#i found something else that generally makes sense to me and offers a philosophy i vibe with

[luesmainblog]

One thing i wish atheists (of which i used to be one, so this isn't an outside perspective!) would commit to a bit more is acknowledging the trauma responses within their attitudes. If being called culturally christian comes across as an insult, if it translates in your head as having some sort of christian Taint that you can't rub off, then you are emotionally misunderstanding the conversation. it isn't about you, and it's not to say that you haven't run far enough or that your hurt doesn't matter. it is asking you to examine your cultural assumptions and attitudes, even the ones you agree with and like, and consider that they are not the default of the universe. that christian beliefs and practices had a direct impact on them, and even if every single person in the U.S.A. magically became an atheist overnight, we would still have a lot of the problems that stem from christian culture. the above is important, and you cannot ignore it simply because you are trying to distance yourself from your upbringing. your pain IS real, and you HAVE come a long way, but there are still deeper roots that need to be examined. it may help to spend a while observing how Shinto and Buddhism have both impacted Japanese culture, or how the varying religions in India have impacted them; by viewing a very different setting, you can see what it is we're talking about without flaring up your internal defenses, and you can use that as a framework to approach Cultural Christianity.

The funniest thing re: the whole cultural christianity debate is that the sharp distinction between religion and culture is like. A culturally christian idea. It only exists because universalizing religions wanted to make their beliefs as palatable as possible, and now we've got a generation of atheists who are convinced that religion had no impact on the values and practices of their culture.

[lets-try-some-writing]

Forbidden Sight is my favorite work of yours - I absolutely dig the religious horror and the excellent characterization of Bee’s terror. I feel like a huge downfall of a lot of works that do cosmic horror is ‘turning the lights on’ or so I say, when the writer says too much - but you avoided that pitfall MARVELOUSLY with the ending. Do you think you could shed some light on what inspired you for the fic and the characterization of Primus?

Oh absolutely!!! I hardly get questions like these and I am ALWAYS thrilled to answer them!! I too find that a lot of horror writers, even just for general horror, tend to reveal their hand too early. I've made that mistake before with a few drabbles and learned from a few other fandoms that oftentimes the most horrifying thing is that which you cannot fully comprehend. Thank you Warhammer 40k, Hollow Knight, and various analog horror series. There is a very fine line to walk for horror, and for me, I've always found inspiration for my horror through concept, not character or setting.

I am a highly religious person myself, and so in a moment of contemplation after attending philosophy class, I wondered what would be the most horrifying for a person of faith? Your world is crumbling. Reality is cracking, and all you have is your faith in something greater than yourself. And so you lean on it, you give yourself to it in hopes of the salvation your people preach. But through this you discover that the thing you worship, while indeed just as loving as the preachers say, does not know how to express that love in a way that does not cause pain. Would that not be horrifying? The god you worship is just as the stories say. All loving and perfectly loyal to you, it's precious child. But it is so much greater than you that you cannot understand it. Even its most tender touch and well meant action causes you pain because it does not know your mortal desires. Even if it does have the barest inkling of your pain, the way it soothes is so great and drastic that you have no choice but to plead to act in its stead. How do you serve a god who wants to love, but does not know how? You offer it everything. You become it's vessel so that, if nothing else, its touch will not break anyone other than you. There is equal horror to be found in learning that the god you've known lives beneath you feet is not just alive, but active. It schemes, it thinks and plans. It claims to love, but its actions tell a different tale. Everything it does hurt someone, even its most loyal devotee. Your god loves you. It loves you so much that it is willing to hurt you to keep it's people closer to itself. It loves so deeply and with such strength that it will listen, but only if you accept all that it has to offer. What would you do, if your god loved you enough to break you?

In essence, what is the consequence of a god's love? Can it be considered love at all? And beyond that, is what it claims to be love truly that, or is it simply selfishness hidden behind a veil of divinity. One cannot comprehend something so great, so all there is to do is guess.

Hope that answered your question! It was a lot of rambling on my end, but I do hope it makes a degree of sense.

[rancidslime]

This is very much a Smith College Problem but I genuinely really loathe the way "homophobia and transphobia are rooted in misogyny, The First Bigotry" is like, a notion that's really in vogue right now? Like. So the first issue is that creating an evolutionary line of bigotry is straightforwardly narrativizing it and attempting to make it have an internal logic. If there's one thing we know about bigotry, it's that it does not HAVE an internal logic. It's why it's so tempting and so pointless to mock conservative irrationality or hypocrisy. Bigotry is not a philosophy founded in logic, it's a rationalization made AFTER the fact, an attempt to explain a desire to exploit or scapegoat. This tidy family tree of hatred is an unprovable vibes-based assertion based largely in cishet backlash against the gay history of gender nonconformity and not much else.

But the real issue is it offers no insight into bigotry in general or homophobia/transphobia in particular. In fact, the ways in which homophobia and transphobia operate IRL must be flattened or ignored for this model to make any sense at all. I wanna tread carefully here, because I think a common response to gay men trying to talk about the unique ways in which we are marginalized is that we're trying to "say we have it worse", than lesbians.(I don't love that I have to qualify this statement for other people's comfort but better safe than sorry.) That's not what this post is about. This is about analyzing anthropological topics in a way that avoids removing nuance in service to narrative, and creating models of analysis that allow us to be descriptive about issues specific to our communities.

One of the more illustrative examples of a struggle unique to gay men is cishet society's view of the sex we have. (and I'm focusing on gay men here because go figure, I'm a cis gay man speaking from experience, but I also maintain that this model is at best kind of useless for trans people too.) Obviously all gay and trans sex is stigmatized, but we're talking about characteristics unique to individual communities, but we're gonna focus on sex between men for this topic - usually, but not always, between cis men. There's an extreme focus on anal sex and a framing of us as, by extension, engaging in a kind of perverse, unhygienic parody of heterosexual sex. (Fun fact: while studies report most gay men have HAD anal sex, gay sex doesn't actually mean anal sex most of the time. For some it's just because they don't like it, but also, we're not magic, and anal is kind of logistically annoying even for people who enjoy it.) This framing of our sex as "unclean" extends to EVERYTHING gay men do and are; we're treated as plague rats for AIDS, preachers and politicians invent bizarre scatological fantasies about our behavior, we are supposedly obsessed with the molestation and "contamination" of young boys. Breathless, lurid descriptions of sex between men (or between men and trans women, who they of course also treat as men) are THE example used by conservatives when they want to evoke quick and easy disgust against LGBT people more broadly.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? How the combination of certain demographics (the intersections if you will, har har) have unique experiences not accounted for by viewing bigotry as a series of animation cels that can be layered atop one another? It's insane to me that this website has had so many conversations about gay and trans liberation and it's still something we struggle with? Narrativizing and rationalizing bigotry are imo the death of meaningful analysis on the topic, the things that can be far more comprehensively described (and consequently provide context and insight into the bigotry) are power and history.

[thefanficmonster]

Bucket List

Lexi Howard x Fezco [Euphoria Season 2]

Warnings: Drug use (weed), Swearing, SPOILERS for Euphoria Season 2, Being High

Genre: FLUFF, Romance, Humor

Summary/Prompt: Lexi gets high for the first time with Fezco

Requested by Anon. Thank you for the prompt, dear! Hope you enjoy the imagine! Love, Vy ❤

This is a rare occurrence for the two, especially for Fez. Him and Lexi have found themselves sitting in his living room, going back and forth about a subject Fezco has never thought he’d have to think twice about - smoking weed.

“I dunno, Lex, I don’t want you doin’ some shit you might regret later.“ He complains after a long silent pause fell upon them after Lexi made her point of ‘wanting to be more adventurous‘. Unfortunately for her, he still seems uncertain which means she’ll have to continue arguing her case.

“I won’t regret it, Fez. I promise you. It’s on my bucket list so it’s gonna be fine regardless.“ She replies concretely but, much to her dismay, he’s only amused by her statement.

He tilts his head to look at the brunette girl and smirks, “Bucket list?”

Lexi hadn’t thought of how childish that would sound until he said it out loud and made her cheeks heat up with embarrassment, “Well, not exactly. Just a list of things I wanna do before graduating and going off to college.” She explains herself, chuckling at her own cringiness.

Fez, on the other hand, finds it adorable, “Yeah, I get it. I mean, it makes sense. There’s stuff you wanna do before closin’ one chapter and openin’ another. It ain’t a small deal.”

The girl playfully rolls her eyes, “Yeah, your philosophy won’t distract me, Fezco.” 

He chuckles at this, “You hard to deceive, Lexi Howard.” He adjusts his seating position to be able to face her, “What else is on that bucket list of yours?”

Lexi stubbornly crosses her arms over her chest and smirks, “Help me cross this one thing off and I’ll let you in on the rest?“ She phrases it as a question - an offer. She’s offering him a deal that he’s very tempted to take.

To him, Lexi is way more than a pretty-faced smart goody-two-shoes. He sees her as an enigma. He sees her as an open book written in reverse and in a different language - it seems standard and straight-forward but when you really look at it you realize how complex it is to understand. How many layers there are to it.

How many things there are to know about her.

Getting a sneak peak into this bucket list will have him looking at a more adventurous side of Lexi, her goals and wishes. And not only that, but by fulfilling her request of getting high with her for her first time, he’ll have a look of how different she is when she lets loose completely. That ain’t a small deal. There might be casualties if he agrees to it, but she doesn’t seem too concerned about them herself which is saying a lot.

“Fine...“ Fez sighs, almost regretting it but then he hears Lexi’s squeal of excitement and feels her soft warm lips on his cheek. That’d be enough to convince him to do anything.

“You’re the best, Fez.“ She tells him, her words genuine and honest. They bring a smile to his face, a smile so love-struck, he’d feel like an idiot if anyone else saw it. Ash would probably never let him live it down which is why it’s good that he isn’t home at the moment and is instead running the store - something he volunteered to do when he saw the girl’s bike pull up to the entrance.

Fezco knows he’s far from the ‘best’ person she could be with at the moment or at all, generally speaking. He’s worlds away from her, differentiating in so many ways it’s still unbelievable to him that they’ve ended up compatible enough to be here right now or to have met in the first place. And yet he thanks the universe and the God he believes in for it every single day. He hasn’t had many good things happen in his life so he’s sure to be grateful when he gets one although ‘grateful’ is an understatement for what he feels and has been feeling since Lexi entered his life. He’s felt true happiness, he’s felt those damn butterflies he’s heard about so many times and called them bullshit. He’s felt a feeling dangerously close to love and he’s unsure of how to deal with it. Anything that good provokes his automatic instinct to just push her away and distance himself. But here’s the thing: he can’t. And if he’s being honest he doesn’t want to either.

*  *  *  *  *

After rolling a slim blunt which took him an embarrassing amount of time, Fezco sits down next to Lexi once again. That joint is some weak shit in his eyes but when he imagines the inexperienced girl smoking it he still thinks it’s too much.

“We’re sharing?“ She asks, confused as to why the long wait and work produced only a single blunt.

“There ain’t no way in hell Imma let you smoke a whole blunt.“ He laughs, settling the small item in her hands when she stretches them out towards him, curious to inspect it further. He finds it amusing, the way she holds it so delicately, contrary to how he handles his joints.

She sniffs the smell of the weed and scrunches her nose slightly, displeased. There’s a common rule that says: ‘If something smells bad, there’s no chance it’ll taste good’, which is why the thought of inhaling a puff of smoke with that aroma and letting it travel down to her lungs disgusts her almost enough to call the whole thing off.

“See, you already ain’t a fan.“ He chuckles as she hands it back to him.

“I won’t knock it till I try it.“ Lexi shrugs her shoulders, although a bit hesitantly, “What matters is the effect it’ll have on me afterwards.“

Fez agrees that that’s exactly what matters because he’s terrified of a negative reaction which, honestly speaking, there’s only the slimmest chance for but he can’t help his concern.

“It’ll put the workaholic in you to sleep, that’s for sure.“ He says, making her scoff and presumably roll her eyes. They’ve gotten to the point of being able to distinguish and guess each other’s facial expressions and general reactions. That could either suggest a great connection and built up knowledge on each other or just something that’s a tell-tale sign of them spending way too much time together. That’s the catch though: there’s no such thing as ‘too much time‘ for them. It’s never enough. They’re greedy and can never get enough, wishing the seconds and minutes could stretch, last longer. Wish their time could warp and be formed into ‘forever‘.

Unfortunately, their ‘forever’ never lasts longer than a few hours. It’s never even lasted a full day. Fez is hopeful that’ll change today.

“I hope so. Cause I can’t get my mind off this paper I need finished by Tuesday.“ She replies watching as he flicks the blunt between his fingers before taking out his lighter.

He’s just about to light it when he processes what she’s said, “Yo, if you thinkin’ of some bullshit paper right now, I’m clearly doin’ somethin’ wrong here.”

Although he was only half joking, the result of his comment was a wholehearted laugh from Lexi which immediately brought a grin to his lips. “It’s hard not to think about when it means a lot for my grade.“ She might be camouflaging it from Fez but she’s now stalling and for no particular reason whatsoever. She trusts him and knows that a weed trip is the smallest she could experience, one that can’t even really be considered a trip, just a regular calm high.

“I cannot fucking believe you’re worried. Like, you forget you’re Lexi Howard?“ He asks her, returning her from the depths of her contemplations and hesitations.

“It’s good to have a reminder sometimes.“ She admits, meeting his soft eyes, “But it’s even better to relax a bit.“ She nods to the joint they had both forgotten about momentarily, causing Fez to smirk.

“Aight then.“ He chuckles, “Imma kick it off, you take the lead, ‘k?“

Lexi nods, watching as he brings it up to his lips, trapping it between them and sparks up the lighter. He inhales deeply, removing the blunt from in-between his lips to release the smoke forwards, in the direction of the window that’s opened a crack.

“Your turn.“ He nudges her shoulder with his, “Just breathe it in. Not too much tho, I don’t want you choking.“

She nods once again, taking the offered blunt and taking a decent puff that makes it’s path down her airways, burning her throat in a way that makes her cough and release the smoke. Thankfully, it’s just that one cough to get rid of the burning sensation and she manages to stabilize herself. She lifts her head to see how proud Fez looks as his gaze is entranced on her.

“What?“ She giggles.

“Handling it like a pro.“ He answers, his eyes trailing over her form, stopping on her hand which is still holding the joint. “Is there somethin’ you ain’t good at, Howard?”

“Plenty of stuff actually.“ She replies as she takes one more puff, surprising the hell out of the drug dealer before handing him the weed back, “Like having fun, being adventurous, sticking up for myself and others, being spontaneous, cooking.“

“That bucket list gon take care of three of those things. I can teach you a thing or two ‘bout cooking and for the sticking up for yourself and shit - don’t stress. You’ll figure it out. Until then imma be bashin’ people who dare talk smack ‘bout you.“

Lexi can’t help but giggle at his statement, stretching her legs in front of her, freeing them from their crossed position, “You can teach me to roll up a few too.” She says, hinting at his blunt rolling gear that sits on the small table next to the TV.

Surprisingly, he shakes his head, “Nah man, no fucking way. With you bein’ a pro at all shit you try, the last thing I need is you becomin’ my competition.”

The brunette rests her head on the man’s shoulder with a giggle, kissing his jaw, “No, I’ll be your helper.”

“Now that’s some shit I can get behind.“ Fez tilts his head so he can gaze down at her, pressing his lips against hers.

*  *  *  *  *

“Now you gon tell me what’s on that bucket list or nah?“

The blunt has long been stumped out, leaving Lexi in a state she’s never experienced before while Fezco is only mildly dazed. It really was some weak shit for him, but the girl’s presence has been enough to intoxicate him further.

Regardless, he’s pretty grounded while Lexi has been rambling on and on about different subjects. He tried to memorize each and every word that marked this day but with her fast speech and his hazy mind it was pretty difficult. Then she seemed to shut down and fall into a silent state of happiness with this dopey smile that currently resides on her face.

She giggles at his question, “There are regular things like learn to drive; have a roadtrip; go camping. There are more....explicit things like, um: lose my virginity, go skinny-dipping, kiss a girl - but I’ve already done that.” Not noticing Fez’s surprised expression, she continues, “But currently you know what’s number one?”

Caught a bit off-guard by the question, it takes him a moment to respond, “Uh, what?”

She snickers, completely out of it in the most adorable way the ginger has seen, “Get something to eat cause I’m fucking starving.”

This gets a laugh out of Fezco, the type he’d let out at his grandma’s fucked up adult jokes he was probably not supposed to hear as an 11-year-old, “You never fail to amaze me, Lexi Howard.” He takes her chin in his hand, softly tilting her head towards him and runs his thumb over her lips, “But I gotta tell you one thing - if stayin’ over at mine is on that list of yours, can we cross it off today?”

The pleading look in his eyes, coupled with her desire to do just that which has been living in her chest ever since they started hanging out at his house make it extremely difficult for her to turn him down.

Which is why she doesn’t.

“Of course we can.“

Their lips connect once more, this time not stopping at a simple one-stop kiss. They move into a well-synchronized rhythm with Fez’s hands wrapped around Lexi’s waist while hers are around his neck.

She pulls back breathlessly, her lips swollen ever so slightly, “But McDonalds first.”

“You got it, Howard.“

@lilaalouuxx  @ciniluv @hyperfixatingmenever  @rosesandallthatshit  @coffeebookreadinglover  @dreamingaboutyousworld  @maryelizabeth13

[mergist]

Since people have already said yes and briefly explained this, I wanted to add something I haven't seen anyone else discuss around This Town - its surprisingly firm handle on continental philosophy around when it was written.

This may come as little surprise. As best I can tell (and I'm admittedly no expert) the "carnival" part of the "time-traveling voodoo carnival" pitch can be traced to an analysis of medieval carnival by Mikhail Bakhtin (or to other work developing on his) which emphasized it as the 'anti-culture' to Lent, a 'culture with a negative sign'. The questions raised in This Town about infinite reproducibility, the end of history and the nature of war & terrorism are also quite at home in almost everything Jean Baudrillard has ever written.

And, though this may only reflect my own tastes, I think the larger point that meaning is grounded in difference, and is more about having an aim than raw semiosis, is something found in most work by Deleuze demonstrates. Reaching even farther, this passage in particular from his Negotiations: 1972-1990 seems to me to communicate the same sense of 'what meaning really means' presented by the end of This Town:

What we’re plagued by these days isn’t any blocking of communication, but pointless statements. But what we call the meaning of a statement is its point. That’s the only definition of meaning, and it comes to the same thing as a statement’s novelty. You can listen to people for hours, but what’s the point? . . . That’s why arguments are such a strain, why there’s never any point arguing. You can’t just tell someone what they’re saying is pointless. So you tell them it’s wrong. But what someone says is never wrong, the problem isn’t that some things are wrong, but that they’re stupid or irrelevant. That they’ve already been said a thousand times. The notions of relevance, necessity, the point of something, are a thousand times more significant than the notion of truth. Not as substitutes for truth, but as the measure of the truth of what I’m saying. It’s the same in mathematics: Poincaré used to say that many mathematical theories are completely irrelevant, pointless; He didn’t say they were wrong – that wouldn’t have been so bad.

