#free knowledge without a shitty price

[baccaduceus]

✴️

In celebration of December 29th - 31st Disseminating Moon in Leo/ Rashi, here's the entire book pdf for the Sacred Sexuality of Ancient Egyptian Tantric Yoga.

Enjoy pleasure and lots of wine.

And if you like to do mantras with your meditation/yoga:

ॐ ह्रीं श्रीं सौः |

Om Hreeng Shreeng Sauh

Meaning- Om is regarded as the most spiritual sound in the cosmos. In Hinduism, the sound Om is considered sacred. The Hreem Beej mantra is a tribute to Goddess Bhuvaneshwari. The Shreem Beej mantra is a tribute to Mahalakshmi, the Goddess of gains. The sauh mantra translates to 'I am' and consequently concludes with it.

Benefits of chanting the Simha Rashi mantra:

This Rashi mantra helps in realising our goals and aspirations.

The Simha Rashi mantra gives us the ability to act strong during difficult times.

It helps us have control over our mind and keeps it calm.

This mantra also helps develop better leaders for the future.

Moreover, Simha Rashi mantra helps reduce risks in the field of business.

astrotalk

[lethalchiralium]

If ur taking requests can we get something like Ghost still doesnt trust fxreader at all even when they are together for like 1/2 years and she gets all sad and starts distancing herself tyxxxx

No More | Simon “Ghost” Riley x F!Reader

a/n: guys. guys i mean it keep the requests coming i love them. also : captain reader? because girlboss??? it’s kinda shitty but i love messy. gives me better control of future chapters :)

CALLSIGN: Mercy

warnings: angst, cussing, realizations and sort of heartbreak.

summary: You’ve been with Ghost for a year and a half - you allowed him into things you kept safe guarded, and realized that he has never done the same for you.

REMINDER: This is a side-blog, not my main! If you have any questions, feel free to message this blog or reblog! Reblogs are always appreciated - as well as any comments, they keep me motivated to write stuff like this!

SERIES MASTERLIST

You thought he would grow out of it. He’s an adult; given, he’s a very fucked up soldier, but an adult that has done adult things. He’s a few years shy of being in his thirties, and he doesn’t even understand the basics of having a girlfriend. He doesn’t understand a lot of things, and even though you’ve explained to him more times than you can remember, he still didn’t understand you after a year and a half of being together. Sure, you are on the same squad, you leave separately on break but always end up in the same apartment. The apartment that had framed pictures of you, your family, your dog - yet it always feels like he doesn’t give you anything.

It’s been a year and a half and the only personal thing you got out of him was a story about his brother when they were younger. You had told him countless stories of you and your childhood best friend, your single dad who fostered and adopted you. You even told him about your childhood dog who got hit by a car when he was young and still lived to be 15, about the very short memories you had of your godfather before he passed. You had told him everything, you had put your full trust into him and he hadn’t even given thought into putting an ounce of trust into you.

You couldn’t help it when you started to close yourself off - a trauma response from those years in the orphanage, then the system. You took less and less patients, eventually getting confronted by your Lieutenant, “What is going on with you, Captain?” You had given them a half-assed answer, “Got a lot of papers to go through from Price. It won’t be a long time.” And you kept yourself locked in your office, looking over case files and possible missions you could go on to escape this. Escape the feeling that has been gnawing at your soul since the last time you left your apartment with him three months ago. The feeling of distrust, of emotional abandonment.

You didn’t stop your tears when they came every night after Ghost had visited, but you never cried in front of him. You figured that would give him more ammunition to keep you at arm’s length.

Your hand ran across the hefty manila folder, the other held onto your vest collar. You opened the folder.

It was a stupid decision, you knew that. He would never let you get out of his sight, let you be anywhere without his knowledge and approval. But you needed something different - you needed somewhere where you felt like you could breathe, with people you trust and have put trust into you.

Your dog, Cerberus, whined from your cot across the room. You’d been sleeping more in your office than your own room, you figured it was because you were mentally preparing to be out on the friend with your old squad, and definitely not because you couldn’t stand to be in the same room as Ghost. He never let you move away from him in missions, never let you out of his sight when on them - it was suffocating, feeling like you were inadequate in a field you spent most of your life in because of the man you loved with everything you had. You gave him your all, your everything - he definitely made you feel that it would never be enough, without him even speaking a word.

Your eyes read over the mission again. Reconnaissance on a couple of enemy bases, a patrol of safe houses in the area to make sure they were still secure. That and to infiltrate a top secret base deep in the mountains to retrieve information on a possible illegal uranium enrichment plant being constructed. Your eyes darted back across the room to Cerberus, you whistled lowly. The German Shepherd leapt off your cot, scrambling to sit in between you and your desk, he plopped his heavy head on your lap. You smiled at him, scratching behind his ears. “Good boy, Cerby.”

Your team consisted of your good friends, Logan and Hesh Walker, as well as Keegan Russ. You remembered how threatened Ghost was with how close of friends you were with them, you had chose to follow him to 141 instead of stay in the comfort of the Ghost Crew. A choice you had regretted earlier, but not now. You felt a lot better equipped with such an intense task force, you have more medics than before and an actual base to stay in - that and Price seemed a lot more relaxed now that Hassan and Shepherd were no longer a problem.

Cerberus’s ears perked up and he darted out from under your desk as you heard thunderous footsteps coming towards your office.

“Lay down.” You ordered your dog, he looked back at you before he skittered back onto your bed. You stood, your seat wheeled backwards half a foot. It was only five more seconds before your office door slammed against the wall, Ghost stormed in and shoved it back into the frame with his foot. He held up a folder just likes yours before he growled loudly, “What the fuck is this?”

You closed your own folder, moving your hand from your vest collar and splaying your fingers on the cardstock. Your eyes stayed down on the folder stamped, “Classified.”

“You’re going on a mission with the Ghosts?”

Your eyes looked over some stamped patient files, taking them in your hand and opening a few to se did you had signed them.

“Price told me five minutes ago. You’ve known for how long?”

You closed the files and whistled lowly again, the clicking of claws against the concrete was heard as the massive search and rescue dog curled around the back of your legs. You didn’t even have to look to know that he had his hackles raised - when you were on guard, so was he.

Ghost marched forwards and slammed his folder down on your desk, his fist clenched as he growled, “Answer me.”

“A month.” You muttered, eyes staring at the folders in your hands before turning away. You’ve cried over him the night previous and the seven before that, must you face him?

“And you weren’t going to tell me?” His voice was gruff, appalled. “That’s reckless. And you told Price not to tell me? Really?”

“It was need to know.” You answered, placing the files back on your desk before you stepped around your dog to the head of your cot where your duffle sat open. He followed, keeping a distance of six feet from you because of Cerberus curling around your legs and staring at him. Your hands grew shaky as you began to double check everything in your bag.

“I tell you whenever I leave for any mission, any fuckin’ errand, and you don’t dare tell me about one of the most important ops we’ve had in months? Why are you going?”

“They need a medic, they requested me.”

He scoffed. “We need our medic.”

You slowed down, hand brushing over your beige t-shirts as you spoke, “You have my lieutenant, Gomez.”

“I want you here.” His voice softened a little, you shoved the clothes down farther in the bag, pulling out your spare medkit and opening it, eyes darting over its contents. “I only trust you to patch me up.”

You slammed your spare med-pack closed and back into your duffle. You quickly zipped it, sharply saying, “That’s funny, ‘cause you seem not to trust me any other time.” You turned to look at him, eyes brimmed with tears.

His eyes widened. “What?”

“You don’t trust me, Simon. You never let me take my lead when we’re on missions, let me be near you, let me talk with other people.” Your arms crossed over your chest, tears slicing hot on your skin. “You don’t trust me. do you even want to be in this relationship?” Your hand went up and quickly wiped away your tears. “Because it certainly feels like you don’t.”

He stood there, stunned - his hands at his side, he had no idea what to do with them. “Of course I do.” He took a step forward, cautiously placing his right hand out. “Of course I trust you.”

You backed away then, your calves bumped into Cerberus, your hand reached down to touch his head - an attempt to calm yourself. “Then why can’t you put a little faith in me? A little faith that you are the one I go to sleep thinking about? That you are the one I worry about when I’m out on the field, instead of my own safety? That I wouldn’t ever do this to you?” Tears fall rapidly, your heart beat roughly in your chest - anxiety was gripping your diaphragm. “I trust you with my life, Simon. I have since we got together. It’s been almost a year and a half and you still don’t even trust me to have your back.”

He just stands there, arms at his side - his eyes stared at you, dark and full of pain. “I do. I do trust you, Y/N.”

You threw your duffle on your back and walked towards him - shoving a finger into his chest, looking up at him. “You have this whole mission to think about this, about us. Because I can’t be trusting you blindly when you don’t even trust me to breathe.”

You moved around him, whistling for Cerberus. The dog swiftly followed you out of the office, and you slammed the door behind you. You swiftly walked down the corridor, and as soon as you turned the corner, your back hit the wall. Your hand flew up to your mouth, pressing into it to muffle the loud sobs that fell from your throat. Cerberus pawed at your leg before pressing his head to it.

____________________

part 2 here!

Copyright © 2023 lethalchiralium. All rights reserved.

[octuscle]

So I just got my Chronivac and noticed that it's saying that I used to be a country boy stud with a redneck boyfriend and don't remember any of this, did someone else use one on me without my knowledge

Phew! As far as I can tell, you have purchased a special edition of the Chronivac with a preset already activated. And you started the activation by contacting support. I'm afraid there's not much I can do… At least not until the transformation is complete.

You're sitting in a sports bar with one of your frat brothers. You've just come from rowing training. You're both stars of the university team. Still! Because while you're waiting for your non-alcoholic beer, something starts to change… You were just talking about the upcoming exams. And suddenly you're talking about football. Somehow out of the blue. Fuck university. University pisses you off.

You may not notice it, but the smell in the bar starts to change. Sweat. Beer. Sawdust. Frying fat… Your eyes fall on the man next to you at the bar. Stephen, the captain of the lacrosse team, was just standing there. Now there's someone who looks a lot like Stephen. But he's wearing a sweaty undershirt, has one thumb tucked under his massive belt buckle and has a bottle of beer in the other. His jeans are dirty and he's wearing dusty biker boots. And they are no longer standing on a stylish concrete floor but on an old floorboard covered with sawdust. Stephen turns up his nose. And spits on the floor. What the hell?!?!?! Your bro asks you if you have snuff. You're too confused to be surprised that you pull a can of Copenhagen out of your back pocket. And before you put the tin away again, you take a big pinch yourself.

Something is different. But you don't know what… Caren comes over and asks if you'd like another round of beer. And if you want something to eat. Damn, a big portion of chicken wings and a pitcher of beer would be just the thing right now. But before the food arrives, you have to take a piss. And actually get rid of any other pressure. You glance in the direction of the toilets. The stall has just become free. You signal to your bro that he should follow you straight away. As an appetizer, he gets a load of what's currently building up in your balls.

It was a damn great evening in the bar. The food was good, there was plenty of beer and you were able to cum twice. But you and your buddy had to go to bed early. You had to be at work at 07:00. At the latest. There's a lot to do at the moment. Due to the economic crisis, your fellow citizens have to drive their cars longer than usual. And that means more work for you and your buddy in the workshop. But you love your job!

But you love the end of the day even more. Tonight is burger night at the sports bar. Eileen makes the best and biggest burgers in the county. And every second pitcher of beer is free. And today you have something to celebrate. A city slicker broke down with his show-off car. You don't have that much experience with German tin. But the car eventually purred like a Bavarian cat again. And the snob had to bleed for it. And you finally have the last installment for your garage together. Tomorrow you'll go to Pete at the bank and then tear up the loan agreement. And you'll spend today a local round on that fact. It's only half the price today. Hehehe.

You're the hottest studs in town. Rumor has it that you've bedded every woman under 40. Many women brag that you got them pregnant. You like to jerk off to these stories. Preferably as a couple. You keep your trucker hats on. The one or other dried cum stain can tell stories.

A few weeks ago there was some chick who took pictures of you and shared them on one of those shitty social networks or whatever. She got in touch a few days later and said that the response had been amazing or something. She could turn you into stars. You don't want to be stars. You're already studs. That's quite enough for you. But the good thing is that a whole lot of guys are now coming to your place who want to be fucked by you. And you don't need to be told twice. Your food is on Hank. Because of you, his motel is almost always fully booked since the chick's visit.

The sports bar is still called "Eileen's". Just like it's still called "Hank's Motel". They haven't owned it all for a long time. It's all yours. It may not be obvious to your bro and you, but you're by far the richest people in town. It all started when some rich guy you two were shagging in Hank's presidential suite had a heart attack shortly afterwards. And left you both a million dollars each. There were several cases like that. Inheritances, gifts. One guy even wanted to adopt you both. Shit, you had a stressful time. The workshop during the day, you had to look after your fans in the evening. That damn chick. Until her visit, you had a really relaxed life.

