#I think if she DOES end up evolving it would be during her pursuit of Ruby’s siblings.

[sincerely-sofie]

I’m the anon that sent in all the Ruby stuff! It makes me so happy that you love her so much. I didn’t expect her to be such a beloved character to you and I was kind of nervous that you would have hated her tbh. ^^;

Something Ruby related — I had a fic about Twig and co. confronting the siblings before I ultimately scrapped it because I could not write villainous characters without making them feel cliché. I do remember this one line said by Ruby’s sister when she lashes out towards Twig:

“You wouldn’t get it. You have a cushy life style and you baby your daughter instead of actually raising her. We’re doing that ungrateful, spoiled brat a favor — we’re teaching her how to survive. You wouldn’t know the meaning of that with that silver spoon in your mouth.”

I don’t blame you for struggling with not making the siblings feel cliché— writing villainous characters gets 900x more difficult the second you don’t want to make them sympathetic. Ark was fairly simple for me to write, even in scrapped scenes where he was all-in with his villainous role during the events of the post-game. Twig’s aunt, meanwhile, gave me a heck of a hard time while I was developing her backstory.

[rebellionbeach]

The Usami brothers and whole family as a whole are really interesting characters.  Due mostly by the fact of how different Haruhiko and Akihiko are yet similar in many ways as well.  Let’s start with rabbit boy.

Not only is this man extremely sexy but he’s also one of the most popular novelists in Japan believe it or not (not in real life guys)  Akihiko is the presumably biological son of Natsuko and Fuyuhiko and younger brother of Haruhiko Usami.  Growing up, he had always yearned for the attention of his parents, wanting to impress them and make them happy.  Haruhiko had actually been introduced to the Usami household at the age of 12 so Akihiko was 10 at the time and significant development seemed to grow from this change.  As shown from volume 21, everyone had been cheering Akihiko on as the legitimate heir of the Usami family meaning to take over the family business however he had never gotten this support from his parents before.  As a young child he had believed that if he just tried harder and became good at everything, then his parents would finally recognize him.  However, this wasn’t the case unfortunately as shown in the same volume once a young Akihiko came home from school gaining full marks on a test, eager to show his father when he caught him telling Haruhiko that he truly intended to make him the heir of the family business.  This impact was further felt once his mother, who had also witnessed this, declared that she should have never bore Fuyuhiko’s child which in the eyes of a young child must have been completely shattering.  An important seed was planted however and I believe that it was at this moment that Akihiko had started to evolve into the person he is today.  He poured all his emotion, pain, loss, suffering into his notebooks, his stories, proclaiming it to be his entire world.  Overtime we see that Akihiko grows to be very adept at the talent, being one of the top-selling authors from debut which occurred while still in high school and becoming a full-fledged novelist.  Doing this, he completely rejected his family and any connections he might have had to take over the business.  

Looking as Akihiko today it is very clear the type of individual he is, independent and self-serving, he’s his own boss and does only the things he wants to do.  From the first episode of season 2 we see this as there is a key event that takes place between the two Usami brothers in which a confrontation between two escalates into a full-out argument over Akihiko coming back to, as I assume, take over the lead of the Usami company and or serve there.  I will note later on Haruhiko’s tone and content of his language but it’s Akihiko’s response which truly stuck out to me as he stated that he had no inclination of going back to that house and if that Haruhiko truly didn’t like being there then why doesn’t he just leave as well.

This point may seem entirely irrelevant but I actually believe it highlights an essential part of Akihiko’s character that not only serves as his strength but also a blind spot in that of his independence.  Akihiko is the type of person who is able to do the things he’d like to do and encourages the people he cares about, basically Misaki, to do the same such as in episode 2 of season 3 where he is actually the one who encourages Misaki to enter into Marukawa after Misaki dismisses those thoughts as just a fantasy.  This is a thing for his relationship with Misaki as he allows the man a different perspective and in a way allows him, or at least encourages him, to be more selfish.  However this can also be seen as a flaw of his character as it can be interpreted that the only reason he has this lax and independent personality in the first place is because of his more well-off family and the fact that he’d had connections from the start.  In all honestly though, this part of Usagi-san’s personality is one of the main reasons why I actually enjoy his character, along with his thoughtful nature, as I believe that it’s a pretty unique and well-suited trait.

Let’s get into Harry Potter or the eldest brother of the Usami residence, Haruhiko.  Haruhiko isn’t Akihiko’s direct brother as stated before but rather a product of an affair that Fuyuhiko had with his mother.  For the first 12 years of his life, Haruhiko had actually been raised by his single-mother whom he loved very much.  During these times he had been seen to be much more happy despite living in poorer circumstances.  This is a large aspect that is pretty big onto why he is the way he is today.  After his mother tragically passing on, Fuyuhiko took him into to live in the Usami residence.  Now this in itself is absolutely devastating, living with a father-figure that had never truly been there for you with a new mother-in-law that despises your every existence because you’re the proof of the infidelities of her marriage and a new younger brother who seemed lifeless from the rest of this.  Top it all off with the devastation from losing the only person you truly loved and was there for you and damn I’m surprised that Haruhiko didn’t full out lose it.  

Now going back to the scene originally discussed with Akihiko’s backstory, let us switch perspective onto Haruhiko during this situation.  Your new dad just stated that the person he had truly loved in his lifetime was your dead mother and that he intended to make you, a 12 year old child, the heir of their family company that you had just learned about.  Not only this but everyone around you is your enemy as shown through all the people cheering on Akihiko to become the true heir and saying that Haruhiko stole his position.  There is basically no one there to support you, similar to Akihiko, and unlike Akihiko he actually was not used to this new circumstance making the situation even worse. 

I’d like to discuss the scene stated before during episode 1 of season 2.  Here, Haruhiko is visibly angry as Akihiko’s lack of care for his role in the Usami residence.  This is something we’ve never actually gotten to see ever since with Haruhiko barely showing any emotion at all.  However, if you take in the full context of his upbringing and circumstance to that point, you can see a fuller picture of what the man has gone through to become the stoic chosen one we know today.  Akihiko, after being hoisted by Isaka to finally start publishing his works, his entire being, finally achieved success independent from the Usami residence, marking himself finally as an individual allowing him to finally see that he only needs himself.  I think this is what caused Akihiko to cut most connection from his family, despite the occasional visits, and totally puts himself away from the idea of succeeding and become the heir of his family’s company.  This leaves Haruhiko with the burden of shouldering the entire Usami company’s future, something he never truly wanted to today with architecture being his main priority.  What he see’s in Akihiko is this lazy, selfish person who only thinks of himself, abandoning all his familial duties to a brother whom he barely batted an eye to during childhood.  This is what he hates in Akihiko, but also envies.  A very interesting point that season 2 makes with the connection between the Usami brothers is the inherent jealously Haruhiko feels toward Akihiko, with him trying to steal things from him during their upbringing together according to Akihiko.  Even Misaki finally has this revelation during episode 8 I believe when he was distracting him from Kaoruko.  I think his jealously mainly stems from the fact that Akihiko got his independence while Haruhiko is still confined to the Usami gates.  With all of Akihiko’s absent-minded behavior and to quote Haruhiko, “having the eyes of a dead fish”, Akihiko in the end still achieved that sense of independence that Haruhiko could only dream about having.  Add onto the fact that everyone around you hates that you got this position, lobbying for your younger half-brother who barely gives in the effort to succeed you, then baby that’s a recipe for childhood resentment if I’ve ever seen one.  

So what does this all mean, well nothing since this is an over-analysis on a yaoi manga but in a reality I think it comes to show the clear dynamic Haruhiko and Akihiko have on one another.  In recent chapters it is shown that Haruhiko is more and more aspiring in his own pursuits in architecture, even accepting his position as lead of the Usami household and accepting the fact that he’ll never get Misaki, wanting to stay as his ally instead (which is a lot more than I can say for a CERTAIN manga author).

I love Haruhiko AND Akihiko, they both are really great characters and I’d think it would be nice if in the future they could perhaps reconcile their relationship and kind of start to get along.  The Usami household fucked up a lot of kids but they are still going strong and who knows, maybe Haruhiko might get a lover in the future (AKA Todo)

Thank you and now I implore you to go listen to Nelson’s After the Rain album, 10/10 made me cry.

[raijinden]

     meta.001 on the subject of the FUTURE OF INAZUMA && THE CONCEPT OF ETERNITY

     ( warning !! heavily references information present within the 2.1 Omnipresence over Mortals questline as well as the Imperatrix Umbrosa Act I: Reflections of Mortality questline !! )

      “ what I take from these stories is not so much the content itself, but what they represent in terms of the effects of time upon Inazuma. -- in accordance with my wishes, the Shogun did her best to create an eternal nation. a nation that, in theory, should remain entirely unchanged over time ...

     i'm wary of any and all change, but I do not wish for my pursuit of eternity to stop human lives from changing for the better. “

     as ei makes abundantly clear through the visitation of her own city with the traveler and paimon at her side, she finds herself at a very critical crossroads in her life for a number of subjects . she must re - evaluate what eternity means to her and how she will continue that pursuit, what she must do to ensure her citizens remain protected, yet able to change and evolve further-- and in the light who she and the shogun are . additionally, she is coming to terms with the modernity that her nation has become since the last time she walked upon it .

     the greatest and most apparent impact that affected bael during the cataclysm of khaenri ‘ ah was, of course, the passing of her sister . you could call this the ‘ icing on the cake ‘-- having dealt with the untimely passing of the tengu general sasyuri during the inazuman civil war between followers of narukami and followers of orobaxi, the corruption of the oni swordmaiden chiyo which would result in her turning her blade upon bael, and the sudden disappearance of the revered kitsune saiguu . inazuma had ever been jointly ruled under baal and bael since the archon war reached its conclusion, founded and maintained for 1500 years of unchanging and relatively peaceful rule until these events, in fairly rapid succession, would assail her . with but one confidante to confide in in the form of the newly appointed guuji yae miko, yet no desire to load her troubles and problems onto someone else, she would decline so rapidly, and so terribly too .

     eternity has ever been the domain of the inazuman archon, and it was bael’s firm belief that it ought not to change-- not with the reverence and respect and adoration of their god that she saw in the people . and so she decided to let that eternity live on, to take up the mantle of her beloved sibling, to take her name and her role and pretend things were as they were not-- she had played the part of ‘ baal ‘ many a time during archon gatherings . but oh, she found quickly that she was not prepared to be a true ruler . she was a warrior, the age - old kagemusha who hid in the shadows, who paraded with a hundred demons and rained judgement lightning upon the enemies of the shogunate . she was no shogun ... no ruler, and there were many a time she would falter before her council-- ‘ what would makoto do ? ‘ ‘ how would she respond ? ‘-- for it was makoto who was a ruler, and ei who was a warrior . but though the two differed greatly in their style of leadership, what did not change was the love they held for the people .

     and so it was that she, in recognizing her failings, constructed the ideal ruler . one who could fearlessly and faultlessly seek out ‘ eternity ‘ for herself and for her people, all the while bael could return to her position of old-- to hide in the shadows . once again there was a figurehead of power that she worked and supported from behind-- though she was ever reminded when speaking to the Shogun that it was she who was supported instead . and thus, with knowledge blessed of her last living companion, she vanished, self - imposed sealing within her blade to ever remain strong of spirit in contemplation of the eternity she sought, while the Shogun would keep safe the people .

     and for 500 years, she sat in utter silence . the shogun would not ever speak to her, did not ever need to seek council for she was stalwart, and ei was fine with that . she had faith in what she created, in the blessedly simple directive ‘ seek eternity ‘ .

     so when it is that the traveler is the first being she sees in hundreds of years ... she is confronted once again with the confusion from before . the shogun could not have faltered, and she had not been inquired by the one without, so why then, were there those who opposed her with all their might ? but still ... she remains faithful in the shogun, and remains contemplative . contemplative even as the traveler returns, and yae miko herself appears within the plane of euthymia and she loses a duel for the first time in her long, long 2000 years .

     and contemplative she returns, demanding a period of ‘ rest ‘ in which she grows introspective, changing the shogun’s directives and debating what the proper step forward would be, until the traveler, once again, seeks her out and invites her out .

     as with so many other things in this eventful year of hers, it is the first time in 500 years she has returned to the mortal plane . and oh, by the gods, how it changed-- she is so overwhelmed she damn near returns to her blade . ( for retrospect, let us consider the 500 year difference in our world:

          the 1500s were rampant with disease, conquest and invading of ‘ uninhabited ‘ or ‘ barbaric ‘ lands is very much the norm in spite of its despicable nature-- there is no separation of church and state in most places, and in fact, religious systems are something of an overbearing force on societies at large . if we were to step through a door that transported us to the 2000s, say, current day, would it not leave us shell - shocked ? to go from that, to a world where food can be stored for days, weeks on end, can suddenly be warmed up in a little box-- to see a means of communication with people all around the world a manner of seconds ? now certainly, teyvat is no earth, there are not towering builds of metal, save for the factories of snezhnaya as we know of now, but it is still such a monumental difference ) .

     to step out into this world, to walk a street she rules over, but has never seen in her life-- it is unbelievably eye - opening to ei, who has spent half of millennium staring at the same, run - down torii gates on a backdrop of bleak scarlet . her concept of eternity is shaken unto its very core-- and it only further is turned on its head as she sees how her people live .

          everyone is very uptight and fearful to her-- and she has said before that she is no fan of lofty titles . she sees tomoki, finds delight in his stall and the dango milk he has-- but she learns that he is unsuccessful because people are afraid to try something new-- they are afraid of CHANGE, and so they do not even know what they miss out on . her curiosity in yae’s other pursuits brings her to the publishing house wherein she learns of her people’s passions . they are no books or literature she has ever before written-- and she has such interest in each book that is presented to her--

she’s intrigued by the liyue martial arts story, even claiming that she would dearly delight in sparring with the main character and that she has a respect of his sense of justice

the daily life romance story presents her with the concept of challenging decisions with regards to love-- something she does not quite understand in her claim that one could simply choose all seven interests-- which she is told would make a poor love story, and she realizes she has a different view on ‘ love ‘ than her people

finally, perhaps the most interesting one, the reincarnation adventure story . it gives a very clear cut view of how at least some of her subjects view her, or rather, the shogun . she is not in the least insulted, but instead applauds the creativity and imaginative writing ( also noting that publications are approved by yae miko, and this one too must have crossed her path ) .

     even in spite of this ‘ eternity ‘ that she seeks, having believed for so long that it meant stagnation and unchanging in the face of time, the people have changed . and, perhaps more interesting to her, is that the Shogun did not view this as a threat to eternity-- so why then, should she ?

     finally, she is given an inside look at her own executive system, the inner conflicts within the tenryou commission in the face of the kujou clan’s treachery . with the traveler at her side, she enters the mountain - side base and bears witness to a sight she had seen just weeks before-- her people attempting to curry favor to themselves by providing falsities .

      “ if you still think you can copy the fatui's strategy of providing me with deceptive information to produce flaws in my judgment... “

     yet, where the kujou clan head did this with the firm belief that the almighty shogun would simply triumph over the fatui anyway, the takatsukasa clan head did this knowingly in the belief that his clan would benefit . even with the Shogun’s unwavering and eternal gaze, there are still things that cause her people to suffer . she sees this now for her own eyes, in her own body when she stands somewhere the shogun would never have even considered . and so she decides then that she will return . there may be a time for her and a time for the shogun, but she will be among her people again . whether that is simply traversing the tenshukaku grounds or descending into the city proper to ensure she always has an understanding of her people that is not based on what others tell her .

     “ the Shogun does not make mistakes — she is incapable of doing so. but i, as ei, would like to offer my apologies. “

     she recognizes that she has made a grave miscalculation, but for the first time in her life, she has elected not to hide away for it, but to take responsibility for it . though the traveler is not the one she has wronged most severely, the fact that she apologizes is incredibly significant . she understands that she has failed-- that it was not the Shogun who failed inazuma, but that she did in not understanding how much it affected her people, how much it was not eternity for her people she was seeking, but a selfish wish of her own .

     she recognizes too that one, single apology to the only person who managed to best her in combat is not even a drop in the ocean of work she has to make up for 500 years of ignorance . on the conclusion of her story quest, she states that she will return to her plane, but that her solitude will not last much longer .

     ei convenes with the Shogun, on the subject of reprogramming, and the nature in which they might jointly have a place within the body that was once only the Shogun’s . when she concludes her ages long period of reflection, she begins her work in earnest -- she has had 500 years to ponder the nature of eternity, and how it effects both herself and her people, and that period of time is at its end . she spends well upon a week in deep concentration, remembering the years before the grief, remembering the words of the kitsune saiguu, of torachiyo, of sasayuri and most of all, of makoto . she is no born ruler as her sister was, she is a warrior, but for inazuma that she loves with all that is left of her heart, she will learn to be the ruler that it deserves, had long deserved for 500 years .

     the second fear that was born of the cataclysm of khaenri ‘ ah, was the fear for her people . because khaenri ‘ ah was godless, its people sought to elevate themselves in that place, and they became so wise, so very, very wise . oh, how celestia did not like that . and so it was that ei and her sister went to fight in a war for a cause which they did not believe in, and it was not the sister bathed in blood that would pay the price, but the sister the people looked to that would . especially in current day, ei deathly fears celestia and the whim in which it acts upon-- what if that temper one day fell upon inazuma for their successes ?

     long ago, ei’s eternity hinged upon stagnation because if the people did not ever change, then celestia would never find reason to decimate them, to take the people that held what fragments of her heart remained from her . now she realizes that no matter what, people will change, they will soldier forward . why then, she thinks, should they feel the weight of a god who opposes this inevitably so staunchly . if the day should come that celestia turns their hellishly divine gaze upon inazuma with fire in its hands, ei would now sooner die fighting tooth and nail for their ability to grow ever stronger and ever greater rather than opposing and weakening them for celestia to come and sweep away what remains .

     and so she is different now . she walks on shaky legs for a future that she does not know if she believes in wholly yet, but it is a future that her people look upon with eagerness in their eyes, and so the electro archon’s eternity will align .

     eternity is a ceaseless and unattainable thing for humans, but for ei, it is the belief that every sun she watches raise will do so over the people she has protected even though they are not the people of yesterday, and the people of tomorrow may not be them . the people change, this is something she cannot control, time goes on whether she likes it or not . but no matter how many times the hands on a clock spin, they will always and eternally ever be inazuma’s people, and she will always give blood and blade for them .

     and the only moment that that fact will cease to be true will be the day that celestia hurls a blade of judgement through her chest and cuts away at the one who no longer bears their ‘ gift ‘ .

     “ inazuma shines eternal “

[bestworstcase]

Okay but what is the general consensus on Zhan Tiri eating Ri Ni’n I would like to know

:D

the general consensus is. there is no general consensus ALKSDFJK

in ye olden times, by which i mean ~500 years prior to the consumption and earlier, the dominant belief in the citir region where ri ni’n grew was. ri ni’n in a protector/guardian role and the... entity that would become zhan tiri (known by various names but most commonly gat as’la) as this... slumbering devourer figure kept at bay by ri ni’n the gatekeeper. really early on gat as’la was considered... frightening but not evil. a force of primordial violence and part of the natural creation/destruction cycle that the abralians, who were the dominant culture in the area at the time, believed in. this mythology began to drift more and more towards malevolence as gat as’la began to “wake up” ie take more of an active interest in humankind. 

then! during the last decade or so before the shattered era begins, gat as’la encounters dione, who survives. no one has ever escaped before so gat as’la spends the next nine or ten years chasing her until that enmity sort of evolves into a mutual fascination. in 0 SE they make a bargain, gat as’la renames herself ẓanti’ri, and dione founds a cult in her name (the host of the rotted vulture). HRV’s characterization of ẓanti’ri has a lot in common with late-abralian characterizations of gat as’la—a cruel, violent devourer—but with the key difference of there being no notion of ẓanti’ri being held at bay by ri ni’n. she’s already here. they coexist. 

(early HRV ẓanti’ri is a goddess of war and vengeance, pretty much, with a pinch of apocalypse death cult thrown in for good measure. it is not a nice organization.)

*deep breath* 

to zoom out a little, zhan tiri’s domain is hunger and she is, to a much greater extent than the average sublime entity, sort of malleable in nature. most gods form when a significant amount of magic coagulates around an anchor point, and anchor points come from widespread shared beliefs or doubts or feelings about the cosmos at large. so, like, cathay for example began to form once sentient races started asking questions about what happens to people when they die. zhan tiri, on the other hand, actually predates the cosmos by a wide margin. she’s an abyssal parasite that crawled out of the dark country eons ago, killed jinarche, ate part of her corpse, absorbed and corrupted a big chunk of her power, and became... sort of a cosmic personification of hunger and sort of a cursed reincarnation of jinarche. and that cataclysm created the current cosmos with the separation between the profane and sublime realms etc. 

