#because that would mean fewer people are experiencing what she did
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I'm curious what Casca's thoughts are on the New Flame Imperator, Efram Greetsglory.
Absolutely, sure sure!! :D
If Efram were in almost any other position, Casca would like the guy and respect him. He reminds her of Ari a bit. As it is, she's almost more wary of him because she'd otherwise be inclined to trust him.
Casca got herself out of imprisonment/captivity with Flame after three years. Didn't have any help from anyone, just made plans and had a decent dose of luck. She knows others suffered like she did (Brook, for one, though it was in a different manner), but she has no reason to have any faith that there's been meaningful change made. Sure, maybe Efram's better than Gaheron on a first glance, but that's about all she's confident of, and that's a low-ass bar to clear.
I guess the gist of Casca's thoughts on Efram Greetsglory are "I sure hope you're doing good things, even though I don't and can't fully believe that's true, but regardless of whether you are or not, I'm staying the fuck away from you and your legion."
#gw2#casca shadowstorm#brightwingedbat#thanks a bunch for the ask! :D#it's also. just.#casca's not a forgiving person. at most she'll give someone a second chance but only one#and weylon was someone who got a second chance to be her friend and he burnt that to the ground#giving a second chance to the flame legion is something she can't picture#at the same time there's a part of her that would like to believe that the new flame legion really is better#because that would mean fewer people are experiencing what she did#she just really does Not believe that
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what are your headcanons about Wan Rook's relationship with his apprentices? not in terms of a ship of course, but for example about teaching methods and which student is more capable, opinions about each other, and so on
So he's probably had more apprentices than just Doyle and Abbey potentially, referencing Doc's comment to Van Rook about 'Didn't you tell him what I did to the last one?' when he meets Doyle. Doyle was potentially new as Van Rook's apprentice in canon but I feel like they have known eachother longer because they clearly have some sort of frenemies or 'older sibling that I love to hate' relationship.
Like Van Rook would probably sell his apprentice's soul for the right price lol, money clearly means more to him. Doyle clearly worked for him for the money/to make more of a name for himself in the mercenary field, not because he liked Van Rook. When they work together in season 2 the dynamic seems a bit more friendly probably because Doyle's personality has been influenced a bit by his family now plus he's the one with the money and Van Rook is broke so Van Rook has no choice but to shut up and listen to him lol.
Van Rook clearly did mean something to Doyle though or else Doyle (who has seen death before and is conditioned to seeing some horrific stuff) would not have got upset when he was killed.
Who is the better apprentice out of Doyle and Abbey I think depends on how you look at it. Abbey has fewer meaningful connections with other people, allowing her to do the more distasteful and decitful jobs without limits from attachments to other people. Not that she's incapable of caring about people at all, it just has little to no value in the face of good pay - which is exactly how Van Rook is.
From this perspective, Abbey is the better mercenary because there isn't much that will get in the way of her completing the job. Unlike Doyle who has absolutely done some terrible things but hesitates when it comes to things like harming children. Van Rook does not hesitate to fire at Zak, Doyle goes out of his way to save the kid even before he knows they are related.
I think looking at skill and experience, Doyle is the better mercenary. He has beat both Abbey and Van Rook one-on-one by being creative in his fighting style. Abbey makes more mistakes which we canonically see:
She does not watch her back/pay enough attention to her surroundings in her mercenary turn episode, leading to her getting attacked and knocked out by the cryptid.
She forgets/doesn't realise that she is putting off more heat than her target when using heat seeking weapons leading to her own gear getting destroyed.
I think this is because she is both less experienced in the field and because she wasn't under Van Rook for long so did not learn as much from him as Doyle maybe did. Doyle learned a lot more from him I think and it shows by how many dangerous and stupid situations he manages to get himself out of without a scratch. Plus, Doyle was desperate for money/noteriety from a survival standpoint so he probably paid more attention to the techniques/teaching and he has more street smarts from his upbringing.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
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The Other Mountain - ao3 - Chapter 25
Pairing: Lan Qiren/Wen Ruohan
Warning Tags on Ao3
———————————————————————-
The evidence from the Fire Palace came in not long after, confirming Lan Qiren’s deduction.
Wen Ruohan still looked stupefied by the revelation, though he’d lived up to his word and believed Lan Qiren immediately, which was nice. He just hadn’t believed it of Jin Guanshan, Lan Qiren supposed.
That was reasonable enough.
Jin Guangshan might not be especially smart, but he made up for it by having cunning in spades. Lan Qiren could out-argue him nearly every time, particularly on matters of morality, but Jin Guangshan got his own way just as often, whether through schemes and maneuvering or underhanded tricks. He’d been pretty close to Wen Ruohan, too. The Wen sect never made alliances, it was part of their founding principles – the clan over everyone, the clan over the world, Wen Mao at what was either his finest or his worst depending on what commentary you were reading – but Jin Guangshan was good at flattering people, and Wen Ruohan liked to be flattered. He enjoyed not only the reality of being powerful, but the pageantry of it: he liked it when people bowed to him or recited phrases honoring him, he liked it when people thought about him, and he liked it when people praised him, even when they were smarmy sycophants obviously out for their own interests like Jin Guangshan.
(Having now spent a little more time with Wen Chao, Lan Qiren felt that he had a better understanding of Wen Ruohan’s character. Wen Ruohan was smarter, subtler, and far more experienced than his second son, and certainly more ruthless, but Lan Qiren could see that some of the same characteristics were there, writ miniature. Certainly some of the same flaws: Wen arrogance and self-absorption, a prickly competitive pride – though with Wen Chao, unlike his father, not quite enough cleverness and talent to justify it – and of course a tendency towards indolence and laziness, impulsiveness and excitability…not to mention, interestingly enough, a certain degree of gullibility, worsened by their tendency to think themselves above being tricked.
It was a little adorable, actually.
Wen Chao, at least, was young enough that Lan Qiren felt confident he could help ameliorate the worst of his flaws, or at least help him manage them better and with fewer awful tendencies than his father. As for Wen Ruohan…well, it was good for him that Lan Qiren liked him so much. He’d never met a man more in need of a beating. And that included Lao Nie.)
“Why would he be so foolish?” Wen Ruohan asked, not for the first time. He had started pacing – almost as if conjured up by his irritation, Cangse Sanren had appeared, this time with Wei Changze trailing behind her. “No Great Sect directly encroaches on another, not like this. We all refrain because we all know where it would lead…why would he incite war against me?”
“Not just a war, but a war in which you are the aggrieved party,” Wei Changze agreed. He looked worried, probably because of his natal sect’s potential involvement – the Jiang sect were formal allies with the Jin sect, close to the point of having arranged for a future engagement between Jiang Yanli and Jin Guangshan’s son, Jin Zixuan. The engagement had been mediated by their mothers, who had been close as girls, but even Lan Qiren, who did not gossip and tried not to listen to it when it was presented to him, knew the rumors that claimed that Madam Jin had utilized that very connection to help win her current place as mistress of Jinlin Tower. “It does seem rather implausible, not to mention irrational.”
“People act irrationally out of fear,” Cangse Sanren said. She’d perched herself on the stool again, with her knees pulled up in a dreadfully inappropriate manner; Lan Qiren was starting to wonder if she had difficulty getting comfortable unless she was contorting herself. “His conduct being irrational doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a trap.”
“It could be,” Wen Ruohan said.
“Anything could be. In this case, I don’t think it is. Qiren-gege is right: Sect Leader Jin decided to bet on a roll of the dice with Qingheng-jun, siding with him and trying to box Sect Leader Wen into a major loss. He probably figured that two Great Sects acting together were hard to stop, especially since he could bulk up their power by suborning Yunmeng Jiang through their alliance with his sect. And it’s a good point! With three Great Sects you can do a lot!” She shrugged. “But he didn’t realize that Qingheng-jun was insane, so his plan failed.”
“That’s not unreasonable. But it is unreasonable to go from there to ordering an assassination.”
“I suspect that part is likely my fault,” Lan Qiren said heavily. “Jin Guangshan has always been able to rely on his knowledge of people to manipulate them. With Wen Ruohan, he counted on knowing how to calm him down whenever he overstepped, whether through flattery or gifts or otherwise. But now, for the first time, we rejected his attempt to smooth things over…well, I rejected it, and Wen Ruohan endorsed that rejection. That may have spooked him.”
“Spooked him enough to try to kill me?” Wen Ruohan sounded offended, even though he himself had pointed out several times that his temporary vulnerability made it a perfectly reasonable time for someone to try something. “I understand that he had a relatively narrow window of opportunity at present and would need to act swiftly if he wished to take advantage of my impairment, but at the same time, it seems like rather a bold move, particularly for him. Maybe it is a trap.”
“Even if it is a trap, how can we avoid it?” Lan Qiren pointed out. Quite reasonably, to his mind. “I despise war. I would do everything within my power to avoid it where possible, but despite that, even I know that trying to kill another sect’s sect leader can lead nowhere else. If we do not respond in force, it would be tantamount to saying that anyone can try to kill the people in the Nightless City with impunity.”
“How bloodthirsty of you, Qiren.”
“He’s not being bloodthirsty,” Cangse Sanren objected. “He’s being logical.”
“He’s being terrifying,” Wei Changze said bluntly. “He’s not wrong, it makes sense, it’s the way it has to be. But wars aren’t bloodless, and they shouldn’t be started bloodlessly.”
Lan Qiren frowned. He was hardly being cold-hearted, he didn’t think – it really was only logical, and not just because his new sect happened to be the victim. The Wen sect was the most powerful sect in the cultivation world; its behavior set the standard for the rest, for better or for worse. If they didn’t take the strongest possible measures against someone who had ordered an assassination now, it would suggest that such things were acceptable, or at least not too objectionable, and setting such a precedent would be disastrous for the entire cultivation world, not just the Nightless City. Every sect would start thinking about how to target each other.
They had to stamp this out at once. They had to make it so incredibly clear that the consequences of this type of behavior vastly outweighed the benefits, that there would be immediate and overwhelming reprisals, that the only outcome would be utterly cataclysmic. The only way to do that was to go to war.
There was simply no other choice.
What had Jin Guangshan been thinking? It would be one thing if he were in the Wen sect’s position, thinking that he was strong enough to cast off the consequences or maybe even to intimidate whoever he had offended out of demanding justice. But they weren’t a small sect being threatened by a large sect, where they would have to balance accepting an intolerable offense against the risk of their sect being subsequently destroyed. The Wen sect was large and powerful and unlike most sects, it had an army. An army, and a powerful sect leader known for conquest and tyranny. It would never take such an insult lying down.
Jin Guangshan wasn’t strong enough to go against Wen Ruohan’s Wen sect, and surely he knew that. He’d done the equivalent of poking a bear with a stick and running away, expecting the bear to chase.
Under the circumstances, it was pretty obvious that there had to be some sort of trap involved.
Why get a bear to chase you if you didn’t have plans to deal with the bear once you got it to where you wanted it to go? Lan Qiren was perfectly willing to believe that Jin Guangshan was a little stupid, or even more than a little, but he wasn’t that stupid. He must have, or at least must believe that he had, some sort of ace up his sleeve that would enable him to turn the tables against them at the last moment, some final card left to play, something that he plausibly thought would let him triumph over not only a weakened Wen Ruohan, but the entire Wen sect army.
But what could it be?
“– need to look at who we’re dealing with here,” Cangse Sanren was arguing. “Don’t look at the situation as a general rule, what would normal people do and why would they do it. We need to think about why Sect Leader Jin would do what he did. ‘People are different, and different people react differently to the same stimulus.’”
That almost had the sound of a rule.
Actually, now that he thought about it, Lan Qiren thought he might remember having said something similar to Cangse Sanren all way back when they were still adolescents, back when she’d been frustrated by not being able to understand why people acted the way they did. He’d overheard her ranting about it one afternoon and he’d been struck by a sudden sense of kinship. As one person struggling with the same issue to another, he’d offered to share the benefits of his hard-won lessons on social norms. He hadn’t actually expected her to accept, but she had, and he’d spent a number of highly enjoyable afternoons explaining what he’d figured out to her, occasionally even supplementing his explanations with charts and the like. It had been fun.
He hadn’t realized that she remembered.
“I see your point,” Wei Changze said thoughtfully. “Sect Leader Jin is rich and powerful, and he was born rich and powerful. I doubt he’s ever haggled or been desperate for anything in his life. He doesn’t need to take risks, he probably never did before, and now, for the first time in his life…”
“Exactly! He’s exposed. It’s probably the weakest hand he’s ever held. Combine that with pride and egotism, and he decides to double down – ”
“It is still irrational,” Wen Ruohan said with a scowl. “Starting a war with another Great Sect – with my sect – is tantamount to suicide. Jin Guangshan may be foolish, but he is not that foolish. To act so recklessly is unlike him. I think – ”
“Qiren-gege,” Cangse Sanren interrupted, turning to look at Lan Qiren. “Can you call a doctor? I think Sect Leader Wen might be under the influence of some sort of severe fever or mind-altering drug – ”
“What?!”
“Or possession! It could be possession, we haven’t checked – ”
“Cangse Sanren, that is enough,” Lan Qiren said sternly.
She crossed her arms and arched her eyebrows. “Sect Leader Wen is refusing an invitation to go to war? A justified war, that no one will be able to object to? By the laws of the night-hunt, that definitely qualifies as aberrant behavior sufficient to necessitate a check for possession.”
“I am not refusing,” Wen Ruohan snarled. “I am merely – ”
“I think my brother might be involved,” Lan Qiren announced, deciding that the minor breach of etiquette involved in interrupting people and blatantly changing the subject was less egregious than allowing this conversation to continue any further. It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed that Wen Ruohan was being unusually squirrelly about being handed an opportunity that he would normally salivate over and even scheme wildly to obtain, but he also had enough insight to be able to determine that his hesitation was more than likely due to him still being unnerved by their earlier discussion about Lao Nie rather than any actual anxiety over the notion of going to war.
After all, Lao Nie and Jin Guangshan had ascended to their positions at around the same time. To lose one would be an ominous sign for the other, and Wen Ruohan had already lived past the length of a human lifetime, had already lost every single person he’d known as a young man. He hadn’t yet prepared himself for more loss, more change.
Lan Qiren could sympathize with that.
“I do not mean to be repetitive on the topic of my brother,” he added, when everyone else had stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at him. “I assure you, I am not seeking to lay the blame for all my misfortunes in one place simply for convenience. I genuinely think that my brother may have played a role in what happened.”
“I doubt your brother has access to assassins,” Wen Ruohan said dryly, then smirked. “Unless – ”
“There are no secret assassins in the Lan sect.”
“Hey, Lan Qiren,” Wei Changze said. “Remind me again, what was that really cool skill that Lan Yi invented? Starts with ‘chord,’ ends with…?”
“…Chord Assassination is named that way because of its similarity to other already existing methods of combat, and the fact that at the time using a string to garrote one's enemies was considered the sole province of assassins,” Lan Qiren said, rubbing his temples. “We do not employ actual assassins.”
“But theoretically, if you wanted to – ”
“If I wished to assassinate someone, I would not use Chord Assassination to do it. I have a sword. I would merely stab them.” He scowled at the crowd of grinning monkeys in front of him. “As I very recently demonstrated, if you recall. Can we return to the subject at hand?”
“Right, your brother,” Wen Ruohan said. He was still smirking, but Lan Qiren was willing to give him a pass on account of smirking being better than the tight and angry expression he’d had earlier. “Explain your thought process. How is he involved?”
“He was always exceptionally talented, and he continued to improve both his cultivation and his swordsmanship during his time in seclusion,” Lan Qiren explained. “Having faced him, I would rank him exceedingly high, putting him among the greatest cultivators of our time, up there at the top alongside Wen Ruohan and Lao Nie.”
“From what I hear, you’re not that bad yourself,” Cangse Sanren put in, rather unhelpfully. “Especially once you factor in the element of surprise.”
“He’s magnificent,” Wen Ruohan informed her. Also unhelpfully.
Lan Qiren decided to ignore them.
“We know that my brother has not returned to the Lan sect,” he said. “We know, too, that he must have worked with Jin Guangshan to put together the plot that led to the mountain collapse in Xixiang, though presumably Jin Guangshan was only informed about the parts of the plan that involved causing Wen Ruohan to take a loss, rather than the parts that involved mass slaughter of innocent lives.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Wei Changze mumbled. “I���ve met him. He might not mind.”
Lan Qiren was also not particularly sure, having also met Jin Guangshan, and indeed having had to spend significantly more time around the odious lecher than he would have preferred. Still, the rules said Be easy on others.
“However it may be, we know that they worked together. It was likely one of the Lanling Jin sect’s spies that was used to set up the plot, and Lanling Jin’s support was critical to springing the trap by convincing the rest of the world of the truth of their claims – in short, for whatever reason, however he did it, my brother successfully obtained Jin Guangshan’s support. I propose that when my brother left Xixiang, he may have gone to ground in Jinlin Tower.”
“Jin Guangshan also left the battlefield early, around the same time that your brother disappeared,” Wen Ruohan said, nodding. “His absence was commented on at some length at the party. Wasn’t that why he was handing out those stupid trinkets? To distract everyone from that?”
“Trinkets?” Cangse Sanren perked up, resembling a magpie catching a hint of something shiny. “What trinkets?”
“Commemorative coins to celebrate the event.” Wen Ruohan wrinkled his nose in genuine disgust. It was adorable, though possibly Lan Qiren was biased. “I had my subordinates pick up a few extras, if you’d like some.”
“Ugh, no thanks. They’re probably unbelievably gaudy.”
“They are. They’re also made of gold.”
“We’ll take two,” Wei Changze put in at once. “Cangse, stop scowling. Even if they’re hideously ugly, it’s not like we’ll keep them for very long. We’ll sell them the next time we run out of cash.”
“Oh, all right…”
Lan Qiren pointedly cleared his throat.
“I believe I see where Qiren is going with this,” Wen Ruohan said, returning to the subject with the speed of a man who knew Lan Qiren’s temper. “If Qingheng-jun has gone to ground in Lanling, that may be what Jin Guangshan is counting on to defeat any attack that we throw at him…though that still seems unreasonably foolish to me. There is a limit to what one man alone can do.”
“That was the previous wisdom,” Lan Qiren said. “You just demonstrated that it might not be the case.”
Wen Ruohan looked pleased.
“So you think your brother, what, told Jin Guangshan that he could do something similar to what Sect Leader Wen did at Xixiang?” Cangse Sanren looked thoughtful. “And Jin Guangshan believed him, so he thinks that even if we attack Jinlin Tower, he’ll be able to fight back, or at least cause enough damage to the Wen side to make a siege not worth continuing. Not the worst plan, I guess.”
“No, but it is also not an especially good one,” Lan Qiren conceded. “But I think you had it right earlier in your analysis of Jin Guangshan: he placed his bet on my brother, and now that the risk has gotten greater and the stakes higher, he has chosen to double down on that bet.”
“Hold a moment,” Wei Changze said. “That was a gambling metaphor. Lan Qiren, you know how to gamble?”
Lan Qiren threw the nearest thing to hand at his head.
He expected Wei Changze to dodge, the way anyone else who knew him well would have, but apparently he’d managed to take him by surprise – he hit him dead on, the paperweight hitting his head and bouncing off.
“Owwww…” Wei Changze whined with theatrical pitifulness to his wife, who was sniggering unmercifully at his expense. “Cangse, don’t laugh! Your husband is injured…”
“I have a better question for everyone to consider,” Cangse Sanren said, eventually yielding enough to press a kiss to her husband’s definitely-not-actually-bruised temple. “What is Qingheng-jun getting out of this arrangement? Jin Guangshan gets a powerful weapon, but what does Qingheng-jun get? What is even his goal, now that his plan has failed?”
That was a good question. Lan Qiren had been wracking his brain for answers, but short of “trying to kill me” – which would involve explaining why his brother hated him enough to consider breaching the taboo against murdering one’s kin – he couldn’t think of anything. What could his brother’s motive possibly be? Why wouldn’t he go back to the Lan sect? What in the world could he still want, after having lost his schemes for power, lost face, and lost even his chance for revenge…?
“He wants to kill everyone, of course.”
Now everyone turned to stare at Wen Ruohan, who shrugged.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “It’s certainly how I would feel under the circumstances.”
“…please explain,” Lan Qiren said, still staring. “What do you mean, ‘kill everyone’?”
“I mean exactly that. If you put me in a situation where, to my perception, the whole world has seen my disgrace, I would naturally want to raze it all to the ground to cover it up.”
