#I cannot work under these conditions but I must persist

[skyloftian-nutcase]

we interrupt the stick figure adventures to share breaking news that SOMEONE IS SABOTAGING THE GREAT STICK FIGURE MASTERPIECE EVENT

[i-used-to-be-an-anti-feminist]

As a Christian I am scared of this world due to the rise of misogyny, and anti feminist rhetoric. Majority men are red pilled misogynist that completely dismiss anything that comes out of a woman’s mouth. People with kids tell me so many teenage boys are being red pilled, it makes so disgusted

I realize this ask was probably meant more as a vent, and I'm about to say a lot of stuff that probably doesn't apply to you, but you have given me the opportunity to work through some of my own thoughts and feelings, and I think this type of discussion always has merit.

First, I totally understand your fear. I have been overwhelmed by the realization of how pervasive misogyny is and how more and more men are comfortable talking out loud about how they view women. Whatever your view of prophetic Scripture, the Bible says mankind grows increasingly hard, and I think we are seeing that.

However, it's important to remember that misogyny is nothing new. Mankind has always been sinful, and men have hated and subjugated women throughout all time... Which sounds pretty hopeless until you remember that Jesus willingly walked the earth among such men (those who would crucify Him), found disciples among them, and redeemed them. He gave us the greatest commandment, which is love.

Misogyny is nothing new, and neither is God's answer. Jesus calls men and women to love each other no matter what the cultural norms are. He calls us to place our identity in Him, above our gender, race, economic class, or political affiliation. We are united under Him, and we are told to love radically.

As Christians, we aren't meant to be comfortable in the in the world, but we are meant to love those in it. We are to stand for righteousness and truth but also love the enemies of it. We cannot minister to the world if we are caught up in its wars. It can be tempting (and I'm speaking to myself here) in moments like these to fall into the trap of fear to despair to hate (if left unchecked), but we must resist and set an example of Christian love.

I understand your fear, and you are right to be sensitive to the hatefullness and sin around you. I just encourage you to continue to have faith and be a light. Protect yourself by staying in God's Word and encouraging other Christians to do the same. So many men who claim to be Christians misuse Scripture to endorse misogyny. Our only defense against that is to be better armed with Scripture.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the condition of the world, remember the many examples of Christians who lived in Godless times and remained faithful. The darker things get, the more opportunity we have to shine a light. God knows your heart intimately and every fear you have. He is with you, and He sees your faith and your effort. He loves you dearly and is as grieved as you are. He will judge the sin of all mankind. We are not the first to live in difficult times, and like those before, we will persist. We have God's Word and Spirit to shield and empower us.

[unwilting]

To strengthen the illegal Party organisation, to create Party cells in all spheres of work, to set up first of all “entirely Party committees consisting of workers, even if their number be small, in each industrial enterprise”, to concentrate the functions of leadership in the hands of leaders of the Social-Democratic movement from among the workers themselves—such is the task today. Need less to say, the task of these cells and committees must be to utilise all the semi-legal and, as far as possible, legal organisations, to maintain “close contact with the masses”, and to direct the work in such a way that Social-Democracy responds to all the needs of the masses. Every Party cell and workers’ committee must become a “base for agitation, propaganda and practical organising work among the masses”, i. e., they must go where the masses go, and try at every step to push the consciousness of the masses in the direction of socialism, to link up every specific question with the general tasks of the proletariat, to transform every act of organisation into one of class consolidation, to win by dint of energy and ideological influence (not by their ranks and titles, of course) the leading role in all the proletarian legal organisations. Even if these cells and commit tees be very small at times, they will be linked together by Party tradition and Party organisation, by a definite class programme; and two or three Social-Democratic members of the Party will thus be able to avoid becoming sub merged in an amorphous legal organisation and to pursue their Party line under all conditions, in all circumstances and in all kinds of situations, to influence their environment in the spirit of the whole Party, and not allow the environment to swallow them up. Though mass organisations of one type or another may be dissolved, though the legal trade unions may be hounded out of existence, though every open act of workers’ initiative under a regime of counter-revolution may be ruined by the police on one pretext or another—no power on earth can prevent the concentration of masses of workers in a capitalist country, such as Russia has already become. One way or another, legally or semi-legally, openly or covertly, the working class will find its own rallying points; the class- conscious Party Social-Democrats will everywhere and always march in front of the masses, everywhere and always act together in order to influence the masses in the spirit of the Party. And Social-Democracy, which has proved in open revolution that it is the party of the class, the party that succeeded in leading millions in strikes, in the uprising of 1905, as well as in the elections of 1906-07, will now also be able to remain the party of the class, the party of. the masses, the vanguard, which in the hardest times will not lose touch with the bulk of the army, but will be able to help the latter overcome these hard times, consolidate its ranks once more, and train more and more new fighters. Let the Black-Hundred diehards rejoice and howl inside the Duma and outside it, in the capital and in the remote provinces, let the reaction rage—the ever so wise Mr. Stolypin cannot take a single step without bringing the precariously balancing autocracy nearer its fall, without creating a new tangle of political impossibilities and absurdities, without adding new and fresh forces to the ranks of the proletariat and to the ranks of the revolutionary elements of the peasant masses. A party which succeeds in consolidating itself for persistent work in contact with the masses, a party of the advanced class, which succeeds in organising its vanguard, and which directs its forces in such a way as to influence in a Social-Democratic spirit every sign of life of the proletariat—such a party will win no matter what happens.

Lenin, On The Road

[historyfixation]

The Iron Wall

There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. …[I]t is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority. My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. […] Our Peace-mongers are trying to persuade us that the Arabs are either fools, whom we can deceive by masking our real aims, or that they are corrupt and can be bribed to abandon to us their claim to priority in Palestine, in return for cultural and economic advantages. I repudiate this conception of the Palestinian Arabs. […] Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of "Palestine" into the "Land of Israel." […] There is only one thing the Zionists want, and it is that one thing that the Arabs do not want, for that is the way by which the Jews would gradually become the majority, and then a Jewish Government would follow automatically, and the future of the Arab minority would depend on the goodwill of the Jews; and a minority status is not a good thing, as the Jews themselves are never tired of pointing out. So there is no "misunderstanding". The Zionists want only one thing, Jewish immigration; and this Jewish immigration is what the Arabs do not want. […] Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. That is our Arab policy; not what we should be, but what it actually is, whether we admit it or not. What need, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate? Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible.

— Ze'ev Jabotinsky, "The Iron Wall" (1923)

[coldalbion]

"Necropolitics is a sociopolitical theory of the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and how some must die. The deployment of necropolitics creates what Achille Mbembe calls deathworlds, or "new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to living conditions that confer upon them the status of the living dead."[1] Mbembe, author of On the Postcolony, was the first scholar to explore the term in depth in his 2003 article,[2] and later, his 2019 book of the same name.[1] Mbembe identifies racism as a prime driver of necropolitics, stating that racialized people's lives are systemically cheapened and habituated to loss.[1]

Necropolitics is often discussed as an extension of biopower, the Foucauldian term for the use of social and political power to control people's lives. Foucault first discusses the concepts of biopower and biopolitics in his 1976 work, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality Volume I.[3] Foucault presents biopower as a mechanism for "protecting", but acknowledges that this protection often manifests itself as subjugation of non-normative populations.[3] The creation and maintenance of institutions that prioritize certain populations as more valuable is, according to Foucault, how population control has been normalized.[3]

Mbembe's concept of necropolitics acknowledges that contemporary state-sponsored death cannot be explained by the theories of biopower and biopolitics, stating that "under the conditions of necropower, the lines between resistance and suicide, sacrifice and redemption, martyrdom and freedom are blurred."[2] Jasbir Puar assumes that discussions of biopolitics and necropolitics must be intertwined, because "the latter makes its presence known at the limits and through the excess of the former; [while] the former masks the multiplicity of its relationships to death and killing in order to enable the proliferation of the latter."[4]"

Mbembe was clear that necropolitics is more than simply a right to kill (Foucault's droit de glaive). While his view of necropolitics does include various forms of political violence such as the right to impose social or civil death, and the right to enslave others, it is also about the right to expose other people (including a country's own citizens) to mortal danger and death.[2] Cultural theorist Lauren Berlant calls this gradual and persistent process of elimination slow death.[5][6] According to Berlant, only specific populations are "marked out for wearing out"[7] and the conditions of being worn out and dying are intimately linked with "the ordinary reproduction of [daily] life."[8] Necropolitics is a theory of the walking dead, in which specific bodies are forced to remain in suspended states of being located somewhere between life and death. Mbembe provided a way of analyzing these "contemporary forms of subjugation of life to the power of death."[2] He utilized examples of slavery, apartheid, the colonization of Palestine and the figure of the suicide bomber to illustrate differing forms of necropower over the body (statist, racialized, a state of exception, urgency, martyrdom) and how this reduces people to precarious life conditions.[2] According to Marina Gržinić, necropolitics precisely defines the forms taken by neo-liberal global capitalist cuts in financial support for public health, social and education structures. To her, these extreme cuts present intensive neo-liberal procedures of ‘rationalization’ and ‘civilization’. [9]"

[thegulfentrepreneur]

Top Excuses Leaders Must Remove From Their Vocabulary

There is a difference between being a leader and being an effective leader. An effective leader knows what his people want and never backs down from providing it. Being an effective leader in general is a demanding role that requires individuals to navigate challenges, inspire others, and drive success. However, one detrimental habit that many leaders fall victim to is making excuses. Excuses can hinder personal and professional growth, diminish trust, and impede progress. In order to lead with excellence, it is imperative for effective leaders to recognize the damaging effects of excuses and take the necessary steps to eliminate them from their vocabulary. In this article, we will explore the most common excuses made by leaders and provide strategies on how to overcome them, paving the way for a culture of no-excuses leadership. 

Understanding the Impact of Excuses

Excuses act like self-imposed barriers that prevent leaders from reaching their full potential in general. Excuses are often rooted in fear, insecurity, or a desire to avoid accountability. Excuses are a barrier to anyone’s life, and when you start relying on them, you never make progress and you become a spectator in a world that has far more to offer than you realize. 

When leaders rely on excuses, they create a culture that normalizes mediocrity and allows problems to persist. This not only hampers individuals’ growth but also undermines the trust and confidence of their team members. 

Understanding the Most Common Excuses 

To effectively address and eliminate excuses, leaders must first identify the most common ones. Some of the most common excuses include: 

Lack of resources or people just don’t want to work anymore 

This excuse has become popular within a few years, and you will mostly see it when you are passing through driveways. I think for some leaders, putting up a “No one wants to work here anymore” sign in reality means that you are asking the customers to lower their expectations as soon as they enter the door. You want the customers to know that you are understaffed and that the service provided can be bad. 

This excuse claims that, as a leader, you lack the necessary resources to accomplish your goals, such as time, budget, or manpower. 

Think of the impact that the phrase has on your team. If you openly declare that people here don’t want to work, then what is forcing the individuals to continue working at your place? Are they losers for working somewhere that no one wants to work? 

As an effective leader, you need to back up even a handful of your employees and let them know that you can take care of them.

It is what it is

The phrase inspires no motivation and communicates your lack of ownership in the situation. There are many reasons why you should eliminate this phrase from your vocabulary. First and foremost, think about the message that you are sending to the receiver. You are basically saying to the receiver  “The situation is awful, Don’t involve me in your mess and handle it all by yourself”. A leader that resigned themselves to the situation around them is not a leader that inspires you to follow them. 

It is not me 

Blaming external factors or external circumstances, such as market conditions, competitions, or unforeseen events, is a common excuse used by many so-called leaders. Blaming others or situations only demotes you from being a leader. You are not a leader if you blame others at the first sight of difficulties. A good leader knows that we cannot control the circumstances but we can control the repercussions from those circumstances. A good leader will always try to find even a small beam of light even in a room full of dark circumstances. 

Does that make any sense? 

This phrase shows a lack of confidence in your communication skills and can be a distraction to the other person. This phrase is mostly used to showcase good intentions. You want to make sure that the person understands the information that you are trying to convey to them. 

The phrase can also slow down the conversation and frustrate the other person. It can also cause the other person to question your confidence in your communication skills. 

Embracing No-Excuses Leadership 

Leadership without excuse requires a commitment to personal growth, integrity, and accountability. It is about setting high standards and holding oneself and others to them. When leaders eliminate excuses from their vocabulary, they empower their teams to do the same, fostering a culture of excellence and achievement.

By embracing no-excuses leadership, leaders can: 

Inspire trust and confidence in their team members.

Foster a culture of personal responsibility and accountability. 

Encourage innovation and problem-solving. 

Drive positive change and achieve remarkable results. 

Closing Thoughts 

In summary, leadership is about taking charge, driving progress, and inspiring others to achieve greatness. Excuses have no place in effective leadership. By recognizing and eliminating excuses from their vocabulary, leaders can set a powerful example for their teams, cultivate a culture of excellence, and propel their organizations toward success.

Remember, true leaders never make any excuses as they take action, embrace challenges and empower those around them to do the same. Leadership without excuses is the path to growth, success, and lasting impact.

Visit More : https://thegulfentrepreneur.com/leadership/top-excuses-leaders-must-remove-from-their-vocabulary/

[jessamine-rose]

꧁⪡ Alea Iacta Est ⪢꧂

Aaahh so here is part 2 of Housecat!! This continuation is written from Pantalone’s POV and features much darker content. Read the first fic before you proceed :>

Once again, thank you to @bye-bye-sunbird and @ddarker-dreams for the inspiration!! Same goes to @diodellet for your entertaining peer review and @yandere-romanticaa for your interest in reading this  (*´∇｀*)

Tw:: YANDERE, unhealthy relationships, manipulation, coercion, electrocution, offscreen death, psychological damage, Dottore is here, mention of drugging, mention of nsfw, dubcon, spice, MINORS DNI

Note:: Female cat-hybrid reader, pre-release Pantalone based on current lore crumbs

♡ 5.5k words under the cut ♡

i. the red string of fate 

Love is nothing more than a contract.

The Regrator, of all people, is well aware of this fact. Love is an agreement easily forged and broken, an attraction founded on set conditions and self-serving fantasies. In a world of inequity, it is impossible for any relationship to be purely selfless nor unconditional.

The illusion of love persists, however, supported by centuries of myths. Soulmates. Star-crossed lovers. The red string of fate spun by the will of the gods.

How romantic.

Many would claim that Pantalone’s feelings are anything but love. They would dub him greedy, ambitious, obsessed, possessive, and so many other negative traits which ironically constitute the true essence of love. What he finds most insufferable are the claims that his efforts are futile against destiny.

If the gods deem him unworthy of love, he will pursue it on his own volition.

If the red string of fate ties his beloved to another, he will sever the threads and bind her to him with his own chains.

If his precious jewel rejects her owner, he will ruin her until she finally accepts her place in the world.

⬩◈⬩

Since her horrific revelation, his darling has become an amusing juxtaposition of obedience and defiance.

