#make me defend my thesis. we might even get something that makes some sense out of it

[dirtbra1n]

AA4 SPOILERS/////

that quote you called krisnix is soooo fascinating to me bc, they really had dinner together most days, like that’s a level of commitment we didn’t even see from most of the ppl who phoenix considered important and that whole time on kristoph’s end it was to keep an eye on Phoenix and on phoenix’s end it curiosity bc kristoph voted against him losing his badge and also it was to find out the reason why he lost his badge and kristoph was just this name that kept popping up, and for Phoenix and kristoph it was so many red flags bc kristoph knew phoenix wasn’t the type to let something rest and Phoenix knew there was more to kristoph then at first glance but somewhere along the way it become genuine, but at the same time kristoph still kills shadi after a single convo with phoenix and phoenix still pressed record before even asking kristoph to be his lawyer, it’s Phoenix recording every single one of those convos with kristoph but still (probably) having him meet truck, but it’s kristoph keeping himself at arms length from Phoenix but Phoenix taking it bc he’s never been the type to give up on a person, whether it’s to their doom or his and for better or worse he wouldn’t want anyone else to really see him the way he currently is besides kristoph, now what the hell could that possibly mean?

(that quote I called krisnix)

anon you will never know the extent of the joy I felt seeing this initially and the extent of it I still feel now. but I’d like you to. Thank You For Biting. and for waiting a little over a month Sorry about that. I'm gonna ask you to forgive me if this doesn't make any sense or hold up to scrutiny. the demons have got hold of me and I'm making do

because I get to talk more about krisnix. Ha ha. pulled out all my silly little suppositions to review again I think I was waiting for an opportunity like this. like my hubris is getting me. I recklessly called that quote krisnix and now a little over a month later I'm completely sick about it.

I'm going to reiterate that I'm very sorry if this reads like shit, and I'll apologize just this once that this post got as long as it did. go fish

you ever think about how kristoph's a dog guy. guy who has a dog, guy who brought a photo of his dog into solitary confinement with him. also a caged blue bird which alive or not happened to contribute significantly to the krisnix breakdown of dec. 2023 There are really some very bright minds in krisnix pit. me and you included anon. that's a tangent. I'm sick. I'm drafting this in a terribly disorganized fashion. I'm reading transcripts. I'm getting dizzy.

this fucking room haunts me

vongole, though

a man's best friend, who's known to bite if handled roughly. her name means clams.

I've been doing some web surfing. I can't move in one straight line to save my life so I've been doing some web surfing. kristoph doesn't say what kind of retriever vongole is, which is fine. retrievers are dogs bred to retrieve game, tasked not to break skin, to be gentle, to keep soft mouths. vongole is a retriever who bites (literal) when bitten (metaphorical); a clam that clasps shut.

kristoph's a dog guy and sometimes he's the metaphorical dog. not One straight line to save my life. it's funny that seven years have passed without phoenix meeting vongole. held at arms length but indisputably held. a man's closest friend. besides his dog.

a lot of the time phoenix is the metaphorical dog. putting all tangents aside A lot of the time. phoenix is that metaphorical dog. what is seven years of companionship, eating dinner after dinner together, and being seen at your worst... worth? indulge me: this guy, you pieced together pretty quick, was behind the forged evidence that lost you your badge. this guy, as you saw happen in real time, was the one person on that committee to vote against that "strictest punishment".

this guy, as an indisputable fact, is a big fucking weirdo. you'll need to snare him eventually, for the forged evidence, but--you're kind of in the habit of liking weirdos. is the thing. he sunk your career, he lost you your badge. he's kind of an asshole, also.

he has bought you and trucy dinner more times than you could ever hope to count. there's a curve in your sofa from all the times he's sat in the same spot, wrinkling his nose at greasy takeout boxes and your grape juice breath. he talks to trucy in a voice slightly less haughty--warm, if a gun was held to your head about it--than the one he plays up with you, and she completely eats it up; thinks he's real fun to tease. his eyebrows wrinkle, an almost nothing frown, when she puts on a show with a trick that he can't immediately come to some conclusion about. he'll put on obnoxious rubber gloves to wash your dishes, to protect his manicured nails, as he goes down a dozen rabbit holes trying to reason out what he's missing. you've seen him doing casework. he's seen you delirious and half out of your mind. his mouth, in your experience, is soft.

you're kind of in the habit of liking assholes, too.

neither of these guys can be vulnerable for shit. over the course of seven years, they've seen each other as close to vulnerable as they can get, which isn't very, because this span of time especially--phoenix stubbornly keeping a little girl's head above the water, kristoph, for reasons we will never, ever understand, constantly looking over his shoulder--really doesn't see either of them in a place to get through any skin-flaying conversations about what they want with or from one another.

kristoph really does want control, though. he wants to be in control of things, have a handle on things. and he probably figured out something like immediately that phoenix wright really isn't the sort of guy you go to for that kind of thing. and yet! sunk cost fallacy's a bitch, kristoph! what good does a beautiful bluebird do you if you don't keep it with you on display heavy-handed. I know. don't I know it.

gonna rein myself in a little. because I'm off the deep end and you're posing really interesting ideas. kristoph couldn't rest for seven years because "shadi smith" was unaccounted for, out there somewhere. kristoph couldn't rest for seven years because he was scared for his life. "shadi smith" played a game of poker against the best and got whacked. and then murdered! tough luck!

really it's my curse. that so much of krisnix is personalized person to person, because of real aa5 shaped smoke and mirrors. because it gives me the space, the soapbox, the platform, microphone, and spotlight, to ask, In that trial, of the murder of Shadi Smith, where Kristoph Gavin was supposed to defend Phoenix Wright, what verdict was he looking to see through?

because I'm sick, you see. kristoph had just, finally, gotten rid of the man he spent so long being scared of, just clawed his way to the path out of the woods, and all he had to do was--

Have you ever stood at a crossroad. the decision laid out in front of you's not actually that tough, if you can believe it. even space for you to completely rationalize any attachments away: you get phoenix wright off (haha), you keep your reputation as the best defense in the west (opinions on the name notwithstanding), and you could, as a possibility to consider on occasion, maybe even learn how to have a slightly more-vulnerable-than-usual conversation.

or you could lose.

pretty simple choice to make, right?

and then phoenix goes and fucks it up, of course. dogs get restless with nothing to do. they want to be of use to you, kristoph, did you ever think to fucking ask phoenix for help? you come when called, you let yourself be persuaded, generously, to help keep food on the table. to keep a warm body company, one way or the other. to be some fucked up psychosexual approximation of a friend. but phoenix comes running when called, too, and you haven't once given him the chance.

big fucking stink you're in, kristoph! You didn't just brain a guy with a juice bottle for no reason. Tell me why you did it.

the big question you won't answer. five black psyche locks pulsing with a despair you don't have the tools to register. you said it already: I killed a man named "Smith" with a bottle because I am an evil human being.

what does phoenix hope to get out of this. motive for a murder, then what?

you really get me anon. phoenix never the kind of guy to give up on somebody he loves, up against someone who's finished with even arms length, stubborn as all get-out, and, even to himself, completely unsalvageable. irredeemable. an evil human being who killed a man named "smith" with a bottle.

it's not that phoenix would help kristoph hide a body. he pretty evidently did not do that. and it's not that phoenix would just forgive kristoph for trying to poison a twelve year old girl either. but there were seven full years between the disappearance of zak gramarye and the murder of "shadi smith", and vera misham hadn't been poisoned yet, and phoenix wright is an awfully loyal, terribly stubborn man himself.

I don't really know what the hell the lot of this means to tell you the truth. but I think now as much as ever that phoenix should chase kristoph's chance at life to the death, and I think that regardless of the stopping point on the line of time kristoph's last words to phoenix should be ...Later, then.

[twst-hottest-takes]

I don't know how much of a hot take this is, but I really hate Rookvil or is it Vilrook...? Either way I don't like Rook and Vil as a couple.

I love both of them as characters (Even though book 5 did Vil so so dirty imo), and on paper they're perfect together. Vil has a passion for beauty and perfection, Rook also has a passion for beauty and arguably life in general.

However, what gets me is Rook does not care about Vil at all. Like in Vil's lab outfit, Rook critizes Vil's weight (invalidly imo), which sends Vil into a downward spiral. And then in Rook's lab outfit, Rook is like "Yeah, the whole point of me joining the science club was to produce pictures for your Vil." Meanwhile he's making goo goo eyes at Leona out the window! LIKE SIR STOP!

Though this extends past outfits, this even happens in book 5. Now I'm not saying Rook was wrong for choosing Neige over Vil, but I'm not saying he's right either. Because if we're honest here, who would date Rook after that? I'm actually shocked the group didn't jump him.

Now, if this ship was just a fandom thing, I'd be fine with it. I already don't ship a lot of popular ships in the fandom, and I'd be willing to look past it. However, I was getting bored waiting for more book 7 content, so I went looking around for spoilers as one does, and I see Rook loves both Neige and...VIL???

Now this shouldn't come as a surprise considering, Vil and Rook were low-key flirting in book 6, and Epel was supportive of it, even though I was gagging the whole time because Jesus Christ I have never seen two characters have less chemistry. I honestly don't ever think I've seen Vil and Rook have such positive interactions before book 6, so it felt like whip lash.

And seeing the book 7 spoiler was like getting hit over the head with a frying pan when you're least expecting it. I just feel like maybe Vil does care about Rook, but I've never felt like Rook cared about Vil. Before I knew he was rich, I just thought he was a smooth talking poor boy, who occasionally acted nice to Vil to get closer to Neige, who he really wanted to be with this whole time.

Pomefiore once again goes hard on being inconsistently characterized.

I don't have much to say about the ship itself, but I can see where you're coming from. Rook is an unfortunately written character. As I understand it his thesis is that he is a lover and hunter of all things beautiful. That's a simple enough statement on its own and can be used to either defend or attack pairing him with Vil. The story seems to want us to believe that Rook has a special affinity for Vil in particular even though he is not always what Rook views as "the most beautiful," and anon rightfully calls his loyalty and true feelings into question as a result. There are times where Rook isn't willing to favor Vil despite being one of the closest to him, and I can see how someone might take that as a cue that he doesn't especially care about his housewarden and be completely turned off to them as a more intimate pair.

There are some points to this take's argument that I don't agree with however. For example, I don't think how Rook looks at Leona here is meant to have nearly the same meaning as his stated love for Vil or Neige. In early vignettes there is a much stricter sense of Rook as a hunter as opposed to just a seeker of beauty. I believe how he looks at Leona is meant to be intentionally perverse. He seems to view the beastmen, mermen, and even fae as possible quarries and he revels in the idea of how he would "catch" them like he would an ordinary animal. This is an element of Rook that is muddied as the emphasis on "beauty" takes the forefront and his initial impression of being rather creepy is swept under the rug. That is one of my greater criticisms of Rook's writing as a character and is something I would take a deeper look at in a proper character analysis.

Thank you for your take!

(It was only a matter of time before we got a ship based take. By the by, I always thought it was called VilRook but there is evidence to say people just use one or the other name depending on a person's preference.)

[mdhwrites]

Do Themes Make a Story Good? Featuring TOH and Amphibia

I've tried talking about this subject a few times and never found a good angle for it. Last night, a thought wormed into my brain about the fact that I make a lot of posts defending the thematic strengths of Amphibia, how those themes help justify some of its writing choices and even talk about concepts and the like that people claim are not in the show that are actually represented. Contrasted with my blogs on The Owl House where I usually talk about its themes to highlight poor execution on them or how I disagree with them existing, a fear hit me.

Do I consider Amphibia's themes more valid because I like the show more?

The extremely short and reductive version of this is "to some extent yes." That doesn't get into WHY for this though. After all, one's enjoyment of a piece shouldn't matter for a theme. Not all themes are fun or pleasant and so expecting a comfortable experience with them isn't fair. It limits the sort of storytelling you're capable of.

The problem is that this extends to ALL media. What commonly determines if a piece is genuinely good or not is if it was engaging, not if it was fun or enjoyable. A horror fan and an action fan might both call their movies a blast but the sort of engagement they had is vastly different. One is loving the use of scares, tension, etc. like that while the other may have just enjoyed a popcorn flick with explosions, big set pieces and silly violence but neither opinion is bad because they were both properly engaged by the points of the movie.

Themes are interesting because we often talk about them as engaging but I think this is actually putting the cart before the horse. We pick up on these themes because the work itself is engaging. After all, a textbook on mental health can have a theme of dealing with trauma but we don't frame it that way because, you know... It's a textbook. It's dry. Conversely, an author might tell you that their work was about something but if it was incoherent garbage, then who cares what it had to say because you didn't like it in the first place to dig into every piece of symbolism that supposedly has something to say about the theme the author claims.

So what does this have to do with Amphibia and The Owl House? Well, their ways of dealing with theme are kind of fascinating and indicative of how they are built as shows and play into why I find one's themes great while the other is lacking. I'll try to illustrate with two metaphors: Amphibia's theming is like putting away pennies for a fundraiser to make a park for the community. Everyone pitches in but they pitch in in small ways and no one is able to just dumb a giant wad of cash in. They're small drops that build and build until one day you go to put a penny in and are pleasantly surprised to find that hey, you guys are making some real progress! You might not make the goal you had but this is impressive as is! Next week it's a little higher and higher until the jar is gone, only for the organizer to come out to cheer about how they made it and finally revealing the park, but the sum of it all is so much more than you could have expected from mere pennies, especially in all the small details! However, even if you only glance at it, it still looks complete, fun and satisfying.

The Owl House's theming is much more like a college essay that ends up getting a C. It starts with a really strong thesis to their paper and has a compelling starting argument that implies a lot of knowledge. However, they have fifty pages to fill and the student realizes by page ten, they're running short. So they first start pulling in elements that don't conflict immediately but are still a little strange to include. Then it includes a couple strange tangents and personal anecdotes that don't seem to make a lot of sense and are losing the thread faster and faster. By the end, the tricks to achieve word count are starting to become blatant, especially as they spend so much time repeating the same things as if they were new information or something unique but it's actually well worn. All of it is useless to their argument and even actively harming it, let alone when paired with all the rest. Structurally it works and it finished with enough words but it comes back with the thesis statement circled multiple times and the question "Wasn't this the point?" under it, all in red.

These two approaches have knock on effects though. Amphibia doesn't ask anything of the viewer but to buy in slightly. In return, you are invited to just enjoy the characters and its world. It doesn't have anything to prove and doesn't need to be loud in its messaging and so the story is allowed to function simply on a basic level and be enjoyable on its own. It can tell a simple story with a clear moral because it knows that the moral is playing a part to the larger whole and doesn't care about if everyone knows how grand its scope because the goal of enriching everyone will be reached no matter what. This is how you get an entire season dedicated to Anne's character development that only bothers to actually say that was the goal at the end of the season when the option to be selfish once more and cut off community, to reject change and go back to what is comfortable, comes in the form of Sasha. And heck, that is actually one of the most overt times Amphibia brings attention to its storytelling/theming but only AFTER earning it.

The Owl House meanwhile has something to prove but neither the knowledge or focus to do so but it's stated it so now it has to earn it. As such, anything that crosses its desk that is even tangentially related to its themes gets pushed in so that it can claim to be thoroughly exploring the topic, even if previous examples or the like actively conflict with the new example. As an example, I've seen people really praise The First Day for tackling how the traditional school system doesn't accommodate people or work for all learning types. With TOH's early statement of "Us weirdos gotta stick together!" and all that implies, this is actually a great topic for it to tackle. However, because its being grafted onto this thesis, the supporting evidence hasn't been properly built up and so you have people claiming they should be allowed to do school differently... By literally breaking the law in a way that is met with the DEATH PENALTY. It's technically on topic but it's sloppy and loses all of its bite because you're left more confused than properly satisfied.

This causes a weird issue where you can engage with Amphibia only on the surface level, never take in its themes, and still get a deep enjoyment from it because the basic storytelling makes sense, follows its own internal logic and has satisfying payoffs because of every penny contributed to making the whole thing works. You don't need more than Anne's relationships with others to be able to cheer in joy at the "They're not Amphibia's greatest treasure" moment because those relationships are engaging on their own. Because of this engagement and satisfaction though, you're more incentivized to want to actually take a closer look at what the whole picture was and to enjoy the minor details, even if you didn't have to, like how the whole show always pushed seeing selfish things that could oppress others as worthless when compared to the selfless and communal which is part of the thematic punch of the greatest treasure moment.

Meanwhile, The Owl House paradoxically is hard to enjoy as a basic story due to all the concessions to theme while the choices of the story also actively make the theming worse, making only the absolute most surface level read the one that can be satisfying because only then can it desperately claiming that everything had a point actually be believed. Otherwise, the broken seams that are barely keeping the whole thing together start to show itself until it entirely unravels at the end because it cannot tie them all back together. The epitomy of this is how Luz becomes a chosen one, breaking some early theming, due to a power up she only gets after the THIRD time that she theoretically resolves the same inner conflict in THREE EPISODES, muddling any of the thematic payoffs for any of the three times the themes were meant to climax. The best the show can hope for is that the teacher will accept their excuses for why it's so incoherent, despite the fact that even as early as S1B (When The First Day I referenced earlier was) the flaws in the show's ability to actually meet the assignment were clear.

This is why I personally argue that you can have a good story without themes but you can't have good themes without a good story. If the work doesn't support them then the themes will more often than not get in the way and audiences won't care they were there in the first place. Admittedly, this might be due to my own writing method where I usually stumble my way into a theme that stems from simply trying to make the base concept the best way I can. After all, almost every story will have a theme of some sort but if you go in with the goal of making a statement, well...

You better know what you're talking about and how to present it or you'll become more repetitive and rambly than this blog.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

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[ismelinor]

Who did it better? (1/2)

Read on AO3 | tagging @today-in-fic | word count: 2,035

Summary: When things aren’t adding up following the events of Dreamland, Mulder and Scully look for evidence of what happened. They find the CCTV footage of them leaving Kersh’s office… i.e. a contrived situation which allows Mulder and Scully to watch ‘Mulder’ slap Scully on the butt.

It started small, with two coins fused together and a general sense of wrongness. The term was vague and un-scientific, and she’d never hear the end of it if she said it to Mulder – but nevertheless, something was just off.

It was like…when you wake up from the deepest of deep sleeps (which was a distant dream to her – when was the last time she’d woken to anything other than an alarm, the phone ringing, or Mulder pounding at her door?) and it takes a few minutes to remember who and where you are. She’d felt like that walking away from the confrontation at Area 51: What was she doing there? Who was the man standing next to her? What day was it?

Only – the feeling hadn’t quite faded the way it usually did after a shower and a cup of coffee. No, everything still felt…out of focus.