“That’s not natural,” Cangse Sanren announced. “That’s definitely not what most people would think…uh, right, Qiren?”
“Certainly not,” Lan Qiren assured her.
“It seems natural to me. Perhaps it is the assumption of rulers…?”
“You’re so full of yourself. Why are you like this?”
“It seems like a fairly wild assumption to me,” Lan Qiren said, turning back to Wen Ruohan before he could answer the question. He suspected that Wen Ruohan’s answer, whatever it would be, would be annoying enough to kick off a fight, and they should not waste time nor energy on that. No matter how tempting it might be. “That my brother would so swiftly go from wanting to damage the Lan sect but not kill it, to wanting to kill not just them but far more people…when you say ‘everyone,’ do you really mean the entire cultivation world? How would he even do something like that?”
“Oh, I know! Poison the water – I’ll be quiet now, Qiren-gege, please don’t throw anything at me.”
Wei Changze politely cleared his throat, possibly in an effort to save his wife from Lan Qiren’s wrath. “Is there perhaps some other goal that he could be seeking to pursue at this stage?”
“I can’t think of anything,” Wen Ruohan said.
Cangse Sanren thought for a moment, then shrugged in agreement.
Lan Qiren…was going to have to mention it.
“He may want to kill me,” he confessed, and winced at the expressions of alarm on both Wen Ruohan and Cangse Sanren’s faces. “To remind you: I am here, I am fine, there is no cause to worry.”
“He’s your brother. He wanted to kill you?” Wen Ruohan was scowling. “He tried to kill you?”
“I think you should have mentioned that earlier,” Cangse Sanren said, with a shockingly identical look on her face. “Say, preferably before you went to a party where someone else tried to kill you…?”
“I do not think that was related,” Lan Qiren protested. “It is my belief that the assassins wanted to kill me to avoid me taking over the Wen sect in the event that their attempt to kill Wen Ruohan was successful.”
They were still glaring at him.
“Why does he want to kill you?” Wei Changze asked, in what would have been a helpful breath of fresh air and logic except for the fact that Lan Qiren dearly did not want to answer that question.
(He’d moved from being embarrassed to being angry about it. How dare his brother question his integrity like that? How dare he question He Kexin like that? Wasn’t it enough that he’d forced her to marry him, that she’d borne his children despite being in seclusion…? How could he have thrown away ten years just like that, without a moment of regret…? Even Wen Ruohan had regretted ordering Lan Qiren to the Fire Palace almost immediately, and they’d only been married for the equivalent of a blink of the eye!)
“Yes, that’s a good question,” Wen Ruohan said. “I knew he hated you and would gladly see you dead, but most people would not violate the taboo of killing one’s own blood-related kin with their own hands. What could compel him to go to such extremes?”
“I…that is, he…” Lan Qiren was stuttering. He closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. Be strict with yourself. Stop bad habits. Do not tell lies. “He thinks that I seduced his wife.”
“He what?!” all three of them shouted.
Lan Qiren grimaced at the loudness. He hated to even repeat the slander, though in truth he felt a certain amount of relief at having shared the information with them, freeing himself of a burdensome secret. As always, the rules were right, and following them the correct path.
“Not just that,” he said with a huff that encompassed all of the complaints that had been weighing him down. “If that were not ridiculous enough – as if He Kexin and I did not barely tolerate each other! – he continuously accuses me of seeking to subvert him through violations of the rules against promiscuity and debauchery. His relationship with his wife, his alliance with Wen Ruohan… I do not know why he is so fixated on the subject, but he is.”
Cangse Sanren suddenly laughed.
Lan Qiren turned to look at her, feeling betrayed. What was funny about what he’d said?
“I’m sorry,” she sniggered, her laughter getting more out of control rather than less. “I’m sorry, are you saying that your brother thinks you’re some sort of – seductive vixen?”
“…I did not say that.”
“But you meant it! That’s what you meant!”
Lan Qiren thought back over his brother’s accusations. “Well. I mean, I suppose – ”
Wen Ruohan started laughing as well.
Lan Qiren tried to glare at him, but it was impossible, not with Wen Ruohan looking as overwhelmingly gleeful as he did. Even Wei Changze had hidden away his face in his sleeves, his shoulders shaking with laughter. Cangse Sanren was nearly in tears.
“You!” she kept chortling. “You! Lan Qiren! Harlot and seductress, a nation-destroying fox-face beauty…you. With – ”
She hiccupped.
“With – with your slutty, slutty thousands of rules…”
Wei Changze fell off his chair, now completely covering his head with his sleeves. Wen Ruohan was by now bent over at the waist, the volume of his mirth reaching that typically associated with chittering baboons – in fact, it was possible he was crying with laughter as well.
Admittedly, even Lan Qiren could see the humor of it.
“Please do not refer to the rules that way,” he still said with a faint sigh. The laughter seemed to be doing them all some good. “You may continue to poke fun, but please limit your pejorative comments to me.”
Tragically, all three of them were more than willing to abide by that restriction, and insisted on continuing in the same vein for some time. It turned out that they all had several additional and very colorful suggestions that they felt the need to express before they were willing to change subjects. Or, well, Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren produced the majority, while after a few contributions Wen Ruohan primarily spent his time looking at Lan Qiren with a hungry expression that suggested that he had a new idea for what they could do later when they were alone.
Possibly something involving a nation-destroying fox and an indulgent emperor.
After a suitable interval, once the giggles seemed to have mostly passed, Lan Qiren cleared his throat pointedly.
“Can we focus?” he asked. “Need I remind you all that we must now prepare for a war? I cannot imagine that such an endeavor will be an easy one.”
“Easier than you might think,” Wen Ruohan said. He was still smirking lazily, but the tension from earlier had completely disappeared – now he looked the way Lan Qiren would have expected, full of anticipation and ambition, eager for an opportunity to expand his sect’s power at the expense of others. “I gave all the necessary orders to mobilize the army already to deal with the situation in Xixiang, and no one has ordered them to stand down. On the contrary, I suspect my generals have been putting them through their paces in an effort to demonstrate their competence to me – it will take no time at all to get them ready to march.”
“They’re all eager for a fight,” Cangse Sanren agreed. “Or at least to go out and show off.”
“War isn’t about showing off,” Wei Changze reminded her, but she only shrugged carelessly.
“What actually needs to be done to prepare?” she asked Wen Ruohan. “I’ve never seen a war before…Ooh, will there be siege weapons involved? Can we take some?”
Wen Ruohan snorted and took up his brush. “I’ll put together the orders, and you can take them to my generals. We will depart in the morning. I will include that you have my permission to examine the armory – ”
“Yes!”
“– but you will need to clear anything you wish to use with me before you remove it.”
“Spoilsport.” She smirked. “You know me so well by now. Don’t you trust me?”
“Not with siege weaponry.”
“I don’t trust you with siege weaponry, and it’s because I know you,” Wei Changze put in, looking alarmed. “Cangse – ”
“Beloved husband of mine – love of my life – ”
“You do not need siege weaponry!”
“But my love, sometimes women want something really big and really, really destructive…”
Wen Ruohan finished what he was writing and held up the page. “Take this and get lost. I have something to show Qiren, and I do not require your company for that.”
“I bet you don’t,” she giggled. “Be careful, Sect Leader Wen, you never know what a sexy beast like our Qiren might do – ”
“Never say that again,” Lan Qiren said firmly. “Ever. Under any circumstances.”
“I do have to ask, Senior Lan,” Wei Changze said. “Has your brother ever…met you?”
Lan Qiren reached out and picked up the inkstone from the table.
Wei Changze fled the room laughing, hand-in-hand with his wife.
“You know, I’d been planning to find a reason to repurpose the Fire Palace,” Wen Ruohan remarked. “But it hasn’t been repurposed yet. There’s still an opportunity…”
Lan Qiren snorted and put the inkstone back. “That is unnecessary. Is what you want to show me the gift you mentioned earlier? The painting?”
“It is. I do not know if it will be to your taste, but I wish to present it to you nonetheless.” Wen Ruohan rose to his feet, gesturing for Lan Qiren to join him, then paused. “Do not ask me to explain the meaning behind it.”
Lan Qiren nodded, accepting the limitation, and followed him. He was immensely curious. Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji had told him about their conversation with Wen Ruohan on the flight from Xixiang to the Nightless City, and that had been funny enough – Lan Qiren had privately enjoyed the thought of Wen Ruohan interrogating two children as to the best method of apologizing to him – but he had been particularly captivated by their mention of Wen Ruohan’s claim of being an accomplished painter.
Wen Ruohan was notoriously vain. If he was an accomplished painter, shouldn’t his own paintings be everywhere in the Nightless City, given place of honor? Since they weren’t, what was the reason?
He’d even taken a little time to ask around with the record-keepers of the Nightless City, discovering to his surprise that Wen Ruohan had once been more famous as a painter than a tyrant or even a warrior, back when he was only a young master and one son among many. Only…he had also been assured that Wen Ruohan had given up the habit of painting long ago, so long ago that few people could remember it.
Lan Qiren wondered what it meant, that he’d picked up his brush for Lan Qiren’s sake now. Or even if it meant anything at all – perhaps it was just a whim, just a mindless impulse that was, as he himself warned, not susceptible to questions about his intent…
“Oh,” Lan Qiren murmured, stopping just inside the threshold of the secondary study. Wen Ruohan had just stepped aside, letting him see the painting.
It was – beautiful.
Wen Ruohan painted the way he wrote, bold and fearless, arrogance and self-assurance in every stroke. The painting was a masterpiece of the cultivator’s art, seething with deeper meaning: he’d captured both image and spiritual energy, the overwhelming feeling of the image pouring out at the viewer. The trees towered over the ruined earth, the blood and the ash, the remnants of war – devastating and grim, gloomy, despair tasting like soot on the tongue –
“I don’t explain my paintings,” Wen Ruohan said.
“I do not require an explanation,” Lan Qiren said, stepping forward and looking it over more closely: had Wen Ruohan really completed this in a single evening? No wonder it had taken him into the next day. It was exquisitely detailed, sparse lines coming together to suggest deeper meaning, adding additional complexity to the image. “It makes perfect sense to me. It is beautiful. Thank you.”
Wen Ruohan stepped up behind him. “I’m pleased that you like it.”
He put his hands on Lan Qiren’s waist. His breath was hot on Lan Qiren’s ear.
“Tell me, do you know what this scene depicts?”
A war scene, Lan Qiren wanted to say, but something stilled his tongue. There was something in there, something more than just a war. There was devastation, yes, the remnants left behind by a battle, grotesque in its intrinsic cruelty, the shadows all that was left of those that passed through and left this in their wake, but there was something else here. Something almost familiar…
“Obliteration,” he said, and that felt right. “A broken heart.”
Wen Ruohan’s hands tightened around him.
Lan Qiren tilted his head to the side a little, not looking away from the painting. “Is this my sect?” he asked. “My Gusu Lan…did we do this?”
“Mm. Your sect, and mine. There was a war between our sects when I was young.”
Lan Qiren traced the lines of the painting with his eyes. The way the trees loomed, tall and almost misshapen…he calculated the time in his head. The Lan sect records mentioned a war from over a century ago, though details were sparse. Perhaps deliberately: that war was not considered a point of pride for their sect, even though it had been instrumental in settling the borders of their territory where they presently lay. On the contrary, it had always been referred to with some censure, seen as an overreaction, though no one had ever mentioned what exactly the sect leader of that time had been reacting to.
If he had the dates correct, Wen Ruohan would have been very young indeed.
“Thank you,” he said once more, unable to say anything more than that. His chest felt full of feelings, which he could not bring himself to express aloud. One day, perhaps, his eloquence would return, and he would be able to put the feelings into words – or perhaps he would do what Lan Wangji suggested in the essay he had composed in response to Wen Ruohan’s request, and put to music the feelings that Wen Ruohan, who was not gifted in composition, could not.
Obliteration.
Obsession.
Perhaps other people would not appreciate such a gift. It was a war scene, after all, and they were about to march to war themselves – such a thing could have been a mockery, disdaining the sacrifice and destruction that awaited them, the pain that accompanied all wars. What sort of gift was this for a lover? One did not often associate war with love…
Well, perhaps other sects did not. But Gusu Lan did.
A broken-hearted Lan on the path of just revenge will not rest until they have obliterated the cause of their grief. Complete destruction, without mercy or regret. Whether external or internal, whether the target is another or themselves…such grief demands an answer, and Gusu Lan will answer.
If you have been consumed by love, if you are mad with it, then I am mad alongside you.
My feelings are just as strong as yours.
I will be your partner, as you have been to me. I will match you in this as I will in anything else.
Believe me.
Lan Qiren smiled.
Yes, he would need to finish composing that song for Wen Ruohan one of these days. He thought he might even know how it went, now, the difficulty he’d been previously having with it melting away in the heat of the inspiration. The heat of the sun, perhaps – it seemed apposite.
He thought Wen Ruohan would like it.
Wen Ruohan chuckled, resting his chin on Lan Qiren’s shoulder. “I assume I should resign myself to a lonely night of listening to you at your guqin? I know what inspiration looks like.”
“It will not be lonely,” Lan Qiren said peaceably. “I will be there.”
“All for the best, I suppose. I do have a war to prepare for – if I were to spend all evening in bed, I really would be letting myself get distracted by a nation-destroying fox.”
Lan Qiren rolled his eyes and shook Wen Ruohan off. Where was his guqin? Back in the other room, right. He should make his way there at once…
The daze of inspiration did not lift by evening, when he went to sleep, and it continued throughout the morning. It even continued past the point when the army set out – Lan Qiren merely relocated himself from the bedroom to the carriage and carried on, slowly refining the song he was putting together.
By the time he actually managed to extract himself long enough to notice where they were and what was going on, they were already well on their way to Lanling.
He could hear the army singing as they went. Not musical cultivation, since the Wen sect didn’t do that, but rather just an ordinary person’s travel song, one of the ones from Qishan. It was surprisingly euphonious to hear them all together like that, even though Lan Qiren could tell that most of the people singing had never had any sort of training and many didn’t know how to hold a tune.
He shook off the lethargy of a particularly long period of creative activity, stretched out his aching hands, and got out of the carriage, intending to explore. He was quite curious.
Lan Qiren had not had much opportunity to date to interact with the Wen sect army.
The entire concept of a professional army of cultivators was an innovation of Wen Ruohan’s own making. Most sects did not have anything of the sort. When they went to war, they took only their sect disciples, armed with whatever sect treasures they happened to have, and it boiled down to being a battle of power and talent. Even the Great Sects, which went to war on a larger scale, had to rely both on their larger selection of outside disciples and on the subsidiary sects that swore loyalty to them to make up the numbers.
Wen Ruohan had not been satisfied with that. Contrary to the approach of most sects, which fiercely guarded their cultivation styles and resisted spreading them to others, the Wen sect had taken its cultivation style and broken it down to its barest essentials, until it was barely more than rudimentary, and then they’d taught it to all the recruits that joined their army. The truly talented were accepted as proper sect disciples, becoming outside disciples just as with all the other sects, but those that were less talented, the ones that other sects would have rejected outright, were offered the chance to learn cultivation in exchange for their service. For many, it was the only opportunity they would have to learn cultivation in their lifetime – many of them were people born in ordinary families, without cultivator ancestry or lineage, and they happily traded their loyalty for the chance.
No, to call it mere loyalty would be to understate it. Wen Ruohan’s army was fanatically devoted to him.
And why wouldn’t they be? Their families back home were able to boast to all and sundry that they had a cultivator in the family, an immortal who could touch the clouds, and borrowed their glory to better their own fates, while their hometowns grew bold and unafraid, each one feeling that they had a resource they could rely on for when evil spirits emerged from the dark. The common people were proud of their cultivators, prouder than most, and Lan Qiren couldn’t blame them one bit.
As for the soldiers themselves, however poor their personal cultivation might be – many of them could not even fly a sword – they still found themselves with a career, salary enough to let them marry a wife if they chose, as well as a home, a place to belong. Those of them that were talented were given resources that they could not find anywhere else. Cultivation was a rich man’s province. To progress in cultivation, one required both money and leisure: sufficient time to spend in meditation, contemplation, and art, whether the sword or an instrument, and also access to spiritual jade and other tools, a place with appropriate spiritual energy…the Wen sect, with all its power and wealth, was able to hand such things out more liberally than most sects could ever dream. There was a reason that many sects voluntarily came under the Wen sect’s banner, and why even those that hadn’t joined voluntarily often found that they had trouble extracting themselves later.
The Wen sect’s soldiers even had the glimmer of hope that they could one day exceed their relatively lowly station, demonstrate their worth through their talent, maybe becoming one of the Wen sect’s outer disciples – or even higher than that. The Wen sect was rather famously one of the few that voluntarily shared its surname, adopting in the best of the best so that their brilliance could shine light onto their clan’s glory. Lan Qiren had no doubt that the dangling prize of that goal was a feature of many of the surrounding soldiers’ dreams.
The end result of it all was an army whose numbers dwarfed the rest of the cultivation world.
Sure, any solid sect disciple, and certainly one from any Great Sect, could easily match themselves against three or four Wen sect soldiers, and a talented one would be able to defeat still more than that. But battles weren’t merely cultivation against cultivation, not when there were such numbers, not when the Wen sect army could bring to bear treasures and siege weapons and formations that utilized numbers as their basis. It didn’t matter if a talented cultivator could defeat ten Wen sect soldiers if they were up against a hundred.
The army must have been such a scandal when it was first proposed, Lan Qiren mused to himself. But who knew how long ago that had been? By now, no one objected on the basis of it violating orthodoxy. It was just accepted as being part of what the Wen sect did…
He wandered through the army, nodding at the Wen sect disciples who served as lieutenants as he passed – they saluted him in return, though they did not stop marching. He could not quite determine the way the army was organized, though he could see that there was some sort of division, with various smaller groups each being distinguished by the presence of a flag: either the one with the Wen sect name, white with red calligraphy, or else the symbol of the sun.
He had never noticed it before, actually, but the army’s emblem was black with a golden sun, a contrast to the white-and-red that was the Wen sect’s emblem in peacetime. He wondered if that was Wen Ruohan making a private joke to himself: that mysterious black sun that was the greatest weapon of his cultivation power, and the black sun of his army that was the foundation of his political power, too.
Probably. It seemed like him.
Lan Qiren wondered if Wen Ruohan expected him to accept some of these soldiers into his classes as well. Many of them were already adults, but surely they had children that they wanted to educate, and for those that came from common families, without a cultivation background, it was possible that even the adults would benefit from a solid foundation in orthodoxy.
He certainly wouldn’t mind if that was the case. He had started his classes by inviting second and third sons, branch members and cousins, all the troublemakers that other sects grew impatient with. It was only later, once he’d gotten a reputation as a teacher, that people had started sending him their talents, their geniuses and their heirs. It wasn’t unheard of for him to accept a particularly promising disciple even if they lacked a sect’s surname – he’d even agreed to take on servants as students a few times, though his sect elders had always given him an earful whenever he’d done so, looking down their noses and citing Avoid imparting knowledge to the wrong individuals with a disdainful sniff.
Not that he especially cared about what the Gusu Lan sect leaders thought right now. Especially ones like Lan Zhengquan, who had been one of the harshest critics of Lan Qiren’s classes. What a joke that turned out to be now! He’d always been unreasonably concerned that Lan Qiren was letting slip some of Gusu Lan’s secrets, rather than just helping people understand their rules and establish the moral basis they would need, helping them find ways to improve themselves as they went down their own cultivation paths.
Judging others by his own standard, Lan Qiren supposed. The hypocrisy was truly vile.
He’d have to find time to go to the Lan sect to confront them, and soon. Even though it had been ten years since the injustice that they had perpetrated, now that Lan Qiren knew about it, impatience bubbled under his skin – he wanted to go at once, wanted to fix it at once. He wanted to excise the tumor of that crime from his sect’s heart, wanted to cut out the rot and purify the whole thing, to remake the sect back into its original intended image.
He wanted Gusu Lan to be everything that it should be. His nephews deserved that.
Whether he would be able to achieve his aims, he did not know. But he felt compelled to try.
Eventually, Lan Qiren’s wandering took him to where Wen Ruohan was conversing with his generals, all of them sitting or standing around a map in a moving pavilion drawn by horses. He paused briefly before greeting them, enjoying the sight of Wen Ruohan in his element: he looked alive, spirited and enthusiastic, even as he lounged back indolently in the seat that was very nearly a throne and waved his hands as he spoke, smirking as he dismissed some idea or another.
