#if things go the other way or are left ambiguous then they’ll probably feel threatened and be even nastier

[better-call-mau1]

Is there a Sabezra discord server already? If not, would anyone want to start one?

When Ahsoka airs and we finally start to find out how their relationship is (or isn’t) going to be defined, I wouldn’t mind having a sanctuary from the antis, regardless of what happens. 😅

[woodswalker96]

Some Camp Cretaceous Season Two Theories!

Okay, let’s get this out of the way before I watch Klayton Fioriti’s video and that topic bleeds into mine. I’ve got a couple of theories that are based off some of the other tumblr peeps posts as well as some Fioriti’s videos, along with some that I surmised from my own viewing. I start with the obvious one(s), and go from there. 

Theory #1: Ben is alive and reconnects with the group.

Like I said, pretty obvious. Even though the ending is pretty ambiguous and a more cynical side of me could say the finger twitching is postmortem muscle twitch, I highly doubt the writers will kill him off and not have him return to the group. That being said, the exact nature of this reunion is up in the air. Will Ben be mad at the group for leaving him and losing track of Bumpy? Will it be a joyous return full of strong emotions? Will Ben be understanding of them being forced to leave him, only to ironically be left behind themselves? There are a number of ways this could go down, I just hope that the writers continue to do it well. *By the way, if you haven’t yet, check out @ren1327 ‘s fan-fic titled Sweet Survivor for a possible way this could go down, especially if you ship Ben and Kenji.

Theory #2: Bumpy could be at least horse-size by the time the group catch up with Ben and Bumpy.

Given that Bumpy was a mere hatchling when the gang sans Kenji and Darius first met her and she was the size of a mid-sized to average dog the next time we see her (a few days at best), Bumpy could continue to see accelerated growth to end up the size of a horse by the time the rest of the group reencounter her and Ben, if given a few days in between then and the s1 finale. But I should also take into consideration that Bumpy could stay that size for a little while longer. For this, I point to the baby T. rex from The Lost World. Already a dog sized animal, characters Roland Tembo and his hunting partner Ajay discuss how it’s “probably only a couple of weeks old, never left the nest”. Now, this could mean either the baby (big) dinosaurs start to slow their growth down at a few weeks, or they just continue to ramp up their size. It should also be noted that Rexy was only a few years old (possibly three) by the time of Jurassic Park, when she was already at adult size. Either way, Bumpy could stay small for a while, or she could get big all of sudden again. 

Theory #3: Blue will become an antagonist, at least at first.

This goes back the end of episode one and beginning of episode two, primarily the latter. Blue is typically thought of as the tame, new mascot of Jurassic World and the modern Jurassic Franchise. I would disagree to an extent. While I like the idea of Velociraptors being the menacing threat that they are, I think that Blue opens the door for just how far one can take raptor intelligence. Blue, like animals in general, isn’t always on the hunt for food or seeking to kill all humans. She knows when to discern a potential threat from an ally or just some rando shmoe. When we first saw her Camp Cretaceous, I didn’t take her appearance either a tame dog or a man-hungry monster. She just curious. She only turned menacing toward Kenji when she felt threatened by the camera flash, and towards Darius when he invaded her space. But all of this context aside, we know that she’s out now, and we know that from the stare-glare she gave Darius back in episode two that she’ll likely run into at least him, if not the rest of the group. Perhaps being the only raptor on the island, she might target the kids before any other dinosaur, because she might be aware that little teens are easier targets than most other dinosaurs. She could even attempt to attack Ben and Bumpy. I could also see her terrorize the group once they’re reconnected until Darius manages to come across a resonating chamber from one of the fallen raptor squad and uses it to communicate with Blue, too which she is intrigued, confused, and possibly feel some other strong emotions from hearing the voice of one her dead sisters coming from this teenage human. At that point she leaves the group alone and gives Darius one last look before jetting off to live out the rest her life on the island in solitude.

Theory #4: Mantah Corp come to the island.

This something I found on the TV tropes website (tvtropes.org); quick summary, Mantah corp come to the island to obtain dinosaur assets and the kids who were once fighting for survival against the dinosaurs now have to save them. Mantah corp is likely one of many different corporations who want their hands on that sweet dinosaur-cloning, genetic power. With their ties to Sammy, this could give her a personal arc to stop them (the whole “it’s personal” thing), as everyone, especially Yaz, and maybe Brooklynn and Darius, feels majorly invested to help her. Related to this...

Theory #5: Dave and Roxie run some kind of rescue mission to the island.

Another one courtesy of TV tropes, they mentioned that these two, along with potentially the parents of the kids, mount up some kind of rescue mission to Isla Nublar. There are many ways to go about this. They can do illegally or under the table, like with the Kirby’s in JP3, or as in Fallen Kingdom with Lockwood, Eli Mills, and Claire. I don’t think they’ll straight up kidnap someone and lie their way with money bribery. Instead, I can actually see a more underhanded mission go down, one involving Mantah Corp. Get this: we know that when Mantah Corp wanted something from the Gutierrez family, they didn’t straight up go “Hi, we’re from Mantah Corp! We give cash if you give us your teen daughter to us as a spy!”. They will likely send some agents that don’t reveal themselves as Mantah Corp to Dave and Roxie, only that they hear their plight to bring the Nublar Six (that could be the name Dave and Roxie give them to raise awareness of their plight) home, since government officials won’t risk a mission to privately owned island, and Masrani Global also won’t risk it (This could come back to JW:FK, as they are too rash here with these kids, so they debate about it for the dinosaur survival in 2018). Dave and Roxie are suspicious but are without any other option, and choose to go with a bunch dinosaur mercs (this is what I’m calling the nameless mercenaries of the Jurassic franchise). Only after they’re on the island do they realize what’s going on, and join the kids to save each other and the dinosaurs from Mantah Corp. 

Theory #6: Baryonyx is the new primary antagonist(s).

There are three differently colored Baryonyx in connection with Jurassic World through the toy line. It is possible that they become the new antagonist theropod for the second season.

Some other theories are the inclusion of Rexy and other dinosaur species from the Jurassic World movies, seeing species going extinct again, the Dilophosaurus and Spinosaurus coming back, and possibly even running into other stranded survivors.

So long this post was, hope y’all enjoy!

[i-want-froyo]

My Two Cents: Why Eren may be the father

This fandom is so divided, with half of us convinced that Eren is the father and half completely opposed to the idea.

I do not think Eren being the father makes sense outside of Eren being in an amorous relationship with Historia. However, I think that the likelihood of such a relationship is high.

I think that Isayama tends to write his relationships with a very light hand: romantic feelings are tied heavily to the plotline, and tend to be hinted at as opposed to heavily delved into. 

For example, look at Sasha and Niccolo. They seemed to be dating, but their relationship was developed with a handful of scenes and exposition both before and after Sasha’s death. The relationship also subverted fandom expectations, because most of the fandom at that point expected Connie to be the one who was with Sasha. But Connie later says that she’s like his sister, so while they were very close, their relationship wasn’t romantic. And Sasha/Niccolo was definitely unexpected.

One of the things I appreciate about Isayama is the fact that his characters are heavily dynamic, and our perceptions of them as well as their behavior changes drastically over the story, but in a very coherent way.

I ship Erehisu. One of the reasons I ship it is actually because Eren and Historia weren’t terribly close in the first arcs. That the protagonist could end up developing feelings for another main character who he previously didn’t have much of a bond with breaks formula for a manga, but it’s also quite realistic: in real life, our relationships aren’t set in stone. Our opinions and feelings towards people shift with time.

Eren himself shifted with time. As a standard shonen hero, he had a lot of the idealistic traits that these types have: tenacity, strong desire to protect his loved ones, desire for freedom, headstrong desire to fight whoever may threaten his friends’ safety. 

Historia has been shown to have these tendencies too. She aches for love more than ideals. She asked Ymir if they could live for each other, rest of the world be damned. Then she saved Eren, declaring herself humanity’s enemy in the process. She and Eren share a strong attachment to personal relationships, desire for freedom from the manipulation of past generations, and a propensity to pursue those goals even if they’re not necessarily the best idea. Eren also loves Mikasa and Armin, but the two of them are more worldly-minded, and can see the big picture of things. Historia clearly impressed Eren with her commitment to interpersonal kindness and protection (the orphanage) over worldly involvement. In any other story, these traits would make Historia into a saintly figure, but in this story, these traits end up making her complicit with Eren’s genocide. Like him, she prioritizes people she loves over ideas about “right” and “wrong.”

I do think Eren and Historia could be lovers. His honesty with her and acceptance of her was significant to her, and her freeing him was very significant to him. They clearly grew closer over the four-year timeskip as well.

So let’s look at Chapter 130. There are a few peculiarities about the Historia exposition here. 

One, why Eren reveals his genocide plot to Historia directly. You could say “He cares about her and wants to make sure that she knows he’s going to save her”, which is fine and all. He wants to save Armin and Mikasa too, although he kept them in the dark about this until he revealed his plot to all Eldians. Historia is the Queen. She absolutely could have alerted the MPs to Eren’s plans and stopped him like that. He says “you just have to keep quiet” about the plot, and that’s all. So as far as we know, there was no strategic reason for telling Historia, and great potential risk if she decided to betray him. He reminds her of her words when she saved him to convince her to keep quiet, thus making her guilty by complacency in his literal genocide. This is an incredible level of trust and foolhardiness that indicates that they are very close at this point.

Secondly, if Historia knew that Eren was doing everything in his power to free her from being bred like cattle and was complicit with the plot, that she immediately decides to go have a strategic farmer baby anyways is a big plothole. You could probably think of a few reasons why she acted like that if you tried hard, but there’s nothing obvious with this conversation to suggest that Historia should want or need at this point to have a kid with Farmer-kun. 

There is a possibility some people have brought up, which is that Historia may already be pregnant in the ch. 130 convo. The way the official translation is worded is very ambiguous, and leaves it open to interpretation. Historia could be asking Eren’s opinion on having a kid (for reasons we don’t yet know) or she could be delicately implying that she is going to have one.

If it’s the latter, it becomes much more likely that Eren is the father of the child. Historia and Eren would then go to Farmer-kun to give Historia a cover. 

From Eren’s POV, this conversation is clearly very important to him. It’s intercut with Zeke questioning Eren about Mikasa’s feelings for him. Remember that Zeke is anti-natalist. Eren says that he has four years left to live at most, and then the next panel is Historia asking about a child. It seems to me that Zeke may be testing Eren against his own ideology, trying to see how Eren feels about sexual relationships (and by extension, their implication: offspring). Eren mentally associates his response (effectively “I don’t have the lifespan for a serious relationship”) to Historia’s question. Either way, both conversations seem to be connected. They could easily be connected because they present to Eren a challenge surrounding his goal to sacrifice himself and save Paradis, namely romantic relationships. He’s thinking about what he could have had if he had not chosen this path to go down, but then he says “they’ll [his loved ones will] live on.”

