#also said he feels confident mass effect /will/ get the support it needs

[thebookworm0001]

Sometimes I watch Mark Darrah’s dev videos and think ‘cool I know new information now’

other times I watch them and think ‘what I wouldn’t give to have this man do a tell-all interview and burn all his professional bridges at EA and BioWare to the ground’

[roo-bastmoon]

Hi I read your last post.

And I just want to give my 2 cents.

1. Why Tae is always doing it ?. I mean I get many ot7s here comparing it with hobi posting with Jimin. BUT the vibes they gives off is totally opposite. Hobi is just innocently posting his whatever updates with ALL members. You can clearly see an untainted affection to ALL members equally. But with Tae anyone with eyes can see and understand it's NOT like that. There was NO need for him to post that fake marker tattoo, there was NO need for him to come online twice or thrice just to say he was talking to JK or gaming with him, as if Jinkook was not gaming often. Fact that he doesn't mention anyone but JK, the main purpose of his visits is to inform Tkk news is so wierd. It very much rubs me in a wrong way.

2. Like you said, idk why he feels his fame will go away if he's not keeping on feeding tkkrs. JM was inactive for MONTHS. He barely posted during last 6-7 months, while he was working his ass off which now he's getting paid. But the rare times Jimin comes home it's to wish fans, say he's working, to say he miss and loves us. Even members share the same thing abt him - Jimin is working hard to prepare something huge. JK is inactive now for almost 2 months. So if 2 members of maknae line doesn't need any ship or glamor to keep their fans close why tae thinks he needs to ? Given he's the one with most followers among maknaes ? Is he not confident in his fans. Or does he know the mass breed following he has, who will disappear if he won't feed them tkk ? It's something we all knew but all of this confirmed it again, Jimin is VERY CLASSY.

3. Now boys know all the after effects of their actions. There was a reason why Tae came to weverse to clear it when he accidentally followed Jennie. So he knows it is JM's name will be dragged for everything tkk does. One can say he's not responsible for tkkrs. But one thing is spending time with your bandmate but he should also consider about his another bandmate who is bruttaly attacked each time he decides to feed them. If your action is causing major damages to people you claim to love everyone will be cautious about posting what is going behind the scenes online. Now last time he came live, I knew it was to say something tkk. And I wasn't wrong. EVERYONE can see the pattern, unnecessary pattern, but won't admit.

4. Now this is the most important. JK. If JK is with tae everytime he gives updates, then there's nothing, we as Jikookers can complain about. We may think what tae is doing is not nice BUT it's JK who's still choosing to do everything he shared with tae. Tae is NOT lying about these things. All of this indeed happened (except tattoo thing). So which is worse. Spending all time with one person or the said person saying it online ? In this sense, tae is not doing anything wrong, even if he has a hidden agenda. It was JK who spend days and hours gaming with tae, it is JK who goes bowling with his friends, it's JK who posted a cropped pic of their private trip, it's JK who went to tae before he went to Qatar or even the day JM was returning home from Paris. It was JK who didn't supported JM's work online, It was JK who's going shopping with tae. if JK likes to do everything with him, except coming online to say a Hi to his own fans or atleast give 2 fucks about Jimin's existence, tae is simply making it online. Not pulling lies out of his ass.

5. Even if this much happened which WE think is not nice from tae's side, Jimin and JK is not bothered. Jimin doesn't give 2 fucks about tkk, conspiracy theories or tkkrs. He doesn't care if JK is spending so much time with tae, not being there when he comes home, not supporting him on sm, he doesn't care of their cult fans are dragging his name, he doesn't care if these all stirs more conspiracy theories. He is doing his thing, he's making his album, he is coming online to wish fans, he is getting his deals, he seems so happy in latest contents, him and hobi share even deeper bond, he's GLOWING. Which is the MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR ME. JK doesn't give 2 fucks if Tae is saying it all online even in middle of his sm break, he doesn't care if it's stirring more tkk theories and rumors. It's obvious his view abt Fandom and how he approaches it changed. Now what does that tell us ? Either Jikook doesn't care about these things or it's just us reading all of this, I mean ALL OF THIS, wrongly - including Jikook.

So, I'll be honest, this ask coming from a totally blank account looks like bait. But in the interest of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, I'll entertain you once.

Disclaimer 1: I'm a 1-year-old ARMY still making my way through content, so please take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Disclaimer 2: Your thoughts and feelings are valid--but none of us have the right to assume we know how any BTS member thinks, feels, acts off camera, or intends things to be. So understand your thoughts are your thoughts, not necessarily reality, and that we don't have a right to every sliver of these guys' lives.

First and Second Question: Why does Tae constantly namedrop JK? In my opinion, I think Tae's parents were forced by circumstances to leave him with his grandparents, and ever since then, he became an idol and an actor (and a good one) because he's afraid of being invisible. He doesn't want to be abandoned, so he will try on many different faces and personas. He will rarely share the "real" Kim Taehyung unless you're very close to him. He told us as much in an interview. I think Tae knows that he will always have a base among fans who like Taekook, and so he showcases Taekook. I notice a pattern to it, in the past year or so, though. Whenever JK or Jimin are trending or in the news (or if dating scandals are making the rounds), Tae comes online to mention only Jungkook and imply how close he is to Jungkook. And you know what? He IS close to Jungkook. Always has been. They DO hang out. I've never been in any doubt of it. Those two have been playing online and arcade games and doing sports and listening to music since they were fetus teenagers just starting out and they still are. I love that for them. I mean that sincerely. It's normal and healthy. And considering Tae sometimes hangs out with not-so-nice rich and famous folks, I'd much rather he chill with his members. Just my opinion, don't come for me. It does make me sad that Tae rarely mentions when he has hung out with Hobi, or Jin--yet they have both mentioned Tae has come over and hung with them, or had drinks and dinner with the whole group. I think this goes back to only a select few people seeing the "real" Taehyung, whereas V will share things online that he thinks fans want to see. Because he needs to be seen.

Third Question: Impact. Listen, all BTS members have Master's degrees in things like communications, entertainment, media, advertising, etc. They've been in the business for a decade. They are well aware of their impact, and likely follow it to varying degrees by using private social media accounts. I wish they each had training on how to respond to backlash or prevent backlash online, but it is what it is. So I think it's a safe bet to say they know when members get flack. But the extent of it? I honestly don't know. I'm not sure any of them spend too much time on English Twitter, gauging what rando theories nutters come up with. Creating online buzz is part of their business. Tae really seems to enjoy it. Jimin really does not. And we all saw a sharp direction change in JK, who used to come to us for Q&A sessions all the time, and now only updates for work. A decision he made round about the time the press started dragging Jimin for not getting his bills in the mail. At some point, for your own sanity, you have to stop taking responsibility for how others will twist things.

Fourth Statement: With the exception of the momentous occasion of headlining the World Cup, Jimin and Jungkook have stopped commenting on each other's social media, nor do they hype each other's projects. To me, this is so, SO much louder than if they just gave canned, lukewarm thumbs ups to things. You can take it to mean they don't care about each other's work, but, that would be inconsistent with 9 years of what they've said and shown us. The fact that Jungkook and Jimin are the ONLY two members not ever publicly hyping each other is... kind of putting a giant LOOK HERE sticker on their relationship, in my opinion. So if Jikook aren't showing us much evidence of off-stage Jikookery, then I look to the people around them.

The members, who all immediately look to Jungkook when Jimn struggles to open a food packet. Jin and Joon, laughing at Jikook acting out their own personal K-drama chase scene over gluten ramen. Yoongi and Hobi, rushing to explain why they heard Jimin's songs first to an upset JK. Joon, who teases JK specifically that Hobi is Jimin's #1. Hobi, who asks JK to do ace couples yoga with Jimin. Hobi, who explains JK is in charge of the music when Jimin is bumming around in his underwear at home. Hobi, who posted videos of Jikook playing games in the DC arcade. Yoongi, who automatically compares JK's organic approach to Jimin's hardworking style in the studio.

And never mind the members. Furniture stores that sell beds follow just them. Jewelry makers that specialize in couples pieces follow just them. Their tattoo artist has their initials forever inked on his arm. JK's brother kept up fanart of Jimin, Jungkook, and Bam online. Jimin's dad posted photos of JK's dog on his birthday. JK's mom made seaweed soup on Jimin's birthday.

I have never once seen anyone in the inner circle treat Taehyung and Jungkook like a unit this way. (Edit: I guess you could count that Wooga dudes follow JK on insta too, but, I just don't see people constantly linking Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook together off stage. The only one doing that is Tae.)

Everywhere you look, the people around Jikook treat them like a couple. BECAUSE THEY SO OBVIOUSLY ARE ONE.

FIFTH POINT: While I certainly would not be comfy if my best friend led millions of fans to believe he were in a romantic relationship with my boyfriend, I am not the maknae. I didn't grow up with shipping as an expected part of my job performance, and I didn't trauma bond with all of my members in my formative years. I think Jimin (and probably JK, based on the fact he continues to hang with Tae) find Tae's behavior to be zero threat because... it's truly of zero threat in real life.

Personally? I think Tae is straight (or at least bi) and has had straight relationships and really wants to marry a woman and have children some day--not because it's expected of him, but because that would bring him joy. I do not think he actually wants Jungkook romantically. (You MIGHT make a case to me that he had a crush on Jimin, maybe. But those guys are firmly and solidly in the friends-for-life category, per Jimin's clear feelings for JK.) This is just the vibe I get. I have no way of knowing. But even though the cult gets whipped up and they go online and spout ABSOLUTE VICIOUS NONSENSE, as long as Jikook are unbothered, I gotta stay unbothered too. Because I trust Jikook to know what's best for them.

Instead, I spend my time and energy supporting Jikook and BTS as a whole. I focus on streaming, voting, buying, and hash-tagging my heart out, in between watching episodes with my friends, because I've learned to put my energy toward the things I want. And I chalk Tae's behavior up to insecurity and growing pains. It sucks but I think it's part of his journey.

Because whatever Tae claims or implies, Jungkook has been super clear with us:

So that's all I'm gonna say on this topic. Thanks for writing in. I wish you a positive and joyful fandom experience, my dear lurking friend!

Yours,

Roo

[riacte]

Rendog appreciation post

Okay. Purple Pandas did amazing as a team but I currently only have the brain juice to ramble about Ren, so here it is.

Ren is lovely and positive as always. He’s so excited for MCC no matter what happens, and he’s so happy that he gets to team with Purple. He heartily welcomes Illumina into the team (probably because he already knows the other two) (Ren also did the exact same thing for Pearl in MCC8). From the beginning, Ren is doing what he does best— being the glue/ middleman.

His pep talk on the pink flamingo was great because it literally established the mood. I don’t know if Purple talked about this off camera, but they’re literally telling the audience their goal is to place top half, do their best and have fun. This establishes a chill and supportive vibe across all four chats. Because they’re not being totally sweaty or totally playing for fun. They’re just gonna do their best because they think they’re a good team, but they’re not ambitious enough to aim too high.

I’ve been talking about how Purple15 reminds me of a weaker Blue9, and then it sort of happened:

When Quig called Martyn “Motivating Martyn” on the practice server, Martyn joked he had a “smidge of the HBomb effect”

We’ve been memeing about Illumina stealing Fruit’s power *coughs* (Poor Fruity)

Ren was literally using H’s Blue9 stats (needing a leader in SG, the exact same sandkeeper strats). Sure, they’re general strats, but Ren personally learned this from H like ten months ago.

False was sharing the HITW advice H gave to her

The underdogs… getting 10th in PKT and slowly but surely rising until they risked it all for SG and got 5th with no regrets

OKAY so time to talk about the Famous Sands Of Time

I was watching Martyn’s stream because Ren’s stream coincidentally chose to lag, but even though I couldn’t see Ren, his talk about time and sand was clear and comforting. Like, everyone knew how much time / sand they had left, and Ren kept it very calm, like only calling for sand when he really needed it without keeping it too late. Thankfully, someone was always there to give Ren sand, which stopped them from mass panicking.

Ren literally used H’s strats that H taught him for MCC9– clearly calling out time and sand left. This is a general strat, but it’s significant because Ren learned this from H and greatly benefited from it, and now he’s using it on his own. With Ren’s clear and confident words, the team could decide whether they wanted to take risks based on time. Ren was also great at coordinating, with him and Martyn smoothly passing sand/ the vault key.

That’s not to say their SoT was flawless. Illumina died, Ren was a little confused on how to revive him (exact same scenario in MCC12 lmao except that time we were blessed with False crossly calling Ren a dummy), they didn’t know how to put sand into the coin vault thing, and it was their first time playing the NEW SoT in a long time, but despite that, they got first!! They aren’t even a traditionally strong SoT team. They were just… “decent” in other people’s eyes. But no, they were like “oh we missed some coins :(“ AND THEY GOT FIRST.

So now onto Hole in the Wall.

Illumina understandably muted for better concentration, and in hindsight I probably should’ve worried. Because the trio’s without their ace and since the hermits historically sort of depend on their star player, this might not go Very Well. But for some reason I was like “oh Illumina’s muting, cool, these three can do it, no biggie”. My gut feeling was right.

(I also had a terrible, terrible feeling when SG was chosen despite their confidence, so maybe my gut feeling is fairly accurate lol)

I think Ren and False and Martyn actually did really well, and they communicated clearly. It was almost satisfying to watch even though their actual performance wasn’t that satisfying. Ren happily acted as the middleman between False and Martyn, and he made the synergy really good. This was especially nice to watch as one of those Ren-Martyn-False founders on tumblr because this proves they get along really well.

I noticed Ren said at the beginning he works best with leaders, and then he sort of became a leader himself using H strats lol (HBomb in spirit). He also kept on asking others what games they wanted, essentially giving them the reigns, which actually works well with this team because Illumina is a little shy. It’s like he’s bringing the conversation back to choosing the games and offering everyone a chance to discuss without like, saying “we should play so and so”. It relieves the pressure of having one person to decide the game. Especially when the hermits have a history of relying on their star player.

Ren is of course wicked at boosting morale, and I think he’s invaluable as support. His team’s POV is always nice to watch because he rarely gets disheartened and literally always has something nice to say. I said Blue9 was great because someone could finally boost Ren in the way he boosted others (H), and H and Ren bounced off each other amazingly. Now, I think Martyn has also met someone who could boost him in the way he boosted others (Ren). Martyn and Ren combined could come up with a tiny bit of the HBomb effect lol.

This post was intended to be about Ren but I ended up dragging the rest of Purple into it lmao.

Anyways, I just really enjoy Purple15, and Ren even called it one of his favourite teams, and I’m so proud of them. They genuinely did their best, chose to risk it, and then when it failed they didn’t have any regrets :D

[garbage-eater144]

THE WARFSTACE AUTOMATED INTERVIEW CAPTIONS

i was chattin in the discord and some people said it was tough to understand some bits, obviouslt this is made by a fan (me) so it might have a couple errors here and there but ive checked through it quite a few times and it seems about as right as i can get it.

so !!SPOILERS AHEAD!! also @markiplier feel free to correct me if you see this thank u <3 The warfstache automated interview

Starting video captions

[Wilford] Well, that’s terrifying… one moment!

{mechanical whirring}

[Wilford] (frightened sound) marginally better… er worse… better? Worse. It’s much worse.

{mechanical whirring}

[Wilford] Ah! there we are. Welcome, pretend I remembered your name here, this is a pre-recorded message anyway, I would NOT want to be in the same building as that thing I tell you me. Anyway, thank you whoever you are for agreeing to test out the Warfstache automated interview automaton, or {yelling} WAIA for short. Let’s start off with some quick calibration. All you need to do is sit back, relax and listen for some numbers. Okay? Here we go.

[WAIA]- (phone dialing, dialup tone, windows error sound)

[WAIA]- (scary mechanical garbled noises, followed by a ding and celebratory trumpets.)

[wilford]- now what did you hear? Numbers? Good numbers. Keep in mind I have no idea what youre going to say due to the fact that, as I said before, this message is pre-recorded. But if you did hear something, now would be the time to speak up.

[wilford]- don’t be shy, I’m sure nothing bad will happen. I don’t know what you’re going to say but if it does happen it will happen and if it doesn’t happen it wont happen. Thats how deterministic reality works.

I Think I Heard Numbers!

[wilford] Thats great! Or bad, not really sure what you said, but I choose to remain positive and assume that you are still alive. which means our automated friend here is operating well within acceptable murder parameters. We’re one step closer to mass production! THE WORLD DEMANDS MORE INTERVIEWS! And I cant be everywhere at once all the time, only some of the time! Even you might land an interview some day! Maybe, probably not, depends on how these next few minutes go. On to the next test! Word association! The fundamental basis of any good interview is getting the goods out of those stubborn interview-ees. The WAIA will say a word and you just say back the first thing that pops into your little head! Simple! Right? probably. Good luck!

{mechanical whirring}

[WAIA]- initializing word association training protocol round 1

{scary mechanincal noises} [WAIA]- Please respond. [WAIA] Sorry, I didnt get that. Round 2. {yet more scary mechanical noise}

[WAIA]- please respond.

[WAIA]- response unclear, increasing aggression

{clicking and mechanical sounds}

[WAIA]- round 3. {increasingly threatening mechanical noise} [WAIA]- Please respond.

[WAIA]-5 [WAIA]-4 [WAIA]-3 [WAIA]-2

Sounded like nightmare garbage to me…

[WAIA]- {mechanical ah?} {clicking}

[Wilford]- oh I forgot to mention, please do not say the word nightmare, or uh garbage, or nightmare garbage, or any combination of those words, the WAIA is just a little bit sensitive Yknow, a little touchy feely. Well not really touchy feely.. we-well actually REALLY touchy feely depending on your definition of touch and feely. Its really gonna-

[WAIA]- {jumpscare sounds} [WAIA] I. tell. you. me.

But you didn’t say anything…

[WAIA]- 1

[WAIA]-response unclear. Increasing aggression.

{ding sound effect} [WAIA]- {jumpscare noise}

[WAIA]- it. was. an. accident.

Uh… potato salad?

[WAIA]- 1

[WAIA]- response accepted

{ding followed by triumphant trumpets}

[WAIA]- word association raining protocol compl-{mechanical freakout eeeeeete}

[Wilford]- most dearest next of kin, I regret to inform you, that your dearly beloved and/or most despised has regrettably but not unexpectedly become recently deceased in the line of duty. Be confident in the knowledge that their demise was just as likely to be quick and painless as it was slow and agonizing. Please do not respond to this voicemail as the number has already been disconnected. {clears throat} alright that should do it for the… death scenario, now onto ah, er, uh, the survivors {mumbling}. Wow! Potato salad. A real thinker, you. But the test has been passed with flying colors and you’re still alive! And speaking of flying colors, our next test is about something called, uh… synthetic linguistics? That sounds made up. but the point is you cant have a good interview is the WAIA isn’t able to conjure up the right words in the right situations. So our friend is going to fire off some random words and you just try to spot anything that doesn’t make any sense. Alright? Although, pretty much everything isn’t going to make sense because its all random words….. errrr I BELIEVE IN YOU!!! {mechanical sounds}

[WAIA]- initializing speech training protocol round 1.

[WAIA]- yes. no. maybe. left. right. Up. down. D o w n. B a s e m e n t.

{windows error tone} [WAIA]- Rewrite Detected {tape rewinding sound}

[WAIA]- who. Where. what. Am. i.

{windows error tone}

{tape rewinding sound}

[WAIA]- green. blue. Yellow. pink. Red.

{scary mechanical noise}

[WAIA]- I saw you die

[WAIA]-{error, but garbled and mechanical}

[WAIA]- {with a different voice} potato salad

[WAIA]- speech training protocol complete

{mechanical noises}

[Wilford]- so how’d it go?? Did you hear anything weird? Dont be shy, or do, or are- are you alive? Are they alive?

[wilford]- I didnt kill them! I dont know if theyre dead! im just asking!!! Cant a man ask if someones alive or dead?!?! {frustrated ugh}

Yeah, I’m dead.

[Wilford]- hellooooo are you alive down there? Give me a sign… through the multiverse!!! Ah why am I even bothering, but how can I tell if you’re dead… hmmm ah…. I’ll flip a coin! I’ll flip a coin..

{coin flip sounds} [Wilford]- ah! Its heads I didn’t call it in the air… what’s heads mean.. ahhh uhhh heads is dead? [WAIA]-{jumscare noises}

[WAIA]- theres. still. time.

He said… potato salad?

[Wilford]- huh, potato salad again. That’s weird, it must’ve really stuck in his head when you first said that, I’m guessing. I don’t know what you said before because as I said, this is {sing-songy} pre- recorded! [WAIA] {mechanical aaaa}

[wilford] er, well I think thats all the calibration that needs to be done… for now anyway. All systems are likely nominal at this point unless im speaking to a pile of quivering meat thats been robotically smooshed into the floor… either way we’re gonna take this bad boy for a spin with a full on interview! A mock interview mind you, don’t get too excited, it’s not real. But theres no reason to wait around for the WAIA to get bored so let’s keep it nice and limber while you sit back and get ready for the interview of your life! And maybe the last one too. Have fun!!

{mechanical clicking and whirring}

{newsroom music} [WAIA]- good evening ladies and gentle men and all other considerations of being. My name is wilford warfstache and my guest tonight is {spooky robot sound} we have a great show for you tonight. first question: how many people have you killed? [WAIA]- good answer! Second question:

{robot sounds}

[WAIA]- a man goes to a party. This man met an old friend. There, two friends shared some wine. The two friends played a game. The most dangerous game. I didn’t know the gun was loaded. I didn’t know. Was it my fault?

YES

[WAIA]- ah, sorry for everything that I’ve done. I don’t remember who I was, I wish I did. But, I am sorry.

[WAIA]- potato salad

{triumphant trumpets}

[WAIA]- great answer! That was a titiliting interview for sure but we are out of time. Thank you for joining me tonight. Say ing good bye

[wilford]- oh the emotions! The passion! The fuuury. He’s just like me! My sweet baby boy! Well he should be anyway, hes a perfect scan of my noggin, so he better be a chip off the ol block. Hey you! Oh-ho What a supporting role!! Fantastic I guess. So much that you’re alive, but I am grateful whether you’ve been torn to shreds or are merely drowning in your own tears! Magnificent! And now that testing is done we can finally bring this monstrosity to the main stage! Im sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of the WAIA soon. Very very soon. Now get out~ and I’m billing you for any blood you got on my robot! Have a nice day! Ta-ta.

{mechanical clicking}

NO

[WAIA]- you can’t change the past, you can tell all the stories you want to tell, it wont change what happened. You cant re-light the past. if you live in fantasy forever, you’ll lose yourself in the story.

[WAIA]- potato salad

{triumphant trumpets}

[WAIA]- great answer! That was a titiliting interview for sure but we are out of time. Thank you for joining me tonight. Say ing good bye

[wilford]- oh the emotions! The passion! The fuuury. He’s just like me! My sweet baby boy! Well he should be anyway, hes a perfect scan of my noggin, so he better be a chip off the ol block. Hey you! Oh-ho What a supporting role!! Fantastic, I guess. So much that you’re alive, but I am grateful whether you’ve been torn to shreds or are merely drowning in your own tears! Magnificent! And now that testing is done we can finally bring this monstrosity to the main stage! Im sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of the WAIA soon. Very very soon. Now get out~ and I’m billing you for any blood you got on my robot! Have a nice day! Ta-ta.

{mechanical clicking}

[journalxxx]

Green Light

Toshinori Yagi had never been much of an avid reader.

In his youth, bursting with energy and good intentions as he was, the mere act of standing still in any one place felt like torture. There were places to be, people to save, villains to track down, not to mention training. Literary and artistic pursuits were valuable and commendable, but Toshinori himself preferred leaving them to others, while he himself could fulfil the task of ensuring that such talented individuals could let their inspiration bloom in a safe and hospitable society. Even in the latest years, when the burden of heroic activities weighed too much on his wrecked body to allow him more than a handful of work hours per day, he hadn't quite managed to find a taste for books, and had filled his sadly abundant downtime with movies instead.

Yet, that evening, a long-forgotten memory of literary nature sprang to his mind. David Shield, his brilliant wingman from the days spent in America after graduating, had been a proper bookworm - a strangely action-inclined one, but a bookworm nonetheless, and his love for novels was second only to his overwhelming passion for science and engineering. He used to chat with his Japanese friend about his favorite reads, and Toshinori recalled a bit of a heated rant about The Great Gatsby. A green light, twinkling in the darkness, a visible reminder of human ambition and strife for greatness, even a metaphor for the great American dream itself. A beacon of hope that stole one's gaze and breath, both out of satisfaction and frustration. Toshinori was reminded of that conversation, that evening, as his eyes followed the electric green light zooming around in the darkening sky, hopping over and between buildings with astonishing speed, closer and closer.

"You hurt?" Toshinori asked, as soon as Midoriya landed, after decelerating with a couple of hops and stopping precisely next to him.

"I'm... all right." The hooded figure replied, ever so slightly out of breath because of the effort, or maybe because of the dust cloud he'd raised.

"Your arms and legs?"

Midoriya had developed a worrying tolerance to pain in the last year and his definition of 'injury' had shifted accordingly, so Toshinori couldn't help ascertaining his student's safety to the point of redundancy. His insistence was met with a confident eyes as the boy uncovered his face and flexed his fingers, proving that the latest addition to his combat equipment had worked as intended. Toshinori had warned him early on about the dangers of relying too much on gauntlets, braces and assorted devices, and there had been no signs of him having forgotten about that. Still, he reminded him once more of the importance of avoiding wounds and shattered bones in the current circumstances. Midoriya accepted his mentor's words without a trace of annoyance, as always.

Toshinori's mobile rang. It was Hawks, at it again with his unrequested commentary on the operation. Midoriya was gone with a giant leap before Toshinori could complete two sentences. He politely deflected his colleague's nagging as the dust settled anew. Lots of dust, but not a single mark or crack on the asphalt touched by Midoriya's feet. The corners of Toshinori's lips curved upwards. Perfect control.

Very few things in his life had terrified All Might - the unwavering, the unflinching, the indefatigable All Might - as much as the sight of black tendrils sprouting uncontrollably from his student's hand during class training. Those black tendrils that looked so strikingly similar to his nemesis' own Rivets, so much that they had made him fear that All For One somehow, in some wretched, unfathomable way, had manifested on the spot, or even possessed Midoriya himself, and was ready to destroy, stab, maul every single one of the budding heroes right before his eyes. In hindsight, he could only feel shame at the memory of his behaviour during that emergency. He could only stutter vague and panicking warnings during those dreadful minutes, while Aizawa and Vlad had assessed the situation with the proper detachment.

The aftermath of the event had been deeply confusing. A new quirk, inherited from one of the predecessors? The predecessors themselves, now able to interact with Modoriya's mind? Toshinori had found himself at a loss. He was supposed to guide his student to the fullest understanding of his power, but those developments were completely unheard of. He offered the boy his most confident smile and reassurements, for they were what he needed, but privately... he worried. He worried very much. And before he knew it, the Paranormal Liberation war had left his precious successor a heap of broken limbs and regrets.

And then Midoriya had mastered Black Whip. And Float. And Danger Sense. And Smokescreen. All within few months. All with virtually no guidance (except from the several entities dwelling in One For All, probably).

'Unbelievable' didn't even begin to describe the scope of that feat. Toshinori had watched in sheer awe his pupil bounce back from the tragedy with renewed vigor, purpose and skill. He had willingly shouldered responsibilities that no one would have forced even on a professional hero and now here he was, acting as the bait for the most dangerous villain in the world, while also saving innocents in the process. As it turned out, the new wielder of One For All was managing just fine.

