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oikawas-bae · 5 years

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I thought you were in basketball?

1.6K words

Lev! And! (Y/n)! Aren’t! Together! Bokuto stop being a clown already!! Also, I really need to name this series already...

Pairing: Bokuto x Reader

synopsis: (y/n) is a shut in, reserved, stoic girl but there’s a reason for that...When (y/n)’s parents become friends with Bokuto’s, they start dining together and Bokuto is determined to crack (y/n) and they start to see they aren’t so different at all.

Previous • pt. 5 • pt.6

This was a low blow to your pride. It baffled you how you didn’t make the connection earlier. And now that you were standing in front of the semi-circle booth with several boys’ eyes staring at you, you felt your stomach flip. You had turned down Lev’s offer for dinner just to agree to Lev’s offer for dinner but with Bokuto asking instead.

“(Y/n)~ It’s you! I thought Lev (y/n) and Bokuto (y/n) were different (y/n)s!” Kuroo stretched his body over the table to pinch your cheek, you shooed him off. “Well how many other (y/n)s do you think there are around here?...”

Bokuto perked his head toward Kuroo, “Lev?” As if on cue, the tall, pale haired boy ruffled your hair and and pulled you down into a playful hug. “(Y/n), you clown! You told me you weren’t coming!”

You opened your mouth to speak but Lev’s excitement was unable to be contained, “Was this your way of surprising me? How sweet~”

Bokuto watched Lev shake you with gusto and he couldn’t help but wonder who he was to you. Boyfriend? The way he was handling you seemed to be more than just friendly. ‘Guess she’s into tall guys huh.’

“Lev, stop torturing (y/n) and sit down.” Yaku pulled his taller friend down and you slid in beside him and Bokuto found his way next to Kuroo.

Lev noticed your stiffness and poked you, whispering, “(y/n), you okay?”

You deadpanned, “I-I forgot you were on the volleyball team again...I thought you were in basketball.” Assuming that Lev was on the basketball team, Bokuto’s friends would have been a completely different set of people and you wouldn’t be here right now.

“(Y/n)! You came here with Bokuto?” Inuoka spoke up, looking from the owl boy to you.

“Oh yeah, we’ve recently gotten acquainted since our parents work together.” You explained, feeling Bokuto’s expectant eyes on you.

“Yeah but you already seem to know all these guys, huh?” Bokuto’s words came out harsher than he intended. At this, you sunk into your seat, shakily responding, “Yeah, Lev introduced them to me.” You weren’t used to Bokuto speaking to you so unfriendly.

Kuroo noticed you twiddling your fingers above the table nervously and coughed, “Let’s get some appetizers, how does chips and dip sound?”

A chorus of cheers brought the waitress over and you all ordered the appetizer as well as your entrees. You felt yourself gradually be at ease as you remembered how fun it was to be in the Nekoma boys’ company.

Yaku, Lev and Inuoka were building a tower out of chips. Yaku would lash out at Yamamoto when he moved too briskly and Lev demanded silence to keep his concentration.

Yūki and Tamahiko made fun of Inuoka, Lev and Yaku despite them being entertained by the three. Kuroo slammed his hand on the table once and the chip tower came tumbling down. Lev was visibly crying and Yaku would have obliterated his captain if it were not for Inuoka restraining him. But Sō was tempted to release him to avenge his precious tower.

You and Kenma updated each other on your progress in the latest game you two were playing. Kuroo and Bokuto were laughing like the loud uncles they were.

But Kuroo noticed Bokuto’s slight change of manner. He seemed more aware of his surroundings. Usually he would be a cackling mess, completely lost in his own world, caught up solely in what was in front of him. But today, his attention was divided. He maintained eye contact with Kuroo but every so often, he would look your way. You noticed his eyes on you but thought nothing of it. Knowing better but deciding to question it later, Kuroo continued his discourse with Bokuto.

By the time you’d all finished your meals, most of the boys were off and running to the restroom...those darn fast metabolisms. Kenma, you and Kuroo were left waiting for them. Kuroo took his opportunity to talk to you again, “(y/n)~”

You tensed up, he shook his head with a genuine smile, “relax, I’m not gonna attack you. You’re just so cute when you blush like that.”

Seeing you grumbling incoherently to yourself, Kuroo crosses his arms, “So Bokuto brought you here and you two didn’t talk the whole time. What’s up with that?”

You looked toward the restroom to assure yourself that no one was coming, “what do you mean?”

“Bokuto has been telling me how you two have been getting close and you even hang out outside of school and Friday dinners but tonight, you two were complete strangers.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.” Your hand fell onto your lap, your expression hardening as Bokuto had described once to Kuroo. This did not go unnoticed.

“After Bokuto said that thing about you already knowing our team, you two didn’t say a word to each other. He wanted to talk to you, I’ll tell you that much. But you looked unconcerned.” He inches closer to you, a skeptical look on his face. You didn’t move.

“What’s your point?” You asked flatly, slightly irritated.

“He cares about you, (y/n). And you don’t even care, do you?”

“Kuroo.” Kenma interjected, sensing the air getting heavier. He was one of the few people that could read you like a book and he saw your wall of neutrality cracking. You were helpless behind it, squirming for a source of confidence, a handle to prop yourself up and you couldn’t let up to Kuroo right now. But he was pushing your limits.

“I don’t want him getting hurt and if you-“ Kuroo couldn’t finish before you took your bag and stormed out of the restaurant. Kenma sighed, “You didn’t have to do that, Kuroo.”

Bokuto came out of the restroom breathing in deeply, “Ahh, that was a good time!” Lev and Yaku followed closely behind.

Lev and Bokuto scanned the table, “did (y/n) go to the restroom?” The latter asked.

Kuroo and Kenma looked at each other, Kuroo tense and Kenma bored. The dual-haired boy spoke, “Kuroo was stupid and she got angry and left.”

Bokuto furrowed his brows, reprimanding Kuroo with his eyes. He couldn’t think of a reason why or even how he could offend (y/n). He was about to turn to run after her but Lev beat him to it, “I’ll find her. Thanks for the dinner guys.”

Bokuto’s expression faltered, he forced himself to accept that you would be better comforted by your boyfriend, Lev, and not him. He stood silently, thinking of how he wasn’t good enough for you. He couldn’t crack you, whatever effort he made was futile yet this Lev character had managed to get close to you. He probably knew what you looked like at your happiest and he envied that immensely. He would give anything to see you emote genuinely, even if your were in tears. He knew it was selfish but he wanted to see you feel because of him.

Kuroo snatched the bill from the table and walked past the unnaturally quiet Bokuto, “I’m gonna pay. I’m gonna go after that, I can give you a ride home, Bokuto.”

“No, I’ll be fine.” He shook his head and made his way out, hands deep into his pocket and his head to the floor.

———

Lev ran a marathon to catch up to you. When you were angry or deep in grief, you always ran. Ran to escape the mistakes of the past, hoping to outrun them and never see them again. This time, you didn’t know what to feel and that’s what frustrated you. Kuroo had blamed you but you felt falsely accused. He said it as more of a warning or a prediction but you knew he was saying you were hurting Bokuto now. That’s the last thing you wanted, he had been nothing but amazing with you, you were extremely grateful for him and the fact that Kuroo had assumed you cared nothing for him, it petrified you to think that you had come off the same to Bokuto.

“(Y/n)!” Lev gripped your elbow and you jerked back, stumbling sideways and falling on the pavement roughly. He kneeled down to your level. “What’s wrong? Did Kuroo do something? I know he’s my senior but I’ll-“

You pulled his long arm down and hid your face in his shoulder, “I never got the chance to tell you about Bokuto and I felt I couldn’t at dinner but we’ve gotten close recently and…” you recounted all the visits you had with him, the dinners where his parents disclosed something embarrassing to the time you fell asleep on his shoulder after a long day.

He listened carefully but this boy was a dense as they got, “And?...”

You shook your head, disappointed, “Lev!” He shrugged innocently and you continued, “I think I like him...but Kuroo thinks I’m neglecting him and I don’t want Bokuto to think that but at the same time I don’t want Bokuto to think I like him because I don’t want to like him because he might not like me back and-“

“Stop! I’ve got to process this!” Lev lifted his first to his chin and closed his eyes to think. He was in his sage mode and usually he would say something vaguely helpful after these brief moments of concentration so you were patient.

“I’ve got it!”

You looked at him expectantly, you hands clasped together hopefully.

“You need to talk to Kuroo!”

“How is that gonna help?”

“Well, Kuroo is Bokuto’s second best friend after Akaashi so his influence in him is strong. If you want Bokuto to believe something or rather, not believe something, you’ve got to get through Kuroo.” He was right but it wouldn’t be easy.

Taglist: @miyulovestowrite @hqprotectionsquad @slothplantsworld @lalaloverss

#haikyuu!! x reader #kotaro bokuto x reader #bokuto #haikyuu imagines #haikyu!!#haikyuu!!#my writing #my writes #im so excited for the nexf parts ahh #dinnertime 🛎

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onegirllis · 5 years

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Since Life is Strange 2 is finally fully released, I let myself to write a probably not-so-short review of the complete season. The momentum for such a summary is already gone I presume but it took me a moment to finally digest and find the proper words to describe what I think and feel about this production. Following the game from the start, I patiently waited to look at the story as a whole, hoping to find an explanation for tons of burning questions and satisfying outcomes to my choices and decisions. Unfortunately, most of those didn’t happen, therefore I present you with a piece that is not very favorable towards the newest Dontnod production, harsh in places but honest. Please, do not read if you really enjoyed the story of the two brothers and find it meaningful and important, not burdened with any fallacy. Life is way too short to read reviews that just leave you frustrated.

Remember the scene in Life is Strange season one (I still hate the fact that I have to separate different instances of the franchise calling them seasons), when Max summoned by an enormous plasma TV in Victoria’s room fantasizes about watching “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” on it? “I like this movie, I don’t care what everybody says,” getting protective about her preferences, the little freckle leaves the room soon after, never gifting us with any explanation as to why she indeed values this animation so much or why it was an important statement. It was never brought back again, it will never matter, becoming simply a meme material or a trigger for snarky comments from Twitch streamers and YouTubers. I watched the said movie a long time ago, recalling only two things about it: the breathtaking animation of hair at the beginning and the fact that the main male character looked like Ben Affleck. The rest of the story fell into obscurity before the end credits hit the screen. I reached for this title only because I was interested in anything video games related, and the name of the popular franchise was more than enough.

The same thing goes for Life is Strange 2.

Just like the mentioned FF: The Spirits Within, the second instance of the beloved series is more of an animation than an interactive experience. Recently, plenty of video games, overwhelmed by finally reachable technology of smooth mocaps, facial expressions, hyper-realistic locations, and scanned people as characters, turned into an alley dedicated to B-class movies. From adventures by David Cage to Death Stranding, video games started to flip their working template, replacing the actual action with long animations, not the other way around. With scattered gameplay, sometimes forced as if the developers reminded themselves at the last minute that this product is supposed to be interactive, they raise an eyebrow at best, and boil your blood with the lack of creativity at its worst. Life Is Strange 2 follows this trend with astonishing enthusiasm and to the core. Even regarding this particular genre that’s supposed to focus on narrative, it barely stands as a walking simulator becoming a hardly watchable TV series — a road trip story where walking is limited.

Well, shit.

The gameplay in Life is Strange 2 is nonexistent. To be frank, riveting action-packed sequences were never a trademark of the series, but a blatant lack of any didn’t make this experience any better. With the first one, the rewind power allowed the player to actually be part of the narrative. The second, where Sean just serves as a witness to his brother’s actions, plays more like a full motion picture. An enormous amount of un-skippable cut-scenes change LIS2 into a tedious, dragging journey straight from the worst selection of buy 1 get 3 free Z-class movies. The music and the mastery in creating an atmosphere that rose Dontnod to international fame due to widespread acclaim can’t save those sequences either. It almost feels like their own creation so enchanted the development team that they ignored all the red flags and clumsy solutions to immerse in the world themselves, treating the actual player as a lesser evil, throwing them a bone just to claim it is a video game format. To no surprise, most of the items the player interacts with don’t matter at all and don’t serve any purpose either to foreshadow an upcoming outcome, present exposition to the world, or be in any way helpful.

The lack of superpower is not an issue here though. Before the Storm met the expectations with way more grace, proving that a story doesn’t need a lot of strange in life to grip and hold its audience for hours. Watching a superhero growing up is an interesting premise, but a hell of a challenge to execute and execute well. Some stories like “Little Man Tate” translate to a brilliant film, but don’t necessarily work as games, after the planning stage or first Game Design Document. The references regarding the first game also remain scattered and uneven, tossed on the pile with a heap of faith that devoted fans would notice, but without a purpose in mind.

Even if I sound harsh, I do believe that Dontnod wanted to deliver the best story possible, but Life is Strange 2 feels even too big to absorb or fill with details. Captain Spirit, not necessarily my cup of tea either, was in my opinion way more coherent, as the creative team felt more comfortable with such a small scope of a product. Everything falls into place after careful exploration, makes more sense with every minute. The mystery about the mother, an alumnus of Blackwell Academy, and an admirer of Jefferson’s work is a solid premise that didn’t raise expectations up the roof nor overpromise. The mystery of yet another mother, this time Life is Strange 2, played for over 3 and a half episodes, falls flat in comparison and ends in the disappointing question “that’s it?”

No, that’s not it. There’s more to it.

Life is Strange 1 was mocked as Tumblr: The Game, while the second instance could easily pass as Twitter: The Animated Series. The writers didn’t challenge themselves or the audience to answer the question of why certain people voted for Donald Trump, or why they would do it yet again. The only reason presented in the story is quite simplistic and obvious – because they are evil, deplorable people, not worth listening to. They are the worst. We are better. Issues of being harangued by foreigners about domestic policies and troubles of your own country are a brewing can of worms I wouldn’t like to touch at the moment. Still, this particular stance, which serves as painful generalization that every single republican voter in the US is foul, can be forged only by someone who either lives in a bubble or doesn’t live here at all. Simply because we all have parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, or co-workers who decided to elect the actual prescient to power. Some of them are racists, disgusting, and horrible personas, and some just belong to the scared of change, confused and manipulated crowd that don’t accept the fast-paced transformation nor the need for a revolution. We coexist together, arguing and fighting, especially during holiday breaks, but even if it costs me a headache, I wouldn’t call them evil. Millions of people voted for Trump, but only a few wouldn’t spit on a swastika if confronted with the Nazi banner.

It’s even more painful when you understand what kind of message was sewed into the stitches of a shattered story. There was no ill will, or at least I don’t think so, but an honest, genuine need to express the concern about modern America. Unfortunately, when executed, this concern changed into another yell or discourse by the family table during an argument with your racist uncle. An open discussion in a game community that unifies both left and right supporters equally by their love for this form of entertainment would be appreciated by many, just like after playing LIS1, a handful of people changed their views on LGBT issues.

Instead of a lesson that had to be experienced, we got a lecture about morality and tolerance, contradicting itself constantly and nonchalantly following the well-known tropes NOT in a sarcastic and admirable way known from Saturday Night Live, but in a lazy and sometimes even clumsy substitute of a dramatic format. The political landscape painted in LIS2 is caricatural, unforgiving, harsh like a deserted wasteland with a few peaceful oases to stop at, but shies over its own existence, not willing to thoroughly discuss the dreadful weather. Guess what? The sand won’t change into greener pastures only because you close your eyes, putting your imagination to work. Donald Trump might not be re-elected for a second term, but his supporters will stay in place, even more conflicted by the other side. It’s a brave decision to deliver such a punitive story but such a cowardice to break its pillars, hoping that the general public wouldn’t notice or get distracted when things get too heated up.

The lack of subtlety forced scene by scene is even more polarizing. There is no peaceful dialogue with the other side as if it couldn’t exist in this world. There is no change of heart or a path to do so. Sometimes it feels like the only message that LIS2 writers wanted to provide was to find your own, peaceful and liberal hermitage, either among hipsters in the Redwood forest, driving a car that your ‘family with money but no soul’ had bought you or move to a trailer park filled with artistic souls in Nowhere, Arizona. Any contact with the outside world can hurt you and your feelings. Drop off the grid or die. The end.

No discussion.

The efforts of trying to understand the motivation behind even the most dreadful character of the first game, got lost in preparation for the second. LIS2 builds a higher wall between two political sides, than any other game released after Trump became the president of the United States and desperately wants to keep it erected, ignoring the crumbling foundations of such. A proverbial river you shall not cross nor build bridges over since the only outcome would end up in death, destruction, or you and your young brother getting hurt.

I’m familiar with the discussion about LIS2, especially with a shouting match that if you do not like this instance, you are therefore a racist pig, a disgusting person without a soul, conscience, or working brain that doesn’t understand the situation and never will. On the contrary. In my humble opinion, we deserve a better discussion, better stories, better representation, not sticking to whatever is presented because it’s brave enough or was never approached before. I disagree with the stance that a Latino, bisexual main character is enough to close your eyes, omitting all problems that this title tries to shun, riding its high horse. No. Those topics are way too crucial to just walk past, setting for less with your head down, thanking for the game industry to take notice. You the player deserve better, even if you don’t struggle with specific issues on a daily basis. And after playing LIS2, you may feel so good about yourself, stating that an effort was made but it it wasn’t made enough.

