#indifferent-century and i actually just listened to this whole thing

[franklins-leg]

Honestly a level of radio quality that I will accept on road trips in order to avoid looking for a new station for an additional five minutes

[kalims]

˃ ᵕ ˂ . . "who i like? do you seriously think I'm gonna tell you that? anyways its—"

大好き

premise. someone asks who you like.. and you respond with their name—said person right beside you!

characters. all dorms and their prominent students

includes. gn reader

note. after a long wait! and the almost month this has been on my 'to be added' category it's hereeee.. fun fact.. I actually finished another work because I liked the idea of it more even though this was my prioritized.

was 20 mins late because I was fixing my posts aksbja

heartslabyul

looks at you like you're insane. I'm confident everyone can envision riddle's face like that. it's in between the verge of being flustered and being appalled by your lack of filter. heat practically steams out of riddle's ears as his movements stutters, clearly struggling to comprehend what you said. maybe you should get ready for an earful but you're pleasantly suprised when riddle sets aside his.. passionate emotions to shyly ask a confirmation. (with admitted aggression as if he's in denial)

trey's eyebrows shoot up but the action looks way more casual than it should be. I mean, surprisingly he's pretty calm on taking it into account but he ends up just being a smiling fool beside you as you continue your conversation with your friend. he's like... ‎◜◡◝ beside you as your friend looks between the two of you in a hurry before breaking into a laugh. should be be worried that you're this bold..? well, it did work in his favor so he can't say a thing.

happy go luck cater looks even more happy than you've ever seen him in your life. hanging lowly by his sides, his hands twitch and he itches to pull out his phone to basically renounce to the world that his feelings are very much reciprocated and probably lowkey shitting on the people with one sided loves because, ha! he wins!! you bet he's gonna settle for screaming in his private account and then proceeding to scream in his pillow.

before he could foster up a grin and break out of the 'calm and responsible' honor student, deuce had to keep his lower lips under his teeth lest he looks like a weirdo smiling uncontrollably tinged in flush. the whole time he was just staring at you goofily.. like he's on cloud nine, which I concur. because he is. the one who gets gaslighted (not by you) into thinking that you both now are in a relationship like.. deuce be for real you didn't even ask me on a fate. (actually both of you might think you're in a relationship because of the way you're acting like yall are)

contrary to beliefs I think ace would be on the more casual side. you know? throwing an arm around your shoulder and shattering whatever personal space criteria there was. clearly there's no need when you 'like' him so much. he's using your words as an excuse to do whatever he wants, like leaning strangely close, letting a hand linger longer than it should. whatever restraint he had before is gone now because now he's moving onto a new level of personal. you'd either hate or secretly like the change. hate because ace wtf we're in class and like because,, who wouldn't want your crush to be overly affectionate with you?

savanaclaw

you'd think leona wasn't listening at all just from the indifferent look on his face but you know better just from the way his eyes perk up, tail sticking up in dormant but still a signal of alert and attention. for once he doesn't quip a tease, or a smart-ass remark that would want you to shovel your way to the ground on embarrassment. he just.. sits there, staring seemingly into the void of thin air itself. maybe it's because he's feeling particularly sentimental or sensitive today that his heart feels like it's encased in warmth. it feels good.

a laugh too shaky for his preferences, ruggie hopes he didn't look too nervous for his sake. I mean, this is literally his suprise of the century and when I tell you that it's a big shock to him, it's an understatement. come on, if he did think you had feelings for him ruggie imagined the confession going normally. either buttering him up or going straight to the point—the latter, which he prefers but when he said to be direct he certainly didn't expect this! the hyena runs away with jitters and a skip to his steps but he comes back a few minutes later looking more relaxed than you've ever seen him.

once again. contrary to expectations which the savanclaw boys had practically shattered those, many would think jack would go all shy. from the previous savanaclaw boys you'd think I'd go against expectations again but you're.. wrong hehe. i don't know how to explain other than he wills himself to show a reaction other than fluster, maybe it's just in his pride to now show you an ounce of weakness but literally how could be when you're the weakness? he doesn't know if you making him soft is good or not.

octavinelle

if it was real and possible to actually happen without a third party force, azul's glasses would've definitely shattered the moment you said the direct confession. he's torn between wanting to excuse himself to scream like a school girl or intent to not let the fluster show. well, either way he does both. keeping his emotions hardly in check, sometimes slipping up multiple times but when the time comes where you both part ways you know he's silently smiling to himself when he turns round a corner. the twins are suspicious and curious as to why azul had been in a good mood nowadays..

either jade maintains his cool, natural closed eyed smile or he crinkles his eyes when he breaks into a large sharp toothed grin. of course both has the lingering ominous feeling around it because it's jade.. and even you have to agree that him openly cracking a grin isn't exactly a good sign of peace, rather so a harbinger of trouble. if you were bold enough to say that in his presence I wonder how that previous confidence will fare when he's practically picking at your earlier words to gouge a reaction. no jade, I only said like. not love (yet).

no one other than floyd would be more than ecstatic. he didn't hear it at first, blinking then tilting his head to the side when he pauses to register it. so when he finally processes it you bet he's giggling in his head but in real time? he's practically sweeping you off your feet to hug you in the air. figures with the strange merman strength.. you find out that floyd is quite clingy when he's immensely happy, he even refused to let you go through classes and when you insisted he just sat down next to your seat and promptly kicked out whoever sat there before! floyd atleast hide! I mean the professor would surely notice the eel that's not in supposed to be in their class.

scarabia

if there was an option where he could purchase everything in the world then giving it to you without expecting anything back kalim would surely choose it. you got him so happy to the fact that he's willing to do practically anything that you ask. he doesn't mean to be over the top but.. he just wants to make you happy, which is more than you deserve. no matter how many times you tell him that you don't need any gifts but rather him only, it seemed like it only did worse since he practically fell a hundred times harder which brings us to the conclusion that he wants to give you the world a whole lot more now..

a complete opposite of kalim. jamil merely blinks and casts you a side eye. for the record, he is a little impressed you're that bold because if it was him he would've just brushed this person away or claimed that he liked no one but here you are. completely obliterating the concept of secrets. perhaps that's why he likes you in the first place, your personality is certainly a force to reckon with.. but sometimes you just have to tone down the chaos.. *please* 😐

pomefiore

vil is no stranger to bold proclamations but he can't deny he's a little startled. well, he didn't pick you out to be that type of person. either way usually he'd plaster a quick smile, the words not hitting anything other than the skin of his heart. strangely enough he can't keep the smile wider than he'd like off his face, he's immensely pleased by your words and pomefiore has never been so happy by the obvious good mood their dorm leader had. cause he left them alone for the whole day to practice stick to your side.

his eyes immediately crinkle in joy, rook has to look away and cover the lower part of his face to shy away the flush in his cheeks that would give away his thoughts. rook wouldn't mind if you knew how he felt, but this time he feels as though he's doing this to contain the excitement off his face. you can practically hear the tremble in his voice as he giggles out. "oh tricheur ! mon coeur bat pour toi dans ma poitrine!" it looks like rook completely forgot to existence of the person right next to you. if he got madol from the amount of times he practically sang of his love for you rook would be rich.

just like any other time where you say something off handed epel quickly goes out of character and nearly screams. asking, shaking your shoulders, out of breath by the amount of times he aggressively shook you for the answer of "really?!" his voice becomes that of a boy you aren't used to, but if he's really that willing to show you the person he truly is it makes you like him more. if you do agree, admittedly with your surroundings growing distorted he yells out a happy "YESSS." then coughs and resumes to his soft persona like he wasn't the complete opposite a minute ago. (the person that asked was shook)

ignihyde

it's hard to say if idia is actually gonna be next to you since,, he's idia and do you really think he'd entertain the thought of being in a conversation with someone who he doesn't know? so let's just pretend his tablet is floating next to you, it's better than nothing you guess. you spared a glance to the electronic when you literally confessed your type, idia himself fitting the category perfectly. you swore you heard a squeak but ehh.. maybe it was a rat or something.

meanwhile. ortho comes inside idia's room expecting his elder brother to just be sitting on his bed, gaming chair or something but no. idia shroud is on the floor, with his headphones hazzardly over the floor like it fell over when he did. his hair is sprawled around the floor, heating into a concerning passionate pink as he rolls around and... squeals..? just from the headphones ortho can vaguely hear a "my type..? oh you know idia? I'd kill to have a boyfriend like him." playing on repeat.

diasomnia

he would be like: ˘ ˘ and then: ‎◜◡◝ after he hears you. if there a sound for a big, happy dragon malleus would be excluding them. when I tell you he wishes nothing but to just whisk you away on spot he's not kidding, unlike everyone else who unintentionally forgot the person who asked. this man forgets them intentionally because he can't keep his eyes off you like.. 'hey other human. me and my child of man are having a moment here. will you please leave now. did you not get the sign'

giggles but with his deep voice it sounds kinda weird, but nice to the ears nonetheless. lilia labels you as his main target now, perhaps scaring you shitless at the random times is his love languange because he does it a lot. don't worry though, he always says a half hearted apology with a smile and showers you with affection right after. how could you be mad with how he treats you? even though he cares for you after you can't help but pray that the glint you saw in the ceiling was just some shiny thing.. maybe malleus got it from him because he doesn't care for the other person too.

sebek scolds you period. not only have you mentioned his name (which he's embarrassingly torn between being disgusted and fluster) but you've also mentioned that he's your type?? but I honestly think he approves your taste. "OF COURSE I am the ideal man! I applaud you for once human. not everyone can see the value of loyalty and devotion to waka-sama!" he says but with the increasing pink in his face you know better than to think that it's for the sole reason of malleus.

with the increasing time you've both spent together, silver has practically devoted himself to following you around whenever he's awake. (sebek says something about him always needing to be by malleus' side but quickly shuts up after silver comments that sebek is more than capable to look after him) the surroundings are growing hazy when you say it but he hears it nonetheless. he's happy to say that he dreamt a pleasing dream he's ever gotten in a long time. and since you were in it, it's safe to say that he's positively infatuated now.

clarifications

translation for rook is,, "oh trickster! my heart beats for you in my chest!"

I connected ignihyde parts since I REFUSE to leave out ortho!!

I really liked how those ^ parts came out. my favorite actor cause I think it's cute for idia to be freaking out like that lolol. especially with the idea of recording of your voices to listen to cause he's that down bad

[blcssed]

OK I WANNA TALK ABOUT OTIS AND DORIAN NOW:

so like besides my guilty thing w tcovt is otis being tossed between the ciottis, on a serious note i know otis does not hate dorian. nor do i think he’s really scared of dorian - however he’s extremely HURT by dorian and distrustful of him; and with tomas’s brainwashing and his forced pov, he does have every right to be.

he states he knew full-well the kind of person dorian was: fickle, demanding, DANGEROUS. in the books, otis is like barely in his third century of living and he’s still got another like 30 odd years before he hits his third century of just being a vampire. otis is still a VERY young vampire. i think MAYBE the closest vampire to his age at the time was adrian/aiden. even then, that’s questionable. TOMAS was about a whole ass century older than him, and VLAD IS LITERALLY ONLY 17 IN THE FOURTH BOOK. 

there is a pretty big gap between ages for him, and otis is a very co-dependent person it seems. i’m unsure if this is because of the shock he was given being turned, being told he was beaten nearly to death by ignatius for trying to save tomas, thus clinging to and wanting to be with tomas as much as he could. that’s his older brother, the man who saved his life twice ( from the bastilles, and then taking him all the way to siberia to be healed and trained by vikas ). tomas then left him, and hurt him in the process. he states how much it at affected him, and how lost he had been without his brother.

in comes dorian, stating he’d show otis how to live a better life - that being a vampire has much more to offer than what he’s been shown. he was hurt, broken, willing to take the cards dealt to him. not only that, his best friend would be close then if it meant being with dorian. he’d gotten very comfortable with dorian, his siblings, his son, and enrico. he felt like he was getting better.

only for it all to just go wrong in the worst way possible. he thinks he’s hurt adrian, drank from him, and that dorian killed him in the process ( i will come back to this part ). not only had he broken a very heavy law in elysia, he was made to believe that dorian killed his own son. it shook otis to his core knowing he’d done something so horrific. he’s killed, but i don’t think he’d ever killed someone he’d call a brother before. IT SCARED HIM. he felt like there was nothing more he could do than to leave, taking that secret with him and praying dorian would keep it to himself as well.

what hurt him is that he had trusted dorian eventually, despite still knowing in the back of his head that dorian isn’t considered “normal”, he had trusted him enough to listen to him and hurt someone he cared for. he felt responsible for adrian dying. what hurt more was how seemingly normal it was to dorian ( again, this is otis’s pov and again, things have been falsified by tomas’ mind control ).

i would like to believe in the end, after the fifth book - between the funerals and it all. maybe even in the huge gap between new years and the last few chapters, vlad had told otis what had really happened to adrian, that it wasn’t dorian nor otis’ fault. that it took the guilt off of otis’ chest, but it also allowed him to eventually forgive dorian - and maybe even apologize, even if he knows he’d never get an answer knowing that he, too, is gone. he’d maybe even thank him for taking care of him when he needed it the most - just someone to look after him so he didn’t ACTUALLY do something stupid.

so no, i don’t believe otis really HATED dorian. i just know otis is very stubborn, especially when he’s been hurt - because he hates being vulnerable, because he’s been burned enough by being so. the most he could do was channel that hurt into indifference and the occasional anger due to his short temper.

[sleeplesscenarios]

Jealousy is a Bitch

Characters/pairings: FengQing (background HuaLian)

Genre: fluff and fun with a hint of jealousy

Word count: 3117

Summary: Mu Qing has a new friend. Feng Xin is suspicious. Xie Lian is giving out advices while sipping tea. Hua Cheng is annoyed. Feng Xin and Mu Qing realize that no matter what, the both of them are just big idiots whose love language is fighting.

“And then do you know what they fucking said?” Feng Xin’s aggravated tone echoed all around the room of the freshly renovated Puqi shrine.

Xie Lian, put his teacup down and patiently asked, “What did they say?”

“Those assholes had the nerve to say that I’m overreacting and there’s nothing wrong with General Xuan Zhen having a new friend. I swear I’m not going to help them the next time a ghost tries to eat them.”

“You’re kind of overreacting, though,” Hua Cheng commented, sounding extremely bored and mild annoyed after having to listen to Feng Xin’s problems for so long.

“Shut the fuck up, I’m talking to His Highness, not you!”

Xie Lian cut in before those two could have continued arguing.  

“Feng Xin, what exactly is bothering you about this new friend of Mu Qing?”

“Can’t you see it, Your Highness? We’re talking about that Mu Qing! He’s the opposite of friendly, how could he suddenly get so close with that guy? Something isn’t right about this!”

“I mean... I agree that it’s unusual but even he could have a friend or two.”

“He already-” Feng Xin stopped himself, sighing and demolishing the ridiculous he already has me, he doesn’t need anyone else thought that was threatening to slip out of his lips. “Anyways, I’m telling you that something is fishy about that guy.”

Hua Cheng spoke up again, “So, what are you going to do about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You came here to bother us because you’re worried about your crush leaving you for someone better, didn’t you? So I’m asking what you’re planning to do. Don’t tell me that you’re just going to whine to His Highness and then sulk in a corner.”

The eyes of Feng Xin twitched, “Your Highness, can I punch him just once?”

“I’m afraid that if I let you punch him; I would have to let him fight back too. And if San Lang beats you up, who would make sure Mu Qing’s new friend is harmless?”

“I hate the both of you.”

With that, Feng Xin burst out of the door, slamming it behind his back.

“Tch, gege is kindly giving him advice and he’s not even thankful...”

Xie Lian poured fresh tea for both Hua Cheng and himself. “Well, I’m sure he took the advice to his heart.”

Hua Cheng raised his brow. “Do you really think so?”  

“He didn’t deny that he has a crush on Mu Qing, did he?” Xie Lian smiled and took a sip of his tea.

*****

Feng Xin was so angry that the passing heavenly officials swore they could see steam coming out of his ears. That damned Crimson Rain Sought Flower! How dare he?! Assuming ridiculous things! He does not have a crush on Mu Qing!

Who would even have a crush on someone as boring, apathetic and hostile?!

Not Feng Xin.

Definitely not Feng Xin.

He merely visited out of worry and suspicion. But if nobody was willing to listen to him then so be it!  

“Don’t come begging to me for help when things go wrong!” Feng Xin yelled at nothing in particular and stormed into his golden palace. He passed several alerted subordinates before arriving to his bedroom where he slammed the door shut and punched the wall for good measure.

This was ridiculous.

Everything started a few months ago when the Heavens shook signaling that somebody ascended. The brand-new heavenly official was called Mo Huan and he was a martial god. Apparently, he came from the southern territories and after defeating fearful demons and selflessly protecting the mountain village where he lived, he passed a heavenly calamity and ascended. He seemed like a common little martial god, nothing too special.

Feng Xin would have never bothered to spare more than a glance to newcomers of his kind and so did Mu Qing however, this particular newcomer obviously had other plans. From the first day, he expressed great interest in General Xuan Zhen in particular. He kept babbling on and on about how he’d always visited his temples in the mortal world and that if he ever ascended, he wanted to meet him first. As expected, Mu Qing listened to him indifferently then walked off. Nothing out of the ordinary.

What was out of the ordinary was that from this day onward, Mo Huan kept following Mu Qing around like an enthusiastic puppy, claiming that he wanted to learn from him. Feng Xin expected for Mu Qing to roll his eyes and tell him off but instead what he said was, “Do as you wish.”

And thus, the suspicious friendship between the newly ascended little marital god, Mo Huan and the god of southwest, General Xuan Zhen began. At the same time, the god of the southeast, General Nan Feng’s misery of watching while seething in jealousy also began.

After the battle with the ex-Heavenly Emperor, the relationship between Feng Xin, Mu Qing and Xie Lian gradually started improving. Even without the supervision of Xie Lian, Feng Xin and Mu Qing were not always at each other’s throat. Of course, saying that they argued less would be a stretch, but instead of threatening to kill each other every time they got into an argument changed into merely fighting with words. After a year or two, the missions they took together had also increased and they found that their teamwork was actually very good so they didn’t oppose too much when they had to share the merits. They’d slowly come to realize that going together just meant that they would be able to finish earlier.  

Soon, the public relationship between the two generals wasn’t that of two generals fighting for dominance over the southern region but that of two generals guarding the southern region together.

They were almost something like partners.

And maybe, just maybe Feng Xin started to quite enjoy the company of his partner.

And now it was getting stolen away.

By that suspicious, shady asshole.

Whatever!

If Mu Qing would rather hang around that newbie, Feng Xin wouldn’t stop him. If Mu Qing was too stupid to realize that there’s something wrong with that guy, Feng Xin wouldn’t care.

*****

“I definitely do not care, I’m just giving a last warning,” Feng Xin muttered to himself while pacing in front of Mu Qing’s golden palace. “If he still won’t listen, he can die for all I care.”

Steeling his resolve and organizing his thoughts, he turned to the door, raised his hand and-

The door opened before him as Mu Qing stepped out. Their gazes met for a moment, and both of their eyes widened in surprise.

Mu Qing collected himself first, asking as he closed the door behind him, “What do you want?”

“Be careful with that new guy. He’s definitely scheming something,” Feng Xin stated. Mu Qing rolled his eyes and Feng Xin could feel the irritation growing in himself again. “I’m warning you for your sake!”

“Don’t you think that I would notice if he was ‘scheming’ something?”

“W-well... maybe you’re being a dumbass and he deceived you!”

Mu Qing’s brows twitched. “Yeah? If you’re done with calling me a dumbass then I’m going. I have a mission with him.”

Feng Xin’s entire face turned red from anger, frustration and a sense of betrayal. It was a well-known fact in the Heavenly Capital that General Xuan Zhen never ever goes on missions together with someone. He’d always been working alone. He’d only ever joined hands with Feng Xin, claiming that it’s only because their territories are very close and it’s unavoidable. Now he was saying that he was about to go on a joint mission together with that shady newbie who kept sucking up to him?  

“What’s so good about him anyways...” Feng Xin muttered through gritted teeth, a second away from exploding.

“Well for starters, he’s a lot less annoying than you.” Mu Qing turned his head to flash him a taunting smirk before leaving, his grin widening as he heard the string of curses flying from Feng Xin’s mouth.

*****

Of course, Mu Qing knew that Mo Huan wasn’t hanging around him out of the pure goodness of his heart. He had been a god for more than 800 years now. He wasn’t that easy to fool. Some might call him the most unapproachable man, why would he blindly trust someone after a bit of flattery?  

Feng Xin was truly the most annoying out of all. Mu Qing didn’t trust him for a whole 800 years, why would he ever begin to think that he’d lost all sense of reason for this new guy? Was he out of his mind?  

In any case, as the saying goes: keep your friends close and keep your enemies even closer. He would find out what Mo Huan wanted from him and deal with it himself. In the meantime, he might as well entertain himself with watching Feng Xin lose his mind over it.  

However, what Mu Qing didn’t expect was that after that warning last time, he wouldn’t be able to see Feng Xin lose his mind and flap around in frustration anymore.

*****

“And then do you know what he fucking did?”

Xie Lian took a sip of his tea as he listened to Mu Qing, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu wash over him. “What did he do?”

“He slammed the door against my face! What the fuck?” Mu Qing slammed his own teacup harshly down on the table, spilling its contents.

Hua Cheng shot him a glare, daring him to waste even a drop of the tea His Highness generously gave him. Xie Lian quickly interjected to dissolve the tense atmosphere.

“And what happened to this new martial god?”

“What do you think happened? I knocked him out. Fucking bastard, trying to steal my merits.”

“If I recall, something similar happened before, didn’t it?”

Mu Qing snorted, “It’s the third time this century. These newly ascended brats have no shame, I swear. That’s not the point. The point is that dumbass Feng Xin is throwing a temper tantrum again and if he keeps at it, I’m gonna smash down his golden palace. What the fuck is even wrong with him?”

Xie Lian and Hua Cheng shared a look.

Xie Lian nodded.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Hua Cheng asked.

“What does it have to do with you?” Mu Qing glared.

“Gege, can I punch him just once?”

“Come at me, you bastard!”

“No fighting in my shrine.”

