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lochsides · 3 years ago

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If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power Review

Where do I even begin with 'If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power'? It is such a good album, it's almost criminal. If I had to pick the best album to be released this year, IICHLIWP would be it. Halsey has always been an excellent songwriter, that was never even in question, but it has been proved once again, in case anyone wasn't paying attention. IICHLIWP is an album that covers so much depth in sound and in lyric. The dichotomy of the Madonna and the Whore, as they said in their announcement of the album, is an overarching theme of IICHLIWP and it is articulated so consummately. The references to pregnancies and childbirth are more subtle than I expected but that's what makes them so genius. This is an album where every lyric is intentional.

My favourite songs are ‘The Tradition’, 'Bells in Santa Fe', '1121' and 'Ya'aburnee'. More detailed thoughts on each track are below the cut. Trigger warnings for sexual assault and miscarriages.

The Tradition — This is the first song on the album and Halsey had already fucked me up so there's that. I got full-body chills listening to 'The Tradition'. The production is masterful. There is this darkness that settles in early and ebbs and flows beautifully, not only throughout the song but the album as a whole. 'The Tradition' already sets up so many of themes of this album, but what a way to talk about sexual assault. I am in love with the entire chorus line but I think my favourite lyric is ‘she got the life she wanted but now all she does is cry.’

Bells in Santa Fe — The transition from 'The Tradition' into 'Bells in Santa Fe' was so smooth I didn't even notice that the songs had changed until I looked at my screen. I don't think I could actually describe how much I adore this song if I took up the rest of my life doing so. The production is absolutely God-tier. Everything from the way it keeps building throughout the song to the percussion to the piano on the second chorus and the distortion towards the end is so perfectly done. You will never hear me rave about production this much. What a fucking song! On top of all that, you have the lyrics that are so powerful. When they said 'cause who the fuck would chose this?' it reminded me of my favourite Manicsong, 'Forever... is a long' where they sing 'how could somebody ever love me?' so that stood out to me. I love the cadence on 'secondhand thread in a secondhand bed with a second man's head' but the lyric 'better off dead so I reckon I'm headed to Hell instead' is probably the one that hits the hardest. My escapist, runaway tendencies felt very exposed by the entirety of the pre-chorus.

Easier than Lying — The way she emotes on ‘you lair, you don’t love me’ is fucking everything. I needed to start with that. It’s my favourite aspect of the whole song. And then there is that obvious callback in the bridge. ‘Easier than Lying’ is the punk sound we were promised of IICHLIWP and they delivered. The Grungy electric guitar, the bass, the production!!! This one goes hard and it makes no apologies of it’s anger.

Lilith — ‘I’m disruptive, I’ve been corrupted, and by now I don’t need a fucking introduction.’ I mean what could I possibly say after that??! Honestly, I love the duality of how this line could be about Halsey but it could also be about Lilith, herself. There is a selfishness to 'Lilith' that I love. When you connect that to the mythology of Lilith preying on pregnant women and the context of this album — it's just got so many layers. Halsey's mind!! I love the sound of this song. The production has a classic rock flare to it. Those drums are so clean and the bass accompanies it perfectly. The smoothness of their vocal on this track is very pleasing to listen to.

Girl is a Gun — I'm not going to lie, this song isn't for me. I get it. The message is right up my street but the overall sound of it just isn't what I personally like. I do love their little laugh at the start! The lyric 'it's a shot in the dark, I'm not a walk in the park, I come loaded with the safety switched off' is my favourite.

You asked for this — This song is really interesting because they gave us a pop punk sound, pushed it to the back of the track, really grungey guitar riffs and all, but their voice is so light and delicate almost, very airy in a way that stands apart from the backing track. I really like it. To me, it's like an emphasis of the message of 'You asked for this'. Young women are oftentimes forced to grow up too soon and 'be a big girl.' Society forgets, I would even say purposely overlooks, that they are 'still somebody's daughter,' one of the few things that is used to give value to a woman. We've all heard people throw the phrase "but what if it was your daughter/sister?" into the conversation when discussing women that have somehow been abused by the patriarchy. 'You asked for this' also calls attention to how when we're younger, all we want is to be grown up but how unaware we can be of what it means to be a woman in this world, the trauma that comes with it.

Darling — The guitar in this song and it’s almost-country sound are what sets this song apart from the rest of the album. ‘Darling’ is a lullaby for their child, but it tells a story of their struggles. It is honest in a way that feels private. Motherhood sounds so good on them!! This song is just a collection of things I love in music. 'Darling' is soothing and it sounds like comfort, in both melody and lyric. 'Foolish men have tried but only you have shown me how to love being alive' is perhaps the softest lyric on the whole album.

1121 — I expelled a heavy sigh when I heard ‘1121’ it absolutely took my breath away*.* This song is a truly moving ode to an unborn child. So many people talk about how they had never known what unconditional love really meant until they had a child. Halsey tells it as such: ‘you could have my heart and I would break it for you.’ I love their vocal styling on this song so much, going between their lower register and those beautiful falsettos in the chorus. The overlapping on the bridge of ‘please don’t leave, don’t leave me in the shape you left me’ and ‘I’m running out of time to tell you, I’m running out of things that I regret’ and ‘you’d never, you told me’ really capture all the wide array of emotions felt by pregnant person upon finding out they are pregnant when they’ve dealt with miscarriage. Her voice emotes the fear of losing another child, the regret of the ones she's already lost, the promise, almost desperate, of the opportunity they have right now. All of these feelings are brought to life further by the production of the song. There is so much depth in '1121'.

honey — Pop punk wlw anthem check. Halsey suits this sound so much. This track, the production, the instrumentation, all of it catered to their voice so perfectly. The sound is so refreshing and yet so classic. I adore the melody. It’s unsuspectingly catchy. I wonder if there are links to ‘Lilith’ with ‘she’s mean and she’s mine’ or if I’m just reaching. Either way, a song about a love that is a little chaotic and wild, sign me up!

Whispers — Whispering on a song called 'Whispers' might be obvious but I'm a basic bitch so leave me alone, I loved it. Lyrically, 'Whispers' was the song that I saw myself in the most. When she said 'camouflage so I can feed the lie that I'm composed,' I just felt far too exposed for comfort. Same thing with 'I do not know me.' And that's what art is supposed to do. The instrumental is haunting and dark. The way they create tension by adding in one instrument at a time. The production is amazing. Top 5 shit right here!

I am not a woman, I'm a god — Not only does this song have the catchiest hook, it’s literally ‘I am not a woman, I’m a god. I am not a martyr, I’m a problem. I am not a legend, I’m a fraud so keep your heart ‘cause I already got one.’ That hook right there tells you everything you need to know about this song. ‘I am not a woman, I’m a god’ acknowledges that one needs not be a woman to create life. They are claiming power to their gender identity through relation to Godliness. Even in the other lyrics, they talk about being ‘a different human in a new place’ or ‘a better human with a new name’ (this line in particular draws direct parallels to trans experiences). Both times, they specifically use ‘human.’ The production of this song is designed to be a single. It’s got the signature darkness of this album, tells the listener where Halsey is at sonically, and it’s a total banger.

The Lighthouse — The way this song just comes in swinging right away with the distortion and the heavy guitars is exactly what I expected from this album going into it for the first time. Very modern punk rock. And the lyric doesn't pull any punches either. 'From a tender age I was cursed with rage,' like c'mon!! I love the melody and her vocal inflations throughout the song. This is the longest song on the album but it doesn't drag. The change up right before the outro really helps with that. I find that outro so interesting. The contrast between the instrumental constantly building but their voices staying so far in the back on the track creates so much tension that is relieved in the best way possible with 'Ya'aburnee'.

Ya'aburnee — ‘Ya’aburnee’ is the perfect conclusion to this album. Halsey said in their Apple Music interview that IICHLIWP is about the power to choose and by the end of the album you realise that they choose love. This song perfectly embodies that. It’s familial. The entire chorus talks of seeing yourself in your kin and the circle of life. The second verse is a clear love letter to their partner and it makes me emotional, knowing their romantic history as we do, to hear them sing ‘wrap me in a wedding ring.’ I love how the lyric ‘you will bury me before I bury you’ is not only a statement of their hopes that they don’t have to live in a world without their loved ones, a statement of how parents should never have to bury their children, but it almost sounds like a protective promise that they will do anything to ensure their loved ones are kept from harm so as not to need burial. The softness of the instrumental on ‘Ya’aburnee’ is feels like unwinding from the rest of the record. It’s such a beautiful song.

#halsey #if i can't have love i want power #iichliwp #reviews #music #i finally did it guys

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flying-elliska · 4 years ago

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Skam France Season 6 Review

It’s that time, I guess. My feelings are, like many, mixed. I think I enjoyed the season more than most people here, but the ending was a massive let down. Overall it boils down to this : Skam France is great at moments and very bad at structure. A lot of my issues with the season is what is not in it. I saw so much potential that never quite materialized, and it left me frustrated. At the same time, Lola is a really cool character, her arc is really interesting, her relationship with her sister is one of the best things they’ve ever done, and the actors killed it. Loved La Mif, discovering other sides of Eliott, the urbex backgrounds, and Maya. A lot of fascinating character moments. This is definitely my second favorite season after s3 - at times I even thought it would equal it. Sadly, though, Skam France will remain a bit of a one hit wonder for me. Because they are so good at bringing up problems in a nuanced layering way - be it addiction, grief, eating disorders, internalized ableism, racist microagressions - but when it comes to resolving what they brought up, they default towards a ‘let’s all be nice to each other, hug or kiss, love saves the day yay !’ story. Which is, when you claim to deal with real world issues, simplistic, immature, and at times quite offensive. It works for s3, which is at its core a tale of self-discovery, self-acceptance and romance. But niceness doesn’t solve racism, and family problems aren’t solved with a hug, and addiction recovery doesn’t hinge on having someone to kiss, and the series came dangerously close to implying that at times.

All in all, this is a show that often manages to be both brilliant and terrible at the same time. At least it’s not dull.