I expected more. I wanted Dontnod to do more, and frankly, I feel silly putting so much faith in them and supporting their efforts. Armed with resources provided by Square Enix, I’m sure they are aware of the fact that most of their audience is quite young and wouldn’t mind a lesson or message about what to do amidst troubled times. Well, Dontnod doesn’t have any but warns you that voicing your opinion or being different may end up in disaster. Outraged, they just yell at the news, angry about what our reality has changed into, but nothing comes out of it. It’s all right, though. Our parents do the same thing. We started to do the same thing, but instead of complaining to family members, we have Twitter.

While Life is Strange 2 tries really hard to come across as a realistic and raw portrait of the US at the end of the decade, they didn’t have enough courage to show realistic obstacles two runaways would be faced with. The brothers do meet a handful of bigots and racists, but the rest of the fellow travelers help them beyond understanding or hidden agenda. Sean and Daniel never really struggle to find a place to stay or a warm meal, usually complaining on or off the screen just before the game mercifully provides them with a solution. There’s no trap they can fall into, no ambiguous characters that promise one thing and then demand something in return. It’s very honorable for Brody to pay for a place to stay, but if an adult man gave young kids a key to a motel room, I would consider a way more sinister outcome. It’s not even about Brody himself, since good people exist, just like the racist ones, but the boys not even once are put in a realistic, scary situation created by a supposed ally. If somebody is helpful, this person is always decent, offering them a job, a ride, some food or money. The bad people wear red hats and yell racist slurs. America by Dontnod is simple to navigate but raw and painful when not necessary and fairy-tale-like when it could teach an actual lesson. Running away from home is not so hazardous because of Trump supporters but because you can end up dead in a ravine, being robbed and raped. It’s not the first and surely not the last time when the developers feared to touch any topic of sexual abuse with a ten-foot pole, but then the journey plays more like a vacation than a desperate escape. Sean gets beaten-up a few times, loses his eye due to a brawl, but it doesn’t affect him at all in the long run. When Daniel finally gets kidnapped, it’s not an Epstein-like circle, dealing with human trafficking, but a religious cult that worships him. The first option, even if it feels like a stretch, is unfortunately way more realistic than the latter.

Preaching to the choir is not the biggest sin this game commits though. That brings me to the most discussed theme of the production, which is education.

With all due respect to the developers, writers, and designers, Life is Strange 2 in this aspect falls flat as a discovery of a Sunday father, who is responsible for taking his kid to the zoo and struggles to find any common ground with his offspring, either trying to crack jokes about famous pop-culture phenomena or talk about food discussing their next favorite meal. The said father is trying his best though, perfectly aware that it’s his only chance to teach his son a thing or two, but doesn’t know exactly where to start, torn apart between buying more ice cream and throwing a fit about a stain on the carpet. The father doesn’t even like kids that much and can’t translate his lessons into an engaging play that would be memorized forever, rolling his eyes and counting the days to his kid’s graduation so they could share a beer or two and talk about adult things. Now, any effort to explain how the world works seems to be in vain, therefore a waste of his precious time. Leaving the emotional approach aside, the father doesn’t have to cuddle with his kid when he’s scared, bullied, traumatized or asks millions of questions about the future or present, because the full-time mother is waiting at home willing to replace him in this duty. The mother, knowing that her ex-partner sucks big time at talking about feelings, will be the one who will hold the kid, patiently explaining that the boogieman does not exist, playing pirates, or stay late at night to distract his sorrows. The kid will never discuss his fears with his dad though, trying so hard to impress his male parent. He will never know, and it’s fine. The mother is going to do the job while he can deliver a once a week entertainment along with the lines of ultimate wisdom that most likely will be forgotten anyway.

This is not raising a kid, it’s nursing them like a fragile plant in a flowerpot, focusing on water, sun, and fertilizer, but discarding the emotional background, hoping that somebody else would take care of such issues if things go south.

Sean can’t raise his brother well, simply because he is immature and will stay immature for the rest of the game. There is no moment when he truly goes through a transformation changing from a boy to a man, a fully grown-up adult who takes responsibility for his actions and makes sacrifices for the sake of the greater good. No, surrendering in a fight in the church doesn’t serve as one, neither does the first sexual experience. He doesn’t wonder even once if the hastily constructed plan is benefiting Daniel, forcing it to the last minutes of the game, taking the separation as the worst thing that could happen. There’s no spark of a tragedy like in “The Road” when a father gives up his son to strangers for the sake of saving him. Sean doesn’t care, presenting no character development across the board, merely pushing forward. If there are doubts, they disappear in the blink of an eye when the next cut-scene takes place.

I understand that such a young lad as Sean wouldn’t know how to raise a kid, especially if having no model to rely on. However, a part of growing pains is developing the awareness that we know way less than we assumed. That said, Sean Diaz is always assuming he is right, not asking for advice regarding Daniel even once. Apparently, it’s not something that he’s interested in or ever will be. If Life is Strange 2 wants to pass as a coming of age story, it falls on its face before it even starts.

Moreover, locked in the auto-driven plot, Sean cannot grow up and gain a new perspective; otherwise, the story wouldn’t reach its big, explosion-packed finale of crossing the border. His desperate efforts of influencing his brother usually converge to order him around, feed him with half-truths or simply leave him in the dark when convenient. I didn’t see any difference or change in Sean’s approach from episode one when he scolded his brother, annoyed for his party plans being interrupted, and in episode three, when he reacts similarly, for the sake of spending time alone with the chosen love interest. There’s no deep thought, no wonder about his own wrongdoings expressed to his brother, no faults admitted, no fallacies explained, with one life-threating situation after another. From an illegal weed growing farm, to destroying police stations, Sean just follows the road, paved by the writers, oblivious to the harm done to his younger sibling, as if Daniel simply forgets the morally gray choices, growing his moral spine entirely on performing chores. Washing the dishes and peeling potatoes does not make us better people but understanding a perspective so different than our own does. Thanks to Sean, Daniel expands his world, but it’s a very one-sided perspective, focusing on always praised, hippie-style liberties, and disregarding every option that requires any code of conduct, as represented by the grandparents. While the older brother forces the younger one to keep up with the designed tasks, he never discusses the issues that really matter. In episode 3, the youngster gets involved in a heist, a robbery, but after it fails, costing Sean his eye and the possible death of some of their companions, this is never mentioned. Mexico, a plan that is hardly a plan at all, is supposed to be an answer to all the questions and doubts. El Dorado of knowledge.

This is not how you raise a dog, not to mention a child.

There is no emotional bond, no special ties between the brothers, except a few problematic moments that play mostly on simple connection forged by blood, not by circumstances. Sean worries about Daniel because he’s his brother, but the player starts to wonder quite quickly why and what for. Reminiscing about old times gets nailed down to a few lines about the comforts and amenities of a life long gone. The tough topics, such as grieving after personally witnessing their father’s death, are mentioned scarcely and without much emphasis, as if serving only as a reminder to the player, but not a poignant struggle. Same goes with the dog, their friends mutilated at the end of the weed farm chapter, Chris (aka captain spirit) who is mentioned just before the end credits of the second episode, and tons of others. On top of it, the scattered and not so often dialogue lines about putting people in danger refer only to the good folk, siding with the brothers, not to humankind in general. Killing a police officer or knocking down a gas station owner are just natural ways of how things work in America, honorable deeds since it’s apparently perfectly fine for a kid to attempt a homicide if people are mean.

What a brave story.

Chloe Price had been suffering for five years after William, her beloved father, died in a car crash. For Sean and Daniel, there is no grief to experience, but a memory to share with a plan to erect a monument in the future. Esteban Diaz is a plot device, a symbol of inequality, but not a family member. Even a dream sequence with his guest appearance lacks the impact of the subconscious conversations we’ve seen in Before the Storm. It just simply doesn’t matter.

I can’t believe I have to say this but the relatable part about LIS1 wasn’t the tornado, just like in LIS2 crossing the border is its weakest point, but it’s those small moments, gestures, quick smiles in passing, the atmosphere and a breath of fresh air when a line, sometimes silly, got dropped. In the most recent story, there is not a single line worth quoting, memorizing, or discussing. And please, don’t bring up “awesome possum” again. It’s literally taken from The Lego Movie song.

The brothers, just like Thelma and Louise, decide to leave everything behind, throwing away the life as they knew it and forging their own future despite all odds. Although, when the two desperate women drive off the cliff committing suicide, chased by the armed forces, there is nothing to explain as the audience fully understands their reasoning. Their will of life was strong, but the path they followed was too steep to return. Without any help or support, confronted with brutal honesty and the world’s cruelty around them, it is the best possible solution. The story of the two brothers, even if it tries to echo the iconic movie, couldn’t be more different. Despite resources at their disposal, family members that do care about their wellbeing, the whole community rising in protest in their hometown, they risk everything for the sake of getting back to the land they don’t even know. Their Mexican heritage is also mentioned just as an exposition, and, as we learn in the very last episode, just before the ending that Daniel doesn’t speak Spanish. So why do the stubborn Diaz brothers despite all odds travel to Mexico? Because.

Canada was too close, I guess.

Last but not least, let’s talk about sex, because why the hell not. A lot of fans or admirers of the previous instances howled across all social media about how much they miss Max and Chloe. I don’t really think it’s the case, but those two girls symbolize something that LIS2 has a tremendous problem with. There’s no emotional connection between the characters the brothers meet along the way, especially the ones that really should matter. Even the love interests feel more like nagging choices than anything else, an experiment during a camping trip, not something that would last or could be fantasized about. Instead of nerve-wracking decisions such as if you’re supposed to kiss Rachel, hold her hand, or the ecstatic discovery (for PriceFielders, but it was ecstatic, right?) that Chloe changed her phone’s background, we are instead presented with a lineup of sexual experiences, that maybe trail-blaze the road when it comes to topics tackled by a video game, but fall into obscurity as an emotional construction. There is no build-up between Sean and Finn as everything develops to a kiss in one conversation, and Cassidy has fewer lines than Victoria Chase before she invites Sean to her tent. We watch it as we watched it before, trying to get attached, feel something, but the only thing we remember was how much it touched us years ago when we played a different game but with a similar title. The sex scene, relatable or not, is stripped from the emotional intimacy and is as sensitively challenging as a dog being killed.

Character development doesn’t move an inch even if Sean, a surrogate father to his brother, lost his virginity to an older girl. There’s no single thought in his head that he might conceive his own offspring during this short but probably memorable experience. There’s not a single line except for the satisfaction of some female parts finally discovered. Oh, dashing explorer, will you ever learn?

It’s sad. I did want to like this game and gave it plenty of chances like no other titles ever. I’ve made excuses for the poor execution, technical problems, with the whiny voice acting that was driving me up the wall, plot twists written (I think) on a lunch break, and so on, but I couldn’t stand it. It’s a hard pass when it comes to a video game in general, not to mention the story, script, and everything else. Life is Strange season one; a low-budget production, was the first step to create a masterpiece that LIS2 might’ve been able to become. The second season didn’t learn much from LIS1’s mistakes, additionally exchanging the well-known beauty for a garbage fire, ignoring all the warning signs along the way. Delivering a story that tackles such important topics, it slides between the checkmarks on the board of issues, mentioning conversion therapy, religion, gayness, illegal immigration, and a spiral of crimes but never elaborating on any of them. There is no meat and potatoes presented on the plate of events, but just a sticky, sweet gravy with nothing underneath that leaves you not only hungry but frustrated, willing to call the chef and yell at the waiter. The trick is that unless you were living under a rock, there are tons of other productions in different media that give those themes justice, carefully unfolding all the aspects, giving voice to both sides. The fact that it’s the first video game having an affair with serious issues doesn’t matter. I don’t believe that anybody who consumes any kind of other media like decent books, movies, or TV shows can remain blind to the problems of Life is Strange 2, claiming it to be a good story. It’s not.

So here we are, girls, boys, and beyond. Life is Strange 2 with its broken mechanics, story, characters, and spirit slowly but surely will be forgotten. It’s Dontnod’s Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within that you might love to watch or play on your brand-new TV, despite what everybody else would say, omitting any valid or invalid criticism, but unfortunately, it won’t change the general optics about this particular piece of media. A lost chance or recklessness created a convoluted mess and with a heart beating in the wrong place. You might praise Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, get excited about it since it’s a free world, free country (and even if it’s not, no one will take this ersatz of such liberty) and don’t let anybody tell you what to love. The problem is, that most likely the only thing that people will remember about this production is that the main male character looked like Ben Affleck and the hair animation was dope. Everything else won’t matter.

The same thing goes, unfortunately, for Life is Strange 2, subtitle: The Spirits Without.

#life is strange 2 #review #honest #dontnod #square enix

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aire101 · 4 years

Text

Ashes Chapter 1 (MCU/HP)

Lily Evans attends the Stark Expo during the Autumn break of her 7th year, and ends up finding–and bringing home– more than scientific passion.

Tony Stark just wanted to escape his security detail for a few hours, but a beautiful red head with a sharp mind and fiery soul derailed his plans for the week–and maybe longer. But secrets burn scars in the soul, and they both live in worlds far apart. Can they find a way to rise above or will it all turn to ash in the end?

October 20th 1991

Lily Evans strolled through the Stark Expo, her eyes gleaming with each innovation and display. No matter how much she loved magic, science remained her passion. Even after she had accepted her place at Hogwarts, she could not bring herself to completely forsake her muggle education. So during the school year she participated in a distance learning program and over the holidays she and her family would take trips to museums, science expos, and academic conferences that allowed her to expand and keep up with current developments. This year her parents had decided to splurge on an especially big trip during the autumn mid-term break-- a trip overseas to New York, where the Stark Expo was currently running through the rest of the year. Scientists, mathematicians and engineers from across the globe came to exhibit their latest innovations and inventions. It felt like an endless amount of information to take in, and she only had a week to see it all before she headed back home and back to Hogwarts for the rest of her 7th and final year.

As she read a board detailing the release of the internet to the general population, she realized she had never felt more frustrated with the level of alienation that came with living amongst wizards. The world was moving forward at breathtaking speed, and the wizards were being left in the dust. For every magical innovation released, there were a dozen or more made in science. It wouldn't be long before wizards were surpassed completely.

And at that point, all the Secrecy Acts in the world would mean nothing.

She sighed and shook her head. There was no point dwelling on the bullheadedness of wizards. They would simply have to face that storm when it hit.

"I know, I think giving the general populace web access is a bad idea too. Bet there's porn on there within a month."

Lily couldn't help the snort that escaped her as she turned to see who had spoken. It was a handsome boy about her age, with dark tousled hair and deep brown eyes. She smirked as she said, "Well, you'll just have to look it up and tell me if it is then. If it's not too hard for you, that is."

He stared at her in shock for a moment before a wide and devious smile spread across his face. For a moment, Lily wondered if James Potter didn't have an American cousin...

Merlin she hoped not.

"That was a most delightfully lewd pun! Thank god I finally found someone here with as terrible a sense of humor as myself!" the boy said, as he stuck out a hand. "Miss...?"

"Lily Evans," she said as she shook his hand.

"Beautiful name for a beautiful lady," he said with a winning smile. "You can call me Tony."

Lily felt her face warming in a blush and turned back to the exhibit. "So Tony, what do you really think about the release of the internet on the general masses?"

"Truthfully? It's been a long time coming, and I think the world will be better for it. Just imagine a scientific breakthrough happening on the other side of the globe and reading about it within an hour of the development. But people tend to ruin even the best things in life, so it's only a matter of time before human toxicity bleeds into it. Seriously, it's intended to connect the world and increase the spread of global knowledge, but I bet you my inheritance it will eventually devolve into an international porn hub and pictures of people's cats."

"I can't tell if you're a pessimist or a realist," said Lily with a shake of her head.

"Just depends on if I'm right," shrugged Tony. "And since I'm always right, I'm going with realist."

"Not arrogant at all, are you?" asked Lily sarcastically.

"Not arrogant, just immodest," said Tony.

"Humility is a virtue, you know," said Lily.

"Good thing I'm not very virtuous," said Tony. "It disagrees with my aesthetics."

Lily couldn't help it, she laughed loudly and shook her head.

Tony just stood and watched her with a small smile.

"Would you care to join me, Mr. Immodest Aesthetics? This is my first day at the expo and I only have a week to see it all," said Lily.

"Lucky for you, I know every square inch of this expo and can make sure you see all the parts worth seeing. So let's get started," said Tony with a clap of his hands, before he reached out and grabbed her hand and started running.

When Tony said he knew every inch of the expo, he had apparently meant it as they had hit the ground running (literally) that morning, and didn't stop. He took her from display to demo, the two of them discussing and debating all the way. Occasionally he would suddenly jump track and insist there was something she just had to see, before he would grab her hand and run, just like he had that morning. Tony was wild and brilliant like a solar storm, with the gravitational pull of a black hole. His mind ran at a speed she had never experienced from anyone before, and the sheer charisma of his personality pulled everyone they spoke to in and compelled them to engage, whether it was in emboldened discourse or aggravation.

They spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon like that before they finally decided food was necessary. A quick stop at a midway stall outside the main expo building and they were ready to go again, New York style hot dogs in hand.

That's when security finally caught up to them.

"Shit," Tony muttered as they were surrounded by large, burly men in suites.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to come with me," one of the men said, staring at Tony.

Lily's eyes widened. Who had she been hanging out with all day?!

"No, if you haven't gotten the hint every time I've ditched you today, here's your sign- I don't need a damn escort!" yelled Tony.

Ah... so that's why they would suddenly start running throughout the day.

