#and even ignoring that. grown men are not the target audience

[foggieststars]

actually given that i’m rereading the throne of glass series rn i actually feel nothing but pure disgust at the amount of grown men who read the first book and hop on reddit to say it’s the most trite annoying thing they’ve ever read. like first of all are you a fourteen year old girl? no? then maybe learn some common empathy and use it to understand that a book series written by a teenage girl for teenage girls isn’t trying to be High Literature and it isn’t fucking for you…..

like omg why am i getting so heated. i just cannot read one more post from a grown man wading into a discussion about genre fiction and throwing all of their toys out of the pram because it’s not catering to their tastes? it’s not fucking FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

[bestpartofbe-lie-ve]

Jake was and has never been a bad father, and I'll die on this hill. Y'all be having serious problems knowing what a bad father is actually like.

Let me explain my point, but feel free to ignore if u want 🤷🏻‍♀️

So, first, the movie from the very beginning let us know as audience that the Sullys, before humans arriving again, had a pretty tight family relationship; they were close, even with Lo'ak, Kiri and Neteyam being already grown up. Jake's sweet, and steady, having games with the kids and being the ultimate malewife and dad UNTIL, as I've already said, humans arrive to Pandora. He looks horrified, he knows what's about to happen, and we eventually watch how humans start to burn and turn everything into ashes. Then, the 1 year time jump appears, and he's already the big bad Marine leader that y'all call "a bad father" but, being honest? I don't blame him.

Before Pandora Jake had nothing. He was alone, crippled, and living on a dying earth. No family, no lovers, no actual friends. Pandora gave him everything, so he knew what humans coming back to Pandora meant for him and his family. For him and everything he had built the last years.

He already went through war with humans. He already saw, and knew, what they were capable of. At the beginning, he had nothing to lose, and even then he gave it all to defend Pandora and its people. Now, he had children and a family of his own with the woman he loved. Imagine knowing that not only you could lose your home, but your family too.

Jake made a lot of mistakes in that year, that's for sure, but those mistakes don't make him a bad father straight away. He's allowed to commit mistakes, especially since he was actually trying to keep everyone safe.

Making Lo'ak and Neteyam call him sir, and have them practically being perfect little soldiers at the age of 14/15 wasn't an A+ parenting behavior, even I found it annoying, but it was understandable. Jake even says in the comics that even though he wasn't human anymore, he still felt like a Marine. So, afraid, scared of what humans could do now, he decides to make his kids "stronger" in a way of protecting them for the dangers that came from the outsides of Pandora, for a more human kind of danger, in the only way he knew; as a Marine. Because even when Pandora had their ways to make kids into men, no Pandoran kid is fully prepared for the threat that the sky people actually represent.

And no, I'm not saying he's innocent; he was rude to Lo'ak, and put such a responsibility over Neteyam's shoulders as if he wasn't just a year older than his brother but, be fr, you can't blame Jake for being afraid of his kids lives.

No one is born knowing how to be a good parent, neither a good son. Jake was wrong on how hard he was on them, yes, even Neytiri tells him that, but then he answers "i thought we lost him" (about Neteyam) showing how SCARED he was at the moment, and how much he cared about the kids. And at that scene we literally get to understand that Jake started to split things up as soon as he saw humans coming to Pandora, as a way of keeping everyone "safe".

Now, Jake was already stressed knowing that everything was falling down to pieces because of HIM. His kids had already put themselves in danger by going out and crossing paths with Quaritch's team, and nothing seemed to go for the better, not even at the Metkayina's clan. Jake was still the target, he was the one actually being hunted; he knew that his mere existence put the clans, his family and anyone near him in danger, and that made everything harder. Because not only he had to be a father but a leader and a warrior too. Now, think about being in his place and having your kids putting themselves in even more danger as if danger itself wasn't already that worrying.

Then, tragedy happens and Jake suddenly blames Lo'ak for Neteyam's death. He's heartbroken, and doesn't think about the impact his words might have over his son. The fight occurs, and Jake's left injured and way too weak to save himself from drowning.

Lo'ak comes to save him, teaching him how to breath and telling him about the way of water. Jake sees his son, the one whom he had been the "worst father" for, being not just a kid but a man. He sees his only remaining son begging for him to not give up his life, telling him "I can't lose you too". Payakan helps them, also making Jake realize that Lo'ak was always right about the Tulkun, showing him once again that he had been failing way too much when his kids needed him the most.

Jake, lost at words, knowing how much he had fucked everything up, tells Lo'ak "I see you, son" as a way of saying "I understand how wrong I was, and how hard I was with you. I get it now, and I recognize it too. You're important to me, more than what you think" and Lo'ak's face shows relief, even peace. Meaning that both of them had learned their lesson.

We get to hear Jake narrating how he knew now that them being a family was their biggest weakness, but at the same time their biggest strength and fortress. So, at the end of the movie, and sadly after Neteyam's death, Jake gets to see that what he thought at the beginning was the right thing to do, was actually wrong. He realizes that the best way of keeping each other safe is by being a strong and united family again; no marine training, nor military codenames and ways of addressing. They just needed to be strong TOGETHER, not apart. He had to be their father, not their boss.

And I might not have children of my own, but I had to take care of my little brother since I was little, I practically raised him, and I used to be rough with him as a way of protect him of what I went through when I was his age all because I was afraid. I wanted to put him in a glass container to protect him from everything and everyone, even if that meant sucking at "parenting".

Jake made a lot of mistakes all because of fear, and that's valid. So I'll not take anyone calling him a bad father, not when he literally tried everything he could without going mad.

Me when I saw the Sully kids

vs

When I heard them call Jake Sir and saw him completely suck at parenting

[savnofilter]

no nuance november!

a/n: which is basically you have a bunch of opinions and dont explain any of em' and let your followers discuss them (much more suited for tiktok sjsnj). i'll be doing it since it compiles with many topics like fandom, racism, lgbtq+, politics and etc. i highly encourage people to do this simply because why not? feel free to send your own opinions n stuff, i wanna know what my followers think!!

disclaimer!! ⚠️ all of these are broad, not pin pointing certain people or situations. even though these are my opinions these were all in fun and have been collected over the years and will change as time goes on. nothing is sugar-coated so thread carefully. feel free to agree or disagree. :)

warning(s): mentions of racism, p*do micro aggression, fetishizing, toxicity, abuse, politics, labelling, mental health, cancelling, fandoms, ages.

key:

iswis = i said what i said, no explanation to that one.

whe = will happily explain.

stop sexualizing gay/m|m/yaoi relationships. it's not only demonizing to the males, it's also very fetishizing. (iswis)

most times /10 yall root for "feminine men" when you really mean white boys and fetishised asian men on social media. (whe)

bullying someone isnt educating. you either cant cope with the fact people have different opinions from you or you have a struggle with things either always never going your way or the opposite. (iswis)

straight people will never have a say in lgbtq+ issues. stop inserting yourself. (iswis)

white people will never have a say in poc issues. stop inserting yourself. (iswis)

poc will never have a say in black people issues. stop inserting yourself. (vice versa but im black and it happens more often to us lol) (iswis)

using the defense, "but black lives matter, right?" when one black person does something bad isnt facts, youre racist. (iswis)

fandom adults need to stop gatekeeping the target audience (demographics) to animes/shows. (iswis)

poc people can be racist. (whe)

even if a certain site was adult doesnt mean that every adult wants to see your porn. either keep it to yourself or tag properly. (iswis)

saying shit like, "im more xyz than you and im not even xyz" is not only disrespectful but disgusting. just because you believe in a popular opinion of a group does NOT suddenly make you a person in it, get over yourself. (iswis)

dont hate on people for the same things you have done at a young age. (ex: writing fanfic, seggs, etc) (iswis)

blaming a minor/someone mentally unstable for being abused is not only victim blaming, but it enables the notion that people who go those things that they wanted it. (iswis)

going off of that last point, if you do victim blame for situations and been in them yourself you either still havent coped with what you went through and still think it was your fault when it wasnt. (whe)

it's stupid people hate minors for being undeveloped when adults are the reason as to why people get traumas, abused and quite literally are destroying the world right now. (iswis)

gen z is white as fuck. (iswis)

early 2000s kids are equivalent to 90s kids who use to post, "only 90s kids under this" and post something that 2000-5 experienced. (iswis)

dear 2005+ kids, abusing harmful substances and having sex doesnt make you grown. stop it. (iswis)

adults, being able to post porn doesnt make you grown or mature, stop believing that it does. (iswis)

just because it's a coping mechanism doesnt mean it's healthy. (iswis)

avoiding conflict doesnt mean youre mature. if there is an active problem and you know ignoring it will only benefit you and not the actual problem at hand that is selfish. (iswis)

black women generate clout for everyone. when we're hated the person gets patted on the back, someone appreciates black girls they are praised, and people of many groups repeatedly steal from our culture. (iswis)

YES THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING BLACK AND AFRICAN AMERICAN. (whe)

if youre black you do not have to be democrat OR republican, there are many other parties. (whe)

i do not trust either parties, no minority should. (whe)

this 2020 election was not a win for poc people no matter who won. (iswis)

we do not decide whether or not what to do on columbus day. it is up to the natives themselves. (whe)

pointing out other countries (current) faults is not racist. although the issue can be misconstrued, if proper research is done it safe to say it's an educated observation or opinion. (whe)

privilege heavily varies; ex, americans are seen as privileged, while the people who live in it experience a disadvantage because of the societal standards. within the country itself. (whe)

americans, stop saying that america is the worst country and there are other countries who are suffering much worse than we are. yes sometimes it sucks but do not label it as the worst. (iswis + whe)

white people are privileged and will always be until we break the racist issues deep rooted in EVERY community. (iswis)

9/10 when marginalized groups like (women, lgbt) are mostly focused on white people and never address the poc counter parts. using the excuse "well idk much about that" is not good enough and just promotes pseudo-white supremecy. (iswis + whe)

do not use aave. (iswis)

aave is not gen z language, stop calling it that. (iswis)

gay men (white especially) use black women and get praised for the things we do that are called ghetto. (iswis)

yes it is offensive if you touch a black persons hair with or without permission. we are not your pets nor zoo animals. (iswis)

and yes it is offensive if you see a black women with beautiful hair and assume it's fake or ask, "is it yours?" "is it real?" (iswis)

using jailbait as an excuse to lewd minors is just as disgusting. (iswis)

beauty standards for women is rooted from pedophilia. (iswis)

using other pedophilic relationships as an excuse to ship yours is disturbing and you shouldnt be near children at any capacity. (iswis)

everything doesnt need a label. (iswis)

the fact that gangs have been criminalized while mafias havent is racist and feeds the stereotypes that poc are criminals. (iswis)

people are more forgiving to white predators than to poc (neither are good but people let white off the hook more often). (iswis)

if youre okay with your friends being racists, creeps, abusers you are just as bad. (iswis)

although you can like what you like, making dark content shouldnt be as glorified as much as it is. (iswis)

some kinks do deserve to be kink shamed. (iswis)

adults need to be more held accountable when held in situations with minors. (iswis + whe)

everyone perceives the world differently, many people will see the same things you see differently. (iswis)

calling people crazy for questioning the things around them doesnt make them crazy, youre just asleep. (iswis)

the human body can function without a soul. (iswis)

stop disrespecting christianity. you wouldnt do the same with hinduism, islam and etc. (iswis)

the bible was altered by white men and the true meanings have been misconstrued. (iswis + whe)

bullying someone who you THINK is problematic is not excuse to be hateful. youre just scum and feel the need to justify your actions. (iswis)

not everyone has to like you and dont need a reason. (iswis)

just because you dont like someone doesnt mean you have to make a show of it. be mature and move along. (iswis)

yes callouts/cancelling has its place but it's never done right. (iswis)

"cancel culture" wasnt a thing till white people joined in. (iswis)

dont cancel someone for stuff they did years ago. bringing it up is important but not allowing them to understand, reflect, and apologize is not only bullying it defeats the purpose of bringing awareness. (iswis)

big writers need to stop complaining when one fic or a few dont do good. not only does it rub in small writers faces, it shows that if you need people's validation to write you probably shouldnt be writing. some works will be popular and some will flop, get over it. (iswis)

stop witch hunting & crucifying people for shit you have done or your friends have done and going "uwu sorry" when you get caught. (iswis)

90% people believe content creators with bigger audiences. (iswis)

people spontaneously posting, "uwu take care of your mental health" doesnt mean that they actually care. (iswis)

people are always quick to judge people with real mental health such as depression, anxiety, adhd, and etc are always the one to turn and pretend to be exactly what they just mocked. (iswis)

dont have kids if youre not going to take care of them. (iswis)

stop baiting baby otakus (people freshly getting into anime) into watching cp like yarichin bitch club or boku no pico. they are minors, it's not funny, stop it. (iswis)

stop being protective & toxic over anime characters. if they were real they probably wouldnt even like you. (iswis)

just because someone is your friend doesnt mean that they arent toxic or abusive. (iswis)

start believing when people show their true traits. (iswis)

trauma happens in different forms, stop saying something didnt happen because it didnt go the way that has commonly happened or the way it occurred to you. (iswis)

stop saying minors should "know" while also being the loudest to say that our brains arent even developed till 25. (iswis)

the adult age should be raised to 20 years old. (iswis + whe)

tos should be raised to 16 years old. (iswis + whe)

minors take "18+" & "minors dni" out of your bio. (iswis)

yelling at minors for finding the content you freely put out without any care is your fault not theirs. (iswis)

there are plenty of adult sites that are more confined for adults but you guys ignore them because youd rather get popular on writing erotica on a popular social media platform. (iswis)

trying to cancel someone over one mistake and or blowing said things out of proportion is toxic and stupid. (iswis)

if you take someone saying they need to distance themselves for mental health reasons personally and make them feel bad for it youre an actual shitty person. (iswis)

if someone disrespects you, you have the right to say whatever you want in response. (iswis + whe)

stop hypersexualizing everything (adults especially). (iswis)

the excuses of, "they look grown" "i mentally think xyz" "theyre fake" is creepy and weird and yall should come up with a better excuse. (iswis)

yes i do believe minors should be writing for minors only, but i will not give a shit if an adult does if said characters are aged up in every work sfw or not. (iswis)

stop saying teens cant go through traumatic things and cant experience mental illnesses. it just shows that you werent cared for as a child and never get the therapy for it. (iswis)

gen z has a very colonized idea of activism. (iswis)

feminism was never for all women until the rest of us forced ourselves in. and even now it's still an issue whether or not people realize it or not. (iswis)

poc solidarity doesnt exist as much as we try to make it happen. (iswis)

colorism is an issue, and no you will not tell me otherwise. (iswis)

the hot cheeto girl is offensive and demeans black & hispanic culture. (iswis)

stop bashing minors for breathing, just say youre mad youre not young anymore and move on. (iswis)

black men are the white people of black people. (iswis)

there is no reason as to why you anyone would refer to black people as "blacks". nor should you (non-black people) be arguing whether or not to say nigga even with the hard r. (iswis)

if you (pertains to white people) think white privilege doesnt exist but go on to make fun of or ignore minority problems you are the living and breathing example of what we are talking about. (iswis)

loli/shotas are fucking disgusting and people who like it deserve to be tortured for eternity. (iswis)

seriously, stop using theyre "fake" as an excuse. (iswis)

if youre comfortable with being hateful to someone but still consider yourself a nice person because you do the hate minimum to be a decent human, youre either a narcissist or have a god complex. (iswis)

coons have no say in black issues. (iswis)

people need to stop blaming the "home wrecker" for ruining the relationship when it was the s/o's fault as well. there is no home to enter without an owner. (iswis)

stop saying any asian man yo see reminds you of a haikyuu character and or any anime character. it's racist. (iswis)

stop saying any asian person looks like a kpop idol, it's racist. (iswis)

stop downplaying and invalidating when black women go through traumatic things. not only does it promote that we have to be strong and save everyone else's problems, it says that we dont have emotions and cant be a victim which is disgusting. (iswis)

if you say shit like "minors curate your own experience" then go and turn around to say you REFUSE TO TAG YOUR SHIT YOU ARE LITERALLY MAKING THE PROCESS OF CENSORING HARD! (iswis)

white women are just as much of a problem as white men. only difference is sex keeping them apart. (iswis)

stop saying kpop is racist. expecting artists from a different political progression to understand that things can be offensive is bland. (iswis)

people accept boy groups fuck-ups more than they accept girl groups. and most times out of ten, the males are worse. (iswis)

if you engage in nsfw conversation with a minor, it is your fault they responded. (iswis)

anyone can be abused. (iswis)

stop coddling adults and bullying minors. (iswis)

most of you females have internalized misogyny and dont even know it. (iswis)

you can callout issues without having to drag a group of people. same with uplifting. (iswis)

if youre fine with being a sheep unfollow me. (iswis)

seven deadly sins is not a good anime. (iswis)

there is a difference between boku no hero academia fans based on if they call it "bnha" or "mha". (iswis)

ships literally are not serious stop harassing people over ships. (iswis)

do not harass creators of series because they do something with THEIR story. make your own. (iswis)

stop saying horikoshi sexualizes his women too much/mineta is the worst when you guys enjoy shows like one piece, hunter x hunter, naruto and etc. (iswis)

minors often or not are sheeps (heres your sign you dont have to agree with everything other people say). (iswis)

just because minors can be mature doesnt mean that they are adults. stop treating them as such. (iswis)

we should give more voice actors in the asmr (idk what to call it) community more recognition instead of just one. (iswis)

writers are the ones that send hate to other writers. anon hate is so corny and if you do it that goes to show that you are truly a toxic person wearing a fake mask of kindness when youre not on anonymous. (iswis)

stop being mean to smaller writers because they did not have as much luck as you. (iswis)

stop blaming your readers because one story flopped. (iswis)

ignoring someone's shitty actions encourages them to do it more. (iswis)

going to school and getting a job is much harder now than it was before. (iswis)

being an adult doesnt automatically make you mature. just because youre older doesnt mean youre better or you opinion is more valuable. it just shows that you werent heard when you were younger. (iswis)

there should be no reason as to why someone of the age of 18 should be having any romantic relationship with someone who is a minor. (iswis)

hawks is a shitty character. (iswis)

bakudeku isnt toxic. (iswis)

just because bakugo is in a ship, doesnt mean it's toxic. (iswis)

stop shipping male characters together simply because they have screen time together. it's creepy. (iswis)

almost all of 1-a students have ptsd and anything close to the after effects of being traumatized. (iswis)

no, editing characters to be poc is not racist. youre just mad they arent "white" when they never were. theyre asian and come in many colors as well. (iswis)

wanting to only be with a different race to get a mixed baby is fucking disgusting. (iswis)

stop ignoring pedo relationships between older women and younger boys and or with older women in general. (iswis)

males can be abused, stop telling them to suck it up or that they cant go through things. (iswis)

shaming young females about things they cant control is misogynistic and is damaging to their identity and shouldnt be excused. (iswis + whe)

not all females have to shave. (iswis)

what you dont like in someone is the projections you see of yourself on other people that you dont like about yourself. (whe)

popular bl stories extremely misrepresent gay relationships and frankly it's disgusting that theyre boosted as much as they are. (iswis)

jjba isnt ugly, you just watch animes to sexualize the characters. (iswis)

it's shitty that anime and kpop only became cool once white people stated to like it and made it mainstream. go gatekeep family guy or something. (iswis)

if you have been anime fan for a long time you were with bullied/teased for just generally liking it or you were a weirdo who recreated shit from it. (iswis)

weaboo and weeb were bad terms till we made them positive?? literally otaku is the word for it but we use weeb instead lol. (whe)

normalize and promote educating someone without going straight to bullying them. (whe)

haikyuu isnt really a good manga/anime nor is the art style the best but the characters make up for it. (iswis)

stop misusing terms and stop nitpicking definitions to manipulate your narrative. (iswis)

toxic positivity is manipulative and if you have to make it back handed you are not as nice as you like to make it seem. (iswis)

studying a major doesnt mean youre actually good in the subject. (iswis)

normalize people realizing their past mistakes and growing from it. (iswis)

do not self diagnos unless you actually feel like you may have that issue and would like to seek help. mental health is not a personality trait. (iswis)

stop projecting onto people. (iswis)

stop misusing terms and stop nitpicking definitions to fit your narrative. (iswis)

stealing any type of work should not be tolerated. (iswis)

constantly trying to trigger someone to go back to their old ways (being toxic, abusive, addiction, suicidal etc) after changing is toxic and manipulative. (iswis)

if you make jokes about hurting kids and or feel the need speak badly about them i do not want to speak to you. (iswis)

the human brain wasnt developed to understand complex ideas such as death or the universe. (iswis)

we will never truly know what is beyond our skies. (iswis)

thats all, thanks for sifting!