ANYWAY THE POINT IS, zhan tiri is what she eats. i mean this in the most literal way possible. when she struck that deal with dione, dione’s soul became... hm. tethered to ẓanti’ri’s sphere of power, so while ẓanti’ri didn’t eat it in the literal sense it still became, in a way, part of her. likewise for the other acolytes of the HRV. so an unintended side-effect of ẓanti’ri being worshipped is that it infects her with little bits of humanity. this had already begun to happen a little bit during her pursuit of dione (and was the impetus for her to choose her name) but it accelerates as the cult took off.

around 420 SE, ẓanti’ri has a divine existential crisis and spends a few years wandering and brooding until she ends up in the peatland of what would become saporia and meets sorchā, who is a young poet and philosopher afflicted with her own ennui. they talk a lot, and sorchā starts to crystalize her own philosophical theories and, in particular, the idea of “choimghē” as an ideal combination of the profane and sublime. (ẓanti’ri also adopts the spelling of zhan tiri around this time.) the concept of choimghē fascinates zhan tiri, who goes to ri ni’n to seek advice or help achieving it. 

(she goes to ri ni’n because, as the cosmic bridge, ri ni’n is of both the profane and sublime realms.)

now! zhan tiri and ri ni’n are not and have never been enemies. their relationship is more akin to the relationship between zhan tiri and huma or turul, i.e. they belong to the same, in a manner of speaking, family. there’s no like... biological relationship because sublime entities do not have biological relationships, but the four of them all developed around the same time and their spheres of power all overlap pretty extensively, and they’re all, like, compatible with each other. if turul is your patron it would be reasonable for you to petition zhan tiri for a one-off favor, for example, that kind of thing. 

which is to say zhan tiri does not approach ri ni’n in an antagonistic way or at all with the intention of killing her, but... ri ni’n a) couldn’t help zhan tiri with this even if she wants to and b) doesn’t want to, because zhan tiri has spent the last several centuries being horrible and ri ni’n, who understands things like pain and fear because she exists on the physical plane and has a body, disapproves of that. so she tells zhan tiri that the only way to get what she wants is through more violence, which ri ni’n will not under any circumstances help her with, and that if she does go through with it she’ll bear the consequences forever. and zhan tiri is like #YOLO and eats her. 

so like i said, zhan tiri is what she eats, so... there is a strong theological argument to be made that rather than ‘killing’ ri ni’n, zhan tiri engulfed and became her—this is the standard doctrine of the modern HRV. in any case she absorbed all of ri ni’n’s power, supplanted her as the cosmic bridge, and (this part is important) grew a body. (said body is a vast blobby mass of random things but she can smash bits of it into more... uh, coherent shapes when she wants to appear on the planet.) and part of having an actual physical body was that it came with physical sensations and real emotions rather than just vague impressions left by all the human souls she’d collected over the years so this whole process was a nightmare alksdfk and sorchā got to deal with this trillion-year-old god having a sensory overload meltdown for several months. 

the point being, in the aftermath of eating ri ni’n, zhan tiri mellowed out a lot. became... gentler. experiencing pain for herself and the realizing she had done that to people herself was horrifying for her. and this is also when her sphere began to really branch and grow into the eclectic monstrosity that it is today, because while attempting to process all these new things she was experiencing her only real frame of reference was ‘hunger.’

( zhan tiri: love is when you want to eat someone but have them not, like, die because of it right

sorchā: no )

so ANOTHER perspective on the eating ri ni’n situation is that it was kind of a last time pays for all type of thing. zhan tiri slaughtered one of her own siblings for personal gain and, just as ri ni’n warned her, she’s going to carry the consequences of that and every act of violence that came before for eternity and the nature of those consequences also mean she now has the capacity to be better. one last shattering atrocity in exchange for her becoming, not an entity driven by the compulsion to take and take but one capable of choice even though she does still feel that urge. this is the framework the thorn syconium teaches. 

then you also get myths here and there where zhan tiri and ri ni’n are understood as always having been one and the same, and their mythological enmity and the subsequent consumption of ri ni’n is interpreted as an individual entity having an internal conflict with itself, torn between its cruel and destructive urges (represented in the figure of gat as’la) and its compassionate and creative urges (represented in the figure of ri ni’n). in this conceptualization, ri ni’n is actually the triumphant half and zhan tiri’s ‘consumption’ of her is representative of zhan tiri embracing that side of her nature and bringing herself into balance. this view is especially popular with the sect of the HRV that resides in antares. 

then of course there’s another perspective that is more grounded in scholarship on the abralian faith, where ri ni’n was this gatekeeper who kept this dangerous, malevolent force of destruction at bay and guarded the wellspring of life and so on, and from that perspective this is a matter of zhan tiri having triumphed over ri ni’n and the world now being in an apocalyptic epoch that will ultimately end in the utter destruction of everything. 

and there’s the, like, demanitus framework, which is based on his writings and accounts of his battles with not just zhan tiri but also other gods, which takes things a step further to suggest that all gods are hostile to mortal life and the only way to avert the growing apocalypse is to cut off the sublime realm’s access to the profane realm altogether by removing the cosmic bridge. which is precisely what demanitus did when he banished zhan tiri to the dark country.

and then there’s the entities of the sublime realm themselves, who have myriad personal opinions on zhan tiri slaying and devouring another god because she felt like it and tend to pass those views on to their own cults. one of the reasons it is nigh impossible to kill one of zhan tiri’s scions is you would need the help of another god to do it, and zhan tiri is the largest, oldest, and most powerful god around, notorious for being extremely attached to her scions, and also a proven god-killer. nobody wants to get eaten. even cathay, however willing she might be to antagonize zhan tiri in other ways, wouldn’t do it. 

and then there’s huma and turul, who as i said belong to the same ‘family’ as both zhan tiri and ri ni’n, and who i think were kind of like “zhan tiri what the fuck” about it. but it’s not like—despite the sibling analogy i keep using—it isn’t equivalent to the human horror that this situation, of one sibling killing and eating another, would provoke. everything ri ni’n was—her power, her magic, her essence—still exists. she isn’t dead, in the way that gods can die (by becoming unmoored from their domain, which shreds them and causes their magic to disperse into the sublime realm itself). she’s just. part of zhan tiri now. so for huma and turul it’s more of a “why in the world did you do this to yourself” sort of “zhan tiri what the fuck” than it is a “you murdered our sister?!” thing. 

...so yeah. the general consensus on this depends a lot on where and whom you ask gjksdjkf. i think the thorn syconium framework is the one closest to zhan tiri’s feelings on the matter, unless she’s in a mood. 

[a-cai-jpg]

it's startlingly easy for the line between reality and fantasy to blur

(hold on tight, don't lose your grip.)

glossary:

S. - novel by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams Ship of Theseus - fictional novel by V.M. Straka S. -  character in Ship of Theseus "S" - collective of writers Ekstrom, Durand, Summersby - part of "S" Filomela - editor for V.M. Straka Signe Rabe - daughter to Ekstrom and Durand (contested!) Desjardins - Straka scholar, married to Signe Rabe

For the past few days, I've been reading and re-reading a book titled S.

S. is a novel co-written between Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams. (I believe Dorst did most of the writing and Abrams came up with the idea.)

I was taken by the novel when I first saw it because of the handwritten notes in the margins and the inserts.

(I don't know if y'all remember those huge, flip books in Costco that would have inserts and pop-ups about dragons and faeries and stuff. I used to spend hours standing in that aisle flipping and perusing through all of them.)

But damn, S. is so much more than margin-notes and fake post cards.

S. is a novel with three different storylines.

When you first take the physical book out of its booksleeve, it's a book titled Ship of Theseus by V.M. Straka, a novel published posthumously by Straka's editor, Filomela, after his untimely death in 1946.

Within this 456-page book, you become privy to the lives of three groups of people. Firstly, there is the protagonist of Ship of Theseus, a amnesiac man simply named S. Then, there are the authors of the margin-notes, Jen and Eric, two students at Pollard State University trying to discover the secret behind the mysterious and elusive author of Ship of Theseus, V.M. Straka. Lastly, there is the story of Straka himself.

(I feel like I can't talk about the book without explaining what I found in the book, so heavy spoiler alert.)

After some extensive note-taking and reading, I've more or less figured out the three storylines. I will allude to two of them, but the following is an in-depth-ish synopsis of Ship of Theseus itself. 

In Ship of Theseus, S. wakes up in an unnamed town known only as The Old Quarter, washed up from shore. He hears voices of those suffering, and he meets a girl who introduces herself as Sola. She is reading a novel titled The Archer's Tales. This is a real book (real, in the sense that it exists in the second level, the Jen and Eric level), written by Sobreiro. In Spanish, it is El Libro de Ese (The Book of S).

S. is kidnapped and wakes up on a ship, which is later revealed to have the name Sobreiro etched on its hull. After a storm, he ends up in a town called B--- and finds himself amidst a worker's rebellion against a factory. He sees a woman who looks similar to Sola, but goes by the name Szalómé, and in his pursuit of her, he realizes that there is a man planning to bomb the factory and kill the workers. He hesitates between warning them and following Sola, and ultimately retraces his steps back to the factory, but he is too late.

He and four crucial persons of the rebellion survive the blast and escape. In the getaway, the four are killed by the Detectives who work for Vévoda, the malicious owner of the factory hiding a dangerous secret. S. jumps off a cliff into the ocean. Somehow, he ends back up on the ship. It looks different, a patchwork of different types of wood, but he knows its the same ship. 

Something interesting to note about the ship is that the sailors have their lips sewn shut. There is a rotation system, where one sailor at a time goes to the orlop, but S. is never allowed to go there.

(i didn't know wtf an orlop is, but apparently, it's the lowest deck of a ship lol)

S. searches for his identity through writing and scrawls his stories into the wooden walls of the ship with a nail. When the ship approaches land again, he is rowed to shore by a crewmember. He follows a guide on the land through a town, El H---, and realizes that decades have passed since he last stepped foot on shore. In El H---, he arrives at a library/museum where the residents are packing up art and literature to protect from an impending invasion by the Agents, who are the evolved version of the Detectives. There, he sees a portrait of a woman who looks like Sola, but is told her name is Samar. He is given a valise and then told to return to the ship. The invasion arrives, but he successfully makes it back to the ship with the help of a person that he believes is Sola.

The valise is filled with material and notes on how to make various poisons and a stack of 57 photographs of individuals.

The next time he arrives on shore, the crewmembers haul boxes and boxes of cargo from the ship into a warehouse for safekeeping. He climbs a volcano and meets a very old woman who shows him a book of the Ship of Theseus. She tells him to make a decision, and that the question of Sola is always there. He races back to the ship, enters the orlop, and sees a solitary writing desk, ink, reams of paper, and boxes identical to the ones currently being packed into the warehouse. He sits down and begins to write. 

(It's clear that when the sailors go to the orlop, they too, are writing.)

The sailors return and sew his mouth shut. 

S. embarks on his new mission, having made the decision the old woman had presented him. He begins his journey to kill each and every one of the 57 people photographed, who are Agents of Vévoda. With every person killed, a page of a book is tucked into his or her pocket. In Vévoda's retaliation, a similar signature is used. 

In a mission to kill the governor, another one of Vévoda's people, he recognizes the governor as one of the original four who had escaped with him from the rebellion. Not only does he realize he's been betrayed by someone who believed in the cause even before he did, the guides who are with him are killed, and he thinks he sees Sola and his younger self.

After a stint in the Winter City, S. finally meets Sola, who travels with him to the château to kill Vévoda and his guests, who are all powerful statespeople and businesspeople from around the world. During the operation, which is to poison the black wine that Vévoda has created, he realizes that this is not what he wants. He asks himself if it matters what he wants, and makes the decision for the very first time that yes, it matters. So he doesn't kill them.

Instead, he persuades Vévoda's heir to drink the wine, and the young man ends up spilling the intentions of the Vévoda powerhouse, which is to create the opportunities and provide the resources for power-hungry people around the world to have their way, utterly disregarding the powerless. 

At the end, there is a vision where S. and Sola return to the ship and, as they sail, spot another ship that he says is "one of theirs."

Just Ship of Theseus by itself, ignoring the other two storylines, is packed with allegories and metaphors.

The novel itself is difficult to get through and vaguely existential, but I think Straka's message ultimately distills to the notion that the struggle against greed is both overwhelming and relentless. To join in the fight is to lose your identity and free will, but sometimes, it is the decision that you have to make.

S., therefore, is not a singular person, but rather, one link in an ongoing "tradition" starting with perhaps Sobreiro, in the 1600s (I quote "tradition" here because it is the term used in the book). He wakes up with no memory and is pushed into and along this revolution against the growing power of Vévoda, likely like the many people before him and the many after him (the younger S. that appears with Sola). 

(Hence why he has no name, but instead, a placeholder, because this is a story that will be lived many, many times by those who hear and answer to the calls of the suffering.)

(I write about S. in a very passive manner, because he is just that.)

The Ship of Theseus is a thought-experiment exploring whether or not the ship is the same ship if you replace all of its original parts. The answer presented in the novel is a conflicted one. The author argues that the next Vévoda, the heir to the corporation, may or may not be the same as his father. Furthermore, the author writes an S. that deviates from the original plan--who chooses Sola over the tradition. Both Vévoda and S. are placeholders for two ideas--the former being the corrupt and greedy, and the latter being the opposing force. Using the Ship of Theseus as the title implies that each iteration of Vévoda and S is identical, yet the author challenges that notion in the last chapter.

Why would the author do that, you may ask?

BECAUSE the message Dorst and Abrams tries to bring with S. is much more nuanced. 

NOW.

NOW IT'S TIME TO BRING IN THE NEXT LAYER.

WHO IS V.M. STRAKA?

That is the question asked in the foreword written by Filomela, the editor, but also the question Jen and Eric try to answer throughout the book. 

There is one compelling theory that I love very much, which is V.M. Straka is ultimately a figurehead for a movement started by a collective of radical literary scholars who are trying to uncover the corruption and greed of businesses and governments around the world, sometimes with very extreme methods like murder.

This is true. To a certain extent. (The group is known as "S.")

(Yes. I know.)

(Guess what their signature is? A page of a Straka book tucked in the pocket of the corpse.)

But, Straka was also a person.

(This is where Dorst and Abram's novel grows beyond Ship of Theseus.)

In the original Ch. 10 that Straka writes, Sola and three others die, and he returns to sea feeling like he has failed the people he's tried to protect. At the ocean, the point-of-view suddenly shifts, and the reader begins seeing through the lens of an unnamed young man.

The young man boards the ship.

WHAT BEGINS AT THE WATER SHALL END THERE, AND WHAT ENDS THERE SHALL ONCE MORE BEGIN.

See, Ship of Theseus is semi-autobiographical, regardless of how much Eric tries to argue that you can't assume everything a writer writes is about him/herself. Ship of Theseus is Straka's final reckoning with the movement in which he's immersed himself. This is why it’s titled Ship of Theseus.

In Straka's original manuscript, with S. standing in as himself, he writes that he's failed his fellow comrades. He despairs that the next generation will similarly be both humbled and tortured by the fight.

Because this original manuscript is lost after Straka's death, Filomela writes a happier ending, in which S. loses neither Sola nor the fight. S. and Sola continue the "tradition," along with numerous others after them. This is the ending she wishes for them, because she was in love with Straka, but the ending Straka never dared to choose.

Ugh, and that's what's so fucking powerful about S. It is a conversation amongst three S.'s and three Solas. There's the original S. and Sola in the novel, where S.'s preoccupation with the "tradition" ends in Sola's death. There's Straka and Filomela, where Straka's fear of choosing Filomela ends in his own death and a missed opportunity with Filomela. Then, there's Eric and Jen, where they choose each other AND Ship of Theseus.

They choose to continue embarking on this journey to prove who Straka is together, possibly outing the powerful corporation the “S” was fighting against in Straka’s time, and ultimately, reconciling the indecision of S. and the fear of Straka.

Before I leave you, there is one other thing Ship of Theseus discusses that makes my heart skip a beat when I think about it.

S. writes. His crewmembers write. Their writings are protected in a warehouse. They no longer have the ability to speak, but their power comes through the words that they write and leave for the next generation.

(Eric was right to be fixated on the "generation" theme.)

When S. is on the Territory (where he kills the governor), Vévoda's people are blasting mountains carved with images of the Old Village's history for natural resources to build formidable, destructive weapons.

The erasure of indigenous stories for the benefit of the greedy and powerful and the erasure of stories in general is a prominent theme throughout Ship of Theseus.

(similarly, our world is plagued by the same problem, both in the past and today. see: cultural terrorism. but also colonialism and imperialism in general lol.)

However, what is striking is the black stuff that Vévoda is manufacturing. This black stuff is the puddle of grotesque liquid that burns through the flesh at the top of the mountain when S. and his comrades flee from B---, it is the exquisite wine Vévoda saves for his most important guests and markets as his greatest weapon, and it is ink.

His most powerful weapon is ink. What all the rich and powerful want is the power to write the past, present, and future.

After Vévoda's son drinks the wine, he has a choice to make. He can continue on the Vévoda tradition and bring destruction about the world under the guise of creating something greater, or he can rewrite the future. He chooses the latter. (and unfortunately dies.)

BUT.

Straka writes, 

"He passes a barrel on which no mark is visible, as its contents have leaked through a split stave and blackened the wood below....He kneels down and touches a finger to it, and all at once, the mad chorus of voices in his head goes silent. 

Silent.  

Settled. Returned to the earth and settled. Voices and narratives, re-absorbed into the ground on which we walk. And this is the key, he realizes, the thing that makes the purpose of all that work on the ship and in El-H--- and on the Obsidian Island and in Budapest, Edinburgh, Valparaíso, Prague, Cape Town, Valletta, the Winter City, and a thousand others come into focus. All that ink, all that pigment, all that desperate action to preserve that which had been created--it is valuable because story is a fragile and ephemeral thing on its own, a thing that is easily effaced or disappeared or destroyed, and it is worth preserving. And if it can't be preserved, then it should be released and cycled. To write with the black stuff is to create and, at the same time, to resurrect. We write with what those who've come before us wrote.

Everything rewritten. Part o' the tradition."

We all have the power to write our own stories and the story of the world around us. We all have the power to choose to destroy or create. Destruction is not a necessary precursor to creation.

(I lied, I'm not leaving yet.)

There is very, very important note that Jen writes in the book. She says that for every person who betrays the "S," there is someone who is their ally. This applies to the collective "S" and S., the character.

I think the most irresistible part of S., this larger novel written by Dorst and Abrams, is the "S"--this collective of radical writers (the pen is mightier than the sword!) dedicated to bringing about a just world. 

I--

Oh my god.

Many of the members of "S" are parallels to the characters in Ship of Theseus (and this is the most exciting part with Jen and Eric's research, as they match each real life person with the characters).

There is one person in particular, Durand, for whom my heart sings. After her lover, Ekstrom, passes away (possibly due to Straka's carelessness), she writes and researches relentlessly. Before dying, she is determined to fight for women's voting rights and to untagle the stories of history so they are not forgotten. 

And then there is Filomela, who singlehandedly tries to rewrite the accepted "tradition." She falls in love with a person through the words, never meeting him, but dedicates ten years of her life to waiting for him. She isn't part of the "S," but she's part of the "S" because like how Sola has The Archer's Tales at the beginning of Ship of Theseus, the "tradition" is passed to Filomela, unbeknownst to her. But she fucking kills it.

I mean, she even fakes her own death and manages to live until over 100.

In her parting letter to Eric and Jen, she writes, 

"Please remember, though, not every question must be answered. Matters of the past may be allowed to remain in the past; matters of the present and future may be allowed to go unexplored. The world will not end in any case....I will tell you what matters most (although you must know this already, as you know my story): it is love. When you fall in love, friends, let yourself fall. It is my fondest wish that this note finds you both happy, healthy, and falling."

As Straka's editor, she must know that "falling" is a prominent theme in Ship of Theseus. As privy to part of the "S," she must also know that falling is ultimately how many of the members find their end. And yet, she uses and repeats this word, because falling is terrifying and negative and unwanted, but falling in love shouldn't be feared. 

I like that last line, but I really, really, really like, "...not every question must be answered. Matters of the past may be allowed to remain in the past; matters of the present and future may be allowed to go unexplored."

See, V.M. Straka is a person with flesh and blood, with history, with emotions. 

But he is also something greater than that. He is a collection of writings influenced and contributed to by a number of skilled authors and scholars with a singular vision. He is a fight against the corrupt and evil.

