#i myself am also confused by a lot of the points raised by this whole thing

[thefirstknife]

The Witness and the Unveiling

I've been processing the new cutscene for days now and had a lot of good conversations with other people. A lot of people are interested in figuring out what this cutscene means for the lore book Unveiling, which is also my big interest. I'll talk about the lore book itself and how it related to the cutscene and what that possibly means for our understanding of the setting.

A LOT of the text will be super speculative, very long, often abstract and ultimately not conclusive. I'll drop absolutely everything I can think of to discuss about this to try and gather every possible question and possible answers in one place. But the truth is that we don't know the answers to these questions and maybe we never will.

What is the Unveiling lore book?

First things first. The Unveiling is a lore book that we started uncovering at the end of Shadowkeep. Shadowkeep campaign ends with us acquiring a strange artifact: an orb that we recover from the Lunar Pyramid, in front of the statue of a veiled figure. As soon as we touch it, we are transported into the Black Garden and the cutscene with our clone plays.

After this cutscene, we return to the Moon and we give the orb we collected to Eris. At the time of Shadowkeep's original release, Eris worked on the orb for weeks to come, revealing 1 lore tab per week. Every page of this lore book is narrated by an unknown entity who told us about the time before the universe existed and then about the creation of the universe. It also told us about the Gardener and the Winnower, their struggle, their philosophies, what we (Guardians) mean to them and ultimately what might be coming in the future. It's one of the fundamental texts for Destiny.

Is the Unveiling now retconned with the new cutscene?

This is a question that gets both asked and claimed a lot. The answer is no. First and foremost, if we're talking about a hard retcon (Bungie saying that this lore book is no longer considered canon or Bungie simply ignoring to mention it ever again), that is literally impossible. Unveiling is the culmination of a non-vaulted campaign that's considered a big part of the Light and Darkness saga and it will never be removed from canon. This text is not only the ending of a campaign, it is referenced in-game; characters have canonically read it and commented on it, most notably in Witch Queen Collector's Edition and it's directly referenced in the lore book Inspiral from the newest raid which I'll touch on later. But the point is, if they wanted to quickly push Unveiling under the rug, they wouldn't have told us "hey remember Unveiling?" with the Lightfall's raid lore.

If people are talking about a retcon in the sense of "we believed that certain things from this text are true, but now new information is challenging that, does that mean that the original text is being retroactively changed or rendered pointless?" The answer is also no, though with a big caveat. (super long post under)

The thing is that the Unveiling was never 100% proven true. We have always known this. We've received this text from a Darkness artifact and the narrator of it is very clearly both biased and unreliable. The Unveiling is not telling us objective truth, it's telling us a biased interpretation of something that may or may not be truth. There is probably some truth to the Unveiling, which I'll get into a bit later, but it is largely a propaganda piece, meant to sway us to the side of the Darkness and reject the Traveler (Gardener). It uses a familiar and casual language to make it more relatable while it talks about how the Gardener made a fundamental mistake by wanting to introduce complexity and unpredictability to life.

So if new information comes out and says "Unveiling was all a lie or wrong or simply a myth with little connection to reality" it would be perfectly in line with what we know about Unveiling right now. I expected that at some point we should learn directly if Unveiling was just a biased tale filled about something incomprehensible that may never be fully true. The new cutscene does nothing to Unveiling outside of simply giving it a new context and a new way to interpret it. This is not new for the Destiny setting which is actually filled with unreliable narrators, characters who lie and characters who are wrong. As a matter of fact, that's what any setting should be like if it strives for realistic storytelling.

The fact that the Unveiling is directly referenced in the newest lore from the newest raid means that Bungie didn't magically forget about this lore book. They literally basically added two extra pages of it with Root of Nightmares. But we never knew the true meaning of the Unveiling so any new information that confirms or denies certain parts of it makes full sense in the story.

Unveiling and the Witness cutscene

So, what are the issues and contention between these two things? Well, there's a lot. A lot of little details from the Witness cutscene are now putting a lot of original interpretations of Unveiling into question. Did we blindly believe in this origin of the universe myth that the Unveiling told? Is it a complete fabrication? Is there at least a kernel of truth to it? Who wrote the Unveiling?

The biggest divergence comes from the fact that Unveiling claims there are incomprehensible entities that created the universe called Gardener and Winnower; the Gardener becoming the Traveler and the Winnower being completely unknown. The cutscene explicitly calls the Traveler "Gardener" but it's revealed that was a name given to it by the Witness' species when they stumbled upon it on their planet, covered in dirt. How can this be the entity that created the universe?

When the Witness was officially introduced at the end of the Witch Queen, the immediate assumption of many was that the Witness was the Winnower. This is now categorically untrue, at least on some level (will get to it eventually later); the Witness is not an entity that fought the Gardener in the allegorical garden that predates the existence of the universe. So does the Winnower still exist as that entity that fought in the garden?

Let's summarise the Unveiling piece by piece first. First page is an introduction with a lot of grand claims about the nature of existence. It immediately makes it clear that the narrator is selling us a worldview:

But imagine the abomination of a world where nothing can end and no choice can be preferred to any other. Imagine the things that would suffer and never die. Imagine the lies that would flourish without context or corrective. Imagine a world without me.

Pages two, three, four and five claim to detail a time from before the universe existed presented in an allegorical tale about a Gardener and Winnower that live in a garden and play a game. The allegorical language is not subtextual, it's very much explicitly told that this is an allegory.

Once upon a time,* a gardener and a winnower lived** together in a garden.*** * It was once before a time, because time had not yet begun. ** We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes. *** It was the field of possibility that prefigured existence.

The story goes: before the universe existed, Gardener and Winnower played a game of life. They were able to configure the game board with starting set pieces and then let it play out and see what comes out of it. The end of the game was always the same; the same pattern would always win and the game's ending would always be predictable. This bothered the Gardener who wanted complexity and freedom. It didn't bother the Winnower; the Winnower prefered the clean and clear cut outcome that always follows the same principles and always leads to the same conclusion.

Page six is an interjection with a philosophical question about the nature of a specific protein. The page explains it to us and asks if this protein is an agent of Darkness or the Light. This is not entirely relevant to the topic at hand, but it's important for the understanding of how Unveiling is trying to exert its bias onto the reader by presenting some sort of a gotcha. It wants us to come to the conclusions that benefits the narrator.

After that, page seven resumes the origin story of the universe. They fought together in the garden about their differences and about the Gardener's decision to make a new rule for the game. Their fight was so fundamental that it led to the creation of the universe. The chapter title is "T=0" which means "time equals zero" and is a part of understanding how the universe was made out of nothing.

The garden had given birth to creation, the rules were in place, and there would never be a second chance. We played in the cosmos now. We played for everything.

Page eight returns to trying to sway us to its side by telling us that the concept of predation is what made all of life possible and that it is the narrator who is responsible for our existence.

It was the first defector—the first predator. It changed everything. Now the oozeballs needed sensors to watch for danger, and brains to integrate those senses and generate plans of survival, and swift neurons and muscles to enact that plan. This was the Cambrian Explosion, the great birth of complex life on your world. I caused it. I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes.

It's selling us a worldview again. It wants us to believe that the reason we have everything we do is because of the sword logic; everyone fighting for the right to exist. When everyone fights, everyone has to evolve to defend and survive, therefore the reason we've evolved is because we had to fight. This is a huge contrast with how the Gardener works. The Gardener jumpstarts and uplifts species by gardening, terraforming, evolving them without the need to struggle. The Gardener also doesn't pick and choose when it comes to terraforming; everyone is equally important and you don't have to justify or prove your right to exist. An ant's value is the same as a human's. To the narrator, that simply cannot be. If the ant can't prove the right to exist by being stronger, then it should not exist. This always showed bias and the way this ideology works on the misinterpretation of the "survival of the fittest" phrase; survival of the fittest isn't "survival of the strong" it's "survival of those who are best adapted to their environment."

Page nine is very important and is one of the things that makes Unveiling possibly true in some aspects. Namely, this page called Patternfall, is about the Vex. The narrator describes the Vex and how they existed in the allegorical garden from which they escaped into the universe with the Big Bang. Before the battle between Gardener and Winnower, the Vex, this pattern, always won the game. The Vex were the winning outcome of every game played, the source of Gardener's frustration and Winnower's elation.

Given that we know that the Vex are real and that they have a... tenuous relationship with time, this part of the story feels correct. It would make sense that the Vex predate time itself, which would explain why they are able to navigate it and manipulate it as easily as we manipulate any other force; the Vex already existed when all of time was a singularity before the Big Bang, this is known to them. Not only that, but the Vex can't understand paracausality, which was added to the game as a new rule, a rule they've never seen before. The description of the Vex in this chapter is also on point so it's has to be correct or close to correct.

They propagated in the saline meltwater of comets orbiting the first stars. That broth of chemicals became their substrate, and they learned to catalyze impossible chemistry with quantum tricks. Then, they rained from the sky into the steaming seas of fallow worlds, and there they built their first housings from geometry and silica.

We know that they are linked to first stars because of Clovis Bray's expedition to 2082 Volantis, an impossibly old star dating back to the beginning of the universe that the Vex have kept artificially alive ever since by refuelling it.

In all their transformations, they retained that kernel of ultimate self-sufficiency that had made them victors in the flower game. But they are not incontrovertibly destined to rule this cosmos. They were made before Light and Darkness, but the rules are different now, and even this pattern must adapt.

Patternfall also makes a note about the Vex that are alligned with Darkness: Sol Divisive of the Black Garden.

They are not all mine, not in the way that admirers such as my man Oryx are mine: utterly devoted to the practice of my principle. But some of them have, nonetheless, found their way home.

This specific page tells us that at least in some way, some sections of the Unveiling must be telling an objective truth, or at least be as close to the truth as possible. Barring any new reveals about the Vex, this seems to fit with what we know about them so it must be correct. The Vex are the way they are because they predate the universe and their existence in the universe right now is the only remnant of a time before time. They used to be the final shape, always, until paracausality was introduced and now they must fight with the rest of us to reclaim their position. This means that the allegorical garden where the Gardener and Winnower lived and fought must be in some way real. Remember, we are talking about a time from before the universe. The word "real" is a very loose description of that place, but the Vex must've come from there and possibly have a memory of being there so it there must be a "there" before the Big Bang. Mind boggling stuff going on. (As an aside, the Vex HAVE to be the core of The Final Shape expansion. They gotta. Also note that there is a weird metaphysical space on the other side of the portal)

Speaking of aspects that have to be true or at least reflect truth; there is the Tree of Silver Wings. This is mentioned throughout Unveiling as a tree that existed in the garden that was toppled when the Gardener and Winnower fought. The Tree is clearly real because we've seen iterations of it several times now. A completely new Tree was grown in the cradle on Io and now we can also see the Tree in Root of Nightmares, growing at the cradle on the Witness' Pyramid. The seeds of the Tree are also real; Osiris had one and so did Calus and we've seen both. How does the allegorical Tree from an allegorical garden from before the universe existed relate to the real Trees in a very real universe is completely unknown.

Page ten is a lot more attempts to convince us that the narrator is the correct choice to follow and that its philosophy is the winning one and that we should abandon the Gardener and join them. The narrator also tells us that we don't have rush with our answer because it is coming over to meet us anyway. This was the end of Shadowkeep so it was quite an ominous message. The Shadowkeep year ended with the arrival of the Black Fleet to our system and then was further expanded in Beyond Light where we gained a more direct contact with them and their gifts of stasis.

The final page, eleven, is Eris' message to us about hope and resistance to the allure of Darkness. Mind you that she's not talking about using aspects of Darkness as tools, but more about the philosophy of it as it's presented in Unveiling; you can use the Darkness without entertaining the Darkness and the philosophy of the extreme version of the sword logic.

Okay, so what's the issue between this and the Witness cutscene? Well, before the reveal of the Witness in general, we believed that the narrator of the Unveiling, the Winnower, is the big bad. The entity that is the origin of Darkness, the entity that made the Black Fleet, the entity that controls our enemies. This was never confirmed, but it was a reasonable conclusion to Unveiling, until further notice. Now we know that some parts of this aren't true. The Witness is the big bad and the Pyramids are just the remains of its species' technology. And while the Witness does fulfil some of the roles of the Winnower, we now know that the Witness is not the origin of Darkness so it cannot be the Winnower that's spoken of in Unveiling, not the Winnower that existed before the universe.

The Witch Queen and some hints here and there before that (mostly in the Presage mission where Savathun more or less explicitly told us that the Darkness is not the same as the entity that we're fighting against) introduced the Witness directly without any metaphors or vague language. We finally saw this being, in full glory, as it emerged, moved and spoke. From then until now, we've tried to understand the Witness but we really knew nothing substantial.

A lot of conversations were about the nature of the Witness and the Winnower, the narrator of Unveiling. Were they the same thing? Or are they separate entities? Is the Winnower even real or is it literally just a metaphor for a philosophy, an idea, that the Witness represents? There's always people who will immediately clamor about "retcons" but once again, the Unveiling was never an objective truth. We made assumptions about the Unveiling and its narrator, but none of those assumptions were ever confirmed in any way. This is also reflected in-game with characters discussing the meaning of the Unveiling in many different ways. Unveiling being unreliable and unclear was intended. The Witness existing does not contradict or remove Unveiling's significance. It just recontextualises and already unreliable text that was never objective to begin with.

And it continues to do so. The Witness cutscene first and foremost shows us the Traveler, curiously covered in dirt and depicted almost as if it's rising from the ground. The Witness' people are described as discovering it and naming it "Gardener." It then uplifted them, terraformed their world and gave them a golden age which is familiar to us.

But wait. If the Gardener is from a time before the universe, how is it now suddenly a dirt covered orb on a random planet? This is where the Unveiling being interpreted literally becomes a problem. If the Gardener (and Winnower) aren't from a time before the Big Bang and that whole allegory of a garden that existed before the universe is a lie, then what is the Unveiling and who wrote it and for what purpose?

I've seen a lot of good discussions on it that I'd like to highlight here. This post discusses things in a similar way to what I'm writing here, for example. Just a little while ago, I reblogged this interpretation of it which I really like which differs from this. There's been a lot of various similar theories in which the Witness has simply created this idea of the Winnower and the associated philosophy after it went through an existential crisis of catastrophic proportions; the Unveiling is simply entirely a lie, an attempt to make people believe the winnowing philosophy.

It's a good question to ask what of the story of the Vex and the Gardener if Unveiling is fully a lie. A really important note here is that we've known from other sources that the Traveler is the Gardener. Both from other characters, most notably in Lightfall from Osiris, but also from the Traveler itself and the Unveiling. So if Unveiling is bullshit, what about the Vex and the Gardener? Why did the Gardener even appear on the random planet from the dirt?

My theory is that Unveiling is partially correct. Something incomprehensible WAS happening before the universe existed; it involved forces that would end up becoming the Light and Darkness, the Gardener, the Vex and probably the Veil. This period of time is so abstract and unfathomable that we cannot physically understand it through anything but allegory. Some believe that the Veil now fulfils the role of the Winnower which is possible, but I'm not sure how likely; we will need even more information on the Veil to make that judgement call. Either way, Unveiling's myth about the origins of everything could still hold true in some regard. If that's true, we know that the Gardener made the new rule for the game (paracausality), caused the Big Bang and inserted itself into the new game (aka into the universe). The Gardener thus became the Traveler which it has refered to as being its body.

It feels like lead and neutronium and electroweak matter fashioned into a moon-sized ball that you must carry as you move.

The time before the universe wasn't physical, but the universe is. This body, the Traveler, had to have been made and it's possible that it was made on the Witness' planet. Perhaps that was one of the first planets in existence, a place where the Gardener forged its body and emerged into the existence as a physical being capable of terraforming. The Light is the domain of the physical so it makes sense that the Gardener has to utilise this physicality to be able to do its thing.

The Darkness is psychic; it's emotion, consciousness, the mind. It doesn't have to be physical. Perhaps the Winnower IS real, but it's simply a metaphysical idea that exists in the universe, but cannot be seen. It can influence others; everyone who ponders on the nature of existence runs the risk of being exposed to the idea of winnowing. It's inevitable. Every conscious being can be influenced by Darkness and it's many possibilities; some perfectly neutral or even good and some bad.

And the Witness' people went highly in-depth in their research of the Gardener and then later the Veil. If they were looking for answers to meaning and purpose, they would've likely come close to understanding the origin of the universe. Perhaps from the Gardener (who was there, before the Big Bang) or perhaps by exploring the Veil (which is, as of now, still fairly unknown as an entity) or maybe even the combination of their investigation into both of those. There's some credence to this in particular, given the memory from Ahsa in week 3, mainly this part:

Two halves of a whole... long divided. A... schism between them. Reunited. [exhales in joy] A glimpse beyond... to the beginning...

This most certainly refers to the Traveler and the Veil being reunited and connected as the Witness' people attempted the connection for the first time. And it offered them "a glimpse beyond to the beginning." Beginning of what if not the universe? The connection was never fully realised and the two were never fully reunited. But they were in Lightfall and in Lightfall, this created a portal to an incomprehensible realm into which nobody but the Witness can enter (for now). This realm acts as if it exists somewhere outside of normal spacetime, somewhere beyond, and it resembles... well, a garden world, like a garden from the allegory of existence before the universe.

