#even if i agree with their stance. nobody has all the answers so claiming this is 100% how it will be makes me disagree with you more

[magentagalaxies]

where's that post that's like "nice dichotomy dipshit now what lies outside of it" bc i'm very much feeling it rn

[heliads]

Coming Home

Based on this request: "race x kelly!reader where she got back from the refuge and it's not doing rlly good?"

masterlist

“How well do you know Y/N Kelly?”

The question is simple, the answer less so. Race has lived a life on the streets of Manhattan and has gotten used to fielding questions and coming up with answers on the go, yet somehow this throws him for a loop. How does he respond to this? There’s no good way to describe the relationship he has with Y/N, the timid circles they’ve run around each other.

But Crutchie is still waiting for an answer. Poor, expectant, oddly hopeful Crutchie. Stalling for time, Race reaches for a question in return. “As well as anyone, I guess. Why do you ask?” Crutchie sighs, glancing around the lodging house like he’s expecting someone to be desperately listening in. “She just got back from the Refuge last night. Things aren’t exactly going well.”

Instantly, every sense in Race’s body is thrown into high alert. The Refuge is a horrible, horrible place. Race would know, he’s spent some time there himself. If the rats and starvation don’t get you, the beatings from the guards will. It’s one of the worst experiences a newsie can ever have. No matter how much spirit you have out on the streets, the second you pass over that threshold, it’s all gone. All of it.

The thought of Y/N Kelly in the Refuge is not something Race wants to consider, not even for a second. “She was in the refuge? I thought she lived somewhere else.” Crutchie shakes his head. “She’s Jack’s sister, remember? If she had a place, he’d probably be there too. Jack’s been worried about something like this for months.” Race’s stomach drops. “Wait, what do you mean, months? Y/N left the lodging house a year ago. Everyone said something about how she was looking for better work somewhere else.”

The memory of that conversation still twists like a knife in Race’s heart. She had never even said goodbye, never bothered to visit. It had torn at him time and time again, wearing him down even when Race swore a girl would never get the best of his heart like that. He supposed he didn’t have a choice with her, he rarely did. There was something about her that made all hopes of friendship impossible. When she’d left without a word, Race couldn’t help but take it personally.

Yet, looking at Crutchie now, Race is starting to have some doubts about Y/N’s past disappearance. He takes a step closer to the boy, feeling his temper rise with every word. “But she didn’t go, did she? She’s been in the Refuge all this time. For a year.” Crutchie doesn’t exactly agree with this, but he can’t seem to bring himself to say a word. Race runs a hand through his hair, trying and failing to come up with some way to make this better.

Crutchie winces. “We was looking for her, honest. We didn’t know for sure that she was in the Refuge.” Race glances back at him. “But you guessed, didn’t you? What, was she not worth the effort of breaking her out?” Crutchie stands up straighter, and Race realizes he’s gone too far. Crutchie may joke around with everyone else and have a heart of pure, unfiltered gold, but he’s got a spine of diamond. It’s wrong of him to assume Crutchie would ever let a newsie or a Kelly stay in the Refuge if he could do something about it.

“There was no way Jack could get involved. You know that, Race. Snyder’s tightened restrictions around that place ever since Jack escaped. We tried to visit her a lot, and every single time we were practically chased off with pitchforks. We couldn’t do anything but stay away and hope they wouldn’t take their anger about us visiting out on her and extend her sentence.”

Race sighs, trying and failing to force himself to calm down. “You said she got here last night, right? So she’s out?” Crutchie’s face falls rapidly. “Technically, yes.” Race frowns. “What do you mean, technically? Either she’s here or she’s not.” Crutchie glances around the room one last time, and Race realizes that he’s looking for Jack. Whatever he’s about to say, whatever is going on with Y/N, Jack either doesn’t know or doesn’t want other newsies to know. This can’t be good.

Crutchie takes a deep breath before responding. “They let her out after a year, claiming her sentence was over or whatever. She’s not herself, Race. Not at all. She doesn’t seem to recognize any of us. She remembered enough to get back to the lodging house, but she isn't responding to anyone. Not me, not Katherine-” Crutchie pauses. “Not Jack. He’s pretty torn up about that.”

Race thinks he knows where this is going. “That’s why you asked how well I knew Y/N? You think she’d recognize me.” Crutchie shrugs, although Race can tell he’s faking his couldn’t-care-less stance. “You’re our best bet. You and Y/N were close, Race, whether you want to admit it or not. If Jack can’t get through to her, then I think you could. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I know you cared about her. I think we owe it to her to try.”

Race feels like a hand is clenching around his heart, stopping all attempts at escape. “I’ll do it. Where is she?” Crutchie looks relieved. “The roof. That one fire escape she always seemed to go to.” Race nods. “I’ll see you later, I guess.” Crutchie grabs Race’s arm as he attempts to leave. “And Race? Be careful. She isn’t herself, I mean that. Don’t end up doing more harm than good.” Race stares a second, then removes the boy’s hand from his arm. “I won’t. I can’t hurt her, not if I tried.”

Race’s footsteps seem hollow on the stairs, rattling up the fire escape stairs like they’re not connected to him at all. He knows where Y/N will be, but it’s still a surprise to see a figure curled up on her fire escape landing. No one seemed to visit there in the year she’s been gone, as if they’re all saving it for her. To see someone there now almost seems sacrilegious, even if it’s her.

Drawing closer, Race feels a lump form in his throat. Y/N looks, well, awful. There are large bags under her eyes, as if she hasn’t been sleeping. As if she’s been too afraid to sleep. Bruises dot her arms, scratches line her body. Her cheeks are hollow, the result of having no food to eat. When she hears him approach, her eyes widen in terror, and she backs away as far as she can on the narrow fire escape.

Race holds up his hands, but the sudden movement only seems to agitate her further. “It’s me, Y/N. It’s Race. I’m not going to hurt you.” Y/N’s shoulders relax infinitesimally. “They all say that.” Race feels like he’s been physically slapped. The thought of people telling Y/N, his Y/N, lies about not hurting her and what they mean makes him want to go up to the Refuge and burn it all down to the ground. However, getting himself landed in jail for years because of arson wouldn’t do Y/N any good, and so he stays where he is.

Race slowly lowers himself to the ground, sitting casually on the other end of the fire escape. “I’m just going to sit here, alright? I want to make sure you’re alright.” Y/N’s jaw clenches. “I’m fine.” Race raises an eyebrow. “If you were fine, you wouldn’t be looking at me like I’m a monster from one of Les’ nightmares.” Y/N’s gaze flickers to him at the mention of Les’ name. “You know Les?”

Race nods. “Yeah, Les and Davey. They’re friends of ours, right? The Jacobs. I remember when they first showed up and Davey tried to start something by saying that they didn’t give him enough papes. I thought Albert was going to soak ‘em just as sure as the Delanceys.” The corner of Y/N’s mouth twitches, like she’s trying to hold back a smile. “Albert would never soak another newsie. He’d be tempted, sure, but he wouldn’t do it.”

Her gaze softens at the memory, and then she turns to Race, as if really seeing him for the first time. “Race?” The name seems to tear at her throat, ripping out of her like it’s physically painful to even call up the hope that he might be here in front of her. Race can’t help but wonder how many times she asked other kids if they were him, and how many times she realized she was still alone after all.

He forces the thought away. “Yeah, Y/N. It’s me. It’s Race.” Y/N’s eyes flash closed for just a second, as if she’s overwhelmed with relief, and then she looks over at him once more. She shivers once, twice, as if she can’t stop. “I think I’m out now. I was there so long, and nobody ever came-” Before Race realizes what he’s doing, he’s scooting over on the fire escape, close enough that he can wrap an arm around Y/N’s shoulders and pull her near. He pauses just before his hand touches her, remembering everything she’d been through.

Y/N hesitates too, flinching slightly, one more sign that she’s still thinking of her time at the Refuge. Yet she takes a deep, rattling breath, and moves closer to Race. She lays her head on his shoulder. Race can feel the quiet rise and fall of her chest, the tension still radiating up and down her spine even as she tries to force herself to relax. Race remembers what it was like when he got out of the Refuge, the way he didn’t want to think about anything he’d just been through, yet he’d been reminded of it every second he walked and talked and breathed around the city.

So he opens his mouth again, casting about for something else to say. “Do you remember when you drew me that picture of myself?” Y/N’s shoulders start to shake, and for a second Race thinks he’s really done it now and he’s made her burst into tears before he realizes that she’s laughing. “Don’t bring that up. I’m embarrassed, Racer.” Race’s heart does a steady loop in his chest over the nickname, but he forces himself to stay calm.

“I don’t know why you’se embarrassed. I thought it was excellent.” Y/N gives him a look out of the corner of her eye. “It was excellent, that’s not the problem.” Race raises an eyebrow. “Well, look at you, Miss Confident. If your artistic mastery wasn’t the problem, then what was?” Y/N curls even closer in to Race’s chest, as if trying to hide away from the memory. “The problem was that I drew a picture of you and you found it. I looked like a stalker.”

Race chuckles. “You weren’t a stalker for drawing me. Jack does it all the time. Honestly, I’m flattered that you were trying to come up with a masterpiece and the first thing you thought of was me.” Y/N sits up slightly, still pressed against his chest, and it takes every ounce of self control in Race’s body to not start blushing with the heat of a furnace. “Maybe I was looking for a really mediocre muse.” Race just tosses her a wink, as casual a movement as he can muster. “I’m still your muse, love, and that’s what matters to me.”

There’s a shout from further down the fire escape. The newsies are arriving in the main room of the lodging house, still unaware of Y/N but wanting to meet up with everybody to discuss the day’s sales. Race moves to follow the voice, assuming Y/N will want some time alone, but her hand closes on his for just a second. Even this small movement is enough to convince him to stay.

When she speaks, her voice is quiet, barely there at all. “Don’t go. Please. I don’t want to be alone.” The bleakness in her words cuts at Race like a knife, and he sits back down, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Of course not. I’m not leaving you, Y/N.” Not anymore, he wants to add. Not after everything that you went through when I wasn’t there. Y/N seems to be thinking of similar things, and she shudders slightly. “I was there a year. I kept thinking that people were going to come for me, and they didn’t. No one ever did.”

Race opens his mouth to say something, anything, even though she’s right. Y/N lays a hand on his arm, and he remains silent. “It’s not your fault, Race. I heard Crutchie talking to you, I know you had no idea I was there. Jack, though, he knew. He didn’t do anything.” Race sighs, staring out at the horizon. “Jack makes a lot of decisions. He did what he thought was best. That doesn’t mean he was right, but at least he has a motive.”

Y/N looks over at him. “And if you knew? What would you have done?” Race laughs ruefully. “I would have broken into the Refuge myself. Beaten up all the guards like a superhero, carried you out. It would have been a thing for the movies.” Y/N chuckles. “Look at you, got everything planned out. You sound like Crutchie when he gets an idea.” Race grins too, then feels his expression sober.

“I’m being real, Y/N. If I had known I would have come for you. You know that, right?” He doesn’t know why it’s so important that Y/N know this, even if he couldn’t have actually done it himself, but something in him needs Y/N to count on him, to keep looking for moments like this one. She nods slowly. “I know you would, Race. I knew all along.”

A tight knot unclenches itself in Race’s stomach, and he presses another kiss to Y/N’s cheek in an attempt to stop the thundering behind his temples. “I just wanted to make sure. I care about you, Y/N. I care about you a lot.” The words are simple, hinting at something far more than the single phrase. It means that Y/N Kelly is one of the best things in his life, that spending a year without her was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. It means that finding out she’d been in the Refuge fills Race with an incomprehensible pain. It means that he loves her, even if he’s never sure if she feels the same way.

Y/N smiles up at him. “I care about you too, Race. More than you know.” Maybe it’s not a lot, not in Manhattan where every love story worth hearing is splashed out on the headlines. But for a boy and a girl, two hearts in a big city, it could paint the sunsets. It is enough for them.

[agent-cupcake]

Beastie and the Bard

Fire Emblem Three Houses - Dimitri x Reader - Chapter 9

Word Count: 11,631

I bet you thought I’d forgotten about this. Nope, not yet. I actually have a fully fleshed out framework for where this story is going with a scene by scene breakdown. You can read the previous chapters on my blog or on AO3

This chapter takes place during the first part of the month before the Battle of Garreg Mach. 

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 1

There was something surreal about sitting in the classroom again, the desks arranged in their neat rows and Professor Byleth facing you all from his usual place. Not even a week had passed since your last class, since your last private conversation with Dimitri, but everything had changed. Peace, whatever dregs had been left of it after everything that had happened, was utterly destroyed. Any illusion of safety behind the old stone walls of the monastery was waved away into smoke. No more laughter, no more fun. The monastery swarmed with word of Emperor Edelgard’s treasonous claims and threats, words weaponized to spread disquiet.

It was almost a relief when Professor Byleth said it, confirming something that everybody already knew. “There is going to be a battle,” he told you all, his voice striking the silent room without any particular cadence. “Scouts report that the Imperial army led by Emperor Edelgard will be here by the end of the moon.”

By the end of the moon. You tried to calculate the days but knew that it wasn’t any more than three weeks. Less, actually.  

“So soon?” Ingrid asked, her voice breathy with the shock you felt echoed within yourself.

“This plan has been underway for longer than we could have guessed,” Professor Byleth said. He winced, an odd tick of an expression. “I’m sorry for not seeing this sooner.”

“We don’t blame you, Professor,” Annette said. “Who could have known, right? We all thought...” she trailed off, but there was no point in continuing. You had all thought, you had all been so distracted.

“We can’t let ourselves get caught up on that, Annie,” Mercedes chided.

“You’re right,” Professor Byleth said. “Now, we must prepare for what is to come. Before we begin, does anybody have any questions?”

Nobody said anything. You scanned the faces of those you could see. Dimitri and Dedue sat in front of you, giving you only a profile glimpse of drawn expressions of exhaustion. Of those sitting in your row, nerves cast a sickly pallor over Ashe’s freckled cheeks, painted shadows beneath Annette and Mercedes’ eyes. You wondered how you looked. Tired, probably. You felt as if you hadn’t slept all week.

“Right,” Professor Byleth called, folding his hands behind his back in something akin to parade rest. It was interesting how quickly he had traded a mercenary’s unrefined motions for the more commanding stances of a general. “Dimitri, have you heard any word about what’s happening in Fhirdiad? Seteth’s reports indicate that they’re hesitating in committing any troops to defend Garreg Mach.”

“My uncle is blind,” Dimitri responded with obvious distaste. “He rejects reality. Foolish man.” Although nearly everyone knew of Rufus’s incompetence, Dimitri’s genuine and open scorn for the man, his uncle, was shocking.

“According to my father,” Felix added from behind you, his tone far more measured, “there is opposition within that prevents the regent from committing any men. Not to mention, the Kingdom troops are already spread thin along the western border.”

“Um, excuse me,” Ashe said, nervously raising his hand as if this were a normal class. “There is good reason for that. Professor, may I?”

“Please,” Professor Byleth said, motioning Ashe to continue. He looked from face to face nervously, fidgeting awkwardly in his seat. You were close enough to see the red rimming his eyes, the white skin on his chapped lips. But he spoke and his voice was steady enough, his gaze even as he addressed the class.

“Lord Lonato named me as his heir,” Ashe said, “although I have not yet claimed the title, the Church has allowed me to remain informed about what is happening in his territory. I am… I’m afraid there seems to be some conflict over how the western lords intend to act. After what happened, many of them have been actively rejecting Church aid. Should this become an all-out war-”

“They intend to betray the Church,” Dimitri said, turning and narrowing his eyes at Ashe. “No—to betray their country, is that it?”

“There could be another explanation,” Ashe said.

“I’m sure there is,” Professor Byleth said, motioning to calm them. “What you’re saying is that we can’t count on the western lords for help.”

“Yes,” Ashe answered, his shoulders slumping somewhat. “I’m sorry.”

“I cannot help but wonder if that was the intention,” Dedue said.

“What do you mean?” Byleth asked.

“It is merely speculation,” Dedue began hesitantly, like he was unsure if he should be voicing his opinion. “However, it seemed strange that Lord Lonato would raise a rebellion in the manner he did when he did. Unless he had outside support with considerable sway-”

“You think the Empire is behind Lord Lonato’s betrayal?” Mercedes asked.

“As I said,” Dedue told her, his expression unreadable, “it is merely speculation. But it would explain a great many things. Faerghus is more divided now than ever, it is difficult to believe that is a simple coincidence.”

“Duscur, Lonato, the Church,” Dimitri said, “the infection of the Flame Emperor’s touch has been festering in the Kingdom for far too long. And they would choose to ignore it rather than fighting for their country. Have they no honor?”

“Does any of this matter?” Felix interjected, clearly annoyed. “Even if the Empire did have something to do with the failed rebellion, Lonato is dead now. We can’t waste our time wondering about the motives of a dead man. We need to focus on the problems at hand.”

Dimitri raised his chin imperiously in reaction to that statement, although he didn’t object, turning to face the front again. Ashe sunk back in his chair, pressing his shaking hands flat against the table. Felix’s cruelty was expected at this point, but Dimitri’s was still a fresh wound. You could understand that. You put your hand over Ashe’s, pleased at how steady it was. Your eyes met and you nodded to him, hoping the show of support was enough. His lips quirked in what could almost be counted as a grateful smile.

“About that,” Sylvain said, breaking the tension somewhat with his easy tone. “I received word from my father. He said that he’d send men, but they still won’t get here in time. It’ll take an entire moon for any sizable force to get here. Best case scenario, the Empire forces are delayed, and we can bolster our numbers.” He didn’t continue with the worst-case scenario, but he didn’t need to. The little helpless shrug was more than enough.

Byleth nodded thoughtfully. “This will be a decisive battle, but we’ll be in need of fresh soldiers after the fact no matter which way it goes.”

“Win or lose, you mean,” Felix said dryly.  

“We won’t lose,” Annette said. “With the Professor on our side, we’re definitely going to win. Right?” Her blue eyes jumped from face to face, searching desperately for confirmation of her plea.

“Right,” you agreed, trying to unravel the knot of fear and dread tangling in your stomach. You had to work past that, to remain strong. “No matter what, we can’t let the Empire scare us into submission. If we do that, we might as well give up before the battle even starts.” Could they hear past the conviction in your voice to the weak wobble that laid beneath? At the very least, Annette smiled in return. That was enough.

“We will win,” Dimitri said. “When I have her head in my hands, there will be peace. For all of us.” Even in profile, you could see the sickly smile he wore as he considered that. Compared to any regular expression of joy or pleasure, this was a ghastly, inhuman expression. One you had seen before.

“Dimitri, when was the last time you slept?” Professor Byleth asked, tilting his chin up as he considered the prince.

“Slept? I...” Dimitri replied, his eyes snapping upward and the smile dropping. A moment later, his expression froze over. “That is unimportant.” Even for Professor Byleth, this was dangerous territory.

“What about your last meal?” Professor Byleth pushed.

“That is no concern of yours,” Dimitri said, meeting his eyes evenly. “And assuming it was… I have no appetite.”

“Oh, so is that your plan?” Felix called, his voice dripping scorn. “You’re going to kill yourself before that girl can do it for you?”

“Felix,” Dedue said, a warning in his voice as he turned to scowl at him.

“Shut up, dog. I’m tired of your sycophantic denial,” Felix snapped. “Wake up, boar. If you want to lose your mind, do it on your own time. Right now, there are more important things to worry about.”

“Hm,” Dimitri said in response.

“Felix, calm down,” Ingrid said, her worry clearly etched into a frown.  

“You’re telling me to calm down?” Felix asked her. “Am I the only one who understands what’s at stake here? You want me to spare the feelings of a mad boar… For what? How is pity for him going to save the lives of the people here? What good is compassion against an upcoming war? This is a farce.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Dimitri said, standing with the sharp scraping of wood on stone. “I recommend you all prepare yourselves. We will crush the enemy as soon as they dare to enter through the gates. And as soon as Edelgard draws near... I will have my revenge.”

Dimitri let that ominous threat hold in the still air. Dust motes played in the light streaming in through the windows, disturbing into a frantic swirl of a dance as he left the room with a swish of his blue cape. Dedue followed with a hurried, “Pardon me.” The doors shut behind them, but not before allowing in a chilly draft of cold wintery air. You didn’t even think about it, pushing away from the table with dread settling like ice in your heart.

“You’re going to go after him, aren’t you?” Felix accused, pinning you in place with his glare.

“What?” you asked, feeling the attention settling on you.

“Give me a break,” Felix said, his lip curling back in outright disdain, “you’re not fooling anybody. You’re as bad as that boar’s lapdog, constantly following him around as you do.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you said slowly, carefully.

Felix scoffed. “Anybody with a set of eyes can see the truth. If he’s the boar’s lapdog,” he said, nodding towards the door Dedue had just departed through, “then you’re his bitch.”

You recoiled as if he’d physically struck you. It felt like it, almost. Heat built up urgently behind your eyes, ringing with the pulsing stream of blood in your ears. Like the first time you’d been punched in the face, you just felt stunned.

Did he know the extent of your feelings? You supposed they had been transparent from the start; you were an idiot to believe you’d ever fool anyone. All the same, thick shame began to congeal in your gut, rising up like bile. “That’s a terrible thing to say,” you said into the ensuing shocked silence, your voice soft with pained shock, light and airy in order to get past the swell of tears in your throat.

“Felix, that’s enough,” Sylvain said in warning, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Felix shook off Sylvain’s hand by standing up, glaring at him, too.

“You’re all fools. You think you’re being kind, but all you’re doing is enabling him to destroy himself,” Felix said. “We don’t have a chance of winning if we spend all of our time worrying about a mad boar. Tell me when we’re actually going to discuss something important. Until then, I’ll be training.” He turned on his heel and left without any further objection.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 2

There weren’t enough knights to do everything that needed to be done in preparing Garreg Mach for the impending battle. That meant that many of the less intensive tasks fell to the students to complete, including evacuation of civilians.

Those who had the resources to do so were able to get out practically on the day of Edelgard’s betrayal, like wildlife that could smell a storm before it broke, people scattered away from the encroaching doom. Others weren’t so fortunate. They were poor, they had families, they had settled their lives in Garreg Mach as surely and firmly as the old stone walls.

Getting those people to safety was absolutely essential and important, but the reality of the matter was grim. The friendly territories of the western kingdom and along the Alliance and Faerghus border were quickly becoming packed with refugees. Not just from Garreg Mach, but from the northern Empire. Asylum seekers from the Imperial recruitment and cruelty.

Most of those people were used to the mild winters in Central Fódlan, so those who were forced further north into the kingdom weren’t accustomed to the harsh conditions. Already, there were rumors of entire camps of refugees left dead from exposure. Or bandits, the Kingdom was still rife with lowlife thugs like Miklan. And that wasn’t even to mention the fact that the civil unrest had already left Faerghus without enough resources over the winter months.

The Alliance wasn’t much better, most of their energy was put into fortifying their own defenses and the little wars of internal conflict. You had never paid much attention to how divided the Alliance was after Duke Riegan’s death. Claude insisted he could get a handle on it, but there was only so much he could do for the time being.

That was the general feeling in Garreg Mach. There was only so much you could do. Only so much anyone could do.

You helped load another family onto an overpacked cart with only the most essential of their possessions. Families of the soldiers got priority, and this caravan was thick with children. Despite the hapless sounds of crying children and soft weeping, there was a hush over the once lively square. A somber farewell.

Having done all you could, you stepped back. You couldn’t help but focus on a young girl towards the back. She had a ghostly white face and clutched a doll to her chest with hands still round and dimpled with baby fat, her mother’s arm draped across those tiny shoulders to keep her from bumping into the strangers they would be traveling with. Tears glazed those sweet baby blues, exhaustion ringed the young mother’s eyes. Her husband, a young soldier who had hung around to say goodbye, would be staying and risking his life. He kissed both girls with the desperate fervor of a man who knew, on some level, that this was goodbye forever.

You wanted to believe that this was the best thing, and it was, but you knew what it was to be displaced at such a young age. You knew what it did to people. You knew what goodbye forever felt like. Selfish as it was, you felt almost as if you could see yourself in those glassy young eyes. It was just all too familiar.

Thinking of your mother, as always, was a painful thing. After realizing the magnitude of the situation, you had sent several letters to her nurses and the man you had left in charge of your Fhirdiad estate to warn them of what was coming. Right now, you held onto the belief that the battle at Garreg Mach would stop the war from invading into Faerghus, which meant that your mother was fine to stay in the country mansion. Besides, you worried about what the city would do to her system, she was already in such a poor state.