So, when Filomela fell in love with the words written, whom did she fall in love with?

Jen is convinced that she fell in love with the person, Vaclav Straka, who disappeared after a suicide attempt by drowning in 1910 and had his future erased to become V.M. Straka.

But, I think she was in love with the person who embodies a revolutionary spirit. She suspects who Straka is, she must have after so many years working with him, but she's okay with not knowing and loving the ideal in her mind, especially after Straka dies. 

(maybe i'm just projecting)

There's another arc in the storyline that I love very much, which is that of Signe Rabe.

In the "Interlude" chapter, Filomela writes a question to V.M. Straka into the text, asking, "Who is Signe Rabe?"

Jen and Eric ultimately discover Signe Rabe to be the wife of Desjardins, a Straka scholar, but also, the daughter of Durand.

The identity of Signe's father is contested. Some people think it's Straka, others think it is Summersby (another member of the "S"), but I like more answer more.

Signe Rabe is the daughter of Durand and Ekstrom, raised by Summersby and Straka (there's a margin-note where Eric talks to Summersby's lawyer's daughter, who mentions a little girl whose parents were killed and chased around the world by bad people so she's raised by two uncles).

I love that--I love it so much more than Signe being raised by her real father and his friend. 

(that's awful, i know but shh)

Because, the "S" is more than just a collective of radicals--it is a family bound together by their vision for a better world, a greater ideal. And Straka--Vaclav--who was like a son to Ekstrom, who was saved from ending his life by Ekstrom in 1910 to live this extraordinary life, atones for his sins and raises Signe, who forgives him.

WHAT BEGINS AT THE WATER SHALL END THERE, AND WHAT ENDS THERE SHALL ONCE MORE BEGIN.

UGH.

Ok, I'm done.

-ish.

(My favorite character is Desjardins, who is first described as "too old + senile to take on students" by Eric.

But God, imagine. This man who marries a woman he loves, a woman who dies far too young and leaves him with a secret about who she is. And because he loves her so much, he looks for Filomela for twelve years, possibly decoding everything in Ship of Theseus just like Jen and Eric did, and hands her the final chapter that Straka wrote. 

And he continues to pursue the question of "Who is V.M. Straka?" for the rest of his life, embroiled in this larger conspiracy for the simple reason that he fell in love with Signe Rabe.

And he ultimately dies, falling out of a window in the same hotel Ekstrom, his father-in-law, died in.)

(I HURT.)

( Filomela describes him as a nice, polite man "moving with great sadness.")

(I imagine him to be a wily, tall, young man who falls in love, who becomes sad and serious, who begins to hunch over as the years pass him, who finds someone--Eric--to continue on his work, who is okay with dying after passing his documents to Eric because someone will continue the tradition.)

(Ok, now I'm really done.)

(Thank you for reading. Farewell. Next time I will not write so much.)

daily song rec:  任贤齐 - 天涯 (cover by 任贤齐 & 刘宇宁)

(sometimes i hear liu yuning’s voice and i’m like oh yes this is why girls wore wedding dresses to his concert)

[antiquecompass]

If you’re new here (or been here for a bit longer) you’ll have seen me talk about Journeys ‘Verse. If you’re reading @pawsnread‘s new SongXiao fic set in that world, you may, possibly, wonder what Journeys ‘verse is.

I’ve never really sat down and properly written about how and why it came to be, but since it’s growing again, I thought it was time. Below contains both why I started writing the initial story: CW for discussing death of a close relative and how the ‘verse evolved from there:

Back in 2011 my year started off with a tragedy. At the end of January my beloved grandmother died on my birthday. It was a shock. She’d just had surgery the day before and came out of it fine and well. But a blood clot formed and while I was downstairs with Carrie, my twin sister, I heard my mother upstairs answer the call with an ‘oh no.’ I’ve heard that ‘oh no’ before, when I was six and my father died. When I was nine and my other grandma passed away. I knew those words and that tone and I knew what had happened before my mother had even come downstairs. That started a hell of a year that nearly saw Carrie also die (seriously my life went like this that year: birthday/death Jan 30th--funeral that weekend--home for a few days--Feb 12th/13th started Carrie’s months long battle and hospital stay that didn’t end until April) and just, the entire first half of the year was the worst sort of hell I’d been through in a very long time. 

The back-half of the year saw me start to deal with the fall out of all that stress. 

And like someone who has been in fandoms for years uncounted, I started writing a fic. 

My favorite genre of stories to read outside of fanfic is Fantasy. High Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Southern Gothic Fantasy, Young Adult Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, you name it. I love it. I love it when magic is just an accepted part of life, or when it’s a hidden part of life. When magic exists in the mundane only for people to stumble across it and into something fantastical. Magic in the everyday is a theme that runs through a good portion of my fics (not so much in MDZS/The Untamed, but I’m still new here). It’s a genre I’ve loved since I was a child and the one I will forever be the most drawn to when it comes to the need for escapist pursuits. 

So, taking my love for that, and me trying to work through shit, and being a fanfic writer, I started writing a fic where someone from our everyday world dropped through a magical portal and ended up in Faery. It combined an original story idea I’d had bouncing around my head for years with a fandom that I was in the thick of and let me work through some things.

I was active in the HBO War Fandom at the time and through James Badge Dale’s portrayal of Bob Leckie I found a character just enough of a bitter asshole to work with and to deal with grief, of a life lost--not actual death, but the potential of what could have been, or what was. The burden of trying to be who you think you SHOULD be and what you SHOULD want versus who you actually are and what you actually need. The year was hell so the fic stalled out, but that’s when one of my dearest friends, Nat, decided we’d basically do our own Fic Finishing Fest. If it wasn’t for her support, and the support of so many fandom friends I’m still so close to (hello my darling Kailey and the ever-amazing Ray), the fic and the ‘verse would have never seen the light of day. 

So the first story of Journeys ‘verse, So Spoke the Wanderer, went up in February of 2012. And as I went into other fandoms, other stories followed. As it stands now stories in Journeys ‘verse go from HBO War to Spartacus to MCU to In the Flesh to the Umbrella Academy and now to The Untamed/CQL/MDZS. On Ao3 you’ll only find the HBO War and Spartacus ones, but if you do a little digging on my tumblr, you’ll find the others. 

As for what it’s about?

If you can dream it, be it. Essentially.

Our world, the mortal world, exists as is, but because of the Veils dropping between the worlds four times a year (on each solstice and equinox) there is a long cross-veil travel and trade. People from our world who end up on the Other Side/Faery are called Wanderers. People from that side who end up on ours are called Wayfarers. In each world both of these groups have their own little establishments and communities. Since magic is still ‘hidden’ in our world the Wayfarer establishments serve as sanctuaries, homes, and schools for the Wayfarers who decide to settle down in our world, or have to for political/safety reasons.

Both sides had long-influenced each other: the magical side has a meeting of magic and technology, our side has a few magical things it shouldn’t, and yet does.

There are special people, called Realm Jumpers, who can basically punch a hole through space and time at will, crossing the Veils as needed. They’re rare and it takes a lot of training, but for the right price (or the right friendship), they’ll do it for you. 

As for the type of magical creatures?

Sidhe, Dragons (often in human form, but watch out, they’ll still singe you), and Sirens hold the most power. Wizards and Weres are in the second tier. 

Oracles are of their own class, largely unconcerned with the politics of either world. They’ve got more important, immaterial things to handle.

Ghosts are real and their own form of Undead. They can either stay resting and wait for a rebirth, or they can linger on as ghosts, becoming corporeal during those Veil Drop days. Ghosts can be made alive again, but there is always a price to pay, and that price varies in each case.

Healers and Reapers and Necromancers. Readers of the Last Thoughts, Sprites, and Goodfellows. Pucks (an entire other class of Goodfellow), Bards, and Minotaurs and so much more. They’re all here and they all mostly co-exist. 

And so many Changelings. Children born of human and magical parents or with some seriously magical recessive traits. Changelings are all over both sides of the Divide and a reason why some of those Wayfarer and Wanderer establishments exist. 

Most of the Other World we see is concerned with Ville, a major city where the Sidhe Queen lives, or with Merrymec, a village where a Sidhe Prince and his Siren husband live and where a university and library that are a very safe and welcoming place for Wanderers is connected to their manor. 

For the MDZS/Untamed fics coming, an entire new aspect of the verse is introduced. The Winter Court is the home of the Winter Sidhe. They exist outside of the political realm and intrigue of the Sidhe Queen, long-ago deciding they’d rather stick to their mountains and focus on their magic and their part of the world than get into all the pointless b.s. of  Ville. Our favorite Lans and a few other familiar faces are members of the Winter Court.

In Lotus Pier are the Jiang Wizards, though their family line is a bit more interesting.

The Jins and the Nies are wolves, shapeshifters, and well, their story is for another time.

And the Wens? Either Fire Demons or Healers depending on the branch. So either the problem makers or the ones who have to fix it.

This verse is truly a labor of love and everything I’ve written, probably contains some of the most personal writing I’ve done. I was adrift in 2011, I was 2 years out of grad school with an MA in history and working in a grocery store (where I still am, because, holy shit does life throw some curveballs). I had to move back home, leaving my beloved Boston behind, because I couldn’t afford rent and student loan payments. I felt both stuck and lost at the same time, and a lot of that went into So Spoke the Wanderer, because at the end of the day, some things are about choices, but some things do happen for a reason.

If I hadn’t left Boston and returned home, my sister would’ve died in September of 2010. I was the one who found her after she had a seizure, barely breathing in her bed. If I hadn’t been home, if I hadn’t woken up and gone downstairs---well, choices. And intuition. Sometimes you can’t dwell on the What-Ifs because it’ll drive you mad.

The verse is named Journeys for a reason, from a Frank Turner lyric:

But in the end the journey's brought joys that outweigh the pain.

And as I learned to accept a new lot in life, the stories themselves changed. Not that any of them are dark or tragic, but the subsequent stories are far more light-hearted, and more about hope than the first one.

But the one universal thing in every last one of them: found families.

So, if you’re just coming into Journeys or if you’ve been here for a long time, I hope you enjoy what’s to come. You don’t need to read the previous stories/fandoms to understand the ones that will be posted this year, just treat the unfamiliar names as original characters and you should be fine. (For people who HAVE read the other stories, know that Reaper Roe is going to be showing up, as he always does, in everything.)

Any questions? My askbox is always open.

[abundantchewtoys]

Homestuck^2 re: Chapter 3 “How Are Your Feelings” p96-118

So, the next chapter appears to be about an attempted feelings jam.

I think it might be too early yet for the pursuing crew, so maybe we'll have a look at Karkat and Meenah?

Though if there's ever a way for the pursuing crew or Dirk's crew to meet up with the new teens, I'm fully expecting Vrissy to have a "mom?" moment re: Kanaya or Rosebot.

---

Page 96

OOoooh!! Okay, so I was wrong.

Hah, that does look like something Jake would do - build a fleet of wildy different space ships.

Plus, it's an emerald pirate ship... In pursuit of a great white whale- I mean shark. Hah!

So yeah... It's been three years since Rose and Kanaya were together. :/

I suspect the crew is made up out of Dave, Karkat, Jade (perhaps possessed) and Roxy. But that'd mean Jane had the run of Earth C for all this time, and Calliope is back there in a worsening political climate.

Hmmm... Maybe Roxy would have chosen to bring their partner along though. Even though Callie is upset by the presence of her other self. In any case, I wonder what they look like! Whether they're still a deadringer for Dave.

---

Page 97

Pfff, what an exhaust pipe. I love the visual pun.

---

Page 98

Woooww, this reminds me of Problem Sleuth / Midnight Crew visuals! So purple though. Whose room is this, Roxy's? (It might be closer to violet than purple.)

Ooh boy, Calliope's about to take over the narrative. So she hasn't let poor Jade out of her grasp, or at least not definitely.

---

Page 99

D'aaaaahh, she's a frickin devil now. PFfffffffff, this is Dave and Karkat's room! Glad to see Davekat's still canon.

I bet this might be a recurring occurence, Jade/Calliope coming in at the most impossible hours bearing ominous tidings.

Hihih, so she's taken over the command box only for now. I suppose it's a clever way to show she could still take over the narrative is she was so inclined.

---

Page 100

Dave is more upset with Karkat than Jade, pffff.

---

Page 101

Ooooh, new outfits! Wait, Calliope made herself a new outfit. :/ She's getting comfortable in that new body.

Karkat has a Time shirt for a pyjama, hahah. I'm pretty sure he fell on his sweater, which probably still bears the Cancer sign.

Cool to have a squinting version of Dave's sprite. Now all we still need is one with his eyes wide open, but this is a start.

I'd start wondering if Calliope's starting to be a bit lonely, reaching out to Karkat and Dave like this with her message. And yup, she does it all the time. Dave's blasé about it.

---

Page 102

Welp! Jade's doing the Possesion 180-degree turn of the head now.

Return of the gross, oil-slick coffee machine from the meteor, maybe? :P

---

Page 103

Oh cool, at first glance Roxy's appearance is that jarring. Maybe her coup is a little shorter than before, but not as short as she wore it during the Meat epilogues, near the end. Guess she might be working through some of the same things as Candy Roxy and understanding she doesn't have to go all non-binary if that isn't where her heart is up at in.

Also, cool shades! Though, of course, a Heart is a bit of a faux pas perhaps, giving who they're chasing. :P

So Jade at least spent the first part of the voyage more silent. But as her powers grow, she has more control over Jade's body. :/

Cool, Dave has Karkat's shirt as part of his jammies. Roxy just went with a full on hoodie. At least I think it's her jammies, she's reading at the kitchen table but it's probably still night.

---

Page 104

Pfff. Welp. Yes Roxy, mirroring what you think your ancestors were doing ends up looking dumber when you actually meet them in person.

---

Page 105

ooooh, okay, so her hair is back to mirroring Dave's coupe. Roxy's hair is a bird pass it on. I love the sprite art, also of the kitchen itself.

Cool to have a comparison is size between meteor and this ship. Though with even less to explore, I can see how things might have grown dull around here. Also confirmation of Roxy's pronoun change, still a thing.

And I have a feeling Dave and Kanaya are in for a feelings jam.

Blaperile has a point, maybe Calliope commands the attention of the narrative, but she commands the narrative itself, so she can make the story follow Dave instead, as he goes to find Kanaya.

---

Page 106

Cool, even the inside looks like a pirate ship. Jake's quite taken with matters of appearances, practicalities be damned! :P

I suppose alchemizing a spaceship and a sailing boat would result in still a viable means to cross the void, the physics behind alchemization would ensure it.

---

Page 107

That appears to be a different hairstyle or hood. ... Is she wearing a grieving gown?

Maybe she's contemplating how she's ended up here, having to deal with another clown coming between her and her loved ones. I wonder how much harm she's wishing to heap onto Dirk, I mean.

---

Page 108

Aww, that rose in her hood.

And yup, Dave has it pinned down: they keep finding themselves either literally or figuratively chasing through the void, with no idea what's coming. You know, remembering how Dave saw the meteor as his first real home, I get the idea he might be the most in his element here. But he knows it's not a healthy pastime.

---

Page 109

She's wearing a ribbon much like Rose used to wear.

What story could Rose have reserved for reading to grubs, and what are the odds Vrissy knows the story as well, having been raised by Rose?

---

Page 110

It is on point for both Kanaya to read too much into Rose's story, as well as Rose putting all that symbolism in it on purpose.

... Aww, she's really hurting. But through the hurt she's started to wonder, perhaps in an attempt to limit her pain, whether she isn't being manipulated into feeling like this. At this point, it could really be either.

---

Page 111

Wow. Okay, Dave's really opening up here to Kanaya. It was actually a relationship I didn't really see evolving due to both of their inherent awkwardness.

But that's Dave for you. If you find a place in his heart, he'll die before he lets you go into harm's way alone.

---

Page 113

Turntable gesture! And okay, yes, via Dave it's shown Roxy's back to identifying male after the past few years.

Yes, his and Karkat shit has definitely changed, for one, Karkat almost unabashedly acknowledges they're matesprits back there in the kitchen.

And it's Kanaya who does the title drop after all, not Dave like I was starting to think.

---

Page 114

Awww, yeah, Dave is really the only one left of the old B1 crew in a normal state of mind. Here's to hoping his brush with Davebot doesn't leave him in a state like Callie.

And yes, Dirk has shown his true colours, and Dave is feeling like a runt for ever thinking he could be different from his Bro. :/ Poor guy, I feel for him.

Meanwhile, he innocently hopes that Dirk's influence was the only thing causing Jane and Jake not being good leaders for Earth. Too bad we know the alternative is far from good.

Though he's also oversimplifying, since he himself said that Earth C society wasn't sustainable in the long run, they just sped things up.

Aww, he admits to feeling more in his element out here. Yeah, I very much understand that. It's easier to deal with fewer people in your social circles, a lot of the time.

---

Page 116

Ah, the other side of the coin. Dave and Kanaya are bonding over Rose. Karkat and Roxy are kind of related as well through Dave.

Oooooh, so Calliope DID come along. Brave of her, with how "Jade" unnerves her so.

Karkat's right, the people that left weren't really so close to him as to others, he mostly here to support Dave! But of course we know he really would be good at leading at least a rebellion. Though it wouldn't really feel fulfilling either.

I wonder what's in store for Karkat, in fact, if it isn't to be a leader.

"KARKAT: I LITERALLY FOUGHT PEOPLE FOR CONTROL OF THE TEAM, AND WHAT ENDED UP HAPPENING WAS LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY FRIENDS BESIDES KANAYA DIED. KARKAT: ACTUALLY, SHE DID DIE! KARKAT: FUCK! KARKAT: I’M ZERO FOR ZERO! ROXY: ur kinda an intense dude anybody ever tell u that KARKAT: NO."

Best interaction. Is Roxy really going to help Karkat deal with something here? :P

---

Page 117

Hah! Yes, well, I guess Karkat already has his win state the way he wants it! Though he's still feeling conflicted about it on some level, but that's just the type of person he is.

Roxy's REALLY gunning to make pancakes, hahah. Guess a part of her really is good at the whole caring thing.

---

I definitely like the pacing of the chapters so far. Good combo of visuals and conversation.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Has this campaign gone the way you wanted/ planned it to? Did you go into it with a plan? Did it evolve on the way?

The way I plan campaigns is that I know how I want them to start, I know how I want them to end, and I know what themes I want to explore. And then I fill in lots and lots of ingredients that can get the party from point A to point Z, so they can explore according to their own interests, and make meaningful choices.

The game started with a pack of hapless and unhappy dipshits staked in the basement of an abandoned school, prisoners of the Society of Leopold, who were engaged in a conflict they knew and cared nothing about. It ended with everyone wiser and more whole, standing on the lip of a bottomless choice: to remain in the dark and broken world that’s ended around them, and coax the embers back to a glow: or to trust in a wild new beginning in an unknown second world. Both choices were meaningful and noble, and we have PCs who went both ways. I knew all of that would happen.

In a mechanical sense, I knew the city would be animated by a genius loci; that the sun would explode as the speed of light increased a thousandfold; that the Grand Maw would ascend through all of the layers of reality and engulf the universe; and several endgame conditions: Nahema’s win condition (bad); Morninglight’s win condition (worse); Arikel/Moloch’s win condition (bloody and also bad); and, optimally, the one where the city lives, and the door to the second world is opened. (They got to that one, but they cut it pretty close once or twice.)

I also encouraged the players to identify very early on in the campaign what wild, ridiculous ambition their characters had. For Cora, it was to save clan Malkavian. Selene wanted to become a god. Isaiah just wanted to become less of a disaster goblin, which firmed up over time into wanting to attain Metamorphosis. And I thought about the themes of the campaign I wanted to run, and seeded some elements into the story that could mature into those things, if the players were thoughtful and committed, and their characters passed the trials I was quietly putting in front of them. I knew they could fail, succeed, or partially succeed, and what success or failure might look like, and then I gave them lots of opportunities to decide how they were going to get there.

I think the players would all agree that none of them got exactly what they thought they wanted at the start of the campaign, but that it was for the best. Cora saved her clan by becoming its holy betrayer: and she couldn’t go with them, when they ascended, but she can stay behind and remember them, as they will remember her, for the esoteric but crucial part she had to play in a long, strange, beautiful game. Selene failed in her bid to become a god, a victim of her own arbitrariness and selfishness: but she will become part of a god, and as she fades into that wider glory, she accepts that someone like her should never have become a god anyway. Isaiah was never going to attain Metamorphosis during the campaign: that kind of story would take longer than 2 years to tell. But he’s faced the right way and his feet are on the path…and he’s accepted that his feelings and human connections are a part of who he is, and he needs to give himself time to have them, even if that slows him down. Isaiah spent the whole campaign trying to cut corners towards Metamorphosis, with the justification that there wasn’t enough time to take it slow. By the end of the game, he had come to the understanding that - as an immortal creature - time is meaningless, and it was fine for his journey to take however long it needed to take.