Positives/Negatives/Meh breakdown :

Positives :

- Sisterly love : My favorite thing without a doubt is the relationship between Lola and Daphné. Flavie and Lula killed it. Almost all the clips that made me cry were the ones with the both of them in it. At the beginning their rivalry is so relatable to me : the responsible sibling who takes on too much burdens and is too controlling and parentified vs. the problem sibling who acts out to express the issues the rest of the family are repressing - i have been in both of those spots. you can see how they slowly realize that the gap between them didn’t need to be there, that it wasn’t their fault, that it was the result of their parent’s bullshit and even shittier circumstances. seeing them make little gestures to recognize each other’s pain, to nurture each other, to give each other support, but also to tell each other some unpleasant truths, was so incredibly powerful. Relationships between sisters can be just so...complex, and loving, and petty, and jealous, and supportive, and feral, and annoying, and understanding, and ugh, they made me feel all of that and more. I have a sister, and I have a relationship like that with her, and this season gave me some very important perspectives. Really, relationships between women aren’t explored enough, and this season really did this one thing excellently and if only for that, it deserves to be watched. That moment where Lola talks to Daphné about her self destructive tendencies...so important. I am so happy that Daphné was the one finding Lola in her tower of solitude, and the moment where she says ‘you pay too much attention to what other people think, Lola’ was the emotional turning point of the season for me, because it was Daphné recognizing Lola really cared behind her mask of coldness, but also that she was hurt by that and that she needed to love herself regardless of the love her parents didn’t give her ; and also that she heard Lola saying it to her and that it inspired her too, so there is this amazing reciprocity. It was so powerful, I’m still reeling from it. And it was a beautiful full circle from the beginning of the season.

- Family of outsiders : the urbex gang was such a wonderful new group this season. It was bound to be tricky getting us to like this new generation, and I think they did a pretty good job. Even tho I wish we got to know them a bit more, they were all intriguing and interesting on their own, and the vibes of Lamif as a whole were just so fun and lovely. Loved the neuroatypical vibes I got from Sekou and Jo. Love that they introduced a trans guy character. Loved Maya as group mom. And seeing them warm up to Lola was really sweet. The social media of them hanging out was more or less the only good social media we got this season lmao. The urbex thing was a great symbol for Lola finding a home with the outcasts, a bit on the fringe of society, and the start of acceptance, of bringing her in from the cold. Maya and Lola’s relationship fit in that really nicely, especially the bits about them talking about their shared experiences of grief, and my favorite scenes with them is showing Lola that her scars can be beautiful and that her rough experiences are part of who she is. The way she didn’t take Lola’s bullshit was great, and even tho I think their relationship was rushed, overall they really fit well together. Love Maya’s character as a concept in general, this funky purple haired lesbian environmentalist with amazing sense of style, and I really hope we see her again in upcoming seasons. And finally, I also really liked Eliott and Lola’s friendship (except for the ending) - the fact that they understand this darkness that they share, but that Eliott has succeded in climbing over it, and so he can give Lola support, understanding, guidance. I loved that we got to hear a bit more of his perspective on mental illness, the good and the bad times, that we saw his passion for movies become more real. I loved the fact that they bonded over creative things and photography, too, and that she found a safe space in the video store. And even tho it wasn’t resolved properly, the scene where he comes to get her and punches Aymeric really made me cry. Also, BASILE. Best bro in law ever. Their scenes together were so homey and warm and sweet. They will have such a good relationship in time. Overall, I really like how central friendship was in this season, shown as so powerful and important. They could have done more with it but I love a lot of what we got. I am just a sucker for found family, man.

- Lola herself : I know she was a controversial character right from the start. She’s been called manipulative, selfish, out of control, toxic. And honestly at times...maybe she was a bit. I still love her. She is just so interesting to me. The lack of compassion towards her in the fandom was seriously depressing at times, and often felt like a symptom of something I’ve seen in a lot of different fandoms, ie the capacity to only tolerate moral ambiguity when it’s attached to attractive white male characters - and to only tolerate mental illness symptoms when they can be romanticized. In the end, she’s a struggling teen from a deeply dysfunctional family who’s had a very rough life, of course she’s not going to be well adjusted. All in all, I think she’s so brave, and she is a fighter. I adored her feral energies in the trailer. I also really liked her blunt honesty at times, even if it was sometimes hurtful and excessive. I think because I have the opposite tendency to be afraid to speak my mind, I really dig a character who isn’t afraid to speak the ugly truth. Even though, again, ‘the truth’ isn’t always cut and clear, and what Lola is often doing instead is listening to ‘depression voice’ who tells her to believe the worst in people. I find that fascinating, because in my experience, yes, depression comes with this terrible lucidity that makes you see through a lot of bullshit but at the same time, is distorting your perspective because of fear and shame, and kicking that, and disentangling your perception from that fatalism, is very complicated. I loved how genuine she was, how mature too sometimes through the pain, more mature than she should have been. It was rough watching her relapse, but I think the portrayal of addiction was pretty very well done overall, not romanticized and explained in a very coherent way. I wish the show had given her a bit more of a clearer view of her inner thoughts towards the end and let her apologize a bit more. And a clearer realisation that her parent’s lack of well expressed love didn’t doom her. But...yeah Following her really made me question my own - more hidden - self destructive impulses, linked to family shit, that pushes me to sabotage and isolate myself. Like Eliott said to her - it’s really a lifelong struggle. I think overall her arc was pretty satisfying, learning to step away from the edge, letting people in, seeing that she isn’t alone, accepting she deserves better and that her failures don’t doom her. That it is about getting up and trying again. Love her using her mother’s camera and wanting to get a phoenix tattoo, a perfect symbol for her. Also Flavie was amazing, she’s got a bright future ahead.

Negatives :

- No follow up to the assault storyline : The thing that I am, without any single doubt, most mad about, is the fact they didn’t bring up the sexual assault again. Along with Charles’ rape apologism, this creates a very dubious pattern of trivializing the issue ‘as long as it’s not real rape’. The fact that the morning after immediately turns to Elu drama is what sort of started my disconnect from the season, and the fact that they don’t bring it up afterwards even once made me angry. I think Lola, before going back to the hospital, should have told someone about the abuse she endured there, and should have told someone about Aymeric, even if only to acknowledge she wants to be done with that part of her life. Aymeric is like...Lola’s biggest villain, in a sense, he is a horrible predator but he also somehow represents her worst impulses, that part of herself that tells her she doesn’t deserve better, and I think that as a character, he was interesting, and he should have been adressed/exorcised better. If Lola was a real person, of course, she would probably have to deal with this in therapy, down the line, later, but as a story, never adressing this again left it unfinished. And this is really the kind of event you NEED catharsis and resolution for. Otherwise, it’s irresponsible.

- A generally overstuffed and disjointed structure : My biggest problems with this season are about what isn’t and what isn’t it. I liked most of the clips, I don’t have an issue with them going dark, strangely enough, but the way they were put together was just...messy. Like many people have said, too much stuff not properly adressed. Palm of most annoyingly useless subplot, the whole Tiff thing. Yes, it was cool comparing her clique to Lamifex and Lola realizing she wants nothing to do with those shallow fake bitches. Sekou hacking her account to replace it with pigeons, amazing. After that though, it should have been DONE, and in general, it should have taken a lot less time and attention. Comparing Tiff’s social media addiction to Lola’s issues felt like some trivializing bullshit. The whole thing was just so annoying. It would have been good if it had led to some discussion of social inequality but like...not this shit. Char, equally useless (although, cool actress, cool style). Another MASSIVE problem is the lack of follow through on big clips. A great thing about SKAM, usually, is that it shows you the aftermath of big moments - characters lying in bed, cuddling, talk to their friends, crying in the shower, etc. It allows the viewer to breathe and really get into the character’s perspective, to be comforted and process drama, and for the emotions to resonate better, to have space to develop richly. Here...we had Lola brush off her assault, we saw nothing after Daphné got her back from the tower thinking she could have killed herself, we learned that they had money problems and the father didn’t go to work and then that was never adressed again and the light was turned back on by magic (????), we saw Eliott go on a major bender and didn’t really see how he got better, etc. Big lack of introspective clips in the latter part of the season took me out of Lola’s head. It was all stressful and breathless, all intensity and no pause like one grating high pitch note instead of music, it felt oppressive, with poor contrast, and very badly paced. It made everything blur together and feel less relevant. The problem with that is it really takes you out of the story ; it’s hard to care when you know whatever is happening might not have a resolution, and it doesn’t put you in the shoes of the character. This was compounded by how mediocre the social media was, when it is usually used to bridge in the gaps. And then to finish : the structure was so uneven, especially in the second part of the season. Towards the middle we had some very short episodes with very underwhelming endings, and Vendredis that felt like non events, and there wasn’t a lot happening - and then, bam, ep 9, drama overload, almost like misery p*rn, and then a super rushed resolution in ep 10. Like they cared more about twists and giving the opposite of what was expected instead of solid coherent narrative and rhythm. The romantic back and forth felt repetitive as hell too. All in all, it made for a very unsatisfying live watching experience, pretty sure anyone who didn’t watch live would like it a lot more.

- The last two episodes : Really, I could have overlooked all the problems with the season if they had given us a good ending, but...they really really didn’t. And contrasted with last season, where my problems were focused on the middle, for me the ending is really the worst part of this season. I didn’t dislike the controversial club clips, I liked having the insight into Eliott’s insecurities, but they should never have brought those up if they weren’t going to let him adress them properly. Having everything go to shit in Lola’s life at once felt like overkill - they really should have solved those problems earlier, and then dealt with a few ones properly, showed us Lola freaking out on her own, and taken out the bullshit at the high school. Thierry slapping her was also too much, he could just have said these clumsy things. She could have distanced herself from Maya instead of pushing her away again. Also, they really should have had this happen in episode 8 again, and given us a proper resolution. While the tower sequence was incredibly powerful, I pretty much liked nothing after that. It was so annoying that Eliott brushed off Lola’s apology because while he wasn’t wrong that he decided to get drunk himself, she still needed to apologize and actually state that she wanted to get better so she didn’t hurt her friends, so as a resolution it was very mediocre. Thierry recognizing they should have given Lola the choice to go the hospital was a step but really not enough. And the moments with Maya were cute sure but mostly cheesy and unearned. Same for the ending clip. Mostly it’s such an unsatisfying farewell to the old generation, and it really feels like they wanted us to force to move on - didn’t want to properly recognize the end of an era, gave us almost nothing about their BAC or their future plans, etc etc. Also, letting Charles talk and having Arthur and Alexia kiss again ? SO BAD. UGH. I will be forever disappointed they didn’t give us a Multi POV or at least sth better on social media. And not having Eliott’s POV or at least a real Elu conversation (pretty much all season...) so frustrating I will never not be bitter about that. So yeah. The season started so powerfully but went out with a whimper instead of a bang. That whole ‘romantic love solves everything!!!’ shtick...very undercooked tbh.