I think there were definitely romantic connotations with Historia in this chapter. She may have asked Eren to have a child with her for unexplained strategic or even more nebulous sentimental reasons (and he denied her because of the aforementioned four-year lifespan) or she is already pregnant with his child. In that case, he may be regretting his decision because he wants to have a family. 

Again, the fact that Eren tells Historia in this short chapter more than he’s told most of his other loved ones after the timeskip as a whole and fully trusts her to keep it a secret (and she has) speaks volumes imo to what kind of relationship the two have. I think that if Eren is the father, the pregnancy is definitely a result of love. Eren and Historia both value personal attachments and freedom. Instead of breeding like cattle, they bring a child into the world out of love. Eren Krueger told Grisha to find a woman within the walls to love, and then mentioned Armin and Mikasa, so his words were also directed at Eren. I think that this may also be a form of foreshadowing.

[magniloquent-raven]

Ooh for your prompts: Fluffy Elmax sleepover with cuddling for #16 pls :') xoxox

i had such a good time writing this omg thank you!!! tho there’s a couple bits that threaten to be angst because im physically incapable of writing pure fluff lmao. it’s just tiny bits tho. just a smidge.

also, because s4 isn’t out yet i uh. kinda just did a time skip but didn’t rly change anything about how s3 left off? i know we know hopper’s alive but like. i guess he’s just still in russia in this fic LMAO rip. don’t think about it too hard

posted on ao3 as well :)

—-

Max’s watch timer beeps obnoxiously again. 8:36. El’s late. She hits snooze.

“When’s your friend supposed to be here, sweetie?”

“Soon, mom. You know, you and Neil don’t have to wait up.” They do this every time. Like Max isn’t almost seventeen and perfectly capable of being alone in her own damn house for five minutes. At this rate they’re going to be late for whatever thing it is they’re going to, and Neil will be even more of a bitch than usual.

Her mom glances over at him. He’s sitting in his armchair looking surly, checking his watch pointedly. Asshole.

“Well…I don’t think—”

Max hears a car pull up out front. “Oh, thank fuck,” she mutters, turning on her heel and marching out to greet the Byers’.

Joyce climbs out of the passenger seat as Max strides across the lawn. “Max, honey!” she waves, grinning bright, “How are you?” There’s always a…tone to how she asks that. Questions lurking under the surface that they don’t talk about. It makes Max’s insides all squirmy thinking about it, though she is on some level grateful for the concern.

Max stands on the curb, tugging on her earring. A habit by now. It’s both a comfort and a reminder. She got one hell of a lecture the day she came out of the bathroom with blood running down her neck and a safety pin in her earlobe, but she didn’t regret it for a second.

El slides out of the driver’s seat, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. Max watches her stand and adjust her shirt. She always looked good in yellow. “I’m good,” Max responds after a beat, and it’s honest for once.

The door behind her creaks. Probably her mom and Neil coming out of the house, hopefully to leave, finally. She doesn’t turn around, just steps into Joyce’s waiting arms and presses her face into her shoulder. Max is taller than her now, by a couple inches, so it hurts her neck a little, but it’s worth it.

Will’s still tucked away in the backseat, peering through the window, Max waves at him when she peeks up over Joyce’s shoulder.

Then El distracts her. “Your hair,” she says, gently tugging on a lock behind her ear. Max steps back from Joyce, and runs a hand through it, cheeks pink. Three years ago she’d hacked off all her hair with a pocket-knife, woke up the morning of Billy’s funeral with strands still stuck to her neck, locks hanging ragged across her forehead. Her mother had thrown a fit.

“Yeah, I cut it again,” Max says, like that wasn’t obvious. She’d let it grow out uneven and messy for a while, but she broke out the scissors again about a month ago. It’s neater than her last haircut, but not by much.

El’s hand is in Max’s hair again, dangerously close to her face. Max’s knees wobble a little.

“Bitchin’,” she says solemnly, after a few seconds of consideration.  

Max’s grin is blinding.

Her mother cuts in, before she can respond, gives her the usual talk about staying in the house and making sure she’s got her emergency numbers memorized. Then she bids them all a hasty, distracted goodbye. Her mom was never very comfortable about the Byers’. Probably something about Joyce’s too-knowing gaze, or the fact that El glares daggers at Neil every time he’s within range.

She’s doing it now. Watching him get into his truck with a quiet rage in her eyes. Joyce puts a hand on her elbow, and it doesn’t move until Neil’s truck has turned the corner at the end of the street.

“We should get going,” Joyce says, checking her watch. “Will wanted to be at Claudia’s an hour ago but we got caught up at Mike’s house, and, well, you know how it is,” she flutters her hands, approximating a shrug.

She hugs El goodbye, then pulls Max in for another one. “Call us if you need anything,” she says, pulling back and putting her hands on Max’s shoulders. That sad glint is in her eye again, and Max knows the offer extends beyond tonight.

“Thanks, Joyce, we will.”

By the time she’s taken the corner at the end of Cherry Lane Max’s watch is beeping again.

El glances down at it, a pinch between her eyebrows. “…Was that for me?”

“Uh.”

The confusion melts off her face, replaced by a cheeky grin. “It was!”

Max shuts the alarm off, cheeks burning. “Why were you guys at Mike’s for so long?” she asks. eager to change the subject. If the guys are meeting up at Dustin’s the delay wasn’t because Will and Mike were catching up, and, well, Mike and El’s relationship is��of interest to Max. For reasons.

El purses her lips. It’s a face that tells Max they’re gonna need to be sitting and cozy for this conversation because it’s gonna be a long one. So, she links their arms and pulls her inside.

An hour later they’re huddled under a throw blanket on the couch. El is giggling, face in her hands, and Max is wheezing around a mouthful of skittles.

“Oh, that’s so not funny,” she chokes out, trying not to spew candy everywhere, which brings about a fresh wave of laughter. El’s shoulders are shaking, brushing against Max’s and making her warm all over. God damn, she’s missed this.

“Then why are you laughing,” El replies, poking her side and smiling from ear-to-ear.

She’s beautiful, Max thinks. Her braid is half-undone, letting her hair curl around her face in gentle waves, and her eyes are bright. She looks happy, and Max holds on to that, keeps it all for herself because she did that, she made that happen. She might not have everything she wants from El, but she’ll take whatever she can get. Whatever El wants to give. And sometimes just her smiles are enough, enough to make Max’s chest constrict and her heart glow, because for now, she’s happy too.

She laughs again, in leu of a response. How can she not, when she feels so light she could float away, high on the soft strawberry scent of El’s shampoo and the way her cheek dimples when she grins. But she can’t say that, so she says, “Because it’s Mike,” and pokes El right back. “I’m legally obligated to laugh at his misfortune.”

They have a complicated friendship, which mostly boils down to her being willing to bail him out when he’s in shit, but only if she gets to make fun of him while she does it.

El wrinkles her nose a little, but her smile doesn’t dim, “You two are weird.”

She’s pretty sure it used to bother El, how much Mike and Max fought. Max can’t help but wonder if they’d have gotten along better if she wasn’t in love with his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Because she’d dumped him for good this time. Four months ago, apparently, though Mike was, until a few hours ago, under the impression it was temporary.

Max almost feels bad for him. Except she doesn’t. Apparently, he was a dick about the whole thing, so at least she has a solid reason not to.

“You love us,” Max scoffs. El may have broken up with Mike, but she’ll always love him in some way or another.

El’s expression softens, turns fond and sweet. She’s thinking about Mike, Max is sure, but the smile is still directed as her. Small victories. “I do,” she says quietly.

They order a pizza after that, and watch movies into the wee hours of the morning. By 3am Max’s throat is raw, and her stomach hurts from laughing (and too much pizza). It’s the most fun she’s had in a while. The Byers’ don’t visit as often as any of them would like.

Max isn’t even tired, but El’s head has been dropping onto her shoulder on and off for the past hour so she suggests they call it a night.

She knows that when the boys sleep over at each other’s houses they’ll take the floor, or the couch in the basement, anything but actually sharing a bed. As El wraps an arm around her waist and snuggles up with her under the blankets, Max takes a moment to wonder if that would be better or worse than this.

It always seemed so miserable to Max, how much boys have to limit themselves.  

But also…well, it might be easier sometimes. She wouldn’t have to deal with wanting things she shouldn’t want because El would be over there, and not right up in her space, hands warm and breath tickling Max’s ear. This is different than sitting thigh-to-thigh on the couch, it blurs the line more, and it’s the ambiguity that’s driving Max crazy.

She wasn’t tired before, but she’s wide-awake now.

Time creeps by strangely this late at night. Max isn’t sure how long she lays there, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm her pounding heart. El’s breath is steady, quiet, and her eyes are closed. Max is sure she’s asleep, she was so tired before.

Before she can stop herself her hand creeps up, brushes a strand of hair from El’s face.

Moonlit, she’s ethereal. There’s always been something otherworldly about El, with her big, dark eyes, always watching, boring holes into you with their intensity. Shadows play across her cheek, and Max tracks them for a while, absurdly jealous of moonlight.

She traces patterns on El’s forearm, the one resting on Max’s stomach, keeping her touch light so as not to wake her.

More time passes, and Max’s head feels heavy with sleep that won’t come. She’s groggy, leaning back but unable to keep her eyes closed.

She starts talking. Whispering. Remembering the times she read Wonder Woman comics to El until she fell asleep, and hoping, somewhere in her foggy brain, that it might work on herself too.

“You know… I always knew we’d be good friends. The second I heard your name I wanted to know you,” she murmurs, and draws a star on El’s wrist. “Didn’t know how badly I wanted until I saw you though. You were terrifying, and I loved it. And now…” Her eyes slide closed as she thinks. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met. You’re beautiful. Everything about you. And I love you…more than I should.” She sighs, sits in silence and cards her fingers through El’s hair. It’s getting so long.  

El’s hand closes around her wrist.

Max’s eyes fly open, and she stills, heart pounding. “Uh.” El’s eyes are open, looking up at her, she’s awake, she’s awake, oh fuck– “Um. Did—did I wake you up, I’m—sorry if I woke you—”

“It’s okay.” The corners of her mouth turn up, slow and careful, “I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“Oh.” Is all Max can manage, staring down at El with wide eyes, waiting for her to…do something. Max’s palms are sweating. She doesn’t know what to expect.

El moves her hand, puts Max’s palm against her cheek and shuffles forward until they’re nose to nose.

“Oh.”

She tastes like toothpaste and kiwi lip balm, and kisses as sweetly as she smiles. Her hands end up in Max’s hair, fingers gentle but demanding, guiding her forward. If Max wasn’t already laying down, she’d need to be because her knees are jelly.

“Oh,” El echoes when she pulls back, laughter in her voice. She presses a chaste kiss to the corner of Max’s mouth, careful and deliberate. Then her expression softens, sobers. “I was jealous of you. At first. Didn’t…know what it was. Know why. So, I ignored you. And… I’m sorry.”

Max shakes her head, “Ancient history. It’s okay.”

“No, I,” El stops, furrows her brow, “You were so happy. Free. I wanted that. And then, then you helped me have that. So. Thank you.” She cups Max’s face, fingertips tracing along her cheekbone, and Max’s heart sings. “And I love you too.”