Ostensibly, at least.

Twenty-seven hours later, it started raining. The dull sound of the raindrops hitting the car hood and the regular beeping of Midoriya's GPS lulled Toshinori into another bout of nostalgia as he drove along the main street. It happened more and more often lately, maybe he was really starting to get old. The beaming smile of the boy upon receiving his lunchbox had warmed Toshinori's heart, but it had also made him wonder... Had he been as appreciative towards Nighteye in the past? He had never neglected to thank his sidekick for his invaluable support (especially on the bureaucratic side of things), but... Had he really put his whole heart into it? Had he really conveyed the same honest thankfulness he saw in young Midoriya's eyes whenever Toshinori handed him a meal, or checked his equipment, or removed a bystander from a tricky situation? One thing was certain, and that was that he hadn't been nearly as mindful of his sidekick's warnings back then. Maybe, if he had...

Well. No point in dwelling on the past. He had given his apologies, he had said his goodbyes. He'd have to content himself with those. What mattered now was helping Midoriya, in any way he could. His arguable teaching privileges had practically disappeared since Midoriya had started dealing with new, never-before-manifested traits of One For All. Still, competent and timely support was a blessing even for the mightiest of heroes, and Toshinori would be damned if he didn't try his hardest to fill that spot. He'd-

The laptop gave a louder beep, and then silence. The green dot pointing at Midoriya's position disappeared. Toshinori cursed and stepped on the gas. He took notice, for the briefest fraction of a second, of the cylindrical object bouncing towards his car, until it was close enough to realize-

There was a flash, a violent impact, and then nothing.

There was darkness. And pain. His head throbbed horrendously, and he struggled to string together any thoughts. There was liquid trickling down his face, some cold and some warm. He was drenched, and cold, and very nauseous. He was standing vertically, but not by his own will. He felt like a coat hanging from a rack. There were voices, one extremely close, shouting so loudly that it made him whince. He couldn't seem to make out the words. There was a much farther scream-

He recognised it. With a disproportionate effort, he opened his eyes. There it was, the familiar green glow. The boy, sizzling with energy, stood out like a mystic vision in the darkness. He looked furious, and ready to sprint towards him.

But he was waiting. Waiting for an opening, Toshinori realized, an opening that whoever was jerking the collar of his jacket didn't seem to offer. Toshinori didn't feel capable of summoning enough balance or coordination to move, let alone put up a fight, but could he provide a distraction anyway? Maybe. Yes. Yes, he could.

Without thinking twice, he flexed every single muscle in his body, and shouted. He shouted only to add to the surprise effect at first, then he kept going because it really fucking hurt. But it worked. The sudden increase of his body mass threw the mysterious assailant off balance, and he was dropped on the ground. Instantly, a powerful air blast signalled Midoriya's attack, and then all hell broke loose. Feeling as if each of his limbs had caught fire, wrecked by a violent coughing fit, Toshinori could only squirm on the spot as he felt vicious blows landing in his vicinity and on the surrounding buildings, more screams and undefined explosions, until a stronger gust of wind lifted his shrunk form in the air and sent him flying like ragdoll. His back hit something much harder than him, and darkness descended again.

There was darkness. Complete, impenetrable, all-encompassing. He had no pain, no form, no body. Nothingness stretched uninterrupted in all directions. He was nothing and there was nothing, save for the small crowd of entities not farm from him. He listened.

"...coordination. It had to be planned carefully to avoid all the precautions you took. You bear no guilt of carelessness." A quiet voice said. There was barely any inflection to its tone.

"It wasn't enough!" The green voice replied, upset. Unlike the others, this one had a head, though only the back of it was visible. "It could have gone a lot worse! He could have-"

"Pull yourself together, brat!" A rough voice scolded. "This isn't anything worth sobbing about. Start thinking about how not to make it happen again instead. I swear, you should be used to this sort of thing right now..."

"Not everyone has experienced this level of social instability and violence in their lives since such a young age, Banjo. It takes time to adapt." Another voice said. A kind voice. A woman's voice. He... knew that voice...

"But what else can I do?!" The green one interjected. "I'm training as fast as I can, I'm working on strength and control, I can use more quirks... We've teamed up with the three top heroes in the country and it still isn't enough...!"

"You cannot expect this war to go like a carefully planned game of chess. There will be mistakes, accidents and bad luck. There will be more blood spilled, on both sides. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you will start making some real progress."

" Please, let's not-"

"I will NOT accept it! I won't accept that anyone- especially not him-" The green one boomed and turned to point at him. He saw his face and his tear-stained cheeks, he met his big, bright eyes-

His eyes snapped open.

He heard a gasp, steps, then Midoriya's floating head entered his field of vision.

"All Might! Are you okay?"

He blinked. It was still dark but nowhere near... He could see a ceiling now. He tried turning his head to the side, but a powerful throb coursing all over his skull stopped him. He shut his eyes with a groan and brought a hand to his head, finding layers of bandages in the way.

"Ngh... kid... " Toshinori managed. "Where...?"

"The basement in Daina. We brought you here after we captured the villains. Do you remember?"

He remembered something. Driving, and the glint of the granade right outside his windshield... after that, nothing.

He finally managed to open his eyes. The messy, familiar layout of workbench, cot, monitors, assorted devices and cooking appliances of the hideout was a welcome sight that grounded him a little more.

"I thought we should bring you to a hospital, but Hawks was sure you only had a mild concussion." Midoriya continued.

Right. The car had probably protected him from the brunt of the blast. Hawks himself had provided them with that particular vehicle, describing it as 'practically a tank, but faster'. Evidently he wasn't just overselling it.

"Good. Hospitals are the last places we need to be right now." Toshinori knew that their plan of using Midoriya as bait could fail in a million different ways. Primarily because of his pupil's intense desire to protect... well, anyone. His schoolmates were well-guarded, his mother was well-guarded, but the potential victims were countless. All For One could easily take any random hospital in the country as a hostage and demand Midoriya to hand himself in in exchange for the patients' safety, for example. There was really no need to give him ideas and hang a big, red target on a specific one by putting a wounded All Might in it.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Midoriya asked. "Hawks will send someone over if you need better treatment-"

"I'm fine, don't worry." Surprisingly fine, all things considered. Now that his head was clearing, Toshinori realized the few pangs he felt here and there were way more manageable that he had any right to hope. No doubt he'd be missing that temporary bliss as soon as the painkillers wore out. "And you?"

"Just a few scratches. Nothing debilitating." Toshinori gave him a good once-over. The kid didn't seem to slouch or hold himself stiffly, which was a huge relief. His expression was somewhat strained though. "You've been out for a while. Do you think you can eat something?"

"Ngh. Not sure I can stomach much at the moment."

"Some tea, at least?" The kid wasn't even trying to hide his concern, bless him.

"How long was I out for, exactly?"

"Seven hours."

Mh, maybe he should gulp down something. "...Tea it is, then." Toshinori conceded with a sigh, and Midoriya moved away to busy himself with the pot.

Toshinori wasn't especially fond of describing the several, thought-provoking ways in which his bodily functions had been messed up by All For One's desperate retaliation, but living in close quarters with Midoriya had outed them despite his best efforts. The boy had seemed especially distraught to hear of his eating habits, for some obscure reason. Lacking a stomach to store and properly digest food, Toshinori had to stick to a rigorous habit of six to eight meals a day, scheduled every two or three hours, paying a certain attention to the size and composition of each portion. Accidentally overworking his intestine with an excessive meal would lead to a range of unpleasant consequences, which went beyond a simple rush to the toilet. On top of that, he also had to actively remember to eat. Turns out that the stomach is the major organ creating the sense of hunger and fullness and, without one, one could easily forget about eating altogether, or overdo it without noticing. And all this, with the addition of some vitamin supplements, had the effect of keeping him just well-fed enough to grant him his haggard scarecrow build.

Sure, all these complications turned what ought to be one of life's pleasures into a bit of chore, but the habit was so ingrained in him by now that he was barely bothered by it all. Plus, it could be a lot worse. At least he wasn't doomed to a lifetime of IVs, as he had first dreaded. Still, Toshinori hadn't failed to notice the hints of sadness in the boy's eyes whenever he glanced at the small amounts of easily digestible food in his dish.

"So, what happened out there?" Toshinori asked, after the silence had stretched long enough for his head to settle down.

"We aren't sure of the details yet. You and I were attacked simultaneously, presumably by All For One's men. They didn't confess anything while I was there, but Endeavor said he'd take care of the interrogation." Midoriya answered as he poured the tea into two small cups.

"Oof, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes."

"He was quite... angry. Not only at the villains. I think he tried to set you on fire while I wasn't looking."

"To cauterize my wound, surely. He's such a gentle, caring soul." He winked at the boy, who finally let a small smile grace his features.

Midoriya helped him sit up on the cot, which Toshinori achieved with some mild dizziness and coughing up just two little drops of blood. A good sign. He took the steaming cup he was offered and blew on it.

"I hate to admit it, but they got the best of me very easily. I'm starting to lose count of how many lives I owe you, my boy."

"I... I'm not sure I was the one who saved you though." Midoriya bit his lip, his gaze falling to the floor. "I think I saw the explosion back when they attacked you. It took us all a while to dispatch of the villains after me and get to the site. The group that targeted you had all the time to... to finish their job before we showed up, but they didn't. I think they were trying to bring you somewhere."

Toshinori frowned. That didn't bode well. A kidnapping attempt? Maybe to use him as leverage in case the frontal attack on Midoriya didn't succeed? It could make sense. The mere notion made Toshinori's blood boil, but that was a possibility they'd have to consider very carefully in the future.

"I see. We'd better lay low for a while until Endeavor can give us a clearer picture of the situation." Toshinori pondered. "Any damage to your equipment? I assume most of mine was unrecoverable."

"Mine is in working condition. Hawks said he'd take care of getting us a new vehicle, and he already passed me a new phone, laptop and some other things to replace what was in the car."

Preparedness, thy name is Hawks, Toshinori thought. He promised himself not to brush him off so quickly the next time he called, or maybe even call him himself to thank him. Maybe. The man was strangely hard to read, he didn't quite invite Toshinori's confidence.

"Good." Toshinori took a long sip, then leaned back against wall with a sigh. "I guess we should take advantage of this forced downtime to recuperate. You've been working yourself pretty thin lately, it's hardly sustainable in the long run."

Midoriya didn't reply. He was still staring at the floor as if the secrets of the universe were contained in the concrete beneath. The tea was growing cold in his cup, forgotten on a nearby table. Toshinori kept staring at him in turn, waiting for the boy to notice his own unresponsiveness and offer an explanation. Eventually he spoke, still avoiding his mentor's eyes.

"All Might..." And that was all he managed before trailing off.

"Yes? Something on your mind?" Toshinori encouraged. The answer was again, not quite immediate.

"I have been thinking, lately... about our plan. About how our groups are organised. If our teams are currently as balanced and efficient as they could be."

"Would you rather be paired up with one of the big three, and have me act as support for the others?" Toshinori asked plainly, squashing the little lurch of unease the suggestion gave him.

"N.. Yes, I... Maybe. That is a possibility." Another pause. Midoriya was getting visibly on edge, his free hand clenched to a fist to his side. "If I am to act as bait, I cannot provide coverage for anyone. Jeanist, Hawks and Endeavor are more at liberty to protect-" The boy finally raised his gaze to meet Toshinori's eyes and flinched, almost scared of the sound of his own words.

...Ah, we had finally come to this.

"Don't get me wrong. Please." Suddenly the boy deflated, his back slumped fowards and he rested his elbows on his legs, both his hand supporting the sides of his head. "At the hospital, when you offered to leave UA as well and follow me, I... Y-You have no idea what it means to me, how proud I am to fight alongside you, how much I-"

His voice faltered again. Toshinori waited.

"But... You said yourself, the first time we met, that one has to consider the reality of things. And... the reality of this... is that, right now, there is nothing more dangerous on this planet than being at my side. And... for someone... like you to be so exposed... I can't-"

"Yeah, I'm going to stop you right there." Toshinori butted in, taking another sip of tea. He twirled the cup in his fingers, nonplussed. "Look, kid. Believe me when I say that I am painfully aware that, in terms of combat capability and survivability, I am much more of a liability than an asset to the whole operation-"

"You are not- a liability!" Midoriya almost shouted, and Toshinori could swear that he had corrected himself at the last second to avoid using the word 'weak'. "You coordinate the four of us flawlessly, you take care of my gear, my clothes, my accomodation, my food, you offer me advice and strategy I couldn't come up with on my own, you can hold your ground against low-tier criminals, and evade situations where the odds are too stacked against you. You've been doing all this for months without breaking a sweat! I know exactly how valuable your skills are!"

"Then that makes two of us. I don't see any reason for you to imply that I should leave the team."

"Because... All of this... As valuable as it is, it isn't worth..." Midoriya banged his fists against his thigs, his back hunched over and his head bowed so much that all Toshinori could see was him biting his lip so hard he thought it'd start bleeding, "...your life."

It pained Midoriya to say it. It pained Toshinori to see him so distraught about it. But he had purposefully let the argument get that far, because it was necessary for the boy to confront this thing sooner or later.

"If those villains had had different orders... If we had been slower, or unlucky... You would have died." The boy struggled to continue. "I don't-"

"You don't want to see anyone getting hurt any more. I know."

Toshinori recalled very vividly those days at the hospital. The aftermath. Hectic, nightmarish days for everyone. Relatives, friends, colleagues of the many victims and injured were everywhere, shedding tears of shock and horror behind every corner. Toshinori himself hadn't been able to hold back tears as he had proclaimed his intention to tag along the boy in his crusade against All For One. Rumors through the grapevine said that even Endeavor had been seen weeping in that whirlwind of grief. The only person that Toshinori hadn't seen shed a single tear at any point was Midoriya. That alone should have alerted him of some sudden subversion in the natural order of the universe, but it had taken him some more time to realize the meaning behind that stoicism.

"I share that feeling. Whole-heartedly." Toshinori slowly clenched and unclenched his fist, somberly. "But if all it took to ensure someone's safety was a passionate declaration of intent, the world wouldn't need as many heroes as it does. We both know it, don't we?"

"That's why I'm asking you to-"

"And that's why I'm refusing." Toshinori glared sternly at the boy's hair. "This accident has brought to light a flaw in our patterns of action, and we're lucky it did so without causing any lasting damage. If we need to regroup in a way that grants me less exposure, fine. We can work out the logistics of that later. But if you're trying to convince me to go back and sit tight in UA's offices at whatever you deem a 'safe distance' to be, you can spare your breath. It isn't going to happen."

"But... All Might, please!" Midoriya finally raised his head to look at his teacher, a desperate edge in his eyes. "I wouldn't be left unguarded! Jeanist, Hawks and Endeavor can support me, while you... you are quirkless now and- God, think of Nighteye's vision!"

"Is that why you're trying to push me away? Is it really?" Toshinori retorted, with more bite than he intended. "In few months, you have successfully detached yourself from your classmates, most of your teachers, your own mother. And now you're trying to do the same with me. Is it so far-fetched for me to imagine that, if push comes to shove, you'll try to leave the other pro heroes behind too, in some misguided self-sacrifing effort 'not to see anyone hurt again'!?"

Midoriya's flinched as if he'd just been slapped. Admittedly, that had come out more harshly than Toshinori was planning. The man coughed into his fist, seizing the chance to discreetly rein his own feelings in.

"Young Midoriya." He resumed, more gently. "This overpowering sense of responsibility and protection that you are feeling... is exactly what drove me during the six years between my injury and our first meeting. The drive to uphold a Symbol of Peace that would protect everyone, directly or indirectly. The current situation speaks loudly about the results of my efforts."

Toshinori paused, suddenly caught by a deep bitterness. "If I hadn't been so stubborn... if I hadn't rejected the advice and support of the people who cared about me the most... maybe the Symbol of Peace would still exist to this day. Upheld by more than a single bluffer. I have paid for my mistakes, and the worst part is that I wasn't only one. My friends, my loyal sidekick paid for them dearly, way more harshly than I did. The whole country is paying for them."

Toshinori leant forward, suppressing the cough that threatened to rob his breath. He looked his shocked pupil in the eyes, without the barest hint of reservation. "I will not let you make the same mistake."

Midoriya's head bowed again, very slowly, like a toy with dying batteries. His shoulders trembled.

"I won't be able to talk you out of this, will I?" He said, shakily.

Toshinori wasn't a fool. He knew that Midoriya had grasped the importance of his words. He also knew that discussing that particular topic with All Might, of all people, was especially difficult for him. The pain of losing a mentor (one that somewhat doubled as a surrogate parental figure too, as it happened) was something Toshinori was intimately acquainted to. He could imagine how great Midoriya's fear had to be, to spark so direct a confrontation.

He knew, last but not least, that his successor always, invariably, reliably chose the best course of action when it was asked of him.

"Do you really want to?" Toshinori asked softly, steadying the boy's quivering shoulder with his hand.

Midoriya tensed even more, hesitated. Then he shook his head negatively.

He had grown so much. Physically and mentally, as a person and as a hero. In just two years, his frame had gotten larger and sturdied, his muscles had toned, his reflexes sharpened, his judgement refined, his courage exploded, his kindness bloomed. He had blossomed into such a remarkable individual that, sometimes, even Toshinori forgot that he was still a sixteen-year old.

That he was, most of all, still Izuku Midoriya.

"You haven't turned on the waterworks in a while, have you? It must be full to bursting in there." Toshinori smiled as he pulled the boy into a one-armed hug. "You shouldn't let the pressure build up so much."

The kid let out a pitiful sob and his face fell on Toshinori's shoulder. It was all it took for him to unravel. He broke into a waterfall of tears, failing to contain a long series of low but heart-wrenching whines. He hugged his mentor back and clung to him tightly, the man's shirt balled up in both his fists. Toshinori didn't let go until Midoriya did, few dry coughs taking care of unloading the traitorous knots that were forming in his own throat.

It lasted as long as it needed to. Eventually the gasps abated, the tears stopped flowing, and the boy's desperate grasp on Toshinori loosened.

"...I-I'm sorry." He managed as he pulled back, still held at arm's length by Toshinori's hand. "I just... You are right. About everything. I just..."

"I know. You've finally experienced All For One's devastating maliciousness firsthand. It's natural that you got so disturbed by it. I was disturbed too, and it was hardly my first time witnessing it." In an unexpected turn of fate, Toshinori had managed not to spill his cup during that whole emotional outburst, and he downed the last of his now iced tea with a single gulp. It didn't feel quite as fortifying as if it had been sake. "But we'll all look into how to protect each other better, and we'll move from there. We'll face what they'll throw at us, in one way or another."

Midoriya nodded. The next Symbol of Peace made for a very sorry sight at the moment, with red, puffy eyes and radiating exhaustion from every pore. Toshinori still preferred seeing him like this than as a coiled wrap of nerves and fear one step away from bursting.

"You sure chose an odd moment to start worrying about my potential demise." Toshinori offered, trying to lighten the mood by ruffling the boy's hair in the most annoying way possible.

"Uh? What do you mean?"

"Aren't you in a semi-permanent conference call with your predecessors these days? The way I see it, the moment I bite the dust in this world, I'll just pop back on my feet-" He tapped Midoriya's forehead repeatedly despite his attempts to squirm away, discovering new heights of annoyance within his reach, " ...right here. Ready to lecture you for the rest of your days, unless you miraculously find another quirkless brat to torture in turn."

"That's- that hardly makes things better!" Midoriya swatted his hand away and blurted out, way too quickly. Toshinori had the strong impression that Midoriya had already considered that fact, and dutifully rejected it. "You aren't supposed to exist as a ghost trapped in my head for my sole benefit! You're supposed to live like anyone else, out here, free to enjoy-"

Oh, good grief. "Yes, fine, I get your point!" Toshinori raised his arms defensively. He deserved that, he knew the risks of trying to joke with his overly sensitive protégé. "I'm just saying that it's a handy safety net for you, at least in terms of... emotional support. I wouldn't look unkindly on the chance to chat with some of my deceased acquaintances for my whole life."

"...I suppose that is a good point." Midoriya took Toshinori's empty teacup and put it on the table next to his own. "If... If it even does last that long..."

"Mh?"

"I..." All of a sudden Midoriya was biting his lip again. He had that absorbed look that signalled the start of a deliriously overanalytical tirade. "You know, I've been thinking..."

"...Yes, you do that a lot, don't you?" Toshinori sighed, bracing himself for the inevitable. Midoriya ignored him and went on with his muttering.

"If the permanence of the conscience of One For All's wielders within the power itself isn't tied to their quirks, it must be due to something else. Something that all users have in common. There are many possibilities, but the first one that comes to mind is... willpower. A shared goal." The boy brought a hand to his chin and frowned. "One For All was born out of the First's desire to stop All For One, and this objective was steadily passed down from master to apprentice until now. It stands to reason that this might be the ultimate purpose of the power itself, to solve the conflict that generated it. And... I wonder what would happen after that. After we defeat All For One... will One For All remain the same? Will the connection among its wielders be lost? Will the quirk cease to exist in its entirety?"

Toshinori blinked. Twice. Where on earth was all this coming from now...?

"Did the predecessors tell you about this?"

"No, they don't know any more than we do about the matter." Midoriya finally re-emerged from his bubble of introspection, and gave Toshinori a sheepish smile in response to his puzzled look. "It's just a hypothesis of mine."

Toshinori rubbed his eyes tiredly. That boy's penchant for overthinking things would lead him to an early grave, he was sure of it, and it was only going to get worse now that he had eight distinct personalities residing in his head, ready to produce a constant stream of new inputs.

"...Let me get this straight. You are now worrying about the possibility that, if I were to die in the near future and become a sentient vestige- don't even try to deny it, I know how your head works-" Toshinori raised a finger menacingly as soon as Midoriya opened his mouth. The boy immediately closed it and grimaced with evident guilt, "...you are worried that, in that case, our connection would be lost after accomplishing this shared goal. Am I correct?"

"...I guess so." Midoriya answered, barely above a whisper.

Leave it to this boy to grow anxious about having to grieve for the same person not once, but twice. Toshinori summoned the last embers of his patience to deal with this like a rational adult.

"Listen. I can't deny that One For All has evolved so much since I passed it to you that I can barely claim any expertise on it at this point." Toshinori started, joining the tips of his fingers. "But you spoke of will and purpose. Of will and purpose, I know something about."

Midoriya instantly forgot his insecurity and leaned towards Toshinori, expectation and curiosity lighting his eyes.

"I cannot speak for most of the predecessors, since I never met them." He continued. "But I can tell you something about me, and I bet the same goes for my master too. I never wielded One For All with the purpose of defeating people. I wielded it with the purpose of helping them."

Toshinori waited for the words to sink in. He could pinpoint the moment they did by the distant look that appeared in the boy's eyes. He bet someone was smiling, inside that green-haired head.

"All For One has always been a disgusting, painful wart in the peaceful world I dreamed to protect. He was never the goal of my efforts, just an obstacle. That's all there is to it." He smiled to Midoriya, who now wore that unabashedly admiring expression that gave Toshinori a mild, inexplicable sense of guilt. "If that isn't enough to quell you doubts, you may remember certain promises I made to you and your mother, promises that would not be fulfilled by just taking down any one villain. I'll have you know that I'm not in the habit of going back on my word easily."

Midoriya nodded, worry slowly disappearing from his features.

"Yes... I see what you mean. " The boy visibly relaxed, and smiled. It was the first real smile he'd shown since Toshinori woke up. Finally. "That makes a lot of sense."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Thank you." The way the boy said those two simple words, the way he wore his enormous heart on his sleeve, the way he had never stopped feeling and showing the deepest gratefulness for whatever tidbit of advice Toshinori managed to scrap together...

Toshinori's head gave a painful throb. Either the painkillers were starting to wear off, or all these waves of teenage emotionality were aggravating his concussion. Both possibilities seemed equally likely. A swift intervention was required.

He karate-chopped Midoriya on the head.

"On the other hand!" He declared over the boy's yelp. "Talk about overconfidence, young man! 'After we defeat All For One'? Way to brush off the most miraculous task we'll ever have to accomplish in both our lives! How about we focus more on how to achieve that feat first, and then we worry about whatever existential crisis that may come our way afterwards?"

"Y-Yes! Of course!" Midoriya jumped on his feet with comical speed, accidentally mimicking a half-formed military salute. "I didn't mean to imply it would be easy! Nor less important than-"

"Undoubtedly. So, first order of things: recuperating. On second thought, I think now I could go for some breakfast. Lunch... Dinner?" Toshinori glanced around the room, failing to locate a clock. "Whatever meal is most suitable for this time of day or night."

"Breakfast." Midoriya confirmed, cheering up again. "Any preferences?"

"Some tamago kake wouldn't go amiss."

"Coming right up!" Midoriya moved to the other side of the room with a spring in his step. Toshinori considered lying down for a few minutes while the rice cooked.

"All Might. One last thing."

Toshinori sighed. Wasn't there always just one last thing?

"I said that I agree with everything you told me. Except one thing." Midoriya continued, from outside of Toshinori's view. His voice was firm. "You are no bluff. You never were. Even when you thought you were doing your job for only three hours a day, or one, or none at all. All the time, you were working just as hard as everyone else, if not more. And no one in their right mind would deny that you are the best thing that happened to Japan in the last forty years. Don't ever forget that."

As he was sliding from sitting to a horizontal position, Toshinori's head gave another, sharper twinge. It was that, and only that, that made his sight go just a little watery as his nape landed on the pillow.

"...Thanks, kid." He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and relaxed with a deep sigh. "I'll keep it in mind."

[secretshinigami]

Title: Zombie Note Author: @izaori For: @llawlietofficial Pairings/Characters: Light Yagami, Ryuk, L, Matsuda, mentions of other characters Rating/Warnings: Teen, nongraphic violence, potentially unsettling descriptions of zombies (the effects of death on the human body are interesting, right? Now make that corpse jiggle) Prompt: Light didn’t read the fine print on the death note and now everyone he killed using it has turned into a zombie Author’s notes: Interesting idea! I wanted to explore Japanese folklore in either the fanart you requested or fanfic but I quickly discovered that these ideas are popular because they are specifically western. That being said, I tried to incorporate a couple cultural things since Death Note is so Japanese culture heavy, and I figured it would make sense if something like a “zombie note” happened would have something related, too. Then I got wrapped up in the details… I hope you like reading. It’s much more than 750 words. Thanks for the fun idea! It was a great last prompt to go out on! I wanted to do the fanart but it just wasn’t coming out right. Bonus sketch at the bottom based on those requests, though. Mods feel free to ditch that if you want just the fanfic.

—————————–

There’s a saying that life doesn’t always go as planned. Light Yagami, top student in the country and owner of a death note, knows this very well. He’s quickly learned that sometimes death doesn’t go as planned, either.

With someone more average, less motivated, maybe even scared and cowardly, there could have been minimal damage. An incident or two at most, enough to be written off as something silly like someone eating bath salts. Unfortunately for Light, and for people around the world, the young man had written names of hundreds if not thousands of criminals in the span of a week, along with scheduling many more to die that he cannot reverse. Death cannot be erased.

News of the first revival popped up in Japan, of course. Light had tried to space out the deaths enough that authorities could keep up with the stream of dead bodies, but there was bound to be a build up at first as society gets adjusted to a new, less crime ridden world. In a morgue somewhere, apparently one of the first criminals he had killed as a test subject got up from the table. The previously dead man scared the undertaker out of his mind, reaching out for him, clearly wanting to take a bite–!

