#and martin's also got plenty of character development | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lycanlovingvampyre · 2 years ago

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MAG 117 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: Baking something with apples

An episode full of thoughts. That's gonna be a long one...

JON: "Daisy’s been pretty clear that she thinks the best chance of success would be for her to go in alone, and, honestly, I struggle to disagree. But Tim isn’t going to sit home and wait, and Elias seems pretty insistent I go along. Part of me thinks it’s just so he can see if whatever this “preparation” he’s been trying to do on me works." Aw man, sounds like he is really afraid of this. I mean, firstly, he'll be returning to the place where he was already hurt, when the Circus kidnapped him for their skin care before flaying seminar. In general the Stranger has done enough to scare him even before that, Not!Sasha, Nikola visiting him. And then of course, the operation itself is dangerous. Of course Elias is insistent for him to go along. But not for the reasons Jon thinks he is.

JON: "You know what? That same petty little part of me rather hopes it doesn’t. That all this time, all his cryptic nudges and “learn to fly by falling” attitude, ends up being a complete waste of time. Just to show him." I wonder if this ended up to be a conflict in his coma. He knows, that Elias is planning something for him, he doesn't know what exactly that is, but that it's probably not good. (But probably also not the scale of this not good.) But at the other hand he wants to protect the others? Also, the instinct to survive is usually a pretty strong one.

JON: "I think Basira is the same. She’s coming along to back up Daisy, or so she says. I don’t quite get those two. I suppose what they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… it’s a hell of a bond. The sort of thing I’ve mostly done alone." I wonder if seeing the dynamic those two have with each other got him to make the decision to trust the others and wanting to support them more. Shared trauma can forge these strong bonds. It's a survival mechanism. In the end, I think for Jon and Martin it was not just that though. I mean, surely it helped. But Jon made that character development a lot of the time alone. And through all his hardships, where the others abandoned him, even despised him, Martin always came back to him and stood with him. Even when Jon still "hated" Martin, he did care for him (see MAG 22, MAG 40) and already opened up to him (MAG 39). How could he not have seen this in Martin. Jon may not be the friendliest of persons, but he sure is a kind one.

JON: "If I am, uh, slipping then I need people I can trust. And I… I don’t think that can happen naturally for me an-anymore" I can so relate to that...

JON: "If I am, uh, slipping then I need people I can trust. And I… I don’t think that can happen naturally for me an-anymore. how much they’ve… suffered because of this place. Because of me. God. Poor Melanie. And… aside from some, uh, uh, office gossip which I, I’m not sure is necessary or, uh, conducive to a workplace that… hey, it, it, it’s natural it’s, it’s normal. There’s, there’s no there’s no sinister hidden motives or… it’s fine. It, it’s fine." Oh he listened to that tape with the Jan Kilbride statement! Elias torturing Melanie happened on the same day and he addresses that. I'd just like to know, when this happened. Somewhere between Gertrude's storage unit and now. Also, he has now successfully internalized the guilt that is not his to bare.

JON: "I do worry about Martin and Melanie." Even though Jon and Melanie had plenty of arguments he does worry for her! That's what I meant earlier.

BASIRA: "But I think sometimes you feel like you’re adapting, but it’s just denial." Very well said. And then it's just a matter of stamina, how long you can keep up this denial before breaking, or actual change.

BASIRA: "But, she’s solid. She’s a… a fixed point, and if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing, relative to her." This is important for their relationship post coffin. I've seen Blackbeard and Izzy's relationship (Our Flag Means Death) being compared to Daisy and Basira.

BASIRA: "The sort of bad you can only get through if you stay focused and keep a clear head. You choke down the fear – and not because it’s feeding some weird horrible god, like Jon thinks, but because that’s how you keep going." Except for the choking down the fear I agree!

MELANIE: "They think they’re giving me a chance to face my demons by helping to take down Elias. They don’t get that the only way to deal with something like him is to watch his eyes go dead with your hands around his throat. I’ll play it their way, for now, but when it comes down to it, I want to see him dead. I, I’m so angry just sometimes, when Jon’s going off on one about his latest insight, it’s all I can do not to punch him in the teeth." When I was first listening I absolutely did not understand where this lust for murder and violence was coming from. Especially not for Jon because she asked him for access to the library and he literally wasn't there when she took the job. Of course, it makes so much sense in S4!

The "arsehole" in the fan transcript is missing, keeping it pg? xD

MELANIE: "Said I’d been mugged, although the scans couldn’t find anything in there." But of course they wouldn’t see the bullet... because of all the artifacts! (diagnostic imaging pun, *badum tss*)

MARTIN: "I, I’m scared, I guess. – no, wait. No, no, I mean, aww, I don’t want that to be my last message, the thing that defines me. 'Martin Blackwood, he was always scared, then he died. The end.' I don’t want that." That hit me pretty hard, not gonna lie.

MARTIN: "I need them to be safe, I need him to be okay." One of the most famous Martin lines.

MARTIN: "This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good leaving my own little web. Oh, oh, Christ, I hope Jon doesn’t actually listen to these. 'Good lord, is Martin becoming some sort of spider person?' No, Jon, it’s an expression, chill out! Besides, spiders are fine. I mean, yes, people are scared of them, obviously, but actual spiders, they just want to help you out with flies." Web!Martin! Even if he denies it xD But also, actual spiders don't want to help you out with flies either. They just want prey to eat. And watching me sleep it seems! God that fucking spider sitting on my shoulder watching me sleep...

MARTIN: "Just… just don’t die, Jon… Or, or Tim, Basira, or… Daisy, I guess?" This is just fan service again here!

[SIGH, CLATTERING SOUNDS] DAISY: "Okay." Best! xD Seriously, this was really funny. Daisy just cocking her gun and being like "That's it. That's all I have to say".

TIM: "Just, if you’re there, I want you to know that I hate you. I hate you for, for witnessing what’s happened to us." Right in the face of the audience!

TIM: "Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it!" Oof, that door thing... But ultimately, it's the same in real life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Awful things happen to good people. Awful things happen to bad people.

TIM: "And if he needs to pull the trigger, to use me to stop it… well, he’d better have the guts to do it." Very short-lived foreshadowing.

JON: "Gerry. I-I know there’s more he could tell me – he he, wouldn’t of, of course, I, I know that but he, he… he would still be there, th-that, that knowledge, i-it would, it would still exist…" How very Beholding of him-

JON: "Come on. On tape, just, just, just do it! Do it!!" -but he's better than that.

Wonder, if it was meant to hurt anybody who tries to destroy a page of the Catalogue. Or if it's worse for Eye-aligned.

@a-mag-a-day

#a-mag-a-day #mag 117 #tma #tma spoilers

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alln64games · 7 months ago

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Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls

PAL release: 1st August 1998

NA release: 27th August 1998

JP release: 28th August 1998

Developer: Iguana

Publisher: Acclaim

N64 Magazine Score: 56%

Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls is a very hideous game. It’s not that it’s low quality, there’s just something ugly about the entire design from it, from the design of the ball characters, the platforms of the world, the dirty-looking water and the blurry background. It’s all very unappealing, especially for a kind of game that would excel from a more adorable design.

The game is a 2D platformer racing game taking place on circular platform. you use a grappling hook to bring yourself up platforms, or perform large swinging moves. Sadly, the controls feels far too stiff and imprecise for a game like this, and the CPU opponents often don’t have the same issues (although every now and than, they’re extremely incompetent), so quite often you need a perfect run to win.

This is particularly evident in world 3 – which is too dark to see important details, such as metal portions of platforms (which you can’t jump or grapple through) – the CPU has zero problem with visibility here. The grapple can also be used to attack enemies and there are items you can collect – which also means these can be used against you, adding to the frustration.

The concept of Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls is a sound one, even if the rest of it isn’t. N+ took a similar concept of multiplayer 2D platforming and made it incredibly fun, and this can sometimes be fun in multiplayer as everyone has similar control issues, but the whole game is just so unattractive from a design standpoint that it detracts even more.

Iggy’s isn’t a terrible game. It’s got plenty of nice ideas, and it borrows liberally from Mario Kart – which is no bad thing. It’s just totally lacking in personality and spark, two vital, ethereal components that can’t be copied from anywhere. You might like it, if you’re really desperate for something a little offbeat, but we think our copy will just be gathering dust from now on.

- Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #19

Remake or remaster?

A new game with a similar concept would be good, but it needs to be designed from the ground up.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to buy Iggys’ Reckin’ Balls, but it available to rent via Nintendo Switch Online.

#n64 #n64 games #nintendo 64 #racing games #platformer

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themovieblogonline · 6 months ago

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Green Lantern Glows Up for TV with A-List Talent!

In a move that's sure to light up the DC Universe, Damon Lindelof is back, and this time, he's bringing the Green Lanterns to the small screen. Yes, you heard that right! The mastermind behind Lost and the Emmy-winning Watchmen is taking on the Green Lantern TV series, and he's not doing it alone. Joining him are Chris Mundy, the brilliant showrunner of Ozark, and Tom King, the Eisner-winning DC Comics author. And of course, this exciting development was dropped by none other than James Gunn himself. Damon Lindelof is no stranger to television or superheroes. With a track record like Lost and Watchmen, expectations are sky-high for Lanterns. Lindelof has shown he knows how to blend intense storytelling with deep, thematic elements. Remember how Watchmen tackled heroism and race relations? Imagine that level of depth applied to the Green Lantern Corps. Excited yet? The Dream Team: Mundy and King Chris Mundy, who brought us the gritty, edge-of-your-seat crime drama Ozark, is set to add his own unique flavor to the series. If you've seen Ozark, you know Mundy excels at crafting complex narratives with dark undertones. Pair that with Lindelof’s knack for intricate plotting, and we've got a dynamic duo that promises to deliver something truly special. But wait, there's more! Tom King, a seasoned DC Comics author, is also on board. King’s work on the Green Lantern comics is remarkable. His involvement ensures the Green Lantern TV series assures the series maintains ties to its comic roots. With this powerhouse team, Lanterns is shaping up to be a tour de force in superhero storytelling. James Gunn, the co-head of DC Studios, is clearly excited about this project. In a social media post, he praised the trio for writing a “wonderful” pilot script and series bible. He also teased that Lanterns will play a pivotal role in the overarching DC narrative across film and TV. Gunn has described the series as having a True Detective-like tone, focusing on a terrestrial-based investigation story. With Hal Jordan and John Stewart leading the charge, we can expect a gritty, grounded take on the Green Lantern mythos. What to Expect Lanterns is not just another superhero show. With Lindelof, Mundy, and King at the helm, it's poised to bring prestige storytelling to the DC Universe. Expect a complex, character-driven narrative with plenty of twists and turns. The True Detective vibe suggests we'll see a more serious, investigative approach to the Green Lanterns' story, focusing on their roles as intergalactic peacekeepers. And let's not forget the visual spectacle. With DC's top-notch VFX teams and the creative vision of this talented trio, Lanterns will undoubtedly be a feast for the eyes. From the glowing rings to the vastness of space, every frame will be a work of art. History of the Green Lantern Franchise The Green Lantern franchise has a rich history dating back to its comic book debut in 1940. Created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell, the Green Lanterns are intergalactic peacekeepers wielding power rings that harness willpower. Over the decades, characters like Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner have become iconic heroes. The franchise has seen various adaptations, including the 2011 film starring Ryan Reynolds. Despite mixed reviews, the character’s enduring appeal has kept fans hopeful for a definitive screen adaptation. With Lanterns, it looks like that hope is finally becoming a reality. So, grab your power rings and get ready. Lanterns is coming, and it’s about to shine a bright light on the DC Universe. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter) https://youtu.be/Lwp3lFK8rsM Read the full article

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shenanogram · 3 months ago

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one guy said yay so here!!!! "the first thing that happens is that on the week the great twisting is happening, michael is in hospital because of appendicitis. instead gertrude takes sara carpenter and emma harvey to the great twisting instead. emma believes she can make it out and orchestrate saras suffering, but they are both caught and made into the distortion together, bound with the same webs emma used to cause fiona laws death. when gertrude returns, she tells michael they got "lost" gertrude than makes her focus on gerry and stopping the unknowing, leaving michael alone in the archives for months at a time. Later, gerry dies too, and gertrude shortly after. Keep in mind, he has no idea about any of the fears. he just thinks he has really shit luck

jonah decides michael would make a good enough archivist. His curiosity is not anything above average, but his trust was exceptional. He would believe, or perhaps be willfully ignorant of things to the contrary, you told him. Jonah decides that if he plays his cards right, if he places his assistants in enough danger and set them up just right, michael could be marked by every fear and become a vessel for the eye it didnt hurt that he was already plenty marked by the end, with his own near death experiences and all of his friends and coworkers dying within just a few years. so Jonah promoted him. He could, in theory, say no of course. But he couldnt quit. and why not get extra pay from his shitty job

Jonah picks his assistants, Jonathan sims, Martin Blackwood, Tim Stoker, and Sasha James. Almost all already working in research and marked by a fear of their own. he would usually leave the choice of assistants to the archivist, but he doesnt trust michael to pick the right ones

when the assistants first meet michael they do NOT have a good impression. Michael is now in his mid thirties and no less awkward than he was before, along with this, he has become quite jaded. He doesnt want to admit he cares about these employees for fear of them ending the same way the others did. He mostly stays in his office all day, reading statements and doing research, only popping out to give statements for the others to research, or even more rarely to go to the breakroom

i think his journey with the statements is actually pretty similar to jons. at first he questions them all fiercly, as surely his friends in the archive would have told him if something more sinister was going on. When Jane Prentiss locks martin in his flat for 2 weeks, he can no longer deny it this starts causing him to start rethinking his relationship with emma his old colleagues, but not gertrude, not yet. (side note: as an assistant jon is a little more open to the idea of the supernatural, he doesnt feel the same need to put on a brave face)

soooo jane prentis shit gos mainly unchanged? the big thing that is changed is that sasha lives. but its not very. wholesome. she still comes across the table, but instead of the not!them taking her, she recognizes the thing locked in the table as something like her. The not!them seems to recognize this too, and they have a moment of silent recognition before sasha runs in terror, she thinks the familiar fear of the worms is better than the unfamiliar pull of herself toward this other creature. she is the first in the archive to begin a journey as an avatar.

also! character developement! during the whole incident the assistants learn that while michael doesnt like to show it or even admit it to himself, he cares about them quite a bit! this doesnt last long tho because he gets the paranoia in s2 like jon does,,,,

i think he wouldnt stalk his coworkers,,, i think he would shut himself off more. of course the murder of gertrude robinson was not great for him, but his fear of death paled in comparison to the fear that his assistants could be lying to him. could lie like emma and sara did. maybe to him they deceived Gertrude too. after the vulnerability he showed durring the prentiss incident it was like whiplash. he starts not even coming in during the day at all, only communicating with his assistants through email. they dont know when he sleeps, as he sends them during the day too,,,, i think a lot of the season 2 plot would be the assistants trying to convince michael to maybe sleep sometimes and not work all throughout the night also polyarchives they r actively falling in love btw sorryyyyy

i think michaels behavior concerns the archival assistants but it also pisses thm off. like we all went through that why are you being so difficult about it? why wont you let us help? while all this stuff is happening a random researcher is not!them'ed. someone irrelevant idk also!!! he meats emma and sara distortion! it traumatizes him horribly! end goal is michael+polyarchives btw. they kill jonah magnus and stop the apocolypse and are gay together web martin, spiral jon, stranger sasha, and tim escapes"

do we wanna hear the archivist michael brain dump. yay or nae

#tumblr fucking hated this one #would not let me post #its from a brain dump to a friend so sorry if it doesnt make sense #tma #michael shelly #michael distortion #the magnus archives

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razzle-zazzle · 3 years ago

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2849 Words; Android in the Middle AU, Let the Rhinos Roll

“Try oxpeckers,” Chris laughed, Zach ducking frantically as the flying whatevers continued their assault. “And they can’t help being attracted to parasites!”