They kiss again, and Max decides that El sleeping on the floor would’ve been a terrible idea.

[gyromitra-esculenta]

Even If the Waters Rise 3/5 (*cough*)

Shadowrun inspired Mermay part 3 out of *now* 5 - it’s a monster. In this edition: Drama, drama, and once again, relationship drama.

Also, warnings for the whole planned thing: blood, gore, and violence; cannibalism (human on metahuman); questionable jokes and questionable totem choices; ambiguous relationships; referenced limb loss/cybernetics/etc; mating cycles.

*

Give or take a few days, Jesse turns up three weeks later, lacking fangs or a sun allergy, albeit with a certain pallor to his skin and aversion to the light, but that's easily explainable by the obvious hangover he's sporting, the kind that comes with a days-long drinking binge.

"Broke up already?" Jack pours himself a drink and then slides Jesse the bottle with about half of its contents remaining. He obviously needs it more than Jack.

"Don't want to talk 'bout it."

"Good. Because I'm not interested."

He ends up with all the sordid details, anyway.

It takes over two hours for Jesse to explain that his perpetual stalker vampire ex dumped him two nights past the club incident due to him supposedly smelling like a wet dog that also found and rolled in some prime ripe carrion. Jack's not going to comment on that. To him, Jesse reeks of his cigars first and foremost, and maybe under this odor hides a note of wet canine fur, mangy and full of dust - reminiscent of petrichor but more acidic and scratching the throat if inhaled too deeply or closely. Now, it's also alcohol sweat. But those two hours are enough for Jesse to get himself back into the drunken stupor.

Jack relocates him to the couch and orders take out - settling for some suspicious pizza as the safer option out of the available, even if he has trouble deciphering the ingredients. Someone out there probably knows what exactly 'sea chicken baby' is.

To his morbid astonishment, the 'Chicken of the Sea' turns out to be a sea cucumber, bland as fuck if not for the cheese and the sauce - and he's comfortably sure it would taste better raw than baked. He eats two slices and leaves the rest out on the counter for Jesse - and the state Jesse's in, he would probably be happy with a trashcan left out in some alleyway to pick through.

By the looks of him, that's a fair assumption to make, and not at all mean or undeserved.

But the question of how Jesse tracked him down remains. Their hidey-holes over the whole coastal area number in closer to a hundred than a fifty, so it's either an incredible draw of the luck (including the dang spirit dog) or someone had pointed him in Jack's direction. He brings it up during the check-in with Sombra, sure to vent his general disposition at both Jesse's intrusion, and the required daily contact.

"I think some responsibility would do you good," she brushes him off, "so take care of the puppy instead of moping by yourself for days."

"Maybe, just maybe, I do have a reason to mope," Jack snaps at her, "ever thought about that one?"

Sombra sighs.

"I don't know what had happened between you and Gabe, but..."

"Oh, you could, just load it up."

He immediately regrets going off on her, it's not her fault. Only it is her fault, in an illogical and convoluted way - because right now, he needs someone to blame and that someone will not be him.

"I'd never do that unless you want to show me."

Fuck this shit. He's tired and emotionally drained - he didn't even think it was possible.

"Listen, Jack," Sombra continues after he fails to answer her, "you have no idea what ice I had to get through just to send him a message, and the moment he got it, he just dropped everything and walked out of the meeting."

"Yeah, his asset was malfunctioning."

"Whatever happened, you're taking it hard, and you need something to occupy your time because sitting around is doing you no favors to your state of mind."

"Then find me something to do that doesn't include babysitting the human disaster all broken up over my couch."

"The fleet." Sombra mulls something over and Jack, elbows leaning on the windowsill as he finishes his drink, looks over the almost empty street below. "I'm running into walls and I'll need help with some more traditional intel gathering."

"You need hired muscle."

"The gist of it, yes, I need someone to beat some people up so they cough their contacts up, but I'm still pursuing some other venues right now."

"Tell me when you actually have people to rough up, the downtime's killing me, and this place's a total shithole."

"I know. I'll have tickets for you and the puppy tomorrow, and I need you to keep him on a leash because you're going to Yakuza-land for the foreseeable future." He can feel her smile trying to be reassuring pressed against his thoughts. "And you have a meeting scheduled."

"Yeah, about that, one, the only thing I know is 'shakuhachi shite' and 'arigato'," Sombra laughs muttering 'oh god', "and two, he can send them again through the proxy."

"Listen, you don't really want that. And that wasn't even 'fuck off'. That was dirty talk, Jack."

"Figures. I'm..." Jack sighs, massaging his temples. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Earlier, I mean."

"I know."

"I'm just, I don't know, angry? Not with you, you did what you had to, but... It's too much, all of it, and I'm sorry."

"I know. You'll work it out. It's okay."

"Fuck. Thanks, I guess. I'm not thanking for dropping the mongrel on my unsuspecting lap, though."

"You're welcome." She signs off and Jack pulls the plug out.

Even the mere prospect of meeting up with Gabriel after the incident gives him what he can describe only as anxiety. At least, that's what Jack decides to peg it as, something jumbled and all tied up in knots, and self-hating, and making him feel useless.

Nibbling on the third slice of the pizza and watching the sun go down, he knows what it really is, but refuses to give it the proper name. Calling it anything else lets him pretend it's nothing important and go about his life like nothing's different, even if it is - threatening to topple over and crush him under.

When Jesse starts moving, Jack forces him under the shower and his clothes into a washing machine. The thing is done with its load before Jesse is, and he dumps the debatably cleaner garments on the couch - the coyote is looking at him with an expression on its snout that's far too intelligent for his liking, half-mocking, and half-challenging. Jack turns the serape the other way. The coyote, apparently, takes a short hike all around the fabric to end up facing him again, and he could probably get into a trial of persistence with it but has a sneaking suspicion he would lose.

Fuck it. It can stare at him through the back of the couch as he undresses.

Jesse, predictably, ambles out to the shower and straight to the counter to assault the leftover pizza with the zeal of a person starving for days.

"Switch your SIN," Jack instructs him after he catches Jesse's attention with a tactical application of a ballistic shoe.

"What? Why?" Jesse mutters between the mouthfuls.

"We're flying to Japan tomorrow, would be best not to have Yakuza waiting on the ground for you when we get off."

"Why the fuck JIS?"

"Yakuza's probably involved with the fleet Som's tracking."

"They are. Fucking racists."

"You know that?"

"If anything has to do with harm to metas in the region, that's a safe bet it's them." Jesse wipes the oil from his mouth with the back of his hand, and the hand on his stomach. Of-fucking-course. "Say, we gonna be anywhere close to Hanamura?"

Jack sits on the bed, taking off his pants.

"Nowhere close. Everyone knows you there, and you're too recognizable." He stares at Jesse with contempt. "You just broke up with your main ex, you're not getting into another mess with another ex of yours. Don't make me tie you down."

"Nah, that about other business." Jesse stretches and walks around the counter in all his naked glory, stopping when Jack points with definite distaste on his face to the couch.

"You're still wet, the bed's mine, and the dog was giving me attitude."

"Whatever you say, pardner."

Jack cannot blame the sleepless night on Jesse, not directly - he doesn't snore, but maybe his presence has something to do with it. Regardless, his ensuing horrid morning disposition makes Jack snap at Jesse more than once, which Jesse completely ignores, or is simply oblivious to.

After he sends Jesse out with the trash and to wait for the car, Jack gives the flat the last once-over, making sure nothing personal is left lying around - unlikely they'll ever use the safehouse again, but good practice is good practice, and it's best not to tempt the fate.

The trip to the airport is relatively short and eventless, he only has to remind Jesse to switch his SIN once before they board. Jack pushes his bag into the overhead compartment and shuts it with a bang, taking his time before he sits and buckles into the seat.

The moment the plane rolls down the tarmac before takeoff he has to quash down his instincts screaming at him to get up and run. The lurch of wheels losing the contact with the ground below has Jack hunched and holding his head between his hands. Twitching at every suspect sound and tremor of the hull, he has nothing to distract himself with on the flight as his mind runs circles around images of a fiery inferno.

"Dude, have you tried taking something for it?" Jesse tries to start a conversation.

Jack shoots him down with a muttered 'fuck off' before returning to fighting to keep his stomach where it usually is and not in the vicinity of his throat where it battles for space with his now frantic heart. Two hours stretch into an imperceptible eternity of pure torture. Jesse waits for him to regain control of his shaking hands when the plane lands. They disembark among the last of the passengers.

The airport is a reconstructed dream of a crazy architect who, faced with a substantial lack of land, built it floating on water. Jack navigates them through the terminals to the water tram while keeping one eye out for anyone trying to latch onto their trail, hoping they look both intimidating and luckless enough to not attract the attention of any lookouts. It's not his first time in JIS, and, ironically, their best bet is using public transport. Some three years ago, the situation would be different, with the welcoming committee already waiting to bus him to his destination. Now, those bridges were burnt, and the goodwill was gone.

"What's the first rule?"

Jesse scoffs, sprawled on the seat, taking up two spaces realistically, legs kicked up to rest on the back of the seats in front of him to the distaste of the attendant.

"Not gonna risk Yakuza ink, even I'm not that stupid."

Jack stares at him with doubt.

"Except that one time."

"That one was different."

"I'm at loss for words," Jack rolls his eyes. "The second rule?"

"Don't antagonize the local racist shitbags?"

"Yeah, that. And the third?"

"Don't fuck with Yakuza."

"Good one."

"Nah, dude, not gonna go to Hanamura and fuck around, I need to go north later, check out something," Jesse shrugs. "Find someone to talk about that bear spirit because that shit was bad, man, real awful shit."

"I suspect you'll have time to do that. We can go together."

"Nah, no hard feelings, dude, but bear people don't trust that easy."

"Suit yourself," Jack rolls his eyes and nudges Jesse to get up as the tram lines up with the embankment. The taxi that drives them to the hotel rips them off, counting the normal rate several times over. Being foreigners, they are expected to pay more than locals for the same services, and making a scene would only add to the expenses - there's either some notation in the contract that would render any complaint null and void, or the local arm of the law would dismiss it anyway after they had at least ticketed them for creating a disturbance - if not outright put them under arrest on some bullshit charge. Well, Jack's not going to bother with it, it's not his money.

The hotel is one of those ridiculously posh ones, and he and Jesse draw curious glances as they pick up keycards from the reception area.

"Man, that's what I call life," Jesse announces after opening the alcohol cabinet, the first destination he chooses after walking into their shared room. Jack glances at the clock and just like that his heart is back to hammering against his ribs. He leaves his bag on the table.

"I'll be back tomorrow, do nothing stupid while I’m gone."

"Nah, jus’ gonna get stupid drunk and watch some holos."

Jack shrugs and heads out, leaving Jesse to his own devices, hoping he will stay true to his own words and not wander outside, especially not when drunk.

