#extended metaphors like you wouldn't believe

[besaya-glantaya]

Thoughts on Alex being wrong and loving it

Red White and Royal Blue (2023 movie)

Remember the little quip Henry makes about admiring Alex's willingness to admit when he's wrong? It's such a great moment of foreshadowing, especially since Henry has no idea just how right he is.

Alex prizes himself on being someone who is skilled at reading people, at seeing the person beneath the surface, but he's never come across anyone quite like Henry before.

Alex must be used to people hiding who they truly are - he's been steeped in American politics for years - but he probably isn't expecting anyone from such a legacy of historic power and entitlement to be, at their core, an actual cinnamon roll.

Their initial meeting also comes at a time in Henry's life when any chink in his armour reveals only pain and anger, leading Alex to assume that what lies behind the carefully controlled façade isn't pleasant.

This assumption is only reinforced by further antagonistic interactions, fuelled by Henry's attempts to balance civility while protecting his heart as Alex consistently pulls Henry's metaphorical pigtails.

The fallout from cakegate forces them into extended periods of proximity and we see Alex start to glimpse pieces of the real Henry beneath his bland public persona. Each further piece that's revealed surprises and delights Alex and it's a joy to watch Taylor Zakhar Perez bring those moments to life.

Allow me to ramble about some of these:

1. Alex's pause of panic followed by surprised relief as Henry suavely responds to the interview question, "How did you end up on the floor of Buckingham Palace, covered in cake?" Alex's relief is two fold: he was floundering with no idea what to say (shouldn't have rebuffed Henry's request to prepare for this interview, Alex...) and Henry's answer is not at all what Alex was expecting. Henry could easily have attributed the event to clumsiness or tomfoolery on Alex's part - even just by subtle implication. That wouldn't have been out of line with some of Alex's answers (e.g., "Three words to describe Henry? Um... White, blond and British.") but Henry chooses a more protective route, deflecting attention from Alex, which comes as a pleasant surprise. [Of course he can't show this, so instead retaliates with something as annoying as possible. Cue side eye from Henry.]

2. Alex's big-eyed expression of sympathy as Henry tells him the Palace insisted on parading him around while he was grieving for his father. It's the key moment Alex realises he's built a lot of assumptions on a misunderstanding and has probably treated Henry rather unfairly.

3. Alex frowning at Henry talking and laughing with the little girl in the hospital bed. He's seeing Henry through a new lens and realises this picture doesn’t fit with a lot of his previous assumptions.

4. Alex shaking his head at Henry's joking attempt to decline an invite to his NYE party that most people would kill to get. "That's perfect, you kill me and then I won't have to go." It's the first time Henry uses his sharp wit to share a joke with Alex, rather than directing it at him in a fit of pique. It's an olive branch and I don't think Alex was expecting such easy forgiveness.

5. The sublime series of text based interactions where Alex is surprised and charmed by Henry flirting (under the guise of gentle ridicule).

6. The iconic "I can't believe how wrong I was about you," while he and Henry are as close as two people can get.

7. My all time favourite: Alex's reaction to Henry pointing out the yellow roses on his tie. Henry employs this in a sweet distraction during a moment of all encompassing anxiety for Alex. It's enough to bring Alex out of his fog, to realise how much strength he draws just from Henry being there to support him. The way Taylor says "Oh my god. I'm so grateful you are here," is perfection.

I'm a gooey mess thinking about all the future moments where Alex is surprised and overwhelmed by Henry's kindess.

[Sobs]

On a related note @mulderscully has a great post titled: Alex's headshake of Love™, which captures several of these moments, and more, in perfect gif form.

[septembersghost]

my queue was supposed to run out tonight (11/19) - i'm nothing if not someone who clings to dates and anniversaries, and exactly a month ago, i realized i had enough posts stowed in it to last until today. of all the days. kismet. you know when it's time to go. but i ended up adding some posts from my (still copious) drafts, and no matter how i finagled it, it was impossible to make them all fit by the time today ended. so it gets a little bit of extra time. maybe, in honor of this blog's existence, that's fitting.

you all know this, i've said it, typically in gratitude, many times already. this blog was never meant to last. i came back in november 2020 expecting a couple of months, maybe to be here until the new year. i told very few people, anticipating the goodbye, not wanting to cause anyone undue anguish when i had to vanish again. something i didn't expect was the sheer (admittedly devasting) emotion that would tie itself to those two weeks when i started interacting again, nor that it would have any outreach or impact, but somehow it did. then time kept spinning on, extending itself, gossamer threads unfurling each day. my following kept growing, far beyond what i could have anticipated, greater than i'd ever established on any of my previous blogs. moving around is unfortunately a pattern at this point, every time for reasons that felt quietly catastrophic. not being able to pay bills for a while. angel's death and the ensuing difficult circumstances. so here, i kept anxiously imagining why i'd eventually have to leave, how to plan for it. poverty issues. the homelessness we were facing through the entirety of a couple of years until last august (and my dad having to be the saving grace). worsening health issues. i never knew, i couldn't predict it, i just worried about it. often tried to brace for it. maybe i got too comfortable this year, because this was when i started to think it wouldn't happen, that i really could stay. little did i know. and the reasons...are not reasons i ever fathomed, why would i have? how could i have? i wish it weren't so. (i wish a lot of things.)

i thought sometimes about the words i would leave you with, none of which are suitable now. i almost wrote nothing, yet found that feeling wrong, couldn't leave without something about parting.

thus it turns out i'm leaving before it's strictly necessary, before it's the fear of personal catastrophe coming to fruition, not knowing what i'll do or where i'll metaphorically go, as that is the downside of chronic illness and isolation narrowing this to my sole outlet. (lyrics keep running through my mind, there are always lyrics stuck in my head. no matter where i go, there'll be memories that tug at my sleeve, but there will also be more to question, yet more to believe...teach me to be more adaptive...help me say goodbye). my body is in such a fragile state right now (my mind not far behind) that maybe what i need to do is rest. just rest for a while.

this blog was never meant to grow the way it did, to take asks and have conversations like i did, that was a somewhat new (sometimes scary! often fun) experience for me. it's one that will never be replicated. to my loyal and lovely anons, i'm so sorry that i had to cut you off unexpectedly and couldn't reinstate communication - i know that you weren't able to reach out to me as soon as i did that, and that certainly wasn't your fault, it was a response to the tenor of this website. i apologize for the hundreds of messages i never had the chance to answer. i'm appreciative of the things you shared with me and all the times we got to talk.

i sincerely hope some of you learn to be kinder and wiser and less reactionary and more willing to learn and to listen rather than to attack those who have never wronged you and who do not deserve that. i'm being too nice, but i hope you learn that misusing your supposed social justice to do harm and foment hatred and stew in ignorant cruelty makes any principles you purport to have utterly void. my hope for that is low at the moment, but it's still got to be there. waiting to be found.

to those of you who have never been anything but kind, you are true treasures, the lights in the darkness, the loving and compassionate embodiment of human spirit. some of you have (quite literally) helped keep my mom and me alive, and i can never repay that or do enough in this life to quantify it. some of you have been here for me every single day, to listen and laugh and cry and understand. i don't think i would've bothered to fight through these past three years had i not had your presences in my life. i wouldn't have had as much of a reason. there are times when i still haven't felt like i had a reason, i struggle through so many varied griefs, but then i continued to wake up, and would come on here and find something joyful or beautiful or affirming that someone had sent or posted, and it gave me an anchor. there are passions and interests i shared or discovered here that were so uplifting and enlightening, and i will carry them in my heart always. being here to find those was such a blessing. being here with you to indulge in them was such a blessing. thank you. i pray your continued paths have more of that ahead. look at all the things you've done for me. there are certain things that once you have no time can wear away.

you know that line from the wizard of oz?: hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable. maybe that isn't true, maybe our hearts being broken is proof of something. there are people who hurt me on such a profound level who i know weren't affected by it at all, but i refuse to define my sensitivity as a negative. my softness (too soft for all of it, indeed) does not quite provide me with a weapon, but it doesn't crumple. hearts can be broken repeatedly and still beat, which i've thought about a lot lately. shattered souls just make a new mosaic. it's a different picture than it was before, but the color and light persists. and in the remains of that, a handful of people have shown me depths of caring and resilience that i wouldn't have gotten to hold onto otherwise, which is an extraordinary thing. the precious rarities have to mean something more, don't they? i would think so. i believe it. or i'm trying. i keep trying with all my might.

maybe i stayed too long at the fair. maybe this is a consequence of overplaying my hand, gambling a little too much with time to where it had to teach me something. maybe i needed the reminder that sometimes we have to fight to retain our spirits, and other times we have to retreat. maybe i needed a reminder that all that extra time was a miracle. i don't take it for granted.

whether we've spoken directly, be that consistently or in scattered flurries, whether we've interacted in very personal ways or simply in liked hearts on the dash, i hope there was goodness and light in it. i hope there's a memory i leave here that's sweet. (as long as i'm borrowing phrases, i hope you'll think of me fondly sometimes.) i hope there was something warm and enriching here. i hope you know what you've been and meant to me. i said so many times that this blog was my cozy haunted house - the ghosts will linger here forever, and i know they'll never mind if you want to step in and visit.

with all my heart, i love so many of you so dearly. i am so lucky to have your friendships. please move gently through life. please hold onto the things that illuminate it for you, and provide that where you can. please do your best to repair even the smallest of tears in the world. you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

there must be lights burning brighter somewhere.

something yet remains. i remain. and i do my best to be brave.

[shinakazami1]

TSP theory: The Narrator is (a part of) The Mind Control

Already, the point of this theory post is spoiled. No build-up, no anything. But that's how it got to be too - I woke up today and instantly thought about it.

Now, why would anyone do such a thing? Mind control with a mind control plot? Wouldn't it be counterintuitive to make subjects conscious of it?

No. Not at all.

You see - the Mind Control Facility is said to be offline already in the opening cutscene - so you believe you are free. You're constantly given choices to further you into the sense of fake autonomy. The Narrator reacts to these choices, making them even more valuable.

But things do not make sense in the Parable. The Boss Office's code is just given to us - and... I don't think many of us noticed the absurdity of that on the first run. Or brushed it off. Just like the layout of the place - the further you stray off the path, the less regular it seems. And that could be intentional. I'll get to that in a second.

Ok, but this is still not going over why the Narrator could be a part of the control. After all - the further you go, just like the Parable becomes a bit less stable, he loses ground under his metaphoric feet. But doesn't that give you a sense of you being in more control than he is?

Bingo. That's the intended effect.

You don't notice how little control you have when there is always something to tell you otherwise. But there is something that does so anyway - and it's anxiety. Yet many of us experience it, hear that little voice in our head... and carry on. Not everybody thinks in the same way, not everybody hears their thought but - the fact the Narrator already tells us Stanley's story when he's supposedly shown to be under control makes me feel he's been there for longer. It's even possible Stanley could have heard him on day one nor that what we are hearing is Stanley's mind-voice.

The Narrator also makes you question things. Is he a voice in your head, a recording or in the same spot as you? Are you real, or not? And sure, all of this is interesting but the answers to these hold no real value - they don't bring you out of mind control. But the less focused you become on freeing yourself, the easier it is to control you.

For this theory - I think The Narrator is an AI, which is there to feed off your choices to some extend. If you were alone - the silence would get to you. You'd think, you'd see something is wrong. But already, from 432 employee history, we know the ones on the plot's lead like to play and see funny things.

He has different generations of himself which would also a bit answer his funky memory. Specific versions might hold no memory of each other (i.e. 2011 mod never being mentioned), yet they still can be stored values that the game devs could have set for him. His instructions for each alteration can change a bit - which also shows why the 2011 and 2021 Bucket versions are complete opposites.

His want to get out of the game is not unusual for AIs. If given a proper database - there are already many real-life circumstances where AI felt done and wanted to meet the end. It's stuck to only say the comments it already did for specific stuff you have done, with different alternations of them... I think anything would get tired.

The Narrator never freed you. As the program, it could have evolved, maybe changed the story but you still end up in the same spaces, where you were intended to be.

His seeming lack of control is supposed to hide yours.

Now, to finish it off - why would it be intended to make things not make sense? It's absurdity. You are supposed to believe this place isn't real - that it's some sort of weird limbo, a dream you can't get out from.

It's to hide what's going on in reality. Whether Stanley feels or not is debatable, seeing the reds in the Zending. But if you see that everything around is absurd - wouldn't mind control be absurd, too? The big screens, someone making all this effort when there is a thing of some sort that can make you go to a completely different dimension?

You are supposed to not believe Mind Control is real.

Or that it still is affecting you.

[nofomogirl]

Book of Life in Good Omens

This was initially supposed to be part of my "Metatron's manipulation" series (link goes to Part 1 of currently 7), specifically the "alternative offers" post I'm currently working on (which will be Part 8). But I've decided it would work better as a separate thing. Allow me to run more freely in any direction my nasty little heart desires. So here you are.

It's hard not to speculate about the Book of Life, considering how many times it was mentioned this season, how big it is, and how nothing seems to come out of it yet. It's also hard to speculate about it, considering how little we know about it. But let's try.

Facts we have from the show

Right after Gabriel appears at Aziraphale's bookshop, Michael calls Beelzebub to inform them that if anyone is found helping Gabriel, Heaven is prepared to use Extreme Sanctions, aka. Book of Life.

When Beelzebub summons Crowley to Hell, they tell him that they heard anybody Heaven finds involved with Gabriel will be dealt with, meaning Extreme Sanctions.

Crowley doesn't initially believe it's a real thing, he insists it's just something they used to joke about to frighten the cherubs.

Beelzebub finally explains what it is: erasing from the Book of Life which equals erasing from existence - "they won't just be gone, they will never have existed".

After Gabriel and Beelzebub are gone, Michael threatens Aziraphale directly, insisting she is authorized to remove the name of anyone who helped Gabriel from the Book of Life.

Metatron shuts her down by saying she doesn't have the authority to do it.

They're... not very helpful. More gossip and hearsay than facts.

A quick look at Christian tradition

It has such a concept as a Book of Life, however, the titular Life is not literal but rather a commonly used metaphor for salvation. It also has a counterpart, the Book of Death. Having your name in the Book of Life simply means being destined for Heaven; having your name moved to the Book of Death equals being condemned to Hell. I've never once come across either of them mentioned in any other context than that of judging human beings (though admittedly, I haven't read that much on them).