The two of them kept glaring daggers at each other but otherwise didn’t do anything. Finally, Hua Cheng sighed, “You came here to bother us because you’re worried about your crush refusing to talk to you, didn’t you? So I’m asking what you’re planning to do. Don’t tell me that you’re just going to whine to His Highness and then sulk in a corner.”

“None of your business, I’m leaving,” Mu Qing downed the remaining of his tea in one gulp, angrily slammed down the cup again and stormed out of Puqi Shrine.

Hua Cheng grinned. “I can’t believe this actually worked.”

“He didn’t deny that he has a crush on Feng Xin, either,” Xie Lian chuckled then poured another cup of tea for himself and Hua Cheng.

*****

Mu Qing rammed his fist on the door of Feng Xin’s golden palace, yelling, “Open up, you bastard!”

Crushing the whole thing down was a last resort but if anyone doubted that he would dare to do it, they were horribly wrong. Feng Xin had three more minutes left before his beautiful palace became one with the ground.

Who did he think he was? Giving unneeded advice, taking Mu Qing for a naïve fool then refusing to see him and sulking. It was way too unreasonable even for someone as stupid as Feng Xin. Just what the hell was wrong with him? Fucking dumbass making him think about him and worry. He totally deserved having his door bust down.  

“What are you doing here?” Feng Xin’s voice came from behind and Mu Qing turned around as fast as a strike of lightning.  

Turns out Feng Xin wasn’t home…  

In any case, Mu Qing stomped his way over and unceremoniously punched him in the face.  

Feng Xin flew a few meters back but it only took him a second to jump up to his feet and yell, “What the fuck was that you bastard?! Did you finally go insane?!”

Mu Qing caught up to him and grabbed him by the collar of his robe with two hands. “It’s the least you deserved, you shithead! Try avoiding me again and I’ll beat up your sorry ass!”

Feng Xin looked away and spat through gritted teeth, “You didn’t seem like you need my company…”

“What?” The rusty clogs in Mu Qing’s brain turned around and around before a light bulb suddenly lit up. The fists around Feng Xin’s robe loosened and his eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous…”

Feng Xin’s cheeks reddened and his voice faltered for a second. It was only a minuscule gesture but it was more than enough for Mu Qing. “W-why would I be jealous?!”

“Are you scared of me replacing you with the newbie?” he taunted.  

“Fuck you, I don’t care who you’re hanging out with.”

“If you don’t care then why are you avoiding me?”

“Because I don’t want to see your stupid face!”

“What if I want to see your stupid face?”  

“What?”

Feng Xin saw a flicker of light passing through Mu Qing’s dark eyes and in the next moment, he felt a pair of lips press firmly against his own. His mind was wiped clear in that second and he only regained his senses when the absence of the warm lips left him with a sense of need.  

“W-w-w-what the fuck was this??”  

“A kiss, idiot,” Mu Qing rolled his eyes.  

“I’m asking why you k-k-kissed me?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“Fuck, Mu Qing would it kill you if you used your words for once?”

“Would it kill you if you used your brain for once?”

“…”

Mu Qing sighed, “Anyways, you don’t have to worry about Mo Huan anymore so stop avoiding me.”

“What happened?” Feng Xin got successfully side tracked. His brain was really too simple.

“Left him in a forest in the mortal world after beating him up,” Mu Qing shrugged, his grin reappearing by the sight of Feng Xin’s gaping. “What, I told you I can deal with him myself.”

“But weren’t you guys getting along? You said he’s less annoying than me?”

“Feng Xin, literally everyone is less annoying than you.”  

“F-“  

“But at least you’re not insufferable…” This time, it was Mu Qing’s turn to look away as a blush crept up on his face.

Feng Xin stared at him, completely dumbfounded before his cheeks also took on a pink hue as he slowly realized that this, in fact, was the nicest thing Mu Qing had ever said to him. He couldn’t stop his heart from fluttering.

“What’s the stupid grin for?”  

Feng Xin quickly cleared his throat and muttered a “nothing” but for some reason, he couldn’t quite wipe the smile spreading on his face even wider. In the end, Mu Qing’s embarrassment got the better of him and he promptly decided to leave.

Seeing his retreating back, Feng Xin collected himself and jogged up to him, saying, “No need to be embarrassed, I like you too.”

“Shut up.”

Feng Xin followed Mu Qing back to his golden palace.  

“Do you really like me, though? I mean... you don’t really... like people...” Feng Xin said, closing the door behind himself and meeting Mu Qing’s glare head on.

“You know what, I don’t really mind if you ignore me. Get out of my palace.”

“No way, you already kissed me.”

“So what?”

“So there’s no turning back. Finish what you stared.”

“It was you who started by being stupid and jealous.”

“That’s not the point.”

Mu Qing felt a headache coming up. “That’s exactly the point. You were a jealous sulking little bitch instead of using your nonexistent brain to figure out that I’m not a dumb 10 years old who’s so easy to fool.”

“Who are you calling a sulking little bitch?” Feng Xin’s short fuse was once again ignited.  

“Do you see anyone else here? Are you not only brainless but also blind?”

“Shut the fuck up!”

A glint flashed in Mu Qing’s eyes. Arguing with this man was really the best thing in his life. It was fun, it was interesting to examine his reactions and the way his expression changed, it kept him on his toes, it made him feel excitement instead of apathy and disgust. Above everything, it was comfortable. The two of them had been at it for more than 800 years without a break, they knew every single one of the other’s buttons to push. They were on the same level so neither of them got hurt and even if it escalated to a fight, they could just fight it out and release stress without having to worry about gravely injuring their opponent. For Mu Qing, Feng Xin was just the perfect partner.  

So when Feng Xin told him to shut the fuck up, he only smirked and said two words, “Make me.”

And as if it was all according to a script, Feng Xin grabbed him by the collar and smashed their lips together. The kiss was messy, their teeth were clashing but it was filled with unsaid passion and a weird sense of comfort.

It was only then that they could confirm what they had begun to feel already.

They’re feeling the same for each other.

They’re dealing with those feelings in a similar way.

They finally understand each other without words, and they could understand the hidden meaning behind each word.

That whatever they had to give, the other would accept it readily.

That they were equals.

*****

“Gege, they started making out,” Hua Cheng reached out a hand to show Xie Lian the image the wraith butterfly displayed. Xie Lian stared at it for second before smiling.

“It was time.”

Hua Cheng quickly dismissed the butterfly and pulled Xie Lian into his arms. “Gege’s so kind and patient for helping those two fools, they don’t deserve you.”

“I didn’t do anything. If anything, it was you who gave them a little push.” Xie Lian’s eyes sparkled with fondness. “So, that means you’re kinder and more patient than me.”

“...” Left speechless and embarrassed, Hua Cheng opted for capturing Xie Lian’s lips, feeling quite content with how everything turned out.

[your-turn-to-role]

hi okay i hate sending asks to people without knowing them but you seem kind so im trying: during the break, i’ve been working my way through VM, and i’m at episode 75. my question, because i’ve read some of your more recent meta, is “what’s Percy’s deal?” i know he’s loved by the fandom, but i can’t find myself relating to him, and i find his assertions that he’s the only one with a plan offputting. is there more context you can give to me about percy’s character that explains his motivations?

aww, thank you!

(and yeah, asks like this are totally fine, i totally get that anxiety, good job on sending this!)

i mean, first off, you don't have to like a character everyone else does? if you don't relate to percy you can just, not relate to percy, that's fine

(and to be fair, as much as i love him as a character, i would not want him as a friend, because he's a very flawed person that has a lot to work on, but in fiction those traits are interesting to watch rather than difficult to deal with)

but, percy's deal! the short answer is people generally like him because taliesin's funny and charismatic and he does morally grey right, which is rare and a fun thing to explore (also in his relationships with other people, the entire vex-vax-percy-keyleth square is full of neat parallels and opposites and interesting things and i have whole essays in my head on all six combos there)

i don’t know which posts you’ve read so i’ll link this one here too, just to cover a couple more of the generally unnoticed aspects of his character, and things i like about percy

he’s also far from perfect, as you’ve noted, he does tend to believe he’s the smartest person in any given room, because he’s young and clever and used to being that, which you’re allowed to find off putting, but i will say i find he does that less than a lot of characters of his general archetype? he listens to pike, he listens to keyleth, he listens to vex, he respects when they have more knowledge than him on a particular subject, he’s not above asking for help. and generally most of the arguments he has with keyleth on that subject aren’t him asserting he knows more than her, but more a matter of principles and values (they’re a really interesting pair that way, they have similar backgrounds, both children of royalty running away from the crown, but they’re such opposites. percy is a natural leader who would rather anyone rule than him, keyleth fumbles her way through all of it but sticks to it because she doesn’t want to let anyone down, percy is a pragmatist, keyleth is an idealist, they both are too focused on the big picture but in two completely different ways, i could write a whole other post on this, but to get to my point, they wouldn’t be such good balances for each other if percy didn’t absolutely respect where keyleth is coming from)

for the long answer, i’m gonna break this down into parts and try to get to the core of percy's character and why he is the way he is

(under the cut bc this gets long)

1 - heavy trauma

like... this is the really really big one. percy, at age 17 or 18, had his entire life up to that point completely destroyed. his family was killed, his friends were killed, people he trusted like family (professor anders, who was a more present figure in percy's life than his actual parents) betrayed him and helped the briarwoods, he was imprisoned in his own castle's dungeons and tortured for information, they threw his siblings' bodies in there with him to make a point, cassandra helped him escape but as far as he knew she died helping him. he has two years of his life after that he straight up doesn't remember, his hair turned white from the stress of it. 

trying to go after ripley the first time didn't work, he was captured and left to starve in a prison cell, for the first few months of travelling with vox machina he genuinely believed it wasn't real, because realistically no one was gonna come save him, this was just a hallucination of his dying mind. returning to whitestone he was forced to confront the fact that literally everyone he ever knew growing up (with the sole exception of archibald) was either dead or working with the briarwoods, and even after retaking the city there's a lot that can never be repaired. 

and he's just... never really dealt with any of this? like, he gave vox machina the technical details of what happened to him in the briarwood arc, because they needed to know that information, but the first time he actually started processing his trauma, the first time he admits it out loud to anyone, is the final episode of campaign one. before then it had been occasional snide or handwavey comments, and like, he'll let himself feel the anger over it (in the beginning of the story he encouraged it, because then he didn't have to feel anything else), but he's never processed the grief, never admitted to himself how badly that affected him

which means he's got a lot of pent up emotions in there that he just keeps burying, and sometimes they come out in unhealthy ways. having so much taken from him also makes him really motivated to keep the things he does have - he’s got some deep set abandonment issues and takes any kind of betrayal really badly, don’t know if you’ve got up to the scanlan stuff by the time i post this, but that’s something to keep in mind as to why he acts the way he does there. (and it’s not more explicit because percy was raised nobility, keeping a brave face through anything is part of who he is, he tends to cover emotions he’s insecure about in snark or indifference or, for the intense ones, anger, because those are the things he thinks he’s allowed to show, but the real emotions show up occasionally, when they’re particularly strong, or if you’re reading between the lines. he really does care a lot about vox machina)

2 - legacy and loyalty. 

speaking of nobility, it's hard to do a character study on percy without mentioning whitestone and the house of de rolo. this is the number one thing to percy. he was raised to respect title and name, and most importantly, raised to respect the people he represents - both the townsfolk of whitestone and also percy's ancestors and future de rolo generations. whitestone is more important than any one life, he has a duty to protect and serve it, and that comes before any personal wants he may have. it's also important to him for family reasons - he was a pretty lonely child, but he loved reading about the history of the city, all the weird ghost stories whitestone had even before the briarwoods. it probably made him feel more connected to all of that, this is the place he belongs. and after his family dies, it becomes even more important, because this is his connection to them. the soul of a city lives as long as its people, by protecting what's left, he keeps a little bit of what came before

(and also in just tidbits to understand percy's character, he sees all cities and man-made things the same way - in a world where some races live for centuries or millennia, their history exists mostly by word of mouth, you can physically talk to people who were around 500 years ago and get their take on things - humans don't have that, they get 100 years at most, so the things they build are vital to their heritage. this is how you keep people alive long after they're gone, by honouring what they created. and especially for someone so concerned with legacy and history, percy literally says abandoning westruun would be blasphemy, because the place people grew up is important, yes it's better that they live, but letting the city be abandoned and destroyed would be an irreparable act of violence.) 

this is the number one thing on percy's mind when evaluating anything about himself, where do i come from, and what do i leave behind? which is a question that has a lot of moments to be tested, because of my next point...

3 - pragmatism and terrible thoughts

when it comes down to it, percy is a very ends justify the means kind of person. he finds it very easy to square away any kind of collateral damage as long as it gets him to his end goal. see: trial of the take, where he's fine to catch his friends in the blast radius of a new bomb design because he's so excited that it worked, preparing to fight vorugal and resigning himself to potentially having to kill innocent people to kill the dragon (he wasn’t okay with that, but he would do it), also his conscious decision to let ripley go, knowing she would lead to the deaths of thousands because it was her or the briarwoods and he wanted revenge 

(this is by his own admission his lowest point and worst mistake, because as mentioned, he thinks about the consequences of his actions near constantly, he knew she would reproduce his guns and they would lead to a whole new form of warfare. but in that moment he was just blinded by grief and way too emotionally burnt out and did not have the capacity to care. and he spends the rest of the campaign and honestly probably the rest of his life trying to make up for that one)

he's also, by his own admission, someone who has a lot of bad thoughts he doesn't act on, he's very clever and creative and ideas for ways to use those skills for violence or vengeance come easily to him (like, percy as an actual villain would be ripley but worse, ripley's intelligent but a very direct point a to point b kind of thinker, percy has multiple times criticised her lack of imagination, a percy with her lack of morals would be terrifying)

(honestly this is why i was seeing percy so much in taliesin's narrative telephone, because "sometimes i wake up having dreamed of a terrible thing, and normally i just file that away for things that i would never do, because i wanna maintain friendships, but then LIAM did something to me." and the whole being absolutely fine with throwing the rest of the cast under the bus just to enact revenge on liam was quintessential percy)

but we’ve seen the pragmatic anti hero everywhere, anyone can be a terrible person, and have reasons for it, that alone doesn’t make an interesting character (at least not for me)

what does, is my last point

4 - trying to be good

i still vividly remember when i first watched campaign one, being really surprised at how much percy asked for help? like, i went in expecting the usual full on demon possession storyline, i expected percy to hide how bad it was, i expected him to make poor decisions without realising he was doing it until he was in too deep to back out

and like, he had some of that. but at the first sign of things being out of his control, he asked his friends for help. he let pike greater restoration him. he told vax to kill him if things ever got too out of hand. he was really, genuinely scared about what he got himself into and what he might do because of it. there was never a point where he pretended, even to himself, that making a deal with orthax was okay. the minute he realised there was a demon involved, he was working to stop it. and yeah, by the time he realised it was already a bit too late, there were already some things out of his control (and also taliesin kept having the worst rolls against the whitestone corruption which was really fun on a meta level), which is how things got as bad as they did. but honestly, all things considered, there’s very little to criticise about the way percy handled himself in the briarwood arc. 

and he keeps doing that, trying to get better. he struggles with it, he struggles a lot, against his anger issues, against all the trauma, against the fact that he really doesn’t want to be here and things would be so much easier if he were dead. but he recognises he holds grudges too easily, so he starts actively trying to forgive those who’ve wronged him (this is something he and vex have in common, and something they were working on together before they were together, which probably helped a lot in getting them to that point as well). he recognises he makes poor decisions when he’s angry, so he starts learning to step back in those moments and leave the decisions to someone else. he has never not owned up to his mistakes, he takes responsibility for everything he’s done, and if he notices a problem he can’t solve himself, he asks for help.

and i find that fun to explore. like, percy’s been likened to hamlet in the actual show, and i was the kid who got super obsessed with hamlet when i was like 15 because i was in that same mental space of suicidal self hatred and existential melancholy but also thinking i was the smartest person in any given room and being too young to have gotten over the arrogance that makes you ignore everyone else’s needs for the sake of indulging your own problems. and then i got older and realised there are smarter ways to go about things, like having empathy and appreciating the light in the world and not being a dickhead to people because it makes you feel better, and maybe hamlet can be justified and in the wrong at the same time. and while there’s some stuff i won’t spoil for you, percy after ripley kills him is definitely starting to learn that, which you rarely see in the hamlet archetype, bc everyone’s like “ah yes so Deep so Important who cares what bad things this person did they had Trauma and are Clever”

well, percy cares about the bad things he did, and cares about not doing those anymore. so like, he’s still a disaster of a person bc he’s like 23 and no one has their life together at 23, especially not someone in percy’s situation, and honestly i find that fun to watch as well bc i like watching characters make stupid mistakes and do stuff i’d never approve of in real life, and as i mentioned at the start, taliesin makes captivating and funny characters. but yeah, that’s generally where percy’s at, most of the time

[dreamaze]

wings i read all ur tags !!!! (lucky me being online rn hehe) and i could just agree with you a thousand times over 😭😭😭 like not to be a nerd but this whole thing does stem from the idea in theatre that really happened in the 19th century (male leads/romantic heroes becoming tenors nearly exclusively) and accommodating scores and it just swept over pop music a century later to this day. the idea that tenors > pleasant sound and baritones > bad sound is so ridiculous. (ok nerd time over) and the fact that i still have to wait for bts songs comfortable in tae's range (boy in luv not withstanding and even that pushes it) as well as in his solos is absolutely baffling. i love the way they all distribute lines among each other but it is unbelievable that the usual pattern goes jk's lines > tae's lines when they are not close in range. not to mention that while vmin songs are always sweet, they BOTH talked about how tough it is to sing together. even namjoon mentioned how the rappers have a hard time to adjust to the high vocal line keys (which weren't as high in earlier songs). like in general just let lower voices get their time to shine. very few groups do this (well) but it's 2k21 and we deserve those low notes and beautiful songs for that baritone range too !!!

Al, I went to school for ('classical') music (composition) so these nerd hours are ALWAYS OPEN. And I'm really glad to have someone to discuss it with because it's kinda been plaguing me ever since I started listening to BTS. (I don't listen to much pop music in general, so they were initially a pretty big anomaly for me.) I honestly hadn't thought about how the characterization of tenors as the romantic protagonists in theatre/opera vs. the side roles or antagonists being relegated to lower voice types has manifested in contemporary pop music, but it makes a lot of sense! The dichotomy is so outdated, and the only real bad sound is forcing singers way out of their natural range. (And I have a minor beef with how this also translates to pop singers not developing their chest range because everything is written higher, higher, but I will set that grievance aside for now because part of that is also a genre/style thing.)

this got long so here's a cut to spare everyone else --

I completely agree about the line distributions, and this comes back to the laziness, for lack of a better term, or flat-out indifference in the actual composing process. It should be natural forethought to accommodate your bari's range in the melodic material, rather than always force him to cycle through the same line rotation that the tenors are covering. There are obviously some exceptions in BTS songs (after they moved beyond those early stages of rough belting, which ?? hm, potentially unhealthy for different reasons if not trained properly). Like the ending of Sea is one of the most beautiful and gutting moments to me out of any of their songs. I will also throw out there, before I forget, that the deliberate choice to have Tae sing at the top of his register can be very effective. Specifically, I am thinking of his line 'Kill me softly' in the bridge of Blood Sweat & Tears. It is strained, particularly in that era of recording, but it works because it feels like a conscious choice that both reflects the text and heightens the drama of that moment. But for the most part ... again, it seems like the majority of his assignments are out of convenience to the tenors and to spare the composers the challenge (???) of writing something that is just a little different. And it's not like he would never share lines, because there is overlap between his range and a lower/mid tenor. I suppose the real frustration from me is that with a little bit of creativity and intentionality, this shouldn't be that difficult??

It broke my heart a little when he said that Friends was really challenging for him because I love vmin as a duo. I really wish it was easier for them. I get that the genre is a bit of a limiting factor here because the harmonizing is never going to be that complex. But their parallel octaves in Blue & Grey are SO BEAUTIFUL and showed to me at least that there are ways they can make it work. (Also side note, I think B&G is one of their strongest and most thoughtful instances of line rotation, bless u Tae.) And it's been a little while since I've listened to it, but their Fix You cover was also a fantastic example of how they can all (rap line included!) harmonize comfortably when the key is a little lower. (Rant topic for another time since I'm already rambling too much here: also, why such a hard division between vocal and rap lines?? Give them all good vocal training, it will help their voices grow whether they're singing or rapping! HOBI VOCAL LINE WHEN *ahem* anyway~~~) I love the tenors, I really do, but quite frankly they would benefit just as much from strengthening their lower ends. I think Jimin said parts of B&G were challenging for him because they were so low, but I once listened to his lowest phrase like 10 times in a row because I couldn't get over how striking it sounded. (probably wasn't even the whole phrase, it may have just been the pick-up at 3'02", that's how obsessed I was!! I had to stop myself from doing it again just now.)

I've been rambling a lot and should pipe down now, but I guess I will end with: please, composers, treat your baris more equitably! Also I can't wait for KTH1 because he is finally going to be able to shine in his element without making a tenor cry.

P.S. I am always here for more conversations like this (with anyone!), and to Al specifically, if you ever want to share some theatre recommendations with me, I'd be honored. ♡

[niklqus]

Klaroline 3x11 Quote Analysis

”And I could let you die, if that's what you want. If you really believe your existence has no meaning. I thought about it myself, once or twice over the centuries, truth will be told. But I'll let you in on a little secret. There is a whole world out there, waiting for you. Great cities and art and music, genuine beauty. And you can have all of it. You can have a thousand more birthdays. All you have to do is ask.”

“And I could let you die, if thats what you want.” He gives her choice and he asks what she wants. No one has ever asked what she wants. Her life has always been about pleasing everyone else. Pleasing her boyfriends, pleasing Elena and her friends, even pleasing the masses with her obsession with popularity. I think the way Klaus of all people asks her what she wants makes it seem so much more real and she makes her actually believe it. Honestly I think if anyone else asked her this she would shrug it off. She’s written off everyone else in her life as forever being unable to care about what she wants that if they asked she wouldn’t listen. Almost like she’s convinced herself that what she wants is entirely unimportant. So Klaus, someone she hasn’t held up to the same standards as all her friends, asking her what’s she wants makes it stick. Although she has a hard time believing Klaus is pursing her for genuine reasons I still think his words resonate with her much more than anyone else’s would. She finally lets the thoughts in, the thoughts that she is worth listening to. Her hopes and dreams have suddenly become valuable to someone and therefore become be valuable to her. Genuinely I think Klaus could’ve been (if they were allowed to flourish) someone so important to teaching her self love.