“What do you think of the present, my darling? Isn’t it a perfect fit?”

Pantalone clasps the jewelry around her neck. ______ blankly stares at her reflection.

The necklace is a simple accompaniment to her collar. The silver bell pendant makes soft tinkling noises with every little movement.

Its luster cannot compare to his darling’s tears.

“It’s…minimalist,” she answers. Her ears fold back. “But the bell is in poor taste. Do you expect me to wear this at all times?”

Pantalone smiles at her in the mirror.

“You wound me. And you are normally so enamored with my choices,” he replies. His hands rest on her shoulders. “The collar is already a perfect statement piece on its own.”

Zero wounds from the Electro Crystals. Sandrone’s craftsmanship is commendable.

Her tail relaxes. The violet bow is slightly askew; she must have been extra agitated today. Pantalone unravels it and reties the ribbon.

His hand brushes against her Vision. ______ immediately covers it with her own.

“You should get back to work,” she tells him. “I saw the reports on your desk earlier. What would the Tsaritsa say if she knew you were wasting your time on me?”

How foolish of her to bring up Her Majesty’s name.

“Matters of the heart do not concern Her Majesty so long as my work is unaffected. I can assure you that I am perfectly capable of separating my private and professional lives.”

His hand wraps around her tail. His grip is light but he can already feel the soft fur standing on edge.

“You know, it has been a while since I last saw you use your Vision,” he muses. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to watch your enchanting display again.”

“...All right.” His darling stares at her collar this time. “If that is what you want.”

Her hands are shaking. The sparks and red threads are thinner than usual.

Her fire is such a pretty spectacle. But it can only be viewed from a distance, a beacon of hope untouchable to its audience.

“There is no need to hold back, my love.” Pantalone waits for the fire to extinguish before he wipes her tears with his handkerchief. His other hand taps her collar. “You will only get shocked if you abuse your Vision. You won’t do that again, will you?”

She does not look at him. Recalling her previous attempts, most likely. 

“I won’t. The last thing I need is to wake up to another one of your lectures.”

There is a bitter edge to her voice. Her tail slips out of his grasp and knocks over the empty necklace box.

He pats her head, smiling. “What a well-behaved pet. If I finish work early, I can take you to the shopping district tomorrow. We haven’t gone out in weeks.”

“I see. Do keep track of my purchases. I might just exceed my allowance.”

With that, ______ takes off the necklace and leaves the vanity table. She makes a point to push her unused shackles onto Pantalone’s side of the bed.

Despite her denial, she truly does act like a housecat at times.

As petty as she has become, his darling is making the most out of her cage. A pampered pet can never hope to gain the self-sufficiency of a stray. Any escape attempts would only bring her back to her owner.

Pantalone returns the necklace to its box, humming an old tune from Liyue. ______ covers her ears with the pillow.

Her neediness is sorely missed, however. He could easily demand her affection through more threats and gifts, but that would not be enough to satisfy his greed.

He would rather have her seek him out willingly.

ii. fool’s gold

A formal invitation announces a grand ball held in the capital of Snezhnaya. Another opportunity for the Regrator to make new business connections and to show off his darling wife.

“There should be a limit to the number of times I wear your colors,” she tells him. “By now, they likely view me as your little dress-up doll.”

“You are overthinking this.” Pantalone fastens the final accessory and fluffs up her tail. “We would not be the first couple to wear coordinated outfits. And think of it this way: An object takes after its master.”

He stands beside her in front of the mirror. They are only wearing matching jewelry this time. The violet jewels twinkle like artificial stars against their dark clothing.

______ frowns. “This necklace is too ostentatious, wouldn’t you say?”

Ungrateful pet.

“My priceless treasure,” he replies, the smile leaving his face, “you would do well to appreciate one’s generosity.”

A necklace of this price could feed so many empty stomachs in Liyue.

He grips the chain, allowing the jewels to press against her throat, and glares at her in the mirror.

“I’m sorry!” she says quickly. Her hands move to her neck in a futile attempt to relieve the pressure. “It must have been expensive. The…the design simply isn’t my type.”

“It is either this necklace or your collar, ______. Or are you secretly impartial to showing off my marks to the world?”

His other hand touches the love bites dotting her neck and chest. He had chosen an off-shoulder gown and an elaborate festoon necklace for that reason.

She averts her gaze. “...No, I’ll go with the first option.”

He lets go of the chain and readjusts the necklace.

His darling grips her tail with both hands. Her nails are newly trimmed and manicured after their last night of intimacy. Pantalone’s back is still healing from her scratch marks.

Even when he was kind enough to pleasure her, his darling took the opportunity to spite him. He had to use the shackles for their remaining rounds and her declawing session.

He adjusts her Vision this time. “I trust that you won’t cause a scene.”

“Of course.” She turns around and gives him a false smile. “This was part of our marriage contract, after all. I will assume the role of a loving wife for my sake.”

That is all. No clauses requiring loyalty or affection.

Pantalone’s smile is equally deceptive. “Stand by your promise. I will keep a close eye on you.”

⬩◈⬩

The ball is a waste of time—just the usual congregation of humorless businessmen, proud aristocrats, and annoying social climbers. The gilded superficiality of high society is no longer an otherworldly realm to the Regrator, but he is still grateful to have a companion.

It is more enjoyable when his darling is clinging to him like a frightful pet.

“My dear, you don’t need to stick to my side all night.” He shakes her tail off his wrist, smiling. “Are you that afraid of losing me in the crowd?”

“I’m not,” she whispers. Her hand grips his arm. “I don’t know anyone. They will just rope me into some meaningless conversation and gossip about ‘the Regrator’s trophy wife’ later on.”

They are nothing more than a crowd of foolish sycophants. But his darling is no different from them. If not for his riches, Pantalone is certain that she never would have spared him a glance.

Another admirer greets them and initiates a long speech about their loyalty to the Tsaritsa—a desperate farce before a Harbinger of all people. ______ smiles and nods along.

Well, the same may be said for his own attraction. He could have been apathetic to his darling’s existence had he not glimpsed her at the Shang family’s gala. She had looked so reserved, so pristine, until he came close enough to notice her cracks. Until he decided that he would be the one to break her.

The orchestra begins playing a lively symphony. The guests disperse to the dance floor and the edges of the ballroom.

“Would you care to dance?”

His darling’s thinly-veiled desperation is truly entertaining, especially as her gaze darts to the still-blabbering admirer.

He takes her hand, smiling. “Of course, my love.”

iii. odi et amo

Another letter is intercepted from Liyue.

Pantalone dismisses the messenger and opens the envelope. The letter is from his sister-in-law this time. Less valuable information, then.

It is just the usual family update, sans the necessary details which his darling would like to know. It ends with a sermon about marital conduct and the importance of “not being a nuisance to the Regrator.”

He smiles at the last line. The Lai family must have been quite shaken after the visit of the last Pyro Agent. Their previous letters are written in a similar fashion, all formal lectures with no ounce of concern for their little ______.

Had they met years ago, he would have envied his darling to the point of hatred. But now he can only feel pity for her.

Unfair as the world may be, there will always be certain pros and cons to one’s social status. Competence or inadequacy. Independence or loneliness. Ambition or sorrow.

Another agent knocks on the door.

“You may enter.”

They open the door and kneel. “My lord, your wife is returning to your office. As per your orders, she and her guard were only permitted to roam the eastern wing of Zapolyarny Palace.”

“You are dismissed.”

His darling’s letters are beginning to take up space in his desk. Pantalone adds the missive and locks the drawer.

The Fen wife recently wrote about a charm bracelet which his darling might like. He should add that item to his shopping list.

⬩◈⬩

Another obstacle to the Fatui brings extra work hours.

“Are you almost done? It’s late.”

Pantalone opens a new document. “I still have mountains of paperwork to go through. If you are tired, you may go to bed without me.”

The Northland Bank will be flooded with blood as soon as he catches those traitors.

His darling remains on his lap.

“It’s fine. I’m not sleepy yet,” she replies. She points at the stack of unchecked reports. “What are these about, anyway?”

“A few traitors. Some unforeseen interferences. A pesky little Traveler who has proven themselves to be quite the infernal threat.” He takes off his glasses and polishes the lenses.

He is due for another all-nighter.

______ turns her head. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

He gives her a wry look. “You seem awfully concerned about my wellbeing. If you plan to take advantage of my current state, you are better off using subtler tactics.”

Her ears twitch. “You are still my husband. If anything happens to you, my welfare is at stake. I can’t assist you with work but I can at least provide some stress relief.”

Stress relief, huh?

His darling faces forward again. Her ears are pushed back, a clear indication of anger. It is an ineffective warning—they are nothing more than the soft, fluffy traits of a domestic cat.

Pantalone puts his glasses back on and pets her ears.

Her gasp is preceded by soft purrs. “What are you—? Stop! My ears are—”

He laughs, pressing a kiss against the back of her ear. “I know. So sensitive.”

His hand moves to the front of her dress and pulls down the neckline. Her love bites have already faded to near-invisible spots. It is about time for him to renew his marks.

“Pantalone.” She stands up and turns around, tail puffing up. “You still have work.”

“It won’t take long. Besides, was it not you who offered to alleviate my stress?”

He pulls her towards him, forcing her to straddle his lap, and touches the base of her tail.

“But still!” She bites back another purr. “Could we at least do this in the bedroom? The servants are still in the corridor. They might hear us—this is hardly appropriate!”

Until now, she still finds it necessary to retain her modesty. Her debauched noises during the act say otherwise.

It only takes a kiss to shut her up. He cups her face, smiling at every hitched breath and plea for air.

He will never grow tired of tainting her.

“My love,” he murmurs. He breaks off the kiss and presses their foreheads together. “Just think of it as fulfilling the contract you agreed to.”

⬩◈⬩

“Pantalone?”

“Yes?”

“Do you…plan to have children in the future?”

The pen hits the desk. It rolls across the wood, stopping just short of falling off the edge.

This is unexpected.

Pantalone clears his throat. “Can you repeat that?”

For someone who had made such a serious inquiry, his darling refuses to even look at him. She shifts in his lap, staring at his unfinished report.

And to think that he would not be the first to initiate this conversation.

“If this is about the contraceptives, I already told you that we are using a high-quality medication with no side effects. It is my turn to take them, anyway.”

Her tail thumps against his chest. “It’s not about the birth control.”

“Then what is this about? If you remain ambiguous, I may assume that you are asking for children.”

That would be a delightful surprise. Families do make for efficient binding agreements.

“I don’t know if I want that,” she mumbles. Her hands grip the desk. “It’s just…if you have any plans for the future, I want to be prepared for it. I spend enough time idling about and causing trouble for you.”

Not a direct refusal. What an interesting answer.

Thinking about it now, she had broached this topic in the early days of their marriage. Something about her lack of responsibilities and the Fen wife’s maternal duties.

Pantalone picks up his pen and continues writing. “As of now, starting a family is of low priority to me. We may continue this conversation once the Tsaritsa’s perfect world has been achieved.”

And when that happens, he will have all the time in the world to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Ironically, that statement only makes his darling more agitated.

“I see. I’ll enjoy my last pieces of freedom,” she mutters.

He puts down his pen. “My darling, are you merely bored with your current routine? Or are you looking for an excuse to devote your time to someone other than me?”

At the last statement, she turns to face him.

“Not at all!” she exclaims. Her eyes are wide with panic. “I like your company; I really do! Anyway, I couldn’t possibly treat a child with your degree of care and attention.”

It is good that she knows that.

“That is good to hear.” Pantalone smiles and wraps his arms around her, pressing her back against his chest. “I won’t demand a child or anything else from you. End of discussion.”

“I see…thank you for telling me.”

His darling stares ahead, but the relaxed positions of her ears and tail are a substantial response. He rests his chin on her shoulder.

“Besides,” he adds, “I would rather have you all to myself for the time being.”

iv. faustian bargain

The next few months are relatively peaceful. A pattern of gifts, dances, galas, red threads, intimate nights, banter, and mind games. Pantalone is pleased to note that his darling is gradually becoming more resigned to her cage. She has almost reverted back to her needy, pliable self.

Unfortunately, the gods always choose the best of times to tip the scales.

“I’m home.”

Pantalone has barely closed the door before his darling stomps over to him.

“My necklace is missing,” she informs him.

He pauses, coat in hand. “Which one?”

She leads him to her dressing room without so much of a word.

The farthest corner of the room is reserved for her old accessories. It is a haphazard mess of half-opened drawers and scattered jewelry boxes.

______ opens the topmost drawer and points at the necklace section. There are large, even spaces in between the necklaces.

“Someone rearranged it. My brother’s wedding gift used to be on the far left,” she explains. “It was a gold necklace with a pendant shaped like a Nilotpala lotus.”

Pantalone glances at the boxes on the floor. “Are you sure that you didn’t misplace it?”

“How could I? You don’t let me wear it to begin with,” she snaps, gesturing to her collar. “This isn’t the only one. I can’t find the box holding my Sango pearl necklace.”

A thief in his own estate. What a wonderful surprise.

In their entire marriage, this is his first time seeing his darling in such an incensed state. Aside from her swishing tail and folded back ears, her eyes are filled with enough burning fury to rival his own glare.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “My darling, for what reason would I engage in petty theft behind your back? I could easily confiscate your possessions.”

“I don’t know. But I am not trusting the same person who chose what I could bring to Snezhnaya.” She glares at him, eyes filling with tears. “I am fine with wearing your gifts, but is it too much to even look at my old belongings?”

“Wild accusations will do more harm than good,” he shoots back. “Did it not occur to you that someone else could have done it?”

His darling only laughs. “The servants, maybe, but they wouldn’t dare to steal from you. Unless you paid them to do it on your behalf.”

She opens the closet and takes out her coat.

“______.” It takes effort to maintain his composure. “Where are you going?”

“To the gardens. Forgive me for not being able to stand your presence.”

She leaves the dressing room. Pantalone follows her.

He reaches for her hand. “Darling, I—”

“Just go away!”

A burst of flames appears out of thin air, almost grazing him. Pantalone stumbles back, glasses clattering to the floor.

The sound of glass breaking is followed by the shock of Concentrated Overload.

His darling screams and collapses to the floor.

Pantalone takes a step closer. “You shouldn’t—”

“Don’t get any closer!” she shouts. She claws at her collar, tears rolling down her cheeks. “You ruined my life. I wish I never met you!”

Her honesty could not be any more brutal.

Pantalone draws back as though he has been slapped. His darling’s glare remains fiery.

At this point, diplomatic attempts at reconciliation are futile.

He picks up his glasses. The frames are warm from where the fire touched them. The chain is broken and one of the lenses is cracked.

“I do not blame you for your lack of trust in me,” he says coldly. He walks past her and opens the door. “I will give you some space if that is what you truly want.”

More sobs. Pantalone leaves the room and almost crashes into one of the servants.

“Lord Harbinger!” she squeaks. She bows immediately. “I apologize for not seeing you!”