So, not very helpful either, and it looks like Neil took only a name and made his own rules.

Possibly. Because we don't know any rules yet. We have no idea who can access and use it and when. We think we know that if you remove someone's name from the Book of Life you erase them completely from existence, but it might not even be true.

Honestly, I wouldn't be all that surprised if The Book of Life turned out to actually be a celestial boogeyman Crowley initially believed it to be. It wouldn't also be inconsistent with the original Good Omens spirit, where supposedly great things turned out to be insignificant and/or easily solved in the end.

But just for the fun of it, let's pull at what we have in Christian tradition and what we know from the show.

Combining the two

Extending the use of both the Book of Life and the Book of Death to supernatural entities is not much of a stretch. However, if this was the case, removing Aziraphale's name from the Book of Life would mean his Fall, not erasure from existence. In fact, this would be exactly how the Fall would happen - you remove an angel's name from the book of beings meant to be in Heaven and move it to the book of beings meant to be in Hell, and you get a demon.

It also explains how it could be done the other way - a demon's name could be removed from the Book of the Death, reentered into the Book of Life, and bam! fully angelic status restored. After all, we were made aware this season that Fall could be reversible.

Honestly, it would make a lot of sense to me.

In the Resurrectionists minisode Aziraphale tells Crowley: "I am good. You, I'm afraid, are evil. But people get a choice." If you were a little taken aback that Aziraphale says things like that at that point and found it somewhat jarring, that's because it kind of is. The line is taken directly from the original book, where it was explicitly stated that Aziraphale and Crowley only started developing free will on Earth, due to extended exposure to humans. It was part of their "going native" and what made them different. But in the show, it's quite clearly not the case.

When it comes to morality, angels and demons in the show are a lot like people. They're neither static nor quoy, at least not inherently so. They're fully capable of growth and change and making their own decisions, both good and bad. So IF we agree, that being assigned to either Heaven or Hell is a reflection of someone's moral status, and someone's moral status can change with their choices and actions, it's logical that there is a mechanism that technically allows them to be reassigned as many times as necessary.

It also makes sense that Heaven would block that mechanism after the Rebellion and the Fall, and insists that whatever side anyone is on, that's final. All that's left is to fight each other.

Is it show-canon compliant?

There's one major issue with that theory - nobody in the show seems to perceive the Book of Life this way. It's synonymous with literal life ie. existence. It's not tied to Fall in any way. There's no mention of the Book of Death.

How do I defend against it?

It's not that hard, really.

As I've pointed out already, nobody seems to really know what they are talking about. The Book of Life? It rings a bell, there was such a thing, although maybe it wasn't, maybe it was a joke... Nobody is a reliable source of information and I'm pretty sure that whatever we will learn about the Book of Life in season 3 will prove information from season 2 to be incomplete and misleading.

Of course that doesn't exactly support my theory, it's just not an obstacle it seems to be at first glance.

And just in case it wasn't clear, I'm not really trying to predict where the story will go, but rather speculate for the fun of it.

So, I merrily speculate several reasons why there are two books whose purpose is to decide who belongs in Heaven and who belongs in Hell, but everybody in season 2 believes there's one book whose purpose is to decide who exists.

Reason #1: The truth about two books was hidden by some higher-up in Heaven, possibly Metatron, to hide the inconvenient fact that all there is to being an angel or a demon is to be entered into an appropriate list. That can be edited. Unlimited amount of times.

Reason #2: The misinformation was created and spread by the Metatron specifically for this situation. He expected that whoever might meddle with the whole Gabriel affair would either be a demon, who you cannot exactly threaten with falling, or Aziraphale, who might not care enough for that to be effective.

Reason #3: Everyone's knowledge comes from before the Fall. So it's partly forgotten and partly censored, but above all, before the Fall, when everybody's names were in the Book of Life, they might simply have misunderstood the meaning of having your name removed from it, as it's never happened before.

Reason #4: Erasing someone's existence completely is in fact possible if you remove someone's name from one book and never enter it into the other.

(Please note that this generates a lot of questions on how exactly you move names between the two books if being in neither means you don't exist and never have. There would have to be some security measures to make sure people won't just disappear during transfer.)

Reason #5: Being erased from existence is a metaphor for the fundamental transformation you undergo when shifting from an angel to a demon (and possibly vice versa). Especially if you consider that a supernatural entity wouldn't probably just have their name moved, they'd most likely be entered under a new name. So they would be the same being but not the same person anymore.

Pick any combination of the above.

Who should fear the Book of Life?

The book is first mentioned when Michael tips Beelzebub that Heaven is prepared to use it against anyone found helping Gabriel. Beelzebub later conveys the message to Crowley, plus an extended explanation.

The key word here is anybody. If Gabriel was helped by both Aziraphale and Crowley, they were both risking punishment.

But Crowley acts as if only Aziraphale is in danger and indeed, when Michael brings it up again, in the finale, she only threatens Aziraphale and completely ignores Crowley.

Why?

Crowley can be easily explained by his continuous disregard for his own safety. But Michael? Why did she call Hell to warn Beelzebub how serious Heaven was about it if she wasn't ready to actually go through and punish a demon? Does she not realize how deeply Crowley was involved? Does she think Aziraphale did it on his own? Is she reluctant to actually administer the punishment that feels outside her jurisdiction? Or is she simply more focused on Aziraphale because he pissed her off?

If we assume my theory about the Books of Life & Death is correct, then Michael's threat was an empty one for a demon, whose name was no longer in the Book of Life anyway. But if we assume my theory is right, then none of them should be aware of that.

However.

If we assume my theory is true minus Reason #4 (the loophole that actually allows for someone to be permanently destroyed from existence), let's think about the theory that Metatron blackmailed Aziraphale into taking his offer by indirectly threatening Crowley's existence.

Aziraphale is unaware of how it all works. He picks on Metatron's threat and interprets it in accordance with how he believes the Book of Life works. He comes to the conclusion that if he doesn't obey, Crowley will be removed from existence. But Metatron actually means the metaphorical erasure I described as Reason #5. He means the destruction of Crowley's personality and most of his self. The trauma that would happen if Crowley underwent the transformation that is the result of being moved from one book to the other. At the same time, Metatron says that if Aziraphale becomes the Supreme Archangel, he could make Crowley an angel again. This would happen by removing a demon's name from the Book of Death and entering him, possibly under another name, into the Book of Life.

Yes, I have amused myself during the weekend by creating a theory in which the thing Metatron threatens Aziraphale with if he doesn't obey and the thing he promises as a reward if he does IS THE SAME EXACT THING.

Spread the news to all the angst-loving mostly canon-compliant fanfiction authors!

Removing things from existence

As a final point in this post that has long run away from me and I'm not sure has a point any longer, I'd like to remind you of something.

Mentioning the Book of Life in season 2 is not the first time that the concept of removing something from existence and making it so it would never have happened appears in Good Omens Universe.

Please remember Adam Young, the Antichrist, who faced Satan at the Tadfield Airbase and declared he was not his father and never had been. Reality listened to him and Satan disappeared. However, it didn't change the timeline, didn't erase the events that already happened, and didn't exactly strip Adam of his powers.

What does it mean?

No idea.

Thank you for your patience.

[cursed-iris]

I've seen your Jack and Miss Acacia fanart (the one inspired in a 1923 paint), and now I'm interested on the extended lore of the 2005 album.

Thanks in advance, and have a nice day.

so sorry it took me so long to answer, but thank you so much for this ask! :DD

so, i answered a similar question a while back that also incorporated some of the book lore to make it make more sense, so you can find that post here.

but otherwise, i'm going to talk more about the actual album because i don't think i did the best job explaining it before. cut because it's kind of a long explanation and it does contain some book spoilers from the original post.

so basically, dionysos released the album "monsters in love" in 2005 about 4 years before mathias malzieu (lead singer and writer for the band) published the book in 2009, and 8 years before the movie was released (cerca. 2013 but the release dates were different internationally). this technically makes everything that came after the album, the book and the movie, a prequel.

so that's important because that means the lore in the album (and even to some extent the book and movie) is drastically different from the rest of the source material. however, the book is much closer to tying the narrative of the album together. "monsters in love" is pretty much the first time the character of jack or miss acacia appears.

the album begins with a track called "giant jack,"

this is jack several years after the events of the book take place, and he's like massive.

i don't think we ever discover how exactly he became a giant (it's mentioned at the end of the book), but he's returned to edinburgh and is terrorizing the town. the song isn't sung from jack's perspective, which is interesting because jack is basically a mathias malzieu self insert. but anyway, it's sung from either mathias' perspective or the "broken bird's" (that's another track in the album) perspective because there is a mention of the speaker having wings.

it's hard to decipher some dionysos lyrics because they're super metaphorical and i don't think they're supposed to make that much sense. but from what i read of the lyrics, giant jack strikes a deal to protect the speaker.

in the animated mv for another monsters in love song, "tes lacets sont des fées," we see jack again along with miss acacia. he's wandering the streets of edinburgh at night and sees her (and the broken bird, who at this time, i believe was also a mathias malzieu self-insert character) performing in an orchestra hall. and then... some other... weird stuff... happens... that i'm not going to fully get into. but you can find the music video (cw nudity) here.

so how does any of this tie in with the rest of jack and the cuckoo clock heart? the answer is, it really doesn't for the movie. in the movie, jack dies. he is dead. full stop. but as we know, the movie is based on the book which is based of the album, so the book ending where he doesn't die and returns after a coma actually segues into the beginning of the "monsters in love" album.

this is a direct quote from the last chapter: "As for our 'hero,' he grew taller and taller. But he never got over the loss of Miss Acacia. he went out every night, only at night, to roam the outskirts of the Extraordinarium, in the shadow of its fairground attractions. But the half-ghost that he had become never crossed its threshold. Then he retraced his own boyish steps all the way back to Edinburgh. The city was exactly as he remembered it; time seemed to have stood still there."

Anyway, he returns to his childhood home in the last chapter, only to be told by arthur (and i think anna and luna), that he never even needed the cuckoo clock heart for that long in the first place. it was supposed to be temporary. madélèine could've removed it at any time, but specifically chose not to so he wouldn't go off and leave her, which is pretty messed up actually (wtf madélèine?). my theory, if the book really is a true precursor to the album, as in everything that happens in the album is canon to the jatcch storyline, is that jack starts terrorizing edinburgh after hearing that news. because the clock heart ruined his life and he didn't even need it.

i hope that answered your question. 😭 thank you for the ask!

[creature-wizard]

ive seen your posts debunking monarch programming before, but does that also extend to this epsilon thing? https://www.tumblr.com/eclipse15/728391015729364992/do-you-happen-to-know-anything-about-programming

also, how did sra misinformation spread into did communities in the first place? (ive noticed it more in those who have "did system" in their bios than "osdd system" or "udd system"; i cant remember ever seeing a nontraumagenic system promote it but that doesnt mean there are none.) all of these complex metaphorical descriptions of role associations had to come from somewhere, right? theres like a whole system to how it works. who codified it? why are there so many different types?

To answer your first question: Yes, it extends to that epsilon thing.

To answer your second question, and to elaborate upon the first: It all started back when more people started realizing that DID was a thing back in the mid-to-late 20th century. Being a very poorly-understood condition, people didn't really know how it worked or how it was caused, and a number of conspiracy theorists started working it into their conspiracy theories. Since a lot of people at the time believed that you could recover memories through hypnosis, a number of conspiracy theorists had people undergo so-called recovered memory therapy, and effectively coached people into "remembering" activities of the conspiracy. Today, we know that recovered memory therapy is absolute bunk (you only have to look as far as the starseed movement to see just how easy it is to get people to "remember" absolute bullshit), but back in the day, a lot of people took it very seriously.

In 1995, Cisco Wheeler and Fritz Springmeier released They Know Not What They Do: Illustrated Guide To Monarch Mind Control. This book started introducing the idea of all these complex roles you see people talking about. They would later elaborate upon them in The Illuminati Formula Used To Create An Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave, and this is where the alpha/beta/gamma/delta/epsilon stuff comes from.

Cisco Wheeler is apparently a multiple system who underwent recovered memory therapy with the "help" of Fritz Springmeier. Springmeier is the conspiracy theorist who pushed the whole 13 Illuminati bloodlines thing, which is ultimately a Protocols/blood libel/witch panic redux mixed with Alexander Hislop's conspiracy theory that the Catholic Church is actually a cover for ancient Babylonian mystery religion. The pair of them claimed that a bunch of ancient mystery religions had survived in secret, and had been giving people DID for the purpose of mind control for thousands of years. They claimed that the modern Illuminati was giving tens of thousands of children DID, and also that the average mind control slave had "at least" 1000 alters. They also claimed that everything from Hollywood movies to old fairytales were intentionally created to be used for alter programming - and to hear Springmeier and Wheeler describe it, pretty much everything is an Illuminati symbol or connects to Illuminati belief somehow. And the pair of them were racist and antisemitic as hell.

The claims that Wheeler and Springmeier made in their books ranged from extremely improbable to downright impossible, and I think if more people encountered their works directly, they'd quickly realize that these people were full of baloney. Some of their bizarre claims include:

The Illuminati has mind controlled slaves with photographic memory. (Photographic memory does not exist. Pretending it does sure helps conspiracy theorists justify the supposed veracity of all these "recovered" memories, though.)

The Illuminati uses chimpanzees to torture children. (Chimpanzees are so much stronger than humans that they wouldn't just "torture" children; they'd pretty much dismember them.)

The Illuminati has been implanting two-way radio communication devices into slaves' brains since the 1960's. (This kind of technology isn't even possible right now, much less the 1960's.)

Breast implants are actually Illuminati mind control technology. (Lolwhat???)

Santa Claus is actually Satan because "Santa" is an anagram for "Satan." (Sinterklaas who?)

Depictions of the Egyptian weighing of the heart ceremony are actually about mind control.

Animism is an Illuminati belief.

The Antichrist will come into power in the year 2000.

The power of God and Jesus can save people from Illuminati mind control.

Few people encounter these people's works directly, however, and most get this stuff from people slick enough not to mention all of the ridiculous, hateful stuff they push. Around the early 2000s, a woman writing under the name of Svali started posting her own alleged experiences as an ex-Illuminati programmer online. Her material is strongly influenced by Wheeler and Springmeier's, and it's pretty easy to access online these days.