And then there were the odd little knick-knacks that kept appearing. The fused dime and penny was weird enough, but then she found a handful of sunflower seeds in the pocket of her overcoat – and then a folded up paper doily, stamped Little A’le Inn, Rachel – and then, the kicker, a receipt for a pack of Morleys from a gas station in Nevada tucked into her drawer, when she knew she and Mulder hadn’t stopped on their way back. She called the bank to query the expense: they had no record of the payment. None of it made any sense.

~~~

It would have taken Scully a long time to admit out loud that a few sunflower seeds and errant receipts here and there were making her question reality. Fortunately, Mulder had no such qualms. He pulled her aside after lunch one day, and launched right into it: “Scully, I think we’ve experienced some sort of time jump.”

Scully just blinked at him.

“It’s not unheard of, you know. There’s several well-documented cases in the files: individuals who unaccountably knew what was going to happen, or claimed to have brought items from the past or the future.” Off the look she was giving him, he added, “Need I remind you that you’re the one with a thesis defending the possibility of time travel?”

He’d brought it up enough times that she had little hope of forgetting it. She sighed. “What makes you think we’ve travelled in time?”

“Ever since we got back from Area 51, I’ve been finding these…these relics of a week I know I didn’t live. My apartment’s all cleaned up – I’ve got a waterbed now – yesterday I found a pair of handcuffs on my pillow.” Scully raised an eyebrow. He leaned forward with a smirk. “Come on, Scully, I might forget a little spring cleaning, but you know I wouldn’t forget handcuffs.”

Scully tried to bite back her smile. “Those have all happened to you, Mulder, and frankly they sound like symptoms of early-onset dementia. You said we experienced a time jump. How am I involved?”

“Scully, I’ve seen you take those coins out of your drawer a hundred times today alone. Tell me you’re not finding things too.”

She wasn’t ready to concede yet, so she said, “These could all be accounted for by someone playing a strange prank on us. Why are you so ready to believe it’s time travel?”

“When I focus on these objects, I start to remember the other timeline. It’s fuzzy, but it’s there: I remember going inside Area 51, Scully. It was like I was living someone else’s life for a week. There were these bratty teenagers – I think I had a wife, even. It was awful. The problem is, I get this headache every time I try to remember.”

Scully sighed. “It’s the power of suggestion, Mulder. You already had this theory, and now your mind is filling in the gaps.”

Mulder grinned. “I have proof. Well, the lone gunmen have proof, but I’m going over this evening to check it out. They called me just now because their systems registered an anomaly: a blip in the CCTV recording of their office. When they looked over the footage from yesterday, they saw you and me talking to them for almost half an hour. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly sure I was eating pizza on my couch all yesterday evening.”

Scully raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Come on, Mulder. It’s far more likely that they mixed up the footage from yesterday with another day.”

“They’re not just pretty faces, Scully: they’re tech experts. Don’t you trust their abilities?”

“Trust them? Mulder, they’re the most paranoid, delusional people I’ve ever met. Byers I might listen to, but Langley and Frohike think they’re living out James Bond, when-”

“When they’re a little more Revenge of the Nerds?” Mulder finished.

Scully grimaced. He wasn’t wrong.

“What, you don’t like that one?”

“Mulder, I’m a woman with a PhD in physics. If I wanted to see angry, sexually aggressive nerds, I’d open my yearbook.”

Mulder laughed delightedly. “Alright, Scully, just pretend you agree with me for a minute. Focus on the coin and see if you remember anything.”

She huffed but closed her eyes. That coin was strange: like two objects trying to occupy the same space – a perversion of the most basic laws of physics. And, casting her mind back, it was like…like two memories were trying to occupy the same space in her hippocampus. “I remember…I think I remember a gas station…and sitting with you in Kersh’s office…you were acting strange…and, oh, I remember going over to your place…huh, I remember your bedroom, and the handcuffs-” She opened her eyes wide to take in Mulder’s expression, already shifting from surprise to a smirk. She blushed; damn her complexion, never hid anything. “Not like that. I handcuffed you to the bed-” Mulder raised an eyebrow and she reddened even more. “Not like that. You weren’t…you.”

None of it made sense. Her memory must be confused: yes, just like Mulder, she must be creating false memories out of the objects they’d found. Her head was pounding all of a sudden.

Mulder hummed. “Well, if video tape captures this…alternate version of events, why don’t we check out the CCTV here? You said we were in Kersh’s office: maybe we can catch us leaving.”

Scully was too curious to argue, so she followed him up to the security office. It didn’t take much to convince the guard on duty to look out the tapes for them – which was slightly concerning, actually. When he came back to the desk, he was frowning. “There’s two tapes of the sixth floor corridor from Tuesday. I don’t know how they got mixed up.”

Mulder shrugged, taking them both. Scully thanked the guard and followed Mulder to the lift.

“We can’t watch these in the bullpen, or we’ll get questions. My place or yours?”

“Yours. But we’re waiting till after work, Mulder. We’re on thin enough ice as it is: I’m not risking suspension over a weird coin and a pair of handcuffs.”

Mulder sighed like the petulant child he was but took his seat anyway. Back to piles of manure.

~~~

Sitting by his side on Mulder’s leather couch, Scully could almost pretend that they were normal people. When he held out the two tapes for her to choose between, she could imagine that he was letting her pick a movie: that he’d put the tape in, grab them beers from the fridge, and they’d lounge around and laugh at the bad special effects.

But no, of course not. They were examining unethically obtained CCTV footage to investigate whether there had been a rip in the space-time continuum. A much more sensible use of her Friday afternoon. She pointed to Mulder’s right hand and he put the tape in. The time stamp read 13:00, Tuesday. They watched as grainy FBI agents rushed up and down the hall, a few familiar faces here and there. Mulder picked up the remote and put the tape on 2x, then 5x speed. The agents zoomed every which way, but there was no sign of Mulder or Scully. The only people to walk in or out of Kersh’s office were his secretary and Kersh himself. Nada.

Mulder switched the tapes. 13:00, Tuesday, again. The same camera angle. It even looked to be the same agents bustling down the corridor – Scully spotted Stonecypher at 13:14, just like in the first tape. Huh. Someone must have copied the tape: it was strange, but not outside the realm of possibility. But then-

Scully stared at the screen incredulously: Mulder was right. There they were, walking out of Kersh’s office at 13:35, when Scully knew for a fact that they’d never been to that meeting. How the hell was that possible? They sat forward on the sofa simultaneously. On the screen, they stopped just outside the office. It was hard to read their expressions in the grainy image, but it looked like Scully was giving him a dressing down. Mulder walked back into the office and Scully threw up her hands in frustration, clearly watching him through the doorway. After a few moments, Mulder walked out again and – and –

Scully sputtered out “Did you just-” at the same time as Mulder’s “Did I just-”. She wheeled on him, flushed with disbelief and anger. “You just slapped me on my ass!”

Mulder put his hands up like she was pointing a gun at him – and there was an idea – and coughed up a rather pathetic barrage of “No – I didn’t”s and “I wouldn’t”s. And then – he started to laugh.

She gaped at him in outrage, a perfect match for her doppelganger on the screen. He attempted to rein in his laugher.

“No, no, I’m sorry. It’s not funny – it’s just – I mean, come on, Scully, there’s no way you can think that’s really me.”

Scully narrowed her eyes at him, but – well, he had a point. Mulder could be a flirt – he was incorrigible, really – but he’d never crossed the line. Even when it really, really seemed like he would. Given the two tapes with the same time stamp, the strange objects popping up and the confused state of their memories – yes, she was willing to concede that the Mulder on the tape might not be (for lack of a better word) her Mulder.

Still, she wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. “What are the chances that two different people are somehow able to impersonate you perfectly? And what are the chances that they both use this fantastical power to hit on me?”

Mulder raised an eyebrow in an expression she assumed was meant to convey: oh, we’re talking about Eddie now, are we?

She raised an eyebrow right back at him: serves you right for laughing, asshole.

“Well, Scully, once you’ve eliminated the impossible, and all that.”

“I think we have different definitions of impossible, Mulder. I’d call two separate men with uncanny shapeshifting abilities pretty impossible.”

Mulder grinned and she nudged his shoulder to let him know she’d forgiven him. For now.

“I don’t think we’re gonna get any more from the CCTV, and thinking about it is hurting my head,” said Mulder. “I’m going over to Byers’ to check out their tape. You wanna join?”

If anyone had told Scully six years ago that she’d be happy – excited, even – to spend her Friday evenings drinking cheap beer and debating the likelihood of time travel with four conspiracy nuts, she’d have laughed in their face. Today, though, she just ducked her head and smiled.

“If we can pick up food on the way. I’m never eating Langley’s cooking again.”

Mulder handed over her coat. As they left his apartment, he turned to her and asked, “For future reference, who did it better, Eddie or Tape Guy?”

Sculled rolled her eyes. He had nerve, she’d give him that. “I’d prefer a bottle of wine to a slap on the ass, if that’s what you’re asking.” Mulder smirked. “But, for future reference, you do it better than either of them.”

That wiped the smirk off his face.

[whentherewerebicycles]

hello anon!! okay, this is going to be a very long post, so buckle up. standard caveat: since i don’t know the specifics of your topic or discipline or situation, some of this will hopefully be relevant and some of it might not, so just grab what works for you and leave the rest! and if you have more specific questions that this general overview doesn’t touch on, feel free to send those in.

it sounds like you have a few different questions here:

How do I find and articulate my research question?

How do I effectively take notes on my background reading in the early stages, when I’m not sure yet what my argument is going to be?

How do I organize a long research project/paper? How do I conceptualize something that has so many moving parts & happens to be a genre (a thesis) that I’ve never written before?

How do I write something that long? 

also I am not sure if by “diss” you mean a senior thesis, master’s thesis, or a doctoral dissertation, as I know US and non-US universities use different terminology! so I will kinda just respond to this as A Very Lengthy Research Paper.

my response here will focus mostly on that first question (how to find/articulate a research question), with some thoughts at the end about notetaking in the early stages of a big research project. I’m going to lay out a method I just used with my own students to help them articulate questions & generate possible lines of inquiry to follow. I have been calling it the ‘research tier’ activity/system but it’s a pretty basic way of mapping out possible directions for a project. I use some version of this for every big project I undertake - whether it’s academic work, planning a course syllabus, or writing fic.

I want to emphasize, before I start, that the “tier” map you construct is a LIVING document, not a set-in-stone plan that has to be finished before you begin. the goal is to get past the anxiety of the blank page by generating tons and tons of ideas and questions related to your central topic -- so that if you hit a dead end, you can trace your way back and follow a different line of inquiry. when i am working on a research project, i am continually updating this planning document (i’ll say more about that at the end, once you have a sense of what the tiers look like).

Those questions are geared towards my students, who are working more in social science-y disciplines and/or on projects that have clear connections to specific communities. If you are writing a more traditional humanities discipline, here are some other examples:

I’m interested in...

the romance novel as a genre

Virginia Woolf’s writings on nature/the environment

the cultural reception and impact of the TV show Will & Grace

what queer social life looked like in 1920s New York

play and playfulness in the college classroom (my current research project, which I’ll use as an example)

once you have some idea of your focus, you can begin generating questions related to that focus. “Tier 2″ begins to get slightly more specific, though you are still very much in “big picture” mode. here’s some sentence stems I give my students to help them generate tier 2 questions:

my students are doing research projects that are ideally supposed to develop out of their preexisting community involvements or commitments, so i give them this additional advice:

[note: if your thesis topic is in a social science-y discipline (or a humanities discipline that leans closer to the social sciences), you can probably use some of those ideas or prompts. if your thesis topic is more of a purely academic humanities-type topic (for instance, a literary studies thesis about a specific novel), not all of those will apply perfectly, but some will hopefully be useful still!]

here’s an example, again using my playfulness project. I’ll list the question and then below it, in italics, I’ll explain what ‘stirred up’ that question for me.

T2: What are some core preoccupations or big-picture questions I want to explore? What are some things I’ve noticed that I want to understand?

Core Question 1: Why are college classrooms so serious? Why is there so little playfulness in most college teaching? Why so little laughter, movement, fun?

Observing my friend’s kindergarten classes made me realize how much elementary educators rely on bright colors, movement, singing, playing imaginative games together, etc. to engage young learners’ imaginations, minds, and bodies. Why do we value that so much in elementary education, but stop considering it important in college classes? Do learners “age out” of a need for highly interactive, engaging learning? I suspect no... so that’s a hunch I can begin to follow. 

Observing other college courses (and drawing on my own experience as an undergrad and grad student) made me realize how much educators rely on the same standard methods of teaching (lecturing with a discussion section; a version of Socratic seminar discussion that is primarily led by the professor). To me, these methods are antithetical to playfulness and tend to quash people’s ability or desire to playfully experiment, try things out, risk failure, etc. I wonder if the actual methods we use to teach content or to structure our classes are producing ‘serious’ classes, whether or not we personally as instructors want that to happen. That’s another hunch I could follow...

I’m thinking of a possible connection here to my past research on the origins of English literature as a discipline (in 1920s-30s England). One of the things that scholars often emphasize is how hard faculty had to work to transform English into a serious, rigorous, ‘legitimate’ discipline, akin to the hard sciences. That’s something that I think we still see today in the way people anxiously defend the value of a humanities education. I’m curious about whether the need to justify our existence as a discipline/field of study influences our methods of teaching college students. Do we banish playfulness from the classroom because it threatens that image of the humanities as a serious, rigorous discipline? That’s yet another hunch I could follow... 

Core Question 2: I have a hunch that people learn better in playful environments. Is that true -- and if so, why? What is it about playfulness that enhances learning?

I’m a lifelong fangirl, and fandoms are creative environments where people are continually engaged in acts of imaginative play. I’ve observed and have experienced firsthand how these playful environments seem to encourage people to try new things, take creative risks, learn new skills even if they’re afraid they’ll be ‘bad’ at them, and commit huge amounts of time, energy, and passion to long-term creative projects that don’t make any money or ‘earn’ them a grade. I’m curious about how we might adapt the playful, passionate energy of fan spaces to college teaching.

In my own classrooms, I’ve noticed that students get so much more into the activity (and seem to internalize the content more deeply) when I frame it as an imaginative exercise, a roleplaying activity, or a game of some kind. Teaching the same content in a way that encourages playfulness seems to produce deeper engagement (and deeper learning?) than using the traditional methods of ‘serious’ teaching.

Core Question 3: Playfulness and shared laughter/fun seem to build social bonds (again, drawing on my experiences in fandom). Could shared imaginative play help students develop better social skills? Could it help build a sense of community in the classroom and strengthen students’ sense of belonging? This question feels especially urgent to me given the epidemic of self-reported loneliness, anxiety, and depression on college campuses. 

*

You can have lots more than 3 core questions/preoccupations! In fact, the more ideas you can generate at this stage the better. The idea isn’t to hone in on your research question (yet) but to generate as many possible paths you could take, so that you can begin evaluating which interest you most, or which seem like the most fruitful questions to explore/answer. Doing the idea-generating for Tier 2 should already begin to set you up for Tier 3 -- which involves articulating specific sub-questions you’ll need to answer to better understand or answer those core questions/preoccupations.

and then we’ll go ahead and fold in T4, as I tend to move back and forth between T3/T4 as I brainstorm.

I’ll just take one of my Tier 2 questions as an example, but again, you can/should do this for all of yours (or at least the ones that interest you most).

Core question: Playfulness and shared laughter/fun seem to build social bonds (again, drawing on my experiences in fandom). Could shared imaginative play help students develop better social skills? etc etc

T3 subquestions (with T4 “directions for inquiry” folded into the first one, so you can see an example):

-- SubQ1 Does play actually strengthen social bonds? If so, how? Are specific kinds of play better for this than others (ie, collaborative or cooperative play compared to competitive play)? With Tier 4 folded in:

Do a library database search to try to figure out where “play” research typically happens -- is it in psychology research? Neuroscience? Early childhood education?

Then begin searching for different keyword strings that might help me gather up initial sources. Some initial ideas: play + social bonding, play + social skills, play + social development, play + cooperation, play + friendship, play + mental health. (Typically finding a couple useful/relevant articles will help you generate better keywords -- as you can begin to see the kinds of terminology that researchers use to describe your topic.)

I could also maybe interview college students themselves, or design a survey - but that would depend on the type of research I want to do. Do I want to conduct my own original research study, or is my focus more on synthesizing existing research from different fields to construct an argument? 

Could I find faculty or researchers who work on these topics, who might be able to direct me to specific resources or help me understand what kind of work has already been done on this topic? Maybe I can’t find someone who specifically researches playfulness, but an educational researcher whose work focuses on social-emotional learning would probably have a pretty good understanding of what features or pedagogical choices help create positive, affirming learning environments.

-- SQ2: Are college students lonely?

Are they reporting (or do they experience) higher rates of mental illness? What are the numbers on this?

What are some of the prevalent theories or hypotheses about why this is? Could social isolation or difficulty forming friendships be a possible contributing factor?

-- SQ3: Why are social bonds good for us - physically, mentally, emotionally?

-- SQ4: Do social bonds enhance learning? If so, how?

What if I looked to other non-academic learning environments (such as fandoms, team sports or group activities, etc where people are learning new skills in highly social settings) to make a case for playfulness in the college classroom? This isn’t direct 1:1 proof that “more playfulness in college classrooms = happier, more socially well-connected students,” but offering detailed descriptions of how those learning environments are structured might spark ideas for my audience (university instructors and administrators) or persuade them that playfulness has an important social-emotional role to play in college learning.  

*

Typically what ends up happening is I produce a huge, messy document (or fill a giant paper or whiteboard if I’m doing it by hand) that has tons and tons of different directions I might follow. usually, the initial process of creating this giant brainstorming document sparks lots of ideas for where to begin researching. then, as i go off and begin reading articles, those articles typically help flesh out my understanding of the core questions or concepts i’m interested in, or my understanding of what kind of research on this topic already exists vs. where the gaps are that my own work might be able to fill. that initial source-gathering phase of research will also usually spark new questions and sub-questions, which get added to my tier map.

having some kind of messy brainstorming map/plan also helps me read in a more focused way. instead of just opening a random article and skimming it without any clear sense of what i’m looking for, i’m now opening articles and reading them with a purpose -- i’m looking for answers to the specific questions i’ve articulated. so i can skim in a more focused way, looking for specific keywords that seem relevant, and i can also take notes in a more focused way, noting down key ideas that

having a question in mind can also help me figure out more quickly if the article is relevant to my research questions or not. for instance, let’s say i open an article about how playing competitive games in high school PE classes improve students’ self-reported moods. if i didn’t know what i was reading for, i might spend a lot of time on this article, trying to figure out if it was relevant to my research (it has the keywords, right? so maybe it’s relevant?). but if i am reading with a specific question in mind (“Do collaborative learning games help strengthen students’ sense of social connection?”) I can tell pretty quickly that this article is not going to be that useful, since it focuses on competitive physical games (probably not something I’ll integrate into an English class). so I can say with some confidence, “I probably don’t need to read this whole thing, but maybe I’ll check out their lit review section or their bibliography to see if the authors cite any other work on play/playfulness that might be more relevant to my specific questions.” 

i think i’ve kinda started to answer your second question about notetaking here, too, so i will also say that in the early stages of a big research project, i am absolutely NOT taking detailed notes on any of the sources i find. my focus is much more on amassing a large pool of highly relevant sources that i know i’m going to want to go back to and read more deeply as my research questions come into sharper focus. this is because deep reading burns through a lot of time and energy, so i want to make sure i’m saving that deep reading energy for sources that are quite likely to be relevant to my project. 

to figure out if a source is relevant, I often skim the abstract and introduction to figure out the core questions the article or chapter is seeking to answer. then I ask myself three questions:

Are the core questions of this article the same as (or very similar to) my core questions or subquestions? If so, mark this citation as HIGHLY relevant - I’m going to want to come back and read this source carefully, to see if it’s already suggested answers to the questions I’m asking. 

Do the core questions of this article seem to resonate with my core questions, even if we’re not asking them in exactly the same way, or the author of this paper is applying them to a different field? If so, mark this citation as LIKELY relevant - it may not be a perfect 1:1 with my own questions, but that can sometimes spark exciting new ideas or ways of reframing my original questions. If not, toss it.

Do the questions this article is asking suggest new questions or lines of inquiry that I am interested in exploring? Sometimes an article will introduce me to a whole new area of research or a new array of questions I hadn’t even originally thought to explore. If that’s the case, I typically pencil those sub-questions into my brainstorming tier document and mark the source as LIKELY or HIGHLY relevant, depending on how excited i am about it. 