After another moment, Wen Ruohan noticed him, and his smirk widened momentarily into a genuine smile as he waved for Lan Qiren to join him.
Lan Qiren climbed up onto the pavilion.
“We’re discussing strategy for dealing with Lanling Jin,” Wen Ruohab said, not bothering with a greeting – or indeed with any questions or teasing about the fact that Lan Qiren had just spent several days in non-stop composing. Presumably he understood the impulse. “It is complicated by the fact that Jinlin Tower is based in an urban environment, surrounded by Lanling City.”
Lan Qiren nodded. That was one of the unique features of Lanling Jin – the Cloud Recesses were nestled among the valleys between the mountains, while the Unclean Realm was built into the very side of their own mountains, both of them isolated from the nearest towns, and while the Lotus Pier was situated near a large trading town, both on the same river, it was not part of it. The only one that was remotely comparable to the urban nature of the Jin sect was the Nightless City, but even that was different: the Nightless City was a city, yes, but the entire place was under Wen Ruohan’s personal management as sect leader, with even the ordinary people belonging to the Wen sect in some way. Lanling City, in contrast, was full of ordinary people who might pay tax to Lanling Jin, but who were otherwise completely uninvolved with them: ordinary merchants, tradesmen, artisans, scholars…
It went without saying that if they simply ignored the existence of the city and attacked anyway, there would be tremendous loss of life. Ordinary people were no match for cultivators, and Lan Qiren couldn’t even imagine what they would do in the face of siege weaponry: large scale treasures with effects that stretched out well into the distance around them, formations that could bring down entire forests and shake mountains, and all of that not even bringing into consideration the sort of specialist arrays a master like Wen Ruohan could put together. It would be a disaster.
A disaster Wen Ruohan was currently trying to avoid.
(Lan Qiren did not flatter himself into thinking he was the only or even primary reason for that. Wen Ruohan was a canny politician, well aware of the importance of saving face in public – he would never go around blatantly slaughtering common people left and right, as that would risk drawing the ire of the entire cultivation world. Certainly he would not do so when it was easier to take precautions, and in so doing win admiration and praise for his restraint. But whatever the cause, it was nice to know that Lan Qiren’s lover was not, in fact, a bloodthirsty madman with no sense of conscience or self-control, as he sometimes treated himself in his worst moments.)
“What is your plan?” he asked.
“It depends on the circumstances when we get there, which won’t be long now – we’ll get there by this afternoon. You can already see the lights of Lanling in the distance from here if you fly up a little, and in another shichen you won’t even need to do that.” Wen Ruohan tapped the map with a sharp fingernail, indicating where they were. “If they took my words to heart and set up their shields, we will have no choice but to set ourselves around them. We can take measures to evacuate the city back by some distance, creating a buffer zone in which we will operate. However, we are hoping that they haven’t raised the shields at all – that they are still hoping for some end that involves negotiation rather than fighting. If that’s the case, we will send a delegation inside to confront them.”
“How will that help?”
Wen Ruohan’s smirk was vicious. “Once we have people inside their shield perimeter, everything gets a great deal easier.”
Lan Qiren frowned, disapproving – No dishonest practices, no concealing sharp weapons – but ultimately he decided not to object. The Wen sect was well known for their treachery and disregard for convention. If Jin Guangshan invited them into his city despite knowing that, it could barely even be called a dishonest practice.
Wen Ruohan was watching him, and his smirk broadened triumphantly when Lan Qiren refrained from speaking. He’d probably been betting with himself as to whether he would or not, and was very happy to have been proven right.
(If he mistakenly thought that Lan Qiren had set aside the concern entirely, he was going to be very disappointed in the future. What Lan Qiren considered to be appropriate under the present circumstances, when Jin Guangshan had literally tried to murder them both and scapegoat his own allied sect as the perpetrator, was most certainly not what he would be willing to allow for in other situations.)
“What is your plan for what happens after that?” Lan Qiren asked, deciding to move on.
Wen Ruohan waved at one of the generals, who stepped forward and began to explain.
The army rolled inexorably forward.
It was late afternoon by the time they arrived. By that time, the forward parts of the army had already settled into their pre-arranged places outside the city gates, setting up siege formations – the gates themselves were full of civilians from Lanling City, peering anxiously down at them.
Lan Qiren was pleased, if somewhat conflicted, to see that Jinlin Tower had not activated its shields.
That presumably meant that they really were planning to try to negotiate, rather than simply start fighting right away – a remarkably foolish move on Jin Guangshan’s part. This entire sequence of events had been one misstep after another for him. He should never have gone up against Wen Ruohan.
Or Lan Qiren, for that matter.
(If Lan Qiren ever managed to find that Wang Liu that Wen Ruohan had spoken of, the spy that had deliberately incited all of Wen Ruohan’s worst insecurities and set Lan Qiren up for the Fire Palace…!)
“Not long now,” Wen Ruohan observed. He looked smug and satisfied, as well he should. It didn’t really matter if his personal cultivation was temporarily weakened, not when he had his army there to wield.
“No,” Lan Qiren agreed, unable to refrain from a faint sigh. If only they could avoid going to war at all...! “Not long now. Will we send a messenger first, or shall we await them?”
“An excellent question. I expect they will try to make us wait…” Wen Ruohan’s voice trailed off, his eyebrows arching slightly with surprise as a lone cultivator flew out of Lanling City, clearly heading their way. “Or perhaps not. That seems rather impatient of them.”
Lan Qiren privately agreed. Putting aside everything else, displaying that level of eagerness for a conversation did not speak well for Lanling Jin’s negotiation skills – showing desperation was a rookie mistake, and not one Lanling Jin would normally commit. It struck him as odd.
He said as much to Wen Ruohan, who frowned and agreed.
Perhaps for that reason, he told his general “Send the messenger in as soon as he arrives,” when normally Lan Qiren knew that he’d likely make the messenger wait outside as a demonstration of power.
Not long later, the messenger appeared. He was a middle-aged cultivator, clearly of relatively high rank in Lanling Jin, wearing Sparks Amidst Snow – meaning that this was a Jin of the main family, no less. That was an interesting choice for a negotiator; it suggested a considerable degree of respect, above and beyond the sort normally afforded to enemies.
“Sect Leader Wen,” he said, saluting respectfully, and then, in a move that surprised Lan Qiren, saluted Lan Qiren as well. “Senior Lan. Thank you both for granting me an audience. I have a message for you from Lanling Jin.”
“Oh?” Wen Ruohan drawled. “And what does Jin Guangshan have to say for himself?”
“Nothing,” the man said grimly. “You see, Sect Leader Jin is dead.”
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Happier Than Ever (Stay) (A.I)
Pairing: Ashton Irwin x Fem!Singer! Reader
Summary: Based on the songs Happier than Ever by Billie Eilish and Stay by Post Malone. pt 2 of YOYOK. You go back to L.A and old friends open old wounds
Warnings: ANGST. This is very, very based on my own experience so this is my therapy session with you guys, sorry. Mentions of abuse, death, melancholia, psychological abuse, sad times, curse words. And grammar errors (I didn't even check twice, I'm sorry)
Word Count: 8.7 k
Author's Note: Hey, I'm back because I've missed you and I needed to get this fit out of my chest and survive it. Please, if you like it reblog it and comment, I love to know your thoughts. SUPPORT YOUR WRITERS THAT WE'RE GETTING FEWER AND FEWER HERE. Thank you. Hope you like it and happy reading
YOYOK / Masterlist
“Hey,… I know it’s been a long time since we last saw each other. I’ve heard the new album is coming along great, I’m so happy for you. You… You seem happy, or at least that’s what I can see on social media. I just- I heard you were coming back home- I mean, L.A for some time and well, I was wondering if we could catch up? If you don’t have a place to stay maybe you could crash into mine, like the old times. But you probably already… Anyhow, just call me or text me if you want to. I would really love to-”
When I'm away from you, I'm happier than ever Wish I could explain it better I wish it wasn't true
You love the feeling of being above the clouds. So close to the sky that you marveled on the technological advances that allowed you to feel free.
“Mom, look!” You thought “I’m in the clouds, so high above. Is this the feeling you were always dreaming about?”
A pang of nostalgia stabbed your heart, wishing your mom could be there with you experiencing all of this. But she was back at home, safe and sound on the surface. You knew it was for the best, that you could miss her a little bit more before your heart begged you to go and visit, even when your mind knew better than to believe those rose colored glasses of memory.
Was it the feeling of familiarity that made you feel safe even when it hurt? Maybe. Still, you wish you could’ve shown the world to her, give her everything on a silver platter and say “Mom, I did it. I can take care of you now”
What would she say?
You know she’s proud and she’s thankful for everything you’ve done for her. Still, it doesn’t feel like enough. Her eyes just won’t shine the same way; her smile would change; and the hug won’t ever feel as comforting as you’d expected. Your heart would tell you that she loves you, but your mind would always go back to those moments where you doubted it could ever be unconditional. So you’ve learned to miss her a little bit longer each time. Longer until you learn to miss her for the rest of your life.
It was not a foreign feeling, but it was one that you learned to feel and apply to your life. With time you’ve known the patterns, you’ve learned to grow and let go because that’s not the energy you need to spend even a bit of your mind over. You could miss the happy moments but know that they don’t fit anywhere with the person you want to be most. For your own good, you needed to learn how to let go.
The path was not easy - having to teach your heart not to bleed itself dry for the memory of past times. All the tears and the hurt, it was all part of healing what other people broke. So, the beauty of the cracks made you see just how worthy you are. Even if sometimes the water leaks and your mind starts a whirlwind of doubt, you would never come back to the person you used to be when the people that you loved most didn’t love you as you deserved.
Since then, you found yourself thriving. Not only in your career as a musician, with your lyrics that resonated with a lot of people and even made you gain a considerable number of new fans; but, also with yourself. You started loving more freely, more authentically. you saw yourself in a better light and wished people from your past could see just how much better you are without them. Not to be mean or to gloat, but for them to know that you didn’t cave, that life was meant to be lived and you will be doing just that even if they’re not part of it anymore. You wanted them to be happy for you, just as happy as you are for them.
Still, it scared you to go back to L.A, a place that has seen you at your worst and was the cause of your declining mental health. Even if it was for a short period of time, you knew you couldn’t stay there. Your place, the place that you belong was somewhere across the sea; far from anything and anyone that could make you feel like you once did. Like you didn’t matter.
Yet, no process of healing is ever complete until the cycle of hurt is broken. There were some things in your chest that begged for you to say them. Now it was time to let them out. And, if you were honest, a tiny bit of curiosity tied itself to that feeling. There were just too many unanswered questions still left hanging in thin air. The problem was that you didn’t know if you’d like the answers.
“Hey, Y/N” Your agent called your attention as she sat next to you “I need to confirm the last dates for your airbnb, are you sure you want to shorten your stay?”
You smiled softly at her “Yeah, I will be staying with some friends after”
“Okay, but are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. There’s a lot of things we need to catch up”
Every time we make-up, the truth is fading' Everybody's blind when the view's amazing'
It was weird to feel foreign in a place that helped shape you into the person you are now. But, then again, L.A never felt like home. Australia didn’t either, even though that’s what you’ve been saying in all the interviews when they asked what’d you miss more from home. “My family, the sweets, my friends, the sun…” But the sun did shine in other places; your family, you realized, never made any difference; the sweets could be ordered online; and your friends… Your friends changed. In the end, home never felt like home because you could create it everywhere you’d go.
There just places you’ve been. Home is something else, something you haven’t found yet.
Still, if you had to admit something is that the sun in L.A shines differently than in other places. It always seemed like you were entering a strange dimension, always playing “Something about the sunshine” on loop inside your mind.
You’ve been there a month and so. Enough time to have meetings and writing retreats that lasted a weekend. You’ve been to social required events, just as you do every couple of months to show your agency that you do know just how lucky you are. You’ve been to concerts, gave concerts, left concerts early to go and drink some wine curled up with a book in your bathtub in the hotel room. A small holiday mixed with a little bit of work, you’d say.
But you were leaving in a week, and there are still some things left on the schedule.
You sighed as you grabbed your bag from the sidewalk. The driver was kind enough to offer his assistance, but you would much rather face this by yourself first. During the drive you’ve imagined what it would feel like. Seeing him again. You wondered if your heart was beating faster than usual because of excitement or anxiety. In all honesty you didn’t know what to expect or even if you should be expecting something out of this experience.
Yet, you made up your mind to try and heal this. Get the answers that you longed for and be able to move on completely free. So, once the car drove away, you walked up to the door you’ve only seen in pictures before, and rang the bell.
For a moment you wondered if he remembered. Hoping that, in the end, his proposal of having you as his guest wasn’t just a passing comment he made. After all, you didn’t know when you’ll be back in the city or if your schedule would ever be as free in L.A as it is now. And even if he forgot and didn’t expect you, well, you can’t say you’d be surprised. Thank goodness for back-up plans.
“Coming!” You heard moments before the door opened, barely giving you time to prepare.
There he was. His hair was longer, somewhat a few tones lighter than the last time you saw him. His eyes took a couple of blinks to recognize you, changing the gleam in that hazel color you used to share so many secrets with. He smiled at you, the ghost of a laugh hidden in the dimples you used to poke at lunchtime, claiming that it wasn’t fair that he got to be the pretty one of the two of you. And for a moment, the man standing in front of you was the same kid you met all those years back, and you couldn’t help but smile back.
“Hey!” Ashton sang with a laugh, stepping closer into your space and hugging you with one arm as the other took your bag out of your hands “I’m so glad to see you! It’s been so long”
“Yeah,” You softly said, pulling back just enough to analyze his face “Thanks for the invite, Ash”
“Of course! I know you’re not a big fan of hotels anyway and, you know, it’s good to have you back. You’re always welcome to stay here when you’re in town”
He opened his arm toward the door and invited you in. You tried not to think about the fact that this was the first time you stepped foot into his house ever since he moved to L.A. He invited you before when you first moved, but schedules were complicated back then and after a while he stopped offering.
It was hard to think that once you used to live at his house back in Australia. Always trying to escape whatever nonsense was happening over at yours. At some point, you lost count how many times you ended up napping on his bed while he played some dumb internet game on his computer or watched a really dumb movie because “You don’t understand, Y/N, Seth Rogen is a genius” And you didn’t understand because even then you thought Seth Rogen was a creep, but it didn’t matter. You were in your safe space. You were with him. And he probably didn’t even know just how much that meant to you.
Now as you look around, you couldn’t help but search for that same feeling. A sign telling you it’ll be okay.
“Sorry, I know the living room is a little messy”
You turned to watch him look around the place with a slight blush on his cheeks. You smiled kindly at him.
“It’s okay, I’m not one to talk either” You turned back to the room “This place… suits you. It’s a lot like I imagined. Very artsy, very you”
He looked at you confused for a while “Yeah, I haven’t changed it much since -” He caught himself before he could continue and tried to cover his realization with a cough “No, yeah. Thanks! Come, your room is over here”
Once he settled your bag on the bed you went and sat next to it. Silence falling over the two of you as he stood awkwardly at the door.
“I hope everything is-”
“Everything is lovely, Ash” You smiled “Thank you”
He nodded and looked away. Hands hid inside of his pockets as he thought of the right thing to say. But nothing seemed to come to mind.
Suddenly, you felt out of place. Incredibly conscious that maybe you were an inconvenience now that you were there. Maybe, after all, he didn't want you there. You wanted to take this chance to meet him and talk, knowing you couldn’t just pretend that the years of separation and the strangeness you now felt toward each other didn’t exist. Yet, judging by his stand, there might not be a chance to bring those old moments back.
“So, how long are you staying in L.A for?” He asked. And he must’ve seen the way your face fell in disappointment for he quickly followed by saying “Not that I’m not happy that you’re here, of course, I invited you. Just wondering because that bag is just-”
“Oh. Yeah, no. My other bags are still at the hotel”
“The hotel?”
“Yeah, I just asked my team if I could leave them there since we leave in a week and I don’t need much to get by while I’m here and so…”
“Wait,” Ashton shook his head “You’ve been in L.A for a while now?”
“A month or so”
“And you didn’t tell me? Y/N, I offered you a place to stay for a reason”
You frowned “Ash, I did tell you. Last time we texted to see when I was arriving, I told you I was already here”
“No, you said-” He protested as he took out his phone and you watched him scroll down to your conversation. His words got caught up once he read those messages again “I- I though-”
“I have been incredibly busy these past few days, hence why I didn’t want to inconvenience you with my crazy schedule and all. This last week is all I have to relax and so I thought that we could catch up this week before I leave?”
“No, no, no yeah, you’re totally right.” He said, running a hand through his face, embarrassedly “I’m just an idiot”
You looked at him quizzically.
“Everything okay, Ash?”
“I thought we had more time, that’s all” He smiled softly at you “Anyway, ready for tonight?”
“Tonight?” You asked, a small smile forming in your face.
“Yeah! I’m taking you to dinner to celebrate your new album!”
Ashton started to dance awkwardly, making you laugh as you shook your head at him.
“You really don’t have to do that, you know?”
“I want to!” He said “You’ll see, just be ready by seven”
He clapped his hands and left the room. A warm feeling spread through your chest on the fact that he wanted to celebrate you and your success. It finally felt like he cared, like he hasn’t forgotten about you. This really was a chance to put all bad things in the past and start anew.
Or at least, that’s what you hoped.
You scared me to death, but I'm wasting my breath 'Cause you only listen to your fucking friends
Fuck off and pour another drink And tell me what you think You know that I'm too drunk to talk right now
You knocked on his door at fifteen past seven. You decided to wear your favorite light blue top with black, wide leg pants and some low heels. You didn’t really know where he was supposed to take you or how you should dress, so you went with the most comfortable but chic thing you could find given that you didn’t plan to go out as much.
When Ashton opened his door you took a step back to look at him. He was wearing jeans and a wide, white shirt. You could feel your cheeks blush, and had to look down to hide it. It was an awful familiar feeling that you thought you could leave behind knowing that it was extremely pointless to feel the way you once did.
And just like all those years back, he didn’t notice. But for the first time you were glad he didn’t.
“Sorry I made you wait” He said with a smile, closing the door behind him.
“It’s okay,” You said, looking up with a shy smile.
Ashton walked past you to grab his keys, the path he created with his cologne left you dumbfounded for a minute. It was a different smell, one that you weren’t familiar with.
“Why do you have so many colognes?” You asked him once, walking over to his small desk while he wrote what was left of his assignment. Ashton looked up and chuckled when he saw you puffing them into the air to smell them and making faces at each one “They’re mostly presents from my family. I think my aunts were trying to tell me something last year”
“Well, at least they have good taste” You said, trying on the one that had a clear, almost orangy color bottle “Yeah, I’m taking this one home”
“No the hell you’re not!” He got up and took the bottle away from you, raising his arm over his head so that you couldn't catch it. It was his favorite pastime to remind you just how short you were back then “This is my favorite one!”
“You never use it!”
“I will!”
After a couple more tries to grab it from his hands you saw yourself surrender and falling onto his bed again “If you don’t wear it at least five times a week, I’ll take it”
“Deal” He said with a smile, throwing one of his hoodies at you from the floor “And then you will hate it so much because it’ll remind you too much of me that you won’t even want it afterward”
You never told him that it would be the opposite.
Next thing you know, Ashton has parked and was getting out of the car. You looked around and you were surrounded by nice streets and expensive houses. You opened the door and looked over at Ashton who was nodding his head toward one of the houses.
“C’mon” He said with a smile.
“Where are we? Is this a new restaurant I haven’t heard about or…?” “What? No,” He chuckled, ringing the doorbell “Is my friend Andrew’s home. He invited us over for dinner to celebrate that he came back from tour as well”
You were at a loss for words, “He invited us?”
“Yeah, I told him you were coming. Why, what’s wrong?”
A lot. You wanted to tell him. A lot was wrong. How could he not see what he was doing? If he had told you that you were just going to a friend’s house then you wouldn’t have looked so out of place, or feel like a fish out of water. You didn’t know who this Andrew was, you didn’t even know if Ash had actually told them that you were coming or if you’re just going to turn up at this reunion/party for his friend. He said it was to celebrate you.
But before you could voice your concerns to him, the door opened and a guy with a big mop of hair jumped in to hug him.
“Dude! I’m so happy you could make it!” He - Andrew, apparently - smiled widely at Ash, chatting with him for a minute before he noticed you standing beside him “Oh, hi!”