If the Witness' people saw how the universe began as explored in the Unveiling, they would've absolutely come to the conclusion that everything is meaningless and that the Gardener did something that led to untold suffering, basically on a whim to seek more complex, but ultimately pointless life. Instead of this perfectly ordered garden world where every outcome is known and there is no deviation from the rules, we received a universe that is seemingly random, chaotic and meaningless. At least that would be the interpretation of it in their mind.

The Gardener could've just let things play out infinitely in the game with the same outcome, with the same pattern, but it didn't. It made the universe instead, filled with infinite mysteries and infinite possibilities and you will never know which one of those possibilities are "correct" and which choices are better than others. You will never know where to go and who to follow and what to do and there is no inherent value to any specific choice you make. Countless species will live and die "without meaning and purpose."

This was terrfying to the Witness' people, possibly exactly because they've seen how things were before. Before the Gardener's actions, everyone would have a specific purpose to fulfil in service of reaching the final shape which is always the same. Now, there is no goal, nothing to work towards, nothing to specific to strive for. So they decided to follow the philosophy of an entity that fought the Gardener and take up its job; to winnow in search for the final shape. To reshape reality, reset existence, "free" the Gardener from its own creation.

In that way, Unveiling is still very much true and it's the same as ever; it's a subjective interpretation of the origins of the universe told in a biased nature by a being that learned to despise the chaos of existence and would want to return to the way things were before.

So who wrote the Unveiling then? Again, many theories. Since the Witness' reveal in WQ, a lot of people speculated that the Witness wrote it and that the Witness is same as the Winnower. That could be true now, in a way; the Witness took up the mantle of the Winnower so it might as well be it. The Unveiling is written with a tone and voice that differs from how we know the Witness, but now we also know that the Witness is a being of billions; perhaps there is a voice in there who writes text and who speaks that way. It could also be just a ruse; the Witness is a manipulator who lies constantly. It could've written this text in this way to deliberately confuse, manipulate and coerce us; the Unveiling "tone" is fake and it was also fake when it spoke to Oryx.

Another option is that Unveiling was still written by the entity we know as the Winnower. If the Winnower is the origin of Darkness, coming from the garden from before the universe, then it is metaphysical; it's in the mind and consciousness. It doesn't need a body or to be fully physical. It can influence and talk and BE simply by being the origin of consciousness. Every conscious being can access the Winnower. The Winnower is every idea that leads to predation and killing and death. It's every thought and dream and memory and pain. It could've touched the Witness' people and pushed them to adopt its philosophy when they went too far with their research and especially when they connected to the Veil. It could've tried doing the same to us, when we connected to the Darkness artifact in a Pyramid at the end of Shadowkeep.

There is also the angle that the tale from Unveiling is literally entirely untrue. There was nothing before the universe existed. The description of the Vex was the Witness' attempt to understand how they function, or a piece of truth added to make the rest of the text seem correct to those that read it. The myth of the garden and the two entities fighting could be an attempt to give meaning to how everything started, giving a reason to pursue the Traveler and feel justified doing it.

The main point here is that we don't know and we might never know given the incredibly allegorical and mythologised way that Unveiling is talking about something that is incredibly hard to conceptualise in the first place. An interesting bit to add here is the concept of egregore:

Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros 'wakeful') is an esoteric concept representing a non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people.

It's not an accident that egregore in Destiny is a physical manifestation of psychic connections that links points of Darkness together. It comes from this originally; basically if enough people think about the same thing or believe in the same thing, they will create an "egregore" = their thought or belief will spawn a non-physical entity associated with that thought or belief. In that sense, the Witness' people may have created the Winnower when they all united in thinking about how the universe is meaningless without a Winnower. The Winnower is an egregore created by the Witness' people and the belief in this egregore manifests physically as the egregore fungus which infests and links everyone who believes in the Winnower. Perhaps, even, if the Winnower is that egregore, something created by the first beings that ventured that far into metaphysics and then it retroactively became tied to the universe. Once the Winnower was created, the Witness' people tried explaining where it fits into the universe, constructing an origin myth around it. Perhaps they weren't aware that they manifested the Winnower, and believed that they simply discovered it and that the origin myth they constructed was them learning some bigger truth.

There are issues and questions with any of these explanations and they all go into super abstract possibilities and options. If the garden before the universe is entirely a myth, then what of the Gardener and the Vex and the Tree of Silver Wings? If there's truth to how the universe began, what about the Witness being simply a species that got uplifted and went mad with horrors of knowledge? Was the Winnower real in the garden before time or is it merely something conjured from the minds of a people who wanted purpose and meaning?

Furthermore, what about Inspiral, the raid lore book whose last two pages are very reminiscent of the Unveiling, reference it and function almost like extra two pages for it? Inspiral is particularly strange because each page starts with a description of a being that left its memories in the book. First of the final two pages, Meaning, describes its narrator as:

A dream of a metaphor made starkly, an allegory discussed in study of ontology, in Darkness not unkind. It leaves behind a warped, barely-real data fragment to mark its passing.

And the second, Winnowing:

A dream of a friendly conversation with someone impossible to see, cloaked in shadows. It leaves behind an impossible data fragment to mark its passing.

Neither of these descriptions fit the Witness. The Witness is not a metaphor or an allegory, nor is it "barely-real." It is also not "impossible to see" nor does it leave behind "impossible data." The Witness is very much real, though clearly ascended into a state of being beyond our comprehension, but we can very much hear it and see it. The cutscene very clearly explains that the Witness began as just another species and achieved a higher existence; it's not some weird mystical energy that originated before the universe began. Most of all, the Witness is neither kind nor friendly.

The only metaphor and allegory is the garden from before the universe and the Gardener and the Winnower that fought in it. The Gardener manifested as the Traveler, but the Winnower is unknown to us. These two pages read, again, almost exactly the same as Unveiling and they bear no resemblance to the Witness, neither in tone nor in the description of their narrator(s). Obviously, it could be lies and manipulations on purpose which is something to keep in mind in general.

But the page Meaning very clearly makes a distinction between two entities:

There is a voice that echoes across the Darkness, and it asks this question: what is the purpose of it all? And there is another voice that calls back and says: listen, I will tell you a purpose. I will tell you of a Final Shape.

After seeing the cutscene, the first sentence could obviously refer to the Witness' people. They sought purpose and meaning. The second specifies that something answered, something else, when they dug deep into the Veil. Did that something exist on its own, predating the Witness, or did the Witness create it, like an egregore? Either way, the Witness inquired and something returned the call OR the text is referring to a generalised idea of anyone exploring the Darkness, asking that question and then getting a reply from the Winnower, which is a creation of the Witness.

On the other hand, there's the issue of the Darkness being a much more complex phenomenon than we've previously believed. If the Winnower is the origin of Darkness, then would it not represent ALL of Darkness? As of right now, both Unveiling and Inspiral pages that we might be able to attribute to the Winnower are distinctly focused only on the sword logic aspect which fits more with the Witness. The Witness and its pawns have extermined species that also used the Darkness, in different ways. Would the Winnower not acknowledge the entirety of Darkness? This issue can be better solved if we insist that the Witness is what invented or manifested the Winnower and its ideology. Darkness is more than winnowing, that's for sure, but the Witness and its manifestation of the Winnower are focused only on winnowing.

Some more concrete answers may lay in our understanding of the Veil. We're beginning to gather more information about this entity and the cutscene itself shed some light on it as well. The Veil was connected to the Traveler, always, even before the Witness' people found it. It was not near the Traveler, but instead somewhere far away where the Witness' people had to fly to in order to bring it back. Some already believe that the Veil is the Winnower or a product of it; that the Winnower and the Gardener were these abstract entities in the garden before the universe and then became the Veil and the Traveler post-Big Bang, but still connected.

The truth is that this is a highly complicated concept to think about, explore and explain. The Unveiling could be one being's attempt to explain how the universe began and it could be true or it could be false. Nothing in the cutscene explicitly tells us either way, nor does it render the Unveiling useless (and it also doesn't render it a word of god).

The science and philosophy about the origin of the universe are unknown in real life and will probably remain unknown in Destiny. To expect a fictional story to accurately and unambiguously tell us how the universe began is to expect A LOT. The only ones that could truly maybe tell us are the Traveler (Gardener) and the Veil. The question is, would we be able to withstand knowing something like that. Many who peered into the Veil have lost their minds and the Traveler does not speak of things like that because divulging such information would inevitably put someone on a set path. To know everything is to lose choice. You know exactly where to go, how, when and why, as well as what will happen when you get there. The Gardener wants us to make our own fate and it wants the universe to not lead into any specific outcome.

This is some of the most bizarre and wild high concept scifi stuff we've ever had in Destiny. I don't expect us to solve it so quickly after major new information has been revealed and there's still a lot more to find out. This is a really exceptionally long dive into some of the theories and options. A lot of people don't like this type of unreliable philosophical conundrums and would much rather just prefer to be told the facts. And I don't think we'll ever know facts about these topics in a way that would make them easy to digest. Unveiling might one day be fully explained in a way that will allow us to construct the true history of the universe and its origins, but it might also not be. Perhaps it will remain a perpetual mystery to force to wonder about these concepts.

I'd personally prefer a little bit of mystery to remain; for both us and the Witness to forever wonder what was the meaning of it all, what was our purpose, have we chosen it "correctly" and what our choices could've led to if we've done things differently.

[puffins-muffins]

Control - The Beginning

Pairing: Jax Teller x Female!Reader Word Count: 7,300 Summary: You return to your hometown as a successful defense attorney to represent SAMCRO President Jax Teller, the former love of your life, in a murder trial. Years after your painful breakup, unresolved feelings resurface, and the lines between your professional duty and personal desires blur. Warnings: 18+ only please, cursing, cheating, mentions of parental death. A/N: So, this is my first Jax/SOA AU-ish fic. This establishes Jax & Reader's beginnings as teens/young adults. Feedback is so greatly appreciated! Beta'd by just myself, all mistakes are my own. I am also new to posting like this so apologies now if I've missed anything. We'll learn as we go. Please be kind.

Jax Teller leaned against his bike in the Charming High School parking lot, his leather kutte draped over his broad shoulders. With a lean, muscular build, he exuded an aura of danger on two wheels. His sandy blonde hair was a tousled mess, falling just below his ears and framing his face in a way that highlighted his rebellious charm. One flash of his boyish, crooked grin sent girls swooning, but when you walked past, you didn’t even glance his way.

Curiosity piqued, Jax straightened up. “Hey,” he called, his voice smooth yet laced with cocky confidence. “You too good to say hi?”

You turned your head slightly, raising an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“I’m Jax Teller.” He starts. “You’re Jimmy’s daughter, aren’t you?” his eyes narrowing slightly as recognition dawned. “I saw you at the clubhouse a few weeks ago when your old man patched into our charter.”

You shrugged, barely reacting. “Yeah, that’s me. So what?”

Jax smirked, intrigued by how unimpressed you seemed. “Just surprised I haven’t seen you around more,” he said, stepping a little closer. “You’re not into the whole MC thing?”

You quickly glanced him up and down, a playful glint in your eye. “Not really my scene.” 

Jax tilted his head, genuinely interested. “That why you won’t give me the time of day, huh?”

You shrugged again, a smirk creeping onto your lips. “Maybe you’re just not as charming as you think you are.”

His grin widened. Most girls would’ve melted under his attention, but you? You gave as good as you got. He liked that. “You might be right, but that’s not going to stop me from trying, darlin’,” he replied, adding a flirtatious wink. “Can I take you somewhere?” he asked, gesturing toward his bike.

You scoffed, glancing down at his bike and then back at him, your tone teasing. “With you? On that? No thanks. I only ride with my dad.”

“Alright, Pep, another time then,” he said, his tone light and flirtatious, making you bite back a smile.

“Pep?” you asked, confusion furrowing your brow. 

“Pepper,” he explained, grinning widely. “You’re kind of spicy, and I like that. I think that nickname suits you.”

After rejecting his ride, he hopped on his bike, strapping on his helmet, ready to leave. “We’ll see how long it takes before you’re begging me to give you a ride.” he said, his voice dripping with innuendo. 

You flashed him a smirk, determination in your eyes. Cool, calm exterior. “Oh, don’t hold your breath, Teller.”

But inside, a rush of conflicting emotions surged through you. His words caused your stomach to flip. The easy banter was just a front; beneath it lay the undeniable pull between you, and you felt it tugging at your heart. As you watched him take off, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you’d be craving that ride sooner than you’d like to admit. 

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

After that first encounter, it was like a slow, steady burn between you and Jax. At first, you made it a point to keep your distance, though it was impossible to ignore the magnetism between you. He’d always find an excuse to talk to you in the halls, leaning against lockers like he owned the damn place. You’d roll your eyes, give him sass, but there was always that spark — the kind that lit up the air around you both.

Then came the day he convinced you to ride with him. He pulled up to your house one Saturday afternoon, engine rumbling beneath him, and shot you that devil-may-care grin. “C’mon, Pep. You’ve been avoiding this long enough.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, one hand on your hip. “I told you, I don’t do rides, Teller.”

But there was a challenge in your voice, and Jax heard it loud and clear. He just revved the engine, making it purr, his gaze never leaving yours. God, he was cute. “One ride with me. You don’t like it; I’ll never ask again. Please.”

You didn’t respond right away, but the way your heart thumped in your chest betrayed you. Something about Jax made you want to push your own limits, and this was no different. Relenting, you grabbed the helmet he offered and swung your leg over the bike behind him, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist. His body was warm and solid beneath your hands, and you could feel his heartbeat through his leather.

The bike roared to life, and before you knew it, you were speeding down the back roads outside town. Wind whipped through your hair, the world a blur of color as the adrenaline pumped through your veins. Every time Jax took a sharp turn, your grip on him tightened, but soon you weren’t holding on out of fear, you were holding on because you didn’t want to let go. The rumble of the engine, the feel of the wind, the pure freedom - it was intoxicating. And the way Jax handled the bike, confident and effortless, only added to the rush.

He’d glance back at you every now and then, smirking when he saw you weren’t just holding on anymore; you were leaning into it, craving more of that wild thrill. And with every ride, it became more than just adrenaline. It was the way he made you feel when you were with him, completely invincible, like nothing in the world could touch you.

The weeks turned into months, and a montage of memories built up between you two. Sneaking out at night, the hum of his bike your only soundtrack as you wrapped yourself around him, laughing into the wind. Bonfires by the old quarry, where he’d pull you close with that cocky grin, his touch always gentle with you.  Late-night rides to nowhere, where you’d hold him a little tighter, whispering sarcastic comebacks into his ear even as your heart betrayed you, racing faster with every mile.

Then there were those unexpected moments, the quiet ones that caught you off guard. Like when you found yourselves perched on the roof of Teller-Morrow, cocooned in your own little world. In those instances, a different side of Jax emerged—one that was introspective and thoughtful. He would often pull out a notebook, jotting down his thoughts and feelings, exposing a vulnerability that stood in stark contrast to his tough exterior. As he lit a cigarette, you would lean into him, savoring the warmth radiating from his body. You’d tease him playfully, the banter punctuated by that same smile tugging at the corners of your lips. And when you thought he wasn’t paying attention, your gaze would linger on him just a little too long. 

It wasn’t long before you realized something had shifted. The thrill of the ride was more than just the speed and adrenaline. It was the way Jax’s hand would find yours when you weren’t paying attention, the way he’d look at you like you were the only thing that mattered. It was the sound of his laughter, the way his eyes softened when he saw you, the fire and sass he loved to tease but never tried to tame.

One night, after a long ride along the coast, the two of you sat by the edge of the cliff, the ocean crashing beneath you. Jax was beside you, leaning back on his hands, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “You know,” he said after a long stretch of silence, his voice low, “I didn’t think you’d ever actually give in.”

You turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Give in to what?”

He grinned, that playful glint in his eyes. “To this. To riding with me. To… us.”

For a moment, you just looked at him, the sunset painting his features in warm, golden light. You couldn’t deny it anymore. The exhilaration wasn’t just from the rides, it was from him. 

“I guess you’re not the worst company,” you admitted, rolling your eyes even as you leaned into him, your head resting against his shoulder.

He chuckled softly, his arm slipping around your waist, pulling you closer. “Yeah, well, you’re my Pep. No one else like you.”

And that’s when you knew you had fallen, not just for the rides, but for the boy who had made you feel alive in ways you hadn’t expected. The boy who saw through your sarcasm, who called you Pepper because he liked your fire, and who made your heart race faster than any ride ever could.

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

Senior year was a whirlwind. While you were focused on your classes and keeping up with your honor roll status, Jax was slipping further away from school. He barely showed up anymore, spending most of his time at the garage or with the club. There were days when you’d catch glimpses of him, riding in with Opie, that familiar roar of their bikes, the MC patch on his back more of a constant presence than his textbooks.

You had always known Jax was different, more interested in bikes and the MC life than anything school had to offer. But now, it felt like he was already halfway out the door while you were still trying to figure out where the future would take you.