"That's not your call to make. Now your father requests-"

"Do I look like I give a shit what he requests?!"

"HE REQUESTS your presence at the main stage for the evening's closeout ceremony. I am to make sure you arrive there within the next half hour by any means necessary. Mr. Stark, it's been a long day, please don't make this any more difficult than it has to be. Take up your issues with your father himself," the man said, almost pleading at the end even as he sounded resigned to his fate of chasing and fighting the boy in front of him.

Meanwhile, Lily's brain had short circuited on one word.

Mr. Stark. Mr Anthony Stark- boy genius, recently graduated from MIT at the age of 17, heir to Stark Industries.

No wonder he knew the whole damn expo by memory.

Tony sighed dramatically, running a hand through his constantly wayward hair. He turned to Lily and gave her a sheepish look that she was sure was meant to be a grin, but looked more like a grimace.

"Sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but for what it's worth I really had a great time with you today," he said.

"So did I," Lily said. "Thank you for taking the time to show me around. You were the best tour guide a girl could ask for, Mr. Immodest Aesthetics."

Tony smiled brightly. "See you around, Lily."

And with that he was gone.

Lily sighed and checked her watch. It was 4:30 pm, and she had arranged to meet her family at the drop off point at the front of the expo at 6:00. Just enough time to get there at her leisure, so long as she didn't get distracted and stop anywhere too long.

As she walked her thoughts turned back to Tony. He obviously thought she would be mad that he hadn't been completely truthful about his identity. And maybe she should be, but she couldn't actually bring herself to be. The look on his face as it was revealed was just too sad. And while she couldn't say she completely understood why, she could hazard a few guesses.

She wondered how many times Tony's heart had been broken by would-be friends using him for their own prestige for him to have that look in his eyes.

The next hour and a half seemed to crawl by as she made her way through the expo to the front. And while she wandered and looked, her mind continually turned back to wild brunette hair and expressive brown eyes.

'I wonder if I will see him again?'

# "Did you miss me?"

It was around noon the next day, and the familiar voice made her jump as it came from right behind her while she was reading a log journal at an expo booth.

"Bloody hell, Tony! Don't do that!" she growled at him.

"I would say I'm sorry, but I'm really not," he said with a grin.

Lily rolled her eyes, "Well, at least you're honest."

"Yes I am, so you must believe me when I say that yesterday was the most fun I've had in quite some time," said Tony.

Lily smiled, "Same. So does that mean you would like to pick up where we left off?"

"I was actually about to ask if you would be interested in heading out to get a bite to eat, followed by a guided tour- provided by yours truly- of the New York branch of Stark Laboratories," said Tony.

Lily's eyes widened. She had promised her parents not to leave the expo, but the offer of an inside look at Stark Labs was too much to pass up.

"Are you sure, Tony? I wouldn't want you to get in any more trouble, especially after yesterday," Lily said.

Tony waved off her concern, "It's not a problem. We do tours regularly anyway. And I promise, there's a lot worse trouble that I could be up to than showing you around. Pretty sure my security detail will be thrilled that I want to head back to headquarters. So lunch, then back to HQ?"

"Sure, though I should probably find a phone first so I can leave a message at the hotel for my parents," said Lily.

"No problem, the limo has a phone," said Tony as he started walking towards the exit.

"Of course it does," sighed Lily as she shook her head.

"How much have you seen of New York?" asked Tony.

"Not much. I've basically spent all my time at the expo so far," said Lily.

"So no preference on restaurant? Anything you can't or won't eat?"

"No allergies, and I'm pretty adventurous so I'll let you choose," said Lily.

"Does that sense of adventure extend to things beyond food?" asked Tony with a mischievous look in his eyes.

"Well, I'm here hanging out with you, aren't I?" Lily said with a flat expression, but a gentle turn of the lips belied her amusement at his innuendo.

"Touché," said Tony as they arrived next to a black limo. He beat his guards to the door by breath and opened it, gesturing for her to enter. "Ladies first!"

"And they say chivalry is dead," said Lily.

"Oh it is. I'm just courting favor," said Tony. "Is it working?"

Lily smiled as she ducked into the limo, "Guess we'll see later."

"You know, I would have been just fine with a pizza parlor, right?" said Lily as she looked around the decadent room. Noon light filtered through etched glass windows and lit candles set a decidedly romantic ambiance.

When they had arrived at the obviously upscale restaurant, Lily had been concerned as usually such places had a required dress code, which she obviously had not planned for today. Tony had just smiled and walked past the front entrance to a side one that had led to a private dining area. He had to have called and reserved the location before he had even found and asked her to lunch at the expo. She could only roll her eyes at the presumption.

"Hey, I hardly ever do the whole 'date' thing, let me have the opportunity show off properly," said Tony as he pulled out a chair for her.

"I have a hard time believing you can't get a date," said Lily with a raised brow.

"I didn't say I can't get one, I just said I don't do them," said Tony as he sat.

"I'm assuming for the same reasons that you didn't tell me your surname yesterday," said Lily.

"And you would be correct. It doesn't help that I've always been significantly ahead in school, so I've not really had much opportunity to hang around many people within a dateable age range. Anyone willing to date my fourteen year old self after I graduated high school was suspect at best, for a variety of reasons. And dating in my own age range is... tedious," said Tony.

Lily frowned, "I can see how it would be. You graduated from secondary school at fourteen and just graduated MIT at seventeen. There must have always been about a three to four year age gap between you and your classmates at best. Never mind the performance gap between yourself and most of our age group. Guess that's the curse of genius."

"How about you? Is there a special someone across the pond I have to worry about hunting me down? Unless you also have a 'curse of genius?'" asked Tony.

"No, I'm no genius. I have been told I'm quite bright, and I've been top of my year at school for as long as I can remember. But being 'bright' isn't quite enough to chase the hounds away. That being said, no there is no one you need to worry about back home. No matter how much he may wish otherwise," said Lily.

"Oh, that was specific."

"Indeed. Just a boy with an overly inflated ego with just enough talent to get bored, make mischief and still make top marks," Lily said.

"Hey, he sounds like my kind of people," Tony said with a grin.

"Actually, when you and I first met my first thought was to wonder if he had an American cousin," said Lily with a laugh. "In all honesty he isn't a bad sort. He's a pretty decent person overall, but is an immature prat most of the time. If he ever decides to grow out of that he might actually make a good man of himself someday."

"Enough about the competition. Tell me more about you. You mentioned being top of your year. Where do you attend?" asked Tony.

"My school is... a very unique place. I've been attending there since the age of eleven. It's a very old, traditional boarding school located in a remote area of northern Scotland, in an honest to god thousand year old castle," smiled Lily.

"No kidding? Wow, how do you guys get electricity to power stuff in a structure like that?" asked Tony.

"That's probably the biggest downside to the whole thing. There is none," said Lily.

Tony blinked and stared, "What?"

Lily laughed outright, "'What?' That's all? Did I break you? This is the first I've seen you at a loss for words."

"I'm still trying to comprehend what you just said... how does your school run their tech?"

"There is no tech. It does however have a most impressive library. And eventually you get used to candle and lamp lighting," said Lily, thoroughly enjoying the gobsmacked expression on Tony's face.

Eventually his shock changed to laughter, "Oh wow, you actually got me. For a second there I actually bought it. Medieval Scottish castles..."

"I'm not joking," said Lily, looking him square in the eye.

Tony caught his breath for a moment while looking into her emerald eyes. But after a moment he swallowed nervously and grinned.

"What's this technological purgatory called? Just so I know to never go there?" asked Tony as he lifted his glass to take a drink.

"Hogwarts," said Lily.

Lily had to fight to keep a straight face as Tony accidentally snorted water up his nose.

"Ok, now you're shitting me."

"Honestly, I wish I was. I love my school, but the founders must have been barmy," said Lily with a shake of her head.

Just then the wait staff returned to the room, bringing in the first course. Tony had just ordered the chef's tasting menu for the both of them.

"How about you, Tony? What are your plans now that you've graduated?" asked Lily.

"Well, there's not really any choice, is there? My old man is the founder of a corporate empire. And he's not exactly young. I'm about to start graduate school--was originally supposed to start at Oxford this term actually, until dad decided I needed to get better acquainted with how things were run around SI. I've already dipped into the R&D pool, and I'm supposed to start shadowing around corporate. Before too long I'll have to take over the business," said Tony while he pushed some of the food around his plate.

"I guess that's true enough. Though I like to think we all still have choices, even if sometimes it doesn't seem like it- a choice on what to do, how to do it, when to do it... We can't always control what life hands us, but we can control our own choices on what to do with it," said Lily.

"Hey now, keep your deep thinking and existential logic on that side of the table. It might contaminate me," said Tony with a grin.

"Sorry, things have been a little... tense across the pond. It starts to make you think about what the right thing to do is," said Lily.

"Yeah, I've heard some rumors about a terrorist over there, right? Nothing official mind you, " said Tony with a worried look at her.

"Yeah, it's all really hush-hush. But there's definitely a shady faction gaining power back home. You won't hear anything until it's too late, but if things don't change for the better we might end up in a civil war," said Lily.

"Is it really that bad? I would think the news would be all over something like that," said Tony.

"I really shouldn't be saying anything at all. Most of this is pretty confidential. It mostly involves certain... underground groups. In all likelihood, most of the world won't even know when the war starts. There won't be any public battles on the world stage, no news coverage. You'll only know the war has started by the body count and the list of missing persons," said Lily.

"Then how do you know about it?" asked Tony.

"Let's just say I myself have some pretty big choices to make once I graduate," said Lily. "Or as my esteemed headmaster would say, 'we must all choose between what is easy and what is right.'"

"I mean, personally I prefer to do what's smart but maybe that's just me," said Tony.

"I would prefer to do the same as well. Unfortunately, war tends to take that option off the table," said Lily.

"So... what? You're talking about enlisting?" asked Tony.

"Something like that."

"You wouldn't be on the front lines though, right? No offense, but you're not exactly the most physically intimidating person," said Tony.

Lily grinned, "You'd be surprised what an angry red head can accomplish when we set our mind to a task."

The waiter came back and took their barely touched first course and replaced it with an equally unappetizing second course.

They both sat, staring down at their plates with frowns in contemplative silence.

"You know, I think there's a pizza joint a block down-"

"You're a man after my own heart."

The Stark Industry labs were everything Lily imagined and more. The company primarily dealt with weapons development, but included in that was a number of different scientific fields-- energy, chemistry, physics and a dozen others, all with their own projects separate from the defense contracts. And Tony showed her around all of it, explaining each in minute detail with the excitement of a kid in a candy store. The breadth of his knowledge floored Lily. It was hard to believe they were the same age; for all her brilliance, she could not hold a candle to his intense genius.

To be fair, she doubted many in the world could.

"...and that is current state of the biochemistry project department. Though I was poking around in my dad's files last night and I think there's a secret project he's been working on for a while that he might be close to completing soon. If he does it might be disclosed sometime around the end of the expo this year," said Tony.

"You hacked your father, Tony?" asked Lily in shock.

"Shhh! Not so loud... and not hacked per se--more like opportunistically investigated his recent activities without his permission or knowledge," said Tony with a wave of his hand.

"Why don't you just ask him?" asked Lily.

"My father and I haven't gotten along in... ever really," said Tony. "Mostly we just try to stay out of each other's way these days. So long as I keep my head down for the most part and get shit done he leaves me alone. He tried to pull the 'involved dad' bit after I started college, but after doing his best to ignore my existence for the first 13 years of my life, he was a bit too late to the party for that."

"That's... really sad, honestly," said Lily.

"Yeah well, who needs to be a dad when you have butlers and nannies to do it for you, right?" said Tony with a tight lipped smile. "To be fair, Jarvis-- the butler-- is pretty awesome."

"What is your father like?" asked Lily.

"Cold, methodical and brilliant. He's a business cutthroat as much as he is an inventor, if not more so," said Tony. "He didn't rise up from nothing to the leading weapons developer in the world by making friends. Everyone is either a project, an asset or a liability. And you don't want to be a liability."

Silence hung over them as they walked towards the elevators. It was getting later into the evening now, and Lily would need to check in soon with her parents.

"How about you? What is your family like?" asked Tony.

"They're wonderful. My father is management at a local industrial factory back home in Cokeworth. My mother has been a homemaker for years now, but before that she was a secretary at the same factory. That's how they met. They are both hard workers and loving, supportive parents. I'm lucky to have them," said Lily.

Tony smiled wistfully as he pushed the down elevator call button, "I'm glad you do. Any siblings you have to share them with?"

Lily's smile fell a bit as she thought of her sister.

"Uh oh... I take it that's a yes," said Tony as they stepped into the elevator.

"I have an older sister, Petunia. We used to be close when we were little, but haven't gotten along for many years now."

"How could someone not get along with you?" asked Tony incredulously. "You have the most agreeable personality of anyone I've ever known."

"It begun a little before I started at my school. Petunia wanted to attend there as well after I got my acceptance letter, but admission is very restricted, and is by invitation only. My parents were very proud of my admission. But after Petunia found out she couldn't attend as well, our relationship soured," said Lily with a sigh.

"No offense, but your sister sounds like an idiot. You must have been the one to get all the good genes," said Tony.

Lily glared at Tony. "Watch your words. We may not get along well, but make no mistake--she is my sister, and I love her dearly. You do not know her, nor do you understand our circumstances, so you would do well to hold your tongue," Lily said as she exited the elevator.

Tony stood still and wide eyed as if he had just been slapped, and had to lunge out the elevator door to keep it from closing on him.

"Wait! Wait! I'm sorry! Ok, I'm sorry. I was way out of line," said Tony as he ran and cut off her path to the door. "Please don't leave."

Lily stood in the atrium and gave him another glare before she rolled her eyes, "Apology accepted. Now stop giving me those sad puppy eyes."

"I will... if you agree to go to dinner with me," said Tony, innocently batting his eyelashes for good measure.

"That is so not fair, Tony! Stop!" Lily laughed.

"Is that a yes?"

"I don't know... I'm supposed to meet up with my family in the evenings," said Lily.

"Do you guys already have plans? If not we could all go to dinner together," said Tony, putting his hands in his pockets. His tone was lighthearted, but there was a tension in his form that belied his nonchalance.

"I don't know, it depends..." said Lily.

"On what?"

"On whether you are the one choosing the restaurant. That lunch earlier was awful," said Lily with a smirk.

This time it was Tony's turn to roll his eyes, but as he looked back at her his expression was noticeably more relaxed.

"Fine, you guys can choose the spot. But if I already know it's trash I reserve the right to veto," said Tony.

"That is acceptable. Now I need to find a phone to call my parents and see what they had planned for this evening," said Lily.

"Just ask the front desk to use the phone there. They saw you come in with me, so they shouldn't give you any trouble," said Tony.

"Alright, I'll be right back," said Lily with a soft smile before turning to walk across the atrium.

# Tony had no idea what he was doing.

He was by no means a blushing virgin, and the last couple years had given him plenty of experience in wooing women, but the last 32 hours had been something completely different. When he had first approached Lily he had been ready for the usual either disparaging remarks or obsequious flattery. What he had found instead was sincerity, humor and depth.

He wasn't sure what it said about him or his life that he was more prepared to deal with a manipulative gold digger than he was a genuinely kind and clever human being.

He had to assume that was why he currently found himself heading to dinner to meet the parents of a girl he had known for less than two days.

'I need a drink... What the hell was I thinking?' Tony asked himself again as the driver pulled up to Francisco's Restaurant.

"You look like you're going to meet death, rather than my parents," said Lily with a mischievous smile that made her eyes narrow in amusement.

For what felt like the hundredth time just that day, Tony felt his breath almost catch as his stomach fluttered.

Right, that's what he was thinking. Someday he would learn to put a leash on that tongue of his...

While Tony was busy lying to himself, Lily opened her door and stepped out to head inside. Tony ran his hand through his hair nervously, which only served to increase its chaotic mess, before finally moving to join her in front of the restaurant. Seeing as this dinner had been his own idea, it would be pretty cowardly to beg off now. Tony Stark was many things, but a coward was not one of them.

"I'm not sure why you're so anxious. My parents seemed pretty excited to meet you. And my sister is enough of a sycophant that I doubt you will have any trouble from her--"

"Wait, your sister is here too?" asked Tony. As nervous as he was, he had figured that dinner with Lily's parents would be a mostly pleasant affair. But if things were as bad as he suspected between Lily and Petunia, dinner with her sister was a completely different matter; and Tony had doubts about his ability to censor himself that long.

"Yes, and I expect you to play nice," said Lily before opening to door and going inside.

"I will if she does," muttered Tony petulantly as he followed.

The smell of rice, garlic and saffron wafted through the entire building, leaving Tony moaning lightly in appreciation. His mother didn't cook often, but when she did this was the smell that always clung to the air for hours afterwards. If the food was anyway comparative to her cooking, Tony would have to add Francisco's to his list of restaurants to stop at when he was in New York.

A few short words with a host, and they were being lead to the back of the restaurant, where in a secluded corner sat Lily's family.

As they approached, Lily's father stood to greet his daughter with a smile and a hug. Tony's first thought was that the man was quite a bit older than he would have expected. His brown hair was streaked liberally with gray and white, and laugh lines were etched deeply into his smiling face. By Tony's estimation, the man was likely pushing towards 60. Still not as old as his own father though. But where Howard had gone into fatherhood begrudgingly late in life, this man seemed to have embraced it.

