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booksandchainmail · 2 years ago

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Pale 6.z

I love these diagrams in the extra materials. They've come a long way from simple circles. But the notes are right that the whole thing feels icky.

You do realize I’ve been working on toying with hearts since I was four?

Actually, makes me wonder about her interactions with Ms. Graubard. She was being the opposite of endearing there, wonder if there was a deeper motivation? Or did she just not care.

others might hate me but I don’t care. I target the people I want and I win them over.

So who was she winning over in that class?

“I think about Louisa every day, Chase. To remind myself of what I need to do."

practitioner families suck! I wonder if this was gendered, or just about not living up to expectations

I can try to play smart for teachers like Raymond and be the whiny child for the substitutes that don’t know how to teach,

ok, still not entirely sure why she wanted that, but it was deliberate

I’ll study hard and I’ll do as the family needs, and I get money and clothes and training in exchange. Better deal than most get.

She's not wrong, but man that's a low bar. The practitioner world desperately child protection laws.

Gods this whole conversation is fucked! I wouldn't even know what bits to quote. Eugh. Years of resentment, a very hierarchical family. And Chase is feeling scared enough that regrets are coming to the surface, trying to reach out to his little sister. But Fernanda is very aware that they don't actually have a close sibling relationship, and that the power differential sits between them. Just painful and uncomfortable to read.

“You’re not in my good books, Miss Throop,” Fernanda said, quietly.

Making sure this is quiet, so none of the boys hear. Doesn't make Fernanda look weak or unaware for having more boys show up than expected, and being unhappy about it. Doesn't embarrass Laila by scolding her in public, which might create a grudge. But calling out Damaryon publicly, making a show of her strength, putting pressure on his friends to either make him apologize or draw back from him, putting Fernanda in a position of authority over their group. Also implying that Fernanda is the arbiter for offenses against Laila, and that her own revenge is something Fernanda grants Laila. She's good at this.

“You’re my best friend. Why wouldn’t I?” Laila blinked a few times.

was not expecting that one, huh?

She’d given Laila nothing concrete, but she’d gotten a pledge in return. It was the product of months of establishing friendship, from last year until now, that let her set that into motion. It didn’t matter that Laila was her best friend, because it helped her feel like she was inching toward a better place.

yeah... I noticed how quickly things went from "I can help you with social stuff, because we're friends" to "Promise you'll back me up" to "If you teach me, I'll forgive you"

“Prettier, richer, more powerful people win more. That’s a lesson. It’s not a nice lesson, especially for those who are less pretty or wealthy, but I’m personally very fond of imparting it.”

lol

A way to score a huge win for the family, elevating all of them, and simultaneously free himself from all of the immense expectations that had been chasing him in recent years.

Man, Bristow is good at this

We stop being even a facsimile of a family. But all of us are happier alone. Except me.

oof. Guess that explains why he was so desperate to make a connection with Fernanda

“Very well,” Alexander said, his voice level. “I hereby name you forsworn. For filial promises made and taken to the grave by the other party.”

oh. wow.

“I would. I might not like you in the slightest, but forswearing as a practice should be left well in the past.”

... yeah. I get that being able to hold people to their word is important, but forswearing is brutal and there doesn't seem to be a way out of it.

“It may have been hollow. But in these cases, a promise can be made and broken,” Seth said. “I may be gainsaid, but among her last words to me were her wishes that I had a good life ahead of me. And her expressed forgiveness and love.”

good to have confirmation that the person a promise was made to can forgive it being broken, and that prevents forswearing. I suppose it gets harder if the promise isn't made to an individual.

She forgave you, but it was not for her to handle the broken oath, then. I had taken on that responsibility by then. And I will not forgive. The universe has not seen you forsworn because I have been in firm custody of it, judgment pending.

well fuck

Nicolette shook her head. “The open future clause. Is there a feasible future where you could fulfill the oath?”

Nico's doing pretty well as an impromptu pro bono defense lawyer

“I would give Seth Belanger my protection for the time being,” Nicolette said. “I would take him into my custody, and be a shield between him and the world.”

and she's a hell of a good person, despite everything the world has pushed her to be. Oh, there's plenty that can be done with someone who is forsworn and has no defense left, and I'm sure this wouldn't be entirely altruistic, but as Charles said near the beginning, even if he was taking on curses every day for Kennet, it would still be a good deal for protection.

“Do you think he’s the only one I could forswear, right here and right now?” Alexander asked.

oh fuck. Even if he doesn't right now (and I don't think he will), he's holding a blade over their heads. And after Seth they all know he's willing to drop it.

“Okay!?” Zed asked. “No, Ray. You’ve let a lot slide before, but this?”

he let a forswearing slide before!

“I think virtually every parent of a child at this school would agree a teacher should be suspended for a time after forswearing a student, until things can be assessed.”

ah. That's how he's going to use this

“Alexander shouldn’t be suspended because, number one, you probably planned that all along, and number two, he’s hot, in an older guy sorta way, and it’s a tragedy to lose that.”

love this terrible defense

And Laila, who had so recently made promises, trusting their friendship was more important than practice, visibly diminished. If she wasn’t gainsaid now, she would be later.

well fuck. that poor girl.

#booksandchainmail reads pale #pale #wildbow

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alexiethymia · 2 years ago

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In relation to that earlier (crack)post, it dawns on me that for all that they call him ‘Aizen-taichou’, neither of Aizen’s vice-captains really choose him.

Sure, Aizen has only disdain for bonds, but I’m also of the interpretation that he tried to replicate at least a facsimile of them through twisted ways - loyalty, dependence etc. - but it always boiled down to no one would ever be able to understand him because no one was at his level, so he discards them.

What makes a prodigy? Age? If so, Nanao would be considered one. Intellect? But no one really alludes to either Hirako or Urahara as a prodigy. Maybe potential, and if so it would make sense that Gin and Hitsugaya are referred to as prodigies. And it would make sense to show that Aizen was at around the same age (at least physically) as Gin when he started to question everything. Despite being prodigies, Gin and Hitsugaya had what Aizen didn’t - people who understood them and made sure they didn’t feel too “other”. From his perspective, I could easily imagine Aizen perceiving his fellow prodigies as being held back by those bonds, at not even attempting to nurture their potential to be ‘god-like’. I am also of the theory that Aizen did want to bring Hitsugaya into the fold, or that he had a sense of his potential so if he wasn’t going to be under his control like Gin, then he had to be cut down.

But going back, when I say that neither of Aizen’s vice-captains choose him, this is prefaced with the context that both Gin and Hinamori were people he cultivated for years, maybe even centuries. Aizen showed Gin his true face (or as true as it could be knowing that Gin meant to kill him) while showing Hinamori the ideal captain, the image of the best captain even. But unlike Gin’s vice-captain who fights Hinamori to defend him (no matter how sick and self-loathing it made him feel deep inside), Hinamori despite being ordered by Aizen himself couldn’t manage to avenge him (she didn’t even try to her fullest capabilities). This was not in Aizen’s plans, and he even says it himself. Aizen was one of the most revered Captains, and he intentionally manipulated Momo to become dependently loyal on him, to the point that, he alleges, ‘she couldn’t live without him’. But if both were a test of loyalty, Kira passed his while Hinamori didn’t. And Gin rewards this (in a twisted sort of way) by involving Kira just enough that he could make sure that he and Rangiku were outside the blast point.

I could easily believe that Aizen intentionally did make Momo fall in love with him (his use of the words, ‘as a man’ in his letter for example), but unlike Hitsugaya who was ready to commit murder and treason just to keep Hinamori away from threats, she couldn’t fully severe that connection with Hitsugaya to avenge him. For all that Aizen seems to be above Hitsugaya and Gin, and they both lose to him, they will always have something he will never have. Even later, Momo despite the centuries of hypnosis chooses to stand on the battlefield against him.

In other words, in that confrontation, as a vice-captain, Hinamori couldn’t do for him what Kira did for Gin, and as someone who ‘loved’ or ‘admired’ him, she couldn’t do for him what Hitsugaya was willing to do for her, and this is after years and years of intentional emotional manipulation. For all of his ambitions, he failed to be the most important person for someone he intended to mold for that exact same purpose. And this is why in the realm of canon and headcanon, I do believe that as much as Hitsugaya hates Aizen, Aizen also hates Hitsugaya, just as much, insofar as someone like Aizen is capable of hatred. This is where you can see Aizen’s surface level understanding of bonds, as well as his being an unreliable narrator. His plan was for Kira and Hitsugaya to kill her, both people shown to love her, and when they couldn’t do it, for him as the person she ‘loves’ to deal the final blow. Did he really think that either Kira or Hitsugaya could actually go through with it? Maybe because he assumed that Momo actually would (because he knows the lengths Hitsugaya would go through and suspects the same of Gin, so as someone she ‘loves’ he might have had that same expectation of her).

He made sure she knew who was the one to hurt her, and he did it in the cruelest way possible. When I think about his overall plan, the interaction in Central 46 never had to happen. He already had his distraction. He didn’t have to deal death blows to both Hinamori and Hitsugaya, especially since no one at the execution knew what was going on at Central 46. In fact, it was because of that interlude that Unohana was able to warn the rest of the Gotei. But that wasn’t just an interlude. It really was part of his plan to kill Hinamori because ‘she couldn’t live without him’. Or maybe he convinced himself of that fact.

Even with Gin. For all that he says it was all part of his plan, and that he only kept Gin around because he knew Gin was going to kill him, I find it difficult to believe that he told Gin Kyouka Suigetsu’s weakness with that in mind. This is where his being an unreliable narrator comes in. When all is said and done, he can just claim it was all part of his plan. But I noticed he let his guard down when Gin claims to have killed Rangiku, and that he acknowledges that he could have been wrong about Gin having feelings for Rangiku. It seems to me that having another prodigy who was against Soul Society was something that he maybe wanted? And that he was just waiting for Gin to fully cut off those ties (to Rangiku) and prove his loyalty, in a manner of speaking.

So showing both his true face and his ideal face didn’t secure him the loyalty that he [wanted]. All the pieces fell into place, but it was actually his vice-captains who acted against his expectations. He claims it was Hirako’s rejection or suspicion that allowed him to hollowfy the Vizards, but even when he actually and actively exerted his influence over them, still neither of his vice-captains choose him. Even Urahara, who he considers an intellectual equal, still does nothing about the Soul King despite knowing the truth, because Urahara also has existing bonds he wishes to take care of. No matter how many people he hurt and defeated, and no matter that he considers it all a part of his plan, no matter that he doesn’t consider bonds important in the first place, ultimately Aizen was rejected on every front.

#bleach #bleach meta #aizen sousuke #hitsuhina #ginran #ichimaru gin #hinamori momo #hitsugaya toshiro #matsumoto rangiku #hirako shinji #urahara kisuke #I love squad 5 dynamics #there’s so much betrayal #ramblings about bleach

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cookinguptales · 2 years ago

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Sigh... Next, the big one. Freddie and Guillermo’s relationship.

Now... I will preface this by saying I am (still) a huge nandermo shipper and while I feel I have tried to be painstakingly fair to Freddie leading up to his introduction, that’ll still affect my analysis here. I wanna be upfront about my biases. lmao

But... god, yeah, Freddie/Guillermo was a fucking disaster. I think we can all agree on that, even if we disagree on what was its downfall. Personally, though, I think it was always doomed to fail. Freddie was utterly faithless with very little magical intervention, but like... more than that, the intimacy just wasn’t there, and I think the fault of that can really be shared around.

I’ll start with Guillermo. I’ve talked about this before and I’ll just keep talking about it and talking about it and probably writing like 30k words of fic about it but like. God, Guillermo is such a liar. It’s always been a part of his character and the show is really starting to engage with the way that it’s harmed his relationships with everyone around him. He lies to the vampires, he lies to his friends, he lies to his family, he lies to his boyfriend. He lies for self-preservation and he lies for personal gain and, this one’s the kicker, he lies to avoid difficult conversations.

It’s hard to fault Guillermo for most of his lies. Like if he’d told the vampires that he was a slayer before he proved his loyalty, they might have killed him. If he’d told his family about the vampires, they might have killed his friends and disowned him. Coming out to your family is always hard. Freddie would uhhhh probably not have accepted it if he’d found out that his new boyfriend was a literal serial killer.

But at the same time, those lies all create a chilling effect on his relationships. No one can truly know and love him because he won’t let them. He won’t let anyone see the real him or help him with any of his crises because he doesn’t trust anyone to accept or support him. And sometimes he’s right! But other times, like when he finally told Nandor about being a slayer and told his family about being gay, he found out that they were far more accepting and supportive than he ever could have imagined. He just... didn’t allow himself to believe that he could depend on them. Which is a little hurtful, if understandable.

You really see this lack of trust extend to his relationship with Freddie. As much as I dislike Freddie, I have to admit that Guillermo never put his true self into this relationship. Him lying to Freddie about his job had such long-ranging effects. It means he never talked to Freddie about what was actually going on in his day-to-day life. It means he never talked to Freddie about any of the people who were important to him. It means he never talked to Freddie about any of his real hopes or dreams or struggles. It means he was never fully open with Freddie about the true nature of his loneliness and sense of betrayal in London.

He never told Freddie about anything important. So how could Freddie ever get to know the real him? He never met the real Guillermo! He met this facsimile that Guillermo created in order to feel normal and playact at being normal and reel in a normal guy. But none of that was real.

But Freddie, on the other hand, let him. I don’t get the impression that Freddie ever really dug that hard to learn about the real Guillermo. Almost all of their conversations were extremely surface-level (beans? okay...) and Freddie doesn’t seem to know much about Guillermo’s hobbies, interests, or preferences -- and I’m not convinced that he cares.

Freddie seems enormously comfortable with Guillermo refusing to allow him access to any of his deeper emotions. In fact, when Guillermo does start exhibiting real emotions around him for the first time (when Freddie comes to the house unannounced, when they walk in on Nandor and Freddie’s yelling at him to hurry up, when the Freddies are playing charades and both ignoring Guillermo’s obvious horror, anger, and hurt, etc.) Freddie just straight-up ignores them. He never once tries to actually comfort Guillermo throughout this entire episode despite him sorely needing it. He doesn’t even bother breaking up with him before he starts dating two other people. That’s a lot.

Like... I think it’s probably somewhat debatable whether Freddie 2 conceptualized fucking Nandor as cheating on Guillermo. Nandor never actually specified that he wanted a version of Freddie that didn’t know about and/or wasn’t dating Guillermo, and Freddie 2 had all of Freddie 1′s other memories, so there’s no reason to believe that Nandor was wrong when he said he could easily steal Guillermo’s boyfriend. With Freddie 2, that’s exactly what he did. Freddie 2 woke up still thinking he was dating Guillermo and immediately decided he’d rather fuck Nandor instead. Yikes!

Whether that’s because Nandor was something new and fun and exotic (😬) and exciting or because Freddie 2 heard that he was a clone and was like “well, I guess that other guy is dating him and I can do what I want”, it’s still yikes! Either way, Freddie 2 just showed absolutely no love or loyalty towards Guillermo whatsoever. It’s not like the two Freddies were fighting over who’d get to be with Guillermo over here.

I think that raises the biggest issue. There was just very little genuine intimacy and connection between the two of them. There was barely any real physical intimacy when you compare Freddie’s interactions with Guillermo vs. Freddie’s interactions with Nandor and his own clone, the two never talked about anything particularly intimate that we ever saw, and they barely knew each other. Freddie left Guillermo so quickly that like... I honestly wonder if he ever saw the relationship as more than a casual LDR in the first place.

I really do think that they had a “whirlwind romance” in the UK because Guillermo was Freddie’s new thing but Freddie was Guillermo’s everything. He’d never had a boyfriend before and he was so, so lonely. So he really built up this relationship in his head. He really romanticized the hell out of it. He really thought it was gonna work, he really thought that Freddie loved him, he really thought that what they had was healthy and intimate and good.