“If you really believe your existence has no meaning.” Here he actually begins to consider what she believes unlike literally everyone else. To me it seems she’s had everyone else’s morals and beliefs shoved down her throat, Stefan’s when she turned, Elena’s when she ignored how much Damon hurt her, her mothers refusal to accept her, Tyler’s obsession with revenge, Matt’s hatred for her controlling nature. Klaus becomes someone who seems to understand that her morals are selfish, what she believes isn’t anything to do with the greater good or saving everyone like Stefan’s are. She’s much more interested in saving herself. He repetitively pushes her toward the idea that she’s a lot more than a soundboard to Elena, Stefan and Damons pain and desires.

“I thought about it myself, once or twice over the centuries, truth will be told.” There’s something amazing about how he gives her such a vulnerable insight into his most weak moments. You haven’t seen Klaus this tender and sad with anyone so willingly. His eyes are almost glossy with the confession of having suicidal moments. It’s touching and heartbreaking to see the tortured man behind the mask of indifference that makes this scene so valuable and interesting. Moreover, he offers similar insights again in 4x7 when he tells her the singular moment he felt like being human, how he wished to have as much purpose as a living thing with a finite life. This vulnerability is a device for him to level with her, sympathise with her vulnerability when she’s on her death bed as he offers her his own. Behind the protection of knowing she’s weak and at his mercy he allows himself to be vulnerable in front of her. (I talk much more about this in number 7)

“There is a whole world out there, waiting for you. Great cities and art and music, genuine beauty.” This is such a vulnerable thing for him to say because it depicts his desperate desire to share everything he’s quietly adored over the centuries with someone. It’s a innocent notion that’s painfully lonely. He just wants to share what he loves with her. That alone is just a simple need to make a connection with someone, his entire life has just felt like total isolation, unable to connect with anybody. Everyone he meets is either too scared to go near him, hates him too much that they wouldn’t listen or unnervingly loyal that they lose all his respect. But Caroline is the first one to give him more than that. She should be scared yet she isn’t, she stands up to him instead. She should be loyal since he saved her life but she isn’t, she dismisses his mercy instantly. And she convinces herself she hates him when he can tell otherwise that she doesn’t detest him so. Caroline completely blends his expectations of another that he becomes fascinated by her.  

“And you can have all of it.” He wants the beauty to be given to her. He’s literally willing to give her everything, show her everything he’s ever cared for or thought beautiful in his life. It’s the most selfless we see Klaus, his desire to gift someone something, to deliver beauty instead of pain. I think even he doesn’t even realise what he’s really communicating under this guise of being her saving grace. He doesn’t realise that for once he is not asking for anything in return. At first he might think he is receiving her thanks for saving her life but when he never receives it, he doesn’t actually care. This is so important, he no longer cares that she won’t give him anything back because from that moment on her presence is enough for him, talking to her is enough that he will inch by inch reveal himself to her without even realising it.

“You can have a thousand more birthdays.” I like to think that the reason he says a thousand more birthdays is because that’s around how many birthdays he’s had. What he’s actually doing is he’s offering her a version of the worldly life he has lead. He mirrors himself in what he offers her, almost like his gift to her becomes himself. 

“All you have to do is ask” What’s so fascinating about Klaus is that he does all this via means of an ultimatum and in a position of total control. He’s making himself the puppet master reminding her finally that he’s the only one who can give her her life back and the only one who can show her these beautiful things. It’s also painfully sad because he still needs to be in control and cling onto his own superiority and power to even give her an second of his own vulnerability. I don’t think he even realises this, that he would only dream of telling her anything so personal, offer a future, speak of his past, if he wasn’t absolutely certain that she was completely and physically at his mercy. At the same time its oddly liberating for her to be given all of what he has promised, a new life, a thousand birthdays to see the world through his eyes with the only price being asking for it. 

I think this is the point in their story Klaus first sees something in Caroline. A glimpse of her ‘light’. This might just be me but the way he speaks in this scene sounds almost manic and patronising, I feel like it’s a natural compensation for the subtle vulnerability he gives her. Almost like he doesn’t know how else to help someone other than be the one that she will owe for her life. The plot to have Tyler bite her and for him to be her saviour is his sick way of being in the most secure position he can be in in order to give an inch of himself. He wouldn’t begin to say any of this to her in passing where he doesn’t have such control over her life. He couldn’t trust anyone with the inner workings of his mind if he knew they wouldn’t owe him. It’s a reflexive way to deal with a situation for him. But I think he learns, after spending time with her, that she won’t ridicule the pieces of his mind he’s giving her. He then begins to break his habit, that I’m sure he hasn’t broken in a millennia, of needing the other to be at his mercy. He shows her himself, his art (3x14), tales of his past(4x7) and Klaus learns an entirely new way to behave.

[schrijverr]

I Wrote My Own Deliverance

Chapter 8 out of 10

Alexander Hamilton is reborn as Alex Hambleton. He is desperate not to make the same mistakes twice, but it seems he is stuck in the narrative, unable to get out. Familiar faces pop up all around him as he attempts to keep his previous life a secret and write himself out of the story.

On AO3.

Ships: none

Warnings: guilt, mentions all te deaths in Alex’s past and blackmail. Tell me if I missed anything or if you want me to tag something!!!

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

The Washburn Pamphlet

by A. Ham

This pamphlet is written by Alex Hambleton to deny all rumors surrounding a sexual relationship with Professor George Washburn, Columbia University.

As much as I had vowed to myself not to end up here, I find myself once more having to publicly air my secrets to save myself. This might be news for people surrounding me, for I don’t go about telling everyone about my scandals of lives passed, it seems I have learned after all.

It is quite ironic that I am here once more for the sole reason of doing everything in my power not to be here.

And I could say that I am not.

Maybe I can claim that it is different, because I am denying the rumors and I am not in the wrong this time around. It is not even selfish motifs that caused me to reach for a quill, or, in this case, a keyboard.

But enough dancing around the topic.

I was aware that some people had thoughts and opinions about how I have gotten to where I am, but no one has had to audacity to come up and say them to my face with blackmail as motivation. Lets say I was quite surprised when James Richardson (no I will not be shying away from names) came up to me.

He told me that, unless I got Professor Washburn to pay him 20.000 dollars, the whole school would know how I fucked myself up the ladder by diving into bed with him each Sunday.

Seeing this was the first time I heard I was fucking him (Washburn had not been so kind to inform me, strangely enough), I was quite surprised. Although I have to admit that I cannot deny that I have been visiting the Washburn household each and every Sunday since the summer break, even going as far as to drive over to their summer home in Virginia.

Guilty as charged on that front.

Yes, I am confirming that this is true and I can understand how this feels more like a confession of guilt than the denial it is.

For you have to understand that you think in a too small time frame and in the wrong names. I have already said that I will not shy away from names in this pamphlet, so here I will drop the name of the person I have actually been seeing. I have been seeing George Washington, my General and President under whom I have served for many years back when I was known as Alexander Hamilton.

The time frame is not between the summer break and now, it is over two centuries ago when a great man saw my potential and helped me live up to it.

I am willing to go through the registration process to prove Professor Washington innocence, as well as my own, in the matter. I am also willing to do whatever is necessary to prove that I earned my spot in the accelerated track.

But this is the truth I can offer right now and I hope you will believe me on my word alone.

God knows I am aware that this sounds preposterous and outrageous, for why come out and tell you all now that I am a Founding Father when I could have done so without allegations that needed a story to be disproven?

Well, as everyone knows denying a rumor is the same as confirming it. And the truth is that I do not want to be Alexander Hamilton.

And why would I?

Why would I want to be that man. For all the musical tries to paint me as a hero, or misunderstood, I am so very aware that I did not deserve Elizas forgiveness. I know I threw away my shot the moment I didn’t say no (forgive the reference).

However, it is not just that. I do not want to be the man that did not come to his friends aid in France, I do not want to be the man that cared more about himself than his wife and the abused woman he took advantage off.

Alex Hambleton left Alexander Hamilton behind at birth.

I took this life, my second chance, to be better. I do not wish to walk the same paths and bring down those around me in my misery and mistakes.

Yet here I am.

I took the liberty of finding comfort in the one person who I knew would not share my secret, whom I’d be safe with as I always have been. The home where I could be the entirety of me, a combination of the Founding Father I used to be and the loudmouth student I am now.

And now it is not just me who has to pay the price when people don’t believe me. I tried so hard to write myself out of this story, to not make the same mistakes, but it seems that for all my trying I cannot stop being a death sentence for those around me.

My father still left, my mother held me again while she died, the moment I remembered who I was, was the moment I found my cousin dead. I did not want to believe that this would always be my life until the hurricane hit.

But there it was and it swept my hometown away with the waves and wind. My story is as set in stone and I, for all I claim to be an unstoppable force, cannot seem to move it.

Have you ever smelled death?

Have you ever looked around and seen bodies floating in the water and known that it was your fault?

It was my story that history forces to repeat, my story that caused the deaths of all those people and it is my story that forces a scandal into being and it is my inability to keep me from defending myself that makes me end up here.

Overwhelm them with honesty.

That is what my musical counterpart said and that is the footsteps in which I am walking once again. Though I hope that the small changes I have managed to make, will ensure that the results of my deeds will end up differently.

For those who knew me, I am sorry for the deceit. I hoped by not interacting, I would not pull you down with me once more. I do not wish my misfortune on you again.

But it is not for me that I seek your pity.

I am once more, begging strangers for kindness and understanding of my story. I hope you grant me this mercy and believe me, so that the one person who has always believed in me, no matter how much I did not, can keep his livelihood.

Let his story of success remain unchanged. Let him live his life in peace, knowing he did well and do not exile him in shame for crimes he did not commit.

Believe me not for my sake, but for his.

I could tell you stories of my past life in an attempt to prove myself to you. I could tell you about letters I wrote, words I said, people I loved and lost. I could tell you facts about myself that you can not verify, because I was the only person there to witness them.

But that will not do me any good.

So I write.

I write in the hope that you can find pity and understanding for the bastard, orphan, son of a whore that clung to the only rock, before the eye of hurricane had passed and he was swept up by forces of nature out of his control.

It is the only thing I can do.

I am not religious, yet here I am, praying on two knees to a God that has never listened to me, in the hope I have done enough to change the story I am stuck in.

However, I know my prayers have never been answered with anything but indifference.

Will my prayers be answered this time?

I do not count on it.

So, I will not ask you to pray for me. I will not allow myself to become a victim to lies and slander after I have worked so hard to be better than that person who was. I will not be threatened and blackmailed when I learned from my mistakes and I did not repeat that part.

Instead I ask you to pray for Washington as I am doing.

I ask you to pray for the kind soul that saw my potential and made sure that I could take one step closer to the future I wanted to achieve.

To pray for the man, who gave me shelter over the summer so that I would not be homeless. Pray for the man who gives me dinner one day of the week to ensure I do not starve. Pray for the man who let me read his recommendation letter an unnatural amount of times, so that I could ensure he only helped me based off the things I had achieved not his history with me, because he knew how important it is to me that I make my own spot in the world.

And I pray for his wife, Martha, whom I call Mama M, always have. Mama M, who has been there with open arms and soft words to fill a void that hadn’t been filled in this life or the last, since I was twelve.

I no longer care for your perception of me. You can keep your thoughts to yourself and I can move unaffected by hateful words that have followed me both lifetimes. I am used to it and I do not care about your words.

However, I do care for the two people who cared about me when no one else did. When no one else knew to care.

My shoes have always been worn out from the running I have to do to keep up. I work because I know I am too much of a minority to make it anywhere in the world if I don’t work thrice as hard as my peers.

Immigrant, Latino, bisexual, polyamorous, orphan, bastard.

These words have haunted me until I turned them into badges of honor and the only reason that is, is because I had a home to rest. A place to take of my shoes and get ready to face another day.

That place was the Washingtons home.

So, think of me what you want. Think me a liar who did not earn his place in the world, tell your friends how annoying I am and how you wish I had not made it through my hardships. I do not care for your opinion of me.

But keep them out of it, they do not deserve the slander of my presence for crimes they did not commit and rumors that are not true.

Be the change that prevents the tragedy of a history repeated.

.

Your obedient servant,

.

A. Ham

[werezmastarbucks]

Whitmore Guy - Martha

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

Kai Parker x fem!Reader slowburn

whatever gifs I’m going to use on this one, I hope the creators are okay with that

word count: 3612

warnings: none

music: offspring - the kids aren’t alright, blink-182 - home is such a lonely place

Y/N was staring at him without realizing it. If only she knew how easy it was, she would be horrified. She would have goosebumps all the way from her pretty head to her little toes, and she would form a perfect line on her mouth as she clenched her teeth so hard it hurt her canines. The beauty of oblivion is that you’re… oblivious. He couldn’t really figure if the feeling of almost grasping, almost realizing, almost suffering, was good on her or not. He hoped he would find out soon enough to manage to fix her if anything. Just the way she’d fixed him.

Y/N’s been staring at Mal, whose last name, as she learnt from his file, which inevitable went through her, as she was the college filing dumpster, - Osbourne. How cool is that? his eyes said to her when she looked up to nod with amazement. Mal Osbourne, the IT guy at Whitmore. He joked that Hoppus was too rare, and Swayze made him feel sad, so he chose Osbourne. Turned out he changed his name when he got of age, because he hated his family or something like that. That was the only thing he was uneasy to talk about. Mal didn’t say what his family name was before, and she didn’t press. She was still torn between investigating and being painfully disinterested in other people’s drama.

Mal was biting his lower lip busily as he punched the vending machine again. The soda can got stuck in between the springs and the glass, and he turned, flustered, to give her a look. Y/N shook her head in empathy. They shared passion for Dr Pepper, and this one can has been stuck there for the whole morning. It being Wednesday, an official mid-day of the week when you’re already tired, but not tired enough to give up completely, they invented the watch. Every fifteen minutes one of them was visiting this very vending machine to see if the can has fallen through yet. She was replacing him now, and Mal welcomed her with a grunt.

“Can’t believe not a single person came and tried to get it out”.

“Maybe they know”, Y/N examined the lit insides of the machine. Dr Pepper was tightly propped against the glass, its dark red tin can dented a little.

“How the fuck did she even get in there…” Mal muttered under his breath. She could not believe this grown man’s dedication to a tin can. “I mean, what’s the story behind it? Why did you do this to me, Y/N? It’s almost two in the afternoon, and all I’ve been thinking about today is this goddamn Dr Pepper”.

She bumped her fist on the machine really hard, and somebody jumped while passing them. A couple of concerned glances shot at their backs.

“It moved!” he almost yelled. “Bang it, and I’m gonna shake it”.

So, they assaulted the vending machine, putting a stop to their patient watch that lasted for nearly five hours. Her hand was sore pretty soon, from the bumping, but as Mal leaned back and shook the monstrous machine, all the items came into movement. A couple of packs of crisps fell out of the slots.

“Bonus points!” Mal shrilled. Dr Pepper was almost out.

Y/N puffed.

“Now, you bang, and I’ll shake”.

“That’s what she said”, Mal replied knowingly, letting her swap places with him.

Their hard work paid off, and in couple of minutes they were running heads first into the basement, hands full of crisps and soda. And that was Wednesday.

Thursday was long and tedious, because a second year student has broken her leg AND lost the keys from her car all in the same evening, and she had a mental breakdown. The hospital seemed to have a problem finding her insurance, and the insurance company refused to pay for the services of the guys who came to open her car for her and accidentally took of one of the doors; Professor Atkins, teacher of chemistry which the girl was specializing in, refused to believe the whole story although t was blatantly true, in spite of being utterly stupid; Y/N was running like a remote control car with five wheels between the insurance office, hospital and college; at six in the evening she realized it was already the twenty-fifth of May, and she still didn’t have a plan for Caroline’s party. At six forty-five she was crying in her office, her head in her hands, but her tears were not tears of a defeated person. She was very angry and couldn’t scream so she just sobbed all the nonsense away. She really hated Thursdays in general, too.

At six fifty there was a knock on her door, and she moaned, sensing, rather like an animal, that her salvation and relief has come.

“Dude”, she howled. Mal’s head penetrated the space of her office.

“If I’d known you’re falling apart, I would’ve brought a gun, not a coffee”, he said in his ever joyful voice, full of undetectable mockery.

He slid into the armchair and watched Y/N as she grabbed the cup and started drinking.

“Don’t choke. You called me, m’fair lady? What’s up with the party I never heard of?”

She nodded.

“Exactly. I forgot about this party like four times. I need you to help me. You never seem to go home or have personal life, so”.

Mal pouted, as if admitting the heavy truth.

“IT sphere… you know, it’s a lot of work. All the buttons that don’t glow… and the websites that have been blocked… deleted reports”, he scowled, “are the worst. So much pain and suffering in this place, it’s unbearable. I crack every day, too”.

He looked at Y/N almost tenderly. These looks usually made her question her sanity. Sometimes it felt like he was Alex, the name, the tattoo on her right forearm in thick, black letters. She took two more big sips and decided solid that she’d tell Mal about him. Share that and see how he feels about that. Mal’s been nothing but great help these last weeks, and they bonded, and Y/N realized that part of her nervous strain was due to this new mysterious character, almost a time bomb, smirking at her kindly across the table they lunched at. But at least that was positive hysterical energy.

“I kind of accused you of lying about having a girl, Mal. Just now”.

He gasped. His ringed fingers interlocked together on his stomach. He put up his foot which indicated he was getting comfortable, as if to listen to a story.

“Ah. You meant that. That I can help you with the party you irresponsibly forgot about four times, because I don’t have anything better to do anyway, because I don’t have a girlfriend I’d claimed I had”.

She just nodded, sucking on her coffee like a thirst victim.

“That’s a… that’s a very sad story”, he scratched his right brow as his eyes shot somewhere above her ear, out of the window. He was daydreaming. His glance was calm, while his body started saying he was nervous.

“And you already seem pretty sad, so…”

“Go on. Distract me, please. And I’ll tell you a sad story, too. Let’s see who’s gonna kick ass in being sadder”.

Mal shuddered with a light burst of laughter. This, too. His sudden flashes of humor, when he laughed at things people usually don’t laugh at. And still, he was seemingly worth it.

“Okay. So, I dated this girl, Martha Hopps”.

“Martha Hoppus?”

He let out a clattering sound he made with his tongue that Y/N couldn’t understand the physics of.

“No, her last name is Hopps. She uh… moved to Mystic Falls. That’s kind of why I came here. I tried to land a job in the town, but nobody needed an IT specialist there, so I went for the closest place, which is”, he motioned towards Y/N as if suggesting her own office.

“You said, dated?”

“Yeah. But, I mean, I’m still in love with her. Obviously, otherwise, I wouldn’t be here”.

There was a change in Mal. Just as he started talking about the girl, his eyes went down, and Y/N couldn’t see the dark pupils anymore. His hands were rubbing each other, patting fingers, and he tilted his head. Y/N unintentionally felt her long-abandoned maternal instinct, kicking its way through her stomach like a crazed lion riding a tractor – for in front of her there sat a boy. His forehead was marked with three distinct, and somehow cute, sharp kisses of puberty; his skin was in need of sunlight, pale like milk, but soft; his boyish demeanor, the shirt with Van Halen logo, and a tacky bracelet on his left wrist – all that was a part of his pattern. He was suddenly fragile, like a petal.

“Her family… uh, they decided that I wasn’t worth her”, Mal looked up bravely, and Y/N withstood it.  

“They separated us. Even before I could actually… you know, lay off my plans for the future, marrying and stuff maybe, you know?”

“What do you mean – separated?”

“Well, they brainwashed her big time. Her family together with friends, they are all kind of… religious fanatics”.

“Wait, Hopps, you say? Mystic Falls is a small town, I think I would remember a family of fanatics…”

She shuddered at the memory of that insane coven that was raging in the town five years ago. She couldn’t actually remember how they dealt with them; only that those were first class supernatural terrorists, witches bound on idea to kill all ‘abominations’ and release humans of Mystic Falls…

Mal shrugged indifferently.

“They moved in recently. I followed them. We met in uh, Ohio, that’s where I come from. Her father was like, you’re toxic to her. We wish you were never born. Whoosh. Next thing I know, she doesn’t talk to me. At first it’s like, Mal, I question your beliefs. Then, Mal, I think you’re cheating on me. I’m like, who told you that? Stupid, you’re the woman of my whole century. She’s like, my family knows. She…” he sucked the air through his teeth, “I think she loved me less that I loved her, you know? Sometimes it happens. She had to choose, and she chose them. Plus, there was so much whispering along the way, Jesus. The things they were telling her about me”.

Y/N felt she was swaying while sitting in her chair.

“God, why would they do that? You’re so cute”.

“I know, right?!” he exclaimed, feeling the connection. “It’s a case of… I suppose… loathing out of principle. I did one…” he licked his lips, staring absently through her desk. His finger froze in the air indicating the number One. “Maybe two bad things, and they’re like, that’s it! You’re going down, we’re going away, you’ll never see her again”.

Caffeine started to kick in, and Y/N found herself fixing her hair in abrupt movements.

“Well? And then?”

“And then they cut us in two”.

They both paused for a moment.

“What two bad things did you do?”

Mal sighed.

“I mean, no one’s perfect, right?”

“Oh god”, Y/N slapped the surface of her desk as the poisonous realization started to crawl into her brain. “Oh god, please, no. Please, Mal, tell me you’re not an obsessive psycho who’s been stalking a girl and beating people and saw nothing wrong with it”.

“Oh my god”, his pretty face grimaced, “Jesus, Y/N, I meant I stole her dad’s car once, and then I lied about my age! What… what kind of people do you hang out with?”

She wondered if he was having fun inside. This man, this pretty picture, was ineffable. He seemed to be saying exactly the kinds of things she wanted to hear. People, a wise man once said, were way worse than monsters. Monsters, beasts of the night, have a purpose. They have a code. People, on the other hand, are completely crazy.

“But you do look like a… like there’s a little doorbell in your head that goes off constantly… like you kill pets for fun…”

Mal stood up, lifting himself with both hands.

“Screw you, Y/N”.

