layed a single finger on an instrument. (There was that one time where, as a kid, he tried strumming the violin, thinking it was some sort of fancy guitar.)

After his grandparents' passing, he kept the violin, but it has simply been collecting dust in a closet. He considered pawning it but never got around to it. However, that all changes when he spots a flyer for violin lessons provided by Herbert West himself, apparently 'free of charge' (or so he thought, as no price was indicated on the flyer). With that, he tears off a tab listing the address and available times, grabs his violin, and heads in that direction.

He arrives at Herbert's address in time, as his sweaty palm is turning the text into an incomprehensible ink blob, and upon knocking on the door, a disgruntled Herbert answers. Dan introduces himself, explaining that he's here for lessons, to which Herbert nods in acknowledgment and invites him into his chaotic apartment, where books and music sheets cover the wooden floor.

The lesson doesn't go smoothly at all. Dan, completely unfamiliar with the violin, struggles to grasp the basic fundamentals. Meanwhile, Herbert continues to critique and correct him at every opportunity, expressing his frustration by remarking that he's tutored kindergarteners better than Dan.

However, that's not to say there aren't moments where Dan manages to shine through. As Herbert admires how swift Dan is with his hands and how delicate his fingers are; similar to a surgeon performing a life-saving surgery.

Finally, after an excruciating two hours, the lesson ends, and Herbert demands a payment of $300. Dan, of course, flips out, stating that there wasn't a price listed on the slip to which Herbert is quick to rebut, stating that "one, Dan could have asked first, and two, getting one-on-one lessons from a well-known symphony player, wasn't exactly going to be cheap."

After some bickering and discussion, the pair settled on a meager $150. Dan packs up his violin and heads to the door, intending to head straight to the pawn shop, with Herbert having no intention of stopping him. However, as he gazes upon Dan's hands one last time, he realizes that Dan might have the potential to become a renowned violin player, even joining him in the symphony (perhaps sitting right beside him), and losing him would be a shame. So, he grabs Dan's wrist, stopping him, and explains that he will "ease up" and that lessons will be free from now on. However, Dan has to promise to come on time and practice on his own, which he agrees

[ihatechosingnames]

HSR Analysis about the Xianzhou Arc

With 1.3 Hoyo give us the official end of the Xianzhou Arc and I don't think everyone is satified with the last Trailblaze Quest. I think if they gave this mission with 1.2, it will have been a bit better. Not the best, but seriously, it was just a quest on going around places. But the final cutscene… was worth it the wait.

Let's go in order. 1.2 Starts with the unlikely quartet composed by Stelle, March, Welt and Tingyun managed to go to the Alchemy Commission where we see the fruits of Fu Xuan's commanding power as an acting general.

Let's skip fast and go to the moment when Fu Xuan tasked the trio to go and help by diving into the mist and turn off the Elixir Crucibles.

A precision, she asked the "unexpected guests" cit Jing Yuan because

Never once she says that Tingyun was to help them, Tingyun's job was to bring them to places, like the Artisanship Commission or the Alchemy Commission. If you paid attention, while we walked to the crucibles there was a piece of conversation

Here she sounds actually excited, while at the beginning Tingyun wasn't that happy to be in our company, she was nervous because the situation was unstable. So, here, I suppose, is Phantylia already talking. Or let more of her own personality shine.

Now, after the battle with Dan Shu, she said two things:

So, at first, it seems like Phantylia gave the Stellaron to the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus (DoSM for short) and made a promise with them. And it wouldn't be wrong to think this way, Phantylia is a Lord Ravager, a follower of Nanook, she should be able to have a Stellaron at ready. Actually, I read a very interesting post here on Tumblr about language, and I think that while the English translation is good, it may lose some context in between the translation. Like about the subjects of a phrase. The exact content of the promise between the DoSM and Phantylia is still missing, but we know one objective: fuse the power of the Abundance with the power of the Destruction.

And it's terrifying if you think about it: Destruction has a huge attack, Abundance can cure itself... and we already saw a character who has both: Blade, a character on the path of Destruction who is also struck with Immortality. In gameplay he sacrifices a part of his HP to do more damage, only to regain later.

Let's go back to Tingyun and Phantylia. Like Welt says, mostly to reassure both March and Stelle, there is no certain hint to say that Tingyun was working willingly with Phantylia, but without the body, we don't know.

Which is a good question. But, for me, no body, no death. It basically is a rule in writing a story: if you don't find the body, that character can always appear later. So, the fact that Phantylia didn't leave a body will lead only to one thing: the body was fake. If she left the body, Fu Xuan would have realized immediately that Tingyun's body wasn't the real deed. Which it will bring us, by doing a jump, directly to the last quest, the "funeral". We met a lot of people who knew Tingyun, but the entire thing about Tingyun left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Even Yukong says some things that contradict herself

But, after some reconsideration, it has some strategy to that. Phantylia says "It would've been nice to observe a little longer" before revealing herself in her ghost-flame-like appearance. Possibly, Phantylia didn't want to reveal herself at all, let the DoSM and the Cloud Knights kill each other while she stays in the background and sees how the Xianzhou Loufu destroys itself from the inside. By declaring officially that Tingyun is dead, doing the all funeral and letting the Trio gives the news, it would destroy every other chances for Phantylia to use that face again. Meanwhile, Yukong would search for her but not in an official way. Strange that we didn't find any letter like the voiceline says, or maybe they didn't search her shop.

My considerations: they did everything to say that Tingyun is dead without saying explicitly, but I stand my ground and say Tingyun is not dead, not yet anyway.

But let's go back to the past, after this Trailblazer quest, the narrative switches its main character and we are back to Dan Heng! Like I said, he is the second main character on this arc and it was done perfectly.

Seriously, the switches between our characters, Dan Heng's parallel but different journey to his past... well done, HOYO.

Our more unlikely TRIO, Dan Heng, Sushang and Luocha, arrive in the same place, probably a few moments later our other trio left.

Sushang went back to the Cloud Knights, Luocha has one more deal to see and Dan Heng needs to leave before they ask who he is.

The past haunts Dan Heng, literally, the ghost of the past lives of the Vidyadhara appear to talk to him and Blade, the man he usually he runs from is waiting for him.

that woman, perhaps Jingliu?

The one thing I can't explain is the transformation in Imbibitor Lunae, why the change in clothes? Dan Heng wasn't fashionably enough with his regular clothes and needed a change? Anime Logic, I know.

And poor Yanqing, that tries to fight literally legends, first Jingliu and now Dan Heng and Blade together.

Luckily, to babysit everyone there is Kafka. Look at Blade! He looks like someone who is regretting his choices.

Before reuniting with his friends, Dan Heng says a few words to Jing Yuan

which is something really important. Dan Feng and Dan Heng are two different persons, even if Dan Feng didn't go through the hatching cycle. Right now, he is Dan Heng of the Astral Express and I was almost in tears in reading it, since there were many red flags about Dan Heng leaving the Astral Express Family. Even the scene that is a call back to the beginning, with March and Stelle's hands stretched out to Dan Heng was touching

DO NOT SEPARATE! My babies çç

From here, everything seems to go fast. The cutscene with the music and the CGI that was the waves was so well done (basically all the money went to the waves), they went to fight Phantylia and what a fight it was. But unfortunately, our MC didn't get the power of the Hunt. Looking at how the story went, it was kind of assumed but not granted. The Xianzhou didn't lose faith in the Aeon of the Hunt, not like Cocolia did with Qlipoth. And in this Arc the moral protagonist was Dan Heng, with his past and his quest to accept but also move on with his future, it was not a time for our MC to get a power up. Maybe in the next world, unlike Genshin who has a fixed number of places (7 Archons, 7 Elements, 7 Nations etc), Honkai Star Rail is bigger, it has a lot more of Aeons and we have seen the powers of Aeon whose Path is not playable, who says that HOYO won't introduce more playable Paths?

Phantylia is merely playing with us, she is barely amused with our performance. In terms of boss fights, Cocolia is more emotionally charged and the best for music. Phantylia is part of a bigger story, the same story that Elio scripted and Kafka is directing and, as Kafka said, we gained a powerful ally in the Xianzhou Luofu

And I'm gonna bet that during the final fight with Nanook, the Xianzhou Loufu will appear as the cavalry, just like Jing Yuan did in the Dan Heng Companion Quest.

In the end, the Xianzhou Arc was different from Belobog Arc, the ending was unsatisfying because there were still a few things missing, and it didn't feel like an ending, like it did with Belobog with the nice pictures, it was more of a "see you later", so if I can guess, there will be another arc in the Xianzhou and it will be about the post cutscene.

I'm still a firm believer that Luocha is not Void Archives, but he played a part in this. He likely brought the Stellaron to the Xianzhou, possibly smuggled Jingliu to Xianzhou, all for destroying the Abundance.

It was an incredible cliffhanger that leads to more questions than answers. We now assume that Luocha smuggled the Stellaron to the Xianzhou, Jingliu wasn't on the ship only to search for Blade, Jing Yuan needs a vacation and never comes back to his place as General.

So, final consideration: we are not over with the Xianzhou, even with our jade abacus, we will need to go back and in that time the MC will get the power of the Hunt. This arc is like a chapter 1, a chapter where we met most of its characters, it explained the conflict between Lan and Yaoshi, the problems that Yaoshi's gift left, it gave us the first glance to the bigger story with Elio and his Stellaron Hunters and their objective to kill Nanook. While Herta Space Station was a tutorial and Jarilo-VI was an opening act for the ways of trailblazing (a story that have a conclusion and we are only witness to their efforts to move on), Xianzhou is the very first big world where there wasn't a real ending. Yes, we stopped the Stellaron, but the conflict is still happening. We have more information about us, about one of our friends, we have met the Stellaron Hunters, talked to them (Silver Wolf is the more social of the group and has visiting rights!), but it's like we have gained nothing because there is still so much to do in the Xianzhou.

I'm sorry if this is too long, but for me it's important to say that the last quest we did in v1.3 wasn't the final quest for the Xianzhou, we just put a stop to Trailblaze more, but we will be back for a second chapter on that ship, after all "there is still more to explore".

[artheresy]

See in my head, Dan Heng and Blade are hoyoverse's fave ocs in two different ways like hear me out

Dan Heng is the oc that gets all the art, they're the one that gets the most time to shine. The oc that gets doodled a lot and talked about a lot. Also for some reason gives similar vibes to the giddiness and love someone has for an oc they made years ago and are now rediscovering and making a ton of stuff for and redesigning them too like. Even if Dan Heng most certainly was made as apart of this project and didn't have that history of creator, he gives the vibes of an oc like that given how Hoyo treats him yknow?

Meanwhile, Blade is a classic favorite oc type, the Punching bag. Yanqing may take L after L in fights, but Blade takes L after L in life. He's Hoyoverse's whump king. Just when you think his backstory can't get any sadder, Hoyoverse goes "XD guys!! I added more details to his backstory look!" and it's just the most tragic things ever added from brainrot. He would be featured in those "My oc if they never went through *x trauma* videos on Tiktok" though if they actually did that, he probably would just be a headstone then lol. Blade is the oc that doesn't get shelved because each day at some point, they spend time to think about ways to make his life worst, either in the past or in his unfortunate future!!

And Hoyoverse is honestly so real for that, I'm absolutely eating up everything about both of their characters

[shadowcatzone]

(Some) hsr characters and what games (i think) they're playing

Trailblazer: Tekken, any of the Mario games (there's a lot), GTA

March 7th: games like june's journey, any Nikki game (dressup games, love nikki / shining nikki), a random game (she's trying out a lot, you'll never know if a new game could be a favorite!)

Dan heng: Tekken, 2048-esque games, afk games (meanwhile, dan feng is high-key disappointed and low-key extremely interested)

Himeko: simulators i think, maybe alien shooters, games where you can craft things,

Welt: 2 or 3 connect games, probably some 2000s games (i can see him playing LOL tbh), maybe mmo's or generally rpg's

I think herta, screwllum and ruan mei are more than content treating TB as a game of sorts. Though i guess maybe they pick other games to play every other weekend.

Silver wolf: the game of life, i guess, idfk,,, egoshooters maybe

Guinaifen will play and livestream what is either popular or niche but gaining popularity. Unfortunately she'll rope other people into it too;

Sushang: Tekken, MMO's and whatever guinaifen makes her join

Unless being dragged into it, yanqing will probably not play many games? I guess maybe he'll rent/borrow a game, but technically, he's constantly training... so unless he's being dragged into it--! ...i can actually see him playing either tekken or a flight sim.

Qingque plays gacha games (while working). No, she didn't get Dan heng IL unfortunately. Nor his lightcone.

Bailu: i don't think the preceptors would let her have any games. But i think she's playing flight simulators too (it makes her nostalgic (IM NOT CRYING YOURE CRYING) for some reason) and maybe dating sims. For some reason. And centuries old games that are extremely niche and maybe banned (the adventures of the hcq THE GAME!)

I think if such a game exists, the general is probably also playing it (while crying ig)

___

Ask for other characters. Or for more in-depth/context

[centuryberry]

@peachshadows / @terrible-leviathan MK never asks for much, so when he shows interest in the the Brotherhood’s spars, Wukong is more than happy to give him a chance to witness it and more.

It all started with an off-handed comment.

Wukong had been cuddling with Macaque under the shade of one of the trees, watching their cubs tussling around in one of the Celestial Palace’s many courtyards. More often than not, MK allowed A-Dan to gain the upper hand, falling and laughing as his sister stood on him victoriously before starting the game all over again. Many servants who passed by the sight had their hearts filled with warmth at such a domestic sight.