“Hi,” You smiled shyly, extending your hand in greeting knowing Ashton was not going to introduce you judging by the face he just made, seemingly embarrassed of that fact “I’m Y/N”
“Of course!” Said Andrew, shaking your hand and pulling you in for a kiss on the cheek that you weren’t expecting “I heard so much about you, I didn’t know you were friends with this guy here”
“Yeah! We’re friends since the old Australian days” Ashton said, smiling at you “Y/N here dropped by for a visit since she’s doing a lil business around L.A”
You smiled tensely during that small exchange. Wanting nothing more than to crawl back into the car and wait for everything to be over.
One of the reasons you left L.A was because nothing ever felt right. For years you tried to fit in into the scene, going to parties and hosting them with a bunch of people who didn’t even know your last name. You were never good at making new friends, that is to say once you’ve established a relationship with someone then friendship would just roll around the corner. But everyone here was moving so fast it was almost impossible to even wish for a deeper connection with someone.
When you first moved, you thought it would be like a great new beginning. Yet you’ve never felt more alone. The only people you knew were from your team and from Ashton’s band, but even then they turned into more acquaintances given just how little time they seemed to spend in the city.
And maybe Ashton knew that. Maybe he was trying to fix that and give you some opportunities to mix with his group of friends; something you’ve been wanting to do since you moved here all those years ago. Still, something fell… off about all of this.
After the guys talked a little bit more, finally Andrew invited you in. There, you found a group of people you’ve never met hanging around the living room. Plastic cups and ashtrays were scattered around the room as a tinted, light smoke served to decorate the place and give you just an idea of the state of most attendees.
As you walked by, people started to come up to Ash, greeting him and spending a few minutes catching up. Not one of them turned to look at you for more than a second or even gave you the courtesy to say hi. Ashton didn’t seem to notice it at first, but there would come the rare occasion that he would introduce you to some of the groups that started forming around him.
It was not a rare sight for you. Back in school he was the popular one, always friendly with countless people you didn’t even see around school that often.
“This is Y/N, she’s here promoting her new album!” He’d say.
“Wait, I know you!” One of the strangers said, their smile totally welcoming “Taylor Swift gave you a few shout-outs recently, didn’t she?”
You smiled “Yeah! I had a chat with her at a label party a few days back. She’s amazing. We talked about collabing soon, maybe a writing session next time she flies out to the U.K”
“Damn, that’s awesome! I’m Laura, by the way” They said, extending her hand toward you “Ash, why didn’t you bring her along on one of our trips?”
Ashton chuckled “C’mon L, well…”
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s our style. No offense” A guy next to them said. You frowned
“What do you mean?” You smiled awkwardly “Have you heard my songs before or-?”
“Nah, it ain’t that. It’s just- We don’t go Taylor Swift’s style”
You could feel your heart beating loudly inside your chest as you looked between Ashton and the other guy, hoping that Ash would intervene “But I’m not Taylor”
Once again you looked toward Ash, but his eyes were cast down to the bottle of beer that he held in his hands. You couldn’t help the disappointment that came over you then.
“Hey man, not cool” Laura said, locking your arms together as they pulled you away “Don’t mind him, he’s high out his mind right now. C’mon, let’s get a bit drunk”
They took you to the main couches and sat next to you. Your cheeks were a bit red from the humiliation. How could you have expected Ashton to defend you? He said it before that your music didn’t go with his vibes and that it was not really his thing, so why would he help you now?
“Those guys can be assholes sometimes. I love them, but they’re so…” Laura trailed off, looking over at you “But hey, forget about them. Tell me a little bit about yourself, how do you know Ash?”
You ended up telling them your whole story. About how you met when you were kids and how he was your best friend. How lonely you felt when he moved away the first time. And how excited you were to see him again after your big break, but that life got in the way. You probably told them more than you should’ve, but the drinks were soft and the room was crowded. And for the first time in the evening someone was actually willing to listen, curious to know you rather than know about you.
“That seems like a whole adventure” They smiled, “And when was the last time you saw Ash before deciding to come and stay with him?”
It wasn’t that long ago, a year or so earlier, when you gave a secret concert in London when you released your last album. He was standing in the corner, smiling at you as you sang. It was the first time since you told him you were moving a couple of years prior. You both kept following each other on social media, but that was pretty much it when it came to your relationship. And you were good with it.
You knew they were in the U.K for their tour, Michael and Crystal had asked you for drinks during that same week and you had a great time catching up. So, against your mind’s warning, you started to hope you would run to him soon enough. And when he appeared at the concert, you couldn’t help but smile back.
Afterwards, when you were back in the green room, you asked if he was still out there and to invite him over to chat. But no one from your team saw him; apparently he was already gone by the time you went off the stage. You remember waiting until you went home to allow yourself to cry, even for just a few minutes. That small interaction that seemingly never happened opened the wound back again. And, if you were honest with yourself, that was one of the main reasons why you decided to take on his offer to stay with him. But you didn’t say that.
“I don’t know,” You told them instead, as your eyes landed on Ashton standing a few feet away from you, a lighted joint between his lips as he laughed with people that you haven’t seen before “Since I moved to Scotland, I think. A while before, probably”
If Laura saw the sadness in your eyes, they never mentioned it. They just said “Okay, I think you should be a little bit drunker, my friend”
Hours later you were alone and tipsy sitting at the front porch of Andrew’s home, nursing a cigarette between your fingers.
“I didn’t know you smoked” A voice came from behind you.
You sighed, putting the filter in between your lips and taking a long hit before you let the smoke get lost into the night.
“You’re mad.” Ashton said, sitting next to you
“And you’re high”
“So we’re both telling the truth tonight” He chuckled, you didn’t “When did you pick up this habit?”
“I don’t know,” You answer honestly. “It was better than drinking myself to death back in Australia. It helps with my anxiety”
“What do you-”
“Alcohol makes you fat.” You deadpanned as you took another hit “I didn’t want my mom to have yet another reason for her nagging”
“Y/N-”
“But she’s not here so,” You passed him your empty cup, still not looking at him “Bring me another one, please?”
Ashton sighed “I think you had enough,”
“You will just never stop making decisions for me, are you?” You stood up, killing the cigarette after one last blow “I know what I’m doing, Ash. I’m a fucking adult, if you haven’t realized. I don’t need you to tell me what to do”
His eyes widened. He parted his lips as if to say something, looking over his shoulder back at the party. You rolled your eyes.
“Don’t worry, your friends can’t listen to what I’m saying. Your reputation will still be intact and they will still love everything that comes out of your mouth”
“Hey,” Ashton said with a bit of a bark “Don’t talk about them like that”
You pressed your lips on a tight smile, looking at him as your eyes filled with tears. You couldn’t believe that he was defending them like that from just a simple comment, but left you completely alone when they were making worse comments at you.
“Fuck, Y/N” He said, frustrated “I’m trying here, you know? It’s like I don’t even know you anymore! You don’t want to talk to me, you moved across the world. You still talk to the guys-”
“They’re my friends,”
“I was your friend too!” He shouted, surprising you “And I want this to work. I want you here, with me. But if you don’t want to be here and go back to your fucking hotel- I want us to work!”
“Why am I here, Ash?”
“C’mon, don’t be like that! I just wanted you to meet a few people, celebrate your new album-”
“Yet none of them cared to get to know me, nor you to introduce me and actually wanting to celebrate with me” You took a deep breath and sighed “Give me the keys to the house, I want to leave”
Ashton shook his head.
“You’re angry. I get that”
“No, Ash. I’m tired and I want to go to bed” You said more firmly this time “Give me the keys and I’ll call an Uber”
“I’ll take you!”
“The fuck you aren’t” You laughed, not a hint of humor in your voice “You’re high with more than just weed apparently. I’m drunk. I would rather not fucking die tonight, thank you”
“I’m not going to-”
“I don’t want you to! Okay? Fuck, Ash! I don’t feel safe around you!”
You saw the ways his eyes changed, how hurt they looked so suddenly at your words. You knew you wounded him, but it was how you felt. You didn’t trust him, not tonight.
“Y/N…” He said, getting up and walking over to you but you took a step back. He sighed, roaming around his pockets before he found his keys and gave them to you “Text me when you get there, leave the keys by the potted tree”
You answered him with a nod and a small thank you. You didn’t watch him as he turned away and walked by to the house. You didn’t hear Laura, who was watching over from the window, tell him:
“I don’t know what you did, man. But I’ve never seen anyone with such sadness in her eyes”
Damn, who are we right now? Can we have a little conversation? Figure it out with no intoxication We carry on, what is our motivation?
You woke up when you heard footsteps outside of your door. You knew it was him waiting outside, probably debating on whether or not to knock on your door, wanting to talk. There were times in the past where he would just open the door to your room and sit down on the floor next to your bed, waiting for you to start talking or acknowledge him so that he could apologize or talk things through. Sometimes you didn’t need to say anything, you just understood each other. And as he walked away without a word, you wondered where did all those times go?
Where was the friend that would go out with you and wait on the street for a cab to take you home, no matter whom he was with or what you were doing. Where was the friend that when you snuck out to your first concert, he held you close by the waist and covered your body so that none of the beer that people were throwing around got into your clothes or hair. What happened to the friend that would stay awake chatting with you on the phone even though you had an exam early the next morning, all because the guy you liked broke your heart.
Tears rolled down your face as you tossed and turned on the bed. It wasn’t fair, your heart kept begging your brain to understand. It wasn’t fair that you had to lose it all without a warning.
Once upon a time, you thought you had it all as long as Ashton was there. Now, you begin to miss the times where he wasn’t. Times where you learned to be happy without him, where you didn’t need him or his approval. Times where you felt complete even though your best friend was not around anymore. You were better off without him, and learned to live without him. You knew that to be the truth. But one just can’t ignore the past and the mystery of how the person that makes you feel such horrible things about yourself once promised to give you the world and its stars and meant it.
You just couldn’t figure it out. So you just forced yourself to go back to sleep.
When you woke up again a few hours later and made your way to the kitchen, you found freshly made coffee and bagels waiting for you on the counter with a little note next to them:
“I’m sorry, can we talk about it later? XX Ash”
You sighed as you wiped out the tears that clung to your eyelashes. You took a sip of the coffee and found comfort in the heat of the mug.
On the other side of town, Ashton was doing the same thing. His eyes were covered behind dark sunglasses as he thought of what to say once he got home. In front of him, Calum can’t say that he’s impressed from what he’s heard.
“What’s your deal?” He asked his friend.
“I- I don’t know” Ashton answered, biting the inside of his cheek “I thought she would have a good time. She was always cool at coming to those types of parties with me back home, we used to have fun”
“You and I both know she hates parties, and back home she had you. The normal, probably tipsy you, to keep her company” Calum said, taking a bite out of his sandwich “Last week I found her sitting alone while the rest of the world was having a conversation around her. We talked and it was nice, she’s not normally that outgoing on the get-go. She never was”
“You saw her last week?”
“We were invited to Gabriel’s cocktail party. You didn’t want to go, as usual”
“You never told me that-”
“What? That we’re still in contact? Dude, we all talk to her from time to time. We mention her in our conversations every now and then. She’s still our friend”
Ashton sighed, “So she just hates me for no reason?”
“You truly think that Y/N L/N could hate you?” Calum chuckled, “That girl would’ve followed you straight to the end of the world back in Aus. As far as I know, there’s only one person she truly hated”
“Who?” Ashton scoffed “I’m pretty sure our politics teacher was not so bad”
“What? No, Ash-” Calum shook his head “Remember when-” His face went blank “Oh shit,”
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
Tell me that it's all okay You ruined everything good I've been waitin' on this all damn day Always said you were misunderstood Call me in the morning', tell me how last night went I'm here, but don't count on me to Just fucking leave me alone
He found you sitting outside in one of his garden chairs. A cigarette was hanging from your fingertips as the ashes fell on the floor in a small pile. You didn’t look back at him, for your eyes were staring at the moon that decorated the sky with its beauty.
You felt him come outside and sit on the chair next to you. The sound of a lighter made you blink, and you sighed at his exhale. There was no way he was doing this sober, and you couldn’t blame him. Yet…
“I was hoping we could talk without any of that” You said. “You have your ways and I have mines”
Silence fell over the two of you once again. You could feel his eyes burning holes into your profile, but you didn’t have the courage to look at him just yet.
“When did I stop being your best friend?” He asked.
Tears quickly covered your eyes and you hated that. “Probably around the time when you stopped being mine”
“Y/N-”
“You held me, once. Not the usual hugs that we gave each other, no. This one was different. We were at school, an overnight vigil that the nuns made us do every year”
“Those were fun,” He commented “A huge sleepover at school”
“The theme was about lost ones, remember? I had just lost my grandma that past week”
“I wasn’t at the funeral, I was away on a trip to the city. She was the one that taught you how to bake”
“Yeah,” You chuckled. “Though, I was never good at it once she passed. Anyway, of course I started crying. I’ve already lost so many people back then, and I was barely hanging on. But then - then you held me, so tightly. And my tears left a damp stamp on your shirt. You cradled me and brushed my hair with your fingers and whispered “It’ll be okay, you can cry. It’s okay” and kissed my head as they started to sing. You sang as well and never said a thing about it afterwards. That was the moment I knew I couldn’t have loved you more”
The sound of a cricket broke your monologue, and you allowed yourselves to be fed into the sounds of nature for a while. You knew there were still things left unsaid, so you better get over with it now rather than later. You didn’t want to stay for the aftermath.
“Remember the first time you came back to Australia? I was still living there in the house we grew up in. I was having a shitty day at work, so I went to grab a coffee at our favorite coffee shop with other coworkers when a few of our old friends and classmates came through the door. We said our hellos and caught up, it was nice. Then they had to go. “Who’s coming with me to Ash’s house?” One of them said. I remember asking about it as they argued over who had to take the bus or a cab. They told me you were coming back that day and have invited people over to celebrate”
“Y/N,”
“You invited them. Even people I didn’t know that well and that I know for a fact didn’t know you as well. And don’t try to tell me it was a guys thing, cause you invited girl classmates as well”
Ashton opened his mouth to say something, yet nothing came out. “I was numb as I took a taxi home. I still remember that the radio played “Waiting for Superman” as I tried my hardest not to cry. But when I got into the kitchen, I just couldn’t stop. I cried myself to sleep that night knowing that you were just a door away but didn’t want me there”
“Y/N, I wanted you there” He said, putting his hand on your arm as he leaned closer “I - I know I can’t say anything to fix it now but- I missed you, too”
“It didn’t seem like it” You told him “Every time I learned something about you back then was through a story or a tweet. I learned through the paparazzi who you were with and in which city you were going to sleep next. I saw you living your best life with your friends away from home. And, I get it, we both resented that place and all that we suffered while we were there. I just - I just hoped that my memory was something worth saving, cause my memory of you always was and will always be the best thing that’s happened to me while we were there”
You turned to him and looked him in the eyes “It just hurt to know that while I put you on a pedestal, I was already out of your sight”
“Baby, you know that’s not true” You scoffed “I swear! In my memory, you were always there! Front of the line!”
“Then why-?”
“I was scared, okay?!” He shouted, lowering his eyes in shame “So fucking scared and it’s so stupid!”
“Scared of what?!” You shouted back, willing for him to look you in the eyes “Ashton, for god’s sake just tell me!”
“They told me that you liked me!”
For a moment time stood still. You backed away from him as his words started to make sense. You pulled away your arm, letting his hand grasp the space that you left between the two of you.
“What?”
“People started whispering,” He said, his voice broken as if he were crying “Telling me how good of a couple we could be. How happy you were with me and how in love you looked”
“When was it?”
“At the beginning of our senior year” Ashton admitted, ashamed “I- I already knew that I wanted to get out of Australia. I knew that with the guys we could take the band somewhere massive. So I put my whole soul into it, trying to escape the feelings that would pull me back”
“You thought I was pulling you back” You stated, betrayed.
“No! I was pulling myself back by thinking about it!” Ashton said, finally looking at you and hating the way you were looking at him “I couldn’t risk it”
“Couldn’t risk what?! That I could have feelings for you?!” You stood up “You’re unbelievable! You could’ve asked me! Come to me instead of running away and make me lose part of myself in the process. Parts that I can’t take back, that I can’t love back because of you”
“Y/N!” He tried reaching out to you, but you took a step back.
“No!”
“Y/N, please! Just-!”
He grabbed you by the elbow and pulled you to him. The movement made you lose your balance, tripping over your feet as Ashton maneuvered you to land on top of his lap, holding you by your waist.
The sudden proximity made you lose all the air inside your lungs as you looked at him and his hazel eyes surrounded by red. He looked desperate, pleading with his eyes for something you couldn’t understand. He was breathing hard, his chest colliding against yours where your heartbeats were going as fast as your thoughts. Almost impossible to catch up.
Then, almost without thinking, Ashton launched himself forward and pressed his lips on yours.
The softness of the kiss contrasted the chills that ran up and down your bodies. As you gasped for air, his hand came to tangle itself on your hair, pulling you closer to him as you allowed him to deepen the kiss. He sat back on the chair and pulled you with him, making your legs spread at either side of his hips; never once letting you go as he kissed you over and over again, like a man deprived of something more.
“Y/N,” He whimpered against your lips, making you sigh as his hands roamed your body until they landed on your hips, moving them against lower half “Y/N, please”
Your mind was clouded in smoke, feeling the heat of his kiss along the length of your neck. His words whispered your name, as his movements on your hips became erratic, letting you feel all of him under you.
“Please, please Y/N” He said, kissing and kissing and kissing every part he could find “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”
Suddenly, you opened your eyes as you jumped back to reality. Putting a hand on his chest and pulling away from him. Both of you were left panting, as your skin tingled from the contact.
Ashton’s eyes were desperate, looking at you in fear of what you might do. His lips - you imagined - were a mirror of yours, plumb and beat red as your name escaped him in the form of a question. You closed your eyes and let a tear fall across your cheek as you shook your head.
“You don’t get to do this to me” Your voice, a whisper.
“What?” He asked, almost out of breath. But you were already getting off him and turning your step back to the house.
“You don’t get to do this to me!” You yelled through the tears “You don’t get to confuse me all over again. You don’t get to have a half-ass apology followed by a kiss that would make it all better!” You turned to him, poking a finger on his chest “You don’t get to make me hate myself all over again for loving you when you didn’t think it was convenient for you!”
“Y/N!” Ashton pleaded, taking your hand in his before you yanked it away “I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking-!”
“Exactly! You weren’t thinking! You never, not once, thought of me during all of this. Fucking admit it! Trying to get me to come here to patch things up was just such bullshit! You just wanted to make sure that I was still available for you any time you wanted! And don’t say it isn’t fair cause you were not aware of how miserable you made me!”
“That’s not true-”
“Was this just a plot to get me to bed?! Is that what you think of me now?!”
“It’s not true!” Ashton yelled “I know I made a mistake and I’m so fucking sorry! I should’ve never-! Look, I want to patch things up. You were right, goddammit, Y/N, you were right! It took me a long time to realize and fuck! After you moved away I was fucking miserable as well! I- I failed you”
You stood there in front of him, crying silently as he paced desperately.
“Ashton,” You called to him “Ashton, why am I here?”
Suddenly, he stopped and looked at you “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“About what?”
“For fuck’s- About the fact that you were abused, Y/N!” He yelled, leaving you speechless “Right after I left! Why didn’t you say anything?!”
You swallowed hard “It was none of your business-”
“You told Calum” He accused “You told Calum and you never told me. Why? Maybe it was not just me who was a shitty friend to you, after all, if you were going to keep things like that from me”
“How fucking dare you, Ashton Irwin. How fucking dare you?” You pushed him away “I told Calum by mistake! I didn’t mean to do it and it was years after it happened. And because I didn’t think you would care!”
“What?” He broke down, putting his hands on his knees for balance as he looked at you in tears “How- Why would you think that?”
“Because it’s the truth,” You cried “Just like you said, you had big dreams and a massive opportunity and I was just going to pull you back. Ashton, you just justified everything I thought it was true with that sentence”
“Y/N-”
“Do you think I had a good time? Knowing that my best friend, the only person I cared about in the world didn’t give a fuck about me to even ask how I was doing? So if you really wanna know… I don’t relate to you anymore. I don’t. I don’t want to think about what we had anymore because it just makes me fucking sad. I thought the world of you. Ash, you were my everything. I loved you, as a friend. I loved you, as the sun loves the moon even when it’s gone. I loved you with every prayer, every pleading, every move I made was for that one day I could be with you again, anyway that you would have me. I would’ve died a thousand times next to you, just as long as you kept me company. I didn’t care about what could happen to me. And when something happened, I tried to spare you from it, even when you never once asked. Fuck! I moved to L.A and this is the first time I’ve been in your house!”