She jumped.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mal”, she ran around her desk, trying to catch him as he walked out of her office. She clutched the hem of his shirt and scratched the skin on his shoulder with her nails by accident. Mal hissed in pain, but stopped. She had that weird sensation again, like a light zip coming through her body when she touched him. It wasn’t painful, didn’t bother her, but it was curious. That happened for the second time already, but they’ve been contacting hand to hand for weeks now. Passing each other things, patting on the shoulder, shaking hands in sealing the deals about cans of sodas…

He looked at Y/N like she was betraying all the laws in the world. His eyes were beaming warnings, but deep inside, there was also this frail shade of cold that unnerved her way more. She couldn’t tell if she believed even a single word he said. The guy often acted like a sociopath. His sudden outbursts of laughter, his trust in her that was childish if not alarming, and these stories. And yet, she wouldn’t let go of his shirt, until he shrugged her hand of, though, thankfully, pretty gently.

“You don’t believe me. You think I’m making this all up”.

“That’s exactly what a manipulator would say”, she blurted, and grabbed him by the fabric of his shirt again, just in case. The knuckles of her fingers perceived the warmth of his body. “Prove she exists, and I’ll get on board with you, and I’ll do anything to help you get Marta Hoppus back”.

“Hopps”.

“Right”.

“Bringing you coffee was a mistake. Your eyes a rolling”.

Mal stepped away and took out his phone from the back pocket of his jeans.

“I meant to delete all, but I kept one picture of us, just in case”.

He stalled for a second before giving her the phone, like he was afraid to entrust her a treasure he’s been keeping. Y/N looked at the screen and saw Mal, smiling like he was a normal, happy guy, with a young girlfriend in his arms. He held her tight, with both arms. They took a picture in a big mirror, somewhere at a mall. She was kissing his cheek while managing to look in the mirror, too, and Y/N could see her face.

No, she’s never met that person, but the photograph was it.

“It was taken last year”, Mal said, as if reading her mind, “in Seattle. We were travelling”.

“I’m from Seattle”, Y/N said, absently.

She’s just realized she hadn’t been afraid Martha Hopps was not real; she had hoped for that.

“Dude”, she gave his phone back to him. Mal was watching her carefully. “If you love her, you have to fight. But I still can’t grasp the whole idea of them moving her from Ohio to… here”.

He scratched his head and gave the empty corridor a wandering look.

“Well, I’ve… you said yourself I’m a sophisticated guy…”

“I never said you were sophisticated, I said you’re weird”.

“Same thing. I may have a thing”.

“What thing?” she narrowed her eyes.

“I may have been diagnosed with ASPD back in the day”.

“I knew it!” her triumphant shriek was so sudden, Y/N dumbfounded herself a little.

“To be honest, I’m impressed you detected me in, like, twenty days”, Mal nodded, “people usually only see what the want to see”.

“I have a thing for serial killers”, she brushed it off with her hand, ignoring Mal’s fainting smile.

“Oh, Y/N, why does it always have to be that extreme with you. This guy never killed anybody, ever, in his life”.

“What will you do with her family when you get to her?”

Mal shrugged.

“I already got to her. I found her. I guess now you can call me a stalker. I don’t do creepy stuff”, he added, before she could open her mouth, “but she still doesn’t know her ex-boyfriend is here. Wanting to get her back very much. I don’t know. What would you do to people who took away the love of your life from you? Deceiving you both in the process?”

Mal was the kind of person you could tell practically anything. The man could take a joke and keep a secret. Now, though, as she started seeing him as a person with pretence instead feelings, that was all presented in slightly different light. Him being friendly to everybody, charming people the second he saw them, was his mechanism of infiltrating the community. Him sticking with Y/N and befriending her at first sight may have been his method of imitating social life and learn to cope. Even use her, maybe. He’s been living here for some time, with virtually no interest for the place itself, with the sole reason to be close to Martha Hopps; and he treated the whole IT thing like a joke. He was indisputably good at what he was doing; Y/N could see him run across these halls all day long, without a tired sigh; but this perfection in his performance was what must make one suspicious. He always ate at the same time, every day, and understood every joke and said all the right things.

The look he was giving her said cold. His brain was derived of emotion, and to think that this person could be loving someone was close to fantasizing. Y/N recalled the boy in her armchair, minutes earlier, hurt by the memories.

“I would tear them apart”, Y/N said. “If somebody took away the thing I love the most, I would tear them apart, limb from limb. But they’re her family, Mal”.

“So?”

“So, there are, you know, types of people to kill…”

His eyes narrowed.

“Wait. You’re talking seriously now? About tearing them apart?”

“God, well, I’m telling you the one hundred percent. Of course, in reality, you do less. But anyway, there are different types of close people. You can get away with separating your loved one from one type, but not from another”.

“I don’t get it”.

They started walking slowly down the corridor. Y/N couldn’t really tell where they’re going until she saw a vending machine prepped against the wall, and noticed Mal slide his hand into his pocket. He was hungry again.

“Say, you come to their house where they live now, and you choke them all. Theoretically. You don’t really have a right to choke people”.

“I know that, Y/N. I’m a bit sociopathic, much better than I used to be, by the way. It’s far from spree killing”.

“Yes, well, and what then? Where do you go from there? She may still love you, say, you talk everything out, and she realized that they had tricked her into breaking up with you. But even if you move on, go to another state, buy a house and live there, get married. You’ll always be the guy who killed her family”.

He stood at the machine, looking at the rows of packs. His face was highlighted by the pale light from the inside of the glass. Outside, the sky took on an orange shade of the closing sunset. She won’t get to it once again.

“And you think that’s fair. That you should just let it slide, all the things they out of hatred. You know, I’ve had a lot of that when I was a kid. I was always the bad child in the family”.

He put the coin in and pushed a button. Y/N couldn’t even watch the string spinning slowly, she was focused on Mal and what he does next. The cold shiver of realization went through her body. If he’s violent; if he’s aggressive; if he’s pretending to be her friend, all this trauma right now may make him act out. And Damon just won’t manage to run in here on time. She didn’t even have a pencil with her in case she had to protect herself. Y/N looked at his hands, lean, strong and pale, fingers, long and dexterous. Mal always touched and held things sturdily, to make sure they won’t escape his grasp. He never dropped anything and never made mistakes.

“You? You’re the bad child?”

“Uh-huh, I had this sister, she wa- she’s my twin. I say ‘was’ usually, because I haven’t spoken to her in years. She was better at everything. Better at school, at doing the chores, at turning on the TV, talking to people, understanding things. Feeling things. She was the good one, and I was always the defective brother”.

“Don’t say that”, Y/N snapped. Mal looked at her, surprised, and then squatted a little to get his pack of chips out.

“You know they were wrong, right? You’re a big guy now, you’re an adult. You must understand why adults do all that. You’re spared of fear they must have experienced”.

“That’s a good point. But it doesn’t help to know that. I still have hard time dealing with… crazy families. We’re going to the basement?”

“Why?”

“I have my speakers there, and we can make a playlist”.

“Right”.

Walking past the windows, they looked outside, at the orange sky.

“Tomorrow’s gonna rain”, Mal said. He tore the pack open with a loud rustling. “You want some?”

Y/N looked inside.

“I’m gonna puke if I put anything else in my mouth today”.

“That’s what she said”, Mal commented gravely.

[exhausted-joy]

INTO THE WOODS [YANDERE!JIMIN] [04]

CHAPTER FOUR.

SYNOPSIS: Park Jimin is your needy, clingy, summer camp cabinmate that both creeps you out and makes you regret ever trying to be socially engaged during your summer break. After submitting truckloads of request forms to switch cabins and getting rejected, you realize that you must swallow your pride and get comfy with your new cabinmate. He hates it and so do you—at least, that’s what you thought. 

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Tag List:  @little-orochi @sinning-on-a-sunday @hobiacorn @sugabased @girlmeetsliv3 

NOTE: Excuse the walls of text. (:

━━━━━━━━━

Camping had never ignited a single spark of interest in you, ever. 

And as you startle awake at the sensation of something trying to crawl its way under your skin and possibly feed off your internal organs, you are suddenly reminded why. Smacking angrily at the already red and irritated spot on your forearm, you sit up and dust off your clothes with a defeated sigh. Why did it have to come to this? What have you done in your past lives to make karma rear its ugly head, turning your life into a never ending series of peril? In a hopeless attempt for closure, you humorlessly strain your ears to listen for some kind of answer, but all you can hear is the incessant buzzing of mosquitoes ready to devour you alive and Jimin’s gentle snores a few feet away.

The fire had long since burned out and ever since the sun had sunk below the horizon, so did the temperature. The wind had picked up a little, whisking away the dreary heatwaves of day and pulling in the biting cold from somewhere far off. Trembling, you pull Jimin’s hoodie on properly and hike up the hood, tugging the drawstrings taut so that only your face is visible. His jacket is warm and inviting; you’re practically swimming in it with the way the sleeves drape far past your hands. You feel like a little kid playing dress-up in her mother’s closet. 

The way that Jimin had given you his jacket made you feel somewhat fuzzy inside. You took heed to the fact that he didn’t have to but did anyways, and it made the butterflies in your tummy erupt in a frenzy for some reason. Despite being at the age where dating was a common phenomenon amongst other peers in your age group, you had never experienced the so-called intimacies of teenage romance. You were never particularly fond of the idea of being so close to someone physically and emotionally, but if there was one thing you were curious about from all the movies and books you have watched and read…

The smell. Grabbing a fistful of the hoodie, you bring it up to your nose and inhale deeply. And sure enough, it smells just like Jimin. Not that you knew what that smelt like before this very moment - you are just curious, is all! His scent is subtle with a twinge of sweetness, and it almost smells floral, in a ‘freshly-baked-citrusy-pastry’ kind of way. It was kind of liberating in a sense; you didn’t expect such a pleasant smell from someone like him and you revel in the aroma of orange blossoms that encompass you so deeply you think you could get high off of it.  

You absentmindedly glance over at his sleeping form, his back facing you and shoulders raising with every soft breath. You’re almost jealous he’s able to sleep so peacefully in these circumstances. He doesn’t move a muscle despite the cool breeze that shifts the strands of his mussed hair and the fact that he’s only wearing a thin white t-shirt is slightly alarming. Looking down at the large hoodie that shyly reaches the middle of your thighs, you start to feel a bit guilty - however, the cold doesn’t seem to bother him anyhow. Jimin is a breed entirely of his own. 

Time ticks by slowly, so slowly that you’ve grown increasingly bored with each passing minute. You hadn’t brought many things with you and you didn’t even think to bring your phone, definitely not knowing you would be stranded out in the middle of the forest for a whole night. Being cut off from civilization sucks, and your brain does little to entertain itself without the stimulation of your electronic friend. You consider waking Jimin up, but you don’t want to disturb his rest after all his caring, albeit awkward, but still caring gestures. It’s best he gets his rest; especially with those bags you’ve seen under his eyes that droop so low that they almost kiss the apples of his cheeks.

You have no idea what time it is, but you make a wild guess that it’s probably around four or five AM with the way the sky is gradually melting into a blue hue that tints the tips of the trees purple. Sighing, you stretch, feeling satisfied at the way your muscles strain to release the heavy tension created from sleeping on the hard forest floor. You decide to try your hand at finding some food, like berries of some sort. That’s usually what happens in those dramatic survival TV shows you watched, where they stumble upon a berry bush only to find out it’s poisonous. You hope that won’t be the case.

Looking around, you settle on which direction to go, even though every which way you look seems the exact same. You suddenly feel a sliver of insecurity coil in your stomach, and you begin to second guess your explorative desires. You don’t want to lose sight of your little campsite in the midst of scouring for food and you don’t even have a phone to call for help from if you venture too deep in the forest. 

Your stomach grumbles in protest. You’re hungry. When’s the last time you ate? You can’t seem to recall, but it certainly feels like forever ago. Biting your lip, you firmly decide that you are doing this for the greater good of feeding both you and Jimin. You absolutely refuse to die of starvation, no way. 

You begin to march off into a random direction. Not even a few steps in, you hear loud shuffling behind you and you nearly jump two feet in the air at the startling sound. You freeze, no longer feeling very adventurous as you slowly turn around. 

And, thankfully, it’s just Jimin. 

You visibly relax, letting out a small sigh of relief. You don’t know why you’ve suddenly become so jumpy lately - maybe it’s the way your nerves had been completely short circuited just the day prior, but you guess that’s just what nature will do to an inexperienced, nonconsensual forest explorer such as yourself. The boy is sitting up now, looking around with glassy, bleary eyes. His gaze lands on you and he gives you what looks to be an uncharacteristic attempt at a small, sleepy smile when he notices the familiar oversized garment bundled around your figure. 

You snort at the way one side of his hair sticks straight up, holding back a laugh in fear of offending him. Jimin takes a second to shake the grogginess off before getting up and stretching just as you had done a few minutes 

before. His expression assumes its natural state of indifference as he adjusts his clothing and runs a hand through his locks to tame them. 

He turns to you, brows creasing as he sees how far away you stand from him, practically at the tree line that circles the clearing in all directions. Jimin takes in your position; halted mid-step, torso twisted around to face him, and belongings all neatly tucked away in the small mini backpack you brought with you. He puts two and two together and tries to hide the searing embarrassment that blazes behind his brown eyes. 

“...Were you leaving..?” Jimin’s voice is quiet and distant, as if he’s withdrawn into himself, sinking back into his shell. You are confused and for a few moments you don’t respond, but soon come to the realization that the way he had caught you must have looked like you were leaving him to be left for dead in the middle of the forest. 

Quickly, you make a move to try and dissolve the incredibly uncomfortable situation, before your lost-in-the-forest partner could convert back into his one-syllable-conversations snailhouse.

“No, of course not!”

You try your best to sound confident, convincing, and possibly not like a child who’s been caught stealing candy. And although your posture would make it possible to think you were in fact leaving, the thought of Jimin assuming so drives pangs of shame and sadness through you. And apparently, it shows on your face.

Jimin’s face, while he doesn’t seem completely convinced yet, softens a bit at the expressions you’re practically wearing for display, although you seem to be trying your best to unsuccessfully hide them. He was already used to people constantly shunning him, to say the least, so how could he have possibly expected you to stay with him all through a cold night, lost in the forest? You’re clearly uncomfortable with being alone with him, otherwise you wouldn’t try to secretly-

“Uhm... I was actually trying to go find us some, you know, food...”

His train of thought is abruptly cut short by your meek reply, and a silver lining of hope glistens on Jimin’s horizon. Did you actually.. mean it? You were going to stay with him after all?

You, however, are praying to whatever higher deity out there Jimin won’t laugh at you for this. You must look like a small child right now, wandering off desperately to in a forest you know nothing about or where to even find any source of nourishment. Suddenly, the forest floor becomes as interesting as never before, and you look down to overcome the embarrassment painted on your face as the air hangs still with no reply for what feels like a century to you.

You shyly glance up at Jimin again, feeling the overwhelming need to pull his sweater tighter around you until you completely disappear inside it. You nestle your face a bit deeper into the soft collar, hoping to hide the bright pink blush dusting your cheeks.

Jimin looks at you impassively, even though on the inside he feels like he’s about to explode. He could tell you were telling the truth, and his heart jumps up to his throat when you cutely try to hide yourself inside his sweater. Wait, cute?

“Oh.” he softly replies, quickly turning his head to avoid eye contact as he pretends to scratch an itch on his nose to obstruct his slowly flushing cheeks from view. What is he thinking all of a sudden? You’re cute? Sure, he enjoyed basking in your company - so much more than he liked to admit - but crushing on you was just too absurd. You would never see him in that way; he was almost certain you wouldn’t have looked twice at him if you weren’t stuck being his cabinmate. 

Jimin shakes his head and mentally squashes his feelings down, wilting his blossoming flower of affection towards you. He hasn’t felt such pining for a long time; it’s almost like his heart is slowly pumping to life the more he sticks around you. But he just can’t seem to control it - there’s an indescribable pull towards you and it seems to grow stronger by the hour. 

“Maybe... Maybe we should try to find our way back. I really don’t want to spend another night here.” Your voice comes out quiet, at first, but it raises firmly when you point out your concerns. Jimin’s gaze is centered elsewhere and he won’t look up to meet your eyes no matter what you do. Slightly concerned, you frown, wallowing uncomfortably in the silence that plagues the air like a bad smell. 

Then he speaks, finally, though somewhat hesitantly as if he wanted to say something else, “I might know a way back.” Internally, you want to scream and jump for joy, just the mere thought of finally escaping this miserable forest making you instantly forget your earlier vexation. You keep it in though, save for the grin that sneaks across your face. 

“Well, let's go then! What are we waiting for?” You’re practically vibrating with excitement, itching to get back and take a nice, long, hot shower and change out of these dirty clothes. Jimin glances up at you, catching sight of the dazzling smile you shoot at him, the darling curve of your lips burning its image into his mind. 

You motion for him to hurry up before you take off into the labyrinth of trees, your smaller form drowning in his jacket. The dark haired boy stands stiff in his spot, completely drunk off the ideas of you and him that swirl around in his mind. 

The budding blossom in his gut gradually begins to sprout from its bed of hopeless desires and blistering fondness, its roots gliding along his ribcage and reaching deep within to take hostage of his tender heart. His bottom lip trembles and he can no longer negate the sentiment he holds for his roommate. 

Jimin takes off after you, head ducking shyly as his athletic figure easily navigates over fallen logs and rocky slopes to catch up with you, the warmth in his chest never ceasing. 

This feeling - he likes it. He really likes it. 

━━━━━━━━━

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: 26 Mar 2020 (EFF's videoconferencing backgrounds, the ideology of economics, LoC plugs Little Brother, Canada nationalizes covid patents, Exponential Thread, Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty, record wind power growth, social distancing and other diseases, Badger Masks)

Today's links

EFF's videoconferencing backgrounds: With a deep cut from the NSA's secret listening post.

The ideology of economics: Economics doesn't have "laws" it has "policies."

LoC plugs Little Brother: Open access FTW.

Canada nationalizes covid patents: An Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19.

Exponential Threat: Trump threatened to sue media outlets that aired this spot.

Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty: "Millions for plutes, but not one cent for workers."

Record wind-power growth: Covid stimulus could start a Green New Deal.

Social distancing and other diseases: Do we trust IoT thermometer companies, though?

Badger Masks: UW Madison's open facemask design.

This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

EFF's videoconferencing backgrounds (permalink)

Telework is a quiet reminder that we live, in some sense, in an age of wonders. As terrible as lockdown is, imagine it without any way to videoconference with your peers and colleagues.

But it's also a moment where we tremble on the precipice of cyberpunk dystopia, when calls for mass surveillance – both for epidemiology and stabilizing states that are bruised and reeling – meet a world where everything is online and amenable to "collection" by spooks.

This is, basically, the moment that EFF has been warning about for 30 years: the moment when the "digital world" and the "real world" fully merge, and where the distinction between "tech policy" and "policy" dissolves.

One way you can help keep this in your colleagues' minds is to use EFF's amazing, free/open graphics as your videoconferencing background (most of these are the creation of the brilliant Hugh D'Andrade).

Now, those are all great, but this one is Room 641A at AT&T's Folsom Street center, where the whistleblower Mark Klein was ordered to build a secret room so the NSA could illegally spy on all US internet traffic.

The ideology of economics (permalink)

Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" advanced a simple, data-supported hypothesis: that markets left to their own will cause capital to grow faster than the economy as a whole, so over time, the rich always get richer.

https://boingboing.net/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-t.html

He's followed up Capital with the 1000-page "Capital and Ideology" – whose thesis is that the "laws" of economics are actually policies, created to "justify a society's inequalities," providing a rationale to convince poor people not to start building guillotines.

The first ideology of capital was the "trifunctional" system of monarchist France, dividing society into "those who pray," "those who fight," and "those who work."

After the French revolution, we enter the capitalist phase, then social democracies, and now, "meritocracies."

"Meritocracies" invest markets with the mystical power to identify and elevate the worthy, in a kind of tautology: those who have the most are worth the most. You can tell they're worth the most because they have the most.

("That makes me smart" -D. Trump)

In Piketty's conception, "Inequality is neither economic nor technological. It's ideological and political," where "ideology" "refers to a set of a priori plausible ideas describing how society should be structured" (think: Overton Window).

https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-thomas-piketty-takes-ideology-inequality

The major part of the book seeks to explain how the post-war social democracies gave way to the grifter meritocracies of today, pulling together threads from across the whole world to tell the tale.

On the way, he described alternatives that were obliterated, and others that were never tried, and shows how "meritocracy" gave us Trump, xenophobia, Brexit, and the Current Situation.

In particular, he's interested in why working class people stopped voting (spoiler: they no longer perceive that elites will pay attention to them irrespective of how they vote) — and what it would take to mobilize them again.

The elites' indifference to working people is grounded in an alliance between the Brahmin Left (educated, well-paid liberals) and the Merchant Right (the finance sector). Notionally leftist parties, like the Democrats, are dominated by the Brahmin Left.

But more than any other, Macron epitomizes this alliance: proclaiming his liberal values while slashing taxes on the wealthy — punishing poor people for driving cars, exempting private jets from his "climate" bill.

Life in a "meritocracy" is especially cruel for poor people, because meritocracies, uniquely among ideologies, blame poor people for poverty. It's right there in the name. French kings didn't think God was punishing peons, rather, that the Lord had put them there to serve.

"The broadly social-democratic redistributive coalitions of the mid-twentieth century were not just electoral or institutional or party coalitions but also intellectual and ideological. The battle was fought and won above all on the battleground of ideas."

As Marshall Steinbaum writes in his excellent review, Piketty's work doesn't just highlight new ideas in economics: it highlights the intellectual poverty of the economics profession and its tunnel vision.

"Economists cannot be allowed to be the arbiters of the intensely political concerns Piketty takes up in the book, and the good news is that there is reason to believe they won't be."

LoC plugs Little Brother (permalink)

Honored and pleased to have my book Little Brother included on the Library of Congress's excellent collection of open-access ebooks in its collection, which you can always access gratis but which may be of especial interest during the lockdown.

https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2020/03/more-open-ebooks-routinizing-open-access-ebook-workflows/

If you enjoyed Little Brother and its sequel Homeland, you might be interested in the third Little Brother book, Attack Surface, which Tor is publishing on Oct 12.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

If you're looking for more topical reading, Infodocket's carefully curated list of coronavirus resources is here for you:

https://www.infodocket.com/2020/01/31/2019-novel-coronavirus-resources/

Canada nationalizes covid patents (permalink)

Canada's Parliament has passed Bill C13, "An Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19," amending patent law to create automatic compulsory licenses for any inventionused to fight covid, including diagnostics, vaccines, therapies or PPE.

