#but there's like four people actively posting about it at any given time

[renthony]

There's a post going around right now about women being allowed to wear pants, and the way that relates to discussions on gender nonconformity, etc.. There's a long thread of folks talking about how women very much do not have absolute freedom to dress masculine, and a few other posts that have spawned off the main discussion.

And I haven't added onto that main post because I didn't feel like I had much to add, but now it's been a couple days and I can't stop thinking about how I was forced to wear a dress to my high school graduation in small-town Mississippi. I'm not a woman, but I didn't know that yet, so it's a relevant story.

The school administration threatened every single girl with the punishment of being banned from walking across the stage if we wore pants beneath our graduation robes. We got an entire lecture about how it was inappropriate for us to wear pants to such an important formal event.

My school had a strict uniform policy, and the graduating seniors being allowed to wear our own clothes to graduation was seen as a huge fucking deal. We'd spent four years not being allowed to wear our own clothes or accessories, and graduation was supposed to be our time to finally wear what we wanted. This was a bigger deal than it might have been otherwise, because my school also refused to allow us to decorate our graduation caps. We were not allowed to display any customization at all. One girl put her name on hers so her family could find her from the crowded stands, and the school administration made her throw her hat away and buy a new one or else she wouldn't be allowed in the event hall.

The school, knowing how excited many of us were about picking our outfits, gave us a strict dress code. Our outfits wouldn't be seen until after we took off the graduation robes to go home, but still, we had a nightmarishly strict guide for what we were allowed to wear beneath them. They had to be formal outfits, they had to fit a certain color scheme, they had to adhere to the school policy about skirt length and skin visibility, and, naturally, they were extra harsh on the girls, as dress code policies always are.

One guy joked that he was going to go naked underneath in solidarity with all the girls who were upset about the dress requirement. He got pulled aside by an administrator and told that if he made that joke again, he wouldn't be given his diploma. Which I'm pretty sure is illegal, but it was still the threat that got made.

Everyone was pissed, several people were livid because they had already bought an outfit they were now not allowed to wear, because the administration had actively misled us for weeks into believing we would be allowed to wear what we wanted. There had been no mention of dress code requirements until they dropped them on us at rehearsal the morning of graduation, less than 12 hours before the event.

We had no power to override the school administration. We were given a strict lecture at rehearsal about how flouting dress codes is unprofessional and if we gave that kind of attitude to people over dress codes in the workplace, we'd be fired.

We were ultimately told that, "if it's not appropriate for church, it's not appropriate for graduation." Those of us who asked "what if we aren't Christian and don't even go to church" were told "you still know what kind of clothes church clothes are, so stop being rude."

This happened in May of 2011.

[saintobio]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓. (final part to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍 & 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑.)

in the painful memory of what once was, sylus learns that love can't be bound where it was never meant to stay.

♱ pairings. sylus, fem!reader

♱ genre. angst, smut, boss/assistant, 18+

♱ tags. sylus's pov, reader is not l&ds!mc, sylus might be ooc, main story spoilers, razor's dance spoilers, nightplumes spoilers, lots of timeskip, fast-paced, unrequited love, profanity, petnames (kitten, sweetie), espionage, jealousy, brief smut, mentions of pregnancy/impregnation kink, mentions of accidents, suicide attempt, injuries, blood, usage of guns, usage of knife, killings, death, my own theories incorporated into the lore, sylus groveling bcos yall want him to

♱ notes. 9.5k wc. l&ds!mc is referred to here as 'diana'. THIS IS A REPOST of the original post i accidentally deleted. i already posted this several hours ago, so if you’re seeing this new one again, blame my dumbass 🤧 oh well life is life.

Sylus had a part of him that wished things could be different. 

Ever since he turned away and left you that night at the alleyway, he didn’t really realize the chain of events his decision would set into motion. He simply underestimated how strongly your threats were backed by the grudge you had on him for bringing the hunter girl from Linkon into his base.

After all, you were just an assistant of his. And her, she was everything to him. It wasn’t just about the Aether Core, too—their bond stretched back into his distant past, into another planet where two of them ruled before the inhabitants of Philos came to ruin everything. Him and Diana had a connection he couldn’t sever no matter how much you had come to mean to him. And he spent years, centuries even, just to search for her. 

So, how could a mere assistant he had known for less than a decade have such entitlement to her role in his life? 

Eventually, days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. With your prolonged absence from the Onychinus base, Sylus’s business transactions and illicit deals had become increasingly unruly. He had grown too dependent on you as his right-hand woman, relying on your meticulous management to ensure all his illegal activities ran smoothly. Yet now, without your oversight, things were falling apart.

And while he was contemplating how to fill the void your absence had created, the office door slammed open. A subordinate soon rushed in, breathless and wide-eyed. “Boss, she’s betrayed us!” Luke exclaimed. “She’s gone to the Hunter’s Association. We got word that she was a high-ranking intelligence agent there!”

“A.K.A a spy!” yelled the other twin, Kieran, who looked equally hurt at your betrayal. “She fooled all of us. And here, we treated her like family.” 

That was how Sylus learned that you had left the N109 Zone, seeking refuge in Linkon City, and had exposed critical intel on Onychinus. At the time, rage naturally exploded within him. Didn’t he take good care of you while you were here? He had given you everything, trusted you, and you had thrown it all away. Four years of falling into his trap. Four years of being his partner in crime, his right-hand woman, his lover. People even saw you as the modern day Bonnie & Clyde. Sylus couldn’t understand the root of your betrayal, couldn’t imagine how letting you slip away from his grasp would cost him so much in return.

When you vowed to do everything in your power to kill Diana, was this just a part of your grand scheme? What other machinations were you orchestrating in your pursuit of revenge?

“She’s a wild animal on loose.” Sylus looked up at the twins, maintaining a calm yet ruthless mien as he sat on the couch. He might be idly tossing a coin like he didn’t care, but inside his brain was chaos ensuing. “Where’s she now? Any news?”

It was Luke who shrugged in response. “She hasn’t been seen anywhere, boss-man.”

“We suspect the Association is hiding her,” Kieran added. 

The hunter girl, Diana—the very girl you were jealous of, was sitting next to Sylus throughout the conversation. Their hands were connected by a strong energy linkage that was seemingly ignited by the Aether Cores in their bodies. They couldn’t separate themselves even if they wanted to. And God forbid you would have lost your mind tenfold had you seen their situation right now. 

“That g-girl,” gasped the hunter girl, eyes wide in bewilderment at what she was hearing. “Sylus, your assistant. She did all that? She was a spy from the Hunter’s Association?” 

Luke tilted her head at the girl, his beaked mask mocking her. “Oh, miss hunter! Haven’t you heard about the HIS? You should know them better than us.” 

“Well.. what is the HIS?” 

“Hunter Intelligence Services.” Sylus was the one who answered, releasing a deep sigh while rubbing his temples. “They’re top secret. Regular hunters wouldn’t have known about them, because they only deal with people like me.” 

Diana looked between him and the twins, rubbing her wrist before moving closer to the boss of Onychinus. Her close proximity allowed him to smell her familiar sweet scent. “Is she… after me? But I don’t understand. If she’s part of the Hunter’s Association too, then shouldn’t we be colleagues?”

Kieran cleared his throat. “Ever since you came—”

“Place a bounty on her head,” Sylus interrupted the twins, and also ignored the question of the girl next to him. She didn’t need to learn the history behind you and him, or why you chose to target her. “Make sure to bring Y/N back to me. Alive.” 

“Roger that, boss!” 

It was his last desperate attempt to draw you back to him. Now that you had the Hunter’s Association protecting you, Sylus knew that locating you wouldn’t be as simple. Otherwise, he would have easily captured Diana long ago. He convinced himself that the bounty was to punish you, but deep down, he knew it was because he couldn’t bear to lose you to his enemies completely.

~~

It took you a year to return to the N109 Zone.

Did you forget he had eyes and ears everywhere? He was the boss of that infamous No-Hunt Zone. Even if you leaked intel about his residences and the Onychinus base to the Hunter’s Association, Sylus still had a few tricks up his sleeve. He had hideouts in places that even you weren’t aware of, and the residents of the N109 Zone were loyal to him. Too loyal that they wouldn’t give any information to anyone no matter the consequences. 

And how foolish were you to forget about Mephisto’s existence?

“Caw! Caw!”

The mechanical crow’s eyes glowed with the same red hue as Sylus’s as it landed on his arm, projecting visions of you entering the underground fight club disguised in an Onychinus uniform. It was almost farcical that you thought you could infiltrate a place Sylus frequented unnoticed.

But then, the vision shifted to you speeding on a motorcycle with a truck in hot pursuit. Sylus quickly recognized the truck’s decals—it was the hitman he often employed for dealing with his enemies, now terrorizing you in a high-speed chase. Without hesitation, Sylus grabbed his leather jacket and mounted his own bike, racing to your location in sixth gear.

He arrived just a minute too late. And what was meant to be a dramatic reunion turned into a scene of you lying unconscious and injured on the road, while the hitman grinned nearby with an expression of triumph. If it hadn’t been for your helmet, Sylus would have been met with the gruesome sight of your shattered skull.

“Mr. Sylus!” the hitman exclaimed, jumping out of his truck with arms outstretched in petty victory. “Can I get the $500,000,000 in cash?”

As Sylus’s gaze fell on your unconscious, injured body sprawled on the ground, a surge of anguish overwhelmed him in ways he couldn’t understand. But it was quickly replaced by seething rage—rage that made him summon his black-red mist, enveloping the hitman in its dark tendrils.

“I said not to harm her,” Sylus growled, his red eye glowing ominously against the desolate highway backdrop. “You failed your task.”

“P-Please, Mr. Sylus! I thought you—”

Without another word, Sylus scooped you up in his arms while his mist dealt with the hitman behind him. The hitman’s desperate cries were soon drowned out by the expanding tendrils, which tightened around him until he was engulfed. Then, in a violent burst, the mist exploded, reducing the hitman and everything around him to dust.

Sylus brought you to his underground hideout immediately after. And an unfamiliar—or perhaps strange—pang tugged at his heart as he gently laid you in bed, his gaze lingering on the road rash you obtained from the crash. The injuries were severe, with patches of skin nearly stripped away in the most brutal fashion he could think of. He could only imagine the burning pain you had to endure as soon as you skidded along the gravel, and Sylus felt his own frustrations knocking at the door knowing that he didn’t have the power to extend his fast-healing abilities to you.

“Tch. My kitten’s reckless as always, riding without the proper gear,” Sylus grumbled, looking at your unconscious body. “You’ve never been one to follow the rules, have you?”

To make up for his inability to save you on time, he applied a potent medicinal ointment all over your body and placed you in an anesthetized state while you healed. His mist enveloped you like a protective shroud the entire time you laid in bed unconscious. Every single day, Sylus tended to your wounds, changing your clothes and bandages, and applying the ointments over your bare body. He even took special care to ensure the twins did not enter your room without his permission. 

Despite the care he showed, a persistent question echoed in his mind: Why am I doing this for you? You were his enemy, a traitor, and a woman who had betrayed him. It didn’t make sense. 

That afternoon, feeling suffocated from this internal conflict, Sylus decided to leave you in the care of Luke and Kieran while he went to Linkon. He knew he needed space to grapple with the feelings that were driving him to care for you in the first place.

He needed to see the real woman he should be caring for. 

Because you had not only exposed intel on Sylus and Onychinus to the Hunter’s Association, you also asked for them to isolate Diana so she would have no way to see or contact him. Who knew that mere feelings of jealousy would spark you to do such trivial things? 

Frankly, you were insane. You were dark and twisted like him. 

But in a way, it only underscored how similarly deranged the two of you were. Perhaps, in your madness, there was a strange compatibility—one that Sylus found unsettlingly fitting. The suggestion of you two being more a suitable pair than he and Diana gave him an unease that he couldn’t simply shake away. 

It should be her. Her. Just her and her alone. He dedicated his whole life into finding her, yet you came into his life to ruin the foundations he had built to meet the person he was supposedly destined for. He had repeated it over and over in his mind like a broken record—the voices in his head telling him to let you go, to hurt you, to make you suffer. 

However, as he stood across the pedestrian crossing, watching Diana from afar, a realization hit him like a cold gust of wind. There she was, oblivious to his presence on the other side, but the spark that once ignited in his heart whenever he saw her was gone. Now, his pulse remained steady and his heart stayed still.

With a wary glance around, mindful of any watchful eyes, he decided to pick up his phone and ring hers. It was a good thing he was able to seamlessly blend into the crowd, with his practiced nonchalance making him invisible among the throng of people. After all, he was Sylus Qin, the mastermind of Onychinus—disguise was second nature to him.

“Sylus?” Her voice came through the line, tentative and filled with a mix of emotions as she scanned the faces on the other side of the crossing.

“According to the conditions set by the Hunter’s Association, we shouldn’t be meeting again.” His voice was steady, almost detached, as he kept the phone pressed to his ear. “Or if not, you will be marked as a Tenebra.” 

Her eyes eventually found him amidst the walking crowd, keeping an expression on her face that showed both longing and forlornness. “Not the first time someone has been marked a Tenebra because of you,” she managed to slip in a snarky remark in her worried expression. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?” 

“Are you worried about me?” he nonchalantly asked, watching as she stepped off the curb when the light turned green. Each step was a step closer to him, but nothing changed the pace of his own heartbeat like it should have. Nothing stirred within him as it once did.

“You have the audacity to use a phone when you’re right in front of me,” she snapped, frustration flaring as she yanked the phone from his grasp. Without hesitation, she grabbed his arm, dragging him along with her to escape the dangers of being seen in public. They ended up in an alleyway, a place hidden from prying eyes, an irony that made Sylus chuckle under his breath. The alleyway. Why has that become such a memorable place to him? “Sylus, what’s so funny? I was so scared something happened to you! You couldn’t even call me back or text me the past few days?”

He remained expressionless as he observed her outburst. Strange. In her frantic worry, she reminded him of you, and it was a discomfiting parallel that sent chills down his spine. “I said I’d need to disappear from your life completely, so I have to tie up loose ends,” he began, each word seemingly a dagger to her heart. “We haven’t been able to resonate either way, sweetie. There’s no reason for us to keep meeting.” 

“No!” she adamantly denied the thought, pulling him into an embrace. “No, you’re not allowed to disappear just like that! We need to find a way to get—”

“It’s a dangerous gamble to be caught in my world,” he said in a low voice. 

But she was stubborn. “I’m already caught in it! So, please, Sylus, take me with you. Take me to the N109 Zone or wherever you’re hiding. I want to be where you are.” And in spite, she uttered words that made Sylus think twice about his perception of you. “It’s her fault that this is all happening. She’s a traitor to you and to the Association. Her loyalty isn’t with anyone but herself, Sylus. She’s the one who needs to disappear!”

~~

Back at his hideout, Sylus was careful to ensure that Diana remained oblivious to your presence in another room. He was already grappling with how to manage the situation—torn between the woman he loved and the woman he had wronged who, ironically, were both now under the same roof. The thought of you two crossing paths was a nightmare he didn’t want to deal with, so he gave strict orders to the twins, notorious for their loose lips and loud mouths, to keep Diana far from you.

Because when Sylus returned to your room, he knew you were awake. The dark classical music playing from the vinyl record had likely stirred you from unconsciousness. It had been nearly a week since the crash, but thanks to his meticulous care, your wounds had mostly healed, leaving only faint scars behind.

“You can’t hide from me forever.” Sylus hovered over you to whisper into your ear, summoning his protective black-red mist to slowly release you. “Wake up, kitten. We have unfinished business.” 

When you finally opened your eyes after what felt like an eternity, Sylus told himself it was natural to feel relieved, that it was only right for his heart to soften at the sight of you returning to consciousness. But as you awoke, the voices in his head—the damned, relentless voices—grew louder, mocking him, provoking him, and luring him into darker thoughts. His right eye began to glow like a flickering candle, and when he saw the fear on your face, the words that followed weren’t his own. They were driven by the unforgiving side of him he couldn’t control, a side that thrived on your terror. The beast that couldn’t be tamed. 

She’s a traitor.

Punish her. 

Hurt her. 

Devour her. 

While in a heated, dramatic exchange with you, Sylus was spewing words he didn’t mean. He was doing actions without regard. He was mocking your pain. Your jealousy. Your heartbreak. The drive to hurt you was strong in his head, but he fought desperately against it. The demon inside him that tried to consume his every thought. He tried to battle his own self just to protect you. 

“I betrayed you because of her!” 

His laughter died down, but the amusement in his eyes only deepened, replaced by the wicked smile on his face that enjoyed seeing you suffer. “It’s always been about her, hasn’t it? You see me with her, and you can’t stand it. It eats at you, makes you act out.”

You tried to move away, but Sylus pressed his foot firmly on your wrist. She betrayed you, Sylus. Punish her. 

“I’ve seen your struggle,” he continued, his voice soft but laced with corrupt satisfaction. “The way you watched me with her, the way it gnaws at you. It’s almost poetic, really.”

It wasn’t until you reached for the gun on his nightstand, pointing it at yourself, that Sylus snapped out of his dark trance. The horror in his eyes was a stark contrast to the sorrowful shine in yours as you stood there, sobbing in front of him. Each word you spoke was tailed with the pain of a heart shattered by everything he had done and said. 

“...All I wanted was your love,” you choked out with tears cascading down your face, “I j-just wanted you to love me. I turned my back on the H.A. for you. I left all my friends and family for you.” Your breathing was still for a moment, but your heart had already been blown into smithereens. “All I had was you. I loved you. I devoted all my body and soul into loving you, Sylus. Why c-can’t I have even a little bit in return?”

