#i should really nail down whether she actually has those or not.

[aberration-abbey]

shout out to Queenie's tail stripes, which appear and disappear at random apparently

[muntitled]

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐲 𝐕𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 | 𝐋𝐮𝐤𝐚𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧

Lukas Matsson x Fem!Reader | Kendall Roy x Fem!reader

Summary: Kendall had always been a competent, steady boyfriend, but there is always, always room for improvement.

Warnings: Language, Politics, Business, Cheating, Mentions of murder, Smut (+18) Minors DNI, CNC, Rough Sex, choking, degradation, ownership kink, dom/sub dynamics. Roman as his own warning.

I am mentally unwell, and so is Matsson.

Due to your perilous schedule as a political and public figure, arguing with your lover had never really made it past scheduling in the smorgasbord of your career. Perhaps that is why Kendall decided to pick unnecessary fights in the middle of a Swedish trip. He felt, and rightfully so, infinitesimally insignificant when compared to the hellscape that is your established career in the American political sphere.

You can see it in the way his broad shoulders hunch slightly, the way his larger lower lip protrudes into a petulant pout.

You're appalled.

"Kendall, you can't be fucking serious," Your first night on Matsson's retreat was scheduled to be filled with myriad orgasms in myriad uncanny positions. You and Kendall should be christening this luxury suite, but, instead you find your voice has climbed to ungodly octaves to a point that you feared you may shatter the glass wall that displayed the quiet Norwegian woods.

You couldn't give even half a shit as to whether others housed in adjoining tree-house suites might hear your furious bickering.

"You're a fucking child," he says lowly, desperately trying to regain control over the situation but only fumbling it by the second, "Do you know that?"

"No!" You exclaim, "Iverson and Sophie are!" He turns his back to you. Your nails dig into the bedsheets, "Those are your actual children, yeah!? When was the last fucking time you called them!? You're too busy measuring your dick against the Swedes- you're too busy to give Rava a fucking call."

"I have met plenty of selfish sociopaths in my day, Kendall, but this is unfathomable." His shadow falls over you like a second cloud in the already darkened suite's interior.

"Did she put you up to this?" He asks in that manic state of his with his hand pointed outward in condemnation of his most recent enemy.

"Are you aware that you have children together? You will know her for the rest of your life, are you aware of that?"

Kendall is quick to deflect, "Fuck! I can't catch a fucking break. Of course you run to my ex and- and- what? You fucking-meet up at Tasha's. Fucking talking about Kendall's cock-rings over your croissants."

You withhold the urge to laugh by letting a wave of fury wash over you anew. "You didn't even tell them their grandfather died before you dragged us out to fucking Norway, Kendall! That's unhinged! You're unhinged!"

"I'm perfectly hinged!" He says, turning away from you, pyjama pants billowing as he grabs his keys and a pack of cigarettes, "I'm like the doors on fucking Downing street, motherfucker," He speaks lowly. Voice simmering. "I'm fucking hinged."

The door slams with finality, leaving you clinging to your robe in front of a backdrop full of trees.

There's a deeply sated sigh that leaves your throat as you haul yourself over the Egyptian linen sheets. Fighting with Kendall had always been an impossible feat- something akin to yelling obscenities at a brick wall smeared with cocaine, but it always left you marginally satisfied after. A part of you felt like you might be saving him.

There is a frown, slight and not at all visible in the low evening light, drifting across your face as you stare down at yourself with disappointment and a hint of disapproval. Kendall was supposed to rip this robe right off you the second you got out of the shower. But, instead, you find yourself turning on your side, staring at the pines beyond the glass.

The sound of the door clicking open, ruins the serenity that had begun to settle.

"I for sure thought you'd gone and blown your head off for real this time, Ken." You mumble monotonously while staring ahead at the glass.

"While all these hungry vultures at my retreat does make me lean into the sound of suicide, I quite enjoy living."

You're quick to pull your unravelled rope across your frame as you sit up against the oak headboard.

"Not Kendall." He says.

Matsson towers enough to hunch slightly and disrupt the flow of the sleek, vertical finishes.

"Why are you here?"

"Well it is my retreat."

He smiles. Or at least you believe that he believes he is smiling. Sharks can't smile, you don't think.

"My house."

Lukas shoves his hands in pockets as he continues to stare at you. His disciplined eyes never stray or drift across your exposed legs, they never gloss over your deadly grip on the tightened robe digging into the plushness across your middle.

He's staring at you. Eyes boring into eyes.

"I've come to deliver a noise complaint."

"Consider it delivered."

He does not leave. Instead, he delves deeper into your space, the space shared with your boyfriend. You watch carefully as Matsson plants himself on the edge of the bed. There is an air of nervousness that bristles throughout the Norwegian woods as he brings one leg up to cross the other. You watch, entranced by how the soft Tom Ford sweatpants crease slightly under his fluid movements. His beige Balenciaga shirt sits comfortably and it elicits a sense of control as he makes himself comfortable in front of you.

The one thing you could never allow yourself to be was intimidated, and intimidation is all you heard from the mouths that affirmed this man. However, the subtle yet suffocating label whoring, the designer sandals…

He was just another man, suffocated by the weight of his own money. He had everything to prove. That gave you control.

"I didn't know when Kendall brought me on this trip that I was to be subjected to an invasion of privacy,"

"I heard you the first time," He says, chuckling in complete condescension, "I am aware you're here with Kendall. You don't have to bring him up the whole fucking time."

"Are you here under work pretences then? I'm not involved in the hellscape that is ATN, nor the Nazi wonderland that is Waystar so I would make a lousy spy."

"I know who you are," his eyes dart away, giving you enough time to break slightly, take heavier breaths and compose yourself, "I've seen the work you are… attempting to accomplish in that flaccid dick of a country," His gaze is back on you, "And while I do applaud you, politics bores me. You're all fucked anyway, I just came here to enquire if you would like to have sex with me?"

The manner in which he says those words, so calmly and succinctly, has you praying for another moment of regeneration while he darts his eyes away.

"You mean the noise complaint was a fluke?"

"In addition to the noise complaint, I would like to sleep with you, yes."

You're practically suffocted with the over abundance of choice. Matsson would be a fun and interesting side project for you to sink your claws into and manipulate with the added advantage of sex.

But there is a darkness lurking behind this man's gaze that promises far too much risk with little to no reward.

"No, I think I'm good. Thanks for stopping by, Lukas. It was certainly not a pleasure talking to you-"

You speak calmly, shuffling off the bed so you can escort him to the door. "Please find yourself outside of my personal and habitual space kindly and quickly-" but the axis tilts, and he does a daring thing by encircling a strong grip on your forearm. You try to lurch your arm out of his iron grip but it's fucking sealed around you like a constricting python. The darkness seems so incredibly poignant. God, all this man holds is darkness.

"I did not ask for myself." He says with a hint of condescension, "I asked for you." Matsson has you locked between his spindly legs while your robe billows open. Your face warms as you feel coolness settle against your exposed stomach but Lukas' eyes never leave your own.

From this angle, there is no chance to look away. Everything is maximised, from the wrinkles running like river channels underneath his bright blue eyes to the slight overbite in his teeth, perhaps his only external flaw.

What a dangerous individual.

"They're Roys." Lukas says, "He's a Roy," You suddenly feel juvenile and bashful, as you take the scolding, "You should know better,"

You're only vaguely aware that the distance between you two has been lessening because the air feels warmer. His breath is mixing with yours and his hand is doing a funny little dance along your forearm. "You should know better," He says.

And perhaps you should have closed the distance, perhaps you should have chased him away. You certainly should not have waited for a pair of irregular footsteps approaching to finally push the lumbering man away from you. Thankfully, he kindly obliged although Matsson's hand stalled, still rubbing against your elbow when Kendall stumbles in.

"Uh, what the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck is he doing here?" Kendall's eyes are tired and bloodshot and you step away from Lukas' gravitational pull as you curl into Kendall's side. Kendall's suede Versace jacket is cool but his skin is warm as you burrow into the side of his neck. Your guilt worsens as you feel Kendall's arm curl around your waist.

You speak into Kendall's ear, loud enough for Lukas to hear, "Matsson is still trying to rape your company, I'm afraid. " You say with a lazy smile.

"Already raped," Says Lukas, shuffling passed the two of you, "Logan was the decision maker, remember?"

Before the man finds himself over the threshold, Kendall speaks up.

"Hey, no more private visits, yeah? Not cool."

You watch with bated breath as Matsson only cracks a toothy lopsided grin before tapping the wood of the doorframe and disappearing.

That evening had ended, like most of the evenings to come, with angry, jealousy-fueled sex. There had always been a distinct animosity between Kendall and Matsson but whatever had been in the air seemed to triple. Kendall kept you close during the entire experience. He kept you under Kremlin-level surveillance but he couldn't be with you all the time. In the moments you found yourself without Kendall, Matsson would appear from out of the shadows like a demon, slinking behind you with a hand ghosting your hip. He watched you from above the rim of whiskey-filled tumblers and even asked for your input whenever conversation within the group got a little political. One such conversation had the unfortunate interjection of one Roman Roy, who saw you as another toy in his toy box.

"What do you need two assistants for anyway?" The grinding of your teeth come to a deafening halt as you turn your head to face the youngest Roy. The smile on your face is amicable, some might even call it polite, but it is a well enough facade veneering the tempest brewing beneath.

"What- does Jess hold your balls while you tell knock-off Maya Angelou here" He points to you, "-to bend her head and suck?"

There were a number of things you simply allowed when it came to your courtship with Kendall Roy. You would even shame yourself into admitting that you might have found Kendall's overall emotional incompetence and dysfunctional family quite endearing in the beginning. But, like every magnificent, spine curling orgasm, the magic ebbed away quickly and soon, you were left with nothing but the wetness of his cum, cooling between your thighs.

That is what Kendall and his siblings were like most times.

Cooling, diabolical cum.

"Rome, come on." And therein lay Kendall's consistent, valeant response, of which he chose to defend you.

Rome. Come on.

Simply hearing those words leave his brother's mouth with even the faintest hint of disapproval sent Roman into a frenzy (you could see his pupils dilating and his cock hardening from your spot on a couch adjacent to Roman and Shiv). Matsson's entire foyer was set alight with amicable, drunken murmurs, of which Greg's nervous whimpers were occasionally heard peppered in.

Tom had retired to bed, (whether that would be in the same suite as Shiv, would be a satisfactory cup of tea you would divulge with your girlfriends later.) Matsson and his followers sat in their own private harem in a corner beside you.

"What?" Roman cries, slamming back a handful of ground nuts (an admittedly clever substitute for Swedish alcohol) "I was just asking a question. I know your people like to claim reparations for a lot of shit these days but I'm sure enquiring about the girl my big brother's fucking doesn't equate to slavery."

Although you hated the little demon with every bright blue blood cell running through your arteries, you did admire the sure-fire way he would spit his hateful vitriol.

"I appreciate the faux-concern, Roman." You keep it curt, cute and even forgiving, hoping he might take the win and leave you to down the last of your Hennessey in peace.

"That's your cue," Kendall announces, "Drop it."

"Look at how wet she's getting from my rich white brother finally using his voice to defend her for once." The conversation between the Swedes had long since ceased and your throat clogs as the music tins through hidden speakers. "Kenny so clearly has a type," Says Roman, now facing his brother with his elbows steepled on his knee. "I bet you couldn't wait to dive into that plethora of liberal pussy, could you, big brother?"

Your patience had long since snapped and your words are flying before you could stop them, "Considering you couldn't even get pussy without catching a rape charge or an incredibly disappointed prostitute, I'll assume this pseudo-incest interest you have in Kendall's sex life is normal,"

Roman only laughs, "No amount of sick burns is going to release you from the fact that your fucking a crackhead. Maybe it's the money," he taps the bottom of chin in a flamboyant display of consideration, "Although if it's raping our company that's your main goal, the Swedes might have you beat." Matsson straightens in your periphery, not by a lot but by enough to have a stoney smile cracking across your face.

"ATN is not my vice. Racist Propaganda doesn't get me as wet as it gets you, Roman."

"How convenient. I thought all Leftys held special orgys dedicated to besmirching racist propoganda."

Your response was already loaded in the back of your throat, aimed and ready to fire at Roman with reckless abandon. If it weren't for Lukas' interjection, you would have hoped to leave the little man bleeding all over Matsson's marble floors.

"You let him talk to your woman like that?" The rest of the party had left this specific ring of people behind, but that seemed okay. Everyone within the circle, the important people, were silent as Matsson turned his attention to a floundering Kendall.

"Maybe worry about your situation over there and I'll worry about mine."

"I'm not worried." Says Lukas, with a fierce stoicism that was so unique to him. Your heart rate speeds up ever so slightly as the couch groans while Lukas begins to rise. His friends each hold knowing smiles. Hungry smiles.

"Would you like to know why I'm not worried?" Asks Lukas, advancing with a slow gait. You turn your head just in time to watch Kendall's Adam's apple against his throat. He was speechless as per usual when the discussion didn't involve drugs or stock prices.

"Ask." Says Lukas as he advances. "Ask me why I'm not worried."

Upon you first meeting, you had found Lukas' height to be quite rude and unbecoming. You expected him to duck down, almost out of courtesy for the rest of the world laying low underneath him. As his shadow falls over you and Kendall, you find yourself grateful for this giant man making your boyfriend feel small for once- almost as small as you were made to feel around the Roys.

"Why aren't you worried?" Kendall's voice is still masked with confidence as he peers up at Matsson.

Matsson, who's teeth glint in the low evening light, like a hungry shark. He bends down low. You move slightly out of the way as he whispers into Kendall's ear.

"Because I'm gonna fuck her, okay?"

Absolute silence grows pregnant between the two and you're left to do nothing but watch as the exchange unfolds and Kendall's perceived control over everything and everyone unravels. His mouth opens and closes slightly while Matsson watches with a sadistic sort of pleasure in his eye…

"What the fuck did you just say to me?"

"Nothing," Says Lukas, having returned to his full height. "I didn't say anything. I just asked your-" His blue eyes darts to you and back, "-friend, if she'd like to see my bookshelf in the living room. I saw her reading Bronte earlier," Matsson shrugs, "Thought I might extend the invitation."

Lukas is not one to wait for confirmation, nor is he a man that waits for validation. He shuffles out his foyer, quite comfortably leaving present company behind with his hands stuffed in his pockets. No rebuttal from Kendall needed.

"Where the hell do you think you're going? What are you doing?" You lift yourself from the couch, ironing out the invisible creases on your plaid Chanel skirt as your eyes dart to Roman, now in idle conversation with Siobhan.

"They're just books, Kendall." You sigh softly. "You can't honestly believe I'd be any safer here." You deliver one final gaze at his lesser appealing siblings before following Matsson out of the foyer. The amount of people congesting the dark corridors lessen as you venture further into Matsson's abode. The walls are built with a dark, heavily sanded stone. Something casting a very ominous, yet unmistakably earthy glow throughout the corridor as the mouth spills into a large and defining living room. The colours are dark. The coal walls are all encompassing and Matsson stands beside a low leather couch, waiting rather awkwardly for your arrival.

"There is no library or bookshelf." He says with his hands still stuffed in the pockets of his sweats.

"I figured. You strike me as someone that would keep all their books stored on some gadget."

"Technology and leisure are the two civilizers of man," He says, watching you with bated breath as you slink around his living room, eyeing but never once prodding his things.

"Don't misquote Disraeli, it's not very attractive."

Matsson seems to relax at that, opting to take a step closer to you as he speaks, "I'll misquote Disraeli as much as I want. The 'increased means and increased leisure' part seems a little far-fetched." Your heart begins to hammer in your chance at the advancing man and you turn, whether out of cowardice or bashfulness, choosing rather to examine the sculpture along his mantle.

Your back begins to straightens as warmth radiates from him. He does not move but he cages you in. You would not be able to leave his sphere even if you wanted to.

"We don't have to fuck, obviously. It just didn't seem safe for you to stay in that situation."

You turn slowly and you find yourself slightly jarred by Matsson's proximity. His turtleneck hugs a string and definite build and the hunger in his eyes melts all inhibitions.

"I don't need saving."

"I'm talking about the little angry man." He says, referring to Roman. "I've seen your debates. It's the little nugget of American politics I find myself quite entertained by and I have no desire to wipe a Roy's blood off my floors this evening."

His words end up snapping any and all inhibition as you're throwing yourself quite mercilessly at him. The kiss is silent but so inexplicably charged allowing you to bump into various pieces of furniture in the process of pushing you up against the nearest stone wall. A wall that is cold to the touch, eliciting a surprised gasp which fuels Lukas all the more. He displays wet slobbering kisses down the nape of your neck as he murmurs drunkenly in your ear.

"I like seeing you like this. I like seeing you among my things." The conviction present in his gravelly vibrato has a pool of wetness gathering in between your legs. Your arm circles around his broad back until your pulling, rather roughly at the blonde hair curling at the nape of neck. This had consequently been a morbid mistake because his grip travels to your throat lightning fast, compressing a dangerous weight on your oesophagus as he rips his lips away from your throat.

"You don't get to do that," he says far too casually. "You don't get to assume control when you are here in my house with my things."

Matsson keeps his eye trained on you but your focus in compounded, solely, on his wandering hand tracing the hem of your skirt. "Hey, hey, hey." As you strive to keep watch of his wandering hand, Matsson moves his head into your line of vision.

"My things. Yeah? You're apart of that now."

As his hand inches underneath your skirt you're suddenly flooded with a wave of unfamiliar emotions - fear being the most poignant and defining one.

"I don't want to do this anymore-" You're not sure whether you mean it or not but you're quite certain that Matsson doesn't care. You're suddenly truly aware that you had released something you don't really know how to control.

"Bullshit, you don't want to do this anymore." You finally feel his hand sliding into your panties and your legs wavers underneath you, "Your words say stupid shit," Sings Lukas as his fingers ghost over your swollen clothes, "But your cunt just can't seem to lie." His grip on your throat tightens before relaxing as he brings your head up to his lips. "You're fucking soaked."

"I'll fucking sue you," Although you're unable to assume a single confident tone as his fingers begin to play with your cunt, "I'll fucking take you to court for fucking assault, motherfucker."

"You wanna call Kendall for assistance?" He asks, slyly pushing his middle finger deep inside you with no regard for your strangled gasp. "Here, let's call him together. Say 'Kendall!'"

The only thing able to leave your mouth is a straggled moan as Matsson keeps you pinned to the wall by the throat. The sound of your voice - so incoherent and helpless has him evading any sliver of decency he might have had. "Fuck, you're so perfect." He places a chaste kiss on your cheek before spinning you around until he is sandwiched between your body and the wall. "I have to fuck you."

"Watch the door for me," he says, pulling your hips right up against the bulge in his pants. "Watch just in case Kendall, shows up. Right, sweet girl?"

You're nodding dumbly as Lukas hunches his tall frame while grinding his bulge into your backside. He has your skirt lifted, and his shadow casted over you as he murmurs diabolical things into your ear.

"God, you're a fucking slut, you're such a fucking slut." He keeps a grip on your throat while the unoccupied hand reaches around to lift your shirt haphazardly, "No amount of smart ass comments will ever hide the fact that you're just another whore." The casual air with which he degrades has you simultaneously humping the air while you push back against his bulge. It is in that moment when he finally decides to release his aching cock from his sweatpants dotted with precum.

"Jesus Christ, feel how hard you made me. Feel how fucking turned on I am just because you decided to be a stupid slut." You can feel the head of his cock pressing into you until you're unable to hold in the desperation.

"Jesus- Lukas!"

"What? You want me to fuck you? I think you want me to fuck you but I'm not sure." You're unsure of what he's asking, too blinded by the possibility of a carefully curated orgasm.

"Go on." He says, "Ask me to fuck you. Ask me to fuck your pussy while your boyfriend waits just downstairs."

