#and therefore connected to Black struggles

[archive-blep]

I genuinely still don’t get how we can pretty much universally recognize that what Rachel Dolezal did was delusional and racist to Black people, but nobody can explain how that’s any different from what transwomen are doing to women right now

[nothorses]

a transmasc only discord server is kind of fucking weird tbh. you call transfems seperationists for voicing their unique oppressions and then get pissy and make a server where you can just circle jerk and pat each other on the back, never questioning your transmisogyny? i think people can see who the true “seperationists” are.

About a year ago the queer black woman leading the organization we were working to start asked me and the other white people working with her to lead an affinity group that white families joining the org would be required to participate in, and which would read and discuss anti-racist/anti-white supremacist literature together, as a way of protecting space for black & brown staff, families, and program participants.

She stressed that it was important for this to be specific to white people, and explained that she wanted to start a parallel one for people of color involved in the org, because those conversations are really different between those groups. Importantly, the kind of honesty and vulnerability required to effectively unpack white supremacy culture is, well, generally not safe (or often possible) for people of color to embody in a space where white people are unpacking their own white supremacist ways of thinking and acting- even if they're doing it in an explicitly anti-racist context.

This is derived from the idea of "affinity groups", often specifically "identity affinity groups", which are commonly used in activist spaces and workplaces seeking to dismantle oppressive systems and culture from within. The idea is that creating spaces specific to identities allows for conversations about personal experiences with oppression that would be difficult to hold otherwise; both for those who have been harmed, and those who have done harm. It's not an end-all be-all kind of tool, but it can definitely be helpful.

In the context of marginalized identities, these kinds of spaces can also be a really great way of facilitating community-building, especially where there is a capacity for establishing positive cultural norms in the process (like not tolerating certain kinds of bigotry, especially if you also make space to express, challenge, and unpack bigoted ideas).

Transmascs, as a group, historically struggle to connect with community. Invisibility coupled with the isolating nature of queerness (as a marginalized identity that emerges later in life, and generally not through genetics), and in particular the way transness tends to funnel into a desire to "pass" & further isolates folks by preventing them from even identifying one another, contributes to this naturally. There's also a phenomena in which feminist and queer community spaces tend to be hostile towards anyone they perceive as "masculine", and therefore threatening. This includes transmascs (esp. those who are or have transitioned) and transfems (esp. those who are pre-transition/non-transitioning or butch), along with plenty of other groups (black people especially).

Thus, a transmasc-specific server serves a few purposes:

It acts as a space for transmascs to discuss our unique experiences with lessened anxiety around accidentally phrasing something in a way that does harm to others in the space

It acts as a space for transmascs to challenge one another on bigoted or harmful ideas, which may be better received coming from someone who shares some of those personal experiences- and is often easier given from a person who is not personally hurt by what was said/done.

It acts as a space for transmascs to build community with other transmascs

It establishes positive community norms early in that process, which often carry outside of that space and into others.

Among lots of other things!

Identity affinity groups aren't the end-all be-all; it's important for folks to interact, connect, and build community with people from a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. That's how we grow, and it's part of how we make sure the ideas we have about the world include and account for everyone.

Trans experiences have been absent from a huge portion of feminist theory; earlier theory especially. That- and the exclusion of black & brown experiences- is how we got radfeminism. Also known as second wave feminism, which preceded the inclusion of intersectionality that defined the third wave.

Transmasc experiences have been absent from a huge portion of trans theory; this isn't a conspiracy or anything, it's something Julia Serano acknowledges in the opening pages of Whipping Girl (even though she also goes on to make assumptions about experiences not her own anyway).

My opinion is that community-building is an essential step in promoting the inclusion of transmasc perspectives on a larger scale: it gives transmascs a space to identify patterns in their experiences. We can then take our observations into diverse communities, where we can identify similarities and differences in how others are treated, learn from one another, and cultivate a more complete understanding of oppression across all demographics.

Your ask makes me think you're not really interested in all of this- and you were instead just looking to make me feel or look bad (or perhaps just make yourself feel good)- but maybe I'm wrong! I would love to be wrong. Or maybe someone else will learn from this instead.

[pirateshelly]

One thing that really fascinates me about interview with the vampire (the show) is this sort of tension between power and powerlessness in all of the characters. Because it doesn't present becoming a vampire as something that just gives you power and magically makes you completely detached from all human concerns and struggles.

And that seems to be something Lestat does very much want to believe, and he's in enough of a position of privilege that he's able to convince himself it's true, and it's a fundamental area where he just cannot understand Louis because Louis CAN'T pretend even if he wants to. (And of course Lestat cannot ACTUALLY separate himself from "human troubles" the way he likes to think he can, he just has an easier time pretending than most). Because as much as becoming a vampire grants these characters supernatural power it doesn't just magically take away the very tangible human ways that they were previously vulnerable or powerless.

Becoming a vampire doesn't negate Louis' struggles with racism; in some ways it amplifies them with how he is alienated from his own family and community; his closest connection becomes Lestat. He loses his economic independence and becomes socially dependent on Lestat in a way he wasn't to anyone as a human because in some ways becoming a vampire made him MORE vulnerable, despite granting him physical strength/speed/etc. The promise of freedom in vampirism Lestat presents to Louis (that I do think he does genuinely mean, but "freedom" means very different things to Louis than it does to Lestat) is never fulfilled.

Likewise Claudia learns the hard way with Bruce and later with the coven that she may be a vampire but the world still looks at her and sees a vulnerable young black girl and that will always put her in danger.

Claudia rescues Madeleine then turns her into a vampire, but rather than protect her from future harm the "crime" of turning her becomes the very thing that gets her killed by yet another angry mob.

And 514 years as a vampire will never be enough for Armand to truly trust or believe in his own power. Because the first 200 or so years of his life he was literally never once allowed any agency at all over his own identity or his own body (child slave sold to a brothel, sold to an abusive master, captured and violently indoctrinated into a vampire cult for centuries). No amount of material strength and power is going to undo the psychological effects of that. (And I know some people like to read his frequently passive demeanor as simply manipulation and a way of catching people off guard (because how could someone so old and powerful possibly feel a genuine sense of fear/vulnerability/etc 🙄) but to me that's an incredibly disingenuous reading of him. But that's a different rant for another time!). Being a vampire does not save him from being horrifically abused, nor does it save him from the lasting emotional effects of that abuse.

And I think there's something interesting to be said about the way that, in order to survive safely, they have to feed on the most vulnerable members of society (people undesirable and therefore least likely to arouse suspicion) in order to go unnoticed. If they want to live they have to prey on those vulnerable in possibly the same ways they themselves once were (and in many ways still are).

There's a frequent argument I dislike that we shouldn't be viewing any of these characters through too human of a lense because they're literal monsters (to be honest it's an argument I see most often made when people simply don't want to talk about the show's complex depiction of racism/misogyny/abuse/etc and used to dismiss those as issues "too human" to be relevant to a story about a bunch of monsters with a supposedly alien sense of morality), but I think the show itself makes a huge argument that for these characters there is no escaping or separating themselves from the very human struggles and vulnerabilities that marked them before they ever became vampires. It's like a sort deconstructed power fantasy.

[gumbootillustrations]

UGH I FUCKING FINALLY FINISHED THIS

so yeah, have the divine warriors of the second war of the magi!!

more deets n closeups under the cut :3

aph!! i like to think that although the incarnations of the divine warriors r generally pretty similar, they do have some minor differences. for example, whereas the matron of the first war of the magi (irene) had one of the sets of wings on her head covering her eyes, the matron of the second war (mcd!aphmau) has both of them held back. this is bc whereas irene had lost her humanity (and therefore the ability to connect with mortals), aph hasn't - and, therefore, her eyes are open to the struggles of humanity. additionally, i took a lot of inspiration from honkai impact 3rd for these designs - in aph's case, i was inspired by elysia's herrscher of human: ego battlesuit and how it looks like a wedding dress (which a lot of folks have interpreted as an expression of her love for humanity, which is smth i want to convey w aph).

i think my favourite part of aaron's destroyer form is his seal (the thingy behind his head like a halo). i wanted to rlly play into the whole destroyer/devourer aspect of his abilities and domains, and i thought a black hole would fit perfectly! it also sort of (unintentionally) plays into how i see the dynamic between the matron and the destroyer and how they're both mirrors of each other; whereas the destroyer, well, destroys (and his black hole devours everything in sight), the matron creates and nurtures (seen in how aph's seal is almost like a white hole). i also wanted his armour to look a lot like the armour that shadow knights wear, albeit without all the spikes and spines and whatnot given that he isn't a shadow knight himself (shad's destroyer form from the first war probably looks a lot more similar to traditional shadow knight armour).

i'm lowkey suuper proud of how travis's keeper form turned out (even if i had to go back right at the end n fix it bc i forgot to add his tail 😭). i wanted this form to sort of be a mix between a high mage and a rogue: whereas the keeper embodies knowledge and magick, travis himself is a prankster who relies on cunning and trickery to gain the upper hand on his opponents. as a result, he's the only one who doesn't automatically manifest a weapon when he shifts into this form - instead, i feel like he chooses to rely more on magicks and witchcraft during combat.

katelyn's design was lowkey the hardest to pin down. originally, i wanted to go for something that was suuuper inspired by roman armour and had a copper and teal/turquoise colour scheme, but it wound up feeling too magical girl-ish and i scrapped it. i've retained the roman inspirations, but i headcanon that her flames are so hot they burn blue, so i settled on a blue-and-white colour scheme w some purple elements. i think my favourite part is her gauntlets! i feel like she uses them as an extension of herself/another pair of hands to punch with. the blue elements also lean into menphia's association with the moon - in ashes, ashes, tu'la is based on the roman empire and, as a result, is where werewolves originate from, and with werewolves having such close ties to the moon.... yeah. i'll probably do a post on tu'la later on at some point.

my blorbo

garroth's design is probably the one that's changed the least, but i'll still need to update his ref sheet anyway. i don't know if i conveyed it very well but the sort-of wing-things on his back are slabs of earth that can be shaped into a shield - originally i had him holding a shield but i wanted him to look a bit more divine warrior-ish so i retooled his design.

the boy! i was tossing up between having vylad or dante fill the role of the wanderer, but i settled on dante as i feel like vylad fits better as a sort of weird guide sort of figure within the narrative. plus, i have a real soft spot for dante and wanted him to remain in the limelight a little bit - i love his dynamic with garroth and laurance and i wanted to explore that further. i sort of wanted to play into his whole red-and-blue colour scheme that we see in canon diaries, but bc kul'zak is a nature deity (specifically of the wilderness), i wanted to incorporate some greenery into his design. i hope i've done an okay-ish job here - overall i'm pretty happy tho, but i can't promise that there won't be any tweaks in the future.

this is a redhead laurance propaganda spreading blog and i Refuse to apologise for it. i'd like to think that laurance's original colour scheme is similar to his justiciar form - lots of beautiful reds and golds and oranges to match the flames of his father's forge - but after he comes back from the nether with a Severe fear of fire he switches to the greens and browns that he's known for in canon. eventually he slowly begins to reclaim his fire and returns to the golds and oranges that he's introduced with (haha colour symbolism go brrrrrr).

but yeah. the special interest is special interesting. let me know if u have any questions!

[acourtofthought]

@oristian just received an anon that read the following:

The difference between Elriels, Eluciens, and Gwynriels is that Elriels actually like the characters. We like canon Azriel and Elain and don’t need to assign them other characters’ characteristics or rewrite them. We appreciate the way they have been presented, flaws and all. We are invested in their story thanks to canon, not despite it.

Canon Elain does not wear Illyrian leathers.

Canon Elain does not wear a necklace that she returned to Az therefore unless it's fanart depicting Solstice night and only Solstice night, it's not canon.

Canon Elain does not enjoy wielding a dagger.

Canon Elain does not have tattoos.

Canon Az does not train Elain or take her on spy missions. He didn't even want her searching for the Trove. Canon Az got reprimanded by Amren for not believing in Elain.

Canon Az's shadows do not play with Elain, by his own admission in HIS POV they tend to disappear around her.

Canon Az has not thought of a future with Elain beyond his sexual fantasies.

Canon Elain is NOT "Velaris's Princess" which is a wild thing to say since Velaris already has a QUEEN in Feyre.

Canon Elain would not be fine with Az's torture of defenseless people.

Canon Elain likes sunshine and flowers and is bothered by cruelty.

Canon Elain, despite her proclamation that she's part of the NC and would do what is necessary has the life sucked out of her while wearing NC black.

Canon Elain is different from her sisters, as stated in the books and interviews from the author herself.

Canon Elain is NOT described as being Illyrian at heart the way Nesta was.

Canon Elain, despite Nesta's belief that Elain is doing just fine with her friend and hobbies (something Nesta can only assume from afar considering canon Nesta avoided Elain for a year), confirmed that she has trauma that nobody seems to acknowledge.

Canon Az is connected to the Illyrians and the Valkyrie.

Canon Elain is not.

Canon Elain is connected to Vassa and Koschei through her visions.

Canon Az is not connected to either.

Canon Az did not acknowledge the trauma he heard Elain speak of.

Canon Elain did not acknowledge Az's struggles though she's apparently well aware of how Az was bothered by the scent of her bond.

Canon Az avoided Elain for nearly a year though she never asked him to stay away, though he knew she was fighting with Nesta, though he knew she was mourning the loss of her father.

Canon Az showed yearning for Mor while Elain sat in the room with him.

Canon Az felt something spark in his chest at the thought of another female's happiness.

Canon Az never gave his dagger to another female outside of Elain yet made sure Bryce knew what NESTA did with it during the war.

The ONLY thing that Elucien's and Gwynriels fail to adhere to at this point in time in terms of these characters is who their endgame person will be.

It seems we are the only ones who have a fairly good read on their behaviors, who they are, what's important to them, where they would thrive based on how they've been described and who they would best be suited to.

These are books and just because Elain said, "I'm part of this court and will do what is necessary" it doesn't in fact mean that Elain will forevermore be happiest in the NC and has to live there for the remainder of her immortal life simply because of a statement she made in a book prior to her own POV, a statement she made while still processing her trauma. As readers of books, we are fully aware that many times what a character states while processing trauma is not a true reflection of how they feel.

Not when the author placed that single comment on the floor then continued to build onto another pile of bricks next to it.

One brick being Elain needing sunshine.

One brick being "but Elain wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be part of this court....it sucked the life from her."

One brick being Elain missing the flowers in winter.

One brick being that the NC doesn't turn to Elain for help.

One brick being that we're told Elain might be acting a certain way so as not to disappoint her sisters.

One brick being that Elain loses her color in winter.

One brick that the rose necklace given to Elain needs light in order for it's true depth to become visible.

One brick being that Elain is a rose bloom in a mud field filled with trampling horses while Nesta in that same Illyrian camp was a newly forged sword.

One brick being that Elain's scent is "a promise of Spring".

One brick being that "but the spring court had been made for someone like her."

One brick being that the author said Elain took she and Lucien by surprise.

One brick being the author telling us that Elain and Lucien (not Az) are both happiest in nature.

Just because Elain doesn't seem to want Lucien right now doesn't mean that won't change in the next book. Just like who Aelin wanted changed drastically over the course of multiple books. As did Chaol, as did Feyre, as did Nesta (since she didn't seem to want Cassian at different points throughout the series) as did Eva, as did Juliette, as did Elizabeth, as did Claire, as did Violet, as did Sophie, as did Francesca, as did Tessa, as did Harry, as did Katniss (and so on).