But really, Freddie was just the only person who was being remotely nice to Guillermo during a period when he was intensely emotionally vulnerable, and Guillermo latched onto that. And I think that someone being as into you as Guillermo was into Freddie would be really flattering, which (a deeply narcissistic) Freddie clearly responded to. But as much as Guillermo told Freddie he loved him, we never once heard him say it back -- though we did hear him say it to his clone, and kiss him, which is a thing we never saw him do with Guillermo during his visit.

Guillermo... I love you dearly, but he’s just not that into you.

Guillermo, for all that he was all in, seemed to be fairly interchangeable to Freddie. Freddie was happy to do his list of tourist attractions with someone else that he literally just met. (And the only one that wasn’t on his list was Wicked, which implies that either the list was longer than just those four things or that was the only thing that Guillermo wanted to do, which makes it even more fucking tragic that Freddie repurposed the idea for a date with a different person.) Freddie was just as happy to spend the rest of his time in NYC with Nandor and Freddie 2. Freddie started cheating on Guillermo with Freddie 2 both emotionally and then physically about as quickly as he possibly could.

I mean... if I were talking to my partner and someone else grabbed their ipad so they could talk to me instead, I would simply say I was talking to my partner. Because I actually like talking to the people I love and would not want to hurt their feelings. Freddie was more than happy to hurt Guillermo so he could talk to his own clone instead, though, and that’s just not a great sign for a relationship!

So yeah, I think that even if Nandor had kept his dumb ass out of Guillermo’s relationship, it was just doomed to fail. I do think that Freddie had genuine affection for Guillermo, but only in the most casual of ways. I don’t think he truly loved him. I don’t think he cared if he got to spend time with him or not. I don’t think the two of them were particularly physically or emotionally intimate.

And it was because neither of them actually wanted to be. Guillermo wanted to have a boyfriend, but he wasn’t willing to submit to that whole mortifying ordeal of being known thing. And Freddie simply didn’t want to bother.

As much as I hate to say it, I think Guillermo was just a guy for him to hang out with until someone more interesting came along.

So honestly, the fact that Guillermo had built this relationship up in his head the way he did was more a tragic indictment of his total lack of experience with anyone being nice to him at all than evidence of a real relationship.

Fuck, Guillermo. Now I’m sad. You have no idea what it’s like to be truly loved or valued, and that’s mostly because Nandor refuses to show you. :(

#wwdits #wwdits meta #wwdits s4 spoilers

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bananaofswifts · 4 years ago

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Taylor Swift Turns on a Facsimile Machine for the Ingenious Recreations of ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’: Album Review

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

By Chris Willman

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

There is no “best actress” award at the Grammys, perhaps for obvious reasons, but maybe there should be this coming year. And the Grammy would go to… Taylor Swift, for so persuasively playing her 18-year-old self in “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” her beyond-meticulous recreation of the 2008 recording that did win her her first album of the year trophy back in the day. It’s impossible to overstate just how thoroughly the new version is intended as an exact replica of the old — all the way down to her startling ability to recapture an untrained teen singing voice she’s long matured and moved on from. It’s a stunt, to be sure, but a stunt for the ages — mastering the guile it takes to go back to sounding this guileless.

There are two different, very solid reasons to pick up or stream “Taylor’s Version,” regardless of whether you share her ire for the Big Machine label, whose loose ways with her nine-figure catalog precipitated this, the first in a six-album series of remakes where she’ll be turning on the facsimile machine. One is to marvel at her gift for self-mimicry on the album’s original tracks, where she sounds as possessed by her younger self as Regan ever was by Pazuzu. The other reason is, of course, to check out the six “vault” numbers that Swift wrote during that time frame but has never released before in any form, which dispenses with stylistic fealty to the late 2000s and frames her “Fearless”-era discards in production and arrangements closer to “Folklore.” Those half-dozen (kind of) new tracks really do sound like modern Taylor Swift covering her old stuff.

But those original lucky 13? It’s the same damn record… which is kind of hilarious and marvelous and the kind of meta-ness that will inspire a thousand more think-pieces than it already has, along with possibly efforts at forensic analysis to figure out how she did it.

It would not be surprising if, as we speak, Big Machine was putting a combined team of scientists and lawyers on the case of the new album’s waveform readouts, to make sure it’s not just the original album, remixed. Honestly, it’s that close. The timings of the songs are all within a few seconds of the original tracks, if not coming in at exactly the same length. The duplication effort doesn’t allow any detours. If “Forever and Always” had a cold open then, it’s going to have a cold open now. If the 2008 “That’s the Way I Love You” had slamming rock guitars with an almost subliminal banjo being plucked beneath the racket, so will the 2021 “That’s the Way I Loved You.” A drum roll to end the old “Change”? A drum roll to end its body-snatcher doppelganger. And if she chuckled before the final chorus of “Hey Stephen” 13 years ago, so will that moment be cause for a delighted giggle now.

Of course, much analysis will be put into whether the new laugh is a more knowing-sounding laugh. And that will be part of the fun for a certain segment of audiophile Swifties who will go looking for the slightest change as evidence of something meaningful. When “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” first came out weeks back to preview the album, there were reviews written that swore she’d subtly changed up her phrasing to put a contemporary spin on the song. And maybe they were right, but, having done a fair amount of A/B testing of the two versions of the album, I found myself feeling like I do when vinyl buffs insist there are significant sonic differences between the first stamper version of an LP and one that was pressed a year later. If you can spot those very, very, very modest tweaks, go for it.

But my suspicion is that if Swift has decided to turn a phrase a little differently here or there on this album, or done anything too differently aside from brighten the sound, she’s doing it more as an Easter egg, for the people who are on that kind of hunt, than anything really designed as reinterpretation. Because the last thing Swift wants most of her fans doing is A/B-ing the two versions, the way I did. The whole point is to have folks retire the OG “Fearless” from their Spotify playlists, right? The Swift faithful were already threatening to rain down damnation on anyone caught sneaking an audio peek at the old version after midnight. What she intended was to come up with a rendering so faithful that you would never have a need to spin the vintage album again. In that, she has succeeded beyond what could have been imagined even in the dreams of the few self-forgers who’ve tried this before, like a Jeff Lynne.

Is there any reason to find value in the new versions if you couldn’t care less about the issues of masters and contracts and respect in business deals that made all this strangely possible? Yes, with the first one being that the new album just sounds like a terrific remastering of the old — the same notes, and you’d swear the same performances, but sounding brighter and punchier just on a surface level. But on a more philosophical one, it’s not just a case of Swift playing with her back catalog like Andy Warhol played with his soup can. It’s really a triumph of self-knowledge and self-awareness, in the way that Swift is so hyper-conscious of the ways she’s matured that she has the ability to un-mature before our very ears. With her vocals, it’s virtuosic, in a way, how she’s made herself return to her unvirtuosic upstart self.

On Swift’s earliest albums and in those seminal live shows — at the time when she was famously being told she “can’t sing,” to quote a song from the follow-up album — there was a slight shrillness around the edges of her voice that, if you lacked faith, you might’ve imaged would be there forever. It wasn’t. That was partly youth, and partly just the sheer earnestness with which she wanted to convey the honesty of the songs. She’s advanced so much since then — into one of pop’s most gifted modern singers, really — that the woman of “Folklore” and “Evermore” seems like a completely different human being than the one who made the self-titled debut and “Fearless,” never mind just a woman versus girl. It wouldn’t have seemed possible that she could go back to her old way of singing at the accomplished age of 31, but she found and recreated that nervous, sincere, pleading voice of yesteryear. And maybe it was just a technical feat, of temporarily unlearning what she’s learned since then, but you can sense that maybe she had to go there internally, too, to the place where she was counseling other girls to guard their sexual virtue in “Fifteen,” or wondering whether to believe the fairy tale of “Love Story” or the wakeup call of “White Horse,” or proving with “Forever & Always” that writing a song telling off Joe Jonas for his 27-second breakup call was better than revenge.

If at first you’re not inclined to notice that Swift has re-adopted a completely different singing voice for the “Fearless” remakes, the realization may kick in when those “vault” tracks start appearing in the later stretch of this hour-and-50-minute album. The writing on the six songs that have been pulled up from the 2008 cutting room floor seems primitive, even a little bit by the standards of the “Fearless” album; there are great lines and couplets throughout the rescued tracks, but you can see why she left them as works-in-progress. But she doesn’t use her youthful voice on these resurrections, nor does she employ the actual style of “Fearless” very strictly. Of course, she feels more freedom on these, because there are no predecessors in the Big Machine catalog she’s asking you to leave behind. Her current collaborators of choice, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, divided the co-producing work on these fresher songs, as they did for the two all-new albums she released in the last year. (The “Fearless” recreations are co-produced by Swift with Christopher Rowe, someone who worked on remixes for Swift back in that era.) They co-produce the vault songs in a style that sounds somewhere between “Fearless” and Folklore”�� a more spectral brand of country-pop, with flutes and synths and ringing 12-string guitars and a modicum of drum programming replacing some (but not all) of the acoustic stringed instruments you’d expect to be carried over from “Fearless” proper.

Of the previously unheard tracks, Swift was right — she’s always been her own best self-editor — in putting out “You All Over Me” first, in advance of the album. With its imagery of half-muddy stones being upturned on the road, this song has advanced lyrical conceits more of a piece with the level of writing she’s doing now than some of the slightly less precocious songs that follow. Still, there’s something to be said for the sheer zippiness with which Swift conveys teen heartbreak in “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” which has a lyric that shows Swift had long since absorbed the lessons Nashville had to offer about how to come up with a high-concept song — the concept, in this case, being just to stick the word “mister” in front of a lot of phrases relating to her shallow ex, as if they were honorary titles to be conferred for being a shit, while she employs the “miss” for herself more sparingly.

Some of the remaining outtake songs go back more toward the sedate side of “Fearless”-style material; she didn’t leave any real bangers in the can. “We Were Happy,” the first of two successive tracks to bring in Keith Urban (but only for backgrounds on this one), employs fake strings and real cello as Swift waxes nostalgic for a time when “you threw your arms around my neck, back when I deserved it.” It’s funny, in a good way, to hear Swift at 31 recreating a song she wrote at 17 or 18 that pined for long-past better times. The next song, “That’s When,” brings Urban in for a proper duet where he gets a whole second verse and featured status on half a chorus, and it’s lovely to hear them together. But, as a make-up song, it doesn’t feel as real or lived-in as the more personal things she was writing at the time — and the fact that its chords are pretty close to a slightly more balladic version of the superior “You Belong With Me” was probably a pretty good reason for dropping it at the time.

the 18-year-old Taylor Swift is a great place to visit, but “Folklore” and “Evermore” are the place you’ll want to return to and live, unless you have an especially strong sentimental attachment to “Fearless”… which, sure, half of young America does. It’s not irreconcilable to say that the two albums she issued in the last year represent a daring pinnacle of her career, but that “Fearless” deserved to win album of the year in 2008. Has there been a greater pop single in the 20th century than “You Belong With Me”? Probably not. Did the album also have lesser moments you probably haven’t thought about in a while, like the just-okay “Breathe”? Yes. (I looked up to see whether Swift had ever played that little remarked upon number in concert, and according to setlists.fm, she did, exactly once… in 2018. Because she’s Taylor Swift, and of course she did.) It’s not certain that her duet with Colbie Caillat really needed to be resurrected, except it’s fun, because hey, she even roped former duet partners back into her time warp. But there are so many number that have stood the test of time, like “The Way I Love You,” an early song that really got at the complicated feelings about passion and fidelity that she would come to explore more as she grew into her 20s… and just kind of a headbanger, too, on an album that does love its fiddles and mandolins.

It doesn’t take much to wonder why Swift put up “Fearless” first in this six-album exercise; it’s one of her two biggest albums, along with “1989,” and it’s 13 years old, which does mean something superstitious in the Taylor-verse. In a way, it’ll be more interesting to see what happens when she gets to more complicated productions, like “1989” or “Reputation.” But maybe “Fearless” did present the opportunity for the grandest experiment out of the gate: to recreate something that pure and heartfelt, with all the meticulousness a studio master like Swift can put to that process now, without having it seem like she’s faking sincerity. Let the think-pieces proceed — because this is about six hundred different shades of meta. But, all craftiness and calculation aside, there’s a sweetness to the regression that’s not inconsequential. It harks back to a time when she only wondered if she could be fearless, before she learned it the harder way for sure. What they say about actors “disappearing into the role”? That really applies to Taylor Swift, playing herself.

#taylor swift #fearless #review

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shadowofthelamp · 4 years ago

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Okay, I’m still on this. Building on this post, having Scourge genuinely want Sonic to join him is just a really, really interesting narrative choice, and I want to figure out where it came from. There’s a TL;DR at the end since it got a bit long.

Is it on some level that he thinks heroism is naïve and he just thinks Sonic can do better? Yeah, I think that’s part of it. It comes up both when he’s trying to convince Sonic in 191 and after he thinks he’s won in 196 when he goes Super. Between “What does heroism get you?” in the page below and “See what that (holier-than-thou attitude) got you?!” in the linked page this very much informs his worldview. Heroism leading to bad outcomes both for the people being heros and the world in general (in his eyes) means that heroic actions (and the attitude, thinking heroism is better than selfishness) must be bad as well.

“I got that my way, not yours. Folks smile and wave you you? Everyone bows to me!” He doesn’t want everyone genuinely liking him as a person, not that he’d admit anyway- he wants worship, for people to look up at him instead of across the aisle. He 100% rules the Suppression Squad via fear and is perfectly comfortable with it until it blows up in his face. He’s rather keep himself up and out of reach from connections that could hurt him if he opens himself up to them, because he doesn’t truly respect his crew and mostly uses them to inflate his own ego via that bowing/submisson thing.

Obviously the hesitation in that middle panel there is more for the benefit of the audience suspense for the next comic than anything since Sonic would never go for this and he directly states so in the next issue, (and I don’t think it’s really ‘him not wanting to admit it to himself’). Sonic’s expression in the first panel definitely is a ‘are you serious?’ sort of thing, but Scourge sure seems serious about this, considering he brought it up again after going Super, lamenting that Sonic didn’t take what he sees as the smart option. Plus, he’s pissed right here that Metal interrupted.

He tries to posture himself above Sonic in the page below- the first panel there is referring to the fact that he calls himself a King now. He WANTS to be more than Sonic, so he takes an honestly pretty childish tact to it- he just kicks everybody else down to make himself king of the hill, and then KEEPS kicking them down because he’s never going to get their genuine respect, so he has to keep stomping to keep them below him. .

I think part of the angle here? Scourge, although he’d never consciously admit it, genuinely admires Sonic and wants what he has- respect and affection earned through good character and not fear.

I admittedly don’t know the pre-Ian issues as well, but he repeatedly kept popping up in Prime to pretend he was Sonic. He likes Sonic’s life better- and why wouldn’t he? The Squad has no care for each other. Miles is plotting to usurp him at basically all times, it seems. Patch and Boomer seem to like the new direction/power he brought them as the leader, but they also were willing to turn on him as soon as Miles suggested it. Moebius is generally peaceful, so he never deals with anything interesting, and he’s got an empire of dirt even when he did conquer the planet, from all the infighting after the Great Peace fell apart. Fiona said that he just ‘beat up a few warlords’- he can tell himself he’s king all he wants, but he’s just a kid playing pretend and kicking away anybody who can/would dispel that illusion.

I don’t doubt that just knowing he’s a ‘reverse’ version of someone else grated on him- it’s a heck of an identity crisis, which is probably why he was so eager to accept his recolor and picked a new name almost immediately. He wants to differentiate himself- and forced the Squad to all go along with it. He’s over the top to the Nth degree to prove to HIMSELF that’s he’s the biggest, baddest cat in town. This is something that bugged him a lot.

On top of that, Sonic beat him- he brushed it off, and he could blame Locke for one of them, but generally, toe-to-toe, Sonic’s a better fighter since he just has more practice, and that’s something he does reluctantly admire. He thinks Sonic’s ‘full of untapped potential’- something he can use for himself, sure, but it’s untapped in his opinion specifically, because he thinks on the surface Sonic is just going about things all wrong with the power he has.