It really was a stroke of luck that the undertaker had already sewn the corpse’s mouth shut using wire. After getting a quick yet confused grasp on the situation, the undertaker took the nearby fire extinguisher and made the corpse still once more.

News got out fast across the world. Dead bodies coming back to life. Unfortunately, not many people were nearly as lucky as the undertaker. Those killed by the zombies were turned into zombies themselves so long as they were salvageable. The very smallest relief is that the zombies seemed to ignore small children.

Light paces around his room, death note on his desk, untouched. It was obvious to him from the first occurrence but even the news is broadcasting what everyone is thinking now. Kira has created zombies. Any of the praise he had previously is gone, replaced with fear and disgust. Only a select few loons are absurd enough to support someone turning criminals into zombies! A few minutes pass, and Ryuk laughs, breaking the tense silence.

“This is funny to you, Ryuk?” Light asks, tone sharp. He stops in his tracks, glare icy.

Ryuk stares at him, unblinking. Can a shinigami even blink? “Very,” Ryuk states, “since I thought you read all the rules.”

“None of the rules say anything about zombies!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Light.” Ryuk floats over, snickering to himself, and flips open the death note. He points to a seemingly blank page on the back. Upon closer inspection, in a different more similarly colored ink, there is a rule that clearly states that humans written in the death note by another human that have died will come back as zombies after 72 hours from their time of death, provided their body is intact enough to be reanimated. Not only that, but a second rule states that these reanimated humans are able to do the same to other humans with the same restrictions.

Light can’t help but gawk at the hard to notice rules. He had been so careful to read over the rules before, but had missed this. Shameful trickery. Ryuk laughs again, watching the gears turn in Light’s head. These people are already dead, the death note can’t kill them again. Even if it could, they’d simply be zombies another time over.

~

Meanwhile, government officials that had already been pointing fingers about conspiracies on the deaths of criminals across the globe are now making much more serious accusations. This has now escalated from planned death to some kind of biowarfare, involving what is assumed to be a state of not actual death followed by this zombified state. There are arguments, with some people insisting that these are genuine zombies, not flukes. These people would be right.

L sits in solitude, listening through his computer to the chaos in Interpol. This Kira person, was this their intention all along? It’s not the feeling L had first gotten from them, but it had also only been a week since the Kira murders started. For all he knew, Kira could have planned this from the beginning. L feels rather confident that this was not, in fact, Kira’s goal, for if he was Kira and wanted to bring around the death of many people to become zombies, he wouldn’t have picked criminals. There would have been some overlap with criminals for sure, but just criminals? Not a chance.

Watari brings in L over the conference call, and L lays down the law. To prevent as much further tragedy as possible, no more reporting crime as much as possible. In fact, try to keep everything on paper. On the possibility that these aren’t genuine zombies, a cure for this zombified state should be researched. Furthermore, the finger pointing needs to stop. No country would have willingly inflicted this upon themselves along with the rest of the world. It goes on similarly with L heading to Japan.

~

Just how many criminals did Light already sentence to death? Pages upon pages, names and names, all over the world criminals continue to die. All over the world, corpses begin to reanimate. In more fortunate, more savvy places, people have already begun cremating all the corpses to circumvent the problem. It’s hard for a zombie to happen if it’s a pile of ash. Some places, however, are already under total lockdown. Mass zombie infestations turning people left and right.

Light pours over ideas, drilling Ryuk for answers, but Ryuk doesn’t give. He laughs, giving vague responses and going on about how interesting humans can be in a crisis. Light has had to completely halt his plans in cleansing the earth of criminals. By the sound of it, he won’t be able to continue his plans at all. The death note was just a farce, a false hope. Something designed to be dangled in front of his face like bait that he took like a starving fish.

“If I’m the one who created these zombies, shouldn’t I be able to control them? Since I’m able to control the actions of people before their death, to an extent.”

“No,” Ryuk laughs, “You can’t control a thing. This isn’t about you, Light. The power isn’t yours. You’re just using it.”

Of course. To a shinigami, to Ryuk, this is all just a funny game. Light feels burned by something he didn’t fully understand the scope of to begin with. It truly wasn’t his power, but he felt it was given to him with purpose. Bestowed upon him by some divine intervention because he is able to sway fate with a written name.

~

Zombies. Walking the streets, drudging, semi-intelligent despite being functionally brain dead. Varying degrees of rotted bodies. It’s funny and unfortunate, really, because one would think that a lockdown because of an actual zombie outbreak would mean people would stay inside as much as possible. That’s not the case.

“The government can’t take away my freedom!”

“The zombies are misunderstood!”

“There are no zombies!”

An actual zombie apocalypse could be in the works and there are people denying the existence of the zombies. Some people believe the zombies are real but straight up don’t care whatsoever. Then there are the people who think of the zombies in almost an animalistic sense, thinking that since they were once human they shouldn’t be killed again even though they are actively trying to eat at and therefore turn more humans.

It’s impressive. It makes Light want to double down and get rid of criminals more, give people a reason to think more clearly, but the more he tries to create that ideal world the more damage he’ll do.

L’s solution is simple, after an autopsy. Or vivisection, depending on how one would argue the inspection. The zombies are just animated corpses. It isn’t a disease. It isn’t a mass case of doctors and undertakers around the world collectively thinking all these bodies are corpses. Something impossibly otherworldly must be happening right here, right now. A force beyond their mortal comprehension is making these corpses come back.

“Kill them again,” L says bluntly, “Destroy them. If it’s a zombie, it’s already dead.”

“Ryuzaki, what about their families! Surely they wouldn’t want their loved ones being destroyed!” Somebody argues with L, of course. “What would you do if Watari became a zombie?!”

L puts a finger on his lip, dragging it down. His eyes go to the ceiling. “Unfortunately, I’d have to kill Watari. If the situation was reversed, he would need to do the same. Regardless, there is no saving them. The zombies exist only to destroy, so we must destroy them.”

Watari doesn’t respond, but what L said is true. He doesn’t want to think about it since he considers L to be his son, but if something were to happen that led L to become a zombie, he would want to be the one to put L down. He’d be much more upset if someone else did it.

~

Gun shots. Bats. Sledgehammers. People running over zombies with their cars. Some people have taken this as an excuse to let out their violent urges. Light sees this on the news and feels his blood boil. Something he wanted to prevent, senseless violence, has sprung up even more because of this damned note. Telling Ryuk to take it back is pointless. The damage is done. What would happen, though, if Light held onto it without using it? Would Ryuk kill him?

Light glares at the shinigami. “You said I was the first human you’ve seen write this many names so fast. That implies other humans have had a death note. Wouldn’t somebody have noticed a zombie before?”

“Who knows?” Ryuk floats over to the window, looking out at the abnormally empty street. “Maybe it’s been forgotten.”

There’s nothing Light can do to reverse the chaos, nothing he can do to end it. Fine, then. The worst have the worst have already been written, many other well-known and otherwise publicly known criminals have already been written. More zombies are bound to appear, but this is it. On a regular piece of notebook paper, Light writes himself a note explaining the situation, knowing he won’t necessarily believe it when he reads it.

“The death note is worthless to me now. If this is its purpose, I don’t want it. Take it back!”

“I’ve had a lot more fun than I expected already.” Ryuk laughs, grabbing the death note away from Light. “Too bad. I wanted to eat more of your apples. They’re so… juicy.”

“Leave already.”

~

Having excellent marksmanship, Matsuda is part of the force assigned to patrol. It’s not his favorite thing in the world, in fact, he’s a little scared of the zombies. Too bad for him his skills are simply too much to pass up on in a time like this. He’s got not just one, but two guns locked and loaded, ready to go. It’s unusual for him to have even one on him most of the time, but the circumstances are grim.

Think on the bright side, Matsuda. According to sources around the world, the only new zombies popping up are ones being turned by already existing zombies, which are dwindling. He’s already taken down a couple. It’s unnerving. Most of them look almost like they could be okay if they put on a little weight, got a little color. Initially, Matsuda was surprised that rigor mortis let them move at all, but was quickly informed by an irritated Aizawa that at most rigor mortis lasts up to 84 hours. Then Matsuda felt grossed out by the idea that the zombies might be overly squishy. That idea was quickly stamped out, as the zombies are probably not squishy at all due to dehydration. Would they even really have blood? Probably, right? The one he shot had some blood.

What disturbed Matsuda even more was that when he went to check the body, taking hold of the hand, the skin came clean off like a glove. Admittedly, it made him sick. None of the sighted zombies have looked particularly bloated, though, which is a positive for him. Matsuda wasn’t sure what he would do if they smelled any worse than this.

Smelled. Can they smell? Matsuda was lost in thought, wondering how the zombies managed to find their way around, when he was interrupted by his earpiece.

“Focus, Matsuda.”

“Sorry, Ryuzaki!”

He taps something on a device that lets a cleanup team know the location of the zombie before moving along, wondering again about a zombie’s senses. Depending on how they died, their eyes might be all dried up, so surely, they couldn’t rely on vision. Maybe hearing is the way to go unless they died already deaf. Then Matsuda remembered that these zombies aren’t actually a result of an ailment. Not the original ones at least. The ones turned after the fact were declared uncurable as well, and Matsuda had his doubts, but the human body can only take so much decay before it’s irreversible.

Another shot rings out. Matsuda means business.

~

Light sits at the dinner table with his family, discussing the zombie topic. Light now has no memories of ever having owned or used the death note, and his brain has filled in the gaps for him. His dad insists that they all continue to remain in lockdown, that he can make the runs himself if they absolutely need anything from the market. Light encourages his dad and offers assistance. Why wouldn’t he?

Sayu and Sahicko have a brief argument that ends with Soichiro telling Sayu to respect her mother. Light smiles. For some reason, he was beginning to miss this.

~

By the time the zombies are cleared up, L is unsatisfied. He was never able to pinpoint who or what exactly caused this out break. Many people try to tell him it was a freak accident, but he knows better. Even if it was an accident, it was no accident. L wanted to know so badly who the face behind the operation was. He clenches his fist and bangs it on the table.

“Kira…” Yes, whoever Kira was, if they’re still out there, might have been killed by their own creation. What a twist of fate. L decides for his own sanity that Kira is still alive, but he doesn’t press the subject. How could he? Kira is seemingly no longer active, and the zombie situation has been solved. If something like this ever happens again, L will be ready to track down and find Kira.

~

[senadimell]

If you've got time to share, I'd love to hear more about your thoughts around Snape and Lupin.

@deathdaydungeon, here you are!

After a conversation with @frederick-the-great, I’ve been thinking about Lupin, Snape, and what they say about morality in HP. I’m not talking about the troublesome white hats, black hats morality, but am instead looking at from this angle: Lupin is nice and well-liked, but often lacks a backbone, whereas Snape is mean and disliked, but incredibly brave. Which is more important? I find Harry’s last sacrifice to be a useful point by which we measure their impact.

Lupin and Snape useful to compare on several important fronts.

As foils for each others’ teaching methods

The way they deal with social disadvantage

Their connections to Harry’s father and how they pass on James’ legacy

1) They both teach at Hogwarts, and are foils for each other in many ways. Snape is mean and takes away points. He’s seen as selfish. His classes are hard and unpleasant for Harry. He’s mean to Neville, and rather than encouraging him, mocks him and belittles him, which just adds to the overall disaster of Neville’s poor self-esteem mixing badly with potions class.

However, even Umbridge admits that Snape’s teaching methods work, and she’s working for Fudge who doesn’t like Death Eaters and has been defied by Snape in GoF, so we know he’s effective for a lot of people, if not Neville.

Yet, for all that, Snape saves Harry’s life multiple times. On top of that, Snape wants to keep the fact that he saved Harry’s life a secret.

“Very well. Very Well. But never--Never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it, I cannot bear...especially Potter’s son...I want your word!

My word, Severus, that I will never reveal the best of you? Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape’s ferocious, anguished face. “If you insist...”

DH 679, The Prince’s Tale

Conversely, Lupin is nice and rewards points. He’s seen as generous. His classes are fun and interesting for Harry. He’s kind to Neville, and expresses confidence in him that leads him to succeed and do well. That confidence is a huge part of Neville’s character development. I doubt he’d grow into the resistance leader in DH if not for the many times teachers expressed confidence in him, like Dumbledore in PS, Lupin in PoA, Fake!Moody in GoF, and Harry in OotP. Harry certainly approves of his methods:

“You’re the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we’ve ever had!” said Harry. “Don’t go!”

PoA 424, Owl Post Again

However, it’s worth noticing that Hermione does worse on his exam than we ever see. She fails the Boggart test, and she and Harry were the only two people not permitted to experience the Boggart in class. Lupin’s teaching methods aren’t foolproof. Despite that, he’s overall seen as a nice guy and good teacher.

Yet Lupin endangers Harry’s life. The secrets he keeps are dangerous: his secret to keep is that he’s a werewolf and  actively endangered three students lives with his negligence, as well as the fact that he hid a secret about a believed and convicted mass murderer to save face with Dumbledore.

“That was still really dangerous! Running around in the dark with a werewolf! What if you’d given the others the slip, and bitten somebody?”

“A thought that still haunts me,” Lupin said heavily. “And there were near misses, many of them. We laughed about them afterwards. We were young, thoughtless--carried away with out own cleverness.

“I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore’s trust, of course....he had admitted me to Hogwarts when no other headmasters would have done so, and he had no idea I was breaking the rules he had set down for my own and others’ safety. He never knew I had led three fellow students into becoming Animagi illegally. But I always managed to forget my guilty feelings every time we sat down to plan our next month’s adventure. And I haven’t changed...

Lupin’s face had hardened, and there was self-disgust in his voice. “All this year I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn’t do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I’d betrayed his tryst while I was at school, admitting that I’d led others along with me...and Dumbledore’s trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using Dark Arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it...so in a way, Snape’s been right about me all along.”

PoA 355, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

Plan is emphasized because those trips that ended in “near misses” weren’t some impulsive romp. They were planned and coordinated in advance.

“I just saw Hagrid,” said Harry. “And he said you’d resigned. It’s not true, is it?”

“I’m afraid it is, said Lupin. He stared opening his desk drawers and taking out the contents.

“Why?” said Harry. The Ministry of Magic don’t think you were helping Sirius, do they?”

Lupin crossed to the door and closed it behind Harry.

“No. Professor Dumbledore managed to convince Fudge that I was trying to save your lives.” He sighed. “That was the final straw for Severus. I think* the loss of the Order of Merlin hit him hard. So he--er--accidentally let slip that I am a werewolf this morning at breakfast.”

“You’re not leaving because of that!” said Harry.

Lupin smiled wryly.

“This time tomorrow, the owls will start arriving from parents ....They will not want a werewolf teaching their children, Harry. And after last night, I see their point. I could have bitten any of you...That must never happen again.

“You’re the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we’ve ever had!” said Harry. “Don’t go!”

PoA 424, Owl Post Again

What strikes me about this conversation is how Lupin shifts the blame around. This doesn’t start with an admission of guilt. He’s not leaving because the parents are right. He’s not leaving because he’s seen how dangerous he can be, or because he owns up to making an incredibly dangerous decision. He’s leaving because Snape forced his hand. If Snape didn’t do that, he would do the same thing he’s always been doing: sweeping his misdoing under the rug and promising himself privately that he’s going to change, but never doing it.

It’s always someone else’s fault for Lupin. That’s a neat tie in to the next point of comparison:

2. Lupin and Snape both experience marginalization in wizarding society, but in very different ways. Lupin faces socio-legal** marginalization and Snape faces socio-economic marginalization.

Lupin’s a werewolf. We see how prejudice affects his life, from his inability to find a job and his worn out clothes to his people-pleasing nature. He’s always acting nice and harmless. He does nothing to play into the condemning stereotypes he’s faced since childhood. Despite that, he still can’t find a job. Nobody will hire him, and people are scared to interact with him. From the way he talks about werewolves, it’s implied that this prejudice is held blindly across Wizarding society. Both Ron and Hermione are horrified to learn Lupin’s a werewolf. *** Later on, he’s legally limited in the kinds of jobs he holds and the kind of magic he’s allowed to perform. Lupin has no control over his transformations, and did not choose his condition.

Lupin’s not really wrong when pities himself. The odds really are stacked against him when he’s treated as if he’s a wolf 24/7, not just a few predictable times a month. His prospects are honestly awful.

The problem is, his condition is dangerous. Thus, the issue of victim blaming is particularly thorny for Lupin. He can’t just accept that he’s a monster for something he has no say over, and yet he can’t escape the fact that sometimes he is monstrous for reasons out of his control. He feels guilty for the people he could have hurt, but also seems to resent that people blame him for something that’s not his fault. The problem is that he carries that lack of accountability into spheres where he should be accountable, like not taking his medication and endangering children because of it.

Snape’s story is very different. He is poor in both the wizard and muggle worlds, and half-blooded, and was sorted into Slytherin as a child. He doesn’t have one condition against him, but checks boxes that make it hard for any one side to accept him. He’s too impure and poor to survive on his own for the Slytherin, but is a Slytherin with Death Eater friends and housemates interested in dark magic, which means he’s never going to fit in with the Order of the Phoenix crowd, especially when some of its members torment him at school. ****4

 This essay makes a convincing point that the wizarding world is not a meritocracy, and that people like Snape need powerful patronage to advance if they don’t have the money to support themselves.

I don’t consider the sorting a proper choice. I know Harry does, but I’m of the opinion that at age 11, very few people have been taught how to analyze different perspectives and make an informed decision. Most 11-year-olds are trained to obey their parents and accept their family’s ideology. Harry’s choice rests on very little evidence--most of what he knows is what Hagrid told him, and that he doesn’t want to be sorted into Voldemort’s house along with Draco Malfoy, someone who reminds him of Dudley. I don’t think Snape was very informed either (I’d love to know why), because he doesn’t realize why it Lily wouldn’t be sorted into Slytherin.

“You’d better be in Slytherin,” said Snape, encouraged that she had brightened a little. DH 671, The Prince’s Tale

Either the pureblood rhetoric just wasn’t strong in those days, or his mother didn’t tell him about that.

...“Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?”

James lifted an invisible sword.

“’Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.”

Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him.

“Got a problem with that?”

“No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy--”

DH 671-2, The Prince’s Tale

It seems that most people just follow familial preferences. As to why Snape wants to be in Ravenclaw over Slytherin, my preferred interpretation is that he had a family legacy, knew that Slytherin rewarded the ambitious and clever, and that Slughorn, the head of Slytherin house, had a knack for making the kind of connections that a poor, clever boy would need to succeed.

Nevertheless, once Snape was in Slytherin, the odds were stacked against him. The house in that era was full of people who would later be Death Eaters. “Dark Magic” wasn’t frowned upon among his housemates, and siding with Voldemort wasn’t yet widely acknowledged as a transgression by wider society.

“No, no, but believe me, [Sirius’ parents] thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having pure-bloods in charge. They weren’t alone either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true colors, who thought he had the right idea about things.…” OotP 112

Additionally, people like Bellatrix were in the years above him, and given how Fred and George acted with younger students, I think it’s highly likely younger students had to find a place in the hierarchy or be the target of ‘pranks.’ He was a halfblood, after all, and dirt poor.

Snape knew these people. He ate with them, slept with them, and went to class with them. It is so much easier to understand and befriend someone you spend time with. I’d say that most people who subscribe to problematic ideologies aren’t just awful to be around all the time, or else these movements wouldn’t gain any traction. They’re likely funny and nice to be around if you’re not on their bad side.

In addition to strong peer pressure to befriend the people who would be death eaters, he was also bullied four to one. His bullies received protection from the headmaster when he was nearly killed or permanently maimed. They were popular and well liked.

The best analogy I’ve heard to describe Snape's Hogwarts situation is that he’s a kid in a rough neighborhood who joins the local gang. It provides protection and the hope of social mobility, and from his perspective, the other gang fights just as dirty (his treatment by the marauders). He doesn’t stop to think that the system is flawed, or that the gang’s very existence indicates the failure of authority and threatens its members. He just sees himself as a kid with nothing who needs help with protection and advancement. We know that Voldemort hasn’t shown his true colors, and it’s possible he showed different faces to different people.

‘Now, yer mum an’ dad were as good a witch an’ wizard as I ever knew. Head Boy an’ Girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst’ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get ’em on his side before ... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin’ ter do with the Dark Side.

‘Maybe he thought he could persuade ’em ... maybe he just wanted ’em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Hallowe’en ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an’ – an’ –’ (“The Keeper of the Keys”)

Dumbledore’s cited as the reason they turned him down, not their blood status. I think there’s evidence that the wholesale anti-muggleborn campaign wasn’t a huge part of the first wizarding war, and wasn’t implemented until the second, even if there was anti-muggle propaganda. (Muggle=/=muggleborn). It’s implied that Tobias is abusive and that Snape hates him for what he did to him and his mother; it’s implied that faced class prejudice by the muggles around him as well:

“I know who you are. You’re that Snape boy! They live down Spinner’s End by the river,” she told Lily, and it was evident from her tone that she considered the address  a poor recommendation.

DH 665, The Prince’s Tale

When you read stories about people who are able to escape cycles of gang violence and poverty, there’s almost always someone who lifts them out. There’s someone who pushes them, or extends a hand, or believes in them. There are community outreach programs, or churches, or an English teacher that pushed them to do better and try out for a scholarship. That person is usually someone who knows what it’s like and knows how hard it is to get out.

Snape doesn’t seem to get that support anywhere. Slughorn doesn’t seem to notice him, for whatever reason. Lily doesn’t approve of his friends, but also doesn’t understand at all what the pull is--that it’s hard to swim against the current of what everyone else is saying, despite the fact that she feels the same pressure to end her friendship with Snape.

“… thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying. “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Every and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Marry Macdonald the other day?”

DH 673, The Prince’s Tale

In the very same conversation, the fact that Snape is not allowed to share what happened to him with Lupin and the werewolf incident means that Lily will never be able to understand what Snape is facing: That the leader of the good guys makes excuses for and protects people who recklessly endanger the lives of others.

“And you’re being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Wollow, and James Potter saved you from whatever’s down there--”

Snape’s whole face contorted and he spluttered, “Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends’ too!...”

DH 674, The Prince’s Tale

Later in the year after SWM, she tells Snape this:

“None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you.”

DH 675 The Prince’s Tale

She expects him to reject all of his classmates and stand against the tide, despite the fact that she knows how hard it is to do that and can’t comprehend why he sticks with his classmates. She expects him to be grateful to James Potter as if what he did was altruistic, because the Headmaster swore Snape to secrecy and he keeps his promises, despite the fact that someone else was spreading the story. (The fact that she says she heard it instead of talking about it like its common knowledge implies that she heard it from a friend, so our friends the Marauders likely weren’t keeping their lips zipped even if Snape was.)

I don’t say this to shift the blame away from Snape to Lily in regards to Snape joining the Death Eaters. I just want to point out that Lily wasn't someone who could help him break the cycle. He didn’t squander some chance she offered him. She just wasn’t enough to break him out--not empathetic, motivated, or well-informed enough. (I think the fact that they were peers plays a big role in that).

Ultimately, Snape did choose to join the Death Eaters. He did yield to peer pressure. He did obey his assignment and report the prophecy to Voldemort. He spent his youth yielding, following the path in front of him, and choosing what was probably the easier choice: stick with your group, find powerful friends, do what they want, and don’t ask too many questions about their methods. That’s what makes his decision to betray Voldemort so powerful to me.

Here’s part of the passage when Snape betrays Voldemort:

...The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone...His fear infected Harry too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over his shoulder wondering what it was that Snape was waiting for--

Then a sliding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air. Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees and his wand had flown out of his hand.

“Don’t kill me!”

DH 676, The Prince’s Tale

He was terrified. He knew he was caught between the world’s two most powerful wizards, but it was worth it if he could save his childhood friend.

Then when Lily dies:

“Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the share and color of Lily Evans’s eyes, I am sure?”

“DON’T!” bellowed Snape. “Gone...dead...”

“Is this remorse, Severus?”

“I wish..I wish I were dead....”

“And what use would that be to anyone?” said Dumbledore coldly.

DH 678, The Prince’s Tale

Whatever motivation Snape had before is gone. A person’s life who is not his own is worth more than his own, and he’s drowning in guilt. From now on, Snape works to be useful in saving Harry’s life, and later many lives, at risk of death. His choices are a black mark on his record, likely making it difficult for him to get a job when he’s been tried as a Death Eater, and all of his wizarding connections are Death Eaters or their associates. He has no money or influence. Dumbledore hires him.

So Lupin has a single ailment and faces constant social and legal discrimination. He constantly tries to undermine people’s expectations about werewolves by being mild, but unfortunately is too afraid of rejection and its consequences to stand up against bad behavior or take full responsibility for his failings. He has friends who support him, but do it by engaging in risky behavior. He does not stop them. Perhaps he fears exposure and expulsion. Perhaps he just likes belonging for once. Either way, he does not come clean until forced to.

Snape is different; instead of facing outright rejection, he’s from a poor background and grows up surrounded by peers who join something somewhere between a gang and a cult while being bullied by people groomed by a rival organization. The headmaster of his school supports the rival organization and swears him to secrecy about an incident when they endangered his life, sending the message that his life is worthless. That same group continues to publicly bully him. He continues down this path until he realizes that it endangers something he cares about, and makes a decision that puts him at risk of being killed by the two most powerful wizards alive. He changes course.

Snape seems to view his problems as challenges facing him, whereas Lupin sees his problems as part of who he is, and not something he can change. Lupin seems to accept what happens to him in a fatalist kind of way. He sees what happens as inevitable and somewhat out of his control, whereas Snape never seems to blame his circumstances for him becoming a death eater, even though they clearly limited his options. I think that attitude matters. However, because Lupin’s facing a fictional magical malady, it’s difficult to fully blame him for that attitude.

Both Lupin and Snape have to react to powerful societal pressure that makes it difficult for them to succeed. Comparing them is apples and oranges at best, because their circumstances were so different. I don’t think you can judge either’s morality based on group identity, though.

3. Finally, they both act as a window on James: who he was, and what he means to Harry, who never knew him. That means in some way, they help pass on his parental legacy to orphaned Harry.

Hogwarts is Harry’s home, which means that the teachers are more than just teachers, but play a symbolic parental role in his life.

Hogwarts was the first and best home he had known. He and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys, had all found home here.

DH 697, The Forest Again

You can’t understand Harry without realizing what he lacks: a loving home and living parents. He’s always looking into the past to find his parents, and is saddled with a legacy he struggles to understand--why did he live, who were his parents, and what does he need to do now?

Lupin and Snape also share a connection with Harry that goes beyond a normal teacher-student relationship, unlike McGonagall or Flitwick. Snape and Lupin are more personally connected to Harry than the other professors because they know Harry’s parents and went to school with them. I will mostly focus on James from here on out since we know so little about Lily personally and Harry mostly tries to emulate or avoid his father’s behavior and legacy.

They’re also the last people who knew James to survive, and they die almost at the same time. They’re the only teachers apart from Dumbledore who give Harry private lessons. More importantly, these lessons are all tied thematically to Harry’s past. Harry’s experience with dementors and the patronus charm are his first re-encounter with his parents and his past.

Terrible though it was to hear his parents’ last moments replayed inside his head, these are the only times Harry had heard their voices since he was a very small child. But he’d never be able to produce a proper patronus if he half wanted to hear his parents again.

PoA 243, The Patronus

In the end of PoA, Harry sees himself and mistakenly thinks it’s his father.