There are tears pooling in your eyes at the sheer lewdness and the unapologetic quality of this betrayal, but your mouth opens and soon, you're shakily crying out. "Please just fuck me, Lukas."

His cock rams into you with a surety that leaves you winded. He seems as if his patience had been waning as well, what with the haggard sigh that leaves his throat and the numerous disquiet groans that float in the air. Despite yourself, you do keep a half-lidded gaze on the entrance, not put off, but rather spurred on with the possibility of your boyfriend finding you being railed by his latest rival. The thought alone has you clenching around Lukas' cock with your orgasm cresting.

"Whatever you're thinking about, I'm going to need you to think about it again- you're so fucking tight."

There's an animalistic quality to the sex- being bent over for him while he rests against a wall, a firm grip on your throats and your tits as he rams himself into you again and again.

It's far too much.

You wouldn't think there was something so ruthless hiding underneath such a calm veneer but that's all it is. All it always had been. A veneer.

"You're not with him anymore, do you hear me?"

"Fuck- Lukas I'm gonna cum soon," his grip on your throat tightens until it vacuums out any and all air. Your hand encircles his wrist, begging for release but to no avail.

"Tell me," he says as he continues to fuck mercilessly into you, "Tell me you don't belong to him." He finally gives you lee-way to talk and you're gasping out your response, "I don't. I don't belong to him," he nods slightly, brows firing as he bites into your shoulders.

"Fuck- I didn't plan to cum inside you-"

"I don't fucking care- I'm really close." Lukas nods quickly before releasing your neck to drag your cheek until your faces are pressed together in a smouldering kiss. "Fuck I'm gonna cum inside you-"

His words already have you diving headfirst into a groundbreaking orgasm. You're crying out helplessly, until Matsson has enough sense to cover your mouth with one large hand. He fucks you through it, filling you with cum as he groans just as loudly as you had been.

"Fuck," he chuckles quietly, "Kendall is not going to like that."

"Kendall," You breath heavily, safely contained in Lukas' comforting grip, "Is not my Keeper."

Lukas delivers a chaste kiss on your cheek, his stubble grazing against the side of your face.

"I plan on killing them anyway." He says, simultaneously unaware and aware that he's drifting into pillowtalk.

"Every last one of them."

[mumms-the-word]

Love Letters

Alistair and Lucy Amell

These letters were written as a collaboration between @callmethebrightness and myself for the lovely @elspethdekarios's birthday. callmethebrightness wrote the AMAZING letter from Alistair (and I'm obsessed with it, she nailed his voice so well) while I wrote Lucy Amell's reply letter <3 This was so much fun to work on and I am in awe of the talent my friends have in this little corner of tumblr. Thank you @elspethdekarios for trusting us with your OC! I hope you have the happiest of birthdays and that you adore these love letters!

Full text under the cut!

Alistair's Letter by @callmethebrightness

To Warden-Commander Lucy Amell, Hero of Ferelden: Lucy, I love you. I know, bad form to start a letter like that; without even a hello and how are you, but it's literally the only thing that comes to mind when I think of you, so I had to write it down first. I love you. There. Now to the rest. We're making strides looking into the Wardens and Corypheus, this "false Calling" he's managed, though it's not the sort of progress I'm particularly excited about. Every time I think I've figured out the worst of it, more bad news rears its ugly head. I'm a bit less skeptical now that we have some proper allies: not only the Champion of Kirkwall, but Inquisitor Sulah Lavellan, who has all her people putting their heads together to do something about all this. We should consider having an army at our disposal for all our problems, it's really marvelously convenient. Skyhold is an amazing place. Not just the fortress itself, where I've gotten into all sorts of places I shouldn't be ("Oh, I haven't seen this door before" -- surprise, it's a dungeon. No, thank you.) but the people and the activity here. It feels like everyone from the servants to the Inquisitor herself is committed to working together. I've met Fereldans, Orlesians, city elves, surface dwarves, ex-Templars, mages, farmers, nobles, Chantry sisters, Dalish spies, qunari, Tevinters...I could go on. If anything might be able to actually unite all of Thedas, the way the Chantry says it does, it's this thing. It's this place. Maker, I wish you could see it. Every time I see something incredible in my travels, I think that, you know. "Lucy would love this, I wish she could see it." And every time I see something horrible I think, "Maker, I wish Lucy was with me." You get the idea, don't you? You, with me, all the time, no matter what. Sometimes you're all I think about. But you knew that already. We're going to figure this thing out, Lucy. I'm going to make sure the Wardens have nothing more to fear from this Elder One, even if I have to fight him myself. And when you return, whether you've found what you're looking for or not, and I see you again -- I'm going to take you in my arms and never let you go. I mean it. That's not an exaggeration. I never want to be apart from you again, Lucy. Nothing is more important to me than that. What else? I love you. I miss you. Leliana is scarier than ever, but in a good way. I've eaten Orlesian cheese and do not care for it. I miss you. I told the Inquisition's ambassador I would include a small note in their missive to the Hero of Ferelden but my letter is now longer than the official one. I hope those creepy ravens of Leliana's can carry a little extra weight. When you see it, write her back and tell her it's creepy; she won't listen to me. There are less terrible birds, Leliana. Maker, I miss you so much I don't want to stop writing to you. Is that odd? Probably. But you wouldn't say odd. "Alistair, you're too sweet." That's what you always say when I'm being a fool, especially a lovestruck fool. Can't say I don't appreciate it, though. I'll write you again soon. There's talk of the fortress at Adamant, a potential siege. All sorts of military talk I do not care for. Whatever happens, you'll hear from me soon. I never can stand to wait long. Yours forever, Alistair

Lucy Amell's Letter (by me)

To Warden Alistair: [In a smaller script] Leliana, don’t be nosy! You’ve got your own letter! My darling, I love you. I don’t care if it’s bad form, just seeing those words at the start of your letter gave me so much joy and comfort that I couldn’t even read the rest of letter at first. I just wanted to linger there on those words and imagine them in your voice. I love you. I love you. I love you. And, Maker’s breath, I miss you, too. As my journey out west bring me farther and farther away from recognizable society, I find myself traveling alone more often than not. There are good people out here, and plenty of interesting distractions, and more than enough danger to keep my mind occupied, but again and again I wish you were at my side. I know taking down the Elder One is important, but these days I wish I had been more selfish and brought you along. But what’s done is done, and it’s good that you’re there, trying to shake some sense into our fellow Wardens. Someone has to.  What you’ve told me about the situation, and what little Inquisitor Lavellan has included in her letter, troubles me. It sounds like Corypheus is more dangerous than we thought…but if the Inquisition has the army and the resources that you say it does, then I trust them to succeed. And I trust you to survive whatever comes your way. We’ve gotten out of worse scrapes, the two of us, haven’t we? Regardless, I’ve asked Inquisitor Lavellan to look after you. I know, I know, you would say I’m fussing over you too much (but I know you love it). But if she’s your ally, then she’s my ally too, and I feel no shame in asking this much of her. I want you in one piece when we meet again, my love. Be good for me. Don’t wander into dungeons that you can’t wander out of. Avoid the Orlesian cheese if you hate it so much. Remind Leliana to eat every now and again. I know her work keeps her busy, and I can only imagine that the death of the Divine has shaken her more than she’s letting on. And take care of yourself, too.  Oh, and I’m not telling Leliana that her birds are creepy. Just be glad she’s not sending missives via nug, or we’d never get letters to one another. I’ll write soon, my darling. I love you. I miss you. Yours always, Lucy [below, in a messier scrawl, as if added to the end of the page in haste] Alistair, I’m glad I didn’t send this letter right away! I’ve got big news. I think I’ve found something, and if I’m right, it means the end of this journey is in sight. I don’t want to say what it is just yet, but…I have a really good feeling about this. This might be the cure we’ve been hoping for.  But if not, I don’t care. If it’s not this, then I’ve got nothing else to investigate out here. If this isn’t our cure, then the silver lining is this—I’m coming home, and nothing is going to stop me. Meet me in Redcliffe when all of this is said and done. Whether I’ve found the cure for our Callings or not, I will be there, in the place we first started to fall in love, at the start of the next summer. And once we are together again, my love, I swear that nothing will ever separate us again. With all my love, Lucy

[snail-eggs]

Famous Last Words (An Ode To Eaters)

synopsis: Nyra feels that swell of love, feels it as keenly as she feels the pain blooming in her entire body. She screams. 

a/n: Finally, I'm done with this! It has been such a rollercoaster writing this project and it probably would never have been finished if i never put it up as part of the @ficsforgaza initiative. Thank you for everyone who donated and sponsored this work, and for those that haven't, I really suggest heading over to the FFG page and checking them out. There are so many wonderful people doing such a wonderful thing.

masterlist | warnings on ao3 | read on ao3 | divider by @/cafekitsune

In some backwater town, Nyra’s feet start to bleed inside her shoes. She hasn’t been able to hitch a ride. A part of her wonders whether or not the whole world is privy to what she’s done. The wind kicks up dust—the distant odor of cow shit along with it. She scrunches her nose. Decides she needs to get indoors. 

Stepping onto the store’s cracked linoleum feels familiar but Nyra knows she’s never been here before. She has seen it though; in dreams and in flashes as she rips flesh from bone. She’s supposed to be here. She shivers and scrapes at the blood stuck underneath her nails. A cashier looks up at her from behind the register. Nyra tucks her hands into her pockets and disappears into the aisles.

Her bag is heavy on her shoulder. Drags her down as she tries to look at the low shelf. She can’t afford any of it and all she has left in her stomach is the acid inside it churning angrily, begging for something, anything to consume. And she understands it, in a way. Brings her hand to it and pats it once, softly—barely. I’m sorry, she thinks, as if the organ is sentient enough to resent her. Really it should be her resenting it. That body a few days ago should have been enough.

But it's never enough. 

In the stuffy, recycled air of the grocery store, she feels something—smells something. Something not entirely new that makes the little hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. Nyra stuffs 99 cent cans of food into her bag. She doesn’t really know why. Already has her next meal in her sights. 

She takes a can of tomato soup up to the cashier from before. Nyra can’t shake it—that scent in the air. She looks around wildly to see if she can find the source while the cashier scans her can. And then she sees it, a shock of white hair being shoved through the aisle and towards the entrance. Getting escorted out. It's coming from him. 

Nyra turns back to the cashier, breathing a little uneasy, “When do you get off?”

With the sun sinking below the horizon, Nyra kicks a rock back and forth in the parking lot, eyes always darting back to the entrance of the store. Waiting. 

When the cashier emerges she feels nothing—not even the violent uproar of her hungry stomach. It almost feels like it's turning, actually. Upwind she still smells it. Smells him. Nyra tenses when the cashier flashes his teeth at her. A perfect smile. She wants to see it ruined.

So she looks at him through her lashes and he does the rest of her work for it. Easy. Always so fucking easy. 

In his shitty little car, he puts his hand on her thigh. Turns the radio off. And she smiles because this is what she’s supposed to do, she thinks. She’s so good at it, after all. It's all too easy to tell what he really wants behind that sweet smile he’s giving her. Nyra puts her hand atop his. “Not here,” she whispers, leaning into his ear and gesturing out the windshield to the soccer moms loading up their trunks after a last minute grocery run. “Too many people.”

Flesh rips and splits between her teeth as blood rushes out of him. He grapples at her at first. Tries to pry her off; scratches and claws at her so hard she bleeds. But Nyra does not relent. She bites harder, keeps him down with her entire weight until he stops. Goes limp and the gurgling in his throat quiets down. It's so much easier once they’re dead. She can take her time—really savor it. 

She doesn’t ever cry about it anymore. 

Then she smells it again. The scent from the store. She looks down at the cashier as if he could have an answer for her but his eyes have rolled back into his head. 

Barefoot and bloodsoaked, she follows it. She doesn’t ever meet other eaters, almost can’t believe there’s one so close by. She opens the door.

And then there he is.

In the street light, feet unmoving but she knows what he wants. Nyra bites her lip. She doesn’t ever meet other eaters but she steps out onto the porch not caring about who can see her. 

“When was the last time you fed?” Her nails chip at the wood on the door frame. A piece goes in too far—drives itself under her nail. She can’t take her eyes off him. He looks like he’s been starved. His clothes hang off him in a way that makes her uncomfortable. It stings under her nail. The wood splinters itself in further and further. Nyra wants to close the door. Get back to the cashier before he goes cold. But she can’t, or maybe she won’t. The stinging turns into burning.

He stares up at her with unsure, glassed over eyes. The air is thick with iron. With death. Then the uncertainty is replaced with something else entirely. Confidence, maybe. “Darling, I don’t need to.”

“We all need to. You’re not special.” Nyra takes a step back inside then stops. “Come inside before he gets cold. They’re no good when they’re cold.” She doesn’t know why she says it. She doesn’t share. Ever.

He opens his mouth, as if to say something else. She disappears into the house with a roll of her eyes and she can hear his footsteps start behind her.

They tear into the cashier in tandem. The squelching of flesh and their hungered breaths reverberate through the room. She looks up from her feasting at the stranger. All that white hair and pale skin drenched in red like paint on a canvas. She feels something, looking at him like this, something akin to admiration. Religion. Nyra stares unashamedly. He glances at her. Once. Twice. His red irises burning into her own. Then she goes back to eating. It's not in her nature to waste food. 

He darts out into the bathroom when she starts to rifle through the cashier’s wallet, staining dollar bills with her bloody hands. He didn’t have much cash on him; Nyra only comes away with eight bucks but it's better than nothing. She listens to the pipes creak as the shower starts to run. Imagines all the blood circling the drain but never the stranger himself in the shower. She sighs. Knows she’ll need to scrub it all clean before she leaves. For now, she sits criss-cross in front of the TV and lets infomercials play.

It takes three 30 minute specials for her to see the stranger again. Clean and in the cashier’s clothes. They cling to him more than his own did and, honestly, they just make him look worse. More sickly, more starved. They cling onto his body; every jutting, sharp edge of bone visible. It makes her skin crawl, looking at him. He’s emaciated. Positively fucking emaciated. She’s never met another eater that looked like this. Nyra’s brow furrows. She finds it hard to really look at him. 

He's a little different now, though. Doesn’t look so gaunt in the face—actually looks a little refreshed if you ask her. He’d almost look like a person if it weren’t for everything else about him.

Nyra stares at the infomercials again, sighs because she can’t remember the last time she felt pity and it's killing her, “Still sure you don’t need to, darling?”

“If you would have let me explain myself, you’d see that wasn’t what I meant.”

“So what did you mean?”

The stranger smirks, out of the corner of her eye, Nyra can see him gesture vaguely. “I fear we may have skipped a few steps,” he holds his hand out to the side of her face. She just looks at it. Then him. There’s still dried blood in the grooves of his palm. “I’m Astarion.” His name rings loud in her head. She bites her tongue, lets it go, then bites it again. The hand just hovers there between them. She finally lets it go, for real this time.

Under her nail stings when she takes his hand in hers. “Nyra. You’re welcome, by the way.” If she squeezes hard enough, she imagines in her mind’s eye as he’s looking straight down at her, she’ll draw blood. A rivulet of crimson sliding down in between their grasp and onto the hardwood. She can’t have that. She lets go. He rolls his eyes. 

When Astarion sits next to her, she nearly jumps out of her skin. Nyra never talks to anyone after—isn’t ever around anyone after. It spooks her in a way she can’t quite place. She watches him. 

There’s a dramatic confidence to him that makes her wonder, for a fraction of a second, if he was telling the truth at all when she found him outside. If, maybe, he isn’t as pathetic as she thinks. As needy as she sort of wants him to be. A steak sizzles in a grill-slash-sandwich press on TV. It's the sort of thing her mom would’ve bought and forgotten about until it showed up at their door. So incredibly handy she can just forget it in a cabinet somewhere deep in the house and never think about it ever again. 

On the ceiling there’s exactly twenty-four cracks. Nyra knows this because Astarion is laying back flush to the hardwood, whispering the numbers so quietly she never actually sees his lips move. She can’t really stand it anymore. The keys to the cashier’s shitty little truck are weighing down her pocket. If she sits here any longer, she fears they may drag her into the floor. Into the earth. 

Nyra gets up, leaves Astarion there as he starts to count the twenty-four cracks all over again. 

She hoses herself off in someone’s backyard twenty miles outside of town. Her clothes are ruined, soaked through and through with the cashier’s blood. But Nyra couldn’t take another round of listening to Astarion’s barely audible counting of the cracks on the ceiling. She’d lose her mind, she thinks, if she stayed. Can’t really stand the repetitiveness of it. 

When she settles in the peeling back seat for the night in some field, she sees visions of him in the dark. Outside the windows, in the roof of the car, behind her eyelids. Nowhere is safe from him and it makes her skin crawl. Nyra picks at the scabs on the deep scratches the cashier left behind. She feels the warmth of blood running down. Tries to find comfort in the scent of it. He never really leaves her mind but she makes due with the fleeting flashes of home, the sound of the TV in the living room whining. She can almost hear it now.

But then she hears him.

Ripping and tearing at flesh. His hungered, desperate breaths. She hears them in every gust of wind, every rattling of the car’s rickety windows. Nyra turns onto her stomach. Looks out the window and sees nothing. Just the endless expanse of the field. There’s no one else for miles, the next town is hours away—Astarion is hours away. 

And that’s what gets her. 

She doesn’t share, not with anyone, not ever. But something compelled her to show him that kindness and she feels something in the pit of her stomach now. It feels like guilt. Nyra presses her forehead against the glass, keeps it there until it goes warm. Astarion is hours away and Nyra crawls into the driver seat.

She goes in the opposite direction.

The car has half a tank of gas left. It has half a tank left when it craps out on her. She’s on an empty stretch of road, the sun cooking her through the windshield. Nothing but crackly radio sermons to fill the silence. And then it all just stops. 

Dead in the middle of the road, she panics. Tries the ignition once. Then again and again desperately until she crumples onto the steering wheel with a sigh.

“Fuck, this can’t be happening.”

Her clothes are still stained. She’ll never hitch a ride like this. Not unless it's to the county jail. Heart hammering inside her chest, Nyra blindly fumbles around the back seat for something, anything. 

And her fingertips graze fabric. Fleece. She pulls the dirty, questionably stained thing across her lap and steps out of the car. Grimaces as she wraps it around herself. She’s never felt dirtier. Wants so desperately to be rid of the feeling the blanket gives her that she’d be cleaner rolling in dirt, she thinks. 

Thumb out on the side of the road, she gets passed again and again. Semi trucks and station wagons alike speed past her, making her wrap the blanket tighter around herself. She should have packed clothes before she left. Shouldn’t have really left at all but she can’t do anything about it now. Hindsight and all that.

Nyra’s melting out here, the blanket trapping the heat of the sun in her skin. Squinting, she tries to look out into the horizon for a sign of life—anything, really because she’s never felt this desperate and it's starting to get to her. She’s seconds away from shedding the blanket and running out into the nothing on either side of the road. She’ll go anywhere but she’s starting to think she’ll die here instead.

But the sound of tires treading on asphalt makes her perk up and she almost cries out in joy when this beater of a truck stops beside her. Blue, save for the rusted hood and singular cream colored door. She can’t see inside, the window’s too old, too foggy. But there’s a figure inside that reaches over. Cranks the window down some.

“Well you must be dying out here in this heat.” She's human, older, with a lit cigarette hanging precariously between her lips. One wrong move and the whole truck’s up in flames. “You having car troubles, sweetheart?”

She looks back at the cashier’s good for nothing car, looks back at the woman, “You could say that, yeah.”

“That’s a real shame, blue.” she stares Nyra right in the eyes like she’s expecting her to do something. Say something. The lady raises a brow. Nyra can smell the cigarette smoke from here. It smells like home. She smiles at the nickname.