The man finally turned towards Tony and offered him a polite smile and handshake.

"William Evans.... And you must be Tony. Thank you for keeping an eye on my youngest. I imagine you didn't originally plan to spend the last couple days playing tour guide, but I would be lying if I didn't say that it does this old man's heart good to know his princess isn't gallivanting around New York completely alone."

"Oh Daddy, it's not that bad. I've hardly even left the expo," said Lily as she took a seat next to who Tony assumed must be her sister, despite the fact that the two looked nothing alike. Where Lily's face was soft and slightly rounded with open expressions, Petunia's was long, harsh lines and pinched looks. Where Lily was fire, Petunia was ice.

It was perhaps unkind, but the simple truth was that Petunia's homeliness was accentuated sharply by Lily's loveliness.

"Petunia Evans, it's a pleasure to meet you, Anthony," said Petunia.

As Lily predicted, Petunia had plastered on a simpering smile as she offered her hand, palm down.

Tony blinked for a moment. Surely she didn't actually expect him to...

Before he had to decide whether to stomach a chivalrous hand kiss to the harpy's claw or risk Lily's ire for laughing in her sister's face, somebody stepped between them.

Midnight black hair tumbled down her back, and familiar bright green almond eyes stared right into his soul from a round face that Tony felt looked far younger and more innocent than this creature before him really was. She was quite petite, and was physically less than intimidating.

But the look in her eyes as she smiled at him left him cold. Her eyes roved over him in inspection.

She held out her hand to him, palm down.

"Rose Evans, it's wonderful to finally meet you Anthony Stark."

He took her hand and carefully brought it towards his lips without quite touching, and never let his eyes leave hers.

"The pleasure is mine, Ma'am," said Tony quietly.

For a second that felt like an hour, they held each other's gaze. Finally Rose gave a slight grin and a nod to him before she turned away with a whispered, "You'll do."

Tony raised an eyebrow in askance, but Rose merely turned to her husband who pulled out her chair for her before sitting himself.

He took that as his cue to seat himself in the last open seat at the round table, situated between Lily and Rose.

A quick perusal of the menu had Tony settling on the roast lamb, and after the table had ordered they all settled into a semi-awkward silence.

William smiled at Tony, "Lily mentioned you had already graduated from university. That's quite the achievement for your age. Where did you attend?"

"I graduated from MIT this past spring, with a focus on electrical engineering and physics," said Tony.

"Planning to follow in your father's footsteps then?"

"Ideally I suppose I hope to surpass them," said Tony with a cocky grin.

William laughed, "Indeed! Well, I wish I could say I look forward to seeing it, but given the nature of your father's company, I admit it's a bit of a terrifying thought."

Tony had to fight back a wince at that.

"Don't be rude, father," said Petunia, "It is good and respectable work, and obviously pays well."

She shot a smile to Tony as if to say she had his back, but all it did was tighten that uncomfortable knot he pretended didn't exist in his stomach at the thought of their weapon contracts. If he had his way he would scrap the whole damn thing. Weapon developers were a dime a dozen. Any idiot could make something explode. No, the future lay in energy production, information management and processing, and the systems they would build to do it.

Artificial intelligence.

"No offense taken, though I'll be honest, so long as people continue to try and beat each other into submission, the weapons industry will continue to grow and turn profit; with or without Stark Industries," said Tony.

"And it's only one part of what the company does. Tony showed me dozens of different projects today with civilian and medical applications," said Lily.

"Not that you have any need for such technology, Lily," said Petunia with just the barest hint of disdain.

Lily gave the barest flinch, and had he not been looking at her he would have missed it. She glanced at him before turning back to her sister giving her a pointed glare with her lips pursed into a thin line, clearly holding back a biting retort.

Unfortunately, Tony didn't have that good of a censor.

"Neither do you apparently. I don't recall you having been at the expo at all yet. A bit above your grade point average?" said Tony.

Petunia looked gobsmacked.

"Tony!" hissed Lily as she smacked his arm.

Tony sighed and he closed his eyes before he spoke in a droning voice, "My apologies for my rude behaviour. It was uncalled for and immature."

"Have to give that speech often I take it? I can't say I approve of your rude words to my daughter, but given she was out of line as well, we will let it pass," said William with the air of someone used to dealing with such squabbles.

Then he turned to Lily and shook his head. "I swear Lily, you and your catty, sharp-tongued boys. This one is nearly as bad as Severus," he said with a laugh.

"Severus?" asked Tony.

"A childhood friend of Lily's who attends the same school as she does. We used to live in the same neighborhood, but we moved across town a few years ago. Hardly see the boy now," said Rose as she sipped from a glass of red wine.

"Oh, is this Mr. Inflated Ego?" Tony asked Lily.

"No, that's someone completely different. Mr. Inflated Ego has the potential to become something more. Severus... I'm afraid Severus is a lost cause," said Lily.

The look on her face as she said it was heartbreaking.

"I never did understand what you saw in that lout, Lily. He was wretched from the start, so I'm not sure what you expected. Bad blood, that one," said Petunia, her nose wrinkled in distaste. She shot Tony a withering look, "At least this one is well bred, if still ill mannered."

Oh hell no!

"Excuse me?!" growled Tony. "What the f--!"

"ENOUGH Petunia," William raised his voice over the table. "You speak of Tony and Severus' ill manners, but here you are being churlish and snobby. As far as Severus is concerned, never forget-- 'There, but for the grace of God, go I.'"

"Really father? God's Grace? Such hypocrisy! How about 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live--"

"Hold your foul tongue child," hissed a cold voice. It took a moment for Tony to place it as Rose.

'What the hell was the harpy even going on about?' wondered Tony. He turned to Lily and felt his heart lurch.

Lily sat beside him pale and listless, eyes glazed over and studiously avoiding his eyes.

He reached over under the table and grabbed Lily's hand, holding it with firm reassurance. She didn't look at him, but he felt her hand close around his like a lifeline.

He didn't understand what was going on. He didn't understand what had drained all the life from Lily's eyes. And he couldn't fathom why his fiery Lily continued to take her sister's ridiculous venom...

But he would be damned if he was expected to sit here and watch it quietly.

Play nice his ass!

"Listen to me you maleficent hag, Lil' may love you and be willing to let the terrible things you're saying slide, but I'm not. Your tiny, jealous mind is too much for me to suffer," growled Tony.

"Jealous?!" scoffed Petunia. "You don't know what you're talking about--"

"I admit some of this conversation perplexes me, obviously there's some family secret that I'm not privy to that affects the dynamics. But your body language screams of repressed aggression and your words of a deep seated inferiority complex," said Tony.

"You don't know anything about me!"

"I know you fancy yourself a lady of high standing by the manner of your greeting, and that your family's humble beginnings must chaffe you viciously by your critical remarks about blood and breeding. Accordingly, you've no doubt already begun to line up 'appropriate' suitors of well funded stock with which to settle down into a stable and unremarkable life of procreation and home keeping. Unfortunately, your homely appearance, average intelligence, and mean personality has not given you much with which to barter upwards socially, so you feel the glass ceiling above you with equal parts contempt and frustration. To add insult to injury, your younger half sister-- a situation that has left its own chip on your shoulder-- possesses all that necessary to advance herself in whatever manner she would choose, whether it be to marry up into nobility or to blaze a path into a career of her choosing. And it burns you to know that her name will be lifted from the tongues of such exceptional people you will never have the pleasure of knowing.

You're right Petunia, I don't know just anything about you, I know everything about you that I need to know."

# "For the hundredth time Lily-- I am sorry!"

Tony was chasing Lily down the sidewalk, nearing Central Park. Part of him distantly wondered why he even bothered.

But a quiet yet stubborn voice at his center knew why. And so here he was.

The table was a silent battlefield after his scathing roast of Petunia Evans. Tony only had a moment to reflect that perhaps he should have reigned in the tongue lashing a bit before William was on his feet shouting god knew what in Tony's face. But before he could think of an appropriate way to respond Lily moved between them.

"You would side with him against your own sister?! Your own blood?!"

"No, but I refuse to let you abuse him like this when he was coming to my defense! You always turn a blind eye to Petunia's hateful words!"

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words--"

"CAN LEAVE WOUNDS THAT MAY NEVER HEAL!"

After that explosion, Lily had shot off out of the restaurant. Tony had only taken a moment to throw a couple hundred dollar bills at the waiter before he was out the door after her.

"Just tell me what I can do, what I can say--"

"Do you even know what you're apologizing for?!" Lily yelled as she finally spun around to face him, tears streaming down her beautiful face.

It was unfair how beautiful she was, even while crying.

"I don't know?! For castigating your sister? Pissing off Daddy? Being an insensitive prick with a mouth that won't quit? Not minding my own damn business? Pick one! Why are you laughing?"

It was the most confusing thing. Lily was still crying, but now she was bent over double, laughing her ass off.

Most likely at his expense.

But whatever, even if there were still tears, there was a smile back on her face.

And suddenly Tony realized he would give anything-- anything-- to see it stay there.

Shit...

"Thank you," said Lily.

"Uh... could you run that by me again?" asked Tony, perplexed.

"You heard me."

"Ok, then clarify for what I'm being thanked," said Tony with an eye roll.

"Just... for being you," said Lily.

"Oh. Well, there's a first for everything I guess. Usually me being me ends with lawyers and calls to my parents," said Tony.

"Not this time. This time it ends with my thanks..."

Lily stepped forward, close enough that Tony could feel her breath. She leaned in, and he could feel the soft touch of her lips press against his cheek. As she lingered, his arms moved to embrace her.

She pulled back only enough for her bottle green eyes to meet his own.

Then she leaned in again, and this time their lips met, tentatively at first, then deeper just a moment later.

It was electric and it was gentle; it was passionate and it was calming. It was precious, like holding a star in his hands...

It was everything he wanted and like nothing he had ever had before.

And it was over all too quickly.

As Lily pulled away, Tony's hand moved to cup her face and keep her close, unwilling to completely give up what he had only just found.

"Tony... what is this?" asked Lily hesitantly.

"I don't know. But I don't plan to let it go," said Tony.

"We barely know each other..."

"Then we'll go on more dates. At better restaurants."

"I still have a year of school left in Scotland..."

"My family has a private jet."

"There are no airports nor phones anywhere near the school. Even our postal service is... not standard."

"Seriously? Are you sure you aren't going to school in a pocket dimension?" Tony asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It does feel like it sometimes," sighed Lily.

"Do you... I mean, if you aren't interested--"

He was cut off as her lips found his again.

"Did that seem uninterested to you?" said Lily when she pulled away again.

"Then stop blowing holes in my ship," said Tony.

"I feel like that's a reference, but I can't place it..."

"What I mean is, if you want to, I'm willing to find a way," said Tony. "But I need you to look for solutions, not problems."

"You make it sound so simple," said Lily.

"Why complicate it?" asked Tony.

"Because it is complicated," said Lily.

"It doesn't have to be," said Tony.

Lily sighed, "You don't understand..."

"Then help me to understand."

"That's the problem! I can't. It's illegal! I could do jail time if I did," said Lily.

"What in the hell are you mixed up in? Does it have to do with that civil unrest you mentioned?" asked Tony.

"Yes and no... they are related, but it would be a problem whether there was a war or not. It just makes it that much more dangerous," said Lily.

"Do you need a way out?"

Lily looked up at him and searched his face. She moved to speak before she halted and pursed her lips. After a moment she seemed to settle on a response.

"That is certainly one of my choices. One many others have already made. It would be the easy choice. The smart choice..."

"But not what's right," finished Tony.

"When you have the power to help others, but you don't because of fear, it makes you complicit," said Lily.

"No, it makes you human," said Tony.

"Then perhaps we should aim to be a bit more than that. Instead of superhuman strength, we should try for superhuman heart and will," said Lily.

"That sounds great, but expecting people to be more than what they are... don't you think that's a bit unfair as well?" asked Tony.

"Perhaps..."

The lull in conversation stretched on, and Tony began to inspect their surroundings. It was long since dark, and they stood on the outskirts of Central Park. They should probably head somewhere else soon...

"How did you know Petunia was my half-sister?"

"What? Oh, it was a bit of a deduction. Petunia's bone structure and features only somewhat reflects her paternity and does not reflect your mother at all. Your father has brown hair and blue eyes, your mother has black with green eyes- Petunia is blonde with brown eyes. The likelihood of both of those traits coming through are relatively low if she were their daughter. Also, your father said 'my daughter' when referring to Petunia, not our daughter. And while the difference in age between you and Petunia is not large, Rose is already significantly younger than your father, and likely had you very young. If she were Petunia's mother as well, that would have pushed their relationship from the realm of 'serious age gap' into 'illegal.' Therefore I assumed Petunia a child from a previous marriage, and his marriage to Rose a matter of convenience and a need for a caregiver."

"You know what they say about assuming things?" asked Lily.

"I already know I'm an ass. But was I wrong?"

Lily sighed as she shook her head. "No, you're not wrong."

"So what is Petunia's problem? I get that there's stuff you apparently can't talk about, but it's obvious that something about your relationship disturbs her. With the way she seems to try and emulate Rose I would think it might have to do with you and your mother's relationship versus her own."

"You are perceptive beyond reason," laughed Lily. "How do you do it?"

"It's all in the details, my dear Watson."

"And what do the details tell you about me?" asked Lily fondly.

Tony let his eyes travel freely over Lily's form, until her cheeks began to show a dusting of pink.Then he took a step forward, drawing her into a light embrace.

"The dilation of your pupils and the flush of your cheeks at my proximity tell me you're intensely attracted to me..."

"Well done, Sherlock," said Lily with a roll of the eyes. "You've cracked the case."

"Your description of your school tells me that your exceptional grasp of modern sciences and technology didn't come from their halls, so you must be concurrently enrolled in a proper education program in addition to whatever 'specialized education' this Hogwarts must offer. This tells me that you are a brilliant, driven and stubborn woman, considering the hassle it must be to manage a concurrent enrollment out in the middle of nowhere with limited access to communication," said Tony.

Lily nodded, "I am in fact, concurrently enrolled."

"And the nature of your school itself is extremely telling. Remote--exclusive acceptance done by a manner not related to income, test aptitude, or generational acceptance--limited outside contact--confidential and specialized education.

Between that and Petunia's fit earlier... I gather you're something a little 'more' than the average human."

She did her best to quell her tells, but Lily couldn't quite stop the slight widening of her eyes, the sudden contraction of her pupils, or the subtle tightening around her mouth.

Like he said, he's always right.

Tony lifted his hand to cup her face, and gently stroked his thumb over the tight lines of her mouth. "Don't worry, I'm not going to ask. When you're ready though, I'll listen. Just wish there was something else I could do since powers or not, apparently that world of yours isn't safe right now."

"'Powers' only do so much good when the other side has them as well," said Lily. "I need you to promise you won't say anything about this to anyone. For your own sake."

"Alright, I promise. But if the shit hits the fan over there, I don't care what sort of abilities these people have, I'll come to get you," said Tony.

Lily didn't answer, but gave him a tremulous smile.

"Well, well, well... what have we here?"

<<<<>>>>

AN: Hey ya’ll decided to go ahead and throw this out into the wilderness. I’ve been working on this story for a while, it will ultimately have a sequel, seeing as this work was originally started as a prologue to another story, it got out of hand and became its own thing. Basically I wanted to write a story where Harry was Tony’s son, but didn’t have Lily cheating on James to make it happen. So... here we are. Thanks for reading. <3

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bereft-of-frogs · 5 years

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so I think what’s going on right now is not quite so much writer’s block and more...getting really into my own head re: MCU and the discourse around it. Like not quite the fandom discourse because that’s a whole other thing, I’ve dealt with that before. The shipping discourse, the crappy character analysis, dark fic moralizing, villain police, that’s all like...spite as writing fuel. That shit sustains me.

This I feel like is...a little different.

it’s the:

- ‘please god watch another movie’ posts (making me feel like I have to ‘prove’ that I watch significantly highbrow movies)

- ‘this is all military propaganda and you are now complacent in the face of war’ posts

- it’s all the ‘these aren’t real movies’ and the ‘y’all dumbasses will really stan anything’ style, [insert anything to do with clowns] posts

- oh, I saw this one on twitter it was a ‘think of the children’ style hand wringing about how the Spiderman movies are turning kids off of working class solidarity (like, critique that part of the story, yes I actually agree, but to then take it to the ‘but the children tho’ level as if blockbuster movies are the only thing instructing children on morality)

- even all the pushback that I agree with on these posts just makes me feel tired

And the fact that because the last couple movies were so big, it’s now coming from people outside of the fandom. From people I know in real life and follow on my academic Twitter. I think that’s what really getting in my head. When I go to try and write it’s like...I can’t help think about all these takes. And it’s just getting me a......bit stuck in my own head.

Some of the pressure got redirected towards Star Wars the last couple weeks which is good but I feel like I’m just....trying to wait until things die down and I can feel more like I’m in my own little fandom cave again. I am essentially fandom gremlin who doesn’t like being exposed to sunlight. Too many people are looking at me. (Even though, yes, I know, no they’re actually not, they’re speaking in general terms but I still feel weirdly under a spotlight because I take things way too personally and internalize criticisms too much and I know and I’m working on it.)

Yeah, so I’m hoping things die down a little bit soon and I can go back to just secretly and quietly writing in my fandom cave.