But that was a worry for another time.

The horses were kicked into motion and the cart rolled over the smooth cobblestones to the great somewhere else. You hoped the goddess went with them, keeping them safe. When they fully disappeared through the gate into the cloudy winter sunrise, you turned on your heel to return to the monastery. After such a long night of patrolling and a morning of packing up civilians, this was the last thing you wanted to do, but you had already put it off too long.

If you were a good person, or even a good leader, you would have visited your company the moment you had any solid news about what was happening. But you weren’t. You didn’t.

Not all of the soldiers employed by the Church stayed in the monastery, which was reserved primarily for the knights and those with high standing in the militaries of the three countries. In a section wedged between the monastery proper and the town of Garreg Mach, a large camp of barracks had been laid out for all of the other soldiers. The organization of it was a bit strange, considering most of them had separate allegiances and very few of them reported to the same generals. Lady Rhea would be considered their High Marshal in theory, but that was just about the only unifying force. Each battalion of soldiers was employed to serve whichever student Officer they had been assigned, so they worked both as an independent, almost mercenary-like group as well as military personnel.

You had always felt awkward with your own battalion, unsure of how to command or treat them. Lieutenant Avery was basically the leader of your company. There was no question of the men’s loyalty, your authority wasn’t the highest to those men, even if they were technically yours to lead. That had never bothered you, not in the way it should have. Only recently had you begun to feel shame about the fact. So many other students had been found to have traitorous Imperial soldiers under their command, a massive embarrassment to the Church as well as cause for distrust of the students themselves.

The vacancy of the empty barracks segmented for the Imperially sourced companies was hostile. Urgent intensity passed between the men who were still hanging around in thinning groups, performing the first of the day’s chores or hanging around in hunched clusters, creating an atmosphere so oppressive you almost found it hard to breathe. They were in a strange place. Staying pitted them against their country, but to leave would be a betrayal against the Church. Nobody trusted them either way, forcing them to congregate only among themselves. That was what Edelgard had done. Verbal poison, the warfare of the mind, turning everybody against one another. Unifying a country, it seemed, required mass division first.

Your men were placed in the no man’s land at the outside of the Kingdom barracks. Professor Byleth had offered you several companies of Kingdom patriots, but you hadn’t felt drawn to them like you were to Avery’s Wyvern Co. They were fresh soldiers among the large array of companies out for the Church to hire, only having arrived shortly before the year began. In truth, you weren’t even completely certain that they were soldiers to begin with. Avery was a strange person with a mysterious background and you truly believed he was a good man,  but there was something about him that lacked the shine and polish of a soldier.

Not that it mattered much to you. You liked him; you liked the men. Amidst the dark and oppressive atmosphere of the barracks camp, he and his men sat around a fire, eating breakfast, and chatting among themselves.

“Fancy this!” Avery called as you approached, his grin lit up in brushed orange and distorted by the smoke of the dancing flames. “And here I was just wondered what had happened of our dearest Captain.” The complete disregard of proprietary and respect was utterly inappropriate, but it was clear that Avery never meant anything strange by it. What was strange to you was how easy-going he sounded. Compared to the rest of the Garreg Mach, it was like laughter at a funeral. You didn’t mind it. This task was dour enough without a bad atmosphere. “Why don’t you sit?” Avery offered, gesturing to the bench seat by him. “Have you eaten? I’m sure there’s still more...”

“I’m fine, thank you,” you told him, sitting. “I’m… sorry to not have visited sooner. You’re all doing well?”

“Better than you, it looks like,” Wendell, one of the men who had been wounded in the Sealed Forest, told you. After your concern for his injuries following the battle, he seemed just as loyal to you as Avery. “If you don’t mind me saying, of course.”

“Wen,” another man, Euston, scolded dryly. “You can’t say things like that to a young lady.”

“She’s our Captain,” Avery said, lightly hitting Euston across the back of the head. “Show some respect.”

Euston laughed, undeterred. “You’re one to talk, worrying about her like some kind of mother hen.”

“Is it wrong to care? This past moon has been difficult,” Avery said. Everyone sobered up at the reminder. Difficult was probably an understatement. “You were there when the Emperor revealed herself, weren’t you?” Avery asked you. “I heard what happened. The prince-”

“Dimitri’s fine,” you said, avoiding his eyes. “And I…” You meant to say that you were fine, to reassure them that their captain was steady and sure. But you couldn’t. “That’s actually what I’ve come to talk to you all about. As I’m sure you’re all well aware of by now, there is going to be a battle. The rumors are true. Imperial troops are estimated to arrive by the end of the moon.”  

Avery whistled, a quiet rumble of dissent waving over the men. “That soon? She must have been planning this awhile.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, hating to think of it. While you were carelessly training and falling in love and having your heart broken, she was sowing chaos, arranging a war. “And I’m sorry for neglecting you all. I should have done this sooner.”

“That doesn’t bode well,” Euston said.

“If you wish to leave, you’re free to do so,” you told them, your voice raised as you forced yourself to look from face to face, to not shy away from this task. Every expression you acknowledged was set in various degrees of stony to bemused, as if they couldn’t believe what you were saying. “I’ll personally pay you three moons’ wages… More if you act as an escort for the civilians leaving Garreg Mach. You’ll also get a glowing recommendation for your service thus far.”

“The odds are that grim, eh?” Avery asked. Everyone was watching you, waiting for your answer.

“Um…” you began forcing yourself not to clam up under the pressure. “Yes. A-and no. The chances of victory are… Well, nobody really knows at this point. But even if we win, this is a full… a full-on military assault. Edelgard… Emperor Edelgard means all-out war. The Church is just the beginning. I won’t force anyone to fight, I know that none of you ever signed on for allegiance to the Kingdom, or even the Church.”

That began another wave of grumbling, words you couldn’t quite make out as that information was digested. The fire was dying, but the rising sun illuminated enough for you to see the uncertainty on every face, the doubt. You were confirming things they already knew.

“If there’s going to be a war anyway, where would we go?” Lester asked loudly. He was the other one who was wounded in the Sealed Forest. You didn’t like to think of yourself as buying forgiveness to assuage your guilt for his injury, but you did know he had an affinity for chocolate. “Seems like a victory here is our best bet to avoid that.”

“Yeah,” Euston agreed. “War seems like it would be… annoying. We came to the Church because they give us the easy life. Or, they did before this mess all started.” General assent followed his words, heads nodding.

“I’d never forgive myself if I left you here, Captain,” Wendell said. “I may not care that much for the Kingdom or the Church or anything, but I like you. Never known a noble who was so...” He waved his hand, at a loss for words. “You know… The point is, I’m staying.”

“Wendell…” you said, your voice half choked. “Thank you.”

“So, does anyone want to take up our generous Captain on her offer?” Avery asked. Silence met his question, a resounding answer in its own right. You swallowed down the lump in your throat, hating to feel the pressure of tears at the back of your eyes.

“Thank you. It is… my greatest honor to lead you all,” you said, feeling that the words weren’t enough but knowing it was the best you could do. To them, a company of seasoned men, what were you? A slip of a girl pretending to lead them. And yet, they would follow you.

“When this is all over, you’re gonna owe us all a drink,” Euston said. “I’ve always wanted to try that plum liquor they make in Morfis.”

“When this is over, I’ll owe you all a hundred drinks,” you said. “So you’d better all make it, okay?”

“Yessir,” most of them said in unison, touching forefingers to their brows or giving you half-salutes. You let out a heavy breath, glad to be done with that and feeling far better than you had upon arrival.

“I’ll be off, then,” you said, standing up and stretching. The sun had risen, but the sky was miserably gray and cloudy. One of those days. It seemed like all days were one of those days.

“I’ll walk you back,” Avery said, standing.

“You don’t need t-”

“Come on,” he said without waiting. You waved to the rest, even getting some smiles in return, before hurrying to match his stride.

In a way, you were glad for the company. The tension among the battalion camp was just as uncomfortable now as it had been on the way in, but now people were moving around. There was an endless supply of jobs anymore, always something for someone to do.

“It was good of you to offer that,” Avery said.

“Do you think any of them will accept?” you asked. Nobody had spoken up at the moment, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t in private. You didn’t fault that.

“No, we stick together. No matter what.”

“They’re very loyal to you.”

“Like I said, we stick together,” Avery said. “You never asked what we did before we came to Garreg Mach, or why.”

“I didn’t think it was important,” you responded.

“I can’t tell if you’re too naive or too kind,” Avery said, shooting you a sideways smile. “When you picked us, I was braced for the worst type of brat, that’s what we signed up for. But you’re not that. Sure, you’re incompetent, but I know you mean well.”

The casual jab hurt, but the praise leveled it out. Somewhat. Besides, he was right.

“Even if you were the worst of them, we’d have taken it. It’s like… penance. But you’re not, so I figure I should give you a chance to decide you want men like us following you.”

“I don’t care about your past,” you said.

“We were criminals,” Avery said, acting as if he hadn’t heard you. He wasn’t looking at you anymore, his eyes forward and expression schooled into a serious mask. “Damned good ones, too. We all came from villages near the Almyran border, grew up on the backs of wyverns, always dreamed of being accepted into Gonerill’s army. I got my own company before I really realized it; the fight with the Almyrans is pointless. Fighting for fighting’s sake. You lose limbs and lives in what amounts to little more than a game, there’s nothing respectable or sane about it. So, we, my men and I, deserted.”

“Oh,” you said, stunned by the confession.

“After that, we terrorized people, thinking we had some sort of right to do it because at least we weren’t liars like all of the nobility who toss lives away like trash. We only took from the rich and called it justice.” Avery sighed regretfully. “The things we did… the things I did... “

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” you said doubtfully, trying to imagine somebody like smiling Wendell doing what Avery was describing.

“I destroyed people’s lives,” Avery said. “Because of me, children lost their fathers, women lost their husbands... One day I looked at what I had done, what we were doing, and knew that I was damned. I came to the monastery to beg forgiveness, to serve the children who I might have ruined.”

The two of you were approaching the front gate. Cold shivers had crept up your spine, over your arms. Bandits had killed your father, ruined your mother. Ruined you, in a way, even if it was liberation.

But Avery didn’t know that. Besides, it couldn’t have been Avery. To believe in such a coincidence was too awful, too cruel. Avery was a good man, you believed that.

“Now you know who it is that serves you, Captain,” he said, stopping and facing you. He didn’t have the face of a bad man. His skin was leathery and crinkled from too many years in the sun and the line of his nose was an uneven mess from being broken a time or two. He surveyed you with a neutral expression, waiting for your judgment.

“Thank you for telling me,” you said carefully, willing yourself to not become emotional. “I think… I’m not the person to forgive you, but… But it would be really hypocritical of me to judge you. A man I lo―care about quite a bit is in a similar position, looking to the goddess for help and forgiveness, and I… What else is there? As long as you keep trying to be a better person and… Um… I don’t think any less of you. I’m grateful that you trust me.”

Avery measured that response for a long moment before he finally spoke. “Then it is my genuine pleasure to serve under your command.”

“And I’m going to be better,” you told him. “I know I’ve been a poor captain. Most of the time I feel like a child, but I… We can both be better, right?”

“I’d like to think so.” Avery smiled, encouraging you to do the same. “Have a good day, captain. And consider getting some rest”

“I will,” you said. Consider it, at least. Sleep was evasive these days. Besides, there was so much to do. Still, after Avery left, you did take a moment to breathe, to consider what he told you. It didn’t change anything, did it? Yet somehow, you felt more hopeful. And distraught. It seemed the world was insistent that you not let go of your past, throwing it back in your face like this.

But there wasn’t much time for contemplation like that. You hurried back to the monastery, determined to make the most of this ugly gray day.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 3

Six days had passed since Professor Byleth had called you all together to discuss the state of things. You felt the passing of each hour acutely, the countdown dragging the monastery closer and closer to uncertain ruin. Yet, at the same time, it seemed as if the clock was crawling along, prolonging the nightmare-ish state.  

Felix hadn’t so much as looked at you since that disastrous last confrontation.

Dimitri only occasionally showed up when he was summoned.

And you were silly. Stupid, even. Why you felt the need to volunteer yourself to go get him to come to the meeting today, you didn’t know. He was more likely to listen to Professor Byleth anyway. But you did. Of course you did.

The vaulted space of the cathedral was nearly always filled with those who thought to pray for aid from the Goddess. Devoted and questioning alike gathered up to pray for their souls, to pray for their loved ones, to pray for some measure of comfort. Everywhere buzzed with word of Emperor Edelgard’s proclamations and the size of her forces and the fearsome strength of her military, whispered rumors dripping in like poison along with the prayers.

Dimitri spent a great deal of time in the cathedral. Nobody really knew why, people whispered about it like it was some great mystery that a man half mad would think to reach out to the goddess for guidance, but you thought you understood. Avery’s desire for penance was fresh in your head, and you could remember Dimitri’s words that night in the Goddess Tower, almost like a melody you couldn’t quite shake from your head.

“The goddess just watches over us from above… That is all. No matter how hard someone begs to be saved, she would never so much as offer her hand. And even if she did, we lack the means to reach out and grasp it. That’s how I feel about her.”

And you knew that he was the one most affected by Edelgard’s betrayal, the one suffering the most pain. You kept your promise that you wouldn’t tell anybody of his true connection to the Emperor, but it haunted you. The moment of her mask falling away had cut some integral thread of forced composure that Dimitri had been clinging to as a lifeline, and without it he’d fallen victim to the very worst parts of himself. He spent so much of his time reaching towards the goddess for a lifeline because, despite the brutal killings you had seen him commit, he was weak.

You were weak, too. Although you had a reason to seek him out, your feet took you to him because they always did, they always brought you to him. You were so, terribly weak.

Upon passing through the gate of the cathedral, it was impossible to miss Dimitri. Everybody gave him a wide berth of space when passing, casting him nervous side glances, and whispering to their companions in hushed tones. He stood alone like an exhibit in a museum. Rumors had spread about Dimitri just as quickly as they had about Edelgard. Rumors of madness, of insanity. It was upsetting to hear, heartbreaking that he was viewed as little more than a spectacle, but you shrugged them off. It didn’t matter what people thought, or at least you couldn’t blame them. They were ignorant and afraid, and while Edelgard was still far away, Dimitri was right in front of them.

He, as had become usual, stood in his grand stage of empty space. A position he could occupy for hours without break. Dimitri’s uniform wasn’t as neat as he had usually kept it, and his hair needed to be cut. Your heart softened upon seeing him. A foolish, stupid feeling. Unwanted entirely. You knew that things had changed and could keenly remember the many times he’d snapped at you for doing what you were about to do. Whatever tenderness that had been cultivated within him before now was gone. Withered away like flowers in the frost, a sweet melody played sour on an out of tune lyre.

But you refused to stop, and you especially refused to be frightened of Dimitri, or believe that he would do anything to hurt you.

It was better to stick only to present concerns. Such as the fact that he was muttering to himself again. Words you couldn’t quite hear over the hushed noise of the devout. Dimitri’s lips moved with a rhythm that made it seem like he was speaking to something, someone. The dead, his dead. You had heard him use their names once, addressing people who were long gone and buried. Glenn, father, stepmother. He stopped whenever someone was close enough to pick out details, but you heard them all the same.

Melancholy intermingled with a deep, bone-grinding fear at seeing him like this. Many poems or songs you knew spoke of insanity, but none of their descriptions truly matched the broken man in front of you. They saw the afflicted through the eyes of a romantic. In other words, a lovely lyrical lie. What most of them had in common, however, was an eventual tragedy. With every fiber of your being, you swore to not allow him to become victim to such a fate.

You had failed once. You couldn’t handle another. You were weak.

“Dimitri?” you asked, striding up to him with a level of cheery confidence you weren’t so sure you felt. The eyes of a crowd of outsiders followed you now that you had broken the bubble of space surrounding the prince that frightened them so, watching as if you were approaching a beast in the woods unarmed.

Dimitri didn’t respond, either ignoring you or lost in thought of whatever he’d been muttering about. You would have preferred the former, because at least then he’d still be with you, not sunken down into some dark void that you couldn’t possibly reach him in. Unfortunately, you suspected it was the latter, what with the way his blue eyes were ringed with deep shadow and glazed over. You couldn’t even imagine the last time he must have slept. According to Dedue’s careful vigilance, he spent his days in the cathedral and his nights on the training grounds, throwing himself into combat practice so intensely nobody dared intervene. Not even you.

“Dimitri?” you asked again, a bit louder, daring to reach out a hand to get his attention. The touch startled him, and for a moment you were almost afraid that he was going to strike out. He didn’t, although you could tell by the way his body was coiled and poised that it had been a close thing. But he didn’t, and that was all that mattered.

“What is it?” Dimitri asked in the clipped and cold tone of an accusation. The familiar blue of his eyes was flat when they found focus on your face, his stare without any recognition for your feelings or softness for who you wished you were to him. It hurt, it still hurt. Maybe it would always hurt when he looked at you like that, maybe your heart would never scar over and allow you to recognize that this version of him wasn’t truly who he was. You began to rack your brain for a proper verse about the pain of looking in the eyes of someone you loved and seeing nothing in return but stopped yourself. There was no song or lyric that could explain the piercing ache of such a feeling. With him, with your mother, you knew that so very well.

“The dining hall is serving cheesy Verona stew,” you said.

Dimitri grunted dismissively, turning his face from you. That, of course, was not nearly enough to actually stop you.

“See, I asked, and nobody seemed to know if you’ve eaten in the past few days,” you continued.

He said nothing.

“And I know for a fact that you like cheesy Verona stew.”

Nothing.

“Plus, you won’t be able to fight or anything if you’re starving, so-”

“What, exactly, is it that you want?” Dimitri abruptly snapped, fixing you again with a look you refused to believe was a glare of murderous intent. Despite that firm belief, the expression was threatening enough to push you into taking an unconscious half-step away in physical recoil.

“I was worried-”

“I’m fine,” he insisted in a raised voice. Not shouting, just authoritative. It made your stomach drop anyway. At your reaction, he lowered his voice, shaking his head in a jittery way as his eyes cast downwards, a hand raising so he could press a finger against his temple. The headaches he had once told you of must have reached a new level of agonizing. “As soon as her blood is drained from that treacherous heart, everything will be fine… We’ll be fine... So leave me be.”

Overexposure drained those muttered words of much of the power they used to hold but hearing the man you’d seen nearly break down over death speak so casually of gratuitous violence created its own type of deep-set horror. Not to say that was unexpected. You’d heard him say much worse since he learned of the Flame Emperor’s true identity.

“Okay, I-I’m sorry. The Professor is calling for a council and requests that we all attend. I was thinking that you should eat something beforehand. It might make you feel better, you know?” you explained. “But if you’re not hungry, th-that’s fine. The meeting’s in an hour.”

“I understand,” he snapped, cutting you off.

“We could go together, if you wanted,” you offered.

Dimitri gave you a flat look and for a moment you were sure he was going to shout at you. But he didn’t, which was somehow worse. “I’d rather you leave me alone.”

“You don’t need to be alone. It’s not healthy,” you told him quietly. “Before, you told me that you would talk to someone, that you would… Don’t you remember?”

For a long moment, Dimitri didn’t respond. You had no idea what was going on behind the storm of his eyes, the conflicted dance of anger and pain. “Why must you continue to torture me?” Dimitri finally asked, his voice low and throaty. “None of it meant anything, don’t you understand that? It was not my place to tell you those things. I have but a single purpose, to be distracted was my most grievous error. So leave me be.”

He turned away, once again facing the front of the cathedral.

“Okay,” you agreed, almost inaudible with the way your throat had swollen up. “I’m sorry.” Dimitri’s eyes closed, but he didn’t respond. That might have been for the best. You turned on your heel and left the cathedral, feeling the dozens of eyes track each step, whispering. Always whispering, talking, lying, always, always-

On the bridge, you faced the harsh wintery wind, hoping that the sharp bite of its touch would hide the true reason for your watering eyes and red cheeks. Because you were weak. Because you were in love with a man who was fated for tragedy. Because you knew goodbye forever and there was nothing that you could do about it.

Time ticked on, seconds became minutes, minutes you didn’t have the luxury of wasting. You turned you back to the cathedral and the wind and acknowledged that you had at least done as you were told. Just like a soldier would. Just like a knight.

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 4

Even with war hanging heavy on the horizon, even with your heart heavy and breaking, the mundane chores still had to be done. Until coming to Garreg Mach, you had never so much as thought about doing the dishes. It left your fingers pruning and hands chapped and dry, but the ritual of it felt satisfying. Taking something dirty and making it clean. You and Ingrid stood above the sudsy, steaming basin; your uniform sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

The two of you made some small talk at first, but it was clear to see that she was preoccupied. You’d have loved a distraction from your Dimitri-centered thoughts―and under different circumstances, you might have tried anyway―but there was really nothing to say. Dimitri’s harsh rejection the day prior still burned hot and horrible in your chest. If you thought about it, you’d probably start crying again.

“I feel as if I owe you an apology,” Ingrid finally said as you worked a particularly tough bit of grime from a plate. That brought you up short, looking at the blonde to try and figure out what she was thinking to say that so suddenly.

“An apology?” you repeated after a moment.

“For what Felix said,” Ingrid clarified, her eyes casting down towards the water.

You stiffened at the reminder. Out of everything that had been happening lately, you had almost forgotten about that incident. No, you had willfully been trying to forget about it. “You don’t have to apologize for that,” you told her.

She sighed. “It’s always been up to me to clean up after them. His Highness, Sylvain, and Felix... I tried to talk to him, but he won’t hear it.” Ingrid paused. “He doesn’t mean it. I doubt that’s any consolation, but-”

“I know,” you said, cutting her off.

The Boar’s bitch. Goddess, that was cruel. But it wasn’t even entirely untrue. That was the worst of it, to have something you held as holy pulled out from your heart and exposed for the appraisal of eyes that would defile its sanctity.

“I don’t know the details of what happened between Felix and Dimitri to make him so angry, but it changed him,” Ingrid said, picking up a tin mug to begin washing. “After Duscur… Well, everything changed. Felix used to adore Dimitri. He followed them everywhere like a lost puppy.”

“Them?”

“Dimitri and… And Glenn.” Pain twisted Ingrid’s voice with the name. “He is… was Felix’s older brother.”

“Dimitri’s mentioned him,” you said. Dimitri talked to him, actually. Glenn was one of the dead, a victim of the Duscur Tragedy. From what you had gathered, Glenn had been the knight ideal. And, if you weren’t mistaken, Ingrid’s betrothed. You tried to imagine the girl you knew being promised to any man, but the image just didn’t compute. It was almost as strange as trying to imagine a younger, softer version of Felix.

“Losing him was hard on all of us,” Ingrid continued. “I can’t say I don’t sympathize with Felix’s pain... but that doesn’t excuse what he said.”

“It’s fine,” you said, focusing especially hard on the plate you were scrubbing.

Ingrid didn’t respond to that, although you could feel her eyes jump up to watch you every so often, her mouth opening before closing again. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of waiting, she said, “I don’t mean to pry, but you and Dimitri…” Your entire body tensed up, shoulders hunching and the silverware you’d been washing slipping back into the basin with a splash. Of course, you’d been waiting for a question like that. But you hadn’t been ready, either. “I know the two of you were close,” Ingrid said, as if she hadn’t noticed your reaction. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I… Well, I suppose I know what it feels like to have your heart broken. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

“Thank you,” you told her stiffly, fishing the fork out of the murky water. There was more to be said, the words piling and pooling up on your tongue and ready to spill out, but before you could speak, the pantry door was flung open, a tiny figure emerging.

"Counting all the way up to numbers I don't even know. And more! Flour and sugar and rice and grain galooore-"

"Annette?" you asked, watching her spin on her toes as she closed the door behind her.

"GAH!" With a graceless turn, Annette whirled around, a hand clasped over her mouth and the notepad she was holding crashing to the floor. Recognition flashed through her wide blue eyes after a moment of horrified shock and she lowered that hand to her chest. “Oh, it’s you!” she exclaimed. “You scared me!”

“Sorry...” you responded, exchanging a glance with the equally bewildered Ingrid.

"Oh, well, it’s fine,” she said, trying to play it off. “You didn't… hear anything, did you?"

You were about to lie, mostly to avoid upsetting her, but Ingrid beat you to it. "You were... singing?”

Annette winced, "I can explain! I was taking inventory for Seteth and got very focused and the song just sort of came to me and… and…" She deflated. "I don't suppose you would pretend that you didn't hear that, would you?"