"Oh, just shut up!" Zach shrieked. "You're so annoying!" He was hitting his limit. The birds, the Kratt—it was more than Zach was willing to handle.

Chris grinned back, though it was more of a grimace. "You're the one who built me." He pointed out. "Maybe you should have thou—"

"Override Z-fifteen, code seven-one-nine-eight-five." Zach snapped, cutting Chris off. Chris stilled, arms going slack at his sides and face becoming neutral. He remained standing, staring blankly through the bars of his cell, but nothing more.

Zach huffed. God, why did Chris have to be so creepy like this? Blank-eyed and unmoving like some weird doll. He wasn’t even blinking.

The override wasn’t even really that bad. Just one that Zach and Martin would use to disable movement when it was needed—or worse, if Chris went all robot rebellion on them. Which had never actually happened, and wasn’t likely. But still. It never hurt to be prepared.

There were far worse override codes that Zach could have used. Codes that Martin could still use, too.

Not that Martin would use them now. Zach scowled. Not when he’s too busy playing house with all of his friends.

Zach poked Chris’ face though the bars.

There was no outward response. Just an unblinking, lifeless stare.

It looked a lot like when Donita used her pose beam, Zach realized. Except even then the varmints—and, quite often, the brothers—could still look around.

There was another realization lurking in the corners of his mind at that, but Zach brushed it away. Whatever it was couldn’t be important. Besides, Chris wasn’t a varmint. He was certainly much better than any animal—better than most people, even.

Well. To an extent. He was still a Wild Rat.

“I should just get on with the rhino-dozing,” Zach muttered, shaking his head. Enough of this introspection bullshit. He glanced at his row of rhino-dozers; they were all ready to be deployed.

Zach glanced back at Chris. “But I could also do a systems diagnostic…”

Where had that thought even come from? Zach hadn’t done maintenance on Chris in months.

He should really just stick to his plan.

It was probably just the lack of motion reminding him of Chris’ true nature. Yeah. That was it—there was no way Zach was actually feeling sentimental. Zach Varmitech did not do sentimentality. That was for other people.

But it would still be nice to check.

And when else would he be able to? When else would he be able to look over the systems he himself had designed? He still had the blueprints and plans, sure, but working with the actual invention itself was always much more fun.

It probably wasn’t even necessary. Chris was traveling the world with Aviva and… the Other One, who Zach was pretty sure was just as mechanically inclined as Aviva. They probably did maintenance weekly like the goody two shoes they were.

Zach’s lip curled, a growl in his throat. His shoulders hunched slightly, drawn in by his ire.

Chris remained still and silent.

Well, at least he wouldn’t cause issues in Zach’s plan, if he was stuck in place.

But the lack of motion was unnerving.

Zach cringed. “Okay, yeah, that’s creepy.” It didn’t help that the override only disabled motion—Chris could still see and hear, which just made the complete lack of motion even creepier—there were no movements or expressions to betray his thoughts.

Fine, then. “Cancel override.” Zach repeated the code, Chris’ system beeping in response to the recognized command.

Chris blinked, hands flexing as mobility returned. He paced in a circle for a few moments, then turned to glare at Zach. “Really? Did you have to pull that card?”

There was more disappointment in his voice than anger.

Zach raised an eyebrow, then gestured for a Zachbot to come over. “Ready the rhino-dozers.” He wasn’t going to dignify Chris’ petty antics with a response. He moved to get on the lead dozer.

Zach smirked. Time to enact his plan.

The hangar door creaked open with a groan. Zach frowned. He’d have to look into that. His hanger should not be creaking like that.

“Uh—wait!” Chris flailed a bit, banging his hand against the bars with a clang. “…you have my permission.” He said softly, shaking out his hand.

Zach paused, his rhino-dozer stopping before it even started charging. “What?”

“Maintenance.” Chris clarified, with the air of someone who wasn’t thinking ahead so much as jumping directly into the dark. “You can go ahead and… do that.”

Zach’s eyes narrowed. An attempt to buy time? The longer he dallied, the more likely it was that Martin and Aviva would figure out his ruse. But Chris was, as always, nauseatingly sincere, fixing Zach with an expression that he couldn’t decipher.

And even though it wasn’t necessary, Zach still wanted to look. Not because of any sentimentality of course—it was just to make sure everything was in order. He could even see if Aviva had made any modifications!

And wouldn’t that be just like her, Zach sneered, to see something and try to “improve” it. Like Chris’ design needs any improvements.

Zach held up his hand, signaling for his Zachbots to pause, not that there was really any more for them to do now that the rhino-dozers were all ready to go. “Why?”

Chris shrugged. “Haven’t had it done in a while.” He said, like that explained anything. “Should probably check things even if nothing comes up in self-checks.”

“No,” Zach muttered, lowering his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, “I mean why are you trusting me with this?” It’d been months since the last time they’d really talked on anything even approaching friendly terms. Chris was his own person—and more than that, he was Martin’s brother.

Chris picked a tick off of the nearest rhino. “Well, it’s not like I have a problem with you, personally.” He mused, drawing an oxpecker near with the tick, “The animal cruelty, the massive ego, the theft, yes—but you as a person?” He stared Zach down with another one of those looks Zach couldn’t decipher. “You’re not as bad as you try to present yourself.” Chris set the tick in the lock of his cell while Zach sputtered in protest. “Besides,” he added, as the oxpecker came down to pry the tick out of the lock, unlocking the door with a click, “I know this is something I can trust you with.” Sliding the door open, Chris stepped out of the cell.

��Please,” Zach scoffed, trying to regain some sense of dignity, “I could tamper with your systems! Put in a bug that Aviva could never find! Take out your memory drive!” He flailed about as he spoke, as if that would somehow convey a sense of danger to Chris.

“So you could.” Chris was standing directly in front of Zach, a pointed look to his face. “But would you?”

Zach opened his mouth to speak—closed it.

Tried again—no words came out.

“Of course not.” He muttered, finally, when no rebuttal came to hand. “Your design is flawless as is.” He added.

“Eh.” Chris opined, waving a hand dismissively. He did not elaborate.

Zach wasn’t sure he wanted him to.

“…Fine.” Zach flagged down one of his many Zachbots. “Go get my secondary tools, set C-five.” He commanded, sending the bot zipping off to complete its task. He turned back to Chris, who was already removing his pullover and shirt to give Zach access to his chest hatch, “Any modifications I should be made aware of?” Zach asked drily. He couldn’t wait to hear the list of “improvements” Aviva had made.

Just the thought made Zach want to gag.

“Nope!” Chris’ voice was irritatingly chipper. His chest split open, panels sliding back to reveal the wiring and machinery inside. That his chest had looked completely human and seamless moments ago was hardly worth mentioning.

Zach grabbed a cord from one of his computers, already moving to attach it to the port in Chris’ chest for a software check. “Funny.” He commented, not even trying to keep the acid from his voice, “I’d have thought Aviva would have made multiple ‘improvements’ by now.” His eyes poured over the data scrolling along his computer screen, not even sparing Chris a glance as he read through the maintenance logs.

Wait.

Zach scowled at his screen. That couldn’t be right.

Why was the last recorded session of any sort several months ago?

Chris fidgeted. “Um.” He began. “Aviva wouldn’t make improvements without asking me?”

The Zachbot he’d sent off earlier came back with the requested set of tools, setting them down before moving to hover behind Zach.

Zach blinked, still not looking at Chris. “Please tell me that the one person who can actually do maintenance, who you are in regular contact with, is aware that you are, in fact, mechanical.”

Chris’ silence was all the answer Zach needed.

“Right.” Zach massaged his temples to stave off the approaching headache. He’d thought he’d programmed Chris to have at least some small degree of sense, but apparently not.

That or Martin was rubbing off on Chris, which was a depressingly more realistic explanation.

“I’ve been holding up well though!” Chris chirped, not that it helped in any way, “No major issues, even with how dangerous creature adventuring can be!”

Zach did not find that particularly convincing. Rather than express such a sentiment to someone who would obstinately refuse to understand it—

(“If everything’s working as it should, then it’s fine!” No, it wasn’t, because functional wasn’t good enough. It had to be efficient, and durable, and if nothing was done to maintain that then eventually it wouldn’t even be functional anymore!

But Chris would just be his same stupid self-sacrificing self and spit the same line again, like everything was fine when it wasn’t, so Zach wasn’t even going to bother.

There were more important fights to pick, anyway.)

—Zach picked up his tools and got to work.

Chris hummed as Zach removed panels, checking the components within. Held still as Zach ran both internal and physical diagnostics. Watched as Zach moved in silence, content to just stand back and observe.

It was achingly familiar, though Zach was loath to admit it. How many times before had they done this, Chris patiently waiting while Zach went through his insides? How long had it been since the last time they’d done this, before the contact between them dwindled into radio silence?

Not that Zach was exactly eager to reestablish any sort of connections. They’d both made their choices—Chris had chosen to follow his brother. Those idiots would be loyal to each other until the very end.

Chris was staring at the screen, something pensive in his eyes as Zach examined a circuit board in his arm.

“I’ve missed this.” He admitted quietly, likely not even intending for Zach to hear.

Zach paused.

Chris panicked. “Er, I mean—” He flailed his free hand about as he backtracked, “It’s not like I miss the animal cruelty, but—well—you know—I—the maintenance is certainly nice, but—well—you see—” He lowered his hand in defeat. “…I miss talking to you.”

Zach hated that the statement made him preen. “Do you now?” He asked, before his brain could catch up with his body and beat the smugness out of it with a heavy stick.

“I’ve missed a lot of things about talking to you.” Chris retorted, to which Zach scoffed. “Your ego is not one of those things.”

Zach grinned. “I like to think it’s my best quality.” He insisted, unwillingly relishing in the way Chris groaned in annoyance.

Fuck, he had missed this.

Not that he could ever admit that.

Zach clamped down on any enjoyment he had. Right. No more of this faffing about. He should just throw Chris back in the cell and get on with rhino-dozing. He shouldn’t have even agreed to do maintenance in the first place—this mistake had cut open vulnerabilities that he wasn’t supposed to have, dammit.

But he loathed to do a job halfway. He couldn’t just stop in the middle of maintenance.

With a grimace, Zach resumed his work. He’d just have to ignore any more attempts to crack him open like a poached egg, then. Yeah, he could do that. No more spilling out warm gooey bullshit. He was a rock from now on. A hard, unbreakable rock. Nothing gooey or warm inside him.

Chris watched Zach work with an indecipherable gaze. Maybe there was something calculating in there, or maybe it was a spark of realization. Zach wouldn’t know—he was very pointedly not looking anywhere near Chris’ face.

“You missed this too, didn’t you?” Chris asked, a slight edge to his voice.

Zach hated that Chris was right. “No.” He denied. He hadn’t missed a bit of this. Chris was just as annoying as ever.

Chris lit up. “You do!” He insisted, voice alight with warmth that Zach refused to acknowledge. “C’mon, Zach, just admit it. You missed this stuff.” He grinned teasingly. “You missed me.”

Zach gagged. “Please. You and your brother love those varmints way too much to ever be on friendly terms with me.” He spat, channeling all of his carefully cultivated vitriol into his words.

“I know you’re not stupid, Zach,” Chris hissed, “You’re fully capable of making up for past mistakes. Why you continue to ignore the evidence right before your eyes is beyond me.”

Zach bristled. Chris was trying to make him admit something—what, Zach couldn’t say—and Zach Varmitech was not someone who got led around. Zach Varmitech did not take orders from his own creations, as carefully disguised as those demands were.

Zach snarled, mouth opening to retort—

“Forget it.” Chris muttered. “Just… do your little robotics thing.”

That felt an awful lot like a dismissal.

Zach scowled. “We’re not talking about this later,” He decided, “Because once I’m done you’ll leave my jet and we’ll be back on unfriendly terms.” He glared up at Chris. “Is that clear?”

Chris looked as though he’d swallowed something foul. He looked towards the rhino-dozers. “You don’t actually believe that.” He muttered.

Zach didn’t deign Chris’ remark with a response.

He didn’t stop doing maintenance, either.

+=+=+=+=+

“Ugh, that was so stupid.” Chris muttered. He kicked his legs slightly, but that didn’t really do anything when he was lying face-up in his bunk.

Hours had passed since Zach’s ill-fated attempt at mobilizing his rhino-dozers and taking down the Tortuga. Now that the rhinos were freed and the remains of Zach’s robots cleaned up, the crew had retired back to the Tortuga for some needed downtime.

Though in Martin’s case, that meant donning rhino powers to play in the mud with Nubs (and make sure nothing else happened to the herd). But Jimmy was playing video games at his station, and last Chris had seen Koki and Aviva were playing a card game on the table.

Martin had asked Chris to come join him, but Chris had declined, citing exhaustion from “keeping Zach busy gloating for so long.”

Which wasn’t exactly wrong, per se—Chris had mostly been looking to keep Zach busy when he’d asked to have maintenance done. He’d had no intentions of dredging up old memories.

Chris sighed. That maintenance session had given him a lot to think about. His joints hadn’t felt this smooth since—since last year, actually. Every system was at or near peak efficiency.

“Which is great, don’t get me wrong!” Chris muttered, flexing his hand. From a practical standpoint, it meant he’d perform better on creature missions. From a physical standpoint, it felt really good, like having a broken part replaced with a new one.

From a sentimental standpoint, though?

He hadn’t been lying when he’d admitted to missing the maintenance sessions. There was something really nice about the familiarity of it, something soft about so easily slipping back into an old routine, banter included.

“But it’s still different.” Chris mused, sitting up. “The three of us are different than we were two years ago.”

And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? The meticulosity of Zach’s ministrations were the same, but the tone of the banter was different, subdued.

And that wasn’t something that would be changing anytime soon, if the way Chris and Zach had parted today was any indication. Zach still treated animals like robots. Chris couldn’t overlook that.

Chris blinked. “But what if…” He leaned back against the wall, “What if that changed?”

Chris could regain that easy camaraderie they’d had, if only Zach stopped being a dick.

“And if Zach stops seeing animals as objects,” Chris realized, “Then he and Martin could try to get along again, too.”

But how? How would such a reconciliation be facilitated? Zach and Martin were very decidedly not going to come to a resolution on their own—not now, and not ever.

Unless…

Chris stood up from his bunk, sudden motivation filling him with energy.

He needed a new notebook.

#wild kratts #android in the middle au #zaz writes #chris kratt #zach varmitech #chris and zach do maintenance and dredge up old memories #and chris gets inspired and starts scheming as a result #THIS TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE LMAO #the amount of times i went through and did small edits and touch-ups #BUT IT'S HERE NOW #zach staunchly refusing to leave that famous egyptian river #he's still got a lot of character development to go through though #and martin's also got plenty of character development #but now chris has an Idea™#also no the crew does not know that chris is mechanical yet #hence why this is the first maintenance session chris has had in a while #surely skipping maintenance won't bite him in the butt #(it will)

17 notes · View notes

hello-nichya-here · 2 years ago

Note

How much are D&D and the other writers/producers/directors really to blame for the demise of Game Of Thrones? Like you said, George R.R. Martin was the real writer, and the show went downhill when there were no more books to adapt. Isn't that kind of on him?

No, because:

1 - They all knew that the books weren't finished yet, that Martin wasn't the fastest of writers, and that his books were incredibly complex to the point it was kind of inevitable for rewrites and changes to happen. Hell, Martin's original plan was for it to be a triology, yet the story kept getting bigger and bigger to the point that there are now 7 books planned, and people have been theorizing that he might need 8 novels after all. He even went as far as telling them the ending he had planned so they could still finish the show if he died before completing the novels or if the next books were not done in time. They knew this was a possibility and they still decided to take the risk. It is not Martin's fault that they did not plan for something they knew was likely to happen.