Even as his gaze softened and a flicker of regret passed across his face, you had already made your decision when your finger tightened on the trigger. The recoil jolted your wrist, but before the bullet could find its mark, Sylus’s hand shot out and expertly deflected your aim. Instead of ending your life, the bullet shattered a window, ricocheting off the glass and disappearing into the night.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Sylus roared, his voice a thunderous mix of fury and disbelief.

You were barely responding to him as he cupped your cheeks and forced your lachrymose eyes to lock into his crimson ones. It was as though you had already resigned yourself to reality, that ending your own life would have been a better option than being with the man you hopelessly loved. 

“Y/N,” Sylus tried to shake you awake, desperate for you to look into his eyes. “Y/N! Enough. Let’s end this game.” 

“...I was never playing one with you.”

Sylus was overwhelmed by a profound, indescribable pain that pierced his chest. It was a pain that mirrored yours but was infinitely more intense. “I warned you many times before to never fall in love with me,” he said in a low, softened voice, “It’s for the best, and it’s what will keep you safe. Why don’t you listen?” He longed to pull you into his arms, but the crushing reality was that he only now realized how deeply he cared for you. It was devastating that his awakening had come at the cost of your near-suicide, forced by a love he was unable to return.

Was it truly too late for him to come to terms with his feelings for you? Was it too late to accept that he had fallen in love with you rather than the woman he believed he was meant to be with?

His answer came in the form of a gut-wrenching realization. It manifested in the frantic voice of Diana—the woman he believed he loved, piercing through the haze of his thoughts by yelling, “Sylus, step back!”

“No!” he shouted, his black-red mist swirling to intercept the bullet.

But his efforts came too late. The bullet had already been set in motion, and it tore through the side of your head. 

It penetrated your skull with a cruel precision, not just once but twice. And the warmth of your blood seeped through his fingers as he caught your head before you fell onto the floor. 

Sylus’s mind raced with the enormity of what had just happened. His face grew ashen as he looked at your bloodied head and lifeless eyes, a wave of acid welling up his chest until he couldn’t breath. But the reason for his suffocation was because of his own guilt and grief. It was at the force of a sledgehammer when he was hit with the admission that he had always been in love with you. All along, despite your tangled mess, it was you who had captured his heart in this world.

His chest tightened, his breaths coming in ragged, broken bursts, while he held you close in his arms. And your last three words, your very last words of “I… love… you…” as you stared despairingly at him was icing on this bitter cake. 

No… no! 

He couldn’t fucking accept it. He was losing his mind, he was going insane. He was plunging into madness. Utter hysteria. “Y/N, please,” he begged, his voice breaking as your eyes, once full of life and light, were now glazed over with the sheen of death. “Don’t leave. No, I can’t let this happen!” For the first time in a long time, he once again felt hot tears leaving his eyes. It was an emotion so rare it only ever showed toward the people he deeply cared about. “I love you too,” he struggled to say. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said back there.”

Sylus held you close, disregarding the blood staining his clothes while he was consumed by agony and regret. He had driven you to this, pushed you away, and then drawn you back into his orbit only to lose you forever. 

Though he may have conquered your heart, in doing so, he had only destroyed the both of you. The memory of your love and the warmth of your touch would haunt him for the rest of his days. And as he held your lifeless body, he knew that he would never be whole again.

But it shouldn’t be too late. No, it shouldn’t! He didn’t know if it was the hysteria or adrenaline kicking into him, but he had thought of an idea—no matter how immoral—that would return you back to him. He just couldn’t weigh which strong emotion he had to deal with first; should he grab the gun and shoot Diana out of anger? Or should he ignore her presence entirely and just focus on you?

Sylus chose to proceed with the latter as he carried you through the corridors of the base, his steps heavy with guilt and his shirt drenched in blood as you remained unconscious in his arms. The hunter girl had followed him in his spiritless steps, her eyes wide with confusion over his anguish.

“Sylus, why are you doing this?!” she demanded, grabbing his arm to halt his progress. “She would’ve killed you. That girl’s a traitor!”

Although he stopped in his tracks, he couldn’t really return her gaze. His eyes could only look at your lifeless ones. “That girl you shot in the head,” he spoke low and in despair, “is my woman.” 

Diana was horrified. “But… but you never said—” Before she could finish, the twins intervened, holding her back from pursuing Sylus further. “What about me?”

He had already turned away. “I’ll fulfill my promise to protect you from afar, but this is where our paths part. Do not come near me again.”

~~

Sylus stood over your unconscious body, his eyes bloodshot and tears-streaked, while his heart pounded with a mix of grief and desperation. He had summoned Philip and the finest surgeons he knew to his hideout, where you lay in a medical bed, exposed and vulnerable, as if you were a subject in a desperate experiment.

Philip arrived with a grim expression, his eyes scanning the scene with both skepticism and professional detachment. Sylus could barely contain his desperation as he demanded, “Do everything you can to save her. Even if it means infusing a high-grade protocore in her brain.” After all, he had plenty of that. Sylus had all the resources, protocores of the highest grade, each with their own purpose and capabilities.

Yet Philip hesitated, his face contorting with concern. “Mr. Sylus, you know I can’t do this. She’s gone. The best thing to do is accept—”

That was when Sylus’s composure cracked. He kicked the nearby chair out of rage, tears streaming down his face as he begged, “You’ve done it before. Do it again! Please, I need her to live!”

The sight of Sylus, usually so imposing and dominant, breaking down in front of him was shocking. Philip felt a pang of sympathy toward the Onychinus boss who was willing to do everything for a woman who was already dead. His hands trembled as he spoke, “I-I can try. But I’m warning you, Mr. Sylus… even if she survives this, there’s zero chance her memories will be the same. They may even become altered, and it will be out of our control.”

Sylus’s gaze never left you. “I don’t mind. Just do it.”

~~

Weeks later, Sylus found himself in a secluded alleyway, meeting with a deepspace hunter who was also an enemy of his from another planet. Of course, the atmosphere was tense as both men stood in front of each other, eye-to-eye, carrying a defensive stance from one another. 

They were never friends. But that day, they weren’t enemies either. 

“How’s she?” Xavier broke the silence first. 

Sylus answered with a low voice. “She hasn’t woken up, but she’s stable.”

“Why’d you ask to meet?”

“I want you to look after her,” the Onychinus leader began, his voice steady but carrying an undertone of desperation, “Speak to the Association about taking Y/N back and forgiving her for her betrayal. In return, I’ll step away from Diana’s life. She’s all yours. I just want Y/N to return to her normal life.”

Xavier’s expression was serious. “You’re forgetting you still have a bounty on your head.”

“And you’re forgetting you and your backtrackers destroyed the planet where I was living,” he replied in equal disdain, but only enough to trap Xavier into a wall of guilt and obligation.

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Lumiere—or, in his current form, the deepspace hunter, Xavier. “The HIS will be easy to convince. But what if she wakes up and wants to go back to the N109 Zone?”

Sylus felt a tug of deep sadness pulling at his heart. “She won’t. Her memories of me are gone for good.” 

~~

If this was his karma for hurting you, then it was definitely the worst kind. 

Sylus maintained a distant watch over you after you returned to Linkon, observing from afar as you rejoined your life with the support of the Hunter’s Association and former colleagues. Each day, he sent Mephisto to monitor your whereabouts, carefully tracking your interactions and daily activities. The mechanical crow often returned with glimpses of your life, which Sylus scrutinized with intense focus as if he were watching a movie. Each glimpse offered him a sense of relief, happiness even, at knowing how easy you were settling back into your old life. 

You had been officially dismissed from the Hunter’s Association due to a medical condition that rendered you unfit for duty, but they continued to cover your pension and provided free lodging—likely thanks to Xavier’s persuasive influence over the Association. The official story was that you had been sent on a dangerous mission where a Wanderer had placed you in a life-threatening predicament. The narrative praised your honor and dedication to the end. There was no mention of Sylus, Onychinus, or the N109 Zone. No hint of the life you had once led or the truth behind your memory erasure. 

Yet, in a bitter twist of irony, perhaps the story you were told may not actually be farther from the truth.

After all, Sylus was the dangerous monster that sent you to that life-and-death situation.

But at least now, you were well cared for. So much so that Sylus fought to contain his jealousy whenever Mephisto’s eyes relayed visions of you sharing lunch with a physician named Dr. Zayne. He struggled to mask his irritation as he saw the man drape an arm around your shoulders while guiding you out of the hospital or wrapping a scarf around your neck to keep you warm. He would often even drive you home and send you gifts that were masked as tokens of “recovery.”

Bullshit.

Sylus clenched his fist, his thoughts of jealousy consuming him. My girl, he thought in despair, my beautiful girl is cherished by other men, while he remained imprisoned in the desolate shadows of the N109 Zone, longing for you.

Eventually, Sylus felt an overwhelming urge to see you in person. After discovering that you had taken a job at a café in Bloomshore District, he convinced himself that observing you from a distance wouldn’t cause harm. He just wanted to be near you, to ensure your safety, and to protect you from any potential threats.

As he sat on a nearby bench, Luke joined him with a comment. “Boss, you said we needed to disappear from her life.”

Kieran, taking a seat on Sylus’s other side, added, “Do you think she’d recognize us if we walked into that café? If she doesn’t, I’ll give her a hard time with my orders ‘til she remembers us!”

“Ha ha! Let’s do that!” 

“Boss, let’s go!” 

“Leave her be.” Sylus took a deep breath, adjusting his sunglasses and setting aside his newspaper—part of his disguise—as he watched you through the café window. He noticed the subtle traces of familiarity in your actions, but the connections that once bound you were now distant memories. “...I’m just here to make sure no one’s bothering her.”

The truth was, he wrestled with his emotions each time he visited the café you were working at. He wanted to approach you, to speak to you, but he hesitated each time because of the fear of rejection and the pain of seeing you not remember him holding him back. There were so many what-ifs in his head that it drove him insane to think about. 

Because if anything, what if you were already seeing someone else? What if you were already in a relationship with that scumbag doctor from the Akso Hospital? 

It was petty jealousy that drove Sylus into stepping into the café. And the first time your eyes met since you resurrected, his heart initially froze, then raced uncontrollably. His heart swelled with hope as you looked up at him, but it was quickly replaced by the lack of recognition in your eyes the moment you spoke from the counter. 

“Hi. What can I get you?” you asked, treating him no differently than any other customer. 

Sylus was caught off-guard, but he knew he had to play the part. “I, uh, I’ll get an Americano. Large.” 

“Alright, sir. And your name, please?” you asked, following your routine without any real interest in the man before you. 

But in a way, this was a relief for Sylus. It confirmed that the protocore embedded in your head was functioning as intended, and that any dark memories from the past had been completely erased, even if it meant he was no longer part of your life. 

“Skye,” he said with a soft smile. “That’s my name.”

~~

There wasn’t a single day Sylus missed visiting the café. 

At first, he worried that his constant presence might seem odd, or that you might think of him as a stalker. But as the days passed, seeing you became an essential part of his routine. A day without catching a glimpse of you felt incomplete, almost maddening. Seeing you was like a drug he couldn’t get enough of.

Initially, you found his regular visits a bit strange, but gradually, the small interactions between you two evolved. Sylus began to appear at the café just when you needed him most—whether it was fixing a broken coffee machine, addressing rude customers, or simply offering a helping hand. These acts of kindness somehow transformed your view of him. What started as a customer-service relationship slowly became more personable, and in recent days, you often greeted him warmly and smiled whenever he walked in. If only you knew how badly it warmed his heart that he got to do things for you without making him feel like he was intruding in your life.

And to be honest, Sylus even felt like he might be—as Luke termed it—foolishly ”crushing” on you. 

“Who knew our boss-man could be a hopeless romantic~?”

There was a time when he visited the café, only to find out from your manager that you called in sick from work. Sylus knew where you lived, but going to your place uninvited was a different story. He had to put some boundaries no matter how worried he was for you. But that was when Mephisto became useful; the mechanical crow would simply fly off to your place and observe you from outside. Then, an idea to drop a box of medicines and chocolates at your balcony was something he had thought of at the last minute. 

Back in the N109 Zone, Sylus anxiously looked at his crow. “Are you sure she didn’t see you?” 

“Caw! Caw!” 

“Did she eat the chocolates?” he asked, exhaling a deep breath he didn’t think he was holding.

“Caw! Caw! Caaaw!” Mephisto responded, fluttering its wings as if to reassure him.

~~

And then, that day happened. 

The day Sylus finally gathered the courage to ask you out, fate had other plans. And what began as a simple gesture to offer you a ride home during a stormy night quickly escalated into something far more intense.

Because one moment, he was offering you a ride. The next, he found himself in your bed, having the most passionate sex he had ever had with someone. He wasn’t even sure if he could call it that, because it felt more like he was making love to you, even if to you, he was probably just an attractive guy you unexpectedly hooked up with. 

So, he had to make himself known. He had to hear his real name leaving your lips. “Sylus,” he breathed into your ear, hands tracing your curves, “Call me Sylus, kitten.” 

That night, he was an insatiable man who could only be satisfied by his woman. 

When he was buried far too deep inside you, he enjoyed the sight of ecstasy on your face and lavished at the sounds of your titillating moans with his every thrust. Not only did he miss the feeling of your walls tightening around his shaft, he also remembered how badly you used to want him to cum inside you. 

And so, he did just that. At his climax, he released hot spurts of seed into your womb, fulfilling a wish from the past that he used to deprive you of. 

But as the night progressed and the heat of the moment faded, the conversation shifted to a more profound and emotional terrain. Sylus wrestled with the urge to reveal the truth about his true identity—every painful detail and the secrets he kept from you. Yet, he knew that doing so would only complicate matters further and risk causing you more pain. The idea of hurting you again, after such a meaningful connection, was unbearable to him, especially now that you were still fragile as glass, ready to shatter at any moment. 

“Why do I get the feeling that I was the one who experienced a one-sided love before?” 

“No, you were loved. You were very loved. There was no one else,” he pressed, forcing you to believe the narrative with his rueful eyes staring back at you. “I was the one who wasn’t worthy of you… But I’d like to try and win your heart again this time. If you allow it.” 

“Sylus… I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry for not recognizing you before. I just… I lost a chunk of my memories, and I don’t know if it’s been altered or what, but…” He caressed your back as you took a deep breath. “I’ll try to remember, okay?”

“Please don’t.” He shook his head, crestfallen as he thought of the past that was rightfully erased. “And there’s no need for apologies, sweetie. There wasn’t anything you did wrong.” 

~~

Your relationship with Sylus remained unclear since that night. And it seemed as though the roles had reversed—now he was the one left wondering where he stood in your life. Because on the surface, it did seem like you were willing to work on building a relationship with him again, but every encounter you two had were always physical rather than emotional. 

Sylus found himself at your apartment frequently, three or more times a week, engaging in intense, passionate encounters. He had lost track of how many times you two could do it in a single night, exploring every possible position, in every corner of your home. He had tried his hardest to make you feel like he was the only man who was more familiar with every inch of your body than anyone else. Yet, despite the physical closeness, he sensed that the emotional barriers between you remained intact.

No matter how deeply intertwined your bodies became, the walls around your heart remained firmly in place, and Sylus knew that there was a part of you he still couldn’t reach.

That, and the fact that he was still seeing you interact a little too closely with that doctor from Akso. 

It somehow didn’t surprise you when Sylus’s car showed up outside the hospital to pick you up, and you got on with a guarded look. 

“How’s it for my kitten today?” Sylus asked as he secured your seatbelt, his lips brushing against yours in a quick peck. “You didn’t mention you’d be at the hospital.”

You shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his gaze. “Oh, I just... didn’t think I needed to inform you of my whereabouts.”

Dammit. He knew you weren’t officially together, but it hurt more than he cared to admit. And it didn’t help that Sylus’s pride couldn’t naturally take it, so he probed more. “That doctor. He’s not your neurologist, is he? It seems a little inappropriate for him to always be around you like that.”

“Well, I’ve known Zayne for a long time,” you merely replied, eyes focused on the view outside rather than the driver of the car. “I’d also appreciate it if you'd be less territorial over me, Sylus. I know you said we have a history together, but I don’t remember a thing, so… I hope you won’t rush me.” 

The Sylus you knew back then would have been enraged. Who were you to order him around? Who were you to tell him what he should and shouldn’t do over someone he rightfully owned? But he was a changed man now, and it was all because of you. You were the beauty that tamed him into a powerless beast.

“I understand,” Sylus replied, swallowing his pride as his hands tightened around the steering wheel, focusing on the road ahead. “I apologize.”

He heard you sigh beside him, and a part of him wondered if it was out of sympathy. But before he could dwell on it, you spoke up, your tone more serious. “I was at the hospital today because I had a pregnancy scare.”

Sylus hit the brakes at the red light a bit too abruptly, his heart racing in excitement. “Are you?”

“No, thank God,” you breathed out in relief. “But... can you please stop doing it inside? I really don’t like it. It’s not smart for me to get pregnant by a man I barely know.”

His chest tightened in a way he couldn’t describe. The old you nearly begged him for a baby so he could be yours forever, but he was aware that this version of you right now was not the same. It never would be, and that was the price he had to pay for love. 

“I won’t do it again.” Once again, swallowing his pride. “I’m sorry.” 

You still invited him to sleep at your apartment that night, and your reason being to work on the memories of him you had lost. Time and time again did Sylus tell you it was better you didn’t remember them, but he could also understand your dilemma when you told him that you always felt like a piece of you was missing ever since that “accident”. 

“And this ugly scar on my temple,” you pointed it out, settling into your side of the bed. “What kind of Wanderer did I fight for me to get a traumatic brain injury?”

Sylus placed a tender kiss on your scar. “Perhaps it was a heartless monster more terrifying than a Wanderer.” 

Like me. 

“Oh, well.” You pulled the sheets over your body, suggesting you two would have no action tonight. “Good night, Sylus.” 

