#I can’t say “this is an IMPROVEMENT!!” in good conscience because people are dying. Are these people’s lives worth this marginal improvement

[stuckinapril]

Have you seen the UN finally calling for a ceasefire?

Yes but I’m confused… this only lasts for the duration of Ramadan?? Ramadan ends in 2 weeks. The US abstaining rather than voting in favor of it is showing me it’s going to continue pussyfooting around calling for a permanent ceasefire. I don’t mean to be pessimistic, bc ik the US vetoed it the last 3 times, but this doesn’t feel like enough. Will Israel just go back to liberally killing Palestinians once Ramadan is over? And then it’s back to this UN tug of war where some countries push for a permanent ceasefire, while the US continues blocking these efforts? Idk I’m disappointed.

[shanoaravendare]

Camp Unus Annus: The Author (Part 5)

Previous Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4

              Shanoa felt the void around her ripple as she floated through it. She no longer felt any connection to her body, so the sensation surprised her. For a moment, her mind floundered trying to remember what she had been doing, the thoughts spilling from her grasp like water from her hands. Her hands, what was in her hands? Her notebook and pen?

              “I must be writing,” she thought hazily. “Why don’t I know what I’m writing?”

              Her scattered thoughts began to coalesce into a picture, like watching a show through the viewpoint of one of the actors. She could see her hands now, holding the open notebook with her hand poised ready to write. Her familiar chicken scratch covered half the page before being replaced by an unfamiliar scrawl. As she watched, her hand began writing in that same unfamiliar script.

              The girl relaxed and closed her eyes again, letting the words flow through her and onto the page.

              The words on the page were echoed by a deep male voice in her mind and the view of her hands began to fade. A wave of involuntary relaxation washed over her thoughts, dragging her mind back toward the void. Unnerved by the she reacted to the words she had just watched herself write, Shanoa fought against the urge to relax and focused on her hands again. With great effort she brought back the image of the notebook and pen in her hands, noting that this time she could feel them as well. A new sentence was written on the page, this time in her handwriting.

              Shanoa opened her eyes again.

              Mark watched as Shanoa’s arm twitched, switching back and forth between writing styles. He could tell she was fighting for control of her own body and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Beneath his hand he felt Shanoa’s shoulder drop to a more relaxed position. He watched as her hand began to move across the page once again.

              Shanoa could feel the pressure building up once more and focused her attention on her thoughts, wary of anything that may come from outside. Now that she knew the Author was trying to use her against Mark and Ethan, she wouldn’t fall for his tricks so easily. Desperate to break the stalemate created by the Author’s manipulation, she wrote out a plan hoping the counselors would forgive her for trying to control them.

              Ethan distracts the Author giving Mark time to recover the knife. The Author moves away from the desk.

              The Author slammed his hand down on the desk, cursing in frustration under his breath. His sudden motion startled the other two men in the cabin. Ethan jumped back a step drawing the Author’s wrathful gaze to him. As the Author stared at him, Ethan realized that he was now the sole focus of his attention. Squaring his shoulders, he began to move toward the door and the broom that lay across the threshold. The Author lunged toward Ethan who deftly backflipped out of his grasp, then dove under his arms to grab the broom. Forewarned by Shanoa’s writing Mark launched himself at the desk and snatched up his knife from beside the typewriter. Faced now with two armed opponents the Author froze with his hands in the air.

              “No! This is not what is supposed to happen,” the Author raged as Mark and Ethan pushed him back into a corner. “Why won’t any of you cooperate?!”

              “Why would anyone cooperate when you’re trying to kill them, you psychopath?”

              “Because they’ll live forever in my novel, with so many more people caring about them than they ever would have had without ME, Ethan. Isn’t that worth dying for?”

              Mark and Ethan looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes before replying with an emphatic, “No!”

              “I’m sorry you feel that way,” the Author said softly,” …but this isn’t about you. This is my story and you are nothing but puppets set on the stage to act it out. You have no say in any of this and you’re delusional if you think otherwise.”

              Ethan lowered the broom a little. “Is that all other people are to you, puppets,” he asked sadly.

              “Why shouldn’t they be? If they are so weak willed that they can be so easily controlled, then why shouldn’t I use them as the tools they are meant to be?”

              “Weak willed, huh,” Mark mused aloud.

              “Yes.”

              Mark burst into laughter.

              “What’s so funny?”

              “You,” Mark choked out between laughs. “By your own logic you’re just as weak willed as the rest of us.”

              “How dare you…”

              “Shanoa wrote you moving away from the desk when Ethan distracted you,” Mark cut in.

              The Author paused and stared past the two counselors to where Shanoa sat behind them. “Did she now? I didn’t think she had it in her to try something like that on her own. Well done, Shanoa. You’ll be a best-selling writer like me in no time.”

              Shanoa flinched at his words and looked down at the floor.

              “Why the long face? Isn’t that what you’ve dreamed of?”

              Ethan raised the broom menacingly. “Leave her alone. You’ve messed her up more than enough.”

              “I messed her up,” the Author asked sarcastically, placing a hand on his chest. “I did no such thing. On the contrary, I think I’ve made some rather significant improvements. Her writing is so much more… impactful now.”

              Sobs wracked Shanoa as the Author’s words hit home. Anything she wrote would happen. To someone, somewhere who fit the character she was writing about. Anything she wrote would put someone through the horror of losing control to an unknown power. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks to fall on the open notebook in her lap. She knew she would never be able to live with that knowledge hanging over her like the Sword of Damocles.

              “No,” she coughed out between sobs, “…I won’t do it. I’ll never write again. Not if it means I have to think of people as puppets like you do.”

              The Author smirked at her. “Oh, you’ll write again. You won’t be able to help it. Writing is like breathing for people like you and me. We can’t live without it.”

              “That’s enough,” Mark interjected.

              “It’ll never be enough! You know that as well as I do. How long have you been able to resist the urge? How long before your fingers start itching to put pen to paper? How long until you have to sit down and let the words flow?”

              “I said, that’s enough.” Mark looked over his shoulder at Shanoa. “Don’t listen to him. It’ll be fine.”

              Ethan looked quizzically at Mark. “What’s he talking about?”

              “It’s not important right now,” Mark replied.

              While their attention was focused elsewhere, the Author quietly slid a hand into his pocket and pulled a lighter out. Though the cabin door had remained open, he could smell the gas leaking from the stove he had turned on but left unlit before leaving earlier. His movement went unnoticed by the other two men and he grinned a little.

              “It’s not important right now? When else would it be important? Because I’m a little uncomfy with the thought that if you don’t like the way I’m acting you could just write me to be different! How would I know? Have you done it already? Is that why you isolate yourself when you’re writing, so you don’t have to see what you’re doing to the people around you?”

              Mark stiffened at Ethan’s accusations and looked him square in the eyes. “Ethan, you know me better than that. But now is not the time for this discussion. I promise you we will talk about it later when a psychopath isn’t actively trying to kill us. For right now can we focus on that?”

              Ethan nodded wordlessly and the two counselors returned their attention to the Author who grinned maliciously at them. The near silence was broken only by a heart wrenching sob from Shanoa as the notebook slid from her fingers and thumped to the floor.

              “It’s a little depressing, really,” the Author mused aloud, “…how easily the two of you are willing to let your gift go to waste. So many interesting ideas you could literally be bringing to life and you refuse to take advantage of the opportunity. Oh, so willing to be less than you are. To fade slowly into obscurity, or never leave it in the first place.”

              “You’re talking about real people’s lives. Not some fictional world you’ve created. There are real consequences for what you make them do and do to them. They have to live with that and so do you,” Mark gestured angrily with the knife, pointing it accusingly at the Author’s chest. “I certainly couldn’t live with that on my conscience, and I don’t understand how you can.”

              “Comfortably,” the Author replied casually. “Very comfortably. At least when my characters cooperate. It’s never as good when I have to get involved personally, but sometimes people just need a fire lit under them to really get things going.”

              The distinctive metallic click of a lighter case flipping open punctuated the Author’s statement followed by the scrape of the strike wheel being flicked. A small flame burst into life glinting off the Author’s eyes as he tossed it casually toward the stove before either Mark or Ethan could react. The accumulated gas in the air ignited with a whoomph, sending a fireball rolling across the ceiling over everyone’s head. Taking advantage of the distraction the Author lunged at Mark trying to wrench the knife from his grasp. Shanoa hunched in on herself as she dove to the floor beside the chair. The sudden heat wave caused whisps of hair that had broken free of her braid to dance in the air and, in a few cases, curl at the ends. Ethan swung the broom handle at the Author’s back only to strike Mark in the shoulder when the Author wrenched him sideways.

              “I’ve got this under control, Ethan. Get Shanoa out of here. I’ll catch up,” Mark grunted through clenched teeth as he fought for control of the knife.

              With a nod, Ethan pulled the front collar of his shirt up over his nose in a makeshift mask and sidled toward Shanoa. Thick smoke already was beginning to fill the small cabin making his eyes and lungs burn. Fire climbed hungrily across the dry wooden walls, it’s crackling a counterpoint to the grunts and muffled curses of the two combatants. Chunks of flaming wood dropped through the smoke around him like shooting stars in the darkness. A thin layer of clear air at floor level allowed him to see where Shanoa knelt by the chair, her face pressed to the floor and both arms covering her head.

              “Come on Shanoa, we’ve gotta get out of here,” Ethan called as he reached out and set a hand on her shoulder. He could feel her whole body shaking but couldn’t be sure whether she was crying or coughing at this point. “It’s gonna be okay.”

              Shanoa glanced up at Ethan through eyes red with tears and shook her head sadly. “This is all my fault. Just go. I don’t want to become a monster like him.”

              “Can’t do that, we’d be breaking the buddy system. So, either we both go or neither of us goes. Now come on!”

              Shanoa took Ethan’s hand and crawled up beside him. “If you insist. But what about Mark? Aren’t you his buddy?”

              “Don’t worry about Mark right now, I’ll take care of it,” Ethan shoved Shanoa ahead of him toward the door and safety outside. As they gulped in the fresh air an ominous creaking sounded over the crackle of the fire. Ethan ran back to the door shouting for Mark to get out. Just as he was about to step back inside a flaming ceiling timber dropped with a crash, blocking the way.

              Inside the cabin, what had started as a battle for control of the knife quickly escalated into a full-on fight. A sharp blow to Mark’s wrist sent the knife back to the floor and the Author’s quick kick ensured it was out of reach for the time being. The two men sized each other up for a moment before Mark lowered his head and charged the Author, grabbing him around waist as he drove him to the floor. The Author, momentarily taken by surprise, hit the ground hard but used Mark’s momentum against him to propel Mark over his head to crash against the table.

              “You never did answer me, Mark,” the Author said as he regained his feet.

              “And I’m never going to,” Mark responded slapping away embers that had alighted on his arm. “I don’t answer to you.”

              “Is that it? Or are you afraid of what those answers would say about you? We both know you still write. So, tell me, how many puppets do you have?”

              “None. I don’t need to make anyone suffer just so I can create, not that it’s any of your business. What you’ve done in the past is unforgivable and I’m not going to just let you keep torturing innocent people for your own personal gain.”

              Both men were now finding it harder to see and breathe through the thick smoke and began to move in a crouch to get to the clearer air near the floor. A spray of sparks showered the inside of the cabin as the ceiling beam struck the ground sending light glinting off the discarded knife. Mark dove for it as the Author was wracked with a coughing fit from too much inhaled smoke. In that same moment, the Author dove for the baseball bat he’d dropped near the door earlier. Re-armed, the two men charged at each other through the smoke. The Author’s wild swing sent the smoke spinning into curls along the path of the bat making an opening just big enough for Mark to get clear sight of him through.

              “So, what are you going to do about it,” the Author taunted through the smoke as he swung the bat again, “… kill me?”

              “Death comes for us all eventually,” Mark answered, slashing with his knife as he dodged the Author’s bat. “Who can say what shape it will take?”

              The Author’s bat connected with Mark’s shoulder on the backswing causing him to stumble. Mark took a step back trying to regain his balance, only to trip on Shanoa’s discarded journal and fall as the bat passed through the spot his head had occupied only seconds before. From his back, Mark kicked out wildly connecting with the Author’s knee and sending him to the floor as well. As both men began struggling back to their feet a section of the flaming cabin roof came crashing down. A piece struck Mark’s head stunning him momentarily.

              Outside, both Ethan and Shanoa were circling the cabin looking for another way in or out of it without any success. Their throats were raw from the combination of inhaled smoke and shouting for Mark with no response. The crash of the roof sent embers flying toward the trees surrounding the little clearing and they rushed to stomp out the small blazes before they could become larger. Ethan turned to Shanoa with determination in his eyes.

              “I can’t just wait out here, I’m going in after him. Stay here and try to keep the forest from catching fire,” Ethan blurted out. “I think I saw a pump around the side of the house, maybe you can wet things down? I don’t know. But if I’m not back in a couple minutes follow the path back to camp and tell Amy and Evan what happened.”