Only paying attention to the direct quotes from a character or their behavior while dealing with trauma, thinking they know everything they need to know about them before they've even had a POV doesn't prove they know them better. It simply means they're choosing to ignore that Sarah is the kind of author who leaves crumbs for readers, who often writes her FMC actually wanting the thing that she insists she does not, who often writes her FMC avoiding her destiny before finally embracing it.

E/riels don't like canon Elain or Az more than Eluciens and Gwynriels. They like a one dimensional version of the characters where everything said and done could not have any deeper meaning.

"Az wants to eat out Elain and Elain wants to kiss Az which means they want to be together forever!".

Versus:

"Az and Elain wanted to hook up but it's clear they were both in a bad place and probably not in the right headspace, especially as neither was first willing to discuss the struggles they're both having".

This narrative that we don't like canon Elain, Az, or Gwyn is tiresome. The only thing we don't like is shipping Elain with a guy who the author has clearly written been as someone who, despite his and her willingness to hook up months ago on their timeline, wasn't there for her when she was put into the cauldron, wasn't there for her when she was suffering from severe depression (even drawing straws so he didn't have to stay with her), who never offered her a kind word about the death of her father, who avoided HER for an entire year because he couldn't handle a bond that will always exist, who looked at another female with heat and yearning while she sat in the room with them, who never bothered to check on her after any of her fights with Nesta, who couldn't admit to his best friend that he had any real feelings for her and that he wasn't just looking to get laid, and who hadn't thought of a future with her beyond his sexual fantasies.

All canon events.

[jesncin]

I really hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but why did you decide to make Lex Luthor, whose motivation is basically racism and xenophobia from my understanding, a person of color? This isn’t like, a criticism, more just, I really like your JL remix stuff and you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one

I understand the curiosity! But I have to point out that "you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one" made me laugh, haha. Long answer coming because I have a lot of feelings- but the point in the very end is worth it, trust me.

So for one, Lex is Afro-Greek in my version. This comes from the popular headcanon that STAS/DCAU Lex is Black (and his design is based on a Greek man). His character design, skin tone, and Clancy Brown's enigmatic performance became unintentional perceived representation for Black fans (and even DC writers). And now in the Harley Quinn show, that's become canonized! For why they like it, that's not my place to say as a non-Black person- so I listen!

I don't agree that Lex's motivation is "basically racism and xenophobia"- his themes are much broader than that. It's the desire to be the Man of Tomorrow, his jealousy of Superman, the way his intellect alone is a match against Superman's strength. Sometimes that jealousy is expressed through bigotry, but it's all a means to an end for Lex. My approach is: if Lex being Black is something we want to integrate more into his character, what opportunities does that open up narratively? Because there's rich potential for him and the characters connected to him.

When discussing MAWS I talk a lot about how when you're writing a bigoted marginalized character, there needs to be specifity with where that internalized bigotry is coming from. So a change like that for Lex Luthor could, for example; discuss how privileges like wealth can assimilate otherwise marginalized people into the kind of power that harms others in their community.

The ripple affect this has on a character like Superboy/Conner is that we get to see how -even though they're both Luthors- Conner is profiled, othered and further marginalized as a Kryptonian and a Black homeless teen because he doesn't get to benefit from any of Lex's privileges. This is just part of the many reasons why I think Conner would be infinitely more interesting if he didn't look like Kal El despite being a clone. You get to see a new intersection of how the Kryptonian identity intersects with Blackness on Earth. The potential ripple effect for a character like Lena is also really fun! What if she's struggling with her own model minority pressure when she's making up for her brother's crimes? It's all very compelling!

And MOST importantly, in a 3 trillion IQ Lex Luthor-style move-making Lex Luthor Black means that some version of Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen arc exists in my au. Which famously hinges on the twist that LEX LUTHOR AND JIMMY OLSEN ARE DISTANTLY RELATED. THEREFORE!!! We have now found a convoluted way to have Wacky Renaissance Artist Jimmy Olsen connected to The Manifestation Of Black Excellence Evil Edition Lex Luthor in this au.

[nuumbie]

KARMA’S A DOG.

Prompt: You’re a prized worker at the IPC Marketing Department. You spend your days waiting for that flash of black.

Trigger Warning: Reader is mentally ill and a little shit head. Curse Words. General Violent Terms and Reader Gets Ragdolled. Boothill is NOT into you!!! He actually hates you! Guilt! Etc, etc… it’s just all hurt no comfort.

Author’s Note: Written to celebrate his trailer. Save a horse. Ride a cowboy. Contains spoilers regarding his character story.

He’s resting peacefully. This should still count as sleep. You pose the question in your head if you replace the pieces of something, how far until the thing is something else entirely. But he’s still alive. You find relish in that. There’s something in him that still lives.

He still has his head. Maybe, that’s all he has left of his old self. You wonder how the surgery must have gone. Of course you’ve met people who’ve changed themselves so drastically with robotics that you couldn’t recognize them after the surgeries. It’s a rebirth in ways. When you change so dramatically that you’re a different person by the end. His body’s 90% metal. 10% flesh. So, wouldn’t it be the cybernetics that win?

Despite everything. You don’t think so. Perhaps, that’s all that he needs. I think therefore I am. There’s no doubt he’s alive. Not to you, anyway. He’s brimming with human life. He’s more alive than you. Not in the same way where the question poses in your mind with other beings or creatures that change themselves so drastically. Boothill is obstinately simple.

You like that. He’s simple. The Hunt and those that follow it is straight forward. A single path. A single road. You like that you don’t have to read his intentions. You know what he wants and why.

Boothill. Galaxy Ranger. IPC Hunter. The Man who just tried to sneak into your office and put a bullet through your head like he has with many of your employees, those who’ve worked directly under you no less. You know. Most criminals don’t get this far. Not far at all past Pier Point. Oswaldo will have a riot.

If he knew he would. You’re not going to tell him.

Boothill is special.

The cowboy opens his eyes. Your personal grim reaper.

“I see you’re awake.” You smile in a loving way. If you can even manage that. People who can control their expressions make it seem so easy. Laying across his chest. You’ve opened up his core to play with his inner circuits. He must not like that though considering there’s a burning hatred in his eyes which threatens to scorch you. You glance up towards his face and sigh and ignoring the lingering, simmering, resentment. His body is heating up beneath your touch. So, maybe it resonates with his feelings, you wonder if his body steams. “We need to stop meeting like this. You’re going to make me think you’re obsessed with me.”

It’s the opposite way around. You know that. But the very idea that it isn’t causes him to lunge at you. The cowboy turns into nothing more than a blur, all the wires connected to the body collecting samples that took at least a good thirty minutes pulled from him. Some ripped from the walls, and in instants he’s on you.

“You dang—“ his hands make its way to your shoulders, you’re flipped without hesitation. his hands grasping you down, he lays on top of you. breath heavy. robots don’t breathe, though, so you try to think of another word as he catches himself and tries to make it so he’s the one on top. “— you again!?”

“I’ve been meaning to get my hands on you… you oughta’… you ANGEL!” He screeches. Music to your ears as he shakes you more like you’re more ragdoll than person. “AEONS, it’s so freaking annoying! You absolute delight! How did I lose to…”

“Thank you so much for the compliment.” You smile back. Probably the only one getting anything out of this arrangement. Pinned against the floor hand pressed tightly against your waist so you can’t struggle. He should’ve pressed it against your mouth. But it isn’t like you’re going to scream. You’re certain. Lots of women would love to be in this position you’re currently in. But it’s you. And this is far from some sweet, pure, little romantic story. You’re not delusional. You act like you are purely because it annoys him. It’s good for him to build up his rage, his discontentment because it keeps him on his toes. “I was just looking over your upgrades since the last time you invaded Pier Point. As for asking how I beat you~…”

“The electronic upgrade was not the best idea.” You smile. “If we can control your language… your body isn’t hard especially for a renowned genius like me. Have to talk to your doctor about that. You’re lucky I’m the one that found you. Where’s my thanks? If it was anyone else. They’d have torn you asunder.”

“Aeons of COURSE you Market-Phonies have something to annoy the DANGNATION out of me.” he grinds his teeth, looking around for his pistol. making a point about how dead he wants you. you can feel his grip loosen and tighten. he’s likely processing which one would get you to be quieter. “Where’d you put it? My gun. I’ve decided. I’m killing you now. Puttin’ ya out of your misery, sweet-face! You think this is rough? Think of a 9mm lead in your skull will be?”

“Cabinet.” You put on your best smile. “Is it for me?”

“Of course for you. Love you.” You didn’t take away his ability to say hate. So, he must have said something worse like an insult. You just know it’s bad because he says it in a way that’s so vitriolic it almost hurts. “You knew this was coming. I’m not going to miss my shot again. You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.”

You did know it was coming. You wished he would get the one person above you first so you could witness your boss with his brains blown out, the outcries that an Emanator of Qlipoth killed. You could have gotten wine with Diamond and laughed about it and died happy knowing the world was washed clean forever of Oswaldo Schneider.

But you can’t be so lucky. You’ll have to wish him luck. If he actually manages to kill you that is. With how things are going? You’re not making it hard.

He grabs you by the neck so you can’t struggle away to call help. The iron hands encased over your neck like a shackle isn’t a bad feeling. You almost quote as such so he might grab you a little tighter. Sadly, it seems his finger is directly over your windpipe— making talking an impossibility. He really doesn’t want you to run. Not like you would. Dragging you as he goes towards the cabinet. He presses you against the wall one-handed.

Using his other hand to peruse through your belongings. Even if you struggled. You doubt you could make a dent against the material. You’ve always been more of a pen instead of a sword guy.

It seems he’s smarter than you thought. Since, he checks the bullets in the gun. Rather show-offishly, too. He clicks the trigger against your head and nothing comes out. He counts them out, too. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

You already knew that none of the shots would ring. But here’s a certain heart-pounding feeling even if you know it’s empty. He clutches the gun even tighter till it threatens to break between his metal appendages.

Obviously, you’ve cleaned them out. He glares at you. Of course you’re the one at fault. Of course you were smart enough to know the first thing he’d do when he woke up was try to kill you. Of course you wanted to see the look on his face when he got his gun back when he realized it was empty. “Don’t you have spares? You eat them, don’t you? Just shit them out.” You smile. It’s hard to talk with his hand on your throat.

The floor hits you. Hard.

Or maybe you hit the floor.

Either way. It hurts. Your head spins. But, you collect yourself. Maybe. Dizzy people often can’t tell they’re dizzy. “You going to kill me right? You don’t need a gun to do that. To make it painful. To get your little revenge.” You’re sputtering. Aeons. It be embarrassing if you didn’t say that. If you’re slurring. Though who are you to ask for a clean death? Innocent have died in uglier ways.

“I don’t get you.” Boothil’s boot presses against your chest and juts against your lungs— “make up your mind you wanna die or not? You’re seriously flip-flopping.”

You smile back at him from the floor. “I’d rather my employees not go down with me when you’ve got to escape. Jeremy just got a promotion. You won’t die here… will you space cowboy? So, you’ll have to make your way out.”

“Might as well limit the casualties.”

“You took everything from me.” Robots don’t stumble over their words. Robots are more precise. Everything about him is human. The way he’s so sentimental, emotional at your lap, while you can do nothing but watch. “What right do you have? You have way more blood on your hands than I do.”

“You’re not wrong.” you repeat, quietly. “It’s karma. It’s justice. I’m so happy you exist. So people like me get that just-dessert.”

“I could never ever dream of it. I could never do it with my own hands.” You smile remembering where you work. Your boss. The things you never had the confidence or strength to do yourself. “So I’m glad that you did. Thank you.”

He looks down at you.

He steps back.

You already know.

Too self-aware for your own good.

Maybe you should have shut up. You already know you’ve messed it all up. The way he looks at you is a look of disgust.

“Everyone here’s so fluffed up.” he grimaces. rubbing his shoe against the floor like he’s snuffing a cigarette out. so lowly. “Anyone the IPC touches get’s gosh-dang ruined.”

You know why he did. You ruined his life. You did. So, it was only fair he did the same in return—

Reaching out— before you realize it. “Hey, wait.”

“You’re not dragging me down with you! I want you to pay I’m not letting you off easy. When we meet again. I’ll have changed this place forever. And you’ll be forced to live with yourself…!”

He doesn’t even look back at you. You wish he did.

He lets you go and he runs out the door. You hear the sounds of loud screams. Shooting guns. It turns into a blur after a few seconds. They’re going to fail to apprehend him. You hope.

On the messy floor. Your lab a wreak. You’re sure. They’ll come here. They’ll question you.

And your life will continue as always.

You’ll lie. Jade can tell. But she won’t tell on you. You hope Oswaldo doesn’t notice. He’s the tricker. If he knew. He’d laugh.

“Fuck you, too.”

You put your hands over your eyes and you just ignore everything until someone comes and gets you. You’d use the word save. But, that’s what he was meant to do.

You’ll meet him again. You can wait. It’s all you ever do.

[guided-by-the-skies]

Black Moon Lilith IN GUYS

Why this post on black moon lilith in guys? Black moon lilith is often described as the inner 'bad b*tch' but how does this translate to male energy? The info on this point in the sky is often female centric and therefore it's role in male charts is overlooked. These are a mixed bag designed to help you get more in touch with it in this context, either in your own chart or that of someone you know. Works for LGBTQ 🍀!

BML is also very related to the 12th house. If stuck on a chart, it helps to correlate the two.

House placements:

🫁 1st house tend to be all bravado and no follow through. These guys make cultivate an air of mystery or being a Mr Darcy/Lord Byron character but often they are full of 💩. Sorry guys!

🫁 2nd house BML can struggle to maintain their identity and instead become the persona they use around people, often different personas for different people.

🫁 3rd house - tend to be snarky and have a dark sense of humour. May pick an argument with people for fun. Can be cruel if immature or some of the best people if mature.

🫁 4th house - way, way more sensitive than they let on. May also be more likely to hide views that aren't socially accepted.

🫁 5th house - have unexpected things they like in a partner. Intimacy may have hidden meanings or ulterior motives, not always bad but something he hides from himself e.g. loneliness.

🫁 6th house - Can become a hypochondriac, fears loss of self or others. Can also indulge in dangerous or reckless behaviours such as speeding, binge drinking and so on.

🫁 7th house - May go through mutiple divorces, marry younger than average, shotgun wedding, or marry wirh an age gap (legal). May hold grudges also, maintain relationships from childhood, and has a tendency to serve revenge cold.

🫁 8th house - Tend to be richer than they let on. Shadow side may involve spending habits e.g. having a compulsion or they may have been in a military role or other role that comes in contact with danger.

🫁 9th - most likely to be emotionally and intellectually manipulative to you. Tend to justify their manipulation through 'logic' or pre existing theories.

🫁 10th - most likely to get involved in social power play, whether office politics or something worse. Shadow side can manifest as a wolf of wall street type persona, corrupt, corporate etc.

🫁 11th Most likely to have weird aquaintences or be involved in secret societies, have an odd circle of friends or friends with dubious connections.