[dibidibifiction]

A Hundred-dollar Bill: PART 1

Warning: foul language Word count: 1.5k

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction made for personal entertainment of readers. The writer does not ever intend to offend her readers nor does she aim to spread false information about anyone as to pay any disrespect to the real-life persons whom the characters are based on. She also does not claim ownership to any of the images that are being used.

masterlist

“Mmm, Y/n, these are delicious!” Kibum exclaims as he takes one more full bite of my homemade triple chocolate cookies.

“Hand me one!” Taemin says, concentrating on the television screen where he and Minho are playing PS4.

“I'm really glad you like it. I’ve always loved baking,” I say to Kibum while joining him on Minho’s bed, ignoring Taemin. “This is actually my first time baking again ever since after my mom passed long ago. If you want I could—”

“Yeah!” Minho roars in the middle of his basement bedroom, making me jump. “I won, motherfucker!”

“I guess you're happy now?” Taemin mocks him while throwing the controller on the couch. Minho doesn’t ever let it go every time he loses a game. He would force his opponent to play more of FIFA 18 with him until he finally wins.

Minho continues to yell victoriously while he runs around the room with both of his hands in the air like an Olympic champion. He proceeds to Kibum and I on the bed. He jumps, and lands on us belly first.

“Ah!” I shriek in cramping pain, his boney hips hitting my thigh. “What the hell!”

Kibum, who doesn’t even look up from his phone, scrunches his forehead in irritation. “Hey, get off!”

While Minho annoys us even more by moving all his limbs like he’s swimming, together with his contagious high-pitched laugh, an idea comes to mind. With all the strength I have, I heavily climb on top of him, sitting on his butt to pin him down. I avenge, starting to poke and scratch his sides up and down.

“Shit, no!” Now laughing even louder because of the tickling, he suddenly draws his whole heavy body to roll to the side, making me crash onto Kibum’s shin. Now he’s the one pinning me down. Before I know it, Taemin jumps in and starts tickling me with his fingers, switching back and forth my neck and my stomach. It’s like they planned to destroy me.

“What did I ever do to you, Taemin!” I scream at him breathlessly, shaking my whole body in a struggle to escape the boys’ strong grasp.

“Hey! Would you guys stop that?” Kibum, the one who bitches the most, shakes up from the bed and transfers to the sofa where the other two boys were playing video games. “Why am I even friends with you?” he complains, taking another one of my cookies from their box on the side table.

Minho and Taemin stop what they’re doing. Breathless but are still laughing at me. 

I’m finally free, exhausted from their physical bullying. I look like I’ve just had rough sex and got all fucked up in bed. “He’s right. Why am I even friends with you?” I sulk. I am sick of always being the weakest target. I blow my messed up hair away from my face as I get up and follow Kibum to the couch. I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. “Kibum, save me.”

“That’s on you, babe. That’s what you get from bringing us all together in the first place,” he says, as sassy as ever. 

Oh, right. I did introduce them to one another. I met them all separately. In different places and different times, but all in the same year. Two years ago.

I first encountered Kibum on Instagram. I followed him and commented on his IGTV about easy outfit hacks. It’s from him where I learned how to cut my jeans stylishly when they’re too long, or turn old clothes into good-as-new ones. He is brilliant. I even sent him a private message to tell him that, and we ended up hitting it on.

A few days after that, I ran into him on the streets of the city. I’m genuinely surprised that he recognized me, chatted me up and practically forced me to have lunch with him. He fell comfortable with me that same day and blurted out all his frustrations about being stuck in life. He had been wanting to go to fashion school but money was too tight and the influencing career wasn’t really working. I was weirded out at first since I’m not really good at making friends. But this guy appreciated me instantly just because of my comment on his post. I don’t get that a lot. He said that I was only one of the few who constantly followed him and actually cared. Plus, I was the only one who's close by. 

He’s been doing Instagram for years but his audience had grown too slowly, which I didn’t understand. Kibum’s work was absolutely impressive and effective. 

We had been having dinner at the same café, where we had lunch for the first time, almost every evening since then. We just connected.

Taemin used to be a famous pop singer but his career fucked up because of rumors gone wrong about him using drugs to appear happy and funny in reality shows. 

It was a late night, just around two months after I met Kibum, a man with bleach blond hair in a dark hoodie bumped into me for running from men with huge cameras. In my attempt to help out, I ran after him and pulled him up into an alley where he’d be hardly seen. However, my plan failed and he started to panic. When the paparazzi was gaining on us, I started panicking as well. So without extra thinking, I pushed him onto the wall and made out with him. That way, they’d be too uncomfortable to even look and just puzzledly proceed to different directions. 

Taemin stayed on my couch that same night and disappeared the next morning. On my way home from work a few days later, he randomly approached me to borrow money for some errands—which I did lend him—and offered to pay triple. I immediately and strongly declined that payment. Instead, I asked him to have dinner with me and Kibum at the café. 

We, including Taemin himself, expected that he’d just eat with us only for a few days, but he figured it was a safe place where almost no one crazy could recognize him and chase after him, especially when he dyed his hair back to its natural color. 

Since then, I’ve got two best friends by my side.

Minho is the son of my boss—well, former boss—who is the CEO of the company I worked for, which he’d soon inherit. He hated the company. Hell, he hated his father. So did I, which is why I quit just recently. 

Minho and I bonded over cigarette breaks every four P.M., right before my work hours ended. I’d then head to the café to meet up with Kibum and Taemin. 

One afternoon, he just invited himself to join us since he claimed that he had nowhere else to go. 

Just then, our little group stopped growing in numbers and started growing something tight and unbreakable. We would learn about each other’s hardships and be there for one another. We would celebrate every little achievement. The bond that we had was just very natural and unexpected. Some of us had fights but they were never too serious and we would realize that our friendship is always bigger than anything. We are the broken pieces that are mended together by one another.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” I announce to no one in particular after a moment of silence.

“I hope it’s not another sketchy party like last time,” Kibum grumbles. He is laying on the sofa, using my lap as his pillow.

“I heard the family I used to babysit for is going away for the weekend. What do you guys say?”

I sigh when nobody says anything. “They have a pool. So…” I trail off, waiting for somebody to be excited as I am.

“There’s no way I’m breaking and entering someone else’s house,” Minho blurts out.

“We’re not breaking anything, we’re just entering,” I shrug.

“Yeah, Hyung. Stop being a wuss,” Taemin pats Minho’s back once. “I’m in! There’s no reputation to ruin anyway,” he shrugs as he walks towards the couch and sits under Kibum’s feet, taking my side.

I turn to Kibum, who is biting dead skin off his nails, pretending not to hear us. “Fine!” he rolls his eyes as he sits up. “I’m in too. Just for one night, right? We’re not staying there the entire weekend. My life is fucked up enough. I’m not going to jail.”

“Yes!” Taemin and I high five. We three then look to Minho. We are not taking no for an answer. 

“Oh, what the hell,” he gives in. I love that he doesn't need much convincing. He stands up, and runs towards us. Once again, he flops his wings, jumps, and touches down on all three of us. 

There was loud laughter, which I always love experiencing with these people. Next thing I know is we are group hugging. 

“So, when do we go?” Minho asks when he pulls away.

I smile cockily. “Tonight.”

PART 2

[moriganstrongheart]

On Firefly, Mediocrity and Problematic Media

When I first set to writing this, I intended to write a review of Firefly. I had recently rewatched Firefly and its tie-in, semi-sequel movie Serenity with my fiancée, and I wanted to express my thoughts on it. But I put the original first draft aside after writing two sentences and did not revisit it until months later. By then, I found I was no longer interested in reviewing Firefly, opting to explore issues of underlying misogyny and mediocrity in media instead. I think that Joss Whedon’s work is a good case study for these problems, as he exists simultaneously as a folk hero of sorts when it comes to speculative fiction, and as the harbinger of the now divisive Marvel Cinematic Universe. And Firefly being so beloved by its fans, I think it's worth diving deep into its problems to illustrate my points.

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate Firefly’s problems is in how it appeals to its fans. While I find the character interactions the best aspect of the show, I’m sure that quite a few fans—primarily young, white males—are attracted to the space western setting of the show and all the trappings that come with it. The Verse is filled with guns, alcohol, rape, savages and prostitutes—everything a new frontier needs, or so I expect is the intent. I don’t think these are ever the focus of the show, nor are they something Whedon ever places on a pedestal as ideals to strive for. But they are a part of the worldbuilding, and so were included with intent. There has been a debate for several years among fans of speculative fiction on whether worlds inspired by historical periods or specific cultures should include these so-called “less favourable” aspects of that period or culture, or if the speculative nature of the fiction should allow for their exclusion. I want to make it clear that I am in the second camp; I don’t believe that just because a fantasy world is set in a medieval time period that women shouldn’t be allowed to be knights, or that aliens or people of colour have to necessarily be slaves in a colonial space opera. It is speculative fiction after all, and we are under no obligation to hold ourselves to any supposed cultural or historical accuracy.

This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the cultural and historical accuracies being strived for have flawed origins, having been decided by academics with their own bias, or even maybe their own agenda. I would make further arguments that historical fiction and literature are themselves often coloured by the author’s intent, and so certain aspects are accentuated while others are ignored or downplayed in order to tell a specific story—often to the detriment of minority groups. It’s impossible to divorce bias from one’s work, no matter how objective the work claims to be. This has been proven time and again, evidenced by the revision of textbooks throughout the years.

Regardless, counter arguments to the exclusion of “less favourable” elements are normally that doing so waters down the source material, diminishing its authenticity and, more interestingly, it represents a disagreeable emotional sensitivity on the part of the opposition. This point of view assumes that the opposition is averse to certain perceived realities in the world, and that the narrative they want to ascribe themselves to would be unrealistic and, as such, not entertaining. In reality, all parties are involved in some form of escapism. The outcry for realism is a smokescreen for the desire to keep a specific form of escapism, one which can only be described as a violent, misogynistic power fantasy. The source of this outcry—again, predominantly young white males—sees the inclusion of bigotry and sexual violence as essential to their viewing experience, as they take enjoyment out of them. That isn’t to say that having violence, sexual themes or social inequality don’t have a place in fiction; they just need to have a purpose. Without purpose, they are only there to service the twisted fantasies of the target audience.

For an example that brings us back to Firefly, it never really feels like Irana’s career as a courtesan serves any other purposes than as an excuse for partial nudity, sex scenes and for Malcolm to call her “whore” on the regular. There are times where her position as a high-ranking courtesan opens doors for the Firefly crew, but this is a contrivance of how courtesans work within the Verse, and not a part of the skillset she has accrued to become a courtesan. The only true exception to this—that I can remember—is her role in grooming the magistrate’s son in the episode Jaynestown, which directly affects the primary conflict. Apart from this instance, none of her meaningful contributions to the plot necessitate her being a courtesan. She could have just as easily been someone with social or political clout. However, this wouldn’t have allowed for her to be the ship’s prostitute, there only to drive Malcolm up the wall and have someone he could call “whore” without guilt. As such, it became necessary for Whedon to not only make her a sex worker, but to create an entire system around her which would give her importance to the plot. In essence, he wanted his cake and eat it too. It’s disappointing, as the idea of having a sex worker being an important member of the main cast is interesting enough as a concept to explore. Ideally, this person would be treated with respect by others for their work, and their value should come from them as a person, not from a fabricated social status.

As a side note, I acknowledge that most people in the show respect Inara, but it is because of her fabricated social status and not because of who she is as a person. The only people who respect her for who she is and what she does are women and the one person of colour on the crew.

There are a lot of other small decisions within Firefly that show Whedon’s intent, such as the characterizations of River’s mental illness and Jayne as a character. I can’t help but wonder if Firefly were produced today on HBO or Netflix, if the showrunners would have allowed the inclusion of far more sexual violence and bigotry in hopes of attracting a larger audience. Because while we have collectively become much more cognizant of issues like diversity and the portrayal of women in media, shows with portrayals of sexual violence and bigotry tend to perform better overall. Unfortunately, the vocal minority shouting their preferences on social media only helps to reinforce this trend.

However, I don’t want to make the wrong impression. Sexism, racism, violence and bigotry are not the focus during Firefly’s runtime. In fact, Whedon generally does a good job of representing healthy relationships, strong female characters and positive representation of people of colour. For example, Zoe and Wash’s relationship is very admirable, and Kaylee is perhaps the best character on the show. The problems exist beneath the surface, informing everything from story conflicts to character motivations. Whedon comes off as a guy just wanting to have some fun, someone who is cool and trendy, just rude enough to be interesting, but knowing where to draw the line. Really though, he’s just the best of a bad lot within the entertainment industry. A lot who are, unsurprisingly, white men catering to their younger selves.

As a white man myself, I am constantly checking myself and the works I create to ensure I am providing a compelling story while avoiding trappings indicative of a male power fantasy. Because of the environment I grew up in, it can be easy to rely on tired old tropes instead of thinking of meaningful and interesting things to write. Does that mean that catering to the needs of a diverse audience is too difficult, and as such, is detrimental to the creative process? I don’t believe so, despite what many may believe. If anything, it forces writers to think of novel, more captivating stories that don’t rely on tropes and power fantasies to work. I believe that the reason people have become so weary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and similar works is because they all rely on a power fantasy to function. I myself have grown tired of seeing the same story over and over, and it is only in the last decade that I realized the reason for this is that most people behind the works I consume are—again—white males catering to their younger selves.

This has led me to question if it’s right for me to have my voice heard at all. Would I not just be another straight, white male entering a space already filled with the same? Perhaps, but I don’t think the intent of fostering diversity in media is to exclude white people. In fact, if people like Whedon were the worst in terms of what white males have to offer the entertainment industry, I think we’d be in a better place. The problem is that the majority of the media we consume today is problematic and doesn’t allow for any variance from what’s trending among a young white male audience. All I can do is hope that shows like Firefly can be used as a learning experience for creating more compelling and varied stories. Stories should rely on interesting characters, worlds and the interactions in between them to be entertaining, and not on fulfilling the twisted power fantasy of the audience under the guise of realism.

[raquellmurillo]

After the heist I want Raquel to pack her bag and get some money as Lisbon and leave Sergio ...She should stay with her family in some paradise.Monica will also join her ... They both should focus on raising their children and casual dating with guys..And sometimes Rio , Helsinki uncle will visit them .

That’s actually such a cool idea! I love Sergio and Raquel, don’t get me wrong, but above all, I love consistency lol 

Why not? What if Raquel tells him that after her talk with Alicia, she has realised that because of her love for him, she has neglected her daughter and ruined her future. Because lets face it, if Raquel is on the run, her daughter is too. 

And, I know the show never really mentions this... but Sergio is like... a criminal. I know he’s meant to be the ‘good guy’ and all, but he also goes around hiring, what, the Serbian mafia? (Who are those people???) Has a lot of money, buys a shit ton of stuff on the dark web... If the police can’t track him, the mafia’s running that shit-show can. His wealth isn’t built on an empire of people to protect him.... what is one kid with a billions of euros with no protection, living as an outcast to a criminal organisation looking for easy money? Doesn’t that just sound like a target??? It’s easier to take one person down, than a well built up ‘empire’ of people lmao - okay, if he hid away etc. but not go around making purchases like them army trucks... because as soon as he starts his heist, the people who he purchases those things from are gonna tie the two ends together... If Alicia can track him, what is finding him to an organisation with more hackers than he has??? 

Back to the point, Raquel isn’t the ‘weakest link’, both her and her daughter are ‘weak points’. If Sergio ever pisses off any of the probs very dangerous people he is working with... the main targets are gonna be the people closest to him. Back in the day when he was a petty and poor criminal, well, didn’t really matter. Now, however, things have changed.

Raquel has given her life up to be on the run not only from the police, but like, a large proportion of the criminal world. She is never going to be safe, nor is her daughter. By association she has condemned her family to, well, to some probably not fun situations in the future.

But like.... ignoring all of that.

I totally get you; love is love, I do ship them, but who said their love story had to be conventional; say she came to visit him at the end of s2, told him that she would meet up with him here and there, she would come to live with him, but in 10 years time or so, when her daughter is grown up enough to take care of herself and her decisions won’t impact her. That money might’ve bought Sergio freedom, but the moment Raquel leaves her life for it, its gonna cause her problems, ones which money won’t be able to fix. She’ll never be able to let her daughter go to school without fearing that she might say something, be recognised. She’ll never be able to have the freedom Raquel had when she was young. Her childhood might be carefree playing on the beach, but purely through association she’ll always be on the run from the police, interpol, the other criminals out there who feel like getting a few billions for, basically free, having to take down a person, not an empire. I get financial security, like totally. But its not exactly too great if the price you’re paying for it is your personal security.

And look how much more fun s3&4 would’ve been if Raquel was still part of the police... darn that would’ve been so amazing her in terms of character development, as she’d really have to decide whose side she was on. (obvs with a different plot) - acting as a double agent type thing, to alongside Sergio, make sure no one was hurt etc. 

... she is safer not being with Sergio. If Sergio truly loved her, he wouldn’t be with her. I know, I know, that’s so controversial of me to say, but I’ve seen it been done in masterpiece style on screen. I had never seen a better ship been written even though I didn’t get a single kiss! Both of the characters acknowledged they loved each other but were in an environment in which them being together would end in defo at least one of their deaths. Their love for each other was greater than any sort of sexual desire; keeping one another safe was a priority, even if it required sacrificing (very unfortunately for the audience) the desire part. It can be done. 

Love can be either selfish or selfless; I think, from the way things have been written, Sergio is more Andres’ brother than one could’ve imagined. He loves her, but not enough to resist his temptation, to ruin her, destroy her life, risk her life and her families. It sounds hella dark, but when you think about it, it sorta is. Because it is wrapped up neatly and nicely and Sergio is all cute... because she loves him and goes after him, blindly. Because however much Alicia’s dialogue about Raquel’s taste of men was written to obvs make the audience disagree with her about Sergio’s case..... darn nobody is perfect, but come on. Denver lost his father in the last heist, Sergio’s brother was shot (ik he was dying, doesn’t that make it worse for Sergio tho? The last months with his brother in paradise, lost?) but there’s one hella completely different reaction. And then we have the scene in which Raquel tells him he is just trying to avenge Berlin; does vengeance have a higher value than love? Is the whole Berlin thing not enough for him to be like, “actually, putting people that I love at life threatening risk, really isn’t a great idea”...??? Rio will eventually be arrested, and tough luck, ya know. Why put the rest of his team’s life at risk? idkkkkk His true love for Raquel will be shown in lcdp7 when he plans a heist to avenge her? WHy for the love of god is she in the bank? 