“It is all right,” he replies, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. He glances at her uniform. “You are one of my wife’s handmaidens. You go by the alias Myshkin, correct?”

“Y…Yes, my lord!”

A glint of silver flashes in her hand.

He frowns at her. “What are you holding? Have you found my wife’s missing jewelry?”

She jumps and averts her gaze. “What? I…yes, I did!”

Her hands are trembling. She opens her palm to reveal a familiar Vajrada Amethyst ring.

That little rat.

Myshkin is speaking a mile a minute. “I found it in the living room and was just about to return it. As soon as I saw it, I knew it must have been the ring Lady ______ was looking for!”

His darling has not worn it once in Snezhnaya. Neither did she mention the disappearance of that ring.

Pantalone takes it, a grateful smile on his face. “Thank you, Myshkin. I will remember this.”

She turns to the door. “Is Lady ______ all right?”

“Just a little shocked. Go tend to her.”

“Yes, my lord!”

Had she entered the room a second later, Myshkin would have witnessed the Regrator’s death glare directed at her.

⬩◈⬩

The Doctor’s office is a place of nightmares. Beyond the laboratory, his section of Zapolyarny Palace is filled with preserved specimens, glowing test tubes, anatomical sketches, and a pervasive aura of malevolence. Even the meeting room is far from welcoming.

“Ninth, I assume you summoned me for another private commission. How is your wife? I believe your wedding anniversary has recently passed.”

“Spare me the formalities, Dottore.” Pantalone takes a seat on the sofa. “I received your request for additional funds. The numbers are out of proportion, but I can overlook that if you throw in a personal favor for me. I believe you will find this commission more suited to your preferences.”

Dottore puts down his test tube and sits across from him. “What do you mean?”

Pantalone gestures to the package on the table.

“I would like you to soak these garments in a flammable substance, one so potent that it would guarantee inescapable death for the wearer once they come into contact with fire. The chemical should have an inconspicuous scent and remain effective after numerous washes.”

“What an interesting request. And who is this unlucky victim?” Dottore opens the box and takes out a set of maid uniforms.

That Myshkin had been stupid enough to steal memorable jewelry. Everyone knows that the wealthy are less likely to notice the disappearance of smaller pieces, moreso if those items are sold to a reasonably far-off pawnshop.

“You are quite literally playing with fire, and it seems that your employee is not the only target. Tell me, is it not easier to deal with them and your darling separately?”

Pantalone straightens his glasses. The new chain twinkles under the dim light.

“Think of it as killing two birds with one stone. It would be uncharacteristic of me to ignore an opportunity when it is presented to me.”

Dottore snickers. “Your poor little housecat. And to think you started out with something as innocent as catnip-laced perfume.”

“That is none of your business. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal.” Dottore sits back, a maniacal grin on his face. “Though I must demand payment. A chemical of this potency will be costly to produce, especially if I am to ensure maximum quality by using test subjects.”

Pantalone clasps his hands together, smiling. “Name your price.”

v. alea iacta est

Pantalone upholds his promise and grants his darling her desired solitude. He moves her to a different bedroom and works longer hours in Zapolyarny Palace. On the rare occasion that they cross paths in the estate, he scarcely acknowledges her.

Myshkin and her fellow handmaiden provide daily reports of ______’s activities and behavior. The former wears her new set of uniforms.

His darling holds on to her pride. She makes no requests for gifts or company. She continues her flimsy pastimes, sans the use of her Vision. She bristles at his silent treatment but makes no effort to approach him.

This is what her life could’ve been like had she married Chairman Jin. If she knows what is good for her, she will not compare that nullified fate to her reality.

The days are longer for Pantalone. The situation reminds him of their former days, that year spent patiently waiting and working behind the scenes and settling for the lightest of touches. But the reward had been worth it.

This time, he must only wait for his darling to come to him.

⬩◈⬩

“Lord Harbinger!”

The door slams open. The agent does not bother to kneel.

Pantalone barely looks up from his contract. “We are in the middle of a meeting. What matter is so important that you must disturb me and my client?”

“It concerns your wife, my lord! An accident has occurred in your household.”

About time.

He faces his client. “My apologies, but I must ask that we resume our negotiations some other time. I am afraid that my wife’s situation seems to be of dire urgency.”

“Naturally! It isn’t a problem.” The diplomat bows and puts away their reports. “Thank you for your time, Lord Harbinger.”

Pantalone leaves the conference room and faces the agent. “Tell me what happened.”

“Your wife attacked a servant with her Pyro Vision. We have already extinguished the fire and summoned a doctor, but her handmaiden is in unstable condition.”

All according to plan. “Are there any additional details which I need to know?”

They pause. “I was not present during the event, but I was told that the incident took place in your wife’s dressing room. She is currently afflicted with her collar’s Concentrated Overload as well as psychological shock.”

He resists the urge to smile. “Anything else?”

“Your wife asked for you, my lord. She specifically requested your presence as the guards were restraining her.”

How endearing.

“Cancel my remaining appointments for the day. That will be all.”

⬩◈⬩

The collateral damage only costs a few hundred thousand Mora. A singed carpet. Scorched closets. The doctor’s fee. The silence of the servants.

Pantalone barely regards the charred corpse in the servant’s quarters. According to the doctor, Myshkin had succumbed to her wounds shortly before his arrival.

In the end, she paid back her debt in blood.

Not a sound can be heard from his darling’s room.

He unlocks the door. Warm light spills into the dark room, highlighting the figure chained to the bed.

His precious jewel has never looked more pitiful. Her ears lay flat against her head and her tail is tucked between her legs. There are tearstains on her face.

Her Vision is on the floor. He wonders if it was her or the servants who had thrown it.

“You’re back.” She looks up, a fresh wave of tears trickling down her cheeks. “It was an…I didn’t mean to! I just…”

“Shh, I know.” He presses his handkerchief against her cheek. “They told me what happened. We couldn’t have predicted that your Vision would cause such a disaster.”

Her voice comes out in choked sobs. “It is my fault. I caught her…I was angry but she didn’t deserve—I can still hear her screams. What will I do?”

No friction burns or signs that she struggled against the shackles. Pantalone frees her wrists and hugs her.

“It is all right,” he whispers. “I will take care of everything.”

Another sniffle. She buries her face into his coat, soaking the fabric with her tears.

“I am more concerned about you,” he continues. He breaks off the hug and looks her in the eye. “My love, how are you feeling? It must have been such a difficult experience for you. If you need anything, just tell me.”

For a moment, his darling only stares at him with glassy eyes. Then she shakes her head and holds his hand, gripping it so tightly that her nails dig into his gloves.

“Stay,” she pleads. Her tail wraps around his wrist. “Please, I…just don’t leave me.”

Pantalone kisses her hand, a kind smile gracing his face. “I promise.”

vi. diabolic waltz

Myshkin’s death is covered up as a furnace accident. The false notice is sent to her relatives, along with a large sum of Mora for financial aid.

It is the least the Regrator could do for a desolate family.

His darling moves back to their bedroom. She spends the majority of the first night crying in his arms and seeking out his comfort. The next morning, she meekly accepts the Nilotpala lotus pendant and Sango pearls he had bought back from the pawnshop. The subsequent days are filled with silent apologies and thank you’s.

A week after the incident, she leaves their room to visit his private office.

“Are you still working?”

Pantalone looks up from his report. “This can wait. Do you need anything, my darling?”

“Not at the moment.” She stands in front of his desk, tail tucked between her legs. She is wearing only her nightdress and collar today. “Take this.”

She places her Vision on his desk.

He reacts with a carefully crafted frown. “______, why are you giving this to me? I believe you know the risks of losing a Vision.”

“I am better off without it,” she mutters. She pushes it into his hands. “It has always been wasted on me. You deserve to have it.”

In the end, fire is just another illusion. Despite the light it offers, it can only consume.

Pantalone lifts it up to the window. The Pyro Vision is brighter than any false star in the sky. He can feel its powerful warmth through his gloves.

The gifts of the gods, now in his grasp. But there is a far greater treasure standing before him.

He sets it aside. “I will take good care of it, then.”

“Is there anything else I can do?” His darling moves closer to him, tail raised. “You’ve done so much for me. I will do whatever it takes to repay the favor.”

Pantalone smiles at her and leaves his desk. “You only need to stay by my side. Though, I would not be opposed to other modes of payment.”

She nods and walks into his embrace.

⬩◈⬩

“I have a new gift for you.”

“Another one?”

His darling frowns at the package. “You know how I feel about your gifts. Just being with you is already enough.”

“Think of it as a gift for myself, then.” Pantalone pats her head, ruffling her ears. “I do enjoy spoiling my beloved pet.”

She purrs and hugs him again. “Fine, all right. That just means more cuddles for you.”

His precious jewel has shattered. She is much more affectionate nowadays.

The servants finish unpacking the phonograph. They pull back the curtains and leave the room.

______ regards it with curious eyes. “A Witch’s Chorus. What sort of music does it play?”

“Why don’t we find out?”

Pantalone places the record on the turntable and flips the power switch. The instrument begins to play a slow, festive orchestral arrangement.

Her ears prick forward. “This…it sounds familiar. Where did I last hear it?”

“Quite nostalgic, isn’t it? It is the musical score from our first dance.”

“That explains it.” She turns to face him, eyes shining brightly. “It was a waltz. How could I forget?”

The fire in her eyes has been completely extinguished. Though her gaze never fails to light up at any mention of their lost memories together.

Pantalone holds out his hand. “May I have this dance?”

Her hand feels soft in his grip. “It would be my pleasure.”

No red threads this time. His darling follows his lead, a peaceful smile on her face. During the final spin, she is quick to return to his grasp.

“Pantalone?”

“Yes, my darling?”

She meets his gaze.

“I love you.”

Pantalone almost stumbles. He stops in the middle of the dance floor.

It is difficult to hide his surprise. “Please repeat that.”

“I love you.” She says it clearly, still holding his gaze. Her expression becomes anxious. “Is there…something wrong with how I said it?”

He never imagined that those words could be said to him with such utmost sincerity.

Pantalone only laughs and resumes the waltz. At this point, they are dancing off-beat to the music but there is no crowd to judge them. Only the stars visible through the windows, twinkling across the sky like unfathomable jewels.

“No, it was perfect. You just caught me off-guard,” he admits. He smiles, pulling her closer. “I love you too.”

♡

Read the Author’s Note here!!

It is done……I am finally free from this fic. I never want to see Pantalone’s pretty face ever again. This greedy man rlly made me write a two-part fic that was longer than Herbarium and Fairytale combined  (੭ ˃̣̣̥ ㅂ˂̣̣̥)੭ु

 I hope you all enjoyed the Regrator’s twisted love story. I hope you all liked my yandere characterization of him. I hope you all suffer from brainrot while I get some rest and question my life choices. Thank you for reading and have a lovely day, everyone <3

[reilliane]

✤ — Universe: Vigil ✤ — Concept: Traveling with Kazuha as his older sister

A/N: Let us continue the fluff- and the angst- shall we, lovelies? I enjoyed this too much, so there's more (ANGSTTT!) under the cut (✿◡‿◡)

『 May I accompany you ? 』

Absolutely reverts back to calling you 'nee-san'.

After that near-death experience of yours, Kazuha has been rather paranoid. He tries not to let it hinder him in any way, but his tension is just palpable whenever you say that you're leaving for a little while.

Even if it's only to gather herbs and wild ingredients for supper, he will ask if it's alright to join you. There is automatic relief in his visage when you agree.

If he's turned down, he'll purse his lips and stay put before wishing you to be safe. There are times when his fears are so powerful, however, that he'll abandon his post and tail you in order to appease his worries.

Cooking with him can be somewhat tricky. You found out that your little brother likes to be fancy with his meals—or rather, he's not keen on eating food that's lackadaisically prepared.

Not like that's ever been a problem because you're a wonderful cook. You suppose that skill, along with every household-related work, comes from having to care and tend for you and your sibling at a young age.

One downside is that you've never been too accustomed to the ways of a solitary person, so it's difficult adjusting to the nomadic lifestyle.

You're aware that Kazuha does not like being stagnant, too, so you try your best to lessen your stays in cities.

He always insists that you can take all the time you need, though, and makes it a habit to accept commissions for pocket money.

『 I will care for you the way you do for me 』

Sometimes you feel embarrassed because he's the one treating and taking care of you when it's supposed to be the other way around.

He has never looked so hurt when this is mentioned and he openly stressed over his persisting guilt that you've conditioned yourself into thinking that he must always be your priority.

You didn't know that he had such an epiphany, that when he crumbles a little—still sore from almost losing you back then—and reveals that he will look after you too, you were a loss for words

Kazuha rarely promises anything to begin with, so when he swears upon his heart—his life, you know that he means it!

『 The descent of the sun is slow today. Is there anything you wish to do in particular? 』

When time stands still or the day is simply passing too slow, he will make a few haikus. More often than not, he shares them with you, but sometimes, he keeps them to himself.

You might think that he's shy or something, but in truth, that haiku is dedicated to you and that is realized when he recites it with a growing smile that cannot be held back.

Absolutely adores it when you put melodies into his haikus. It reminds him of when you will sing random tunes when you both were younger.

He gets a little timid when he asks you to sing. You notice that he hasn't changed that aspect of his at all. It's adorable.

It doesn't happen very often, but Kazuha will cling onto the end of your kimono sleeve in retrospect of how he used to do it every single day when he was a child.

This occurs mostly when you're getting a little too carried away with your conversations when there is an agenda to follow, or when someone is getting too close to you for comfort.

Count on your little brother to be protective!

『 No- no, what are you doing... !? 』

Kazuha rarely raises his voice, let alone get mad. Following his negligence and slightly bitter treatment of you before that tragedy struck, he's always been more mindful of his manner of speaking.

So getting him livid will be difficult—and there is only one way for that to happen, and for that anger to be specifically directed at you.

That is when you take a hit that's meant to be his.

You've always been more obstinate—or perhaps it's just difficult to stave off the impulse of being an older sibling.

You're not a fighter, so all you can do is hide, but how can you just watch as he's about to get pummeled by that stonehide lawachurl, when he's already fending off another?

The other is disintegrating after a deadly slice of his blade, but a pair of large fists are already slamming down. You barely managed to push the two of you out of the way, but you succeeded at the cost of catching the brunt of the creature's following attack.

A distant shout—raw of utter fear, is all that you hear before crashing away, feeling the telltale signs of an injury.

You've only had precisely four blinks to clear your blurring sight before your younger brother is already kneeling at the side.

He's murmuring like he did that day, hands shaking, breaths pacing.

Upon deducing that your injury is, by the mercy of fate, not life-threatening, prepare for his wrath. Not even kidding!

『 How can you be so thoughtless?! 』

Hearing him shout whilst you're in a mild state of delirium is without a doubt terrifying. Though his carmine eyes are glossy, they are full of unfathomable rage.

His emotions are taking him out of proportion. You know that he can't help it, so you let him be.