The contrast between the two of you was glaring. You were getting acceptance letters from universities across the country, each one congratulating you on your achievements. It felt surreal, but there was this gnawing ache every time you thought about leaving Charming — leaving him. You had spent the last couple of years with Jax as your constant. The idea of being somewhere without him felt like cutting away a part of yourself.

One afternoon, you met Jax at the garage after school, where he was elbow-deep in the engine of a Harley. He looked up when he heard you approach, wiping his hands on a rag, that familiar grin stretching across his face. “Hey, Pep,” he called, dropping the rag and walking toward you, pulling you in for a quick kiss. “How was your day? Ace another test?”

You rolled your eyes with a smile, nudging him playfully. “Actually, yeah. I got into Berkeley.”

Jax’s face lit up with pride. “Damn, look at you. That’s huge, babe.” He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, squeezing you affectionately.

You leaned into him, inhaling the familiar mix of leather, grease, and smoke. “Yeah… but it’s kinda far, Jax. And I don’t know if I want to go that far. I was thinking maybe San Fran or even Fresno. Somewhere closer.”

Jax looked at you, brow furrowing a bit as he leaned against the workbench. “You’re gonna throw away Berkeley for Charming? Why?”

You shifted, feeling the weight of your answer before you even said it. “Because of you,” you admitted, voice soft but steady. “I don’t want to be miles away from you, from everything I know, my dad. I want to study law, stay close, and—”

He cut you off with a kiss, pulling you closer, his hand resting at the back of your neck. When he pulled away, his eyes were soft but conflicted. “You’re too good for this place. You’ve got this big, bright future ahead of you, and I don’t want to be a reason you hold yourself back.”

You searched his face, trying to understand where this was coming from. “You’re not holding me back, Jax. I want to be near you. Law school, everything — I can do that here.”

He let out a long breath, running a hand through his long hair. “I don’t have a plan. Shit, I’m barely gonna graduate. I’ll probably work at the garage, help with the club… I don’t know where I’ll end up, but it’s not gonna be college, that’s for sure.”

You grabbed his hand, intertwining your fingers with his. “I don’t care about that. I care about you. You don’t have to have some perfect plan. We’ve got time to figure things out.”

Jax smiled softly, but there was something behind it, a flicker of doubt, maybe even fear. He pulled you close, resting his forehead against yours. “You deserve more than just ‘figuring it out.’ You deserve everything. And I don’t know if I can give you that.”

You held his face in your hands, making him look at you. “You’ve always been enough for me, Jax. Always. I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me to.”

Jax only kissed you, this time slower, deeper, like he was holding on to something he was afraid to lose. When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours, his voice barely a whisper. “I could never tell you to go. I just… I don’t want to hold you back.”

You kissed him back softly, the noise of the garage fading into the background. “You won’t,” you promised.

But even as you said it, there was a part of you that knew things would never be that simple, not with the club, not with the way Jax was already tied to a world that didn’t leave room for easy choices. Still, in that moment, with his arms wrapped around you and the world at your feet, you believed that somehow, you could make it work.

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

 Two years into undergrad and everything felt different. The late-night rides and stolen moments that used to bring you and Jax together now seemed like distant memories. You were buried in textbooks and case studies, drowning in deadlines and long hours at your internship. The law classes were brutal and balancing your workload with everything else left you running on fumes. You’d chosen a college about an hour outside of Charming, far enough to give you space but close enough to keep Jax in your life.

But even with that proximity, things were… different. The once easy connection between you and Jax felt strained, pulled thin under the weight of time, distance, and the lives you were both living now.

You were sitting at a small table in a coffee shop near your campus, your laptop open and legal notes scattered everywhere. Your phone buzzed, a text from Jax lighting up the screen. Hey, been trying to call. Busy?

You stared at the message for a moment, guilt swirling in your chest. You had seen the missed calls earlier, but your study group had gone long, and then there was work. You typed out a quick reply: Yeah, sorry. Studying. You okay?

His response came fast. Yeah, just haven’t seen you in a while. Miss you.

That simple sentence hit harder than you expected. You missed him too, desperately. Lately, it felt like missing him was all you did. You weren’t the same girl who had spent nights riding on the back of his bike, laughing into the wind. Now, you were someone constantly pulled in a dozen directions, and Jax was being swallowed up by the club. He was taking on more responsibilities with the Sons, more rides, more late nights. And you knew what came with that lifestyle - the danger, the temptations. You’d heard about other women. Nothing concrete, but the rumors alone were enough to keep you awake at night.

You texted back, I miss you too. Maybe I can come by tomorrow?

Yeah. I’ll be at the clubhouse. Be good to see you.

The next day, you drove back to Charming, your stomach knotted with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. You parked outside the clubhouse, a place that used to feel like a second home, but now felt distant — like you didn’t quite belong in Jax’s world anymore. You walked inside and immediately saw him at the bar, his back turned as he talked with Opie.

“Hey,” you called, and he turned, that familiar smile lighting up his face as he saw you.

“Hey yourself!”  he said, walking over to wrap his arms around you, a tender kiss placed on your lips. The feel of him, solid and warm, instantly melted some of the tension inside you. For a moment, it felt like everything could be okay, like you were still those two kids who fell in love years ago. But as soon as he pulled away, reality slipped back in.

He led you back to his clubhouse room. Both of you sitting on the bed, his hand resting on your leg as if to anchor you both. You made small talk, catching up on each other’s lives, but the conversation felt stilted. There were gaps now, things unsaid between you, like the life he was leading in the club, the hours he spent with them, and the stories you heard but never wanted to ask about.

“School’s killing me,” you admitted. “I barely have time to breathe, let alone come back here. It’s just... a lot.”

Jax nodded, but you could see the distance in his eyes, the frustration he was trying to mask. “Yeah, you’ve been busy. I get it.”

You sighed, looking into his eyes. “Do you? Because it feels like… I don’t know, like we’re both living these separate lives. When’s the last time we spent more than an hour together?” There was always this heightened tension between you two now.

Jax’s jaw clenched, and he leaned back, rubbing a hand over his face. “I know, I know. But it’s not just you. I’ve got a lot going on too, with the garage, the club and everything…” he trails off.

“And what does ‘everything’ include?” you asked, your voice quieter, a trace of the hurt you’d been holding back slipping through.

He looked at you for a long moment, eyes shadowed with a mix of guilt and defensiveness. “What are you asking?”

You hesitated. This was the conversation you’d both been avoiding, but you couldn’t pretend anymore. “I’m asking if there’s someone else, Jax. I’m asking if the club has taken more than just your time.”

His expression hardened, but there was a flicker of something else beneath it - regret, maybe. “There’s no one else, Pep. Don’t be ridiculous.” He snapped. “But this life… it’s not easy. And you’re not here as much. I’m not saying that’s your fault, but it’s how it is.”

You nodded, blinking back the sting in your eyes. “Yeah, I get it. You’re right. We’re both busy, and it’s hard. But we’re growing apart, Jax. And I don’t know how to fix that.”

He reached for your hand, squeezing it gently. “I don’t want to lose you. But I don’t know how to fix it either.”

There it was — the raw truth neither of you had said out loud until now. You still loved each other, deeply, but it was like trying to hold on to something that kept slipping through your fingers. The connection that had once felt so unbreakable was fraying at the edges, and neither of you knew if you could tie it back together.

You leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder, his arm wrapping around you like it always had. For now, in this moment, you could pretend that everything was okay. But deep down, you both knew that things had changed.

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

Another year had passed, and your relationship with Jax was hanging by a thread. Between the LSAT’s, your paralegal job, law school applications, you were constantly thinking about the future. A part of you still wanted that future to include Jax, despite all the cracks.

The tension between you two had been building for months. He’d invited you to a big MC party, but things between you were so fragile that you weren’t sure if going was the best thing. The law firm you worked for was in the middle of a huge case and you didn’t think you would be able to get away from the piles of research you had in front of you. Just as you were grappling with whether to go, your phone buzzed, Jax’s name lighting up across your screen.

Hey Pep, you coming to see me, or what? ;)

The pull between duty and heartache twisted in your chest. The case you were working on was critical, your future in law depended on it, and yet, a part of you longed to see him, to feel connected again. But you couldn’t ignore the creeping sense that you no longer fit in his world. The MC lifestyle felt more alien with every passing day.

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard. I’m slammed with work right now… not sure if I can make it.

The moment the message left your screen, a wave of anxiety hit you. Would he be disappointed? Relieved? Part of you wanted him to push back, to make you feel like you still mattered enough for him to want you there.

A few seconds passed, then your phone buzzed again. His response appeared almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for your message just as eagerly.

You’re always slammed with work. But this is important to me. Come on, it’s just one night. I miss you.

Your heart clenched. He was good at that, making you feel guilty for choosing anything that wasn’t him or the MC. You read the message repeatedly, feeling the weight of his words.

"I miss you."

It was what you wanted to hear, but at the same time, it left you more torn than before. School, the case, it all seemed so distant now. Your mind flickered back to the last time you'd seen him, the strained goodbye, the unsaid things between you two. Maybe one night wouldn't change anything, but what if it did?

The screen dimmed as your phone idled, but you couldn't take your eyes off the words, wondering if you could keep walking this fine line between your past and your future.

You typed out ‘I'll try’ and stared at it for a long moment, your thumb hovering over the send button. It felt like a compromise, a way to keep one foot in each world without fully committing to either. But as you sent it, a pit formed in your stomach. You knew deep down that it wasn’t just about this one night—it was about all the nights before and all the ones that could come after.

Your phone buzzed again almost immediately.

That's my girl. I’ll be waiting for you.

His words sent a familiar warmth through you, but there was something bittersweet about it too. His girl. You weren’t sure if you even belonged to him anymore. Jax had a way of making you feel like nothing had changed, like the years apart hadn’t put a canyon between who you were and who you’d both become.

You sighed, glancing at the stack of case files on your desk. The logical part of you said you should stay, focus on the case. But another part, the one that still longed for the way things used to be, pulled you towards him. Like always.

You decided to work for another hour, hoping the mountain of research would drown out the thoughts of Jax and then head to the party. But time slipped away from you and when you finally glanced at the clock, a surge of panic shot through you. You were hours behind. Cursing under your breath, you threw everything into your bag and bolted out of your dorm.

The drive to Charming was long and familiar, each mile pulling you back to a life you’d tried so hard to leave behind. You hadn’t heard from him; you knew you were hours later than you planned, and he probably thought you weren’t coming. You decided to surprise him at this point, to see his face when you showed up after all. Maybe you could feel like you still belonged in his world, even if only for one night.

The roar of motorcycles echoed faintly in the distance, a sound you knew all too well. You parked a little way down from the clubhouse, your heart hammering in your chest as you walked toward the sounds of the party.

The parking lot was crowded with bikes, the familiar smell of leather and gasoline hitting you as you approached the entrance. The music was loud, people spilled out from the doors, laughing and drinking. You weaved through them, feeling the weight of old eyes on you, some curious, others familiar.

As you stepped inside, the chaos of the party washed over you. It was everything you remembered - loud, wild, and unapologetically SAMCRO. You scanned the room, looking for him, the anticipation of seeing him again made your heart race.

As you navigated through the crowded room, the air thick with smoke, alcohol, and the unmistakable roar of laughter and loud voices, you couldn't help but notice the women, Crow-eaters as they were not so affectionately referred as, draped over several members. They were scantily clad, their bodies pressed close to the bikers, and you felt the sharp sting of being out of place. Their boldness, their ease in this world, it was a stark contrast to the careful, controlled way you lived your life now.

You tugged at the hem of your jacket, suddenly hyper-aware of the more conservative clothes you wore and the way you didn’t fit in. You were polished, buttoned-up, and in a crowd like this, it made you feel like an outsider. The club girls knew their place, their roles in the MC hierarchy clear, but you used to think you belonged here. Now it felt foreign, like you were intruding on a life that had moved on without you. You weren’t one of them, and as much as you tried to pretend this night was about reconnecting with Jax, the reality was painfully obvious. This just wasn’t your world.

When you finally spotted him, it wasn’t the reunion you imagined. There he was, in the corner, alone with another girl, a girl too close for comfort. She was laughing, her hand on his chest, and his expression wasn’t one of protest.

Your stomach dropped. You’d heard rumors swirling around for a while, whispers you hadn’t wanted to believe, but this? This was undeniable.

You stormed over, heart pounding. “What the hell, Jax?”

He looked up, startled and shocked, and you saw the guilt flash across his face. The girl backed off immediately, sensing the tension, but it was too late. The damage was done.

“Pep, wait—” he started, but you weren’t having it.

“Wait for what? For you to finish whatever this is?” You could hear the anger and hurt in your voice, and it took everything not to lose it right there in front of everyone.

Jax stood, frustration mixing with his own guilt. “Shit, Babe - It’s not what it looks like. She’s no one, I swear—”

“Then why was she all over you?” You could feel your hands trembling, the betrayal sharp in your chest. “Do you even care anymore, Jax? Or am I just holding on to something that doesn’t exist?”

He stepped closer, grabbing your arm gently. “Of course I care. Pep, you know I love you and I’m not screwing around.”

You wanted to believe him, but that image of him with her was now burned into your mind. Still, as you stared into his eyes, the same eyes that had looked at you with love for years, you found yourself softening. Maybe it was out of habit, maybe it was out of hope, but you nodded, letting out a shaky breath, not wanting to do this with an audience. “Jax, this can’t happen again.”

He nodded quickly, pulling you into his arms. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll do better. I swear.”

After the confrontation, he had come to you, apologizing, trying to explain away the situation as a misunderstanding, a mistake. And in that moment, you wanted so badly to believe him, to let the history between you two be enough to erase the pain of what you’d seen.

You stayed and he held you close that night, whispering promises that felt hollow. His arms around you were familiar, but they no longer felt like home. You could feel the space between you two, even as he lay beside you, his breath steady as he fell asleep.

You stared at the ceiling, your mind racing. Everything about this night, this life was a far cry from what you had imagined your future would look like. It didn’t matter how many times he apologized or promised to change. Something between you had shifted, and no amount of love was going to fix it. You knew deep down, as you lay there in the dark, that this had to be the end.

It wasn’t just about the girl he flirted with or the way he had laughed with her like you didn’t exist. It was about the path you were on, the future you were fighting for. It was about who Jax had become and who you had grown into. Jax had chosen this life, and in exchange, never fully choosing you. The club would always come first, and that realization cut deeper than anything else.

Your heart felt heavy as you got dressed quietly, careful not to wake him. The thought of leaving without saying goodbye tore at you, but you knew this had to be done. You had to walk away before the weight of staying crushed you.

You leaned down, placing a soft kiss on his lips, your hand resting on the side of his face, memorizing the feel of him one last time. His lips moved slightly under yours, and for a moment, you thought he might wake, but he didn’t. Part of you was relieved, saying goodbye right now would have been too hard.

Standing over him, you took a deep breath, knowing this might be the last time you’d ever see him like this, your Jax - peaceful, vulnerable. Your eyes lingered on him before you turned and walked out of the room, your heart breaking with every step.

The drive out of Charming felt endless, every mile putting more distance between you and the life you once knew. It gutted you to leave him behind, but deep down, you knew it was the only way to save yourself. You had outgrown this world, and it was time to let go of the one person you thought you’d never lose. As you merged onto the highway, the sun barely beginning to rise, you wiped away the tears that had silently fallen. This was the end, and even though it hurt like hell, you knew it was the right choice.

It had been a few weeks since that night and the heaviness in your heart had only deepened. You spent countless hours wrestling with the decision to end things with Jax. The memories of laughter and love felt like distant echoes, overshadowed by the harsh reality of your lives drifting apart. Tonight, you’d finally decided you were going to have the talk - the one that would sever the last ties binding you to him.

As you gathered your things, the clutter of books and notes on your desk only reminded you of the life you were trying to build apart from him. The stack of law books felt like a barrier, protecting you from the emotional storm you knew was about to hit. You took a deep breath, steeling yourself for the words you would say.

Just as you were about to walk out, a firm knock echoed through your small dorm. You paused, quizzical. You weren’t expecting anyone, and a twinge of anxiety twisted in your stomach.

“Hey,” came the gruff voice from the other side, and your heart dropped. It was Jax.

You opened the door, and your breath caught in your throat at the sight of him. He looked pale, his normally vibrant eyes clouded with something heavy. His usual confident demeanor was replaced by an unsettling vulnerability, and it sent a jolt of panic through you.

“Jax? What’s wrong?”

He stepped inside, his presence both comforting and terrifying. “I—” His voice cracked, and he took a moment, visibly struggling to find the right words. “It’s your dad. He… he’s gone.”

The world around you seemed to tilt on its axis. “What do you mean, gone?” you stammered, heart racing. “What happened?”

His gaze dropped, and he rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture that made your stomach churn. “There was a deal that went south. He got caught in the crossfire. They got him to the hospital, but it was too late.”

Shock flooded your body, a cold wave that left you feeling numb. “No. No, this can’t be happening.” You stumbled back, your vision blurring as tears threatened to spill over. Your father had always been your rock, the steady hand guiding you through life, it had always been just the two of you. “What do you mean caught in the crossfire? He was just… he was fine. I just saw him!”