🫁 12th house - May either experience their shadow through dreams or the arts or may manifest as mental illness in their waking life. Most likely to struggle in day to day life.

[respectthepetty]

Sun x Moon in The On1y One

I wrote briefly earlier about the “looking at the moon” scene in episode eleven of The On1y One, but regardless of how this cookie crumbles in the last episode, I think this conversation was excellent.

The boys are the sun and the moon, which I wrote about at the midway point of the series.

Wang is sun-coded. He is yellow and orange. He is openly friendly to his peers and warm toward them.

And the show has stated that he is the sun like when Wang was teasing Tian about the love poems he marked in the book, all the love poems were about the sun!

A girl's shyness is like a tender cherry under the sunlight; 16- and 17-year-olds are like fruits in the morning sun, sparkling

Therefore, the love poems were about Wang.

Tian is moon-coded. He is blue (and black). He isolates himself from his peers and is cold toward them. And now the show is stating that.,

But just like the book of love poems that revealed how Tian feels about Wang, we get an indirect glimpse of how Wang feels about Tian through this conversation.

It doesn't matter how good or bad the subtitles are because the focus is that Tian views the moon as something bad.

Life has it's ups and downs just like the moon waxes and wanes. It feels like everything connected to the moon is sad and full of regret. The moon shines on Earth every day, but only lights up half of it. Is that half kind of an eternity?

Tian thinks of himself and his life as sad. Everything that is connected to him, he thinks is full of regret. And he only allows people to see his outside by never letting others in. Yet Wang started this conversation off by stating his mom loved the moon and the Teresa Tang song, which we all of know since it was also featured in Moonlight Chicken!

"The Moon Represents My Heart" is an extremely popular Chinese song:

You ask how deeply I love you And just how great my love is My affection does not waver And my love doesn’t change The moon represents my heart

So not only has Wang established that he was raised to love the moon, but he also mentions this song which declares that he feels very deeply for his love and the fullness of the moon represents that love, which is probably why in the fourth episode, he was on the moon when his rocket ship came to get him.

In response to Tian's comments about the moon, Wang offers his take on the moon:

I don't agree with that. I think the moon often symbolizes light and hope, so even if it's only half, or just a moment, a second, as long as it's imprinted in your mind, it's eternal.

The conversation began because Wang's mom would ask his dad to pick between the moon and the sixpence, and in this, we see the great debate of love versus money, the future versus the present, and the abstract versus the practical. The moon is far and can't be held yet the sixpence is close and can be held. The moon would take time to get to, but the sixpence is within reach. The moon is a thought since it holds no value that can be seen, but the sixpence is money that can be used! And that's why the moon is love. And that's why Tian is the moon.

The Eclipse, Big Dragon, and Moonlight Chicken are just some BLs that gave us this sun and moon,

And the thing that they all get right is that the moon isn't the negative while the sun is positive.

The sun can burn. The sun can blind. The sun can harm. So it isn't always the positive entity that people tend to make it out to be. But the moon offers light in darkness. The moon guides the water in and out of the shores. The moon gives hope and guidance to those struggling.

So Wang's mom wanted him to pick the moon because she wanted him to pick love. She wanted him to see the possibilities rather than settle for what he had, which wasn't much. She wanted him to look to the future instead of worrying the present. She wanted him to not fear the distance, but instead know that the moon would guide him toward it. She wanted him to have hope.

And Tian gave him all of that.

So the conversation is lasagna. It has layers. It's about all these different things, but all these different things are the same thing. It's about Wang's mom. It's about the moon. It's about Tian. It's about love.

And it's about hope because regardless of what happens and no matter the distance, the moon always shines in the darkest of times, and guides those who are lost.

So even if everything looks bleak and all hope is lost, the moon will guide you home.

[dinarosie]

What are your thoughts on Lily? I think she recieves too much hate. I get that she’s a flawed character but the way people are discussing her is like she’s a complete bitch and has been thhrougout her friendship with Sev, which I don’t agree on.

Thank you for asking this question. I had written a long meta about the relationship and friendship between Severus and Lily, but it became so lengthy that I wasn’t sure how to post it. Now, I've separated the parts that focus more on Lily’s character and written them here.(Yes, it's still long but it's shareable now)

I enjoy Snily fanfics and absolutely love Lily’s characterization in them, but I have different feelings about canon Lily. I’m not anti-Lily, but I don't think she holds any significant moral superiority or special virtues compared to other characters in the books.

Most of what we know about Lily comes from when she was 15. Yes, it’s admirable that she sacrificed her life at 21 to save her child, but that doesn’t necessarily say much about her character. Many mothers of any age and from any part of the world would do the same for their children. We don’t know how much she matured or grew as a person. We don’t know if she was satisfied with the choices she made as a teenager or what her feelings toward Severus were in her final days. That’s why I base my judgments on 15-year-old Lily.

I see her as a warm, charming, and somewhat immature girl who, coincidentally, really enjoys positive attention (though not to the extent that James does).She tries to be kind to everyone to be liked, yet feels that other girls don’t really like her and are envious. Unlike her son, she doesn’t have a complex moral code, she tends to see the world in black and white like her sister Petunia. To her, you’re either on her side and therefore her friend, or you’re against her and her enemy. She’s the type of person who can easily attract people at first glance but struggles to form deeper, more meaningful connections with them.

I think part of the reason people dislike her is that they see her as more than what she is and have high expectations of her. Fanon often portrays Lily as a girl from a high-status, wealthy family, a feminist, strong, and independent woman, which makes people expect her to have been able to solve many of the issues she faced. However, in canon, she clearly doesn’t have any of these traits. We don’t even know if her family was rich or poor, but since she lived near Snape, it doesn’t seem like there was much of a class difference between their families.

Yes, canon Lily is lively, smart, and kind, and she gets good grades, but that’s different from being ambitious, powerful, or having feminist or progressive views.

Lily marries and has a child immediately after finishing school, before she truly reaches intellectual and emotional maturity. In canon, we don’t see her play a significant role in the war, undertake any special missions for the Order, or even hold a notable job or career before having Harry. She fits more into the traditional role of a wife and homemaker. I think if she had survived and the war ended, she would have lived a life very similar to Molly Weasley (though not with as many children). She’d be a loving wife and warm mother. Of course, she would likely spoil her child more than Molly does, letting him off the hook easily. Like Petunia, she would overlook her child’s mistakes unless it involved dark magic.

I understand that most people in the wizarding world marry young, but we have characters like Minerva McGonagall, who remains independent, even refusing to change her surname after marriage. In Fantastic Beasts, we see women who, despite the war, maintain their roles as strong, independent individuals whose identities aren’t solely tied to being someone’s wife or mother. So, Lily isn’t an exceptional character in this regard. She’s more like the average woman of her time. When we view her as a very average woman, rather than the amazing, powerful, modern figure seen in fanfics, her behavior becomes much easier to understand.

As for her marriage, I can imagine what was going through her mind: everything with James Potter was easier, simpler, and more stable because, from birth, everything was handed to him. He doesn’t need to work hard for happiness or a future, as his high social status and vast family wealth are guaranteed. He probably promised Lily a successful marriage and a sweet and happy family, perhaps even on their first date, filling her with hope for what was to come. It’s only natural that a teenage girl like Lily, who sees the world in black and white and has a fragile social standing in the wizarding world, would quickly decide that marrying someone like James Potter — who is at the pinnacle of her moral scale ( he doesn’t use dark magic) — was the best choice for her future. This pattern of marriage reminds me of Petunia. She marries her boss, who is also much older than her because he can give her the stable, normal life she dreams of, with a secure income.

Sometimes I think the way Lily chose James and how Snape chose Voldemort are similar. Both were teenagers who made these decisions to secure their place in the wizarding world and cover their insecurities. Lily is fortunate to have an easier life than Severus, and as a woman, she can rely on the support of a wealthy and pure blood man. Snape, on the other hand, didn’t have Lily’s privileges. He had to work hard to secure his place, offering his life and loyalty to Voldemort, who promises him acceptance, security, and protection in return.

I also disagree with the idea that Lily is responsible for all of Snape’s problems or that if she had stayed friends with Severus, he wouldn’t have joined Voldemort:

Snape’s life was far more complicated and difficult for Lily’s presence to magically fix everything. Rowling says Snape sought acceptance, security, and peace. Clearly, Lily couldn’t provide those things for him (after all, she was just 15). Snape needed a strong, father-figure type of support at that age. Teenage Snape, contrary to those who want to portray him as obsessed with Lily, had a proud and independent personality. He didn’t base his entire life around Lily’s presence or absence. Yes, he apologized for his mistake, but when Lily threatened to leave him, he didn’t make any effort to change his circumstances. That’s why I don’t believe the people who say Snape only switched sides because of an obsession with Lily. His love for her lit the path for him later in life, but it was Snape who gave that love the power to guide him and help him grow.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I've been dreaming of the Guardian of the Underworld.

To be human is to experience the highs and lows of life. It is to have joy and to suffer.

An unfortunate truth, he must face--but he holds all the hope in his heart, willing for that brighter future.

How does a moment last forever? How can a story never die?

Ortho often wonders what dreaming is like.

He visualizes it in a multitude of ways: electric sheep bouncing over a fence until one's eyelids have shut, a movie playing behind his lids, audiovisual data processing in his systems. None of the analogies, he suspects, are anything close to first-hand experience.

Androids cannot sleep, and therefore they cannot dream. That is how the logical flow works, and Ortho has long since accepted it.

It must be fun to dream.

But this is not a dream, and this is not a reality. It is the space contained within, and he walks a razor’s edge between lies and truth here.

He puts a hand upon the screen that divides him and his older brother. The barrier separating fact from fiction.

“Nii-san…! It's me,” he calls out in desperation. “I’m your little brother, Ortho!!”

"Or... tho?" Idia strains to say the name aloud. He looks so lost, so dazed. His head screams with pain. "But Ortho is right here. How can you be in two places at once?"

He holds up his phone, set to speaker. The caller ID--it reads "Ortho". The dream Ortho, the imposter Ortho, the Ortho that is alive. The Ortho that Idia had always wished for, the life without regrets and guilt.

His core burns. Ortho isn't certain if it is from frustration or anger or hurt. He knew this was coming, had been warned of it. Still, nothing could match the real thing, the face of his brother telling him that he is the lie.

“Don’t listen to him, Nii-chan. I’m the real Ortho. The other one?” There’s a faint chuckle from the other end of the line—Ortho detects a hint of condescension in it. “That’s a figment of your imagination."

"Ah... I see," Idia mumbles. He seems to sway, his eyes lidding, as if drifting off to another dream. The pain vanishes, washed away by Ortho's reassurance. "That makes so much sense."

A figment? Just that?

A weight comes upon Ortho's chest. If he were a living being, he would, perhaps, find it difficult to take a breath.

"Don't move. I'm coming there to help you," the other Ortho says sweetly. His tongue, forked as a cobra's goes unnoticed by Idia, who simply nods.

"Nii-san! Don't do it! You have to get away... w-wah!!"

Ortho flinches, his screen suddenly filled with black goo oozing up from the floor. From it, a boy in a pure white uniform and a royal blue sash emerges like a vampire from its coffin. In the place of the pale flesh characteristic of the Shroud family is skin that is only half solid, dripping in fat dark globs as his arms wrap around Idia.

"I'm here now. It'll be okay."

Idia's eyes go blank, his limbs, limp. A compliant doll, under the dream's influence.

Ortho's stomach lurches, and he launches himself at the screen. The urgency in his voice rises, hitting a fever pitch.

"NO...!!"

"You don't have to think about anything," the other Ortho whispers, a snake at Idia's ear. "You must be tired from playing too many games. That's why your mind is compensating by simulating dreams in reality. Let's get you back to bed.”

"Okay... Whatever you say, Ortho..."

“Nii-san, don’t go there…!”

The darkness creeps like vines up his legs, slowly swallowing Idia up. He sinks into the floor, an inky pit of quicksand. Bit by bit, piece by piece, Ortho is losing his brother.

His connection grows fuzzy. Static consumes the screen.

It's no good. My voice... It can't reach him!

His vision burns, but does not become slick with tears. His processors must be overheating, going haywire. He cannot cry, cannot let his overwhelming emotions spill over like a human can.

The ground beneath Ortho shifts. It, too, turns black, as if rotting away. Gooey tendrils reach for him, threatening to drag him under too.

Ortho struggles against his restraints, cries out in defiance.

A voice comes from the monitor, greatly warped and distorted. Then a second, a third, a whole slew of them, spewing vile things.

You are not needed. You are not wanted.

You are worthless. You are nothing--less than nothing.

He is happier without you. He would be happier if you never existed. You could never hope to be his real family.

A massive pair of poisonous verdant eyes opens in the void. They're reptilian, pupils slit against a backdrop of emerald.

"Begone," Malleus hisses, the command coiling around Ortho like a snake. His oppressive presence pushes on the boy, forcing him to kneel. "You do not belong in this world, young Shroud."

"N-No, you're wrong!" he protests. "I... I'm...!!"

A substitute, a spare, the shadows cackle. A hunk of junk. Scrap metal.

His core goes quiet and cold as a terrifying dread sets in. It smothers his circuits, silences his systems, locks his limbs.

The darkness wriggles with delight.

Electricity crackles.

A transmission comes to life. It comes from Ortho himself, from a speaker embedded inside of him.

"Sorry, Or-kun! Mama's going to override...!"

Suddenly, a great heat generates in his chest. Light gathers, piercing the black surrounding him, then fires. The laser is explosive, easily slicing the goop, which erupts into sludgy bubbles.

Ortho comes free, the rockets at the soles of his feet kicking on to propel him into the sky. In a blaze of brilliantly blue fire, he's airborne.

"Mom...!" he gasps.

In response, she simply giggles. "Hehe, I'm not going to just sit on the sidelines and watch my precious baby boy be deceived! There's no wrath like mama's love~"

"Dear..." his father sighs. There's a pause, then he clears his throat. "As your mother was saying, this is but a clever deception. A false reality. You have always been our true son and always will be."

True son.

His dwindling energy reserves shoot through the roof. He's been hit with a thousand suns, reinvigorated.

"Thank you, mom. Thank you, dad. I'm okay! You don't need to worry about me, I understand now."

This was never a dream to begin with. It's not even close. This is... a nightmare that twists the truth, even to intruders!

He places a hand on his chest, feeling the blue flame that perpetually burns there. His brother had lovingly placed it, powered it, protected it. The fire pulsates, proof of his existence.

Proof of his life.

Do you remember, nii-san? You promised we'd go out and play heroes. Now... it's my turn to play hero for you.

I will surpass my limits... break through this illusion... and save you!

Hang in there, Idia. Your little brother, Ortho, is coming to bring you back to your senses! Just leave it to me.

"Shoot for glory among the stars and soar like a comet! Ready or not, here I come...!"

Summoning all of his strength, Ortho furiously plunges into the darkness. It pushes against the interloper--but he burns red hot, flies too fast. He's a shooting star in the shape of a child, filled to the brim with determination.

In the black, black, black, a speck of white appears. It grows steadily, forming a mirror to another world. Its face, staring down at Night Raven College's courtyard.

A familiar trail of blue flames hurries past an apple tree, meeting with a horned man in matching robes.

There you are.