I’m pairing this with a to-do list for today and tomorrow so that people don’t think I’m planning to quit or something. Because I’m not, I’m really trying to just wait this storm out. So today:

- work until 5

- I need to buy coffee after work and since I already have to stop I’m also going to pick up a frozen pizza because pizza is a great Friday night dinner! We had it every Friday when I was growing up. (And also buying beer because now I’m an adult)

- tonight is going to be no-pressure writing, just the short(er), quasi-plotless, ‘fun’ stuff because that’s what Friday nights are for! Pizza and beer and plotless whump!

- tomorrow AM I turn into a one-woman biohazard cleanup crew to deal with the post-sickness disaster that is my apartment (I also feel less creative when my habitat is disorganized)

- the less-fun, more-work writing: the first of my Marvel Trumps Hate fills (which...is actually at the stage of being pretty fun still, less work), the nine in the tree conclusion, and the ‘dead reign there alone’ conclusion (that last one should be fun, but currently involves reworking a disused fic idea so it’s a bit more challenging)

Aside from concrete to-do list things, I’m also going to try and 1) quit my Twitter addiction because it’s not healthy and I know it’s not healthy but I can’t seem to stop lurking, 2) be more liberal with the ‘block post’ button, and 3) return to doing a few things that I haven’t been doing lately that always made me feel creative (mostly listening to a couple podcasts I’d neglected, reading over coffee rather than scrolling, etc) and hope that helps a bit!

Sorry this was long/a lot of personal information/griping, but that’s what’s been going on lately! Happy Friday everyone!

#lists lists lists #unnecessary dramatics #alcohol cw #i'm really not quitting but there have been times in the last few weeks where i have just had this kneejerk 'ack i quit' feeling #it's 100% just a momentary emotional reaction and always passes quickly but i can't deny that the Discourse points noted above have been #stressing me out a bit #it's so temporary though it's really only been since november i'm sure it will be fine

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straykidsscribbles · 6 years

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It All Started with Carrots

An Anne of Green Gables AU, for the person who has supported this blog since it was just a tiny idea in my head. Thank you for everything @strayboys and Happy Birthday!

Summary: Han Jisung seemed like a terribly interesting person... Too bad he didn’t want anything to do with you.

Or- where Han Jisung and Anne Shirley have quite a few traits in common...

Word Count: 2670, the first in my classic literature AUs series!

See my masterlist for other works! Also, I do believe this needs a sequel....

You dropped your rather heavy bag onto the floor with a thump and flopped into your chair. First day of school, new year, new classes. And so, of course, you had all kinds of extra supplies in your bag, not knowing exactly what you’d need.

Luckily, you were right next to a window, and you could see the school lawn and duck pond outside. At least that would be something of a welcome distraction during Literature class. I hope this year goes well, after transferring over the summer I’m not entirely sure how this will work out. Why did I have to move so late in high school? You wondered as you pulled out a pen. Every single class, first we get a syllabus then we get the nice lengthy lecture about how “academic dishonesty will not be tolerated” I mean really you’d think people would understand that by now.

The boy sitting in front of you seemed to be far too occupied with the window as well. He kept staring outside and ignoring the pile of papers on his desk, which he was supposed to have passed back by now.

He really was oblivious. No amount of tapping or whispering seemed to get his attention; he was well and truly lost in his own little world.

Finally, frustration spilled over.

“Psst! Carrots! Carrots!” you hissed, tugging a small lock of his hair lightly. It had been one of the first things you noticed about him, the outlandish color a spot of brightness.

He snapped out of his daze in a flash. “What the—” clearly stopping himself from cursing in class “You little brat! How dare you!”

Anger rose in his voice, and he scrunched up the syllabus he had just been given and threw it right at your head. It hit you right in the face, leaving you with a small paper cut on your upper cheek.

“Excuse me! What on earth is going on here?” barked your new teacher, clearly infuriated by this display. “Throwing projectiles is forbidden in my classroom. Does this look like some sort of gym? I will see you after class, to discuss your punishment young man.” Soft sniggers rose up around the room, and you felt your face grow hot.

It was my fault, I shouldn’t have pulled his hair… Biting down the retort, you slumped forward in your seat, happy daydreams vanishing into thin air. The stinging on your left cheek didn’t help either. I guess it was semi-deserved… I did provoke him. But really? Throwing paper?

Public humiliation on the first day of school? Check. He threw paper at your face after all. Your friends would never let you live this down.

Truly a fantastic start to the year.

---

After receiving a rather blistering warning from his new literature teacher and a threat of “detention if this happens again _____, and the only reason I’m letting you off is because it’s the first day” Jisung stomped outside towards his locker, annoyed. Well, annoyed was putting it a bit mildly.

He was seething.

“Hey _____, wait up!” came the voice of his best friend. Jisung slowed just a touch to let Jeongin catch up. I’m not taking my anger out on him, that’s unfair. “What happened? What did the teacher say?”

Pro of having your best friend in class with you: you got to chat over the homework and you always had a partner for group work.

Con: you’d never be able to hide your fights.

Whoops.

“I got out of detention since it’s the first day, but he was really mad. I was lucky,” he replied as he opened his locker. Suddenly, he felt someone tapping his shoulder again.

“Ummm… Jisung?” you asked hesitantly. Why are you bothering me again JUST LEAVE ME ALONE YOU BLITHERING IDIOT. “I wanted to apologize for startling you and calling you Carrots, I just thought it was a cute nickname. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Your apology is noted. Excuse me, I need to get home.” _____ is getting absolutely nowhere with me. No. Where. He turned on his heel and stormed angrily towards the hallway exit, leaving you gaping behind him.

Jeongin quickly caught up with Jisung. “Jisungie, I can’t believe you were so harsh! You do realize who that was right?”

“No, and I don’t care.”

“That was _____, half the school pines after them. I can’t believe you just left them like that!” The amazement in his voice only exacerbated your annoyance.

“Well if half the school pines after them then they can go and bother that half. I’m never going to acknowledge them again.”

He weren’t entirely right about that. _____ turned out to be a pretty hard person to ignore.

---

These kinds of parties are always nice. It’s fun to hang out outside of school. You thought to yourself as you chatted with a few of your classmates. Our of the corner of your eye, you spotted one of the more irritating girls in the school, Josie, trying to talk to Jisung.

After a brief discourse, the two came over to your little group, Jisung trudging after her. His expression was one of acute distaste, and you couldn’t help but smirk. Clearly he finds her as irritating as everyone else does.

As your little group walked over to the fence, Josie clambered on top of it and slowly balanced her way across it. She jumped off at the end and looked right at Jisung. “I suppose you think that was oh so easy for anyone to do?”

What is her issue? Does she have to make everything a contest? Things are a lot more fun if it’s friendly competition, not the cutthroat fights she loves. That girl and her drama obsession. Still, you stayed silent. Talking to her just gave her more ammunition after all.

Jisung rolled his eyes and turned to Jeongin. “I suppose some people think balancing on a fence is impressive. I saw a kid walk across the portables’ roof a few years ago, that was way more interesting.”

Josie looked almost apoplectic at his calm response. “Well, we have portables right there! Why don’t you walk across it then if you think walking on top of a chain fence is easy.”

Jisung’s somewhat legendary temper appeared to be making a reappearance. “Fine then. Watch me.”

“No, _____, you’ll get hurt!” you cried.

“I will be perfectly fine _____, thank you for your unnecessary concern. Excuse me for a moment.” He maneuvered himself up the adjacent fence and stood on the portable roof, about eleven feet in the air. That looks awfully high… I remember we tried to climb on the shed to set up a water bucket to drench the bio teacher last Sunday. We almost fell, and he really looks like he’s about to fall off. Plus that shed was half the height of the portable.

“Be careful!” called Jeongin from the middle of the crowd. Jisung slowly walked across the roof, trying to maintain his balance on the slippery tiles. Who knew it would be so slippery? No turning back now I suppose, he thought.

Just as he reached the end, where the others all stood waiting for him to get down, his foot slipped.

Jisung lost his footing.

And tumbled straight off the edge of the roof and onto the ground below.

“Jisung!” yelled Jeongin as he ran over to him. “Are you okay? Oh no you’re dead this is awful my best friend is dead.”

“No, I’m alive you idiot. I think I hurt my foot though.” Jisung tried to sit up, and immediately Jeongin and Felix came around to help him up.

You knelt and slowly pulled off Jisung’s sneaker, trying your best not to move it much. “I think you broke your ankle _____, I broke mine last year with soccer. Come on, we should get you to the nurse.” You reached over to help him up, but he batted your hand away.

“Thank you for your concern _____. Jeongin can help me over there and it’s already stopped hurting a lot.” Well. I was just trying to be nice. I mean, how long is he going to hold a grudge I literally just called him Carrots, it’s not like it’s something bad. He turned away and began limping towards the office, gingerly avoiding putting weight on his right ankle.

You stared after him, disappointed. I wish I hadn’t opened my big mouth. I wish we could be friends.

Too bad the day Han Jisung forgives me is the day hell freezes over.

---

“Come on Jisung, it’s a perfectly safe boat! You’ll be fine! Just paddle over and we’ll meet you on the other end of the river!” Jisung, Felix, and Jeongin were at the park in the middle of the town, and the two boys had had the utterly brilliant idea of teaching Jisung how to handle a small rental paddle boat.

Unfortunately, their concept of teaching was basically just telling him to let the current carry him and leave him to try it on his own.

Such excellent teaching, really.

Still, he gingerly stepped into the boat and settled in, oars in the oarlocks. “And I don’t need to row at all. I just let the current float me over there.”

“Yup! Easy!” chirped Felix as he untied the rope. “We’ll see you on that side!”

Easy my foot, he thought

Still, things seemed to be going alright. It was actually quite peaceful on the stream, and listening to the light rush of water was very soothing.

Wait.

Rush of water?

Are my toes getting wet?

He stared down in horror at the small leak in the corner of the boat that was filling the space with water. And they said this was safe. Guess not.

Brain working at light speed, he stared around, wondering how on earth he’d get out of this predicament. Then, he spotted it.

The bicycle bridge over the stream. The support beam for the central arch was just close enough for him to grab it.

Here goes… Jisung reached over and jumped from the boat onto the pillar. Thankfully there was a small ledge that was just big enough for him to land on.

Okay. Soaking avoided. Now how do I get out of this without getting wet?

Just then, he heard the soft stroke of oars.

See, you’d discovered the little river close to your house soon after you arrived. And it was one of your favorite places to just take a boat and relax with a book.

So of course, you were enjoying the light breeze and soft splashing of the water, when you saw the bedraggled figure clinging to the bridge.

“Well well well. Jisung, how do you get into these scrapes?” You couldn’t hide the wry humor filling your voice. How the tables have tabled… look who needs my help now. Luckily for him, I don’t keep the kind of grudges he does.

“Magic.” Jisung replied flatly. “Do you mind giving me a ride to the other shore?”

“Oh wow, you’re asking for my help? Well, be my guest, your highness, step right in.” You gestured to the seat opposite you, holding out a hand to help him in. He batted it away, clearly not willing to take any more aid from you than he could help.

In silence, you headed down the small river until you reached the other landing, where you both stepped out onto the wood planking. Well, surprise surprise, he didn’t shove me into the water. Maybe he’ll listen to some sort of apology attempt?

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

There was a slight pause, as you steeled your nerves to say something. “I… I wanted to apologize for my stupid comments that first day. I shouldn’t have said that, especially to a stranger.”

He wavered for a moment. Please, just accept the apology. You can’t hate me forever. Just then, you heard a yell from Jeongin, who was standing at the water’s edge.

“Jisung!! You’re alright! We were so scared when we saw the boat disappear under the water!” He yelled.

“I have to go,” he muttered to you as he clambered over the coils of rope towards his friends.

“Wait, Jisung!” you called after him. I’m sorry. Your hair was the first thing that caught my attention and I love carrots it’s not even like I meant it as an insult. I was wrong to say it and I’ve been beating myself up over it ever since.

Still, you swallowed down the words.

After all, he didn’t look back.

---

“Here are your final exams. You all did extremely well, and I’m proud of you. Jisung, _____, you two especially, your essays were phenomenal.” Your teacher smiled as he handed out the corrected exam papers. “I’d like to see you both after class, alright? Don’t worry, neither of you is in trouble.”

“Of course,” you replied, pulling your paper towards you. I wonder what all of this is about… I hope it’s nothing bad.

As the rest of the class filed out, happy that the day was over, you and Jisung made your way over to the front of the class.

“As you two may know, I’m the head of the summer camp at the school. I needed a few students to help lead the project this year, and I was wondering if one of you would be interested.” Your eyes widened in excitement. A summer camp? Where I’d get to teach? This would be amazing.

“Of course I’m interested sir!” you replied, excitement filling your voice.

“_____, I know you’ve been doing quite well in your science classes, especially biology. Perhaps you’d be able to hold little nature walks and talk about the different plants and bugs you see. And Jisung, your writing is amazing, you could do a lot of good teaching these kids how to express themselves through words.”

I mean, biology is one of my favorite things, and I was considering going into pre-med… this is a huge opportunity. I just don’t know how it will work with Jisung constantly angry with me.

Your teacher continued, “You see, the only problem is that I know you two absolutely do not get along. So I would like to ask if you two think you can put your differences aside.”

Jisung drew breath to reply, but you beat him to it. “If Jisung wants to work alone, I don’t mind. This whole thing started because of me anyways.” You looked down, embarrassed. “It’s up to you really. And for what it’s worth, I really am sorry. Can’t we be friends? Please?”

After this I’ll give up. At this point, nothing else seems to work.

“No, _____, I was wrong. I’d… I’d like to be friends too. Working with you this summer should be fun. Besides, Carrots isn’t a terrible nickname, I was just a little too sensitive about my hair.”

“Can I ask why?” It had been bothering you ever since he took offense to your comment. Why did it bug him so much?

“This was the first time my hair had been such an outlandish color at school, and I was sort of nervous about it and how it would be received… and then you teasing me about it just sort of made me snap.” I’d never have guessed it was something like this. He always seemed so confident.

“For what it’s worth, the orange looks great on you, Carrots!” You threw in an exaggerated wink for good measure, eliciting a laugh from the boy.

He has a cute giggle. He should laugh more.

Your teacher smiled knowingly in the background. “Well, I’m glad you two got this straightened out. You two will be unstoppable together.”

Smiling over at Jisung, you couldn’t help feeling like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders.

Now maybe things would be better.

A new beginning, a new season.

#I hope you like it #sorry its so late fjkdsjf #i had to rewrite a great deal of it unfortunately only today because my brain stopped working last night #stray kids #sk-writersnet #straykidsdirectory #stray kids han #han jisung #han #jisung #stray kids scenarios #stray kids x reader #stray kids x neutral reader #stray kids jisung #stray kids han jisung #classic literature au #anne of green gables au #frostscribbles

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killthebxy-archive · 7 years

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1. being bastard born in Westeros

let me start with a simple but crucial point: Westeros is a medieval society --- which means it is traditional and built on strong patriarchal foundations, for the most part. Westeros is a racist, sexist, ableist society. and, in Westeros, and especially among the highborn, it is very rare that you will marry for love. if you are highborn, you will marry someone of similar status based on some benefit that this alliance will bring to your parents/ family/ house. if you’re lucky, you will eventually learn to love your spouse, but that is not a requirement --- what is expected of you is to have strong sons (preferably, that the firstborn is a boy) and beautiful daughters to continue your legacy. and you are expected to fulfill this goal together with the lord husband/ lady wife so carefully picked for you.

what does being bastard born mean? simply put, it means your parents are not married. it means either you were conceived before your parents got married (either to each other or to another person), or that you were conceived through adultery (consensual or not). and, let’s be real, six of the seven kingdoms, Dorne being the exception, do not regard illegitimate children in a positive light. being bastard born, based on what i wrote before, means you were born from lust and/or from betrayal, and this, in this society, immediately implies you have bad blood. it immediately implies that a baby still in the mother’s womb is already expected to grow up to be wanton, treacherous, cunning, ambitious.

this may not seem obvious but, in a way, being a highborn bastard is more difficult than being a lowborn one. one the one hand, it is rare that the illegitimate child of a big (or even smaller) House of Westeros will be allowed to live with their family, or even to be acknowledged at all. for example, out of all the bastards Robert Baratheon fathered, only Edric Storm and Mya Stone are directly linked to his name. Ned Stark is a rare exception in this case, for raising Jon Snow as his own son. note: for the purpose of this meta, i am assuming what we know from book canon up until the end of ADWD: Jon is the child of Ned and an unknown woman. i will speak of Rhaegar Targaryen further on, but this is the assumption of this whole piece of text.

for this reason, highborn bastards are also seen as a much bigger threat. why? because it is common belief that they will try and steal what belongs to the legitimate children by birthright. again, because they are seen as inherently envious and treacherous. GRRM provides some tales throughout the books, of bloodshed between half-siblings for the sake of power, and Ramsay Snow/ Bolton emerges as prime example of such --- stopping at nothing to earn himself a legitimate name, first, and then the ruling of House Bolton + Winterfell.