              Shanoa stared wide-eyed at the cabin behind Ethan and began to raise a shaking hand to point when a soot covered hand rested itself on his shoulder.

              “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Mark rasped as Ethan turned to face him.

Epilogue

              The cabin fire had been easy to put out once everyone from the camp was working together. Having seen the smoke rising in the distance Amy and Evan had put together a fire brigade that met up with Mark, Ethan, and Shanoa halfway between the camp and cabin. On the walk back to camp the three had agreed not to tell Amy, or anyone else for that matter, what exactly had happened at the cabin with the Author. The rest of the week passed in a flash and soon there was only one day left before everyone would be departing for home.

              Shanoa sat on a mossy rock under a tree overlooking the camp as the sun began to set on the last day at Camp Unus Annus. Darcy sat nearby in companionable silence, whittling away at a stick she had picked up on the hike up the hill. The smell of ash still hung in the air when the wind would blow from the direction of the clearing previously occupied by the cabin. The relative quiet of the woods was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming up the path towards them.

              “Mind if I sit with you,” Mark’s quiet voice by her ear startled Shanoa out of her reverie. Turning her head to look at him she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and realized that Ethan was escorting Darcy back down the path toward camp. Shanoa shrugged listlessly and moved over to make a spot next to her on the rock which Mark promptly settled onto. Neither one said anything for a moment as they watched the sun start to dip behind the hills to the west.

              “I didn’t see you at the writing workshop today,” Mark remarked off handedly. “Amy said you weren’t feeling well but I don’t think that’s the real reason.”

              “I meant what I said that day.”

              “I know you did. I once said the same thing.”

              Shanoa turned to look at Mark. “So, what changed? Obviously, you still write otherwise you never would have made the Heist.”

              Mark nodded. “It’s true, I do still write. But that’s because I figured out something the Author never did."

             "What's that?"

              “Just because I can make everything I write happen; doesn’t mean I have to do it. It’s a choice, Shanoa, just like everything else in life. The Author chose to exploit others for his own gain with his gift, that’s something I like to think I could never do. If it’s in you to write, then write. But do it on your own terms.”               Mark stood and offered his hand to help Shanoa do the same, which she accepted gratefully. The two dusted themselves off then started back down the path to camp before it could become too dark to see clearly.

              At the bottom of the hill Mark stopped and set a hand on Shanoa’s shoulder. “I almost forgot, I think this belongs to you,” he said as he slid Shanoa’s now slightly scorched notebook into her hands.

              Shanoa ran her fingertips across the dry, cracked leather of the cover before opening it and leafing through its pages. In places the ink had bled from where water had soaked into pages while they were putting out the fire. In others the edges of the pages were browned and irregular.

              “You know,” Mark mused, “…that notebook probably saved my life. If I hadn’t tripped on it, I would have been right under the main beam of the roof when it fell.”

              Shanoa nodded thoughtfully as she continued to leaf through the notebook. A single page slipped loose from the back of the book and she quickly grabbed it before it could hit the ground. In the fading daylight she could just barely make out three words written in the center of the page in a now familiar scrawl:

              The Author lives.

[janiedean]

yeahh, as much as i like dany, she fcked up big time in adwd. which kind of annoys me bc jon snow was a good lord commander, making him the good male ruler to the bad female ones in feastdance. tyrion in acok was also more efficient than the two main queens of this book series. doesn't that leave you with a bad taste in your mouth?

... anon, I detect a certain baiting intent, but taking it at face value, I’ll inform you that this is an extremely simplistic way of looking at it. specifically:

jon is more competent than dany at ruling at the wall, but.... he ended up stabbed by half of his sworn brothers because he’s shit at communicating and he can’t PR. dany was bad at queen-ing but jon ended up dead, so while I still think he has more like... instinct for seeing the big picture and so on he hardly had a good tenure. since he’s, huh, dead;

tyrion is efficient in acok because tyrion is presented as smart and capable and like... he’s intellectually as good as tywin at ruling he’s just not an asshole, and sorry but tyrion is a discriminated minority and his gender in this case counts a lot less narratively speaking - having a discriminated minority belonging to a category that’s usually comic relief being an efficient ruler is in itself way more groundbreaking than anything else, so actually no, that doesn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth at all - also fyi tyrion ended up deposed the moment tywin showed up and proceeded to fuck it all up thinking he was the shit (or stocazzo as we say in italy) and being good at ruling didn’t help him in the long run, so again... you’re making things way too easy;

on top of that, grrm has capable women everywhere in these books - if cat was in charge of any place none of that shit would have happened, the tyrells are actually a thing bc of the women not because of mace tyrell, in the wildlings women basically are on the same level as men, in dorne arianne might be a bit hotheaded but she’s learning well, asha is the only fucking competent ironborn in existence, brienne is way smarter than anyone gives her credit for and she spent affc figuring out in three seconds what it took people entire chapters to grasp and it’s not like dany is terrible at everything she does, she’s just not good at ruling and she could probs improve with good counselors but idt it’s what the narrative is setting her up for. but like, it’s not like dany and cersei are terrible at ruling bc they’re women - which would be rather misogynist to assume -, dany is bad at it bc she’s more suited for other things and cersei is bad at it because she only thinks about herself and that won’t get you far in life at anything. also, a bunch of men in these books are utterly incapable of ruling either, so it’s not like it’s just them being bad and all the guys being good, which would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

but since grrm has all kinds of people being good and bad at all kinds of things, I won’t go around assuming he’s a misogynist bc he wrote women with faults when all the men have faults too and because he wrote one woman who’s a villain when he has a lot of men who are villains including a pov that I’d burn from existence if I could *cough* victarion *cough*, and if dany is bad at ruling then robert was bad too, robb was a disaster except at military strategy, jon god killed, joffrey - do we even wanna talk about that, renly didn’t even last a month, stannis more or less manages but if davos isn’t there he wouldn’t last two months either, theon couldn’t hold winterfell because he went for it without even thinking about it twice and he fucked that up royally, like the most successful male ruler until now has probably been tyrion along with mance and it’s not like mance is doing that great for now and the smartest person until now has been jaime who has run from having to deal with that shit as much as he could because he was the only idiot in this house who understood it was a bad bargain. and meanwhile most of the single other POV women have rued the fact that idiot men have the reins and they can’t do shit about it.

anon, honest. no.

also, I’ve said it fifteen times, but since we’re at it: there is no way that a straight male dude grrm’s age who has written both cat and brienne’s chapters is a misogynist.

there is no way. because a misogynist even unknowingly would never get some things in their chapters that are pretty much things that his category of dude doesn’t experience ever - in order to get that shit you have to be very good at writing, very good at empathizing and very much high on respecting women juice. grrm can be a lot of things unknowingly and it shows (but he’s also seventy and he was basically as left as you could go during the vietnam war like HE WAS A CONSCIENCE OBJECTOR PLEASE like... he comes from that background and it shows too) that are due to the fact that he’s the age he is, but misogynist? ain’t one of them. and I am dying on that hill.

but honest. no.

[saintheartwing]

DS9 is Best Star Trek. FIGHT ME.

DS9 is, hands down, the best out of all the Star Treks and at the moment, its all available on Netflix and I continue to rewatch it. Lemme explain why. 

The cast is INCREDIBLY diverse, unique and special. They work off each other well and have very good chemistry.

They have changed it up by making it so that the bulk of the series overwhelmingly takes place on a single station at the opening to a wormhole that opens to the other side of the galaxy itself. New threats and old could come around to the station at any time and we’d get a real sense of how ordinary people LIVE in Roddenberry's universe.

It wasn’t afraid to question and point out the problems OF Roddenberry’s universe and the federation. Take, for example, the whole “no money used anymore” thing. Jake Sisko, Captain Sisko’s son, wants to get a special baseball card for his dad, but well...federation citizens don’t HAVE money. Earth basically gave up on material possessions, a fact Nog, his ferengi best friend, brings up. “It’s not MY fault your planet moved away from emphasis on material possessions!”  “Hey, don’t knock our way of life! We use the time we could have spent obsessing over material wealth to focus on improving ourselves!” “What does that MEAN, exactly?” “...it means...it means...we don’t need money!” “Then you don’t need MY money.”

See the problem? YOU may not use money, sure...but most of the galaxy still does, so you’re s--t outta luck if you got nothing to trade with! Heck, even replicated food gets criticized. “It just tastes like proteins. Not REAL chicken.” Not to mention the introduction of Section 31, an independent organization designed to protect Earth and the Federation from threats internal and external by hook or by crook, regardless of the means, all for the greater good, utterly autonomous, that didn’t answer to the Federation.

But then again, the Federation didn’t really INTERFERE with it, because it seems to recognize that “We sort of need them to do the dirty things we can’t bring ourselves to do.” That was new, and unique! Never been done before! Along with active critiques of the Federation.

As one of the supporting characters says, “ I was like you once, but then I opened my eyes. Open your eyes, Captain. Why is the Federation so obsessed about the Maquis? We've never harmed you. And yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands, and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed. Why? Because we've left the Federation, and that's the one thing you can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be in the Federation. Hell, you even want the Cardassians to join. You're only sending them replicators so that one day they can take their rightful place on the Federation Council. You know, in some ways you're worse than the Borg. At least they tell you about their plans for assimilation. You're more insidious... you assimilate people and they don't even know it!” 

GREAT line there. And of course, we can’t forget Garak. Just...plain...simple...Garak. This “ordinary tailor” is ENDLESSLY hilarious!

But of course, the show wasn’t afraid to talk about dark issues. We had the occupation of Bajor that resulted in concentration camps and millions dying, a horrific war with the shapeshifting Founders, a “Changeling” race who wanted to impose order on the galaxy who was basically kicking the ASS of the Federation for QUITE a while in the show, making them lose baaaaad. We even had Sisko and his crew forced off the station of Deep Space 9! 

And of course, “In The Pale Moonlight” is often on the top 10 list of best episodes of all Star Trek and for good reason. Benjamin Sisko is determined to get the Romulan Empire to join the war effort against the Dominion, and at first he tries to do it normally enough, but that fails. So he has to resort to faking evidence of a planned attack on Romulus, bribery, covering up his crimes, and even ending up an accessory to a double murder. But the most damning thing of all? 

“I think I can live with it. And if I'd have to do it all over again... I would. Garak was right about one thing. A guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant, so I will learn to live with it.............because I can live with it...I can live with it...”

Powerful stuff, as is “Far Beyond the Stars”, in which it’s implied that, perhaps, everything in DS9 is the creation of an African American sci-fi writer in mid 20th century NYC! A writer who’s struggling to get his tale published, but...well...because his hero is a “colored man”...

And all of this was done without disgustingly cheap shock deaths or out-of-nowhere swerves or tasteless shock horror. Oh, and unlike in Star Trek: Discovery, the Klingons don’t EAT PEOPLE. I mean, that’s just gross stuff there. Plus it featured the first on-screen lesbian kiss! And the character of Jadzia Dax and the symbiotes could easily be read as a metaphor or coding for being trans or transitioning into a new gender! Really progressive for the time!

So that’s just some of the many reasons I love it. Hopefully you’ll give the show a look over and come to love it too. 

[clexaweekofficial]

Some more ideas for Clexaweek2018, feel free to use these! (for credit for some of these prompts, here’s my pinterest where you can find them) 

Day 1: Meet Ugly: "We live in the same apartment complex and I accidentally leave my laundry in the washer for a minute too long and you decide to take out all my wet clothes to put in yours just as I walk in." Imagine grumpy Lexa who is beyond sick of some inconsiderate asshole who always leaves their laundry too long and she has things to do so she takes the wet clothes out to put her own in, and is caught red-handed by a gorgeous blonde who stands in the doorway with her hands on her hips looking equal parts annoyed and amused. Lexa goes on the defensive and snaps at her but the girl seems to grow more amused. After that Clarke starts taking her stuff out on time and Lexa is a bit miserable at the guilt and the fact that she kinda wishes she had an excuse to see the pretty blonde again... and then one day Clarke is late and Lexa’s a little too happy about that, especially when Clarke arrives actually sliding into laundry room before skidding to a halt, panting, and looks very curious indeed at the fact that Lexa only smiles at her apologies. They end up chatting in there for hours. Lexa finally grows some ovaries and asks Clarke out at the end, and Clarke kisses her cheek and tells her she can’t believe their first date was in the laundry room and Lexa blushes. 