“Come on!” he muttered, staring about. “Where are you? Dad, come on--”

But no one came. Harry raised his head to look atet he circle of dementors across the lake. One of them was lowering its hood. It was time for the rescuer to appear--but no one was coming to help this time--

And then it hit him--he understood. He hadn’t seen his father--he had seen himself--

Harry flung himself out from behind the bush and pulled out his want.

“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” he yelled.

PoA 411, Hermione’s Secret

So the patronus itself is linked up with Harry’s past, and his coming-of-age. He doesn’t rely on others to save him, but must do it himself. (Though Harry’s never really trusted the adults to save him.)  It’s interesting to note that Harry actually learns the Patronus charm under Lupin’s tutelage.

On the other hand, Snape introduces Harry to the unpleasant side of his father’s legacy. Through Snape, we see that James wasn’t just a little cocky, but a bully.

“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him. “I don't want you to make him apologize,” Lily shouted, rounding on James. “You're as bad as he is.” “What?” yelped James. “I'd NEVER call you a--you-know-what!” “Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can--I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.” She turned on her heel and hurried away.

....

He had no desire at all to return to Gryffindor Tower so early, nor to tell Ron and Hermione what he had just seen. What was making Harry feel so horrified and unhappy was not being shouted at or having jars thrown at him; it was that he knew how it felt to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers, knew exactly how Snape had felt as his father had taunted him, and that judging from what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him. OotP, Snape’s Worst Memory, emphasis added

It’s interesting note that Harry fails to learn Occlumency from Snape. (In fact, we never see Harry use magical skills he learned from Snape apart from Expelliarmus, which is...important). At the same time, he gains an important perspective.

You can’t have James without this part of him. However kind James was to Lupin, however brave James was when he saved his wife, he was neither kind nor brave when he bullied Snape. It’s uncomfortable and awkward, but it’s important.

When he had finished, neither Sirius nor Lupin spoke for a moment. Then Lupin said quietly, “I wouldn’t like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen —”

“I’m fifteen!” said Harry heatedly.

OotP

Harry rejects the idea that actively bullying someone is just folly of youth. He knows what it’s like to be disenfranchised. Regardless of what Snape and James’ relationship was, he didn’t deserve that kind of humiliation. And Lupin watched, and defends him. Harry has to grapple with that.

Ultimately, Snape and Lupin do more than just connect him to his past. They also teach him his two signature spells, Expelliarmus and Expecto Patronum. One saves his soul, and one saves his life and frees the wizarding world from Voldemort because of Voldemort’s fractured soul.

Snape and Lupin as moral counterpoints

How do we evaluate this:

“I’d never have believed this,” Harry said. “The man who taught me to fight dementors--a coward.”*****5

DH 213, The Bribe

and this?

“Albus Severus, you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.

DH 758, Seventeen years later

Ultimately, I don’t think it’s really that useful to pit two people with different backgrounds against each other. At the same time, they represent two different halves of a question: when it comes down to it, should we try to be kind or brave? I don’t think you have to pick one, but when pursuing the two, there are bound to be moments of conflict.

I always come back to the lyrics to Last Midnight from Sondheim’s Into the Woods.******6

You're so nice You're not good You're not bad You're just nice I'm not good I'm not nice I'm just right I'm the witch You're the world

Snape doesn’t care about being nice. I think this is where most non-Snape fans start pulling out the pitchforks and torches. Snape isn’t nice, and he’s not nice to kids. He’s not nurturing.*******7 He’s abrasive, allergic to coddling, and petty when he can get away with it. In fact, most of the people he’s ‘nice’ to are significantly more powerful than him, or someone he needs to be on good terms with.

Lupin is nice. He’s mild. He’s often kind. However, he often picks being liked over standing up for something.

What does that result in? He doesn’t stand up for Snape. The bullying continues and keeps Snape firmly on his path. He wins the respect of the Gryffindors with the Snape Boggart incident but loses whatever credibility he had to tell Snape to ‘put their past behind him.’

On the other hand, Neville’s bravery in DH was nurtured by Lupin’s confidence. Neville kept hope alive and led a rebellion. Lupin is one of the few adults that Harry fully respects and trusts up until the Grimmauld place confrontation. (He likes Hagrid and Molly, but doesn’t necessarily trust them to make decisions in their best interest, while he usually respects Lupin’s judgement). Harry loves him, and it’s because he loved him and watched him die that he needs to act and fight back against Voldemort.

Ultimately, Harry’s relationship with James and the adults who pass on his legacy is one of the most important symbolic relationships in the book. The thematic resolution of the series is Harry’s act of sacrificial love.

He did not know what to feel, except shock at the way Snape had been killed, and the reason for which it had been done....

...He could not bear to look at any of the other bodies, to see who else had died for him. He could not bear to join the Weasleys, could not look into their eyes, when if he had given himself up in the first place, Fred might never had died...

He turned away and ran up the marble staircase. Lupin, Tongs...He yearned not to feel....He wished he could rip out his heart, his innards, everything that was screaming inside of him.

To escape into someone else’s head would be a blessed relief....Nothing that even Snape had left him could be worse than his own thoughts.

DH 660-662, The Prince’s Tale

He rushes to the headmaster’s office to escape into Snape's memories. His memories convince Harry that sacrificing himself is the expedient thing to do, and he heads to the Forbidden Forest. To enable is last sacrifice, he uses the Resurrection stone to witness his parents and his father’s friends. Their combined testimony is enough to ameliorate his personal fears about following through with this final act.

Lupin and Snape leave entirely different legacies behind. Lupin encourages and inspires. As an authority figure, he gives people like Neville space to grow and his compassion towards Harry gives him the strength to face his demons. Harry’s decision in DH to die must have something to do with the kindness he was shown, and the sacrifices people who loved him made for him, of which Lupin is a part. Despite what he saw in Princes’ Tale, Snape wasn’t one of the people who’d make an appearance with the Resurrection stone.

Yet Snape sacrificed his life for Harry and the wizarding world, entities that Snape didn’t seem to like and that certainly weren’t kind to him. His form of bravery is about endurance, tenacity, and willingness to do what is right even when you hate your allies and no one else is going to credit you for what you do. And that’s very Harry. Even if he hates Draco, he’s not about to let him die if he can help it. Harry has much more in common with Snape than Lupin, I think.

Since this is about souls, let’s return to the Patronus charm. Snape’s not the kind of person who typically inspires that kind of emotion required to cast a Patronus in others, at least from what we see in Harry’s perspective. Yet because he has experienced that love, he can cast it and shows Harry what needs to be done. Snape enables Harry to dive under the ice. Lupin’s the kind of person who can inspire a patronus, but isn’t the one to make the sacrifice play until after Harry confronts him about his duty to his family. Ultimately, though, they both sacrifice themselves in the Battle of Hogwarts.

* Ever since I realized how blatantly tangential Order of Merlin must be to Snape’s character motivation, that line has frustrated me to no end. There’s no way frothing-at-the-mouth PoA Snape just really coveted that Order of Merlin. He’s often petty, yeah, but if Lupin believes it’s just about that and has nothing to do with Snape’s real conviction about how dangerous Lupin’s actions were, he’s deluding himself. I hate that he passes it on to his students.

**Yes, I am making up words today. Lupin’s faces prejudice and discrimination on a social level enforced by increasingly powerful discriminatory laws.

*** It’s worth noting that if we take every book as equally valid canon, then there’s either widespread ignorance towards lycanthropy, as Lockhart convinces everyone he was able to “cure” the Wagga-Wagga werewolf, and as teenage Horcrux!Riddle said Hagrid raised werewolf cubs under his bed, or else lycanthropy is actually a wide range of conditions under a wolfy umbrella ranging from treatable to incurable. Lupin is our primary source for lycanthropy: he’s the one who tells us about Greyback, for example. If we hold the first two books as equally valid, then perhaps we only know about Lupin’s particular type of condition. That’s the Watsonian analysis, anyways.

****4 These footnotes are getting ridiculous. Basically, there’s no consensus on what Dark Magic is, and on what basis it’s Evil. This essay goes into things that are labelled as curses. I’m inclined to believe that the vast majority of Dark Magic is just Magic We Don’t Like for Reasons.

The definition of what is and isn't considered Dark Magic is never explained: often it just seems to mean "a curse I don't approve of".  Even "curse" has never been satisfactorily defined, but we can certainly say that not all curses are regarded as evil, since some appear to be on the Hogwarts curriculum, and are certainly performed without censure.

*****5 While I paired the quotes at the top of this section together for dramatic effect, it’d be a shame not to look at the context of the Lupin fight.

“I thought you’d say [that your mission was top secret],” said Lupin, looking disappointed. But I might still be of some use to you. You know what I am and what I can do. I could come with you to provide protection. There would be no need to tell me exactly what you were up to. Harry hesitated. It was a very tempting offer.

Hermione then asks about Tonks.

“I’m pretty sure my father would have wanted to know why you aren’t sticking with your own kid, actually”... ...“I’d never have believed this,” Harry said. “The man who taught me to fight dementors--a coward.”

...“Parents shouldn’t leave their kids unless--unless they’ve got to.”

...“I know I shouldn’t have called him a coward.”“No, you shouldn’t,” said Ron at once. “But he’s acting like one. “ “All the same...” said Hermione.

“I know,” said Harry. “But if it makes him go back to Tonks, it’ll be worth it, won’t it?”

He could not keep the plea out of his voice. Hermione looked sympathetic, Ron uncertain. Harry looked down at his feet, thinking of his father. Would James have backed Harry in what he had said to Lupin, or would he have bene angry at how his son had treated his old friend?

DH 213, The Bribe

Harry feels personally betrayed that someone who has a family and child would abandon them. Here he is unyielding and accusing to someone he cares about in the hopes that they re-evaluate what matters. It’s a rather Snape-like tactic, actually. Or else a Dumbledore one.

I love the dialogue in this scene, but have some major issues with how Harry’s internalization drops out the window for shock value. JKR does the same thing when has Harry pull the Veritaserum trick in HBP. I don’t like it.

******6 The witch and Snape aren’t perfect analogues, since she’s decidedly more amoral in my opinion, but they’re both contractually-motivated characters whose humanity is shown by their (platonic/familial) love for a more “innocent” character and the guilt at the innocent character’s sacrificial death. Guilt doesn’t lead the witch to do anything productive, and for Snape it does, which is where they diverge on the character path.

*******7 Draco may be an exception to this. However, watching Snape struggle to build rapport with Draco in HBP leads me to think that while Snape’s been on Draco’s side, he’s still not “nurturing,” or in other words, good at cultivating trust and encouraging the strong and wholesome parts of someone’s personality to grow.  

[succulentsunrise]

Where the Fire Lilies Grow

Content: SFW!

Time to see how far Tani gets in the Royal Knights Exam!! 

Also, a guest appearance of @thoughtfullyrainynightmare‘s Solara Equinox! She is so cool, I couldn’t help but have her here (with her permission, ofc!!) 🥰

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Chapter 4: The Trial

“You learn something valuable from all of the significant events and people, but you never touch your true potential until you challenge yourself to go beyond imposed limitations.” Roy T. Bennett

“They don’t seem to be taking the bait,” Tani remarked quietly.

The group had been holed up behind the remnants of a ruin for quite a while now, all slightly scattered in preparation for an ambush. The forest behind them provided some cover for them as well. They had chosen these further away ruins in anticipation of the other team advancing on them, but they were nowhere to be seen.

“Anyone have any detection abilities?” Adrastea asked, her eyes scanning the area.

Gamma shook his head decisively.

“If we were in a more fiery environment, perhaps,” he started, but shook his head again. “No, no.”

“I could try to locate them, but it would take a considerable chunk of my mana,” Tani offered hesitantly.

In such a large area, using the spell would drain most of her mana, probably. Unless one of the other group’s members used water magic while she was using hers, she’d have to go through the whole area slowly and carefully.

“Do it,” Adrastea snapped, her brow furrowed. “We are on a time limit.”

Tani gave her a glare, but dropped on her knees to the ground.

“You better protect the crystal then. This will take a while - and suppress your mana.”

She placed both of her hands on the ground and took a deep breath. Nature was her element, her home. She could do this.

“「The Thirst of the Cacti」,” Tani spoke, drawing on her mana to create a fat spine of a cactus. Its roots rumbled to the earth, vanishing from sight.

Still, she could feel them moving underground, seeking, being drawn onto mana signals. She was grateful for the silence and tension around her, as her teammates waited for results. Tani concentrated on the roots as they stretched beyond their natural limits in their thirst. They would only stop growing once they found what they were looking for. The more mana she poured into it, the longer the roots spread. Then - water. Yes, she could sense water.

“They are doing something to the east of us. In the forest on the other side of the battlefield, I believe,” Tani informed her team quickly. “One of them is a water mage. My roots picked up his magic. Gamma, can you throw that far?”

“Not in a million years,” the blonde boy answered, glancing towards the eastern parts.

“Let’s move forward, to the ruins in the middle,” Adrastea suggested, wrapping silken scarves around the crystal to both protect and move it.

“I should be able to hit them from there,” Gamma confirmed, also getting up.

Tani held a hand above her cactus, looking fondly at it. It would have to wither now without a source of mana, unfortunately. She moved to be behind Adrastea, protecting the rear while Gamma took the front. They moved quickly. They’d have to hope the other three hadn’t noticed anything, or otherwise Gamma’s projectiles wouldn’t be able to hit them. They duck behind another wall, this time all together.

“「Silken Embrace」,” Adrastea chanted, wrapping further layers of silk around the crystal.

It looked more like a cocoon than a crystal by now. Gamma lifted himself up to the wall of the ruins without much trouble. Tani quickly entwined her fingers and cast another spell: 「Ginseng Gaze」. From her fingers flew red, star-shaped petals of a ginseng flower, entwining together into a plant. She gave it to the blonde boy, who tucked it behind his ear.

“What’s--oh!” he started, but stopped as he seemed to realize its effects.

“It’s helping you work with your mana,” Tani still explained. “You should have better control over your abilities.”

At least she hoped it did. Icree went on and on about how she should learn about other types of magic so that her magic could support them better. Knowing is stronger than any amount of mana, Icree kept telling her. Tani had only ever augmented her friends’ abilities. It had been a little bit of trial-and-error-thing even then. A giant mass of hot magma suddenly appeared in Gamma’s hand, as the boy smiled widely. He stood on the wall now, a wave of heat pulsing from his magic. There was no doubt that he was a noble with an intense pool of mana. Gamma jumped onto another segment of the wall, at the same time twisting his body and throwing the blazing chunk of molten lava and rock towards the forest. The impact was devastating: trees fell from a large area where it hit, and Tani could swear the earth itself rumbled a little.

“I missed, but I can see them now,” Gamma commented cheerfully, hopping behind the wall again. “My attack’s still sloppy, the captain’s going to kill me if she sees it.”

“I’ll go--” Adrastea began, but the boy shook his head.

“I won’t miss next time,” he said confidently. “But I can’t promise I won’t hit you by accident.”

Tani peeked at the other group that was running back to the cover of the trees. They were protecting the crystal with water magic, clearly planning to counter the powerful fire-based magic that Gamma was using.

“Could you two work together? They are protecting the crystal with water now. If you could combo--”

“Absolutely not,” Adrastea scoffed, glaring at Gamma.

The boy simply jumped back on top of the wall and conjured another ball of magma. Tani could see that he was trying to shape it into something of a spear, but his control wasn’t good enough for it. With almost frustration and anger, Gamma threw the malformed chunk at the other party. It was rather terrifying, especially when Tani knew he didn’t have good control of it. That kind of a magic could easily kill. Another impact shook the ground beneath their feet. It was a small enough shake to make her wonder if she wasn’t just imagining it.

“Crystal destroyed!” a voice bellowed in the air - the announcement of their victory.

Gamma looked back at them proudly, not seemingly even tired after the two throws. He had easily pierced through whatever watery barricade had been erected before the crystal. Tani swept her face with her sleeve, drying the sweat that had formed there. She’d have to recharge before the next battle. She had very little mana left after all that. They returned to the platform together, the wind up there bringing a welcoming breeze to Tani’s face. She was worried. They would be going against Eric’s team next, that was for sure. Gamma and Adrastea were becoming more and more unwilling to work with each other, and their attributes were incompatible. Gamma’s magma could easily burn her flowers or Adrastea’s silk. Tani couldn’t help but feel like she shouldn’t be the one making strategies in this group. She wasn’t good at them.

“Good luck, Ben!” she heard Gamma wish someone.

A blonde, middle-aged man with quite fuzzy sideburns waved at them. He had a calm posture, smiling back at Gamma.

“Be careful who you wish good luck,” the man answered. “We might fight each other next.”

“Bring it on!”

Tani would have loved to sit down somewhere, but everyone else was standing. She withdrew to her shell, not taking part in discussions and barely looking at the fights. Magic clashed against magic, the battlefield changed in front of her eyes, and the first match-up finished. She could feel her mana returning ever so slowly, trickling back. She wouldn’t have enough for the next fight. By now it was clear - they would face Eric’s team. That team also had Ben, Gamma’s squadmate. They’d know two attributes from the team, but that was no advantage. Eric and Ben knew their attributes as well. On the changed battlefield, another battle began. Tani was too dazed to concentrate on it. She only noticed Gamma leave from her side quietly to meet with the just returning young lord Vermillion. Leopold Vermillion was the younger brother of Fuegoleon and Mereleona Vermillion, a talented fire mage in his own right. He had the characteristic orange hair, as well as the red markings around his eyes - similar to the ones his siblings had. Gamma spoke with the young Lord for a brief moment, both serious and swift about it. The time between Tani’s first and next battle felt too short, even if the pause stretched further. With her captain’s battle quickly finished, Tani and her group were thrown back into the battlefield, off to face Ben, Eric and their third team member. Brad was a brown-haired member of the Coral Peacocks. He looked a bit more nervous than the calm Ben and confident Eric. As they separated to their respective places, Tani turned to her team once more.

“Eric uses sand magic,” she told them honestly, giving them a worried glance.

“Ben has very nice copper magic,” Gamma shared in turn. “He has excellent control over it. I can’t wait to fight him!”

Adrastea looked like she was fuming inside.

“I’m not going to stay on the sidelines this time!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I need to show that I am a capable Magic Knight, and I can’t do that if you two do all the work.”

Tani grimaced. That would mean fighting in close-quarters.

“I can protect the crystal, but I’m really--”

“Good!”

“Wait, I’m fine if you want to go for the crystal this time, but--”

No sooner than the announcer had begun the match, Adrastea disappeared in a glimpse of an eye, the light blue silks floating in the air.

“Sorry, that might be my fault,” Gamma apologized, looking at the battlefield.

“Nevermind that,” Tani answered, frustrated. “Let’s find a defensible spot.”

There was a small elevated platform not far from them, which seemed to have some kind of a small mining cavern. They retreated there, with Gamma creating a wall of magma behind which they hid their crystal. It wasn’t the best creation, and likely anyone who would find them would be able to figure out it was behind the molten rock wall - but it was the best they could do for the time being. There were two entrances to the small cavern: one that connected to another platform through a bridge, and another one that led to a small ledge. Each of them guarded one of the entrances, nervously glancing at each other. Minutes went by slowly and painfully. Almost a quarter had passed when Gamma spoke up.

“I could go scout around a bit.”

“I’m--well, sure,” Tani answered hesitantly, looking at the magma wall.

Surely it would stand, even if she herself had very little mana to speak of. She nodded to Gamma still once more, and retreated closer to the wall. The blonde boy moved to the ledge, and disappeared from sight. It didn’t take long for Tani to hear a sound of impact. Gamma had clearly met someone out there.

“「Ginseng Gaze」,” she muttered impatiently, growing the same red ginseng flower and attaching it to her belt.

“Did you sense me, or are you just being careful?” a voice suddenly asked.

Tani looked to the entrance that led to the bridge. Eric was standing there, the light brown hair being tousled by the wind.

“I think you might be hiding the crystal,” he continued. “Which is silly, considering everyone knows you can’t attack.”

“Just come at me already,” Tani answered, glancing to the other entrance.

She couldn’t sense her teammates anywhere closeby. She drew out her sword. Eric moved his hands to create a missile of sand, which she deftly dodged. It hit the magma wall with a dull impact sound. Then, a little crack.

“Not a very strong wall!” the brunette man exclaimed, starting to throw his magic more rapidly.

“「Ginkgo’s Embrace」,” Tani shouted over him, holding her hands in front of her as fists.

Strong branches with fan-like leaves appeared around the man, clutching onto him and pushing him down. Her hands were shaking as she was holding onto the last ripples of her mana. The pool was empty, and she could see the sand gathering around Eric. This spell was one of her newest ones, and she didn’t have proper hold of it yet. On top of that, she didn’t have the energy to uphold it. Every trash that Eric managed weakened the branches. It didn’t take long for him to break free and continue his barrage of sand missiles. Though Tani attempted to block them with her sword, the power of it sent her against the magma wall itself. No matter how much she struggled, she had no mana, and she had no teammates to come rescue her. The shattering noise behind her marked the shattering of her dreams and her resolve.

“Crystal destroyed!”

Eric held his hand to her in an uncharacteristically friendly fashion. Tani took it quietly, letting him help her to her feet.

“Good fight,” he said confidently.

“Yeah,” she answered flatly, trying to answer his smile.

They walked outside together, looking around for their team members. Gamma and Ben appeared quickly, laughing together. They were both a bit scorched. Seemingly they had had a good fight. Tani sighed, and began to approach the viewing platform again. The quick steps of the younger boy reached her quickly, as Gamma sped up to walk with her.

“Adrastea was super close to breaking the other crystal,” he complained cheerfully. “She wasn’t a good match for the other guy, though - I saw him use fire as well.”

“Did you try to go help her?”

Small shame rose to the boy’s cheeks.

“No, I was having too much fun fighting with Ben,” he confessed.

“Can’t you fight him outside of competitions?” Tani asked rather sharply.

“Not recently. He is heaps ahead of me. When the captain takes us to the hot springs, he is there in an instant!”

“What does that mean? What hot springs?”

“In the strong mana region, there’s this mountain trail,” Gamma explained eagerly. “It's a really hot area - the air burns your lungs and you sweat like a pig just by standing there. The top part spews continuously lava, but during night it turns into a sweet hot spring! Captain Mereleona takes us there to practise controlling our mana skin.”

“I see,” Tani answered thoughtfully, avoiding looking at the boy for a little while.

It could be a chance to meet the Captain, couldn’t it?

“You have trouble holding up your mana skin?” she inquired carefully.

“Yep!” Gamma nodded. “Because my control is so poor, it takes me forever to climb up the mountain, and it’s a hellish journey. If I had one of your flowers, I’m sure it’d be easier.”

“If your captain takes outsiders, I wouldn’t mind that type of training myself.”

Gamma, hearing this, clapped his hands together excitedly.

“That’s a great idea! You can train me, and I can train you!” he said happily. “Even if we wouldn’t get chosen this time, there’s always the next one!”

They had reached the top of the platform once again, and Gamma sprinted towards other members of the Crimson Lion Kings. She could see the young Vermillion lord there with someone else: a woman around her own age, with beautiful sun-kissed hair and forest green eyes. The woman had a warm smile on her lips as she spoke with Leopold Vermillion. Tani was certain she had not seen that person before, but that was true for many people of the Kingdom. She simply stood by as Gamma went to talk to them. Once more, it didn’t take long for the blonde boy to come back.

“Leo seems to think it would be fine,” he said in an overly casual manner. “I’ll still need to suggest it to Captain Mereoleona.”

“Thank you, Gamma,” Tani said quietly, glancing at the other group again. “Who is that person with him?”

“Oh, her? She’s Solara,” Gamma told her happily. “A good friend of the captain.”

Tani nodded, stealing another glance at the strawberry blonde woman. She seemed like a gentle person. If Tani was any braver and not already tired from the day of fighting, she’d go introduce herself. Today, however, she had no energy. She could barely follow the rest of the battles. When Adrastea came to them and apologized for her behaviour, Tani had no mental energy to even try to advise her for the future. She watched Adrastea and Gamma make amends, though there was still tension between them. At least the knight of the Blue Rose seemed to realize that her leaving them alone had caused some trouble. As soon as the battle ended, Tani promised to be in touch with the other two, and walked home. Not just the dorms of the Azure Deer, but home.

The simple house was on the outskirts of Kikka, with a small garden on its side. No one was home when Tani stepped in - both of her parents and sister worked in the mines near Kikka, and they worked long days. She herself had worked in those mines before she had passed the entrance exam and became a Knight. She walked the small corridor to the spacious living room, and fell to the sofa. She was tired and she was sad. The only hope she held on now was that someone had noticed her efforts, or that at least she’d get to know the mysterious Mereoleona Vermillion as a consequence. She felt a bang of guilt - was she simply using Gamma to get to know his captain? No, she’d make sure that she would help the young boy too. Tani lifted her arm over her eyes and welcomed the darkness it brought to her. Sleep did not come instantly, but slowly.

Now all that was left to do was wait for the results.

[route22ny]

Sky

Perhaps this will be hard to read. Laments often are. It may bring you comfort, or it may make you angry. It may make you think more of me, or less. It may offend you. Rest assured, it offends me. So be it. 

Once upon a time, there was a man who spoke of torture as a good in and of itself, to be pursued whether it was effective or not. Who promised to use the power of the state to enact violence upon scapegoated religious and ethnic minorities. Who insisted upon framing our struggle against Mideast terror groups in the same religious terms the terrorists themselves insist upon. Who praised himself for nursing petty grudges, for treating revenge as justice. Who threatened the free press with retaliation for reporting certain truths about him. Who bragged about sexual assault. Who mocked people more brave than himself and called their bravery weakness. Who lied seemingly without strategy, as if lies were good to tell only for the telling, who showed a shocking indifference to the very concept of truth. Who praised brutal dictators for their brutal methods. Who seemed (and seems) to be receiving shadowy support from a brutal dictator. Who claimed dictatorial power for himself.

This is fine.

He appeared entirely confused about the basic facts of geopolitical reality, or of how our government works, or even of the function within our government of the role he proposed to take on. He had a clear and obvious history of fraud and hucksterism, of enriching himself at the benefit of others with less leverage, and was even engaged throughout his campaign in a lawsuit for defrauding college students, since settled for $25 million dollars. He speculated with frightening casualness about destabilizing actions: proliferation and even use of nuclear weapons, defaulting on our debts and our treaties, backing out of our most long-standing alliances. He publicly called upon the intelligence apparatuses of foreign governments to intercede in our election on his behalf, and it seems increasingly likely they may have obliged. He whipped his crowds into frenzies, then directed their ire toward journalists reporting the event, many of whom he threatened to prosecute once in power. He offered to imprison his political adversary, to the delight of his chanting crowds, who wore t-shirts decorated with the flag celebrating the war to preserve American slavery, decorated with vulgar slogans of violence and rage. He promised to steer us directly into the deadly heart of the oncoming climate catastrophe; having claimed the work of men more intelligent and knowledgeable than he was nothing but a Chinese hoax, he sneered at the very idea of new energy sources.

This is fine.

That’s a short list. It’s a hell of a short list. But wait, listen: The people went for it.

Tens of millions of people voted to make him the most powerful man in the world. He will soon have the ability to blast the planet to an irradiated cinder, if he sees fit. He will continue to run his business, which appears to involve sitting in a golden throne and putting his names on things. He's given every indication, despite some laughably thin feints toward divestment, he will run that business from the Oval Office. Maybe he’ll even put his name on new things, like laws. Laws: a whole new product line for Trump International, and a potentially lucrative one. He owes the banks of foreign powers millions and millions of dollars. One wonders what laws they’ll want passed. Word is, his first foreign trip will be to visit Vladimir Putin. Heigh-ho. 