“Think I could hitch a ride with you?” 

The woman goes quiet, looks out the windshield, takes the cigarette out from between her lips. Looks real pensive, like something out of a movie. Then she reaches over, cigarette still between her fingers now. Nyra hears the door click, hears the woman grunt a little as she pushes it open from the inside. 

There’s a second—a beat of silence where she looks at Nyra and Nyra looks at her. Neither of them move or say a word. Her teeth start to ache; Nyra bites her tongue. Not this one. Not now. 

“Let’s go, blue. I don’t have all day.”

The inside of the truck’s hot—near stifling, save for the cracked windows. Nyra puts her face to the gap, feels the draft coming in and breathes deep. She keeps the blanket wrapped tightly around herself. Doesn’t really look at the woman as they drive down this never ending stretch of road. On the radio, Absolutist sermon drones on. There’s a sense of comfort, she thinks. In the way the radio crackles just a little, making the preacher’s voice feel more and more far away the further they get from the signal. Nyra closes her eyes. 

“So you got a name,” Nyra rolls her head across the headrest to look at the woman. Watches her glance at her on and off as she tries to keep her eyes on the road. “Or do I just have to call you blue?”

“It’s kind of rude, don’t you think?”

“What?”

“Calling me blue ‘cause I’m blue.”

The woman shakes her head, staring straight out at the road. “Could’ve called you a million worse things.” And Nyra knows what she’s trying to say. Is a little grateful that she didn’t focus on the horns on her head or the tail she has wrapped around herself tighter than the blanket. “Didn’t mean nothing by it.” Her knuckles go white on the steering wheel. “All the more reason for you to tell me your name.”

Her hands. Nyra can’t stop gazing at her hands. They’re cracked and wrinkled from the years. And they’re beautiful—so oddly beautiful that she doesn’t even imagine them between her teeth, though she knows the feeling, and the crunch of them, so intimately.

“My name is Nyra.” She’s fixed on her pointer finger in a near daze. “What about yours?” Her eyes flick up to the woman's face.

“It's Lyanna. Nothing special.”

“No, it's pretty—I think your name is really pretty.”

“You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?”

“Not even a little bit.”

She doesn’t know what to expect when Lyanna unlocks the door to the motel room. Supposes she’d imagined it to be crawling with vermin and falling apart but when she peeks over Lyanna’s shoulder, it's nothing short of normal. Painfully normal. Pretty clean too, as far as Nyra can tell.

Lyanna tosses her bag on the bed and starts to rifle through it while Nyra hangs in the doorway. Watching. She turns to Nyra with a pile of clothes in her hands.

“Get out of all that mess. You’re filthy, I can tell”

And Nyra swears she could cry as she takes them; “Why are you doing this?” Being so kind, she means. So selfless to a complete stranger. A stranger who’d eat her given the chance. Hells, she still isn’t sure whether she will or not right now even in the face of her kindness. 

“Don’t worry about all that, just go.” Lyanna dismisses her with a wave and Nyra heads straight for the bathroom—blanket doing a miraculous job of keeping the pungent stench of blood from permeating the air.

In the mirror, she doesn’t really recognize the person looking back at her. She knows it's her, knows those horns, those dark curls streaked with premature grays, deep red eyes of hers more intimately than anything and yet it seems like another person entirely. She’s changed. Something deep within her—at her very core— has changed. There’s a pit deep in her chest, she supposes. More akin to a gaping, dirty ditch than anything.

Under the, once again, scalding stream of the shower, she smells him. 

It's faint, really. Barely there, but it makes her head spin. She’s never met the same eater twice. The unspoken rule is to stay away from each other. Makes for less hassle. But here he is again—somewhere. Nyra can’t exactly tell where, just knows he’s close. She’s sick to her stomach. Stumbles out of the shower, slipping on the cracked tile as she lurches for the toilet bowl. Other eaters make her nervous. Terribly nervous. 

She lays in bed, watching the ceiling fan spin while Lyanna sleeps beside her. Nyra doesn’t really know what comes after this; after the sun rises and they check out of the room. There was talk of Baldur’s Gate, of a bus station a few days out with no real certainty. But her fingers twitch. She gazes at Lyanna. Feels sick again at the thought of taking her kindness and devouring her anyway. For the first time in her life, she simply doesn’t want to eat. Doesn’t want to rely on instinct. But instinct calls to her. Nyra can still smell Astarion somewhere nearby. It's driving her mad, not investigating it. 

So she decides she’s had enough. She gets up, slowly, from bed and Lyanna stirs but doesn’t wake. Even with the door open a crack, Nyra can hear the crickets chirping, can feel the humid breeze coming through. She steps out, barefoot into the night. She follows her nose.

In Baldur’s Gate, it's almost as if the stars don’t exist. Light pollution, she thinks it's called. But here, by the highway out on the edge of some town Nyra doubts is even on any map, she can see them all speckling the night sky when she looks out over the railing. 

He has to be here, though Nyra doesn’t know exactly why. Something deep down in her gut is telling her. Making her seek him out so that she may find him. But she doesn’t want to. Closeness to another eater is not a thing she’s ever desired—ever imagined, even. But here she is, walking down the steps, feeling soot and dirt adhere to the bottoms of her feet. Filth clings to her no matter what, it seems. 

The scent of him is coming from a room, tucked away and obscured by an old vending machine. Lights dim and flickering. Calling to her. There’s something strange mingling in the air. An odd thing that Nyra can’t quite place. Her stomach churns, her steps are more like a drag now. Wonders if this is a mistake. She’s always been wary of other eaters. Always. She knows what they’re capable of.

It's unlocked. The door is unlocked and that’s the first thing she notices. The acrid odor of old, dried blood comes next. Some fresh in there too.

She’s wary, stepping in. The carpet swallows the sound of her steps. Nyra gets the feeling that she knows she isn’t supposed to be here. Isn’t supposed to be looking for Astarion in the dead of night. But she is anyway. The carpet squelches as she comes to the bathroom door. It's drenched and dark and Nyra knows a blood stained carpet when she sees one. Knows the particular discomfort of stepping in it. He’s in there—in the bathroom and all that blood is making her nervous. It smells like him. It’s his. 

Her hand rests on the wood. Nails lightly scrape it as she forms a fist. Knocks once, twice. There’s no answer and her heart begins to pound like, for some reason, she wouldn’t want to see him dead. 

“Astarion,” she tries—barely above a whisper. The knob won’t turn. “Astarion.” Nyra’s rattling the door now, desperate. So blindly desperate and for what, another eater? She’s deluding herself now. Has to be. But she knocks again. Harder. 

A strangled sounding groan comes from the other side. Nyra’s hands shake. She grips the doorknob harder than she knows she should. Waiting.

When the lock clicks, she flinches. Lets go. 

Astarion opens it from the inside with a shove and, for a second, Nyra isn’t really sure what she’s looking at. It’s hard to tell with all the blood and the skin sloughing off his wrist and forearm, just hanging there. He’s drenched in crimson and, she was right, it's his blood. She follows the trail of it down from his mutilated wrist and up his shirt to his mouth. Nyra’s blood goes cold. Hasn’t ever imagined anything like this. She steps to him and he winces. Scoots himself back further into the bathroom with what little strength he has. So she kneels down on both knees and doesn’t dare get an inch closer. She can see his veins. 

Is this what it feels like for non eaters?

Nyra wants to gag. Just stares at him wide-eyed for a moment. Watches him go in and out of consciousness for far too long before she processes the fact that she’s watching him die and suddenly she’s alive again. Adrenaline coursing through every vein of hers, she gets up, scrambles for a towel—anything, really. Anything to stop the bleed. To stop Astarion from fading. She can see it in the way his eyes glaze over. It strikes fear into her. 

“Who did this?” She asks it in vain, she knows. Isn’t the smartest but she’s never pegged herself as an idiot. 

“I did.” weak, and barely there he croaks out the two words. 

Nyra tries again, “Who made you?” Because she cannot fathom ever doing this to herself. It's a hunger completely unknown to her. One she never wants to face. But she’s facing it now, isn’t she? Staring it right in the face. Watching it drain Astarion of everything that is him. Then again, she doesn’t really know him, but she knows that look, she supposes. The fading of light from the eyes, the gradual slack of the jaw as all his muscles give up. He’s dying. Won’t even answer her.

There’s jack shit in the cabinets under the sink. No towels, no washcloths. They’re barren. Empty. Nyra runs out of the bathroom, trips over her own feet and falls onto the scratchy carpet. It burns her palms but she rises again as quickly as her body will let her and rips open the closet door. White unsoiled towels appear before her, a saving grace. 

She falls to her knees in front of Astarion, pressing the cotton to his open wrist, she watches the crimson soil the white. Nyra presses down as hard as she can. These kinds of things need pressure, she swears she’d heard once and so pressure she will apply. He winces under the force of her touch, wrenches away from her but she holds him there. She keeps him in place because she doesn’t know how she’ll feel if he dies and that almost terrifies her more than the death itself. 

“You’re going to be okay,” she mutters to herself, really, “You’re going to be okay.” Nyra wills herself up on aching joints and pulls Astarion up with her. He whimpers in pain first, then almost guttural cries as she drags him along with her, step after step. 

“It hurts,” he says, “It hurts.”

The nurses in the emergency room all look at her sideways. A dog did this, she’d insisted when they asked and Astarion parroted it even through his exsanguinated daze when they refused to let her in the room with him at first. She wants to believe that she couldn’t have done this but she knows what she’s capable of and there’s no use in pretending otherwise. 

Nyra watches as they stitch him up. Watches the needle go in and out with precision she can hardly fathom. And Astarion just looks off into nothing. He can feel all of it, according to the nurse they didn’t have time to waste numbing him, but he takes it. Like each pinprick dragging through his raw flesh hurts less than whatever he did to himself. She believes it. 

“Some dog that did this,” the nurse says idly, “I’d hate to know what you did to piss him off that bad.” She ties off the stitch, wraps gauze around his wrist and smiles observing her work. Then she gazes at Nyra sidelong. “You’re lucky he didn’t get you by the throat.” She watches her leave. Grimaces at her back.

Then she looks back at Astarion, “What a bitch.” the quip comes out on its own, mindlessly, and a corner of his mouth quirks up. He huffs amusedly out of his nose—he’s coming back into himself. Nyra bites the inside of her cheek. “Astarion, what in the hells were you doing in there?” 

“Oh, I was having the time of my life darling, couldn’t you tell?” He won’t look at her.

Nyra rolls her eyes, sinks further into the uncomfortable vinyl of the chair, everything’s so sterile here. It makes her hairs stand on end. “When I told you we all have to eat, I never said you had to start with yourself.” 

“Silly me, I suppose.” It’s so humorless, so dry.

“Why?”

And when he doesn’t answer, she fears he might have had enough. That he’s grown tired of all her questions and he’ll tell her to go fuck herself the next time words spill from his mouth, but instead, “Because I don’t know how.”

“You—you don’t know how to eat?” Nyra tries for the gentlest way to put the words together but all she can form are unsure stutters before she lets her mind speak for her anyway. “But you ate. With me, at the house in the other town, you ate. I shared with you, Astarion, don’t tell me you don’t know how.”

“Well obviously I know how to eat!” Astarion raises his voice and she flinches. “What I meant was, I don’t know what comes before that. I’ve never been allowed.”

She doesn’t exactly know what to say to that. It stalls her. “I’m—I don’t…”

“You’re not the first eater I’ve met.”

The words weigh heavily in the space between them. Nyra doesn’t dare speak. Instead she watches him, her gaze unflinching. Intense. She’s waiting for him to continue, to sate her curiosity. 

“Before you, there was—there was Cazador.” She can feel the venom, the fear, lurching its way out of his throat as he says it. Astarion won’t look at her now. He’s focused on the box TV mounted up on the corner. Nothing is playing. “He didn’t much like sharing. No, he wanted all that lovely meat to himself. He would actually make me go and lure people back for him. They never said no to a pretty face.”

It rings a bell. A terrifying, bone-chilling bell. Cazador. She’d never heard his name, only ever heard him described. A sort of boogey-man among eaters that were perfectly fine keeping to themselves. The thing with Cazador was, he got his claws into you; made you do his bidding. And you’d be happy to do it because it was better than the alternative. Nyra steels herself, swallows hard.

 “I think I’ve heard about this guy. You weren’t the only one.” 

“After I met you, after I got a taste of what eating was like—well, I never went back. You said it yourself: we all have to eat.” He picks at the bandages and Nyra wants so badly to grab his wrist and stop him. She stays where she is. Doesn’t even twitch. “He wasn’t too happy about that, though. Found me himself and locked me in there.”

“So why didn’t you leave? The walls are paper thin, someone would’ve heard you.”

“Because I was terrified, Nyra! I thought he was still there. And I got hungry. Really fucking hungry. Didn’t care to think whether or not it would kill me, I just needed to eat.”

Astarion takes a sharp breath. Nyra doesn’t breathe at all. In all her years of life, she’s never felt a hunger that strong. Can’t really imagine it, no matter how hungry she’s gone. He had to have been in there for days, maybe weeks. All this time she thought she was getting away from Astarion when really, she was following his scent the entire time. She feels a phantom crawl on her skin. 

Fear of Cazador made him cannibalize himself. 

So really, what comes next feels like the obvious choice. “Come with me to Baldur’s Gate.” He looks at her, finally, and does so like she’s grown a spare head. “Put some distance between you and him.”

“Why bother—you’ll just run off again like you did last time.”

“I mean, maybe. But it wouldn’t hurt to have someone watching your back out on the road, now would it.” she shrugs. “I’m only trying to help, no one’s forcing you.”

There’s a knock on the door, the same nurse from before pokes her head in. 

“I’m sorry, miss, could you step out again for a moment?”

In the motel’s parking lot, she finds Lyanna hauling her bag into the back seat of that miserable looking truck, Astarion right on Nyra’s heels with his arms crossed. Hiding the bandages. The sun’s just peeking over the horizon now, coming up above the motel itself ever so slightly. Nyra feels a little warmth as she walks in its rays. Welcomes it after the sterile cold of the hospital. 

Lyanna waves them down, a bit of a squint in her eye. “Who the hell is that, blue?” 

“Friend of mine,” Nyra glances over her shoulder at Astarion. Gives him a look. And he looks down at her with a little bit of annoyance. Even rolls his eyes, just barely perceptible. “Had an accident last night. Needed my help.”

“Help.” It's doubtful, suspicious, the way she parrots it back. The word feels so charged now. Nyra doesn’t like it but she walks right up to Lyanna anyway. She looks a lot less weary in the morning light. A little younger. “Right. Well, I’m heading out. Don’t really know what you plan to do but that bus station’s two days out at least and it’ll be miserable on foot. You can hitch another ride if you want it. Both of you.” 

Astarion tugs at the back of her shirt; she looks back over her shoulder and up a little. He’s right behind her—so little space left between the two of them, like he’s scared to be any further away. He whispers her own name to her. A warning. She only reaches back and brings his hand down back to his side. Lyanna’s kindness is unprecedented. Unprecedented in the way that Nyra has never let someone so kind live this long. 

Maybe it's a mistake. 

But this mistake put a roof over her head for one night. What’s one more?

Every time Nyra looks in the rearview, she’s met with Astarion’s wary gaze. He doesn’t like this. Really, really doesn’t like this. And she can’t blame him. Kindness is rare for people like them. Kindness is usually a ploy; usually leads you to people like Cazador and they both know all too well now how that turned out. 

She tries her best to reassure him. Give him a look that says I know. It’ll be fine. But she knows he can’t read her mind. Knows it wouldn’t settle him one bit even if he could. Nyra bites her lip. Debates sinking her teeth into Lyanna right here and now. Taking the truck and fucking off straight to Baldur’s Gate; with Astarion though? She's not sure. Maybe he’s the bad idea, the fatal mistake. 

But she lets Lyanna keep going on, making turns and driving down dirt roads that seem like they go on forever. Twisting and turning. Like they’re in one big spiral. The uneven ground of them jostles the truck. Has Nyra hanging on to the roof handle as Astarion braces himself with one hand against the door—steady, ready to jump ship. 

Lyanna is at ease, though. Probably knows these roads better than anything else and takes each bump with grace. They’re in the middle of nowhere. A thought that hits Nyra so suddenly, she barely registers the pothole that has Lyanna cursing and praying for her bumper in the same breath. 

“Where are we going?” There’s nothing but a thick brush of trees on either side of the road. She grips the handle tighter. “The bus station—you said we could hitch a ride.”

And Lyanna shrugs—doesn’t so much as look at Nyra. “Relax. You’ll get your ride, I just have somewhere to be tonight. Didn’t think you two’d be in much of a rush.”

In the rear-view, Astarion mouths I told you so. Her heart beats fast. She can smell blood.

Before the trees clear, there’s a gate. 

A dinky little rusted gate that Nyra could easily clear, she thinks. Private Property. No Trespassing. Lyanna rolls the truck to a stop, hops out and leaves the door open. It takes an effort for her to get the gate open, her boots sinking into the dirt as she uses all her weight to force it. And it works. Eventually. Gives way with a shrill creak and some groans. To Nyra’s amusement, Lyanna kicks the “fucking thing” before she starts back for the truck. She laughs a little—stops suddenly when she feels Astarion’s glare burning into the back of her head.

Dinner. They’re having dinner in the middle of fucking nowhere with Lyanna’s family. They’re humble folks, by the looks of them. Cattle farmers. Been saddled with this land for generations and in no rush to leave it. The house is old, reeks of mildew and there’s mold growing at the edges of the baseboards. Still it has its charm, she supposes. Never been one for the whole farmhouse vibe, though. Surrounded by old shag and wood paneling is where she feels the most comfortable. Most at home.

Astarion picks at the thick steak on his plate with a fork. Meandering around actually eating the damn thing as if he isn’t starving and Nyra is too. Analyzing the grill marks and the way the fat marbles within the meat. It smells off. Nyra’s shaking her leg over and over. Repeated quick up and down movements, keeps locking eyes with Lyanna’s dad from across the table. There’s something strange in that gaze of his—manic, feral almost. It's deeply familiar. Familiar like the meat on her plate. It doesn’t smell like any animal meat she’s ever had, doesn’t give the same way. She pokes it, just barely, with a point of her fork. Her mind is wandering, making connections—assumptions, really. It almost smells like—

“So, Baldur’s Gate. What’s there for you two?”

Nyra shrugs, stares down at her plate. Maybe she’s wrong about it—the meat, David.  “Family.” Lyanna’s dad—David—stays quiet. Expects a little more than that from the strangers eating at his table, Nyra thinks. “We, uh, have to be in town for a wedding. Thought we’d hitch a ride together. Cheaper, you know.” 

Lyanna raises a brow, “You two weren’t together when I picked you up, though.”

“We had a fight,” Astarion only nods meekly, wordlessly carrying the lie on his shoulders as well. She’s grateful. “Split up for a little bit. Just to cool off.” 

“It's real good you two figured things out,” he says so earnestly that, just for a fraction of a second, Nyra rethinks the vibe she’s been getting from him. But then he takes a bite out of his steak—a real big hunk of it, still bleeding on the inside, she notices now. Bleeding like most of her dinners do. It hits her keenly in that moment that she’s not wrong at all. “No sense in fighting on the way to a celebration, now is there?” There’s still some in his mouth as he speaks. Blood all in his smile. Nyra shivers.

All she can do is smile politely.  “My thoughts exactly, sir.”

David doesn’t stop looking at her while he takes another bloody, oozing bite. She takes the inside of her cheek between her teeth, white-knuckles the fork in her hand. She knows

She feels like an animal, feral and backed against a wall. There’s that sort of ferocity brewing inside her after dinner that she seldom ever feels outside of hunting. Eating—tearing flesh apart with her bare hands. Usually it's combined with an indescribable euphoria but now? Now it's fear. Roiling in her gut as she leans on the bannister of the old wrap-around porch, grooves and sharp edges of the decaying wood painted over but even that’s wasting away too. Disintegrating under the weight of her arms and the warmth of her palm.