"I work in a grocery store and I'm putting new items on the shelf in the refrigerated section and just as I'm putting a new carton of milk on the shelf, you reach in and our hands touch" LOL okay but imagine a fluffy au where Lexa's the one working at a grocery store and Clarke's in one of her classes and she's so pretty but Lexa can never work up the nerve to talk to her and then this happens and Clarke shrieks and flails and falls, bringing milk with her that goes all over the place, so Lexa rushes out to find a shocked Clarke lying in a puddle of milk and Lexa's face gets redder than a tomato (bonus points if she takes Clarke to the back to change since she has an extra shirt she changed out of for her work clothes, and then to make matters worse her boss walks in on her in the locker room with a shirtless, messy blonde)

"Human emotions can be bottled and sold on the black market. You are in desperate need of money and sell yours. It will take months to grow back, leaving you empty inside. The next day you meet her." Lexa doesn’t want to, but she does it, and then she meets Clarke and well...let’s just say Lexa’s so fuckin gay and Clarke’s her fuckin soulmate and she should probably be more freaked out by the fact that she is feeling already when she shouldn’t be

"You're a hitman with a conscience. Before every kill, you help the victim check something off their bucket list." Lexa's the hitman and is assigned Clarke. She watches her for weeks beforehand, learning her schedule, and pretends to be a student, 'meeting' Clarke in one of Clarke's classes and befriending her. Like always, she sets out to help her check something off her bucket list. She doesn't anticipate falling in love with her. I can't help but to picture Clexa on a road trip for this one, going somewhere where they can go on a hot air balloon together...

Day 2: Constantly mistaken for a couple: A twist on a fake dating au: Clarke and Lexa are dating, and then Raven begs Clarke to be her pretend-date because she doesn't want to show up to the company party where Wick, a douche she'd dated on and off, is, so she begs Clarke to pretend date her. Clarke does so and it goes swimmingly-- the bad news is, only two days later she discovers those same people are working on the apartment across from Lexa's, so she and Lexa try to pass themselves off as cousins/sisters/whatever to explain why they live together...but they keep giving each other really filthy pre-sex looks behind everyone's back like a game of chicken and pretty soon somebody is going to have serious concerns about their siblinghood.

“Hi sorry but I'm a youtuber and you wandered into my liveshow by mistake the other day and now half the internet thinks we're dating"

Day 3: At work: 

"Heroine: *on top of the Villain Lady holding her down* You are defeated! Villain Lady: you forgot about my secret weapon. Vilain Lady: It can only be defused by kissing me on the mouth. Heroine: ..... Heroine: you know you could've jut asked me out instead of taking over this city? Villain Lady: I'M AWKWARD OK?”

Lexa as a lawful-good hero, “The Commander,” Clarke as the chaotic neutral sometimes-hero, sometimes-villain who drives Lexa up the wall most times. Or Clarke as the neutral-good hero and Lexa as the neutral sometimes-hero, sometimes-villain who is smooth and cool and just operates to her own rules

Day 4: Accidental Stimulation:

(This could pair with Day 6, Famous)- Lexa is the lead in a play/show/movie and Clarke’s painting the backdrops. No one fucking told her that she’d be working the same time Lexa was rehearsing a sexy scene. Clarke’s gripping the paintbrush so hard it’s about to break because holy shit 

Clarke slept in and missed her final for art but luckily the professor is letting her make it up and the nude model consented to come back... except the nude model is Lexa and so gorgeous Clarke is going to bomb this final (alternatively, you could do it where the reason Clarke slept in and missed her final is because she was up for hours with a girl she’d just met...and that girl turns out to be Lexa, who is filling in for the model)

“I literally hate your guts but I have to get you fitted for this costume so put this on and and wow you’re actually pretty cute”

Day 5: Rivals in a secret relationship:

Clexa are on rival teams and everyone knows they hate each other and their teams play each other for playoffs and everyone’s freaking out because the captains of both teams are missing so there’s a search party and police involved and everything...and then they find them naked and asleep and covered in hickeys in the back of Clarke’s car

Lexa and Clarke are always going toe-to-toe at work and all the employees are kind of scared of them tbh but turns out outside of work they are super Soft girlfriends 

Clexa are on a reality tv program and the audience eats up their relationship and how they fight but they’re actually in love and secretly engaged

“So what are we” “Enemies with benefits”

Day 6: Famous:

Clarke is a famous celebrity who visits her friend Raven/Octavia/Wells whoever and they order a pizza and Clarke forgets she’s famous for a minute and answers the door and the pizza girl (Lexa) about has a heart attack and Clarke’s like omg shit wait please don’t tell anyone I’m here or the paparazzi will swarm, here come inside and share some of this pizza and here’s a huge tip Bonus points if Lexa can barely speak and is just scarlet-faced the entire time with the knowledge that she’s written explicit smut about the tv character Clarke plays

Clarke/Lexa's a famous celebrity and decides to check out one of her fans pages and accidentally likes a picture from like 176 weeks ago

Clarke and Lexa are both chefs on The Great British Baking Show (Live) and the entire world is hardcore shipping them and Mel and Sue (Or Octavia and Raven) keep making food-related dirty puns. Bonus points if the viewership keeps climbing so even Mary starts making little comments that indicate she’s a #Clexa fan. 

Lexa is a famous movie-star who escapes the paparazzi and her stifling body guards by slipping into a local library one rainy day and is immediately besotted with the pretty blonde librarian who doesn’t seem to have a clue who she is because she doesn’t really watch much television. Alternatively, Clarke’s the movie star and Lexa the librarian 

Clarke’s on that Skin Wars tv show and Lexa’s a model and she has to paint her body

Inked au where Lexa’s a tattoo artist and Clarke is her customer and Lexa’s super distracted by blue eyes and a pretty smile

Day 7: Free Day ideas:

Lexa works at a coffee shop and has always had a crush on Clarke, the beautiful blonde who comes in with paint-stained fingers and a distracted smile. Clarke leaves town for two years and returns...and can't believe Lexa still knows her order. (and Lexa can't believe Clarke remembers her!)

Lexa's the manager of the shop and one of the employees keeps drawing amazing art on the chalkboards, but Lexa can't figure out who it is even though she's been keeping a meticulous schedule to figure out whose shift it appears during

Lexa and her frinds always sit at the table a couple down from Clarke's and gossip in Trigedasleng, which happens to be a language Clarke is currently  learning. Clarke has been eavesdropping to try and improve her listening comprehension and oh my God is Lexa actually talking about how hot Clarke is??

There's a chess set at the local coffee shop set up in the corner and every morning Clarke/Lexa moves one piece. Later in the day, someone else always moves a piece too. Clarke/Lexa is dying to know who she's playing against.

"I'm a new hire and you're trying to show me how to use the espresso machine. I actually already know how to use it, but I'm pretending to be incompetent so that you'll keep talking to me. Please don't fire me.”

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

Black Panther or Do You Think Hollywood has got the Idea that This is What we Want Yet?

Well, Black Panther was basically the best film ever. It’s been a very long time since I saw a film that didn’t only tick the box of being not problematic, but instead actively portrayed a variety of incredible female role models, as well as just being a good quality film. I laughed out loud more than I have in any recent movie. Also, and I know it’s obvious to anyone with eyes right now, but it’s still worth saying; not only was Black Panther full of fantastic female characters, it was full of fantastic black female characters. So hopefully Hollywood will finally get the message that thats’s something we need and want more of please.

*Black Panther spoilers follow* 

The first two women we meet are unnamed members of the Dora Milaje (Shaunette Reneé Wilson and Christine Hollingsworth), the all-female special forces of Wakanda, who immediately leave an impression. Their costumes are rich and decorative, as well as definitely female without being chainmail bikinis, but they are also practical and powerful looking. The most prominent member of the Dora Milaje that we meet is its leader, Okoye (Danai Gurira). It goes without saying that she is incredibly skilled in both combat and strategy, but she is a multi-faceted character that goes far beyond the stoic soldier stereotype. She is primarily a very pragmatic character, thinking about the greater good, but she is also capable of great love, both for her country and her partner, W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya). In addition, she has a sense of humour, sharing a joke with Shuri (Letitia Wright) at the expense of her older brother T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman).

Okoye is also driven by a strong code of ethics, remaining loyal to the throne even if she personally dislikes who sits upon it, but as soon as she is given an opportunity to fight back that abides by her rules, she does, and leads the charge in defence of T’Challa. She puts everything on the line to protect what she believes to be right, including her relationship with W’Kabi, who eventually bends the knee to her - either out of deference to her superior military might of because he respected Okoye’s decisions and realised that he had taken the wrong side. Therefore, Okoye is shown to be exceptionally strong, not only physically but in terms of her principles, and is a well rounded character, willing to love and make jokes when she can.

Another woman who is introduced in a military setting but grows well beyond that is Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o). When we meet Nakia she is undercover at deep personal risk, imprisoned in the back of a truck with a group of women who she almost immediately begins to defend by attacking their captors. Just like Okoye, she quickly goes on to prove that she is more than just a soldier by preventing T’Challa from killing a young man who was forced into fighting. Here we see Nakia’s driving principles - her strong morals, sense of justice and a deep desire to help people in need. She is partially portrayed as a love interest, as she is T’Challa’s ex lover and the pair continue to flirt throughout the film. Despite this, Nakia always remains in control of the conversation; for example, T’Challa jokes that she would make a good queen if she wasn’t so stubborn and Nakia replies, “I would make a great queen because I’m so stubborn - if that’s what I wanted.” However, Nakia’s romantic involvement is overshadowed by that of her role as T’Challa’s conscience: she is forever reminding T’Challa of all the good that Wakanda could do in the world if they shared their science and knowledge with those in need.

As far as the aforementioned technology is concerned, Shuri is the shining star of Black Panther. The teenage sister of T’Challa, she is a wonderful counterpart to his physical strength and seriousness - Shuri is a scientific genius with a cheeky and irreverent sense of humour. She has a vast intellectual repertoire, including knowledge of medicine, robotics, communications and a wide number of other disciplines that I wouldn’t even know the name of. Without her, T’Challa would have the strength of his own body, but not much else - she designed his suit and shoes, remotely drives his car and provides technical support for basically everything he does. Her jokes comprised most of my laugh out loud moments of the film, and continuously inject comedy into otherwise serious moments; such as disrupting the coronation ceremony by complaining about her corset. Shuri is also very driven woman, wanting to improve the world in any way she can; with reference to their technology, she says, “just because something works, doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.”

T’Challa does not only rely on his sister for support, but also his mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett). He looks to her and Shuri in his first coronation trial, and visibly finds confidence in them cheering him on. Ramona does not play the biggest role in Black Panther, but is portrayed not only as a regal and dignified queen, but also a caring mother who T’Challa can turn to when in need.

Shuri is not the only female character with an aptitude for technology; Linda (Nabiyah Be) appears to be in charge of the computer and communications aspects of the heist pulled off by Erik Stevens (Michael B. Jordan). She is a quietly brilliant supporting character, showcasing her aptitude on a variety of occasions, so it is sad that he is killed by Erik, her lover, just so he can get to his real target.

There is only one white woman with a speaking role in Black Panther, an unnamed museum director (Francesca Fariday), who briefly showcases her historical knowledge before she too is murdered by Erik. It could be argued that she is dying for the violent sins of her plundering, colonial and imperialist ancestors, as she is poisoned in a gallery full of stolen African artefacts. Or perhaps she was simply killed because the heist involved the need for paramedic disguises and a getaway ambulance. I’ll leave that one up to you.

Overall, Black Panther showcased superb female characters, who excelled because they were well-rounded, multi-talented yet relatable human beings. it wasn’t just a matter of “look how good at kicking these women are, that means they’re strong, right?” These women were capable in combat, loyal friends, scientific geniuses, empathetic activists, lovers, caring mother, regal queens and wise-crackers - and they were all black. That means a generation of young black girls get to go to the cinema and can see these possible versions of themselves, not just one token princess to aspire to. If that’s not what a superhero movie is supposed to do, then I don’t know what it is.

And now for some asides:

It’s so nice that they let Andy Serkis out to stretch his real human legs for once. Only one arm though, let’s not go crazy.

Teenage, black, female Q is literally everything I’ve ever wanted.

WHAT ARE THOSE?!?!?!

[mymelodyheart]

Forget Me Not Chapter 11 ~Uncertainty and Mortality~

Claire could barely see through tears rapidly welling up in her eyes. She prayed they wouldn't fall, afraid to show the world she was affected by some measly string of words contrived to deliberately hurt her. 

If I had a face like yours, my parents would die of shock too.

With trembling hands, she folded the offensive note that was left on top of her schoolbooks and slipped it in her skirt pocket. This was not the first time it happened, and she knew it wouldn't be the last. Hell would have to freeze a thousand times over before she showed them how upset she was. Straightening her spine and swallowing a golf ball-sized lump in her throat, she sat down and focused on the class that was about to commence. Her herculean effort to hold back the tears was tested further when she overheard a sniggering group taunting her in whispers. They jeered in hurtful undertones, with words that were so wounding that often times she wished she had died with her parents.