"Why?" Ingrid asked.

"Because… because…" Annette said, flustered. "Because if everyone finds out that I sing to myself they're all going to think I'm that weird girl who makes up stupid songs about counting and food and then they’ll all whisper about me behind my back about how weird and stupid I am!"

"It's not that weird to sing while you work,” you told her.

"Do you?" Ingrid asked, looking at you curiously.

"Well… not around people…" you answered. Everybody in your class knew about your affinity for music on account of that day Sylvain stole your book of songs, but you didn’t advertise the fact that you enjoyed making music, too. Especially not to the knight ideal like Ingrid. Music was impractical.

"See! It is weird!" Annette exclaimed. "Now you're going to tell everyone, and they'll all think I'm a total freak who sings about flour and sugar and-"

"Annette…" Ingrid cut in, frowning in concern.

Annette continued on like she hadn’t heard, her rant getting progressively more distracted, "And they're gonna look at me and laugh and never take me seriously because of the stupid childish songs and-"

"I didn't know you liked music," you said, interrupting her.

Annette blinked, focusing on you. "I don’t really tell people. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

"If it makes you happy, I don't think it's embarrassing," you told her.

"She's right," Ingrid said seriously. "I don't have any interest in music, but the song wasn't that bad."

"That bad…" Annette said, frowning. "So it was still bad. I knew it. Oh, this is just the worst!"

"It wasn't!" you told her quickly. "I liked the melody; did you compose it?"

"Well, yeah," she said, fidgeting with her notepad.

"That's really amazing, Annette,” you said enthusiastically. “I'm no good at writing music."

"Oh, it's not that impressive," she said, waving her hand.

"I'd love it if you could teach me some time," you said. "It might be a nice break from-" you waved your hand around generally, your voice trailing off.

“Well, if you really want to, I guess I wouldn’t mind,” Annette said. “As long as you promise to never, ever tell anybody what you heard today.”

“I promise,” you vowed.

“As do I,” Ingrid said.

“That’s a relief,” Annette said, finally picking up her dropped notepad. “Are you free tonight?”

“I have patrol duty with Ashe,” you replied, frowning. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Sure! I’ll have to let you know when, though. There’s so much to do.” Annette sighed. “Speaking of which, what was I doing…?”

“Inventory?” Ingrid offered helpfully.

“Oh, right! That!” Annette responded, her trademark bounce returning. “Well, I’d better go, then. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

You and Ingrid said goodbye, but Annette was already out of the kitchen. Seconds later, there was a loud crash right outside the door and Annette’s muffled voice demanded to know why there was a box in the way where people were walking. It left your heart feeling oddly light. Everything else could change, but Annette was still a whirlwind mess of drive, clumsiness, and quirk.

“If you have patrol, you should probably get going,” Ingrid said. “I don’t mind finishing up here.”

“Oh, right,” you said, quickly drying off your hands. “I hate being out in the town these days, it’s so empty and creepy.”

“Do you want to switch?” Ingrid asked, raising an eyebrow. “I have guard duty tomorrow at dawn.”

“As enticing as that sounds, I think I’ll pass,” you told her, your face scrunching up at the very idea of it. It was one thing to be cold and miserable at night but being cold and miserable with the memory of your soft, warm bed fresh in your mind was worse.

“I suppose it was worth a try. Be on your guard,” Ingrid told you. “And be safe.”

“Thanks,” you said. “I’ll try.”

Elegiac Chorale Mortis Honore Opus 7, No. 5

“Ansel’s stories are great!” you insisted, walking side by side with Ashe on your nighttime patrols. With the curfew, there were no other people wandering around, but that wasn’t the only reason for the uncomfortably hollow feeling in Garreg Mach. With each passing day, the small towns that littered the outskirts became ghostly haunts, shops closing up and merchants who sold anything other than weapons and supplies packing up. Outside the realm of his torch, the once lively was a depressing and frightening place. But having company helped. It helped a lot. “I love the characters.”

“I didn’t say they’re bad,” Ashe responded quickly. “But... they’re mostly romance. They shouldn’t be shelved by the stories about knights, someone could accidentally pick one up and have no idea what they’re in for.”

“There are knights and heroes, too,” you pointed out. “Besides, romance is integral to the plots of most hero stories. What’s worth fighting for more than love?”

“You’re starting to sound like Sylvain,” Ashe told you, laughing.

“Don’t you fight for love?” you asked, only slightly defensively. “Love for your country, your family, your friends… Isn’t that why people fight? We’re all driven by passion, don’t you think?”

“Huh… I guess that’s true. But... wait, that wasn’t my point! I-” Ashe’s words abruptly cut off as you turned a corner. This street, a main thoroughfare with some of the few remaining open establishments, was well lit. A crowd of people congregated at the far end. “What’s going on over there?”

You blinked, caught off guard by the sight. “Is there some sort of event?” you asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Ashe said. “Besides, the curfew...”

“We should go check it out,” you said, all amusement from your conversation going stale and cold. You had a very bad feeling about this.  

Ashe quickly put out the torch, following after you as you approached the crowd. There was a sense of dread in the air. There was a crowd, sure, but their voices weren’t loud enough, no laugher could be heard. It was just tension and raw, crackling energy. Most of the people were soldiers, men and women from other battalions. Some villagers. The entire crowd smelled of urine and liquor and the desperate vinegar of excited sweat. You tried to cut your way into the group, standing on your toes to see what they were all circled around. Nobody paid you any mind, too focused on what was happening to make way.

“Is that… His Highness?” Ashe asked, his voice loud above the noise.

And it was. Standing in the impromptu ring created by the surrounding crowd, Dimitri faced off against five other men. One of them was wearing Imperial fatigues. Another wore clothes you recognized as being an unkempt and dirty Faerghus soldier uniform. All of them had a wild, drunken look and anger and bloodlust.

“-known that your association with that Duscur beast would rub off on you,” the Faerghus soldier was saying. “I refuse to follow a monster into battle, let alone lead my country.”

“I see,” Dimitri replied. Despite the many voices rumbling around the square, his was easy to make out. “You have betrayed your country, trading one monster for another. How does that feel?”

That made the other man wince, but his fury was far more potent. They were ganging up on him, this was an ambush.

“Ashe go get help. Professor Byleth… Guards… anyone! Hurry!” you told him, your voice quivering with urgency. He blinked, his eyes wide and frightened, but nodded.

“I’ll be quick.”

With Ashe running off, you tried to steady yourself with a deep breath, forcing your hands to stop shaking. “Let me through!” you demanded, trying once more to cut your way through the crowd. People shifted, although you took more than one elbow to the ribs, bodies pushing back against you. “On behalf of the Church of Seiros, I demand that you let me through!” That finally worked. Sort of. You broke out into the front of the group, a hand on your sword hilt. “This i-is… an illegal act of violence against the crown prince of Faerghus… Disperse now!” Jumbled and nervous, your words were still able to get the attention of the group of men. Dimitri turned, meeting your eyes for a half-second with a look of surprise. And then his face darkened, his jaw clenching as he looked away.

“What is this?” the Imperial asked mockingly, “Another student? Maybe a friend of yours, crown prince?”

Dimitri said nothing, not even looking at you.

“The guards will be arriving soon!” you threatened.

“Faerghus law allows any Faerghus soldier challenge his superior, nobility and royalty, to a fight,” the soldier said. “It’s up to him if he wishes to accept the terms.”

“What do you say, beast prince?” the Imperial asked. “Do you have any honor left, or have you abandoned that with your humanity?”

“Honor?” Dimitri asked, sounding amused. “Coming from one who wears the colors of the Empire? Tell me, do you act on behalf of that woman?”

“I act for myself,” he responded. “And for justice. My brother was one of the men you slaughtered in the Holy Tomb. I saw his body, creature. You’re no prince, you’re not even a soldier. You’re a monster.”

“And your gang of traitorous vermin?” Dimitri asked. “They agree?”

“Faerghus is better off without you,” the Faerghus soldier said, eliciting sounds of agreement from the others.

“Fine,” Dimitri said. “I accept your challenge.”

“No!” you shouted, lunging forward. Or, attempting to. A man you hadn’t even noticed shot an arm out to keep you from entering the informal circle, pulling you back.

“Don’t interfere,” he said, holding your arms pinned so you couldn’t go for your weapon. His breath was hot and sour on your ear, making you shudder in disgust. “I have money on this fight, girl. Five to one… the pretty boy’s ‘bout to learn a lesson he won’t forget.”

“Dimitri, stop!” you begged. It didn’t even occur to you to be worried for him. Only about what he would do.

The Faerghus soldier went for him first, pulling a knife from his stained coat and lunging at Dimitri with wavering, drunken posture. He was a large guy, the type that expected to win fights based purely on his size and raw strength. Dimitri sidestepped the attack, grabbing the man’s beefy arm as he did to misdirect his momentum and contort the arm behind his back, twisting him around and sending him staggering to the ground.

Dimitri had gotten hold of the knife during the exchange, but he didn’t bother using it. When the large man made to grab Dimitri’s legs, Dimitri kicked him in the chest. Bones crunched. Loudly. Dimitri kicked him again, the choppy strands of his blond hair flipping and falling with the motion.

Despite the shocking display of efficient brutality, the Imperial went into attack. His knuckles glinted with metal as he drew back his fist.

“Watch out!” you called, but the warning was unnecessary. Dimitri whirled around, grabbing the Imperial’s hand before it could make contact and slamming it flat against the side of the building. He drove the knife right below the band of metal ringing the Imperials fingers, pushing it into the grout between brick until the handle was flush to the man’s skin. The Imperial screamed, immediately trying to pull the knife free, but it was stuck. He tried to lash out at Dimitri, but the prince easily ducked beneath the attack.

The other three men bunched in a group, ganging up on Dimitri together. The tallest stood in the center, a short man on his right and a heavy looking guy who’d picked up a broom as a makeshift weapon on his left. All you could see of Dimitri the back of his uniform and the fluttering cape on his shoulder, so brilliant and vividly blue.

Ducking out of the way of the broom’s handle, Dimitri took a fist to the face from the shortest man. Despite the successful blow, the short man was immediately rewarded with a brutal backhand that sent him to the ground with a fleshy kind of crack.

Dimitri didn’t hesitate, throwing his body at the man holding the broom. The wooden handle split into two pieces beneath Dimitri’s gauntleted left hand, his right elbow slamming against the heavy guy’s face while he was distracted by the loss of his weapon. The heavy man’s face immediately exploded in a bright spray of blood, sending him stumbling back and tripping onto the ground, clutching his face desperately.

The tall one tried to attack with a straight right, but Dimitri spun out of the way, swinging the broken piece of broomstick handle in an arc at his head. The wood broke on impact with the guy’s skull. While he was stunned, Dimitri’s fist easily connected with his stomach. He dropped with a heavy “umph” of a groan.

Breathing heavily, Dimitri turned from them, dropping the short length of broomstick handle with a clatter of wood on stone and tossing his sweaty hair from his brow. Blood dripped from his nose, staining the ashy pale of his complexion, dribbling over his chapped lips.

The Imperial was the only one standing, having managed to free himself. You hadn’t seen what he’d done to get out of the trap, but the knife remained in the wall and his hand was in a ruined state, too covered in blood for you to see.

Dimitri faced him, his chest heaving and a gruesome smile on his face. Blood dripped into his mouth, staining his teeth red. With wild eyes, he surveyed his final opponent.

Had Dimitri done this on purpose? Ensured that the Imperial would be the last to face him so he could savor it? Something about the expression on his face made you think that sickening thought. Taking advantage of the way the grip keeping you still had slackened in horror, you stumbled forward.

“Dimitri stop!”  you shouted.

He ignored you, moving towards the last man with the predatory gait of a killer. You didn’t even think about it, lunging at him and wrapping your arms around his middle. Doing that could have killed you, you knew that. His reflexes were faster than you could ever hope to move. But your blood pounded steadily in your ears and your pulse made your throat feel swollen and men you hoped weren’t dead littered the ground. You needed to make him stop.

Somehow, it worked.

“Unhand me,” Dimitri demanded, prying you off of him despite your attempts to hold fast. The violence of it pushed you back several steps, but you managed not to fall. “This Imperial traitor asked for a fair fight. Have I not granted him his wish?”

“You’ve won!” You looked at the glowering Imperial who was wrapping his hand with a ripped piece of shirt. “Yield, please. You can’t fight, your men are down… Please, stop this.”

“No,” he said, pulling the fabric tight with a wince. With that, he swung, his arm arcing clumsily towards Dimitri who easily caught the fist, twisting it with enough force to make the main shout in pain. The movement forced the Imperial to fall forward, but Dimitri caught him with a grip on the front of his uniform, pulling him close.

“Dimitri,” you pled. “You can’t kill him. Please.”

“No? Even though he follows that wretched woman?” Dimitri asked. “Even when he would have gleefully killed me in an honorless fight?”

“Please, just yield and leave. Please,” you begged of the other man. “Dimitri, you’d let him go if he yielded, right?

“This foul creature does not deserve your pity,” he said.

“Please?” you begged again.

“Fine,” Dimitri allowed, his lip curled as he looked at the man. “I’ll let you go free. Provided you deliver a message to your master.”

The Imperial sneered, answering by screwing up his mouth for a second and then spitting. The glob of saliva landed squarely on Dimitri’s cheek. Dimitri accepted it with a cold, empty patience, letting it slide down his face without any reaction. “I’ll accept death before I do something for a beast like you,” the Imperial said.

“Very well, I shall be glad to deliver,” Dimitri responded. “You and your gang of cowards are not the first men I have sent to the Eternal Flames. But you already know that, don’t you? Your face is not even worth remembering. Just as I have forgotten your brother, you too will die a meaningless death.”

A strangled sound of rage left the Imperial’s mouth, his face twisting in genuine hatred as he fought the hold Dimitri had on his uniform. Blood had already soaked through the makeshift bandage on his hand. And Dimitri was going to kill him. That sickening smile was gone, all emotion sapped out. His expression was cold and cruel. The act of killing made him dark. Empty.

“Dimitri!” a familiar voice called, breaking the tense scene apart. The crowd, whatever remained of it, parted for Professor Byleth’s confident stride, his green eyes focused solely on the prince. Ashe hurried behind him; his cheeks colored with a flush of exertion. Dimitri’s grip on the Imperial slackened, some awareness seeping into his eyes. Finally, he wiped the spit from his cheek, catching some of the blood from his nose. It left a rusty streak on his pale skin.

The Imperial took advantage of Dimitri’s distraction. His nails made contact with Dimitri’s face for a second before the prince reacted, throwing him away with unnerving ease. What was left was four distinct and angry short trails of red high on Dimitri’s cheekbone.

“It seems you’ve been spared,” Dimitri called as the man scrambled to get upright. But he had landed poorly, swaying dizzily like he hit his head. “This time.”

“What happened?” Professor Byleth asked you, forcing your attention away from the horrific scene. You cleared your throat, trying to calm your mind.

“They challenged him to a fight,” you said. Byleth’s lips formed a line, but he nodded. “And he accepted.”

“These men were Imperial vermin and traitors,” Dimitri added. “They wished for a chance to take me out and failed.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Vengeance… Vengeance is for the strong. They were too weak to attain it.”

“You didn’t need to accept their challenge,” you told him, belatedly realizing that you were crying. Shaking, too. Trembling so hard you felt it in your bones. “You’re… you’re better than that.”

“Am I?” Dimitri asked. “Tell me, would it be honorable to keep another man from his revenge? I allowed him a fair chance, and he was unable to follow through.”

“Still…” you muttered, looking around at the carnage. Already, guards were surveying the downed men. Checking for pulses. Killing men in battle was one thing but killing them here in the dark and dingy streets of a nearly abandoned town. A place that was supposed to be a refuge, to be sacred. It was like you couldn’t breathe, like the world was closing in on you.

This wasn’t Dimitri, was it? The man who had kissed you, who had held you, who had made you laugh. The man you were in love with.

“If you can’t stomach reality, you have no place here,” Dimitri said, stalking past you. Professor Byleth attempted to stop him, but that didn’t matter. Dimitri was a force of nature, like a storm or a fire, without reason or restraint.

Besides, the guards for calling for Professor Byleth’s help, likely asking for advice on how to handle this situation. How were you supposed to handle this situation? What were you supposed to do?

“Are you all right?” Ashe asked, peering at you with a look of concern. “Let’s go back to the monastery, the guards can take care of this.”

“Okay,” you agreed. Your ears were ringing. It sounded like screaming. It smelled like blood and fire and the tangy, sour, stale sweat that reeked of pain and fear. Was this any more or less horrific than what you had already seen? You already knew the violence Dimitri was capable of, you already knew the depths to which he had descended.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look really pale…” Ashe said.

You felt a little numb. Empty, cold, like everything had been drained out and replaced with cotton.

“Ashe?” you asked, but your voice sounded far away.

“Yes?” He looked so concerned, so earnestly worried for you. That was good, nice. You could hold on to that.

“What do you think it is to be honorable?”

Ashe blinked, clearly confused, but his answer was quick. “Honor is doing what’s right.”

“Who defines what’s right?” you asked.

“I’m not so sure this is important right now,” Ashe said, looking around. You ignored it all, the noise and the people and the carnage and the fear and the disgust, focused only on the one question. “Perhaps we should wait until we’re-”

“Please?” you asked. That word was etched into your tongue.

He looked like he was about to argue but relented after a moment. “I suppose the goddess defines what’s right, so do those who lead us,” Ashe said. “But knights also must follow their hearts. To follow all of those things… that’s honorable.”

You closed your eyes, trying to comprehend exactly what he said. That definition definitely made sense. Honor both was and wasn’t. Nebulous and strict. If you doubted what you knew, you’d lose it entirely. It was better to let it be, you decided that long ago.

Letting out a shaky breath, you nodded. “You’re right.”

“Are you okay?” Ashe asked again.

“Yeah,” you said, nodding. It wasn’t a lie, exactly. You just had to ignore this, shove it from your mind. Focus on other things. “Let’s go back to the monastery.”

[a-froger-epic]

About the Interview

Since I posted the interview with J - a woman who has described herself to me as one of Queen’s first “groupies” - there has naturally been a lot of discussion about the veracity of the interview, the source, and my own motivations in posting it. I fully expected that, and I will say once more that nobody (apart from a small handful of anonymous trolls) has behaved inappropriately in these discussions. I have not received any “hate” because of this. There is no “drama”. Nobody is wrong, or a party-pooper, or attacking me by expressing their doubts. I have seen some awful bile spat at people anonymously recently, and that kind of behaviour has got to stop.

Now, if you don't think I am genuine, there is obviously nothing I can do about that. 

However, what I am hoping to do here is add as much transparency as I can in regard to how and why the interview happened, and also share my own full thoughts on it with you. 

First things first. No unverified, anonymous source can be seen as definitive proof of anything, ever. That is my stance. I have myself been criticised for so much as suggesting that other anonymous sources tied in with Freddie’s history are not 100% proof of one thing or another. But for me, an anonymous source can never mean more than at best: this seems very likely, but we can’t be 100% certain.

Perhaps I was naive to think that what I considered to be enough of a disclaimer at the beginning of the interview, was enough. My intention was to express that while I, personally, believe J to be a) the person she says she is and b) genuine about what she remembers, that does not mean I believe everything she has told me is fact or happened in that exact way. I thought this was obvious. Perhaps I was unclear, and I apologise for that. 

So let me be clear. There is nobody in the world who has perfect, factual recollections of what happened to them almost 50 years ago. Not even J herself claims for one moment that this is the case. She mentions several times that these are old memories from when she was very young, that she indulged in recreational drugs at the time, and that her views - of course - carry a personal bias. All this, I thought, would be enough for readers to know not to take everything they read at face value.

All of the above is why I kept my own thoughts and notes to a minimum within the interview, why I didn’t correct or point out obvious mistakes. I simply assumed that everybody would go away and read the interview against all the sources and information they already have, as I have done myself.

But maybe that was somewhat irresponsible of me, and I should have been the first person to dig into how J’s memories fit in (or don’t) with the information which is already out there, and how to put the two together. While I refrained from sharing all my thoughts alongside the interview (although I have fragmentally done so in response to other people since), others like @quirkysubject​ (here), @iwilltrytobereasonable​ (here), @emmaandorlando​ (here), @sarinataylor​ and @talkingismylifewrites​ (here) all had some very good things to say. All of them make excellent points. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SEND THEM NASTY MESSAGES. I frankly can’t believe I have to say this at all.

I found myself in a difficult position, because as the person who had spoken to J and asked her all these questions, I did not feel as though I could dissect her words as freely as anybody else. She has put a lot of trust in me, and I do not want her to think that I question her honesty and intentions. Because I don’t. If I hadn’t felt as sure as I reasonably can be that she is the person she says she is, and that her story is genuine from her perspective, if I had been in any doubt about that, I would not have made it public.

Here's the thing:

Even if you don't believe J knew the boys, her recollections of the time period alone are still valuable and incredibly interesting, giving us a glimpse of early 1970s London. 

But I do believe J. Why?

Before I answer that, let me just say: I fully realise that of course the fact that it was my story J happened across, and me she decided to speak to because of it, makes me more inclined to want to believe her. However, other authors I'm friends with, as well as myself, have received messages from older people several times before. It does trigger nostalgia when a story is very strongly rooted in a time somebody has lived through. There are older people in the fandom. (I recently ran a poll and all age groups were represented even here on Tumblr.) 

Now, on to the reasons why my communication with J has felt nothing but authentic to me.

1. She was never in any rush to get in touch with me or relate information to me. It took her a few days to email me after she first spoke to me in the comment section, where I begged her to please get in touch. She then sent me the same email five times, over two days, because she couldn’t quite work my email address out at first. 

I ended up asking several questions more than once to get an answer because they were overlooked. The conversation went off on tangents, and we chatted about her weekend at her friend’s house (and I was presented with a beautiful snapshot of the beach), the memory box her daughter made for her, her work and other things. There were stretches of days at a time when J simply didn’t find the time to get back to me. And I may have badgered her with a few too many emails asking her to please remember to answer my questions when she has a moment. In short, it was the opposite of somebody rushing to share their story. I was doing all the rushing. (I realise that I am asking you to take my word for this, but this did not all happen in a vacuum. @plainxte​, @quirkysubject​, @fingersfallingupwards​, @onegoldenglance​ and @freddieofhearts​ witnessed the process first-hand, as well as my excitement and some of J’s original emails.)

2. J was very trusting. I know her full name, where she lives and her place of work. She sent me current pictures of herself and her husband unprompted. At no point did she ask me not to reveal her identity, that is a call I made because I did not want to expose her to any possible harassment.

3. There were a few things in her account of what she remembered which were so obviously at odds with what we know to be true - it’s well-known John is a bit taller than Roger, for example, but J remembered him shorter, Queen went to Sydney in ‘85, J remember it as ‘84 - that I couldn’t help but think, if I was somebody who was trying to convince others of a made up story, the first thing I would surely do is make absolutely certain to get the facts which are easily findable right. Instead, J always lead with: this was all a long time ago, I’m sorry, I’m doing my best trying to remember.

I realise that a very clever hoaxer could do all this and convince me. But here the question has to be, to what end? This would be quite an act for someone to arrange, to make it seem quite so naturalistic. Nobody would go through the trouble of doing that for nothing. There’s no monetary gain. Scandal? There is nothing scandalous in the interview. Attention? J is barely an active member of the fandom. She has managed to create a Tumblr though: @since72​. There is one post currently. 

It also took her a couple of days to get back to me after I posted the interview.

In brief, I have no logical explanation for why somebody would go to these lengths and fool me so cleverly, with such attention to detail, when there seems to be nothing in it for them. Why then did J bother to talk to me at all? What was her motivation? Well, after I thanked her profusely for doing this, she simply said that she felt she owed me as reading my story had brought back so many memories for her.

All of the above is why I strongly feel that J is very much real and genuine. But I completely understand that it all hinges on the fact that in order to believe everything I say is true, you would have to trust me. And I know that as I am just another person on the internet, you have no reason to do that. But I’ll get to me in a moment.

Here are a few more doubts which I have seen come up with regard to J.

Why would she be reading fanfiction about people she knew? That’s weird.

To be perfectly honest, exactly that was my first reaction, too. But then I thought about it and talked to friends about it. 

Firstly, J says herself that she was never a close friend. I agree that it would be far weirder to read fanfiction about somebody you knew very well. Having said that, John Deacon’s son has been known to read Queen fanfic about his father (and read it out on his YouTube channel). But I think given that it’s been half a century and J has been watching Queen in the public eye ever since, it isn’t really all that strange to read about fictional versions of them.