2. Jon Snow as a bastard child

no surprises, everything i just mentioned is valid in Jon’s case. Catelyn Stark herself worries that Jon will be a threat to her children, and, for example, argues with Robb when it is his will to make Jon the new King in the North, should Robb himself fall in battle. and this is important to mention for two motives. one, because Cat doesn’t despise Jon for his personality or character traits or any possible flaws --- she despises him for the symbol he is. and we are presented with evidence that she resents herself for being this way, for being unable to love a motherless child, but the very negative connotation of Jon’s birth and everything it entails make it impossible for her to treat him differently. and it doesn’t help that Jon is always described as the spitting image of Ned Stark (or the Starks in general), while her own legitimate children (Arya being the exception) have 100% the Tully looks.

and, before i get to the second motive, let me point this out. have you wondered why Jon hates to be called Lord Snow, once he arrives at Castle Black? it may seem odd, because, objectively, it is a respectful title --- Jon is technically highborn, and Snow is his last name. however, the negative stigma of being bastard born is, exactly, why this title is both used and taken as mockery. because a bastard has no right to inherit anything --- therefore, has no right to be a lord unless legitimized. treating Jon as Lord Snow is actually incredibly cruel, because it is both throwing on his face something he can never have (i.e., Lord), and, at the same time, the reason for it (i.e., Snow, the name given to the bastards of the North). and this is so prevalent that it keeps happening even after Jon is elected to be lord commander, as we can clearly see in the discourse of Janos Slynt and Godry Farring, for example. even Ramsay, after becoming a Bolton, is still often described/ regarded under the light of his birth. being bastard born is something that accompanies you for life, almost always in a negative manner, and there is very little (if anything) you can do to distance your own identity from it. for the most part and for most people in Westeros, you don’t exist as Jon Snow --- you exist as Ned Stark’s bastard.

3. internalization of the stigma

everything above brings me to the core of this meta: the impact that being bastard born has on Jon’s identity/ personality/ psychological functioning. and, to start this, i could pick half a hundred quotes from Jon’s chapters, but i’ll pick one that particularly speaks to me:

they still think me a turncloak. that was a bitter draft to drink, but Jon could not blame them. he was a bastard, after all. everyone knew that bastards were wanton and treacherous by nature, having been born of lust and deceit.

A Storm of Swords --- Blood and Gold, pp.171

this isn’t anyone talking about Jon; this isn’t Alliser Thorne of Janos Slynt or Cregan Karstark calling him the bastard son of a traitor --- this is Jon speaking of himself. this is Jon describing himself as a bastard and everything it entails, to the point where he cannot even bring himself to blame others for mistrusting him --- because it is to be expected, because it is his own fault for being bastard born. this isn’t the first time in the books such an appreciation is found, we can already see similar introspection in the first half of the first book. Jon has entirely internalized the stigma of being bastard born. now, from the ever-helpful Wikipedia:

social stigma: disapproval of (or discontent with) a person based on socially characteristic grounds that are perceived, and serve to distinguish them, from other members of a society.

internalization: involves the integration of attitudes, values, standards and the opinions of others into one's own identity or sense of self.

basically, what this means is that Jon sees himself, whilst a bastard, the same way society does. it means that he was taught what being bastard born means (all the negative connotations i wrote before), and he’s accepted this as being true in regards to himself. he seems himself as different, for being bastard born, and he sees himself as lesser. and this doesn’t happen at Castle Black, where he starts being mocked as Lord Snow. this has started before he was even born, because he’s not seen as a baby but as the proof that even the honorable Eddard Stark once screwed up, and this continued throughout his childhood and early teen years, when he was raised and educated like the rest of Ned’s children but, at the same time, was ever made to know his place and that he was different --- that he was below them. for example, how he’s not allowed to sit at the dais together with his family when King Robert’s court visits Winterfell, because such a thing could cause offense to the royal family. as curiosity, reminder that, in the books, this is exactly the reason Jon gives to Mance Rayder to convince him that he was a desertor: did you see where i was sitting, Mance?

what is this impact on Jon’s functioning then? first and foremost, it means he tends to see himself in a negative regard. during his first chapters, like when he firstly arrives at Castle Black, he tries to externalize this burden. he’s cocky and he’s immature and he acts on his short temper and makes every other new recruit hate him. why? because he so much wants to prove (to them, to Benjen Stark, to the Night’s Watch as a whole, to himself) that he’s better than everyone else --- that he’s better than his symbol as a bastard, that he’s better than what everyone expects of him. we don’t really get a chapter where Jon tells Benjen (or anyone) why he wants to take the black --- by the time they talk, Jon has already made up his mind. therefore, this bit is a headcanon on my part, but i don’t think i’m wrong in assuming that Jon wanted to join the Night’s Watch because he didn’t have anything else left for his future. he’d never have a right to Winterfell, and the most he could ever hope to inherit was, maybe, some little keep somewhere in the North, and to defend it under Robb’s name. the Watch gave him at least an opportunity to rise above his bastard status, and, when he arrives there and keeps being treated the same, that’s when he snaps and starts literally bullying everyone else for it.

Donal Noye has a crucial role in Jon’s change, and he is also the underlying tone of the whole kill the boy and let the man be born --- but this is subject for another meta, and i will not touch it here. basically, once he starts treating the Night’s Watch as his new family/ home, Jon’s negative regard of himself slowly and gradually stops being directed to the outside, and starts being directed to the inside --- to his own self. this becomes exponential after Ygritte’s death (which he blames himself for, not exactly for being bastard born, but he still does and this adds up), and even more so after he’s elected lord commander. and, as i like to say, when you look at AGOT Jon and ADWD Jon, you see two different persons. lord commander Jon forces himself to be guarded and isolated, for the sake of better leading his men, and he suffers a lot with insecurities and self-doubt --- because, let’s be real, he’s a 16 year old boy suddenly charged with responsibility to guide nineteen castles and all the men and women inhabiting them. we often see Jon wondering what Ned would have done in his stead, and even more often we see him worrying if he’s making the right decision --- but having to push through, anyway, because winter is almost upon them and he doesn’t have time to sulk.

and what does being bastard born have to do with this? it is, exactly, the fact that Jon, simply put, believes he’s a bad person because he’s a bastard --- and how he’s come from trying to fight against it, literally fight, to accepting it and letting it subconsciously become his default mode of functioning. Jon is a perfectionist and very, very hardworking, because he knows there’s no other way for him to be. let it be known that both Jon and i love Robb beyond any words, but Robb is the heir --- whenever Robb makes a mistake, that’s okay because everyone knows he’s honorable and righteous like his father, so it’s human to make mistakes. when Jon Snow makes a mistake, it is because of his bad blood and because he’s the bastard son of a traitor, and what else could you expect. this is why none of the Stark children can ever understand what being a Snow entails, even Arya who ever fought for the sake of her brother being treated as an equal. Jon lives on the edge, constantly, and he’s well aware he’s got no room to make mistakes.

this is why he’s always so sullen, this is why he takes apparently harmless jokes very personally, this is why he has a hard time believing in praise offered to him. because his entire identity is built on being inherently less than most others, even before his birth, which leads him to always having to push his limits and be perfect --- being good isn’t enough for him, he cannot allow himself the luxury of making a bad decision --- and this is tenfold when he’s in a position of leadership, be it as lord commander or, in show canon, King in the North. which, non-surprisingly, is extremely tiring and always has him under tension. and this is also why he tends to draw to himself the guilt over matters that aren’t even directly under his control, and why his biggest fear is the fear of failure. because, all his life, Jon Snow wanted to be Jon Stark --- wanted to prove to his father, and then to everyone else, that he was more than a negative symbol, and worthy of his/their trust and acknowledgment. failing, even something as silly as sending a raven during the night when he was supposed to send it during the morning, means he’s not worthy of his father’s name; it means that the world is right, and that he’s no more than his bad blood. needless to say, all of this is why Jon is so adamantly against fathering bastards of his own --- because he would never want a son/daughter to have to carry the burden he’s carried for his entire life.

as a conclusion, this is also why, in this blog, the annulment of Rhaegar’s and Elia’s marriage will never be accepted. it goes without saying that Elia deserved so much better, but the point of this meta is that being bastard born is the foundation of Jon’s identity, and it has impacted his story and functioning in ways that cannot be erased. suddenly making him Aegon Targaryen 2.0. for the sake of sitting his fine ass on the Iron Throne does NOT change his past and does NOT change who he is. therefore, in my personal portrayal of Jon Snow, even in purely show-based threads and despite what season 8 may throw at us, he will always be bastard born --- Ned’s bastard or Rhaegar’s bastard, it makes no difference. because the Jon i love and write doesn’t need to be of legitimate blood to matter and to be valid, nor will i ever completely erase and disregard the circumstances that made/ make him who he is.

#long post #𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚊 𝚝𝚊𝚐 ❄️ᵗʰᵉ ᶜʳᵒʷ ᶤˢ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵃᵛᵉᶰˢ ᵖᵒᵒʳ ᶜᵒᵘˢᶤᶰ #i finally wrote this #and now i can go cry in the corner over how much i love this boy

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saeculorum-amen · 4 years

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“For they are quick and ruthless punishers.”

Theology as a rule doesn’t make sense out of context; it’s dangerous, say, to take a statement about God and to translate it into a context where what one means by God isn’t the same. The way you respond to the problem of evil, to be sure, is going to land differently if you assume that God is in control of everything that happens, or if you assume that everything that happens occurs in God’s sight. These webs of meaning are especially precarious because they speak to core things we feel, to inward meaning and the secret longings of our hearts. They are always bound to refer to things no one else can know, and yet to things we deeply treasure.

Theological Accountability

I am the sort of person who tends to have a hard time holding up my way as the only way, or as holding some kind of absolute truth, but I know, somewhere, that it’s important that it be true to me. As a priest, I spend a lot of time trying to speak across differences in maps of meaning, and to invite others to expand their experiential knowledge of the numinous. I think about how the theological statements I make are going to land with people with very different assumptions to my own; and even if I’m consciously aware that I’m disturbing the ground around the roots, I endeavour not to do violence to someone else’s beliefs and experiences unthinkingly.

I feel a sense of accountability, too, from a place of integrity. I move in a fairly secularized world, and have good friends of very different faith traditions, and of no faith tradition. My own formation took a circuitous path, coming to Christianity finally, but not inevitably. I don’t think I ever stopped being a secular humanist, say. There are domains of my life where my religious sense of myself is still actively being shaped by experiences that don’t quite seem to fit. I feel like I owe it to myself to be able to explain my theological reflections to the 17 year old I once was who spent her summer anxiously reading the Bhagavad-Gita. That’s the kind of wholeness I try to live with.

Integrity and Image

I bounce around between images of God, and while there are core images I return to again and again, there are also so many areas where I am open to being surprised, to being challenged. It’s important from time to time, say, to sit with the question of whether God intervenes in the world, if only because so many people in the world have a clear answer to that question that I don’t think I ever could.

The image of God cannot be stable because God leaves nothing out, while our way of knowing is so excruciatingly dichotomous. We know things by leaving things out, by separating them from one another. God exists as this indivisible experience somehow just beyond our grasp. We acknowledge a wholeness, but can speak clearly only about a part — and even then we are approximating, we are amplifying, we are reducing, and otherwise not representing accurately the God we have encountered.

I gloss God sometimes into the universe (panentheism) or the thing in which the universe resides (pantheism), because these images are so readily accessible. They are stored deep in my mind and have been explored again and again in my soul. There have been so very many times when I needed to be able to talk about that aspect of God, that glimpse of the greater truth. That’s the God that I know exists, that must exist. If we are the universe experiencing itself, then that God is the unknowable quine of our being, the inescapable fixed point of beingness itself. I find that an easy God to translate to, and a God I’ve intuitively needed to know at many points in my life.

So I ask myself questions about my theology in terms of this God who isn’t quite the God I have faith in, but is perhaps a fragment of the same. What would the implications be of this reflection or that, if that is the God of which they speak?

Leaving Nothing Out

The nice thing about this image of God is that it draws us back again and again to God as that which leaves nothing out, the God of what is indivisible, and the God of everything. That’s a God I do believe in, even if the universe isn’t the starting point for my faith. It’s a God that I have found I can talk about with a lot of people of other faiths and of no faith; it’s a God I hear people talking about when I read their theology, when I listen to their myths.

This is the God of the tree whose roots and branches are knotted into one: where some nutrient makes its way into the roots and rises up through the stem and the branch to emerge into the leaf it was meant to be a part of. There, it unfolds in the fullness of its strength to experience the shining sun. Having done the work it was given to do, it becomes beautiful, and at last seems to become separated from the tree. Upon the ground it decays, with the help of fungus and caterpillar and time, and in the myriad products of its decay, enters the roots once more.

God does not prize one moment over another, calling the moment when the leaf appears to be dead better or worse than the moment in which it has not yet appeared. God does not leave out the tough bits, as though we could shuttle off inconvenient images to some other universe. Wholeness and connection seem to permeate everything.

Against Selection Criteria

This image reminds me to resist developing fitness functions, discrete predicates for what can be a part of the Holy and what cannot. I sometimes catch myself writing sermons that seem to serve some kind of moral therapeutic deism, and I know when that’s happening because I hear the words but what about echoing in response to every too-tidy point I wish to make. Sometimes we have to make the too-tidy points anyway, because they point to something we have no other way to access, and must access. (Must is always a word about morality, as here.)

The moment you give in to that particular God, the God who serves the convenient ends only (and even my God-of-the-universe images do, from time-to-time, do exactly that), you have a problem. Having decided not only that you are eliding something right now, but that something can be elided altogether, you have let go of everything transcendent about God, and everything unknowable, and given up on wholeness as a possibility.

Struggle and Myth

There are, though, things in the world, and forces at work which are part of the whole even if they are not something you’d like to be a part of God. These things are invariably a part of us, but in a way which can be just as elusive. If you have any exposure to Social Justice discourse, but particularly that which is situated religiously, you will have met some of these forces, these distributed problems of evil for which we must account.

As I watched insurrectionists storm the US Capitol earlier this month, I felt the immediacy with which they were venturing into a highly symbolic and mythological struggle with these forces. They were sure they were struggling with forces which were outside of themselves and intruding in on them, and in a very classically fascist sort of way with forces which were outside of the true country, and intruding in on it: things antithetical to the collective identity, and violating the collective will. Yet with their association with movements which call for violence to meet the unruly, they were courting encounter with a sort of god (lowercase) of their own making, although it did not immediately materialize: the crushing boot of the State, indifferent to mercy.

This was an attack on outsider gods, on powerful forces which are identifier with the Other, in order to maintain or reestablish the integrity of the homeland. Yet the powerful forces they would themselves constitute eventually and inevitably came to find them, in the form of mass arrests and indictments. Exactly the thing many of them hoped for, but being visited upon themselves for their own violations of the integrity of the motherland, the household.

The Inevitable Gods

I think a lot about gods like these, too: plural, lowercase. Like the gods a Jungian might find in mythology (this talk is an excellent starting point), I think of these massive, experiential patterns in us. Things which we cannot grasp fully or communicate easily, because they are alive and dynamic, much as God, above. They are a whole force which moves in us and moves in the world. We seldom act in direct and knowing service to them, but we have our moments where their acting upon us is experienced as fate.

They are like how I, as a Christian, think about faith and prophecy: as things inevitable. Emergent patterns and properties which take on a life of their own over a large scale. The prophet is one who looks out at the dominos lined up in the world and is able to say that the last one will fall, while anyone else would point out that not even the first one has yet fallen. A prophet’s way of seeing the world does not leave things out even if they wish it were otherwise. (Ask Jonah how it goes when the world surprises a reluctant prophet.)

These many gods live with us, archetypal patterns in our minds which emerge there through a process not entirely unlike that by which they emerge into the world. We act, day by day, and we experience the results of our actions. We watch the people around us, and the ways of the world are slowly revealed. Over time, the unwitting results of our actions is to create in the world around us a tangible, felt presence of the gods within.

I find this image of the gods is exquisitely present in the song “Pray Your Gods” by Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Pray your Gods who hold you by your fear For they are quick and ruthless punishers

These are those forces which arrest us in our hearts, and also those things which we create in the world who will immediately make their presence upon us known should we challenge them. This is hubris, which is an affront to the gods, and forces them to make their power known — as opposed to hamartia, which is sin, which is missing the mark (as in archery), or a simple error.

These are the gods who will quickly punish them if we beg them to show us their power, by challenging them.

Pain and Passion

All this swirls in my mind as we begin to contemplate Holy Week, and draw ourselves to that familiar and challenging story of the Passion.

There is, you know, no one, decisive moment in the story of the Passion. There’s not one bad person, one bad group, one thing which had it gone differently would have been able to derail the whole thing from its trajectory. It was prophecy. It was a thing inevitable. It was how it was always going to go, how it was bound to go, because of these gods in the world.

Pilate, the Crowd; those who pierced Christ’s side, and those who offered him bitter wine; the legs broken, the moment of arrest. However profound and how acutely we might feel the intensity of these moments, they were individual contributions and individual contributors to the realization in the world of a god which dwelled everywhere. This is a god which reveres power, which sees power over life as the ultimate security, and which indulges in capricious cruelty so long as there are no consequences.

Nobody had to set out to do that god’s work, and even Pilate, who was in the position by virtue of his life and station to recognize the dynamics of power at work, felt helpless to stop the inevitable. Maybe he even was.

Christianity points a finger defiantly at that unnamed god at work in the world, and shouts to us: that god can be beaten.

Gods can be Beaten

We tell ourselves that death is not the ultimate power, and that those who love their life will lose it. We know in our hearts that those who seek victory through violence will find their victory fleeting. We declare that those who live for the eternal and transcendent, rather than being trapped in the tangles of this unnamed god of scarcity and fear and violence, will not be disappointed.