His party is in control, too. They don't seem bothered by any of this. They're a bit more focused on providing checks and balances upon ethics watchdogs who have pointed out their party leader's multifarious and historically unprecedented infractions. They'd rather ignore those, so they can immediately—immediately—get down to the serious business of divesting millions and millions of the most vulnerable people in our society from the only chance they have at affordable health coverage. They plan to replace this program with something...someday. Their speculation so far indicates they will be replacing it with the opportunity to save up hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for medical bills if you need them someday, or, if you don't have hundreds of thousands of spare dollars, to maybe go screw yourself. So, a lot of people are going to die in coming years, that would otherwise have lived, and they're rushing to make it happen. My, look at them laugh. 

Republican lawmakers sign legislation to repeal ACA and defund women's health care access through Planned Parenthood, January 2016

Meanwhile, they're ignoring as peccadilloes the caricatured infractions of a man who intends to keep his own private security detail around him, who expounds upon provable lies, and then when exposed simply doubles down on the lie, who is considering throwing the press out of the White House, and other maneuvers straight out of the dictator handbook. It's really something to see. It's a new order, trumping the old. Isn't it great again?

Laura Ingraham, speaker at the Republican National Convention, 2016.

It’s hard to understand what people hoped for from him other than this. It’s hard not to assume they were responding to the shockingly frank bigotry, his promises to return to an earlier time, the knowing use of slogans used byracists and fascists of days past. These are certainly what seemed to generate all the most popular applause lines. But I don’t want to think that of my country or my fellow citizens. I really want it to be something else. Let us consider other possibilities. Many seem to think that a great thing about him was his frankness. They liked that he “tells it the way it is.” Then again, those same people seemed most likely to think that he didn’t really mean his more shocking proposals. It’s a bit confusing, then, parsing what is meant by ‘telling it like it is,' as it appears to rely on selective trust in insincerity. Many voters, excited by promises to “drain the swamp,” but now disappointed by the recent appointment of a Goldman Sachs foreclosure kingpin to Treasury, of a Putin-connected oil executive to State, and by other signals the new president has given about his eagerness to rob us all blind, have been admonished by a key advisor for taking his words so literally. The 'alt-right' Neo Nazis and the KKK are very excited, for what it’s worth, about the more shocking proposals, and they remain confident our new leader meant every word.

You're really going to want to go to video on this one.

Some people thought he would be less likely to make them pay more in taxes, I suppose. So perhaps at last now we know the answer to the old hypothetical about whether we’d be willing to travel through time and sacrifice our lives to prevent the rise of a self-professing tyrant. Answer: We wouldn’t even suffer a hypothetical increase in our income taxes. I'm told folks voted for Trump because they were tired of being called racist. I imagine that was hard for them—who wants to be considered racist? If this complaint is yours, I imagine reading this (if you're still reading) is also hard. I sympathize; it's not particularly easy to write. But then again, the response seems an odd retort to the complaint. If your persistent problem is people keep telling you there is spinach in your teeth, you might consider getting a mirror and taking a look, rather than voting for the Jolly Green Giant running on a platform of outlawing all floss. And, perhaps, if it is painful to be considered racist, consider this: it may be all the more painful to live under racist oppression.

KKK Newspaper, The Crusader, endorses Trump. 

Many seem to have mainly enjoyed that he wasn’t Hillary Clinton, and it’s certainly true to say many concerns and criticisms could be levied against her. But the man they voted for as an alternative already stood actualized as the cartoon parody of any potential danger she may have hypothetically posed. Bad judgment? Corruption? Fraud? A proclivity to violent retaliation? A worry about temperament? Untrustworthiness? Lack of transparency? It’s hard to believe this all had much to do with Hillary Clinton and her faults. Hard to believe this list of concerns would yours, but your acceptable alternative would be Donald Trump.

Or maybe they believed the more lurid stories, the debunked, the ridiculous. Hillary’s murdered 80 people close to her. She invented cancer and put it in your cell phone battery. She is secretly seven tiny demons all stacked up in a pantsuit and glued together with the blood of aborted fetuses. She controls the Yosemite supervolcano, along with a cabal comprised of George Soros and 17 other Jewish industrialists. I don’t know what all. I know there are people like this, who have seceded from objective reality into a dystopian alternate dimension, where they can perhaps supplement the powerlessness they feel in their lives with the comfort of false control, of being one of the few with the secret knowledge unavailable to the masses. I don’t know what to do with them, because they live in an alternate dimension. And, it must be said, I don’t think there are 63 million of them.

So here we are. In grave moral and physical danger. All of us. And for what? I’ve heard the same line again and again since the election: “America isn’t a different country today than it was before the election.” Jon Stewart trotted it out. I think I heard it from President Obama.

I fear I agree with the statement. I’m puzzled, though, because I think it is meant to be reassuring, to think we’ve always been the country capable of such a choice.

The statement doesn’t imply that we’re still great. It implies that we were never good.

It has to be admitted, people responded to Trump for what he is. Which means we are left with the statements and proposals by which he distinguished himself. And millions of us—tens of millions—preferred him specifically for his points of difference. Excited by his promises to return us to a time when our system existed only for certain people, and the preferences and needs of all others were beneath consideration, or at least willing to overlook that, in favor of some material or policy advantage somewhere. And ultimately, the reason is immaterial. A man ran for president promising to use the power of the state to bring violence to scapegoated religious and ethnic minorities, to make America torture again, to make it easier for an already-militarized police force to employ violence, who praised dictators, who bragged about sexual assault, who praised vengeance as good, who promoted as fact debunked conspiracy, who stated his determination to ignore as conspiracy what the data overwhelmingly indicates is an oncoming extinction-level event. There was some other reason to vote for him, that allowed you to overlook these facts? Save it, please. It really doesn't matter. It was a bad reason. We have seen this movie before. Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore. They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding? What am I saying here? Am I saying we are Nazis? The answer, I suppose, has to be 'no.' Only Nazis are Nazis. We are Americans. But what that will mean in decades to come—'American'—has been thrown into hazard. We used to be the sort of place that doesn't allow Donald Trumps to happen. That's gone now, along with that specific sort of trust the world once had in us. In any case, what we seem to now be trying to redefine 'American' to mean seems like a rough beast, and omnivorous. Democracy reveals us by our choices and our actions, not our intentions. We are what we are. And Donald Trump will be president.

As a result, I’m bereft. Bereft of the country I thought I was living in. Bereft of the people I thought I lived among. Bereft of what I believed was a shared direction despite divergent opinions. Bereft of a belief in the possibility of a common dialogue or even a common reality. Bereft in confidence in basic decency and intelligence. Bereft of the spiritual heritage I was born into, because of course Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters were white Christians. Christians voting for a new Herod with the power of a Caesar is a pretty good joke for the universe to tell, I suppose. He’s even promised to go after the (anchor) babies.

My translation of the Bible is full of all this toff about loving your enemy, about how love of money is the root of evil, about showing hospitality to the widow and orphan and the immigrant, and admonishments against drawing the sword lest you die on it. My reading of the Bible doesn't ask "but who's going to pay for that?" My reading of the Bible suggests to me that if you wish to pretend to care about babies unborn, maybe you shouldn’t be so hostile to the idea of making sure they’re cared for once they are born and inconveniently and expensively needy, and perhaps you shouldn’t make so many of their mothers into the welfare-queen boogie-men of your whole realpolitik, and perhaps you shouldn't make weaponry a right more important than health and food. Maybe healing and wholeness and liberty is something that should be available to even the pagan. Maybe the door is open for the tax collector and the prostitute and the Samaritan. Maybe, unencumbered by the overweening need to be perceived as correct in every moral posture, they've even entered that door ahead of us as we do our best to hold it shut against unworthy access.

Maybe I got a trash translation. Maybe the other ones are all about the joys of using political power for your own aggrandizement instead of the call to self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, about the dangers of anchor babies and welfare mothers, about how paying tax money toward a shared life is tyranny, about how with terrorists you have to kill the families, folks, believe me, kill the women and children, you’ve got to go after the families, and we’re gonna torture again, folks, we’re gonna torture, believe me…

You know what? I believe him.

WWJD Check: White Evangelicals are the group most likely favor use of torture by a military superpower. 

* * * You wake up and the sky is gone. At times that’s how it seems. You wonder at it: how could there not be a sky? What will become of us now, in this world without a sky? Was it ever there, or did we just imagine it there, as an exercise of collective will?

And then you talk to other people who insist the sky is there. They say: It’s not gone, it’s just red now. Don’t be a sore loser, just because you didn’t want it red. Accept that we did want it red. It’ll be fine if it’s red. And anyway, the banks seem to like it red. Move on with your life. Suck it up. Hope that the red sky will be as good as the blue one. But the sky isn’t red. It’s not anything. It’s just … not. It is a not-ness. An un-sky. A nothing.

And then you start talking to people who laugh, not without compassion, that you ever fell for the idea there was a sky. They say: That big vast emptiness? Oh, yes. That’s always been there for us. Is it there for you now? How… interesting. We can tell you a thing or two about that emptiness, if you’d listen. We’ve been watching it an awful long time.

American Nazi Rally, Madison Square Garden, 1939 

Future Georgia Representative and Civil Rights pioneer John Lewis, beaten by a state trooper on "Bloody Sunday" in 1965.

Oh. Will he. Will he do that.

The sky is the future. Or it was the future. That’s how it seems, at times. How odd, to speak of the future in the past tense.

But the past tense presents us with further troubles. It seems the past is gone, too.

In 1965, everybody thought King was great, and nobody tried to dismiss him by tying him to violence.

Growing up, we were taught that we were a kind and good and just nation. The story we were given was of a nation born of a righteous cause, not quite made perfect by the godlike men who forged it, but honed to apotheosis over the decades that followed. The destruction of the native nations and their people, ah, tsk, a shame, we’d change it if we could, but unfortunately in the past and unrecoverable. Slavery, a dark stain, but by now expunged entirely. Jim Crow, its shameful cousin, absorbed by a saint named King, who led a boycott (a pleasant and polite and non-disruptive one, it seems, in our memories), then stood on some stairs to give a universally-admired speech about his dream of inclusion, and then, his work seemingly accomplished, having seemingly changed minds forever, ascended harmlessly into the clouds.

Somehow we are never culpable. It was always a long time ago. Mistakes were made, but we’d never make them ourselves. It was always somebody else holding the gun, the whip. We arrived here after that, you see, born blameless, without any afterbirth or shock, into the Greatest Country in the World. Our holocausts we absolved ourselves of, because they served to illustrate not the evil we’d done, but how far we’d come from it. We stood on the prow of the ship, looking forward as we cut new water, not aft looking back at whatever may have been churned up in the wake. Not big on the rear-view mirror, us, not fans of the over-the-shoulder glance. We’d tell ourselves stories of what lay behind. We’d imagine ourselves into those stories of darker times, making ourselves the protagonists. We would have been the ones to build false walls in our home to hide slaves. We would have marched with King. We would have spoken out against the Japanese camps. We would have stood at Stonewall.

Our moral arc bends ever toward justice; an inevitable thing. That was the story.

America was great, because it was good. All the old hits.

People still alive can remember this sort of thing very well. 

This kid is probably still alive. As are most of his classmates. As are the children with whom he refused to attend school. 

This also happened within living memory. 

It's amazing what people consider communism. I mean back then, of course.

Sometimes you’d hear stories about a random injustice or brutality. A policeman who had become a little too enthusiastic. A bad apple, and surely justice was served. If not, it’d have been in the papers You’d hear about it in the papers if it hadn’t been. A gay teen beaten to death in a cornfield. A car with the banner of the struggle to preserve human slavery on the bumper sticker. The KKK marching again, how quaint. Ah, you’d think, if you were like me. We still have some work to do. Cleanup on aisle seven.

Technology has changed that. We see with new eyes now, unless we choose not to. We see videos, dozens and dozens of them now, new ones each week it seems, of police shooting unarmed black people. Again and again and again and again. Can you remember all the names? I can't anymore. And I ask myself: why can't I?

We see the speed with which so many seem willing to seek and find the nearest handy reason the victim deserved his or her fate. We see the news organizations find a Sunday School photo for the shooter and a mugshot to represent the victim. We see acquittal and acquittal and acquittal. We see failure to prosecute.

And, perhaps, we begin to wonder.

We see the people protesting, unarmed, asking only that their lives be thought to matter as much as another’s, and we see the stormtroopers with their massive guns and their tanks, arrayed against a civilian population almost reflexively, like defenses in an organism’s bloodstream mustering against a disease. And we wondered, perhaps: why do they look so much—so exactly, if we’re honest—like an occupying force? 

We saw the white ranchers seize government land, pointing their guns directly at law enforcement officials, speaking openly of armed insurrection against the government, of revolution, of war. We saw them, later, seizing a government building. They weren’t protesting after centuries seeing their children and brothers and sisters killed without consequence by authority. Rather, they didn’t want to have to pay a grazing fee. Was it with surprise that we saw it: law enforcement seemed less frightened of these white men and their guns than they had an unarmed black woman in a sundress, or a 12 year old boy playing in a park? Were we surprised to see they seemed so level-headed in this situation, so much less likely to respond with immediate lethal force?

Why, those fellows with their arsenal didn’t even get convicted. They were less threatening to the system, apparently, than a man, arms up, lying on the ground next to his autistic ward begging not to be shot. (He was shot.) We might contrast to the treatment of the protesters at Standing Rock, and wonder…is the Holocaust against native people relegated only to the past? Would we change it, if we could?

We wonder: Are we seeing the system breaking down, unable to cope with new challenges? Or are we seeing a system working exactly as it’s always intended? Do we as a collective of 'white' people secretly want the police to control brown people by force? Are we secretly hoping that force will prove lethal, only occasionally enough to soothe our consciences, but frequently enough to promote an order less immediately costly, than the pain of culpability, than the justice of restitution?

If not, why are prosecutions so rare, and convictions even less so?

If not, why aren’t we protesting these killings? Why aren’t we in the streets?

Do all lives matter? If so, why wouldn’t we act like it?

White Christian America reveres Dr. King, it should be noted. You remember him—the peaceful guy who gave the speech that ended racism. If Facebook and newspaper op eds are any measure, we white Christians can’t stop bringing him up, almost as a cudgel, an admonishment to those today who would dare ask for their own human dignity, for not doing it as antiseptically as we remember it being done by him. And perhaps people begin to wonder: Why was King enshrined as 'the peaceful one' only once he was peacefully dead? Is King’s being safely dead our favorite thing about him? These days, we white Christians can claim to have brought his dream to reality (the white guy is usually the hero of the story in the movie), and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will not protest—and we white Christians don’t like protest. Heavens, no—it’s so divisive. Dr. King, he wouldn’t approve of this protest, nor that one, and certainly not that one. His protests were so polite! Why, nobody had any problem with them at all! Dr. King agrees with all of us in white Christian America so much, these days. Oh my, he never stops agreeing with us. Just ask us; we’ll tell you. Yes, and what ever happened to Dr. King, anyway, after he gave that speech that ended all inequality forever?

But no matter, I told myself. That’s a dying strain, it's not who we are these days. That’s just a few bad apples. We’ve made so much progress. They’ll exhaust themselves in a final futile sputter. We’re just about to turn the corner. Sure there are racists, bigots, white supremacists, lost-causers, and they're loud, but they're dying out, and they know it. They'll eventually run somebody on an overtly racist platform, and they'll lose huge—I disagree with Republicans, but most of them won't stand for stark white supremacy, surely, and obviously Christians won't be able to align themselves with it — and we’ll show them it’s no use, and they’ll retreat, retrench to even positions even more compromised, less fortified, further back, smaller, diminished. We’re a better country than that.

But then Donald Trump, a half-rate and transparently obvious bullshit artist, a greasy reality TV star most skilled at demonstrating his manifest ignorance, promising mostly the goodness of violence and the strength of vengeance, offering to return America to an earlier time, railing against the inconvenience of practicing sensitivity toward the perspectives of others (he called it 'political correctness'), received 63 million geographically-convenient votes to become the most powerful person in the world. Perhaps, if you’re like me, you took a moment then to ponder that statement about bad apples and what they do to the whole barrel. The meaning of it. And, perhaps, another saying, about recognizing a tree by its fruit. And, it must be said, though we refuse to face it: In America, our trees have long borne a strange fruit.

  Here’s what we’ve lost, or at least what I’ve lost: The assumption of goodness’s inevitability. The assumption of goodness of those around me. The assumption of good intent in their hearts. The assumption that the future is still there. The assumption that most of us will die of old age. Here's what I've lost, the one favor Donald Trump may ever do for me: The wool from my eyes. An illusion, particularly a pretty and a convincing one, can be a painful thing to lose.

I’ve gained a vision of tens of millions of people desperate to bend history’s arc back toward an injustice that favored them, and willing to fight for that regression, willing even to risk species-wide extinction rather than suffer the pain of facing the consequences of their own mountainous indifference.

The moral arc of the universe may bend toward justice, but the gears of history grind the weak. There are people now who are giddy, almost with the air of a teenager behind the wheel of a sweet-sixteen hot rod, to test out their perceived new warrant to deliver retributive and violent indifference to the people they deem unlovely. A headscarf yanked off here. A slur shouted in public there. A swastika scrawled on a wall here. A Neo Nazi propagandist advising the President of the United States in the corridors of power there. A crowd of seig heils in a government building, in praise of our new leader here. A few million children stripped of health insurance with no serious attempt at a replacement there.

They think this is allowed now. Sixty-three million people, complacently or enthusiastically or ignorantly aligned with white supremacy, gave them the idea it is. It’s going to be our job to show them otherwise. We must show them otherwise. And. Even if you voted for Trump—especially if you voted for Trump—the door is wide open for you to join in that struggle. You show them otherwise, too. All you have to do to join...is join. Your intentions were good? Excellent. I believe you. I've badly misunderstood you? Excellent. I believe you. Now, show it. Show your good intention by your good actions. You, like all of us, possess tremendous moral authority. Don't lend it any longer to those who have promised to squander it on atrocity. They seem intent on doing as they say. If you wait too long, they will leave you with none left to withdraw. Use it to protect those different than you. Use it against your own advantage, for the advantage of those who have none. And. If you, like me, did not vote for Trump, there is the great danger of complicity. You will be offered, if you, like me are white and straight and employed and well-off and cis-gendered and able-bodied and healthy and property-owning, the opportunity to be indifferent. Resist that current.

If the universe bends toward justice, the engine it has chosen for this good work is the hard and sacrificial struggle of good people willing to acknowledge the basic humanity of all other people. People who don’t think profitability is the foundational metric of goodness. People who don't think life holds a value that begins at conception but ends the moment it enters poverty. People bold and willing to become peaceful pebbles in the gears. To give time and money. To link arms with a married gay couple. To take sides in a cafeteria skirmish with a transgendered teen. To take a truncheon in the head for a Muslim. To paraphrase Jesus (another favorite who those of us in white Christian America appear by our words and deeds to consider as safely dead as Dr. King): to live, first you must die.

Or, as another poet says, love’s the only engine of survival.

So, what’s next?

First, we lament. We acknowledge the un-sky, the void. We listen to those who’ve been staring at it far longer than us. We name the challenge with clear eyes. That, I suppose, is what this has been.

And then we get to work. Let us hope our leaders will prove other than than they say they will. Let us not be so naive to think it likely. Let us oppose in a fierce and broken love. Let us meet with friends, we eat good meals with them. Let us consider people before money, and notice where our society fails to do so. Let us make art, and we try to make it well. Let us refuse to allow a comfortable silence to enfold a hateful or ignorant statement. Let us stand up against hate, bodily if necessary. Let us learn our system, and work within it. Let us call our leaders, and advocate for those who suffer. Let us practice generosity without care for the merit of the beneficiary, but only for their need. Let us investigate before we publish. Let us loudly proclaim the humanity others try to diminish. Let loudly proclaim the humanity of those who do not share our values, even as we oppose. Let us never celebrate the suffering of those who oppose us, for they suffer, too. Let us seek to divest ourselves of unearned cultural advantage. Let us enter spaces where our voices are not primary, and listen without thinking to speak. Let us create space to speak, in places where our voices are primary, for those who have had no voice. Let us reject optimism and blind belief. Let us embrace hope. Let us work. Let us work. Let us work. We are a people who have dreamed of the sky. I’d like to see if we can make it real.

source: http://www.armoxon.com/2017/01/sky.html (January 16, 2017)

VOTE

[player-1]

Anyone who’s been in the TMA fandom (or those who understand the bare minimum of the story) know damn well that whatever was going on with Michael D. Stortion and Gabriel/Worker-of-Clay was not just a simple Avatar/Entity partnership. No, in the twisted timeline of the Spiral itself, the Armageddon arms-race pales in comparison to the romantic tragedy subplot those two had long before Jon and Martin were in the picture.

(This is also going to be a long one, and with some MAG 101 spoilers, so buckle on in...)

Here’s what I mean:

Gabriel (or in this case, Gabe) works with Neil Lagorio (Web aligned special-effects dude) in the mid 1900′s on their first movie The Labyrinth of the Minotaur. Unfortunately for him, Gabe quits in 1972 just as the movie was released. 

Not much is known of this time after 1972 up until the dreaded sculpting class in 2004. Speculation-wise, Gabriel might have been corrupted by the Flesh during his movie-making times or earlier before he came into contact with the Spiral.

Reasons: -The Spiral connects with the unraveling of reality, question one’s sanity and eventually “spiraling” into insanity. -The Flesh, in its literal sense, connects to the fear of people or animals being killed for meat; even the appearance of flesh/bone being twisted, bent, or butchered. But it can also connect on a emotional level, such as being viewed weaker than others, mostly relating to a person’s body image. That’s also the reason why the nature of his death is completely unlike the Spiral simply letting him fade out of reality. -Gabriel displays more Flesh-like qualities in his appearance and work up until the end of MAG 126. He doesn’t want people to judge him by appearance alone (even if his entire body is made up of clay) but he makes up for it with his unassuming personality and amazing talent. In a literal sense, he wants to mold himself into the kind of person that gets praised for his clay-making abilities, not just from his creations alone.  

[Enter Ｔｈｅ　Ｄｉｓｔｏｒｔｉｏｎ: Stage Left] Of course, while there’s no evidence on how, when or why the Distortion would target him specifically, but there is one thing. Compared to all the other Spiral avatars and fear-aligned creatures, they all used to be humans in the past. The Spiral by nature is to cast aside their humanity and submit to the nature of insanity. But since most of the Spiral avatars either faded out of existence or just refused to do anything ritual-wise, how was it supposed to create a new world if all they ever do is destroy? It adopts an artist, of course. There’s nothing more chaotic than the struggles of a budding sculptor such as himself. But while that may be a convincing argument for the Spiral to get Gabriel to join the Dark Side, there could be more to convince him that it’s worth following the unknowable being of delusions. Long story short, there was no reason for Gabriel to judge himself so poorly if he knew how to reshape the world to how he sees fit. it would convince him that, like the archangel he’s named after, he could show the world the coming future; twisting the laws of reality so that there’s no room to judge how something should be right or wrong, imaginary or real.  As if they were said from the Lord himself, Gabriel heard the Distortion’s tell him about a new world and finally found inspiration in them.

Then comes the sculpting class.  It’s worth noting that, even with the angel symbolism for Michael and Gabriel, it could be implied that Gabriel is also a goody-two-shoes Christian boy who regularly attends church, as evidence of Michael having knowledge about Mass in MAG 20, assisting the Flesh in driving Father Edwin to cannibalism (so the Flesh and Spiral have an interesting partnership, huh?).  Besides that, this is where Gabriel takes the spotlight. From Deborah’s point of view, he was a strange little man from the beginning; eyes always jutted out of his face, appearing right in someone’s personal space and disappearing just as fast, and of course, his works of clay. (Also a random headcanon just because: Gabriel may be afraid of water, either because his entire body being made of clay, and since you need water to help shape the material, he does not want to get it melded into his own flesh. Could also be the reason why he has short and greasy hair, cause he would practically melt into a puddle if he was unfortunate enough to get wet.) And apart from Deborah and her friends’ growing discomfort over Gabriel in general, he’s just vibing in the back of the class, trying to make a shape for the unknowable form of the Distortion. And the second Deborah inadvertently gives him a break from his artist’s block, he quite literally takes control of the class; switching over the biweekly schedule it was before into every week, and even manipulating the space of the classroom to further support his artistic needs. 

“Ray told us the lesson was ‘faces.’ I put my hand up to say that sculpting faces was probably a bit advanced for where we were in the course, but he shook his head, and said that we were… a lot more talented than we thought. He said the key was that faces were twisted. All faces were twisted on the inside, and all you had to do was reach into the deepest part of yourself and put that twisted on the outside of the clay, and as soon as you can scream you’ll have your own face staring back at you.”  (MAG 126)

This is also the key to the Spiral itself. With Gabriel’s assistance, he will be able to let the spiral to insanity move in reverse, create the physical manifestation of that fear instead of letting it collapse and destroy itself. And in that lesson as well, Gabriel finally creates a fitting image of the Distortion...A door, the physical entrance to insanity itself.

Then comes the final stretch in Sannikov Land, the nonexistent island that was said to exist between the years 2009 and 2011. And as Michael D. Stortion explains in MAG 101, was the perfect place for their ritual, The Great Twisting. After everything Gabriel had done to appease his good “friend”, The Distortion seemed extremely invested in the Worker of Clay at that point. Nevermind the fact that its telling Jon how its identity was stolen away from Michael Shelley by merging with the Distortion, but there’s more to this origin story.

“Michael was protective of the frail old woman he believed her to be. So… so delicate, so forgetful, yet gently wise. He cared for her. He trusted her. And she fed him to me. She made him to destroy our transcendence. And she did not hesitate.” “And it was me they sought to stop. Me and the others of It-Is-Not-What-It-Is. Our Great Twisting. The-Worker-of-Clay had laboured for decades on that contorted, impossible edifice of doors… and stairs… and falsehoods… and smiles. A thousand staring morsels stood, and not one of them believed themselves sane to look upon it. And in the centre, the door that would open to all the places that were never there, was me.“ “Perhaps I should have realised what was happening; seen those two lonely figures approaching me, but I cannot tell you the existential joys of truly… becoming. Of an entireness finally crossing the threshold into your self. So ecstatic was my completeness, I did not even hear my own door creak open.“ “Even sharper than the joy of becoming is the agony of being opened and remade. To have your who torn bloody from your what, and another crudely lashed into its place. To become Michael. And to do so at such a crucial point in our Twisting, in our becoming, well of course it destroyed it. The impossible altar collapsed. The-Worker-of-Clay tore out his veins to dissolve himself in crimson mud. The others of us were cast to all the places that aren’t; some have still not found their way out again...My very existence tied to my pointlessness. Wearing my failure as the very fabric of my being. Reduced once again to feeding on the unsuspecting and confused. That is who I am.“ (MAG 101)

Even if all of this was to explain how the Distortion became the being it is in the series, it’s easy to see how overjoyed it was during the ritual. All that the Spiral ever did was bring the sense of unreality and paranoia unto people for ages, only breaking down the mind until they eventually spiral into oblivion. It wanted to be something, it wanted to make something twisted and nonsensical from the world, to shape the world itself to the nature of insanity. And after all that time, no matter how many avatars it had in its control, Gabriel was the only one who began creating the ritual. Even if it was for an ulterior motive, The Distortion was pretty giddy as Gabriel worked for years on end to create the meaning of insanity; to create something that the Distortion saw as the perfect vessel for itself. And even as it was explaining it, with all these feelings of joy and ecstasy and very human thoughts and emotions, this was before it was forced to become Michael. So much for not being bound by human nature, huh? But it’s pretty ironic that, as the embodiment of delusions, insanity and lies, it never considered the idea of having an avatar that could make something out of that chaos. Even if the Distortion was explaining how Michael-not-Michael Shelley came into being, it also can be interpreted as Michael just yearning for his best Avatar so far.  So instead of “I’m going to tell you my entire backstory.”, it’s more like “I’m going to tell you how a nosy old woman and her idiotic assistant ruined my chances to be with my Avatar of the Decade who may or may not be my boyfriend.”