“...Sleep tight, kitten.” 

You didn��t need to worry, though, because he wouldn’t have touched you even if you had explicitly asked him to. After hearing your words that afternoon—about not wanting to get pregnant by him and asking him to stop being so territorial—Sylus felt the need to pull back and be more cautious in his actions toward you. Your words had cut deep, but he understood you were only protecting yourself from a man who was, essentially, still a stranger to you.

And despite the sting, he had promised himself that he would be patient for the only woman he cared about.

~~

However, that same night was a different story. 

No, it was actually way past midnight when Sylus woke up from an agonizing scream that pierced the silence of the night, chilling him to the bone. Instinctively, his hand reached out to the side of the bed where you should have been, but the sheets were cold and empty. And then panic gripped him, forcing him to leap out of bed, his mind racing with a single horrifying thought: the protocore.

He darted outside of your bedroom and deeper into your apartment space, his eyes scanning every shadow, every corner. The image of you, eyes wild and frenzied, ravaged by the effects of the protocore, haunted him.

What if it’s happening now? What if I lose her for good?

The horrifying thought of the protocore making you berserk like a wild Wanderer was always there.

His heart nearly stopped when he saw you on the kitchen floor, curled up, your body wracked with sobs. Relief washed over him to have found you, but it was fleeting, replaced by a deeper, more insidious fear. He tried to approach you cautiously, his voice soft as he placed his hands on your shoulders, “Sweetie, are you okay?”

You flinched at his touch, and when you turned to face him, the sight made his blood run cold. Your eyes, usually so warm, were now wide and filled with tears—tears of terror, of anger. And in your trembling hand, you held a knife, its blade gleaming in the low light as you pointed it directly at his throat.

“Don’t come any closer!” you cried, your voice breaking at every word. Sylus froze, his breath catching in his throat as your sudden hostility surprised him. The knife’s tip hovered dangerously close to his skin, but it wasn’t the threat of violence that shook him—it was the raw, unfiltered pain in your eyes.

“Kitten, let’s talk about it calmly.” His voice was laced with cautiousness. 

“Stop calling me that!” You swallowed hard, your grip on the knife tightening. “You! I had a nightmare... about you. But it felt real, like a memory. You were torturing me at your base, laughing... and then, you shot me in the head.”

Sylus’s heart dropped into his stomach at hearing your altered memory. He felt his soul tear apart at the edges as he stared into your tear-streaked face. “It was just a dream. It wasn’t real, kitten.”

But you weren’t listening. “But is it also not real? That you…” You uttered each word with a threatening voice, “are the boss of Onychinus?”

The question hit him like a physical blow. He opened his mouth to answer, but the words were stuck in his throat and refused to form. He was trapped. The situation felt like a dead end—he could deny that your dream was a real memory, but admitting he was the leader of Onychinus would only validate that lie.

His silence alone was an answer to you. And your expression crumbled into one of betrayal at that. “You lied to me! You’ve been lying to me this whole time. How am I supposed to believe anything you say now?”

The anger in your voice enforced the stillness of Sylus’s breath. He knew he had no saving grace from this situation, but still, he took a step closer, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “Y/N, I never wanted to hurt you—”

“Get out!” you screamed, the knife shaking in your hand. The sight of you so broken, so shattered, tore him apart. “Get the hell out of my sight! I don’t wanna see you ever again, you monster!”

But Sylus couldn’t leave—not like this, not when you were hurting because of him. So in his desperation, he lunged forward, grabbed your wrist, and forced the knife into his own chest. The sharp pain radiated through him as he plunged the blade in and stabbed himself repeatedly, his face twisted in agony, but not from the physical pain. This was nothing compared to the torment of knowing he was the source of your suffering. Again. 

“Even if I can’t die,” he choked out, his voice ragged as he tried to absorb the stinging ache in his chest, “I’ll take all of this pain away from you.”

His own blood soaked his fingers, staining your hands as he released his grip on the knife. It fell on the floor as he stepped back, his heart aching more than his wounds ever could, but those wounds easily healed. The pain of losing you again, on the other hand, would never heal.

He looked at you one last time, seeing his monstrous reflection from your frightened eyes, before turning away. Sylus walked out of the apartment with heavy steps, feeling his soul crushed from your antagonism. He knew he had lost you—perhaps forever—and the realization was more than he could bear.

~~

A haze of cigarette smoke and the clink of glasses filled the air of the bar. Sylus sat alone at the counter, his new glass of whiskey untouched as he stared blankly into the amber liquid. The sting of alcohol was nothing compared to the numbness that had settled in his heart after that agonizing night with you. Every swallow of the hard liquor was a desperate attempt to drown out the torment of recent events, but the pain lingered, and it was damn persistent and unforgiving.

As he poured himself another drink, the muffled sounds of conversation around him blended into a dull roar. That was until a familiar voice cut through the haze—someone he wished he hadn’t come across.

“Sylus?” 

He looked up, squinting against the dim light, to see Diana standing before him. He hadn’t seen him for the past year or so. And surely, her presence was unexpected, but he felt a sudden tinge of irritation at the sight of her. While her, she looked both apprehensive and determined, as if she had just made a hard decision to confront him. 

“H-How have you been?” she asked the question as a conversation starter, but Sylus could see the faint hint of unease in her eyes.

He then straightened up, and his posture became stiff and defensive. “I told you it’s not wise for us to cross paths,” he said curtly, his voice slurred from the alcohol but still holding a note of finality. He didn’t want to engage, not with her, not tonight.

On the one hand, Diana’s eyes flickered with an emotion he couldn’t quite place—regret, perhaps. “I… I wanted to say sorry for what happened with Y/N. I didn’t realize how much she meant to you. Xavier… told me everything. About you and her.”

The apology was genuine, but the mention of your name was a fresh wound, and he felt the anger and sadness surge again, bubbling beneath his carefully maintained exterior. He wanted to lash out, to blame her for everything, but he swallowed the words, knowing it wouldn’t change a thing. In the end, this was all his doing and he couldn’t point fingers over the mess that he alone had created.

Sylus tried to stand up, the room spinning slightly as he steadied himself. “I’m leaving.”

But Diana stepped closer, her hand reaching out as if to stop him. He simply brushed past her, his movements unsteady but undeniably distancing from her. The desire to remain composed was slipping away, replaced by the harsh reality he faced every day since you were taken from him.

He made his way to the exit, pushing through the bar’s heavy door with a forceful shove. Sylus’s next move was to lean against the wall outside as the cool winter breeze blew on his face. 

“Boss.” Kieran’s voice held a note of concern as he and his twin steadied Sylus by wrapping his arms around their shoulders. “We’ll take you home.”

Luke glanced at his brother with a sad glint in his eyes before leading Sylus toward the car. “Maybe it’s time to let her go, boss.”

~~

February nights were the coldest. And it was supposedly the day for lovers, too. 

Unlike the couples that littered the riverside, Sylus stood alone, his breath forming small clouds in the frigid air. His dark coat offered little protection against the biting wind, but he stayed committed, his gaze fixed on the empty expanse before him. Four hours had passed since he had sent you the message, and each minute he stood there waiting for you felt like an eternity. The biting cold gnawed at him, but he was determined to wait even if he’d end up getting frostbite. It was the least he could do.

The frozen river’s surface glistened with a thousand points of light as the moon cast its silver glow over the landscape. And for the next thirty minutes that passed, he was still alone. 

She won’t be coming, said the voice in his head. Give up. 

As he prepared to leave, the ache of disappointment settled in his chest, and his heart skipped a beat as he recognized you, standing cautiously across him, your eyes wide and filled with both curiosity and trepidation. The sight of you, despite waiting in the cold for hours, instantly warmed his freezing body. 

“Thank you for coming.” He took a deep breath, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke. “I won’t keep you long.” 

You maintained your distance, wary of his next move. “Why did you want to meet?” 

With a slow, deliberate motion, he began to peel the scarf from around your neck, and he felt a prick in his heart seeing you flinch. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He waited until you allowed him to proceed, his fingers brushing against your skin in a touch that was both gentle and reverent. You looked at him with confusion, the chilly air fought by the warmth of your breath. Sylus was just carefully replacing the scarf with the necklace he had given you long ago, the red Beryl crystal catching the light and sending soft, radiant glimmers into the night. 

Do you even recognize it? 

“I’m just returning a gift, kitten.”

As he fastened the clasp behind your neck, he pressed a tender kiss to the nape of your neck, his lips lingering for a moment before he straightened. That small gesture of his was actually carried by the depth of his affection and regret. And, if you may, it was his silent apology for all that he did to you.

“Sylus…” 

His red eyes shimmered, intensified by the bloodshot whites. Sylus stared at your face with a mixture of love and ruefulness clouding his expression. He was looking at you like you were the most precious thing in the world. And he struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to spill, with his voice breaking as he feathered the snowflakes that rested on your hair. “Take care of yourself. Always lock your doors at night and stay warm.” He took the scarf Zayne gave you, and pulled out a new one from his coat. It was a silly scarf with kitten prints all over it, that he soon carefully wrapped around your face and neck. “Wear that whenever you can.” 

Your own eyes were large and rimmed with tears as though you were also hurting inside. “Why are you saying this?” you asked, keeping the weakness inside. “You sound like you’re saying goodbye.” 

Sylus’s gaze was suddenly directed back to the river, but it was only because he had to avoid looking at your eyes or he would lose it. “The Association managed to track me here in Linkon and they’re still after me. I just managed to escape, but I can’t stay here,” he explained calmly, “I only came back to this city because of you… But now, I have to disappear, so don’t worry about having me around. I won’t bother you anymore.”

Your eyes widened in shock, and the tears that had been pooling your eyes finally spilled over. “Are you crazy?” you cried, seemingly unable to comprehend the words he was spewing. “You’re leaving me?”

Sylus’s heart broke at the sight of your tears, but he had to restrain any weakness by giving in. Instead, he reached out, and his hand trembled as he wiped a tear from your cheek. “I love you, Y/N.” He wanted to be the first one to say it this time. “Even if you regain all your memories of me—good or bad—I want you to know that I regret every pain I caused you. Even if you hate me, I’ll still love you. Today, tomorrow, and in our next lives.”

Sylus took one last, lingering look at you, his eyes filled with a sorrowful haze that nearly blinded his vision. He turned slowly, walking away from the river’s edge, with each step causing distance from the love he was leaving behind.

And you, you stood there, the necklace around your neck feeling heavy as you watched him disappear into the night. A surge of emotion overwhelmed you, and without thinking, you sprinted towards him. You took quick, long strides just to reach him, pulling him into a tight embrace, and crashing your lips against his in a bittersweet kiss.

Both of you cried as the kiss deepened, and you were encasing each other’s lips in a tight lock. The intensity of your emotions poured out in this poignant, intimate moment. And frankly, Sylus had never been this emotional. No one had ever seen this fragile side of him that he had always kept hidden. After all, what dominant, cruel boss of Onychinus would spill tears over a woman?

But they wouldn’t understand it. They never would. 

When you finally pulled away, your eyes were red and swollen from tears. “Be careful,” you sniffled, barely unable to catch the breath you needed for the next. “Keep in touch if you can. And when I’m ready, I’ll find you.”

Sylus’s eyes were also filled with tears, but he managed a forlorn smile as he nodded. He reached out to brush a strand of hair from your face, his touch gentle despite the heaviness of the moment. “I’ll wait,” he promised softly, his voice breaking slightly. “I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”

“Until we meet again.”

As he stepped back, the distance between you seemed impossibly vast, but the promise in your eyes and the love in his heart made the separation bearable, if only just. And when Sylus turned away, his heart was heavy but full of the hope that one day, you would find each other again. That one day, this distant love would become a cherished memory that you would look back on as you grow old and wrinkled, yet insurmountably happy and content with the life you had lived. With or without him.

PREVIOUS PART

[covid-safer-hotties]

To My Unmasked Friend in the Fifth Year of COVID - By: Anna Holmes - Published Aug 17, 2024

I’m going to be honest with you, because I love you, and you deserve nothing but honesty. I’m going to try really hard not to be angry while I do it, but it’s probably going to slip out every now and again. But I need you to hear me out, all right?

By now, we’ve talked about my reality. My personal struggle with long COVID, the isolation I live in, why I am so angry all the time.

But let’s talk about you. You just went to a big convention overseas. You got on a plane, got a little gussied up, talked shop with some insiders, geeked out over awards and merch, ate, drank, were merry, left with your social cup and your heart full.

You’re a good person. We wouldn’t be friends otherwise! You’d never dream of tripping a person with a red and white cane, using the r-word, excluding a disabled person from an event because of something they can’t help.

You might even acknowledge that the COVID response from governments and organizations has been ableist and inadequate.

But you didn’t wear a mask.

For whatever reason — you wanted to show off your makeup, it makes you itchy, you believed the messaging that COVID is endemic (what does that actually mean?), you just don’t think about it anymore — you made a choice that actively excludes people like me from participating not only in an event like a convention, but society at large. And yes, it is a choice. Every time you step out into the world without a mask on your face, you have made a decision that your very good reason, whatever it is, supersedes the right of disabled and at-risk people to exist safely in your orbit.

Well, hold on, you say. It’s not any one individual’s fault, it’s the inadequate public health messaging. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying?

And I have. In the past, I have talked about how it is unconscionable that health authorities have thrown their hands up and rescinded guidance that would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prolonged a pandemic that, to hear them tell it, has been bested. It hasn’t. Worst of all, the financial motivation that we all know is driving this premature victory lap isn’t even being fulfilled. Long COVID and other post-COVID complications are costing the global economy one trillion a year. Meanwhile, article after article handwrings about nobody wanting to work anymore, about the sagging college application scene, about declines in military enlistment, and the strain on our healthcare systems.

All of this is very much the fault of our leaders, who have decided the political ramifications of “normalcy” are more important than the health and lives of the 400 million people living with long COVID across the globe, the immunocompromised folks who are increasingly being shut out of every conceivable public space, and the disabled community which has been screaming into the wind about our marginalization since before the virus even hit US soil.

But I want to be very clear. You are helping them do this.

The reality is that we have been living in this deeply flawed landscape of “personal choice”, and you’ve made yours. You’ve opted not to look into how densely clustered cases are. You’ve stopped listening to your friends who have informed themselves. You’ve given yourself permission to put COVID on the back burner. You’ve earned it, right? Four and a half years of trauma?

COVID doesn’t care if you’re tired of being scared or careful or considerate. COVID is not something you can personally overcome by being smart or virtuous or brave. It is a virus which only seeks to infect and replicate, and it is getting very good at those things. While you’ve looked away, my community has been scrambling to avoid variants that skirt immunity and don’t show up on rapid tests until day five-seven. The constant battle has changed since you were last in it. It’s not sufficient anymore to get your shots and test before a big event. You could well be asymptomatic and infectious, or have symptoms and convinced yourself it can’t be COVID because that second line hasn’t popped up.

You have come to the conclusion sometime between 2022 and now that you just have to decide what level of risk you’re comfortable with and live with it. The problem with that is scale. It’s you and everybody else doing that, and a lot of people have decided they are comfortable with a high level of risk. Despite what you’ve been told, you’re not just making that decision for yourself. You are making it for every person you come in contact with.

Think back to the early tense days of 2020. We were told to select a “bubble.” Those people would be our social lifelines, and through those, we could control our exposure.

My bubble is quite small. It includes my husband, my sister, and two friends I see relatively frequently.

My husband goes to work via the bus, and to the grocery store. Every person he comes in contact with there has the potential to infect him, and then he has the potential to pass it along to me. He mitigates this by wearing a well-fitted respirator at all times.

My sister goes to work at a busy public place. She masks when public facing and takes it off in the back office. She goes to restaurants, bars, concerts, hangs out with friends and her own partner unmasked. About 75% of her interactions have the heightened potential to infect her, which she might then bring into my house when she visits me.

My friends do not mask anywhere except my house when asked. They attend concerts, shows, cons, bars.

Obviously, I am in control of whether I wear a mask around these people. And as we approach one million new cases a day, I will be around everyone but my husband. But science is clear: reciprocal masking is more effective at infection control than a single person masking — especially when that single person is trying to protect themselves, not others.

This is settled science. We’ve known this since 2020. It says clearly that the choice you make is not personal- it has implications for everyone you come in contact with.

And being clear — if I could, I’d make everyone wear a mask for their own health. I don’t want people suffering with what I have. But you’ve been told this lie that you can take your risks for yourself, so you feel comfortable going out without a mask. You’ve been told this lie that it’s possible to completely recover from a COVID infection, so you assume that even if you do catch it, that’s what’ll happen to you, despite evidence showing that every body is indelibly changed by an infection, and that risk only grows with each subsequent infection.

And the greatest lie of all — that only the sick or elderly have anything to fear from COVID — has given you unfounded confidence in your own “good” genes or immune system or fitness. You can get long COVID even if you’re in peak form — in fact, may even be more likely to be hit hard.

So you have decided, individually and collectively, that only the sick or elderly should have to take precautions, and you freewheel through life, only to get surprised and dismayed when you bump into COVID in the wild. It’s back, people declare every summer or winter, as though it ever left.

But I want you to really think about the implications of your choice. Besides yourself. Because let’s be honest here, that’s who you’ve been thinking about, right? Your risk. Your comfort. Never mind your bubble, never mind the bubble of everyone you come into contact with, never mind the people like me who are literally hiding from people like you.

You’re not masking at the doctor’s office. You’re not masking at the airport. You’re not masking at the giant superspreader you just attended, and you’re not masking in the bars and restaurants where we know the virus flourishes. And then you’re bringing that exposure back to your family and friends. Back to the grocery store, where you run across people like my husband, shopping for someone who is unsafe to leave the house, or your elderly neighbors, or an immunocompromised employee.