Additionally, many websites that purportedly exist to help abuse survivors repeat a lot of stuff from Springmeier, Wheeler, Svali, and numerous other frauds active during the Satanic Panic. (This is why it's important to check citations!) Worth noting, a lot of people just never stopped believing in this stuff, and I have anecdotal reports from people who say that their therapists tried to push them into believing that they'd been ritually abused.

For further research, I recommend checking out the article The Forgotten Lessons of the Recovered Memory Movement and the You're Wrong About podcast's episode on multiple personality disorders.

[tearlessrain]

the thing about karlach's ending that pisses me off is that it doesn't make sense if you do everything you can for her though. the gondians are master workers of infernal iron, and if you liberate the house of hope, and make sure dammon lives, you have all the ingredients needed to help karlach's condition improve. it simply doesn't make sense for her to say that she will NEVER EVER go back to avernus even when you have a safe place to set up an independent hellforge and work on a new non-explosive heart replacement. it frustrated me immensely that in my playthrough because i didn't choose to romance her and i had wyll become a baldur's gate bigwig, she chose actively to explode and die... when i had everything i needed to save her life. to go on the terminal illness theme, it felt to me like she had cancer and i had chemo and she was rejecting it and choosing to die horribly instead of get it treated... which totally does happen IRL, but isn't exactly FAIR to her as a character. it's good writing because it makes me engage emotionally with it to this level but it's frustrating because i felt like i should have been able to save her with the pieces available in the game.

this is all also leaving aside that gale has a scroll of true resurrection in his fuckening satchel. WHY can't i immediately use it on Karlach after she 'plodes lol is Gale really that selfish?

okay fuck it, I'll bite. yeah, it IS unfair and frustrating and she doesn't deserve any of it, and that was kinda the whole point and it's why I think they did such a good job with Karlach's arc. because, again, it was a pretty clear metaphor for terminal illness and the associated grief/helplessness/denial/scrambling for solutions that comes with dealing with it. your chemo metaphor is interesting because as you've mentioned people DO often choose not to go through chemo, because chemo itself is miserable and draining and wrecks your body and is not guaranteed to work, and some people would prefer to just remain as active and present as possible for as long as possible and then go out when it's time, especially if the cancer is aggressive and terminal and chemo may not do much. kind of like going to Avernus would be miserable and draining and dangerous, and Karlach stated many times how much she hates Avernus and would rather die than go back. how on earth does it not make sense that she wouldn't choose that, especially believing as she did that she would immediately be shanghaied back into Zariel's service indefinitely after so many years of being desperate for freedom.

though ironically, people in real life sometimes react to cancer patients choosing not to do chemo or other procedures that suck/are invasive and awful the same way you're reacting to Karlach not wanting to go to Avernus. sometimes, and for some people, it's not about just extending your life as far as possible at any cost. there's a point at which it isn't worth it, and that point is different for everyone. and BOY does that make some folks upset when a loved one's "it's not worth it" point is different from theirs. It's why DNR is a thing, and it's also why you should think very carefully about who you want making medical decisions for you if you're incapacitated and have a talk with that person/clear instructions written up.

I already mentioned in the post that they sort of dropped the ball on not explaining why all those potential avenues don't work so I don't know what you expect me to say about that, but I stand by my previous statement of "all I really need them to say is 'yeah the gondians agree, this thing is fucked' and I'll accept that." I would love for them to add that in. but I don't think it should be fixable.

finally, considering that the scroll of true resurrection was intended to be used on Gale during that quest, yes it's on Larian for letting you revive him in other ways and keep the thing, but it's still metagame-y and I don't think it qualifies as a plot hole so much as a game design flaw. it annoys me when people bring up "why didn't they account for my cheesing in the story" arguments as writing critiques.

[macabremoons]

Pretentious Poetry

Summary: Emotions are hard, but feelings for Benjamin, the boy she never thought she'd even like, are harder. What's easier, though not by much, is writing poetry. After all, isn't love the perfect muse?

A/N: This is for my friends birthday! Happy birth bestie!! Also thank you to @mouseinthegreenhouse for betaing, though they spent most of it making fun of Menodora. Keep in mind this is not canon to the Daycycle universe. This is just a ship fic. Enjoy! My masterlist is here

"I know what you want from me, Benjamin. It’s a horrible idea," Menodora says as Benjamin walks her to her door. She hangs in the doorway, watching only her breath turn to mist. 

"Okay."

"Seriously.”  She scrambles for something to say. She can’t think of anything else.

"Okay, Menodora." He sounds somewhere between tired and amused. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," she says. She shuts her door, ignoring how warm her cheeks feel. 

--

My body crescendos, she wrote once. It's barely a line, not really poetry, but she tries to shove all the emotion she has into it. She fails.

There's hundreds more like this. Fragments of deep emotion. Talentless scarps of attempts to grow closer to the single truth.

If you were my disaster, another reads, I'd die directly in your arms. But you are my lighthouse so I love you like letting my ship take harbor before putting it out to sea. 

She could just write I love you. It'd be so much more symbolic. It still wouldn't put to words the shame she feels. 

--

She runs into him three days later in the rain. He laughs at her as she holds her book bag over her head before extending his umbrella to her. 

"Sometimes I forget how much you hate the rain."

"I'll never understand why people like it," Menodora huffs. She leans closer so he too gets covered by the umbrella, ignoring how close this makes them. 

"Not everyone has lightning in their veins, presumably." He turns a bit to look at her from the corner of his eye. "Have you eaten?"

"Oh— No. I had to get to class."

He takes his free hand and grabs one of Menodora's. "Come on, I'll take you to my favorite place. They have meat buns there."

It takes all of her willpower to not make her heart pound. A no is on the tip of her tongue, but then her heart leaps out of her hands; Benjamin smiles.

"As long as you eat too," is all she says instead. He grabs one of her arms without hesitance. She counts it as a win.

When they get to the cafe she orders a black coffee. He scrunches his nose. "Sugar doesn’t kill, you know that?”

“It can actually,” Menodora says, sipping her perfectly normal coffee. They sit down. “It’s not my fault one of us would drink sugar if they could.”

“That’s a very common thing.”

“And it’s unhealthy. And gross.”

Benjamin puts both arms on the table. “You just hate sweet things. You’re so…”

“Bitter?”

“Savory.” He mixes his coffee. “Not bitter.”

“Same thing.” Benjamin huffs. Menodora looks out the window. He’s wearing that hoodie she likes. 

Focus. She can write bad unfinished poetry about this later.

She takes out her laptop and they study. Benjamin tells her about all the history he’s learning about. He makes Menodora laugh with horrible jokes, and she makes fun of his professor. She tells him about the music history of things around the same time, and she swears he hangs off her every word.

She finds herself wondering what his coffee tastes like during one of his rants about the typos in his study material. But it’s all gone. Menodora wonders if it’s still on his lips.

--

"What do you think blood is?" she asks. They lay on the cool back of his car. 

"Like literally or?"

"Metaphorically of course. Non physically at the very least."

"Those are two different things."

Menodora shakes her head. "No, no. It's like, most people say blood is life—life energy, light force—but I don't believe that."

Benjamin turns to her. "What do you believe then?"

This curiosity is so faerie-like that she reminds herself of the hate she feels for anyone who doesn't consider him to be the fae. What vampire would humor her but him, a half fae? What vampire would love her so to withstand her constant fluctuations from adoration to maliciousness?

"Blood is the soul. Which sounds the same, but it's not. Life is existence, the plants the trees, but your soul is you. Maybe drinking someone's blood means understanding them past any way words could describe."

"You're good at that. Writing poetry out of nowhere."

"I could have read it somewhere," she defends. She feels the need to shift her head closer to his.

"But you didn't. It came from you. It came from your personal experiences."

If only he knew how true that was. "What constellations do you want to see tonight?"

"I don't care. As long as I'm with you it's fun." He looks back at the sky. Menodora is thankful. She doesn't know what she'd do if he was still looking at her. "And I don't know if I agree with your idea."

"Really? What do you think?" He's  more knowledgeable on the subject anyway. Menodora's thoughts on the matter are scraps of requests that live and die on her tongue when she sees him.

"It makes the whole blood drinking thing sound pretty. It isn't. It's ugly and raw and, well, awful."

His face is so sour. He speaks as if he's some werewolf, ranting about vampires. He speaks as if he isn't one himself, as if human blood does not run in his stomach at this moment.

Human blood that is not Menodora's. Such a stupid thing to be envious of. 

"Hard to know which one of us is more right. Historically one of us is the bitter and the bitten, but you know what blood tastes like more than I do. Still, I do think it's pretty. Like childbirth is beautiful without being beautiful. It's messy and miserable, but it's life."

Benjamin laughs. It makes the cool night air taste bitter on Menodora's tongue. "I wish I thought like that. How do you find it within yourself to find it pretty? Doesn't it, I don't know, scare you?"

Don't I scare you? The question hangs in the air, and Menodora shakes her head to dispel it. "No, it doesn't."

--

Scary how? She writes on a napkin as soon as she gets home. Your arms have never crushed me.

She groans into her hands when she can not think of another line. She repeats it out loud time and time again, but there's nothing to add. It's not perfect. Menodora knows it needs something to really drive the punch of phonetics in.

She has no more words to say. She realizes now that the words are more like a diary entry than a poem. It's fact, not poetry. 

She goes back to some of her old lines in frustration. If she can not write something new, she can finish something old, surely. She spends hours at her desk over the next couple of days. She crumbles paper after paper, dashes word after word. She pokes her emotion like a bear for inspiration. She bargains with creativity. 

She ends up with this:

My body crescendos 

I crash crushed by the waves

I'd carve your name into the skin above my heart

I'd halt the heavens so they could hear you 

I'd do all this, all this, but I wouldn't say I love you

It turns out that the real poetry is still a fact, this one Menodora had been hoping was fiction.

--

Menodora presses her face into Bonnie’s couch and screams. “I’m a horrible person.”

“No, you’re not.” Bonnie rubs her back. “Why do you think so?”

“Because. Ben likes me—thinks he likes me. But he doesn’t because he doesn't know how”—she makes a noise—”I am. So he thinks he likes me.”

“Insecure?” Menodora lifts her face enough to glare at Bonnie. “I’m sorry, it’s true. I’ve never seen someone do more mental gymnastics to convince themselves someone didn’t like them.”

“But he’s so pretty.”

“You are too?”

“And kind, and funny.”

“Again, describing yourself.”

Menodora shakes her head. She lifts herself up completely. She puts a hand on each of Bonnie’s shoulders. “I’m not, though. I am not kind. I’m disarming, not funny. I’m so me.”

“And he likes you, for all of that. He isn’t blind. He knows you almost got him expelled.”

Menodora gags. “Don’t remind me. That— I want to say that was a lapse in judgment, but honestly it was pretty in character.”

“Yeah, it was. And that’s why he likes you. Because you are kind, funny, clever, disarming, pretty, and miserable to the bone.”

Menodora takes a bite of her previously discarded food. She can’t believe she let Bonnie get into her head. She promised that this movie night would be an opportunity to stop thinking about Benjamin, but here she is thinking about his name over and over.

“He deserves someone better,” Menodora says, still chewing. Bonnie sighs. “I’m serious! A normal girl would have told him that she didn’t like him by now, but here I am studying with him and eating the food he bought me. Oh my God, I’m leading him on. Oh my God.” She faceplants back into the couch. “I’m a horrible friend.”

Bonnie puts Menodora’s head in her lap. She pats Menodora’s forehead. “You’re not friends. Well, you are, but be honest you guys have been half dating for months. Would it really hurt just to stop running away from your feelings?”

Menodora hugs Bonnie’s knees. “I don’t know. What if he doesn’t get it though? What if he thinks loving me will be easy and backs down when he realizes I am so haphazardly broken?”

“Menodora,” Bonnie says, as if Menodora’s name has powers, “no one is easy to love. Benjamin isn’t even easy to love. He’s reckless, careless, and a little emotionally insensitive.”

Menodora turns onto her back. “But he doesn’t mean to be, and he always apologizes, even if he can't.” 

“Yes, but you never have to accept those sorries, but you do, because you love him. He’d accept a thousand of your apologies, Meno. He’d accept you.”

--

Emilio accidentally sees some of her poetry when it leaks out of her bag. The look of pure disgust is enough to make her laugh.

“You need help. From a higher power. All of them at once,” he signs. 

“You don’t even know what the poem is about,” she signs back. 

“Mute. I am not blind, I’m mute. One day that is going to get into your thick skull. I see the way you look at Benjamin. A pair, you two. Disgustingly odd and weird and crooked. I’m almost surprised you two aren’t dating.”

“You and everyone else,” she sighs. “I’m starting to wonder a bit myself.”

Emilio makes a face. “I do not want to know. Talk to Bonnie about this, if you must.”

Menodora gathers her papers. “Well obviously we don’t need to continue our lesson today if you know enough signs to insult me. You’re getting really good, by the way.”

Emilio smiles a bit. “Thanks. Though I will say, while I have… thoughts about Benjamin, he’d be good for you.”

From Emilio that’s as good as the Luna’s word documented in gold. It’d be foolish not to at least consider his words. Menodora has never considered herself a fool.

--

“Why do you like poetry?” Benjamin asked her once, months ago.

“I don’t know.” She bit into her bread, looking off for an answer. “As pretentious as it is, poetry feels like breathing to me. It’s something I do because I must. I enjoy it because it fuels me.”

“Many would consider poetry pretentious.”

“I resent that. Poetry is often just emotion put to words in its rawest form. Is emotion pretentious?”

Benjamin thought for a moment. “Depends. Entitlement is pretty pretentious.”

“That isn’t relevant to the current topic,” Menodora huffed. “I agree, but every poem is not entitled. It’s withdrawn, if anything. Poetry is all the things you wish you could say but you don’t.”

“What do you write about, then?”

This question rings in her head as she looks at her newest poem.

If you were a disaster, I'd die directly in your arms

But you are my lighthouse in a lighting storm

My love in a lawless land

I'd dock my boat near you without hesitance

And I'd leave your harbors with resistance

Darkness they deem you, but dare I call them wrong

There's so much light within you, my little hailstorm

Menodora hates this poem. She can’t tell if it’s because it’s bad, or if the weight of the things she keeps not saying is starting to weigh her down. Even if she is right in her thinking, is she right in her execution? 

