#and i skim until i find the necessary info

[dribbonart]

My big Honorverse complaint bag

First thing: I didn’t give Honorverse a proper chance. Once I realized the Haven sections never intersect with the Honor/Manticore sections, I just skimmed them. I’m told this is a mistake, but it’s too late now. I read nine books, now I’m done. I wanted a Horatio Hornblower book, not a series of captains that blow up without ever interacting with the protagonist.

This brings me to my first issue: (Below the fold)

Black Box Haven

Weber has this weird belief that hostile forces simply do not communicate at all. From book one to the end of book nine, Honor briefly interacts with Cordelia Ransom, and that’s it. Despite lots of opportunities for communication, (The Haven captain in book one literally thinks how useful it would be to send a message to Honor’s ship!) they just… don’t. It’s as though there’s an impermeable curtain between Honor’s story and the Haven story. A couple characters cross, but not words. This takes away one of the best things in spaceship stories, the part where the hostile captains face each other on their viewscreens and try to reach some kind of understanding or leverage against each other. Instead it’s just hammering on ships that might as well be staffed by robots. 

Since the bad guys almost always explain the details of their plans to each other, this means that we have to learn about them twice. This is one of the main reasons I stopped reading the Haven parts, I’d much rather find out what’s going on just once from Honor’s perspective.

We’re given dozens of pages about some Haven captain only for them to be destroyed by Honor’s forces without even being aware that something is happening. What’s the point? When I’m told about a character, I want some kind of pay off in proportion to the detail I’m given.

Even the Haven leadership, while suffering enormous losses from a superior foe intent on their extermination, never tries to extend any kind of embassy until the end of book nine. Why? They have nothing to lose by sending an ambassador to ask, “Hey, why are you so intent on killing all of us, and is there anything we could do to dissuade you?” Remember, Manticore has no public war aims! It is a war of extermination, and neither side even tries to gain an edge by the most common thing in international conflict, words. 

When Honor is sent on a mission with an ambassador, everyone treats him as insane for suggesting that they should pursue a diplomatic solution. When he’s talking, people can’t even look him in the eye. He, very sensibly, points out that Grayson and Masada would be better off if they were friends, and the Navy people seem to think that “they hate each other” is proof that peace is impossible. But what’s the Navy’s plan? Have they been reading the chapters that lay out the impending Masada attack?

Info Dumps

Even people that like Honorverse admit this is bullshit, so I’d just add that he infodumps about things other than tech. The history of the Grayson constitution does not need to have an interlude just to have an excuse to give Honor some prize. 

Oh also, someone eyeballs a space battle and says, “our tech people say that Haven has closed the tech gap by 15%, but this looks more like 20%,” which might be the most insane thing in the entire series.

Honor Harrington, you’re right again.

What I would give to have Honor do something, anything wrong. The one thing that’s clearly illegal, (beating Houseman to serious injury) is affirmed by her superior officer as a necessary, but impolitic act. When he says “You did the right thing, Honor Harrington,” he may as well have been giving the series a subtitle. Her only “weakness” is being “bad at math,” which means that when she has to estimate the number of people that can survive in a ship not designed for it, she estimates 1300, instead of the “correct” 1350. (This is genuinely treated as an example of her being bad at math. Possibly the only one?)

Instead of mistakes, Honor makes money. And ranks. And titles. And superpowers. And powerful friends. She’s jumped up three ranks all at once, at a political cost, just so she can be a double admiral, which doesn’t even matter in that book! This is one of the many ways that Honor is an evil mirror of Horatio Hornblower. Horatio is never the greatest guy, he has to struggle to make it in a world that doesn’t care about him. It makes him relatable, and it makes it more interesting to see how he deals with problems that are larger than him. Weber seems to think that this is an error, and a good protagonist is one that gets a new superpower and ten times as much money for every new book.

She loses her first battle in book eleven.

Even before she knows how to use cosmetics, she’s universally seen as unconventionally attractive. Cosmetics let her sand the edge off that “unconventional” and eliminate one more thing that makes her interesting.

Honor becomes a child of two worlds, a very old standard sci-fi concept, but it too is reversed. Instead of Honor being torn between two loyalties, her two nations simply become two separate sources of goodies to make Honor wealthier and more powerful. She’s become an admiral in two different navies, clearly an untenable situation, but no one even seems to think that’s an issue.

Very early in the series, Honor has so much power and prestige that she should be a major player in society, but she’s oddly passive. She still acts like a mid-level soldier that simply reacts to the scenario put in front of her. She barely has likes or interests outside of the military. She likes cocoa, that’s all I can think of.

To make sure that Honor is never wrong, the story has to set up situations so that they align with her desires. When Honor refuses to follow an ambassador’s orders, there happens to be someone else in charge of the mission to countermand those orders. Her duel with Pavel Young is a great example. She decides to shoot Pavel even though he is helpless. This would be an interesting character moment! But! Honor cannot be allowed to be questioned, so the laws of dueling are such that Pavel would have been summarily executed anyway, so she’s not actually doing anything wrong.

Just imagine how much more interesting it would have been to have Honor choose to kill Pavel, when he otherwise would have lived! Character is about choice!

Honor should have been forced to choose which ship to save in the assassination attempt on the Queen. Put the ruler of Grayson and Manticore on different ships, make her choose. But that would mean her decision could be criticized, so it can’t be allowed.

The weirdest part of Honor’s superpowers is that most of them don’t actually change anything in the story. They’re just to make her a “better” character in a childish, “Well, my character is super-strong and a super-genius!” kind of way. Her telescopic vision is used in a way that affects anything maybe once? Her photographic memory that works even when she’s not paying attention is mentioned but never affects the story at all. Her psychic powers could literally be replaced by looking people in the eyes. (This would also be better for the story since it would give us more details about people instead of scanning their brains for emotions. Show, don’t tell.) 

Show, Don’t Tell

There’s showing, where you experience something that happens directly.

There’s telling, where you’re told about something.

Then there’s Weber-ing, where the narrator goes off on their own to directly transmit the data directly into the reader’s brain without anyone in the book interacting with the information at all. Maximum abstraction. Please, just use an appendix! If no one in the story has a reason to talk about or experience something, that’s a hint that you don’t need it in the book!

If we must have endless descriptions of missiles’ statistical chances of encountering the enemy, at least put it in a character’s thoughts. Have Weber stare at a radar screen, frantically calculating the odds! Put us in the room, not in the manual for a missile!

Grayson Is Nothing

Why do people like Grayson? The best thing you can say about their culture is that they’re not as bigoted as their neighbors who seem to be specifically designed to be the “bad” people to contrast with the “good” Graysons. There doesn’t seem to be a single good Grayson that actually believes in their religion. They have a state religion that has, for centuries, maintained a lower status for women, and they just fold on it instantly! Every prominent Grayson thinks that their misogyny is antiquated, at best. When a priest points out that misogyny is a big part of their whole thing, and he doesn’t think a woman should be in a position of enormous power, he’s brutally beaten and expelled from the church! 

When the idea of instant equal rights for women is introduced, the wise people of Grayson say, “that sounds good, but let’s not be too hasty, women aren’t really ready for participating in society.” This is exactly the position of real people fighting against civil rights, but Honor agrees! Could you look someone in the eye and say, “yeah, my type can’t be given their rights all at once!”

And what, other than the parts no one believed in, is the Grayson religion? They mention going to church once, but it doesn’t seem to actually affect anyone’s behavior.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to think of an analogy for Honor’s position in Grayson society. I don’t think there’s anything in history that matches it, because it’s completely bananas. Here’s my best attempt:

Imagine the Mexican-American war turned bad for America, and Mexico started making territorial gains into the US. Then a dashing British navy officer led a defense of an American port city that turned the tide of the war. This British officer is rewarded with a private state of Texas. He’s the permanent Governor, and is put in charge of the American Navy. But the “American” Navy is in British ships, staffed by British officers and financed by British loans. This Navy is pulled away from the defense of the Union for British military operations. The British Permanent Governor of Texas also has a patent on all railroad construction and gets so much of a percentage of railroad spending that he becomes the wealthiest person in the country. He also rejects the idea of Democracy, but says he won’t actively oppose it.

Reasonable people would say that, hero or not, they do not want the US turned into an extension of the UK! But the idea that Honor’s equivalent position makes Grayson an extension of Manticore is treated as absurd!

Why does Grayson have more details about its history, politics and constitution than Manticore? That’s weird!

Economics

Everyone hates the weird economic moralizing of the Honorverse. I’m surprised there’s not more complaining about how bad it is in its own right.

The conversation about Manticore’s economy was error after error. They genuinely say, “We don’t have an income tax! We believe in free trade! That’s why we get all our income from tolls!”

Haven tries to achieve deflation during a war. Incredible.

Haven’s economy is treated as a garbage fire because they have a lot of debt (Although Weber doesn’t seem to realize that they must owe that debt to another entity, instead it just exists in its own right as a floating negative number at the bank,) but there are riots when they suggest that they stop increasing the basic income more than inflation. This means that the basic income, and therefore standard of living, have been going up for all of living memory. That would make Haven the most successful economy of all time.

Haven conquers planets to exploit them, but then reflexively turns them into social welfare states like Lemongrab turning candy seeds into more candy people. They should have considered not doing that.

Anti-Politics

I suspect Weber would describe his politics as “centrist” or “reasonable” or “non-political”. I think a better title would be “Anti-political.” Everyone in the Honorverse that engages in the basics of politics, delivering benefits to their constituents, is treated as a naive buffoon wounding the nation at best. He genuinely does not believe in popular control of government.

He thinks the problem with a military dictator is the culture clash between people accustomed to a democratic process.

The only legitimate political act in Honorverse is supporting total war against an enemy without a casus belli. The queen even insists it’s not political! “I have not asked you to abandon your principles. I have not asked you to embrace or pretend to embrace any ideology offensive to you or your party members. My only concern is…to win the current war and establish a lasting peace."

As though a war of annihilation did not concern principles or ideology!

The War 

The war between Manticore and Haven is weird. Haven thinks it’ll just wipe out Manticore and its neighbor so it can retire its Navy since it won’t have a dangerous neighbor any more, apparently unaware that there would just be more dangerous neighbors on their new borders. Haven does a few border raids that would be casus belli, but Manticore seems to think it would need to be able to prove their case to justify such a declaration of war, even though there’s no space UN to appeal to. 

Then, once Haven does an act of war so provocative it cannot be denied, Haven’s entire government is decapitated, resetting relations between the two countries. Except it doesn’t, and Manticore starts a war of annihilation against a country that just started that year. The very existence of a country called Haven is treated as an existential threat, regardless of who's in charge. (I’m told the new book Toll of Honor has a whole section justifying this, I don't care. The idea that they don’t even send a letter is ridiculous.)

From the formal beginning of the war in book five, Manticore is the aggressor. It’s undeniable, they’re making massive inroads into Haven’s territory. First they have the goal of seizing Haven’s major shipping lane, then they move on to the capture of Haven’s core worlds and capital. Yet Manticore must not just be winning the war, they must also be the most sympathetic. This means that Every. Single. Battle. we witness is a perfidious Haven attack against a Manticore planet. Manticore is seizing planets by the dozens, but that might make them look bad, so instead they are shown defending their homes.

In case anyone doubts that Manticore must be seen as a victim even as it plots the destruction of its enemy’s capital, Weber makes it explicit: “In a crazy sort of way, the fact that we keep winning battles only makes it even more acceptable to the Sollies. It’s almost as if every battle we win somehow turns the Peeps more and more into the ‘underdogs,’ for God’s sake!”

In the Honorverse, being the underdogs is good, so Manticore are underdogs. The fact that they are winning is irrelevant.

Weber also gives every colonist's rationale for colonization apparently without irony. Manticore doesn't WANT to hold basilisk, they're innocent of those desires. But the colony makes so much money they MUST hold it forever.

No Contest

Honorverse is the only story I’ve ever encountered that gives the good guys easy wins. More than once an enemy thinks, “There’s no way we can win this.” That’s not good for drama? I don’t know what you can say about this, it’s so obvious.

Let's not forget the much maligned pistol duel. Here's my live reaction.

And the sword duel was even worse.

Paul’s death being off screen was a weird choice too.

One Perspective

All good people agree. Even the bad people secretly agree, they just can’t overcome the shame of disagreeing with the objectively correct position.

Everyone says “Manties” and “Peeps.” 

In the first book, Honor thinks, “I’ve gotta be hard on this crew so they toughen up” and another perspective character thinks, “I’m glad Honor’s being hard on us, it’s toughening us up.”

When she meets Alfredo Yu, she thinks about how awkward it is that he killed her mentor. Then he immediately brings it up in conversation. 

When Ransom decides to execute Honor for her murder conviction, even Haven people think it’s outrageous.

Haven had eight years of political purges and official minders for political loyalty, but there are no loyal Haven military officers because all military officers are good and upright people.

Missiles, Missiles, Missiles

Honorverse is all about tech advances. Except it’s hard to think of new technology, so we have to suffice with one new tech, FTL communication, and endless iterations on “More Missiles.” Missile pods, little ships carrying a few missiles each, these are not interesting!

Like Honor’s wealth, the number of missiles multiplies by ten per book. The Grayson Defense fires an impossible 12,000 in a battle, then Manticore fires 111,000 in another instant win, and I’m told the Battle of Manticore has 700,000 missiles in the first wave.

Misc.

How dare he not include the scene where they asked Honor’s mom to get pregnant while everyone was still in mourning.

The first book clarifies that Honor isn’t gay, and that seems to be universal in the series. C’mon, it’s the 2020s, include a gay.

Why is one guy kind of named after a real guy, (Robert S. Pierre), but Saint-Just is the same name as the real guy.

Furry Contralto

“that’s the beauty of hindsight: it always has a lot more to go on than you did when you had to make the decision the first time around.”