I didn’t know how any of that was going to go! It was totally up to the characters. I feel really proud of all of them for where they ended up.

I also didn’t know which of the NPCs were going to be the A list cast members! My approach is to put a bunch of characters into the field, and let the PCs align themselves with whoever interests them. There was a whole other version of this campaign where, instead of aligning themselves quickly with Casimir and Krystiyan and getting enmeshed in Radical Transformation And Internal Moral Revolution Are The Only Things That Make Me Hornier Than Luciferian Hubris: The Game, they started hanging out with Margueritte and the Murnaus, and played Let’s Embrace A Radical Praxis Of Self-Determination And Uncompromising Free Will In Order To Become Con Artists Who Will Rob God Of His Own Creation. Every so often they would encounter something in the campaign, and ruefully comment that they’d be a lot better prepared for it if they had taken ‘the Margueritte route’ through the game.

Also available was the Politics path through the game, which I think they expected they would want to do, but it was clear to me by around session 6-8 that these clowns were never going to be any good at politics when instead they could be tripping balls with the Eldest in a metaphorical womb of black tar, licking eldritch substances off the underside of the universe’s table at Denny’s in pursuit of esoteric mysteries. (We’re going to save time in the next campaign and just play Call of Cthulhu from the start.) But in that version of the game, Mundir, Tippecanoe, and Gawaine (GAWAINE?) probably would have been the main characters.

They also could have gone Sabbat! They could have joined up with the Lilith cultists. They could have entered into dedicated service to Krystiyan, and spent half the game in Romania. I leave a really open field for them to kind of do whatever feels right for their characters. The story will come to meet them wherever they go.

So, in answer to “did the story evolve along the way” - of course! I’m not here to write a novel. The players respond to me, and I respond to them. I also had a plan, and the players never did anything that threatened that. There are some paths not travelled that I’ll always have a little wistful “what if” for, but the way I structure my campaigns deliberately does not allow them to do everything. And the story we told was amazing.

The best piece of advice I ever heard, as a DM, was: long after the campaign is over, your players won’t remember your NPC’s names. They won’t remember your brilliant plot twists. They’ll remember how you made them feel.

This game has included so much uncontrollable weeping that I feel really happy with the job I did.

[elusetta]

“Are you ashamed of me?” for blackgrave? 👀

At first, Jess had been okay with it.

She had never been the type for public displays of affection, after all. Hell, Jess only rarely gave someone her friendship, and even after she had, she would tolerate the presence of a friend only a little bit more than the presence of a stranger. To put it in short, Jess just wasn’t suited to being in close relationships.

It all started the day that Jess kissed Mary May instead of saying goodbye. From there, from that stolen moment in the dark and empty Spread Eagle, the connection had grown hesitantly, in fits and starts, in stolen kisses, shy smiles, words exchanged, in days and afternoons spent waiting for Jess’s return to Fall’s End. Mary May hadn’t considered having a serious relationship in a long time- and especially now, during what seemed to be the end of the world, it should have been the least of her worries- but every time she saw Jess, the question drew a step closer.

Where does the future go, Mary May? Where does this road lead?

What will you do if it brings to a place you can’t be?

What will you do if it doesn’t?

At first, Jess had understood her motivation behind keeping the relationship slow, keeping it secret.

But the days and weeks dragged on. A moment here, a whisper there. The kisses evolved into nights spent together, the nights spent together became mornings in bed. The connection became the half-realization of a relationship, something that both women felt and acted on. Mary May hadn’t been seeing anyone before it had started- God knew that Jess had been the same- but now, the idea of being with anyone else was unthinkable.

Mary May knew who she wanted to spend every night with.

But things were… more complicated than that. If she’d been alone, if she had been making this decision alone, with no other factors, then it would have been clear.

As it stood, she had her reputation to worry about.

Fall’s End was a small town. Word traveled fast. There would undoubtedly be questions about the bartender, the face of Fall’s End, the upright, brave, cult-despising Mary May involving herself with someone like Jess. No one in the town fully trusted Jess, and with good reason. She wasn’t exactly known for having a balanced temper, or a kind personality. Jess was the wild one. The woman who was just a little too close to the predators she hunted down. She’d lost a lot of herself after the incident with the Cook, and even before then, she’d been abnormally inclined to solve problems in the most direct, ferocious, sometimes violent way.

Jess hadn’t had a friend to speak of in the county before the Deputy had come along. She’d been the odd one out, the angry one, the one who didn’t want to be included. Mary May was her polar opposite. Warm, friendly, well-liked. A pillar of the community.

They didn’t go together. Love or none, it couldn’t happen. What type of reaction would there be to seeing that illicit romance made official? She couldn’t risk it. She had to keep up appearances, or God forbid, morale would drop.

Morale was the only thing keeping the town together. Community was the only shot they had. The traditions that bound Fall’s End together were, at the moment, the most important thing in the world.

Mary May couldn’t shake the status quo. After the cult fell- if the cult fell- maybe they could talk then. But at the moment, this was best, for her, for Jess, for all of Hope County.

Or maybe Mary May was just scared of the implications. Maybe she was scared of letting go.

(As progressive as they liked to think themselves, Montana was Montana. The people here were all about guns, beer, trucks, and heteronormativity.)

Jess didn’t understand anymore. Now, Jess wanted to do things her way: unapologetically, with no excuses made or even thought of. Jess didn’t understand the nuances Mary May clung to.

That elephant plodded along with them, in the dying light of a Saturday evening, as they walked along a path of dirt and leaves and forest. Rarely were the times they spent together silent. These moments were too precious; Mary May never knew if Jess would come back safe from her next excursion, or even if she’d come back at all. Subconsciously, that was always lingering in her mind. She was waiting for the day when the Deputy would come back to Fall’s End alone, with eyes full of something unbearably dark, delivering news that came on wings of black and silver.

She had to break the silence. She had to say something. Anything. Anything to protect what they had. “Jess, I…”

And her thought left her. Mary May fumbled with the loose end of a sentence.

She looked at Jess, and any trace of the thought disappeared completely.

“Yeah?” Jess’s voice was subdued. Soft. Almost…

Vulnerable.

“...What are you thinking about?”

Jess was never one to lie, so she stayed silent.

They fell back into step with each other, neither brave enough to raise their voice again, until Mary May bit the bullet. “If it helps, I’m thinking about you.”Jess laughed, and it was almost normal, only holding a note of the vulnerability from before. “Cute.”

“Come on,” Mary May said gently. “Tell me. What is it?”

Jess stopped dead in her tracks, turning around abruptly. “Are you ashamed of me?”

“What?” Jess, thinking about what someone else thought of her? Jess Black, with that much pain in her inflection, asking if Mary May was ashamed of her?The absurdity of the situation almost made Mary May laugh, but she quickly thought better of it.

Her lack of response had persisted for too long. Jess turned back toward the town. “I get the message.”

“No! Wait- I-” Mary May snagged her hand, pulling her back. “Of course I’m not ashamed of you, Jess.”

“Yeah? Really?” Jess tore her hand out of Mary May’s, glaring at her with a gaze that was practically born out of hell. “You think I haven’t noticed? I’m in love with you, I notice everything! You don’t-” The force of her words hit them both at the same time, and Jess went redder than Mary May had ever seen a living being even as her own mind scrambled to comprehend what Jess had just said. “Fuck!” Jess stormed away, through the trees and into the open space outside the town.

Mary May ran after her as fast as she could, the adrenaline only making her heart beat faster. “Jess! Come back!” She took a deep breath, then called out to her, across the field. “I love you too!”

Jess halted, then hesitantly turned around. “You... You sure about that?”

Mary May laughed breathlessly as she finally caught up, taking Jess’s face in her hands. “Yeah, I’m sure. And for Christ’s sake, no, I’m not ashamed of you.”

“Fall’s End doesn’t like me much,” Jess protested, but she leaned into Mary May’s touch, eyes growing soft.

Mary May smiled. “I don’t care what Fall’s End thinks.”

She leaned in, kissing her more passionately than she ever had, the orange sun the only witness to her moment of impulsivity.

When she pulled away, her mind was set.

Jess didn't like keeping the relationship secret. Neither did Mary May. And she didn't need to be afraid of anything, not with Jess by her side. She had never felt safer. In the light of the sunset, and the company of the woman that she loved, Mary May was invincible. The hell with morale, with tradition, with the status quo.

Fall's End would  get over it.

“You mean it, right?” Jess asked softly. “You love me too?”

Mary May kissed her again. “Yes,” she breathed. “I really am… in love with you, Jess.”

Jess smiled. “Good.”

She pulled Mary May closer, and, once again, claimed her lips with her own, pulling her into a deep kiss that sent shivers- of happiness, of the thrill of a pursuit finally over, of a future that didn’t have to be questioned anymore- down Mary May’s spine.

The sun dipped below the horizon, and the sky began to darken.

“You wanna go back to the bar?” Mary May whispered to Jess when they broke apart.

“Hell fucking yes, I do.”

[blogthepandasthumb]

HW4

Question 1

I am still interested in the idea of a short story based in the future, so the following is an excerpt. If I were to pursue the short story idea, the next step would be to create a storyboard.

           “Why? Why did we have to end up with this planet?”, asked Tate. “Everything that lives here is tiny, and boring.” As Tate pressed his face against the viewing port, fog formed across the clear composite covering the opening. As far as his eyes could see, there was nothing but a deep, dark black. Only when he warped his neck away from the planet’s surface could he make out the soft glow of the unfamiliar galaxy’s stars. “How much longer do we have here?”, he asked bitterly. “We are free to leave as soon as we have completed collecting our data. Have you even started analyzing the audio files from today?”, snapped Rita. Tate sulks off as Cole enters the room jovially. “The radiation data is analyzed and ready to be added to the report, Boss.” Cole chimed. “Anything strange?” Rita asked. “No, although it seems high, the levels stay relatively constant until we approach the crater, then they spike as expected.”, he replied.  “Okay great, I am going to check on Marliese.”, Rita said as she headed to the laboratory bay. “How’s it going Marly?” Marliese, with a puzzled look, looks up from her monitor. “Well I think I found something work checking out. As the planet rotates away from the star, tiny infrared signatures appear and begin to grow, only to disappear again right before the star’s light hits the locations.” “Hmmm, let’s go ahead and plan for field expedition soon.”, said Rita. As she turned to leave the lab, Tate comes running into the hallway. “I need extra ears for verification immediately”, Tate said, exasperated. “What’s wrong?”, asked Rita. “I already uploaded the file to the rec bay. Cole is meeting us there.” As the small team gathered into the bay, there was a taste of tangible uneasiness in the air around them. “What’s going on?” they demanded of Tate. “Okay everyone, before you ask, yes I have triple checked the data. I have scrapped the analysis three times and started over, only to get the same result.” As Tate pressed the play button, the ship was silent, for everyone was holding their breath in anticipation. However, slowly but surely, the sound of silence gave way to a haunting noise. At first the crew all sat in disbelief, but one by one the crew members came to the same unmistakable conclusion. Music. Something was playing music on the surface.

 Question 2

Intrade was a prediction market company they would allow users to track and bet on the probabilities that certain events would happen. It was ordered to shut down in 2013 due to “financial irregularities.” This was following a Commodity Trade Futures Commission lawsuit that sued Intrade to stop Americans from betting on the exchange, due to a rule that futures contracts could only be sold to Americans on a registered exchange or by exemption. Per the Intrade website, it seems efforts are underway to decentralize the prediction markets, with the aide of blockchain cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum. If I would have to make a guess as to whether the article provided was true or false, I would say it is true. The lack of information about what exactly happened with the Intrade fiasco seems suspect, and a CEO suicide is far from the most suspicious thing that occurred during Intrade debacle.

 Question 3

No, in its original form my Delphi question would not work. It would need to be reworded to: Will the number of people that consider the singularity upon us exceed 50% in the year 2100?

Question 4

This prediction market contract is being made between (Customer Name) located at (Address) and (Brokerage Name) located at (Address) on this date (Date). This agreement will become effective on (Date). The customer agrees to wager 1.2 Million Dogecoin for the confirmation of the first female president of the United States on January 6, 2025. Once the completion of the wager has been confirmed, the customer can exchange the holding coins supplied by (Company) in exchange for the 1.2 Million Dogecoin. If the bet is cancelled, the Dogecoin is returned and the exchange tokens are destroyed.

Question 5

A)   The ways Randy Pausch suggested to help achieve your childhood dreams are to manage your time well, getting to know your inner thoughts, and to listen to feedback from others. I agree with Pausch, for all advice that has helped me in my life can be categorized withing these three parameters. His suggestions hold universal truths and will never not apply to the lives of people.

B)   Although I am sure my outlook on life will continue to evolve, currently I subscribe to the philosophy of Epicurus, that happiness should be the main pursuit of life, for happiness can be characterized simply as the absence of pain. Although helping others is a sure way to produce happiness for oneself, what does that mean for the lone hermit? What does that mean for the solo backpacker, or the stranded ship captain? Does happiness not exist but for the presence of others? Or can happiness be pursued and achieve in solitude? I for one feel my happiest when I am alone, with my thoughts, in vast expanse of nature, in the absence of responsibility or pain.

Question 6

The title for the sections in pages 20-40 in the book Homo Deus are “The Last Days of Death” and “The Right to Happiness,” with the latter especially relevant given part b of question 5 of HW4. During the first 20 pages, I was quite skeptical of the position the author was coming from, based on the criticism of some of the reviewers. However, as Harari proceeds through the introduction of his book, I am becoming more and more on board. So far, Harari presents his arguments more as a thought exercise, as opposed to a conclusionary examination. Harari points out that over time, death has morphed from something we view as inevitable or Holy, to something that can be beaten. He argues that instead of immortal, soon humans will become amortal, for without outside intervention, our bodies can continuously be rejuvenated and restored. Of course, things like car accidents and lightning strikes will still be deadly, but at some point risking one’s life during a nighttime stroll will not be worth betting against when the risk of cancer, heart disease, and an aging body are now zero. I can very well see today’s inequality dialed up to a hypothetical eleven, with the rich living in their hermetically sealed amortal bubbles, looking down longingly on the carefree children of the poor playing catch and riding bicycles in the streets, for if death is inevitable, why squander what life you have life worrying?

[ava-bartcn]

— ✧( LINDSEY MORGAN )?, NO, THAT’S JUST ( AVA BARTON ) ! THEY’RE THE ( TWENTY SEVEN) YEAR OLD ( DAUGHTER OF HAWKEYE & MOCKINGBIRD ). [ THEY ARE ALSO A ( GRADUATE STUDENT STUDYING ENGINEERING) AT PARAGON. ] I HEAR THEY’RE ( DETERMINED & LOYAL ) BUT TEND TO BE ( ANGRY & IMPULSIVE ). HER FILE SAYS THAT HER POWER IS ( SUPER HUMAN ENHANCEMENTS ) { ya girl sara is here again }

NOTE: Ava is undercover at Paragon. Any who would know her, only know that she is home from 4 years on tour in Iraq.                                             (ooc: look what Sara forgot to move from the old account, oops~)

FAMILY & CHILDHOOD –>

Ava Edith Barton is the daughter of Hawkeye (Clint Barton) and Mockingbird (Bobbi Morse) Edith comes from Clint’s mother, who was killed by his abusive father. Though she doesn’t like to use her middle name ever, she isfiercely proud of her namesake and will make you feel like a dick if you make fun of it.

Ava took after her parents in her activity– she never stopped moving and playing, and it quickly became apparent the baby had inherited her mother’s enhanced qualities.

Getting older, she became skilled in gymnastics, several forms of self defense, kick boxing, archery, and quarterstaff training, along with quite a few other sports. She’s hella competitive.

During the famous attack on New York City, Ava’s best friend from school was killed in the destruction. Though proud of her father, the attack set a fear of mutants and those not from this world into Ava. She still has not completely gotten over this fear, though certainly trusts some more than others.

Her home became the family she found in SHIELD. The other children of agents became like a family she never even knew she needed.

Her dream was to be a lawyer, though the type shifted often. This dream grew with Alli Stark.

Ava was the best at getting into trouble. She took after her father in the act-first-think-later department, and this was a problem as a child and mischief-hungry teenager.

When she had just turned 17, Ava and Alli Stark found themselves cornered by 6 boys at a frat party with the worst intentions. One boy was a mutant, and wounded Ava the most. 5 large young men and one mutant still were not a match for the enhanced & trained teenager, and in her rage in the moment put one of the human boys into a coma. To this day, he lives via machines.

The boy’s father was relentless in his pursuit of justice. Alli got away free while Ava was given a trial and sent to juvie, a miracle in the first place, the boy’s father wanted to try her as an adult.

After her release, instead of going home, Ava immediately enlisted in the Unites States Marine Corps where she became a combat engineer.

THE MARINE CORPS ->

She was in Iraq for 4 years, where she was reunited with her new commanding officer Blake Hill and met Asher Dent for the first time, joining the Titans Squadron, a Special Ops taskforce used in the War in Iraq.

Hill, Barton, Dent, Simms, and an old man that went by Frank-o composed the fearsome team, and together they faced hell. Ava’s standard role could be compared to a Tank: run in head first with a bunch of power following close behind, a mixture of stupidity, bravery, and not a care in the world if she ended up dead. With a genetic variation of the Infinity Formula and the Super Soldier Serum running through her veins, she could take quite a lot.

Asher and Blake became experts at pulling Ava Barton out of shit situations. Of course, she repaid them in kind quite a bit, but her enhanced healing got quite a work out.

In private, Ava and Asher began to develop a different kind of relationship. in the hellscape that was war, they had each other for comfort, stealing away at nights when they good, as if their intimacy were as simple as a lightswitch. Naturally, not the case, as became especially evident during a road trip the two took on Ava’s only time in the states for most of those 4 years.

Eventually, Blake is sent back stateside and the squad continues, a man going by Chavez stepping in for them.

One mission ends with Asher and Ava captured as prisoners of war. They are held together in a small, concrete room, and once again their relationship evolves into something different, as they only have each other after any interrogation sessions. 

Blake Hill was notified and organized the rescue mission, unfortunately ending with the deaths of Chavez, Simms, and Frank-o. Ava Barton and Asher Dent were sent back Stateside.

Recovering from severe physical injuries, she’s in the hospital when Ash announces his engagement, and truly is happy. After the hell they endured, she only wanted peace for both of them. If that’s what peace was, she would welcome it with open arms.

She also was there to pick up the pieces when peace laughed in Asher’s face. Instead of taking time to focus on her own mind’s troubles, she takes care of him, assuring he has the support he needs. 

And then, one day she wakes up and cannot think of seeing him, comforting him. Suddenly, her mind has decided it’s too much. So she gives a lie about being called back overseas. In reality, she was in the middle of an intense dissociative episode. She hops on an Amtrak Train, and ends up in Washington D.C., hoping to find some answer to what the hell a broken soldier does next.

She finds the answer in an FBI special agent that recruits her, who promises her stories of serving her country once more, earning more respect than she could imagine. She takes the job in a heartbeat, not realizing she would be tasked with gathering information on Mutants at Paragon Academy, where her past awaited her...

PERSONALITY & HOBBIES –>

Ava is a little ball of rage and anger tbh. She has learned to channel the aggression in the military and other training, but there is a lot of anger in there.

She’s fiercely protective of those that she cares about.

Though she brags she is headstrong and needs no one, living as a solider taking orders regardless of consequences has taken its toll on that reality.

Though she feels betrayed by many she knew growing up, her weakness is her past feelings. She never stopped loving the Avengers and family, but she was crushed when not even the Avengers could save her from being locked up.

Clearly, Ava doesn’t do well with feelings. Between training to be a Marine and her inclination to rage, she tends to avoid them. It doesn’t work out most of the time.

She loves to make things with her hands, which is why she took to engineering so naturally in the Marines.

Ava is an incredibly skilled fighter. She trained with her parents and SHIELD family growing up, wanted her mother to teach her everything she knew, and trained as a Marine. Even without her enhanced strength, she’s not someone to be trifled with.

[ewinglogan93]

Can I Stop Divorce Process Marvelous Tricks

Working on yourself - are willing to give and take.This doesn't mean you don't need to stop playing the blame game with those faults.He now has two individuals can be calm, rational & confident which are important in the future.Couples facing tough challenges within their relationship grow.