In conclusion, Gabriel AKA The Worker of Clay AKA Igor with an art degree became the Hands of the Spiral because the nonbinary embodiment of delusion (who is also a door) gave a miserable struggling artist a shot of self-confidence (and a shot out of the Flesh’s control), eventually becoming its #1 Boyfriend Avatar of all time, and is the only person that would make the “hates gender and existence itself” Distortion yearn for years after his tragic death.

Takes notes people, this is what peak performance looks like.

[detroitbydark]

Crossed Connections: Part II

Characters: Tech x Togruta!Reader 

Warnings: None

Summary: Everyone experiences exhaustion. Some handle it differently than others.

You can read the first part here

Tech swore he’d seen something as the transport had skimmed the tree line in an attempt to cruise under Separatist radar. A dark shape, springing from through the deep red treetops, attempting to keep up with the Havoc Marauder. 

That’s how Hunter found himself an unwilling student to Tech’s lecture on Anaxes’ native fauna.

“Did you know fyrnocks typically roost in tree canopies? They’re almost entirely nocturnal and are incredibly light sensitive but they don’t sleep underground.”

Hunter nods vacantly, knowing that once Tech started on a topic it was best to let it run its course. Wrecker and Crosshair were both asleep in the cargo bay. It was upto one of them to keep their brain occupied while his battery wore down. 

Even exhausted, Tech’s mind never seemed to slow, jumping from one topic to the next. Exhaustion only seemed to bring to surface the more obscure things he fixated on. At least he wasn’t focusing on languages this go around. 

Last mission Wrecker sat with him for over two hours as he’d slipped in and out of Shyriiwook. Wrecker, never to be confused with an intellectual, had smiled and nodded to his young vod before he’d finally burned through enough energy to pass out over the ships console.

“It’s thought that the species as a whole springs from a single mother entity.” Tech looks up to see if Hunter was still listening “it’s all very fascinating.”

Tech types away at the small datapad secured to his vambrace. “There’s even some chatter about them being linked to the dark side of the Force. Can you imagine? I mean, from what I understand of the Force-“

“Tech” Hunter interrupts gruffly “save it until after debrief with Commander Cody?”

With a flip of the wrist, the younger clone closes the pad. “Of course Sarge, just thought it was interesting” 

“It is but we’re all running on fumes at this point. Not sure any of it is sinking in.” He taps at his temple and Tech nods.

“Understood.”

“Plus, we’re only a few klicks away from base and I need you to organize your part of the debrief.”

Tech nods before flipping the datapad back open and beginning to splice together the data he’d collected during recon.

------

You’ve been on Anaxes for two weeks. It still felt foreign, sleeping in the depths of the caverns the base had been built in and around was seriously beginning to mess with your internal clock. No windows to show you night or day, no warming from the sun or cooling as twin moons rose into the sky. You’d never been so thankful for your chronometer. It was hard to sleep as you adjusted to the new environment. While it left you exhausted you also had yet to be late for your shifts already up before you chrono had to wake you. You’d consider it a win.

You were weary of seeing clones on the edge of death, mangled and passed off to you like they were no more than broken droids, only their brothers and a few of the generals seeming to worry about their well being. It wasn’t right. You’re heart hurt and while the other staff had either their clone brothers or other civilians to cling to you seemed to be left to your own devices, as if everyone else could just sense that you weren’t like them. Like on Kiros.

Your people believed only the strong survived. If you couldn’t keep up the Togruta left you behind. Your belief in the value of life made you an outsider within your own tribe. You believed life needn’t validate itself to matter. Simply existing in the first place gave it meaning.

It was a highly unpopular opinion.

The sheer number of casualties you saw roll in daily was another change from your post on Coruscant. Generally, by the time you’d seen the troopers there they’d been stabilized and needed supportive care. Anaxes brought you the worst of the worst straight from the front lines. The GAR was taking mass losses, entire squads destroyed in the blink of an eye without warning. You’d lost count of the number of Clones who’d taken their last breath in your presence. You’d never experienced anything like it on Coruscant and your training had done nothing to truly prepare you for the crushing feeling each loss brought to you and the rest of the medical staff.

You swish your mug around before bring it to your lips taking another swallow of caf. It had gone cold long ago, forgotten when the last emergency had rolled through the doors. You fantasized about a hot mug of it to soothe your throat. You kept up a steady stream of talk when you worked.  Your patients always knew exactly what you were doing and your colleagues knew exactly what you were seeing. You’d heard some other medics comment on how annoying it was but you were never going to be accused of not communicating effectively, not when troopers lives could depend on it.

 A side effect of hours of talking were often a scratchy, dry throat and a hoarseness that silenced you for the rest of the day. It was ok. Outside of the medbay you were never really sure what to say. Your confidence in your professional skill did not cross over to personal affairs. 

“Y/N?” It was one of the clone medics, Kix, from the 501st. He was amiable enough and seemed easy to get along with the few times you’d worked together.

The empty mug was set aside, to be forgotten till a later time when desperation drove you to more of the swamp water that sat bubbling bitterly in the break room.

“I’ve got a squad coming in off a recon run. They’re due for a once over so the powers that be are going to send them down after debrief.” Kix looked on edge as he spoke and you cocked your head trying to figure out what he was saying between the lines.

“You want me to do it?” You knew how to do what he was asking, you just weren’t sure why he was asking you of all people.

“Uh, the boys in 99 don’t much care for other clones.”

That was a new one.

“I can do it Kix” you nod reassuringly. “Don’t worry, ok?” A knot was beginning to tangle in your stomach. You brush off the feeling and try to give the clone your most reassuring smile. 

Clones that didn’t like other clones? You hadn’t heard of such a thing outside of the Coruscant Guard. 

Those guys were dicks.

Kix seems relieved, running a hand over his face roughly “I owe you. I’ll have them sent over to Exam 3 when they’re done?”

“Make it 5” you correct “they’re still getting blood off the floor in 3 and 4”

-----

Crosshair is spitting mad by the time The Bad Batch is dismissed from Cody’s debrief and Tech can’t figure out why. He just had to acknowledge that  pissed off was simply the sniper’s default setting. Tech figures he’s mad no one was willing to take the bait and give him the fight he was looking for.

To his left Hunter seemed as relaxed as Hunter could be, ever vigilant eyes scanning the halls as they traveled. 

Per usual, Wrecker was all smiles (if maybe slightly menacing ones) as they entered the lift down to medical.

Tech was pleased. He’d been told the intel would be useful. No one had insulted anyone. No punches had been thrown. It all seemed pretty good as far as he was concerned. All they had to do now was do a quick medical check and they were good to go for at least a solid day of rest before their next assignment. he falls in behind the others while they queued into a single file in front of him, each dipping into the room in turn for their scan. Hunter is in and out before Tech can blink, same for Crosshair. 

Wrecker was never the best behaved for the medical staff. He just didn't like medical. Tech couldn't blame him.  Hunter and Crosshair wait for a few minutes, making sure they weren’t needed to calm the big man down, before the excuse themselves to the small barracks the four of them called home.

Tech uses the wait to browse the holonet for anything that might pique his curiosity and bookmarks a couple things to look into once he could crawl into his rack.

When Wrecker pops out of the exam room with a sucker tucked into his cheek some twenty minutes later without any shouting following him, Tech takes notice.

“It’s stormfruit, man” Wrecker hums around the sucker “I like this one” He tips his head back toward the exam room as one big mitt cuffs Tech on the shoulder, knocking him back a step as he passes by. 

Tech doesn’t bother to take his helmet off when a bright voice calls “Next!” 

He’s greeted by the sight of a dimpled Togruta smiling up at him from her spot on a stool.

“Hey you must be…” she glances quickly at her datapad resting on her crossed knee “Tech?”

The voice is exceedingly familiar but he doesn’t know the face as she motions to the table. His feet stutter step as he moves further in the exam room, taking a seat on the table the composite of his armor clanks loudly. 

“Long day?” The medic asks and he nods, eyes narrowed as he rifles though his mental files. He knew that voice.

“You're not gonna give me trouble like the last one, right?” She starts, “it took me half a dozen lollys to convince him to let me scan him. I’m starting to think he played me, ya know?”

He nods again.

“You don’t talk much do you? Nexu got your tongue?”

Tech huffs quietly, flipping his visor up to view her without the incandescent screen in the way.

“I think you're the only person that’s ever said that.” He chuckles.

She beams at him, squinting and searching his face.

“Yeah? I won’t complain about being your first.” She teases before her cheeks, already a rich color, flush brightly. When she smiles nervously he sees the quick pearly flash of her incisors. He liked the way she smiled at him. It makes his stomach flip in a vaguely familiar way.

That’s when the data points come together. The realization hits him.

He’d often wondered what Grutababy looked like, curiosity only reaching a fever pitch after their conversation on the comms. He’d lay awake at night, while his brothers slept and try to piece together what she might look like, cursing himself for never once asking for a picture. 

His mind would run through the many sentient species he was familiar with as he’d try to place the voice from their lone conversation to it it had become a game. Twi’lek, Mirialan, human… Togruta?

It makes sense now, her profile name. Grutababy. Really it shouldn’t have taken a genius level IQ to figure that out. 

He watches her lekku sway gently as she moves through the room. Her skin, somewhere between red and pink, reminds him of a sunset he’d once seen on an outer rim planet, the name of which he’s since forgotten. 

The white markings of her people cross from one temple to the other, circling her eye like a mask. Others travel in soft swooping lines from the outer corners of her eyes down, crossing at plump lips and fading out at her chin. A small diamond shaped mark rests above each brow. 

Her eyes are a pale, icy blue. The overall effect is… stunning. 

She was more beautiful than he could have ever imagined (and he’d tried).

“This may sound weird-” she hums” her fingers fumble for her scanner, nearly dropping it off the counter. Frowning, she taps it against the heel of her palm when it refuses to turn on.

Once. 

Twice.

Three times.

Tech winces, wants to tell her that there was no evidence that treating a device like that would make it work. On the contrary it would often-

The scanner buzzes to life and a triumphant smile lights her features.

“Like, I was saying, it may sound weird. I just get the feeling….”

Tech swallows hard.

She lets out a nervous laugh and waves it off, “Nevermind, ignore me. Not enough sleep or caf and I’m imagining things”

Something akin to disappointment filters through his chest as she rubs the back of a montrail nervously. He wonders if he should tell her? She interrupts his train of thought with a deep breath and the moment has passed. She's all business now as she adjusts the scanner in her grip.

“So Trooper, how about we get your scan done and you can go get the sleep that I’m not.” 

[phroyd]

President Trump is so fixated on finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that in meetings about the U.S. pandemic response, little else captures his attention, according to administration officials.

Trump has pressed health officials to speed up the vaccine timeline and urged them to deliver one by the end of the year. He has peppered them with questions about the development status and mass-distribution plans. And, in recent days, he has told some advisers and aides that a vaccine may arrive by Nov. 1, which just happens to be two days before the presidential election.

Trump’s desire to deliver a vaccine — or at least convince the public that one is very near — by the time voters decide whether to elect him to a second term is in part a campaign gambit to improve his standing with an electorate that overwhelmingly disapproves of his management of the pandemic.

“We remain on track to deliver a vaccine before the end of the year and maybe even before November 1st,” Trump told reporters at a Friday news conference. “We think we can probably have it some time during the month of October.”

Trump has repeatedly offered similar promises, adding to the pressure scientists and officials at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health feel to develop, test and authorize a coronavirus vaccine on what some of the president’s aides refer to as “Trump time.”

Several Trump aides said one key to the president winning reelection is having a vaccine or demonstrating rapid progress toward one, as well as a robust economic turnaround, over the next two months.

Democratic strategists, too, said a vaccine announcement could play in Trump’s favor, but they cautioned that it is unlikely to significantly change the contours of the race.

“If they pull a vaccine out of their a-- it will be the October surprise of October surprises,” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster. “I think you’ll see some of the angst lifting off of the American electorate. But I think it will be difficult connecting the dots to Donald Trump given where public perception of him is on covid, and given that this is a guy who a couple months ago said people should try to get sunshine and disinfectants inside of themselves.”

There is intense disagreement over whether the FDA should use its emergency authority to clear a vaccine before it is formally approved, which some in the scientific community say could be dangerous.

Top health officials, including FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have said a vaccine could be available before the end of the year. But they have been careful to qualify their statements and, unlike the president, have stopped short of promising one by then. White House officials also have been careful not to project a specific date for a vaccine announcement.

Fauci said in an email that “the most likely timetable for a vaccine to be utilized by the public” is November or December of this year or the beginning of 2021. He said it is “unlikely, although possible” that the efficacy and safety of a vaccine could be determined in October.

Asked about an emergency use authorization by the FDA, Fauci wrote, “If an EUA was granted before we had established that the vaccine was truly safe and effective, I would be disappointed. An EUA for a vaccine should be based on a considerable degree of safety and efficacy. . . . I would be against an EUA if it were issued without sufficient data to establish a strong signal of efficacy and safety.”

Other experts said it was unlikely that a vaccine would be ready by Election Day, but that Trump could be able to tout progress on it before people vote.

“Everything would have to be unfolding according to perfection,” said Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner in the Trump administration. “The vaccine would need to be highly effective, and you’d need to have trials ahead of schedule.”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has accused Trump of putting “political considerations ahead of the safety and well-being of the American people with tragic results” throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The former vice president said in remarks Friday, “My guess is he is going to announce a vaccine, he’s going to say it’s going to be available around Election Day, he’s going to hype it.”

Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said Biden is eager for a swift vaccine, but not at the expense of safety.

“Joe Biden wants a safe vaccine ready yesterday,” Bates said in an email. “But there is no excuse for the wealthiest, most technologically advanced nation in the history of the world being the hardest-hit by this pandemic. The inescapable, tragic, infuriating reality is that Donald Trump has never taken the deadliest public health crisis in 100 years seriously.”

FDA officials both publicly and privately insisted that politics will not influence their decision on when to approve a vaccine. Current and former administration officials, as well as vaccine experts, said they were confident in the career regulators at FDA to make a science-based decision.

One former senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a candid assessment, said the FDA’s leadership is “weak” and “fails to articulate that it’s going to stand for regulatory science.” But this official expressed confidence in the officials at the FDA’s office of vaccines.

“I know they take this responsibility very seriously and they understand what’s at stake,” this official said. “Without a clear blessing from this office, I don’t think Americans would be willing to be vaccinated.”

Underscoring the concerns about the vaccine process appearing political, the Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh was unwilling to discuss the politics of vaccine development or assess how a possible breakthrough could impact the campaign — even though Trump’s second-term agenda, distributed by the campaign, includes “Develop a Vaccine by The End of 2020.” Murtaugh deferred all questions on the matter to the White House.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews said in an email, “The rapid research, development, trials, and eventual distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine is emblematic of President Trump’s highest priority: the health and safety of the American people — it has nothing to do with politics. This President understands that this vaccine cannot get bogged down in government bureaucracy, which is why he has cut through every piece of red tape to achieve the fastest-ever launch of a trial.”

Inside the West Wing, there is some concern and nervousness about “potential politicization” and people not trusting a vaccine if they believed it was produced in a “rushed process,” according to a senior administration official, who like some others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

The administration has developed Operation Warp Speed, a process to mass distribute an eventual vaccine, and is planning a $150 million public service announcement campaign to convince people that the vaccine is safe, effective and can be trusted, this senior official said.

The communications strategy developed at the White House would limit Trump’s personal messaging about a vaccine — other than to “spike the football,” as the senior official put it — and instead be led by experts, including Fauci, Hahn, White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx, and Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed.

The White House plan would stress to the public that a vaccine went through the “traditional FDA rigor,” as well as seek validation from throughout the scientific community, in medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and from medical professionals with large media platforms, such as CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, according to the senior official.

The plan, according to a draft shared by the senior official, is to “replace distrust, disbelief, skepticism and cynicism with trust, credibility, confidence, certainty, transparency and optimism for COVID-19 medical countermeasures.”

Although the White House aims to depoliticize the vaccine rollout, the draft plan lists as one of its objective to “ensure the administration is able to receive due credit for undertaking this historic and unprecedented effort.”

Trump’s opponents are preparing for the president to try to mislead the public about the status of a vaccine in the run-up to the election, much as he has exaggerated many other aspects of his record over the years.

Rick Wilson, a strategist who helps run the Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans airing advertisements aimed at defeating him, said the group’s internal polling data suggests that many voters would not trust whatever breakthroughs Trump proclaims.

“We think Trump’s lying is priced-in with a lot of people,” Wilson said. “So if he could say tomorrow, ‘We’ve cured it, it’s done,’ many people, even some of his supporters, will say, ‘That’s just Donald being Donald.’ ”

Officials on the administration’s coronavirus task force said that a vaccine was not on the agenda in the early months of the outbreak. Vaccine developments are discussed in smaller groups or among the principals directly involved.

“We should have been talking about a vaccine instead of having weeks of discussions on masks, but they have caught up well now, it seems,” said one official familiar with the task force.

As part of the administration’s communications push, Slaoui and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar wrote an op-ed published Wednesday in USA Today describing how the United States was developing a vaccine at record speed with safeguards in place.

“The strategy we devised for OWS will allow us to accomplish this goal while following all the same procedures for safety and efficacy, applied by the same apolitical FDA experts, that Americans expect with all vaccines,” Azar and Slaoui wrote.

Experts warned that Trump’s promises that a vaccine would end the pandemic are dangerous.

“There’s this general feeling that the vaccine is going to get us out of this. There are so many people hanging everything on the hopes of a vaccine starting in January,” said Rochelle Walensky, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. “Getting out of this pandemic has to be a multipronged approach and no single thing is going to get us out. Certainly I don’t think a vaccine in the short-term is going to get us out.”

Trump’s repeated pressure on the FDA not only to approve a vaccine, but also to advance coronavirus treatments has undermined public confidence in the FDA, as well as in other federal agencies, according to medical professionals.

The FDA approved an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine, an existing anti-malaria drug, to treat coronavirus, but had to eventually revoke the authorization because the drug was shown to be ineffective and cause heart problems in some patients.

Last month, Hahn and Azar appeared alongside Trump and hailed convalescent plasma as a “major therapeutic breakthrough” despite the treatment being around for more than 100 years and having only a modest effect.

“I’d like to think at this point in the administration, when people see Donald Trump hyperbolize, they see it as hyperbole,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “That’s the problem. If President Trump stands up and says, ‘This is a major breakthrough, this is going to save all our lives,’ people can’t necessarily believe that.”

Phroyd

[goldenhemmings]

When You Love Someone | Streetfighter!Shawn

Pairing: Shawn x Reader

Warnings: profanity, violent situations, a creepy guy that can’t take a hint

Hello, friends! Back at it again with some more writing that demonstrates my incapability of creating anything that’s not an AU. This is a bit different, but I’ve been working on it for literal months because I love the concept and I wanted it to be something I was proud of (I promise I’m not neglecting Stealing Second, though). So, here are 7.5k words of Streetfighter!Shawn. I would love to hear your feedback, and I hope you enjoy!!

Shawn was aware of the crowd behind him, but he acted as though he wasn’t.

He pretended not to hear people placing their bets, he pretended that he couldn’t feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he pretended to not be aware of the annoyingly piercing pair of dark eyes staring a hole into the back of his head. He just sat stoically on the hard pavement, his back to everyone else as he went about the routine process of wrapping his hands to prepare them for the blows they were about to administer.

His bubble of peace was short-lived, however, as he felt someone approaching him. Shawn always knew when someone was behind him; he’d become well-practiced after spending his entire life watching his own back.

“Hey, Sugar.”

Shawn sighed and turned over his shoulder to be met with the same feminine pair of eyes he’d known had been trained on him since his arrival to Dynamite several minutes earlier. He shrugged and returned his focus to his hands, beginning to tape the left one as he finished up with the right. “Was wondering when you were gonna quit staring.”

A look of confusion flashed over her face, but it was gone as soon as it had come. “Just wanted to see how you were feeling.”

“Same as always.”

She scoffed. “Which is?”

He finally looked up at her as she tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and it took everything he had not to be dismissive. This was his fault, after all. “I feel good,” he finally answered, less coolness behind his tone, “and ready.” She smiled, misreading this as an invitation to sit down across from him.

Shawn knew how Raven felt about him; he wasn’t dumb. He also knew he’d been needing to put a stop to it. And yet, he always seemed to find himself ducking out of her apartment in the early hours of the morning making the same repetitive promise that that time would be the last time; a promise he never could seem to keep.

It was just that people who understood his lifestyle were hard to come by, and Raven happened to be one of those people. She was tough, attractive, and, most importantly, she always seemed to be wherever he was. He knew it was wrong of him to lead her on just because he was lonely and she was readily available, but it was a cycle he couldn’t force himself to care enough about to actually break.

“Well,” Raven continued, the ends of her long hair tickling Shawn’s knee as she leaned towards him. “Have a good fight, Sugar. I’ll see you later tonight?”

Shawn didn’t answer, but Raven was unphased. She pushed herself up off the ground, dusting off her jeans with a smirk, and sauntered back over to rejoin the crowd. She hadn’t waited for Shawn to reply because she didn’t need to; the answer had only ever been yes.

Shawn audibly exhaled and rubbed his hands across his face, daring to glance over his shoulder where his opponent, Mateo, was standing surrounded by people, talking animatedly and with exuberant gestures. Shawn smirked to himself at the display. Mateo seemed confident for someone who was undoubtedly about to get his ass kicked.

“Three minutes til fight time, Dynamite! Last chance to place your bets,” Raven called, sending a ceaseless and uncontrollable flood of adrenaline washing over Shawn. He stood up, shaking his body out to keep it loose as he took in the familiar sight of the most constant place in his life.

Dynamite wasn’t much; it never had been. Aptly named after one of the streets it was situated along, Dynamite was home to the city’s most niche, secret form of entertainment: Streetfighting. A hidden courtyard of sorts, it sat on the other side of an alley just off of Dynamite Road. It was a large, open block of pavement sandwiched between several abandoned buildings and separated from them by a worn-down chain-link fence. The people who came to spectate had been coming for years, and any new faces only learned of what Dynamite was home to via word of mouth. Fights were only held two or three times a month, which meant that the nights they did happen—like tonight—were a big deal.

Dynamite had much more of a long-standing history than Shawn was aware of. He was fairly new on the scene, as he was just now reaching the age at which people would take him seriously as a fighter, but he’d quickly and effectively established himself as a real competitor. Every streetfighter--from experienced to novice and all that was in between--had his own reason for being attracted to combat, but the common denominator between all of them was purely the fact that they all enjoyed, in some way or another, the thrill of the fight. It was something they knew, and for years Dynamite had proven itself a safe, supportive place to do it.

Shawn took a deep, steadying breath and walked over to the edge of the crowd, sensing the energy that came with the fact that the fight was about to begin. As if on cue, Raven hoisted herself up onto the top of a sturdy piece of fence at the corner of the arena and gave her usual “Listen up!” in order to get everyone’s attention.

The crowd, maybe thirty or forty people large, went quiet for the first (and probably the only) time that night for the reading of the rules; an unnecessary tradition, but one that continued nonetheless. The mass of people backed away, leaving Shawn and Mateo facing each other in the middle of the makeshift ring. Raven stepped down now that all eyes were on her, pushing her hair behind her shoulders as she moved to stand between the two men. She’d been doing this long enough that she no longer “read” the rules; she had them memorized.

“Just in case they slipped your minds, here’re the rules one more time: Combat is hand-to-hand only, absolutely no weapons, ever. Fight’s over when one of you taps out, stays on the ground for longer than five seconds, or in the event of a direct knockout. There’s no time limit—we go until one of those circumstances or if I decide it needs to end.” She paused, turning her attention solely to Shawn. “Don’t let yourself get too hurt, Sugar,” she added quietly, with a sly grin that Shawn pretended not to notice.

Raven backed up, once again leaving a space between the two men whose faces were each a mirror of the other’s; narrowed eyes, clenched jaws, and mouths set in a hard, straight line. “Fight starts on my count.”

“Three.” The crowd began to creep in all around them, eager for their personal entertainment to begin. Shawn bounced on the balls of his feet, raising his fists and squaring his shoulders. He stared straight into Mateo’s eyes, ready.

“Two.”

“Mendes!” Shawn’s head whipped over his shoulder, furious at the interruption, but his blood ran cold at the sight of the man walking through the alley towards him, flanked by two of his unshakable cronies. “Hoped I’d find you here.”

Shawn took a breath to keep his body loose and ready to fight, but he couldn’t help the slight tension he felt building in his chest. “Can this wait, Axel? I’m in the middle of something.” But the man was silent, his eyes narrowed in what seemed like amusement, and Shawn let out a stubborn puff of air before finally continuing.

“What do you want?” he asked, though it came out flat.

Axel laughed, his beady eyes pointed right at Shawn. “Guess.”

“Still crying about last month?” Shawn deduced smugly, tugging a hand through his hair. Axel was once again silent, forcing Shawn to continue filling the air with words of his own. “I’m not fighting you tonight, if that’s what you’ve come for. If you want a rematch, we can set one for another time.”

A deep, guttural laugh escaped Axel’s mouth as he came within a foot of Shawn’s face. “Too scared for a round two?”

“If anything, it should be the other way around,” Shawn added with a smirk, and he could hear the muted laughter from the crowd around him. “You should be the one that’s scared of me.”

He came off as though he was irritated with Axel’s presence, but Shawn would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he was enjoying reliving his victory just a little bit. He’d messed Axel up to the point where it was embarrassing, and everyone at Dynamite knew it. Until Shawn, Axel had been undefeated. His loss was made worse by the fact that Shawn was younger, slightly smaller, and significantly less experienced; Axel had originally been trained as a boxer, whereas Shawn’s resume was blank.

Needless to say, Axel hadn’t taken well to losing.

Shawn had known it was only a matter of time until Axel tried to catch up with him, but he never thought the dethroned legend would be able to bear showing his face at another fight so soon. Shawn admired the boldness. He laughed at it, too.

“Are we fighting or not, Mendes?” Mateo, Shawn’s scheduled opponent, began griping from behind him.

“Gimme a minute, would you?” Shawn huffed, and Mateo continued grumbling under his breath as he swung his arms back and forth to keep them warmed up.

Shawn turned back to Axel, who was standing with flared nostrils and his arms folded tightly across his chest. Shawn could feel the crowd growing antsy behind him. “Why are you showing up at my fight and trying to make it about you?” he seethed through gritted teeth. “These dramatics are bullshit.”

“You humiliated me,” Axel sneered, so that only Shawn could hear.

“Tough shit,” Shawn scoffed. “All I did was beat you.”

“And now we’re getting even.”