Hell, your life is as relaxed as it can be. There are so many people in this village who owe you a hell of a lot. Literally. And figuratively. You might not have as much energy as you used to. But you still have a hell of a lot of sex!

Caren comes over and asks if you'd like another round of beer. And if you want something to eat. Damn, a big portion of chicken wings and a pitcher of beer would be just the thing right now. But before the food arrives, you have to take a piss. And actually get rid of any other pressure. You glance in the direction of the toilets. The stall has just become free. You signal to your bro that he should follow you straight away. As an appetizer, he gets a load of what's currently building up in your balls. Good things never change!

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Request thing: Steve Roger + "you're so cute" "what did you just say?" "I said you look like a boot"

(Omif there are others feel free to ignore mines cause I am just being greedy now)

There aren't others. Pretty sure there's only 4 of you out there reading me anymore :D

word count: 1951

@bolontiku @rampant-salamander @castiels-sunflowers @feelmyroarrrr __________

Steve Rogers irritated the shit out of you. From the moment Nick Fury thought you should babysit him, he’d just been annoying in all his ‘Gee Golly Ma’am’ goodness and earnest honesty and, well, and he just annoyed you. Sure, he was handsome, and his physique left not a single area needing improvement. And yes, his dry sense of humour and quick way with words made most people just fall into the Captain America fan club without questioning the price of admission. But you couldn’t. You’d been stung before. There was no way someone who looked like the whole package wasn’t hiding something.

You were parked at your desk, cursing a major snarl in traffic that had caused you to skip picking up a coffee. There was a cute barista at the coffee shop by your apartment and you’d been working your way up to asking his name, but missing a single day had made your courage evaporate. You dug through your drawer, but had apparently run out of pods for the office keurig. Digging into your purse, you pulled out a few bills and made your way to the coffee shop on the main floor. 

Smothering a yawn, you made your order and tried to pay. The young woman behind the counter shook her head and tilted it to where the drinks were coming up. “He paid for you, ma’am.” You followed her gaze over and cringed. Of course, it was goddamn Steve. 

“Thanks,” you grumbled as you approached him. He smiled.

“My pleasure, Agent,” he nodded. After a brief pause, he continued, “You’re a tough nut to crack, you know. I’m never quite sure what you think of all this.” He gestured around vaguely.

“I’m really into coffee. So this is okay,” you replied, deliberately being difficult. He frowned, and then sighed.

“I kind of meant what you think about this.” Again, the gesture was vague, but he included himself, and pointed obviously above you both, where the offices were. 

“Does it matter? It pays well, I have great health insurance and a not-shitty 401K. It’s not exactly what I went to university for, but every day is different, and I’ve met some pretty interesting people,” you shrugged.

“Interesting way to look at it.” There was a soft, humble chuckle that escaped him and just made you even more irritated. You closed your eyes to avoid rolling them. Your name was called, and you opened your eyes, took your coffee and smiled blandly at him.

“Thanks for the joe, Steve,” you nodded again, and made your way back to your office.

__________

“I don’t want to go,” you protested to your handler. He sighed and glared at you.

“Look, your specialized knowledge of the era and the subject means that -”

“No, I get it. Really, I do. But what you’re asking me to do is straight-up psychological manipulation, which is not what I’m here for. I’m here because I have extensive specialized knowledge about the era and -”

“Your PhD is on the impact of the loss of Sgt. Barnes on the Howling Commandos and Steve. You have immense knowledge about Barnes, and about his friendship with Steve. If anyone is going to be able to work with Captain Rogers on the deprogramming of Barnes, it’s you. Whether or not you want to go, you are going.” Nick Fury had entered the room and interrupted you.

“But -” you started. Fury silenced you with a glare. You sighed and pursed your lips.

“You’re the only agent I’ve ever had complain about being assigned to work with Rogers,” he started. “Care to explain?”

“It has nothing to do with him, sir,” you lied. Fury raised his eyebrow, clearly not believing you.

“Figure it out. You two are wheels-up in an hour.”

__________

You leaned back in the quinjet hold and closed your eyes, trying to imagine Steve Rogers was not sitting across from you, staring daggers at you. 

“I have to ask, Agent. What did I do that was so offensive? Was it the coffee? I know a lot of dames, er, women, don’t like it when men do that anymore,” he broke the silence.

“Not at all, I very much appreciated the coffee,” you replied, keeping your tone light. You were very well aware that your issue was with you, and not actually with him. You’d been mulling it over since he’d bought the damn coffee. All you could come up with was that you were behaving like a child with a crush. You couldn’t accept that you liked him, so you chose to dislike him instead.

“Did I say or do something at some other time?”

“Not at all,” you shook your head.

“Captain Rogers, we’re about to land,” the pilot interrupted. “Based on scans you have approximately three minutes once off the jet to find cover. There’s frequent patrols of the area by Hydra agents, and no real way to keep this bird off the radar.”

“We’ll finish this chat later,” Steve promised.

Once off the jet, you followed him into the forest to find cover. Just as the pilot had warned, it was not long after you deplaned that a patrol came by, and Steve tackled you into the underbrush. You pushed at him feebly, opening your mouth to protest, and he slapped his hand across your mouth, nodding to the west, where the crunch of leaves betrayed the patrol’s presence. Your eyes widened and you quit moving. When you were clear of danger, he rolled off you.

“Some warning would have been nice,” you whispered as you picked pine needles and moss out of your hair.

“Yeah, that sounds like a great plan,” he hissed back. “Hey goons, we’re over here!”

“I’m sure your super-soldiery brain could have figured out a way to give me a heads up before you tackled me,” you snapped back. 

“Ingrate,” he muttered, loudly enough that you could hear him.

“Jackass,” you retorted. His eyebrow raised.

“Watch your language,” he warned.

“Because it might offend the hydra goon squad?” You asked.

“You know, dames didn’t used to talk like that.” His tone was tight. You rolled your eyes.

“I’d like to remind you, I’m an agent first, an expert in history second and a dame third, you fucking cro-magnon,” you spat. “Also, this isn’t my first rodeo, Cap. I’ve been on surveillance missions before. I also saw the patrol.”

Steve glared at you and shook his head. “Instead of arguing about the finer points of your genetic composition, do you think you can drop your hate for the rest of the mission? If Bucky’s here, I’d like to find him. And Fury assured me, you’re the agent for the job if we do.”

“Is that an order, Cap?” You asked. He looked away, and drew in a deep, steadying breath.

“Yes, agent, I believe it is,” he snapped.

__________

You’d been unsuccessful. You’d managed to infiltrate the base, but the cells were all empty. The base had just recently been cleared out, and there was enough equipment left behind that you felt confident it was where Sgt. Barnes had been held, at some point. On your way to the extraction point, you saw muzzle-flash and moved faster than you thought possible to knock Steve out of the way. A blinding pain struck you in the midsection and Steve turned around to watch you fall to the ground, a silent scream on your lips. The look of combined annoyance and fear on his face was the last thing you remembered seeing before blackness took you.

When you came to, it was so bright you blinked and lifted your hand to cover your eyes, pressing them shut again. There was an overpowering smell of antiseptic and an IV tethered to your right hand. A monitor beeped systematically and you realized it was a heart monitor when it matched pace with the thumping in your head. You were parched, and when you tried to push yourself to sit, a gentle hand landed on your chest, pressing you back into the mattress.

“Stay put. There’s a remote here, I’ll lift your head,” a gentle male voice rumbled. Your head slowly lifted and you tried opening your eyes again, just a little. Through your lashes, you saw Steve pouring you a glass of water. He held it out to you. “Just sips.”

It was cool against your lips, and you sucked in a couple of little chips of ice to suck on. 

“Thanks,” you breathed. “What happened?”

“We didn’t find Bucky,” he started. “We were headed to the quinjet and you decided to play hero and jumped in front of a bullet.”

“You’re welcome,” you coughed. He raised the bed a little higher. Your eyes finally adapted to the bright light of the infirmary and you looked at him. He was still in his uniform, was wearing a fair amount of your blood and looked angry.

“What kind of idiotic idea was that, anyhow?” He demanded. Your ears rang at the heightened volume of his voice. You flinched in pain.

“I saw the muzzle flash and just moved,” you replied. 

“A bullet wound to the shoulder would barely slow me down,” he snapped. “Instead you took one to the lung and required a few hours of surgery.”

“Sorry that I was such a huge inconvenience to you,” you managed. “Maybe you should make it clear to Fury that you don’t want to partner with me again.”

“Maybe if you didn’t have such a huge goddamn chip on your shoulder, we would have worked better together,” he retorted. You gestured to yourself, in your blue hospital gown, and IV tubing.

“I’m pretty sure the wound is right here,” you gestured to the dressing on your side, “if you’re like to really get a few good kicks in while I’m down.”

He stood up and flipped his chair over before walking to the far wall and slamming his fist against it. “What the hell did I do? Why do you hate me?” You flinched away from his angry tone.

“I don’t, I don’t hate you, Cap, I just -”

“Bullshit,” he interrupted.

“Now who has a foul mouth?” You snapped. “I don’t hate you, Cap. I don’t. I just don’t know how to act around you and it makes me guarded and defensive, I guess.” You took another small sip of water.

“Because I’m somehow your enemy?” He asked. You could feel your cheeks heating in embarrassment and glanced up at the IV bag. It was pain medication. Go for it, you thought, at least you had plausible deniability due to the intoxicating effects of the medication.

“It’s just that you’re so cute, and you’re kind, and you’re so genuine, and you smell good and -”

“What did you just say?” He interrupted, pulling the chair back to the beside and sitting in it. He took your hand between his and looked at you intently. You’d said too much and felt the panic of admitting all of that hit you as he stared at you.

“Uh, I said you look like a boot and I’m pretty sure you’re out of your mind, and you smell like swine and -”

“That’s not what you said,” he laughed and squeezed your hand.

“I’m pretty sure I did,” you averted your gaze from his. He cupped your cheek in one of his hands and turned you back to face him. “I like you too.”

“Oh.”

“Get some rest. I’m going to get a shower so I stop smelling like swine, and I’ll be back.”

“Okay,” you nodded. He tucked your hand under the cover, smoothed your hair away and dropped a kiss on your forehead.

[theerurishipper]

Hi anon, I'm just taking a screenshot of your ask like this because I don't want to include the link. I have no desire to start a fight.

First of all, no hate to the OP of the post, this just my opinion. But there are some things I do disagree with.

First, the point about the Blue Spirit. I don't think the Blue Spirit is some vigilante for justice, but it does represent that Zuko will do anything to appease his father, including breaking into a Fire Nation stronghold and essentially "betraying" his country. Which is in action a good thing, but Zuko's intent doesn't support that narrative. The Blue Spirit is not a good thing, and its logical extension is Zuko using it to steal from people later and trying to steal Appa as the Blue Spirit. Which is he has to take it off to have that frank conversation with Iroh, he has it off when he frees Appa, and he throws it away at the end of the episode. Zuko's struggle is about identity, and the Blue Spirit is a mask that is made of Zuko's desire to please his father, which means doing actions that are against who he is as a person. Which is why he throws it away when he begins his initial change.

As for the point about Zuko holding onto his birthright despite being an outlaw and the show not exploring what it means for him to be cut off... it does tho. We see Zuko struggling with finding who he is without the influences of his father and the Fire Nation. We see him learn about new perspectives because he's lost his ties to the Fire Nation. Zuko being cut off from the Fire Nation is shown in him being forced to travel through the other nations and understand them, while also learning some truths about his own nation that he would not have if he had remained on his ship. He still continues to hold onto his role as the crown price though, because it's all he has. He's clinging onto it desperately because he still thinks that he has the chance to go back to his father, and he still doesn't want to accept the truth about him. It's an interesting dichotomy. We can see that Zuko is trying to embrace his own identity here (Ursa's words) but his image of who he is is still skewed and influenced by his father. He's starting slowly, but he still has a long way to go.

This is long so I'm putting the rest under a cut.

As for Zuko not being driven by a desire to help the Fire Nation, I would have to disagree with that as well. I actually do agree with OP that they could have shown Zuko interacting with the Fire Nation people more, but it's not just in The Boiling Rock that he says he wants to help. He expresses that sentiment as early as The Day of Black Sun, Part 2 in his speech to Ozai, where he reflects on how the Fire Nation is feared and hated and it has to change. So it's not out of the blue for Zuko to care for his nation, but I agree that they could have shown that way better. Honestly on rewatch, Season 3 made some... interesting choices.

Now for the part about Song. I don't know why it's so surprising that Zuko did what he did. This is, after all, him in the very very beginnings of his arc, and he has just been confronted with a very shocking truth. He's not in a good headspace here at all. He's been stripped of everything he's ever known, he's being hunted down by own sister under the orders of his father, and Song unintentionally poured salt on an old wound despite her good intentions. All this does not make Zuko receptive to the knowledge that challenges his entire worldview like this, that the Fire Nation hurts innocent people. And now he is feeling compassion and sympathy for this Earth Kingdom girl and horror against his own nation whom he has been told is doing the right thing. And on a personal level, it is the first inkling of a realization that his father may have been wrong to hurt him as well. So, he lashes out. He's not in a place where he can accept everything he's learning, and so he tries to reassert himself by stealing her ostrich-horse. It's a genuinely shitty thing to do, but it's understandable. I think Zuko being apologetic would be the OOC choice.