Meh :

- Mayla’s development : I wanted to stan them SO BAD. Like, wlw in skam (that doesn’t turn into a panphobic mess?) YES, all the way yes. Maya and Lola had great chemistry, great dynamic. I loved their first few clips, the kind of confrontational flirting, the boldness, it was like...damn girls ! we love a non useless lesbian ! But...somewhere along the way, their relationship really suffered from the wacky plot structure. They should have shown us more bonding before we got to the angsting (esp during first urbex night). Also, their first kiss was sweet but I hated the ‘you’re my addiction’ line and that kind of put a damper on it. I liked the scenes where they open up about difficult things, the love Maya showed to Lola’s scars, the dandelion symbolism was lovely, but it wasn’t balanced enough with other stuff, and I felt Maya was way too stoic at times. And I really, really didn’t like the ending, honestly. They kept a good balance all season showing Lola wasn’t relying entirely on romantic love, that her family and friends were also important - but saying ‘i’m okay as long as you’re here’ at the end...honestly that sounds unhealthy and codependent as fuck. I really wish they’d done a more subtle, taking it slow ending for them.

- The financial issues : Again a storyline with much potential that wasn’t dealt with properly. It’s really good that we got a main that wasn’t from an economically priviledged background. Especially it felt very relevant to Daphné’s storyline, with the shame she felt at her friends seeing her place, the pressure to make it work, tying into her ED, etc etc. But cutting off the power, the father not working going nowhere...it’s like the plotline meandered and then vanished into thin air. Instead of that, they could have given us a scene of Daphné freaking out over the bills like in OG w Vilde, keeping the focus on her for that plot because she’s the most affected ; and then in the end of the season the father taking them over from her and telling her he’s found another job and that those things shouldn’t be her responsibility. That would have been relevant, instead of just...a loose end.

- Family issues : The Lecomte family dynamic seemed fascinating to me at the start. The mom being this shadowy complicated figure. The inability of the father to deal with anything. Daphné being parentified, Lola becoming the symptom child. They could have done a lot with this, but in the end, it felt like it was brushed aside too easily by saying the mom sent letters so she wasn’t too bad and Thierry is making breakfast so he’s trying. Not enough. I wanted them to let Lola acknowledge she deserved better and that their parent’s crap wasn’t on her. That her mom should have looked for help and the other two shouldn’t have pretended everything was okay. In general, there is way too much pressure to overlook toxic parent behavior and I wish they’d been clearer about this.

- Mental health portrayal : Some parts of it were really good. Showing Daphné’s ED, letting Eliott talk about his episodes and relapses, showing some of the dark sides of depression and addiction. They just needed to show more of the recovery, because that is often the representation that they lacked the most. I don’t blame them for showing the bad sides of the mental healhcare system (which is terribly outdated and dysfunctional in France, I’m speaking from experience) but they should have shown the good too. Like do they find recovery boring or something ? Because as a person w MI, that’s actually what I’m dying to see, and they’ve been a real letdown in that department. I also think they should have acknowledged that the Lecomte family has mental issues as a whole, that the mother should have gotten help, and the father probably needs it too (still think they should have gone to therapy as a group lol).

- Elu and Eliott’s development : Honestly, not a big fan of how they wrote Lucas in s5&s6, in a lot of clips he was the angry guy with a temper, I miss s4 Lucas who was so compassionate and showed real growth and emotional intelligence. Here it just felt like they were fitting his character to plot needs, and it’s so sad for a character who had such an amazing story development. Now, I loved the glimpses of domestic Elu we got, how Axel and Maxence really showed the intimacy that had grown between them, they really felt married with all the nonverbal conversations and touches, that was sweet. But it’s so annoying that they hinted at Lucas’s insecurities and Eliott’s lack of communications and just brushed it away with ‘oh they love each other they will be okay’ sure bitch but then show us how ? that’s the interesting stuff ? it really feels sometimes like the writer(s) didn’t like how strongly the fans focused on the romance when they wanted to be talking about MATURE dark stuff not that frilly fluffy romance shit *eyeroll* male writers who think they’re above that stuff is so annoying as is the conflating of dark and mature - anyway. Again I liked seeing Eliott in his element this season, he is really thriving, with his movie and the video store, and that made me very happy. I don’t think it’s unrealistic he didn’t make a lot of friends in uni - French university can be so isolating, there isn’t a campus or a vibrant social life like in the US, it’s a very common experience to feel lost and isolated for newbies and it was also my case - but ? Sofiane ? Idriss ??? They could have found a better excuse to implicate Lamifex in the movie making tbh, like Jo egging him on about her passion for directing or whatever, and Sofiane could have been there chilling with them it would have been so cool. I just wish Eliott would have had more of an arc like Daphné did. It wouldn’t have taken much, and since he is my favorite character, I will never not be disappointed at all the wasted potential.

Yeah so in the end i think this was a very good story they didn’t entirely give themselves the right storytelling tools to tell. Like there is something in the way they prioritize certain moments over others that...I just find very frustrating and weird. So...flawed, but still very interesting overall.

#skam france #skamfr s6 #lola lecomte #mayla

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feather-dancer · 4 years ago

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Trollhunters Fanfic Recommendations - Part 3

Somehow there is now a third one of these because I read far far too much fanfic and have no regrets about it. It’s with great pleasure I can also announce I’ve been digging around for Trans Jim fics and found some gems while I was at it that have been included below.

You can find Part 1 of my fanfic recommendations here!

And Part 2 here!

Plus one shameless plug for my own current fics.

General Trollhunters

(And you're my Arcadia.) - All you need to know is it’s Jilaire post Season 3 and one line in particular made me burst out laughing.

Bitter[sweet] - Sometimes the thing you need most is just a really good friend when your body plain sucks. Contains Trans Jim and is delightful.

the red book - Far beyond the humble days of Season 3 and after living beyond his human family and friends, Jim has started to forget who he was and that he was ever just a human kid.

The Halls of Arcadia High - When Strickler disappeared in Season 1, his absence was felt in many ways even in the form of a humble piano left un-played.

Not - Not!Enrique isn’t his name yet it’s what they call him anyway. An albatross reminding him of what was taken before he even had a chance to start.

On the Radio - The final telling of the Janus Order.

Gay stories for Tales of Arcadia - Yeah I’m pretty sure you can guess where this is going, LGBTQ+ rep!

Through the Fires - There was a before time, one where Gunmar still roamed free and Deya had yet to be chosen let alone felled. These are the words of the humble witnesses of that war, from the changelings to the trolls who would oppose them.

Trollhunters: A Series of Disjointed Drabbles - This is so cute and fluffy I might just spontaneously combust.

Insomnolence - It is after the final battle and Jim has a lot of thoughts.

another tragedy - Anxiety is a bastard, it gives a lot of bad thoughts but sometimes there is a little bit of truth buried beneath it all and it whispers all about how you can keeping doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Season 2.

i will always hold you close (but i will learn to let you go) - Sometimes the hardest thing you can do is learning when to let go. Sometimes however, even when you want to they hold back even tighter. Season 2.

your eyes look like coming home - Toby has been the witness from the start of just how close Jim has been to death multiple times over and how Jim he is about the whole thing. It scares him how this time might be it, again and again. Season 2.

The Collected Tellings of Shigir and Other Changeling Folktales - I don’t actually know which category to put this under so I’m going the to heck with it route instead. Does exactly what it says on the tin for your Changeling lore needs, some of which will be off-hand mentioned or outright appear during the fantastic Terpsichore - The Comedy of the Danse Macabre - ACT I.

Please note: The main fic is Stricklake if that’s not your cup of tea, the folktales however can be enjoyed regardless.

~~~

Stricklake

all that dazzling dawn has put asunder - The sequel to in my sleep i dreamed of waking, this is filled with delightful fluff, internal panicking and the joys of trying to explain how you’re a not and how that does not change the fact Strickler is still a was. Being a changeling in these strange after times are difficult even before the other baggage involved but at least you're still here to start.

Two Pisces in Alto Mare - When in Rome as part of a study trip abroad, you meet the most curious people sometimes and by fluke or nature you may even do so more than once.

Filling The Gaps - Possibly a bit of an unusual mention but! These are little pieces of Fallout that were going on while our eyes were following elsewhere and boy it can hurt.

Rehearsals and DvD Bonus Features - Another from the home of Terpsichore - The Comedy of the Danse Macabre - ACT I which is being listed here because it does have Stricklake in it. Some things don’t make the cut with writing fanfic, either because the plot wandered off, it doesn’t fit right or it’s some backstory you haven’t quite figured out where it can be naturally brought up yet and in this case they’ve found themselves a home. Be warned, one particular chapter is explicit and has been marked as such in warnings in the chapter summary.

~~~

Alternate Universes

(Un)Becoming - Not technically an AU in the conventional sense but I’m putting it under here anyway. It’s Unbecoming, as ever the road to hell is paved with good intentions but as Jim threw in the towel the storm that’s coming will not be stopped. However, what if others caught glimpses of a world that still had a human Trollhunter to defend it?

Steve the Kind - Steve became the Trollhunter but how the adventure unfolds differently than when Jim was at the helm might just surprise you. Very slow burn Steve and Jim that in a rather refreshing change doesn’t throw Claire under the bus for it to happen. Praise be.

31 Days in the Darklands - Strickmar that somehow kinda works?? It helps with Gunmar having the space to breathe outside of getting Morgana out and be more of his own character. Storywise, in order to rescue Jim from the Darklands Strickler broke a deal that would cost his own freedom and now has to somehow maintain a treaty between three very different factions all the while keeping his own neck intact. The intense distrust in changelings continues on to boot but hey, nobody said politics was easy.