Ortho braces himself--

--and shatters the second sky.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 3: Steal My Girl]

A/N: Hello lovely readers! Thank you so so so much for the love this fic has received. I wanted to give you a heads up that I will be co-leading a field trip to Japan from July 4th-14th and will therefore have much less time to write. HOPEFULLY I won’t have to skip a Sunday update, but I wanted to make you aware just in case. I hope you enjoy Chapter 3!!! 💜

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, Aegon-induced chaos, ANGST, Iceland, you cannot escape the Cookie Monster pajama pants.

Selected Chapter Quote: “So what, you don’t like me anymore?”

Word count: 8.3k (wtf I need to chill).

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @doingfondue @catalina-howard @randomdragonfires @myspotofcraziness @arcielee @fan-goddess @talesofoldandnew @marvelescvpe @tinykryptonitewerewolf @mariahossain @chainsawsangel @darkenchantress @not-a-glad-gladiator @gemini-mama @trifoliumviridi @herfantasyworldd @babyblue711 @namelesslosers @thelittleswanao3 @daenysx @moonlightfoxx @libroparaiso @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @mizfortuna @florent1s @heimtathurs @bhanclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927 @mariahossain @echos-muses @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜  

Athens, Madrid, Porto, Vienna, Stockholm, and now: descending into Reykjavik through clouds like iron. The North Atlantic is an endless sheen of cold overcast blue, a mirror of the sky. The earth is rocky and anemic. There are no jewel tones here, no sapphires or emeralds or aquamarines or fire opals or topazes. It is impossible to look down at Iceland, this dominion of impassionate jaggedness, and not think of how the Vikings had to reap their treasures from every other corner of Europe, silver and gold and glass and slaves piled into ships to be rowed back to the hostile earth they clung to, perhaps just to prove they could.

Across the aisle of the private jet—more like a penthouse than a plane, posh neutral colors and hand-stitched leather—Luke is showing Aemond his latest lyrics, loops of silver on matte black pages. They’re good, from what you’ve heard. They’re really good. And that tells you what kind of person Aemond truly is as he helps Luke polish rocks into gemstones. Anybody can soften the blow of mediocrity. It takes courage to build ladders for people who might one day outclimb you.

Daeron is playing his Nintendo 64, which is hooked up to a 98-inch flat screen tv; Mario is leaping through paintings into worlds of lava, ice, sentient ticking bombs. Criston is answering emails. Cregan is sprawled across a couch with his sunglasses on, presumably sound asleep. Jace is leering at you, dark hair hanging in his face and slurping a Vesper.

You ask him half-mocking: “What tattoo are you going to get for Reykjavik?”

He yanks off his sequined red blazer—nothing underneath, as usual—and twists around to show you the puffin on his left shoulder blade. Comet, at some point in time that preceded you, has already been to Iceland. “Cute, right? Wanna pet it?”

You roll your eyes. “I’m sorry I asked.”

He grins. “No you’re not.”

Aegon kicks the back of Jace’s chair. He’s scribbling some notes of his own, which is unusual. In place of a spiral notebook with onyx pages, Aegon is writing on crinkled Starbucks receipts with a Sharpie. He’s wearing his favorite aviator sunglasses, khaki cargo pants, an excessively bright cyan tank top, and matching Crocs.

Baela stares blankly out the window for a few seconds—like she’s buffering, a lagging connection—and then she looks to you hopefully. “Shopping when we land?”

“Does Iceland have shops…?”

“Probably more than Kansas,” Aemond says, then smiles mischieviously.

“Missouri,” you fling back. He returns his attention to Luke.

“They totally have shops in Iceland,” Baela assures you.

“Then I am amenable. I need more concert outfits.” You mostly wear your boy band t-shirts from home, which has become a joke: One Direction, Backstreet Boys, New Kids On The Block, NSYNC, the Jonas Brothers, Boyz II Men, 98 Degrees, BTS…but never Comet Donati. Anyone but them. Aegon calls you a traitor. Aemond teases, smirks, tries to hide how much he watches you the same way people contemplate art on museum walls, a little confounded, a little entranced.

“Rhaena?” Baela says. “Hello? Hello? Hola? Bonjour? Rhaena?”

Rhaena startles, peering up from her novel: Jurassic Park. Once upon a time, as you’ve learned, she had planned to study paleontology. She wants to be alone in the middle of a field someplace digging up bones. Well, no great tragedy there; one is never too old to be a paleontologist. She can take off five years, or ten years, or twenty, or thirty to see Luke through his touring days and then pick back up her own ambitions like keys left on a hook. But Baela gave up a ballet scholarship to follow Jace across the globe, puddle to puddle, land to land, and in your albeit limited understanding, ballerinas age in something like dog years. Their career is a brilliant, lightning-brief flash and then long, anonymous decades running out their mortal clock as choreographers, backup dancers, personal trainers, instructors for blue-blooded five-year-olds. Baela won’t be able to reclaim that dream for much longer. It might be too late already. She is out of practice; but she misses ballet. When Jace is being snide or oblivious, you’ve seen her gazing out windows—Escalades, hotels, jets—wondering if it was all worth it. You gut yourself for someone and they don’t even have the courtesy to put up a gravestone. It’s only natural to develop a propensity to haunt.

“What?” Rhaena asks.

“Shopping. This afternoon. Interested?”

Rhaena’s eyes go wide. She fidgets: closing and then opening her book, touching a hand to her earrings, delicate strings of small silver hearts. “Um…I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Oh, not this again,” Baela groans.

“Just go without me. Bring me back something, you know what I like.”

“What’s the problem?” You are investigative but not accusatory. The tone is essential.

“She’s scared of store employees,” Baela says.

“Well you don’t have to make it sound like that—!”

“What’s so scary about store employees?” you ask Rhaena, calm, cool, collected, nonjudgmental. Aemond glances over, as he often does when you’re working, like he can’t get enough of watching that switch flip, when you slink covertly into therapist mode like a water moccasin weaves through swamps, subtle ripples in the muddied water and vigilant eyes.

“I just hate it when people are watching me,” Rhaena says, twirling an earring. “They’re always waiting right by the door—especially at the posh places like the ones Baela goes to—and they want to know what I’m shopping for, and they want to make suggestions, and they follow me to the fitting room and ask what I like and what I don’t. And I can’t get rid of them! Even if I’m like ‘Just looking, thanks!’ they’ll circle back every five minutes to check on me. I can’t stand it. I get so frazzled I can’t decide how I really feel about a skirt or dress or whatever because I’m too busy trying to make conversation with someone I don’t want to talk to anyway. I end up with a headache and a shopping bag full of regrets. I’d rather click a button on my MacBook Air and save myself the suffering.”

You nod sagely. “What is it about talking to the employees that stresses you out so much?”

“I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing. I don’t want to cause problems.”

“But it’s not like you’re going to do anything they haven’t experienced before. They see hundreds, maybe even thousands of customers a month. And even if you did something ridiculously, dementedly embarrassing, like…um…hey, Aegon, what’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done while clothes shopping?”

“I fell asleep in a fitting room. I pissed on the floor. I set something on fire. I vandalized One Direction merchandise.”

“No, there was that other time,” Daeron says. Mario is swimming through rings of underwater coins; they chime gleefully as he collects them.

“What other time?” Aegon says.

Daeron grins. “Come on. You know.”

Aegon remembers. “Oh yeah. Once I bit a girl’s feet until I accidentally ripped off part of a toenail and she bled everywhere. But that wasn’t my fault. She was begging for it. It was consensual.”

Criston, not looking away from his emails, says: “And that’s why Aegon is now banned from all Michael Kors locations for life.”

“Right.” You turn back to Rhaena. “So you would never do anything that deranged. But even if somehow you did, what’s the actual worst-case scenario? What, realistically, could happen as a result?”

Rhaena considers this. “The employees will think I’m weird, I guess.”

“So what you’re so concerned about is that the store employees—who are literally paid to be inconvenienced by you—might think you’re weird? Which they’ll remember for, what, maybe an hour before some other customer gives them a more memorable calamity to focus on? You don’t think they’re more annoyed by purse-dog-toting heiresses screeching at them or cokeheads pissing on their floors?”

“Rude,” Aegon says.

Rhaena smiles guiltily. “I mean, when you put it that way, it does sound stupid.”

“Not stupid,” you insist. “Just out of proportion.”

“Okay,” Rhaena says. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. “Okay. I guess I’ll go shopping.”

“Yes!” Baela cheers, already scrolling through Reykjavik shops on her iPhone.

“Hey, Stargirl,” Aegon says, and then hurls something at you like a frisbee. It’s an Amex Black Card.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “What’s my budget?”

“No budget. As long as it’s slutty.”

“I will buy nothing but cardigans and mom jeans.” You crane your neck to peek at his receipts. The black Sharpie squiggles aren’t words; they’re shapes, pictures. “What are you drawing?”

“New merch designs!” Aegon holds up the receipts so you can see.

“Circles…?”

He is somewhat wounded. “Donuts!”

You don’t even know where to begin. “Why donuts, Aegon?”

“Because that’s his code word for doing lines in the bathroom,” Criston says.

“No!” Aegon objects. “Because Donati sounds like donuts! So we could have all these mini donuts, print them on hats or shirts or whatever, and then in the frosting where the sprinkles would be we can put tiny stars, suns, moons, planets, galaxies…and comets, obviously.”

Jace scoffs. “I think you spend a little too much time thinking about donuts.”

Aegon goes quiet. So does everyone else. Gazes flit nervously around the cabin. The only sounds are the roar of the jet and Mario 64, although Daeron has turned his back on the cheerful Italian protagonist and is looking pensively over his shoulder at Jace. Aegon resumes sketching his cosmic Sharpie donuts, his lips pressed tightly together.

“Hey,” you say to Jace, and then once you have his attention, wicked dark eyes: “Shut the fuck up.”

“What?”

“It’s a great idea. It’s a really adorable idea, actually. Let’s see you come up with something better. Go on, whenever you’re ready. I’m waiting. I’m still waiting. But you’re not much of an ideas guy, are you, Jace? Fortunately, you’ve always had other people around to pull that weight.”

Jace opens his mouth to say something, then snaps it shut as Cregan stands up. He towers over you both, as tall as Aemond but more muscly all over, in the chest and the shoulders and the legs. He lowers his sunglasses to show his eyes: greyish, cold, flinty. He glares at Jace, and then at you, and then at Jace again. Jace holds up both hands, showing his palms. You bow your head in capitulation. Cregan lies back down on the couch and repositions his sunglasses just as the pilot turns on the fasten seatbelts signs. As you click yours into place, you exchange a glance with Aemond across the aisle. He is smiling, foxlike and approving, as if he can’t wait to see what else you have left to show him.

“So!” Baela says. “Guess who found a shop in Reykjavik that sells Gucci!”

The jet glides through mist and fog to make a rather bumpy landing at Keflavik International Airport, fighting against gusts of wind coming in off the North Atlantic Ocean, the same water that swallowed the Titanic, the Faucett Peru Boeing 727, the Free Life hot air balloon, whaling vessels and Viking longships, countless cruisers and destroyers and submarines that blasted holes into each other during the world wars. As the band prepares to disembark, Aemond reaches into the front pocket of his shirt—black, with white circling koi fish—and slides out a pair of sunglasses. He doesn’t like wearing them. They limit his vision even more than it already is. But he never walks into an airport without sunglasses on, you’ve discovered. Just in case paparazzi are there snapping photos.

“You don’t have to do that,” you tell Aemond.

He gestures to his scar and his blind eye, a pale cloudy blue. “I’ve thought about just getting it cut out. But then I’d have to worry about shoving in a fake one.”

“I think it’s kind of beautiful,” you say. “It reminds me of Neptune or something.”

And the look he gives you, the look, like he’s never heard anything like this before, like he didn’t know that words could fit together in that order. You hold out your hand to him. He lays the sunglasses in your palm. You put them on, grinning up at him.

“Now I’m the one who looks like a multi-millionaire popstar.”

“Hey, we match!” Aegon says as he follows you and Aemond out of the jet, massaging your shoulders and clopping noisily in his Crocs.

There are paparazzi at the airport, but only two of them, young men in black hoodies who dart around loosing flashes into the stuffy, aggressively heated air. Jace, Baela, Daeron, and Aegon beam and wave, radiant, magnetic, born celebrities. Rhaena smiles politely but hides behind Luke. Cregan saunters and smolders, knowing exactly what his devotees expect from him. Criston and the security guards are loaded up with suitcases like pack mules. The paparazzi don’t pay much attention to Aemond—a former heartthrob, a cracked relic, a fossil or a ruin—but one of them snaps a few pictures of him. Aemond turns his face so they’ll get his good side, his unmarred side…and then he grabs for your hand. You try not to reveal how ecstatic you are, how wildly, uncoolly, over-the-moon thrilled. Your expression might end up commemorated forever in a tabloid, after all.

Shopping in Reykjavik is mostly wool sweaters, hiking boots, and weather-proof jackets, but Baela leads you and Rhaena to a boutique that carries something more her speed: Gucci, Burberry, Balenciaga, Valentino, Saint Laurent. You and Baela try to distract the employees as much as possible; still, they find time to nettle Rhaena with those bothersome, predictable, unnecessary questions. She gets a little flustered, but she fights the instinct to run and hide, to allow herself to sink into a frenetic puddle of self-inquisition. You can almost see the words scrolling behind her dark gentle eyes like a news ticker: They get paid to help me. They aren’t going to remember any of this in a few hours. I’m not on a stage. I’m not being judged.

In the fitting room, you take two selfies to send to Aemond’s WhatsApp account: one in a flowing neon yellow gown, the other in a short, velvet, sparkly black dress embroidered with silver stars.

You ask: Day or night?

He answers before you’ve changed back into your jeans and pink Harry Styles hoodie. Night, obviously. And then he adds: Which constellation are you? Vulpecula the fox? Cygnus the swan?

“God, he’s such a dork,” you murmur to yourself, smiling. You have to think for a while before you reply. You don’t know many constellations; that makes it difficult to rattle off something witty. Then you are inspired. You type: Definitely not Virgo :)

He responds immediately: :)))))

“What does that mean?” you whisper to yourself in the solitude of the boxlike fitting room. “What the hell does that mean???” He spends nearly all of his time with you, but he rarely touches you. He’s never made a move. He’s never even kissed you. You wouldn’t mind if he did. No, fuck the coyness that women are supposed to cloak themselves in to preserve their worth. You’re waiting for him to kiss you like someone drowning waits for a gasp of air.

Despite Aemond’s vote, you can’t help yourself. You buy both dresses. You don’t look much like an Aegon Targaryen, but the cashier doesn’t seem too troubled by this. Baela and Rhaena are still trying on outfits, so you swing your bag around boredly and wander over to see what Criston is up to. At Aemond’s insistence, he accompanied you on this shopping expedition and left the rest of the security detail back at the Reykjavik EDITION, a luxury hotel overlooking the harbor. Criston is in the jewelry section and holding up a medallion necklace, rotating it to see how the light reflects off the speckling of tiny gemstones, the wise golden face. His own face is distant and melancholy.

“Oh, that’s lovely, Criston!” you say. “All those emeralds. Who’s pictured on it?”

“Saint Jude. Lost causes.”

Interesting. “Are you religious?”

“Not especially. But Alicent is.”

“Who…?”

Criston walks off to the cash register. You watch him go, curious and perplexed.