You’re a good person, or you like to think of yourself that way. That’s why when you’re asked to mask, you dismiss it out of hand — because that changed behavior implies that you’ve been doing something wrong.

And my friend, I’m telling this because I love you: you have been. You might have been doing that on faulty information, but be honest with yourself and with me — you’ve heard me begging people to take this seriously. You’ve seen the information I’ve been sharing. You have had the opportunity to seek out the correct information all along, and you have chosen not to.

It isn’t too late to change your view of the risk you’re imposing on the people around you. It’s not too late to push public health to become more effective. It’s not too late to act in solidarity and be the inclusive person you think you are. It’s not too late to take care of yourself.

Ultimately, that’s what I have been screaming myself hoarse about. I don’t want you to end up with what I have. I don’t want you to inadvertently impose that on someone else. And yes, I’ve been angry, because you’ve been advertising your absolute lack of concern with group shots of your naked faces on social media. It doesn’t seem to bother you that I am stuck at home like it’s 2020, except for doctors’ appointments that I literally have to risk my life to go to. You’ve told yourself that it’s not your problem, because only the sick and elderly have to take precautions.

You know better. You can do better. For your community, yourself, and me, do better.

Please. I love you.

Anna

PS. If you’re feeling upset and embarrassed right now, the best thing you can do is take action. Get yourself good masks (the surgicals and cloth ones don’t cut it anymore), donate to mask blocs so others can access good masks, write to your representatives and the President, comment on upcoming CDC guidance, schedule yourself a booster, and talk to your loved ones about doing better, too. The only way we get out of this is with community care. So care.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Harpercollins wants authors to sign away AI training rights

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/18/rights-without-power/#careful-what-you-wish-for

Rights don't give you power. People with power can claim rights. Giving a "right" to someone powerless just transfers it to someone more powerful than them. Nowhere is this more visible than in copyright fights, where creative workers are given new rights that are immediately hoovered up by their bosses.

It's not clear whether copyright gives anyone the right to control whether their work is used to train an AI model. It's very common for people (including high ranking officials in entertainment companies, and practicing lawyers who don't practice IP law) to overestimate their understanding of copyright in general, and their knowledge of fair use in particular.

Here's a hint: any time someone says "X can never be fair use," they are wrong and don't know what they're talking about (same goes for "X is always fair use"). Likewise, anyone who says, "Fair use is assessed solely by considering the 'four factors.'" That is your iron-clad sign that the speaker does not understand fair use:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/27/nuke-first/#ask-questions-never

But let's say for the sake of argument that training a model on someone's work is a copyright violation, and so training is a licensable activity, and AI companies must get permission from rightsholders before they use their copyrighted works to train a model.

Even if that's not how copyright works today, it's how things could work. No one came down off a mountain with two stone tablets bearing the text of 17 USC chiseled in very, very tiny writing. We totally overhauled copyright in 1976, and again in 1998. There've been several smaller alterations since.

We could easily write a new law that requires licensing for AI training, and it's not hard to imagine that happening, given the current confluence of interests among creative workers (who are worried about AI pitchmen's proclaimed intention to destroy their livelihoods) and entertainment companies (who are suing many AI companies).

Creative workers are an essential element of that coalition. Without those workers as moral standard-bearers, it's hard to imagine the cause getting much traction. No one seriously believes that entertainment execs like Warner CEO David Zaslav actually cares about creative works – this is a guy who happily deletes every copy of an unreleased major film that had superb early notices because it would be worth infinitesimally more as a tax-break than as a work of art:

https://collider.com/coyote-vs-acme-david-zaslav-never-seen/

The activists in this coalition commonly call it "anti AI." But is it? Does David Zaslav – or any of the entertainment execs who are suing AI companies – want to prevent gen AI models from being used in the production of their products? No way – these guys love AI. Zaslav and his fellow movie execs held out against screenwriters demanding control over AI in the writers' room for 148 days, and locked out their actors for another 118 days over the use of AI to replace actors. Studio execs forfeited at least $5 billion in a bid to insist on their right to use AI against workers:

https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2023/12/06/a-deep-dive-into-the-economic-ripples-of-the-hollywood-strike/

Entertainment businesses love the idea of replacing their workers with AI. Now, that doesn't mean that AI can replace workers: just because your boss can be sold an AI to do your job, it doesn't mean that the AI he buys can actually do your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/25/accountability-sinks/#work-harder-not-smarter

So if we get the right to refuse to allow our work to be used to train a model, the "anti AI" coalition will fracture. Workers will (broadly) want to exercise that right to prevent AI models from being trained at all, while our bosses will want to exercise that right to be sure that they're paid for AI training, and that they can steer production of the resulting model to maximize the number of workers than can fire after it's done.

Hypothetically, creative workers could simply say to our bosses, "We will not sell you this right to authorize or refuse AI training that Congress just gave us." But our bosses will then say, "Fine, you're fired. We won't hire you for this movie, or record your album, or publish your book."

Given that there are only five major publishers, four major studios, three major labels, two ad-tech companies and one company that controls the whole ebook and audiobook market, a refusal to deal on the part of a small handful of firms effectively dooms you to obscurity.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our 2022 book Chokepoint Capitalism, giving more rights to a creative worker who has no bargaining power is like giving your bullied schoolkid more lunch money. No matter how much lunch money you give that kid, the bullies will take it and your kid will remain hungry. To get your kid lunch, you have to clear the bullies away from the gate. You need to make a structural change:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Or, put another way: people with power can claim rights. But giving powerless people more rights doesn't make them powerful – it just transfers those rights to the people they bargain against.

Or, put a third way: "just because you're on their side, it doesn't follow that they're on your side" (h/t Teresa Nielsen Hayden):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/19/gander-sauce/#just-because-youre-on-their-side-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-on-your-side

Last month, Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the history of human civilization, started including a copyright notice in its books advising all comers that they would not permit AI training with the material between the covers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/19/gander-sauce/#just-because-youre-on-their-side-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-on-your-side

At the time, people who don't like AI were very excited about this, even though it was – at the utmost – a purely theatrical gesture. After all, if AI training isn't fair use, then you don't need a notice to turn it into a copyright infringement. If AI training is fair use, it remains fair use even if you add some text to the copyright notice.

But far more important was the fact that the less that Penguin Random House pays its authors, the more it can pay its shareholders and executives. PRH didn't say it wouldn't sell the right to train a model to an AI company – they only said that an AI company that wanted to train a model on its books would have to pay PRH first. In other words, just because you're on their side, it doesn't follow that they're on your side.

When I wrote about PRH and its AI warning, I mentioned that I had personally seen one of the big five publishers hold up a book because a creator demanded a clause in their contract saying their work wouldn't be used to train an AI.

There's a good reason you'd want this in your contract; the standard contracting language contains bizarrely overreaching language seeking "rights in all media now know and yet to be devised throughout the universe":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/19/reasonable-agreement/

But the publisher flat-out refused, and the creator fought and fought, and in the end, it became clear that this was a take-it-or-leave-it situation: the publisher would not include a "no AI training" clause in the contract.

One of the big five publishers is Rupert Murdoch's Harpercollins. Murdoch is famously of the opinion that any kind of indexing or archiving of the work he publishes must require a license. He even demanded to be paid to have his newspapers indexed by search engines:

https://www.inquisitr.com/46786/epic-win-news-corp-likely-to-remove-content-from-google

No surprise, then, that Murdoch sued an AI company over training on Newscorp content:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/25/unjust-threat-murdoch-and-artists-align-in-fight-over-ai-content-scraping

But Rupert Murdoch doesn't oppose the material he publishes from being used in AI training, nor is he opposed to the creation and use of models. Murdoch's Harpercollins is now pressuring its authors to sign away their rights to have their works used to train an AI model:

https://bsky.app/profile/kibblesmith.com/post/3laz4ryav3k2w

The deal is not negotiable, and the email demanding that authors opt into it warns that AI might make writers obsolete (remember, even if AI can't do your job, an AI salesman can convince Rupert Murdoch – who is insatiably horny for not paying writers – that an AI is capable of doing your job):

https://www.avclub.com/harpercollins-selling-books-to-ai-language-training

And it's not hard to see why an AI company might want this; after all, if they can lock in an exclusive deal to train a model on Harpercollins' back catalog, their products will exclusively enjoy whatever advantage is to be had in that corpus.

In just a month, we've gone from "publishers won't promise not to train a model on your work" to "publishers are letting an AI company train a model on your work, but will pay you a nonnegotiable pittance for your work." The next step is likely to be, "publishers require you to sign away the right to train a model on your work."

The right to decide who can train a model on your work does you no good unless it comes with the power to exercise that right.

Rather than campaigning for the right to decide who can train a model on our work, we should be campaigning for the power to decide what terms we contract under. The Writers Guild spent 148 days on the picket line, a remarkable show of solidarity.

But the Guild's real achievement was in securing the right to unionize at all – to create a sectoral bargaining unit that could represent all the writers, writing for all the studios. The achievements of our labor forebears, in the teeth of ruthless armed resistance, resulted in the legalization and formalization of unions. Never forget that the unions that exist today were criminal enterprises once upon a time, and the only reason they exist is because people risked prison, violence and murder to organize when doing so was a crime:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/11/rip-jane-mcalevey/#organize

The fights were worth fighting. The screenwriters comprehensively won the right to control AI in the writers' room, because they had power:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

Eva Rinaldi (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rupert_Murdoch_-_Flickr_-_Eva_Rinaldi_Celebrity_and_Live_Music_Photographer.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 5 – The One About the Distorted Phone Screen that Sent Half the Fandom into the Ocean

I had no intention of writing about last week’s phone screen debacle, mainly because I found it obnoxious and a smidge infuriating. Not because I believed Jake to be on the phone screen but because people were SO QUICK TO BELIEVE it was Jake on the phone screen.

Honestly, I didn’t even need to see the “cleaned up” version of the picture because I would have sworn then – and would still swear now – it was Luke on the screen. White guy, dark hair, left hand touching his face (or, as it’s been suggested, removing sunglasses), signaling to me that the person in the photograph was left hand dominant. Add that in with all the information Luke and Nicola have laid out before us over the past three months (and, honestly, probably even before that) and there is no other answer: it’s Luke. The end, right? Nope, not even close. Like I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we’re not allowed to have nice things.

The image comes from a video of Golda giving Nicola her WOTY award. People started taking screen grabs and dropping it into apps that claimed to clean up blurry images.

*Fun fact – I did this once to the picture of Nicola on the boat in Malta. I used three separate apps, in fact, and each time I got this frightening image of Nicola back. Do you remember the scene in Shrek where he picked up a frog and blew it into a balloon for Fiona? The frog’s eyes protruded out and his face was all puckered. That’s what I got back from these apps – a bulging-eyed monstrosity that looked nothing like Nicola. It was froggin’ weird (my Colin-Dad joke of the day), especially since, in the original image, you couldn’t even see her eyes as she appeared to be looking down at her phone.

Okay, back to what I was blabbing about…

People started adjusting the lighting on the screen grab of Nicola’s phone to extreme levels. And, there were even rumors flying around that people had superimposed Jake’s face on to the image and sent it out into the black abyss that is social media. I think I saw six different versions of the image within the first four hours of it dropping on X.

But, guess what, each time, I still saw Luke. Well, I take that back. One time, I swear I saw Johnny Bailey, which, if that had been true, I would have given Nicola a huge round of applause for being so hilariously catty about it all.

My advice, if you want to see the picture, pull it yourself. Go to YouTube, take a screen grab of it, and figure it out on your own. Do not put it through an app and don’t play with the lighting so much that it distorts the image. You may have noticed that I did not repost any of those images here. That was intentional. Form your own opinion about it.

Now that we have that out of the way – the part about me believing it was Luke on the phone screen and me suggesting you form your own opinion about it – I’ll move on to why I decided to write about this topic today.

It was because Luke did something yesterday that piqued my interest.

It wasn’t anything necessarily out of the ordinary. But, it also kind of was.

Simone Ashley posted to her grid yesterday a series of photographs. There’s nothing special here; she’s a beautiful woman putting her lovely image out into this world. It was the last picture in this slide deck that left me intrigued, though. It’s a picture of Simone – but, at the bottom left of the image, is a damn phone screen. Initially, I was a little confused by the image on the phone screen because it appeared to be Simone’s hands but also not Simone’s hands. What it was, is that the angle of the phone made the angle in which the image was depicted slightly different. Why not crop that phone out of it? Or, use a different image? Okay, whatever. I’m not sure I would have thought much of it – except Luke liked the post.

Why would this activate my little grey cells? Because it’s the first post of Simone’s in over a year that he has liked without Nicola also liking it. All throughout 2024, Luke has only liked the posts also liked by Nicola. Now, Nicola could very easily come back and like this post today or tomorrow or a week from now. She does like Simone’s posts frequently and, by Simone’s own words, Nicola and Simone are close. But, remember what I mentioned the other day. It’s the little changes that make people start giving the side eye. When taken collectively, Simone’s post, Luke’s like on the post, and the recent phone screen debacle seem, well, fucking connected in a damn funny way.

Kinda? Maybe?

I swear, I’m becoming one of those people who now plays Six Degrees to Lukola. What have I become?!

But, hey, let’s keep playing this game because, you have to admit, it IS kind of fun to speculate.

On November 10, Netflix UK dropped a post to its grid captioned “ME AND WHO???? [red heart]” The first slide in the deck is of Colin and Penelope’s wedding kiss – the one where Luke had his eyes open – and there is a red heart drawn between their chests (awe, their hearts). The remaining seven slides also include kissing couples but the red heart is drawn around their heads. The Luke and Nicola (like how I used Luke and Nicola, not Colin and Penelope this time?) picture stands out in this deck. It’s the first slide and the red heart is different than the others. And, what about that caption: “ME AND WHO????” Well, it's definitely NOT Nicola and Jake.

Is it a bit too far down the Delulu Rabbit Hole to believe Netflix would be in on a dig about “Who’s on Nicola’s phone screen?”

Perhaps.

But, remember this is also the same parent company that dropped “Nicola and Luke’s Cutest Moments” on August 28 (via Bridgerton Netflix IG), right smack dab in the middle of the Jake Festival Pap Disaster. Do you remember that? The fandom was bouncing all over the place. New festival pictures of Nicola and Jake had dropped the day before. Shondaland had also dropped a “Friends to Lovers” story that seemed oddly like Luke and Nicola. Melissa Dezarate dropped old Luke and Nicola pictures on her IG stories. Then, on August 28, Bridgerton Netflix dropped its “Cutest Moments,” and Melissa Dezarate shared more Luke and Nicola pictures on her IG stories. The “Cutest Moments,” pretty much entirely on its own (the rest was just extra frosting), turned our day right side up again. I salute you, Netflix.

Are we burrowing deeper into the Rabbit Hole? Meh. Let’s keep going.

Also on November 10, we had Dougie posting a mirror / elevator selfie to his grid with the caption, “I know it’s out of focus don’t tell me that.” Maybe he means something, maybe he doesn’t. Any ways, Jake liked this post. Now, I will admit, in the beginning of this Jake Side Story Extravaganza, I wasn’t keen on Dougie. He seemed aggressive on X – especially after those New York pap pictures dropped – but then I realized that his annoyance might be due to the narratives being spread about Jake, i.e., that he was being “hard launched” with Nicola. Recall that within a few hours of the Jake London Pap Disaster, Dougie posted to his stories an image of Jake looking at his phone with the “Mike/Sully Face Swap” meme superimposed over Jake’s face. If you research what this meme means, you’ll find that it is similar to a face-palm reaction or used for “overly ironic situations that leave you confused and perplexed.” Kind of funny, right? You’re welcome to take Dougie however you please, but over the past few weeks, I’ve become rather fond of him. He seems like a mischievous bloke, which is right up my alley.

I always have this feeling that the USS Lukola is surrounded by people who, after the ship hits a rogue wave, help to steer it back on course. The “people” come in the form of Nicola and Luke; cast, crew and friends; interviewers with their old edited-out snippets; and Netflix & Co. I’m sure I’m failing to name someone.

I shall wrap this post up with a quote from Jonathan Van Ness – who, by the way, is one of the most entertainingly funny and intelligent humans to watch. Earlier this week, JVN posted to his IG stories and Tiktok about “bobs.” With JVN, I never really know if he is being serious with what he puts out there or if we’re expected to read between the lines. Regardless, his comment was impactful to me:

“All this shit is just someone on Tiktok decided this was going to be the new name and tried to make that a trend. And that’s cool and that’s great and I love that. I just don’t want y’all getting confused. You know what I’m saying? This is just another variation of a bob.”

Take that as you please.

[gimmick-blog-reviewer]

Gimmick Blog: @nuderater

Gimmick: Rating nudes Gimmick rating: 5/10, could be done well, but is executed poorly. Blog rating: -1/10, I hate you.

Overall rating: 2/10, you disgust me. I think the idea of a nude rating blog could be done well, great even. But I think you are the worst possible execution of the concept that could theoretically maintain an air of objectivity. That said, I don't think you maintain that air. Your lack of feedback on how one could improve their nudes, coupled with your seemingly arbitrary rating provides nothing to the people you are rating and only judges them. You are less than useless, and likely actively harmful. Never once have you rating someone 9 or above, nothing is perfect or even approaching so for you. When you rate someone's nude an 8.4, I imagine them wondering (if they see or care about you at all) what they could have done to get a higher rating. But you don't provide feedback, you don't care, you judge and move on. Only four times have you judged someone's nude under a 5/10, with seemingly no pattern in what you find distasteful. It feels less like there is something you don't like in a nude and more like you want to rate someone low. Finally, you don't take any level of context into consideration. This was the factor that first led to my hate of you. You rated a nude by @virtualgirlafterdark a 5/10, and it responded with "yeah that's fair." You didn't take into account that it's a trans woman, that it might be new to taking nudes, or that its body is still developing thanks to HRT. You gave it a flat 5/10 with no feedback. How do you think it felt after that? Additionally I want to talk about the lowest rating you have ever given. In this post on Oct 27th, you rated (I assume) a woman a solid 2/10 for what is realistically a fairly mediocre nude. But disregarding the nude itself, it's coupled with the caption "ugly and pretty at the same time :)". How do you think a woman who just called herself ugly would feel being described as a 2/10? You thoroughly disgust me and I firmly believe this website would be better without you on it.