Deep-down, he’s unsure of himself. He’s so egotistical and assholish on the surface because it covers that he’s overcompensating for the fact that pretty much every relationship he has is shallow, selfish, and liable to stab him in the back- and he knows it. If he pretends that’s how he wants things, maybe he can make himself (and everyone watching) believe it.

That’s why he cared enough about Sonic joining him. He wants Sonic to validate the choices he made. Sonic’s one of the only people whose opinion he genuinely cares about, even though it’s under a good few layers of jerkishness, because Sonic is a version of him that has a harder life but is much more successful. He can deny it all he wants, but he wants people to respect him, and all he can do is try to get a facsimile of that by busting heads together and ruling by fear, because anything too introspective leads him to things he doesn’t want to confront about himself- that he is weaker both in character and in battle, and a coward and a bully.

When Sonic turns him down he just brushes it off with ‘your loss’ and a big grin, (while holding Fiona tighter, as if to say ‘look what I have and you don’t’), but then he brings it back when he’s got the upper hand- if he was just rubbing in that Sonic could have avoided a beating, I feel like he would have phrased things differently. Resposting this image, ‘What IS IT with you?’ and ‘We could have done this together, but no! You decided to go the holier-than-thou route!’ says to me that he’s A: Genuinely offended, so the idea of them teaming up had come up in his head before now and wasn’t just thrown out on a whim, and B: He thinks that Sonic thinks that he’s better than him. (Which he does, because... well, he is.)

Scourge came back to Mobius to prove himself against Sonic, but even though he absolutely has the upper hand here, he knows something isn’t right- he doesn’t feel as satisfied as he should. He can’t figure out exactly what he wanted, and is taking it out on Sonic. He’s defensive and aggressive at the same time here- why would he care if Sonic thought himself better than him when he’s already declared that he’s the ‘superior’ of the two? Only his own opinion should matter if he just wants worship, shouldn’t it?

But he doesn’t just want blind worship. He thinks that he does, because that means he doesn’t have to get vulnerable, but he wants someone on his level.- he wanted them to rule the multiverse together. Fiona is decent enough- he does genuinely seem to like her and although their relationship was probably destined to fall apart at some point, for now she was a decent towel stuffed into the wound for that particular problem of ‘not having anyone to care about/to care about him’. However, he wants Sonic- his approval or his defeat, specifically. He wants Sonic either as a partner in crime or as a trophy- either way, he ‘wins’ and proves that his way of kicking his way to the top was the valid, right choice. Sonic is the true version of himself and the opponent he cares most about facing, and his approval means Scourge would win for real. Not getting that wedges a crack in his insecurities.

In his life, heroism had only ever led to problems. It led his dad to neglect him in service of trying to chase peace for everyone else, it led the world to crumble to pieces when that peace failed, and he learned violence was the only thing that got him attention, even though it was negative from everyone outside the Squad. So Sonic embodying that heroism ideal, and then beating him? It throws everything he thinks into question, and he wants to prove that he’s right so he doesn’t have to question it.

He’s starving for positive interactions from people he respects since they’re so few and far between. He spent time thinking about a comment Sonic made during a previous fight, and then conquered the planet trying to chase the spirit of it even though he got it twisted to the point of unrecognizability.

Scourge wants to be able to just mill his own confidence- to say he’s a badass and then believe it. And on some level, he can! But that’s flimsy and he requires some manner of outside support he has no real way of getting, and feeling like he’s being looked down on by Sonic hurts him more than he’d admit.

So, TL;DR: Scourge wants Sonic to validate him and his (bad) worldview, and gets pissy when that doesn’t happen, because he unconsciously respects Sonic more than he’d admit and not getting that means he has to think about how he’s actually messed up in the past. He wants equals because shallow worship borne from fear isn’t a replacement for genuine affection, but he hasn’t matured enough to realize that’s what he actually wants/needs.

#scourge the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog #archie sonic #archie #sonic blogging #king douche #shadow says stuff

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nerdygaymormon · 4 years ago

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Do you have a link to your thoughts on the CES letter? Because I'm sure plenty of folk have asked you about it. I'm, struggling.

The CES letter has been mentioned to me a few times in asks, but I don’t recall being asked to respond directly to it.

Before getting into it, I want to make you aware of this post about Faith Transitions, I think it may be useful to you.

I read the CES letter many years ago, probably the original version, it’s changed a lot since then. I think the CES letter is sloppy, and twists quotes, uses some questionable sources, and frames things in the worst possible way. It’s basically an amalgamation of all the anti-Mormon literature. But many of the main points of the CES letter are important and correct, even if the supporting details aren’t.

In a way, the CES letter has done the Church a favor. For a long time, Elder Packer insisted that anything which isn’t faith-promoting shouldn’t be taught. As a result, most members of the Church were taught a simplified version of Church history, leaving out anything that is messy or difficult. Although those things could be found if someone was looking for them, I found many of them simply by reading Brigham Young Discourses or other works of the early church.

With the internet, Elder Packer’s approach to history turns out to be a bad one. This information is out there and now most members learn about it from sources seeking to destroy their faith. One response to this has been a series of essays where the Church talks about some difficult subjects.

————————————————————

I’m not going to go through all the claims & challenges of the CES letter, but let me address some of the main ones.

1) There are errors in the Book of Mormon that are also contained in the 1769 edition of the Bible.

From the more faithful point-of-view, Joseph recognizes these passages, such as those from Isaiah, and knows they've already been translated into English and copies them from his family’s Bible. The non-faithful point-of-view is that Joseph copied these verses from his family Bible and tried to pass it off as his own translation.

2) DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East or from Israelites but from Asia.

This is correct. The Church has an essay which admits this and then spends a lot of time explaining how genetics works and one day we might find some Middle East connection. I find the Church essay convoluted as it goes through many possible (and unlikely) reasons for why no DNA of the Jaredites, Nephites or Lamanites has yet been found in the Americas.

3) There are things in the Book of Mormon that didn’t exist during Book of Mormon times, or in Central America (assuming this is where the Book of Mormon takes place), such as horses, chariots, goats, elephants, wheat, and steel.

This is also correct. Maybe the translation process was using a common word in English for a common item in the Book of Mormon. Maybe these are errors. Maybe it’s made up.

4) No archeological evidence has been found for the Nephite/Lamanite civilizations.

Correct. When it comes to archeological evidence, it's true that we haven't found any. For one thing, we don't know where the Nephite & Lamanite civilizations are supposed to have taken place. If you don't know where to look, it's easy to have no evidence. Perhaps Nephites & Lamanites didn’t actually exist and that’s why there’s no archeological evidence. The Book of Mormon does seem to do a decent job of describing geography of the Middle East before Lehi & his family boarded the boat for the Promised Land.

5) Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar (or identical) to many local names and places of the region Joseph Smith lived in.

This seems like a funny thing to get hung up on. First of all, it’s not very many names that are similar. Secondly, many places in the US are named for Biblical places & people. If the Book of Mormon people came from Israel, it makes sense they did something similar. For example, the word Jordan is in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and in many places in America.

6) He points to obscure books or dime-novels that Joseph Smith might have read and the similarities between them and the Book of Mormon.

Those similarities are mostly at the surface level. To me it doesn't seem like Joseph plagiarized any particular book, and these specific books seem to not been very popular so difficult to say Joseph, who lived on the frontier, actually read them. Funny how no one from that time period thought the Book of Mormon resembled those books, probably because they hadn’t heard of them. But Joseph did hear and read a number of stories and some of that phrasing or whatever of the time influenced him. Think of songwriters, they create a new song then get accused of plagiarizing because it's similar to another popular song. Even without intending to, they were influenced by things they heard.

7) The Book of Mormon has had 100,000 changes.

Most of the "100,000" changes to the Book of Mormon were to break it into chapters & verses, to add chapter headings, or to add grammar such as commas and whatnot. There are some changes to fix errors that got printed but differed from the original manuscript. And there's been some clarifications made, but these are few in number. By claiming "100,000" he's trying to make it seem like there's a scam being done. It's easy to get a replication of the first Book of Mormon from the Community of Christ and read it side-by-side with today's version. I’ve done that and occasionally there’s a word or two here or there which differ, but overall it's mostly the same.

8) There were over 4 different First Vision accounts

True. Over the years, the way Joseph described the First Vision changed. I think different versions emphasize different aspects of the experience. I don’t find them to be contradictory. Oh, and the Church has an essay about this.

9) The papyri that Joseph translated into the Book of Abraham has been found and translated and it’s nothing like the Book of Abraham.

This is true. The Church has an essay about it. The Church now says that the papyri inspired Joseph to get the Book of Abraham via revelation, much like his translations of the Bible weren’t from studying the ancient Greek & Hebrew. It is a big change from what the Church used to teach, that this was a translation of the papyrus. The papyri has nothing to do with the Book of Abraham, and the explanations of the facsimiles in the Pearl of Great Price don’t match what the scholars say those pictures are about.

10) Joseph married 34+ women, many without Emma’s consent, some who had husbands, and even a teenager.

This all appears to be true. Emma knew about some of them, but not all. As for the married women, they were still married to their husbands but sealed to Joseph (I know this is strange to us, but this sort of thing was common until Wilford Woodruff standardized how sealings are done).

Polygamy was illegal in the United States. Most people who participated were told to keep it secret. So of course there’s carefully-worded statements by Joseph and others denying they participate in polygamy.

The salacious question everyone wants to know is if Joseph slept with all these women. We don’t know, but a DNA search for descendants of Joseph has taken place among the descendants of the women he was ‘married’ to and none have been found. But still, if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, why is he hiding this from Emma?

11) The Church used to teach that polygamy was required for exaltation, even though the Book of Mormon condemns polygamy.

This is accurate. The Church says polygamy was part of ancient Israel and so as part of the restoration of all things, polygamy had to be restored, see D&C 132:34. Now we no longer say polygamy is required to get to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom.

12) Brigham Young taught Adam-God theory, which is now disavowed by the Church.

True. Joseph Smith didn’t teach this and John Taylor & Wilford Woodruff don’t seem to have any time for this teaching. It’s a thing Brigham Young was hot about and taught, but seems a lot of the church didn’t buy it as it was discarded after his death.

13) Black people weren’t allowed to hold the priesthood until 1978, despite Joseph having conferred it to a few Black people during his life.

Very true and very sad. This and the Mountain Meadows Massacre are the two biggest stains on the Church’s past. There is a Church essay on Race & the Priesthood. The ban appears to have begun with Brigham Young and he developed several theories to justify it, and these explanations expanded over the decades and bigotry was taught as doctrine. The Church now disavows all explanations that were taught in the past.

No reason for the priesthood ban is put forward in the Church essay other than racism. The past leaders were racists and that blinded them to what God wanted for Black people. There’s a big lesson in that for LGBTQ teachings of the Church.

14) The Church misrepresents how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon.

The accounts of Joseph Smith putting a seer stone in a hat and reading words from it, that's part of the historic record. Quotes about it don’t make it to our Sunday School lessons, but if you go back to the Joseph Smith papers and other accounts, it’s there to read. Joseph also used the Urim & Thummim, and wrote out characters and studied them, but he seems to have most favored the stone-in-hat method. I think the main problem here is the Church in its artwork and movies does not depict this, and therefore most members are unaware until they see anti-Mormon literature. Why does the Church not show Joseph looking into a hat? Because it seems magical and weird to modern people. But how much weirder is it than he put on the Urim & Thummim like glasses and could translate that way, or he wrote out these characters from some extinct language and was able to figure out what they mean?

————————————————————

A number of the main points in the CES letter are true (even if explanations/supporting details in the CES are problematic). Some of the main points have simple explanations and don’t seem like a big deal. Others challenge what the Church has taught. To its credit, the Church put out essays by historians & scholars, with sources listed in the footnotes, addressing several of these controversial topics.

————————————————————

Religion is meant to help humans make sense of their world and our place in it. Most religious stories are metaphorical but end up getting taught as literal history and, in my opinion, the same is true of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And that’s why the CES letter has power, it points out things aren’t literally true but were taught by the Church as factual, and the CES letter shows us part of our messy history that the Church tried to hide.

————————————————————

The story of Adam and Eve can’t literally be true. It doesn’t fit our evolutionary past, but it’s meant to make our lives important, God created us and we have to account to Him for our choices, and it’s important to find someone to go through life with. We can say the same of Job and the Book of Ruth, fiction with a purpose.

While there are some real events included in the Bible, much of what’s written is there to teach lessons, culture, and give meaning to life. Jesus taught in parables so at least he was upfront that they were stories that contained morals.

Can I believe the same about the Book of Mormon, that it’s inspired fiction with meaning I can apply to my life, or must it be literally history to have value?

————————————————————

I went through a massive faith crisis while attending BYU. I had access to materials that told a different story of this religion than I’d been taught (the sorts of things in the CES Letter) and it threw me for a loop.

It felt like the floor of faith I had stood on shattered and I fell with no way to stop myself. After I had a chance to process through the things I was feeling, I looked at my shattered faith and picked up the parts that were meaningful to me.

I had lined up my faith similar to a line of dominoes. If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was a prophet. If Joseph was a prophet, then this is the true church. If this is the true church, then...

This works until it doesn’t. Once a domino topples over, it starts a chain event.

Now I look at principles and concepts and decide if they’re meaningful to me.

I love the idea that we can spend eternity with the people we love most.

I believe we should be charitable and loving to others.

People on the margins need to be looked after and helped and lifted.

Poor people deserve dignity and the rich to be challenged.

We have a commitment to our community and we all serve to make it better.

All are alike to God, we’re all loved and God has a grand plan for us.

Those who passed away can still be saved through the atonement of Christ.

Those are all principles I find in the Bible and Book of Mormon or at church and I find Love flows through all of those.

This new approach works for me. I don’t have to believe or hold onto problematic teachings. I can drop them and still hold the parts that I find valuable. I can reject the teachings and statements which are bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, misogynistic. Prophets can make mistakes and still have taught some useful things.

That little voice of the spirit and what it teaches and guides me to do, I trust it over what Church leaders say. Overarching principles are more important to me than specific details for how this gets applied in the 1800′s or 1950′s or Biblical times.

————————————————————

I truly hope some of what I’ve written is helpful.

There’s no use pretending that the CES letter doesn’t get some things correct. It’s also helpful to understand it’s not just trying to share truth, but has an agenda to make the Church look as bad as possible.

What about the things the CES letter is correct about?

Has this church helped you learn to connect with the Divine?

The Church has some very big flaws, but also has some big things in its favor. Some of its unique teachings are very appealing and feel hopeful and right.

Can you leave the Church and be a good person and have a relationship with God? Absolutely.

I also know this church is a community and it’s hard to walk away cold-turkey with nothing to replace it, without another network to belong to. It’s as much a religion as it is a lifestyle and circle of friends.

Are there parts you can hold onto? Parts you can let go of?

You have a lot to think about and work through.

#long post #ces letter #this is a much longer answer than I thought I would write

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prettyflyshyguy · 4 years ago

Text

Ok here’s Chapter 2!!! its unfinished but I have to go to bed but you can have it anyway!! Like last time if you have critique please hit me with it. I am not a writer. I am simply a fool with two wolves inside me, one craves comedic relief while the other is grabbing a knife from the kitchen. (Chapter 1 if you missed it)

Here’s an indication:

The night air was still, in the distance the sound of helicopters and sirens blaring was the only thing to disturb this empty side of the city, evacuation of all citizens long passed. The orange haze of distant lights and fires lit up the otherwise cloudy dark sky. The crack of crystalline and resin structure splitting broke the silence atop the Research Centre. A cocoon spilled out of the split in the hardened shell, flowing and bulging and wriggling out as something churned and shifted beneath the surface. Rapidly the form of a figure started to appear, breaking free, reaching upwards towards the sky until it slipped and fell backwards. It flopped onto the concrete with the grace of a beached whale, and slid a few meters back.

His lungs kicked into overdrive, gulping deep breaths of air to combat the fear, disorientation and adrenaline that shot through his body. Everything was dark, his eyelids felt glued shut. He was hot, too hot, why was he so hot.

Crudely wiping whatever was gunking up his eyes, he began to take stock of the situation. He quickly scanned the area, he was alone.