But then, the playing lulled when MK didn’t get up. He remained on the grass, panting as he tried to regain his breath. A-Dan chirped and poked at him worriedly, wondering why he wasn’t getting up. Wukong felt his Moonlight tense beside him, alert and concerned. He ran a comforting hand down his mate’s fluffed up pelt.

“It’s fine, Moonlight. The kid’s fine. He’s just tuckered out from all that playing.”

“Oof, sorry A-Dan. Gege needs a little break,” MK said, confirming Wukong’s words. It’s only then when his Empress relaxed back into his hold. Meanwhile, MK patted A-Dan on her little head with a shaky smile. “Man, I’m really getting out of shape.”

“Then get your head out of the Royal Libraries for once and train. You’re pretty good, kid, but talent like that won’t do you any favors if you don’t practice,” Wukong called out. He didn’t know why his eldest seemed so interested in that boring place. Even Macaque, who occasionally enjoyed reading about new knowledge, didn't spend as much time in the library as MK did.

MK snorted from his position on the ground. A-Dan giggled at the sound and poked at his nose, making it twitch. “Psh. And make everyone’s jobs harder by tearing up the palace grounds? No thanks.”

“…Or you can use the training grounds that the soldiers use,” Macaque said slowly.

MK sat up suddenly. A-Dan let out a little surprised ‘mrrp’ noise but hung onto his clothes pretty easily.

“Wait, I can?!”

Wukong and Macaque shared a look at his genuine surprise. As a Prince, MK should want for nothing. But again and again, he showed surprise at receiving finer things and being allowed into certain areas ever since he wound up here. Did someone tell him he wasn’t allowed to have certain things? Did someone tell him he couldn’t go to certain places?

“‘Course you can, bud,” Wukong said casually, careful not to reveal the suspicion and anger in his voice. “Did anyone say you couldn’t?”

Because if they did, he’d find them and crush them. That was, if his Moonlight didn’t find them first.

Wukong must’ve not done a good enough job in hiding his expression because MK paled and shook his head. “No! No one did! I just thought that it was just for soldiers, y’know? Haha, hahahaha pleasedontkillanyone.”

“That’s a normal mistake to make,” Macaque agreed easily before Wukong could get another word in. “But the training grounds aren’t just for the soldiers. Where else do you think your Baba and Uncles train to keep their skills sharp? Where do you think they have their spars?”

For the first time in the entire conversation, MK perked up with interest. “Spars? You guys spar regularly?”

Wukong grinned widely at MK’s shining eyes and enthusiasm, his previous bad mood gone in an instant and perceived slight forgotten. “Of course! I might be Emperor, but that doesn’t mean I stopped sparring with my sworn brothers! We’re demons, after all!”

“Would you like to join them?” Macaque asked with an indulgent smile, already knowing MK’s answer. When MK nodded excitedly, he chuckled with delight. “We can make a day of it. We’ll get your armor ready and the entire training grounds cleaned up for you. I’m sure Azure, Peng, and Yellow Tusk can move around their schedules sometime this week.”

MK’s tail wagged happily. “So soon?”

“Yeah, bud. Excited?”

“Heck yeah!”

A-Dan didn’t know what was happening, but she echoed her brother’s excited cheers with just as much happiness. “Yeah!”

Wukong made it happen in only a day. It’s not often that his firstborn voiced what he wanted, so he was going to make sure it’s given to him immediately. (Not that MK would ever know how hard he ran all of the palace staff, the soldiers, and the blacksmiths to the ground to make it happen. His son always got a bit sensitive when they weren’t treated well.)

MK was absolutely ecstatic when he found out Wukong had a set of armor created just for him. It was reminiscent of the armor Wukong used to wear into battles during his youth. With MK wearing his colors, the resemblance between the two of them was clearer.

Honestly, he couldn’t believe there was a time he was convinced that MK wasn’t his.

With a wave of fondness, Wukong watched as MK excitedly showed Macaque and A-Dan.

“How do I look?”

“Shiny!” A-Dan marveled. “Gege cool!”

“You really do look like Wukong when he was younger in that,” his Moonlight reminisced as he admired the armor. “Aside from the color of your fur, you cut the same figure as your Baba. The blacksmith did a wonderful job.”

“What about you?” MK wondered as he took in Macaque in his usual attire. “Aren’t you going to wear your armor too?”

Macaque startled. “…Me?”

“Well, yeah!” MK said, tilting his head. “You’re, like, super-strong and skilled. Don’t you use the training grounds to spar too?”

Macaque looked to the side. “Just with your Baba occasionally. I haven’t sparred with the rest of the Brotherhood in…a while.”

MK didn’t like the sound of that. His eyes flashed with genuine distress and offense for Macaque. “They exclude you?!”

“Oh, MK.” There’s a fond lilt to his Moonlight’s tone. “That was by my own choice. Whenever I’m up in the Celestial Realm, I spend every moment I can with your Baba. As fun as spars are, he’s more important to me.”

Wukong melted at his mate’s words. He came over and draped himself over his Moonlight’s shoulders, rubbing his cheek against his beloved’s affectionately.

“You should change into your armor and join us,” Wukong rumbled into three, trembling ears. If his children weren’t in front of them, he would’ve given them a playful nip - among other things. Instead, he gave them light kisses. “Our son wants to see you in action.”

“But A-Dan -

“I’ll take care of A-Dan,” Wukong soothed. “Go and change. We’ll wait for you at the training grounds.”

While A-Dan was too small for an armor of her own, she fit perfectly inside a helmet. Wukong made sure to pad the insides with a cushion so his little Princess would be comfortable.

“How clever of you, my king,” Azure complimented when Wukong and MK met him and the rest of the Brotherhood at the training grounds. He offered a paw at A-Dan so she could play with the soft pads. She took the offering with gleeful “Kitty!”

Peng looked around critically. “…And our venerable Empress? He seems quite noticeably absent. I’d think he’d at least participate as an audience along with the little Princess instead of skulking away in the shadows like a wounded beast.” Then, after a beat, he turned to MK and asked, “Your mother isn’t actually unwell, is he?”

“No, he’s good,” MK assured him.

“So, he just didn’t bother to show up,” Peng concluded, concern turning into a sneer. “How…carelessly lazy for an Empress.”

Out of all of his sworn brothers, Wukong liked Peng the least. He never had anything nice to say and he was always instigating things unnecessarily. Not to mention his insufferable arrogance. If it weren’t for Azure and Yellow Tusk’s closeness with the sharp-tongued bird, he wouldn’t have brought the other into the fold.

But the worst part was Peng’s wandering eyes when it came to Wukong’s mate.

As much as Peng constantly disparaged and slandered Macaque, no one knew more than Wukong how much the eagle demon coveted his Moonlight. Thankfully, he wasn’t much of a threat since he shoved his clawed foot into his mouth every time he interacted with Macaque.

Well. He hadn’t been a threat until he became MK’s tutor. Much to Wukong’s displeasure, their relationship became almost civil and, worse yet, friendly.

Wukong’s lips unconsciously pulled back in a warning after he heard Peng question Macaque’s rightful position as his Empress. MK wasn’t any better, scowling at his tutor.

“Now, now, don’t be like that, Peng,” Azure laughed with good humor, smoothing things over whenever Peng opened his mouth as always. “You know that Macaque - forgive me, Empress Macaque - never liked participating in activities like this. Perhaps our thoughtful Emperor decided he needed some time to himself? We’ll do a good job keeping the cubs entertained.”

The shadow at Azure’s feet warped and stretched. Macaque’s shadowy form rose from the ground with an impish smirk.

“Wrong. I’m just fashionably late.”

“Moonlight!”

Macaque stepped completely out of the shadows and revealed himself. His cocky grin softened at the sight of Wukong for a moment before returning to its original smug state. Macaque glided over to Wukong’s side and latched onto his arm with a possessiveness that Wukong appreciated.

“Being so thoughtful, my husband encouraged me to put on my armor and join in on the fun. It’s been such a long time since I sparred with all of you, after all.”

Azure’s smile became a little odd. “I see. How very thoughtful of him.”

MK bounced over and started to gush over Macaque’s armor, dispelling the strange tension between Azure and Macaque. He even took A-Dan away from Azure so she could get a closer look.

“Mama, cool!” She patted the armor. “A-Dan too?”

“When you’re bigger, you’ll get one just like mine,” Macaque promised, kissing her little head. “But for now, it’s the helmet for you, sweetheart. Clever idea, by the way. Was it MK’s idea?”

Wukong pouted. “It was mine.”

“You? A good idea?” Macaque teased. Wukong pouted even more, making him laugh. He leaned over and nuzzled him under his chin. “Awww, Peaches, you know I was just kidding. You’re so, so clever for planning all of this. Right, A-Dan? Isn’t Baba so clever?”

“Baba cl-evr!” A-Dan agreed.

Wukong forgave Macaque instantly.

“As sickeningly sweet as all of this is,” Peng’s obnoxious voice cut into the moment, “I would like to challenge you, Macaque, for the first duel. Unless that armor is just for show?” There’s a gleam in his eyes that Wukong didn’t like as he goaded Macaque. Sparring would mean getting close to his Moonlight, close enough to touch, grab, pin -

No, that wouldn’t do.

“Fine,” Macaque accepted, making Wukong bristle. “MK wants to see me fight, so I’ll accept that challenge.”

“No,” Wukong nearly snapped, but then saw how MK and A-Dan both looked at Macaque with hopeful excitement. “One. Just one duel,” he gritted out instead.

Peng smirked and preened. “Your majesty, one duel is all I’m going to need.”

Why that little-!

Before Wukong could lunge at Peng’s throat, he felt something being shoved into his hands. “Wukong. Take as many pictures as you can for the cubs as I beat this cocky chicken into the dirt.”

“I got the camera, Moonlight. Go kick his butt.”

Completely oblivious to his parents’ respective rage, MK took a seat in the stands with A-Dan and her helmet on his lap. “A-Dan, Mama is going to be so cool,” he gushed with excitement as she played with his hands. “You have to pay attention, okay? You’re going to use those moves too when you kick butt. Oooh, maybe when you’re bigger, we can train together and make combo moves!”

“Yeah! Like Mama!”

Much to Wukong’s growing ire, Peng spent the entire duel showing off his strength and skills. He preened and danced in the battle in a way he never had with anyone else. Wukong was no blind fool, Peng was blatantly flirting with his mate.

Even MK’s excitement was dimming at the odd display, finally noticing Wukong’s irritation as he snapped away with the camera. He looked between Macaque and Peng before paling.

“Peng too?” Wukong heard his firstborn mutter and oh how that lit a bigger fire in Wukong’s heart. There were others coveting his Moonlight? More competition? Did any of these fools ever learn?

Azure tried to draw him into lighthearted conversations, but Wukong either ignored him or brushed him off, too focused on the fight.

“My king -

“Not now, Azure. I’m trying to decide whether or not we’re going to have chicken for dinner tonight.”

The only silver lining of this was how thoroughly Macaque wiped the floor with Peng. He had something to prove, after all, and was actually giving his all in the fight. At the end, his mate was victorious.

“I want a rematch,” Peng dared to demand, ego bruised from his loss.

“Actually,” Wukong swept in, “all of my Empress’ future duels for today will be with me. You said you only needed one duel, Peng. You had it. Now, it’s my turn.”

Macaque’s tail thrashed with excitement at Wukong’s possessive announcement.

“My dear husband,” he purred, “you spoil me.”

Back at the stands, MK sighed and readjusted A-Dan’s helmet so she could see better. His little sister cheered.

[scribbleseas]

The Indignant Pawn, Chapter XVII: The Inevitable Equalizer

Description: You are Y/n Y/l/n- formerly known as Princess Helena, the runaway princess.

You're an assassin for hire who only agrees to find the worst of London's criminals at the business end of your knife; until a mysterious woman hires you to end the likes of Ciel Phantomhive, the King of the Underworld. You find yourself trading your weapons for your abandoned family crest in order to infiltrate his home as none other than Princess Marie-Louise, your twin sister. What's to happen when you find that the young Earl is more than a callous businessman?

OVERALL STORY WARNINGS: sexual assault (once in the prologue), objectification, misogyny, death, detailed description of blood/gore, detailed description of murder, lying, impersonation, theft, weapons, detailed panic attacks, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, kissing

CHAPTER WARNING: suicidal ideation, drug dealing, mentions of overdose, drugs, there’s debate as to whether drug abuse is the fault of the dealer or the individual, mentions of murder, detailed gore

Author’s Note: Hi everyone! Second to last chapter...how are we feeling? I’m so happy to have gotten this out for you, even if it was a little later than planned. This chapter was hard to perfect, and I’m very proud of it! Don’t hesitate to let me know how you feel about it. Another quick two notes: 1. MC’s views do not reflect my own & 2. I opened commissions! If you really like how I do things, have an idea you’ve always wanted to see on screen, and the financial means, maybe consider sending a request! I would seriously appreciate it, and it would really help me out. 

As always,

Happy Reading!

- Dan

⇠ PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER ⇢  

MASTERLIST  

. . . 

MAY 7TH, 1892

LONDON, ENGLAND

“You are rather terrible at this,” Ciel noted, watching Y/n shift her croquet mallet to find a better angle. She opted for the red and yellow set of balls; she had aimed poorly throughout the game, making them painfully strewn about the garden. Meanwhile, Ciel hit his set concisely through the hoops, with a marksman’s precision. His blue and black balls consistently sailed through the course. It was clear that he was the victor in this game.