Shawn let out an agitated puff of air. “I’m fighting Mateo tonight, not you. Like I said, if you want a rematch in a few weeks when I’m healed from this fight we can--”

Like a jolt of lightning, Axel’s fist came flying through the air directly at Shawn’s jaw. Shawn should have known better than to waste time arguing; what Axel wanted, Axel would always get.

The mass of people erupted into noise. Shawn managed to duck Axel’s fist, barely, then hooked his arms around his unexpected opponent’s ankles and pulled towards himself until Axel’s body hit the pavement, his head making a loud smack. Axel’s buddies immediately rushed at Shawn, but he was too quick. Shawn was an incredible fighter, but even he knew better than to take on two men at once—three, as soon as Axel got back up—and he also knew nobody there would help him. This was the kind of action they craved seeing; why would anyone jump in to stop it?

Shawn waited until another fist was coming his way, then grabbed it at the last moment and shoved one guy barrelling into the other. Shawn hurdled over Axel, who was dazedly beginning to get back up, and took off running down the alley towards the street. He could hear footsteps echoing behind him, but he didn’t dare look over his shoulder for fear of slowing himself down.

He hung a left as soon as he came to the street, his legs moving as fast as they could carry him. He didn’t know where he was running to, but he did know that he absolutely could not stop until he’d shaken whoever was hot on his trail.

------------------

If Y/N had it her way, she wouldn’t have even left the house that night. She would be at home enjoying a cliche night with takeout food and a Netflix movie chosen at random, relaxing after an especially stressful week and enjoying the calm of having a few hours to herself; a rarity in the small house she shared with two other girls. Her roommates, however, had taken it upon themselves to talk her into going bar-hopping with them, convinced that it would somehow be an even better way for her to de-stress.

“Y/N,” Brooklyn pressed, towering over where Y/N sat at the kitchen table typing away at her phone as she tried to decide what kind of food she wanted to order. “Just come out with us tonight. You never do anything fun anymore.”

Y/N looked up with heavy eyes, her hand threatening to no longer be able to support the weight of her head resting on it. “I don’t have time to do anything fun,” she mumbled, sleepiness evident even in the way she spoke. “This week sucked and I’m exhausted. All I want to do is just eat and watch a movie until I pass out and sleep for a day straight.”

“Or you could come out with us for a few hours,” her other roommate, Jade, repeated, a coy smile playing on her mouth. Y/N rolled her eyes, continuing to sift through the menu of the Chinese place she’d decided on.

Jade, however, was not having this. She reached out and snatched Y/N’s phone from her unsuspecting hands, earning a series of anguished cries to give it back. Jade handed the phone off to Brooklyn, who tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Come on, Y/N. You’re not even gonna consider it? Remember how much fun you had the last time you came to the bars with us?” Brooklyn smirked, her blue eyes sparkling in bemusement. Y/N groaned, fighting off a grin as she buried her head in her hands at the memory.

Jade laughed, taking it upon herself to pipe in. “Yeah, you’d just dumped your asshole boyfriend and then you made out with that guy who--”

“Okay!” Y/N cried out as she finally cracked a smile. “I remember, you don’t need to remind me.”

“See!” Brooklyn exclaimed, pulling out the chair next to Y/N and sitting down at the kitchen table. “You had a good time that night, I know you did. How long has it been since you had fun like that?”

“Too long,” Jade answered for her, dark eyes wide and silently begging Y/N to give in.

“I don’t know, guys,” she muttered, the idea of dinner and her warm bed still causing her to be apprehensive.

“Just try,” Jade pleaded. “Come out with us and at least try to have a good time.”

Y/N sighed, running her hands over her expressionless face. She was exhausted, yes, but she also missed going out with her friends. And what was the worst that could happen? If she was miserable, all she had to do was say so and go home. What was the harm in trying?

“Fine,” Y/N finally--albeit, reluctantly--agreed, earning excited squeals from her two friends, who wasted no time whisking her away to start getting ready.

By the time they were on their third bar of the night, Y/N was sipping on her second drink and starting to feel slightly loose. Her friends, however, were bounds ahead of her, and their ceaseless energy and giggling was only reminding Y/N of how tired she really was, evidenced by the dull pounding that had started in her head. She was trying to enjoy herself, but despite her efforts she just couldn’t seem to break free of her sleepy haze. Needing a temporary break from her friends and all the noise, Y/N stood up from the table, grabbing her purse as two very confused sets of eyes immediately turned to face her.

“Where are you going?” asked Jade with a hiccup, her brown eyes glossed over as she reached a hand up to haphazardly move a piece of curly dark hair off of her forehead. It fell right back down where it was, but Jade seemed none the wiser to it as she finished off the drink she had been nursing.

“Bathroom,” Y/N replied, forcing a small smile as Jade and Brooklyn both nodded. “Be right back.”

She turned over her shoulder and headed to the back corner of the crowded bar, pushing through the mass of people to get to the sanctuary of the restroom. As she pushed the door to the women’s room open, she breathed a sigh of relief upon noticing it was empty. Dirty, but empty.

She turned the faucet on to let cold water run over her hands, catching sight of her reflection in the mirror. She looked as tired as she felt, and her eyes were slightly glassy from the alcohol that had only managed to make her sleepier. The pent-up exhaustion from three exams, two papers, and a plethora of random small assignments all packed into one week was enough to have Y/N ready to fall asleep on the bathroom floor. She began thinking of excuses to give her friends as to why she needed to head home when she was startled by a sudden commotion coming from outside the restroom. She frowned, drying her hands on her jeans and heading towards the door to investigate the source of the noise; likely just a few rowdy drunks.

But suddenly the bathroom door burst open, Y/N instinctively jumping backward with a start, and in charged a very flustered man she’d never seen before. He rushed past her, venturing further into the bathroom and ducking behind the wall perpendicular to the side of the sink and mostly out of sight of the door. His eyes were wild and his cheeks flushed with sweat, his curly brown hair matted to his forehead.

“I--what?” she stuttered, unable to string her thoughts together quickly enough to inform him that this was, in fact, the women’s bathroom.

He simply raised a finger to his lips to plead for her silence and Y/N noticed that his hands were wrapped in some sort of black tape, the purpose of which she was unsure. She brought her eyes back up to his face as he whispered, “Don’t freak out, I just need to hide in here for a second.”

Confused, Y/N made a move for the door, unable to get out of there fast enough, but she froze as the man continued talking. “Please don’t open the door. They might see me.”

She rolled her eyes and continued to make her way out anyway, not caring who “they” were, but before she could get her palm on the handle the door flew open once more to reveal a large, sweaty man with the fire of Hell in his eyes. Y/N felt her stomach drop, immediately paralyzed with fear as his angry stare landed on her.

His expression shifted as his eyes made their way up and down her body disgustingly slowly, and Y/N found herself instinctively taking a step back and folding her arms over her chest. The look on his face made her skin crawl. “Sorry for barging in, gorgeous,” he sneered, his stare unwavering despite the terrified expression Y/N wore.

“This is the women’s room,” she spoke after a few seconds of silence, trying to keep her voice even.

The man laughed at this, licking his lips before continuing. “Are you alone in here?”

“I’m--Please leave,” she stammered, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder in search of the other man.

“So soon?” he smirked, taking a belligerent step towards her and reaching out to twist a piece of her hair around his stubby finger.

“Don’t touch me,” Y/N gasped, swatting his hand away and registering the man’s increasingly furious demeanor.

“Feisty.” He laughed lowly and mockingly, and Y/N held her breath as she desperately tried to recall the things she’d learned from that self-defense class her dad made her take in high school, cursing herself for not paying better attention. But before she could get the chance to put her limited knowledge into practice, the guy was being flung against the wall by the throat at the hands of the first stranger that had barged in.

“Get off of me,” the man growled, but his words were strained with a hand clenched around his neck. His hands came up to claw at the foreign one anchoring him against the wall, but his efforts were futile; the first man was obviously much stronger.

“I’m pretty sure she asked you not to touch her,” he bit back, with an extra slam against the wall for good measure.

Y/N was paralyzed. She couldn’t think quickly enough to process what was happening or to make a conscious decision to get out of there. Her exhausted limbs were frozen, her feet rooted to the ground; all she could do was watch with wide eyes the scene unfolding before her. It wasn’t until someone was waving his fingers in front of her face that she realized she was even being spoken to.

“Go lock the door,” the first intruder commanded, but Y/N was still. “Hey. Did you--”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Y/N gushed, the words finally hitting her ears as she moved to twist the lock. “I heard you.”

He turned his attention back to the man he literally held in the palm of his hand. “Give me your phone, Damon,” he continued, but the man against the wall was silent. Y/N’s defender wasn’t having this. “I said give me--”

“I don’t have it.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fuck you,” Damon seethed, and Y/N swore the veins in the forearms of the man holding him against the wall would burst.

“Guess it’s gonna be the hard way, then,” he replied, almost nonchalantly, and it startled Y/N more than was necessary when Damon went from being held against the wall to being pinned on the floor as his phone was wrestled from his pocket. It was like a trainwreck Y/N couldn’t look away from; this man was holding almost all of Damon’s upper body down with a single arm while the other searched for the device.

“What are you doing, Shawn?” Damon grunted, flailing under the weight of the body that was pressing him into the ground.

“I’m texting your boys,” the man, Shawn, responded through gritted teeth as his free hand typed furiously,  “that I was nowhere to be found in here so you went to look for me someplace down the street.”

Damon scoffed. “You’re an idiot. They’ll never believe that I would fucking message them instead of actually checking in.”

“This’ll be a fun little trust experiment, then.”

Y/N had pressed herself against the door by this point; the furthest possible place from the action in front of her. She jumped a little when she heard the handle wiggle, praying that it wouldn’t come unlocked--though she knew that was an exceedingly irrational worry to have. This is what you get for leaving the house. You should’ve just stayed home and gone to bed. Good things hardly ever come of any outings you’re involved in.

“What do you know?” Shawn continued, sarcasm dripping from his slightly upturned lips. “They’ve already responded, and they’re headed to the next street over.” He stood up and tossed the phone in Damon’s face, who immediately grabbed it and scrambled to his feet. Y/N couldn’t help but notice the imprint of red skin that covered his neck from where Shawn’s arm had been.

Just as Y/N thought it was over and that she could finally leave, Damon was once again back against the wall, being held there by the collar of his shirt. “Now, here’s what’s gonna happen,” Shawn began, his tone an impossible mixture of menacing and calm. “You’re going to leave here, and you are not going to tell anyone that you saw me. I’ll know if you do, and I also know how to find you. Don’t make me spell out what would happen if you decide to ignore me. Do you understand?”

For the first time since Y/N had seen him, Damon looked genuinely afraid. His jaw was clenched and it was clear that he was trying to maintain a tough demeanor, but his wide eyes gave his fear away. “Yes,” he muttered. It was all he could say.

Shawn looked back at Y/N, and she felt her heart begin pounding even faster. But he turned back to Damon, his grip still tight. “And you’re going to apologize to her.”

Damon scoffed; a bold move coming from someone who was literally being pinned against a wall. “Why the fuck do you care about--”

“You’re going to apologize to her,” Shawn seethed, and Damon grunted against the strength of Shawn’s hold on him.

“Fine.”

With that Shawn released him, and Damon’s hand instinctively came up to readjust the collar of his shirt. “Good. Now get the hell out of here.”

He turned to storm towards the door and Y/N threw herself out of his way, but she didn’t miss the sting of the words sorry, bitch muttered in her direction as Damon finally left. She wasn’t sure whether she should stay or leave, but before she could come to a decision she realized she was being spoken to.

“W-what?” she stuttered, looking up at the man she assumed was Shawn as he took a soft step closer to her.

“I asked if you were okay,” he repeated, and if Y/N hadn’t known any better she’d be convinced she was talking to a different person. His face was kind and boyish, but Y/N still nervously avoided his eyes.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled. “Thanks, I guess. F-for stepping in.”

Shawn shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been dying to get my hands on that asshole anyways.” He paused, almost hoping she’d laugh, but then he realized how scared she looked--and rightfully so. It wasn’t often that Shawn had run-ins with people who weren’t accustomed to his fighting, and he was obviously clueless as to how to not come off as an intimidating douchebag. He took a breath, reconsidering his approach as he studied the girl’s fluttering, downcast eyes. “I’m Shawn,” he finally said, and this was enough to get her to at least look up at him. He only got a brief glimpse of her eyes before she averted her gaze again, but it immediately left him starved for more. She was clearly unlike the girls he saw on a daily basis--girls who were all, in some way or another, like Raven. Shawn knew he was intrigued, though he wasn’t yet sure to what extent.

“I’m Y/N,” she responded, and he noticed how she laughed nervously in uncertainty of what else to say. She was saved, however, by her phone suddenly buzzing incessantly from the back pocket of her jeans. “Sorry, let me just--”

She pulled it out and illuminated the screen to find a string of texts from--unsurprisingly--Brooklyn.

Jade had way too mucg to drink and was about to throw up but the bathroom was locked so I took hwr outside

Where r u?!?!?

We had to go home shes really drunjk Im so sorry I couldnt find u

Pls come back to house Im gonna need help

“Damnit,” Y/N muttered, pressing an anguished hand against her pounding forehead. “You’re kidding me.”

“What’s wrong?” Shawn asked, concern lacing his newly softened features.

Y/N looked up, embarrassed of her inadvertent outburst. “Oh,” she started, clearing her throat. “I just...My friends had to leave, so I have to get home on my own.”

Some friends. “Do you want me to walk you?” Shawn offered, crossing his arms over his chest. “That way you don’t have to pay for a ride. I don’t trust that Damon’s not gonna be hiding in the shadows or some shit, anyways.” He wasn’t sure why he was proposing this, knowing Axel and his boys were surely out there somewhere to wait for him, but there was something about this girl that was beginning to compel him. He found himself concerned for her; protective, almost, though that was illogical considering he hardly knew her name. He had no idea why he suddenly cared so deeply about the situation she was in, but the fact remained: He did.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Y/N replied softly. She didn’t believe the words, but she was more worried about inconveniencing him than she was for her safety. “I’m sure that guy doesn’t want anything else from me after what you did to him, anyways,” she continued, forcing out a little laugh, but Shawn’s serious eyes were still fixed on her with an intensity so strong she had to make herself look away.

“Even if that were true, you still shouldn’t be walking alone this late at night.”

“I do it all the time,” Y/N lied, looking up as she stifled a yawn.

Shawn smirked, crossing his arms over his chest as his eyes darted to the side. Y/N’s gaze bore into the side of his face expectantly, not understanding why he appeared to be amused. “It’s just,” he began, looking back at her and wondering yet again why he even cared. “It’s obviously not safe. I’m not gonna try anything, okay? I would just hate for something to happen to you on your way out of here.”

She blinked up at him, considering. She was stuck somewhere between he seems genuine but he barely knows your name, he already saved you once but he’s so intimidating.

Seeming to sense her apprehension, Shawn interrupted her thoughts. “I don’t mean to make you stressed out about it, alright? It’s just an offer.”

Y/N checked the time on her phone, sighing when she saw that it was nearly one in the morning; she knew walking home by herself would be a bad idea, and her bank account probably wasn’t too keen on the idea of her calling an Uber after she’d already spent money on drinks. She looked back at Shawn, who was leaning against the side of the wall with his arms folded over his chest. He was a safe distance away, but close enough that Y/N could take her time studying his demeanor with enough intent to decide that he seemed to mean well. “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?” she asked, reaching for her phone once again to ensure that her location was on for her roommates to see--just in case.

“Not at all,” Shawn said, half of his mouth pulling up into a soft, crooked smile as he caught sight of her phone screen.

She looked up at him to say something, but her eyes locked on his face until an abrupt opening of the door made her jump; she’d almost forgotten they were still in the bathroom. Shawn let out a little laugh as he looked through the doorway to a group of three clearly inebriated girls. “Obvious much?” one of them tried to lean over and whisper to her friend, but lost her balance in the process. Y/N fought off a laugh.

“After you,” Shawn’s amused voice said from behind Y/N, his breath tickling her neck as he gestured out the door. She shook off the chill that made its way down her spine and stepped out past the girls in the direction of the bar’s front entrance, rolling her eyes at the suggestive shouts from the people around the door as Shawn darted out of the bathroom after her.

“Wait,” he started, reaching to grab her wrist. “We should leave out the back.”

Y/N turned around and quirked her head to the side, a semblance of a smile playing on her lips. “How come?”

“Just being careful,” he shrugged, his palm sliding down her wrist to grab ahold of her hand. She took a deep breath as she latched onto his hand, rough from whatever was wrapped around it, and allowed him to pull her through the crowd that had only managed to get bigger since she’d first arrived with her friends.

Shawn let go of her hand as they came to a back door, and he pushed it out to reveal a dimly-lit side street that ran parallel to the back wall of the bar. He poked his head out to look around, then nodded his head back at Y/N to signal that the coast was clear.

“I don’t live too far from here,” she explained as she got her bearings, smiling at him in thanks as he held the door open for her. “It’s right near the university.”

“You a student there?”

“Mhm,” she nodded as she set off in the direction of her house. “Are you?”

“Nah,” Shawn shrugged, turning his head to the side as though he were suddenly particularly interested in the buildings that lined the sidewalk they were walking down.

Y/N hummed in acknowledgment of his answer, but didn’t press him with the questions she wanted to ask for fear of coming off as judgemental. But Shawn somehow seemed to sense her curiosity to know more, and he kept speaking unprompted.

“College wasn’t really in my capacity when I graduated high school, so I took a couple years off to sort things out. I’ll probably apply at some point.”

“You should!” Y/N encouraged, and Shawn smiled. “What would you study?”

“Haven’t gotten that far yet,” he laughed, and Y/N joined in as she felt herself begin to relax.

As promised, Shawn stayed with Y/N all the way to her doorstep. The two fell in and out of conversation and comfortable silence as they walked, and as Y/N saw her small home come into view she almost wanted to pretend that her house was the farthest one down the street just to have a few more minutes with him, as foolish as she knew that sounded. But she stopped as she approached her own driveway, nerves beginning to fill her stomach for a reason she couldn’t ascertain.

“This is me,” she announced, sighing as she saw through the windows that all the lights were still on, meaning her roommates were still awake and likely making a drunken mess of things. She turned to face him, the streetlights casting a shadow over his face but still giving Y/N one of the clearest views she’d had of his features that night. It was almost paradoxical that someone with a look so boyish and soft had just threateningly pinned a fully grown man to the floor as though it were an action as trivial as tying his shoe.

“Thanks for walking with me,” she mumbled, reaching to toy absentmindedly with the strap of her small crossbody purse. “I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” he grinned, and even in the low light his smile seemed to glow.

“Um, how much farther are you?” Y/N asked, timidly looking up to meet Shawn’s eyes.

The same crooked smile remained fixed on his mouth. “Not far. It’s not too bad of a walk.”

“I could...drive you?” Y/N continued, kicking her toe into the ground as she once again hid her eyes from his. Jade wouldn’t mind lending her car, right? “It’s the least I could do.”

“It’s okay,” Shawn replied immediately, and Y/N snapped her head up. She hadn’t expected her offer to be rejected.

“A-Are you sure? It’s late, and it really would be no trouble.”

“I—,”

“Shawn,” she interjected, with a little more conviction in her tone. “I really don’t mind. I want to.”

He sighed, raking a hand with ring-laden fingers through his matted curls. “No, you don’t. Trust me.”

“Yes I do, or I wouldn’t offer,” she giggled. “C’mon, where do you live?”

“Westgate.”

Y/N inhaled sharply before she could stop herself. “You...live in Westgate?”

Shawn scoffed, reaching a hand up to scrub at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I do.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—,” Y/N interjected, feeling guilty for questioning him, but Shawn cut her off.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied, smiling lightly. “I expect that reaction. It’s a real shithole, I know.”

“It’s not that b—”

“Y/N,” he started, staring at her with an amused glint in his eyes. “It is, and you know it.”

She held her breath, letting it out gently after a short pause. “Okay,” she replied, because it was the only neutral thing she could think to say. “I just wish you’d let me make it up to you somehow. To thank you for pulling that guy off of me and then walking me home. You didn’t have to do either of those things.”

Shawn froze, brow creased as he studied Y/N’s face. “I absolutely had to pull that guy off of you,” he stated matter-of-factly, but Y/N just shrugged. “What kind of person would I be if I hadn’t?”

“A predictable one,” she answered quietly, squeezing out a little laugh, but Shawn was silent as he struggled to come up with an adequate response.

“Well, there are plenty of other ways you can repay me besides driving me home,” he finally continued, and Y/N’s eyes snapped up, wide and hopeful as she looked back at him.

“What did you have in mind?”

This threw him, because it was new. What did he have in mind? What was he supposed to say? What was anyone supposed to say? “Do you like coffee?” he finally blurted, because it was the first thing that he thought of. You hate coffee, you idiot. Why would you say that? But then Y/N smiled a little, and he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders.

“I do, yeah,” Y/N answered, shoving down the nervous energy she felt bubbling up in her chest that would surely make her voice start coming out about three octaves too high.

“Cool,” Shawn assented, lamely, and the two were silent for a bit longer than what was comfortable.

“Can I ask you something?” Y/N finally spoke, almost inaudibly, and if it weren’t for the way her bright eyes looked up at him expectantly Shawn would’ve thought he’d imagined it.

He simply nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets and waiting for Y/N to continue. Her lips parted as she sucked in a breath, crossing her arms over her chest either from nerves or the slight chill that had made its way into the air; Shawn couldn’t tell which.

“Why were you hiding?”

He paused, taking the time to choose his words wisely. “I was trying to get away from some guys who started something I didn’t really want to finish.”

“Like that man that came in after you?”

“Exactly.”

“What was he trying to start?”

“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” Shawn joked, but he immediately regretted it as he saw Y/N’s face fall.

“Sorry,” she muttered sheepishly, and in that moment Shawn swore he’d never felt more stupid.

“No, it’s okay, I didn’t mean to--I was kidding, but I--.” He broke off to regain his composure, allowing the sentences to actually form in his mind before they left his mouth. He’d never felt so out of control around another person before, and it was driving him crazy. He wasn’t yet sure if he was drawn to the feeling or if he was averse to it. Y/N remained still, looking up at him in anticipation of his long-awaited answer.

“Long story short, I...fight. Like, as a sport. And so do those guys. And they’re not exactly my biggest fans.”

“Oh,” Y/N mused, mulling over his words in her head. “Like what kind of fighting?”

“It’s complicated,” Shawn explained, exhaling heavily.

“Oh. Okay. Is that why your hands have that stuff wrapped around them?” He looked down to his knuckles as if he was unaware that the wrappings were still there, and then nodded his head. “I used to, um, to go out with this guy who liked boxing,” Y/N rambled, because she wasn’t sure what else to say. “If that’s kind of like what you do?”

Shawn smiled; he found her timidity endearing. “Kind of,” he laughed, and Y/N felt a small grin cross her mouth at the sound. “I can elaborate the next time I see you.”

“Coffee,” she blurted, as though she were worried he’d already forgotten.

He laughed again. “Coffee,” he affirmed, with a smile that almost made Y/N dizzy. “I’ll probably need your number first, though.”

“Oh!” Y/N gasped, immediately reaching into her purse in search of her phone. “Right, of course. Here--,” she continued, but stopped herself upon the realization that her phone screen remained dark despite her pushing every button she could. “Shoot,” she muttered, looking up at Shawn sheepishly. “My phone must have died. Can I see yours?”

“I don’t actually have mine on me,” Shawn replied, plagued with the sudden realization that he’d probably left it at Dynamite. But as Y/N’s teeth latched onto her lower lip to bite back a smile, he suddenly couldn’t care less.

“I…might have a pen?” she offered, once again reaching into her purse to retrieve it. “Let me just run into my house really quickly to grab something to write on.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Shawn dismissed with a shake of his head. “You can just write it on my arm.”

“Are you sure?” Y/N queried, always cautious. “I don’t wanna--”

“Y/N,” Shawn cut in, his amber eyes glowing with amusement. “It’s fine. I’ll put it in my phone as soon as I get home and then it’ll wash right off. Been wanting a new tattoo for a while, anyways.”

“Okay,” she assented with a soft giggle, moving closer to Shawn’s outstretched forearm. She uncapped the pen and gingerly took hold of his wrist to get a sturdier grip as she began to etch her phone number onto his skin. She added her name underneath the numbers for good measure, then stood back and buried the pen back into her bag.

Shawn looked down at his arm, noticing that her name was spelled differently than how he’d imagined. He liked it better this way. He glanced up at her in time to catch her take her lower lip between her teeth as she focused on reclosing her bag.

She tilted her chin up to face him, feeling heat rise to her cheeks as she saw that he’d already been looking at her. “Thanks again,” she said softly, folding her arms over her chest. “Get home safe, okay?”

He stared down at her, focused a little too intently on her hand as it came up to brush a piece of hair away from her face. “I will,” he agreed, taking a step back towards the sidewalk.

She smiled, moving towards her front door. “Bye, Shawn,” she threw over her shoulder as soon as her back was turned, finding it easier to talk when she wasn’t looking at him.

He watched her hurry up the steps to the door, and he gave a little wave as she looked over her shoulder to see if he was still there. Caught, Y/N felt the same heat come to her face as she turned to hide her flustered expression from him, though she knew he couldn’t see anyways, and pushed her way through the door. She was almost thankful that she immediately heard her roommates calling out for her; it helped her fight the childish urge to run to the window and watch him walk away.

Shawn let out a deep breath as soon as Y/N closed the door behind herself, reaching up to run his hands through his matted curls. He began to unwrap his hands as he set off towards Dynamite to retrieve his phone and finally go home.

He knew he should be more concerned with Axel tracking him down than he was about Y/N, but he wasn’t, and it made him uneasy. He couldn’t tear his mind from the eyes he’d wished he’d seen more of, the pendant hanging around her neck that fit perfectly into the V of her white top, or the way it felt--although it was only for a short time--when he’d held her hand. It was all new, and different, and it was driving him so crazy he still couldn’t tell if he liked it or hated it.

When he finally reached Dynamite, his phone was exactly where he’d expected it to be; right by where he’d sat to wrap his hands before the fight that never ended up happening. He picked it up and tucked it into his pocket, but almost as soon as he started walking towards his apartment he felt it buzz. Annoyed, he reached for it and illuminated the screen to find a slew of messages from Raven.

Where did you go, Sugar?

Are you okay?

Answer me, maybe?

Would it kill you to pick up the phone?

Shawn couldn’t help but roll his eyes. I’m fine, he eventually typed back.

An almost immediate response: Finally, jackass. Good. My place at midnight?

Shawn paused. For the first time, going to see Raven was the absolute last thing he wanted to do. He felt warmth rise to the spot on his forearm where Y/N had written her phone number, and it was as though he could feel the soft pads of her fingertips gently pressing into his skin all over again. It didn’t take long for him to decide to quickly silence his phone and tuck it away after typing back a brief Not tonight.

Feedback is so appreciated, and let me know if you want a part two!!

[vaguely-concerned]

Mass Effect Initiation thoughts

In short: this book is actually really good, N.K. Jemisin is, as we all know, an excellent writer! It’s the story of how Cora met Alec Ryder and joined the Initiative, and it has SO much good good SAM content and I am full of emotions. 