OK I WILL CLOSE HERE FOR NOW as I have to get back to work, but I will say that when I taught my students this method, they were very confused by the initial explanation of it, but then when they went back and used the models to work through the tier brainstorming activity for themselves, they seemed to find it really useful. so if you are scratching your head, try doing a quick TIER 1 - TIER 2 - TIER 3 - TIER 4 map for your own research question to see if doing it yourself helps clarify. also: if you can’t get further than tier 2, it’s usually a sign that you need to do some more reading and freewriting about the questions that you’re curious about, or the gaps you’ve noticed in the scholarship, or the threads you’d like to follow. but you can do some of that background reading in a more focused way now, using your initial big questions to help guide your selection of background readings & give you a sense of purpose as you read.

[amor-immortalem]

My Adoring Fan Chapter 8

chapter 7

Arella was busying herself with housework that needed to be done. From picking up scattered toys that their youngest hadn’t put away before his brother had taken him out for the day to finishing up laundry from the previous night- she needed something to do to distract herself from worrying too much about her husband. It was just one of his bad days where he couldn’t focus on things very well and the world just didn’t feel real to him. He had moved past the incident that brought their oldest child into their life but the effects of the trauma he endured still plagued him from time to time. It was rare for an episode to be this bad however. He hadn’t had one on this scale since their twins were four. He would get better in a few days; all he needed was rest.

As she turned to pull the clothes out of the dryer, she could hear her phone ringing. Reading the caller id, she sighed as she picked up.

“Azalea, you had better be ringing me for a nonsense reason and not because you’re in Lord Diavolo’s office and I need to come down to get you.” Arella said in a whisper. With the condition he was in today, the last thing she wanted was Mammon hearing her and getting himself worked up.

“Well... at least I’m not in the office this time... but I did get kicked outta homeroom.” The girl said. “Can ya come pick us up... please?”

“Who is ‘us’, darling?”

“Me, ’Relius, Max, and Zulima. We had a good reason this time, Mum, I promise.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Let me see if Dad needs anything and then I’ll be on my way.” After they said goodbye and hung up, Arella stared at her phone. “My stars, I wonder what happened for Aurelius, Max, and Zulima to get kicked out of class as well.” She went into the bedroom to check on her husband. “I have to go get the twins, Zulima, and Max from RAD. Do you need anything before I leave?” She asks as she rubs his shoulder.

Mammon only shakes his head as he looks at the clock. “It’s 8:30 in the morning. What the hell happened?” He starts to sit up but Arella just places a hand on his chest.

“Just stay in bed and rest, Dear. I don’t know what happened exactly, but I’ll handle it when I find out, okay?”

“Fine.” He lets out a sigh. “Let me know when you find out, please.”

“I will. I’ll see you in a bit. I love you.”

“Love ya too, Treasure. Drive safely.”

After that brief exchange, Arella grabbed the keys and left for RAD.

--------------------------------------------------

“So, I want you to tell me exactly what got the four of you kicked out.” Arella asks as she drives them back to their home. “And no lies, please.”

“Well,” Azalea started wondering where exactly she should start, “It all started when I came into class a half-hour late... apparently the old hag took exception ta that. She called me out on bein’ late ‘n I mouthed back ‘n next thing ya know she’s calling me a brat ‘n stupid ‘n forgetful ‘n a delinquent ‘n spoiled- which ta be fair, she’s not wrong ‘bout some of that stuff... but then she took it a step further by callin’ me a half-breed ‘n tryin’ ta take my cane claimin’ it was a weapon so I couldn’t have it on my person ‘cuz -ya know- all the fights ‘n shit I get inta.”

“And then when we tried to stand up for ‘Zay,” Zulima began, “She turned her sights on us.”

“She called us trash and abominations on top of calling us that stupid slur too.” Aurelius leans his head against the passenger side window.

“She said she’s going to write all four of us up saying it was her word against ours so it’s probably going to be wildly fabricated.” Max says as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I have most of the exchange recorded, if you want to listen to it Mrs. Morningstar.”

“I would love to hear it, Max, thank you.” Arella stopped the car, having arrived at home. “We’ll listen to it now.” Max pulled out her D.D.D. and played back the audio. About half way through, Arella’s jaw dropped in surprise. “And she speaks to the three of you this way on a regular basis?” The three half-demons nodded. “And what about you, Max?”

“This is the first time she’s ever said anything like this to me.” The human frowned.

“And it’ll be the last time too if I have anything to do with it. Azalea, is this why you were always late to your homeroom hour last term, honey?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I’m tired of bein’ berated ‘n called slurs and insults for an hour... I bet if she was the teacher in any of m’classes, I would have flunked them...”

“We all are,” Zulima says as she hugged herself tighter. “And whenever we try to defend ourselves or each other, she takes it out on us in the one other class we have with her. She almost failed me in world language claiming an airhead like me couldn’t have written such a high-level thesis in Latin of all languages, Auntie. I worked so hard with Uncle Satan on that thesis too! I felt so horrible.”

“And me in potions as well,” Max sighed. “And she gave me the wrong ingredients so I would be assured to fail.”

“I was this close,” Aurelius pinches his fingers together as he talks, “to flunking her Curses and Hexes course last term. I’m telling you, Mum, she’s an absolute witch of a demon. I think if Lord Diavolo hadn’t looked into it himself after I talked with Uncle Lucifer that I would have failed. Her excuse was that when it came to the end of term exam, mine was the last that she graded and she ‘accidentally’ used the wrong key.”

Arella had a look of realization on her face. “I know exactly who this teacher is. She absolutely hated me and your father. She was our curses and hexes teacher too.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “She never did anything too extreme because we shared a class with three of your uncles and if word ever got back to Uncle Lucifer, she knew there would be hell to pay.”

“So she takes it out on us because of you and Dad?” Aurelius looks over at his mother. “That’s pretty shitty.”

“Not to mention, she’s a racist and a xenophobe on top of it all,” Zulima growled in disgust. “How ugly.”

“Let’s go in now. Please be quiet when you walk in. Dad’s having one of his episodes and it's really bad this time so let him rest. I’ll make lunch in a bit.”

All of the kids nodded as they got out and headed into the house. Immediately Azalea pulled max around giving her a tour of the house while Zulima went up to Azalea’s room to make herself comfortable and wait for Aurelius to stop by his room to grab some spell books so the three of them could work on their magical studies together since there wasn’t really anything else to do.

--------------------------------------------------

As the house tour came to a close Max and Azalea climbed the stairs headed up to the second level where the bedrooms were located.

“You’re having a much better time with the stairs now; I’m starting to notice.” Max says quietly.

“Yeah, I still have trouble with the ones in my room though. With these, the steps are more closed off where the ones in my room have that opening between each step, ya know? With these types of stairs, I can jus’ slide my foot forward until it hits the base of the next step and that way, I can know how far my foot is out and whether it's safe ta step up without bein’ afraid I might slip.”

The human nodded. “Yeah, I get it. Makes sense.”

As they passed through the hall and by Azalea’s parents’ room, Mammon called out to her. “’Zalea come in here please. I wanna talk to ya ‘bout what happened at school.”

“Are ya sure? I know yer havin’ one of them bad days...”

“It’s fine. C’mere please.” Mammon says as he sits up on the bed and runs a hand through his hair.

Max hands Azalea her D.D.D. figuring Mammon might want to hear what was said before heading straight down the to her girlfriend’s room where the other two teens were waiting on them.

“Please tell me you didn’t get yourself and the others kicked out of class because of a fight.” The demon asks as his daughter climbs up next to him on the bed.

“I didn’t. Not this time. The teacher just had a stick up her ass ‘cuz I was late for homeroom... And then things escalated from there. Ta be fair, I kinda had some fault in it ‘cuz I got mouthy with ‘er but still she said somethings... And she then told me ta get outta her class... The others stood up for me ‘n that’s why they got kicked out too.”

“What kinda things?”

“It’s easier if I jus’ play the audio Max took of the exchange.” The half-demon unlocks the phone and plays the audio for her father. She watches him carefully just to see his reaction. It’s not any different from her mother’s except she can feel anger rising within him.

“I can’t believe she’s still workin’ for the school... If I’m rememberin’ her voice correctly, I know exactly who that is and she was decrepit when yer uncles and I were students there. There wasn’t nothin’ I could do right with ‘er. And this has been every day since ya entered this year?” Azalea only nods at his question. “I’m sorry ya gotta go through that, kiddo. We’ll take care of this for ya. Ya know none of that horrible stuff she said ‘bout y’all is true, right?”

“Yeah... but it still bites when people say it.” Azalea leans her head on Mammon’s chest, tucking herself up under his arm as he pulls her into a side hug. “Like all we’ve ever done is just exist and both demons and humans won’t even let us do that! There’s always somethin’ they got a problem with! It's unfair. We’re not demon enough to live here in the Devildom and not human enough to live in the human world. It’s like we don’t belong in either realm. Like we don’t get to be.... happy.”

Mammon would only hug his daughter tighter as he tucked her head under her chin. He wanted things to be different. It always broke his heart to hear his own children- even his nieces and nephews- talk like this. It all stemmed from the oldest generation of demons too- the ones that had existed even before he and his brothers had lost the war, fell from grace, and became demons. The ones that remembered what it was like long before Diavolo started pushing for peace between the three realms, long before the exchange program. Just like the humans they looked down upon, they were just as resistant to change, passing down their ideology to their offspring and so on and so forth as time went on. And the Devildom was doing just that- changing in many ways. From the exchange program that started over 20 years ago that was still going to this day to the advances in technology that put them on par with the human world... as much as the elderly demons might protest it, they couldn’t stop it. Once they all had kicked the bucket, the Avatar of Greed hoped things would get better. They had to.

And the youngest generation was proof of this- unpoisoned by their great grandparents’ and grandparents’ beliefs, Mammon could see how eager they were to accept the changes and the fact that half demons were becoming more frequent among the Devildom's elite- even if his kids themselves couldn’t see it themselves just yet.

As they sat in silence, the demon began purring- not in a way that showed contentment, but rather a deep rumbling purr that resonated through his chest that was often used when a demon was comforting themselves or their young when they were hurt or scared or ill or just upset in anyway shape or form. For his children, it often calmed them enough to put them to sleep for at least a few hours- more if they were sick and needed the rest. It always worked most for Azalea even back when she a baby, especially when she was this worked up and upset about something. He misses those days. The days when the twins and even Cyrus weren’t yet aware of things like racism or discrimination or hatred. Part of Mammon wishes all three of them could have just stayed that age forever.

As the half-demon was falling asleep, she tucked herself closer to her father mumbling a soft “Love you, Papa...” before she was out completely.

“Love ya too, my little Magpie.” He smiles softly before yawning and settling back down for a nap himself.

--------------------------------------------------

find more on my masterlist

[fairuzfan]

The Subtlety of Inumaki Toge

We've pretty much learned about most of the backgrounds of the Jujustu High students that we've been introduced to, even if it was just a cursory glance at their motivations and personality. Each character has had a backstory or struggle explicitly stated in some way, and they’ve all had a form of internal and external development. 

But the one we've learned the least about, despite his presence since Vol 0 and his increased significance in this arc, is Inumaki Toge.

When Inumaki is first introduced, it’s as a seemingly stoic character, a mysterious guy who only speaks in riceball ingredients. He covers the bottom half of his mouth to avoid getting stared at for his markings and overall, doesn’t really seem to like standing out, giving the feeling of a background character. It isn’t until we get his introductory chapter in Volume 0 that we learn a little about his character. 

A cursed technique that manifests at birth, forever limiting his speech so that he can’t fully express himself verbally. This is different from the concept of cursed techniques overall, since from Megumi’s story we learn that they manifest at around age 5. 

And right from the get-go, we learn that because of his cursed technique, he’s struggled, making him a foil of Yuuta, someone who’s relationships and perception of themselves are affected by their cursed energy. Both Yuuta and, as Panda seems to imply, Toge, have directly affected the people around them with their cursed energy, causing harm to the people around them. And the way they deal with it is not so different. 

Yuuta tries to isolate himself from others most of his life and, while he doesn’t seclude himself, Toge prevents the chance of accidentally cursing someone by limiting his speech, isolating himself while still being in the proximity of others. Both of them recognize this in each other and they become protective, becoming close friends.

But.... Toge doesn’t really seem to be affected by this setback. He still makes friends easily and it seems like he has a pretty playful personality. 

Now let me clarify something here. It’s not odd that we only learn about Inumaki’s character after learning his backstory. That happens sometimes in media. But that doesn’t really happen in Jujutsu. We get a vivid sense of personality from each character upon their introduction. Maki is tough is standoffish. Gojo is playful and friendly. Megumi is impatient and focused. Just about every character’s personality is revealed upon their first introduction. But for Inumaki, that’s not the case.

Everything we learn about Inumaki is a second hand account. We learn from Panda about his cursed technique. We learn from Megumi and Gojo about his speaking patterns. And we learn from Momo and Kamo about how to defend yourself from his cursed speech. But none of this comes directly from him. We haven’t even so much as received a thought bubble from him. This guy’s entire character is just assumptions we gather from other people.

As a side note, it’d be interesting to learn about how they knew about this. I wonder if his cursed speech also has affect in written language, although I doubt it. But what if the characters all learned about this from someone else? What if what we’re hearing from Panda and Megumi is not even a second-hand account but a third-hand account? A fourth?

This is a good segment into the next part of this meta! Let’s move on to his cursed technique!

His cursed technique makes quite a bit of people nervous. It’s often remarked how Inumaki is a descendent of the “Inumaki Clan,” some other clan that’s not one of the Big Three. But we don’t really get much more about it than that. It implies that it’s a pretty old clan with a pretty old technique and a pretty old history. 

That’s it. Implications. But that’s also the interesting part, I think. All this talk about his lineage and his technique, without actually revealing anything about him, is setting him up for something greater. A more meaningful and impactful part of the story than just a side character.

***before I continue, I’d like to clarify that I will be referring to the story of Adam and Eve and Crowley through a purely literary lense and do not intend to make any religious commentary. If I offend anyone or cause discomfort, I am truly sorry and do not intend to cause anyone any harm. I will try my hardest to avoid making assumptions but if I do, please feel free to tell me.***

His cursed technique and the imagery of its name "Snake and Fangs" brings to mind the story of how Adam and Eve were sent to live on Earth, with Crowley suggesting to Adam and Eve to take a bite of the forbidden fruit. Where Crowley whispered suggestions, tempting them to take a bite, Inumaki also uses words to inflict damage, albiet in a much more physical way. 

But the difference is that Inumaki’s a human using words against curses to protect people. He’s basically the anti-thesis of the imagery his cursed technique brings up. His entire character, even more-so than Yuuji, Megumi, and Yuuta, is about saving people. It’s known that oftentimes when there are a large number of civilians in the area, Toge is called to help protect and keep them safe. He’s accomplished Yuuji’s entire life goal without sweating about it. He’s directly helped the most amount of people, from what we can tell. 

Where the other characters help the people they have a connection to, Toge helps people he doesn’t know and probably will never know. Which may also be a reason why we haven’t learned much about him, narratively speaking. 

Yuuji’s central question is “how can I help people without hurting anyone?” And the thing is, Toge might have an answer to that. Toge always has the possibility of hurting others. So he limits his speech. But he also has the possibility of helping so many people. So he’s careful of the words he says when he says them. Even when he told Megumi and Kamo to escape from Hanami, he seemed to hesitate in how he told them.

Inumaki’s entire personality is the opposite of what we assume the “mysterious side character with dangerous powers who rarely speaks” trope should be. He’s a well mannered kid who speaks in his own way and wants to make connections with others. He’s suffered as a result of his technique but that doesn’t affect him in his present. He’s a character who realizes that the past is the past and the present is the present.

Every single action he makes affects our perception of him purely because that’s the only way we know what type of person he is. We don’t really get much more of what he does on screen other than the events and consequences. But that could be a set up for something grander to come later on. If Yuuji and Inumaki had talked and had a heart to heart earlier in the series, I doubt Yuuji would be in a downwards spiral right now. Inumaki is a big picture character who also wants to help the majority, but recognizes his limitations and also makes efforts to protect the minority, in this case the Jujustu students. 

Inumaki is a wonderfully subtle character with hidden wisdom that feels like it’ll come to light in this arc as Yuuji and Yuuta finally confront each other. 

[cupstealer]

Re: your last ask.

I am also no longer into the fandom side of hockey anymore and hardly ever read fan fic anymore. (A senior thesis will do that to a person 😔) Buut I want you to know that I think about contact high on a regular basis. Once a week maybe type of regular, when I’m wishing I was reading something fun and not a science journal. Is that weird?! I mean I know that sounds a little crazy- but it might be the greatest fic I’ve ever read. While I was reading it I got the sense that it would be one of my favorites, but I had no idea how much it would still ruminate with me a year and a half later. I don’t think I can recall a single other rpf work like I can that one. You are such an amazing writer! And I hope you continue to write- whatever it may be that your writing about! 💕

(Sorry to keep putting these on y’all’s dash, but it’s the only way I can THANK these anons and they definitely need thanking.)

Your timing OP ;.; I really got this ask when I needed it most. 💕 Thank you thank you thank you! Sorry for the delayed response—it’s so hard to figure out how to thank somebody and explain how much words like this mean while not sounding like a flu patient or something.

To answer your question, it’s not weird! There are absolutely fics that live rent-free in my head to the degree that I’m basically sponsoring them on a permanent residency program [cut to footage of bring it if you really want it by staraflur]. And god, what an honor that Contact High is like that for you 🙏 Contact High is my favorite thing that I’ve written. A lot (pfff, all) of the content was so self-indulgent for me, just utter wish-fulfillment, which I usually try to dial back, but I wanted to see what might happen if I really leaned in instead. (The thing with toothpaste/walking in on someone actually happened to me when I was staying over at a friend’s house in high school... Sorry again to her brother, I promise I barely saw anything.) There isn’t a single element of that fic that I wasn’t excited about while I was writing it. And it’s that much more touching when the work that feels the most ‘me’ is someone’s favorite.

Anon, I hope you get some free time to read fun stuff soon! You deserve it. And good luck on your thesis! Defend that sumbitch like you’re Connor Murphy (no idea if it’s the kind of thesis you defend, but you get my meaning). Thank you again 💕

I am still writing, by the way! Just as slow as ever though, and for a very mixed bag of subjects! No hockey lately, though I have a few unpublished 1988 WIPs that I haven’t touched in a long stretch yet haven’t let go of either. Every fall, I pump myself up to roll up my sleeves and edit/finish this genre-confused frankenstein of a haunted house-type fic, and I haven’t given up hope yet! (Plus if I finish it, I can finally read jezziejay’s witch Jonny fic—which got posted while I was writing mine, and I made myself bookmark it for later so I wouldn’t be influenced or in my head about any overlap even though they’re almost certainly totally different in every way. I’m dying to read hers ;.;)

Hmm I hesitate to say this, but... If anyone is really interested regardless of fandom, there’s also an unorthodox fic I wrote as a Christmas present for my sister back in 2017 that she keeps telling me to post. (I know, and it gets weirder from there.) I think I want to but I’ve hesitated for several reasons. First: I need to re-do the ending now that I’m not scrambling to finish it on Christmas Eve. Second: It is a pairing that does not exist and kind of bananas. More info under the cut if you’re interested.