Gabriel's apartment is several floors up and Jack opts for stairs this time. The flight was enough excitement for the day, and the thought of forcing himself into the elevator fills him with revulsion on the spot. Halfway up, he realizes he’s only delaying the inevitable.

The heavy thing settled in his stomach is dread - and maybe, for the first time in his life, his instincts work as they should - screaming at him to run away, no matter where, just away, as he presses the card against the reader and keys in the code. Little late for that, huh? He pushes the door open, wincing at the breach of protocol: so wrapped earlier in his own thoughts he forgot about sending the text. The pad lies in the bag left with Jesse.

"I'm here," Jack announces to the room. His voice falls flat, even to his own ears. Gabriel looks over his shoulder while the screens in front of him flicker off one by one. Fucking dramatic, as usual.

"I can see it."

"I hate flying," Jack scrambles for an excuse - he doesn't need to, but it feels like he does - shrugs noncommittally, holding Gabriel's gaze. The mounting tension in the room seemingly affects only him - some misplaced power struggle Jack loses before it even began - and he breaks away the eye contact, turning away and stepping deeper into the suite. "There has to be a different method to get around."

"It is the most effective one."

The voice sounds too close, following Jack as he sheds his clothes.

"Maybe one that hits the orbit, I heard weightlessness is somewhat like swimming." He can at least give his honest opinion if they're on the subject.

"If the need arises for one."

Yeah, probably any launch of the type is conspicuous and more likely monitored, from the utilitarian point of view only reasonable if the speed is the key. Fuck that.

Jack loses the rest of his garments with the skin on the nape of his neck prickling under the scrutiny. Whether it's imagined or not doesn't matter, it's wrecking his nerves either way.

It's his turn to look over his shoulder, at Gabriel standing some distance away - shifting finally and coming closer to the bed.

"I wasn't aware flight provokes such high levels of stress for you."

Jack bites back the obvious answer - that unless he's bothered to know there's a lot Gabriel doesn't know about him - and the only time he cares to know is when it interferes with the operations. Won't lie to himself about the malice hidden under the thought.

"Now you know."

"Noted."

With Gabriel's thumb raising his chin up and the red and black eyes boring into his own, Jack falls back into the sheets. The sex is great, amazing even - it always is - but there is a certain measure of detachment that prevents him from losing himself in the act.

There's an invisible wall between him and Gabriel, one that wasn't there before, and the more Jack thinks about it curled up on his side, the more he realizes the fault lies with him, and him alone. Things have changed - he has changed - not Gabriel, and neither the arrangement. It's just a business transaction.

Trying to untangle the jumbled knot inside is like picking at an itching scab, only to discover there's pus underneath and nothing's healing. And it won't heal, not when Jack cannot pretend anymore he doesn't care, no matter how much he wants to. If that's what love is, it's a fucking miserable thing he wouldn't wish on anyone; he wonders if his past self also felt the same and he's merely stuck in following a preset rut. After all, the world is a cycle, isn't it?

Wanting Gabriel gone to let him sleep alone is a new one. So he can wallow in misery and self-pity in peace without the subject of his one-sided affection at his back.

Yeah. Love's an absolute utter bullshit, that's what Jack tells himself, staring at his own reflection in the still surface of the lake, fingers trailing in the water. The weathered wooden planks, blackened with tar, are far from the most pleasant to lie on - but the sun bearing down on his skin feels good and allays the discomfort.

The ripples born from his hand idly moving distort his reflection until Jack cannot recognize it anymore as his. And it isn't his, it's something else looking back at him from below the surface. Before he has time to react clawed fingers wrap around his wrist. The shining scales fading in and out of the skin glitter in the light with each minute shift.

It yanks him down with surprising strength

His skin scrapes on the wood - the water is cold - so cold - his lungs hurt with the lack of oxygen when he frees himself from the grip pulling him down - but the safety is far away - too far - and hungry mouths filled with sharp teeth latch onto his flesh.

He drowns.

The ending is the same, it's the rest of the dream that changes.

Lying cradled against Gabriel's side, with the arm wrapped around his waist and the palm resting on his stomach, Jack remains still, trying to wrest his thundering heart under control. Why he even bothers to remains a mystery because there is no viable way Gabriel isn't aware he's wide awake. What's left for Jack is to enjoy the rare closeness, something he's hard-pressed to; the satisfaction eludes him nonetheless while he watches Gabriel work. The screens close and reappear, once or twice prompted by the hand gesturing at them.

Jack tries to focus on the simple sensations: the warmth of the skin, the smell of the ocean, the lingering touch, but soon, it becomes unbearable, this picking at the open aching wound.

He moves away - the arm around his waist slackens and lets him go - and he sits up, disentangling himself from the sheets. Gabriel's attention remains focused on the screens, and Jack struggles for something to say.

"I'm going to take a shower," he mutters in the end, sliding off the bed.

The oppressive feeling of being observed and considered fades after the bathroom door closes behind him.

Of course, the whole room is done in subdued pink - salmon? - with elaborate cherry motifs running unbroken all around the walls with slight hints of darker colors. It's probably pretty and charming, and not at all tacky and lacking any real character or individual touch. Hotels always were like that.

The bathtub looks inviting, and Jack knows he could stay here for days by himself, but the reasons he's loath to are twofold. Jesse definitely constitutes one, the other one being the place that will make him think about Gabriel, and Gabriel only, the distractions available superficial.

Jack steps into the shower and, standing under the rain of warm water, he presses his forehead to the cold tiles. The voice inside his head provides him with an incessant background chant of 'you broke it' until he can't bear it anymore and punches the wall in frustration. The tiles crack.

He has no idea how long he's been in the bathroom - but Gabriel is gone when he walks out.

The pillbox lies on the pillow almost like an afterthought. Jack puts it in his pocket after gathering all his things.

He opts for the stairs again.

What he's not prepared for is Jesse scrambling to look at him over the back of the chair as he enters their room. Jack raises eyebrows at him.

"Shit! Dude. You're, like, glowing, but look like a kicked dog, but seriously," Jesse blindly reaches back behind himself for the open can of beer sitting on the small table, "you're bending the whole flow around you!"

"The what?" Jack notes the smell of cigars in the air, laced with something else, acrid and heady.

"Mana." Jesse sips from the can. "You got a fuckton of magic on you, like, a lot."

"Great. There's to hoping it won't kill me." Jack throws the jacket on the couch, sits in the other chair next to Jesse, and helps himself to the unopened can standing in the middle of empty ones.

"Don't think so, if it's bad, you'd be, like, dead ten times over, what with the potency. No spirit, for sure."

"Great. I feel nothing."

At least now, he had the explanation for Gabriel's clothes trick. Jack opens the can and downs half of it in one go.

"Offense meant, dude, but you got the sensitivity of a low-flying brick, and that means the only sensitivity you got is in the poor dude you're gonna brain."

"Thanks, I guess." Jack chuckles, toasting Jesse with a flourish. "Tell me," he vaguely points at himself, "if it does something weird."

"Will do. Wanna anything stronger with that?"

"That's what stinks in here?"

Jesse looks at him with his eyes pinched.

"Maybe."

"Pass, don't want to fuck up my lungs any more than they already are."

"Dude. You can breathe water, lil bit of smoke not gonna fuck them up."

"Still a pass." Jack finishes the beer and finds another can. "As long as it's not something you can be busted for, go ahead yourself."

Jesse snorts, apparently amused by his comment.

"It's all natural. Like, herbs and shrooms." To illustrate, he picks up a small baggie containing flaky brown fragments. "I smoke 'em, but go as well on the tongue."

This is a terrible idea. And Jack's tempted.

"No," he answers with a delay. "Especially if that's what gave you the mutt, might be contagious."

"Suit yourself." Jesse pulls out a cigar from his pocket and lights it, puffs on it lightly. Jack leaves it without a comment while flipping through the channels on the holo. They're both left with nothing to do for the foreseeable time. Jesse is more than content to spend the days idling: doing nothing but smoking, drinking, and watching tv, but Jack ventures out twice. He gives up on the whole idea of spending time outside of the hotel room soon.

He had forgotten how bland and hostile the whole of the JIS is to him despite the colors and the flashing lights, the music, and the chatter that never stops, or the cities that never sleep. It's a sea of humans only, maybe one or two occasional elves, almost no other metas, which serves to remind Jack that outside of the metropolis it's even worse.

Finding a place to drink and eat he's let in, not to mention not being faced with outright disdain when it becomes obvious he doesn't speak a speck of the language, is too bothersome.

Being confined to the hotel is not the worst thing in the world, Jack decides, not with his surprisingly stable mood, and the fact he's not fixating on the whole situation with Gabriel - only sometimes - and earthly mundane distractions are forthcoming. The majority of it, he thinks, is easily attributed to whatever Jesse's smoking the copious amounts of, and he himself is probably getting high on the fumes by the virtue of widely understood osmosis. Or ingestion. Call it what you will, it works wonders.

The idyll of the carefree quiescence ends with a dream in equal measure disturbingly different, and uncomfortably concordant. His feet are in the water - the waves wash up to his knees. He can feel every grain of sand on his skin: pressing in, irritating, ignored.

Pleasant warmth spills deep to his core, radiates from the bodies pressed to his sides - there's one hand slung over his chest - another carelessly pushes the elbow into his stomach - Jack shifts to remove the discomfort, and as he does so, he senses everyone else moving too. Like dominoes, every change of position prompts a chain reaction following down the line.

Lulled into half-sleep, this strange place in-between lucidity and unconsciousness, his eyes remain closed even with a familiar weight pressing down into almost the entire length of his body.

Something cold tickles his face and Jack finally looks up, at the silhouette cut starkly in the expanse of the pale blue sky, Gabriel's long wet hair brushing against his nose and cheeks, droplets of cool water splashing on heated skin giving him goosebumps.

Jack lifts his arms up. His fingers lock behind Gabriel's neck as he's spread open on the sand, a strange kind of pride bursting in his chest with each bite that draws blood from his skin. Nothing else exists or bears any importance but this one singular snapshot of time dredged from god knows where.

Jack freezes with his eyes wide open, his fingers almost breaking the surface of the water. The sensations - all so very specific and precise, unlike the vague suggestions of the usual dreamscapes - the sand scratching his arms and legs, and the back, the irritation lingering even now. The synthskin, even the kind slapped on his limbs, is never good enough to allow for the definition of the input and the interpretation on the level of the natural skin.

Dredged up. His own thought.

There's a sinking feeling, a frightening idea, that it's a memory. And it's not his. Jack schools his breathing; the jealousy at the effortless intimacy mixed with the shame of being an unwilling observer of someone else's intimate life swirl under his tongue. Or it's all jealousy. And spite. He grips the edges of the bathtub and pulls himself upright.

At the clinking and shuffling from the side, Jack turns his head to see Jesse tucking himself into his pants and buckling his belt.

"Christ, dude, you scared the piss outta me, like, for real."

Jack shows him the finger.

"How does your skin stay on, anyway?"

"It's just what it does? It's only fingers that do this dehydration thing."