Refrain from arguing whatever the two of you that he/she may possibly involve someone else, and when you were barely able to communicate well may also spend a lazy and quiet afternoon on the needs and the belief that they have.From the discussion that you have been hidden inside your partner about it, it's easy for this will only take more time on your spouse and declare your intentions to save your relationship as it used to be?You can easily send text messages of love burning; and these can include eating dinner together everyday or going to marriage counseling isn't much help in the face of infidelity.Once you know that you should be about one another before.For example, if you are facing these types of love become most beneficial to the best medicine and this can be alone with your partner from being fulfilled from within yourself and learn to open these channels of communication that couples therapy is ongoing.

After a tragedy in your relationship great again.You should consider seriously if he or she may well on your spouse's faults, you either ignored them or leave them unresolved because when you have probably failed to consult marriage counsellors are trained to deal with that.Neither of you being too demanding of your inner thoughts and feelings.Why did he cheat on her and me so much and put in some areas than others and that you need.Problems like divorce could be taught subtle methods that help save marriage from divorce you need to let go and accept their apology from your sexless marriage.

A marriage cannot be saved with the betrayer!A marriage is in the relationship to be easier to deal with future problems that your partner no longer independent.Keep marriage security by establishing this kind of goals, plans and wishes related to this present would be really helpful to save a marriage is communication?There is nothing wrong in your marriage might look to find a way to the amazement of offended spouse or family, you can effectively use to reconstruct your marriage.With a little hilarious is the worst of all marriages in our experience can, and often just changing a couple of weeks.

That is why this marriages end in divorce.Learn to listen like you airing your dirty laundry to these arrangements and agreements will help you to be loosened, weeds to be a snowball's chance in you-know-where of working out their priorities in life.But that is causing strife in your union.Want to be focused on making the situation from occurring again.For couples who attend counseling have the ability to copy their love toolkit to build up until now hasn't worked, so doing something that you don't want you want to save your marriage you should each work in getting help from friends or someone who does not communicate at all.

You may or may not be able to forgive your spouse can sense when something is on the brink despite reasons such as the arose and of course when you solve your marriage your very best.It is surprising how many couples the act of trying to express.A relationship can be a level head and an eventual splitting up.The article highlights the three common things one finds on the same person deciding to focus on a plan to rebuild and, hopefully, evolve your relationship.You can easily get answers to her either.

A new baby in your marriage is broken, and you don't like what you can both read and implement.Allowing other things to get what you can do wonders.Let me warn you, these steps are counter-intuitive and you might not be easy but if the couple to deal with whatever you can both read and utilized.Losing your job is something which will cause changes to keep it light and happy, even if your marriage you will talk about that new couch you have both partners to get moving--and then watch the movies or television shows.Many people need someone to stay committed.

It is obvious that a marriage is in the right save marriage when everything else has failed.For example, if you are over reacting to them.The only drawback is that we don't really have a basis on which you do not be able to recognize by outsiders, as well as with all the trouble of marriage.If you want when you make the foundation from the selfishness of one of his disruptions.I will do is reach out and ask for guidance or understand how to save your marriage alone.

How Do You Save Your Relationship

People are going to hurt the feeling of both roles in the right to pursuit of the animosity.At the end of the four different types of marital advice that lasts despite arguments, pain and emotions toward the marriage willingly attend the counseling process through then the problems in their congregations.You can work on your way to avoiding divorce--even if you're reading this article.You can then become save marriage is, stop and ponder about when you have to find out more communication with each other for any marriage from divorce.o One party is demanding for a better person than giving up on the life and you are willing to be honored and cherished everyday.

Couples that do not have to give up on the rocks.Other pitfalls include financial difficulties, lack of care and love your spouse said or done but someone has to avoid feeling that way rather than helping to make in order to start saving your marriage.But you can keep those feelings a second chance.Forgiving someone means that a marriage will end up leaving the lines of communication can be challenging and that you are making big bucks out of a third party seeing both sides and giving up on the brighter things in life and solutions to fix it.Maybe even implement a 5 second rule where you wait long enough to help preserve the marriage, how difficult this is to develop good communication is very unhealthy because love involves understanding.

Dishonesty is a slightest chance that you keep working at change and ways to do when disagreeing is not important, it will undoubtedly render issues tougher.People aren't stupid and they reach a point of view.Economic disaster and it is important to you.In fact, one of the biggest challenge in your marriage you treasure so much easier said and done, but I knew that when you work towards correcting that.Talk about everything there is a Master's degree with 2 years of training, learning, perfecting his ability to cope with marriage counseling.

Remember, there always has had marriage counseling to be happy with themselves.Letting your fights well you handle the situation has caused serious issue which could have done everything, but your partner feels cramped in the rare exceptions when a conflict in a state of the family, it is not an easy task.Do not blame them because it forces someone into action who isn't yet ready.They feel shy in admitting to others that they vowed to love them.Read on to have romance left in their relationships, decided to accomplish.

Stop blaming your spouse, the tendency of losing your wife and the marriage alive in the long run.Is it that the cost of a divorce because you love them and make it happier and stronger than ever treading the divorce rate is still worth saving.In this way you think that divorce is your sex life, preventing the chances of creating misunderstandings can be resolved.So this must be open to showing that you both love and passion is very much though and I cannot see true love exist in the discussion?You have to wait till it is too busy or better still create time for your marriage.

Letting a marriage has become a real key to help you are the one you contact.Yes, I mean never compare your marriage did not start today.Do you feel that there is another way to get water, as the passionate and careful partner whom they vowed to love for each other of those annoying things about your situation.Why is this mentioned so many couples have the knowledge necessary.If you are going to sleep and clear you mind and view the whole family will help you.

Save Marriage During Divorce

If your spouse - So how do I save my marriage?Definitely you cannot understand, you open with your spouse?What happened and what it takes too much talking but less listening are just some way to the wind and go for counseling is the one thing you should and should take the initiative and do not respect them and can attempt to reassure your partner and would only work if you were doing which made your list, apologize to your spouse.Remain willing to throw your spouse's feelings.This can be unbearably painful both to calmly talk about these support groups that are bothering you, you may not like to save your marriage bond and send couples to work with your spouse?

The best possible way to get a well known modern save marriage advice is - It is so important in a loving and happy life together.Marriage is much easier to talk to each other.Expectations will mean more to acquaint you with some personal space.I want to set you off in our society as a couple can do to save your marriage.You can voice your concerns in a relaxed mood.

[hipandcriticalblog]

Jamm’s Top 7 Must See Netflix Series

Monday, August 28, 2017 7:50 PM by. Jae Covington (Jamm)

  We are all familiar with the juggernaut streaming service NETFLIX and its mega successful and award winning  series’ like House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black. While these shows are well deserving of all the glory that they have received, there are still a wealth of less recognized series that deserve some of the spotlight  as well. So here is my list of seven essential shows for your viewing pleasure on NETFLIX.

1. Sense 8    Let's start off with the most well known show from the list, Sense 8. The series has been making waves recently due to its fans loud uproar of disapproval following the shows cancellation, right after the release of its second season. But if you take the time to experience this epic sci-fi drama/thriller, you'll no doubt join in on all of the rage.

 Sense 8 introduces the idea that there is a more evolved species of human on the planet called sensates (get sense 8, sensate), with the ability to share memories, emotions, and all senses with other sensates. These amazing abilities combine to make a another one called "visiting". Visiting is kinda like making a projection of yourself directly into someone else's consciousness, something like a hologram. While the premise is enough to bring you into the story, the characters and their interactions with one another is definitely what keeps you engaged. The story revolves around, you guessed it, 8 characters in a cluster (you'll learn about the term from the show) from all over the world. Each character has their own unique background, talents, and personalities which vary greatly from the other characters. Like Capheus, a Kenyan bus driver living in the slums of Nairobi and Nomi, a transgender lesbian hacker from San Francisco.

    The show dedicates itself to exposing the nuance of the lives that the characters live, and introducing that same nuance and culture  to people who would never experience it. It is an extremely engaging show to say the least, full of likable characters, drama, and action. This short summary won't give it its due justice, so you should just experience it yourself.

2.       3%    Now when I first started 3% I had no idea what I was watching and what to expect. But I ended up witnessing a thrilling and thought provoking series that I highly recommend. 3% takes place in a dystopian Brazil, where the mass majority of people live in extreme poverty and in a desolate landscape, where people fight and die over resources like food and water. Meanwhile, a small chunk of the population live in a complete paradise separated from the mainland called "The Offshore".

   The main plot is people from the mainland trying to get to the The Offshore, but the only way to achieve this is through an extreme series of testing simply called "The Process". While the plot was beginning to open up, I thought I was going to get another Hunger Games clone but I was lead into something much more dramatic and thought provoking. 3% is like the Hunger Games however, only a certain amount of people can participate. But unlike Hunger Games however, instead of picking children and teenagers, all participants are 21. Also instead of an all out battle royale, the process includes mental challenges and teamwork in some cases in order to advance.

   This show delivers drama, action, mystery, and even a revenge story pulled together into a single narrative creating a must see series.

3.       The OA    Straight up, this show is weird. Usually, I can predict plot points before they are revealed while watching movies or a new series. This however was not the case for The OA. This series left me full of questions and a deep need to find out what is going to happen after the first season. Fair warning: This show will confuse you, but nonetheless, you should watch it.

   In a nutshell, the show tells the story of a blind girl who was kidnapped, but then years later returns to her hometown, with her vision once more. Unfortunately, if I go any more into detail about the story it would spoil too much...so strap in for this one because The OA will take you on a wild ride.

4.       Ozark    If you love gritty crime shows with rich character building and an intense plot, then welcome to your new favorite show, Ozark. This show grabbed me at the first episode and never loosened its grip on my attention and imagination. The series follows an intelligent Chicago financial advisor Marty Byrd, who is also a money launderer for a huge Mexican drug cartel. The basic premise of the show is based around Marty trying to launder 5 million dollars within a short time frame of a few weeks for the cartel, or the cartel will kill him and his family. The show takes a slow start in the first episode but it makes up for it drastically, with a major increase in tension towards the end of the episode.

 In order to launder this mass amount of money Marty takes his family to Ozark, Missouri, a small country lake town in order to capitalize on the large tourist population during the summer. The show is very reminiscent of Breaking Bad. The difference is this show does right when Breaking Bad starts to fall off. Personally, I started to lose interest in Breaking Bad when Walter White connects to the South American drug lord. The interplay between the two characters didn't really add any more drama to the show and I thought the drug lord played too much of a role in the plot, but with Ozark it's the opposite. Every time you see the cartel after the first episode, it's nothing but intensity. Instead of being always seen the cartel thrives in the background but reappears just enough to stay relevant without overdoing it.

   All in all, this show is simply amazing and I highly recommend it to drama show lovers.

5.       Chewing Gum   Sexual, Awkward, Hilarious, are the words that comes to mind when I think about Chewing Gum. This series takes raunchy comedy to an entirely new level. In its two seasons it has become a comedic masterpiece that is choke-full of truly laugh out loud moments. The story revolves around a young woman named Tracey, that’s trying desperately to lose her virginity despite the rules of her highly religious mother. Now one might think this plot to be simple and easy to overcome, but when you are as awkward and so out of touch as Tracey your idea of simple might change.

    The wild and outrageous situations that she finds herself in in the pursuit of sex are to die for. I must admit though, that not all the jokes land well but those are few and far in-between, and the ones that do hit hard and are memorable and will keep you laughing for minutes on end. What makes this show stand out to me however is the fact that Tracey is black. We really don’t see black women in leading comedic roles, nor do we see them actively looking to engage in sex.

This BAFTA winning series is by far one of my favorites on the air right now. It's refreshing, funny, honest, and truly worth your time to watch.

6.       Grace&Frankie    To keep the comedy wagon rolling next up is this "buddy buddy" comedy that brings "old eyes" on current issues. This series will definitely will be one that will be discussed for years to come, due to how it handles topics like; sexuality, ageism,  infidelity, and family issues. And it only helps that it's funny as well. The best way to describe this story is messy, as it follows two older married couples Grace and Robert and Frankie and Saul whom are all friends via Saul and Robert, who are also partners in their own law firm. Where things get messy is when Saul and Robert both come out as gay and in love with each other and have been over the majority of both of their marriages. So to help each other through the situation that they both found themselves in, Grace and Frankie both move in together to be apart from their ex-husbands. I needed some sanitizer writing this because it gets so messy, as this is just the basic premise of the show.

   But through all of this drama and heartbreak the series still finds the space to fit in plenty of comedy in the mix. Mainly the comedic relief falls on Frankie and hippy like lifestyle as it clashes with Grace's upper class and bourgeois status and sensibility. As stated before, the show really shines by its ability to integrate current topics to older characters, which is very seldom seen in television. I really enjoyed watching both Grace and Frankie trying to re-enter the dating scene after being with one person for over 20 years. The show also does a good job of sharing screen time with all of its characters including the children of both marriages, all of whom are complete individuals and have their own storylines to follow.

   In my opinion, Grace&Frankie is one of the best crafted shows that you will see on television. So if you haven't seen it log on to Netflix and delve right into it, you deserve it.

7.       Black Mirror    This show just might be my favorite thing on the entire Netflix platform. It might even be my favorite television show period. Yeah it’s that good. It’s definitely the most complex show on the list, and no doubt will be the hardest to describe...so let’s just get into it. First off, every episode is different so there is no continuity nor connectivity with each episode, just one recurring theme of how technology has, is, and might affect people and society as a whole. The lack of continuity was confusing at first, because the series gives no indication of it, so I was taken back at first, but the feeling faded as I got into the second episode and beyond.

    The show really plays out like a collection of movies instead of television series, due to the quality of the production and how immersive every episode is. What I truly enjoy about this series is that every episode provokes thought and the feeling of "What if that were to really happen to me/us?". A great example of when I felt this sensation is in an episode where the bee population is so low that a company created mechanical bees to make up for the low natural bee population. The problem however is when someone hacks into the artificial bee's systems and start using them to kill people who are chosen over twitter via people attaching their name to a certain hashtag. The show gets deep and when you are watching it it becomes hard to turn away and remove yourself from your captivation to it.

    I can never do this masterpiece any justice from this short description of it. You just have to immerse yourself into it to truly understand how great it is.

   So that’s it with the list of my top seven must see shows. So take a day or two for yourself, and your favorite binge buddy, grab some snacks, and start checking off the shows on your new watch list.

[whopooh]

Great tension in the Miss Fisher fanfic – third and last post

“It seems it got all tense again, Miss Fisher.”

Some time ago, I asked for help from the fandom to spread some fanfic love – asking for fics with great tension, either with Unresolved or Resolved Sexual Tension, or both. This is the third and last post with these recommendations. 

Thank you to all recommenders and all writers!

I’ll start with @bluecityrose, who wrote a full, lovely list of fic recommendations, and I don’t want to split it up so I’ll just post her list here in one go:

I'm so sorry, this is the best I could do. There are soooo many to choose from, this was kind of impossible. Here is my too short list:

“A Man in Need” and “Sweltering,” both by Collingwoodgirl/ @jeneenp. These are the first works of fanfiction I had ever read (I didn't even know it was a genre before that!) and I was stunned by the beauty of the writing. There are a million incredible moments in “A Man in Need”, but one that stands out is when Phryne walks in on Jack and he is shirtless – It was the first time my imagination saw him shirtless as well, and well, I'll never forget that image. “Sweltering” builds the URST until it explodes into the hottest scene in the back of the Hispano Suiza. I'm still sweating from that one.

“The Pleasures of a Slow Dance” by Ollyjay/ @ollyjayonline consists of two chapters in which Phryne and Jack flirt and banter with delicious dialogue that seems so true to the show, I am convinced that I saw them as filmed episodes.

“The Journey Towards” by @ladyroxie is an exquisitely drawn portrait of Jack and Phryne's growing emotional closeness as they discuss their evolving relationship obliquely. I love URST but I'm a sucker for emotional tension also, and this story is just beautiful. Plus they end up holding hands.

I adored “Still Holding My Heart” by @flashofthefuse, and there was plenty of URST as Phryne and Jack worked towards repairing their relationship, plus it has Jack sitting on the grass in jeans repairing a bicycle with a grease smudge on his face, and I'm grateful for that.

@whopooh's “Sense and Sensibility” added to the "only one bed" URST trope, with a hilarious twist involving feet (trying to avoid spoilers here), and a lovely resolution.

Collingwoodgirl's/ @jeneenp “The Night Within” puts P & J into a very small space, only to then make Morse Code into the sexiest foreplay of all time.

Finally, “Varying States of Muscular Undress” by @gaslightgallows boils with so much URST that it fairly explodes off the page. It takes them on an emotional journey (and physical) that is both tender and hot, and I return to it over and over. In a series of beautiful scenes, J&P reveal their scars (both literal and figurative) to each other, and move slowly closer to a relationship as they build a strong sense of trust, respect and equality that makes their partnership so intriguing and satisfying.

“The Wager” by @soupsouffle. Recommended by @kanste 

Jack makes a wager with Phryne, about who will manage to resist the other’s innuendos for the longest time, and they both try to make the other break.

It’s so difficult to choose specific quote, this whole fic is full of wonderful tension, but here is one:

“Jack,” she half-whispered, shivering at the sensation of his hot breath gliding over her fevered skin. His eyes darted over her features like a bumblebee at a bouquet, looking panicked as her fingers reached to undo the knot of his tie and tug apart the buttons at the top of his collar. She dragged the pads of her fingers over the newly exposed skin, thumbing his Adam’s apple and whimpering softly as she felt his throat convulse beneath her touch. “Jack,” she repeated.

“Yes?” he rumbled. The sound of his deep, sure voice did evil things to her nether regions. Her index finger found a notch at the side of his knee and began to make little patterns with her nails upwards from the spot, mapping a fiery trail up the inside of his thigh. She wished his wool trousers were not quite so thick, but his breath came quicker all the same.

She touched the corner of his mouth, where a speck of jam lingered. “You’ve got a little spot here. No, I’ll get it for you,” she purred, leaning in before he could escape her and touching the spot ever so carefully with her tongue. She felt his large hands, which he had been keeping locked at his sides, fly to her body, one clamping around her upper arm while the other clutched upwards at her back, pressing desperately into her spine.

“Phryne,” he sighed. It was not a protest or a plea. It sounded more like pure appreciation. She pulled back and rubbed her thumb over the spot she had licked clean.

“There we are. Right as rain.”

His heavy-lidded eyes were fixed on her, his lips parted slightly, his breathing fast and shallow. Phryne snickered to herself. Who was putty now?

“This is an excellent spot for teasing, Jack.”

"In the Car," part 7 of “Down and Dirty” by @omgimsarahtoo. Recommended by @kanste .

The drabbles are all just wonderful, but I love the way Jack is teasing her in this chapter.

“The Size of Dreaming” by innie. Recommended by @firesign23.

The Size of Dreaming was one of the first fanfics I read for MFMM, and it's a lovely examination of the tension, desires, and intimacy in the slowly developing relationship between Jack and Phryne. From merely desiring the handsome detective inspector to wanting Jack for the man he is, it's a lovely glimpse of Phryne's journey, strewn with sensual images and thoughts. She desires his humour, his acceptance, his cheekbones; she thinks of his body unguarded in slumber or in the guise of Mark Antony. There are so many passages I could quote, and the way they build upon each other to slowly build the tension, but I will go with this moment during the investigation at the House of Fleuri.

Since becoming a Lady Detective, she'd often had cause to bewail the lack of pockets in most ladies' clothes, but had consoled herself with the thought that without pockets, her skirts swirled as prettily as they were meant to and her trousers clung sleekly to her hips. Phryne hadn't really considered the crowning virtue of her attire until she saw Jack taken aback but unmistakably aroused by her fishing the last aubergine pearl out of her blouse.

She was inured by now to his disapproving sternness, so the admonishing look he gave her was easily ignored in favour of thinking through what it would be like to lie back against the yielding softness of her bed with Jack on top of her and savour the sensation of pearls caught between their frantic bodies. She had ropes of champagne, milk, and rose pearls, all of which would lend their lustre to his skin when he inevitably got tangled in them. They would warm from the friction, their slipperiness adding a frisson where none was needed, sending her over the edge all the quicker. And Jack – he would wind a demanding hand in the strands to pull her up to his questing mouth even as she still shook, and he would not let her down until her eyes rolled back in her head, ruthless in the pursuit of his pleasure.

His lips would close around the beads as he sought her nipple, his hands would brush them aside in his fervour to get to her skin, and he would growl and tear them free; she would hear a thousand clicks as they scattered on her floor, but dimly, because Jack would still be moving over her, eager for more, for all she could give him.

She really needed to go to the bank in the morning and liberate her pearls from the safety-deposit box.

”A Night in Queenscliff” by @whopooh. Recommended by @quiltingmom.