Building Bridges - So Gunmar is distinctly of the more Eldritch variety with dream powers, the ability to easily see through lies for the true emotions and thoughts, Bular has the Insight as well to a lesser extent and everyone has somehow managed to hop onto Stricklander’s bandwagon of we must protect Jim Lake Jr. at all costs. Now the race is on as both sides try to sway the young Trollhunter to their way of thinking and the Trollmarket has no idea how dangerously badly they’re doing so far.

Lost Souls - A fic written in variable snapshots. Jim was kidnapped and changed by Merlin far earlier to be his Champion to ensure he did the “right thing” while Barbara in desperation to find her son falls into the hands of Morgana thus mother and son become enemies without even realising it.

Faithfully - Barbara died overseas and yet somehow Jim still managed to make his way back to Arcadia to become the next Trollhunter. This road is far harder for it as a seemingly homeless orphan though on the flipside he keeps on acquiring dads. Contains Trans Jim, timeline variable snapshots and I love it very much.

The Burning - There was a fire, it killed Barbara and Jim was thought dead as well. Nobody could have guessed the feral half changeling that is running around like a cryptid is the very much alive Jim.

Finding Daylight - Jim is a very low ranking changeling, terrified of Bular and his home amounts to little more than a spot in the woods. Things started to go pear shaped for him when he accidentally stumbled over Blinky and only more so when the amulet picks him after Kanjigar is felled. Tis not a kind world for a changeling child out there and he has nobody really to help watch his back until he stumbles on a potential maybe.

~~~

The bonus shoutout for an excellent MSA fic

A Sleep Like Death - Who wouldn’t want to go visit a tower you’ve inherited apparently and has haunted as all hell all over it? Not Vivi that’s for sure. Poor Arthur is just along for the ride and then things start to get really weird when they find it’s still occupied and thinks Arthur is his jailor.

#Trollhunters

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thatsonemorbidcorvid · 4 years ago

Text

It was at the tail end of 2017 when Cora*, a frontline worker for a south London organisation supporting women who have survived sexual violence, realised that undercurrents of transmisogyny had become a new precedent for her workplace.

“I just remember there being far more comments like ‘Yeah we only support real women’,” Cora says.

Both visibility and hostility were on the rise for trans people in the UK thanks to proposed reform to the Gender Recognition Act. As a result, many junior workers were attempting to ensure inclusivity for trans survivors. But senior staff, made up of cis women, responded by shutting down the conversation altogether.

Cora’s organisation is not an island. On record, gal-dem has spoken to workers in the violence against women and girls [VAWG] sector, who have spent time at organisations including Imkaan, Rape Crisis, Refuge, Amnesty International and Liberty, academics working in the field of gender studies and members of the dedicated gender-based violence branch of union United Voices of the World. Of the workers who spoke to gal-dem, all were too terrified of reprisals to use their real names.

Alongside interviews, gal-dem examined records of public statements made by senior members of organisations like Nia, Southall Black Sisters, and the Centre for Women’s Justice. What emerges is a hostile landscape to navigate for trans survivors of sexual violence, both in accessing immediate frontline services and overcoming ideology that seeks to shut them out of the gender-based violence sector (GBV) in general. With one in six trans women experiencing domestic violence between 2017 to 2018 (and more recent figures suggesting violence against trans people remains high), this landscape’s hostility is undoubtedly already having damaging effects.

At Cora’s organisation, it quickly became apparent that senior staff were deliberately shelving pressing trans-related issues, in the hope that they would disappear altogether. Cora alleges that the CEO Rachel*, who had served as the head of the organisation for nearly three decades, encouraged a culture that was openly hostile to trans women.

Regular requests for the centre’s policy regarding trans women were lodged, but the policy didn’t exist. A lone attempt to create a gender inclusion policy ended with the firing of the employee tasked with producing it. As Cora remembers it, the day after the employee submitted their work, they were told their position was no longer viable. Although it wasn’t cited as a factor in the decision, Cora believes the incident speaks for itself. The policy was not adopted by the centre.

Staff soon began to organise and demand an outright commitment to supporting trans people, pushing the transphobic views of senior management into the open.

“We do get abusive callers on the helpline. But they present as men, not as trans women”

Cora remembers one member of the counselling department declaring that it was “unsafe” for cis survivors using the centre’s services to have people in the building who had not fully medically transitioned. She was challenged by Cora and her colleagues, who explained that this transmisogyny went against the fundamental principles of sexual violence workers: that you must believe survivors.

“I find it fascinating in a horrific way that this bedrock of [sexual violence services] is thrown out of the window immediately,” Cora observes. “They say, ‘Oh, men will just call up pretending to be women, and saying that they’re trans to get into the space to enact harm’.

“Do you not think we are trained in such a way that we are able to speak to someone and know? Because we do get abusive callers on the helpline. But they present as men, [not as trans women]… When you get a call like that, you know. As soon as you pick up the phone, it doesn’t feel right. The gut that you’ve honed so wonderfully and beautifully to do this work, it knows”.

When Cora and her colleague refuted transmisogynistic claims, the goalposts shifted. Senior staff instead claimed they weren’t equipped to work with trans women because they wouldn’t “understand” their experience with sexual violence. Tellingly, one staff member who used such a defence said they would feel comfortable supporting trans men who had “experienced violence as women” – revealing that they didn’t recognise trans men as men.

“There is a real focus on the penis,” Cora says.

Cora left the organisation a few years ago, in part due to the virulent transmisogyny that had become the norm. Rachel stepped down from the CEO position in 2020, after what Cora describes as “successful unionising efforts” from the organisation’s staff. While the new CEO is “far more inclusive”, Cora says, her former co-workers report that hostility to trans survivors persists.

“The problem is much deeper than top down,” she says. “It runs through most of the services.”

Women vs women

Cora’s organisation has become part of a larger war. Transphobia – or ‘gender criticism’ as its proponents like to position it – has become a battleground for a small but powerful pocket of UK feminists. With access to mainstream media platforms, large social media audiences and political influence, these ‘gender-critical’ feminists are attempting to turn trans people from a minority group into a full-scale moral panic.

But where does the antagonism towards trans people in the VAWG sector come from? Academic Alison Phipps, professor of gender studies at the University of Sussex, links it to “political whiteness”. Transmisogyny in the UK is focused on violence against white, cis women and “lasers in” on the male body as the source of that violence, Phipps explains. “There’s a lot of straight, [white], privileged [cis] women involved. Whiteness has a lot to do with it. Whiteness and class privilege.”

Weaponising woundedness against marginalised groups has always been a core component of white womanhood and political whiteness, adds Phipps. “It’s Carolyn Bryant [Emmett Till’s accuser] all over again,” she says. “[Trans-exclusionary feminism] is grounded in fear and, in some cases, a hatred of the Other and a deep need for protection.”

For the last few years, trans-exclusionary feminists central objective – achieved for the time being – was to prevent reforms to the Gender Recognition Act that promised to make the process of legally identifying as trans or non-binary (which isn’t a recognised legal identity at the time of writing) far quicker.

A spotlight fell on women-only services for survivors of sexual and domestic abuse as a result. In order to provide rationale for their aversion to trans individuals, the gender-critical cabal alighted upon whipping up fear around trans women who might need to access such spaces. For trans-exclusionary feminists, the argument goes that allowing self-determination through GRA reforms would open up ‘single-sex’ sites to ‘predatory men’, who would supposedly pretend to be women in order to perpetuate abuse.

Yet trans women, with some exceptions, already have access to single-sex spaces under the 2010 Equality Act, which would remain unchanged by any amendments to the GRA. Furthermore, no countries that already allow self-determination have reported any sudden trend of cis men engaging in such behaviours. A 2018 Guardian investigation found that Ireland, which introduced self-determination in 2015, has seen “no evidence” of new legislation leading to men “falsely declaring themselves female”.

No matter; gender critical feminists in the UK still insist that the sex assigned at birth must decide who is admitted to women-only spaces. Never mind that multiple global studies show that trans women report sexual and domestic violence at double the rate of cis women (with trans women of colour facing the most peril) – but, as with cis women, the perpetrators were most likely to be men.

“Trans-exclusionary feminism is grounded in fear and, in some cases, a hatred of the Other”

Phipps believes many transphobic, white radical feminists also think that acknowledging their own privileges compared to the likes of trans women is tantamount to erasing their traumatic experiences. “It’s as if they think ‘if you tell us we’re privileged because we’re cis, that means we haven’t been raped or haven’t experienced these awful things’,” she observes. “Well of course you have and that’s awful and it’s because of your gender. But that doesn’t mean you don’t also have race and class and cis privileges.”

In the VAWG sector in particular, Phipps says there is the feeling of “living in the past”, with particular aping of the 1970s women’s liberation movement. It’s a notable reference point for trans-exclusionary feminists, many of whom experienced the movement as young women. But they’ve created a warped pastiche that erases contemporary critiques of white radical feminism that were made at the time, says Phipps.

Radical feminist texts of the 1970s were often trans-inclusive. While the likes of Andrea Dworkin held problematic notions around issues like sex work, they weren’t trans-exclusionary and didn’t see the body in “essentialist” terms. In stark contrast, trans-exclusionary feminists of the present, do.

The crusade against trans women is tragic, says Phipps, a focus of energies on completely the wrong target. “There is a war against women worldwide,” she says. “But trans women are also [victims] of this war, not the perpetrators.”

A worsening situation

Frontline VAWG workers say that hierarchical power structures mean transmisogyny is often sanctioned from the top. Close ties between powerful names in the sector mean it is hard to challenge for fear of being blacklisted from multiple organisations. Nevertheless, those who spoke to gal-dem said they did so out of a desire to lift a lid on the situation and encourage more scrutiny of the reality behind the press releases.

“I couldn’t [continue to] work for an LGBTQ charity that poses like it’s inclusive,” says Lily* a former employee of one high profile organisation serving sufferers of domestic violence. She says she witnessed virulent transmisogyny during her time there.

One incident occurred when Lily’s workplace was developing a helpline for clients. She and her colleagues were concerned that the helpline wasn’t inclusive enough because the organisation didn’t have a gender inclusion policy. They asked for clarity on who the helpline was for.