And the points about Zuko's stealing are... well, OP's criticisms are kind of the point. I agree with their assessment that the Blue Spirit is not a good thing as I have written above. Which is why those scenes make sense. Zuko at that point steals as the Blue Spirit, an extension of the "desires" of his father. Which means making choices like his father, making bad choices that are not like himself. He does very shitty things and steals from innocent people using the mask. Then we come to Zuko Alone. At this point, Zuko has been on his own for a while. This episode is all about understanding who Zuko is, the choices he'd make free of the influences of others. There is no Blue Spirit mask in this episode, and that represents him slowly being removed from the negative influences that made him put on that mask in the first place. You'd think that after his previous robberies, that he would continue that line of action, but he doesn't.

There is no Blue Spirit mask here, just Zuko in all his messed-up glory. And the kind of choices Zuko starts to make without those influences includes not stealing from the pregnant woman, covering for Lee when the soldiers want to know who threw the egg, and then going back to save him. Of course, the end of the episode also shows us that Zuko as a person has not yet embraced and understood who he truly is outside of his father, but it's significant that the mask isn't in this episode and the ones following it, because Zuko Alone is the episode to help us understand who Zuko really is deep down, and the following ones are devoted to him learning who he is outside of his father. And he only puts it back on in the episode Lake Laogai, when he is slipping back into old habits and trying to steal Appa for his father again. And at the end of the episode, he throws it away.

As for Zuko's arc not involving making amends, I guess Season 3 was already on some tight pacing and there was no need to revisit one-off characters who didn't even have names just so Zuko could apologize to them? We know that Zuko is regretful of his actions and has learned better, and it is 100% believable to me that he tracked them down to apologize and make things right. I honestly think this is a weak criticism. We don't have to be shown everything, there are some things we can imagine and conclude ourselves. It would have been nice to see, but there were other things that were more important, and the narrative had to prioritize.

About Zuko's arc revolving around Iroh and him only doing what Iroh wants... using the Season 2 finale's line of Zuko worrying about betraying his uncle isn't the finest way to prove that point. Zuko worried about that because it was the immediate and most personal action he took when choosing to side with Azula. Iroh is literally in chains at this point, and Zuko isn't in a place where he is still ready to accept that his nation and his father have done bad things and hurt people. He still doesn't think he did anything wrong by siding with Azula, other than hurting Iroh. It is through his time in the Fire Nation that he is able to make these realizations. Zuko was won over by Azula because she offered him the one thing he had been desperately craving for years, which was the love of his father and the chance to go home.

The entire point of book three is that Zuko makes his own choices without the influence of Iroh, because ultimately, the decision to change and be better has to come from Zuko himself. Iroh can guide him, but Zuko has to be the one to make the decision and put in the work. Iroh is very purposefully not a huge part of Zuko's Season 3 arc aside from Zuko thinking about him and Iroh giving him that crown, because Zuko needed to make the choice to change himself. It's even literally spelled out in the show in The Old Masters:

Iroh: [Releases him.] But you found it again. [Frontal view.] And you did it by yourself. [Frontal view of Zuko over Iroh's shoulder.] And I am so happy you found your way here. [Side-view. Hugs him again.]

As for Zuko always agreeing with Iroh and Iroh always being right... this is a common thing for shows like this to have mentor characters who are the moral guides for the characters in the show. Iroh is supposed to represent the "right way." ATLA actually does this very right. Zuko is supposed to embrace Iroh's worldview, but not because he decided to blindly follow Iroh, he agrees because he's learned what is right and wrong by himself and is now in a place where he can agree with Iroh. And Iroh himself is done so well because he's not a moral arbiter whose always right and can never do anything wrong. He is someone who is so wise because he's made several mistakes and has had to learn what the right thing to do is the hard way. I think ATLA actually managed to avoid the pitfall of making Zuko look like he can't think for himself and can only follow Iroh blindly very well.

And I don't understand what Iroh said that was so questionable? Aang has to fight the Fire Lord because Aang is the Avatar. It's literally his job and something that has been building up for the whole show, and Iroh is wrong for saying that Aang should do his job? It's unfortunate that Aang has to endure this responsibility at such a young age, but Iroh is right when he says that only the Avatar can defeat Ozai. And Iroh sending Zuko to fight Azula isn't the same thing at all. Maybe OP thinks Azula shouldn't be fought at all because Zuko should be nicer to his sister, in which case I will reiterate that she is a genocidal imperialist and needs to be stopped, but the situation is different because Azula isn't Firelord yet, and Zuko is going to fight her to get the throne, not usurp something that already belongs to her. And Iroh also explains why Zuko has to be the one to take the throne, because he is someone new, someone who doesn't have the bad history that Iroh does (because Zuko has done shitty things, but he didn't wage a long war on Ba Sing Se). And Zuko agrees, and in fact, Zuko and Katara together make the decision that she will go with him to stop Azula. So it's not like Zuko doesn't contribute anything or that he blindly follows Iroh.

Saying that Zuko only makes decisions to please Iroh is so completely wrong. Does any of this look like Zuko doesn't have his own opinions? Does any of this look like he can't tell right from wrong? Does any of this look like his only motivation is to beg forgiveness from Iroh?

This is all Zuko. He says he has to apologize to Iroh, yes, but everything else? It's all the things Zuko has learnt, everything he has personally seen and experienced. Iroh didn't tell him all that, he's understood it for himself. Hell, if his only motivation was to beg forgiveness, he would have tried to find Iroh first instead of trying to join the Gaang. I don't know how many times he has to say that he wants to stop the war and help bring back peace before people stop saying that he only did it for Iroh. I'm feeling a little annoyed by this point, so I'll actually go through the speech and highlight everything Zuko says that comes from him alone and not Iroh.

Zuko: For so long, all I wanted was for you to love me, to accept me. I thought it was my honor I wanted, but really, I was just trying to please you. You, my father, who banished me just for talking out of turn. [Points a broadsword at his father.] My father, who challenged me, a thirteen-year-old boy, to an Agni Kai. [Cuts to shot of Ozai, looking angered.] How could you possibly justify a duel with a child? Ozai: [Scornful.] It was to teach you respect! Zuko: It was cruel! And it was wrong. Ozai: [Angrily.] Then you have learned nothing! Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! [Camera view shows top profile of Zuko and Ozai through an overhead grate.] We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself [Cuts to shot of Zuko.], we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness. Ozai: [Laughs.] Your uncle has gotten to you, hasn't he? Zuko: Yes. [Smiles proudly.] He has.

All of this? This is all Zuko. This is everything he's realized on his own. Iroh never told Zuko that the world hated the Fire Nation. He never told Zuko that what Ozai did was wrong. He never told Zuko that they needed to create an era of peace in the world. He simply guided Zuko along the path to realizing these things for himself. And thanks to that guidance, Zuko was able to understand the truth on his own. Again, Iroh is not present when Zuko makes these realizations. Zuko comes to these conclusions himself, and stands up for them so passionately because they are things he genuinely believes. And Ozai says Iroh has gotten to him because Iroh has done a lot of work in helping Zuko find the right path, and that influence should be acknowledged. But that doesn't mean the final decision to make a change, the struggle to find himself and realize his mistakes and work to fix them didn't come from Zuko himself. Just because Iroh is a positive influence on Zuko doesn't mean that Zuko is blindly following him. Zuko clearly says he is speaking his mind and that he learned these lessons on his own. Just because he accepts that Iroh helped him doesn't mean he is saying that he is blindly following Iroh.

And then about Zuko "mocking" Aang. He says that because Aang is going on about gluebending and what not. Aang himself is making a joke out of things, and why shouldn't Zuko be angry that Aang is seemingly not taking things seriously? To everyone else, it seems like Aang is chickening out of doing his job. Aang's motivations are understandable and I do agree with him, but I also agree with Zuko here. Zuko isn't the only one to think this way, the rest of the Gaang are also thinking along the same lines. Sokka is even more blatant about it during the training scene. This is not Zuko putting Aang in danger because "the mission comes first," this is Zuko trying to tell Aang to do his duty to save the world. You know, that very important thing that cannot be compared in scope to Zuko's personal desire to go home, which is also why this situation can't be compared with Zuko telling his men to go into a storm because "the mission comes first." One is the selfish and petulant wishes of a child who is trying not to care, and the other is a child who can't see any other way to defeat someone who has made millions suffer, including himself, and who is angry that the only one who can do it is refusing to.

And in the same scene, Zuko also tells Katara to let Aang take time to sort out his feelings, which doesn't really give me the impression that he is forcing Aang to kill Ozai or that he doesn't care about Aang's well-being. But they are on a time-crunch, and no one thinks there is any other way, and even Aang does not offer any alternative other than just killing Ozai. Aang was able to find another way, but Zuko isn't wrong for not being able to magically know that a lion turtle would approach Aang and give him energybending.

As for the thing about Katara... well, The Southern Raiders is the most misunderstood episode in the show, especially when it comes to Zuko and Katara.

Zuko isn't doing "whatever will make Katara like him." He's doing this because he understands what she's feeling and wants to make it right. If he just wanted to make Katara like him, if his intentions were truly selfish and only self-serving, the episode wouldn't have ended with Katara forgiving him and embracing him as a friend. Is Katara that naive? Does she have that little agency? I don't think so. This is Zuko earnestly trying to make it up to Katara, and the "I do care what she thinks of me," is not an indictment of his character. Wanting to repair his relationship with her and wanting her good opinion is not some inherently sinister or evil act. It's how he goes about it that matters. And he does this by trying to help her find her mother's killer, because he knows she needs this. He does it by genuinely and sincerely trying to help her and make up for what he did, because he understands her and wants to help her and make up for his mistakes. Immediately after he asks her why she still hates him, she explains and he says, "what can I do to make it up to you?" Not blaming her, not fixating on himself, just asking what he can do for her. And throughout their trip, he never once talks about himself of tries to prop himself up as someone who she should forgive or like, he never makes it about himself or why she should forgive him, he doesn't try to take credit for anything. He just earnestly tries to help her and take care of her.

And this earnest expression is why Katara is able to finally accept Zuko's reformation and is why she is finally able to forgive him. She is able to see that he's changed. Zuko's actions in this episode are all about Katara. She's literally likening him to Yon Rha in the beginning of the episode, her opinion of him couldn't be lower. She wouldn't be able to forgive him by the end of it so warmly and openly if she hadn't understood the goodness in him, something that she would not have seen if he had only been doing it because he wanted her to like him and didn't actually care about her or what she needed. His desire to have her like him isn't about him satisfying his ego or whatever, it's about Katara and how highly he thinks of her, and how he wants to make things right between them. His wish for her to like him and his way of fixing what he's done is entirely on Katara's terms, and it works only because he's not just doing it for the sake of it, but because he genuinely understands and wants to help.

And like, if you're going to take him caring about what she thinks of him and wanting to set things right and fix their relationship as a selfish sign, then every friendship should be over after one fight. Then you should be calling Katara selfish for wanting to repair her friendship with Toph in The Runaway. Selfishness has a negative connotation which does not describe Zuko in this episode. Zuko may have personally wanted Katara to forgive and accept him, like he mentioned, but he never once influenced her or tried to put in a good word for himself. Whatever he wanted, his actions were focused on Katara's well-being and not on himself at all. He earnestly supported her and cared for her, and recognizing his sincerity was why Katara forgave him in the end. If he had been secretly self-serving and had only done all this so that Katara would like him and not because he wanted to help Katara, she wouldn't have forgiven him. I think saying Zuko only cared about himself is insulting to Katara herself and her choice to forgive him as well, because it implies that she is so easily taken in by him and essentially tricked into forgiving him when that is not the case.

And as for the part about them wanting to kill Yon Rha, I do agree that murder is wrong. But these are still two kids, and Zuko is seeing himself in Katara and understands that she needs to face him. He doesn't encourage her to murder Yon Rha. But he knows from personal experience that she needs to face him, and he was right. He wasn't taking her to Yon Rha because he wanted Katara to murder him, he was taking her to him because Zuko knew she wanted to face him and was willing to support her in whatever choice she made once she got there. And Katara ended up making the decision to not kill him. Zuko never manipulated or influenced Katara. He shared the information he had and the desire to kill him came from her because of her pain and trauma. And the decision to not kill him also came from her.