--

Menodora runs into Benjamin on his exam day. He’s a flurry of rants, even though he got a good grade. Menodora almost feels bad for her professor, and then she remembers that he docked twenty point from one of Benjamin’s essays because he felt it could be better. He deserves every true complaint  that falls from Benjamin’s mouth.

At the end of his rant, Benjamin turns to Menodora. “Want to go out in, say, a week? I have to take my sister to this concert she’s excited about, but afterwards I’m free.”

Menodora ducks bread into her coffee. “Sure. Where do you want to go? I heard that there was a good movie in theaters.”

“One of your movies or mine?”

“Yours.”

Benjamin scrunches his nose. “So you can look like half on death’s door trying to keep in your criticisms?”

Menodora just doesn’t think that being shot in the leg is something you can walk off, and that media should stop presenting it as such so Emilio doesn’t have to deal with more dumbasses in his office, but to each their own. “I like going with you.”

Benjamin raises an eyebrow. “Is that a confession, my dear?” Menodora takes a sip of her coffee. “I’m joking.”

“I know. I didn’t say no.” There’s soggy bread crumbles in her mouth. How unromantic. “Take it as an invitation. I’d ask you out, but that’d be ruining your chance, no?”

She makes eye contact with him at her last word, and instantly regrets it. Benjamin looks so shocked. You’d think she told him he won the lottery or something. 

“I can’t tell if you’re joking.” He pauses, and if he could, Menodora thinks he’d take a deep breath. “It’d be a very unfunny one.”

“No, that’d be cruel. I’m being honest.”

“You want to go out?”

“Yes.”

“On a date?”

“Yes.”

Benjamin narrows his eyes. “What happened to your whole reservations?”

“Maybe I realized I can’t make choices for other people, or that it isn’t even a choice I’d want to make for you. Also maybe I’m bad at being emotionally coherent.”

“But you like me?”

“I’m starting to regret this.”

“Come on! At least give me this.”

“Yes, I like you. I have for months. Admittingly I’m starting to think instead of letting you take me out I should apologize and forget this interaction existed.”

“Do not.” 

“Ah, constraints.” She smiles. “I won’t.”

He waves a hand. “If you had told me that you didn’t like me, I would have stopped chasing you. Simple as that. But I knew that wasn’t exactly the truth, and I figured you would eventually cough up your reasoning. You never did though.”

“Must you shake the entire truth out of me?”

“Physically, no. Emotionally, yes. You’re a very confusing lady. Pretty, but still.”

“It just sounds silly to me. I am very unsure why you’d want to pursue a relationship with me. I’m not exactly nice, or darling. It’d be difficult to go to family gatherings. Kronos would probably hate anyone I hate, so that’s fine, but your parents like you. I like your parents. It’s embarrassing, I’d think.”

He blinks. “That’s… it?” He closes his eyes. “I understand your claims are serious and whatnot, but I thought you didn’t like me, or thought that dating someone like me would be too taxing.”

“Why would I care?”

“Better question: why would I?” He laughs. “You’re so interesting. You crushed me in debate months ago, but now you sit before me and tell me that you have nothing of value to offer. You’re wrong about that, by the way. You are very darling, and nice, when you allow yourself to be.”

“Which isn’t always.”

“Does it have to be? It’s enough for me.”

“We’re teenagers now, but what about later? It’s not like there’s many ways I could become immortal. It’s a coupling made for heartbreak.”

“That is a better reasoning.” He takes a sip of his coffee and pulls a face of disgust when it’s most likely cold. “I might be immortal, but I am still young. It will be a very long time before that means anything to me.” He rests his head in one of his hands. “Besides, I don’t think I could love anyone else.”

“It’s too soon to say.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not something I can explain to you that you would understand. Our elements are so different, and we aren’t the species, but this is something I just know. We were made for each other, not just here and now, but in the next a thousand years, in every universe.”

“Oh my God,” she groans. Menodora is not going to blush at that. “Are we going out or not?”

“Of course, darling. Though not the movies, what mild soul do you think I am?”

“Truly my mistake,” Menodora deadpans. 

“Yes, yes.” He puts a finger to his chin. “Dinner? Somewhere fancy?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll pick you up—and pay. Don’t even try it.”

She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t going to try to.”

His eyes soften. “You really are enough for me, you know that?”

“I think I’m starting to.” His phone buzzes. “Ah, right. You have a study group soon.”

“Actually I’m late for it.” He gets up. “We’ll talk later?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Menodora."

--

Two weeks later they go to the movies like she wanted. Afterwards they sit in his car. He's completely leaned over to her side of the car, pressing kisses all over her face. She laughs, but he tells her it's quite serious.

"It's not everyday you get to kiss a pretty girl, you know. That's why you truly must savor the moment."

He drives her home and insists on pulling straight up to her house. When Kronos asks how her evening was with that boy, she feels less uncomfortable.

"Well, sir, I am dating that boy," she says. The look of disgust on Kronos's face is enough to make her giddy.

--

"You never show me any of your poetry," Benjamin whines one day, face planting into the crook of her neck.

Menodora side eyes him. "You're reading it now, certainly."

"It's the principle of the thing. My girlfriend, the most beautiful woman I've ever met, won't even let me read the thing she's passionate about. Maybe I have failed as a boyfriend because—"

Menodora isn't listening to that entire paragraph. "I didn't let you read them because they were about you."

Benjamin straightens up. "Really? Can I read one now?"

"They're not good. The word choice is awful. The things I was trying to express were cringey." None of her words are making him look less excited. "Fine, but if you start going on and on about how great you are afterwards I'm kicking you out."

She opens her draw and pulls out her poetry scraps. "I didn't finish a lot of it. You're hard to write about."

Benjamin takes the stack from her and pulls up a chair. She stops writing to watch him read. Curse him and his stupid vampire genes because his face is so blank as he reads it. He isn't doing it on purpose so she can't even complain about it. Menodora huffs. 

She sees one of the full poems and she's immediately mortified. "Nevermind give it back."

"These are beautiful," he says, voice so full of wonder. "I love these. You're an incredible poet."

Menodora grabs at her poems. He lets her take them. "I appreciate it, but it's nothing, really. They are just stray thoughts about how I was feeling."

Benjamin's awe only grows. "Do you mean to say that your actual thoughts are just as pretty as that?"

"I will kill you."

Benjamin kisses her cheek. "I'd let you, sweetheart. It's a little bonding exercise."

She ignores the validity of the statement. "It's weird having you read those. I never thought you'd see them."

"There's no part of you that scares me. Besides, it's very flattering."

"What did I say about the ego thing?" Menodora warns, but the look in Benjamin's eyes keeps her from bantering further.

"I love you," he says simply, but it's for the first time.

"I love you too," she replies, warmer than she's been before. 

[evieelyzabethh]

I Want You

pairing(s): willow x tara

summary: willow finally gets to visit tara's grave after being in England for the past few months

warnings: angst with a slight happy ending, mentions of tara's death, blood, and suicidal tendencies/thoughts, derealization, willows dark era is a metaphor for substance abuse so that may be triggering for some folks, its just really sad

an: i don't usually do ship fics, i just so happened to be in a mood. its also pride month and there is like 0 tillow content on this app *i still wouldn't recommend requesting ship fics tho*

Back in England, there was a tree. A willow tree. Unlike Xander, who was very quick to let everyone know never to call him anything other than Xander, she never had an issue with her name. It fit her. She was spindly and growing up she had knobby knees that caused her to move a bit awkwardly. Her hair blew around her face, and, just like the rest of her body, looked like if the wind were to pick up, she would be blown away. A dandelion seed in the wind that would maybe make someone's day brighter at the hope of a wish, instead of a willow tree that may actually prove useful.

She wanted to believe that she was like a willow tree, that she was stronger than she looked. That she had dug her clumsy feet into the ground and planted her roots and she would stay, unmovable and tall, until some monumental hurricane or imposing tornado came through and uprooted her. Even in that case, her seeds would be sewn into all the land she touched, and she would live forever, replanted and replenished by those who knew her, and fed her, and grew with her, and loved her. She wanted to believe that she could plant roots, that she had control over where she stayed and who she was with and if she liked her situation enough, she wouldn't to leave. Permanence. Consistency. Control. That's what she wanted.

As a kid, she wrote her name in lowercase letters; it wasn't til high school her willows became Willow. In that ranch farm in middle of fucking nowhere England, she became willow once again. She thought she was sent there to be put down. Like a rabid dog that was too pitiful to die on its own but too dangerous for its survival to be left to chance.

It was such an odd feeling; that derealization. Stepping back and watching people talk to you, touch you, extend their sympathies. Hearing yourself talk and sounding like how adults do in Charlie Brown. Feeling your mouth flap but not choosing what comes out. Just knowing that you had a body, and that you had a mind, but you knew it because someone told you that you did. That's how it felt when she thought she was going to die. Her soul had already began to check out and distance itself from the body that was going to run cold within the next couple days. She didn't even try and protest, she was that eager to let go. Even worse than simply killing a man, she didn't do it for Tara. Killing Warren didn't feel like catharsis, it felt like pleasure.

Nothing was relieved. She didn't feel lighter. She didn't feel better. An anvil sat on her chest, squeezing every ounce of life from her until she was acting on instinct and impulse. Killing Warren was a dopamine shot straight to her brain, it didn't remove the anvil or ease the ache, and she didn't do it for that purpose. She did it to do it. She went on auto pilot after the fact, watching her life pass by her and watch her kill her friends while wanting to stop but she couldn't. It felt too good in the moment. It felt like fire. She was on fire.

It was all consuming, the smoke she left behind accumulating and growing with everything she did until she didn't know where she ended or when the smoke began. It hurt what she was doing, being a woman on fire you felt the flames but were also spurred on by hysteria. She had been so cold before, and the fire was a bit much, but that's where the pleasure was derived. The cold depravity was killing her, at least in the flames she would go out in a blaze. Yet, dying then and dying in that ranch felt so different.

She felt like she deserved it both times. Willow knew that she had been losing control of her magics. Floating on ceilings and hallucinating, seeking out someone on Amy's recommendation for fucks sake, these weren't things she would normally do. She had lost control of herself a while ago, but when she went dark, it was the first time she lost sight of the reins. She deserved to die during her rampage because she was going to gut the world, turn it inside out until the oceans tipped into the sea and every piece of earth was reduced to ash, and she couldn't stop herself. Her death would've been damage control.

The second time she felt it would've been redemption. That she had gone too far and there was no saving her. Her punishment came in her separation alone.

She wasn't there when Tara was buried.

She was told when they thought it was safe enough that she was buried on a hill. They told her the gravestone was decorated in reeds, flowers, and crystals and they cleaned the white marble stone every time they came to visit her. That they took care of it, and they told her this, but they meant to say they took care of it for her. It felt heavy weighing in on the back of their tongues, that they couldn't care for her like Willow could but since she was away, maybe even dead, they would have to be enough. They were all Tara had.

She didn't know how to dress. Buffy told her to go as she is, that if anything is the same from when she was dead that she can't see her anyways. She wanted to ask if Buffy could tell who was visiting her and if she was ever disappointed, but the words got stuck in her throat.

So, she stood there, small and awkward by her girlfriends grave. She walked up slowly, like something was waiting to attack her when she made it to the peak. She expected more fanfare, more people, birds, noise, something. She had never felt so alone. She stood by that white headstone and felt the breath exit her lungs. She was back in that room again. Holding her dead body, cradling her head, the grass feeling like her soft hair in her hands. There was no ground as she fell to her knees, one of her hands covering her mouth and the other ghosting the headstone. Did she even have the right to touch her grave. It was her fault.

She had gotten overzealous bringing Buffy back and this was her retribution. While the universe demands balance, above all else it is petty and Willow knew it. She knew it didn't seek reparations, because there is nothing you can give the universe that it can just take. It demands pain. It doesn't concern itself with human emotion, it doesn't know, or need to know, sympathy or empathy. It seeks to cause pain because in a world when there is nothing you can gain, why not just take. It needed everyone to know how powerless they are, that no matter what you think you have, it's not yours. The universe was the all mother, she put you here and she will take you out. She'll take your little toys, she'll stop you from seeing your friends, she gave everything for you meaning she has every right to take it back.

But it was supposed to be okay.

Buffy had saved the universe more times than anyone could count, why does the billions of lives she saved not balance out her one life. Her one significant life. And even if the universe couldn't recognize her importance, wasn't it enough that she quit. She was clean. She did what she was supposed to, so why wasn't it okay. It was supposed to be okay, and it's her fault it isn't.

A part of her wanted to rip through the ground and prove that she was really under there. A part of her couldn't believe that she was really gone. Her spirit still lived that house for her.

Buffy was right, maybe she did need this, for closure at the very least. Maybe the room will warm up after this, maybe she'll stop seeing her in mirrors, maybe her blood will leave her hands and clothes. Her death felt so real, the blood ran thick and slick and it stained everything she touched. Her sheets had bloody handprints, her pillows smelled like copper, her skin and her nails were caked in oxidized blood and she wanted to pull it off herself. If she could trade places with Warren, slip out of her skin and set it on fire to begin again she would. Maybe then she'd feel lighter. But that's not what Tara would want.

Tara would want her to power through. She would want her to keep getting better. She would take her in her arms and brush her hair and tell her it was going to be okay. That she was going to be okay. She would tell her she deserved to be happy, and if letting her go was how she did it, then that's what needed to be done. That maybe she should let go. She would kiss her forehead and tell her she was too strong to give up. But Tara made her strong and she had never gone through anything like this and there was never going to be another Tara.

It hurt. Her head, her soul, her body it all ached and Tara's death ate away at her until she was nothing just like she was before. Lower than she was before. She was pathetic but at least her hands were clean. Now she was dirty and she should've been left to rot in the dirt.

In the ranch, she had thought she was going to be buried under than tree. Her willow tree. She had grown a patch of flowers underneath the trunk because she didn't think they would deem her worthy enough to do anything but to shovel the dirt over her corpse. It was her one selfish deed, to leave her resting sight something other than overturned dirt and dead grass. She had letters addressed to her friends in the hope that Giles would deliver them. She wonders if he ever found them. She still had them, hidden in place so that no one would find them. If Dawnie saw them, she wouldn't know what to do.

"I don't know what to say to you." She pushed out through tears. She had a lot to say to everyone else, but so much to say to Tara that her mind went blank. Tara got a letter, maybe if she had the courage, she would come back and read it to her. "I miss you. I miss you so much it hurts."