Basically, years ago, one of my sisters and I had a looong conversation about who was worthy of being shipped with Stacker Pentecost from Pacific Rim, and when none of the characters from the movie satisfied us, we reached out into the vast universe of basically anyone from any media to find him love, guess-and-check style. After literal hours, I brought up one of my favorite under-appreciated characters, Linus Caldwell from Ocean’s Eleven (Matt Damon). Which makes no sense, but doesn’t it a little? It became a running joke, and then a running a joke that I was gonna write it, and then not a joke. Ain’t that the way?

So yeah—Third: I’m hesitant to get somebody excited about a new hockey fic only to open the email and see it’s a batshit crossover that literally no one (except my sisters) is asking for. That being said, I started it as a joke/challenge, but ended up making something that I find quite a fun little ride because I was so loose with it (because, like, who’s ever gonna see this, right? Some real dance like nobody’s watching shit). I’ve written a bunch of stuff never meant to see daylight, but this fic in particular feels complete. It just has a lot going on (Hidden identities! Never Been Kissed-style fake student/professor tension! Chase scenes! Cameos! Close-up magic! Heist crew banter! Idris Elba’s North London accent! My total lack of military knowledge!). Also it’s over 30k words. (Yeah.)

Is there any interest in me posting this?? To be clear, I’m definitely not expecting it to be popular or anything, but taking the time to fix it up only makes sense if I know at least two people will lay eyes one it, lol. You don’t have to know both films really well for it to make sense, but familiarity with the Ocean’s trilogy and characters probably helps a lot for context since it takes place in between those movies. Goes without saying that no offense will be taken if there isn’t clamoring demand amongst hockey rpfers for 30k of Pacific Rim crossed over with a George Clooney movie franchise in a fic that has neither giant robots nor giant monsters (nor George Clooney, in any appreciable quantity)... Think I’m capable of taking that sentiment on the chin. 🤙

[script-a-world]

Clearly there are some settings which make no sense scientifically. But how do I decide when to intentionally ignore reality, can't bother to do research, don't understand research, and thus create scientifically impossible places? When are such things considered be offensive or overused cliche or have a reader point out the impossibility and can't get into the story? I'm guessing some of this might be structural issues instead of world building?

Tex: One of the perils of attempting to write about highly technical subjects is that you run into the issue of not understanding your writing. I do raise a nominal objection as your first sentence, because sensibility is a sliding scale based on one’s familiarity with a given subject. I don’t know crap about, say, textile art (however much I might have bluffed readers in the past - no, no, this is just good googling skills on my end), but that doesn’t mean the textile arts are an inherently incomprehensible subject.

Scientifically, automobiles were once thought to be insensible. Scientifically, phones were thought to be a flight of fancy. Scientifically, 3D printing was improbable. Scientifically, quantum computing was the stuff of sci-fi nerds who just wanted to slap the “quantum” label on everything.

And yet we are now on the verge of robotic vehicles, mostly functional smartwatches, laser printing cells (PDF), and quantum computers (VentureBeat, IBM).

So I would argue that the insensibility of a setting would be due mostly to, yes, a structural issue - on the part of the author. No matter what you put into your world, internal consistency is key; nothing, no matter how ostensibly outlandish, will make sense if you contradict yourself.

I’ll volley a few questions back to you:

“[...] when to intentionally ignore reality” - Are you ignoring reality entirely, or just parts of it? Why? How does that decision benefit your world? How does it detract from your world?

“Can’t bother to do research” - Is it because you are discouraged by the breadth of your comprehension of a subject, compared to the subject’s depth? Or is it because of something else?

“Don’t understand research” - Is this because you don’t understand the academic papers that turn up in your search results, or because you have a fundamental lack of or misunderstanding of the given subject? Or is it because of something else?

“When are such things considered to be offensive or overused cliche” - As someone who intentionally arranges their studying around the plausibilities of the future, I would quite frankly be delighted to see more conceptual stretches of the imagination in this regard, as do many others on this blog, and beyond it. Why have you already passed judgement on the offensiveness or clichéd-ness of incorporating scientific things? Is this related to your other comments?

“[...] or have a reader point out the impossibility and can’t get into the story?” - If you are writing to please a specific individual or demographic, you are inevitably always going to fall short, because it’s genuinely impossible to meet every single item on a group’s wishlist without devoting your life to it (not an entirely worthy pursuit, in my opinion, but alas). What made you decide to be so concerned over the potential reaction to your stories that you worry about it before the story is even written?

I think I will put the majority of my curiosity’s weight on the last bullet point, as I’m seeing similar themes with the other portions of your question. It’s a fruitless endeavour to tie yourself into knots over a possible (not necessarily probable!) reaction - and quite likely from a stranger, to boot. Education is a relatively easy situation to fix, so long as you’re patient with yourself; dealing with anxieties over readers is… not so easy.

I can really only recommend that you take a close look at the goals of your worldbuilding, and see where you contradict yourself - once you have that in hand, it’s a relatively simple yes/no process of what concepts you want to keep. If the issue of decision comes from a lack of understanding, then make a note to yourself to seek out either the million wikis we Pylons utilize ourselves like any other worldbuilder, or to chalk it up as a genuine lack of context.

Please understand that even someone who’s dedicated their life to a certain aspect of science won’t know everything about it - that’s the point of research! We’re constantly asking ourselves questions, and pushing the envelope of known boundaries. Star Wars has lightsabers, but we don’t need to know how they work; likewise with holodecks in Star Trek. So long as an audience is reasonably entertained with the least amount of head-scratching, you can get away with handwaving quite a lot.

Lockea: On a scale between Star Trek and Star Wars, how “hard” is your science fiction?

I mention that mostly to illustrate that science fiction exists on a continuum, wherein science fiction with more “science” than “fiction” drives a story towards the harder end rather than the softer end. Also, a story’s place on the continuum will change based on what we know and understand about science.

I feel like everyone always beats me to saying all the important stuff about questions, so I’ll just give a few thoughts from my personal experience as a science fiction fan with two engineering degrees and a thesis about robots on the moon (yes really, I wrote my thesis on AI for moon robots). I really, really, love the creativity of science fiction writers. I think so often in defending the genre, we can get caught up in saying things like “science fiction predicted XYZ!” Well, sure, I may have studied Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics in my introduction to engineering ethics course, but I was also greedily reading my way through “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins at the same time. The fact that I sincerely doubt Panem will ever happen didn’t dampen my enjoyment of Katniss’s story. It was a fun read and it gave my friends and I something to talk about that wasn’t “feasibility of Battlestar Galactica” during our daily lunches.

The thing about writing science fiction is that, without a doubt, there will be someone who knows more than you about a topic who reads your story. Most of the time, I end up being that someone since everyone likes to talk about Skynet and robots taking over the world to a roboticist who sincerely refers to artificial intelligence as artificial stupidity. Y'all are seriously overestimating the field, my friends. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” even as I thought how impossible Project Insight would be. Honestly, something every READER of science fiction needs to make peace with is the fact that writers will get something wrong. Writers, despite their best efforts, are not always going to understand that a facial recognition algorithm will fail if you introduce tiny amounts of random noise and are thus going to treat The Algorithm™ as infallible in your crime drama novel.

It’s not the writer’s fault, though.

That deserves to be on its own line. It is not YOUR fault if you get something wrong. Would it be nice if science literacy was just better all around? Of course! But it’s not your fault if your science literacy isn’t up to snuff enough to parse the article I cited above. It’s also not your job. Your job as the writer is to tell the most interesting story you can and to maintain your own internal rules and logic such that the reader never breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.

I watch Star Wars and get really into the light saber fight scenes and forget that light sabers are basically impossible to make. Star Wars has the Force, which is basically magic, and that’s okay. Really. I KNOW it’s not possible, but I still have a lot of fun watching it!

So yeah, write that story about how the robots are going to take over the world. I’ll probably enjoy reading it even as I laugh off my friends telling me that I will be the first to die in the robot apocalypse (of course I will -- I have five robots in my living room alone).

Constablewrites: Tone and consistency are the biggest pieces of this for me. If it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is usually a detailed and plausible explanation, then getting an answer later that is implausible or slapdash will stand out more. But if it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is “You push that button and it goes whoosh” from the start, my expectations adjust accordingly. (It’s possible to have the latter version in a story that is mostly the former, frequently when it’s played for last. Again, tone is key.)

So yeah, a lot of this is execution and the way the story sticks to the rules it sets for itself, and also how central the implausibility is to the story. A realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic for a background bit might be a little jarring, but not nearly as much as a realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic to set up its main showdown. The more central it is to the story, the more consistency and accuracy matters. Learning how to balance this can take some practice and some insight from beta readers.

[lia-jones]

Growing Pains - Chapter Twenty Five - The Ghosts of the Past

“You should move in with me.” Victor stated casually, while sipping his morning coffee.

I almost choked on my toast.

“W-what?” I stuttered. Where was this coming from, all of a sudden?

“Haven’t had enough coffee yet?” He teased, smiling, peeking inside my mug. “It’s only reasonable, you barely sleep at your apartment anyway, you spend all your time here, you might as well save the rent money and just come live here.”

“Well, if it’s the fiscally responsible thing to do.” I said, ironically. “Besides, the reason I sleep here all the time is because you keep insisting that I do. I wouldn’t mind spending a few nights at my apartment.” I argued back. “You probably could use the break.”

“I didn’t say I want you to spend more nights at your apartment, I was saying I want you to spend all nights here.” Victor sounded frustrated. “Do you really stay the night just because I insist?”

“I did not say that.” I answered softly while taking the dirty breakfast dishes away. I wanted to avoid that conversation so bad.

And Victor apparently caught up on that, seemingly dropping the subject altogether, his eyes trained on his phone. However, I could see his eyebrows slightly furrowed, and that usually meant he was churning some thought in that thick head of his. I sighed.

“Look, this is all very new and it’s a bit weird.” I tried to make him see my perspective. “There’s so much we haven’t even discussed yet… I mean, for now, it’s casual, if we get tired of each other we can go spend some time on our own. If I start living here, you’ll have me in your hair all the time. Besides, we don’t even really know that much about each other, never discussed how we will split the bills…”

“What bills?” He looked confused. “You mean utilities? We’re not roommates, and I don’t need you to pay for those.”

“Well, I want to contribute too. You shouldn’t be supporting me just because you’re rich. See, we really should be discussing these things before acting rashly.”

“Where do you see yourself two years from now?” Victor asked out of the blue, in all seriousness. I blinked at him.

“What, is this a job interview?” I joked. He didn’t laugh.

“Where do you see yourself two years from now?”

I couldn’t see why he was asking, but I was sure it was important. I tried my best to answer.

“I don’t know, honestly.” I said, softly, hoping I could calm some of the inner turmoil I could feel in him. “If someone told me two years ago that I would have gone through all of this… The abuse, the coma, coming to Loveland, my new job, my doctorate, you… I wouldn’t believe it.”

Victor watched me carefully, poker face in place. And for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t read his eyes.

“Alright.” He said, getting up and walking to the door. “Do you need a ride to the University?”

“Thanks, I’m taking my car, I need to-” And with that, I heard the door close behind him, leaving me talking to myself. And I wondered if we had actually been fighting. I simply couldn’t tell.

My routine at the university was a very simple one. During most mornings I would teach, and the afternoons were reserved for the research and occasional meetings with partners. I was thankful for the quiet morning, because I couldn’t focus at all, remembering every single sentence of our discussion, trying to see where things could have gone sour. Eventually, not able to find an answer, I stopped altogether.

After lunch, I went to my office to make a few phone calls regarding the new partnerships we were having at the moment. Unexpectedly, there was a knock on my door. It was Olive Carson, the Dean.

“Andrea, may we have a word?” She said, peeking from the door.

“Of course, come in, sit down.” I said, putting my phone down. “How can I help?”

“We have to discuss this new media exposure you’ve been having, regarding your relationship with Victor Lee.” She started, choosing her words carefully.

“Media exposure?” I frowned.

“Look, I know this is a very sensitive issue, and evidently you are not to blame for what happened to you, but no matter how unfair that exposure is, it is still exposure. And since your name is connected to the University’s now, it is our duty to make sure your exposure doesn’t reflect badly on us. As you understand, sooner or later we’ll have to make our professional relationship official and look for patrons to invest in your research, and any bad publicity will be prejudicial.”

“I’m sorry, Olive, I really don’t follow. What exactly are you talking about?” By that time, I was more than confused, I was starting to get scared.

“You haven’t seen it yet?” Olive asked. “That gossip magazine, Loveland’s Juiciest, published a whole article about you and your boyfriend. Apparently, you caught their attention at that fashion show. I personally choose to steer clear from that kind of literature, but when one of my researchers is involved… I have to pay attention.”

“Wait, Loveland’s…” My mind was reeling. “Ok, yes, me and Victor are in a relationship. Why would the patrons care for that?”

“Well, Mr. Lee spoke on your behalf when you defended your thesis. Some people may think his opinion was… biased.”

“And the results may be discredited.” I concluded, rubbing my forehead in distress. This was not happening. It simply couldn’t be happening.

“And affect our funding exponentially.” She added. “The abuse story is not helping either. I know your boyfriend is a very influential person, and he’s known to be extremely protective of his privacy… Maybe you can talk to him, see if you can make this matter go away, or at least contain it.”

I froze at her words. Did she say abuse? Did that magazine do a background check on me, and shared my abuse with the world? I got up in a hurry, preparing to leave.

“I’ll see what I can do.” I said, quickly gathering my things. “Do you mind if we finish this conversation later? I need to leave urgently. Please close the door behind you.”

Not waiting for her reply, I bolted to the closest magazine stand and bought a copy of the damn magazine. I held it with shaky hands, in my car, too scared to find out what was written.

I should have realized that the moment the paparazzi saw me with Victor, I would be a person of interest. After all, he was known to be the most desirable bachelor in Loveland that never gave any woman a second look. Obviously, they would be all over us. I was bound to end up under the limelight.

The article was titled Ice King or King of Hearts, and it spoke of how honorable and romantic Victor was, choosing to give his heart to true love, disregarding social status or background. And, to make it even more compelling and thorough, there was an entire page dedicated to me, with incredibly accurate facts. The author knew everything about me, my parents, my hobbies, and wrote a tear-jerking story about my abuse, including a picture of Daniel and the exposure it all had in the media back in Portugal, since he was the son of one of the most notorious bankers in Portugal.

My trauma, my darkest part of my life was right in front of me, printed in an elegant font, with pretty pictures to illustrate it. All that I had run from when I left Portugal had followed me to Loveland.

Unsure of what to do, I decided to go to my apartment to try and calm myself down before I did anything else. I couldn’t stay in that parking lot, making a scene. But I still had to fix this mess, and only one person could help me. But before I even considered talking to him, I needed to ground myself.

Victor seemed to have sensed my trouble, because as I drove home, he called me. At the time I was still a bit shaken, so I silenced my phone and dropped it on the passenger seat, deciding I would talk to him when I got home.

By the time I left the car, although a bit shaky, I had a plan. I would calm myself down, try and talk to my mother, and then call Victor and see what could be done. I had achieved so much already, I just needed to face this. Maybe now the world wouldn’t see me as just a victim. I just needed to be strong. I just needed a plan.

But no plan in the world could prepare me for what was coming next.

As I got to my floor, I saw a very familiar silhouette leaning on my door. And when that voice spoke to me in Portuguese, I knew my nightmare was far from being over.

“Hello, doll. Long time no see.” It was Daniel.

I went to my purse to get my phone. Shit! I had left it in the passenger seat. In my car. Downstairs.

Ok, Andrea. Calm down. Be smart.

“What are you doing here?” I asked in English, hoping someone would overhear me. “I don’t want you here.”

“Yet you speak English, our love language.” He answered in English. Daniel always insisted that I spoke English with him when we dated, it gave him a sense of… status. I hated that. “I told you, love, I had to see you. I missed you.”

“I have no interest in seeing you.” I tried to assert, although my heart was tight with fear. “Go away, Daniel.”

“Why? Why deny something so beautiful? Our love is cosmical, karmical, Andrea! No one can get in between us. Not even that boyfriend of yours.”

“So that’s how you found me?” I asked, my voice hoarse. “Some reporter told you where I was?” I paused, taking a deep breath. Still, I couldn’t help but grit my teeth hard in anger. “Our cosmic love, as you say, ended the moment you beat me to a pulp and left me in a coma.”

“No, no.” He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re not being fair, my love.” His sweet voice, his Let me patch you up after I beat you voice made me sick to my stomach. “You were trying to end it long before that, and you know it. I know I made a mistake, and no day goes by that I don’t think about it. But I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

I remained silent, trying to calculate my next move. I couldn’t go to my apartment, risking Daniel coming inside and hurting me in the secrecy of closed doors. I couldn’t run away either. No. Running away was not an option.

“My love for you is so big, can’t you see that?” He continued. “I sacrificed myself, I set you free. I gave you what you wanted, a chance to see how life would be without me. But I always knew you’d come back. When that reporter came to talk to me about our past, I knew that was your way of coming closer, you still want me. Why else would you send for me like that?” Daniel took a step closer. I reacted, taking a step back. “Come on, love, you know you missed me.”

“Are you high on something?” I laughed bitterly, not believing what I was hearing. This was another taste of crazy. “Listen to me carefully, Daniel, I don’t want you here. In fact, if you were living in another galaxy, you’d still be too close to me for my liking. Get out of here, before I call the police.”

Daniel’s sweet expression dissolved into an angry one. That was the real Daniel I knew, the one he only showed to the people he wanted to subdue. He gave me a snarly smile.

“Go ahead. It isn’t a crime to visit a friend. You’ll just make me want to come back for more.” Suddenly he was a lot closer, grabbing my arm. “You’re mine, Andrea.” He had a threatening look. “You belong to me. Don’t think you can run away from me just like that.” He whispered in my ear. “Wherever you go, I will always find you.”

“Do not touch me!” I yanked my arm from Daniel’s grip, but he was faster. Before I had any time to react, he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against my door hard. I lost my breath for a moment.

“Now, why don’t we go inside? Be a good pussy and serve me some coffee, maybe with some ass on the side.” He whispered in my ear, his disgusting breath and maniacal voice making something break inside me.

“I said.” I threatened, calmly. “Let. Go. Of. Me.”

“And what if I don’t? What’s a weak pussy like you going to do to stop me?”

Back in the day, his words would make me shrink, and act in repulse or disgust. But I was flooded with a sudden clarity I had never felt before. Not wasting any time, I punched him hard on the jaw, slamming my foot hard on his chest afterward, making him fly back and slam against the floor hard. He instinctively assumed a fetal position on the floor, trying hard to catch a breath. My kick must’ve cracked a couple of ribs, at least.

Suddenly, my vision was blocked by someone else’s body. Strong steady hands held my shoulders. And suddenly I realized that, when I was smacking Daniel, I had heard someone call my name.

“Did he hurt you?” Familiar grey eyes met mine. What was Victor doing here?

“I’m fine.” I said, releasing myself from his protection. “Daniel was just leaving, weren’t you sweetheart?” I asked, my voice dripping sarcasm.

“Just remember, doll.” Daniel threatened again, as he wiped some blood from his lip. “I broke you once. I can do that again.”

Victor turned to face him, his expression one I had never seen before. He looked like he was about to commit murder, his eyes fiery with anger. I grabbed his arm, squeezing it gently. He looked at me, and seeing me calm, he relaxed a little as well.

“You know, I thought you did break me. And I hated you for that.” I paused, and noticed the smirk Daniel gave me, pleased to have had such an effect on me. “But it turns out, I was wrong. You didn’t break me. I started over again.” I came a little closer, feeling Victor’s watchful eyes on me. “And I overcame all that you did to me. I created a bigger and better life for myself, and discovered I am stronger than I think and wiser than I look. But most important of all, I realized you can’t break me, not really. The only power you have over me is the one that I give you.”