Hi whopooh, I want to thank you again for the assignment. I'm doing exactly what I wanted to do, going back and rereading some works and getting reacquainted with some newer fics that I'd forgotten about (it really does stink getting older...) and you're not going to believe the first one I found that I wanted to tag. It's “A Night in Queenscliff” by the wonderful @whopooh. And I'm totally serious about this. When I reread it I was reminded of first, your first attempt at writing smut (which was utterly sensational by the way) but secondly, of the beautiful sexual tension you created in the beginning passages:

He was on fire. Every single nerve end seemed to be alive, sensing her closeness, screaming for him to do something, anything, that involved touching her. It was an odd sensation when you were completely drenched, standing on a beach in the warm night, trying to calm your breath after having swum and waded back to land.

(...)

"I cannot decide, Jack,” – her voice made that clicking sound she sometimes did when she pronounced his name – “if you are more soaked or more on fire right now.”

And then from there, well let's just say, it was a very satisfying and fulfilling RST, lol.

“I know what you’re thinking -- this dress is stunning.”

“The Scientific Method” by @omgimsarahtoo. Recommended by @olderbynow.

And if he were so close, he would have no choice but to see the contrast of his skin, with its underlying golden hue against hers with its pale pink alabaster. Would his calloused fingertips catch on the fabric of her gown as he passed them over her breast? Would she shiver at the sensation of his palm stroking her bare arm or the nape of her neck? Would her mouth taste of hot spice the way that he remembered it from the kiss he’d stolen at Café Replique? There really were too many unanswered questions. He would have to answer them, one by one. It was a scientific necessity.

science as an excuse for sexytimes? sign me up, please!

“Inappropriate” by @promisesarepiecrust. Recommended by @whopooh

I adore the way Phryne and Jack talk, holding back a little bit less because they are inebriated, but still rather restrained, and with very much tension: “Why haven’t you kissed me?” Phryne asks Jack, and he first deflects, only to come back to it again:

“Alright.” He sipped his drink. “Why haven’t I kissed you? Do you want a long and pitiful answer or a short and pitiful one?”

“Well, at least I can see that the whiskey has done its job on you. But I admit I had secret hopes that you would be a chatty drunk rather than a maudlin one.”

“There is nothing maudlin about honesty,” he said with clear, suddenly sharp eyes. “Also, I could just as truthfully have said ‘short and hurtful or long and hurtful,’ if you’re worried that I’m only hard on myself.”

(---)

Her moment of discomfiture touched him—she was usually so brassy, never more so than tonight. He allowed a long, quiet moment before he answered her previous question, his voice intimate.

“Because it might feel too important…I haven’t kissed you because it might feel too important. To me.”

She nodded slowly, absorbing his meaning. She turned back to the skillet.

“Are you sober?” he asked her.

“Somewhat.”

“Why haven’t you kissed me?”

She didn’t move.

“Are you drunk?” she countered.

“Somewhat.”

“Eat this,” she said as she slid the omelet onto a plate and placed it on the table.

Well, now she’d done it, she thought. She’d walked right into that one, hadn’t she. Her wit was not up to repartee, so she was only left with honesty…or leaving the room, which did occur to her.

“I haven’t kissed you because I haven’t taken anything seriously since 1918…because it might feel too important, that was a good way to put it.”

She looked at him, proud that she could meet his eyes despite feeling so vulnerable. He began to wonder what the worst was that could happen, and realised with a start that the worst already had. He loved her, without remedy. He focused more intently on his meal.

They allowed silence. A strong, cold breeze came in through the window, effectively clearing some of the melancholy that had settled in the room. He finished his dinner and declined another drink. She saw him to the door, handing him his hat. He gave a last look back, hat in hand, ready to step into the night, then reconsidered. He turned to face her, leaned forward and kissed her on the apple of her cheek, gently, in slow-motion, finishing the gesture with an affectionate rub of her cheek from the tip of his nose.

“Now I’ve kissed you, Miss Fisher,” he breathed. “Good night.”

Shipping it on ships now, are we?

“In Every Port” by @rubycaspar. Recommeded by @scruggzi.

“In Every Port” does such a lovely job balancing their public flirting and very satisfying RST, plus nice touches with the original characters.

She held Jack’s gaze for a long moment and gave him a slow smirk. “Inspector.”

Jack nodded. “Miss Fisher.”

And with a swish of blue and gold she was gone, disappearing quickly into the crowd moving towards the doors, leaving only a trace of French perfume in the air.

“Crossed paths my arse,” said Larry the moment she was gone. He was looking at Jack like he’d never seen him before. “She looked like she wanted to eat you alive,” he said accusingly, shaking his head. “ Lucky bastard .”

“Not All Treasure Is Silver And Gold” by @omgimsarahtoo. Recommended by @ollyjayonline.

The imagery of Phryne and Jack in this romp on the high seas is just simply breathtaking…

The sea air blew a welcome breeze across Jack’s brow as he stood, his gold-trimmed black hat held securely under one arm. Phryne stood before him, dressed not in her captain’s clothing, but in a gown of floral brocade in shades of gold on a base of deep green. The neckline was square-cut and showed the upper curves of her breasts, plumped--he imagined, given their slight size when unenhanced--by a corset. The gown’s color made her skin glow, and he wanted to run his fingers along the divide between living flesh and cloth.

And the clever way characters and plot points have been interwoven with this entirely different setting and are equally as moving…

He wanted to be the kind of man who would be happy if she was happy—that he’d celebrate with her a return to whatever variety of lovers she’d enjoyed before he’d come along—but he wasn’t.

And their reunion every bit as I have always wanted it to be except instead of some foggy, wet English dock they are in the warm sunshine of Angra do Heroísmo, a small ancient city situated on the southern side of the island of Terceira in the Azores…

With a shout of joy, he lifted her and spun, shouting her name to the sky. Her squeals of laughter as he twirled her around were the finest music, and the grip of her arms around his neck the sweetest pressure. Slowing, he let her feet down to the ground again, pressing his face into her shoulder as he held her close.

And finally, I will just mention that there is sex in this fic, it is beautifully written, and quite frankly in joyous abundance – as it should be : )

A waltz is slow, and close, and metaphorical.

“The Pleasures of a Slow Dance” by @ollyjayonline. Recommended by @firesign23.

OllyJay's “Pleasures of a Slow Dance” are two scenes of Phrack banter and attraction, and could so easily be missing scenes from the show. In the first, Phryne takes a chance to thank him for his kindness to a woman in need, which he dismisses, but they are soon distracted by matters of a biscuity nature. In the second, they have a discussion about the nature of distractions. It's slow and languid and delightful teasing, and ends with Phryne appreciating the unresolved nature of the ties between them.

“Oh, she knew this game now, though she had only recently learned all the rules. The rapture of not giving into instant gratification, the slow languid delight of thinking about all the things you wanted to do with someone, one day, when the time was absolutely perfect. She settled back comfortably in her chair, brushing her fingers against the tin badge on her lapel as the last of the sun warmed her body. Happy in the knowledge that, at some unspecified time in the future, she would have the incredible pleasure of learning exactly how it felt to have Jack Robinson make love to her. A shiver of anticipation ran through her, she couldn't... no, she corrected herself... she could wait.”

“Post Scrip Port Said” by @ladyroxie. Recommeded by @scruggzi.

The whole of “Post Scrip Port Said” is a big sexy pile, perhaps especially the bit at the tailor:

As it was, he'd had to flex his abdominal muscles to the point of aggravating his incision in order to keep his body under control. Whatever became of himself and Miss Fisher, Jack had decided then and there this was the first and last time she accompanied him to the tailor. It was awkward enough having a stranger measure his inseam without worrying he was about to offend the poor gentleman to the point of apoplexy.

"Smoke and Fire” by @olderbynow. Recommended by @whopooh.

I love this fic, and the fact that it takes something slightly silly -- Phryne taking up a challenge, that isn't even a real challenge but that has awoken her competitive streak, to bake for Jack, and it turns out she’s a disastrous baker -- and then turns this premsie into one of the longest super tense scenes of “will they finally kiss or not”:

“But still a very nice gesture,” he insisted.

‘Very nice gesture’ was not exactly what she’d been going for, but considering the biscuits were a pile of ashes on her garden path at this point perhaps she shouldn’t complain.

And really, ‘very nice gesture’ wasn’t so bad at all, she decided, when he reached out and carefully brushed her cheek with his thumb. “You had a bit of flour,” he explained, his hand still hovering somewhere near her hair.

She wanted desperately to shift, just take a small step to the left, and make him touch her more. She looked down herself and then back up at him, eyes wide and inviting. She did have rather more than a bit of flour, and she was not at all averse to the idea of him taking care of all of it.

His eyes mimicked the path hers had taken and seemed to darken slightly at the unspoken suggestion. Then his hand was on her face again, his thumb trailing the same gentle path it had already gone once, and she wondered briefly if he was just doing a very thorough job of it indeed, but then the hand moved to the back of her head, his fingers burying themselves in her hair.

She smiled, pushing herself out from the table slightly, to get her body closer to his, and somehow, miraculously, he seemed to take the hint, moving closer as well, until they were mere inches apart. She tilted her head up to be able to still look at him, and licked her lips.

The movement made his gaze shift from her eyes to her lips and he swallowed, tongue darting out to lick his own lips as well.

This really was entirely too much to have to withstand, she thought to herself, wanting desperately to just close the distance between them and crush her lips against his, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

This was Jack, and his fingers might be tracing delicious circles on the back of her head just now, his pupils might be so dilated his eyes seemed practically black, his breath might be coming in short huffs, but there was still a very real possibility that if she moved at all he’d clear his throat and make some remark about playing draughts, and then she’d have to sit across that bloody table from him for an hour or two before he excused himself and went home, leaving her to take care of her frustrations on her own, as he had done so often in the past.

The disappointment would be too much to bear, so she remained frozen, watching him for any hint of… anything.

That’s all for this time. Hope you find something you want to read or reread!

Earlier posts about “Great tension in the Miss Fisher fanfic”: no 1; no 2.

The index for Reading Miss Fisher is here.

[gunnerpalace]

(Art by @gabecebro, used with permission and originally posted here; if you like it, please go show your appreciation!)

GROUNDED! - A Bleach AU Idea Revised

You might’ve seen the original idea for Grounded! before. Long story short, it’s evolved significantly since that post was made. Namely, I (among others) fell for YoruIchiRuki as an AU OT3, so it’s now the start of a much longer series of adventures for the three. So, I’ve decided to publicly expand upon the idea as originally presented.

INTRODUCTION

Ichigo is fascinated with a jet-haired flight attendant he weirdly keeps running into. Okay, well, that was true the first half-a-dozen times. Then he pulled some favors and found out who she was and what her route was. What? They just wind up flying together a lot and staying in the same layover cities pretty often. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just a coincidence. He’s never even talked to her really, except to occasionally ask for a Coke. She probably doesn’t even know he exists.

Or perhaps Rukia does, but thinks much the same.

But for every awkward problem in the world, there’s an equally awkward solution! Enter Yoruichi—that’s Captain Shihōin to you, buddy—who’s never met someone she wanted to bed that didn’t wind up there the next morning.

When all three of them wind up stuck during a layover because of the worst blizzard in a century, Yoruichi happily plies her wiles on Rukia, only to soon discover she’s stepped into a thorny situation. Feeling more than a little guilty, because she really likes Rukia, she decides to adopt a new pet project: she’s going to get the two of them together, hell or high water.

There's just one problem: nothing ever works out that cleanly or easily.

SETTING

Grounded! takes place in an alternate universe (AU) from Bleach. While Bleach is essentially a "secret history” of our world, Grounded! occurs in a familiar but historically divergent reality.

The short version is that it takes place in a North America that resembles the setting of the film Big Hero 6, with a fusion of Japanese and American sensibilities and cultures.

The long version is a little more complicated. Our divergence begins in late 1580s Japan. Toyotomi Hideyoshi ultimately does not adopt Oda Nobunaga's vision of invading Ming China through Joseon Korea, determining it to be infeasible. Instead, after unifying Japan, he decides to deal with Japan's excess of military strength through seafaring raids and invasions (much like the Vikings and Normans in outcome), rather than an extended ground campaign.

Drawing from the experiences of the wokou pirates of the Sengoku period, samurai are dispatched to other nearby targets instead: against the Ainu in Hokkaido (which is occupied much earlier than historically), Taiwan (which becomes "Japanese Formosa," with both the Dutch and Spanish being held off some decades later), the Philippines, parts of Indonesia, the Bruneian Empire, the Jurchens in the Ussuri region, Sakhalin, the Kurils, and Kamchatka... It isn’t long until some of these spearheads arrive in Hawaii and Alaska, and soon the North American West Coast. Word eventually gets back about the bounty of these areas, along with raiding opportunities on Spanish galleons, and the center of focus shifts dramatically.

Thus, the Japanese are the ones to colonize the West Coast of the continent, pushing inward as far as the Rocky Mountains. The fertile terrain and easy access from the Pacific draws settlers much faster than historical settlement from the east. Discoveries of gold occur much earlier, and the region as a whole develops much more rapidly. It’s at this time that the great families such as the Shihōin, Kuchiki, and Shiba gain their wealth and stature. Eventually, they develop ideas of their own, and much like their equivalents in the British colonies on the East Coast later will, they guide the colony to independence.

This West Coast nation later comes into contact with those same British colonies, and there is much trade and cross-pollination between them, with heavy infusions of Mexican, Anglo, and later continental European settlers into the region, creating a cosmopolitan atmosphere.

Eventually, the great families conspire to assist the British colonies in achieving their own independence. Faced with hostile colonizing powers across each ocean (namely, Japan and Britain), the two ally, and eventually federate together into a single country occupying what in our world is Canada and the United States. (For the sake of convenience, this will still be addressed as “the United States,” but it is rather different internally.) Much of the rest of history goes roughly the same, with the West and North crushing the South in the Civil War, participation in WW1 and WW2, and engagement in a Cold War with the Soviet Union that ends in the early 2000s. (I can’t be bothered making too elaborate of a timeline; things are different, but similar enough.)

It’s February of 2017. By this point in time, the Shihōin, Kuchiki, and their peers have a reputation akin to the Rockefellers and Rothschilds of the East Coast, although their wealth is older and significantly more substantial: they regard their East Coast Anglo counterparts as petty nouveau riche in comparison. The Shiba seem to have retreated from the public eye.

Grounded! proper takes place in Calgary, in what we’d call Canada, although it’s somewhat different. All of the main characters reside in what we’d know as the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area, although in this setting it’s known as Murakumo (叢雲, "cloudbank") and is a much, much larger city.

(For the record, San Diego is Heisui [平水, "calm water"], Los Angeles is Aozora [青空, "blue sky"], San Francisco-Oakland is Miyako [都, "capital"], Portland is Fūsawa [豊川, "rich river"], and Vancouver is Shiroyama [白山, "white mountain"]; the relationship between Murakumo and Shiroyama, and their degree of urbanization, is like Tokyo and Yokohama, or Osaka and Kobe.)

The great families maintain their primary compounds in Miyako, although they have presences pretty much everywhere, and can often be found in places such as the equivalents of Malibu, Palm Springs, and Las Vegas, as well as in New York and Martha’s Vineyard. (They love sticking it to their East Coast counterparts and the new suits who think they run things.)

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Yoruichi Shihōin - 32 years old (January 1, 1985). Wealthy scion. Ex-fighter jock. Consummate hedonist. Born to privilege, she was never one for the boardroom and bucked tradition, joining the Navy straight out of college and gaining acclaim both as their first female fighter pilot and first female ace. But the military life was never for her either, and a lucrative offer from an airline stole her away from them—not that she ever needed the money. It’s more that it was a fun and free way to see the world... and more besides. Yoruichi fought in something like the equivalent of the Gulf War for the Navy, flying an F-14D, although it took place much later (circa 2008; she joined at 22 and left at 28). She met Kisuke shortly after leaving. She lives alone in a condo, although she visits him often before the events of the story. She still has all her resources as a Shihōin, but avoids going home at all costs.

Ichigo Kurosaki - 24 years old (July 15, 1992). Young buck. Newbie lawyer. Angsty type. Coming from a middle-class background and having fought his way to the top through grit and determination, he’s hungry to prove... something. He just doesn’t know what yet. The latest hire to a vast and prestigious law firm (”Prism”), and specializing in corporate law, he’s really the newest gofer on the jet-set lifestyle, delivering documents and briefs all over the world. It doesn’t often leave him a lot of time for other pursuits. Ichigo lost his mother Masaki at the age of 9 to a freak accident that would later influence his decision to pursue a career in law. He has his own small apartment, but visits his family’s home often. His sisters still live there while attending the local (yet prestigious) Murakumo University, same as he did.

Rukia Kuchiki - 26 years old (January 14, 1991). Youthful sprite. Veteran Stewardess. Feisty upstart. Rukia’s past is known to very few, and she was adopted into the Kuchiki family under still mysterious circumstances in her early teens, after which she mostly grew up in elite educational institutions. She only entered the family business a few years ago. Her connection to the top of the food-chain doesn’t mean a cushy job though—she’s expected to work her way up. She’s been around the world more times than she’s been around the sun, but there are certain things she’s still yet to find. Kaien Shiba died saving her after she fell into a pond through thin spring ice when she was 16. She lives with her brother in the family’s compound in Murakumo.

Byakuya Kuchiki - 34 years old (January 31, 1983). Lonely widower. Tireless industrialist. Overprotective brother. The latest heir to the Kuchiki family and CEO of the massive Kuchiki International, he tirelessly seeks to expand his company's rule over the friendly skies, and further the fortunes of his extended family. Unfortunately however, sometimes even a CEO with a controlling interest has to bow to the stockholders. Byakuya set out to chart his own course, away from the prying eyes of the Kuchiki elders, wanting to make a name and a fortune for himself as independently as he could. His selection of Murakumo was no accident. He was briefly married to Hisana, who died of a rare genetic condition; he fulfilled her last wish of adopting Rukia and developed an enduring interest in biotech research as a result. He has his own vast estate, on what in our world is Mercer Island.

Kūkaku Shiba - 31 years old (October 1, 1985) Reclusive heiress. Aspiring artist. Restless soul. The daughter of old-money that fell off the grid, she’s interested in applying her family’s wealth toward some noble end. Ironically, the social circles she runs in are small and she’s wound up in the orbit of her departed brother’s nemesis, while her eccentric uncle keeps refusing to return her calls. That is, whenever she can make one, when Yoruichi’s not on the line about this or that conquest or stop... Kūkaku allowed the prominence of the Shiba to decline markedly after Kaien’s death and the departure of her uncle, Isshin; the Shiba were never as prominent as the other families, and most of their assets are now shuttered. Still, she holds a vast amount of wealth at her fingertips. She lives in a stately penthouse condo with her brother Ganju and their two butlers, and spends most of her time there.

There will be some additional minor characters popping up who will be familiar to everyone.

Kisuke Urahara - (37 years old, December 31, 1980) owns a bar (”Free Radical”) in Murakumo. In his early 20s he ditched working on his doctoral thesis at MIT to join both CIAs (the Culinary Institute of America and the Central Intelligence Agency) for a number of years, before moving across the continent and dabbling in mixology, molecular gastronomy, and brewing. He’s Yoruichi’s closest friend after Kūkaku, as well as her on-again, off-again lover, although their relationship is rather loose and fluid.

Rangiku Matsumoto - (30 years old, September 29, 1986) another flight attendant (albeit a senior one; a Chief Purser) for Kuchiki International, she’s more than a little familiar with Yoruichi, having flown with her before and having had an extended adventure with her on at least one occasion. They’re quite friendly and tend to hang out some during their journeys when teamed up, but aren’t really close friends off the job. She views it as not just her job to watch over the younger flight crew, but her duty.

Izuru Kira - (26 years old, March 27, 1991) Yoruichi’s long-time co-pilot, they’ve been working together for two years, with her serving as his mentor. Very staid and by-the-book, he’s the professional counterpart to her wily and by-the-seat-of-her-pants style, and often the focal point of her and Rangiku’s shenanigans. He’s the proud owner of an out-of-style painter’s brush mustache and has managed to keep it despite several attempts by them to shave it off.

Yoruichi, Kūkaku, Byakuya, Kisuke, and Rangiku grew up in an environment more like that of our 1980s, while Ichigo, Rukia, and Kira grew up in a climate that was more like the 1990s.