The screen door swings open, hinges surely on their last legs too. Nyra freezes, stops picking at the paint like she’s been caught. 

“Nyra,” her shoulders slump immediately at the sound of Astarion’s voice. She can even feel her heart slow a little. “We need to go.”

She whips around, “Why—what happened?”

“Nothing. No, not nothing, these people are odd. Unsettling. I don’t trust them.”

“They were nice enough to feed us, they let us stay here.” And even as she says it, she doesn’t buy it. Doesn’t know why she’s trying to justify staying here. Why she isn’t trusting her gut, her senses. Supposes that she just wants to be wrong.

He looks so sure as he stares into her eyes. Makes her wonder if he put the same pieces together or if he came about it differently.  “Oh yes, they fed us. And you didn’t eat a bit of it. That’s quite disrespectful, darling.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure.” Nyra snorts, ignores the way the tips of her ears go warm when he calls her darling. “Like you ate any.”

“Because I don’t trust them and, clearly, you don’t either.”

“Good on you, detective. Saw right through me.” Her arms are crossed lazily around her middle, a loose way of hugging herself and she’s wearing the biggest smirk because Astarion losing his mind about these people is awfully amusing. If she’s wrong about this, about them, she’ll be busting his balls about it for the rest of the night.

He’s dead serious, Nyra sees it in the grave sternness of his sanguine eyes, the way his brows pull together ever so slightly and his lips stretch into a tight frown. She chuckles, unable to help it—it's a short, choked thing, cut by Astarion’s stride towards her. He takes her hand in both of his, grips it tight, keeps her helplessly stuck in this moment. Astarion opens his mouth to speak, features even more troubled as if that were even possible—

The screen door swings open again.

David’s holding them hostage on the porch. Not literally, of course, but his presence is disconcerting enough that the two of them feel effectively trapped—Nyra still against the bannister, white knuckling it, digging a splinter further and further into the heel of her palm and Astarion sitting on the steps, looking out at the dark expanse of the driveway that goes far past the tree line. They wouldn’t be able to make a run for it in any way that matters. Nyra looks to her right, sees the barn and it looks like it's weeping with dirt. Something tells her that’s where David would look first if they did dare to run. She can see it now, her brain machinating—scheming—against her, showing her stalked and hunted, trying to find safety within the dark corners of the barn—all in vain. She understands how they felt now; the Sharran girl whose goddess looked on in judgment as she sank her teeth into her flesh, the cashier in the last town over, guilty only of smiling at her, and all the countless ones before. Nyra gets it more than she wants to, more she should. She always thought there was an inherent disconnect between prey and predator. Now she understands they’re one and the same at some point or another. Keenly feels like prey now as David stares at her sidelong.

The cigarette between his stained fingers is on the verge of burning out, a pile of ash on the waterlogged planks below. He rocks back and forth on the rocking chair—the only well cared for piece on the porch. It looks brand new, save for a few scratches and some wear on the legs. She’d almost think it treasured. A whistling breeze passes through, sets a chill running up her spine. 

He’s looking at her like the cat that ate the god damned canary and it's making her skin crawl. Thousands of bugs—millions—and their tiny little legs scurrying across her muscles, digging through the fibers of them into her bones. She feels a phantom bite in the pit of her elbow, a tearing, really. Feels a warm trickling down to her fingertips. When she glances down there’s nothing. 

Cicadas. She can hear cicadas buzz and whine in the trees; she’s always liked the sound of them. Used to hear them every night from outside her bedroom window as a kid and, now that she really thinks about it, hasn’t just sat and delighted in their noise for years. When did that stop? She almost thinks but she knows very well when it stopped. When the longing for blood first took over all her senses and she smells it now, the blood. Coming from the barn far off to her right on the other end of the property, coming from the dirt under David’s nails—at least she thought it to be dirt at dinner but now she’s really focusing, smelling the familiar stink of dried up blood. Human blood. But sees no old cuts on his hands or arms, no scrapes. She glances over at the barn again. 

It feels wrong, the way his smile grows impossibly wide when she sets her eyes back onto him. Nyra can’t hear the cicadas anymore. 

“You smell it now, don’t you?” David sounds so incredibly fucking delighted when he says it. Like he’s been waiting anxiously for them to catch on—to finally lean into their senses. Surely, had they eaten anything, they’d have caught on sooner. 

Blood rushes to her head, she can hear her heart thumping in her ears—quicker by the second. “Don’t go on and get scared now,” he holds a hand out. Her heart beats faster. “It's a rare thing to meet another eater, let alone two.” Nyra glances now to Astarion, standing, one foot on the top step like he’s frozen.

“But I couldn’t—I figured it out but, I couldn’t smell it. You.”

He rises from the rocking chair with a sigh, “Not everyone can. Takes a while to train yourself, gotta know what you’re looking for.” brushing past Astarion and making his way down the steps, he beckons them to follow.

And they do. Scared and complacent, they follow him right out to the barn, dry grass crunching under their feet. The breeze is gone—an oppressive humidity in its place. Nyra can hardly breathe, it feels like. She wants her legs to stop, to turn around and run but they keep moving, keep following. They are completely independent of her and ignore every cry of protest that swirls in her mind. 

Astarion is picking at his bandages again. She glances over and focuses on his fingers digging at the gauze, scraping his flesh, because she cannot stare at David’s back any longer as the barn grows closer and closer. Nyra knows, in her head, what’s in there—doesn’t mean she wants to see it. Her heart’s hammering against her rib cage now and she’d almost be happy if it stopped completely. If she dropped dead right here. The smell of Astarion’s blood hits her like a slap across the face. 

Nyra can’t die, she thinks, she still has to get him away from Cazador. To Baldur’s Gate. 

The barn doors are chained shut and locked with an old padlock, more rust than anything now and David has to hold the lock and key in two very specific ways to get to unlock. It falls with a fat thud onto the grass and the chains follow after, rattling as he unravels them. She feels sick. The sort of sick where your mouth waters and you can feel the bile right in your throat. Isn’t really breathing either as she watches the doors open to nothing but darkness within the barn.

But she can smell the blood stronger than ever now. 

In the dark, she follows the scent. Lets her eyes adjust to the dark and finds the barn empty. Cattle, Lyanna had said. They were just supposed to be a bunch of simple fucking farmers.

She swallows, “So that cattle farmer thing, that was just bullshit?” 

“No, we do keep cattle. Just not here. Haven’t in years.” They’re at the very back of it now, staring down at where their dinner came from. One human woman and a man, naked, chunks carved from their bodies with precision. With care. One crater for each steak on their plates that night, Lyanna and her mother’s included. There’s a second woman in the corner, alive, Nyra realizes. A Gith, raving and mad, shakily breathing from her nose, arms and legs tied. She screams—or tries to, can’t really scream with her mouth taped shut—and looks at Nyra and Astarion with an ire unlike anything she’s ever seen. There’s fear in there too, just a hint of it. “This here’s where I like to have my fun.”

“Your wife and daughter, do they know? Are they…” 

David laughs, seems like it's more to himself than anyone, like some kind of inside joke. “Those two? Perfectly fucking normal. Haven’t got a clue.”

Nyra’s blood runs cold. She looks to Astarion who stares at David, wide-eyed, unable to believe what he’s hearing and she can’t either. 

“It’ll change though, I’ve been getting them used to it—the meat. They like it better than any of that other shit now. You know, animals, cattle, the boring meat.” he continues, “After they have their full-bones, we’ll be the same, I’m hoping.”

“Full-bones?”

“When you eat the whole thing, darling,” and it isn’t lost on her just how much hearing that word from his mouth makes her want to puke at his feet. “Bones and all. Ain’t nothing like it. No ma’am, nothing at all.” Astarion’s been standing away from them both, staring at the Gith. Hanging onto David’s every word. “That one there is tomorrow’s dinner. They’re something special when they’re angry. Makes for tough meat but that’s nothing a stew can’t fix.”

Astarion flinches—he and Nyra both. 

David has them put up in the living room, on the pullout couch that squeals under the slightest bit of weight and neither of them are laying on it. They’re sitting, the both of them, awkwardly at the edges of the bed. Watching the stairs. Waiting—though for what, they don’t rightfully know. Nyra supposes she’s waiting for a monster; for David. Thinks that, maybe, Astarion’s waiting for the same thing. That maybe Astarion’s waiting for his monster instead. For Cazador. Her skin itches, she can feel the bugs in her gums now, skittering in between her teeth, all up and down her face. Feels them weigh down their eyelashes. She makes to pick them off. There’s nothing there. 

She feels restless again. Wouldn’t be able to sleep if she tried, so Nyra gets up. Wanders around the living room—prowls it, really. Only exits are the windows, those and the front door through the hall and past the stairs. Tip-toeing on the creaky, splintering wood floors, she makes her way just in front of those stairs. Leans on the post and stares up into the darkness. It’s quiet, still. Not a thump to be heard and it makes her heart race. Has her body feeling like it's seconds away from breaking out into a sprint.

Running won’t get them very far, though. 

Astarion has been watching her keenly. Hasn’t moved from his spot at the edge of the bed but he’s making connections in his mind, too. Calculating a swift exit, she’s sure. 

Through the tiny slits of glass encircling the front door, she can see Lyanna’s truck. Granted, only if she squints, but she sees it now like a boon. A miracle. Nyra’s eyes flit to the hooks on the wall. To the set of keys on them—Lyanna’s keys. 

Nyra backs into the living room, as if she would make the keys disappear by taking her eyes off of them. Whispers, “Get your shit, we’re out of here.”

They climb into the truck silently, gently. Left the front door open so as to not alert David. To give themselves a fighting chance at getting past that treeline and out on the road. And then it shuts. A rogue gust of wind acting against them slams the door—Nyra can feel the way it rattles the house from here. Winces, lets out a quick fuck as she sees the lights flick on. She jabs the key into the ignition, turns the engine over and her blood runs cold when it won’t go. 

“Nyra.”

She tries it again. Nothing.

“Nyra.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Still nothing.

“Nyra!” He’s got his upper arm in a vice grip and she looks out the back window. The whole family’s out on the porch. David’s loading a shotgun. She fumbles for the keys again, hands shaking now. 

A shot rings out. A warning, maybe, because it doesn’t hit them. The engine sputters now. Warming up like it's just about to get going, then dies. David shoots again. Hollering out into the night, Nyra can’t make out a word of it. 

The back window shatters. They both scream.

The engine turns over.

Nyra puts her full weight on the gas pedal. Sends the truck careening down the miles-long stretch of driveway. Hears one, two, three more shots before they’re past the tree line. Barrels right through that gate from before. 

The farm’s still in the rearview, just barely, when she feels that tinge of pain. Looks down and sees blood trickling from where Astarion was holding her before. From where the bullet got her square in the arm. Too scared to stop the truck, she looks to Astarion. Helpless. Like a child—like he had looked at her when she found him in that motel bathroom. He scrambles for his bag as she drives, eyes dead set on the road because the sight of her own blood makes her woozy. In any other moment, she’d remark on the irony of it. Find it deeply hilarious.

He presses a shirt to the open wound. Nostrils flaring at the scent of her blood. Turns his face away from it—from her—but keeps the pressure like her life depends on it and it might. Neither of them know jack shit about gun wounds. He presses down harder, so hard he’s half-shoving her against the door.

Emergency rooms in the middle of nowhere feel like slipping through the fabric of time itself. They found it just a few miles outside Waterdeep, a rural offshoot long forgotten by the city proper, stuck staunchly in the sixties with the wood paneled walls of the waiting room. Makes Nyra think of home—of what was once home a long, long time ago. 

She’s holding the shirt to her arm all by herself now. Astarion’s got a heavy hand and she could feel the bullet wriggling around wherever he focused the most pressure. He’s beside her though, waiting. Didn’t have to; Nyra told him he could just wait in the truck, but he shrugged her off. 

Buck hunting gone wrong’s their story this time around. A shitty one considering it’s not hunting season but she’s playing it like they’re dumb kids that don’t know any better. And it seems like that’s common around these parts because the nurse at the front desk bought it like she’s heard it a million times before. Beats the nurses that wouldn’t believe her dog story, even if that one was a much better lie. 

There’s a storm brewing outside, Nyra can tell by the thick gray of the clouds snuffing out the sunlight. Can sees flashes of lightning that dash the sky if she focuses really hard. 

“It’s going to rain,” She says to no one, really. But Astarion perks up beside her. Takes his eyes off the floor and glances at her, at the window, then back at her. “Gonna suck without that window.”

“The window is the least of our worries right now.”

Nyra shrugs, “It’s still a pretty big one.”

“Like the hole in your arm.”

“I’ve had bigger holes in me.” She muses.

“What?”

“I don’t know. My fucking head hurts.”

“You’ll be alright.” He says it like he’s trying to reassure himself more than her. Like it’s all he has to hang on to. Nyra turns to him, looks him in the eye for the first time in hours. “We’ll be in Baldur’s Gate before we know it.”

“If they stop taking forever. There’s literally no one else here.”

“Well, that’s just the nature of waiting rooms, darling. You have to wait.”

“They didn’t make you wait this long.”

“I was bleeding out.”

“And I’m not?”

The nurse at the front desk slides the partition open, stares down at her clipboard like the words on it are written in Infernal. “Nyra T—Tayvar?”

 She sighs, shakes her head. All of a sudden has vivid memories of grade school. “T’avar.”

“Sure.” The nurse shrugs, indifferent to her correction. “This way.”

It takes twenty-seven stitches to close the wound and what feels like a million pieces of ruined gauze. Astarion doesn’t follow her into the room, doesn’t stay with her and it hurts. A small twinge in her chest that she can’t quite understand. The thought of him occupying the chair in the corner of the small triage floods her mind’s eye. She wanted him there. Wanted him there and she doesn’t know why. 

They send her out with two prescriptions—one for antibiotics, the other for painkillers—that she’ll never pick up. Rattled off her childhood pharmacy in Menzoberranzan when they’d asked her. It rolled so easily off her tongue. Made her feel weepy, a strange overwhelming longing for the Underdark. Doesn’t miss the stares she’d get, eyes lingering on her tail and her horns, so different from the Drow around her, but she misses the place itself. The place never did her any wrong.

He’s outside in the waiting room when they discharge her. Unmoved. Right where she left him. The storm outside is in full swing; rain battering the windows, thunder clapping a little ways away. Getting louder and louder.

The back of her neck is drenched. They fly down the interstate, less than nine miles outside of Waterdeep proper. Nyra spots a building among the rolling fields and nothingness. A trucker’s chapel, seen so many of them Nyra barely blinks at it. Small, but the lights are on. Warm. The House of Our Dark Lady, the sign outside says. Sharran. Her skin starts to burn.

Nyra had never been to Waterdeep. Never had much of a reason to. It’s different than she thought it would be. Always imagined most major cities as never-sleeping, always teeming with life. Waterdeep is sleepy, right on the coast and a dense fog is falling upon them as they roll into town. There’s a university here, prestigious, very liberal-artsy. Nyra’s eaten quite a few students here and there from what she remembers. They were always so content with being home from school—she hopes they at least died content that she killed them somewhere so familiar. Not here, not thousands of miles from home. 

If she were to die the way they did, she thinks, she wouldn’t mind it being in Menzoberranzan. No, not at all. She looks to Astarion, wonders if he feels the same about Baldur’s Gate. If he feels that same longing for home or if it's just another city to him. Just like all the others.

His flesh is prickled in goosebumps. The chill of the rain and the fog setting into his bones just like it set into hers. They can’t sleep in the truck, not tonight. At a stoplight, she ransacks the glove compartment. Finds jack shit, save for a twenty. She tosses it in the cup holder. It won’t get them a room, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to keep it around. Just in case.

His hand grazes hers as the light turns green, a brief, fleeting warmth before she gets her hand back on the wheel. Nyra looks to him like she has time and again. Sees something different there in his gaze. Sees want itself as a tangible, visible thing.

It isn’t all that difficult to crack a motel window open and slip into a vacant room. Nyra does it with an ease and precision that has Astarion cocking a brow at her before following her into the room. The room isn’t nice by any account, but the guy in the lobby is asleep at his desk and it’s so shabby, she assumes he won’t really care if there’s another room taken. Maybe he’d think he forgot to log a check-in. She hates banking on people’s incompetence like this but it's cold and humid and she needs a shower.

“Don’t turn on the lights. The TV’s fine but don’t turn on anything else. Last thing I want is to get arrested tonight.”

Astarion’s hanging back. Quiet. No quips, no verbal confirmation of anything she says. No calling her darling. It makes her unsure—uncomfortable, even. She swallows hard and stares at him. Waits for him to do something. Anything. He reaches for her again, fingers dancing gently on her wrist, slides them down to grab her hand while his other comes up to the side of her face. 

She’s played this game before. Never ends well, this, and still, she lets him. Gazes into the red of his eyes as he leans in. Kisses her. He’s so fucking gentle. Her teeth scream, want to dig into the flesh of his lips; tear at his face and yet she finds herself doing the unimaginable. She kisses back. No bite, no mal intent in the way her lips glide against his. Nyra is keenly aware of what he’s doing, why he’s doing it. But she’s never gotten to just do this. To enjoy it.

He lays her down on the bed and it squeals under their combined weight. The sheets feel pilly. Like polyester washed too many times over. He kisses just underneath her jaw and her whole body feels alight with flame. Nyra has to focus, really focus, to not give into the twitch of her fingers. To keep them from clawing into his skin. She thinks hard now and cannot remember a single time she has fucked someone without eating them. Hopes, more than anything, that this ends differently. 

Astarion is pulling her flush against his face by the hips, working his tongue against her clit like a man starved. Moans are dying in her throat just before they emerge—it hits her then that she hasn’t ever earnestly moaned before. At least, not that she can remember. Instead, her moans resemble strangled cries, far from erotic and yet, they seem to encourage Astarion. Nyra can feel the shifts in the mattress as he grinds into it every so often, groans into her cunt in a way that makes her want to squeeze her legs shut, the feeling of it too much to bear. She digs into the stitches with each wave of pleasure as she gets closer to the brink. The pain helps. Keeps her from biting.

She’s at the precipice of complete, all-encompassing bliss when he pulls away. Stares up at her with a darkened gaze and there it is again. That want. Desire in its purest form. Even in the dark, she can see it better than anything else. Can feel it, too. Bubbling in her chest. Wants more.

He holds her tight as he fucks into her like she’s the last real, solid thing on this earth. Fingers digging into the meat of her sides, no nails though. No real danger to the grip. Just pure, raw desperation. Nyra wonders, through all the feelings as foreign to her as the act of regular, normal, sex itself, if that’s what she feels. Not hunger, just desperation. Desire. 

Wonders if she finally feels normal about something.

They’re in the tub, face to face, water sloshing around them as Nyra pulls her knees to her chest. She can’t stop staring at him. Is sort of in awe at the fact that he’s still here in front of her. Breathing and in one piece. And he’s staring at her, too. Nervous, expectant of something.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

Astarion cocks his head to the side, narrows his eyes. “Do what?”

“Fuck me to get me to stay. Told you I’d get you to Baldur’s Gate. I’m not going to ditch you.” She shrugs.

“You have before.”

“That was different. I didn’t know you—didn’t care.”

This kind of desperation is different, not born of desire but of fear. It looks terrible on him. “And you care? Now?” 

Nyra shrugs again, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I cared before you fucked me though.”

“And who's to say I didn’t just do that because I wanted to?”

“Call it an educated guess.”

“An educated guess based on?”

“On the fact that we don’t get to have sex because we want to. Ever. Have to do it to get what we want.”