And most importantly there's Paul Virilio, a thinker whose portfolio mainly covers speed, war & technology. His one-line view of war rhymes with LM's - a history of increasing speed vs. one of increasing remoteness - and I think the Enemy post-EDAs is resonant with his concept of the accident. That is, roughly, that the conditions for a thing's failure are inevitably created alongside it and lie in wait from the moment of its inception, or as I've seen on novelty buttons, "When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck". Taking the Houses as the architects of linear history, the radical perversity of there being an Enemy at all seems like an application of this principle. (Oh, and his books also feature 'time war' as a concept and the political dissection of an ad for chocolate.)

But the reason I bring him up is that in 2000 he published a book called The Information Bomb which I think offers a better handle on the ghost point than either considering it simply a commentary on post-9/11 sociopolitics or an explanation for Doctor-Who-humanity's future history.

Roughly... the idea is that our increasing interconnection carries the risk of everything breaking at once - a "generalized accident" like a global stock market crash or a bug on the level of the Y2K scare, something "capable of halting the life of a continent, if not indeed of several at once".

In a burgeoning global system that can present us with practically anything nigh-instantaneously, so long as it's information, we become increasingly vulnerable to misinformation and information control. Things keep getting faster and faster, but the speed of the transmission shocks and hooks us to the point that the quality of what's being said is no longer key to making us look. As a side-effect our rather fragile, local, slow, native sense of 'making history' - as in making local changes on the ground, not signing an armistice - becomes fainter and fainter.

Add to this that political and military interests are as much about information & technology as action on the ground, and this state of creeping control becomes harder to even see clearly, let alone do something about - "just as information and disinformation have become indistinguishable from each other, so have attacks and mere accidents" (cf. the rocket attacks). As this creeping state of total control sinks in, our sense of history comes under assault - the political maneuver of simply ignoring the past becomes frictionless. History stops being a story of humanity writ large, or a worldwide process we will never know the end result of, or a Ship we have the potential to steer towards something better - and becomes a distant empty term if it means anything at all. And where there's no history, there's no future either - not in the sense that the Earth will stop turning and the calendars won't change, but in the sense that everything lucrative about our sense of life today, of the Now, of our moment in history, will go on being lucrative forever, and any pesky agents of change will have been neatly scraped off by an increasingly well-adapted immune system.

This ties into what's probably the best criticism I've seen of NuWho, on an ethical level and not an aesthetic one - it tends to present oppression and domination as wrong because all species in the history of its universe are fundamentally one people. Daleks, Cybermen and any number of others draw lines around themselves to mark their superiority over the rest of the living things in existence, and even in stories with more nebulous monsters there's often at least one human(oid) with their own misguided interests who plays into the threat's hand. The lesson being less "oppressing others for being alien is wrong" and more "oppression is nonsensical because, very deep down, nobody is alien".

I think my pet theory for how to explain modern Doctor Who in terms of Faction Paradox would be that, roughly. Not necessarily an oxbow reality, just a future whose flow only grows more laminar, like centuries of future history compressed into parallel momentary blips - spectacles that encompass all the world, humanity, even the fate of the universe, and yet struggle to leave traces and barely even register as events. They come faster and faster, the future squashed together like an accordion into such pained, amputated tightness that its entire length can fit into the present.

And then, and then... the end of 'and then'.

I made a longer post on the FP forums but.

Faction Paradox fandom.

Tell me I'm not the only one who sees "This Town Will Never Let Us Go" as a commentary on post-9/11 america/britain??

is the time ship an an allegory for 9/11?

tell me someone else saw this while reading

[phoenixyfriend]

#9 “Tell me to stay and I will be here for as long as you’ll have me.” with Obi-Wan & Jango & Satine? (... or Obi-Wan/Jango/Satine, I'm not picky)

Hurt/Comfort Dialogue Prompts

Oh, I'm going to make this deeply stupid and AU because I got struck by a plot bunny and I'm taking it out on a prompt.

Satine hates the man named Jango Fett.

They've met before, once or twice. He'd known her father, before the latter's assassination. She'd met Jango when she was a child, before he'd lost his people at Galidraan, before she'd lost her sister to a terrorist group and her father to a blaster shot. She'd thought him gruff but kind, at the time, and very sad.

Now, she just wants him to trip on a pipe and brain himself on one of the many rusted, broken beams around them. She won't strangle him herself, won't turn her back on her oaths and commit violence, but she's not too proud to hope for an accident.

"Pick up the pace, princess."

"I am a Duchess," she snaps, lifting her skirts to step delicately over something that might have been machinery at one point.

The only light they have is from his helmet, and the only reason she hasn't fallen from the fabric catching on some matter or other is that he has a sense for when she gets caught.

He'd suggested that she pull the skirts up to gird her loins, and then found that the numerous layers made it impossible. He'd offered to cut the skirt down to something more manageable, without depriving her of the coverage she still needed in the cold of these darks, dank ruins. He'd then found that the vibroblade did nothing against the skirts.

(She was a pacifist, not stupid. Of course her clothing was reinforced.)

"I don't care," he says back through grit teeth. She's not sure why he hasn't just left her for dead, but she's not going to complain. Much. "Just move."

They've been making their way through the ruins for hours. They still don't know how they got here. They have no way to find out.

They just head up, and hope it gets them somewhere.

(Signs litter the walls, all in a script unfamiliar to them. Archaic, or simply foreign, they don't know.)

"Wait."

She freezes.

Fett moves behind her, light shifting with the noise of his beskar, and then he says, "I'm going to turn out the light for a second. Give us a minute to adjust to the dark after I do. I think I saw something glowing, but I can't tell with the flash on."

She nods, sure that he can see it, and they are engulfed in the dark again.

It's not for long, because the glow that Fett described is real. Faint, far off down the hallway and a pale blue that winks in and out in multiple spots at once, but there.

"We'll need the light to make it there without you getting rust sickness," Fett mutters. He flicks the headlight back on. "Might get some kinda hint out of it, whatever it is."

"You'd risk it?"

"Don't have any other choice," Fett tells her. "Move out, Princess."

----

They reach the blue glow, entering a large, cavernous atrium, just as dark as the rest of the ruins so far, but much less cramped than the previous hallways.

It is mostly floating motes of something, and the something in question makes Satine's skin crawl. She has no idea what it is. She doesn't think Fett does either, but he's a little busy trying to get a scan of the room around them. Satine can just barely see the floor from the blue light, and she steps closer carefully. Part of her screams about deep sea fish and wild space ancients, creatures that use light to hunt, but they've had nothing else yet. No hints.

This place feels ancient. Perhaps the spirits that linger are even older.

"Kryze!"

"I'm fine," she calls back, deliberately refusing to understand the man's worry. She just... reaches out.

And one of the blue lights comes to her.

Fett swears and comes closer, but Satine pulls her hands to her chest, cradling the little light to herself. It's larger than she'd expected, perhaps the size of a Chandrila plum. It's warm, too.

"You're going to get yourself killed," Fett snaps.

"It's friendly," she says. "I think."

"You think," Fett hisses, the noise crackling through the vocoder. He puts a hand on her shoulder. "Listen--"

The lights coalesce. They are, for the moment, blinding, and Satine flinches away.

Fett has a blaster out before Satine can even open her eyes again. She knows the noise better than she'd like. She can identify which blaster it is by the click of the safety alone.

Any Mandalorian her age can.

"Oh dear," an unfamiliar voice says. "I'm afraid that--well, yes, Mando, hello there. I'm afraid that the blaster won't do much to me. I'm already long dead, you understand."

When Satine manages to blink the spots out of her vision, it's to see a glowing, slightly blue-tinged human figure in clothing that is distinctly Jedi, if very... very outdated.

The man--she thinks it's a man, beards usually indicate such--smiles and waves at her. "I apologize for the light show. It's been quite some time since I've had reason to take a solid form."

"I can imagine," Satine says, her voice weak even to her own ears. The man isn't much older than her, or at least wasn't when he... died? Or perhaps he was elderly when he died, and just rolled his age back as this spirit for some reason.

He smiles kindly, and then looks past her shoulder to Fett. He rolls his eyes, and smirks, and says, "Su cuy'gar, Mand'alor."

"I am not Mand'alor," Fett growls out. "I don't hold that title anymore."

"You do in spirit," the figure claims. "None other can say the same, not yet."

Before Fett can argue further, the man smiles pleasantly, and says, "I don't suppose you could remove yourselves from my shrine? Just a few steps back, thank you."

Satine looks down. She notices the raised platform and carved sigils and the stone column she hadn't seen in the earlier darkness, and flushes. She steps back and down, and Fett does the same.

"Now," the figure says. "As I was saying--"

"What are you?" Fett demands. "Ghost of a Jedi?"

"Something like that," the figure allows. "I was not just a Jedi, but... yes, I'm something you could call a ghost. I'd prefer simply a spirit."

"Like the ka'ra," Satine mutters, and grunts in disagreement.

"Those, Duchess, are only Mandalorians."

"Then I suppose it is fitting that I am both," the spirit says, and his form shifts.

Armor. It does not cover all of him--his pelvis and head are distinctly bare--but the shapes are distinctly Mandalorian. The colors aren't quite exact, with the blue glow he carries about him, but she's fairly certain she's seeing blue, green, and black. Reliability, duty, and justice.

Fitting, for a Jedi. The symbol for the Order is on his pauldron, even, and the hilt of his saber hangs easy at his side.

The gasp that comes through Fett's vocoder is harsh. She can't imagine he likes this.

"You--" he cuts himself off, takes a breath audible even past the helmet, and tries again. "There is no way you are Tarre Vizsla."

"No, I'm afraid not."

"So you must be Obi-Wan Kenobi."

The man smiles and tucks his hands into his sleeves, the swinging of the fabric allowing them the glimpse of vambraces beneath. He ducks his head in a shallow nod. "I am indeed."

Satine feels how empty of blood her own face is. She can't imagine Fett is doing much better.

"This is the Kar'ta-yaim be talyc rang," Fett mutters, horrified in a way that Satine feels her own self echoing. "You..."

"Well, we certainly never called it that," Kenobi says, head tilting faintly. "But I imagine that after the siege... Yes, Temple of Bloodied Ash would certainly reflect our final days."

It was one of the few stories that didn't pit Jedi and Mandalorians against each other, in the histories.

It had been the first attempt to coexist, the warriors of the saber and the warriors of iron. None managed to wed the two philosophies the way Kenobi had, but that hadn't mattered. They'd lived together, in peace. The reports had been clear enough, that there hadn't been weapons storage. There hadn't even been real defensive measures, barring the force fields. The Jedi had refused to let war reach this building, even whilst the Sith still raged across the galaxy. The other temples could handle the atrocities afar. The children, the elderly, the infirm, they were all to find a home here. The only weaponry were the sabers and whatever metals the Mando'ade carried in their armor.

Just a place of peace, a home to research, to children, to hospitals, all slaughtered to the last man, and set ablaze after. Nobody had ever tried such an attempt at peace between Mandalore and Jedi since. The location has been lost for longer than anyone remembers, but...

"Why are we here?" Satine asks.

"I wonder," Kenobi says, seeming far too pleased for the revelations of the last minute. He strokes at his beard, and then turns and sweeps an arm across the air. As he does, a whirring noise surrounds them, stuttered and heavy, but growing in power. Bit by bit, the sections of the wall that he'd gestured at begin to glow.

There are lights set into the wall like circuitry, warm and bright. The generators, which much be centuries old, at the least, continue to run.

"They draw energy from the river in the mountain," Kenobi says, before either of them thinks to ask. "Come along, my dears."

Satine hesitates. So does Fett.

Kenobi turns, presumably noting that their footsteps aren't following him. He smiles, and the corners of his eyes crinkle.

Satine can't remember how old he supposedly was, at his death. His eyes are much older, but...

"I assure you, it's perfectly safe," he tells them. "The building won't hurt you."

"The building?" Fett asks, sounding perhaps a little more dubious than the situation warranted. They were already talking to a figure of legend.

"Yes, the building," Kenobi repeats, indulgent in a way that Satine would have found irritating if aimed at her, but rather approved of like this. "The walls are already straightening out, I feel. And the droids are going to be clearing out the debris soon enough. The rust will be a little difficult to manage, of course, but..."

"What do you mean the walls are going to straighten out?" Satine asks. "And how... this place has been dead for centuries, hasn't it? How did you wake it?"

"Duchess Kryze, I didn't wake the Temple," Kenobi tells her. She doesn't know how he got her name. "You did."

She doesn't know what to say in response. She stays quiet, and waits for him to elaborate.

"Is it because she woke you up?" Fett asks, clearly unwilling to play a waiting game. "You're a... guardian? The keyholder to the power?"

"Mand'alor," Kenobi says, with a smile playing on his lips behind the carefully-groomed beard, "I am the Temple."

What.

He smiles and starts walking backwards, gliding in a way that makes it clear he doesn't need to step, really, because his feet don't stay planted where he puts them. They have to follow, now, or risk losing him. "My consciousness, my very self, is woven into every bit of this building. I have no flesh, not anymore, but while my sense of self stays coherent in the Force... the Temple is my body."

"How?" Satine demands, hurrying to keep up. She tries to ignore the way the flagstones shift and settle ahead of her, still and level by the time she steps forward. She tries to ignore the grinding of metal, as it's pulled into the walls like it's soup instead of stone. She tries to ignore the creaking of the foundation about them, and stays focused on the pleasant smile of one of the only two Mandalorian Jedi in history that maintained the balance.

"Do your history books carry the name of my apprentice?" Kenobi asks.

"Skywalker," Fett says immediately. "And... Tano, I think, before she changed it. She escaped, didn't she?"

"Yes, she was away at the time," Kenobi says, voice distant for but a moment. Somewhere far off among the tunnels, there is a mighty crash. "I'd fought until I couldn't any more. My armor, what I had of it, protected me from the flames. I'd worn a helmet during the siege, and it filtered the smoke, even as I lay dying from other wounds... between that and the Force, I lasted long enough that Anakin found me. The others had all died of smoke inhalation, if they hadn't succumbed to their injuries or the flames themselves by that point."

"The fire didn't reach you?" Fett questions.

"Mm, no, the alcove I was in was all stone, and there wasn't anything flammable enough nearby to reach," Kenobi says, sounding distant again. "In any case, Anakin found me. He was... distraught. Desperate. Not entirely sane, I think, but with what he walked into, I can't find it in myself to fault him."

"Master Kenobi," Satine finds herself saying. "What did he do?"

Kenobi's smile is sad. She'd call it resigned, really. He's lived--sort of--with this situation for centuries now. It makes sense. "He took my mind, my soul in the Force, and 'saved' it in a way that would leave me tied to the world past my death. It was ingenious, but... I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I don't think Anakin realized what he was doing until long after he'd already succeeded at the impossible."

"He cursed you," Fett declares.

Kenobi shrugs. "I think he expected the temple to be cleaned and re-inhabited again soon enough. It wasn't, as you can see. The generators have been gathering power for centuries, but the fire destroyed most of them, and we didn't have anything in reserve with how much we poured into the shields during the battle. I couldn't fix the ruins, and with the horrors that had occurred, nobody was coming back. Anakin said he would, he promised, but... he disappeared. He visited, and he spoke with me, but a few years in he was simply... lost. I had a connection to his ship's signal, and it winked out in the blink of an eye, and never came back."

Oh. Terrifying.

"For all that I am the Temple, now, there are still secrets here that I don't yet understand," Kenobi tells them. "Your arrival, for one thing. The sediment carried up the mountain has slowly buried the temple over the centuries. There isn't a way in, save for two tunnels leading to the river, both of which I know are untouched."

"We just woke up here," Satine admits.

"Yes," Kenobi says. "You did. And part of me knows why."

"...part?" Fett asks.

It's a fair question to ask of a man who happens to have a brain that is also an entire building, somehow.

"Areas are cut off from my awareness," Kenobi admits freely. "Cave-ins and the like, mostly. There are one or two that I think I cut deliberately, due to what lay within."

Also terrifying, thank you.

"But I do believe I know what happened," he says, with that same damnably soft smile. "You two are the leaders of your people, yes? Tradition on one side, and peace on the other."

Satine shares a glance with Fett, and then turns to Kenobi and nods.

"Then I do believe it's simply the right time," he tells them. "You'll need to work together."

"I don't think so," Satine immediately denies.

"The Force works in mysterious ways," Kenobi tells her. "And if it brought you here--and you couldn't have arrived otherwise, I promise you that--then it was for a reason. Two leaders, the same people, with ideologies that I do believe are possible to bring together into, if not mixing, then at least coexistence."

"Impossible," Fett says. "The New Mandalorians are cowards, Kenobi. To share a culture with them--"

"Is as unlikely as Jedi and the old Mandalorians?" Kenobi asks, smiling so very politely that Satine wonders at how they aren't frozen stiff at the sight of it.

The sigil of the Order gleams mockingly from his pauldron.

Kenobi huffs out a breath, just a shadow of a laugh the slightest duck of his head, and then he turns and waves open a door.

Beyond him, sitting clean and pretty and entirely free of dust on its ancient stand, rests the Darksaber.

Satine stares.

She's sure Fett does, too.

"That can't be real," she says, her mouth moving before she can control it. "The Darksaber is lost, but it's popped up in history too recently to have been here since the fires."

"I saw it in Tor Vizsla's hands less than a years ago," Fett confirms. The vocoder cuts emotion from his voice, but not enough. "This place has been locked tight for centuries. The saber can't be here."

"The same could be said of the two of you," Kenobi points out.

It's true.

Satine steps forward, when it becomes clear that Fett won't. She picks up the weapon, holds it like the antique it is, square and unwieldy, but so very, very old that she cannot deny its importance. Weapon or not, it is her people's history.

She lights it.

The blade burns black.

"Turn it off," Fett rasps, and she does.

Satine looks back at him, and then to Kenobi. She turns fully, and steps forward, and holds it out to Fett.

He looks at her, uncomprehending.

"If you'd like to check for yourself," she says, and her voice is too quiet, but she can't help it. Something is happening, something heavy and broken, and she can't ignore the pressure of the future in this moment.

Fett takes the saber. He looks at it in his hands, and she thinks he is shaking.