“The reply from [Martha* the director of operations at the organisation] and another senior staff member was that ‘if they sound like a woman on the phone, talk to them’,” remembers Lily. “‘If they don’t sound like a woman, it doesn’t matter if they say they are, hang up. We’re not supporting them’.”

Lily also heard references to “men-women”, assertions that only “biological women” should have access to refuges and accusations from a senior staff member that junior employees were behaving like “perpetrators” by supporting trans-inclusivity as it put them on the side of “men”.

“They told us: if they don’t sound like a woman, it doesn’t matter if they say they are, hang up”

According to those present at one group meeting, a staff member declared that there needed to be a “step back” on giving “privileges” to trans women because they were damaging support being provided to “women”. The staff member is also alleged to have said this view was the organisation’s “policy” as well, blaming trans-inclusive terms like “person with a cervix” for having “erased” cis women.

Allegations of increased transmisogyny are mirrored across the sector. Eva, a non-frontline VAWG worker who has spent time at multiple women’s organisations, says she became aware the issue wasn’t going away in 2016.

One early indicator came when Eva posted on a social media platform, from the official account of one prominent organisation about the death of a trans woman in a men’s prison. The next day, she says, she was handed a social media policy that “explicitly stated” she was not allowed to post about trans people anymore.

Even in supposedly inclusive environments within the women’s sector, transmisogyny simmers, says Eva. Her organisation, which focuses on ending gender violence for Black women and girls, still throws up obstacles when it comes to officially including trans women, including a failure to create and implement a trans-inclusive policy.

She also believes economic factors have caused trans women to become a lightning rod of the frustrations and fears of some cis women within the field.

As she explains it, many of the more senior positions in the modern VAWG sector are filled by women who have been there since its foundation. They’ve seen funding and resources chipped away by successive governments, resulting in resignation that “they’re never going to win a victory over the government”.

Collective fightback

Eva stresses that she doesn’t believe the sector itself to be transphobic and that younger, more junior members of staff tend to be fiercely trans-inclusive. There are some power players in the sector attempting to make change.

Cara English, head of public engagement at trans-led charity Gendered Intelligence (GI), says that she’s been approached by CEOs of VAWG organisations to provide training on trans inclusivity to staff. But plans have been stymied by the individualised structures of centres and refuges subject to the decisions of CEOs.

“[GI] met with the CEO of probably the largest VAWG service provider in the UK,” Cara recounts. “She was saying transphobia is very prevalent and she’s not content with it. But there’s not really a great deal they can do apart from bringing training from trans organisations in house.”

The situation is particularly dire in England and Wales. Scotland however, while no utopia for trans survivors, offers a look at how trans inclusivity can begin to be implemented.

Simple commitments have made huge differences to services says Mridul Wadhwa, manager of the Forth Valley Rape Crisis Centre in central Scotland. One such initiative is the LGBT Charter, a programme which includes education on trans inclusion. Completion of the course sees organisations given a digital “badge” to display on-site, letting survivors know they are an inclusive space.

As a trans woman managing a refuge, Wadhwa says she has received “unnecessary negative attention”, despite over 15 years of experience in the sector. After a recent bid to become an SNP candidate, she was even hit with accusations online that she had “lied” by not disclosing her trans identity when she was first employed in 2005 by Shakti Women’s Aid.

“This was before the Equality Act,” she remembers. “I said in an interview that if [Shakti Women’s Aid] had known I was trans, they would not have hired me. But everyone knew I was trans when I was [hired] for my current position.”

Wadhwa’s experience has taught her that many trans women survivors seeking support are too fearful of being faced with transmisogyny to approach services in the first place. This renders them invisible within the sector, despite being a group disproportionately affected by sexual and domestic violence.

“You have to be explicit that you’re inclusive, you cannot assume that people know,” Wadhwa says, adding that as a member of intersecting minority groups, she expects to be “oppressed in every place I go”.

“You have to wear the badge – these things make a huge difference, as well as word of mouth recommendations spread by survivors who have worked with you. There also needs to be a trans-inclusive workplace policy”.

“You have to be explicit that you’re inclusive, you cannot assume that people know”

For workers who want to push back against institutionalised transphobia, organising collectively offers a glimmer of hope.

Cora tells me that challenging transphobia was a key driver of unionising efforts by herself and colleagues who didn’t feel “safe” enough to do so as individual unprotected workers. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the workers union United Voices of World, which has a dedicated arm for workers in the gender-based violence sector, says that one of the union’s goals is fighting transphobia in the field.

Those pushing for change recognise that while the pocket of women they’re up against is small and unrepresentative, they’re powerful, with a reach that extends into the upper echelons of journalism, the legal system and the halls of Westminster. All workers who spoke about the transphobia they’d witnessed feared the impact their whistleblowing might have on the sector, which they stressed still does vital work. But as Eva puts it, if the services are not working for all women, they’re ultimately failing in their purpose.

“If frontline services aren’t working for all women, they’re not working for any of us really,” she says. “They’re not rooted in our liberation or justice.”

Pulling trans-inclusive training in-house, as suggested by Cara English is also a key goal. But it will take determination and demand on the part of the workers within those organisations.

And ultimately, it will need the battle-weathered radical feminists perpetuating transmisogyny in the the GBV sector to do something they are unused to: rethink the dogmatic approach that has for so long served as a survival technique but now works to oppress a deeply vulnerable group of women.

The entire situation is, says Cara English, a “degradation”.

“The fact we’re still in a position when we’re actively having to humanise trans women and trans people to services that would seek to exclude us, in order to get into places that we should have the right to access… this is just an obscene position to be in,” she adds.

“It’s a wholesale failure to take into account the needs of trans people. It’s embarrassing. The issue isn’t that trans women aren’t accessing VAWG services. It’s that people aren’t seeing this joint fight against the patriarchy and the oppression of all women.

“That’s where we need to be focusing our attention. It’s about solidarity between all people who need help and an escape”.

*Names have been changed to protect identities

#would someone else like to analyse and unpack this or shall I attempt it another day

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kainissoable · 4 years ago

Text

Homecoming but Okayer

I started thinking about how to make Silent Hill: Homecoming more coherent and emotionally satisfying without having to discard too many of the major story beats. What I ended up with was about 2000 words of a half-baked idea, which in fairness is still slightly more baked than the idea the team who were paid to make the game came up with.

We start with a shorter version of the opening nightmare with more of an emphasis on the nurses. It’s hard to tell, but the two or three patients they’ve mutilated all bear a resemblance to Alex without actually using the same model. The dream ends when a nurse stabs him in the chest. Just behind her, he sees Josh, and wakes up shouting for him.

Alex wakes up and winces, putting a hand to his chest. As he takes some nondescript medication and looks around the shabby motel room, we get a voiceover of his mother, reading out the letter she sent to him inviting him back home before his next deployment. She never mentions his name.

When he reaches Shepherd’s Glen, the fog is so thick he can barely see. There are dozens of abandoned vehicles on the road in, and eventually he has to get out of his car and walk.

The town is pretty much deserted, but there are signs of violence on almost every street. Then he recognises someone in the fog – Detective Wheeler. He runs over, but Wheeler doesn’t recognise him, or know of any Alex Shepherd. Wheeler coldly tells him that whoever he is it’s best if he leaves town. There’s nothing good here now.

He leaves, confused and unsettled, but carries on down the empty streets. On his way, he finds one other living person – Judge Holloway. He calls out again. Surely his Aunt Maggie will remember him. There were no ties of blood between them, but he’d been friends with her daughter Elle since they were small, and she’d almost been a second mother to him.

Judge Holloway looks at him blankly until he says his name, and then she’s all smiles. Oh, hasn’t he changed, no wonder she didn’t recognise him in all this fog. Go see your mother, dear, she’s waiting for you. Such a pity Elle isn’t here to greet you but she’s busy.

Alex continues, feeling more optimistic, until he sees the third figure in the fog. From a distance, it looks like someone crawling along the street, but as he gets closer, he sees it’s no human. Armed with only a utility knife, Alex either fights it or flees, and eventually reaches his childhood home.

When he gets there, he can look around a little and pick up a couple of things. There are several pictures of his parents and brother, Josh, and in his mother’s sewing room is a picture of Josh and an older girl. Alex says he remembers that being taken, must be eight or nine years ago by now.

When he finds his mother, she looks like she’s been crying. She looks at him for a long time before hugging him and starts crying again. “I missed you too, Mom.” Alex tears up a bit too. It’s been a long time since he was last home. She glances out the window and hands him his dad’s old pistol. “See if you can find Elle. It’s not safe out there.”

Alex takes the pistol and goes out in search of her. He finds Elle hanging up a missing person poster. Her little sister Nora vanished a few days ago. Alex says he’ll help her look.

There’s no sign of Nora, but once or twice Alex sees Jake in the fog. If he runs towards him, the vision fades and all he finds is a dead end. He finds a hairband at the playground near the cemetery, but then sees Mayor Bartlett in the graveyard. Concerned for him, Alex follows him to a run down hotel.

He doesn’t find the mayor inside, but he does find several more monsters and a room he can’t get into with a woman inside. He sounds like such a nice young man, she says. Would he help her remember? Alex agrees and finds some letters and postcards of hers. As her memories start returning, she becomes distressed and guilty for her infidelity to her dying husband. Alex can choose to comfort her, help her come to terms with her actions, or speak to her harshly. Her ghost may then move on, leaving him a key to find the mayor.

Mayor Bartlett is in a garden that actually looks like a garden. He’s talking to himself, or possibly to the tree in the centre. Either way, he laughs when Alex asks about Nora, then panics. “He” has woken up.

The world changes and the tree twists into something closer to a corpse. It picks up Bartlett in one hand and crushes him. Then it turns its attention on Alex.

Alex fights and kills it, then faints as the world tuns back to normal.