Sebastian taught him how to play properly since many betting men liked to stake claims on their prowess with a wooden mallet. Ciel wasn’t ashamed to admit that he closed one or two business deals based on the stakes of such a game. Humans were overconfident creatures, and it was a fault he would exploit in any way he could.

“Unlike you, I have not had the leisure to spend my time perfecting my proficiency in childish garden games,” Y/n replied instantaneously, a terrible loser. Ciel was an even worse winner, much in the same way she liked to gloat when besting him at draughts. They made fierce competition for one another, nearly equal in every aspect that was important, yet immensely unbalanced when it came to useless skills: croquet and board games.

“I’m not sure I would consider hitting a ball through a checkpoint proficient,” Ciel replied, confidently crossing his arms across his chest as he watched her aim her next turn. He squinted, the bright spring sun shining on the fresh garden. It caused a bit of sweat to bead in his hairline. The warm weather was a light at the end of a bitter winter, enriching his fiancée, as well. Y/n looked polished, yet attractively unsophisticated in her white linen dress. It was short, hardly falling past her kneecaps. 

With a frustrated exclamation, she hit the ball into the hoop’s thin leg, bouncing off the cast iron. It bounced down the cobblestone trail and into the bushes, causing Carl to sprint after it energetically. 

“Case in point,” with a nod, Ciel gestured to the dog as he crawled under the bushes and blindly swept with his paw in search of the fugitive ball. 

“I did aim, though I’m not sure how much smaller these bloody hoops can be before they’re too small to let the ball through them!” she protested.

“Right,” Ciel arched his eyebrow in an incredulous look before turning his attention to his mallet and the ball. After a brief moment of angling his hold, he gave the ball a sensible hit, sending it flawlessly through the course’s last hoop. With a self-satisfied chuckle, Ciel turned his focus back to her. “They are small, I reckon.”

“Watch yourself, or I might have to angle my mallet flat into your skull,” Y/n threatened with no real malice. In a silent surrender, she let her mallet fall into the manicured grass, opting to crouch and scratch behind Carl’s ears instead. Even though he retrieved Y/n’s adlib ball, the dog seemed unsettled, his head craning towards the tree line.

A growl rumbled in Carl’s throat, though it wasn’t entirely intimidating, considering his head barely came up past Y/n’s shin. His sandy-brown hair was stained with rich dirt, causing Ciel to wrinkle his nose; though the thought of ordering his butler to bathe the creature was amusing enough to make up for it. 

Frowning, Y/n faced the same direction Carl’s ardent gaze pierced into, and sure enough, Sebastian emerged from that direction with a man in tow. The man cursed in Spanish, his hands bound behind his back as the demon pulled him by his lapel jacket. However, the moment his gaze landed on Y/n, he stopped fighting Sebastian. 

“Y/n! It is Diego! Tell him to let me go!” he insisted, stumbling over a loose piece of cobblestone. “Please! He ties so tight, I cannot feel my hands,” Diego complained, making a show of pain in his tight facial expression. 

“Your hands will survive, you dramatic fool,” Sebastian clicked his tongue, fastening the man to an outdoor chair in seconds. He left Diego’s satchel limp in the grass to his side. “Do relax, Miss Y/n, I have already taken the liberty of disarming our guest here,” the butler said, but that did little to calm her stance. Her mallet merely dipped as Carl sniffed around Diego’s bound legs, each one tied to the chair’s front counterparts. The dog picked a sunny spot in the grass once he was satisfied. 

“Why are you here, Diego?” Y/n insisted suspiciously, her attitude did nothing to quell Ciel’s disdain. He made no effort to keep the disgust out of his face, quickly noting the dirty, yet well-made, clothing Diego sported. He was a young man, he couldn’t have been much older than twenty-five. His skin looked gold in the sun, a contrast to his dark brown eyes and hair. 

“Who are you,” Ciel demanded before Diego could respond. Y/n already told him that Doña, her former benefactor, was Spanish. Diego was clearly of the same nationality, and she seemed suspicious of him, and Sebastian had to disarm him. He had been lurking in the forest. He was likely a subordinate of this… Doña.

“You mean, Y/n didn’t tell you about us while you were falling in love?” Diego batted his eyes sardonically. Surely, he would have clasped his hands if his wrists weren’t tied to each arm of the chair. “That is rude. Poor, poor manners the princess has.”

“Falling in love,” Y/n repeated with enough dubiousness to nearly convince Ciel that they were far from such a relationship. 

“The paper. In my bag,” Diego snapped, gesturing to the well-loved leather satchel to his side. Sure enough, he had an issue of The Daily Courant rolled up and shoved into it. The paper was wrinkled in Ciel’s hands, as if someone had held it angrily, crinkling the pristine print. The front page’s expanse was overcome with a photograph of himself and Y/n boarding the S.S Highness before they left for Italy— the issue dated back to April 28th.

The public heard word of their engagement while they were overseas. 

“What does it say?” Y/n demanded, abandoning her mallet in the grass yet again and leaning next to Ciel to read the headline:

New Royal Pair: Queen’s Granddaughter: Her Highness Princess Marie Louise and Lord of Phantomhive Spotted. Engaged?

The photograph was unmistakably them, arms intertwined. At the time, what was likely a brief look to the side of Ciel’s, was pictured as a long, loving look from Y/n. 

“Everyone on this damn continent knows. Doña knows, we know,” Diego added. “Do you see why I’ve come here now?” 

“I have no obligation to tell you anything. I stopped being a puppet for that woman the moment she sent a dozen gunmen to kill me,” Y/n seethed, ripping the newspaper out of Ciel’s grip. “Get him out of my sight,” she told Sebastian. 

“My Lord?” Sebastian questioned, never one to take orders from Y/n.

“I order you to—” Ciel started to comply.

“Hey, hey, hey. Whoa! Stop doing that, you strange devil-man!” Diego protested, shifting violently in his chair to angle his front towards Y/n. Sebastian’s glowing eyes frightened him, but the light was subtle enough for Y/n to assume it was from the spring sun. She knit her eyebrows together in confusion. “I come here to warn you. I have information. I cannot tell you what she’s planning if I am dead. Can I?”

Ciel frowned. Of course, a powerful figure from the Underworld would never let such a mortifying betrayal survive. “Forget it, Sebastian,” he sighed, rubbing his thumb and index finger into his forehead. In her hesitation to protest, he suspected Y/n felt the same way. 

“Why would you betray her?” Y/n asked, clearly not believing Diego’s defense. Ciel was hesitant as well. 

“Doña is family— our sister-in-law. When Phantomheave killed Manuel, we wanted to kill him right back for it,” Diego said pointedly, his scowl dark enough for Ciel to be thankful that Sebastian had him bound tightly to the chair. “Ojo por ojo, though it seems my Lord is down one of ‘em already.”

Manuel.

“But now…it has been too long, and Doña has grown too dark and obsessed. Me and Carmen and Andrea just want to return home. I am a good painter, Y/n, this is not my life. Manuel was supposed to manage the family business,” he continued. Under his vengeful exterior, he did look tired, like a man who couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried, recognize his life. For years, Ciel felt the same way. Especially the first several years with Sebastian; he’d look into the mirror and see someone completely different. 

“We just want to be home,” the man said, “but Doña wants you— both of you— dead, no matter what happens to her. She is planning to intercept your wedding.”

The wedding location was so minimally disclosed that Ciel was uncertain about it. How could she have the means to find out? 

But Y/n seemed convinced. “How?”

“She will not say, I swear,” Diego swallowed with difficulty, shifting uncomfortably. His stare didn’t leave hers, though sweat rolled down his low hairline. “Please, Y/n. Without Carmen and me, she has no one in England. The rest of us are home, managing business.”

Business. 

Manuel, business, Spain. Manuel, business, Spain. Manuel, business, Spain. 

“What is this Doña’s real name?” Ciel demanded. The sudden intensity in his voice was enough to startle both Y/n and Diego, while Sebastian’s grin only deepened. The demon knew what was going on. He knew how Ciel was related to this woman, Manuel, Spain, and why she wanted him dead. That grin of his made a joke of his imperfect memory— thinking nothing of a simple mission for Her Majesty that took less than three days of his time. 

Ciel told Elizabeth it was a business trip to discuss textile exports. He brought back a gown for her, and Spanish wine for her family as if it had been a vacation of leisure. 

“I cannot betray my family more than I have. Though, surely you know, Ciel Phantomheave. You would truly be a sick bastard if you did not remember the family you slaughtered.”

Y/n paled, taking a step away out of surprise. He didn’t blame her. It sounded horrific. The memory was more graphic than most missions. Sebastian and himself killed everyone that passed... all except for one woman, who Ciel found in the leader’s study, cradling the dead body of a man in her lap. Sebastian left a bullet precisely between his eyes. 

“Shall we finish this one, too?” Sebastian had asked him, approaching from behind. 

“No. We’re finished here.”

“Master?” 

“Look at her. She could not possibly rally now.”

Apparently, Ciel had been wrong about that. 

“What does he mean?” Y/n asked, looking every bit as queasy as the moment after she met her family and sicked every bite of her breakfast into Buckingham Palace’s shrubbery. 

Ciel took a sharp breath in, “I will not repent for harm that was just in its end. If you’ve come here searching for an apology, then I am afraid you will be sorely disappointed.” His voice came out steadier than he would have expected, given that he was the subject of such an unfiltered look of pain and confusion on Y/n’s face. 

For a moment, Diego looked as if he might curse Ciel out for his indifference, or sob over the loss of his family. But instead, he pursed his lips and retrained his gaze on Y/n, too hurt to continue looking at Ciel after such a blunt response. He tried his best to look detached, scarcely maintaining his composure.

“Y/n, I ask for the means to return home in exchange for this information. This man has claimed the soul of my entire family — and Doña’s. He will not have ours,” he said. 

“Mariana’s soul,” Ciel corrected. He had to have confirmation that it was his pity, his rare show of mercy, that put him in these circumstances. “That’s her name, is it not?”

“…It is,” Diego admitted hesitantly, still refusing to look at him. There was a new note of respect in his voice, less aggressive than when he presumed Ciel had forgotten about the family entirely.  “Manuel was her husband, me and Carmen’s brother.”

“Release him, Sebastian,” Y/n ordered after a halting pause, her nimble fingers quickly unclasping her earrings. They were teardrop diamonds set in gold, an engagement gift sent from her Uncle Edward and Aunt Alexandra. The Prince of Wales and Princess of Denmark, respectively. The heirs to Her Majesty’s throne.  

Those earrings sat between the flesh of generations of royalty, and Y/n unclasped them and offered them in her palm without a semblance of hesitance. When she refastened the stoppers on the back of the earrings, she repeated herself: “untie him, Sebastian.”

“Unfortunately, I take exclusive orders from my Lord, Miss Y/n. Forgive me,” Sebastian replied without a hint of apology. He was awaiting Ciel’s response, trying to predict which would win: his affection for Y/n or his pride.

“Ciel,” Y/n’s stare pried into the side of his head. “He wants to go back to Spain with his sister. You killed the rest of their—”

“His family was made of drug dealers, responsible for the overdoses of potentially dozens of English li—” he started to explain.

“Drug dealers coerce no one to take the drugs that cause overdose,” Y/n fired back incredulously, crossing her arms over her chest. She wanted Ciel to release Diego; therefore, she expected Ciel to release Diego. Sometimes Ciel wondered if she still thought herself a royal in their dynamic. 

“They supply it!” Ciel replied.

“The individual decides to take their supply! It’s a business! It is not the same as pulling a trigger and murdering like you did them.”

Sebastian observed the argument with the same amusement he would watch a sparring match. Diego seemed interested in expecting his boots, all too calm considering they were debating his future.

Y/n continued breathlessly, “Diego risked his life to come here and warn us today. We can make preparations against her now. Our wedding can be safe from her because of him. What will you do, otherwise? Kill him too? Make her more determined to kill us? You don’t wish to give him your money? Fine! I can fund their way. All you stand to sacrifice is your pride.” Her face was red.

Sensing the growing tension, Carl picked up from the sunny patch in the grass and whined, rubbing against Y/n’s dress. At least Ciel knew which side their dog was on. 

There was no reason for Ciel to kill Diego beyond wetting his own thirst for blood and self-righteousness. His morality wouldn’t let him kill uselessly, particularly when the man provided him with invaluable insight that could save the woman he was rather fond of, himself, and a significant day for both of their lives. Their wedding was a day that needed to go flawlessly, and the forewarning gave them time to make the preparations to ensure it.

His resolve melted, and judging by the way Sebastian’s smile fell, he sensed it as well. 

“Let him go,” Ciel said. “That is an order.”

Y/n released a long breath, watching Sebastian expertly undo the knotting around Diego’s limbs. The Spaniard cursed, rubbing at the red imprints the rope left in his skin. His movements lagged as he picked his satchel up and hung it over his shoulder. Sebastian returned his handgun.

“Take these,” Y/n said, offering the heirloom earrings. Just as Diego extended his hand obediently, Ciel interrupted.

“No, Her Majesty will notice if you stop wearing those. Sebastian, get him a cut of last week’s profits from the company. We wouldn’t want to have to explain to the Queen that you’ve given away a classic royal heirloom as a gift to a commoner,” he explained. 