He leans back, flush against the cold, dingy tile. “The most unfortunate fact of our existence.”

Nodding, she glances up at him through wet curls. Maybe it doesn’t have to be. “It was nice with you. Don’t do it again if you’re just doing it to make me stay, though. Please. Makes me feel like shit.”

“I’ll try my best.”

She smiles. “Thank you.”

Waterdeep is so full in the early morning, it almost makes Nyra want to scream. The diner smells overwhelmingly like cheap, burnt coffee and wet rags. It’s nice, in a way. What isn’t nice is the crowd of college kids nursing their early morning hangovers over bad coffee or finishing up overdue papers. So many smells, so many heartbeats. She stares into the black depths of the mug in front of her, catches glimpses of Astarion in her peripheries fucking up an omelette. It makes her smile. He has a way of doing that, making the corners of her mouth twitch up without doing much of anything at all. 

All that’s left on her plate is toast, surprisingly not at all burnt like the coffee. She tears off a corner of it, soaks it in what’s left of the egg yolk. Just drops it. There are too many eyes in here, too many that feel like they’re burning holes into the back of her neck. 

Sees eyes on her past Astarion’s shoulder. From a corner booth at the other end of the diner, right up against the windows, there’s a man. Elven. Black, pin-straight hair, long and thinning just barely into a pseudo widow’s-peak. Eyes as red as hers and he stares. Like he recognizes her but cannot place it. Nyra shifts in her seat. White-knuckles the mug’s handle and, just for a second, finds it in her to stare back. A chill runs through her—not fear but foreboding. 

She pushes herself up by the edge of the table and takes off to the bathroom. An attempt at avoidance but not a good one. He’s already there in front of the door to the ladies room. Arms crossed, looking her up and down like he’s sizing her up. Smells like dread itself.

“Excuse me,” Nyra tries to brush past but he is solid, in place like a statue. 

He smiles, a little wry and all wrong. “No, little lamb, excuse me.” Says it with such phony politeness that it makes the muscles of her mouth twitch up into a grimace. And he lets her through.

She pulls him out of the diner by injured wrist, dropping the twenty on the table with a slam. And he fights her. Unstoppable force, immovable object and all that. Doesn’t quite get Astarion out the door before he’s able to pull his wrist from her grasp, the friction of the bandages burning her a little. 

“What in the world has gotten into you?”

Nyra measures herself. Chest heaving, she looks off to the side at the curb. She shakes her head, blinks maybe a little too rapidly. “What did Cazador look like?”

Astarion tenses, Nyra can see the muscles in his neck tighten, can see the strain of his jaw as his teeth grind together. 

The truck craps out on them before they manage to get out of Waterdeep proper. Engine dies slow as it rolls them to a stop in the middle of an intersection. The emergency lights won’t even turn on so Nyra has to get out and motion for people to pass while Astarion gets their shit out of the cab. The fog has subsided into a dense humidity, her curls now doubled in size and the sunlight creating a halo with the frizz of them. She catches Astarion staring. Doesn’t at all make her feel like the man from before. Feels butterflies, a faint tingling where she’d felt the bugs before.

That brings on a different dread in and of itself.

There is a singular bus station in Waterdeep, practically deserted this time of year. Nyra sinks into her seat against a wall at the far end of the station. Waits and tries to ignore the fanning of Astarion’s breath against the side of her neck. The weight of his head on her shoulder. She can’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep—not until exhaustion took him anyway. They’re terrified now. Waterdeep is compromised. A vent rattles above her head, comes to life as it lets out a freezing draft. Nyra shivers. Bites into the skin at the side of her thumb.

She watches the very few people that linger in the station, contemplates them because, really, what else is there to do. Contemplates their normalcy, the monotony of it. One of the clerks buys a coffee for a girl alone in the corner, smiles as she blushes at the gesture with rattling teeth. Another man smokes a cigarette just outside the station doors, looks a little too forlorn at the payphone beside him as he takes a drag, breathes out a feathery plume of smoke into the night. She feels a knot in her throat watching them. Wishes that she could have that. 

Wishes she could just be a person. 

Astarion shifts closer in his sleep, seeking her warmth, surely. She looks down at his hand, hanging limp off the armrest of his seat. Reaches for it. Slides her fingers against his palm and holds it delicately as if too rough of a movement would turn him to sand. Would make him slip through her fingers. Palm flush against palm, her heart swells. Nyra rests her head against his. 

“Sometimes I wish we could be like that. Be people,” she whispers to no one. “We don’t have to live like this, you know. Could go anywhere.” No response. “Don’t have to end up like David. Don’t even have to eat—not really. I mean, we’ve gone without it before, it’s not like… not like we can’t do it again.” She’s staring hard now at the back of the chair before her, digging her nails into her palm. “In Baldur’s Gate, we could be people.”

She almost doesn’t feel the way that his hand comes to life, grasps hers back tightly. Rubs his thumb absentmindedly along her skin. “Then let’s be people.”

Baldur’s Gate is sprawling. More life-form than city and it makes Nyra feel raw. Like an open wound. They could disappear here, slip into the unknown corners of the city far from Cazador’s reach. From people like David. The thought makes her giddy. Makes her excited for normalcy.

They find a place in the lower city, an old, crumbling building run by an elderly woman that doesn’t question them nearly as much as she should. Lets them pay up front in cash and doesn’t ask for any identification. Doesn’t ask for anything at all, really. Just their word that they’ll pay up on the first of the month. And they do. 

Jobs are harder—come with too many questions and neither of them have much experience anyway. Astarion winds up filing papers at a family-run mortuary, Nyra as a cashier at a vintage shop in the upper city. They fall into this routine of playing at normalcy, play it so well that it actually starts to feel real. Their cramped little apartment littered with knick knacks and traces of them. For once in her life, Nyra feels like it belongs to her. Like she has a home. A tangible, real home. The dishes in the sink, the rumpling of the sheets from where they both lay at night, it’s proof they exist. She often finds herself waking just before dawn, staring at Astarion’s sleeping face in the darkness and feeling that swell in her chest again, the tingling all over. Feels not the need to eat, but something else. 

Nyra feels love.

Tonight, they make her close the shop alone. Empty the register, lock up the precious, fragile things. Dust all the shelves and leave everything perfect for the next morning. She calls Astarion quickly from the phone behind the counter, to let him know she won’t be long. Gets a busy signal. The sun’s setting when she finally locks up, bleeding pink and orange into the sky. A breeze passes as she turns the lock and she smells it. Smells him.

Her blood runs cold, she hopes that it’s just a mistake of her senses. Memory of his scent getting confused with the present moment. But she’s smarter than that. Thinks to Astarion in their apartment all alone and she runs.

The door is ajar, just barely and Nyra slips through the crack, careful not to make any noise. Strains her ears for something, anything. There is nothing but silence and it makes her stomach flip. She follows the trail of wet footprints to their bedroom. There’s a silhouette in the corner of her eye as she rounds the corner and comes face to face with their open bedroom door. Sees him—Cazador—atop Astarion, fully flush against him, ear to his chest with a dagger in his hand. Astarion’s eyes flit to her, gaze wild, pleading. She can see the way his chest heaves in fear. 

This was a mistake, she realizes. To think that they could stay in one place, to think they could be normal and she could love him. It was always meant to happen this way. There is no other alternative as she rushes to Cazador and pulls him by his shirt off of Astarion. Nails digging at his throat with his back against her chest. His hand, the one holding the dagger, arcs in the air, misses Astarion’s face just barely as the blade sinks into Nyra’s chest. She groans, pain muddled by the adrenaline. Astarion rips Cazador’s arm away and they force him to the ground, her nails breaking skin and clawing into the muscle of his throat. Cazador makes a choked sort of noise, cries out. Astarion grabs him by the wrist, snaps his fingers back and the knife clatters to the ground. Wastes no time in picking it up and sinking it into Cazador’s sternum. Still he struggles. Nyra, with her nails still around his throat, palm constricting his breath entirely, holds him in place as Astarion reaches into his chest. Cazador is screaming now, a sound worse than any she’s ever heard. Astarion pushes further and further past ribs and viscera. Wraps his hand around Cazador’s still beating heart and squeezes. 

His struggling ceases completely. Goes limp in Nyra’s hands and as she tries to catch her breath, her lungs feel tight. Waterlogged. They pick him up together, throw him into the tub, lest he bleed more onto their bedroom floor. Nyra only makes it a half-step back into their bedroom before she can’t. Her vision a tunnel that can only focus on Astarion as she crumples against the wall and slides down. Leaves a trail of blood behind her. She hates the look in his eyes when he sees her, the fear. Hates that she can’t seem to force any words out as he falls to his knees beside her. No, no, no, no is all he can seem to say. Her hearing is starting to fade.

“Nyra look at me,” it’s all she can manage to do, the strength leaving her body, and still she looks at him as though he’s a thousand miles away. “Come on, Nyra. Stay awake, darling. It’s alright. We did it, we got rid of him. We can… we can go somewhere else, we can try again. Please.”

She starts to slump to the side and he lays her down onto the hardwood, gently. He’s always so incredibly gentle with her. 

“I want…”

“Nyra, please stay awake.”

“I want you to eat first.” He doesn’t seem to hear her as he puts all his weight on the wound. It won’t do anything, she can feel her lungs filling up, drowning her in her own blood. “Astarion, I want you to eat.”

“No, I’m not fucking hungry.”

“Bones and all, I want… want you to.”

“I won’t eat him.”

“I want you to eat me. Eat me, it’s the simplest thing, Astarion.”

“No!”

“Love me and eat.” She uses what little strength she has, wraps her arms around his neck and forces her against him. Makes his hands lose pressure against her wound and he claws at her now, desperate. She can feel his tears soaking whatever parts of her shirt the blood didn’t.

“No, I won’t. We’re going to get out of here, we’ll—fuck!”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, “It’s beautiful. Bones and all, you can do it.” sobs wrack his body, shaking them both. They stay like that, and for a moment, a pang of fear returns to Nyra. The fear that he won’t do as she asks. He stills, holding her tight but no longer sobbing. She can feel him take a breath. Can feel his teeth dig into her shoulder. Rip into the skin and pull away. She’ll be with him now, inside, even now as she lay dying. Will always be beside him—every bit of her. Nyra feels that swell of love, feels it as keenly as she feels the pain blooming in her entire body. She screams. 

When the woman comes to collect her rent, she’s greeted by nothing. Just an empty apartment, nothing to give her an idea of what happened to the couple that lived here. What all that commotion was the night before. It smells overwhelmingly of bleach. She walks it, tentatively, as though one of them will jump out and scare her into her grave but there is nothing. Just the sound of her steps in the hardwood. 

The bedroom feels off, bed stripped bare of sheets and the dresser drawers left open like they’d left in a rush.

Under the bed, she sees something. Squints. A dark stain in the wood is all that is left of them.

[trashboatprince]

In one of the only comics Fourteen has, they end up on a Sycorax ship and find a pig there, taking the little guy with them on an adventure.

I'd like to believe Fourteen still has the pig, so that's why I'm writing this one-shot.

As always, I write Fourteen with they/them pronouns, but as this is a fic through Donna's perspective, and she hasn't learned their pronouns yet, she uses he/him. This isn't out of disrespect, the Doctor just hasn't bothered to tell anyone yet because they don't care.

On with the fic!

--

Donna yawned as she made her way down the stairs of the UNIT home her family was going to be staying in for a bit until her old home was rebuilt, or she got something better. She should probably still be sleeping, especially after the three, very dangerous adventures with the Doctor she had went on yesterday, but she was a mom, which meant sleeping in wasn't always gonna happen.

Plus, Shaun hogged all the blankets again, and she wasn't in the mood to yank them off her adorable husband.

So, time for some coffee.

As she shuffled into the kitchen, Donna heard a very familiar voice, muffled be being outside.

"-if you don't behave yourself, I'll give you back to the Vega Raptons!"

There was a strange noise, followed by the Doctor responding with "Yes, you're right, that's just going to upset them. Now, stop trying to chew on the chicken wire!"

Donna sighed loudly, rubbing at her face. "What are you up to now, spaceman..." She growled under her breath. Quickly, she got the kettle started and made her way to the sliding door that let to the backyard.

There, she found a sight that really shouldn't have surprised her, considering who her best friend was, and yet...

The Doctor always just had to find a way to knock her socks off, whether she wanted him to or not.

The TARDIS was in the yard, her doors open, with a trail of things coming out of her. Nearby was the Doctor, who was in the middle of constructing a large (at least for the yard) circular fence. There was a small little hut at one end, like those kind you get for dogs when they're outside, and the grass within the circle had been removed, leaving dirt.

And sitting in the circle, that was being wrapped in chicken wire, was a young, tusked pig.

"What. The. Hell!" Donna shouted, startling the Doctor, who dropped his nail gun with a shout of his own.

"D-Donna! Ah, good morning..!" The Doctor stood right up, dusting dirt off his pajama pants, had he been out here since last night?

"Doctor, what is going on!? Why'd you tear up the yard, this isn't our house! And where did that pig come from!?"

The Doctor blinked, then looked at the pig, as if noticing it for the first time, even though he had just spoken to it moments ago. "Ah. Right. Forgot to tell you about him."

He shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet. "Soooo... this is Alfredo. Alfredo, this is Donna, I was telling you about her."

The pig actually nodded at this.

"Yeah, anyway, I rescued him shortly after I regenerated. Had this whole... thing after fighting some Daleks, and accidentally helping in their design, whoops. Ended up on a Sycorax ship! Remember those? Oh, wait, you were hungover that Christmas morning, right. Anyway, they had this little guy there torturing the Vega Raptons that were enslaved and-"

Donna held up a hand. "Get to the point, Doctor."

"Yes, of course! So, saved the day, took the pig into the TARDIS. He was in there the whole time!"

"Even when the ship was on fire!?"

"..." The Doctor made a face, glancing between her and the TARDIS. "He was protected. She kept him safe!"

"But not us!"

"Well, we were at ground zero of the whole coffee fiasco, so... that's kinda why she kicked us out."

"We escaped before we were incinerated by a giant blast of fire." Donna huffed, crossing her arms.

The Doctor scratched at the back of his head. "Well, she opened the doors, that counts!"

She sighed loudly. "Fine, whatever, but what are you doing? Why are you building this? You can't keep the pig!"

"But Alfredo wants to live with me, he's my little friend!" The Doctor looked at the pig, who was rolling around in the dirt. "Aw, that's really cute."

"Do you even know how to care for a pig? Bet you don't. I bet you can't even care for a plant!"

"Donna, there is a whole greenhouse inside the TARDIS, course I can take care of a plant. And a pig! Plus, Alfredo's a smart boy, it'll be easy!"

Donna wasn't impressed. "Does UNIT know you tore up the yard?"

His eyes went wide. "Uhhh... not. Yet. I'll tell them later today! Come on, Donna, please let me keep him? I'll take good care of him!"

"Doctor..." Donna started, being hearing the sliding door open.

"Mum, did you turn on the kettle? Cause it's read- is that a pig!?" Rose suddenly shot past Donna, rushing over to the half-finished pen. "He is! Oh, look at the li'l guy, he's adorable!"

"His name is Alfredo." The Doctor grinned.

"What a cute name for a piggy! Have you said 'allons-y Alfredo' yet?"

"Not yet, but hopefully soon!" The Doctor said with glee, then turned to Donna. "Come on! Rose approves of him! Rose, help me out, your mum don't want a pig."

"What!?" Rose turned around and Donna tried to stand her ground as she was being stared down by two sets of big, pleading brown eyes.

"Oh no! Don't you two dare work your charms on me!" She shouted at them.

"Pllllleeeeeaaasseeee, Mum! I promise I'll help the Doctor take care of him!" Rose pouted.

"Yeah!" The Doctor nodded. "We'll work together! Plllleeaaasseee?"

Donna groaned and threw back her head in defeat. "Fine! But you two are responsible, not me! You two will take care of him and all his needs! And Doctor, you better call UNIT and let them know."

"Got it! Thank you, Donna! You're the best!" The Doctor was grinning even more now.

"Yeah, the best!" Rose added, then turned back to Alfredo, scratching the top of his head.

Donna sighed and turned, shaking her head and muttering about how she was going back to bed.

[sleepyficss]

taco (ii) x reader headcanons? general headcanons would be nice, although if you could include ones involving reader having a cutesy girly gender presentation + having BPD and NPD that would be even better. please and thank you :3

taco, bpd & npd headcanons!

taco x reader, fluff

authors note:

as my first actual request, thank you so much!! the fact that its for taco, too <33 i don't have either bpd nor npd myself, but i will try my hardest to make it accurate!! + by general, i wasn't sure whether you meant romantic or not, so i left it up in the air. could be read as either.

- written as post-ii season 2 in mind (so don't blame me if she seems inaccurate in a few episodes time lolol)

- taco has struggled a lot with her own relationships over the last few years, so the fact that you've gotten this close with her? she must really trust you.

- she's honestly terrified of you leaving her, considering the number of people who have done exactly that in the past (although, it hadn't been unwarranted...)

- swears to do whatever she can to keep you from leaving her, especially since you might be one of the very few people she has left.

- because of this, she completely understands it when you're afraid of the possibility of abandonment – but you learn to work through it together.

- she loves to remind you of how much you mean to her, that she wouldn't want you to be any different than the way you currently are <3

- the last thing she wants is for you to feel that you aren't good enough, or to have bad self-images of yourself.

- makes SURE that you know her opinion of you is highly regarded, that she loves you for you, no matter if you've had a bad week.

- taco has definitely picked up on any micro-expressions, or usually unseen habits you have that reveal the way you're feeling; especially for times that you struggle more to show those emotions.

- in turn, she's learned how to keep her own emotions in check. taco is a very grounded person, and knows how to keep calm in most situations, and will often be the one to sort out difficult situations that involve either, or both, of you.

- of course, she has her own triggers that may set her off. as long as you're there to remind her that she has you, and that the past is the past, and it can't be changed, she'll calm down enough to listen to you.

- she's a very patient person, and takes pride in understanding other people easily.

- if you're ever having a difficult day, or particularly bad 'flare-ups', taco understands not to always take any harsh words you say to heart. most of the time, she knows you don't really mean them anyways.

- she'll always wait for you to have calmed down to talk things through with you. trying to talk while hot-headed will only make things worse, she of all people knows that.

- at the end of the week, though, all she wants to do is sit down with you and relax.

- whether thats having sort of a parallel-play with each other (where she'll often read a book, or do some sort of puzzle, while you do your own activities), or you'll simply talk to each other for hours, about anything and everything.

- she's almost clingy herself, wanting to spend most of her free time with you when there's nothing else to do.

- taco isn't the type to admit it, but she enjoys seeing the outfits you come up with, complimenting you any chance she gets.

- if you ask her for ideas (in terms of what you should wear, what colour you should do your nails, etc), she'll be at a bit of a loss. she won't be much help in that department, you're better off giving her a few options to choose from, first.

- i can imagine you'd be able to convince her to match a bowtie to your outfit, though. you two would be the cutest !!

- if either of you have days where you feel almost too tired to get out of bed, the other will be happy to join in setting up the couch with blankets and pillows, and turning the television on to a show that both of you enjoy.

- taco just wants a cosy life, now that she's put her past 'plans' way behind her, and would be happy to spend every day with you.

[mattnben-bennmatt]

Ben Affleck's interview w/ Premiere (2000)

Adventures in the Celebrity Trade

In which the author faces a dread beast of epic proportions (his own alter ego), perils that would destroy a lesser man (e.g., worldwide fame), and uncouth fans, all whilst shamelessly promoting his new movie

By Ben Affleck | Photography by Sam Jones

Oscar Winner Affleck talks to himself about the hazards of fame, the art of publicity, and why you should see his new movie.