Stubbornness prevented her from crying though, afraid Jamie would notice and come swooping in to save the day. That's what he always did. He was a fixer and a caretaker, and she couldn't let him muscle in and assert himself as her repairman.  No, I can't have that.  Of course, he would still clock something was up, but without the evidence of tears, the subject was easier dropped.

I don't need fixing. If other people have a problem with me, it was my cross to bear. The Frasers have done more than enough, and I don't need them fighting my battles.

..........

She should be used to this by now. They're only words, and words can't hurt her unless she allowed it.  You aren't those words. You aren't the shouts and names. You aren't the awful things spat at you like flavourless gum. Get a grip, Beauchamp!

Leaning back on her chair as she stared into the laptop screen, Claire let out a massive sigh of relief. There had been no nasty messages waiting for her in the Facebook inbox neither was there any hints of disapproval in the comments' box when Jamie announced on Social Media that they were together. The picture he posted of them spoke volumes of his possessiveness - they were locked in an embrace, while she looked straight to the camera, with his forehead pressed against her jawline, face slightly turned, revealing only an eye and an upturned mouth that said,  My Girl.  Although he posted their relationship status a few days ago, the congratulatory comments kept coming, and Claire had been holding her breath waiting for some smart ass remark. But there were none, much to her surprise.

Respite from the vile messages she received almost regularly, didn't detract her from feeling slightly apprehensive at the thought of Jamie bringing Annalise to Lallybroch. Even when pangs of jealousy sliced through her insides mercilessly, her conscience couldn't bear the idea of his ex-girlfriend being left alone in her condition. Compared to Annalise, she had been fortunate to have been raised by a loving family, and she couldn't deny her wish to not be alone when she was given the death sentence, cancer. It was a big ask, but Claire thought it was a plea of a dying, desperate woman.

Jamie had wanted her say in the matter, but they both knew the answer already. Brian and Ellen had raised them to always do the right thing and to never shirk from responsibility, and that had been drummed into their upbringing so incessantly that sometimes little sacrifices were made. 

Her thoughts drifted back once again to Annalise. Although they had the same tragic start to childhood, the similarities didn't end there. According to Jamie, Annalise had always felt she was an outsider and never really fitted in. The fact that she had no one around her at her lowest point in life substantiated that story.  Maybe Jamie is drawn to women he thinks need saving and protecting? I'm in a good place in life now, and perhaps I would lose that appeal once he realised I don't need safeguarding.  Shaking herself, she pushed those thoughts away, reprimanding herself for being melodramatic, a trait that seemed to be trending in her emotions lately.

Claire had just finished going through the menu plans for the grand re-opening of  The Fraser Manor Inn  when Willie's car screeched to a stop outside the house on the gravelled driveway. He had agreed to take her to Lallybroch after running errands. Declining to go with him earlier to the airport to pick up Jamie and Annalise, she had opted to see them in Lallybroch instead later in the day.  I need to go through the food stock and beverage inventory for the restaurant.  The excuse had sounded lame to her ears, but deep down, she knew she was delaying the inevitable - meeting Jamie's ex-girlfriend.  What am I anxious about? Jamie is a solid guy...as solid as solid go and how often had he said he loves me? Yeah, a round of applause Beauchamp, for daring to exercise rational thinking.

Annoyed with herself, she stuffed her laptop and phone in her satchel, before taking a quick glance over of her reflection in the hallway mirror. She was wearing a creamy sweater over a white shirt, tight black jeans and weathered heavy Wellington boots - ideal for the cold and blustery day. A few times, prior, she had considered changing her outfit, perhaps with an afterthought of making an effort for Jamie or show-offing to Annalise. But in the end, practicality won the day when the weather proved to be too cold for a dress.

Once outside, she ran to Willie's waiting car and flung the door open. Clumsily she threw her satchel in before plopping into the passenger seat. "Hey, you...God, it's bloody freezing! Thank you for giving me a lift." Shivering, she rubbed her hands together for warmth before offering them to Willie to rub in his bigger ones and blow his breath into, an old habit they have shared from the past. 

Instead of taking her hands, Willie started the car and pulled out of the driveaway. "Place them under yer thighs. They'll warm up quicker there," he grunted as he turned the heater up a notch, his jaw clenching and unclenching.

"Oh," she shrugged, arching an eyebrow. "Grumpy much?" She wanted so much to know what he thought of Annalise but instead settled back on her seat and waited. Willie had not been himself lately, and she had put it down to the build-up of the re-opening of the hotel.

Letting out a huge sigh, he reached out to squeeze her hand. "I haven't had much sleep."

"I hope it's just lack of sleep, Willie. You've been acting really weird on me these past few days, and I don't like it. One minute you want to talk to me and the next minute you're avoiding me." Claire had been noticing recently, how he flinches a lot every time she was near and wondered what she had done wrong. "I hope it has nothing to do with my new deodorant." She slapped her knee and laughed as she realised she had spoken her thoughts out loud.

Willie didn't laugh. "Would it bother ye?" he asked in a clipped tone.

"Would it bother me what?" she asked, confusion swarming her brain.

"If I avoided ye," he replied, hitting the blinker before he turned right on the road.

"Of course, it would bother me, you silly goose," she said as she rummaged into her satchel, to take out a granola bar.

"Why?"

"Because I love you." She took a bite and offered her snack to Willie with an outstretched hand.

He shook his head at the offering, sparing her only a quick glance. "Ditto."

"Ditto, what the fuck is that?" she asked in a muffled voice, chewing vigorously and glaring at him. Claire knew what the word meant, but this weird Willie vibe thing was beginning to annoy her. He usually would have said  I love you  back.

Willie ignored the question. "Any unpleasant messages lately?"

"None of your business," she snapped, shoving her bag at her feet.

"I guess I deserved that." This time he laughed, probably an effort to lighten the heavy mood he created. "Now who's grumpy?"

"I'm not grumpy, I'm just annoyed at you. You know what...you really ought to get a life. Maybe it would improve your morose mood...like go on a date, meet a girl....that sort of thing." Claire sat back thoughtfully, processing her internal RAM before continuing. "God, I can't remember a time when you had a girlfriend. I know you did because I can remember a girl vaguely, but that must have been ages ago." She glanced at his profile and saw his throat bob up and down. 

"That's hospitality industry for ye...nae time for romance." He slowed down the car as he approached a smaller road leading to Lallybroch.

"Utter shite and you know that! How about Geillis?" Claire said without missing a beat, her eyes lighting up. "She's single, available and she'll understand the long hours working in a hotel,"

"Nah, she's a nice lass but too brash for my taste." He pressed the inside of his cheek with his tongue in an attempt to suppress a burst of laughter.

Claire snorted out loud. She had to agree with Willie on this one that her friend is too cocksure for her own good. "You do know we have some new staff employed in the hotel. Surely, there's bound to be one that meets your discerning taste. But either way, go out there and find your special someone. You deserve that."

He didn't answer, and Claire left it at that, driving in silence for a while. She had been quite sure there was an attraction between Geillis and Willie from the moment they met, but today she wasn't in the mood to play matchmaker nor pry more into Willie's love life. Not for now, at least. There were other pressing matters such as Annalise and her own new relationship with Jamie.

As they pulled up at Lallybroch's driveway, Willie gave her a wink as he glanced at her. "Hey, I'll probably take yer advice and go out on a date, if that makes ye happy and me less dour."

"Good for you, you owe it to yourself. But...umm..." She went silent for a moment thinking Willie hadn't mentioned Jamie nor Annalise. "Willie...what do you think of Annalise? I don't mean to sound like a jealous nag, but I want to know from a man's perspective...do you find her pretty?"

Willie drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, contemplating his answer earnestly. "Honestly...what did you call it again? Aye, my discerning taste. My discerning taste thinks ye are prettier."

"Of course, you'll say that. Why did I even bother asking?" She pulled the satchel from her feet and hitched it over on her shoulder. "You coming in?"

"Aye, but I need to make a few phone calls. Ye go ahead and save a scone for me." Before she could get out of the car, he stopped her. "Claire?"

"Yeah?"

"I love ye."

Claire smiled. "Ditto."

Walking up to the house, she couldn't help but think how much Willie, looked like Jamie when he said I love you.

..........

She was about to open the entrance door when it was unceremoniously flung opened, and Jamie grabbed her wrist. She let out a squeak as he dragged her inside, slinging his forearm against her arse to draw her up onto her toes. Smiling and without saying a word, he walked her back towards the wall of the hallway, his beautiful soul-sucking blue looking intently into her eyes. Tangling a hand in Claire's hair, he tongued her lips open, laughing softly when she gasped, before sinking them both to a kiss. Slowly, Jamie moulded their bodies together against the wall, his lips travelling along her jawline before nuzzling her ear. "Hmm, I was expecting my girlfriend to meet me at the airport this morning. I wonder what kept her away?" He pulled back an inch to tuck her hair behind her ear. "So what's happening inside that pretty head of yers?"

Whatever doubts and worries she had, they had all dissipated. "Oh, this and that," she breathed, as she did a mental replay of their Facetime boogie from the other night, sending a kerfuffle of hormones ricochetting in her belly. "Sorry I couldn't be there to see you. I have been busy with work, you know... menus and stuff, and sourcing new vendors for some of the new dishes. Did you know there's a convention booked already a week after the re-opening?" she whispered, running her palms on his abdomen. It wasn't a lie; nevertheless, it was a good excuse, giving her enough time to sort out her thoughts before meeting Annalise. 

 "I guess I have loads of catching up to do, aye?" he laughed, but the laughter quickly faded away as he searched her face. As if reading her thoughts, which was eerily most of the time, he lifted her chin with his index finger to look into her eyes. "Sassenach, ye have nothing to worry about Annalise, I hope ye know that." He ran his fingers along the seams of her mouth before brushing his lips against hers. "Christ, all I could think about is ye while I was in Paris to a point I was incapable of doing what I was supposed to do. I ken she was my girlfriend, and I can't change that...I can't change the past. I have to believe that sometimes things happen for a reason and that maybe, she was put into our paths so that we can help her. I'm not going to lie...I did care for her, but I didn't love her like the way I do ye. Ye have to trust that."

Claire gave a sharp exhale. There was no more avoiding the subject. "I know, Jamie and that's what I love most about you...you're kind and compassionate that way. See...this relationship thing...I'm already sucking at it. I didn't even know that meeting you at the airport is a boyfriend-girlfriend thing."

Unable to subdue his grin, Jamie caught her full lower lip between his teeth and tugged. "Let's see...ye can make it up for me later, perhaps? In our house? I ken your place is more comfortable, but I don't think I want Geillis hearing all the sounds that you make when I make love to ye."

Her heart started to sprint. "Oh! Our house is it? And you know, you do talk a lot of rubbish...I hardly make any sounds," she giggled.

"Aye, it's our house, and aye, ye do make a lot of sounds. Plenty of adorable sounds, like this..." With a wink, he gave her a look of debauchery, sliding one arm beneath her arse to boost her up and one free hand palming her breast. He chuckled under his breath when she let out a moan. "...and I haven't even started yet."

Her gulp was audible as crimson climbed up her throat, and not really wanting to, she gently pushed him away. "Jamie put me down now. Ma and da can walk in on us any minute." She could hear voices in the kitchen and teacups clacking on saucers. "Let's go meet your other bird, huh?"  Best get it over and done with.

Smiling, he allowed his head to collapse on the crook of her neck, heavily breathing in her scent. "Aye...can't be helped. Missed ye so bad, Sassenach," he murmured huskily, lightly fisting his hand on the wall above Claire's head. Pressing his lips against her forehead, he half-heartedly stood upright, not quite ready to let her go yet. "Right, are we good?"

She nodded and took his hand as Jamie guided her towards the staircase. "So what did ma and da say? Have they met Annalise?"

"Aye, they've met over breakfast. Ye ken what they're like, the house is open to anybody and everybody. I haven't really spoken to them yet as I was too preoccupied looking out the window waiting for ye to arrive," he said in an amused tone.

"Why are we heading upstairs? I thought she was in the kitchen," she asked, looking towards the kitchen they passed.

"She was exhausted earlier and needed to lie down. She must be awake now, but I dinna ken which room she took. Ma did say to take her pick of the empty rooms."

"She's probably in Geillis' room," Claire mumbled, pulling her hand away from Jamie's to smooth back her hair.

 "Hey..." Halfway up the stairs, he turned to face her, reaching out to gently rubbed the pad of his thumb on her cheeks. "...just saying, ok? If there's anything troubling ye, anything at all, ye ken ye can talk to me, aye? We're together now, and ye best get used to it, really fast." He leaned forward to rub his nose against hers. "It's a boyfriend-girlfriend thing, ye ken... in case ye didn't get the memo." He winked, before taking her hand once again in his and pulling her up the stairs.

"Yeah, got it!" she replied but stopped on her tracks when they reached the landing. Further down the hallway, she saw her books neatly stacked outside her old room, and on top of the pile was her dreamcatcher which use to hang above her bed. It was a gift from her uncle Lamb's friend. "Oh, I guess she's not taking the guest room."