There's a defense to be made that the nude rater is rating the quality of the pictures themselves, the composition, the lighting. But objectively well taken images such as this are routinely rated lower than objectively poorly taken images such as this. Additionally, images that feature non "conventionally attractive" aspects in them are often rated significantly lower. Sagging breasts, armpit hair, veiny breasts, are all subjected to lower ratings. It should also be noted that nuderater exclusively rates the nudes of people with more femininely presenting bodies. No amount of calling one's taste in the human body "sophisticated" will seperate you from the fact that you have the opinions of the average pornhub watcher.

All in all I find Nuderater to be a repugnant misogynist who brings nothing to the platform and leaves only hurt feelings.

[leqonsluv3r]

please read❗️

so as you all know, i haven’t been as active on here in the past couple of months.

here is why; it all started when we first moved into our apartment four months or so ago. the first week we moved in we have had issues with our downstairs neighbor. he has made our life a living hell basically and has complained to management about us a number of times. to preface, we have done nothing wrong. we always keep our noise to a minimum and our dogs never really bark unless they’re scared or playing. but that is besides the point, we got a number of complaints and were given a notice to not let our dogs dedicate on the sidewalk or bark (which was never really a problem to begin with but we complied).

cue those days that go buy, i get a knock on the door after i come home from work.

its an eviction notice.

instantly, im panicked and my mom is panicked. we don’t have money for this, we cant afford a mover or to move again. we just moved. these are all very real thoughts that kept going through my head. my anxiety didn’t make it any better lol, but that was the realness of it. we didn’t have the money or time for that, we had just moved three months prior into this apartment.

so we decided to get a lawyer, the eviction notice gave us two weeks to move out. TWO WEEKS. thats so illegal, hence, the lawyer we got. also the reason they wanted us gone was for our dog peeing on the sidewalk and barking excessively during quiet hours. which, keep in mind, neither has happened at all.

we got a court date after the two weeks, consulted a lawyer. BUT JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT CANT GET ANY FUCKING WORSE.

my mom looses her job, which….is more added stress on top of everything else we have going on. i only make so much and rent where i live is fucking astronomical and almost impossible to pay. hence, why im on here…i hate to be one of these people and i never thought i would have to make one of these, much less post it to my writing blog where i write leon smut lmao. but…i started a go fund me and it’s linked below. if you would like to help out even by a couple dollars…that would be great. even reblogging and sharing.

my mom is applying for foodstamps but we still need to pay for rent and other bills, its all on me and i don’t have all the money myself to do it. so any help at all is appreciated.

i just need all the help i can get right now and i hate asking for it but…

i really need it.

thank you, i love you all. ❤️



[orpheus-whore]

BIG WILD LIFE FINALE SPOILERS!!!!

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ive been thinking ab joel's final death sm since i watched his episode and im gonna get tism about it

Disclaimer that i DID realise some of this from another post but i cannot for the life of me remember who it was from aaa

SO! Lets look at all the other winners' deaths first. and lets take the context of minecraft out of this, esp for when we get to joel's Grian - Jumped off a cliff. Simple and effective, but also quick considering he was low health and had no armour. In a real life version, he probably would have broken his neck and died instantly Scott - Struck by lightning. I know technically it was the Watchers, but 'divine intervention' isn't exactly an IRL cause of death, nor are 'kill commands' from a non-story pov, so we'll stick with the lightning. ANYWAY, yes, lightning. In terms of death, it stops the heart. So, pretty fast, but definitely painful Pearl - Exploded. Once again, technically that's not her actual C.O.D but once again, soulmates do not exist (in the same capacity as DL, at the very least) in real life, so we're going with this. Because of how close Pearl was to Scott when he set off the TNT, she likely would've died from internal organ damage, possibly even having her heart muscle walls rupture, plus any additional damage from the schrapnel that no doubt wouldve hit her (although she definitely would've already been dead by that point). Alternatively, you could say she died of 'Heartbreak' (because her soulbound died), which I'd probably compare to a heart attack. While you can't say for certain how long the explosion death wouldve taken because of the variables, a heart attack has an upper limit, so to speak, of about 3-4 hours. Unless we're talking about Sudden Cardiac Death which is, as you might expect, instantaneous suspension of heart activity. It's pretty interesting that both of Pearl's death possibilities link back to her heart in some way in DL, but I digress Martyn - Same as Scott's lmao Scar - He's actually the only one, to my knowledge, who did not die. Which, again, is very interesting when you tie it back to his Earth (? i think? i forget lmao) association. hes not allowed to die

NOW we look at joel. Teleportation is, naturally, not a thing we can do irl (at least currently lmfaoo), so there's not an easy way to compare it like with the others. BUT that doesnt mean we can't do our damn best first, teleportation is what kept Joel alive for so long during part of the session. The fact that he uses the very thing that saved his life for so long to end it is just beautifully symbollic. not to mention the way he was laughing and making fun of his literal hunters as there were at least 5 or 6 people trying to kill him at any given point despite the fact that the entire episode he was nervous and worried about dying last minute is so painfully joel. but lets look at the actual contents of his death for a minute. Joel dies from fall damage after repeatedly throwing enderpearls into the air. He does not remove his armour for this and is at almost full health. He is, effectively, torturing himself. In minecraft, you can throw an enderpearl directly up into the air about 30 blocks. since he was throwing them forwards, as well, we'll say its only going up 25. that would still be 25 square metres, and almost 270,00 feet. but, obviously, we're taking liberties here because it's minecraft, so lets just say its 25 feet. Still, that is an insane number. That is half the length of a basketball court, the width of about four cars (on average) and four fridges (again, on average) stacked on top of eachother. And he does this (by my count) seven times in a row before dying. Everyone else died instantly in game, and more-or-less instantly from a real life standpoint, as well If that doesn't put in perspective how violent Joel's death was, i dunno what could

big fan of the angst potential here chat

[bokettochild]

Um... yeah. I have no idea where most of this came from but I hope you enjoy it? Happy belated birthday. Sky and Legend.

Everyone knew Sky as the sleepy, sweet quiet one; while Legend was sarcastic, angry, and wore a perpetually stormy expression. No one seemed to be included to dispute this characterization. 

But that was all lies. Lies, and masks and walls built of memories. 

Legend's sass and snark were a front. It was a way to shield the softest heart Sky had ever had the pleasure of meeting. It had been hinted at with the ‘bunny incident’, where Twilight's artifact apparently showed some magical form reminiscent of true nature. He saw it when the Veteran hero interacted with children, with animals, with the goodwives and humble folk of his era. 

He saw it when Legend’s walls would dramatically fall around one other hero, their Traveler. 

“Here...” Legend shoved a handful of items into Hyrule’s arms. Hyrule scrambled to hold the bottles of potion in skinny arms. 

“You don't need to give me so many potions. I have two...” 

“Yeah, neither of which you've touched even though your magic is nearly gone. I have more. Drink one.”  Hyrule obeyed, and in handing the empty bottle back, Legend slipped something into his palm and walked off, promptly picking a verbal fight with Warriors to be occupied and making returning the gift difficult.

Night watch, the task was officially staying awake and alert for danger while the others tried to rest exhausted bodies... but it was unofficially intervening when memories of the past turned dreams into nightmares. With nine of them all having the scars on young minds from their quests, it was rare that the entire party slept through the night. 

Tonight's afflicted was Four, who had shot up from a dead sleep, and stumbled from camp. Sky had been about to get up from his post to check on the Smithy when he heard the sound of retching coming from the direction of Four’s retreat. Oh, it was that bad. 

Honestly, just go help. Some part of him scolded. But while he was scolding himself for being squeamish, Legend tapped his arm, and without speaking stepped out of the camp circle towards the sound. 

Once he'd seen it in action, Sky saw it more and more often. Legend frequently left his own sleep to comfort other heroes. Most often it was silent, subtle and  often not even the watch-stander was aware of the change before a quiet murmur or hint of a melody soothed troubled dreams. 

“I don't know what his problem is, but you shouldn't let him push you around like that.” Twilight bit out early in their travels after hearing Legend’s acrid commentary about something or other, Sky didn't even remember now. 

“It's harmless...” Sky had responded at the time. It was nowhere near as bad as...others had been. No one who was as soft and gentle-hearted as the Veteran could ever truly be a bully. 

--

They had made lightheaded jabs at Time’s bitterness and cynicism. Time was frank, and open about his opinions. He was old enough to have given up a ‘mask of acceptability’ with most others. Sky envied that freedom. The chain thought Sky sweet, happy, and an airhead. He tried to live up to those expectations. Don't let them see the hurricane of rage that flooded so easily into him. Don't let them know that caring about... about most people was an active choice. Don't let them see the dark well of despair he constantly clawed his way out of to face the next day. If Legend hid his soft heart behind a wall of indifference, Sky hid his black pit of a heart behind an ignorant one. 

The one positive trait the Chosen Hero (and he still winced internally at thinking of himself like that) did have was a protective streak. He'd fight Demise again if it meant keeping his successors safe and happy. The called ‘knights’ in any other era were cowardly, pompous, bullies who neither deserved the title nor claim to the history it should have represented. This was particularly obvious in two eras. Warriors’s era and the Veteran's. Warriors dealt with attempts on his life near constantly in his own era. Legend's era was simultaneously more open in their dislike of him and more subtle in their actions. The chain had been set loose in a market square to buy supplies and keep busy. As the local hero, Legend had broken off from the group to visit with those he knew. Sky was pawing through a merchant's stall, marveling at the bright colors of embroidery thread, when a couple children ran screaming to their mother (the merchant Sky had just started to begin bargaining with). 

“Mama! Mama!”

“The knights are here in the market...”

“And you know how to stay out from underfoot, Dears...” Her smile was slightly strained as she surreptitiously glanced in Sky’s direction. Right... he was wearing chain mail and carrying a sword...he looked just like them. 

“But Mama...” 

“They cornered Link at Goodie Rosey's shop!” The shrill protest of the older of the children had Sky’s blood running suddenly cold. 

He dropped the thread and charged in the direction the kids had come from. 

Legend was not hard to spot. One of the so-called knights had him by an arm. Another was holding him by fistfuls of his tunic. There was blood running from the Veteran’s nose, and Sky saw red. 

“Unhand him!” He had enough presence to call before drawing his sword. The gang of idiots in armor looked startled.

“Knight’s business, be on your way.” The one in charge rebuffed him. He leveled the point of his blade at the knight’s chest.

“I said, unhand him.” 

“Sky... it’s not...” Legend tried, but then the knights dropped Legend in favor of drawing their swords and laughing at the prospect of a fight. 

“We’ll deal with you later...” one of them sneered as they shoved Legend to the ground. 

Even four against one, they were poor fighters. The smell of ozone filled his nostrils and thunder rolled overhead. 

“The hate for the gods that has boiled in my veins…You will taste all of it in the bite of my blade...”  The memory of the Demon King’s taunt echoed in his ears with a second peal of thunder. 

He heard Legend frantically trying to reason with him as a flash of light split the sky above his head.

“Sky, stop. They’re not worth it. Please.”

Two of the knights were on the ground. He held a sword to a third’s throat. 

“You don’t deserve the title you pretend to bear” He growled. To think these vile excuses of Hylians called themselves knights. “You’ll leave my descendant alone.”

The knight in front of him was stammering and crying half-hearted excuses. 

“Do you have something to say, Scum?” The knight’s blubbering fell silent. A set of arms slid around him from behind and locked around his chest. Arms encased in a black, shiny material. 

“Not today, Godslayer.” Wild pulled him backwards, making him drop his sword. The ridiculous dangling...things on the helmet the Champion wore drew his attention and diverted him just long enough from the knight he’d been about to put the Master Sword through. Thunder rolled once more above them. “Breathe, Legend’s ok...” He saw Twilight shepherding the Veteran away as Warriors carefully stepped up beside them.

“At ease, Knight of Skyloft.” He was trying, By Hylia he was trying. But the terror in Legend’s face when the knights held him captive made that hard. 

“You’ll feel bad if you actually kill ‘im.” The Champion reasoned once again. He’d feel bad, but not for the reason Wild was thinking. He’d feel bad mostly at shattering his brother’s illusions that he was a good person. He took a breath, and stuffed the raging tide of anger down. He looked down at the arms still locked around his torso, which squeaked as he rocked to move backwards. 

“Wild, what in the Sacred Realm are you wearing?”

Darling~

When I say you hit the nail on the head for every point I adore, you did it, you did it so well. I was squealing and kicking my feet, absolutely giggling up a storm and gazing at my computer like I'd been sent the most delectably sweet love-letter, but it was far better than one of those could ever aspire to be!

Thank you ever so much for this birthday fic!

[edenfenixblogs]

hey, gentile here. just came across this post of yours and, first of all- it's SUPERB. it showed me a perspective on being a jewish ally that i really wouldn't ever have considered by myself, made me more confident in my choice to put combating jew-hatred above the friendships I've recently lost, and gave me a really useful direction on where to go as an ally to jewish people onwards. that being said, there's a few details about it I'd like to press you about, if it's not too much trouble.

this point is probably worthy of an eyeroll as i'm a culturally christian atheist (making a concious effort to not be *that* kind of atheist), but: when you refer to G-d as the creator of all things, you stress that that includes evil- but that, in so doing, G-d is not evil themself. now, I'm asking this with the express purpose of you correcting me, so: why does this G-d- as a G-d fundamentally distinct from the Christian conception of God as a Super-Mega-Ultra-Perfect God Who Can Do No Wrong Ever- create evil? i, personally, have been led to believe by @/spacelazarwolf that it is simply because G-d, too, makes mistakes just like any human being, but the way you worded it in this paragraph (which I've included as a screenshot below) had me interpret G-d creating evil as a concious, intentional action. did i just not read it correctly? and, if i didn't, then is the reason G-d creates evil part of this central struggle you went in detail into in the same paragraph, and as such, a very individual part of Jewish belief that no two jews agree on? and if that is so, would you be comfortable with sharing your version of it?

a few paragraphs after that one, you dedicated many words to make it absolutely crystal clear that, in the process of unlearning and combating jew-hatred in the society around me, i should, in spite of the vitriol that they propagate, love the former friends i lost to antisemitism. how- and *why* should i love the people who, on an early october 8th morning, actively celebrated the news of a massacre of Israeli civilians? who mocked- and still mock- the survivors and the families of hostages? who wield the memory of the holocaust as a baton against Jewish people's right to self defense? who deify terror groups who are up to their necks in atrocities? who make an active effort to spit on the face of *reality?* How could i possibly look at the face of a friend who chose allegiance to a terrorist group she did not even know existed four months ago over me- who she had actively interacted with for much longer?

would you rather we called ourselves "gentiles" or "goyim?" I've been calling myself a gentile for the longest time because i see jamming a word from a language i don't speak at all in an otherwise english sentence to be disrespectful and constitute appropriation, but you and other jumblr blogs have given me the impression that that is not the case. furthermore- i believe it was @/bambahalva who pointed out the usage of the word "gentile" in antisemitic segregation policies.

that is all- i hope this message finds you well. oh, yeah one more thing- what do you think of The Forward news network? i came across them by chance and next thing i knew I'd gotten into their newsletter.

WARNING: I HAVE FINISHED WRITING THIS AND IT'S LONGER THAN I EXPECTED AND ALSO MORE JEWISH THAN I EXPECTED LOL! I have done the most Jewish possible thing I could do and answered all of your questions with questions. I'm sorrryyyyyy! This is what happens when you grow up surrounded by rabbis and future rabbis! LMAOO

Oooh! What a good ask! I love this ask. OK, so! Let's go in order.

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words. And thanking you for backing your words with the action of prioritizing kindness over hatred. It matters. More than I can ever explain. Thank you.

You know, it's funny. People ask me a lot of questions about i/p that they think will have simple and straightforward answers that just don't. And I end up writing a lot of essays because of this. The questions you wrote me seem like they should be complex, but feel relatively straightforward to me.

Now, to your first bullet point: I don't know. I truly do not know. I think that G-d is fundamentally just...G-d, and in so being, G-d is truly unknowable to me. I think many Jews have many different interpretations on why G-d creates evil. I'm no rabbi, but one of my BFFs is and so is her mother and great grandfather. That doesn't give me any kind of authority. It just means I've spent a lot of time thinking about theological questions like this. As for my perspective, I'm a progressive/reform Jew, not a humanistic Jew. I do actually believe in G-d, but I vibe with the community philosophies of Humanistic Judaism a lot. So that's the perspective I'm coming from here:

I'm not a particular fan of the Book of Job, because I think it gets twisted and interpreted in Christian ways more than most Hebrew books and it can too easily be twisted into a "Don't question G-d, because G-d is perfect" narrative that I find to be fundamentally at odds with how I practice Judaism. Also, it's just a very sad story about how a good and kind man lost everything, and it makes me sad to think about. HOWEVER, that traditional "Don't question G-d" narrative is not how I learned to think about that book. The way I learned it, I believe the Book of Job describes this issue most explicitly. After Job loses everything he holds dear and talks to all his friends and begs again and again "Why? Why did G-d do this to me? Why would G-d do this to me when I'm a good person?" And basically G-d hears everyone answering for G-d with various reasons, "Maybe you were bad." "Maybe you should make an offering" Maybe this. Maybe that. And eventually G-d responds from within a storm (paraphrased of course) 'Why the fuck do you think it's your business to know? I made the whole universe! I made everything you see. I made the world that gave you your family in your first place. Why do you think you get to question my motives?'