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-1/bill/C-13/third-reading

As E Richard Gold writes, it's an "important signal that Canada will not support IP delays…While most firms are helping find solutions, this will prevent those who try to take advantage-by raising prices or limiting supply-or those who cannot deliver to block what is needed."

Exponential Threat (permalink)

"Exponential Threat" is a remarkable – and factual – political ad, one that contrasts Trump's statements on coronavirus with the spread of the disease in America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkMwvmJLnc0

More remarkable: Trump has threatened to sue the media for airing it, which is a totally cool and normal thing for someone who has sworn a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to do.

https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/2017/web/hero_images/Redacted_PUSA_Letter.pdf

"In case you needed more, here's an (admittedly incomplete) list of Trump statements on the novel coronavirus and COID-19"

http://www.joeydevilla.com/2020/03/25/exponential-threat-the-covid-19-themed-ad-that-the-trump-pence-campaign-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

Jan. 22: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China."

Feb. 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It's going to be fine."

Feb. 25: "CDC & my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus."

Feb. 25: "I think that's a problem that's going to go away. They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we're very close to a vaccine." [White House | New York Post]

Feb. 26: "We're going very substantially down, not up."

Feb. 27: "One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear."

Feb. 28: "We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical."

March 2: "You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?"

March 2: "A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they're happening very rapidly."

March 4: "If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work, but they get better."

March 5: "I never said people that are feeling sick should go to work."

March 6: "I think we're doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down."

March 6: "Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. And the tests are beautiful. They are perfect just like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good."

March 6: "I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."

March 6: "I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."

March 8: "We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus."

March 9: "The Fake News media & their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power to inflame the Coronavirus situation."

March 10: "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."

March 13: National Emergency Declaration.

March 17: "I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."

Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty (permalink)

This Bernie Sanders floor speech in the Senate on the GOP's relentless attempts to punish poor people in the covid relief package is a must-watch

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/fp3my0/bernie_goes_full_sanders_on_the_republicans_for/

tldr: GOP Senators are freaking out because some people in line to get the pittances they're doling out actually earn EVEN LESS than $1k-2k/month, and so they might get a raise in the form of covid relief.

That is, rather than taking the fact that this bare-minimum subsidy package exceeds "normal" income as a wakeup call to raise the minimum wage for the first time since 2009, the GOP is calling for cuts to aid to the most vulnerable Americans.

As Sanders points out, these same Senators had no problem with the Tax Scam, which poured trillions into the accounts of the richest Americans, directly and indirectly through stock-buybacks, which also left US business vulnerable and in need of trillions more today.

Now those bailed-out plutes want workers to risk death to "restart the economy," and the GOP will ensure they'll starve if they don't.

As ever, The Onion nails it:

https://politics.theonion.com/gop-urges-end-of-quarantine-for-lifeless-bipedal-automa-1842461351

"GOP Urges End Of Quarantine For Lifeless Bipedal Automatons That Make Economy Go"

Record wind-power growth (permalink)

As the world's wind-generation capacity increases, you'd expect annual growth to fall proportionately (it's easier to double a very small number than a very big one!), but this year should see the largest proportional growth ever, a 20% increase!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/25/worlds-wind-power-capacity-up-by-fifth-after-record-year

That number is uncertain (hello, coronavirus), but on the other hand, there's a massive stimulus package in the offing that could be used to restart the economy by saving the planet with renewable energy.

The non-adjusted, pre-virus projection for this year's total growth in wind power was an additional 76GW (to meet climate projections, that number has to rise to 100GW/year, and then to 200GW/year).

Social distancing and other diseases (permalink)

Though the evidence is a little shaky, it appears that social distancing has dramatically reduced the spread of other infectious diseases, like flu.

https://qz.com/1824020/social-distancing-slowing-not-only-covid-19-but-other-diseases-too/

The data comes from an Internet of Shit "connected thermometer" company that (allegedly) anonymizes its data and uses it for health surveillance; they report a massive drop-off in high temps relative to other years and pre-distancing levels.

The claims are plausible, but they're also an ad for an IoT company that sells a product no one needs, so take them with a grain of salt.

I'd be interested in STI transmission after weeks/months of government-recommended masturbation-over-hookups:

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-sex-guidance.pdf

Badger Masks (permalink)

A local hospital asked researchers at the UW Madison Engineering Design Innovation Lab to design them a field-expedient face-shield that could be mass-manufactured to protect its staff from coming cases.

https://www.wired.com/story/tinkerers-created-face-shield-being-used-hospitals/

Using hardware-store parts, the UW makerspace, and teleconferencing with self-isolating collaborators, the team designed an excellent mask, the Badger Shield:

https://making.engr.wisc.edu/shield/

They've manufactured and delivered 1,000 Badger Masks to the hospital and a Ford plant in MI is making 75,000 more this week for Detroit-area hospitals. Here's a technical spec you can follow if you have access to equipment and parts:

https://www.delve.com/assets/documents/OPEN-SOURCE-FACE-SHIELD-DRAWING-v1.PDF

It involves just 3 pieces: polyethylene sheets (laser- or die-cut), an elastic headband, and a 1" thick strip of self-adhesive polyurethane foam. For initial production, Midwest Prototyping used office-supply-store electric staplers for assembly.

The design process started with a teardown of an existing, approved mask, and the project lead, Lennon Rodgers, worked with collaborators to replicate it, sanity-checking successive designs with his wife, an anaesthesiologist.

They started hand-delivering prototypes to the hospital, who refined the design further, swapping in latex-free elastic and lengthening the shield. Tim Osswald from UW used his polymer engineering expertise to find a supplier who could create a custom die.

Now, more than 1M Badger Masks have been sought, with manufacturers like St Paul's Summit Medical tooling up to meet demand.

Other designs are popping up across America. San Francisco's Exploratorium is making 200+ shields/day using its own makerspace.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago If the Constitution was a EULA https://web.archive.org/web/20050330012000/http://slate.msn.com/id/2115254/

#10yrsgo Discarded photocopier hard drives stuffed full of corporate secrets https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2010/03/18/hightech_copy_machines_a_gold_mine_for_data_thieves.html

#5yrsago TPP leak: states give companies the right to repeal nations' laws https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/press.html

#5yrsago Woman medicated in a psychiatric ward until she said Obama didn't follow her on Twitter https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/woman-held-in-psychiatric-ward-after-correctly-saying-obama-follows-her-on-twitter-10132662.html

#5yrsago Sandwars: the mafias whose illegal sand mines make whole islands vanish https://www.wired.com/2015/03/illegal-sand-mining/

#5yrsago Australia outlaws warrant canaries https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/australian-government-minister-dodge-new-data-retention-law-like-this/

#5yrsago As crypto wars begin, FBI silently removes sensible advice to encrypt your devices https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150325/17430330432/fbi-quietly-removes-recommendation-to-encrypt-your-phone-as-fbi-director-warns-how-encryption-will-lead-to-tears.shtml

#1yrago Article 13 will wreck the internet because Swedish MEPs accidentally pushed the wrong voting button https://medium.com/@emanuelkarlsten/sweden-democrats-swedish-social-democrats-defeat-motion-to-amend-articles-11-13-731d3c0fbf30

#1yrago EU's Parliament Signs Off on Disastrous Internet Law: What Happens Next? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/eus-parliament-signs-disastrous-internet-law-what-happens-next

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/), Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/), Late Stage Capitalism (https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/).

Currently writing: I'm getting geared up to start work my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Data – the new oil, or potential for a toxic oil spill? https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/23/data-the-new-oil-or-potential-for-a-toxic-oil-spill/

Upcoming appearances:

Quarantine Book Club, April 1, 3PM Pacific https://www.eventbrite.com/e/quarantine-book-club-cory-doctorow-tickets-100931360416

Museums and the Web, April 2, 12PM-3PM Pacific https://mw20.museweb.net/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

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When live gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

[january3693]

Someone We Used to Know - Part 32

(This is a Marauders Era AU about what might have changed if Sirius was expelled after the Prank. Here’s the Master List if you’d like to start from the beginning or find a specific part)

((Posts and runs away to hide from people before they read the last paragraph.))

Despite the world ostensibly going to hell in a handbasket around her, things are going incredibly well for Lily.

At twenty-one, Lily Evans-Potter is the youngest Hogwarts professor in over a century. She’s incredibly proud of that, even though she suspects Dumbledore offered her the job because of her and James’s involvement with the Order rather than her superb qualifications.

Her qualifications are superb though. No one her age (or several years older) can hold a candle to her potioneering skills. No one except Severus, she supposes, but the thought of her former friend as a teacher makes Lily want to laugh and cringe at the same time. No matter his skills, he would make an absolutely terrible teacher.

Lily shakes her head. She doesn’t like thinking about Severus these days. She doesn’t like thinking that the last time they were in the same place at the same time she probably didn’t recognize him under a Death Eater’s mask and hood.

Yes, things are going incredibly well for Lily. That’s not to say things are going according to plan though.

No plan survives contact with the enemy though, or with James Potter.

Lily never expected to be a professor, a wife, or a mother at such a young age. She’s all those things though. She’s also a warrior, a freedom fighter, and, when needs must, a bit of a spy.

While she would never actively interrogate or spy on her students, Lily isn’t above listening in if students happen to be careless enough to talk in front of her.

At the moment, Lily is lingering over the work bench of a pair of fourth year Hufflepuffs, ostensibly helping them with the proper way to stake and slice a vampire pumpkin. Mostly though, she’s listening as one of the students at the table behind her shamelessly tells the other all about how her father, an editor at the Daily Prophet, does his best to keep articles about Muggle killings off the front page.

They’re Gryffindors, which makes the whole things sting just a little more. It’s good information though. Lily will have to write it all down after class and make sure to pass it on to Moody.

“Potter!” Lily startles as a voice calls, not from any of her students, but from inside the pocket of her own robes. Damn, she’d completely forgotten about the bloody mirror.

James is off doing surveillance for the Order, which means Lily has his mirror. Usually it isn’t a problem because Regulus rarely initiates contact. She definitely wasn’t expecting it today, not when James told her that Regulus has been brooding since learning that his brother really is alive and in London.

That was the cauldron calling the kettle black though.

Biting back a curse, Lily reminds her class to add their holly berries precisely a minute after their potions begin to boil, and ducks into the cauldron cupboard for privacy.

Glaring, she pulls the mirror out of her pocket. The face that greets her isn’t her own though, though his expression is the same. Regulus looks haggard, and quite possibly drunk. Before Lily can feel any sympathy for him, his lip curls in a sneer.

“Regulus,” Lily says flatly.

“Where’s your husband?” Regulus asks, forsaking even the pretense of politeness.

“Not immediately available,” Lily replies. She can be just as terse and rude if that’s the way he wants to behave.

Regulus rolls his eyes.

“I’m here,” Lily says. “Whatever you want to say to James, you can say to me.”

Regulus doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like her.

Fair enough.

Enemy of my enemy and all that, but Lily doesn’t like him either.

He takes a moment to reply, weighing whether he’s willing to lower himself to actually talk to someone of her blood status, Lily’s sure.

“Fine,” Regulus finally snaps. “Tell Potter I had tea at Malfoy Manor today. Bellatrix and Rodolphus were there.”

He hesitates. Lily wants to snap at him. She’s got a class full of teenagers who need her attention more than he does.

Regulus sighs and raises a hand to rub at his eyes. Merlin, he does look tired though.

It can’t be easy, she knows, living between the two sides of this war. Severus suffered through that same conflict for years. Only he chose the other side in the end.

Perhaps she should cut Regulus a little slack. It has to weigh on him, subverting and lying to his entire family.

Still, he’s a bit of an arse.

“Dedalus Diggle was one of yours, right?” Regulus says uncertainly.

Lily’s stomach drops.

It’s not unexpected. Diggle vanished almost three weeks ago. That’s almost a guarantee that someone is dead these days. Especially when Regulus mentioned his cousin Bellatrix right before asking about Diggle.

That woman is a monster.

Swallowing, Lily forces herself to nod. “He’s dead then?”

Regulus returns her nod. She hates how cold, how indifferent he seems. He didn’t know Diggle though. He never sat next to him and listened to his hackneyed but earnest jokes.

“You won’t find a body,” Regulus says. “Rodolphus kept his pocket watch though.”

Lily bites her lip to keep from think about all the other deaths the Order has suffered through—Frank and Alice, Fabian Prewett, Elphias Doge, Marlene and her family, Benjy Fenwick. So many dead, and so many of those deaths are recent. It’s been a very bad year in that respect.

“That’s not all,” Regulus says. “Potter told me…about Sirius.”

Lily nods again. She wonders how Regulus really feels knowing his brother is alive. She can’t read his expression like she can with James. Regulus is a blank wall of Pureblood haughtiness, the proverbial “stiff upper lip” personified. Yes, he’s brooding, but there has to be more to it than that.

“Is he…Is Potter in contact with him?”

“He can be.” James hasn’t talked to Sirius since their confrontation on Sunday, but she knows Remus gave him a copy of the hotel’s address and phone number. She also knows Remus has been to see Sirius again on his own.

Regulus raises a hand and bites at his thumbnail for a moment before realizing Lily can still see him and dropping his hand back down. The wall settling back into place. Lily has seen behind it though, if only for a moment.

He’s nervous.

“What is it, Regulus?” Lily asks. Her tone softens like it does with her shier, more anxious students, or with Harry.

Regulus shakes his head. “Nothing…not yet…just…just tell Potter to tell Sirius to watch his back. Bellatrix asked me questions about him and said she wants to talk to Walburga. None of that’s good.” Regulus’s thumb comes up to his mouth again, but he hides it beneath his other fingers, balling his hand into a fist. “She’s very zealous about keeping our family tree…properly pruned…”

He doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t have to. A shiver runs down Lily’s spine. She never met them, and they weren’t part of the Order, but Lily supposes she should add Andromeda and Ted Tonks to the tally of war deaths she keeps in her head.

(Part 33)

[atamascolily]

Lily reads Star Wars: Red Harvest, part four

In which sentient plants offer excellent advice, but it doesn't help, and the zombie mayhem at Sith Hogwarts begins.

(If you’re just joining me, check out the “Red Harvest” tag on my blog for previous posts)

At Sith Hogwarts, we learn that the Big Bad is even more devious than we previously assumed:

Her name’s Hestizo Trace,” the Whiphid said. “She’s the orchid’s keeper. It needs her to—”

“Survive,” Scabrous said. “I know. That’s how I knew you were bringing me the genuine article.” He reached up and touched her face, his gloved hand cold against her cheek, like leather wrapped around an iron rod. “It was the one piece of information that I withheld about the orchid.”

PRO-TIP: DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH THE SITH. THEY *ALWAYS* CHEAT.

The Sith Lord nodded. “My droid will pay you on the way out.”

Time for another double-cross? That droid ain’t a HK for nothing...

Anyway, horrible Sith experiments follow using the orchid. Other Sith students spy and scheme. The student Scabrous tortured to death rises from his cage and breaks free. The zombie's first act is to bite off part of Darth Scabrous's face. Good for him, though it doesn't take.

Metal struck metal with a flat, declarative clang that reminded him somehow of the sound of training blades clashing at the top of the temple. It was a noise that said: Things have been put into motion, and whatever happens next, there will be no going back.

#accurate

More Sith students die, but it's hard to care because they're such terrible people. (Though we also learn that some of them were conscripted into the Academy, so they didn't necessarily start off as terrible people, but they sure are now!) I'm skimming a lot because it's all incredibly violent.

Zo escapes in the chaos. Darth Scabrous does some awful Sith alchemy to keep from turning into more of a monster than he already is. Zo eavesdrop on the Sith masters explaining to the students that it's just another Tuesday:

Zo realized as she listened that she could hear a slight but unmistakable tremor of concern in the Master’s tone. He was doing everything he could to cover it up, and perhaps the students were fooled, but to her mind he might as well have been wearing a placard: I’M DOING MY BEST TO SPIN A SITUATION THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO ABILITY TO COMPREHEND, LET ALONE CONTROL, AND—

The orchid talks to Zo and warns her of trouble, but it doesn't help. The bounty hunter shows up again and grabs her before the infected students do. Cliffhanger!

Meanwhile, we meet a Sith nerd who just wants to translate secret Sith scrolls for Ultimate Power--who is also the only female student we've seen thus far. There's a sentient tree librarian in a crumbling library and I'm here for it.

“Something unsettling you, Kindra?” His voice was thick and raspy. “Some uncertainty of the mind, yes?”

“No.”

The librarian didn’t respond, just continued to slither his branches downward until the great bulk of his trunk dangled upside down in front of her, the warty, centuries-old eyes narrowing with myopic consideration. Dail’Liss had been the curator of the library for as long as anyone could remember, perhaps going back a thousand years or more. Although his elaborate root system was permanently embedded somewhere deep in the foundation, a seemingly endless network of branches and limbs allowed him to slide unimpeded through its walls and hollows. Ironically, it was this constant writhing and squirming that undermined the infrastructure of the building itself. Rumor was that it would only be a matter of time before the Neti brought the library down on top of him, sealing himself forever amid his own precious holdings—a fitting enough end, when Kindra thought about it.

“Look.” Kindra shook her head, increasingly irritated by the librarian’s evasiveness. “Either you have answers for me or you don’t. Either way I’m not going to stay in here and hide.”

“Best course of action, I would say.”

Tree!Librarian is right. She's not going to survive is, she? But I'm still kinda rooting for her, if only because everyone else is so awful in comparison. We haven't seen Kindra doing anything evil yet, but I'm sure she has, if only because she's still alive in this place and kindness is anathema to baby Sith.

The Tree!Librarian also doesn't seem evil... yet? How did he get here? What's his deal and why? I am so curious and this is all the backstory I'm getting, which is to say, almost nothing. Sigh.

One of the students gets bitten. His arm starts rotting.  This Is Fine.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Meaning what?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling.” ...

“About what?”

“I don’t know—this night, everything. You feel it?”

“Nope.” He shook his head, feigning an indifference that he didn’t even remotely feel. “Just another day in paradise, as far as I’m concerned.”

LOL, irony.

More zombies. More attacks on Sith students. Chapter Twenty is called "Lockdown" and I just can't even. Most of the Sith students are literally locked in the cafeteria with their ex-colleagues, and then the bloodbath starts. They're using the Dark Side to fight the zombies. It doesn't go well.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this whole premise is fucking genius, because again, everyone at a Sith Academy is a horrible person doing horrible things in their horrible gothic nightmare castle, so it's hard to feel bad when they are horribly murdered by horrible Sith zombie alchemy monsters. It just feels like Laser-Guided Karma.

Shit just got real because Not!Qui-Gon arrives at the Sith Academy. The mechanic who greeted the bounty hunters is now missing, presumed dead It's tough to be psychometrist when everything you touch generates visions of violent death.

Meanwhile, a handful of surviving Sith students team up, kinda:

Ra’at held Maggs and Hartwig in the same regard that he did the rest of his classmates, with a kind of suspicious indifference. Their motives were purely selfish, as were his; he had no intention of sharing information that didn’t somehow improve his own situation. At this point they all knew something had gone very wrong, contaminating the academy or the entire planet; for the moment they were allies of opportunity.

These Sith can't even work together long enough to survive the crisis. No wonder the Jedi eventually kicked the Siths’ collective asses through the Power of Friendship.

Here, have some conspiracy theories along with your nightmare fuel:

“We all feel something kind of bad in the air, right? Like maybe some kind of a … disease. But who’s to say it’s not just one of Scabrous’s drills?”

Kindra’s eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”

“For all we know he started this himself.”

“Why?”

“Maybe it is a training exercise,” Maggs put in. “Or maybe he’s culling the weak students. It’s happened before. Remember the unakki eye spiders?”

“This is worse,” Kindra said.

“Don’t be so sure,” Hartwig said. “Eleven students went blind. Two of them died. Remember Soid Einray?”

“Soid Einray was a defective already.”

“Maybe, but he still hung himself afterward. And then we found out that Scabrous had reactivated the fertilized spider eggs from the pathogen bank as a nerve-reflexivity drill.” Hartwig refused to lower his stare. “I still wake up with blood in my eyes sometimes.”

Just another day at Sith Hogwarts, am I right? What a terrible place.

Ra’at began concentrating solely on himself and his own survival, forgetting all the others. The Masters at the academy had trained them to fight as a unit when necessary, but a Sith warrior’s true strength lay in his or her own personal will to power. When you could trust no one, fighting alone was axiomatic, a natural state.

Flattening himself to the wall, he felt the Force’s dark side coursing through him, a crackling electric chill that rendered fear and apprehension obsolete, and welcomed it. In that moment, he felt only a ready vigilance, weightless and unrelenting. Since arriving here on Odacer-Faustin, it was the closest to happiness that he dared let himself experience. Yet in so many ways it was superior to any happiness he’d ever encountered. It made traditional happiness look anemic by comparison.

The POV Sith students watch the cafeteria zombie attack on the security cameras, and realize what they're up against. Meanwhile, Zo is also realizing how much trouble she's in, and the orchid is having a breakdown:

They can’t be killed, a voice whispered from the back of her mind, they’re already dead, look at them. At first she thought she was hearing her own thoughts, and then she realized it was the Murakami orchid, roiling in its own guilt and misery, yammering out words that she alone could hear. Dead but alive, Hestizo, dead but alive, I did this to them, it was my fault, when Scabrous put me into that horrible vat, and now I’m inside them—

Poor orchid. I really like that it isn't evil and is just as horrified as Zo about all this. I’m still not sure how that’s possible, or what actually happened, but that’s okay, because none of the character do, either!

Zo is about to be eaten by the zombies, but then--

I’ve got an idea, she told the orchid. Grow.

What?

You’re in them now, she said, aren’t you? You’re a part of them. You said so yourself.

The orchid does, and the zombies explode through Plant Power.

She concentrated harder—she could actually see the flora growing inside the things now, driving it harder, farther, faster from within, even as the orchid began crying out, begging her to stop, telling her that this hurt, it couldn’t do it anymore—

A lot of screaming follows. But it does work. Once. And then the orchid passes out and... becomes evil? Oh, no, I hope not. Turns out the bounty hunter is still alive, and she's working with him now to survive, like you do. I bet he’s regretting his life choices right now, too.