Jax stepped closer, his expression pained, his own tears threatening to spill over. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

You shook your head, refusing to accept the reality he was laying before you. “You don’t understand. This is… I can’t… I don’t even know how to process this.” The words tumbled out, a desperate plea for understanding that fell flat.

He reached for your arm; his grip firm yet gentle. “Please, let me help you. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

The warmth of his touch ignited a swirl of conflicting emotions within you. He was the last person you wanted to turn to, yet in that moment, the desperation for comfort overpowered everything else. You felt so fragile, and the thought of facing this tragedy without him was daunting.

He cupped your face and in that moment, it was like the ground dropped out from under you. The room spun, and suddenly, everything—the fight, the tension, even your plans to leave Jax, seemed insignificant. Your dad was dead, and the club, the same club that had taken so much from you with Jax, had taken him too.

You collapsed into Jax’s arms, your tears soaking his shirt as you clung to him. And just like that, all your plans shattered. You weren’t thinking about law school anymore. You weren’t even thinking about breaking up with him. All you could think about was the fact that your dad was gone, and Jax was the only one who could understand the weight of that loss.

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

You and Jax made it through your father’s funeral, now bound together by grief, but even in the depths of your sorrow, it was a fragile connection. He had become your lifeline, holding you close as you navigated the crushing waves of loss. The club surrounded you, providing support in ways you hadn’t expected, ensuring that you wanted for nothing as you buried yourself in your studies during your last year of undergrad. You moved through life on autopilot, the world around you fading into a blur as you focused on school, pretending that everything would somehow work itself out.

As the months passed, acceptance letters from several schools filled your mailbox, a testament to your hard work and determination. But the joy of those accomplishments felt overshadowed by the grief that still clung to you like a heavy fog. Each letter was a reminder of a future you were hesitant to embrace. You were torn, unsure of where to go. Part of you wanted to stay close to Jax, to the familiarity of Charming, while another part yearned for a fresh start, a chance to break free from everything that haunted you.

But while you clung to Jax for comfort, the distance between you was palpable. You knew he was there, physically present, yet your relationship had become stagnant, a shell of what it once was. Jax provided a familiar solace, but it wasn’t enough to bridge the gap that had formed. The love that had once burned brightly now flickered like a candle, struggling against the grief that surrounded you both.

Everything came to a head one night at the clubhouse. As you paused outside Jax’s door, your hand froze on the doorknob, heart racing at the faint sound of laughter inside - his laughter. But he wasn’t alone. With a deep breath, you pushed the door open, and everything seemed to freeze around you.

There he was, sitting on the edge of the bed, shirt half unbuttoned, lips locked with some woman you didn’t recognize. Her laughter mixed with his, a sound that shattered your world once again. Time felt suspended as the reality of the moment set in.

“Jax!” The sound of your voice echoed painfully in the room, causing their laughter to halt abruptly. His eyes widened in shock, but they quickly filled with shame as he processed your presence. The woman beside him blinked, confusion dancing in her eyes, but you ignored her, shaking with betrayal as you stared at him. You didn’t even recognize him anymore.

“Shit! Pep, I—” he started, his voice thick with regret, but the words evaporated in the tension that filled the room.

Anger boiled within you, raw and relentless, as you stepped forward, heart racing. “You said you loved me! You promised you’d do better!”

He shifted uncomfortably, guilt etching deeper lines on his face. He couldn’t meet your gaze, knowing he had fucked up royally. The realization of what he had done hung heavily in the air, a small part of him recognizing that he had sabotaged your relationship out of fear. Fear of feeling stifled, of the stagnant love that no longer felt like home to him either.

When he reached out to touch you, desperation tinged with shame, you yelled. “Don’t! Don’t fucking touch me!” The slap was swift, fueled by raw emotion, landing with a force that surprised even you. The sound echoed in the room, sharp and definitive, as Jax's head snapped to the side, his face flushed with the imprint of your anger. The room seemed to hold its breath, and everything inside you unraveled.

The warmth and safety Jax once provided had turned cold. You could see the regret in his eyes, but it wasn’t enough to undo this betrayal.

That’s when Opie appeared, his expression a mix of sadness and empathy. He stood silently, a protective barrier between you and the pain. Without saying a word, he placed a hand on your shoulder, grounding you as everything inside you threatened to collapse. Jax remained quiet, his shame on full display, knowing he had lost something precious but feeling powerless to reclaim it.

“I’ll take care of her,” Opie said quietly, his voice steady. He didn’t need to say more; Jax knew better than to push. The hurt in his eyes was evident, but it was too late for apologies.

“Pep, please,” Jax finally managed, his voice hoarse, but it lacked the strength of conviction. His eyes were desperate, but beneath that desperation lay a deep-rooted acknowledgment of his failures, the realization that he had successfully pushed you away.

“Stop,” you snapped, tears streaming down your cheeks, anger morphing into deep-seated sorrow.

He stood there, paralyzed, unable to find the words that could ever justify this.

Opie stepped forward, his presence a comforting weight, trying to navigate you out of the room. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

You turned away from Jax, feeling the ache of loss settle in your chest like a stone. Only a silent farewell passing between you. It was done. You and Jax were over.

As Opie led you away, the weight of everything crashed down on you. You had lost your father, and now, Jax too – his love that once brought you to life felt distant, unreachable. The noise of the clubhouse disappeared into the background, leaving you in a world where the only constant was your grief, and you didn’t know how to move forward.

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

Leaving Charming felt like tearing a piece of your heart out. You had chosen the best law school you could, deliberately picking one as far away from California as possible. It was a decision that both terrified and relieved you. You needed to escape the memories, the grief, and, most of all, Jax.

As the day of your departure drew closer, the reality of it settled in, leaving you with an emptiness that clashed with your determination. You packed your things meticulously, each item a reminder of what you were leaving behind. But as much as you wanted to flee from your past, a part of you still ached for closure.

So, you agreed to meet Jax for a final goodbye, knowing it was something you both needed, even if it felt hollow. You chose a secluded spot in the park where you used to share lazy afternoons, a place where laughter once rang in the air. But today, the atmosphere was heavy with unspoken words and lingering sadness.

Jax was already there when you arrived, leaning against his bike, arms crossed, looking every bit the man you'd fallen for. His eyes locked on yours, and for a moment, neither of you said anything. The silence felt thick, filled with all the things you couldn’t say anymore.

“So, this is it,” Jax finally said, his voice quieter than usual. There was no edge, no teasing, only rawness.

You nodded, unsure of how to respond without unraveling. “Yeah, it is.”

He looked down, running a hand through his hair, the same way he always did when he didn’t know what to say. “I get why you’re going. You need to do this.” Jax replied, his eyes searching yours for something - understanding, perhaps, or forgiveness. “It’s just… hard to believe you won’t be here.”

You swallowed, your heart tightening in your chest. All you could muster was a simple nod of understanding.

For a solitary moment, it was like time rewound, and you were back to being the two of you, before everything got complicated. Before the weight of the club, the violence, and the grief. It would have been so easy to fall into his arms, but you held yourself still, knowing that this moment wasn’t about holding on, it was about letting go.

Jax straightened, stepping closer, his blue eyes still searching yours. “I wanted this life for us, you know? A real future.” His voice broke, just slightly, and it hit you harder than you expected.

“I know,” you whispered, your own emotions threatening to spill over. “But that’s not where we’re headed anymore.”

He reached for your hand, his grip firm but tender, as if it was the last connection keeping you from drifting apart. “Just… promise me one thing.”

You looked at him, your throat tight with unshed tears. “What?”

“Don’t forget about me, alright? Even if I’m just a memory, don’t forget.”

The weight of his words settled deep inside you. You could promise that, but you weren’t sure how much of Jax would be left in you once you stepped onto that plane. Still, you nodded, because in that moment, it was the only thing you could give him.

“Goodbye, Jax.”

His jaw clenched, and he pulled you into a hug, strong and secure. The scent of leather, smoke, and something distinctly Jax, washed over you, making you dizzy with the realization that this was truly the end. And when he let go, you didn’t look back.

As you walked away, each step felt heavier than the last, there was no turning around. Not now. You had to let him go, even if part of you never would.

Part 2 - The Reunion

[myjjongie]

CHAPTER SEVEN.ᐟ ── my biggest fans ever chat !

SYNOPSIS: you and jay have been at each others throats for the whole time you've been enrolled at decelis university. the reason for the rivalry in question? the #1 rank on the academic leaderboard in the university. you went through your whole high school life being #1 on the academic leaderboard. you meet jay, who also had the same upbringing in high school. things then start to turn into a constant battle. leaving you constantly in second place and jay in first place every rank update.

prev | m.list | next

word count; 4241

looking up from my phone after placing it face down on the table. i look over to jake and glare at him. he quickly notices my eyes and flashes a apologetic smile. it’ll take lots of designated driver and paying off food to make me get over this fiasco of a scenario. if someone had told me i was gonna be sitting at a table with jay’s group of friends… i would have laughed in their face and walked away. but here i am, in a scenario i didn’t want any part of…

“okay jake. what the fuck is going on..” irritation heavy in my voice.

“what? i can’t introduce you to my friends?”

i could see the small hesitation on his face as he "introduced" me to his friends.

“i already know about sohee, seunghan, and sunghoon. what need is there for introductions…. and i know they’re friends with jay…”

“hey at least she knows our names. that’s a start.” sunghoon chimed in.

my eyes rolled at his witty remark. i couldn’t help but look over to see sohee have a small pout on his lips. i would be a liar if i didn’t admit sohee was a tiny bit cute, in an endearing way of course. but i had to stand my ground and put my distance between myself and the “enemy”… jake unfortunately was an exception due to how fond i’ve grown of him but that was besides the point.

“yn. i get that you don’t like jay cause of the academic rankings. but i promise we’re not as bad as him.” seunghan was the one to speak this time. making sure to add air quotations around bad.

my attention turned to seunghan as he had this slight pleading look in his eyes. my brows furrowed as i turned back to sohee to now see him give me puppy eyes. choosing to say no and be mean was harder than it should’ve been in this very moment.

“come on yn. just hang out with us once and see how it goes. obviously with no jay.”

jake was the one to speak now taking my attention away from sohee. the thought was there… but the need to be petty and stand my ground was a bit more. besides if i truly thought about it. sohee and seunghan were just first years so they’re not that big of a liability. the one person here who is truly a problem was sunghoon…

“okay… but what about sunghoon. he’s also jay’s closest friend no?”

i turned to sunghoon who honestly looked indifferent to it all. he looked back at me and just shrugged his shoulders. my eyebrow raised in confusion my face clearly questioning the attitude at the moment.

“honestly. i don’t really care. as long as i get to make fun of jake i’m whatever.”

“what the hell?!”

i softly laughed at the immediate retaliation from jake. i thought about it for a second longer and made up my mind.

“okay… we can have one hang out.”

sohee smiled happily at at response. it seemed as if he heard the best news of his life. before i could say anything more, a familiar yet annoying voice made me ears perk up.

“what is going on here?”

i turned around to be met with someone standing behind me. my smile immediately dropped as i realized who it was.

“hey jay!” there was a slight hesitation in jake’s voice as he took in the scene and how this could look to jay.

“why are you all sitting at a table with yn?”

jay still standing behind me began to ask some real questions.

“uhhhhhhh.” sohee blurted out as he tried to find an excuse to come up with.

“we saw jake sitting with yn and decided to bother them.” sunghoon had spoken up, in the most nonchalant tone i had ever heard.

i looked at sunghoon confused on why he blatantly lied. deciding to not wanna be apart of this any longer, i began to gather my things and stand up.

“well. as much as this was… fun. i’m gonna get going now.”

getting up from the seat i slightly lost my footing. before i could even manage to stumble, a hand had quickly grabbed onto my upper arm.

“hey be careful. you’re always too clumsy you know that.”

softly yanking my arm out of jay’s grasp. i mutter a thank you.

“well i’ll see you guys later.”

before i could practically bolt from the scene. i felt my phone buzz in my pocket. looking at it quickly i see my lockscreen flash a message from heeseung. my face brightened instantly causing a huge smile to appear on my face.

“jake. group chat later look at it!” i said before running away from the table.

“what has her smiling like that?” jay asked.

all jake could do was shrug his shoulders in confusion.

a.note; first written chapter for the smau. the first time i read this and didn’t proof read was not good AT ALL. but i locked in and fixed it up imo. also has been a HUGE minute since i’ve wrutten something story wise so TT. but i hope yall enjoy as well as a earlier update (im being subjected to a 9 hour shift. please save me….)

fighting for first taglist (open) ...

@idontknowhowtomakeusernames @right-person-wrong-time @jakeyverse @minthoons @punchbug9-blog @starfallia @heartheejake @ikeulove @rairaiblog @kazemiya @yourssincerely-mimi @wondipity @en-heedeungie @justalittle-hee @chandmyseven @letwiiparkjay @dylanobr1ens @bbsantc

©myjjongie 2024

[starfall-dream]

(I can only hope Tumblr doesn't eat this.)

I've just been thinking about this AU and how the reader might not even be aware or realize when the other companions start to obsess over them (especially if they're giving romantic signals and trying to flirt) just due to cultural differences and the reader not fully knowing things about the world or even just past experiences and how difficult that might be for the companions.

Like I know for myself (just because it's where my experience is), I am rather oblivious when it comes to being flirted with and picking up on those sorts or cues. Plus, most of them flirt with one another platonically (and not to mention the whole "let's fluster this person because their reactions are easy to get out of them" stuff)

So if someone like Astarion or Wyll pops up and starts flirting and throwing their innuendos it's like a 33.3% chance each I a) think he's meaning it platonically, b) just short circuit because easily flustered, or c) unwillingly just refuse to pick up on it somehow even if it's "obvious" to everyone else.

Not to even mention how different races try to court or flirt. I would assume that High-Elfs are different from Wood-Elfs or Drow do, or even Teiflings are very drastically different and that's not even to go into cultural differences from things like location or city or even who raised them! There might even be differences between how Gale does it compared to Wyll just due to how those two cities operate.

Or how the different companions might use that to their advantage, or when some random stranger tries to flirt and the reader just doesn't pick up on it. Like... (apparently, I legit cannot think of anything)

Idk what kind of reader you're thinking of, but it's just something I thought about and just wanted to share.

OMG I love your brain you're so amazing.

controversial take, but I love oblivious readers. In this case, I think your explanation makes a lot of sense, that they're more oblivious because the cultural differences and because of the stressful situation they're in, so it makes sense that once the companions start to obsession over them, they don't even realize it. Plus, they probably think that the companions still don't like them, so they don't really look too much into their nicer actions.

I feel like this kinda works in the favor of the more open companions like Karlach and Halsin. Like they're very much the type of people to just go up and say "I like you" so there really isn't that much confusion. However, it absolutely destroys Astarion, who is so used to being able to use his suave facade to woo anyone, so for it to not work kinda hurts his pride a bit.

I also loved how you brought up how courting might be different for different races. I've mentioned this a while back, but the idea of Halsin, Astarion, and Shadowheart talking about reader in some sort of Elvin language is one of my favorite headcanons. It's even more interesting if the companions are at the point where they're working together.

[doberbutts]

sorry if this is like out of line or smth but ive been seeing a lot of your mixed w/ white posts today and i had a question.

my entire dads side of the family is cuban, theres a lot of hispanic heritage on that side of the family. my entire moms side of the family is white. ive always considered myself mixed/hispanic w/ white but im incredibly white passing. ive always felt like an outsider in hispanic communities because i was mainly raised by my mom.

how do i get past the shame and sense of non-belonging to start connecting with my cuban and hispanic heritage?

I don't think it's out of line, but I do want to warn that I really can only give theoreticals. As I have stated a few different times, I was raised in a multicultural, multi-ethnic family that went to great lengths to expose me to my cultures and also the cultures of others. It was very important to my parents to make sure their children did not feel divorced from being black. Unfortunately, they didn't have much of a choice about being divorced from being Native, as that decision was also made for them when they were children themselves. However, it was still important for them to show us what they could.

So I never really had to "reconnect" with my blackness because it was something my dad felt was really important for me to be raised in long before I was born. Whether or not I'm "allowed" to say I belong to my Nation depends entirely on paperwork that I don't have due to family members dying etc (and also, you know, race politics bc for a very long time you were not legally able to be both black and native) and so while there are means to get that paperwork nowadays... personally I don't have much of a drive to give someone a whole bunch of money to dig around in my family history and see what documents they might be able to fish out. It is enough for me that I can point to dearly departed family and state that I know they were part of the Nation. It is enough for me that no matter where I go, when I bump into someone else who is Native they recognize me without me needing to say anything. It is enough for me to have memories of this happening while we were near a reservation, and a family took us in because we were lost and confused and heading directly into a wildfire out west.

I would like to learn more about my Nation. About the traditions and cultures and lifestyles there. I'd like to learn the language. But I don't need papers to do that. I have some oral tradition received by aforementioned family members, but otherwise it's mostly just what I pick up here and there learning on my own. For right now, I am okay with that.

[friend-of-a-cat]

I've been debating on whether or not I may be agender (or something similar) for the past two weeks or so, and I'm legitimately so confused about the entire thing. I feel like it's breaking my brain, because, on one hand, it feels somewhat right, but on the other, I also don't give a shit if people see me as a woman? And I'm fine with being a woman I think, but I also think I just generally don't give a shit about gender, so I don't know if that just makes me gender indifferent or if it means something else.