The way I always interpreted that is: I don't fricking know! It's not really my business. What am I gonna do? Stop G-d? How does my knowing why G-d creates evil help anything? It doesn't mean we don't question G-d. It means we should instead focus on what we CAN control. I can't make 10/7/2023 not happen any more than I could stop The Holocaust or form an ocean. That's divine business, not human business. What I CAN do is make the world better now. What use is it challenging things that we cannot change? Things that are in the past? What's the point of asking why bad things happen when we can instead focus on stopping more bad things from happening. G-d named us his people when Abraham fought with G-d to stop the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham repeatedly asked, "But are you sure? But what if there are 100 good people? 50 good people? 10 good people?" And G-d kept responding, basically, 'I mean, there aren't. I know this cuz of how I'm G-d and know all the things. But knock yourself out looking.' My interpretation of this was that G-d doesn't get mad when we do our utmost to help our fellow human beings. G-d gets mad when we waste our energy that we could be using to help our fellow man to instead be angry and rage futilely against the past. I say this as someone with PTSD as someone who attempted to stop a tragedy from occuring and failed and can never understand why. What informs my trauma and what makes it so hard to get past isn't that G-d allowed it to happen. It's that people did. It's that I begged for help before it happened--over and over and over to dozens of adults in various positions of authority in order to prevent this terrible thing from happening (no, I will not now or ever disclose what that thing is). And all the people who could have helped failed me, and now two people are dead. Because someone did an evil, evil thing. And a bunch of other people let it happen. I'm not mad at G-d. I'm mad at people. And yet, I also know that hating people and finding reasons to dismiss them and despise them is what leads to more tragedies like that happening. So, despite my rage, truly the only thing to do is to love people. It's the only that helps. It's the only thing that repairs the world. It's the only thing that we can control. So, in short, my answer to "Why does G-d create evil?" is "Why should I spend my valuable time on earth trying to answer that question when, instead, I can spend that same exact amount of time asking millions of people, 'How can I help? What's wrong, and how can I help make any part of it better?'?" We don't need to understand G-d to make the world a better place. I'm fine leaving G-d stuff to G-d and spending my time on the human stuff.

Now, your second bullet point. Love their souls. You don't have to love what they've done. But they are human beings, as are we all. I think this can also easily be twisted into the Christian framework of "Hate the sin, love the sinner," but that's not what I mean at all. People's evil deeds are a part of them. They need to take responsibility. There is no divine absolution for crimes that people do unto each other in Judaism. If you harm a person, G-d cannot forgive you for that. Only the person or people you harmed can forgive you. And to a certain degree, we are all defined by our actions toward others. And so, no. I do not forgive the terrorists who woke up and decided to kill a bunch of Israelis and Israeli-adjacent humans. I do not forgive those who celebrate the deaths of Israelis because of some misguided sense of justice. I do not forgive the people who continue to send me hatred and death threats day after day after day after day. And I do not love the parts of them that did and do those horrible, unforgivable things. But my goodness. They were babies once. They either had parents who love(d) them, which is so sad, because they have this life of love and they chose instead to fill it with so much hate. Or they didn't have any parents or loved ones or anyone to guide them and, my goodness. That is so sad. How terrifying and alone that must feel. Maybe they have friends and family who love them and are instead wasting their precious time on this planet directing their energy at raging against me and 15 million other Jews they've never met. Or maybe they don't have anyone who loves them and they think that hating me and harming me will bring them some sense of purpose and joy. What a horrid way to live.

My Grandpa died last year. I have a wonderful family for whom I'm very grateful, and I even have good memories with my Grandpa. But he was not a good person. He came from an abusive home, and weaponized that abuse on his loved ones until he drove them all away. He was a narcissist. Not in the pop psychology sense. But in the actual clinical sense. He ruined every relationship that ever mattered to him--personal and professional. And in the end, because of his own actions, he died alone. He had pushed everyone so far (often with legal threats and action) that when he died, he laid on a slab for weeks because nobody could figure out who to call, because he had no one left. (For reference, Jewish burials are supposed to happen rather quickly and two weeks is...not good.) He was the only person in his generation who was not born in Israel--my family on his side has lived in Israel since looooong before even the British Mandate and he was the only person in his family born and raised in the US. As far as we can tell, the family on that side has been in Israel for as long as Jews have existed. He was religious. And while I've never been to Israel or met any of my family there, he did go. And he kept in touch with his relatives there before driving them away too. He was a wealthy man, but convinced himself that everyone only wanted him for his money and then decided to horde it instead. He left nothing to his children or to me. He left all his money in an endowment to his university--a place that uses that money to fund anti-Israel organizations now. He died alone, without his family that lived nearby, and with a legacy that will now cause active harm to the family that lived far away. He could have died surrounded by the loved ones from around the world who wanted nothing more than to be near him and loved by him. His story is a tragedy. The story of every person who chooses hatred over love is a tragedy. The story of someone who woke up and chose to murder others or to delight in the death of others is a tragedy. I love the soul in the center of these people. I loved my grandfather. I could not be around him. I cannot forgive some of the things he said and did. But I love the person he could have been. I love the part of him that gave me some good memories. I love the family he gave to me.

No, we do not all need to love or forgive those who have wronged us or terrorized us or murdered our loved ones. But that is different from mourning a human soul. From loving the potential of a human soul to do good in the world, and mourning the loss of that soul and its potential. Every human being--every single one no matter what they have done in their lives--has the potential to create goodness and make the world a better place. Every moment of every single day is a new chance to meet that challenge and do our best. Sure, not all of us have it in us to try our best every single moment. Sometimes life is hard and we're sad and tired and hungry and angry. And that's ok, because we have tomorrow, and an hour from now, and a minute from now. But the moment someone chooses to take action and decides that action should be to cause another harm or celebrate the harm that was caused? That's a tragedy. And when a life is extinguished, that is a life that loses its potential to try again and do better. We shouldn't love people because we deem them worthy of love. We should love people because they are people. And so are we. And how wonderful is that? I could choose to hate them. It would be so easy! But why should I do that? What do I gain? What do they gain? And isn't it so wonderful that I chose to love instead? And isn't it so wonderful that you can, too?

As for your final bullet point: I have no preference. I say goyim cuz it's easier for me. Goy/gentile/non-Jew are all fine to me. I have some icky feelings about the word gentile for a variety of linguistic reasons I won't bore you with. But some other people don't like when non-Jews appropriate Yiddish words. Others (including me) find it wonderful when non-Jews call themselves goyim. All my closest non-Jewish people call themselves goyim, including my sister! Non-jew is the most neutral in English and least likely to offend anyone. But it still separates Jews as an other whereas "goy" is a way to distinguishing yourself from Jews while also being an acknowledgment of our culture. As far as I'm concerned as long as a goy is being a goy (ally, positive) rather than a goy (derogatory) I don't mind that they call themselves goyim. LOL! Idk, friend. Do what makes you happy! What do you prefer?!

Regarding The Forward news network: They are a reliable Left-Center source with a high credibility and reporting rating and only one failed fact check in the past five years for which they issued a correction. I would consider them a reliable source. They cover legitimate issues of people who support Palestinan self-determination ostensibly being punished for their stances. They publish Op-eds critical of Netanyahu, who is terrible. And they address how antisemitism is harming diaspora Jews. They seem to consistently emphasize the humanity of everyone, which you can tell based on the rest of my post is very important to me, but they also avoid over-editorializing on news that is not in the Op-Ed section. I'll never endorse any source as perfect or guaranteed to be free of problems or harm or bad takes, but they do seem to make a genuine effort to be factual, clear, and wholly truthful. Note: I highly recommend that everyone installs the Media Bias/Fact Check extension on their web browsers. Get in the habit of checking and evaluating sources critically. It's a skill that will serve you your whole life.

@clawdia-houyhnhnm I hope this helps. And thank you for your thoughtful ask and commitment to intercultural understanding. <3

[raxistaicho]

In which we discuss Edelgard's flaws (she has none)

Hey folks! Been a while since I did a longpost. There just hasn't been anything to stir my interest.

But fortunately I found something, so I suppose it's a good time to get away from Resident Evil 4 Remake S+ prep runs, cooking dinner, going to the gym, and writing my fanfic to indulge in my hobby of being terminally online.

So recently butwhatifidothis, who I will henceforth call Strikes, made a post in which she allegedly discussed how we Edelgard fans view Edelgard's flaws that she doesn't have any of but mostly just sounded off about how Edelgard was presented in a fanfic that consumes an inordinate amount of her mental focus. Let's see what she has to say!

I think the main thing that makes Edelstans' version of Edelgard so annoying is that she ultimately has every ounce of agency stripped out of her,

Don't get confused by her bringing up agency when I was talking about flaws so far, this is the typical Edelcrit strategy of saying that if we deny Edelgard did certain bad things then we're denying she did all the things.

by people who insist that they're "making her grow" into a character they already made her out to be from the start.

Well in a manner of speaking depending on how you handle her character arc it is possible to portray her properly growing into the role of a more focused revolutionary that we all view her as, so I suppose that's not too far off.

We get told that Edelgard has this amazing character arc,

She does.

and then are presented with a Mary Sue with no discernable flaws and/or who makes no substantial mistakes.

Strikes is confusing us denying that Edelgard's an awful racist imperialist with us saying she never did anything wrong. Shitposting in the title (and in the intro) aside, Edelgard obviously did some wrong things in the name of pragmatism. It's rather notable that she's often having to rapidly play catch-up helping to put out the fires Solon starts throughout White Clouds (chapters 6, 8, and 10 being the most notable examples), so she is a little more reactive rather than proactive in stopping some of their activities before they could begin.

Part of the issue is we're just never given an absolutely clear view of just how much Edelgard knew about what the Agarthans were up to and when she knew. One thing we do know is that she doesn't operate the way they do, her attacks are always targeted and have a specific purpose, she doesn't spread chaos like they do, so it's very unlikely she'd approve of most anything they do, especially considering how she often takes measures to fight back against them.

This Edelgard is perfect out the box, no discolorations or tears to be seen.

So Edelgard's biggest flaw early on is her trust issues. Because she struggles to trust she tries to go it alone, resulting in her taking more extreme measures than truly necessary. Of course this isn't entirely without reason, seeing as how on three out of four routes Byleth ultimately rejects her and plays a key role in halting her revolution, but it's only when she puts her trust in Byleth and appears before them without the mask of the Flame Emperor that Byleth has a chance to take her hand.

She even seems to realize she'll one day have to do this:

She just has a bit of dust, but the doll itself is flawless.

Don't like the idea of calling her a doll...

And that is, in the end, what ruins her. She’s not prideful and arrogant,

Oh no, she is 100% those things, roflmao. Sothis even calls her out on it:

Hell, Edelgard herself admits she can seem arrogant, so she's not wholly unaware of that flaw.

she’s not stubborn and narrow-minded,

Stubborn, yeah.

Narrow-minded? Multiple of her supports are about her coming around to the viewpoints of her interlocutors, most especially Manuela, Ferdinand, and Linhardt, so nice try.

she’s not manipulative and deceitful,

Now we're getting into scwary words!

Can't fight against the framework of the continent if you don't hold your cards close to your chest, Strikes.

she’s not violent and abrasive,

No, no, if you want violent you want Rhea or Dimitri.

Abrasive, yeah, that's another thing she grows out of. She's rather impatient with some of her goofier friends in the early supports, and grows to be much more patient and compassionate by the timeskip.

she’s not nationalistic and imperialistic,

She's neither of those things.

but nor is she fearless and confident,

...Where did Strikes see Edelgard fans calling her an uncertain little coward?

I mean I know where she thinks she saw that, but we'll get into that later.

she’s not ambitious and resolute

Ditto. Please show me these Edelgard fans who say she isn't ambitious, I'm dying to see the idiots masquerading as her fans.

- she has none of her character flaws or boons, because they make her too full of agency. They drive her to choose to do anything; they're not forces outside of her control that make her do things that she would just never, ever do were the WORLD not so broken and flawed.

Here we go, so Strikes has twisted the acknowledgement that some things were out of Edelgard's control (because they were) to some kind of admission that everything is out of her control.

There's a certain interesting meta analysis to be looked into on the subject of whether a revolutionary truly has a say in the matter when it comes to rebelling against a world that's gone so firmly wrong, as Fodlan had, but with Edelgard in particular I think the thing most of us love about her is that she's the only one willing to make the difficult choice of ripping the bandaid off. I'd certainly like her less if she just kinda bumbled her way into fixing the system the way Naruto does.

The few "flaws" Edelstans begrudgingly allow her are only meant to further endear her to the player. She’s childish, but only because she’s oh so traumatized and that should be accepted as who she is and not something to grow out of (nor something that is truly wrong of her to be even in her 20's).

Sadly I have no idea what Strikes means by Edelgard being childish. I guess her liking of cute things and sweets? Or maybe her abrassiveness that Strikes claims we think she isn't?

She’s self-unaware, but only because the world made her unsure of who she really is, which is a perfect little angel.

Yeah now we're just getting into Strikes blatantly sounding off about that whole fanfic thing I mentioned earlier. Most of her complaints are about a very specific incarnation of Edelgard, because Strikes and others like will her will never stop trying to pillory somebody for the crime of...

Hang on a sec.

(Flips through notes)

Ah. The crime of writing a fanfic.

The only "mistakes" she makes are because others failed her; Byleth and the Black Eagles fail Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, that wasn't her fault, they didn't ensure her that they could be trusted, for example.

At this point is there any reason in replying concretely to anything Strikes says? Not every Edelgard fan in the world interprets her the way The Emperor and the Goddess does, Strikes, and the point Captain Flash was trying to reach wasn't that the others were wrong, but rather that Edelgard's lack of trust was lamentable but a very really thing founded in the nature of the world she lived in.

Claude and Rhea have flaws - real flaws, that aren't "they just don't wove themselves enuff."

Yeah, Rhea's flaw is "she was a genocide victim, you have to be nice to her :(" according to these people.

Dimitri makes mistakes - real mistakes, that aren't "he twusted the wrong people and got hurt fwom them."

Actually he kinda did trust the wrong people and got hurt by them, roflmao. Thales is... about the worst person ever to trust.

She’s just a little flower

You know, that thing Byleth calls Edelgard in The Emperor and the Goddess!

Man, Strikes's so buttmad at that fic for the crime of existing and being popular.

plucked of all her thorns, safe and easy to pick up and admire, weak, meek and too innocent and pure for this dirty dirty world, coveted by all for her perfection and beauty. Which is just so... boring? And annoying?

Yeah, that would be pretty boring if Edelgard fans viewed her that way...

It's so clear that this Edelgard is one that is sanitized of any pesky little flaw that could make people dislike her or like her in the "wrong" way (because liking villains for being villains Is Wrong), and that is ironically the exact reason why she's so insufferable.

Frankly I'll never understand this flailing claim Edelcrits like to make, insisting we try to deny Edelgard is a villain because "liking villains for being villains is wrong."

I'm sorry, but what? People don't like villains, you say? People love villains! This, probably more than anything else they say, is sheer desperate idiocy.

Cornelia's one of my favorite characters in Three Houses purely because she's just an unrepentant vicious bitch to everyone, including Thales. She became an ascended extra in my fanfic because of it.

Like, it's almost kinda hard to explain why having a character choose to be an asshole is so much more engaging to watch than having a character be entirely reactive UNTIL they can get Good Noodle Stars because.... yeah? Of course? Because there's more meat to bite into whenever a character makes a choice - whether kind or spiteful, whether good or bad - over someone else forcing a character to do something.

Alarak my beloved <3

"Edelgard believes in imperialism because she has been raised in and agrees with a culture that believes itself to be the rightful 'owner' of the continent due to it being the progenitor country, and she genuinely believes Fodlan would be better if back under this 'glorious' reign of Adrestia, even despite her being around those outside of Adrestia for almost a year" says so much about her AND Adrestia.

...It would if she did? Except she doesn't? Says a lot about the nobles who do think that way.

Like the implied Duke Aegir, who Edelcrits try to mildly whitewash of his crimes, coincidentally enough.

"Edelgard DOESN'T believe in imperialism, it's just that everyone else is doing so badly that they FORCE her to kill them or otherwise get rid of them" says things about the ones DOING things badly, MAYBE, but all it says about Edelgard is that she Doesn't Like Bad Things.

That kind of is a way to describe her movement, though naturally Strikes phrased it in a way that strips her of agency because that's convenient for her argument.

I'd phrase it more as "Edelgard chooses war with the rest of Fodlan as a last resort, hating it but accepting the necessity as a means to bring about real and lasting change".

Or, oh so much deeper, it says she likes *gasp* Good Things! How brave, how stunning!

Someone's getting hangry.

Yeah, I have no actual argument for this, Strikes is just mad and saying things.

And before you can try to say "Well maybe Edelgard went to violence so quickly because she views fear and control to be the best way to force a society into being 'good' over trying to convince people peacefully,"

...No. When does Edelgard resort to the Tarkin Doctrine? Ever?

the Edelstan Edelgard is already packaged with "Edelgard went to war first because literally everyone MADE her go to war because THEY wouldn't let anything else work."

That's a rather obtuse way to say diplomacy wouldn't have worked.

"Edelgard tried to assassinate Dimitri and Claude at the very beginning of the game because she wanted to make her eventual war go way easier"

Heheheheheheh, you know where this is going.

turns into the infamous "Edelgard was just trying to scare THE TEACHER away to get JERITZA installed in their place, and CLAUDE ruined it by running away; she wasn't ACTUALLY trying to hurt anyone."