"Your people need you, Mand'alor," Kenobi says, and there is no room for question. "They also need the Duchess."

"Why you?" Fett asks, voice strained and shattered in a way Satine can't even begin to pick apart.

"It was either me or Tarre, really," Kenobi says, with an idle shrug unfitting of the situation. "And I'm a little more... accessible, shall we say, to those who aren't sensitive to the Force."

Kenobi steps forward and rests an immaterial hand on Fett's shoulder.

"I already failed my people once," Fett says, barely audible.

"And now you shall save them," Kenobi says. His voice is firm. It is as if there is no question, to him, about whether or not Fett will succeed. "You won't be alone, either."

Satine shifts her weight, refusing to meet Kenobi's eyes. Her hands fist in her dress, and her mind races.

"What do you need of me?" Fett manages.

"...Mand'alor?"

"What do you need of me, Master Kenobi?"

Satine looks up.

Fett... Fett removes his helmet, and looks at Kenobi with an expression that is more desperation than deference.

"To cooperate with those who would follow a different creed," Kenobi says, so low it's practically a murmur. His hand, still intangible, reaches out to cup Fett's jaw. Fett leans into it. "To protect those who cannot do so for themselves. Our people are warriors, Mand'alor, but to refuse violence for violence's sake, after the wars that have killed our home and rendered it little more than glass, that is its own bravery."

"Master--"

"Listen to me," Kenobi says, and Fett falls silent. "You will need to protect them. The Duchess may have the funds and the support to bring forth education, agriculture, childcare, and so on, but there are many who would take advantage of that peace. She provides the home for tradespeople, but you are the shield that keeps them safe."

It could be a balance, Satine tries to tell herself. Maybe.

Kenobi seems so certain of it, and Satine may hate violence, but she is far from unaware of the pirates and warlords that nip at their borders.

"The foundlings need homes," Kenobi continues. "The stories need to be told. The culture is fading, Mand'alor. Bring it back."

His eyes flick to Satine, and she looks away.

(Her pressure was only ever on violence. Her advisors had pressed at the erasure of the rest, but if it meant children grew up without the worry of their parents dying in pointless battle, then wasn't it worth bending?)

(Couldn't she look the other way as they tightened restrictions on even symbolic vambraces, if it meant few too-small bodies in the streets?)

(Her planet was a wasteland. What did culture mean in the face of so many dead?)

(She knows Fett doesn't see it that way, but she is the only governing New Mandalorian with any blood on their hands. She knows the weight of violence, of lives taken by her actions.)

(She knows it, and she rejects it knowingly.)

Fett breathes harshly, and Satine closes her eyes.

"I agree to try," she says. "If we can get out of these ruins and back to our people... I will try. I cannot speak for my people on this, but to instate the old Mandalorians as a planetary guard... it may be doable."

"Little steps, my dear," Kenobi says. He looks down at Fett, who's... not well, it seems. "The Mand'alor needs some help, I think. I'm no trained mind healer, but I imagine I can help. More than most, maybe. There are few who know what it is to be a sole survivor."

He smirks, just a little, at the joke that he is not, in fact, a man who survived.

It's not very funny.

"I'll stay," Fett says. "I'll... I'll learn. Master Kenobi, you... Tell me to stay and I will be here for as long as you’ll have me."

"As a student?" Kenobi asks, catching on to just the same thing as Satine has. "Not in the Force, surely, but... you truly wish to stay?"

"There are none left alive that I would trust to show me the way," Fett says. Beseeching, he reaches for Kenobi, and his hands pass through. There's a pain in him that Satine can't quite comprehend, and Fett falls to his knees. "Please."

"You need only ask," Kenobi says. "The Duchess will look after our people until the King takes his throne, and then you will rule together."

They'll have to, Satine tells herself, and steps forward. She puts a hand on Fett's shoulder, and pulls him to his feet.

"Where do we begin?" she asks.

[momsopposed2theoccult]

I don't know and I'm sorry if you have answered this before, but what do you think about toph being a cop, there's so much hate on it but I personally don't find it that wrong, I'm not sure tho I haven't seen korra yet. thank you:）

I'm going to be honest with you and say that I'm still pretty on the fence about this myself. I've spent a lot of time pondering it, but I'm still not sure where I stand, because I feel like there's an argument to be made both for and against it. Not sure if I'll be able to provide you with a straight answer, but I'm happy to provide some thoughts on both sides of the argument as well as on how and why I think she got into the field, my issues with the way the police force was run in LoK (under the assumption that it was built from the ground up by Toph herself), and what I would have done differently (or rather what I think Toph would have done differently that would have made it feel more in-character, if that makes sense).

The main argument as to why it's out of character for Toph to go into law enforcement is that in the original show she's portrayed as somebody who is anti-authoritarian and has no qualms about breaking the law. Kid Toph is very much a "fuck the rules" kind of person and dislikes being told what to do, so the idea that enforcing rules and regulations would become her future career is definitely confusing. Although I was also extremely confused at first, over time it's grown on me in a way and I can make sense of it. However, I agree that it's still not the most in-character and I can understand why a lot of people don't like it.

Although it's still up for debate as to whether or not she has the philosophy for the job, she absolutely has the skill set for it. I can see her enjoying getting to exercise her metalbending skills on a daily basis. Toph is in extremely good physical shape and is an athletic person who enjoys exercise, and having a physically-oriented job would definitely be good for her. She probably made an excellent detective as well, what with her lie-detecting abilities, seismic sense, and general fine-tuned observational skills. Oh and can you imagine being interrogated by Toph? Scary shit. There's also something to be said about how although Toph hates being told what to do, she absolutely loves being in charge and telling other people what to do. Like they say, "When you get sick of breaking the rules, you make the rules," which is sort of how I view Toph in this scenario. Toph is largely unhappy with a lot of the rules and regulations in society, so I think that if she were offered a position where instead of having to follow other people's rules, she would be able to create her own rules in a way she saw fit, I don't think it would be entirely out of character for her to take it. My headcanon is that she created the police force as a favour to Aang and Zuko because they asked her to and she wanted to feel like she was playing an important role in the founding of Republic City. Toph has many virtues, but humble she is not. I really do think she would enjoy the glory she received in such a high-profile position as the Chief of Police. Would she be passionate about the law, per se? Well no, but I think she would enjoy being able to exercise her unique skill set on a daily basis and would likely get a thrill out of bringing people like Yakone to justice. She would enjoy feeling important. Toph isn't someone I view as really wanting a long-term career, so I imagine her getting into the position was less "I want to be a cop!" and more "Welp, I need to get a stable career eventually, and Zuko and Aang really want me to do this for them, and hey I guess I'll get to metalbend everyday and oh I'll have lots of people to yell at and being in charge would be fun and you know what I don't trust anybody but myself to make the rules in this goddamn city so what the hell, I'll take it." I do think that people forget that Toph wasn't just a beat cop, she wasn't even just a detective. She was the Chief. And it wasn't as if she inherited the system from somebody else, it was quite literally a system of her own creation. She wasn't upholding somebody else's law either, she was creating her own laws. Toph was the law in Republic City, and there are few things that girl loves more than being in charge and telling other people what to do.

Now, as to how the Republic City Police Department was portrayed in LoK, it really didn't feel like a system of Toph's own creation like we're supposed to believe it was. Apparently it was largely inspired by the Dai Li, and the idea that Toph would create a system modelled after the Dai Li is preposterous. Toph hated the Dai Li and Ba Sing Se in general. The RCPD is largely "arrest now, ask questions later" and very focused on security, security, security, which just isn't Toph's style. I've seen people throw around the idea of an alternative system loosely inspired by the Kyoshi Warriors, which is something I do like, and I think Toph would as well. I don't think that Toph would really bother with petty day to day stuff like robberies. The main function of the police force under Toph's control would be to bring "real" criminals like Yakone who legitimately endanger the lives and safety of other people to justice. In fact, I can see Toph wanting to rehabilitate and give a second chance to "petty" criminals, especially youth (this is especially true when you take into consideration that she is somebody with a criminal past herself). As we see throughout the show and the comics, Toph is a forgiving person who gives second chances and will hear you out even when you don't feel as though you really "deserve" it. Hell, even if you are a "real" criminal, Toph would probably still hear you out and give you a chance to properly explain yourself. She's 100% the kind of person who would demand fair trial for every single criminal who comes into her custody, even the guiltiest of the guilty, because that's the kind of person that Toph is. In general I think she would likely be a controversial figure in Republic City who would routinely question every single law the council tried to pass. Toph would flat out refuse to uphold any and all laws she felt were unjust or unnecessary, which is part of the reason why having someone like her in the position would in some ways be beneficial.

To be completely honest as somebody who's read a ton of Toph-centric canon complicit post-ATLA-pre-LOK fanfiction, I've kind of just gotten used to the idea. In some ways it makes sense, in some ways it doesn't, and in my opinion it's far from the worst thing that LOK did to Toph's character. But that's just my two cents.

[beauty-and-passion]

RE: the ask about Patton + Logan + wardrobe changes for S3 - this is something I’ve been struggling to come to terms with since the notion started floating around, but I admit that my reasons are of a superficial, juvenile and shippy nature. I love Logicality, and I always found it cute how Logan and Patton were matching in some ways - glasses, logos, blue colour motifs, plus the fact that Patton’s hoodie was a gift from Logan and became an essential component of his outfit for all of S2. So the idea that all of that will change come the new season is emotionally upsetting for me. I’ve always loved the ‘heart vs. mind’ trope and it’s been hard watching their relationship deteriorate over S2. Their outfits changing feels like a further severing of that bond. Plus I’m not good with change and am ill at ease of lots of things being different come the new season.

But your argument is sound and compelling; I’ve nothing to counter it. I recognize that change is necessary + inevitable, so I’m just going to wait until the episodes come out and acclimate a bit at a time. I just feel very alone in my opinion bc everyone else seems to be fully on-board and excited and accepting and I’m sitting in my corner unable to get on board, and I feel like I’m gonna feel a profound sense of loss/grief when it actually happens. But I know this is a me thing so I just have to suck it up.

Your thoughts are very understandable, because changes are not always easy to face. Their nature implies something will be different from a specific moment in time and that this situation could last forever.

And if sometimes this is good, other times it might be bad - and the mere idea that something bad can happen and change our lives forever... it's not easy to digest.

In addition to that, we humans are not predisposed to accept all changes. We made rules and habits and, once we're accustomed to them, we do not use too many energies to deal with them anymore: things will be like that, so we can focus on something else.

And so, when something comes and undermines our certainties, we don't like it, refuse it or go against it. Like changing rules, changing habits or changing minds.

However, changes are part of every natural process. If there isn't any change, there wouldn't be anything: worms need changes to become butterflies, snakes need to change their entire skin to grow, birds need to fly for kilometers changing their entire environment, in order to survive.

And we need change as well. Without change, there won't be anything: no ideas, no philosophies, no arts, no games, no discoveries. We would live an extremely safe, but immensely still life. We would learn nothing, because we wouldn't have any experience of any kind. And we would be bored to death, because there wouldn't be anything else to enjoy.

My point is: your feelings are very understandable and very human, so don't worry. It's okay. And you have all the time of the world to come in contact, deal and face changes.

Hey, maybe these changes won't be so terrible! Maybe they will bring something new you haven't thought about before. Maybe they can even help you discover something else you like.

And even if they're not as good as you hoped, they will still teach you something about yourself. You will learn something else about what you like to see and what you don't like. They will help you develop a much clearer opinion.

And, in general, facing small changes like these ones will make you stronger for the real big, bad changes life will offer you. In those cases, you won't have all the time to face them - but if you got a thicker skin and "trained" with these smaller changes, the big ones won't caught you completely off guard :)

[funkymbtifiction]

Finding my Si: a submission

I’d like to share 6 things that helped me discover my Si and how Charity’s advice helped me, in case it helps anyone else :)

1.It helps when friends and family tell you what they think your dominant function is. Like a fish not realizing the water is wet, it’s so normal that it’s invisible to you. My mum picked Si the minute I asked her which function described me best; she said, ‘You trust your personal experiences and refer back to them all the time; it’s like an anchor for you. You rely on the past to get you through the present.’ One by one, my friends picked the same, pointing to how I recollect everything from the date we first met to changes in their food preferences to the color of the shirt they wore one Monday morning. I never realized the enormity of the storehouse of detail in my head until they pointed out that not everyone treasures memory-keeping in the same way. I wouldn’t say Si memory is photographic; for me, it’s more like a fisherman’s net, where I gather in what matters to me. I see a living mosaic of past and present when I look at people and places I love.

2. Being willing to question my own assumptions. An unflinching look at what I actually do, not what I think I do.

I considered Ni when I thought of goals I’ve set. For example, I got into the same UK university at 18 that I’d loved at age 14. This story initially sounded as though I’d had a clear future vision, and never let go of the dream (Ni). However, I’d left out winding twists and turns in between. At 16, I was captivated by a Canadian university and considered going there for a while; at 17, I considered studying in New York. Eventually, I applied to a bunch of unis and got an offer from the original ‘dream one’ in England. It was the best offer and I’d remained fond of it, so I wound up going. I was pleased, but I’d been open to other unis and happy to go to them too. After reading the perspective of actual Ni-users on their laser-sharp vision, I realized mine wasn’t as unwavering, intense and single-minded.

Instead, I realized that the reason I treasure this story -  'I visited my uni when I was just a kid and then got to go there for good!’ - is that I liked being able to link my childhood self and adult self. I enjoy connecting the past and present and spotting continuity and change ('Back then, I did this…now I still do this…and I don’t do this….’). My mind always traces back to how things were, which spills over into dinner-table family conversations ('Do you remember when…?’/'You know how we used to…?’). I realized that this type of personal mythologizing and cherishing a living past is Si. I can set goals and work meticulously in a step-by-step IFJ way, but it is not a dominant personality trait in the strikingly single-minded, futuristic, visionary way that is Ni. For anyone considering Ni, I recommend looking up mbti-notes and Charity’s explanations here, as it is a very complex function and it helps to understand exactly how it works.

3. Painful honesty. Confronting flaws isn’t fun. However, as Charity says, it helps to think of pairs (Si-Ne, Ne-Si or Ni-Se) rather than functions in isolation.

I tried to determine which flaw I could most relate to: inferior Te, inferior Se, or inferior Ne.

I couldn’t identify with inferior Te because I’ve always been a careful planner and organizer; even my third-grade report cards said, ‘She loves being efficient and organizing her little space!’ Today, I have multiple administrative responsibilities at work and genuinely enjoy it. There’s something about streamlining systems and attending to details that feels satisfying (dorky, I know). I could not relate to inferior Se either, as sensory engagement has always been a big part of my life. Whether it’s dancing or nature hikes or cooking, hands-on hobbies have always been so core to me that I often find myself feeling one with the natural environment, rather than uncomfortable with it. I haven’t had reckless moments characteristic of inferior Se. But inferior Ne - those descriptions embarrassed me.

As Charity says, if something makes you go ‘ouch’, it might hit the nail on the head.

I thought I had good Ne because I can see multiple perspectives. But this is more a 9 and 2 influence ('Staying open-minded helps to understand people, help them, and resolve conflict’) and a skill honed through my job in peace-building. What trips me up are the problems plaguing inferior Ne users. Newness and novelty feels hard. My 9 probably plays into it, but in general I am not good at out of the box thinking and brainstorming dozens of different approaches. Despite my 2-9 positive outlook, I usually feel fearful of the unknown and find it difficult to speculate or imagine possibilities in the uncertain future.

4. It helps to see where your attention goes. When I teach and review students’ essays, I’ll start leaving comments about their word-choice in paragraph 3; the evidence they used on page 2; how their argument on page 12 risks contradicting their logic on page 10, etc. I can hold these details in my head with ease, suggest a clear structure, and spot incongruities, but I have to consciously remind myself to zoom out to comment on the overarching ideas in the work.

On the other hand, I notice when I do something creative or abstract because it’s not really what I do on a day to day basis. When I first began researching MBTI, I found it easy to recall the last metaphor I imagined because it stood out in my mind. But determining frequency helped. Not just how I think, but how often I think that way. Ne is a ‘play’ function for me - on good days, it’s a whimsical scribble in a poetry journal, occasional daydreams, self-improvement books on my shelf.

5. Being able to tease out finer differences in cognition. I got interested in a Royal Family controversy recently. I thought I was using Ni because I mused on the consequences for the nation (in a Ni-Fe way). However, I realized I was less interested in future possibility and more interested in what was helpful for interpersonal understanding (Fe/2-9) and how the country could preserve the traditions and culture built up over centuries (Si). Rather than preferring to look ahead and predict what would happen (Ni). It’s a fine line, but it helped to think: how often is my cognition located in the future vs the past? Which one feels more natural? Is it an Enneagram or an MBTI influence at play?

6. Avoiding sensor bias. I felt I must be an intuitive because I do engage in abstract conversation sometimes. It’s just that my topics of choice come from my Enneagram 269 tritype. How can schools treat children better? What can we do to promote community mental health? What keeps kids safer? My job is centered around people’s welfare, and I’d be happy to discuss theories of human psychology or relationships or mental health because I’m very absorbed in my little niche of knowledge. However, concrete applications interest me most, and I am not likely to start conversations about, say, 18th century theology or automated cars or space travel. My INFP and INFJ friends seem interested in a much wider range of philosophical conversation.

I agree with a post on this blog that pointed out that modern psychology now understands traits not as bimodal distributions (X or Y) but along a spectrum (how much of X? How much of Y?). People differ in where they lie along the spectrum. I’d say I’m close to the middle. My biggest tell that I lean towards sensing is when I look through philosophy books on human well being. Even though the topic reflects my interests, I’m quickly bored by too much theory. I’m happy to thrash out an idea with a friend, but it needs to be animated by real-life examples and practical applications for me to stay interested.

Above all, I recommend observing where your heart leads. Much of my free time goes into journal-writing, old albums, and time capsules. Detail-driven memory-keeping fulfills me deeply, and it was this deep joy that proved most helpful for recognizing my Si :)

[artstorieshusbandos]

If I wasn't in love before....(Ikemen Vampire-ish)

The other day while I was at work daydreaming about Le Comte in between Karens it occurred to me that I don't really know a whole lot about him.

I mean I know he's kind, gentle, supportive, and would do pretty much anything for anybody, but prior to Ikemen Vampire I'd never heard of this guy historically. Not sure if that is because my schools sucked or because I wasn't paying attention in class that day because, well.....school sucks. Learning is amazing I love to learn on my own time, but the public school system is about turning out factory workers not growing thinkers.