If Katara truly thought that Zuko was manipulating her, or was influencing her, the episode would not have ended the way it did. As it is, we know that Zuko also is not one to murder someone, because he would have killed his father if he was. He's not a trigger-happy, murderous person. He's a kid who understands what Katara is going through and wants to help her. This episode is a follow-up to their previous conversation in The Crossroads of Destiny, where they were able to understand each other because of their experiences with their mothers' deaths. And because of his knowledge of their similarities in this situation, he's also having a lot of personal wounds reopened here about his own mother and his father, which is why he feels so deeply for Katara and is willing to support her in anything, because he knows exactly what that's like. But he understands in the end that violence wasn't what Katara needed, and we also know that he would not have made that choice either, because he had the chance to and didn't.

And I have already talked about the scene where Azula is falling, but I'll say it again. Maybe it didn't come off to OP that way, which is understandable, but I did feel that Zuko was shocked and regretful that Azula might die. The way that "She's... not gonna make it," was delivered sure gave me that impression. And as for him being annoyed that she survived, it's less annoyance at the fact that she lived and more at the fact that she is gloating about it again. Go look up her smile in that scene. A mocking smile, the kind she's used on him her whole life. Of course he's resentful. I explained it better here, so you could go check that out if you feel so inclined.

Idk, this whole this feels like it's taking things way out of context and missing things that are clearly explained and stated in the show. I agree with some things, like the idea that Zuko should have interacted with the people of the Fire Nation more, but there's a lot more I disagree with completely. But I hope this answered your question, anon.

Thank you for your ask!

[chaoticgeminate]

I'm not going to disparage anyone from buying online if its affordable to them, but as an Optician in a locally owned business these websites are destroying my field of work. So like, please maybe consider buying at least one pair from your locally owned place every now and again? I am a real person who works in the eyeglass industry, and I'm reminding you that I will be forced out of work in a field I have spent 11 years of my life working in.

When you buy online you go where to get them fitted? An eye doctor or a local optician, the very people that these websites are putting out of business. AKA me. So please consider buying local if you can afford to do so.

The problem with the eyeglass industry stems from an amalgamation of factors, but the second big problem is Essilor. Essilor was originally a lens manufacturer, if you have heard of Varilux or Eyezen or Crizal they're the ones who make those lenses and coatings.

Essilor merged with Luxottica , who is a frame manufacturer from Italy that owns most designer brands back in 2018. Brands like Ray-Ban, Coach, Armani, Oakley, etc. Which doesn't seem that bad until you look at what else they own.

EssilorLuxottica owns a lab called Nassau, which is one of the biggest supplier for stock (generic) lenses in the USA, and they also own Lenscrafters, the company that has eyeglass stores all over the USA. Luxottica purchased lenscrafters back in 1995 and Essilor got a hold of them through the merger.

So, you walk into any Lenscrafters and order a pair of glasses from any Lucottica owned brand and you're just handing them free money at that point.

But wait it gets worse.

They own Eyemed/Aetna.

A vision insurance.

EssilorLucottica manufactures lenses and frames, owns a retail chain, AND a whole vision insurance company. Do you see why it's such an issue now? They've created a model that other optical giants are trying to emulate, because walking into a Lenscrafters with Eyemed insurance is basically just a free sale for them.

And that isn't even the biggest issue in the vision industry.

It's vision insurance.

As stated above, one major insurance company is owned by a lens manufacturer , so that's really shitty. But, like all insurance companies, they don't want to pay out money for claims. When you file an Eyemed claim, you have to choose a lab, and it has to be an Essilor partner where this lab is basically owned by or pays boatloads of money to Essilor.

VSP is the same way. Doctors and labs have to be VSP partners to be allowed to accept the insurance, but the lenses have to come from a VSP authorized lab. So, most 'independent' labs are Essilor and VSP partners in order to stay in business.

But again, they don't want to pay the claims.

If I file an Eyemed claim, even using an Eyemed lab, there is a 70/30 chance it will be a negative amount and we have to pay THEM money for the 'privilege' of just taking the patient's order. And that's ordering the lenses uncut where we cut the blanks in our edging machine to fit them to the frame.

So someone comes in, spends however long choosing a frame (maybe with an optician's help) and pays anywhere from 0‐300 on their glasses out of pocket. We submit the order, usually pay them. So rent, electric, payroll... yea do you see what I'm getting at? That's why the price without insurance is so high, because we have to charge something so we can keep the staff employed and the lights on.

Optical is more in depth than just putting a pair of glasses on your face or contacts on your eye, there are eye diseases that need to be monitored and conditions that require specialized knowledge. Most young eyeglasses wearers are fine with just slapping on a pair of glasses, and honestly, I'm happy for you.

Truly, seeing should not be so expensive.

But please remember that everyone else is going to break before Essilor/Luxottica does.

where are those startups that are disrupting the glasses industry

[cavalryofwoah]

How to Get Prescription Medication in the US Dirt-Cheap--with NO Insurance

So, I'll save everyone the sob story, but life the past, oh, 4-ish months has been pretty shitty, and involved a lot of financial woes. Including, to get to the point here, an unexpected gap in my medical insurance. I am on 5 different prescriptions, and couldn't afford to go off any of them, nor afford to pay retail prices. So, as a Frugal Bitch, I figured out how to get them anyway, in a way I could still afford.

I looked at GoodRX, cause that's what I've heard about most online, and used it once, but it wasn't as cheap as legally possible, and 5 prescriptions adds up quick, so I kept looking.

Enter Honeybee Health! (this is not a paid advertisement, nobody would pay me for that, I just want to share savings) Honeybee is a completely legal, certified (in most US states) pharmacy; it's just online, and ships you the prescription.

Bonuses of Honeybee:

No taxes

It is shipped directly to you, so there is no hassle going to pick it up as long as your mail is delivered to you. Mobility-challenged, those without reliable transport, and busy people rejoice, no extra time or effort is required

if you don't pay extra for rush shipping, shipping is free through USPS

because it's not through insurance, they will give you exactly what your doctor prescribed, without trying to limit your dosage or deny the med totally

they let you pick which manufacturer/source you get the generic med from, with their pharmacist's recommendation noted

A personal example as proof: 1 of the meds I'm on is pantoprazole, I get 30 doses a month. With my former "good" insurance it was $10. With GoodRX but no GoodRX Gold membership it is $12.5 at my former preferred pharmacy. With Honeybee Health it is an absolute grand total of $6 for 30 days worth.

Screenshots for evidence. This is the same dosage and amount of the same medication, both the generic version.

Go forth with this new knowledge, and save money.

[association-of-freed-people]

I recall distinctly the period when “misinformation” became information that was uncontested and verifiable that the feds / establishment simply didn’t want public.

The most modern incarnation began with the revelation that Secretary of State Hillary was using a compromised private e-mail server to avoid public scrutiny. Her actions simultaneously broke federal law while also justifying it.

I remember thinking, after it was confirmed, that it was a pretty big deal and a problem for her presidential campaign.

As far as the establishment was concerned there would be no accountability for her actions and in the end they proved critics and skeptics correct.

It was in the same period that I started seeing columns or passing headlines that weren’t questioning the facts of the situation, but the sources of the revelations.

So-called journalists were impugning “leakers”, then speculating on foreign agents and their motivations.

It happened so quickly and with such audacity that I was taken aback by how brazen this approach was.

The so-called “private server” would have ended most campaigns in the past, but the entire machine rallied to her.

The theme of the discourse flash transitioned from a tidal wave of information exposing the underbelly of the DC establishment to impugning the integrity and motivations of anyone concerned with the corruption.

Here’s my take on why this tactic is possible and clearly somewhat effective;

What I think happens to partisans psychologically is something like this; when the damaging information is first revealed they are shocked by it and even outraged.

It puts them into a psychic bind because it undercuts their worldview and self-concept.

It sparks an internal crisis without an outlet.

“I’m the good guy, but what if I’m not?!? Are we the baddies?!?”

For people who are deeply invested in the poison of partisan politics such revelations can be traumatically devastating. If possible they will be deflected or avoided.

Corporate media was able to harness this unbridled turmoil in the loyalist partisans, and give it a redirected outlet.

Think about that person you know who fucks up or does something shitty but cannot take responsibility for it and reflexively blames those around them for their personal failing.

It’s this same immature psychological penchant in defense of ego that is tapped into.

Social and corporate media are then used as an echo chamber for for the defensive outrage to become self-affirming and insular.

It sounds insane, but the establishment was able to drum up outrage that the people had access to the knowledge it was so corrupt.

The citizenry of a supposedly free republic had the information to make informed decisions about their governance and that was intolerable. You couldn’t acknowledge this directly so it was done by attacking sources and speculative motivations.

Whoever the actor or actors were that revealed everything over those years from 2010-2015/16 I wanted to thank deeply.

All of the information from the pizzagate and spirit cooking behaviors, to the rigged CNN debates, the collusion of corporate media with the DNC to promote Donald Trump as a throwaway candidate, and the rigged Democratic Primary were critical to showing the American public what their governing betters are really all about.

All of the whistle blowers and journalists from that period leading to that election cycle deserve our gratitude. Many paid a steep price. Manning, Snowden and Rich. Assange, Breitbart and Hastings to name a few. Keep gratitude toward them in your hearts.

[thefanficmonster]

Infatuation

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: FLUFF, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: It’s not a secret that Corpse prefers taking care of his hair himself rather than going to a hair salon to get it trimmed and/or tampered. However, he only has so much knowledge of how to properly do it without having to obliterate his budget. Luckily, his girlfriend comes to his rescue.

Requested by Anon. Hi lovely! Thank you so much for the incredibly fluffy request! I’ve been very pumped to write it and now here it finally is - so sorry it’s taken me so long to complete and post it but I still hope you come across it and give it a read! Love, Vy ❤

“Um, what are you doing?“

I just walked into Corpse’s apartment to find him barricaded in the bathroom, giving himself a hair appointment. We were supposed to have a chill night in watching movies, but it seems to me like those plans will either have to be delayed or canceled, given the chaotic state both Corpse and his bathroom are in. I mean, how dumb was I to expect he was actually doing his hair justice when he told me he styled it himself? Why didn’t that immediately raise an army of red flags in my head and lead me to question his methods?

I’m honestly quite jealous of Corpse’s hair. It’s always so soft and silky and no matter how much or how little effort he’s put in it, it always looks good: either evidently carefully styled or boyishly messy, it leaves me with heart-eyes regardless. But to see him massacre it like this, it makes me wish I could report it as a crime.

“Ain’t obvious?“ He sounds rather frustrated and I feel at least slightly better due to this fact. He deserves to be as frustrated as I am by the sight of the crap he’s doing. “Sorry, you’re gonna have to wait for me for...a little while. I just need to get this under control and, um, clean the mess. Sorry for ruining your night like this, babe. I-I really wasn’t planning on it to take this long but I forgot to buy one of the products and I thought I could wing it without it but...I very clearly can’t so...“

“Please, stop talking. I don’t need to know what sins you’ve committed - if I do I’ll probably have to give you the silent treatment for like a week or so.“ I call out to him as I quickly skip over to the kitchen to leave the food I bought on my way over before returning to the bathroom and carefully taking a step inside, mindful of where there are hair strands on the tiles. Even severed, his hair is beautiful and I have a ton of respect for it - ok fine, I adore it. Corpse definitely doesn’t appreciate it properly. I walk over to the shower, reaching out to the two shelves inside which are lined with different types of hair products. “Oh fuck...“ I let out the whisper without even realizing it because I’m so stunned by the brands I see on those shelves. “Corpse, um, what the actual fuck?”

He turns to me, eyes wide and terrified because of my menacing tone. “What? What is it?” His gaze searches the spot where mine was just pointed at, looking for anything that could’ve provoked such a reaction from me. Seeing nothing but the hair products, he meets my deadly glare yet again, “What’s wrong?”

Alright, this man-child needs some serious help

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong.“ I say, stomping towards the exit of the bathroom, “You’re gonna stay here and wait for me to come back and don’t you DARE, even touch your hair, let alone bring a pair of scissors or any chemical near it. Copy?“

“Copied and pasted, ma’am.“ He salutes me, knowing better than to ask questions when I enter my commander role. There are quite a few things that set me off into this bossy-ass persona, and hair mistreatment is most definitely one of them. Thing is, Corpse doesn’t know that. Well, he didn’t know that, pretty sure he’s guessed it by now.

Feeling myself soften at his obedience and trust, I give him a smile and a wink over my shoulder as I go to grab my bag and leave the apartment to complete my mission, “Good boy.”

                                                              *  *  *

“Isn’t that a lot better?“ I ask, gently running my fingers through Corpse’s freshly cut, washed and dried hair. I’ve spent a good five minutes just smoothing through it with my fingers. I bet he’s expecting me to say ‘my precious‘ at any moment now, and trust me it’s tempting, but I still don’t, I won’t give him the pleasure of predicting my actions. Wow, we’ve really reached that level of being familiar with one another that I predict that he’s predicting what I’m gonna do next. While I’m a guessing game for him, I tend to think of myself as more of an open book. You just gotta be fluent in the language it’s written in to understand it.

I’ve gone off-topic, my bad.

“Yeah, you’re a lot less scary now.“ He tells me, his hand finding mine in his hair and taking it to his lips to place a kiss on my knuckles.