2 - D&D CHOSE to speed things up so they could be both the guys who were in charge of one of the biggest shows ever, from beginning to end, and go work on Star Wars, even though they could have just quit and let HBO find new people to take their place. They went from splitting book 3 in two seasons to make to properly adapt the story to TV, to cutting important plot points that could have given Martin more time to write, and rushing the developments of major arcs to the point that they made no sense, even though HBO would have been more than willing to give them more seasons. They half-assed the last seasons because they assumed the show was too big to fail, and paid the price for it. The books could have been all published and D&D still would have screwed it up because they did not care about that story anymore, it was all about their egos.

3 - Martin has already said that readers have guessed what will happen, and plenty of fan theories were essentially confirmed through the show (Sandor Clegane still being alive, the "pie of Freys", Jon being brought back from the dead, Jon and Dany's romance). Hell, Martin only accepted to let Dumb & Dumber adapt his books when they correctly guessed who was Jon Snow's mother. Martin's story is complicated and filled with twists, but it is not impossible to figure where it will go next if you're paying attention, and D&D not only prooved that they COULD guess somethings, but they also that had the privelege of being able to GET DIRECT ANSWERS FROM THE AUTHOR.

4 - Even if they had no idea what was the ending George R.R. Martin was planning, they still had YEARS to make something up yet choose to go with the laziest, most nonsensical "plots" ever. It is not impossible to come up with an ending that is different from Martin's plans, but is still enjoyable to see play out. Fanfic writers do that literally all the time - how are the guys who are meant to be PROFESSIONAL WRITERS somehow not able to use even a tiny little bit of their imagination and skill?

5 - These motherfuckers CHOSE to replace all the complexity of the Dorne plot with the awful line of "You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy", decided it would be brilliant to not let the audience see shit during what was supposed to be the show's most epic battle, and thought that "character survives insanely dangerous situation that they should not have been able to survive because the plot requires it but we still want cheap drama" was a SUBVERSION of a cliche, even though their show got popular because it had the balls to kill characters when they were in that kind of situation. A complete book series cannot change the fact that these people are ungodlly stupid, to the point that one of them straight up said that themes were for book reports in school, even though Martin goes as far as having the characters stating the themes of the story, INCLUDING IN CERSEI'S LINE ABOUT HOW WHEN YOU PLAY THE GAME OF THRONES YOU WIN OR YOU DIE, WHICH WAS SO IMPORTANT THAT THE FIRST BOOK AND THE FUCKING SHOW WERE NAMED AFTER IT!

#asks #dumb and dumber #got #game of thrones #george r.r.#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf

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lcdrarry · 3 years ago

Photo

LCDrarry 2021 Master List

Dear lovely Participants, Creators, Alpha and Beta Readers, Commentors, Cheerleaders, Readers and Fans of our fest,

Our 3rd installment of LCDrarry is coming to an end, and we'd like to thank you all for taking part in our little fest, for creating so many amazing new Drarry works for us all to enjoy, for commenting on your favourite creations, for sharing and recommending the LCDrarry gems with your friends and blog followers, and for making this fest another amazing experience for everybody!

You can find out under the cut who created what ;D

~Your LCDrarry Mods Tami ( @celilasart ) and Suzi ( @erin-riwen )

PS: Please have a look at the author notes and tags on AO3 for additional information and more detailed warnings.

PPS: As always, reblogs are very much appreciated to promote all the wonderful works of LCDrarry.

Thank you! :)

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Podfic

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[Podfic] Harry Potter And The Disorder Of The Phoenix

Title: "Harry Potter And The Disorder Of The Phoenix" Written by: postjentacular Read by: @porcelainsalt | bluedreaming (AO3) Word Count: 1,304 words / 8 minutes Rating: General Warnings: none

Summary: An exasperated werewolf-slash-professor, a decidedly not-dead drama queen, a brat, and a straight white man settle down to watch a movie. It goes as well as you’d expect.

Listen to "Harry Potter And The Disorder Of The Phoenix" on AO3.

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Art

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[Art] At the Beginning (With You)

Prompt: "Anastasia", 1997, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman Artist: @zandragorin Art Medium: Digital Art Rating: Teen Warnings: none

Summary: It's one, two, three, and suddenly he sees it a glance.

View "At the Beginning (With You)" on AO3.

***

[Art] Between Your Heart and Mine

Prompt: "Crimson Peak", 2015, Guillermo del Toro Artist: @kryptidfox Art Medium: Digital Art Rating: General Warnings: none

Summary: Auror Harry Potter is called to investigate barren and isolated Malfoy Manor, home to Sir Draco Malfoy. There, he finds forgotten secrets, lingering ghosts and perhaps even love.

View "Between Your Heart and Mine" on AO3.

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[Art] Fallen

Prompt: "Chocolat", 2000, Lasse Hallström Artists: @julcheninred & m4gOrtz Art Medium: paper, thread, chalk, ink Rating: General Warnings: Food, Depression, Clergy

Summary: As Père Harry passed the window of the chocolate shop early on Easter morning, he was shocked to discover the Comte de Malfoy, who had destroyed the shop's window display and fallen asleep in his grief and exhaustion.

View "Fallen" on AO3.

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[Art] I am only one side of a coin.

Prompt: "Merlin", 2008-2012 Artist: @digthewriter Art Medium: Digital Art in Photoshop Rating: General Warnings: none

Summary: The better side, obviously. Merlin/Harry Potter fusion. Harry as Merlin & Draco as Arthur.

View "I am only one side of a coin." on AO3.

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[Art] No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin

Prompt: "Romeo and Juliet", Shakespeare Artist: writingsbydestiny Art Medium: Digital Art Rating: General Warnings: none

Summary: Inspired by Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare starring Draco Malfoy as Juliet Capulet and Harry Potter as Romeo Montague.

View "No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin" on AO3.

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[Art] The Malfoy Family

Prompt: "The Addams Family", 1991, David Levy Author: @moondraconis Art Medium: Digital Art Rating: General Warnings: None

Summary: Harry and Draco have just got engaged. Now Harry has to sit for a family portrait with his weird new in-laws.

View "[Art] The Malfoy Family" on AO3.

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[Art] The Poet's Choice

Prompt: "Portrait of a Lady on Fire", 2019, Céline Sciamma Artist: @kairennart | Personaje (AO3) Art Medium: Digital Art Rating: General Warnings: none

Summary: On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteen century, Harry is commissioned to paint a wedding portrait of Draco without him knowing, since he refuses to pose. That means a lot of staring, and a lot of time together. Time goes by, and, inevitably, like everything in life, they fall in love. But Harry has to finish his painting, and Draco has to get married.

View "The Poet's Choice" on AO3.

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[Art] there are dangerous men about

Prompt: "The Legend of Zorro”, 2005, Martin Campbell Artist: @dragontamerdame | dragontamerdrarry (AO3) Art Medium: Digital Art Rating: Teen Warnings: None

Summary: Two wizards engaging in a vicious duel, but make it gay and sexy.

View "there are dangerous men about" on AO3.

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Fic & Art

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[Fic & Art] One More Lantern

Prompt: “xxxHoLiC”, 2006-2010 (anime)/2013 (live action) Author/Artist: vivi1138 Word Count/Art Medium: 8,373 words & Digital Art Rating: Teen Warnings: Smoking

Summary: Harry is plagued by spirits who seem intent on devouring him, and there’s only one place they can’t follow: a house hidden in wizarding London, belonging to Draco Malfoy. Harry didn’t intend to stay. He certainly didn’t foresee falling in love. Yet here they are. A slice of life where Draco is a sap, Harry buys ice cream, and spirits keep throwing their peaceful life into chaos.

Read and view "One More Lantern" on AO3.

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[Fic & Art] In the Shadow of Your Heart

Prompt: Howl's Moving Castle, 2004, Hayao Miyazaki Author: @fantalf Word Count/Art Medium: 854 words & Digital Art Rating: General Warnings: sectumsempra scars, memory loss

Summary: When the recluded ex-Death Eater Draco Malfoy finds Harry Potter wandering around the hills, with no memory whatsoever of who he once was, he and Teddy decide to welcome him into their little family.

Read and view "In the Shadow of Your Heart" on AO3.

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Fic

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[Fic] Paging Healer Twatwaffle

Prompt: "House M.D.", 2004-2012, TV-Series Author: @veelawings Word Count: 1,550 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: Mild dub-con and manipulation, but they’re already friends with benefits.

Summary: Healer Malfoy is an absolute wanker.

Read "Paging Healer Twatwaffle" on AO3.

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[Fic] (Let's Take Our Time) Just Moving Slow

Prompt: "Holidate", 2020, John Whitesell Author: Melacka Word Count: 1,886 words Rating: Teen Warnings: none

Summary: Harry and Draco have a mutually beneficial arrangement: automatic dates for all holidays and public events, no questions asked, no obligation, no strings. It all seemed like such a good idea when they started. Harry certainly never expected to develop feelings for Draco.

Read "(Let's Take Our Time) Just Moving Slow" on AO3.

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[Fic] Jurassic Drarry

Prompt: "Jurassic Park", 1993, Steven Spielberg Author: PhenomenalAsterisk Word Count: 1,941 words & Digital Art Rating: General Warnings: Unconventional disposal of dinosaurs; fanart includes graphic image of meat

Summary: An unflappable palaeontologist, a sexy chaos theorist, and a distracted palaeobotanist are called in to tour an eccentric billionaire's pet project.

Read "Jurassic Drarry" on AO3.

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[Fic] My Saviour Won't Stop Texting Me

Prompt: "Hercules", 1997, Ron Clements, John Musker Author: fwooshy Word Count: 5,012 words Rating: Teen Warnings: Texting fic

Summary: Long ago, in Ancient Greece, there was a man named Draco Malfoy who sold his soul to Voldemort. Tortured by his sins, he... oh, who am I kidding? This is a Hercules AU texting fic, not some Greek tragedy! Harry and Draco get together and everyone has phones in Ancient Greece. Please enjoy.

Read "My Saviour Won't Stop Texting Me" on AO3.

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[Fic] The Malfoy Family

Prompt: "The Addams Family", 1991, David Levy Author: floydig Word Count: 7,088 words Rating: Mature Warnings: All Addams Family Warnings Apply, Morbid and Dark Humor, Loving Horror, Mild Body Horror (fun), Carnivorous Plants, Blasphemy, Necromancy, Implied Sexual Content

Summary: The Malfoy Family is the Addams Family, and things are about to get interesting. Draco and Harry Malfoy are odd, intriguing, endearingly creepy, and completely and utterly infatuated with one another. This is going to be a fun one. Featuring deadly magical creatures as house pets, recreational use of Unforgivable Curses, hungry carnivorous plants, and plenty of mayhem in between. Also, the whole thing takes place at a Magical Multi-Purpose Store. The Malfoy Family goes shopping!

Read "The Malfoy Family" on AO3.

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[Fic] Love that Blinds

Prompt: "The Batman", 2004-2008, TV-Series Author: aminathescorpio Word Count: 7,245 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: Brief graphic descriptions of violence, dubious consent, gaslighting

Summary: When Draco Malfoy gets accepted to work as a psychiatrist in Azkaban Asylum, he finds himself caught in a complicated relationship with none other than Azkaban's most infamous resident: Harry Potter.

Read "Love that Blinds" on AO3.

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[Fic] Sesame Seeds and the Entire Spectrum of Human Emotion

Prompt: "The Proposal", 2009, Anne Fletcher Author: @bisexualronaldweasley Word Count: 9,530 words Rating: Mature Warnings: Nudity, Boat Incident, references to past abuse/neglect

Summary: Faced with exile, Draco pretends to be engaged to Harry Potter, who agrees to play along for Narcissa's sake. When they're forced to spend a weekend together celebrating the engagement with the Weasleys, they might try to kill each other, or... they might just fall in love. . Based on the movie The Proposal (2009), though you don't have to have seen the movie to understand the fic!

Read "Sesame Seeds and the Entire Spectrum of Human Emotion" on AO3.

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[Fic] Ghost

Prompt: "Ghost", 1990, Jerry Zucker Author: @maraudersaffair Word Count: 10,761 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: major character death (MCD), canon-typical violence, grief and mourning

Summary: When Harry is killed tragically during an Auror raid gone wrong, Draco does his best to move on. He's even a little cheered when Theo Nott starts pursuing him. Then Sybil Trelawney visits Draco.

Read "Ghost" on AO3.

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[Fic] all in good time

Prompt: "Groundhog Day", 1993, Harold Ramis Author: saltwatergarden Word Count: 13,054 words Rating: Mature Warnings: mentions alcohol

Summary: Draco Malfoy's life is boring and repetitive. He supposes he shouldn't complain, since that's better than sharing a house with Voldemort, or doing time in Azkaban. When he gets trapped in a time loop, however, he is forced to confront the routine he has fixed for himself, and try to break out of it. It isn't all bad, facing no consequences for his actions can be fun for a bit. But after he starts visiting the Auror Headquarters and having brief but remarkably pleasant conversations with one Auror Potter, he finally has the real motivation to break out of the time loop - something worth sticking around for.

Read "all in good time" on AO3.

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[Fic] Star Crossed

Prompt: "Romeo and Juliet", Shakespeare Author: GallifreyisBurning Word Count: 13,615 words Rating: Teen Warnings: none

Summary: Two Quidditch teams, alike in dignity, In fair Great Britain, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. The Wimbourne Wasps and the Appleby Arrows have been bitter rivals for centuries. When a nasty brawl ends one of their Seekers’ careers, the teams need new blood to take up the slack and divert attention from the bad publicity. And who better to distract the press than the infamous Draco Malfoy and golden boy Harry Potter? Called back from successful careers abroad, the pair are once again to be pitted against one another in an epic feud. Too bad no one told them that before they started flirting…

Read "Star Crossed" on AO3.

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[Fic] The Slytherin Host Club

Prompt: "Ouran high school host club", 2006, Bisco Hatori and Takuya Igarashi Author: shushu_yaoi_lj Word Count: 14,377 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: explicit sexual content, scars, non-graphic mention of past abuse

Summary: Harry is simply looking for a quiet place to finish his Potions essay.It's a pity he ends up at the Slytherin Host Club instead. Or maybe it's a blessing in disguise, since he's had a crush on Malfoy since the beginning of his eighth year...

Read "The Slytherin Host Club" on AO3.

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[Fic] It is on the other side of my soul (where your name is written)

Prompt: "Call Me By Your Name", 2017, Luca Guadagnino Author: opaleopioid Word Count: 16,372 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: implied switching, rimming, anal sex, no age difference (HP canon-compliant age difference)

Summary: Harry’s having it all, now that the unpleasantries of being treated like a loose cannon is gone: the war is well over, and Voldemort is long dead. He’s made the choice to stay in B, an unplottable magical town in Northern Italy, whose protection wards had kept him in one piece at the height of the second wizarding war, and whose seclusion provides him with the quiet, normal life that he now lives. Harry adores the grassy hills that enclose B like the warm arm of a mother; Likes playing the grand piano from dawn to dusk; Cherishes his current life, on the whole. He gets himself Mocaccino every morning and sometimes has dinner with the Weasleys at their cottage nearby. With the majority of his friends and family falling in love with B and gradually settling down as well, Harry feels like this is the last place he would ever want to leave. To say that the arrival of a certain wizard—a razor-sharp, infuriating blond—makes anything remotely different for Harry would be absurd, of course.

Read "It is on the other side of my soul (where your name is written)" on AO3.

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[Fic] In Search of Our Better Selves

Prompt: "Mad Max: Fury Road", 2015, George Miller Author: alrespirar Word Count: 17,519 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: Mentions of past torture, mentions of past rape, brief mention of miscarriage, descriptions of gun violence and injury. Sexual content.