I did look up Le Comte and I read his Wikepedia page when I first started playing Ikevamp just to find out who he was. I actually avoided reading Ikevamp when it first came out because I am not a big fan of vampires in general and also because the concept of all these famous people for some reason being vampires just seemed silly and didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I felt like they were going after the Twilight crowd and that just isn't me.

It all started to make sense after I read that wikipedia page. According to Wikipedia he was a philosopher who told a bunch of wild tales about being immortal and the son of the prince of Transylvania. Clearly his basic legend lends very well to him being a vampire.

Ikevamp now makes perfect sense to me. I mean, If you're a vampire and a philosopher with a massive amount of wealth why wouldn't you go out there and use your vampire benefits to surround yourself with a group of your peers.

Back to the other day.......On the way out of work it also occurred to me that I was wearing a hole in my favorite songs playlist on Spotify and that it was time for a change of pace so I decided to see what podcasts might be on offer featuring Le Comte. Surely someone's got a history or philosophy podcast that's said something about this guy.

I found a really nice three parter that I just finished yesterday on a podcast called Astonishing Legends. I'd never listened to this podcast before and the episodes themselves are a couple years old but they were very enjoyable. Le Comte de St Germain is a very very fascinating man and this podcast covered everything they could find.

They covered the historical person, the rumors, the woo, and where/who he might be now if he really was immortal. They had a recording of someone playing a piece of music on piano that was written by Le Comte. They even had a list of items they found in his residence when he "officially" died which was minus pretty much anything that would have been important to him. They didn't miss anything. Not even vampires. Yes they went there too.

If anyone else is interested in listening to these episodes you can get part 1 here and just play through to part 3.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2aHbjop2sebfKOVmGa44rJ

They mention a blog in the episodes called "Finding Count St. Germain". You can find that here.

http://www.findingcountstgermain.com/

Like the title says, If I wasn't in love before I certainly am now. Le Comte is (at least in Legend) an absolutely amazing man.

[valeriehervo]

Valérie Hervo runs Les Chandelles, the legendary Paris sex club where members of French high society, politicians, barristers and rock stars (and an increasing number of Brits) come to indulge their erotic fantasies. Can it survive the twin threats of the pandemic and a moral backlash?

Adam Sage

Saturday March 20 2021, 

Valérie Hervo is outraged. She has just been listening to a radio station where two male presenters, chatting about her forthcoming appearance on their show, kept referring to her as the owner of a “group sex club”.

“That really is low-class vocabulary,” she tells me. “It’s very macho as well. Only a man would say something like that.

“And it is not what this place is about. To me, it is a journey through the mystery of the senses to a land of sensuality and encounters.”

Hervo is particularly aggrieved at what she took to be the implication that she organised sexual games for the benefit of men.

Nothing could be further from the truth, she insists. “Here, everything revolves around women’s pleasure. This is a place where a woman can do what she wants, when she wants and with whom she wants – and if she wants to do nothing, she does nothing.”

Hervo opened Les Chandelles, her recreational club – as she would prefer it described – in 1993, and it has since become a part of French high-society folklore.

Any Parisian will tell you that this is the place where the country’s political, economic and cultural elites live out their sexual fantasies beyond the sight of ordinary mortals, where government ministers, television presenters, rock stars and chief executives engage in the ancient practice of libertinage.

But what exactly goes on behind the plain façade in a narrow street near the Louvre in central Paris? And what might this tell us about French values? Or indeed about British values, given the steady flow of clients rumoured to have crossed the channel in recent years in the hope of fulfilling their “erotic potential” under Hervo’s stewardship?

With telephones barred from the club (they have to be left at the entrance) and hardly anyone willing to talk openly about their evenings there – “It’s a matter of intimacy,” says Hervo. “You don’t start telling everyone about your sex life at dinner parties” – such questions have given rise to few answers and much speculation.

Now, with the club closed because of the pandemic, Hervo, 53, has written a book that explains what happens when the dancefloor empties, usually around 1.30am, and the salons around it fill with writhing, sighing bodies.

Les dessous des Chandelles, which could be translated either figuratively as The Secrets of the Chandelles or literally as Underneath the Candelabras, is the portrait of a quintessentially French establishment.

Where else would the lost property include designer thongs or customers eat Ladurée macarons off the back of a naked woman, a famous male barrister end up in an alcove with his female rival days after their clash in a criminal court, or Mick Jagger reportedly be turned away for wearing a pair of jeans?

Hervo explains that her club is a bastion of French “savoir vivre”, where a select group of beautiful, intelligent and well-educated people conduct themselves in a way befitting a nation that has given the world some of its greatest suggestive literature, from Molière’s Dom Juan to Laclos’ Les liaisons dangereuses.

Consider, for example, her account of one of the Eyes Wide Shut theme parties she holds from time to time. “A naked woman, her gaze hidden by a Venetian mask, lies on a table,” she writes. “A nymph in a transparent toga joins her. She kneels down and delicately pulls her legs apart.”

She has torrid encounters herself, for instance with a woman whose perfume she found bewitching and whose body she discovered behind a veil in an alcove.

Much of her time, however, is spent looking after her patrons, like the couple of regulars who realised to their horror that their adult son and his partner had also begun going to Les Chandelles. Hervo tells how they begged her to help them avoid what they said would be a “regrettable” meeting.

On another occasion, a male customer arrived with his mistress, explaining to Hervo that his wife was stuck at home because she was ill. An hour later, the wife arrived with a younger man, she writes. “Don’t say anything to my husband,” she told Hervo. “He thinks I’ve got the flu.”

Hervo promptly rushed downstairs where she found the husband, “naked and frolicking with his partner and a few other accomplices”. She advised him to leave through the emergency exit.

I am discussing these and more adventures with Hervo at a table in her club’s pink and white restaurant, which is to be found at the bottom of stairs that wind down from an ordinary-looking blue door on the street.

Opposite us is another staircase that leads to what could easily be mistaken for an 18th- century Parisian literary salon – were it not for the mattress in the alcove at the end of it.

A third staircase, encased in walls painted in gold leaf, descends to a dancefloor, a bar and more salons with their alcoves, benches and mattresses.

It is difficult to find an English word to describe Les Chandelles. Some have called it a swingers’ club, although that conveys none of the cerebral sophistication and cultural aspirations that go with elite sex in France.

Others have used the term wife-swapping (or échangisme, as the French call it), but Hervo is no more happier with that than with group sex.

“For me, échangisme is very reductive and sad,” Hervo explains. “It involves some kind of contract between four people and they all need to agree, which can’t happen very often.”

What prevails at her club, she says, is libertinage, a concept dating back to a 12th-century rebellion against the church by disaffected clerics who were determined to place physical love above the courtly version promoted by troubadours and their ilk.

The contemporary version of this philosophy involves making “everything possible and nothing obligatory”, Hervo says.

One couple might go for sex, either with each other or with someone else, she says. A second might go along to watch. A third could be happy with a turn on the dancefloor.

“For some, it is enough to have an imaginary journey. For others, they will want a little bit more. But what happens in the salons is the icing on the cake and it doesn’t matter if nothing happens, because we’ve had such fun with the preliminaries.

“Everyone goes at their own rhythm. You may be happy with a look, a caress or with voyeurism. But that is all very different to échangisme.”

Libertinage, which has come and gone in France over the centuries – the early 17th and the mid-18th being among the high points – enjoyed a return to fashion from the late Nineties with the emergence of hundreds of clubs amid a spirit of unrestrained freedom.

The number has since fallen, with adepts taking to organising their own house parties. At the last count there were 269 such clubs left, according to French state radio.

The health crisis looks likely to drive many more out of business, their activities scarcely being compatible with social distancing.

Les Chandelles, however, has a status apart, and this should offer it protection against the vicissitudes of fortune.

Hervo says her customers include “politicians from both the left and the right” and “celebrities from across the whole world” (she refuses to divulge their names).

Hervo says that as her club’s fame has grown, so has its allure to visitors from Europe, the US, Asia and “a lot from Britain”.

It is not enough just to cross the channel and knock on the door, though. In order to get in, you need erotic knowhow, Hervo says, along with familiarity with Parisian savoir-vivre.

“It is an alchemy. A way of being,” she says.

In his Histoire du libertinage, Didier Foucault, a history lecturer at Toulouse University who is a specialist on the subject, writes of how the practice became fashionable after 1600 among aristocrats driven “by a haughty refusal to bow either to common law or to any authority whatsoever, be it temporal or divine”.

There may be something similar about the French elite that frequents Les Chandelles. The entrance fee is €96 for two, or €310 with dinner and a bottle of Deutz champagne thrown in. If Deutz is too downmarket, there is Cristal Roederer for €490 or Dom Pérignon Rosé for €470.

But the selection policy is not based on money, Hervo insists. More important to her are “elegance, refinement, education and taste.

“I have a very tough door policy. I turn away a lot of people.”

The badly dressed, the ugly, the vulgar, have no hope of getting past her, she says, while the overweight may struggle as well, at least if they are male.

“I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but I am going to say it anyway. I think I would be more concerned by a fat man than a round woman. Round women can be very beautiful but, in general, men who are fat are… Well, someone who lets himself go physically is someone who does… not respect himself. And if he doesn’t respect himself, he is less likely to respect other people.”

Les dessous des Chandelles is a strange, almost dual work. On the one hand, it is a window onto this secretive world of privilege and exclusion created by Hervo beneath Rue Thérèse in the French capital.

On the other, it is a tale of the author’s personal voyage through libertinage and her claim that the sexual liberation she found along the way, first in other clubs and then in her own, helped to unshackle her from a traumatic childhood marked by incest, guilt and depression.

Our conversation reflects the same duality.

For much of the interview, Hervo comes across as the archetypal Parisian businesswoman, complete with carefully applied make-up, an elegant hairdo, an articulate discourse, a headstrong Yorkshire terrier and a well-trained fiancé – Tom, the maker of an excellent Sancerre white wine, who rushes off shortly after I arrive and returns later with an armful of her outfits for the photoshoot, including an all-white suit and a glittering jacket.

One minute she is talking with off-putting clarity about the female orgasm, telling me in a tone that brooks no argument that “a woman’s sexuality is so much richer than that of a man”. The next she is explaining, with equal equanimity, how she resisted underworld attempts to take over her club following her divorce in 2005.

Like all self-respecting Parisiennes, she knows how to throw a strategic fit of pique as well, announcing that the photographer is driving her mad and that Tom had better summon a friend for help, and be quick about it. The friend duly arrives with a bottle of sancerre to enable Hervo to get through the afternoon session.

Yet, from time to time, there are signs of the scars left by childhood, as when she concedes that she took refuge in libertinage in part because “at night-time, you can’t see the suffering so much… the glitter masks the pain”.

At one point, her eyes fill with tears as she discloses that her relatives have refused to speak to her since the publication of her book, which recounts her rape by her grandfather as a young girl, her parents’ refusal to believe her, her teenage struggles with depression, her toxic marriage to a man 20-odd years her senior, and her salvation in swingers’ clubs.

It was her former husband who introduced her to libertinage. She writes of her first experience in a club where “in a salon plunged into darkness… some couples are making love while others are observing them”.

She did not want to join in – at least not the first time – but says, “My emotion [was]great and my excitement real.”

“I was 24 and I instinctively knew it was right for me,” Hervo tells me. “What I liked in those places was a feeling of freedom and especially a feeling that I was meeting couples who seemed to get on well together.

“That was not the image of the couple I had received as a child because my parents argued all the time. It was like Disneyland as far as I was concerned.”

When her former husband suggested opening their own swingers’ club in Paris, she jumped at the chance. He put up some of the money, they borrowed the rest and she became the manager.

“It was a success straight away, because I think it was the first club to give so much importance to women,” she says. “At that time, in 1993, in other clubs, the women were just treated as objects and it was the men who took charge of the games and who brought along their wives.

“I think that they were probably men of little courage who were not able to cheat on their wives and who went to this sort of place instead. But that was not at all in the spirit of libertinage.”

Les Chandelles would be different, she decided. “Women who are objects are women without humanity. Here, I made sure that the women were subjects.

“In fact, I created here what I never had myself. I tried to encourage women to take their time, to dare to set the tempo, to ask men to be attentive and unhurried and to be gallant, because women adore gallantry.”

She says her door policy has always involved refusing entrance to couples if she suspects that the woman is being dragged along against her will or kept in the dark about the true nature of Les Chandelles. “Even now in 2021, there are boors who don’t tell their partners where they are taking them,” she says. “It’s increasingly rare but it still happens. But if I have the slightest doubt, I question them. You get a feeling for these things.”

Inside the club, no means no, she says, explaining that men can be expelled for repeating a request to a female customer if they are turned down the first time.

“I think women are much safer in this sort of place than in traditional nightclubs where they get hassled all the time,” she tells me.

She says that she herself came to see Les Chandelles – of which she has been the sole owner since extracting herself from her disastrous marriage 16 years ago and buying her former husband’s share – as a refuge from the wounds left by her troubled childhood.

“This has been my bunker and my incubator,” she says. “It was where I revitalised myself, and where I discovered myself too.”

Can her club really be as idyllic as she pretends?

For years, Les Chandelles has been described in the French press as a favourite haunt of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, who resigned following his arrest on suspicion of rape. Although the charge was ultimately dropped, reports of his attendance at Les Chandelles have done nothing for its image.

Recently, it has also been linked with Gérald Darminin, President Macron’s interior minister, who, it has emerged, went to Les Chandelles in 2009 with a woman who had asked him for help in overturning her criminal conviction – he was legal affairs adviser for an opposition political party at the time – and who has accused him of raping her later that evening.

He denies her claim, but the publicity has scarcely been an advertisement for Hervo’s establishment.

She says the coverage has been misleading and unfair. DSK, for instance, barely ever visited Les Chandelles, she insists.

“There are many other politicians who came more often than him and who were much more important than him,” she says.

As for Darmanin, she says that when he dropped into the club a little over a decade ago, he was a young bachelor, and that young bachelors sometimes visit “for an evening with – what’s that word they use now? – oh yes, les sex friends, that’s it.

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. If you find yourself on your own for a year or so, you might want a regular one of those. Why not?”

Until now, the interview has gone smoothly enough, interrupted only by the barking of Cerise, Hervo’s Yorkshire terrier, at the emergence of the photographer from below.

But then I make a big mistake. Noting the entrance policy favours single women – who are allowed in on evenings otherwise reserved for couples, when single men are banned – I ask Hervo whether she uses them as an enticement for male patrons seeking a threesome with their wives and another partner.

She looks daggers across the table. “That is really a stupid, male, Cro-Magnon thing to say,” she tells me. “It’s very maladroit of you.

“Single women come because they want to have fun, because they could meet a man who pleases them, or a woman, or perhaps neither. Sometimes, it’s just two women friends who come for a drink because they know that here they won’t be bothered and because they will be appreciated because they are pretty.

“When I began here, I didn’t receive single women in the evening, because society considered that a woman who came alone to an establishment like mine was either a whore or a bitch. I fought to make people understand that life does not work like that, and I am proud to say that today I have single women among my customers.”

I ask Hervo if she is a feminist. “I certainly am not a neo-feminist,” she says, explaining that she laughs off wolf whistles in the street, likes being complimented on her looks and wants to “seduce or to be seduced, freely. But I am feminist for some things. I am in favour of women being able to experience pleasure alone at first, to discover their bodies and to enjoy their bodies, and only afterwards to share all that with a partner if they so wish.

“That sort of thing has not always been possible in the past.”

Pointing out that Foucault’s history of libertinage shows how sexual freedoms have come and gone over the centuries in France, I wonder out loud whether the country is shifting back towards greater restraint.

“You’re right, it is,” she says. “The difference is that today, it is not religion that is trying to cover everything up, it’s our moralising society. There is a very prudish scent around these days.”

In a thinly veiled attack on #MeToo, she complains in her book that the social networks have been transformed into “popular tribunals”, that the law has come to treat women “as weak beings which have to be protected” and that the ancestral French game of seduction is being subjected to new codes and new rules.

It is difficult to determine whether the pandemic will brake or accelerate this trend. Some predict that when the crisis ends, we will see a repeat of les années folles (the mad years), as the Twenties were known in France, with a yearning for freedom, parties and libertinage.

Others forecast the continued spread of the Anglo-Saxon-style feminism that Hervo abhors and the curtailment of French love-making and seduction. She is not overly worried, though. On a personal level, she has emerged from years of therapy able to confront her past and look forward to the future, she says. She has become a part-time therapist herself, has a house in the country, where she has spent much of the past year, and is planning to “marry the man I love” this summer.

Even if the moral backlash gathers strength, she thinks that Les Chandelles will continue to triumph.

“There have always been currents and countercurrents, but if society goes one way, people will need a place of liberty where they can do what they want, where they will have the freedom to talk, to exchange.”

Indeed, she believes that her club may even come to play a role similar to that of literary salons in the 18th century, when they nurtured the ideas that helped to topple the ancien régime.

Only in France could there be dreams of Enlightenment amid the shadows of a basement sex club. Les dessous des Chandelles by Valérie Hervo is published by Cherche Midi

[kirnet]

kirnet x atton (but not really lol). 2.2k words. Dxun sucks ass

Despite everything that she had done as Revan’s left hand, Kirnet believed in the light side of the Force. It moved through every living creature; every sentient, beast, and plant (and droid, Kirnet had argued at every opportunity with Malak as Revan laughed at their squabbling). Therefore, everything deserved compassion and humility, from the Grand Chancellor of the Republic to the smallest insect. As flawed as she found her old masters, she still clung to their belief that all life was precious, even when they couldn’t bring themselves to live and die by their own teachings.

As hard as had been since taking over the Ebon Hawk, Kirnet tried to follow this philosophy. Of course, sometimes it couldn’t be helped that the occasional mercenary needed an emergency amputation or that a Sith assassin got gently helped over the side of one of Nar Shaddaa’s lofty gangways. But, to Kreia’s frustration, Kirnet tried to be kind. She had done her share of harm in the war. Harm that she could feel seeping from the scarred surface of Dxun into her bones as she circled the Hawk, checking for any damage from their recent run in with Onderon’s fleet.

Harm that she was about to unleash all over again if these kriffing mosquitos wouldn’t leave her alone.

She waved her hand around her ear, trying to gently signal to the offending creature (Yes, creature, she reminded herself. A creature that can feel the Force just as well as the people on my ship) that it should get lost. For the moment, it took the hint and buzzed off. Kirnet sighed, her shoulders relaxing as she wiped the sweat from her brow. Dxun wasn’t just hot, it was humid. Oppressive. It sat on her shoulders and pressed her down into the overgrown earth. She was well aware of what lay buried under the tall grass. Ship fragments. Mandalorian armor. That overeager Jedi with the lopsided smile, just knighted the week before, who always sat at her right in the mess hall and offered her their leftover gruel. They had the funniest laugh, she remembered.