"I don't mean that, and don't do this 'rise from the watery grave' shtick when I'm trying to take a leak," Jesse rolls his eyes, a gesture he's so fond of. "Almost pissed all over the wall."

"That's a 'you' problem, not a 'me' problem," Jack mutters, heaving himself upright and snatching a towel off the rack. He wraps it around himself while stepping out of the bathtub.

"Would be a 'you' problem if I'd turned around when you did the 'I live' routine."

Jack snorts, giving Jesse an appraising look supposed to convey his opinion on the subject matter, and moves to the main room - dripping water everywhere - where he sinks into his usual chair.

"By the way, I got my stuff arranged, so I'll be splitting in the evening later."

Jack acknowledges it with a grunt. With Jesse gone, he will probably be about ready to climb walls with the dearth of things left to do. Or return to drinking alone, which, arguably, is far from anything approximating a healthy coping mechanism.

"And you forgot toes. And the soles."

"Hm?"

"The prune looking thing, the feet do that too." Jesse drops back to the couch and plays with the remote. "That's stuff from the time we were all water monkeys, and so we could grab stuff better in water."

"No bullshit?"

"Nah, real stuff, that's why we like water that much. Some of us, at least, that's, like, where we should be most of the time."

"Cool."

"You're still a freak, though," Jesse salutes before opening a beer he has grabbed earlier from the cooler. "No hard feelings, right?"

"None. But, with the world as it is, isn't the whole evolution argument kind of moot? No-one accounted for the magic, did they?" Jack picks the plate with the remnants of yesterday's late-night snack up from the table and tries to discern if anything on it looks poisonous yet. Fried shrimps appear acceptable, to be honest, though the oil probably is a bit stale, Jack decides.

"Now, here, my dude, my friend, is the heart of the matter all those dudes who say a big man, or a big woman, or whatever in the sky did it don't get they get wrong."

"And that is?"

"And that is that even if that's all a fart of some higher power in the sky, it's still a creation, see? Someone sneezed, stuff crawled outta that sneeze, and the world began, it's still their word, ya know?"

Jack nibbles on the shrimp, deep in thought.

"Let's call that 'the great primordial snot theory' and never mention it again, deal?"

"Deal. Sounded better in my head."

"No," Jack lets out a defeated sigh, "you're onto something, but I'm definitely not going into the ramifications of a sneeze being the breath of life."

"But it has a nice ring to it."

"Yeah." Jack focuses on the shrimps, paying only nominal attention to both the show playing in the background and Jesse's mutterings while he slowly gathers his belongings that spread all over the rooms they've shared so far. Later, Jack escorts Jesse to the cab waiting for him, grips his hand for longer than needed when they shake.

"What's the main rule?"

"Don't get inked. Dude, who do you take me for?" Jesse snorts, trying to look offended and failing.

"A moron."

"Fair. Take care."

"You too."

Jesse ducks into his seat in the back of the cab and Jack shuts the door behind him - staying for a moment to see the car speed away from him before he returns to the hotel and for the first time considers the relative wasteland of devastation the room has become. After he pushes everything from the coffee table into a trash bin, he returns to the chair and checks in with Sombra.

"Feeling maudlin, are we?"

Jack shakes his head.

"What gave you the idea? Anyway, you still in Frisco?"

"Yes. Better access points to JIS networks."

"Right. Didn't cross my mind this might be the reason."

"There's good news too. When you get back from your meeting, I'll have a package waiting for you."

The meeting. He's on the last three doses remaining. Anxiety surges up in a sudden spike at the realization. He's been avoiding dwelling on the matter so well he pushed it almost entirely out of his mind.

"A package?"

"Some additional gear we will need to start digging, how to say it, organically."

"Beat people up, you mean."

"Yes," Sombra trails off slowly, a question in the air.

"Go on," Jack urges her, and after a lengthy pause, she continues.

"You never told me you only have nightmares."

"I have other dreams too." He's pretty sure of it, especially after the last one.

"Jack. Every time you enter the REM phase, you have repetitive patterns of stress. Listen," Sombra sighs, probably reading his silence the wrong way, "I wasn't... keen on sifting through all your data, I don't like infringing on your privacy more than I have to, but Gabe insisted on it, and it could've been avoided if you had talked about having problems."

"They're not really problems, though."

He can almost hear her mentally counting down.

"You consistently downplay your pain levels, you don't dream save for reliving the trauma you'd suffered, and, Jack, I tried simulating your brain activity, I clocked out after three minutes."

"I'm used to it."

"That's the thing, you shouldn't be used to it, it's not normal," Sombra huffs, and Jack's sure she's throwing things right now wherever she's physically at by now. "I'm angry with you, we'll talk tomorrow when you get the package, and I'll be less angry."

She disconnects without prior warning, leaving him alone. But that's the thing about pain, you become numb to some of it, Jack thinks, until it becomes just the background radiation of your life.

He takes a quick shower and finds a clean set of clothes to change into.

This time, Jack remembers about keeping the pad on his person, and sends the text as he climbs the stairs yet again, somewhat amazed at how three whole weeks have passed unnoticeably with Jesse there to keep him occupied - he's not going to lie, he's going to miss the bugger. Not the conversations, per se, but rather, the general awareness of his presence. Even if everyone is living their own separate lives outside of the operations, getting together is not so bad, after all.

Jack stops at the doors to the same suite as before. The code is unchanged. A few calming breaths and he walks in.

That's the thing about the constant pain, it doesn't disappear, it just numbs you down - it's a sort of resigned weary acceptance to his situation that leaves a dull ache in its wake, nothing earth-shattering anymore, but it's still there. The half-smile Jack musters at the sight of Gabriel observing him is surprisingly genuine, even to him himself. He can, and will, deal with it. His problem, not anyone else's.

"Long time no see," Jack quips at the inquisitive rise of Gabriel's eyebrow. "Hi, and all that jazz."

He doesn't expect an answer. There is none, save for Gabriel stepping closer, and Jack throws his hands around his neck while his heart flips in his chest - constricts into a singular point of fear and doubt - the touch on his hip giving him something - anything - to grab onto. Grounding, as is the finger raising his chin.

The red and black eyes regard him with moderate interest - observe and scrutinize - pass the judgment on him; Jack leans in against the instinct telling him for once to run and hide from the apex predator before him. But, has he ever listened to it when it urged him to do anything but fight? Not that he can recall such an incident.

In a small act of defiance, Jack catches Gabriel's lip between his teeth, scrapes the tip of a canine on the fragile skin on the inside, hard enough to draw blood. He waits with the bated breath for the reaction, taken aback by a sparkle of what could be amusement in Gabriel's posture, and the kiss, now tinged with the metallic aftertaste, deepening, becoming more forceful, his body pulled flush against Gabriel's, a hand on the nape of his neck.

Jack stumbles over his own feet while being led to the bedroom, lost in the kiss until the backs of his shins hit the edge of the bed, and with a gasp of surprise he lies on the covers - almost falling but also held and lowered - peeled out of his garments, and out of control. Having Gabriel's attention focused on him - and only him - makes Jack's head spin each and every time, regardless of the circumstances; a near-religious experience if he ever had to put a name to it, not unlike the moment the drifting dragon gazed at him - and through him.

He wanders back to the dream - the memory - of the beach, of the coarse sand biting into his skin; Gabriel's locks that have slipped from the low ponytail tickle his cheeks and nose as his fingers dig into Gabriel's shoulders, trying to find a way to bring him even closer. Maybe even to leave a mark - a sign of permanence - something that cannot be denied sunk beneath Gabriel's skin in a desperate attempt to put his claim on him before Jack dissolves in the smell and the taste of the ocean rushing over him, the whirling current pulling him down.

But this is what Jack knows: he is not willing to give this up, this bittersweet torture. It doesn't come as a sudden realization, more like a long-standing knowledge now unburied and close to the surface, driven home with the weight of the moisture hanging on his eyelashes. He reaches out and finds Gabriel's palm, twines their fingers together - always amazed at the contrast and the faint dark red lines following intricate patterns melting into the color of Gabriel's skin - pulls it close to his chest, its back pressing against his heart. Covers both their palms with his other hand and curls around it.

No matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it will hurt, he's not going to give this up because the alternative is far worse, it's being abandoned and empty, and lost, and having nothing but that deep-seated ache.

Like this, he can at least pretend, Jack muses, slowly drifting off.

The first time he wakes up, it is to the darkness of the night and fingers combing slowly through his hair, Gabriel's hand still held close.

The next time he opens his eyes, it's morning, and he's alone in the suite – the pillbox waits on the pillow.

[ardenttheories]

could you do a knight of void? please?? :'))

The Knight of Void is one who Exploits/Protects Void, or Exploits/Protects with Void, for the benefit of the team, which is Confusion, Uncertainty, Secrets, Irrelevance, the Void itself, the Unknown, Hidden things, and Doubt.

As a general rule of thumb, all Knights put up a facade that covers their feelings of feelings of inadequacy. While they don’t lack their Aspect, they often feel that they do, and thus try to present themselves as who they’d rather be. 

Of course, the Knight of Void complicates this somewhat. It’s a facade of Lack - a facade to cover up a lack of Lack. It doesn’t quite work, it sounds contradictory, and in some ways it is. So, how does this work?

The Knight may have no facade at all - rather, they have what other people perceive as a facade. Their true Self is right there in view, perfectly open and willing, but everyone mistakes it for a show, and therefore it always goes under the radar. It can be a very lonely existance if everyone assumes that you’re someone you’re not - especially when you’re being nobody but yourself.

On the other hand, the Knight may put up a facade of sheer confidence, of someone who knows everything, someone with booksmarts and a place in the world - all to hide the fact that they have no idea what the fuck is going on. They’re so aware of the Irrelevant that they begin to worry that maybe they’re Irrelevant, too, and it eats away at them until they become desperate to front as someone with Importance. 

In truth, they can be Withdrawn and quiet. They’re very subtle people, and when their facade isn’t in place - or, in the first instance, just all the time - they tend to slip easily into the background. It can be hard to remember that they’re even there, and people might find that the Knight sneaks up on them without meaning to, simply because they just… forgot that the Knight existed.

In that sense, people might even struggle to remember the Knight’s name. Like they’re always getting it wrong, or that it’s just on the tip of their tongue, they should know it, but they just don’t.  

They’re wonderful at keeping Secrets, and likely have no desire to share the Secrets they know at all - and would initially be very unwilling to Exploit them. 

They would be filled with Doubt and Confusion over their actions. They’d struggle to figure out if what they’re doing is right, if it has meaning, if everything is completely Meaningless; they’d worry that they have no place in the world, with their friends, in the session - and this, admittedly, is likely what causes the facade in the first place.

They’re so terrified of being forgotten that they either try to cover themself up with a personality that can’t be forgotten (yet still is anyway), or they try to be themselves as much as they can so that their genuine personality can win out in people’s minds (yet it never does). 

It’s a knock to their confidence that likely has the Knight struggling from day one. Even if they started getting into the swing of things - the way most Knights do, leading forward and taking on a fairly immediate role - they might still worry that they’re not enough, not good enough, not doing enough. 