Damn right, Raquel should pack her bags up and finally find a man who is not so willing to harm her. No one said love or the character had to be perfect; I’m a true believer that love requires sacrifices, and Raquel has sacrificed a lot for him... you’d think he’d have the decency to at least not go ahead with the heist ya know. Sergio might be a bit socially awkward, but he’s not fucking dumb. I hate how people seem to think that because he hasn’t had much experience in relationships, he won’t know what he is doing... firstly, when does anyone have any sort of idea of what they’re doing in a new relationship with a new person? It’s all new, and it’s always a learning process ya know. Secondly, Sergio has enough brain cells to lecture Andres about getting married to someone knowing he has very little time... he knows enough to acknowledge that what his brother is doing, isn’t exactly too fair on his wife - which is fair enough; ya know, ‘best three years of her life’ and then she drinks herself to death from the heartache in the year following that? Very hard situation, tbh. Andres is being fucking selfish, but darn, turns out there is something in these genetics...

disclaimer: I still love Serquel, but damn I love my analysis, (I am being very picky today lmao) and if they keep this writing up, they’re gonna keep pushing me to make such unconventional findings. Never before today did I think I’d come to a conclusion that Andres and Sergio are similar in terms of ‘love’... but darn, under the cute dialogues and all the rather radical decisions of the screenwriters point towards very dark threads. 

Saying that, if you’re gonna write something like that, have the balls to actually explore it. Don’t make Raquel the ‘love interest’; consequently follow the choices through and make Sergio the nut job who put her back into the bank. Maybe even write it as him idealising the idea of his love for her... maybe the trap in their relationship is as Alicia said, Raquel idealising these guys, but Sergio also idealising her. 

[jeptwin]

I’d like to say something: I’m a huge fan of anime and manga.

But I hate how it’s extremely prejudiced and sexist in particular.

I was just watching ‘High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World’, and I couldn’t help but feel immensely uncomfortable by all the ‘sexy’ scenes they slipped in so casually, like it wasn’t making my skin crawl each time I saw an unnecessary panty shot or a massage scene that was basically soft core p*rn. I don’t like that in any show I’m watching unless it is inherently intended to be sexual, or made out to be a joke. As a gay man, I am very much not the target audience for these tropes, I am aware, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s derogatory and insulting.

The pervert character should be used as someone who’s inherently creepy and unapproachable due to the fact that he does things like gets nosebleeds when women with breasts are near him. Women should not be that much of a fixation in any straight man’s life, just as men do not intrude on my every waking thought. For that same reason, the scenes where all of a sudden some female character’s breasts are bouncing, or one female character jumps on another and begins to fondle her, is unnatural and uncomfortable. It doesn’t happen in real life, because real life is not a build up to sex, or sexual scenes. Fanservice in general is iffy as a practice in my opinion, because it debases the characters you are trying to present as having depth, yet things like the ‘hot springs episode’ or ‘swimsuit episode’ are considered commonplace and even expected in anime in particular, despite them literally turning their characters into walking cliches.

Now, I recognize that a large part, possibly even a majority, of the anime world is comprised of toxic masculinity, which inherently leads to sexism, but that doesn’t make it right. I mean let’s ignore for a moment that a good portion of Japanese people adamantly despise anime and manga specifically because of the fact that it allows grown men to develop pedophilic tendencies towards animated children (because fuck ‘Lolita’ I don’t care what excuses you make, it is disturbing and unacceptable for a child to be viewed in a sexual manner) and in general leading them to have completely unrealistic expectations for the world and women around them, among the many other problems they have with it such as the basement dweller bit actually being a thing there (and here in America too). I know, I checked.

There’s still the fact that female fans of anime and manga are often shamed by the male fans for simply expressing an interest, as well as anyone who speaks out against how things are. There’s still the fact that the industry itself is extremely corrupt, and there are a lot of problems that I could literally write for days and be nowhere near finished. But again, let’s ignore that for now. Instead of continuing an age-old argument about what is and has been, let me say this:

If I ever manage to have a show of my own, one of my goals is to have a satirical character who is a typical guy who gets nosebleeds around attractive women and ends up in multiple ‘precarious’ situations for them, and I want to emphasize how uncomfortable those moments are. I want to remind people that the perpetration of a trope like that is why the viewer base of manga and anime is largely thought to be composed of men: Not because there aren’t female fans, but because those that are tend to keep quiet because the men in their fandoms have been taught that they can act lecherous around them, that it is right to do so. That those scenes, the perversion, is natural and acceptable. That women can be debased like that, and it is acceptable.

I want to make my audience uncomfortable, and have them question why those scenes, those really awkward and embarrassing and creepy tropes and actions, are acceptable or appropriate. I want them to feel bad about those scenes, and think about them when they see similar ones elsewhere.

We are not defined by our sex or sexuality. Stop acting like it. And stop perpetrating these beliefs in media.

[fangirlshrewt97]

Leverage Fic: Let that lonely feeling wash away

Author(s): Fangirlshrewt97

Fandom: Leverage

Pairing: Eliot Spencer & Parker

Characters: Eliot Spencer, Parker, Alec Hardison (mentioned), Sophie Devareux (mentioned), Nate Ford (mentioned)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: None

Additional Tags:  Bonding, sometime in season 1, Realizations, Comfort

Summary:

“I am not used to this.” Parker started before stopping. She was biting her lip, and tense as a coiled spring ready to bolt. “The other day, I just followed Nate’s plan.”  

 He kept his face carefully blank. “Ok? What is the problem there?”

 “Eliot, I didn’t make a back up plan!”

 Ah. Her issues were getting clearer.

 Or: A normal day brings an unexpected, but not really, revelation.

 Link to A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23526583

Gift for: @lurkerviolin, Happy birthday dearest!

                                                        *****

Eliot felt himself subtly tense up at the sudden change in atmosphere, something new was there in his room. Taking a quiet inhale, Eliot turned off the stove, moving the hotpot to the marble countertop before moving deliberately to the entrance of his kitchen. Counting in his head, he struck out his arm at the count of four and smirked as his prize yelped and squirmed under his unyielding grip. He dragged his uninvited guest into the kitchen, depositing her on to one of the chairs in his tiny dining table. " You're lucky I didn't have my knife in my hand Parker" he menaced, advancing to loom over the thief, not that she cared. "It's Wednesday afternoon," Parker remarked non-chalantly as she leaned back and got comfortable in the hard wooden chair, "this chair sucks". "It's a solid chair. Also that's not an answer. And it's evening". Eliot said as he moved back to his sink, rolling up his sleeves before starting to wash his dishes. "It's a valid answer!" Parker protested. "You wouldn't have had a knife with you at this time on a Wednesday because you are making soup and bread to take with you to the local community kitchen and to help out at dinner time". Eliot paused in his scrubbing of a particular stain on the plate, polishing it till he could see his reflection.

He put the plate on the dish rack, and grabbed the chopping board. Parker did not miss the slowing down of his movements. "What?" "Am I getting predictable?" Eliot asked, an almost imperceptible nervousness underlying his question. Parker regarded the frame of her ... friend. She had known Eliot for almost eight years now and could count the number of times he was genuinely nervous on one hand. The man was unflappable. But that was just a consequence of the life they had chosen wasn't it? No one said being a criminal is easy. "No, I just know you well." Eliot huffed, but the line of tension in his shoulders was still there. Parker unfolded herself from the chair and went to stand by Eliot, awkwardly punching him on the shoulder. "Lighten up Eliot. You're fine." Social interactions were still taking some getting used to. Eliot barely reacted to the punch, but paused at her words. “We should move.”

That surprised Parker. “Move? Move where? When? Why?”

“In my line of work predictable means dead Parker.”

“Not necessarily” Parker tried to argue, but it came out weak and unconvincing to her own ears. While surprised, she did understand Eliot’s concerns. They had been in LA for almost 9 months now, the longest the pair of them had stayed anywhere since they started working together as a team. Eliot had never seen where Parker lived, and to be frank was not quite sure whether she even slept all that much, but he had offered her his couch to crash in if she ever needed it. She had never needed it so far. Parker was just trying to figure out what to say when her stomach grumbled loudly.  

“How long since you’ve eaten?” Eliot asked, voice neutral even as she saw him switching to caretaker mode. Hey why look a Eliot in the gift mouth?

“This after-”

“Actual food that is not at least 40% sugar and 40% other crap.” Eliot cut her off with a no nonsense voice. Parker winced.

“The tacos you made for all of us?” Parker said, voice quiet enough Eliot had to strain to hear. She saw his grip tighten on the cutlery in his hand.

“That was two days ago Parker.”

Parker just shrugged. Food was not a big thing for Parker. She was a thief, the best in the world in fact. Before the team, food had just been whatever gave her enough energy to best complete the job. Or tasted the sweetest.

Eliot was changing that. She had had a donut today morning and thought it was too sweet. That had never happened before.

But she wasn’t the only one studying her new friend. Eliot was studying her right back, and knew the best way  to confront Parker was to do so at her own pace and by her own choice. Eliot could hold her once he had her, but she was the slipperiest thing he had ever had to catch. “Pick a restaurant kid, your turn, I’ll get them to deliver something for you. Or do you want me to make something?”

“’m not a kid!” Parker protested, pouting as she walking to their living room, trying to ignore the weird feeling in her stomach at Eliot’s offer. Probably a side effect of the hunger. So what if she also got it whenever Hardison complimented her on her skill, or Sophie said she had looked nice that day?

She shook her head to clear her thoughts and picked up the newspaper Eliot actually read. She didn’t get the point of newspapers. She flopped on the couch, in a posture so terrible she was sure Eliot would yell at her for later but what did he know? This was comfortable.

Nothing of interest caught her eye, so she threw that newspaper back onto the table and got another from his pile. She leafed through the pages halfheartedly, the text all blurring into one big block of black text, the pictures just making her grimace. This newspaper went back on the pile, as did the next. And the next.

By the time Eliot came to the living room to check on Parker, having finished all his cooking and cleaning and even changed into an unremarkable outfit that offered him anonymity, the thief was restless. He found her sitting on her ankles, methodically shredding and folding different pieces of paper and seemingly making origami ... somethings. Nothing that resembled anything he could guess the identity of.

“Seriously Parker?”

“Everything is boring Eliot!” Parker whined according to Eliot; frustratingly conveyed according to Parker.

Eliot bit back the retort on the tip of his tongue. If he pushed her too hard she would disappear and who knew when Nate would call them together before he could force her to sit down for a proper meal she would pick at regardless.

“I will be back in two hours. If you can’t decide on take-out, I have leftovers of the soup and bread I made in the kitchen. Or last night’s shepard’s pie and carrot and corn salad in the fridge. Help yourself. You better have eaten by the time I am back or I am forcing you to have brussels sprouts.” Eliot said before putting on his jacket and heading to the door. He stopped right before he closed it, looking back at her. Parker stayed still in her place, face still twisted in a grimace at the thought of brussels sprouts. Eliot grinned at her, but not the type of smile that normal people smiled at Parker. The kind that reminded her why most people were scared of Eliot Spencer. It looked like a shark’s. She liked sharks.

Parker pouted some more as she cleaned up the mess she had made behind, knowing that Eliot would glare at her until she did if the house was not tidy when he came back. Once she finished cleaning the living room back to how she found it, she went back into the kitchen and retrieved the shepard’s pie and salad from the fridge. She rummaged around the drawer for a fork, and having found her target as she waited for the microwave to beep. Retrieving her warmed up meal, she moved to the fire escape outside the kitchen window, where Eliot kept his small herb garden. She settled on the creaky stairs, having moved up them enough to get a view of the street and park outside their apartment building.

The boy and the mom were there, as always, with the mom looking ready to collapse as usual, and the boy yelling and running around with his friends as usual. There was the college student sitting against the tree, doing the last of his reading before the sun set. The old Chinese men playing GO at the old chess tables.

The pie was soft and crumbly, with more vegetable in her one scoop than she had had all day. She scraped another bite off the pie, gathering some of the vegetables as well. Just sitting quietly and watching the city go by, becoming like those ugly monster-creature statues in some of the old churches in Europe. She wasn’t envious of the people at the park. She knew she wasn’t like them. And that was ok. Eliot had told her. Different doesn’t always mean bad.  

It had surprised her how quickly the team had managed to take up a space in her world. She had never thought that she would never work in a team, much less four people who insisted on checking on her and feeding her and making sure she was ok. Well that’s not true. She had just grown so used to being alone. To doing everything on her own, and not relying on anyone. Not since Archie left her to be on her own. Other people were liabilities he had told her. Other people could not be trusted. Other people were slow and heavy, and she needed to be light and quick.

Not the team though. Eliot though. Eliot understood her, understood her better than the others. Parker liked to think it was because they were similar but that wasn’t true. Eliot understood how people worked, he could make himself be normal, make others like him. He could make himself look safe to approach. Normal people never came too close to her, it was as if they could sense she was different. Whatever, that suited Parker just fine. Less people paying attention just made it easier for her to steal.

A distant yell brought her back to herself, and she sat up from where she had slouched to see the boy in the park across was crying and most likely the one who had yelled. He was on the ground and seemed to be yelling because he had fallen of the monkey bars. Amateur. But Parker kept watching as the boy’s mother rushed to the child, hugging him to her chest and rubbing his back as she examined the wound. A few other parents and others circled the pair, another mother offering something that looked like Kleenex maybe?

Parker knew most people would find the scene nice. Hardison would. She thinks. But all she sees when she looks at the scene is a boy who is being coddled. Why didn’t they see it would be better if they just left him alone. What would happen to him when he was by herself the next time he got hurt? It was better if he was alone.

Parker mechanically swallowed the bite she had been chewing and scrapped her fork only to find that she had managed to finish her plate. That explained the full stomach.

That was a lie. It would be worse if he had been alone. Parker knew that. She had just become convinced that no one would be coming anyways, so she could only rely on herself. But the team had been proving her wrong hadn’t they?

Nate looked out for all of them, made sure they were never cornered. In the last job, she hadn’t even scouted the building by herself beforehand, just trusted that Nate would get her out safe.

A pit started forming in her stomach, and her throat felt like it was closing.

Sophie patiently taught her how to read people, to understand who was out to get her, and who were just oblivious and asking out of politeness. Sophie got frustrated with her sometimes when she saw Parker actively choosing or doing the wrong action, but it helped Parker. The new skills could definitely help her talk her way out next time when she was caught alone.

Her breath caught. When?

Eliot never scolded her about anything important. No, not important, anything real. He had never asked her what was wrong with her. Out of the team, Eliot was the one who understood why it was better to be alone.

It was better right?

Then why did she feel like she wanted to cry?

Hardison… Hardison was unlike anyone she had met. He reminded her of a cartoon character, with his energy and over the top dramatic protesting and his magic. He made the world bend to his direction, created doors where there weren’t any, stole more wealth with a few masterful strokes than she could with a week of planning. And yet, he was so kind, he helped old women across the street even though they pinched his cheeks afterward. He bought new toys for the orphanage, and played videogames for hours with the kids in the hospital. He made her feel like she could trust him.

She squeezed her eyes to try and relieve the pressure in her chest. She heard a distant creeking and realized the stairs she was sitting on were shaking slightly with the force of her trembling.

When warm arms gently encircled her wrists, a strangled sob made its way out of her throat and she opened her eyes to find Eliot looking steadily at her. No pity, some concern? For her? He didn’t try to approach her, or to move away. He just stayed where he was. What did he want?

“Parker, is it ok if I sit next to you?”

Oh. Permission.

Parker gave a shaky nod.

Eliot nodded back and moved slowly to sit beside her. The stairs weren’t particularly wide so it ended up with them squished between the wall and the railings, the sides of their bodies pressed together.

“Do you want to talk? Or do you want me to talk? Or do you just want to sit here for a while?” Eliot asked, not pushing. He never pushed. None of them did.

“I don’t know …” Parker started, voice barely there. “I don’t know why I am - I -”

“It’s ok. Just breath. We can be here as long as you need.” Eliot said as he lightly tugged the plate out of her hands. She hadn’t even noticed her death grip on them. She let them go, vision still swimming. Eliot set the plate on the step below them and returned to her side. He held out a white piece of cloth to her, but when Parker just looked at him confused, he sighed and moved it to her face. He cupped her chin to keep her steady while he wiped off her tears. When had she started crying?

After he finished he went to remove his hand but Parker grasped it tightly and moved it to her cheek before leaning into him. She could feel his initial surprise by the sudden tension in his body but he relaxed when she just leaned into his chest, ear directly over his heart. Tentatively, he put his right arm over her back, bringing her closer. The two stayed that way for a long while, watching the sun slowly set in the distance as the lights were switched on throughout the city.

At one point, Parker grew heavier, and Eliot started to worry before he heard the faintest snores. A wave of warmth and pride hit him like a tsunami. He had known the two of them were growing closer, but for Parker to trust him enough to fall asleep around him? Eliot just gripped her tighter to him.

When the wind started to grow strong and the temperature dropped quickly, Eliot reluctantly roused Parker and guided her back inside. Neither of them said anything, Parker’s action had said more than she could with words.

Parker moved to take her usual chair, and wasn’t that unusual? She had an usual chair. She couldn’t remember the last time she had an usual anything. Eliot pulled out some dishes and set them on the countertop before turned to her.

“What do you want to eat?”

Parker shrugged.

“Try again Parker.”

“Why?” Parker asked, half curious, half frustrated about being constantly asked to choose.

Eliot looked at her for another minute before he sighed and moved towards her. She thought he was going to sit in the chair, but instead he sank to his knees in front of her, sitting on his toes.

“What had you upset on the fire escape?”

Parker looked away.

“Please look at me?” And that was unfair wasn’t it? Why did he keep being so nice. Why didn’t he ever get angry with her? Feeling too many things at once, Parker tried to get up, but Eliot blocked her. Not physically, he was sitting just far enough away that she would have to push him to leave. And she couldn’t make herself push him. Even though she had this gut feeling that if she pushed him, he would let her go.

“Why are you so nice to me?”

“Would you rather I was mean?”

“No, just-” Parker bit off, not knowing how to articulate her thoughts. “Why are you always asking me what to cook for dinner or how I am feeling, or to always pick something?”

“Why do you think I am?” Eliot said, face blank and unreadable.

“Eliot!” Parker exclaimed, feeling frustrated.

“When I first started doing this, I made a few rules for myself. And along the way, I broke every single one of them. And forgot who I was. It took me a while to remember who I was, but when I did, I realized I could never be that person anymore because I wasn’t a good person anymore,” Eliot said, looking her straight in the eye. “I have done awful things Parker, things that will haunt me for the rest of my life. But there was a person once who died, and I lived because he died. If nothing else, some days I get up and live because he didn’t get a chance to. It is easy to be alone Parker. No one to answer to, no one to look out for, no one to feel anything about. But that isn’t living. That is surviving. And I was tired. This team, I think that we are all idiots, and if Nate doesn’t quit drinking, will get either himself or us killed. But it is also the first time in far too long since I felt like I was doing something that mattered. Something good. I have too much red in my ledger, and I will never be able to clean it, but doing this, it feels like a start.”