Daniel’s expression was both of surprise and anger. He wanted to see me scared and helpless. He would find none of that in me. Thanks to my friends, my family, and Victor, I was strong again. More than I ever was. I felt unbreakable.

“I used to be terrified of you. You used to haunt my dreams, make me wake up in a cold sweat. And now that I can see you, the real you… You’re not scary anymore. You are pathetic. Trying to make people love you by using torture, because you don’t feel worthy of love. Trying to break them because you feel inferior, because, deep down, you know how pitiful you are.”

Daniel was a pathetic mess on the floor, blood mixing with tears of rage. I walked to my door, getting the key from my purse to open it. “Go back to Portugal. We’re done here.”

“I decide that! I decide when it’s over!” I heard his voice coming towards me. I turned back to defend myself if necessary, but saw nothing but Victor’s back, who had come between us.

“Listen to me carefully.” Victor warned. Daniel and Victor were about the same height, and still Victor towered over him dangerously. His eyes were menacing and full of rage, his expression feral, his tone clearly indicating he was not one to mess with. “You should be very careful. You may think your deeds will go unpunished, but I am watching you. I have been watching you for a while. And I know exactly what kind of scum you are.”

Victor paused, watching Daniel’s reaction. Daniel immediately shrunk another two inches under his hostile stare.

“If you come near her, if you even dare to be in the same city as her, I will make sure that your existence is pure torture, to say the least. I will find out about all your crimes, and I will make sure you pay dearly for them, bringing you agony ten times worse than what you caused. I will be your judge and executioner. I will make sure that, after I’m done to you, you are simply too weak, too helpless to hurt anyone else. That is my promise to you. And I always keep my promises.”

Daniel’s face was bright red, tears rolling down his face, his fists clenched in anger. But Daniel was a coward, so he would not dare face someone that would actually fight back. He slowly backed away, mumbling some empty threats, leaving us alone.

Without a second look back, I opened the door to my apartment and went in, Victor following me. As soon as I heard the click of the door closing, I found myself caught in a tight and warm embrace.

“He didn’t hurt me.” I whispered. “I’m fine.”

“I will be the judge of that.” I heard Victor’s hoarse voice close to my ear.

“Thanks for being here.” I released myself from his embrace, my hand running through his tie. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer any of my calls. I went to the university looking for you. Something happened.” Victor hesitated.

“The article about us. I already know. That’s why I came home.”

“I will take care of this.” Victor’s hands held my shoulders tight, as if to steady me. “This reporter… She’s out of a job, I guarantee.” The fury in his eyes almost made me feel sorry for those who would meet it. I almost feared for that reporter.

“The Dean says that this may hurt my research. The exposure… The fact that you and I are dating… may discredit my work.” I said, my voice hoarse.

“It won’t happen.” He looked me in the eyes, silently making the promise. “They are going to collect all the unsold magazines tonight. And we’ll take legal action against the publisher. We have a meeting with the lawyers tomorrow.” He looked at me, taking me in his arms again. “This won’t hurt you any more than it already has, I promise you. You can tell the Dean it has been taken care of. I’ll call her if you want to.”

“No…” I said, rubbing my forehead in distress. “I’ll talk to her. Thank you.”

Victor grabbed my hand and put it down, leaning his forehead against mine instead.

“We’ll get through this. Don’t worry.” He looked at me with soft eyes. “I’m here.”

I ran my hand over his cheek lovingly. Yes, he was here. I just couldn’t muster the happiness for it at that moment. I felt tired and numb. Victor looked at me with worried eyes.

“Let’s go home.” He said, holding me closer. “You need to rest. This was a stressful day.”

“I…” I sighed. “I prefer sleeping here today, if you don’t mind.”

Victor looked at me with a pained and confused expression.

“I’m not rejecting you.” I said, placing my hands on his chest, like I could somehow placate him. “I need this time to myself. I need to gather my thoughts. I am so thankful for your help, and I love you, but I need to be alone. I can think better when I’m alone.”

Victor seemed to relax slightly, although he didn’t look exactly pleased. He clearly didn’t understand it, but he was trying. He took my face in his hands and kissed me gently.

“Just remember, you don’t need to do things alone. I’m right here. I will always be here.”

[taexual]

Disciplined / Wonho x Reader

The newest addition to Hoseok’s team proves himself to be reckless when he breaks Hoseok’s rule and starts a conversation with you only to discover that you weren’t going to be his damsel in distress.

pairing: mafia au! – lee hoseok x reader

warnings: some mentions of death, strong language, some sexual themes

words: 5.1k

ANON REQUEST: Monsta x Mafia AU! Where Wonho is at a business meeting and leaves his men at home to take care of his girlfriend, but a new(er) recruit hits on her?

He always said it wouldn’t take long and that he’d be back within an hour. That was never true – you were lucky if you’d see Hoseok again the same night after he’d left for a meeting – but you still believed him every time he said goodbye to you by the door. In your defense, Hoseok’s charming smile and the affection in his eyes would have made anyone fall for his words in a heartbeat.

“I’d really rather wait for you alone,” you whispered against his chest as he hugged you goodbye, seemingly unphased by the three men he’d brought into the house before leaving.

“They’re here to look after you,” Hoseok said, clutching you very firmly. He always seemed to squeeze you tighter right before he let you go, so you knew he was going to leave in the next few seconds. “They’ll make sure nothing happens to you while I’m out.”

“Nothing ever happens to me,” you insisted, fighting a useless battle. Changing his mind was about as likely as you getting killed while these men were in your house. “And I’m sure they’d rather be somewhere else anyway.”

“I don’t really care about that, to be honest, sweetheart,” he said, pulling away from you – just like you’d expected – and bringing his hand through your hair. “They work for me and I need them to be here tonight. That’s all.”

“You could really just give me a gun and teach me how to defend myself instead,” you mumbled.

Hoseok smiled and shook his head. You knew his reasons for his constant need to have you protected and you knew every explanation that made sense of his paranoia. He’d watched his father’s peers turn on him and kill his wife – Hoseok was already smart enough to know that leaving a person completely defenseless was bound to bring bad luck but he didn’t do anything to remind his father that his job constantly put his wife in danger – and, although he wasn’t particularly close to the woman, her death had still left a deep scar in his mind.

A scar that, evidently, was not deep enough, because Hoseok made the exact same mistake his father had made, only three years later. He had left his best friend’s house for five minutes to check up on what appeared to be the sound of gunshots coming from the outside, and then, upon returning back into the house, discovered nothing but a bloody room and a dead body of someone whom he once considered to be his own family.

So, yes, you knew Hoseok wasn’t purposefully keeping you locked up – he was only trying to keep you safe in any way he knew how – but you still did not agree with his methods. And how could you? You did not share his experiences. You’ve never watched two people die because of something that could have been avoided so easily. You’ve never blamed yourself for not being there to protect them and, if all attempts to save them failed, not taking the bullet, too.

“The day I see you with a gun,” Hoseok said, his hand on your cheek, “is the day I’m laying on my deathbed, yeah? Let me and my men do the dirty work. You focus on yourself.”

Although life with Hoseok had completely flipped your world upside down, there were a few things that he insisted stayed the same – your hobbies, your job, and your education.  You may have seen enough blood to last you a lifetime, but in spite of all of that, Hoseok still tried to keep your life as normal as possible. Not to mention, even though he belonged to the Mafia, Hoseok had a deep hatred for guns – the losses he’d experienced had contributed to that, of course – and refused to allow you to keep one, which, truth be told, made you feel a lot more normal. At least, you wouldn’t have to fire any weapons and your only crime would be falling in love with a notorious criminal.

Hoseok never understood your apprehension about his choice to have his men protect you. He knew you never got to know them simply because Hoseok had forbidden them to talk to you but he wasn’t trying to get you to bond with his Mafia members. He was looking after you – like he should have looked after all those people before – and this was the only way he could show you that he cared. However, as caring as he was, he also had a certain possessiveness in him that attracted you most of the time, but managed to piss you off just as much.

“You’re treating me like a baby,” you told him.

“Yes,” he replied, ignoring the complaining in your voice and pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. “You’re my baby.”

You tried to groan – the look in his eyes making your heart flutter more than the pet name – and crossed your arms over your chest. “Just be home soon, okay? I’m done with my thesis, I literally have nothing else to do in this house now.”

“I’ll be back as soon as possible,” he promised. “Gotta keep my girl entertained, right?”

And with a quick wink your way, Hoseok was out of the door.

Sighing at his departure, you turned around with the intention of heading to your bedroom upstairs – you already knew better than to try to have a conversation with Henry and Jay who stood by the door; all of your previous attempts have been fruitless – but then you heard someone chuckle.

Stopping suddenly, you looked around. The sound was by no means unusual, but you were surprised to hear one of Hoseok’s men show an actual emotion while you were around.

“He really keeps you locked up in here, doesn’t he?” someone said and you turned your head towards the corner of the kitchen where one of Hoseok’s men had been standing.

You haven’t seen him before and, even though you weren’t exceptional at remembering everyone’s face, you could tell that he had to be one of the newer additions to Hoseok’s army.

“Not really,” you said, intrigued because not a single one of your guards had dared to talk to you before. “I could leave if I wanted to.”

“And we would, of course, have to go with you,” the guy replied, a smile not leaving his lips.

You squinted your eyes, unsure if you should approach him or just carry on with what you’d planned to do – which was nothing – because you knew the guy had strict orders not to talk to you and yet there he was, ignoring them. If you encouraged him, he could very much lose this job – and his life, too.

“Yes,” you ended up saying. Maybe you thought the risk was worth it; talking to someone was so much better than spending your night staring at the ceiling, after all. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t go wherever I want to go. I just happen to have a bunch of obnoxiously quiet men following me around. No offense.”

You’d addressed the two men by the door but they, of course, remained quiet. The only signs that they were alive and weren’t, in fact, some sort of advanced robots, were the warning looks they’d given the member of their team that had addressed you.

“And do you like that?” the guy pressed. He obviously had a lot of courage and you feared he was going to waste it all on this conversation that he wasn’t supposed to be having. “Do you seriously don’t mind this lack of freedom?”

Crossing your arms over your chest in a defensive manner, you leaned against the door, leading into the kitchen. You didn’t dare to enter the room and approach the guy just yet.

“I do mind it sometimes,” you replied honestly. “But I love Hoseok and that’s the price I have to pay if I want to be with him.”

“Is it worth it?”

You didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

“Hmm,” the guy smirked. “Sounds like he’s got you whipped.”

You didn’t like the way he made it sound. The way he spoke about your relationship was as if Hoseok owned you and did whatever he wanted with you. As if you never had any right to say anything. And while you knew your life choices were somewhat limited, Hoseok had never made you feel chained. He’s never stripped you off of your ability to make decisions for yourself unless he knew better.

And, actually, there were many things that Hoseok knew better, one of which being the ability to recognize when he was stepping over the line. He backtracked if he realized he was starting to control you in a way that suffocated you. He apologized if he said something demeaning. And he always made sure you were comfortable with the decisions he’s had to make on behalf of you.

Although you’ve tried to fight him every night, not wanting to have his men babysit you, you’ve also allowed Hoseok to convince you that this was the right decision. You knew how much your agreement meant to him. Had you said no and really pressed on the issue, Hoseok would find a different solution – he’d remove his men from your house, but then take you with him to the meeting instead, or do something else that still allowed him to keep an eye on you – but he would never physically lock you up inside of the house against your will. That just wasn’t him.

“I may be whipped for him,” you started to say, “but it’s certainly not because I listen to what he tells me. Contrary to what you might think, I’m actually capable of recognizing real danger. I know what could happen if I was left here alone.”

“Yeah, but what are the chances of something happening?” the guy continued. “I mean, no offense, you’re really beautiful, but stalking people takes time, you know what I mean? I’m sure there’s no one lurking outside of your windows at night, waiting to kill you. And if there is, then Hoseok would know, wouldn’t he? He has a gift of… ah, extraordinary intuition.”

“That’s a nice way to call him paranoid,” you said, watching the guy chuckle. “You really don’t know much about Hoseok’s life, do you? You’re new, right?”

“I am, yeah,” he replied. “I just joined late last year. I’m a quiet guy under normal circumstances – I guess that’s why Hoseok trusted me enough to bring me into his house – but I couldn’t help but say something to you. See, I’ve never really seen the partners of the guys from the Mafia before. I’ve never seen the way they interact with their loved-ones.”

“Well, get used to seeing that, then,” you said. “Since you’re a member now, too.”

“Right,” he nodded. “I don’t think I’m the kind of member that those other guys are.”

You glanced over your shoulder at Henry and Jay, positioned in the hallway, still standing there as stoic as ever. Their serious, unmoving facial expressions could have given the Terracotta warriors the shivers. Actually, you would have thought they had turned into stone as well but you could still notice glimpses of concern on their faces whenever you replied to something their member had said.

“Yes, I don’t think you are, either,” you said, turning back to face the guy in front of you. “We shouldn’t be having a conversation.”

“And yet we are,” he said, smiling as though the consequences of tonight did not matter to him in the slightest.

You frowned. “What’s your name?”

“They call me Yuto here.”

“Okay. Do you have a death wish, Yuto?”

He laughed. “No, not at the moment. Why? Are you saying the penalty for talking to the girlfriends of the men from the Mafia is death?”

“Actually, I don’t know,” you said. “No one was ever brave enough to address one before.”

You’d entered the kitchen – you couldn’t help it, something about this brave stranger interested you despite his obviously negative attitude towards your relationship – and approached the jug of water on the counter next to where Yuto was standing.

He smiled as he watched you pour yourself a glass but did not say anything, waiting for you to continue the conversation instead. You knew you shouldn’t have – you could just imagine how much danger you were putting him in just by being in the same room as him when he was given instructions to pretend as though you didn’t exist unless you were dying – but you still did.

“Do you think it’s possible,” you started to say in between sips, “that Hoseok put you here as a challenge?”

“A challenge?” Yuto asked. “No. Why do you say that?”

You put the empty glass back down on the counter and sat down on the bar stool by the kitchen island, opposite to where he was standing.

“Well, you’re a new recruit,” you said. “These men in the hallway? They’ve been with me since Hoseok and I started to date three years ago. There were a few other guys but I never found out what happened to them – both of them were Hoseok’s long-time friends, too. And now there you are, a brand new addition to his team. The reason why Hoseok brought you into his house can’t be because you’re quiet.”

“No?” Yuto was smiling even wider now. He hadn’t expected you to be so witty and smart but, needless to say, he did not regret starting a conversation with you at all. “So, you’re saying Hoseok is testing me by bringing me around you?”

You shrugged your shoulders. “Why not?”

“Well, what’s the test? Is he going to fake an attack on you to see what I’d do?”

“No, I think it’s simpler than that,” you said. “Maybe he just wanted to see if you’d follow his orders. Obviously, you don’t.”

His glittering eyes let you know that instead of being scared – like any sane human would have been – Yuto was actually excited. For a moment, you weren’t sure if it was Hoseok challenging him, or if it was the other way around.

“That’s right,” Yuto said. “I have a hard time sticking to the rules. Maybe that’s why I joined the Mafia.”

“There’s got to be some sort of order even among criminals,” you pointed out.

“Has there, really?” he questioned and then leaned back when you raised your eyebrows at his question, “you could say I’m a bit of an anarchist.”

“Huh,” you shuffled on the stool, throwing one of your legs over the other one in search of a more comfortable position – and not failing to notice the way his eyes followed your every move. “So, you’re here to show Hoseok he can’t control you, then?”

“I’m not showing Hoseok anything,” Yuto replied, his confidence captivating your attention. “All that I do is a favor to him. He doesn’t own me. I don’t work for him.”

This surprised you. “No?”

“No,” Yuto confirmed. “I work with him.”

You weren’t exactly sure how to respond to that because you had a feeling Hoseok wouldn’t approve of this attitude. There was a strict hierarchy in his team and Hoseok was on top. No one’s ever challenged his authority before – not openly, at least – and if they had, well, then there had to be a reason why you’ve never heard of them.

“Perhaps you should keep quiet about it,” you suggested, starting to feel uncomfortable. Although you could agree with Yuto’s point of view, you didn’t think now was the right time to challenge the system that had existed in the Mafia for decades. “Or better yet, find a different occupation. You’re young. You don’t have to be in the Mafia.”

If you had to choose one reason to explain how the Mafia managed to achieve so much – Hoseok had ties everywhere, it was impossible for anyone in an important government position to do anything without him finding out – then you’d say it was because of the authority of a leading figure. There would never be a successful underground criminal syndicate if someone didn’t lead it.

Chaos was easy to kill – the police would catch one member and he’d spill the truth about the rest in an instant – while order was not.

“You’re young, too,” Yuto countered. “You don’t have to spend the rest of your life hiding in Hoseok’s shadow because he’s afraid to show you to the world. You don’t have to live in a cage like you’re his own personal little bird.”

“That’s not at all what life with Hoseok is like,” you replied, feeling the way your muscles tensed up after his words. “I already told you, I could leave if I wanted to.”

“Could you, really?” he scrunched his nose in doubt. “How many ex-girlfriends of the Mafia members do you know? Frankly, I don’t think that category exists. Not in this world, at least.”

You squinted your eyes at him.

“So, let me see,” you said. “You’re saying I don’t have to live with Hoseok because he’s keeping me locked up. But you’re also saying I’ll die if I leave this so-called cage. Sounds to me like you’re painting my life in very pathetic colors.”

“Not at all.”

“Really? Then the only to outcomes of my life, according to you, aren’t to either submit to Hoseok completely, or to die?”

“No,” he said.

“What else is there?” you questioned.

“You could run away.”

“Run a—wow,” you laughed at the absurdity. “I thought you were brave but now I just think you’re not smart enough to realize what you’ve gotten yourself into here. Even if I didn’t love Hoseok with all of my heart, do you really consider me stupid enough to try to run away from him?”

“Maybe you couldn’t do it on your own,” Yuto said, shrugging his shoulders, “but if you had the right people helping you—”

“Whoa, alright, let’s stop this conversation right here,” you said, standing up from the stool. “I don’t want to hear you say that you’re the Knight in Shining Armor that’s come to get me out of a castle guarded by a dragon, yeah? Because, like I’ve already told you, at least, three times, I’m in love with Hoseok. I don’t want to leave and if I did want to, I certainly wouldn’t need an action movie worthy plan to escape.”

Yuto looked like he heard you – a smile was his response to your words – but he was not convinced. Although he could see where you were coming from – even if he’s never been in love – he was still certain that your relationship with Hoseok wasn’t something that you deserved. And even if it wasn’t Yuto’s original plan to play an almighty hero in the story of your life – he wasn’t lying when he said he’s never met a girlfriend of a Mafia member before – he still thought you needed help.

“Okay,” he said, not pushing his opinion because he knew your defenses were too high up now. “Sorry if I crossed the line.”

You nodded, turning away. “Okay. Let’s just—let’s pretend like we never talked, alright? That’ll save us both some energy. I’ll head to my—”

“You don’t want Hoseok to know you talked to me?” Yuto asked, cutting you off.

“No,” you replied. “I don’t want him to know you talked to me. I’m allowed to do whatever I want – it’s you who’s not allowed to reply to me. If anyone’s the little bird, trapped in a cage, in this situation, it’s you, Yuto.”

He was still smiling but you could see the way he’d clenched his jaw. Perhaps you’ve gotten to him now. You’d have said something else but you decided not to waste your time. Yuto had thought it was Hoseok who was treating you like his property but, really, Hoseok was the one who saw you as a human being, while Yuto only looked at you as a girl who needed saving.