Kazuha will scold you for not trusting him—that he could've avoided it with ease, that you needn't do that at all. His fury is just so bare that you're stunned to silence.

At least, until you gently reason that you couldn't bear to see him in danger. Hearing this only catalyzes his vexation, though.

He will state that he feels the same way and it's not only you who fears the worst for the other. He'll unravel his worst terrors of an encore, a repeat of a possible death that he maybe won't be able to prevent a second time.

And then his fury will simmer into desperation—and eventually, lament.

『 Please, nee-san, please just let me protect you, too.. 』

Kazuha can't bear to see you in the same position, a perfect mirror of how you laid on your blood greeting death some time ago.

He's just scared—so scared that he won't be able to save you this time and you'll leave for good.

Obviously, he understands your reason for pushing him away, he really does, but that does not stop him from pleading for you to try and hold yourself back if another similar situation arises.

When you find common ground with him on this argument, count on him to latch onto you for an ample amount of time. He's still shaken up.

His nightmares will return and there are times when he'll just wordlessly grip your sleeve.

It all eases with your assurances, of course! But again, it'll take quite a while for him to loosen up.

Kazuha just cannot lose you. Not again.

a/n: please take these headcanons as i stress over drafting scara's ficlet sdhajhdsadaskd. fluff and angst for this hcs, as i promised!

@cherryflushz @e7t3 @scarlet-halos @lordbugs @nebulaera @annoying-and-upset @hanniejji @applepi1415 @tjjjrsj @azirajane @hey-comrade-hold-stil @limelightsuperhero @chloeloe @uwu-dreams @yvechu @loptido @windyventi @nejibot @ganyuqrt

[tomorrow-and-tomorrows]

SNK 139.5: Towards the Final Pages with no Final Answers

The final pages of the updated ending are bold, but I think ultimately more evocative than the original preliminary ending.

Even after the intensely polarized reader reception that took issue with the lack of storytelling precision and clarity when it was most needed, SNK chose to end with a decisively ambiguous symbol. In literature, a symbol is something that clearly means something -- but with the most "literary" symbols, their meaning cannot be absolutely defined; any attempted answer as to what a symbol represents has no finality or certainty, and interpretation will remain ever open to debate. A symbol both invites and resists interpretation.

Naturally, the immediate response to the symbolic tree on the final page is to try answering the invitation to the question, "What does it mean?"

One prominent answer I've seen is that it symbolizes the continuation of the cycle of war and violence either because a) of the symbolic parallel to Ymir or b) on a more literal level, that it implies the actual potential revival of new era of Titans. A reasonable interpretation either way, but also, I think, an incomplete one.

The first reason for this is that "the endless cycle of war" was already clearly and powerful represented in the preceding panels:

The cycle of war was already continuing in the decades or centuries before the child arrived at the tree. A culminating image symbolizing the persistence or resurgence of an era of war as the final panel would thus arguably be redundant and unnecessary.

Furthermore, the chapter is entitled "Toward the Tree on That Hill." If the tree were simply a symbol of war, by implication the chapter could equally be called 'toward the endless cycle of war'. But such a relentlessly bleak and tonally flat ending sentiment would be firmly incongruous with the story's recurrent conviction in the equal cruelty and beauty of the world -- a conviction that I believe it has been faithful to all the way to its end.

The Long Defeat

But while on this topic of war, let's linger a moment on the "cruelty" side and the consequence of this wordless construction and subsequent destruction of a city -- the most bold and possibly controversial additional panels that are also my personal favourite additions.

One objection that has emerged against this brief sequence of Paradis' apparent destruction is that it renders the entire story to be "pointless". Eren's 80% Rumbling, Armin's diplomatic peace talks between the remnants of the Allied Nations and Paradis, and before that, the proposal of the 50-year plan and Zeke's euthanasia plan... everything, to the very beginning to the Survey Corps' dreams of some kind of freedom; was it all for nothing? All that striving, that hope, that final promise bestowed upon Armin: was it all a pointless story? Even more radically, is the story suggesting that Eren might as well have continued the Rumbling to 100% of the earth? Was Zeke's euthanasia plan the cruel but correct choice all along? What was the point of rejecting the 50-year plan if that had a greater chance of success at preventing this outcome?

I think Isayama suddenly pulling back to such a long-term view of history to the scale of decades or even centuries into the future calls for a reorientation in attitude towards exactly what kind of story we have been reading. Yes, if the metric is Paradis' survival, maybe it was indeed all "pointless". But that's also to say that, on the broadest scale, SNK is a story about futility, that it is a deliberate representation of the struggle to make one's actions historically meaningful.

In the long view of history, all the events, from Grisha running beyond the wall to see the airships and the first breaking of Wall Maria to Erwin's sacrifices, Paradis' discovery of the outside world, and finally to the Battle of Heaven and Earth, it would all merely be a handful of chapters in the history textbooks of the future. A future in which war and geopolitical conflict will continue even without Titans. That does not mean that all paths to the future are equal -- the 50-year plan would not have put an end to Titans, and Zeke's euthanasia plan distorts utilitarian ethics into just another form of oppression; there are better and worse decisions that lead to more and less degrees of suffering, but no decision can ever be the final one.

The additional panels remind us that in history, there never exists a singular "Final Solution". The reason there are readers who vehemently support Eren to have flattened 100% of the world, and the reason the Paradisians supported the oppressive, authoritarian, proto-fascist Jaegar Faction under Floch and even after the Rumbling, is that because they want to believe that a Final Solution to end conflict exists and will work. They resist the fundamental uncertainty and complexity of the situation, instead preferring a singular, unified, and coherent Answer to Paradis' struggle to survive. I'm reminded of the scholar Erich Auerbach's theorization of why fascism appealed to many people during periods of political and social crisis, change, and uncertainty. Writing in exile after fleeing Nazi Germany, he observed that:

"The temptation to entrust oneself to a sect which solved all problems with a single formula, whose power of suggestion imposed solidarity, and which ostracized everything which would not fit in and submit - this temptation was so great that, with many people, fascism hardly had to employ force when the time came for it to spread through the countries of old European culture." (from Mimesis p. 550)

This acutely describes the Jaegar Faction's rise to power and continued dominance in Paradis. But their promise of unity, of a single formula to wipe out the rest of the world either literally through the Rumbling, or to dominate them with military force, is a false one. Even if Eren had Rumbled 100% of the world instead of 80%, history would still go on. The external threat of the world may have been eliminated, but internal conflict and violence would still continue onward throughout the generations born on top of the blood of the rest of the world. Needless to say, out of all the options, Eren's 80% Rumbling is the very epitome of perpetuating the cycle of violence as it creates tens of thousands of war orphans like Eren once was, and it would justify employing violence for one's own self-interest to an extreme degree. For the generations to come that would valourize Eren as a hero, it would set a dangerous precedent for what degree of destruction is acceptable for self-defence -- nothing short of the attempt to flatten the entire world. It is no surprise that Paradis would meet a violent end when its founding one-party rule of the Jaegar Faction has their roots in such unapologetically bloody foundations.

Neither the 80% Rumbling nor the militaristic, ultra-nationalistic Jaegar faction that come to govern Paradis are glamourized as the "correct" solution to ensuring Paradis' future. (This can also put to rest any accusations of SNK's ending as "fascist" or "imperialist" propaganda, since the island's modern nation that they founded ends in war. All nations must fall eventually, but not all do in such blatant destruction). Importantly, neither is Armin's diplomatic mission naively idealized as that which permanently achieves world peace. No singular or unifying formula can work because reality is complicated. Entrusting oneself to seemingly simple Answers is simply insufficient, even if they are ideals of peaceful negotiation; that method may work given the right conditions, but the world will always eventually complicate its feasibility.

After all in the real world, there's the absurd irony that some in the West had called the First World War "The War to End all Wars". These days, WWI is merely one long chapter in our textbooks just a few pages away from the even longer chapter of the Second World War that is followed by all the rest of the conflicts that have followed since then even with the establishment of diplomatic organizations like the United Nations. In this sense, showing Paradis' eventual downfall is perhaps the only way to end such a series that is so concerned with history, from King Fritz's tribal expansion into empire, the rise and fall of Marleyan ascendency, and finally of the survival and apparent shattering of Paradis.

From its beginning to its end, SNK has poignantly evoked J.R.R. Tolkien's conception of history as The Long Defeat. In one character's words, "together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat". That is to say, "no victory is complete, that evil rises again, and that even victory brings loss".

No heroes, only humans

Eren's desperate, fatalistic resignation to committing the Rumbling, along with the characters' rejection of all the rest of the earlier plans to ensure Paradis a future, are merely the actions of human beings to that began with the need to find not even necessarily a Final Answer, but at least an acceptable and feasible one for the time being. But the characterization of Eren's confusion, childishness, and regret in the final chapter is startlingly real in how it demonstrates how, all along, we have been dealing not with grand heroes, but simply people who have no answers at all. SNK has always been about failures - and often ironic failures; it has always been a story about painful and frequently futile struggle.

People make mistakes, they can be short-sighted, selfish, biased, immature, petty, and irrational, and I think the ending follows through with depicting the consequences of that.

Erwin's self-sacrifice before being able to reach the basement (and his regression to a childhood state in the moments before his death), Kenny's futile chasing after that universal compassion he had seen in Uri, Shadis never being acknowledged by history despite his final heroic action, and so on -- these stories of ironic, futile failures are still meaningful in their mere striving. Eren's ending and Paradis' demise despite Armin's endeavour to ensure them a peaceful future are entirely consistent with this.

SNK certainly follows the shounen trope in which young individuals are bestowed great power and correspondingly great responsibility, and must then reconcile the burden of possessing that greatness on which the fate of the world depends. Yet it is equally defined by its representation of the state that us normal human beings confront everyday: the struggle against the apparent powerlessness to enact any meaningful or lasting change at all. Simultaneously, this helpless state does not exempt us from the responsibility to act in whatever small capacity we are able to resist oppression, ideological extremism, and the perpetuation of violence.

Towards That Symbol

That was a rather long but vital digression about the additional "construction and destruction" pages. To return to the issue of the symbolism in the final panel, here I will turn from seemingly affirming the tree as symbolizing the cycle of violence, towards what I think is the greater complexity of what the tree might "actually" symbolize.

As I've said above, I don't believe that the final chapter title is synonymous with 'toward the endless cycle of war'. In tone, theme, and characterization, SNK has always been defined by the tension between cruelty and beauty, the will to violence and the underlying desire for peace, and the rest of the contradictory impulses that all simultaneously coexist. The end of SNK as a whole commits to a similar lack of closure, ambiguity, and interpretive openness.

So far I have rambled on about only a view of the perpetual "cruelty" of history. Where, then, is the "beauty"?

In short, the "tree = cycle of violence" interpretation is obviously based on how that this tree recalls the original tree in which the spine creature, as the source of the power of the Titans, resided. But it's worth first considering, what exactly is this creature? We seem to get our answer in the chapter that most precisely crystallizes the dual "cruelty and beauty" of the world:

The spine creature might be said to be life itself. Or more specifically, the will of life to perpetuate itself, for no reason at all but for the fleeting moments in which we feel distinctly glad to have existed in the world.

The creature at the source of the Titans, and in extension the Titans themselves, is neither inherently a positive or negative, "good" or "evil", creative or destructive force. It's both and all of those at once. As with any power, the Titans were merely a tool that was put to use to oppressive ends.

So as I now suggest that the tree at the end is symbolically a "Tree of Life", I don't at all mean "life" in the typically celebratory or optimistic sense: rather, I mean it in the ambiguous, ambivalent, uncertain, and complex sense that has been evoked throughout the above discussion of the inevitable continuation of war.

The title "Toward The Tree on That Hill" is derived from its associations with Eren and Mikasa, but more specifically of course, from Armin's affirmation of existence. However, the tree as a symbol of existential affirmation is undercut with the revelation that, despite Armin's diplomatic mediation between the Allied Nations and Paradis, the island nation never escapes war just as no nation in the history of the earth has ever fully escaped war.

The image of Armin running toward that life-affirming tree by the end becomes twisted and complicated, as the image of the anonymous child approaching the Tree of Life evokes both awe at its beauty and grandeur, and a deep dread at the foreboding of its cyclical return to Ymir's tree that signalled the beginning of a bloody era.

And I think that is precisely it: Life is not some idealized, beautiful vision that we always want to run toward; it is also ironic, complicated, and dreadful. It is ambivalent. Like a literary symbol, the meaning of life cannot be pinned down absolutely. The tree therefore becomes itself a symbol of uncertainty, of an open future that is cyclical both in its beauty and war.

As a final observation, it is surely no coincidence that, the small, black, birdlike silhouettes of the war planes destroying the city from the sky is replaced by the similarly small black silhouettes of birds in the final panel.

If the birds represent freedom from war, the irony is that the immediately surrounding land appears to be one completely empty of people save for the exploring child; it is a freedom attained only without people's presence. Yet at the same time, a child from some existing civilization has reached it; perhaps it is freedom that they have reached, perhaps it is something else that they see in the tree. What is it that they were looking for? What does the tree and its history represent for the child, and what does it mean for their future? Alternatively, does the child-in-the-forest imagery negatively recall the warning that the world is one huge forest of predator and prey that we need to protect children from entering?

Rather than providing answers, this tree embodies all of the potential questions, and all of the potential answers. These possibilities will unfold themselves into an uncertain future beyond the chapters of history that Eren, Armin, Mikasa, Zeke, Erwin, and all the rest of the characters were part of and left their mark on; and whatever future this child will witness or create, it will similarly be one of the struggle against futility, as the journey begins anew with each generation in every new era. Neither - or both - hopeful or despairing, the final image of this tree, just like life itself, contains those innumerable irresolvable tensions as it gestures towards all possibilities, both oppressive and free.

[song-of-the-swans]

Natalia did nothing wrong.

I recently reread Bronze no Tenshi and oh my God I love Georges D’Anthès with all my heart - as if I already didn’t love him enough when I first read this manga. He’s so respectful, he’s ready to sacrifice everything for Natalia and he understands a woman’s struggles. 

I don’t despise Pushkin in Bronze no Tenshi as it often happens to me with the other “love rival” of Saito’s stories, sometimes I pity him, but I also think a lot of people overlook his flaws and mistakes in his relationship and attitude towards Natalia out of their admiration for the figure of the real Pushkin, the poet. On the other hand, I see a lot of blame put on Natalia, when, if you really think about it, Natalia did nothing wrong. Natalia cannot be the usual strong, single-minded, fierce woman that Saito portrays in her stories: it wouldn’t be realistic and true to the time when the events take place. In my opinion, Natalia was a good person that always sacrificed herself for the people around her, who had for once the chance to do something exclusively for herself when she met the love of her life, D’Anthès. 