“Consider this payment my reparations to you. Although I do not regret fulfilling the Queen’s wish— dispelling drug trade between Colombia and Britain — I will give you the means to move forward,” this was the best manner to proceed. At least it would take the target off his back, somewhat. Unless Diego was double-crossing him. That offense would have to result in death, no matter how Y/n pleaded with him.

“Thank you,” Diego nodded. “Y/n, I hope he makes you happy,” he tacked on, somewhat awkwardly. Naturally, he couldn’t fathom the idea of his family’s killer inadvertently romancing someone to the extent that they couldn’t kill him, abandoning their mission and lifestyle, altogether.

After all, being a princess was a full-time commitment. Surely, Y/n recalled that she could never return to the life she lived before stepping onto his estate. There was no feasible way for her to continue living the life she lived. 

“Thank you, Diego,” Y/n finished refastening her earrings. “Good luck, truly.”

“Come, I will show you the cut the Lord wishes to offer you,” Sebastian said, guiding Diego into the manor. The Spaniard sent Y/n one final wink before following the demon. 

The moment the two were out of earshot, Y/n faced Ciel once more. “To best prepare ourselves, we need to pool our knowledge. Tell me about her while we walk,” she motioned for him to follow. This was the trail that rounded the estate perimeter, weaving through the structures that were on the grounds; the guest house, main manor, stables, and conservatory. The sun had been at its peak during their game, and now it was beginning its descent for the early afternoon. 

“Fine,” Ciel said, offering her his hand while they walked. They were only able to act so frankly when they were alone, holding bare hands. Nothing was quite as grounding, save for the way she ran her thumb over one of his knuckles methodically. He could never tell if the repetitive motion was to soothe him or herself. 

He told Y/n about Queen Victoria’s request for her Guard Dog to sever ties between the Colombian drug trade and British consumption. The number of overdoses and drug-related theft in her nation was beginning to upset her, and her researchers traced some of the cocaine influx to Os Caeos, a branch of the Spanish mafia. The group was facilitating connections and trade over the Atlantic, and Victoria wanted it to cease.

She gave Ciel the assignment, and the best way to end the business was to pull it up by its roots. The family was too enshrined in its work to stop after a mere threat, and much too far removed from the British Underworld. They wouldn’t connect Ciel, a young British nobleman, to being the Queen’s Guard Dog. That left him with leaving them no choice but to stop— killing them. 

Ciel and Sebastian took a steamship into Barcelona. It wasn’t difficult to find the Baulo operations manor; the family lived there for decades. Civilians could point to it from the street. Everyone knew the Baulo family by face and name. Their mafia was a close, family-operated company, spearheaded by Manuel, the eldest son of the previous head. He was married to Mariana Baulo-Hernandez; they were expecting their heir. 

“Clear it out. I want the whole lot of them killed,” Ciel ordered, “I will find their records for Her Majesty.” He took his gun out of his deep pocket, the metal heavy in his hand. “Do not let them kill me, Sebastian,” he said, an ironic smile twisting his lips. His heart raced with adrenaline, excitement. Not fear. Anticipation. It was the same sureness and clarity he used going into any chess match, really.

Ciel would stomp out these enemies for Her Majesty. Such was his duty as a nobleman and a Phantomhive. He crushed who she wished silenced.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, my Lord,” Sebastian chirped, pulling his gloves off neatly and tucking them into his pocket. He never liked to soil his gloves. The contract on his hand glowed now that it was exposed, a manifestation of the sheer supernatural power that flowed through the demon. He made easy work of bending the metal gate open, each hand holding one fortified metal bar and pulling it apart with the strength and disquieting pleasure of an automaton. 

The butler wasted no time afterward, shouldering through the main door and killing the servants who met him. Ciel heard their brief screams from a grotesque choir, each fallen one replaced by a new terrorized individual. It didn’t take long until gunshots accompanied those cries. Of course, nothing of such earthly strength could stop a demon. 

After another brief moment, Ciel took after his butler, looking at the sparse corpses adorning the halls with contempt stoicism. They were servants dirtying his shoes with their blood. No one aiding these criminals was innocent, whether that came in the form of cooking their dinner or washing their floors.

This was how to pull an ingrained institution out by its roots. Like a weed— the gardener doesn’t simply cut the plant down, he pulls it out of the ground and chars it. 

Ciel stepped over a maid’s limp body and started up the staircase. He already knew where he was set to go, forward-thinking enough to have mapped out the manor’s vague layout beforehand. Even so, any smart business leader would keep their office secluded on the top floor.

It was easy to ignore the pained screams from around him when he had a fixed mission in mind. No one was going to escape. Ciel was the cat, these foolish drug dealers and their staff were the mice, and he supposed…Sebastian was the trap.

Curiously, the office door was closed when Ciel reached it. There were notably more guards on this floor and near this room— loyal servants to their very end. How kind. 

Even still, blood pooled under the door and it stained the copper door knob. As the cacophony of sounds quieted, he could hear the soft, labored breaths of someone crying. 

Cry. Nothing in front of you will change if you cry. 

The knob only jiggled stubbornly when Ciel turned it. He frowned. 

Locked. 

The crying stopped, the person in there likely realizing that there was someone outside, trying to get in. Demanding to get in.

Ciel took one of the fallen guard’s truncheons. The weapon was about a foot long, and heavy in his hand. With a grunt, he put all of his strength into ramming the end of it into the knob. It gave slightly, the copper denting and leaning out of the hole. He repeated the process twice before it gave way, roughly falling to the floor. The door swung open, revealing a hastily made, and last-ditch barricade: two office chairs. 

He grew tired, but he forced himself to refocus on the new room. The office was a wreck, a mess of scattered papers, two bodies and books were strewn about the room. There was a bookcase next to where the door was, most of its books carelessly thrown across the floor. The piece of furniture seemed like someone pulled it several centimeters out, likely trying to add another layer to the haphazard barricade before they realized the wooden fissure was too tall and dense to move alone. 

Ciel wouldn’t have noticed her if she hadn’t stayed insistently close to the man’s body. His legs peaked out from behind the desk, but she was small enough to have stayed reasonably hidden if she wanted to. 

He unlocked his gun, but she didn’t seem to care. Instead, she sat on her haunches and cradled the man’s head in her lap. It made sense that Sebastian found and killed Manuel Baulo in his own office. A bloody serrated knife sat to her side, pulled out from between his eyes. She pushed his wavy hair down his forehead to hide the wound. 

She kept her eyes closed, surely aware that Ciel was with her, but she ignored him. Instead, she held Manuel’s limp left hand with both of hers, intensely whispering into it in Spanish. Likely praying. Her matching ring sat on her left ring finger as well, a big diamond set in gold. 

This was his wife, Mariana. 

“Descansa, fácil. Mi amor,” Mariana kissed his knuckles, leaving a smear of her crimson lipstick on him. Tears streamed down her cheeks when she opened her eyes again. She was rather young, but then again, her husband was as well. The previous head of Os Caeos contracted some unlikely disease and died early, leaving his eldest and his wife to run a business when they couldn’t have been older than thirty. 

Very slight smile lines creased on either side of her mouth, twin dimples on her cheeks. Her eyes were dark and soulful as if her pupils took over her irises entirely. They were intelligent, easily taking Ciel in— from the top of his head to the bottoms of his shoes. Despite his best efforts, they were stained. Her eyes lingered on his gun. 

“If you are killing me, you do quickly,” she said, finally addressing Ciel. She wore a white nightgown, dressed down like her husband’s body. After all, the sun was just beginning to rise, breaking through the gloomy clouds. It was rather untimely, the glorious light made the man look like a martyr when he wasn’t. 

“Or if you feel nervous to kill a pregnant woman, give the gun,” Mariana added, “there is nothing left for me in this world, Ciel Phantomheave.” Her position and small maternal bump would have concealed evidence of her pregnancy. It had slipped Ciel’s mind.

“You know of me?” Ciel asked, masking his surprise. He let his gun waver. She was in no state to so much as threaten him, much less attack.

“Of course. We thought we might meet you soon, although…Manuel thought we would have time to negotiate. His father thought we needed to kill you after your return. But…my husband disliked the thought of killing children,” Mariana sighed, gently running her fingers through Manuel’s curls. 

“I make it a policy not to negotiate with criminals,” Ciel said. She was not going to manipulate him. 

“I know that now,” Mariana replied, “almost my entire family was in this manor. Let me be with them. I only want to be with them.” She wiped a stray tear away with the back of her hand, collecting herself admirably, given that her husband’s lifeless body was splayed out in front of her. 

“My Lord?” Sebastian entered. He must’ve been silent coming in, given neither Ciel nor Mariana noticed his entrance. “Shall I finish this one off, too?” he questioned, knife at the ready. The demon was the trap. Mariana was the final mouse in the maze, but she didn’t want the cheese. She wanted the trap. 

“No, Sebastian. We’re finished here.”

There was nothing Sebastian disliked more than when Ciel showed mercy. “Master…?” he asked, confused. He was reluctant to put his knife away.

Mariana sighed as if she had been expecting Ciel’s response. She looked up at the two of them, her hands never left her husband’s body. She wasn’t a woman who wanted to die. She was stronger than that and smarter not to re-establish the Spanish mafia after Ciel had crushed it so decisively. Letting her go would let her raise her child in the country, and Os Caeos could remain some distant memory. A story Mariana would relay to the child when they were old enough to learn about their father.

“Look at her. She could not possibly rally now,” Ciel replied, gesturing to the broken woman’s scattered stare. They would be leaving her to her own devices— whether she survived would be up to her will. “I want to leave, Sebastian. Now.”

Y/n listened to Ciel’s recollection of that morning with surprising calmness. She merely nodded along, keeping her thoughtful gaze fixed ahead as they walked. Nothing about it seemed to surprise her, though he suspected she worried more than he was letting on. 

“I see why she would want you dead,” Y/n admitted. Ciel did as well; he went through a similar trauma to Mariana, and his sole purpose in life is to find those responsible and force them through the exact torment and pain he suffered through. She was no different. Those who Y/n killed for were no different. 

“Frankly, you might have asked this woman why she would want me dead before ensuing on this mission,” Ciel replied, “why did you never ask?”

 Y/n waited a moment, unsure how to reply. “I knew she was telling the truth. Sometimes…people go through suffering that goes beyond words,” if any kind of pain that would qualify, it would be cradling your killed spouse in your lap; feeling so hopeless that you’d prefer their murderer take you too as opposed to living in a world that he was ripped away from. 

“Ciel, she isn’t going to give up, even if Diego and Carmen really do go back to Spain. I know her,” Y/n added after a beat of silence.

“Then we will simply need to make every defensive measure,” he replied, not entirely believing his own words. Mariana showed what she was capable of— finding and locating the lost German princess, manipulating the monarchy into believing she was her sister, and even picking up a destroyed business and restoring it to its former empire without Ciel so much as noticing. 

To be able to out think a capable woman her would take immense planning and luck, but fortunately, Ciel had a demon for a butler. No matter what he thought of his fiancée, Sebastian would be duty-bound to protect them if that was what Ciel ordered him to do. It wouldn’t be the first time Ciel forced Sebastian to act despite his will. 

After all, that’s what their contract was. Sebastian obeyed him, and in the end, Ciel would let him take his soul.

Y/n shook her head, “she will find a way, no matter what we do. Whether it’s next week or next year.”

“You underestimate us, and the staff. We can handle her,” Ciel insisted. His servants were the most elite in the world, handpicked by Sebastian, the protectors of Phantomhive secrets. They’ve fought off mafia men, psychotic circus performers— even Y/n herself. He was unwilling to allow his confidence to tremble in the face of a grief-stricken woman, looking for vengeance as a means to give her life purpose once again. 

“But you would be underestimating…Mariana.” She said, stopping in the middle of the pathway. Saying the woman’s name made her face contort uncomfortably.

“Our wedding will be perfect, Y/n. Honestly,” Ciel said, stopping with her. He turned to face her properly and let her hand go to properly brush strands of her hair out of her face. The pads of his fingers settled on either side of her neck, touching her skin so lightly, he barely felt it. He could feel her pulse drumming beneath his thumbs, but her gaze softened. 

He’d put everything he had and more into protecting her, no matter what the cost. 

“There is nothing I would not do for you. And I know you feel the same,” Ciel insisted, unlike himself. He was always unlike himself when he opened his mouth and failed to filter what came out. It was disgusting, but no one could bear witness besides her. 

Her.

She was classically beautiful with a regal face that was unmistakably royal. How could anyone think otherwise?

Ciel’s thumb brushed over her scar, the only defining quality that separated her likeliness from her twin. It was so thin and faded, one would have needed to know where to look in order to notice it. 

“You’re right. I suppose we can sort it out,” she conceded reluctantly, but Ciel still disliked the worried frown on her lips. She was the most important person in his life— even if his priority was and would always remain vengeance. This woman was the first person to bring light back into his world. 

No one was going to ruin this for them, not when they’d finally gotten all of the rubbish out of their way. Life couldn’t be so cruel. The world was an inevitable equalizer. It was not cruel. It would not steal from Ciel more than it already had. 

“Whatever might happen, we can face it together,” Ciel said, internally bristling at himself. He loved the warmth he felt toward her. He detested the way it made him act, the vulnerability it gave him. 

Something you love is something you can lose.

Ciel wasn’t sure if the thought of losing her lit an irate fire in his stomach, or if it hurt so much it made him feel ready to be consumed by such an inferno. 