“That’s-”
“I wish I could explain it better, I wish it wasn’t true. I wish we could’ve resolved this somehow, but let’s be honest. There is no bridge to burn when we're already so far away. And those memories? From all those years back? Now it all feels like a lie and don’t you dare say otherwise. You’re not the person I once knew, Ash. The person I once knew would’ve never invited me here to leave me alone at a party with people I don’t know, saying a cute lie about how it was for me when in reality it was to make you look a certain way. The person I once knew would’ve never made me feel like nothing every time we were at an event together and you couldn’t even say hi. The person I once knew would’ve never let their “friends” disrespect me in any way. The Ashton I knew wouldn’t have tried to make me feel sad. He wouldn’t have made me so miserable to be in my own skin because they’re not brave enough to face the music he so highly speaks about. You never once showed support for what I do once I became my own person. You never once called to ask how I was. You never once believed in me as much as I believed in you. You made me hate this city. But even more, you made me hate everything I used to love about us. Now I meet someone new and wondered if it’ll be like what we had. You ruined me, Ash. And you never apologized for it”
Ashton was shaking his head, crying as he listened to what you had to say.
After you had your feelings heard, you didn’t walk away or ran through the door so that you could escape the aftermath like you did back in December all those years ago. You were not going to run away again. Not when your heart finally felt light from all the things you’ve been carrying.
You and Ashton cried in silence, each one at one side of the room.
The two of you couldn’t help but wonder what had happened and why did it end up like this? You could play the blaming game; pretend this never happened; you could walk out and never see each other again; or, you could just stand there, waiting, digesting the sour words that fell from both your lips and think, think of anything that could be saved.
“What are we going to do?” Ashton finally asked, voice hoarse from the crying.
“I don’t know,” You answered in all honesty “It’s like we only play to lose”
“Every time,” He said, looking at you and giving a small chuckle. “Every time I see you it just hurts. Not for anything you’ve done, but for everything that I could’ve done but didn’t”
“Maybe it was for the best to have it end this way”
“But… I don’t want it to.” Ashton admitted in a whisper “Now that you’re here… I kept on failing cause I wanted to prove to myself that I still knew you”
You laughed “Who are we, Ash?” you asked “A girl that chases over the past and a boy with the excuse?”
“How the hell we’re going to make it?”
“Maybe we don’t” You shrugged “Maybe we’re just meant to be passing figures on the street. People we once knew. We can’t go back from this, Ash, and you know it. We’re just going to keep hurting each other”
Ashton nodded, walking over to you as you let yourself be embraced by a hug.
“I love you, Y/N. I will always love you”
“Terribly” You murmured against his chest “I will love you all my life, Ash. And I’ll miss you forever”
“Tell me that it’ll be okay? Please?”
You smiled and placed a small kiss on his chest, and held him tighter. And he knew.
He knew.
*
*
tags: @iknowyouthinkimbulletproof @mystic-232 @talksoprettyjjx @theshyspy @hoodhoran @hoodharlow @littledrummeraussie @irwin-fletcher-ash @wiiildflowerrr @another-lonely-heart @aabc5sauce @in-superbloom @sadcupofcoffee @personalmuyverypersonal @as-hs-blog @himbohood @sofiaaraee @irwindoll @weasleytwinscumslut @fairytrice @colourfulcal @nibin0912 @youneedtocalumdown @heyitskelseaj @ashtonsunflower @calumspupils@secretsicanthideanymore @alltimesos @wontlastimokwiththat @whywontyoulovemecami @theimpossiblehologramtree @perriexed @abiancajg @rewmuslupin @icelily13 @bookthingz @gracieboogirl @fastandtheformula1 @lendeluxe
#5 seconds of summer#ashton irwin#suchalonelysunflower#5sos#5 seconds of summer fic#Ashton Irwin fic#Ashton Irwin angst#happier than ever#yoyok#Ashton fic#ashton 5 seconds of summer#5 seconds of summer ashton#5sos Ashton#ashton 5sos#angst#writing#my writing#fic rec#ashton rec#angst fanfic#Ashton angst
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So like, I have a lot of complicated feelings about the whole discourse around comments and how people comment so much less than they used to but one thing I think people my age have forgotten and younger people have no idea about is that in the era of LJ and the height of ff.net there were A LOT more negative comments than there are today, at least as far as I can see.
For one thing, in the mid 2000s really fucking mean negative comments were so common there was a term for them "flames" and people would regularly mention them in the authors notes of their fics. "No flames or I will delete this story" "flames will be used to roast marshmallows and which Inuyasha and I will eat while laughing at you" "this story contains SLASH! that means boykissing!!! DON'T LIKE DON'T READ! NO FLAMES!!!!!!" etc. You get the picture. It was a different time don't judge. This happened more on ff.net than it did on LJ but it definitely also still happened on LJ.
If you've ever looked into the whole Ms. Scribe thing and puzzled over why anyone believed her, this is why. She was making shit up for fame and attention but lots of authors experienced similar harassment that was actually real. I know people like to be like ~in my day people knew how to use the back button~ but let's be real. Some people weren't using the back button they were going into the comment section to be homophobic and explain all about how you'd burn in hell one day.
I'm not saying nobody gets mean comments anymore but the fact that we don't have a special word for it now and people aren't constantly talking about it in their author notes strongly suggests it's less of an issue.
Even aside from that in 2024 we have commenting etiquette that just, didn't exist in 2004. Its commonly understood now that offering unasked for critique is bad but like, that didn't come out of nowhere. "Are people allowed to send critique to the author of any fic they read?" was an absolutely HUGE fandom fight that got hashed out again and again for years before finally settling on, "mmm let's not." In 2004 this was not a settled debate and imo leaving unasked for critique was much more common, and in fact people who were coming from closed forums and things like yahoo groups felt it was *good* etiquette to always leave critique because that's how it was done in their much smaller communities, which were often more focused on improving specific skills.
If it is true that people leave fewer comments now* we might be experiencing the reality that you can't have your cake and eat it too. The more rules we have about what kind of comments you can and can't make the more people at the fringes are going to decide its safer to just not comment because what if they do the wrong thing and make someone mad? Several years ago my dash was just awash with artists begging people to reblog their art and also awash with artists complaining about the tags people left on the art they were reblogging, it was extremely clear to me that this was a choose one situation. EITHER your art gets reblogged a lot and sometimes people say dumb shit or you shield yourself from bad tags and get a lot fewer reblogs.
There are a number of posts going around right now about how don't you know authors can SEE the comments you leave on bookmarks!! And I've often thought that the end result of this campaign is going to be even less engagement than people are already getting. It's not going to result in nicer comments in the bookmarks its only going to result in less bookmarks.
TBH I actually think getting less negativity in your inbox might be worth fewer comments? Like, I'm not sure fandom made the wrong choice here but I do think continuing to police the kinds of comments people leave is going to continue this cycle so if you really really want your readers to engage with your fic you are going to have to accept that some of those comments will be shit like "UPDATE PLZ" or whatever. I don't think there's a way to get less of the bad comments without getting fewer comments period.
*In addition to everything I've written above there is a part of me that thinks the biggest problem is just that AO3 has a hit counter and LJ didn't and so when people were primarily using LJ they just didn't know how many people read their work without ever interacting. Combine that with the fact that everyone is functionally writing for much smaller fandoms because there aren't mega fandoms like there used to be and you get authors who feel like they're getting less engagement without actually meaningfully getting less engagement, because their OFMD fic isn't getting the number of comments that their 2010s era SGA fic got. Even when they understand OFMD is tiny compared to SGA they don't have the hit counter for their SGA fic to see just how many lurkers there were. the ratio might actually not have been as far off as you think!
#fandom culture#TL;DR hey fandom olds remember flames??? maybe there's a reason we have less of them now#maybe getting less flames and less unasked for critique means getting less comments#haha we all know my feelings on the whole 'authors can see your bookmarks' thing#i also think all the posts demanding people read WIPs are at best futile and misguided#and at worst going to drive even more people away#you can't shame people into liking your writing more#sorry guys
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Lilia Dream
A bunch of my thoughts and a little theory. You know, I was haunted by the fact that Idia or Sebek in their "happy dreams" had the most ordinary life, the one that suited and pleased them. (And she also gave a lot of reasons for fans of Malleyuu and some kind of "divorce" from which I still laugh. Yuu doesn't intersect so closely with these characters, what kind of divorce are you talking about. They shouldn't be in the dreams of these two guys???)
and so…..
WHY THE HELL DOES LILIA HAVE SUCH A DREAM?! This is definitely a period of wars. because we see soldiers. We see Lilia in his full general's outfit. His attitude and manner of speech. His relation to others.
Malleus does not directly control sleep, he only WATCHES them. Lillia subconscious or self-consciousness created such a dream.
And I had a few thoughts on this.
Someone mentioned that this may be a dream related to the day in which Lilia finds Silver in the cradle
For me, this is not a very suitable theory because it does not fit with the fact that Vanruge should have already been near Malleus. As a mentor or bodyguard, or an informal "guardian". So the war should have been over by now.
Because from a logical point of view, if there is an experienced and strongest fairy military general, then you will send him to the front to end the war or conflict faster than leaving him to sit with a baby.
It may be a dream in which the war finally ended or it did not exist at all. And they can tell us that an egg with a Malleus inside appeared. (Yes, for those who do not know, the Dragonia was most likely born from an egg) I will explain further why this particular detail.
This is a more appropriate development in my opinion.
Think about it, my dear, Lilia spent a lot of time in the war or conflicts between humans and faeries. We don't know how many of his relatives or friends he lost. Also how much these events affected his life in general.
His happy dream may be that all that nightmare, horror and bloodshed is simple….didn't exist. Maybe it was a brief skirmish between different people and faeries that they need to control.
Or maybe it was the last day of the war when all this horror ended. The happiest thing that can happen is to no longer experience the events that haunted Vanruzh for who knows how long.
And from the palace from the royal family came the news of the appearance of the egg. The heir of the Draconia that has not yet been born/hatched.
Because - a new life, a peaceful life and a new beginning.
A harbinger that after dark times full of conflicts, losses, battles, the time of peace and tranquility is finally coming. Which everyone craves so passionately.
Perhaps this is another reason for the "idolization" of Malleus. His birth was associated with the onset of that period that everyone was so anxiously waiting for, which means his reign will be peaceful, bright and joyful.
Lilia himself has repeatedly mentioned that he wants a bright future for the Thorn Valley.
What if in his dream Malleus' parents were still alive and Malefecia did not need to fulfill the duties of the monarch until Malleus was ready to ascend the throne? That would also be a happy note in this dream of Vanrouge. Malleus with his family/parents, whom Lilia probably knew or even grew up side by side.
Their efforts and views would settle the conflict more quickly than it was in reality. And there would have been much fewer victims than there actually were.
If we are really shown the joyful faces of the spouses of Draconia who are eager to see their child as soon as possible, we can safely go for blue duct tape to glue our broken hearts.
+to the shock of Malleus It would be a good detail for the plot!!
After all, Tsunotaro has never seen them in person. And Lilia could remember them at least a little or pieces of certain events. Perhaps we could be shown hints of Silver's family (maybe she was the royal family that waged wars with the fae)
And this would be a good parralel. Silver's loving family that is fascinated by their little newborn prince. And the elegant restrained Malleus family, which envelops the little "dragon heir" with care and transfer of experience for the throne. Maybe the conclusion of peace will also be stipulated..
Having little information, I can only assume that we can be told about Lilia dream in a completely different way, so I can only build theories about what might happen next.
#twst#twisted wonderland#twst wonderland#disney twisted wonderland#disney twst#twst spoilers#twst malleus#twst lilia#lilia vanrouge#twst theory#twst thoughts
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Ogh, my brain is super deadspace right now. I have an assignment from the job that's not paying me enough, but I don't even feel like doing it. Like, I am, but I don't wanna do it right now. I want to write stuff I enjoy, but I'm not sure where to start.
So I'll just start by talking more about the Marnie AU I have for the Sonic franchise, cause I realized that I didn't actually post a lot about her around here despite thinking I did.
It must've been something on a Twitter I've already deleted.
Anyway, about Marnie.
---
Marnie is the result of the stuff that happened after the purple Chaos Emerald was temporarily destroyed by Dr. Eggman. As mentioned in the first post I made about her a while back, Sonic (intersex) and Shadow did The Letter H, not expecting anything to come of it like all the other times, but well, Chaos energy doesn't follow logic all the time, especially when something as important as a Chaos Emerald needs to be reformed.
So, no, Marnie isn't actually the Chaos Emerald, but she is a biproduct of pure Chaos energy, so her connection with the Chaos Emeralds is pretty strong.
She's 3 years old, but she looks to be about 6-ish because she grows faster than normal. Her powerful blood means she only ever gets sick with something once, and after a day or two, she becomes immune to it. Marnie can digest just about anything, from chili dogs to heavy metal gaskets and oil. Though, she generally prefers human and mobian food when she feels like eating.
She's an alien-hedgehog hybrid with low empathy but an inquisitive mind. Sometimes she can come off as rude or selfish, but she doesn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. She also doesn't quite understand jokes or sarcasm all the time, but she's getting better at it with Sonic's and Shadow's help. Though, really, Sonic does a lot for her socialization, because Sonic's also surprisingly low on his own empathy.
(After all, he keeps Eggman around because "he can do good," but if he's honest, he just finds Eggman incredibly entertaining... What? Others are the ones who started calling him a hero. He's just a guy who loves adventure. He's not happy that people die or get hurt sometimes, but it's not like he can or wants to control the world, y'know? Whoever said great power comes with great responsibility is a hack. He just goes along with the hero shtick cause saving people is fun and that's how he's made his friends, and he's happy if they're happy.)
It's because of their similarity in this regard that he's able to teach her how to find things important to her and do what she enjoys in ways that isolate her less. After all, although he initially didn't really get why Tails was following him, the fox grew on him, and now Tails is his brother! She may not feel the same things others do, but there's a lot of positive feelings in not being lonely.
Given, Shadow is also lower on empathy than others, typically just doing what he wants to do and what he feels is right. Sonic and Shadow very much aren't that different in that regard. But Shadow has experienced tragic loss in ways Sonic hasn't (not to anyone's knowledge, but honestly, Sonic's history is nebulous), so he is also quite in touch with his emotions, especially after Sonic's birthday a few years back.
(He values the planet, but the beings on it could die and he would not care. He has fewer close to him than Sonic, but he does fiercely protect those he has allowed in his inner circle. At the end of the day, if the world turns on him, he'll turn on the world, but he won't let the planet die out. As much as he misses Maria, he doesn't care to give humanity more chances. But the blue planet, a relic and important memory of his first family—and now, the home of his second and third ones—will always be something he wants to care for as long as his ultimate power remains.)
Anyway, with both her parents understanding her fairly unempathetic nature, she has not once felt a lack of love from them. And, while she may not always understand how others feel and can't quite put herself in their shoes all the time, she's compassionate, generous, and hardworking. She also tends to go with the flow of things, even if she's uncomfortable with the situation. But she tries to get her questions answered by evaluating whatever is happening around her, only asking when she feels she doesn't understand.
I'll write some more about her a bit later.
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SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
Stephanie Foo grew up in California, the only child of immigrants who abused her for years and then abandoned her as a teenager. As an adult, Foo seemed to thrive. She graduated from college, landed a job at "This American Life," became an award-winning radio producer, was dating a lovely man, but she was also struggling. Years of trauma and violent abuse as a child had left her with a diagnosis - complex PTSD, a little-studied condition that Foo was determined to understand. The result is her new memoir, "What My Bones Know." And Stephanie Foo joins us now from New York City. Hello.
STEPHANIE FOO: Hi. Thank you so much for having me today.
MCCAMMON: I want to start with your diagnosis, because listeners have likely heard of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. But how is complex PTSD different?
FOO: Right. So you can get traditional PTSD from a single traumatic event, like, say, you were hit by a car. Complex PTSD is kind of like if you were hit by that car every week for years. It manifested in my life as anxiety, as depression. The difference between PTSD and complex PTSD is that complex PTSD sort of has the potential to have a constant fear sort of churning underneath the surface. And I think it always had me on edge, hypervigilant, made it really hard for me to trust people - and to sort of bury that with intense workaholism, drinking a lot, partying a lot, that kind of thing.
MCCAMMON: Something you come back to a lot in your memoir is the idea of inherited trauma. So I'm wondering if you could talk about your parents' histories a little bit and your family's immigration from Malaysia and how that shaped your childhood.
FOO: I think my parents being recent immigrants gave them fewer resources in some ways. We didn't have access to a lot of family. And my parents, I think, were pretty alone and isolated in their ability to take care of me and in terms of having other people be able to take care of them and the mental illnesses that they suffered from. My parents came from lines of - where their parents had suffered immense traumas. My grandparents and my great-grandparents suffered through World War II. They suffered from the Malayan Emergency. My grandfather was imprisoned by the British during the Malayan Emergency for five years. And when he got out of prison, he lost all of his teeth somehow, and he never talked about it. You know, there were real consequences to that culturally, in terms of the way that they were raised, but even more so in their literal DNA.
MCCAMMON: Yeah, that was one thing that really struck me. I mean, you did some research into how trauma literally can change our genes and how that gets passed down. I mean, what did you learn about how that works?
FOO: Well, there's a couple of really fascinating studies about how our genes can change by what we endure. There's one really famous one where scientists exposed rats to the smell of cherry blossoms and then shocked them. And so these rats came to associate the smell of cherry blossoms with shocks, with fear. And their offspring and then their offspring would have panic responses every time they smelled cherry blossoms, even if they had never been shocked before. So what happens is the epigenome is sort of a layer on top of our DNA that kind of decides what genes get turned off and on. And experiencing trauma can change that epigenome.
MCCAMMON: I want to talk about your therapist, Dr. Ham. He is basically my favorite person in this book.
FOO: (Laughter).
MCCAMMON: How did you find him? And, in short, how did he help you?
FOO: I found him in a very radio producer-y (ph) way. I found him through listening to a podcast (laughter). He was talking about complex PTSD as, like, being the Incredible Hulk, right? Because the Incredible Hulk was actually abused as a kid. His father was an alcoholic, and now he had a hard time controlling his emotions when he was angry. He would sort of literally not be able to speak well, and he would just focus on surviving. And that is exactly what having complex PTSD is like. But the Hulk is not a villain. The Hulk is a hero. And so I needed to know more about that. And so I went to interview him, and he started interviewing me in the middle of me interviewing him. And eventually, he asked me if he could treat me, and I agreed.
MCCAMMON: And you approached this in a very radio producer-y way.
FOO: Yeah.
MCCAMMON: I mean, you have all of your tapes of your sessions with him, right?
FOO: Correct. And after we got done with a session, I would immediately go to the cafe downstairs, and I would upload all of my audio and transcribe it and put it in a Google doc, as you are very familiar with.
MCCAMMON: All too familiar.
FOO: And then we would edit it. And it was like we were editing my trauma out of the scripts. There was a point at which - after our actual first session, I saw, like, a whole page of me ranting about, like, my husband's job, which seemed completely out of left field. And I commented, what is going on here? Where am I? And he said, ah, you are dissociated because you are triggered. And I was like, what triggered me? Why am I dissociated? And I scrolled up. And right before that rant, I had talked about my mom holding a knife to my neck. And I turned off my emotions and my brain to access that, and I needed to disappear in some way to say that. And I got lost on the way. And so that was so helpful for me to just understand, with true journalistic objectivity, I guess, what was happening in my brain.
MCCAMMON: I'm really curious, though. You know, in writing this book and even now in talking about it, you have to go revisit a lot of those traumas again. You're talking about them right now. You're thinking about them. You're writing about them. I mean, how was that? How is that?
FOO: Yeah, dissociation, baby. That's what allows me to be talking to you and saying these things to you right now. And I think the other thing, too, is that I really did prioritize healing before I focused on writing. So writing itself was not the catharsis. Healing was the catharsis. It made me feel like I just wanted to share what I had learned. It was coming from a place of hope, and I wanted to write something that would help other people feel hopeful to. And I don't think that you ever totally heal from complex PTSD. It's sort of something that you carry with you all the time. But I feel like if the burden, the weight of complex PTSD, is like a pack on my back, then the process of healing has made me stronger. Does that mean, of course, that sometimes the pack gets really, really heavy and I need to sit down and take a break and cry a little bit and figure some new stuff out? Of course. Of course. That's what life is. But now I feel like I can hold the sadness and the anger and the joy all together.
MCCAMMON: Stephanie Foo's memoir is "What My Bones Know." Thank you so much for talking with us.