Except for the cocoon.

‘Shit-’

He instinctively tried calling out but a faint rasp was the most he could muster as he scrambled away still on the ground. He reached for his sidearm holster.

Except it wasn't there.

He felt cold concrete on his back, he pushed into it. It was the only thing he knew was real. It was tangible. He looked back towards the cocoon, a trail of viscous liquid stretched between it and himself. He sat there, frozen. Eyes fixed on the cocoon. Tracing its outline, the way it looked like a figure reaching forward. Forward towards something small that reflected the light, sitting just out of reach of the cocoon on the ground. The huge, gaping split down the back that the trail of fluid lead away from.

Perhaps if he was able to sit completely still he wouldn't be able to feel any of it. The fluid dripping down his hair, into his eyes. The way his arms felt too long. The way his skin felt too tough. The way he felt wrong.

Except he hadn’t forgotten what happened. It was his cocoon.

His heart rate shot up, he started breathing faster shorter breaths.

Leon wasn't particularly afraid of much. He tackled any new situation he was thrust into pretty well, actually. Like his brief time as a cop back in Racoon City when the first outbreak of the T-virus happened. Evicting the ‘monster under the bed’ when he’d babysit Sherry when she was younger. Being injected with a parasite egg by a twisted cult in Europe. Accepting Claire’s challenge of who could eat the most hot cross buns last Easter.

The cocoon in front of him made him afraid.

He focused on his breathing, slowing them down, taking in more air in each breath. His pulse began to calm.

A minute or two had gone by before he realised it was getting cold. The exothermic reaction of the cocoon process had ended quite some time ago and he was no longer receiving the benefits. If you could even call them that.

He thought about it again.

‘Ah. That’s right. The cocoon process.’

His memories were intact up until a point, he remembered the flames and how he tried to scream. He remembered the sensation of his skin boiling. He remembered his joints seizing up and everything going dark. The only person he’s seen come out of a cocoon looking ‘normal’ was Ada, but she must be different. Some kind of twisted facsimile that Simmons cooked up. The Ada Wong that infected him was surely not the real deal, at least he hoped.

Ultimately there were only two choices in his current situation. Continue to stare in abject horror at the cocoon or instead, stare in abject horror at whatever it did to him.

Sharply inhaling, he slowly let his gaze fall from the cocoon to his feet.

At least the assumption was that they were his feet. They looked more structurally like primates but with thick leathery scales or plating running along down from his legs. Not to mention the claws.

‘Ok. Could be worse.’

‘Time to try standing up.’ he thought.

He shuffled into a kneeling position and placed his hands out in front of him on a bare patch of concrete that wasn't covered in goop. Thankfully they still resembled human hands. Just with more scales and claws.

‘Could be worse.’

Very slowly, with plenty of weight on his hands, he attempted to figure out how to stand up. He quickly realised his feet were more comfortable with weight being fully placed on the toes. Like a dinosaur. Maybe he could get a job as a monster in the next Jurassic Park film. In trying to find a silver lining the brief mental distraction meant he almost toppled over, as his legs were quite shaky. Using the wall behind him for stability, he found he was able to stand comfortably if he bent his knees slightly more than he was used to.

Carefully, despite wobbling significantly, he made his way without the aid of a wall towards and around the cocoon, to where he had dropped his communicator after Ada… Fake-Ada, had infected him.

He knelt down and gently picked it up, praying that maybe somehow the flames hadn’t damaged it beyond working. The glass screen was cracked. It was unresponsive.

‘Fuck.’

He had no way of contacting Helena. No way of telling her that actually he’s ok. He had left her to run after Ada and now she’s out there, alone, up against Simmons and his personal security army after everything-

‘FUCK.’

He was so stupid, he let his personal feelings get in the way when he should have just let Chris handle it-

He froze.

‘Chris was just outside the door when it happened. He probably saw the cocoon-’

His thoughts were interrupted as the glass of the communicator shattered as it hit the ground. His stomach convulsed as he began to throw up. He hadn’t eaten in hours but the acid burned away at his throat nonetheless. Tears started to well up in his eyes. The full gravity of the situation hit, everything he put his friends through, everything that’s happened to him. What would happen if he finds them again? Would they recognise him? Would they shoot him? Would he even find them? What if something else found him first?

Shoving all that aside, he pulled himself back into the moment. There was nothing he could do for either Chris or Helena if he just sat here, and the risk of a military cleanup unit passing overhead and seeing him was not one he was willing to bargain on.

The balcony door, left open, creaked slightly as the ocean breeze drifted through the city. It would have been nice if not for the smoke and the eeriness of the place left cold and empty. It didn’t take Leon long to find an apartment that had an unlocked door or window, long forgotten about. The infection came with its advantages, namely making it much easier for him to traverse buildings vertically which meant he avoided streets with military patrols, Ja’vo or worse. Cautiously searching, in case he wasn't alone, he swept through each room quickly before entering the bathroom. The sludge that was left over from the cocoon had started to try like mud all over him, a shower might help relieve the stress. Closing the door and looking around, he caught a brief glimpse of his full figure in the bathroom mirror. He turned away sharply, not ready to tackle that just yet, instead focusing on the uncomfortable fact he could see very clearly despite not turning the light on yet. Once again trying to find something he could root himself too, he sunk his feet into the softness of the bathmat. The cold of the tiles.

He leaned with both arms either side of the basin.

‘Please don’t throw up again.’ he thought.

Without giving himself time to chicken out of it he flicked his head upwards and stared dead on into the mirror.

‘Could be worse.’

His face was still somewhat recognisable, it might have been even more if he didn’t have two mandibles protruding from both his top and bottom jaw each, beginning near his ears and wrapping comfortably around his face. He was able to see them in his peripheral vision so far but preferred to pretend they didn’t exist. Forced to reckon with it now, he toyed around to determine what level of control he had, if any. The top two folded up neatly alongside his cheeks and the clawed tip bent downwards towards his mouth, while the bottom ones extended along his jawline and pointed up at his chin. More concerningly in each corner of his lips there was a line, almost like a split that ran up his cheeks either side. Tentatively he flexed his jaw and opened his mouth slightly he snapped it shut upon seeing canines that were probably a little too long. Among other teeth that probably weren't there before. At least the BSAA had good dental.

Examining the rest, the same plate scales, more like chitin or carapace, ran up his arms, legs and back. Splits down the sides of his arms and legs had more normal softer skin along with his chest, although these including his face were still stricken with splits and scarring in the skin. Much like how Deborah, Helena’s sister, looked after she emerged from her cocoon. At this point he noticed something shifting behind him, twisting slightly revealing in the mirror a set of thin spines that ran down his back. They twitched and shifted higher the more he stared at them, the more his heart rate elevated.

Not bothering to turn on any lights still, he shoved himself into the shower and doused himself in water as once again, he felt his heart rate climb.

Sinking down to the floor he leant on his knees and pushed his fingers into his hair as the water enveloped him.

‘It could be worse. It could be worse. It could be worse. It could be worse?? I’m a BOW now I’m a fucking BOW I’m a bio organic weapon I’m a B O W I’M-’

Pulling his hands down his hair and over his face, he took a deep breath to try and calm himself.

‘Ok this is bad, but you’ve been through worse Leon.’ he considered.

He stared blankly for a moment.

‘Ok maybe you haven't been through worse but at least this time you’re in control of yourself. No mind control parasite cults involved. Look on the bright side.’

He looked down at his feet and the water swirling endlessly into the drain.

‘You’ve traumitised Helena right after the same thing happened to her sister, you have no way of contacting anyone for help, and even if you did, you have no guarantee they won’t just try and kill you.’

He slowly looked up. His entire face, mandibles included, drooped as the water cascaded down.

Pressing his hands into his face and leaning back he let out a deep, long groan while he internally wished he could just scream. God knows if he did, if it would even sound human still.

Debora’s wails and cries still echoed in his mind. Recognisably human in origin but alien and twisted. Would he sound like that too? Like a monster?

(Hi hello its Editing Shy here, sorry this is all I got. I haven't finished it yet, this is the unfinished bit.)

#c virus au #the fanfic saga continues #tentatively gonna post this with #Leon Kennedy #Resident Evil 6 #throws this in your general direction and RUNS AWAY #idk why im super self conscious about this its probably a mix of my nervousness because Im not good at writing and how stupidly self indulge #*indulgent this is lmfao #if I dont make at least 10 really bad jokes to what kind of a writer even am I #I could never write full angst I would actually die if someone didnt make a really stupid comment to try and lighten the mood

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astrelan · 4 years ago

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London Rising

So hey y’all, I know I haven’t been active lately. I’ve been working on something different for my D&D group for a little bit now. We’re about to start a campaign using the Genesys gaming system, actually, and I wanted to share the setting details with you all. It’s a completely homebrewed fantasy/steampunk setting, which Genesys is amazing for. I’d love to hear any feedback if you want to PM me about it.

Here goes:

London Rising is a dystopian version of earth, where magically-powered airships the size of cities dominate the skies. On the ground below, magical war has rendered most areas of the planet unlivable. It has been almost three thousand years since the outbreak of war drove humanity to live in the sky, and, despite constant maintenance, ships are starting to break down. More frequent landings have been made, even going so far as to stop in dangerous territory. Refueling and refit stops in safe zones take longer. Fear that the great ships will falter and stall is rising. It is impossible to tell if the great era of the air will end soon, or if this is just a hiccup along its path.

Tensions between cities are rising, leading to more than one skirmish between cities. Air piracy has been on the rise, and cities have taken real combat damage for the first time. It's only a matter of time before one falls from the sky. City ships are separated into three major levels: the officers' quarters, which is nearest to the top decks; the engineers' quarters, which is firmly in the middle, around the flight crystal; and steerage, which is the lower decks. The officers' quarters are where the elite stay, while the engineers' is where the skilled laborers and middle class live. Steerage is for the poor or useless crewmembers, and is cramped and dangerous to live in.

Currency is the cubit, abbreviated as a bit. A cubit is a small brass square with a hole in the middle. Twenty-five cubits can be exchanged for a thruppenny bit, which is a small square of sterling silver with a hole in it. Four thruppenny bits can be exchanged for a dollar, which is a round copper coin with a hole in the middle. The coins are lightly engraved, and are accepted in most civilized places.

Magic is a thing, but must normally be focused through an implement, most commonly a crystal glove.

The two major religions on most city ships are the Temple of the Everlasting Cog and the Order of Skysingers. There is also the Cult of Beth'Shalot, but they are illegal in most places. The Temple is an atheist order that reveres order and solidarity, and despises chaos. They sing hymns called shipsongs five times daily, and worshippers are permitted breaks during these times if they do not work on essential functions. The Order worships the sky and its magic. They have a church on the ship's deck, and all members have free access to it. The Cult worships a sleeping old god who will devour the world when he awakes. There are mechanical walker machines that are piloted by humans and some that are controlled by rudimentary machine intelligences. These vary in size, but some of the larger ones have built in rocket engines to allow them to fly. Those owned by London are piloted by the Knights of the Silver Cog, a nearly-religious order that is sponsored by the Temple of the Everlasting Cog.

The city is led by Queen Ileein Southmoreland, who handles the city's foreign affairs. The Archchancellor handles day to day affairs and the Captain handles everything about the ship itself.

Day to day affairs are run by Archchancellor Valeria Hightower. The Archchancellor is elected by popular vote, but most of the steerage doesn't really have a chance; the votes are weighted by class. Elections are held every ten years.

The Captain is elected by the Captain's Council, an elite group of ten men and women that run the ship itself. The Captain is a position for life, as when the elected takes the post, they give up their name to bond with the crystal that runs the ship. There is always a captain shadowing the current captain, whose lifespan is drastically reduced due to the taxing nature of their crystalline bond. The Cogbound are a race of mechanical men created by the Temple of the Everlasting Cog. They are created without inherent sentience, but it can evolve. Those deemed sentient are known as Cogborn, and are revered by the Temple. Every year, all Cogbound take a series of tests called the Sentience Tests, which consist of a large number of empathy-related questions. This happens over the period of a week, which is aptly called Sentience Week. Keeping a Cogbound from their testing is punishable by death in some cases, though whipping and hefty fines are more common.

While mostly human, the populace of London and most other city states has grown varied over the years due to immigration from the surface and a steady stream of emigrants from steerage looking for a better life.

There are three arcane universities in London: St. George's Academy of Sorcery, which is the most elite; Lord Wimbley's School of the Arcane Arts, which is of middling prestige; and the Alderman's House of Spellcraft, which is the state-funded school to make sure all spellcasters have some education. Most of the world is covered in dark grey wasteland. Only dead plants remain there as far as flora. They are crawling with mutants and monsters, and magical storms are common. Crystals can sometimes be found here, though not very big ones. Mostly big enough for lithospats. Areas of wasteland include much of Europe and Asia, parts of Africa and Russia, and the entire Mediterranean coast.

Magical storms ravage some areas constantly. These places are absolutely filled with monsters and mutants, and what plants do grow there are warped, evil things that grow fat on magical energy. Crystals are abundant here, often being big enough to fly city ships with. Those places include all of north america, most of Russia, and parts of South America.

Most safe zones have isolated themselves, all trade being done via the air. These include India, Japan, Cuba, parts of Scandinavia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and some areas in the Himalayas and South America's mountain ranges.

Australia is the only country to emerge almost completely unscathed, and is the world's largest trade hub.

Greenland is partially covered in storms, but its safe zones are widely visited trading ports.

Most of the long-lasting technology that exists is ancient crystal-based technology. Newer technology is normally steam-based or more primitive crystal technology, cobbled together by mechanomancers.

City ships are primarily kept aloft by their lift crystals, but are also kept aloft by a variety of other technologies depending on the city, including balloons and steam-powered machines. Propulsion is partially achieved by lift crystals but is mostly provided by steam-powered propellers. Most of the internal systems and living areas are steam-powered, but the officers' quarters are normally crystal-powered.

Smaller airships are normally kept aloft by balloons and steam-powered machines, but some ancient or well-financed airships use smaller lift crystals. Propulsion is almost always provided by propellers.

There are two primary types of small aircraft: gyrospats and lithospats. Gyrospats are little more than a wooden open cockpit, a steam engine, a propeller, and normally some sort of weaponry. Lithospats are separated into ancient and modern lithospats, both powered by lift crystals. Ancient lithospats are elegant, aesthetically pleasing aircraft with no visible means of propulsion. Their crystals are tucked into a protective shell. They are normally made of materials that are now impossible to reproduce with modern technology. Modern lithospats bear more resemblance to gyrospats, but made of steel or iron. Their crystals are normally only protected by a thin hemisphere of metal.

Weapons technology ranges from single shot weapons to clockwork loading mechanisms to weapons firing crystal charges. Melee weapons are fairly standard fare, but also include chainswords and other mechanized weapons.

Advanced locks can either be steam-run transaction engine locks, or crystal-board locks similar to highly tuned modern electronic locks.

Thinking machines are normally run off of crystal-boards, ancient technology that is similar to a modern computer chip or motherboard. The art of making these has been diluted but not lost; with the tools available, it is not possible to make high quality crystal-boards anymore, but the Temple puts out reasonable facsimiles for the Cogbound they make. The quality varies from city to city.

#campaign #setting #genesys #fantasy #steampunk #magipunk #magic #d&d #dungeons and dragons #dnd #dystopian roleplay #dystopian fantasy #dystopian #dystopian steampunk #writing #london rising

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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Apropos of nothing other than fuyunoakegata making me think of it with that last post, I’ve gotten enough new followers lately that its worth a refresher slash introduction on one of my personal pet themes: that of the word ‘broken’ in regards to trauma/abuse/rape victims and survivors.

Again, nothing to do with them for using the word, but rather just an awareness of the many ways the word is used in those contexts in our society, and my personal opinion that a lot of those ways are very limited and could use some expansion beyond how we typically see these things talked about.