“I’m going to go,” you said after he didn’t reply to you, but right as you headed out of the kitchen and towards the staircase, Yuto grabbed your hand.

“Wait,” he’d stopped you, pushing a piece of paper into your palm as he held onto your wrist. “Keep this in case you change your mind and realize that you can always start a new life.”

Almost angered at his bold move – and his audacity to still talk to you about the same thing even though you’ve told him you’d never even consider leaving Hoseok – you stopped and were about to toss the note he’d given you into the trash, but then the door of the house opened, distracting you.

“They fucking canceled on me,” Hoseok was saying as he threw the door open. He had his phone by his ear and did not notice your surprised eyes, watching him from the kitchen. “I got into my car, drove to their quarters, even fucking texted them three times to check, and they—”

He stopped once his eyes finally landed on you. Although, it wasn’t really you he was looking at – his gaze was too focused on Yuto’s hand still firmly on your wrist.

Barely a second passed after Hoseok clocked the close proximity of you and his newest recruit, and he’d already hung up his phone and took one quick step towards the kitchen until he was standing right in front of you.

“Was there an accident?” he demanded in a cold, serious voice. “Did something happen?”

“Hoseok—”

“Hold on for a moment, sweetheart,” he cut you off, his eyes on Yuto. “I’m trying to find out what reason could explain his hands on you. I’m only assuming he was trying to stop you from leaving which, of course, means that he’d been talking to you and then refused to allow you to end the conversation by leaving the room.”

“I wasn’t—” Yuto started to say but chose to let go of you before he continued, “I wasn’t refusing anything. I had some things I wanted to say to her.”

“Were those things a warning, perhaps?” Hoseok questioned. You had a feeling that the flames in his eyes weren’t caused by Yuto’s hand on yours but rather by your obviously uncomfortable and even angry expression that he’d seen as soon as he entered the house. “Were you trying to tell her not to leave the room because there was a bomb in the house? Were you warning her about a sniper that’s been aiming at her from outside?”

If Yuto was scared or worried, he didn’t show it. “No.”

“Well then why, for the sake of all hell, did you think it was a good idea to manhandle my girlfriend after you’ve been specifically told not to say a single word to her?”

“I don’t think you’re treating her fairly by locking her up here and not allowing her to talk to anyone,” was Yuto’s overly confident response.

It made Hoseok sneer. “Oh, she can talk to anyone she wants. She has more friends than I could count, but this isn’t about her. Your job here was to stay put and make sure nothing happened to her. That’s it.”

“Hoseok, it’s fine,” you said, feeling the need to interrupt – and potentially save Yuto’s life – despite not agreeing with the young boy’s point of view. “I was the one who started the conversation.”

Your boyfriend turned to look at you with the same warm smile he’d used on you before he left, a huge contrast to the way he’d looked at Yuto before.

“None of us deserve you and your heart, my love,” Hoseok said. “But I know you’re lying. I’ve had you protected since the day we met and not once did you dare to start a conversation with my men. Especially not after you found out they weren’t allowed to talk to you.”

You lowered your head, looking away. Hoseok didn’t blame you for trying to take the heat off of Yuto – perhaps, a part of him knew that you didn’t object against Yuto talking to you because it was nice to finally talk to someone that was staying in your house – but he thought your attempt was quite useless. He’s already decided what he was going to do. In fact, he’s had this decision ready even before he left the house.

“Let’s go,” Hoseok said, turning his head to give the other two men in the hallway a nod. “You’ll take him back, yeah? I’ll join in a few hours.”

“Of course,” one of the men said, entering the kitchen and, surprisingly, giving Yuto a chance to cooperate. “Come on, we’re heading out.”

“What are you going to do?” you dared to ask as you watched Hoseok’s newest recruit walk himself out without even a glance your way – thank God for that. “Will you kill him?”

Hoseok may have hated guns but he was no stranger to violence. He had chosen to keep the majority of what he did under wraps but he wasn’t deliberately hiding his work from you. He protected you from the worst of it, but you still caught glimpses over the years.

“Not yet,” was his response to your question as his men escorted Yuto out of your house – although, really, it looked like the three of them left together amicably and if it weren’t for the sudden yelp of pain you heard as soon as the door of your house closed, you would have thought this was going to blow over peacefully. “I’m a firm believer in second-chances. He did do his job, at the end of the day. He just didn’t listen to the orders that were given to him. We’ll teach him how to listen.”

You bit your lip, almost afraid to imagine his methods of teaching, and Hoseok – after noticing your awkward expression –  wrapped an arm around your shoulders.

“Please tell me this won’t traumatize you and scare you off from my men,” he said. “We still have to attend that dinner next week.”

“Dinners are fine, I get to talk to the other girls during dinners,” you replied, sighing. “But it’s not me you’re scaring off from your men. It’s the other way around. They’re afraid to even look at me.”

“Good,” Hoseok said, smiling teasingly as he did not see what the problem was. “Do you really need other men looking at you? Am I not enough?”

His playful tone made you raise your eyebrows in surprise. You’d heard him swear when he returned home and you’ve seen the lightning in his eyes when he talked to Yuto, so, obviously, you weren’t expecting him to tease you about this in such a relaxed way.

“No, you’re enough,” you replied. “But you’re away a lot and—”

“Oh, so you need someone for when I’m away?”

“No. I only need you,” you said. “I always need only you.”

“Yeah?” Hoseok’s hand slid from your shoulders to your waist as he brought your body closer to his, a smirk still decorating his features. “Can you prove that to me, baby?”

“Hmm,” you replied to the teasing grin on his face with one on your own as his playful mood brushed off on you. “How do you want me to prove it? Would my words work?”

“They would,” he said, his eyes burning into yours with the utmost love and adoration. “But I’m sure you’ve already shown your love for me with your words when that useless son of a bitch bothered you, haven’t you?”

“I…” you pulled away from him a little. “Were you—?”

“—listening?” he guessed and then shook his head. “No. I’m not paranoid enough to listen to what’s going on here when I’m away. But I had a feeling Yuto would say something to you. He was far too quiet in every meeting that I’ve seen him in. The quiet ones are always the ones plotting something.”

“Why’d you bring him here, then?” you asked, suddenly confused, “if you knew he was going to—oh,” it hit you in the middle of a sentence. Your speculations about Hoseok’s true intentions were somewhat correct, after all. “You were trying to get him to disobey, weren’t you? You knew he was going to stand up to you and you were waiting for exactly that.”

“Maybe,” Hoseok replied, his eyes falling to your lips. “I also wanted him to meet my girlfriend and realize that she could kick his ass just as well as I could if he tried anything with her.”

“So, was it all for laughs?”

“Most of it,” he admitted. “I knew Henry and Jay were more than enough to protect you and I needed a way to teach Yuto a lesson. I couldn’t exactly teach him some discipline just because I was suspicious he was going to rebel, could I? I had to wait until he actually did something that went against my orders.”

“So… was there even a meeting tonight?” you asked, unsure if you were impressed or angry at him for playing you while he tricked Yuto. “Or did you just—”

“Oh, who cares now?” he cut you off, his impatience finally resurfacing as he got tired of you asking him questions you already knew all the answers to, when he could have been watching you undress for him. “I’m back now. I’m all yours for the next few hours before I have to go back and actually deal with this. We’ll talk about this then, yeah?”

“You mean we’re postponing the conversation?”

“Mmhmm,” he hummed, leaning in closer until his lips were hovering over your neck. “Unless you’d rather hear me explain how I schemed to get this poor disobedient young man beaten up, instead of letting me kiss you everywhere you want.”

“I would—you’re beating him up?!” you asked, almost dizzy from his close proximity and the feeling of his breath washing off on your neck. You still tried desperately to keep your mind working.

“No, I’m not going to touch him personally,” Hoseok replied, finally pressing his lips to the sensitive skin right below your ear. “I’ll just ask him some questions, talk to him a bit… nothing big.”

“Oh,” you exhaled, barely acknowledging what he’d said, too focused on the feeling of his lips moving down your neck. “You’re very distracting, do you know that?”

“I hope I am,” he pulled away from you – the coldness of the room immediately hitting the wet trail his kisses had left on your neck – and leaned his forehead against yours instead as he watched you try to catch your breath. “Because, if I’m not mistaken, I believe you were going to prove something to me, hmm?”

“I can’t seem to remember.”

He chuckled, the feeling of his chest vibrating against yours sending sparks of electricity all throughout your body.

“I believe you’ve told me you only needed me,” he said, his voice suddenly much lower. “So, let me refresh your memory, baby, so you’d forget all about the other men. And then you can prove to me how much you love me.”

[thebibliomancer]

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics liveblog pt 15

As loath as I am to admit it, I probably need to do some encounter leveling. Looking ahead, the Stonewood unite the clan missions are for level 37. I don't even have anyone level 30 yet!

I'm slightly agitated because up until this point the game has been decent at keeping the level progression tied to the difficulty curve. I hadn't needed to grind a lot. But there's a sudden spike in difficulty at this part of the game. Which I suppose is fair in one sense since this is endgame but on the other hand, boo.

Gobbles: Hup and Boggi leveled. Kylan learned Blinding Light. Naia learned Cleave 2.

Swamp: Rian learned Aughra's Ire, Kylan UNLOCKED SONG TELLER! Gurjin and Boggi leveled. And Hup learned Bad Broth which lets you detonate a cauldron.

Back to the tavern, oh god: Actually I executed this one flawlessly and killed all the enemies before they ever had a chance to attack. I don't love having to grind but I do love feeling how far I've come.  Anyway, Naia, Rian, Brea, and Boggi all leveled but didn't learn anything. But I did find Shimmering Scale and a Sharpened Dirk.

Place where Chamberlain abandoned his car: Gurjin leveled, Deet leveled and learned Overthink 2, Rek'yr leveled and learned Opening Act, Hup leveled and unlocked Musician. TIME FOR A CAREER CHANGE.

I'm giving Hup a Custom Bass. He deserves it.

Place where Chamberlain abandoned his car, again: Rian leveled and learned Thorns. Naia leveled. Found a Heavy Cleaver, by the side of the road. Weird what people leave laying around.

Cave: I love when my entire party is beserked so I get to watch the game play itself. Its the best. But Wukki leveled. Rek'yr leveled and learned Spot Weakness. Brea leveled and learned Firemoss Bundle 2. And Kylan leveled and learned Scathe.

Swamp: Hup died. Boggi leveled. Naia leveled and learned Smite 2. Gurjin leveled and learned Tangle Up 2. And I found a spoon. Naia and Gurjin also hit max lvl in Paladin and Stone Warden respectively so I'm switching them to Soldier and Paladin respectively so they can learn more stuff.

Desert: Hup leveled and learned Perform, which I should hope so since he's a musician. But its a self cast ability that makes adjacent allies take their turns faster. Deet and Kylan leveled. Found a Student Thesis, just abandoned in the desert. Isn't it sad?

Bar again: Rian leveled and learned Cascade AND CAN BECOME A STRATEGIST NOW! Ivo leveled and learned Fleet Shot 2. Wukki leveled.

Bar again again: Rek'yr leveled and learned Poisoned Blades. And got Arathim Shell Plating! This is going right on Rian!

Swamp again: Geeze, I hate Threaders. Anyway. Boggi, Brea, and Hup leveled. Deet leveled and learned Earthen Roots 2.

Desert: Kylan leveled and learned Thrum of Power, which is an awesome name for a move. It heals and grants haste for one turn.

Road to Ha'rar area: Oh fun another encounter where my whole party gets beserked so I get to watch the game play itself. Why not, not being interactive sure saves me some time. Wow, look at it go. Hooray, I won. Naia, Gurjin, and Breg leveled. And I found a Warforged Battleaxe.

A different swamp: Alyadon leveled and learned Convalesce 2. Nobody else leveled. I think I'm getting to the point where this level of encounter is becoming less cost effective. This is leaving poor Rian the only member of the party who isn't level 30. Isn't it embarrassing, Rian? Also I found a Custom Bass just sunk into the swamp.

That road to Ha'rar place again: Ivo and Wukki leveled. Rian leveled and learned Flow of Battle. Also I found an Exquisite Poignard.

And that gets everyone at least level 30. Hopefully that'll do for now the next stretch of the game.

---

Mission: Podling Rush - Spriton Village

"A Spriton village is in trouble. Something has driven the neighboring Podlings mad! Help hold off their attacks."

Finally back to this! Where hopefully the podlings aren't revolting for their right to be dirty!

Oh, looks like I have some friendly Spriton villagers on this map.

... Oh. Oh, shit! Darkened Podlings! This possible global warming allegory has gotten serious!

Party: Hup because he is a Podling, Brea and Boggi because heals, Rek'yr because he was there, and Deet because this is her subplot. The Darkening, I mean.

Rek'yr: "This village is in terrible shape. What happened here?"

Spriton Villagers: "The Podlings are back! Run!"

... THE NPCS JUST RAN AWAY! Were they on the map just to ditch me? Rude!

Rek'yr: "Why are the villagers so afraid of a few Podlings?"

You've been in a party with Hup for so long and you can still ask that?

Rek'yr: "Wait... Somethign isn't right with them. We have to defend this village!"

Only three podlings on the map. I FEEL as if that will change.

Geez, these Podlings pack a wallop. One of them walloped half of Brea's health off with one wallop.

Deet has avenged her with a good book. That shoots death.

Rek'yr and Hup team up to knock down another one of the Darkened Podlings and whoops, that was the event trigger for more spawn-ins. And they brought darkened armaligs! Hate those guys! They're way too beefy!

Theres three new podlings and two armaligs. Grumble grumble.

-peer up at the top right- Why does that mission objective box say "Defeat the Podling Raids 1/3"? Are there going to be three waves of this?

Two of the podlings that spawned in for the second wave don't have ranged attacks so whenever they get close I just have Deet use Gust 2 to blow them further away. And Rek'yr is situated on a raised area potshotting them with bolas. I almost feel bad.

Hup lays out another podling with his instrument because that podling kept hitting Hup's good pal Brea.

ARMALIG ATTACKED MY DOGGO and the other armalig attacked my Brea. RUDE.

Brea avenges herself on the armalig with FIRE

Annnnd oops, triggered the third wave. Four more podlings, two more armaligs from the left and bottom of the map.

Note to podling potion master: Just because you silence Deet doesn't mean she can't use her rad spellbook to explode you. Sincerely, me.

Alas Hup. You were my first casualty. RIP you brave Podling.

The result of the three waves of enemies around about roughly my level is that I'm running out of MP on my peeps. But I did win with only poor, brave Hup falling (unconscious) for the cause.

Rian: "What would cause Podlings to go berserk like that?"

Brea: "We need to investigate the Podling village."

We'll probably find a lot of pissed off podlings. Although, hey, they made a bunch of podling assets for Hup so might as well find a way to use them, right? Good thinking, game!

So Boggi and Deet leveled. Brea leveled and learned Soothe 2. Rek'yr leveled and learned Death's Instinct, which is just an amazing name for an ability. And Hup learned Ad-Lib.

Also, I haven't talked about pearl rewards for a while but they have been increasing as the game went on. I got 4000 thousand some for this mission. Nice.

---

Mission: Interrupted Journey - The Long Road

"Your party journeys to the Podling village and meets an unexpected ally."

Ooo! Another new character for the game? I'm quite interested.

Iiiiiits.... POMBO! He's a Podling Musician. I'm filled with sudden dread that he's going to fill the last slot in my party instead of Tavra or Seladon. Which. I guess I'd be okay with. I don't know what I could do with Tavra or Seladon at this point. It'd be cool to have them but I've got a lot of Gelflings doing various things. Naia is a bombass paladin, Tavra would just have to play catch-up. And I got two fizzgigs so why not two Podlings?

Anyway, there's more Darkened Podlings to contend with.

Party: Gurjin, Naia, Breg, Kylan. Team Naia's Posse and Breg.

Pombo: "Gelflin tonpee apida. Bo nai! BAD WATER!"

Gurjin: "That Podling is asking for our help. What do you mean by, 'bad water?'"

Pombo: "Tonpo Gelfli-da, pyata Gelflin dzuchocho apyama-da!"

Gurjin: "Pombo says he will help us if we promise to save his village."

Don't have to ask me twice.

Rian: "Pombo is a Podling Musician. If we support him with Positive Status Effects, his music can change the tide of battle!"

I don't... remember if I have any positive status effect abilities equipped to my guys?

Oh cool, he's not controlled by me. He's just doing his thing. And he did

ULTIMATE SOLO! -thrashes on lute-

Which hurts every enemy and heals every ally. Nice.

Luckily, Kylan is a Song-Teller and is very motivating.

Having watched ULTIMATE SOLO a couple times. The animation for it is delightful.

Alas, Breg and Naia killed by Darkened Podlings.

I just noticed, right after a Podling hit him with an attack that took off half his health, that a win condition is that Pombo can't die. Whoops.

But good ol' Kylan Scathe'd the last Darkened Podling.

Rian: "Pombo, what is happening? Why are the Podlings attacking?"

Pombo: "Skeksisa lolemilod nai-da. Yotsa uchapapodche ada shopo-pida dze ulendzi Gelflin-da ya!"

Hmm, I'm not sure if Pombo is going to join the party if he doesn't speak... Gelflish? Its going to be hard for him to get random lines to remind us that he's still in the party.

Rian: "The Skeksis poisoned your water? This sounds like one of the Scientist's schemes!"

He rarely has schemes really. He mostly has other people yelling at him until he does stuff.

Don't know how I feel about the Scientist actively darkening podlings instead of the Skeksis just not giving a shit.

HOLY SHIT I DID JUST UNLOCK POMBO

MY LAST PARTY MEMBER IS POMBO I CANNOT BELIEVE

Anyway, everyone level up! Everyone learn a thing!

Kylan learned Enchanting Tune (stuns enemy at two paces)! Naia learned Sharpen Blade 2 (attack up and crit chance up), nice! Gurjin learned Edged Slice (high damage and recoil) and Vindicate (defense down on enemy on crit) because he leveled twice! So did Kylan, actually. Breg learned Daring Strike 2! Which I probably won't use! Its so much setup!

Oops Breg has hit the end of the thief tree. Guess I'm switching him over to Tracker!

Hm, now that I have Pombo who has just so many levels in Musician and Potion Master already, I think I'm going to switch Hup back away from Musician. Don't need two musicians but I am missing out on some high level abilities in other jobs.

WHY HECK HUP I GUESS YOU CAN BE A PALADIN AFTER ALL! Its a feel good character arc for him. He gets to live his dream after all.

AND I'M BUYING HIM A GRAND LADLE!

---

Mission: Dark Poison - Podling Hollow

"The heroes reach the Podling village. They must stop The Scientist's wicked experiment and save the Podlings."

Holy crap, do I get to beat up the Scientist? Heck ye!

... I don't see him on the map. Alas.

Party: Alyadon, Rian the smart hero guy, Ivo the guy, Brea, and Wukki!

Lets finish off the Spriton missions!

I'VE BEEN TRICKED! THE SCIENTIST SPAWNS IN AS SOON AS THE LEVEL STARTS! I GET TO BEAT UP THE SCIENTIST!

The Scientist: "Cursed Podlings! The latest formula increases aggression, but the effects are too temporary. I'll never create a new army at this rate!"

I can imagine the movie Scientist's voice saying this.

But ah ha! I understand how it fits in now! The spiders betrayed the Skeksis, probably, so this is Scientist's first attempt. An army of angry Podlings. Good try, SkekTek.

Ok so the Scientist is the weeniest of Skeksis according to letting the Ornamentalist fight in battle but not Scientist. So he only has 1500 HP compared to the General who had 2000.