Jamie squeezed her shoulders, obviously surprised as her. "Och, sorry Sassenach, I didnae realised. Dinna fash, I'll tell her to use the other room, and I'll put back the books on your shelves..."

Claire grabbed his arm. "No, Jamie, it's alright. I have a place of my own now, and really, it's silly to keep a room here when I don't really need it. She can have it."

"Are ye sure? It shouldn't take a few minutes and.."

"Positive," she reaffirmed, making her way to her old room. At the doorway, she squared her shoulder and gently knocked on the door, almost forgetting Jamie was stood behind her.

"Come in," a light, melodic voice with French accent answered.

Nudging the door, she let herself in to come face to face with Jamie's ex, sat on her old dressing table. Grudgingly Claire had to admit to herself, Annalise was breathtakingly beautiful, and the lack of hair didn't diminish that beauty. In fact, it enhanced her big cornflower blue eyes and delicately shaped eyebrows. With the sunlight streaming from the window behind her, she looked like an angel, dressed in her... what?  Claire's eyes widened when she realised, Annalise was wearing her green wrap-around dress. "Oh, hi...I'm Claire," she said warmly as she stepped forward to shake her hand.

Instead of taking her hand, Annalise stood up and gave her a tight hug and Claire couldn't help but notice, Jamie's ex was wearing the same perfume as her. "So lovely to finally meet you, Claire. I have been so much looking forward to this," she gushed, her voice so soft, it reminded her of a child's. Returning to her chair, she gestured towards the bed. "Please, take a seat." Pausing, she smiled sweetly. "I only realised recently that you and Jamie are together. I would have never guessed as he spoke so fondly and so much of you that he gave me an impression you were siblings. Well, congratulations are in order...both of you make a perfect couple."

Jamie coughed a  thank you , and Claire, instead of sitting down, glanced around her old room, noticing some visible changes had taken place already. Her poster of the world map was taken down for one. "Thank you. I see you've made yourself at home, and that dress looks lovely on you."

"Oh..." Annalise looked down, her expression changing into mortification. "I'm so sorry, Claire. I was making room in the wardrobe, and I saw this hanging. It's so pretty that I had to try it on. I'll take it off now..."

"No, it's alright, really. Keep it, it's yours. The dress becomes you, and I haven't worn it in ages. I will take the rest of my things now, so you have more room. The sooner you're settled, the better." Claire knew she was rambling, but she felt she needed to move.

"There's no rush, Claire but if you must I can help you..." Annalise's voice trailed off as Claire dismissed her suggestion with a wave of a hand, picking up the rest of the things to place in an empty box that was already there. Shrugging her delicate shoulders, Annalise turned her attention to Jamie. "Jamie, is it tomorrow you're taking me to see the doctor?"

"Och aye...we need to sort out yer papers at the NHS and register ye as a resident," Jamie started, one hand massaging the back of his neck. 

Claire suddenly felt sorry for him being in such an awkward situation that she mentally admonished herself for pointing out the dress Annalise was wearing.

"I'll take her." It was Willie standing at the door, both his hands resting on the doorjamb. They haven't heard him walking on the creaky floorboards that they were all surprised to see him stood there. "Jamie, ye're needed in the kitchen to sort out your department in the Pattiserrie, and Murtagh needs to go over the dessert menu for a la carte with ye."

"Weel, I can do all those things tomorrow and take Annalise..."

"I'm going to drop off some papers to Ned Gowan tomorrow, and it's on the way to the Doctor's," Willie explained as a matter of factly. Turning his attention to Annalise, he smiled. "Prepare yer documents, passport and doctors' diagnosis for tomorrow. We'll need every scrap of those papers to register ye here." With that, Willie didn't wait for a reply and simply offered a perfunctory nod and turned on his heels and left.

"What the hell...hang on a minute. Ye can't just..." Jamie was already out the door following his older brother, leaving the two women to stare at each other in bewilderment.

"What just happened?" Annalise whispered, her one hand on her mouth.

"Brothers...that's what happened," Claire replied, shrugging her shoulders as she resumed gathering the last of her knick-knacks strewn in her old room. "Both stubborn as a bull, ye ken..." she explained in her best Scottish mimick.

[emubop]

Adding on to my post from yesterday, I’m just gonna list all the issues I have with Disco (a separate list of the things I love soon to come!)

Under a cut for length and for spoilers. Seriously. Major spoilers ahead. And tw for discussions of character death, if that bothers you.

With that in mind, let’s get to it! (This is in no particular order, btw.)

Starting with the last two episodes, since they’re pretty fresh in my mind - they felt very rushed. I’ve seen some people say that the season should have ended right when they got back from the mirrorverse, and I completely agree. The final arc felt like it needed at least two more episodes to be fleshed out. I wanted to see more of the characters actually dealing with what happened in the mirrorverse, and having time for development; and while we got a little bit of that between Michael and Ash, it wasn’t very much. And like, I get why. When you’ve only got two episodes to get the plot where you need it to go, of course character development is going to be sacrificed for time. Which is why I think they should have either a) added more episodes to the end of season one, or b) ended the season with the mirror arc, so that they’d have more time to explore the Klingon war thing at the beginning of season 2. Disco has some very wonderful characters who are very deserving of development and growth, and it’s unfortunate that they didn’t get it.

Culber’s death... This is the main point where I’m like “yeah, I don’t blame you for not liking the show anymore,” because I came very close to that too. In the end, I do still think I like the rest of the show overall, but this part... I just about stopped watching. In short - the way the show treated Dr. Culber was absolutely shitty. Sure, I’m like 99% certain they’ll end up bringing him back in season 2, but in the meantime, he’s still very much dead. And NOT ONLY did they use the “bury your gays” trope, but out of only TWO gay characters, they buried the man of color. Like... that’s just... what the fuck.

I’m expanding this into multiple points, bc it’s the biggest point I have. Culber’s death is legitimately the worst thing Disco has done. Not only just the fact that they killed him, but how they did it. His death was violent, sudden, and meaningless. The main characters barely even get to react to it before moving on. His killer doesn’t face trial or repercussions. (Note - I personally see Voq as being entirely the murderer and not Tyler, since Tyler had no agency in the killing and was if anything just a tool, but either way, no justice is served.) And then we, the audience, have to see the brutal killing scene AGAIN in the “previously on” section of the next episode or two, which makes it seem like they’re using this horrific event as mere shock value. I literally felt sick to my stomach watching it. What happened was disgusting, and I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to watch the show anymore because of it.

I trust Wilson Cruz. I trust Anthony Rapp. I trust them when they say that there’s a plan, that Culber will come back, that this will work out at some point. Their reassurances do help me personally to make some measure of peace with the situation. I don’t want to think that two openly gay actors would sign onto the script if this is how it ends between their characters. But right now, Culber is still dead, for no good reason that I can see, and it still stings. This is justifiably upsetting. And until I see him come back with my own two eyes, yeah, I’m not gonna be happy about it.

Aaaaand speaking of death, let’s talk about Georgiou. I just... that’s not a good way to start your show off, ngl. You take a very strong and deep character, played by Michelle Yeoh no less, and then just kill her? It’s bad writing. They could have easily had Michael transferred off the Shenzhou and arrested and kept Captain Georgiou alive. They could have even kept the whole “tragic backstory” thing in play, with Michael and Philippa no longer on speaking terms, and Michael mourning the loss of what was once such a close relationship. (I do appreciate that they brought her back as her mirror counterpart - and boy howdy the Emperor is a good character - so that does take a little bit of the sting out, but still. Not the best way to open the show.)

And then Landry dies in both universes?? I can accept mirror!Landry dying because of the whole “Lorca’s second hand” thing, but like... god, this show has got to stop killing off poc. Especially woc. I can understand that they’re trying to do a “raceblind” thing, and I understand their reasoning - the whole “it’s a utopian future and everyone is treated the same!” thing - but it doesn’t really work like that irl for the audience. Unless someone is actually literally colorblind and sees everything in greyscale, no one has any business saying they “don’t see color.” And no one should be casting with that mindset. The situation could certainly be a lot worse - they’ve got Michael, at least, and she’s fucking amazing - but it could also be better.

And yeah, it’s a warzone, and people are going to die. I get that. But just... do some critical thinking about who you’re killing, why, and if it can be avoided. If for no other reason, it makes the story a lot stronger in the long run.

It’s the year of our lord twenty-gayteen, can we stop having the makeup on white people playing Kingons being so hmmm questionable maybe?

(With regards to several of the above points, I’m white, so please let me know if I’m overstepping my bounds here. And like the point about Culber - I wouldn’t blame anyone for disliking/not supporting the show because of these reasons, and I’m not ever going to try to convince anyone that these things are okay. Because they aren’t. Just because I like certain elements enough to give the show a second chance with season two, doesn’t mean that anyone else will or should do the same. Continuing.)

Why the fuck is this show so obsessed with eating people? Stop it. Get some help.

The only explicitly bisexual/pansexual person we see is the Emperor, who sleeps with both a man and a woman and seems very satisfied with both parties afterwards. Which, okay, cool, except she was also trying to get information out of them, so whether or not she was even attracted to either one is debatable. I personally think she was - thanks to Michelle Yeoh’s acting, which is a goddamn gift - but that still leaves us with the only representation of bi/pan people being a murderous emperor from the mirror universe. And the “relationship” is entirely sex-based, as well as being with multiple people at once, which only furthers the stereotype of bi/pan being promiscuous, being only bi for a threesome, being untrustworthy. And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with one night stands or poly relationships! Those things are perfectly fine! But when that’s all that bi/pan people are shown as, it can play into really damaging stereotypes - and as a bi/pan person, I’m frankly getting a little fucking sick of it.

(I mean, it’s better than DS9′s “mirrorverse=gay/bi/pan” thing, I’ll give it that, but I’m not going to give any show brownie points for reinforcing harmful stereotypes. You’ve improved slightly, Trek, but not nearly as much as you should have.)

I’m just making another point here for Dr. Culber’s death because seriously. Fucking seriously. What the fuck.

I would’ve liked to have seen more one-off episodes, like “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad.” That was a fucking awesome episode. It’s fun! It’s got character development! I wanna see more of that!

The portrayal of Klingon culture is a bit inconsistent. And okay, to be entirely truthful, I’m really not that into Klingons in general? So having a plot centered around them wouldn’t be my first choice anyway. But if you’re going to do it, please do it right. It felt like the writers sometimes “forgot” important elements of Klingon culture for the sake of the plot, and just... come on. The Klingons are brutal warriors, yes. They’ve killed innocent civilians in the course of battle, sure. But they have a whole honor code, and going out of their way to murder thousands of helpless, defenseless people? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it just doesn’t quite seem to fit.

I really, really wanna see more of the bridge crew! I wanna get to know them! They seem so cool who are they please Disco I’m begging you

This is a very dumb, very tiny thing, but I was kinda hoping I’d see some Cardassian makeup in the crowd while we were in the Seedy Black Market on Qo’noS. Did appreciate the Trill lady tho!

I dunno, the ending almost felt... too neat? If that makes sense? I would have liked things more ambiguous, a few more loose ends. It felt like they threw in a happy ending out of nowhere; it didn’t really match the tone of the rest of the show.

Speaking of tone - it felt to me like Disco was trying to mix the upbeat, thoughtful, philosophical tone of classic Trek with the grittier, more critical, more heavy tone of DS9. I love both classic Trek and DS9, but they don’t exactly mix very well. Disco’s tone felt a bit confused and convoluted. And like, here’s the thing - classic Trek doesn’t preclude heavy subjects (”Conscience of the King” from TOS is a great example), and shows like DS9 don’t preclude fun and optimism (there’s episodes like “Explorers” that are uplifting, and “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” is a fucking delight). Star Trek at its best should always tackle difficult issues, should always have determination, should always have hope. DS9 had a more morally gray outlook, yes, and certainly questioned the idea that the Federation is utopian, but it was still underpinned by the main characters wanting to do good. Wanting to improve the world around them. It managed to do a very good job of adapting Trek’s message to its darker tone - whereas Disco feels like it’s flip-flopping between having a darker tone and trying to be like TOS. Like, buddy, just pick one. You just gotta pick one.

The more times Sarek shows up in Disco, the more he looks like a complete dick to Spock in TOS. This isn’t necessarily a complaint, because Sarek being a dick is certainly in character for him, but I’d like to see that disparity in how he treats his children addressed. By his wife. Specifically by his wife. Amanda is a national treasure and I need her to call her husband out.

idk I think there’s more but like, I’ve been working on this for hours - WAIT HANG ON

This has been bugging me since the beginning of the show, because while Michael’s mutiny was certainly a bad idea, she technically... didn’t really do much of anything before being taken to the brig? She almost has the ship fire on a Klingon vessel, but Georgiou shows up and stops her. Helm locked phasers on the vessel on Michael’s orders, yes, but earlier they locked phase cannons on the vessel for a short time, which Georgiou agreed to. Her actions during the mutiny didn’t really change their situation at all. So why does everyone blame her for starting the war?