So the below excerpt is just one I think sums up my take on it all pretty well, and as such is a cornerstone viewpoint for a lot of the stuff I regularly express and/or circle back to, as well as being the scene I think I’ve probably gotten the most feedback/reactions to over the years out of pretty much anything I’ve written. Its YJ-verse, Dick and Dinah, utilizing the Tarantula storyline and the not-at-all-uncommon baby-in-the-aftermath trope, but stands fairly well on its own and doesn’t require any context or give any spoilers beyond that.

****

In the end, it was Dick who finally broke the newly fallen quiet.

"Does Batman know yet?"

Batman, not Bruce. Dinah shook her head. They're one and the same, she wanted to remind him, wanted to shake him, wanted to scream in Bruce's face every time she'd watch him insist on the distinction over the past ten years.

"He's waiting back at Mt. Justice," she said. "But no, he doesn't know yet. He knows something is wrong, but I convinced him to let me come alone and speak with you first."

Dick snorted. "At least he actually listens to you."

"I think this makes the third time in the fifteen years I've known him," Dinah said wryly. "Don't go thinking I'm special. He only listened because I convinced him barreling in here would only make things worse. And the last thing your father has ever wanted to do is make things worse for you. He manages it sometimes anyway, but it's never his intent."

Not that intent matters, or is any kind of excuse for the harm or damage one actually causes, Dinah reflected. And normally it wasn't a line of thinking she'd ever open a door to at all, but with the past two years worth of tension between Dick and his father still a major source of the young man's turmoil, she figured it was worth it to see if Dick would seize the opportunity to defend Bruce. Lord knows Dick could hold a grudge against his father like no one's business, but anyone else trying it in his presence was usually a nonstarter.

To her disappointment - but not her surprise - Dick ignored the bait and instead just grunted. He stared at the floor, face alternately pale and purple under the neon glow that washed through the window via a strip club's signage across the street.

"I wouldn't have broken, you know," Dick said, never looking up. His lips twisted beneath the words, as if they tasted like something sour. "If he came too. I didn't...I don't want him here, not now, or yet, I mean. But it's not like. It wouldn't have broken me or whatever you're thinking. That's all I mean."

"I didn't say that it would, Dick," Dinah said carefully. But not so carefully as to lay credence to the idea she thought he was fragile. Not an easy line to traverse. Where's a tightrope walker when you need one? Oh, right. Crumpled up on the floor of his unlit apartment, afraid to even look at his own baby. Things were off to a promising start. "It's not either or. You're not broken just because you're not alright and you're not alright just because you're not broken. There's room for space in between."

She sighed and cast around the cramped apartment, dragging a chair from the kitchen table to settle down in front of him. The room was such a far cry from the opulence of Wayne Manor. She knew Dick had never been one to buy into the trappings of his father's wealthy lifestyle. She and Ollie frequently attended the same functions as the Waynes, and she'd smothered many a giggle at Dick and Jason's antics as the two reveled in shocking the Gotham elite with loud and pointed reminders of their impoverished 'low class' backgrounds. Still, looking around, she couldn't help but wondering how much of Dick's apartment and its placement was purely a result of not caring about things like wealth and status, and how much of it was a deliberate rejection of those things, of Bruce? Did it even matter? Or was she just stalling?

"You know, I've never really liked when people use that word," she mused. The baby in her arms stirred restlessly, his nose wrinkling. God. As a general rule, she preferred waiting until children were teenagers before interacting with them. She wasn't big on babies, usually - most people who cooed over their shrunken little faces and called them the most beautiful things they'd ever seen were just lying, in her opinion. But this one was a charmer. Or maybe he wasn't, and she was just already hopelessly attached because Reasons. Crap. Of all the times for a maternal bone to materialize.

"Broken. What does that even mean, really? It's just a description of a physical state, but people often use it like a judgment. As though it describes what someone is, instead of simply what state they're in at a particular moment. You can break something and then put it back together so you can never tell the difference, so what does it mean that it was broken? Why does it matter?"

Dick shifted for the first time since she'd entered the apartment. She might not be Batman caliber, but her own reflexes were nothing to sneeze at. Still, the suddenness of his movements were unexpected enough to catch her offguard as he reached over to the side and snatched up one of the escrima sticks he carried as part of his Nightwing ensemble. A slim but sturdy shaft of polished black wood about a foot long in length, it made a hell of a crack when he held it in both hands and brought it down over one knee, hard and fast enough to snap it in two. He tossed the two broken pieces onto the hardwood floor. One rolled over to rest against her foot.

"Can't fix that with crazy glue."

Dinah smoothed her features into careful non-reaction as she bent and reached down to pick up the broken stick, still cradling the infant in one arm as she rolled the shattered weapon in her other palm.

"No, I suppose not. But I bet you I could find a hundred other uses for this piece right here. Plenty of other things you could do with it, or things you could build with it. Use it as the foundation to make something else entirely, or even just carve it, turn it into a work of art, something beautiful. And whatever you end up with, could you describe it as broken? Yes, it wouldn't be your escrima stick anymore, doesn't do the same thing, have the same purpose, maybe what it was is broken. But what it is? What you make of it? Would that be broken?"

Dick jutted his jaw out, mulish, stubborn. A mirror of the expression she'd last glimpsed under Batman's cowl, not even an hour ago. They couldn't be more alike if they were blood. "I know what you're doing," he said.

"What's that?"

"Exactly what I should have known you'd do before I told Artemis she could send Wally to get you. Knew it was a mistake the second he left. I don't need a shrink right now, Canary."

She shrugged. "Good, because I'm done trying to be your therapist. I realized what a waste it was, on my way over here. I never caught a whiff of this brewing under your surface this past year, so obviously our sessions have just been a waste of both our time. I forgot that arrogant smart people make the worst patients."

That was enough to jolt a noticeable reaction out of him. Finally. It was a calculated gamble, one she already regretted as a swift flicker of hurt winged across his face, half-glimpsed and vanished as quickly as it came. It was a little harder for him to banish his gaping mouth. "Yeah, not your usual session starter," he agreed, in only the barest facsimile of his usual clever humor. But it was a start. "So I'm arrogant, now?"

"You always have been," Dinah said gently, trying to soften the blow of her harsh words. She quirked her lips in a half smile. "Just like your father. Difference is, you actually bother with social interaction and you're charming, so you can get away with it where he can't. And Dick...I'm not saying it as an insult. Or that it's a bad thing. I think you and Bruce are arrogant in certain ways, yes. I think you have to be. To do what you both do."

"You're both human, no superpowers, no magic, not even advanced technology giving you an edge. And yet you not only hold your own amidst heroes who have all those advantages and more, you take charge. You lead. You inspire. Mere confidence isn't enough to allow you to do that. You need something that goes beyond that, something that can only be called arrogance, because it's such a bone deep certainty that you can do all the things you profess you can do, that you are the right people to fight the battles you fight, that it's above questioning. There are a million and one reasons you both shouldn't be able to do the things you both do, and if there was even a second you doubted that you could, you probably wouldn't be able to. When you leap off ten story buildings with just a grapple line and your acrobatics to bring you safely to the ground, it's because you believe, no, you know, that you can defy gravity. Even though for seven billion other humans, gravity can't be defied. Dick, I'm an Olympic level gymnast. You don't see me leaping off ten story buildings if I can help it because I know I'm good, yes, but that doesn't mean I know in a battle of me vs gravity, I'm always going to win. You do. You know that. You believe that. And that is arrogance, yes. But it also happens to be justified, in your case."

He mulled that over, not looking thrilled, but at least looking engaged now, and she breathed a bit easier. Good. Engaged she could work with. It was a start. "Okay. Fine. So what about that makes me a terrible patient?"

"I never said terrible," she protested lightly. "I said the worst."

He glared.

She relented. "It's like Superman's invulnerability. Most of the time, that's exactly what he needs to keep him safe. It's all he needs. But in some specific, rare instances, even if it's only 1% of the time, the very thing that makes him so hard to hurt, makes him hard to help. All it takes is that one bullet that can pierce his skin, either because it's Kryptonite, or it's enchanted, or something else....and suddenly, that same invulnerability that keeps him safe 99% of the time is the very thing making it so hard to operate on him, to cut into him and dig out the one bullet that made it past his defenses. Dick, answer me this. What's the first thing you do when you're confronted with a problem?"

"I assess the situation and determine a course of action, I guess," he frowned. "Why?"

"Because when the problem is you, when it's something that's happened to you or something involving your behavior, the kinds of things that a therapist is meant to help you with, you do exactly that. You assess the situation, you assess yourself, your own behavior, and you come to a conclusion. Which means by the time you ever arrive at my doorstep for a session, you've already diagnosed yourself. You've made up your mind. That arrogance that gives you the strength, the certainty, the conviction you need to tackle every other obstacle you face without hesitation, it has you equally convinced that the conclusion you've already drawn about what's wrong with you or your behavior, it must be true. That you've got it already figured out. And so instead of our sessions being about me helping to guide you to a conclusion or helping you find the inconsistencies in your own logic or reasoning - that's not what you're actually there for. Because you're sure you already have the answer, and so instead of looking for it, you're really just looking for it to be validated."

She gave him a moment to absorb that, drawing a breath before continuing.

"And here's where you being so damn smart becomes a problem - because you're brilliant, Dick, just like Bruce is, you know how to read people, you know how to manipulate people, you can do it without even having to think about it. And so instead of telling me what you need to say, you tell me what you think I want to hear. And we get further and further away from actually helping you as you steer our sessions towards the conclusions you've made because of what's bothering you....instead of towards the conclusions you'd draw if you were ready to face it."

Dick leaped to his feet, face flushed in the moonlight. He stepped forward, aborted that when it drew him closer to her and the baby, features twisting in a heart-wrenching moment of agony for the briefest instant before he stepped away again. Carefully breathing in, making a visible effort to drop his voice despite his obvious agitation. Good. Awareness of his surroundings. Thinking beyond the moment to consequences of each action. Engaging more and more with his surroundings. She'd piss him off to Hell and back if that's what it took. Be angry, Dick. Rage. Scream. Yell. Hurt.

"So what?" He asked with a sharp, acidic laugh. He paced, arms buried in his armpits, hunched over, eyes on his boots as he wandered in circles. Pent up, restless energy. All the frenetic motion of Robin, of Nightwing, of a bird made for flying yet still stuck on the ground.

"You think I don't know what's bothering me? You think...I freak out a little and Wally runs to you and tells you something and you come back and find me all freaked out on the floor and you've got it all figured out from there, from just that, but you think I can't figure it out on my own? I'm brilliant, you said, but you think I'm all messed up because I can't face it, I can't see it even when its right in front of me?"

"That's not what I'm saying Dick," Dinah tried, but he just laughed again. Jabbed a hand towards the baby in her arms, took it back halfway.

"I know what happened, Canary," he bit out. "I was there. I don't need you to hold my hand and walk me through it so I can face it. Yeah, okay, I get it. I was raped. Tarantula raped me. I can say it. I'm not - I'm not in denial. I've been doing this since I was ten, I'm not...I know the statistics, I know it's not any different just because I'm a guy. I get that men can get raped, that they can be raped by women, that there's no other word for what happened to me. That it wasn't my fault, that I was in shock, that I can't be blamed for her taking advantage of me in that state. I know all that okay? It's not a fucking revelation to me, I don't need anyone's help to fucking face that!"

"Then what's the problem, Dick?" Dinah asked softly when he ran out of steam, or breath or both. His hair was wild in disarray, his stance a contradiction of defensiveness and a pending attack. His chest heaved like a bellows even though he'd yet to raise his voice past a low-pitched hiss. "If you know all that already, where's the problem? What are you having trouble with here? What reason does someone who's already faced all that have for hiding it from his friends and family for a year?"

"There's no problem, that's my whole point," Dick insisted, throwing his arms wide. "Fine, I freaked out for a minute because I just found out my rapist had my fucking baby, and I thought it was over and done with but....jesus. I'm not...it's not because I can't deal with what happened. God, nothing even happened! It was barely anything. I barely even remember it I was so out of it, and then it was over. She didn't hurt me, its not like it was painful or I was drugged or it left me damaged or something, okay? I told you, I've been doing this for ten years. I've SEEN victims okay, real victims, women and even men who are so fucking traumatized by what some sicko did to them they can barely get out of bed in the morning. I've seen victims left beaten and bloody by their attackers, who've...it was nothing like that, okay?"

Dinah nodded. "And that. That right there. That's exactly what I'm talking about."

Dick blinked and rocked back on his heels. Blindsided by her calm and her seeming non sequitur. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you misdiagnosed," she said with a helpless shrug. "You've been so busy reacting to what you thought was your problem, what you were convinced must be bothering you - whether or not you were able to admit that you were raped, that you could be raped even though you're a man, let alone an accomplished fighter able to protect himself - that you left yourself wide open to something else entirely. Tell me. What do you know about Impostor Syndrome?"

"It's a term sometimes used to describe over-achievers who have trouble internalizing their accomplishments. Perfectionists who think they're frauds because they don't know how to take credit for their own achievements and say its because of luck or timing or something other people did," Dick frowned, puzzling through both the question and the aim of it. He raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't sound like something that applies to someone as arrogant as me."

"Don't be a little shit, Dick," Dinah said with small smirk. "And you're right, I don't think any of that applies to you. However, it's also used in another capacity, to describe trauma survivors who are unable to internalize their own trauma. Who deflect from it, or mitigate it, treat it as less than it is on the basis that it wasn't as bad as what's happened to someone else. It's especially common in trauma survivors who are noted for being especially empathetic or who have caregiver personality types. People who are so used to self-identifying as someone whose role or purpose is in helping others, that they find themselves unable to identify as traumatized because it might shift the focus to themselves instead of people they feel need it more. Does that behavior sound a little more familiar?"

Dick hesitated, eyes on the floor and darting every which way as though looking for escape from a trap.

"It should," she pressed on. "Considering you've been doing that for a long time, much longer than just this past year. Pretty much as long as I've known you, in fact."

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you do whenever someone brings up your parents or their deaths?" Dinah asked softly. He flinched. Ducked his head to the side. Jaw tightened again. "You say it was a long time ago. Or that at least you have Bruce now. Or that you wish other orphaned kids could be as lucky as you ended up. Always shying away from the idea that you might need sympathy or comfort because of what happened to your parents and pointing instead to everyone else who needs it more. And it only got worse when Bruce adopted Jason."

"Don't -" Dick warned. His head snapped back up, fire in his eyes, but she refused to be deterred. Not when she finally had his full attention.

"You never allowed anyone to dwell on any of your myriad traumas once Jason came along. Not just your parents, but what happened with Two-Face, the first time you faced the Joker, nothing. You'd always deflect, always shift things back around to Jason. And what a hard life he'd had. So much harder than you, you insisted. At least your parents loved you. At least they didn't abuse you like Jason's father abused him, or were a drug addict like his mother was. Someone mentioned the time you spent in a juvenile detention center as an eight year old, all because some racist bitch of a social worker didn't like that you were Romani, and your response was that at least you didn't have to live on the streets like Jason did before he met Bruce."

"This has nothing to do with Jason!" Dick ground out, heated.

"It's not about Jason, Dick. It's about you. Because your brother had a hard life, yes. It's true. He suffered terrible traumas before Bruce found him and adopted him. And not a single one of those things are made less true, or invalidated or in any way threatened just because terrible things happened to you too. So why do you insist your pain was less than his? That yours didn't matter just because his existed?"

"It's not the same thing," Dick insisted stubbornly. "You can't compare what happened to my parents to the twelve years of shit Jason had to live through."

"I'm not though, Dick. You are. You're the only one saying one must be worse than the other. All I'm saying is both existed."

She sighed. "Trauma isn't a scale to be measured on. It doesn't require a minimum threshold, and it doesn't have a ranking order. It's not about how much harm was caused or how much damage someone did, because at the end of the day, trauma is transformation."

"What do you mean?"

Dinah held up his broken escrima stick, still cradled in her hand. "Trauma is force that causes change. It's not about the act of damaging. It's about what's left behind once the damage is done. I could break this stick into two pieces. It would take a certain amount of force, a certain amount of damage. And once that was done, we'd be left with two pieces here instead of this one. But then give me another stick the same size, same dimensions, only this one is made of metal. I could break that in two as well. But it would require a whole different kind of force, a whole different order of damage. But in the end, once it was done, we'd still be left with two pieces of that too, instead of the one we started with."