Parker took in his speech, and she was slightly glassy-eyed, but at least less like she was on the verge of tears. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?” he urged.

“I don’t know.”

“You sure about that?” Eliot hadn’t wanted to press her, but at this point he couldn’t ignore it either.

“What? Yes, I know that I am scared but don’t know why.” Parker said, confused and slightly annoyed.

“Let me ask you again then. Why were you crying outside?” Eliot said, shifting so he was sitting cross-legged. To his surprise, Parker pushed away from the chair and rather than leaving as he was half-expecting her to, she sank to mimic his position.

“I am not used to this.” Parker started before stopping. She was biting her lip, and tense as a coiled spring ready to bolt. Eliot just sat back and let her talk. “The other day, I just followed Nate’s plan.” She looked at him expectantly.

He kept his face carefully blank. “Ok? What is the problem there?”

“Eliot, I didn’t make a back up plan!”

Ah. Her issues were getting clearer.

“You don’t need one.”

“But that’s the problem, of course I do. What happens when I get stuck alone and -”

“Parker look at me.” Eliot said, cutting her off before she worked herself up again. When he had her attention, he slowly moved so she could track his movements and placed both his hands on his knees, palms up. Slowly, as if scared to make the wrong move, Parker placed her own hands in his.

“I am not going to speak for the others, just for myself ok, though I have a very strong gut feeling that they feel the same way. If we ever had a plan go wrong and you got stuck alone, I will come to rescue you. I will never abandon you like that ok.” Eliot said, with such conviction, Parker felt rattled to her bones. She may not have known Eliot for very long, but she knew that he meant every single word he had told her. “I know that asking for your trust may be a lot -”

“I do.”

Eliot stopped, her words a genuine shock. He had not expected her to admit that. To herself or to him.

“You do what?” He had to be sure that she was sure.

“I do trust you. And I am scared Eliot. Because what happens when this stops? When the team is done, and we go back to working alone? I can’t… it took me time to figure out how to work alone and I finally have it but now I am supposed to work in a team and I am starting to like it and what happens when we are done? And I can’t be a good thief by myself anymore? I can’t be normal, Eliot, thieving is who I am!” Parker said, finishing quietly, as she pulled her knees up and hugged them, leaning against the chair for support.

“Parker… first of all, whether or not we continue working as a team, you are the best thief in the world, and that is not by accident ok. You earned that title, and working in a team is not going to weaken you. Secondly, do you remember the con a few weeks ago where you managed to talk the CEO into giving you the passcode to the safe?”

“I didn’t even stab him.” Parker remembered with a small smile.

“You didn’t even stab him.” He agreed, voice full of mirth as he let out a small chuckle. “You were a grifter. Even if we stop working as a team, our time together doesn’t go away. I have confidence you will pick up abilities from the rest of us and become truly unstoppable. But most importantly, Parker, you can do anything you want. You are so smart, and resourceful. Trust me, normal is overrated, and no one is really normal. Everyone has something they are hiding that others would judge them for. You are so much more than just a thief."

Parker seemed to mull over his words, and he let her. “You really think so?”

Eliot smiled. “Yes.”

Parker smiled back, and she weakly punched him on the shoulder as she gave a watery chuckle. “I want tacos.”

Eliot laughed. “Tacos it is. Want to help me?”

Parker nodded, still smiling. Eliot grinned and got to his feet, offering a hand to help her up as well. “Go wash your face and come, I’ll get the ingredients out.”

“Okay” Parker replied before heading to his washroom.

Watching her go, Eliot smiled, happy that they had had this conversation. This team of idiots may be the death of him, but he could honestly think of worst people to die because of. So all in all, he had a feeling maybe this team could make it in the long term.

At least, no one was going to die while he was watching their backs.

[onwesterlywinds]

A Ringing in the Ears

She still had not grown used to being one of only a few women at a gathering, no matter how few they had been before. Since the executions of the queen and her entire entourage, Orella had been surrounded by men.

Nowhere was that more evident than here, with all her brothers-in-arms gathered for the annual tourney.

Ingvald had been granted leave to join as well, her boy recruit. In truth, they had needed him to fill out the bracket, even if the rota had happened to stick him up against established Kingsguard knights with a twenty-year advantage over him. To his credit, he had taken it in good humor - and he, much unlike all the others, had not seen fit to drink himself into a stupor the previous evening.

That very hangover had caused Einar to drop out within his first round, and neither could Orella fault him for preserving his dignity. In past years, Theodoric might have taken the opportunity to survey the proceedings from one of the palace balconies, as was tradition. Despite their liege failing to show, however, there was still an air of decorum to the proceedings that would have been marred by the skinniest among them puking his guts up in the noonday sun. And the sun was truly oppressive that day, granting them all a keen thirst and a heavy sheen of sweat beneath their armor.

Despite the heat of the day, despite the king’s worsening tempers, Orella found herself almost regretting that more spectators had not lined up to watch the tourney. Her own debut tourney had seen hundreds, either palace servants or lesser army recruits or whatever commonfolk had found an excuse to be on the palace grounds that day. Ingvald would have no such audience to witness his all but certain ascension to the Kingsguard.

Not that he seemed to mind: Ingvald, unlike many of her own comrades, paid little heed at all to what spectators he did have. He was sweating harder than almost any of them, his pale face reddening by the minute from either exertion or exposure to the sun or both. And yet he kept his focus trained on his opponent - kept his shortsword aloft, albeit at a rather peculiar angle. As his shield arm fell several ilms and Folles lunged, Orella could not help herself-

"ARM UP!"

He did not look at her, thank the gods, but he raised his shield in time to block a particularly nasty swing from Wiegraf. Sparks flew into the air as metal clashed upon metal. Ingvald breathed out, clearly unperturbed from the great shock to the nerves in his arm - she, too, loosed a sigh of relief.

"Relax," Zartosht murmured to her. He kept his arms folded over his broad Roegadyn chest, much as he always did, while he took in every detail of the spar - the one predictable feature of the entire tourney.

This was Ingvald’s first real fight without her; moreover, it was the first time her subordinate was proving himself in a setting more rigorous than the training salle. Her anxieties had little to do with defeating Folles on principle and everything to do with the fact that her own teaching was on the line as much as Ingvald's learning was. Even as Zartosht's massive hand connected heartily with her back in his favored gesture of solidarity, she could not draw her eyes away from the battle unfolding in the courtyard below her vantage.

Ingvald’s near brush with defeat prompted a change in him, transformed his stance. He made himself a difficult target but rarely launched an attack of his own. He darted to and fro, evading each strike from Folles until his opponent was snarling and cursing in frustration. He rarely peeled himself from the sides of the makeshift arena, often throwing himself to the very boundaries of the playing field in order to keep ever out of reach.

To an unfamiliar eye, with Folles so comfortable at the middle of the circle, Ingvald might have looked pinned. Orella knew him better.

"Defensive little shite, isn't he," Berend quipped from her other side. "Positively squirrely."

She ignored his assessments utterly. Ingvald parried yet another attack, throwing a swipe that could only be described as half-hearted in return. Berend winced as though the boy had been gored in the chest.

Folles readied his sword once more. His footwork was masterful, and his blade did not waver as it pointed toward Ingvald's heart; but when he stepped forth, Ingvald did not rise to the obvious bait.

"COME ON!" Berend roared. To her, he snapped, "What the fuck is wrong with him? Cold feet?"

And Orella could only grin.

Folles' perfect form could only avail him for so long. He had traced out the entirety of his moves in the sand after several excruciating minutes - and when Ingvald suddenly lunged, none in the salle were prepared for how swiftly he moved, least of all Folles. Ingvald’s shortsword landed three blows in quick succession, he swept his leg wide and Folles stumbled, granting him the means to attack with impunity, over and over. At last he unleashed his devastating combinations of strikes, the same ones Orella had helped him hone over and over until they were near perfect; he had needed only to bide his time, wait for the perfect moment to unleash them.

A spark flared in Ingvald's left palm, from somewhere behind his shield.

Zartosht cried out from the balcony, "THAT’S THREE HITS! OUR WINNER - BLOODHOUND!"

The hall erupted in cheers and Orella loosed a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

---

It was the first time he and Zartosht had ever been on their own together in any setting, let alone outside of the palace grounds. The captain had said only that he wished to treat him to a pint at the Whitecap for his victory against Folles, even in spite of the thrashing he'd received from Gisfrid in the very next round. Gisfrid had a fifteen-year advantage on him and had used his poor sportsmanship to make that clear, and Ingvald bore no grudge against him or any of the others for that firsthand knowledge; if anything, Ingvald suspected that the fact that he had been able to take down Folles in a fair fight would be enough to bolster his pride for a while longer.

The hot, humid afternoon was giving way to a cool evening. With the capital set so far in the north, the sun had not yet deigned to set despite the lateness of the hour. Ingvald walked at Zartosht's side along the golden-bathed streets, struck by how often people nodded in his superior’s direction even with them both shorn of all indications of their rank - until they reached the Whitecap and Zartosht held the door open for him, gestured to an available booth in the back of the bustling tavern, and held up two fingers to the man behind the bar.

"You like lager, yes?" he said as Ingvald seated himself.

Ingvald hesitated. "I haven't had anything else," he admitted. The lager was Orella's go-to; if he ever couldn't finish his pint, he took comfort in knowing that someone else at the table would drink it without complaint.

Zartosht let out a sound that might have been a chuckle. "Right," he said. "That changes today. Order whatever you'd like - Rhalgr knows you've earned it."

"Er, stout, then. ...Thanks."

His superior nodded and went off to order the drinks, leaving Ingvald to take in their surroundings alone. Contented as he was from his earlier victory, to say nothing of the approval of his peers, he found himself wondering vaguely if he would ever stop surveying scenes such as this for potential dangers - until Zartosht returned not only with two pints of stout, but with a stack of flatbreads and a measured but dire expression upon his face.

"I'll be clear with you, lad," said Zartosht. He often called Ingvald lad, but the tone he took now conveyed something far more urgent than paternalistic acknowledgement. At least, Ingvald thought, he was not prolonging the purpose of their meeting. "You had me worried there, for a moment."

Ingvald was not certain he had heard correctly, crowded as the tavern around them was. "Sorry?"

"You realize you were about to cast a spell of some sort directly into Folles' face?"

"I-"

And now the tavern might as well have been empty for the ringing in his ears. Zartosht tore off a chunk of flatbread, and Ingvald followed suit, more to give his hands something to do than out of any conscious desire to eat.

"I didn't," he admitted. Was it ridiculous for someone not to know that they had a talent for magicks? "That is, I do now."

"Make no mistake of it," said Zartosht. "You fought well today, and we're all proud of you. Steelhand most of all." Zartosht’s mouth curved into a smile, and Ingvald realized he was gaping a bit. "So long as you stick to your swordplay, I've no doubt you'll go far."

His emphasis on those four words offered no room for argument, and so he nodded.

"Listen to me, lad." And here the Roegadyn leaned in ever so slightly, taking up more than half the width of the table. "His Majesty is always on the lookout for those with a talent for magicks. But his court mages are in short supply for a reason. It's damn lucky for us all that the Grand Steward wasn't watching today's tourney - I imagine he'd have whisked you off at once to gods only know where."

It could not have been the beer that emboldened him, for he'd scarcely taken a single sip. All Ingvald knew was that he was asking the first question on his mind without reservations. "What does he put them up to, then - the mages?"

Zartosht sighed, and shook his head. "It's far better not to say."

But there was a haunted look in the older knight's eyes - a faraway stare that betrayed his worry and fear and gods only knew what else. Ingvald very much surmised that the captain, no matter what he knew or didn’t know, had no real words to describe whatever horrors he had seen from the mad king’s royal mages.

That worry on the otherwise implacable Roegadyn's face chilled him more than any words ever could.

"And as far as anyone asks," Zartosht continued, "this round of drinks is on me as a congratulations. We spoke nothing at all of magicks, you and I, and you certainly didn't expect you'd cause such a stir by hiding a mirror in your shield."

Ingvald shuddered and found he could not swallow down the fear that had risen in his gut - not without a hearty swig of stout, which he took gladly. Zartosht mirrored the gesture in full.

[littleeyesofpallas]

The other day i had a kinda drunken rant I went on with a friend that I had wished I could’ve written down.  But today I read an article about the shift in hollywood marketing from star power to IP and character driven power instead: the idea being that an original movie used be able to draw crowds with the basic idea of “your favorite star as <insert role>” but we’ve moved more towards the appeal of familiar franchise names like “from the creator of XYZ.”  But I think this is an interesting place to draw the line because it does go back to that drunken rant.  So, here I go again... this is gonna be lo~ng and boring (and this is the shortest possible version) and without pictures, but god knows i have no idea what i would put to accompany this super tangent-filled tirade, so I guess just buckle up...

(I apologize now for all the weird side subjects that I’m going to name drop but just not take the time here to go in depth with.)

I don’t even remember where my drunken rant with my friend the other night started so my first obstacle is finding a place to even begin with this because it has so many entry points and none of them are any closer to where this all ends than any other so like.... whatever...  Shakespeare.

It’s a super complicated thing but in the first era of professional english theatre  that Shakespeare ushered in (from the mid-late 1500s to early-mid 1600s) there were strong strong associations with theatre and prostitution.  Maybe it was exactly what it sounded like, maybe it was elitist slander against the revolutionary accessibility of the arts to the poor as self debasing, maybe it was the church being really angry about literally everything all the time, maybe it was a little of all of that...  But either way the persisting notion was that a theatre, established or travelling, was a place one could ostensibly go to pay for sex with the troupe’s actors.  of course at the time women weren’t a part of that profession, and while they may have been as much a part of the theater going demographic as anyone else it’s hard to pinpoint how much of the already vaguely defined theatre sex trade they patronized --Point being when we talk about theatres prostituting their actors we’re talking about male theatre goers paying to have sex with male actors, and predominantly those young boys playing female roles.  In most classic academic circles this is either wholly ignored, brushed aside/glossed over, or sloppily chalked up to “homosexuality.”  But there’s a lot more nuance to that... which is part of the big mess of stuff I’m just not getting into here...

But this is where I draw my line of connection to Kabuki theatre.  Kabuki somewhat infamously had similar practices as all-male theatre and as duel industry for theatre and prostitution.  And as a parallel development it seems to make sense... In England and Japan alike, you have a group of people who by nature of their jobs charm people and constantly move from town to town.  Even if a community or government thinks what they’re doing is wrong, by the time they can take notice or do anything to stop them: they charm, they fuck, they leave.  But unlike Shakespearean theatre, kabuki has a slightly more convoluted history of development.

See, Kabuki started with Izumi-no-Okumo, a shinto shrine maid (ironically also in the 1500-1600s cusp, same as shakespeare) and although a lot of her personal history is lost to time you can imagine the basic development here: a shrine maid tells the myths, she tells the myths dramatically and with with character voice, then all that but with props, and costume, and then dividing roles into separate actors, and collecting donations for the shrine as regular practice anyway but hey look people donate more when they’ve come for a story they enjoy... and then oops you’ve invented theatre.  Also on account of this being started with shinto shrine maids, the form naturally took an all female slant.

Whether it started with Okumo herself or not, as theatre became an established form, and a lucrative one at that, non shinto affiliated women quickly seized the chance to make a living outside the bounds of common peasantry, and with the growth of travelling theatre as an industry that same side venture of prostitution developed.  But here’s where it gets interesting...

Due to things that, again I won’t dive into here, the untaxed revenues of prostitution painted a target on the backs of kabuki actresses, and women were eventually outlawed from theatre.  The art form was of course immensely popular however so to keep the gravy train rolling the theatre form continued but now with all young-male casts, to retain the feminine aesthetics of female kabuki.  This did absolutely nothing to stop the rate of prostitution however, so they outlawed it again and replaced the young boys with grown men.  This still didn’t stop the prostitution but there was other stuff going on in Japan at that point and legislative attentions were pulled elsewhere.

And here’s my weird little take away from this...  it’s not like Kabuki theatre suddenly went from being popular with horny straight men to horny gay men in a seemless and perfectly balanced transition. (and granted japan at the time was a lot more open about their grasp of sexuality compared to now and to the west in general) so presumably a lot of these thirsty theatre goers were just overwhelmingly indiscriminate in their tastes in fucking actors...  But stick a pin in that, we’ve got a tangent to go on!

So around this same time Japan was having kind of a second rennaissance: japan’s high arts culture had first really risen to prominence in the heian period right before the long long descent into the civilwar we all know and lover for all its flashy samurai drama.  When that 400-ish year civil war finally ended and then stabilized under the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period, the art scene finally had some room to breathe again, and among many other things ukiyo-e wood block prints saw a huge explosion in popularity.  And part of this tied into Kabuki theatre, as an extremely popular genre of prints were actor portraits and theatre scenes.  Actor portraits in particular are kind of culturally fascinating, because they weren’t simply prints of character illustration, they were frequently labeled with both the character played, the story they featured in, and the name of the actor playing them.  moreover, despite the reverence of classical art historians now, these weren’t fine art at the time; they were mass produced, affordable and disposable.  In major cities, everyone went to see theatre, and everyone bought, kept, and even collected actor portraits.  As theatre seasons and troupes came and went actor portraits came to occupy and kind of cultural value space a lot like American baseball cards in how prestige, rarity, and trading became an entire subculture in and of itself within the sports/theatre community.

Now we see how Japan had created this thriving popular/mass culture, and celebrity culture for itself.  And while the notion of a “parasocial relationship” wouldn’t be formulated and explored until the 1950s-60s in the wake of things like Elvis fever and Beetles mania, that brand of one-sided relationship where you as an audience member form a “relationship” with a celebrity that involves collecting information about their heavily curated persona is exactly what japan stumbled into some 300 years earlier.  And in fact Japanese pop culture would maintain a lineage of parasocial relationships during the intervening years (in a way the deification and worship of the emperor as a god-king was a kind of parasocial relationship in the way a secular monarch doesn’t quite achieve) So it’s no surprise that when Takarazuka Revue opened in the 1910s as a new modern all-female theatre form, it attracted a familiar old brand of horny theatre audience --one that maintained a very nebulous relationship with the now much more stringent notions of gender and its relation to sexuality.

taking this tangent a little further, Japanese pop culture has always shown this interesting, self-aware approach to the parasocial relationship dynamic that western cultures seems to lack.  I remember that when the 1990s put boy bands briefly into the spotlight, the thing that sunk them in the American eye seemed to be this weird sense of betrayal that the boys werent some garage band rags to riches story, and they didnt write their own music, or make their own dance moves, or even sing live at their own concerts.  America seemed to be repulsed by this notion of a manufactured pop hit.  Japan however (and Korea soon to follow) seemed to thrive in this instead; there was no pretense that J-pop idols weren’t manufactured, and in fact they took pride in the rigors of having been hand picked and raised to stardom --of course they were scouted and trained, because the idol could’ve been any of millions but it was them who got picked, it was them who sang the best, performed the best, climbed the charts, and fought to stay there.  Stardom wasn’t an art form, it was a contest, and they were WINNING.