We’re positioned so that we’re in front of the bathroom mirror with Corpse seated in a chair in front of me and I’m for once in my life towering over him from behind. Our height difference was threatening to be a hinderance in my work on his hair, but we easily figured it out.

I can’t help but laugh, “You know what I meant.“ I curl one of his already curly strands around the pointer finger of the hand that’s still wandering around the soft dark curls while the other remains in his gentle hold, resting on his shoulder.

“And you know what I meant.“ He shifts in his seat to look at me directly, not via the mirror, “Since when do you have a hair infatuation?“

I roll my eyes and retract my hands, defensively folding my arms over my chest, “It’s not an infatuation with hair, dummy. It’s an infatuation with your hair.” I correct him, doing quick work of styling the stray strands that fall over his forehead and eyes. “I really like your hair, you already know that. I can’t handle the thought you’re doing such a shitty job taking care of it.”

He shrugs, furrowing his brows, “Hey, I was buying top-shelf products, cost me a fortune every month, my hair was being treated like royalty.”

I roll my eyes once again, “High price doesn’t always equal high quality, Corpse. Did you ever stop to read what was in those products?” I don’t let him answer, I don’t need him to confirm what I already know. “Even if you did - which you didn’t - you wouldn’t know what each of those ingredients do to your hair. You see, taking care of hair, especially hair like yours, takes patience and knowledge. It’s practically an art form. It’s not like you can just buy any product that has ‘suitable for curly hair’ on it. There’s a lot more to that.”

It’s only after I finish my monologue that I realize he’s looking at me with amazed amusement in his gaze, almost like a parent listening to their kid talk about their wish of becoming an astronaut. “Since when do you know so much about hair? You’ve been using the same shampoo and conditioner since I know you and now you wanna lecture me on hair care?”

I raise an eyebrow at him, exasperated by his stubbornness on the matter, “Who said being consistent with your hair products is a bad thing? You know, frequent changing of brands has the potential of being damaging as much as aiding.” I explain with the most amount of patience I can muster, now taking over the parent role myself, “And as for your previous question, I know so much because my mother is a hairdresser.”

His eyes widen in surprise. I can practically see the gears in his brain turning as he tries to recall if I’ve ever told him this before.

“How come I don’t know that?“ He asks finally after a long moment of silence. “Why haven’t you told me?”

“You ask that as though I just tell you things like that on the regular. Did you also want me to drop the info that my dad’s a mechanic in passing conversation about video games? Cause that’s a little hard to shoehorn in....“ He cuts off my sarcastic rambling with a brief peck to the lips. He’s the only person allowed to shut me up, and only like that. Anything else will earn him either an earful or a silent treatment. 

Just kidding....unless...

“So, does that mean you’re continuing the family business?“ he asks when he pulls away, “I mean, you’re technically my personal hairdresser now.“

I furrow my brows playfully, “Wait, what? Since when?”

“Since I hired you approximately an hour ago.“ He beams up at me, satisfied that I’ve fallen in his trap.

“And what about my payment?“ I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.

He looks to be contemplating for a second before he stands up from the chair, taking my hand in his leading me out of the bathroom, “Well, each appointment you’ll give me a different price, Miss Y/L/N. But, considering today was your first day, I choose to pay you with dinner.“ He sends a wink my way, laughing when he’s met with an unamused expression on my part as I stop in my tracks, causing him to halt his movements as well.

“You really plan on paying me with the dinner I bought?“ I raise an eyebrow at him, freeing my hand from his so I can put both my hands on my hips for the complete 'I’m far from impressed’ look.

“Yeah...? Problem?“ He asks, faking nervousness and guilt as he closes the distance between us, once again returning to the default of towering over me instead of it being the other way around.

“Several actually. First of all...“ I raise my finger in the air accusingly, ready to go off but the arm that wraps around my waist and lifts me off the ground causes my words to die down, evaporating in a frightened squeal, “Corpse no!! Put me down!“

Of course, he ignores me, carrying me into the living room while I don’t know whether to thrash or stay as still as possible. 

Tsk, so much for gratitude

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[pssarahwins]

I HAVE INFO TO ADD! Use GoodRX, OP is right - its amazing, it's free, and it's great if you have expensive medicines and the ability to pick where you pick them up. It worked really well with my recent paper prescription (dropped my price from $54 to $7 for a month refill) and it gave me options as to where I'd like to go (I went with publix, because I've had a ton of issues with walgreens in recent years - as it turns out I didn't have to, publix had already done it for me. I wish Publix was a little less shitty ethics wise, but that was nice!) Also, I'm sure someone else has mentioned this but just in case - CostPlusDrugs is amazing. I can only speak on personal experience, but my two consistent meds drop from $90 and $380 a bottle to $14 and $17 if I use cost plus - which I will be. It functions like a pharmacy, and you give the information to your doctor. It doesn't have EVERY medicine, but I get regular updates when they expand their catalogue. Even without this, I would pay a $60 co-pay on this particular medicine, even when I was on my parent's insurance before I turned 26. For reference:

I don't have insurance or a primary care doctor, so HeyDoctor (which I guess is GoodRX now!) helped me with a UTI in a pinch - $45 for a quick consult, and they sent the prescription with no issue. They have a ton of things that can help with quickly. It doesn't fully replace a doctor's visit, but if you're in a pinch and need help ASAP - it can be great.

Finally! For those who might want birth control, preventative or emergency, I recently got mine fulfilled through Ro Telehealth, which was amazing and fast and they sent me a plan b to go with my refill. (Which, addendum, plan B only works up as expected up to I believe 165 lbs - which isn't a huge revelation, but I didn't know until recently! So, just in case y'all didn't know, either!) I wanted a specific pill, as I'd had no issues with the specific mix and wanted to get back on it. (I usually go to the women's center nearby, but I struggled to find a doctor who worked well with me and decided to kind of take control of it for myself until I can find a good fit. This was a quick fix, as I don't want to be off birth control for any substantial amount of time.) I can only speak to this service, but it also has a TON, similar to HeyDoctor.

Obligatory, avoid Betterhelp. I had a good experience, but it's one of the few telehealth platforms I would never suggest. I had a good doctor, but even my doctor was overbooked and would sometimes cut things short because she was scheduled for a meeting on top of mine (out of her control). It felt nice to have someone, and to get that sort of help, but I think the bad outweighs the good in most cases with BH.

Anyways, I've been THROUGH IT lately with health, so if y'all can benefit from my knowledge I'm happy to share! I had to be informed, and once had a doctor complain because I'd "done my own research so the damage is already done" - it drove me INSANE, because she deadass would not help me until I came in with my own information and questions.

For the love of gd guys. If you don’t have insurance or your insurance sucks, or you have crazy high deductibles, PLEASE look into GoodRX. It’s free!!! I got a member with a crazy high deductible a coupon for their medication for 10 dollars. From over 100 dollars! Please! Please use GoodRx!

[publiccollectors]

From the discussion “Towards A Self Sustaining Publishing Model” hosted by Printed Matter.

Some things I have learned in over 30 years of publishing since my teenage days as a zine maker, administrating my project Public Collectors, and from working in the group Temporary Services and our publishing imprint Half Letter Press.

I have just ten minutes to speak. If only one or two things that I share are useful, that’s plenty! It took me decades to understand some of this stuff.

Use every exhibition invitation with a budget to print something. Use the whole budget to print something. Make something in a large enough print run so that you have something to give away and surplus that you can sell. Your publication can be a folded sheet of paper, a booklet, a newspaper, a poster, a book, or anything in between.

Be able to print at least something at home. Buy a cheap laser printer or inkjet printer, find a used copy machine, buy a RISO or some other duplicator, carve something into a potato or a piece of foam and print it. Being able to do at least some of the printing and production at home—even if it’s on a tiny scale—will compel you to print things that you might have convinced yourself not to send out or bring to a professional printer. Hopefully the ability to print impulsively and compulsively will result in good work. Figure out how to keep making things on every scale. Look for cheap used printing equipment on Craigslist. Team up with friends and buy equipment together that you can share. Start a printing collective in your basement.

Ideally your publication should cost 1/5th or 1/6th of the retail price to make. If you sell a $10.00 publication through a store, you are probably only going to make $6.00 or less after the store takes its cut. So ideally your $10.00 book costs $2.00 or less to make. Don’t aim to just break even. Aim to make a profit so you can keep making more publications and pay for your life. Publishing will probably never be your sole income but don’t lose money on purpose. Make things that are priced fairly and look like they justify what they cost to buy. The fact that you didn’t find a more affordable way to print something is not an excuse to sell something that feels cheap and shitty for a ridiculous sum of money. Good cheap printing is easier to find than ever before. Do your homework.

Figure out the cheapest and least wasteful ways to do everything. Ask other publishers where they get their work printed. Look for local printers so you can avoid shipping fees. Ask local printers if you can pay in cash for a discount. Ask printers if there is a cheaper way to do what you want to do by adjusting the size of your paper or the paper stock or some other small shift in form. If you print things yourself, buy the paper that is on sale. Design a publication around the paper that you found for cheap. Discount warehouses sometimes have good paper. Even dollar stores sometimes have good paper. I’ve even bought paper at flea markets. Costco sells an 800 sheet ream of 24 lb paper for $6.99. I use it all the time. It rules. I also recommend getting your jugs of organic olive oil there, but you can’t print with that.

Free printing is good printing. If you have access to free printing, use it. Free printing is like free food at art openings and conference receptions. It is one of those pleasures in life that never gets old. Come up with an idea that is based around the aesthetics of whatever free printing you have access to and make the publication that way. Eat the cheese and bread. Drink the wine. Make the copies at work.

Buy bulk shipping mailers on eBay. Find bubble wrap and other packing materials in the trash. Look out for neighbors who just bought new furniture—it’s usually wrapped in miles of packing material you can use for shipping books. Boycott terrible right wing fuckers like ULINE. Seriously, they give money to everyone horrible. Trump? Check. Ted Cruz? Check. Scott Walker? Check. ROY FUCKING MOORE? CHECK FUCKING CHECK! Tear up their catalogs and use them as packing material to protect your books. Make publications that have a consistent size so you can purchase cardboard mailers in bulk and get a discount on them. Buy packing tape in bulk. Buy everything in bulk. You can store your extra reams of paper under your bed or on top of your kitchen cabinets if necessary. Be like a wacko survivalist prepper, but for office supplies. Go to estate sales and look for the home office in the house. Buy the dead person’s extra tape and staples and rulers and scissors. I’ve been using some random dead person’s staples for years because I bought their staple hoard. Staples aren’t like meat and milk. They don’t expire.

I’m against competition. Try to avoid competing with other artists for resources. If you don’t truly need the money, don’t ask for it. Artists should have a section on their CV where they list grants they could have easily gotten but didn’t apply for because they are privileged enough that they don’t need the money as much as someone else. I almost never apply for anything but the one thing I do apply for and get every year is a part-time faculty development grant from Columbia College Chicago where I teach. It pays adjuncts up to $2,500 a year to fund their projects and seems to be completely non-competitive. My union negotiated to get us more money. I have used that grant to make over a dozen publications. The value of the publications I make and sell with each grant is about three or four times the value of the grant itself. Some years I make more from the grant than I do from the limited number of classes I teach. But I don’t depend on this grant to be a publisher and I’d still be able to make things without it.

Make things in different price ranges so everyone can afford your work, but also so that you can sustain your practice. Make a publication that costs $2.00, that costs $6.00, that costs $20.00, and make something special for the fancy ass institutional libraries that have a lot of money to spare and can buy something that costs $300.00. Likewise, make things in all different size print runs. Is there something you can print 1,000 of that you can keep selling and giving away for years, to enjoy that quantity discount that comes with offset printing a large number of publications?

Collaborate with people and pay them with publications (if they are cool with that) that they can sell on their own. Sometimes this ends up being better pay and more useful than an honorarium, and it helps justify a larger print run. But see what they need—don’t assume. Barter with other publishers and sell each other’s work and let each other keep the money. This helps with distribution. Sometimes it’s easier to sell their work than it is to sell your own. Help others expand the audience for their publications.

Fund your publishing practice by asking your friends who teach to invite you to talk to their college classes about your work. Use those guest speaker fees to print something. I sometimes tell people on social media: If three or four people will invite me to speak to their class, it could fund the entire next issue of X booklet series that you like so much. This has often worked. Also, sometimes their students end up ordering publications. Sometimes lectures about publications generate more income than the publications themselves.

Have an emailing list and write newsletters to announce new publications. Stay in touch with people who like what you do. Expect to spend a ton of time corresponding with people. Have some cheap things and cool ephemera on hand that you can send people for free when they mail order your publications. Reward people who support you directly with something nice that they didn’t expect. People like handwritten notes. It’s okay if they are very short but sign the packing slip and at least write “Thank you!”