The story of genetic engineering in Honorverse is the exact same as Star Trek.

Sure are a lot of women being raped.

The bad members of Honor’s bad crew were planning on damaging the ship so they could escape. And it was going to be exciting to see Honor wrestle with handling a damaged ship. But the bad guys were sent to the brig and died and that plot just… ended.

[tennessoui]

Hey friend, I don't know if you're the right person to ask about this but based on your blog header thing I thought you might have input.

I've been thinking I want to get back into fic writing and most of what I read is Star Wars fic, but like...the gffa is so intimidating? The lore has been accumulating for almost 50 years?? Normal shit has weird space names like transparisteel??? I feel like I need to get a degree in this when actually all I wanna do is make the sad, pretty men kiss. Please tell me it's cool to not know what the fuck I'm doing. Thank you.

hey!! you absolutely have come to the right place!! in that i do write very much a lot but i also don't think i know anything at all about star wars (aside from the vibes)

i've watched the movies, i've watched most of the tv show the clone wars once through. I've never seen the other animated tv shows (though they're on my list!!!) i've seen the mandalorian and most of the book of boba fett, but i've never actually read one of the actual books or comics. and sure i guess they're not canon? or quasi-canon maybe? but you're right in that there is so so so much lore that i have a hard time figuring it out or keeping it straight.

but i love star wars! so i write fanfiction for it even if i don't know everything (anything). i keysmash planet names and throw together loose bits of lore i think sound cool. "That's Not How The Force Works" is my favorite tag on ao3 because it sure isn't! but it's how i need it to work for this story to work. so today, that's how the Force is going to work.

i think you don't have to know everything about star wars. you don't even have to know like. half. i guess im a less serious writer in that my stories are usually short and are set canon adjacent/divergent (they're set in the GFFA, but someone's not a jedi or they're both not a jedi etc etc), so i can write and not encounter too many issues with not knowing things.

i absolutely am obsessed and in love with every writer for star wars who does research, who figures out the minute details. i love reading that because that's the way their love for the same thing i love looks and it's amazing and i'm constantly blown away by the stories they're able to tell.

but i still like my lil stories too. and there's a place for them in the fandom as well because fandom at its essence is a quiltwork of passion projects come together and as long as you love what you're writing or creating, i think you'll fit in just fine.

[padfootastic]

i jump around *so much* it’s unreal. like i’ll start at the beginning, scroll down til the end (often while skimming), then come back up and reread the beginning bc i have colander brain and i’ve forgotten, then keep jumping around. i was writing a comment as i was reading the other day and looking at it from the outside in, it was so unhinged, like it made no sense.

it’s so messy but it’s the one reason i’ll always prefer written word over video format. always.

Sometimes I remember that most people don’t skim-read books and fics and I have to sit down for a second. 

[straight-into-the-animus]

Sucker For You (Jacob Frye x F!Reader)

This was for anon, who requested for the Valentine’s Day Playlist Challenge something inspired by the song Sucker by the Jonas Brothers with Jacob Frye x Female Reader. I’m so sorry it took so long anon, personal work got in the way and I’m still somewhat battling a bit of illness, I felt so bad leaving you hanging, but I hope you enjoy! I really had a lot of fun doing this!

Warnings: None

Crawley was a little place, in comparison to the monster that was London. The population was comparable to a drop in a pisspot, vibrating and palpable in every crack and crevice, every step you took. Everything and everyone was alive, and Jacob relished in it, felt himself come alive in return to absorb it like a sponge and give it all back tenfold.

And some of those people, on some nights, just made it all better.

Jacob noticed and made note of most every Rook that came along, but her… Even just a look in those eyes the first night had told him he met more than he originally thought.

Those were the same eyes that glinted at his across the pub where he finished the last of his drink, but Y/N turned in her stool at the last second to coyly look away from the returning message he sent her. With much more nimble feet than the situation and location seemed to deserve, he joined her on the other side of the bar to engage in their custom song and dance.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“Notice what?” The game had started tentatively, but she still was only glancing over her shoulder, not yet fully engaged. “I’ll have you know, Sir, I’m simply enjoying my drink,” she took a pointed sip -- more a gulp, but neither of them were counting -- for emphasis, “and you decided to come and get involved. Not very gentlemanly, if I have to say.”

“And you’re quite the lady, Y/N.”

“Quite.” She smirked, fingers tapping on the pint glass irregularly as he leaned in just enough to brush his lips against her ear.

“How long are you gonna keep this up? I might be a Sir, but you, madam, are no lady.”

Finally she turned around in her stool with a mock offended gasp, putting her pint down to fix him with a look. “I’m owed an apology for my honor.”

“Or what?” He mimicked her pose, and her frown deepened until she suddenly smirked and leaned in to be closer to him, gazing at his face through half hooded eyes.

“Or I might have to call for… drastic measures.”

“And what would those be?” He asked, the part of him that was both Assassin and just very knowledgeable of how these things went giving faint alarm bells in his head that he ignored. He regretted that fact just a second too late when in a snap his hat was off of his head and she was hurrying for the door.

A curse flew out of his lips with the same speed and he slapped some money down on the counter before hurrying after her. A green tailcoat disappeared around the corner and with a decision making process likely too affected by alcohol to be determined sane, he decided to go up and around on the rooftops. He kept an eye on her, allowing instincts to take over on the rooftops for the most part, and couldn’t even find it in himself to be fucking annoyed despite the fact that here he was in the dead of night, with the streetlamps the only guides he had, and he was chasing after his favorite hat in some weird courting ritual.

He couldn’t be annoyed because it worked. And he couldn’t imagine this happening any other way.

He caught his lucky break as Y/N paused to catch her breath near an alleyway of all places -- honestly, he was a little bit worried if this was somehow what he was training his Rooks in now -- and he slid down a pipe to land on the stone with only a bit of a stumble in his step.

“Think I’ll be taking that back now.” He sneaked up behind her and reached around to take the top hat from her grasp, skimming it over for wear and tear. He slicked his hair back and put it back on, even tapping the top of the hat for good measure as she turned and fixed him with a hidden smirk.

“You could’ve just asked.”

“And you didn’t have to steal from me, my lovely lady indeed.” He made to step forward but closed that already small distance, smoothing out the lapels of his coat as if it could make up for the panic and state of his hat-less undress from earlier.

“It’s not as fun then. And maybe I wanted to be chased by you instead of letting the Templars and other Horrible Enemies of London’s Freedom take your attentions for once.”

He huffed a laugh before settling his hands on the sides of her waist under her coat and pulling her just a bit closer in the manner he’d been wanting to the whole night. She had no complaints, hands sliding from his chest to wrap her arms around his neck as they both decided to go further back into the alley for the slightest bit of privacy afforded them both.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. Last thing I want is for you to have to resort to such horrible activities again.”

“My hero.” She hummed before leaning in, intent clear and open as he met her halfway and they kissed, savoring but not taking things slow or keeping it chaste. It tasted all manners of sweet and intoxicating, and it was over much too soon in his mind even as she pulled away and smiled up at him. “I’ll forgive you this once.”

“I can make it up more and get you another drink.” Jacob offered, knowing that he had likely paid a little more for that tab than necessary in his haste to leave and more than willing to cash in on it. 

She considered for a bit before shaking her head. “Though… Nothing to say we can’t continue this night somewhere else. Maybe… your train?”

Jacob pretended to consider as well before smiling a bit. “That sounds wonderful. Under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“We actually get to walk there. All proper and everything.”

A few giggles made the smile on his face grow before she conceded. “As you request, Sir Frye. I think I owe you this one thing.”

“How kind.” He smirked, and even held out his hand, holding hers tightly when it was grabbed without a moment’s hesitation.

The evening spread in front of them as they left for the train station, though quickly propriety was lost and in the large, winding streets of London, so much bigger than anything Jacob could picture, he found himself running around and getting lost with a woman who made everything else seem so small in comparison.

I hope you enjoyed! This was part of the Valentine’s Day Playlist Challenge, details/info for how to request your own can be found on the bolded link above.  I have a Masterpost here and more unrelated ideas for writings and prompts here, so feel free to request! If you’d like to support me, I have a ko-fi here but absolutely no pressure on that front. Have a wonderful day!

[kyberled]

MUN EMOJIS

@hxdrostorm​ asked:

Send 🔍 for something you look for on other’s blogs Send 😊 for likable quality for a role play mun to have Send 🔪 for a fandom you refuse to associate with

Send 🔍 for something you look for on other’s blogs 

First off, easy to find rules, about, etc. That’s key. If I can’t find your info, I’m not gonna want to follow you. I also like to see some certain things when I find those rules. Name and pronouns are a huge one - or at least, just name, and I’ll ask pronouns in DMs. I just wanna know how to refer to you properly. Also, triggers and things that you don’t want to interact with help. Lets me know right out what toes to not step on. As for bios, just gimme something. Point-form stats are nice, cause it lets me skim over and figure out the basics. If you include a detailed bio on top of that, great! It gives me stuff to work with. Beyond that, I look at whether or not you have things tagged. I’m gonna want to see if you frequently post or write about things that squick me out. I’m gonna see if our writing styles mix. I might check and see what kind of ooc reactions you have with people. How frequently you post. The ratio of IC to OOC. That kinda thing. Most of this isn’t necessary to whether or not I follow you, it just helps me get to know what I’m in for. Just be yourself! If we vibe, we vibe. 

Send 😊 for likable quality for a role play mun to have 

Enthusiasm! Good old fashioned enthusiasm. Let me know you want to be here. Be passionate about what you write. Come ramble to me about your characters. Scream in my IMs or Discord or notes about a headcanon you just came up with. Show me some art you just drew or a drabble you just wrote. If you have thoughts, comments, questions about things I’ve made or written, send them to me. We’re here to have fun, so if I see you actually having fun, I’m gonna be so stoked to not even just write with you, but talk with you in general! 

Send 🔪 for a fandom you refuse to associate with

Ugh, the F/M.A B fandom. Some folks who’ve stuck with me long enough - Alex, E, and Darcy - will remember why. There are only a few select people from that group I still talk to (mostly the aforementioned three). For those who might not have heard this one before, I’m putting it under a cut. TW for mentions of noncon/dubcon, pedoph*lia, attempted suic*de, general drama, call out posts, harassment, homelessness… Honestly, this list should tell you all you need to know. 

So, the long and short of it is someone got accused of writing pedoph*lia ships and noncon/duncon content of the aforementioned ships. To this day, I dunno if they actually did. I didn’t know or write with them, so, I was kind of in the dark. (I’d actually never heard of them until all this went down.) Then the person who accused them doxxed them and the fandom exploded. Half the dash was saying the accused did nothing wrong (in that the allegations were baseless) and the doxxer was fucked up, half was saying the inverse. Meanwhile, I was over in my little corner just staring wide-eyed like ‘guys what the fuck, we were just meming about kids adopting their guardians by force, what did I miss’. Then the accused said all the drama pushed them to drink a container of bleach and they were posting that from an ambulance as they were being taken to hospital and even MORE people started freaking out. Demanding to know how anyone could push someone else to that and this is what the internet and smear campaigns do, et cetera. So people were upset about that, and then someone ELSE chimed in and said that, actually, they’d had a friend who’d ingested bleach before, and it’d be virtually impossible for the accused to be posting if they were being rushed to hospital from that. So then half the people started getting upset at the accused for lying (possibly, I never stuck around to see the outcome) and the other half got mad at them for implying the accused would fake this. And on top of that, there were two friends, we’ll call A and B, who were on opposite ends of this mess, and were also pretty big players in the RPC. The thing about them is, they were both really nice people, in my experience. I talked to and wrote with them both. They seemed cool. We had a lot of threads, we talked OOC, we had headcanons for our muses together, and A even invited me to be a part of a big worldbuilding project with a few other friends. Then, being pulled onto opposite sides, arguments happened. This next bit I only heard from A’s side a while after the fact, in one of the last conversations we had before we fell out of touch (not for anyone’s misdeeds. We only had each other on skype, I stopped using Skype, you know the deal). According to A, B was supposed to be coming to live with them to get out of a rough situation (I think they were being kicked out, I can’t remember) and had agreed to pay part of the rent as a roommate, since A lived mostly on their own and couldn’t afford another person if B didn’t help out. But they had the arrangement, so everything should be good. Then B lost their job (or something, this was almost a decade ago if not more), and just assumed A would be cool with them not paying, and also didn’t get the necessary paperwork to cross the border but didn’t think it would be an issue, etc etc. And this all came out in an argument over the whole did-they-didn’t-they suicide thing. 

It got to the point where this was the only thing on the dash. There weren’t any memes, no IC content, no OOC content that wasn’t related to all of this, it was a mess. If you weren’t involved, someone you knew was, and all of us that were playing the Bacon Scale game with it were just wondering what the hell was going on. Oh, and before you ask, this all happened in about the span of a few days, then persisted in drama and echo chamber-ness for over a week. I don’t know if it kept going after that. I dipped and never really looked back. 

I don’t necessarily regret that blog: It was a lot of fun in its hayday, I met some amazing people I still talk to (Motley, Darcy, Alex, Erika, Rodi), and it was my first foray into bigger fandoms. I wouldn’t be here without it. But fuck, I’d never go back there, if you get my drift.

[calamity-bean]

Wanted a better look at the embellishment on Yvon’s jacket, so I took some caps! Some general observations:

The jacket is basically in the cut of a tunic, falling to about midthigh and with the left breast wrapping over the right so that the sides of the lower skirt-like part overlaps.

Symmetrical decorative patterns are found around the collar (meeting in a shallow vee over his upper back and gently tapering in front to form lapel shapes that terminate around the waist, covered by his belt) and also around the sleeve cuffs.

The prevailing motifs seen in these designs differ between collar and cuffs. The ones around the collar seem abstract: curving linear and geometric patterns. The cuffs, however, share the curving line style but are more representative, depicting floral/botanical elements.