Back at the hotel, you enter your suite to find a blond Targaryen lounging in your bed…but perhaps not the right one. Aegon still has his Crocs on and is, for some reason, clutching a plushie puffin. He glances over at you, noting your shopping bag.

“Fashion show?” he says. “I hope it’s nothing but miniskirts and bikinis.”

“Don’t you have places to be? Substances to snort?”

“Cregan is currently trying to locate some.”

“That’s really not good for you. Physically or mentally. You might be addicted.”

He barks a laugh, like it’s absurd. “You can’t get addicted to coke, Stargirl.”

“You definitely can.”

He suddenly looks panicked, like he’s never considered this before.

“So.” You hesitate. “Aemond.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the concept.”

“He’s insecure. Very insecure, though he’s learned how to hide it.”

Aegon throws and catches the puffin, bouncing it off the ceiling. “I wouldn’t disagree.”

“It goes deeper than the accident, I think. The scar, his eye, what happened with the band…that awakened it again. That freed something that he’d had locked away. But where did it start?”

Aegon stares up at the ceiling. He tosses the puffin a few more times, abusing it terribly. “Whoever you are when you’re in high school…that’s sort of who you are forever, you know? If you’re popular and beloved and understood, you carry a certain self-confidence into the rest of your life with you like a suitcase. It’s an assumption that people care about what you have to say. It’s a conviction of your own value. It’s a presupposition the world would have to wrestle away from you. But if you’re a loser in high school, that stays with you too. And it’s one hell of a heavy suitcase to lug around.”

You try to imagine seeing Aemond through eyes that aren’t awed, craving, quietly adoring. It’s simply not possible. “He was alone?” you ask softly, dreading the answer.

“I had friends. He had grudges.” Aegon’s mouth twists as he tries to stop it from trembling. “My father…”

“I know, Aegon.” Your voice is gentle. “You told me in Kansas City, that night at the bar. You don’t have to say it again.”

He is relieved. “Yeah. So people respond to that in different ways, right? I lived in the present. I talked to anybody who would listen to me, and I partied and I got high and I got laid, and I was the antithesis of the kind of son my father would have wanted just to spite him. Aemond escaped into the past. He read books, traced bloodlines, collected old obsolete things. Maybe that gave him hope that a better place was waiting for him out there somewhere, a better time. He got to be cool for three years. That’s it, and that’s all he’ll ever have. He was the one with vision. He said he was going to audition for The X Factor, and I only went with him to meet girls. Then he made it through the first round and I did too. And when they were going to cut us, he found Jace and Luke and Cregan and convinced everyone to start performing together. The show wanted to replace Luke, did you know that? They thought he was too boyish, too innocent. Aemond fought for him. And then Comet finished in second place, and all the sudden we were signed to a label, and we were selling millions of records and we were touring, and we were winning Grammys, and we were buying our parents and siblings houses…and two months after our third album came out, Aemond was maimed at the Budokan and it was time for him to get off the ride.”

You stare at Aegon, tremendously sad, not knowing what to say. Sometimes the right words don’t exist.

Aegon smirks. “He really likes you.”

“Maybe.” And then, with guileless vulnerability: “I hope so.”

“That’s dangerous.”

Your brow knits into fearful grooves. “Why?”

“I know how to enjoy something without owning it. I don’t think Aemond does.”

You don’t want to ask, but you have to. “What was Shelby like?”

Aegon considers this for a long time before he answers. “She was simultaneously too good for him and not good enough.”

Too gorgeous. Too cool. Too Pinterest-board perfect, airy like summer. But not deep. A river, a glimmer, but with no understanding of the abyss. You aren’t sure how you know that this is what Aegon means, but you do. You don’t want to think about Shelby anymore. You pivot. “So Aemond is the past and you’re the present. Who’s the future? Daeron?”

Aegon smiles, lazy and warm. “I think you’re the future.”

“Yeah right. Get your Crocs off my bed.”

He complies, groaning, flopping onto the floor gracelessly.

“Where’d you get the puffin?”

“Some Icelandic kid recognized me in the elevator. He wanted to give me a present. In return, I signed an autograph and got him and his dad front row seats to the show tomorrow. So I’d say it was a very favorable exchange for him.”

“You’re a saint,” you say, and then find yourself thinking randomly of Saint Jude again. Lost causes. Lost causes.

Aegon grins at you as he crawls to his feet and makes for the door. “Patron saint of mayhem.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re watching old Comet Donati performances on YouTube when the hotel fire alarm goes off. And it’s strange, because the unscarred, clear-eyed boy on the screen is Aemond but also isn’t him; he smiles more easily, he looks at people without suspicion, he is ebullient and confident and carefree like kids blowing bubbles on front porches. When you open your suite door, dressed in your favorite Cookie Monster pajama pants and an oversized New Kids On The Block t-shirt, Aemond is just arriving.

“Oh good,” he says. “You’re still awake.” And then he walks with you to the nearest stairwell.

Outside, the hotel guests are clustered together with their travel companions, shuddering under coats and sweaters and blankets clasped around their shoulders like capes. Even at the start of July, Iceland is cold: fifties during the day as Americans like you measure in Fahrenheit, forties at night, nearly always overcast. It’s 11 p.m., but the sun won’t set until midnight, and even then only for a few short hours; the sky is wearing the colors of dusk, lilac, rose pink, pale blue, fire and gold. You’re shivering, rubbing your bare forearms and feeling the goosebumps that have risen there like braille. Aemond tugs off his black and white Calvin Klein hoodie and offers it to you. As you pull it over your head, you breathe in the pieces of him that have snared in the fabric: smoke and cologne, gin and soap and the brine of the seaside air. Now wearing only his jeans and his koi fish shirt, Aemond lights a cigarette and gazes up at the hotel, postmodern angles and semi-transparent glass.

“No one’s going to give me a hoodie?” Aegon says, quaking in his cyan tank top. Criston reluctantly unzips his bomber jacket and hands it over.

“Did you do this?” Criston asks him, meaning the fire alarm.

“What?! No! No way, man! It wasn’t me!”

Criston turns to Cregan for confirmation. Cregan shrugs, ambiguous. “I knew it!” Criston exclaims. He is distraught.

Several fire engines arrive, red lights strobing, and firefighters enter the hotel to investigate. Baela and Jace are standing near each other but not speaking, arms crossed, faces tense. Luke, Rhaena, and Daeron are watching an episode of The Crown on Luke’s iPhone. Cregan lights a cigarette and manages to take two drags before Criston notices and lunges to bat it out of his hand.

“Stop it!” Criston orders. “You’ll ruin your voice!” Nobody tells Aemond not to smoke. His voice doesn’t matter anymore.

Aegon asks you, his hands buried in the pockets of Criston’s jacket: “Would you run into a burning building to save me?”

“Why would you be in a burning building?”

“That’s really not the point.”

“I’d think about it.”

Luke says, the glow of his iPhone dancing across his face: “Wow, Prince Charles is a bitch.”

“You’d think about it?” Aegon says to you. “You’d think about it?!”

“You have no excuse to be in a burning building. You have now experienced an evacuation, you know exactly how to leave a building successfully, if you’re still in it for some reason then that’s your problem.”

“You hear that, Criston?” Aegon says. “This is a good thing. Now everyone knows what to do if there’s a real fire! And we’re in hotels all the time, so this is super helpful!”

“Please shut up,” Criston begs.

“Hey Cregan, share with the class, what did you learn about fire safety from this fortuitous occasion?”

“I already knew what to do.”

Aegon is grinning. “Yeah? What’s that, Cregan?”

“Get in the shower and wait for the fire department to come rescue me.”

Everyone laughs—even Jace and Baela—and Cregan’s lips quirk up in one corner, the only hint that he is joking. A parade of firefighters exit the hotel. One of them is carrying a toaster. Black smoke pours out of the slits in the top.

She says something in Icelandic that you can’t understand, then repeats in English: “Who was trying to cook hotdogs in a toaster?”

The guests chatter incredulously among themselves: Who would do such a thing?

You, Aemond, Luke, Rhaena, Daeron, Cregan, Jace, Baela, and Criston are mindful to look anywhere except at Aegon. You gaze out at the horizon, the kaleidoscopic midnight sun. Aegon peers down at his Crocs, hair tangled and blue eyes wide.

“Very well,” the firefighter with the toaster says, a little smugly. “We will consult with the hotel staff and see which guest was registered to that room.”

“Goddammit!” Criston hisses, and shoves by the band to go meet the firefighters. You can’t hear what’s being said, but his hands move in exaggerated gestures of humiliation, apology, restitution. Fortunately, the Icelandic people seem to be forgiving.

Daeron turns to Aegon. All he says is: “Why?”

“I couldn’t figure out the buttons on the stove!”

Criston comes trudging back to the band. Guests are being admitted into the hotel to return to their drinks, their television shows and mystery novels, their families, their lovers, their beds. “Alright, it’s taken care of. Go to your rooms. All of you, right now, go.”

No one has the heart to argue with him; he looks half-broken already. Everybody disperses. You and Aemond end up alone together as the elevator zooms to the fifth floor. He takes his small, square metal lighter out of his jeans pocket and toys with it, repeatedly flicking the lid open and then shutting it again.

You point to it. “Vintage lighter. Vintage bike. And yet you write with glittery gel pens instead of quills and ink. Poser.”

“I like old things,” he says, smiling. “I think history is important.”

And you hear Aegon’s words like an echo: That’s dangerous. You start pulling off Aemond’s hoodie to give it back to him.

“No,” he says, sounding pleased. “You keep it.” So you do, finding excuses to bring the sleeves close to your face—touching your hair, your lips, your eyelashes—so you can inhale him.

Aemond leaves you at the door of your suite, but you don’t go inside. You wait for another five minutes until Criston steps out of an elevator and into the hallway, alone and agitated. Still, he has concern to spare for you.

“You okay? Locked yourself out?”

“No. I was just hoping to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.” Criston is tired, but his eyes, dark like fertile earth, are attentive.

“When Aemond was hurt…when the label yanked him out of Comet…no one fought for him?”

“Luke did,” Criston says.

And then he continues down the hall, shoulders low, a man troubled by both the past and the future.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Blue Lagoon is like Aemond’s sightless left eye: a milky blue, opaque, something you could drown in. The band spends several hours splashing and wading in water warmer than the blood in your veins. The white silica mud that forms the floor is soft beneath your bare feet, squishing between your toes; people spread it over their skin like a skin shedding its scales in reverse. Criston orders strawberry-banana smoothies from the in-water bar, trying to distract Aegon and Jace from the beer and the wine. Currently, Comet’s most worrisome performers are locked in combat: Daeron is on Aegon’s shoulders, Luke on Jace’s, entangled in a spirited chicken fight. This is much preferable to their first choice, Marco Polo, which led to Jace ‘accidentally’—and repeatedly—bumping into various early-twenties female tourists, whereupon he would inevitably profusely apologize, introduce himself, and pose for selfies, beads of turbid mineral water dripping from his curls. Cregan has drifted to the other side of the lagoon, floating on his back and basking beneath the overcast midday sun.

“I can’t believe they made everyone shower naked before getting in here,” Rhaena says, drinking her smoothie, submerged in rippling blue up to her collarbones. She had nearly refused to go through with it—I’ll wait in the car! I’ll be fine! I’ll just watch The Crown on my phone for three hours!—until you and Baela offered to hold up your towels to shield her from view and insisted that none of the other guests (all female, as the showers are sorted by gender) were paying attention. Nudity is not a big deal in Iceland. It’s quite a far cry from Missouri.

“You gotta honor the local culture, babe.” Baela flashes Rhaena a teasing grin. “Scandinavians are super progressive. No shame about bodies or relationships. Very sex-positive.”

“Well Jace is certainly blending in.”

Now Baela isn’t grinning anymore. She frowns broodingly out over the lagoon. Rhaena, regretting that she said it but knowing it can’t be taken back, noisily slurps at her smoothie even when it’s gone. You and Aemond exchange an uncomfortable glance. Baela has never broached the topic of her relationship with you, but you know it’s coming. You can sometimes see her working up the nerve like a bucket filling with water, drop by drop.

You change the subject. “See, Rhaena? The naked shower thing wasn’t even that bad. It was over in two minutes, and absolutely nobody was judging you. And if you hadn’t done it, you would have missed out on this amazing experience!”

“You weren’t nervous?” she asks you. “Not at all?”

“I little bit, yeah. Of course. I’m an American.” Everyone chuckles. “But logically, I knew no one would really be watching me. I’m not that interesting. And also…I wasn’t truly naked.”

“Huh…?”

You wiggle your eyebrows and, smiling radiantly, spin around and point to the black-ink tattoo between your shoulder blades, underscored by the straps of your swimsuit that cross just below it: a comet with a streaming tail, lyrics that Aemond dreamed up in a kinder world. Rhaena laughs.

“Oh, right, of course.”

“You are obsessed with that thing!” Baela says, but she sounds relatively happy again.

“It’s true. I am. I admit it.” Sometimes you find yourself staring at it in hotel bathroom mirrors still foggy with steam, wiping away condensation to marvel at the irrevocable ways in which Aemond has marked you, ways you are thankful cannot be erased. When you wear anything that reveals your upper back like a spilled secret, you often catch Aemond gazing at it too. Now he reaches over and skims a fingerprint along the circle that his lyrics form around the comet:

I’ll come back for you if it kills me

Comets clip by again after eons and so can I

There’s a jolt down your spine like lightning, but more eager than jarring. All other thoughts vanish from you. You look over at Aemond, and he looks back, his lips slightly parted, his right eye beckoning to you. And you know it will be good with him, if it happens, when it happens. It will be more than good. It will be laced with an intensity, with a dire breed of necessity that you’ve never tasted before. All at once, you and Aemond realize what you’ve done and drift away from each other again, weakening gravity, elliptical orbits.

“No shame, guys,” Baela quips, raising her smoothie glass in a toast. “Sex-positive, remember?”

After the 45-minute drive back to Reykjavik, and after the concert, the band coalesces in Jace’s suite. There aren’t many hangers-on for this stop of the tour; Reykjavik is isolated and peaceful and not particularly desirable for friends of convenience who are more interested in clubbing and drugs than camaraderie. You wouldn’t trade nights like this for anything in the world.

Aemond is reading off his latest notes, white ink on black paper, stars on the backdrop of the universe. A Benson & Hedges cigarette smolders between two fingers on his left hand. Smoke curls up around his face. “Aegon, you were three steps behind the choreography for basically the entire show.”

“Yeah, that was on purpose.”

“It wasn’t,” Aemond counters, but he can’t help but smile.

“Women love a tragic disaster of a man who is screaming to be fixed.”

“Daeron,” Aemond continues. “I really like that hair flip you’ve started doing…”

Aegon is knocking back dark glass bottles of Gædingur Stout and slurring, very drunk and sinking deeper by the minute. In the absence of coke, he has resorted to other crutches. You are squeezed between Aemond and Baela on one of the couches. And Aemond isn’t really touching you, but he also is: the delicious subtle pressure of his thigh against yours, occasional nudges of his elbow, ostensibly unintentional grazes of knuckles and palms. He’s drinking his usual, a Bramble, and so are you, swirls of slow-moving pink like drops of blood in open water. And you think in a hazy bliss like listening to ground-level conversations from the bottom of a swimming pool: Tonight, tonight, tonight, he’s going to come back to my room with me tonight.