Infamous, and proven true. Edelcrits are still furious about that over two years later. Hopes was a bad time for them, I get it.

And also, if she was trying to kill Dimitri and Claude? So what? If killing them would have made the future war easier, I could understand why she'd make that choice. Their two lives don't weigh heavier on the scales than that of all Fodlan's people.

"Edelgard let Remire be massacred because - like she literally said she would - she was willing to sacrifice her people's lives in service of her higher cause" turns into one of "TWS forced her to be compliant" or "Edelgard definitely didn't know anything because she would have stopped it had she known."

So while it is implied Edelgard had some inkling of what happened,

But she clearly didn't expect Remire to be so terrible,

An interesting thing to note is that the cutscene where Seteth and Rhea talk about the situation in Remire happens on the 1st of the month, Byleth passes out on the 2nd after speaking with Manuela, and we get the scene with Hubert and Edelgard on the 4th. That's the earliest we know that she has some idea what's happening in Remire, and given how in the same scene Hubert openly asks Byleth how the investigation is going, it's likely Byleth had already told the class about the mission by then.

The Agarthans don't respect Edelgard, they don't need to ask her for permission for anything, and they don't need her help with anything. Solon has already vanished from the monastery to finish up the experiments, so by the time Edelgard even knows what's happening in Remire, it's already too late to do anything about it.

"Edelgard directly assisted in Flayn's kidnapping because TWS having more tools to work with means she gets more weapons to fight with" turns into "She was forced to do that."

I think she means, "Edelgard was forced to give up the Death Knight to Thales," when she says "she was forced to do that", because that's the closest I've ever seen it argued. Usually the take I've seen is that Edelgard didn't know Flayn would be kidnapped until she was, because, again, why would Solon bother to tell her about it? He's already had the Death Knight for over a month by then and he doesn't need any further help from Edelgard. If Edelgard wanted Flayn captive, why would she help in the search, why would she let Flayn go, and why wouldn't she take Flayn captive at the Holy Tomb?

"Edelgard helped hide Kronya among the student populace even as she kidnapped students and mutated them into Demonic Beasts because it will help in giving her Demonic Beasts to work with in the war" turns into, you guessed it, "Edelgard was forced to do that."

This time I have no idea what Edelgard was supposedly "forced" to do in the context of Edelgard fan apologia. Edelgard "hid" Kronya by not outing her.

And yeah, it ain't great that Edelgard didn't do that, but there's a lot of reasons she couldn't. By the time Solon reveals himself Kronya's already about to disappear from the monastery, revealing her would be too blatant a backstab against Thales, it wouldn't also reveal Edelgard herself, and there's no guarantee the church would do anything judging from how Rhea reacts to Edelgard outing Thales in Three Hopes.

"Edelgard sent her army and Demonic Beasts onto either her direct Black Eagle classmates or otherwise innocent students to stop them from stopping her from getting Crest Stones to use in her upcoming war"? Oh, a surprise! "She HAD to do that, because OTHER PEOPLE were going to take the Crest Stones if she didn't!"

The students can't be innocent if they're fighting for the church. You don't get to have it both ways: if they're innocent non-combatants then Rhea has no business recruiting them to fight on behalf of the Church of Seiros.

And yes, she endangers her classmates. Again that ain't great, but the future of Fodlan is more important than the lives of a few of her close friends.

She was forced to, she wasn't hurting/trying to hurt anyone, she didn't do anything wrong - if her actions lead to people getting hurt and/or killed, those are the exclusive reasons allowed as to why she did it.

No, they weren't exclusive, I threw several more. The issue here is Strikes wants to either make it:

A) Edelgard is an evil vicious imperialist racist.

B) Edelgard has no control over anything.

With zero nuance because that furthers her point. Edelgard's either EVIL or has no agency, with zero in-between.

These reasons being excuses to alleviate her of any accountability, not genuine explanations that still demand her to take accountability.

Who's she to take accountability to? Most of the people she fails are dead, is she supposed to apologize for starting a revolution to better Fodlan?

That's the difference between Rhea and Dimitri, who Strikes will mention onward: their mistakes they take accountability for are inherently selfish ones. If Edelgard was selfish she'd just hide in her room all day munching on sweets.

Meanwhile, Rhea distorted history to keep her and her family safe - which in verse is said to be something she was still wrong to do, and which in verse she ADMITS was wrong of her to do.

And her fans try to minimize what she did. "Rhea only briefly held back certain inventions, and only so that humanity wouldn't progress 'too fast'." "Rhea had no control over the Crest system, that was humans being bad!" "Rhea was just the midwife, she didn't do anything suspicious to Sitri and Byleth!" "Rhea thought Byleth was an amnesiac Sothis!"

Dimitri was absolutely willing to torture Randolph because he viewed the guy as less than human and felt him getting such inhumane treatment was justice

And his fans try to argue either that Randolph deserved it or because Byleth stopped him it wasn't all that bad.

Hell, Strikes herself is minimizing what Dimitri did here! He didn't just attempt to torture Randolph, he did torture Randolph. Even if you don't know that describing torture you're about to inflict upon a person is legally classified as torture in and of itself, just look at how Randolph is reacting to Dimitri's dressing-down: the dude is having a complete breakdown and Dimitri hasn't even laid a finger on him yet!

- which he directly takes accountability for to Randolph's remaining family.

Uhh what? Did I miss the alt scene where Dimitri stops Byleth from gutting Fleche, admits what he did to her brother, and kneels to her in penitence?

Claude weaseled up to Byleth because he felt he could use them for his own ambitions - which he owns up to and grows out of doing.

Yeah, this is the only thing I generally don't see people trying to minimize, probably because it's the least-obvious offense and doesn't really hurt anyone. Claude comes out of Three Houses with squeaky-clean hands, and I respect Three Hopes for dirtying them a bit.

And yeah, that's about it. As I explained in the opening, Strikes is mostly just mad that we Edelgard fans don't view her as an awful person the way Strikes herself does. She's upset we can actually explain her actions, so she's venting that we're stripping Edelgard of all agency, with a side helping of shitting on Emperor and the Goddess again because that's her life, I guess.

[felicitysmoaksx]

For the sarah x connor advent calendar challenge, can you do something inspired by the fight sarah and dr charles had in the last episode?

WELCOME! IT'S THE FIRST OF DECEMBER! WHICH MEANS IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF MY ADVENT RHEESE WRITING CHALLENGE! Side Note: These won't be as long as this one or have a moodboard, but even though this was requested to be a part of this challenge, I was going to post this much earlier. However, Thanksgiving Week hasn't given me a lot of time to finish/write. And I still need 11 more prompts! Info can be found on the original post! Happy Reading! (Putting it under a read more bc it's more than 1k!)

Maybe it’s the Past That’s Talking (And I’m Nervous What You’ll Think of Me Now)

“Oh, so you found someone special?” Maggie asked and Sarah shrugged as she admitted softly, “Sort’ve.”

“Sort of?” The charge nurse raised her eyebrows.

“It’s complicated. We haven’t lived in the same state since we both left here. Not really. We’ve mostly met at conferences and such. Or if one of us is in the other’s city for the weekend, we meet and are together. Like a couple. But when we’re apart, we’re apart. We don’t call each other; we’re allowed to date other people. But it’s…” Sarah knew she probably wasn’t making any sense. Because why would anyone choose to have half a relationship with someone?

“Butterflies and fireworks?” Maggie asked with a grin. 

Sarah exhaled with a soft smile of her own, “Every single time. And he makes me feel more in our limited time together than when I’m actively in the dating scene.”

“So if it works and you know it works, why not try for more?” The brunette considered the question. It was one she had asked herself more than once before. And just like every time before, her answer was the same. 

“Because the time isn’t right and I don’t want to ruin what we have. So what we are is good enough for me right now. Butterflies and fireworks are worth waiting for. And I gotta be honest, so are you.” 

“‘I gotta be honest?’ Do you know who you sound like?” Maggie smirked at her, completely distracted from the question she was about to ask; if she knew the doctor Sarah was seeing especially if they had both been at Med. 

“How dare you,” the brunette accused without any real heat and the charge nurse huffed a laugh, “Speaking of which, can we see if he’s finally discharged, Ariel Sparkman?”

Maggie glanced over at the screen. “Nope. Ariel Sparkman hasn’t been discharged yet.” 

 [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK]

Old habits die hard. Sarah thought ruefully she paced the length of the old bathroom she used to cry in as a med student. Or muscle memory…Then as soon as she realized what she was doing, she found herself in her old favorite hiding spot on Med’s roof. The one she used to occupy when her bathroom wasn’t available. A bittersweet laugh bubbled out of her mouth. 

She had only been back at Med a day and she already felt like that medical student eight years ago. Dr. Charles had called her care of Ariel disturbing…

Pulling out her phone, she searched for a phone number and then stared at it. They didn’t usually call each other when they were apart. It wasn’t part of their unspoken rules of whatever they were… But being back at Med. He might be the only one who would understand. After all, he had left Gaffney too. 

Sarah bit her lip as hit the phone icon and put it up to her ear. The line trilled four times before he picked up. 

“Reese?” Connor Rhodes questioned in lieu of a greeting. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a breath, before releasing it slowly.

“Yeah. Hi, I know we don’t usually call each other. But I just…” she shook her head. It wasn’t going to sound right. Because it didn’t sound right to her. She felt about two inches tall because of what? Dr. Charles raised his voice at her? Like that hadn’t happened before…“Sorry, it’s stupid. I’m going to just let you go.”

“Hang on,” Connor’s voice made her pause before she ended the call, “Have you been crying?” 

Was she? Sarah reached up to feel tears streaming down her cheeks. “I guess so.”

“What happened?” Connor prodded gently and Sarah felt her lip start to wobble. So she sucked in a breath and counted to ten before she could answer. 

“Sarah,” her non-boyfriend prompted again when she took too long to answer. Before it had been Reese, now he had switched himself into boyfriend mode and it was Sarah. The brunette chastised herself for breaking the rules and calling him in the first place.

“It’s not important.”

“You crying says otherwise,” Connor retorted. Then when she stayed silent, “Tell me or I’m booking a flight to Chicago.”

“You can’t just-”

“I can,” he interrupted in a dry voice, “I have so many vacation days it’s laughable.”

“What if I’m not in Chicago?” Sarah asked petulantly, scrubbing at her face as if that helped anything. 

“You are. But even if you aren't, you have to come back sometime and I can hang out with my sister until you do.”

She exhaled shakily. “It’s not that big of a deal. I’m probably overreacting.”

“Tell me, anyways.”

When she remained quiet, he sighed. “Okay then, I guess I’ll see you soon then.”

“I’m back at Med,” Sarah admitted, slumping back against the wall. Then there was a pause then Connor said, “I thought you were still at that center.”

“I am, but a patient of mine was taken to Med. So I’m here and I have temporary privileges until Dr. Charles decides to discharge them.”

“And?”

“Besides seeing Maggie, which is the only bright spot here,  I feel like I did six years ago. A fumbling resident who’s just trying to keep her head above water.”

“Sarah,” but the brunette didn’t want his reassurances right now so it was her turn to interrupt him, “Everyone else is gone. April, Ethan, Dr. Manning and even Will.”

“Yeah, Will is in Seattle with Natalie and Owen now. I ran into him about four months back  when I had a layover.” Her non-boyfriend told her. 

“Maggie said April and Ethan got married. They run a mobile clinic now.” She continued. 

“That’s nice for them…” Connor said sincerely. Then he offered again in a soft tone, “You know my offer still stands. I could be in Chicago in an hour and a half even.” 

(That wasn’t what they did though. Sarah was already breaking the rules and it seemed silly for him to fly out here just because she was having a rough day)

“Hawaii is much farther away than that,” Sarah pointed out instead... At least that’s where Connor was at the last time they had met up six months ago. He had taken a job there after a three year stint with the Mayo Clinic. 

“I’m not actually in Hawaii right now. I’m in Minneapolis for a hybrid O.R. I’m helping oversee the setup. But we finished last night. So I’m okay to leave early.” He told her.

“No, stay in Minneapolis. I’m fine. Really,” Sarah found herself saying as she shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. Because this is why they had the don’t call policy if they weren’t together. Because even though it had been years…(seven years to be exact) as soon as he said Minneapolis, her mind went to Robin Charles. Which brought her back to her argument with Dr. Charles and she had other things she needed to worry about with a different Dr. Charles and-

“It’s just weird being back at Med. I’m sorry I called and bothered you.” Sarah told him softly, willing her brain to stop her racing thoughts to a screeching halt.

“You didn’t bother me, Sarah.” He sounded like he meant it. But the brunette merely sighed. Connor Rhodes still didn’t need her to interrupt his life. 

“I've got to go.” She said the excuse instead, “I’ll see you when I see you I guess.” 

“Wait, Sarah-” But Sarah had already ended the call. She tilted her up and looked as directly into the sun as she could without damaging her eyes. Now she felt the tears stinging her eyes. 

 [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK] [LINE BREAK]

Unknowing to Sarah, Connor sat in a diner booth looking at flights to Chicago. Because even though he reassured Sarah that she could call him whenever, she didn’t. And the first time she does, she’s crying? It didn’t sit well with him.

“Are you leaving already? I thought you said you’d have the weekend, at least.” Robin said as she came back from the bathroom and slid into the booth across from him. 

“Change of plans,” Connor shrugged still looking at flights, “I was going to stay but my girlfriend is having a bad day so since I’m so close to her city, I thought I’d surprise her.” 

“You have a girlfriend,” Connor looked up at the surprised tone of his ex-girlfriend’s voice. Robin Charles was grinning though. The dark-haired man still felt heat flush up his neck. 

“Of course, you have a girlfriend.” But she didn’t say it like it was a bad thing. More wistful, “And of course you’re going to go surprise her because she’s having a bad day.” 

“Yeah, for the last five years? It’s a weird complicated thing. But it’s good.” He told his ex-girlfriend with a slightly guilty grin. There was a pause then and Robin shook her head. 

“Do you think we would’ve worked out?”

“I don’t know. Maybe in another lifetime where everything didn’t end the way it did. But I understand why you had to leave.”

[rubinaitoart]

I would love any crumbs of anything you're writing rn /nf /gen

(I keep seeing you go insane so thought I would see what you are interested in :3)

“I keep seeing you go insane” HAH yeah it’s even worse on discord lmao

The current WIP I have is based completely on spite. That’s it. I absolutely hated how the Lamia episode ended because. BECAUSE. BECAUSE.

You’re telling me after they kill the Lamia, everything is back to normal and perfectly fine between everyone. You’re telling me Merlin was actively threatened by some of the people he trusted the most, to the point he actually started COWERING a little when they got mad at him, and he walked out of that without even a little bit of emotional distress? A smidgeon of trauma? You’re telling me none of the knights apologized to him or to Guinevere, because even though it’s not their fault every single one of them would have still felt some form of guilt over scaring them like that, you’re TELLING ME—

^^^ Live footage of Rubin being carried off before he starts yelling even more /lh ^^^

It made me so MAD that it got wrapped up with everyone in good spirits and Arthur making fun of Merlin for being saved by a girl, and everything was fine and happy and ARGHHHH.

So yeah I started writing a fic to expand on what I feel should’ve happened after that episode I guess? Except make it a Merthur AU where they’ve been dancing around their feelings for all four seasons up until this point.

I’ve been going back and forth on this draft for a bit, so there’s a good chance whatever I end up publishing to AO3 will look COMPLETELY different. It’s also very clunky and not well edited but I figure that’s a given right now lol. Both options start the same before splitting into two different drafts, currently labeled D1 and D2 respectively.

I’ll dump a few snippets below the cut since this is already looking like a long post. Everything so far is in Arthur’s POV.

From the shared start: Set when Arthur shows up just in time to rescue Guinevere and Merlin from the Lamia.

A few seconds of silence stretched out before Arthur jerked forward and rushed to Merlin’s side.

“Better late than never.” Merlin groaned, but that stupid, goofy grin that Arthur loved more than he’d ever admit was plastered all over that smug face of his. “What took you so long?”

“You’re welcome.” Arthur said pointedly. Guinevere moved to help Merlin sit up, and the king didn’t miss the way his servant’s face twisted into a pained grimace, or how his hand quickly grabbed at his side. It hurt to see Merlin in any kind of pain, a dull ache in his chest that was somehow worse than anything Arthur had suffered in the past. “Are you hurt?”

“A little bruised, maybe.” Merlin leaned heavily against Guinevere. “Better off than everyone else though.” He added quickly, and Arthur’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Do you know where they are?” The king wanted to ask an entirely different question, but their objective held priority. They were safe, the lamia was dead, and the others were still missing.

“Elyan isn’t far.” Guinevere loosened her hold on Merlin—reluctantly, Arthur noted—and moved him to lean against a pillar. “I’m not entirely sure about the others.”

Arthur straightened up, gesturing for one of the knights. “Bevan, help Merlin outside. Cecil, with me.” He ordered. The king glanced towards his servant once again briefly before he extended his hand to Guinevere and helped her to her feet. “Lead the way.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Bevan gathering Merlin up into his arms and hefting him up into the air. The man made a soft, pained sound in the back of his throat that was horribly loud to Arthur’s ears. Carefully with him, or I’ll have you in the stocks lingered on the tip of his tongue, but he bit back his words and turned to follow Guinevere. Bevan’s receding footsteps faded, and they pressed onward.

“He’ll be alright.” Guinevere murmured to him. She reached over to lightly squeeze his arm, a small comfort for the moment.

“Mm, he better be.” Arthur said quietly in reply. “He’s a good friend, I’d hate to lose him.” They ducked under a fallen beam, and Arthur lapsed into a contemplative quiet. Merlin was so much more than just a friend to Arthur, something he’d struggled to admit to himself for a long time. What he was, however, was just out of reach.