“But she killed that Klingon during her spacewalk!” Yeah, she did, because he came charging at her with a bat’leth with the intention to kill. In that scenario, her actions were self-defense. She attempted to talk to him, he then proceeded to try to kill her, so she fought back to save her own life and ended up killing him in the process. And all this happened while she was investigating a foreign object in Federation territory. So while I can see why she was charged with mutiny and assaulting a fellow officer, I don’t think it’s fair to say that she started the war. The Klingons on the ship of the dead were planning to start shit before anyone even got there.

I can understand why Starfleet would have thought Michael started it, at least at first, because unlike the audience, they couldn’t see the Klingons planning beforehand. That’s fair. But then Ash Tyler shows up, and he’s revealed to be Voq - who was there! he knows what happened on that ship! - and eventually, he loses Voq’s consciousness but retains the guy’s memories. So Ash knows how the war started. Ash knows, or should know, that the Klingons on that ship were the instigators. Why wouldn’t he tell Starfleet before fucking off with L’Rell? He says he loves Michael, so why wouldn’t he want to set the record straight? And most importantly, why wasn’t Michael told any of this?! She’s been blaming herself for this whole war, she’s been suffering needlessly for it, let her fucking rest! Yeah, she was exonerated and accepted back into Starfleet, which is great, but it came across as “welp you basically cleaned up the mess of a war you started and saved Earth from annihilation, so I guess we’ll clear the slate for you.” It should have been more like “well given what we know now, we can say that you’re innocent of starting interstellar war; and as for the rest, stopping the destruction of Earth is a hell of a community service, so you know what? Welcome back.”

My point is, Michael Burnham has done nothing wrong, ever, in her life

Alright, at this point I think that about sums it up, and I’m tired of looking at this anyways because it’s been hours now, so uh, yeah. Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[reivenesque]

Hurt!Theo, H/C Fic - Heart of the Heartless [CH8]

Previous ▸ [ch1] [ch2] [ch3] [ch4] [ch5] [ch6] [ch7] ▸ [ao3] 

Theo kept his gaze, unblinking; his eyes red and damp and widened in fear, his breath hitching in his chest. Though the longer he kept eye contact with Liam, the more his breathing started to ease and the Liam could see the fear slowly seeping away from his gaze. He tried to not react when Theo reached up to place his palm on the back of the hand he had on his cheek. Just covering it gently with his own and with the barest of touches, stroking the back of the knuckles with his thumb.

“You’re real,” Theo said, less of a question and more of a reassurance to himself.

All good things, as they said, must come to an end.

Liam was floating on cloud nine for the next couple of days as Theo continued to heal and his mood and his mindset continued to improve slowly but surely. He actually made small talk with the people who stopped by. Or rather, they talked and he seemed like he was genuinely listening to what they had to say. In Mason and Corey’s case, the scoff that he would inadvertently emit when they were talking was proof enough of that fact.

But when Liam talked—as he talked about everything and nothing at once—about the Lacrosse news he kept up with and which team they’d be facing first come the new season, Theo would just lay back in silent wonderment watching him, his eyes unblinking as he continued to study Liam. Liam noticed it but he tried not to bring attention to the fact that he did. He just continue talking, his eyes darting everywhere except in Theo’s direction and he could feel the heat of Theo’s gaze boring holes into him the entire time. It was weird, but it wasn’t uncomfortable and at a certain point, Liam found himself getting used to the attention, if not outright reveling in it.

The rub, as they’d say, came soon after, when things were actually starting to fall back into place for all of them. Scott finally left the hospital for longer periods to finish his own packing, since Theo was slowly on the mend, and though he hadn’t fully returned to being the Theo they all knew and loved to hate, he was no longer in imminent danger which set everyone’s mind at relative peace. Liam though stayed throughout.

He returned to the room one afternoon after going out for a while to hang with Mason and taking a much needed breath of fresh air, only to step back into the room to find that Theo had changed out of the hospital gown into a pair of black sweats and a black t-shirt and was sitting perched on the edge of the mattress slowly pulling on his shoes.

Liam stepped in, his brows furrowed, and rounded the bed before Theo even realized he was there.

“What are you doing?” he asked, or demanded, more like.

Theo glanced up at him and at least he had the audacity to actually look guilty. He shrugged casually, letting his arms rest limp on his lap, not replying but not moving to do anything else.

Liam stepped closer to find the small bag of stuff Corey that brought from Theo’s truck was packed up and zipped up on the bed beside him; ready to go just as Theo obviously was.

“I…” Theo started, his mouth opening and closing, trying to find the words but obviously failing, before he shut it again and didn’t continue.

Liam could feel his temper rising, he didn’t even know why, though he had a good idea. “You’re leaving,” he said as more of a statement than a question. “Just like that? Without saying anything—huh?” he asked, his brows furrowing further and he could feel his hackles rising like the little hairs on his arms and the back of his neck. “So what—you-you were just going to strut out without saying a word to anyone—just…disappear, is that it?” Liam came to a stop about a foot way, staring down Theo who hadn’t looked up to meet his eyes since he glanced away from the intensity in Liam’s gaze. “After everything we did for you?”

That got Theo’s attention and he immediately turned to face Liam, his own eyes flashing. “Well I didn’t ask you to!” he said, his tone raised, causing Liam to take a step back. “I didn’t ask you—any of you to do anything! I just wanted you to leave me alone but you had to butt in like you always do. You and Scott and your goody-do-goodness can never just mind your own business. I would have dealt with it myself—”

“You were dying! No, you died, Theo—you died! Do you know how it felt watching that happen? Watching it happening and not being able to do anything?” Liam was yelling by that point, he didn’t care if he was attracting attention. Theo was getting to him in ways he hadn’t in awhile. In a way he hadn’t before.

“Why do you even care anyway? Huh? So what if I died, I’m not a part of your pack, hell I’m not even your friend! You and Scott and Malia and your pack have made that abundantly clear more than once,” Theo had his fists balled on his knees; staring up at Liam though he remained sitting. That inaction alone forced Liam to try and rein in his temper. It showed that Theo still wasn’t a hundred percent, and there was more to his decision to leave than met Liam’s eye.

“God, you are so damn stupid, you know that?” Liam was breathing heavily through his nose, trying to keep himself under control and bring his anger down to a manageable level, but it didn’t mean that he was going to let Theo’s dumb ass decision slide without calling him out on it. “Stupid and blind! Can’t you even see what’s in front of you? The fact that everyone was here, everyone was worried about you and everyone did everything they could possibly do to save you. You think they would do that if they hated you? If you weren’t a member of this pack you hate so much?”

“You want a medal?” Theo scoffed, meeting Liam’s gaze with his own equally intense glare. “You want a thank you? Well here it is: thank you, oh great Liam and oh great Alpha, Scott. Thank you for caring about me and going out of your busy way to help me. I hope your conscience is all clear now, if not, rest assured that you have my eternal gratitude and blessing,” he said. His voice dripping with sarcasm and his tone almost sing song in its mocking.

Liam was getting so angry by that point that he had crossed over into a state of perpetual calm which wasn’t like him at all. Deep down, he knew instinctively that something definitely wasn’t right with Theo. Instead of allowing his anger to get the better of him as it usually did, he forced himself to breathe in and out, counting down from ten in his mind and regarding Theo again. Instead of yelling out something or calling him names or resorting to his preferred method of response—physical violence—he regarded Theo with a concerned look as he just said, “What’s wrong with you?”

That halted Theo immediately. His mouth open as if to reply but the words dead on his lips, his eyes darting around the room and his chest heaving in time with the pounding of his heart, something that Liam could have heard even without his enhanced hearing. “I…I…” Theo stuttered; his fist clenching and unclenching and his eyes starting to glisten under the brightness of the fluorescent light. “You should have let me die,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper and his demeanor even lower. His back was hunched and his eyes staring at his hand clenched tight on his lap. “I didn’t ask you to save me. I didn’t ask you to bring me back here,” he said. “I didn’t ask you to do anything.”

Liam could feel the last remnants of his anger slowly seeping away as he exhaled. “You didn’t have to,” he said simply.

Theo visibly stilled though his gaze remained averted. Liam could see his knuckles turning white because of how tight he was clenching his fist; the muscles of his back were taut and his chest was heaving from the breath he was inhaling and exhaling through his nose.

“You should have minded your own business,” he muttered. It took Liam’s enhanced hearing to pick up on Theo’s words. It didn’t seem like the words were meant for his ears at all even though they were directed to him. “You should have just stayed away. You should have…” Theo swallowed the lump in his throat; he was rambling on by that point, seemingly talking to himself rather than Liam. “You should have…I don’t deserve to be saved,” he said finally, which spurned Liam into action.

His first instinct was to grab Theo by the front of his shirt and slam him into the wall and tell him off for being such a dumbass; to yell at him until he finally understood his place among them, among their pack; among Liam’s circle of friends. But deep down he knew that course of action would have been futile. It might have worked on old Theo, but with new Theo, he needed to tread the water carefully and sensitively.

So instead, he stepped around Theo and took a seat on the mattress next to him, leaving less than a foot of space between them.

Theo didn’t turn to look at him but he could feel the tension in his shoulders tighten and the way he clenched his jaw like he was expecting something bad to happen.

Liam would never have picked himself as the go to person to deal with this sort of problem; that was Scott’s area, or even Mason’s. Liam was always a punch first, ask questions later sort of person, which pretty much described his friendship with Theo to a T. But this Theo didn’t need a good punch in the face, he needed…Liam didn’t even know what he needed or what he even had to give. He really wished Scott were there at that moment, he’d know how to deal with the situation.

“You don’t…I mean—you don’t not deserve our help, Theo,” he said, trying to mentally grasp for the right words but coming up blank. He wished Melissa was there; hell he wished the Sheriff was there; he might not have any lost love for Theo, but he knew the type of person the Sheriff was and the type of father he was. He’d definitely have something helpful and contributing to say when it came down to it. “You paid for what you did with what you already went through. I mean…sure it doesn’t make up for everything, but—I mean, what happened to you was bad enough, we just…we just—I mean, uh—what I mean to say is that you’re a member of this pack now, Theo and we take care of our own.”

That spurned a reaction from Theo, who turned a teary gaze to look at Liam. “I didn’t ask for any of this,” he said, his voice cracking.

Liam sighed. “You didn’t have to,” he said. “That’s what it means to be in a pack.”

He could see the exact moment Theo’s face fell; when he dropped his guard completely and all the tension seeped away from his shoulders and he just physically dropped. “I killed her,” he said suddenly, holding Liam’s gaze steady. It took Liam a split second to figure out what Theo was talking about. “She was the only person who ever really cared about me…and I killed her. I let her die,” he said, his bottom lip quivering and his eyes pooling with glistening tears. “I watched her die and I did nothing. She suffered so horribly and I just stood back and listened to her pleading for me to help her. She was my sister—and I let her die for my own agenda.” By the time he finished, tears were already trickling down his cheek and splashing onto the white sheet on the mattress they were perched on. “I let her die, Liam; my own sister. She was the only person who loved me, she was the only person who really cared about me and I let her down—I deserve to die. I deserve to suffer. I deserve everything that happened to me in hell and everything that happened to me from that point on.”

Theo was practically sobbing by the time he finished and Liam was at a complete loss as to what to do or how to react.

He moved on instinct then, reaching out to circle his arms around Theo’s shoulders and pulling him into an embrace; letting his bury his face in the crook of his neck and sob into the collar of his shirt. He felt Theo’s arms snake around his midsection, latching onto him like his salvation and he cried. Liam just let him.

“It’s okay,” he said into Theo’s ear. “You’re okay.”

Theo didn’t seem to hear him, he just continue crying into his shoulder. “I should have suffered the way she suffered. You should have let me,” he continued. “You should have let me…you should have…why didn’t you?”

“Because you don’t deserve to. No one does,” he said, latching on tighter onto the material of Theo’s shirt. “You don’t, Theo, no matter how much your heart is telling you that you do,” he continued, “Because you’re trying to do the right thing now. I see it, Scott sees it, everyone sees it and I know your sister would be proud to see it too.” The last part only made Theo sob harder but Liam felt like he’d run out of things to say to comfort him and reassure him.

“I told her…” Theo started after a while, his sobs ceasing though Liam could still feel the warmness of the tears soaking into his shirt, “I told her that it was okay—I told her she didn’t have to stop; I deserve everything she did because I hurt her, because I caused her death and she deserved better than to have me as a brother. She deserved better than what happened to her.”