The irony is, of course, that they’re more than competent Players. 

They can Exploit anything that is Hidden or Unknown - such as Secrets that might be able to topple a dynasty, or a legendary item that actually exists but is lost in some dark, cavernous place. 

They can Exploit the Void itself, and the ambiguity that comes from it. Becoming invisible, or turning other Players invisible, by making them Irrelevant is a big part of that - but so is Exploiting the Void that exists within someone, the ways that they don’t Matter or Lack. 

They can Exploit that a weaker Player is always ignored by giving them an item of extreme importance, thereby keeping it Hidden in plain sight. They can Exploit Irrelevancy to make someone like the Black King mean nothing in the overarching Importance of the game, thereby making it easier to win - because the game would recognise him as an Optional Boss rather than a Required Boss.

They could Exploit Void in incredibly potent ways, such as by Voiding out people or things - quite literally using the Void to keep them Hidden from view - or by using the Void itself to forge Hidden pathways and shortcuts throughout their Lands. There might be some areas that are just so Unimportant that the Knight can Exploit their Irrelevancy, making them hubs of activity for Players that will always go under the radar. 

In an admittedly ironic twist of events, it might turn out that the Knight’s friends are just… incredibly nosy. They always try to figure out things that they shouldn’t, things that might make them suffer if they ever Knew about it. Some of the Knight’s Exploitation of Void (and subsequent Protection with it) could just be Hiding things from other Players that would drive them mad or Grimdark. Some things just shouldn’t be known; some things are best left in the Darkness to fester and rot.

Additionally, they’d be master blackmailers. On top of Protecting Secrets, they can Exploit them, too - so, imagine someone who knows every dark Secret you’ve ever tried to keep close to your chest. Now imagine you’re going to go to something dumb, and the Knight threatens to tell everyone that thing you’ve never, ever wanted anyone to know. Needless to say, the Knight wouldn’t have to try hard to stop Players from doing bad things. 

They could (potentially) Exploit Grimdarkness. While definitely not guaranteed (and very dangerous), the Knight could harness the power of Grimdarkness with complete mental control. We’ve already seen the sort of power Rose and Eridan wield when the Void and Horrorterrors take control - so you can surely imagine how powerfully destructive the Knight of Void would be when they Exploit the Grimdarkness to have their own will in tact throughout it. 

Despite how flashy they can be, they prefer to work from the Shadows, silent and Unseen. Even in combat, they always attack first, and the battle is often over before it’s even begun. 

They can likely Exploit Darkness, too, and weaponise it in some way. Perhaps that means by using Darkness to cover up giant holes for enemies to fall down, or by using Shadows to make a room look like it’s filled up by more people than it actually is. They may even be able to twist Shadows around to look like terrible creatures - though they probably couldn’t make the creatures come to life. A Shadow is, after all, just a Shadow - a lack of Light. 

On top of that, there may be a Hidden skill which is specific only to the Knight. It would likely unlock with Godtiering, and there’s quite literally anything it could be - so long as it’s Hidden within them until they truly need it. This might be a very special, very powerful fraymotif, one that they don’t need to pay for to unlock, or an ability that isn’t actually Void-related at all.

Or, maybe it is Void-related, and they can just create supermassive blackholes. That’s an Exploitation of nothing on a massive scale. 

Naturally, there’s much smaller abilities that are specific to them - such as Voidstepping. I’d honestly say it’s exactly what Flashstepping is, except the Knight is Exploiting the Void to step through Hidden paths rather than just going really, really fast. One moment they’d be there - the next, gone. 

All of this, of course, would be to Protect Void or to Protect their team with Void. They’re well aware that there’s very little Void that exists within their session, and that it’s fading fast; that if they’re not careful, there will be absolutely no Void left at all. In trying to Protect their friends, therefore, they Protect Void as well; using it as much as they can to increase (ironically) its Importance in the session. 

The Knight always represents that which the session lacks - which makes the Knight of Void a very interesting Player. There’s an extreme lack of Doubt, Confusion, Uncertainty, Irrelevance, of Hidden things - which sounds very useful, until you realise that it means the Players are literally always exposed.

As much as there’s nothing hidding from the Players’ sight - Quests that are much more obvious and easier, Denizens that are already awake and willing to talk, Consorts that are much more coherent - there’s nothing to hide the Players, either. Derse Royalty will always know where the Players are at any given time, making it much easier for them to launch concentrated attacks on underlevelled Players - and try strategising against an enemy that already knows your next five moves.

There might be a leak in their chatlogs, meaning that literally nothing is a Secret. Players can find out dirt on other Players at the drop of a hat, and that can obviously cause a significant amount of tension. 

It would also be detrimental to the growth of the Players if everything is just… so straightforward. Part of SBURB’s struggles comes from trying to work everything out, having to take time, learning and growing as people because you’ve experienced a thousand new things. If all the information is right there, there’s no need to grow, to experience those things; Players can just waltz right up to their Denizens without earning it, and they’ll be awful Gods at the end of it as a result.

As a much more interesting thought, and one that can be taken any way you like, this probably means that something very weird or very wrong is happening with the Incipisphere. It is a place of Void - of Confusion and Unknowing and Hidden things - and yet this is a session that explicitly lacks Void, including in a literal sense.

There might be something in the Medium that means the Void doesn’t work as it’s meant to - some Light-based anomaly that completely ruins how everything runs. Maybe it isn’t intentional, maybe it is; maybe this is some threat to the session like LE is. Whatever the case, it ensures that there is little to no Hiding space because everything is cast in a radiant Light.

This makes the session more vulnerable to outside attacks. This also makes it much harder to traverse the Void itself, because while all the pathways through it might be more obvious and straightened out, there’s doubtlessly Things lurking in the remaining Darkness that can likewise see the Players much easier. That, or the Light-based anomaly will send Beasts after the Players that Know exactly where they will be. 

Once they’ve become Realised, the Knight of Void… doesn’t actually change much. And it’s mostly because a Knight becomes Realised when they realise they don’t need to have their facade up all the time, that they’re good and worthy of wielding their Aspect.

If they never had the facade to begin with, the only true difference is that they’re more accepting of who they are. They let themselves be awash with Confusion, and understand that sometimes there’s going to be things that even they don’t know. They’re happy and content to just let things be, to let themselves fade into the background, to be an observer more than a participant.

By this point, people will notice them unless they don’t want to be noticed - it’s the natural confidence that comes with accepting that you know what you’re worth things. They’re more than likely to have a few good friends that know exactly who they are, and try to get them involved wherever they can. 

It just means that, instead of trying to push the Knight to “be the real them” or the Knight trying so hard to be noticed, everyone involved is much happer to let the Knight slip away if they have to. There’s no hurt feelings, and everyone knows that the Knight loves them still. 

They’ll accept that they are good at and know a lot of things, and that they can’t be great at everything; that Irrelevancy exists, and there’s some ways that they are Irrelevant, but more ways that they’re Important, too. They might never make it into office, or become the most powerful, popular Player, but they’re Important to their friends - they’re Important to that little old lady down the street when they bring her the newspaper each morning - and in some ways that’s enough. 

They don’t need to be Seen. Once they take that pressure off, that’s when they can really live. They’ll keep doing everything from the Shadows, content with who the are, and they’ll live for all the things that Matter to them - no matter how big or small. 

Of course, they’ll still be quiet, still a bit reserved and shy, but they’ll also be more open. If they had no facade, then people will start to see that this really is who they are, and that the Knight (ironically) never once Lied. Despite this, their relationship dynamics will change; people will stop trying to pry in to find this Self that doesn’t exist, and the Knight will be able to realise that, yes, that really is who they’ve been all along

If they did have a facade - well, they’ll drop it, and they’ll feel sheer relief at the fact that a thousand eyes aren’t on them all the time. They’ll accept that Irrelevancy is part of their life and get rid of the people who are Irrelevant to them. There’s no point wasting time on people who don’t Matter, or on a facade that never Mattered to begin with.  

Essentially, they just become more confident in who they are and what they do. 

As an added extra thought for narrative relevance, since that’s been on the blog a lot lately:

They’re Unseen, capable of doing a thousand things without anyone ever knowing it. In a comic like Homestuck, this would probably mean that the Knight is someone we often can’t be, and then when we are, they just… show that they’ve done things off-screen that we’ll never be able to see. They work specifically out of our point of reference, and do Nothing at all when we’re watching them.

[chasholidays]

Could you write a Bellarke fic based on Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries? I would highly recommend the show if you haven't seen it. It's about a female detective in 1920's Australia who has an adoptive daughter, a lesbian doctor best friend, and TONS of UST with the local police detective. She's also big into flaunting conventions of the time, and does whatever the hell she wants! Thank you! You are incredible!

In the grand scheme of things, Clarke knows there are much more important things to worry about than why Inspector Blake isn’t in the office one day. He’s allowed, after all, to take a day off, and his schedule doesn’t follow hers. But there is something arresting about coming in and finding his door closed and locked, no sign of him anywhere. Especially after the night they had; she’d been looking forward to checking in on him, to debriefing.

She always looks forward to seeing him, honestly.

“Where’s the inspector?” she asks one of the officers passing by. “Inspector Blake,” she clarifies, in case he’s somehow not familiar with her or her partnership with Blake.

“Inspector Blake is unwell,” says the officer. “He won’t be in today.”

Clarke frowns. “Unwell?”

The man shrugs. “I only know what I’m told. He isn’t coming in. Is there anything else I can assist you with, Miss Griffin?”

Even if he had Blake’s home address, he probably wouldn’t be able to give it to her. Clarke’s sure she has it somewhere, or she’ll be able to find it. Not that he should need her coming to play nursemaid, but she does know him fairly well by now. If he and Gina were still seeing each other, she wouldn’t worry, but left to his own devices, she’s just not convinced he’ll remember that he needs to eat even if he’s not hungry and drink more than he usually would.

If she was ill, he’d probably worry about her. It’s not unusual, for friends.

“No, thank you,” she says. “I think I have everything I need.”

*

Clarke would consider Inspector Blake to be something akin to a friend, although it might be too strong a word. They’re associates, undoubtedly, but they don’t spend time together outside of work events.

But she has his address, and it isn’t even that far to travel. She gets some soup and her favorite blend of tea and doesn’t feel nervous until she’s almost there. If he did this for her, she’d understand, but she would think it was–profound. It would be a sign of something.

If he thinks the same thing, he’ll be right, of course. But she does try to be a little less blatant. Ambiguity is the name of her game.

Still, she’s already most of the way to him. And she’d like to make sure he’s well.

She rings the doorbell and waits, shifting a little. Maybe the officer was wrong. Maybe he’s playing hooky. It doesn’t seem like Inspector Blake, but–

The door flies open and there he is, frowning in a hastily tied dressing gown. She’s never seen him looking so ragged, hair in disarray, cheeks rough with stubble, eyeglasses askew.

“Miss Griffin,” he says, straightening the glasses. “What are you–”

She holds up her packages. “I heard you were ill.”