Summary: Five times Imperator Draco saved Potter’s life and the one time Potter saved his.

Read "In Search of Our Better Selves" on AO3.

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[Fic] Where in the World is Draco Malfoy?

Prompt: "Carmen Sandiego", 2019, Series Author: Anaxandria Word Count: 18,029 words Rating: Mature Warnings: Minor mentions of homophobia, violence, and blood

Summary: After the war, Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter took parallel paths of fighting crime. Draco discovered the existence of VILE, an international organisation dedicated to the eradication of Muggle-borns. With the help of his best friend, Blaise, he commits international capers to steal artifacts before VILE can get their hands on them. Harry is the auror investigating the heists, but his instincts tell him there’s more than meets the eye.

Read "Where in the World is Draco Malfoy?" on AO3.

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[Fic] My Fair Gentleman

Prompt: "My Fair Lady", 1964, George Cukor Author: emilattes Word Count: 20,766 words Rating: Teen and up Warnings: light alcohol use and mentions of child neglect by Dursleys

Summary: After an extended stay at Charlie's Dragon Reserve in Romania, Harry returns to London and makes a fool of himself at his first Ministry Gala. Minister Shacklebolt orders Harry to seven months of etiquette lessons with Draco Malfoy. Will Harry pull through and become an expert in PR? Will Draco manage to make over the biggest PR disaster the wizarding world has seen in years? Wouldn't it be loverly?

Read "My Fair Gentleman" on AO3.

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[Fic] saying yes (instead of no)

Prompt: "Schitt's Creek", 2015, Series Author: Pineau_noir Word Count: 21,022 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: canon typical alcohol and drug use, marijuana use, explicit smut

Summary: “It’s a general store that’s also a very specific store,” Draco grumbled. “Most people won’t realise this, but I want to market Muggle goods to the Wizarding world as well. I want something that will help boost the economy of the Hamlet and Muggles have so many amazing things we don’t have.” . Draco sighed again. “I think it would benefit everyone.” He glared at Emily. “But there’s not a single witch, wizard, or wix who will shop at a place owned by Draco Malfoy.” . “What if it’s owned by Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy?” Potter asked. . “That would be preposterous,” Draco mumbled. “Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy would kill each other before the store opened.” . “What if you didn’t?” Emily asked. Draco opened his mouth to let her know, they would indeed kill each other, but before he could say anything, she continued, “What if it turned into a lovely business?” . “There’s only one way to know,” Potter said. “I really think this is a good idea, Draco."

Read "saying yes (instead of no)" on AO3.

***

[Fic] A First Look Into Resurrecting Mummies With the Aid Of the Chosen One, and Why It Should Be Advised Against (an Essay by Draco Malfoy, Assistant Archaeologist)

Prompt: "The Mummy", 1999, Stephen Sommers Author: @cibeewastaken | Cibee (AO3) Word Count: 21,948 words Rating: Mature Warnings: minor violence elements

Summary: Draco hopes to find an ancient spell book rumoured to be in Hamunaptra after Astoria found a map to the lost city. If he makes this discovery, maybe the Magical British Museum will finally look at his application, and his annoying colleague will finally leave him alone. It’s a good plan, until Draco is reunited with Harry Potter for the first time in ten years, as the man is about to be hanged.

Read "A First Look Into Resurrecting Mummies With the Aid Of the Chosen One, and Why It Should Be Advised Against (an Essay by Draco Malfoy, Assistant Archaeologist)" on AO3.

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[Fic] Wicked Game

Prompt: "Jumanji", 1995 or 2017 Author: DearJames Word Count: 22,044 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: Sexual Content, Implied PTSD

Summary: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy crossed a line during one of their late-night Astronomy Tower Bonding Sessions and neither are sure what that means. Not that they got particularly far, considering they were caught and assigned detention for their antics. And, now, they've been sucked into a boardgame. That's just fantastic...

Read "Wicked Game" on AO3.

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[Fic] Love in Three Parts

Prompt: "Bridgerton", 2020, Series Author: static_abyss Word Count: 24,172 words Rating: Mature Warnings: Canon-typical content

Notes: Thanks so much to my beta, L, for all her help and her encouragement as I wrote this fic. Thanks to the mods for hosting this fest and to the Anonymous prompter who inspired this fic.

Summary: Draco has everything needed to be the diamond of the season. He has the looks, the pedigree, and if he should be short on the money end, well, it isn't up to him to convince anyone they want to marry him. And yet, he finds himself with no prospects and no suitable matches until Harry James Potter, Wizarding Britain's Most Eligible Bachelor, makes his first appearance in proper Wizarding society for the first time in five years. Together, they hatch a plan to secure Draco a husband and keep the debutantes' mothers away from Harry. And if someone should develop feelings along the way, well, the course of true love never did run smooth.

Read "Love in Three Parts" on AO3.

***

[Fic] He would always win the fight

Prompt: "Killing Eve", 2018 - ongoing, TV Series Author: Akira-kun Word Count: 26,578 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: Serial Killer, Off Screen Murders, Corpses, Political Polarity, Corruption in Government, Corruption in Justice System, Off Screen Violence, Post War Instability, Ambiguity, Dark!character, Vengeance, In a Twisted Way, Obsessive Behaviour, Crime Mystery, Open Ending

Summary: “But you were always just a puppet, weren’t you, Potter?” That voice kept haunting him, in his dreams and during his days, as if hovering over his shoulder, cold as a ghost, lost and lifeless. He wasn’t sure why it hurt like that. Maybe because it was an ugly truth that Harry hoped no one would ever throw back in his face. Or maybe because it was Malfoy. . Killing Eve inspired Drarry where people are getting killed, Harry is getting desperate, Draco is too sexy for his own good, and all hell will break loose.

Read "He would always win the fight" on AO3.

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[Fic] Peaches & Cream And A Little Bit Of Acid

Prompt: "Modern Love", 2019, Series Author: shortie990 Word Count: 27,755 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: suicidal thoughts, mental health issues

Summary: In love there is no real hiding. You have to be pretty up front on who you are. The problem was though, Harry didn’t have a clue who he was one moment from the next.

Read "Peaches & Cream And A Little Bit Of Acid" on AO3.

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[Fic] Outwit, Outlast, Outplay

Prompt: "Survivor", 2000-ongoing, Series Author: Albuss Word Count: 30,976 words Rating: Mature Warnings: Brief homophobia, mentions of past health issues

Summary: Draco loves Survivor. Loves it. So when his job at the Dept. of Mysteries offers him the opportunity to go on as a contestant, he can't think of anything that could go wrong. He is sorely mistaken, but a little chaos turns out to not be such a bad thing. Featuring gratuitous descriptions of Survivor game-play, really jargon-y magical theory I got way too excited about, and Draco's best friend Isabelle being an absolute QUEEN.

Read "Outwit, Outlast, Outplay" on AO3.

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[Fic] Advantage Rule

Prompt: "The Queen's Gambit", 2020, Series Author: @ziezie13 Word Count: 42,738 words Rating: Mature Warnings: Character death, Parental neglect, Brief references to eugenics, Sexual content, Mild homophobia, Alcoholism, Drug abuse

Summary: Draco's life has been struggle after struggle. He was exiled as a baby, his mother died, he was forced to live with muggles... Need I go on? Quidditch was supposed to be his escape, but how is he supposed to beat Victor Krum and take the world title if he can't even beat Harry Potter? ~No knowledge of The Queen's Gambit required~

Read "Advantage Rule" on AO3.

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[Fic] (This Will Be) An Everlasting Love

Prompt: #12 (also fulfils #6) | "While You Were Sleeping," 1995, Jon Turteltaub Author: @drarrelie & @janieohio Word Count: 45,139 words Rating: Teen Warnings: None

Summary: Life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan. That’s what Draco’s mother always used to tell him, but Merlin, who could have predicted how right she would be? A story about feisty dragons, loneliness, family, and friends — and finding love in places you least expect.

Read "(This Will Be) An Everlasting Love" on AO3.

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[Fic] In a Field of Chrysanthemums and the Woods

Prompt: "The Untamed", 2019, TV-Series Author: @outstandingmoralfiber Word Count: 83,399 words Rating: Explicit Warnings: None

Summary: Three notes, and yet they made all the difference. Draco could feel it, the slight magic and wavering notes, washing over him in a brief but calming wave that lit his soul and it was then that he knew that he was going to learn how to play this guqin no matter what. Little did he know that, like dominos, this one simple decision would diverge him onto a path he would've never imagined. - Wizarding world in the Untamed setting, (but you don't need to know anything about the Untamed). Drarry AU starting from Goblet of Fire. Rated E for the smut scene in Chapters 13 & 14, but is otherwise rated T.

Read "In a Field of Chrysanthemums and the Woods" on AO3.

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michaelsheenpt · 4 years ago

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Prodigal Son star Michael Sheen on the 'absolute joy' Martin takes in the Claremont murder

The actor takes us inside the mind of a serial killer.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Prodigal Son season 2, episode 4, "Take Your Father to Work Day."

The titular offspring on Prodigal Son had plenty of time to bond with his serial killer father on this week's episode of the Fox procedural.

When a murder took place right under Martin "The Surgeon" Whitly's (Michael Sheen) nose, his son, Malcolm (Tom Payne), and the NYPD crew were brought in to help solve the crime — and as you can imagine, Martin was just delighted at the prospect of quality time with his boy.

Of course, Ainsley (Halston Sage) wanted to tag along to see if there was a newsworthy story to uncover, but once she started remembering more about what happened the night of Endicott's (Dermot Mulroney) death, she turned to her father for answers about what was going on. To make the family reunion complete, Jessica (Bellamy Young) also found herself calling her murderous ex for some insight into their children's minds.

With all the drama taking place inside Claremont, the prison where Martin is incarcerated, the episode allowed for a lot more time spent with Sheen's bafflingly charming serial killer. We chatted with the actor about getting inside a murder's mind and what's to come for the Whitly family in the show's second season.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: In this episode, the team is in Martin's territory. Is this the most screen time you've had in this series so far?

MICHAEL SHEEN: It's a funny, the thing about the way we shoot the show, and particularly the way we shoot my stuff, we now shoot multiple episodes at the same time. I can sometimes find it quite difficult to remember what's in each episode. But this particular episode was a very, very different field for me. My experience of working on this show has been a kind of opening up as it's gone on. There were actors in the core cast that I hadn't even met, let alone worked with, when we got to the end of the first season. I didn't get to do a scene with Aurora [Perrineau] or Frank [Harts] or Keiko [Agena] until really late in the first season. I would just do scenes with whoever walked into my cell, unless it was a flashback, and then it'd still be with people within the family. So things have opened up more and more as it's gone along. So in this episode, the fact that the investigation comes into Claremont opened it up again, and of course for Martin that is just absolute joy.

Right, it's safe to say Martin is having a lovely time throughout most of this episode.

Yes, because they're all coming into his world and I meet Edrisa [Agena], and Gil [Lou Diamond Phillips] has to come in, and my kids come in! I'm working with my own son on a case in my prison. Martin's just in heaven. It was very enjoyable to do because I got to work with people I haven't worked with before and work with the same people in different ways. I got to play basketball, for instance.

Yeah, you got some outdoor time!

It's funny because Martin would love having outdoor time. Michael doesn't love it that much because it's quite cold. I quite enjoy being in my cell with my cardigan on.

One of the people Martin gets some quality time with in this episode is his daughter, Ainsley. How much do you think he's enjoying this newly discovered murderous streak in her? Or is he more interested in just spending time with her regardless of the reason?

I think it's a lot of things for him. There's a real delight in seeing this flower that has grown in the dark. Malcolm is the flower that has grown in the light, and that he has watered and fed as much as he possibly can to try and bring to bloom. She's this extraordinary flower that is actually grown in the dark, without him feeding it at all. There's a special delight to that. For all of Malcolm's experiences that are on the edge of murderous and psychotic and violent, he's never quite tipped into just pure murder, and Ainsley has, whether she's aware of it or not. That creates a special connection for Martin.

That's kind of terrifying.

Yes, it is terrifying. For Martin — and I always try to see it from Martin's point of view — it's both the opportunity to feel known in a different way because somebody else has experienced the thing that he experiences, and it's also an opportunity to feel connected and bonded to someone. It's the same way as a couple of episodes ago, where there was that scene where Malcolm talks to Martin about what it feels to walk around having got away with murder, and that the scary thing is that it didn't feel bad and all that. Martin can now talk about those things that have been such a part of his secret life with someone who's also experiencing aspects of that. That's even more so with Ainsley, because the part that Malcolm hasn't done is to actually feel the liberation of murder, and Ainsley potentially has.

Well, so as not to play favorites, Martin also had a couple of really intense scenes with Malcolm. How much do you think Martin resents Malcolm deep down for sending him to prison? Is that something we're going to get to explore more?

Yeah, I think so. The version of Martin that he allows people to see is such a tiny portion of him. It has an oversized place in the world because it's how he interacts with the world. Even before he was put in prison — when he was still actively pursuing his addiction to killing — the reason he was so good at it was because he was able to develop a persona that put people at ease, that made people like him and not suspect what he was doing. That is a construct he has created. What is actually going on for him is very different. We just don't see that very much because it works for him for people not to see it. But for someone who is so obsessed with control and needs control, there are moments where he loses it and we do see something else. We get a sense of what's really under there. I think there are currents within him that even he only vaguely understands. There are times when stuff comes out that he has decided to let come out, but there are times when stuff comes out that he hasn't decided to come out. In that moment in the cell with Malcolm, something comes out that he's not even aware of. I think he really does have the capacity to feel strong, positive emotions towards Malcolm, but I think he also has massively negative emotions towards Malcolm, because Malcolm is the one who ultimately — as far as he sees it, anyway — took away his control. There is huge oceans of rage in Martin.

It's so great when you're watching it because you can find yourself siding with him and believing he could be a good dad.

Yes, because it's in his interest for people to not think that he's a monster. It works great for the show because the more I hear and read people saying, "Oh, I can't believe I really like the serial killer," I'm like, "That's right. That's how it works." You use what will work for you. There were people who had crushes on Ted Bundy. Use what you've got. Martin uses that and it works very well for him, and it still does in prison.

Do you know a lot more about Martin's past than we've learned on the show so far? Have the writers filled in some of those years of serial killing for you?

We've had conversations about that, and we've got lots of different ideas of things that we could explore. It sort of depends on what the big picture is for the show and what is useful to go into and what's not. A lot of the time it's quite useful for people to not know his past. We know more about him than the audience does, and as to how much we reveal about that — who knows… We'll see.

We'll still be finding out about people he's killed come season 10. So Martin and Jessica also had a cute — but not really cute at all — co-parenting moment in this episode. Is there anything you can tease about what's to come between them this season?

In a way, that's the motor of the show, isn't it? That you've got a family where there's one member that everyone would really rather not have to deal with, but they have to. Jessica is never going to be free of Martin. At the same time, you also don't want to overplay that, so when the moments come between them they're able to have zing to them. I think that that scene between them says so much about the relationship, particularly from Martin's point of view, that he's able to lie so easily to her. He takes a real pleasure in knowing how much she's been duped by him and shocked by him and how much she doesn't know about him. Having spent years and years deceiving her, she now knows who he is and he's still able to deceive her. There's a very special enjoyment in that for him, which is very dark. There's also a real rivalry between them, a parental rivalry. When he has something that connects him to them that she doesn't have, whether that's a piece of information or a connection, both of those things delight him in different ways.

Eek, poor Jessica. Speaking of women in his life, Catherine Zeta-Jones is joining the show soon. Can you tell us anything about her character and how she'll affect Martin?

I think what will be enjoyable for an audience is not knowing what's going on at any given point. What I will say is that it puts Martin into new territory and therefore the audience will be in completely new territory, in terms of what they're seeing Martin doing and how he's reacting to things — and that's really exciting.