Secondly, a friend of mine noticed that it seems as though older people in the fandom find J overall more credible than younger people. I’m 35, and it is true that the older we get, the more we look for the things which remind us of our younger years. There is an urge to remember and re-live. You can trust me on this, or you can ask anyone over the age of 30 or 40. Nostalgia is real, and it only comes to you with age. Why would somebody who had briefly brushed shoulders with people who later became celebrities not take an interest in them later? It seems natural that she would. As J says, she never stopped being a fan of Queen’s music and came across fanfic when she looked up Adam Lambert. Is it really so strange that she would find fanfic about them entertaining? Having given it all this thought, I really don’t think so.

It’s unrealistic that she was so young.

This is something I have to disagree with. Times were different. Pete Townshend entered Ealing Art School at age 16, according to Wikipedia. My mother (currently 62) moved 600km away from home at the age of 15 to study piano at music college. I myself moved out from home at 17 (no tragic reasons whatsoever), but that’s beside the point. I have seen it framed in a way where it was said that “It isn’t realistic that a 16-year-old was hanging out with Queen who were all in their 20s”. I agree, it would be a little strange if the story was that one 16-year-old girl was hanging out with Queen by herself as their good buddy. But that is not the story. (Even though it is well-known that during the 60s and 70s, young teenaged groupies did in fact hang out with rock groups very frequently. Of course, J was not that kind of groupie.) She was simply part of a large circle of friends, by her own admission not a close friend of the band. Personally, I struggle to see how this is unrealistic in any way. 

It seems super suspicious that she lost her photos in a flood.

Yes, it does. I agree. J realises that, too. 

Like @quirkysubject​ said in her post, I don’t blame anyone who is too sceptical at this point. But there actually was a pretty bad flood in Australia in 1988.

There are mistakes in J’s story!

Yes, there are! Let me point them out to you. I already mentioned John’s height and Queen being in Australia in ‘85, not ‘84. I also think that her perception that Freddie was taller than Roger in ‘72, but no longer in the 80s, had everything to do with platform shoes. I have to say that I did ask J some questions which I knew were things which are almost impossible to remember about people you weren’t particularly close to. I knew there was no way she would be able to accurately recall their heights, but I still wanted to know what the impression was which she had come away with. I don’t for one moment think she could possibly know why and if Freddie’s nickname was really ‘Freddie Baby’ at EAS well before she went there. But I still wanted to hear what she thought of that. This is why I stated specifically that this entire interview consists of one woman’s subjective opinions and memories. That alone means you can absolutely not take any of it as definitive fact. That just isn’t how memory works.

Kensington Market and the stall:

J’s answers on this one thoroughly confused me. Not only did she say that while she saw Freddie at the market a lot, Roger was hardly ever there, but there was also some Indian man working at the stall during the week (who I don’t think could have been Freddie’s father). She saw Freddie at multiple stalls, a girl named Jill also worked at the stall… and J was under the impression that Roger and Freddie hadn’t even started the stall. None of this made a whole lot of sense to me, until somebody pointed out that the original stall owned by Roger and Freddie must have closed in the second half of 1971. (Sources: Queen in Cornwall & Queen: As it Began)

It is confirmed (same sources as above) that Freddie worked at the market until as late as 1974. I think it is therefore entirely possible that J would have seen him working at Alan’s stall, or helping out at other stalls, and the likelihood that Roger would have come to hang out with him on a weekend is fairly high, in my opinion. Later, reading about Freddie and Roger running a stall, J would have had no reason to think that this wasn’t the same stall she had seen them at. And yes, this is of course only a theory.

The gay pride march:

@rushingheadlong​, who has recently done a lot of fantastic research about Tim, confirms that there’s no chance (as far as we know) that Tim could have been at the march. Did any of them really go? Is J misremembering entirely? Could it be that one of them or two of them went, and looking back, J remembers it as all of them (minus John, however) because she was used to mostly seeing them all together? Does she remember them from another protest march and got it mixed up with the gay rights march? I can’t say. The march and who exactly went is a big question mark. Even J herself is only “pretty sure” that they were all there, and I have to say, I can’t tell you who was where exactly when I think back to when I was 16. Certainly not when there was a big group of people around. And that was only 20 years ago for me.

Lastly, I’m going to try and use the guide our awesome local historian @emmaandorlando​ provided on how to analyse new sources. Of course, I’m not a historian (and I’m also partly the source by being the interviewer, so I can perhaps only do this impertectly), but let’s give it a go.

1. Who wrote this document? 

‘Written historical records were created by individuals in a specific historical setting for a particular purpose. Until you know who created the document you have read, you cannot know why it was created or what meanings its author intended to impart by creating it’.

In this case, the answer is two-fold because essentially I wrote the interview, in as far as that I asked the questions, I gave it shape and presented it in the form in which it came, but the answers are J’s. I completely understand that this is already a big stumbling block for many, because not only am I presenting her as an anonymous source, but many of you don’t know anything about me. If you follow me on Tumblr, you will know that I have shared more with the internet than is probably wise. But still, I am somebody you know little about, presenting to you a person you know even less about. Whether you trust me or not is entirely down to your own judgement and instinct, and that will be different for everybody.

(I’ve seen it said that I’m plugging my own work through this interview. If that was my plan, I’m afraid it’s failed miserably. I looked, and DoA has gained a whopping 2 or 3 kudos.)

2. Who is the intended audience?

‘The relationship between author and audience is one of the most basic elements of communication and one that will tell you much about the purpose of the document. Think of the difference between the audience for a novel and that for a diary, or for a law and for a secret treaty. Knowing the audience allows you to begin to ask important questions, such as; “Should I believe what I am being told?”’

The intended audience is the Queen fandom on Tumblr and AO3. I have no interest in sharing this anywhere else because I’m not familiar with the other fan communities (Facebook? Instagram?) and wouldn’t know how to go about it. For J, the intended audience was mostly me, an author she likes who was very interested in her memories.

3. Why was this document written?

‘Everything is written for a reason. Understanding the purpose of a historical document is critical to analysing the strategies that the author employs within it. A document intended to convince will employ logic; a document intended to entertain will employ fancy; a document attempting to motivate will employ emotional appeals. In order to find these strategies, you must know what purpose the document was intended to serve.’

I got really, really excited. That is the reason. When J got in touch with me, I had a decision to make. I could ask her all the questions I wanted privately and share her answers only with my "inner circle” of fandom friends, or I could share everything with the fandom spaces where I’ve been very active in the last two years. I wanted to share the excitement and decided to do the latter.

I also wanted to present the interview in a way where it would be an engaging, well-structured read and not simply all of her emails to me dumped here with a quick ‘there you go’. So I tried to wrap it in a beautiful “package”, which is why I asked her for her art, for example.

4. What type of document is this?

‘The form of a document is vital to its purpose. The form or genre in which a document appears is always carefully chosen. Genre contains its own conventions, which fulfil the expectations of author and audience.’

An interview, written by somebody who has never interviewed anyone before.

5. Can I believe this document?

‘To be successful, a document designed to persuade, to recount events, or to motivate people to action must be believable to its audience. For the critical historical reader, it is that very believability that must be examined. Every author has a point of view, and exposing the assumptions of the document is an essential task for the reader. 

You must treat all claims sceptically (even while admiring audacity, rhetorical tricks, and clever comparisons). One question you certainly want to ask is, “is this a likely story?” Testing the credibility of a document means looking at it from the other side.’

This is for all of you to decide for yourselves, and that was always the case. Far be it from me to be upset with anyone who straight up doesn’t believe a word I say, doesn’t believe J is real or any other scepticism. I’ll say it again, DO NOT harass anyone for expressing their opinions on this! It is NOT WRONG to discuss a new source! It’s wonderful that people are doing it!

And so, we come to that last question: Is this a likely story? 

Personally, I can firmly answer that with: Yes. In my personal opinion, it is. I find J’s story very likely and there is close to nothing that makes me question that these are indeed her real memories. But given the nature of human memory, they are just as imperfect as anybody else’s and do not, and should not, supersede any factual, verified information we already have.

With that, I hope to have provided a bit more clarity and transparency, and leave you - as before - to make up your own minds.

[comrade-meow]

Bad data generates bad research; bad research generates bad treatments; bad treatments generate bad outcomes. The physiological differences between males and females are vast, and stamp their mark on every organ of the human body, not just the genitals and gonads. Ignoring these differences will muddle our data, blur our understanding of physiology, and hinder the discovery of new treatments for diseases. Females are much more likely than males to have autoimmune disorders. Males are more likely than females to develop Parkinson’s disease. Males and females may present with different symptoms preceding a heart attack. Males and females metabolize drugs differently. Blatantly ignoring sex as a variable hobbles the process of scientific inquiry and limits the types of questions that researchers will ask, thereby limiting the answers they get.

About this story: last November I came across some anonymous tweets from a person claiming to be a medical student at an American university where professors were teaching that sex is a social construct. I decided to try to find out if these claims were real, and I contacted the Twitter user, striking up a conversation with “C”. We agreed to meet on a Zoom call, and that C would show me C’s student ID, with their name and the name of the school covered, and that we would then do a written interview. C’s desire for strict anonymity is well founded in my eyes, due to the damage that could be inflicted on C’s career prospects if they were caught speaking to a publication about the ideological lies being peddled and the culture of fear at their institution.

On our thirty minute Zoom call, I met a highly intelligent, critical-minded, and determined young person who was expressing deep concern over the ways that gender identity ideology is distorting the teaching of medicine and the repercussions this may lead to in our next generation of doctors.

C held up their ID so I could see their picture on what was clearly a medical school ID. C told me their school can be categorized as “top tier.”

The irony of using “they/them” pronouns for a single person is not lost on me. I find it interesting that due to the tyranny of gender ideology, I must adhere to one of their tenets and accept the use of the plural pronoun for a single person whose sex I know. But the fact that I have to do this is because any information about C could potentially be enough to raise suspicion (just read their words to understand the climate of intimidation they witness in class everyday), and the knowledge of an individual’s sex is still a crucial identifying feature, no matter what the gender ideologues want us to believe.

C and I agreed that I would offer people on Twitter an opportunity to pose their questions directly and that C would respond in written form. Out of the many responses, the medical student chose what they considered some of the most representative and important of the questions. These are their answers below, beginning with a short message they wanted me to share.

-Sasha White

Thank you, Sasha, for having offered me this valuable opportunity to answer these questions. Before we start, I would like to clarify my stance on basic issues regarding sex and gender identity, so that people can keep these in mind while reading.

Biological sex is not a social construct – male and female are distinct material realities which have significant implications for medical and surgical treatment of many different conditions. These physiological differences are relevant on the levels of clinical practice, research, and policy, and absolutely must be acknowledged in order for physicians to best treat their patients. All patients should be treated with compassion, respect, and high-quality medical care, regardless of their professed gender identity. I remain agnostic as to what it truly means to have a “gender identity”, but will respect the wishes of my future patients in regards to their social presentation and pronouns. I believe that dysphoric adults should be able to pursue transition. Physicians should be aware of relevant aspects of trans healthcare, including hormone therapy and surgery, so that they can better advise trans patients on how medical treatments may impact their gender-related care, or vice versa. It is possible and desirable for us to have a healthcare system which is inclusive and respectful of transgender patients, in a way which does not pretend that biology is arbitrary or merely a social construct. Despite my liberal beliefs, the loudest voices at my institution would falsely accuse me of blowing transphobic dog-whistles, hence my anonymity. This hostile climate is corrosive to an inquiry mindset and critical thinking, and will ultimately be a disservice to the scientific community and to future patients, trans and otherwise.

IDD64 @IDD64 asks: “What happened to “nobody’s saying sex isn’t real”?”

This is actually what compelled me to speak out about this practice in the first place. Well-intentioned non-medical people often assume that medical schools are teaching something like, “Gender identity can be fluid and varied, but biological sex is real, binary, and relevant in medical contexts.” This idea is around five years out of date in the most progressive of institutions. I have been told multiple times in several classes that biological sex is a social construct – not just gender. Granted, I can speak only for my institution, but this change has been frustrating and disturbing to witness.

Robert Woolley @RandomlyBob asks: “Do any of the required textbooks also avoid using those words? If not, might you ask those professors if they think the books are either inaccurate or offensive?”

Our curriculum is constantly subject to revision. Around two-thirds of our written materials have been updated with this new language. For the one-third that has remained out-of-date, our class has received multiple apologetic, itemized emails from course instructors in which they provide corrections, beg for forgiveness and patience, and avow to “do better”. In class, we have been given multiple histories in which the patient’s sex has been deleted, even for cases involving disorders which can manifest differently between the sexes. The words “female” and “male” are being erased and replaced.

Born a space baby @ggynoid asks: “What’s the dynamic like for class participation? Do people start with pronouns? Do people tend to agree, disagree? What’s the female-male ratio in the class typically on these sort[s] of classes?”

When school first began, we were heavily encouraged to include pronouns in our Zoom names and email signatures; around 70-80% of the class did so. Most students and professors would start off verbal introductions with their name and pronouns, though that has subsided since we all have grown to know each other.

A vocal minority of students are loudly in favor of the most extreme aspects of gender ideology, while the majority seem to be vaguely supportive in a nonspecific way. I think that this comes from a mixture of naive goodwill and fear – they are trying to be good allies, and this is the only way they know how. Additionally, it is heavily implied that to ask critical questions, even in a way which is ultimately patient-centered and supportive, is perpetuating bigotry, so they just nod along. A silent minority seems to be secretly skeptical. I have met four or five students who have disclosed to me in private conversation that they disagree with one or more aspects of this dogma but they are hesitant to come forward in group settings. I am sure that more exist, but they are hard to find. None of these people have been transphobic.

The female-male ratio is approximately equal, with slightly more females than males in my class.

David Poole @MrDPoole asks: “Do you think the people telling you these things actually believe it or are they being forced to do it?”

I think that a very small minority of our professors actually believe that male and female bodies are interchangeable with the exception of genitalia and gonads. There are definitely more woke students than woke professors, and the most radical of students are far more radical than the wokest professor. Most of these professors are very fearful of saying the wrong thing, so they delicately couch their language by referring to “XX and XY people” or other such euphemisms, even though that can lead to inaccuracies.

The social consequences for misspeaking are highly magnified, especially when most classes are delivered online (due to the pandemic). Our class has been quietly accused of having a mean streak in regards to social justice. We have had petitions circulated (drafted by few, signed by many) to name, shame, and “hold accountable” various lecturers who used the “wrong” language, to the point of humiliation. One professor broke down crying after a genetics lecture which relied heavily on the use of “male” and “female” by necessity. (Though the lecture also made ample space to talk about transgender and non-binary individuals, this was not enough to appease the critics.) Another professor referred to “pregnant women” rather than “pregnant people” and spent a very uncomfortable few minutes after class abjectly apologizing for having caused offense “by implying that only women can get pregnant”. It was incredibly disturbing to see, for multiple reasons. One, this is based on bad science and zealotry that has the potential to harm patients. Two, the magnitude of the “crime” pales in comparison to the magnitude of the outcry. Three, it is a total inversion of the expected social order to see these physicians —some of whom are literally leading scholars in their field— be reduced to fearful puddles if a student so much as looks at them askance. Keep in mind that these professors are extremely liberal, compassionate, and well-meaning, yet they are turned upon with such venom and verve by the people who they are trying to please.

Chopper @RodeoChopper asks: How are cases presented? Normally the first line is “This is a such and such year old (male/female) with a past medical history significant for…”

Here are some examples of formats I have seen in our coursework:

“This is a 43-year-old woman with ovaries, presenting with …”

“A 3-year-old child, assigned male at birth, not assigned gender as of yet by parents, presenting with …”

“This patient is a 7-year-old child, gendered as a boy by his parents, who …”

“57-year-old woman with testes, here with …”

“A 16-year-old patient (gender non-binary, pronouns they/them) …”

“A 32-year-old woman (she/her/hers) …”

“A 16-year-old patient presents with complaints of …”

Of the myriad problems with this structure, the most concerning is that most of these cases do not accurately identify the sex of the patient, which is crucial in being able to weigh the likelihood of potential diagnoses and treatments. A person’s pronouns are not relevant when deciding to prescribe a particular antibiotic, and at which dose. Additionally, I find it somewhat irritating to be expected to state the obvious for things that are the default of the human experience. We do not say, “This is a 42-year-old woman with both her arms and legs”, although there are certainly women in this world who are missing one or more of their limbs.

MaryWrath @WrathMary asks: “So how are reproductively different bodies described then? How are cardiac arrest and stroke symptoms described, explained and taught as we know now they present differently across the two sexes? There are clearly two bodies in our species so how are the professors acknowledging?”

Organs are referred to by their actual names – penis, testes, vagina, ovaries, breasts. However, referring to patients as male or female is strictly taboo. If there are relevant but subtle sex-specific differences, then they will often be downplayed or ignored altogether. As an example, we were told that the higher risk of heart attacks in men was due only to the presence of testosterone, and not for any other reason, which is patently false. When the differences are utterly impossible to ignore, “male” and “female” will simply be rebranded as “people with testes/ovaries”, “AMAB/AFAB”, or “people with/without Y chromosomes”. My personal favorite is “persons with [testosterone/estrogen] as their primary sex hormone.” Oddly, “man” and “woman” are still used, often with redundant qualifiers (“56-year-old man with testes”).

thames pilgrim @thames_pilgrim asks: “What are the most dangerous medical implications for turning a blind eye to someone’s sex due to a belief that talking about “male” and “female” might offend?”

This is a very important question which should be addressed at the following interrelated levels: clinical practice, research, and public policy.

Clinical practice: Transgender patients who do not disclose their birth sex might be at risk for improper medical treatment. (I have seen a natal female person who identified as a nonbinary man, be suspected of having testicular torsion; this person did not disclose their sex to the physician, which resulted in a delay in their care). Out of fear of being branded transphobic, physicians may not accurately and completely inform trans patients about their sex-specific risk for certain medical conditions. And for all patients, if a poorly-educated doctor is unaware as to how disorders manifest differently between the sexes, then patients can be harmed through the failure to rapidly and accurately diagnose and treat their medical conditions.

Research: Bad data generates bad research; bad research generates bad treatments; bad treatments generate bad outcomes. The physiological differences between males and females are vast, and stamp their mark on every organ of the human body, not just the genitals and gonads. Ignoring these differences will muddle our data, blur our understanding of physiology, and hinder the discovery of new treatments for diseases. Females are much more likely than males to have autoimmune disorders. Males are more likely than females to develop Parkinson’s disease. Males and females may present with different symptoms preceding a heart attack. Males and females metabolize drugs differently. Blatantly ignoring sex as a variable hobbles the process of scientific inquiry and limits the types of questions that researchers will ask, thereby limiting the answers they get.

Policy: Patients who are not transgender may be misled by “inclusive” educational materials and miss out on crucial preventative care. This is especially impactful in women’s health; whether due to language barrier, subpar sex education, or cultural taboo, not every woman will even know that she has a cervix, but she will know that she is female. Additionally, recommendations made by professional medical associations are widely used in clinical practice; if these guidelines are generated based on faulty data, this could negatively impact patients on a wider scale.

However, the most pernicious of possible harms is not the denial of sex; rather, the denial of sex is just one manifestation of a greater problem, which is the corrosion of critical thinking itself. Whatever you call it – this postmodern poison, the triumph of dogma over data – it is fundamentally incompatible with critical thinking, the most powerful all-purpose tool a physician has at his or her disposal. Starting with a conclusion and working backwards, all while twisting the data to fit a narrative, strikes me as more religious than scientific.

Marjorie Hutchins @leakylike asks: “Part of being a doctor is taking on ethical & safeguarding responsibilities[.] Why aren’t medical students challenging something which [could] have health implications for patients?”

Our positions as students are precarious, especially if one is labeled as being on the wrong side of history. Consequences for speaking out can include shunning, being anonymously reported to the school for “remediation”, being informally blacklisted from research and leadership opportunities, and potentially expulsion. Until I have earned my degree and have completed residency, I need to remain anonymous. To do otherwise would be to kill my career before it has even begun, which would also limit my ability to help many more patients in the future.

Although I am very biased, I think it should be on the onus of administration and our tenured professors to stand up against this madness, rather than on lone students to publicly put themselves at risk of debt and ruin. For now, I resist in the small ways that I can; I wish to do so more publicly when I am more secure.

[dystopiandilfs]

I am never been so close to anti-stan then I am right now. Dreams Twitter fanbase started the biggest hate train on him because they themselves:

1. Took his inital tweet with the drugs comment as a race issue, like it was obvious that was not the intent or even the focus.

2. Got mad at his completely rational reply to a toxic Stan that used both white and adhd as an isult - the toxic Stan was saying his fanbase will dogpile them, well if you didn’t phrase your concerns in a toxic way in a public place maybe you wouldn’t be concerned about it. Like he empasised he had no intent to relate it to rap - and they see him say rap and fucking ran with it.

3. Got mad at him for disagreeing with someone generalizing his 23 million fans as anti-black, like even his stance on stans is entirely anti-generalizing, he literally denounced any that are in the same comment.

4. Bullied him into unprivating his account because they can’t share screenshots apparently.

5. Got mad a him for tweeting a fucking heart.

Then they turn around and blame the entire thing on the antis, like no. You blew it out of proportion and reacted like shit to everything he did. You are the problem. All the responses to his last tweet are “educate yourself and reflect” and “come back with a better apology” like no. He apologized when he shouldn’t have and you cyber bullied him. They are bloody proud of theirselves for “holding him accountable“ for something they misconstrued.

He needs to delete that stan video because they aren’t worth it.

First thing i want to say is that this post is going to be joint answered as evangeline is white so this is going to be answered by her and me as im half african half american. Normally evanageline would be voicing her opinions and adding ours in if we had any but as its a racism issue she didnt feel comfortable to voice only her opinions. However shes the one writing the post apart from this bit to keep up the consistentcy of the blog page. -Trinity (Basically Trin gave her thoughts using a voice note and I slightly edited it so the sentences were a bit more coherent and added both mine and the other admins opinions as Trin doesn't really use twitter unless it's through my priv account - Evangeline)

I will say that a lot of the fan drama that you see are a smaller group that is known to attack and harass Dream and anyone who disagrees with anything. Eventhough they are a small group they mass reply to everything and make themselves look bigger than they are. Not only that but the only thing they end up doing is overshadowing the original issue at hand which is fans harassing and being racist to eachother. So a lot of what I'm about to say is mainly what this group is doing and isn't at all a reflection of a lot of fans but it is something that needs to be talked about especially since a bunch of this groups members are either white or white passing but get mad on black people's behalf and is basically setting them up.

I don't mean to be rude or dismissive but a lot of people used this as an opportunity to trauma dump. Like I know going into horrible details about what you have to deal with is the only way to get the point across sometimes however harassing Dream and spamming him with stuff like "I was harassed because I'm gay" "I was doxxed because I was Asian" is lowkey weird. Like why are you telling this random guy on the internet that you were doxxed? What is he going to be able to do about it? Also not to defend Dream but how are you going to sit there and break one of his few boundaries whilst trying to educate him.

On top of that the issue was originally how racist some of the fandom are to black people but then other minority groups started talking about how they were also being stereotyped and attacked but all this is doing is talking over other minorities. For example a large group of fans started off talking about how they were being attacked by other stans because of their skin colour but then immediately started to harass and threaten others. Like some were clearly not being serious but dming people and update accounts to retweet and spread awareness isn't the move you think it is. Obviously a lot of them were genuinely trying to spread awareness and were trying to get the respect and treatment they deserve but all of that was being overshadowed by the few that were attacking and harassing creators and fans. Then a lot of it turned into minorites fighting each other over who was more oppressed which just makes the whole thing seem like petty drama.

I will say a lot of them were lovely. I am pretty uneducated on race based issues and how certain things effect people and can be racist so I was asking a lot of questions and most of them were nice. However I also got a lot of snarky ones like "google it" to questions that weren't general like "Is it mocking to call white people crackers and token white boy if you are a white person" or "is ______ considered micro aggressions"

However as usual it went from trying to educate your creators to who is the most oppressed and who can bring up more past drama that has already been addressed multiple times. I'm not being funny but the fact that some well known Dream antis were defending Dream and shitting on stans should really tell you how non productive this is. It went from "Hey Dream this comment is a bit weird can you delete it please" to "Dream you should stop being friends with this person and you should follow this person otherwise your racist" Like that's not helping anyone. The only thing that it's doing is breaking Dreams boundaries, setting Dream up and making stans look bad.