I personally am analyzing the events and the characters of the manga as someone who didn’t know Pushkin the first time she read Bronze no Tenshi. I see a girl who grew up in the country, with her relatives advising her not to speak her mind or reveal her true personality to anyone, with a crazy father who traumatized her, with a strict, oppressive mother who forbade her to read books, only ingraining religious concepts in her, and who tried to sell her to the best offerer when she was only 16. Everyone makes her believe her only merit is to be beautiful. When she is 16, she meets Pushkin who feverishly falls in love with her and, moved by his persistence, she develops a crush on him and agrees to marry him. She sees him as an escape from her condition and as a chance of independence from her mother. She knows he can treat her right and, in her innocence, she believes that would be enough to make her happy, because she is not interested in love, having never experienced it. Natalia says that love scares her because people in love act irrationally, so she keeps on living a peaceful life with Pushkin fulfilling her duties in the way she was brought up. But she doesn’t know love and... she’s never truly happy or satisfied. Then D’Anthès arrives in Russia. In a certain sense, he’s someone used to be treated as an object of desire by the others just like Natalia. When he sees her the first time, he finds her beautiful just like every other man, but he doesn’t try to pursue her, nor is he interested in her. When Natalia tries to get close to him for her sister’s sake, he misunderstands her at first because he thinks she’s just treating him like the other women. Then their interactions increase and they find each other insufferable. They bicker, because D’Anthès doesn’t idealize her. People do nothing but point out Natalia’s beauty to the point of exhaustion, but D’Anthès actually treats Natalia as his equal - even recognizing how it must be tiring to be always told the same compliment over and over - and more importantly as a woman. And during their arguments, Natalia’s personality comes out to her own surprise, the personality that we only saw at the beginning of the story when she’s alone with her sisters and that she was told to suppress. She gets emotional and worked up. He gets a reaction out of her.  They get to know each other as two people of the same age. He advises her. He protects her. He starts to understand her and he realizes she’s genuine and naive, that she doesn’t scheme, that she doesn’t do things for her own good, that she doesn’t want to hurt others and that she has no experience of life… and love. And they fall in love madly, to the point they will sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of seeing the other safe and at peace, since there’s not a place on the earth where they could possibly be allowed to be together. Anna Karenina is quite an example. Their only option was to flee abroad but that would’ve meant for Natalia not to see her family and children anymore. Leaving aside that I wouldn’t even have blamed Natalia for abandoning a whole brood of children that were literally put into her as if her body didn’t belong to her, D’Anthès understands that for her. When the day comes, he decides that he has to be stronger for her sake, because even if Natalia was willing to leave, she could’ve blamed herself all her life and died out of guilt. Ironically, D’Anthès has understood and known Natalia more during their illicit affair of stolen glances, confessions that lasted the time of a dance and secrete meetings, than her husband, who’s lived with her for years, ever did. Natalia always thought about the others. She first sacrificed herself for the sake of her family when they wanted her to get married. She restlessly gave her husband children he put in her one after the other without even letting her recover from the previous pregnancy, without ever objecting. After her marriage, she took her older sisters in her house to allow them to live a happier, social life in town and she escorted them at balls to chaperone them even when she was pregnant and had to take care of her body. She started to interact with D’Anthès to introduce him to her older sister who had a crush on him. She never wanted to hurt her admirers, even those who were pestering her. When she finally meets the love of her life, she fights back her feelings as much as she can and even avoids to be intimate with him because “her body doesn’t belong to her”. The moment she’s about to flee with him and make love to him, she physically stops herself because “she was about to be happy” in such a dramatic situation and “that is unforgivable”. Natalia is not even free to put an end to her life, because she has obligations, she’s leaving a family behind. So when she thinks D’Anthès doesn’t love her anymore when he sends her back home, she also knows she has to keep on living. And, in the end, we know her biggest sacrifice was to give up for good to the only person she ever loved for the sake of her children, her husband, her relatives and for social pressure… but even that is not enough for her husband.

Nevertheless, readers still blame her, just like Natalia blames herself for having fallen in love, just like she guilt trips herself throughout the story when she thinks she’s become someone who only thinks about her own happiness. After Natalia puts an end to her affair for her family, Pushkin decides to duel D’Anthès anyway and die, leaving her not only alone, but also making impossible for her to remarry with her lover decades later and abandoning the children just like Natalia would have done had she fled abroad with D’Anthès. With the only difference that Natalia would have done it to be with the one she loved after having lived a life that didn’t belong to her, whereas Pushkin did it for pride and vanity.

I suppose people blame Natalia because they think that she cannot make up her mind, but the truth is that the characters’ feelings are very clear in Bronze no Tenshi: Natalia doesn’t love her husband romantically and never has. You hear her thoughts, you watch her actions. She repeatedly confirms that she sees Pushkin as a relative and a father figure, even before D’Anthès came in the picture. Natalia didn’t fall out of love because of D’Anthès and D’Anthès didn’t steal her from Pushkin: she simply never loved him and Pushkin knew before and after marrying her. But he does nothing about it, he is happy to have her because she is beautiful and because he idealized her. Sure Pushkin loves his wife, but he doesn’t actually know her. He treats her like a muse, he calls her angel, he acts like a father towards a child, he scolds her, he keeps secrets and financial issues from her and when Natalia begins to show a firmer and more mature personality after she meets D’Anthès, he admits he liked her childish side more. He doesn’t treat her like a woman and an equal like D’Anthès does. If Pushkin had been depicted truer to his real physical appearance and age, I don’t think many people would’ve overlooked his obsession with making Natalia pregnant out of insecurity to “leave his mark on her” because she’s his possession.

When Pushkin got engaged to Natalia, he even promised her mother that he would’ve stepped aside in case Natalia realized one day that her life could’ve been different had she not married him. But he doesn’t. Or let’s say he does, but in an egoistical and manipulative way. Yes, it’s understandable on his part because it’s not easy to give up to the one you love and Russian society didn’t allow divorce. Yes, he doesn’t blame his wife for falling in love and he also waits for Natalia to come back to him...  but he doesn’t realize that Natalia cannot be who he used to think she was through his rose tinted glasses and this to me shows that he’s actually more egoistical in his love than D’Anthès is with Natalia. D’Anthès is ready to be hated by her for the sake of seeing her happy. The moment D’Anthès is close to obtaining happiness and fulfilling his dream to live with her in France, he realizes that Natalia won’t ever have the chance to live with him in a dream, because she has too many things at stake that even love cannot make up for: the price she has to pay for becoming his wife is too high, it would kill her. So he sends her back home and he hurts her, pretending he never loved her in order for her to give up on him more easily. D’Anthès never once tried to force himself physically on Natalia, he never had to be told “stop” twice. He is ready to die for her, to marry someone he doesn’t love to protect her honour. D’Anthès doesn’t want Natalia to break under the burden of having left her family to be with him, Natalia doesn’t want D’Anthès to willingly die in the duel with Pushkin because he can’t live without her. Natalia returns home but becomes an empty shell because she thinks her love hates her, D’Anthès goes mad because everything he did to see her happy turned out to be useless. They aren’t allowed to find peace whether they’re together or not.

When that becomes evident, Natalia will finally do something for herself. She makes love with her lover to say goodbye and to carry that memory forever in her heart, before returning to her husband’s side. But we all know what her husband’s final decision was to put an end to this situation. He dies, D’Anthès leaves Russia forever, Natalia loses her dear husband and her lover. She meets D’Anthès again 15 years later in the same place they became aware of each other, they reminisce about their young days, but they can’t be together this time as well.

Despite her tragic endings, Saito always treats her heroines more kindly than her male character (s). It’s like she protects them. They’re always mentally stronger than their lovers and they are resilient… in a way they are always able to find a happy ending in their misery. Natalia is mentally stronger, she survives, she remarries to protect herself, but, partially because this is based off real events, she also is probably the most miserable heroine portrayed by Saito. In the end she doesn’t find her happy ending, nor does she succeed in anything. She just finds peace of mind that she imposed on herself by sealing her feelings for D’Anthès and grieving her first husband, fulfilling the role society required. And I truly pity her. I honestly don’t know how people can blame her.

[leviiattacks]

Two Faced | Chapter Eight

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it’s all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared, for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au ??? (at this point idek) angst, fluff, slice of life etc ?? word count :: 4.8k author note :: i’ve been very ill so yeah, not the best writing but i really can’t go that long without wanting to write so i ended up writing an update, i hope you enjoy it, it’s longer than usual :D sorry for any mistakes it hasn’t been proof read at all :-( → next part coming soon!!

“Hey, newbie you haven't spoke about your home town much have ya?"

You lift your head, verifying Reiner's suspicions with a nod. You recall he's the same distasteful blonde brute who made those snide remarks about Hange. He must be at least a towering six foot if his shadow is able to cover the majority of the Sun's rays from hitting you.

You would maybe bother to give him and his inquiry more attention than you currently are if he hadn't been so unnecessarily impolite during the morning speeches.

Calves yelping in stinging pain from the first tastes of the full time training regime you simply cannot find the effort to strain your mind with small talk.

Temples throbbing it feels as if a sword has been forced through the side of your head,  but that's not it at all. Reiner has thrown a small rock at you and you hear him chuckle under his breath.

Twisting your position so you face him you glare in displeasure.

Although you don't particularly enjoy the idea of joining Levi's unit and having to become a concealed agent of sorts you can't really take your pickings at how it is you wish to survive. You're going to have to deal with it and you've come to the stage of acceptance now.

However, you are not willing to respect the attitude some of these cadets are giving you, it's clear there's already a strong hierarchy in place.

Reiner just so happens to be one of the big guns from what you've been able to observe. He possess strong upper body strength and his hand to hand combat isn't a laughing matter either. That means he's higher up in the ladder of cadets, that's for sure. To top it all off you know you're not as powerful as other members in the team in terms of skill and he's probably silently making a mockery of you for it.

Pursing your lips you decide to play this game cautiously, asking him what it is he needs from you isn't the best option. You're aware he's after something, it's written all over his face. You practically know every deceptive look in the book off by heart. You suppose it's the only perk you got out of living in a noble household for most of your life.

"Why do you care?" You bluntly question him.

"Ohh, you're feisty. Might not want to butt heads with Annie."

"Not sure who that is but I don't plan on it."

Turning away from him it look like you're distracting yourself by collecting pieces of firewood. Trailing around you act as uncaring as possible to annoy him. You need to gauge this man's reaction somehow.

Your plan seems to be working in your favour because you're able to see his footing shift from his natural stance, it looks as if he's about to risk charging at you due to your vulnerable position but you rotate again offering him a knowing smile.

You don't tell him you're conscious of his suspicious nature but if he's quick witted enough he'll be able to figure out you aren't a threat and apparently don't have a clue what it is he's up to. The only reason he'd even consider attacking you would be if he saw you as an issue. For now your act should at least keep him at bay.

"Fine. I'll tell you about my hometown, I'm just..." You pause to make yourself look believable and proceed to look up at him through your lashes, you dart your gaze away and awkwardly scratch the back of your neck exuding coyness.

"I'm incredibly homesick. I miss mother. I always made supper for her, now I can only pray she's not eating burnt chicken." Your act has to be working because his eyes soften and he takes half of the firewood in your arms offering to help you carry it.

"My mum's a great cook, can't relate squirt."

"Who you calling squirt?" You playfully snap back.

"I call everybody that, even Captain Levi... Well, when he isn't around to hear it."

You bite the inside of your cheek at the mention of the Levi's name.

“So you and the Captain? What’s that all about?” His question makes no sense at all, one minute he wants to prod and poke in your personal home life yet the next minute he's asking questions about Levi. The doubts you have surrounding him only thicken.

You take a moment to consider his question,

“Whatever do you mean?” Clueless, you're delivery is excellent. Acting naive is easy enough, everyone within the corps has already decided that's what your automatic disposition is.

Reiner gives you a skeptical look then smiles faintly, “Glaring daggers at Jean after he got handsy with you?”

You cover your mouth with your free hand and laugh so hard the firewood nearly flies out of your grasp.

“Me and Jean are friends, and Levi? He just wanted to find a reason to get mad at us probably.” You hope the explanation suffices because you truly have no idea why Levi had done what he did.

Reiner hums in approval at your answer but he then grins.

“You on first name basis with the Captain?”

Fuck, you called him Levi.

Play it cool.

“Huh? When have I ever said his first name?” Clueless. Your delivery is still perfect.

“Just now.” He fires back, Reiner doesn't seem to be letting up but he doesn't know how smooth of a liar you are.

Living with your father for all those years conditioned you in ways you hadn't even noticed until quite recently.

“Did I? Pardon, I didn’t mean for it to slip out. Sometimes I silently curse him out in my head and forget to add his title.”

Your acting is impeccable, Reiner has no reason to doubt you. As you expect he doesn't instead he shifts the conversation to his hometown, just like you he doesn't explicitly mention a name. Reiner is sharp but he hasn't noticed the way you've left a name out just like him. He's terrible at catching out his own kind.

You decide at that moment that Reiner Braun is a liar. The accusation is more of a hunch meaning more investigation is required.

You won't inform any of the higher ups about it just yet.

The walk back to base is filled with excruciatingly troublesome small talk and you make a mental note to take Mikasa along with you next time it's your turn retrieve the firewood.

You can't afford any more close encounters with Braun or any of his possible accomplices.

Sniggers batter your ears as soon as you step foot onto the grounds, you have a sixth sense when it comes to spiteful bad-mouthing and after the abysmal day you've had you anticipate there will be unpleasant commentary.

"Seen the way Y/N ruined the assault course today?"

"We're the finalized cadets across all the regions of Paradis. That means we have to rely on that embarrassment to fight titans."

"Good Lord, someone have mercy on our souls."

Fellow cadets press on in their criticism thinking you aren't within earshot. That, or they purposefully aim for you to pay attention to the disapproval they have of your presence.

But, you do understand where they're coming from. You make another mental note - practice a bit more later today.

The gossiping isn't anything you're unfamiliar with, your father's palace never offered kindness to you or your existence. In fact it's rather comforting being talked badly about behind your back.

That statement sounds absurd but you can't explain it. Maybe it's due to Levi typically hurling his unnecessary remarks right at you without warning. Then again he does provide everyone with that treatment, even Commander Erwin.

As you hurry away increasing the distance between you and your loud mouthed team members you spot Levi from the corner of your eye. He's in conversation with Hange but you notice how his jaw is clenched in frustration, you feel a pinch over your skin when he spares you a fleeting look. Eyes acquainting yours. Paying  no attention to him you walk away as fast as you can.

The cadets only blow up in volume now, they definitely want you to hear what they have to say.

"Maybe we should ask the higher ups to throw her ou-"

"Questioning authority? Pesky mutineers aren't you?" Levi's booming voice shakes anyone within a five metre vicinity, he comes out of nowhere and seems nothing short of furious.

"You're all," He continues, voice rising, "Incredibly spineless aren't you?"

One of the cadets embellishes their face with a scowl, it doesn't go unnoticed by Levi but he astonishingly doesn't lash out, physically at least. His deathly glare is more than enough to finish the job.