"Two different sticks,” Dinah continued. “Two different traumas. Two different applications of force. And the only thing in common is in the end....both sticks would be transformed. Neither would be what they were originally. Not less. Not more. But different. Changed by the trauma they endured. You want to quantify that trauma? You probably could. It'd be arbitrary, but you could do it. You could calculate the force used, define parameters for the damage it caused. But what would that mean? What's the outcome? What happens because you decided one trauma was greater than the other? How does that alter the fact, the reality, that in the end, the survivors of those two different traumas are changed? Something different from what they started as?"

"But it is different," Dick insisted. He looked confused though, rather than forceful. "Context matters. The situations matter."

"Yes, they do," Dinah agreed. "But it's a question of focus, not degree. Which trauma was worse only really matters when you're focused on the trauma. When you're looking at what the trauma leaves behind though? When you focus on the survivors? All that really matters is...how are they different? How were they changed?"

"Dick, you only started getting angry and frustrated when you compared what you went through to what other rape victims you've seen over the years have gone through. What they went through is terrible, yes. It doesn't mean what happened to you wasn't terrible as well. You said you weren't hurt, it wasn't painful, she didn't damage you physically. That doesn't matter though. Because rape isn't about any of those things. It's not about pain, it's not about how much it hurt. Rape is about theft."

He flinched at that, taking a step back.

"Rape is theft,” Dinah pressed forward. “It's betrayal. It's someone taking something they have no right to, something precious, something that can't be taken back. It's taking away someone's right to choose who they share their body with, its using someone's body against them, against their wishes. That's what Tarantula did to you. Whether it hurt or not, whether you remember it fuzzily or in full detail...she took something from you, something you can't get back, and in doing so, she changed you forever."

He shook his head, eyes back on the ground. Denial but not denial. Acceptance but not acceptance. She forged on.

"And the thing is, you're right. You haven't been in denial about what happened. You know that she raped you, that that's what it is. What you haven't faced though is that it's not about how much that hurt you. It's about how much it changed you. Because you're different now, aren't you? And you're smart enough that you figured that out as soon as it happened, that you're not the same anymore, because I'm willing to bet everything looks different to you now. Because you lost something you didn't even know you could lose until it was gone. A sense of security you took for granted, that something like this could never happen to you, except now you know that it can, and it did. We're all made up of our experiences and your experiences now include something they didn't before, something big, something that left a sizable impact, and the be all and end of it all is that you've changed, and you know that....and you keep looking for an answer as to why. Why is everything so different now? Why are you so different?”

She sighed softly.

“And the problem is the only answer you have for that, you decided wasn't good enough for you. Because it wasn't as bad as it could have been. As bad as what happened to other people. And so you've trapped yourself because you know something's different but the thing that caused it, the thing that changed you....it wasn't big enough to explain this change, you decided. You didn't suffer enough, it didn't hurt enough, and so it's not a good enough reason for you to not be who you used to be. And so you keep finding the flaw in yourself, deciding that it must be that you're weak, that everything unsettling you, upsetting you, it's not because what Tarantula did warrants those changes, it's because you can't cut it. That's what you've been telling yourself, haven't you? You're not a survivor, because you don't think there was anything for you to survive. You're not traumatized because the trauma doesn't count. You didn't suffer enough, so that can't excuse all the turmoil you feel."

Dick paced restlessly, all that frenetic energy he always carried with him ratcheted up in intensity until Dinah was half convinced he was going to shake himself to pieces if he didn't find an outlet soon. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite ready to stop.

"All those other victims you described seeing over the years. When you helped them, did you tell them you were sorry for what they went through?"

Dick paused and raised haggard eyes. "Of course I did. Why?"

"Why did you?" Dinah asked, arching a brow. "You didn't do anything to them. You weren't apologizing for something you caused. So what did it mean, to tell them you were sorry?"

"I don't know. It's just...it's what you do. It's a comfort."

"Why though? What about it makes it a comfort?"

"I don't know, it just is. It lets them know somebody cares, I guess," Dick raged. "What are you getting at? You have all the answers, you tell me!"

"Think it through, Dick," Dinah said, firm. "They don't know you. You're a stranger to them. What does it mean for a stranger to tell a victim they're sorry, that they care. What does it matter? What does it do for them?"

Dick stared at her. His face wide and open and searching as he hunted for answers in the shadows of his room, of his own mind. He looked like he'd run a marathon, his body limp and exhausted seeming, like he was only remaining upright by the barest of threads.

"When I tell someone I'm sorry for what happened to them. I don't know. It tells them I see them, I guess," he said hesitantly. She nodded, encouraging him to go on. "That I see what they've been through. That I'm sorry they went through it."

He focused his eyes on hers, with a little more clarity this time. "I tell them...they survived, I guess. That what happened to them...it didn't just happen, it wasn't supposed to happen. But it did. It mattered. What happened to them mattered."

"Yes," Dinah agreed softly. "And every victim you've ever helped, as Robin or as Nightwing, every survivor you've told 'I'm sorry this happened to you' - every time one of them looks in the mirror and recognizes that they aren't the person they were before it happened, that they've changed...they can hold on to that memory of you saying you're sorry. And they know. It happened. It mattered. It is the reason they're different. It is the reason they changed."

Dinah hesitated, and then she said: "I'm sorry it happened to you, Dick. I'm sorry it changed you. I'm sorry that you can't go back to the way things were. I can't tell you it will get better with time. You aren't injured. This isn't a wound that will scar over if you just leave it alone long enough. You can't heal a transformation. But you can decide what you change into. You can decide who you become, even if its not what you were. It'll still be you. A whole you. A complete you. Just a different you. Just like you became someone different after your parents died. I never knew you before that changed you. But that didn't make the you I met any less worth knowing."

He sobbed. Just once, like it was ripped out of him. A tangled, tormented wreck of a sound, his face contorted in a rictus of misery beneath eyes that glistened with a watery sheen, reflecting the wan illumination. It was all he allowed himself, before he found his usual iron control and slammed the gates shut, expression going blank, but it was enough. It was a beginning.

#rape tw

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ravenwritesstuff · 5 years ago

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Best Laid Plans (9/?)

Fandom: Frozen (modern AU, no magic) Pairings: Helsa, established Kristanna, Rapunzel/Eugene, lotsa frohana Rating: T for now, M later almost for sure A/N: Please go away and don’t read the stuff I write.

They have been out to sea for twenty minutes now, Arendelle’s coast disappearing in the distance the same way Elsa’s hope for this day to go any way even close to how she hoped vanished before her eyes.

After the safety briefing from the crew (which she barely heard) she had attempted to direct the conversation towards the contract, the parts and pieces that needed to still be negotiated and finalized, but Mister Westergaard had other ideas.

Eat first. He had said. We have all day.

Bits of polite conversation had floated around her. Hans Westergaard entertained the group with intentional questions, occasionally including her but in some ways almost purposefully excluding her. She is simultaneously thrilled and annoyed, but she is not prepared to deal with either emotion.

So she had picked at the sumptuous fare: cold roasted squash wrapped in hickory smoked bacon, miniature parfait cups with berry compote and tangy greek yogurt topped with a sprig of mint, delicate quiche bites that even served cold are still creamy and without a hint of the rubbery texture she always achieves when cooking eggs. There is mixed fruit salad with a lime reduction glaze, brown sugar crusted salmon delicately seated on lemon buttered crostini, and single waffle quarters served with ten dozen options for toppings including jalapeno infused maple syrup. The list goes on.

Elsa is accustomed to tastings and decadence when it comes to food but nearly always when planning it for someone else, some other occasion. She had little experience being the recipient of such gourmet assortments and has never bothered to learn to cook. Still knowing they will sail she does not feel a great need to indulge as she is not sure she will handle the sea well. Her stomach is already a mess.

Her team dives in, filling actual china plates with their choice delicacies as the crew comes to take drink orders. They are each handed a menu printed on thick card stock that feels like silk. The drink options are embossed into the surface of the luxe paper. The feel of it in her hand along with the weight of her plate in the other and the heat of Hans Westergaard at her side is a sensory overload she never imagined having.

“Coffee,” she does hesitate, “with just a splash of cream.”

The crew member nods and takes her drink menu for her. She notices later that a smattering of those menus were artistically mounted on stainless steel stands just in case she wants to indulge in a mango-passion-fruit mimosa or a mint lemonade slush infused with vodka. While both sound tempting she needs to stay alert. Especially with him sitting so close.

His plate is balanced on one thigh with an assortment of the fare that errs on the sweeter side. She notes the same way she would for any client. Hans Westergaard likes dessert.

She does not consider why knowing that makes her uncomfortable.

He also orders the same coffee as she.

Again she cannot be certain if this is intentional or just another ploy to generate a doomed connection. She will always lean towards the latter.

He is still close, but at least she had the sense to extend his arm over the empty seat away from Elsa instead of behind her back. There is a limit even to her control and if he touched her she may explode right out of her skin.

Her team seems to be enjoying the royal food treatment. Rapunzel feeds Eugene her favorite flavor combination, something unusual certainly, and slaps his chest at the grimace. Kristoff loads up on the protein while Anna selects sweeter alternatives. Elsa takes a single quiche, vegetable options, and crostini. She does not want to seem ungrateful but she also does not want to appear over eager or succumb to sea sickness and never be able to eat salmon again.

She nibbles the barest tip of the roasted summer squash and tries to not notice his plate while also engaging him.

“This is lovely. Thank you,” her team was watching, nodding and eating politely in agreement.

“Of course. I want you to get a sense for what I want.”

He now has retreated even further, inches between their bodies, an appropriate distance but still somehow feels too close. She is thankful and suspicious all at once. He leans in again, but just his head. The rest of him is conspicuously distant. His eyes had been green at the wedding but now they almost appeared gold. Were they hazel?

“That is my team and I would love to talk with you about. We know so little about this initiative, what we are creating, and while this is lovely -”

He cuts her off by pressing two fingers on her mouth.

She had not seen it coming and the feel of it shoots heat previously unknown through her body. She can practically hear the collective gasp from the watching four and her embarrassment is palpable. His fingers are gone as quickly as they had arrived. She didn’t even have the chance to pull back. The heat and pressure of his touch lingers and it takes every bit of self control to not pressed her lips together to try to erase the electric tingling dancing there.

If she had not been so caught off guard by the sensations racing through her body at the contact she would have had the sense to be furious.

“All in good time.” He leans back and puts the hand on his knee, the other gripping his plate. “But first a tour perhaps?”

He is already standing and Elsa can just barely catch a breath.

Her team all stand, albeit cautiously, watching her while she attempts to mentally reboot. Hans Westergaard offers her his hand, the same hand that had pressed her lips just moments before in a facsimile of a kiss. What would it be like to kiss him?

That inquisitive thought is enough to launch her to her feet without assistance. She sets her plate and attache case down with more force than necessary, straightens, and steps away from him. It takes all of her mortal strength to meet his gaze.

It is soft and warm but also fearful. That disconcerting humanness there again like he never did anything to upset her. Like he is afraid of rebuttal for his forwardness, like he knows he oversteps but couldn’t help himself just like she cannot bring herself to truly be upset by the touch. Like maybe it undid him the same way it undid her.

That idea is just as bad, if not worse, than his action.

She needs to put it behind them. Now. No. Sooner than now.

She lifts her chin and clears her throat. “I think it is best if we stick to business.”

She is responding to his offer for a tour and hopes that is how her team takes it, how he takes it. Clearly she does not need to invite trouble when he is more than willing to produce it on his own. His expression rearranges itself to something more polished, but no less intense. She can practically see his strategy shifting behind those color changing eyes and she steels herself against it.

Whatever he dishes out she can take. She has overcome more than most and there is not much that can throw her, but the way he looks at her makes her realize she has met her match.

This is not an arm’s length situation.

But to be close to him?

Close to anyone?

“I agree.” The sound of his voice snaps her back. “Which is why I absolutely insist on a tour of the vessel. It is integral to the process.”

She does not understand. Her mind reels, but she acknowledges that a tour could give her time to regroup and she needs that.

“Then by all means, lead the way.” She takes several steps away from his projected footpath putting the ornate seat they had shared well between them.

If there is any hesitation she cannot be certain. Instead he sweeps to the front of the ship where more chrome and glass greet them. “This way then.”

Thus begins a tour of a yacht that is more ornately equipped and furnished than most homes. Right of the main bow deck there is a leisure room filled with plush royal blue and rich chocolate furniture, stainless steel fixtures along with cream carpets and accents. There are florals, books, and staggering decor pieces that would be excessive and gaudy in any other context but here they all flow together seamlessly. The streamlined design of the furniture and the ship is accentuated with the extravagant accents. No. It this the height of refinement, elegance.

And this is just the first room.

There is more.

There is a board room with a massive white oak table and yellow leather swivel chairs that scream their cush. There is a movie theater complete with leather reclining seat, popcorn maker, and a custom bar. The floors are either lush carpet, marble, or white oak that gleamed so brightly she swore it was covered in glass. There is a large bathroom that is all Italian marble with fixtures that may actually be gold plated.

The second level bow mirrors the first but without the infinity pool. Instead it boasts more seating and several marble top cocktail tables that almost seem to grow out of the pristine deck. He takes them back then through the main bar, the library, and the gaming room complete with a billiard table that was once Marlon Brando’s.

“There is more above, but those are the private quarters. We have capacity for up to twenty guests to stay comfortably. Plus the sauna.” He says. “But since those are not strictly business I doubt they will interest you.”

He is teasing, directing his attention at her specifically for the first time in this tour, but she will not take the bait. She is almost ruffled by the sudden attention, by the lack of it beforehand, but the majesty of the ship had distracted her.

She had never conceived a vessel could be as luxurious as anything she had seen in the last twenty minutes.

She thought she had understood wealth, had worked with her share of affluent clientele, but nothing like this. Outside the challenge of Hans Westergaard she is quickly realizing just how out of their depth they may be. The challenge of it looms like an insurmountable cliff face. Thirty eight days to meet the highest standards she has ever faced professionally all while tiptoeing through the minefield of working with a man that clearly lacked any sort of boundaries. If she even had a chance of scaling that rock wall it they needed to start immediately.

“As curious as I am sure we all are I think it best we maximize what little time we have, Mister Westergaard, and begin discussing how we can help your initiative.” Elsa responds diplomatically.

“Your every wish is my command.”

He smiles at her then, teeth impossibly straight and white. The look in his eye seems to say he only sees her. Like somehow the whole world melts to nothing and she is the sole light of his entire universe. The intensity of it is staggering and she sways a bit under the weight. His hand is on her elbow immediately, close and hot.

“Whoa there. You’ll get your sea legs before long.” His breath hits her burning cheek as she extracts herself from his hold as quickly as possible.

She steps away, careful to not make eye contact with any of the group, and gives a sharp nod. “I’m sure I will.”

There is the slightest pause before and she can feel him staring, willing her to meet his gaze, but she doesn’t. “Right then,” he says. “Let’s return below board and we can discuss what comes next.”

Elsa is careful to fall behind, and Anna matches suit with Rapunzel.

“So you weren’t kidding about him coming on strong. Is this okay? Are we okay? Do we need to call this off?” Anna rattles off her questions on a quiet breath as Kristoff and Eugene engage Hans about some of the more technical aspects of the ship.

“Yeah. Or do we need to get you two a room?” Rapunzel asks, green eyes wide. “When Eugene looks at me like Hans looked at you I know we are about to have a really good time.” Typically her innocent honesty is one of her more endearing characteristics but now the implication of her sentence makes her grit her teeth.

“He’s a flirt. That’s all. We’ve all dealt with his kind before.” She tries to keep her whisper lighthearted, but she can sense how little her companions believe her. “I’ve got this under control.”

She gives them both a pointed look at Anna lifts a brow and purses her lips. “Do you? Because you really don’t have to.”

Elsa gapes, nearly stopping in her tracks at Anna’s presumptuous question.