I had initially wondered whether some of the round/raised bits might be beads rather than thread. I found some real close-up shots in which you can see the stitching, though, and it looks like the bits I thought might be beads are just loops or whorls of thread, so I think I can confirm that it’s all thread embroidery.

I’m putting the rest of this under a cut because it’s quite long, but: basically, I was interested in the style of decoration on his jacket, particularly the floral aspects, and attempted to do some historical research. I honestly was not as successful as I would’ve liked, and this post has actually been sitting in my drafts for almost two weeks now because I kind of got stuck. But on reflection, I still do want to share the screenshots as references, my observations, and at least the gist of what I looked into and what I found.

So! Under the cut: rambles about what interested me and what info I was looking for, links to the work of modern Ojibwe and Métis artists, and also a brief note on Yvon’s rifle strap, which I think is quite interesting as well!

Basically, when I was initially collecting the above images, my interest was particularly piqued by the floral decorations on the cuffs. The show identifies Yvon as Anishinaabe, and Zahn / Nat Geo have identified him specifically as Ojibwe, and I had a vague memory of reading at some point that Ojibwe art is particularly associated with floral designs. Floral designs not being solely unique to Ojibwe art among indigenous arts, and Ojibwe designs not being solely limited to floral ones, but a strong association nonetheless. I think most famously this takes the form of colorful, intricate embroidery with tiny glass beads:

(image source: Native American Artist-in-Residence: Jessica Gokey)

This is often done on black velvet or, as in the case of some of Gokey’s work that I saw, on black broadcloath, which I would say is probably about the same type of fabric Yvon’s jacket is made of — a plain, dense, sturdy wool. Although my understanding is that Ojibwe didn’t begin using colored glass beads of this sort until they acquired them via trade with Europeans in about the 19th century, beads made of other materials would, of course, still have been available in Yvon’s time, and I was still curious about whether the designs themselves on his jacket accurately reflect authentic patterns and motifs used by Ojibwe people. What was clothing and decoration like among Ojibwe and Anishinaabe people in the 17th century? What styles and materials were used? Are the elements in Yvon’s embroidery more generic, or are they recognizably specific in style to his culture, etc.?

And so I began with the Wiki-ing and the Google Scholaring and the skimming of articles. Unfortunately, a lot of the most promising-looking sources were only available as printed books (some of them quite expensive, too), so I didn’t have access to them, but from the articles I was able to browse, I did learn some relevant things. I found sources saying that before glass beadwork, Ojibwe decoration did use other types of beads and also used embroidery, which tracks with what we see on Yvon. I found a number of sources saying that floral motifs specifically were introduced to people of the Northeastern Woodlands in the 17th century via contact with Europeans, particularly nuns, who brought with them their floral embroidered fabrics and their floral folk arts.

However...

Although there were plenty of mentions of Ojibwe beadwork and floral designs, and a good number of more modern examples, I had difficulty finding in-depth information that discussed it specifically in the context of Barkskins’s time period (or prior to European contact, either). Sources focusing on the art in later time periods might still be relevant to what Ojibwe decorative arts were like in the 17th century, but I just don’t know enough to know. The example images I found were of beadwork from the 19th century or later, and even then, they were buried in a slew of Pinterest results that I really don’t consider reputable sources, because sure, they might be legit, but they might also be completely mislabeled. 

In general, I felt less than confident about what my searches turned up. This is a topic I know little about, have no personal or academic experience with (not being Ojibwe and not having formally studied anything relevant to this), and I’m wary of misinformation here because I know that indigenous people have spoken about seeing biased, simplified, and outright inaccurate info presented even by sources that should seem credible, like museums. Not to mention conflicting info. Remember I mentioned I read about floral designs being introduced (or at least popularized) by European art? And yet I also saw other sources rejecting this idea that Ojibwe floral motifs have their roots in colonizers’ art rather than simply in drawing their own inspiration from nature. In general, I just didn’t feel confident that I had the insight or education necessary to evaluate my sources or synthesize conflicting info, and my brief, superficial research didn’t seem reputable or interesting enough to shed any particular light on Yvon’s clothing. So I basically put this post aside.

(image source: Native American Artist-in-Residence: Sarah Agaton Howes)

But ultimately, I still want to highlight Yvon’s embroidery, even if only from an aesthetic, costume-detail perspective, and I also want to share some of the lovely videos showing the work of modern Ojibwe artists I came across while I was looking all of this up! Here’s another link to this video featuring the work of Jessica Gokey, which I inserted near the top, and here’s one in which Greg Bellanger discusses some of the history and process of his art. In this interview, Sarah Agaton Howes brings up the idea of Ojibwe floral designs as a historical means of teaching about medicines and preserving that cultural knowledge, especially in times when passing down such knowledge was suppressed. I thought that was very interesting and am kicking myself because I did actually look briefly at a thesis extract on Ojibwe botanical/medicinal knowledge, but now I can’t find it again. I also enjoyed this shorter video with Howes as well. And this video featuring the work of Delina White gives us some examples of these floral designs primarily as embroidered thread, like on Yvon’s clothing, rather than as beadwork:

(image source: Delina White)

The final video I’ll link is this one, which is about Métis floral beadwork rather than Ojibwe. I don’t know how similar/different the two styles are (nowadays or historically), but since Métis share roots with Ojibwe and Anishinaabe people, and since Métis culture developed out of the setting, cultural interactions, and approximate time period of Barkskins, I thought it still relevant enough to rec here. Not to mention that it’s just pretty and I wanna rec it. All of these videos offer a lot of interesting information and perspective on the craft itself as well as on the history and tradition.

Before I go… One little costume detail I do feel reasonably confident offering my own speculation on is that the decoration on Yvon’s rifle strap appears to be quillwork — porcupine quills dyed and shaped into designs. I could be wrong, but the texture, colors, and pattern look very similar to the examples I’ve seen, and it’s an art form that would certainly have been established, culturally relevant, and available to him in this time period. So that’s the tiny bit of original input I’ll contribute to this post!

In general, I think the whole Barkskins team — costume design very much included — has shown that they put a tremendous amount of research and thought into the design and construction of this show. I’m sure Yvon and his costume were no exception. And I love the overall look!

[phd-in-prog]

100 DOP | Day #5

Tuesday, 19 January 2021

One final IRB stipulation! The only issue is finding the right place to address it. Anyone else’s school’s IRB website just... confusing? I know what needs to be done, the site and my lack of experience with it just make it a little difficult to do it.

I didn’t take holidays into account when calculating my 100 days of productivity timeline! I had yesterday off, and I’ve made it a rule not to work on holidays unless absolutely necessary... and I have Wednesday off for inauguration day! For those who don’t know, I live in the DMV area.

Actually start reading advisor’s paper -- skim!

Find login info for communication with potential students

Submit IRB stipulation (once I have the submission clarification)

Self care workshop from university 

Shouldn’t do until after IRB approval

Continue narrowing down potential survey items

Read another chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses just to torture myself because I’m a sucker for long books

[lawschoolsecretfiles]

Law School 24/7: How to slay and survive law school daily grind

Have your experienced being grilled by your professor? In your exams, have you encountered one question you couldn’t seem to answer no matter how much you scratch your head? While studying, have you read one passage, word, or sentence that you couldn’t quite understand no matter how many times you reread it? Well, I have. If you have also experienced the same, that would make us comrades! As your comrade, here are nine tips that I can share with you to help you overcome your law school daily grind:

1. Scanning

Scanning is pretty self-explanatory. We do this all the time! We quickly search through loads of text to find specific info, like a certain name, date, or term. For example, when you encounter the paragraph below:

"That on the expiration of the period agreed upon, all the improvements and buildings introduced and erected by the party of the second part shall pass to the exclusive ownership of the party of the first part without any obligation on its part to pay any amount for said improvements and buildings; also, in the event the party of the second part should leave or abandon the land leased before the time herein stipulated, the improvements and buildings shall likewise pass to the ownership of the party of the first part as though the time agreed upon had expired: Provided, however, That the machineries and accessories are not included in the improvements which will pass to the party of the first part on the expiration or abandonment of the land leased." (Davao Sawmill Co., Inc. v. Castillo, G.R. No. 40411, August 7, 1935)

Here, we can scan through this paragraph by:

1. looking for key words or phrases

In this paragraph, we can say that the key words are: expiration, period, improvements, buildings, and exclusive ownership.

2. reading the words, phrases, and sentences surrounding the key words

When you’re reading a book, you may scan through the Table of Contents to look for headings and subheadings that might cover key words or phrases that you may need. For instance, when you look for the rights of an accused in the 1987 Constitution, where will you find it? In the Bill of Rights.  

2. Skimming

You skim a book by rapidly “reading” through the text before you start to read it extensively. Here, you gain a general idea of the whole text and familiarize yourself with how it was written. Using the same paragraph above:

"That on the expiration of the period agreed upon, all the improvements and buildings introduced and erected by the party of the second part shall pass to the exclusive ownership of the party of the first part without any obligation on its part to pay any amount for said improvements and buildings; also, in the event the party of the second part should leave or abandon the land leased before the time herein stipulated, the improvements and buildings shall likewise pass to the ownership of the party of the first part as though the time agreed upon had expired: Provided, however, That the machineries and accessories are not included in the improvements which will pass to the party of the first part on the expiration or abandonment of the land leased." (Davao Sawmill Co., Inc. v. Castillo, G.R. No. 40411, August 7, 1935)

Like scanning, we skim through this paragraph by looking for the key words and/or phrases. Then, we read the words, phrases, and sentences surrounding those key words in order to have a general grasp of this paragraph. Here, we can understand that, based on the key words, the paragraph pertains to a lease agreement – all the buildings, machinery, or equipment that were placed by the lessee will be turned over to the lessor once the lease period has already expired.

3. SQ3R Study Method: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review

SQ3R is a technique for reading and studying. Personally, I can say that this method can definitely help you develop your reading comprehension and improve your study habit. The problem is, you have to devote a lot of time to perfect this study method because this involves a combination of skimming, scanning, reading, repetition, and reviewing. But this could definitely help you a lot, especially for those degree programs that are using the Socratic method of instruction. By reciting the key terms and phrases, you condition yourself answering possible questions that may be thrown at you by your professors during recitations. Plus, you can practice your verbal skills!

1. Survey

You familiarize yourself with the text. This is akin to skimming and scanning wherein you may read the introductory and summary paragraphs, the headings and subheadings, and illustrations and tables.

2. Question

Here, you find the main points of a text. You ask the 5Ws and H: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. You may also relate the text to your past discussions or background knowledge. For example, if what you’re reading is a chapter on requisites of negotiability under the Negotiable Instruments Law, you might want to ask yourself what is the definition of a negotiable instrument. Or when you are reading about the liabilities of the parties and their warranties, you might want to recall the terms “maker,” “drawer,” “acceptor,” and “indorser” during your past recitations with your professor.

3. Read

When I say “read,” you don’t just let the words flow into your head without understanding anything. Don’t just read passively! By “reading,” you read in an active, questioning, and purposeful way. Before reading, you might want to ask yourself what do you aim to learn while reading the text, what questions your professor might ask when it’s your turn to be grilled, etc. While reading, you may underline or highlight key words, phrases, or sentences, make marginal notes, and summarize key points in your own words. Here’s an example:

[Photos lifted from Pre-Week Reviewer in Commercial Law, 2018 edition, by Justice Japar B. Dimaampao and Judge Ella Dumlao-Escalante]

4. Recite

You recite what you have read into your own words from your memory. You may also imagine yourself being asked by your professors and you say the answers out loud as if you are in an actual recitation.

5. Review

Repeat Steps 1-4. Don’t be afraid to read and recite what you have gone through – again and again – until you have fully understood it. Like everyone says, repetition is the key!

4. Summarizing Short Articles

When you summarize short articles, you just write the main idea and key supporting details according to their order of importance. Here, you answer the 5Ws and H: Who, What, When, Why, Where, and How. This technique could be helpful in writing case digests wherein you have to summarize a case based on the facts, issue/s, and ruling. Here’s my example:

Soriano v. Spouses Galit G.R. No. 156295, September 23, 2003

Petitioner: Marcelo Soriano Respondents: Spouses Ricardo and Rosalina Galit

Summary: Respondent Ricardo Galit contracted a loan from petitioner Marcelo Soriano. The loan was secured by a real estate mortgage. After Galit failed to pay his obligation, Soriano filed a complaint for sum of money against him with the trial court. Respondents failed to file an answer; hence they were declared in default. The trial court ruled in favor of Soriano and subsequently issued a writ of execution which covered the following real properties of the Galit spouses: (1) a parcel of land, (2) storehouse, and (3) bodega. The properties were sold to Soriano. Ten months from the time the Certificate of Sale was registered with the Registry of Deeds, Soriano filed a motion for the issuance of a writ of possession which was granted. The writ of possession which was issued in Soriano’s favor includes the land on which the sold storehouse and bodega are constructed.

Issue: Whether or not the land on which the storehouse and bodega are constructed is necessarily included in the said sale on execution (NO)

Held: Art. 415 enumerates land and buildings separately. This can only mean that a building is, by itself, considered immovable. While it is true that a mortgage of land necessarily includes, in the absence of stipulation of the improvements thereof, still a building by itself may be mortgaged apart from the land on which it has been built. Such mortgage would still be a real estate mortgage for the building would still be considered immovable property even if dealt with separately and apart from the land.”

In writing this mini-digest, I summarized the facts in my own words. I only included the details that are relevant to our discussion; I omitted procedural facts because they weren’t necessary. In the ruling part of the case, I cut a portion of the ruling, which is the doctrine, and pasted it in this mini-digest, word-for-word.  