Prodigal Son airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

SOURCE

#michael sheen #prodigal son #martin whitly #tom payne #lou diamond phillips #prodigal son s2 #bellamy young #malcom bright #catherine zeta jones

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st-just · 4 years ago

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Semi-coherent Thoughts on the Poppy War Series

(Because I really need to start forcing myself to write semi-consistently again)

So I’ll say outright that I actually liked the series quite a bit, which does mean I actually got engaged and invested enough to start turning it over and picking it apart in my head after I finished it. So, like, this is probably going to come across as more negative overall than my actual opinions of the books.

Anyway, first off I really do adore Rin as a protagonist (I’d say ‘heroine’, but, well, no). Now partially this is because I always love even minimally sympathetic morally grey (..grey like coal soot, in this case) protagonists. But she’s just also such a complete garbage fire of a person, it’s kind of endearing. Well, that’s a bit callous – her entire personality is more or less a conflict between different kinds of unhealthy responses to powerlessness and trauma. Be she’s also just such a mess, and when she really starts leaning into delusions of grandeur you can’t help but root for her and hope things do actually turn out okay, regardless of how many fivers of blood she’s currently fantasizing about creating.

A big part of that is just how thoroughly awful the entire setting is, and how terrible everyone in it are, of course. Like, there are basically exactly three developed character in the entire trilogy who are unambiguously at least mostly good people (Chen, probably Venka, specifically the amnesiac and semi-delusional version of Jiang, but that’s being generous), and the fact that they stick around with Rin right to the end kind of puts that into doubt, honestly. Beyond that – almost every family has negligent or abusive parents, and literally every political figure is a bloody-handed tyrant ruling through violence and fear. The Hesperians are racist imperialists convinced they have a divine mandate to conquer the world, the Mugenese are every horror story from the IJA during WW2 translated to a pre-industrial fantasy setting, the ruling elite of Nikara are so many racist, scheming, power-hungry snakes with no concerns except their own position....

And, part and parcel with how terrible the setting is, Kuang does an incredible job of making all the worst things Rin does (until the final act, anyway) incredibly cathartic and badass and fun-in-a-fucked-up-way to read. There’s a terrible sort of awe while she turns the main islands of not!Japan into a pyroclastic hellscape. And whenever she gets a chance to enact any of her numerous revenges on some of the many people who abused and betrayed her it’s always poetic, in a Count-of-Monte-Cristo sort of way, and so kind of sickly compelling, even beyond it being some of the only times Rin’s really hopeful and happy. (Also, there are fun villainous monologues and quippy post-murder one-liners!)

Also, all forms of love are a terrible idea 100% of the time and is only going to end in at least one of the parties dead, abused, or (more or less literally) killing themselves in order to keep up with the other/earn their approval/try to keep them together. (I mean, Rin mostly had horrible taste in men, but Chen wasn’t able to stay mad at her for longer than a few months even after the whole ‘genocide’ thing, which he’s just about the only person to react to with any horror whatsoever. And look at how that ended up working out for him, so-)

I’m sure comparing grimdark fantasy to A Song of Ice And Fire is thoroughly out of fashion by now, but the overall perspective really did strike me as incredibly similar to Martin’s, a lot of the time. ‘Legitimate’ power and ‘lawful’ authority are ultimately nothing but polite fictions maintained by violence, terror and brutal oppression. War is a hell suffered most keenly by civilians with the misfortune to live and die in the middle of it, and least of all by the people with the power who actually start and end them. A flawed and unequal peace is very often preferable to dragging everything to hell with you as you die for the sake of freedom. And so on.

Now, to start the nitpicking – this is entirely personal and aesthetic, but it was kind of annoying how each of the first two books ended in moments of megalomaniac grandeur and terrifying empowerment, and then the next book started with a timeskip of things having gone to shit and her back under someone else’s thumb, and then a solid majority of the text is spent getting manipulated, betrayed, and finally crawling and clawing her way back out to the same point (both emotionally and in terms of independence/vision) that she had been at the previous book’s climax.

This isn’t anything even close to unique to TPW, of course – everything going to shit between the end of one story and the start of the sequel is kind of endemic to a lot of genres, really. And it is frankly incredibly in character for Rin to go through cycles flipping between resentment at being manipulated and used, and desperately craving authority figures to tell her what she should do and give her validation as valuable or useful. Still a bit annoying to read, though.

I’m sure it’s more me than the books – not like they didn’t put in the effort – but I could just never get really invested in the whole enemies-to-almost-lovers-to-enemies-again-to-? Thing with Nezha. Like, he’s interesting in that you can do a 180 perspective flip and he’d clearly be just as suitable a protagonist as Rin is, and his life’s very sad and everything. But, like, we get a front row seat to Rin’s internal monologue, and she gets thirsty for plenty of terrible men (and one awful woman), the only thing that makes Nezha special is that he’s not at least twice her age. So I never really got nearly as emotionally invested in them as the books seemed to expect me to. Which does kind of hurt the whole final act of book three.

Speaking of – okay, the ending isn’t awful or anything, but it is kind of disappointing in being exactly what you would expect it to be, as far as Rin’s character arc goes? Which might be just because I was already primed to compare this to ASOIF and she just literally pulls a Daenerys (fire-aligned vengeance/justice character with revolutionary impulses and an autocratic sensibility is willing to burn down the world in the process of freeing it, goes mad with power and paranoia, needs to be put down for the good of the country), but still. Her reading Venka throwing her to the ground to avoid an assassination attempt as a betrayal and burning her to death before she realized what was happening was just really heavy handed, you know? Same with turning on Kitay, who at this point is her actual literal soulmate. (Also sad in a broader sense, because those two are like literally two of the only characters in the entire series I’d actually peg as worthy of/capable of being trusted with political power.)

The specifics aside, I’m a miserable enough person to appreciate how unsatisfying the actual resolution at the end of the book is – imperialism wins! Literally no choice but to sign those unequal treaties and hope you’re eventually able to grow strong enough to force them out! Everything is the same as before this forty-year cycle of wars except much, much worse! - but yeah, I really just don’t actually care about Nezha enough as a character for it to really land. Also Kitay and Venka deserved better, even if literally no one else did.

Anyway, yeah, good series. Would recommend if you like the genre and can stomach all the, well, everything.

#books #the poppy war #the dragon republic #the burning god #r. f. kuang #book review #in this essay I will #this is theoretically a writing blog

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ollieofthebeholder · 3 years ago

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr | Also on AO3

Epilogue: Martin Prime

“…see it into a new era. Please join me in welcoming to the podium the Head of the Magnus Institute of London, Dr. Walter…Kos-ki-e-wicz.”

“Fifteen months and he still can’t pronounce it properly,” Jon whispered under the cover of the applause that followed the introduction.

“He’s better than he used to be,” Martin whispered back, squeezing Jon’s hand gently. “Go make nice.”

Jon lifted Martin’s fingers to his lips and pressed a soft, gentle kiss to the knuckles before pushing back from the long table and getting to his feet. Martin turned his head towards where the podium ought to be, thankful they’d been able to come in early and get the layout of the room so he didn’t look like a complete tit staring off into the wrong direction, as the clapping gradually tapered off into an expectant silence.

“Thank you, Mr. Campbell.” Jon popped the normally silent P with a dry, pointed humor Martin knew well. When the laughter had died down, he continued in the deep, rolling affectation he had begun adopting when he needed to act as the face of the Institute. “Friends, colleagues, distinguished guests. I stand before you tonight with the awesome and humbling privilege of thanking you all for coming to celebrate two hundred years of the Magnus Institute.”

Martin, who had listened to Jon practice this speech in the comfort of their living room at least twenty times in the last two weeks, let it fade into the background and settled back into his seat. Not being able to scan the assembled gathering was annoying, but while this might have been the largest event they had attended in the past year, it was by no means the first. He was used to having to fold his hands over his stomach, or the end of his cane, and imagine what everyone’s faces were doing.

A familiar whirring started up from the space Jon had vacated, and Martin smiled and laid his fingers on the tape recorder as it buzzed away. Somehow, it was comforting to know she was still listening, even now.

It hadn’t been easy getting to this point. Martin had never really actually expected killing Jonah Magnus to instantly make everything sunshine and roses again, but he definitely hadn’t expected the attempt to drain Jon so badly that he collapsed in his arms. Nor had he expected that it would take three days for him to open his eyes again. (Melanie had teased Jon a bit about “taking this whole Messiah Complex to extremes”, but even she’d been strained.) And the news from Great Yarmouth hadn’t helped matters. Martin was still kind of thankful that he hadn’t been able to see Sasha’s face when she got off the phone with Basira and reported what little she knew. Or the look on his counterpart’s face when he called and filled in the gaps thirty-six hours later. Martin had hoped they’d get out of the building before blowing it up, but at least they hadn’t gone into the Unknowing itself.

It had still been touch and go, though, and Tim was still adjusting to his new reality, but thankfully he had plenty of support. Martin could hear in their voices when they spoke that they were happy, in a way he was only just learning himself that he could be.

Jon made a surprisingly good Institute Head. It hadn’t necessarily been something he’d planned on, but when they got back from taking Charlie to see Present Jon and Present Martin—who refused to leave the hospital until Tim was awake and ready to come home himself—and Melanie informed him about the new temporary head, Jon had almost literally hit the roof and stormed the Institute himself. It had taken him two days to manage to get an audience with Peter Lukas, but in the end, he’d stood before him and informed him that he had a choice: Vacate his position and leave the Institute alone, or be destroyed utterly.

Peter Lukas, unsurprisingly, had chosen poorly.

For Jon to subsequently take control of the Institute had been Sasha’s idea, and her points—that Jon was bound to the Institute and would need a reason to stay close to it, that he was the only person who knew enough to keep it running and keep it safe, that anyone else would either make things worse or become corrupted by the Beholder—had been valid. She’d crafted an entire identity for both Jon and Martin and somehow managed to have Dr. Walter Koskiewicz declared Elias Bouchard’s sole heir. Publicly, that was who he was and who he remained, but on the day he’d assumed the position of Institute Head, he had called a meeting of all the department heads and bluntly, concisely, and completely told them the entire truth. He had left it up to each head whether or not to tell their staff everything—although he was emphatic that they be told about the Eye, at least to some extent—and had made it clear that anyone who wanted to quit would be more than welcome to do so, with full severance; he wouldn’t hold it against anyone who chose to leave. But, as he had told Martin that night when he got back from the Institute, he didn’t want anyone else feeling trapped, or to not know they were working for, essentially, a fear god. He’d been far more surprised than Martin when, out of eighty-seven employees, only three had chosen to leave and one had asked for their job back a week later.

Getting the rest of Elias’s estate had taken longer. Obviously there was no body, so what they technically had was a missing person. Surprisingly, it was Daisy who’d pushed that forward by manufacturing proof that he’d been killed in the explosion at Great Yarmouth, claiming she’d followed him there as part of her hunt for Gertrude Robinson’s murderer. When Tim, freshly back in the Archives, looked over the assortment of tapes that had previously been in the tunnels and unerringly plucked the one with Gertrude’s death on it, Daisy’s superiors decided that he was responsible for the House of Wax as well, closed both files, and declared him officially dead.

Jon told Martin that Jonah Magnus had terrible taste in interior decorating. Martin told him he would just have to take his word for it.

Martin tuned back into Jon’s speech as he caught the words that meant he was winding down. He’d been reluctant to agree to this event, especially given what today was, but it was expected, so he’d caved, with a few stipulations. The speech, unfortunately for Jon, was non-negotiable, but at least he was able to keep it fairly short.

“And so, as we move into our third century, I leave you with a few carefully chosen words,” Jon said. “To our Institute donors, I give these words: Thank you for your support of the Magnus Institute over the years, and I hope that you will continue to support us throughout the changes to come. To those who come to the Institute to study and learn, I give these words: Your work furthers ours as much as ours furthers yours, and we look forward to working with you and developing that relationship, now and well into the future. And to you, the Institute employees, those who make this Institute what it is, I give these words…” He paused for a moment, letting the suspense build, and Martin licked the corner of his mouth to hide his smirk. It was obvious from Jon’s voice, though, that he wasn’t bothering to hide his own. “Three-day weekend. See you all on Monday.”

The cheers, applause, and laughter nearly drowned out Jon’s “Thank you”, and Martin let his grin escape as he joined in the applause. He heard the rustling of fabric and guessed what was happening a split-second before Wade’s tap to his elbow told him for sure they were giving Jon a standing ovation.

It went on for nearly a minute solid before it started to die down, and as Martin slowly sank back into his seat, he felt Jon’s gloved fingers tangle in his.

“Almost done,” Martin murmured, knowing Jon was close to his breaking point but would never admit it.

There were a few closing remarks, and then footsteps came over to them. “All right, if you’ll just stand over this way and greet a few people…”

“No more than half an hour. I mean it, Harrison,” Jon warned.

“I know, Mr.—I mean Dr.—uh, sir,” Harrison stammered. “I promise.”

“Mister Doctor Sir?” Martin teased Jon as Harrison walked away. “Sounds like something you’d name a character in Spire.”

“That’s Mister Doctor Director Sir to you.”

They shared a laugh before Martin took a half-step back, cane folded up in one hand and his other resting discreetly against the small of Jon’s back. Jon took a deep breath and straightened himself up, but didn’t move away from the point of contact. They’d learned their lesson one of the first times Jon had had to do an official event. Martin did some of the bookkeeping and budgeting for the Institute—God knew he’d picked up enough being Peter Lukas’s assistant, and Jon knew bugger all about the business side of things—but for the most part, he wasn’t an employee and certainly wasn’t who the more important guests at these events wanted to talk to, so he’d stepped back and stayed quietly in the background. Unfortunately, the Lukases were still Institute donors, and even if they avoided Jon beyond the bare minimum that politeness dictated, the presence of even one was still enough for Martin to slip back into old habits. Thank God the bond Annabelle had put on them was still extant and he’d been able to pull himself back, but it had still been a scary few minutes for both of them.

Most of the donors who spoke to Jon—briefly, Harrison was being as good as his word about limiting the official greetings—either ignored Martin or only acknowledged him with a silent nod, which amounted to the same thing. For the most part, Martin didn’t mind, but he could tell it was getting to Jon long before the fifteen-minute mark.

“Last one, sir, I promise,” Harrison whispered at last.

“Harrison, I have told you about the ‘sir’ thing,” Jon muttered. Martin hastily turned his laugh into a cough.

“Dr. Koskiewicz, so good to see you again.” Martin couldn’t place the speaker’s voice except that it was posh, which meant it was an Institute donor, and loud. Probably belonged to a large man, almost certainly an older one.

“It’s an honor to have you here, Sir Henry,” Jon replied, his voice slightly strained. Martin guessed that the man had a very firm handshake; an ordinary hand would be swollen and sore after half an hour of shaking, but the scarring on Jon’s made it far worse. “And you as well, Lady Vane-Tempest.”

“Lovely party, darling, so kind of you to invite us,” Lady Vane-Tempest said. Her voice, at least, Martin couldn’t forget—well-bred, but harsh and grating at the same time. He’d met the Vane-Tempests at the Christmas “party” he’d been forced to run on behalf of Peter Lukas and had not enjoyed the experience. “Congratulations on two hundred years. Obviously you haven’t been here the whole time, of course!” She trilled with laughter.

Martin felt Jon stiffen, and then he said with forced politeness, “Thank whatever gods you believe in that I haven’t, madam.”

“Looking forward to touring the building,” Sir Henry said. “Understand you’ve got some new interesting new acquisitions in your Artifact Storage. Love to see them.”

“We’re not doing tours this evening, I’m afraid,” Jon said. “That was the end of the gala, but it’s good of you to come. If you’ll get in touch with Ms. Zampano, I’m sure we can arrange a suitable time for you to see the building.”