The tall grass tickled her calf, bringing Kirnet back to her senses. She forced her right foot forward, then her left, until she was back on her lazy path around the pockmarked Hawk. Her hand fell to her bare neck, where she could already feel the bumps left by Dxun’s own insect fleet beginning to form.

Sure, it’s not in mint condition, and there's damage from Onderon’s “Welcoming Committee”, but I don’t see why Atton needs to spend all of his time-

Buzz.

The kriffing bug was back. 

Or maybe one of it’s friends. No, Kirnet was sure it was the same one. It was here to spite her. Punish her for everything she had done to this moon. Her fists clenched at her side as she closed her eyes, partly to relax herself, and partly to keep the insect from successfully diving into them.

This was a living being, a fellow creature of the galaxy. A being deserving of a Jedi’s compass-

Was there another fucking one?

There was! The droning was twofold around her head. Pressure built behind Kirnet’s eyes and pushed up on her feet and down on her shoulders. It pushed and squeezed on all sides like a vice as the swarm grew and stabbed at her eardrums. That nasally, buzzing laugh. Kirnet had made a joke at Malak’s expense. The table had laughed along with her. What was that knight’s name again?

Her hands snapped open, leaving her with blissful quiet as the mosquitos hung suspended in the air. Force, she would embrace any ancient Sith teaching to be able to suspend every mosquito on this Force forsaken planet at once. Anything to get that incessant droning to stop. Maybe Bao-Dur would make her another Mass Shadow Generator. 

Wow. Revan had really rubbed off on her.

“Uh, Kirnet? Everything alright?”

She released the insects at the voice, not even noticing their stuttering buzzing as she turned to Atton. He had eschewed his usual jacket for his undershirt, currently drenched in sweat and rolled up past his pale forearms. Kirnet tried to blink the dots from her eyes. Or were they mosquitoes?

“Kirnet?”

“Hmm?”

“I asked if everything was alright?” He was closer now, brow furrowed as he leaned in. Kirnet could feel his gaze ghost up her arms and over her swelling neck.

Mustering a flimsy smile, she shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Whatever assessment he was making of her had apparently concluded. Atton’s eyes hardened again as he waved his hydrospanner in her face. “Because you raised the temperature by about ten degrees, and it does not need to get any kriffing hotter on this planet.” He looked down at his own shirt, his face contorted in disgust. “Just look at me,” he grumbled.

Kirnet crossed her arms and leaned against the Hawk’s landing foot, her homicidal ideations towards insect-kind long forgotten. “I don’t know about that. I quite like the heat,” she lied, ignoring the fat bead of sweat running down her forehead, and held out her hand. Atton rolled his eyes and released the spanner, Kirnet snatching it up with the Force from his open hand. Space, it felt wonderful to be able to do that again. She studied it for a second before turning her attention back to the ship. “And labor makes you warm, flyboy,” she quipped. “I know you’ve never worked a day in your delicate life-”

“Excuse me?” Kirnet sniggered at Atton’s predictable outburst, a quiet laugh behind his words betraying his amusement. “I’ve spent all day working on this hunk of scrap metal and this is the thanks I get?” He scoffed and leaned on the support next to Kirnet, their arms brushing together. “Delicate! Delicate she calls me!”

With a snort, she dropped her head onto his sweaty shoulder. Atton jumped the tiniest amount, so subtle that even Kirnet almost missed it, before leaning into her. “I do appreciate everything you’re doing, Atton,” she said, smirk dropping to a faint smile. He just nodded, his proximity ruffling Kirnet’s damp hair. She didn’t need to say it. He already knew.

“Though,” she drawled, pointing at the Hawk’s durasteel underbelly with the hydrospanner. Atton looked up with her, his cheek leaving the top of her head. The chill set in again. She hadn’t noticed it had left. “You could work a bit faster. The sooner you finish taking your sweet time the sooner we can get off of this hell planet.”

Cursing, Atton snatched the tool from her hand, throwing out his arms as he made his way to another battle scar in the ship’s hull. Kirnet giggled at the theatrics, the sincerity of the moment before slipping into their usual routine. “I stay behind and slave in the heat while you guys go off and -”

“And get eaten alive by bugs and bigger things.” Kirnet cut him off. Her smile dropped as she stepped closer to him. “Atton, you’re the one insisting on staying back. I’d much rather leave Bao-Dur and T3 here and take you with.” She tried to convince herself it was because Atton was much better with mines than her. (Though Mira was undoubtedly the best and was already going to be in her party. She hurriedly pushed the connotations of that thought aside.) Dxun was littered with them from the Mandalorian occupation, and while her soldiers had cleared as many as they could at the time, there were doubtless thousands more that had been missed. That Jedi had stepped on one, she blankly recalled. Their legs had flown off in two opposite directions. They had advanced on her orders.

Atton swallowed hard. “You think that droid can repair the Hawk better than I can?” Despite his tone, his voice lost it’s playful bite. 

“Yes. And so can Bao-Dur. Much faster, too.” Atton pointedly ignored her, now apparently immersed in sealing the blaster hole. Kirnet sighed and closed the distance between them. Gently, she put her hand on Atton’s, his knuckles white around the hydrospanner. He turned it off but didn’t move his gaze from the hull. “I understand not wanting to go out into the jungle,” she laughed mirthlessly. “And I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to. But, Atton, if something is wrong-”

“No!” he started too forcefully, wincing as Kirnet withdrew her hand. “No,” he said again, finally turning to look at her. “Nothing’s wrong. As boring as it is I’d rather be here than on the receiving end of a landmine.” Kirnet shrugged. No argument there. “It’s really nothing too complicated. It’ll just take a while.” His face split into a smug smile as he leaned forward against the Hawk, his arm now above her head. Kirnet noticed it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Unless you want to be crammed in an access hatch with me for a day or two.” He had the audacity to wink.

Ah. There it was. The flirtatious deflection. Usually, Kirnet would be more than happy to join in the banter, but the growing vignette around her vision and the hammering in her skull put an end to that line of thought. Fine, he didn’t want to talk about it, and Kirnet was not eager for a real argument, not one of their usual playful spats. Maybe he felt the painful chill in his bones like she did despite the sweltering heat. He was getting stronger in the Force, after all. Or was there something else he wasn’t telling her?

Maybe he just didn’t want to be the latest victim of her leadership on Dxun.

Kirnet rubbed her arms, the chill seeping in further. “I don’t want to go out there any more than you do,” she grumbled. “But something tells me that we won’t get to leave until I find-” She paused, her face contorting as she gestured vaguely towards the jungle. “Something.” Perhaps an old base? The final assault on the Mandalorians, the suicide mission she had ordered, had taken place at one of these abandoned strongholds. If she stumbled onto one, would she recognize it? Or would it be just another scar, long since scabbed over by the eager jungle?

“Suit yourself.” Atton shrugged, pushing his mop of hair out of his face and quickly turning back to the blaster hole. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Nothing special, I’m sure,” Kirnet deadpanned, already starting towards the Hawk’s entrance. “I’m leaving T3- no, do not start with that. Be nice and let him help. And take time to do your meditations. We’ll be back before sundown. Hopefully.”

“Anything else?” Atton scoffed.

Kirnet paused. “Yes, actually. Just a word of advice. After you admit to someone that most of the words that come out of your mouth are lies, it’s easier to tell when you’re not telling the truth.” Atton opened his mouth, but Kirnet put out a hand to stop him. “No need to explain. You’ve already come forward with enough. But if you are stalling repairs for some reason, Atton, then I hope you’re filling your free time with something productive.”

Expression hardening into a scowl, he turned back to the damage. “I’ll get right on that, General,” he all but snarled.

Of course, General. What are your orders?

The migraine hit Kirnet with renewed vigor, almost knocking her to the ground. It took all her effort to keep her shoulders square. “Stay safe,” she mumbled at the grass. “Try not to let the bugs eat you alive. Comlink’s open if you need me.” She didn’t wait for a reply before heading up the hangar door.

“Stay safe,” is what he wanted to shout back. “Keep your head on a swivel, and I’ll come running if you need me.” Atton opened his mouth, then closed it, then settled on grinding his teeth as he listened to Kirnet’s retreating footsteps. The patch of flattened grass that she had stood on moments before tried in vain to stretch back up to its original height.  “Nice going, shutta,” he groaned. No one was around to hear him.

A mosquito landed on his arm. He slapped it before getting back to work.

[vital-information]

Zadie Smith, from “Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction” “’Re-examine all you have been told,’ Whitman tells us, ‘and dismiss whatever insults your own soul.’ Full disclosure: what insults my soul is the idea—popular in the culture just now, and presented in widely variant degrees of complexity—that we can and should write only about people who are fundamentally “like” us: racially, sexually, genetically, nationally, politically, personally. That only an intimate authorial autobiographical connection with a character can be the rightful basis of a fiction. I do not believe that. I could not have written a single one of my books if I did. But I feel no sense of triumph in my apostasy. It might well be that we simply don’t want or need novels like mine anymore, or any of the kinds of fictions  that, in order to exist, must fundamentally disagree with the new theory of “likeness.” It may be that the whole category of what we used to call fiction is becoming lost to us. And if enough people turn from the concept of fiction as it was once understood, then fighting this transformation will be like going to war against the neologism “impactful” or mourning the loss of the modal verb “shall.” As it is with language, so it goes with culture: what is not used or wanted dies. What is needed blooms and spreads. 

Consequently, my interest here is not so much prescriptive as descriptive. For me the question is not: Should we abandon fiction? (Readers will decide that—are in the process of already deciding. Many decided some time ago.) The question is: Do we know what fiction was? We think we know. In the process of turning from it, we’ve accused it of appropriation, colonization, delusion, vanity, naiveté, political and moral irresponsibility. We have found fiction wanting in myriad ways but rarely paused to wonder, or recall, what we once wanted from it—what theories of self-and-other it offered us, or why, for so long, those theories felt meaningful to so many. Embarrassed by the novel—and its mortifying habit of putting words into the mouths of others—many have moved swiftly on to what they perceive to be safer ground, namely, the supposedly unquestionable authenticity of personal experience. 

The old—and never especially helpful—adage write what you know has morphed into something more like a threat: Stay in your lane. This principle permits the category of fiction, but really only to the extent that we acknowledge and confess that personal experience is inviolate and nontransferable. It concedes that personal experience may be displayed, very carefully, to the unlike-us, to the stranger, even to the enemy—but insists it can never truly be shared by them. This rule also pertains in the opposite direction: the experience of the unlike-us can never be co-opted, ventriloquized, or otherwise “stolen” by us. (As the philosopher Anthony Appiah has noted, these ideas of cultural ownership share some DNA with the late-capitalist concept of brand integrity.) Only those who are like us are like us. Only those who are like us can understand us—or should even try. Which entire philosophical edifice depends on visibility and legibility, that is, on the sense that we can be certain of who is and isn’t “like us” simply by looking at them and/or listening to what they have to say. 

Fiction didn’t believe any of that. Fiction suspected that there is far more to people than what they choose to make manifest. Fiction wondered what likeness between selves might even mean, given the profound mystery of consciousness itself, which so many other disciplines—most notably philosophy—have probed for millennia without reaching any definitive conclusions. Fiction was suspicious of any theory of the self that appeared to be largely founded on what can be seen with the human eye, that is, those parts of our selves that are material, manifest, and clearly visible in a crowd. Fiction—at least the kind that was any good—was full of doubt, self-doubt above all. It had grave doubts about the nature of the self. 

Like a lot of writers I want to believe in fiction. But I’m simultaneously full of doubt, as is my professional habit. I know that the old Whitmanesque defense needs an overhaul. Containment—as a metaphor for the act of writing about others—is unequal to the times we live in. These times in which so many of us feel a collective, desperate, and justified desire to be once and for all free of the limited—and limiting—fantasies and projections of other people. With all due respect to Whitman, then, I’m going to relegate him to the bench, and call up, in defense of fiction, another nineteenth-century poet, Emily Dickinson: 

I measure every Grief  I meet With narrow, probing, eyes— I wonder if It weighs like Mine— Or has an Easier size. 

This gets close to the experience of making up fictional people. It starts as a consciousness out in the world: looking, listening, noticing. A kind of awareness, attended by questions. What is it like to be that person? To feel what they feel? I wonder. Can I use what I feel to imagine what the other feels? A little later in the poem, Dickinson moves from the abstract to the precise: There’s Grief of Want—and grief of Cold— A sort they call “Despair”— There’s Banishment from native Eyes— In sight of Native Air— 

She makes a map in her mind of possibilities. But later, as the poem concludes, she concedes that no mental map can ever be perfect, although this does not mean that such maps have no purpose: 

And though I may not guess the kind— Correctly—yet to me A piercing Comfort it affords In passing Calvary— To note the fashions—of the Cross— And how they’re mostly worn— Still fascinated to presume That Some—are like my own— 

In place of the potential hubris of containment, then, Dickinson offers us something else: the fascination of presumption. This presumption does not assume it is “correct,” no more than I assumed, when I depicted the lives of a diverse collection of people in my first novel, that I was “correct.” But I was fascinated to presume that some of the feelings of these imaginary people—feelings of loss of homeland, the anxiety of assimilation, battles with faith and its opposite—had some passing relation to feelings I have had or could imagine. That our griefs were not entirely unrelated. The joy of writing that book—and the risk of it—was in the uncertainty. I’d never been to war, Bangladesh, or early-twentieth-century Jamaica. I was not, myself, an immigrant. Could I make the reader believe in the imaginary people I placed in these fictional situations? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the reader. “I don’t believe it,” the reader is always free to say, when confronted with this emotion or that, one action or another. Novels are machines for falsely generating belief and they succeed or fail on that basis.”

[tanadrin]

The Botanist

Rahal called on Yaru at midmorning, when the springtime Kayuban air was still fresh and sweet. The walk down to the Botanical Institute was unusually pleasant, and put her in mind of nothing so much as Opara in the autumn, and the exuberance--and folly--of her youth. The Institute's doorkeeper directed her to a shabby little building behind a row of small greenhouses that was unassuming enough that Rahal assumed she had the wrong door, even as she knocked. There was the sound of footsteps within, and then the door opened; a pair of spectacled eyes, peeking out from below a wild mass of graying, curly hair looked up at her.

"Yes?" the man said curtly.

"I'm looking for Yaru," Rahal said.

"Oh?" He seemed to want more than that.

"I'm from the Order," she said.

"Oh! The archivist!" The man stood aside and waved her in. "I'm Yaru. I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting you until later. Come in, come in."

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Rahal said. The inside of the building was no more attractive than the outside. A stack of old boxes and a chair missing a leg took up most of the cramped vestibule. The windows were dusty and did not let in nearly enough light; a couple of cramped hallways led off to what looked like small offices, or large closets. Yaru himself was small, thin, and energetic, but it felt like Rahal that he, too, had been abandoned to this forgotten part of the Institute. But Sabir had been quite clear; she seemed to think Yaru's work was of the utmost importance.

"Not at all," Yaru said. "Only preparing tomorrow's lecture. They have me teaching students again. Ghastly business."

"You don't like teaching?"

"Oh, what's even the point? They're all blockheads. Waste of time, if you ask me. That door on the left there," Yaru said, pointing.

Yaru's office was in fact surprisingly well-kept, although not spacious, and full of the clear morning light. He had made an effort to dust, it seemed, and his stacks of books and papers were neatly organized, even as they seemed to occupy most of the available surfaces. His desk was only a small writing table in the corner; the only other chair was serving for the moment as an ersatz side table. He plucked up the books off it as he came in, and gestured for her to sit.

"Excuse the clutter," he said. "I don't get many visitors."

"Weren't you a student once?" Rahal asked.

"Oh, no," Yaru said, with a faint hint of disgust. "Well. Maybe yes, in a sense. But not like these ones. They're just here for an *education*. No love of learning at all."

Rahal was bemused. She genuinely could not tell whether his horror of the undergraduates was real, or just a very dry joke.

"Sabir said you'd joined the Institute a few years back?" Rahal said conversationally.

"Yes," Yaru said. "Well, I've been in this office since I came to Kayuba. A friend found it for me--it's nice and quiet and out of the way. But three years ago they were clearing out some old equipment and found me hiding back here, and told me I could only stay if I joined the Institute properly. And then last summer thy tracked me down and told me *all* faculty had to teach. Still, I've been managing to avoid it until recently. But I think I overreached by scheduling my last lecture for three in the morning in the rector's house."

Rahal smiled. "Did anyone turn up?"

"Goodness, I hope not. Tea?"

Yaru produced a small kettle from inside his desk and began hunting for a plug.

"Please."

"So what can I do for you, Walks-With-Dawn?"

"Rahal is fine," she said. Her name sounded ungainly to her in the southerners' tongue; she preferred to leave it untranslated. "Sabir sent me to you."

"And how is our mutual friend? I didn't see her when she was in Kayuba last. A pity"

"She's busy these days." Still trying to make up for my stupidity, she did not say. "Traveling a lot. Worried about the future. Though I suppose that describes most of the Order."

"But not you?"

Rahal bit down a dark thought. "No," she conceded. "Not me."

"You Archivists have always puzzled me," Yaru said. "More pessimistic a profession I have never seen. If the Holy Ones themselves showered gold upon the city and raised all our beloved grandmothers from the dead, you'd purse your lips and mutter."

"Someone's got to look to the future, I suppose."

"I always thought the future could take care of itself."

When the kettle finally boiled, Yaru poured two small cups of flower tea, the traditional Kayuban sign of hospitality. Rahal nestled her cup in her hand and enjoyed the warm, fragrant scent.

"So Sabir had some grim purpose in mind when she sent you to me, I suppose," Yaru said.

"Perhaps," Rahal conceded. "She said your work was important."

Yaru cocked his head. "Did she? She should tell the rectorate that! Very important, to be funded generously, and not to be disturbed for any reason! They might listen, coming from the Archive."

Rahal smiled. "I'll pass that along. She didn't offer me any details, though. What *are* you working on?"

Yaru scratched his head. "I never know how to talk about it to non-specialists. Well, not that anybody asks about it, besides my wife. Do you have a background in biology, Rahal?"

"I have the general Archivist's training in scientific matters," she said. "But my own specialty was always more... human systems."

"Economics?"

"More like, politics and diplomacy."

"Ah, the real black arts, if ever there was one," Yaru said with a nod. "No wonder that in darker days they called your kind the wielders of witchcraft."

Rahal laughed. "You understand us better than most."

"So what does the Archive generalist training cover? Cell biology? Ecology? Anatomy?"