Tip: Do not paraphrase the ruling. Just write the doctrine word-for-word according to how the court ruled the case. Why? Paraphrasing might cause misinterpretations. Normally, we paraphrase based on our interpretation of the text. However, in this case, paraphrasing might not work. Our understanding (and consequently, paraphrasing) of the case might not be in harmony with how it was explained in the original text. Plus, we might omit some nuances if we try to paraphrase the case too much.

5. Underlining, Highlighting, Annotating

When you are highlighting or underlining key words or phrases, do not overdo it and highlight everything. Do not turn your book into a coloring book! Your aim is just to take note of those terms or phrases that are important. So that, when you review the text again, you may now able to easily recall and understand these important terms and phrases.

We annotate by writing marginal notes, making mnemonics, summarizing provisions in our own words, etc. Annotating saves you time from re-reading the whole text, because you might only want to re-read the notes that you have written to remember and understand the main point of a paragraph or a codal provision. 

Here’s my example:

[Photo lifted from the Civil Code of the Philippines]

Here, I highlighted almost everything (laughs). I summarized some provisions into my own words (e.g., “[t]o bear the surnames of the father and the mother, in conformity with the provisions of the Civil Code on Surnames” – use surname of mom & dad). I made use of annotations (e.g., “If filiation is being proven by illegitimate child, ¶2 of Art 172 must be proven during the lifetime of the parent.”); I underlined a lot, encircled some terms, especially those pertaining to periods (e.g., two years, three years) because I found it hard to remember them (until now). Basically, I turned my codal into a coloring book-slash-notebook. Yeah.

6. Outlining

We outline by arranging ideas going from the general to the specific ones. Outlines may be found in law school syllabi wherein Roman numerals, capital letters, and numbers are used to indicate which information is more specific, which is more general, which topics are associated with one another, and which covers which. But you can outline on your own! Here’s mine:

Section 1. Requisites of Negotiability

1. in writing and signed by the maker or drawer

               i. not necessary that the signature is the usual signature (e.g. “X”)

2. must contain an unconditional promise or order to pay a sum certain in money

               i. unconditional promise or order

                               a. condition v. period

                                               i. condition – future and uncertain event

                                               ii. period – a day certain

                               b. if there is a condition – non-negotiable

                               c. See Sec 3

               i. a sum certain

                               a. See Sec 2

                                               i. interest

                                                               GR: date expressly stipulated

                                                               no date: date of instrument

                                                               undated: date of issue

                                               ii. installments

                                                               maturity date, exact amount

                                               ii. escalation/acceleration clause

                                                               insecurity clauses – non-negotiable 

                                               iv. “whether at a fixed rate or at a current rate”

3. must be payable on demand or at a fixed or determinable future time

               i. payable on demand (See Sec 7)

               ii. determinable future time (See Sec 4)

4. must be payable to order or bearer

               i. payable to bearer (See Sec 9) – negotiable by mere delivery

                               a. fictitious payee rule (Sec 9c)

                                                               GR: drawer bears the loss

                                                               XPN: commercial bad faith

               ii. payable to order (See Sec 8)

5. where the instrument is addressed to a drawee, s/he must be named or otherwise indicated therein with reasonable certainty

In my outline, I dissected Section 1 of the Negotiable Instruments Law by concept and connected per requisite with other codal provisions associated with each of them. I only wrote key terms and phrases so that I wouldn’t be overwhelmed with too much information when I review. To be honest, I wouldn’t call this a good outline because it wasn’t super organized – it doesn’t show relationships nor the importance of the ideas in the order – but still, I could understand it.    

7. Mapping

Mapping is another technique that you may use to organize ideas while studying. You may write the main idea and encircle it. You may use other shapes. Then, you enclose a supporting detail into another shape and draw a line which connects it to the main idea. And so on. You may also write short descriptions on the side and connect them to the ideas they pertain to. This continues until you end up with a visual summary of the text.

8. Comparison-Contrast Chart

Making a comparison-contrast chart is a technique which you may use if you want to show similarities and differences between two or more different terms or concepts. In exams, you might be asked to compare and contrast two terms or concepts as to different categories so this technique might be handy to you as well. 

Here’s an example:

9. Time Line

Time lines are handy when a case or a topic needs to be organized chronologically by dates. To make a time line, you may only list dates in chronological order, then assign information to the dates.

Now we’re done! I hope you find these techniques useful in your law school daily grind. But hey, do not limit yourself to these techniques. Perhaps you’ll find a different study technique that’s more suited to your needs. Anyway, just do whatever’s best for you – as long as you feel that you understand what you’re reading. For my last piece of advice to you, let me quote a PH Supreme Court justice: Study with passion.

[crystallized-iron]

The Inaccuracy

For Cherik Week 2020, hosted by @teamxcherik

Day 1: Space AU

AO3

***** ***** *****

Arrivals to the space colony were separated into three lines. Erik paused momentarily as his comrades presented their information at the check-in counter. He held his papers ready as he approached the man running the computer for his line. There was never a problem at previous colonies they traveled to for work, but those check-ins were all run by inferior androids running on autopilot, simply copying the information on the forms into the computers.

But this one felt different. Erik could not detect a trace of metal in the small yet pretty man that smiled at him and stated, "Identification please."

Erik handed the paperwork over. His ID card was scanned. The papers were skimmed through, all necessary information typed in.

There was something about the man that kept Erik on edge. No metal had to mean he was human. But why? Check-in counters were a dangerous place for humans to work.

As the man returned Erik's information, their fingers brushed briefly against each other. It was only a second but it was enough for the man to flinch away from Erik with a gasp.

He looked into widening bright blue eyes as the man whispered, "You are not…"

Erik glanced at the men he was traveling with. This was not good.

But then the man recovered from his shock and forced a polite smile on his face. "I do hope you enjoy your stay."

He was letting him through. Erik murmured a thank you and took his paperwork back, but before he could leave he heard the man say, “I hope no one else learns of the inaccuracy in your paperwork.”

Erik turned to him, but the man’s gaze remained on the screen in front of him. “You won’t tell anyone?”

The man glanced at him then. “No. I should, but no. Just go.”

With a nod, Erik walked away, catching up to the others.

“Everything alright, Lehnsherr?” one asked him. “You were stopped for awhile.”

“Everything is fine.”

“Did you notice the kid though?” said the second. “I swore he was one of those new androids until Lehnsherr touched him. He was too professional, too polite. He couldn’t be human.”

“You need to be professional and polite if you are going to be stationed at check-in.”

“But isn’t that why other colonies just use androids? No risk of injury then.”

“How are you certain he isn’t one?” asked the first. “Don’t the latest models have real emotions?”

“That’s just terrifying. Emotional machines. Isn’t that supposed to be a really bad idea?”

Erik shook his head. “Do not anger them and you would have nothing to worry about.”

“You think so?”

“Most living things do attack when angry, or threatened.”

“But are androids really alive?”

Erik did not reply to that, and remained quiet as the other two discussed whether androids really were living beings capable of human emotion, or simply advanced machines running on a program.

***** ***** *****

Charles logged out of the check-in computer two hours later, waiting as Emma signed in for her shift. “Is it really required for us to report all inaccurate information to the authorities?” he asked.

“Of course it is,” she told him. “That was one of the first things we were told when forced into this job.”

“Because only we would know.” Charles bit his lip, his eyes focused on his spotless shoes. Professionalism in every detail, just as ordered. “Have you ever -”

“Hush,” she stopped him. You know they have eyes and ears everywhere.

He nodded and sent back, Have you ever let someone through without reporting the inaccuracies?

Her expression softened as she looked at him. I have. It was a family.

He has no family. But that isn’t the problem.

What was?

There was a beep at the computers, signaling that another ship had docked.

Charles gave Emma a small smile. “I suppose that means I have to go now. Good luck tonight.”

“You too, Charles.” Don’t get yourself into trouble.

I know.

He left the check-in counter, and walked into the heart of the city.

The lights installed into the ceiling of the colony to produce artificial sunlight were dimmed to mimic moonlight. The city itself was illuminated by electric sweetlights along the perfectly paved roads. There was artificial turf in the one foot gap between road and sidewalk, and behind the flawless sidewalk corners stood real trees that aided in oxygen production.

Sometimes Charles wondered how much like the real Earth his home colony was. As a child, he would stare at old color photographs of the planet, amazed at the natural landscapes, the animals, streams, lakes, and rivers. Even cities on Earth were so much more natural looking than the carefully constructed environment he grew up in.

But the original Earth never felt real to him. Nor did the man from earlier, Erik Lehnsherr.

He had felt what he thought was human skin with the usual warmth and softness that flesh had, but something so vital for human life had been missing.

Erik Lehnsherr had no brain, or at least, no human brain.

As Charles walked, he began to pick up the mental voices of the men Erik Lehnsherr had arrived with and he looked into the window of a small diner. There they were, along with the mysterious Erik Lehnsherr.

What these men were doing on this colony was no longer any of his business. Why Erik’s information declared him a human when he certainly was not had nothing to do with Charles.

In fact, he should report it. Why would an android pretend to be human anyway? Erik had to be up to no good.

And then Erik’s eyes found his.

Charles swallowed and turned away from the man’s stare. He started walking. What Erik did was none of his business. It had nothing to do with him.

His walk became a jog as he rushed to his apartment building. He stopped at the door to catch his breath.

What was he doing? What if there was a sinister reason behind Erik Lehnsherr pretending to be human? He should have reported it right away! What if someone got hurt, or worse?

“Excuse me.”

Charles gasped at the voice and turned. Erik Lehnsherr had followed him home, and now stood almost near enough for Charles to touch him. “What?” Charles demanded. “I didn’t tell anyone.”

Erik stepped closer. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” There was a tremor in his own voice that Charles chose to ignore. “I was only followed all the way home.”

“I am sorry for that,” Erik told him. “I didn’t know that’s where you were going.”

“Why did you follow me?”

Closing the distance between them, Erik said, “Because you know.”

“And I already told you I won’t tell anyone.”

“I know. But I want to find out how you know. What makes you so different that you can learn the truth in an instant?”

Charles’ hand went to the door handle. “If you kill me, everyone will know.”

“I will not kill you.”

Shaking his head, Charles muttered, “I can’t tell whether you’re lying or not.”

Erik showed his hands. “Unarmed. You can check if you need.”

“You don’t need a weapon. You are built with a stronger body.”

“You are right. But killing is against the rules for all, new and old.”

Charles could feel his body shaking. He never imagined he would find himself in a position such as this. “Come on,” he said then, opening the door.

“You will allow me into your home?”

“Discussing things further out here is a terrible idea. They are always recording.”

Erik went into the building after him, the door clicking shut behind them. They went down the long corridor together, passing numbered doors. Fragments of conversations from the other side of those doors seemed to echo in the usually barren corridor.

Charles typed a code onto the keypad by his door. After hitting Enter, the door opened and they walked inside.

The light in the first room automatically came on. On the far wall were three screens measuring oxygen level, temperature, and time. An ancient model personal computer booted up at the lonely desk covered in old plates and a couple of solid color mugs. A couch sat in the middle of the room, a single book resting on one of the cushions, its place marked by a receipt.

Erik stayed by the door. Charles removed his jacket, feeling the man watching his every move. “Sit there,” he said to his guest with a point at the couch. As Erik did as was requested, Charles added, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Do not move from that spot.”

“I do not plan to,” Erik promised, glancing at the personal computer.

Charles left for his room, quickly changing out of his uniform and into a pair of sweats and a comfortable t-shirt a size too big. He ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh. What was he doing?

He checked his uniform pocket and found what he needed. At first glance, it appeared to be a flashlight, but it had a built-in taser; just pop off the cap where the light shined from.

He held onto it as he went back out, finding Erik still on the couch, but reading the last few pages of his book. “Was I really gone that long?”

“I am a fast reader,” Erik answered. He placed the book back on the couch cushion and looked up at him. “You are armed.”

“I am.” Charles went and sat at his desk. He grabbed the mouse and clicked through a few windows, opening a recording program and clicking the button.

If anything happened to him tonight, Emma would know.

He swiveled his chair toward Erik. “Alright.”

Erik leaned into the couch. “Most are easily fooled, but you were not. Why is that?”

Charles took in the sight of the android seeming so comfortable on the furniture, wondering if it was even possible for an android to feel comfort. “I am different from others.”

“Yes you are. But how so?”

He stared into the cold gray eyes. “I am a human with telepathy.”

“Telepathy?”

“Yes. My DNA was altered while I was growing in an artificial womb. I know of two others with the same alteration, and the three of us take turns at the check-in counter.”

“To catch androids claiming to be human?”

“To catch liars, frauds, and criminals,” Charles corrected as he checked the taser. “We are supposed to report inaccuracies in information.”

Erik’s gaze dropped to the weapon in Charles’ hands. “You are very informative.”

“I give you honesty -” he popped off the cap - “you give me honesty.” Their eyes met again. “Seems fair to me.”

“I suppose it does.”

“Now.” Charles leaned closer. “Why does your paperwork say you are human?”

Erik frowned. “Again, how do you -”

“Telepathy.”

“Yes, you said that, but -”

“You don’t have a brain.”

“I do,” Erik told him.

“Not a human one.”

“No, that is true.” He actually sighed. Was that a normal thing androids did? He seemed so real but he wasn’t. “Shaw, he is the one that… well…”

“Created you?” Charles finished.

Erik nodded to him. “Yes. He filled out my paperwork. He believed I was perfection, that no one would ever guess.”

“If I did not have my power, I would probably ever know,” Charles admitted. “I would have thought…”

“Yes?”

“Don’t worry about that.” Charles pushed the thought of Erik being a beautiful man away, and then said, “But I touched your hand. I touched it and there was nothing I could feel inside of your head. It was shocking because your information stated human but that was impossible because humans have brains.”

“Once again,” Erik said, “I do have one.”

“I am not talking about a computer for a brain.”

“Human brains are simply organic computers.”

Charles groaned and leaned back in his chair. “Shut up… I should have reported you.”