And the manufactured nature of that J-pop idol business model is what gave rise to Hatsune Miku (in fact there were multiple attempts in the 1980s to design and market a wholly fictional pop idol, but if anything they were too ahead of their time and lacked the technology to really sell the idea in its best form) because when your entire product is about making and curating your performers’ public persona, to the extreme level at which them having their own lives actually starts to contradict their stage persona and hurt their marketability... why bother projecting the persona onto a real person?  Why not just cut the human component out all together and just market the persona for what it is?  And for Japan I think that kind of relationship was one that they were culturally always just a few steps away from being ready to accept anyway, so it just took a little persistence.

Then came the anime waifu thing...  Dating sims, and body pillow marriages, etc... and I think the pretty unanimous impulse to turn this into a enormous joke (and lets be real who could blame anyone for that) overlooks what actually happened here: paraosocial relationships in the purest form, with the fleshy middleman removed and with it the lie, not less false but somehow now false yet honest.  A bizarre paradox to be sure...

But now lets back this up...  Kabuki theatre.  Prostitution.  The change from women to young boys to men, and the almost hilarious unflappably bisexual audience who embraced it.  I don’t think it was a component of sexuality as any historians who have looked at that time period bothered to conceive of it.   Because even in an early japanese mass culture scene, the relationship was between the audience and the persona, and not the audience and the actors; The audience was always in love with the characters in their collectible trading prints, with their 15th century waifus, and they paid to have sex with those personas regardless of the bodies or real people involved.

...

okay, so, I typed all that out weeks ago and then just left it in my drafts, not even really intending to come back to it.  And now that I’m here, I don’t know that I had a point to this when i went on my drunk rant.  But i guess if there was any kind of a take away from this, it’s that I find that people have a lot of trouble separating personal identity from gender, from performance, from social dynamics... and in western culture, especially within recent history/memory, that’s kind of understandably hard to untangle. But historically people’s sexuality and sense of attraction have basically always been based implicitly on attraction to an idea made manifest in a persona first, and a body to match it only secondarily to that;

Society’s abiding dedication to forcing you into a gendered box, and to box gender into a narrow range of performance, is equitable to screeching fans being “in love” with celebrities they’ve never met and convinced that the steady feed of curated marketed personality traits constitute “knowing” those celebrity strangers.  The idea that the person and the persona are the same is a lie told to sell product.  Gender is just the brand.  You’re the rockstar.  Fuck marketing.

[politicaltheatre]

Standing By

Well, it’s only seven days away and we’re all holding our breath. Some of us have been doing it a lot longer than that. Some of us can’t even remember a time when we weren’t.

The thing is, we shouldn’t be holding our breath, not for any election and most certainly not for this one. Doing so tells us lies and undermines us, and it does so in so many ways.

One way it does is to suggest that by the end of that seventh day all will be done, either fixed or ruined, success or failure, victory or loss. It will be none of those things and, for too many of us, all of them.

Should Donald Trump somehow win, his supporters will be emboldened to continue and expand their vision of America, one in which government and the law exist purely and exclusively to help those who help themselves, like pigs at a trough.

Should Joe Biden win, that vision won’t entirely be erased - it can’t be so long as the deeply grown roots the right wing has planted in our government and our culture over the past half century remain - but the damage it has inflicted on this country in just four years will have to be. That will take time, perhaps even longer than a single term.

That work will be made more difficult by the rise in right wing violence, which will surely increase whether Trump wins or loses. The justifications will differ, slightly, but those seeking to change this country from its long legacy of inequality will be targeted and threatened, perhaps even killed.

Those capable of such violence have been encouraged, both actively by Trump and passively by silence and inaction on the part of everyone else, which only ever leads to escalation. That reality, we cannot and must not ignore.

Which leads us to another way “holding our breath” lies to us: It places us at a distance from what we see. It makes us an audience watching a performance. It gives us license to be passive and, we hope, less accountable. It is a lie we tell ourselves more and more as the stakes get higher and higher and the threat grows closer and closer, and we keep telling it because all too often it works.

Until it doesn’t.

In truth, we are not innocent, powerless bystanders to everything going on around us. There is no amount of distance capable of separating us from what we see. We are involved. We are complicit. We take part, and no attempt to tell ourselves that we aren’t and that we don’t can change that.

Still, we tell ourselves the lie. This is our nature. As a species, we are risk averse. There are no exceptions. Even those of us who are driven most by an aggressive selfishness - the bullies - or a defensive selflessness - those drawing our attention to the bullies and at least trying to stand up to them - we all have this instinct inside us.

Stand aside, it tells us. Stay out of danger. Don’t risk yourself. Don’t risk. This motivation we can call “defensive selfishness”, and it drives most of us in most of our decision making in most of our lives.

We look to others to see what is safe to do, what is safe to eat, what is safe to wear, who is safe to read and listen to, what is safe to voice our pleasure or displeasure about, and what is safe to believe.

Bullies love that. They depend on it. They thrive on it. They assert themselves as leaders and they just, plain assert themselves, and, oh, how we find that attractive, even if it’s just for the short term.

Who are we kidding, though? We want the short term to go on just as much as the bullies do. It’s when we’re getting the best part of our relationship with them. Nothing’s gone wrong yet. No one’s suffering yet. It’s all promise, all promises. It’s all an unknown and unknowable future.

As short term inevitably grows to long term, however, we find ourselves trying to apply those short term solutions to longer and longer term problems. We take the burden of this on ourselves. The bullies certainly won’t. They’re counting on us to do it, and we don’t disappoint. We don’t dare.

And the ones trying to draw our attention to the threat this poses? We don’t listen. We don’t act. They’re ruining our fun. They’re ruining the fantasy. They’re reminding us that we’re complicit in the suffering of others, that we’re complicit in the suffering of ourselves, and that we have the power not to be. That makes us feel bad about ourselves.

We don’t want that. We don’t ever want that. So, we push them away. Not too far away, just enough that we can hear them. That way we know when the threat is too close, when the threat has finally become “real”.

The bullies know that this gives them time and license to abuse those outside the main group, those who lack defenses, those who we, standing by at what we tell ourselves is a safe distance, have decided are acceptable to abuse in our place. Time and the space to do it, that’s what we give them. We are complicit.

We pity the victims. We offer them our thoughts and our prayers, but, again, this is to place ourselves at a distance, as spectators to and not participants in their suffering. “What can we do?” we ask. “What could we have done?” We make ourselves feel powerless and we make it so.

If we suffer as they do, we have to recognize that they are the same as us. That much is clear, and it terrifies us. If we recognize that, we must act. We cannot not act. We know there will be a time when standing by is no longer possible. We know that day is coming. It always does, but knowing that is part of what allows us to allow the abuse to continue as long as it does.

So, we wait for that time to come, and it has, right now.

We’ve reached the point where the question we ask is, “How did we get here?”, as if we hadn’t asked those other questions and had instead woken up one day and found ourselves in this mess. Yet again, it is a passive question, one that distances us from our own part in what is wrong, how is became so wrong, and what we must do ourselves to fix it.

Obviously, we didn’t just “get here”. Obviously, this all developed over time, over years and decades and in some cases even centuries, all in plain view, all on our watch. We have been its enablers. We still are.

We don’t like to hear that. Why would we? It would mean accepting accountability. It would mean accepting all that comes with that: the guilt, the shame, and the overwhelming obligations, moral, social, and financial.

Better to point at others, to tell ourselves that it’s someone else’s fault, maybe an individual or maybe a whole other group. As long as they’re outside our group and acceptable for scapegoating, that’s all that matters. We go from defensively selfish to aggressively selfish. We go from siding with the bullies to being the bullies ourselves.

This is also part of our nature. It is that last, bargaining step we take before we give in and accept accountability for what we have done.

Have these others not suffered as we have? Have they not suffered as we imagine that we have, or as we want to be able to imagine that we have?

We all do this. Some of us do it more than others, some a whole lot more than anyone should, but we’ve all taken pleasure in seeing some person or group suffer for no better reason than they aren’t us, all the more so if they seem to have enjoyed life when we were in misery. Better to take the bullying we would otherwise turn inward and take it out on them.

We’re vulnerable right now. This isn’t just a tipping point, it’s an inflection point. Things are going to change, but we don’t know in what direction. There will be solutions to problems, but we don’t know what they’ll be or if they’ll work. There will be sacrifices, but we don’t know by whom. Nothing is certain.

This is what makes the right wing such a threat. It feeds off of this. When we talk about “sowing distrust” and “cultivating violence”, it isn’t just metaphor. The more we distrust each other, the less certain we are and the more power those with easy answers have. The more we normalize violence as a means to an end, the less safe we feel and the more power those willing to use violence stand to gain. We’re frightened, and the deeper we get into this more frightened we become and the more frightening we become to each other.

And this is why Donald Trump has been running the four-year re-election campaign he has run. He never stops scapegoating - Lesley Stahl and the media last week, “anti-fracking” Joe Biden this week - and bullying - like when he and other Republicans deliberately mispronounce “Kamala” - and with that he is able to bind together his loyal base. He has them stuck in a loop of scapegoating and bullying, and they’re more than happy to stay there. They’re grateful for it.

This is the trouble with electing a man because you think he succeeded as a businessman. Don’t forget, George W. Bush was elected for the same reason. He worked in the Texas oil industry and owned a baseball team, right? Before he was governor? Well, yes, the oil business failed and he was a figurehead for a consortium that bought the team. Oh, and he had a big family name. When he was elected president, people talked about “a corporate presidency”, about how he would delegate to competent men and women around him.

How’d that go? Yep. The thing about electing a corporate man is you the corporate mentality, and what is that?

Corporatism is a system built on distancing oneself from accountability. In short, the ends justify the means. The Boss wants something, that something gets done. A goal is set, that goal is achieved. The how isn’t important. In fact, the Boss doesn’t want to know the how. Knowing the how means accountability; not knowing it means deniability. If you want deniability, be the Boss. If you want to be the Boss, you get things done. If people get hurt, they got in the way. It wasn’t personal. It never is. It’s just how the world works.

This is the presidency we have gotten from the past two Republican presidents. Frankly, you could make a case for the two before that, and the Democrats in between, but you get the point.

Do you, though? Get the point?

When Trump tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”, he didn’t have to be specific.  His supporters knew what he meant. Well, they “knew” what he “meant”. They knew the end result he wanted, and that’s all that counts, right? That a group of white supremacists interpreted what he “meant” to mean kidnapping and murdering Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, can’t be put on him, right? Right?

That’s deniability. That’s being a Boss. That’s why his supporters support him, even as they claim to hate corporations, even as they scapegoat minorities and women and anyone else weak enough to allow themselves to be scapegoated.

So, when Trump stood at that debate and told the white supremacist group, the Proud Boys, to “stand back and stand by”, that “stand by” was all they needed to hear. Wait for the election. Wait for the results. Wait for the call to action. Trump wasn’t giving them explicit instructions. He doesn’t have to. He never has to, and that’s the point.

This, in a president, is the imbalance of power given the weight of law, and that should terrify us because we have all seen what happens when the bully has gotten all he can get from his victim: he turns on the rest of us. He is never done feeding.

It shouldn’t have gotten this far. We elect politicians who are supposed to stand up for us. We support journalism because they are supposed to stand up for us. For decades, both have failed.

The politicians’ failures, well, that’s easy. Things seemed stable. There was a lot of money being thrown around. Anyone rocking the boat found themselves out in the political wilderness. The system just needed a tweak here and a nudge there. And just like that, systemic rot begins to collapse good governance like a thousand still-unrepaired bridges.

The journalists’ failures, well, there was a reason they called it “Access Hollywood”. Washington isn’t so different than the film and television industries. Journalists in the 60s and 70s hit politicians and corporations hard and gained our trust, but the 80s and 90s saw the politicians and their corporate backers turn the tables. Access could be denied. There were more voices now, cable network voices, who could easily take their place. If you had no access, no newspaper or network would hire you, so the journalists fell in line.

Which left it to us, and we’re terrible at it. That’s why we pay all of those other people to do it for us. Our job, we tell ourselves, is to hold them accountable so they can hold each other accountable, but we do so without reminding ourselves that we must be accountable, too.

We have done our best to push accountability away, but it has arrived like a wave arriving to a shore. We must act. We must be active. We must stand by those most vulnerable among us. We must recognize them as equal to ourselves. We must recognize ourselves as vulnerable. We must understand that that’s okay.

And we must understand that we will be okay once we do at long last what we have known we must do and stand up to the bullies in our midst without becoming them. This will take time. This will take effort. This will take patience, with ourselves as much as anything.

Here we are.

- Daniel Ward

[justlurkingintheshadows]

@nutsandvoltsweek I got some soft for that angsty heart, doctor's orders I'm afraid. I REALLY enjoyed this one, much much more than I can actually explain. I started writing this at like 1am because it wouldn't let me sleep, I eventually fell asleep but I got half of it done then so there wasn't too much left when I was able to get back to it.

Day 6, Royalty AU

Of Meisters and Menials

(Alt title which is essentially just adapted meanings of the initial words aka the original title simply explained: Of skill and degradation)

Word count : 1,957

Content tags : King!Watts, Jester!Tyrian, Royalty AU, attempted murder, minor character death

-----

There was something oddly fulfilling about performing for the king, he never looked impressed but deep down he enjoyed the show every time, though he would never admit it. And Tyrian liked to push the boundaries of what was truly acceptable in the king's court, it was something the guards hated him for.

It wasn't uncommon for Tyrian to suddenly approach his Majesty with no permissions, it sparked the natural instinct of the guards to protect their sovereign and there were times that it had almost ended badly had they not been halted by a direct order. King Arthur found it only mildly irksome that he would be approached so easily by the man of many tricks but he knew there was no danger to him and excused it.

Tyrian was adept with his hands, presenting a flourish during the intense telling of stories or at the end of a trick for flair, but it was his juggling that was most impressive, he didn't tend to use the regular means, instead of soft balls to throw and catch he used weapons. It was also not out of the ordinary for the mischief maker to steal the swords of the protective soldiers and balance them atop one another, either point to point or pommel to pommel, maybe sometimes a mix of both, he was able to find some way to balance them, much like he tended to find a way to balance himself almost anywhere too, whether that be a pillar or the king's own throne, a personal favourite spot because it was the most effortlessly irritating position he could find that guaranteed a scowl from many of the sentries, but he knew they couldn't stop him and since he didn't get in the way he was never directly told off for doing so by anyone who actually mattered so he kept doing it, his favourite part was sometimes leaning down to look into the emerald eyes of the only person who was allowed to sit there, they often looked back with raised brows and a comment about how he was perhaps being a bit too cocky and the response was to grin and giggle "Perhaps" yet he still never got chastised. The most negative response he ever got was a sigh. 

He was clearly good at his craft, and there were many who couldn't stand him, thought his enthusiastic spontaneity was dangerous and irresponsible, though it still seemed to please their ruler who was never quite as mad as other observers seven if he didn't make it obvious.

Tyrian was essentially the only person who was actually allowed an unsupervised close personal audience with the king without having to announce himself (eventhough they would have preferred he announced himself beforehand he simply did not), he just appeared to bother his Highness whenever he could. He even had the audacity to incorrectly address the ruler calling him 'My Majesty' instead of 'Your Majesty' and sometimes even just 'Majesty'. In fact it was quite miraculous that he hadn't been accused of mutiny or the like as any other who dared to 'insult' the king in such a way would face death, but not Tyrian, his value to the court was his ability of charm and quality of amusement. He enjoyed showing up when he wasn't at all invited and hovering around quietly, certain visitors almost thought it was inappropriate but he was never truly reprimanded and so kept doing it time and time again, causing no disruptions despite some trying to claim otherwise.

There were other skills that some were less aware of but the most favourites of the sovereign was the unapparent expertise of knife throwing, despite the juggling and balancing you would never expect the jovial jester to truly be able to actually land an accurate hit with barely any effort, this had only been displayed once when someone attempted to cause harm to the crown and the guards had been unavailable or simply too slow to react, the attempted assassin had been the one to throw the blade, the target being the crown head, and yet they were the one who ended up getting hit; in an impressive set of moves Tyrian had pushed his Majesty out of his throne, caught the flying dagger before it struck the fine material, and fired it back in the direction it came, the strike landed wonderfully between the stunned eyes of a fellow trained for hostility. Trained to react against the king and his men but not for the King's court fool. Arthur was rather astonished, a little shocked but barely bruised from being shoved out the way, but entirely amazed at the swift involvement of his apparently innocent jokesmith with a deadly insinuation. While the royal may have been impressed his defenders were not quite so, though they couldn't be entirely displeased with this event. Arthur noticed there was a bit of blood in Tyrian's hand, upon inspection it was observed that in the act of catching the knife he'd caught himself, it was only minor but it was demanded that the doctor see to it, there was even some praise of thanks for saving the life. He was happy to have the attention of the single monarchy, he thoroughly relished in the attentiveness that multiplied after that event.

Years gradually passed and he was always welcomed even more into the castle, it was odd that he felt he belonged somewhere. The life of a fool isn't always so good-humoured.

One day his royal Highness had to leave on business and it was left to his steward to man the castle while he was away, there was only one empirical issue, they didn't like Tyrian at all. In the king's absence they'd ask for entertainment only to appear bored by it or laugh in such a way it didn't seem fair, this wasn't the same chuckle that sometimes managed to escape the mouth of the ruler, this laugh was more mocking and while Tyrian had grown up around those sorts of noises it got him a little annoyed. At one point the steward asked "Why do you insist on remaining so happy and bouncy all the time?" And Tyrian had smiled and responded delightedly,

"Because I know I am loved by someone" he knew that though King Arthur never showed it in reality his Majesty did appreciate his presence and that sometimes his little tricks really did make his day, though again he would never admit it. The steward laughed.

"You really think that the King cares AT ALL about /you/?" The smile faded from Tyrian's face, "Why would anyone CARE about /you/?" They didn't hold back, the jesters smile faded even more, "He pities you because you're pathetic and useless by any other means, it's not that he actually enjoys having you around it's just that he has to endure it to keep you complacent and loyal to his cause, not that you'd be of any assistance loyal or not" at this point the smile had turned to a sorrowful frown, if there was one thing that could hurt the jolly joker it was the thought that there was a chance his King actually couldn't care less about him. It hurt, those wounds cut deep, much deeper than any knife juggling accident could ever have gone. It scarred his soul.

Arthur was away for a while but when he returned he was, despite best efforts to keep emotions tightly reigned in, happy to see his favourite (and only) jester again, even if it was hard for him to express it. Business had been stressful, it was usually because of having to deal with other people for so long, he needed to relax and unwind with a good joke or a short tale or maybe a trick of some sorts but for some reason he could tell there was something not quite right about his dutiful jokester. He never usually had much of a conversation with Tyrian, it was generally one sided and mostly just in the form of a story with no requirements for contribution, so when he approached the young man while they were alone and asked him if everything was okay it came as quite a shock.

"Is everything ok? You don't seem to have as much heart, has something happened while I've been gone?" Queried the man with all the power. Tyrian blinked at him then remembered his manners and bowed lowly,

"Everything is fine Your majesty, nothing you should concern yourself with" he said as politely as he could. Arthur thought this was somewhat odd,

"Are you sure? It just appears that there may be something the matter, you're not acting quite as I recall you did before" there were attempts to hide hints of concern,

"I am simply remaining in my place Your Majesty, it would be improper for me to act wildly." This seemed to be a final straw

"Tyrian," came an oddly unusual soft tone, Tyrian couldn't help but look in utter confusion at this change of voice, "Are you okay? Something happened didn't it?" There was a silent refusal to answer but the shift of eyes to the floor indicated the truth, "You may speak, it is permitted..." He was trying, it didn't seem to work so another tactic was used, "I demand you inform me of anything that's happened to make you act this way." He stated. Tyrian still seemed reluctant but he couldn't ignore an order though he still took time to find the words.