He wakes up in a jail cell with Deputy Wheeler staring at him through the bars. He’s clearly suspicious, and things might have gone very badly for Alex if Elle hadn’t vouched for him. Wheeler releases him because law isn’t starting to mean much in this town now, and Alex and Elle find themselves fighting through dozens of monsters on the streets.

Jake appears again in the distance, but Alex holds Elle back when she tries to help him. He says he’ll explain later, because the monsters are closing in.

They take refuge in Dr Fitch’s surgery after being surrounded and find his daughter Scarlett’s playroom. Elle picks up one of her dolls which has fallen on the floor and asks if now is a good time for Alex’s explanation. He tells her that it can’t be Josh. He died last year in a boating accident. Alex says it was his fault, he should have been watching him more closely, but he was so distracted doing his reading for the army aptitude test, Josh wasn’t a priority. He wanted so badly to make his dad proud, but all he did was fail his family again. Elle starts to say something, but she doesn’t get beyond Alex before the world changes and she vanishes.

Alex explores the Otherworld surgery looking for her. He doesn’t find Elle, but at the bottom of a perilous descent littered with monster nurses, he finds Dr Fitch crying and cutting himself over and over with a scalpel. Alex tries to talk him out of it, but Fitch keeps babbling about his sins and how sorry he is to his little girl. The “little girl” is a disproportionate porcelain doll over twice his height, which kills the doctor and makes a spirited attempt to do the same to Alex.

Once Scarlett is killed for the second time, Alex wakes up in the playroom where he was. Elle wakes up beside him, but instead of a doll, she’s holding a key. She recognises the seal as matching the one in the town hall where her mother works. Elle gives the key to Alex and returns home to check on her mother and let her know what’s happened.

Alex goes to the town hall alone and discovers a ceremonial dagger hidden there. He recognises the pattern on its hilt as matching his mother’s jewellery box. He goes back home in search of answers and walks in on an argument between his parents and Judge Holloway. He doesn’t catch much more than his dad shouting that he failed.

They all turn as Alex bursts in and his mother’s face goes pale. Judge Holloway asks him to come with her. Elle’s tracked down Nora in Silent Hill, she says, what reason does he have to stay here?

Alex wavers, but before he can make a decision, a group of monsters burst through the window. His parents and Judge Holloway are dragged away, the former by more inventive redesigns of Pyramid Head, the latter by a monster taking some design inspiration from the Missionaries in SH3. Another of the same type attacks Alex.

The Otherworld returns once it’s defeated and Alex has to navigate a twisted version of his childhood home. While there, he finds his mother’s jewellery box and inside finds some photos of him and Josh growing up. This is where anyone who hasn’t already twigged finds out that Alex is a trans man, and always felt that he was letting his family down because of his identity. Looking at these photographs with his mother’s neat hand crossing out an illegible name and replacing it with Alex is the first time he feels accepted by her.

Alex escapes the hell house and finds Wheeler, who he convinces to help him rescue his family and loved ones from Silent Hill. Once there, they split up to cover more area. In the undercroft of a church, Alex discovers the shared history of Shepherd’s Glen and Silent Hill, of how his town’s four founding families kept the Otherworld’s influence at bay with a blood sacrifice every 50 years – a child for every family.

He heads deeper into the crypt and finds his parents at the centre of a shrinking ring of fire, two of the pyramid headed monsters looking on impassively. It transpires that his mother had invited Alex back to be sacrificed, but they couldn’t go through with it, not after losing Josh the same way. They hoped that the town would accept the accidental drowning, but realised too late that it hadn’t. Alex has the option to try to save them, but either way he fails. The monsters don’t stop him from leaving the church.

Outside, he finds Judge Holloway. Apart form a couple of bruises, she looks unharmed, and she comforts him as he weeps. Eventually, Alex asks after her daughters. He says he knows what the powers that be want her to do, but they can’t save the town now, but they can still save the people. She agrees, says she knows where Nora was being held and if they hurry, they might be able to rescue her. She leads him to a large open room and runs though a door which locks behind her. Nora was already dead, and this human centipede of hands reaching out to choke him is all that’s left of her.

Alex defeats the monster that was once as close to him as a sister, and when the noise ends, Judge Holloway returns, expecting to see him unconscious on the floor. She flies into a rage, telling him to abandon this selfishness or everything will be for naught. As she speaks, her voice becomes more and more difficult to understand as her body changes and she abandons the last of her humanity.

The monster that she changes into tries to drown Alex and fulfil the final sacrifice. She loved him as much of either of her daughters and she’s willing to sacrifice him just the same. Alex fights for his life and takes hers with a heavy heart. It wouldn’t have worked, he knows. It has to be someone of the Shepherd’s blood to consign him willingly to the water, and now there’s no one else left. He looks into the deep, dark pool he was so recently fighting to get away from, and jumps.

Depending on his actions, there are three fates for Alex. If he lets his self hatred and guilt rule him, his death saves the town in a bittersweet ending. If he chose wrath and vengeance, his body is dragged out of the water by the two pyramid headed monsters to become another judge of the guilty. If he chose to accept himself and come to terms with his actions, Elle and Wheeler pull him out of the water and he survives as well as the town of Shepherd’s Glen.

#ro rambles about silent hill #i don't know a damn thing about how the us army works and don't care enough to look it up for homecoming #so chalk all inconsistencies with timelines up to usual silent hill nonsense #yes i stole the title from those twilight but okayer comics but homecoming really isn't as bad as those books were #it's not good mark you but it's a mediocre game with some good ideas and a lot of bad execution of them #wouldn't play it even if i had the right console but i don't regret its existence

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mollymauk-teafleak · 4 years ago

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I will love you if I never see you again (final chapter)

It’s the end! Thank you so much for sticking with this fic, if you enjoyed it please let me know by reblogging or by leaving a comment on Ao3! It really means everything to me.

Thanks to my wonderful betas, @spiky-lesbian and @minky-for-short, I love you both

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Trigger Warnings: kidnapping, violence, references to trans pregnancy

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Nureyev’s eyes had been fixed for the last twenty minutes, staring out of the window of the med bay, oblivious to the tugging sensation at the back of his head as Vespa stitched his wound closed.

Every so often, one of the stars he saw would shift or turn, suspended in the invisible molasses of space but moving by some impulse that had fled hours ago, and he would realise it wasn’t a star at all. It was an earring, a necklace, a bracelet. Some fragment of his life that had been torn away with the drone’s retreat and scattered out into an unreachable, empty coldness. Things he’d treasured at one point that were now lost to him, even though they seemed so close, just past the thick, reinforced glass. If he had the inclination to lift his hand, he could have pressed the tips of his fingers against the window and felt those impassable inches that may as well have been miles.

He would have, if he’d cared. But he barely saw the stars or the not stars, he only saw the distance between them. The miles and miles that stretched between where he was now and wherever his daughter was. And he was sitting here, doing nothing, eyes and cheeks burning with drying salt, shame pooling in the bottom of his stomach like acid.

He’d allowed himself to crack. He’d sobbed and lashed out and collapsed the way he’d told himself he would never do because it was amateurish and childish and everything he’d been taught that master thieves did not do. And because of it he’d cost them minutes that were more valuable than any amount of gold and silver and diamonds now floating in the slight gravitational orbit of the Carte Blanche.

Because it was only after his panic had run its course, burning down into something he could use rather than something that debilitated him, did he remember. Only when his throat opened up again was he able to choke out the words. And he would spend the rest of his life thinking about how things would have been different if he’d only acted quicker.

Vespa finally stood back and there was a single, high chime as she dropped the bloody needle into the metal tray beside her, “Right. Now do not move, I’m doing one set of stitches so if you open them back up, better get some glue.”

Nureyev’s eyes flashed, “If you think for one second I am staying on this ship-”

“Who do you take me for?” Vespa demanded angrily, moving back into his field of vision and wiping her hands on a sterile cloth, “Do not move between now and when we land and then you can wreck as much shit as you want.”

Nureyev was far beyond relaxing at this point but he fell silent, accepting that and turning back to the window. Still Vespa lingered, a lime green smudge on the edge of his eye, looking like she wanted to say something but couldn’t get it out.

Eventually she managed, voice low and rough like a lioness trying to give comfort, “Ransom...we’ll get her back. And if they’ve hurt a hair on her head, we’ll make their deaths that much slower.”

Nureyev felt the many knives concealed under his fresh clothes pressed against his skin until the barrier just disappeared under the constant, cool weight and they were practically part of his skeleton. He pulled himself away from the window to give Vespa a tight, grateful nod.

Clearly relieved that was the end of it, she left him alone with another reminder not to move. Nureyev listened, though he’d usually disagree on sheer principle, holding himself as still as his fast rising bruises would allow. He could follow rules for the promise of free reign once they touched down on wherever they ended up. He could ignore the almost unbearable burn of adrenaline in the deep down channels of his body if he and his knives could go to work.

Instead he thought of what his meltdown might have cost them. What if, while he’d sobbed and screamed, it had been discovered and deactivated? What if the kidnappers had set it on another drone flying far out into space, just to lead them on a pointless winding chase while they took Bianca who knew where? What if it was too late in any one of a thousand different ways, all because he’d been weak when his daughter had needed him to be strong?

The soft hiss of the door sliding back registered to Nureyev only slightly, though the voice and it’s words drew his attention immediately.

“Rita got the signal,” there was a strain to Juno’s voice, like he’d ran to the med bay, like he was feeling the same burn that Nureyev was, “Clear as day, she said, and it’s heading back into occupied space following the drone’s trajectory so it’s got to be her.”

Nureyev felt no relief, just a solidifying of the need to act inside him. It didn’t erase his mistake.

He hadn’t even thought of the bracelet until almost twenty minutes had passed, ten long minutes of Juno holding him by the shoulders to keep him up right and directing him to breathe through the tight clutch of panic on his chest. What good was a tracker on your child if you didn’t realise it was there immediately?

Bianca had adored the teething bracelet when he’d presented it to her months ago, loving the rattle it made and the colours and the way she could gnaw on the soft rubber shape that hung from it. And as long as she didn’t bite down on it too hard, the tracker inside the shape would keep on silently beeping away.