Ultimately, I know that if I want to take up the agender label that's totally up to me if I feel it fits, but it's just... confusing. I don't know if my indifference to gender stems from something like my asexuality and sex aversion or my upbringing (my mum didn't necessarily raise my brother and I as 'genders', we just did whatever and dressed however and liked whatever) or a general dislike and rejection of gender stereotypes or something else. But also... I don't know. I feel like I also have a kind of blockage to the idea of me being agender from living my life as a woman up until this point. Like, I feel conditioned to it, if that makes sense. I feel biased. Though I also think, at least right now upon writing this, that if I could have picked a gender earlier in life, and I wasn't conditioned by society to be a one already, I would have picked none if I had've known that was an option? But I'd also just go along with anything. Like, if I were born male I think I would have just cruised by in life as a guy and not really cared (except for the fact that I also would be thinking the same things I'm thinking right now I guess lol). I've realised that I don't really feel connected to 'woman' as a gender (I mean, I relate to being a woman, but also not), or even really the concept of gender, because I think it's kind of stupid and pointless to me. I mean, in saying this, I am still attracted to guys romantically, and that has to do with gender, so...?? I don't know. Like, I know that you can still be a woman and not be feminine and shit, but like... I've never related to people of my gender. I mean, I like feminine things and I like masculine things and I like gender-neutral things but I also don't think we should label things as 'feminine' or 'masculine' or 'gender neutral' or whatever because who cares?? I mean, some people do. Lots of people do. People do feel a strong connection to gender, and I think that's great, and I'm happy it exists because it makes people happy, but like... I don't think I've ever thought to myself "I'm glad I'm a woman". But I'm also not NOT glad to be a woman. I just haven't really felt a connection or a 'pull' to any gender, really. I mean, kind of. But not really. I'm relatively indifferent to the concept as a whole. In saying this, I've related way more to guys throughout my life, and many of my friends have been guys because I've just... had more fun and related to them more? Though this wasn't entirely because they were guys - it's just because of the people they were. But I also don't exactly feel like I'm a guy, either. And I don't exactly feel like I relate to being nonbinary. The concept of calling myself trans also doesn't fit. Some days I do feel like it would be really cool to just... be able to shapeshift and try out different things just for fun and to see how I'd feel? Like try out a different sex and gender and appearance and see. I like the way I look, though. And I'm fine with using she/her because I don't know what other pronouns I'd use?? Like I've been referred to as such my whole life and I don't really care but also right now I'm kind of like ehhhh. But I don't know if I'd want to go by they/he/whatnot. I know there are tons of other options but ehhh. If my pronouns were 'none' I think that'd be cool. Maybe. Maybe it would be less complicated. Dude, I don't know. It's 2:28 a.m. and I'm confused and I don't know if this makes any sense. I also feel like I'm flipping between feeling like this and then also not. I think just needed to ramble a bit to some strangers on the internet to get my thoughts in order lol.

I guess another reason I made this post is... does anyone else feel the same way? I mean, obviously people do, but yeah. I also know a lot of ace people (and aros, as well) experience a kind of disconnect with gender as a whole or their body - not that I personally feel disconnected from mine, per se (though if I didn't have fucking boobs and a reproductive system that'd be swell, but it also just is what it is, you know? I don't really see that as dysphoria, it's more like they're annoying and useless to me lol). I don't know if this is that - a disconnect from gender due to my asexuality. Like... for the people who do 'feel' gender... how? How do you 'feel' it? What is it meant to 'feel' like? I think I might need some helping sorting out my thoughts. Or not. I don't know.

Anyway, I think, first and foremost before any label, I'm just me, and that's okay. Even though I love that we have more terms to express ourselves in such ways now, it's still limiting. I'm ace and I love that the term exists because it's felt empowering to me (also pretty lonely, too, but... you know). Like... I'm ace. I'm ace and it feels so good to say it. Demiromantic fits me the best in that department at the moment, too. I don't know if agender fits me or not yet. This has been stewing for two weeks though and I don't know what exactly set me on this line of thought. I've decided I'm going to sit on it for a while and think - and by 'sit and think' I really mean probably forget about it because gender is something I rarely think about in any context (besides when I'm angry at people for being discriminatory). Though, the reason why I didn't realise I was ace until a few years ago when I discovered what it is is because I never thought about sexual attraction because... I never felt it, so... I could use that logic here, too. But it's sadly not that simple to me right now lol. It's hard to express stuff like this. As in, stuff you DON'T feel. I know it doesn't have to be hard, but I'm finding it hard lol, and I don't really know how to go about it. And again, I keep changing my mind on my thoughts and feelings because the whole prospect is daunting to me.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. As per usual, thoughts and discussions are welcome. I kind of feel like I'm oversharing my life, so I'm so sorry lol. Also this is a long post lmao. But it was kind of nice to put this into words.

It's also kind of funny that this crisis is happening in pride month. I fully came to terms with the fact I was ace last pride month and actually told people then lmao (I did know a year or two earlier but didn't tell anyone about it besides my mum briefly and vaguely lol). Anyway, happy pride?? Lol.

[niseag-reads]

"Oh god no" - a review.

this is a review, or more of a rant, about the Kid-Friendly ADHD & Autism Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet by Pamela Compart and Dana Laake. I was not going to post about this book, expecially not as the first post on my shiny new blog. but I need to talk about this. God. I am disgusted to my core and I need to talk about it. Screenshots from the books I read will not be a common occurance on this blog but I will use some here to get across what I have stumbled into.

Book TWs: Ableism (anti-autism sentiment), calorie counting I may have been naive when I judged this book by it's cover, i'm going to be honest with you. I saw this and though "oh! a book with recipes that cover for people with a variety of different needs! how nice!".You can imagine, then, that I was quite thrown off by the contents of the book. The first impression shook that believe a little. Recipes don't start until chapter 10. I skipped the preamble, because honestly I was just here for the food, and it seemed to be about raising autistic children and I am an autistic adult without any children so I figured I didn't need that. I just wanted to know what kind of delicious, sensory friendly foodstuffs the author has in store for us! this excitement was soon crushed as I got to the first recipe, and I am just goint to show you the whole page so you can get a sense of what i stumbled into.

So, some good things: page layout is great, the little icons that indicate dietary needs are lovely! in later recipes they also tell you how much the recipe makes and the estimated nutritional information which is great if you have to monitor that for one reason or another. but let's get to the rant. to begin, I am autistic and have adhd. I have many autistic friends. none of us enjoy drinking straight water. That is not to say no autistic people like drinking water, but it does make me put questionmarks on a supposedly autism-friendly cookbook to lead with it. Second of all: I don't need a fucking recipe to figure out how to put a glass under the tap right? am I the only one who thinks this is a weird thing to add as a recipe? I suppose it's probably done tongue in cheek but, really... is this the tone we're going for here? I felt somewhat belittled by this book reading this. anyway, i pressed on. a lot of recipes were just standard and seemingly random recipes none of which really stood out to me as particularly kid or neurodivergent friendly. A lot of recipes required a lot of different ingredients and different steps and kitchen appliances to use which definitely rules them out for my flavour of neurodivergence (the adhd task avoidance would never let me go through that many steps to make a meal, eat it, and then also do the dishes) but fine, I suppose, different people can handle different things, expecially if you're a parent cooking for a child this might not be an issue at all, and I also understand that to eat gluten free more work is sometimes, sadly, needed. Anyway, my various questionmarks about the recipes compiled with the inclusion of not one, but two recipes for communion wafers. what? no shade on anyone that needs gluten free communion wafers and decides to make them themselves, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. What confuses me is why they are here, in this book. It seems unrelated to anything? At this point, in between the water and the communion wafers and the whole first chunk of the book being about bringing up children, I was starting to realise this was a book written by a stereotypical "autism mom" I proceeded with caution, because I hadn't given up on finding nice recipes in here, though at this point I had told myself that I was definitely not reading the first 10 chapters. I should have stopped reading. because on page 215 I wa greeted with this sentence

recovered from fucking autism??? if I had any hope left that this book was trying to promote acceptance and inclusivity, it shattered right there. i went back to the first 10 chapters and scanned them. there's bits in there about how to make your child eat things they might be averse to, how to force them to comply. I then, finally, read a summary. appearently some people think that you can cure autism with a low gluten diet? I'm just so tired of this stuff, man. 0 stars. technically DNF. I feel gross after having read this.

[sparklyslug]

just here to say i am obsessed with The (Monster-Hunting) Shop Around the Corner and am eagerly awaiting the last chapter!! idk if you ever do lil previews, totally fine if not, but just here to beg for a little snippet in case you do!

WAUGH THANK YOU SO MUCH! I really really appreciate that! I’m sorry it’s taken longer than planned for the final chapter, work revved up in February and this month I’m focusing on my @strangerthingsreversebigbang, but THEN! UPDATE! I PROMISE! But thank you so so so much for enjoying it so far.

So such patience and kindness of course can only be rewarded with a snippet ahahaha!

……….

Steve’s ringing up a sweet mom (looking for something for her 10-year-old daughter: B*Witched was an easy sell, hiding it from Ned was not) when Eddie Munson breezes through the door. Raising what looks like two paper coffee cups in greeting, one in each hand, and grinning at Steve.

After a moment of surprise, Steve gives him a one second nod, and focuses on wrapping up the sale. Out of the corner of his eye, he tracks Eddie carefully setting the cups down and moving around the shop. “Let me know how she likes it,” Steve says to the mother as she hands her the bag and her receipt, tearing his eyes away from Eddie. With a nod and a smile, she’s out the door, and Steve rests his arms on the counter, regarding Eddie.

He’s lucky it’s just Steve in here right now; he’s apparently forgotten that this time of year your average Chicagoan usually is wrapped up in several layers, a winter coat being the most essential one of them. But Eddie seems comfortable as a September day in his charcoal gray sweater and black jeans, even pushes up the sleeves a little to expose tattooed forearms as he dives into a crate of classic metal LPs.

“Hey kid,” he calls across the store, when Eddie appears to have vanished completely into some music nerd heaven, and forgotten whyever it is he showed up here. “You gonna get your greasy mitts all over every cover, or you actually gonna buy something?”

Eddie’s head shoots up, and after a moment’s confusion his face breaks open into another grin.

“Dude, were you also a frequent shopper at The Tune Factory? Because that was a perfect Mr. Wilkins impression.”

“Where do you think I got all my Wham tapes?” Steve laughs.

“Funny we never ran into each other there,” Eddie says easily, making his way back over to the counter.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Steve says slowly, thinking that it isn’t that funny at all. He doesn’t know which would have gone over worse back then: if Steve had tried to strike up a conversation with Eddie, or if Eddie had tried the same thing with him. He figures Eddie has to know this too, but. Yeah, it’s nice to pretend that it would have been otherwise, now that they’re here.

There’s something different about Eddie today. And not just the forgotten jacket, or the break from his undertaker monochrome approach. Maybe it’s just how he leans a hand on his chin easily, smiling up at Steve.

Huh. Guess it takes seeing Eddie without that thread of stress running through him, to realize it had been there this whole time.

“So what’s a guy like you doing in a dump like this?” Eddie asks. And actually bats his lashes at Steve, which is alarmingly effective given the materials the guy is working with.

“Making minimum wage,” Steve says dryly. “You’re in a good mood.”

“Well, I had my hands full with this totally needy freeloader all last week, and I finally got my place back to myself,” Eddie says easily. “So, lots to celebrate.”

“I bet,” Steve says, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“Speaking of which,” Eddie says, looking around for where he left the cups. “How are you feeling?”

“All good,” Steve admits, pointing over at the display case currently displaying Eddie’s drinks. “Not even a sniffle. And the, uh, sting already looks smaller.” That could be because the bruising around it shaped like Eddie’s mouth has finally faded, but Steve isn’t going to say that.

Eddie grabs the cups, and comes back to the counter.

“Glad to hear it. And feeling any otherworldly urges? Any cravings for blood, or likelihood of sprouting wings?”

“Oh, y’know. No more than usual.”

Eddie rewards him for that one with a laugh. “My business here is two-fold. Okay, actually–three-fold. I did really want to see how you were doing. But also, happened to be in the area, which happens to also be the area of one of the best cocoa spots in town. And also…”

Steve snorts a laugh as Eddie slides one of the cups across the countertop, pushing it along with one finger and looking at Steve with a wide-eyed smile.

“And also… someone might have been spreading rumors around town that you’re all on your lonesome this week, for a certain celebration of American consumption and excess.”

“Someone, huh?” Steve takes the cup, wrapping both palms around it and enjoying the warmth for a second. “Whoever could it be.”

“We may never know,” Eddie says solemnly. “But I figure Wayne's got a big ol couch with room for one more. And I would personally appreciate someone who can entertain him on whatever is happening with ‘The Big Game’–” Steve snorts as Eddie does the air quotes “–so I can get a turkey nap in, undisturbed.”

“So, are you doing me a favor? Or Wayne a favor?”

“Please, I am doing myself a favor,” Eddie says firmly. “I have been trying for more than twenty years to persuade Wayne that there’s no converting me to football. Being gay? After a weekend fishing trip to collect his thoughts, he took that no problem. Being bored to fucking tears by the struggles of the Colts? He’s never been able to accept it.”

Steve laughs. “Yeah, I can talk sports with your uncle for an afternoon. Give you a break.”

Eddie stands up straight, blinking in surprise before he can cover it with an awkward smile. Which is, uh, fair. Steve kind of surprised himself too. Had no intention of actually talking to Wayne and Eddie about Thanksgiving in the first place, whatever he had promised Dustin (which Dustin had probably figured, since he clearly worked it from the other angle, the little jerk). Even in the moment, once he realized what Eddie was asking, he had been mentally preparing a gentle brush off, maybe an I’ll think about it and then conveniently forgetting to say anything until, whoops, whaddaya know, it’s Black Friday.

Steve takes a sip of the cocoa to cover this inexplicably awkward moment, and sputters at the taste.

“Best cocoa in the city?” He manages.

Eddie reaches into his back pocket, and pulls out two mini bottles of whiskey.

“With a few Eddie Munson adjustments,” he says. “Perfect for a long walk home, on a cold November night.”

[blackjackkent]

OK, for better or for worse, time for Hector to deal with these githyanki on The Skull(tm).

Hector's new build with improved WIS for AC and Hill Giant Strength for Tavern Brawler damage is doing a LOT more work than he was previously. :D

58 points of damage on the turn is tasty. :D (I could min-max him to much more with gear but I'm not stressing that much over it.)

The githyanki are also terrifying however so this fight is still mega scary.

MVP of this fight turned out to be Slow from Gale, which I'd forgotten he even had access to until I reset the fight and looked through everyone's spell slots. It made a HUGE difference against these characters who can attack 2335265234 times in a turn and zip all over the place.

VERY INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT HOWEVER - during the middle of this combat, the Guardian/Emperor called out as a combat line:

"I must regain control over the githyanki prince!"

And oh.

Oh shit.

That's Orpheus in the light cage, isn't it?

Holy shit... Lae'zel is going to have a stroke over everything that happened here without her. O.O;

As the fight ends, the Emperor puts the githyanki back into whatever trance he was in when we arrived.

"Thank you," it intones gravely, turning back towards Hector and his companions. "That was too close."

"Don't look at me like that. I am a mind flayer, yes. Without me you would be a slave to the Absolute."

To be honest, I'm not sure Hector even knows what way he was looking at it. He's frightened, yes, but he's been frightened so long that it hardly feels like a change of pace. He's more confused than anything else; what is the "guardian's" true agenda? What is it doing to the githyanki in the trap? And why does it speak with emotion and ferocity, like a creature with a soul?

"Of all the creatures to be indebted to," Shadowheart mutters bitterly. "A bloody mind flayer."

"I ask again," Hector demands. "Who are you? And I'm going to need a name this time." He is so tired of the secrets, of the confusion.

"You may call me the Emperor," the creature says, and raises a fist glowing with pale energy.

A flash of white through his brain, the tadpole connection he is so familiar with from contact with his own companions. The mind flayer's memories surge over him in a rolling wave.

"An adventurer. I came from Baldur's Gate, though I was never one to be constrained by circumstance. I longed for more."

"That longing brought me to Moonrise Towers on a search for treasure. To a colony of mind flayers who caught me, changed me into what I am now. For years I served the elder brain - the one you know as the Absolute. I was a thrall like any other. But I was fortunate - I broke free, and started a new life in my old city."

"I sustained myself on criminals. Unglamorous, but there were plenty of them, rarely missed, and they fueled me while I did my work.

"I had the good fortune to meet Duke Stelmane. We formed a partnership, and through her I became the governing force behind the Knights of the Shield, the largest mercantile operation in Baldur's Gate. People referred to me as the Emperor - such was my influence. Though of course they had no idea what I really was."

"My needs were sated. I was... happy, for a while. Until my true nature was discovered by the tyrant himself - Lord Gortash."

"He tore me from my home and brought me back to the brain where I became a slave once again. A slave he continued to call the Emperor. The name was intended as a slight - to remind me of the heights from which I fell. But I have grown fond of it. It encapsulates well who I've become."