At that moment, Scabrous had assumed that what he’d seen was a kind of exaggerated nervous twitch, a biochemical accident that the drug and the orchid had triggered inside Nickter’s body. But now—

I wasn’t kidding when I said nobody knows what’s going on; not even the Big Bad has any idea of the forces (ha!) he’s unleashed. He determines that Zo is fleeing for the library, and prepares to trap her there. Will not!Qui-gon get there in time?

Spoiler: not quite.

[saiilorstars]

The Girl in the Forest

Chapter 6: The Time of the Broken

// Story Masterlist //

Pairings: Klaus Mikaelson x Original Female Character

Summary: One month after Rebekah has left the Quarter, Maleny struggles to find the solution to her curse. Klaus’ help has dwindled since their fallout and so Maleny has had to turn to other people for help. Except Klaus heavily dislikes such ‘people’ she’s found.

Pronunciation of OC’s name: Ma-leh-nee

No real warnings for now!

Requested tag: @queenmj10

~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~

One Month Later

Elijah was more than displeased to find the culprit of his family's separation lounging around in his brother's room, "I trust you can find your clothing and more importantly the door," he held Genevieve's red heels to her.

Genevieve rolled her eyes and stood up, about to take her heels when she noticed something on them, "Those weren't chipped when I got here," she frowned as she noticed one of the heels harmed.

"Maleny may have come across them first - they fell," was all Elijah had to say on that matter. Genevieve glared and snatched her shoes, walking out the room muttering words under her breath, "You do recall that woman tortured our sister?" Elijah turned to Klaus with an irritated look.

"She also revealed the truth about our sister's treachery," Klaus shrugged casually.

"And as a consequence, Rebekah is gone forever. Also, she's the reason you haven't lived up to your word to Maleny. Should I remind you she has some kind of curse placed on her that's somehow interrelated with you?"

"Nowadays, I seem to be the source of several womens' problem, don't you think?" Klaus raised an eyebrow and turned to a painting he'd been working on.

"Let me point out that this precise woman is not just any woman for you," Elijah grew more agitated with his brother's indifference over something that clearly intrigued him, "She's been living here for a month and you have not directed even a word to her. Now I don't know what has happened between you two but you told her you'd help her and that is a promise I intend to see through."

"Perhaps Maleny has lost interest in the issue," Klaus nearly yelled as he walked up to curtains of the balcony. He opened the doors and looked back at Elijah, "You see, anyone who's cursed would be going out of their mind trying to figure out what's happening but do you know what Maleny's been up to?" Elijah, confused, followed the motion to the balcony. Klaus stepped out and set his hands on the rails as he looked down to the streets, "You see, at this precise time, everyday, a certain someone gets a little visit..."

Elijah followed Klaus's gaze to the end of the street where Maleny had just turned up in, noticing her grim face. She had just come from Cami's in another vain attempt to get her to talk to her again. Needless to say, she was not in a good mood anymore. Cami wanted nothing to do Maleny and was keeping true to her word in that she wanted Maleny out of her life. Maleny wouldn't give up though, especially when Kieran was slowly deteriorating from the hex on him. Adoptive Uncle or not, he was still family and Maleny wouldn't rest until she saw positive results of his condition. To say, she was even beginning to practice a bit of magic on her own in an attempt to come up with a reversal spell. She'd have more results if Davina would help her, but the girl was having trouble practicing herself.

"Rose for a pretty lady?" Maleny was stopped midway the street by a young man with dark brown hair and brown eyes.

Maleny wasn't surprised by the man, instead she just smiled as he pulled out a dead rose from his back, watching him bring it back to life with his powers. He was part of the witch coven of the city and for every day in the past month he'd been stopping her just to give her a flower. Maleny thought it was thoughtful of him, despite it never leading to anything else except for a couple words here and there.

"Thank you, Riley," Maleny took the rose with a soft smile.

"And once again I change that sad face into a wonderful smile," Riley put a finger under Maleny's chin and lifted her head to him.

"Just like always," Maleny chuckled and blushed.

Up above in the compound, Klaus glared at the pair and headed back into the room. Elijah shook his head and went inside as well, "Right, so you're doing this out of spite and jealousy. Mature, brother."

"I do not act out of spite and jealousy!" Klaus snapped, "If she doesn't care for a curse that affects her then why should I?"

Elijah rubbed a circle on his temple as he became more frustrated, "She is down there because of you. You are the one to fix that as well as the city's problems. You do recall that this city is used to having a king. You wanted this throne. Now, you must accept the responsibility that accompanies that."

Klaus had taken a paintbrush and started painting on the unfinished canvas, "Apologies, but I'm rather ensconced in other pursuits."

Elijah had enough and snatched the paintbrush, "If you can so easily neglect your home, I wonder what will become of your daughter. Have you forgotten what it was like to live beneath the threat of violence? We must work together, Niklaus. Let's make this city whole again."

Klaus tool back his paintbrush, "Perhaps it is too broken to mend."

"So that's it. You renounce anything to do with this city, and more importantly Maleny?"

The simple mention of her name made the anger (and pain he wished to forget) flourish inside him. Of course he wanted to help her, that hadn't changed. But his mind could not forget her words from last month. The Maleny he used to know, back in the forest, would have never said anything like that. She saw him for he was and never displayed an ounce of terror of him. Why should he swallow down his feelings for someone who apparently had plenty of time to chat with strange men on the streets?

Elijah was tired of the silence and the ongoing argument that had repeated itself over the month. He gave up for the day, "If you do not do anything then I will," he warned, "For the city and Maleny."

~ 0 ~

Maleny swayed her way inside the compound's courtyard with her rose in hand, nearly bumping into Elijah if he hadn't put his hands on her shoulders to stop her from walking, "Sorry," she sheepishly smiled.

"Secret admirer?" he eyed the rose with a small smile.

"Not so secret," Maleny walked around him while gently twisting the rose in her hands, "I'm sure you and Klaus have seen him...seeing as Klaus watches it happen every day," she turned to Elijah with a frown.

"So you notice him? And yet you continue to let it happen?"

"Oh," Maleny scoffed, "so because he has a tantrum I'm supposed to succumb to his jealous needs?"

"Mal, you do realize that in letting this happen you are showcasing your intentions to irritate my brother?"

Maleny, of course, knew that, and Elijah could see he'd been right, "I don't know what you mean," she crossed her arms and avoided his gaze.

"You cannot allow this petty argument between you two get in the way of solving your curse," Elijah warned, "Every day you waste ignoring each other is another day the culprit runs free."

"I know that," Maleny sighed, slowly returning her gaze to him, "But it's not easy, okay? The one person who promised to help me now hates me."

"He does not hate you, Maleny," Elijah quickly corrected her, able to see how that thought hurt her, "Far from it, actually."

"I would've left weeks ago if it wasn't for this curse," Maleny admitted as she took a seat at a table nearby, "Ever since Davina told me about this thing, I've wanted nothing more than to run away from here...but that would get me no where."

While Davina didn't know what the curse on Maleny was exactly, she was able to inform Maleny of certain information she'd gathered on the other side. The curse was an old type of spell placed on Maleny, could be broken of course...it's just they didn't know how. She'd officially learned that, yes, she had been body jumping all throughout the centuries, always finding Klaus someway. Each time she body jumped, the memories of the previous body were terminated. There was still no clue as to who or what placed the curse on Maleny.

"And what about Davina," Elijah brought Maleny out of her thoughts as he neared the table, "Has she...?"

Maleny knew he meant to ask if the girl had mastered her powers again and sighed heavily with a shake of her head, "No. I went to visit her this morning and she's still the same. She's afraid of what the ancestors told her," Maleny leaned back on her chair, "Without a witch, I can't do much and she's the only one I trust with this."

"Listen, my brother is being ridiculous with all this solidarity-"

Maleny scoffed again, "I'm sorry but having that psycho witch lounging around this place in her undergarments all day doesn't sound like solidarity to me," she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, "Maybe instead of scolding me about my intentions, you should go have a chat with your brother. He does this on purpose to get back at me for what I said the day I took care of him."

"What exactly did happen, Mal?" Elijah curiously asked. He went ahead and took a seat beside her, wishing there was something he could do to at least reunite her and his brother. That would be one less problem he had to deal with in the midst of a near war between factions in the city - not to mention find a way to bring back Hayley.

Maleny shamefully looked at the man, "I said something I shouldn't have...and I hurt his feelings. Though he probably won't accept that I hurt his feelings."

"What...did you say?"

Maleny sighed, "Well, among other things, I said he was almost like his father and what really drove things home was the fact that I told him he scared me down to the bone."

"Oh, Maleny," and now Elijah understood perfectly the indifference he showed towards Maleny. Klaus was hurt, but he would never admit that to anyone..so he acted as if it didn't bother him. He ignored Maleny because it was easier to deal with her words in that way. Even acquiring Genevieve was part of a way to keep Maleny away from him.

"I know," Maleny hung her head in full shame, accepting the problem had been nearly all her fault, "I did a bad thing and even if I wanted to go apologize to him now he wouldn't listen to me. He's too angry, hurt."

"And so you believe taunting him with that man on the street is a better option?" on that, Elijah had to scold her. Maleny was doing no better than Klaus.

"Well...I wasn't going to do anything with Riley just to get back at Klaus. In the beginning, yeah, I used Riley but now he's kind of a friend. I like him and I like his little gifts. For a moment, it makes me forget that I'm cursed and that my only family doesn't want to speak to me."

"Maleny you are part of this family too," Elijah tried to say but Maleny refused to believe it.

"No, I'm not. Klaus is your family. Rebekah is your family. Finn and Kol are your family. I'm sure Hayley's on that list too. Even Marcel is more family than I am."

"Absolutely not," it was Elijah's turn to refuse a statement, "You are most certainly above that man. We've known each other since we were kids. Are you really going to sit there and tell me you are not part of this family? I dare you to."

Maleny set loose a smile and flushed, "I would like to believe that. It would be kind of nice to have a family again. I remember my mother now, Abigail, and with her I can remember those small happy moments of family I once had."

She'd managed to remember her mother, Abigail, who'd been a powerful witch back in her day along with Esther Mikaelson. Maleny remembered all the love and care she received from her mother, all the lessons she'd managed to get as a child. She loved her mother so much and she'd had the misfortune of losing her. She'd been left with the violent father, Ivan, to 'look after her'. The man was so cruel and violent to the child of merely seven years old. Her struck of luck was Esther and her family, the only ones who Ivan actually saw as 'friends', specifically Mikael. While the two men went out hunting with the others, Esther would look after Maleny and take advantage to teach the girl the lessons her mother could no longer do. And Maleny knew that as the years had gone by, her life wasn't as bad with her 'sister', Rebekah, her 'brother' Elijah as well as the younger Kol and Henrik and the older Fin, and the one Mikaelson she couldn't fathom as a 'sibling'. She recalled the fact she'd harbored feelings for Klaus and had to suppress them for fear of what her father, and even Esther herself, would think of it. She was treated like part of the family and loving one of them beyond that was taking advantage of the hospitality. But that was all before she'd actually came across Klaus in a simple event that led to something beyond the relation of 'family'. After that, Maleny didn't call her life a horrible one, not when she had the love of her life beside her and was actually loved back. Their moments had been incredible and now...now it was the opposite.

Time really could break things apart.

~ 0 ~

Later that day would find Maleny attempting to talk to Cami all over again, this time in the church where Kieran had gone up to the attic for some reason. For the priest, his 'nieces' were all happy and good, no argument whatsoever occurring...but as soon as he would leave...

"Cami, you need help! Kieran needs help!" Maleny followed the blonde for the staircase leading up to the attic.

"You know what I need," Cami stopped and turned around, making Maleny bump into her in the process, "I need you to get the hell out of here and stop shouting before Uncle Kieran hears us."

"Tough, because every time you tell me to leave I will come right back until you allow me to help!"

"Help with what? You've got no powers yourself," Cami snapped, "You're as human as I am right now, we don't have anything!"

"I refuse to believe that," Maleny went around the blonde and headed up the remaining stairs, "Uncle Kieran?" she called and stopped at the doorway of the attic when she saw Kieran shackling his ankles to the floor, "What are you doing?" she ran inside the room.

"Stop!" Kieran held his hands out to stop Maleny.

"Is that really necessary?" Cami was horrified to see him with the shackles.

"It's the sickness, it's- it's overtaking my inclination to forgive," Kieran shook his head, "Replacing it with one thought that I could barely contain at the summit: "Kill every last one of them."

"Hey, we'll figure this out," Maleny assured, remaining by him, "Cami and I...we'll work it out."

"I tried to figure it out with Sean, but I was focused too much on that instead of trying to stop him, and I'm not- I'm not gonna let that happen to me," Kieran sighed and looked at Cami, "You're the immediate replacement, they're going to ask you to take my place at the table. Don't. Just leave. Just start over. Maleny," he pleaded her, "please go back to England, take Cami with you. Both of you, just get out of this city."

Maleny looked back at Cami, and for the first time in a month, they both nodded in agreement, "We're not going anywhere as long as there's still a chance."

"How many times do I have to tell you I can't be fixed?" Kieran had to control himself not to shout at them.

"And how many times do I have to tell you we will not stop trying?" Cami snapped.

"That is just stubbornness, like- like when you were a little girl. You always had to be right. You- you- you never listened. Just that thick head of yours," Kieran started blinking rapidly, Maleny knowing it was the hex taking over again, "I prayed for you. And I got no answer. There is only blackness. There is only death. There's mine, and yours," as he moved to reach for Cami and possibly hurt her, Maleny jumped in the way and pushed Cami away from them.

"No!" Maleny stumbled back and fell as well, "Uncle Kieran, snap out of it!" she pleaded but the man grabbed her ankle and pulled her towards him. She screeched when her arm rubbed against the floor, "Cami!" the blonde managed to stand with a lamp nearby and thrashed it over her uncle's head and knocked him out for the moment. Maleny breathed heavily and crawled away from him and shut her eyes as she felt the stinging pain on her arm, "Thank you."

Cami slowly bent down beside Maleny, making sure she was alright (in what could fit anyways) then helped her stand, "I'm sorry," was all she could say for this awful moment, "He's never...this is the first time he does something like this."

"The hex is getting worse," Maleny sighed and turned to her, "I am not asking you to forgive me, but just let me try and help with this alright? Our moments as cousins and family may have been a lie but my love for this family was not," she assured, "It's been a month, Cami, and I don't know about you but this has been the crappiest of months for me..."

"Yeah, it's been no picnic for me either," Cami had to agree on that. Her entire month had been focused solely on Kieran and a way to stop the hex and help him in the meantime. It was a pretty rough thing to do on your own and even she could admit that having Maleny help, despite her being nearly human herself, could really be some kind of help.

"I will get someone to help us, it's just...Davina, she's the one I trust and she's having trouble with her powers right now," Maleny ran a hand through her hair, "Maybe I could find someone else..." she started to think of Riley, apart from Davina he could maybe be willing to help in this.

~ 0~

Cami had, reluctantly, brought Maleny back to her home where she could possibly tend to the wound on Maleny's arm. However, Maleny wouldn't let her do anything as she was busy trying to relay possible options for Kieran involving the use of witches.

"Do you really think that guy could help us?" Cami asked while she returned the first-aid kit to its place.

"I've sort of talked to him throughout this entire month, I suppose he could at least try..." Maleny trailed off as she saw an intriguing dream catcher propped in one of the shelves by Cami's bed. She glared and stalked up to it, snatching it off the shelf, knowing exactly who was behind it.

"What were you saying?" Cami returned, clueless about the dream-catcher.

"Riley," Maleny turned to her immediately, keeping the dream-catcher behind her back, "I think he could help us. I'll talk to him later if you want."

Cami nodded, "Yeah, that...that would be good."

Maleny nodded and fakely smiled. She knew if she told Cami about the dream-catcher it could spark another argument and that was the last thing Maleny needed right now. For the first time in a month, her best friend was talking to her again! She wouldn't let some psychotic witch get in the way of that. Oh, but that wouldn't stop her from...

~ 0 ~

"How'd the whole treaty thing go?" Maleny found Elijah heading towards Klaus's room, wearing a grim expression on his face. She'd remembered something about a treaty being made between the representatives of the factions in the city. She sincerely wished everything would work out fine, but apparently she had been wrong.

"Not as well as I'd hoped," Elijah sighed, "Any luck with your uncle? And Cami?"

"Em...sort of," Maleny considered it how to put 'my uncle attacked me and tried killing me' into words that wouldn't make it sound as bad as it really had been, "Well, uncle Kieran is getting a bit worse. But I did manage to get some words out of Cami. We're going to work together and help Kieran, that's a start..."

However, Elijah was not as easy to trick, "Are you sure everything is okay? You seem a bit..."

"Irritated? Upset? Annoyed? Yeah, I am," Maleny crossed her arms, "I was hoping to bump into a certain person and I figured what way than by looking into the room of the man who keeps calling her in," she wanted to confront Genevieve on her little gimmick with the dream catcher.

"Well..." Elijah strolled into the room where Klaus was busy painting in, "...it seems we both have some words for you today, brother."

"I don't," Maleny clarified, "I only came to check if there was a redhead around, but I guess not," she shrugged and headed for the doors.

"Come back," Elijah called in his authoritative tone, actually making Maleny halt by the doorway. She glanced back and saw him motioning her to return. He seemed to have adopted her as a little sister as well because he treated her exactly how he would with the rest of her siblings.

"Oh let her go, she probably has to go and meet up with the rose-giver," Klaus turned around, motioning for her to keep going, apparently trying to seem indifferent to the matter, "Isn't that right?" he asked Maleny.

"Spot on," Maleny gave a thumbs-up, sourly smiling, "We even have a date. But don't worry, I'll be back way after your psycho witch makes her appearance as usual. Perfect arrangement, don't you think?"

"Enough," Elijah raised his voice and looked between the two, "There are enough problems in the city as it is, the last thing I need is for some children to bicker and banter."

"Well it's not our fault that this community has a history of mutual loathing," Klaus countered, still eyeing Maleny with narrowed eyes. She was a bit sinister and that quality he knew the original Maleny did not have.

"Well you know what, at least Elijah is trying to do something with this city," Maleny finally walked back to them, her hands frantically moving to show her irritation, "Meanwhile the supposed king lounges around with a heavily annoying 'indifference'. Last time I heard you wanted this city like nothing else, so why not do something to keep it going, hm?"

"I believe no one asked for your opinion, love. Go on," Klaus motioned once more for her to leave the room, "I'm sure your rose-giver is waiting for you somewhere."

"Screw you," Maleny declared in a low mutter before turning and leaving the room.

"One more wedge," Elijah observed with disappointment, "Would you like to keep that up?" he turned to Klaus.

"Why not instead of battering me about something irrelevant you go after her?"

"Incredible," Elijah stepped back with genuine awe, "Where is the man that would die for Maleny Rowan? The one who would do anything just to keep that woman smiling?"

"That died the moment she disappeared," Klaus turned back to the painting he was working on, "That is not Maleny, not the one I knew."

"Why? Because she is not exactly the same as the girl in the forest you once knew?" Elijah shook his head, "You do realize that after centuries of being alive, jumping body to body, she will never be the same?"

Klaus continued working on the canvas in front of him, trying to push any and all thoughts about Maleny. He'd been trying for a month now and while it wasn't quite working, he didn't quit. Distractions were one of his specialty, "Elijah I know you didn't come to question me about some past love, did you?" he glanced back, "I heard about your treaty efforts. A suggestion, if I may?" Elijah nodded, " If you want peace, you must begin with the werewolves. A hundred years ago, they had a run at ruling this city. As of late, all they've had is time to watch their enemies tear down that legacy."

"All the more reason why their enemies are reluctant to bring them to the table," Elijah sighed.

"Take a page from Bienville, brother. If the table's the obstacle, remove it," Klaus shrugged, thinking of the matter as something casual, "Do you recall in 1720, the Governor's desperation to secure our help to build the cities first levees? We sat with him, and refused his offer, and so, he plied us with wine, with corseted women, and with raucous camaraderie until he had his yes."

Elijah began to consider the idea his brother was pitching, knowing where it would lead, and frankly...he liked it, "Are you suggesting that I throw a party?"

The two brothers smirked.

~ 0 ~

Music blared over the compound as guests from every faction of the city attended the party the Elijah was holding in hopes of getting all the factions to agree with the treaty. And while the party was to serve as a spark for peace and equality...Maleny had unfinished business to do. If anything bad happened, she would apologize to Elijah later on - until he was irritated enough to accept to it.

Genevieve had found Klaus by the balcony overlooking the entire party, "Looking for the cursed one?" she rolled her eyes.

"Actually, she is looking for you," Maleny came up towards them, her hands behind her back, "Klaus, I'd be careful the next time you have this woman in your room. She has a nasty habit of spying on people," she pulled out the dream-catcher from her back, Genevieve shifting uncomfortably upon being caught.

"She put this in your room?" Klaus became instantaneously crossed, giving the redhead a menacing look for her actions. Just because he was upset with Maleny did not mean anyone could go and try and harm her. They had to go through him first.

"No, it was in Cami's house," Maleny stepped up to Genevieve, remaining in an eerie calm attitude,"I don't care if you don't like me but you stay away from my cousin. Heed my warning, Gen," she smirked at the irritation the redhead had etched on her face, "I may be like a human right now but I've lived for a very long time, seen all kinds of deaths and how they were committed, don't think I wouldn't do something to protect the only family I have left," Maleny snapped the dream-catcher in two, Genevieve flinching as some of the pieces hit her. As angry as she was, she managed to contain her calmness and moved for the staircase.

"Maleny!" Klaus called without even knowing what he'd say if she actually stopped.

Maleny turned around, never letting him speak again, "It's alright, I gave my warning, I'm done now. This is a good night, a good party, and I don't intend of wasting this dress," she picked up the sides of her bright, red dress, "on scum, not when I have a date," she smirked and continued on. That had to sting a little, and honestly after an entire month of enduring Genevieve's presence, she hoped it did sting.

~ 0 ~

Later on in the night would find Klaus and Elijah overlooking the party from the balcony as more guests continued to come in. Everything so far had been going fine, and surprisingly peaceful. Hopefully, it would stay like that.

"I'm impressed, brother," Elijah had to acknowledge the easy-flowing night so far.

"Yes," Klaus agreed, though he wasn't that focused on the conversation.