It was only for while she was very, very young, he would trust her once she was old enough to take care of herself, of course. He didn’t want to be that kind of father. But Nureyev had slept through far too many nightmares to take chances in his waking hours.

“Nureyev?” Juno prompted, standing close to him now, closer than he’d dared since he’d set foot on this ship. A line had been crossed apparently, “We can find her. As soon as the drone touches down we can go get her and they’ll never expect us. We can win.”

Nureyev looked at him and felt like he’d already lost.

“Juno,” he murmured, voice level, “When we get Bianca back, I think I should leave and you should take custody of her.”

His thick eyebrow furrowed, “What? Nureyev, come on, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Juno, just listen,” Nureyev exhaled, making himself look the former detective in the eye. From this close up, he could see the injuries he’d taken as their home had been shaken in the sky, less extensive than his own but there were countless nicks and scrapes on his cheeks. Apparently he’d fallen face first into the wall, “Look at what’s happened to her when she was in my care. Whoever’s taken her, they’ve done it to hurt me and she’s suffering because of it. I was a fool to ever think I’d be able to do this with the life I lead, I have too many dogs snapping after the blood on my hands. She deserves a hero for a parent. That just isn’t me.”

Juno’s eye widened, looking beyond stunned, “How hard did you hit your head? Because you’re talking absolute nonsense.”

He was making it so much harder than it needed to be, as always. Nureyev tried to keep his face and voice as cool and level as possible, “Juno, it’s what’s best for Bianca. I’ll do this for her, I’ll bring her back and then I’ll give her a good life. Without me. With you.”

Juno was shaking his head before he’d even finished speaking, “Nureyev, look, you’ve had pretty much the textbook definition of a shit day but you need to shake this off. This isn’t going to help anything.”

Nureyev frowned, “Juno, I didn’t expect you to push me back on this. You’ve wanted to be her mother since you stepped on this ship and you’re ready for it. You’ve grown so much and you’ve got something real here on the Carte Blanche. You can make her part of it so easily and she can grow up happy and never need to think anything like this will happen again. You can be what she deserves.”

“Will you please stop?” Juno wasn’t angry, he was pleading, “Just stop. Why would you just assume there’s no place for you too? Why would you just write yourself off like that?”

“Because someone has taken my daughter, Juno! They’ve reached through her to hurt me, I’ve not been careful enough-”

“No parent is careful enough, not all the time-”

“You’re talking about a child skinning their knee when their parent isn’t looking, not being taken halfway across the galaxy-”

“Nureyev, you love her, that’s what matters. And she loves you-”

“And that’s why she needs to go!” the last burst from Nureyev with a force that surprised even him and, god help him, it came with tears, “Because look what happens to people who love me!”

Juno flinched but he didn’t take a step back, he didn’t turn away with shame or pity, even as those own feelings took root in his own mind, “Peter…”

“Mag, the only example I’ve ever had of parenting and look how that shook out!” Nureyev gave a laugh that was half a sob, “You and you only grew better after you left me behind, doesn’t that tell you everything you need? And now Bianca! I somehow convinced myself that she could be the exception, that I could let my guard down and love her and let her love me. I thought if I worked hard enough it could happen but I just let it all build up like a volcano and now it’s gone off, I could have killed her as surely as I killed Mag!”

Silence followed his words, like the universe was sucking in a horrified breath. Had he ever said it out loud before? Hadn’t he been afraid of exactly this, that once he said it, he’d realise he’d done something unforgivable?

But if the universe was going to call him a monster then Juno Steel would be his one defendant. The lady who’d seen it happen with his own eyes, the one who’d dealt with countless monsters, he didn’t withdraw and there wasn’t a hint of condemnation in his eyes. His gaze held steady, the only emotion visible there was a fierce kind of love that Nureyev simultaneously yearned towards and shrank away from.

“Nureyev, my ma said very little right in her whole life but one truth she did know was that you need other people to live for. So when you’re not tough enough, they can be, that’s what she said. So you can’t give up because you’ve got them to worry about,” Juno looked him right in the eye, “And that works both ways. You live for them and they live for you and that’s how we all get by. Bianca isn’t just your person, you are her person too. And if you take yourself away from her, it all comes crashing down. God, you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be the flawless Peter Nureyev. You just have to be you. And so does she. That’s how everyone gets better.”

Every guiding instinct Nureyev had left told him to deny. To sink back behind his mask and ignore what Juno was saying, ignore the love he saw in his gaze. But he didn’t want to. He just didn’t want to.

“Yeah, I got better,” Juno continued, “But I didn’t do it without you, Peter. I was always thinking of you, even when I told myself I wasn’t. Because you were the person who really made me believe I could get better. That I didn’t have to die for a cause to be worth something. You woke me up to the people who’d been telling me that for years, you...you became my person.”

Nureyev trembled in the face of that love. The love that wasn’t conditional on whether he was perfect, whether he was collected and in control, whether there were tears on his cheeks or not. It was just being offered.

“I want to be one of the people you live for, Peter,” Juno murmured and the distance between them seemed closer all of a sudden, “And Bianca’s. But only if you’re okay with that, only if it’s as a family. And only if one of your other people is your own damn self. That was another thing my ma got wrong.”

It would be so easy to lean in, cross those few inches, though they were as significant as a few inches that would walk you off the edge of a cliff.

He wanted, he couldn’t deny that. But he had to study this want, find out if it was the want that drove him to take things that belonged to other people or the want that had made him look down at the squalling, squirming, seconds old baby in his exhausted arms and realise he couldn’t give her away as he’d planned.

“Can we speak again after...all this?” Nureyev murmured, “After we get her back safely? Can we come back to this then?”

Nureyev had known a hundred people, some of them people who’d claimed to love him, who would have grown angry. Who’s faces would have darkened and shoulders would have set and a possessiveness would have clouded their eyes.

But Juno Steel only nodded.

“Sure,” he gave a rough laugh, “Today’s more than enough to deal with. And there will be a tomorrow, Nureyev.”

He’d always known that. He’d lived for tomorrows for much of his life, moving forward to a new face, a new name, a new thing to steal to prove he could. He’d always thought tomorrow was worth showing up for.

But this felt so much more real. This felt like a promise of tomorrows that would be hard at times, where some would hurt. But these tomorrows were ones he could spend as Peter Nureyev, with people he cared about and who cared about him.

Both of them jumped at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, fast approaching. Rita drew the door back, her hair flying out of its usual twin buns, her eyes red raw from crying and staring at too many screens in too short a time, smoke practically rising from her fingertips. But she was grinning, in a manic, frantic kind of way.

“The signal stopped! The drone must have landed!”

In an instant, Juno had turned and Nureyev was on his feet, twin expressions of determination and frantic energy.

“Where?” they both barked, not even reacting to the other speaking.

Rita was bouncing in place, clearly jittery, “The signal held strong the whole way there, I didn’t even need to triangulate when it got messed up with all the other frequencies you find buzzing around an inhabited planet like giant space bees in that one stream, the one that made me scared to eat honey for six weeks even though honey roasted salmon squares are my seventh favourite snack-”

“Rita, please!”

“Mars!” Rita finally choked up, fighting through her own panicked babble, “She’s on Mars, Mistah Steel, at a place called, um…” she looked down and read her comms screen again, “The Oasis Casino Resort.”

Nureyev’s eyes met Juno’s, the same expression of sickening deja vu shared between them.

The former detective gave a wayn, humorless smile, “Looks like it’s not just your fault after all.”

The sense of deja vu, the sensation of falling and waking up in the middle of the night, continued through the family meeting, the crew sat or stood around the kitchen table and a projected schematic of the Oasis. Looking at the tiny, translucent rooms and hallways and grand game halls, floating and shifting whenever the people across from him moved, he felt nearly three years younger. Three years, two heartbreaks and a baby younger. He remembered when he’d felt invincible and so sure of himself, running into victory with a beautiful detective by his side, like something out of an old fashioned movie. He would need some of that old self to get through this, he realised.

Plot points happening all over again but the order shuffled and the roles recast. It was dizzying. And he needed to focus.

“And you’re sure this is up to date, Rita, dear?” Buddy leaned forward, eye focused like a laser on the plans in front of them all.

“Yes, Captain,” she nodded, still bouncing with anxious energy, “Remotely hacked the head of security’s computer so it’s a live feed. Even if they reshuffle all the rooms or something, we’ll know about it. And this…” she tapped something on the comms in her hand, causing a bright white dot to appear somewhere in the depths of the projection, “...is the current location of Bee Bee’s beacon.”

It was sliding slowly at a walking pace through a stairway, up and up. Nureyev’s throat tightened. Was she being dragged? Had they knocked her out with some chemical so she was lying limply in a stranger’s arms? He found himself bleakly hoping for the latter, he didn’t want her to know what was happening.

“They’re taking her upstairs. To this two bit con artist with ideas far above his station, I assume he has the penthouse suite to compensate for his lack of skills,” Buddy said smoothly, leaning forward with an intensity to her gaze that would have given weaker souls heart conditions, “Isn’t it helpful when they give us a lovely, high, phallic pedestal from which to reach up and drag them down?”

“It certainly is convenient,” Jet said cooly, somehow paying attention while calmly assembling a frankly enormous, heavy duty pistol on the counter, “I suggest we enter from the same height, scaling the fire escapes. It will limit potential interactions with innocent bystanders and employees of the resort. The only problem will be exiting once they realise how we have entered.”

“There are trash chutes,” Juno spoke up, sharing a glance with Nureyev that made both of them feel somehow a little better, for a brief second, “We could use those.”

“Are they big enough to accommodate a person?” Vespa raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“Oh yeah,” Juno was somehow fighting a smile, despite it all, “Believe me, they are.”

“That would work,” Jet nodded, “Reverse what they would expect, entering through the exterior and leaving by the interior. We could store the Ruby and my hoverbike in the garage, recoloured and with false plates. Present ourselves as rich visitors, the kind that pass through such a place every day.”

“This is assuming Engstrom is hiding his activities from the Oasis,” Vespa pointed out, also preparing herself, sliding an oilcloth down the blade of her knife as she spoke, “And they haven’t been told an assault might be incoming.”