Though, of course, Ciel trusted her to fight for herself more than he trusted himself. Still, he wanted to kill her enemies, leave their bleeding bodies strewn about the corridor, left for dead. He wanted to be the person to tether her when the night tried to consume her.

Without realizing it, he had been leaning down, and closer, his stare locked on her pensive lips. Quick to react to any subtle movement, Y/n tilted her head and closed her eyes, meeting his lips with hers. 

Slowly but surely, they were beginning to improve each instance they kissed. They found a balance, a smooth rhythm that allowed control to oscillate between the two of them. Y/n’s lips pressed and moved impassionately, his would follow. Like a waltz.

Feeling her lips against his always awakened something in him.

The air around them grew thicker— and thicker— and if Ciel had half of his wits about him, he might have noticed the intertwining clouds in the sky. He might have smelled the musky smell of the earth moments before the rain. But at that moment, he was rather occupied, and the sheets of rain that fell came by complete surprise. 

The rain drizzled. The tree leaves whispered, and the sky rumbled. Ciel broke their kiss to regain a sense of their surroundings; unmoved in the middle of the pathway, lined with manicured rose bushes. The trail of dirt and paw prints told him that Carl was smarter than his owners, likely having sensed the new pressure in the air and rain back to the house. Sebastian installed small doors for the clever dog, and it took less than an hour to train him to find them. 

Ciel gasped in surprise, somewhat from the sudden rainfall, but more so from Y/n’s clenching on the front of his shirt to bring him back down to her level. She was commanding him to act, putting every bit of her assertiveness into the way she moved with him, channeling all of her worry into something tangible and intoxicating. 

“I want to go to your room,” she whispered against his lips. “That is an order.”

Ciel’s heart pounded. Y/n chuckled, clearly feeling it as her right palm trailed down his chest. Every touch electrified his skin. He was static. She was electric. The air was growing heavier by the moment, and it wasn’t only from the rain.

“Yes, sure,” even if Ciel wanted to, he couldn’t have made himself say no. He wasn’t sure he knew how to pronounce such a word.

Within moments they were making a horribly uncoordinated effort to run up one of the side staircases. Y/n was practically dragging him, her soaked dress was thin and sticking to her corset, a gown that would have been improper if they were anywhere but on manor grounds…simply playing croquet. Ciel remembered making a conscious effort to disregard the simplicity and inherent lewdness of such a dress. 

It hardly covered more than a nightshift. 

He closed his door and locked it before Sebastian could materialize and suggest Y/n leave and catch a warm bath before she caught a cold, or before he could offer a tray of tea.

There was something Ciel wanted much more than a steaming cup. He wanted her. He took a sharp breath in, so much that it made his lungs stutter in his chest. She was straining to unlace the back of her gown, pushing her hair over the side of her shoulder to get it out of the way. 

Something about the back of her neck…

“It’s cold in this thing,” she complained, her cheeks growing fiery. “Ciel.”

“You would allow me?” Ciel felt as if he was barely in control of his transgressions, his fingers gracing over the delicately tied satin. “Are…you certain?”

“Yes,” she replied, keeping her hair out of the way. “You can do it, or I will.”

Ciel had it undone in seconds, and the wet garment fell to the floor, leaving Y/n in her corset, tall stockings, and surprisingly short drawers. They ended centimeters above her garters at mid-thigh. Ultimately, she exposed nothing entirely incriminating, but seeing the curve of her waist and her stockings’ garters wrapping around her upper thighs was certainly…more. Her necklace sat between her collarbones, guiding his focus down her corset’s hemline, which kept her breasts pushed upwardly. 

His face burned. He was sure if he were to put the back of his hand against his cheek, it would blaze. 

“Speechless. And this was all it took,” Y/n made a haphazard attempt to joke, clearly content with being stuck in wet undergarments for the time being. He didn’t blame her, and frankly, Ciel wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle her needing to dry off in front of him more. “If I knew this would be the outcome, I might have tried it much sooner.”

He rolled his eyes, “you’re impossible.’

“Perhaps,” Y/n fired back, growing more comfortable. She smiled at him, her eyes soft, yet searching. It was a strong façade, but she was nervous. Of course, she was nervous. He was nervous.

Ciel reluctantly shouldered off his jacket, which took the brunt of the rain. They didn’t stand out there for long enough to be soaked to the bone, so it was likely Y/n truly was much drier without her most superficial layer of clothing. 

He wanted to unbutton the top of his shirt, but his fingers stopped. He paused as if she’d slapped him across the face.

She would see the mark. The Mark of the Beast. 

If knowing the sorts of atrocities he pleasured in carrying out for Her Majesty wasn’t enough to fully drive her away, then surely, being marked by sadistic cultists would be. 

“Ciel?” The playfulness in Y/n’s face dropped the moment he hesitated. “Are you alright?”

Ciel was, but he wasn’t. 

He wanted to unbutton his shirt and bury his face into the floral scent of her hair, and kiss her lips until they chapped. 

But she couldn’t know yet, could she? Could she handle it?

Of course she could. She knew the worst of him. He knew the worst of her. This mark wasn’t something he wanted; it wasn’t a deal. 

He pursed his lips for a moment, swallowing despite his dry mouth. “If I am to show you this, then you must not tell a single living soul, do you promise?”

Y/n tilted her head but nodded once nevertheless. “Of course not. Your secrets are my secrets,” she said, and frankly, that sentence shot fresh jolts of electricity down Ciel’s spine. 

What’s yours is mine; what’s mine is yours.

They were one another’s great equalizer. 

“Alright,” he released a breath and went to unclasp the pair of buttons, but Y/n reached upwards to put a gentle hand on his chest. She stared at him— sometimes he detested the bloody eyepatch he wore — her face was stern. 

“Not if you are not ready, Ciel. I mean it,” she insisted, but he had his mind made.

Your secrets are my secrets.

“I am,” he said, carefully removing her hands from his shirt to unbutton it. Y/n stopped refuting him, newly distracted as he took his shirt off. Now he understood where her reluctance came from, once he’d finished unlacing her dress. She looked at him with a barely restrained passion, and it was a heavy gaze to be picked apart under. He imagined he looked just as intense and serious as she did. 

“Ciel…” Y/n frowned, immediately catching onto the brand on his left side. The mark was burned into his skin, slightly under and to the side of his torso, the far part of his ribcage. While all the redness and irritation were long-subsided, the brand left the afflicted skin slightly raised and swelled, like a stamp. It was going to remain there forever— until the day he died. 

“Who did this to you?” she asked, anger flashing in her eyes. Strangely, it was a comfort to him. The Queen on his chess board was prepared to fight for him, much in the way he wanted to kill every last one of her enemies. 

I returned to discover the same thing. We can take them down together.

“It’s an old wound,” Ciel guided her fingertips over the raised skin to show her that it didn’t hurt. He was healed, stronger than ever at one another’s side. The foreign touch made goosebumps raise in his arms, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. “Those who did this to me are dead.”

Sensing his unwillingness to speak about it further, Y/n didn’t press. She seemed satisfied knowing that the perpetrators were long gone, but almost sorry she couldn’t do it herself, judging by her frown and the protective toughness in her eyes. Ciel was sorry he couldn’t kill those cultists himself, either. Sometimes, he’d dream about aiming his gun and shooting them between the eyes, or in the heart. Anything to watch them bleed out.

Y/n kissed him, putting another intimate kiss further up his jawline, close to his ear. “I hope they suffered immensely.” Such a curse shouldn't have been erotic, but it was.

Her fingers wrapped around his wrist, guiding him to the edge of his bed to sit. Ciel moved without another thought, blushing when she stood in between his legs once more. She was ethereal in the orange candlelight, her skin deceptively soft, despite the number of healed wounds all over it. He wanted to trace each one. Kill everyone who inflicted pain on her, though he was sure most of them were dead. Not to mention, he was one of those people. Ciel’s gaze flittered to the light scar next to her throat. 

She was poetically beautiful. Pulchritudinous.

He thought of the first time he read William Wadsworth: she was a Phantom of delight, When first she gleaned upon my sight; A lovely Apparition… 

At the time, Ciel thought the man had been a lust-struck fool, thinking with the contents of his trousers. Now the American poet was beginning to make sense; did that mean they were both lust-stricken fools or was this idolatry normal?

Y/n chuckled when he pressed his lips into her knuckles, then the inner part of her wrist. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. 

Ciel didn’t have an answer for her. He preferred to find her lips again and let her climb onto his lap, her thighs bracketing his legs. Her garters were white and made of lace, matching the dress that they left in a heap on the floor. He couldn’t keep his hands from fiddling with them, grazing over the sheer material her stockings were made of. Eventually, his hands settled on her hips, comfortable on the junction between her upper thighs and waist.

This is why polite society made married women chaperone nobility. If Ciel had known that something this pleasing was possible between himself and Y/n he would have struggled much more. Truly, it was no wonder couples never engaged in such illicit acts until they were married.

Y/n attacked every one of his senses. The moment she had him unlace her dress, he was finished. Now he was touching her warm skin, close enough to smell powder and rosewater. She made soft gasps each time she rocked in his lap, sounds that would undoubtedly haunt him.

Ciel was not a gentleman with her; he was not the Queen’s Guard Dog; he was not the head of the Funtom Company; and most significantly, he was not the next head of Phantomhive.

For the first time in his life, his identity was irrelevant. Privately, Ciel found solace in that. 

Solace with her.

. . .

[penroseparticle]

Penrose Song of the Day, Day 31: One Week of Danger (Demo Version) by The Virgins

I think this song taught me to stop fiddling and hit publish, actually. Also, obligatory Fuck Dan Humphrey.

Seriously, give this version (Demo Version) a listen. Hear what they've got going for this. Then listen to the album release. Tell me which one you think is better.

I am sure Album release has its fans. But I am not one of them. I think the song is like. Worse? For the polish? There's an edge that is missing from the demo version.

The Album release is a little bit shrinkwrapped! Prepackaged. There's something that's been artificially added to the song. And I am a production dude. I like bells and whistles. I like embellishments. Hell, I even like covers and rereleases and remixes and mashups so it's not even that the first version of this song is the "best" version by default. And being tied to Gossip Girl in my head (It's used in the first season and on their first CD Compilation of tracks used) is actually kind of a negative given how much that show boils my blood these days.

But I absolutely adore this song, and the version that is the best in my mind is the Demo Version.

This song is kind of a simple concept: This guy blows. He sucks real bad. The original has a mocking, breathy falsetto placed against a slow, drawling low voice. It's got this guy talking trash and being like. I like fucking this girl but I don't like, want to be her boyfriend. All while he does the high pitched breathy voice mocking her because again: he sucks real bad. There's the whispering, there's the seduction. There's the back and forth of what they both want. It's great.

This song has more storyline in the demo than in the candy coated album release. Even the repeated "We love each other" said in the falsetto, distorting and getting semantically satiated, all while the guitar in the background gets a little more distortion and play on the simple strumming.

And the demo version is yes, low production. It's a simple drum line, some simple guitar, the only embellishment is the part I just mentioned. Even the guitar solo in the middle feels like I'm seeing this band at a dive bar with like 200 other people. It is NOT a skill song. It doesn't have to be. It's a shitty, mocking song sung by a manchild who doesn't want a relationship. AND IT'S THE BEST.

The instrumentation is simple, yeah. But it's dynamic. It gives this a slinky, shadows of the bar, sort of seductive but also kind of scummy vibe. It gives a good canvas for the picture The Virgins (lol. lmao even) are painting.

Meanwhile the album version has more defined lyrics. It's tighter. It's shorter, too, by 40 seconds. There's a little more dynamic to the song, there's a really aggressive drumbeat added to this song, and the guitar distortions during the chorus are now waaaaaaaaay back in the mix. The guitar solo is a little better, maybe. The charming bit of this song was minimized, and rather than having a repetitive chorus that got something from repeating- the loss of meaning and the distortion and the chance for the guiltar work to shine, we got the same two lines repeated over and over and they're an almost nothingburger of lyrics. "Give me just one week of danger at a time, loving isn't easy but it sure is fun". Bitch you don't love her! You're not loving! That's the whole point of the song!!!! WHO ARE YOU.

I don't get it. I think this version is more mass marketable, sure. But it is infinitely more generic. I feel like this took too many passes through production until it was sanded off at the edges. And the more I think about that, the sadder I get. Because this song was more interesting when it was allowed to be darker. More mocking. An asshole bragging about his "not girlfriend". The song had more room to set an ambience. I don't know. I just don't like the direction they took this song in and that feels disappointing.

Which kind of released me from the need to meticulously perfect something before I release it. I throw the pot and let it be finished even if it's not perfect. Because the last thing I want to do is take so many edits at something that it loses what was truly interesting about it in the first place.

And hey. If you prefer the album release. Just know that I don't think the album release is bad. I think there are things about it that it does well. It's just not my preference. It's not what I love. And I'd rather listen to what I love, actually.

And as for you? Well, you know the drill. You could be dead right now. Go listen to something you love.

XOXO Gossip Colton

[upalldown]

Olivia Rodrigo - Guts

Second album from the American singer and actress produced by Dan Nigro

9/13

There was a moment, in the first half of 2021, where adults felt a pressing need to announce to the world why they liked Olivia Rodrigo. The young, bright-eyed Disney Channel actress and songwriter had just gone through her first teenage heartbreak, and had poured her emotions into a “drivers license” (her devastating first single that topped the charts), and then again on her debut album, SOUR—which also topped the charts, won a few Grammys and catapulted the 17-year-old into global pop stardom.