Hector listens to this tale in bewilderment. It seems almost too fantastic to be true - a mind flayer able to live in secrecy within the largest city on the coast? To command the Knights of the Shield, an organization so big even Hector has heard of it? He would think it impossible - if it weren't for Omeluum. He has seen a mind flayer broken free before.

The whole situation makes him feel tremendously uncomfortable. Trapped. But if the story is true, he and the Emperor have a common enemy. The Emperor and Karlach even have a shared experience - that of being pulled from their homes and enslaved by Gortash.

But there are still so many questions...

"That githyanki in the sphere," he says hoarsely, almost afraid to hear the answer. "Who is it?"

"Prince Orpheus," the Emperor says bluntly, confirming Hector's suspicions instantly. "Son of the first leader of the githyanki. His power has been the source of your continued protection against the Absolute - the power to disrupt hivemind communication. It is the same power that enabled Orpheus's mother to bring about the fall of the Illithid Empire eons ago, a power she passed on to him, and that I leveraged for you."

It turns to look steadily at the githyanki prisoner suspended with the shield at the center of the skull.

"When Orpheus's mother left, a usurper took her place. Vlaaktih declared herself 'queen' of the githyanki," it goes on, its voice a low growl. "Vlaakith wanted his power, but Orpheus rose against her. And so she sealed him and his honor guard within this Prism. Bound by infernal chains, Orpheus could never leave. Bound by duty, his guard never would. They were close to breaking my hold on their prince - and if they had succeeded, we would be lost."

It looks back towards Hector and inclines its head approvingly. "I am releived you have embraced your potential enough that you could help me eliminate them. Alone, Orpheus will be much easier to control."

Hector swallows. Not since the creche - and possibly not ever - has he been so confused about the right thing to do. He trusted the guardian (to a degree), and he needs the Emperor. But the imprisoned githyanki makes him uncomfortable. The Emperor's interest in his potential makes him very uncomfortable. The swirl of unspoken and unexplained intentions makes him tremendously uncomfortable.

"Were you imprisoned here too?" he asks.

"No," the mind flayer answers. "Gortash sent me on a mission to retrieve the Astral Prism. I was one of many, but the first to find it. How Gortash and the other Chosen learned of its existence, I do not know. The moment I found it, I felt a change. My free will returning. I followed the feeling inside - and found Orpheus. I realized what the Prism was for: containment. While my body was within the Prism's bounds, my mind was free. I could resist the elder brain, the Chosen. Better yet, I could plan to overthrow them. All I needed to do was subdue Orpheus and find allies in the outer world. You."

Hector remembers the visions of battle the guardian showed him before. He had assumed it was some extension of the battle against the Absolute, but in truth it was this creature battling against the incursions of githyanki trying to rescue their prince. The rebels against Vlaakith - the people like Voss.

"Was it you or Orpheus that Vlaakith wanted us to kill when she ordered us inside the Prism?" he asks, quirking one eyebrow up thoughtfully.

"Most certainly Orpheus," the Emperor says placidly. "He is a threat to her reign. Some githyanki still revere him, in defiance of their teachings. Vlaakith was safe as long as they believed him to be dead. But as you can see, he is very much alive. She kept him this way because she was reluctant to eradicate such power, power that she might one day wish to take from him. If the githyanki ever find out what she has done, there will be civil war. Vlaakith will be finished."

"What happens if we free Orpheus?" Hector asks.

"That would be a terrible idea," the Emperor snaps at once. "The moment he is free, he will attack you. Your only defense would be to kill him. And in so doing, you would doom us both."

Narrator: Even though he is subdued, you feel Orpheus's revulsion - a pulsing hatred that cannot be contained. The Emperor is telling the truth. To him, you are just another wretched illithid.

"You carry a tadpole," the Emperor growls. "As far as Orpheus is concerned, you are already illithid - a sworn enemy, just like me."

Thoughts are swirling in Hector's head, a variety of panicked possibilities. Could they bring Lae'zel here? Have her talk to Orpheus, calm him, explain the situation, work with him, free him from this prison? And yet the Emperor is right, the risk in doing so is terribly high and the cost of failure so astronomical...

He needs to get away from this place, needs time and space to think, to talk with those he trusts - among whom the Emperor no longer falls.

The creature's words strike him painfully as he struggles to settle his mind - the implication that in working alongside the Emperor, he has become a monster himself. "I'm no illithid," he says defensively. "And never will be."

"You are already more illithid than you realize - it has improved you," the Emperor says, and there's a strange sort of smirk in its tone that Hector does not like at all. "You seek to reverse an inevitable process, a process of evolution. When I first escaped from the elder brain, I too railed against the change. But the longer I have inhabited this form, the more it has grown on me."

It leans forward, staring intently into Hector's eyes. "Even if my original body remained intact after I transformed, I would not return to it. Doing so would only impose limitations. As an illithid, I have far surpassed who I ever was before. You, too, should embrace this change."

Hector's stomach churns with sudden revulsion. Any sense of safety he felt here suddenly evaporates. The Emperor may be his ally against the elder brain, but it is not his friend - it wishes him to become a mind flayer as well, simply of a different sort, free-minded but transformed.

"I'm trying to avoid becoming a mind flayer," he says sharply. "I thought you agreed to protect me."

"I believe we'll have a better chance of defeating the elder brain if you embrace your latent illithid potential," the Emperor says calmly. "I've been studying you for a while now. I believe I can trigger the next stage of your tadpole's lifecycle while continuing to preserve your independence." It takes another step towards him. "You have seen what I can do. Imagine yourself with the same strength. The same intelligence. The same devastating beauty. If you let me, I can evolve you."

Hector's skin prickles all over. He doesn't dare look away from the mind flayer but he is sure his companions are showing the same dismay and revulsion that he himself feels. "No," he says, shaking his head fiercely. "No way."

Narrator: Even as you say the words, you feel a lurch of disappointment. Your mind bristles with illithid potential. How could you be so cruel to deny yourself what you want most in the world?

The sensation of the tadpole itself seizing his emotions makes him feel even more ill. There is no safety even inside his own mind anymore.

The Emperor cocks its head to one side, as if amused. "I felt that. It's your nature. You cannot fight it, so embrace it."

It extends a hand, sending a pale green, glowing tadpole drifting towards Hector in the plane's lighter gravity.

"It wants to evolve," the Emperor growls. "But it cannot do so alone. It must commune with another."

"What is it?" Hector whispers hollowly.

"A tadpole, nurtured by the psionic energy of the Astral Plane," the mind flayer answers. "Cocooned here for millenia, it has become extraordinary."

Hector swallows, closes his eyes, fights against the force within his mind trying to urge him forward. [WISDOM] "No," he forces out. "I won't do it."

(A/N: NATURAL FUCKING 20! THAT'S MY BOY!!!!!!!!)

Narrator: A wave of disappointment, stronger than any you've ever felt. And then - stillness. You have resisted your illithid instincts - for now.

He realizes his free hand is clenched at his side, his jaw tight, his eyes squeezed shut. Every iota of his focus has been channeled into finding the stillness at the center of him. The calm. All things with her strength. I walk in the Moonmaiden's light... no grief nor pain nor fury shall wrest me from her path...

And the strain begins to ease, the tadpole receding into dormancy again. He can breathe. He can open his eyes.

The Emperor watches him thoughtfully, unblinking. "You are not ready yet," it murmurs. "Keep hold of it, then. Until you are. Perhaps you will be more inclined to try it when you see more of what our enemy can do."

It shakes its head sharply. "But we mustn't lose focus. We need to resume our journey. You heard the Chosen. The brain has gone to the city, and the army marches to follow. We must not let them reach it. We must find the brain and bring it under our control."

Hector isn't sure he much likes the way it says that, either.

-----

"Let's go," he mutters to the others. His voice has started to shake as the adrenaline required to look the creature in the eye begins to fade. "Let's go. Now. Let's get out of here. We need to go."

"Are you all right?" Gale asks with some concern as they begin striding out of the skull as fast as their legs can carry them. "I very nearly thought your tadpole was going to make you--"

"It nearly did," Hector says curtly. "We need to go."

"Are we trusting this thing, then?" Karlach asks; her longer stride keeps up with him easily.

"No."

"But we're working with it."

"What choice do we have?"

They've never heard him so blunt, so clipped-off. "Soldier--"

"I don't know!" he snaps, not looking at any of them. "I-- we need to get out of here and I need to think. And I need to talk to Lae'zel. And I don't think any of us are going to enjoy it, including her."

[the-sparrow-sings]

Which Fable is your favorite and how long have you been playing? :)

I started playing when I was super young myself lol

Thank you for asking! I honestly can't remember how old I was. I know I was pretty young, but I can't remember if my brother was born yet or not when I started playing (I am SIGNIFICANTLY older than my brother, and I did a lot of his raising. If we were in a Fable game, I'd have died in the tutorial).

I do remember buying him his own copy at some point so he could play in his room when he was old enough to play it (my mom had a hyperfixation on fixing broken game consoles, so people would just give us their red-ringing xbox 360s, or she'd buy them super cheap, so even though we lived in a trailer in the woods we each had an xbox in our rooms lol).

Suffice it to say I was fairly young.

In any case, Fable 2 was my first Fable (my Great-Aunt bought it for me for Christmas when I was young because Sparrow on the cover reminded her of the characters I used to draw), and I hold it INCREDIBLY dear.

To me, Fable 2 (and Fable as a whole) had such an absolutely PERFECT aesthetic of "Fantasy that doesn't take itself too seriously", with pirates, steampunk elements, lampshades to its own plotholes/nonsensical worldbuilding, Frankensteining Lady Grey (my last name used to be Gray, so of course she was my favorite wife). NOT TO MENTION THE COMPLETE NORMALIZATION OF BEING BISEXUAL, WITH CANONICALLY LGB CHARACTERS (though transgender people weren't represented, to my knowledge. Outside of Sparrow's ability to change sex with the potion in the castle)...anyway, as a young bisexual, it meant a lot to me to see "Bisexual" in the description for random NPCs. It wasn't "playersexual" or highlighted to the point of making it seem like the developers were doing it for clout or worse, shock value. Reaver's bisexuality, while flagrant, felt natural in universe considering the fact that we could plainly see that bisexuality is common in Albion.

Though, I will say the fact that I play Fable 3 as though I'm Sparrow's ghost watching it all play out says something about how MUCH I love Fable 2 lol

Sparrow being nonverbal and having a difficult relationship with her mother figure really spoke to me too when I was young. I took the entire narrative SO personally, and it still effects me as an adult lol.

. . .

You didn't ask, but I was WEIRDLY attached to Reaver, to the point where it confused me, and then I later found out that Stephen Fry voiced an audiobook cassette I used to listen to to calm myself down when I woke up from night terrors as a child (a frequent occurrence). I was pavloved into finding Reaver EXTREMELY comforting. So I guess it makes sense that I picture Reaver as a sort of toxic unhealthy source of comfort for Sparrow in the aftermath of all that happened with The Spire. (Especially since Reaver himself suffers from night terrors)

I'm the Creative Lead at a ghostwriting agency that specializes in romance (increasingly more Fantasy Romance) and I feel like Fable 2 shaped a lot about my writing. It was just very good at having rich worldbuilding without having to make the narrative point to it like "LOOK AT MY RICH WORLD BUILDING". Spreaver was also THE first major "Ship" that I lost my mind over. So, my career as a romance writer was severely influenced by the way I ship Spreaver.

Reaver and Sparrow are T H E comfort characters for me.

ANYWAY THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!

[rainbow-sheeps]

hi ^^ im in need of some advice

so, my relationship w/ God is non existent. i dont talk to Him, acknowledge or think of until its night (then i get nervous about death for me and my family and then i pray) and i dont want to do this anymore. i used to be close to Him but then i just stopped being (i stopped bible reading as i didnt know how to read the bible in a way that was helping and not hurting my mental health) and i just dont know how to have a relationship w/ God honestly. what does a relationship w/ someone who is invisible even look like? im really confused and i just want to be close to Him again but i dont even know where to start :( any help is appreciated <3

Hi, Admin Kili here with some words of encouragement from their older sister, Elf, who is a queer affirming seminary student.

"Faith is a lot more than just trusting feelings that there is someone there. I know for sure, even being in Seminary there are days where I feel far from God. It is hard. Faith is the assurance that we have that we will be raised again on the last day when Jesus comes again, and in the meantime it can feel lonely and hard to understand or feel like we can see him. The good news is, when Jesus returned to the Father he left us the Holy Spirit as a sign that we have been brought into God's family- the family from which all others get their names. Doubt is normal. Thomas, one of Jesus's disciples doubted that Jesus had been resurrected. John, Jesus's earthly cousin, even sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah or if they should wait for someone else. My professors remind us that theology is faith seeking understanding. It is hard to put our faith in someone we can't see" It's hard to trust what you can't see, even professors of theology say that themselves. You're valid in your doubt and your worries. What's more, you're still loved even on days where you feel your faith in God is waning, or even non-existent. You're a much loved child of the king.

Elf had one more thing to say before she left the call where I asked her for help on how to answer.

"Studying the word doesn't always come easy to me, but it's been made easier by being taught how to read the Bible like it was written, as God's overarching story of creation-fall-redemption-restoration. It also helps to be surrounded by a faith community, if you can find one. If not, then you still have the Triune God with you. Before the creation of the world God existed eternally in a loving relationship of the Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Father, and the Spirit binding them together. When we become Christians we are brought into that relationship.  You are not alone in this. Doubting is not a great unforgivable sin. It is normal when we are faced with the cosmic. One of my good friends here at my seminary said to me that God loves to answer prayers where we show dependence on him- and asking God to show himself to us is a prayer he loves to answer."

Her closing words are thus.

"My faith grows stronger through times of testing. We live in a self sufficient society so it can be hard to set aside my desire to pull myself up from my doubts and be the perfect Christian. But I've come to see that my relationship with God is not about me, but about him. He reached down from eternity to pull me out of this corrupted world and bring me into his kingdom. No amount of feelings can replace what faith really is- choosing which narrative to live in without hedging your bets (this is a quote from a commentary I read). Even C.S Lewis said there were days when he felt doubt. When I have those days I remember that I am placing my bets on the God I have seen in the Bible, who has spent the whole of history to this point trying to redeem his creation back to him."

We love you, and we're praying for you. If you aren't already on Sheep, we would love to have you. Have a wonderful day, and we love you.

[itsdefinitely]

things i noticed on the opening night of beetlejuice at the national theater

putting a read more because this is a long post

-didnt change the whole being dead thing unfortunately :(

-there was no sandy in the whole being dead thing :(

-justin collette does what i can only describe as a gay voice (he also does The Voice really well; its consistent!!)

-at the pose for the whole being dead thing, beetlejuice motions for the crowd to keep cheering (a lot) until rhe crowd is screaming and then he starts. uh. well. hm.

-the purple curtains that are slightly open and emit smoke are used for scene changes

-"and then the b-man is free and the mai tais are on me" someone in the audience: "woo!" "yeah, woo. woos for all of us"

-beetlejuice does that thing when you pretend to walk down the stairs behind the couch

-they changed ready set not yet to be about wiring!

-the maitlands die of an electric shock instead of falling to their death

-beetlejuice exited stage right, and then walked down the stairs when entering next; he just kept teleporting around the stage like that

-when beetlejuice was being melodramatic about the puppet show, he got on the floor to keep screaming

-"that was one heck of a shock" dont judge me. i like the line changes.

-barbara dry heaves after finding out she died

-they kept barbara's hand being on fire!!

-during the whole being dead thing pt 2, beetlejuice reads off his hand to remember how to spell his name

-during the whole being dead thing pt 2, beetlejuice does a think where he pretends hes riding a horse (yknow at the end when the horse walking sounds happen)

-everyone started cheering when beetlejuice was doing the thing with adam on the chair… you know the one… so he KEPT GOING AND PRETENDED HE WAS RIDING A HORSE (a theme that may continue to appear later)

-okay i dont know how to describe it, but adam and barbara are played in a way that is Violently Bisexual (i love it so much oh my god)

-LYDIA IS PLAYED LIKE A TEENAGER!!

-i wasnt really sure about delia at first but i love that she mispronounces So Many Words (like. more than Leslie Kritzer did)

-instead of the house going back, the purple curtains lower again during dead mom

-THE COMEDIC TIMING ON "…aaaand thats how i got herpes."

"…"

"…"

"frOM KATHARINE HEPBURN!!"

-barbara and adam are so good auuughhhhhhh theyre so much more. i dunno. uh. in touch?? like, they feel less like dorks (still dorks though)

-when adam interrupts beetlejuice's soliloquy, theres like the biggest pause.

-"im sorry guys, ill pay you for the full day" as the soliloquy chorus is leaving

-"you make." dramatic pause "daddy." another dramatic pause "SO angry."

-i love barbara so much in this shes more of a girlboss than usual

-okay i know how to describe it now. there is so much like. body language in this. adam is a lot more raunchy, barbara is a lot more realistic (she flosses at one point), and there is SO much hip thrusting from beetlejuice (no t-rex arms though)

-they close the curtains again, and only half of it opens for delia's scene (amazing staging)

-delia doesnt do the fortnite dance during no reason

-lydia sounds so much more genuinely confused than amused when she says "is this still about me?"