“Oh, come now, darling, surely you can spare some time now,” Lady Vane-Tempest coaxed. If Martin was any judge, she’d been imbibing freely of the champagne, enough to get at least slightly tipsy. “We’re so looking forward to it.”

“I do apologize, but I have another commitment this evening.” Martin was a bit startled when Jon’s arm slid around his waist, but he willingly shifted his own position to return the gesture. The smile in Jon’s voice was obvious; he’d never been very good at hiding his pride and delight in anything to do with their relationship. “It’s our first wedding anniversary, you see.”

The Vane-Tempests mumbled polite congratulations, wished Jon a good night, and moved away. Jon let out a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his toes and sagged against Martin. “Thank God that’s over with.”

“That’s the last one,” Harrison promised. “I’ll just go say a few words to the press. Have a good weekend and—um—happy anniversary?”

“Thank you,” Jon and Martin said in unison. Martin unfolded his cane, and they walked out of the Institute the same way they had since escaping Peter Lukas in their own time—arm in arm.

Ninety minutes later and Martin, wearing his most comfortable sweater and a soft, threadbare pair of jeans, walked into the room they had designated as the “living room” with two mugs of tea and set them on the heavy, solid coffee table. “How’s the hand?”

“Still a bit sore, but I’ll recover.” Jon’s voice sounded slightly muffled. Martin wasn’t sure why until he heard the soft crackle of burning wood, and then Jon was right next to him and pulling him down for a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Martin murmured, brushing his nose against Jon’s. As he pulled back, he added, “By the way, there was a message from the agency. They’re coming by for another assessment tomorrow, around noon.”

“Good thing I gave everyone the day off, then. Did she say anything about how the application is looking?”

“I don’t know that they’d tell us that on a message. We can ask when she gets here.”

The doorbell rang with the deep, sonorous tones Martin still privately felt belonged in a Gothic soap opera, and Jon sighed and slid out of Martin’s arms. “Bets on who got here first?”

“Not against you,” Martin informed him. Jon’s snickers followed him out of the room.

After more than a year of living in the house, Martin knew his way around by heart, especially after they redid the flooring so that he could tell by the texture beneath his feet which way he was heading. He made it to the front door without bumping into anything, made sure the chain was still secure, and pulled the door open to the length of the chain. “Who goes there?”

“Just the usual suspects,” Tim’s voice said. “We even found a Sasha rattling around in the gutters.”

“Shut up, Tim,” Sasha said, a bit grouchily.

Martin chuckled and closed the door enough that he could undo the chain, then pulled the door open. “Come on in. There’s a fire going.”

Each one of them gave him a hug as they came in, prefaced by a greeting so he’d know who he was hugging. He was pleasantly surprised when, after a fierce hug from Melanie, he heard a higher voice say, “It’s Georgie. Will you accept one from me?”

“Oh, sure, of course.” Martin hadn’t worried about any of Jon’s exes, or anyone who might possibly catch his interest and remind him that he could do better, since—well, actually, since they’d been reunited after traveling back in time, but the weight of the ring on his left hand and the memory of the tremble in Jon’s voice as he’d promised ‘til death comes for us both had finally quieted the last of his doubts. And Georgie did give good hugs. “Glad you could make it, Georgie. Anyone else?”

“No, Basira pulled a night shift tonight, I think. Here, let me get that.” Georgie—or someone, anyway—pulled the heavy door shut and slid the chain into place. “Hope we’re not too early.”

Martin shook his head. “You’re fine. Not like we’re doing anything particularly exciting.”

It took a few minutes of arranging, playful debates, and mostly-joking grumblings about getting those disgusting socks away from the food, Timothy Stoker, but soon everyone was settled down with something to drink and a baked good from the basket the others had brought with them. Jon sighed with obvious pleasure and curled up against Martin’s side; Martin wrapped an arm around him and held him close.

“Where’s Charlie tonight?” he asked.

“Late rehearsal, and Sasha’s uncle offered to pick him up and watch him after,” Present Jon answered. “We’d have brought him along, but he’s got a maths exam tomorrow and I know he’s not ready for it.”

Tim laughed. “Come on, Jon, cut him some slack. He’s doing much better this term than he did in the spring.”

“To be fair,” Melanie pointed out, “there was kind of a lot going on in the spring.”

There was a hum of agreement before Georgie added, “From everything you lot told me, I didn’t expect that grandmother of his to fight you so hard on custody.”

Present Martin sighed heavily. “I did. I mean, the last thing she wanted was for people to think she was a terrible guardian, you know? Even if Children’s Services didn’t get involved and take him away, the very fact that someone else dared ask to take him—and the fact that Charlie wanted to go…”

“And the fact that you kept insisting on referring to him as him, despite the fact that she has consistently and for his entire life refused to accept that he’s a boy,” Sasha put in. “She’s a poisonous old witch and he’s lucky to be shed of her. But yeah, between that and the fact that he got anxious and panicky and afraid to let any of you out of his sight—you know, at the beginning of April—it’s no wonder he came close to failing the spring term.”

There was a short pause before Present Martin asked carefully, “Did he tell you that, or…?”

“Oh, goddammit,” Sasha sighed. “He didn’t say anything to any of you about that, did he?”

“No, but we should have noticed,” Present Jon said quietly.

Melanie snorted. “I’m not sure how you would have, considering how clingy the three of you were being.”

Martin tightened his arms around Jon as the Archives crew began bickering, mostly lightheartedly but with an undercurrent of seriousness. During their first time experiencing…well, everything they had experienced…he and Jon had never really had a chance to stop and consider anniversaries. The one-year anniversary of Jane Prentiss attacking the Institute had fallen while they were trying to get ready for the Unknowing; the one-year anniversary of that had been while Martin was still having to avoid Jon, but he remembered staring at his reflection in the mirror and wondering if he would be better off calling out of work or if he should go in and lurk in the shadows of the Archives to reassure himself that Jon was actually still there. Passing the anniversaries—or, for that matter, the dates themselves—in a timeline where they didn’t technically happen hadn’t made things significantly better, so he could definitely understand why the present crew had been reluctant to be far from each other a year after so nearly losing one another, and more particularly nearly losing Tim.

Jon sank against him, also clinging tightly, and let the banter go on for a bit before he broke in. “Have you told Charlie about the trip?”

“We’re going to surprise him after school tomorrow,” Tim said, and Martin was pretty sure he could hear the relief in it. “Hope he likes the plan. He’s been asking to come with us the next time we go out of town since Jon got back from Jonah’s little hell-quest, and I don’t think he’s ever been out of London.”

“Well…you weren’t conscious at the time, but they did bring him to visit while you were…” Present Jon’s voice trailed off.

Martin was about to say something when something solid and heavy hit his leg on four tiny pressure points and screamed. Only six months of practice enabled him not to jump completely out of his skin. “Hello, Duchess.”

“Oh, damn, I didn’t feed them before the gala.” Jon carefully disentangled himself from Martin and removed the solid iron weight masquerading as a ball of fur from his lap. “Come along, Your Grace. What have you done with your sister?”

Martin couldn’t help the soft smile that touched his lips as he stared off in the direction Jon had gone. Hearing him talk to the cats in that tone of voice always did something funny to his insides.

The smirk in Melanie’s voice was obvious. “I genuinely can’t decide which one of you is going to be the bigger pushover when you get approved to adopt.”

“Have you heard anything yet?” Present Martin asked.

“There’s another visit scheduled tomorrow. We’re almost four months into this part of the process. I’m hoping we’ll have an answer soon.” Martin picked up his mug of tea and took a sip. It had started to cool a bit, but it was still drinkable. “Not that we’re in a hurry or anything, but it’d be nice to know, you know?”

“I could probably poke at your social worker’s mind and see if they have an answer,” Sasha offered. “It’d be easy.”

“Sasha, we’ve talked about this,” Present Jon said with an audible frown.

“Yeah, if I can manage to keep myself under control…” Tim trailed off. “Sorry, Georgie. I know you’d rather we didn’t talk about it.”

“It’s fine,” Georgie said with a sigh. “I’m getting used to it. It’s not like any of you can just…stop being what you are. Did—um—did your Georgie have a problem with it?”

It was the first time she’d asked about her past self since being introduced to Jon and Martin over a year ago, and Martin couldn’t explain why it felt so weird. “She did. At first, anyway. But I think it was less the whole…supernatural fear thing and more the fact that we—and particularly Jon—kept acting like nothing was wrong.”

“Yeah. At least you lot admit this is messed up.”

“Not so much the admitting it’s messed up as trying from the get-go not to play into it,” Jon’s voice said from the direction of the kitchen. The loveseat bounced slightly—very slightly—as he sat down, leaned into Martin’s side, and kissed his cheek. “Your cat is a menace.”

“Why is she only my cat when she’s misbehaving?” Martin teased, turning his head to capture Jon’s lips with his own before they moved away. “What’s Cosmic done now?”

“Just the fact that you know it was Cosmic Creepers—”

“The Duchess has made it very clear that she’s your cat.”

Sasha gave a mock-groan. “You two as actual parents are going to be insufferable.”

Melanie’s snort was practically elephantine. “Like you don’t have the three of these with Charlie as evidence for that.”

Martin sensed the remark calculated to cause maximum chaos coming before Tim opened his mouth, but there was nothing he could do to head him off. “So, Melanie, when are you and Georgie going to add a bundle of joy to your family?”

The resultant storm of profanity and invective directed at Tim sent Jon into paroxysms of laughter, and from the sound of it, Present Jon as well. Martin could imagine Tim’s triumphant, shit-eating grin. Even Sasha was giggling.

“Seriously. I don’t even want more than one cat,” Georgie finally said when the chaos wound down. “Children have never been in my plans. Not even remotely.”

“Have you ever thought about fostering?” Present Martin asked. “Teens, maybe? I bet you’d be good at it.”

A short silence followed the question, and when Melanie answered, there was a note of surprise in her voice. “Maybe. Not right now, though.”

“I guess my question is—and please, none of you take this the wrong way—why would you want to involve a child in the…life you’re all leading?” Georgie asked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“No more than being a child is dangerous anyway,” Jon said. “Most of the fears don’t…a child’s fear isn’t fully formed, so it’s not as satisfying, but that doesn’t mean they don’t pay attention. I was marked young. So was Annabelle Cane. Callum Brodie was on the Dark’s radar long before Rayner chose him as a vessel. A-apparently the End was paying attention to all of us before my father died. A child being taken care of by someone who knows what’s out there, and isn’t…enamored with it, I suppose, stands a better chance than a child wholly unprepared.”

Martin rubbed Jon’s arm. “Besides. The more connections you have outside the Archives, the harder it is for the Fears to…use you. I guess. Even besides the Lonely, the more isolated you are, the easier you are to hurt.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Present Jon said, sounding like he was talking half to himself. “But it does make sense why Jonah tried so hard to pit us against one another. A person with no support is far more vulnerable. Far easier to use and manipulate.”

“And that’s what beat him in the end,” Melanie said. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Hear, hear.” Martin raised his mug in salute. Someone clinked a mug or glass against it, and the conversation drifted to other, less volatile topics.

They’d done this a lot over the last year. Ever since Jon, or his alter ego, had officially inherited the estate, they spent more evenings and weekends here than they did in Tim, Present Martin, and Present Jon’s house. First there’d been the intense repainting and redecorating period, during which Martin had offered deadpan commentary on color choices until Jon threatened to paint his mouth shut and Tim had unearthed more than a few artifacts belonging to other entities in various nooks and crannies. Once they were settled in, there had been pizza and pasta-making parties, movie marathons, drinks after hard weeks, and game nights. They’d come over to wrestle the garden into submission in the spring, helped decorate the house for Christmas, and watched fireworks on New Year’s from the widow’s walk on the roof. Jon had even organized an Easter Egg hunt for the neighborhood children, which had been when Martin had finally broached the idea of reaching out to the local authority about beginning the adoption process.

And exactly one year ago tonight, they had stood in the drawing room they never otherwise used and finally, finally made the bond between them a legal one.

“I can’t believe you two are spending your anniversary like this,” Sasha said, and if Martin didn’t know for a fact that she couldn’t read his mind beyond finding a back door into his dreams when Jon’s lay alongside her, he’d have told her off for it. “You’re such hopeless romantics, I expected you to go out for a candlelit dinner somewhere. Moonlit stroll in the park. Kissing under the stars.”

“It’s Thursday,” Martin reminded her.

“We’re going to Scotland for the weekend,” Jon said. “That’s part of the reason I gave everyone a three-day weekend, so we could get an early start and make the most of it.”

“I accuse you of abusing your position for your own gain,” Georgie said, but she was laughing as she did so.

“I’ll confess to that,” Jon replied immediately. Martin couldn’t help but laugh. “But seriously, we—it’s going to be a nice, relaxing weekend, but we thought spending the evening with our family would be a good start.”

Something thumped down on the coffee table. Martin guessed it was Melanie’s glass. “You know what I can’t believe? That you picked the eighteenth of October to get married. I mean, you know literally everything in the world, and certainly everything about the Institute. You had to know that was the day the Institute was founded. And then you had to spend your first anniversary making nice with the donors. Why would you do that?”

Martin looked in Jon’s direction. “You want to tell them, or shall I?”

Jon sighed heavily and dropped his head to Martin’s shoulder. “You go ahead. I’d rather not say it out loud.”

“Uh-oh.” Tim sounded worried. “This is…what happened on the eighteenth of October, 2017 in your timeline?”

“Bugger all,” Martin replied. “It was today. In our original timeline, this was when Jonah slipped his ritual into a statement and fed it to Jon against his will. Eighteenth October, 2018.” He ran his hand through Jon’s hair, which had fallen out of its braid. “We didn’t want to wait until this year to get married, but we’d already agreed that we wanted it to be the eighteenth. We wanted to take back the day Jonah Magnus tried to ruin and make it ours.”

“To replace the memories,” Present Martin said softly.

“Exactly. He’s taken too damn much from us already. We’re not letting him have everything.” Martin pressed a kiss to the top of Jon’s head.

“So where in Scotland are you going?” Present Jon asked.

“John O’Groats. It’s—Daisy used to have a safehouse up there,” Jon explained. “Well, she still has the house, but she’s just renting it out to vacationers these days. She told us we could use it for free a couple times a year as a thank-you for helping her get the Hunt under control.”

“Yeah, Basira says she’s a lot more relaxed than she was when she was a cop,” Sasha said. “If you can believe it. Is that where you two stayed…um, up until the eighteenth of October?”

“Yep.” Martin popped the P in a method that, he hoped, would indicate the subject is closed and you should not push further, Sasha James.

Thankfully, it seemed to work. Georgie was the next to speak up. “What about you three? Do you have plans for your trip to America or is it just more of a ramble?”

“We were planning to visit Boston,” Present Martin answered. “Lots of history, lots of walking trails, lots of potentially haunted stuff. But…well, Jon changed things around a couple weeks ago and he’s been vague about what we’re doing now.”

“Oh.” Present Jon sounded both embarrassed and excited. “I—ah—I’m sorry, I got so…I completely forgot I hadn’t told you. I managed to track down my cousin. You know, the one I stayed with for a bit before starting uni? He moved to a new town about the time I started at the Institute, actually. Apparently he’s married now. His husband sounds…um, interesting. And he wants to meet you two—and Charlie, too. I actually managed to get us tickets out there. I—I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind getting the chance to meet a relative that not only doesn’t hate you, but doesn’t care you’re in a relationship with two other men and is excited about the idea of meeting us? Of course we do, it sounds horrific, why would you do something like that,” Tim said flatly. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jon, we’d love to meet your cousin.”

“It’ll be fun,” Present Martin agreed. “Did you ever…I mean, have you met him?”

It took Martin a second to realize the question was directed at him. “Honestly, until you all started talking about him, I didn’t even know Jon had a cousin.”