Above all, know that publishing is a life journey and not a get rich quick scheme, or even a make very much money scheme. Enjoy the experience of meeting and working with others, trade your publications with other publishers and build up an amazing library of small press, hard to find artist books. Get vaccinated and travel and sleep on each other’s couches. Be generous with your time, knowledge, resources, and work. Tell Jeff Bezos to fuck off by never selling anything you make through Amazon. Find the bookstores that you love and work with them forever. It’s nicer to have deeper relationships with fewer bookstores than surface level interactions with dozens of shops run by people you don’t know.

Think about your publishing family. Bookstore people are your family. People that organize book fairs and zine fests are your publishing family. Other publishers are your family. People who follow your work for years on end are your family. Printers and binderies are your family. The postal workers that know you by name and that you know by name are your family. The person who doesn’t care if you make the free copies at work is your family. Over thirty years later, I’m still in contact with people I exchanged zines with through the mail when I was a teenager. In some cases I still haven’t met them in person. It’s fine! They are my family. Your students are your family—particularly once they graduate or drop out, as long as they continue making books and zines. Your family is your family, particularly if they value and support your publishing practice. And for this reason, this talk is dedicated to my late father Bruce Fischer, who let me use the company copier and postage meter when I was in high school, and to my mom who sat on the floor with me and helped me hand collate and staple my zines.

That’s what I’ve got for now. Stay in touch and with luck, and enough vaccines and masks and hand sanitizer, maybe I’ll see you at a book fair. – Marc Fischer • Thank you to Be Oakley of GenderFail for the invitation to present, to the other presenters Vivian Sming, Yuri Ogita, and Devin Troy Strother, and to the wonderful people at Printed Matter for hosting this! You should be able to find the video archived on Printed Matter’s YouTube Channel.  Presented on April 2, 2021

[pannacottawarrior]

From what I saw there’s maybe a one pound difference in gas prices (admittedly sometimes 2 when ours are on the lower side, which they fluctuate A LOT) per gallon, so gas isn’t really that much cheaper.

did you not read the rest of what i said or did you purposefully just read what i said on the reblog because if so then uhhh please get out of my inbox ^^ not to mention prices on products and etc here are expensive too so yeah please leave me alone :)

[withteeths]

Maybe Steamrolling Games is Bad Actually

Videogames are unique in that they are inextricably tied to corporatism and have been since birth (this is an oversimplification but roll with it). This means that to an extent most companies even since the ’80s have never really cared about proper preservation or easy access to their titles. Nintendo carts were originally manufactured to have their battery die in 3 years so you would have to buy a new one (this failed, but it’s why you still see a lot of dead carts floating around). I think there's a nostalgia issue within the gaming fandom regarding "oh x was great back then" but a lot of the time, games manufacturers have been historically shitty and anti-consumer and it’s just that they now have the tools to execute it much more effectively. Regarding obtrusive DRM, that’s an issue PC games have had since their zenith, where if you lost your original copy of a manual or a small plastic key you could never play a game again because the codes were individualized for each copy and support would refuse to give you a new one. Even back in the arcades, there were particularly batshit examples like the CPS board, which I shit you not was built to explode a battery pack filled with corrosive acid if it detected you were attempting to repair or modify it. There’s a lot to say about the current state of games but what I would likely illustrate is that 2/3 major consoles are racing to decide who will be obsolete first. Games consoles are reaching a point where they are trying to emulate PCs with more restrictions and DRM. We're already seeing interest in steam spike again and it’s likely that eventually, we will see almost a crash for consoles where no one can justify the price for games they can play on a PC rig. The only solution I see there would be a merger between the two consoles which feels inevitable. 

That being said as interest in the PC space increases again so does attempts at entering the bubble. We have Epic, Origin, Microsoft, Indiegala, Itchio, and Steam all vying for attention, requiring accounts, and offering exclusives to justify the use of their storefront over others. Some people think this is a good thing because it's breaking up Steam's monopoly but it literally is not, if you ever really wanna hear me rant ask me about Leftist obsession with itch being some sort of ethical steam, which it is provably not. In the end, the real sort of saviour figures that work to preserve games are random ass people on the internet. I know people who automatically assume that at the end of the day, companies care about games preservation too, and they usually have a three-pronged argument that cites a) Steam’s ability to allow the redownloading of delisted games, b) retro companies periodically rereleasing titles for modern consoles in compilations, and c) companies doing limited reruns of a game that fans request. All three of these examples are basically an incredibly effective use of diversionary tactics, but most of the time when someone cites these I just assume it’s a misunderstanding and not outright malicious intent because a lot of the time companies will attempt to actively implant these ideas to build brand loyalty.

My main dissertation is usually that Steam is incredibly selective with what titles you can redownload, and most importantly, corporate benevolence is more-so a band-aid on a gaping wound! There’s no contingency for when Steam might migrate to a new service, go belly up, or become obsolete when a new OS is created. That means thousands, tens of thousands of dollars worth of games are just gone, permanently, along with fan mods, DLC, and content. It’s a terrifying thought that not many people bring up when discussing the problems with game storefronts that focus so much on providing a cloud and have DRM attached to every purchase. In a way, Steam preceded the trend of not allowing consumers to actually own the things they purchased, and they’ve avoided criticism by strategic use of silence and creating the illusion of a company being made by the consumers they’re attempting to serve. At the end of the day, Steam is a business, and if you ever lose access to your Steam account, or they decide to up and leave one day, you will not be able to play almost all of those games, even if you have them installed on a hard drive, because if you’re online, they connect with a server to ensure your steam account has the ability to play them. When it comes to other arguments like the limited rereleases or use of compilations to preserve arcade titles, I usually just beg people to look at community-driven options that have existed for years. The Scott Pilgrim game is a big source of contention, but I would point out that for years now, it was playable, for free, with all the DLC, on PCs. Preservationists didn’t wait for the gods of Universal and O’Malley to rerelease it for 30 bucks or save up to snatch the fucking ridiculous 200$ limited edition with shitty paper cut-outs, they straight up just did the work to make the game free and available. RCPS3 has (with a contemporary build) been able to run the game pretty flawlessly for years now, in fact, it was how I played through a majority of the game in high school on my shitty brick of a laptop. If you look further out than this one example then it gets even better, MAME and other emulation backends have been able to play obscure, unfinished, and homebrew titles with 100% accuracy, on almost any setup, for free, for decades! I found out about many of these options back in 2015 or so, certainly late to the curve, but I never really questioned as to why emulation, games preservation, and some key titles being available on PC remained some sort of arcane, unknown knowledge to most people interested in games. In the end, the answer was a highly effective propaganda campaign that combined with strategic use of DMCA takedowns has resulted in the concept of communal games-preservation and emulation becoming some sort of debate, where people will wholeheartedly side with corporations in some sort of quest for preserving things the “ethical and correct way,” which is code for preservation on the condition that it remains profitable for the IP owners.

 I think the best way to illustrate this would be with the community built around the preservation of an infamous PS4 title, PT. The story of its inevitable delisting from the storefront and the messy breakup between Kojima and Konami is well known, so I won’t regurgitate it, look it up at your own leisure. What is significant here is corporate reactions to attempts at preserving the game, which can basically be boiled down to Konami acting with borderline rabid fervour to prevent redownload, redistribution, or recreation of a seven-year-old demo, released for free download. Mentions of solutions to redownload the game have been taken down, fan-made recreations for PC, and archival servers that store a copy of the game for future preservation or emulation. Usually when this is brought up a debate occurs citing that technically speaking, Konami has a right to do this whenever they want, for whatever piece of media they believe infringes on their copyright. On one hand, yes this argument is factually correct considering the current state of copyright and ownership of media, but on the other hand, what compels someone to step into the ring for a multi-million dollar company with the primary argument being “well actually, people SHOULDN’T be able to play this specific video game until it benefits the shareholders”? In my opinion, it’s some sort of corporatized symbiosis where players believe that, if you cull the bad actors and play by the rules of the company, you may be able to eventually play the game a couple of years down the line. Sure, this has happened in the past with a few isolated cases, but it can’t be stressed enough that this is a genuinely dangerous and reductive position for people to take regarding games preservation.

 I have two colleagues, Mariken and Fotocopiadora, who released a short interactive title called Videopulp (playable here: https://fotocopiadora.itch.io/videopulp). It’s a dramatic reimagining of a real historical event, wherein a promotional event was held in 1994 at Lelystad to destroy bootleg carts by a figure in a Mario costume. This perhaps best encapsulates something I am pleading with younger generations to understand, as an archivist, art historian, and creator: corporations are not your friends, and they never will be. With the rise of online circles of leftism, this concept is starting to gain traction but is starting to be polluted with concepts of fandom and tribalism. This has lead to arguments that while *most* corporations are bad how could you say that about Nintendo? Or Valve? Mario is so innocent and characters like Wheatley are beloved by all! I feel some people don’t realize that they can enjoy a select title or character without enlisting in a corporate faction in the battle for “best company” or “best videogame”. It leads to a parasocial kinship with a nonexistent figure that was hand-crafted to ensure consumer loyalty to a certain brand. It’s depressing, terrifying, and should stand as a disquieting example of how the grip of capitalism on works of art has permanently distorted how we think and engage with media today. So, what’s the solution? As always I can never really provide something concrete that’ll act as a cure-all, only things that people in games need to work towards. Bring up conversations about games preservation, create archives for your own work, support archivists and boost their work whenever a new discovery is created, and try to promote optimism and solidarity in your hobbyist communities. I’ve noticed a lot of futility being intertwined with the future of AAA gaming, use of online storefronts, and the inability to own pieces of media anymore, and I feel this should be pushed back against, even in a minute way. Open-source programmes still exist that allow you to hold on to what you have purchased, offline and ad-free options exist for games launchers, e-readers, and media players. The future isn’t bright, but it is not a place without hope, and as long as people continue to enter communities with passion and ingenuity, I think we have a chance at stopping the events at Lelystad, 1994 from happening again. 

[themoomoorn]

Jeralt Eisner Stinky

Related to my previous reblog, feel free to parouse as to why I agree that Jeralt is a bad dad, and the fact that the devs’ lack of a continuity checker made him look worse than the director likely intended him to.

Let’s count the ways:

- Went a very melodramatic 180 regarding Rhea when Byleth - who was resuscitated from friggin’ death - wasn’t behaving like a “normal baby.”  Now to be fair, Rhea was too mum for her own good and a baby that’s not very reactive to stimuli is very concerning in real life, but real life ties lose some of their weight due to Byleth’s wonky parentage and the reason for her lack of heartbeat.  Jeralt is also generally perturbed by Byleth not being “normal” for quite a while, which is pretty shitty of him anyway.  

- As a response to the above, it’s implied that he was the one who set the monastery on fire when absconding with Byleth in the night, a fire that was reported to have caused some serious damage and destroyed a lot of books.

- There’s also the fact that he was aware that Sitri herself suffered from a flat affect and struggled to emote more expressively at first, and he himself is pretty emotionally constipated.  It’d be more shocking if Byleth grew up suddenly acting like Alois. 

- He loved Sitri for basically being a cute little innocent nun, likely seeing her as ideal housewife material.  I know I’m using the term “housewife” in a damning fashion, but he loves her for some seriously basic, surface-level reasons.  Plus the whole “getting her to emote and smile more” bit?  Granted, Claude’s relationship with Byleth grows in a somewhat similar fashion, but Claude also easily adheres the least to 3H’s “avatar worship” and he doesn’t just become fond of Byleth due to her smiling and getting cuter because of that.  You can’t say the same of Jeralt and Sitri.

- While one can’t entirely damn someone for raising a child in the mercenary lifestyle due to the setting - We got a Lord and his sister being raised under similar circumstances - The sheer ignorance that Jeralt raised Byleth with is pretty damning if the gameplay/narrative element (Byleth being ignorant for the sake of player projection and exposition) is taken away.  It’s one thing to not necessarily be aware of the ins and outs of the major religion of an entire continent, but Byleth doesn’t even have much basic knowledge of Fodlan’s three countries, or any country outside of it, although most of Fodlan doesn’t either. There is also more damning text, including how Jeralt handled all of their job logistics and didn’t bother to put in any incentive to have Byleth possibly learn to inherit or learn the ins and outs of the company.  The quest where you get Jeralt’s old tactics primer also reveals that he didn’t bother to teach Byleth basic battle tactics either. 

- Where the heck was Byleth when Jeralt was in Sauin Village???  Not even Byleth herself remembers.  And while it’s heartwarming to see that Jeralt still cares for Leonie after reuniting with her (With people who bash Leonie for her fixation on him naturally ignoring this), he seems to put more effort in bonding with her than his own child.  She’s also the one who winds up inheriting his company, although that can also be attributed to Byleth being presumed dead when she does.

- He doesn’t really say much when it comes to Byleth’s “Ashen Demon” title, which is notably one of the very few things that genuinely upsets Byleth prior to her becoming more emotive.  And while it’s hinted that Byleth herself didn’t express interest in interacting with other people casually, Jeralt wasn’t exactly helping matters in that department either, exacerbating their isolation from others.  Heroes has the default Female Byleth note that she can’t tell a friend from an ally due to how she grew up.