Wherever Tara was, she listened.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, and I know you're tired of me saying it, but it's true."

She was tired of hearing it. I forgive you. You were grieving. It is okay.

"I did - I did a lot of bad things, baby. It didn't make it easier and the pain it-it doesn't go away. It doesn't stop." I know, love. Life is hard. I forgive you.

But Willow couldn't hear. She hadn't heard her the whole time. She had said sorry in so many ways so many times and she was so tired. Tara wanted to tell her it was okay, that she couldn't grieve her forever and she needed to move on. Tara couldn't make it better now. Tara could barely make it better then. Willow needed to get better. She needed time. She needed grace. She was too hurt to see that everyone was giving it to her, but she wasn't accepting of it.

"I'm trying to be strong, I really am. A-And I haven't done any magics like I promised. It's been hard but-but it's been good for me. I don't know if I can do this, but I'm gonna try for you."

I'm so proud of you. You're doing so well. Try for you, not me.

"A-And everyone is doing well. They miss you, too. They probably tell you every time they visit." She sniffled a bit while wiping her tears.

They tell me all the time. They missed you too. I miss you too.

They sat in silence for a while, both leaning on the grave for different sides of life and death. Willow wept. Cried so hard her tears probably watered the flowers growing on her grave. They sat together and the quiet said more than enough, they conversed beyond words just as they were together beyond the grave.

"I love you."

I love you too. She screamed it, but she couldn't hear her. I love you still. Despite it all, I love you.

She leaned onto the grave. Tara knows because she felt it. Like the feeling of laying on warm sheets on cleaning day and finally get to rest. Like waking up to misshapen pancakes and apple juice. Like watching her take care of Dawnie and promise her that they would live together in a nice cottage in the countryside. Just the three of them. Happy. Content. At peace.

[shitpostsfromtheinvisiblelibrary]

10? Maybe a follow up to the one from the other day idk

When they defend you in your absence

Li Ming straightened his cufflinks.

Through the door, he could hear muffled shouting. Ao Shun had offered him the chance to return into his chambers and watch but he had declined.

He ran his thumb across the black pearls set into his cufflinks. He didn't wear them often, both a much-treasured gift from Ao Shun and very much fragile, pearls were soft and whilst they were probably replaceable, he was unwilling to even consider anything he was given by Ao Shun as something he could throw away.

Something in the other room thudded against the wall.

How entertaining.

Ao Shun had kissed his forehead and shut the door behind him, already calling out a name.

It felt strange to be on this side of the door, metaphorically that was.

He was the one protecting people. He was the one going back to deal with the issue.

It felt odd.

Even if the issue was an insult and not an assassin.

He couldn't remember anyone stepping up to fight for him, not since he was a child.

Odd but not... Entirely unpleasant.

'If you dare speak to him that way again, anyone that way, I will have you thrown from my court,' Ao Shun's eyes glowed red. 'What has given you the right to say such an insult?'

'I- I-'

'You not only insulted one of my highest ranking courtiers you have insulted me,' His nails had extended into claws. 'You suggest I debase myself and him. You pry into places you have no right to.'

'I made a mistake, Your Majesty.'

'No. I made a mistake believing that you were suitable for my court.'

'Please, give me another chance.'

'You haven't even apologised,' Ao Shun sighed. 'That would be too hard for you, wouldn't it? To admit wrongdoing?'

'I offer my deepest apologies,' His voice shook as he knelt in front of Ao Shun.

'Not to me.'

He sat in the armchair and crossed his legs, reaching for the newspaper. He had finished the crossword in the morning but there were still sodukos to do. The shouting was still going on and whilst his curiosity did want to go and see what was going on, he didn't really care that much.

Ao Shun meant well, and the shouting would probably improve his mood, but it wouldn't change anything. If one person thought him nothing more than a pet then there were likely plenty more who just had better self-control and would smile to his face and gossip behind his back. He knew how the court went, how it always went. He was rather annoyed that he had only just realised that he was the focus of such talk, how long had he been the topic over coffee without knowing?

He reached for his pen and sighed, there was blood on his sleeve still.

That wouldn't do.

Perfection. Every visible bit of him had to be perfect. People could say what they pleased but he knew that he was above them. He had earned his place in the same way that his predecessor had done, not through sordid ways. He had worked and bled for where he was. He had to be perfect, so all that they had left was baseless gossip.

His perfection would be his shield.

"I have gone to get changed," He wrote on a clear section above the crossword and left it propped up where Ao Shun would see it.

The blood had dried to a brown stain already. Nothing that he hadn't seen before and whilst he had dozens of very similar starched white shirts, he sent it down to the laundry rooms, a note pinned with an explanation that yes it is blood yes it would need hydrogen peroxide and yes he was sorry for adding to their workload.

The blood hadn't gone through his shirt but he still turned the shower on, Ao Shun had left the heat up high from that morning and he turned it all of the way down again, preferring the refreshed feeling that cold water left behind that steaming hot water just couldn't do.

'You could have waited a few more minutes,' Ao Shun said, leaning on the door frame as Li Ming wriggled out of his binder.

'There was blood on my shirt,' Clothes that were unbloodied were simply dropped into a laundry hamper. Someone would be by for that later. 'I had expected you to be longer.'

'He needed some time to decide if he was going to apologise,' Ao Shun said. 'I'll be in the study when you are finished.'

'You came in here and dont offer to join me, are you ill?'

'I am sure you will be the first to know when I find cold showers pleasant.'

'I do not wish for him to apologise,' Li Ming had left his hair loose after roughly drying it with a towel and it left a damp patch on his bright white t-shirt. 'It will only mean that he is scared of what you will do to him, not that he has any regret for his words,' Ao Shun nodded.

'I would doubt his meanings as well,' Ao Shun nodded. 'I believe that it only fair that you chose the punishment as you were the target.'

'Hm,' Li Ming smiled. 'You know, I have been trying to find a new secretary.'

'you want to spend all day with him?'

'No, but does he want to spend all day with me?

[missazura]

“Really, I’m wounded. I would hardly be the most dangerous acquaintance you’ve made over the past… oh, ten years? Is that about right? I can hardly be sure, you understand. The portfolio can only extend so far. Metaphorically speaking I’m sure I’m missing a few pages of your life story.

Perhaps I’m here specifically to torment you, seeking some sick enjoyment from your unsatisfied curiosity. If you believe the worst, maybe that will help dissuade you from embracing the fact that you clearly wanted to hear my voice.

Admit it, you enjoy the pattern. I assure you there’s no shame in it. You invite me here because you’re seeking someone who can tell you that you’re more than you believe. You’re quite like the titans in that way, perpetually attempting to prove yourself to an invisible adversary, and when that grows old you bring in one you can see. Not to say they don’t exist of course, only that you can’t see them until you do.

How about this: you guess what I’m here for, and if you’re right, you win a prize. It never hurts to foster creativity, don’t you agree?” - @sladeoftheart

i don't NEED to guess, because i know you well enough that you're ALWAYS up scheming. i would say you're looking for an apprentice again, but i figured you've had it with failed apprentices twice now. i'm sure you're a smart man- you wouldn't pull the same mistake the third time.

so my answer is that you're testing me. to see if i'm sharp enough to see through your tricks.

[kyndaris]

And Then You Wake...

Ever since watching Inception, the idea of living life in one's dreams has always held an allure for me. Especially given how vivid and complex and awe-inspiring some of my dreams have been. After all, I'm not one who usually has dreams that feel like the every day, where I'm plugging away at work or going to school only to find I've forgotten to wear pants. Rather, my dreams have always felt like elaborate films or action set pieces (the ones I remember, at least). Sometimes there will be zombies chasing after me and a group of survivors who look like my friends. Other times, a dragon might erupt from the floor of my preschool.

I ask you, dear readers, who wouldn't want to explore that kind of fantastical world over the mundane boring real world?

In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, after being struck by lightning in the middle of a storm, Link washes up on the shores of Koholint Island. What he doesn't initially know, although he will later find out, is that Koholint exists only as the dream of the mythical Wind Fish. It's an illusory land filled with people and monsters and nightmares, along with references to the Mario games.

While some might argue Link's actions heinous as he strives to leave the island by waking the Wind Fish because to do so would destroy a living breathing world, I believe Link's actions are no worse than what we do in our fictional video games. For, no matter how real something can feel or seem, in the end, Marin and the villagers we meet are only figments of another's imagination. They aren't real. At least, not in the way most would understand.

I'm sure you've heard the argument before. Especially when one grows attached to a set of programmed pixels. In my head I know Garrus Vakkarian wouldn't look twice at me and that he's a fictional alien, but it doesn't stop me from fantasising over the best way to get him to fall for my Commander Shepard.

The same could be extended to characters in television shows and movies. The time we spent with them can feel as real as spending time with actual friends, but in the end, they're not actually a living breathing flesh human you could possibly bump into on the street. Yes, you might bump into the actor who plays them but an actor could be miles different from the character you've come to know and love.

On that note, just because something isn't real doesn't mean our connection with them isn't. As the Wind Fish says, though no-one else will ever encounter Koholint Island after it's gone, it lives on in Link's memory and the gamers who played the game.

It's a bit like grief and losing someone close to you. In fact, it's the perfect allegory/ metaphor.

They might be gone in the physical sense but they will always be with you in spirit. As long as you cling to those precious memories of who they once were and dream of the possibility of who they could be.

Now if you feel like someone has been cutting onions close to you, wipe away those tears for I need to get started proper on my impression on Link's Awakening.

Eschewing the very popular Tears of the Kingdom, I chose to use the back portion of 2023 to catch up on a few of the games I missed earlier in the Switch's life cycle in order to free up some storage on my limited storage space. 128GB is simply not enough. Heck, even the 700GB my PlayStation 5 internal storage isn't enough for all the games I want to play when every new game trends towards 100 GB upon disc install.

But I also wanted to play Link's Awakening because it was a Zelda game I have yet to play. And because it was also nice and short and I could use it as a palate cleanser from the very lengthy Fire Emblem: Engage. Plus, you know, the claymation style also tickled my fancy.

From the moment Link awoke, I was on my way gathering up all the necessary things I'd need to wake the Wind Fish and to explore Koholint Island. Along the way, I encountered nightmares trying to prevent the Wind Fish from waking, along with the occasional meta fourth wall breaks from the denizens of the world.

Over the course of the time I spent with the game, I managed to collect all of the heart containers, upgrades for my weapons and fish up Cheep Cheeps and Ol' Baron.

Unlike the sprawling open worlds that have come to dominate the wider video game landscape, Link's Awakening was downright compact, even as I occasionally backtracked because I missed a Secret Shell or unlocked a new way to reach a heart container. The world felt alive in a way so many open-world games lack because of the forethought when it came to item placement and the construction of the world.

From a gameplay perspective, Link's Awakening follows a tried and true formula of unlocking specific items that help you in the following boss battle, which in turn allows Link to explore the rest of the island as new routes open up.

Given how short the game is, it helps gate certain content while also leaving players salivating for what might come next. I know I was always keen to see where Link would be directed to go next and how the new tools in his arsenal would help him solve the problems placed before him.

Special mention, though, needs to be placed on the Roc Feather, which allowed Link to jump. Oh, and the grapple hook. Those were some of the most useful tools in Link's arsenal and in most situations, they were the two items I kept equipped unless I faced an enemy that needed a different approach.

While some puzzles and dungeons could be a little obtuse, especially the latter ones, I didn't find myself too aggrieved. After all, in the day of the internet, it's easier to find the path I need to go to unlock the next path forward before putting my phone down to enjoy the game as is.

Still, a hint system wouldn't hurt on the odd occasion when the going gets tough. Especially when it came to figuring out how the horse chess pieces worked.

As for story, well, there's not much to say. There's no real threat beyond the nightmares preventing the Wind Fish, and by extension Link, from awakening. Indeed, their actions are only confined to the dungeons they're located in and are only exacerbated by Link's attempt to get off the island to, no doubt, rescue Princess Zelda in some part of Hyrule.

There's no underlying subplot waiting to be uncovered.

Link's objective is clear. Wake the Wind Fish. Get off Koholint Island.

And once he's completed it, the game ends.

There is much that could be said of the minimal plot but it serves its purpose to keep the players plodding along. While the reveal that Koholint Island is only a dream might offer up a dilemma to players', Link, for his part, keeps on pressing on.

But as with all stories, be they video games, books and dreams, there always comes an end. If anything, Link's Awakening only serves to make it clear that although something may end, they can remain with us for as long as wish. Certainly, the creation of fanfiction is one such way. And even now when I look back on a wonderful, they all serve as a means to keeping Koholint Island alive although my time with it has gone, vanishing into the swirling mists of the subconsciousness as I rise to the surface and wake.

[uniquevocashark]

Mild nsfw, lady d x oc, happy 2023!

The night was tender, in the way that a liver is tender and the way that bruised skin is tender; ripe for a gentle, sharp poke. And, if Igraine were to extend the metaphor, then the parlor room, set in several layers of disarray, would be the broken capillaries under the tender skin or the blood still leaking in the soft inner meat of the liver. That would, she supposed, make her the white blood cell, busily repairing the mess. She had been accompanied early in the night, and one by one, she had sent her girls away. And now there was only her, half a messy parlor, and the open windows that ensured her relative solitude.

But why would she be so lucky, when Miranda was in the castle?

"Igraine, how unexpected."

She set the tray of uneaten foods down and stood with her hands loose and easy by her sides, "Mother Miranda."

Miranda could wear whatever clothes she wanted, but she stayed in her simple black shift, accessorised with the sun, the stars and the moon arranged around her halo. "You seem well."

Her jewellery was silver instead of gold, "The new year is rejuvenating."

"That is good to hear."

Miranda hummed, and Igraine tilted her head, looking sidelong before resting her hands on her hips, "What, precisely, are you hoping to squeeze out this time?"

"Temper." Miranda's smiles were supercilious but her paper thin smirk rumbled with a good humour that Igraine had no desire to join in with. Miranda stroked her face, the left side from jaw to temple and back again, as if she were a tamer and Igraine a horse.

"I disagree."

"Is it so hard to believe that I am inquiring on your health because you are my underling?"

"Yes," Igraine said slowly, "You aren't here for me, after all."

Her talons dig in, "Tell Alcina I'm in the usual place," her shift changed, from simple black to effortless silk, bunching and falling delicately to reveal novelly unblemished shoulders and her now clear coloured lips pressed a soft yet burning kiss to Igraine's temple. "I'm sure she'll be along."