“I’d love to see him again,” Jon said, a bit wistfully. “I do miss him. I suppose asking you to pass on my best wishes would be a little much, but…”

“I’m going to tell him,” Present Jon said softly. “About all of this. I think he deserves to know, and…I think he can handle it.”

“Well. Give me a call if you get the chance. I’d love to talk to him.”

“Of course.” Present Jon hesitated. “I—um, I think he might have a couple…statements. Something about the way he said ‘scientifically interesting’ when talking about the town. I’m going to tell him about…this, and us, and what we can do. Let him decide if he wants to share.”

Jon made a slightly pained noise, but Martin rubbed his arm soothingly and said, “You’ll probably need something. At least Tim will. That’s—you’ll be too far from the Institute for too long not to take a statement or two. Better if it’s someone willing, wouldn’t you say?”

Tim took a deep breath. “Does it ever get any easier? Needing to—sensing in your case, or seeing in mine, that someone has a statement, and needing it so badly?”

“Not really,” Jon admitted. “It’s why I don’t go out alone so often. The trouble is that sometimes it helps them and sometimes it…doesn’t, and you can never tell before they tell their stories whether it will or not. The Eye likes it better when it’s…forced, but the Eye can honestly get stuffed. We’re doing this on our terms.”

“Hell yeah,” Tim said with a laugh. Jon leaned forward at Martin’s side, and from the sounds, he guessed they were bumping their fists together.

They spent about another hour together, talking and laughing and generally relaxing. Finally, though, Present Martin asked, “How early were you two planning to head out?”

“Not until early afternoon. The social worker is coming, remember?” Martin shrugged. “But if you lot want to get going…”

“Yes, we—we should probably make sure Charlie’s in bed, and I’m sure Wade is ready to be released,” Present Jon said. There were a number of rustles and creaks as everyone got to their feet, and Martin stood, too, stretching out his spine. “Call us when you get there.”

“We will. Let us know when you get to America,” Jon replied.

“Are you taking the cats, or do you want us to stop by and look after them?” Melanie asked.

Martin paused and looked in Jon’s direction. He could practically feel his thoughts flowing between them, running through the bond Annabelle had put on them like a telegraph wire. “Well, we were going to take them, but…actually, would you mind?”

“Of course not. We’d be delighted,” Georgie said.

Jon squeezed Martin’s waist, then slid away. “Come here, then, let me show you where we keep the food.”

Martin saw the others to the door and handed out another round of hugs. Jon arrived with Georgie just before they pulled away, so was at least able to wave, and he hugged both Georgie and Melanie and thanked them again. And then it was just the two of them, alone in their house, and together.

Jon shut and latched the door, then took Martin’s hand. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh?”

“Mm-hmm. Close your eyes and follow me.”

Martin smiled more broadly, but he did as Jon asked. Jon led him through the house and up three flights of stairs. It somehow didn’t surprise Martin when Jon pushed open a final door and he heard the soft sounds of an autumn evening.

“Stargazing?” he teased.

“It is a good night for it,” Jon said, not rising to the bait. “But no, not what I had in mind.” He tugged Martin forward a few feet, then added, “You can open your eyes now.”

Martin didn’t point out that it wouldn’t do any good; he simply opened his eyes. He could smell roses and peonies, he thought—the same flowers they’d decorated the drawing room with for their wedding. There was a soft click, and a tape recorder began playing—which made him smile—and then Jon was there and holding his hands. “Can I have this dance?”

Martin’s smile broadened as he recognized the song. “For the rest of your life.”

Martin let Jon lead him, singing quietly along with the music as he did so. He was still barefoot and it was a bit cold on the widow’s walk for that, but he didn’t care. It was the song they’d chosen as their first dance at their wedding, something of a fast waltz, but the lyrics had struck both of them as being so very them. As soon as Martin realized that, he also realized that this was probably the tape Tim had made for them to play at their wedding. It had been their way of ensuring that Annabelle, if she was still listening, would be able to be a part of things, too.

They still made a point of shooing out spiders and cleaning out cobwebs, but the tapes? Those could stay.

When the first song was over, rather than let Jon go, Martin simply shifted his grip and took the lead for the second song on the tape—the first song they had ever danced to, in Tim and Present Martin and Present Jon’s kitchen the night they’d moved in. He pulled Jon closer, letting their foreheads touch, and sang along to that one as well. He could feel Jon shiver in his arms and knew, knew, it wasn’t the cold that was doing it.

They slowed to a stop just before the song ended. Jon slid his arms around Martin’s neck and simply held him; Martin wrapped his around Jon’s waist and pulled him even closer until their bodies were flush, until they were practically fused into a single person.

“I love you,” he murmured.

“I love you, too,” Jon whispered back. “Happy anniversary, Martin.”

“Happy anniversary.” Martin leaned forward and kissed him thoroughly.

Jon kissed him back, deeply and intensely and with all the emotions they had built up between them over the years: loneliness and desperation and fear, love and tenderness and hope. They had fought their damnedest for a moment they thought would never come, and now that it had, Martin was going to savor it. This and every other moment that ever could be.

At last, the need for air forced them to separate, and Jon laughed quietly. “You know what I didn’t think through about this?”

“We’re still barefoot?” Martin guessed.

“We are still barefoot,” Jon agreed. “And I’m still rather…worn out from the day. What do you say we go inside, shut the cats in their room for the night, and make use of that oversized tub in the downstairs bath?”

“I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” Martin said. He kissed Jon again, very softly, and then stepped back. “Lead on, Mr. Blackwood-Sims.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Blackwood-Sims,” Jon drawled. He stopped the tape with a gentle click, then laced his fingers through Martin’s, the metal of his wedding band smooth and cool against his fingers as it rolled over the webbing between them. “Come on, my love.”

Hand-in-hand, Martin and Jon, the man he’d loved for years, the man he’d fought for, fought with, the reason he had survived apocalypse after apocalypse, his anchor—his husband—turned away from the world they had somehow managed to save and into their home, into the future they had made.

Together.

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin #jonmartim #I am glad to be with you here at the end of all things #god I can't believe this is OVER

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foreverdavidbyrne · 4 years ago

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David Byrne’s interview in NME magazine

In 1979, David Byrne predicted Netflix. “It’ll be as easy to hook your computer up to a central television bank as it is to get the week’s groceries,” he told NME’s Max Bell, sitting in a Paris hotel considering the implications of Talking Heads’ dystopian single ‘Life During Wartime’.

He predicted the Apple Watch in that interview too: “[People will] be surrounded by computers the size of wrist watches.” And he foresaw surveillance culture and data harvesting: “Government surveillance becomes inevitable because there’s this dilemma when you have an increase in information storage. A lot of it is for your convenience, but as more information gets on file, it’s bound to be misused.”

In fact, over 40 years ago, he predicted the entire modern-day experience, as if he instinctively knew what was coming. “We’ll be cushioned by amazing technological development,” he said, “but sitting on Salvation Army furniture.”

The 68-year-old Byrne says today, “You can’t say that you know,” chuckling down a Zoom link from his home in New York and belying his reputation for awkwardness by seeming giddily relieved to be talking to someone. “It’s crazy to set yourself up as some sort of prophet. But there’s plenty of people who have done well with books where they claim to predict what’s going on. I suppose sometimes it’s possible to let yourself imagine, ‘Okay – what if?’ This can evolve into something that exists, can evolve into something more substantial, cheaper – these kinds of things.”

It’s been a lifelong gift. Byrne turned up at CBGBs in 1975 with his art school band Talking Heads touting ‘Psycho Killer’, as if predicting the punk scene’s angular melodic evolution, new wave, before punk was even called punk. In 1980, Talking Heads assimilated African beats and textures into their seminal ‘Remain In Light’ album, foreshadowing ‘world music’ and modern music’s globalist melting pot, then used it to warn America of the dangers of consumerism, selfishness and the collapse of civilisation. Pioneering or propheteering, Byrne has been on the front-line of musical evolution for 45 years, collaborating with fellow visionaries from Brian Eno to St Vincent’s Annie Clark, constantly imagining, ‘What if?’

The live music lockdown has been a frustrating freeze frame, but Byrne was already leading the way into music’s new normal. Launched in 2018, the tour to support his 10th solo album, ‘American Utopia’, has now turned into a cinematic marvel courtesy of Spike Lee – the concert film was released in the UK this week. The original tour was acclaimed as a live music revolution. Using remote technology, Byrne was able to remove all of the traditional equipment clutter from the stage and allow his musicians and dancers, in uniform grey suits and barefoot, to roam around a stage lined with curtains of metal chains with their instruments strapped to them. A Marshally distanced gig, if you will.

“As the show was conceptually coming together, I realised that once we had a completely empty stage the rulebook has now been thrown out,” Byrne says. “Now we can go anywhere and do anything. This is completely liberating. It means that people like drummers, for example, who are usually relegated to the back shadows, can now come to the front – all those kinds of things – which changes the whole dynamic.”

With six performers making up an entire drum kit and Byrne meandering through the choreography trying to navigate a nonsensical world, the show was his most striking and original since he jerked and jived around a constructed-mid-gig band set-up in Jonathan Demme’s legendary 1984 Talking Heads live film Stop Making Sense.

The American Utopia show embarked on a Broadway run last year, where Byrne super-fan Spike Lee saw it twice and leapt at the chance of turning the spectacle into Byrne’s second revolutionary live film, dotted with his musings on the human condition to illuminate the crux of the songs: institutional racism, our lack of modern connection, the erosion of democracy and, on opener ‘Here’, a lecture-like tour of the human brain, Byrne holding aloft a scale model, trying to fathom, ‘How do I work this?’

“I didn’t know how much of a fan Spike was!” Byrne laughs today. “He’d even go, ‘Why don’t you do this song? Why don’t you add this song in’. We knew one another casually so I could text him and say, ‘I want you to come and see our show; I think that you might be interested in making a film of it’.”

Are the days of the traditional stage set-up numbered? “Yes, I think so,” he replies. “At least in theatres and concert halls the size that I would normally play, yes. The fact that we can get the music digitally [means] a performance has to be really of value. It has to be really something special, because that’s where the performers are getting their money and that’s what the audience is paying for. They’re not paying very much for streaming music, but they are paying quite a bit to go and see a performance, so the performance has to give them value for money… It has to be really something to see.”

How does David Byrne envisage the future possibilities of live performance?

“I’ve seen a lot of things that hip-hop artists have done – like the Kanye West show where he emerges on a platform that floats above the stage,” he says. “I’d seen one with Kendrick Lamar where it was pretty much just him on stage, an empty stage with just him on stage and a DJ, somebody with a laptop – that was it. I thought, ‘Wow’. Then he started doing things with huge projections behind. There are lots of ways to do this. I love the idea of working with a band, with live musicians. ‘How can I innovate in this kind of way?’ It’s maybe easier for a hip-hop musician who doesn’t have a band to figure out. The pressure is on to come up with new ways of doing this.”

In liberating his musicians from fixed, immovable positions, American Utopia also acts as a metaphor for freeing our minds from our own ingrained ways of thinking. As Byrne intersperses Talking Heads classics such as ‘Once In A Lifetime’, ‘I Zimbra’ and ‘Road To Nowhere’ with choice solo cuts and tracks from ‘American Utopia’, he also dots the show with musings on an array of post-millennial questions: the health of democracy; the rise of xenophobia and fascism; our increasing reliance on materialism and online communication; the climate change threat; the existential nightmare of the dating app; and, crucially, the distances all of these things put between us.

“The ‘likes’ and friends and connections and everything that the internet enables,” he argues, “even Zoom calls like this, they’re no substitute for really being with other people. Calling social networks ‘social’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”

Byrne closes the show with the suggestion that, rather than isolate behind our LCD barriers, we should try to reconnect with each other. In an age when social media has descended into all-out thought war and anyone can find concocted ‘facts’ to support anything they want to believe, is that realistic?

“I have a little bit of hope,” he says. “Not every day, but some days. I have hope that people will abandon a lot of social media, that they’ll realise how intentionally addictive it is, and they’re actually being used, and that they might enjoy actually being with other people rather than just constantly scrolling through their phone. So, I’m a little bit optimistic that people will, in some ways, use this technology a little bit less than they have.”

A key moment in American Utopia comes with Byrne’s cover of Janelle Monae’s ‘Hell You Talmbout’, a confrontational track shouting the names of African-Americans who have been killed by police or in racially motivated attacks – Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd and far, far too many more. Does Byrne think the civil unrest in the wake of Floyd’s death and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement make a serious impact?

“We’ll see how long this continues,” he says, “but in projects that I’m working on – there’s a theatre project I’m working on in Denver, there’s the idea of bringing this show back to Broadway, there’s other projects – those issues came to the fore. Issues of diversity and inclusion and things like that, which were always there. Now they’re being taken more seriously. The producers and theatre owners realise that they can’t push those things aside, that they have to be included in the whole structure of how a show gets put together.”

“At least for now, that seems to be a big change. I see it in TV shows and other areas too. There’s a lot of tokenism, but there’s a lot of real opportunity and changed thinking as well.”

Elsewhere, he encourages his audience to register to vote, and had registration booths at the shows. He must have been pleased about the record turnout in the recent US election? “Yeah, the turnout was great. Now you just got to keep doing that. Gotta keep doing it at all the local elections, too. It was important for me not to endorse a political party or anything in the show but to say, ‘Listen, we can’t have a democracy if you don’t vote. You have to get out there and let your voice be heard and there’s lots of people trying to block it.’ We have to at least try.”

Will Trump’s loss help bring people together after four years with such a divisive influence in charge?

“Yes. I think for me Trump was not so much a shock; we knew who he is. He was around New York before that, in the reality show [The Apprentice], we knew what kind of character he was. What shocked me was how quickly the Republican party all fell into line behind him, behind this guy who’s obviously a racist, misogynist liar and everything else. But it’s kind of encouraging – although it’s taken four years and with some it’s only with the prospect of him being gone – that quite a few have been breaking ranks. There are some possibilities of bridge building being held out.”

But, he says, “It’s too early to celebrate,” concerned that Senate Majority Leader and fairweather Trump loyalist Mitch McConnell will use any Republican control of the Senate to block many of Biden’s policies from coming into effect. “[This] is what happened with Obama… I want to see real change happen. [Climate change] absolutely needs to be a priority. The clock had turned back over the last four years, so there’s a lot to be done. Whether there’s the willpower to do everything that needs to be done, it remains to be seen, but at least now it’s pointing in the right direction.”

How will he look back on the last four years? Byrne ponders. “I’m hoping that I look back at it as a near-miss.”

American Utopia is as much a personal journey as a dissection of modern ills. Ahead of ‘Everybody’s Coming To My House’, Byrne admits to being a rather socially awkward type. He claims that a choir of Detroit teenagers, when singing the song for the accompanying video, had imbued the song with a far more welcoming message than his own rendition, which found him wracked with the fear that his visitors might never leave. How does someone like that deal with celebrity?

“In a certain way it’s a blessing,” Byrne grins, “because I don’t have to go up to people to talk to them – they sometimes come up to me. In other ways it’s a little bit awkward. Celebrity itself seems very superficial and I have to constantly remind myself that your character, your behaviour and the work that you do is what’s important – not how well known you are, not this thing of celebrity. I learned early on it’s pretty easy to get carried away. But it does have its advantages. I had Spike Lee’s phone number, so I could text him.”

Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz’s recent book Remain In Love suggests that the more successful Byrne got early on, the more distant he became.

Byrne nods. “I haven’t read the book, but I know that as we became more successful I definitely used some of that to be able to work on other projects. I worked on a dance score with [American choreographer] Twyla Tharp and I worked on a theatre piece with [director] Robert Wilson – other kinds of things – [and] I started working on directing some of the band’s music videos. So I guess I spent less time just hanging out. As often happens with bands, you start off being all best friends and doing everything together and after a while that gets to be a bit much. Everybody develops their own friends and it’s like, ‘I have my own friends too’. Everybody starts to have their own lives.”