Erik watched him. “Why didn’t you? You found what you call an inaccuracy in my information, but then you did nothing about it.”

“You didn’t seem to be doing anything wrong other than that, really,” Charles told him. “You are just trying to work and survive like the rest of us.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

“You followed me home. I was already doubting my decision, and then you were there and I got scared and… I don’t know.” He eyed the taser in his hands. “Is everything else the truth?”

“Yes. It is all the truth except for being human.”

“No other crimes committed?”

“None.”

“You mean that?” Charles asked, lifting his gaze to Erik’s face. “Not lying?”

“Would you be able to tell if I was?”

“I am trying to trust you, Erik.”

The ends of Erik’s mouth began to quirk upwards. “You want to trust me?”

“I need to know I did the right thing.”

“No other crimes committed.” Erik smiled, such a warm expression for a mechanical being. “Not lying.”

Charles let out a heavy breath. “I am taking your word on that. Please do not let me down.”

“I won’t.” He gestured to the computer. “Are you going to keep recording?”

Popping the cap back on the flashlight taser, Charles asked, “Are you planning on staying longer?”

“If you will allow it.” The cold gray eyes drifted over Charles. “I must say, despite the interrogation, I do enjoy being in your company, if only to admire your beauty.”

Charles stared at him, taken aback by the statement. Could androids really… Did he actually… “You don’t really mean that.”

“I am not lying. You said you want to trust me. I want that as well.”

“I am trying, but you have been lying about yourself for your entire existence. How do I know you are being honest now?”

“Because like you said, you were honest with me.” Erik moved to the cushion nearest Charles. “That does mean a lot to me.”

“Does it?”

“It does.”

Charles hesitated then said, “I don’t know you.”

“No you don’t.”

“Would you mind telling me about yourself?”

“As your evidence against me?” Erik asked.

Charles went to the computer, setting the flashlight on the desk. He stopped the recording and closed the program before turning back to Erik. “How about now?”

“Only if you would tell me more about yourself as well. Seems fair, right?”

Leaning closer, Charles said, “It does seem fair. Go ahead and start then.”

“Alright. I will start with my creator, Sebastian Shaw…”

[sevenfactorial]

How I Write Class Notes

First of all, I totally forgot that I said I’d do this and I’m really sorry about that.

So my note taking is specifically designed for upper-level math classes since that’s what I do the most but my notes for CS and many other classes still take a similar form, just with less things labeled theorems (also with more bulleted lists. I love bulleted lists but I use them way less in math notes than any other class). This also works for reading textbooks or papers independently. If you want info specifically for lower level math classes (high school up through calc 3), I can see what I can do too.

Here’s a very basic summary of what I think is most important for note taking

Feasible (ie simple and fast enough for you). You want to be able to keep up your system even at points where your class is going absurdly fast or when you’re exhausted/having trouble focusing/etc

Easy to skim. Just writing things down at all is good for retention but if you’re taking notes, you probably want to be able to read them later easily. So it needs to be easy to pick out key definitions/theorems/etc.

In that vein, include necessary assumptions even if it does feel repetitive.

Don’t cram things together. Allow for white space (again, so skimming is possible)

Label things. Major topics, definitions, theorems, key ideas especially. Also make it obvious that a proof or example is a proof/example.

All of it is together one way or another, whether that’s a digital file, paper in a folder/binder/etc, or a notebook. Keeping it together is extremely important to me.

A detailed description and more thoughts are under the cut.

I’m very basic about my notes and am not always fully consistent (I have an indentation problem which occasionally irritates me but I’ve decided it’s not worth it to obsess over), but I try to be and generally have a structure for my notes. If you were to flip through even my recent notebooks you’ll find deviations but that’s just how it goes.

I don’t actually have any of my old class notes with me right now so I wrote the following to give a sense of what my notes tend to actually look like. I wrote it on loose leaf but normally I take notes in a composite notebook. I find I consistently take 30-45 pages (1 page = front and back) per class per semester (I’ve also taken less) so I find the halfway point and do two classes per notebook to decrease number of notebooks I’m carrying around. If you have two semester long classes, account for that so that you don’t end up having alg I and II in different notebooks like I do.

(I typed more or less what I wrote afterwards but there’s really no way I’m recreating the formatting on a tumblr post)

First of all, this is a fair bit neater than my actual notes are. One of my best friends can barely read my normal handwriting at all and this is a bit neater than that. But if you can’t read it still, I don’t blame you at all so,

Date goes in the top right column at the beginning of every single class. It helps when you’re flipping through to find something later and also forces me to be somewhat aware of the date from day to day (further discussion on dates later)

I underline chapter/section titles/topics and include the the relevant textbook section numbers if given. This varies according to how my professors introduce topics generally.

Also I will generally just skip two or three lines between sections but will start at the top of a new page for chapters.

Some of my professors start off topics by giving an overview of what we’re looking at and motivations and the like so I just write “Idea:” and follow it up with whatever the professor is giving me.

Definitions: Typical in most subjects, I shorten it to “def” on the left of the margin line and start writing on the same line

I used to like starting out with the word itself but I often find it awkward in math notes so I just underline it in the statement (and highlight later)

Even though it’s a pain, I make a point of restating assumptions pretty constantly because it’s really useful if you’re studying from notes later.

Some typical things to follow up definitions include notation, warnings, and sometimes an intuitive way of thinking about it that may not completely capture all the details of the statement. I just do “thing:” for everything except the later, which I just write in quotes

Don’t forget, definitions are always if and only if statements. This is something you’re generally vaguely aware of from early on but perhaps don’t actually fully realize until some random point (I did that and heard of several others doing it too)

Theorems: The other mainstay of math. Honestly, I’m pretty sure everything’s ultimately a theorem, definition, axiom, or example

I give theorems a label of “THM” on the left. I can’t really explain why I write it in capital letters here but if I write theorem within a statement or example or something, I’ll use a lowercase “thm”

Like for definitions, make a point of rewriting assumptions.

Just overall, I try to keep my “paragraphs” short, one to three lines, before leaving the rest of the line blank and indenting the next one in order to increase whitespace

Lemmas/Corollaries/Other words which exist: I tend to put their label on the right side of the red margin line and indent their content more. I’m not super consistent with them, though make sure to indicate end of lemmas if your theorem goes “theorem - start proof - lemma - proof of lemma - finish proof of theorem”

If a diagram is useful, I tend to stick them to the right and write around it best I can. I’ll generally wait until after class to add color if it’s useful but occasionally, if class is going relatively slow or the colors REALLY matter then I’ll grab colored pens as quickly as possible

Also, my professors tend to not shy away from longer proofs and are not always the best of keeping track of time so that means we end class in the middle of proofs more often than ideal

I will just continue right along with the proof but shove the date at the right of the first line on the next day.

When we end at more reasonable places, I tend to skip a line, date on the right, resume on the next line

Unless I end within the last 8ish lines, then I’ll often start on the next page

Some things to consider that I didn’t write in the example:

I converted to writing in pen at the beginning of the summer (I’ve had a few lectures at the beginning of my REU but it’s not quite the same as class). Don’t be worried about scribbling out if you’re using pen. If you want prettier notes, rewrite them later. It’s a good way of studying anyways.

Also consider typing them up (tex for math) to have a searchable reference for later (studying/future classes).

I write up definitions and theorems before exams in colorful pen to study. Usually just on copy paper. The color is mostly just for fun since i’m probably stressed at the time.

I feel like a lot of math students do use pen exclusviely? idk. Use whatever you feel most comfortable with. When I used pencil, I did a combo of erasing and scribbling out, depending on the pace of the class.

If you are in the market for pens, G2 pens seem to have a bit of a following and honestly, I get it. They’re really good and within typical prices for disposable pens (you can order refills online and it makes them even cheaper). I also love papermate’s felt tips (they’re what I use for colored pens) but you can see them from the other side of the paper far more so I don’t find them appropriate for note taking.

Don’t be afraid to write notes in the margins (I usually use the left margin at an angle but like, wherever it fits works too). Often these are comments to myself.

Having a way to indicate things you want to look up later or exercises your professor suggested is good. I usually put a star on the red margin line at those points.

I try to keep a def/thm/proof on the same page but it’s really hard to always anticipate the length of things so I try but don’t worry about it too much.

Use shortenings when you can but make sure you remember them and that you’re not actually spending more time recalling the abbreviation than you would just writing it out

I find the most common abbreviations in math are first three letter of the word, first four letters, or first three and last letter

I don’t think flat out trying to use someone else’s note taking system is really the best. You’ll have to take more time than you probably have to remember the formatting. However, getting ideas from others is often useful. I don’t know why I started doing most things I do but I know that some of my habits came from seeing my friends or professors do it.

I think I mostly just use typical organization methods and nothing particularly interesting/novel but I hope it was still useful to some people.

[thelanguagecommunity]

I’ve developed this “language maintenance” challenge for languages I’ve neglected in my own studies but still wish to practice. It consists of a variety of activities, designed to not be intrusive in daily life but keep you thinking about your TL. It’s also designed to broad and fit a wide variety of situations including heritage languages, intermediate-level languages, languages that you’ve finished a course and don’t know what’s next, or languages that you’ve otherwise put on the back-burner. Hopefully, someone out there will find it useful! If you need help finding a resource to complete one of these activities, let me know! If you make any posts relating to this, please use #upkeepchallenge so I can see it :D 

Write down all of the reasons why you want to learn your target language, or why you want to make sure you maintain it. Think about them, then stick this list into your notebook.

Write out an introduction. If you met a native speaker right now, what would you say? Your name, your interests, where you’re from?

Listen to a video. Try to follow what’s going on, but mostly let it wash over you, listen to the sounds. You can go through my sample playlists for a starting point.

Go into wherever you keep your resources, whether a folder on your computer, a tag on Tumblr or a physical textbook. Open to a random page and try to translate the first sentence you see in your target language. Try to do it on your own without resources, before checking with a dictionary or grammar book. How did you do?

Pick a random verb and write out by hand all of the conjugations you know of for that verb. In other words, write the same sentence over and over again but with different conjugations. Ex: eu sou Americana, tu és Americano, ele é americano, nós somos Americanos… etc. I have some mini-printables for this!

Watch a show/youtube video meant for children in your target language.

Make a vocabulary list for your major/favorite subject/job.

Create a set of flashcards that you can carry around with you. This can be done either digitally (tinycards or quizlet apps on your phone) or physically (cut down index cards to size.) Include vocab from a variety of sources if you can.

Put together a playlist of ONLY 20 songs. Evaluate them and rank them. It might take several listens (that’s the point!)

Look for magazines in your target language. Read (or skim) at least one.

Learn some filler words or sounds and practice speaking with them in a natural cadence/rhythm.

Go back to your playlist (Day 9) and learn the entire lyrics to one of your favorite songs. Practice until you can sing it acapella. 

Whip out your set of flashcards (Day 8) and set a goal for the number of cards memorized by the end of the day. For example, “I’m going to have at least 3/4ths of my cards in the ‘know’ pile by 10pm tonight.”

Have a full conversation with yourself in the mirror today. Imagine you just met yourself in a cafe or a class and just make small talk. Use your introduction from earlier (Day 2)!  

Listen to radio in your target language as you do some chores.

Look for a discord group, forum, or other community of people who are learning/speaking your target language. Post at least one thing. Even if you’re shy, ask a question or just introduce yourself then bounce!

Watch a movie in your target language. 

Do a little research about into the folklore of the culture of your language. Pick one creature/location/story and try to see if you can find any info about it in your target language. An easy way to do this is to find the wikipedia page in your native language and then click on the equivalent article in your target language (it’s on the left side).

Find a passage in your target language that interests you, then record yourself saying it. Evaluate it yourself or post it on langblr or /r/JudgeMyAccent for feedback. What are the elements you got down? What can you improve on?

Use IPA to sharpen your pronunciation. If necessary, record yourself speaking first to pinpoint what sounds off. Focus on sounds that aren’t found in your native language. Practice in front of a mirror and exaggerate them. 

What is your favorite aspect of the culture of your target language (ex: food, dance, traditions, festivals)? Find a youtube video or mini-documentary about it. And try to find it in your target language!

Pick something in your room and talk about it. Be as specific as possible in describing it and how you feel about it. Use a dictionary without shame.

Find a poem you like and copy it into your notebook.

Write up a quiz complete with answer key. Think carefully about the things you think are important for you to know from your target language. Use your textbook or online resources as a guide, but try to make up your own questions too. These can range from conjugating verbs to translating sentences to matching vocab to short answer questions.

Translate the poem (Day 23) and try to keep as much of the poetic language as possible. 

What do you have strong opinions about? Politics? Media? Relationship drama? Outline an essay about this topic, complete with thesis and supporting points. Use a dictionary without shame. The goal here is to think deeply in your target language, not criticize your grammar!

Watch one Oscar-nominated or otherwise critically acclaimed movie in your target language. You can go through my letterboxd lists for a place to start.

Take the quiz that you wrote (Day 24). Grade yourself with brutal honesty to identify the areas you are weak in.

What did you find is your biggest difficulty so far? Today is the day to work on that! Pull up your textbook, look back on your notes, or ask some native speakers online. There’s no shame in asking questions! Act as if you are studying for a test and you just have to understand this one particular point. No more putting it off!

Make a post with everything you’ve learn this month (include all your new vocabulary and grammar points). Reflect on and celebrate your progress! What media did you consume? What resources did you use? What was the most helpful? What were your challenges?

Take a break!

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4254 Chapter: 6/? Summary: Not all wars are fought on the battlefield. Some are fought at the conference table, with whispers in the shadows, or even in the bedroom.