-adam and barbara with sheets over their heads project on the screen behind lydia

-the curtains raise when lydia chases them, and its the attic again

-"perhaps i myself am strange and unusual"

-she sounds so heartbroken when barbara asks "and your mom?" "dead."

-"should we get the sheets?" "adam" "we should get the sheets" "adam." "no no no we should-" "ADAM" looks at each other walks offstage without the sheets (it was probably to stall for the scene change)

-like with no reason, half the curtain raises instead of all of it

-"i am very good at sex." its so funny to me because delia is played as So over-the-top and this is Completely deadpan

-lydia is so whiney (i dont know any other way to describe it) when she says "and their eyes are mad of the deeevill" it feels like a real teenager

-being able to hear every footstep after "i wish i were dead."

-half the curtain raises again, the opposite side to the previous scene

-no wig change :(

-they kept the extra arm/leg!!

-green lights when beetlejuice says "im gonna have a new best FRIEEEEEEEEEEND"

-this is mostly unchanged, but i love all of it anyway

-they kept beetlejuice burning the note

-when beetlejuice gets knocked off, theres a projection of the smoke ring

-say my name gets extended at the end!! at the "gonna make him say me name (make him sya your name)" part!! for an extra 2-4 bars i think

-ah yes. this is the scene.

-lydia pretends to do a ballet move (i cant remember what its called)

-delia isnt wearing lingerie, and her dress doesnt get ripped off

-everybody cheers for day-o (as they should)

-no pig, but we have the small plate with the meat hand on it, and maxie dean's wife says that line (the deep "daylight come and me wan go home")

-beetlejuice still emerges from the table!!

-all the green spotlights on him when he says:

-"it's showtime"

-HE DID THE. HE SAID THE THING!! HE SAID THE THING!!

-obviously, no big face and hands, but they hand wood/cardboard (cant tell which, probably wood) versions of them

-they keep the carnival projection on the stage

-"guess we're not invisible anymore"

-can i mention again the justin collette does The Voice??? its slkdkcidiwoksmcnskkw

end of act one

-SKYE!!

-theres no physical house prop, but the curtains are lowered and the house is projected onto it

-the projection and all the lights turn red when skye inhales deeply

-skye does her best not to look at lydia

-EVERYBODY LAUGHING WHEN "well we're really not supposed to" "why?" "pedophiles :]"

-i couldnt see it clearly, but i think skye had a fire instead of a flashlight

-"boo"

-this part is mainly unchanged too, but i really really like it still

-skye runs out the door (instead of walking up the stairs and disappearing)

-beetlejuice clones!!

-the pie lady actually catches the pie (when i saw it on broadway she didint)

-theres no "that looks like a penis" :(

-i love the npr tote bag. i kinda want one

-beetlejuice doesnt put on a sad little kid voice when talking about his mother drinking. its more like it happened when he was a teenager/young adult. he also doesnt do the "i shouldve left like your-" sad sad about to cry voice "father" he says the line, but his voice doent break. hes more mean

-"get her to marry me" clones: "huh????" "oh, its like a uhm. green card thing." clones: "ohhhhh" "yeah, yeah. strictly business"

-during that beautiful sound pt 2 (which i adore) beetlejuice makes a zip your mouth kind of motion when the clones are supposed to be quiet, which like. is that possession??

-the transition between these scenes is beetlejuice directing two of his clones to run in circles while the set around them gets moved

-i love the glowy effect with the book (also you can hear every page turn)

-picking up a metal detector "i never even used this. and then i felt bad that i never used it" pretends to use the metal detector "beep beep beep beep"

-"get right outside my comfort zone" LEANS TO THE SIDE AND RUNS HANDS DOWN TORSO

-delia jumping up on the couch

-delia and charles's dramatic sighing

-OKAY HOLY FUCK. THE WAY OTHO SAYS "toyota prius" BROKE MY BRAIN HE LIKE. THERES AN ACCENT AND HE ROLLS THE R

-i just. i like otho

-"the b is silent, but it still stings" "no, not that one" "why say doubt, when you can stop at do" "not that one" "doubt. it has a 'u' but it doesnr have a 'me'" "thats the one"

-"ugh classic maitlands. yknow what?" steps towards the edge of the stage, looking at the audience "theyre the real villains of this show" lydia: "what?" "nothing"

-"classic bait and switch, oldest trick in the book" looks off to the side and sighs

-"Normally, I perform exorcisms por bono, but you made me come to-" the most disgusted voice "-Connecticut"

-barbara still floats!!

-no wig change for the whole being dead thing pt 4

-theres still the fire clickers!!

-beetlejuice comes from the stairs instead of rising from the floor

-i never noticed this before but otho, delia, and charles get bound by chains

-adams mouth gets sealed shut its so cool aaae

-"i want you… to marry me!" everyone: "WHAT?" very exasperated "oh cmon guys its a greencard thing"

-good old fashioned wedding my beloved

-the door is still green and expels fog

-"classic bait and switch, oldest trick in the book!"

*pause*

"why does everyone keep leaving me :D" he doesnt even sound mad. then,

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

it went on for at least 30 seconds (probably more)

i cannot stress enough how long that scream went on for

-*holding his head in his hands, the most tired and defeated voice ever*

"alright. new plan."

"youre all going to die"

*happy cheery joyful*

"TOODAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY"

-flashing lights going on for forever as they change to the netherworld (i know it takes a bit to change scenes but my eyes Hurt)

-they do the thing with the white square things lighting up one by one

-miss argentina has a southern accent and mispronounces argentina

-IF I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOOOOWWWWW

-angry pygmys still shrunk his head <:(

-juno was like. too much for me i think. tone her down a little. also, she doesnt have the smoke machine that makes it look like she's smoking (still has a cigarette though)

-chase sequence!!

-lydia is genuinely so heartbreaking (she is usually but this show especially)

-theres no life or death sign (from what i saw) but the logo is on a podium with a sheet on it

-adams podium still says sexy-beetlejuice has a cool suit i love it!!

-he didnt really yell; the "where the contestants suck and the host is very angry" was all in the same tone

-"let me check my stocks"

*the sheet on the aforementioned podium is lifted, revealing otho/kevin in stocks*

-kevin offers to give beetlejuice his prius, claiming that "IT WAS A PLUG-IN" before hes wheeled offstage to the sound of wood splintering on impact

-"Mr. Juice."

-"HOLD ON JUST ONE DAMN MINUTE"

ill be honest, i dont know if it was because ive seen the show before (most likely) or if it was because adam was more bold throughout the rest of the show, but it didnt have the same impact. but this makes up for it:

-as adam is telling everyone everything, he gets close to beetlejuice to the point where they are inches apart and his hands are on beetlejuice's ass

-the kiss!! slay!!

-barbara is actually angry, and adam says "maitlands 2.0" to get her on the same page

-barbara cant kiss beetlejuice HAH

-"WAIT WAIT WAIT. this is all very

believable.

im a highly sexual being and i do love an orgy. but you all dont strike me as the orgying kind. except for her."

*points to delia*

"shes done some stuff."

*delia pauses, and then makes a big motion with her arms like "yeah you got me"*

-TEAR AWAY COSTUME!!

-his hair changes too!!

-GLITTER CONFETTI!!

-the lights still turn pink when

"i cant believe some cultures think this kind of things alright"

-OKAY BUT. BEETLEJUICE AND ADAM GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES ACROSS THE STAGE

-this part is very unchanged

-i love the living monologue. i love the birds and the stock song thay plays and the roller-coaster of emotions and the being hit over the head and the being stabbed

-juno is back!!

-"one minute youre on top of the world, and the next minute, you feel like no one will ever love you… this guy knows what im talking about!

i pick on you because i see myself in you. later tonight. say my name three times."

-"and you."

*dramatic noise the whole stage turns blue except for a spotlight on lydia*

-THE SANDY PUPPET!! EATS JUNO!! SANDY IS HERE!!

-"look lydia now we both have dead moms!"

*nobody onstage laughs, the audience losing their minds*

*pause*

*swinging the severed leg back and forth*

*uses the leg like a golf club*

"and a swing and a miss"

someone in the audience: "FORE!"

*flips them off* "three. fuck you."

-*in a scottish accent* "charles ya ripe old bastard never change"

"i already have changed. ive changed a lot."

*no accent* "well thennn... go fuck yourself"

-when beetlejuice and delia are doing… that thing during the goodbyes, beetlejuice pretends to ride a horse towards delia (told you the theme would return) and she pretends to ride a horse when he gets close

-"dora" "delia" "we didnt hang out much"

-"i think ill miss you most of all. scarecrow. boop" *put cowboy hat on lydia*

-i love beetlejuice's exit so much, gets carried dramatically by his clones only to be put down right after

-"GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD. I’LL NEVER COME THIS WAY AGAIN! TELL MY STORYYYYYY"

*pause*

"this has been a strange day."

-lydia still floats during jump in the line/dead mom reprise

-"im home."

end of act two

[flashdyke]

a lot of lesbian blogs talk about lesbianism and fighting for rights and in general, external things. but what about internal? how do you deal with the shame that comes with experiencing homophobia and knowing how much you could lose (family, friends, comfort in love like holding your girls hand anywhere in public..) ? what's your mindset behind this? thank you (๑╹ω╹๑ )

My mindset is that because I understand, "Lesbians are natural, healthy, and equally entitled to express love and be respected" as a principle, I have it as a structure to apply to myself or anyone else.

A big part of how I know that is that I just got to be raised the right way. The fact that lesbians are normal and worthy of respect is not something I've had to find out later on, but I have reinforced it by choosing to invest my time in learning about lesbian culture and history, and choosing to maintain the perspective that these are things of value.

It's also reinforced by seeing how and why this confuses other people. Non-lesbians are so confused, even enraged, by the idea that lesbianism is a natural, fully-formed sexuality, and that those of us who were able to develop this way find any worth in ourselves, each other and our subculture. They ask, "Why?" and in turn you can ask, "Why not?" and not automatically accept the starter position that lesbians and lesbian culture don't have value, at which point you find that there are no intelligent, non-bigoted reasons to think that way in the first place.

Then, how you handle the lesbophobia you may be exposed to becomes a matter of how you want to match up the knowledge that you are objectively entitled to respect and understanding with how much you value the source of the problem (family, religious beliefs, law) and what you have at your disposal to deal with it. If your family does not love you enough to accept completely harmless facets of you just because they're unusual, why on earth should they expect that you "love" (obey) them enough to crush yourself down like that? If what they've done for you as family was an act of love, why would they want to?

But again, it will depend on how each woman values these things. Woman X may be prepared to leave her family or her whole country, and she might have the money to do it or she might not. Woman Y may be ok with her parents thinking her wife is her flatmate. Woman Z may choose to invent a god that actually has morals, instead of pursuing the volatile and abusive ones that are popular. Those are not decisions I would make, and in this context they're not decisions I've had to make. I would just hope that those decisions are made with a genuine conviction in their right to happiness and safety as lesbians playing a serious role.

The main internal difficulty I've had is kind of shallow compared to those things, and is just accepting how much I am physically attracted to women, and kind of how I feel in my body in relation to that. That's largely been a matter of Just Doing It, and writing in my diary a lot. When something started to niggle at me, I'd just write it out in my private space, so that I'm used to talking about the feelings I have for women, and I can reason out the little neuroses I get about whether I look or behave 'normally' - and then I apply the principles that I have, and I see how it is perfectly natural and healthy to really, really, really, really like having sex with other women and to not behave exactly according to stereotype etc. And that in turn is helped by the investment in lesbian culture and seeing other women also talk about the same things.

[learning2fly05]

5/21/2023

Hello folks! Its been awhile since the last time I typed in this thing. Since the last post, a lot of things have changed here. I believe I did mention that I applied for another department and possibly was waiting to see if I got hired by them or not. Well, I got hired!! I already went through training and have been out of it for like 2 months. The work has been confusing, but I am learning a lot of new things every day. It was a blessing in disguise with being hired because I was expecting to be taking calls once I was done with training, but that’s not the case. First I got hired during this upgrade which made this department I’m in shut their phone lines because of how many emails we have in backlog. Currently, we are still working on that and no phone calls yet. I suspect by the end of May and or into the middle of June is when we MIGHT get our phone line on and running again. Why I say might like that is because of another surprise that came to me, well, us as a whole team. Since we’ve been doing this all without phone calls coming in, then it may seem we will be a complete offline department forever. Another blessing in disguise is that I thought I would be taking calls, but once I was told that I was in specific team within this team, this team does not take calls. I was dumbfounded by this and happy at the same time. It makes me very happy, on top of recent news that we might just totally be offline all is aligning perfectly since I got hired.

Due to the backlog and being offline, we were given incentives due to the overtime we all been given and told we needed to do. We have gotten a lot of incentives and some have helped with us here in buying things we have been needing to get to fix the house. Sadly by the end of this month, those incentives will be over, but we will still be able to do overtime, in which I have been doing during the week. I tried a couple of times doing overtime during the weekend, but that just didn’t cut it for me since it took me away from my husband and just having time to relax. So I just do over time during the week for 2 hours or so after my shift is over. Also, my husbands shift has changed tremendously to a crappy one from 12 pm to 9 pm while mine is what I had previously before I changed departments. So its been hard on us to have any relaxing time during the week with each other. We try to work things out due to it during the weekends, but errands get in the way as well.

Speaking of incentives, I decided to treat myself to getting a new camera and some accessories with my “pay raise” and the incentives I’ve been receiving and points from work. I upgrade it and now I have a Nikon Z50! I will still keep my old camera, but I already enjoy this new one and its extra features it has. I also just recently just purchased a domain name for my website. This was just sudden, but pricing and time was right. My website needed an upgrade anyways and I deserved a new toy as well.

Guess who’s back, back again?! -facepalm- my sister-in-law and her family are back living in Texas again. They apparently were not happy in Kentucky and decided to move back. They are not living with us currently, so that’s a relief for us. I believe they were attempting to contact us prior to ask us if they can stay with us again, but mother-in-law advised them otherwise. So far, I guess they are doing good living with my mother-in-law, but mother-in-law is now starting to see what we were telling her prior of them, so I’m glad she is now seeing it. You got to experience it to understand it of course.

I also have decided to work on my health. About 2 1/2 years ago I decided to go visit a doctor to do my yearly checkups because at the time I was thinking of leaving the company I currently work for due to the fact of my mental health just not able to bare it and almost broke me. I don’t like doctors and needles, mind you through all this I’m going to say. With this in mind, I thought finally, let me just get what I need done and leave. That appointment just threw me a curve ball in my life. I was told that I have Fibroids and one as big as a grapefruit size, with others smaller than the main large one. My heart sank. I knew something, prior to this, was going on with me and I didn’t know what it was. Then I was recommended one Doctor that I saw and then this Dr was leaving the practice and recommended me 3 other Drs. After seeing the last Dr then, life just got in the way and didn’t do much about it, plus it didn’t sound urgent by either Drs. Now, in April 2023, I took the courage to see one of the Drs recommended to me to only tell me that I shouldn’t be at his clinic since he can’t do much for me, surgery wise and the alike. He is more of a fertility Dr, if we were interested in doing that differently due to this news. So this Dr recommended me a surgeon and well I’m glad I’m doing all this now since its aligning with life now and work too oddly enough. Either way, this Dr examined me again and asked for images and as of now they have been done. She totally recommended me to see this other Dr that uses robots to do the surgery. I already have an appt scheduled for this other Dr. Now, I just need to wait and do the consultation in July and see when this can all be behind me. I will definitely need to tell my parents when I see them in July, all of this. That won’t be taken lightly by them since there will be tears during it. At least I don’t need to have a hysterotomy, the bright side of this all. Told some of my friends at work and they have been through this of removal, so I’m glad I told them just for a heads up of course, but they did tell me their stories and they were positive of course. Everything is aligning perfectly... which usually doesn’t happen. I fear that, too perfect. I hope I’m overreacting with this. Yes, I think I am. 

[nookishposts]

Hit Pause

I haven't been able to really write in some time and there are reasons. My life is on a pause for the next while, because my brain and body made me do it; I was not listening so they ganged up to make their point.

I was sitting at work one day, after a series of back-to-back respiratory viruses had left me physically depleted, and suddenly I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. My mind went blank and the simplest tasks slipped away into a maze of confusion. It was scary. I went to see my primary care provider and together we began to untangle the knots that had choked me into a complete stop. She is a smart cookie and knew the right questions to ask. She also had had an eerily similar experience herself, for which I remain very grateful as it means she "gets" what I have a hard time explaining. Including the brutal self-recrimination part.

(I was raised in the era of the Protestant work ethic motto of "Suck it up Buttercup" meaning I went to work no matter what, without complaint because that's what was expected. Taking time off was akin to weakness, in mind and body and that was shameful. We didn't want to let our co-workers down, or miss a paycheck. In those days, employers had the same expectation and could find ways to fire a person they saw as "slacking" if it interfered with production. Thankfully, workplace laws are different now and workers are a bit more protected.)