-

I'm promoting my movie. in doing so, it is incumbent on me to do an interview for a movie magazine. I've asked the good people at PREMIERE to let me contribute an article rather than be interviewed, in an effort at a little break from the norm. I've run the first draft past the studio whose movie I'm hawking, and they were kind enough to give me some feedback. In general, I believe they found my pithy little attempt at a first-person description of what it's like to actually do publicity and my own idiosyncratic deconstruction of said process mildly amusing. But they had some notes. With those in mind, let me say this: Every man, woman, and child on this earth must drop everything and run to their local multiplex to see Reindeer Games. Well, there might be a title change in the works, so maybe it won't be called Reindeer Games, but pay that no heed! Whatever the marketing folks decide to call the movie, it is absolutely imperative that you see it immediately, two or three times if need be. Watching this movie will make you smarter, more successful, and a (much) better lover. I implore you, for your own sake, pay to see this movie. It is, quite simply, the single greatest dramatic narrative of the modern era.

Now, on to the irrelevant part.

I. A DRIVE-BY

"Affleck, you suck!" was all I made out as a full can of beer sailed by, inches from my head. I believe that was the precise moment I knew things had changed.

It was a drive-by beer-canning—a little-publicized-but-all-too-real hazard for the working actor in L.A. It was June of 1997, somewhere around midnight. I was coming out of a record store on Sunset Strip, and in retrospect, I guess I should have seen it coming.

I hadn't been subject to public stoning by Budweiser since my high school days, in Boston. I remember thinking that in this new context, it was a fairly artless, albeit effective, form of what in acting class we used to call "a critique of the work." That was the first day it occurred to me that there is a side of fame that might be unpleasant. It was a peculiar induction—one Jason Patric has aptly characterized as "baptism by flashbulb"—to a strange club whose membership requirements are simple: People you've never met, seen, or spoken to develop opinions (occasionally quite negative and almost always judgmental) about you, your work, and whether or not you "suck." Though my holy water was alcoholic and carbonated and gunned at me by strangers, I suddenly had an affinity for how Mr. Patric must have felt.

Before Good Will Hunting and Armageddon, I did quite a few movies, but nobody saw them. In fact, the entertainment press corps in general seemed aggressively disinterested. When I went to Atlanta to promote Chasing Amy, I clearly remember that the few journalists who showed up to interview me seemed bored (with me), dejected (at having such a low-rent assignment), and desperate (during the actual interview) for a reason—any reason—to write anything. Later, the movie became a minor cult hit, and occasionally I would be confronted by a stranger or two (oddly, these interactions also tended to happen in record stores). But instead of berating me, these guys usually wanted to know, "Did you really nail that girl?" "Was she really a dyke?" and "Do you have her number?" While deeply flattering, these rare interactions didn't prepare me in the least for what I was to face down the road.

That night, I wondered if perhaps this was something that even the great ones have had to endure, but I could never quite convince myself that there was some rangy teenager standing outside Brando's house, hectoring the deaf masonry with the likes of "Why'd you pimp Kabuki-style gear in Moreau?!" Surely there is a point at which one is accorded some space, respect, and privacy. I just wasn't there yet.

The gangly kid's harangue at a thespian about his play is a fair confusion of character and actor. But the words and pictures that provoked the beer-flinger were not of a character in a film; they were representations of me in the press-specifically the tabloid press, coverage in which I had taken no part. So I decided to become the captain of my own destiny, or at least of my own image. I decided to stop avoiding or passively enduring press coverage; instead, I would start a conversation with the public by engaging the press, thus having control over the words and images representing me.

This was, to put it mildly, a blunder. I had underrated the forces at play in the creation of celebrity media and overrated my own ability to withstand and control them. As if that weren't bad enough, I also discovered that I was my own worst enemy.

It wasn't until my third or fourth interview was published that I began to suspect something. I would run into people who know me fairly well (like my mom) and they'd fix me with an uncertain and dubious stare. I began to anticipate the inevitable: "I read your thing in [insert name of rag here] . . ." Then their voices would trail off. I knew the sentiment. I'd experienced it before. Earlier in my career I'd get that. People would say, "Hey, I saw Phantoms. . . ." Though I understood the comment in the context of a movie where I played a sheriff in Colorado battling an ill-defined but vaguely menacing sewer monster, I didn't see the connection with the interviews. But when I asked my girlfriend what she thought about the mixed reviews I seemed to be getting, she let me have it. "I don't even recognize that person." "Who?" I lamely asked. "The guy in that interview, in any of your interviews . . . Interview Guy."

Sonofabitch. Interview Guy.

What I found when I read back over my own inanities was as phony a frat-boy-chucklehead as you're ever likely to encounter—and someone who, I hope, bears little resemblance to the guy typing out these words. Somehow I'd inadvertently given birth to a monster. Interview Guy liked to come off as a cross between a pseudo-intellectual college sophomore who'd just read his first chapter of Proust, a drunken motorcycle fanatic, and an all-around, aw-shucks-can-you-believe-I'm-just-a-regular-Joe ham bone.

The idea here is to set this gruesome record straight. I'll bring Interview Guy face-to-face with myself. The transparent difference will dissolve Interview Guy; the remaining image will be me. Either that or it'll be another in a long series of publicity disasters. At this point, I don't have much to lose.

II. INTERVIEW GUY

INT. MY HOUSE-DAY: INTERVIEW GUY, 27, bearing a striking resemblance to Ben Affleck, but wearing Prada stretch plastic trousers, comes running into the room with a beer. He does a handstand, slams his beer, and slouches into the sofa. Ben Affleck, a.k.a. ACTUAL BEN, sits across from him. Actual Ben is not nearly as good-looking as Interview Guy and seems a little taken aback.

INTERVIEW GUY: I take Viagra and I think the kids should try it at home, the little ones! [Interview Guy runs around the room twice, then heads outside. After a beat, he comes crashing back through the door on a motorcycle. He wipes out.]

INTERVIEW GUY: (Cont'd) [Re: motorcycle] I'll get another one. [Re: nothing in particular] Acting is a journey, right bro?

ACTUAL BEN: Not really. Most of the time it seems like a gigantic press junket, where I talk about my "arc" and decry the invasive nature of the press in my life—then go and have my woes translated into Korean and beamed via satellite to Asia. [A beat]

[There is another awkward beat.]

ACTUAL BEN: (Cont'd) Are you unable to smile or behave normally when having your picture taken? I mean, do you have a particular aversion to looking normal, or are you satisfying some innate urge to look like an idiot?

INTERVIEW GUY: Hey, man, I'm just a regl'r guy who likes to have fun-

ACTUAL BEN: Also, in your photographs you seem to clench your jaw, squint your eyes, and suck in your cheeks. Is something wrong with you physically? Do you have TMJ?

INTERVIEW GUY: [Flushing red] I . . . That's my strong, leading-man jawline and laser intensity coming through. . . . I can't help that! That's not on purpose. . . .

ACTUAL BEN: This isn't going anywhere; let's go to the questions. . . .

[Ed Note: During this segment of the interview, both Interview Guy and Actual Ben have agreed to answer a list of prepared questions. A tape recorder was placed in the room, and the following is a verbatim transcript of their answers.]

QUESTION: What is your favorite magazine?

INTERVIEW GUY: Maxim . . . no PREMIERE! This is for PREMIERE, right?

ACTUAL BEN: I don't have a favorite.

QUESTION: Who is your favorite actor?

INTERVIEW GUY: Arnold, Sly, your mom . . . just playin', guy. . . .

ACTUAL BEN: Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, Meryl Streep, Cole Hauser, Casey Affleck, Jay Lacopo, Vince Vaughn, Joaquin Phoenix, Don Cheadle, the brothers Wilson, Ed Norton, Nicolas Cage, Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Zeljko Ivanek, Dennis Franz, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Frances McDormand—there are really a ton of actors I think are great and whom I admire. And I honestly believe after seeing The Talented Mr. Ripley and All the Pretty Horses that Matt Damon is one of, if not the, finest young actor around.

INTERVIEW GUY: That Ripley thing, that's a gay picture, right?

ACTUAL BEN: Well, no, it's not. . . .

QUESTION: In the wake of the massacre at Columbine High School, there has been greater scrutiny on the level of senseless and gratuitous violence in movies. What role do you think movie violence plays in influencing real people, and what is the responsibility of filmmakers and actors?

INTERVIEW GUY: I'm so sick of that question. Some idiot kid who played too much Mortal Kombat and can't get a girlfriend decides to shoot up his school . . . that's not Sylvester Stallone's fault for making Cobra. The guy was trying to make a kickass Marion Cobretti biker picture. Forget about teaching masturbation in schools; they ought to hand out twenty bucks and a map to Korea town. You get yourself a little massage-parloring down there, you feel a lot less inclined to blow up your lunchroom!

ACTUAL BEN: I disagree.

INTERVIEW GUY: 'Course you disagree; you smoke cock.

ACTUAL BEN: No, I don't "smoke cock," I just think there is some responsibility to be had by those of us who have some impact over the content of movies and how violence is presented. Doubtless, there is blame aplenty to go around. But the exploitation of mindless violence for the sake of titillation, without any attention paid to the genuine trauma that real violence does cause, is irresponsible.

QUESTION: What qualities and/or attributes do you find attractive in a woman? What would your "ideal woman" be like?

ACTUAL BEN: I can't say I have any one "type." I have dated and been attracted to all kinds of women. I tend to be able to look past first impressions and am usually attracted to a woman whom I like and want to be around. No matter how "hot" some woman is, I'd find her very unattractive if I couldn't stand to have a conversation with her.

INTERVIEW GUY: You done, Jake-O? Okay. That's bullshit. Everybody goes by appearances. I got nothing against the homely broad, I just don't care to give her a jump, you follow me? As far as what type of chick I most like, I'd say I'm your basic, red-blooded, Claudia Schiffer-Pam Anderson type of guy. And, you know, her beaver doesn't have to be shaved but . . . I don't mind it!

[Ed. Note: There is a five-minute segment of the tape where Interview Guy runs around the room, high-fiving no one in particular and repeating porn dialogue to the tune of the theme song from Martin. Finally, he cracks open a beer and sits back down.]

QUESTION: Are movies important?

INTERVIEW GUY: I think they can be. You go see Anaconda and you know you can't take a river trip with Owen Wilson, a rapper, and the guy from Deliverance, 'cause it's gonna end badly. So that's a public-health message, in a way. Fuck, come to think of it, that was the second bad rafting experience for Jon Voight. There's a fucker you really don't want on your Outward Bound crew. . . .

ACTUAL BEN: No.

QUESTION: Can you define your relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow?

INTERVIEW GUY: Well, she's my friend. She's very smart, very sweet, really just a good, decent person, and someone I both respect and admire. She's also a dynamite actress. As it happens, we just did a movie together called Bounce, which will be out in summer 2000 at a theater near you.

[Ed. Note: At this point there is a second lengthy pause on the tape and sounds of a struggle. Then nothing. It's the Blair Witch of Books on Tape. . . .]

III. BEING SEAN PENN

There's a reason that the National Enquirer has the highest circulation of any paper in the country. People like it. And people like it because, despite what most actors tend to imagine the general public is fascinated by (i.e., every subtlety and nuance of their latest performance), it concerns that very thing that drives most people to the movies in the first place: sex. And not just sex but gossip-who is having it with whom, who's been jilted, who gets the kids, who's getting above their station, who threw a fit on their show and fired a bunch of people. All of it. The movie business has become a kind of ongoing soap opera. The same characters move from one story to another, augmented by bits of background titillation from newspapers and magazines, and people go to see how the latest installment in the Schwarzenegger serial will turn out. Therefore, it should be no surprise to actors that their private lives seem inexorably entwined with whatever perception people have of their performances, and vice versa. In fact, that gossip, that tabloid fodder, is an organic part of the perceptions people have when they go to the movies.

The majority of famous actors are not famous because of roles they've played. The random passerby, when asked, will tell you they've heard of a particular actor but will have difficulty naming more than one or two movies he's been in. What people do see, far more than the movies, are the television shows and magazines in which actors promote their films. This creates a strange dynamic, where celebrity becomes the goal, publicity the means, and the actual work takes a distant backseat.

If one takes for granted that the goal of an actor is to assume the identity of another person, then doing publicity as oneself seems absolutely the wrong thing to do. The less people know about you, the less apt they are to project some preconception onto your performance. There are actors who seem to understand this conundrum and have managed to deal with it in a sensible way.

There are powerful forces at work that compel an actor, after appearing in a movie or two, to whore out every last detail of their gonorrhea treatments, incestuous experiments with grandma, shock therapy, and the time they had one too many and got a five-dollar hand job in T.J. And later the same bunch that threw you to the press will tell you not to give so much away. You can't win.

So what, then, is the lesson? I really don't know. You can lie to the press (my brother, Casey, once told Interview magazine that he had a Ph.D. in eugenics from Columbia), you can bullshit a little (whereupon your friends from home tell you you've changed and you're full of shit, and you're mom is ashamed of you), you can go ahead and talk about the "touching game" you played with Uncle Ted (and then your mom really is ashamed of you). Or you can go the route of the dignified and be Sean Penn. Just watch out for the backlash—it gets ugly.

Whenever I've run this theory past the cocktail-party crowd, the response is always a Pollyannaish "What's wrong with the truth?" Or "Just be yourself!" Now, while that may be sound and novel advice, in this case it misses the mark, for two reasons. First, after you've had to distort and misrepresent yourself for every producer in town (e.g., like the time you had to pluck every emotional chord you've got to muster up some semblance of passion for your Beverly Hills 90210 crying-scene audition), you hardly know who or what the real you is anymore. Second, no one really wants to "be themselves" in public. We are reluctant to expose ourselves even to friends, much less to a jaded public with an eye for scandal and an unquenchable thirst for hubris and its attendant fall. So I, like every other sensible person thrust into (or thrusting themselves toward) the glare of the public eye, tried to project an improved version of myself. Big mistake.

Before anyone imagines that this is some kind of lamentation of a great evil in the world, let me say this: Any actor who has had any success whatsoever ought to count his lucky stars that he turns over enough bread for the Enquirer to even consider including him on the "worst dressed" list. Clearly, successful actors (and particularly those who, even for a fleeting moment, are anointed "movie stars") enjoy wealth, power, and privilege wildly beyond their station. We should take what we get and like it—I don't contest that. I do, however, find the situation of "promoting" myself and my movies curious and contradictory.

But in the end, it is probably not worth deconstructing. It's a pretty straightforward thing: Talk to somebody, brag on your movie some, and hope that a few more people go to see it because they're intrigued with what they've read. And, hey, maybe they've gotten to know the actor a little better. In that spirit, let me end where I began: Who I am, and why you should see my movie.

I'm somebody who probably has too many mirrors in his house, but doesn't much like what he sees when he looks into them. I try to be generous, try to be kind, and try to remember how lucky I've been, but I've been known to fall short in all three regards. As far as fame and fortune go, I generally believe one should understand that none of it is deserved, but try to take as much advantage of it as one can in good conscience. I like quiet and the idea of rest, but can't seem to stop moving. I like people (as someone once said), but I hate gatherings. I try to expose myself to diversity, change, and new experiences, but when alone in my car, I end up listening to the same song over and over on the CD player. I know that fame and fortune are fleeting (as Matt recently said in GQ, "the phone stopped ringing for better actors than me"), but I can't help hoping that I can do this forever. I believe in the friends and family I've known since childhood, but I've already lost touch with too many. I love company and the security of love, but most days I feel alone. If I had to choose between being held in high regard by those in the movie business or esteemed by those around me whom I admire, respect, and have known through thick and thin, I'll opt for the latter: a life where people still talk to you even if the phone rings only occasionally, and where your friends don't mind if you haven't made it onto the cover of a flashy movie magazine in quite some time. Oh: And go see the movie I made with John Frankenheimer. It's pretty good.

Ben Affleck, actor and Oscar-winning writer (Good Will Hunting), blew his deadline but only misspelled two words in this piece.

[finalacts]

Your thoughts on ep 7 give me life! I get that Becca is making frustrating decisions for some viewers--but I think you hit the nail on the head! All of the characters are treated with such care, but Rebecca is consistently a favorite of mine. She's so messy. She's so human--and she's trying to find meaning and sift through these tortured voices because she hears herself in them. The show has set up very clear parallels, and Riley Keough's portrayal has added so much to that! This version of Rebecca Godfrey is so haunted by her past "mistake" and they made that so clear via her conversation with Warren about wishing she could drown sometimes too and those small moments in the bath. I remember reading an early interview with Quinn Shepherd talking about conversations she had with the real Rebecca Godfrey as they were shaping the character, and she mentioned how glad the real Rebecca was that the character would sometimes be an anti-hero. As a narrative tool, the story really needed that, to have her stand as a foil to Cam and what she stands for. God, Just, the conversations this show is trying to have. About Manipulation. Violence--communal and interpersonal. About justice--whether or not it's attainable, how it can look so different. About truth and stories and the media and the audience and how they keep getting tangled up and fundamentally change each other--

Sorry, I just love this show so much and appreciate your insight so much!!!

hi thank you for this!!! yes, becca as the show's anti hero is so apt and i love the juxtaposition between her and cam as well--i think, at their core, they want the same things, they're just completely missing each other on a few key points and that tension is wonderful to watch unfold. i love that the show operates in a grey area because it allows for nuanced discussion of things like policing and justice. like, becca is 100% right in her belief that the system will always work in favor of the most privileged but cam is also 100% right that we should first and foremost center victims in our critique of the criminal justice system! they're both sooo right now if they would just sit down and finally talk to each other......

also to your last point about the show also being about truth and media and audiences--100%!!! becca coming in as a journalist/writer, supposed discoverer of truth (in opposition to cam, the police, who is supposed to be the gatekeeper) but then it's revealed that her book is actually entirely biased by her own perspective/experiences thus complicating what objectivity and truth and journalism even are? the entire character of rebecca godfrey being an in-show critique of the true crime genre overall? as a j-school dropout this is very delicious to me. this show is so smart i love talking about it thank you for sending this ask!!!

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"Ponytail" by Cecile Believe

DV:

Obviously the daddy (with his McMansion and actual ownership of the central Mercedes) is the closest "Ponytail" has to a real villain. But what the song - this year's best expression of the apocalypse pop urge, as the top 40 doomsday clock ticks ever closer to that genre exploding anew - really does is raise the question of whether it's possible to fully embrace apocalypse pop again in 2024. "The world didn't end/ But it feels like it's gone now," Cecile Believe sings on the pre-chorus. Since 2012 we've seen over a decade of climate refugees and now know that the milquetoastiest of warming goals are no longer within reach. What does it mean to momentarily co-opt the luxury available to the wealthy in a world that's already ending, just not all at once for everyone? "Ponytail" can't answer that question - no pop song is going to, and I'm not about to do it either - but that tension animates the song, with Believe foregrounds it enough in the lyric that it's impossible to ignore. Is it possible to make a conscious version of apocalypse pop, one that speaks to our moment purposefully as well as embracing oblivion? And perhaps just as importantly, because the idea of conscious pop seems absolutely insufferable, is that something we would ever want. "Ponytail" suggests the answer is....maybe? I guess at very least we should get some bangers on the way down.

MG:

The rich are not villains in "Ponytail," they are both a proxy to ecstasy and, when wealth is approximated, ecstasy itself. It is an inherently selfish and self-serving song (I write that flatly, though I know those are not terms of endearment) and thus, not at all concerned with global catastrophe or the fates of everyone else in Believe's supposed class. No, this is a song about the momentary joy afforded after providing some servitude to someone with more money and power. Believe goes from asking "Can I be your flying partner?" to asking "Can I be your flight attendent?" in the short order of a single verse. There's a glorification of debasement in the way this massive material demotion culminates in the sublime of whipping her ponytail out the window of an expensive car that she doesn't even own or drive. In terms of substance, we can do better than "Ponytail," but in terms of sheer pop theatrics, I gotta retreat; she's got me beat. Believe delivers a line with clipped precision when she wants to evoke infinity and lets it turn to blurry fluff when she wants to invoke oblivion. That she's able to nail two such conceptual and disparate states of being is a testament to how equally glorious and nihilist "Ponytail" sounds as a piece of music.