That god can be beaten, and part of how this resurrection is accomplished is to demand that we situate ourselves in that experience. The experience of the crowd which shouts crucify him!, not to show us how we would passively go along with a crowd, but to let us inhabit, and overcome, the patterns in our mind which go along with such things. For our very souls to be immunized against joy in cruelty, and to begin to form a connection between violent power, and the loving innocence of those upon whom it is visited. The fragility of a life destroyed, and the preciousness of each person.

Becoming Whole

Christianity asks us to look at ourselves and leave nothing out, not because it will immediately be vanquished, but because we live in a world in which these forces still move. If we will not allow ourselves to see how these dynamics may swirl around us, we will miss out the little and large ways in which we constitute the unnamed god of evil in the world around us. We do. We surely do. None of us is exempt.

We do not declare that it does not exist, nor that any of us are free and pure. We call, instead, for integrity and wholeness in the face of the certainty that the gods are out there and also in here, and do not deserve our unwitting devotion.

If we can only tolerate the nice things, and the nice images of ourselves, we are missing out on the wholeness of God, and we are bound to passively reproduce the gods that the world has formed in us. We may be nice enough, but allow our lives to be enlisted in the service of unseen cruelty everywhere in the world, or in our own back yards. This happens whenever we are sure that the problem is out there, or that it can be cured simply by alienating from us some part we find unsavoury, which is nonetheless contained by the whole.

#christianity #theology #jungian psychology #archetypal psychology #gods #god #holy week #integrity #theological reflection

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kingkpop · 7 years

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No eyes for you. 01

Jimin x reader Gender: Male x Female Genre: Highschool/college au, angst, fluff, smut. Warning: - Word count: 1989 words

Reading | 02 | 03 | 04 |

Summary: Having a crush on your best friend’s sister was already hard enough for Jimin especially when Jungkook made clear his sister was off limits. The idea of his older sister dating on of his friends made him feel sick. Lucky for him he didn’t have to worry about that since Y/N made clear that she didn’t have eyes for high schoolers no matter what. But things might change when he hears his named being moaned out in the shower.

“Can you believe him?” Y/N half-yelled.

“Would you be mad if I said I did?” Y/N locked eyes with the black haired driver, despite the situation he looked like he was having fun “I would explode, Yoseob.” She said in a joking manner, only Yoseob was sure it would happen. Turning his attention back on the road. “You should go in here.” Y/N pointed towards the left at the upcoming interchange, Yoseob was no stranger to Y/N’s house but the way there was still a blur for him. Nodding Yoseob turned on his signal light indicating to whoever was still on the road at 2 in the morning that he was going left. Once the highway turned into a residential area it wasn’t soon until both Y/N and Yoseob heard the faint sound of music blasting into the night. The two of them let out a disappointed sigh. “Kids these days.” Y/N mumbled “and one of them is your little brother.” “Ha ha, not funny Yoseob.” Yoseob couldn’t help but let out a chuckle, but that lasted only for a few seconds. Turning around the corner the two were greeted with flashing red and blue lights and a bunch of teenagers running into different directions. One of them having a familiar red jacket on that failed to escape the grasp of the police. “For the love of-” Within the blink of an eye Y/N was out the black SUV and marched her way towards the police who were pushing her little brother against their car with force. “Hey excuse me!” She yelled out earning the attention of the two agents along with her brother who looked both relieved and afraid.

“Would you be so kind as to let go of him?” “Excuse us ma’am, this young man has to go to the station with us.” Fear was evident in those doe shaped eyes. “Well, I’d rather not want you to take my little brother away.” “Is this a relative of yours ma’am?” one of the cops asked and Y/N nodded her head. “As well as this is my house.” Y/N said as she pointed at the now empty house “I’ve already been informed by my neighbours about the situation and I want to handle it by myself without the help of the police.” Surprisingly the two men agreed with her request and let go of her little brother. “Well ma’am we hope not to see this happen again, perhaps you and your boyfriend could keep an eye on your younger brother more.” Yoseob started to cough loudly were as Y/N simply smiled and shook her head “he’s not my boyfriend, but thank you for the tip. Have a nice evening.” With that Y/N closed the door and turned to Yoseob who was still coughing. “Need some water?” Y/N raised her eyebrow, Yoseob waved with his hand as he tried to calm down by covering his mouth with his other hand. Needless to say it worked and now all that could be heard was the rapid tapping of feet against wood. Staring at the open door of the living room Y/N let out a sigh before looking back at Yoseob who looked concerned. “I think you should leave Yoseob, it’s already late.”

“Are you sure Y/N? This place is a mess I can help you with cleaning up.” With a soft smile on her lips Y/N shook her head dismissing the proposal. Opening the front door Y/N was practically pushing her friend outside, “It’s fine, just go home and get some rest. I’ll see you at class tomorrow.” “Okay, text me if something is up I’ll come over.” Yoseob managed to say before he was out the door and walking back to his car. “I know, thank you for bringing me home. Good night!” “Good night!” Yoseob turned around and pumped his fists in the air “good luck Y/N!” Y/N couldn't help but smile at the antic of her friend and she raised a fist into the air as well before closing the door. Suddenly that happy feeling was gone and was replaced with anger and disappointment. Storming into the living room Y/N was met with her little brother who looked nervous, which he had all the right to be. “Done kissing goodbye to your boyfriend?” Y/N let out a scoff, despite him getting into trouble her little brother still had the courage to be bold. “Don’t even go there Jungkook.” She warned. Her heels echoed through the room as she walked towards Jungkook who sunk even more into the couch. His eyes focused on something in the kitchen the moment his sister sat down next to him, he didn’t dare to look at her let alone her eyes. “So, please tell me who came up with the idea?” There is nothing in the world scarier than Y/N’s calm demeanor when something bad had happened. Jungkook would rather face the wrath of his parents than Y/N at moments like these. Jungkook didn’t say anything in hopes that Y/N might move on to another question, he wasn’t about to snitch his best friend and he wasn’t about to make Y/N even angrier than she already was. “Well, would you mind answering me Jungkook?” Of course she wouldn’t let it fall. Jungkook gulped as he was about to betray his best friend, but he rather have that than find out whatever Y/N had planned if he didn’t. He was about to reveal the name when the devil himself came running down the stairs and into the living room with no shirt on or pants, only in his boxers. Jungkook wanted to slap him for being this stupid. “Jungkook are they-” Jimin immediately stopped talking the moment his eyes landed on the female next to his friend. Y/N looked at him with the most neutral face there was, if people didn’t know Y/N like he did they would simply brush it off but Jimin knew Y/N all too well to know she was filled with rage. “Y/N, lovely seeing you here.” “Not even a word, Park.” Y/N spat and looked back at Jungkook who was still avoiding his sister’s eyes. “Don’t tell me Jimin was behind all of this?” “Jungkook you snitched me?” Surprised Jungkook looked at Jimin shaking his head vigorously. “No he didn’t, but you did Park.” Taken aback Jimin stared at Y/N, he didn’t believe he came out clean this quickly. “I should’ve know it was you who was behind all of this.” Y/N shook her head. “I can’t believe you too.” “Y/N, I can explain.” Jungkook whined but Y/N stopped her little brother by raising her hand “I don’t want to hear anything from the two of you for tonight. I want you to clean up this mess.” Jimin and Jungkook gave each other glances, normally this would be the part Y/N either lose her composure or give them a long discourse that would end up with a punishment. But for some reason not today. “Y/N, I-” Y/N cut off Jungkook once again “didn’t I say I don’t want to hear anything from the two of you?” Jungkook closed his mouth as he nodded slowly. Pushing herself of the couch Y/N began to walk towards Jimin who was scanning her body. The boy would be lying to himself if he said that Y/N didn’t have a nice body and that her work outfit didn’t do wonders to it. In fact he would be lying even more if he said he didn’t have a thing for his best friend’s sister. But Jungkook once told him that no matter what happens he wouldn’t allow any of his friends to be friends with his sister let alone date her. Y/N herself even said that she couldn’t stand high schoolers which meant she would never bat an eye at Jimin even if he was no more than a year younger than her. Y/N locked as with Jimin, her body close to his but far enough that someone could slip by. “You can stay here for the night, I’ll inform your parents about it.” She turned to look back at Jungkook “make sure the house is clean by tomorrow. Mom and Dad will handle the rest by then.” With that Y/N walked passed Jimin and left the two. “Dude shit, I told you not to put the music so loud!” Jungkook nagged as he began to pick up empty solo cups. “It wasn’t that loud.” Jimin argued. “The cops were called because of it being loud!” “Whatever we still had fun, besides if it wasn’t for this party you’d still be looking at your crush from afar. At least now you’ve kissed her.” Jungkook turned bright red as the memories flashed before him. If it wasn’t for those cops he would have hit the jackpot. Jimin smiled knowing he had won whatever the argument was about. “Anyways, where is your vacuum?” “Upstairs in the guest room.” Jungkook mumbled, his voice laced with anger. Though he was mad as Jimin he couldn’t help but agree that without the help of his older friend he would still be watching from a distance. Letting out a hum Jimin dismissed himself to go upstairs. He took a right, knowing this house like the back of his hand already. Passing by one of the two doors Jimin halted. He could hear the sound of water spewing out mixed with the sounds of something. Jimin took a few steps back and leaned against the door. Instantly his face became red as he could hear the soft sounds of moans slipping out of Y/N’s mouth. “Jimin” Jimin’s body tensed. Did she just moaned out his name? Jimin leaned in more his ear pressed against the door, he needed to know if he was right. Jimin didn’t even hear Jungkook coming up the stairs until he called out his name. “Jimin?” The boy flinched, moving away from the door in hopes Jungkook did not just see him listening to his sister moaning. “Y-yes?” “How long is it going to take for you to get the vacuum?” Letting out a relieved sigh Jimin chuckled, either Jungkook didn’t notice or he didn’t care. Whatever it was he was thankful. “Sorry, I’ll be there in a sec.” Jungkook nodded before turning back and walking down the stairs. The boy finally took the vacuum from the guest room, the same time he left the room was the same time Y/N stepped out of the bathroom. Her body hidden under a long t-shirt that made his blood boil. It was the t-shirt of Yoseob, he had often seen the man wearing it and now Y/N was. Everything involved with Yoseob made Jimin boil with anger, because even if the two both denied that they were dating Jimin would always noticed how Yoseob would stare at Y/N and him being a college student and not a last year high school student as well he had all the attention he wanted from her. “Oh, how is it going down there?” Y/N asked. Jimin huffed as he mumbled out a “fine” before passing by her. Jimin caught a wave of a sweet smell that made him almost stumble and made Y/N laugh “watch out kid.” Y/N said as she walked towards her room, but stopped in her tracks at Jimin’s words. “You didn’t seem to see me as a kid when you moaned out my name.” Jimin didn’t even have to look at Y/N to know she was glowing red. “Well, see you tomorrow. Don’t think too much about me.” with a smirk he began to make his way downstairs.

(Gifs by kookies-of-taehyung parkjiminer) Won’t lie. I’m impressed I’ve written this in one day but disappointed at the results. Ah well.

Note: Please read!

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abakersquest · 8 years

Text

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – VOX POPULI

Baron Hado swore under his breath as he finally managed to return to the central hut. Inside, a nervous and whimpering Raphi had already curled up defensively. The Baron didn’t need to hear it; he knew they’d lost their entire quarry in the shimmer smoke below. His carapace felt stiff and itchy thinking of all the money and praise they’d be missing out on from Kota’s General. He expressed most of his frustrations on the terrified cave cricket with a swift kick, knocking him across the central hut’s floor and into a far wall with a pitiful pained squeak.

“This never, never, never happened,” he said eyed his other underlings maliciously. “Understood?!”

All of them flinched, and then nodded, not daring to meet his eyes.

“Last thing that armored monster needs, an excuse to kill, kill, kill us.” He slumped into his chair with a grunt. “So… That was the Stellar Flare.” His crooked mouth slowly bent into a jagged and ugly smile. “Wouldn’t mind getting’ my claws on that, that, that.”

One of the crew began to speak from somewhere behind his seat. “Ah… Baron? There actually is something else, else, else.”

Hado was silent, merely turning his head to bring the voice’s owner into the periphery of his vision.

“… The brightstone? It’s gone.”

The Baron did nothing at first, at least that’s what everyone told themselves. They’d all turned away and waited for the screaming to start, and then stop just as abruptly.

---

Wally’s attention was elsewhere as the two helpful Insicai introduced themselves. The stone the taller one held yanked the entirety of his focus toward it. It glowed serenely and produced a small amount of heat, but there was something else about it he couldn’t place. A familiar sensation that seemed so out of place, it became that much harder to remember where he’d felt it before.

A furtive nudge to his ribs brought him back into the conversation.

“Well welcome back Mister Flarebearer, did you have fun on your little daydream vacation?” Rozzi teased.

His mind scrambled for every possible detail it could from the missed conversation. It was a talent every child desperately tried to master in their school days that they, and at this moment Wally, failed quite spectacularly at. He quickly observed the two Insicai to learn at least something about them. The smaller of the two, with blue fuzz around her neck and wrists, had to look up at him from a deficit of more than half a foot. Her large blue wings, the pride of any butterfly Insicai, gave her a sense of volume that betrayed her actual size. Her clothes, clearly once the ornate trappings suited to regal standing, showed signs of damage, repair, and a long string of rough cleanings that drained their color and crispness.

The much taller one, a hornet Insicai, wore light bronze armor that offset the soft orange hue of her carapace, with as much scuffing and scaring as a well used but intact shield. A dent here, a gash there, and what he could see of her natural body armor was no better off. It was clear from both of them; they’d seen more than a fair share of fights.

“Sorry,” he said eventually. “I just… That stone. I can’t place it but it’s like I’ve seen it before…”

The butterfly smiled quite brightly, “Ah, there may very, very, very well be a reason for that, but first, since you were so distracted.” she lowered her head and crossed her long antenna. “Siani Dae-Cael, former first chair, Imperial Medical Council”

The hornet repeated the gesture, which Wally now assumed to be a common greeting among Insicai, “Ori Han, former primus of the Imperial Guard.”

“It is an honor to meet you, Sir Wally,” said Siani. “We had heard rumors that there was a new, new, new Flarebearer and… It’s certainly given us all a great deal of hope, considering.”

Ori nodded in agreement. “After Empress Anani willingly joining forces with the witch, there certainly hasn’t been much, much, much of that.”

“According to our new friends,” Hector began. “Their empress disbanded the senate and declared Insicai’s loyalty to the revived Kota. Which lead to some obvious discourse amongst the people and leadership.”

Ori continued, “The Imperial Guard was set upon the dissenters with orders to kill. I abandoned the Guard that day, and helped, helped, helped in any way I could.”

“Thankfully,” Siani said. “My husband had discovered this place. We were able to hide here quite, quite, quite safely until… That brute Hado. He and his soldiers stormed in through a disused side tunnel and laid siege to our refuge. We barely managed to push him back and destroy the passage he’d discovered… But not before he took this.”

Ori held the gleaming stone forward. It lit the space like daylight would, and surrounded them all with comfortable warmth. “A brightstone, it was keeping our refuge warm and lit, lit, lit.”

“Well,” Wally smiled. “Glad we could help with that then.”

Siani nodded, “It is very, very, very appreciated. Now, would you and your vassals please come with us? I just know you should all meet my husband as soon as possible.”

Wally could feel the word ‘vassal’ ring off the hearts of everyone around him, like a hammer pounding against a tin pot. He tried to turn to concoct some apology when Rozzi’s hand clasped his shoulder.

“I’m sure Sir Wally would love to see you to your refuge, Miss Dae.”

Siani smiled and started down the stone passageway alongside Ori, both clearly unaware of the venom hiding in Rozzi’s tone. Once the two of them were further ahead, the party quietly began to whisper to one another.

“Well that was a mortal wound to my pride,” Hector sighed.

“It could have been worse,” Wistea said. “She might have called us ‘servants.’”

“I’ve never even had employees…” Wally added remorsefully.

After a few steps Hector started laughing, and then everyone else joined in.

The sound of a hand slapping against the tunnel wall ended the moment of levity and all eyes turned to Hyla, leaning on it for support, clearly exhausted. She noticed all the eyes on her and tried to straighten up, failing to keep her legs from shaking. “I… I’m fine,” she preempted any concern loudly. “Just… A little tired, I’ll find my second wind soon.”

Before she could take another step, Hector had taken a knee in her path, looking over his shoulder at her with a confident grin. “Wouldn’t do for a knight of Animana to leave a lady to collapse from exhaustion. Climb up.”

Hyla stared at Hector for a moment before producing a soft yet indignant noise in her throat.

“You can either climb on my back, or I’ll have to sling you over my shoulder, your choice.”

The throaty call of mortified frustration continued before she finally approached him and gripped onto his shoulders. The croak of surprise she let out as he lifted her was another fine layer of embarrassment, leading her to desperately avoided eye contact with anyone from her new station on Hector’s back.

As the party continued forward, Blackeye nudged Wistea and whispered, “Ain’t you got more of that Runner’s Grass stuff?”

“Of course I do, and I will remind her of that when we get where we are going,” Wistea practically chirped. “But right now, she has to learn to rely on us, and this is a good start.” With a self satisfied grin she practically hummed with happiness as she walked.