In a world where the Senju and Uchiha traditional lands were too far apart to have ever made them enemies, Butsuma and Tajima are the ones who come together and sign a treaty of peace. Madara isn’t happy to have his life signed away for him in a political marriage to strengthen the bond between their clans. He is even less happy to have Tobirama make assumptions of him from their very first night together. What follows from there is a journey of healing, of learning, and finding the places to belong in the places least expected.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 6

Some mornings Madara wondered why he even bothered getting out of bed, days when every little thing seemed to go wrong for him no matter what he tried to do until eventually he began to wonder if maybe some god had taken a disliking to him and decided this was to be his fate, eternal frustration over things that made him feel ridiculous for getting frustrated about it. Catching his foot in the blanket on his way out of bed wouldn’t have been anywhere near as big a deal if he hadn’t also tripped and cracked his nose on the bedroom floor. Dropping a bit of eggshell in to his omelet was already awful but of course he also had to knock over the salt shaker and spill half the contents over his would-be breakfast. Missing a throw to the waste bin wasn’t always terrible; it was when he was trying to toss out rotten food gone moldy.

Things continued like that all the way out of the house and across town to the administration tower, bad luck following him right in to the office he shared with Hashirama. Publicly the reason they shared an office was to show that even unmarried people between the two clans could get along and work together but privately they both knew it was because the building could only be so big before it got ridiculous and so many different bodies needed to work inside each day that it simply wasn’t practical to give every single person their own four walls.

Within five minutes of sitting down at his desk Madara had already knocked over his pencil cup, signed his name on the wrong paper without reading it, and dropped two different folders on the floor that scattered their contents absolutely everywhere. At that point it was only Hashirama’s presence that kept him from immolating the entire room.

“Rough start to the day?” his friend asked him. Madara snorted.

“A rough start to the day would mean I accidentally slept in or maybe burned the eggs a little. This was an absolute shit start to a day that promises to only get shittier.”

Kicking out halfheartedly at one leg of his desk, Madara was honestly and truly surprised it didn’t snap under the blow and send all of his possessions cascading sideways. With the way his morning had gone so far that sort of thing would just fit right in. He grumpily began to pick everything up and sort the mess of papers back in to the right folders until Hashirama came around to his side of the room with a small box held out between both hands.

“Would a cookie make you feel better?” he asked, giving Madara pause as he peered curiously in to the small tin like he’d been handed a ray of hope.

“If you ever offer me a cookie and I say no then take my temperature because I’m probably sick.” They looked like gingerbread, one of his absolute favorite cookies, so he made sure to select the biggest one he could see. The moment he bit in to it his eyes fluttered closed. “Oh sweet gods above us. When you get home tell Mito I will give her whatever she wants if she’ll make me a batch of these for my own.”

“Oh Mito didn’t make them. Tobi did!” Hashirama beamed and picked out another cookie, leaving it on the corner of the desk before trotting back to his own.

Madara stopped chewing to look at the snack between his fingers with light disgust. “Ah. I didn’t realize these were forged in the fires of hell. And since when does he bake? I’ve never even seen him cook so much as miso soup.”

“You’ll never see him do anything if the two of you don’t ever spend any time together,” Hashirama said. His eyebrows were in a judgmental expression that Madara really should have expected.

“Drop it,” he growled.

His friend did as he asked with a heavy sigh and an exaggerated shrug, enough to tell Madara that he might be dropping it for now but in no way was this the end of the conversation. Now scowling deeply at having his tiny ray of hope extinguished by the unnecessary mention of his unwanted husband, Madara scowled as he forced himself to concentrate on his work. The cookie in his hand felt tainted now that he knew where it had come from. He did still eat it though, as well as the other one Hashirama had left for him; they were good cookies and he wasn’t about to let that go to waste just because they were baked by a total jerk.

It did seem a pity though. If this talent for baking had been gifted to someone friendlier then maybe that person would have had more people to share their goodies with than just one brother.

Grumpy about being tricked in to enjoying the devil’s cookies, Madara refused to be the one to start up a conversation for the rest of the morning. Unfortunately this firm stance backfired on him when it became clear that today was one of the rare days Hashirama actually focused on his work instead of looking for any and all distractions to put it off. The two of them spent several hours in silence, papers rustling and drawers rattling as they both worked their way through the never ending piles of useless forms and proposals that no one was ever going to do more than skim through. It wasn’t very exciting but it was worlds above the constant tripping and knocking things over that had plagued his first hour or two.

Just before noon Madara gathered an armload of files and tapped them in to a neat pile as he stood from his chair. Hashirama looked up at him with an understanding expression.

“Daily delivery?” he asked. Madara sighed.

“I’d rather get this part of out the way before lunch; if he’s a dick about things then at least I’ll have time to calm down before I have to get back at this shit.”

Hashirama looked down at his own papers and shrugged. “I find it easier to just wait till the end of the day. Then I have Mito to go home to and she always makes me feel better!”

With a roll of his eyes Madara turned away with answering. If that was another attempt to get him talking about his own failure of a marriage then he was absolutely not biting. He would much rather hurry up to the top floor where his father and Senju Butsuma both had private offices on opposite sides of the main council room. Every day he made the trek up here to pass off the most important reports or whatever projects had been recently finished, usually ending their meeting with a lecture of some sort or a demand that Madara spend more time training for the duties he would someday take over as clan Head. As if he didn’t already drown himself in that stuff to keep busy in an empty home.

Tajima was sitting stiffly upright with his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose when Madara let himself in. Clearly the man was confident that his son was alone since he usually kept the reading glasses well out of sight for fear that someone else might see them and think him weakened in any way. Not many outside of the Uchiha clan were aware of just how badly use of the Sharingan affected them.

His father said nothing at first when he set the armful of parchment and scrolls down in the usual spot, leaving Madara with nothing to do but look around at the sparse décor of the office. One wall displayed only two ceremonial swords crossed and hung right behind the man’s head, probably an intimidation tactic for any visitors, but it was offset by the portrait of Tajima and his family that had been commissioned only a month before his first child fell in battle. Madara had studied the image so many times he could recreate it down to the last detail even without use of the perfect recall his dōjutsu granted him. Today his attention went to the woman holding a week old baby Izuna and standing as proudly as any happy matriarch ever had. It was only after her death that Tajima had begun to close himself off from the sons she left behind, living reminders, his grief a testament to the deep love they had shared.

“Why did you agree to this marriage?” The words slipped out before he even had a chance to consider them and Madara barely held in a cringe when he felt Tajima’s gaze lock on to him. Since the question was already out there he swallowed to give himself a moment before clarifying, “Mine, I mean. I was too angry to ask at the time and then it hardly seemed to matter since we had already signed the treaty but…why? I didn’t love him, father. I didn’t even know him.”

“Is it not obvious?” Tajima judged him with a single eyebrow raised in disappointment but Madara held firm in the face of a look he’d been under more and more over the past decade.

“Not to me. Could we not have found a way to bind the clans together without this farce? I mean – our traditions! You had to know that chaining me to that…him would deny me the chance to ever fall in love or find a person I truly wanted to be with.”

Tajima reached up slowly to pluck the slim frames off his nose without moving his expression. “It was necessary.”

“What? That’s it?” Madara stared at his father with lead heavy in his chest and felt like all the air in the room had been sucked away from him. “It was necessary?”

“Yes. I considered the needs of one less important than the needs of many. We all must make sacrifices in our lives and I made the decision that this one was worth the gain. Our people are safe and happy, our injury rates are at an all-time low, and what have you suffered for that? A husband who is worthy of your station and strength. You may not have chosen him but mark my words boy I expect you to see this through or I will concentrate on an heir with the intelligence to follow my orders properly.”

Never in his life had Madara fully understood the word betrayal until that moment. He had seen people betray their partners, seen comrades betray their friends, soldiers turning their backs on the clan that raised them, but it had never hurt him personally when until now he had never had a reason to feel the sting in his own heart, sharp and swift.

But this was his father. His very flesh and blood who had tossed him aside like so much trash as easily as saying ‘for the greater good’. It didn’t just sting, it burned deep down in a part of himself that he hadn’t even been aware of until it turned to ash inside his chest. Watching the absolute lack of empathy on his father’s face set his stomach to churning and he realized he felt physically ill to the point where he worried he might upset the contents of his meager breakfast all over the floor beneath him. Something hot and dangerous rose up inside of him until he clenched his fists and determinedly told himself that he would not show weakness here in front of a man who had finally proved once and for all he no longer cared about his sons in any way.

“Thank you for answering my question,” he ground out. “If you will excuse me, I have nothing to report that is not already covered in the files.”

No further prompting was needed for Tajima to return all his attention to whatever he’d been working on before being interrupted. Madara watched him for a split second, unsure why he was bothering to imprint that image in the back of his mind except maybe to torture himself just a little more with the reminder that he had lost his father as surely as he had lost his mother. Then he turned on his heel and left the office with as little fanfare as possible.

With this much rage and emotion filling him, more than even a good Uchiha should be expected to handle, Madara was terribly grateful to have his lunchbreak as an excuse to flee the office. There were very few people he knew might be able to withstand the force of his breakdown who he also trusted to help him stand back up again afterwards. Most of those people were right here in this same building he so desperately needed to escape but there was one to whom he knew he could always turn, someone who had been there for him since he was little more than a toddler learning to hold his very first kunai, and it had been much too long since he last visited her anyway.

Avoiding anyone else who looked even a little bit like they wanted him to stop for a moment, he exited the tower only a couple minutes later and set a quick pace for the Uchiha district. The thundering blood in his veins played double time with his steps until he finally gave in to impatience and took to the rooftops like an undignified boor in a hurry. Usually he had better manners than to clog up the pathways most tried to keep open for the security teams to get around quickly.

The small private market place within their clan grounds was quiet at the moment, just before the lunch hour rush hit the streets, and Madara was glad to see absolutely no one in the building when he stormed in to his favorite bakery, flipping the sign behind himself to declare that the shop was closed. From behind the counter there came the sound of a wooden spoon clattering against a pot but Madara only huffed as strongly as he thought wouldn’t make him vomit.

“I am not in the mood for a scolding, sensei.” His footsteps were loud on the creaky wooden floors as he stomped around the counter to confront the tiny old lady behind.

“What’s got crumbs in your butter, little one?”

He continued to scowl and yet with just a single question already the roiling in his stomach was beginning to settle. Not the hot ball of betrayal in his chest, that refused to shift so much as an inch, but at least he wasn’t in danger of contaminating anything in the bakery.

“Why did he stop loving us?” Madara demanded. Lowering her spoon, Susumu-sensei looked back at him with a bitter kind of understanding dawning on her face. “I am his son! His oldest child! Don’t I deserve to be loved just like everyone else? Don’t I deserve to be happy? How can he take that away from me and not care?”

“Ah. This is about–?”

“Of course it’s about my bloody marriage! What else does anyone ever want to talk about lately? Ow! You bitch!” Madara cradled the elbow she had just delivered a sharp crack to with her current weapon of choice.

Shaking it under his nose, Susumu-sensei delivered him a fierce glare. “Don’t you be yelling at me for something that stale piece of mold did to you. I won’t stand for the shit he pulls but you know damn well I won’t stand for any disrespect either!”

“Can I not be upset without getting smacked!?”

“I thought you wanted to be happy?” She raised her eyebrows and Madara paused.

At least she didn’t swat him again for rolling his eyes. “Why did I come here?”

“Because you know that I hate him as much as you used to love him. I always have. He loved your mother, there is no one who will deny that, but he was never as open-minded as he would have his children believe. You aren’t the first one he’s tried to sweep under the rug and forget about.”

Madara nodded, letting his eyes flick down the tiny body before him. He knew his teacher’s story well. She hadn’t hesitated to share it when he first asked, just a young lad but already standing taller than her. Barely more than three feet tall, Susumu was born with a type of dwarfism the medics called Hypochondroplasia. She called it ‘my head’s too big and my arms can’t reach’. One of Tajima’s first decrees when he took his place as clan head had been to try and remove her from the field, citing her need to enhance her movement with chakra just to function like any other shinobi as a fatal weakness. Susumu’s revenge had been to befriend the man’s wife and get herself appointed as sensei for his eldest son, going on to raise the strongest fighter their clan had ever seen.

It was a fairly good revenge, actually. Effective in all the right ways. Madara couldn’t remember when it happened but he knew that his affection for Susumu as a parental figure came long before the death of his own mother and the subsequent distance between himself and his father.

“Your marriage,” she murmured. “I can’t say I know what he was thinking when he made that decision. I agree with you that he should never have taken something so sacred from you but–”

“No, no buts!”

“But that is the way of things now. It isn’t ideal. You will still have to make the best of the things you have.”

“I just want the same chance to be happy that everyone else gets!” Madara looked around his feet for something to kick but everything close to him was breakable or needed to stay clean and he wasn’t looking to get smacked with that damn spoon again.

Susumu gave him a pointed look when he finally met her gaze again and gestured openly to her own body. “Do you think I have the same chance of finding love as everyone else? I’m not saying there aren’t a few open minded people out there I might be compatible with but there certainly aren’t as many as I’d like. We all have our difficulties in life, little one. You do indeed have the same chance as everyone to fall in love still, if you think about it. What sets you apart is that you will then be faced with a choice. Do you break your marriage vows, betray the peace between us and the only clan with the power to harm us? Or do you put your own needs and desires aside because duty is heavy but we have all agreed to carry our share of it.”

“Why is my share so much heavier than other peoples’?” He demanded. “Why is yours? It isn’t fair!”

“Tell me something, what do you know of the Senju clan’s marriage practices?”

Honestly he should have smelled the trap coming a mile away but Madara was upset and indignant and too caught up in himself to notice anything. He sneered as he recalled his conversation with Hashirama a couple of weeks ago. “I know that they expect to have their marriage arranged for them and that they’re allowed to sleep around with whoever they want until then but after they get married they’re expected to remain faithful. As if that erases their indiscretions beforehand!”

“Mm, I see. And tell me something else, what do you know of their divorce rates?”

“Divorce?” Madara stared at his old sensei in bewilderment. “I honestly didn’t know they could get divorced.” He scowled when she shook her head in disappointment.