Stupidly you suffer feeling your heart palpitate in your chest watching him talk to the group of three. Stupidly, you're getting your hopes up again.

He scoffs coldly, "If you're all talk why not offer to duel her?"

It doesn't take long for your heart to stop throbbing with its previous intensity. You know it was too good to be true. Levi suddenly defending you that is.

The gesture isn't done to protect or shield you. No, you're sure this man loathes you and is intending to persist on making your life as bleak and dreary as possible.

"Up to a battle Y/N?" The unnamed blonde cadet's scoffs in derision and you find yourself wanting to punch her square in the jaw.

Irritation sears through you but you meekly shake your head mumbling a weak "No thanks.", you're much too afraid to duel anyone just yet and you don't remember her from the training sessions. She must have been in a corner keeping to herself.

With all that being said and done you pathetically withdraw, and just like the past few days you sense Levi's piercing gaze erupting into your soul.

The blistering Sun hits every nook and cranny of the training ground. Waking up early already has you wanting to pass out and the heat isn't any help.

The crowd of cadets mumble in fatigue but observant Mikasa jabs you in the shoulder pointing out how far away Jean has stood from you.

You feel guilty that Jean had to suffer through the humiliation tossed at him yesterday but you are grateful to not deal with his constant questioning and talkative self this early in the morning.

All the way at the other side of the throng of soldiers he stands with Bert, who might you add is a mammoth of a man.

Through some digging (more like asking Mikasa) you've discovered he's close with Reiner and the blonde cadet from yesterday's confrontation, turns out she's the Annie that Reiner warned you off.

"ATTENTION!" Hange sing songs at the front of the training ground. They're jumping around along with Squad Leader Mike checking if everyone's in the correct uniform - Apparently the year prior a cadet showed up wearing a thick cardigan and fainted from heat stroke...

“Today’s exercise is a time to redeem yourself!” Hange’s eyes dart towards you and you smile at one another.

“A FIGHT TO THE DEATH!”

Everyone murmurs looking at each other in pure confusion.

“A fight up against another person. Whoever wins their individual fights will receive extra special privileges." The explanation seems simple enough and you’re confident that if you’re put up against the right people you can make it out safe.

The promise of a reward is also enticing.

The 104th Training Corps are thrilled, there’s nothing too hazardous about the task and it’s nothing difficult to ask for. Even you’re looking forward to it. The chance to rescue your reputation has you pumped up with adrenaline.

“My, my my. Don’t excite yourselves just yet little hens, there’s a pretty little catch.” Hange's voice is laced in mischief. This can't be any good.

Everyone stops breathing in unison and it’s pin drop silent.

“You must cause harm to your opponent in some way. Whether it be making them faint, breaking an arm, breaking a leg. There are no rules when it comes to playing dirty!”

With a playful shrug of their shoulder Hange hops off the podium.

Squad Leader Mike pulls out the list of competitors. He’s decided the line-up on his own and begins the announcement with Bertholdt.

“BERTHOLDT HOOVER..."

Bert turns to look back at Reiner hesitantly and for such a giant it’s adorable how worried he is when everyone else is perturbed thinking about the poor individual who has to go up against him.

"AGAINST Y/N L/N!"

The crowd falls silent and your mouth is wide, this is unjust there’s no way this is allowed.

“Hey, don’t you think that’s kinda unfair?” Krista speaks out for you even though Ymir is by her side trying to talk her out of getting involved.

“She stands no chance against him.” Reiner is supporting your cause too.

Mikasa takes a step forward. “I agree, it’s not right, may I take her place instead?”

“No, no! It’s alright, I’ll go for it.”

Honestly you don’t want the corps to see you as a coward. Bravery and courage is what brought everyone here. Your story is different. You’re here to selfishly save your own life, you aren’t anywhere near as valiant as the rest of them. The very least you can do is partake in activities correctly.

Stepping up to the podium you stand by Bertholdt he gives you a pitiful look whilst he mutters an apology.

Mike continues announcing the names. A few include Jean against Mikasa (Jean may as well forfeit), Marco against Annie and Connie against Reiner - that pairing eases you. At least you aren't in this alone. You and Connie stand no chance against those beasts.

Everyone lines up in their separate areas and again Bertholdt is profusely apologizing asking if you want to fake faint or anything of the sort. You shake your head and promise to give it all you've got.

And then the games begin at the sound of the bell, and damn that Bertholdt because he isn't keeping to his end of the bargain. He lunges forward viciously aiming to crush your entire body but you swiftly dodge, he tries the same approach but when you duck out of the way again he stops knowing he needs to rethinks his strategy.

"Just give it up I'll win either way."

Well, the Mister nice guy act was definitely a believable performance. He was so convincing you even contemplated feigning unconsciousness when he proposed the idea to you.

Bertholdt is much slower than you giving you more time to deliberate your incoming moves. If you can get him to edge close enough to a nearby tree and deceive him into colliding with the oak trunk you should win - only on the condition that he passes out.

The scheme is far-fetched but it's your only hope.

Dashing from various corners he flies after you, each time unable to catch up to you.

That is until you stumble and lurch to the ground. The wind is knocked out of your lungs and you panic when a large hand clutches at your ankle. Your solution? Booting him right in the teeth.

However with an earth-shattering amount of force Hoover's hold on your ankle doesn't weaken. Instead he tightens his hold like a vice. You feel it bruise and the violet discoloration that'll be present in a few hours makes you wince.

Entire body going limp on command, you stop yourself from breathing - another talent you picked up back at the palace to avoid extra beatings.

When you no longer thrash around Bertholdt stalks in to check in on you and as expected he’s now towering over you, blood overflowing in terror.

"SQUAD LEADER HANGE, CAPTAIN LEVI SHE'S NOT MOVING!" He's roaring for their help frantic and anxious. If he's caused any permanent damage he's as good as dead meat.

"Oh my Lord. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

Bertholdt's voice is fractured in unadulterated horror and judging by the direction you hear it at he has to be facing away from you.

Unbolting your eyes you learn your assumption is correct and despite hurried footsteps being within audible range you take your chance by the reigns.

Leaping to your feet and with no forewarning you swing your leg to the back of his neck. Stunned by the surprise attack he falls to his knees and you situate yourself in front of the oak tree you've been eyeing from the time the exercise began.

"You cunning bitch." Staggering back up he makes a swift rebound. At this point all mercy has left him and his one true aim is to completely pulverize you.

Everything is falling into place. All you need to do is wait for the right moment and finally you come across it when he suddenly pounces for you. Darting to the left you leave the space open for your prey.

Poor Bertholdt falls right into the palm of your hands like a rag doll. His momentum can't be controlled and he smashes headfirst into the trunk with a loud crunch sounding out. Bark splits and scrapes off the tree upon impact.

His head has to throb and you don't want to imagine how painful it is to feel the rivulets of soreness.

He doesn't get up and only groans, you feel half bad but after the tricks and antics he pulled you come to the conclusion that it's all deserved.

"Well, Y/N, you've proven yourself to be quite quick witted." Hange's praise is strange to hear but you beam proud that you've proven your worth.

"Oi, don't get ahead of yourself." Levi orders. "It could have been pure luck."

In spite of Levi's pessimism you bask in the glory of your win.

A week into joining Levi's unit you're becoming more accustomed to the new environment, in fact the gossiping and horrible rumours stop completely after your win and interactions with your fellow comrades feel easier and lighter.

You think the taunts will have only got more relentless after the duel fiasco but you suppose Annie chose to be considerate and take pity on you.

"Your progress has been remarkable so far." You jump when you hear Jean's deep voice appear right next to you.

Looking around to see if any other cadets are around you finally release a breath you didn't even know you were holding in.

"Ah. Thank you." You murmur quietly.

"I know it's been a week since I was scolded by the Captain but this won't count as flirting will it?"

Impeding the one sided conversation you're reflecting, you're not sure what exactly about. Probably whether or not you should maintain the discussion - if it can even be referred to as such.

Forget it. You know what they say, you only live once.

Flicking his forehead you roll your eyes, "We were never flirting he's just an over dramatic, bitter hag. I put my money on the fact he's never felt the touch of a woman before."

Jean's eyes widen in disbelief, you half expect he'll split open in tremendous laughter but he looks terrified. Then you become conscious of the fact he's not even staring at you, his eyes are engrossed by whatever is behind you.

Unfortunately for you your body tells you all you need to know. His cologne floods into your nostrils, you can't even reassure yourself and pretend it's anyone else, you know he's the only one who smells that strongly of fresh linen.

Being unable to see him doesn't stop you from imagining his dark lifeless eyes accompanying themselves with what is before them.

It doesn't even take Jean a minute to abandon you, he breaks out into an awkward smile, hurriedly pats your shoulder before dashing away, dispersing all the way to the other end of the hallway in a matter of seconds and turning the corner away from you.

Heart rate soaring you hesitantly spin on your heel. Levi's stood there, looking beyond unimpressed.

You intend to breeze past him, cool and collected. You take a step forward but God has never been one to bless you with luck, stumbling and tripping over thin air lands you flying.

Ready for impact you brace yourself but it never comes, instead solid hands are firmly placed at the small of your back steadying your position and your palms have unceremoniously landed atop his torso.

"Play along." Levi's voice is low and rumbling, and you can't look him in the eyes. Not out of fear or dread, more so exhaustion but you muster the energy to look to your left. There Erwin and Hange stand giggling to themselves like children. As quick as you spot them they vanish in the same fashion. It's as if they were never there.

You're worn out and fatigued wanting nothing more than a good night's rest. If there's one thing you haven't grown used to it's the lack of sleep.

"Let go." Moving to shift his hands away from your waist you halt your movements when he without warning lets go of you, not even giving you the opportunity to renovate your balance.

Flying to the ground and landing with a thud you rub your backside at the blow.

Mirthlessly chuckling the lack of amusement is clear in the way he composes himself.

Making a dash for it sounds tempting but you may as well let him have his way. There's no action you can take to avoid him reprimanding you. It's your fault for having the gall to make that crude and foul-mouthed comment in the first place.

You gulp comprehending the situation is even worse now since you really only said it for the sole reason of Kirstein's amusement.

"Y/N, I'd like to have a word with you."

Hesitantly you look up at Levi, he has an indecipherable expression on his face, it's been a while since you've last been left in his company alone.

The two of you are stood in his office, his desk is flooded with papers, they're haphazardly scattered all over the place and spikes of worry weirdly make them self present in your belly. This isn't right. He'd never leave his work space in this state.

"Are you okay?" You ask it because you’re sure he isn't.

His shoulders and spine stiffen. "Cut the crap and keep the formalities to yourself." He chides, most definitely defensive in his stance.

Without asking him you shuffle to his desk stacking the papers into organised piles, most of the documents are related to an up and coming expedition and it's all beginning to add up. Even humanities strongest soldier has moments where he cracks.

Then you notice your name on the formation plan but before you're able to make anything out of it Levi snatches it off his desk and away from you stuffing it into his pocket.

Without another sound he observes you cleaning the rest of the mess away but doesn't ask for you to stop. There's no reason for him to.

If you do this maybe he'll go easier on you, yeah that's what your motivation is. That's not exactly the truth, really you're just concerned about whatever has him worked up.

Placing the last document in its rightful place you want to give your mind a moment to recollect itself but Levi doesn't think the same.

He places his arms on either side of the desk, trapping you with no way out. Oddly, there's nothing threatening about him looking down at you this time, the greys and blues of his iris' captivate you.

"Do you enjoy making a mockery of your husband?" The question is whispered. It's unanticipated and the title of husband is uncharacteristic coming out of his mouth.

"It was just a joke." You mumble your answer under your breath.

"Would you have spouted that shit in front of the rest of the unit?"

Mildly shaking your head he then sighs. He’s not angry, he genuinely seems let down.

"Do you prefer him over me?” You swear you hear the faintest hint of self-doubt.

His questions are getting more out of the ordinary by the second and you’re waiting for him to crack a malevolent grin before he ridicules you like he always does.

“Of course I don’t prefer him over you.”

“Prove it.”

Tilting your head up towards him you have no idea what he wants for you to do or say, why does this suddenly even matter to him?

And then you imagine it happen, him digging his hands into your shoulders. Your weight along with his shifting up against the desk making it creak. Your mind details how he would kiss you agitatedly and you flush thinking about how you would feverishly return the favour.

It seems like your imagination predicts the future. He grips your jaw with his hand, his touch isn’t firm and for once it’s quite soft. Relishing in the new experience as he leans in you secure your eyes shut in expectation.

Stroking your cheek with his thumb the warm sensation that courses through your body is rather pleasant. His hands come out to run against your body, pinching the sides of your waist. The motion makes your heart stall for a second. Involuntarily, you find yourself leaning into him.

“This seem like a man who hasn’t felt the touch of a woman before?”

And just like that he leaves you hanging. You flutter your eyes open and there he is. He’s back, the same cynical man, smirk etched onto his features, his body still parallel to yours.

You find yourself enraged at how he's just lead and dragged you on, you should have stuck with your gut feeling and not given into temptation but you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat. It's very obvious who the cat is in this situation.

Brows furrowing you can’t face him ever again after the scalding embarrassment inhabits your abdomen.

"Going to cry, Cadet?" He's pushing all your buttons, eagerly choosing to provoke you.

The frustration you’ve been feeling fills you to the brim and you clamp down on your bottom lip. If you must turn to inflicting harm onto yourself just to muffle the sound of your whimpers you will.

“Did you need to do that?” You choke out your response feeling helpless, still not looking at him.

“Simply gave you a taste of your own medicine.”

Silence.

"Sometimes I wish you killed me back then."

Silver eyes become dark and he visibly flinches at your confession.

Still boxed in-between his arms you attempt to push past but he continues to obstruct the exit. He's not done yet.

"I gave you another chance at life." His blunt one-sided view is about to drive you crazy.

"Within my first day at this unit I had to avoid being attacked by another cadet in the forest if you call that a life I do-"

“Who?”

“Not important."

“If you know what's good for you, you'll spit it out."

For the sole purpose of irking him you heavily shake your head to emphasise your refusal to give in and name the culprit. It's not like you want Reiner to fall into trouble because of you. He hasn't shown any suspicious or out of the ordinary behaviour since then and you worry what Levi is capable of doing when given a reason to hurt someone.

Glancing at him dismissively you try to make your point again. "They haven't done anything since. Therefore, it's of no importance."

Conflicted emotions scurry over his face as he looks at you.

"It's of importance if my wif-" He growls and stops midway. His hands grip onto the desk even harder, knuckles turning white.

Was he about to say, wife?

Levi immediately realizes what he's nearly just said sounds exceedingly questionable. A look of uncertainty flashes over his face and then it seems he loses all regard for self-control. His willpower isn't enough to get him through this situation and he only amplifies.

Encroaching further into the very little space amongst the both of you his tone is icy. "Tell me." He's glowering and for Reiner's wellbeing you decide you should just come out with it now. He'll be in an even more difficult spot if you don't.