“Oh great,” you mumble as you check your Facebook messages on your iPhone.

“What’s wrong?” Rhaena asks. She’s nestled against Luke on the opposite couch, twirling locks of his hair around her benign, delicate fingers. Jace is sitting beside Luke, drinking a Vesper and trying not to make eye contact with Baela. Daeron is in the fuzzy white sheepskin lounge chair, Cregan perched on a bar stool, Criston standing watchfully with a vivid green bottle of Perrier in one hand. When he briefly steps out onto the balcony to take a call from the label, you can hear only the most dim, indistinct murmurings through the thick tinted glass, sounds but not words. Aegon is sitting—and occasionally crawling around—on the floor. The Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way is playing.

“I’m subletting my apartment in Kansas City and there is a strict no pet policy. But my neighbors snitched on the new tenant and apparently she’s got a Flemish Giant rabbit living there with her.”

“Not even a normal rabbit,” Baela muses. “A giant rabbit.”

You sigh. “All the rugs are going to be chewed up by the time I get back.” And Aemond glances over anxiously, like he doesn’t want any reminders that you won’t always be around.

“What’s your apartment like?” he says.

“Old. Vintage. Most of it hasn’t been updated since the 1950s. You’d appreciate it, actually. It would match your aesthetic.”

“Maybe I’ll have to see it sometime.”

You smirk at him, flirtatious, baiting, the silver stars on your dress reflecting golden lamplight. “Maybe. If I invite you.”

He leans in to whisper so only you can hear: “You will.”

“I think I’d be a landlord if I wasn’t famous,” Jace says, nursing his Vesper meditatively like an aspiring philosopher. “I’d just sit back and collect the checks as they rolled in. And you get to raise the rent every year.”

“Yeah, that sounds like you,” Aegon says, grinning up at him saccharinely.

“What would you be, Stargirl?” Jace asks; and you realize you hate the sound of him using Aegon’s name for you.

“I mean, a therapist.” And everyone laughs, even Criston.

Jace flushes, brushing his curls back from his face with one hand. “Oh yeah. Clearly.”

You look to Aemond. “You’d be a historian or an archivist or something.”

“Or a writer,” Luke says.

“Maybe,” Aemond agrees, a tad uncomfortable with the attention. “Or an animal activist, maybe. I’d like to do some sort of good in the world.”

Aegon shouts, far more loudly than necessary: “What would you be, Criston?”

“Thousands of miles away from you.” More laughter, riotous; but Criston is smiling a little.

“What about you, Cregan?” Jace asks. “What would you want to be if Comet didn’t exist?”

Cregan downs a shot of Absolut Vodka. “A plastic surgeon.”

“What? Why?”

Cregan shrugs. “You get to see tits all the time.”

There are scandalized squeals and guffaws. Baela says: “I would not let you anywhere near my tits.”

“And not just tits!” Daeron adds brightly. “Don’t they do, what’s it called, vaginal rejuvenation?”

Cregan points at him with his empty shot glass. “Exactly.”

“Oh God, that sounds painful.” Rhaena hides her face behind a flute of champagne.

“Yeah,” you say. “I don’t think I’m interested.”

Aegon snorts, drips of Gaedingur Stout flying from his nose. “Like you’d ever need it. You’ve got a pornstar pussy, fucking gorgeous.”

A hush sweeps through the room like a dust storm. Baffled glances dart around wildly. Immediately, Aegon realizes his mistake. He gazes up at you from the floor with large, glazed, drunken blue eyes that glisten with apology. You gape back, half-furious and half-petrified.

“Wait, what?” Aemond says. Ashes build on his cigarette, forgotten.

“Oh, wow.” Jace gestures from you to Aegon. “You guys…you guys have…?”

“It was once, a long time ago,” you say quickly. “Like, a really long time ago. Over a year ago.”

Aegon is trying to help. “Ages ago. Ancient history.”

“Where? In Kansas City?!” Baela gasps, stunned.

Aegon tells her: “You remember that bar we all went to after the show, right? The one on the roof?”

Baela is blinking at you, not comprehending. “You hooked up with him? In a bar?! Aegon?!”

“Um, yeah.”

Jace brays out a laugh, shaking his head. “Damn, Stargirl. I thought you had better taste than that.”

You feel like you’re fighting for your life. You feel like you can’t breathe. “It really wasn’t serious…” Not the sex part, anyway.

“No, no, it totally wasn’t,” Aegon agrees gamely. “It was like, what? How long were we in that bathroom? Maybe ten minutes total?”

Daeron is giggling. “Bruh, stop roasting yourself!”

As the chatter flies, you hide your face in your hands; beneath your palms, your cheeks are hot. You can feel Aemond pulling away from you, spaces opening up between your thighs and shoulders and arms like the ever-expanding void of the universe. When you steal a glimpse of him through the cracks in your fingers, he is staring down at the floor. He is silent, but you can see the thoughts—the images—riddling him like bullets. You can see him filling up with them like a punctured ship fills with seawater. He smokes until his cigarette is gone, and then immediately lights another.

Luke is the one to mercifully intercede. “Hey, Criston, where are we going next?”

“Uh,” Criston says, trying not to gawk at you or Aegon. “Let me think. Uh. Oh, right. Paris.”

Jace cackles. “The city of love! How appropriate!”

Criston ignores him. “You have some press interviews and then you’re doing two shows at the Accor Arena on July 7th and 8th…”

Aemond gulps down the rest of his Bramble and then walks out onto the balcony, closing the sliding glass door behind him.

“Fuck,” Aegon sighs miserably, then guzzles his Gaedingur Stout.

You bolt off the couch and go after Aemond. The heavy sliding glass door growls as you roll it open and then shut it again. Outside, Reykjavik is cold and windswept. The midnight sun is aflame. It’s still too bright to see the Northern Lights; even if they were there, you would have no way of knowing. Aemond is smoking with his back to you. He’s looking out over the boats bobbing in the harbor, sunbeams glinting on the crests of waves. Flapping gulls swoop and scream.

You say cuttingly, like a surgeon slicing away malignancies: “So what, you don’t like me anymore?”

Aemond flicks ashes over the balcony railing. “I just think I understand you better.”

“What does that mean?”

He whirls to you and says pointedly: “Why are you here?”

A disorienting question. Too easy. “I followed you out onto the balcony.”

“No, here with the band, here in Reykjavik, why are you here?”

You know how the truth sounds, but you can’t rewrite it. “Because Aegon asked me to be.”

“Because he asked you to come fix me, right?” Aemond demands. “To crack open my skull and stir things around until I’m okay with the fact that my life ended seven months ago.”

“No!” you shout into the wind. “I mean, yes, he thought I’d be able to help you, to help Comet, but that’s not what this is about for me anymore—”

“Why would I believe you? You’re a liar, you’re a confirmed liar, why would I believe a single goddamn word of what you have to say?!”

“I didn’t lie to you!”

“Friends!” Aemond roars. He doesn’t touch you, but his rage is horrifying, ageless and deep like lava bubbling beneath tectonic plates. “You said you and Aegon were friends!”

“We are friends—”

“No, you’re not. You met him, you fucked him, and then when he invited you to join the tour you dropped everything to do it, why, because you still want him? And I’m the charity case? Or I was just next in line? Maybe you were planning to work your way through the whole band. Who’s next, Jace? I don’t think he’d object.”

“No—!”

“You and Aegon. And you didn’t even have the guts to tell me.”

“Because I didn’t want to have this conversation, the one where you eviscerate me for something that happened before I even met you!”

“You chose him,” Aemond says, venomous. “At the bar in Kansas City, you chose him.”

“What?! Aemond, I don’t even remember seeing you, I don’t think you were there at all—”

“I was there.” He glares at you, thunderstorms, tornadoes, the earth splitting in two. “Last June. Rooftop bar. String lights. View of the river. I remember it, I was there.”

“Well then you didn’t notice me either and you probably spent the whole night with Pilates princess, Malibu Barbie Shelby, so what’s the fucking point?!”

He glowers at the horizon. Iceland DOES have jewel tones, you think erratically. But they only come out at night, like owls or bats. “It’s different.”

“It’s not different! You’re so convinced people don’t like you that you do insane, irrational things that make people not like you! It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy! It’s a fucking circle, you idiot!”

“I’ve had enough psychoanalysis, thanks.”

“No, you could use some more of it, you could use a lot more, you have so many demons it’s like Paranormal Activity in your brain, they’re in there all day tearing things off the walls and kicking over chairs and sabotaging anything you dare to care about and you let them!”

He turns away from you. “Just go the fuck back to Kansas.”

“I’m from Missouri!”

Aemond pitches the end of his cigarette over the balcony. His good eye flicks to the sliding glass door. The curtains rustle as the faces that hovered there just seconds ago disappear back into the suite. Very muffled through the thick glass, you can hear Criston chastising people.

You ask Aemond, embers in your throat: “This is really something you consider unforgiveable?”

He shakes his head, mournful, violently disappointed. “You’re just a groupie. You’re just a slut.”

Slut. It’s not the word, it’s the way he said it, with dismissiveness, with condemnation, the same way men love to use it as a blade to carve off every other piece of you—kindness, coldness, ferocity, loyalty, wit, passion, talent, triumphs, failures, ghosts—until that one little word is all that’s left. You’re dismantled into a clutter of loose bolts and bent nails. You’re a beef cow that was led into the maze of a gnashing, metal-and-blood processing plant and came out the other side a brainless, raw-pink patty just the right size to fit in a Big Mac box, something to be consumed but not remembered. “What did you say to me?”

He’s staring out into the twilight sky, both hands on the balcony railing. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe I…”

“Are you kidding me?! I can’t believe I got your lyrics tattooed on my fucking back, what am I supposed to do about that now, rip my own skin off?!”

“So get it covered up. I’m sure Aegon would be thrilled to help you choose a new design, or Jace, or Cregan, or Daeron, or whoever.”

“You know what I think?” you say, caustic like acid.

“Don’t say it,” he threatens, low and dark.

“I think you haven’t fucked anyone since the accident, and you’re terrified to. But you shouldn’t be, Aemond. Because there’s nothing wrong with you. There has never been anything wrong with you.”

But he doesn’t hear that part. He only hears the first thing, what you never should have said at all. It’s true, but that doesn’t mean you should have said it. “I hate you,” he says softly, and you can’t think of a reply. The space between you fills up with wind, cold, dying sunlight. Aemond looks at the sliding glass door. “I don’t want to go back in there.”

“Well, we’re five stories off the ground, so you’ll probably have to.”

He studies the series of balconies that run along this side of the hotel, each separated by perhaps three feet of open air. Then he starts climbing over the metal railing.

“Aemond, don’t!”

But it’s too late. Fortunately, he has long limbs. He scrambles onto the next balcony, and then the one after that, and then one more, until he reaches the balcony for his own suite. He tries the sliding glass door—locked—and then sits down to wait for someone to open it. You go back inside Jace’s suite, where everyone pretends to have been talking about something other than you.

“Where’s Aemond?” Criston says, alarmed.

“He’s on the balcony of his suite. You should go let him in.”

“What?!” Criston yells, and then sprints out into the hallway.

You flee too. Both Baela and Aegon try to stop you, try to talk to you. They’re asking what Aemond said. They’re asking if you’re okay. You tell them you’re fine and that you want to be left alone. They argue. You insist. You walk back to your own room and start packing.

Your suitcase fills up with crumpled clothes and souvenirs: a Colosseum pencil sharpener from Rome, a tiny alabaster Apollo from Athens, a Spanish fighting bull refrigerator magnet from Madrid, handmade soap from Porto, a bar of chocolate from Vienna, a moose snow globe from Stockholm, a silica mud mask from the Blue Lagoon, a tiny stuffed comet that Rhaena crocheted for you. You reach back to touch your fingertips to the comet tattooed over your spine, tears biting in your eyes. If I had told him from the start, would that have made a difference? If I had met him first, would we have had a chance? You are gathering up your makeup when you hear a knock on the doorframe.

Cregan lurks there. When he speaks, he sounds startled; he sounds afraid. “You can’t leave.”

“I’ve literally never had a conversation with you, so thanks for the input but I’m still going.”

“No,” he says, persistent. “You can’t leave.”

“Aemond doesn’t want me here.” Your voice is fragile, shattering. “I can’t help him anymore.”

“It’s not just about Aemond. It’s about everyone. They’re all fucked up. They all need you.”

You stare at Cregan, not understanding. “I really don’t think I’m equipped for this.”

He fixes his cool greyish eyes on you. He is harsh but somehow not unkind. “You would never be able to comprehend where I came from. I’m not going back to that. The band has given me everything. I’m not going to let anyone take that away from me. You have to stay. You have to fix Comet. You can’t leave.”

He watches you, and you watch him, and you aren’t sure who has the upper hand here, who is the predator and who is the prey. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe everyone is a patchwork of strengths and deficits, fields of gold strewn with landmines.

At last, you relent. And Cregan doesn’t vanish until you’ve begun taking your souvenirs out of your suitcase and placing each of them—carefully, reverently—back on your nightstand where they were before.

[bookishfeylin]

just saw your anti booktok post from june 11 2023 and yeah. the way white authors write self-insert fantasies clearly for only white people. The way white audiences will eat it up because it has them as the mcs. the way fae fantasy/fairytale retellings only really focuses on white women. The awkward silence of being a woc and not being able to imagine yourself in the fantasy protagonist's shoes because how can you, they're all white. why would you step into a world where you're made to choose between a golden-haired good white boy and an abusive white bad boy with black hair. they are not even appealing to you. the way alina starkov and mal oretsev being made poc for shadow and bone was met with so much anger and imo violence from white women, cause they could no longer self-insert onto the protagonist because their fantasy of her being a white mc had been shattered. the sobbing and screaming in comments of youtube sections asking why couldn't alina starkov be white even though white people already have everything. and she's not even fae. the entitlement that comes with white privilege and therefore booktok. i'm tired

Hi anon! I assume you are referring to this post and yes, yes I wholeheartedly agree. There’s another post on here about the politics of escapism, and I feel like that really applies to booktok. Who gets to escape in fantasy? Who gets to read about characters that look like them go on adventures and fight monsters and ride dragons and practice magic? Who is included in their world? And who isn’t? Who is relegated as always to a servant, a competing love interest, a jealous ex, a side character in someone else’s story? Who can turn they brain off and ignore all the racism in fantasy and sci-fi—and who can’t because we live with that stuff day in and day out in the real world and it jumps out at us when we see it in our entertainment too?

And it’s so painfully apparent because whenever the same shallow writing is used but with a person of color as a protagonist, or even when the writing is solid and intense but a person of color is the protagonist, white people struggle to relate to them or argue they “have no personality” and couldn’t connect with the character (and even with side characters of color as well). For example, I recently read Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye and it was brutal and intense and a wonderful look into the psychology of child soldiers and how they are broken and what they will do to survive all from a fantasy perspective. But a lot of the (white) reviewers on goodreads say they can’t relate to Sloane, the mc, or that she’s nothing more than a cardboard cut-out who is ~traumatized~, or that the plot makes no sense, etc. The book is objectively well written, but it only has a 3.5 star rating on goodreads and people are much more critical of every aspect of the book than they are of, say, Sarah J Maas’s books when almost of these criticisms are even more applicable in her case. The double standard—the increased scrutiny of and disconnect with and dislike of characters of color—jumps out in booktok in particular because of how low the standards are for white-led and focused books and how much higher they are for POC-led and focused books. And for those of us who want to see ourselves in fantasy, it’s hard.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

I’m not familiar with Dr Who so why do people dislike Lindy?