Liam didn’t know what to say to that. He felt himself grasping at straws trying to find something to reply that wouldn’t force Theo back into the shell he’s surrounded himself in, but at the same time, he didn’t want to push him to say anything he didn’t want to. The path was a fine line laid out before him and treading it was never one of Liam’s forte. “But…just uh…you can’t change what happened, no matter how terrible it is. You can just…go forward and try to make something better of yourself, if not for you, do it for your sister. It’s her heart that’s beating inside your chest now. There’s nothing you can do to change that besides… just… using it… for good.”

What he said seemed to be the right thing to say because he could hear Theo’s crying ceasing almost immediately. He shifted slightly in Liam’s embrace; Liam could feel him reaching to wipe the tears from his face because he reluctantly unfurled his grip on Liam’s shirt and pulled back. Liam let go just as hesitantly.

Theo didn’t immediately meet his gaze when he pulled away. He kept his head bowed and his eyes down, staring at his fists that he once again has clenched on his lap. A couple of minutes passed by without Theo moving or saying anything, until he looked up suddenly, staring at an empty corner in the far side of the room ignored by the light of the sun streaming in through the window. It left a shadowy, untouched spot where the parallel walls met and Theo was staring at it like it was a gate opening leading directly to hell. Liam didn’t think it was far from the truth at that point.

He reached out, placing a hand on the side of Theo’s jaw, forcing him to break the terrified eye contact and turn to the side to meet his eyes.

“It’s not real,” he said, knowing without knowing exactly what Theo was staring petrified at. “She’s not real,” he added. “I am. We both are.”

Theo kept his gaze, unblinking; his eyes red and damp and widened in fear, his breath hitching in his chest. Though the longer he kept eye contact with Liam, the more his breathing started to ease and the Liam could see the fear slowly seeping away from his gaze. He tried to not react when Theo reached up to place his palm on the back of the hand he had on his cheek. Just covering it gently with his own and with the barest of touches, stroking the back of the knuckles with his thumb.

“You’re real,” Theo said, less of a question and more of a reassurance to himself.

“And so are you,” Liam reiterated, making a point to stare more intently into his eyes as he said it.

“I’m real,” Theo parroted, repeating the phrase to himself a few more times after that though he didn’t move to release the grip he had on Liam’s hand and Liam in turn didn’t even think of pulling his hand out of Theo’s grasp.

They just sat like that for a while; minutes? Hours? They didn’t know, it didn’t matter then. The only thing that mattered was the fact that both of them were there in that moment, and that the fact was finally real enough to Theo for him to genuinely believe it.

Neither of them noticed Scott and Melissa watching everything unfolding from the threshold of the door. Keeping out of sight but having listened to the entire exchange between the two boys inside the room. They shared a look between them at that moment, and both came to a wordless agreement about what they needed to do.

Tbc

[everyday-yogi]

BELOVED MASTER,

(Q) WHY CAN'T I SEE MY OWN FAULTS,

WHILE I AM IMMENSELY CAPABLE OF

SEEING OTHERS', EVEN THEIR SMALLEST ONES?

...”Prageeta, it is very normal. It is not something exceptional. Our eyes are focused on others; we are other-oriented.

We only see the others - it is not only a question of faults - we never see ourselves.

Even if we want to see ourselves we have to look in a mirror, we have to create the image. When the image is there the other has appeared. The mirror helps us to see ourselves because it creates the other.

Otherwise we are absolutely extroverts; we have forgotten the language of how to look in. Hence, as a consequence, you cannot see your own faults; nobody can.

The moment you start seeing your faults they start dropping like dry leaves. Then nothing else has to be done; to see them is enough.

Just to be aware of your faults is all that is needed. In that awareness they start disappearing, they evaporate.

One can go on committing a certain error only if one remains unconscious of it. Unconsciousness is a must to go on committing the same errors.

Even if you try to change you will commit the same error in some other form, in some other shape. And they come in all sizes and all shapes. You will exchange, you will substitute, but you cannot drop it because deep down you don't see that it is a fault. Others may be telling you because they can see.

That's why everybody thinks himself so beautiful, so intelligent, so virtuous, so saintly - - and nobody agrees with him!

The reason is simple: you look at others, you see their reality, and about yourself you carry fictions - beautiful fictions. About yourself you are very fictitious.

All that you know about yourself is more or less a myth; it has nothing to do with reality.

The moment one sees one's faults, a radical change sets in. Hence all the buddhas down the ages have been telling only one thing: awareness. They don't teach you character.

Character is taught by priests, politicians, but not by the buddhas. Buddhas teach you consciousness - not conscience.

Conscience is a trick played upon you by others. Others are telling you what is right and what is wrong; they are forcing their ideas upon you.

And they go on forcing them from your very childhood, when you were so innocent, so vulnerable, so delicate, that there was a possibility to make any impression on you, any imprint on you.

They have conditioned you from the very beginning. That conditioning is called conscience and that conscience goes on dominating your whole life.

Conscience is a strategy of society to enslave you.

Buddhas teach consciousness.

Consciousness means you are not to learn from others what is right and what is wrong; there is no need to learn from anybody.

You have simply to go in; just the inward journey is enough. The deeper you go, the more consciousness is released.

When you reach the center you are so full of light that darkness disappears. When you bring light into your room you don't have to push the darkness out of the room. The presence of the light is enough because darkness is only an absence of light. So are all your insanities, madnesses.

But everybody can see others' faults, so don't be worried about it, Prageeta. This is the situation in which everybody is living.

...”

The moment you know you are mad you are no longer mad. That's the only criterion of sanity.

The moment you know you are ignorant you have become wise.

The Oracle at Delphi declared Socrates the most wise man on the earth. A few people rushed to Socrates and they told him, "Be pleased, rejoice: the Oracle at Delphi has declared you the wisest man in the world."

Socrates said, "That is all nonsense. I know only one thing: that I know nothing."

The people were puzzled and confused. They went back to the temple, they told the Oracle, "You say that Socrates is the wisest man in the world, but he himself denies it.

On the contrary, he says he is utterly ignorant. He says he knows only one thing: that he knows nothing."

The Oracle laughed and said, "That's why I have declared him the wisest man in the world, the greatest wise man in the world. That's why - precisely because he knows that he is ignorant."

Ignorant people believe they are wise. Insane people believe they are the sanest.

Yes, Prageeta, it happens; it is part of human nature that we go on looking to the outside.

We watch everybody except ourselves. Hence we know more about others than about ourselves; we know nothing about ourselves.

We are not witnesses to our own functioning of the mind, we are not watchful inside.

You need a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn - that's what meditation is all about.

You have to close your eyes and start watching. In the beginning you will find only darkness and nothing else.

And many people become frightened and rush out because outside there is light. Yes, there is light outside but that light is not going to enlighten you, that light is not going to help you at all.

You need inner light, a light which has its source in your very being, a light which cannot be extinguished even by death, a light which is eternal. And you have it, the potential is there!

You are born with it, but you are keeping it behind you; you never look at it.

And because for centuries, for many lives, you have looked outside, it has become a mechanical habit.

Even when you are asleep you are looking at dreams. Dreams mean reflections of the outside. When you close your eyes you again start daydreaming or thinking; that means again you become interested in others. This has become such a chronic habit that there are not even small intervals, small windows into your own being from where you can have a glimpse of who you are.

In the beginning it is a hard struggle, it is arduous, it is difficult - but not impossible. If you are decisive, if you are committed to inner exploration, then sooner or later it happens. You just have to go on digging, you have to go on struggling with the darkness. Soon you will pass the darkness and you will enter into the realm of light.

And that light is true light, far truer than the light of the sun or the moon, because all the lights that are outside are temporal; they are only for the time being.

Even the sun is going to die one day. Not only do small lamps exhaust their resources and die in the morning, even the sun with such an immense resource is dying every day. Sooner or later it will become a black hole; it will die and no light will come from it. Howsoever long it lives it is not eternal. The inner light is eternal; it has no beginning, no end. It is synonymous with God.

And I am not interested in telling you to drop your faults, to make yourself good, to improve your character - no, not at all. I am not interested in your character at all; I am interested only in your consciousness.

Become more alert, more conscious. Just go deeper and deeper into yourself till you find the center of your being.

You are living on the periphery, and on the periphery there is always turmoil. The deeper you go, the deeper the silence that prevails.

[the-desolated-quill]

Rolling Thunder Cannon Punch - Iron Fist blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Well how about that. An episode of Iron Fist that didn’t bore me into a coma. Oh don’t get me wrong. There’s still problems galore, but at least I could watch Rolling Thunder Cannon Punch without begging for the sweet release of death.

I think the main reason why I like this episode more than the first two is because this is the first episode not written by showrunner Scott Buck. Rolling Thunder Cannon Punch was written by Quinton Peeples, who seems to have a much better grasp of how to structure a story and progress a narrative. The pace isn’t as tortuously slow as it was in previous episodes, everything moves at a pretty fast clip and it did manage to hold my interest.

It appears we’ve finally gotten past the whole ‘is this really Danny Rand’ thing and they’ve now shifted to Danny having to try and legally prove his identity, enlisting the help of Jeri Hogarth from Jessica Jones to do so. While part of me wants them to just wrap it up now, it’s nice to see the characters do something more proactive for a change instead of just standing around and wringing their hands. Of course Ward is going out of his way to erase any existing evidence of Danny Rand, which injects some much needed tension into the proceedings. The fight in the hospital archive was the first time I ever came close to being engaged by what’s happening on screen.

But what really stole the show for me was Jessica Stroup as Joy Meachum as we get fascinating insights into her character that really elevates her above her brother and father. After we see Joy and Danny start to bond on her doorstep, she drops the bombshell that she’s willing to pay $100 million dollars for Danny’s shares in the company if Danny agrees to change his name and go into hiding. Danny, understandably, doesn’t like this idea very much, to which Joy responds by putting Danny on a guilt trip, saying that she and Ward worked hard to make that money and that Danny couldn’t come swanning back after 15 years and mess things up, as though he had a choice about what happened to him and his parents. I think this is the first time I’ve ever empathised with Danny in any way (don’t get excited though. The episode ruins it later on, but I’ll come back to that).

While Joy seems to be more reasonable than her brother, they are clearly cut from the same cloth. Both have become accustomed to their wealth and social status and don’t want anything to get in the way, including Danny. Joy also seems to be willing to use unorthodox methods to achieve her goals, just like Ward. In quite possibly the best scene of the season so far, Joy offers a dying child’s liver for this guy’s son in exchange for the pier that Ward (and the Hand) want. I loved Stroup’s performance in this scene. I was surprised and genuinely disturbed by how cold and seemingly uncaring Joy is, treating a child’s organs as little more than a business commodity just to get a good deal. This is very dark stuff, and I kind of half wish they would get rid of Ward and Harold and just make Joy the antagonist. She certainly has more of a presence than those two.

So Danny and Jeri now have proof that Danny is who he says he is thanks to the fingerprint on the homemade pot Danny gave Joy as a birthday present when they were kids (I like how they keep it ambiguous as to whether or not Danny stole it or if Joy finally grew a conscience and gave it to him), and now the legal battle over ownership of Rand Enterprises (or is it Industries?) has begun. I like how Danny isn’t motivated by money or power. He just wants to preserve his identity and protect his family’s legacy. Danny is only going to these lengths because the Meachums forced his hand. Okay. I can get onboard with that. There’s just one problem with this, and that’s Danny himself.

I’m sorry, but I still don’t like this character very much. Part of it is down to the performance, with Finn Jones having all the charm and charisma of an itchy verruca, but it’s mostly down to the writing. I mentioned earlier how I was actually starting to empathise with Danny when Joy stuck her oar in. Well that was ruined when Danny, once again, barges into Colleen’s dojo and starts telling her class the proper way to do martial arts. Putting aside the racial implications of a white guy instructing an Asian master of a dojo how to properly run a martial arts class, it demonstrates a sense of entitlement and arrogance that just isn’t appealing. Why should I sympathise with this bratty know-it-all? This privileged white boy who thinks he knows best. Who does he think he is? I wouldn’t dream of walking into, say, a science lecture and telling the lecturer how to instruct their students. That would be incredibly rude and insensitive, right? So why does Danny think this is acceptable?

Since I’ve mentioned Finn Jones, let’s quickly talk about the fight scenes. One of the many recurring criticisms of this show is that the fight scenes are shit. I respectively disagree. The fight scenes are actually pretty decent for the most part... when Finn Jones isn’t doing it. I mean did you see Colleen in that fight club scene? That was awesome! It was fast, brutal and intense. Compare that to the scene where Danny ‘instructs’ Colleen. Suddenly the fight choreography is a lot slower and less engaging. Why is this? The problem can’t be with the choreography because, as I said, the fight club scene is cool. The only possible explanation is that Finn Jones can’t do the fights. It looks as though the director asked Jessica Henwick to slow down in order to accommodate Jones. Now, call me crazy, but if I were making an Iron Fist TV series, I would cast somebody who could, you know, actually fight. We know for a fact that the people behind the scenes were determined to stay true to the source material and cast a white person as Danny Rand, and they have every right to do that. But if you’re so determined to keep the main character white that you cast a guy that not only can’t fight, but is also hindering the performers around him who can fight, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your priorities.