So in typical fashion the king did what he always did best—try his damndest to ignore what he felt, because it could never come to be.

From D1, which is set as everyone leaves Longstead. Merlin is preparing Arthur’s horse before they leave despite still recovering from his injuries, man is just insisting on staying busy.

The king watched Merlin from afar as the servant busied himself with tacking up Arthur’s steed. He couldn’t look away, even if he wanted to.

Slightly curled raven locks and pale cheeks dappled with sunlight, Merlin’s brow furrowed slightly in concentration. His slender, pale hands deftly checked the leather straps, and his fingers occasionally strayed away to brush against the stallion’s ebony coat. A faint smile finally appeared in its truest and most genuine form as the horse turned its head to bump its nose gently against Merlin’s shoulder with a soft nicker. Arthur watched as Merlin finished securing the saddle and turned to gently take the horse’s face in his hands, rubbing his palm up and down the side of its head in slow, soothing strokes. Beautiful, he couldn’t help but think. That traitorous feeling of longing welled up in his chest and Arthur found himself tempted across the small clearing to join the servant.

Almost immediately, the longing was replaced with guilt and a hefty dose of self-loathing. Merlin was in no small amount of distress, and here he was practically ogling at the man. He turned away before Merlin could catch him staring and searched the clearing for something he could busy himself with, and hopefully rid himself of the shame that had overtaken the king.

From D2, which is set directly after Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, and the knights return to the village so Gaius can treat them: Gaius and Guinevere are busy with the knights, so Arthur takes it upon himself (as any good king no would do, of course) to try and tend to Merlin’s wounds himself. The best he can do is clean the gash on Merlin’s forehead, but he’s trying his best okay?

Far and few between were times that Arthur Pendragon found himself worried about his manservant. Merlin was an odd man, clumsy and strange at the best of times, prone to bouts of misfortune that he’d somehow miraculously overcome. Injuries were as rare as sickness, and he was right there at Arthur’s side day after day. Yet here he was, sleeves rolled up and a damp cloth in hand as he worried over Merlin. Thankfully the only ones around to see it were Gaius and Guinevere—the knights were still unconscious, and the physician and seamstress were busy tending to them.

It was just Arthur and Merlin, tucked away in the corner of the little hovel they were using as an infirmary.

“This feels backwards.” His servant muttered, wincing as Arthur lightly pressed the cloth to his forehead. Blood soaked into it quickly, weeping from a shallow cut on the side of his face that looked far worse than it actually was—head wounds were funny like that. And yet after all these years, after countless battles where he’d seen wounds worse than this over and over, seeing Merlin bloodied and bruised always made his heart lurch. It was so wrong.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Arthur mused, pulling the cloth back to inspect the injury. There wasn’t exactly much he could do other than try to stem the blood flow and clean away any dirt and debris until Gaius could take a proper look at it, but it was something.

He could feel Merlin’s eyes boring into him. “You’ll live, unfortunately.” Arthur added after a moment, flashing his teeth at the servant in a brief grin.

“Unfortunately for me, yes.” Merlin sank back against the cot. “I’ll be back to cleaning your stinking socks within the next few days.” His eyes remained affixed to Arthur, half-lidded and tired, and for the briefest of moments his face betrayed him to his king. Something heavy weighed on him, his gaze reflecting the burden of Atlas; then Arthur blinked, and it was like it hadn’t even been there in the first place.

What a strange thing to see on Merlin’s face.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Can we hear your thoughts on the Chinese Miracle Box? Not the kwami or the Miraculous themselves, but the actual box and how it both functions as a magical jewelry safe/home for the dormant kwami as well as how it affects the story.

Sure! I'm actually completely on board with the general concept of the miracle box. Because the miraculous are not always in use, it makes perfect sense to have a place where they're stored while dormant. It also makes perfect sense to have a guardian who watches over the miraculous while they're not in use and who calls them into use when the time is right. While I prefer to let the Kwamis choose their holders, a human doing the initial vetting makes a lot of sense since the Kwamis have to stay hidden and can't do direct interactions pre-choosing.

I'd only nix the miracle box if you were also nixing the miraculous and having the powers come directly from the Kwamis instead. You could also nix the miracle box and have each miraculous stored in its own place of power that only the worthy can access because that's a lovely classic setup, but it would not fit canon in the slightest, so I wouldn't do that for all of the miraculous. There is a solid argument for a mix of the miracle box and other miraculous in places of power, but let's not get into that here.

While I love the miracle box and wouldn't get rid of it, there are certainly some flaws with canon's execution of the concept. The biggest one is that it's very weird to have dozens of them spread all over the world. Were they made by the same person/group and then spread out? If not, then how did all of these different people/groups learn to make miracle boxes? Do they all work the same way? What happens if someone tries to make a box based on a Force that's in another box? Do you just magically attract whatever Kwami is closest? There are just so many questions raised by the multi-box reveal and those questions aren't just about the boxes. They're about the way that the boxes should be effecting world!

If there are dozens of miraculous spread across the globe, then why aren't miraculous a well known thing in this world? And why didn't Fu seek out help from another guardian group post-Feast? You can also reverse that and ask why other guardians failed to track down Fu? They have magic staves that let you find miracle boxes, this isn't an impossible task!

We're told that the canon box was just one of several boxes held by Fu's group, so I'm guessing that this was the main group? The master order? The one that all of the other guardian groups would notice going missing? Of course, that's assuming that they all know about each other, but I feel like they almost have to given the fact that the Ladybug has previously been seen in both Europe and Egypt, implying that the Tibetan group has done a lot of globe trotting in the past. It would make a lot of sense if the other orders call on the main order when help is needed otherwise how does the Tibetan group keep getting involved?

We also have to ask what the differences are between the different orders and why all of them seem to be inactive? After all, we don't hear of any other miraculous holders save for the ones introduced in the two specials and both of those specials were about giving these new heroes a miraculous. They didn't already have one. The only heroes that were active before the start of canon were the American heroes and they're all non-miraculous superheroes, which raises even more questions like why is America superhero central while China, France, and England are left hero-less? (Just naming those because I think that those are the only other countries that we've seen discussed or visited in canon.)

Dialing this back to the canon box, I like the idea that the Kwamis are awake in a pocked dimension while they're not in use. That's so much nicer than making them sleep, though it does make their season-four naivety feel incredibly forced. (It was already forced based on their age and having previous wielders, but it's even worse if they're hanging out in a pocket dimension and messing with human things. They should not come across as oblivious children!)

Similarly, I love the idea of the memory wipe that we saw at the end of season three, but it makes no sense for that to be the standard way that the box is passed on. It should be an emergency protocol. In fact, I initially assumed that it was! I was stunned when season four revealed that Marinette could only pass the box on by giving up her memories. That makes no sense and raises so many questions like, if Fu was never a "true" guardian, then how did the box get tied to him? And why does it even matter who the designated grand guardian is if anyone can open the box as we see in episodes like Optigami and Ephemeral?

As far as I can tell, being the grand guardian is a pretty worthless role. The only special powers it gives are remote access to the canon box (which we'll get to in a minute) and that whole magically reshaping the box to suit you thing which I still don't fully understand because that's not what happened when Fu got the box! It's appearance doesn't change between the present and his memories. We even have Su-Han claiming that the shape of the box proves your worth as a guardian in Furious Fu while also claiming that Fu wasn't a true guardian and just what?

Marinette: Hey! That's not fair! Why didn't I get a staff? Su-Han: Precisely because you are not a true guardian! This is all a misunderstanding, and the incorrect shape of the box proves it.

This exchange from Lies also makes no sense to me:

Marinette:(notices button on the top of box, pushes it, causing all the kwamis to be freed. She falls over) I thought they couldn't get out? Tikki: Now that you're the Guardian, the box has become just like you! Full of surprises! That's amazing!

Why does Marinette having the box add this feature? This sounds more like something that Adrien would get. And what special features did Fu have? I have so many questions...

In my opinion, the memory thing should just be a standard option for anything related to the miraculous. Any chosen should be able to send their miraculous back to the box at the price of their miraculous-specific memories and anyone holding the box should be able to send it to someone at the price of their miraculous-specific memories. There should be no such thing as a grand guardian who is magically designated.

Similarly, the miracle box should have one shape and never change. I really miss the old design. I thought it was elegant. Now we have the weird egg thing which, once again, makes no sense because why would Marinette's be ladybug themed when Fu's wasn't turtle themed? This is extra true because the new bright red egg look makes it damn near impossible to hide the thing! Anyone would look at the egg box and go "wtf is that?" Meanwhile Fu's box could have sat on a shelf and no one would have questioned it because it blended into the scenery.

I said that we'd talk about Marinette having remote access so let's end on that topic. I think that Marinette being able to access the miracle box via her yo-yo is a neat function of being the designated grand guardian, but since I have mixed feelings about that being a thing, I'm not sure if I'd keep that function around. This is extra true because Su-Han gives us this extremely confusing line in Furious Fu:

Su-Han: Let me remind you about some of the Perfect Precepts that you have broken... Precept 133: A guardian cannot, under any circumstances, wear a Miraculous.

If that's true, then why is the remote access feature even a thing? It's something that you'd only add if you wanted guardians to also be wielders. Even then, a guardian could just open their box, put the miraculous inside of their weapon, and simulate the remote access feature that way so, once again, how is this a feature worth losing your memory over?

And why can't guardians wield? The only major risk that I can think of comes from the stupid remote access thing. That could easily lead to trouble as canon already proved at the end of season four. Outside of that, you could argue that a gaurdian's secret knowledge is at risk if they're captured, but miraculous holders would also have some of that knowledge so it seems a bit excessive to ban guardians from wielding, though I do see a solid argument for them being limited to more supporting roles that minimize their risk of capture.

If remote access has to be a thing, then I definitely would make it less of a security risk by removing the canon "feature" that allows anyone to use the remote access so long as they have the guardian's weapon. That made no sense! It should be something that only the guardian can do, especially since we see that Marinette's yo-yo also acts as storage. How can any rando open it to the right pocket dimension when she presumably has two of them? Or maybe she doesn't? Does her stuff go into the Kwamis' pocket dimension now? Where did it go beforehand? How does any of this work? One again, my questions are endless!

Even if you make the remote access feature more secure, it still creates a scenario where the guardian is arguably too high risk to be on the battlefield unless the situation is dire. With the remote access feature, the villains don't have to find the box's hiding place and the other heroes have no way to truly protect it outside of removing all of the miraculous. But then, since anyone can open the miracle box, is that really such a big deal? I honestly don't know. The stakes and rules around these things are nonsense.

Either way, the remote access feature is simply not a feature that makes sense if you're trying to design a logical magic system. It only makes sense if you're trying to find a way to make it easier for your main character to hand out miraculous without always having to go back to her house or if you're trying to come up with a way to make your main character lose all the miraculous without her identity being outed, which is my best guess as to why the feature was suddenly a thing in season four.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Last night, two more Israelis, who had been kidnapped, were released by Hamas. These women's husbands are still being held in Gaza. There are 220 known hostages after the release of four women in total. Among them, a nine month old baby remains in captivity.

Anyone trying to portray Hamas as "humanitarian" for releasing 4 out of 224 people, after having kidnapped them in the first place, after having beaten these elderly women on the day of the kidnapping, after butchering their relatives, and while still holding hostage some of their loved ones, has no moral backbone and is gaslighting people.

Almost 100 rockets were fired into Israel yesterday. Since Oct 7 and until Oct 24 in the afternoon (Israel time), a total of 7,512 rockets have been launched from Gaza at Israel, over 10% of them malfunctioned and landed in Gaza. That's over 800 rockets that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad ended up harming Palestinians with (data is from a counter-terrorism research center).

The UN secretary general has given a speech in which he basically justifies the Hamas massacre, by saying that it didn't happen in a vacuum. I'd just like to say that justifying any violence against civilians is unconscionable. Justifying racist violence against civilians because they're Jewish or Jew-adjacent is unconscionable. I'm unequivocally against racist attacks by some Israeli settlers against Arabs, but those didn't happen in a vacuum either. Arab attacks on Jews go back centuries (far more than the 75 years of the State of Israel existing), the discrimination and persecution, repeated expulsions and massacres of Jews under Arab rule happened in Israel and in other countries for 1,300 years. And yet, most Jews fully condemn such racist attacks, without justifying it by talking about "context." The second we start justifying any kind of racist violence, we justify it all. It's wrong. If we're not justifying it all, if we're only justifying anti-Jewish racist violence, it's antisemitic.

I hope you can understand why Israelis have little faith in the UN.

Finally, just a reminder that the communities living closest to the Gaza border were very well known to be left leaning. Many of these people were peace activists, some were actively engaged in efforts to make the lives of Gazans better. Here are some of their stories:

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[codabound]

I said that I was gonna do it, soooo, without further ado...

Why I do not particularly care for nor generally like Riley Zhou from Leasebound

All of this is essentially just going to be a bulleted list with no real order, and all of this is specifically just my opinion of her character, as well as the very obviously distasteful aspects that she's been written with.

Starting off with number one, and the most obvious point:

She is very obviously supposed to be Rusty's self-insert.

Thought that one was a bit on the nose. Hell, in one of the comic panels in Chapter 6, Rusty basically admits that herself. So already, Riley kind of gets points off for being a bigoted and generally very nasty and rude creator's self-insert.

Moving on to number two:

She's borderline absent from the comic's actual story because of just how little of character she's given.

Yeah, a few people have talked about this before, it's just a little bit asinine that a literal side character who's existence is to motivate Jaden was given an entire backstory and more character development before Riley, who is literally one of the two main characters.

We know so little about Riley that you could count her character qualities on both hands. She's vegetarian, she has a cat that she loves, she has a cute girlfriend, she's non-confrontational and docile, she apparently grew up in a cultish religious upbringing... And that's kind of about it..?

What worsens this is that the most interesting of these qualities of her character have had practically 0 development since Leasebound was first created. In my opinion, and I believe most would likely agree, the most interesting part about Riley and her potential backstory is the fact that she grew up in a religious upbringing, possibly JW or just culty in general, and then was subsequently disfellowed and no longer has any contact or connection with her family, or specifically her mother, likely either because she was discovered for being lesbian, or just left on her own accord, which religious cults see as a big ol' no-no.

But we barely know anything about that part of Riley! The closest we've ever gotten is the little nudges to it in the first few chapters of the comic, and a few little hints to it in the behind-the-scenes bits that Rusty has made. And who knows how much longer we'll have to wait until we finally get some kind of story development for her, if Rusty even decides to get to it at all.

Onto numero tres!

She's kind of at fault for a good half of Leasebound's conflict, yet gets practically zero of the blame.

I already went into this in my previous post before this, so there's no use beating a dead horse. Essentially, Riley is a doormat, and that's pretty annoying.

Number four:

She gives off the most heavy "uwu soft squishy smol bean" early 2016 vibes

Now, I suppose this could be overlooked given that Leasebound was first being developed in 2017, and was then first being published in 2019, where treating a character as a "smol bean" was generally more normalized and acceptable.

... So now it's jarring how she's continually treated this way in nearly 2025.

I've said this before in a previous post, it doesn't entirely feel as though a lot of Leasebound's fans treat Riley like an actual person, rather just this "little baby bean, needs to be protected from that evil HOP Blaire 🥺🥺🥺"

It just gives off this really off-putting and weird vibe.

Number five:

Her feelings for Jaden, how said feelings are detrimental to Blaire, and the lack of development for said feelings.

I've already kind of gone over this one a bunch of times to, so to keep their short: Riley has a girlfriend, doesn't agree with her girlfriend's political views, so to cope with that, Riley actively pines for her roommate who's she's only known for a whole week at best and who only seems mildly interested in her back. Yikes, I say.

Number six:

The fashion sense of a wall with paint drying.

In general, nearly every character in Leasebound has an absolutely atrocious taste in fashion, since for some reason, Rusty appears to believe that a character having even just a pinch of style in their wardrobe = patriarchy. But Riley especially fits this category, because all she seems to ever wear are t-shirts, button ups with little to no design or patterns that are appealing to the eye, and...

This. Yeah, I have to come out and say it, this look for Riley is just not it. I don't like it. At all. Sorry, TERFs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And for some miscellaneous points that I generally dislike about her but don't exactly feel like getting into, or just feed into another existing point about her I've/somebody else have already made:

・The insane leaps and stretches that both the comic and TERFs have taken to keep up the idea that she is a "victim" of her girlfriend

・Her Marinette Dupain-Cheng levels of white-washing for being a half Asian character.

・The weird way she's portrayed whenever she's shown during sexual scenes. Seriously, it icks me out seeing people be like "omg!! Riley, the smol innocent little bean who can barely ask for ketchup by herself knows how to fuck??!". Ugh

・She's so underdeveloped that I'm pretty sure she has no actual relations or friendships with any other characters than Jaden, Blaire and Brick. She's only just recently met Faith and Violet, and briefly came into contact with Chez and Parniya and the other Yonique workers as of these recent panels, but that's about it. Even then, most of her relationships stay bound to just Jaden and Riley. Like, does she have no other friends?? Nobody else she can talk to?? It just feeds more into the fact that she has little to no development outside of pining for Jaden

・She's dating Blaire and Blaire deserves better than that

・I have a very sneaking fear that she may just never actually develop, or at the very least just grow an actual spine, and that the comic will take the route of "She'll never have to go through big scary confrontations ever again, because her huge strong muscle girlfriend will do that for her!". Let's at least hope that isn't the case

Like I said, a whole lot of this post is essentially just my opinion on her as a character, so feel free to add your own insights and opinions in the case that there are also aspects of her character that bother you.

I know I'll probably have my head on a platter by any TERFs who actually bother to read this past the title, but then again, when have I not been under fire by TERFs.