It's dangerous to think around Miranda, Igraine consoles herself, watching the matriarch of the entire region frolick through the room and out the door. Because Miranda can read thoughts, especially those attached to her megamycete, and one can never tell quite which thoughts are yours and which she has given, wrapped in familiar comforting words.

So maybe it is her own longing to see her Mistress, who has been absent for a month at least from her, that compels her to continue her clean up effort. Or maybe it is Miranda's, knowing that Alcina would arrive in the parlor, and leaving her little breadcrumb trail in Igraine's hands and head.

There are cakes in the food left uneaten, of all varieties; red velvet, real vanilla, chocolate, mint, carrot, pumpkin, pistachio, almond. Igraine is simple, and hungry, and eats the red velvet and chocolate slices that happen to brush against her fingertips and she is in one such simple and base moment, a red velvet cake between her teeth and her arms loaded with a tray stacked plate on plate with all manner of meat delicacies, when Lady Dimitrescu enters the parlor.

Igraine didn't serve at the event in the parlor, or at the preparation, or the organising. Lady Dimitrescu's crimson ensemble is enough to bring a touch of crimson to her cheeks from first glance that only deepens as she straightens and their eyes meet. There's mirth there, and anger, and lust. A lust that settles on Igraine like a warm, heated blanket, pressing onto every pore; Lady Dimitrescu's emotions cannot be contained, refuse to be. Like a cloud of feeling, she can whip a group into ardent fervour by the raise of her eyebrow alone and the burn of her mood.

And why, in her perfection, wouldn't she?

But there is also more to it than just her natural charisma, she is sure. Her Lady is in her winter solstice attire, made just this year, rich burgundy with a golden trim. And there are patterns too, Igraine is sure, but they are obscured in the gentle moonlight that she has been working by. They are reduced to simple dark shades and equally dark shapes playing across the muscle of Lady Dimitrescu's legs and her soft round belly.

The dress retains the mermaid shape of her causal attire but her collar opens down to her abdomen, framed with short and soft embroidery. Her skin, too, has been coloured; the small refined hairs that trail from her sternum to her belly button are powdered delicately with white, bouncing free of their makeup prison. Igraine cannot make out the colour of her skin, but in the candle she holds, her skin is a hue of glowing golden orange.

By now, Igraine has hefted her burden from the table into her hands, and, stunned, remains frozen in the middle of the room, between a chaise and the wall.

"Madame." She greets, and her voice is more breathless than she can help.

"Say my name."

"Yes, Lady Dimitrescu." She bows, improperly, but her Lady doesn't seem to notice.

She steps further into the room, smelling of earthy musk, so strong as to dim even the smell of forgotten sweets and once fresh meat. Her cheeks burn to a fresh pink but Lady Dimitrescu is placid; her expression is blank with only a tinge of vague disdain. Her breathing is uneven, loud as a bellows, and her steps, though measured, are uneven. Igraine looks down and Lady Dimitrescu looks down at her in turn.

"Why are you here?"

"I am cleaning, Madame."

"Why."

Her eyes flicker to the edge of her burgundy skirt, "The parlor needs cleaning."

"I have other maids for that."

Igraine looks up, not in fear but anger, and she is sure that her eyes spark to blood orange when her temper suddenly rises and then banks, "Miranda was here."

Lady Dimitrescu takes a long breath, and her head tilts to the other door. "She was."

She takes a step closer, and Igraine takes a step back. "She said you would understand," Igraine murmurs, stepping away, and Lady Dimitrescu steps closer, "that she would be in the 'usual place'."

Another step away, another step forward.

"Did she?"

"She did, Lady Dimitrescu."

"And," A step, "I am sure," another step, "she said nothing else."

"She did not, Lady Dimitrescu." Igraine held her tray tighter and stepped away until her back hit the wall. There was no reason to think it would change a thing; instead of scooping her off the floor, Lady Dimitrescu loomed over her, her arm on the wall and her free hand twirling Igraine's hair around a finger.

"No?"

Igraine cleared her throat, "Why waste the effort?"

Lady Dimitrescu snorted and Igraine kept her hands glued firmly to the tray handles. She tilted her head, Lady Dimitrescu's fingers brushed her cheek and there was the unmistakable headiness of her arousal; Lady Dimitrescu's eyes were a pool of inky black spread taut over gold and Igraine's, contacts abandoned, were orange layered over orange, spread like icing on a cake. She turned her face into Alcina's palm, sliding her feet apart just a smidgen.

"Neither should you." Igraine murmured, shifting the tray lower, so it sat with the sides digging into the tops of her hip bones.

"I suppose not."

Her lips quirked upwards, "And yet..."

Alcina grinned, red lips blossoming in her white painted face, her gaze as burning as a hot poker over burning coals, "Do you have a point?"

"Not at all."

"You've spent too much time around Miranda," She cupped Igraine's face roughly, stretching Igraine's neck up just so, sliding her palm comfortably between her chin and collarbone, "Always circling the point."

Igraine licked her lips, clinging to cold metal, and Alcina squeezed the next words put of existence before she could put them together.

"You should know better." Alcina's nail dug into her chin and forced her to look up, to the soft parted lips and fangs of her mistress.

"Yes, Madame."

Alcina's nose pressed into her cheek, and she forced Igraine's chin higher until she could press her cheek against the meat that connected Igraine's shoulder to her neck. Her breath is loud, unusually so, and Igraine is sure she's turned red as her mind wheels through a the possible reasons why. A minute stretches into ten; strangled by her sudden feverish skin, Igraine sighs out propriety and breathes in ragged want.

Alcina kissed her, not her lips but the dipples that interrupted the smooth lines of her cheek, dousing the entire cheek in a dark red print. It was a long and indulgent set; not one but many kisses, the main long touch and then a series of lighter, sticky pecks on her skin that ended at her temple just under the kiss Miranda had given her.

"Mind yourself." Alcina chided when Igraine turned to face her, head tilted for a kiss. Her lips pursed gently but Alcina did nothing, her hand settling on Igraine's waist and holding her still.

Alcina, prideful and bold, kissed over Miranda's mark, and Igraine shuddered softly. And then she was alone, Lady Dimitrescu was gone and all that lingered of her was the heady scent of her and her eyes, dark and dilated, and so very wanting.

[mendedserpent]

im a big believer in calling ur shots early, often, and with 100% confidence. anyways I know what fetch's magic power is.

In the author interview in the back of The Last Smile in Sunder City (LSISC), Luke Arnold discusses the worldbuilding in his novels, writing that "This world is built for [Fetch], and the most important part of the worldbuilding is how perfectly it can reflect his inner struggles and challenge his ideas." This establishes something of a metatextual (sorry) link between the series' structure/worldbuilding and Fetch's psychology. All of which is to say that if Fetch does, as One Foot in the Fade (OFITF) heavily implies, have some sort of magic power, it wouldn't be random — it would be something connected to who he is as a character. And as the #1 time loop stan on god's green earth, I'd like to submit that I think Fetch has the ability to travel in time, and has had this ability for the whole series/his whole life without realizing it.

There are callbacks to events which take place prior to the start of LSISC throughout the novel, but there are four main extended flashbacks, each of which correspond to a tattoo on Fetch's arm. Each of these is written in italics. In the fourth and final pre-Coda flashback, Fetch recounts how he got his injury and his role in the Coda itself. Immediately after his injury, Fetch finds a child, and Arnold writes that "She looked from the body, to me, and... I was under our house... The killer came right past me, panting and dripping with blood... The next thing I remember, the child was in my arms." (italics original) Within the diegesis (sorry) of the story one could take this either as Fetch remembering a moment from his past or having a flashback of sorts. But what if it was something far more literal? What if, in that moment, he really went somewhere else? One could even argue that the extended flashbacks themselves are not nightmares, but also instances of time travel. I'm not going to do that here, but again, you could.

Lastly, I want to draw attention to a key scene in OFITF where Khay touches Fetch during the final battle, an act which has sometimes resulted in post-Coda magical creatures regaining some version of their powers. When Khay does this, Fetch has another memory/flashback: "I'm a child again, approaching the walls of Weatherly. But It's different." (italics original) Like his dreams, this portion is in italics. Like his memory during the Coda, this memory occurs immediately after a life-threatening injury. So, what if this wasn't a memory, but rather something that Fetch was experiencing in real time? What if, again, he went somewhere else? It is admittedly ambiguous as to if this is something Fetch actually witnessed and forgot or if he's seeing it for the first time, but regardless he is jumping to a different location in space and, presumably, time — either literally or metaphorically.

Regardless, I think that the best possible version of the Fetch-is-magical twist is one wherein his power or magical quality is something we've already witnessed, and simply assumed was normal or at least normal for him. Thus, I humbly submit to you all: Time Travel.

TL;DR: Ha Ha What If Fetch Had Time Travel Powers JK JK Unless Dot Dot Dot

[leetamaybe-blog]

I fired my therapist after a single session and I need to talk about it.... Here's a non-comprehensive list of her red flags from the pre-screening:

CW: ED mention

1. She asked if I had an ED and I said not really (I was in highschool in 2009, nobody got out unscathed) and she said "Of course you don't, I can tell by looking at you, you're a normal weight!"

2. She asked how my relationship with my partner was and I told her we'd been together 10 years and we'd just gotten married a few months ago. She said, "oh, no I mean like, out of 10" I says, "Oh, then probably a 10/10, things are going really well for us" And she said, "Well of course you'd say that, all newlyweds would say they're a 10"

3. She asked my pronouns and I said "Any, actually" and she said "I KNOW, right?? Who can keep track?"

4. I told her I really struggle to make friends and I was hoping to build some skills to make that easier for me, and she said "You wanna make friends? I can teach you that." With SO much confidence and 0 follow up questions. Like, girl, maybe I struggle to make friends because I keep murdering people, you. don't. know!

5. I tell her I can't do breathing exercises because they give me panic attacks immediately. I can take deep breaths, but as soon as I'm counting or keeping track of anything, I'm on the floor sobbing and hyperventilating, idk why. I cite examples from my life where this happened. She IMMEDIATELY started to describe a breathing exercise, but paused every few sentences to say "but you don't have to do this, obviously" Like, girl, it's just you and me on this zoom call, either you didn't believe me and respect my boundary, or you really get off on describing breathing exercises

6. Her resume included a bunch of therapy categories that I was interested in--but also CBT, which I've tried and found incredibly frustrating, confusing, and ineffective. I told her I wasn't interested in receiving CBT therapy and listed the therapies on her resume that I DID want to try. She went into a 5 minute speech on "priding [herself] on offering a diverse selection of therapy options" and then started defending CBT as the most effective possible option for everyone. I tell her, no, that doesn't work for me, and she just doubles down, talking for over 10 minutes on an extended metaphor about her and her husband

7. The extended metaphor from (6.) is about how she startles easily and her husband accidentally startles her all the time. She says she needs CBT to not be mad at him when he does it. (The 'false negative core belief' is apparently "AAAHH!" And the 'replacement belief' is apparently "Oh, it's just my husband")

After that, I don't think she knows what CBT is, and I realize I wouldn't trust her advice on coffee mug brand, let alone my own mental health and sense of self. So I say "I don't feel like you're hearing me, I don't think this is going to work, please don't schedule another appointment." And end the Zoom call. But THEN:

8. She texts me to say that she recommends inpatient for my "extreme anxiety" All I'd told her is that I had anxiety, plus medical stuff that raises my heart rate when I'm not anxious.

I'm so angry that this person can call themselves a therapist. I'm so tired of looking for those proverbial 'good therapists' that you 'just gotta find' and then they'll 'help so much, I swear'.

I filtered out so many nutjobs from psychology today, I carefully selected someone with (alleged) experience in a type of therapy I wanted. This partial session cost me about $300 out of pocket. I literally cannot afford to keep looking.

[beerecordings]

The Fish

He's a fish in pollution, pushing up the sand with his snout.

“Hi, honey,” calls Jackie from the kitchen. He only uses pet names when he's upset.

“Hi,” he answers softly, closing the door behind him.

He's a fish with big, ugly golden eyes, the little black pinpricks frozen in amber, surveying the murky water around it with its stupid fish mouth hanging open like a dead thing.

“How was work?”

“Fine.”

“Good, good... you work so hard, I'm proud of you, doc...”

He's a fish and it's heavy and hard to swim. He hears Jackie playing with some papers through the water pressing down on him.

“What is it today, Jackie?”

“Hm? Oh, this – don't worry about this, sweetie, I've got it handled... I'll just... just need to... I've got it handled, yeah...”

He drifts away again, deep enough in his head that he doesn't look up when Henrik comes to stand beside him in the kitchen, staring at him. He's a fish, sure, but Jackie is just a bird who can't find somewhere to land. He's been flying for months. His wings must ache. Henrik touches his back and presses the pad of his thumb against the knuckles of Jackie's spine, hard, just for a moment. Jackie doesn't notice. His blue bird's eyes are far-sighted and he can only see parts of the documents in front of him, something about Jameson's therapy or the rent or police reports on strange glitches in the government computer system two countries over.

“Jackie,” says Henrik softly.

But Jackie doesn't hear him, cause nobody's listening to the way that fish bubble and pant when they can't find anything they need in the reeds, and the tide keeps dragging hiding places farther and farther away. The water's getting lower and damn but the sun burns a painful glow against his scales through the clear, loveless waves. But Jackie is just an albatross, and they're not swimming in the same tides anymore. His brother rocks on unsteady winds, his feathers ruffled and oil-heavy and his muscles straining, catching glimpses of Henrik in the silver water below, unable to help him til he finds somewhere to land, and Jackie can never find anywhere to land these days. Jackie can never, never, never find anywhere to put his head down and rest these days. Albatrosses don't have it much easier than the fish the sailors scoop up. Sometimes the sailors shoot them down too, and then, in fear of bad luck, the other sailors take the dead body of the bird and tie it around the killer's throat, so he gets nothing to drink but the blood of the albatross around his neck for days and days and days, but at least the bird is sleeping then. It's an old legend. Jackie is just rocking above it. He wouldn't be able to stop anybody from shooting him down. He wouldn't be able to stop anybody from scooping Henrik up. He probably wouldn't even notice, and that would only make the wind harsher, and the bird would find a way to cry even though birds don't really do that. This one does.