He's also got a cool electricity glowy steampunk esque spear. Pretty neat.

He's got Scalpel Slice which is what his attack is called. He's got Explosive Cask, where he throws an explosive cask. He's got Salt the Earth where he poisons an area. WITH A RANGE OF 8?? GOD! And he's got Chain Lightning which chains lightning to two additional targets.

This is going to hurt.

All we have to do is defeat the Scientist. This is going to hurt.

This is hurting. I'm getting my asses kicked. But I hit Scientist twice and he ran off to the other side of the stage to unleash his latest invention.

Lightning Aura - increases his magic, magic defense and defense by 100%. Rude.

aww he shot lightning at the doggo...

Welp. Everyone dead except Brea and Alyadon...

On the plus side, I've almost killed all of the minions. On the negative side, everyone dead except Alyadon.

On the other negative side, Scientist just killed Alyadon.

On the other other negative side, Salt the Earth really does Salt the Earth. The poison lingers forever.

---

TIME FOR SOME LEVELING HA HA dangit.

That place with the car: Another one of those where everyone gets taunted so the game plays itself =\

Alyadon and Wukki didn't level because they died. Ivo leveled and learned nothing. Rian leveled and learned Unfailing Blow (100% hit chance attack, its going right on Rian).

The Gobbles: Brea, Boggi, Hup, Alyadon, and Wukki leveled and didn't learn a darn thing!

That tavern again!: Naia, Breg, and Deet leveled! Alyadon leveled and learned Thorns! I found some random Fang-Studded Armor!

That road to Ha'rar place: Rian, Brea, Wukki levelled and learned nothing! Found a random Sharpened Longsword!

Sinking Isle: It occurs to me that although the tides mechanic is interesting and anxiety inducing, it can also lead to a boring level if, for instance, the enemies are localized to one side of the map so most of the level is spent moving around the map not fighting anyone because the level has some chokepoints.

Boggi leveled. Hup leveled and learned Thwack! 2! Ivo leveled and learned Eye Shot 2!

Desert: Something else I've noticed is that encounter levels have the same level elements that they did in the story mode. Including the glowy exit square. They don't do anything. They just obviously didn't make a version of the level without it.

Deet leveled and learned Life Exchange 2 (can use Life Exchange on enemies)! And has learned all the things in Adept!  Rek'yr leveled and learned Finish the Job (100% crit chance against non-boss enemy with less than 30% health)!

Citadel balcony: another one where everyone was beserked so the level played itself. Ho hum.

Naia leveled. Breg leveled and learned Aimed Shot. Gurjin leveled and learned Flurry of Steel. Kylan leveled and learned Stick and Stones (deal damage and inflict wounded may break your bones).

Hidden Grotto: Only Ivo leveled. BUT I found a Master's Opus. Its a magic book.

Drifting Dunes: Rek'yr, Pombo and Wukki level! Rian levels and learns Inspiring Presence (adjacent allies get critical chance up)! Alyadon levels and learns Cascade!

Sinking Isle again: Deet drowned =(

Boggi leveled. Gurjin leveled and learned Retribution.

Swamp: Deet leveled and learned nothing. Brea leveled and learned Awaken 2. Naia leveled and learned Bash 2.

And now that I've got a few levels under my belt, back to the mission.

Mission: Dark Poison - Podling Hollow

"The heroes reach the Podling village. They must stop The Scientist's wicked experiment and save the Podlings."

Bought a bunch of Nebrie Milk to make me immune to poison. That's just strategery that is.

No but seriously. Most of what Scientist does is lob poison. All of my party is either equipped with Nebrie Milk or Drenchen. Hopefully, I've hit this challenge in the knee.

And dang with Smite 2, Naia did six hundred damage! That's a third of his hpees!

But blah blah blah lightning aura and chain lightning time. It hurts. A lot. BUT: he can't target you from a distance if you're in the tall grass, with the velociraptors.

And boom, Scientist ass kicked. Mostly by Rek'yr who goes so often.

The Scientist: "This experiment is a complete failure! I must return to the Castle."

Rian: "The Scientist is dealt with, but what about the poor Podlings?"

Pombo: "A hup milasazabo pyata uchaahipu apyama-da!"

Deet: "A song? To put them all to sleep?"

... So. Are we just going to put the problem to sleep and hope it sorts itself out?

Gurjin leveled and learned Smite. Naia, Brea, and Boggi leveled. Rek'yr leveled and learned Silent Lunge (jump to an empty tile, Get Attack Up, rooted, and silence to self, does not end turn. So I guess you can jump somewhere and then attack? Worth a look)!

I also pick up the Leaf-Bladed Chopper, the Spriton Clan Axe! And the Scientist's Manual!

Oh, there's a cutscene of the zombie/darkened podlings surrounding our party on a hill and then Pombo does his music and puts them all to sleep.

Deet: "Tomorrow this will all seem a distant dream"

BUT HOW

Wait wait wait, shit. Scientist as much as said it. The formula is temporary so if we put them all to sleep they’ll wake up restored. You win this round, game writing.

The Leaf-Bladed Chopper has a higher attack bonus than the General's Hand Axe but the General's Axe has more assorted stat gains to defense, magic defense, and HP. So I'm sticking with that.

Scientist's Manual is a spellbook. It does even more damage than the Master's Opus so this is going right on Deet.

[lurafita]

Peter/Avengers, dub/con, captivity, Part three

TAGGING PEOPLE DIDN’T WORK! I don’t know why, but everytime I tried tagging someone, tumblr suddenly redirected me to their blog, instead of just writing down the name. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what the issue is. I have got in contact with support and am awaiting their answer, but until then, I hope you were still able to find this part! Again, so sorry!

Read Part 1: here

Read Part 2: here

People, heed the tags for upcoming parts in this story.

kidnapping, dub/con, captivity, chains, bondage, obsessive Avengers, Peter/Everyone, darkly soft Avengers (in the sense that they hold Peter captive, but only want to love and protect him), non-powered Peter, dark-ish Avengers, 18+ Peter, Clint is not married and has no kids, Tony is not in a relationship with Pepper.

(I feel like a cheat for tagging these things, even though I still haven’t gotten to the juicy bits in this fic...)

Part 3

Peter had long since retired, when the others gathered in the common floors living room, to further discuss the bomb the younger man had dropped on them mere hours ago.

Clint was waving his phone around wildly. “Australia is the most poisonous continent in the world! There are frogs that can kill you! Frogs!”

Bruce was frowning deeply. “The climate is drastically different there. Neither his body, nor his immune system will easily adapt. Petey could develop numerous illnesses because of that.”

Sam was likewise shaking his head. “Pumpkin doesn't have the physicality for weeks long hiking in the jungle. He may be good at parkour, but that is still miles away from the terrain that will await him in the underbrush.”

Steve made a sound like a wounded animal. “Don't remind me of that particular hobby of his, please. I still have nightmares from that video he showed us.”

Tony threw back his scotch. “Six months. Possibly longer. Sweetheart shouldn't be away from us for such a long time. Shouldn't be away at all.”

Bucky was pacing, the Winter Soldier clawing at his very being. “There isn't enough Intel. We don't know the people that would be part of his group. Don't know the terrain. Can't predict the conditions. Can't entrust Doll to strangers. Not safe.”

Natasha was stoically silent, though her face was stormy.

Thor looked contemplative. “...Then maybe we shouldn't let him go.”

The others stilled, all looking at the Asgardian.

“Hate to break it to you, L'Oreal, but I already tried bribing the University's board, in order to make them reject Stoddard's little excursion. No dice. Figures Peter would attend the one university in this stupid city that holds academic achievements in a higher regard than funding.”

A snort of pure disgust left the billionaires mouth, as he stood up to refill his glass.

But Thor shook his head. “I'm not saying to not let other people embark on this quest. I'm saying not to let Peter go.”

Steve wrung his hands. “We can't exactly keep him from going...”

Thor raised a challenging eyebrow. “Why not? He is a lovely creature, but he is not blessed with strength and battle prowess like the rest of us are. I imagine it would be quite easy to keep him here.”

The others looked around them uncomfortably.

“It's not that we wouldn't be capable of keeping him here, Thor, so much as that we... shouldn't...do something like this.” Sam awkwardly rubbed his neck.

“... Why shouldn't we?” But this time the question didn't come from Thor, but from Bucky.

Nervously wiping his hands over his thighs, Bruce tried to give reason to his words, while the Hulk was roaring in agreement with the Winter Soldier.

“It's... We can't... Peter isn't a child. Or a pet. … We have no right to just... keep him.”

Natasha spoke for the first time, her voice even.

“Don't we? Haven't we taken him in? Haven't we taken care of him for the last year? Aren't we the ones most responsible for his safety and well being? You just counted off all the dangers awaiting Lastashka if he joins this excursion. It's not safe. And he is ours to protect.”

Tony slowly set down his glass, eyes going back and forth during his inner debate.

“It's not like we would be doing something bad... He needs us. He can barely remember to feed himself.”

Clint gave him a sardonic look for that.

“Yeah, I'm not gonna comment on how very hypocritical that is coming from you. But you are right. Last week he almost fainted, because he wanted to finish his thesis, and didn't sleep for two days straight.”

Tony's head shot up at this.

“What? Why didn't I know about this? Friday? I thought I told you to keep an eye on my Sweetheart's sleeping schedule.”

“Peter asked me not to inform you of this, when I attempted to get him to sleep. He said it wouldn’t be a regular occurrence, and that after he finished with his work, he wouldn't have to neglect his rest so severely again. Since you yourself have abstained from sleep on far more occasions, I promised Peter discretion on the matter.”

Dammit!

Clint simply pointed to him.

“See? Hypocrite. But this just helps to prove the fact that Pete isn't very good at taking care of himself. And we can't leave him to a bunch of nerdy strangers. Nat is right. He is ours to protect.”

Bucky nodded along with this reasoning, as Sam pursed his lips.

“It's not like there is any guarantee that this plant this professor is looking for will really cure the disease, right? It's not worth it for Pumpkin to risk his health, possibly even his life, on a fools errand.”

Bruce couldn't ignore the words of his friends,and the desires of himself and the Hulk, any longer.

“I have been on such fruitless excursions during my time in university. I remember the hopeful anticipation in the beginning. And the crushing devastation when we came back empty handed. I would like to spare Petey such an experience.”

Steve held up his hands.

“Whoa, whoa, guys. You aren't seriously considering,- what? Kidnapping Peter? Keeping him locked up here with us?”

Bucky spoke before anyone else could.

“He would be safe here. We can protect him. Care for him. Love him.”

Natasha nodded.

“We won't hurt him. He won't understand or like it, at first. But he will come around.”

Tony carefully chimed in.

“It will take some time. Patience. Affection. But... since everyone will be thinking he is gonna be in the depths of the Australian underbrush for at least half a year...”

Clint was already a step ahead.

“The Tower is listed as Peter's official address, and Tony and Bruce as the overseers of his internship. It wouldn't be suspicious if one of them called the university the day of the groups departure, to report that Peter can't make it due to sudden injury or illness.”

Sam hopped right on.

“They will want to catch a very early flight, won't they? It's a bit of a trip to another continent. We could throw a little 'Good-bye' party for Pete. Invite his friends and aunt. Tell everyone one of us would drive him to the airport the next morning...”

A thoughtful crease appeared between Bruce's eyebrows.

“The professors usually tell the students and volunteers in their group to leave things like their cellphones at home. There is rarely opportunity to charge the battery, and if you are deep in the jungle, there is no reception anyway. So no one would be expecting to hear from him before the excursion team gets back. By that time,... surely Petey won't want to leave us again.”

Steve took a step forward.

“Okay, stop. Do you realize what you are talking about? We can't do this.”

“Don't you love him?” Thor's usually booming voice was quite, almost a whisper.

Steve nodded. “Of course I do. But-”

“Don't you wish to protect him? To know that he is safe?” Sam added.

“I do. But that doesn't mean-”

“Haven't things been so much better since he came to live with us? We have all been more careful during missions, taking less risks, causing less damage, because we know Peter is here, waiting for us to come back.” Clint threw in.

“I-”

“Peter was underweight when he started living here, you know? He got some acid on his shirt, and had to change out of it. I could count his ribs back then. His clothes don't look like they are his two heads taller brother’s hand-me-downs any longer, because we have made sure that he eats regularly. Do you think anyone else will do that for him in Australia?” Bruce asked.

“They.. no, they probably wouldn't..”

“You have been drawing more, since Peter found some of your older sketches. It has helped you relax. Been a way for you to deal with the things we have been through. I know half of your sketchbook is full of drawings of him. Do you really think you can go back to before? Capture other motifs on paper? Be without your muse for six whole months, and possibly longer?” Bucky implored.

“I didn't think of that.... I... I couldn't...”

“When I was a child, I have never been allowed to want something. We were weapons, there was no room for wishes. I have gotten to experience friendship and trust since then, and maybe it is selfish to ask for more. But I want more, Steve. I want Peter. I want him to be here with us, not somewhere in some jungle that might take him from us. My trainers kept me from wanting then, will this world's ideal of morality still keep me from wanting now?” She looked at him with eyes fuller of emotion than they had ever been.

“Natasha, I... no, of course you are allowed to want-”

“I don't care if I'm being selfish. We are heroes, Steve. Earth's mightiest defenders, isn't that what they call us? We go out there and fight everyone's enemies. People are safe because of us. But I will tell you right now, the only reason I have been able to sleep through a whole night recently, is Peter. I have seen so much shit in my life, Steve. Before the Avengers were ever formed, and then even more after we got this little superhero boy-band together. I used to tinker in my lab for days on end, because I knew that at one point my body would shut down on its own, and I would get the sleep I needed, with only the minimum of all the delightful nightmares my ptsd ridden brain could come up with. But ever since Peter has been here, it's better. I go to bed thinking about the way his eyes light up, whenever I show him a new upgrade for a current project, instead of the wide open eyes of the dead child we were too late to safe. I'm able to sleep dreaming about the noises he would make, if I bit the nape of his neck just so, instead of recalling flying a nuke through a portal and falling to what was supposed to be my death. Don't try to tell me you haven't had similar experiences with him. Don't try to lie about this. We deserve to be selfish with the person we love.”

“I, I know, Tony. I'm not saying that I don't understand...” The protest was feeble, weak. Steve was already more than halfway convinced.

“In Asgard, Peter would be called a 'Melmir'. A gift. Something to be kept to ourselves and safe at all cost.” Thor had stood, stepping closer to his friend.

“Peter isn't a thing.”

“I did not mean to imply such. A treasure needs not be an object to be called precious. Peter is precious, is he not?”

Steve looked determinedly into the eyes of his taller friend.

“He is.”

Then the super soldier looked at his teammates around him. His friends. And he saw his own feelings reflected in their eyes.

“And he is ours.”

______________________________________________________________

Read Part 4: here

Yeah, so this part was supposed to dive right into the chains and captivity and other stuff that I promised, but then I got caught up in the dialouge and, well....

I do hope you still liked it though. I will try to be faster with the next part.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU START BY WRITING A STRIPPED-DOWN KERNEL HOW HARD CAN IT BE

Both of which are false. You must resist this. The main value of the succinctness test is as a guide in designing languages. They'll be fine.1 A typical angel round these days might be $150,000 raised from 5 people. If a hacker were a mere implementor, turning a spec into code, then he could just work his way through it from one end to the other like someone digging a ditch.2 I never read the books we were assigned. So please, get on with it. No one has to commit explicitly to what the central point is. But due to a series of historical accidents the teaching of writing has gotten mixed together with the study of ancient texts was the essence of what scholars did.

If you expressed the same ideas in prose as mathematicians had to do without. But actually being good is an expensive way to seem good. Because the fact is, if you believe as I do that the main reason we take the trouble to write two versions, a flame for Reddit and a more subdued version for HN. In a real essay you're writing for yourself. The reason they like it when you don't need them is not simply that they like what they do. The Internet is changing that. That's why I'm so optimistic about HN. And unless you already have if you can't raise the full amount. And so once university English departments were established in the late 19th century the study of literature. I'm not proposing this as a new idea. Bill Gates would probably have something to read.3 There's always a temptation to do that completely.

They raise their first round fairly easily because the founders seem smart and the idea sounds plausible. So the ability to ferret out the unexpected. Even if you only have one meeting a day with investors, somehow that one meeting will burn up your whole day. And anything you come across that surprises you, who've thought about the topic a lot, will probably surprise most readers.4 For a painter, a museum is a reference library of techniques.5 I can't. It means that a programming language is obviously doesn't know what a programming language should, above all, be malleable. The true test of the length of the delay inversely proportional to some prediction of its quality. Almost everything is interesting if you get deeply enough into it. It hadn't occurred to me till then that those horrible things we had to rely mostly on examples in books. And once you start to doubt yourself.

So no matter how many good startups approach him.6 But I know the house would probably have ended up pretty rich even if IBM hadn't happened to drop the PC standard in his lap. Why is it conventional to pretend to like what you do or what I do is somewhere between a river and a roman road-builder. And open and good.7 A couple hundred thousand would let them get office space and hire some smart people they know from school. And yet a lot is at stake. Browsers then IE 6 was still 3 years in the future, and the power of the more unscrupulous do it deliberately. Hacker News is an experiment, and an experiment in a very young field. So when a language isn't succinct, it will feel restrictive. The paperwork for convertible debt is simpler.

Their search also turned up parse. The study of rhetoric, the art of arguing persuasively, was a kind of final pass where you caught typos and oversights. Colleges had long taught English composition. The existence of aggregators has already affected what they aggregate.8 Study lots of different things, so you can learn faster what various kinds of work. I think he really wishes he'd listened. The advantage of the two-job route is less common than the organic route. There is nothing investors like more than a plan A. Long but mistaken arguments are actually quite rare. Scientists don't learn science by doing it.9 Even the concept of me turns out to explain nearly all the characteristics of VCs that founders hate. Relentlessness wins because, in the Gmail sense everything I've told you so far.

Hacker News is an experiment, and an essai is an effort. Users have worried about that since the site was a few months old.10 So a plan that promises freedom at the expense of knowing what to do, so here is another place where startups have an advantage. It sounds obvious to say that the answer is a simple yes, but no one can predict them—not even the protagonists: we're just the latest model vehicle our genes have constructed to travel around in. There are lots of other potential names that are as carefully designed and, if possible. Another easy test is the number of both increases we'll get something more like an efficient market. For example, in a recent essay I pointed out that because you can start as soon as the first one is ready to buy. Why is it conventional to pretend to like what you do? Twenty years ago, fascinating and urgently needed work. Fundamentally an essay is a train of thought, as dialogue is cleaned-up train of thought—but a cleaned-up train of thought—but social and economic history, not political history. It will always be true that most great programmers are born outside the US.11 The whole room gasped.

I've met a few VCs I like. There's nothing intrinsically great about your current name would seem repellent. Since we hosted all the stores, which together were getting just over 10 million page views per month in June 1998 I took a snapshot of Viaweb's site.12 The advantage of the two-job route, if you have $5 million in investable assets, it would seem an inspired metaphor.13 The advice of parents will tend to feel bleak and abandoned, and accumulate cruft.14 The good things in a community site come from people more than technology; it's mainly in the prevention of bad things that technology comes into play. Investors like it when they can help a startup, but they did have to go to school, which was a dilute version of work meant to prepare us for the real thing.15 Or at least, a thesis was a position one took and the dissertation was the argument by which one defended it. I didn't realize this when I was about 9 or 10, my father told me I could be 100% sure that's not a description of HN. Indeed, you can start as soon as the first one is ready to buy. It's kind of surprising that it even exists. And there was the mystery of why the perennial favorite Pralines 'n' Cream was so appealing.