(Spoilers for the new season if anyone is not caught up)

Ooh boy, this one is a doozy.

So, first thing to understand is that Doctor Who is a do-everything show. The protagonist is an alien called The Doctor who periodically changes his face (therefore the show can theoretically go on forever.) We currently have our first ever Black Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa. The Doctor travels in space and time. One episode could be about earth history, the next could be an alien planet. And they’ve had some weird ones.

Lindy Pepper Bean is the stereotypical white girl and that’s very much on purpose. living on a planet called Finetime. Yes, that is it’s actual name. A bunch of rich humans sent their kids there to serve as a vacation spot where they only have to work two hours a day. The rest of the time they are connected to a social media hub called The Bubble, which acts as a hologram obscuring their vision and it literally gives them directions on where to walk since they can’t see. When Lindy turns the Bubble off, she finds she has forgotten how to without it.

The Bubble is controlled by this floating computer called The Dot, and everyone has one. The AI has grown sentient over time, and it’s ultimately revealed that The Dots have grown to hate their human masters and wish to kill them. If you’re thinking this is a commentary on social meda, or on the dangers of AI…just wait. It gets worse. Finetime is exclusively white. Was that just a lack of diverse casting? Oh no. Let’s talk about Lindy.

Lindy is extremely selfish. She is arrogant, superficial, and rude to most people. Especially The Doctor. She is constantly condescending to him. More so than his (white) friend and companion, Ruby. This is not unheard of. The Doctor is a genius who often struggles with socializing, people don’t always like him. But in this episode, he and Ruby are presented as equals and they’re both just trying to save her life.

Lindy shows her true colors when she, without hesitation, throws another character named Ricky under the bus. After he saved her life and shieldee her from The Dots, after he told her to go without him, she stops them from attacking her by revealing information that she knows will cause the Dots to kill Ricky instead. Ricky was entirely innocent and one of the more enlightened people on Finetime, choosing to read books rather than use The Bubble.

Lindy shows absolutely no remorse for this and never faces any consequences because nobody finds out it happened. She lies through her teeth and says Ricky just went back to help more people escape The Dots. But the real kicker is what comes next.

The Doctor offers to save the survivors, who would otherwise be doomed. They refuse his help. He has a space timeship that could evacuate all of them. But they won’t go with him, because he is “not one of them.” Lindy singles out The Doctor, she doesn’t include Ruby in this judgment. According to her, talking to him onscreen was tolerable, but in person is just too much. They don’t ever directly state that it’s about skin color, but the subtext is painfully clear.

TL;DR: Lindy is selfish to the point of using other people as human shields, incapable of even walking properly thanks to her social media addiction, has an overall rude personality, and (this is the big one) she’s fucking racist.

[artyandink]

Light My Fire (Again) | beau arlen

Summary: “I thought I’d swore off love, Jenny.” I smiled, chuckling a bit as I looked down to my feet then back up the skies, taking in the twinkling lights. “God, I really thought I did, and I was doing such a good job at it too. But, well, I just… I couldn’t help it.” I wet my lips slightly, biting the bottom one. “It’s improper, but it’s true.”

SERIES MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

(divider credits go to @cafekitsune)

A/N - Inspired by Take Me Home by @zepskies

four - (never) take it easy

PREVIOUSLY ON LMF:

“There it is. The one thing I couldn’t do and never did: trust you.” I scoffed, and Beau leaned forward, taking the lead.

“See here, Mr Joyner, you are Belle’s father, and I will respect you that much, but a lot’s happened that somehow coincides with your arrival.” He explained with a low, intimidating tone. I glanced towards him, taking in his set jaw and raised finger. “Now, you’re gonna tell your daughter why you came back after all this damn time or we’re gonna find out usin’ methods that you won’t approve of, ie hard questioning and digging into the evidence we have, which I bet will uncover some nasty secrets.”

“It’s good that you elaborated.”

“Yeah, it is. Now, Mr Joyner, you need to speak up before we find out ourselves.” Before Cal could reply, we heard a loud bang and a scuffle, and when my head turned, I saw Donno wrestling a guy with a gun to the ground. Beau turned to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Stay put.”

“You know I can’t do that.” I protested, reaching for my own holster, but he grabbed my wrist with a warning look. I wanted to argue, but I knew what he was insinuating. I wasn’t healed yet, so I couldn’t fight.

“Stay. Put.” He then pulled out his gun, holding it up at the assailant. “Sheriff’s department, hands where I can see ‘em!” My eyes were locked on him, ready to jump in and help if need be while Donno was growling at the man for almost pulling a gun on me. I saw Tonya getting up from her chair, pointing behind me with a gasp.

“Elle!” She cried out, looking terrified. “Behind you!” I whipped around only for my head to snap back around, the muzzle of a gun connecting with my temple. My vision went blurry as my head spun, but I could make out an unfamiliar figure in the haze that I instantly tackled blindly, collapsing onto the floor in an undignified heap coupled by what felt like a gigantic needle through the hole in my stomach. I coughed for a moment, my hand covering the area as I was roughly rolled onto my back amid the struggle between Donno, Beau and the assailant. I managed to make out the silver glint of a knife, so I quickly crossed my forearms over one another and held them over my face so I could catch it just in time before it hit my face.

After what was a struggle for a few seconds, the guy seemed to have a change of heart, throwing the knife aside and getting me in the temple again with a gloved fist this time.

Neither of them felt great.

I heard Cal protesting against something, and Beau’s shouts as the former was seemingly roughly dragged away, my vision going from blurry to borderline black as I tried to recall… what the guy looked like. I could remember… grey hair, possibly Mexican… or Hispanic… strong… build… 6’ 4”…

“Belle! Stay with me, damn it! This is Sheriff Arlen, I need paramedics and backup…”

Sunlight hit my eyes, burning my eyelids slightly and forcing me to open them, which happened to be a mistake since it then set my retinas on fire. Or maybe I’m just being dramatic. I groaned, covering my face with my eyes and rubbing them until I had the strength to open them again, adjusting to the light. It had been two weeks since the incident in a diner and an APB had been put out for our kidnapper. Beau initially had insisted on me moving in to his trailer, but upon further evaluation, Olivia would need to come with me and he already houses three people in there. Therefore Beau, Emily and Carla temporarily moved in to my house, thank the Lord I have quite a few spare rooms, to take care of me.

“You’re awake.” Emily was at the door with a smile, holding a glass of water. “Are you feeling better, Elle?”

“Much.” I nodded, sitting up with a grunt. Beau had not let me leave my room for two weeks, bringing every meal to my room, plentiful and seeming like it was following the Eatwell Guide, it was that rich with the necessities. “I’m gonna be on my feet today, Em. Don’t even think your dad can stop me today.”

“Good, ‘cause I was about to tell Beau to let the poor girl stand.” Carla appeared next to Emily, kissing the girl’s hair. A wide smile instantly broke out on my face as I stood up, moving to hug her. “Morning, Elle.”

“Mornin’, Carla.” I hummed, closing my eyes before letting her go. “Always good to have a lawyer on my side.”

“Having you as my client? Gonna be a blast.” She chuckled, lightly tapping my shoulder. “Olivia’s had breakfast and she’s out with her friends at some restaurant that opened up last week. She said she asked you about it and you were all for it, but I wanted to check.”

“Oh, yeah, I let her go.” I nodded with a grin, also laughing. “I had Jen run some background checks before I let her, though.”

“Smart. I’d go with Em myself to make sure she’s with the right crowd, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, that’s a given, duh, but I do my surveillance from a distance.”

“So you’re also a spy.” Emily grinned, her eyes twinkling, “Just like Daddy.”

“Well, Em, I’m less of a compulsive stalker/spy.” I chuckled, then nudged her. “I won’t tell your dad.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, young lady.” And with that, I took the glass of water with a grateful smile and sipped it as I padded down the stairs in my fuzzy socks. Beau was busy humming a tune and cooking some breakfast, which happened to be scrambled eggs. The moment he saw me, his demeanour instantly changed.

“Ay, ay, ay! Who let her out?” He frowned, pointing at me. Em, Carla and I instantly raised our hands, which forced Beau’s own to accept how I was now capable of walking. “A’ight, three against one, I see how it is. The ladies launching a coup- I see through all your plans.” He chuckled, dishing out the eggs. They didn’t look burnt, which was a plus, so I grabbed one plate and sat down with it. “Since you were on bed rest, Belle, we paused the investigation. The APB hasn’t found the guy who hurt you, but we’ll find him.”

“Yeah, I heard you reopened your sister’s murder investigation.” Carla frowned sympathetically, reaching over to comfortingly squeeze my hand. Emily, however, looked excited.

“No way, your sister was murdered?” She gasped, a wide smile on her face until Beau and Carla shot her a disapproving look, eyebrow raised and mouths set in a grimace. Damn, they’re good at the ‘look’.

“Em, let’s try to be a little more sensitive about this subject.”

“Your enthusiasm is completely warranted, sweetheart, murder can be cool, but let’s dial it down a little.” Beau added, clapping Emily on the shoulder on his way to sit down, and when he did, I felt a small nudge on my foot. I turned to Beau with a raised eyebrow, and he gave me a small smile that could only come before an-“Are you doin’ ok, darlin’?”

There it is.

“Just fine.” I smiled, nodding as I shoved a bite of omelette in my mouth. Beau and Carla looked at me expectantly, as if I was about to break down bleeding all of a sudden, but I shrugged, glancing between them. “I’m fine, you two. Trust me, I feel better already.” I got a call from Olivia, so I broke into a wide grin and answered it immediately, swallowing my chewed bite of omelette. “Hey, sweetie.”

‘Hey, uh, Aunt Isa? I think I might be home later than usual.’

“And… why’s that?” I asked with a smirk, since I heard a boy’s voice in the background. I knew where this was going.

‘There’s a guy. He asked me out.’

“Aha! I knew it, but what’s the guy’s name?”

‘His name’s Tom Hollister. He’s a really sweet guy, auntie.’

“I don’t doubt your judgement, gumdrop. Fine, but be back before dark.” I chuckled, running a hand through my hair while I felt a soaring feeling in my chest. My girl’s growing up so fast. I hadn’t had great experiences with men, but who knows? Maybe Olivia will get the good batch.

‘Yes! Love you, auntie.’

“Love you too, sweetheart. Stay safe.” I cut the call, turning to Beau and Carla with a laugh, my eyes twinkling. “Olivia’s going on a date.”

“You let her date?!” Emily gasped, pointedly glancing between her mom and dad, who didn’t look any degree apologetic, instead chuckled about it.

“You’re not dating until you’re eighteen.” Beau warned, raising a finger but sporting a wide smile nonetheless.

“Aw, c’mon, why?”

“Because you’re still our baby girl.” Carla excused with a glint in her eye. “And we’re overprotective. At this rate, we say you can date at eighteen but it’s gonna bump up to thirty two.”

I was sitting with Poppernak, going through the security footage of the encounter with our assailants. I felt an uneasy twinge in my stomach that I chalked down to being embarrassed due to having been overpowered by a random guy in a a diner.

That wasn’t the only thing that set that twinge off. The attack in the diner was a targeted strike. If somebody had tracked our location to that specific place and ordered to take Cal, he knew something that the guy who attacked me didn’t want to reveal. At any cost.

I squinted at the screen, trying to see if there was anything on Cal or the guy who dragged him away that we could see. While Mo was scrolling through the footage, I noted down any identifying features of the guy I could before handing it to Jenny so she could update the officers on what they’re looking for. 

I was tapped on the shoulder by Mo, grabbing my attention as my brow furrowed, spinning on the chair to face the screen. I had thousands of theories running through my head, but I needed to narrow it down as much as I could. As quickly as I could.

“Talk to me.” I sighed, leaning forward so I could see the screen better, my fingers drumming on the table incessantly, my nails making a little tapping noise on the wood that made me feel a lot better, my leg bouncing on the ball of my foot.

Don’t blame me, it’s just a thing.

”Look here.” Mo pointed to Cal’s pocket, where there was what looked like a phone. It was rather old and cracked, with a blue case that had flowers adorning them.

Sunflowers.

I instantly knew whose phone that was, and I realised the reason why Cal had been taken. He had my sister’s phone, which could have the key to finding out who killed her. I leaned forward, gesturing for him to zoom in. “Isn’t something you’d find on an old man, huh?” He continued with a sigh.

”No, it is not.” I shook my head, grimacing. I felt sick to my stomach, but also confused. Why the hell was my father walking around with a dead woman’s phone in his coat pocket? And why did some random mobster want it as well? If he even was a mobster. “That’s my sister’s phone. She got that phone case to remind herself of me. She called me her sunflower, y’know, since they’re the flower of Kansas.”

I couldn’t believe I didn’t see the phone before. It’s the one piece of evidence I need and now it’s in the clutches of someone who’s only going to use it for the worse. Not to bring justice, just goddamn pain.

”Wait. Check this.” Mo showed me the footage from the outside of the Blue Fox diner, where there was a black van that Cal was shoved into, but I could see a blue and yellow rectangle fly a metre before landing in a bush. I sat up; Cal Joyner, you slick son of a gun. “There’s our phone.”

”Lucy’s phone.” I breathed, moving to grab my jacket, slinging it on. I ran a hand through my hair, my throat dry and forcing me to take a long sip of water. “We need to get that thing. As in, we need to go. Now.”

”Woah, hold on.” Mo held up a hand, stopping me with a raised eyebrow coupled alongside it. His eyes flicked to Beau’s office, where I knew if I just stormed out looking like my guns were blazing then he’d stop me in my goddamn tracks. “Beau’s not gonna let you leave.” I was torn. I could value my health and safety and let Jenny handle it, or I could go out on a limb and get that phone myself. 

I turned to Mo, grinning sheepishly. I shrugged, my eyes furtively glancing to the door as I took out my keys. “He’ll, uh, he’ll calm down.” And before I could be stopped, I was out of the door and practically sprinting to my car, getting in just as I saw Beau’s figure appearing at the entrance to the department, his yells muffled by my rolled up window. I pressed my foot down on the pedal, pulling out and heading out of the car park. I drove down the road, watching the landscape go by.

My blood boiled, adrenaline pumping in my veins even though it was merely driving a car to get a phone. Except that the phone could possibly be my link to getting the truth about Lucy. I ran a hand through my hair, finding that my phone was buzzing with notifications from Beau. Angry notifications.

Which I ignored.

I pulled up at the diner, getting out and kneeling by the bush, searching desperately through the foliage in search for a phone which seemed to be not there. I cursed under my breath, standing up and resisting the urge to kick my car. But I love her too much, so I refrained from it.

I rubbed a hand over my mouth, a frown darkening my face as I tried to find an alternate way to deal with this. To find Cal and find the phone. I don’t know what it was that made this case so damn difficult, but I was stumped. I usually was able to solve my cases. Half the solved case file boxes were filled by me.

And now? I’m stumped.

“Great. This is great.” I breathed, hands on my hips as I looked to the sky in vain. Damn me and my false friggin’ hopes that something, anything, will show up if I just look at the sky. Then my radio crackled to life, catching my attention.