[saskiavalentineapologist]

sketch time

you will sit down. you will look at my horrible little women. And You Will Appreciate Them

no this is NOT going under a cut you will see the blood sweat and tears i put into belialah's demon form and you will appreciate it, me, and saskia's off the charts world class monsterfucker status

we got saskia. we're familiar with saskia--or at least you should be. go look at the art by korppipoika and give them so many notes--this post will wait. and while you're out, look at the post about the matriarchs too. and if you're not up to date on saskia and belialah, here's another one for your list. i'll be here when you get back.

up to date? excited? horny? me too!!

so we got those two. in order for the images: saskia (recent), belialah (first draft, still happy with this and haven't been able to capture this vision since)

we got their dynamic:

saskia being a bitch and belialah being, despite everything, head over heels. still can't quite nail belialah's human face, but we're learning

...it took me a long time to nail down belialah's demon form. it went through a lot of drafts---many of which i am not sharing. this one is the oldest one i'm willing to share:

i believe this is draft 3? patch notes from earlier drafts: 4 fingers instead of three, took out "humanoid" eyes, added floaty halo bits. other than that, this is what it's mostly stayed true to. chase gave me an inspo and i remixed it and made it worse because i love body horror. so we have this! extra joint between the wrist and elbow, loads and loads of eyes, sharp teeth (yum!), wings, and a broken halo plus the big horn. love her. she has spider legs below her waist--she has "skirts" that are made from her skin that she usually wears (has?) over them.

made some eensy sketches for ideas:

i tinkered on size, proportion, posture, etc. it's vague, but not exact for either of them. i want a bigger height difference and this is for me first and foremost

i settled on this body type for saskia:

no nipples so she's not naked :) this is for anatomy reference, tumblr. ANATOMY. be so nice to me ;-;

ignore the stuff at the edges, this is part of a larger project idk if i'll finish where i look at all the matriarchs and their body types. saskia is the most...well, besides ethalind, the most hourglass shape. this is the most recent drawing of her i have besides the one at the very end, this is the one i would say is most canon. hence why it is included--the last one i have doesn't quite hit right for me. still working on consistency.

as i improved my art, i wanted to take another stab at belialah. which meant figuring out her lower half.

i did these ones reeaaally recently. i looked at so many things for inspo: crabs, spiders, human pelvises, centaur speculative biology, drider speculative biology, an introspective look at how much of a monsterfucker i am, etc. until i found something i was happy with. these are within the last few days. the lil sketches at the far bottom right of the first page are what i settled on. after that, i tinkered with how she looks with skirts vs no skirts---ignore the sword, it's no longer accurate to what it actually looks like, but that's endgame shit and no spoilers :)

i'm really happy with how she's turned out and i think she's kickass and awesome and i can't wait to beat her and saskia into the ground.

and then we have:

team gaslight gatekeep girlboss :)

i drew this last night!! really happy with how my art is coming along. i hesitated on whether to draw the skirts, because i think the spider legs are so fucking cool and i know logically the skirts are there but tbh its funner drawing the spider legs than the skirts :(

i want to make it very clear: belialah is submissive in the way a guard dog is submissive, to quote a post i once tagged as gilt and lost. belialah is loyal, devoted, willing to protect--but will wait for an order before acting

btw, to make something else clear: saskia? saw the demon form first. is more attracted to the demon form than the human form. is far more willing to smash with belialah in demon form. i love my weirdest little freak of a woman <3

ok that's all bye

[magicmindless]

have any hcs for Emmlette?

Y’all I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve made one of these😭😭 mainly due to (lack of) interest in making these and other sorts of things

Anyways

A HC List but it’s just Emmlette

I really like her… theatre kid chicken lady…

- Very cheerful and sweet but is down-to-Earth. Being a transparent person, she can come off as a bit snarky sometimes but she only means well. She’s a gem to have around and usually tries her best to make people feel comfortable around her

- Has ADHD. It’s hard for her to focus and stay in one place, her thoughts overlap a lot, and she can be forgetful sometimes. She wasn’t diagnosed until her 20s. She uses medicine now to deal with it which helps her enough

- Developed depression for a good portion of her teenage hood and college years. She hated school and needed accommodations to barley keep her grades up but. Undiagnosed ADHD didn’t make it any easier

- Unsurprisingly she’s a theatre kid. It was one of the few classes she was good at and she always made sure to audition for every single musical/play Sakura Bay High ever did during her high school years (yes she went to Sakura Bay High and became a teacher there. Funny huh?)

- Her favorite musical is Into The Woods and she has a fond memory of it because she got to be the witch back in high school (I’m sorry I haven’t watched enough musicals and most of the ones I’ve watched idk if she’d like bear with me-)

- She used to write songs and play them on her piano as an outlet, even going as far as to record them though she’s never really shown them. She still has the recordings and admits that they’re really cringy looking back at

- Should be mentioned she’s actually really good at singing and playing the piano

- Her nails always look bad since she tends to bite or rip her nails whenever she’s bored or stressed out. Vicky nearly fainted seeing her nails for the first time

- The reason she became a theatre teacher was due to not only her having a lack on confidence in herself to make it big as an actress back then, but no one else at the time believed in her either, so she settled for teaching. She does sometimes wonder what could’ve been though…

- She does like teaching and has met some incredible students who’ve gone off to do great things, but teaching can also stress her out whether it’s from misbehaving students, or those who just have no interest and are taking theatre as only an “easy grade” in their eyes

- She’s not only a good support for her students, but also for her adult friends when they need someone to talk to or provide a shoulder to cry on

- Always had a bit of a chicken obsession. She had a neighbor who had chickens when she was little and she’d frequently go to their place to spend time with them. Now she has 4 of her own chickens named Scrambles, Tamagoyaki, Sunny, and Fluffles

- People think it’s weird that she doesn’t like to eat chicken out of guilt but is willing to eat eggs and other meat. It’s just an attachment thing for her

- Likes giving gifts to people randomly. Usually they are edible things like mochi or bread from a bakery but she also gives things like cute little keychains

- A great cook. She likes making cute bentos and stuff like that and has even cooked for her friends and family

- She’ll act like a mom sometimes trying to make sure her friends are eating enough and doing well. Some of her friends (like Petrona and Rollie) have found it irritating but they will sometimes tolerate it

- Is able to cry and stop crying on command. It’s a little disturbing, but helpful in acting

- Is the type of extrovert to adopt introverts, including Petrona

-She can read people’s faces and body language scarily well. Even if someone stands slightly off she can tell if there’s something wrong or bothering someone

- Keeps a bit of a close eye on Petrona since she always worries about her physical and emotional health due to her work ethic. She’ll usually try to do things like get food for Petrona’s lunch break or talk to her a bit if she suspects Petrona’s been crying/having a rough day. And despite Petrona’s annoyances, she seemed to have warmed up to her overtime

[sakebytheriver]

Just saw Barbie and it was exactly what I expected, a fun way to kill a couple hours with a good friend dressing up and getting pink food before watching a fairly enjoyable movie I'll probably never watch again

The cast was great as I expected, the big stand outs for me were definitely America Ferrera, she delivers a speech that a lesser actress could have butchered and made incredibly cringe, but she nailed it perfectly for the movie she was in and also Ryan Gosling, he was incredibly genuine in everything he did, he's a very genuine actor in general, you look into his eyes and you believe him everytime

Yes, I understand why Simu's agent staked their whole career on this role

The feminist messaging was very surface level and extremely broad and in no way encapsulates the entirety of intersectional feminism or literally anything past the idea of "women can do anything men can do" and there was also an insanely cringey part where the teenager dresses Barbie down with a whole bad stereotypical gen Z rant about consumer capitalism that really reminds you this movie is being made by a conglomerate of giant corporations and the "Mattel" company in the movie is just .... bad. Absolutely ruins the entire movie. Will Ferrell tried his best, but there was absolutely no way to salavage a single one of those "Mattel" executive parts, so sorry, not even Daniel Day Louis himself coming out of retirement could have sold those roles, they were absolutely awful, Disney channel level of villainry and writing was put into those guys

I have one last thought about a scene I would have done differently, but it's super spoilery so I'm gonna put it under a read more and say my conclusion here,

It was a fun excuse to get dressed up like a Barbie doll and spend the day with my friend, I went in with super low expectations in the hopes that they'd be beaten and they were, it was better than I thought, but also about what I expected. Your uncle buck will complain about the overhanded feminist messaging, but not the way I do! And if you get high like me you might even cry when you think the dad is dead until it's revealed he's actually just off somewhere sucking at Spanish.

All in all Barbie was a fun movie with absolutely nothing under the surface which I will never watch again 💕🫡

Okay, so for all you bitches who've seen the movie or don't care about spoilers, there is a moment where Barbie has to decide whether she wants to be human or not and a montage of a bunch of home family videos starts playing on the screen in a dreamy haze

This moment was at the very end of the movie and it was also The Best Part. Period. Habds down. End of sentence.

And they didn't even execute it right

The montage moves much too slow and it ends way too fast, it should have been the other way around, make it twice as long and twice as fast, have it start of slow and then ramp up more and more and more getting faster and flashier and the music swells and it's huge and big and there's videos of kids at playgrounds intercut with people at funerals and people watching loved ones dying then cut to a wedding and then to a kids first day of school. This montage should have been absolutely jam packed with stuff and it should have been hitting the audience way faster until the end when it hits the cresendo and we cut back to Barbie and the air feels like it gets physically ripped out of her chest violently as she says, "Yes."

In the movie the montage lasts about as long as it took me to think, "oh this is the best scene in the movie" and there's absolutely no moments of sadness in it, like no one at a hospital, no one getting sick, no one grieving, the whole movie is about learning to love the good with the bad and then this montage just shows you kids being goofy and people at bowling alleys, like where is the fucking heart? And then it ends and we cut back to Margot Robbie very delicately saying, "yes"

And that was it

We move on to seeing Barbie in the human world with her human family and this big climacitic moment that should feel the way you feel when symbols crash in a classical song just fizzles

The last scene of the entire movie however I will say was a great way to cap a live action Barbie movie, Margot Robbie's giant grin as she says, "I'm here to see my

Gynecologist!"

Was good.

Okay the end I'm done thanks for reading 💕

[cobaltswriting]

Morality in Glass Onion

Time to make people upset!

Or, at the very least, maybe anger @aparticularbandit

Because my idea for today is to judge how terrible each member of the Glass Onion's 'Disruptors' are.

Oh, and of course, this will have spoilers. I will put a spoiler tag but soon I just... won't bother with Glass Onion stuff, they will not have spoiler tags any more. But due to the extent of the spoilers, I will tag it.

I should state that this applies to what we know about them, and since it's just the Disruptors, it doesn't include Helen, Peg, Whiskey, or Blanc. I also won't be including Andi, because, from what we see, she isn't THAT bad. Like, the one bad thing she did, which could be seen as blackmail, with the napkin, was done because she had been pushed to the brink and betrayed by those she had considered friends. I wouldn't necessarily consider that TOO bad, all things considered. Not saying she's perfect, she definitely has an ego, but still.

So, we'll start off with the one who is clearly the worst of them. This won't be in a 'best to worst' order, by the way, it'll just be whatever order happens.

But yes, we start with the worst of the bunch...

Miles Bron.

...We don't need to say too much about him, really. He's an idiot. He at least did manage to get his friends famous but it basically came with stipulations. A sort of 'I made you and I can destroy you' sort of thing, especially when he took over Alpha completely, making the rest of the Disruptors commit perjury to do so. And a lot of the problems end up coming back to him.

He is the one forcing Lionel to power a manned flight with Klear. He is the one forcing Claire to ok a power plant for Klear. He is the one who seems to be totally fine with helping Whiskey 'cheat' on Duke. And he's the one who could have told Birdie what a sweatshop was before it became a huge problem. Although we don't know that for CERTAIN, all we know is that he was an investor who helped fund it.

He's a piece of trash. Maybe he started out with good intentions or whatever, but... yeah, he's a shitbag. Not exactly surprising.

Duke Cody

The streamer. The YouTuber. The maledom guy.

We hear that he was selling 'rhino boner pills' to teenagers, although he claims the pills had no rhino in them. He uses his girlfriend to try and further his career, whether it be as eye candy on his videos, or 'cheating' on him. He did also need to push quite a lot to get Whiskey to 'cheat' on him, and it made it sound like he had done it before.

Also a lot of just... toxic masculinity with him. Masculinity is fine until it gets toxic.

The main issue I have with him, though?

What is the first thing he does when he figures out that Miles killed Andi?

Blackmail. He attempts to blackmail Miles over a former friend's murder. He could have basically NAILED him for the murder, got him put in jail, but no, he decides "I could use this to further my own career".

Bandit did say, at some point, that they think Duke was the one who 'learnt' the most from Miles, the one who was most similar to Miles, and I agree. And I'm not going to say he's stupider than Miles, because Miles is VERY stupid.

But Duke is definitely not very clever.

Let's move on to the other one of the group who isn't very clever...

Birdie Jay

Honestly, Birdie is a bit of a tough one to nail down here. And actually the one I was thinking about when I decided to do this.

Birdie is... not very clever. And she's very clearly envious of Whiskey, since she basically has Miles wrapped around her little finger, which used to be her thing.

But all in all... I don't think Birdie is spiteful or mean.

It is basically spelt out fairly early on, when Blanc says "It's a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth."

Birdie's not evil, I think she's just very ignorant. Which unfortunately ends up with stuff like her Beyoncé tribute (Which I think is implied to have been blackface?), comparing herself to Harriet Tubman (in spirit, apparently), and using slurs. One of them is mentioned in the movie but I won't mention it because I'm a weenie who doesn't wanna get in trouble.

But yes, I don't think Birdie is spiteful or mean or anything bad, she just doesn't think, and is ignorant about a lot of things. Like the sweat shop, she just thought it was a place where they made sweat pants.

The closest she gets to being mean or evil is her envy over Whiskey and she never really acts upon that.

Now then, let's move to the opposite end of the intelligence scale...

Lionel Toussaint

Lionel is one of my favourite of the group, mainly because he's one of the more level headed. And obviously, the most intelligent, other then perhaps Andi.

Our introduction to Lionel is him arguing with a bunch of people to tell Miles 'no' over Klear. And, to his credit, he does tell Miles that he needs time to work, to figure out if Klear is safe or even viable as an energy source. As Miles' reckless move proves, it is viable as an energy source... but it's certainly not safe. Which Lionel knows, he says so earlier, because of hydrogen gas that regular households are not equipped to basically handle, which means that a small spark could basically turn a house into, as Claire puts it, the Hindenburg.

I'll give Lionel props for telling Miles that he needs time to figure it out. But that's about where the props ends.

Despite knowing it's dangerous, and that he needs more time to study it, he is still aware that it's too dangerous to be used as fuel, because of the hydrogen thing.

However, on Miles' orders, he still gives the okay for it to be used ON A MANNED FLIGHT. WHICH IS BASICALLY GUARANTEED TO GO BAD. And when it does, Lionel's whole reputation is ruined because he is the scientist who said it was fine. Which doesn't impact on how bad it is to put such a dangerous substance on something like this.

Speaking of people giving the okay for Klear...

Claire Debella

Ah, Claire, Claire, Claire. If this were real, I might actually be a fan of you, since you have at least some idea of what carbon emissions are doing and part of your pledges are to bring the carbon footprint down.

Unfortunately, the person funding your campaign is a moron.

Claire gets to be a LITTLE less bad than Lionel, because she doesn't actually know if Klear is safe or not. Which still makes it bad that she's ok'd a power plant for the stuff, on Miles' orders, but not quite as bad as Lionel putting it on a manned flight that was basically fated to go boom.

It is slightly outweighed by the fact that, by doing this, she is putting it into MILLIONS of people's homes. Which is pretty hecking bad, honestly, when you have no idea if it's safe or not. But we can give her the benefit of the doubt a little on it.

Basically, if you WANT a list from baddest to goodest on them, it'd be...

Miles Bron Duke Cody Lionel Toussaint Claire Debella Birdie Jay

Now to go hide from Bandit :P

[chickensarentcheap]

She loses her balance as a small, gentle wave rocks the board beneath her feet; losing the grip on his hair and shrieking as she again topples backwards into the water. Already giggling when she breaches the surface; hands frantically pushing wet hair away from her face and out of her eyes. She’s never been more beautiful; the sound of her laugh, water glistening on her deeply tanned skin, and the sunburn on her cheeks and nose causing her freckles to become more pronounced. Possessing a ‘girl next door’ adorableness not expected of someone who has fought the battles she has; a youthful innocence that not even her nightmare of an ex could strip her of.

“I DO really stink!” She laughs as she swims towards him; treading water as she rests her forearms on the surfboard. “Like really badly!”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Resting an elbow on the board, he reaches across with his free hand to smooth down her hair. “Took me a long time to learn. Even to get used to standing up for more than ten seconds.”

“Bullshit. I refuse to believe it. Everyone knows that Australians are born knowing to surf.”

“That’s a lie. We have to learn to surf. We’re only born knowing how to wrestle crocs and punch out sharks.”

“Speaking of sharks…” She glances down at her feet; bubble gum pink toe nails shimmering in the water.

“Shark spotters will see them before they get anywhere near you. And if something does go wrong and they do get that close? Don’t worry. I’ll choke a shark out for you.”

“My hero.” Leaning across the board, she pecks his lips. “My knight in shining armour. Or should I say ‘slightly tarnished armour’.”

“I like that a little better. But it’ll have to be a small shark. Not like a great white. Or a hammerhead. Or anything like that. Like a baby shark.”

Laughing, she scoops up a handful of water and tosses it into his face. “For someone so cute, you can be such a shit head.”

“You’ve called me that twice today. In the span of five minutes.”

“But I’ve thought about it a dozen or so times. Listen, you can play the big, bad mercenary card for everyone else, but not for me. I live with you. I share a bed with you. I know all your little quirks. How big of a softie you can be.”

“And you’ve already been sworn to secrecy. Because if any of that ever gets out…”

“I know…I know. You have a reputation to uphold. I will take your precious secret to the grave. Or wait sixty years and then leak the proof to everyone we know. You know, kinda like the files on who killed JFK. Anyone involved will be dead and no one can be held accountable. Or embarrassed.”

“I promise you that if things get out even then, I’m coming back and haunting your ass.”

“Oh please. The only reason you’re coming back to haunt is because you like it so much. It’s a nice ass. A great ass, even. You like looking at it and touching it. And doing things to it.”

“You’re lucky this water is as chilly as it is. ‘Cause talking about your ass like that…”

“Don’t worry. When we get back to the room, I’ll help you out with your shrinkage. Make it all better.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“I hope you do.”

Kissing him once more, she giggles when he prevents her from pulling away; fingers tangling in her dark, wet tresses as he deepens and intensifies things. Until they’d met, she’d never been kissed like that; as if each one is better than the last and he can’t get enough of her. Whether it be those sleepy kisses first thing in the morning or the frenzied and hungry in the midst of passion, no two are ever the same and she never tires of them; the press of his body against her and the taste and the feel of his lips and the smell of his skin.

“You know, I was thinking…” Resting a forearm on the surfboard, she places her chin on top of it. “...it would be really nice. To be able to do stuff like this more often. It’s fun. Doing things like this with you.”

“I’m just glad to have someone to do this shit with. Not the same; doing it on your own.”

“I think you were a lot lonelier than you’ll actually admit to. Before I came along.”