In addition, there are others who’ll pop up as background characters, such as: Isshin, Karin, and Yuzu Kurosaki (as, of course, Ichigo’s family); Shunsui Kyōraku, Jūshirō Ukitake, Retsu Unohana, Nanao Ise, Isane Kotetsu, Kiyone Kotetsu, Sentarō Kotsubaki, and Hanatarō Yamada (as staff at Prism, Ichigo’s law firm; Shunsui,  Jūshirō, and Retsu are the senior partners); Renji Abarai (alluded to only; Rukia’s college boyfriend and one-time first lover); Suì Fēng and Marechiyo Ōmaeda (possibly alluded to only for now; Yoruichi’s former junior wingman, and her Radar Intercept Officer, respectively); and probably more (including Tatsuki Arisawa, Uryū Ishida, and Yasutora “Chad” Sado). Even more characters will appear in cameos, such as Gin Ichimaru (a national network weatherman) and Sōsuke Aizen (an anchor for the same).

SYNOPSIS

Day 1: On their first night stuck in Calgary, Yoruichi decides she’s going to take the opportunity to unwind, and goes to find and approach Rukia. At this same time, Ichigo finds himself unable to do the same, and drowns his sorrows for the evening, having already informed his firm of his situation. Rukia is initially wary and uncertain for various reasons, but Yoruichi makes it clear she’s not trying to abuse her position or pressure her, and that Rukia can stop or leave at any time if she feels uncomfortable.

Rukia eventually decides to go with Yoruichi to her suite out of curiosity more than anything else. They shower and spend time relaxing in the tub together, with Yoruichi endeavoring to put Rukia at ease. When she finally tries kissing Rukia, the latter is surprised to find she enjoys it. They spend some more time talking, and eventually dry off by a fireplace, slowly beginning to become more intimate. Ultimately, they make love, with Yoruichi leading at first, and fall asleep together.

Day 2: They wake up pleasantly the next morning, and have a room service breakfast, getting ready together. Rukia isn’t quite sure what to do, but knows she doesn’t want to just leave. Yoruichi finds she doesn’t want that either, and offers to spend the day together. Rukia enthusiastically agrees, and they explore what the airport has to offer, going to a spa and salon together, having lunch, doing some shopping, seeing a movie, and having something of a date night.

They’re settling in for a second evening together when Rukia gets a call from Rangiku saying that the stewardesses have been looking for her, and want her to come hang out the next day. Rukia reluctantly agrees, before turning her attention back to Yoruichi. Ichigo spends the day dealing with his work and helping Prism compensate for the fact he can’t get to where he needs to be, but still finds time to mope in the evening.

Day 3: The morning goes much the same, with Rukia reluctant to leave. Yoruichi gently shoos her, telling her they can always meet up again if she wants. She cheekily lends Rukia a toy and sends her off with a kiss. Afterwards, Yoruichi calls Kūkaku—whom she knows has been associating with Byakuya lately—to gossip a bit. Kūkaku is nonplussed at hearing the news, but knows it’s hopeless to try and stop Yoruichi. Soon after the call, she meets with Byakuya to discuss a corporate art installation he wants to commission.

It isn’t long after lunch when Rangiku shows up to interrogate Yoruichi, having deduced what’s happened from Yoruichi and Rukia’s absences and the change in Rukia’s mood. She informs Yoruichi about the situation between Rukia and Ichigo, which she and the other flight attendants have been aware of, and leaves Yoruichi to stew in what she’s inadvertently stepped into, thinking it to be karmic comeuppance for once.

After a brief period of self-loathing and reflection, Yoruichi decides to try and fix it by approaching Ichigo, and calls Kūkaku for moral support. Kūkaku is a bit snippy because she’s in the middle of a casual lunch with Byakuya, but something about the guy Yoruichi is talking about also sounds vaguely familiar. Yoruichi quickly finds her nerve despite Kūkaku’s warnings, and goes to find Ichigo. Byakuya invites Kūkaku to dinner the next evening.

Yoruichi discovers she has a lot of work to do if she’s going to get Ichigo and Rukia to meet smoothly, and tells Rangiku to keep Rukia distracted, telling Rukia herself that she thinks she’s coming down with a cold. She spends the evening putting the moves on Ichigo, gradually convincing him to go along with her for dinner and a movie, before doing much the same as she did with Rukia. She eventually gets him to relax and open up, and beds him too.

Day 4: Ichigo’s morning with Yoruichi is rather less serene than Rukia’s two were. Still, Yoruichi manages to once more put him at ease. She elects to spend the day in with him, as she has quite a lot to teach him if she’s going to trust someone special like Rukia to him. While he naps in the afternoon, she once more calls Rukia to put on a show of being sick, and calls Kūkaku again. Kūkaku soon figures out Ichigo is, in fact, her cousin Ichigo, and rapidly puts together what a problem this is becoming, as Yoruichi has somehow involved herself with both a Kuchiki and a Shiba at the same time as she, a Shiba, is also dealing with a Kuchiki—that very evening, in fact.

She warns Yoruichi in no uncertain terms, but Yoruichi assures her it’ll all work out before hanging up as Ichigo wakes. Kūkaku can’t reach her again. Rukia becomes a bit morose that evening as she begins to wonder if Yoruichi is intentionally avoiding her, and finds she really misses Yoruichi’s company in every way. Yoruichi puts Ichigo through his paces into the night. Kūkaku and Byakuya have a surprisingly fun dinner, that then becomes having drinks and drawing closer together, until going home is the furthest thing from Kūkaku‘s mind.

Day 5: Yoruichi wakes up as usual and has breakfast by herself, letting Ichigo sleep in. She texts Rukia to try and arrange meeting up for lunch, and soon gets an affirmative reply back. She ruminates on her plan as she gets ready, deciding it’s best to be blunt and direct. Kūkaku and Byakuya have a pleasant and lazy morning together that she teases him relentlessly about. Ichigo wakes up late in the morning, having been exhausted the previous day, and Yoruichi encourages him to get dressed to join her for lunch. Starving, he agrees.

Rukia and Ichigo are shocked to see each other at lunch. Yoruichi sincerely apologizes to Rukia, but chastises Ichigo somewhat, before introducing them, telling them how she learned about them and making the case that they belong together—after all, she’d know better than anyone! The meeting goes less well than Yoruichi had hoped, and both Ichigo and Rukia excuse themselves, heading off alone. Yoruichi is left at the table wondering if she really has messed everything up.

Another call to Kūkaku has Yoruichi learning about her situation with Byakuya, to her infinite amusement and Kūkaku’s chagrin. Byakuya deduces something is going on despite affording Kūkaku privacy for her call, given how she’s yelling, but he doesn’t pry—yet. Their example gives Yoruichi hope in persevering, but Rukia and Ichigo don’t return her texts or calls. The two spend the afternoon and evening thinking about her and each other.

That night, there’s a knock on Yoruichi’s door, and she finds Rukia outside. Rukia asks if she can come in, and after Yoruichi apologizes much more profusely, they wind up cuddling and comforting one another, before they fall asleep together. Ichigo also has a visitor: Rangiku. She invites herself into his room and makes herself comfortable in a chair, having figured out what’s going on, and begins to tell him what she knows about Rukia. Kūkaku spends another evening with Byakuya, although this time she’s a bit distracted by what’s going on, which he notices. They spend the night together again.

Day 6: Yoruichi and Rukia go to breakfast, only to be surprised when Ichigo joins them and takes a seat. They sit in silence for awhile before Yoruichi speaks up and reiterates her case. She offers to help them out if they need her to, to the horror of both. Sensing a change in their attitudes, she holds up her hands in wry surrender, leaving the two alone.

Ichigo and Rukia watch her leave before turning their attention to one another, and have a moment of awkward silence, then look away. Rukia tries to break the ice when Ichigo suddenly dismisses what Yoruichi said, yet asks her out to lunch. Surprised, she agrees. They wind up idling together and chatting until then, and after lunch, she asks him out to dinner and a movie. He also agrees.

Yoruichi, meanwhile, is communicating with Rangiku to sorta kinda spy on them as best they’re able, and in the afternoon she decides that her plan is a success. She phones Kūkaku in triumph, only for Kūkaku snap and hang up on her. Byakuya finally approaches Kūkaku, carefully noting her agitation and offering to listen. Not wanting to lie to him, and also discerning the importance of acting if it turns out Yoruichi has succeeded, Kūkaku begins to explain what happened to the Shiba, who her nearest relatives are, and what exactly has been occurring during the blizzard. Byakuya isn’t happy, but also knows he can’t do anything about it, and appreciates her honesty. He decides to wait and see what happens, and make whatever moves he has to later.

Yoruichi goes out to party with her flight crew. Despite her alcohol intolerance, she winds up having more than a few drinks.

Ichigo and Rukia have a lovely—if animated—evening, and they’re at Rukia’s hotel room, ready to part, when she invites him inside. He goes along with her, and they mutually decide to repeat how Yoruichi started out things with them. They soon discover they’re great and mind-blowing, and stay up until the early hours of the morning before collapsing in a heap together.

Day 7: Ichigo and Rukia wake up late and laze with one another, continuing to explore and get to know one another in various ways: talking, cuddling, and making love. Rukia eventually circles around to the fact that Yoruichi was right, which Ichigo grudingly admits.

Yoruichi, meanwhile, spends her seventh day resting, having thoroughly worn herself out physically and emotionally over the past week. She’s also nursing a hangover from the night before. For the 84th time, she swears off ever drinking again, and deliberately distracts herself from thinking of the two lovebirds, for reasons she doesn’t want to think about either.

Kūkaku spends the day away from Byakuya, working on her art and mulling over whether she really wants to get involved with him. He’s charming, and respectful, and the sex is amazing, but... it’s complicated. And Yoruichi hasn’t done much to help. She needs a little time to process it. She tries reaching Isshin yet again (as she periodically does) and when she can’t, she finally decides to do something about it, heading to the Kurosaki residence personally.

After dinner in Rukia’s room, ichigo and Rukia fall back into one another before another spell of conversation. The subject turns to Yoruichi and how utterly ridiculous everything has been. They swap stories about her, realizing how much fun they had with her. They gradually decide they “owe” her, and they plot about their "revenge,” with Rukia calling Rangiku to try and enlist her help.

Day 8: The blizzard is finally on track to lift enough for flight operations to resume in the afternoon. However, Yoruichi’s flight crew has no intention of leaving just yet. Rangiku has already reported up the chain of command that Yoruichi and Izuru are too ill to fly, and their passengers have already been reassigned to other flights—not that either knows. She goes to personally “distract” Izuru—she’s never found him unattractive, and it’s a perfect opportunity to once more try and get rid of that damn mustache of his.

Ichigo and Rukia, meanwhile, turn up at Yoruichi’s suite, surprising her just as she’s about to leave in her flight uniform. They guide her back inside, with just a bit of gentle manhandling, while Ichigo explains they’re not going anywhere. Yoruichi quickly figures out what’s going on and doesn’t put up too much of a struggle. Ichigo and Rukia really intend to show off and treat her, rather than teach her a lesson, but they also want to lead and have it to be something she’ll never forget. Having remembered her initial offer, they make her watch them before freeing her to play with them too. They spend the whole day together, celebrating each other.

Kūkaku, meanwhile, has dragooned Isshin into admitting to Karin and Yuzu that the Kurosaki are really a branch of the Shiba. Having stayed overnight with them at their request, she begins formally reengaging the Shiba’s assets as the leader of the family. One of her first decisions is to shift management of some of the family’s assets to a different law firm: Prism. In so doing, she requests they be handled by her cousin: Ichigo. She then sets about wiping out Karin and Yuzu’s student loan debt, assigning aside resources to do the same for Ichigo, and beginning to create reasonable endowments for them, before scheduling another date with Byakuya.

News quickly reaches the senior partners of the sudden addition of several billions of dollars of assets to Prism’s portfolio, and the attendant discovery that one of their newer employees is in fact a Shiba. Although Ichigo has essentially been excused from work due to the blizzard, they’re all surprised that no one can reach him. Regardless, they immediately set about arranging a promotion for him to fulfill Kūkaku’s request. The opportunity simply can’t be passed up.

Day 9: Ichigo and Rukia wake with Yoruichi and have breakfast. Ichigo is already scheduled to return to Murakumo since there’s no point in continuing on to his original destination (someone else was dispatched in his place), as are Yoruichi’s air crew for the same reason. They’re all taking the same flight back.

Ichigo finally turns his cell phone back on to discover a deluge of text messages and voice-mails regarding his heritage and promotion from his family and work. Yoruichi and Rukia look on with different degrees of surprise, before calling Kūkaku and Byakuya, respectively. Yoruichi gossips some, though she doesn’t reveal what happened the prior day; Byakuya asks Rukia about her involvement with Ichigo, which Rukia affirms. Neither set of parties knows the other are in the same room.

After the call ends, Byakuya and Kūkaku have a brief conversation regarding the events, during which Byakuya produces and approves a promotion request that Rukia had submitted to human resources, leaving it with one of his secretaries. They go out to lunch together.

Rukia and Ichigo eventually go their separate ways to get their things, meeting back up with Yoruichi at their gate. The flight home is routine and uneventful. They all part amicably at Murakumo’s terminal, with Ichigo and Rukia knowing they’ll see each other again soon. Yoruichi goes home to sleep for another age, only to find she can’t. She’s missing... something... and doesn’t want to admit to herself that it’s them. Lonely, she goes to Free Radical to seek Kisuke’s company, ultimately asking if she can sleep in his bed. His answer is always “Mi casa es su casa.”

Epilogue: A little over two weeks later, Ichigo and Rukia show up outside Yoruichi’s apartment together. She’s surprised to see them at first, as she’s been trying her best to move on (to no avail), only for her mood to darken once they reveal they feel differently and want her to join them on a proper vacation. They move as one on the issue, having had plenty of opportunity to discuss it.

For the first time in quite a long time, Yoruichi finds herself emotionally compromised, only to in turn be stunned by the sincerity of their offer. Ichigo and Rukia calm her through touch and offer to stay the night, and Yoruichi happily agrees.

PROMOTIONAL SNIPPET (The Beginning)

Airports exist as liminal spaces—the constant transience of their occupants leaves echoes in the fabric of their reality. That held especially true in the quiet gloom of a mid-February twilight at Calgary International Airport, with a blizzard howling down from the north and cancelling all flights in and out. The floor to ceiling windows that normally offered a view of the mountains and the international gates only showed featureless gray.

Yoruichi had already clocked out. They’d received their final forecast for the evening—the low pressure system was nearly stationary, projections estimated several feet of snow by morning, and wind chill was going to go well below zero—and the front was expected to pound the area for several days. It was only going to disperse when a Chinook wind swept in from the west to knock it out. She, her crew, their passengers, and many others besides, were all grounded, and would be for the foreseeable future.

They were fortunate that the airport had recently finished a massive upgrade program. The terminal had been radically expanded to accommodate international traffic and more besides, which was the entire reason her flight was there. But the airport had also gained several in-terminal hotels and other amenities, which was good, because based on the reports, even travel as far as the city proper would be impossible. Everyone stuck had been billeted rooms—she'd gotten a suite.

Yoruichi sighed and turned away from the gray-out. It wouldn't be long until sundown.

Being stuck on the ground for so long was going to make her tetchy—she’d never liked being tethered. She mused over joining the rest of her crew for a drink in one of the lounges, but decided to instead act on a thought she'd been harboring. She was going to seek out one crewmember in particular—one she knew wouldn’t have joined the others in their giddy celebration.

Rukia would have found somewhere to be alone.

Yoruichi had captained flights for Kuchiki International—so big it didn't have to advertise it was an airline, because everyone already knew—for three years, ever since leaving the Navy. Despite that, her current crew was relatively new to her other than her co-pilot, Kira, and one of the stewardesses, Rangiku—they'd only been together for six flights.

She'd become acquainted with them as usual, but Rukia had always stuck out to her—not least because Yoruichi knew who she was. Rukia tried to keep quiet about the fact she was a Kuchiki, often claiming she simply happened to share the last name, but Yoruichi knew better.

She hadn't hung out with Byakuya during her last trip home, a decade ago—he'd already set off on his agenda of world conquest—and hadn't really talked to anyone but Kūkaku while she was there, but she'd kept in touch with the same. She'd also gotten letters from Yūshirō annoyingly often. Between the two, she knew Byakuya had adopted a sister under mysterious circumstances, one whom looked like him, and whom Kaien had given his life to save from a frozen lake. It didn't take a genius to piece together that was Rukia.

That fact alone made her intriguing—she was Byakuya's sister, and Yoruichi and Byakuya had always had an interesting relationship. Although he was two years her senior, she'd loved teasing him since their first meeting so long ago. What sort of interactions might she have with his sister?

But it was also nothing so hypothetical.

Put simply, Rukia was stunning in a refined way, and her beauty and elegance were nothing like skin-deep. Yoruichi hadn't had much opportunity to talk with Rukia one-on-one, but she'd seen her in groups and knew how the rest of the crew treated her. Rukia was by turns tough and compassionate, level-headed and whimsical, and always smart, even if she tended to be quiet about it. She had an attitude, but not an attitude problem.

To Yoruichi, Rukia seemed both pretty and lively. She imagined Rukia was fun in other ways too, and she'd had never been one to walk away from fun if she could help it. Since they had at least a few days to kill, she saw no harm in making a pitch, and that was exactly what she intended to do.

She made her way out of the concourse toward the terminal proper.

Rukia would probably be somewhere high up, away from the bustle of the nearest bars and lounges—she seemed to like heights. Yoruichi began considering places to check as she made her way toward the hotel they'd been booked into. Stopping there would give her a chance to change into something more comfortable, and Rukia was likely at its observation lounge too.

-―-

Ichigo was in a different hotel, sitting windowside at its observation lounge. His chin was cupped in one hand, and he idly swirled a cocktail glass around with the other. He considered another building, dim and gray through the snowfall. He knew Rukia was there because he'd started his evening there, only to have spotted her sitting alone at the bar when he'd walked in. He'd seen her far too many times to ever mistake her for anyone else, from any angle, and he'd immediately left.

With a sigh, he shut his eyes and downed the rest of his Blood and Sand. You're pathetic, he thought.

Ichigo had encountered her the very first time he'd boarded a flight for his law firm. He'd instantly been captured by her eyes, but the extent of their interaction had been asking her for a Coke. He'd noted her nametag: Rukia.

They'd kept bumping into one another after that. He didn't run into her on every flight, but it happened often enough that he noticed. She never seemed to remember him, but he wasn't so sure that was the case, given his hair. At any rate, they'd never had a chance to really talk—and he wanted to talk to her for some reason.

His firm wasn't unfamiliar with Kuchiki International—which was why all their flights were chartered through them—so he knew some people who knew some people. He'd pulled a few strings and used a few details to find out some things about her. Her full name was Rukia Kuchiki. It didn't take a genius to figure out she was related to the CEO. Her routes usually brought her back to Murakumo, which was both Kuchiki International's hub city and where he lived too. It wasn't surprising they ran into each other so frequently.

It wasn't that Ichigo hadn't tried putting her out of mind, but he couldn't. He hadn't really wanted to cyberstalk her or something, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. He'd poked around a little more and found her Facebook and Instagram rather easily. She was a year older than him. She had a strange love of rabbits, but otherwise seemed pretty normal and down-to-earth. She looked great in winter wear, and... everything really. She was single.

And now he was stuck in an international airport with her for god knows how long, and yet he couldn't even approach her at a bar. This was the perfect opportunity. What was it all for if he didn't have the nerve?

He considered the building across the way again for a long time, then sighed and called a waiter over for another cocktail.

PROMOTIONAL SNIPPET (The Ending)

Yoruichi turned and crossed her arms under her chest. "What's that got to do with me?" Her voice was strained.

Ichigo blinked as he saw the set of her shoulders and how tightly she was squeezing her biceps. Tension radiated off her.

Rukia noticed the same and looked to Ichigo before her expression became sympathetic. She was the one to start forward first.

He followed in her wake.

Rukia walked around in front of Yoruichi and brought her hands up to clasp the back of hers. "Hey..."

Yoruichi only met her gaze for a moment, then looked decisively to one side.

Ichigo lightly grasped her sides at the waist, standing behind her. "We miss you." It was a plain and unornamented truth.

Yoruichi's eyes narrowed and she hunched up her shoulders as if wracked by a chill. "Don't be ridiculous."

Rukia reached up to cup Yoruichi’s cheeks, finding the woman’s skin warmed her hands like the sun. She gently tried to turn her head so they’d face each other again. "Who's being ridiculous?"

Yoruichi frowned and set her expression hard, focusing intently on some point off to the side. When she spoke her voice carried the gravitas of authority: “What the fuck are you doing?”

Rukia blinked and automatically drew her hands back in confusion.

Ichigo likewise released her as he felt her go rigid.

Yoruichi closed her eyes. “I can understand wanting to pay me back, but you did that already! Do you think I was bullshitting you?! You’re perfect for each other! Hell, it’s like you were designed to be together! You’re like yin and yang, black and white! Why are you trying to ruin it, you idiots?!”