- The man’s a raging alcoholic who performed some pretty stupid, deadly shit, including a trick that had a high chance of beheading Alois.  His treatment of Alois is also pretty deplorable, as is the fact that he has a slew of unpaid bar tabs that get shouldered by Alois and then forced onto Leonie.  

- Going back to meta and tying to how a lack of continuity checking affected 3H, Jeralt spent a lot of time fretting over Byleth being even remotely exposed to the church when there’s plenty of folks who, while aware of the faith, do not actively practice at all, pay lip service at best, or even show some disdain like the three Lords do.  Exploring lore also hampers the idea that the church is omnipotent and omnipresent: The Empire’s church branch was flat-out gutted for well over a century with practically no faith-based services available (this is a crux for Dorothea’s hatred of the faith and also cited with Mercedes’ history; she and her mother had to go to the Kingdom to find any kind of religious sanctuary after getting kicked out of House Bartels), the Alliance’s church branch has no political sway specifically because of how said Alliance is governed, and the Kingdom’s church branch has its own problems due to the zealotry, radicalism, differences in opinions of the faith, and eventual manipulation by the Agarthans that led it crossing blades with the Central branch.  

Plus, you know, Rhea never bothered to pursue Jeralt after he ran away.  And Alois’ contingent of knights appearing in Remire that fateful evening was pure happenstance, plus how Jeralt doesn’t even operate his company under a pseudonym or anything practical like that.  So with these in mind, it’s actually pretty reasonable to consider that Byleth can at least be somewhat unaware of the Seiros faith without Jeralt’s input.

- While it’s unrelated to Jeralt being Stinky, I find it irksome that a lot of folks will jump right on Jeralt hating Rhea and the church in wake of the man himself acknowledging that taking Byleth away from the monastery (or at least not giving them a stable place to grow up) was probably a huge mistake upon seeing them flourish as a teacher.  He also gets gutted for ultimately putting two and two together and realizing that the Empire may be involved with the group that’s been terrorizing the monastery during all of the 1180 school year, and tells off the Flame Emperor when they claim they’re not culpable for the Remire Massacre.  It’s hard to tell whether or not the man would side with Edelgard with enough persuasion or propaganda, or how he’d react to Byleth becoming one with Sothis and taking on their position as a major figure within the church for three out of four routes with some degree of fanfare and acceptance (which players naturally ignore to warp into Byleth being a shrieking harpy church-basher, or a church victim that El-chan or Claude has to ~save~ her from, naturally).  But it’s proof that people can’t really read - the guy wasn’t having the FE’s excuses, plain and simple.

- The above also ties to how Leonie is derailed in Crimson Flower, as she’s one of the few who unambiguously knows that the Fork Emperor is working with the same group that had Jeralt killed, in addition to all of the hell they caused therein.  Naturally, her excuse if recruited on Flower is - wait for it - Jeralt was pissy at Rhea for reasons Leonie never finds out about, but since Byleth-chan is siding with El-chan, it’s all well and good now.

- There’s also the profoundly depressing meta that if Byleth were allowed to be their own character, a continuity person was maybe in place, and Jeralt wasn’t a glorified plot device, then he had all the makings to be a great deconstruction of Greil from FE9.  The parallels are all there, but naturally they’re not put to good use, or blithely ignored outside of Supports.  This also ties to just how heavily players project onto Byleth, possibly even more so than Robin or Corrin.  Since they really project onto Byleth as Kusakihara and his goons intended, Jeralt is naturally tied to players’ real life father figures by osmosis, despite the fact that Jeralt himself definitely isn’t a good father figure. 

While having a consistent continuity checker wouldn’t be a fix-all to 3H’s problems (Kusakihara’s dismissive attitude towards having one and consistency in general is pretty damning in itself), it likely would’ve at least tightened the worldbuilding that the devs prided themselves on and offered some more consistency, even if the price is showing unpleasant truths such as Jeralt being stinky.

[mydisenchantedeulogy]

End Game [Chapter Five] Tomorrow Never Knows [Levi Ackerman]

The dawn of the excursion beyond the walls inevitably came. It was being addressed by many as a milestone for the human race, but for one particular woman, it felt nothing short of a sendoff.

Camilla stared in a trance at the sun as it broke the horizon and rose into the clear sky. She had been like this for a while, resting on the edge of the tower, lost in her thoughts. Something was nagging at her; something she could only describe as a feeling of fear. It was not caused by the very thought of venturing into unfamiliar territory, but caused by something Hange mentioned to her the previous day.

There is an enemy among us.

Puzzled at first, Camilla didn’t think much of it. There were many people who opposed the force – such as the MP brigade – many who did not understand their methods. It was not until she read an unfinished segment in Hange’s notes, involving two test subjects that were killed, that she understood.

There is an enemy among us.

Someone in the corps had a wicked agenda. But who? Camilla had a feeling they were not yet done. This is why she desired to avoid the expedition; the timing was not coincidental.

But does that matter to Erwin?

The bright-eyed woman huffed an irritated sigh. She really despised his logic – sacrifice for the price of freedom. “No one can win without sacrificing.”

“What are you on about, you little shit?”

Camilla lurched forward in alarm. Once she realized Levi had snuck up on her, she aimed a glare at him. “Warn me next time.”

Levi stared at her firmly. “Keep your guard up. Don’t chose now to act like a shitty novice.”

Isn’t that what I am?

She had been off the field for too long. True, the refresher classes helped; they prepared her for what she’d be facing, but nothing could measure up to the real experience. She nodded in spite of this; he had a point.

“Shouldn’t you be at breakfast?” She turned her body to face him, smirking impishly. “It’s the most important meal of the day, you know? You’ll never get any bi––

He flicked her nose, interrupting her. “Knock it off with the short jokes.” Levi sat down beside her while she wiped the sudden tears from her eyes. “Anyway, you should eat lightly so you don’t puke up your guts again.”

That was one time, Camilla thought in disgust. She puckered her lip, but in any case, she was glad that he managed to distract her for a moment. Her recent thoughts were still nagging at her, but at least she wasn’t consumed by them any longer. Even so, there was something she wanted to ask Levi.

“It’s been a while, but are we going to exchange rings?”

Levi glanced at her. “Assumed you’d ask sooner.” Honestly, he came up to the tower because he thought he’d miss the chance to speak with her once the expedition began. He veered his eyes to the basic silver band around his finger and twisted it with his thumb. The idea to exchange rings was his – a practical way to keep Camilla attentive and calm while on the field. It seemed to work – they’d done it twice before – so the impassive man had no qualms about handing over his ring to her. She kept it closed up in her coat pocket, because like him, she wasn’t able to wear it on her finger.

“I’ll give it back once we return,” she mentioned.

“That’s the idea,” Levi replied. “Though it may be a while. It’s a few days ride to Shiganshina, and on top of that, Erwin has plans for us to drop off supplies to each of the two stations before we head straight there. You may not see much of me until then.”

Camilla nodded in agreement. “I’m fine with that – so long as I have the ring. Perhaps the trip won’t be so bad; sky looks clear of rain.”

Her optimism was noxious, in Levi’s opinion. Setbacks were bound to happen, and as much as Camilla wanted things to proceed according to plan, the likelihood of this happening was slim. He said nothing in opposition and sat quietly until the sun was towering above them. It was about that time; Erwin would be calling for saddle up soon. Levi glanced at his wife’s ring one last time before fastening it up in his beige coat, then pulled himself up onto his feet.

“Finish up here and get to the war room. Erwin should have our positions ready.”

Leaving her alone, Levi strode by the vice leader of the medical team on his way down the stairs. She hastily saluted him, balancing a tray of food in her left hand. Henderson, he recalled Camilla saying.

“Keep an eye on her,” he said. Motioning with his hand for her to continue on, he overheard her squeak in agreement.

Levi was doubtful.

--

“These our orders?”

Camilla gave a brief glance at Brendon, nodded to his question, then averted her eyes once again to the sheet of paper in her hand. It wasn’t an official posting, but the writing indeed came from Erwin’s hand. Strange he would write it this way.

This doesn’t tell me a lot. She huffed in annoyance and brought her attention back to her team. Each of them was huddled in front of the stable doors, eagerly waiting.

There were eleven members in total, excluding herself; four she already had the pleasure of meeting, and one she graduated with in the 87th.

“Listen up, because we’re going to be split into advanced relief teams for this mission,” she said loudly and forcefully. “The first squad will be stationed with relay; comprised mostly of the new recruits. The second will man the carts and guard the materials inside. Felde will head relay; Bergt, Koch, and Haas are with her. Tremaine is over carts with Helme, Wagner, and Ziegler. That leaves the third ART with me – Henderson, Lensing, and Neff.”

Camilla hesitated a moment; her next thoughts were private, but something she felt like she owed them. “Seeing as I won’t be with each of you … I ask that you don’t act recklessly out there. If a problem should arise, follow the LDES formation and listen to your squad leaders. I hope to see each of you at the first checkpoint, so if there are no questions, you are all dismissed to take your positions. Be safe.” She watched carefully as each of them dispersed into the stables, then followed closely behind.

For the mission, the Scouts were required to travel on horseback; the distance was too much on foot. Camilla was assigned a pinto-colored mare with ashen spots – he wasn’t given a name, for palpable reasons. He nickered softly as she rubbed his neck.

“Promise me.”

The dark-haired captain looked towards the sound of the voice, overhearing an exchange between Michella and Brendon. “Please. I just want to hear you say everything will be okay.” Camilla watched curiously as he softly touched the woman’s shoulder.

Michella shook her head. “You know I can’t do that; it’s naïve. We could both die out there, and I won’t give you hope by promising something out of my hands.”

“Then do me a favor and don’t be a hero. If it means putting your life on the line for someone else, then it’s not worth it.” He waited for her to reply, but when she didn’t, Brendon scoffed and walked away.

It’s not my concern.

Camilla huffed a sigh and took her mare by the reins, guiding him outside the stable. She knew better than to involve herself with something she had no knowledge of, but the fact she heard it made it harder to ignore.

Frankly, as a medic it wasn’t difficult to stay out of harm’s reach while on the field; judge a person’s chance of survival and save or leave them. This wasn’t heroic, but with so many scouts risking their lives, it was expected of a person wearing a red cross. She only hoped that Michella wouldn’t be thoughtless out there.

Burying her worries, Camilla mounted the mottled horse and got into formation. She was exceedingly surprised to be lumped together with Levi and his SO squad. Her thin brow puckered; she was almost certain she was in the wrong party until members of her own advanced squad moved into position beside her.

Directly behind Levi, she leaned forward and said in jest: “Couldn’t let me do this on my own, could you?”

Levi clearly heard her, but he didn’t turn around to acknowledge her. In doing so he missed the wide, gentle smile she gave him. Honestly, he was just as surprised to have her on his team as she was. It felt unwise to him, but Erwin had his reasons.

Noticing the formation move forward, Levi nudged his horse and followed. The ride was intended to take several hours – to reach the checkpoint in Trost – then an additional two days until the Scouts made their last stop. He gripped the reins around his horse until the leather bit into his skin and followed the ones in front of him. Honestly, the ride to Trost was calm and boring; he wasn’t too bothered by this. He listened to his team converse with the medical team, and even grunted as Eren asked Camilla questions too personal to his liking.

But once the Scouts reached the gates in Trost, the real danger became evident. His squad and the medical team went into focus and as the doors came open, they burst free of the walls and ventured into Doll territory at high speed, tearing at the ground in their wake.

There were Dolls scattered here and there. Camilla saw the smoke from their torn bodies in the corner of her eyes as her horse dashed through. Smoke signals alerted them of the abnormal ones, but nothing serious became of them. It was an easy ride; one she was not thankful for. Something was odd about it, but she put her worries aside and followed Levi closely until they reached the first check point, hours without a single incident or death.

A man-made wooden fence surrounded the tree line outside the Forest Base, extending too far for Camilla to see. They came to a stop at the main gate for a brief moment to speak with a guard, then steered their horses inside. Large shacks connected by bridges hung in the trees above them. It wasn’t much, but to someone like her; someone who lived on the ground behind walls of stone, the Forest Base was a miraculous sight to see.

She tied up her horse and began moving supplies into the base. A pulley system made carting heavy loads from the ground into the trees easy, and by the time the Scouts were done, the darkness of night had settled over them. Camilla and a few members of her team sat in front of a controlled fire and ate their dinner.

“I wish it were this easy all the time,” Michella mentioned.

Camilla hummed. “Me too. I am grateful for this moment of peace, but it won’t last.”

“I know,” Michella uttered. She stirred her spoon around the bowl in her hand and sighed. “I never wanted to be a Scout; I was content living as an ignorant civilian behind the safety of the walls, ignoring the dangers of the outside world.”

She smiled gently at Camilla. “But the peace didn’t last. Once Shiganshina fell, homeless civilians flooded my hometown and food became harder to buy. We farmed the land, but one bad harvest set us back. People were starving and I had no choice but to do something in order to stay alive.”