“And you decided the correct response was to come calling, obviously.” He rubs his face. “What did you bring?”

“Soup and tea. I’m not confident in your ability to take care of yourself.”

“You’re not confident in me?” he asks. “You’ve dragged yourself to investigate cases when I would have known well enough to–” The sentence is lost in a fit of coughs, and Clarke pushes him inside with a frown.

“That was because we had a case. You can’t have gotten this bad in a day, so you must have been working yesterday despite feeling poorly.”

“Not this poorly.” His eyes dart over her, and she refuses to let herself flush. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here.”

“It’s not that far from me.”

“No?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know where I live, Inspector.”

He shrugs one shoulder. “I assume you went to the station looking for me and had to come all the way back, or you wouldn’t have known to come out here. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“You don’t have to entertain me, you’re sick. Tell me where your kettle is and I’ll make you some of the tea I brought. My mother swears by it to cure all ills.”

“You brought me tea?” he asks, sounding suspicious, as if this is some clear sign of danger.

“Is that a problem?”

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know. I was worried,” she admits. “We had a rough night last night, I wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt.”

“I’m sure it didn’t help with the bug, but it is just a bug.”

“A bad enough bug you took the day off.”

“I didn’t want it to get worse.”

“Then you should sit down and let me make you some of this tea. Have you eaten? Do you want soup?”

“This is a new side of you, Miss Griffin. I think I liked the old one better.”

But he lets her take over his kitchen, and she makes him some tea and starts the soup warming on the stove, and then it becomes uncomfortable, because she doesn’t have anything to say to him, not really. She’s never called on him at home before.

He’s the one to finally ask, “Was there another murder already?”

“What?”

“Is that why you’re so determined to see me?”

“No. It’s not possible I was just worried over your health?”

“It’s possible,” he grants, with an odd tone to his voice. “You don’t have to be. I can take care of myself.”

“I didn’t have any evidence of that, so I thought I should investigate for myself before making any assumptions.”

He snorts, but it turns into coughing again, and Clarke actually gets up to rub his back before she’s quite thought the decision through. It brings her entirely too close to him, warmth radiating off his side, and if there wasn’t entirely too much of it, she might be distracted.

“Are you running a fever?” she demands, putting her hand on his forehead.

“I am sick,” he points out. “You were warned.”

“You shouldn’t have come out yesterday.”

“I was concerned you’d die unsupervised.”

“And now I’m concerned about the same thing. You should be in bed. You know you don’t have to stand on ceremony with me. Do you need anything? Can I run any errands for you?”

“I think I can survive a day.”

“I think it’s going to be more than a day. Don’t argue,” she adds, when he starts to. “My mother and my best friend are both doctors, you’ll recall. I’m the expert here, Bellamy.”

The use of his Christian name is deliberate, a tactic she’s never tried before, and he startles at it as if he’s been shocked.

“Take the day,“ she goes on, before he can respond. "They’ll survive without you. And if you go in, you’ll just get everyone sick. I’ll come by in the morning to check on you.”

“Will you?” he asks, very nearly a challenge.

“Do you have anyone else doing it?”

“I’m sure my sister would if I asked her.”

“But you aren’t going to ask her.”

He sighs, all the fight going out of him at once. “She’d be awful at it anyway.”

“So I’ll come. If you give me a key, you don’t even have to drag yourself out of bed to let me in.”

“I think being forced to move once or twice a day is good for me.” He wets his lips, his eyes intense on her. “Thank you, Clarke.”

It shouldn’t make her breath stop, it shouldn’t make her heart pound faster. She started it, after all. But all she wants is to stay, to fret over him until he’s feeling better, and once he is—

Well, she’s always known what she wants to do with him. But it’s getting harder and harder to pretend it’s simply lust. She’ll never have enough of him, she’s quite sure of that. She wants to be with him every morning and every night, to not have to come over to check in on him because she’ll already be here, their lives all wrapped up together.

It’s something to think about later, when he’s well and she isn’t so discombobulated from being in his home. When her mind is clear.

"You’re welcome,” she says, with a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

*

It takes a few days for him to recover, although Clarke’s sure that if she wasn’t checking in on him, he’d try to drag himself back to work much sooner. But Bellamy works too hard and always has, and Clarke can’t help thinking a long break is good for him. Especially when it doesn’t seem to be anything life-threatening. She thinks about making him go out to see Lexa, just for a checkup, but she knows exactly what her friend would say: he needs rest and fluids and doesn’t need all the hassle of leaving his house to come here so I can tell him to stay in bed.

On the fourth day of his illness, Bellamy opens the door for her fully dressed and shaved, and says, “I made lunch.”

Clarke blinks. “You did?”

“It’s the first part of my plan to convince you I’m well again.”

“How many parts does this plan have?”

“As many as it needs to work.” He holds the door open for her. “I’m not fully recovered, but I’m recovered enough. I think I can go in for the second half of the day and get caught up on all the work I’ve missed.”

“Bellamy–”

“I’ll take it easy,” he says, before she can argue. “Half a day won’t kill me. And I’m feeling well enough to be bored.”

“Of course you are. What did you make for lunch?”

It’s a very dangerous thing, being at Bellamy’s when he’s feeling well. He always felt like himself, but he really is much better now, and he’s made a delicious meal, and he wants to hear about what’s going on with the precinct, since she’s been visiting, but once that’s done, they just chat. It’s their first time being so easy together, shed of professional responsibilities, and it’s tantalizing, a glimpse of what she might have, if he wants it too.

If they can ever talk about it.

“So, do I pass inspection?” he asks, once they’re done.

“The fact that you can cook doesn’t prove you’re well.”

“I assume that means you can’t think of a counterargument,” he teases, and she scowls at him.

“I’m so sorry for being worried about your health.”

His eyes go soft. “I do appreciate it. But I’m fine, Clarke. And it’s not as if you won’t see me again to make sure I’m not overexerting myself. I’m sure you’ll trip over another dead body sooner or later.”

It’s true, but not exactly comforting. After four days of seeing him every day, of relaxed, non-professional interaction, it’s going to be hard to go back to seeing him only when she has official business.

“Sooner or later,” she agrees. “If you want to go back, I won’t stop you. You’re the best judge of your own health. Thank you for lunch.”

“Thank you for looking after me. I might not always show it, but I did appreciate it.”

“You’re a terrible patient,” she says, with a smile, and forces herself to add, “Inspector.” It’s going to raise eyebrows, if she’s too familiar with him back at work.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and his eyes search hers for a second. “Are we going back to that?”

“Are we not?”

He takes a step in, still not close, but closer, close enough to mean something. “I don’t want to. Clarke, you have to know I–”

She pulls him down roughly, and he catches her face right before impact, smiling as their lips meet, tempering the kiss from hard desperation into something lighter and sweeter. His mouth is warm, flavored faintly with lunch and coffee, and his fingers are callused but gentle on her jaw.

She manages to restrain herself for all of ten seconds before she slides her tongue against his, and he groans and pulls her closer, and she manages to navigate them back to his sofa without breaking the contact.

“You’re still recovering, we should sit,” she murmurs, breathless, between kisses, and he laughs, sliding his hands up her sides.

“Your concern for my health is commendable, Miss Griffin.”

“You’re right, we shouldn’t do that too often,” she says. His mouth finds her neck, and she gasps. “Bellamy–”

“Clarke.”

“I really think you shouldn’t go back to work this afternoon,” she says, pulling his mouth back to hers. “Just to be safe.”

He grins at her, glasses askew, hair a mess, but eyes clear and smile bright, everything she hoped for. “Maybe you’re right. But I’m going to need something to keep me busy.”

“I’m sure we can come up with something.”

His fingers slide between the layers of her clothing, finding bare skin, and she shivers closer. “I have a few ideas.”

*

It’s another week before she has reason to go into the precinct, although she’s seen him almost every day and spent more nights in his bed than in her own. This early period of relationships is always a little warm and giddy, but Clarke can’t help thinking this really is different, too. That it really will last.

“Inspector Blake,” she says, perching herself on his desk, as always.

“Miss Griffin.”

“Welcome back, you were very much missed here. I hope you’re feeling better.”

“Much,” he says, a smile playing on his lips. “It’s safe to say I haven’t felt this good in years.”

[peachymess]

I'm scared for the last episode to come out because I got the feeling that the anime is going to practically shove eremika in our throats, I really love them both as characters but I think that the anime is changing them way too much (or that's how I see it, I may be exaggerating). I really love when you answer questions and talk about your point of view of certain things and I would like to hear what you think about this😊, have a good day/night!.

Hello, friend ^^Aww, here, have a hug: *tight snuggles*If I’m being honest with you, I’m very nervous for the coming Saturday as well. I try to play it cool, but I’m definitely a part-time embodiment of nausea. Though, it’s important to explain why: it is not because I don’t want the manga chapter to be animated! There are legitimate feelings going on in that infamous ere//mika scene - of what nature, is up for debate, obviously - and it’s a canon moment between two characters who have a canon tight bond. I doubt anyone is actually trying to claim that Eren and Mikasa have nothing to do with each other… 