“My life certainly was a lot more boring. And a lot quieter. Not to mention there was a lot less hair in my shower drain.”

She gives a derisive snort. “And people say romance is dead!”

“It’s been…nice. Having someone around. Seeing their stuff all over the place. Just knowing they’re there. I don’t know…” He loops hair behind one of her ears, then the other. “...you know I’m not good with this kind of stuff. Feelings. Words. Words about feelings.”

“Well I’m just happy you want to share things with me. You love to surf. What a better way to get to know each other more, right? Share the things we love. I wish I was better at it, but…”

“Stick with me kid. I’ll have you on your own two feet in no time. At least for a few seconds, anyway.”

“Who knows I could be a prodigy. Once I get used to it. I could be a regular Kathy Slater.”

Tyler frowns. “That’s Kelly Slater. And it’s a guy.”

“Than a female version of him! Once I get my balance, I could be a natural! I could be a pro!”

He stares at her pointedly.

“Okay…” Esme laughs. “... maybe not. But staying up for thirty seconds would be nice.”

“You’ll get there. Takes a while. Practice makes perfect.”

“I also don’t have any Australian in me. I bet there’s something in the blood. That makes you such a good surfer.”

“Baby. in the past six months, you’ve had plenty of Aussie in you.”

“You’re disgusting!”

******

@muchadoaboutcj @mrsmungus @munstysmind @tragiclyhip @youflickedtooharddamnit @secretaryunpaid @residentdormouse @asirensrage @thesirenrealm @themaradaniels @ninjasawakenedmystar @starryeyes2000 @muchadoaboutcj

[drugstoreglitter]

location :   uncle joe’s crab shack, fort lauderdale, florida.

featuring :    FRANKALLIE !!!!! but it’s an au in which they’ve never met

for :    @gallagherisms​

       it’s a red-hot florida summer, tide low, coast sandy, and the temperature’s already pushing ninety. saturday was meant to be her day of rest and relaxation in a rare week off from the yachting season, but so far all she seems to do is pick up the slack left by her brothers. she should be out in the van, tearing down the highway with dolly blaring from her tinny speaker, flowers in her hair and incense hanging from the mirror. she could even be tanning on an aft deck off the adriatic coast right now, a shammy in her hand and the sun on her back, had she booked on for another week of work rather than taking a so-called ‘holiday’. instead, she’s trapped inside uncle joe’s crab shack covering for leo while he plays hooky to nail some chick from arizona, because technically she owes him one, and when a castro makes a promise they take that shit to their grave. but fuck if she doesn’t wish she were someone else right now. take that cute curly-haired chick with the killer smile, for example — probably a holiday maker, sat with a bunch of other fresh faces, laughing at kai who runs the whiskey cove paddle board tours — looks like she’s having the time of her life, a stress-free existence, where all she probably has to worry about is what colour bikini to wear and whether or not she’s gonna let kai get the home run tonight. why do girls like that always end up with douchebags like kai. it’s fucking unfair. still, frankie’s trying to be a force of positivity, live laugh love in the moment and remind herself of everything there is to be grateful for, but it’s hard when it’s hot enough that it feels like sweat drips from the ceiling like stalactites, and her supposed ‘break’ has been pushed back so many times that she’ll likely have to go without. whatever. four’s only like, an hour away. she can manage ‘til then.

      can you check on table fifteen, it’s the big one with the out-of-townies, kelly’s asking her, loading frankie with another two plates before she can leave the kitchen, wince bitten in by her teeth. feels like being a stewardess all over again, but there’s a reason she’d made the switch to deck crew. she’s not good at saving face and sucking back how she really feels when faced with opposition. she can’t just lie back and think of england, never had a mother who stuck around long enough to teach her the secret handshake that held the code to being a girl.  “ can’t you just get bodhi to do it ?  i’m already covering, like, five tables, and those guys look super picky. ”  kai’s always asking for like, the weirdest thing on the menu, and then adding on a load of vegan, gluten-free, soy-free extras, as if he wants you to fuck up his order so he can write you a bad review on tripadvisor. the only thing worse than working when you’re supposed to be on holiday is serving people your age who are actually out having fun.  “ fine, whatever. i can get their drinks orders. but then i gotta take my fifteen minutes. let me just run these lobsters over to table twelve. ”  

      somewhere in the short commute, the instructions get lost in translation, frankie instead standing before the HBO remake of forgetting sarah marshall at table fifteen, all of them fresh from the surf and smelling of saltwater.  “ two surf ‘n’ turfs ? ”  frankie asks, ignored at first, then clears her throat, asks for the second time, cutting through the conversation a little more coarsely.   “ anybody order these surf ‘n’ turfs ? ”   these plates are fucking hot. her eyes are kinda pleading with the curly girl on the end, and it’s only when she feels a tap against her back and a child’s voice that says, uh, i think those are ours...  that frankie realises her mistake.  “ balls. ”  embarrassed, she whips around on her heel with such a voracity that there’s no time to slow her roll, and there’s a body where an empty space is meant to be, an edgar wright smash cut to something wholly unexpected, like that scene where regina gets totalled by a bus. she smacks straight into bodhi, now outfitted in the contents of his two seafood platters, her own spread of steak and lobster flying into the customer behind her’s lap, too startled to even hear the gasps of the hawaii five-o extras or the kid that’s covered in chowder. prawns hanging from her uniform, frankie turns back to the to the customer ; a lobster now sits like a cat in her lap and beef dripping clings to her shirt.  “ holy fuck... i am so sorry. like, you have no idea. ”  kelly’s gonna put her fucking head on a roasted halloumi and vegetable skewer. cautiously, frankie plucks the lobster from her lap. in her head, he grows an animated mouth, tells her cheer up, kid, it might never happen. well it fucking has happened. the most ridiculing moment of her life, thus far.  “ please don’t tell my boss, i’m not even meant to be working today, i’m just covering for my stupid... jesus, why am i saying this ? you don’t care about my idiot brother. ”  foot in mouth disease. sighing, frankie drops down, and begins plucking the fragments of plate from the floor where the sad steak sits in a pool of it’s own trimmings.  “ um, i can like... cover your meal ? ”  she says, her eyes scanning back up to the surfer chick covered in surf ‘n’ turf, the full florida experience.  “ or your drinks, if you’re just drinking. ” though it’ll probably cost her the entire day’s pay check with the shit they’ve been drinking. it’s like margaritaville on crack.  “ look... can you just... tell me how i can make this up to you ?  because if i don’t then i’m not gonna sleep tonight. i’ll just keep seeing your face and bolting upright in bed like that rigged little dummy kid in monsters university, y’know. ”

[joy2paris]

Thoughts on this article:

I wanted to do a full review after reading but I just keep having all these thoughts coming to my head whilst reading and I do not want to forget them. Some of these probably do not make any sense so they will definitely be edited at some point.

Really intelligently written and I love the way it sets up an idea, then breaks it down. She initially distinguishes between logic and emotion when reacting to the creator of something great exposed for doing/being something horrible and immoral. "we tell ourselves we’re having ethical thoughts when really what we’re having is moral feelings."

felt she was Woody Allen at points, felt connected to him by his "ability to stand in for the audience. The identification was exacerbated by the seeming powerlessness of his usual on-screen persona: skinny as a kid, short as a kid, confused by an uncaring, incomprehensible world." So the exposure of the abhorrent thing he did felt like a personal betrayal. separating art from the artist calls for us to have this kind of distance, but this feels like a betrayal against art itself in a way? as in when it is so good, you do take it on in this wholehearted way, when you truly connect with something.

Poses the question of:  "It’s the voice of the middle-brow male critic, the one who truly believes he knows how everyone else should think. We is corrupt. We is make-believe. The real question is this: can I love the art but hate the artist? Can you? When I say we, I mean I. I mean you." - who gets to criticise

This is also all just fascinating to me after doing a philosophy essay on forgery in art - whether we can dismiss a piece of work that formerly was thought to be by a great painter after finding out it was actually a fraud - with the idea being we thought it was the great artist in the first place so surely the work should still be praised. I concluded that we should begin to view the work differently now, as our intentions within art our intrinsic to who we are as people and our life journey's.

I think holistically. And I would like to believe that moral issues are linked. It is also interesting because this writer also says "Allen is fascinated with moral shading, except when it comes to this particular issue—the issue of middle-aged men fucking teenage girls. In the face of this particular issue, one of our greatest observers of contemporary ethics—someone whose mid-career work can approach the Flaubertian—suddenly becomes a dummy". It is a wonder to me that people can be so aware of one thing but so disconnected from something else. Is that truly because he is not a woman so he will never fully understand?

"Heidegger has this notion of dasein and vorhandensein. Dasein means conscious presence, an entity aware of its own mortality—e.g., almost every character in every Woody Allen movie ever except Tracy. Vorhandensein, on the other hand, is a being that exists in itself; it just is—like an object, or an animal. Or Tracy. She’s glorious simply by being: inert, object-like, vorhandensein."

"Just as Manhattan never authentically or fully examines the complexities of an old dude nailing a high schooler, Allen himself—an extremely well-spoken guy—becomes weirdly inarticulate when discussing Soon-Yi. In a 1992 interview with Walter Isaacson of Time, Allen delivered the line that became famous for its fatuous dismissal of his moral shortcomings:

“The heart wants what it wants.”

It was one of those phrases that never leaves your head once you’ve heard it: we all immediately memorised it whether we wanted to our not. Its monstrous disregard for anything but the self. Its proud irrationality. Woody goes on: “There’s no logic to those things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.”

"I had a difficult time getting through Manhattan—it took me a couple of sittings. I mentioned this difficulty on social media, this problem of watching Manhattan in the Trump moment. (I fervently hoped it was a moment). “Manhattan is a work of genius! I am done with you, Claire!” responded a writer guy I didn’t know personally. This was a guy who had withstood many of my more outrageous social media pronouncements, some of which involved my desire to execute and chop up the male half of the species, Valerie-Solanas-like. But the minute I confessed to having a funny feeling when I watched Manhattan—I believe I said the film was making me “a little urpy”—this man stormed off my page, declaring himself done with me forevermore." - loved this part as I really resonate with it. A lot of men do have this extreme overreaction, so much audacity in the extremity of their appal at you. inability to comprehend it any other way...

"I had failed in what he saw as my task: the ability to overcome my own moralizing and pettifoggery—my own emotions—and do the work of appreciating genius. But who was in fact the more emotional person in this situation? He was the one storming from the virtual room."

I would have a repeat of this conversation with many men, smart and dumb, young and old, over the next months: “You must judge Manhattan on its aesthetics!” they said.

She rehashes a conversation about it between a male writer and a female writer, to which at one point the man says, “You’re just thinking about Soon-Yi—you’re letting that colour the movie. I thought you were better than that.” - I find that kind of ironic in itself, as this man is thinking holistically/conjoining her opinion with her existing self. Yet by this very comment, is asking her to do the opposite towards Woody Allen. Also, there is this complete right off - this one shot opportunity to be perfect that men apply to women. From this singular comment, this female writer is utterly written off in this man's eyes, forever. I constantly see the intersectionality of race and gender, as the same applies for the way a lot of white people view black people and even more so, the one-shot chance black women are given before they are written off (I see it every year in Love Island - a black female contestant does one bad thing and tarnishes the impossible standard the UK audience had for them, and the audience washes their hands of them and demands they are voted off at the very next dumping. Whereas, the white female contestants and even more so, white male contestants can spout whatever vile misogynistic shit they like and still make it to the final with adoring fans chanting their name, with forgiving comments like, "he didn't mean it, he's not his words etc". This is really making me realise we really cannot separate the art from the artist, as patriarchy and racism is intrinsic in all of our structures, consciously and not. Or, if we can separate the art from the artist, all women, black men and black women must be afforded the same privileges of separation. how is there any integrity to any of our words if we constantly compartmentalise our opinions about things and remove them from morality. Surely, art of all things is not objective? So why do we take an objective standpoint on them? Especially when the creator of these things has done abhorrent things? Because also, it feels to me, not only has this abhorrent person gotten away with not taking accountability, they also get to experience the highs of praise. In the same way a boy from my sixth for S assaulted people I love and know, it truly burns me inside that he is happy, smiling and enjoying the fruits of his life, with his sheep comrades around him, able to move on whilst my friends are still reaping the devastating consequences of what he did.

Linking to the love island example, this can also be identified in this years "I am a Celebrity Get Me out of here" - where raging racist Nigel Farage lands 3rd place whilst Nella Rose is incarcerated over something so insignificant that she said. Munya Chawawa is amazing in his humorous but informative take on this - he is so necessary as a figure in our current climate. I personally think it is ridiculous that these politicians can go on this show in the first place.

"Which of us is seeing more clearly? The one who had the ability—some might say the privilege—to remain untroubled by the filmmaker’s attitudes toward females and history with girls? Who had the ability to watch the art without committing the biographical fallacy? Or the one who couldn’t help but notice the antipathies and urges that seemed to animate the project?"

"A great work of art brings us a feeling. And yet when I say Manhattan makes me feel urpy, a man says, No, not that feeling. You’re having the wrong feeling. He speaks with authority: Manhattan is a work of genius. But who gets to say? Authority says the work shall remain untouched by the life. Authority says biography is fallacy. Authority believes the work exists in an ideal state (ahistorical, alpine, snowy, pure). Authority ignores the natural feeling that arises from biographical knowledge of a subject. Authority gets snippy about stuff like that. Authority claims it is able to appreciate the work free of biography, of history. Authority sides with the (male) maker, against the audience."

Me, I’m not ahistorical or immune to biography. That’s for the winners of history (men) (so far).

The thing is, I’m not saying I’m right or wrong. But I’m the audience. And I’m just acknowledging the realities of the situation: the film Manhattan is disrupted by our knowledge of Soon-Yi; but it’s also kinda gross in its own right; and it’s also got a lot of things about it that are pretty great. All these things can be true at once. Simply being told by men that Allen’s history shouldn’t matter doesn’t achieve the objective of making it not matter."

"When you’re having a moral feeling, self-congratulation is never far behind. You are setting your emotion in a bed of ethical language, and you are admiring yourself doing it. We are governed by emotion, emotion around which we arrange language. The transmission of our virtue feels extremely important, and weirdly exciting." - interesting, very interesting, especially in our current landscape of social media - the prioritisation of showing people that you are right etc. Writer is also addressing the faults of one themselves too (rephrase).

"In everyday deed and thought, I’m a decent-enough human. But I’m something else as well, something vaguely resembling a, well, monster. The Victorians understood this feeling; it’s why they gave us the stark bifurcations of Dorian Gray, of Jekyll and Hyde. I suppose this is the human condition, this sneaking suspicion of our own badness. It lies at the heart of our fascination with people who do awful things. Something in us—in me—chimes to that awfulness, recognizes it in myself, is horrified by that recognition, and then thrills to the drama of loudly denouncing the monster in question." - surely there is a barometer to all this? and I personally think the most important thing of all, is accountability in change. you are nothing if you do not see the wrong in the wrong things you do and on top of that, do not try to better yourself.

The critic Walter Benjamin said: “At the base of every major work of art is a pile of barbarism.” My own work could hardly be called major, but I do wonder: at the base of every minor work of art, is there a, you know, smaller pile of barbarism? A lump of barbarism? A skosh?

There are many qualities one must possess to be a working writer or artist. Talent, brains, tenacity. Wealthy parents are good. You should definitely try to have those. But first among equals, when it comes to necessary ingredients, is selfishness. A book is made out of small selfishnesses. The selfishness of shutting the door against your family. The selfishness of ignoring the pram in the hall. The selfishness of forgetting the real world to create a new one. The selfishness of stealing stories from real people. The selfishness of saving the best of yourself for that blank-faced anonymous paramour, the reader. The selfishness that comes from simply saying what you have to say.

I have to wonder: maybe I’m not monstrous enough. I’m aware of my own failings as a writer—indeed I know the list to a fare-thee-well, and worse are the failures that I know I’m failing to know— but a little part of me has to ask: if I were more selfish, would my work be better? Should I aspire to greater selfishness?"

The female writers I know yearn to be more monstrous. They say it in off-hand, ha-ha-ha ways: “I wish I had a wife.” What does that mean, really? It means you wish to abandon the tasks of nurturing in order to perform the selfish sacraments of being an artist. - bro this is also so interesting when thinking of the gender dynamics within my own family. My dad as an artist, my granny wanting to be one but could not in pursuit of her family whilst her brother freely could.

"

She mentioned a short story she’d just written and published.

“Oh, you mean the most recent occasion for your abandoning me and the kids?” asked the very smart, very charming husband.

The wife had been a monster, monster enough to finish the work. The husband had not.

This is what female monstrousness looks like: abandoning the kids. Always. The female monster is Doris Lessing leaving her children behind to go live the writer’s life in London. The female monster is Sylvia Plath, whose self-crime was bad enough, but worse still: the children whose nursery she taped off beforehand. Never mind the bread and milk she set out for them, a kind of terrible poem unto itself. She dreamed of eating men like air, but what was truly monstrous was simply leaving her children motherless."

"In a way, I’d been asking this question privately, for years, of a couple male writer friends I believe to be actually great. I write them both charming emails, but really I am always trying to find out: how selfish are you? Or to put it another way: how selfish do I need to be, to become as great as you?

Plenty selfish, I learned as I observed these men from afar. Lock-the-door-against-your-kid-while-you’re-working selfish. Work-every-day-including-Thanksgiving-and-Christmas selfish. Go-on-book-tour-for-weeks-at-a-time selfish. Sleep-with-other-women-at-conferences selfish. Whatever-it-takes selfish." this is all so fascinating. but also, can women afford to be this level? I don't think this world allows them to be. The would be branded as something worse than an art monster. Cast out of society even.

Maybe, as a female writer, you don’t kill yourself, or abandon your children. But you abandon something, some nurturing part of yourself. When you finish a book, what lies littered on the ground are small broken things: broken dates, broken promises, broken engagements. Also other, more important forgettings and failures: children’s homework left unchecked, parents left untelephoned, spousal sex unhad. Those things have to get broken for the book to get written.

Sure, I possess the ordinary monstrousness of a real-life person, the unknowable depths, the suppressed Hyde. But I also have a more visible, quantifiable kind of monstrousness—that of the artist who completes her work. Finishers are always monsters. Woody Allen doesn’t just try to make a film a year; he tries to put out a film a year.

My friend and I had done nothing more monstrous than expecting someone to mind our children while we finished our work. That’s not as bad as rape or even, say, forcing someone to watch while you jerk off into a potted plant. It might sound as though I’m conflating two things—male predators and female finishers—in a troubling way. And I am. Because when women do what needs to be done in order to write or make art, we sometimes feel monstrous. And others are quick to describe us that way.

*

Hemingway’s girlfriend, the writer Martha Gellhorn, didn’t think the artist needed to be a monster; she thought the monster needed to make himself into an artist. “A man must be a very great genius to make up for being such a loathsome human being.” (Well, I guess she would know.) She’s saying if you’re a really awful person, you are driven to greatness in order to compensate the world for all the awful shit you are going to do to it. In a way, this is a feminist revision of all of art history; a history she turns with a single acid, brilliant line into a morality tale of compensation.

Either way, the questions remain:

What is to be done about monsters? Can and should we love their work? Are all ambitious artists monsters? Tiny voice: [Am I a monster?]"

Claire Dederer is the author of the memoir Love and Trouble. She’s at work on a book about the relationship between bad behavior and good art.  

wow, what an article!

I need to read Sylvia Plath so bad. I just know I will love her. I love Kate Chopin and I feel the are of a similar elk. I love Fanon and Aime Cesaire and Jamaica Kincaid. It is so interesting being the product of the kind of intersectionality/cross section I discussed. A black father and a white mother. There is a line somewhere that talks about what each possesses and the other can afford within these identities they hold. I can't wait to write my dissertation.