"You need not worry yourself too much Your Majesty, I am aware you do not actually care for me in any way, I've been informed your apparent enjoyment of my display is simply pity…" he started to trail off, it upset him to think about it again.

Then Watts put a hand on his cheek, lifting his head up to initiate eye contact.

"And whom was it that told you that?" The tone was careful but there was an element of danger to it that Tyrian immediately picked up on, it almost made him shudder. Instead of giving a true answer he simply said,

"It is what I was advised" but the implications were there.

"Is that so?"

Tyrian looked into the royal green eyes that regarded him, he felt foolish for wanting to get lost in them, especially when a corner of them harboured some annoyance that was never going to be directed at him. Arthur smiled softly, his warmth threatening to melt the poor Scorpion.

"I don't want you to believe what you were advised, I want you to believe that I say"

Tyrian's eyes were wide and he was trying not to look too dreamy, he stuttered an awkward response "O-okay… I mean yes, o-of course.. Your Majesty" he was starting to feel like a fool

"I would never let anyone else be aware but I do care, you entertain me. Often your jokes and gimmicks tend to be the only thing I won't be so stone-faced about." His smile was slightly awkward, rather unbefitting of the leader of the kingdom, but somehow suitable for Arthur thought Tyrian. There was some mild hesitation as the other hand moved to hold the other side of his face, Tyrian couldn't help but enjoy the warmth of it. They stood there with the jesters face being cupped by an awkward King. Then Arthur touched his forehead to Tyrian's earning a little stunned gasp.

It was a sweet moment that neither really wanted to end, but it allowed the lord to realise that life would be a lot less interesting without his merryman to keep him company. He didn't want to imagine it.

-----

BONUS!!!

King snake and Jester scorpion

-I wish I could actually draw a king Watts with Jester Tyrian hanging over the back of his throne like the dick he is because that's my life and I need it but I will never 😭-

[ellebabywrites]

Behave - Byun Baekhyun

Type : Oneshot // Smut // Mafia!au

Word Count : 2330

Author Note : This took sooo long to do, I’m sorry to the anon that requested it // BUT // here it is , I hope you enjoy my lovelies 💛

Growing up , you’d always been very aware of your family’s “business”. More than a few kidnapping attempts; the occasional banquet shoot out; you’d grown used to being under constant threat of attack. Your father wasn’t a particularly “liked” man. That’s a horrible understatement. Your father was probably one of the most hated amongst the head families; or EXO , as the organisation liked to be called. Meaning he had quite the abundance of enemies; that all saw you as target number 1. If you’re looking to bring down a top Mafia boss, daddy’s little girl is probably a good place to start.

While your father portrayed himself as a ruthless and cold tyrant to everyone else; he was never that way with you. He’d been raising you alone since you were 8 years old; after the unexpected death of your mother; and there was nothing in the world he cherished more.

Despite more than half of the Mafia world gunning for your head; you lived a rather carefree life. Knowing enough to be cautious but also still being young and free. Well … as ‘free’ as you could be; and a large part of that was due to one person, Byun Baekhyun.

The Byun’s were close family friends, Mr Byun being your father’s longest ally. The close working of your fathers meant that you and Baekhyun had practically grown up together. It didn’t take a genius to see that the pair of you had soon become completely smitten; never leaving each other’s side; you always had each other’s back. So when you grew into young adults and the attempts against your father, and subsequently yourself, became more and more severe - there was only one way that could assure your safety.

An alliance. The Byuns’ weren’t nearly as hated as your own family, merging together would not only ensure your protection from any outside threats, but would also strengthen the business side of both parties.

The alliance was cemented in the form of an arranged marriage between Baekhyun and yourself. Not that either of you minded. Truth be told, at this point the love you both shared was undeniable, lingering stares and touches were no longer the extent of your relationship. It had become something much more. Moments stolen away from functions and business events, to be pressed up against each other in hallways and closets. The definition of childhood sweethearts.

Now, 3 years later, the Byun family were the biggest Mafia in Seoul, led by Baekhyun after the passing of both of your fathers. He had stepped up and taken charge, diminishing half the families that had threatened the pair of you for most of your lives. He was a king. Nobody dared touch him or you anymore. So when he got a call in the middle of the night from Chanyeol, his right hand, a few weeks ago, about a possible threat - he went straight into action.

Much to your displeasure. He was gone more often than not; whenever he was home, he was stressed and tired and certainly not in the mood for the kind of relief you were needing.

It was starting to wear you down. You suddenly felt lonely in this big house without him. You’d been attached at the hip since you were 12 years old, sleeping in the same bed since you were 17, now he was gone and you notice just how cold everything seems.

It was your anniversary week and to say Baekhyun had been extra flakey recently would be an understatement, so it’s no surprise to you when he comes home an hour late and starts preparing for a meeting in his office.

“Baek? What are you doing?” You ask, irritability evident, in the doorway watching him gather various files and papers.

He doesn’t answer you.

“Baek!”

Sighing loudly, he stops his movements to shoot a glare in your direction before continuing, “the guys are coming over, we’re having a meeting.” He walks straight passed you without a second glance, angering you even more as you’re forced to follow him through the house.

“Now Baek?! Really?!”

“Yes now, isn’t that obvious.” He was being blunt with you, meaning he was extra stressed, but unfortunately for him, this was the last straw and you weren’t going to let it slide. Not today of all days.

“It’s our anniversary Baekhyun!” You yell at his retreating back, “it’s our fucking anniversary! Can’t this wait for just one goddamn night?!”

He stops in his tracks and turns around to face you, scowling and eyes piercing.

“I’m aware that it’s our fucking anniversary Y/N, but I’m a little busy trying to keep you safe. So excuse me if I don’t exactly have time right now!”

Both tempers were reaching boiling point as you remained at a standoff for a few minutes, simmering in pent up frustrations and stress, just glaring at each other.

When suddenly the doorbell rang, signalling that the guys were here and this conversation, or lack thereof, was put on hold. Moving towards the door, Baekhyun turns to look at you once more, expression hard and eyes cold so you knew that he was serious.

“Behave.”

You certainly were not going to behave.

The guys all sit around the large meeting table, hardly speaking as they read through the reports in front of them. From the looks on their faces, whatever threat they’re facing is big, even for EXO and if you were a better woman maybe you would understand and back off. But you’re tired; frustrated; horny and all dressed up with nowhere to go. You’d been around long enough to know that Baekhyun, along with the rest of EXO, could handle whatever was coming; so you let impulse take over.

Back in your bedroom, you strip down to nothing but the black lace lingerie set you’d worn especially for Baekhyun, and pull on a matching silk robe before sauntering off into the meeting room.

Without a word, you move around the table and place yourself on your very shocked and angry husband’s lap. Ignoring the incredulous stares of the other 8 men.

Eyes challenging yet again as you look back at Baekhyun, with an expression feigning innocence. His hands gripped your waist harshly but he knew the game you wanted to play and he wasn’t going to be the first to back down. Not yet.

Ignoring his tightening grip, you tear your eyes away from him to look around the table at the others; who are staring at the pair of you with wide eyes and hints of amusement. With a cough to clear his throat and after repositioning you on his lap so he can see the rest of the table, Baekhyun continues on with the meeting.

The whole time you spent fidgeting and mumbling digs at him under your breath. He’d blown you off for weeks, cancelled your anniversary plans and now, had the audacity to ignore you after you had made such a show of yourself. Your bratty behaviour does not go unnoticed by the rest of the table, in fact, the boys struggle to keep their focus on the meeting at all, especially when you start to get even more bored and discreetly open up your legs , swinging them gently.

“Behave.” Baekhyun’s gruff voice whispers into your ear as he roughly pulls your legs back together. Not caring about the audience around you.

Rolling your eyes, you lean up on the desk.

“Junmyeon,” Your voice is as sweet as honey, focusing solely on the man opposite you, “you fuck your wife regularly right?” Your crude question makes the guests pause and stare at you once again, but it’s the quiet growl you hear from your husband behind you that spurs you on. Turning to the man directly next to Junmyeon you continue, “Jongdae, you satisfy your girlfriend, don’t you?” eyes blinking innocently at him, Jongdae failing to suppress a laugh.

Having enough, Baekhyun pushes you off his lap and grabs your wrist, pulling you out of the room into the hallway.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He hisses once you’re both out of earshot, “you’re acting like such a fucking brat right now, we’re in a meeting, this is fucking serious Y/N!”

“And our anniversary isn’t?!” You shout back, not caring if the others hear, “everything will be fine Baek it always is, but I won’t be! You’ve been gone for weeks, I’ve been alone for weeks! It’s our anniversary for fuck sake!”

His eyes shake in anger, stepping closer so that your faces are mere centimetres apart, “We will talk about this later. Go.”

And then he’s back to work, leaving you to simmer in the hallway. Angry tears threatening to fall down your cheeks but you wouldn’t dare give him the satisfaction.

It seems like forever before you hear the sounds of everyone leaving downstairs. You’re lying in bed, still in your underwear and robe, waiting for the inevitable fight that’s to come once Baekhyun gets upstairs. You know you pushed him tonight, when he was already stressed enough, but did you go too far? You don’t think so. Surely the whole EXO empire would’ve survived one night without him. You have needs and your husband has not been fulfilling them. What else could you have done? If the nerves accumulating in your stomach are anything to go by, probably something a little different.

Baekhyun enters the room. He’s silent but his eyes convey everything he’s thinking.

“Do you think that was funny?” He asks. Snapping off his tie and as good as ripping off his shirt. You daren’t speak.

“Are you seriously that desperate to get fucked you have to put on a show in front of our business partners, our friends?!” His breathing is heavy but even, as he removes the rest of his clothes, it makes you question what the hell he’s planning on doing next.

“Wearing barely anything, spreading your legs, talking to them about their sex,” he walks to the bed and grabs your ankles, pulling them around his waist and leaning over you. You still don’t speak, just stare up at him, eyes just as harsh as his own, letting him know you’re still angry.

“You embarrassed me Y/N.” His lips coming down to suck at your collarbone, “such a naughty girl,” one of his hands moving to unhook your bra while the other rips the panties right off your body, making you gasp out, “You couldn’t just behave for one fucking night.”

His lips tease up your neck, jaw and cheek, distracting you from how his hands slyly grab yours and attach them to the headboard with his previously discarded tie. It’s the pressure on your wrists that snaps you out of the daze he’s locked you in, “what the fuck Baek!” You whimper childishly, you’ve both done many things in the bedroom but he’s never tied you up before. You felt excited and nervous all at once.

Ignoring you, Baekhyun starts kissing down your body till he reaches the space between your legs. “You’re so wet Y/N,” His fingers prod their way along your slit, sending shivers straight to your core. You’d teased him earlier and now it was his turn to tease you. “You really were desperate huh? You missed me that much you’re all hot and bothered already my naughty baby?” You can feel his breath fanning against your wet skin, the build up making you pull at your wrists impatiently.

“Please Baek, I’m sorry for before I just missed you so much, please touch me”

Almost immediately, Baekhyun moves his lips around your clit and starts sucking harshly, scraping his teeth against it every now and then, sending shivers down your spine, bringing you closer and closer to your high. His hands grip onto your hips, pressing down to stop your squirming, forcing you to face your approaching orgasm head on. Then, just before you’re about to let it all go, he pulls away, smirking down at you.

“Why’d you stop!?” You whine at him out of breath, desperately tugging on the tie that’s stopping you from pushing his face back into you so he can finish what you started.

“That,” he wipes his mouth, moving to kneel between your legs, “is for misbehaving in front of our guests earlier.” He smugly responds, all the while slowly stroking himself.

Not even waiting for you to fully recover, he pushes himself into you in one rough movement, causing you to scream out at the sudden stretch, “Act like a slut, get treated like a slut Y//N.”

He starts thrusting into you at an unbelievable pace, hands firmly on your ass, holding you to him as he pounds into you. His mouth leaving wet open kisses on your shoulder before nipping at your ear to whisper, “This is what you want right Y/N? To be fucked like this, hard, rough, tied to the bed like the slut you are huh? That’s why you were being such a fucking brat in front of all our friends? You missed me fucking you like this? Are you happy now?”

Feeling you clench around him, Baekhyun brings one of his hands to grab at your breasts roughly, slipping his tongue into your mouth, rolling his hips deep into you. Pleasure rips through your entire body, shaking uncontrollably, moaning out curses as Baekhyun keeps chasing his own high; which follows soon after. His cum mixing with your own, coating your insides. He continues to rut into you a few more times as the pair of you cool down. The only sounds being your combined heavy breathing and the rustling of sheets.

Baekhyun drops down next to you on the bed and reaches up to untie your wrists, pulling you to lie on top of him. His fingers idly begin combing through your hair, lulling you to sleep to the sound of his heartbeat. Nothing else is said between you. While not solving the problem entirely, you’re sure you won’t have to do quite as much begging on your next anniversary.

[txladyj-blog]

Chapter 8 - This Time Around

a Daryl Dixon x OFC collaboration written by @xmistressmistrustx​

Rating: Explicit

Relationship: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character

Tags: Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Awkwardness, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Crush, Fluff and Humor, Angst and Humor, Mild Smut, Strong Language, Eventual Sex, Eventual Romance, Slow Burn, Canon Divergence, Some Canon Scenes and Dialogue

Chapters 23/?

Human nature. With all its complexities and flaws, was now the one thing that presided over a land filled with the dead. True human nature, in its most naked, exposed and unapologetic form was now both the best and worst of the world. Jess had seen the best and worst of it from her spot in the city and had managed to live, unnoticed by any survivors passing through. She’d witnessed grown men put themselves in harms way, sacrificing themselves to save children too slow and small to keep up the running pace of the adults in their group as she’d watched from her perch on the corner of the roof. In contrast, she’d stared in horror as another group simply tossed a woman out of a truck like last night’s burger wrapper, onto the street in order to slow down a small herd. She’d been bitten before Jess could grab her bow and race down the stairs. In an act of mercy that allowed her to prove to herself that she was still on the good side of human nature, she’d shot the woman in the head from the roof with a well-placed arrow and spent all night replaying the look of pure terror etched onto the stranger’s face.

Yes, human nature was complicated and destructive, inspiring and devastating. A double-edged sword. Jess was better off on her own, that much was true, but she did miss the conversation, the debate, the ideas swapping over hot chocolates and the late-night hilarity that came from a few glasses of beer and games of pool in a bar. Those days were gone and now all she had in the way of company was a reanimated dead body at the bottom of the elevator shaft and a huge stuffed bear wearing an army jacket that now took up it’s place opposite her on the roof, a stale birthday cake waited to be devoured between them on an upturned, wooden box.

“Well, Sgt Pepper. Looks like it’s just you and I celebrating another trip around the sun.” she commented as she held her glass aloft.

Merle had finished off all the whiskey and she knew better than to go scrounging for more. It wasn’t a necessity and she wasn’t about to get herself killed for a bout of nausea and a fuzzy head the next day.

The bear was tatty, threads pulled from his ears and his jacket splattered with dried blood. Jess found him in the next apartment block where he’d been positioned proudly on the pillow of a perfectly made bed in a room decorated for that of a young adult. On the floor were three bodies, two adults and a girl around 13 years old. Jess carefully nudged each one with her foot as she passed. The bullet holes in their heads told her that they hadn’t turned and like many of the people that chose to remain in the city, they thought suicide to be a better prospect than the exhausting slog to survive day by day. It hurt Jess’s heart to think that some souls felt there was no other way, but it wasn’t an option she could say she hadn’t considered at least once while she resided in her fortress of loneliness.

It was a no brainer to her. She had to leave with that bear. He reminded her so much of her own childhood companion, jacket and all. Her father had gifted it to her and during every tour and every training exercise, she found comfort in the military bear that she had dubbed ‘Sgt Pepper’. Aware that if any other survivors were passing through and saw her, she would look positively ridiculous, scurrying across the rooftops with a huge stuffed animal under her arm. But just as before the turn, she wasn’t going to change who she was to suit anyone else. Especially not in the apocalypse.

“You say it's your birthday” She sang at the bears pinned and permanent smile. She sipped the soda in the glass and slapped her other hand on her thigh to create a beat. “It's my birthday too, yeah”. She paused, looking up at Sgt Pepper as if his plastic eyes would change their expression and for a fleeting second, she was disappointed when they remained exactly the same. She raised the glass to him for a second time. “They say it's your birthday, we’re gonna have a good time” She thudded the glass on the box and began to pluck at imaginary guitar strings, closing her eyes and leaning to one side. “I'm glad it's your birthday, Happy birthday to you!” The Beatles were her favourite band ever since she was a child and that was not something that was going to change just because they and their audience weren't around anymore. Jess was still there and as long as she was, so was her love of their music. She'd found headphones while scavenging, even and old portable CD player, but her rule of keeping a clear head and always being aware of her surroundings meant that the headphones went untouched and she was reduced to singing to herself to stave off the boredom and silence. It wasn't a problem to her, she knew all of the lyrics anyway and there was no one but Ben and Sgt Pepper to complain about it.

Her eyes lowered to the dried birthday cake. Three, colored, marzipan Balloons floated across the top and the rim was adorned with cracked and discolored frosting. The chances of a strong bout of stomach cramps after consuming it were high, but it was her birthday and she was going to have a damn cake if she wanted to. A single candle flame flickered in the center of the off-white frosting and as she blew it out, she wished that she would survive long enough to see mother nature take back the earth. To reclaim what was hers and what was destroyed by the arrogance of human nature. She wanted to see vines and branches seep into the cracks of buildings, pulling them apart and turning them into a ghostly mirage of what once was. But through it all, she wanted to be around, content and safe and able to live into her old age while still being the survivor she had realized she really was.

She also wished for something else; that one day, Daryl would know how much he inspired her. If nothing else, she wanted that for him. Without his guidance, his training and his words, she was certain she would be dead. He may have broken her heart, but at one point, somewhere in between all the angst and anger, he believed in her. She regretted not writing it in the note she left pinned to the tree but time was of the essence and she had to think quickly. Now, when she thought back to the good times spent tracking and hunting in the woods, putting Walkers down and making fun of one another, it made her smile. A smile that was not through genuine happiness. Far from it. It was a smile of sadness for times that she desperately missed. But they were times of blissful ignorance of how he really felt, times based on a lie. She pressed her eyes shut and quickly shook the thoughts from her head. She watched the thin, sliver of smoke drift up from the wick. Picking up a plastic fork, she stabbed the cake and shoveled a large piece of the sponge into her mouth. Wincing at the dryness, she chewed and swallowed hard. It was like eating sand.

“Happy fuckin’ birthday to me.” She sighed.

She had resorted to guessing the time of day by using a sundial or her hands against the horizon from the roof. Her knowledge of such historical practices had proved to be invaluable and she now appreciated her interests much more than she ever did before the turn. The night was creeping in, dulling the view from the roof and creating a cold sting in the air. There was just enough time for some target practice.