Rahal leaned back in her chair and tried to remember her youth and the hours and hours of lectures she'd sat through. Natural philosophy, as they called it in the Archive, had not been her strongest subject. "Some of each," she said.

"Sabir tells me you learn all these things quite differently than we do in the outside world."

"That's true. You learn from principles. We learn texts."

"What do you mean?"

"For you, science is an inquiry into the world out there," she said, gesturing at the window. "For us, it is something that lives in books. And each book stands on its own."

This seemed to really puzzle Yaru.

"That seems like quite a strange approach to knowledge," he said.

"It depends on what you see as the ends of knowledge," Rahal replied.

"Understanding the world, improving human lives?"

"Well, yes, On that the Archive agrees. But... well, how do I explain this. You know the history of the Archive?"

"Vaguely, I suppose. It's old. Nearly as old as civilization."

"Older," Rahal said. "Maybe by a lot. And because it's old, and because its mission can only be fulfilled on the timescale of many lifetimes, every facet of its existence is oriented around long-term survival. That's a feature we don't talk about much for obvious reasons."

"It makes you sound like jealous, knowledge-hoarding, power-hungry tyrants. Which some say you are."

"And which we can be--if we have to. But mostly, we are preservers. We are advisors when we can be, but still librarians when we cannot be, and we are careful and slow, and we think everything to death, because too often we have seen the bitter consequences of recklessness--our own, or someone else's."

"But you're also only human."

"Yes," Rahal said. "These days, we're only human. The point is, we're not empiricists, although we do care about the work of empiricists. We preserve it, where we can, but this is the preservation of works. The masters teach Uranti's Six Mathematical Classics, not mathematics. We learn Furan's treatises on medicine, not medicine itself. The difference is drilled into us early in our education: the thing we learn is not the world outside, which is rapid and changing, but the world within the work we keep alive. It is for those to whom we make these texts available to judge their merits."

Yaru nodded. "I understand. You are only human, and no less a product of our fallen age than I am. And the Archive must preserve things it cannot possibly understand."

"Indeed," Rahal said. "We have preserved theological essays for centuries, thinking they were intended to communicate spiritual truths, only later to understand they were physics handbooks, and vice-versa. We preserve designs for machines that no civilization on Ogandraa can build, and maybe never could."

"Sabir herself told me she knew of a kind of mathematics that pertained only to an electric calculating machine that does not exist," Yaru said.

"Just so."

"So you would say your knowledge of biology is..."

"Scattershot."

"Very well. But you know the cell, and the genetic principle?"

Rahal nodded.

"We distinguish within the cell between the albuminous and non-albuminous materials; the latter are the secondary element of living tissue, while the former are considered primary. The albuminous materials are those that coagulate under heat, or condense within acid, and all are composed of the same ratio of elements: thirty one parts hydrogen, twenty parts carbon, six parts carbon, and five parts nitrogen, in large and diverse configurations. By hydrolysis, the albumins can be decomposed into their constituent parts, organic acids of the nitrogenic classification. By the careful separation of albumins, and by the measurement of their individual component acids, we can distinguish and name them, despite their common chemical formula."

"And this is what you work on?"

"It's the foundation of my work--the intersection of chemistry and botany. Before I came to Kayuba, I was primarily interested in separating and identifying the chemicals operative within plant cells. Albuminic and carbonic chain analysis was my specialty. Some of my work was directed at improving agriculture, while some of it was purely investigative."

"And now?"

"As you might expect, not every organism has the same albumins, or the same carbonics. The carbonic which forms the cell walls of plants, for instance--it's not found in animals at all, and it's totally indigestible by humans. We have already for a number of years used chemical distinctions, as well as physical ones, to distinguish the greater families of living organisms. Sessile, sunlight-capturing organisms, for instance, can be divided between the plants with a chemical environment similar to our own, the endoflora, and those with a chemical environment dissimilar to our own, the xenoflora. From the former come all food crops, and all plants which our livestock prefer. The latter are almost uniformly nutritionally useless."

"Native and non-native."

Yaru smiled. "Theology lies outside my competence, unfortunately."

"It's hardly a religious doctrine."

"I know in the north it is a view more universally held. We southerners tend to be a little more skeptical of folklore, I suppose. But I suppose it's no surprise the Archive tends to be conservative in these matters."

Rahal didn't press the point; it wasn't relevant to the conversation. She sometimes forgot that the descent from the stars was considered unverifiable mythology in the south, or downright superstition. She motioned for Yaru to continue."

"In any case, a similar division does exist within some, but not all, other domains of life. The funguses, for instance, are endochemical only. Land animals--motile, sensory--are endochemical and xenochemical, except in the sea, where they are mostly xenochemical. The disease-causing bacteria are uniformly endochemical, as are all viruses. I made a discovery a few years ago, which might be of some comfort to those of a more traditional turn of mind. You see, it had always been thought that one line of evidence against celestialism was that xenochemical and endochemical organisms still have certain albumins in common, albeit in small amounts."

"I've heard this," Rahal said.

"I discovered that this was not so."

Rahal raised an eyebrow. Yaru continued.

"If you take a sample of tissue from a human, a springgrass flower, or a mushroom, and separate its albumins and carbonic chain molecules, you *will* find small amounts of certain chemicals common across all three. More in the case of the two endochemical organisms, of course, many more, but even within the springgrass flower there is some similarity. Identicality, in fact--of the albumins found in humans and springgrass, the component acids exist in identical ratios."

"A common genetic inheritance? From an early split between the two domains of life."

"That's always been the anti-celestialist argument, of course," Yaru said. "But it's not true."

"What then?"

"A separate organism entirely. Actually, a whole group of them."

Rahal leaned forward in her chair, intrigued.

"They can be cultured separately, in small amounts: an intracellular symbiont that is chemically distinct from both of the other two major domains of life on Ogandraa. Microscopic only, and quite unlike either the endobiota or xenobiota. Indeed, based on some tantalizing clues, I predict this third domain may not form cellular structures at all. If humans are indeed not native to this world, these are probably the original inhabitants. And, I believe, they are the solution to a longstanding mystery in ecology. Do you know the remote signalling problem?"

"I think--something about wildfires?"

"That's the canonical example, yes. How does the springgrass know to hide its buds when the fire is hours away and upwind? But it goes deeper than that: if you isolate the springgrass bud entirely, seal it in its own jar with its own atmosphere and soil, insulate it from all outside heat, but burn a nearby patch of ground, it will still bury itself in the soil. There are similar phenomena elsewhere in nature, however. Raspflies will swarm if killed in large numbers, even up to half a mile away. The larvae of bloodfish begin to emerge in freshwater lakes when the mating frenzy happens at the river mouth, even if it's hundreds of miles away."

"Some kind of chemical signal?"

"The most current research on the subject indicates that such a signal would have to travel at about forty miles an hour, upstream. It's possible--but rather unlikely. My belief is rather that it is this acellular, symbiotic organism which plays a role in the remote signalling mechanisms that are omnipresent in nature. When supplied with the correct stimuli, it is capable of emitting energy, even visible light. Although as you might expect, the effect tends to be very weak. Yet it can propagate rapidly."

"How rapidly?"

"More than rapidly enough to let the bloodfish larvae know to emerge and make room for the next generation."

"That's fascinating. Genuinely. But I still don't understand why Sabir put us in touch. She seemed to think it was more than an ordinary scientific breakthrough that I should be aware of."

"Ah, well. I think I know," Yaru said. He shuffled some papers around on his desk, looking for a blank sheet, and picked up a pen. He scrawled a short mathematical equation on it.

"As I said, the effect is principally very weak in nature. A stronger effect, using purified chemicals or an electric current, can be obtained in the laboratory. An even stronger effect can be produced by the application of a specific modulated electromagnetic field, and the stronger the field--and the more accurate its modulation--the greater the release of energy, and the further its propagation. Two curious facts have emerged from my experiments.

"The first is this: these mysterious microorganisms contain an enormous quantity of chemical energy." He picked up the still-warm kettle and set it on his desk, between him and Rahal. "Our most vigorous organic explosives produce about enough energy that burning a few grains of them would raise the temperature of the water in this kettle by oh, let's say, a degree and a half. A small handful--enough to blow my office door off its hinges and make us both deaf for a few hours--would boil it."

"And these organisms are comparable?"

"No. They contain far *more* energy. I've attempted to exhaust small samples of all their energy available for signalling, and I can't do it. Based on the amount of energy they can output, they must be able of storing phenomenal amounts, far more than can be stored in an ordinary chemical bond. Enough that if the water in this kettle were frozen, and you could unlock the energy in an equivalent small weight of these microorganisms, you could vaporize the ice to steam--about eight hundred times the energy of a blasting explosive. At least."

"Goodness."

"This is the other curious fact." He slid the piece of paper over to Rahal, and tapped a variable circled in the middle. "Based on signal propagation experiments, an induced energy release by a very precisely modulated electromagnetic signal would release N units of energy from the activated sample, which would signal the release from nearby organisms reduced by a factor based on distance and the strength of the original activation signal. For any signal below a certain original activation efficiency--represented by this factor, k--the energy release falls off exponentially, and eventually disappears into the background noise of normal intercellular signalling. That behavior holds true up to a k of 1."

"And above that activation efficiency?"

"As you can see, k is part of an exponential term. In theory, at k the energy release propagates at full strength indefinitely. How far, I don't know. Maybe clear around the planet. Maybe you can make Ogandraa ring like a bell. *Above* k, the energy release increases, indefinitely, with each activation releasing more than the last."

"What are you saying?"

"That in the presence of the right electromagnetic signal, you could induce an energy release that would make our biggest bombs look like holy day sparklers. You could annihilate cities. Boil seas. Set the world aflame."

Rahal looked at the hastily-scrawled letter in the exponent position without saying anything. Then she folded up the piece of paper and slipped it into a pocket.

"There are practical difficulties, of course," Yaru said. "The richness of the sample matters. How much energy it actually contains--you *can* deplete the signalling mechanism, and it only replenishes very slowly. And the fact that the world is still here, and doesn't regularly blow itself up is indicative that if this phenomenon is possible, it's not at all trivial to unlock. It doesn't occur naturally."

"But such a signal wouldn't need to be natural."

"No. Just because it doesn't occur doesn't mean it *can't* occur."

"This is a weapon."

"Quite possibly. Quite possibly the most dangerous one ever conceived."

"Who knows about this?"

"Right now, very few people. But the possibility is latent in nature itself; and the remote signalling problem is being studied elsewhere. Even if I burned every scrap of my research and decided to become a house-painter, it would be a few years at best before someone working in Ptrar or Lareth stumbled across the same thing."

Rahal was feeling a little dizzy. She set her untouched tea down on the desk and folded her arms, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

"You called the Archive conservative earlier."

"Hm? Oh yes, I suppose I did. Celestialists and such. No offense."

"None taken. Do you know what the difference between being conservative and being Conservative is?" She used the Kayuban emphatic particle to make the distinction clear.

"I imagine you have one in mind."

"The Archive is cautious, deliberate, and wary of change. We're not empiricists, it's true, but we're not hostile to empirical methods. We've seen both the good and the bad that can result from such methods, and we work to increase the former at the expense of the latter. But in times of crisis, in times of upheaval and war, I worry less about the conservative approach and more about the Conservative one."

"Are you speaking politically? Scientifically? Artistically?"

"All, and none. This is something that cuts across political factionalism and scientific squabbles, and runs to deeper attitudes, attitudes that in my experience are only loosely connected to specific beliefs or aesthetic choices. I'm talking about the...." She struggled for the right Kayuban word. "We call it the-turn-inward-and-reject-the-legible-world-impulse in the Archive. The urge to fall back on the oldest and worst parts of human nature. The parts that are still frightened and soaked in blood.

"There are histories in the Archive which--well, they're not secret. We'd tell you if you asked. But we don't usually volunteer them, because they are dark and frightening and usually not very applicable to novel situations. In Kfaris, when it fell, a madness consumed the people for ninety-nine days, and in their madness the people claimed the motions of the stars ruled their fates, that the world outside the walls of the city was a deceit of the devil, and they devoured every written word in the city, even if it meant smashing stone plaques to pieces and choking down the dust. In Chopakim, when it was beset by a festering plague, every fourth son was flayed alive in the city's plaza, and their skins were given to frightened mothers to wrap their babies in--this, it was said, would spare their infants from disease. In Lalai, on the eve of war, a beggar said that God had made him king; and when the enemy came, he ordered the gates opened, and the army to lay down its spears, and every living soul was slaughtered as a result.

"I walked here this morning, rather than take the streetcar, because it was a fine spring day. Peaceful, fragrant, with a shining sun. Kfaris, Chopakim, Lalai--each of these cities was, perhaps on some day not too long before disaster, sun-painted and happy. Each, like Kayuba today, was once part of a civilization that looked to make the world legible to them: through ethics or empiricism or philosophy, or some combination of the three, and very often succeeded. Each was once possessed of honest ignorance and superstition, and slowly worked to shrug these things off, and rise above them--until one day they proclaimed they wished to partake of that struggle no more, that to behold the-world-as-it-is was too frightful, and they would prefer to inhabit only the world of their hearts. Each was ruined; and each suffered terribly in the aftermath."

"And what lesson do you draw in this particular scenario, where I have shown you a novel path to ruin?"

"No lesson in particular. But I am afraid, Yaru. I am afraid some spirit wiser than both of us, than any soul in Kayuba right now, showed each of those cities the truth; I am afraid that, in their very instance on ignorance they might have been right."

"Do you really believe that? That there can be justice in ignorance, happiness in letting our fears govern us?"

"Of course not. I wouldn't be an Archivist if I did. And although I'm not a priest, it's not rare in my vocation to have a certain kind of faith. But I do have my doubts sometime."

Yaru sighed.

"So do I, my friend. So do I."

[attackpunk]

Mayhem and Matrimony, Chapter One

Rating: Explicit, but not until future chapters, Pairings: Batman/Joker, Warnings: none

I will be posting more of this if people are interested, so leave a comment and a reblog why dontcha?

It was never sunny in Gotham. In fact, it was hardly ever daytime. Nights always seemed unusually long, and when the morning did deign to arrive, it always came with an entourage of clouds. This was the way that all Gothamites preferred to live. If they wanted sunlight, they would have lived in Metropolis (and Metropolis was just too… metropolitan for any respectable Gothamite).

 Unfortunately, the Joker was not a respectable Gothamite. He was not a respectable anything, and he quite liked it that way. The Joker loved sunlight. He loved warm breezes and balmy afternoons. If it weren’t for a few choice superheroes, he would have moved to Metropolis long ago. Yet he stayed. His philosophy was that Gotham had character. Everything in Metropolis was pre-packaged and plastic wrapped, much like their god-like Boy Scout, but Gotham had life. And of course, Gotham had his beloved Bat.

Joker prided himself on being a psychopath, even a sociopath- yet when it came to the Bat, his heart melted. Nay, it soared. If only Batsy felt the same way. Actually, scratch that, if only Batsy realized that he felt the same way. Then everything would be tickety-boo.Joker surveyed his surroundings and smiled. Everything was going perfectly. A stunt like this was not only expensive, stylish, and daring, it was also a declaration. He wanted to see how much he could push his Bat, and if he got a happily ever after in the process? Well, then it would be a win-win!

 Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harley skating towards him with a clipboard.

“Everything’s ready, boss,” she trilled happily, chewing her bubblegum. She held the clipboard out to him,“Just need you to sign these terms and conditions and we’ll be on our way.”“Perfect, dollface, just perfect!” Joker said, clapping his hands together. He felt like a schoolgirl getting ready for prom night. Only with more murderous intent. Or maybe not. It all rested on Batsy.

 He made his way over to the car he was going to be riding into the GCPD. It was one of his trademarks, a purple Lamborghini with green accents. It was garish, grotesque, and altogether way too expensive to have any kind of quality or class. He loved it. Getting in, he wondered just how this would all play out. Fuck, was he nervous?

No. Obviously not. The Joker, the scourge of Gotham, did not get nervous over a boy. Not even one that he was madly in love with. One that he would do almost anything for. But what if… 

No! He was not going to think about things going wrong. Batsy would see reason. He had to. Or Gotham’s streets would run red with blood.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce Wayne was a little bitch. At least, that’s what Batman thought. Nevermind the fact that he was Bruce Wayne; that was a technicality. No, in his civilian persona he chose to be a little bitch. It diverted suspicion away from what he spent most of his waking nights doing. And yet, he felt… empty. Like something was missing. Maybe he spent too much time as Bruce Wayne. Or maybe it was the opposite. Anyways, he was headed to the GCPD to be a public disturbance. Of course, he would be a calculated public disturbance. The real reason for his trip to the GCPD was to gather intel. Gordon had come to him about a potential mole in the precinct, and had asked him to discreetly monitor the officers. Batman was not discreet. Neither was Bruce Wayne, but at least no one knew that Bruce Wayne could sucker punch them into oblivion.

So that was the reason why Alfred was driving them into the grey, grey city in a black, black car, dodging traffic and politely cursing the absolute atrocities that were committed by the drivers of Gotham on the daily. 

Of course, it was just their luck that when they arrived it was absolute chaos. Bruce was not a betting man, but he was willing to bet the entirety of Wayne Enterprises that the Joker was behind it. It would make sense. The Joker was a psychopath, with no moral compass to speak of. Or, Bruce thought, perhaps he had too much of a moral compass. 

Gotham cops, and even cops in general, were not the most compassionate of creatures. Maybe this was the Joker’s twisted sense of justice. But it was not his job to psychoanalyze his arch-nemesis. Although, it wasn’t like the shrinks at Arkham were doing a good job of it. 

Bruce shook himself. Gotham needed him; what was he doing thinking about the Joker’s motivations? That sort of thinking was reserved for the Batcave, and if Bruce were being completely honest with himself, his bed. Now was not the time. 

“Alfred,” he said, voice slipping so naturally into that gravelly growl, “Is there a Batsuit anywhere close to here?”

Alfred glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

“Sir, do you even have to ask? I would have thought you had every location of every Batsuit memorized.”

“I’m a Bat, Alfred, not a computer,” Bruce replied dryly.

“I have one in the trunk, sir. Should I drive towards the nearest safehouse? Or mayhaps an alley?”

“Alley will be fine. Our main priority is protecting the people.”

Then, somehow, impossibly, things got even weirder. Well, perhaps not so weird for Gotham, but definitely weird by literally anybody else’s standards. The Joker was on a pedestal, rising above the chaos below like an angel. An angel in a wedding dress wielding a flamethrower. 

Miles away, Superman heard a chorus of “what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck” from Gotham. That was a rare occurrence; nobody in Gotham was disturbed by anything. Until now. Clark paused. Should he go investigate? No, Batman probably had things under control. Besides, he thought, punching a robot, he had his own problems.