"Reiner, it was Reiner." You gasp out the answer, shallow breath ragged. Head turning away to the side you're not particularly sure why you're so shaky and why you feel a tremor flood past you inundating your movement. It may all be a combination of how close he's standing to you and how intoxicatingly strong his aura is.

Or, perhaps it's due to how he nearly referred to you as his wife during his primal outburst of anger.

He turns away. Automatically creating yet another blockade between the two of you.

"You're dismissed."

[thebiscuiteternal]

“A Bird in the Hand” Friendship <3, Mutual Interests (Sorta Not Really), Hidden Identities, Kidnapping, The Ship Is A Huge Spoiler Sorry

__________

Having decided he was going to lose his mind if he had to listen to the constant chatter about scores and techniques for one more moment, Nie Huaisang quietly slips out of the dining hall and heads out into the early evening air.

Just a little time to himself to clear his head, that’s all he needs. A short walk, and then he’ll go back. If Da-ge gets upset about him wandering off here… well, he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it. 

Movement in the bush next to him startles him a little, but not enough for him to miss that the small reddish-pink form darting out of the leaves is flying very oddly.

Wing damage at the very least, he calculates. If he doesn’t intervene, it’s probably going to be a predator’s meal soon.

Concern replaces his earlier exasperation; he changes course from the path he’d been planning to take and begins tracking where it might land next instead. 

---

The erratic flight pattern makes his task a little more difficult, but there is still a bit of light left in the sky when he finally snares the wounded and bedraggled puff of feathers -a rosefinch, one he hasn’t ever seen this particular color and pattern of- and very gently deposits it in his lap. 

“Shh, you’ll be fine,” he soothes, carefully rubbing the poor thing’s cheek with a fingertip to calm it down before reaching into his sleeve for his usual pouch of supplies. “See? I’m here to help.”

Once the bird is gorging itself -no, himself- on seeds, he begins inspecting and carefully cleaning the injuries. He was right about the wing, plus there are nasty cuts to a leg and another to the neck. Claw marks, most likely. “Poor darling, you must have just escaped a cat,” he coos softly as he takes out thread and thin strips of cloth.

“Interesting.”

Nie Huaisang only just barely manages to avoid jostling his patient when he jumps slightly at the unexpected new voice, then freezes when he turns his head to find a young man wearing red and white robes. “Ah! I’m sorry if I entered a restricted area, I just-”

“It’s fine,” the Wen stranger says with a smile. “You haven’t left the guest territories yet.”

“Oh… good. That’s good.” The rosefinch cheeps in his lap and pecks his hand and he looks down and clicks his tongue as he resumes threading the needle he’s holding. “Demanding now that I’ve been nice enough to feed you, aren’t you?”

“May I observe while you work?”

He doesn’t hear the Wen disciple move at all, so when he looks up and finds the young man standing barely a step away, he has to restrain himself from scooting away on reflex. “Er- I suppose? Most people don’t want to,” he says, watching as his new companion takes a seat on a rock next to him.

Up close, there is something slightly unnerving about him. It's the same feeling he notices when Da-ge is trying to intimidate people around him less, like there's something big and dangerous being forced into a too-small hide.

Nie Huaisang swallows and ducks his head, reaching into the supply pouch to produce more seeds for his patient. He finishes prepping the needle and gently coaxes the rosefinch into a better position, feeling an intense gaze on him all the while as he begins the first neat, tight stitches. The bird makes an unhappy noise of pain, but more seeds and petting keeps him from attempting to escape and he only cheeps grumpily to himself as Nie Huaisang works.

"You're very skilled to make it trust you so easily."

Despite himself, he feels his face heat at the rare compliment. Though Da-ge and their cousin Nie Zonghui often try not to get bored whenever they visit the aviary, the only person who’d ever actually been interested in watching this sort of thing was-

He bites his lip and shoves that thought aside. “It’s a lot of practice in patience, mostly,” he says as he finishes with the leg and turns his attention to the wounds that might need to have feathers clipped for proper treatment. “You have to learn how they work, how to follow them without getting them so stressed they accidentally hurt themselves worse, observing flight patterns, all that.”

“Seems like a lot of effort to put in for someone who so infamously avoids it.”

Nie Huaisang stiffens, then forces himself to calm down.

Stupid. He’s wearing Qinghe colors and this disciple probably just saw him hanging around Da-ge. He’s not hard to identify, and his reputation… well.

Still, the unease lingers, though he tries to shake it off by remaining focused on his task. By now the rosefinch is comfortable enough with him that he’s able to gently remove some damaged and bloody feathers. “I just… I like doing this. That’s all.”

“Understandable. A reward only counts as a reward if you want it.”

It’s gotten dark enough for people in the buildings down the path to begin lighting their lanterns, but he’s well-acquainted with working in such conditions. He finishes the neck and wing injuries quickly, the strange disciple remaining in his spot for the duration. 

“There we go, all ready to get better,” he croons sweetly, coaxing the finch to his shoulder, where the bird snuggles into his collar. 

An elegant hand reaches into his view. “May I?” the disciple asks.

“If he’ll let you,” Nie Huaisang says, tilting his head to give space. The rosefinch is having none of it, however, and ducks to hide under his hair with a grouchy little squawk, tiny claws pricking at the nape of his neck. “Or not. Sorry about that.”

The other man’s lips curve in amusement as he draws his hand back. “It’s fine. Patience, as you said.”

Nie Huaisang begins packing up his pouch. The unease from before has faded into a more readily ignored feeling, especially since the disciple hasn’t actually done anything to deserve it. “Do you want to walk back to the pavilion? Da-ge won’t be happy if I stay out much longer. He’s probably not happy with me for staying out this long already, actually.”

“I appreciate the offer,” the other man says as he stands and needlessly dusts his clothing. “But I live in a different part of the compound.” Another smile, slow and interested in a way that makes Nie Huaisang’s face grow warm again. “There are still two more days left in the tournament. Perhaps we’ll cross paths another time.”

“Ah- well- shouldn’t I know your name, then? You already know mine.”

The strange disciple bows, smooth and sharp, not even a fold of cloth wrong. “This humble one is simply Han-er. I look forward to our next meeting, Nie-er, gongzi.”

It is only later, after Nie Huaisang has returned to his own room with the rosefinch, that he realizes somewhere the ‘perhaps’ had become a certainty.

---

They do cross paths again, more than once, in fact. 

After the second encounter, Nie Huaisang can’t help but notice that Han-er always seems to find him when he’s entirely alone. 

A spy, maybe? 

Maybe not. He’s been keeping track, and Han-er has never asked him anything particularly pointed about Da-ge or their cousin or anything about them that might be considered ‘vital information’, just the occasional offhand curiosity about their relationship dynamics. Their sects may be on bad terms -very bad terms- but Han-er has been nothing but polite.

By the time of their fourth meeting, he feels guilty for ever having had such suspicious thoughts about the man.

“And how is Minsheng doing this morning?”

“Besides being crushed under the weight of such an auspicious name?” Nie Huaisang asks cheekily, earning another of those amused smiles.

“You cannot deny he has earned it.”

He can’t, really. Once no longer in constant pain, Minsheng has become chatty enough that the finch has received at least one threat of being roasted and eaten.  “He’s recovering at a good pace. I worry about taking him home, though. With the differing climate, he’ll be miserable while his feathers are growing back in.”

Han-er inclines his head and looks away. “Why not leave him with me?” he asks after some consideration. “I do not have your experience, true, but our time has been... enlightening. And he likes me well enough, now.”

It’s… not a bad idea, really. If Nie Huaisang changes the bandages again just before he leaves, all that should be left to do surgery-wise would be to remove the stitches, and he’s seen that Han-er has a steady enough hand for that… “I can draw up some notes for you this afternoon and deliver them and Minsheng before the closing ceremony, would that be alright?”

“Perfect.”

---

He doesn’t actually see Han-er again before his sect departs to go home to Qinghe, having been forced to leave Minsheng and his notes with a guard who’d smirked at him in an extremely discomforting way. It brings back the troubled feeling lurking in the back of his head and leaves him unsure whether he’s unhappy to have missed the meeting, or somehow relieved. 

When word comes several days later that the Cloud Recesses have been burned, he decides on relief.

---

His stomach churns unhappily in a mix of unsatisfied hunger and nausea as they’re dismissed back to their cells after another day of grueling work and so very little food. Each step feels like he’s trying to slog through knee deep mud, and by the time he makes it to their designated hallway, he’s starting to feel dizzy.

Something… something’s wrong. Had the food been spoiled? But no, no one else seems to be...

“Young master?” asks one of the other Nie disciples.

“I’m fine,” he lies, even as it feels like the floor rolls under him like the deck of a boat.

He falls and doesn’t remember hitting the ground.

When he opens his eyes again, the disorientation persists. Something noisy is going on nearby and whatever he’s lying on, it’s too comfortable to be the paper-thin pallet mattress he’d been subjected to for over a week.

This isn’t his cell… Where…?

What is that noise?

Confused, head swimming, he tries to sit up and finds that his hands have been bound behind his back. Before he can start to panic, gentle hands squeeze his shoulders and assist him in rolling over. 

He dimly registers that the sound he’s hearing is the chattering of a bird.

But why would there be a bird-?

A familiar figure leans over him, long fingers sweeping his hair out of his face and down his cheek in an affectionate caress. For the briefest moment, he is grateful to see the face of… perhaps not a friend, but at least someone he knows.

Then ice cold terror seizes his insides when his eyes register the crown on the man’s head.

The Eternal Sun.

“Tell me, little bird,” Wen Ruohan says, smile sharp as a knife’s edge and gaze hungry. “Was I patient enough?”

__________

((Author Note: Okay, so, like, if I’m not remembering wrong, Novel!Ruohan is described as ridiculously young-looking because of his high cultivation. Like, we’re talking 19-ish even though he and Jin Guangshan are the only Great Sect leaders who have at least one fully adult child at the time of the Phoenix Mountain competition. So I thought, what if he leaned in to it? Suckered the other sects by having an older proxy take his place at meetings and conferences so that no one actually knows what he looks like except for some of the Wen Sect’s inner circle?))

[lailoken]

The Faery Physicians of Myddfai

—or—

The Farmer and the Water Maiden

“The legend of the Meddygon Myddfai again introduces the elfin cattle to our notice, but combines with them another and a very interesting form of this superstition, namely, that of the wife of supernatural race. A further feature gives it its name, Meddygon meaning physicians, and the legend professing to give the origin of certain doctors who were renowned in the thirteenth century. The legend relates that a farmer in the parish of Myddfai, Carmarthenshire, having bought some lambs in a neighbouring fair, led them to graze near Llyn y Fan Fach, on the Black Mountains. Whenever he visited these lambs three beautiful damsels appeared to him from the lake, on whose shores they often made excur- sions. Sometimes he pursued and tried to catch them, but always failed; the enchanting nymphs ran before him and on reaching the lake taunted him in these words:

Cras dy fara, Anhawdd ein dala;

which, if one must render it literally, means:

Bake your bread, ‘Twill be hard to catch us;

but which, more poetically treated, might signify:

Mortal, who eatest baken bread, Not for thee is the fairy's bed!

One day some moist bread from the lake came floating ashore. The farmer seized it, and devoured it with avidity. The following day, to his great delight, he was successful in his chase, and caught the nymphs on the shore. After talking a long time with them, he mustered up the courage to propose marriage to one of them. She consented to accept him on condition that he would distinguish her from her sisters the next day. This was a new and great difficulty to the young farmer, for the damsels were so similar in form and features, that he could scarcely see any difference between them. He noted, however, a trifling singularity in the strapping of the chosen one's sandal, by which he recognized her on the following day. As good as her word, the gwraig immediately left the lake and went with him to his farm. Before she quitted the lake she summoned therefrom to attend her, seven cows, two oxen, and one bull. She stipulated that she should remain with the farmer only until such time as he should strike her thrice without cause. For some years they dwelt peaceably together, and she bore him three sons, who were the celebrated Meddygon Myddfai. One day, when preparing for a fair in the neighbourhood, the farmer desired her to go to the field for his horse. She said she would, but being rather dilatory, he said to her humorously ‘Dôs, dôs, dôs,' i.e., ‘Go, go, go,' and at the same time slightly tapped her arm three times with his glove. The blows were slight—but they were blows. The terms of the marriage contract were broken, and the dame departed, summoning with her her seven cows, her two oxen, and the bull. The oxen were at that moment ploughing in the field, but they immediately obeyed her call and dragged the plough after them to the lake. The furrow, from the field in which they were ploughing to the margin of the lake, is still to be seen—in several parts of that country—at the present day. After her departure, the gwraig annwn once met her three sons in the valley now called Cwm Meddygon, and gave them a magic box containing remedies of wonderful power, through whose use they became celebrated. Their names were Cadogan, Gruffydd and Einion, and the farmer's name was Rhiwallon. Rhiwallon and his sons, named as above, were physicians to Rhys Gryg, Lord of Dynevor, and son of the last native prince of Wales. They lived about 1230, and dying, left behind them a compendium of their medical practice. A copy of their works is in the Welsh School Library in Gray's Inn Lane.'

In a more polished and elaborate form this legend omits the medical features altogether, but substitutes a number of details so peculiarly Welsh that I cannot refrain from presenting them, This version relates that the enamoured farmer had heard of the lake maiden, who rowed up and down the lake in a golden boat, with a golden oar. Her hair was long and yellow, and her face was pale and melancholy. In his desire to see this wondrous beauty, the farmer went on New Year's Eve to the edge of the lake, and in silence awaited the coming of the first hour of the new year. It came, and there in truth was the maiden in her golden boat, rowing softly to and fro. Fascinated, he stood for hours beholding her, until the stars faded out of the sky, the moon sank behind the rocks, and the cold gray dawn drew nigh; and then the lovely gwraig began to vanish from his sight. Wild with passion, and with the thought of losing her forever, he cried aloud to the retreating vision, 'Stay! stay ! Be my wife.’