Socially starved, we relished living through her innocence and naivety as she navigated her deep pain. We cried remembering high school heartbreaks that may or may not have happened (though, shockingly, first heartbreaks can actually happen at any age). We used the words “nostalgic” and “geriatric” and “millennial” a lot. What does all that outsized attention do to a teenager with no chance to hone her craft on a smaller stage, whose debut was already hailed as a classic, generation defining voice? In a 2021 piece for The Ringer, Julia Gray noted of our fascination with Rodrigo’s age and SOUR’s ‘00s-era musical influences as a “fixation with dated pop culture relics…We don’t see Olivia Rodrigo for who she is as an artist, but who she is when we project ourselves onto her.”

It’s fitting then, that Rodrigo’s second album, GUTS, begins with “all-american bitch,” an ironic gem that arrives as a gentle, folksy ballad before making a heel turn into a pop punk kiss-off to her idolizers: “I am built like a mother and a total machine,” she sings angelically over a light, fairytale-like guitar plucking. When the full band kicks in and rocks out in the chorus, it’s apparent just how much the now-20-year-old has been holding in all these years: “I don’t get angry when I’m pissed / I’m the eternal optimist / I scream inside to deal with it,” she chants, tauntingly, before actually screaming her guts out. This is about more than just adulthood: GUTS is a brash, sobering look at the totality of fame on a young woman—how it consumes, abuses and isolates.

On SOUR, Rodrigo wore her sadness and rage as armor; her emotions were intense but predictable; and the music hinted at a brighter sky beyond the stormy weather. Not so on GUTS, where bad decisions are encouraged, death is preferable over socializing and every playboy can be fixed. On the dizzy, jangly-rock “bad idea right?,” she willingly ignores her mind’s rational pleas to have one more tryst with an ex, while on the soaring ballad “logical,” she attempts to reason with her own lovesick feelings by believing the impossible: “‘Cause if rain don’t pour and sun don’t shine / Then changing you is possible / I guess love is never logical.” The stakes are higher in these new loves built on power and age differentials—and the consequences cut a lot deeper. “I know I’m half-responsible / And that makes me feel horrible,” she repeatedly sings near the song’s end, soft and fragile, embedded in a wilting layer of synths.

There’s so much self-deprecation and internalized blaming here, which could be viewed as a depressing cry for help if it wasn’t so much fun to listen to. Rodrigo, along with her songwriting and producing partner Dan Nigro, plays with abrupt changes in voice and structure in these otherwise heady tracks, as if to signal that she knows just how absurd she’s being. “ballad of a homeschooled girl,” a rollicking, bratty emo highlight, has her crying out in embarrassment over the most minuscule social faux-pas in a breathless chorus: “I broke a glass, I tripped and fell / I told secrets I shouldn’t tell / I stumped over all my words / I made it weird, I made it worse.” Soaring into a dispiriting line that sounds euphoric—“Each time I step outside / It’s social suicide”—Rodrigo quickly dips into a nonchalant chorus of “ahs,” dismissing her anxious headspace with a shrug.

Meanwhile, the raucous “get him back!” almost positions her as drunk and pleading to a friend at a party, as she raps in a muffled tone trying to make the case for her cheating ex: “But he was so much fun and he had such weird friends / And he would take us out to parties and the night would never end.” A sing-songy chorus drives the point home, as she flutters between what she really wants (“I want sweet revenge and I want him again”)—but it’s the track’s bridge where Rodrigo lets her rage boil up. “I wanna key his car / I wanna make him lunch,” she quietly sneers amid backing chants and a choppy guitar, ramping up the viciousness of her anger and letting it out in a gleeful squeal.

And yet, even with all of Rodrigo’s Kathleen Hanna yelps and fiery screams, I almost wish GUTS was a little more punk than it is rock: Its production seems too clean at times, its fadeouts too exact, and its structural changes too accurate. But the honesty of her rage is still refreshing and, at times, comes across as more earnest than the debut single that turned her into a superstar. Beneath the cannonball of her voice and the album’s thunderous sounds, there is a soft fragility waiting to be absorbed. Anger comes from having no total grasp of the unknown, from the realization that growth is a never ending process.

On SOUR’s opening track, Rodrigo wished for her own “teenage dream;” now that phrase titles GUTS album closer—a reflective lament on the pressures of fame and the fear of not living up to the world’s expectations: “They all say that it gets better / It gets better the more you grow,” she lightly sighs, “They all say that it gets better / It gets better, but what if I don’t?” Raising her voice from that fluttering falsetto to a stronger, yet panicked belt, Rodrigo brings her deepest fears to the surface. These are emotions you don’t need to reminisce on, as long as you let them float within you—as long as you know when to let them go.

[am-i-sans]

dnd adventures 31

cam returns from eeby deeby and lands on undyne! they apologize for landing on her and fall to the ground. undyne tells them to scram cause she wants to be alone. cam heads back to the shop.

frog is still resting on dans. suzy is still crabby. cam tells us what happaned. frog says they should go have fun. frog goes to a random person and asks if theres anything fun around here.

they dont know they just got here, why is that building destroyed? frog tells them about the zombies lol. shes like 'really? where did they come from?' cam says it was a necromancer. 'well thats a bother.' dans is still zoned out. cam tries to think of what to do.

she calls herself annika crow and walks off ok cool. museum? dinosaurs cool! dans is still zoned in the shoe shop oh no they just left him. the kids are in the dino petting zoo. frog can talk to the dinos! tori also talks to them lol. one if the dinos preens cam.

undyne cools off and now is lost again dammit. she got a crit she finds the dinos! meanwhile dans was wandering the city in a daze. a guy runs up to him. he looks like a normal guy but somethings off. he hands dans something and then leaves. dans checks for anything sus. its a brown package and has a weird staticy magical energy he hasnt felt before.

dans opens it. theres a foldable wooden board and an envelope with no signature. in the envelope is a jack of clubs! with a weird shine.

its dess why?! dans reads a letter inside, their instructions. typewriter? 'unfold the board on a flat surface, put the card face up' dans looks around then finds a spot to put the board down. the card turns black! dess pops up out of nowhere?! 'oh im back here. hi.' dans is fucking flabbergasted. 'did you hop out of the card or something?' 'yeah kinda thats employee storage.' 'does that...hurt? are you conscious?' 'nah the last thing i saw i fell to the ground so i guess i was put away.' 'so no eeby deeby?' '...what?' 'did you get your egg?' 'no. i think? now when i got put in the card.'

dans blinks a bunch then slowly tells dess what they missed. 'thats a lot of stuff. sorry im out of it.' dans says to find the others and get them some food. dess tells him to keep the board and stuff and into the bag it goes. we find the dinos!

undyne looks at the dinos and says cool your here and dinos are here nice. she just needed a moment to cool down. she asks if they let you fight dinos here. cam says she isnt allowed to fight dinos cause she would kill them immediately. 'id only knock them out!' tori offers to be a dino if needed. frog is stoked their mom can be a dino lol. tori says she feels smart when she talks to undyne lol.

attika speaks up and asks how you can be a dinosaur? undyne starts asking if she can turn into various plants and her lol. shes now a 9 ft tall undyne lol. now 11ft sksksk. now she picks up undyne lol. cam says she could pick up undyne oh no. dans and dess walks in as undyne is taking off her armor lol.

'uhhh dess is back did we...miss something?' undyne says whats going on and dans gives cam a sly look. oh no undyne is gonna run at her. tori waves at dans as she shrinks to normal. CAM FUCKING DID IT THEY CAUGHT UNDYNE LETS FUCKING GOOOO!!! they forget cam is a fighter lol. 'its not the size' says dess lol. frog tosses confetti hehehe. tori is mildly shocked. undyne tells cam to yeet her at suzy. 'dont break her undyne' undyne crushes suzy oh no lol. suzy cant even shove her off. she finally gets her off and kicks her.

now undyne asks tori oh no. she sighs and agrees. yes she caught her! annika speaks up and says they should stop cause this is a museum. dans is just smiling fondly at them. oh no. undyne. no. nonono. oh no. 'do you wanna be the reason god says yes?' tori throws her at dans oh god. HE GOT A FUCKING CRIT! hes just like how did this happen? she reaches down and fucking picks him up shes pumped now lol. then she puts her armor back on.

so whats the plan? that artifact right. undyne finally notices dess lol. dans says dess teleported in but we assume its weird eeby deeby shit. dans is fucking attuned to dess's board so shes stuck with him wtf. hes gonna be horrifed when he realizes lol.

annika perks up and asks about the artifact. cam asks if she studies magical items. she says magic in general, recently graduated. undyne shows her and annika asks to come along cause she might know of it. undyne tells her its dangerous and some of us have even died and she cant guarantee her safety. also we have a curse where we get stuck lol. annika says shes been in danger before so its fine. undyne calls dibs on the artifact but says she can come.

time to get on soupnik! annika is surprised to see them and undyne explains its her spiritual summon. tori asks if shes sure she wants to stick with us. shes studying soupnik now lol. frog actually introduces themself and blobbo to annika.

tori asks what field she was in. evocation. hmm. vani crawls forward and curls up against annika. we eventually land cause its dark and they need to rest. dans is making dinner. were in a swamp gross. vani is chasing a frog. not our frog like the animal. tori argues with undyne that no she cant magic the water away. undyne asks dans whats for din-din. dans is still kinda out of it and says its sliders.

frog is playing with blobbo who is now splashing around in the swamp lol. so is suzy lol. annika is reading after failing to help with the fire. dans told the local bugs to fuck off lol. tori for fun casts detect magic. she senses something weird in dans backpack hmmm. but she doesnt bring it up cause he IS a warlock.

suzy calls out to cam and throws a mudball at them! cam screeches and ducks under the log after it hits lol. undyne laughs and chokes a bit. cam yells that their shirt is ruined but dans yells they have magic for that. cam yells about the mental toll. dans tells them to throw back but cam says they dont like to get dirty. 'your already dirty.' 'fuck off.' suzy grabs cam and drags them into the swamp. undyne sighs and goes after them and picks them up.

suzy keeps trying to drag them into the swamp. undyne just picks her up too lol. suzy is just feral i swear. undyne offers to play in the mud if she lets go. now its on! cam goes and clings to dans and he sighs and uses presti. cam says they have something to tell dans. its a jar full of those feathers they pulled off of themselves. they say dans has no hair. cam wanted to braid them into his hair but the beard will do.

cam says its a social thing. if your close to someone you give them a feather. an old legend said the feather let the other person have influence over them. cam is a halfling but growing those feathers was so exciting. why is everyone giving dans influence over them lately lol. its to establish a connection aww they wanna share with everyone. dans gets misty eyed and says he would like that very much. cam combs through it and braids a feather into it.

cam looks at undyne and says she needs presti before getting a feather. undyne is too busy wrestling in the mud to notice lol. time to brain tori! then frog! frog gives cam a cool rock.

undyne finally wins and their both exhausted. dans cleans her off with presti, the most useful skill.

moss had to go so we had to stop.

[mask131]

French fantasy: The five "Great Old Ones"

A follow-up to the "Children of Orpheus and Melusine" post

Here are the five “pioneers” of fantasy in French literature, according to A. F. Ruaud: Michel Grimaud’s Malakansâr ; Francis Berthelot’s Kanaor ; Isabelle Hausser’s Célubée ;  Michel Pagel’s Les Flammes de la nuit ; dans Jean-Marc Ligny’s La Mort peut danser.

(And here I will translate Ruaud’s text, not just recap it) [Edit: The translation might be rough, I was tired when doing it]

I)

More than a novel, Malakansâr (1980) is a journey, a long quest of absolute. It is does not have a mystico-religious conception of the world, but it rather offers a meditation about interiority and personal evolution. To do so, the tale is willingly contemplative in tone. The settings, sumptuously described, are extremely important, the rhythm is of a slowness matching the low technology level of this world, and it all invites to “turn upon oneself”. It is not a static text however: there are adventures and twists, new discoveries and dangers keep appearing on the path of our three heroes. But we are not in an actual adventure novel: far from the generic attempts of many fantasy beginners, Michel Grimaud, an old man of literature, finds back the alchemy practiced by authors such as Jean Giono, and uses it to make his tale as poetic as original.

Silo le Do has always been a carefree boy refusing conventions: young man of upper class, he is born in the town of Sétil, that claims itself the “city of science” but that in truth is all about bourgeoisie and commerce. Silo disdains as much his parents, born in the prejudice of high society, as his companions, coming from the sordid depths of the city. One evening, a double-revelation completely flips his life over, and changes radically the orientation of his existence: at first, he hears a song in a tavern, the testimony of a poetess recalling the vision of a fabulous city, built by gods and unreachable to mankind. Malakansâr! A legend that Silo finds himself full of desire for. It was the first revelation ; then, as he reaches adulthood, his family rejects him, exhausted by his misbehavior. Disgusted with everything and completely lost, Silo escapes the city with for sole company the beautiful slave Mowo, that had just been offered to Silo as a gift.

Meanwhile, Glévian is a young fisherman living in the enormous swamps of the One Hundred Thousand Lands. For him, the “revelation” will come from a small statue discovered in the entrails of a water-wolf. A small statue made of white stone – a material unknown in his land, a material surrounded by legends, a material worth a fortune. Rather than sell the statue and thus making a career for himself, Glévian starts a quest in search of the model the statue was carved after. Glévian and Silo will encounter each other, of course, and three travelers will have to overcome their prejudice, their racial and social differences, in order to go to travel, from the continent of the Evening Lands to the one of the Morning Lands, in order to, maybe, one day, reach their dream.