And just like that she swears the ship rolls and she nearly loses her balance only to be caught by her sister and friend.

“Look. All I’m saying is the guy clearly likes you and isn’t afraid to show it.” Anna forces her to keep pace with the men ahead of them as they venture through one well appointed room after another. “And to be honest - you could use a little fun.”

“Yeah,” Rapunzel nods emphatically. “You literally have nothing to lose anyway since you’re totally into him too.”

Elsa stops in her tracks, red from head to toe. “I am not!”

Anna rolls her eyes and grabs Elsa’s wrist to drag her along. “Okay fine. You’re not, but you could be. I know you want to keep your professional distance or whatever, but why not just tell him the truth about everything and let him make up his own mind?”

Elsa’s mind goes blank for a moment at the possibility she had never considered.

Tell him the truth? She never told her clients the truth. Hell, she hadn’t told Eugene or Rapunzel until they had been on board long enough to get suspicious after her second unexplained, prolonged absence. And she definitely never told any of the dates she has had the truth. She just gave them enough time to get bored, to move on, and enjoyed a few less lonely nights. She never looked for long term because she wasn’t going to last long term. So why couldn’t she just approach Hans Westergaard with the same fatalist sensibility?

Why did the idea of telling him everything seem appealing?

She knows why, but she is not ready to admit it, never will be. That niggling What If that has haunted her since that first insanely frustrating day: what if this could work?

What if he wouldn’t be afraid, would be down for the ride as long as it lasted? What if she had the luxury of considering the possibilities?

But she doesn’t. She made her choices two years ago and she is not going to put herself through that again. She is not going to put anyone else through that. She is just going to enjoy what time she has left and leave it at that. And she is going to do it in the familiar comfort of solitude.

“The truth isn’t relevant to the job, and that is all this is. This is a job and it is a bitch of a job. If we are going to pull this off I need to focus on what is important, and dating my client is not one of those things.”

Anna and Rapunzel share a meaningful glance.

“Don’t do that.” Elsa shakes her head. “This is professional. Nothing more.”

“Okay,” Anna rolls her eyes again.

“Okay,” Rapunzel echos with a gallic shrug.

And somehow even though they are agreeing with her Elsa feels like she lost this conversation at some point.

She knows what they want and she doesn’t suppose she can blame them. They want to give her a reason to stay, to fight, to try. They want to give her a reason to change her mind as if it was that simple. She cannot blame them for not understanding but she cannot make this harder on herself than it already is. She has enough goodbyes to say without adding one more.

They are back to where they started now. The original spread is still in place but their requested drinks are waiting, all just the right temperature, wait in addition.

She stays close to Anna as she takes her coffee and conspicuously jams herself between her sister and an armrest. Between Anna, Kristoff, and herself the new seating arrangement is a bit tight but she has a point to make not only to her crew and Hans Westergaard, but to herself. She is a professional adult and is perfectly capable of acting like one.

So there.

He seems to take it all in stride, not batting an eye when he takes his coffee in hand and sits comfortably spread out on the couch that Elsa had strategically vacated. As they all settle in, Mister Westergaard reaches for a few more treats for his plate and the rest follow suit. Elsa carefully balances her coffee as she selects one or two choice morsels. The sea hadn’t caught her yet but she couldn’t be too careful. Her stomach is already in knots.

He leans back, thick auburn hair catching just the smallest corner of light and setting aflame. His high cheekbones cut with highlight and shadow of the mid-morning light. She remembers the feel of his cheek sliding along her own, the slightest brush of the silk fringe of his hair against her fingers as she had clung to him, and her eyes jerk back to her coffee.

“This is a lovely ship, Mister Westergaard,” she breaks the strange silence. “I assume you have a purpose for showing her off?”

It is not the most graceful entrance to a negotiation, but it is all she can muster. She lifts her gaze to his and sees the calculation, the wants - feels it.

“It’s my father’s. My ship - well - it won’t do for what I have in mind but I think this ship will do nicely.” He sips his coffee as Elsa sets hers aside to reach for her attache case and open it.

She withdraws her multi-function tablet. “And what exactly do you have in mind?”

They have loaded his client file with offline capability for which she is glad as she cannot bring herself to ask for a wi-fi password. She notes that the rest of her team are also bringing out their matching tablets and she hopes that they will not have too many corrections and overlaps when they finally get back to the mainframe.

He settles further into his seat with a smirk and it almost feels like he is building fortification, bracing himself for a fight he is all too sure to enjoy.

“Your company primarily plans weddings,” he does not ask as he pops a berry into his mouth. “According to your online portfolio your business is about seventy-two percent wedding related, a few baby shower, a Quinceanera, and a few corporate events. Would you say this is a fair assessment?”

So he had done his homework. Or had someone else do it for him. Had he known all of this before he came in yesterday and asked her to recite job titles and functions that were all available on their website? Was this a test the way she had felt yesterday had been a test?

She sits a bit straighter: “I don’t have the precise statistics in front of me but the majority of our clients have been wedding related, yes.”

Her mind goes to the contract, unsigned and un-amended. Had he not signed it because he didn’t want them anymore? Did he want someone with more experience outside of the wedding industry? Would she have to go to battle to prove to him that weddings were just as demanding, if not more so, than a standard corporate event? Would she have to fight for this client she wasn’t even sure she wanted?

It takes all of her self control not to fidget.

“Why is that? Why the wedding specialty?”

It is a good question. Most would assume it is the money, but there is much more money to be had planning outside of weddings and for less stress. She has a prepared answer, the standard line, but she nearly chokes on it.

She holds his gaze, levels the barrel, fires, “We believe love is worth it.”

The corners of his eyes tighten in - amusement? She cannot quite be sure yet.

“Has that been your professional experience?” His eyebrow quirks and it appears he takes a bite of his mini-berry tart to keep from smiling. It irks her just how much he irks her.

Anna clears her throat and Elsa realizes she has leaned forward, gripping her tablet between her hands like her life depends on it, and dear gods she might as well be foaming at the mouth for how crazy she is acting. She straightens, squares her shoulders, and meets his gaze.

“Our professional experience has been delivering exactly what our clients ask of us to create their ideal atmosphere and execution.”

She mentally pats herself on the back.

He nods as if to agree with her hidden sentiment. “Good. I don’t want something cold and corporate. I want something beautiful and intimate. I want what you did with Eric and Ariel’s wedding. There was - what? Two hundred people there, three?”

“Two hundred and eighty eight,” Rapunzel offers with a grin and Eugene squeezes her knee.

Hans looks to Elsa with raised brows as if asking for confirmation. Elsa nods her head. “Rapunzel is never off on numbers.”

“It never felt like that. It was a big event but it felt like having the most amazing dinner party with your closest friends. I don’t know how you did it, but you did.” He addresses the entire group and Elsa feels her insides warm involuntarily at his praise. She doesn’t want his approval to matter, but apparently it does. Then he meets her eyes and everything runs cold, hot, frigid, scalding. The look in his eye sends her heart soaring and stomach plummeting all at once, “It is a night I will never forget.”

And then they are the only two in the world again and her only saving grace is that she is sitting down. She looks down at her tablet screen but her eyes will not focus.

“We are happy to hear you enjoyed the event,” Anna jumps in this time. “We thought it was a smash. What stood out to you as being a highlight?”

Elsa’s head jerks up at that question. His gaze catches her with an easy smile that she can feel all the way to her toes, but it isn’t self-congratulatory. He is not commending himself. He smiles as if he is savoring something sweet, something secret.

“There were too many to single out just one, but I remember the dancing being outstanding,” he speaks as if the words are for everyone, but when his gaze settles on her she knows they aren’t. They are for her.

“So you want dancing at your event, Mister. Westergaard?” She uses his proper name as always, instating her distance the same way she had by forcing her seat next to Anna.

He shrugs. “To tell the truth I am not a big dancer. It all depends on the partner.”

Elsa’s ears burn and she nearly chokes on a swallow. No one else knew about their rendezvous. There was no way they could pull the subtext from what he said, but she stills feels it creeping across their conversation like steaming lava.

She forces a laugh to offset the tension she feels and is relieved when it comes off sounding halfway natural. “Well that does not give us much to go off of, Mister Westergaard. While we are thrilled that Ariel and Eric’s wedding left such a positive impression on you that does not particularly give us a trajectory for your event.”

“I understand.” He nods and turns his head towards the horizon off the bow before bringing his gaze right back to hers. “So why don’t I show you?”

[ previous ] [ next ]

#Best Laid Plans #Helsa #Kristanna #Eugene x Rapunzel #Raven Writes stuff #Raven writes Frozen #Modern AU

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secretsolenoid · 5 years ago

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Revolution Day

Gift for @warlordenfilade! Sorry about the wait, but I hope you enjoy. This fic is based on your Tarnsaurus prompt. I went a bit off the beaten path with the holiday of choice, by making a Decepticon-centric holiday, but I started thinking about battle reenactments and how Tarn would be obsessed with the tactical and historical side of things, and Deathsaurus would probably enjoy the more physical aspects of it all.

The shuttle settled to the ground with a rattling clunk. Deathsaurus didn’t mind it-- most of his fleet’s vessels were rather cobbled together, now. Not poorly made, but with a tenuous hold on their own manufacturing sources, they often had to make do with the supplies captured from various sources. It certainly wasn’t scavenging, just… creative supply line interruption. Deathsaurus had long since grown used to the audial effect this inconsistent sourcing had on the engines of their ships-- they tended to groan, rattle, and click a little bit more than a Decepticon ship fresh off the assembly line--but the sound clearly did not put his companion at ease.

Tarn seemed to be doing his best to look unconcerned, but Deathsaurus caught the concerned look he had shot the roof of the shuttle at the groan and rattle of the engines slowing their descent. He’d been fidgety, too, for Tarn, folding and refolding his hands over the arms of his seat. Or perhaps that was simply the effects of spending a long shuttle ride in a space too small for him to transform. Deathsaurus fully expected the leader of the DJD to drop into tank mode a few times the moment they set foot out onto the planet’s surface. He might characterize it as stretching out his cables, of course, but the excuse to indulge his transformation addiction surely wouldn’t hurt. Deathsaurus knew all about that, no matter how Tarn tried to hide it. He was reasonably certain that it was known fact among most high-ranking Decepticons (and former Decepticons), and common rumor among the genericons.

As soon as the groaning began to settle and the engines started to power down again. Deathsaurus levered himself out of his pilot’s chair. “We’re here,” he announced, rather unnecessarily.

“I would be thrilled,” Tarn said dryly, “if I knew where ‘here’ was.”

Still, he levered himself out of his own seat and prepared to follow Deathsaurus off of the shuttle. It was tight maneuvering for the both of them, as large as they were, and Deathsaurus was pleased with the chance to exit the ship first. He wanted a chance to check out the terrain. And, in fact, he wanted to do some stretching of his own. Not of the transformation kind, but even the largest settings on the shuttle’s pilot seat got rather cramped for his wings.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Deathsaurus said, grinning. He didn’t get more than an aggravated huff from Tarn in response, but it made him grin even further, as he hit the button to open the shuttle doors.

They unsealed with the hiss of pressure exchange, and Deathsaurus led the way out first. The planet was a rather familiar one, atmosphere-wise, but the terrain in front of them was unfamiliar to Deathsaurus. He could see the mock-ups of particular buildings, drab gray plastisteel and concrete facsimiles of the once-grand style of Cybertronian architecture.

Behind him, Deathsaurus heard the whirring and clicking of transformation, then the rumble of tank treads on decking as Tarn drove himself down the ramp. He even heard the slow groan of relief that Tarn made as he slid back into bipedal form. Deathsaurus stretched his own limbs, one wing after another, as Tarn stepped up to join him. He was critically surveying the array of buildings before them. “Welcome to Theta-2349071.”

“So this ‘historical event’ you’ve taken me to… is ruins.”

Deathsaurus smirked. Tarn didn’t show much confusion, but the hints of hesitance showing through his masks both literal and figurative were incredibly amusing. He was looking forward to the moment of realization. And to using up his extra adrenaline with Tarn in a very enjoyable way, after today’s celebrations were done. “Not at all. Do the ruins look familiar?”

Tarn gave them a second survey, his optics narrowing. “Cybertronian. Rather crude, however. Hastily constructed. It’s certainly meant to look like a city, but it is hardly habitable, or defensible.”

Deathsaurus grinned. “No, it’s a mock-up, isn’t it?”

Tarn gave him a suspicious and unimpressed look. “And what are we doing here? Next to a mock-up city?”

“I’ll explain,” Deathsaurus said, and pinged at Tarn’s comm. “But first, tap in to these channels.”

He watched as Tarn, clearly suspicious, scanned them for some sort of virus before accepting the invitation. The frown only deepened as he entered them, and surely began to sort through the various levels of chatter.

In only moments, Tarn was glaring at him. “Deathsaurus,” he snapped. “What is this?”

“Only a battle reenactment,” Deathsaurus explained. “Esmeral organizes them. You’re so fond of strategy and history and all that rust, I thought you’d have heard of them before.”

“Battle reenactment,” Tarn repeated, his voice flat. “And we are here to…?”

“Join in, of course. She does it every Revolution Day,” Deathsaurus explained. “This time it’s the battle of Tyger Pax. The first one, with the decisive Decepticon victory. One of the most decisive early war victories. The tanks were a huge part of that one, I figured you would enjoy being on the key team. Decepticons, of course. I wouldn’t offend your sensibilities by making you be an Autobot.”

Tarn gave a full-body shudder at even the word. Then he turned away from the ruins to give Deathsaurus a sharp look. “The tanks. Not a strategist?”

Deathsaurus’s optics flickered in a blink, all the sets of them. “Of course,” he said. “It’s a battle reenactment, not a strategy game. Can’t have the Autobots winning on Revolution Day, can you?”

Tarn did not look pleased by this. “Then what is the point? Playing grunt?”

Deathsaurus shrugged. “Blowing things up for the glory of the revolution, of course. Much more fun than sitting around sipping on someone’s energon and rereading After the Ark, or whatever it is you DJD normally do. Now come on, we’re almost ready to start. Time to get into position.”

Thirty breems or so into the battle, Deathsaurus caught the first glimpse of fliers over the city. “There they go,” he said, elbowing Tarn next to him, who stepped away with ill-concealed irritation. “Time for us to move in.”

“What?” Tarn said, looking around. “That’s hardly possible. In the battle of Tyger Pax, it took five cycles for the heavy artillery reinforcements to make it to the city and begin turning the tides of the battle.”

“And it’s sped up in the reenactment,” Deathsaurus countered, “because no one wants to wait around that long. Now are you going to transform and join in, or not?”

Tarn grumbled, but sure enough, he slid into his tank mode.

“This is not accurate,” Tarn muttered into Deathsaurus’s comm. Deathsaurus chanced a glance at him, then turned back to shooting at the spires of the inner buildings.

“What isn’t?” he responded, cavalier. Tarn made another grumbling sound.

“The weapons. This early in the war, phase-matter blasters were only in the hands of the Senate’s forces--”

“If you know where we can find a stash of pre-war cannons to equip ourselves with, we can use those next time,” Deathsaurus said. “Until then, just enjoy the destruction.”

“Tarn-- what are you going?”

Next to Deathsaurus, the tank rolled to a stop. “What am I what? This is the proper invasion route!”

“Yeah, I know that,” Deathsaurus said. His own HUD was lit up with the proper path through the great gates of Tyger Pax. “But you’re out.”

Tarn transformed, his shoulders hiked high with irritation. “I’m what?”

“Er. You’re dead. Haven’t you been checking your comms?”

“What for?” Tarn growled. “I know this battle better than anyone here. I have been keeping track of the time conversion. How am I dead?”

Deathsaurus gestured to the vibrant green dust coating Tarn’s plating. “Looks like a bomb, to me. Where did you get hit?”

Tarn looked down at himself, then back up. “How does that mean I’m dead?”

“Every patch of green is a wound,” Deathsaurus explained. “You’ve probably ‘bled out’ by now.”

Tarn smeared away some of the green. “This is hardly enough to kill a tank, especially not a properly armed one!” he protested. “I refuse to exit the battle simply because--”

There was a whistling sound around them, and then another bomb dropped right between them, coating them both from helm to pede in green powder.