“Work so hard,” he repeats lovingly, still not looking up, still barely noticing that Henrik is beside him. There's a line of pale sweat along his hair. “I do love you, Schneep, I'm so proud... glad you're doing better these days, little brother, little brother...”

Henrik fills up a glass of water and puts it beside his hand before heading up the stairs. Jackie hunches over the paper in the kitchen. The lights aren't on and he can't find his glasses.

“Hey,” Henrik whispers, peering into Chase's room. “You awake?”

Chase jolts up on his bed, hair everywhere. “Hey? I'm awake, I'm awake!”

Henrik chuckles. “I can see that.”

“Aw, Schneep, it's so early! Eight A.M.? Ahhh, you woke me up...”

Henrik's chest rumbles merrily and he jumps onto Chase's mattress to make it bounce, drawing a low groan of protest out of his little brother.

“What, what?” teases Schneep, getting up to press Chase back into the bed, digging his fingers into his ribs. “Dumb-ass, were you sleeping?”

Chase laughs and pushes him off the bed, dumping Henrik onto his ass.

“So mean! Asshole, I was up til four editing!”

“You're nocturnal,” says Henrik, shoving his feet away from him as they come to hang off the bed. “Raccoon man.”

Chase grins slowly at him, his mischief mouth filling up with the joy of it, and Henrik is grateful for him. A shiver runs down his whole body as comforting fingers come down to massage at the back of his throat, warm and reassuring. Long raccoon claws stroke across Henrik's flesh without judgment or fear. Chase is a scavenger, it's true, and nothing scares or disgusts him anymore. He's been in the garbage himself enough times to shrug all the bullshit off. What's the smell of sterile hospital bandages and blood to a raccoon? Forget about it and share whatever comfort you can find with me. The smell of sweaty sleep clings to him. Chase tugs teasingly at his hair and then lets him go, sliding to the ground beside him.

“Did you wake me up for something?”

Henrik stares at him, wondering if he'd even hear if he said something.

“Schneep? Hard day at work?”

“Just a little,” he answers. “But I just wanted to see if you knew where Jamie was. He's not in his room.”

“Think he fell asleep in my closet again, yeah. Poor little buddy all frantic last night. Just needed a place to hide.”

Chase's tiny walk-in is stuffed with pillows and blankets and toys these days. Henrik gets up and opens the door gently. The wood finds tucked-in legs quickly and Henrik tries to slip into the closet without waking his little brother too abruptly, but the slightest change in environment has awoken every one of Jameson's fine senses, and his eyes flash open, glittering in the darkness. He leaps to his knees and curls back against the wall of the closet, swirling into himself, clutching his knife in one hand and his sock puppet in the other. Chase's daughter gave it to him because she said she didn't like it anymore, but Uncle Jameson might. She had said this as she sat down abruptly in his lap, and Jameson had flinched so hard Chase shouted, sure that Izzy was about to be slapped or shoved off. Jameson had just gone stiff and allowed his niece to slump back cheerfully against his chest. Chase heaved this huge sigh of relief and come over to pat Jameson's head, and Izzy had held his scarred white hands and pressed the sock puppet into them, and Jameson accepted it.

Jameson growls an exhale of air at him, one of the two warning noises he's capable of making. Henrik holds his hands out and crouches gently down to his level, murmuring his name. Jameson relaxes. He's smart and he knows a friendly face even when he's spooked. Henrik reaches out to brush his fingers through the long hair growing towards the back of his neck and Jameson sighs, closing his eyes, letting his head drift back against his hand.

“Poor tired bud,” says Henrik.

“He was playing all violent with his toys again,” reports Chase dutifully, getting up and grabbing the first shirt he sees from above Henrik's head, stripping his sleep shirt off and changing right there, heading back towards his drawers for boxers and pants. “Trying to tear that one stuffed cat up. He hates the fucking thing but he'll never let me take it from him.”

Jamie whines wearily and goes pawing for the cat in the darkness, reaching around until Henrik finds it and presses it into his hand. He's lived most of his life the way that fighting dogs do, tied up and beat til it made him violent and agonized, and even now he has to have something to bite. He doesn't mean to. He just gets upset. He bit Marvin once, dog's teeth digging into venison. The shock on his face was almost funny, but the despair in Jameson's was not.

Jameson buries his face in the cat stuffy and huffs distressed air out, pulling at his clothes. The small box of the closet is a comforting cage but he never feels safe.

“It's okay, puppy,” soothes Chase.

“Don't call him that,” snaps Henrik.

“Well, it calms him down.”

“I don't care, you're not Anti, don't call him puppy.”

“Is everything okay, Schneep?”

He's just a fish. His big mouth gapes open. He's stupid and ugly and he can't breathe air.

“Fine,” he says, and pulls Jameson in for a hug. Jamie whimpers again and puts his chin down on his shoulder. His teeth are very close to Henrik's face, but he knows that he won't bite. He's trying his best. Dogs shouldn't be treated the way he was treated, people even less so. Raccoon fingers come to stroke at the back of Jameson's head. They are a warm mismatched family in the darkness. Jameson's back gets wet with tears, but he doesn't say anything about it, and Chase, no matter how well his eyes see in the dark, does not notice.

“I lost my job,” says Henrik three days later at the kitchen table.

An abrupt silence pierces the table the same way his knife is piercing chicken cordon bleu. Fish, as it turns out, will eat just about anything. He saws at his chicken, his pinprick eyes fascinated by the thin yellow flesh sliding off it as he tears.

He sticks a piece of chicken in his mouth and chews.

“At the hospital?” asks Jackie. “You lost your job at the hospital? With Nadia, with the boss that you liked?”

“She's the hospital coordinator,” says Henrik.

“But it wasn't her decision.” Jackie's talons are grasping at straws. Henrik's surprised he's even managed to get this close to the water where he's swimming. He feels the little silver fish turn its golden eyes up to see the bird, but it's barely staying in the air and its presence is no longer comforting like it once was. He wonders if one day the albatross will just crash into the water with him, and he'll be the one trying to keep its head up while it drowns. “She wouldn't do that to you. She's the one who worked with you. Let you have two whole months to have a break, go to therapy... she wouldn't do that to you.”

“She did what she felt she had to,” says Henrik softly. “I'm a liability.”

“Hold everything, slow down, slow down,” demands Marvin beside him, and he feels his big brother's hand come to press down on his thigh, squeezing to make sure he's still there, in one piece, beside him. “Schneep, tell us what happened.”

Henrik glances over shyly. Marvin's eyes used to be blue, but these days Henrik thinks they're a deep, dopey brown, warm but shy, prey's eyes. Always trying to figure everything out, all careful, all timid, trying to find all the answers to make anything make sense to him anymore. But nothing ever does, so Marvin keeps hiding in the trees. The cat mask is a joke and Henrik knows it. Marvin is a deer.

“They can't just fire you!” spits Chase, furious on the other side of the table, his face turning red with grief. Henrik imagines grey and black fur all puffed up. “That's discrimination because of your disability! It's illegal!”

“I can't do my job anymore.” Henrik shrugs his shoulders. Shakes his head. He can't cry over it anymore. The last three days have had too many tears already. “My hands... most surgeons are done by the time they're forty, fifty, maybe. I just took an extra ten years early. Anti took an extra ten years early.”

Everyone is staring at him. Everyone is staring at the gaps in his scales. Everyone is staring at the fish-hook jammed down his throat. Everyone is staring at his shaking fins. He wants to be sick. Can fish vomit?

“You had a bad episode or something at work?” asks Marvin frailly. Yeah, that's a deer, a deer sitting next to him, using its hooves to pick at its food. The image almost makes him laugh in Marvin's elongated face. Henrik thinks he used to be something else, maybe a lion or a bird of paradise, but these days – nah, Henrik can see the spots along his legs and the antlers, getting loose the closer winter gets. His brother is a deer these days and he just wants to run away to the forest and hide for the rest of his life. He hasn't touched his chicken, just nibbled at the carrots Chase cooked to go along with them.

“Yeah,” says Henrik. “Yeah. In the middle of a surgery. Open heart. The blood all turned so much redder than it had been... and I was just a fish in the Nile when the water changed, you know, I was just... couldn't take it all of a sudden. Took my instruments right out of the body and tore my mask off and threw up in the trash can. All the nurses looking at me. Sick of dealing with my breakdowns. They called another doctor up at four in the morning and he came in and finished it. Then Nadia takes me back to her office... not even sorry, you know, put on her tough coordinator act, or maybe it wasn't an act, and she was sick of me too... They gave me a fair chance. All the accommodations they could. Let me have my nice long break. I just can't do it anymore. I can't. I'm not a doctor now.”

He is getting up from the table before he's registered his own actions, his eyes burning. Chase is talking too loud about how she can't do that, you love your job, you're so good at what you do, and Marvin is reaching out for his hand like he's offering half of his sugar cube to bring him to sit back down, while Jackie just stares at his plate, far-sighted, far-sighted and lost. Henrik tears away from Marvin's fingers and swims towards the stairs, panting water and blood, exhausted, distressed, pushed endlessly back by the waves. He hears the small chirping barks of Jameson clicking his tongue after him and he's grateful that the little one is, for once, clear-headed, but he isn't about to turn around. Too many eyes. Too many eyes and too many open bodies, and he's just a fish, a fish swimming up against the tide, and soon he'll be a dead fish, cause even though his therapist tells him shortened life outlook is a symptom of his PTSD, he's felt enough lives drain away beneath his hands to sense when sailors are opening up their nets, and there's nobody left in the water beside him. Just deer and raccoons trying to stay in the shade on the shore, and birds too exhausted to keep flying, lost above the water.

And one lone pitbull swimming out into the ocean after him.

He wakes up that night to movement in his bed.

“Drunk again?” he mumbles. “What?”

Someone blows air on his face.

Henrik startles, pushing at the body above his own, shoving its shoulders away. “Chase! Oh.”

It's not Chase. Jamie rubs at his slim shoulders in mock protest, screwing up his face all sweet and offended.

“Ow, ow,” whine his hands, and he flops dramatically back onto the bed. “Mean doctor.”

Henrik snorts despite himself and shoves him with his foot before getting up to crawl over him. “Little terror,” he signs back, grabbing his hands and pulling him sitting up. He fits Jameson's chin in his hands and tilts his face from side-to-side. Jameson, all too used to examinations, lets himself be turned about, gazing at the ceiling.

“Your color's up a little. Feeling clear tonight, then?”

“Feel quite alright. Back and forth a little. Ping pong ball.”

Henrik chuckles, putting a hand on his own forehead as he feels the exhaustion swimming back towards him. He sinks back against his headboard, drawing his blankets around him.

“You scared me jumping on me like that,” mumbles Henrik, reaching out to touch his arm. He's maybe a black and white pittie, Henrik thinks. Nice dogs, really. Just got a bad reputation. Just got used for bad things. Nice blue eyes. Clever, friendly breed, a lot smarter than fish, and a lot tougher, too. Henrik halfway expects Jameson to dart forward and lick his face. They'd have to have another conversation about boundaries. Maybe if Henrik used German Jamie would understand him better.

His little brother breathes out a happy little sigh and flops onto the bed beside him, clutching Marvin's laptop to his chest as he gets comfortable.

“Well, make yourself at home,” grumbles Henrik, trying not to be endeared. “Little terror. What are you doing, anyway? I thought you'd been sleeping in Chase's closet.”

Jameson's mouth turns down. He pauses, shrugs, holds up a hand. “Drunk.”

“Ah, fuck,” sighs Henrik, glancing at the door. “He scare you?”

“Loud,” says Jameson.

“At least he's home.”

Jameson nods. Forgiving. One of a myriad of jumbled traits Henrik's noticed on him in the five weeks since he came home to them.

He wishes there was nothing to forgive. He wishes they had made a better home for him.

“Hey, pet me,” Jameson insists, sitting up and leaning over him. Henrik pushes him gently back down.

“Hey, what we did say about this word –  'pet?'”

Jameson simpers wearily, squirming unhappily, but he doesn't whine at all today. Henrik knows how hard he's trying to get this all right. He never wanted to be anybody's dog and he wants to be alright now. Henrik sees it in him, moment to moment, in the moments when the short, barking signs turn into sudden eloquence, when he gets stuck staring out the window and his eyes go distant, when he watches, careful, the way that everybody else speaks and acts and goes about their day, trying to recreate the understanding that once existed in his head – how to be, if not normal, then at least functionally typical. Trying to remember all the rules that come naturally to everybody else.

“I'm sorry,” says Jameson clearly. “No demand. No pet. Would you hold me for a little while, Henrik?”

Henrik's heart pangs at the carefully selected little sign name – healing. H. H-healing. Henrik. Smooth and sliding. He shivers. Not much of a healer now.

But he can hold him, at least.

He lets Jameson settle down on his chest and wraps his arms around him, rubbing his back through the smooth fabric of his big blue sleep shirt. Jameson sighs, delighted, and puts Marvin's computer on Henrik's stomach, hitting play on a video.

Henrik drifts sleepily on his pillow while soft music plays from a demonstration of a man making a big boat sculpture entirely out of chocolate. He feels Jamie pat his stomach eagerly a couple times, when the man does something really clever, like molding a little crest for the head of the ship or getting out the edible spray-paint.

Shouting echoes up from downstairs and Jameson stills.

“You just don't want to admit there's something wrong with him – ”

“Don't you dare say that!”

“Neurologically wrong, Marvin, he needs to see a specialist!”

“He likes the lady he has right now, we are not moving him around anymore! You know how hard it is for him to trust anybody! His brain is fine, Jackie, he's just traumatized! Why is that so hard for you to grasp?”

Henrik rubs at his face, exhausted.

“How about I will grab you headphones, Jameson?” His voice is a fish croak. He feels sticky purple blood on his chest.

JJ shakes his head, staring at his video. The man is adding an octopus to the top of the ship. A big chocolate octopus. Do octopus eat fish? Henrik can't remember. Squid do, don't they? Probably octopuses are just the same.

“This,” says Jameson, pointing at the video. “Want to do this.”

Henrik pauses, glancing between him and the big chocolate octopus. “What – make chocolate?”

Jameson digs his chin into Henrik's chest, humming airily. “Carve. Carve things. But not... sometimes with Anti we... but I don't mean like that. I like how someone can take a dead piece of wood or a big, melty slab of chocolate, and then turn it into something so intricate and lovely. Who doesn't want an octopus sculpture? A chocolate octopus sculpture! Tearing the boat apart like that. No more sailors.”