FOO: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate this opportunity to shed some light on complex PTSD.
Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
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Continued Discussion on the Mystery Person in the FTWD Coda
@galadrieljones:
So do you guys think there is benefit to her showing up in Fear?
I have thought about this a lot, and I DO think there is a benefit to her showing up in Fear. Or, that there are a couple benefits. The first would be that Beth, while she’s a fan favorite in some parts of the fandom, may be somewhat forgotten by the average member of the GA.
If they brought her back in Fear, it would be like in the old days of soap operas. Characters came back from the dead all the time in daytime soaps. I used to watch ABC daytime soaps all the time when I was younger lol so I’m going to use them as an example. They were All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital. So like, sometimes, a character would die in General Hospital and then reemerge for a time in All My Children.
They did this because it was unexpected, because it would shake up the cast a bit, but also because it would create word of mouth excitement and get people to watch a soap maybe they hadn’t watched before. So this also inflates the ratings and gets people looking around at familiar settings and situations in unfamiliar ways.
So if I was only watching General Hospital, I might tune into ABC a couple hours earlier to watch All My Children as well, just to see a character from GH that had died. I might then become subsequently hooked on AMC. This might then entice me to watch One Life to Live as well, because, hey! Maybe they’ll do this kind of interesting crossover stuff again. This kind of thing could go on for years.
So like, bringing Beth back in Fear I think would actually “soften” the blow of her return. It would downplay it a bit, and it would actually also make it easier to keep it a secret since, like you said, fewer people are paying attention. Since there’s a chance some GA viewers of the flagship might not remember her well enough to experience that shock value in the moment.
But. If they brought her back in Fear, the big benefit there would be the word of mouth, like wildfire. Suddenly on social media, Fear fans are shouting about “Omg! Beth Greene is back!” and average joe members of the GA who maybe don’t watch Fear or any of the other content would say, “Wait, WHAT? Who? OH! Beth?????” and then suddenly they are enticed. They would be enticed to watch Fear to see what’s going on. They’d be enticed to watch the spin-offs to see what’s going on, too.
They’d be ESPECIALLY enticed to watch the Daryl spin-off. Beth’s return would create a ton of suspense and build-up for Daryl’s spin-off. In some ways, it would recolor the whole thing, which would actually be interesting, since despite knowing kind of a lot about the spin-off in terms of who’s in it, some basics about the characters and setting, we actually know literally NOTHING about its relationship to anything that’s been going on in the plot so far, other than the vague connection between France and World Beyond (which is obscure to many people, like the people who are for whatever reason extremely confused about how Daryl could ever cross the ocean). I mean, even Dead City seems to have a connection to what’s going on, via Hershel’s abduction/missing kids. So like, if suddenly Beth appeared. That would suddenly infuse what’s coming in the Daryl Spin-off with new meaning.
@galadrieljones:
Yes, [Fear fans might be angry]. Though to be honest, the way they’ve been dealing with Fear this season, it just feels like they’re already kind of upstaging the character stuff with plot stuff. Like they clearly needed all that stuff about the cure, and they chose to revolve around that more than, say, developing the relationship tension with Dwight and Sherry. Some characters, like Dwight and Sherry, have been completely neglected this season, and they seem to ONLY serve the plot.
Morgan’s character has experienced some major developments, but that’s to be expected, as he was the star for a really long time. So like, I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they did this.
Might it piss off some Fear fans? Maybe. But maybe it would energize them. If Beth turns out to be in some way tied up with Madison, Alicia, Strand, or even Al and Isabelle, that would be super interesting. Like I said before, while Beth is beloved by many, I don’t think she’s enough of a major player to tip over the entire storyline. It wouldn’t be like them bringing on Rick or Daryl or even Carol at this point.
I think people would actually be super excited. I’ve seen a lot of Fear fans actually griping on twitter and instagram about how tptb always seem to introduce interesting plot points but then they continuously fail to bring it all together in an interesting or dynamic way. So like, there has been all this speculation about whether PADRE was affiliated with the CRM, and lots of fans were super negative about it, like saying, “Probably not, because the Fear writers refuse to actually develop these hints or clues into anything bigger.”
I think this is actually true. Like, the CRM actually originated on Fear. It’s super weird that they haven’y brought it back and that they, for whatever reason, refuse to just BRING IT BACK. Like, all the tip-toeing and hinting in the flagship, then not actually tying things back to the CRM via the PADRE story. That is a major missed opportunity. So if Beth served to actually connect what’s going on in Fear to the greater storyline, with like Rick and Daryl, etc., I actually think that would make Fear fans really happy.
Especially now that it seems like Morgan has made his exit. I think one of you mentioned it the other day, but part 2 of season 8 will most likely refocus around Madison as the original protagonist of the show. This might be the intention with bringing back Troy.
My guess is they’ll use the tension with Troy to reunite Madison with Strand and Alicia.
But another thing they’ll need to do is open up the door toward the future of the franchise, re: the spin-offs. Specifically Daryl’s spin-off, and Rick’s spin-off, since those are next on the docket. How they do that is what I’m most looking forward to. Also, we can’t forget about the fact that Rick already has a subtle connection to what’s going on with PADRE/Fear, ie: the walkers buried up to their necks on the Atlantic coast. Also, the PADRE thing may be done, but I’m pretty sure that Crane, aka Shrikes brother, aka PADRE, is still alive. Will he return in some way?
Also I’m sorry I’m rambling lol. BUT. I actually really hope that Troy comes back. This would just show that they’re willing to do this kind of thing, like bring back old characters whose burials we did not see to develop major character arcs in some way. Honestly at this point, if they don’t bring back Beth IN SOME WAY, Idk what their plans are for Daryl.
Like what are they gonna do, have him fall in love with some random lady? No. Nobody would accept that. Have him get together with Carol, after hinting that Carol and Ezekiel are getting back together, and after like ten seasons of not developing a romantic relationship between Daryl and Carol?
Lol. Sorry, Carylers. But no. If that happened, it would feel weird and like Daryl was settling, not like he was truly happy or getting what he deserves. Will he just end up alone? That’s sad. I hope not. We’ve already seen him develop into a parent to Judith and RJ. That was nice. So….now we don’t need to do that anymore! Judith said it herself. “You deserve your happy ending, too.” I’m just. Whate else could it be??????
If his happy ending was meant to be with Carol, then like, he’d be with Carol.
Sorry I’m just like, I cannot imagine them going through all this trouble and have him side by side with Carol for ten years and never develop it into anything and then right before the end be like, “Oop! They just decided to be in love.” That would be truly forced and weird.
And ppl can say “Well Beth has been dead for ten years that would also be forced and weird,” but like that is cope, it isn’t true. Beth was taken from Daryl just as he was learning what she actually meant to him. That night in the funeral home, he crossed a line.
He told her how he felt (or he implied as much in the way he looked at her), and she understood. They were then immediately separated. By having him cross that line, tptb was saying he could never go back. It’s like putting a gun in the scene. The gun has to go off otherwise the scene cannot come to fruition. This is what happened with Beth and Daryl. They’re like a loaded gun just sitting there. Meanwhile, Daryl and Carol, there’s no gun in the room at all.
@wdway:
I've had similar thoughts as what you expressed above, but not nearly as clear and logical as what you presented. This was remarkable. Thank you so much for taking the time to put down in a entertaining and easily to follow your train of thoughts on Fear, Beth and Beyond, haha.
I'm now so beyond excited of the possibilities. As you know I've been back and forth on whether I truly believe or want that mysterious person to be Beth. I am now leaning (totally bending at the waist touching my toes) towards definitely hoping it is Beth, after reading your responses to my questions. As far as Troy, why can't we have both. Not that this person in the last scene could be both, haha but Troy could be somewhere in the storyline.
@twdmusicboxmystery:
Totally agree with both of you! I think most of TD is on the same page with this stuff.
@wdway:
I very much agree about Daryl and Carol. I think it was said very well by Dary that he loves Carol, but he's not romantically in love with Carol. They have a wonderful bond and friendship but I think the majority of the viewers do not and would not want to see any thing hot and heavy between Daryl and Carol. I just don't think it would something that would keep viewers coming back to see or attract new ones.
We've seen the chemistry between Emily and Norman on screen in Still and Alone (apparently not the Carylers) but it's very hard for most reasonable people to deny that they definitely have tons of chemistry. I think it could really very 🔥 and sexy. And I'm not at all bias, haha.
#beth greene#beth greene lives#beth is alive#beth is coming#td theory#td theories#team delusional#team defiance#beth is almost here#bethyl
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▸ @mysqueerion ⟶ ❛ (( @ craig )): “Pizza will never cheat on you.” ❜ ╱ ( about pizza , accepting . )
Craig did not know if he had ever been cheated on before, and if he had, he didn’t care about it. The most serious relationship he’d ever had had been with Tweek, and he thought it would have been a mercy to have Tweek cheat on him. It would have meant that he was not completely alone in dealing with the other’s bullshit, that somebody else was taking care of him, just more quietly and behind the scenes. Maybe Craig wouldn’t have stayed with him until things literally blew up if he hadn’t felt so much like Tweek’s one connection to the outside world.
Maybe Craig had even done what some people considered ‘emotional cheating’ on Tweek, he wasn’t sure. But he didn’t immediately nullify his crush on Heidi Turner or his desire for a girlfriend just because he felt like he had to be with Tweek, and maybe some of that spilled over and got noticed by someone who privately thought him terrible for it.
Since Tweek, he had tried to date casually, to middling success. Nothing ever got serious or ever lasted long enough to be considered a real partnership. It was mostly just him hanging out with people—like Clara behind the funnel cake stand, whose brown eyes caught dazzling topaz at sunset. That had just been one of those summer things, spurned on by the warm evening air and the brilliance of the world around them, and it lasted three weeks. She found him disagreeable outside of work, boring against the monochromatic backdrop of reality, and she told him so one night. He hadn’t said much back to her and certainly didn’t stop her when she turned on her heel and left in a huff, and he ate far fewer funnel cakes. He didn’t miss her. Had she been seeing other guys during that time, it would not have gutted him.
He sighed, which was supposed to be an attempt at a laugh, but Kenny’s words were not especially funny, and he could not gather up the will to pretend like they were. “That’s some Facebook mom humor if I ever heard any,” he said, which was the subtlest way he had of conveying that it sounded like something his own mom would say.
Craig’s bitterest experience with cheating had not been experienced firsthand but instead came from his father, what he did to Craig’s mother, the subsequent messy divorce, the ruination of what had been one of South Park’s more stable families up to that point. His mother hadn’t even told them when she first found out, trying to quietly plan an escape, wanting to take her time to get things in order. Craig had thrown a wrench in those plans by catching his father in the act and needing to be pulled off the other woman he was with. Thomas shoved Craig in the car with profuse apologies to his date at the time, and he shut down the tirade that followed by saying, You’ll understand when you’re a little older, with such an anguished look, half on the boy in the passenger seat and half on the road in front of him, that it sapped Craig of most of his will to fight. He had stared out the window the rest of the way home and daydreamed about the future, when he would be old enough to understand why his father had done what he did. His jaw was set hard, and he quickly blinked away every rush of tears that came upon him in the fifteen minute drive back to the Tucker residence, determined to be more composed and dutiful and loyal, more of a man than his father was presently acting.
Well, he was a little older now, and he still didn’t really get it. Part of him did, and part of him didn’t. He had been tempted to cheat on Tweek, so he sympathized with that part of it, the tantalization of achieving happiness in a miserable situation by any means necessary. But he also hadn’t cheated on Tweek, though the desire had been there, and if any situation warranted cheating, it would have been that one. As far as he knew, neither of his parents were hitting each other or hearing voices or on drugs. They weren’t forced into it by someone else; they had chosen to get married. It had been more or less easy for Craig to resist cheating on Tweek—by the end, he was far too preoccupied to think much about entertaining any other flirtation—so he still didn’t know why his father did it when his mother was, by all accounts, fine. But he was trying, still working on conjuring up some empathy for his father’s side, never really getting there.
He looked over at Kenny, who had been stuffing himself and probably had not noticed Craig slipped off into thought. He had no idea what the dude had been on about, whether he was venting or trying to comfort Craig somehow or simply offering up one of his quintessentially Kenneth McCormick colloquialisms. “I mean, yeah, it sure won’t,” he said, certain his mystification was evident in the stitch of his eyebrows. “Are you good, dude? Did you break up with someone recently or something?”
#ic :: ( craig )#int :: ( answered )#ver :: college ( craig )#mysqueerion#//there was no reason for this to get so LONG jesus CHRIST#//anyway. here's your crenny. finally#//all 800+ words of it#//with a grand total of [counting on fingers] 4 sentences of respondable dialogue#//LMFAO
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Heard abroad…
Whatever the question, the market is the answer
“Too many white people not enough markets”
“I mean i still didn’t understand any of it but i understood it was nice”
Pedophile and a dead aunt. You love to see it!
I exist to do the dumb thing and subsequently encourage everyone else to also do the dumb thing
“At least it isn’t Kevin”
“Home is the place where you keep ending up and you don’t really know why”
“Home is where you keep going back to your abuser”
Death is good business but without the repeat customers
As long as you have enough to buy linch on your first day, you have enough to figure it out
“Fucking cyrus man…” on cocktails and cacao ceremonies
It feels like im looking at the relic of a golden age that doesn’t know its past its best before date
Lots of people breeds competition in both capitalism and creativity. Capitalism also breeds racism.
Nobody gives one fuck about you here which is both amazing and kinda isolating
Its like if every city ive ever been to merged into one and did a bunch of drugs
I have fewer ideas but i have a lot of resolution so when i want one to work i just throw everything at it till it does
luck favors those who need it/rely on it in good faith
I was busy being sad and shit so I wasn’t in the mood for a heart attack
How lucky we are, to know that as long as we have charge on our phone or an internet connection, we’ll never go without
Going nowhere the long way
“Fuck you”
“What?”
“I was talking to the aircon”
Calories dont work on Mondays
Chicken is made by man, duck is made by god
Thats why i pay the rent
The only case there is is a quesadilla
It’s strangely captivating.
A city of nine million perfect strangers and nine million deranged fucking maniacs.
Everyone fits in. Because theres no such thing as “too different” out here.
Milk that mfer for every lil drop of lactation in it’s scary asymmetrical titty
Everybody be skipping to the calm down phase of life without ever experiencing the youthful fuckaround stage
The lifeline on my hand seems to doing fine.
The other two, I cant quite remember what they’re supposed to mean. Something about happiness or love.
They’re looking a little worse for wear lately.
“Look Ill extend him an olive branch but only so i can whack him over the head with it”
“After all, the universe continues to surprise, bewilder, and enchant, irrespective of our inquiries. As the tale concludes, may it inspire a subtle nod toward the dance of untamed contemplations—a dance best performed with an enigmatic grin.”
Thinking is for Jerry's (2023) - Professor Longwang
I feel glad to have an end date but miserable to end it
Scared of old reality but excited to confirm or deny it
Confused about my choices here and whether my feelings were made from genuine feelings
“How was the quality of your call?” Asks the messenger app.
To which I cannot reply.
Because to reply honestly would not do justice to the quality of the app, and instead be a comment on my experience of it.
The feeling in my gut when she said she met someone.
The thoughts back to all the times where I wanted to tell you i was yours.
All at once.
With a vengeance
Stabbing in the chest
What am i doing here
Accidentally drunk off a Manhattan i didnt want and a quarter pint of Guinness
In New York
In the rain
Trying desperately to find a job
In a field im hardly good at
It seems to me that it boils down.
When you look at the root of it all
What do you want
What do i want
How you utilize the two to make a life that brings you joy
Kill me, im french
Traveling is honestly comparable to hard drugs at this point: intense, euphoric, lands you in sketchy circumstances and often leads to living in very questionable scenarios. It also has a tendency to leave you broke as fuck and wondering where the last six months went
It do be a lil comedic,
A city of 12 million mother fuckers buzzing around packed in like a hive, and I’ve hardly made a friend.
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I Got More Behind Me Than I Got in Front of Me
Muerte, décès, morte, tod, смерть, death!
Now, everyone in a good mood?
For over two years, I’ve been engaged in an ongoing exploration of my personal path of adjusting to changing my life in retirement and finding meaning in this new adventure. Without too much paraphrasing, I’ve come across folks who, when confronted with my choice, responded, “retirement… you’ll probably be dead in five years.” W …T …F? You think I’m kidding; but I kid you not gentle reader, there are people like that who roam our fair lands. You may feel such individuals deserve a beating, but listen as I tell that pity is probably the more appropriate response. It must be terrible to feel that the distraction of toil is the only thing keeping away the grim reaper.
There’s probably a number of reasons this uniquely American mindset exists: keeping up with the Jones’s, religious upbringing, trauma, the Puritan work ethic, guilt…etc.. I experienced that mindset…oh yes, I started working at the tender age of thirteen and worked every work day until my retirement at fifty four. Even as a teacher with sixty hour work weeks, I worked every summer until I shattered my leg in ‘06; I even ran theatre camps after that injury. I got my creds baby, oh yeah, I’ve put in the hours. So, what changed my perspective you ask? I dunno, a lot of things I guess. There was some serious questioning of my spiritual and world view that came from tragic events; there was the loss of some significant people in my life at an early age; and I guess I actually picked up some wisdom. Who’d have thunked that?
I cannot deny certain facts though, the big sleep gets ever closer …that’s a fact …Jack! You WILL begin to lose your cultural lodestones as you age. In just a week we lost Jeff Beck, Van Connor, David Crosby and Lisa Marie Presley. If you’re Gen X…it was an emotional kick in the gut! You realize that there are lot less fewer birthdays in your future than you’re in your past. I remember at the beginning of a summer break a few years ago, a friend and colleague commented how she hoped summers would last forever! I replied that I did love summer and if I was lucky I’d have about forty more of them. You would’ve thought I told her that Santa Clause wasn’t real! “OH MY GOD…how can you think that way? I’m so depressed now.” Hell, that’s just the way it is…what can you do? I understand the sentiment… it’s not an “oh boy” moment; and my religious upbringing did foster a terror of the final curtain.
Do I fear death? I used to a lot… now not so much. I’ve got a Buddhist, eastern vibe going on and that’s as much as I’ll say about that. Here, right now, how do I deal with the unavoidable shuffling off of this mortal coil? I’m about to get philosophical right now, so buckle up! I lost a good friend who drowned when we were ten; terrible fear and anxiety followed. Another friend died at nineteen …the fear and torment followed again. You know the routine; we are going to keep losing friends and family and if you’re not careful, each one will take joy away from you. You’ll get consumed with the unfairness of it. I quote from Clint Eastwood’s character, Will Munny, from The Unforgiven, “fair ain’t got nuthin to do with it.” Well, there you go, not much more to say after that. All we are left with a growing sense of impending doom? No, change your mind and your ass will follow. Our life is as long as it’s supposed to be. Don’t go to fairness, or being cheated, or that’s wrong… that’s a losing proposition dude. You might as well try to keep the tide back with a broom. What is …is.
What’s a bigger tragedy: dying at the age of nineteen or living to be eighty and everyday being an exercise in avoiding joy because of some indoctrinated fear? I know what I think. No one knows how many birthdays or Christmas’s you have left, so why the hell do we bother worrying about them. You have today, thats it compadre…just today. If you’re fifteen, all you have is today. If you’re eighty five, all you have is today. Try getting out of that one. With this late in life realization and with the knowledge I had financially prepared for myself and my family; I decided that whatever day was my last, it wouldn’t be spent workin’ for the man! That’s all I got for you …it’s what gets my by. Maybe because I’ve lost so many friends, family and heroes that my connection to this world has lessened…I’m sure that’s part of it. I mean who really wants to live forever? We have right now and if we’re lucky or smart, we have treasured people to spend it with while here. Don’t get tied down with the “what ifs” or “what about’s” …fill your heart with the what is. You can’t avoid the grim reaper, but you can punch him in the teeth when you see him. Have a great day!
#open mind#retirement#coffetime#stress#change#teacher#i need friends#health#writing#education#europe#self actualization#self discovery#self improvement#socialmedia#self healing#social circle#social anxiety#writer#social media
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ML Fic: Soulmate Survey Part 37
Shout out to @asongeverlasting for beta reading for me and making sure I actually got this out.
Check her writing out on AO3 as Ramblingwren
(Master post)
(Read the fic in a more condensed on Ao3)
(The latest chapter will be up on there once this reaches over 300 notes on tumblr)
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Simularé looked out over the city from the top of the school. Using her replicated powers, she took the form of Volpina so they'd be able to alter the illusion quickly should something pop out and accidentally reveal the true form of the school. Thankfully the sentimonster didn’t need to do much in order to maintain the illusion; Paris was a surprisingly quiet city.