Back in Gotham, the Joker was having a roaring time at the GCPD. Everybody was confused and hysterical, which was just the way he liked it. He signaled to Harley, who turned on the speakers attached to the trucks his henchmen had ridden in.

“Good morning, Gotham!” he yelled, his voice amplified by the lapel mic on his breast, “Are y’all having a lovely time?”

“No!” the people of Gotham yelled back, on fire and spiteful.

“Well, alright then. Would you like all of this mayhem to stop?”

“Yes?” yelled the people of Gotham, on fire and suspicious.

“Well then I only ask for one thing, dear Gothamites. I want…” Joker paused. Make them wait for it…

“Batman’s hand in marriage!”

Boom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Batman in question was halfway through putting on the Batsuit when he heard the shocking declaration. Now, Batman of course did not freeze in shock. The only time Batman was frozen was when Mr. Freeze scored a lucky hit. What he was currently doing was… analyzing the situation. While not moving. With his mind completely blank. It certainly did not take Alfred getting out of the car and slapping him across the face to get him to move again. It was five minutes before Batman burst onto the scene of the decimated GCPD, and everything was still on fire. Fucking typical. Only now the Joker was using his flamethrower (was it bedazzled?) to burn down the entire precinct. And the firefighters were trying to get through a blockade of stolen, armored trucks. 

“Fuck,” Bruce whispered under his breath. Then he said it a little louder for good measure. Joker was speaking again, having caught sight of him.

“Batsy, my darling, did you hear my proposal? You marry me, and I’ll stop terrorizing Gotham!”

“Over my dead body. You’re insane!” Batman shouted back, though he was barely audible above the sounds of general mayhem. 

“Maybe so, but this is an offer that’s too good to pass up, don’tcha think?”

Bruce stopped and thought about it. Personal sacrifice had never meant anything to him. He had given up any semblance of a normal life the moment he put on the cowl. And marriage to the Joker came with an end to his reign of terror. Who knew when an offer like this would come again? And, who knew what the Joker’s retaliation would be if he refused? Oh, fuck. Was he really doing this?

He was. He found himself scaling the demolished precinct, trying to get up to the Joker’s level. Or, metaphorically, stooping down to it. Either way, soon he found himself standing on the Joker’s pedestal, gazing upon him in all his wedding dress and flamethrower glory. Fuck, he was beautiful. 

Wait, did he really just think that? Well, said a tiny, sarcastic part of his brain, he is your future husband. Oh, fuck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I accept your proposal,” Batman growled at him, looking both angry and nervous at the same time. Damn, that was a look. Wait, did Batsy just say yes? Joker gaped in shock. He hadn’t actually expected this to work. Batsy looked nervous, and Joker would bet his entire criminal empire that he did too. God, they really were a pair of idiots, weren’t they? 

“Hey, boss!” Harley shouted up to them. 

“Oh, thank God,” he and Batsy said. In unison. 

“Wow, we’re practically an old married couple already, Batsy!” Joker joked as they watched Harley get closer to them, dragging a harried justice of the peace behind her. 

“Don’t push it,” Batman warned, a tic forming in his jaw. 

“Alright, my love,” Joker purred. Oh, this could be rather fun. He’d be able to mess with his Bat as much as he wanted once they were married. Which would be very soon. Oh wow. He and Batsy would be married. As in, till death do us part. 

Or maybe not. The Justice of the peace had apparently broken free of Harley's grasp, and was now taking to the hills along with the rest of the populace. Smart guy, Joker thought. Or not, since Harley appeared to be in pursuit.

"So, we're getting… married right now? You're not going to try and court me first?" Batsy said, and was it the Joker's imagination or did he look put out? Well, that simply would not do. He only wanted the best for his Bat.

"Why, Batsy, what do you call all of our midnight trysts?" he replied, hoping to assuage his beloved.

"You consider trying to kill each other foreplay?" And oh, wow, was that a bit of sardonic humor in Batsy's voice?

"Why, yes I do! Would you rather I took you out to dinner? I, ah, don't quite think that would be received all too well, Bruce Wayne in a fancy restaurant with the Joker. People might talk."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce gaped.

"How the hell do you know who I am? And why the hell did you say that so loud! Isn't your mic still running? Oh my fucking God, what is wrong with- wait, no, that's a stupid question," Bruce was well aware that he was rambling, but it was definitely justified because his insane arch-nemesis knew his secret identity! 

"Relax, baby, I already disabled the mic. And it wasn't that hard to figure out your 'secret identity.' Bruce Wayne is the only person in Gotham with enough money to fund this kind of endeavor and a tragic enough backstory to warrant it. I'm insane, not an idiot," Joker said.

Bruce relaxed, if only slightly. This could actually work to his advantage, if he played his cards right (pun intended). Joker had never come after him in his civilian persona. Maybe that was a sign of trust between them? Bruce mentally shook himself. How could he ever trust the Joker?

You’re trusting him enough to marry him, that sadistic voice inside him whispered. 

“Oh, motherfucker,” Bruce groaned, feeling a headache coming on. 

“What’s wrong, dearest?” Joker asked, looking for all the world like a concerned bride-to-be, and wasn’t that a scary thought?

“What the fuck do you think is wrong, Joker, I’m marrying an insane clown with a penchant for extravagant murder sprees,” he snapped. This situation was getting too ridiculous even for Gotham, they were thirty feet in the air and the Joker was wearing a wedding dress. He was allowed to be a little angry. Angry at what, he didn’t know. Angry at the world, the Joker, himself; it was all the same thing. 

He found himself staring at the Joker, almost accusingly. Though Bruce was loath to admit it, Joker did look stunning. 

 “Batsy, not to alarm you, but we have a wedding to...perform? Do? Is that the right word? Either way we’re getting hitched. Come on, you can look at me during the honeymoon, God, this corset is tight.”

Joker lowered the platform they had been standing on, which really was too small for two grown men, and began to walk towards his Lamborghini, Bruce awkwardly following him. 

"Where are we going?" Bruce found himself asking against his better judgement. 

"To where the ceremony is being held. Did you really think I'd marry you in the ruins of a police station? Not really my, ah, style, wouldn't you say?"

Bruce had to admit he was right. Joker's style was much more… gauche. It was something to be appreciated. Almost. 

They approached the car, Joker sliding easily into the driver's seat. Bruce walked around to the passenger side, feeling vulnerable.

Christ, he was getting married. To his arch-nemesis. That was knowledge that would probably never sink in fully. How was this his life? He was in a car, a Lamborghini no less, with the Joker driving them to their wedding. Their fucking wedding. Bruce was panicked. No, no; not panicked. Batman did not get panicked. He was a calm, collected figure of justice, and he should damn well act like it. That didn't stop his stomach from twisting into knots. God, he really was like a bride on her wedding day. 

Would Joker expect them to consummate their marriage? Ice flooded his veins. Bruce may be into men and women, but he had never once had relations with another man. He had fantasized, of course, imagined strong hands on his hips and a thick cock in his ass, but he had never acted upon the desires that left him tangled in his sheets, panting. But now… he was getting married. And the Joker was a man. Who was most likely in love with him, however much sense that made. Maybe now…

No. He would not submit to the scourge of Gotham for something as base as desire. He never had, and never would. But would he if it were for the good of Gotham? What if this was the only way to save his city? Joker had promised to stop his villainous ways if Bruce accepted his proposal, and he had. Wouldn't such a union between them, however complicated, ultimately do only good? And perhaps, if he played his cards right, he would never have to sleep with the Joker. 

The bastard part of his brain told him that this was bullshit. He happily ignored that part of his brain and stared at the Joker. The white of his wedding dress was almost paler than his skin, and the purple accents were entirely typical, yet also somehow… alluring. The dress was sleeveless, and Bruce spent five minutes trying to figure out what laws of physics allowed it to stay in place. Eventually he realized that Joker was wearing a corset that had to be crushing his ribs. Bruce wanted, for just a moment, to take it off of him. To loosen the vice that had to be uncomfortable, had to be unpleasant. To ease, to soothe. That thought, that want, scared him more than anything else that had happened today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things were going perfectly. Almost too perfectly. Surely it couldn't be this easy? Joker wasn't paranoid, but surely Batman had something up his gauntleted sleeve. He always did. Batman may have been one of the smartest people on the planet, but he was also about as observant as a brick wall. There was absolutely no way in hell that Batsy had realized his feelings that fast. 

Oh god, this was a sacrifice play, wasn't it? Instead of actually confronting his feelings, he was rationalizing what he was doing. Well. That certainly would not do. 

They had arrived at the venue, chosen specifically for its sentimentality. It was the Gotham Bank, specifically the rooftop. He glanced at the Bat, trying to gauge his reaction. He had become rather good at reading his expressions, even concealed as he was under the cowl. 

Batman, no, Bruce, was speechless. For a moment, anyways.

“This-this was where we first met,” he said, softly, almost reverent. Joker felt something in his chest give way and shatter. Bruce liked it. He had done well. He smiled, a soft thing, so unlike his usual, mania-induced grin. He looked at Bruce, who was looking at him. This was the man he loved. This was the man he was going to give up villainy for. This was the man he was going to marry. He had never been so sure of anything. Goddamnit, he was in love with Bruce Wayne, the Bat of Gotham, and he was going to shout it from the rooftops. Literally. He offered his arm to his Bat.

"Shall we?"

Batman hesitated, only for a fraction of a second, but then he took Joker's arm, and up they went.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything was going absolutely perfectly. They were scaling the Gotham Bank, with him in Batsy’s arms. Thank god he didn’t mention the staircase that led up to the roof. Or, thank god that Batsy knew about the staircase and didn’t want to use it anyways. Either way, everything was working out absolutely fantastically. He rather liked being pressed close to Bruce, arms around that strong, bulky frame, so unlike his wiry one, and Harley’s voluptuous curves. Batman was solid. It was nice. 

When they finally reached the roof, he found his surprise for Batsy waiting for them. All of their friends were there. His bridesmaids- Harley, her wife Ivy, and Selina- were stunning in their violet dresses. He had taken the liberty of, ah, not exactly kidnapping, but rather… violently persuading the various Batboys to act as the groomsmen. They looked murderous, which was not ideal, but he could work with it. At least he didn't have to gag them. And really, they could get out of their handcuffs easily. He had seen them all do it before; they were perfectly capable of escape. And yet they weren’t. He wondered why.

In the seats lining the aisle were Gotham’s finest criminals, all dressed in their Sunday best. Scarecrow’s burlap looked especially nice, and did the Penguin have a new suit tailored for the occasion? Even Bruce’s loyal butler, Alfred, was there, looking altogether quite calm for a senior citizen surrounded by dangerous supervillains. 

“Batman!” Grayson called out, almost leaving from his spot as the best man. It was cute how he was still trying to hide his mentor's identity.

"Nightwing," Batman growled out, looking uncomfortable,

"What are you doing here?"

"I was going to ask the same about you," the Boy Wonder replied with a smirk that almost belied his unease.

“I’m doing what’s best for Gotham,” Bruce said, and what Joker wouldn’t give to see under that alluring cowl to see the expressions flit across his face. 

“Doing what’s best for Gotham my ass,” Jason Todd, the infamous Red Hood said from where he was standing, “You two have been flirting with each other since day one. Y’all just need to bone.”

Batman spluttered for a moment, then said,

“Bone!? Bone!? How dare you- wait a minute, didn’t he kill you?” Bruce said, incredulous.

“Yeah, but I got better,” Todd said, looking much more nonchalant than he usually did. But, then again, this isn’t supposed to be an angsty story, is it? 

Everyone decided to just go with it. Good.

“I, ah, hate to interrupt this lovely father-son moment here, but we do have a wedding to do, right darling?” Joker said. He was growing just the tiniest bit impatient. He wanted to be married, dammit! 

Batsy, to his credit, had the manners to look abashed. Wow, he had now seen more expressions on Bruce’s face today than he had in all their time together thus far. Joker extended his arm to his love.

“Shall we?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking motherfucking fuck

Alarm bells were ringing in Bruce’s head. This wedding was happening right the fuck now! Jesus fucking hell. Holy shit. He must look like a total idiot right now, but he was allowed to be a bit concerned! Joker was waiting for him, arm outstretched. Bruce grabbed it, his brain on autopilot. Or, not on autopilot, the pilot was there, but said pilot was almost certainly having a panic attack and quite possibly going into cardiac arrest. 

They were walking down the aisle.

They were at the altar.

The justice of the peace was there now, a bit more bruised than he had been the last time Bruce had seen him.

Everything was muted; he was swimming through noise and panic with the peace of a drowned man. All he could hear was a dull roar, that is until Dick slapped him on the shoulder. Suddenly, everything slipped back into focus.

“...Into this - these two persons present now come to be joined. If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together - let them speak now or forever hold their peace,” the justice said, his voice wavering only slightly. Damian looked to object, but was held back by Tim. Bruce was somehow grateful.

“And now, would you speak your vows?” the justice said, glancing nervously around.

“I shall,” Joker said, looking suddenly solemn.

“Batsy, from the moment I met you, on this very rooftop, I knew you were the one. No one but you had ever been able to bring out the best in me the way you have. Whether we were fighting or flirting, I always felt complete. And now I want to be complete with you, officially.” 

That was- unexpected. Bruce honestly hadn’t thought the Joker was capable of feeling things, at least not things like- no, he refused to say it. Everyone was staring at him, why was that? 

Oh. He had to speak his vows. What the hell was he going to do now? He had no idea what to say. He was Batman, he didn’t need words; a well placed glare was usually enough to portray his meaning no matter who he was speaking to. He cleared his throat. 

“Joker,” he began, “I- I don’t really know what to say. This entire situation is completely ridiculous, but I mean what situation with you isn’t? I guess it’s just a part of your charm.” Oh fuck, did he really just call the Joker charming? He glanced over at his children and, yep, they had definitely caught that. Even Damian looked smug. Okay Bruce, deep breaths. You just have to get through this then this whole nightmare will be over. Well, said that little voice in his head, damn that voice, it really will have only just begun. 

“Joker, while I admit the circumstances of this are not exactly typical, I really don’t think any kind of wedding with either of us could be. I almost hate to admit it, but you bring out the best in me, and I can only hope that in the future I can bring out the best in you,” he finished. That should be enough, right? He looked at Joker, and almost froze. The Joker was smiling, but not his normal, maniacal smile. It was soft, and hopeful, and it made something in Bruce’s chest crack open. Oh, fuck. 

The justice of the peace, still looking terrified out of his wits, seemed to gather himself enough to say,

“You- you may now kiss the groom.”

Bruce didn’t even have time to panic.

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5 (4 of 6)

Time for another round of episode reviews from season 5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Episode 16: Ethics

Plot (as given by me):

During an inspection in the cargo bay, Lt. Worf is hit from above by a falling cargo container, and he awakens later in sick bay to learn he has been paralysed by the accident.  With no cure for the condition immediately to hand, Worf asks Commander Riker to assist him in a ritual suicide known as the Hegh’bat something all Klingons do when faced with such injuries.  Riker is appalled by the idea, and Dr Crusher likewise refuses to give up on the idea of Worf recovering, bringing aboard neurologist Dr Toby Russell to consult on the matter.

 Riker seeks advice from Captain Picard, who asks him to consider the matter from Worf’s perspective; as a Klingon, Worf is part of a warrior culture that, by its very nature, would disdain physical infirmity and cannot abide life with a disability as humans can.  Eventually, Riker finds a way out of assisting Worf by noting that the ritual should be performed by a family member, namely Alexander, and when Worf tries to use Alexander’s age and part-human heritage as excuses, Riker calls him on it, accusing him of being afraid to fight for his life as many of their fallen comrades have done.

 Meanwhile, Dr Russell notes that Klingon anatomy is heavily over-designed, possessing a redundancy for every vital physical function to ensure that if a primary organ is damaged, a secondary one can always compensate.  She suggests using a genetics-based replication therapy that could create a new spinal column for Worf, but it is still experimental and Russell has only a 37% success rate in holographic simulations. Dr Crusher suggests they’ll stick to conventional methods, but when these prove insufficient for Worf, Russell offers him her experimental treatment.  Later, the Enterprise assists survivors from the transport ship USS Denver, which has been damaged by a Cardassian mine.  When Crusher learns Russell tried an experimental treatment on a patient who subsequently died without considering the use of conventional medicine, she has Russell relieved of duty.

 Worf ultimately opts to undergo Russell’s procedure against Dr Crusher’s advice, and Picard has to convince Crusher that while normally her normal medical philosophy would be the more valid option, in Worf’s case a high-risk operation is better than either a life being disabled or ritual suicide.  The operation initially appears successful, but Worf goes into cardiac arrest moments after his vital functions are taken off life support, and he apparently dies.  A heart-broken Dr Crusher has to break the news to Alexander and to Counsellor Troi, who Worf named as Alexander’s guardian if he should die during the operation. Alexander insists on seeing his father, but when he does, Worf shows signs of life.  It turns out Worf’s brain has a back-up for his synaptic functions in the same way that his body has multiple back-up organs.

 While Dr Crusher is thrilled that Worf will recover, she condemns Dr Russell for putting her research efforts ahead of the lives her patients, pointing out that proper medical research takes time and intensive study, and that Russell is ‘taking short-cuts, right through living tissue’.  Meanwhile, Worf begins his recovery and allows Alexander to help him, having previously tried to keep the boy away during his paralysis.

Review:

This episode is one with a very apt title, as there’s actually not one but two issues of ethics being tackled.  The first is around the idea of euthanasia of the permanently disabled or terminally ill.  For me, this is the least well-handled of the two because it’s being tackled via a character from a warrior society, and those tend to be the most barbaric around the differently abled.  Consider the film 300, and what that showed us of how the ancient Spartans would kill at birth any child who was not physically ‘perfect’.  For all that it makes sense from a strictly tactical and militaristic perspective, assuming you’re only looking for physical prowess on the battlefield, the idea of trying to get anyone to kill themselves over a bum leg or deformed arm or anything like that is discrimination and murder, pure and simple.  To put someone out of their misery when facing a painful degenerative illness with no chance of a cure before the end whatsoever, that is one thing, but to euthanise the disabled just for being disabled?  That is simply barbaric and inhuman, and frankly an attitude no one on the Enterprise should have been trying to endorse.  Frankly, I lost some respect for Picard and gained a lot for Riker looking at how they acted; Picard is all but giving an all-clear to his tactical officer topping himself, and Riker is the only one trying to make Worf fight for his life like a real warrior.