"Now if I can just keep them from tearing one another to shreds."

"Well, then for your sake, here's to a spectacularly boring evening," Klaus said distractedly as he looked through the crowds of people.

Elijah studied his younger brother for a minute before looking out into the crowd, "Over there," he pointed to entrance, slightly to their right side.

Klaus rolled his eyes yet still looked to where Elijah's finger pointed, his fists clenching tightly on the rail, "You invited him?" Klaus glared down to where Maleny stood - Riley was right beside her.

"Maleny asked if it was alright, of course I agreed," Elijah said calmly, eyeing the very obvious jealousy that flourished inside his brother.

"We don't even know him, she doesn't know him-"

"He's part of your little redhead's coven now," Elijah turned to him, "Why not ask her for some information?"

"Why didn't you ask that from Maleny?"

"Because she needs help for Kieran, do you remember? The hexed priest?" Elijah sighed at the silence Klaus gave, "You might be indifferent to everything that's going on, but the reality is Maleny needs help and she has no one anymore. Unlike you, I don't intend to change the relation I had with her, I will help her."

Klaus turned for the sight of the party, watching (and listening) Maleny and her 'friend' converse with drinks in hand.

"You know, I'm glad you came," Maleny set down her glass on the table and smiled, "I don't know any of these people around here," she looked out to the other guests.

Riley chuckled as he set down his own drink, "Really?" he sounded doubtful, "Not one guest?"

"Well, let's see," Maleny started to count on her fingers, "I hate nearly every witch who's not Davina," Riley coughed and Maleny laughed, "and a certain brunette in front of me," she winked, "And then there's a werewolf pack where I only know one of them, then there's the humans where I'm sort of up patching things up with my cousin, Cami, and helping my hexed uncle, and as for vampires...well..." she thought about that one for a moment more, "I lost my vampire 'sister'," she put air-quotations with her fingers, "Nearly all don't like me nor trust me, there's only really one who does like me at the current moment," she picked up her drink again with a sigh, "Time breaks everything apart, you know..."

Riley knew there was more to her words than she was letting on, and with the death look he was receiving from a certain hybrid up on the second level, he could only guess what exactly Maleny was talking about, "No, no," he snapped his fingers in front of Maleny's face and got her attention back, "This is a party, meaning..." he eyed her until she decided to speak.

"...meaning," she continued and picked up her glass, "It's dancing, drinking, and fun time."

"There we go!" Riley laughed and clinked glasses with her, both drinking down the entire contents inside.

"I am so gonna have a hangover for this," Maleny shook her head, "But before I do, I have something to ask you...it's about my uncle."

"How's he doing?" Riley was informed of the current hex that was overtaking the priest slowly.

"Honestly, not that good," Maleny sighed, "He's losing it, to cut straight to the point, his mind is deteriorating and I...I don't know what to do," she stepped closer to him, "He tried to kill my cousin today, and I was able to stop him...but what if I'm not there when he has another fit? Cami can get hurt and I can't lose her. I know you said there's nothing to do but do you think, for the moment, you can do some type of boundary spell for me?" she looked at her hands with a frown, "I still can't conjure up a decent amount of power within me...I'm totally useless right now so I thought maybe you could-"

Riley had placed a finger on her red-stained lips, "We can go tonight if you'd like," he took his finger off and took her hands into his.

"Really? You'll help?" Maleny seemed genuinely surprised he agreed so quickly.

"Of course, I care about you, Maleny," he smiled softly, "Why's that such a shock to you?"

"Well, not a lot of people love me nowadays..." Maleny thought that to be an understatement. Her mother was gone, her vampire sister was gone, her mentor, her...own love, they were all gone.

"I would beg to differ," Elijah came by with a glass in hand, giving Maleny a sharp look for her statement.

Maleny mellowed under his gaze and sheepishly smiled, "Alright, so maybe I do have someone out there still," she acknowledged him, "Riley, this is, um-"

"I'm her brother," Elijah cut in and held a hand to Riley, instantly garnering a stunned look from Maleny for his chosen introduction, "Elijah Mikaelson."

"Riley Dawson," Riley shook Elijah's hand.

"Riley's agreed to help me with my uncle at the moment," Maleny explained to Elijah, all the meantime looking at Riley, "You know, since I can't use magic right now."

"I keep telling her it's just practice she needs," Riley smiled at her, "In fact, I can teach you if you'd like."

"I think that would be a good idea," Maleny nodded, glancing at her young friend Davina who was with her witch 'friends' across the room, "Davina's still in need of some more practice herself. Perhaps with less pressure from me she'll get it quicker."

"Great, you can come over first thing tomorrow if you'd like," Riley offered.

"Um, Maleny, can I have a word?" Elijah suddenly questioned, startling the two with a shift in his tone.

"Go ahead," Riley motioned as he picked up a new drink from a passing servant, "I gotta go find a friend," he waved and walked off.

"What was that?" Maleny dreaded to ask Elijah once Riley was gone. She had begun recognizing the faces he made when he disapproved of something.

"Maleny, I would appreciate if you didn't cross to the witch's territory at the moment," Elijah knew he would get a good bickering out of this one but he had to tell her. He preferred her angry than dead.

"Why not?" Maleny frowned, "I do it all the time to visit Davina."

"And we both know it's not easy, right?" Elijah took the drink Maleny held and set it on the table, "The witches have mixed feelings about you and I'd rather you didn't test them...at least not until the treaty is set."

Maleny shook her head, refusing to such an agreement, "No, no, I have to help my uncle. Time is running out-"

"But it's dangerous for you," Elijah reminded, "and just because you survived one death attempt does not mean you are invincible."

"I am well aware of that fact," Maleny assured, "but I cannot just sit around and watch my uncle deteriorate simply because some ancestors don't like me."

"A compromise, then?" Elijah offered, "You don't cross to the witch's territory and Riley and Davina can come to the compound as they wish."

Maleny considered the deal with a sway of her head, "I don't know...what about Klaus? He already doesn't like Riley and I could really do without bloodshed. He tends to kill people and I don't want his next rage victim to be my friend."

"I promise you I will take care of Niklaus but I need to make sure you are safe," Elijah promised her urgently, "Now, I have already seen to it that Hayley is alright but I also would like to take care of you. Promise you won't go into the witches' territory and they can come here to help you."

Maleny saw the urgency in his eyes and tone and seeing as he had been very good to her over the month she saw the need to repay him by agreeing to his one request, "Alright, fine. But you have to make sure that Klaus doesn't interfere with my business concerning Riley...and even Davina."

"If it's to help you he won't do anything," Elijah said without any doubt. As angry as Klaus displayed to be Elijah knew he wouldn't ever get in the way of Maleny's safety.

"I wouldn't be so sure, I know his temper, and I know when he severely dislikes people," Maleny sighed.

"If you know all that that, I'm sure you also know how much he cared for you and all the things he used to do for you, therefore rest assure he won't jeopardize anything that will help you."

"You seem to have missed a key term, 'cared', as in past tense. A lot of time has passed, now. It's not the same anymore."

Elijah tilted his head and stared at her for a minute, "Do you honestly believe that? Has time changed what you feel for my brother?"

Maleny shifted on her feet and glanced around the room to avoid the sharp stare she received from him, by chance happening to find Klaus 'mingling' with...Genevieve. After a moment, she shook her head and looked back to Elijah, "Look, can you just take me out for a dance, please?" she said instead of a proper answer. She knew distractions well - she'd learned from one of the best.

"Maleny," she heard the scolding tinge in his tone.

"I want a dance with Riley but I don't know how and I don't want to embarrass myself, please?" Maleny clapped her hands together.

"And your fine if you embarrass yourself in front of me?" Elijah resigned to not get the answer he wanted from her. Patience was key and he was pretty good at it. Besides, he'd already gotten what he wanted from her: she would be safe.

"Well you're family," Maleny shrugged, "like you said. It doesn't matter. Plus, if you laugh, I'll kill you," Elijah laughed, "And then when you come back...I'll kill you again."

"And there's my brother's many-centuries of influence," Elijah took her hand and led her for the dance floor.

However, on their way, a tall woman with medium, dark hair and dark eyes cut in front of them, "I must say this is a marvelous party," she remarked as her eyes scanned the area.

"And you are...?" Maleny raised an eyebrow, glancing up at Elijah since the woman had been specifically speaking to him.

"Francesca Correa," the woman held her hand for Maleny, a clear, fake smile on her face.

"Maleny Woods," Maleny shook the hand proposed to her, "Aren't you the owner of that one casino?"

"That's it," Francesca nodded, "And soon to be representative of the human faction," she eyed Elijah afterwards.

"Excuse me?" Maleny also lo led at Elijah at that, though she seemed more irritated than Francesca was.

"Well, I'm sure you've heard of Father Kieran's condition..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get that," Maleny shushed the woman, "My thing is, why are you going to take over?" she raised an eyebrow, "I mean, by all logic, it should be Cami that takes over, or even myself for that matter. Elijah?" she looked up at him again, showing her clear displeasure.

"Well..." Elijah would rather prefer to avoid any arguments but that seemed very unlikely at the moment.

"I don't seem to find a problem," Francesca shrugged 'nonchalantly'.

"How about starting with the fact you're not an O'Connell?" Maleny stepped up.

"Well if we're on that page, I could say the same thing about you Miss Woods," Francesca spat surly the last name.

"Clearly my mother married," Maleny snapped, "My name is Maleny Woods O'Connell, anything else you got for me?"

"A moment please," Elijah excused and pulled Maleny to the side, making sure Francesca wouldn't hear them, "Maleny..."

"No, Elijah, simply no," Maleny cut him off before he began one of his speeches, "I don't like her and I'm not just saying that because she took a place that didn't belong to her. Something isn't right with her, can't you see it? The way she smiles, I don't know..."

"Maleny, take a breath," Elijah placed his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to be quiet for a moment or two while he spoke, "I spoke to Father Kieran and he was very adamant that neither of his nieces take his place at the meetings. He doesn't want you nor Cami to get hurt like he did. In fact, he said I should force you and Cami to leave the city."

"Yeah, he mentioned that last part to Cami and I," Maleny mumbled, "But that doesn't mean I agreed to it, nor Cami. I'm telling you Elijah, something's not right with that woman."

"Look, this is only temporal," he assured, "Believe me, I'd rather have you at the chair but the reality is you need to figure out how to break the curse before you think about anything else. Break the curse and then we'll talk about deposing Francesca, alright?"

Maleny knew that was a fair deal but it didn't mean she liked it. In fact, she hated it, "Fine," she muttered with arms crossed, "but keep an eye on her," she glanced at Francesca who'd found conversation with another guest, "Something's not right," she mumbled and walked off, snatching a glass from a table on her way.

~ 0 ~

"Hayley!" Maleny went to greet the incoming brunette, having missed her for the entire month she'd been in the bayou.

"Careful," Hayley laughed as Maleny tried to hug her without squishing her round, pregnant stomach.

"Okay, I can hug you later," Maleny pulled away and instead shook hands with her, "Hi."

"Hi," Hayley laughed as they shook hands. She noticed the glass of wine Maleny held and studied the face the brunette had, "Let me guess, that's not the first."

"Ah, you would be correct," Maleny set the glass on a table nearby, "But I'm not drunk, I've got a good tolerance."

"Well you've lived through the 20's and you can't survive without one there," Hayley shrugged with a short laugh, "But let me guess the reason for your drinking..."

"Let's not go there," Maleny shushed her before she hit the nerve, "And besides, he's not the only reason. I've got problems with witches, humans, vampires, you name it," she pointed, "That is why currently I love good ole werewolves," she held out her arms for Hayley, "I love you!"

"And now I think you're drunk," Hayley laughed.

"No, you'll know when I'm drunk," Maleny assured as she swiped her glass off the table and drank down its remaining contents.

"Enough, Mal," Riley suddenly came around and took Maleny's glass, startling Hayley, "These," he waved the glass, "are off limits to you for the rest of the night, alright?"

"Yeah, all I heard was that glass is off limits," Maleny smirked, "In which case, I'll happily oblige."

"Isn't she just charming?" Riley sarcastically said to Hayley, "A drunk charming woman?"

"Hey!" Maleny frowned, "Can't anyone understand I'm not drunk? Does anyone know me?"

"I do," Hayley raised a hand, "Slightly, but I don't know him," she pointed at Riley.

"Oh, I'm sorry, this is my...friend," Maleny gestured to Riley, "Riley."

Hayley picked up on the hesitance in the introduction but decided to leave it alone and not cause any trouble between the two, "Hayley," she shook hands with Riley.

"Oh, I know you," Riley realized as he recalled Maleny's stories, "Miracle baby," he chuckled.

"Yup, that's me," Hayley sighed with resignation as she rubbed her stomach.

"Have you thought of any names for the baby?" Maleny wondered curiously.

"You know, I sense this is going to become a baby name conversation, I'm gonna get going," Riley turned to Maleny, "I'll set the boundary spell right now, if you'd like. You can stay in the party."

"Yeah, please," Maleny whispered, hating herself for what she'd asked Riley to do. She didn't like the idea of keeping her uncle locked inside the attic but it would really be safer for everyone, including himself, if he remained up there until they had a concrete plan on how to break the hex.

"Good, I'll be off then," Riley nodded and looked at Hayley, "Nice meeting you," Hayley nodded, "See you," he leaned down to give Maleny a kiss on the lips but the brunette discreetly turned her head and made the kiss land on her cheek instead. Awkwardly, Riley waved goodbye to Hayley and hurried on out.

Hayley knew better than to dig into this issue but frankly she was itching to catch up on the latest with the cursed brunette, "Okay, so holding off on the baby names conversation, who the hell was that?" she threw a thumb over her shoulder to motion Riley.

Maleny was smart enough to know where the conversation was heading and so turned around, "A...friend," she gave the weak answer and started walking further into the party.

"Right," Hayley followed her, watching her take another glass of wine, "Except, see, when I introduce my friends I say 'oh, this is my friend,' with no hesitation which is not what I just saw."

Maleny glanced back with a roll of her eyes, "And your point is?"

Hayley put her hands on her hips, "I may have been gone for a month but I'm no idiot, Maleny Woods - Rowan."

"And tell me, knocked-up-pregnant-wolf, what is the point you are trying to make?"

Hayley playfully rolled her eyes, "Well freak-that-can-be-an-asset, Riley just tried to kiss you and you awkwardly turned away from him."

Maleny sighed and resigned to spill. And after an entire month, she realized she really had no one to talk to about these things. Cami was more or less upset with her and wasn't even informed of her curse, much less of some guy she'd been seeing. Elijah was always there but it wasn't like she was going to talk about Riley with him. After everything, Klaus was his brother. Davina was a teenager and apart from that, she was already struggling with her powers. She didn't need to hear about some cursed woman's love-life problems. That really only left Hayley and she was gone for an entire month.

"Riley is sweet, funny, thoughtful," Maleny swayed her way back to Hayley, the wolf girl nodding with a smile as she listened, "Every day for the entire month, at the same time, at the same spot, he's given me a red rose with a some type of sweet talk. He's handsome, he's strong, he's caring and I'm sure he kisses amazingly but I just..." she made a face and looked to the side.

"It's just not happening, is it?" Hayley finished what Maleny couldn't.

"It's not that I wouldn't like it," Maleny tried to make it sound less...well, awful, "I mean, have you seen the guy?" she smiled softly, "Any girl would just die to have him...so why don't I?" she honestly wondered, her gaze slipping down the more she thought of it.

"A thousand years of life and you can't figure that out?" Hayley raised an eyebrow, laughing when Maleny remained silent with confusion. When Hayley recomposed her self, she took Maleny's glass, "I'll take that," she walked around the brunette and dumped the contents of the glass out before chucking the glass itself seconds later.

"Hey!"

"C'mon," and Hayley dragged her away.

~ 0 ~

Maleny tapped her fingers along the glass of her new drink as she made her way towards the stairs of the compound, ignoring the music and the guests by that point. Of course, there was one guest she couldn't exactly ignore so well.

"Leaving so soon?" Klaus appeared by the rails of the stairs, making her stop.

"Do you honestly care?" she countered, her facial expressions pretty much saying the same thing. She didn't like it when people were fake to her, no matter who it was, "Shouldn't you be with your spying redhead or something?"

"She's not gonna do it again," he promised, growing serious at the subject.

"She better not," Maleny came down the stairs she'd gone up and stood in front of him, "Because if she does...I'll kill her," she drowned the rest of her drink.

"Not that I wouldn't be fascinated by that, I do feel compelled to remind you that Genevieve is a very powerful witch."

"She may be from the dead but I have lived far longer than she has," Maleny smirked, "I know my ways around a kill - you taught me that- so feel free to let her know that. Are there more drinks?" she pushed the glass to him and looked around.

"Planning on getting drunk tonight?" Klaus took the glass from her and tossed it behind.

"Am I drunk yet?"

"Not one bit," he shook his head.

"Thank you, someone gets it," Maleny shook her head. If anything, he still knew her like the back of his hand, whether he wanted to or not.

"You know, there is a full set of bourbon upstairs..."

"I shouldn't keep drinking," she eyed him as if waiting for some time of scolding.

"You shouldn't," Klaus agreed but did nothing to stop her.

Maleny straightened up and studied him for a moment, "What are you doing?" she had to ask, "You don't speak to me for an entire month and then all of a sudden you're telling me to go up to your stock of bourbon like we're best friends? What's going on?"

"I should be asking you the same thing. What do you think you're doing telling a complete stranger about Kieran's hex?"

"Oh, I get it," Maleny couldn't help but feel disappointed that the only reason Klaus had stopped by for a talk was because, "...you eavesdropped on me and found something you didn't like, Riley. Should've known that's the only way you'd talk to me again, control, right?"

Klaus stopped her before she moved up the stairs again, "I am trying to protect you-"

"From what?" Maleny challenged him, "Some guy who's actually going to help me? I mean, if we're on that page, then are you going to protect me from Elijah too? He's helping me too, why not go after him?"

"Because I know Elijah and he'd never hurt you, but this...this guy, he turned up out of the no where and he blatantly accepted to help you?"

"Yeah, it's hard to believe people can actually mean it when they say they'd help, isn't it?" Maleny crossed her arms, "Because the one person I needed help from turned his back on me, so now I have to look elsewhere."

"I didn't turn my back on you, you forgot about it all," Klaus snapped, growing irritated she was pinning it all on him when she'd spent a full month fawning over a stranger.

"Because you forgot it all!" Maleny exclaimed, "I came to this city for help but look where am I now!?"

"Well this is your fault-"

"I've lost my family, Klaus," Maleny frowned, "And you've not shown any sign that you care. I was kicked out of my cousin's house by my cousin because she discovered I was a lie. I needed someone and no one was there," she sighed, "And yes, I know that it's my fault too. I said hurtful words that I know you'll never admit hurt you, and for that...I'm sorry. I'm not scared of you, I can't be," she admitted with a small blush, "and I won't. Now I don't expect some grand apology from you because that's not you, but at least say you accept mine."

It seemed like Klaus was considering her words. He took a step closer to her, leaving them face to face, "Do you mean that?" he asked, his hand carefully reaching to touch her face as if it were a test of her words.

Luckily, Maleny knew his discreet ways and smiled, "I mean it," she took his hand off her face and gave it a light grip, chuckling, "If I were scared of you do you think I would be living under the same roof as you? For a centuries old vampire, you're not very smart."

For that, Klaus sharply looked at her and used her grip on his hand to turn her around, pulling her to him, "And for a women who's known me for centuries you don't seem to have learned I dislike sarcasm."

Maleny scoffed, "Yeah, okay. Let me go," she pushed on his arm that wrapped its way around her stomach, "It's a nice dress and I'd like to keep it that way."

Klaus listened and gently turned her back around, careful she didn't fall from the step she was on. Afterwards he couldn't help give her a look over, seeing as he hadn't had a chance before. Her red dress shined under the lights of the room, making her more radiant than she already was. It was a simple dress, really - it was sleeveless but with a high neckline. Its shiny gems around the bodice matched the spread out ones around the laced hemline.

After a moment silence, Klaus held a hand for her, "Care for a dance?" with a hint of a smirk at the corner of his lips.

Surprised, Maleny was inclined to hesitate, "Um...didn't you come here with a redhead witch? I'm a brunette," she pointed to her short, curled brown hair, "and nowhere near talented with magic as she is - unfortunately."

"I've lost track on her and frankly I'm not interested in her at the moment. Dance?" he wiggled his fingers of the hand still waiting to be taken.

"Fine, but afterwards I want the bourbon you mentioned before."

"It's a deal."

Now satisfied, Maleny took his hand and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor. As they danced, Maleny still felt incomplete in the whole apologizing process. She had to tell him, "I remember now...what happened after my father died," she spoke hushed but Klaus still heard her perfectly, "It came to me in a dream a couple weeks ago...and I could see why you did it," she looked up with a small smile, "And I saw what happened afterwards...how you came back for me, by the lake. You told me it would be alright then, that no one would ever hurt me again, not as long as Klaus Mikaelson was around."

"And I failed," Klaus mumbled. He had tried so hard to do his best by her, always make sure he didn't lose control of his own vampiristic needs like his siblings often did. But there were times when he couldn't help it, and she happened to be around. Miraculously, he had done it - until the final day where they argued and she ran off into the forest, disappearing.

"Well, you couldn't babysit me forever," Maleny offered, meaning her words completely, "I was a grown woman and you were...my..." she forced herself to say the last word without sounding like she was having a hard time, "...my boyfriend. You were that and not my babysitter. I did it, I don't know why or how, but this curse is on me. It's my fault."

"But-"

"No, it doesn't matter right now. What I need is your help and for this past month I haven't received anything from you."

"Well, it doesn't seem like it's bothered you very much," Klaus nearly sneered, "You seem quite at home flirting with the little warlock you see everyday."

"I don't think you're in any position to be jealous," Maleny pointed out, "I'm not the one sleeping with witches."

"I am not jealous, I'm merely irritated you're allowing some stranger to know about a curse that concerns only you and I!"

"Then do something about it! Help me!" Maleny exclaimed in pure frustration, "I will not sit around and mope that you've chosen to ignore me for the past month. I need help and I'm gonna get it one way or another," she then sighed, realizing with her rising voice she was garnering the attention of others, "We used to be a good team," she whispered, "Nearly every body of mine worked perfectly with you. Can't we do that again?"