‘All units in sector seven, we have our assailant. A man by the exact noted description has been spotted south of Reseda Grove. We need all available units on the scene, does anyone copy?’ I heard dispatch announce, and it clocked in my head. I was in sector seven. And I was an available unit. My hand instantly scrambled for my radio, fiddling around at my belt until I found it, holding it to my mouth and turning on the mic.

“This is Deputy Elle Joyner, badge number MD1176, and I copy.” I announced before getting into my car, flooring it as I wildly jerked the steering wheel. I’m still alive, don’t worry.

Beau had heard the announcement on the radio and the response from the very person he needed to stay out of harm’s way, and he cursed loudly, starting to gear up. “Everyone, gear up! Poppernak, lead a team to secure the perimeter, don’t let anyone in or out. Hoyt, you’re with me. I swear, Deputy Joyner’s gonna get herself KILLED!”

From where I was, I reached Reseda Grove, pulling out my gun and putting on a vest which had DEPUTY in bold yellow writing over green. I tied my hair up, springing out of the car and raising my gun, finding myself now a foot away from the man who attacked me in the diner. He was what I estimated to be 6 foot, which meant he had a good five inches on me, which was a problem.

“Elle Joyner.” He smirked, grey eyes twinkling in a way that sent shivers down my spine. I gritted my teeth, flicking the safety off my gun. He had a scar on his lip, which was curled into a snarl after he noticed me cocking my gun. “And I thought a Kansan such as yourself would have some more manners.” His accent was distinctly from New York, which confused me for a moment since we’d identified him as Mexican, but oh well, parade que mordí más de lo que pude masticar. Or maybe that’s not the phrase.

“I’ll have manners once you give Cal back.” I retorted, staring him in the eye and refusing to back down. I didn’t know whether Beau would get here with backup, but I needed to take this jackass down. And fast. “But then again, I can’t give promises, Sicario, but you can give me a name before I kick ass and take it.” 

“Name’s Ruiz del Campo.” He chuckled, then the smile slid off his bullish face. “You won’t be getting any more than that, hermosa.”

”I wasn’t born yesterday, asno, I know what hermosa means, I do my Duolingo- we’re getting off track, so stop flirting with me. Where’s my freakin’ dad?! Where’s Cal?” I almost screamed the question, which spooked him and made his finger tighten on the trigger. My foot darted out, sweeping his leg and forcing him to wobble and lose his footing, the gun firing up into the air rather than at any civilians. I thanked my lucky stars that I’d decide to train in kick-boxing, rolling the guy off his ass and onto his stomach, cuffing him as Beau, Jenny and Cassie ran onto the scene, the former two about to yell out-

“SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT!”

There it is.

Beau managed to get me off del Campo, while Jenny hauled him off to the waiting cops. I was roughly turned around to face a very angry sheriff, who, in my adrenaline rush, just looked like an angry pug. “What were you doing?!” He hissed, his grip like a vice on my shoulder. I glared up at him, gently prying his fingers off me to give him a moment to calm down.

“My job.” I responded instantly, completely and utterly unapologetic. As if I had a reason to be otherwise. I shoved my hands in my pockets, feeling calm and chill despite just having stared down the barrel of a gun. “Why, there somethin’ wrong with that?”

“We’re not having this discussion here. In my car, now. Jenny’ll take yours back to your house.” To say the car ride was silent was an understatement. It felt like even dust falling would set some sort of bomb off, and the last time I saw Beau this furious was when he found out Emily was kidnapped. When we pulled up to my house, we went in through the door-

“Why the hell did you go in there without backup?!” He almost shouted, looking furious. His eyes were wide, green eyes looking like a forest fire and jaw set until he decided to tone it down a little. “Look, I know you have a long-standing relationship with mortal peril and a side piece called danger but you don’t have to go in cahoots with ‘em every time it takes your fancy.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” I muttered to myself before raising my voice so he could hear. “Sheriff, I get that you’re concerned, but this is what I signed up for. I didn’t do it because it was my singular option, it’s my passion. Being here, savin’ lives, and Cal is who knows where.”

“That does not warrant you to hightail it to heaven! I’m not havin’ it!” He paused, breathing out and rubbing a hand down his mouth to compose himself, breathing in before adding something that piqued my interest. “Not again.”

I was about to ask him ‘what the hell are you talking about’, but I employed my brain cells and figured out what he was saying. “Your partner. Back in Houston.” I saw him look away, biting his lip for a split second, and my hand twitched before reaching up. See, I previously had cupping his cheek in mind, but my brain made a split second decision and took his shoulder instead, the moment that my mind made said decision probably warping my hand coordination and making it sign god knows what in ASL. “Sheriff, what happened?”

“Only thing you need to know is that it was all my fault.” Beau whispered, his eyes still averted from mine. I shook my head, gritting my teeth behind closed lips.

“I don’t believe that for a goddamn second.” I refused, scoffing a little. “Please, trust me.”

Beau searched my eyes, his own green ones seeming pleading as he tried to find any reason to not trust me with this information, but I remained steadfast. “It…” He paused, rubbing a hand down his mouth. “I, uh, was tracking down a syndicate. With my partner, Rob Nixon, one o’ the best men I’ll ever meet. When we did track ‘em, we thought one of us should act as a potential buyer for their product. Rob ended up being that guy, and we got him to wear a wire, our team was listening in and I was leading another in a silent infiltration. I didn’t get there in time. They burned him-” His voice cracked, and his now misty eyes tried to seek solace in the ceiling, “they burned him, Belle. Knew he was a cop. By the time I got there, they’d put four bullets in him. Four bullets that I had to explain to his family.”

I instantly melted, gazing at him with nothing but sympathy and heartache. “Sheriff…”

“I don’t want you to go too.” He whispered, shaking his head before taking my hand, kissing the knuckle. I swallowed, blushing slightly. “I don’t wanna look to my side and find that you’re not there. It’s… pretty damn… selfish, but I can’t help it. You brought my girl back to me, Deputy. You did that, and I owe my life to you for that.”

“No, it’s ok.” I nodded, pulling him in gently for a hug, stroking his hair. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to. It’s not selfish, it’s human.” I paused for a second, then sighed. “And I’ll stop being a self destructive idiot, ok? I’ll go in the line of fire once I’ve healed.” I broke away from him, my hand stroking down his cheek, but then I felt that it got awkward, so I dropped the hand back to his shoulder, patting it nervously. “I’m sorry I worried you. I just… can’t seem to stay down for long.”

“Yeah, you’re one stubborn lil’ lady.” He agreed instantly, lightening up a little. “Can’t seem to wrap my head around you, and, trust me, I can get around a wrap just fine.” He patted his stomach for emphasis. “One day you’re as sweet as cherry pie, and when you’re on the field, you’re - hell - you’re like Wonder Woman with a Kansas accent.”

“I’ll take that compliment proudly, because Gal Gadot is gor-geous.” I grinned, tongue tracing my canine like it always did, then it faded into a sort of soft smile as I looked up at him, thoughts running through my head like they were doing the 100 metre sprint at the Olympics. “Out of all people to have my back, especially when I don’t want ‘em to… I’m glad it’s you.”

“Who else, hm?” He nudged me with a snort. “Gotta keep this Southern Belle alive, ain’t that right?”

“Damn straight.”

“Do we have a lock on the countryside?” I giggled at my own joke as I wheeled my chair over to Mo, shovelling instant noodles in my mouth despite them being piping hot. Don’t blame me, there wasn’t anything faster. “Y’know, since del Campo translates to the countryside- it’s fine, just… give me the deets.” I saved myself the embarrassment by stuffing more noodles into my mouth.

“Ruiz del Campo.” Mo showed me a picture of Ruiz with a grimace. “Been taken in for assault, aggravated assault, B ‘n’ E, drunk and disorderly, history in recreational substance abuse, drug trafficking, organised crime…”

“Damn, country boy, you’ve been busy.” I whistled lowly, staring at the list of deeds. “Someone definitely got coal in their stocking this year.”

“He won’t talk.” Jenny groaned, storming up to us with Beau hot on her heels. I swivelled my chair to face them with a curious look. We’d decided that to preserve this guy’s health and his knowledge, I couldn’t be the one to go in. It’s a smart choice; I’d resort to torture.“He keeps on trying to exercise his right to a phone call.”

“He does realise that all that monkey business never happens in real life? That you don’t get a freaking phone call?” Beau added with a scoff, averting his eyes as his hands went to his hips.

“I think that’s him tryna piss you off.” I sighed, leaning back on my chair and clicking the button on my pen over and over. “Seems to me like it’s working.”

“I hate my job sometimes.”

“Did anyone need lunch?” Dean came in, carrying four full plastic bags and sporting a wide as hell smile. He put them down, taking out everyone’s favourite takeout meal and handing it to them.

Beau took his with a boyish grin, chuckling. “I freaking love my job. I take back what I said.”

“Course you will.” I took my takeaway, a Paneer Tikka Masala, from Dean with a grin. “Thanks, De. You didn’t have to do this.”

“Well, I was talking Liv for her date with this Tom guy, so I figured I’d pick up some lunch for y’all.” Dean chuckled.

“Where do you find these guys, huh, Belle?” Beau clapped me on the shoulder before taking a large bite of his favourite sandwich from Blue Fox diner. “Mm! S’heaven. Straight heaven.”

“Isabelle?” I heard the familiar voice of Markham Leeds as he walked in, expression surly and contorting into shock and then sneering once he saw Dean. “I was going to ask where Olivia was, but, uh, looks like I walked in at the wrong time.”

“Awkward.”

A man with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes strolled into the newly opened diner where Olivia met Tom, whistling under his breath. His phone was on, a photo of him and a redheaded woman displaying a ring on the lock screen, a heart drawn around her made up face. A worker called Dan put down his mop, strolling over with a sunny smile. “Evening, sir, can I help you?”

”Yeah, thanks, man.” The man nodded with a friendly grin, eyes darting around the room as his fingers fiddled in his pocket. “I’m, uh, I’m lookin’ for my son. His name’s Tom Holden. Have you seen him?”

”He went off with a girl, Olivia Barlowe, earlier.” Dan informed, hand running through his hair as he gauged the man’s character. “Why, you have something to tell him? I can pass the message on, y’know.”

”Oh, that’d be great.” He took out a notebook from the inside of his jacket, writing an address in neat handwriting before ripping it out and handing it to Dan with a chuckle, his cerulean eyes twinkling. “Just tell him his old man’s in town, yeah?” 

“Does his old man have a name?” Dan raised an eyebrow with a small smirk as he folded the paper, careful not to read the address since it was a breach of privacy.

”Oh! Oh, yeah.” The man nodded, looking down for a moment with a deep laugh before he glanced back up. “Harry. Harry Holden.”

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[acourtofthought]

Tamlin gave Feyre an engagement ring. Something I'm guessing he never gave to anyone else.

It didn't make them endgame.

Az let Elain borrow his dagger. Something he'd never done for anyone else.

It doesn't mean they'll be endgame.

Tamlin gave Feyre jewelry which she accepted but then gave to the water-wraith.

The giving of jewelry didn't make them endgame and Feyre easily parting with it was foreshadowing.

Azriel gave Elain a necklace which she accept but then easily returned (not to be confused with Nessian considering Nesta flat out refused her gift from the get go).

Why can't that also be possible foreshadowing for the end of E/riel? At this point she's got a stronger connection to Graysen than Az considering she refused to return his ring when he demanded it back. To me that demonstrates Elain is the kind of character to hold on to something when it still has meaning to her versus Nesta who refused gifts that had too much meaning.

Tamlin had such lust for Feyre, he told her the magic of Fire Night had him searching for her.

That didn't make them endgame

Az spent a year pleasuring himself to fantasies of Elain, but only in the dead of the night when his shadows were asleep.

If Tamlin being drawn to Feyre during a ceremony which brings magic to their lands for an entire year still didn't make them endgame then why would Elain being Az's dirty little secret have more staying power?

Feyre was frustrated at being expected to wear dresses in the Spring Court.

That was foreshadowing that she wasn't meant to stay there and was only truly comfortable wearing them once she ended up in the NC.

Elain was noted by both Cassian and Nesta as looking bad in black (a Night Court color) and Elain herself refused the Illyrian leathers.

Why can't that be foreshadowing that she's meant to leave the NC just as Feyre left Spring?

Feyre once said the night Tamlin kissed her was the happiest moment of her life. She also enjoyed painting in the Spring Court at one point and felt she found a friend in Ianthe.

We all know how that turned out.

Elain seems somewhat adjusted in the NC with hobbies and "friends".

Is it not possible that just as we later discovered Spring was not where Feyre was going to thrive despite the initial evidence to the contrary, we'll find out the same for Elain but in reverse?

Tamlin only wanted to protect Feyre too, keeping her safe from harm, despite the fact that she told him she wanted to be more involved.

That didn't end up together.

Az doesn't think Elain should be exposed to the darkness of the Trove which is essentially him wanting to keep her safe despite the fact that she expressed the desire to do more.

Why would they end up together when Tamlin and Feyre didn't?

Feyre was initially very afraid of Rhys, to the point she said she'd never want to paint him. He twisted her bone, forced her to dress and dance proactively and manipulated her into a bargain.

Yet in ACOMAF she fell in love with him before hearing his reasoning for his actions in ACOTAR, later listened to his reasonings and the acceptance of the mating bond reigned supreme.

Elain already knows what happened in Hybern was a mistake and not what Lucien intended, she sees that Feyre continues inviting him around for holidays (therefore seems to grasp that no one is holding a grudge over what happened with the king) and her only real struggle in regards to romance at this point is knowing that she lost her fiance because of the mating bond and being turned. Knowing that fate thinks it knows best for her (which tbh, it kind of does 😂).

If SJM worked her magic and had us believing in Feysand, if Feyre could fall in love with Rhys without initially knowing why he scared Tamlin into sending her back to the human lands, got her drunk, forced her to dance in front of everyone, and trapped her into an agreement with him, then why is anyone acting like Elain and Lucien have bigger obstacles to overcome?

I love Feysand and I have no grudge over what happened in their past but let's be honest, what he did to Feyre was 10x worse than anything Lucien has ever done to Elain. The things Feyre had to overcome to end up with Rhys were a much bigger deal than Elain finding out she had a mating bond with Lucien, something Lucien did not do to her but was done by the Mother / Fate itself (and really, the same thing fate did to Feyre and Nesta).

Elain has her own traumas to work through and I'm not saying they're less traumatic than Feyre or Nesta's, they've been / will be equally as difficult for her to work through.

But anyone claiming there's too much water under the bridge when it comes to her and Lucien needs to go back and read how SJMs other endgame relationships started.

Lucien has been practically perfect in comparison to the way Rhys and Cassian acted with Feyre and Nesta at times.

Elain's biggest problem is not going to be forgiving Lucien but letting go of her prideful stubbornness. All she needs to do is stop being put out over the fact that maybe fate did know a bit better than her (because really, she's holding a grudge that she couldn't even get her mother's one expectation of her right by choosing Graysen) and her every single desire will come true. SJM has made it obvious that Lucien is absolutely perfect for her and they could share in a life beyond her wildest dreams.

Right now Elain is her own worst enemy and that's so very Pride and Prejudice of SJM.