But the gwraig only uttered a faint cry, and was gone. Night after night the young farmer haunted the shores of the lake, but the gwraig returned no more. He became negligent of his person; his once robust form grew thin and wan; his face was a map of melancholy and despair. He went one day to consult a soothsayer who dwelt on the mountain, and this grave personage advised him to besiege the damsel's heart with gifts of bread and cheese. This counsel commending itself strongly to his Welsh way of thinking, the farmer set out upon an assiduous course of casting his bread upon the waters—accompanied by cheese. He began on Midsummer eve by going to the lake and dropping therein a large cheese and a loaf of bread. Night after night he continued to throw in loaves and cheeses, but nothing appeared in answer to his sacrifices. His hopes were set, however, on the approaching New Year's eve. The momentous night arrived at last. Clad in his best array, and armed with seven white loaves and his biggest and handsomest cheese, he set out once more for the lake. There he waited till midnight, and then slowly and solemnly dropped the seven loaves into the water, and with a sigh sent the cheese to keep them company. His persistence was at length rewarded. The magic skiff appeared; the fair gwraig guided it to where he stood; stepped ashore, and accepted him as her husband. The before-mentioned stipulation was made as to the blows; and she brought her dower of cattle. One day, after they had been four years married, they were invited to a christening. In the midst of the ceremony the gwraig burst into tears. Her husband gave her an angry look, and asked her why she thus made a fool of herself. She replied, ‘The poor babe is entering a world of sin and sorrow; misery lies before it. Why should I rejoice?' He pushed her pettishly away. ‘I warn you, husband,' said the gwraig; 'you have struck me once.' After a time they were bidden to the funeral of the child they had seen christened. Now the gwraig laughed, sang, and danced about. The husband's wrath again arose, and again he asked her why she thus made a fool of herself. She answered, ‘The dear babe has escaped the misery that was before it, and gone to be good and happy for ever. Why should I grieve?' Again he pushed her from him, and again she warned him; he had struck her twice. Soon they were invited to a wedding; the bride was young and fair, the groom a tottering, toothless, decrepit old miser. In the midst of the wedding feast the gwraig annwn burst into tears, and to her husband's question why she thus made a fool of herself she replied, ‘Truth is wedded to age for greed, and not for love—summer and winter cannot agree—it is the diawl's [devil’s] compact.' The angry husband thrust her from him for the third and last time. She looked at him with tender love and reproach, and said, ‘The three blows are struck-husband, farewell!' He never saw her more, nor any of the flocks and herds she had brought him for her dowry. In its employment of the myth to preach a sermon, and in its introduction of cheese, this version of the legend is very Welsh indeed. The extent to which cheese figures in Cambrian folk-lore is surprising; cheese is encountered in every sort of fairy company; you actually meet cheese in the Mabinogion, along with the most romantic forms of beauty known in story. And herein again is illustrated Shakspeare's accurate knowledge of the Cambrian goblins. 'Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy!' says Falstaff, 'lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!' Bread is found figuring actively in the folk-lore of every country, especially as a sacrifice to water-gods ; but cheese is, so far as I know, thus honoured only in Cambria.

Once more this legend appears, this time with a feature I have nowhere else encountered in fairy land, to wit, the father of a fairy damsel. The son of a farmer on Drws Coed farm was one foggy day looking after his father's sheep, when crossing a marshy meadow he beheld a little lady behind some rising ground. She had yellow hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks. He approached her, and asked permission to converse; whereupon she smiled sweetly and said to him, 'Idol of my hopes, you have come at last!' They there and then began to 'keep company,' and met each other daily here and there along the farm meadows. His intentions were honourable; he desired her to marry him. He was sometimes absent for days together, no one knew where, and his friends whispered about that he had been witched. Around the Turf Lake (Llyn y Dywarchen) was a grove of trees, and under one of these one day the fairy promised to be his. The consent of her father was now necessary. One moonlight night an appointment was made to meet in this wood. The father and daughter did not appear till the moon had disappeared behind the hill. Then they both came. The fairy father immediately gave his consent to the marriage, on one condition, namely, that her future husband should never hit her with iron. ‘If ever thou dost touch her flesh with iron she shall be no more thine, but she shall return to her own.' They were married—a good-looking pair. Large sums of money were brought by her, the night before the wedding, to Drws Coed. The shepherd lad became wealthy, had several handsome children, and they were very happy. After some years, they were one day out riding, when her horse sank in a deep mire, and by the assistance of her husband, in her hurrry to remount, she was struck on her knee by the stirrup of the saddle. Immediately voices were heard singing on the brow of the hill, and she disappeared, leaving all her children behind. She and her mother devised a plan by which she could see her beloved, but as she was not allowed to walk the earth with man, they floated a large turf on the lake, and on this turf she stood for hours at a time holding converse with her husband. This continued until his death.”

—

British Goblins:

Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions

by Wirt Sikes

[vss-culture-is]

hey, not culture sorry, but do you know where you can get diagnosed?

Hello anon!

TL;DR ophtalmologists, neurologists, and generalists can diagnose VSS.

More information under the cut, in case you'd like to go in blind, which I can understand.

In practice, not every individual doctor will know about VSS or understand how it works. It's not the best known condition. Even trained professionals might refuse to diagnose you, either because they cannot comfortably diagnose a condition they don't know about, or because they think it doesn't exist.

The criteria for diagnosing VSS is in four points:

dots in the vision, in a continuous manner

have at least one additional symptom, such as photophobia, nyctalopia, palinopsie, possibly tinnitus, and enhanced entoptic phenomena (other types of dots, floaters, flashes, color waves, etc)

the symptoms must not be explained better by regular migraine aura (not to be confused with PMA, Persistant Migraine Aura, which is not disqualifying for a VSS diagnosis)

the symptoms must not be better explained by another condition such as short or long term effects of certain types of drugs (hallucinogens, psychotropes), brain injuries, Optic Neuritis, possibly others.

In the case your vision problems are indeed better explained by another condition, it's still worth talking to a doctor about it! It doesn't mean the problem was fake in the first place, it's simply a matter of what causes the problem, and how to improve the situation.

Lastly, as always, take everything I say with a grain of salt. I do my best to offer accurate informations, and research at least slightly the topic, but I'm not an expert by any means.

Here's an article about VSS that outlines the diagnosis criteria.

Here's a report that explains a little more in-depth the diagnosis criteria. (among lots of other things, under the "Diagnosis" section scrolling down a bit)

Good luck to you, anon!

[breynekai-tfc]

Last night, I was listening to John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza:  The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.  In Chapter 22, Barry discusses what it means to be a scientist, and I couldn’t help but think about Jack and Maddie Fenton - especially Maddie.  I decided to transcribe those paragraphs and post them here, for use in the character development of the Fentons or just as good ol’ quotable material.

Disclaimers:  Because I transcribed these paragraphs from an audiobook, the punctuation, sentence breaks, and paragraph breaks are my interpretation.  Ellipses (...) represent omissions.  I have bolded sentences that particularly stood out to me. 

The following paragraphs are the property of John M. Barry:  

“To be a scientist requires not only intelligence and curiosity but passion, patience, creativity, self-sufficiency, and courage.  It is not the courage to venture into the unknown.  It is the courage to accept - indeed embrace - uncertainty.  For as Claude Bernard, the great French physiologist of the 19th century, said, “Science teaches us to doubt.”  

A scientist must accept the fact that all his or her work, even beliefs, may break apart upon the sharp edge of a single laboratory finding.  And just as Einstein refused to accept his own theory until his predictions were tested, one must seek out such findings.  Ultimately a scientist has nothing to believe in but the process of inquiry.  To move forcefully and aggressively, even while uncertain, requires a confidence and strength deeper than physical courage.  

All real scientists exist on the frontier.  Even the least ambitious among them deal with the unknown, if only one step beyond the known.  The best among them move deep into a wilderness region where they know almost nothing, where the very tools and techniques needed to clear the wilderness, to bring order to it, do not exist.  There, they probe in a disciplined way.  There, a single step can take them through the looking glass into a world that seems entirely different, and if they are at least partly correct, their probing acts like a crystal, to precipitate an order out of chaos, to create form, structure, and direction.  

A single step can also take one off a cliff.  

...Not all scientific investigators can deal comfortably with uncertainty, and those who can may not be creative enough to understand and design the experiments that will illuminate a subject, to know both where and how to look.  Others may lack the confidence to persist.  Experiments do not simply work.  Regardless of design and preparation, experiments, especially at the beginning, when one proceeds by intelligent guesswork, rarely yield the results desired.  An investigator must make them work.  The less known, the more one has to manipulate and even force experiments to yield an answer.  Which raises another question:  how does one know when one knows? 

In turn, this leads to more practical questions.  How does one know when to continue to push an experiment?  And how does one know when to abandon a clue as a false trail?  No one interested in any truth will torture the data itself, ever.  But a scientist can, and should, torture an experiment to get data, to get a result, especially when investigating a new area.  A scientist can, and should, seek any way to answer a question.  If using mice and guinea pigs and rabbits does not provide a satisfactory answer, then trying dogs, pigs, cats, monkeys.  And if one experiment shows a hint of a result, the slightest bump on a flat line of information, then a scientist designs the next experiment to focus on that bump, to create conditions more likely to get more bumps until they become either consistent and meaningful or demonstrate that the initial bump was mere random variation without meaning.  

There are limits to such manipulation.  Even under torture, nature will not lie, will not yield a consistent reproducible result unless it is true.  But if tortured enough, nature will mislead.  It will confess to something that is true only under special conditions, the conditions the investigator created in the laboratory.  Its truth is then artificial, an experimental artifact.  

One key to science is that work be reproducible.  Someone in another laboratory doing the same experiment will get the same result.  The result then is reliable enough that someone else can build upon it.  The most damning condemnation is to dismiss a finding as not reproducible.  That can call into question not only ability but, on occasion, ethics.  

If a reproducible finding comes from torturing nature, however, it is not useful.  To be useful, a result must not only be reproducible, it must be - perhaps one should call it - expandable.  One must be able to enlarge it, explore it, learn more from it, use it as a foundation to build structures upon.  These things become easy to discern in hindsight.  But how does one know when to persist, when to continue to try to make an experiment work, when to make adjustments, and when finally to abandon a line of thought as mistaken or incapable of solution with present techniques?  How does one know when to do either?  

The question is one of judgement.  For the distinguishing element in science is not intelligence but judgement.  Or perhaps it is simply luck… Judgement is so difficult because a negative result does not mean that the hypothesis is wrong.  Nor do ten negative results, nor do one hundred negative results.  

...How does one know when one knows?  When one is on the edge, one cannot know.  

One can only test.”

[arcticdementor]

An unlikely thing happened to me on my two weeks’ off. I watched an HBO Max miniseries that mocked some aspects of wokeness.

Mike White’s “The White Lotus” is a tragicomic exposé of our current moneyed elites and the psychological dysfunction they labor so mightily under. There’s a blithe, unthinking finance jock, with a worked-out bod, an uneasy new wife, and a shitload of money, who can muster misery at the slightest ruffle in perfection. There’s the beta male, married to the mega-rich corporate CEO wife, worried about the condition his balls. There’s the super-uptight gay manager, hanging on to sobriety, as he performs for his clients; the mega-wealthy, overweight lost soul, played by Jennifer Coolidge, whose life is a pampered abyss of emotional desolation; and an aspiring young journalist who reconciles herself to money and indolence over a mindless career of clickbait snark.

…

And the most repellent characters are two elite-college sophomores, Olivia and Paula, packed to the gills with the fathomlessly entitled smugness that is beginning to typify the first generation re-programmed by critical theory fanatics. You watch as they casually abuse and denigrate their brother — a young man consumed by living online; you see how they mock anyone who doesn’t meet their exacting standards of youth or beauty; you watch them betray and lie to each other; you see them condescend to someone still struggling to pay back student loans (see the clip above); and you witness the co-ed of color, Paula, act out her antiracist principles, with disastrous real world results for a Hawaiian she thinks she is saving from oppression. She leaves her wreckage behind, gliding away, with impunity, to another semester of battling racism.

At one point, in a memorable scene, as the white daughter expounds about the evil of white straight men, her mother points out that she is actually talking about her brother, sitting at the same table. An individual person. Right next to her. Someone she might even love, if such a thing were within her capacity. Someone who cannot be reduced to a demonized version of his unchosen race and heterosexuality. And the only character one can bond with, and root for, is indeed this young white American male, awkward but genuine, whose story ends with a new bond with his dad, an escape from online addiction, and a newly revitalized human life.

“The White Lotus” is not an anti-woke jeremiad. It’s much subtler than that. Even the sophomores seem more naïve and callow than actively sexist and racist. The miniseries doesn’t look away from the staggering social inequality we now live in; and gives us a classic white, straight, male, rich narcissist in the finance jock. But it’s humane. It sees the unique drama of the individual and how that can never be reduced to categories or classes or identities.

And this step toward humaneness is what interests me. Because if we can’t intellectually engage people on how critical theory is palpably wrong in its view of the world, we can sure show how brutal and callous it is — and must definitionally be — toward individual human beings in the pursuit of utopia. “The White Lotus” is thereby a liberal work of complexity and art.

…

Applebaum’s Atlantic piece is a good sign from a magazine that hired and quickly purged a writer for wrong think, and once held a town meeting auto-da-fé to decide which writers they would permanently anathematize as moral lepers.

Similarly, it was quite a shock to read in The New Yorker a fair and empathetic profile of an academic geneticist, Kathryn Paige Harden, who acknowledges a role for genetics in social outcomes. It helps that Harden is, like Freddie DeBoer, on the left; and the piece is strewn with insinuations that other writers on genetics, like Charles Murray, deny that the environment plays a part in outcomes as well (when it is clear to anyone who can read that this is grotesquely untrue). But if the readers of The New Yorker need to be fed distortions about some on the right in order for them to consider the unavoidable emergence of “polygenic scores” for humans, with their vast political and ethical implications, then that’s a step forward.

…

And then, in the better-late-than-never category, The Economist, the bible for the corporate elite, has just come out unapologetically against the Successor Ideology, and in favor of liberalism. This matters, it seems to me, because among the most zealous of the new Puritans are the boards and HR departments of major corporations, which are dedicated right now to enforcing the largest intentional program of systemic race and sex discrimination in living memory. Money quote: “Progressives replace the liberal emphasis on tolerance and choice with a focus on compulsion and power. Classical liberals conceded that your freedom to swing your fist stops where my nose begins. Today’s progressives argue that your freedom to express your opinions stops where my feelings begin.”

The Economist also pinpoints the core tenets of CRT in language easy to understand: “a belief that any disparities between racial groups are evidence of structural racism; that the norms of free speech, individualism and universalism which pretend to be progressive are really camouflage for this discrimination; and that injustice will persist until systems of language and privilege are dismantled.” These “systems of language and privilege” are — surprise! — freedom of speech and economic liberty. If major corporations begin to understand that, they may reconsider their adoption of a half-baked racialized Marxism as good management. Maybe that might persuade Google not to mandate indoctrination in ideas such as the notion being silent on questions of race is “covert white supremacy,” a few notches below lynching.

…

And then there’s a purely anecdotal reflection, to be taken for no more than that: all summer, I’ve been struck by how many people, mostly complete strangers, have come up to me and told me some horror story of an unjust firing, a workplace they’re afraid to speak in, a colleague who has used antiracism for purely vindictive or careerist purposes, or a hiring policy so crudely racist it beggars belief. The toll is mounting. And the anger is growing. The fury at CRT in high schools continues to roil school board meetings across the country. Some Americans are not taking this new illiberalism on the chin.

This isn’t much, I know. Read Peter Boghossian’s resignation letter from Portland State University to see how deep the rot has gotten. But it’s something. It’s a sign that there is now some distance from the moral panic of mid-2020 and the start of reflection upon the most zealous aspects of this new illiberalism.