As far as they could tell, no one in the city outside of the school had any idea what was going on. And that worked out perfectly for them.
“So, this is where Lila has you stationed,” a voice called out, resulting in the faux fox turning around. The figure behind them was a woman clad in dark blue, with blue skin and a feathery fan. She looked confident and the sentimonster instinctively felt that this individual was very much aware of what it was.
Mayura had quickly deduced it was the sentimonster as it was in Lila’s previous akuma form, Volpina. With Lila now Masquerade, it was unlikely she would choose to take such a form. She would likely want to stay in her new form to show it off.
“Do not be alarmed, Simularé, it is your creator. Mayura,” Mayura spoke again.
The shapeshifter leveled a sharp glare at the woman. What made her so certain of that?
“How do I know that is true?” Simularé questioned.
The villainess took a moment to examine the sentimonster. Mayura had to admit that this sentimonster was her finest work to date. The amount of emotion harnessed from Lila to create it made it far more unique, much less of a mindless creature than her previous creations. Amoks were created much like akuma were, locking on to intense emotions before sending off. But unlike akuma, amok can be shaped and tailored with enough focus. Simularé was a special case, as it was made from the conclave of emotions that Lila was experiencing during her breakdown. It had been quite difficult to focus on one specific feeling but Mayura had pushed through. Simularé was sculpted to be Lila’s ideal ally, but it was also so much more than a simple asset. This Amok embodied Lila’s core personality. Her cleverness, her cunning, her mistrust of others, her playfulness, her pride and so much more. To put it simply, this Sentimonster was Lila’s spirit given a new form.
“Trust me Simularé, you would be best not to ask that,” Mayura warned.
The sentimonster felt as if it was being talked down to and clearly did not approve of anyone talking to them in such a tone, save for its master. It charged at the peacock villainess, ready to make contact, But, before it could get close, Mayura stuck out her hand and pinched her fingers together, causing the sentimonster to feel as if some force was pulling its essence out. The pain it felt was indescribable! It felt as if its very being was being ripped out. Mayura was in range to sense the Amok and could easily remove it without difficulty, much like Hawkmoth could with an akuma. Though Mayura had a feeling that letting the Sentimonster know that keeping her out of range of the item was the key to its survival would not be wise. It was best in this moment to display power.
“Stop! Please!” Simularé begged. “I … I believe you! I will do whatever you ask, just please stop the pain!”
The villainess smiled, it seemed there was even more to this Sentimonster than Mayura had anticipated. It had a powerful sense of self preservation, something controlled sentimonsters didn’t seem to have. She took note of that.
“Good. Now, you are going to explain to me your master’s end goal and where Ladybug and Chat Noir are in the building.”
Simularé felt the grip that Mayura had on its essence and held back its burning resentment towards the blue bird villainess. She would behave. For now.
“Okay… I will tell you everything.”
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“Duck!” Ladyice called out as she had Ice Noir lower their bodies to avoid oncoming ice projectiles.
“Surprising that she's only attacking us with ice. She's Stormy weather. You'd think she would be attacking with more, maybe some rain or like a vol....” Ice Noir commented.
“Don't talk about that! Do not give her any ideas!”
The two had skated out of the room and made their way through the now icy hallway while Stormy Weather gave chase.
“I was just saying it seems weird how...mediocre her attacks are.
“It’s like we saw before, the akuma servants are like robots, they can’t react quickly so changing up her powers is likely just as much of a problem. She's probably not as dangerous as we initially thought.”
“So maybe we should face this problem head on now that we aren’t cornered?”
Ice Noir changed direction and began skating towards the umbrella-wielding akuma.
Stormy Weather noticed the approaching cat and raised her umbrella, creating a mighty gale to blow him back and ending him flying past Ladyice to the end of the hallway.
“She can use her other powers… can confirm,” Ice noir commented as he got off the wall, still dazed.
Ladyice skated up to the dazed cat and helped stabilize him. Despite seeming like a wasted effort, the cat’s brash antics actually inspired Ladyice with a way to take her out.
“I just figured out how we can stop her, think you can give her one last charge for me?”
“Why Bugaboo, asking me to rush headfirst into danger? How heartless.” He feigned hurt.
Ladybug rolled her eyes.
“Silly Kitty. Just be ready to hang in there when she blasts you with wind. Don’t get blown back this time.”
“Got it.”
Ice Noir quickly skated across the ice as he drew his weapon. He was ready for her this time.
“Hey breezy weezy! The weather today was supposed to be sunny with a 20% chance of raining Cats and Dogs!” Ice Noir called out, clearly happy with his lame joke.
Stormy Weather saw the cat approaching once again and prepared to send another wind blast at him.
But the cat was prepared this time around and extended his staff to anchor himself to the walls on either side.
“Nice try!” Ice Noir snarked. “But a small little puff of wind won't blow me back again.”
The storm akuma decided instead of creating just another wind blast, she was going to step it up with a cyclone attack! A powerful tornado tunnel would surely blast the cat down for good.
“We were wrong! She can amp up the power too!” Ice Noir exclaimed as he held onto his staff with all his might while his body was being blown back by the massive winds. “This was not well thought out!”
He focused on digging his claws into his staff and doing his best to remain in the wind tunnel. The powerful winds blew into his face and he could see Stormy Weather slowly approaching.
“I don’t think I can hold on much longer, Ladyice!”
He felt his grip slipping. Any second now, he was going to get blown back.
“Don’t worry, Kitty. I got this.”
Stormy Weather didn’t get a chance to react when she felt something tackle her full force and rush her into the wall on the opposite end of the hallway.
The wind died down and Ice Noir was able to land on his skates. He released his grip on his staff and fixed his windblown hair to resemble its original state before quickly skating down the hall to help his partner.
“Nice job, Ladyice.”
The red-clad heroine stood up from her grapple with the storm akuma.
“Actually…”
Ice Noir looked up to see that his partner had shifted power ups. Her skates and ice skater aesthetic were replaced with a suit that had red spacesuit-like plating, a jetpack with retractable wings with red and light blue colors that matches her helmet.
She had changed into her space form, Cosmobug.
“Space power up! Because you can fly through the wind! Genius!”
Cosmobug smiled.
“Well, Stormy Weather is dazed but probably not for long.”
The two heroes noticed her about to grab her umbrella, but Chat Noir’s cat-like reflexes helped him snatch it first.
“Oh no you don’t!”
Ice Noir broke the umbrella over his knee.
“I don’t think she will be as mobile without her powers.”
Stormy Weather tried to stand but slipped on the icy floor she had created.
“Let’s just make our way to the boss,” Cosmobug said. She used the jet on her back to swoop up Ice Noir and fly slowly down the icy hall.
“Just like you to sweep me off my feet. But don’t think I will be a smitten kitten like usual.”
“Oh? Is that so?” The bug heroine raised an eyebrow. “It’s hard to imagine that you haven’t been dreaming about this scenario.”
“It helps that you aren’t riding a horse with the wind blowing in your hair,” Chat Noir joked back, catching Ladybug’s teasing.
Cosmobug quickly moved them to a part of the hall where there was no ice. Both undid their potion transformations, reverting back to their usual hero forms.
“Not keeping the jetpack?” Chat Noir asked. “It is really cool.”
“The room halls are pretty limited, and there's not much mobility, otherwise I might have,” Ladybug confessed.
The two heroes took a moment to catch their breaths and figure out their surroundings.
“We should thank Stormy Weather.”
The cat looked at his partner skeptically, remembering how a few minutes ago, the wind had nearly sent him flying through a brick wall.
“What makes you say that?”
“Lila probably had Stormy Weather out and about to flush out other people in the school and make sure the area was difficult to traverse. She likely sent out a bunch of other akuma to do the same, which means her forces are scattered and we have a better shot of dealing with her with fewer obstacles.”
Chat Noir nodded. He would not have deduced such a thing from one encounter with a weather akuma.
“Good to know, so the plan is to locate her and save the day.”
“No need to figure out where she is, I already have a good idea where she should be.”
Chat Noir noticed Ladybug had already started moving. He quickly followed behind, though he didn’t need an explanation this time. He already knew where Ladybug was heading — to his homeroom class, but he couldn’t say that without revealing what he knew.
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‘This was a ridiculous decision.’
That was the thought running through Chloé’s mind as she ran for her life from a large group of Reflekta clones.
The two or three she had run into early were easy to avoid, but now it seemed like a horde of those tacky clones. And all of the ice that surrounded certain hallways made it impossible to traverse. She was limited in her running space and she was running out. But what made it all worse was that now those Reflekta copies had adjusted to running.
“HOW CAN YOU RUN IN THOSE HEELS!?” Chloé screamed as she ran down the hall.
She just had to try and be a hero. Why was she even doing this? The assistant probably got turned into one of those gross clones or got masked like those other students. She could have just sat back and just waited for Ladybug and Chat noir to find her or let them handle it.
“You can’t run forever” The crowd of clones sang in Rather impressive and creepy harmony.
Chloé took a turn down the hall and went into the door of the nearest room.
She closed the door and locked it before smelling the musty wet air.
“What the… EWW!” She spat in disgust as she realized she had locked herself in a janitor’s closet.
“Why did it have to be in such a gross smelly room?” she moaned.
Unfortunately, her comments caught the attention of the crowd chasing her.
She heard banging on the door.
“You can’t hide, we will find.”
Chloe put her back to the door to keep them out and felt herself slide down it in despair.
Was this how it was going to end? Getting turned into one of those fashion nightmares after hiding out in such a rank smelling closet? She didn’t even save… wait. She did save someone. She saved that old man. It hadn't been glamorous, but she did manage to save at least one person.
“I guess I did do something good after all. May not have been exceptional… but it was something.” Chloé smiled for a brief moment.
She took a moment to look at the positives, Ladybug and Chat Noir would likely come in and save the day, plus there were those other two heroes. Perhaps that would be enough. But she had to admit, finding solace in that was getting harder to do when the smell of the closet was destroying her nostrils. Just then, she remembered she had some nice perfume in her bag that she could spray to alleviate the smell.
“Well, at least I won’t smell awful when they capture me.”
She put her hand in her bag and felt around for her perfume. As she searched, she felt an unfamiliar object in her designer handbag. She pulled it out.
“What is this?”
She noticed a note on top of it. It was a bit dark to read so she pulled out her phone and turned on her flashlight.
“Return to Ladybug after mission?”
Chloé’s eyes went wide. Could this be what she thought it was? How was it possible? She didn’t have time to question it.
She opened the box and out came a floating bee creature, who Chloé recognized right away. It was real.
“Pollen!” Chloé exclaimed with cheer.
“It has been a while, my queen.” the bee kwami said.
Chloé would have loved to revel in this moment more but she knew that door was going to burst open any minute. She needed to be the bee heroine.
“As much as I would love to talk more, we need to hurry. We have some akuma clones that need bashing.”
“Right away, my queen!”
Chloe put the bee miraculous in her hair.
“Pollen, Buzz on!”
_____________________________________________________________
“It is a good thing there are so many copies,” Ryuuko stated as she leaped over a few Reflekta copies.
Viperion swerved and dodged the replicas of his sister’s akumatized form while avoiding getting caught in the bubbles that froze them and floated them up in the air.
Deadzone had been doing a lot of friendly fire thanks to its single minded obsession.
“After this, I really hope I never have to see my sister take this form again,” Viperion commented.
“Right, Adrien mentioned that you were Juleka’s brother. Older brother, right?”
“Older twin brother. But yes.”
“Really? You seem older.”
“I am a grade ahead of her, but we are the same age,” he explained.
“Could have sworn you were at least a year or two older.”
“A lot of people think the same thing. Even my mom forgets, sometimes. Rose, my sister’s girlfriend, says I radiate ‘big brother energy’ or something.”
“You learn something new.”
“What about you? Any siblings?”
“Sadly no. I was an only child.”
“Too bad, I think you would have made a great older sister,” Viperion encouraged
“A snake charmer, are we?”
“Well I am the snake, and I am not charming myself, so I think the more correct term would be dragon charmer.”
“Change that to fun killer because you killed my fun right there.”
Before Viperion could retort, they had made their way down to the end of the hall and noticed that it was frozen off.
“Dead end,” they say at the same time.
“No, Deadzone.”
The two turn to see the deadly akuma amalgamation pointing its blaster at them.
The two heroes looked at the deadly akuma.
“Any ideas?” Ryuuko questioned.
“Just one.”
Viperion moved his hand to his bracelet.
“Second chance!” Viperion activated his power.
“Now we have some options.” Viperion explained.
The akuma fired a bubble blast at Ryuuko, and she was frozen.
“Second chance!”
Things reset to how they were a few seconds before. Viperion grabbed Ryuuko and pulled her out of the way of the oncoming bubble blast.
“Thanks. For a minute there, I thought that thing had me.”
“It did, but I used my power to stop that. we still have to get out of here.”
“Look out!”
Ryuuko got hit with another bubble as they got up, protecting him from an attack.
“This might take a few attempts…”
_____________________________________________________________
Hawkmoth paced inside his lair.
Mayura was out there, his son was out there… and things were not going the way he planned. Masquerade seems to be building a base for herself and was more concerned with that than getting the miraculous. Adrien is MIA, and Mayura isn’t responding.
“I might need to step in. But there is a lot of risk in this. Far too many variables that I can't account for”
Hawkmoth never liked leaving his lair. It had too many risks to it. After Heroes' Day, he had nearly been exposed. And after that fiasco in Shanghai he didn’t want to risk getting taken out by his own akuma. He had already taken plenty of risks that had blown up in his face. Would this be another one of those times he would need to risk his miraculous?
“But it could also be just what is needed to beat Ladybug and Chat Noir once and for all.”
With an akuma this powerful, the two would likely have to use their special powers multiple times. If he can just locate them and wait for them to do so, he could potentially gain the advantage. Maybe Mayura was on to something with her actions.
Hawkmoth walked to the window.
“There will be a right time. I just need to wait for it.”
He felt an itch in the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure what it was but he could tell one thing, something big was going to go down, and he needed to figure out the right call soon or it could cost him dearly.
_____________________________________________________________
“…And that’s her plan.” Simularé finished. “As for Ladybug and Chat Noir… I am unsure. I lost track of them before I was given a new assignment. But they are in the building and they have not tried to leave.”
Mayura smiled at the information. While it was quite unfortunate that she didn’t have the exact location of the two heroes, it was good to know that they were still in the building, and Lila’s plan was certainly something interesting.
“Indeed, that is quite a clever plan. Ensuring everyone in the school couldn’t escape was pretty smart. You likely had a few escapes anyway, with how clumsy some of the akuma were. You are fortunate that neither one was Ladybug or Chat Noir. Still, though, it isn’t your master’s fault for that. They are basically mindless puppets. But then again, it seems that there might be zero escapes since there seems to be no new reports on the subject of a school takeover.”
Simularé let the peacock villainess muse, analyzing her movements as if trying to figure out any advantage it could handle.
“So, the next step now that all communications are cut is to send out a message that Ladybug and Chat Noir have already been defeated, so as to cause massive despair in order to create even more minions. Sounds a bit derivative, don’t you think?” Mayura mused.
Simularé said nothing. It held its tongue. Deep down, it knew that starting any dispute with this peacock was not wise. Especially given that crazy power she had over their being.
“Still, it is quite a plan. And with all those extra akuma recruited and Ladybug and Chat noir cut off from their guardian, they wouldn’t be able to get any sort of back up. They wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight before all of Paris is under Masquerade’s thumb. I approve of the plan.”
“I am glad you do,” Simularé stated with a forced smile.
Their conversation was cut short when an akuma appeared. Seeing one it did not recognize, the artist akuma prepared to fight. But thankfully the shapeshifting sentimonster stepped in.
“Stand down Evillustrator, this one is not our enemy,” Simularé ordered.
Evillustrator eased and walked over.
“Masquerade has ordered that we start reinforcing the building. She wants this place to be like a fortress,” he parroted.
Mayura looked at the artist.
A fortress? Yes, Simularé mentioned that Masquerade wanted to reinforce the school so that she could ensure Ladybug and ChatNoir would have less chance of escape.
Simularé nodded at the akuma servant.
“Alright, so she wants us to drop the illusion, then?”
“She wants the place to be like a fortress.”
“Go ahead and start,” Simularé motioned. She figured that her master likely didn’t care about the illusion much as she was prepared for stage two. But she would maintain it for a bit.
The akuma moved to the end of the roof and begins working to reinforce the walls
Mayura began moving to the door of the roof to get back down into the school.
“Tell your boss I will be heading to her, and she best be welcoming,” Mayura ordered.
“As you command,” Simularé replied, hiding a large amount of anger and resentment towards the blue bird.
As soon as the blue peacock is out of sight.
Simularé contacts its master.
“Simularé, what is going on? Did Evilustrator reach you?”
“Yes. He is working to make this place a fortress. You want me to maintain the illusion, right?”
“I am about to go public shortly. After I make the announcement. Drop the illusion and make sure this place is a full-on fortress. After that is done, report back to me.
“Yes master. By the way, I had an idea.”
“Oh?”
Simularé smiled sinisterly. She was going to show Peacock why she was sorely mistaken.
“I will report the details to you shortly.”
_____________________________________________________________
“Everything is set up,” Robostus noted.
“Excellent. Let’s do it now.”
The Reflekta camera crew was all set, and Gamer had set it up so the moment they went live, every screen in Paris would show Masquerade.
Masquerade got off her call with Simularé. Something seemed a bit off with her sentimonster but she was intrigued that she had a plan.
“We are live in 5….4…3….2…” the gamer stated before pressing the go live button.
Masquerade smiled.
“Good afternoon, citizens of Paris. You may not know who I am, but don’t worry! You will be very familiar with me very soon. I am Masquerade, and I have decided to make Paris my personal kingdom.”
She paused to let that sink in.
“Now you are likely very alarmed by this declaration and that is normal. It will only be a matter of time before I spread my influence to everyone in Paris.”
She paused to let her words hang in the air before continuing.
“Do not be afraid, I am no monster. I plan on being a fair leader. All I ask is for your undying admiration and absolute loyalty. After that, you are free to live your lives as you normally would. Do not resist and you will have no problems. However, if you do… well, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
Masquerade took a calm breath before finishing.
“This last message goes out to the heroes of Paris, Ladybug and Chat Noir. I know you are here, I know you believe you will stop me, and I know you have allies here. But you will fall to me. Your days of superheroing have come to an end, your miraculous will be taken from you, and I will expose you as the failures you are,” Masquerade finished with venom.
She ended the transmission.
“Now make sure that it is being looped,” she ordered.
“Already is,” Gamer confirmed. “And panic is starting to rise.”
Masquerade smiled. Her plan was already working.
It may have seemed like a simple ego boost, but that speech of hers was a crucial part of her plan. Her charm bracelet could hyper focus on anyone that was akumatized in the past and have their biggest insecurities exposed. But that one by one process took far too long, if the hope of the entire populace of Paris was already demoralized. Then all she needed to do was send out her masks and let them take hold. And all she needed to do was go out there and send the masks.
She could already feel massive amounts of negative emotion from outside of the school. As soon as she headed out of the school, she could easily go and get more akuma soldiers. She could feel her bracelet trembling with all the potential additions.
She was prepared to leave, activating one of the charms to give her black angel wings, but something she remembered caused her to stop.
“Simularé I am moving to phase two of my plan. Get down here.”
It only took a few seconds for the sentimonster to jump from the roof and knock on the window.
One for the Reflekta copies opened the large window to let in what appeared to be Dark Cupid, before it shifted into the phantasm form that was its base.
“Right on cue. So, what is this plan you wanted to suggest?” Masquerade inquired. “And be sure it is not a waste of my time.”
“What if I told you I could get you a Miraculous?”
The sentimonster could feel that Masquerade was very pleased with that idea.
_____________________________________________________________
37 attempts.
It took thirty-seven resets before Viperion figured out what they needed to do.
“Ryuuko, follow my directions exactly,” Viperion instructed. “I know how to win.”
He quickly pulled her towards him to make sure she dodged the first bubble.
The akuma was surprised by the avoidance.
Viperion smiled.
“Your next line is, ‘How did you know I was going to blast at her?'” Viperion stated confidently.
“How did you know I was going to blast at her?” Deadzone parroted in shock before realizing they had said exactly what Viperion had said they would say.