“You joined up with the Scouts?”

Michella nodded in agreement. “I did. It was Brendon who coerced me into becoming a Scout. I had no experience in fighting, but I was a decent medic. He thought I’d do some good outside the walls; I wanted to take back what was rightfully ours, so no one would ever have to suffer again.”

“He was right,” Camilla mentioned. “You are a good medic. No one makes vice without some form of experience.”

She laughed, face turning red. “I have you to thank for that, somewhat. Captain Angert made me a vice once you left. He was your vice I heard.”

“He was,” Camilla confirmed.

She heard that Angert died some years back on the field. He was headstrong; a man who often jumped before thinking. Erna Neff – a medic and fellow graduate of hers – and he were close friends.

When he died, Erna blamed Camilla for abandoning them. She was right to be mad. It was because of her that he died; because she forced Angert to take the role of Captain when he wasn’t ready. Erna wrote her a letter explaining this and once she returned, meeting her eye to eye was not an easy task. In a way, Camilla was happy about this. She didn’t want Erna to forgive her; she wanted to earn back her trust.

If she could.

Camilla was exhausted. She knew that Michella meant no harm, but her past weighed heavy on her mind. It was not hard to ignore at times; the mistake that got her teammate killed. She said her good nights and returned to her tent, where a temporary bed was made for her. Lying down, she rested her eyes and listened to the Scouts converse until darkness found her.

Tomorrow came early and with it came misery.

[aenwoedbeannaa]

Curse Meant to Be Broken | Geralt x Reader | Pt. 5

Summary: After facing your worst fear in battle and freeing your mother’s soul in the process, you travel with Geralt all the way to Kaer Morhen—but he has been hiding something.

Word Count: 2,416

A/N: Again, I know that this portrayal of a Noonwraith is not canon, but here we are.

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4

I hope you enjoy this chapter, and if you want to read more of my work, you can check out my masterlist, and if you’d like to be tagged, check out my taglists and I’d be happy to add you! I’ve also set up a ko-fi page. A dollar here and there would help me be able to help me start moving toward part-time work so that I can focus more on my creative work. But of course, as always, the best way you all support me is by continuing to read my stories. I appreciate it more than I can say.

Another Trial

“Kaer Morhen,” you breathe, eyes drinking in the sight of the old castle. There are places where the stone has crumbled, but it is still grand. Though, it does strike you in the way that old, deserted places do – with a sense of sadness and loss for what was once there. Though, Kaer Morhen holds no dear childhood memories for you, and so it is easier to bear that looking at your old hut in the village back home.

“Where I grew up,” Geralt nods in response. You sneak a look at his amber eyes, which seem to be searching the castle much the way yours are. You want to ask him what it looked like when he trained here, but you have no idea how long ago that was, and you don’t wish to pry.

“Why’ve we come?” You can’t help but ask the question that has been hanging on the tip of your tongue since you set off on the journey—or at least for as long as you’ve been conscious. After the first few days, the pain had gradually started to fade, even without the help of elixirs. You still took a milder potion, but it didn’t cloud your mind the way the stronger one did. You’ve seen much more of the Continent than you had ever hoped to.

Geralt looks at you with a twinge of guilt – regret. Your first instinct is to turn and run or cower in the corner. Has he grown tired of your company? Does he wish to dump you here, leave you with someone else so that he doesn’t have to deal with you anymore? All of these questions swirl in your head, making it impossible for you to voice any of them.

Finally, he speaks.

“I…” he begins, golden eyes shifting from your face down to the floor at your feet, “The wound on your back, Y/N.”

You don’t know what he is about to say, but you feel the need to cut him off. “It’s been feeling better every day!” you protest.

“Yes, but it’s only a matter of time before it…” He seems to have lost words again, and now you are panicking, heart thudding in your chest.

“Before it what, Geralt?” You can’t keep the shrill edge out of your voice as you speak, your nerves choking you. “What are you talking about?”

“There is a poison.” Geralt hangs his head, looking utterly defeated. “The wound will heal, but the infection will spread. This is the only place I know that will be able to help.”

You look at him, mouth hanging open in shock. You want to be angry with him that he hadn’t told you sooner, but the consuming panic is making it hard to see straight. Perhaps it was better that you hadn’t known this entire journey.

“W-What do you mean?” you stammer, taking a step closer to him, your voice still sounding shrill in your head. “She caught your arm as well… Does that mean…” You can’t even bring yourself to form the sentence. Somehow, the Witcher being in imminent danger is much more frightening to you than yourself.

The Witcher shakes his head, face growing more serious—more pained, by the moment. “No, Y/N. The poison doesn’t work like that on Witchers. Our mutations make us immune to disease, to infections.”

Your eyes momentarily widen as the whole world seems to blur out of focus. Your thoughts, however, somehow remain intact. If a Witcher’s mutations are the only thing that can stop the infection, and he’s brought you to Kaer Morhen, the old Witcher school, there can be no other reason than undergoing mutations yourself.

You are shocked that the prospect both excites you and terrifies you at the same time. Geralt’s face, on the other hand, betrays nothing but resigned desperation.

You know what the mutations entail—or at least, in a general sense. Nobody really knows how the Witcher mutations work save for Witchers themselves, and he is the only one you’ve met. Now you understand his unwillingness to talk about them. In the days spent traveling, he would change the subject each time it veered anywhere close to his childhood and the mutations he underwent. You only know that part of the reason his hair is white is because of extra mutations he underwent. You do, however, know that only three in ten boys made it through the mutations alive… Those are not god odds. But then, if what he is saying about the infection is true, those are even worse odds.

“The lesser evil,” you whisper, not sharing any of your other thoughts. You are sure he’s thought about it plenty.

He looks at you, taking a hesitant step forward and making your breath catch in your throat. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if there were any other way,” he says.

You trust him. But something is still nagging at you.

“I thought that only men could become Witchers.”

“It is the norm,” he says, “But it has been done.”

You shift your weight from one foot to the other, attempting to calm your nervousness but failing.

“I think,” he finally adds after an abnormally long silence, “There should be a way to use minimal mutations—only the necessary ones.” His face betrays a pain, long-repressed memories that had been shoved to the very back of his mind for decades.

“Visimir will know.”

You vaguely recognize the name. He has mentioned it a few times, if you are correct.

“He is… like a father to me.”

“Oh.”

Yes, you remember the name now. Geralt has mentioned him often. His father-figure and mentor, the keeper of Kaer Morhen who has been in charge since before he was born. You deduce that he must also be the Witcher in charge of the Trials; the Witcher who knows the correct elixirs and potions to turn an ordinary human into a Witcher… or Witcheress.

You look from the Witcher to the once grand castle behind him, the whole world blurred strangely. You are afraid, though you will not admit it to him. But, at the same time, the thought of the mutations—if you live—making you nearly invincible against those who had once wronged you is exciting.

“Y/N.” The Witcher’s voice brings you back to the moment, pulling you out of the fantasies playing through your head of returning to your shitty little town and teaching Stephic and his men a lesson they will never forget.

“Come,” he finally says, extending his arm. You grasp it without a second thought, perhaps pulling yourself a bit too tightly to his side. You are glad for the support, as your legs have turned into something akin to jelly, and your head is too muddled to follow directions. You are almost certain that you can feel a dull ache in your back where you hadn’t felt it before. You imagine it spreading like a virus through your veins—or a lit fuse with burning its way to inevitable destruction.

You walk beside him with unsure steps, eyes still taking in the wonder of this new place despite it all. It is a small price to pay, you suppose, to set your mother free. Besides, there were plenty of other ways you could have died back in that shit Nilfgaardian outpost of a town.

Slowly, your steps become more confident, your spine straightening and your head lifting higher. You survived a battle with a wraith, which could not be said for most humans. You’d survived the destruction of your entire village. You’d survived for years as the lowest ranking member of the staff for a cruel master. You can survive a few elixirs and mutations; you know you can.

When you walk through the massive front doors of the old keep, you gasp. Regardless of its state of disrepair, the hall is beautiful. You can only imagine what it had looked what it had in its golden age.

As the doors close behind the two of you, you hear the sound of footsteps echoing in the massive hall, growing closer. Your eyes move in the direction of the approaching steps, the image of a man with long hair, like Geralt’s. As he gets closer, you realize that he is older than Geralt—though it is impossible to tell how old. Witchers were rumored to live to all manner of ages, usually far longer than any average human.

“Geralt!”

The man smiles warmly, quite uncharacteristically – at least in your limited knowledge of Witchers – to hug your companion, who wraps his arms around the old Witcher.

“Visimir.”

“It’s good to see you, Wolf.”

“You too, old man.”

“Let’s not point out age,” Visimir says with a smirk.

A pause.

“And who is your companion?”

You want to open your mouth and answer for yourself, but you find that your mouth has gone entirely dry and it feels like your throat has closed up. You are not intimidated by the man; he seems warm and loving, at least the way he greeted Geralt. But still, you are in a new place where you never would have pictured yourself in an entire lifetime.

“Y/N,” he introduces you. “She helped banish a Noonwraith.”

A knowing look passes between the two men. You only notice it for a fraction of a second, but you notice it. You can’t possibly imagine everything running through their heads, but you can guess. You know that no Witcher school is currently creating new Witchers. There hasn’t been a Trial in years—even humans knew that. You wonder how long it has been, and why it has been so long.

Visimir looks at you and smiles warmly, despite the faraway look in his eyes. “Welcome, Miss, to Kaer Morhen.”

* * *

“What the fuck, Geralt?”

You are sitting with your ear to the wall, trying to pick up as much of the conversation going on in the next room over as possible.

“Lambert, you know I wouldn’t suggest this if there was any other way.” You feel a tightening in your chest upon hearing the strain in the Witcher’s voice; it is pained in a way that you never want to hear him.

“And what, you’ve tried everything?” Lambert counters, “Don’t the mages have some sort of cure? They sure are proud of their advanced magic.”

“Our magic is based on theirs, and apparently rudimentary at that,” Geralt continues, “Anything that they would do would be just as dangerous as this, if not more.”

You shiver, wrapping your arms around your knees and hugging them to your chest. You know for certain that you do not want to die; not when this whole new world has opened up to you.

But that would be my destiny, you think bitterly. To live only long enough to finally have something to leave behind.

“And what if it works?” a third, unfamiliar voice cuts in. “Will you start training her as a Witcher? No one in the society she’s from will give her work once she’s one of us.”

“Oh, why bother with pointless questions, Eskel?” Lambert’s voice is raised now, and you are certain you can detect a fear in it. “She won’t live. She will die an agonizing death.”

“Stop!” Geralt roars, drowning out the other voices. Silence envelopes the room, leaving only the sound of your labored breathing as you remain still, ear pressed to the wall.

“Well, Geralt?” Lambert breaks the silence, “Did you have something to say? Because I do.”

You hear no response.

“You care for that girl, I can see that.” His tone has changed somewhat, more pleading than angry now. “But trying to save her this way? You’re going to kill her, Geralt.”

More silence.

“The infection takes its victims quickly, in sleep. But to submit her to the Trial of Grasses? It’s cruel, Geralt. And selfish.”

“Not everyone regrets becoming a Witcher, Lambert,” Eskel says.

“But everyone regrets seeing people that we cared about, people that we loved die in front of us!”

You are buzzing with anxiety, anger, and words you wish you could speak. After all, it is your life that is currently being debated, very loudly, only a room over. The stone walls may be thick, but there are cracks, and it should be no surprise to the men that you can hear.

When silence has settled too long, you finally speak, loudly. You even slam your fist against the wall, as if it would help. Instead, it just leaves you with aching knuckles as you shout.

“All of these grand arguments and no thought to ask me what I want?”

You can’t hear it, but you can picture all three heads in the room turning to look at the wall. “Or does that not matter here?”

“Y/N—” Geralt mutters, and you hear a crash as someone quickly moves through the room.

You do not move from your place on the floor, even as you hear his footsteps echoing down the hall towards the door in front of you. He opens the door quickly, eyes searching for you for the briefest of moments before landing on you, huddled up against the wall, hot fury in your eyes.

He drops to his knees in front of you. You stare at him for a moment, not saying anything. He reaches out, placing a hand on each of your shoulders. But beyond that, he says nothing, does nothing, and it only makes the anger burn brighter – though you can’t quite place where that anger is directed.

“I want it to be my choice. And I choose the lesser evil.”

“Y/N,” he says, “It… You still have some time to decide, I would never force you to—”

“Geralt,” your gaze fixes intensely on his. “I want to live. I… You… I mean, a month ago, I had nothing to live for. Maybe my choice would have been different then. But now… I refuse to just let myself die, when you’ve finally given me a reason to stay alive.”

And, for the first time, you aren’t even worried about how he will react. Hell, you don’t care how he reacts. You just know that you want to kiss him, and so you do.

He reacts instantly, moving his lips against yours and pulling you against him, wishing that he could simply keep you pulled tight to his chest and protect you from all harm.

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