Like people were @ing Sapnap and George telling them to "collect the racist friend" like how is that spreading awareness. The whole thing went from being a good chance to educate to a big fucking joke that just made a lot of people upset and anxious.

Honestly the whole thing was pretty fucking hypocritical like you can't talk about being harassed whilst harassing people into hearing you out. A lot of the issues seemed really gatekeepy to me as well. One that I saw constantly get brought up was that the only people allowed to say dy*e were black lesbians as they created the word. Like a big topic was a misuse of aave but not a single person actual explained what it was or gave examples all I saw was "mcyttwt needs to stop using aave language it's offensive" like you can't claim to be educating people if you don't explain. Not everyone can access websites and caards that get linked because of regions or web rescrictions so they're not helpful either.

HOWEVER I will agree that a lot of their points were completely valid like the whole thing of "Feral Feb" over shadowing BHM and whenever Dream listens to rap people complain and call it bad music are two really good examples. I listened to a few twitter spaces to learn a bit more and things that were said in there was all good info that would be genuinely helpful to know and it really did help edcuate me however not a single tweet said any of it and that's why people don't understand what they're doing is wrong because nobody explains it.

A lot of the issues that people had with Dream were so weird as well like a lot of them were self oppression and turning normal things into racism. A lot of the issues had the same energy as the 404twt fans who were genuinely mad at Dream for having a colour that George couldn't see and they were harassing him and claiming that he was purposely excluding diasbilities.

Usually we would add more but Trinity got a bit upset and stressed so she had to stop answering various asks and the other admins are all white or white passing and don't feel like it's our place to put our own opinions. We will try to answer other asks with similar thoughts later - Evangeline

[wakandascrystal]

Cloudy skies 🌨

Erik x Blackreader

A/n: I wrote this in 6 minutes.💀🙈🤭 please dont mind spelling errors.

During the the storm, in the warm room, Y/N and Erik's love making was coming to an end. He cuddled into her as the heavy breathing came to an end. Erik had entered new territory. He was starting to show sides of himself he had made an effort to never show. Now sex was not about him self and his needs. It was a way to communicate how he felt about. With every kiss, every touch and every stroke he was letting you know what you meant to him and what lengths he would go to protect you. And you knew it. How could you not?

He was creating a live around you. He dropped anything for you. He made you feel like the most beautiful girl in the world but some thing you were noticing made you think other wise.

"Erik, baby." You whispered trying to see if he was awake.

"Yes." he hummed into your skin.

"Candy has really been on my ass about setting me with Lucas-"

"Ma we just had an amazing day and a spectacular night. Can we just rest." He moans

"Erik why cant I just tell her we together. It's ridiculous that we have to lie to our friends. They would be so happy for us."

"We are not lying to nobody. It's just none of their business what we do."

"So what must I say when they set me up with people?"

"Just say you're not looking for anybody."

"Erik you dont get it. I'm the fat friend...every second they look at me, they feel sorry for me. They talk about my love life like its hopeless. It's not. I have an amazing boyfriend and I want to show you off I want to show us of. I know its shallow but I want to go on double dates with Lucy and them. I want to go on the couples vacation they have in December. I want to have fun with you ...outside the house."

"We chilling Y/N. I love home dates with you. You cook and dance. We have some great memories sweetie." You agree with him nodding.

"Its been a year Erik. I want them to know now. I-"

"Come one Y/N. Can a nigga get some shut eye. Damn. I dont want your thot ass, jealous ass friends in our business. They are not in your corner the way you think they are."

"That is not true Erik. They are my sisters."

He got up naked and pulled his underwear up to fit.

"Really okay sisterhood. Why dont they know you fucking someone. They should, it's been a year. The ' I cant make it ' and ' I'm not feeling well' excuses you give them should have gave them a red flag but it didnt because they dont give a shit about you. They just make you stick around so they dont feel bad about their skinny bodies when they eat to much!"

Erik's outburst had you tearing up. You were already emotional because of the sex now you had to face pissed of Erik purposing the idea that your friends are only your friends because you make them look better.

".....is that the reason you dont want us to go public."

"What?"

"I'm not an idiot Erik. With your status. You fell for a big girl and now your hiding me. I'm your dirty secret."

"Dont spin this on me. I love you."

"Then let's go public. I watched you flaunt your smaller ex girlfriends. Tell your boys you find me attractive. I know what their reaction will be. They will ask you out of all the girls...Kalya, Tamica, Toni or Lucy. Why Y/N? They will laugh cause I'm a joke. You're in love with a joke. Oh god. Am I right Erik?"

He sat down and coved his face not knowing how to answer. It seemed like Erik wasn't going to answer you. He went going to go public with you. He was a Wakanden Royal and high profile man with a plus size women. Even though he was hiding you away from people he thought it was for your own good. The press, his friend and the world would eat you alive.

Erik did love you. And you felt it every second. You felt unsure about his stance in the relationship. His goal was to provide, protect and comfort. But his active of keeping his relationship with a secret ate into soul. You question your body, beauty and personality.

So Y/N what would you do?

🍒 Stay with your perfect boyfriend Erik. Who keeps you a secret because of your appearance.

Or

🍒 Leave Erik and find someone who may or may not love you. But will definitely show you public affection and claim you with a title.

[achtung-attitude]

“What aren’t you telling me?” Shizuka says. Dust’s easy smile drops slightly. The girl’s expression is calm, but grim.

“What?” Dust asks.

“Something about what you're saying isn’t right. I know you’re hiding something from me, so what is it?”

The preacher man stares at her for a moment, then chuckles softly. “Hahaha… I suppose I can’t blame you for distrusting me… Still, surely you must realize our position now. I will tell you, I have not lied to you once since we met.”

Her gaze drops slightly, and she nods. “Yeah, that’s right,” she concedes. “You haven’t… Even that note you sent to draw me in… Never explicitly claimed to be from my mother. My own desperation is what drew me here. I’ve got nobody to blame but myself…”

She is quiet for a moment, then points her chin at the ceiling. “But you see…! Lying is different from hiding things, isn’t it? With lies, you have to come up with untruths. But hiding things? All you need to do is leave out certain details, right? It’s not technically the same…”

“I… don’t understand you,” Dust says, “Why do you stall? We’re going to die unless you contact your friends!”

“Hmm? Oh, I’m just thinking out loud. I’m scatter-brained, you know, so it helps me think. And now that I think about it, I’ve figured out what's wrong with your plan: Why do my friends have to open the door?”

Brother Dust doesn’t answer. After a beat of silence, Shizuka continues. “If HOUSE OF PAIN is really so vulnerable that anyone can open it, why insist on my friends opening the door? Why not call the police or emergency services to do it? Why does it have to be my friends? Unless… something bad happens to whoever opens that door?”

The preacher’s reaction reveals everything, as he visibly bristles. “I knew it,” she says, “You wouldn’t be trembling over a Stand as easily defeated as opening a door. No, whoever opens that door gets hurt, or dies. And with that, you’ve told me your first lie, Brother Dust.”

She cracks her knuckle and stretches her neck, meeting Dust’s dejected gaze head-on. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt my friends if I agreed to cooperate, but you knew all along what would happen to whoever opened the door. But you couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

ACHTUNG BABY suddenly shifts stance, moving in front of Shizuka with much more aggression. “I’ve had enough of you,” Shizuka declares, “I’m dealing with you once and for all!”

“You…! You have no proof…!” Dust protests, pointing his finger at her frantically, “Perhaps I am lying, but what if I’m not?! You have no reason to believe I am other than a petty desire for revenge against me! Are you going to throw your life away for your pride?!!”

“Sure, I have no proof. But there’s more to it,” she states as ACHTUNG BABY waves its hands, manipulating the light in the room. The edges of the mirror space begin to contract, slowly restoring the room to its natural state. Shizuka’s eyes flare, tears building at their corners. “If I let you walk out of here, you’ll go right back to your doomsday plan, won’t you? Back to killing, torturing, exploiting people. I couldn’t just walk out of here knowing that!”

“You… You can’t be serious! Your mother…!” the preacher shouts. The edges of his Stand’s power creep behind his feet. “Haven’t you gone through all this suffering just to find your mother?! She’s right outside! All you need to do is what I say!”

Shizuka doesn’t reply for an instant. “I told you. I’m just a scatter-brained girl who hates getting deceived. And who believes in her friends…” With that, ACHTUNG BABY takes a final stance.

“YOU PETULANT BRAT!!!” Brother Dust roars. “You may plan to die here, but I certainly don’t!! If you can’t see past your stubbornness, then you must DIE!!!”

 “Come on then, Brother Dust!!!” Shizuka shouts back, grinning despite herself.

Dust storms towards her, hands balled into fists. He bellows, “GANGSTA’S PARADISE!!!” and the room is engulfed in white light.

                                                      ***

“What?” T’onga asks through clenched teeth, fury twisting her face. Despite her injuries and SATRUN BARZ looming over her, she looks ready to pounce at Moya at any moment. “What did you say? What… kind of bullshit are you--?”

“It’s true!” Moya asserts, banging on the panel room door. “Shizuka Joestar, the girl inside this room, is your daughter!”

“SHUT UP!!!” the assassin explodes, “Shut up right now if you know what’s good for you…! You… How dare you…! My daughter is—”

“The invisible baby,” Kilo mutters.

T’onga turns to him. “Huh?”

“She said she was found in… Morioh,” he says. T’onga settles down instantly upon hearing the town’s name. Kilo squints one eye, attempting to remember the details. “Yeah… At a bus station in Morioh… S City, M Prefecture. At a bus stop near a small neighborhood. That ring a bell?”

T’onga stays quiet. What little blood there was left in her cheeks leaves her, turning her already pale face white as a sheet.

“Hold on,” Kilo says, withdrawing SATURN BARZ as he pulls his smartphone from his pocket. Opening his photo gallery, he quickly finds the appropriate image and shows it to the assassin. She gently takes the phone and stares at it: the young girl, smiling brightly, with tanned skin and brilliant blond hair, posing joyfully next to a reluctant Kilo.

The girl’s eyes are captured in full, showing their distinctive purple hue. Eyes that T’onga has only seen three times before: in her own mother’s eyes. The eyes that stare back at her in the mirror. And in her daughter’s eyes, winking at her from her crib.

The fight leaves her. She almost appears to melt, staring at the phone screen in her hand. Moya steps forward but Kilo holds her back. T’onga lays on her side on the floor, staring at the photo on screen. A single tear falls from her purple eye, running over her scar.

END of CHAPTER 48

[spicyycarrot]

I can’t find my original response but here goes nothing. This is going to be long.

Quite a while back, someone sent me an anon ask about what I thought of neopronouns and my answer to that was… embarrassing to say the least. It was something along the lines of “they/them is fine but I like that xe and ze and whatever is weird :/“

Now, I doubt more than one person actually saw that (just like I really don’t think that anyone will even see this post) but it’s been bothering me for a long time and I’ve just gotta say, I’m sorry, that was wrong and all pronouns anyone actually feels comfortable with are absolutely valid and I will do my best to use them correctly! I was young(er), dumb(er) and ignorant at the time and my response came from a place of just not understanding what being non-binary or GNC or anything really entailed. Most of the knowledge I had on being trans came from people I no longer support or agree with, such as Kalvin Garrah or Blaire White (who had political stances I could never befriend) but I thought that since they were trans, she they what they were talking about, right? Truth is, they really only speak from their own experiences and are convinced that their experience is THE Trans Experience™ and anyone who goes through anything different is Not Actually Trans (“transtrenders”) etc. They never listed any sources for their claims that non-binary genders aren’t real, or anything for that matter and especially Blaire White’s track record of being an honest person is not exactly good.

Same goes for the gender dysphoria debate. I’m no longer a transmed but I do think you need dysphoria to be trans. Hear me out- a YouTuber named graysonsprojects put it really well in one of her videos, namely that you do need dysphoria to be trans, but everyone experiences gender dysphoria differently. Just because someone else experiences something you don’t or vice-versa doesn’t mean one of you is not really trans. (I’ve heard the term “gender incongruence” as well but that really just seems to describe that… someone is trans? Like, it’s not an indicator, it’s just a way of saying that someone is trans?? Their gender is not congruent with the one they were assigned at birth and I don’t think you can really use “being trans” as a criteria to determine if someone is trans.)

I’m neither a doctor or a psychologist, nor do I have any qualifications, but since there isn’t really a clear scientific consensus on this whole thing, I’m just going to state my opinion and elaborate a little. You do need gender dysphoria to be trans. Otherwise, why would you even be trans? If there wasn’t at least some kind of discomfort or just knowing that your gender is not the same as your biological sex, why would you not feel content living as cis? After all, your gender is not a choice. Nobody can just choose to be trans, and I doubt that anyone actually has. So yes, you do need gender dysphoria to be transgender, since the dysphoria is exactly what defines being trans. However, people experience gender dysphoria very differently from one another. The term “gender dysphoria” implies that you must be unhappy and disgusted with yourself or something along those lines, so the statement of “you need dysphoria to be trans” can seem a little misleading. For some, it can really be that bad and uncomfortable, while for others it might simply be knowing that they’re not cis.

No trans experience is any more or less valid than the other and it is not up to anyone to police someone’s identity as long as they’re not harming anyone. Using someone’s correct pronouns is basic human decency. Everyone is deserving of respect concerning their gender identity and pronouns and you should always try your best to respect them, even if you don’t fully understand them.

It was a case of not understanding for me, and I’m sorry for that and I’m still quite ashamed, even though I don’t have any sort of platform whatsoever and was mostly keeping these opinions to myself and at the end of the day, they were harmful to myself more than anything. I have been struggling with my own identity for longer than I can remember and finding someone like Kalvin Garrah, who pretty much kept feeding into my internalized nb- and transphobia, pushing me away from something that could have helped me understand myself better and keeping me locked in the little cishet box I, along with everyone else, gets put into by society that I was too scared and ignorant to leave. People like him reinforced the negative opinions I had already had about enby people in particular and I didn’t do any research of my own out of the subconscious fear that I’d perhaps discover that I was not cis. Denying the existence of non-binary people helped me suppress that exact part of myself.

To this day, I’m still not really sure if I’m really experiencing gender dysphoria or just symptoms of my self-hatred, unrealistic body standards, mental illness and a sprinkle of teenage angst and rapid changes of said body due to puberty. A part of me is kind of hoping it really is just my hormones going wild in this frankly quite wild time of my life and I’m only seeing the parallels to gender dysphoria because I keep thinking about it, hoping it’ll fade away as time progresses. Maybe I am just a little GNC but still mostly cis. Maybe I’ll do a Gerard Way and not be a big fan of labels but very much imply that I am not exactly cishet. Maybe it’s Maybelline. Who knows. I guess only time will tell.

But really, that’s about it. If anyone ever stumbles across this somehow, especially the anon who sent me that ask- wow! I hope I got my point across and again, I am sorry for being an idiot at the time (not that I’ve gotten any smarter, just a little more educated.) Special thanks to anyone who actually read all or really any of this, if there even is anyone. I just felt like I had to put this all out there, hope it was at least a little interesting. Thank you!

[martian-martian-martian]

Neither-receipt is claiming your a beetlebabe and write fanfiction of it

So I’ve seen! I don’t know whether you’re notifying me or accusing me. Either way, thank you for the opportunity to make a post about this. 

OKAY. SO. If you don’t wanna read all this shit, the short answer is: 

I’m not a “beetlebabe” (I don’t ship Beetlejuice and Lydia), and the fic is not a beetlebabes fic. 

If you don’t believe me, I’m gonna go further into it, but if you’re hell bent on demonizing me, no pun intended, I’m not gonna bend over backwards to convince anyone. I know what’s true. 

Anyway, the fic they falsely refer to is called ‘Strange Bedfellows’ and it’s a PLATONIC  longform fic that me and a dear friend wrote about Beej and Lydia navigating the awkward twists and turns of past trauma and the societal pressure and complexity of adult male-female friendships! 

As the person who wrote Betelgeuse in the fic, I based a lot of the interaction between Lydia and Beej after real friendships I’ve had with guys in my life, exaggerated of course, as a queer woman, and it is in part a reflection on my own personal discomfort and struggles with them under the absurd heteronormative pressure in our society.

Also??? Most importantly??? It’s deadass just a goofy story with Prince Vince and zombie prostitutes and fortune tellers and disguises and body-swapping and getting trapped in the netherworld. It’s not even that serious. It’s mostly just puns.

People who accuse it of being a Beetlebabes fic are usually xxx-theartofsuicide-xxx on different accounts (nether-receipt is a side account of hers), OR they’re basing their judgements off a TAGGING error, where me and my writing partner were dumbasses and tagged it incorrectly, a mistake we have hence fixed after the incredible shitstorm it rightfully caused. 

Either way, nobody who makes the accusations has ever actually read it, or if they have, they see what they want to see because, ahem: 

There is absolutely NO shipping content in it whatsoever, and I encourage anyone who doubts it to read it for themselves!

 https://archiveofourown.org/works/18426276?show_comments=true&view_full_work=false#comment_326245378

_ _ _

I don’t ship beetlebabes, never have, and never will.

In the past I was more nebulous about it, admittedly, because I wasn’t aware of the controversy. I think in one post I mentioned being intregued by the idea of a grown relationship? when asked about it? but I’ve since kind of wised up to the whole thing and solidifed my stance firmly in the squick zone.

And thats decidedly pretty much where i am. I am straight up not a beetlebabe.

I don’t really know how to prove that more than I already have. I don’t support beetlebabes shippers monetarily or with my time or signal boosting, I take great care to block and avoid all beetlebabes artists and writers on my page.  I’ve been outspoken about how much I hate the ship and think it glorifies pedophilia, grooming, and unhealthy creepy old men fantasies.

If that’s not enough, I guess people just have to take my word for it. *shrug* 

The outspoken beetlebabe ‘community’ (like, a handful of people) has ranted and raved about me for ages, including calling me, (a jewish conversion student) a full blown nazi, a puritan, and other ludicrous foaming tripe. 

Nonetheless, when that didn’t work, people decided the best way to shut me down was to try to turn people who agree with me against me. So that’s where we are. 

_ _ _

Honest to God, I’ll be happy never to fucking discuss beetlebabes or any of that discourse again. I had long since backed out of it, though I remain outspoken about grooming content in general, but lately nether-receipts started tonguing my asshole, so that’s why the shenanigans are circulating. My life does not revolve around my shipping opinions, and I really don’t feel a need to make any sort of point anymore, especially when some people are just toxic. 

I hope this clears up any lingering questions for people. 

Strange Bedfellows is still updating and I’m still posting chapters, I’m proud of it and I refuse to be ashamed of something that sits well with my own values and conscience. 

Maybe some people think that’s ironic, I couldn’t really give a damn. 

[latenightcinephile]

#701, ‘Olympia’, dir. Leni Riefenstahl, 1938.

This is a very, very difficult film to write about. It’s tempting to write it off as simple propaganda, or to examine its failings as a documentary, and there are many people who have taken this approach to Olympia in the past. It’s often cited as the first film of an Olympic Games (although it isn’t), as a glorification of Hitler (more on that later), and as a dull repetition of sporting events (it most assuredly is not that, either).

The thing is, I quite admire Olympia, both as a documentary and as a piece of art. I think that Riefenstahl’s artistic prowess is often denigrated because she is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the mouthpiece of the Nazi regime. But I’m inclined to agree with Taylor Downing’s argument that Olympia is not the result of a concerted propaganda effort. As Downing points out, if Riefenstahl had set out to make propaganda, a very different film would be the result. It’s hard to deny that Olympia is a colossal work of art, made in political circumstances that make it unsettling to admire. But I think admiration is the only appropriate response to the film.

(Most of my details come from Downing’s book on the film for the British Film Institute. If you’re interested in the processes involved in making Olympia, I highly recommend it. I’ll try not to steal too liberally from Downing’s ideas here.)

I’ll point out from the very start that just because Olympia wasn’t the result of a conscious attempt to propagandise, that doesn’t mean it isn’t propaganda by itself. Any film made under the rigours of the Nazi regime is going to reflect the values of that regime, both deliberately at the hands of various political actors and socially through the ideologies that Riefenstahl replicates uncritically. On a base level, the film shows no more footage of, or deference to, Adolf Hitler than any documentary about the Olympics would show to the leader of the host country. In fact, the film sets the record straight about some of Hitler’s rumoured excesses - he didn’t, as popular myth has it, use the opening ceremony to make a political or self-aggrandising speech, he just announced the games open, as was expected of him.

On a deeper level, though, the film is quite happy to ‘bread and circuses’ its way out of some of the worst types of propaganda. In Olympia, the 1936 Olympics are an opportunity to show a games unparalleled in history. These games, and the film about them, are only possible through the benevolent patronage of Hitler’s government. Riefenstahl was certainly talented at drawing further funds from the regime to make her films, and at dodging the restrictions imposed upon her by government factions that wanted her under their thumbs. But the people she made this film for were not stupid, and they were not blindly throwing money at her for no purpose. They knew the soft power a film like Olympia could have, and the kind of goodwill and mythology that it could foster.

Riefenstahl uses this kind of mythologising to represent the Berlin Games as the apotheosis of a long history. The first section of the film opens with the lighting of the Olympic flame, after some protracted and dignified shots of Greek ruins. Visiting the actual ceremony, Riefenstahl was somewhat distressed by the presence of the crowds ruining the profundity of the moment she had in mind. So she did what she would do frequently during the production of the film: she restaged it. The more grave footage she recorded for this event draws the lighting of the flame back into the depths of history, making the idea of a lineage from Berlin back to ancient Greece almost literal.

Riefenstahl has no qualms about restaging events throughout Olympia: she brings back the entire cast of the men’s pole vault finals to reshoot their contest the next day, and she films divers and marathon runners during training to get unusual angles and extra footage (in many of these shots, you can tell because the stands of the stadia are suddenly empty). At her request, the American athlete Glen Morris stayed several days after the games finished and helped her recreate events. Most directors these days would have some concern about using this type of footage - indeed, taking footage out of context is one of the main things we think of when considering the propaganda toolbox - but Riefenstahl was dedicated to creating a complete retelling of the Olympics and resorted to these measures when filming the original events was impossible. Beyond this she also wanted to create a film that was interesting on its own terms. Some of these restagings enabled her and her team of cinematographers to access viewpoints that would be impossible in actual competition, because the large cameras would actually impede the running of the events.

That said, there are some limits on what she was willing to do, and finding these limits tells us for sure that she was not interested in making direct propaganda at this point. Much has been made of Hitler’s refusal to congratulate Jesse Owens for his spectacular performances during the games, but Riefenstahl has no such compunctions. She’s fascinated with the movement of the athletes, the American champions especially, and doesn’t pay any less attention to Owens because of his race. (Side note: there’s a troubling undercurrent throughout Riefenstahl’s career of fetishising the black body, and it might be on display here. Either way, it’s interesting to note the love-hate relationships fascist regimes have with many different things.)

It’s also clear that Riefenstahl is enthusiastic about being able to tell an actual story, beyond simply relying on metaphor. Triumph of the Will is cinematically innovative, but it doesn’t have a story that she can draw on. The Olympic Games, however, have a set of narratives that Riefenstahl can refer back to: narratives of winning and losing, using a sporting contest as a representation of a wider cultural struggle, or the pastoral origins of ‘sport’. In this last regard, the openings of both halves of the film feature depictions of the classical ideal of sport: naked athletes performing aesthetically-pleasing activities in the open air, and a community spirit built around these activities.

Riefenstahl goes further, creating new narratives to activate otherwise boring events. Some of the running races, including Lovelock’s sub-four-minute mile and the British victory in the men’s relay, are shown in a single shot taken from the upper tiers of the stadium, letting the natural rhythms come forward. For the diving events, though, Riefenstahl abandons any sense of naturalism and breaks the events into components of an avant-garde mosaic, playing shots in reverse, cutting back and forth across the line of action so it appears divers are leaping towards each other, and filming so closely that there is no sense of where the ground is. Whatever Riefenstahl’s political leanings in making the film, she is clearly dedicated to making each element of the film as interesting as it can be,

The technical aspects of this film are truly admirable. During the process of filming, Riefenstahl’s team developed entirely new techniques of filming, dug pits next to tracks to get good shots of athletes’ faces during competition, relied on five different sizes of camera, strapped small cameras to runners, and devised a camera that could film above and below water. They borrowed an airship from the Luftwaffe. The rushes were reviewed each day, totalling about two hundred cans of film every day of the games. In addition, with the exception of Hitler’s opening speech, every single piece of sound in the film was dubbed in post-production. As Downing points, out, this would be a mammoth task with modern technology, but in 1936, every ten-minute reel of film had to be mixed in real time, from start to finish, and then processed for a day before you could even tell what the result would be like. The engineers invented several entirely new sets of audio filters to reduce ambient sound, and did this during post-production. The entire final mix took two months of twelve-hour days to complete. It practically invented the genre of the sports documentary. If this had been done under any other circumstances, it would be hailed as the greatest production in history. Instead, its reputation collapsed under the weight of history. Nobody wants to like a film made by the Nazis - no matter how innovative and interesting it is, it is permanently a smokescreen to put a happy face on an appalling and destructive regime.