The dragon heroine looked at the determined expression of the snake. She could see experience and certainty in his posture. All her years of fencing taught Kagami the art of reading body language, and the hero in front of her was someone that exuded an aura of confidence. She knew she could trust him.
“Alright, Sassy Snake, I will let you take the reins.” Ryuuko responded.
“Jump to the left in 2 seconds and start running.”
Ryuuko followed the instructions and sure enough avoided yet another bubble attack from Deadzone.
“Head to their left and bounce off the locker at the end.”
Ryuuko dashed past the akuma and jumped as Viperion instructed, perfectly avoiding the barrage of blasts sent her way. Viperion had perfectly mirrored her motion as he explained the next steps.
“Now somersault twice and draw your sword.”
Ryuuko somersaulted as Viperion leaped over her and the dragon turned to draw her sword, now on the other side of the hall.
“Now as soon as it fires a bubble at you, activate your wind! No matter what! I believe in you Ryuuko.”
The last words seemed a bit strange to the fencer. What did he mean by that?
“Will you shut up!?” Deadzone shouted before sending a bubble at Viperion.
“For my final glimpse into the future, you will say, ‘Not so tough now are ya?'”
The bubble contacted Viperion.
“Viperion!” Ryuuko cried out.
The bubble enveloped the snake and floated to the ceiling, taking his frozen form along with it.
“No…” Ryuuko muttered. She looked down in sorrow.
I failed to protect him. He ended up protecting me. He had been backing me up to make sure I wouldn’t do anything reckless.
Ryuuko felt her mind flashback to a few days ago which now seemed almost like it happened a year ago. They had made such a good team back then and now… they get a chance to be heroes again and she couldn’t cover him like he did her.
“Ha, not so tough now are ya?” Deadzone stated with confidence.
Ryuuko’s ears perked up at the statement. That was the line Viperion predicted they would say. That means… Viperion knew this would happen! Which meant his previous statement was to show he planned this. She knew what to do.
Deadzone turned its attention to Ryuuko.
“Don’t worry, you will join him shortly.”
Deadzone fired another bubble right at her, but this time Ryuuko wasn’t moving. She was at the perfect distance to do what she needed to do.
Ryuuko smiled.
“Wind dragon!”
The dragon-themed heroine turned into a cloud and blew the bubble right back at the akuma.
“What!”
The bubble encapsulated the akuma, causing it to freeze in place and then float to the ceiling.
Ryuuko returned to her original form and smiled, seeing how they had finally incapacitated the akuma.
“We did it, Viperion. We took them down. I'm sorry it cost you so much… I won't let you down!”
She raised her blade, upon realizing that her partner was indeed trapped in a bubble.
“Wait a minute…”
Ryuuko walked underneath Viperion’s bubble. She wasn’t entirely sure if this would work, since akuma magic was weird and often unpredictable, but it would make a lot of sense if it did.
“It is a bubble, so this should work right?” Ryuuko questioned as she used the tip of her sword to touch the bubble. She pushed it forward a bit causing the bubble to pop.
Her partner dropped to the floor.
“Ugh… my head.”
“You’re okay!”
Ryuuko hugged her friend, but then realized her sudden action and quickly jumped back up. A bit flustered, she could swear Marinette was rubbing off on her.
“I am glad you are alright, friend. You had me concerned — slightly,” Ryuuko corrected herself.
Viperion was surprised by the quick motions but managed to steady himself.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course. But make it quick, we will need to get a move on.”
“Okay… Who am I?”
Ryuuko froze at the question. She could see the confusion on his face. He was completely serious.
“Oh… that is not good at all.”
_____________________________________________________________
Masquerade is on phase two of her plan and Simularé is starting to make waves.
Who will get to the akuma first, Mayura or our heroes.
What will happen to Viperion now that his memory is gone?
Will Queen bee be the right choice?
Reblog and Comment . Your support is invaluable in keeping this fic alive. And I love hearing your thoughts on it
#ml#ml fic#miraculous ladybug#ml fanfiction#ladrien#miraculous fanfiction#drama#ladybug#chat noir#slight ladynoir#fan akuma#masquerade akuma#ml au
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That cliffhanger!!
So I'm current on Midnight Burger.
I have to say, this show has one of my favorite depictions of Christianity in media that I've experienced.
That it isn't about being Righteous and Holy. That it isn't about being right. It isn't about the Great Thereafter. It is about love and faith. It is about doing what is just, merciful, loving, and good even when that isn't popular.
I know people who profess my faith have hurt a lot of people. I know Christianity is used as a cudgel to oppress and suppress. I know that the world would probably be a much better place if it held fewer churches. I can't fix that. I can't change that. All I can do, moving forward, is to tell other Christians that we don't have to continue that. That the bastardization of our faith is not inherent to it. I don't need to tell that to those outside my faith, though. Words mean nothing. All I can do is act. I try to follow Micah 6:8. I try to put love first. I try to remember that nothing and no one is unclean or unworthy.
I think, one of my favorite moments of "The Farmhouse" is when Zebulon and Effie state that the failures of their community are their own failure as well.
"The blame falls also on us, Gloria. This is our community and it’s failures are our own. There were demons here to confront that we chose not to see. We were leaders in this community and did not turn to face it’s prejudices until they had turned to face us."
My other favorite moment is when Zebulon says he cannot explain God.
My high school years were very formative for my faith. I did not fit in at the church we attended nor did I agree completely with it. When I asked a woman there why women never led the prayers she said it wasn't women's place to do so. I'd already learned, from eavesdropping on my parents, that churches weren't always right and didn't have the authority on what was and wasn't right by God or the Bible. So I disliked that greatly. I spent a lot of time with a lot of questions. I loved science in high school. I spent a lot of time reading apologetics.
An apologetic is a text that tries to reconcile science and the Bible in a way that, in hindsight, denigrates both the science and the Bible. They do more than that, but that's the flavor I read. I wanted everything to make sense, but even then I couldn't quite make myself believe what the apologetics were suggesting. It just seemed like a lot. I once took one of the books I'd borrowed from my church to my chemistry teacher and asked her to help. She was very kind and said it was good I was asking questions. She took the book, promised to look it over, and then never returned it or spoke of it again. And I still love her for that.
My parents did not care about the discrepancies. My fascination with science and understanding things never really made sense to them. (I didn't end up in science, not directly. Ultimately, math was my downfall. I do not have good enough number sense). But, slowly, I realized, it didn't actually matter.
God was bigger than my understanding. And I decided that anyone who said they could explain or define God was not someone I wanted very much to listen to.
I came up with this idea that I know countless others have also come up with. What matters is the world we have. This current frame of reference. What matters is what we do here and now. Whether this world is real or a simulation, whether heaven exists or death ends everything, it doesn't matter.
I have faith that someday answers will come. I'll keep asking questions, but I know not all of them can be answered yet. I know not all of them have answers I can even understand.
My faith is a faith of questions, because only questions feel like they give enough room for God. Answers are too small, too defined. I can try to fashion placeholder answers, things to help me keep moving and doing what I think and hope is right. But I know they're incomplete and possibly entirely wrong.
When we encounter something we do not understand, we tell a story about it that we can understand. That story works, but we cannot mistake it for truth. This isn't just a faith thing. It is an interacting with people and the world thing. And sometimes we have to just say, "You know what? I don't get it. I'll probably never really get it and that doesn't matter."
We don't have to understand how and why the stars exist to navigate by them.
Sorry. This got away from me. The point is. The podcast is good. If you aren't listening, you should. And, if you aren't Christian and really don't care that much for Christianity, still listen. I'm making a big deal about two characters in a cast of currently nine.
This is a great, odd podcast that knows how to tell a good story.
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If all the Cullens except Carlisle and Bella died during Eclipse, what would happen?
Well, that's certainly bleak, anon, I like it.
How Does This Even Happen?
More to the point, how are Carlisle and Bella the only Cullen associated people who survive?
Well, from what we see in "Bree Tanner's Short Life", Carlisle went full terminator in the fight and was doing shockingly well for himself. As for the rest, it appears they were unlucky.
That's all it takes, even for someone experienced like Jasper, is just one person getting lucky. This goes just as much for the others.
Alice can't see the future with the wolves as allies, so what advantages she does have in a fight (which I believe are fewer than implied), are completely stripped from her.
As for Edward, he's not nearly as proficient a fighter as he believes himself to be. His fight against Victoria was very much a struggle for him and Seth, he was not winning and could very well have died.
Bella surviving means that Seth, while injured, likely lives and is able to defeat Victoria and Riley in Edward's stead.
Somehow, at the end of the day, Carlisle and Bella are the only survivors.
What Now?
Carlisle still likely offers his medical services to the injured wolves including the grievously injured Jacob and Seth. Billy's not happy about that, but they can't take them to the hospital, and the man does do good work.
Carlisle, while in shock and grieving, also tries to decide what to do. His family is dead, they're all gone, every last one of them. People at work will ask, what can he possibly tell them?
Carlisle quietly decides to not go into work at all, to not enter town at all, to enter his house only when necessary for medical equipment, he is now dead.
Let the world assume that the Cullens all died in some tragic, hiking, accident.
Mostly though, he's floating through in a daze, expecting the rest of them will show up any minute now. They never do, they're gone, each and every one of them.
More, Aro proved to be more heinous than Carlisle had ever suspected. Aro singlehandedly destroyed his family by ignoring his own law and with it everything Carlisle had believed in.
Bella's also in shock and expecting that it's all a dream. She'll wake up and Edward will be back. And when she keeps waking up she feels something clawing inside her.
She's back in that pit she was in in New Moon. Edward has left her, he is gone, and this time he will never be coming back. There is nothing left in Bella's life anymore.
Bella likely attempts suicide and for the sake of this post we'll say that someone, Carlisle/Billy/Jake catches her in the act and stops her.
Carlisle and Bella sit down to talk.
The Volturi are coming, Jane was right there, no matter what had happened to Carlisle's family they will not forget. Bella could try to stay and hide among the tribe but...
These are good people, good people who risk their lives over a battle they had nothing to do with, and Carlisle cannot say that Aro will not take this opportunity to thin out their ranks as he just did the Cullens. (For the record, I don't think he would. I also don't think Eclipse was Aro's idea.)
If Bella stays, then these people might very well die for her.
Bella is devastated but realizes Carlisle is right, she's asked these people to die once for already, and all the Cullens already have. She can't do that again.
Jake, of course, is angry and resentful. Of course Bella should stay and they can protect her! However, Sam sides with Carlisle, the girl should go, they are not ready to have war on their doorstep. Just as he did in Breaking Dawn, Sam gives his permission that Bella be turned into a demon for the sake of his people.
Carlisle and Bella leave town, Bella also presumed dead in the "hiking accident", and when in some other Cullen local he turns Bella.
Carlisle, still in grief, realizes that Bella's all he has left of his family. To his horror, he realizes that for Bella it's much the same. All they have now is one another and this shared grief between them.
Carlisle sends a photo of the transformed Bella to the Volturi's mail address, hoping that proves sufficient (as he never wants to see Aro ever again), they also fairly quickly vacate the Cullen property, too many memories for Carlisle.
They wander around for a bit, under the pretext of working on Bella's control, but also just to figure out what to do.
Carlisle tells a surprised Bella there's no need to pose as his daughter. He no longer has five young adults unable to work to account for, the cover story, when and if they return to society, can be whatever they wish. In fact, in terms of cover, it'd likely be easier for Bella to pose as his sister or his cousin (given his grief over Esme and Bella's over Edward, the option of "wife" is left off the table despite the pair looking nothing alike).
Bella doesn't know how to take that, for her the cover story was taken for granted, of course the Cullens posed as this family with Carlisle as the patriarch, Esme the mother, and the rest children.
With Bella's miraculous control they don't actually have to worry about her new born phase too much. Which is good and bad as it means they both get to wallow in grief and depression.
However, I imagine they both help each other through it, and spend a number of years simply travelling the world and meeting with Carlisle's many other friends.
Likely, the chance to reenter human society slips them by, the internet becomes a true thing to be feared, facial recognition is everywhere, and Carlisle Cullen's face would be stored digitally forever.
Which is just as well as it closes the coven chapter of Carlisle's life and for Bella doesn't make her feel as if she's hanging out with ghosts.
Bella/Carlisle in this universe is actually very likely to happen. I imagine the pair naturally gravitate towards one another through shared experiences, the diet, as well as their shared grief.
The world also doesn't end because Bella never confronts the Volturi and thus the Volturi is not threatened. Jake also never imprints on a toddler.
In other words... this is a better timeline than canon.
#twilight#twilight meta#twilight headcanon#twilight renaissance#twilight quileute#seth clearwater#jacob black#edward cullen#bella swan#edward/bella#carlisle cullen#carlisle/esme#aro#carlisle/aro#the volturi#carlisle/bella#esme cullen#the cullens#alice cullen
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Hermitopia AU Conclusion
The last ask has been answered, the masterposts are complete, and (although art, writing, and Discord discussion are still accepted and encouraged) it is finally time to officially wrap up the Hermitopia AU! Because this was such a massive event - and no small thing to moderate - there will be a pause in blog activity for a day or so before the inbox will open for regular headcanons again. I apologize in advance for the wait!
In the mean time, I would just like to say: I am so, so thankful to everyone who participated in the AU. Your ideas and your creativity have made this blog a better place, whether you sent in one headcanon or dozens, and I am constantly in awe of the energy and enthusiasm of this community. Thank you, all of you, for making this universe we’ve created as vast and as interesting as it turned out to be.
Below are a collection of my own ideas, for those of you who like a satisfying (but still not entirely closed-ended) ending. These events take place as many days, months, or years into the future as you need them to make your own ideas work, and none of them are set in stone. You can take all of them, some of them, or none of them as truth if you want to...but either way, it has been an honour to build on a project like this one alongside you all.
And with that...the Hermitopia AU concludes! Finished, or barely begun, like so many good projects are. Have a great day everyone, and happy headcanoning!
- Mod Shade
"People of Hermitopia."
The man on the screen shifts, running a nervous hand across his bald head and squaring his shoulders. The broadcast quality is unstable, but it's more than enough for every citizen in the city to recognize who's speaking.
"This is your Concorp Branch Director, Cub. As I'm sure you are aware, I am the head of Project VEX in this city. You all know the VEX initiative as groundbreaking, life-saving, a shining success and a step towards a new era for humanity...and some of you may even see me as a hero for creating it.”
He closes his eyes, a brief look of pained remorse crossing his face. For a moment, he looks utterly defeated, almost small in the face of his impromptu audience of thousands...but finally, he fixes the camera with a steady gaze once more and begins the great unravelling.
“Maybe it was all those things, in the beginning. Maybe *I* was, once. But today, after far too long, I have some confessions to make...."
~
- For years, Cub had been desperately scrambling to hold the tatters of his life’s work together. Project VEX had started so well, and he had poured so much of himself into it, that when the failed experiments and rebellions became more and more frequent he was unable to accept a change of course. He covered up the project’s failings to maintain funding and public image, but mostly to maintain his own image to himself - that he was still the hero he’d set out to be and create at the project’s start. However, his denial was wearing on him heavily, and eventually he had a breakdown and decided to go public rather than keep drowning the city in lies.
- This breakdown was prompted by xB, who after his own moral breakthrough, confronted Cub and urged him to stop withholding knowledge and truth. xB also informed Cub of his own unknown truth - that the unintended power of his presence was the thing that was keeping the experiments successful when Cub was around. This was the final straw in breaking through Cub’s denial
- Along with Cub’s broadcasted speech, files were released to the media containing proof against most if not all of Concorp’s falsehoods. Many names were cleared of crimes that had been pinned on them, including Beef, Impulse, Doc, Cleo, and the majority of the other Unrestrained and Unaffiliated former VEX trainees that the company had tried to cast away
- Understandably, it took a very long time for the chaos to die down and all that information to be processed by society and the justice system. It may be years before the community can see some of their heroes in the proper light again, but at least they are now free to begin rebuilding their reputation without being labeled as villains and traitors.
- Those who actually did commit villainous acts are given a fair trial, with consideration for their motives and the new Concorp information as extra evidence
- The VEX program is withdrawn by Cub’s superiors and put under a strict review. It is reborn after a massive restructuring, with a new director, new limitations on what experiments can and cannot be attempted, and a greatly extended screening and training program to reduce the chances of graduates becoming villains. The new project will produce far fewer heroes with much subtler powers at first...but if that is the cost for the safety and stability of the city, then most people would agree that it is a small price to pay.
- Cub is not permitted to work on the new Project VEX in a management role, ever again. It’s a harsh blow for him, to have to watch his dream from the sidelines...but he knows he gave up the right to guide it when he abused the control that it gave him. At least his superiors allowed him something to do while he awaits trial: he is present (although guarded) at every new VEX trainee’s first experiment, lending his power to increase their chances of success.
- Mayor Scar resigned willingly. Nobody had enough evidence to accuse him of anything, and he didn’t plan on giving them a reason to look by trying to stay in office. Instead he chose to make his exit from both Concorp and government matters complete, at last. Or so he thinks. Who knows? Maybe he’ll learn what most of the people he’s helped to manipulate have already found out: that connections and old grudges don’t easily lose their grip.
- Scar is replaced by TFC, voted in by almost unanimous community support and funded by donations from all the people he’s saved over the years
- The greater Convex company offers a choice to the survivors of the old program: Come to work under their new, more honorable system, or take a generously large settlement and be free to build new lives
- Team ZIT declines the job offer, pooling their payment and using it to buy a shiny new base together for their independent hero venture. There are still a handful of real villains to fight, after all, and there are bound to be more once people start successfully copying Concorp technology. Now that Impulse is back at their side, they wouldn’t give up their roles saving the community for anything - but they’re done with being used by some guy behind a desk. From now on, justice and bravery will be their only guides!
- ...justice, bravery, and TFC, that is. He isn’t their boss by any means, but the more experienced hero does drop by often between his mayoral duties to make sure the youngsters stay out of trouble and in one piece.
- The nHo, according to all official records, took their settlements and split up, leaving Hermitopia far behind. However, Team ZIT suspects that the vigilante life hasn’t left them so easily. They’d be the last ones to report the odd sighting of a whipping vine or a distant masked figure, though - unregulated as they are, the nHo’s shady methods for a good cause prove useful from time to time. (And their base has really good tea. Okay, maybe it’s a little bit more than “the occasional sighting”...)
- Ren settles back into his meadow cabin, but after that massive release of info and a long, LONG period of processing, he now has Iskall, Stress, and Cleo as regular visitors. Every morning he wakes up and forgets for a moment that it’s real, that they’re really alive and with him again...but they are, and he is happier than he ever thought he would be again.
- Jevin and Mumbo visit the cabin occasionally. It took a while for Mumbo to get his memory back, but he now remembers all of his friendship with Iskall and Grian, and they come together for fun and shenanigans regularly with the rest of the cabin crew.
- Grian still spends his time looking for his clones, but honestly, he doesn’t mind. The adventure always did hold more meaning than the conclusion for him, and now, he has friends to help out!
- False disappears into thin air to wait out the fallout of Concorp’s information release. She snags herself a quiet job and a small apartment on the outskirts of town, fully intending to return to her mercenary work just as soon as the dust has settled...next week, maybe. Or the week after that. Or maybe, once the garden has been fully planted. She’s really enjoying having time for stuff like that now...but she’ll get back to work, really, she will! Soon.
- Joe and Cleo tearfully reunite through xB, and Joe becomes another frequent visitor to the cabin. Cleo also visits Joe’s base in the time exclusion zone, but she really prefers the cabin. Time skips are disorienting, and they make her want to sneeze.
- Keralis and Void come to an agreement. Xisuma isn’t entirely clear on what that agreement is - something to do with an allowance of cookies from Biffa’s bakery in exchange for not killing anyone - but he’s more than happy to be less sore and tired all the time.
Hermitopia is making progress. Real progress, this time - not just the breaking of humanity’s limitations, but breaking them with true heroic care, with the good of everyone in mind. There are some hurts that will never fully heal, mistakes that can be learned from but not undone, and yet...now there is a path, a way forward. It won’t be easy, but a kind and gentle future waits for them, welcome and well deserved. They will figure it out, together.
And together, they will step forward, into the new world that each of them has helped to create.
#hermitopia au#announcement#sort of#I know this is long; and not all of it is my best work; but I hope you'll find some of it worthy of canon#or at least inspiring to your own personal version of events#both hermitopia masterposts will be added to the masterpost of AUs in the normal pinned post#you'll still be able to access them#most importantly; I hope this event was fun for all of you#that's all there is to it; really. that's the point. :)#again; thank you
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