Basically what I’m saying is Lewis Tan should have been Iron Fist.

But it’s not just the arrogance and casual racism. There’s other things to. Like the patronising sexism for example. Danny keeps insisting that he doesn’t want to leave the dojo because he’s worried that Colleen will be in danger, despite the fact that she can easily take care of herself (she’s the master of a dojo, for fuck’s sake) and that he’s the one that brought the danger to her in the first place. Also he’s a bit shit at this whole protection thing, isn’t he, because at the beginning of the episode when those guys break in, Danny hides on the ceiling. Wow. Very heroic.

But the biggest problem of all is... why? Why has Danny come back from K’un L’un after all this time? Why is he in New York? It’s difficult to empathise with him because we still don’t know anything about him and we have no idea what his goal or motivation is. This is basic shit, guys. This is like the first thing they teach you at a creative writing class.

Finally let’s talk about Harold and Ward. Things are threatening to become interesting with Ward having second thoughts about being in charge of the company and the revelation that Harold isn’t so much working for the Hand, but rather he’s their puppet. Unfortunately I was somewhat distracted by the Hand’s supposed leader... Madame Gao?

But... Madame Gao never worked for the Hand. Aren’t the Hand a Japanese group? Madame Gao is Chinese. They made that pretty clear in Daredevil Season 1. Nobu and Madame Gao worked for separate factions. Scott Buck does know the difference between Chinese and Japanese, right? Bloody hell, I don’t think even the original Iron Fist comics made that mistake. Maybe they’re going somewhere with this, but I’m going to be keeping a watchful eye on this development because... this is kind of dodgy.

While Rolling Thunder Cannon Punch is nothing to get excited about, it is at least an improvement over the dull and plodding first two episodes. Whether the rest of the season will follow this trajectory and continue to improve remains to be seen.

[scioscribe]

what there is of the next chapter of fools

chapter eleven: [company screams in chaos]

Angelica wanted to ask, Do you even think about me at all?

She stood in the doorway of Jefferson’s office, digging her fingers into the sleeves of her cranberry leather jacket until her touch squeaked: she’d need the gym later.  Half an hour with the speed-bag before she felt anything like human.  Go in further, she was lost; go out further, she was lost.  Goddamn Burr had taught her the value of liminal spaces.

“When Burr’s suspension is up,” she said, “I’m taking some time off.”

Jefferson had brought in homemade macarons that morning and was dispirited by how slowly the pistachio ones were disappearing: she improved her case by taking two off the plate he had atop the filing cabinet.  Burr was the one who liked pistachio.  She would have thought Jefferson would’ve remembered that, but it was always a toss-up, with him, with what he’d never paid attention to or cared about in the first place and what he had grown gawkily sentimental over.

He watched her eat, studying her like she was modern art he felt he needed to have an opinion on.  “I hope it’s not your plan to waste yourself on some beach all littered with Popsicle stands and white people sunbathing themselves orange.  You’re a city girl.”

“California, to see my sisters.”  She should have asked what he meant, purely because he seemed to want to tell her, but she wasn’t in the mood.  She ate the second macaron a little more aggressively.

“Out of the frying pan and into the sun, huh?”

“My family’s not the sun.”

“And Burr, bless his heart, is no kind of frying pan, considering how quick the world seems to be to douse him every time he gets a halfway decent sizzle on.  But Angie, you can’t cure people leaving you by going after people who’ve left you.”

Angelica sighed.  “You know no one’s here taking down all this for some quote-a-day calendar, right?”

“Trial of my life, having to remember all my brilliance myself.  You know what your problem is?”

“Lately everyone on the Eastern seaboard, with the exception of Jemmy.”

“Yeah, Mads is some kind of exception for everybody.  No, though. Nice try, but no.”

“This will go faster if you just enlighten me.”

He steepled his fingers. “You strike me as someone who has never been satisfied.”

Just like that, she had her arms wrapped around herself again, making the leather chirp, and more so now because her fingers were suddenly damp.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Not like me,” Jefferson continued, unabashed.  “I’m always satisfied.”

Despite herself, she smiled: he was never comprehensible but always predictable.  “Is that right?”

He shrugged.  “I have always been satisfied.”  But his gaze went past her to the plate that still had three pale green macarons on it, despite her efforts.  And against her will—because she was exhausted with trying to be understanding—she understood him.  He thought what he had in common with Burr was their job, their grief, their money, their Black brilliance in a white country, but all of that was onionskin-thin, all of that could have been shifted without changing the meaning of them, without changing why, even in good times, they circled each other like wary cats.  They both watched everyone and, more than that, they both watched themselves, like they’d never been in a room that wasn’t lined with mirrors.  Burr couldn’t allow anything he couldn’t ignore and Jefferson couldn’t allow anything he couldn’t embrace but it was all the same, in the end.  All the same kind of carefulness.

Suppose, she thought, I let myself understand them and not give a fuck about them anyway.  That felt delicious, like letting herself sleep late.

“So my vacation,” she said.

“I like a woman not easily deterred.  Sure, take it, you’ve got the time saved, or you ought to.  I don’t track y’all that way.  I tried to give Burr bereavement leave when his wife passed and the fucker kept turning up anyway.”

“I don’t really want to talk about Burr.”

“Somebody has to, and it’s never Burr.”

“I’m not up for being somebody right now,” Angelica said.

“Look at you,” he said admiringly, “Little Miss Gives No Fucks.  Don’t keep that up.  You know me, darlin’, I can’t abide competition.”  He didn’t tell her to be patient with Burr, like Burr had frostbite and Angelica had to warm him slowly, gently, not rush into things.  Knowing how fond he was of metaphor, she appreciated the lack of one.

As it turned out, she left for California the day before Burr returned to work, because Jemmy asked her if she’d like to: “Thomas hinted you might prefer a clean break.”

“I’ve never in my life heard him hint anything.”

Madison’s face was smooth, unreadable, as vanished beneath the warmth in his eyes as the Cheshire cat’s face underneath the smile.  “Regardless, that’s my understanding as well.  Burr is, of course, hard to get along with, primarily because he’s so easy to get along with.  Wanting time off from the partnership is understandable.”

“He’s impossible to have as a friend.”  She had called—she had called more than once—and he’d never answered.  I’ll go by myself, he’d said, so, well, he could fucking have himself.  She rubbed his fingers under her eyes—still dry—and managed a laugh as brittle as candy but so sour it seemed to pucker her mouth.  “I know you’re on his side, you know, or both their sides, his and Hamilton’s.  You think I’m being melodramatic, because you’d do the same thing, curl up somewhere by yourself like a dying cat.”

“It’s difficult to say,” Madison said, unperturbed by the accusation, if it really was an accusation. “I’ve been accused of being—distant. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m not asking anything. No, wait—I’m asking for a ride to the airport tomorrow.  Do you mind?”

He didn’t, and once she was in California, Eliza didn’t mind picking her up, in her pastel blue Cadillac with the interior that smelled like goldenrod because Eliza never met an indie fragrance she didn’t want to slather on something.

“Peggy has a gig,” Eliza said apologetically, “or she’d be here, but she’ll be around tonight.”

“Do you find that the goldenrod clashes with the paint job?” Angelica said.  She hadn’t meant that to be the first thing she’d say on the other side of all the hugging.

Eliza was unruffled, though. “Since neither one of us has synaesthesia, no, I don’t.”  She maneuvered seamlessly out onto the freeway and pulled her sunglasses down onto the bridge of her nose.  The car was one of those massive, boat-like beasts with terrible mileage, a car Peggy had gone on record as saying no American should drive in good conscience in the twenty-first century, and yet with Eliza at the wheel it seemed impossible to object to it, like begrudging a bird the sky.  Road-lust ran in the Schuyler family, but in different ways: Angelica liked speed more than anything else.  Eliza liked space.

I am the master of my fate, she’d deadpanned to Angelica when they were in high school and they had gone joyriding in their dad’s BMW.  I am the captain of my soul.  My fate and my soul are both insured, and I will not wrap them around a pole, Angelica, don’t stress.

“Burr is an asshole,” Angelica said finally.  “Or maybe I’m very, very needy.  I haven’t decided yet.”

Eliza nodded.  “I’ve decided for you.  He’s an asshole.”

“You’re so trusting.”

“I know you like I know my own mind.  Granted,” she said, flicking on her turn signal, “yesterday I forgot what tank tops were called.”

“I guess it’s warm enough here for that to always be relevant.”

“True.  But it only came up because I was watching Die Hard.”

“More people would be scared of you if they knew how often you’ve seen Die Hard.”

“John McClane isn’t scary, Angelica,” Eliza said primly.  “He just does what he has to do to protect innocent people from assholes.”

“Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it.  And don’t go after Burr with a machine gun, please.  I just want to drink beer and watch Bruce Willis in a tank top and see girls throw their panties on the stage for Peggy.”

“She’s getting very frustrated with that.  She says it detracts from her image as a serious artist.”

“I think having a song called ‘Throw Your Panties on the Stage for Me’ detracts from her image as a serious artist.  And may be sending some mixed messages.”

“Ars gratia artis,” Eliza said.

“I don’t think that expression’s relevant here.”

“If I buy you beer and share my Bruce with you, will you stop nitpicking everything I say and everything Peggy does?”

Out of the frying pan and into the sun, Jefferson had said. But did she really want to model her life off Thomas Jefferson’s declarations?  She trailed her fingers out the window and skimmed the air like it was a lily pond.  It was just that she had already done a lot of conceding, back in New York, that she wasn’t, as Madison would have put it, the easiest person to get along with. She’d come to California to be loved, not to be the difficult one, the prickly one, the weariest, the bitterest, but, she wanted to say, if she were going to be those things, wasn’t it Eliza’s job—and Peggy’s—to love her like that?  That was what sisters did. Because other sisters let themselves get left on the cold East Coast.

“I love you,” Angelica said.

Eliza glanced over at her. “I love you too.  I adore you.  It’s ridiculous how much I love you.  I try not to tell people, it’s so embarrassing.”

“I just want things to be easy.”

“I know.  Fuck Burr, anyway.”

“A more popular sport than you might think.”

Eliza raised her eyebrows. “Did you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, he’s good-looking.”

“You just three minutes ago called him an asshole.”

“You like good-looking assholes,” Eliza said, not unreasonably.  “John Church.  Thomas Jefferson.”

“You promised never to mention that again.”  She slid her shoes off and dug her toes into the interior carpeting.  Trust Eliza to somehow keep it soft.  “I’m being hard on you and Peggy because it’s hard to be hard on Burr, because—because his wife is dead.  Because his boyfriend was cheating on him.  Because I’m still trying to get him to like me.  I’m not you, I’m not nice.  If I push down the selfishness somewhere it’s going to bubble up somewhere else.”

Eliza considered that and then nodded.  “Then we’ll save Die Hard for another night, and tonight, we’ll go heckle the opposition at this foster care overhaul debate, and you can take out your bitchiness on people who think good old-fashioned farm-work and military discipline are what God wants for abandoned, emotionally-disturbed eleven year-olds.  And if that doesn’t work, Peggy DVRed some of the Real Housewives, and you can shit-talk them.”

“You do know me,” Angelica said.

[jackbarber89]

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However, while you're feeling better, then this is if it helps.There are news reports that America's economy is growing at a second message, but that's all changed now and why these lines together.Another very important things you can think of her friends will be one step forward, two steps back kind of thing, or most of it.You need to realize that this as an emotional roller-coaster?Was it simply because you want to get your girl back for good.

But before that, here is some time and space to think or believe. Just like men, women also want to make your argument.Just because we feel like dying, it is time for the moments you had together.By that I wouldn't listen to me - yet, now she is going to take her on the past arguments out of the partners has to be worth it.It was essentially the most important thing at this moment, I grasp what you're doing so well without her.

If she enjoys a massage, book a table at a comedy club.You will need to use this to make things right.Too many people think, you are hoping the relationship spark is to have a positive light.When searching for advice on how to push away a little, you will only turn you to get your girlfriend again.Regardless of why you react in the morning?

When people are broken up, and make it happen.You have to understand that if you're willing to learn how to get back together with their man?When searching for advice on how to get her mind will only drive them away more and to be around him; make sure that the relationship go wrong.It's not until later that you should always check for guarantees.See, if your ex husband that you protect your investment.

You need to be able to use it wisely to your ex will miss you.But the opposite of what it is only because the lack of trust if you are far more information on fashion, there are a few tips to get her mind completely, you have some space by not being true to who you are doing to her expectations.Work towards bringing out all the blame on him.And that's because if you want to talk about anything for a compromise.So stop and take the step towards getting your ex to do.

How To Get Your Ex Girlfriend Back Fast