"Nothing is like it used to be," Klaus quietly remarked as he studied her. She may claim (and probably was) to be the Maleny he knew but he didn't know this woman. For the past month he'd purposely avoided her because of what she'd said. None of the women he'd been with in the past had ever said something like that. Could he actually believe and let himself feel like he used to with her?

"I know that," Maleny agreed with a small nod, "But think about it. Why not make this time around different? We can break the curse and then...I don't know, end who ever created it in the first place."

"Are you proposing we kill together?" Klaus asked in a bit of amusement.

"I just said end," Maleny innocently said,"What you take out from that is your business, mister. But we can do that if you want..."

"You'd do it?"

"Yeah...ish..."

Klaus chuckled, "Big difference between those two words, I'm afraid."

"I made you laugh, and not an angry or sarcastic laugh, which means you like me again," Maleny teased and leaned forwards with a proper teasing grin on her face.

"I never hated you, Maleny," Klaus informed her, a bit annoyed she would think that, "You're irritating-"

"Hey," Maleny pointed at him, "I got some words for you too you egotistical hybrid."

"How about I say I'll help you and we don't insult each other for tonight?"

"Deal," Maleny quickly settled on it and even stepped back to hold a hand out. Klaus took her hand and shook it, both smiling at each other with no tension between them for the first time in weeks.

~ 0 ~

Maleny was coming down the stairs holding a glass of bourbon (the one promised to her by Klaus) when she met Hayley halfway.

"Well, someone's had a sudden attitude change," Hayley remarked as the two met halfway up the stairs, "Of course the drinks haven't stopped," she took notice of the glass Maleny held.

Maleny rolled her eyes, "Look mum, I get it, no more drinks...right after this one. It's a celebration drink," she shrugged and took a big gulp.

"And in honor of what, exactly?" Hayley crossed her arms.

"That I may be close to breaking my curse with some new help," Maleny grinned.

"Really?"

"Mhm, I can't wait!"

Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by the fact that a man had been thrown across the courtyard. The two brunettes looked over to see Oliver, one of Hayley's werewolf friends, land on a table full of champagne colors. Diego, the vampire, sped over but was pinned against the wall by Oliver. Out of the no where, Elijah appeared and pulled Oliver off the vampire before placing the werewolf against the table, "This ends NOW," he declared,"I won't ask again."

"Oh, we'll end it all right," another of Hayley's werewolf friends, Jackson, spoke up and made everyone look over to see him pinning Diego to the wall with a stake on his heart.

Hayley had had enough of all the nonsense, "What's stopping you?" she called to them, "Kill him. Go ahead, Elijah. Do it. I mean, it's not like he doesn't deserve to die. I mean, it was Oliver who handed Rebekah over to the witches so they could torture her. But, then again, wasn't it Diego who led a werewolf massacre last month? And the witches cursed the wolves, while the humans stood back and let it all happen. So, when you think about it, everyone here deserves to die."

"Uh...Hayley," Maleny mumbled and put a hand on Hayley's arm.

"Maleny, this is serious," Hayley shushed the woman and continued, missing the odd expression the other brunette had on her face.

"Are you approaching a point, Hayley?" Elijah demanded from her, quite upset she was defending all this.

"My point, Elijah, is this- if we can't all learn to get along, if our families can't create some sort of community, then what's the point?" Hayley raised an eyebrow.

"Hayley..." Maleny said again, her voice sounding slightly more hoarse all of a sudden.

But Hayley was on a roll and so she continued on, "Kill each other and get it all over with. What's it gonna be?"

Maleny deeply, and loudly, gasped, attracting everyone's eyes, "I can't...breath!" she put a hand over her chest and lurched forwards.

"Oh my God, Maleny!" Hayley finally realized how pale her friend was, and clearly hadn't been a minute ago. She tried helping Maleny stand straight but the fact she was fighting for air didn't benefit her at all.

In a flash, both Elijah and Klaus were up at the stairs to help Maleny. Elijah took the glass Maleny still held and sniffed it, making a face immediately, "Sparkling cyanide," he looked out to the guests, "Poison..."

"Who would've poisoned her?" Hayley asked in horror and did the same and looked out to the guests, "Her? What the hell is the matter with you people? She's done nothing to you!"

Klaus hadn't wasted time in demanding who was the culprit and instead picked Maleny up and brought her into her room. As soon as he'd laid her down on her bed he bit into his wrist and made her drink her blood, "It's okay, it's okay," he assured her as she took his blood, "The poison will eliminated from your body, I swear."

After a moment, Maleny took a deep breath and tried her best to process what had just happened. One moment she was talking to Hayley and the next...someone had poisoned her?

"Is she alright?" Hayley came into the room, more like waddled with her very pregnant belly, "Elijah's clearing out the party, except for the representatives...what happened?" she asked, still heavily confused.

"Someone poisoned me," Maleny made a face as she felt remnants of blood in her mouth, "Can I please get a drink of water?"

"I-I'll do it," Hayley volunteered and hurried out again.

"You know this could've been your little redhead," Maleny got straight to making a list of possible culprits in her mind.

"Genevieve?" Klaus took a moment to consider the idea.

"We argued earlier," Maleny pointed out, "Had hell of motivation to end me."

"But if some of the ancestors actually like you she wouldn't go against that. She does that she dies," Klaus reminded, "Whoever did this had to have overheard us earlier. Last time I remembered my bourbon wasn't poisonous."

But then that brought the question of whether or not Maleny would have really died. Last time she was 'killed' it had been at the hands of Papa Tunde and she turned out just fine afterwards. Rebekah then snapped her neck and she was also fine. However this time, Maleny seemed like she would actually die if she wasn't given vampire blood. What had changed? Or, what was different this time from the other two previous attempts?

"You know how earlier I said I didn't exactly say we should kill whoever did the curse?" Maleny asked after a moment.

"Yes..." Klaus slowly answered, not sure how this was relevant for the moment.

"Well I'm sure that whoever did this had to do something with the curse and wants to make sure the cycle repeats itself...screw 'end' them, I want a culprit and I want to kill him or her," Maleny gritted her teeth, "Will you help me or not?"

Without a second thought, Klaus nodded, "Yes."

Maleny couldn't help the big smile that broke out on her face, apart from the wave of relief that washed over her. Cautiously, she leaned over and hugged him, assuming he wouldn't openly respond to the gesture. She didn't care though, finally something good had happened in the awful month of loneliness. She just hoped it would be the turning point that would lead her to breaking the curse. However, in the end, she was startled to feel Klaus gripping her for a tight hug. In the past month he had never directed a word to her but he had never left her unattended. Eyes were out in the streets taking care of her while he remained inside. But someone made an attempt to kill her, right in his home, and he would make them pay.

~ 0 ~

Later that night, Elijah walked into Maleny's room holding an inkwell and the peace treaty he'd gotten the leaders of the factions to sign. He stopped at the doorway and looked at Klaus who remained by Maleny's bed, the brunette woman fast asleep. She still had her dress on but was covered up with a blanket. She'd fallen asleep after the incident earlier and was letting the poison fully leave her system.

"Seems to me like the man who would die for Maleny Rowan is still near," Elijah quietly spoke so as to not wake up Maleny.

"Have you seen this?" Klaus ignored the comment and gently raised one of Maleny's arms for Elijah to see.

Elijah came over and saw harsh, deep scratches running down Maleny's arm, "Well, she certainly managed to keep that hidden."

"This was not part of the poisoning attempt meaning somewhere along today's course of events...someone did this to her," Klaus paused, mentally coming up with possible culprits.

"If she hid it, it means she did not wish to talk about it," Elijah pointed out and went to put down his things on a table against the wall, "and it clearly means she is in a lot more trouble than we suspected."

Klaus laid down Maleny's arm, his eyes trailing the injuries one last time before gazing up to Maleny's face. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully, and whether or not Klaus would admit that to anyone else, it did relieve him to see her at peace.

"Did you get a confession from any of them?" he eventually asked Elijah after making sure Maleny did not need anything else.

After clearing up the party, Elijah had taken the matter of Maleny's poisoning to the leaders of the faction, knowing one of them had to have known something about it.

"None of them were ever near her," Elijah sighed.

"Doesn't mean they couldn't have done it," Klaus turned to him, "Vampires' compulsion, witches' spells, humans' tricks, werewolves-"

"I don't think it was werewolves," Elijah cut in, "None of them knew Maleny, only Hayley. But I think you should start with Genevieve. Maleny pointed out a disagreement the two had at the beginning of the party. You brought that woman into this place and she nearly killed Maleny."

"We don't know if it was her," Klaus pointed, "But believe me, I will get to the bottom of it," he gritted his teeth.

"I would expect nothing less. But right now I would like for you to sign this," Elijah waved the peace treaty as he walked over to a small table where he set the inkwell down along with the treaty.

"Why? You've already done so on our behalf," Klaus shrugged and spared a glance at the treaty as he joined his brother

"Brother, I am not a fool. It's clear to me you're not as disinterested as you'd like me to believe," Elijah nodded over to Maleny, "If there is to be safety for Hayley, and now Maleny, you need this city to be a peaceful environment. Sign, please. If there is no peace between us, then how can you expect others to follow suit?"

Klaus rolled his eyes and nodded, "Fine, if it will make you happy. But, I assure you, this city's inhabitants will not adhere to this agreement."

"Well, you are welcome to wager against me. You will lose," Elijah gave a small smile and headed for the doors, "I trust you will look after Maleny for tonight?"

Klaus waved him off and missed the smirk of Elijah as he finally left the room. Quietly, Klaus walked over to the window and stared out to the sky where the big moon was coming out from behind clouds. When he made a pact with Jackson to provide moon rings to protect werewolves from their curse, he intended it to be a measure of safety for his unborn child...now he intended to use it to discover who was the culprit who dared to poison Maleny. He would not rest until he had that person in his hands, and when he did...there was to be blood spilled.

Elijah may have been right, he was not as disinterested as he wanted people to believe.

[sissypan]

Dystopias in SF

“Zgreb is a miner on a meteoroid. In the mines, life is extremely difficult. The only thing that helps the miners to endure the quasi-unbearable hardships, is a drug called ‘amber’, very expensive and difficult to obtain. Desperate, many miners end up committing suicide. Revolted by this intolerable situation and by the indifference of his employers, Zgreb strives to incite the other miners to rebellion. As soon as he manages persuading them to strike, some huge, demon-like cyborgs called ‘Ghouls’, working for the international company producing ‘amber’, capture Zgreb and they force him aboard a spaceship which brings him back on Earth.

Earth is like Hell. The development of technology has resulted in disastrous environmental pollution. The air is yellow and contains a huge amount of toxic, especially sulfurous, gases. The inhabitants of Earth can only breathe with the help of oxygen masks and very often, they end up dying of asphyxia. There is almost no water left. Monopolized by an international company, pure water is extremely expensive and the water sold at the black market is dirty and contaminated by plenty of bacteria causing the death of hundreds. Food is extremely rare too. Most people survive by eating cockroaches, worms, spiders and – when they can find them – rats. The wealthiest ones undergo complex alterations of their organism, by means of a combination of genetic engineering and nanotechnology, so that they can feed on sand and stones. An incredible number of deadly microbes have emerged. The king of these mini killers is a virus called LYS. It attacks all the vital organs of humans and provokes atrocious hallucinations in the infected subjects: the patients believe that they turn into vegetables; usually, they think they are broccoli, but sometimes they think themselves transformed into tomatoes, cauliflowers, cabbages or pumpkins.

Zgreb manages to survive anoxia, lack of food and water thanks to his surreptitious wealth, consisting of diamonds that he had stolen in the mine, at a moment when the guardians were muddle-headed by excessive doses of ‘amber’. By living on the meteoroid, Zgreb is immune to the LYS virus.

Things go badly when the mysterious Z-particles attack the Sun. Their contact results in the destruction of any luminous celestial body.

There are hardly a few months left before the Sun explodes. That will be the end of planet Earth.

Zgreb manages to board a spaceship stealthily. He survives the catastrophe, but he will have to spend the rest of his life in deep space which he hates profoundly.”

 Does all this sound somewhat familiar?

This is not surprising. The text is an amalgam of some recurrent themes and points of view encountered in current SF: unhappiness; despair; ugliness; exploitation; decadence and decay; atrocities; disasters; pessimism; defeatism… There is not enough room for an exhaustive list. It is, nonetheless, true that compared to the nightmarish worlds of contemporary SF, even Dante’s Inferno seems like Disneyland. Loaded with pessimism and dismay reaching the apogee of their gloomy glory, the actual SF bears a remarkable resemblance to Marvin, the paranoid android in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy. For those who have not read the book, Marvin is a depressive robot, constantly moaning, overcome with despair and disillusion. Nobody can abide by Marvin’s company. An A.I. who was unfortunate enough to listen to Marvin’s points of view about life and the universe for a few hours ended up… committing suicide!

The occurrence of negative and pessimistic SF is not new. Since the beginning of the 20th century and for many years, under the influence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, SF was full of monstrous robots eager to destroy their creators and often the whole humankind.

Isaac Asimov saved the world of SF from the tiresome aggressiveness of robots affected by destroying madness. Even nowadays, Isaac Asimov is regarded as ‘the father of robotics’, the brilliant visionary who inspired the most famous specialists in robot construction to realize their most audacious projects, such as modern robots that are able to learn and to adapt.

However, Asimov has not created his fictitious robots in order to contribute to the advance of robotics. As he acknowledges in the introduction of his book I, Robot, Asimov’s true motivation for creating his mechanical heroes obeying to the three laws of robotics, was not of a scientific, but rather of a literary nature. A hardened SF reader and a brilliant scientist, Asimov could not stand anymore the stories where “the robot destroyed his creator” which was the most frequent recurrent theme in the SF of his time. He also regarded the sickly fear of science expressed by this theme (which Asimov named ‘the Frankenstein complex’), as exaggerated, irrational and unfair to science. The fact that he was right on this point was presumably the reason why the career of the destructive robots in the world of SF soon came to an end.

The improvement of the reputation of the robots by Asimov (with the exception of Marvin; even Asimov could do nothing in his case) did not please everybody. For some obscure reason, a few SF fans and writers suffered from nostalgia. They missed the ‘Frankenstein complex’.

They soon discovered a new subject allowing them to wail as much as they wished about the potentially terrifying effects of the advance in technology: the end of the world.

In contemporary SF literature, this theme recurs ad nauseam. In most stories, “Technology destroys the world. Technology destroys the world. Technology destroys…” with the variations of the theme: “Humankind suffers in a world that will soon be destroyed” and “humankind suffers in a ruined world”. SF writers are so hell-bent on destroying the world that compared to them, the destructive pre-Asimov robots seem like angels; they are so brilliant in inventing new ways and means to make humankind suffer that in comparison, the tortures used by the executioners of the Inquisition were like innocent children’s games.

Apparently, SF is in a period of crisis. Some people presume that the Internet is responsible for this; others believe that comics or video games have overpowered SF literature. What nobody seems to notice is that at this moment, if someone wants to relax, he would prefer spending an evening in the company of count Dracula or J.K. Rowling’s dementors[1] to reading a gloomy and pessimistic SF story.

It seems, nevertheless, that – at last! - the sun will soon shine in the sad, dark and ghastly world of SF -------

[.....What follows is relative to the anthology and is now outdated .]

[1] In the Harry Potter books, the dementors are the hideous guardians of Azkaban prison. They are able to suck the joy and the vitality of anyone merely with a kiss.        

I wrote this article a few years ago to encourage those SF writers who tried to write more optimistic stories. The article was published in French SF magazine Galaxies (where I worked as a co-editor) and in MATRIX, the official journal of British SF Association (BSFA). I post it here because I think that somehow, it has become relevant again. Unfortunately, now it is not just about SF stories - it’s real :(  

[justincaseitmatters]

Contagious Vacations: Sarah Vowell on Hawaii’s History

Rewind from KCActive.com by Dan Lybarger

In her books, audio essays (for public radio’s This American Life ) and speeches, Sarah Vowell may be the only person on earth who can describe her vacations or recall historical events without making listeners sleepy.

That’s probably because not many vacationers frame their tales as entertainingly as she can. Vowell uses her journeys to explain how our country has developed, and she resurrects the fears, excitement and intrigue that our ancestors faced.

In her latest book, Unfamiliar Fishes, she explains how the past and present meet in Hawaii. When she comes to Unity Temple on The Plaza, 707 W 47th Street, Kansas City, Missouri at 7 p.m. on Sun., April 3 (tickets are available at Rainy Day Books), don’t be surprised if she makes you want to visit the same places she’s been or dig through the same musty documents she’s read.

Contacted by phone in San Francisco before her Kansas City appearance, Vowell explains, “Doing a reading is different from writing a book. You have to be cognizant that people are sitting there wanting to go home. That’s what most audiences are, people who want to go home. They have laundry to do, dinner reservations, whatever.

“Because I’m an audience member, I want to go home myself. There are certain sections of the book that are better out loud, things that are perhaps a little funnier that merely informational.”

A Nephew’s Help

It probably doesn’t hurt that she often joins her fraternal twin sister Amy and her outspoken young nephew Owen on her trips. The lad often says things during the journeys that wind up in his aunt’s books and essays.

She recalls, “It wasn’t really an intentional thing. I don’t know how to drive, so his mother has always been kind enough to come with me on some of my reporting trips to drive me around to places that have less than adequate public transportation. When Owen was born, you know how kids need their mothers, so he would just come along.

“When he first started talking, he would say a lot of quotable things. Some of it was the joy of childhood malapropisms. I needed his mom to drive me to Ohio when I was writing about assassinated presidents (in Assassination Vacation) and going to the cemetery where President Garfield is buried. After he got home from that trip, he told his mother he wanted to go to the cemetery. He called it, ‘a Halloween Park.’ He captures the weird appeal of cemeteries because they are sort of park-like.”

Even as he matures, Owen remains a valuable collaborator. “Sometimes he brings me down to earth because I get so sucked into what I’m researching.”

When she recalled to him how whaling ships frequently stopped by Honolulu harbor, the youngster was horrified by the slaughter of the animals and didn’t share his aunt’s obsession with Moby Dick. “He couldn’t stop being offended by the entire thing. So when I told him to lighten up because pretty soon that petroleum would be discovered in Pennsylvania and then the whole world would go ape for fossil fuel, he just said, ‘Good.’

“He didn’t know anything about whaling, which means to me that he didn’t really read the Moby Dick popup book I game him,” she adds.

No Dry Text

In all of her work, Vowell attempts to make recalling the past in a more visceral manner than history teachers did in school. Vowell is a huge fan of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, and her own tales have much of the same intrigue.

In The Wordy Shipmates, she expertly recalls how Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, left Massachusetts in order to escape deportation for his radical beliefs (he felt church and state should be separated because the latter would corrupt the former). He wound up receiving an urgent but secret warning.

“He was (Williams’) friend. When the official militia wants to stick him on a boat and send him back to England, (Williams) wasn’t at home because someone had warned him. It was later revealed that that someone was (John) Winthrop (the Massachusetts governor and the leader of that militia). I would do that for a friend, even one I disagreed with. It made them seem less far away or a Puritan cartoon. That made them seem like they were two guys who were buddies.”

Similarly, in recounting how June Carter Cash came to co-write her husband Johnny Cash’s hit song “Ring of Fire,” she makes listeners feel both their forbidden desire (both were married to others at the time) and their very real fear of facing fire and brimstone. Reese Witherspoon may have won an Oscar for playing June in the movie Walk the Line, but Vowell’s account of their relationship is far more powerful than the film. In case you doubt me on this, got to the This American Life site to hear for yourself at the 47:30 mark.

Vowell can also make seemingly staid subject matter hysterically funny. Her high-pitched nasal voice and her droll, deadpan delivery make anything she says sound more amusing. Even in print, she’s a riot. In Assassination Vacation, she attends the musical 1776 in the same theater where Abraham Lincoln was shot. While liking the performance, laments, “Going to Ford's Theatre to watch the play is like going to Hooters for the food.”

In Unfamiliar Fishes, Vowell recalls how 19th century Hawaii went from being an isolated kingdom to part of the United States. She recalls how both whalers and New England missionaries fought over the destiny of the islands. Naturally, she finds an engaging way to retell the feud. In describing how a French voyage to the islands included collecting data on social diseases spread by previous European sailors, she muses, “Typical — the only thing more European than spreading VD is documenting it.”

Toward the end of the monarchy, one almost begins to side with the colonists because King Kalakaua was paying for his massive gambling debts with the public treasury. It’s no wonder the kingdom fell two years after he died in 1891.

Before you start to celebrate his demise, Vowell cautions that Kalahaua also preserved important aspects of Hawaiian culture like hula dancing which could have been lost because missionaries disapproved of them. She adds, “Yes, he was corrupt and inept. But his contemporary over here, President Grant, happened to be presiding over one of the most corrupt administrations in our history. It was ‘The Gilded Age.’ There’s this golden sheen over an ugly face.”

Forced Diversity

Our current president, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii, and his multi-ethnic ancestry is actually typical of the region. With the 19th century rise of sugar plantations, the owners recruited from around the globe to find the multitudes needed to grow the labor-intensive crop. According to Vowell, it wasn’t political correctness that made them recruit workers from Japan, the Philippines and other remote locales.

“The reasons the plantation owners wanted all these different kinds of people were that they intentionally built their own little Towers of Babel in the Pacific because they didn’t want their workers to be able to talk to one another because they didn’t want their workers to organize against their overlords.”

A Woman of Many Faces

If you’ve never heard of Vowell or her books, there’s still a good chance you’ve either heard or seen her. She’s been on dozens of talk shows and has appeared on the TV show Bored to Death and in the movie Please Give. In that film, Catherine Keener can be spotted reading The Wordy Shipmates, and then Vowell can be spotted as an indifferent customer in Keener’s shop.

Most people, however, know her as the voice of the invisible Violet Parr in the Pixar classic The Incredibles. Vowell says that she prefers to be typing her books instead of appearing on camera, but says her readings and acting career help her find new readers for her unusual but rewarding texts.

“Being a salesman enables me to keep writing the little books I do. Part of the reason I can write these books that sound like ones that nobody would want to read,” says Vowell. “I went to graduate school and wrote a graduate thesis, and I think one guy, the one who was grading it, read it. I couldn’t contain my rage that this was something only one person would read. It seemed like such a waste to me. Before I’m a writer, I’m a reader. A book doesn’t exist unless someone’s reading it.”