 The other ethical debate revolves around the question of medical ethics, and whether the end justifies the means when it comes to short-cuts and other unsound research methods.  In this, it’s clear Crusher is the one in the right, because the validity of Russell’s argument is founded on the idea that Worf is from a culture where the high-risk experimental operation beats the immediate alternatives.  If, like me, you see Worf’s attitude as typical of the regularly abled acting like spoiled, whining babies because they’ve been made part of the differently abled community, then Russell’s arguments cease to carry weight.  Research should take time where it needs to, especially in case you’re proceeding from a false supposition that the research actually disproves.  The biased results of improper research into vaccines and autism resulting in autistics being vilified as a result of vaccine science when they’re actually nothing of the sort is by itself reason enough that improper research should not only be banned, but treated as a criminal offence.

 Perhaps the biggest undermining element of this episode, however, is that it centres on something happening to a main character of the show and not a guest character.  Anytime issue exploration on an issue like this involves a main character, especially on a show like Next Generation which doesn’t really do overall story arcs even by this stage, you know the character will somehow recover and all will return to status quo.  Had the show done this with a guest character, they could have gone a different way and perhaps avoided potential advocacy of some very, very morally questionable stances on these issues.  It’s great drama and good issue exploration, but I think the show should have been more opposed the idea of killing off the disabled just for being disabled than it appeared to me.  For me, the episode only gets 6 out of 10, and it’s lucky I don’t mark it down more than that.

Episode 17: The Outcast

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is contacted by a humanoid race called the J'naii, who as a species have no gender. They ask the crew for help in finding a shuttle which has gone missing. It is theorized that the shuttle disappeared into a pocket of null space, a type of space which drains energy rapidly. In short order, a rescue mission is planned, for which Riker volunteers to pilot a shuttle to retrieve the shuttle crew. A member of the J'naii named Soren insists on accompanying Riker, acting as a co-pilot. Soren proves to be a good pilot. Riker and Soren share a meal and become more comfortable with each other. They are interrupted by another J'naii, and Soren leaves quickly.

 While the pair is charting the null space, the shuttle is damaged, and Soren is injured. While being treated by Dr Crusher, Soren asks her several questions about female gender identification. While Soren and Riker work on the shuttle, Soren confesses that she is attracted to Riker and states that she has a female gender identity. Soren explains that the J'naii are an androgynous species that view the expression of any sort of male or female gender, and especially sexual liaisons, as a psychological perversion. According to their official doctrine, the J'naii had “evolved” beyond gender and thus view the idea of male/female sexuality as primitive. Those among the J'naii who view themselves as possessing gender are ridiculed, outcast, and forced to undergo "psychotectic therapy". This is a form of conversion therapy meant to remove any desire for gender-specificity and allow acceptance back into J'naii society.

 The affair between Riker and Soren grows and eventually is discovered. Soren is put on trial, but before she answers to the charges, Riker bursts in and attempts to take the blame for the situation. Soren foils his attempt and proceeds to passionately defend herself and express her outrage at what their society does to those who express male or female identities. J'naii diplomats force Soren to undergo psychotectic therapy, citing reformed citizens' newfound happiness and desire to be normal. Riker's emotions and love for Soren grow and he decides that he cannot leave Soren to this fate. He tries to explain the situation to Picard, who is sympathetic to Riker but says that he cannot sanction a rescue mission as it violates the Prime Directive, not to mention Riker throwing away his career. Worf visits Riker in his quarters and offers to go with him on an "unannounced visit" to rescue Soren, since he is unwilling to let Riker face the task alone. When Riker and Worf beam down to the planet to rescue Soren, he realizes that the therapy has already been performed. Soren refuses to go with him, claiming that she is now happy and was “sick” during her affair with Riker. Soren apologizes to Riker, who returns dejectedly to the Enterprise with Worf.

Review:

‘The Outcast’ is one of those episodes where Trek aims to represent one thing, misses by miles and hits something else issue-wise instead.  The idea of the episode was to finally remedy the fact that homophobia and same-sex relations had never been dealt with by the franchise.  Apparently, this is something Roddenberry had very much been in favour of, as he was a big believer that 24th century humanity wouldn’t have the same kind of prejudices we have now around non-heterosexual relationships.  As such, the intended premise of this episode was to tackle the issue through the metaphor of an alien race.

 However, the race in question is one that abstains gender, and for whom picking a gender such as male or female is seen as a kind of deviancy by the wider society.  As a result of this, and the alien Riker falls in love with choosing a female identity, the homosexuality metaphor is very much weakened.  Instead, the episode becomes of an allegory about transsexuality and transphobia, which is even less well-tackled by the entertainment industry than concepts of homosexuality.  As such, Trek inadvertently went a bit ahead of its time.

 It’s great seeing Riker honestly try to get his head around the language issues that can be brought up dealing with someone who doesn’t apparently identify with a binary model of gender, but at the same time apparently lacks easily understandable substitutes.  In many ways, that’s probably one of the key reasons why it’s so hard for film and television to effectively deal with gender identity concepts.  How do you right about the many genders that apparently exist beyond male and female when they’re often not fully defined and perpetually being redefined? Physical sex and the societal construct that is gender get over-simplified and baked into the mainstream of our society at a very young age, and we’re leaving the wider scope of both out of the picture until too late in the lives of many people.  If we are to make society more inclusive to people from the LGTBQ+ community, I think that over-simplification needs to be reversed and the simplification process adapted so that all gender constructs can easily be taught at an early age and then built upon.  Unlike some, I don’t believe that gender itself is a problem, but how we let it be defined and taught is.

 This episode apparently got a lot of LGBT criticism back when it initially aired, mostly around the belief that the show was somehow condoning the conversion “therapy” Soren was being subjected to.  Looking at it from the objective perspective of an LGBTQ+ ally who knows his TNG, that’s not what the show was doing at all; otherwise, Riker would never have tried to rescue Soren from that fate.  The fact is that in any exploration of how the LGBT community was treated back then, and still is now in many parts of the world, you can’t always paint a rosy picture of how things should be and be done. Sometimes you also have to show the reality, and the reality is that conversion therapy was still something that was forced on people back in the 1990’s.  The fact that this practice is now going to be banned in the UK makes this episode now a cautionary tale of what we could revert to if we’re not careful.  For me, this episode is a good episode, worth about 8 out of 10.  It would have got higher had it actually tackled the issue it aimed for, or dealt more directly with transgenderism.

Episode 18: Cause and Effect

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The viewer is shown through the episode that Enterprise is caught in a time loop (referred to in-universe as a "temporal causality loop"). The loop begins with the senior members of the crew playing poker and continues for about a day when they discover a spatial anomaly. While studying the anomaly, a ship suddenly emerges from it. Commander Riker suggests decompressing the main shuttlebay to move the Enterprise out of danger, while Lt. Commander Data advocates using a tractor beam to push the other ship out of the way. Captain Picard chooses Data's option, although the tactic does not succeed and the other ship strikes one of the Enterprise warp nacelles, causing a critical warp core containment failure and the destruction of the Enterprise moments later, at which point the loop restarts.

 Initially, crew members are unaware of the loop. However, Dr Crusher begins to hear noises before she goes to bed following the poker game. Having a sense of déjà vu during the poker game and able to predict the cards Data will deal during a subsequent loop, Crusher takes a tricorder with her to her room, records the voices, and later Data analyses them to discover they are the panicked commands and broadcasts of the crew. The senior staff work out that they are stuck in the loop; the voices they are hearing are those of themselves from the previous loop just prior to the destruction of the ship. They evaluate the voices to determine that the loop is restarted due to the collision of the two ships but do not know how to avoid that collision in the first place. Data suggests that his positronic brain can be used to send a short message to himself in the next loop which may help them to avoid the collision. When they arrive at the anomaly, and after the collision, Data sends the message.

 On the following loop, Crusher again has a feeling of déjà vu during the poker game, but when Data deals the next hand, all the cards are threes, followed by a hand where all players have three of a kind. The number 3 begins appearing throughout other parts of the ship's operations while, again, they determine they are stuck in a time loop. When they reach the anomaly and the ship appears from it, Data suddenly realizes that the 3 stands for the number of command pips on Riker's uniform, and realizes that Riker's original tactic (decompressing the main shuttlebay) will work. This allows Enterprise to safely clear the oncoming ship. The anomaly disappears and the time loop ends, and the crew realizes they have been trapped in the loop for over 17 days, while the other ship, the USS Bozeman, has been missing for over 90 years. Picard welcomes the Bozeman's crew to the 24th century.

Review:

While the concept of the loop in time would be made famous more generally through the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, this episode of TNG was written, produced and aired well before that, and if the TNG staff are right in believing such an approach to time travel hadn’t been done before, then this episode is quite ground-breaking.  It’s certainly not one that would have been easy to make, as Riker actor Jonathan Frakes directed the episode and was under orders to direct each pass through the time loop differently.  In essence, the episode uses a combination of alternate camera angles and changes in the events of each loop to try and avoid any appearance that you’re watching the same act multiple times.  Now I say try because apparently when the episode first aired in the US, a lot of viewers phoned in to report a possible broadcast problem.

 Watching with the benefit of advance knowledge of what the episode is about, it’s much easier to appreciate that you’re not just watching the opening act multiple times, and it gets more interesting on the later loops due to the crew’s growing awareness of what is happening.  However, I think we could have done with just three loops, as by the fourth one, we’ve worked out what’s happened and I think an extra loop at that stage is almost redundant.  It’s also a shame that Ensign Ro has so little to do in her recurring guest role this time round, as does Kelsey Grammer right at the end.  It would have been a much better idea if they could have saved a guest appearance by Grammer for something with more substance and less of a techno-babble problem episode.  Still, all in all it’s a good episode; I give it 8 out of 10.

Episode 19: The First Duty

Plot (as given by me):

As the Enterprise returns to Earth for Captain Picard to give the year’s commencement address at Star Fleet Academy, the Academy Superintendent Admiral Brand informs Picard that an accident involving Wesley Crusher has occurred.  Picard subsequently relates the news to Wesley’s mother Dr Beverley Crusher; apparently, Wesley has by now become a member of Nova Squadron, a much-revered part of the Academy flight team on campus lead by cadet Nicholas Locarno. The squad had been practicing a flight demonstration for the commencement event at the Saturn flight range when a collision occurred, resulting in the death of squad member Joshua Albert.

 Picard puts the Enterprise at Admiral Brand’s disposal if it should help the subsequent investigation, and while visiting the Academy Picard also looks up the groundskeeper Boothby, who once gave Picard some hard advice as a cadet that helped him out of a problem of his own. Picard tries to thank Boothby, but he notes that Picard having turned his life around well enough to become captain of the Enterprise is thanks enough.  At the investigation hearings, Locarno claims the crash resulted from Joshua panicking due to his being a nervous flyer, but satellite footage of Nova Squadron’s flyers reveals a discrepancy between the squad’s account and what actually occurred.  Picard later talks further with Boothby about the squad, who reveals what a high image they’ve established for themselves and the influence their leader Locarno has over them.

 An analysis carried out by Lt. Commanders Data and La Forge suggests the squadron were trying to ignite their plasma trails; combined with the squad formation depicted by the surveillance satellite, Picard deduces that Nova Squadron was attempting a different manoeuvre to the one they claimed; specifically, a Kolvoord Starburst, which involves the ships passing within metres of each other at a central point before igniting their plasma trails.  The manoeuvre has not been performed at the Academy in over a century because the last time it was, an accident occurred that killed the entire squad trying to perform it. Picard confronts Wesley with his deductions, and when Wesley refuses to answer, the captain tells him that a lie of omission is still a lie, and the ‘first duty’ of every Star Fleet officer is to the truth.

 Faced with an ultimatum by Picard to either admit the truth himself or be turned in by the captain, Wesley goes to Locarno, who refuses to even consider joining Wesley in abandoning their cover-up.  To him, the team comes above everything, and tells Wesley he should resign from the Academy if he can’t live with getting away with the accident via cover-up.  As Admiral Brand brings the investigation to a close, noting that she cannot prove any dishonesty on Nova Squadron’s part and preparing to give them a minor punishment, Wesley speaks up and admits the truth.  Initially, Locarno says nothing, but it is later revealed to Wesley by Picard that Locarno makes a plea to take full responsibility, noting that he abused his position as squad leader to not only make the squad attempt the prohibited stunt, but also to cover it up.  As a result, Locarno is expelled while the rest of the squad will have all of their academy credits for the past year suspended, preventing them from advancing with the rest of their class.

 Picard warns Wesley he will have a hard time ahead now the whole Academy knows the truth, and Wesley thanks Picard for his advice as the pair bid each other farewell.

Review:

While Data episodes tend to be my favourites among TNG episodes, I honestly believe this is probably one of the show’s most iconic episodes, if not the most iconic Trek episode ever.  It’s Wesley’s second guest appearance since actor Wil Wheaton left TNG, and to date it’s his best appearance, but it’s also the episode where we get to meet Boothby, who is a remarkably influential and iconic character for the series despite his relative lack of appearances.  Through in future Voyager cast member Robert Duncan McNeil playing Nick Locarno, and it’s well on its way to be being a very good episode before you factor in Patrick Stewart delivering some truly iconic acting as Captain Picard, especially the Ready Room scene with Wesley that makes the episode so iconic.

 Now apparently, executive producer Michael Piller had to do some pushing back against the original intentions of this episode’s writers to get us the episode in its final format.  Apparently, the original idea was that the incident was far more serious, and by not owning up the whole squad would have been kicked out of the Academy, with Wesley remaining silent to honour his word to his friends. However, Piller didn’t like the idea of Wesley doing something that severe, and as a parent he wanted to push for Wesley to be responsible and eventually admit the truth, to correct his mistake in the end by owning up even if it meant making things worse for himself and his friends.

 In both versions, the character conflict remains the same; to stand by one’s friends or by one’s duty to be truthful. Now granted, there will be other occasions where the circumstances require discretion and loyalty to one’s friends simply because most people would misunderstand the truth.  However, in most cases I think admitting the truth is the best thing to do, even if it does mean you and others close to you may get in a bit of trouble, and this is for two reasons.  First, true friendship means being willing to call your friends out if their behaviour is morally wrong, and making sure they do the right thing.

 Second, we’re all human and we all make mistakes; that is a simple, irrefutable fact of life, and most of the time if we do make mistakes, we can stop ourselves from repeating them by learning from them.  However, in some cases people can’t learn from their mistakes if they avoid taking responsibility for them, and some people may not take that responsibility alone.  Sometimes they need help, whether through being called on it like Picard did for Wesley, or owning up on behalf of those involved like Wesley did for his squad-mates. Moreover, a ��friends before authority’ attitude backfires in other areas; it’s how bullying gets to be so prevalent in schools and work places, and it is why concepts of ‘playground’/’locker room’ honour codes should be systematically obliterated from our society.

 Friendship, true friendship, is not based on secret codes of silence that enable bullying, encourage lying and that are dishonourable and despicable to say the least.  It is based on honesty and trust, including the trust that your friends will hold you to account if you betray yourself and that you will do the same for them if they need it.  True friendship means sometimes being a bit harsh, a bit tough, and any friendship that can’t stand such tempering probably isn’t really friendship to start with. Overall, I give this episode 10 out of 10.

Episode 20: Cost of Living

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Lwaxana Troi arrives on the Enterprise, announcing that she will be holding her wedding there with a man that shares many interests with her, as judged by a computerized matchmaking system. Captain Picard, initially wary of Lwaxana's plans, is relieved that all she wants from him is to give her away as the bride. Privately, Counsellor Deanna Troi talks to Lwaxana about the marriage, and while she is happy that her mother is marrying again, she is surprised and concerned that she will not follow the Betazoid custom of being a naked bride at the wedding. Lwaxana informs her that such customs offend the groom and his people. Deanna notes her decision to abandon her own custom is strange given the pride she normally takes in her Betazoid heritage and the high rank that she holds in their society.

 Meanwhile, Lt. Worf is having difficulties in getting his son Alexander to complete his obligations such as homework and chores. Deanna offers the idea of creating a contract that would allow Alexander to have time to play after completing his tasks. While this initially seems to be acceptable to Alexander, Lwaxana arrives and downplays the idea. Lwaxana makes friends with Alexander, taking him to a holodeck simulation of the Parallax colony despite Worf's orders. Lwaxana encourages Alexander to be a free spirit, but Deanna believes that Lwaxana's message is confusing Alexander.

 Eventually, Campio, Lwaxana's husband-to-be, arrives at the Enterprise, and Lwaxana finds that he is not as perfect a fit for her as the computer match suggested, being stricter and more demanding than she was led to believe. She evades Campio by taking Alexander to the holodeck. There, Alexander reiterates some of the advice she had previously given him. Taking it to heart, Lwaxana arrives at the wedding naked as per Betazoid custom, and Campio, offended, leaves her at the altar. Lwaxana winks at Alexander, who smiles in turn.

 During these events, the Enterprise becomes infected with an undetectable parasite that feeds off nitrium, a component used in most of the starship's materials. Though initial system failures are attributed to normal wear, they become concerned when warp and life support systems begin to fail. The crew is able to identify the parasite, and as life systems fail and cause the crew to pass out due to lack of air, Lt. Commander Data, who is able to function without oxygen, navigates the starship to a nearby asteroid field rich in nitrium and coerces the parasite to move there. Ship systems are quickly restored to normal before the wedding.

 The episode ends on an amusing note with Lwaxana relaxing in the Holodeck simulated Parallax colony mud-baths with Deanna, Alexander, and Worf. Lwaxana admits she made a mistake with Campio and thanks Alexander for helping her out. Meanwhile, a confused and irritated Worf asks, "You're just supposed to sit here?"

Review:

As ever, throwing Lwaxana Troi into an episode proves to give us a rather poor showing, because the character is so over-the-top in her supposedly comedic antics that you end up feeling as annoyed by her as most of the Enterprise crew.  It’s only when she’s forced to drop that façade that you get anything of worth out of the episode’s main plot.  Basically, Lwaxana is trying to re-marry out of a desire to avoid loneliness, and ends up trying to live vicariously through Alexander because her intended husband is the total opposite to her.  It’s not the best approach to the situation, nor does the B-plot about parasites endangering the ship fit in well with that, or with Worf trying to teach Alexander about responsibility.  A better use of these elements would have been to have the intended couple each having trouble accepting the other’s perspective on life, and so they’d each take sides in the Worf-Alexander dispute to try and indirectly keep the argument going.  Worf might then be convinced to give his duties a rest for a bit to see things more from Alexander’s point of view, only for said dereliction of duty to endanger the Enterprise.  Getting through the danger, father and son would see the value of compromise and balance, and in so doing demonstrate the idea to Lwaxana and Campo, who would follow suit.  As it is, the episode is just another cringe-worthy instalment more worthy of the show’s earlier seasons, and I can only give it 4 out of 10.