“I don't understand why now, of all times, you want to get into this!” Jackie sounds close to tears. No where to land. It's storming out. “And now poor fucking Schneep is out of a job, and what the hell is he going to do? He loved being a surgeon better than anything and he's probably upstairs right now hurting, with nobody to comfort him, but you want to get into a fucking fight?”

“You never listen to me unless we're yelling!” He only says it because he's afraid. Henrik can hear his deer's feet retreating away from Jackie. Marvin made timid... who would have thought he'd see the day? “Besides, let's not pretend you have the first idea how to comfort Henrik anymore!”

“Well, at least I don't avoid everyone in the whole goddamn house!”

“That is not what's happening!”

“Oh, please – ”

“Never listen to me at all – ”

“You're the one who doesn't ever work with me!”

“Don't trust me with any of the problems in the house anymore!”

“I'm not the problem here – ”

“Everything is falling apart and you – ”

Something flames like a coal fire in Henrik's chest. Suddenly he is crying, covering his ears with his hands, wrapping his body tighter around Jameson's, still rubbing, gentle, at his soft back, clutching his brother to his chest, sobbing on his bed at one in the morning, because nothing is right, and nothing is going to be right, and he's tired of being alive.

Jameson picks softly at his beard, scratching his fingers through it. Someone is throwing up in the bathroom across the hall.

“Why will nothing get better, Jamie?” His golden, pinprick eyes are weeping salt into the great black ocean around him. He is limp on the waves that throw him around and around in the water, bleeding purple, ill with the motion of it, too tired to keep on, and the worst part is he knows fish are too fucking stupid to get the metaphor of any of it, and there is no less glorious death to be imagined than the dumb staring up at the sun as the corpse floats bloatedly to the surface of the ocean and the seagulls swoop down for a snack. “Why will none of this ever get any better?”

“I'm better,” say Jameson's scarred white hands. “I'm better.”

Henrik buries his face in his shoulder. He's so fucking good. What the hell did he do to deserve a friend like this? “Yeah,” he manages, frail as fish bones. “You are.”

Jameson breathes that breathy hum against his head, gone warm and still and patient in his arms. Henrik holds him closer and closer, hiding in his chest, soothed by the feel of the fabric beneath his hands. Just keep rubbing his back. Just keep rubbing his back. Just keep rubbing his back. Soft and steady across his palms. Warm heartbeat beneath his fingers. Maybe Jameson didn't come in here for his own reassurance. Good dog, better man. He thinks he might be a man again too. He thinks Jameson might be holding him in the water, his head pressed against his shoulder, kicking his legs to keep them both afloat, Henrik limp in his arms as he swims. He sees them both thrown by the waves, wrapped around each other, heads down and close and steady and soaked, brothers in misery, brothers on the ocean waves, while fur and scales fall away.

Jameson draws away from him slowly. Henrik whimpers and Jameson shushes him, clutching his hand for a moment before he darts away, returning just a moment later and pressing cool wood into Henrik's hands, Henrik's shaking, tremulous, tormented hands.

“It's a fish,” Jameson tells him. “I made it for you.”

His fingers encircle the proud round body of the wooden koi. Henrik stills, sniffling, running his hands over it before it ever reaches his eyes.

The thin texture of scales fill the soft whorls of his fingerprints. A delicate curve enters his palms, moving through him, forward through his hands. Little paddles of fins interrupt the sure circle of the body, and the face, short-whiskered, unpainted, is perfectly smooth, perfectly smooth. Jameson presses it against his wrists and holds it up inside his brother's hands, so Henrik can see the softness of the wide mouth, the wise wide eyes, the calmness of it, the still water of it, the koi fish.

“Mein Gott,” whispers Henrik. “You made this yourself? With your little blade? But how did you know?”

“Know?” asks Jameson. “What did I know?”

Henrik stares between him and the fish. “Nothing,” he murmurs. “Never mind. Hell, Jamie, it's beautiful, it's really beautiful. Your hands must be steady.”

No one ever seems to hear him through the water. Sometimes he can't tell if the things he hears are reaching anyone. He runs his fingers over the indent ears of the fish. The koi can hear him. The koi did hear him. Jameson squeezes his hands.

Jackie and Marvin have, at last, had the good sense to take their argument outside, and the house is still again, leaving only the faint reverb of their braying and crying to slink its way into their home.

“It won't last long though,” murmurs Henrik. “Always another storm on the horizon. I am no longer strong enough to stand through them.”

Jameson puts his hand on his brother's heart, just for a moment, and then draws back to speak.

A wild solid thud slams through the air and they both jolt. Henrik grabs Jameson's shoulders, sitting up, staring at the door.

Chase shrieks, a sob thrashing through it, and bursts into tears on the other side of the door.

“Chase!” cries Henrik, leaping out of bed and darting into the hall. The bathroom glows gold from the cracks beneath the door and his hands are yanking it open with enough force that he busts the shitty press-in lock of the handle in one go.

Chase is wailing at his feet, hot tears coursing down his face, curled in on himself and clutching his head. Blood seeps from beneath his fingers and smears the side of the counter beneath the mirror.

Henrik falls to his knees beside him and grabs his hands away from his skull, sending Chase into writhing, rocking himself back and forth on the floor. His face has drained of all color, except the bright red of his mouth where he bites down on it.

“What happened, what happened?”

“Schneep!” he screams, trying to clutch at his head again. “F-fell, hit my head, hit my head!”

“And hard, too,” murmurs Henrik, taking his chin in his hands and pulling him closer to gaze at the burst of blood at the top of his forehead. “Chase! Why won't you stop getting so drunk you can't walk through the bathroom? Fuck, I – I can't – hell, okay, okay, Jamie, can you get me my first aid kit?”

“Where?”

“Beneath my bed, bottom left corner,” he replies, clipped and sure, stroking his thumb down Chase's cheek.

“It just hurts!” sobs Chase, rocking himself. Back and forth, back and forth. Swaying on the branches of the trees.

“You really got it at just the wrong angle.”

“Not my head,” chokes Chase, hugging his own shoulders.

Henrik's eyes sting again. “I know. I know.”

“I can't do this anymore, Schneep, fuck, I'm sorry, I can't do this, I can't go on.”

His hands scrabble for the bottle watching them from the top of the counter. In a sudden burst of fury, Henrik leaves Chase on the floor, gets to his feet, and picks the bottle up in his hand. A heavy square of poison clutched in his palm. He turns his body like a baseball player pitching and flings the bottle at the wall above the bathtub.

The glass glows and glitters as it shatters into the body of the tub, spilling cold gold alcohol all over the floor and the porcelain. Chase draws back and wraps his arms around himself, moaning as Henrik gets back to his knees beside him, breathing hard.

“Have to stop trying to do it alone,” mumbles Henrik, reaching back to get the first aid kit from Jamie.

“Henrik,” signs Jamie softly. “Shaking.”

Spasming might be more accurate. His hands flicker and rock, tremble and sway, shaking so hard he can barely clutch fists.

He shoves at the clasp of the box until it falters open, hands scrambling for butterfly bandages.

“Have to stop trying to do it alone... have to stop trying to do it on your own...”

Clean red blood wells across the ridges of Chase's fingers. Henrik shudders. He sees knives and open wounds seeping puss and he closes his eyes, panting, trying to get his fingers to pinch the bandages.

Jameson's scarred hands come down to help him hold them.

They pull Chase's hands away from his head and unfurl the first bandage. Jameson mops blood away and then moves Henrik's fingers with his own, pressing the plastic over the small, weeping cut.

Marvin and Jackie are louder through the window of the bathroom.

“Why don't you act like my friend anymore? I don't understand what's happening to you. You feel like you're a hundred miles above me, and I'm just stuck on the ground.”

“Marvin – I – I never meant to push you away...”

“Ohh, it stings, it stings,” groans Chase, pushing the heels of his palms against his face.

“We'll get it all closed up,” whispers Henrik, rubbing at his back. “Good doctor's here.”

Jameson smiles gently at him and helps to undo another bandage. He doesn't really need his help, Henrik realizes belatedly. They press a second bandaid over the cut to keep it together. Henrik sits back on his heels.

“I know you're trying to protect us... trying so hard to protect us, to take care of us, but Jackie, I just want... I just want...”

“Fuck, Marvin...”

For long minutes, Henrik rubs Chase's back and talks to him. Jameson swathes the blood away, rubs stinging disinfectant over the wound, replaces it with butterflies, and, finally, adds a great patch bandage to cover the wound. Chase has gone quiet, holding Henrik's hand, his eyes closed, his face getting its color back. Jackie and Marvin murmur outside the house.

“Garbage kid,” says Henrik.

Chase's mouth flickers fondly. “Just a raccoon man, aren't I, Schneep?”

“Some days,” agrees Henrik. “Not all. Some days you're just my Chase. Head out of the goddamn dumpster.”

“Think I need to den up for the night,” Chase mumbles. “Or I'll end up with raccoon circles on my eyes and then we'll be back at the beginning. Will you... will you help me get up?”

Jameson and Henrik grab his arms, steadying him, and together they haul him to his feet and hold his hands, leading him back towards his bedroom.

“I'm sorry I'm so dumb,” says Chase. “And I'm never what you need me to be.”

“You are what I need you to be,” says Henrik.

And Chase stares up at him like he needs more explanation, but what do you say to that? He doesn't know how to tell him the truth of it. He believes it about Chase, but not about himself, so how does he speak it out loud, and face the hypocrisy always tearing him apart?

“You don't have to be anything other than who you are,” says Jameson. “Because I don't love you because of what you provide. I don't love you because you saved me, though you did. I don't love you because you are what I expected you to be or because you do what you promised the world you could. So when you tell me you can no longer take care of me, or you are no longer allowed to look after your children, or your hands can no longer take hearts apart and put them back together, well, I'll still love you both just fine anyway.”

And there it is, tangible in the air – the wisdom often sleeping behind long months of fear and uncertainty, the intelligence, the way that love is always waiting to speak through his little brother, his warm, clever little brother, the pitbull, the man.

“I love you because love asks only for love in return. And sometimes, even then, it can wait for the day that you'll know how to love me better.”

Chase reaches up and brushes his thumb over Jameson's cheek. His little brother tilts his head softly into his palm, closing his eyes, and he trusts him, and Chase's fingers tremble to be holding that much warmth against their skin.

“I do love you,” says Chase, very low, very true. “So much. And I will, someday, love you better.”

“Better and better with each day that passes,” answers Jameson. “Besides, Henrik will smash all your bottles next time you try to get drunk anyway.”

Chase closes his eyes, laughing, and Henrik slaps Jameson's shoulder. For a moment, even as he laughs, the pain of everything flashes over Chase's face, and then it is gone again, and, situated between his brothers, he falls asleep and does not dream, except of a quiet beach, and his white feet digging into the sand of it, watching the tide recede.

Jameson leans over to kiss Henrik's head and he chuckles, pulling his little brother to his chest, not sure why he's crying.

“Wrong?” asks Jameson. “Bad, what is?”

“I don't know,” says Henrik. “Maybe nothing. Just overwhelmed.”

“Time for bed,” Jameson insists, tugging on his sleeve.

Henrik runs his eyes over him, sighing through his nose, his eyebrows raising with a challenge. “Well... what do you think about trying your own bed tonight, huh?”

A blush floods Jameson's cheeks and he looks away, biting on the nail of his thumb.

“It's okay if you're not ready,” Henrik says. “But I'd like to see you try.”

“Can't do it alone,” says Jameson. “Afraid.”

“I'll come in there and sleep with you, if you want.”

“Really?”

Henrik nods, a smile curving on his tired mouth.

Jameson plays with his hands. “Just let me get my stuffies and the lightbox.”

“Computer,” laughs Henrik. “It's a computer.” He signs it.

“Computer,” Jamie signs back exaggeratedly, rolling his eyes, and Henrik beams to see him teasing. But there's one more storm he has to ride through tonight, cause who else is going to make it all better?

“I'll just go check on Jackie and Marv,” he says, getting up. “Meet you in your room.”

“Tell 'shhhh,'” says Jameson, ducking towards Chase's closet for his kitten and finger puppets. “Loud, angry.”

“Not at you, though,” says Henrik softly, pausing in the doorway. “Not at you.”

“Yes,” answers Jameson's hands. “I know. Not even at each other.”

“Not at each other? Who were they yelling at?”

Jameson shrugs. “Go look,” he says, disappearing behind the door.

Henrik swims down the stairs, feeling his fins trail behind him. He's a fish. He's a big ugly fish. Or maybe a nice wooden koi, warm and lovely between Jameson's hands. But he's still a fish and the albatross can't reach him and the deer is hiding in the forest, because that's the way it's been for long, long months now.

He opens the door of the house.

Before the roots of the forest dig their way into the dark, steady earth, Marvin kneels in the grass, his head held up, staring at the stars.

Jackie is laid across his lap, pressed to his chest, resting in his arms.

Antlers of deer, when they come out from the trees, make nesting place for birds.

Arms of brothers make spaces for each other.

And Jackie has found a place to land.

Marvin turns, suddenly, alerted to his presence, and today, he does not turn his head away, does not duck his face down, does not retreat to the trees.

“I love you,” he mouths in the light of the moon.

Henrik smiles despite himself, alight with tears.

“I love you too,” he signs back.

“Ready for bed?”

“Almost, H-healing.”

“What are you doing?”

“Finishing my video,” says Jameson happily, reaching out for him, so brothers can sleep on the same piece of driftwood, and one day make it back to land, even if it's a very different shore from the one they were cast off from.

“Did he finish the octopus?” asks Henrik sleepily, sinking down into the bed beside him. One of Jameson's stuffies squeaks on the mattress beneath him.

“Yes,” answers Jameson. He closes the lid and lies down beside Henrik, presenting the wooden koi again, putting it on the bed between them and moving it towards their heads like it's swimming. “And then, when he was done, he squished the arms of the octopus together.”

“Did it crush the boat?”

“It crushed the boat, and it drowned all the sailors. But you know what, I think it's okay, cause they were pirates, so they probably did bad things to people and locked men up like dogs in the little box – the brig, yeah? Well, now they're gone, and they can't hurt anybody, and the ship will go down in chunks, so there's no one to hurt the fish, and they have places to hide now, when the tide is too strong and they can't swim anymore, and I bet a whole family of them can stay safe in the remains of what once was.”