I have been asked if a film like Olympia could be made today. I think the answer to that depends on whether you’re looking at the film as a sports documentary or a propaganda film. Pretty much every sports documentary since Olympia has used this toolbox, so in a very real sense, this film has been made today, many times, and has often claimed innovations that Olympia made as their own innovations. As far as propaganda goes, though, I don’t think you’d need to make this film. Olympia has a very subtle hand - its statements about the superiority of the Nazi regime are implicit rather than explicit. Contemporary regimes, though, have found that you can just say that kind of thing explicitly and it will often be accepted. I also think there are very few regimes that would bother to go to this kind of expense for a film.

Riefenstahl’s complicity with the Nazis has often been hotly debated, and I think the most likely explanation of her stance is this: she wanted to make films, and the Nazis wanted films made. That she was either unwilling or unable to deny their patronage, or that she actively embraced their beliefs, is perhaps the harshest truth. She was given the opportunity to be an innovative filmmaker. All she had to do was climb into the lion’s mouth, and her films would be remembered.

She climbed in. The lion made no promises about how or why she’d be memorable.

[a19yearoldtryinherbest]

McLovin. Pt1 [Officer Slater]

Masterlist

Part 2 - Part 3

Prompt: Fogell comes home wasted with two cops, and her sister doesn’t know what the hell is going on. 

Warning: Swearing, use of drugs and alcohol, mild sexual content.

A/N: Apparently I’m thirsting over every character Bill Hader has ever played, but i’m not complaining. So there is one or two Officer Slater fic/headcanon/imagines around (gee, I wonder why) so I thought to fill in the void. This probably won’t get many notes but I had to, also there might be a second part after this one, not sure yet.

Word count: 1754

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

Fogell was a loser but every Friday night he would hang out with his idiotic friend Seth and the dorky Evan so Amy wasn’t worried when she didn’t found him around for her monthly visit from college. She was scared, however, when she saw him walk towards the hose, completely shitfaced, accompanied by two officers at seven in the morning. She put her shirt back on and ran outside, hoping her mother wouldn’t wake up from the noise and saw his brother completely wasted. 

She was still a little drunk and a little high, she had just came from a night at the bar with some old high school friends that were in town and she hadn’t had time to sober up, so she didn’t really thought of anything else but to go downstairs open the front door and go to her brother.

— You little shit, what the fuck happened to you? — she said, almost forgetting about the cops.

— Nothing much, sista’.

— Fuck, McLovin, is she gonna rat us out? — the redheaded oficer said, standing still with his hands on his hips.

— Who the fuck is McLovin? — she asked, completely confused.

— I am. — her brother said and then turned to officer — She’s cool, Michaels.

Both officers mumbled an alright under their breaths as Amy kept looking for someone to explain what was happening, why were these two drunk cops with his drunk, underage brother at her parent’s house at seven in the morning. She knew it wasn’t the drugs or the alcohol but nobody explained anything to her as they just walked into the house bags on their arms clicking to one another as their went down to the basement, of course she came with.

— Slater, don’t you have to go to your wife? — her brother said as they laid into the futons, grabbing a few hard drinks from the bag.

— What, no, kid. That was to mess with you. — Slater said, opening up the tequila and taking a swing at it.

Forgell chuckled as he put a movie in the DVD player — I knew your ex wasn’t a hooker.

— No, that part was true. — he responded, a somewhat serious face as he winced from the alcohol going down his throat.

They remained quiet for a few seconds, waiting for the movie to begin but that didn’t happened. Amy grabbed the remote from his brother’s hand, stood in front of the TV and pressed pause — Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on? — she asked, annoyed and confused.

Slater took a good look at her, starting with her soft, bare legs, going up her short black skirt, taking a good look at her ass and her slim waist. He smirked a little as he looked at her boobs before looking at her face. She was really pretty, even with her make up smudged and her eyes red. Wait. Her eyes were red — What the hell are two drunk cops doing in my basement at seven AM?

— Seven? Nice, we’re off duty. — said Michaels, taking his batch off and throwing it away.

Slater stood up and walked a bit towards Amy, he didn’t took off his batch, he knew some girls where hot for the uniform so he accommodated his belt as he let his right hand hang there as he explained — Well, we found McLovin trying to buy alcohol with a fake ID so we took him under our wing and took him on a ride. — he looked at her, the whole time, more specifically, her eyes. Trying to see if those were high red or tired red.

— Then why is he drunk? — she asked, putting her hands on her hips and copying his stance.

— Why are you high? — he asked and she immediately dropped her hands, worried look on her face.

— Ohh! Someone’s in trouble! — Michaels chanted, teasing her as she was clearly nervous. She fidgeted on the spot, trying to find an answer, forgetting the bizarre situation and seeing only the cop who knew she was high.

Officer Slater broke down in laughter, as she stared at him confused — I’m just messing with you. — he said, making her relax and start laughing, his laughter was pretty contagious. As they both stopped, he said — We went drinking and busted a party, that’s were the drinks are from. — he omitted the part were they committed several crimes, McLoving got kind of laid, they falsified a police report, burned down their parole car and let the under aged boy shot a handgun at it.

— Glad we got all of that out of the way. Can we watch the movie now? — asked Michaels. Amy put play on and moved from in front of the TV, bumping Slater on the way.

As the movie began she was wondering if she should go or stay, but before she could make a choice he turned and asked — Do you have any left? — she looked at him, a bit dazed, and nodded when she understood what he was talking about — Would you share it? — she must have been hallucinating, there was no way that this -very cute looking- cop was asking her, after bringing his drunk little brother home, if they could smoke some weed together.

— I only got a bit less than a quarter…

— Don’t worry. It would be just the two of us. — he smirked.

She didn’t even know what to do with herself. She nodded and guided him to her bedroom. Fogell paid no mind to his sister walking upstairs with the older officer, too entertained with the movie and the way the alcohol made him feel. Michael did, he just smirked and looked over his shoulder to see Slater give him a very excited thumbs up.

— Nice bedroom, very… standardized. — he said, looking at the dark green and white decor. There was nothing that claimed this bedroom as her own except for some old literature books, some make up and the clothes that was on the small handbag on the floor.

— It’s the guests room. It used to be my bedroom but I don’t live here now, I’m just visiting from college. — she explained, still looking for her stash.

She found it, grabbed the bottle of water from her desk as he opened the window and both left to the roof, insisting her parents would wake up at the smell, otherwise.

She lit it and held her breath as she passed it to him, her mind was still assessing the situation. She had came back from a night out to see his brother come home, wasted with two cute and drunk cops, one of which was in the basement, watching a movie with his little brother, and the other was with her, on the roof, smoking weed. She drank some water at the second she flat her throat itching a little.

— So what do you study? — he asked, passing the joint back to her, trying not to blow out the smoke from his lungs yet. She inhale and when he started coughing she passed him the water.

— I’m doing a English major. — She said before exhaling the smoke and drinking some more water — Not really sure why.

They stayed quiet as they kept smoking, Slater offering her the last bit. She smoked it and turn it completely off with some saliva in her finger and pressing the tip.

— You’re really hot. — he said, watching her throw the remains of the joint into the house’s front yard.

— You’re more cute than hot, — she looked at him, a smile on her face as she saw the way his doofy eyes looked at her — but you’re hot too.

He smiled and came closer to her, closing in the distance between their lips, kissing her softly as he caressed the left side of her face. She immediately kissed him back. Her senses were quite off, so were his, but they both could agree that it felt nice, the kiss was a bit sloppy and slow, like if they were both savoring the moment.

They both started to lay back into the roof and Amy took the chance to sit on top of him, one leg on each side of his hip, softly grinding against him ever so often just to tease him a little. But she found it very enticing since every time she’d do it he would get a bit more hard. She smiled into the kiss as she felt his bulge harden more when she slid her hand towards his crotch, caressing him above his pants.

As they were getting more and more worked up and he slid a hand between her legs, caressing her on top of her underwear, she remembered where they were — Wait. — she whispered.

— Why? — he asked, his voice a bit hoarse as he stopped massaging her clit, however he didn’t move his hands away from her.

— We’re on the roof. — she laughed, moving away from him — Let’s go inside. — she said, taking the water bottle and the lighter before stepping inside. She helped him in, but he tripped and they both fell to the ground, laughing their asses off before the enticing levity of their position took them to start kissing again — Let’s get in the bed. — she whispered in his ear, sounding soft yet husky. He nodded almost fanatically, his mind was racing fast and was all over the place, even with the alcohol and drugs on it.

They laid on the bed, bedsheets pulled over them as they explored eachother’s body. He took her shirt off and kissed her cleavage and the top of her breast, he was gonna keep going until

— WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? — they both froze in their spot, luckily the yelling came from downstairs.

— Shit! —Slater looked at Amy with a puzzled look on his face as she looked for her shirt and put it on. She looked at him since he wasn’t moving — Get up! That’s my dad. — she said and took his hand to help him stand up.

How the hell was she gonna get them out of this one?

[crystalwillow]

Friendbound

Hello my loves! I just wanted to pop in here with a little note before you read this fiction. I had originally planned to make this a two part fiction to post on two different days in one week but then I realized that I’m not going to be able to do that just due to the fact I am so back logged with fiction ideas and stories to work on for Wattpad so I’ve done my best to try and make it a good one part read and maybe sometime in the future I will comeback to this idea and do a part two/sequel where the girls vacation. I also just want to say that I’ve lost my tag list for people who wanted to be tagged in this, so I am just going to have to hope you see this at this point aha. I am also going to address the fact that if you don’t see yourself being mentioned much in this fiction or having little dialogue, the reason for that is me not knowing your characters personality or pronouns and not wanting to portray or address them in the wrong way.

Anywho, I hope you all enjoy this fiction and if you have any constructive criticism that you feel I could take on board to apply into my future fiction writing please comment it and I will be sure to make a note of it as I will take it happily to improve upon my writing skills.

Much Love,

tyrilsnightbloom xoxo

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"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are coming upon our decent, please buckle your seatbelts and follow all safety procedures told to you at the beginning of and during this flight. Once again we are coming upon our decent to JFK airport in New York City, New York. We hope you enjoyed your flight with us. Thank You for choosing America Air!" the pilot of the aircraft said as the flight descended from the air into the airport.

A few minutes later and the plane has safely landed and unloaded it’s passengers, all of them entering the bustling JFK airport to baggage claim to get their bags. Once they had collected their bags some people grouped together as they headed outside to look for someone holding a sign reading "Pixelberry Winners" chatting excitedly amongst themselves. "Where are they?" one of the young women asked looking around excitedly, "over there!" another exclaimed, and they grabbed their suitcases rushing over to the people holding their sign. "Names?" the man spoke with no tone. "Uh. I'm Kay" one girl said nervously, "Angela" the next said holding her hand up "And I'm Yuri" the last spoke as the man checked them off of the list and they stood over with another young woman to the side. "Hey" Angela smiled holding her hand out, "Hi... I'm Tia" the young woman said shyly as she shook Angela's hand. The 4 young women waited, by their car for the last 2 winners of the competition to arrive. Once they did they all piled into the waiting mini bus and were taken to the hotel they would be staying at. Shortly after that they had checked into the hotel they were in the restaurant, ordering their lunch before going to settle into their rooms, ready for the tour around New York the next day.

It was early the next morning and the fans had all gathered round a couch in the lobby of the hotel waiting for their tour guide. After about 25 minutes a smiley woman approached the group with someone who has very distinguishable purple hair with her “Hi! Are you guys the group of Pixelberry winners?” she asked cheerily, with a smile. They all nodded enthusiastically and jumped to their feet. The cheery lady introduced herself as the tour guide and led the girls to the mini bus, they would be taking round the city to see all of the sites from Bloodbound. The tour went smoothly, and the tour guide even brought the girls some street food from a vendor that is rumoured to be frequented by the BloodBound crew. Towards the end of their tour the main tour guide spoke up. “Now I’m sure y’all are excited to try and run into one of the vampires. And I’ve seen you looking at my apprentice weirdly all day today so… Jade… why don’t you reveal your true self to the people here today.” She beams as the woman with purple in her hair that has been on the tour all day too slowly takes off her disguise, revealing herself to be Lily Spencer, the fans gasping excitedly. “Hey guys! It’s been such a pleasure to meet you today and get to show you some of the sites we had the pleasure of visiting during our crazy journey. Now obviously I’ve stayed in the bus because it’s been daytime. But now that it’s dark out… Who wants to come to one of the coolest places in New York with me and meet the rest of the gang?!” she asks excitedly. “I’d love to but I’m tired and need to get some rest after today.” Morgan said with an apologetic look, Cassy agreeing with her and hopping back into the mini bus so they could be taken back to the hotel safely. Everyone else however excitedly agreed to go along with Lily, awe struck by her up close beauty and excited to meet everyone else. “I wonder what Amy is like in real life?” Yuri asked, “I hope she as much a gem as she is in the books and movies” Angela replied. “psshhhh. Forget that, I want to witness Jax’s abs. front row seat!” Tia exclaimed, Lily turning and smirking at her. “I like you already” she grinned, fangs poking out a little.

Soon they were arriving at the spot where Lily was taking them, “Yo Lilz!” a voice shouted out and she turned to the 4 fans who had come with her, “you ready?” she smiled, and they nodded nervously. Lily led them to the booth and sat down with a smile. “Who are these people?” Kamilah asked clenching her fist, ready to defend herself. “Kamilah relax. It’s 4 of the lucky 6” Lily said softly, placing a gentle hand over Kamilah’s. Not long after Adrian and Jax appeared holding trays of drinks, “Oh. We have company?” Adrian asked as he slid into the booth next to Amy, sliding his arm round her waist and kissing her temple gently. “ah! Cuutteeee.” Kay squealed, causing Adrian to blush lightly. Jax brought over 3 chairs and placed them round the table. “I could only find 3 spares.” He said as he placed the final chair. Tia was occupied on her phone, reading through something, and smiling. Jax turned to try and get her attention but froze and choked on his words, this caused Tia to snap her head towards the commotion, “are you okay?” she said with a worried arched brow, looking at Jax who nodded and took a few moments to compose himself. “I was going to say, you can take my seat if you want to. I could only find 3 spares and I don’t mind standing” he said, “Oh.. th-thank you. That’s incredibly kind of you” she blushed as she took the seat. “No worries” he smiled. Lily got to gossiping about the latest Fangbook drama. The fans sat talking quietly amongst themselves, “Anyway, I don’t believe we’ve been acquainted.” Adrian smiled at the fans, Lily started introducing them one by one. The fans waved and said one fact about themselves as Lily introduced them and soon they were conversing with the group laughing and having fun. It was a little later on and the chatter had died down and every one was either talking quietly in pairs or checking their phones. Tia looked over at the dance floor and got up heading towards it. “Wait for me! Amy come on!” Lily called out as she shot up from her seat at the table, grabbing Amy’s wrist and heading to the dance floor with Tia. Kamilah and Adrian stayed sat at the table chuckling at the 3 starting to dance and slowly the other 3 fans, Angela, Yuri, and Kay joined them, letting themselves loose and making the wildest of shapes with their bodies. At some point Tia was at the bar getting another drink when Jax walked up beside her. “Oh hey Jax! You okay?” she asked happily. “No.” he answered grumpily making her frown, “what’s wrong?” she pouted, and he suppressed a small smile creeping onto his features and looked at her, “I can’t figure out how you’re so beautiful” he replies, “Oh..” Tia blushed as she picked up her drink sipping on it to try and hide the blush a little. “That’s cute.” Jax commented quietly causing Tia to blush even more and her legs turned to jelly so she took a seat at the bar and Jax sat with her for a little while. Soon Tia made her way back to the dance floor and Jax followed her. Back in the booth Adrian and Kamilah were keeping a close eye on everyone, when 2 of the fans came back to the table with Amy. “Hey babe? I’m going to walk these two back to their hotel and then head home myself. You coming?” she asked Adrian, who emptied his glass and then smiled “Yeah, sure.” He gave Kamilah a hug and then left with Amy and the two fans, leaving Tia with Jax, Lily and Kamilah.

Later that night around 4:30am, The 4 left at the bar were ordering one more drink to have before leaving when there was a sudden smash across the bar from them, Jax stepped forward cautiously drawing his sword whilst Kamilah unsheathed her daggers, her stance matching Jax’s, whilst Lily stayed close to Tia, protecting her from anything that may come their way. Soon a man skidded across the floor and stopped nearby Tia’s feet. “Oh my god.” She gasped quietly and looked at Lily. Nobody knows what happened, but the next thing that everyone knew was a fight had broken out. “Lily! Get Tia to safety! If anything happens to her…” he trailed off as he fought off three men advancing toward him. Lily grabbed Tia’s hand and led her out of a back exit. “The safest place for you right now is your hotel room. Follow me” Lily spoke urgently as she took off into the night away from the club. “Lily!” Tia exclaimed as she tried to keep up with her as she parkoured through the streets of New York. Finally, out of breath Tia caught up with Lily in the hotel’s lobby at the elevators which pinged open and Lily pulled her inside. “Which floor?” she urged. “Four” Tia answered breathlessly. The elevator whirred taking them to the fourth floor, Tia swiped her rooms key card on the door, and they went inside. It was about an hour later and there was a knock on the door. Still awake Tia walked through the door and looked through the little spy hole, seeing a rattled looking Jax. She opened the door at the same time another door just a couple down from her room opened and Kamilah came creeping out. She smiled at Jax knowingly and went on her way, Jax stepping into Tia’s room. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m tired.” She replied and got back into bed. “Oh… yeah I forgot you’re…” he said feeling suddenly awkward. Soon there were more knocks on the door. “ugghhh.” Tia groaned. “I’ve got it.” Jax soothed and answered the door and was received with a bunch of squeals. “Omg I knew it was him at this door!” Kay exclaimed “Who’s room is this anyway?” Angela asked. “I believe it’s Tia’s” Yuri said trying to keep her cool. “So Jax. You interested in her?” Angela asked, the three waiting as they looked at him for an answer expectantly. “So what if I am?” he asked, “It’s cute when you try to be all broody.” Yuri commented. Jax shrugged it off, “So… can Tia, Lily or I help you 3 lovely ladies or….” Jax asked, letting the question linger. “Well we were actually going to ask if Tia wanted to sleep in with us. We’re doing a big slumber type party.” Kay smiled confidently. “You may have to come in here if you want to do that.” he whispered, hearing the change in Tia’s breathing. “She’s sleeping” he elaborated. The three girls nodded and went to grab their blankets and pillows, before returning to Tia’s room. “Right, I’ll leave you girls to it then.” He smiled politely, motioning to a now awake Lily to follow him and together they left going out into the night. “Goodnight girls. It was fun getting to know you today. I look forward to spending more time with you!” Kay whispered, not wanting to wake Tia. “Goodnight” Yuri and Angela whispered back as they laid down closing their eyes and falling asleep.

Over the next two days the fans hung out getting to know each other and following on each other so they could stay in contact after they leave New York. On their last day they were wondering the streets of New York when Kay spotted Lily and Adrian walk into a juice bar. “Let’s go in there.” She pointed and they all headed inside and waited in line behind Lily and Adrian. “So.. why are we here?” Yuri asked. Recognizing the voice, Lily spun round. “Oh my gosh! Hey, you guys!!” she exclaimed and hugged them all tightly. “Lily let the poor women breathe” Adrian chuckled as he moved forward in the line. Lily smiled brightly as she took her spot back next to Adrian. “How have you been? New York’s treating you well I hope?” he questioned “Yes, we’ve had so much fun!” Angela responded excitedly, “It’s sad we have to leave tomorrow.” Tia pouted and she put her phone away. “It’s your 4th day here already?!” Lily asked and Tia nodded “Man. Jax is going to be crushed…” she said defeatedly. “What?” Yuri asked curiously. “Jax has been…” she trailed off, looking at Adrian who looked at Tia with a tender look. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Tia asked as they moved forward. “Jax is a little lovesick. And it appears to be for you.” He said looking distant. “OOOOOOOOOOOO” the other girls said teasingly as Tia blushed. “Jax is in love with Tia! Jax is in love with Tia!” Angela and Kay teased causing Tia to blush. “well.. I… he is…” “Shut up! You like him too!” Yuri exclaimed. “Shhhhhhhh” Tia urged, blushing harder and clasping her hand over Yuri’s mouth. Adrian chuckled as he walked up to the juice bar and gave his order to the cashier. “What are you going to do?” Angela asked.

“What do you mean?” Tia asked back.

“Well are you going to see him before we leave?”

“What? No! he’s a busy man. He doesn’t need badgering by someone like me.”

“What?! Are you crazy girl!!! Give me your number and I’ll get him to text you.”

“Lily. Don’t trouble the poor girl.” Adrian chuckled slightly as he turned round from the counter. “What? Jax likes her and she likes Jax. Why not set the wheels in motion for a fantastic relationship?” Lily defended. “Lily.” Adrian warned, “Fine.” Lily sighed and turned around to help collect the juices before they said goodbye and set off.

Later that night, all the girls apart from Cassy and Morgan were gathered in Kay’s room, sharing pizza and their favourite fizzy soda. “So, are you really going to just leave Jax hanging?” Angela asked Tia, taking a bite from her pizza slice. Tia swallowed her bite and took a sip of her drink, doing her best to avoid the question. “Tia?” Kay asked causing her to sigh. “Yes. No. I don’t know. He’s a great guy but we leave in the morning.” Tia explained. “And? That doesn’t mean you can’t exchange social media ats or something and talk.” Yuri chimed in, “But I’m going to be thousands of miles away and he’s too cute to have a relationship from that far away.” Tia pouted as there was a knock at the door. “I’ve got it” Angela smiled and answered the door. “Amy!” she exclaimed and gave her a hug. “Hi! Can I come in?” Amy smiled back, “Yeah sure!” Angela chirped and stepped aside letting her in and closing the door behind her. “Ooooo. I smell pizza” Amy grinned hungrily. “Take a piece we have enough” Kay said happily. “Thank You” Amy said as she took a piece and sunk her teeth into it, “MMMMMMMMM, that’s SO good.” She mumbled as she chewed. The other 4 girls resuming to eat and sip their soda. “So… I came here to give you all something” Amy said, breaking the silence as she reached into her bag, pulling out necklaces with the girls initials on. “Awww Amyy” the girls all said happily as they gathered round Amy giving her a tight hug. Amy returned the hug and as they all pulled away there was another knock at the door, which Kay went and answered. “Yeah.. just a second.” She said quietly then came back the main living area of the hotel room, “It’s for you Tia.” She smiled as she returned to her seat. Tia got up and went to the door, surprised a little when she saw Jax standing there. She hadn’t expected to see him again before she left. Which is how she wanted it to be in a way, so it was easier for her to leave. “Jax.” She whispered after a long moment of silence of the two staring at each other. He smiled softly at her before speaking.

“I um… wanted to. No, needed to see you before you left.”

“But why?”

“Because as cringey and cheesey as this is. I’ve caught feelings for you. You’re beautiful Tia.”

“Jax.”

“No Tia please. Let me finish… As you know I mostly hate lovey dovey stuff. It makes me mad because I’ve never been able to know what it truly feels like to have it and wanting it has only caused pain when women have run away after finding out who I really am. But you know. You know who I truly am, and you still flirted with me the other night. You made me feel… normal. It’s a weird feeling being here confessing I like you when you’re leaving in a few hours, but I knew if I never told you then you’d be the one who got away. You probably will be anyway but at least this way I can get some sort of peace knowing that you know how I feel about you and… I can only hope you feel the same about me. I also wanted to give you something to remember me by. I went to a friend and got this fast-tracked to be custom made for you but um… I want to give you this.”