---

The tunnel soon came to an end where the glow of torchlight could be seen sifting through the bars of a large metal cage. Alongside the light came the familiar and comforting sound of rushing water, echoing down the passage behind them. Everyone cautiously stepped into the cage on Siani’s polite urging and flinched when it began to move, producing a strange buzz as it slid downward. Wally could see metal rails built into the wall as the cage descended, suddenly reminded of the platform in Crescent Town. He couldn’t recall it humming like this, but it must have some similarities.

When the cage finally reached the ground the outfacing wall of it lowered of its own, forming a ramp. Waiting for them outside was another Insicai standing by a large lever, Siani and Ori exchanged words with them and they rushed off with the brightstone.

Leaving the strange moving cage behind, the group beheld a great cavernous space lit by carefully placed torches in the distance. The atmosphere was cold and damp, making its presence beneath the arid and featureless salt pan even more baffling. Ahead of them, Wally could see huge structures that, despite their strange shapes and great size, seemed oddly familiar to him. Scattered amongst these bizarre and, on closer inspection, ancient constructs, were much newer makeshift homes. Small, simple shacks, with a clear preference for hexagonal walls over square ones, all built with little thought to personal space. To their right, a sizable underground waterfall filled the space with its crashing. Wally’s eyes followed the resultant river as far as the light in the cave allowed, seeing that it flowed beneath a gargantuan water wheel covered in rust and other indicators of age.

Everyone moved forward until they reached a thin plank suspension bridge that stretched from the rise they’d arrived on down to the settlement below. As Blackeye and Wally, carrying their supplies and the resting Polly, would be the heaviest, they agreed to go last.

Hector’s foot tapped the first plank several times, his hand running along the rope that ran on either side. “Metal,” he remarked with some awe, “certainly not what I was expecting.”

“Metal rope,” Rozzi said. “Leave it to the Insicai to show everyone up.”

Those gathered at the other end of the bridge watched with an air of caution as Wally hefted the weighty sled over his head. He carefully made his way down the bridge to them, his tail acting as a perfect counter-balance the entire way. As he set the sled down with a thud, Ori looked to him and said, “That much power in such a small, small, small frame… Are you sure you aren’t Insicai?”

“Pretty sure, what with all the fur and bones,” Wally replied, mostly to ignore Ori’s choice to emphasize the word ‘small’.

As they moved on through the refugee settlement, a myriad of surprised and cautious eyes were their only welcome. There could hear hushed anger, see quiet fear, and notice the curious children that were pulled away by protective parents. Insicai weren’t people Wally saw quite as often as other members of Mondia’s population. He hadn’t known about their long standing isolationism or xenophobia, most likely because even the expatriated citizens of the empire wouldn’t dare to speak ill of it. Pride, along with hardy, thick shelled bodies, were things all Insicai had in common.

Amidst glances and glimpses he could see the now threadbare fabrics adorning their rigid frames. It made him think of the shabby hand-me-downs he’d been given by the more charitable Castle Town citizens in his youth. He imagined they too were once brilliant and beautiful things, most likely made to give the hard-bodied Insicai some softness to appreciate and color to match their own occasionally brilliant carapaces.

They soon arrived at a much larger, older structure covered in what was once elegantly designed metal work. Despite the extra angles and strange material that went into making it, they could all easily recognize it as a house. Just then, the cavern was bathed in bright but false sunlight, and the cool moist air became as warm as a spring day. Above them, within a special metal framework, that to Wally resembled a large colander, the light and warmth of the brightstone shone down amplified.

Ori pulled a clearly new cord attached to a freshly polished bell beside the front door to the building. Inside they could hear the sound of weighty objects being moved, glass clattering, and an annoyed voice joining in every second or so before the door finally opened. Behind it, a tall and thin grasshopper Insicai adjusted a slightly dingy and worn waistcoat and tie. He blinked several times at the somewhat outlandish assembly before him.

“By my carapace… The Stellar Flare!” With a step he was out the door and crouched down in front of Wally. “It’s everything the old journals said it would be! A metal that isn’t a metal with a brilliant red gem of otherworldly luster! Bit smaller than described but then I suppose it adjust to the user.” Without pause he reached over Wally’s shoulder to take hold of the hilt, stopping only when Wally quickly took a firm grip of his wrist.

“ARGUS ORTHO CAEL!” Siani shouted. “WHERE ON MONDIA ARE YOUR MANNERS, MANNERS, MANNERS?!”

Argus eyes trailed down the hand, over the arm, up the shoulder to the slightly annoyed face of a wallaby. “Oh. Right. Sorry. Honestly didn’t see you there.”

Wally’s shift from a slightly annoyed expression to full annoyance was a remarkable thing to see up close.

“My but that’s fascinating as well… The Flare finding itself in the hands of an almost extinct genus of Animani… Speaking of hands.” Argus tried to pull his back from Wally’s grip, failing comically. “Grip like a vice this one.”

“I’m so very, very, very sorry Sir Wally!” Siani quickly rushed over and struck the sides of both of Argus’ right arms. “You went and insulted him twice! Apologize sincerely!”

Wally finally let him go. He sensed a manic energy in this entirely impolite Insicai, but nothing overtly malicious or threatening. Not that knowing that made him feel any less irritated.

“Why?” Argus began. “Nothing I said was even remotely insulting. I saw the Stellar Flare before I saw him, and wallaby Animani are, in fact, very rare in the current era.” He looked at the group once more and honed in on Rozzi. “As are red panda Animani, remarkable!”

His focus then turned on Captain Blackeye. “My word, Arias Cofresi!” then sailed toward to Hector and Wistea. “A third Animani carrying a Sauroian, and a Planaetian Nobel! This is absolutely astonishing!”

Siani sighed loudly, her antenna drooping in defeat. “Everyone,” her voice hummed with exasperation. “This is my husband, Argus Ortho Cael. Former first chair, Imperial science council.”

Argus smiled at them all, turned on his heels and headed back toward the open door. “Well, back to work then!”

Confused glances were exchanged as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Both Siani and Ori then raised their hands to count down from three.

Exactly three seconds later, the door opened and out popped Argus’ head. “Aren’t you all coming?”

While the group made their way inside, Rozzi turned to the somewhat defeated looking butterfly and asked, “You’ve been married to that for how long, exactly?”

“It will be ten years soon, soon, soon, not that it matters, he always forgets our anniversary anyway.” Her expression grew from upset to apologetic, “I know right this moment he seems…”

“Spirited?” Wistea volunteered politely.

“I suppose that’s a kind way of saying ‘brash’, but once you get to know him he becomes much, much, much more tolerable. He really is quite brilliant; there just isn’t much in the way of a middle ground to his focus.”

The interior of the aged building was lit by strange bulbs that resembled small gas lamps, except that they gave off much stronger and steadier light. Hector, after finally setting Hyla down, watched as Argus picked up a small jar connected to one of the lamps by thin wires and shook it. Inside the jar was what appeared to be loamy soil with something squirming about inside. After Argus set it down, the attached light grew brighter.

Further in, books, scrolls, and other artifacts were strewn about on every flat surface available. Towers of literature created narrow corridors and framed chalkboards covered in strange symbols that most of the group assumed to be the written language of the Insicai.

Wistea stopped in front of one of the free standing displays of research art and grew confused. “Mister Cael… My Insikik is a little sparse, but does this actually say ‘false moon theorem?’”

“First, it’s Scholar Cael, and second, never mind that! Can’t prove it anyway. Without exact knowledge of the surface composition of the moons it’s all based on suggested gravitational mechanisms that I can only hypothesize. I simply found it odd that every nation, regardless of its position on the planet, experienced the exact same fluctuations of season at precisely the same time.” Argus swept one of his arms over a table, knocking a hefty amount of books and papers to the floor; he then carefully set out several cups and saucers that had been on the summit of several separate book towers before. “Now, would anyone care for some tea?”

Rozzi gave Wally a nudge, “Why are we here again, exactly?”

He looked at her pensively, struggling for a short moment to even remember, before turning to Argus. “Scholar Cael… is that brightstone of yours and the Stellar Flare related in some way?”

Argus smoothly sat at the table and steepled both sets of his long green fingers, his stoic expression resting behind the larger pair as he spoke, “Now what makes you say a thing like that?”

“There’s… Ever since I first saw the Flare it’s felt like… I was looking at something alive. I couldn’t explain it until I learned that it was a weapon not created just by mortal hands, but also the gods. Just now, when I looked at that brightstone we helped recover, I felt the exact same thing.”

The lean grasshopper said nothing, he hardly moved. Slowly, a chuckle began in his throat, growing by the second into a chest heaving guffaw before he sprang to his feet and thrust his arms to the air and shouted, “I KNEW IT!” He leapt over the table, rattling some of the tea cups as he landed before Wally; and slapped his hands onto the wallaby’s shoulders. “They are my boy! They absolutely are! Hah!” He rose to full height once again and turned to the table. “Teacups? No time for that! Darling, would you be so kind, the blue scroll sleeve, you know the one, I keep it in the umbrella stand by the bed.”

No one had noticed when, or even that, Siani had left the room. But seconds after he’d asked for her, she was already coming down the stairs with the large blue tube in hand and a confident smile.

“Dearest, you truly know me best,” Argus sighed happily.

“Well, well, well. Someone has to.” She tittered and handed over the tube.

Argus popped one end of it off like the cork of a wine bottle, launching into the far corner of the room, breaking something that sounded like porcelain. Inside the tube was a large tapestry, woven from beautifully colored silk that showed only the mildest signs of age and wear. Argus carefully draped it onto one of the blackboards and stepped back to let the others see it. “It took me years to find this in a stone vault buried in the industrial depths of the capital, along with a map that lead to this place.”

Curious eyes scanned the seemingly sequential imagery before them; the first in the series was a silhouette of a small Insicai, its four hands raised toward a feminine figure surrounded by a halo of flame. The next image was of a shimmering stone in the same Insicai’s hand. The final image on the tapestry showed the Insicai holding the sword aloft before the female from the first image.

Argus cleared his throat to call everyone’s attention. “I’ve verified the tapestries authenticity; it is well over a thousand years old and depicts what had only been legend to the people of this sovereign nation. More than a millennia ago, a great flame raced across the sky, shining its light down on the whole of Mondia before it impacted here. Well… Not here, the capital. The mountain we call ‘Anago’ is the impact site. There, Rollo Poda arrived to discover that what had fallen was a mass of brilliant ore that shone like the stars and sun. And, at its heart,” Argus slowly pointed toward the hilt of the Stellar Flare, “a brilliant and mystical red jewel.”

“Hang on,” Blackeye spoke, shattering Argus reverent tone. “Can’t be right, Insicai don’t live that long. I met Poda just after the war, he was a hunched over little fella sure, but not that old!”

Argus chuckled. “Yes, I heard the stories you journeyed with him. Did he ever tell you what he was searching for?”

Blackeye shook his head.

“Poda’s personal mission was to find the missing pieces of the original ore that fell to Mondia, brightstones! All the bits left over from when he forged the Stellar Flare!”

Wistea gasped. “So… When they called him the ‘Shining Star of Insicai’…”

“The title was meant as an insult at first, everyone hears the legend of the Flare as children, of a woodlouse Insicai being the first great mind of the nation. So when the old fellow made himself known during the war, the various scholars of Insicai mocked him. They stopped mocking when his brilliance shone as bright as the title implied. Those same scholars laughed at me when I said Rollo Poda was, in fact, the very same Insicai who gave form to the Flare… And now I know it’s absolutely true!” He rolled the tapestry and tucked it back into its tube. He handed it to his wife and took a knee before Wally, clapping his hands onto the wallaby’s shoulders once more. “Thank you, my boy! Half a lifetime of research and theory, and now I know I’m absolutely right… You have no idea what that means to me!”

Wally smiled politely, not certain he did much to deserve the thanks, but still happy to have helped in any way.

“Now,” Argus clapped his secondary hands, “the matter at hand. I’ve no doubt you’re all here to destroy that damnable battleship, yes?”

Confused looks were exchanged before Hector spoke. “That thing Kota’s Generals fly around in? It’s here?”

“Well not here, it docks at a special platform built into the side of Mount Anago for maintenance and resupply. In fact, I hear its still under repair. Most likely you all gave it a sound trashing and are here to finish the job!”

Argus smile faded as he saw the somewhat dour expressions on their faces.

“Ah, you didn’t know it was here. Well, that’s alright! Now you do and right when it’s at its most vulnerable! If we all move quickly we should be able to take that flying travesty apart and severely diminish the capabilities of Kota’s frontline forces!” Argus bolted upright and started to walk out of the room. “Darling, help me pack a bag, I’ll be going with them! If anyone on the planet could help dismantle that horrible contraption, it’ll be me. Especially after I get back to my lab and retrieve my invention!”

There was the sound of a distant explosion, everyone but the Insicai reacted defensively.

“Good, good, good. It went as scheduled,” Ori commented calmly. She then remembered that the room was filled with people who had no idea what just happened. “Ah! My apologies everyone! That was a planned, planned, planned demolition. Hado might’ve seen the access hatch to southern tunnel three. As is now standard, any, any, any potentially compromised entrance is demolished.”

“Is there nothing else you can do but hide down here?” asked Hyla.

Ori shook her head. “Only I and a handful of the Imperial Guard broke off from the main force, and many of them were injured in our last battle with Hado. Everyone else here, here, here is a scholar, a politician or just a citizen. They have no formal combat training and Hado’s forces are actually quite, quite, quite numerous. What you fought today was only a small, small, small platoon under his direct command.”

“With an official Imperial sanction,” Siani added. “He was put in charge of Chidulas and the surrounding area. Conscripting as many able-bodied citizens as he could, could, could for his forces, along with a number of Imperial Guards.”

Hyla’s brow furrowed and her hands clenched into fist. She turned to look at Wally and declared, “We have to help them! If we just leave, Hado’s soldiers could return!”

Wally was about to reply when Hector interrupted. “Hyla, I hate to say this, but I don’t think we can.”

Her shoulders dropped slightly. “What?”

Hector’s expression was stoic as he spoke. “Our priority is to defeat Kota. Destroying their flagship would be an enormous step forward. If we miss our chance to do so now, we may never have another. Not to mention if we succeed, we’ll have more time to get Wally to Krust Mountain and restore the Flare’s power. The greater good demands we stay the course.”

Hyla only grew more frustrated. “I… I know that! But… Can we really just leave these people to fend for themselves?! It might have been accidental, but we met them and they need help! That means something!”

“I’m not any happier about it than you are, Hyla, believe me. However we simply can’t stop to help everyone we meet if it means losing a great opportunity.”

“If we don’t help them whose to say they’ll even still be here if we succeed?!”

Wally brought his foot down several time to call everyone’s attention, his father’s most effective technique against arguments. In his case, however, it lead to several book towers collapsing and something made of glass falling to a noisy, unseen demise.

“Right then,” he spoke in a stern yet orderly tone, or at least hoped that’s how he sounded. “That’s enough of that, especially since you’re both right.” He crossed his arms. “We’ll go around the room and have everyone’s say on the matter. Hyla, Hector, you’ve had yours… That means we move on to you, Wistea.”

“M-me? Oh…” She cleared her throat and straightened her posture as she did for every lecture she’d ever given and forced her thoughts into order. “I… Agree with Hector. That ship has been a major threat us since the Silent Marsh and we barely managed to survive our encounters with it.”

Next down the line was Blackeye. “I’m for stayin’ here and takin’ it to that clam handed scallop. Ain’t in me to just walk away from people in need. Know my Polly’d agree if she could.”

“I’m with the Captain and Hyla on this one,” Rozzi announced. “Know what it’s like to need help and not get it. So I ain’t about to leave innocent folk in the lurch.”

Wally rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “Then I propose we divide our efforts. Argus, you’re certain you can help disable their airship”

Argus stood to his full height and crossed his arms firmly, a move that gave him the sturdy countenance of a well made fence post. “Certain as sunlight, my boy! Especially after we get what I need from my lab in the capital.”

“Fine. Hector, you Hyla and Wistea will go with him and destroy the battleship if you can. I’ll stay here with Rozzi, Blackeye, and Polly when she wakes up. We’ll see if we can’t knock down the Baron. Besides, we all know Kota’s tracking my every move. If she wants she can probably send Hado and his forces straight to wherever I am… So if you go to the capital without me…”

“None of her forces will see us coming, of course!” realized Hector.

There was a fire welling up in Wally’s belly that refused to go unnoticed. A courageous conflagration of emotion that the moment called for, and Wally would deny no longer. “Up ‘til now, it’s been half measures… We’d fight Kota’s army or run from them, they’d take whatever they were after and leave the world to make up for what we couldn’t do. I’d say it’s high time we changed that! No more bitter victories! No more running! We take the fight to them and win!”

Rozzi giggled. “Speeches like that ain’t very baker-like y’know?”

The heroic visage he’d unconsciously taken on softened slightly. “Too much?”

She shook her head with a smile, “Just right.”

Wally scanned the eyes of his friends and the determination that lay within them. He held out his hand toward the group. Hector recognized the gesture immediately and put his hand on top of Wally’s. Rozzi was next, followed by Wistea who sensed the pattern. Blackeye placed his hand atop hers and all eyes turned to the newest member of their party. Hyla felt her chest swell with a newfound sense of inclusion; she fought back a tear or two, as well as dwindling hesitation, and placed her hand in the center of her newfound allies.

“To Victory!” Wally shouted.

“VICTORY!” Everyone gladly replied, throwing their hands into the air as one.

<[Chapter 20]–[Index]–[Chapter 22]>

#A Baker's Quest #Writing

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