The future is far too enticing for David Byrne to consider revisiting the past. “I do live alone so sometimes it would get lonely”, he says of lockdown, but he’s been using his Covid downtime to cycle around undiscovered areas of New York and remain philosophical about the aftermath.

“We’ll see how long before the vaccine is in, before we return to being able to socialise,” he says, “but I’m also wondering, ‘How am I going to look at this year? Am I going to look at it as, “Oh yes, that’s the year that was to some extent taken away from our lives; our lives were put on pause?”’ We kept growing; we kept ageing; we keep eating, but it was almost like this barrier had been put up. It has been a period where, in a good way, it’s led us to question a lot of what we do. You get up in the morning and go, ‘Why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? What’s this about?’ Everything is questioned.”

Post-vaccine, he hopes to “travel a little bit” before looking into plans to bring the ‘American Utopia’ show back to Broadway, and possibly even to London if the financial aspects can be worked out. “Often when a show like that travels, the lead actors might travel,” Byrne explains, “but in this case it’s the entire cast that has to travel. So you’ve got a lot of hotel bills and all that kind of stuff. We wanted to do it. There might be a way, if we can figure that out.”

Once we all get our jab, will everyone come to recognise that, as Byrne sings on ‘American Utopia’s most inspiring track, ‘Every Day Is A Miracle’? “Optimistically, maybe,” he says. “There will be a lot of people who will just go, ‘Let’s get back to normal – get out to the bars, the clubs and discos’. That’s already been happening in New York; there’s been these underground parties where people just can’t help themselves. But after all this it’d be nice to think that people might reassess things a little bit.”

And with the algorithm as the new gatekeeper and technology beginning to subsume the sounds and consumption of music, what does the new wave Nostradamus foresee for rock in the coming decades? Will AIs soon be writing songs for other AIs to consume to inflate the numbers, cutting humanity out of the equation altogether?

“It seems like there’ll be a kind of factory,” Byrne predicts, “an AI factory of things like that, and of newspaper articles and all of this kind of stuff, and it will just exaggerate and duplicate human biases and weaknesses and stupidity. On the other hand, I was part of a panel a while back, and a guy told a story about how his listening habits were Afrofuturism and ambient music – those were his two favourite ways to go. The algorithm tried to find commonalities between the two so it could recommend things to him and he said it was hopeless. Everything it recommended was just horrible because it tried to find commonalities between these two very separate things. This just shows that we’re a little more eclectic than these machines would like to think.”

And in the distant future? Best prepare to welcome your new gloop overlords. Byrne isn’t concerned about The Singularity – the point at which machine intelligence supersedes ours and AI becomes God – but instead believes that future technologies will emulate microbial forms.

“I watched a documentary on slime moulds [a simple slimy organism] the other day,” he says, warming to his sticky theme. “Slime moulds are actually extremely intelligent for being a single-celled organism. They can build networks and bunches of them can communicate. They can learn, they have memories, they can do all these kinds of things that you wouldn’t expect a single-celled organism to be able to do.”

“I started thinking, ‘Well, is there a lesson there for AI and machine learning, of how all these emerging properties could be done with something as simple as a single cell?’ It’s all in there… when things interact, they become greater than the sum of their parts. I thought, okay, maybe the future of AI is not in imitating human brains, but imitating these other kinds of networks, these other kinds of intelligences. Forget about imitating human intelligence – there’s other kinds of intelligence out there, and that might be more fruitful. But I don’t know where that leads.”

His grin says he does know, that he has a vision of our icky soup-world future, but maybe the rest of the species isn’t yet advanced enough to handle it. But if we’re evolving towards disaster rather than utopia, we can trust David Byrne to give us plenty of warning.

December 18, 2020

#david byrne #talking heads #music #new wave #post-punk #art pop #avant funk #worldbeat #interview #nme magazine #2020

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p1nkwitch · 4 years ago

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I have plenty of questions about your fanfics I don't even know when to start. Can I just name every one of them and send you star with it?

But please tell me something interesting funfact behind Heart Machinations? Also were you at some point considering bad/different ending?

i think i would never finish writing if you did send me all of them even with the star, i ramble a lot and go on tangents, but if you send them like 3 fics per day i can make it i promise.

Ok to start! Nope! This was the story where i literally envisioned the ending first and had to go backwards to write it. The ending was solid.

But for fun facts!! Oh boy.

This entire story begun with the idea of a one shot, with a slight different plot, it would have ended with Peter as an old man uploading his mind like he promised Elias in the fic and coming back as an Ai, to stay with Elias for as long as they could. I ended up switching things arounf in my head until i ended up with the image.

The thing that started this entire fic.

Peter floating in space with Elias declaring his love.

I was forced by the entire story to find ways to keep them from confessing earlier than intended. God did i regret having to put it so later, because the mental flips i needed to justify them not realizing, were driving me up to a wall.

Another thing that i was not aiming for, but ended up liking was the TimPeter, i didnt aim for it to be a plot point, i didnt even ship them, but i wrote them so well i actually hesitated. Not to the Elias romance with Peter that was a given, but i hesitated to actually make a policule out of everyone.

In the end i decided to go for my original plan, but it had been a posibility.

Most of the relationships surged as the soty progressed, because i realized if it was only them it would get boring so i started to shuffle characters and relationships and it worked far better than i intended.

Now the other interesting tidbit.

Was that originally i was intending for Elias to be the actual big bad, a la Glados in portal. Elias tricks Tim and Peter into thinking Jon went rouge and he got Leitner killed so Peter connects him, Elias pretends things are normal but sends him off to rrepair something outside, once Peter is safe he uses the gas to kill everyone who is not going to be sent to do experiments in the hidden labs.

Martin opens the door for Peter makes him help by trying Elias like the original one did to get himshut down. He realizes and hurt tries to attack him, Martin uses the portal door and Peter still tries to hold unto Elias, but they ended up slipping and going into space.

The Simon plot point was always going to be there, same as the oxygen and confession.They apologize and everything.

In fact Peter was never supposed to realize Elias was killing people until he takes over. I realized it would be impossible to keep him in the dark for so long along with the not confessing so i had to give one up for the story and i was set on my ways.

The more i developed them, the more i started to change the plot to fit better with the new narrative wanting it to be more satisfiying.

Something else that i changed in the story, was that after Leitner dies, Gertrude was supposed to come to check the station, Elias sees her and gets her killed. It did not pan out of course, because i considered it would be too out of nowhere.

When i realize the story was sort of getting shifted i went with the idea to switch the notSasha on its head. Which created lovely Pasha!! Whom i love a lot.

Another thing that i had to develop because i grew very fond of it were Missy and Titania. Particularly Missy, since Titania was a stand in for the vast in some ways. Missy was needed to provide Peter some form of love, since yes, i made the Lukas terrible people, but a child still needs some love to grow and i wanted someone to help with that since Simon couldnt. I love her a lot and honestly wish i could use her in more stories because she is a great character. I know people dont really are in it for the original characters but she is dear to me.

The honest to god most fun i had during the story was writting the chats between the characters and the moments where Elias and Peter where being horny for each other. Peter freaking out silently about the things Elias said, while Elias was being the most horny creature in the station was delightful.

My favourite parts were also writing Elias realizing that he ruined Peter, that he had caused his misery, i wish i could have gone harder on those. Because they are a great part of his motivations. He starst not caring but the more he falls in love, the more he realizes how much of a horrible person he is and how much he is hurting Peter. I love that, i put it before but i like making characters go though bad stuff to get them to the good, to get that catharsis after all the bad.

I wanted to do a bonus. Where Peter does go to Simon’s funeral and everyone has to sit there while Android Simon was just chilling giving his own eulogy.

One thing i sort of chikened out of, but left crumbs around was the plot point that ogElias and Micheal Shelley were dating. Thats why Elias had the picture and writings about him. They split due to Gertrude and Elias defending JON4H. Its why Elias could keep Helen so easily to raise her. She calls him uncle, because they had broken up and he felt he didnt deserve to take that from Micheal.

Currently they made up and since Elias was single they are patching things up, Helen was thrilled.

This is also the story where the cats appear. And im so glad for it.

Captain was an idea based on the au of another fic i love Timeline of Theseus, i just pictured Peter getting the cat and voila. (No, there is no cat in there, but it would had been so funny) They were foils, Elias has a lonely cat and Peter a beholding one. They fall in love. I like that.

Thats all i can remember now. Nikola was always also a plot point, i mean who else would make androids but the puppet herself! Since ideally i intended for Elias to get a body, it was supposed to happen.

I went off, but i really did have a lot of ideas and scrapped ones that i figured no one would see. Im happy i could just leave them out to the world!!

So yes ask away, but as you can see, i sort of go off. Thanks for asking!!!! I hope its what you wanted. Sorry if it goes all over the place.

#ask #i went off im sorry #but seriously i had to scrap so many ideas #and adjust them later

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themovieblogonline · 6 months ago

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Green Lantern Glows Up for TV with A-List Talent!

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ruffiorocks · 5 years ago

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Dany, Drogo and forced marriage in Game of Thrones, a historical perspective.

(Disclaimer, I obviously don't think rape and abuse are in any way OK).

I've been re-reading the first book because it's been a long time since I did and we're in lockdown so I have plenty of time on my hands.

I've finished the chapter of Dany and Drogo's wedding night and surprised when I saw that at the end of that chapter Dany actually gives consent to Drogo, unlike the how the show presents it. I'd completely forgotten about that.

Drogo sits and takes the bells from his hair and Dany joins in to help him. He then undresess with help and she is then undressed. Like the show he keeps saying "no" but unlike the show Dany actually takes comfort in the fact he knows at least one word she does. Drogo touches her a lot, works her up and then he says one last time "no?" But the last one is a question. Dany replies with "Yes" and then takes his finger and you can guess what happens next. It's a very different portrayal to how the show presents it.

Now, I remember later in the book that Drogo comes in every night, has sex with her roughly and then leaves. Very like the show and that's where Dany learns to please him from her slave and he's surprised in both book and show.

Now I know what people will say, "She was 13! It was rape!" And yes, from a 20th century point of view that is what it very much is. BUT this story does not take place on 2020.

G.R.R Martin based his books on the Wars of the Roses, so for us it takes place between the 14th and 15th century. If you study history you would know that being married off against your will was something that was done for both boys and girls. It was an arrangement usually made when they were children and people got on with it.

Dany's age of 13 wasn't considered underage for the time those books are based around. I'm fact some were married at the age of 5 or 6. The most prominent 13 year old who was married off during the WOTR was Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII and grandmother of Henry VIII. Margaret was a wealthy heiress and was married off to a 30 something year old man. Actually perfectly normal and acceptable for the time. Consummation of the marriage however was another matter, where it wasn't actually illegal to consummate at age 13 it wasn't considered a good idea because the girl hadn't finished developing and complications could occur should she get pregnant. When Margaret Beaufort was left pregnant at 13 after her husband was killed people thought that it was to early for her, but again not actually illegal in anyway. Unfortunately for Margaret she would only ever have the one child, she was probably damaged to much after getting pregnant so early. Later on she made sure her grandchildren were older before being married off and consumating their marriages.

So, for Dany to be married at 13 and be having sex isn't actually all that off for world that Martin has created, even though to us it seems very off.

It was also not considered rape when a man had sex with his wife whenever he chose. Women were taught to simply put up with it. I'm medieval society it was actually considered a sin to enjoy sex, especially for women. High born men would have sex with their wives for pro creation not enjoyment, that was what mistresses were for. (Just to clarify these aren't my views, simply the views of medieval society).

In the show and book we see Drogo take Dany from behind and she isn't enjoying it, to the point she wants to kill herself, this is heartbreaking, but that's because we as the audience and reader are thinking of it in a 20th century point of view but also Dany's point of view. The Dothraki are not like the people of Westeros. Even at the wedding it is explained by master Illyrio that the Dothraki mount their women like a stallion mounts a mare. It happens at the wedding, both in the show and in the books. It's not even referred to as sex, it's referred to as mating. Later on in the show when Dany is suggesting the Dothraki take the women as wives rather than rape them she is laughed at and the blood riders say "does the horse lie with the sheep?" They are referring to themselves and others as animals. Drogo is a product of Drogo's culture, the men take the women like a horse takes a mare. It's horrible to use of course! But what one has to understand is that this is the culture of the Dothraki, the culture that Martin created and a culture that Dany absolutely does not belong in.

I saw someone mention that Dany's age means nothing to Ned and Robert when they discuss her, but of course it doesn't, because in their society being married off at that age and getting pregnant isn't a shock to them. She's referred to as a 'child' but that's because she is a 13 year old teenager who to Ned poses not threat to them.

Now, remember that throughout the first book Jon and Robb are 14 and refer to themselves as almost "a man grown" as in they are almost of age. In the 14th and 15th century 14 was the legal age of marriage for a boy (unless they were married was children or by proxy). Even Bran at 7 calls himself almost a man grown. It was only at the beginning of the 16th century that the age of maturity went up to about 18. So for e.g. in 1483 Edward V (one of the Prince's in the Tower) was 12 when he became king, but was considered underage, but had he been allowed to reach 14 as king he could have begun to rule. By the 1509 when Henry VIII became king he was just a few month off his 18th birthday and his grandmother was regent for about a month until he turned 18. His younger brother Prince Arthur was married off at 15 to his 16 year old wife Catherine of Aragon (who would later marry Henry). Later Henry in his 40s would marry a 15 year old girl. Again, for the time none of this was illegal or even really frowned upon.

So in conclusion, yes we see what Drogo did to Dany as rape, and we should because in today's society it absolutely is! But, George R. R. Martin did not set his story in today's society, it set in a medieval society and to understand the depth of what's going on we need to a point look at it through medieval eyes and not 20th century ones.

It's not unlike watching a show set in ancient Rome and seeing slaves, they were a part of society and to understand the show and the time it's presenting you have to look at it from that point of view.

Just some food for thought, of course it's rape, Dany, Sansa, Jeyne Poole, even Cersei with Jaime. In some society women would get their revenge on the men who treated them badly, history is littered with them biding their time. But unfortunately, for the time the show is based on it wasn't actually a crime to be forced to have sex with your husband.

Forced marriage was am everyday occurrence, marriage wasn't for love at least not on high society. Marriage was for alliances, wealth, position, the continuation of a blood line. Even in the show this happens, Ned marries Catelyn because his brother dies. Robert marries Cersei for alliances with the richest house, Sansa is promised to Joffrey, Margery is married off to Renly, Joffrey and Tommen! Robb has to swear to marry a Frey girl, any one he chooses, she doesn't get a say, but he gets himself killed for love. Tywin tells Cersei she has to marry Loras and she has no say. Tyrion has no say in marrying Sansa.

Robert wasn't great to Cersei, he even hit her on occasion, but for the time this wasn't considered a crime. Walder Frey was lecherous pervert but again frowned upon in the show but not a crime. Joffrey had he married Sansa probably would had been horrific to her, again not a crime but people would have been disgusted.

The major issue I think is with the show, it has all of these things in it but it presents the view points of other characters from a 20th century point of view. The "good guys" like the Starks would be horrified to learn that the girls had been married off without their consent , but at the same time Robb gets to choose whichever Frey girl he wants like he's picking out a jumper. Even Edmure will later get to pick a Frey girl. Tyrion arranges a marriage for Myrcella but is horrified to learn he's had one arranged for him. Catleyn even agrees to marry off Arya to a Frey boy, she isn't even there and has no say and she's fully aware she will hate it!

So I looked at this from a historians point of view to understand the story not a woman living in 2020, so don't attack me. ✌

#game of thrones #khaleesi #khal drogo #daenerys targaryen #joffrey baratheon #queen cersei #cersei lannister #sansa stark #robb stark #margery tyrell #ned stark #robert baratheon

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