This novel exists outside of the norms and outside of its era – it fakes a simplicity, and has an admirable lyricism. Malakansâr only has one flaw: the desire to ultimately bring itself back into the cradle of science-fiction, by giving a very unsatisfying conclusion annihilating the marvelous. But it doesn’t care in the end, since before this forced conclusion, it is the seduction of the magic and wonders that fully rules, helped by an admirable stylistic work – rarely the language will be as celebrated as in this work.

II)

A great stylistic care can also be found in Francis Berthelot’s Khanaor (1983). It is a shining, shimmering fable about a society learning harmony. Khanaro, an Atlantis-like island spared from the Christian dogma, is filled with wonders that also come from outside of the Anglo-Saxon tradition: Berthelot’s work rather finds its roots among Juline Gracq, André Pieyre, Mandiargues or Frédérick Tristan.

An official recap of the story goes as such: “Because the rivers are drying up, the wizard-queen of Aquimeur, Mervine, must sacrifice the wizards of Ardamance. Because the collectors of lava-snow of Ardamance are taking his country hostage, Leuthiag, the king of Goldèbe, must ally himself to Mervine. Because the people fear her, Mervine tries to kill Norenn, who was just trying to heal those around her. Sigrid, her grand-daughter, Kurt, the plant-charmer, Raïleh, Judith, l’Ancerf, Orchale and her father – they will all be absorbed against their will by this ruthless fate, under the pen of Francis Berthelot. But soon despair fades away… Will Khanaor be saved?”

III)

Célubée (1986), under-titled “Novel of legendary times”, was the first novel published by Isabelle Hausser, which afterward never returned to the lands of fantasy, as if she had stumbled upon them by accident. Presented as a tale dictated to a scribe by a young woman, the servant of a princess, this enormous novel is not a historical fiction like so many others: if there are strong reminiscences of Antiquity, this Kingdom and this City with very neutral names do not evoke any clear historical era. Coelia’s tale is interwoven with another one, told by the poet Anticléridès, a tale at first about his past life, then about the life of another country, far older than the Kingdom, the titular Célubée, and we do not know if the poet actually invented this other land, or if he truly dug it up from unreadable archives. The reality of the second tale gains more solidity page after day, and the maybe-myth of Célubée slowly invades the reality of the Kingdom.

A meditation upon myths and power, this novel is also an entertaining double-adventure tale; as well as a strange research upon the links that two legends can form between each other. A fascinating and mind-turning embedding of tales, Célubée uses its shining prose to modernize the charms of a classic such as Basile’s Tale of Tales.

When Hausser talked of her work in the year 2000, she said: “By writing Célubée, fifteen years ago, I wanted to write an imaginary story about the creation of the world and of human society. Having read novels since I was a child, I wanted to write the book I wished I could have read every night before going to sleep. […] Célubée is a bit like those mythical animals, halfway between beast and man, disturbing and comforting at the same time.”

IV)

Coming from the science-fiction’s seraglio (unlike the previous authors), and published in a collection of train station literature (“Le Fleuve Noir – Anticipation”, which is the most famous synonym of “popular s-f”), Michel Pagel, who doesn’t like categories, overcame stereotypes. He offered, with his Les Flammes de la Nuit (The Flames of the Night) (originally published in four volumes, then re-edited and rewritten into one integral novel) a work of the literature of the marvelous, that thinks about itself and that, without denying its belonging to the adventure literature, manages to renew itself by examining its own archetypes.

The world of Fuinör is a strange one: superficially, it looks like a fairytale kingdom, straight out of the clichés carried by a Cinderella cartoon. Everything is there: the castle, the knights, an enchanter that evokes Merlin, the good fairies that gather around the princess’ cradle… But it is all a façade, beneath which lies all the perversions of a frozen myth. It is a sclerotic world, built on unfairness and arbitrary. Fairies are the guardians of an established order – but is it a good order, or a bad order? Things are more nuanced than they appear at first… Rowena, catalyst of the change, will fight against prejudices, commit blasphemy upon blasphemy, all until she is exiled to the Land of Madness – and this is when her true quest beings.

One probably needed to be a hardy fool to publish such a novel in such an era (1986), but it was also needed for the author to have culture, intuition and talent. All in all, thirty years later, The Flames of the night still impose themselves as a mature success, that did not gain any wrinkle. Afterward, Pagel did another very beautiful journey throughout the lands of fantasy, with his historical novel “Le roi d’août” (The King of August, 2002), where he offers a mythological reading of the life of the king Philippe-Auguste.

V)

Another “hardy fool” of this time was Jean-Marc Ligny who, in 1994, brutally left the science-fiction genre, of which he was a familiar, just for the time of a novel, a novel written in a style of fantasy that we couldn’t identify at the time, but that we can recognize today as “urban fantasy”. The science-fiction world of the time held quite a grudge against him at the time, and was filled with extremely harsh and dry judgements for his “La Mort peut danser” (Death can dance). However, in present days, we see very easily that it is not a mediocre novel as critics described upon its release – it is a remarkable and original work, a dark and seducing novel. Between the Ireland of 1181, in the middle of the Anglo-Normand invasion, and the one of 1981, split by nationalist tensions and terrorist attacks, the narration wanders among Celtic legends. Bran and Alyz, avant-garde musicians, find themselves plunged (thanks to Alyz’s graceful voice) into a strange synergy beyond time itself, and are forced to accomplish the prophecy of a trio of crows…

VI)

I’ll stop the translation here to return to a “recap” mode.

Ruaud explains that, after those five pioneers, oasis of wonders and marvels in the desert of science and technology, “foolish” pioneers that tried to resurrect fantasy in decades dominated by snobbish critics and science-fiction authors, we would have to wait for the 1990s for fantasy to truly appear as such in France. It was when the “locks were burst open” and France knew a flow of “warriors and fairies”. Ruaud explains that this might be because the authors of the 90s had been, as children, part of the wave of role-playing games, as well as the audience of the boom of the American fantasy. Anyway, young authors suddenly appeared, in an editing world which had a brand new generation of literary directors, and it was a heaven-sent union.

The true formation of the French fantasy is tied to the Mnémos edition which, pioneer of the fantasy edition, published in small formats the new names of French fantasy: David Calvo, Fabrice Collin, Mathieu Gaborit, Pierre Grimbert and Laurent Kloetzer. They were not a “school”, but a generation, that soon became famous – and opened the way for even more authors afterward. The “Mnémos generation” opened a rift within the wall, and now fantasy has been flooding French literature.

Ruaud concludes by mentioning the three names who, for him, are already forming the “references” of French fantasy – Pierre Dubois, Mathieu Gaborit, and Jean-Philippe Jaworski.

[josiebelladonna]

dodgers lost (feeling teababe right now with the mets sucking eggs, too. ugh)

formula 1 is not what it used to be, when i was a kid. holy fuck. (dude, i remember there was a time red bull were like the bad boys of the grid, seb and dan with mark webber)

i’m not really into spiderman (i can give credit where it’s due, like i can tell from a distance the art direction is stellar), and aside from asteroid city and oppenheimer, there’s not really anything film-wise that’s catching my eye (we called it when we said it’s going to be hard to top bob’s burgers and top gun)—yeah, i really don’t have any desire to see the barbie movie. something like that, that’s hyped to the moon, usually never turns out that good. i figured that one out from all the hype surrounding twilight and those movies, in comparison to the books, kinda sucked. and can we please put harry potter to rest already. for the love of god, people, we’ve been riding this magic wand since 1997, it’s time to move on.

the man of my dreams is dating a racist kinda terf-y (?!) neurotic supercilious snob—she also strikes me as very controlling. it’s hard to explain, but when i think to that last week before he came back, i only saw him once on ig, and it was like a “here and gone” sort of thing and i know for an absolute fact it was because of her, just from watching his behavior when she’s around. their relationship gives me codependent vibes, too; again, hard to explain but… “without whom, it would have been unimaginable”. without *her, alex—i was never a grammar nut but even i know that; kind of embarrassing when you think about it, as a badass published writer—and it gets so damn greasy when you think about my leaving my porch light on for him, rain or shine, no matter where he is. plus, you have tayva martinez and i both telling to take time to himself in that time away—it just feels like codependency even though they don’t live… together. the fuck. yes, if nothing else, she’s a snob. like whoop-de-freaking-do, you got a dickload of degrees, meanwhile actually brilliant doctorates are on welfare and in debt for life because theirs are useless and are glaring at your business, which i feel like was started through some money-laundering scheme (you can’t trust people like that anymore), hoping it goes under. and now. his beautiful body is wilting like a sick plant and his personality is a complete husk of what it used to be… and there’s nothing i can do, even though i desperately want to. really, i want to cry when i think about it. it’s about as unfair as losing chris. if i could, at the least, send him like a care package or something (a little box filled with art, something i crocheted because i got into crocheting last year, and maybe some candy, too), i would in a heartbeat. he’s too sweet and too precious of a human to be with a piece of work like that. he’s just… he’s a good guy. he’s a good guy. you don’t come across good guys all too often. good guys need to be protected and cherished. not saying i know what’s good for him, but he deserves better. i said what i said, alex, and i’m sorry ahead of time (in fact, you have every right to tell me to fuck off). hey, you said it yourself: you appreciate sincerity, i’m being sincere right now. there’s nothing sincere about using the word “gipsy” for any goddamn reason, especially out of irony (like i said, it may as well be the n-word).

i got my fics and my art (and there’s a lot of great music coming out right now, too, i mean… foo fighters, avenged sevenfold, queens of the stone age, blur, and pj harvey over the course of a month? i’m not worthy, man), my fantasy world, my wonderland, but. god. what the hell else do you do at a time like this, when everything you love is going to shit and everything new is lackluster.

[blueikeproductions]

I’ve been listening to the Heathers musical sound track again, and I’m reminded of a clear distinction I was wanting to make in the AU.

While it is primarily though the lens of JD and Dan, two lost friends who reconnect at a pivotal moment, it is also redemption for Kurt and Ram. The two show some remorse in the opening number, especially in fan animatics, so like with JD, I wanted to fiddle around with that more.

Their descriptions are somewhat reversed from the musical though, as Ram is actually more intelligent (albeit he struggles with big words) and conscious of what he’s doing during his bully phase, while the fun loving Kurt is more impulsive and lacks filters, usually blurting out the first thing on his mind. Ram has a younger sister named Kara, who is fully aware of his “forbidden love” with Kurt, and while she finds it weird, doesn’t seem to particularly care either. She and her brother have a little agreement that involves her silence so long as she’s given Crunch bars as compensation. Dan chipped in extra Crunch bars later on because of Kara discovering him and Kurt shirtless in Ram’s closet the next morning after the three boys had a …frisky night. Kurt is an only child, but like JD, has taken a shine to Liam, and fancies himself the cool uncle, looking after Liam when JD and Dan aren’t available. Kurt and Kara meanwhile don’t get along, mostly because Kara enjoys messing with him. Because Dan, JD, Veronica and Martha are able to draw out Kurt and Ram’s true selves over the course of the adventure, their original antagonistic role needed to be filled in by new characters Terrance Thrash and Toby Throttle.

They represent Kurt and Ram’s more dangerous tendencies from the movie and musical but amped up in the vein of a Steven King high school bully.

Thrash is entitled, angry and brutish, casually threatening other students with violence with the slightest offense to himself. It’s heavily suggested he probably would kill other students if he could get away with it, shown by his aggression towards Dan, JD, Veronica and Martha in particular. The only people he isn’t aggressive towards is his best friend Throttle and Red Heather, though the later he mostly views as an outlet for sex, and gets annoyed when she doesn’t comply.

Throttle is mostly silent, but shares Thrash’s intense aggression, and on the football field, channels it in procession strikes vs Thrash’s sheer brute force. Throttle comes a rich family like Ram and the Heathers, and while he doesn’t have any real reason to lash out at the world because of it, he does because he enjoys watching those beneath him squirm. Why he’s friends with Thrash, who comes from a struggling family, is a bit of a mystery.

Thrash is the middle child in his struggling family, which partially feeds into his aggression, while Throttle has a little brother, who is friends with Ram’s sister Kara, that he detests.

Neither have much, if any, redeeming qualities with Veronica even noting the two were becoming jerks as far back as kindergarten. Apparently in kindergarten, Thrash smacked Specs and Dennis upside the head with a 2x4 because they were taking too long with the toy blocks. Throttle meanwhile in first grade held down Tracey and tried to force feed her gravel from the playground for no other reason than he could. Veronica and Specs saved Tracey but it was this encounter that caused Tracey to, much later, become dependent on weed to control her anxiety.

The two sets of boys can be best described by the two songs used in different versions of the musical: Kurt and Ram represent the unapologetically weird and offbeat “Blue”, while Thrash and Throttle represent the more upfront and sketchy “You’re Welcome” number. Thrash and Throttle would absolutely refuse to beat box, while Kurt and Ram would though.

[reasoningdaily]

By their very name, secret societies inspire curiosity, fascination and distrust. When the Washington Post broke the story in 2016 that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent his final hours in the company of members of a secret society for elite hunters, people instantly wanted to know more about the group.