“Then let me tell you something. When your father agreed to their unholy demands I was angry. Of course I was! My favorite little bumble pie being tossed aside so callously! So I looked in to the Senju and I asked about their traditions. Did you know that they are allowed to seek a divorce after five years if the couple are irreparably unhappy? Even more interesting, did you know that most of them don’t? The divorce rates among the Senju clan are so low I had to ask my source to repeat the number three times.”

Flustered, Madara blurted out, “So what?”

“So! That means that they are happy. Our traditions tell us that happiness is found and then kept. Their traditions tell them that happiness is built and maintained. It’s crazy and it’s different but it works for them. Don’t you think it’s possible that if you gave this a proper try there is even a miniscule chance it might work for you too?”

The hot ball in Madara’s chest expanded and his first primal instinct was to scream in her face that she had betrayed him too. Luckily for his continued survival he chose not to go with his first instinct. Susumu-sensei loved him deeply but she had never hesitated to beat some sense in to him with physical force when she thought it was necessary. So instead he settled for turning away and glaring deeply at the neat little row of tins lined up on top of the counter, samples of her ingredients for customers to check the quality.

Her question was ridiculous, of course. Never in his life had he heard anything as stupid as the idiocy she was spouting. Even worse, she agreed with something Hashirama had said! She made the point even better than him and the Senju were Hashirama’s own clan! Madara glared at a tin marked ‘vanilla bean’ and hated the fact that he could finally see the point both of them had been trying to make.

But his own point still stood too! Madara didn’t see why he had to be the only one putting in a little effort! And he wasn’t about to let anyone else get away with thinking so.

“If the Senju are all about working on their marriage then where the hell is Tobirama? We don’t even speak; it’s like I live alone!” Behind him he could hear Susumu-sensei releasing a light sigh.

“He’s even younger than you are and it seems to me you’ve made your opinions on him quite clear. Have you considered that he doesn’t see the point in trying to convince someone as hard-headed as you to change your mind about something? Perhaps he too is making the best of what he has.” She appeared at his side, patting his elbow in a rare show of gentleness. “I know it will be hard but it looks like you might need to be the one who makes the first move. Whether or not the two of you find love it will make your lives much easier if you at least get along. I don’t enjoy seeing you this miserable, little one.”

“You know, some day you’ll see the irony in calling me that,” Madara deflected rather than answer her. He looked down at her when she snorted brashly.

“Hah! You think I don’t? Boy, there is no better insult than me calling you little!” His sensei cackled and Madara rolled his eyes but one corner of his lips twitched with the first hint of a smile. As much as he despised her advice he was still glad he had chosen to come here. Susumu-sensei had a way of bringing the world in to focus again when he lost himself to emotions and she never failed to make him feel better – even when he didn’t want to feel anything but rage and righteous indignation.

She had certainly given him some things to think about now. Madara wasn’t ready to admit that she might be right and he definitely wasn’t promising he was going to follow her advice but he knew he would at least give proper consideration to what she’d said.

For now, however, he had a limited amount of time left on his lunch break and he wanted to be calm by the time he went back to work.

“What’s the freshest you’ve got today?” he asked, ducking down to look through the glass in the counter at all the cakes and tarts and muffins on display, each more delicious than the last. Susumu-sensei opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by the ding of an oven in the back.

“Rhubarb pie as of right now,” she announced. “You’ll take the whole thing of course. And you’ll eat it this time! Don’t think I didn’t hear about you giving away those lemon cookies I sent over last month!”

“I don’t even like lemon!”

“Pah, excuses! They’re no more sour than you are!”

Falling in to the pattern of bickering with his old sensei was the easiest thing in the world and just what he needed at the moment. Madara carefully shuffled his problems off to the side where they certainly weren’t going to be forgotten but he could at least function around them until he was ready to sit down and deal with it like a proper adult.

Which was clearly not now. Right now he wanted nothing more than to get lost in the calming ridiculousness Susumu always seemed to wear around her like a mysterious cape – if mysterious capes came smelling like delicious apple pies.

[wileds]

Do you have any advice for rping a fandom OC? I feel like no one pays attention to mine.

yes!! these are my personal recommendations, not a fix-all. i am not sure which fandom you are in although i assume rw.by? and opinions will differ on how to effectively promote your blog!

firstly, having a bio / about page / dossier / whatever you want to call it is crucial for an oc so your followers and people checking out your blog can learn who your oc is. if you have one already, make that sucker as detailed as you can. leaving it bare means less information to skim. you may know your own oc intimately & love them to death but your reader does not, and your rp partners are not responsible for developing your muse for you. stay within the limits of the information you feel comfortable sharing about your oc (you don’t need to spoil backstory, worldbuilding, etc if you don’t want to!), but be descriptive & thorough when you can. a lot of people only visit an about page once before deciding whether or not to follow! reel em in boy. but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to update your about page(s) as you develop your oc more over time!

that said, make a headcanon tag if you can. it’s good for personal organization and allows others to search your headcanons too!

straight up reminders or announcements that you’ve added something to your oc’s about page is a good way of engaging your dash too, especially if they only checked out your blog once before following. for example, i’ve said something like “hey pals i added stuff to love’s family page if you wanna check it out!” and linked it for easy access. people may not click it but y’know, you’re showing that you’re workin on your baby.

which i think is very important as a fandom oc. if you can’t rp or can’t find rp partners, do not just stop posting and try to avoid copious negative posts.  no!!  feel like shit? say how much you love your oc.  still feel like shit a week later? make a headcanon post about what your muse does when they feel like shit. crank out them headcanon posts from the simplest thing like what they eat for breakfast (if they eat breakfast!) or what their ootd is (love is from shade “no uniforms!” academy and his wardrobe is bomb ok). reblog musings and aesthetic posts, reblog your face claim if you have one, draw your oc if you draw, post random tidbits about your character, play dash games like doll makers or bu.zzfeed quizzes & shindan maker stuff, find a headcanon meme and just fill it out & post it yourself without waiting for someone to send an ask in. these can spend less creative energy & time than threading, but still provide relevant activity. good for when irl makes you busy or when you’re depressed af! there are memes specially geared towards ocs out there like this one & this one which can get you thinking and writing, even if it’s ooc. you need to post to make potential rp partners interested, period! it is easy to be discouraged but trust me when i say, even though i rp an oc, i have found it hard to engage with other ocs if i just don’t know anything about them & have no spoons to chat up the mun through ims or di.scord. i have felt like i’ve been expected to engage with a blog even though i knew shit about their character / didn’t see them rping and so couldn’t summon up much enthusiasm. share the legwork my dude, and communicate, communicate, communicate when needed.

all of this is up to your own comfort levels! don’t feel like you have to promo yourself though. mun likability & popularity has become Hot on tumblr rp but at the end of the day, if all of that stresses you out then you can totally step back and have your blog just be about your muse and writing!

and again, your rp partners are not responsible for developing your muse for you nor are they obliged to rp with you. i’m not saying this to make roleplaying seem super harsh or anything lol. but if you’re not particularly close to anyone in your rpc or are feeling left out this is even more of a thing, to be able to enjoy your own content. finding someone / a friend group to brainstorm with is always fun & helpful, but iunno, being able to stay self-motivated and independently interested in your own blog regardless of fluctuating activity in my experience has made for better longevity. assuming your rpc is not dead or super clique-y of course.

oh and make a promo if you haven’t? make a new one every now and then with all the necessary tags (main two in rw.by are just #.rw.by rp and #.rw.by rol.eplay, though you can also throw in oc rp, anime rp, manga rp for the hashtag Exposure). posting a new promo after you’ve been particularly active is a smart play. the promo doesn’t have to be graphics heavy. there are promo templates out there but i’ve never used one?a text post works just as well, you can quickly introduce your character. this is my main promo currently. that one is graphics heavy but it includes info like my oc’s name, my name, that i’m an indie and selective blog, and then a quote that i find fitting for love. i’ve had old promos with more typical zinger blurbs like:

HEYA FRIENDS ! can you like or reblog this if you’re up for roleplaying with a rwby oc based off a canon design ? pages are still a wip but here’s a quick bio : attends shade academy, from a notable merchant family in vacuo. his name is LOVE CLARKIA – no that’s not a joke, yes his parents really named him that. riveting story if you’re willing to lend an ear.

and

HEY FAM!!  my dash is a lil dead so i’m here to fling myself into the abyss.  give this post a LIKE or REBLOG  if you’re interested in a sweet oc named  LOVE CLARKIA  who believes he’s fated,  believes in the goodness of the world,  is full of charm & good-humor & an aspiration to live up to his namesake  ( even as he’s liable to succumb to his blood affinity’s bloodlust which we don’t really talk about, because having a problematic relationship with one’s own power really isn’t very fun ) … was that a mouthful of an introduction?  just wait until he starts talking.

that first quote was my first promo and as you can see my blog was still a literal gigantic wip, which is fine. the second quote is longer & i included more of love’s personality cuz i’d become comfortable rping him by then!

umm … that is all that i can think of at the moment. my followers can chime in if they want?? hope this helped and that you actually see it cuz this was sitting in my inbox for a bit!!

[landofshame]

So I completely finished reading Ghouls: Fatal Addiction, front to back.

(cw: drugs, rape, abuse, infanticide, pregnancy horror, torture, cannibalism, bestiality)

Ghouls: Fatal Addiction is a supplementary source/rule book for Vampire: The Masquerade, the book’s purpose is to make it more viable for people to play Ghoul characters, and give more insight in the systems and lore of Ghouls in general, and seeing how big of a role Ghouls play in Kindred society, this book is also a near mandatory read for any Storyteller worth their salt.

For the uninitiated, a Ghoul fills the role of the traditional “vampire thrall”. Through being fed some of their blood, a Ghoul is a willing servant of the vampire in question. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

How does a Ghoul feel? How is a Ghoul treated? Do they see their new vampire master as a blessing, or are they in love, or do they hate them? How does this affect their mortal lives? Are they married, do they have children? Careers? How does that fair against the ultimate drug that is vampire blood? 

The book philosophizes on these questions a lot, and it holds a lot of emotional weight. As the base V20 rule book already explains Ghouls, and their plight, you might think you know what they are generally about, but you don’t, trust me, not until you’ve read this book. A Ghoul is not just an unfortunate human who has fallen deeply in love, they are intensely tragic, horrible, tormented creatures. They have their emotions and feelings and thoughts played like a fiddle and then tossed away, and those are the NICE ones. Being a Ghoul can be worse. Much, much worse. The book does a great job of explaining the role of Ghouls in the Camarilla, the Anarchs, and The Sabbat, and generally also fleshes out the strife of Ghoul day-to-day life, which is horrible by the way, no matter what faction they belong to.

The cover of this book has always been a little joke between me and my VtM friends. We laughed why they’d put THAT specific illustration on the cover, I mean it’s a very nice illustration, but why THAT one. Well, as it turns out, Ghouls: Fatal Addiction is a highly, HIGHLY sexual book, and out of all the guides I’ve so far read and skimmed through, it’s also the most violent and horrific. Vampire: The Masquerade is a horror game, to its very core, and this book makes that crystal clear. Being a Ghoul is not some romantic thing, a human falling in love with a vampire and the two of them fleeing in the night. Ghouls are at best subjected to physical and emotional abuse regularly, and at worst they are experimented on, tortured, assaulted, murdered, and abandoned. And that’s just what they go through when IN the service of Kindred, the effects of the “blood bond” are perhaps even more horrible than even that. Warping the Ghoul’s psyche and emotions into a mangled mess, all for the Kindred’s amusement. And when Ghouls somehow manage to escape, they most often fall victim to drug overdoses, or suicide, and it sometimes even turns them into violent rapists or cannibals as the vampire blood in their veins runs out and they go mad with need.

So yeah, not happy stuff. But besides all this lore info, the book also brings a lot of practical stuff to the table, from Ghoul specific Merits and Flaws, to character templates and lots of options.

The book gives you the option to play as three different kinds of Ghouls: Vassals, Revenants, and Independents.  With Vassals being the classic, blood bound, Ghoul in the service of a Kindred, no matter what that service may be. Chosen for war, diplomacy, or company, it’s all up to the Kindred and the Vassal has to deal with it. The Revenants are the Sabbat Ghouls. Bred by the Tzimisce, these inbred, incredibly dangerous, Ghouls make for interesting characters because even though they have horrific origins, they are also the most “free” of all the types of Ghouls. And lastly, the Independents. Ghouls who have joined groups like “The Unmastered”, who have managed to flee their undead masters and now have ganged together to lend out their temporary service to random vampires, just so they can get their monthly blood fix.

To conclude, Ghouls: Fatal Addiction is a very good, near necessary, source book for VtM fans and players, as both lore hounds and players of the tabletop game will find useful information here. It’s a book that never flinches, or looks away, from the horror, instead reveling in its gore and taboo, making for GREAT horror fiction, and especially vampire fiction.

So I highly recommend it.

if you can handle it, lick.

[qqueenofhades]

ACK. Hilary I need your thoughts on all this "Lucy is the Heir of Rittenhouse" reveal. Why did they cut it? Do you think it will come up again? How would Flynn react? Etc.

Welp.

I’ve only had a brief skim over reactions, etc, so if I say anything that anyone else already has, well, that’s just how that goes. But also I’m shook because… that is a fairly major info tidbit to drop as a deleted scene, and because it didn’t actually appear in an aired episode, it has a negotiable status as canon. Either we can take it as something Lucy knows and has (for obvious reasons) decided not to talk about, or something that has not yet happened. I’ll personally take it as the former, and that we’ll have it dealt with when she tells someone about it in season 3. Carol is dead, so there’s not really any way for her to learn it again or in another context. Supposedly they cut it for time, which is a little iffy to me, because it’s not a long scene, it’s a major reveal, and it would have added a whole new complexity to Lucy’s actions throughout the season and what she’s keeping back from the rest of the team. So yes.