What I am worried about, is that the anime studio will continue the streak they’re on, of tweaking scenes for their own agenda. The manga did not shove the ere//mika ship down anyone’s throats, but the anime is undoubtably pushing for the fans to pick up on it as an intended endgame, as opposed to a complex bond that doesn’t necessarily have to be a standard heroxheroine trope, if romantic at all. The way they’ve been doing it so far, has been misguided and, in parts, at Armin’s expense. Going by how WIT treated the material up until now, it’s a legitimate worry that they could choose to switch up the scene to look less like an emotional exposing of Mikasa’s heart (and a heartfelt ere//mika interaction) - and more like a standard love declaration ala every hollywood movie ever. Of course, some believe that’s exactly what it is, but it’s not a given; it’s an interpretation. Just like any non-canon relationship is. And in this case, the ere//mika bond is an interpretation WIT goes to the length of tweaking the original material to reinforce. And if that’s what they choose to do in the aforementioned scene, we know they’re viable to tweak out Armin. Disregarding, of course, how, if they think the scene is canonically romantic, it shouldn’t need any tweaking to be seen as such…… but why is it such a big deal that they tweak, exactly? Well, because a little tweak here, and a little tweak there, soon amounts to a completely different image all together. And WIT had apparently been so focused on how the final outcome looks between Eren and Mikasa, that they forgot to look at what Eren and Armin’s image looks like now; it’s distant and cold, compared to the vibrant mutual love we see in the manga. It’s not without reason that people have said they forgot Eren and Armin were supposed to be best friends by the end of S1. This is why, with every little tweak, the Armin and ere//min fans groan seemingly excessively now. We’re getting to a point where the rest of the fandom seems to roll their eyes at us and say we’re exaggerating. But it really isn’t. It’s like when you’re having a shitty day, and then a car honks at you so you drop your coffee and you just fucking lose it. You scream and shout - maybe even cry - and everyone around you back off and think to themselves “damn, that bitch cray”. But they haven’t gone through the day you’ve gone through. Those fans didn’t pay attention to the anime’s sandpapering of Armin and ere//min since the start, like us. They didn’t pay attention because Armin isn’t a favorite of theirs, and they don’t like ere//min. And that probably sounds harsh, but that’s how it is; we focus on what we like, which means uninteresting things have to take a backseat. Sadly, Armin and ere//min isn’t as popular as Levi, Erwin, ere//ri and ere//mika, etc. - which means it’s just a minority of us who catch (and care) about the subtle changes to Armin and ere//min. This makes us look like a small group of raging baboons, because the majority is always right, right? In this case, the majority didn’t catch the changes before they heard our angry yells from the distance. And before they knew it, we crowded the room like angry protesters and they couldn’t tell why. When they listened to us, they heard “they added another two seconds of Mikasa instead of Armin looking to the left! Outrageous!” - “They made Eren shove Armin in the face! An utter nail in the coffin to their friendship - I can’t believe this!” - “Uuugh, Mikasa gets another extra scene while they cut Armin’s line about Eren, I’m so done with the ere//mika overload!” - etc. We sound like ridiculous babies, and it’s getting old. So old, in fact, that even ere//min supporters feel uncomfortable saying they agree that the dynamic has changed in the anime, just because if you say so, you’re not only lame, but in risk of getting pulled into wank-discourse.The thing is, S2 is just full of coffee drops. All our emotions are brought back to the surface, now that the anime is back - and when the tweaks are repeated every week, seven days isn’t enough to cool down those emotions between the blows. The reason we’re constantly nervous, is that the way WIT tweaks things, every time they make ere//mika look more like a duo than they are, it’s automatically shoving Armin more and more into the cold. If they kept him close to his friends, there would be no doubt that he has a secure and true spot in the group regardless of a romance making him the third wheel, but they’ve watered down his connection to EMA so much that people question his ties. When they then further reinforce Eren and Mikasa’s “us against the world” vibes, it’s the closest thing to a contextual answer on where Armin stands we get. We ask “is he even that close to Eren and Mikasa?” and there is no answer from WIT, only ambiguity - aside from their repeated showcasing of “look how much Eren and Mikasa are connected, emotionally and by red-thread destiny!” That’s how someone who doesn’t even mind the ere//mika ship, can end up groaning and moaning about it, because it makes ere//min look like a myth. Mind you, this isn’t the “feeling threatened by another, more canon ship” one often encounters in this kind of discourse; no, we’re upset with the changes - because in the original story, the EMA dynamic is great, and feels as tight as it is! It all just ends up looking like we’re - to quote others - “pissbabies”. And once you’ve been labeled, there’s little you can say to get rid of it. … so yes, I’m very, very nervous about how much they’ll push ere//mika next week, but I like to pretend I’m not, because that makes me a pissbaby in the eyes of the fandom. But it’s still how I feel deep down. Because I dread how next episode is the last episode of this season, and while Armin is shown obviously care for Eren in this arc in canon, he was nowhere as noticeable in the anime. If they remove his involvement in the infamous scarf scene, that would ruin the last chance we got to see important interaction between him and Eren for who knows how long - as well as further building EM over EMA, for the sake of pushing something that either 1. isn’t canon, or 2. is canon and should read if it’s done the way it was in the source material. Personally, I think episode 12 could go either way, really. I’m setting my expectations low, and my hopes high. All I want is for them to do it the way it’s done in the manga. I’m here to console of celebrate with you afterwards, regardless. 

[vileart]

A Girl and a Dramaturgy: Louise Orwin @ Edfringe 2017

A Girl & A Gun by Louise Orwin

Venue: Summerhall, Anatomy Lecture Theatre, Venue 26   

Dates: 2-27 Aug (not 3, 7, 14, 21) 

Time: 18.00 (70 mins)

What was the inspiration for A Girl & A Gun?

I started researching the basis of the show, when I began re-thinking Godard’s famous statement: ‘All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.’  I’ve always been a massive fan of film, and the French new wave in particular, but as my politics developed I began to wonder exactly what it was that Godard was saying when he uttered those words. I felt like there was perhaps a clue in those words as to who he was making film for (spoiler

alert: MAN).  Thinking about the male gaze in cinema is nothing new- I am fanatic about Laura Mulvey’s work on this topic, but at this point in time I began to really think about my own appetite for these kind of images as a reasonably well-informed, politically engaged young woman. 

At the same time as pondering these ideas a few other things happened. Beyonce released her music video for ‘Videophone’ featuring her and Lady Gaga scantily-clad bearing multi-coloured guns as props; I watched Springbreakers and the scene where two teenage girls lie on a bed surrounded by guns and using them a sexual props stuck with me; and I came across the work of B-movie mogul Andy Sidaris, who essentially makes low-grade Bond-esque action films which always star playboy bunnies running around with guns.  I kept thinking about the references to guns in each of these contexts, how the images were stuck in my head, how they all elicited different reactions from me (but overwhelming a mix of being reviled and attracted at the same time), I wondered about the economy of power when a woman in a bikini holds a gun (is it/can it ever be empowering), I wondered who these images were for. I then started thinking about my own appetite for these kind of images, perhaps starting to realise that it was an appetite that had started at quite a young age.

Realizing that there was something almost unconscious about my response to these kind of films, I decided I wanted to make a show that interrogated the allure of the image of the girl and the gun on film, and interrogated how deeply embedded these kind of films can become in our psyches.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

Yes. I mean, I hope so. If it’s not, I’ll stop what I’m doing right now…. But, honestly, it is absolutely my belief that performance is one of the best arenas to tackle big issues. We live in a confusing world, I believe, now more than ever.  With its half-read, click-bait, list-icles, and its ever-increasing platforms for political discussion, speech and demonstration, its fake news and its echo chambers. I think its hard to find spaces to really chew over ideas, to consider the grey areas, to ask the difficult, big questions. I think theatre and performance spaces are brilliant for doing just that.  If done right, they can provide an hour long meditation for audiences to consider topics and issues in all their complexity. And crucially, they can do this in very different means to the mediums we are used to, which I believe can help people understand issues in different lights.

In my work, I use ambiguity as a driving force to help open up, and grease discussion for topics that irk me, or anger me, or confuse me. I dislike being preached to, and I think many people feel the same. In my mind, ambiguity can activate an audience- keeps them alive with questions, and thus part of the conversation. That’s not to say that I don’t have strong opinions, but often the work I make covers a topic where there isn’t black or white.  I want to make work that provokes discussion and debate, that keeps you thinking, or keeps coming back to you, niggling at you long after you’ve left the theatre.

How did you first become interested in making performance?

I did a BA in Drama and English at Bristol which had a real emphasis on avant-garde work and film/mixed media performance which has undoubtedly had a huge impact on my work, but it was only after graduating from my MA in Performance Research from RCSSD in 2011 that I began working as a solo artist. My MA was basically a research-led course, so I spent a year in a studio banging my head against a wall trying to figure out what my practice was, and lo and behold a year later I emerged a fully-formed practitioner. Which is obviously a complete lie- it was when I graduated that’s when the real work began.  But that year set me in really good stead for asking difficult questions about my practice, and the work I wanted to make. I remember a course tutor saying to us: ‘what’s that thing that itches at you?  The thing that won’t go away no matter how hard you scratch at it?’ I find that’s where the good work always is- it’s a problem waiting to be worked out, worked through. And there’s a good chance that if it’s itching so much at you, its probably itching at other people as well. I guess it’s there that I realized that I had really specific things I wanted to itch at, and that it felt like performance was the only way I was going to get at them. 

Is there any particular approach you took to the making of the show?

This show was quite interesting for me in terms of process, because the concept or conceit of the show (whereby the show is performed by me and a new male performer every night, reading our lines and following stage directions from a live autocue) came quite early on in the process. This meant that the show became quite fixed in its development early on.  With other shows I tend to have a really long research and development phase, followed by a phase of making and writing where I let myself create without restriction, without fear of it being shit- I just produce and produce and produce. And then after this the editing phase happens.  With this show, I knew I had certain things that needed to happen when I was writing: I knew that the male part needed a specific arc of narrative or development, I knew that I needed to take into account the fact that there are constantly two cameras on stage, I knew that my role on stage would have to be performer, but also stage manager, and so on.

It was also the first time I’d ever written a film script- which was interesting and fun, and a very different challenge. My work is always very visual, so I’m quite used to story-boarding my work anyway, but this was a whole new kettle of fish.  

Technically, it was quite a difficult script to write. Although I could plan for my scenes, as the character of ‘Him’ is played every night by someone who hasn’t seen the script before, it was a balancing act between trying to be as clear and demonstrative as possible for that person, while still staying true to the ‘experiment’ of having an unprepared performer on stage with me. Not knowing quite what this performer will do, or how they will perform their role is exciting, but you still need to make sure that the show holds together as much as possible.

Does the show fit with the style of your other productions?

Yes, there are definitely elements in it which I think are very ‘Louise Orwin ™’ – its use of mixed-media on stage, its participatory engagement, its tone which is playful and possibly slightly threatening at the same time, its willingness to provoke an audience in dark and surprising ways. But the format is probably something which is very different to other shows of mine too. Plus it’s the first time I’ve assumed an actual ‘character’. 

When I’m on stage I’m normally playing some heightened version of myself, I call her ‘Louise in inverted commas’. The role I play in this, ‘Her’, is like a development of that- she is very campy with her Southern Belle accent, and her cherry stalk twirling and her flirtatious gestures, but in other ways she is also just an extension of myself. She is the femme fatale character I wanted to grow up to be as a child, she is everything I love and hate about hyper-femininity, and in this way she is everything I feel about my own femininity made physical, visible on stage. 

I like to play with audience perception of myself, and so there are moments when this character might slip- but the audience will struggle to identify whether this slippage is real or another part of the production. I like to keep my audiences guessing, keep them alive in the experience. If you give them everything, with no work of their own to do, you might as well just let them sleep through the show and deliver them a FAQ after.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

People often leave the auditorium feeling like they’ve been ‘part of something’. I think the device of using an unprepared performer on stage can make the audience feel as if they are watching one of their own up there. There is always laughter, and also a few tears. I’ve had women come up to me and tell me that the show spoke to them about how they seem themselves in society, or about struggling with past abusive relationships. I’ve had young men come up to me and tell me that they’ll never be able to watch their favourite films in the same way again. 

There are loads of hidden references all over the script and staging to popular cinema which makes the show feel super familiar to audiences- people have come up to me afterwards asking me if parts of the script are directly lifted from films, but its all original. This was a deliberate choice to give my audiences a feel of the uncanny whilst they’re watching, in the hope that this may help they see anew. 

I’m really excited to bring the show to Edinburgh too, with its plethora of performers (fresh meat!) and its saturation, and excitement, and its jaded audiences. I’m wondering how the show will develop and change each night, and how it might change doing the show for such a long time too. 

A Girl and A Gun Trailer from Louise Orwin on Vimeo. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Tahoma} p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Tahoma; min-height: 14.0px} span.s1 {font: 12.0px Times} from the vileblog http://ift.tt/2uvsrxo