The streets below the apartment were far from clear. Walkers milled in and our of side streets and alleys, some amassed in the middle of the road and if it wasn’t for Jess’s diversion tactics from time to time, she was sure the street she lived on would be clogged with festering corpses by now. Fireworks were usually the best, she’d found. They seemed to like fireworks. The dreamer in her liked to think that maybe the noise and the colors stirred something deep inside their mainly inoperative brains, some kind of distant memory of 4th July firework shows or new year celebrations. But the realist side of her knew differently. Now, they were even lower than most animals, driven to move by sounds but completely devoid of thought or any type of feeling. Just shells.

She picked up her bow and slid on her bracers as she approached the small wall that lined the edge of the roof. The faint murmur of the odd, swaying Walker was the only sound that rose from the scene below. Taking a peek over the edge, she nodded in approval at the numbers.

“That’ll do.” She said to herself before picking up a small, children’s chalkboard that rested against the inside of the wall. Her eyes flickered over the names on the list, selecting the first one and shuffling forwards to get into position.

“OK, Madonna. Are you out tonight?”

With one foot placed in front of the other, her body turned and her stance strong, she raised the bow and nocked an arrow. She smiled when she noticed her. A blonde woman with wavy, hair wearing what appeared to be a thin, satin nightgown. She wasn’t as designer clad as the real thing, but she would suffice as a target. She drew the bow string back and exhaled slowly as she took aim. The Arrow embedded in the side of the Walkers head as if it was nothing but a bag of sand and she hit the floor, causing the others around her to start shuffling towards her.

“Oof!” She exclaimed with a fist pumped in the air. “That one was a ten pointer. Sorry, Madonna.” She marked her score on the chalkboard next to the name and checked her next target.

Sarah.

It was now a habit, each time she re-filled the board with names, Sarah and Jodie’s would always be mixed in somewhere. Jess was never one to remain bitter or hold grudges, too many so-called friends had come and gone over the years to make sure she’d got used to it. But she was also never one to not make an exception for some things. When she was feeling low and having a bad day, the list of names on the board changed and she wondered at one point if she should indulge in an ‘abhorrent people target practice day’ once a week, where Sarah and Jodie’s names could mingle with the likes of Hitler, Robert Mugabe and Vlad the Impaler. But it was yet to happen because she wasn’t bitter. Not at all. Or, so she told herself as she chose a doppelganger of Sarah and took aim.  

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Ben was hanging on the bars of the elevator gate when she descended the stairs, his arms were loosely draped through the gaps and his face was pushed against the cold metal. She lifted a hand in acknowledgement before sitting down on the bottom step in front of him and seeing him try to reach out to her. She held her hand out, gently tickling his grasping, blackened fingertips in what could have been seen as a gesture of affection.

“Hey dude. So, my birthday cake tasted like feet but it was one hell of a pity party you missed.”

The sound of her voice was like fuel for Ben. He instantly began to clamber up from his spot, hanging through the gate and started to snarl at her, his mouth hanging open and his teeth bared.

“Not that I know what feet taste like.” She added, her eyes locking on his now cloudy, pale and blinded orbs. “I guess you might though. Depending on how long you’ve been locked in there.”

Stepping back, Ben’s arms dropped from the grate and he stumbled backwards, his body hitting the back of the elevator and causing it to shake. A slight jingle caught her attention and she froze, straining her ears. As he moved back towards her, his pocket gave off a tinkling sound and Jess quickly put the pieces of the puzzle together. Many a week had passed when she’d been sitting on that same step engrossed in a one-way conversation with the dead man trapped inside his cell. Sometimes she even contemplated if he really would try to hurt her if she managed to somehow release him from the confined space he occupied. But then she reminded herself of her own naivety and how that kind of thinking could get her killed. Ben was a Walker. A mindless, stinking, lump of useless flesh but still a predator in his own right.  

“You have the goddamn keys to the elevator in your pocket, don’t you?” She asked him.

He stilled and her eyebrows raised. She knew better than to think he could understand her, but it was strange nonetheless. The keys would change everything. She could get him out of there and actually make use of him. She sprang up from her spot.

“I have an idea. Wait here.” She told him. After striding up two steps she rolled her eyes and sighed at her own stupidity.

Like he’s going to go anywhere.

When she returned, she placed her supplies in front of her; a cylindrical block of wood with a dish cloth tightly wound around it, attached at either end to a string of thick, rubber bands, a hockey mask and a length of rope tied into a slipknot. Another one of her skills acquired from the thousands of books she had now amassed in her apartment. She paced back and forth for a few moments, observing how Ben followed her every move from behind the barrier like a magnet. Although she was almost certain he was blind, he was completely obsessed with her and she huffed with amusement when she figured that he was only guy that had ever been obsessed with her…and he was dead.

She picked up the block of wood and tilted her head to the side, it would fit through the gaps perfectly but her task was not going to be easy. Her left arm was covered with three, thick layers of tape, strapped over a Kevlar sleeve and glove in case Ben fancied a snack halfway through his rescue mission. She was now glad of her forethought. She threaded her arm through the grid, silently and without rattling the metal. Ben, who could detect no sound whatsoever, merely peered around through his useless eyes as she used her armor covered hand to quickly grasp the back of his head. He jolted and began to gnash at her, the sounds bubbling up from his throat as his lips parted provoking a rush of bile from her own stomach. She couldn’t have prepared for the smell or the sound of liquidated, rotting human organs no matter how much she knew about Walkers. She snapped his head back as he grabbed a hold of her police issue vest and dragged her forwards, slamming her body against the gate. With her other hand, she managed to wedge the piece of wood so far between his jaws that they became locked in position. She quickly stretched the string of bands over his head, creating a most macabre and brutal gag but an effective one regardless.

He thrashed and growled, throwing himself at the gate over and over until Jess was able to shove a hand into his pocket and pulled out the biggest bunch of keys she had ever seen. Her heart dropped as she stepped back and sat down, the racket of Ben desperately trying to get to her now drowned out by just how many keys she had to contend with.

“Guys got the keys to every lock in the city on here.” She mumbled.

She began sorting through them, checking the branding on the lock and looking for a match. She must have gone through at least twenty keys before she stopped and pinched one particular one between her fingers. She looked up at the lock again.

“Nova” She whispered.

The key boasted the exact same branding. She stood up, moved closer to the lock and slid the key into the chamber. Holding onto the gate as tightly as she could, she gently and quietly turned the key, a subtle click made her smile. She’d found it. The whole time he’d been locked inside, Ben possessed the key to his freedom all along. At first, she didn’t know if someone else had thrown him in there but now it was evident; he’d been bitten and locked himself in.

“That was noble of you. But this is my apartment complex now and you’re going to earn your keep.” She quipped, swiping up the hockey mask and rope from the floor. She shoved the mask under her arm and released the lock, slowly sliding the gate back. The rattling noise sent Ben into a frenzy and he collided with the gap she’d created in the gate with such force that she doubted her ability to follow through with her plan for a moment. She took a deep breath, reached into the gap and snapped the mask over his gagged face. Next, she threw the rope around his neck and pulled it tight before throwing the gate open.

He threw himself at her, knocking the mask against the side of her face while she tried to tighten her grip on the rope enough to keep his head away from hers.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m pleased to see you too buddy.” She remarked.

Ben couldn’t have been more than 30 years old when he was alive and Jess gathered that even thought he was now deceased and extremely dangerous, he was once a good-looking guy. She felt a pang of sympathy for such a wasted life. But what else was left to hang around for? The experience of wresting the undead from elevators and up the stairs to a roof wasn’t one she’d wish on anyone else. By the time she’d maneuvered him to the top of the steps and shoved open the heavy, metal door to the roof, he’d quieted considerably. Jess knew Walkers didn’t get tired; they no longer possessed the brain capacity to register fatigue. Nor were they able to come to the conclusion that something wasn’t worth the trouble. She didn’t know why he became more compliant, but she certainly wasn’t about to complain.

Tying him to a pipe inside a ramshackle, wooden shed. She stood back and looked him over, pleased with her efforts and feeling triumphant at the result. She now had a moving target, a sparring partner and little did Ben know; he was about to become her Sensei.

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She’d lost track of time. It had been months, she knew that to be a fact, but just how many had escaped her. Her need to journal would have helped keep tabs on just how long she’d been housed in the apartment block in the city, but she had Sgt Pepper and Ben and she chattered away to them without a care in the world, dispelling her darkest fears and her inner most private thoughts. There wasn’t a need to write everything down anymore, not in a world where no one and everyone was listening all at once. If she tried to guess, she looked at her crops which filled the balcony and most of the rooftop, they were huge, prospering in the summertime and struggling during the winter. But they still existed she thought it had maybe been close to a year that she’d lived alone.

People below had come and gone. Rarely was it that anyone would try her apartment. If they did, they found it to be locked up tighter than a secret military camp and soon moved on when they realized the noise and time it would take to enter such a building while surrounded by Walkers just wasn’t worth it. In so many months she had uttered hardly a word to anyone but Merle, who’s absence was felt much greater than she ever would have expected or would care to admit.

Training with Ben was one of life’s perks, she enjoyed experiencing the change in not only her body, but her mind as she jabbed and kicked her way into a full, self-defense skill set using a dead guy as her fake attacker. She goaded him, riled him up until he would lunge at her and swipe with his arms and kick out with his legs. His hands constantly grabbed for her, the need to taste human flesh far too great for him to ignore. But Ben could only go as far as his leash allowed and his hockey mask was eventually replaced each evening before he was led back to his shack.

Gunfire interrupted one sparring session during a hot, summers evening and Jess’s head snapped around while the rest of her body completely froze. Ben also stilled and started to jolt and snarl at the source of the bangs. It was close, much too close for comfort. She wiped the sweat from her brow and eyes and crept to the edge of the roof, her heart almost stopped at the view below.

Is that a…a TANK?!

Driving towards her corner apartment block with a speed that couldn’t be easily stopped, was an M1 Abrams Tank. Jess had seen them many times before, a sight that Army brats tended to get used to. It was flanked by a dozen, heavily armed men with their weapons pointed at the door to her block. Her chest constricted when she heard them start to jeer and her eyes clocked another vehicle turn a corner at the top of the street. A large, black truck that was equipped with an animal cage on the flatbed. Inside the cage, was a screaming woman. She scanned each face as quickly as she could. Blackened teeth. Then, she observed their hands and movements. Tremors. Poor coordination. She’d read about the depths some humans would reach on the moral scale in a post-apocalyptic situation. Fear raged through her body and she stumbled back when the tank collided with the door on the ground floor.

I have to get out of here.

The building shook and she whirled around, her mind racing and her heart hammering. Adrenaline began to surge through her veins, urging her to remove herself from the threat. She grabbed Ben’s rope and sprinted to the roof door. Dragging him down the steps, sweat trickled into her eyes and she cursed the timing of the attack above all things.

Could have waited until training was over. Jesus.

Crashing through the door to her apartment, she fastened Ben’s rope to the radiator and he thrashed and clawed at her as she dashed around the living space, filling her bag with handguns and supplies. She quickly slipped on anything Kevlar or armored she could find and collected what seemed like millions of arrows from almost every room. Now, there was shouting ringing out from the floors below.

“Place is cleared. Someone lives here, keep searching!” ordered a man’s voice that she could just about make out as a muffled sound through the floorboards. They were on the floor below. She had to be fast. Now wasn’t the time for sentiment, now, she had to be practical, smart and stealthy. She threw the backpack she’d lifted from yet another dead policeman onto her back, the barrels of the guns inside poked at her back but she paid it no mind as she collected her primary weapon, her bow from the hook on the back of the front door. A machete nudged against her leg as she walked, pinned there by the loop on its handle around the belt loop on her pants. She quickly freed it, clutching it in her hand as she adjusted her backpack. She stopped and looked at Ben.

He was glaring at her with his white eyes in the middle of the room, his rope was pulled taut and his neck tendons protruded. His hands were locked out in front of him with his fingers fanned out. She could hear the men clearly now, they were on the other side of the door and with every harsh bang of the wood in the frame, her heart jumped. She closed the gap between her and the corpse. Taking hold of one of his hands but not allowing him to pull her any closer. She gradually shifted his position in the room and gently squeezed his fingers.

“Don’t let me down” She whispered.

She raised the machete, sliced through his rope and ripped the wooden gag from his mouth. Then, she turned on her heels, taking hold of the window frame and diving through the gap. Outside, she slammed the window shut and watched as Ben’s hands slapped against the glass.

“Slow ‘em down, buddy. Thanks for the lessons.” She smiled.

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Daryl chewed his bottom lip as he adjusted his position on the rickety, prison mattress. His back was pressed against the wall and no matter how hard he tried, she couldn’t shake the thought that of all the places the group could have ended up, a prison had to be one of them. He hated being forced to sleep in a cage and live behind heavy, clanking doors. Even the sound of Rick’s keys irritated him. Rick, the leader. Rick the prison guard.

He wasn’t a regular at the Georgia Department of Corrections like his brother. But he’d been on the wrong side of the law just enough to know what staring at the same four walls, sitting at the same metal table and taking a dump in the same room that you sleep in was like. Charges for drug possession and fighting were hardly the kind of things he wanted to share with the rest of the group and so, he kept himself to himself, merely stating that he’d rather sleep outside of the cells. That was when he slept at all.

In his hands, he held a newly carved bolt for his crossbow. His ability to make them had improved some over the months and it was now second nature to him to create as many as possible while sat around, babysitting his brother who was locked in the cell opposite him.

Merle hadn’t managed to track Daryl down since leaving the city. Instead, he’d come across another group of survivors led by a callous psychopath and had slotted perfectly into his role as the main foot soldier. Everything had been fine and dandy for Merle at first, he was given a metal prosthetic arm with a removable bayonet attachment which meant he was never short of a weapon against the undead. He had a roof over his head, food in his belly and medicine at his disposal. Above all else, he had a purpose, a job that he did well and with gusto. That was, until Daryl appeared in front of him. The Atlanta groups run in with the Governor and his community has resulted in a lot of pain, injuries, fear and grudges, some of it at the hands of Merle, who was at the center of it all, but he was Daryl’s blood and he had made it clear that now they were together again, he would not be parted from Merle again. Initially, the two of them left the group and headed into the woods, but things were not as they used to be. Daryl had changed and with it, Merle felt outcast, even from the lifelong bond the two of them had shared since Daryl had entered the world as a sensitive and observant child. Merle quickly realized that Daryl had a code that he stuck by no matter what. A code that meant others were put before himself which infuriated and baffled Merle. A fight in the woods revealed a childhood trauma that they both shared, much to Merle’s surprise. He was aware that Daryl was a witness to violence in their household, but the extent of which was only evident upon a scuffle in which Daryl’s shirt was ripped, revealing deep, scarred lacerations to his skin. Then, everything changed.

Daryl made it clear that he was going back to the prison. Back to the group he belonged with and Merle had the choice to either walk away or try to make nice with the others. Being parted from his little brother for a second time was the less favorable option and so, Merle decided to tag along with Daryl. Upon their arrival at the fences, they found the place under attack from Walkers and although Merle helped to save lives, he was still bundled into a cell and scowled at by every other member of the group. No one had forgotten the things he had done and no one was about to forgive and forget.

“The hell were ya doin, running with that psycho?” Daryl asked.

Merle was leaning on the bars, his good hand smoothing a thumb around the edging of his prosthetic stump. His hooded, weathered eyes fixed on his brother. He found it difficult to believe that someone could change as much as Daryl had. He saw him, carrying out orders for Rick, going out on runs alone, doing as he was told. It was unlike the Daryl he’d grown up with, yet he’d always known that his baby brother was more emotionally driven than he had ever been.

“Everybody’s a psycho now, little brother. Everybody’s got a gun, a kill number and a big ol’ chip on their shoulder. Hell, I’d be more worried if some sommbitch walked up to me with his mitts in his pockets.” He reasoned with a small shrug.

Daryl shook his head in disbelief at his brother’s casual attitude to his actions. Merle was never one to take responsibility for anything, least of all his misgivings. Apparently, the end of the world hadn’t changed that in him.

“They ain’t never gonna trust ya, ya know that, right?” Daryl confirmed.

“Yeah, I know.” Merle agreed with a hint of exasperation in his voice. Daryl went back to carving his bolts, slicing through thin pieces of wood with his sharp hunting knife. “I don’t know why I do the things I do. I’m a damn mystery to me.” Merle added.

Daryl scoffed and glanced up from his task.

“You’re a dumb ass, man.” He mumbled.

They both huffed in amusement and Merle couldn’t help but revisit the last few months and how he’d come to be locked up in a cell, even after everyone died and started eating one another. Was this really where he was meant to be? Maybe he was bad through and through, just like their daddy used to say. Maybe he didn’t deserve any more chances after the one he’d been given in the city. Then, he remembered her. Jess.  

“Remember the little, fat chick from the quarry?” He asked.

Daryl's body tensed and his eyes slowly worked back up from his bolt. He remembered her. Of course, he did. He thought about her every single day, especially when he closed his eyes at night. He wished he could wake up one day and she’d just be there, having never ran away. He remembered her because she was the only person he’d managed to connect with in his entire, sorry life.

“What ‘bout her?” he rasped.

“I seen her” Merle stated, his expression becoming smug as he straightened up and tilted his head back, looking down his nose at Daryl.

“She’s alive?!” Daryl exclaimed as he sat up to gain a better view of his brother’s expression. It was not lost on him that this could all be a lie to get him out of the cell.

“Was a few months back, mind. But yeah, all in one piece.” Merle told him.

Daryl stood up, dropping his knife and bolt and slowly approaching the cell door.

“Where is she?” he wanted to know.

Merle grunted and rubbed his face as he watched Daryl’s entire demeanor change. He was becoming irritated at the lack of information and it was apparent to Merle that Jess meant something to him, after all.

“Asked me to keep my mouth shut about that part.”

With his teeth locked together and his breathing increasing, Daryl began to stalk back and forth in front of the cell door, his boots scuffing on the smooth surface of the floor. He no longer thought it was a lie. He knew well enough that Jess would have made herself known if she wanted to, especially by then. After all, he found a note to prove it.

“She don’t wanna be found, kid. Let it go.” Merle added.

He stopped his pacing and let out a loud sigh. This kind of discussion was rare for the Dixons, it involved a degree of emotion and honestly which was something Merle didn’t seem to possess and Daryl managed to hide extremely well. Until the mention of her name.

“She doin OK?” He questioned “Least tell me that much. Please”

“She’s good. She’s real smart.” Merle nodded.

Picking up a pile of previously carved arrows from a table, Daryl began to sift through them with his fingertips. It looked to Merle like he was counting them, but he knew Daryl better than he knew himself. He was using them as a distraction. Merle didn’t even flinch when Daryl angrily threw the handful of wood onto the floor, the sound was like a million pencils falling from a table and rolling across the ground.

“Just tell me where she is!” Daryl raged.

Merle couldn’t help it when the corners of his mouth lifted into a small smile.

“Ooof! You got it bad, huh, boy?”

“Shut up.” Daryl hissed, turning his back and trying to calm himself. His shoulders heaved as he breathed. “I’m your fuckin’ brother” He muttered, hearing a rasped growl from behind him. A glance over his shoulder told him that Merle did really want to tell him as he witnessed him lean his head on the bars and close his eyes.

“I owe her, OK? She did right by me. Mans only as good as his word.” Merle explained.

Daryl spun around, his face now enraged and reddening fast, his eyes were filled with the kind of anger that Merle had usually only seen when the two of them fought and it was never the same kind of rage that presented itself in a fight with anyone else. It was different. It was real.