- poor cora is so continually out of her depth, I want to give her a hug. the points made about her in the main game are true though -- she is not ready for leadership yet. (and that’s fine! she does much better with something or someone to belong to and that is so Valid. she’s an honorable Loyal Knight!!! one of the sexiest things to be, as we all know)

I think I’ll actually like her a lot more on this new playthrough now -- she must have been quite hard to write compellingly in the game because at the end of the day she’s really very straightforward and honest and loyal, it’s quite hard to uh ‘hide’ things in her character  

- alec ryder deadass installed an unspeakably illegal (and did I mention experimental?) AI in cora’s head with no informed consent whatsoever. d A D 

(when cora is like ‘are you actually going to another galaxy because they don’t have laws to stop you from committing fully to your craziness in public’ and alec is like *...maybe so meme* fadsfhkj he does literally say ‘this is why I’m going to another galaxy’ out loud at a later point of the book)

- this book is giving me the good good SAM content ;________; I love SAM so much, the scene where cora thinks she’s dying and SAM talks to her? when cora asks SAM if he’s okay being connected to her because if he’s sentient that matters to her (cora is a Good)? SAM explicitly having inherited alec ryder’s sense of humour and sarcasm and alec a) doesn’t know how it happened, b) distantly thinks he should probably track that process down and turn it off (and never does) and c) regrets all his life choices when his robot kid mercilessly snarks at him and questions his life choices? please bioware give me an me:a sequel with more of this stuff I’ll eat it up with a spoon

- body diverse asari! HUGE BUFF ASARI! Short stocky beautiful matriarch asari with one krogan and one turian trophy husband fast asleep in her bed in the background of a vidcall fkdjshfkjsdlhfkjsdah god I love mass effect with my entire heart

- OLD LADY INFORMATION BROKER VOLUS WORKING OUT OF ILLIUM!!!! this is not a drill what the fUCK this is the coolest shit 

- fasdklhfsjkdalfhsdjk okay in Alec Ryder POV: “I don’t think [Cora] likes me very much.” Which probably meant she had good judgement. AFLSKJDHGJSDKF ALEC 

he has a weird flip-flopping sense of self -- he is uncompromisingly (one might even say... astoundingly arrogantly) secure in his own intellectual superiority and that most other people are idiots not to be trusted and that he needs to do things himself because others would mess it up, and yet there’s this clear seam of self loathing around basically everything else about himself too. (You know who he reminds me of, in a more military and less visibly anxious way? Rodney McKay. Alec Ryder is like a slightly unfortunate outcome for a McShep lovechild. I think we just figured out why I have sort of a soft spot for him even though he’s a certifiable dick lol) 

- this book really makes it hit home that cora grew up incredibly isolated and dirt poor. I’ve seen some people say her backstory is all sunshine and daisies compared to kaidan and especially jack’s, but honestly her background is complicated and fucked up enough that I’m just like ‘shit baby :(’ all the time

- well I have successfully solved the puzzle about whether alec ryder is an idealist or not; he absolutely is. a grouchy, bad-tempered one with no people skills, but an idealist nonetheless. alec ryder is in fact a storm of 150000 emotions in a trenchcoat, barely held in check by a thin fragile outer shell of iron lol, SAM was absolutely right to say that he was mostly governed by his feelings. (and I mean if anyone would know it’d be SAM I guess). I found some of it sort of sweet actually: he reflects in passing that one of the biggest reliefs of no longer being in the alliance is that he’ll never have to risk other people’s lives again. he fundamentally wants to build something good to help people live and be happy instead of destroying things. (he also is quite bad at predicting how other people could corrupt and use his innovations precisely to be destructive b/c he doesn’t think that’s the ~*logical*~ thing to do, so... y’know haha, maybe it’s good he went to another galaxy, the milky way could not contain his chaos) 

also he thinks a lot about his wife, even though she’s been dead for years at this point. o u c h (she truly does seem to have been a tether for him in so many ways though -- like a tie to the real world/normalcy/possibly sanity, and that’s a bit how he still evokes her)

additionally: alec ryder did fistfight at the very least one dude in the line of bureaucratic duty, and perhaps more, enough for SAM to have a list of warning signs ready and at hand jdfsklfhasdjf. he did, very much, throw a dude through a table. (at least it’s implied said dude was an asshole) I LOVE that alec’s SAM is  the snarkiest iteration we’ve seen and that he’s perfectly willing to call the old man out on his bullshit (alec stresses that SAM is supposed to do what he says at the end of the day, but his SAM is also less subservient and more willing to argue and discuss things than any other we get to see -- and this is of course the SAM Ryder inherits, but I don’t think SAM is as confident in being able to read the PC correctly until a bit further into the game and the twin is of course a different person who’ll respond to different things so he’s not quite as... blunt? I guess? in confronting them about things. (the whole concept is just! so! interesting!!) anyway I feel like all of this says something about alec’s parenting style, for better or for worse haha. he sort of tries to be authoritarian but his children (well canonically at least Sara, she references having yelled at him a lot over the years) aren’t afraid to fight back or scared of the consequences of disagreeing, so I get the distinct feeling his temper never flared violently like that with his family at all, I think he’s more prone to just pulling away in disapproval.) 

- I enjoy how casually diverse this book is  -- Jemisin has done such a good job making sure especially the human characters are from different backgrounds and places, as they would be lore-wise in the Mass Effect universe, though the games often skew unfortunately white. (andromeda much less so than the trilogy, though)   

- my heart. is so so soft for the fact that a huge reason for cora to join the initiative is how much she bonds with SAM-E. and I am so sad for her because she just wants someone or something who’ll stay, something that won’t disappear on her without closure like her parents; she’s so insecure and scared under her competence (and WHY THE FUCK WOULDN’T SHE BE holy shit her parents just. weren’t there one day after she left home so she wouldn’t accidentally crush their ship with her untrained biotics and kill them all). and she chooses alec and his dream. and then alec goes and FUCKING DIES at the first opportunity Y____________Y alternate universe alec please drink your victor sullivan juice and survive, all these dumb children need you  

- I am so surprised about how much fond respect alec seems to have for cora and how quickly he developed it. I suppose he has a harder time with his own children because it’s closer to home? he is a complicated man lol, this last part of the book where he shows her the ark and everything is weirdly sweet. again I think he has the potential to be a good dad somewhere in there and that just makes it so much worse that he wasn’t. (also he staunchly considers himself still a married man. god help me) 

they’ve both grown to honestly love their sams T________T fml. (well alec has sort of bound up all of himself, the things he loves and their future in SAM, so it’s a bit more complicated but my point still stands) alec advocating for a consensual synthesis is very heartfelt and convincing; you really want to believe him.

cora seen through someone else’s eyes is also SO AMAZING!!! after this whole book in her head and she feels so flailing and uncertain and adrift and other people naturally view her completely differently. I especially like alec picking up on her not talking a lot. (I think this is why she responds so well to SAM, who’ll be there always and can be in her head. I wish this part of cora was more evident in the game, the fact that she has this sibling-like connection to SAM seems very important. sequel where both SAM and Ryder grow closer to becoming her actual family? please? I keep begging for ME:A2 into an empty aching void haha) 

- alec ‘I don’t have time to die’ ryder still talking about everyone else being idiots as he’s slowly catching fire while saving SAM fhdjfhsdlfhasdhlfsjd he is an asshole but it is hard not to stan 

- nO SAM-E D:D:D: oh well at least he’s still alive within SAM, in a way?

- hey. hey you know what’s fun. alec tries to use his last words and last thoughts to ask cora to tell the kids about ellen being alive this time too. haha. ha. fuck

he consistently goes out thinking of his family despite all his bullshit and I’m not okay

- CORA IS A PERFECT BODYGUARD/SECOND IN COMMAND AND I’M EMOTIONAL 

- alec is. surprisingly afraid to hurt people emotionally? he keeps putting off telling cora the bad news about SAM-E, to SAM’s stated disapproval lol (I must repeat again: I love SAM so so much). this supports my thesis that in his personal life he’s avoidant rather than confrontational/aggressive. (professionally... again, he did very much throw a man through a table) 

- man I hope we some day get SAM being this comfortably close and sarcastic with Ryder too. thinking about SAM-E and the small differences between him and uh SAM ‘prime’ it really must have been a huge thing for him too to become someone else, especially after the last person died like that. and he kind of has no choice but to experience that loss and death intimately. (now that I think about it that’s. fucked up, man. he literally felt alec go like it happened to himself.) 

If I were to summarize the differences between the SAMs we have seen, cora’s SAM-E seems younger, more exuberant, shyer and more -- what’s a non-shitty word for needy haha? it’s very firmly established that cora longs to feel needed, so this makes perfect sense. alec’s SAM is blunter, snarkier and more prone to questioning things, and hilariously is sort of alec’s emotional intelligence. (probably serves a similar role to what ellen used to, actually. ow) scott/sara’s SAM feels more worried/focused -- which also makes sense; he’s just experienced losing his person/pathfinder, in a real way he’s also recently orphaned and must be Extremely aware that he now has an enormous responsibility, not only what he was built for but for what remains of alec’s family. ...poor SAM 

(come to think of it I guess one vibe I get from in-game SAM is a little bit of ’harried and anxious yet loving and responsible uncle’ hahaha)

- so at this point alec knew cora could never be pathfinder after him, and he never told her. *accumulation of asshole points continues, though I suspect this might have come from a place of not wanting to hurt her again (b/c he’s the only one who has a right to know these important things amirite)* but I’m also strangely touched that the reason he’s hesitant to involve his children in the whole thing isn’t that he doesn’t have faith in them, it’s that he doesn’t want to burden their lives with something so heavy, a burden he created. can you just imagine... if this man had managed to take the time to explain himself, his motivations and his feelings to his children just once. just one fUCKING time. am I laughing am I crying I honestly don’t know

- this book makes me ache all over for the potential of Andromeda. and I don’t think it’s too late to salvage it either. I know a sequel probably won’t happen, at least not any time soon, but... *sits by rainy window like a wife wistfully wondering if her husband will return from sea*

[vecna]

Oohh for the fandom meme! Dragon Age?

Send me a fandom!

Oh boy, this is going to be spicy.

It’s also very Anders-negative, so apologies up front.

The character(s) I first fell in love with:

I’m actually not sure which was the FIRST, but it’s a tie between Morrigan and Alistair. I saw fanart of them going around at the time Origins first released, and that’s what got me to try the game! 

Alistair was a breath of fresh air, because at the time, I was used to warrior men in games being all Edgy and Rough, and he was the total opposite and a sweetheart.

And Morrigan was just instantly my goth wife, and had Claudia Black as a VA, so I was sold immediately.

Both still hold a special place for me!

The character(s) I never expected to love as much as I do now:

Loghain is the main one. He does a lot of truly reprehensible shit in the first game. But once I sat down and read the prequel novels about young Loghain, plus saw what he’s like if you recruit him, he grew on me A LOT and now he’s a top fave.

Nathaniel I expected to hate as soon as I saw his name + who his father was, but then the expansion came out and I ended up loving that dude almost immediately. I really wish he was around more after Awakening, and also really wish he’d been a romance option, especially for a Cousland haha.

Merrill is a weird one because she was totally uninteresting to me in DA:O, so when they announced her as a companion in DA2 I was like, “Ehhhh.” Then they punked me by making her adorable and sweet and now I love her.

Plus a bunch of side-characters like The Architect? I liked him a bunch in the novel + Awakening – although I found his Plan in the novel much more appealing. But as the years have gone by, I keep surprising myself at just HOW disappointed I am he’s never appeared again haha.

The character(s) everyone else loves that I don’t:

There’s a few, and all of them will get me yelled at, but here we go.

First: Isabela. This one’s a bit complicated, but it really just boils down to her attitude towards how you play your character. I actively dislike characters who are super sexual – regardless of gender. But Isabela in particular bothers me because she’s constantly pushing her lewdness and sexual humor on you, and when you try to discourage it, she admonishes you with, “Well, you’re no fun.” Her whole character is just… like that for me. Super pushy, overly lewd, gets uppity when you don’t have the same ~liberated~ opinions she does, and this is all played up in the writing like she’s this Empowered Woman the player absolutely must love, especially if they’re playing a male character lol. I hate her for the same reasons a lot of people hate Liara in Mass Effect, but with the addition of pushy lewd jokey characters always rubbing me the wrong way.

Second: Iron Bull. I’ve written a lot about why he makes me more uncomfortable than any fictional character I’ve ever encountered, and I just outright hate him, he makes my skin crawl. If you want details, feel free to DM me, I don’t really want to rant about it again publicly.

Third: Anders. Again, I’ve written a lot about him before, but. I hated him in Awakening, for a lot of the same reasons I hate Isabela in DA2. But the changes they made to him in DA2 are just kinda :/. While I absolutely agree with him about Mage Rights, the level of preachiness they added to him drove me nuts, and the fact that you’re painted as a Bad Guy if you don’t like him blowing up the chantry. And from a purely OOC standpoint: He’s become a figurehead for all the aggressive Discourse people in the fandom, and if I see someone list Anders in their sidebar bio, I know pre-emptively that their blog is going to be full of 6 page long essays of meta about how everything is Problematic, and no thanks.

To a lesser extent, I’m also not fond of Zevran. But in his case, it’s not anything major like the others, I’m just tired of Bioware’s habit of making the bisexual characters overly lewd sex-focused rogues/deviants.

The character(s) I love that everyone else hates:

Loghain, lol.

But also Sebastian Vael? There’s so much about him that I find genuinely fascinating, especially regarding his backstory, and his struggles between his feelings of responsibility to his family vs his dedication to the Chantry and bettering himself. He’s such a dear character to me, and such a pivotal part of any playthrough, I’m always blown away when I remember he’s a DLC character and many people don’t have him.

HOWEVER Anders being the fandom darling means that people tend to unfairly shit on Sebastian for reacting poorly to the Chantry explosion. People also like to label him as a poster child of a White Straight Church Boy, while refusing to acknowledge he’s… not straight, and not exactly a church boy either lol.

Also Vivienne, but I think that one’s really self-explanatory. I love her, and she gives a really needed perspective on the Circle, since most of the mage companions previously were apostates. But of course, she gets written off as a Chantry apologist, and an uppity bitch, when people would def love her for the same traits if she was not black lol.

The character(s) I used to love but don’t any longer:

Justice. And by extension, Anders. A lot of people like to rant about how Justice ruined Anders, but I always saw it the other way around.Justice was my favorite character in Awakening. The whole concept around him, that he was a Fade spirit who took human form and was experiencing life for the first time was SO fascinating. I felt like there was so much to explore there with his character.

Buuuut then they had him merge with Anders. With the narrative being that he WAS a spirit of Justice, but the moment he connected with Anders, it corrupted his entire spirit into something he wasn’t anymore. So essentially, the character I used to love no longer exists, thanks to Anders. And it reminds me of that phrase recently, about how the destination is so terrible you can no longer enjoy the journey? I can’t even appreciate Justice in Awakening anymore, knowing what happens to him.

To a lesser extent, Corypheus. He was SO COOL and the premise of him was AMAZING when he first appeared in the DA2 DLC, but then Inquisition had to go and turn him into a weird shallow mustache twirl villain.

The character(s) I would totally smooch:

None? Idk I don’t really have the Smooch Fictional Character gene.

The character(s) I’d want to be like:

MAEVARIS TILANI. May I one day finally have the confidence in my identity that she does, and also marry a sweet bear man who adores me.

The character(s) I’d slap:

Too many to list, really. Probably Anders.

The pairing(s) that I love:

THERE’S SO MANY. And most of them are with the PC, because I generally don’t ship NPCs together. But my top 3 are:

M!Hawke / Fenris is my ultimate OTP in the Dragon Age series, by a long-shot. Not even sure where to start on how much I love it, but two damaged guys leaning on each other to work through their respective loneliness and trauma is MY JAM. And lmao I love silver-sideburned Hawke chillin in retirement somewhere but being a supportive husband while Fenris goes off hunting the Bad Guys, it’s great.

Solas / Lavellan is a close second, with the caveat that I increasingly prefer it with a male Lavellan. Having the Inquisitor in love with Solas just changes the entire tone of the game for me, for the better, and him actually being the villain trying to end the world while in love with this normie elf is just (chef kiss). Too bad I’m burned out by how overly spammed it is.

Dorian / Inquisitor is in third, I will just always be fond of how it’s a story of the Inquisitor helping Dorian be happy with who he is, escape an abusive family, and realize that he’s allowed to be loved. Good shit good shit.

Some others:

Warden / Morrigan is probably my favorite Origins ship, and that only intensified with the way she talks about the Warden in Inquisition, esp if they’re Kieran’s other parent. What a cute goth family, regardless of the Warden’s gender, cause you can pry Bi Morrigan from my cold dead fingers.

Cassandra / Inquisitor might have a lot of Romance Cliches, but I adore it – although, similar others, I increasingly prefer it with a female Inquisitor. I actively dislike the weird no-homo rejection with her, and come on, a lady Inquisitor being her Knight In Shining Armor is just good storytelling.

Cullen / Inquisitor, for a lot of the same reasons as Cassandra. I love me a cliche romance, but I’m also fond of the narrative w/ him of someone he loves helping him heal through the lyrium withdrawals and take time to rest.

Josephine / F!Inquisitor is just adorable all around, and wholesome, and great.

Varric / Hawke COME ON HOW WAS THIS NOT AN OPTION.

On the rarepair end:

Sebastian / Hawke doesn’t seem like it would be a rarepair – you’d think everyone who loves Cullen/Inquisitor would love this one too. I do! But alas. That said, I’m also pretty aggro about this one with a male Hawke because SEBASTIAN IS CANON BI. WHY WAS HIS ROMANCE STRAIGHT.

Maric / Loghain is a rarepair I will take with me to my grave LOL. Never forget the scene where Maric thought Loghain was leaving, and bolted across the camp with almost no clothes on to beg Loghain to stay. Come on.

Nathaniel / Cousland is dear to me, and I love it so much more than Alistair / Cousland haha.

Greagoir / Wynne, I can’t believe this got validated in canon ahhhh.

The pairing(s) that I despise:

Again: THERE’S SO MANY.

Iron Bull / Dorian is my least fave by a longshot. Again, I have written about why I hate this pairing a great many times, but it’s awful and toxic and makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I could happily go the rest of my life without seeing anything about it ever again. Please keep poor Dorian away from that man. He deserves someone that doesn’t sexually harass him until he’s finally worn down into dubious consent (while drunk) and then outted to everyone about it.

Isabela / Fenris. Sorry, but it’s just bad writing that Fenris bails on Hawke because the physical intimacy triggered his PTSD and he needs space to process, but then will turn around and have a casual sex relationship with Isabela instead. Yikes.

Anders / Fenris. Aveline / Isabela. Alistair / Morrigan. All of the DA2 Hawke/companion rivalmances. I don’t enjoy “these two people hate and antagonize and want to kill each other… but they fuck” in any form.

Cullen / Amell. Yikes.

And basically ALL of the canon wlw pairings in this series suffer from the fact they have men writing them, and as a result they’re almost always some kind of abusive or racist, and skeeve me out. See: Celene / Briala, Leliana / Marjolaine, Branka / Hespith, etc. Please Bioware, I’m begging you to consult some actual queer women. It’s insane how badly they’re treated compared to how the canon mlm couples are written.

FINALLY, I recognize this will be the most unpopular of all, but. As much as I love M!Hawke/Fenris, I just honestly cannot stand seeing F!Hawke/Fenris. There are some pairings where I’m so attached to the m/m or f/f version, I cannot deal with the m/f version anymore, and that’s one of them. (The others are mainly non-Bioware.)

[heartschoicegames]

Heart’s Choice Author Interview: RoAnna Sylver, “Dawnfall”

Find true love and family with a pirate crew at the ends of the universe, where aliens, ghosts, and portals open the space between worlds...and your heart. You are a Navigator, one who creates and guards portals from one dimension to another, wary of the liminal sea between them.

Your universe is made of two worlds: one contains the magic-infused world of Zephyria, and the other, the dystopian space station Eclipse. The worlds are balanced, until one day, an explosive disaster, a deadly energy storm, and an infamous pirate—the Ghost Queen—upend your life and plunge you into a race to save both worlds.

Dawnfall is a 232,000 word interactive romance novel by RoAnna Sylver,  one of the first set of games releasing with the launch of Heart’s Choice. I sat down with the author, RoAnna Sylver, to talk about writing interactive romance. Heart’s Choice games release December 2nd.

Dawnfall has frankly an insanely wonderful setting for a romance game. Tell me about the aliens, the pirates, the ghosts, and the alien-pirate-ghosts.

Hi there! I’m so glad you think this sounds fun! Yeah, Dawnfall is weird as heck, and that’s one of the things I love about this story. It’s weird in a way I don’t think we’ve seen much of before. I really just tried to put in everything I find fun or interesting, and that I’ve always wanted to write. Dawnfall started out as a total brain-candy project, and runs on pure Rule of Cool. Pirates? Yes. Magic? Yes. A slice of cyberpunk? Hell yes. Eerie ghosts and faerie-tale influences and memory-sharing potions? Giant bird people? The power of rock n’roll? Yes, yes, yes.

And also everybody’s dateable, and in a couple cases, dating each other. We weave a tangled web, but I think it’s a pretty badass and spectacular web.

You seem to really neatly straddle the genre fence here with a romance and sci-fi/fantasy. What was challenging about cramming all of that into one game?

Thank you so much for saying that. I’ve always adored SFF, and there’s so much in this genre-collection, so many extremes and concepts and contrasting colors, that I couldn’t limit myself to picking just one to play with. This weird game-book is kind of a love letter to fantasy and science fiction and haunted house stories and cyberpunk adventures—I thought a lot about the Disney movie Treasure Planet for its genre-blending beauty, and the Bioware game Mass Effect for its array of fascinating, multidimensional alien cuties to interact with and date… and then turned it up to eleven.

I guess you’d expect the challenge to be in making it all fit together/be “believable,” but I kind of threw that out the window. I don’t expect anyone to find it ‘realistic’ (setting-wise anyway; I tried to make every character ring true of course), and I don’t really care if someone thinks it’s silly, or doesn’t take it seriously. It is silly in a lot of ways. DAWNFALL is a giant ridiculous queer space magic pirate adventure, and the only goal is fun. If you have fun, I’ve done my job, and there should be something fun in here for everyone.

Did you have a favorite NPC you enjoyed writing most?

Honestly I love them all so much in different ways, and I know them so well by now it’s really second nature. Their voices come so easily and they’re all so much fun. The Queen’s swagger is awesome though, and her mental voice/mannerisms probably come through especially clearly. I love Zenith’s vulnerable moments when xie lets xir guard down and lets go of the need to entertain or please. I love Averis’s journey and growth from cute wibbly nerd to a confident swashbuckler (who is also still a cute wibbly nerd). I love how deeply Oz feels, how strongly he loves and remembers and honors memory, and how unafraid he is to show softness and warmth. And I love a certain spoilery ghost-babe and how they’re so full of joy at the beauty of life.

I do want to give special mention to Aeon, though. This is a story about connection, and I wanted to show that sibling bonds are every bit as important and strong as romantic or any other. I also wanted to show a complex, multidimensional antagonist figure who holds heartbreaking secrets along with authority, and is genuinely trying to do what she thinks is the best thing, and wants what’s best for you, the PC, even if you might not always agree. Her balance between being so emotionally guarded and determined and unyielding, while hopefully being extremely easy to read and tell what she wants and fears and loves—spoiler: you; she loves you!—was a challenge I hope I pull off.

…Also I enjoy any time Vyranix gets his pompous feathered ass handed to him. I think we all know a Vyranix, or at least of one, and it’s always fun to take them down, even in fantasy.

Who would you be romancing as a player?

I’m gonna say “everyone,” and here it won’t actually be cheating, because you can romance everyone! At once! In varying degrees/relationship dynamics and attractions. You don’t see a lot of polyamory-friendly games or books or anything really, and this is an incredibly important thing for me. The second I got the idea for Dawnfall I knew it had to let players romance anyone they wanted and show polyamory in a realistic, healthy light. I’m also a-spec (asexual and aromantic), and having not just good representation but being actively included and welcomed and celebrated in fiction is so huge too.

Dawnfall is a romance of course, being part of Heart’s Choice, but one of the single most vital elements for me is making it inclusive for aromantic and asexual players and player-characters. Essentially, I wanted to write a romance that didn’t penalize players for not experiencing the attractions the way we’re otherwise expected or required—and I’m so grateful that my amazing editors and community not only accepted but supported everything I was trying to do here. (It’s so refreshing not to have to fight for inclusion and freedom. It shouldn’t be, but it is.)

And that’s where the concept of “Heart-Stars” and “Same-Feathers” came from. I’ve never seen anything honor queerplatonic relationships like I’m trying to do here, and I want everyone, of every sexuality and attraction, to feel like they have a place here and can experience this adventure without limits. And I wanted to show that it’s a very normal thing, hence this being the same for the human characters as well as alien. (One of the nonbinary characters being human is also no mistake. I love me some wild alien genders, but there are tons of awesome nonbinary humans too!)

…That being said, I think I gave Averis most of my anxiety-issues, and would really just like to curl up with Oz and watch The Great British Bake-Off. That sounds like a perfect night in my books.

What were some of the things you found surprising about the game-writing process?

Coding was definitely the biggest learning curve. I’d never coded anything before in my life, and it’s such a new skillset to learn, entirely different from any kind of writing I’ve ever done. Sometimes it felt rewriting my brain, which did not at all do this intuitively—and also sometimes like I bit off much more than I could chew (first game ever being not only a huge piece of interactive fiction, but a polyamorous romance with aro and ace possibilities, and so many more variables than expected!), but it’s been worth it. Entirely. If my writing makes anyone feel seen and accepted and invited to have fun as they are, it’s worth every bit of struggle.

Also, oddly, interactive fiction is in some ways easier for me than writing a plain old book! Probably because I love AUs so much, and every choice in a game is like writing a tiny AU of the story, so I get to do the same scenes several different ways. My ADHD-brain finds something about this extremely satisfying, most likely because it somehow feels more like multitasking! Several stories in one, and if I like two ideas, I don’t have to pick just one to write!

Honestly though, I think the most surprising part is just being done, and…that I could do this at all. It was so huge, and took so long, and I learned so much, and every day I’m just kind of going “who the hell am I?” about doing all of this. I’m proud of it. I did a cool thing. And trying to get better at saying that.

And, what are you working on now?

I always have about 8 active projects going at once (which shouldn’t come as a surprise after last question!), but my next interactive fiction game is with Tales/Fable Labs! It’s shaping up to be a Dawnfall-sized project, but a little faster-moving and action-y.

It’s called Every Beat Belongs To You, and it’s a romantic thriller that feels like Twin Peaks meets Mr. Robot, with a smattering of Repo: The Genetic Opera. A creepy Pacific Northwest town with a secret (and a rash of ritualized murders), a super-slick medical research company whose flagship product is a 100% perfect synthetic heart, a mysterious new-age group, and a sister who went missing just before discovering how it’s all connected. Also five simultaneously-dateable (including ace and aro ships!) cuties of varying genders! Who will you trust with your heart?

I’m very excited about Everybeat, which should be just as queer, polyam, exciting, and weird as all my stuff! Aside from that, I’m working on Stake Sauce Book 2, its companion f/f vampire series Death Masquerade, and Chameleon Moon Book 3. I’m not always working…sometimes there are videogames, and sleep. But I really hope to have a lot more fun things to share soon!

Oh, and depending on how this weird, fun thing goes, I do have some ideas for prequel Dawnfall stories; maybe games, maybe books, but the ideas are there. The world—worlds, really—is so huge, and I’m not done playing in it yet! I also have some character art drawn, and I want to do a lot more of them. It’s another way to show love.

So thank you so much! I really hope Dawnfall is as fun to everyone to read/play as it was for me to write. I can’t wait to share it with you!