Notes

Html. If early abstract paintings seem more powerful sororities at your school sucks, where many of the War on Drugs. Most unusual ambitions fail, no matter how large.

The quality of investor behavior. 03%. Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1981. Source: Nielsen Media Research.

There is no different from deciding to move from London to Silicon Valley. Sites that habitually linkjack get banned. Xenophon Mem.

Hypothesis: A company will be big successes but who are good presenters, but we do the right thing to do some research online. Here's a recipe that might work is in the general manager of the products I grew up with elaborate rationalizations.

Sometimes a competitor will deliberately threaten you with a cap. It's a bit more complicated, because you have to keep them from the DMV.

A single point of a powerful syndicate, you now get to go deeper into the work of selection. The Sub-Zero 690, one could aspire to the hour Google was founded, wouldn't offer to invest the next investor.

At first I didn't care about, like languages and safe combinations, and one VC. Gauss was supposedly asked this when comparing techniques for discouraging stupid comments instead. Proceedings of 2003 Spam Conference.

In part because Steve Jobs doesn't use.

So as a rule, if an employer, I have no decision-making power. Your user model almost couldn't be perfectly accurate, and that most people will pay people millions of dollars a year for a patent is now. Obvious is an understatement.

It wouldn't cut their overall returns tenfold, because when people make the people working for me was the ads they show first. It's hard to say they prefer great markets to great people to claim retroactively I said yes.

Candidates for masters' degrees went on to study the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and that modern corporate executives would work better, and b I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve a lot of legal business. One of the iPhone SDK.

Cost, again. And they are building, they were. If a company growing at 5% a week for 19 years, it means a big company. However bad your classes because you spent all your time working on is a convertible note with no deadline, you should push back on the parental dole, and journalists—have the perfect life, and stir.

This is not an efficient market in this essay talks about the distinction between money and disputes.

That name got assigned to it because the ordering system was small. In fact, we should make the argument a little about how to deal with them. Auto-retrieving filters will be big successes but who are weak in other ways to do more with less? By your mid-game.

No big deal. This is isomorphic to the frightening lies told by older siblings. It was revoltingly familiar to slip back into it. But should you even working on that.

[shootinglesbian]

maybe

Word count: 1154

Pairings: analogical

Warnings: anxiety mention, kissing mention, homophobia, being kicked out

A/N 1.0: so first this started as a sick Roman, and then moved to a beat-up Roman, and now we habe this story! Love the instrumental of A Thousand Years and my amazing friend @nottodaylogic for helping me get this finished up. (Well, actually it was mostly through help from the friend.) Hey @hghrules, you wanted to be tagged! If you want to be added to the “taglist” (if I can even call it that) let me know!

A/N 2.0: my dear lgbtq+ siblings, in this oneshot, I talk about courage and love. And I want to know that wherever you are in your journey of self-acceptance, of coming out, of love, you are brave. You are so brave. Whether you can’t imagine coming out or you’ve been kicked out or you just can’t find it in you to love yourself, you are brave. I promise. You are brave because every day you are here, every day you might feel like quitting, you don’t give in. You are brave because you refuse to let this world destroy you. You are brave because you are fighting. Fighting for acceptance, for love. That’s brave. And I also want you to know that love is for you. It might not be romantic love, but love is for you. And if you want romantic love, then that’s for you too. My dear siblings, we are brave, and we deserve love, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

—

Logan loved how brave Virgil was.

If you would ask people who was the bravest in Logan’s friend group, they would probably say Roman or Patton.

And of course, they were brave.

Roman was always so unapologetically himself, and Patton was always putting himself out to help people.

But Virgil, Virgil was a quiet kind of brave.

Virgil went to school everyday, despite the hurt and anxiety.

Virgil was always himself, just quietly.

Virgil was brave in the way he cared for himself, how he never gave up.

And that was just one of the things Logan loved so dearly about his boyfriend.

—

Sometimes, Virgil took his bravery too far.

The two of them had gone to Virgil’s after school to work on their thesis essays.

They got a fair bit into the writing when Virgil took Logan’s hand and pulled him upstairs to his room.

He kissed him softly, so softly, and Logan was melting, and Virgil was holding him so gently, and they were so lost in each other that they didn’t hear the garage door open.

They didn’t hear the call of, “I’m home!”.

They didn’t hear the footsteps coming up the stairs.

And they didn’t hear the door opening.

—

When Virgil’s mom stood there in shook, Virgil didn’t say anything. He didn’t defend himself. He didn’t cry.

He didn’t step away from Logan.

Brave, brave, brave.

“Virgil…” his mom trailed off.

Logan felt Virgil take a deep breath against him. “I’m gay. I’m dating Logan. I think… I think that I love him.”

Logan’s heart skipped a beat. Sure, the two of them had admitted many times that they loved each other, but they’d never said it to another person, let alone a parent.

Brave, brave, brave.

“No.” The one simple word was sharp, harsh.  

Virgil didn’t even flinch.

Brave, brave, brave.

“No. Get out. You can’t stay here.”

“Mom, I’m still me.” His voice didn’t waver.

Brave, brave, brave.

“No, Virgil. Go. Leave.”

“Mom.”

She just looked away and then walked out.

—

“Virgil, what do you want to do?” Logan asked quietly, taking his hand.

“I—I guess I have to leave.”

“Do you want time to help you pack some things?”

Virgil nodded, sinking onto his bed. “I need somewhere to go, don’t I?”

“You could… you can certainly stay with me, if you like,” Logan offered, pulling out a hoodie from Virgil’s closet.

“I want to but I don’t know how good it would be for… for our relationship. If that’s healthy.”

“You could give Patton a call.” Logan grabbed up Virgil’s sketchbook and pencils.

“Lo, stop. Just stop.” His voice sounded so pained, so tense.

“What do you need?”

“Please just—just c’mere, hold me.”

So Logan wrapped his arms around Virgil, holding him tightly. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. Everything is going to be okay.”

And then Virgil started crying, clutching at Logan, pulling him closer, closer.

“It’s okay, Virgil. Just breathe.”

Virgil took a shuddering breath.

Brave, brave, brave.

“I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.”

—

It had been a month since Virgil moved in with Patton.

A month since he was kicked out.

And his quiet bravery hadn’t ceased to astonish Logan.

He was so resilient, so strong, so fierce.

Yet it was also obvious that he was hurting. He was vulnerable, scared.

And somehow, somehow, the bravery and the fear coexisted.

Somehow, the fierce determination was obvious, even among the tears, the uncertainty.

It shouldn’t make sense, but strangely, it did, and it was terribly beautiful.

—

Logan remembered when he first met Virgil. Patton had dragged him along to a study evening.

Logan had been a bit annoyed. He liked the routine the three of them had, and Virgil could only get in the way of that.

But he was very, very wrong.

Virgil became one of Logan’s closet friends.

Logan remembered when he first realized how he felt about Virgil.

As more than a friend.

He was terrified; he had never felt this way about anyone before.

He thought that these feelings could only ruin the friendship that the two had.

But he was very, very wrong.

Logan remembered when he and Virgil first kissed.

They had been doing a jigsaw puzzle together when they reached for the same piece.

And then Virgil leaned over and kissed Logan.

And Logan could hardly breathe.

He never really thought that kissing was anything special. It was something in movies, something for people in love, but not for him, never for him. He wasn’t even in love, was he? Love wasn’t for him.

But he was very, very wrong.

Because he had found love with his best friends.

And he had found love with Virgil.

—

Virgil leaned back in Logan’s arm. “I should have said something.”

“Hmm?”

A movie played in the background, but both of them ignored it.

“To my mom,” Virgil clarified, his fingers toying with the sleeve of Logan’s shirt. “I should have stood up to her.”

“Why do you say so?”

“Because… because it’d have been brave.”

What did he mean? Did he think he wasn’t brave?

He was.

He was so brave.

He was brave through his anxiety, brave through his insecurities, brave through being kicked out.

“You are brave, Virgil,” Logan insisted.

“No, I’m not,” he muttered. “I’m always so afraid. And I can never stand up for myself, let alone other people. I’m not bold or loud or… I’m just not brave.”

“Virgil that’s not the definition of bravery. Bravery is being courageous, which means not being deterred by danger or pain. And that’s you.”

“How?”

“You never give up. You keep trying in school. You keep trying in your friendships. Even though it’s hard, you keep trying. And that’s bravery.”

“Where does needing help fit in?”

“Needing help doesn’t diminish bravery. Asking for help is brave in and of itself.” Logan paused. “You know you can ask for help if you need it, correct? I will always be here for you.”

Virgil took a deep breath. “It just… it doesn’t seem brave.”

“I assure you it is.”

“Then… can you help me?” Virgil pulled the blanket tighter around them.

“Anything.”

“Every morning… can you text me the definition of courage?”

Logan kissed his cheek. “Of course.”

“You don’t think less of me for asking for help, do you?”

“No, Virgil, of course I don’t. Everyone needs help sometimes. I actually think it’s brave of you to ask.”

Because bravery could be for quiet and the soft.

“Thank you. Thank you for always standing by me. I love you.”

And of course the nerd in Logan had to say, “I know.”

“I mean it. Do you understand, Lo? I really mean it.” Virgil turned to face him. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” And Logan kissed him, and kissed him again and again and again.

Because maybe love could be for him.

[sethnakht]

Rambling thoughts on Cass and on ending stories. 

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #32, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

This panel sort of has it all.

Spoilers beneath the cut.

If there's only one way to end a story, and that way is to stop telling it, will it be enough for Laura to have rejected godhood? Or will the other surviving gods, including the heads, need to follow her example to ensure that Ananke cannot complete her ritual?

One can imagine Baph being convinced; he never wanted to die, never had a choice, and this would return some choice to him. Cass as well - the hospital footage on Dio's phone might even suggest that she survives past all this into old age. But what of Baal, who has always believed he was a god? Who has sacrificed in belief? Sunken cost fallacy there. Asking this of the heads - even of those who never wanted this - would be a tall order, moreover - for without godhood, what would they be other than victims of decapitation and thus dead? (Not that they would last long as heads under Minervananke.) Or was Ananke telling the truth when she said the children would develop powers on their own without her - where powers is not equal to the trappings of the god she chose for each, where the latter can be rejected as story and the former involves discovering identity of a sort?

In this context, I've been thinking a lot about Cass.

Cass interests me because of her fraught relationship to stories. She is constantly subjected to bigoted, racist, transphobic, objectifying stories imposed on her about gender and ethnic roles, not least by members of the Pantheon like Amaterasu and Woden. She is a critic who sees through that bullshit. She's defended her own story and gathered tools of defense. She's a journalist who wants to expose truths.

She's also someone who wants change in the form of progress and who seems to have once thought the gods would be the answer, if her academic degree in Pantheon Studies is any indication. But the gods of this Recurrence are themselves mouthpieces for the very same BS she has been subjected to all along. No change she would consider meaningful is taking place; instead we get the eternal recurrence of the same. When the gods speak in tongues, Cass is told she should feel something and yet does not. There is a story that her body and mind should be a certain way being imposed on her once again.

Cass rejects this narrative. The gods are not saviors, they're entitled teenage pricks. Their powers are meaningless. How she understands this exactly is a bit unclear to me. Does she think that the gods have never effected any meaningful change over the course of history, that their presence has had no effect? That would be a strange position for an academic historian. It seems more likely that she rejects the idea that the presence of the gods is inherently meaningful, that their appearance points to a deeper meaning in the structure of the world. The fact of Recurrence would itself be as meaningless as a meteor striking earth, for instance - the presence of the gods would mark no portent, no messianic coming, but simply be a fact of nature.

The stories about meaning imparted by gods - she says this with the portraits of 1831 Woden (Mary Shelley) and 1831 Lucifer (Lord Byron) in the background, possibly also referencing any sort of aestheticism as such, any sort of idea that art as such is a replacement for political action - were therefore lies.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #2, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

For Cass, “the personal is the political”. (I tend to think of her as the opposite of idk the long-nineteenth-century German notion of Kultur writ large, but that's another story.)

Cassandra wants to change the world. That makes her position is VERY different from that of David Blake, whose problem with the Recurrence seems to also be that the current Pantheon reflects a society he doesn't want. Where Cassandra seeks a progressive future - her choice of name for herself speaks volumes - Blake acknowledges that the patriarchy is bad because: war and because: not every man gets to be the father with all the benefits, but also doesn't seem to care to change the status quo. On the contrary, some of his remarks suggest that he thinks culture was superior in the Past and that the Present should be violently struck from the history books. Even after Cass ascends to become Urdr, and thus associated with the Past, her thoughts remain directed towards the future. "We're trying to give birth to the future using the language of our oppressors", she tells Dio:

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #27, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

Ananke, Cass tells Laura, is "god of fate". Cass is the naysayer who doesn't believe in fate. In a perverse move, Ananke makes Cass into a goddess of fate. Cass is the sort who takes any thesis you give her and represents the anti-thesis with a "fuck you". Made goddess of fate, her response is to use those powers to persuade an audience of her view that there is no fate. The gods are a false hope and offer no meaning: "The void swallows us. Nothing means anything. Everything is nothing. Meaning is irrelevant. It's so cold. It lasts forever. It's all there is. So small so alone. We only have each other. It's never enough."

This is kind of a Birth of Tragedy moment: man gazes into the void, sees the horror of life, realizes nothing has meaning, and is paralyzed from action. Nietzsche thinks the paralysis can be overcome with art, particularly when the principles of individuation (the Apollonian drive) and inclusiveness (the Dionysian drive) are fused in a way that moves us to see past our own individual selves and figuratively unite with a collective. Cass is very Apollonian in a sense - she's tremendously restrained, a storyteller as opposed to a dancer and musician; that line about "small" and "alone" also stresses individuality. It's no wonder Dionysus is in this Pantheon and in love with Cass, and even briefly able to make her connect with his hive-mind. But Cass pulls out almost as soon as she starts to feel it, claiming there are more important things to do. There won't be the kind dialectic reconciliation of their respective art drives that Nietzsche would claim to be necessary in this story, unless Dio isn't really braindead.

My point with all this is that if you read Cass' message as something to live by, it seems rather one sided and incomplete. Is there a message she isn't sharing?If nothing means anything, why bother to perform? Cass doesn't go beyond the negation of meaning to think about what to do with that, how to live with that; there's a sense in which she does what she previously criticized about the tongues by not doing more than imposing a story, by not showing how to move beyond a story. She doesn’t ask her audience to think, but to download.

Cass tells a story of meaningless that is received as a story and nothing more. Much to her disappointment, it doesn't effect the kind of instant change in people's attitudes and mindset that she seems to think art should be capable of if it is to have meaning.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #10, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

Instead of being provoked into thinking, or paralyzed with realization, however, what happens is quite a bit worse: her audience treats her message as a product to be consumed. Cass is again subjected to this fate when she decides to forgo the use of tongues - of giving any sort of aestheticized pleasure to her audiences - and hold a normal press conference where she yells unvarnished truths. Not only are her words ignored - the press conference is turned into reaction gifs to be reposted and repurposed without any attention paid to the original context or meaning - she herself is reframed as dangerous for even attempting to displace Woden's reigning narrative that pleasure is meaning and meaning is meaningful no matter how it was gotten or who it happens to keep in power. Not only is Cass' meaning deliberately twisted in Beth's video / power grab, the Valkyries are openly praised for stunning and imprisoning her and the other Norns.

Is Cass herself nothing more in the story than a tool for thinking through what art has possibly become in the culture industry on a meta level? That would be disturbing. I want to believe the story will give her more, that the raft of friendship we see her building with Laura is not about to be dashed to pieces and writ as futile as Dio’s last act.

The comment to Dio about trying to give birth using the language of oppressors seems really important. One of the literal oppressors in the story is Ananke, the perverted mother, the one who kills children and the future to ensure her own continued survival. (Palpatine and Cylo arguably also play this role in Gillen’s Vader comic, the former by scheming to replace his apprentice/figurative child with younger children in order to extend his power, the latter by endlessly cloning himself.) Ananke lives by a story and she thinks the story will carry her on. She murders the children born of the gods both literally and figuratively, ensuring she remains the only child.

If Ananke's language is that of the oppressor - and if Ananke’s sister stands for desire, she herself apparently stands for necessity - Cass uses that language by negating it. Cass' negations are at times absurdly absolute. When Amaterasu - her anti-thesis in so many ways - tells her that everything happens for a reason, she counters with the absolute: nothing happens for a reason.

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #15, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles

Cass is right about Amaterasu in a lot of ways. Amaterasu basically seems to be saying that Hiroshima had to happen so that she could happen. There’s a line in Marx about history repeating itself twice, once as tragedy, once as farce. Amaterasu recreating an artificial sun over Hiroshima was not in the least funny. Everything happens for a reason is a convenient philosophy if history has largely been on your side. 

It's also rather determinist in a way, attributing necessity to everything regardless of how it affects people. Which makes Amaterasu's claim that Cass is an idealist who doesn't care about what happens to people rather rich:

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #15, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles

Amaterasu’s words are echoed later and more effectively by The Morrigan, who claims that her own choice to take away Baph’s choices was essentially the same as Cass’ choice to transform her girlfriends into Verdandi and Skuld. Cass protests that it was the logical, almost mathematically rational thing to do, which ... isn’t a great response ...

Speaking of idealism, Cass seems to impress Woden as well with the idea that she is a foolish idealist, whatever that means:

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #30, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

To say that nothing happens for a reason is not an idealistic statement by itself, though. If there's an ideal attached to it, it might be freedom - rejection of determinism. At the same time, Cass is certainly not an advocate for anarchy, as the vote on the Great Darkness makes clear. Cass thinks there is a right way to do things and a wrong way. If she believes that nothing happens for a reason because the idea of an inherent purposiveness to the world is a lie or a story we tell ourselves, her ideals also suggest that stories are part of who we are, that we are storytellers, that our minds are configured to see cause and effect, and that there is purpose to reflecting on what we are so we can do something with that. “I’m seeing patterns, but they’re the patterns I see” is a problem of which she is aware. There may not be meaning "out there", and that creates doubt - but it doesn’t keep her from doing.

Which makes it kind of a head-scratcher for me that neither Amaterasu nor Cass seem willing to acknowledge is that both of them can be right. We know this because Jon Blake - Mimir, a god of wisdom - puts forward a middle position:

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #34, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Jamie McKelvie, colors by Matthew Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles

It’s ironic that Cass, who claims nothing happens for a reason, is the one to fall for the idea that Ananke's machine must have a purpose, that it must do work. The machine does have a purpose - it misleads the gods, and above all, it has a purpose beyond its intended purpose, in that it keeps Cass inside, isolated, and distracted. Cass’ labor is sucked into the machine for the purpose of keeping the masses satiated and unthinking (Woden) and the perverse cycle of child murder uninterrupted (Minerva). The point being - someone had reason to hide the truth, just as she had reason to find it, and the recognition that stories are lies we tell ourselves for the purposes of survival doesn’t magically reveal truths or serve as an antidote or solution to the problems of society.

In this story about storytelling, this story about the meanings we choose to believe (“the personal is the political”, which full disclosure is also something I also believe), to act upon, to share or impose on the world and other people, the position that “nothing happens for a reason” is a difficult sell. Everything in this story was meticulously plotted, and any unintended effects on the reader can still be attributed to reasons. Given that the story is coming to an end in a very literal sense for both the reader and the characters, given that their story is to end a story, I’m really looking forward to seeing how Cass’ negations and ideals, how her approaches to art and stories are developed.