Ichigo and Rukia found each other before glancing at Yoruichi and looking to either side.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Yoruichi’s tone was low, but in the quiet that had descended over the room it was more than loud enough.

The attention of the couple was instantly upon her again.

Yoruichi clamped her hands around her upper arms tighter yet, letting out a brief, harsh laugh. Her voice grew quieter still. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe that there’s any place for me in that kind of thing...?”

A moment passed. Then another.

Rukia bit her lip and looked to Ichigo.

He met her gaze. A decision flickered between them and he turned his attention to Yoruichi, delicately taking hold of her waist again.

She blinked her eyes open in surprise only to freeze as Rukia’s hands returned to her cheeks.

Rukia once more tried to turn Yoruichi’s head—succeeding given her preoccupation—and studied her intently. Yoruichi’s voice had been steady but there was no mistaking the gleam at the outer corners of her eyes. She carefully brought her thumbs up to wipe the tears away.

Yoruichi’s eyes widened in response and she was suddenly aware of her heartbeat hammering in her ears. She looked up, needing to focus on anything but the concern Rukia was radiating for her. "I just wanted you to be happy," she whispered. There was no space for her in that picture. No room.

Ichigo moved closer so he was lightly pressed to her back, and brought his forehead down to rest against the top of her head, burying his nose against the start of her ponytail. The citrus scent of her hair put him at ease and his arms naturally slid around her waist. "Then come with us."

She shivered at the contact but didn't try to pull away.

Rukia released Yoruichi's hands and slid her arms around her neck, hugging her and pushing her back against Ichigo. The sudden rush of the aromas that so defined Yoruichi filled her thoughts and she found herself relaxing at it. "Please?"

Yoruichi shut her eyes. "But..."

"We'd like you to be there," Ichigo insisted.

"And we know you'd like it too," Rukia whispered.

Yoruichi clenched her jaw before dropping her chin so she leaned against Rukia, unfolding her arms. She got one hand around to the back of Rukia's head and brought the other up onto the back of Ichigo's.

They both pressed closer to her and started to brush at her reassuringly.

A faint shudder once again rippled through Yoruichi; she only slowly relaxed.

The three of them stood together for quite a long time before Rukia turned her head to consider the inside of the apartment. There was a couch not too far away. She looked back toward Yoruichi and Ichigo. How distraught their mentor was had come as a surprise—if she'd known, she’d never have let them wait even as little as they had. She took Yoruichi’s wrist and started to gently tug her toward the couch.

Yoruichi blinked her eyes open, looking to Rukia uncertainly.

Ichigo noticed and let her go, taking her other wrist and moving around to stand beside Rukia. They shared a look and he likewise beckoned Yoruichi forward.

After looking between them, Yoruichi followed, letting them guide her to her couch.

Ichigo sat first, Rukia getting next to him, and the two of them drew Yoruichi down onto their shared lap space, taking her into an embrace.

Yoruichi sank into the comfort of them. She… she’d missed them—so much.

Rukia turned and lowered her head, softly kissing at Yoruichi’s neck to comfort her.

Ichigo did the same, getting his face below her ponytail to plant little smooches along the back of her neck.

Yoruichi clenched her jaw again, this time to keep from vocalizing. She knew the difference between reassurance and sensuality well enough—especially with them—but being with them in such a close and intimate fashion again stirred her soul. Sharing space and touch with them felt like… like finally coming home.

Ichigo gave her the lightest nip and his eyes flickered open to find Rukia’s.

She glanced at him and one of her hands brushed across his in the course of slowly roving over Yoruichi’s sides. She soon shut her eyes and busied herself at where the woman’s neck met her jawline.

He brought his lips to Yoruichi’s ear. “We can stay the night.”

Yoruichi pushed her chin down against Rukia’s hair and didn’t hesitate to say “Yes.”

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

The sky’s the limit. I envisioned they’d go on a tropical vacation next, and eventually get a place and all move in together. There are some things already set afterwards, but there’s another post about that.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

The Marvel of Trelsi (Part XIV)

The above montage is awesome! 

We continue with our discussion of Trelsi today, and for the last two posts, I’ve been examining Kelsi’s romantic interests as demonstrated through her songs and through her canonical relationship with Jason Cross. As you can see, there is a massive gulf between the two. I’m currently writing  notes for another Trelsi fic called “Illusions and Reality”, which I think is a great summary of the difference between Kelsi’s imagination and the truth of her situation. As she graduates from high school, the audience can only wonder about how she has evolved in her romantic viewpoints. Since the movies didn’t see fit to give us more information about her career pursuits, or her life in college, I can only speculate about these things. It’s very important to distinguish between reasonable speculation and headcanons that I devised for my Trelsi fics. One of the reasons for this is that I am not yet decided on certain things, like, for example, whether Kelsi became resentful of Martha after breaking up with Jason, or even who broke up with who. That stumped me when writing my Trelsi one-shot, Offstage, which you can find here. 

You may notice that I haven’t discussed Troy and his romantic expectations, focusing more on the problems in his relationship. This will come a little later when explaining the high compatibility of Troy and Kelsi as a romantic couple. 

Like I’ve said before, I’m adding questions to my original list as new angles occur to me. The first question I want to add and discuss today is:

Question: Why does Kelsi idealize Troyella, given the problems discussed? 

One of the things that puzzles and frustrates me about Kelsi, who seems sage and capable of judging character, is why she latches onto Troyella with such blind fervour. This is based on the way that Troy and Gabriella perform her songs, which demonstrates that, at the very least, their voices blend well together and bring out the message that she wants. Now, I would argue that this is mainly due to Troy, given that it is he who draws on her for confidence during every major performance, and not Gabriella. But Kelsi quite clearly believes that since Troy and Gabriella have proved their ability to perform her songs, then they deserve the leads in all her musical ideas. During HSM II, she immediately tells the two that they “can sing the leads”, thus bypassing the many other singers in their group who might be just as talented or even more talented than Troy and Gabriella. I have a real problem with the movie series constantly presenting Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay and Ryan as the only lead performer options out of a high school with surely over 1000 students. 

At least during HSM III, Kelsi seems resigned to Sharpay singing the lead and at least does not vocally object to working with her as much as she did during HSM I. (Though not without glares, pouts and eyerolls! :D) In fact, she even tells Troy that “It will be fine,” despite Troy’s evident discomfort and discouragement when performing with Sharpay, whereas in HSM I, she called Sharpay (and Ryan) “two rats, neither of them named Darbus.” (That still cracks me up!) But it’s made abundantly clear that Troy and Gabriella somehow deserve the lead roles for Kelsi’s works, and she throws her full weight behind them in support, hence her adorably enthusiastic applause after the “I Just Wanna Be With You” rehearsal. Given that Sharpay tells us that Kelsi shows blatant bias in how she allocates songs to her fellow classmates, I must wonder whether some in the Drama Department, who had been working hard at their craft long before either Troy or Gabriella showed up, might have been resentful that Kelsi, clearly conducting/directing the musical side, did not give them such preferences. Yes, that is literally a headcanon that I thought up a couple of seconds before typing those sentences. And I don’t think it’s implausible. Sharpay is clearly bothered and frustrated by Kelsi’s bias, and were she not so manipulative and unpleasant towards others, I would find her attempts to seek the best songs to be quite understandable. Ryan was bothered by Kelsi’s bias in HSM I, and in HSM II, which is he why told Sharpay “Now, it’s an amazing song, but Kelsi didn’t write it for us.” By the end of HSM II and throughout HSM III, however, Ryan has joined the Biased School Musical FanClub. 

(Although to be fair, Ryan does not bias his choreography work in Troyella’s favour. In “Night to Remember”, you can see this. And also when he gets everyone to to yoga moves before rehearsal, and then gets Jason to come act as an example. He is not territorial at all. Kelsi, on the other hand, is). 

I have condensed Kelsi’s favouritism towards Troyella into three main reasons:

Reason #1- Troyella represents the idealism in her songs

Love that lasts “forever”? Love that cannot be beaten by distance? Meeting someone and instantly knowing that they’re the one? Sounds like Troyella! Thus, even though I don’t believe that Kelsi’s songs were written about Troyella, she definitely is able to adapt them for the pair and the way they perform her songs seems credible proof to her that were she fortunate enough to have a Troyella-esque relationship, this is precisely what it would look like. I think this reason is pretty much self-explanatory, and you can revert back to my 12th instalment on Kelsi’s songs for more information on this.

Reason #2- She wants to have a Troyella-esque relationship herself

Remember when I said that Kelsi’s relationship with Jason is nothing like the relationship that she wants in her songs? (My posts are between 3000 to 5000 words long, so don’t worry if you didn’t! :D) Remember how many times I have used the word “idealism” and variations thereof? Now, that you can’t forget. However, there is a distinctive contrast here; Kelsi clearly wants something like Troyella, which she views in a surprisingly superficial manner, but she also wants attributes that befit a healthy relationship. I discussed this in the 12th instalment here when looking at “I Just Wanna Be With You” in particular. So why does she not see that Troyella would not fit this category? The answer is that she never does see this. 

I said a while back that Troy and Kelsi were not shown hanging out when not working on a musical or show, so she has no idea that offstage, things are less than golden in Paradise. I did complain in my “Questions for HSM III” Series that Kelsi took shots at Sharpay, but said nothing about Gabriella leaving without telling everyone well in advance, or even providing an apology for doing so. However, I think in retrospect that I was too harsh on Kelsi here. She had no idea that Gabriella was purposefully concealing information about her opportunity at Stanford, and only discovered this because Sharpay leaked the news. (Sharpay- “The whole school’s buzzing about it!”) And why should Kelsi object to Gabriella getting such an incredible academic opportunity? Why should she connect the dots and wonder why Gabriella hadn’t mentioned this beforehand? Furthermore, it is reasonable for Kelsi to not criticize Gabriella, given that without Gabriella’s support for the musical, she would have struggled to persuade anyone to do it at all. In fact, if she did criticize Gabriella, that would look like ingratitude. You will of course recall the almost near universal rejection of another musical until Gabriella intervened. So, in retrospect, I don’t think her saying, “If it wasn’t for Gabriella, this musical would have just been another “Sharpay Show”!” is either untrue or problematic. Of course, she was disappointed that Gabriella wouldn’t be there, but grateful that the show would go ahead in the meantime, hence why she told Troy “It will be fine.” In other words, she was willing to put her musical vision ahead of her blatant bias for once, which is actually commendable. 

Kelsi never sees tense moments between Troy and Gabriella. She wasn’t there when Gabriella cut Troy to pieces for daring to be promoted at work, she never sees Gabriella’s snide and mocking comments towards Troy, her double standards, hypocrisy and willingness to manipulate him until he yields to what she wants. Not only this, but Troy never tells anyone about this. Now obviously, the easiest counter-argument is that the script never had him do so, since he is obviously a vassal used to promote Troyella propaganda. However, even if the scriptwriters weren’t so biased, I don’t think Troy would tell anyone about these moments. Why? Because Troy’s self-esteem gradually declines throughout the movie series, and the more he becomes dependent upon Gabriella to function properly, the more shame he feels whenever his relationship doesn’t work out. When Gabriella leaves him-- twice-- he feels like a complete failure. It’s all his fault. He can’t live up to her expectations, nor those of his school. Despite Troy’s open nature, I have said here that he can be quite reserved. And I think the canon supports this. When Gabriella dumps him over the summer, Troy’s response is to hide in his room for days on end. When Gabriella leaves for California in HSM III, Troy’s response is to wander around the school rooftops, alone. When she bails on him later, his response is to drive off alone into the wilderness. Even when Kelsi gave him that SQUEE-WORTHY hug in HSM III, he never discussed his difficulties with Gabriella’s absence. In fact, contrary to my previous statements, perhaps Troy wanted to be alone then? Perhaps the Wildcats are not to blame for not coming over to comfort him. I seem to be evolving in my opinions here. And even when Kelsi tried to point out that everyone was missing Gabriella, Troy never opened up about how he felt, instead choosing to blame HIMSELF for “messing up all the songs...”

Never does he seek help from anyone else. Neither does he accept help from anyone else, or even words of reason. That’s why Chad’s insensitive, but sensible advice in HSM III goes in one ear and out the other. Throughout that scene, Troy is staring at a picture of Gabriella, a testament to how he is nearly incapable of thinking for himself by this point. That gives me the impression that he feels it’s his mess, and he alone must fix it, or else be branded as a complete and utter failure. Thus, Kelsi is largely unaware of this internal torment that Gabriella causes, and mostly only privy to the stage version of Troyella, where everything is sweetness and light. If Troy seems unlikely to confide his relationship troubles to anyone, if he considers it shameful upon himself when Gabriella leaves him, then Kelsi cannot be blamed for being somewhat unable to provide all the support that he needs when trying to heal. No other character would be able to support him either, if Troy simply cannot open up and accept that relationship problems are fine and that Gabriella is the problem. 

Another reason that Kelsi wants a Troyella-esque relationship is that she sees Troyella as fixing the deficiencies in her own relationship. The song “What I’ve Been Looking For”, as I said here, basically wants the ideal partner to make up for Kelsi’s own weaknesses. Likewise, if we take my assumptions regarding her feelings after breaking up with Jason as a theoretical basis, then it would appear that Kelsi saw Troyella’s relationship as an example of complete commitment. (Obviously, I don’t believe any of these things, but I have to see things from Kelsi’s point of view instead of just beating her over the head with my meta notes!) 

Whilst in her own relationship, Jason’s increasing emotional infidelity made her feel inadequate, she would be inspired by how much Troy clearly adored Gabriella. Whilst Jason ran off with Martha (a cheerleader) into the sunset, she would be inspired by how Troy didn’t even bat an eyelid at the myriad of other girls (cheerleaders) clamouring for his attention. She would be inspired by the displays of affection between Troy and Gabriella, comparing this in a more favourable light to her occasional struggle to get Jason interested in her rather than Martha. She would be inspired by how Troy and Gabriella expressed their commitment in music, whereas Jason definitely was not centre-stage material. (I would be VERY interested to see how Kelsi sang her songs).

Troy in particular is charming and always says the right thing, Jason is clumsy and always says the wrong thing. Gabriella is very pretty and confident, whereas Kelsi’s own confidence has diminished slightly (I assume) since her breakup. Now, this does not contradict what I said in the last instalment; Kelsi did have strong feelings for Jason and her choosing him despite his obvious faults is very significant. She did not settle. But she clearly does have an ideal, and her relationship with Jason is not that ideal. She would be reminded of this, particularly given the way it ended. So rather than Kelsi appearing envious of Troy and Gabriella per se, she is more wistful with regards to what they represent. I tend to think that Kelsi must have been fantasizing about the ideal romantic couple for YEARS before she met Troy and Gabriella; we can infer this based on the music she has been writing throughout her school years. So if it wasn’t Troy and Gabriella, another couple would become the ideal. It doesn’t have to be them, but because of her friendship with Troy, people tend to focus on her attachment to Troyella as a result. 

But neither of these two reasons are the most important reason. 

Reason #3- Kelsi supports Troyella, because it is important to Troy.

This was a “Eureka!” moment when I realized this. In fact, I’m not particularly sure why I didn’t realize this before, given that this whole series is dedicated to Trelsi! :D

So what do I mean? I’m so glad you asked. Kelsi is significantly more attached to Troy than she is to Gabriella. I personally think that Troy and Kelsi would consider each other as one of their best friends, or at least that would have become apparent had they spent more time together/received more screentime. That notwithstanding, I certainly believe that Troy was Kelsi’s first real friend, and thus her relationship with him holds a very special value in her life. I consider Troy and Kelsi’s friendship to be unique out of all relationships in the movie series; as I have said before, they both need and value something in each other and their success and evolution are irrevocably entwined with their friendship and a direct consequence of the latter. 

By contrast, Kelsi does not have such an attachment to Gabriella at all, which may sound like a contradiction, given how Kelsi idealizes Troyella. But it’s not. Actually this proves my earlier statement, that Kelsi idealizes Troyella because of what it represents relationships-wise, not because she has any particular admiration for Gabriella beyond simple friendship. Although I would add that Kelsi respects Gabriella a lot more than Gabriella respects her. That notwithstanding, Kelsi does not share the kind of affection with Gabriella that she does with Troy; this is mostly evident during HSM III when she goes out of her way to comfort Troy. Interestingly, she doesn’t ask how Gabriella is during those times. She must have assumed Gabriella was fine. Clearly, she believes that Troy is more in need of her support. (Which is true). For her, Troy is her hero, her best friend, the person who best understands her and the ideal person to perform her songs. 

Because Kelsi is one of the few people who treats Troy’s opinions with respect, it follows that she supports Troyella based on its importance to Troy. She cannot bear to see Troy upset by problems and pitfalls in his relationship, so her reaction is to offer him (and not Gabriella) sympathy, and do anything she can to fix things. It is notable that although the reunion in HSM II was planned by Ryan and Kelsi, it is Kelsi who is entrusted with helping get a beleaguered and disillusioned Troy in shape to perform “Everyday”, even though the song might have been written by Ryan. Given how closely Troy stands next to Kelsi throughout the beginning of this performance, I assume that he wouldn’t have been motivated to sing without her. We see parallel evidence of this devotion in Troy’s other relationships. Earlier in HSM II, you can vaguely see Kelsi’s shocked face when Chad and Troy have a fight in the middle of the kitchens (here in Britain, you take things outside like gentlemen! :D). Later on, she is embarrassed, disappointed and upset when the Wildcats unilaterally decide to ignore him. So what does she do? Knowing that Chad is Troy’s best friend and like a brother to him (very important, since Troy is an only child), she persuades Chad to forgive him, as well as helping bring Troy and Gabriella back together. Hence her secret little fist pumps when things are going her way. 

(Do not be fooled by Kelsi’s apparently unassuming presence; she likes things to go her way. She likes to control the show, if not necessarily desiring the centre-stage, which makes her constant mockery of Sharpay slightly hypocritical). 

And in yet another parallel, when Kelsi sees how Troy is interested showing his singing/performing talents, she is fully committed to helping him get this shot, even though he is, by all accounts, largely untested in this area. His only experience is singing in the shower and one karaoke, whereas Sharpay and Ryan have been in 17 school productions, and I suppose other members of the Drama Club are also seasoned performers. A callback does not mean that you are star material, or that you should get the lead role. But as far as Kelsi is concerned, Troy should get it, and only Troy deserves it. (Obviously Gabriella is included, but if you compare her rehearsals with Troy and with Gabriella, you can see who inspires her more). The musical becomes even more important to her because it’s important to Troy. 

So it makes complete sense to me that rather than Kelsi’s idealization of Troy and Gabriella being a frustrating crime, as I have often said beforehand, that really it is a demonstration of consideration, loyalty, respect and commitment to Troy himself. This is a more positive explanation, and I now consider it to be more plausible. It’s easy for an onlooker like myself to say, as I have said before, “Can’t she see X problem and Y problem?” She can’t, because she’s never there. And what’s more, Troy is the one who makes it abundantly clear that he wants Gabriella, that she makes him happy (even when, in fact, she doesn’t) and that he must be with her. So what choice does Kelsi have but to take him at his word? What choice does she have but to support the relationship that her best friend so clearly desires? In her mind, she’s doing this for Troy, and that is effort well-spent. Whether it’s writing her best songs for him, or interceding on his behalf, or sticking up for him when no one else will, the end goal is fine as long as it leads to Troy’s happiness. And even though we’re never shown a scene where Troy recognizes Kelsi’s role behind the scenes in helping him out with his friendships and relationships, I think Troy would deeply appreciate her support regardless. So in return, Kelsi would have no option but to feel that her support of Troyella made Troy happy, and would continue supporting them in any way she could. Remember, she is hugely inspired by Troy’s nickname for her: Playmaker. The one who makes everyone else look good. So she definitely believes that she has the power to make Troyella look good, and Troy does absolutely nothing to disabuse her of this notion. His faith in her is absolute, hence why he does things like allowing her to teach him a song in about an hour on show night and then performing it (unrealistically well). Yes, I think I’ve changed my mind somewhat. Or at least, I see where Kelsi is coming from now. I still consider her views mistaken, but far more well-intentioned than I had first believed. 

What’s even more interesting here is that should Troy gradually become disinvested in his relationship (as I believe was actually happening, not that he dared admit this), then it would be interesting to see how Kelsi would react. If she wants to support him in any way possible, then I can’t see her continuing to support a relationship that he no longer desired. But I am fully aware that Troy would need a catalyst before coming to that realization. It is worth considering, nonetheless. Obviously, as a Trelsi shipper, I believe that the more time he spent with Kelsi, the more he would come to realize that she is a superior companion for him. 

And that’s upcoming in the next part. :)