The fraternity in question, International Order of St. Hubertus, was incorporated by Count Anton von Sporck in 1695 and was originally intended to gather “the greatest noble hunters of the 17th Century, particularly in Bohemia, Austria and countries of the Austro Hungarian Empire, ruled by the Habsburgs,” according to its official website. After the organization denied membership to Nazis, notably military leader Hermann Goering, Hitler dissolved it, but the order reemerged after World War II, and an American chapter was founded in the late 1960s.

The order is just one of many clandestine organizations that exist today, though the popularity of these secret clubs peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries, writes Noah Shachtman for Wired. Back then, many of these societies served as safe spaces for open dialogue about everything from academia to religious discourse, removed from the restrictive eye of the church and state. As Schatman writes:

These societies were the incubators of democracy, modern science, and ecumenical religion. They elected their own leaders and drew up constitutions to govern their operations. It wasn’t an accident that Voltaire, George Washington, and Ben Franklin were all active members. And just like today’s networked radicals, much of their power was wrapped up in their ability to stay anonymous and keep their communications secret.

The emphasis on secret was what inspired so much distrust in the exclusive clubs. No less than the New York Times weighed in on secret societies in 1880, not wholly dismissing the theory that “Freemasonry brought about the civil war and acquitted President Johnson and��� has committed or concealed crimes without number.” The Times comments, “This able theory of Freemasonry is not so readily believed as the theory that the European secret societies are the ruling power in Europe, but there are still many people as yet outside the lunatic asylum who firmly believe it.”

Many religious leaders felt at the very least conflicted about secret orders. In 1887, Reverend T. De Witt Talmage wrote his sermon on “the moral effect of Free Masonry, Odd Fellowship, Knights of Labor, Greek Alphabet and other Societies.” The reverend, who said he had “hundreds of personal friends who belonged to orders” used Proverbs 25: 9 —"discover not a secret to another” —to ask his audience to question whether or not being a member of a secret society would be a positive or negative decision for them. Meanwhile, that same week, Cardinal James Gibbons took a more definitive stand on secret orders, saying that they had “no excuse for existence.”

In the United States in the late-19th century, there was enough of a national uproar against secret societies that one concerned group created an annual “Anti-Secret Society Convention.” In 1869, at the national convention in Chicago, the attendees went after the “secular press.” The organization’s secretary said that the press "either approved or ignored secret societies” while “few religious papers have spunk enough to come out for Christ in opposition to Masonry.” But by 1892, the group, which deemed the societies an "evil to society and a menace to our civil institutions," had failed to “secure them anything but strong denunciation,” as the Pittsburgh Dispatch commented.

While The Da Vinci Code novelist Dan Brown and his contemporaries have shined a light upon some of the bigger secret fraternal organizations like the Order of Skull and Bones, Freemasons, Rosicrucians and the Illuminati, there are still other, lesser-known groups that have compelling stories of their own. Here are just a few:

The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World

In 1907, the Seattle Republican reported on the Order of Elks, writing that "it is claimed by members and officers that it is one of the most thriving secret societies among Afro-Americans of this city." According to the non-profit African American Registry, the fraternal order was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1899 after two black men were denied admission to the Benelovent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, which is still popular today and, despite questions raised on discriminative practices, now allows any American citizen, 21 years or older, who believes in God to be invited to join its ranks.

The two men decided to take the order’s name and make their own club around it. Formally called the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, the order was once considered to be at the center of the black community. During the era of segregation, the lodge was one of the few places where black men and women could socialize, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote. In recent years, however, the Post-Gazette commented that the secret organization has struggled to retain its relevance.  Still, the secret society continues to sponsor educational scholarship programs, youth summer computer literacy camps, parades as well as community service activities throughout the world.

The Grand Orange Lodge

The Grand Orange Lodge, known more commonly as the “Orange Order” got its name from Prince William III, the Prince of Orange, and was founded after the Battle of the Diamond outside a small village in modern-day Northern Ireland called Loughgall. Its purpose was to "protect Protestants" and that’s why, in 1849, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George William Frederick Villiers, captured the ire of Dublin’s Waterford News for supporting the society. The paper wrote, "Lord Clarendon has been holding communication with an illegal society in Dublin for upwards of ten days. The Grand Orange Lodge, with its secret signs and pass-words, has been plotting with his Excellency during the whole of that period. This may seem strange, but it is a fact…”

At the time, secret societies were banned from Ireland as they were said to have acted in “antagonism to the “Land League,” an Irish political organization, according to Ireland’s official records on statistics of eviction and crime.

The Grand Orange Lodge is still around today with clubs in Ireland, as well as others around the world. Prospective members of the Protestant fraternity don’t take a pledge, they just have to affirm their acceptance of the Principles of Reformation, as well as loyalty to their country. As to the question of whether they are “anti-Roman Catholic”, the official website states, “Orangeism is a positive rather than a negative force. It wishes to promote the Reformed Faith based on the Infallible Word of God - the Bible. Orangeism does not foster resentment or intolerance. Condemnation of religious ideology is directed against church doctrine and not against individual adherents or members.”

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows

Perhaps one needs to be a member of the altruistic and friendly society known as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows to know for sure when the club first started, but the first written record of the order comes in 1812, however, and it references George IV.

Even before he was named Prince Regent of the United Kingdom, George IV, had been a member of the Freemasons, but as the story goes, when he wanted a relative of his to be admitted to the society without having to to endure the lengthy initiation process, the request was emphatically denied. George IV left the order, declaring he would establish a rival club, according to a history of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows published by the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph in 1867. The official website of the order, however, traces the clubs origins all the way back to 1066.

Regardless of how it first started, it’s fair to say the king got his wish. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is still around today, and the club counted British prime ministers Winston Churchill and Stanley Baldwin among its ranks. The Odd Fellows, as they call themselves, are grounded in the ideals of friendship, love and truth. There are real skeletons in the order’s lodges; they are used during initiation to remind its members of their mortality, the Washington Post reported in 2001.

The Knights of Pythias

The Knights of Pythias was founded by Justus H. Rathbone, a government employee in Washington, D.C., in 1864. He felt there was a moral need for an organization that practiced “brotherly love,” which would make sense, seeing as the country was in the midst of the Civil War. The name is a reference to the Greek legend of Damon and Pythias, the Pythagorean ideal of friendship. All of its founding members worked for the government in some capacity, and it was the first fraternal order to be chartered by an act of Congress, the order’s official website writes.  The Knights of Pythias’ colors are blue, yellow and red. Blue signifies friendship, yellow charity and red benevolence, the North Carolina Evening Chronicle wrote in a special edition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the club in 1914.

The Knights of Pythias is still active and is a partner of the Boy Scouts of America, the second organization to receive its charter from the United States Congress.

The Ancient Order of the Foresters

Known today as “Foresters Friendly Society,” the Ancient Order of the Foresters was initially established in 1834, according to the society’s website, albeit under a slightly different name. The Ancient Order was created before state health insurance began in England, so the club offered sick benefits to its working class members.

In 1874, the American and Canadian branches left the Ancient Order and set up the Independent Order of the Foresters.  Candidates looking to be admitted to the club had to “pass an examination by a competent physician, who is himself bound by his connection with the order,” the Boston Weekly Globe wrote in 1879.  The society still provides insurance policies today for its members, who also engage in a variety of community service activities.

The Ancient Order of United Workmen

John Jordan Upchurch and 13 others in Meadville, Pennsylvania, founded the Ancient Order of United Workmen in 1868 with the goal of bettering conditions for the working class. Like the Foresters, it set up protections for its members. Initially, should a member die, all brothers of the order contributed a dollar to a member’s family. That number would eventually be capped at $2,000.

The Ancient Order of United Workmen is no longer around, but its legacy continues, as the order unintentionally created a new kind of insurance that would influence other fraternal groups to add an insurance provision in their constitutions.

The Patriotic Order Sons of America

The Patriotic Order Sons of America dates back to the early days of the American Republic, according to its official website. Following in the footsteps of The Sons of Liberty, the Order of United Americans and Guards of Liberty, the Patriotic Sons of America, which later added the word “Order” to its name, became one of the “most progressive, most popular, most influential as well as strongest patriotic organizations” in the United States in the early 20th century, the Allentown Leader wrote in 1911.

How progressive the order actually was is up to interpretation. In 1891, the Sons of America refused to delete the word “white” in its constitution, defeating a proposition that would allow black men to apply. Today, the order opens its membership up to “all native-born or naturalized American male citizens, 16 years and older, who believe in their country and its institutions, who desire to perpetuate free government, and who wish to encourage a brotherly feeling among Americans, to the end that we may exalt our country, to join with us in our work of fellowship and love.”

The Molly Maguires

In the 1870s, 24 foreman and supervisors in the coal mines of Pennsylvania were assassinated. The suspected culprit? Members of the secret society the Molly Maguires, an organization with Irish origins brought to the United States by Irish immigrants. The Maguires likely got its name because members used women’s clothing as a disguise while allegedly carrying out its illegal acts, which also included arson and death threats. The group was finally undone by a mole planted by the famed Pinkerton Detective Agency, which was hired by the mining companies to investigate the group. In a series of criminal trials, 20 Maguires were sentenced to death by hanging. The Order of the Sons of St. George, another secret organization, which was founded in 1871 to oppose the Maguires also appears to have vanished. 

[sekilasrasa]

People's Favorite

"Aku ga bisa, they shine so bright. Meanwhile I ran out of all the shine I had since a year ago."

"Kamu bisa."

"Mereka ga akan inget aku, aku ga memorable buat diinget."

"Kamu ga bisa maksa orang buat jadiin kamu favorit mereka."

Dua prespektif berbeda dalam satu kepala yang sama. Pernyataan gadis belia, yang mencoba tidak berprasangka. Malam merupakan jam-jam rawan bersedih, begitu kata mereka. Dalam kasus ini, seorang Syima pun membenarkannya.

Menangisi hal-hal sederhana. Sesederhana tidak tercapture pada kodak milik juru kamera. Belum lagi ditambah genggam tangan yang tak pernah lepas dari gawai. Gawai yang terus-menerus memunculkan notifikasi tugas, rapat, dan seluruh sibuknya.

Kesibukan yang Ia butuhkan. Kesibukan yang ia tetapkan menjadi skala prioritas dengan kasta paling tinggi. Kesibukan untuk melupakan apa yang tak pernah sempat diwujudkan. Juga melupakan sesuatu yang pernah membuatnya terbawa oleh derasnya air sungai kehidupan.

Ia sandarkan punggungnya pada dinding. Mengingat acara formal yang diadakan hari Sabtu minggu lalu. Juga mengingat semua rapat-rapat yang telah ia ikuti sejak ditetapkan menjabat.

Kepalanya sakit. Terlalu banyak informasi yang masuk membuatnya kewalahan. Semua berlangsung terlalu cepat di saat Ia masih meniti jembatan, menganalisis seberapa aman jalan yang dipilihnya.

"Haaah..." Syima menghela napas. Tertawa hambar.

Curang.

Kalau takdir bisa sedikit saja diubah, ia tentu akan memilih menjadi orang yang dicinta. Orang yang bisa asik dan tegas di saat bersamaan. Orang yang menyenangkan untuk diingat.

Bukan sebagai siswa yang dikenal terlalu serius, perfeksionis dan ambisius mengejar deretan nilai memuaskan di atas secarik kertas. Itu memang bagus. Tapi bukankah terlalu kaku? Percakapan yang ada pun selalu membahas tugas. Layaknya menjadi orang asing dalam sekelompok orang yang punya ikatan begitu kuat.

"Kita sekelompok dengan Syima, bersikaplah lebih serius."

"Maaf ya, kamu melihat sesuatu yang tidak baik."

Mungkinkah Ia kurang berusaha? Mungkinkah Ia terlalu memaksa? Atau dari awal, dari pendekatan pertama memang sudah salah?

Sepertinya bersikap seolah menjadi seseorang yang selalu ada, tak akan pernah cukup untuk memenuhinya. Memenuhi harapan yang begitu besar untuk diwujudkan.

Selalu ada, tapi tak dipercaya dan diguna. Selalu ada, tapi perasaan yang berkembang tidaklah sama.

Terkadang, di sisi lain hari, datang pada mereka yang sekiranya peduli. Sekiranya sama-sama mau berbagi. Bertujuan untuk merasa saling memiliki.

Walau pada akhirnya, sebagian dari mereka akan merasa paling mengerti. Lantas menganggap cerita itu hanyalah fiksi. Mulai merasa paling tersakiti, dan malah mengadu diri.

"Ternyata dia bukan orang yang tepat. Aku tak dibaginya waktu untuk balik bercerita."

Sebuah saat yang mendatangkan penyesalan. Menjadikannya rumah singgah, ternyata memang kesalahan.

Lalu berada di dalam lingkup di mana orang-orang berlomba menjadi aktif, positif dan terbuka pada semua. Membuatnya merasakan kegilaan. Membuatnya merasa kurang dan semakin kurang. Ia sendiri merasa bahwa apa yang ia dapatkan hanya sebuah keberuntungan semata.

I was just lucky.

Syima membuka layar kunci gawainya untuk kesekian kali untuk hari ini. Memencet asal beberapa lingkaran status dari sebuah media sosial yang kini marak dipakai remaja seusianya.

Benda berbentuk balok itu bersinar. Menampilkan wajah-wajah perempuan ayu, lalu perempuan menggemaskan yang juga berwibawa. Nama-nama yang selalu disebut dengan begitu lugas. Begitu dipercaya.

"I am so jealous. I wish I can be them."