“Oh… Jax this is…” Tia gasped as she reached her hand out delicately taking the keychain from Jax’s hand. “It’s beautiful” she smiled softly

“It’s a Daisy. I chose it because of what it symbolizes.”

“What does it mean?”

“In general it symbolizes purity, innocence and loyal love.”

Tia smiles at the keychain before looking at Jax and giving him a hug. “This is really thoughtful. Thank you” she spoke into the crook of his neck. He returned the hug, squeezing tightly as if he never wanted to let go. Which he didn’t but he reluctantly parted from Tia and gave a small smile. “Could I come and wave you goodbye tomorrow?” He asked. “Of course.” She smiled in response. “Then good night beautiful.” He said leaving with yearning in his eyes. “Good night Jax.” Tia said softly, stepping back inside and shutting the door, going back to her seat in the main living area. “Tia has a boyfriend!” Yuri squealed as she entered the room, Tia smiled and blushed as she took her seat. For the rest of the night until Amy left and they went to bed the girls teased Tia about Jax occasionally and talked about business and stuff with Amy. Getting a feel of what life was really like for them as vampires in New York.

Early the next morning the girls were at the front desk of the hotel checking out when someone tapped on their shoulders. When they turned round they saw Kamilah who smiled at them brightly. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around much girls but I heard you leave in a few hours so I thought I’d swing by and take you to the airport and give you a copy of my book to take home with you as a parting gift.” The girls smiled and graciously accepted the lift to the airport and their gift from Kamilah. When they got to the airport they went through the standard procedure before settling in seats near their gates waiting for their departures to be announced. But before they broke off from each other they had one last group hug and promised to keep in contact with each other. Cassy, Morgan, and Kay were the first ones to have their departure flights called, followed a few minutes later by Angela’s flight being called. Tia was sitting at her gate reading through Kamilah’s book when someone cleared their throat making her jump and drop the book. “Darn. Now I’ve lost my page.” She cursed quietly as she picked it up. “Sorry bout that.” Jax chuckled as he sat next to her. The two got to talking whilst Tia waited for her flight to be called. They laughed and joked and eventually followed each other on Pictagram, agreeing to stay in contact. It felt sudden and too soon but Tia’s flight got called along with another and she stood up unwillingly and put her hand on the handle of her suitcase but Jax took it and wheeled it to the gate for her, giving her one final hug before she left. As she pulled away from the hug she pecked Jax’s cheek making him freeze for a moment before braking out into a smile. “See you later Tia.” He grinned as he turned and swaggered away. Before heading through her gate tunnel she spotted Yuri. “BYE YURI!! SPEAK TO YOU SOON” she shouted across with a wave and Yuri waved back with a matching wide smile and the two got onto their planes settling into their seats ready to touch back down at their hometowns. Wondering when they would all be able to meet like this again, but Jax was also on Tia’s mind as her plane took off down the runway and ascended into the sky. They may not know when but they did know that they would all have to meet up again soon and vacation together and make more amazing memories to last a lifetime.

[jahaanofmenaphos]

Art by the awesome @tommieglenn!

Of Gods and Men Summary:

When the gods returned to Gielinor, their minds were only on one thing: the Stone of Jas, a powerful elder artefact in the hands of Sliske, a devious Mahjarrat who stole it for his own ends and entertainment. He claims to want to incite another god wars, but are his ulterior motives more sinister than that? And can the World Guardian, Jahaan, escape from under Sliske’s shadow?

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TUMBLR CHAPTER INDEX

QUEST 09: OUR SPIRITS, KINDRED

QUEST SUMMARY:

When Ariane is kidnapped and the signs point to Sliske, Jahaan is forced to confront the Mahjarrat once again. But this time, things take a turn for the twisted, and Jahaan uncovers the truth behind Sliske’s obsession with him. Can Jahaan survive Sliske’s games? After all, broken bones heal faster than a broken mind…

CHAPTER 5: A MALICE UNLEASHED

Meanwhile…

“So we need to make sure Sliske doesn’t notice Jahaan’s missing?” Ariane surmised.

Rolling her eyes, Idria remarked, “How are we supposed to do that? The creep doesn’t take his eyes off him…”

“Leave it to me,” Ozan assured, leading them all into the next chamber, trying not to let it show just how exhausted he was. His injuries were flaring up again, pain pulsing inside his bandages, and the stress of the situation threatened to bring forth a migraine. His shattered ankle was a new kind of agony, making the simple act of standing up a tremendous effort, but he tried not to let it show. There was no time for wallowing or self-pitying, Ozan told himself, knowing he had to do everything he could to get Ariane and the others out of there safely.

He’d never forgive himself if anything happened to Ariane on his watch.

Unfortunately, he had very little to work with under the circumstances. Like Jahaan, he had been stripped of all his weapons. Nevertheless, Ozan’s smart mouth was as deadly as any bow he could wield, succeeding in getting him both in and out of trouble on many an occasion. So, he thought it best to utilise it here, hoping he could keep Sliske talking long enough to help out Jahaan. Any time he bought was a victory.

Already suspicious, Sliske peered over Ozan’s shoulder, glaring through the group. “Where’s Jahaan?”

“He’s still throwing up after the whole Sir Tenly thing,” Ozan crossed his arms over his chest, hoping his conviction came across as genuine and not a facade. “Give the guy a break.”

It seemed to take, for Sliske rolled his eyes and chuckled, “You humans with your fragile consistencies. Fine, fine. I suppose we’re in no rush.”

Sizing Ozan up with a keen eye, Sliske said, “We haven’t properly been introduced, you and I.”

“It feels like we have, though,” Ozan replied, carefully dangling out his words like they were fishing line. “I know a lot about you from what Jahaan has said. Or, in some ways, what he hasn’t said.”

Ozan had met a ridiculous amount of characters on his travels, a fair few of which he needed on his side for one reason or another. To accomplish this, each had to be handled in the right way in order to not let the stove pot boil over, so to speak. It was like picking a lock - find what makes them tick, don’t apply too much pressure, be patient. From what he gathered, Sliske was one wrong step away from disengaging completely, and he needed to give Jahaan more time. So, Ozan knew to keep it fairly light, to not back the Mahjarrat into a corner, and to favour simpler questions over the more pressing, problematic ones.

He also needed to keep Sliske entertained, curious and baited. In many ways, it was like keeping a small child distracted, though with vastly different consequences for failure.

It seemed to work, for an intrigued glimmer shone across Sliske’s features. “Oh really? Do tell.”

“Well, he spoke of you at the Ritual, the way you saved his life,” Ozan began, carefully. “Then of course, the way you masqueraded as that archeologist to get inside Guthix’s chamber. You really made him paranoid with that one, you know.”

Friendly, colloquial, casual. Ozan had to keep Sliske relaxed, had to talk to him like he would anyone else. “He attacked me in a bar once thinking I was you. So that was nice,” Ozan allowed a light chuckle into his words, relaxing his stance.

“I know. I was there,” Sliske’s grin doubled in size.

Eyes wide, Ozan was legitimately surprised. “You’re kidding!”

“Not in the slightest!” Sliske assured, gleefully. “I had a great view of the show! Of course, Jahaan cottoned on soon enough and ruined the game, but it was fun while it lasted.”

Chuckling, Ozan remarked, “He can be a little dangerous with too much liquor in his system.”

“Ah, I know that too,” Sliske’s eyes flashed, casually rubbing his chin. “He’s an interesting specimen.”

“But he’s more than just a specimen to you, right?” Ozan’s tone was slightly hushed. He didn’t give much time for Sliske to formulate a response, continuing, “I mean, you were the one that got Jahaan and me out of harm’s way. I see what he sees in you.”

Crinkling his brow, Sliske’s tone became guarded, yet fused with curiosity. “What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s just say, there was a reason he kept that invitation box of yours all this time.”

Ozan was near certain this was exactly what Sliske wanted to hear. It kept him enraptured, at least, which was what they needed now.

Capitalising, Ozan tested the dangerous waters, wading in by asking, “With that in mind, why did you bring Cyrius to him?”

From the way Sliske’s expression changed, Ozan knew he’d made a mistake. “That is not your concern. Cyrius played the part that he needed to play.”

“You knew how Jahaan felt,” Ozan guessed. It wasn’t a stretch. “And you know what happened when he lost him. If you cared about him, why would you bring back such memories?”

Ozan knew he was losing the thread here, but his own anger was getting the best of him. He wanted - no, needed answers - and biting his tongue was becoming more painful than how his burn scars felt.

“We must confront our demons if we are to ever conquer them,” Sliske’s stance grew more guarded, his face slightly colder and more neutral. “We both know that Jahaan changed on the day that Cyrius and the others were killed. Gone were the days of monster slaying, scaling treacherous mountains and freeing comatose Mahjarrat from their pyramid prisons. No, he lost the light behind his eyes. Then, he found service in the Imperial Guard, fighting Bandos’ mindless beasts. While it was good to see him fighting instead of moping, the routine… ah, it grew so stale. It was counterproductive.”

“It was stability,” Ozan corrected, his eyes narrowing into slits. “It was what he needed.”

“Repetitive, tedious…” Sliske continued, as if Ozan hadn’t spoken at all. “No, he needed a change of scenery. So, I played my part and set the wheels in motion.”

“Let me guess, you got to Commander Denulth?”

“He was easy to persuade,” Sliske confirmed, wringing his palms together. “Everything fell into place after that.”

Ozan could see how pleased Sliske was with himself, his ego getting a generous boost as the conversation continued. “So you planned for him to become the World Guardian?”

“Ah,” Sliske clapped his hands together, long fingers pressing against each other to emit a soft squeak from the leather of his gloves. “That was more of an... unintended consequence. But a fortunate one, wouldn’t you agree?” Ozan bit his lip. “Fortunate? Not how I’d put it.”

“How would you put it, then?” Sliske went on to say, “It’s not everyone who gets to mix it up with Gielinor’s divine. And yours truly, of course. In many ways, he’s better than ever.”

Ozan caught onto the slight edge in Sliske’s voice, one that betrayed what the Mahjarrat was really thinking. It was clear that neither of them believed a word Sliske was saying.

Jahaan was a great fighter, a decent man and someone Guthix deemed worthy enough to declare Gielinor’s guardian. But Jahaan was now under pressure, too much of it. He could be volatile and reckless, and though he tried his best to hide it from everyone, Jahaan was fraying at the edges. He’d been thrown back into the adventuring world of his past too forcefully, and with too much at stake. That letter from Commander Denulth had sparked Jahaan’s undoing. Ozan knew it, and he was certain Sliske did too. The only one who seemed oblivious was Jahaan himself.

While they were conversing, Mary Rancour edged over towards Idria. Rancour had her arms huddled across her chest, hugging herself, despite trying to keep a steely resolve. “How much longer do you think Jahaan will be?”

“I don’t know,” Idria confessed, disheartenedly. “But we’ve got to buy him as much time as possible.”

“I wonder how many more of these sick games Sliske has planned for us.”

“Hopefully this’ll be the last,” Idria bit her lip. “I guess we'll just have to tough it out and help Jahaan as best we can.”

Mary Rancour responded by grumbling something under her breath; Idria could sense her distress, inquiring, “What’s the matter?”

“It’s just… That's kind of the point of all of this, isn't it? We're reduced to holding out for Jahaan to come swinging in and save us. We wouldn't even be here if Sliske wasn't so obsessed with him. Don't give me that look. I feel I have earned at least a little rant. Look, I lost my husband and two sons to the trolls. I have broken every bone in my body fighting those monsters. I've grown old and grey before my time, and for what? Sliske captures a magic stone, the gods return and now nobody cares about monsters killing villagers in Burthorpe. And even if they do, they turn to the 'World Guardian'. Not Major Rancour, who bled and struggled to keep them safe. I caught two guards the other day; both of them were slacking off in their duties. I reprimanded them, and do you know what they said? 'It's fine, Jahaan will take care of any trolls that get through’. I… I almost overreacted. It’s like they think he’s some sort of superhuman now. He’s just a man, no better than me, or you, or any of them.”

Idria considered this for a moment. “Wow. I had no idea you felt this way. I… I’m sorry. But I guess it puts it all in perspective.”

“What?”

Idria turned her gaze towards the Barrows Brothers, who were keeping silent guard around the edges of the chamber. “The way the Barrows Brothers sold out to Sliske all those years ago. Why settle for mediocrity all your life when you can lead a glorious crusade? Imagine how easily you could best the trolls with some of those weapons, or an army of wights?”

Mary Rancour’s half-hearted smile was wry. “Believe me, I’ve thought of it. But the price…”

“...Is never worth it,” Idria finished. With a genuine smile, she said, “It was good speaking to you, Major.”

“You too, Idria.”

By now, Ozan realised he was struggling to keep his words in check. Sliske was capable of bringing the worst out of Jahaan, and it seemed like Ozan suffered similar side effects from the Mahjarrat’s dark presence. Everything Sliske had put his best friend through, the world through… now culminating in the kidnapping of Ariane… Ozan’s mind was full of storm clouds, and he fought with everything he had to stop them from breaking open.

However, he didn’t last much longer, and having taken too long to formulate the right answer to Sliske’s latest question, the penny dropped.

“Come to think of it, where is Jahaan?” Sliske wondered, drawing out his words with a suspicious rattle.

“Uhhh… he’ll be here soon,” Ozan gulped, taking a tentative step backwards, wincing as he accidentally put the wrong amount of weight on his ankle. “What, can’t stand five minutes without him?”

He trailed off with a nervous laugh, but the second the words had come out of his mouth, his throat went dry. He knew he’d cut the wrong wire.

There was a beat of silence that seemed to last for a lifetime, causing the air around them all to turn thick and cloying.

As he cottoned on to Ozan’s plan, his sulphur eyes went wide before narrowing into slits; shadows converged around their master with malicious intent. “Oh you’re good, Ozan. Very good. But I’ve had enough of your stalling. Tell me where Jahaan is, or you’ll live to regret it, however briefly.”

“I’m here Sliske,” Jahaan announced, strolling into the chamber with as much confidence as he could muster.

Jahaan’s timing was impeccable; Ozan let out a shaky breath, trying not to let anyone know just how relieved he was to have the Mahjarrat’s eyes away from him, for now at least. But the relief didn’t last long as soon as he clocked that Jahaan had returned alone and unarmed.

At this rate, Ozan knew he’d have to try something drastic. So, when the Barrows Brothers were summoned to guard himself and the other hostages, Ozan made sure to shuffle next to Karil, who had a pouch of bolts just out of reach. Knowing that obtaining one of them could be a game changer, he waited for the right time to put his nimble fingers to good use.

“Where have you been?” Sliske snapped, before shaking his head and instead saying, “It doesn’t matter. Your lies would only annoy me. You know what? Game over. I've had a good time, and whatever you were planning would ruin that. So congratulations, time for the winner to claim their prize!”

“Enough bullshitting, Sliske,” Jahaan rested his hands on his hips, defiance in his eyes. “Let the hostages go and we can talk about why you really brought me here.”

Raising an eyebrow, Sliske entertained him. “Oh? And why did I really bring you here, hm?”

“I read your notebooks, or journals, or whatever they are,” Jahaan stated, enjoying the flash of indignation in Sliske’s eyes. “When I refused to give you my soul, you decided to take it for yourself. These sick games were a way of making me ‘compatible’. And all of this because some lunatic guessed my name centuries ago…”

Inhaling a sharp breath, Sliske demanded, “How do you know about him?”

With a self-satisfied sneer, one he’d seen on the Mahjarrat too many times, Jahaan replied, “Ego loqui Infernal, vos retorta irrumabo. What’s the matter, Sliske? Not what you were expecting?”

Sliske was too stunned to formulate one of his usual witty replies. No, instead, he looked genuinely shocked, confused… and with a steadily building fury in his eyes.

Moreover, he looked fit to hurt. “You weren’t supposed to read that...”

“Well I have. All of it. So you might as well be honest for once in your miserable life.”

“I was honest with you,” Sliske growled, venom in his fangs. “I told you of my intentions. We had an agreement. You reneged. You could have made this much less painful for yourself.”

“You felt betrayed?” Jahaan let out a sharp laugh, his teeth bared and challenging. “Don’t like the taste of your own medicine, hm? Well, what did you expect me to do? Hand over my soul to you on a silver platter? You’d get an afterlife, but I guess you don’t care where that leaves me. You never cared at all, did you? Oh, you were good at pretending - hell, you… you had me believing - but you were just using me this whole time. So tell me, why didn't you just rip my soul out of me the first chance you got? Why not send me screaming into the abyss?”

Sliske’s fists were shaking now, erratic breathing struggling to be calmed. "To… to even think for a second that-"

The bolt whizzed passed the back of Sliske's head, a good foot away from the target.

Jahaan was just as startled as Sliske, seeing the bolt fly past him too. Only once he saw Guthan and Karil manhandle Ozan to the ground did he realise where the attack had originated. Unfortunately Ozan’s attempt at assassinating the Mahjarrat had failed, his normally perfect aim hindered by his lasting injuries. Nevertheless, Jahaan knew he had to try and make the spontaneous opportunity count. Surging forwards, he whisked the letter opener from his belt, hoping to make it to Sliske before the Mahjarrat realised what was happening.

It all seemed to go so well; Sliske’s interest was on Ozan, his back turned to Jahaan. Even as the man got closer to striking, Sliske didn’t even seem to register his motions.

Until he did.

Jahaan was so close, too close, when Sliske slipped out of the way, using Jahaan’s forward momentum to his disadvantage as he spun around, grabbed Jahaan’s wrist and snapped the blade from his hands, along with snapping the bone in the process. The sickening crunch confirmed as much before the pain even registered. Tossing his hand aside, Sliske then grabbed Jahaan by the throat, lifting him high into the air before launching him thirty, forty, fifty feet across the room. Jahaan crashed into the stone wall behind him with a shattering force, falling to the ground in a heap.

The lights cut out for Jahaan as soon as his head impacted the wall. Begrudgingly, he was pulled awake by Sliske dragging him to his knees by his hair, though at the rate his mind was spinning, he didn’t register the movement, nor the inherent pain that came with it.

It took a punch across his jaw that knocked out a tooth to force him back into focus.

Several more blows landed across his nose, chin and stomach. Sliske was punctuating each jab with words, but Jahaan couldn’t make a single one of them out, struggling to remain lucid among the beating. Until, that is, Sliske held Jahaan by the collar of his shirt and growled, “I told you, World Guardian… actions have consequences.”

Sliske targeted three more precise and fearsome strikes against Jahaan’s previously cracked ribs, easily reigniting the previous damage. Jahaan fell forwards, but Sliske caught him, sharply kneeing him in the stomach before slamming his head back into the wall. He held him there, watching Jahaan’s half-lidded, barely conscious eyes roll into the back of his head. Once he released his grip, Jahaan crumbled lifelessly to the ground.

Finally sated, Sliske walked away.

Idria, Ariane and Mary Rancour watched in horrified, aghast silence as Jahaan fell to the floor. Inside the grasp of the Barrows Brothers that were restraining them, the three were visibly shaking. Mary Rancour’s mouth hung agape, loosely trying to form a call, a cry, anything to try and rouse Jahaan, but it was for nought. In her line of work, she’d seen battle, bruises and brutality, but nothing so… malevolent. Ariane’s eyes darted between Jahaan and Ozan, the latter struggling fruitlessly in the hold of Guthan and Karil, screaming obscenities. His face was a dark shade of crimson, his eyes bloodshot and tone quickly becoming hoarse.

Gulping, Idria’s eyes were locked solely on Jahaan as she mumbled, “By Armadyl, is he still breathing?”

Her question was answered in the form of Jahaan slowly beginning to stir. He moved an arm first, then a leg, slowly regaining life into his limbs. All the while, his head was a pounding mess of screams and colours; with each throb, his vision blurred more and more. Clawing at the ground, he struggled to right himself, attempting to pull himself up to his knees. Instead, his limbs protested agonizingly, buckling under the weight and forcing him back down with a whimper. Roughly, his face scraped against the stone cold floor, his body convulsing as he coughed up blood.

Looking down upon Jahaan, Sliske’s eyes were empty of compassion. “So, you want honesty. Is that right, World Guardian?”

Through the ringing in his ears, Jahaan could barely string his own thoughts together, let alone decipher Sliske’s words. He was too busy trying to remember where he was, and why everything was hurting so damn much.

Sliske’s eyes practically burned with yellow fire, though the face housing them was deathly stoic. “Then here’s the truth for you: I didn’t want to say this, but your soul is damaged goods. It was shattered into a million pieces and barely put back together. You should be grateful that I’m even interested in it.”

Summoning the Staff of Armadyl to his hands, the shadows slithering around the room converged at Sliske’s feet. “But you’ve read my notes. You know why I am. If it’s any consolation, I have grown rather fond of you. I believe the bond we share is greater than that of friends, brothers, or even lovers. If I had to put a label on our relationship, I’d say we’re akin to soulmates.”

Letting out a hollow, mirthless ghost of a laugh, Sliske said, “A fitting term, wouldn’t you agree?”

Motioning towards Guthan and Karil, the two brothers brought Ozan closer to Sliske, forcing the young man to his knees as he groaned in protest, failing to shake off their grasp. Sauntering over, Sliske gazed down in cold amusement as Ozan glared daggers at him. Cupping the man’s chin, Sliske remarked, “A clever one, aren’t you? Yes, you’ll do quite nicely…”

Stepping back to the centre of the expanse, Sliske turned back to Jahaan, who was still curled over on the ground. The corners of his mouth upturned cruelly.

Loudly, so to break through the volcano storming inside Jahaan’s head, Sliske continued, “None of this had to happen, World Guardian. You chose to betray me. I was happy to sacrifice one of my kin for your cause. Had you kept up your end of the bargain, none of your friends would have had to suffer, I would have extracted your soul without such torture, and you could have spent eternity as a youthful wight. But plans have changed…”

Turning with a cruel sneer to Ozan, Sliske was all malice. “I no longer care for your presence, World Guardian. I’ll still have your soul, though. But one of the last things I want you to see before I send you ‘screaming into the abyss’, as you so poetically put it, is another wight to be added to my collection.”

“NO!” Ariane screamed, struggling desperately against the hold of Ahrim, but he easily outpowered her. “DON’T TOUCH HIM!”

But such an outburst only made Sliske laugh, a terrifying, haunting cackle that rattled inside Ariane’s chest. Ozan was wide-eyed and terrified, helpless against the weight of two brothers holding him down, their half-dead claws digging into the burns on his arms.

“S-Stop…”

The ridges of Sliske’s eyes lifted in perverse amusement. “What was that, World Guardian?”

Dragging himself to his knees, Jahaan coughed up another cocktail of bile and blood, trying to orient himself to being upright while the world spun around him. Blinking away the tears in his eyes still left light pulsing through his retinas in crude splotches. Everything was out of focus, Sliske included, but Jahaan managed to lock onto the tall silhouette. Fragments of his memory were returning at a snail’s pace.

“Stop…” Jahaan repeated, clutching his broken ribs, wincing through the pain. He was shivering violently, his head hung low, unable to lift it. “Please... stop…”

Lowering the Staff, Sliske slowly turned around and looked down at Jahaan with the satisfied glint of a predator who had cornered their prey. A stiff slash of a smile stretched across his face, warped like broken glass. “Well, isn’t this a sight to behold. The mighty World Guardian, Gielinor’s brave hero and Guthix’s chosen one… on his knees and begging.”

“You don’t need to hurt him,” Jahaan’s speech was slurred, blood dripping from the gaps in his knocked out teeth, but he managed to stop shivering enough to speak somewhat coherently. “You don’t need his soul. You need mine. I won’t fight anymore. You can make me a wight, you can kill me, I don’t care. Take my soul and let them leave. Please…”

Clenching his fist tightly around the Staff, Sliske’s low voice was ever so slightly wobbly as he said, “You know, Jahaan, I believed you the last time you said that. For all the chances you had to end me, you couldn’t, and I believed you truly didn’t want to see me gone. You accuse ME of only pretending to care, but perhaps you should examine yourself before throwing around such accusations.”

He turned away from Jahaan, a determined resolve acting as his mask. “It’s too late for us now, Jahaan. You’ve… hurt me. And now I’m going to return the favour.”

In the blink of an eye, Sliske reeled back the Staff, then thrust it forward and channeled a spell from it. Blue energy poured from the tip, striking Ozan’s chest. The heaviness of the energy pulled Ozan down like gravity; he felt like he was going to be dragged through the stone underneath him.

“NO!” Ariane cried out, watching in horror as Ozan writhed in pain, attached to Sliske’s beam. Idria and Mary Rancour were paralysed, transfixed by the sheer torturous power on display.