I wrote several metas early in the year and then after 2x10 about how Lucy was leaning into her Rittenhouse heritage/being willing to use some of their same tactics, but in the exact opposite purpose. This, as we’ve pointed out, adds a whole new context to 1x10, 2x01, and 2x10 at least, as well as arguably 2x02 and 2x04 and other moments where we see Lucy really dead set on “we need to do this and I don’t necessarily have time to play nice and I’m entirely cool with possibly dying if so.” Especially in the jail scene with Flynn in 2x02 and then the jail scene with Carol (where Lucy is imprisoned in Salem) in 2x04 and so on. This also answers the fairly major plot hole of why future!lLucy wouldn’t just tell Flynn that David Rittenhouse was one man in the 18th century and have it end right there. (It doesn’t answer why our Lucy doesn’t know about David Rittenhouse anyway, since he was a fairly well-known intellectual figure and she would definitely have heard of him, since she knows even obscure people/events, but anyway.) She can’t tell Flynn that, because her entire existence depends on it, and they need to find a way to beat Rittenhouse without erasing her – which is hella difficult since she’s descended directly from the dude. After all, if you kill David and John, maybe Rittenhouse doesn’t exist, but neither does Lucy, as well as God knows what else. That also doesn’t stop David’s followers, and anyway, yes. So that is a clever way to answer the obvious question of why they couldn’t just go there and kill David right away.

Also, I’d just like to point out that in terms of Lucy’s relationship(s) with Flynn and Wyatt, this is a revelation that is directly important for… well, only one of them. It doesn’t really make a difference for Lucy’s relationship with Wyatt if this is the case or not. Indeed, we have seen Wyatt explicitly know that Jessica was Rittenhouse, and still choose her/beg her to come back with him. Stopping Rittenhouse is not personal to Wyatt. It is the job he’s been recruited to do and has maybe become a little more personal after what happened with Jess, but that still didn’t stop him from wanting Jessica as long as she was an option, Rittenhouse ties or otherwise. He only attempted to go back to Lucy with the ill-advised ILY after that had been ruled out, and after making further efforts (telling Flynn not to shoot Jessica) to preserve the possibility of a reconciliation. So honestly, as it stands in canon text, if presented with Rittenhouse or Lucy, Wyatt chooses Rittenhouse. It’s even the case with him not shooting Emma or Carol when he had the chance – yes, it had to do with his feelings for Lucy, but both times, it’s clear that Lucy’s opinion was that she wanted him to go for it (she wanted him to shoot Emma in 2x05, she tries to do it in 2x10, she’s clearly dismayed when Wyatt tells her that her mother got away in 2x06 – she doesn’t want Carol dead, but she wants her stopped). Wyatt and Lucy care for each other, but they have a fundamental disconnect on what they are willing to do to stop RH, and Wyatt has explictly or implicitly chosen Rittenhouse over Lucy at repeated moments. (Oh hello, Shawn Ryan mentioning that Flynn understands Lucy on a deeper level than Wyatt does.)

In contrast, Flynn knows that Lucy is Rittenhouse on both sides of the family, but he doesn’t know that she’s descended from THE Rittenhouses. Stopping Rittenhouse has always been intensely personal for Flynn and at the core of his character motivation; indeed, in season 1, he went for the “stop Rittenhouse” option at the expense of repeatedly messing it up with trying to get Lucy to join him. That is what makes it more narratively significant that he has increasingly moved to choosing Lucy over that vengeance quest, and when given the explicit opportunity to do in 2x10 what he failed to do in 1x10 (and seriously, this makes the parallel between these episodes EVEN MORE than it was), he doesn’t. There is no question or ambiguity in the narrative: when presented with the chance to kill Emma or comfort Lucy, Flynn doesn’t hesitate an instant in choosing the latter. I mentioned in one of my earlier metas that Flynn and Wyatt physically and emotionally switch places in Lucy’s life in 2x03, when Flynn struts into the bunker and Wyatt runs out to Jess. This is also the case here. In season 1, Wyatt chooses Lucy over Rittenhouse, mostly implicitly because he doesn’t know what the major picture is until near the end of the season. In season 2, Wyatt chooses Rittenhouse over Lucy. In season 1, Flynn chooses stopping Rittenhouse over Lucy as a person; in season 2, he EXPLICITLY chooses Lucy as a person over stopping Rittenhouse. He doesn’t kill Emma in 2x07 and 2x10 directly because of Lucy. Lucy is never a second choice or a lesser focus for Flynn in s2 (as she is for Wyatt all-post 2x03).

Once again: in season 2, Wyatt chooses Jessica (who is/represents Rittenhouse) and honestly, has no real major character reason to do otherwise.  Flynn chooses Lucy, who is also Rittenhouse genetically, but represents a complete repudiation of them, and does so despite having a major character reason (the death of his wife and daughter; his entire vengeance quest) to do otherwise. Furthermore, Wyatt and Lucy don’t agree on what kind of danger Rittenhouse is and what they’re willing to do to end it/the personal price they’re willing to pay. Wyatt isn’t willing to really sacrifice anything at this point whatsoever, whereas Lucy was prepared to wipe her entire family and identity (and life!) from existence by blowing up the Mothership in 2x01. Flynn has known from the start the danger that Rittenhouse is, Lucy has come more and more around to his view, and they agree on the sacrifice that will be necessary. 

In short, textually, Lucy is moving closer and closer to alignment with one of these men, and away from the other (not hate, but just a simple reflection of how both dynamics developed in season 2). Wyatt has (mostly indirectly) refused to NOT choose Rittenhouse over Lucy, and has done so to support his interests. Flynn has directly refused to NOT choose Lucy over Rittenhouse, and at cost to his interests. That is a more important/weighty decision, character-wise. So as noted, this is a major piece of character/plot information (that Lucy is the Heir of Slytherin) and it deepens and twists and fleshes out her connection with Flynn, and the importance of him choosing her, despite her heritage and the pain that Rittenhouse has personally caused him. It doesn’t really do anything of comparable importance to her connection with Wyatt, and if anything, weakens it. This is Lucy’s entire family and existence at stake, but she’s still willing to give it all up, whereas Wyatt is not willing to give up anything, even this alt-version of his wife after he explicitly learns she’s Rittenhouse and always has been. (And again – this isn’t hate and I don’t think he should have just dropped his fight for Jessica, since that’s been his character motivation since the pilot, but it’s… right there in the text.) 

Now that Carol is dead, Lucy is in fact (as far as we know) the only living heir of the original Rittenhouse bloodline. That’s… a lot to deal with. She is in fact the princess, as Emma keeps calling her. At some point in season 3 (WHEN NBC? WHEN?) that will need to be dealt with. It doesn’t really change or develop her connection with Wyatt (as I said, if anything, it puts them on even more unequal footing in what they’re willing to do/commit) but with Flynn? …. Yeah. He loves her, but he’s gonna be startled by it, and it adds a whole new dimension to all their past interactions (especially 1x10 and 2x10) and their development and their partnership to take down Rittenhouse (the literal princess/last blood heir and their greatest nemesis), the symbolism of that, the decisions that they have made in that interest, and for their characters both together and apart, and honestly. That is the kind of romantic conflict/angst spanner I’d expect/that makes more sense for the couple that’s going forward, not back.

[askullinajar]

A Little Help From Your Friends (Part 9)

T/W: Suicide Mention. Suicidal thoughts. This one gets kinda dark so would not recommend reading if you’re in a bad place.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Fic Info: Takes place around 2 years before the events of A Merry Little Christmas. Rating: Mature. Pairings: Lucy/Lockwood, Holly/Rani, others if you squint. Ao3 link: here

Stuck in a jar, longing to get out, longing to live again, the skull never thought there’d be a future where he wished he had just stayed dead.

But maybe all he needed was a helping hand from the people who somehow, against their better judgement, cared. A helping hand from each of them. In turn.

Part 9: Flo

The knuckles of Skully’s hands were as white as the rim of the porcelain sink he was gripping. The darkness crushed down on him, oozed through his pores, into his blood, gushed around his body, weighing every muscle down. He could hear his ragged breathing, but it seemed like it belonged to someone else, like he wasn’t really there, wasn’t real.

Below, in the living room of Portland Row, he could hear his friends chatting happily. He should be down there, too. Having fun. And he had been, but then their voices started seeming so far away, and he had lost track of their conversations as gaps formed between the topics as his mind focused in and out. And without any rhyme or reason, the joy he had been feeling at being around all his friends had turned to apathy. Just like that. Like he’d stopped being a part of them, like he didn’t belong. And it was all he could do to escape to the bathroom upstairs before his crushing depression made him lose control of his powers, and he accidentally opened the gap between life and death a little wider, and all the cold, the miasma, the malaise, the fear, all leaked in from the Other Side.

His breath fogged in the air, forming condensation on the mirror above the sink.  The mirror of the medicine cabinet.

He stared at it for a moment, at his hollow, dead-pan expression reflected back at him.

He could end this.

His hand felt so heavy as he lifted it and undid the latch. The contents inside blurred into one, but as he scanned them, his eyes focused on one bottle. He reached inside and pulled it out, briefly skimming the prescription label; Lucy’s sleeping pills, for the days when her nightmares were too horrible to handle, still half full.

He held the bottle in his hand, staring at the pills through the tinted glass. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he sensed that the talking downstairs had ceased, and he heard someone call his name.

He glanced at the door, bolted shut, then back to the bottle in his hand. In the time it took them to break the door down, he could have swallowed every pill.

“Skull!”

Lucy’s voice. The handle on the door rattled. Someone swore.

“Skully!” That was A.J.’s voice, growing in pitch, frantic, scared. “Come on, speak to us! Please. Open the door.”

Skully squeezed the bottle, watched the knuckles on his hand turn white. In just a few seconds, he could unscrew the lid, swallow the contents.

And his friends would find him on the bathroom floor.

“I could kick down the door.” That was Flo. “But it’s pretty sturdy. Dunno how long it’d take.”

His heart was heavy. His breathing came out ragged. Blackness fogged his head. The logical part of his mind told him to remember the good things. But what good things were there, that could out-weigh everything wrong in the world? That could out-weigh this.

“Would unscrewing it be faster?” Quill asked, voice tight.

“Skully, you don’t have to do this!” Holly cried.

He didn’t want this anymore.

“Skull, please.” That was Lucy again, voice shaking, like she was close to tears. “Jimmy…”

But he couldn’t… He couldn’t do that to them. Not like this.

It seemed to take all of his energy to reach up and undo the bolt on the door.

The door burst open just as his knees buckled, but Lockwood caught him around the shoulders and knelt on the floor with him, holding him tightly to his chest.

Skully squeezed his eyes, not wanting to see the distraught faces of his friends. He held out the bottle blindly in a silent request for one of them to take it, hide it, and when both his hands were free, he clutched at Lockwood’s shirt, needing to hold onto something, to ground himself.

He stayed like that for a while, until the darkness ebbed away enough for him to stand, to let the other lead him to his old bedroom, where Lucy stayed with him while he slept away the rest of the afternoon.

Later, much later, Skully sat alone in the back garden, letting the breeze ruffle his hair, staring at the stars in the night sky. There was some strange comfort in looking up at them and knowing just how small the world was in comparison to it all. That everything that went wrong, every embarrassing moment, every stupid decision, didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

He heard the backdoor open and close, then someone sat beside him on the stone patio floor.

“Liquorice?”

Skully glanced at the paper bag in Flo’s outstretched hand. “I’m alright, thanks.”

“Good, coz they’re all mine,” said Flo, shoving a few into her mouth.

“Are you being my babysitter for the moment, then?” said Skully. “Making sure I don’t wander off again?”

“I have been told that if you do, I’m allowed to stop you by any means necessary,” Flo replied. “So, don’t try anything or I’ll break your ankles.”

Skully let out a short laugh; he and Flo had always had a similar sense of humour. “That’s fair.”

“So, how long are ya gonna keep moping?”

Skully glanced across at her. “Has anyone ever told you, you’re shit at comforting people?”

“Many times,” said Flo.

Skully looked back at the sky. He breathed in a lungful of the cool night air and blew it out through his nose. “I was supposed to be getting better.”

“Wow,” said Flo. “You’re a moron.”

“Thanks, Flo.”

“I mean it,” said Flo. “You are a massive idiot.”

“Care to explain why?” said Skully, beginning to get annoyed.

“Really think you’re not getting better?” Flo asked. “Think about it. Would you have unlocked the door last time?”

Skully frowned. He’d fallen so far last time. Would he have opened the door with his friends screaming for him outside, when his soul had felt that black?

“No,” he said, truthfully.

“That, my friend, is progress,” Flo said, flicking a piece of liquorice at Skully’s head. He caught it before it hit the floor, hesitated, then popped it into his mouth.

“Doesn’t seem like much progress,” he said.

“Nah, it won’t,” said Flo. “But if you’re sat there waiting for the day when you’re all happy and frolicking in rainbows, wondering why you were ever sad in the first place, you’re never gonna get better. Coz here’s the thing no one ever tells you: There will always be bad days.”

He looked over at her, where she sat, elbows propped on her knees, staring at a piece of liquorice as she rolled it absently between her thumb and forefinger.

“There will always be bad days,” Flo repeated, “but the gaps between them will get longer, and the good days will get better, and one day, the bad days won’t seem like such a big deal anymore.” She paused to flick the liquorice into her mouth. “You’ll never get better if you keep letting the bad days take over.” She stood, shoved the liquorice bag back into her pocket. “Now stop moping and come play GTA.”

Skully took one last look at the stars. In the vastness of everything, one slip up was so insignificant. No matter how long it took, no matter how many setbacks, he’d get better. He had to. And right now, killing a bunch of people in a video game sounded like a great way to cheer up.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, and followed Flo back inside.

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