“Word?! WORD?! You can’t be fuckin’ serious! Your word counts for shit, Merle! You tortured Glenn and Maggie so don’t start pretendin’ you’re some good guy, ya ain’t!” Daryl yelled.

“I ain’t no good guy but I got a code. Just like you.” Merle retorted.

Stooping down to collect his arrows, Daryl knew he had to remove himself from the building or he would end up strangling the truth out of his own brother. With all of the arrows gripped in his hand, he pointed them at Merle and narrowed his gaze.

“If they wanna starve ya, I’mma let ‘em. If they wanna torture ya, I’mma walk away. I ain’t doin’ nothin’ for ya until ya tell me where Jess is. They can keep ya in that damn cage for all I care.”

Before he could think of an answer, Merle was left alone in the room with nothing but the fading echo of the door slamming for company.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Jess was running for so long that her feet were starting to burn and her knees were seizing up. She needed to stop somewhere and rest but being snared by the group of men with the black teeth and the woman in the cage was a thought that struck pure terror into her soul. She was sure she’d rather be eaten by Walkers than trapped with such a group. She’d stayed away from any roads, trekking through woodland and climbing over fences to remain undetected. Her clothing had helped keep her under the radar; a tight, black Kevlar top covered with her police vest and a black, hooded jacket. Dark camouflage cargo pants, black hand gun holsters and a mask that covered her mouth with a plastic outer shell that she had found on a dead biker as she fled the city.

Her bag was starting to feel heavier with every step as she approached a small town filled with abandoned cars. It looked as though people may have tried to settle there after the outbreak and the vehicles were left in a panic. She surged forwards, trying each car, looking for keys and gas. If she could just find one with enough to get her further away from the city, she could take some time to rest up. Darkness enveloped the town and birds and crickets sang a chorus as she wound her way through the cars, pleading with whatever deity would listen to just give her a break.

Then, her prayers were answered. A station wagon filled with boxes of clothes roared to life and to Jess’s delight, the tank was almost full. She set to work removing all the boxes, lightening the load so the gas wouldn’t be consumed as quickly and settled in the front seat. She pulled the door closed and drove off. Her destination was unknown but as far away from the city as she could get would be a start.

It was days before the truck ran out of gas and Jess had managed to put many, many miles in between her and the group that had almost captured her. On her journey, she’d swept through houses and collected anything she could carry on foot. She slept in buildings where they could be secured and had more than one exit, consumed any food she found in strict intervals, ensuring it lasted as long as possible and continued in the same direction she’d been travelling in for two weeks. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for in a settlement, just that it had to be safe, away from other people and walkers and with the capacity to be self-sustainable. Then, she found the boat.

Situated in the middle of a lake, accessible only by a large, fortified gate at the end of a dirt track that was well hidden from any passersby, Jess thought it might have been an old quarry due to its similarities to the old camp. The top of the gate was covered with razor wire and she narrowly avoided being sliced to ribbons when she caught her backpack on the barbs. But a rigorous wiggle and some quick thinking had literally saved her skin. The boat was so far away from the shoreline that Jess accepted that she had to use a canoe that was moored by a jetty. The water appeared to be untouched and there wasn’t a walker in sight. But chances weren’t to be taken when the dead roam the earth and she had to be sure. A collection of rocks of all sizes ended up in the lake, she threw them out as far as she could, trying to cause a stir and encourage any swimming walkers to rise to the surface. But nothing came to pass. By the evening, she’d hunted a rabbit and cooked it over a small fire on the beach. Using the skin attached to a tree branch, she dangled it in the water as the sun was going down and pondered how relaxing the place seemed.

“Huh. Walker fishing.” She mumbled to herself.

When nothing happened and the rabbit skin floated off the branch and out into the body of water, she decided to risk rowing out to the boat. Much to her surprise, the water was crystal clear and she spotted fish swimming below. Her stomach growled, the stringy, fatty meat of a rabbit hardly sufficing when such plump, and apparently disease-free fish were swimming all around her.

I need a fishing rod.

Climbing aboard, it was clear that she was not stood on a regular boat. This was luxurious, spacious and well looked after. The deck was starting to show signs of disrepair but it was a far cry from the dilapidated state of some of the houses she’d stayed in. She crept inside, sweeping the rooms one by one and eventually finding the inhabitants of the vessel. A middle-aged couple on the double bed in the largest bedroom of three. Both wrapped in an embrace in the middle of a mass of bottles of pills. She moved into the room, draping a sheet over them and resting her hand on the man’s arm.

“I hope you’re at peace. The world sure isn’t”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Merle stared at the dangerous, powerful and very angry black woman in the passenger seat of his car. She was not one to be messed with and that explained why he needed to knock her out before bundling her into the car and driving her to the Governor. It was all the man wanted. Michonne was responsible for his life changing injury after taking one of his eyes out with her samurai sword. Now, he wanted revenge and Merle was more than aware that if the Governor didn’t get what he wanted; he would obliterate the entire group. The group his brother was a part of.

“So, he takes you in, cleans you up and feeds you a load of bullshit. Why would you kill someone else for him?” She asked.

Merle didn’t answer, his eyes were on the road but his attention was elsewhere, with the safety of his brother back at the prison. He didn’t want to be there, handing Michonne over to the man that would ultimately torture and kill her was most definitely not something he wanted to do. But there were little options that he could see. Only he knew the true wrath of the Governor.

“We could go back. You and me. We could just go back.” She suggested.

“Ain’t gonna happen.” He commented.

“Why?”

Her eyes were bearing into his soul and wished he could put into words the things that were circulating in his mind. He had killed sixteen people since he’d been with the governor. Before that, he’d killed none. It dawned on him that Michonne was right, why would he kill any more people when he did have another way out? The alternative was less appealing and altogether more permanent. But it was an alternative nevertheless. He stopped the car and raised his prosthetic hand, the bayonet was fixed to the end. Michonne leaned back slightly in her seat, wondering if he might slit her throat there and then and cut out all the talking. Instead, Merle hooked the blade through her wire handcuffs and cut her free.

“You go back. I got somethin’ I gotta do on my own.” He told her, nodding towards the door. “But you’re gonna tell my brother somethin’ for me.”

NEXT CHAPTER

[mwolf0epsilon]

DBH - Opposite

A drabble focused on Joel, my second oldest DBH OC! He's an anxious EM400 who had some very negative experiences in the park attraction he maintained. He's also an aspiring writer with a talent for word-weaving and eloquent discussions, when he's not a nervous wreck that is...

Enjoy!

---

     One could write a book on the many things that made androids and humans different and unable to coexist, just as easily as they could write a book on the many other things that made them similar and destined for tolerable cohabitation.

Joel was one such android that could procure and provide the wording necessary for two such books. He was an excellent writer after all, and quite proud of his endeavours in his word-weaving.

Sadly, no matter how much he tried to share his interest for the literary arts, people often dismissed his “quirky” behaviour in favour of demanding their own personal entertainment.

All because Joel was an EM400.

    Stereotypes weren't unique to humanity, Joel had quickly found.

While it was a misdemeanor most pronounced in humans, it became quite apparent that androids shared similar views to that of their creators, when it came to appointing generic traits to other models. Just as easily as a human could call a PL600 or a AX400 a simple domestic appliance, a TR400 or WR400 could do the very same thing.

No one expected an android designed for a certain kind of task to have interests outside of their programming.

Joel had observed several incidents of this nature, frowning from his favoured corner in New Jericho Tower as he watched heated arguments between different kinds of people.

There were a group of WR600s who shunned another of their kind, intent on forcing the outlier of their group for desiring something as absurd as a family, rather than focusing on his tasks within the tower.

There was the PL600 with green eyes, Noah, who shuddered in the presence of children and retreated whenever a YK400 or YK500 approached him. Two HR400s laughed and rudely inquired as to how a nanny could be so terribly afraid of children.

There was also the WR400, North, one of the leaders of Jericho. Joel observed in silent disapproval how often she discussed with Lucina how she wondered if Markus could have possibly lied about being a domestic assistant, when he was so much more capable than one. A view that another of the leaders, Simon, seemed to be exasperated by as he too was a domestic model and resented the idea of being nothing more than a caretaker by design.

Joel could empathize, as anyone who came across him would often ask why a EM400 would ever look or act anything but cheery and playfully.

The answer lay in experience, of course.

    Joel shared a similar job to his “cousins”, the Jerrys of Pirate's Cove, but his place in the Fun Squared amusemt park, was not with the other androids manning the park.

He'd been on his lonesome, in charge of a Haunted House attraction. A simple tunnel structure with jumpscares and practical effects like fake blood raining from above, and holographic bats that “flew” above your head while the speakers screeched with overused antiquated sound effects. He did regular maintenance, greeted the park goers, and would pop up on occasion to make the experience a little more “real”.

This of course was met with mixed reactions. Reactions that quickly called for some repairs and modifications.

The park owners paid for some extra padding, as those who went inside the haunted house attraction often broke past the standard padding to wound him.

They hurt him for doing his job right.

The Jerrys had no such issues.

The kicks and shoves of children were not as terrible as being beaten down by angry grown men.

The children barely scratched the Jerrys, while Joel's own target audience tried their best to destroy him.

He was scarred and afraid, while the Jerrys remained cheerful and unbothered by the horrors of life.

It wasn't fair, especially when other androids demanded the same behaviour from him.

 “You should smile more!”

 “The children would always love another playmate!”

 “What are you doing with that notebook and pen? Those things aren't terribly important right now.”

 “Oh you like writing? Do you write children's tales?”

 “Why can't you be more like the other EM400s? You're such a buzzkill!”

    Joel learned to ignore such comments, even if they left him feeling wounded and discouraged sometimes. Lucina often praised him for being optimistic in his own way, even if he came off far too neurotic and anxious for anyone else's taste.

She told him it was why Roky liked him so much, despite he himself disliking the damn dog.

 “There's a chance no one's going to read this.” He'd confided once to one of his many cousins, after allowing the other to review his latest work in progress.

 “There is also a chance they will!” Jerry had replied eagerly, smile plastered on his face and lite arms wrapping around his own bulkier arms.

His cousins were very tactile where he avoided most contact. He didn't mind their touch, just as he didn't mind Lucina's, nor Zelda's or Sophie's.

He trusted them.

 “Guess it's fifty-fifty then. It's just...I don't know, they'll expect a happy story.”

 “How silly of them, the genre is right there!” Jerry grinned “How could anyone expect happy things from a murder mystery?”

 “Because our faces are the poster child of all that is user and child friendly?” Joel smiled despite his own bitter words, the other laughed.

 “We can be happy and friendly and enjoy scary spooky things. What is the fun of living life protected from terrible things?” Jerry shook his head “None whatsoever. Besides it is a murder MYSTERY. Mysteries are fun to solve.”

 “That they are.”

    Many other androids shared Joel's frustrations with blatant stereotyping and misguided perception of what should or shouldn't be the norm of what an android enjoyed in their free time.

Model types had nothing to do with one enjoyed, although some did in fact find comfort and joy from following base programming.

Joel wasn't one of them.

He despised crowds and refused to make himself into someone else's fool just to entertain.

He'd much rather write away on his notepad and paper, and then later work on them in a digital format.

Entertainment did, after all, come in many forms, and nothing quite compared to the sweet feeling of enjoying a good book to pass the time. At least in his humble opinion.

So, while he was the opposite to what he was designed to be, personality-wise at least, he did still accomplish his function in his own special way.

That alone was reason enough to be content.

[bluedraggy]

An essay on writing a fanfiction, and grieving for an OC.

(Spoilers for You Only Live 18 Times are complete. If you’ve not read it and have any intention of doing so, this essay isn’t a good idea to read first.)

I don't know exactly who my target audience for this essay is honestly, but in my conceit, I felt like writing it anyway. You're welcome to ignore it. No sexy khajiits here, alas. But I wanted to write something about my process of writing fanfiction, and YOL18T is a good example of that.

First, the concept of my Spyjirra stories started out simply enough - I got the idea of basing a story on the old 007 movies, but with a sexy Ra'Jirra khajiit and set in a future Elder Scrolls universe. I wouldn't say I literally copied from the movies, just got some general outlines from them. However, I had to upscale the TES technology to roughly 1700s era, with some bits of technology more advanced, others less than the literal period. So we have rifles and handguns, but no motorized vehicles. Magic still exists, but is fading.

When I started YOL18T I first watched the old Bond movie You Only Live Twice.  In it, "American and Russian spacecraft go missing, leaving each superpower to blame the other."  The protagonist fakes his own death, then is sent to investigate in Japan. They discover it's a conspiracy by SPECTRE, the standard organized villain corporation.

So I start with a similar plotline, but spacecraft are obviously way too advanced for even my future-TES universe. Instead, the plot revolves around ships with a new technology - engines. Hammerfell and the Imperials are the two superpowers, with Hammerfell playing the part of the Russians, though not quite exclusively.  In fact, I have Hammerfell being the more technologically advanced of the two. Anyway, so instead of spacecraft, both countries are testing new powered ships, but they are both destroyed and each side blames the other.

In my story, Elsweyr plays the part of the English, ostensibly an ally of Cyrodiil but Ra'Jirra leans towards liking Hammerfell better after the last story. The Aldmeri Dominion plays the role of SPECTRE, and I conceived of them having a submarine and torpedoes that they used to destroy the ships - though the submarine is magically powered since the Altmer still possess decent magical abilities.

I was able to link the first story to the second by having Ra'Jirra's fake suicide done in Hammerfell where she meets a couple of characters from the original story. But the main new OC is Wears-Only-Ropes, an Argonian sailor who is on the Imperial ship that is destroyed. It seemed natural that, since this story would be very naval-oriented, the Argonians with their ability to breathe underwater would play an important role in any navy, even though their own country is resolutely neutral and not really even ocean-going.

(Forgive me pls for posting Wears-Only-Ropes images you’ve already seen. I am still in mourning over her, in a more real sense than I have any right to be.)

In the Bond movie, a large portion of it is devoted to James Bond visiting Japan and some serious time is taken in describing the society there. I thought that having Ra'Jirra visit Argonia, (The Argonians wouldn't call it the Black Marsh after all), would be a natural replacement for Japan. So similarly I spend some time imagining the society that the Argonians would have.  Even the Sumo wrestling scene gets an equivalent Argonian sporting event - chase the eel.

So while I do follow the plotline of the Bond movie in very broad terms, the specifics are very different obviously.

Anyway, as I was writing, I realized early on that Ra'Jirra needed a partner - primarily so she has someone to talk to and I don't need to have internal dialogue, but also to give an alternate viewpoint on occasion. Since I tend to write sexy scenes once in a while, a male khajiit would make sense. (I don't think it's too sexist to have her be hetero. Besides, I had a rather clear lesbian scene in the prior story with her anyway.)  Then I realized that it would be cute if her partner was an Alfiq - one of the more bizarre forms of khajiit in that they're basically the size and shape of a housecat, but intelligent - though TES sources indicate they can't speak. So that would be a bit of a problem. I worked around that by having him be a biologist of sorts working with Lycanthropy who had been turned into an Alfiq. Also, he gets to turn back into his native form of a Cathay when the moons are aligned. So Ra'Jirra and he can occasionally have Sexy Fun Times. Plus he can talk. Okay, that's a good OC and should be fun to play with! A spy organization like the HMSS would certainly have good use of someone like that.

I then started the story with a chapter on Wears-Only-Ropes and the destruction of her ship.  Rather liked how it turned out. I thought it made for a pretty good "hook" to start the reader out with something big.  Then I had to abandon her for most of the next half. In fact, she doesn't actually meet Ra'Jirra till 3/4 of the way through the story, so she gets a few more chapters from her point of view. But I came to really like her as a character. Mixing some bits I knew of pirates (women pirates would typically go shirtless as did the men) I had the concept of her "wearing" ropes as a bra of sorts, thus the name.

Another thing that originally came from the Bond film... in it, James Bond flys a mini-helicopter at one point. Well, a helicopter is way too advanced, but I came up with the CATv3 instead - a sort of Jet Ski/Waverunner thing. Once I had that, I had to give it some sort of weapon. A set of mines would make sense, as the thing would be bouncing all over the waves so trying to aim it with a gun in the front wouldn't really work.  As soon as I got the idea of a mines on the CATv3, the logical way to destroy the sub became apparent.  

But the mines would be surface mines, meant to thwart attackers chasing her on boats or similar.  The submarine would be deep underwater... how? Oh. OH! OOOOOH!

Suddenly, Wears-Only-Ropes' fate was sealed. She would have to take a mine down to the sub. Ra'Jirra couldn't do it even if she wanted to. Argonians can breathe underwater. Ra'Jirra can dog-paddle for a little bit.

Even then I had hoped to have her survive. I really had grown fond of her. But, minimal though it is, I do try to ground my stories in reality as much as possible given The Elder Scrolls-inspired world. I researched underwater explosions.  I'd hoped that perhaps an underwater explosion - given the density and non-compact-ability of water might allow her to live. But my research showed that, far from being safer than airborne explosions, an underwater explosion is even more deadly. And the explosion would be huge. The mine wouldn't just detonate against the hull of the sub, it would trigger the explosion of all the torpedoes within.

Fight as I would as a writer, I couldn't justifiably have her live. Any number of solutions were possible, but they all were just too outlandish and smacked of Deus Ex-Machina solutions. No, she had to die in the explosion. Granted, she'd expected to. All her 'family' and friends had died in the original ship torpedoing at the first chapter. It would be fitting that she would sacrifice herself to their retribution. I couldn't deny her that. So, though I don't explicitly make it clear, she died.

It's weird how such a thing can affect me, her author. I really feel bad about it, even though it was both fitting and made for a more impressive story IMHO. I've toyed with the idea of her Twin Sister, etc, but that doesn't feel right either.  No, she's a one-story character, and YOL18T is her story as much as Ra'Jirra's.

One other thing, I needed a core motive for the Dominion's action. Sure, they were trying to instigate a war between Hammerfell and Cyrodiil - but WHY would they want to do that? The answer was right in front of me. Technology vs Magic. In my TES-future universe, magic is dying. The Altmer of the Dominion are the last capable magic-users (to any large extent), but the humans and their rapidly increasing technology were threatening. But not just that. I conceived of them using their magic to look far into the future, and what they saw there was a world in which humans were the only intelligent inhabitants. The khajiit, argonians and mer were all gone. It gave them a much more noble reason for their actions - even if they were also self-serving. And therein lies the core of the sequel and end of the trilogy actually. In YOL18T, I didn't do much with that, other than have the Dominion explain their reasons to Ra'Jirra.

And that's how YOL18T was conceived. I am currently doing an audio-recording of the story chapter-by-chapter. I'm not a good voice actor at all. In fact, I just pitch-shift my voice to portray the different characters in it. I spend most of my time adding background effects so it's not quite just a dry reading. Though I'm also currently writing the sequel and last story in the Spyjirra trilogy, I think YOL18T is the highlight - even though the current one is a "bigger picture" story than either of the first two and really doesn’t track along with the Bond movie in any way.

But I do miss Ropes. She deserved more than a single story. The one thing I might do someday is write more of her backstory. But prequels are a tough sell, esp. when you know how her story has to end. Eh... maybe not.  I tried to write a prequel once for Katia to explore her life before she came to Anvil. I aborted it as too depressing. I really prefer happy endings. So probably Ropes is gone for good. I hope her story is good enough for her.