It could only be described as a miraculous bolt of adrenaline, but something gave Jahaan the strength to pull himself to his feet. He propelled towards the light with the desperation of an crazed animal. Everything was just blurs and colours and shapes, but Jahaan ran headfirst regardless, no plan in his mind except for ‘KILL’.

He didn’t make it far enough; while keeping the Staff and his grip on Ozan firm, Sliske shot a powerful bolt of shadow magic behind him. The spell collided with Jahaan at such force that he flew back to where he’d just crawled from, causing the world to go black.

When the beam from the Staff ceased, Ozan fell lifeless to the ground.

After a few beats of horrified, sickening silence, Ozan suddenly began to stir. Slowly, he came to his feet at an almost robot pace. Ariane only allowed herself a mere second of relief before she realised what was happening, and reality sunk in. Ozan marched over to Sliske’s side and turned around, staring through her with hollow, pupilless eyes.

Ariane knew she couldn’t let her emotions, her desperation, her grief control her in that moment. She needed to remain strong. She needed to keep calm and focus.

Ozan wouldn’t want her to break down, not now, when innocent lives were at stake.

They had to escape or this cavern would be their tomb.

Then, miraculously, an idea came to her. Using strength she didn’t know she had, she wrestled one hand free from Ahrim’s grip, disorienting the undead brother with her rapid movements. She reached out for the wand that he kept holstered at his hip, but could only brush the edge with her fingertips. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground, as was Ahrim.

“Ariane, NOW!” Idria shrieked. The Guardian of Armadyl had launched herself and the brother holding her into Ariane, causing all of them to topple to the floor. Fortunately for them, the downside of wights is that, without constant instruction, they were slow on the uptake. Thus, Ariane managed to throw herself towards Ahrim’s wand and snatch it up before she could be subdued.

Knowing she only had one chance, Ariane had to make this spell count. Taking aim at Sliske was far too risky. Instead, she aimed at the rocky ceiling above them and channeled the strongest spell she could. Upon impact, the cavern’s supports crumbled instantly. Rocks crashed to the ground, effectively creating a barricade between them and Sliske. But as she could still hear the Mahjarrat’s booming voice, she knew it wouldn’t be long at all before he broke through.

Now, they had to RUN.

Throughout all of this, Jahaan was slipping effortlessly in and out of consciousness.

So, he didn’t notice when Mary Rancour picked him up and slung him over her shoulder.

He also didn’t notice the four of them charging through the maze of tunnels, praying at every turn they’d find a rope or a ladder to ascend them to the surface.

He didn’t notice when the Barrows Brothers broke through the rocks and stormed after them, nor did he notice Ozan among their ranks.

He did, however, notice when they found a rope ladder leading up towards a trap door, as Mary Rancour accidentally dropped him trying to steady herself on the ladder.

With his head spinning like a throwing disk, he tried to blink the blurriness out of his eyes long enough to go, “W-Whereee am-?”

But the very next second, he was being hauled to his feet, his hands placed onto the ladder as he was furiously instructed to “CLIMB!”

Oh, he tried to protest - his body practically screamed with objection - but the sound of Idria’s pleadings, the sight of Ariane’s fearful eyes, and the way even Mary Rancour looked like she’d seen a ghost she was desperate to outrun triggered some residual survival instinct within Jahaan, and it allowed him to climb the ladder.

When all four made it out, Mary Rancour quickly found a sharp-edged rock to cut the rope ladder behind them, and her and Idria sealed off the trapdoor by heaving a large stone slab on top of it.

Doubled over on the ground with exhaustion, they fought for breath through rasping throats and manic-beating hearts. All except for Jahaan, who didn’t move at all.

“Oh gods,” Ariane leapt over to him. “He keeps slipping out of consciousness. We need to get him to a healer. NOW.”

DISCLAIMER:

As Of Gods and Men is a reimagining, retelling and reworking of the Sixth Age, a LOT of dialogue/characters/plotlines/etc. are pulled right from the game itself, and this belongs to Jagex.

Previous chapter / Next chapter

[logantheanimal]

What G-d Thinks

I am continually amazed by the lessons I learn talking to people I once agreed with - particularly the Christians I was once very close to. I will never stop being a student, but things I once believed now confound me when the tired old lines I once used are turned on me.

I wish I knew back in my teens and twenties just how arrogant I was. My religion was everything - I made all of my decisions based on religion and church. I wouldn’t take a job that forced me to work during church times. I voted based on my religious beliefs. As you can imagine, my beliefs ran pretty predictably: America was a Christian nation that had turned its back on G-d and the only way to fix it was to squash LGBT rights, end all abortions under all circumstances, hang the Ten Commandments in every courtroom, and being back mandated prayer in schools.

That’s an abbreviated version, but I’m sure I don’t need to share every detail. Any LGBTQ person has encountered the brow-beating Christian mafia before.

Today I got into it with a man whose family I was once very close to. He posted a meme that was designed to be hurtful to transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people - it was a photo of Indiana Jones and it read, “why is it that when archaeologists find human remains, they’re either male or female and none of the other 700 genders?”

Normally I don’t engage with him on these things, but he posted it and he is in youth ministry. I called him out as politely as I could. He feigned ignorance, wanting to know who he was hurting by posting the meme, accused me of calling him a homophobe (I never even hinted at calling him anything like it), and went on a tear about “it doesn’t matter what man thinks, it only matters what G-d thinks, and I answer to him.”

Being hit with the same line of bullshit that I once used was stunning. I wasn’t quite sure what to say at first. It never occurred to me that the things that used to come out of my mouth were gaslighting until he turned it on me. That’s exactly what it was; he quoted scripture to back up his claims that there are only two genders (the same clobber passages they’ve been using for decades, essentially using a bullying tactic), accused me of using propaganda, calling him a hatemonger, and skirting the issue, then tried to tell me that I was the bully for quoting scripture back to him (verses about love and how to treat other people) and that I was upset because I was “convicted by the truth.”

I still haven’t backed down. A man in youth ministry is making fun of people already very hurt by society and he claims he’s not insulting anyone. I asked him if he thought a teenager with gender questions would feel comfortable talking to him. He never responded to that.

Nobody struggling to define their gender would want to have anything to do with a person who would think something like that, let alone say it. I also now find it breathtakingly self-serving to claim that taking such a stance is based on “what G-d thinks”, as if we can divine the will of G-d by a collection of writings that nobody can agree on interpretation of. These are the same people who lose their minds about the prospect of Sharia somehow being used on US soil. As if what they’re spouting isn’t based on Sharia.

Every time I learn something new about what I used to be like, I feel the need to apologize all over again. Talking to these people is maddening. They want to be allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ people, then turn around and claim we want “special rights”. They kick their LGBTQ children out of their homes and churches, then complain when anyone says G-d doesn’t love them. I’m trying to remember to be understanding, but it’s difficult. I used to be them and I know exactly which game they’re playing. That makes it so much more difficult.

[discyours]

What are your thoughts on contrapoints' new video if you've watched it ?

I had actually watched it before I got this ask but I wanted to rewatch it to make sure I had a good answer. Terrible idea, I spent way too much time on this, too much to justify shortening this out so I’ll put a cut out of courtesy to my followers. 

I did actually find myself agreeing with her on a few points, though I didn’t spend much time being excited about that since criticising “TERFs” is hardly a new or rare thing. Starting out the video with a dramatic reading of a Germaine Greer quote was funny in my opinion, but it did set people up for an obvious bias. Some radfems truly are that transphobic and that’s really important to acknowledge, but it’s hardly news to anyone in her audience. I would’ve preferred if she’d engaged with more moderate forms of gender critical feminism, though I can’t say it’s all that much of a surprise that she didn’t do so since the entire basis of her channel is essentially putting on a wig to create a strawman (that’s not to say that the points she argued against were never made by anyone, but she does get to pick and choose which ones she talks about rather than debating a real person).

It’s also quite telling that she only asked past gender critical feminists for their input, not anyone who currently holds those beliefs (though again, can’t say I’m surprised). I did actually like her explanation of gendercrit ideology (”The idea is that gender [femininity, masculinity, gender roles, all that] it’s all a patriarchal construct, and biological sex is the only thing that makes a person a man or a woman.”). It’s fairly rare to see people represent it even somewhat accurately, so props for that.  She then went on to mock questions about trans ideology as being comparable to “the Jewish question”, so,,, that strong start didn’t last long.

She explained that trans people are on the defensive against genuine questions because of the amount of transphobia we have to deal with from the government, the press, and oftentimes our family. It’s the reason we stick together and stick to unambiguous slogans that don’t concede anything (”trans women are women”). Which, cue 10 people unfollowing me, I don’t disagree with. I started this blog to talk about trans issues and at this point I’m about as trans-critical as troons can get, but even I don’t have the energy or desire to engage every single person I come across in their genuine concerns about trans people. The part Natalie leaves out however is that these slogans and chants are often part of an attempt to change legislation, where you don’t get to just state that trans women are women and refuse to discuss it when people don’t blindly accept it. Being on the defensive makes sense, but it’s incompatible with being on the offensive to change laws and social norms.

Moving on to CONCERN ONE: GENDER METAPHYSICS

This is one part where I actually strongly agreed with Natalie (well, as much as could be expected). She explains that sometimes, people use metaphors to explain feelings that are difficult to put into words, and that that’s how she understands the “trapped in the wrong body” language. Thanks to some groups who do mean this literally (thanks transmeds!) I don’t blame radfems for taking those statements seriously and attempting to debunk them, but I’m also really not fond of radfems jumping on just about any attempt to talk about dysphoria. A lot of the time these objections go beyond wanting to debunk something that is assumed to be meant literally, and beyond wanting people to think critically about their dysphoria; it reaches the point of expecting that they’ll simply reason people out of their dysphoria, since being dysphoric (and being trans) just doesn’t make any sense.

She also criticises brain sex theory much in the way that I do, and says she thinks of herself as a woman who used to be a man rather than having always been a woman. I’m too gendercrit to relate or agree completely, but compared to most trans people’s stance on this it’s pretty damn agreeable.

She finishes off this… chapter? With a quote about “living as a woman”, and while I have plenty of thoughts on that it’s elaborated on later on, so let’s move on.

CONCERN TWO: GENDER STEREOTYPES

Natalie explains that her clothes, makeup or voice don’t “make her a woman”, and that no trans woman thinks femininity and womanhood are the same. Rather, they’re using femininity as a cultural language to prompt people to see them “for what they are” (women).  

Obviously the question of what makes someone a woman has yet to be answered here (unless the quote from the last chapter was intended to but that’s pretty circular [go watch the video this is too goddamn long to copy everything]) so I’ll leave the “see us for what we are” be for now. But it’s absolute bullshit that no trans woman equates femininity to womanhood. How many trans women have explained that they knew from a young age because they liked to play with dolls and their mother’s makeup? There have literally been trans women claiming that butch lesbians are closeted trans men, and that an aversion to femininity counts as gender dysphoria. I do agree with her last point, though. I didn’t cut my hair when I came out because I thought that would “make me a man”, I did so because it’d help me pass. A lot of radfems are intentionally obtuse about the existence of cultural signifiers just to paint trans people as delusional gender-worshippers.

I am actually gonna quote her here because I think it’s important;

“I think butch or gender nonconforming cis women sometimes side-eye hyperfeminine trans women because they don’t identify with this version of womanhood at all, and they’ve had to struggle since childhood against a society that’s told them they have to be feminine. And I completely sympathize with that. I think there should be more gender freedom, less coercion less restriction. But also, I’ve had to fight against the same society that told me I should really, really, really, not be *this*. So, I feel like we should be able to form some kind of solidarity here.”

I was ready to be mad at the start of the sentence but I actually agree. I just think that solidarity is lost when trans women refuse to acknowledge that society’s insistence that they don’t be like *that* is about gender roles and hatred of gender nonconformity. There is great potential for solidarity between GNC females and feminine trans women, but trans women reject it because they don’t want to be seen as GNC males or acknowledge that other people do. They want to be treated as normal, feminine women, and not doing so counts as misgendering.

CONCERN THREE: ABOLISH GENDER

Natalie argues that, while potentially a good idea, abolishing gender is a Utopian project (/pipe dream), much like abolishing borders. That denying trans people their gender identity because “abolish gender” is much like denying immigrants citizenship because “abolish borders”. It’s targeting the people who are most vulnerable under the present system, and then leveraging that system against them under the pretense of abolishing it.

I’ll concede that abolishing gender (and frankly, radical feminism as a whole) is fairly idealistic. Most radfem goals are incredibly long term and while that’s a good thing in some ways (I’m quite happy to be with a movement that refuses to accept anything less than complete female liberation, rather than some form of feminism that insists it’s only needed outside the west [”We’re already equal! I can vote! Look at the pants I’m wearing”]), it also leads to quite a lot of abstract academic bullshittery, and unreasonable expectations of ideological purity.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to view individual trans people as personally responsible for accomplishing the very long-term goal of abolishing gender. But radical feminism is not about individualism (which a lot of radfems do seem to forget, to be fair). There are radfems who are supportive of trans people; Andrea Dworkin herself supported transition. Only as a bandaid for a much bigger issue (the existence of gender) but she at least felt that trans people should be allowed this bandaid, should be allowed to reduce their suffering in current society in whichever ways they can. Dworkin’s view on this is far from rare and some radfems are even trans themselves. But to get back to the part about radical feminism not being individualistic; while individual trans people are not necessarily an issue for gender abolition, the wider trans community and its current political ventures most definitely is. The entirety of radical feminism is not going to collapse from a singular tran getting a gendered hairstyle, but replacing laws to refer to gender identity rather than sex can absolutely be devastating in the long term (and in the short term, when you look at the amount of protections that female-bodied people lose as a result), and that’s exactly what the trans community is currently pushing for.

Natalie also criticises the fact that gender critical feminists don’t seem to go after, say, Kim Kardashian for promoting gender roles. That they attack trans women with barely any following rather than people with actual power and influence. And I disagree with that, radfems are definitely highly critical of women like Kim Kardashian. But the way Natalie makes this point exposes part of the issue; nobody is going after Kim Kardashian for wearing a dress because Kim Kardashian never made an active choice to start wearing dresses. She experienced female socialisation no differently than any other woman (or, arguably, far more strongly considering who her parents were), so there’s some sympathy to be extended there. She has more responsibility due to her platform, but it’s no easier for her to break out of gender roles whereas trans people, to some extent, knowingly stepped into another gender role.

CONCERN FOUR: MALE PRIVILEGE

Natalie argues that men don’t treat trans women like their equals. That non-passing trans women are not treated like men, but like monsters, and that “male privilege” is not a good description of that experience.

This is one of those things that’s really hard to argue against because there’s an inherent disagreement about gender. Natalie’s insistence that non passing trans women aren’t treated like men comes from preexisting notions that a man is more than simply an adult human male, which is where I disagree. Non passing trans women are treated like men, but that does not mean that men will treat you like an equal; much like straight men can still treat gay men like shit, white men can still treat black men like shit, etc. “Male privilege” has never been a good descriptor of gay men’s experiences with homophobia either, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have any. There is more than one axis of oppression.

Moving on, Natalie brings up radfems’ skepticism about the whole notion of “passing”. I’m not going to bother to quote it because the entire part is good, but I do have strong feelings about this.

Her argument about gas station attendants and plumbers is completely on point, and I fucking hate it when people try to argue that anyone who reads trans people as their desired sex is simply being polite. It’s genuinely fucking impossible that everyone we run into has been indoctrinated into politically correct gender ideology, and the nerve a lot of radfems have to insist that our genuine life experiences are worthless next to their opinion is downright insulting.

Passing is, in fact, subjective. With my shift in perspective since becoming gender critical, my perception of trans people has changed too. People I used to believe passed flawlessly are now quite noticeably trans to me, but that’s not to say that that’s a result of “breaking free from trans ideology”. Relying on gender roles to identify people’s sex is in fact the cultural norm, and only actively attempting to view things differently (or spending large amounts of time around GNC people) changes that.

CONCERN FIVE: MALE SOCIALISATION

Natalie starts off by acknowledging that she has no idea what it’s like to be catcalled as a nine year old girl, or what that does to a child’s psyche. It did not start happening to her until she was an adult, when she knew what she was getting into and was ready for it. I just want to mention that separately because I just about cried when she said this. Sexual harassment at a young age is one thing I see trans women consistently failing to acknowledge, and an end has just come to the years of frustration I have suffered as the result of this argument going completely unaddressed.

She goes on to argue that socialisation does not stop at childhood; that it is a lifelong process. One example she gave is that her appearance is commented on far more now that she’s transitioned, and that that’s been something she’s had to get used to. I actually think that’s a good point and one that should be considered more, but I’m uncomfortable with the implication she brings when talking about resocialisation, as if childhood socialisation can be erased/redone entirely (which I don’t believe it can).

Then there’s the “trans women don’t experience socialisation the way cis men do” argument. Let me quote this and see if you can spot anything wrong;

“But also, trans women often don’t experience the socialisation the way cis men do. Many trans women are feminine and queer before they transition, and have always experienced a kind of femmephobia that is rooted in misogyny.”

The implication that feminine/queer equates to trans is really harmful, and once again she’s arguing from a different concept of what a man actually is. Not to mention that “femmephobia” is only a thing against men, as women are expected to be feminine.

“Some trans women also identified as women years before transitioning, and internalised society’s messaging about women more than society’s messaging about men. Now that’s still not the same as living in society as a girl from birth, but it’s also pretty different from the socialisation of most cis men.”

Interestingly enough, I initially wrote down “masculine cis men” rather than “most cis men” because that’s what the captions said. I wonder if Natalie realised her unfortunate implication that feminine = trans after uploading her video and decided to change it in the captions, since the words don’t sound all that alike.

She then talks about “stolen valor”, that she suspects that male privilege and male socialisation are such major talking points for gender critical feminists because they feel like it’s an injustice for people to claim their identity without experiencing their oppression. She compares radfems to transmeds; both groups supposedly believe that you need to suffer for your identity to be valid.

Fundamental disagreement about gender is affecting her understanding yet again. Identity-based thinking just can’t be applied to gendercrit ideology at all; the whole point is that gender identity itself is harmful, and that women who consider themselves as such because they are adult human females have extremely different experiences than people who feel that they identify with womanhood regardless of their lack of life experiences actually being female.

[”You didn’t suffer like I’ve suffered! You don’t know what it’s like”] “I’m tempted to strike back by saying that you don’t know what it’s like to occupy an identity so stigmatised that most of the people who are attracted to you in private are too ashamed to admit it in public”

Ever heard of butch lesbians, Natalie?

“You don’t know what it’s like to have a body so non-normative that you’re shut out of whole areas of society”

Cough

CONCERN SIX: REPRODUCTIVE OPPRESSION

I’m getting fucking tired at this point and I hate myself for even writing this long of a reply up until now. Basically, she pulls the good ol’ “not all women experience their womanhood the same way” argument, and then makes a fucking coat hanger abortion joke. I wish I had an in-depth reply to that but I don’t. I honestly don’t have the words to express how angry it makes me that someone who has never even had to deal with even the mere possibility of unwanted pregnancy thinks they have any place to joke about the horrific lengths women were forced to go to as a result of their reproductive oppression.

CONCERN SEVEN: ERASING FEMALE VOCABULARY

Through her assumption that feminism is a mere shield for gender critical radfems to hide their transphobia behind, Natalie is disregarding the actual feminist motivations behind opposing gender-neutral language. I mean, she literally does not even touch on it, she only says that nobody has any issue with individual women referring to themselves as women rather than “menstruators” (or, by her suggestion, “people who menstruate”).

Medical lingo is complicated, and I understand wanting to ensure that trans people do not lose insurance coverage when they change their legal sex. I don’t believe that changing all medical language to be gender neutral is the only possible solution there, but at the end of the day doctors are gonna know the difference between male and female anatomy even if their textbooks talk about “pregnant people”. Medical language is not the issue here, it’s the expectation that this language becomes commonplace everywhere, including in feminist discourse. That’s the point where female vocabulary is erased, and where it becomes impossible for women to discuss the reasons for their oppression. Menstruation and pregnancy are not “gender neutral” issues when it comes to institutional oppression, and we should not treat them as such.

Moving on, let me quote her directly:

“I have no problem with cis feminists discussing or celebrating periods or wearing pussy hats at political marches. […] I totally get why cis feminists would want to celebrate their reproductive anatomy in defiance of a society that routinely shames and subjugates them for it. The problem arises only when menstruation or reproductive anatomy are used to misgender trans men or exclude [women who don’t bleed].”

The assumption wasn’t that every individual trans woman takes issue with women discussing their anatomy, so “I don’t have a problem with it” is not an argument. I mean, you’re obviously free to say it to get people off your back about it, but it does not debunk radfem concerns when there absolutely are trans women who believe it’s “terfy” and “exclusionary” to talk about issues that only affect “cis” women. That last point is a funny one, despite all the inclusive language trans women regularly forget that menstruation is not a cis thing. And that’s an issue Natalie appears to suffer from too, unless this was unfortunate phrasing and we were just meant to assume that trans men talking about periods is not up for discussion. Either way, it’s clear that inclusive language is clunky to everyone, the mistakes that are acceptable to make just depend on which side you’re on.

CONCERN EIGHT: TERF IS A SLUR

Natalie uses an interesting definition of “slur” here: “a pejorative that targets someone’s race, religion, gender, or sexuality”. I say interesting because I can’t find it anywhere. I could find “an insinuation or allegation about someone that is likely to insult them or damage their reputation.”, “an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo”, “a derogatory or insulting term applied to particular group of people”, but not hers. Presumably because she made it up herself (and haf-assedly at that, did you forget disabled people exist Natalie?) knowing that all of the former definitions would, in fact, consider TERF to be a slur.

Now I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of the whole “TERF is a slur” thing. I’ve seen someone use that to say “if you call me TERF I can call you tranny”. I don’t think being called a TERF (which I have plenty of experience with) should be considered to be comparable to being called a tranny or a bitch. TERF has become essentially meaningless and is an inaccurate term roughly 95% of the time it’s used, but it is meant to have a meaning (”this person excludes trans people from their feminism”), whereas other slurs don’t tend to have any message aside from “this person belongs to a minority and I want to insult them for it”. I’m not ignorant to the fact that it’s often used as a synonym for “lesbian” though, and that it absolutely is used insultingly and with the intent to ruin a person’s reputation, so I’ll stay in my lane on that.

After comparing “gender critical” to “race realist” and mentioning a general refusal to use these terms as to not legitimise bigotry, Natalie explains that she has very little patience for “TERF requests for linguistic decorum” because of the “maximally hurtful, harmful, and insulting” language that radfems use to talk about trans people (eg, referring to transition-related surgeries as mutilation, and the terms “TIM” and “TIF”).

I have some thoughts on this because, while I fucking hate these terms, Natalie’s disdain for them is hypocritical. She just acknowledged that using certain language legitimises the ideologies behind them, and that’s exactly why “TIM” and “TIF” were born. Referring to trans women as trans women while also insisting that woman means adult human female, something trans women do not fall under, did not work out well for radfems in the past. Conceding linguistic ground merely for the sake of respect essentially meant they’d instantly lose that argument, an argument that is in fact extremely important for feminism. I justify using technically incorrect terms (including pronouns) to refer to trans people because I’m trans myself, I understand what it’s like to be dysphoric and I believe that signaling that level of respect can at times be essential to get people to listen. But this is not an apolitical issue and as much as I despise being referred to as a “TIF”, I can’t blame that term’s existence on hatred.

Natalie concludes her video by being “real” about what the core of the gender critical movement is actually about: transphobia. Visceral disgust and hatred for trans people’s very existence.

And you know, for some people that definitely is the case. But this isn’t where I concede that I’ve been faking trandom to give credibility to my transphobia, or where I break down, admitting that I’ve based my entire political stance on pure self hatred (I mean lord knows I have enough of it, but nah that’s not what happened). The reality is that there are gender critical trans people (including trans women), and I’d dare suggest that we are not the only ones who believe in gender critical ideology for reasons other than transphobia.

In conclusion, this video is just another rebuttal against a strawman of “TERF beliefs” which never even attempts to treat them as genuine, only as ignorance that is easily educated away, or hatred that can’t be argued with regardless. I can’t say I’m disappointed with this video (it’s certainly not lower quality than I’d expect from contrapoints) but I am disappointed with the political climate where this is the furthest any outsider is willing to go to debate against gender critical ideology.