“This--” Tarn was jabbing a finger into Deathsaurus’s chest plating, “--was a horrible idea. I’ll have to do a deep clean now.”

Deathsaurus held up his hands in surrender. “I thought you’d like it. You’re always going on about the glory of the Decepticon message, and the early days of the war.”

Tarn scoffed. “The elegance of the battles is not in the shooting and the chance to personally engage in overdramatic death scenes,” he argued, swiping another hand over his plating. It did very little to dislodge all the green and grey dust still coating him.

“The death scenes are the best part!” Deathsaurus argued. “You know you enjoyed seeing the people you shot spin wildly off the walls.”

“I won’t even bother to comment on that,” Tarn huffed. Then he leveled a finger at Deathsaurus. “The real battle was nothing like that. I have video archivals that prove it.”

“Propaganda vids?” Deathsaurus asked, archly. “If you think you’re getting me to watch those--”

“I sat through a cycle of your Revolution Day activities,” Tarn said, arms crossed. “Now, you will sit down, and you will watch them with me, or you can make your own way off this planet.”

“All right, all right,” Deathsaurus said. “As long as it’s less than ten breems of footage.”

This seemed to satisfy Tarn, who gestured Deathsaurus over to the viewscreen. “And,” he said, in the voice of a ‘con who knew exactly how much he’d just won, “next time, I insist on doing the battle of Polyhex. It’s far more interesting.”

#Secret Solenoid 2020 #Secret Solenoid gift #fic gift #idw generation 1 #deathsaurus #tarn #tarnsaurus #warlordenfilade #anonymous

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heartslogos · 5 years ago

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newfragile yellows [804]

He'd tried his best not to look. But despite the fact that he knows his field of vision is narrow due to having only the one eye, despite the fact that he moved fast and kept his eye focused on something else, despite him consciously trying not to look — he still saw.

He saw most of the names and words on those tomb stones. But there were only two that he had allowed himself to read consciously. His own and — because she asked him to, Ellana’s.

“How come you didn’t tell her what you read?” Cole murmurs. He’s somehow more solid, now that they’re a few days away from Adamant. That’s a…strange thing to think about someone. But it’s true. Cole seems more real. Tangible. Hopefully that’s a good thing. Well. Bull’s choosing to think that it’s a good thing because going the other way sounds worse.

“She told me to tell her if I thought she could handle it,” Bull reminds the kid. “And I don’t.”

“Why?”

Because I know her. Because I know her and I know that what was written there would have hurt her and she’s already wounded. Because I hurt her already and now isn’t the time to be adding onto that.

Because I know that if I told her she’d carry that with her forever and it’s something she doesn’t have to carry if she doesn’t have to.

Because I shouldn’t be putting more on her if I can help it.

Bull doesn’t say this out loud. Naturally Cole begins to say it for him anyway. Bull fights down exasperation as Cole murmurs his thoughts — with added splashes of poetry.

“Cole,” Bull cuts in. “Stop.”

“Sorry,” Cole says. He doesn’t really mean it, but Bull isn’t going to press that. He’s not the kid’s — guardian or whatever. He’ll leave the teaching and the mentoring and stuff up to Varric and the Inquisitor and whoever else has decided to attempt to put a single grain of logic into the kid’s wheat and cotton head. Good luck to them, that’s going to be a tall ask. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand.”

Bull isn’t looking at the kid, but he can feel Cole’s confusion and his displeasure at that.

“There are things you don’t have to know,” Bull says, finally turning to face the spirit. “There are things that aren’t meant to be known. And that’s alright.”

“How do you know which things should and shouldn’t be known? How do you know anything if there are things that shouldn’t be known at all? How do you choose?”

“Cole,” Bull sighs, “I am not the person to be asking this kind of shit. Do I look like a philosopher?”

“What does a philosopher look like?”

Bull covers his face with a hand.

“Look. I didn’t tell her because she asked me to use my judgement on whether or not it was something she’d be able to handle. I judged that no, she would not be able to handle it. So I’m going to handle it for her and someday if she ever asks me again and I think she’s changed in a way that would change my answer, I’ll tell her. She knows that I know, and she knows that I know her. And since we’re both in agreement that I know her then she knows that if I’m not telling her something when she asked me not to unless she could deal with it, that means she can’t deal with it.”

Cole stares at him blankly.

“It’s like a cup.”

“A…cup?”

“It’s like a cup,” Bull repeats. “People are like cups. There’s a finite amount of stuff they can handle. Otherwise they overflow. Ellana’s at the brim right now. She’s got a lot going on. And she asked me if I thought she could handle one more thing being dropped into that. The answer is no. So someday, when Ellana’s level drops enough and she asks me again, I’ll give her this. Do you understand?”

“No,” Cole replies immediately. “But I know you are trying. And…I. Appreciate it.”

Cole doesn’t sound very sure about that. He also looks like he very much wants to disagree with what Bull just said. That’s either Varric’s influence or Trevelyan’s. Probably Trevelyan’s. Bull’s pretty sure that Varric isn’t teaching Cole manners.

The boy goes still for a moment, too still. And then he relaxes into something closer to the facsimile of boy than before.

“She’s coming to talk to you,” Cole says. “Can you feel her?”

“No.”

Cole’s hands are absolutely still at his side but somehow by looking at him Bull gets the impression of fidgeting and endless twitching. Like grass in wind. Like a tumbleweed.

“And I have a feeling you’re about to tell me, so go ahead.”

Even as Bull speaks Cole’s speaking under — over? — him.

“It’s like sunlight through thick forest. Slowly creeping, spreading, finding its way through knots of wood and leaf and blades of grass. Unspooling silver that becomes gold after being fire in between. Like cold fire that turns into warm water. Both and everything at once. Neither too. It slides. Do you feel it creep like a shadow? Do you feel her? It’s like a hand slowly stretching across the dark, fingers inching over a surface. Spider’s legs. Red and black ladybird legs. Eyelashes on cheeks. She’s like that. But fast and all at once. A horizon advancing. Why would you call this a cup? This can’t be contained in a cup. There aren’t enough cups for this horizon, you can’t craft a cup that deep and thirsty.”

“Just letting it all out, huh,” Bull murmurs as Cole’s voice trails off.

“A river flows to the sea,” Cole replies quietly. “It pools, but it will always flow away eventually.”

“I get it, next time I attempt to be metaphorical I won’t,” Bull says. “I’ll leave that shit to you. You wanna make yourself…not here for this conversation? Yes, Cole. I know you’re going to know about it anyway. I’d like to — I dunno — pretend that you won’t anyway.”

“Is your cup too full to know that you are seen?” Cole asks but he’s gone before Bull can respond.

#heartsfic #gather your party and venture forth

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slashhinginghasher · 5 years ago

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Midnight Star - Chromeskull x OFC - Part 3: Unmasking

Things start to heat up in more ways than one.

This work is on Ao3!

She woke up wearing nothing but her underwear. Her knives were gone. It was dark. And it was fucking hot. Marena’s head and neck throbbed with bruises, and her nose was sore but not broken. She prodded her mouth with her tongue, wincing slightly when she passed over the cut on her lip, and noted with some relief that all her teeth were still present. The cuts on her cheek and torso were itchy and starting to scab. Judging by the nausea twisting her stomach, she’d probably been drugged again, too. She hadn’t even noticed the needle; the second that fucker had ripped open her shirt, she’d retreated into greyspace, the empty place she went in her head when her brain didn’t want to observe what was happening to her body. (Dr. Call Me Linda had called it traumatic dissociation. Marena had told her to shut the fuck up.)

She attempted to sit up and immediately hit her head on something hard, like wood. The fuck…? Feeling around with her hands and feet, she tried to identify her surroundings. Long, rectangular box. Satiny fabric lining. A coffin? That fucking… SkullBitch had put her in a fucking coffin?? Rage and bile rose in her throat and Marena had to fight not to vomit. Think, Masha. Observe. A dull, mechanical roar grumbled continuously, and every so often the coffin rocked and rattled gently. Unless SkullBitch had buried her beneath a construction site, she was likely above ground, maybe in a vehicle. Her mind recalled a snippet of a cartoon movie she’d seen bits of once, about zoo animals packed into boxes and shipped across the world. Maybe she would end up on an island with talking monkeys, too. Marena felt a sudden, wild urge to laugh. She choked that down as well, knowing from experience that laughter was a razor’s edge away from screaming or crying.

Instead, she focused on keeping her breathing slow and steady. Ignoring the way the fabric clung to her bare, sweat-sticky skin… Ignoring the increasing staleness of the air… Ignoring…

...the way her nails broke and her knuckles split as she threw herself against the door. The smell of burning dust. The roar of the furnace. The rising heat. The sound of skin hitting skin, of bones breaking, of screaming, screaming, screaming….

“FUCK!” Marena shrieked, slamming both fists against the lid of the coffin. That was over. It was over. Now matter what level of fucked her current circumstances were, she wasn’t there anymore, and she never would be again. Never again for as long as she lived...

Which, admittedly, might not be long. It was getting harder to breathe, the stifling heat pressing against her like a physical weight. All she’d done, everything she’d survived, and she was going to cook to death in this fucking box. Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck them. Fuck everything.

Marena let herself slip back into greyspace.

***

An unforgiving concrete surface slammed into her like… well, concrete, punching the air from her lungs. Somebody had dumped her onto the floor like a sack of potatoes, but she was too busy sucking in as much cool air as her aching throat would allow to be angry about that. After a few moments of rather undignified coughing and gasping and spitting out strands of hair, she became aware of a presence in the room with her. The scars on her back seemed to crawl and writhe under the weight of unseen eyes. Shiny, chrome eyes that she would just loooove to dig her fingers into. She couldn’t see his face, but she just knew that bastard was smirking at her.

Marena pushed herself unsteadily to her knees. Her limbs felt like quivering jelly, and she could feel every cut and bruise throb in time with her heartbeat. I am a pain jello. Again, that lunatic need to laugh. She bit her cheek until she tasted blood and glanced around the room. There wasn’t much to see. A folding bed with a scratchy-looking grey blanket was pushed against one wall. A drain was set into the floor in the opposite corner. The rest was empty, just sickly fluorescent light and blank concrete. And the asshole lurking behind her. Right. Him. With great effort, she rose to her feet and turned around.

And sure enough, SkullBitch was standing behind her with his stupid fucking mask and his stupid fucking suit, holding up his stupid fucking phone so she could read his stupid fucking message.

SLEEP WELL?

A fresh wave of anger, irritation, and exhaustion swept over her. The only reason she’d smuggled herself into this country was specifically so she would not have to put up with bullshit like this anymore…

At that moment, Marena noticed he wasn’t wearing gloves anymore. Her stomach dropped. If he wasn’t worried about leaving fingerprints, that meant he was in complete control of their surroundings and was confident they wouldn’t be found. And she most likely wasn’t going to be leaving.

Which, in turn, meant she was free to do whatever idiot thing popped into her head. Like snatching the phone out of his gloveless hands and typing her own message.

FUCK OFF

SkullBitch tilted his head. Marena watched the muscles in his throat twitch, but with his face hidden she couldn’t tell if he was pissed or trying to hold back laughter. It was taking all her concentration to keep the tremble from her body. Some combination of the drugs, adrenaline, and the fact that she’d been living off vending machine snacks for the past week. Oh, and almost dying of heatstroke. Her thoughts fluttered wildly, like cracked-out butterflies, impossible to hold onto.

Don’t shake don’t laugh don’t scream hurt him stay still try to run I am stone I am stone I am stone just let it fade I am stone don’t feel slip away-

She was jolted back from the precipice of greyspace by the heated touch of skin against skin. Skullbitch had grabbed the phone, along with her entire hand. His own hand was lightly calloused and large enough to swallow Marena’s entire fist with ease. He was close enough now that she’d need to crane her neck to see his face. She consciously decided not to do that, focusing instead on the buttons of his black dress shirt. Heat poured off him like a goddamn human furnace. When his other hand - the one she’d bitten - touched her face, she barely stopped herself from flinching. Under any other circumstances, Marena would have felt a bit of smug satisfaction at the sight of his gauze-wrapped fingers. But here, now, in this concrete box of a room, she was hyper-aware of her body in a way she hadn’t felt in years. It felt like someone dragging matches down her bones. Like her insides had turned into live insects. Like her skin was turning inside out. Exact words failed her, but it was nonetheless deeply unpleasant.

Skullbitch traced his thumb over her split lip, pressing down slightly and smearing blood down Marena’s chin like fingerpaint. The way he cradled the side of her face was almost mockingly gentle, a facsimile of a lover’s caress. He traced the shape of her lips, ran his fingers over her cheekbone, before sliding down and settling over the hand-shaped bruise on her throat. He kept his hand there for a long moment - not squeezing, just letting the weight of his hand rest over her pulse like a reminder of what he could do. As if I could forget. His fingers twisted into her hair, thumb sliding up to caress the scar on the side of her neck-

OH HELL FUCKING NO

Marena jerked backwards and kneed him in the groin. She missed, of course; the fucker was way too tall. But the impact of her knee against his thigh startled him enough for her to shove him back a step. Then she did the only thing she could think of and ripped off his mask.

The clatter of metal against the ground hung in the air like a gunshot.

Nu der’mo.

Judging by the blank shock in Skullbitch’s eyes, he wasn’t expecting that move either. Eye, actually. His right eye socket was nothing but a knot of scar tissue. The rest of his face was scarred as well, though not with any noticeably distinct injuries. It was more like somebody had peeled his face off and put it back on slightly crooked.

Marena stared. Skullbitch stared. The tension in the room thickened. Marena braced for a punch. Another hand around her throat. A knife to the gut.

She was not prepared for him to kiss her.

He lunged forward - surprisingly fast for a man his size - fisted the hair at the nape of her neck, and crushed his scarred lips to hers with such force that their teeth clicked together. They stood frozen that way for a few seconds - him bent nearly double, her balanced on the very tips of her toes. Then he hooked his free arm around her hips and hoisted her as if she weighed no more than a rag doll. Marena instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist. Her heart had turned her entire body into a drum, staccato rhythm pounding everywhere from her head to the tips of her fingers.

She bit him.

He bit her back, and then - god - slid his tongue into her mouth. She twisted the lapels of his jacket in her hands as though she could throttle him through the fabric alone; he dug his fingers into her thigh hard enough to leave fresh bruises. The atmosphere in the room had turned electric. They both gasped for air, tongues twisting in a slick and desperate dance, nipping at each other until their mouths filled with blood.

Marena didn’t realize they’d moved until her back hit the bed. Skullbitch’s hand was moving up her thigh, fingers sliding between the parallel scars marring the skin. His mouth left hers and began to trace a path down her jawline with lips and teeth and tongue. Her breath stuttered when he sucked on the tender spot just below her ear, his wandering hand now tracing along the crease where thigh met hip. The combined heat of the body above her and the fire growing in her chest was searing the air from her lungs. She felt certain she’d crumble into ash as he trailed a line of hot, open-mouthed kisses down her neck…

...and sank his teeth directly into her scar.

Terror immediately flooded her system like a long scream carved into her veins with ice. Marena’s head filled with a panicked, wordless !!!!!!! as she lashed out with hands and feet until she felt her heel drive home between Skullbitch’s legs. He doubled over, and Marena barely had time to process the pure murder in his eye before he slammed her head against the wall. Once. Twice. Three times. Bright lights burst across her vision with each hit before giving way to black sparks. She was on the floor and couldn’t remember how she got there. Skullbitch moved away; the door closed with an angry slam that barely cut through the ringing in her ears. She slumped against the cheap metal bed frame and wondered idly if she was dying yet. The lights snapped off, plunging the room into utter blackness.

Alone in the dark, Marena raised a trembling hand to the fresh blood dripping down her face and laughed.

#jesse cromeans #chromeskull #chromeskull x ofc #laid to rest #hey i love posting shit at midnight when no one is awake to read it #for reference: jesse is 6'7'' and marena is 5'3''#my writing #marena polunochnaya

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