There were a number of contributing factors. I'd said goodbye to the massage and reflexology practice that had sustained me for 27 years, and with which I had defined myself more than I realised. I/we had experienced a huge number of significant deaths over a period of 10 months, people who had been key figures in my life; family members, mentors, teachers, and contemporaries: I stopped counting after we hit 20. I had taken on a full time job with a health centre I believed in and had worked for previously in a part time capacity, a job that I was very pleased to get, but one that shifted constantly.

Repeated viruses tanked my immune system. I stopped sleeping more than a couple of hours a night and awakened choking on mucus and flailing from nightmares. My muscles and joints hurt and I didn't digest food properly, leaving me with constant nausea and poor nutritional uptake. I fought to get up and just kept trying to push through each dizzying day, but ended up calling in sick more and more often. I became anxious and angry at myself for feeling so vulnerable: because anger is easier than admitting fear. It bothered me deeply that my wonderful office mate and our exceptional manager kept having to cover my ass and that clients, volunteers, and programs were left waiting. Even my teeth were crumbling. From clenching everything back into my throat and lungs. And my soul.

And then I stopped being able to think at all, or remember the simplest things.

I went numb in order to cope.

Blood work revealed that my vitamin D stores were 20% of what they needed to be. I tan easily and figured I was getting enough D from being outside a lot on our micro-farm. Nope. Symptoms of D deficiency include: joint pain and swelling, muscle weakness, tingling and numbing of hands and feet, cognitive issues, disturbed sleep architecture, extreme fatigue and cramping muscle spasms. My practitioner was smart enough to order the test based on a hunch, and she was bang-on. Suddenly a whole lot of seeming unconnected symptoms made perfect sense. Its a slow cumulative deficiency. I am now taking 5 times the daily recommended dose of D and it's starting to make a difference after only a couple of weeks. It's going to take time to get me where I need to go. I am still not sleeping and hence undergoing Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for chronic insomnia. Medications don't work for this, it's a matter of re-setting the sleep drive with careful steps over time, and knowing that it gets worse before it gets better.

But my brain remained in overwhelm drive.

In a flash of inspiration I called my therapist from decades ago, to see if by some chance she was still practising and would agree to see me on zoom, to teach me some better coping strategies. She is, and she does, thank heavens! She knows me and we can skip the preliminaries and get right into things. She also dovetails really well with my primary care practitioner and they tag team me. Together they added to the list of official diagnoses, Compassion Fatigue, which I'd only dimly heard of. I had not had time to grieve and process between the deaths of loved ones, so a cumulative effect swamped me into feeling nothing at all. I was offered the analogy of hitting my thumb with a hammer...the pain is so extreme that you don't even feel it at first because your body goes into protective mode until you can catch up. It was also pointed out to me that I'd put a great deal of my creative and caring energies into a successful practice over 27 years and having to let it go had taken a significant piece of my identity with it. I'd specialised in working with people for whom massage had been challenging: people with body dysmorphia due to illness, trauma, size, scars, age, etc. I missed them. I missed listening, easing seized and painful muscles, and supporting others as they became more comfortable with themselves through patience and practice, one gentle , non-judgemental step at a time.

Which I now need to do for myself. Irony of ironies.

I am at that age where elders and contemporaries are getting sick and dying, it's a statistical inevitability. But these rapidly disappearing loved ones were not acquaintances, they were all people who had impacted my life significantly and helped form the person I am still becoming. They represent to some degree my history and my story. Even now, I find myself picking up the phone to call or text, or composing an email, forwarding a joke, needing to ask a question or seek advice from someone who has moved on to whatever comes after the death of the body. I can put the phone down, but I can't remove their names from my contact lists. Reminders and triggers are everywhere. Rather than fight or deny them, I try to allow them to be part of the shifting kaleidoscope that contributes to my new normal. Growth means change, and some of that means loss. I grieve not just for myself but for the families and friends of those key people. Too many, too quickly.

I have the luxury of medically-endorsed time off. EI sick benefits are coming soon. I have been instructed to rest, eat simply, not think too hard, just allow thoughts and feelings to surface without judgement or analysis. To doodle freely and bypass expectations. That's not easy for a usually over-busy brain like mine. I have to take my vitamins, not push myself, not make any big decisions for a while. Thankfully, my Beloved also gets it, and is gently supportive, watching me slowly return to the person she has lovingly invested so much in. The stony, stoic flatness I experienced was unnerving for her too. My body remains exhausted and unpredictable, my short term memory and word-finding skills still suck and I have to remind myself that it's okay to not be okay. Having met a couple of people who have been through something like this, really helps me feel validated in the amount time it will take to become well again. Regarding my employment work situation, I have been reminded : "Its not your job to take care of them. It's theirs." Okay.

If I am fortunate, I will get another 25-30 years on the planet and I want to spend them well, especially since they seem to go so fast. The last thing I want to be fighting is myself. Managing perceived expectations versus the glorious sticky mess of human reality is a fool's game and can make a person sick. And it can all be gone in a heartbeat anyway, in spite of our best intentions. Savour it all.

Pay attention when your body speaks. Give your brain a break. Love yourself enough to be appreciative of all that you are, and forgive what you aren't. We are so much better at offering these axioms than living them. Learning the hard way is still learning.

[universal-shenanigans]

Understanding...

V sat in his hospital bed. He was motionless and staring at his phone that lay in his lap. He could understand Alex's jabs, but it didn't mean that she was completely in the right. The amount of information she knew about him was only base level, and the fact that she had the gall to make a comment like that really managed to piss him off. He gripped the sheets of the bed and blew heavy air from his nose. He was doing everything in his power to keep himself together. He had half a mind to call back and verbally rip her a new one. However, he knew that he needed to be the bigger person, unfortunately. He also didn't want to witness anything that the other two would do if he flew off the handle. He flopped back onto his pillow, grunting as he had pretty much forgotten about his healing wounds.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"I'm fine. It's not time for another test yet. Please go away..."

The door opened anyway and revealed an angry Alexa and an apathetic-looking Juliette, cigarette in hand. Vincent only grew more irritated when Alexa walked in, glaring at the nurse. She blew a puff of smoke and shrugged. "Sorry Don. Only knocked to be polite. I'll let you guys "chat"."

V raised a brow at her as she closed the door and Alexa pulled up a chair next the bed. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "If you're here to apologize for-"

"Not in the slightest..." He caught her tone of voice and gave her with a look of suspicion and confusion. She took a hold of his hand and sighed herself. "What she said was fucked up, yes. I'm sure you have people that you care about that could be targeted if our situation spiraled out of hand..."

He nodded, softening his expression a bit, "Well, I am a little glad that you agree with-"

"However..." Her grip on his hand started to grow tighter. V had a very high pain threshold, so it didn't affect him too much. Yet. It was just a weird and slightly uncomfortable pressure at the moment. Alexa continued, "She does have some valid points. There's a lot of, information, that myself, and the rest of my people are missing. It's making it hard to trust you and, to some extent, each other. So..."

Her grip became even tighter, and she could tell that it was starting to hurt because of the small grunt that slipped out of him. His eyes narrowed at her, and she could feel that he was trying to pull his hand away. In an instant, she snapped her attention at him and gripped even tighter. He winced and growled under his breath. She then gave him a sickly-sweet smile and spoke, her voice dripping with anger. "We need to have a little "talk". Cool~?"

"God damn it, yes, Alexa fine!" She let go and sighed. He rubbed his hand and looked at her with a scowl. "You know, this isn't the best way to go about things. You're inching towards thin ice like your friend..."

"Yeah well, I think I've been a little too trusting like she said. Even with the little to zero knowledge I know, you seem to be causing a lot of shit. With that being said, because everyone knows so much more than me, no one wants to speak up and tell me what the hell you've done. Andrew said that you need to tell me yourself. At least to keep the everyone clued in on your stake in this whole Arthur bullshit."

He fell silent. They did have a point, and he somewhat hated that. He just wanted to let go of the past. Completely, or even just for a little while. He was trying to have a fresh start and this whole thing was not helping that. Still, he couldn't just...leave it be. He was trying to do right by himself but wanted these people to have a better chance as well. They at least deserved that since they had somewhat been through the same life. Although, he a very small part of him thought some were more deserving than others right now. Alexa noticed that what she said had struck a chord with him. The silence grew between the two. There was a mutual feeling of caution and wariness. Although, a level of suspicion was rising as well from both sides. Clearly, both of them had something to say. It was just a matter of who would say it first. Alexa felt the need to break the silence, "Look, I get that you did a thorough background check on us, but there are things that I am certain that you did not find...I am...um...I can uh...fuck..."

He looked puzzled at her sputtering, but it was mainly out of anticipation and curiosity of what she was going to say. Alexa began to shake a bit, her voice rattling as if she was on a bustling train. Her hands were clasped together, and she continued in a hushed voice after taking a deep breath. "I will...tell you those events. It's only fair...to share even the worst crimes..."

His eyes widened, but only slightly. It was enough to show her what he was thinking, though. They stared into each other's eyes for a moment. Both could understand that they needed to do this. To keep a level of trust or distance between one another. To make things a little more bearable and easier in this shit storm that they all have found themselves in. V placed a hand on his forehead and sighed heavily. He was still quiet and quite annoyed with the events that led up to what was currently occurring at the moment. But if this was going to get people on the same page and possibly get them closer to solving the overarching situation...

"...alright. Your friends are...correct in being so wary around me. To completely distrust me..." He paused. Whatever he was trying to say, Alexa could see the struggle he was facing inside. His demeanor shifted almost entirely: stalling because he was trying to find the strength to come clean, the nervousness of dreading how she would think of him after he told her, the fear of even saying it out loud. She could see it all. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and it caused him to look down at her. Her sympathetic expression calmed him a bit. He slowly continued, "My past...my past involves a lot of-"

He was cut off by the sound of yelling coming from down the hall. "Sir please slow down! Now is not a good time!"

Suddenly, the door swung open and revealed a well-dressed, yet distressed-looking man. Alexa's eyes grew wide, and she glanced at V. His expression matched hers. He also looked kind of embarrassed. Nervous, even. The man hurried inside, and his eyes darted all over his body. "God what happened?! I had to hear it from one of your employees at the casino!"

An accent lingered in that worried and slightly angry voice. Interesting... the thought crossed her mind.

V tried to calm the man down. "It's fine. Just a bullet wound and-"

"I'm sorry, "just a bullet wound"? V-" The man stopped and glanced at Alexa. She never moved or spoke. Her expression from when he entered didn't change either. She just, watched. Curiosity had won the battle in her head, and she wanted to see where this was going. He noticed that glint in her eyes. Especially as soon as it seemed like he was going to say V's full name. Curiosity wasn't the only thing that kept her attention on the stranger, and he knew better than that. He had been around for too long to make a mistake like that. He looked back at him and sighed. He brushed his fingers through his strawberry blonde hair, clearly frustrated with the current state of V. He tried to regain his composure and rubbed his temples. " V, I thought you stopped doing this. You said that you were going to kill off the business and do better!"

"I am, Oli. A situation just...came up. It happened in the casino, so I took responsibility." V gave Alexa a quick glance. Was he...signaling her? If so, for what? There wasn't much she could add to the conversation besides...oh. Right. She was going to try and not say anything, however, it would seem too late now. The man had fully turned his attention to her. "I apologize for the intrusion, and for my son pulling you into whatever mess he's in now. I do appreciate you making sure he's alright, miss...?"

Hold on, son...? She caught onto that detail fairly quickly. She also quickly noticed that she hadn't responded and had to jolt herself out of her thoughts. "Uh, Alexa. Alexa Vandus..."

She waited for him to be taken aback. To be either disgusted, angry, scared, or any other negative emotion that would be evoked when her name was uttered. He stood there a moment and looked at her, puzzled. Where did he hear that name before...? She glanced to the side, cracking her fingers and anticipating the worse now. "...Miss Alexa Vandus. Family name seems...vaguely familiar. But only by a little. Thank you, Miss Vandus."

Alexa was shocked, to say the least. She quickly answered, "Oh! U-Um, no problem. But you really shouldn't blame V. He was only trying to keep me and my friends safe."

"Really?" He raised a brow at V, seeing if he will give confirmation to the statement. Although slightly embarrassed by the interrogation, he nodded. "Yes. Miss Vandus had a past mistake rear its ugly head. It's a bit of a complicated situation. The point is, I'm only temporarily participating in the business again."

After a pretty long silence, the man huffed and groaned quietly. "Fine. I can't stop you. You're a grown man."

V nodded, slightly relieved that his father didn't argue with him right now. He was still going to hear it when he was finally out of the hospital, though. Or maybe even if Alexa left before him. Either way, he was going to be chewed out. The man reached over to give Alexa his hand. "I know a thing or two about past mistakes, Miss Alexa. I'm sure whatever is going on, I can help. Mostly to keep my son from getting himself killed, but if he is willing to trust and help you, then I suppose I should lend a hand. Whether he likes it or not. Oliver, V's father."

She shook his hand and gave him a nervous chuckle. "Wow. It's um, very nice to meet you. Although, if I may speak for the both of us, it may be best to try and sit this out."

"Nonsense. I've probably handled worse situations than whatever it is you're in. If any of you need assistance, shelter, anything, he knows where to find me."

"Thank you. I um...I really appreciate it." She smiled and he returned the gesture. V had watched the rest of the exchange in silence due to being in his own thoughts. For one, he was not expecting Oliver to be so willing to be a part of this. Though, knowing him for as long as he has, he shouldn't be so surprised. Alexa's reaction was a bit more puzzling. He didn't touch on the subject just yet. He wanted to wait for Oliver to leave and bring it up once they continued their previous conversation. Oliver let out a heavy and exhausted exhale before heading for the door. "Alright. I'm a little at ease now. Only a little, V. I expect to get updates on this situation you're in."

"Of course."

Oliver whipped his head back at stared daggers at V. Alexa could see him physically jump at his father's silent threat. She had to hold back a small laugh and watched as V quickly nodded. "I promise I'll let you know!"

Oliver's face then went back to the gentle smile he had before, and he nodded to the two before he left the room. V let out a relieved chuckle and fell back onto the pillow. Alexa giggled at him, and he watched with an unamused look. "What are you laughing at...?"

She shrugged and stood up. "Didn't think your father would still scare you."

"Oh? So you're not still scared of your father?" He rolled his eyes.

"Didn't say that. Oliver just doesn't seem like the type to strike fear." She stretched.

"Trust me, he can be...a lot...terrifying even..." His voice trailed off and she could see his distant stare as he spoke. She found that even more interesting. A little funny, as well. It is always the pleasant ones, huh? Almost a little harder for her to believe. But then she realized the hypocrisy in her thinking and shrugged once more to agree. She headed for the door but was stopped by V. "Hold on..."

She glanced over her shoulder and raised a brow. "Hmm?"

"About our, ehem, "talk"..."

"Don't worry about it." She waved it off.

V, curious as ever, raised a brow and even grinned slightly. "Any particular reason why?"

"Pretty sure you know why. I'll handle Alex. Need to talk to her anyway. Plus figure out another plan for Arthur..." She looked at the ground as her hand gripped her hair a bit at the thought of everything she needed to do. She noticed his face and scoffed. "Don't take this as my way of trusting you. That's still going to take a bit. Think of it as...a newfound respect."

V blinked. How could she...and she didn't even know what he was going to say. She looked into his eyes, and reassuring smile on her face and a gaze that explained everything. Or at least, what could be explained from such a silent stare. He blew air out of his nose and shook his head with a smile. "I would never assume such a thing. Just thinking about what an enigma you are."

"Gotta keep you on your toes. Can't let you think you've got everything figured out cause of a little file, right?" He rolled his eyes at the smug look she gave him before she left the room. V was now alone with his own devices and thoughts. A good time to process things now that Oliver forced his way into the situation and the forming rift with his newly hired employees. He rubbed his temples and groaned. He just wanted all of this to be over already. Keep his focus on something other than another mafia "business venture". How did he find her? There definitely wasn't much advertisement for their act and even if there was, it would have stayed in the "underground" and those who frequent Swing. As he thought about it, a possible answer to this question was starting to present itself and it caused him to groan and facepalm. He promptly picked up his phone, dialed and waited.

"Hello?"

"I know you just left, but I need your assistance."

"Be right there."

Alexa walked outside and into her car. She sat there for a moment, contemplative and more frazzled than when she left the house. First, she needed to call Alex and apologize, and try to get things under control. Next was another way to deal with Arthur. The few bosses that were alive wouldn't be enough and they needed all the intel they could get. Then she had to make sure that there was enough manpower to keep herself and everyone safe, get ahold of information on Don V, keep up with their performances to at least some semblance of peace...her brain was going a million miles a second. She could feel a headache coming on and she wanted to hit her head against the steering wheel of the car.

Too much...fuck this is too. Much... Her thoughts caused her breathing to stagger and as much as she was trying to do so, she couldn't think straight. That urge to scream and throw a fit was starting to swell up inside her again. She slammed her fist on the wheel and took a deep breath.

One. Step. At a time...

She then picked up her phone and dialed. She waited only a couple of seconds before the line was picked up. "Hello?"

Alexa hesitated, but just as quickly pushed herself to talk. "Hey...can...can we talk...?"

"Yeah...yeah there's...there's a lot we need to talk about..."