“They won’t be,” Nureyev answered, eyes still fixed on that dot, like he could somehow reach in and give Bianca comfort through it, “Engstrom’s arrangement with the Oasis is hush hush. If he could rely on them to such a degree, he wouldn’t have to pay them under the table for his security privileges. This will be a small operation, low to the ground, only with a few trusted people. Engstrom will be aware how thin the ice under his feet is, no matter how much he paid off the guards after the Utgard Express fiasco.”

“So you two really did rob the Utgard, huh?” Vespa muttered, mostly to herself, “Always thought you made that up.”

Nureyev shot her a look before continuing, “We have to move quickly, a skeleton plan is all we can manage. He may be planning to move Bianca.”

“Well it isn’t as if we haven’t played it fast and loose before,” Buddy lifted her chin, “In fact, I’d say it’s when we do the best work. Rita will work through the comms, diverting cameras and blocking the security communication line. I will be posing as our fictitious Oasis patron, the pass will give me access to wherever I might need to go to clear your escape. Jet, Juno, Vespa and Ransom will go up the fire escapes and unleash hell upon this low life who thought he could threaten our family.”

Her eye passed over them all, causing them to straighten their backs and square their shoulders with the sheer magnetism of her words and her gaze.

“Let’s bring our girl home.”

The Oasis was true to its name, standing and glittering in the middle of complete Martian wasteland, the only object for miles around. Covered in flashing lights and bold colours, it could so easily be a mirage or a hallucination brought on by radiation poisoning, so incongruous did it look with all it’s flashy finery on a backdrop of constant, unbroken mud red dunes and a flat night sky.

They’d touched down under the best cloak that Rita could manage, the Carte Blanche’s bulk hidden a few miles out, right at the edge of the dome but not out of signal range of her hacking equipment. She would stay on board, working remotely, while the rest of them travelled to the Oasis in the Ruby 7, with its new, rush job coat of glittering gold and false plates, all of its features cloaked and hidden as well as just a scant hour of Jet’s time could allow. Rita had given Vespa a kill switch to temporarily plunge the garage cameras into static so there would be no record that there were more people in the car than just the illustrious and completely fictitious Comtesse D’or who had just made a last minute reservation at great expense.

Already Nureyev was seeing holes, gaps he’d want to plug with far more research and preparation but the time just wasn’t there. As the Oasis loomed in his vision, rapidly approaching until it wasn’t clear who was rushing at who, Nureyev realised how much of this would be riding on sheer dumb luck.

It was a little easier that Buddy seemed entirely unconcerned, sending them off with a wink as she sped towards the garage entrance, letting them simply leap off the Ruby 7 and hide in the clutter of the building’s back side until the attendants were occupied with her loud and flashy arrival. Before they jumped, Nureyev saw fear flash through Juno’s one eye and he took his hand, squeezing briefly. Whether Juno would have jumped if he hadn’t done that or not, the smile he gave him after they’d hit the cooling sand and caught their breath with their backs pressed to the brick made him glad he’d done it.

Climbing the fire escape was simple enough, Vespa and her knife leading the way, her hair as vivid as the hotel they were scaling, eyes flashing like the neon lights. Jet was next, climbing smoothly and skillfully despite his size and despite the serious hardware strapped to his back. Juno next, clearly not as comfortable with being a thief just yet but a fierce determination in his eye that showed he wouldn’t be turning back. Nureyev gripped the metal, still warm from the heat of the day’s blistering sun, and what Buddy had said before they broke away from the family meeting. They all cared about Bianca, they were willing to risk everything, not least the search for the Curemother Prime, to get her back.

He certainly could see the benefit of Bianca having family.

Over many years of thieving, Nureyev had developed something like an extra sense for when things were about to go wrong, a pull in his stomach that would signal him to duck, a second’s lead on searching for hiding places, a moment to tense his muscles to run as fast as he could or throw himself into their nearest available shadow.

Apparently it was something inherent to anyone who lived outside of the law because in the same instant both Jet and Vespa stiffened, something cold and sharp seized Nureyev.

Vespa, as always, was the quickest and most ruthless. Like a bear snatching a salmon from a driver, her hand flashed into the open window just above her head and caught the guard who’d been about to look down and see the four of them by the front of the jacket. With a hard yank, the unfortunate individual went careening down, an almost comical look of surprise on their face, and landed with a muffled crash in the garbage below. Mercifully, the guard was as stunned as the rest of them and didn’t make a noise.

Juno craned his neck down and, rather adorably thinking that they’d care, whispered, “They’re okay. Knocked out.”

“Did you see their weapon?” Jet grunted, his expression unchanged, “Heavy stuff.”

“Did you see their uniform?” Nureyev arched an eyebrow, “Not Oasis. It would seem Engstrom has some hirelings. Who knows how many?”

Vespa had ignored them all, poised on the wall like a cat, face tight as she waited for any response from a partner the guard may have had. When one didn’t come, she settled one hand on the windowsill and leaned out like some kind of murderous acrobat so she could address them all.

“Hallways clear. Jet and I will go around the other side of the building, cause a distraction, draw whoever else he’s got patrolling. You two continue on to Engstrom’s room,” her tone brokered no argument, there was no time to weigh up pros and cons. Even Juno swallowed any objections, though God knew there were plenty to make.

The last majordomo of Engstrom’s had nearly killed the two of them handily, after all, and the late, unlamented Valencia was who he’d kept around when he hadn’t been deliberately pissing off a master thief. But as Vespa took her largest knife between her teeth and slunk in through the window, quickly followed by the hulking yet graceful form of Jet, laden down with blasters, it was whoever had taken Valencia’s place that Nureyev felt sorry for.

Maybe it wasn’t just Bianca who was glad to have a family.

Juno risked a glance down to him, looking oddly beautiful as he leaned out over the edge of the balcony, bathed in neon colours like Nureyev was seeing him through a stained glass window, as a strange kind of saint. As the goddess he was named for.

But had Juno ever held so much fear and determination and anxiety in her eye?

Nureyev gave him a nod, trying to look encouraging. Trying to look like all his fears that they weren’t prepared, that they didn’t know their target, that far too much was at risk, were all coming true.

But all they could do was put one foot in front of the other. Two more floors and they would see their daughter and whatever that would bring.

Nureyev felt the press of the knives against his skin again, insistent and hungry.

The Oasis was grand in every sense of the word, they were some height above the ground now, enough that a breeze that smelled of hot sand lifted their hair and snagged the corners of their clothing. As much as every muscle in his body wanted to surge forward and rush to wherever his daughter was, Nureyev forced himself to go slowly, hugging the brickwork and keeping out of the teeth of the wind. Now down to half their numbers, they couldn’t be caught now.

Finally, the topmost window and, muffled by glass, a voice. Juno and Nureyev crouched on the last platform of the fire escape, ducking under the golden glow emanating from behind the glass and listened, feeling the same burning anger as they recognised it in the same moment.

“...whether it’s some drunk gaggle of socialites or not, I want confirmation,” a gruff, scraping voice that seemed to have aged more than the time since they’d last heard it would suggest, “Don’t put anything past these charlatans, there’s no way they should know the brat is here but they’ve proven to be inconveniences before now. Go, quickly. Carter said she heard blaster fire.”

A grunt of conformation, footsteps whispering against thick expensive carpet. Juno tensed and rocked on his heels but Nureyev gripped his arm to still him, shaking his head. They couldn’t afford to move before they had a better idea of what they were running into. Not when so much was at stake.

He maintained that for a whole heartbeat until they both heard what was unmistakably a muffled sob from inside the room. A sob they both knew.

Nureyev’s other hand was on a knife handle before he was really aware he was even moving, having to snap fast to keep control of himself as something dark and angry, a shadow in red light, thrashed inside him. His fingers tensed on Juno’s arm, feeling an electricity run through him. Hold fast. Stay quiet. Wait for the right moment.

“Oh, will you be quiet?” Engstrom snapped, his voice less muffled now, as if he’d moved closer to the window. Nureyev tried to build up a mental picture of the room, a map he could work with, though it was hard when the younger, red washed self was fighting him.

There was the sound of an angry snap, like the sound of a puppy baring its teeth after being backed into a corner and a short cry of pain from Engstrom.

“You little…” his voice was tight and his shoes made thin sounds on the floor as he backed away, voice dampening. That meant she was close. Nureyev leaned forward a little more. Would he have been fool enough to keep her by the window?

He’d never believed in any being more powerful than himself up until now, not even at the tensest, most teetering brinks of his career, not even in the underground tomb with Miasma. But now he was throwing out desperate murmurs, willing anyone to hear them. Any port in a storm.

Engstrom was still talking and Nureyev took pleasure in imagining him cradling a bitten hand, “More trouble than you’re worth, you brat...no wonder your father taught you no manners, the classless parlour magician...I’d behave before I decide that the pleasure of breaking your father’s teeth and seeing him rot in jail while my name is cleared is worth less to me than the joy of you disappearing down that trash chute. God, you broke the skin, you freak, you vile little monster…”

Nureyev realised a second too late what Juno was doing, though he didn’t think an hour’s preparation would have been able to stop him. He wrenched free of his grip so easily it was as if it had never been, threw open the window and launched himself at Engstrom with a snarl of fury.

“Juno!” he yelled, pointlessly, though his voice was lost in Bianca’s scream and Engstrom’s sound of bewilderment, followed quickly by a loud crash.

Expensive whiskeys and brandys were soaking into the carpet when Nureyev leapt through the window, knife whistling from his fingers in the direction of the single guard who had been about to raise their blaster in Juno’s direction. It struck them hilt first, dead between the eyes, sinking them in an instant where the blade wouldn’t have had a hope of shearing through all the armour they wore. People who saw only one end of a knife were fools. First rule of thieving.

“Mama!” Bianca’s voice yelled from behind him, “Daddy!”

Nureyev couldn’t help it, he turned to her, feeling a relief like cold water on a burn. His treasure was tied cruelly tight to a chair just beside him, within arms reach and so much in him yearned to take her in his arms and promise her it had all been one bad dream. But the monster was yet to be defeated.

Engstrom was pinned under Juno in the wreckage of a drinks trolley, unsuccessfully defending blows to his face which now resembled a melon that had taken a hard trip down a very long flight of stairs. Panic filled Nureyev’s chest until he saw a small comms unit lying an arms length away from the old man’s grasping hand. Again, he found himself praying that he hadn’t been able to send out a call to the other guards, they needed every second they could snatch now.

Those seconds were stretching and warping as they tended to do when lives hung on gossamer strands. People seemed to move in slow motion, blows falling with a maniacally comedic exaggerated performance, light tripping and dancing on broken glass on the carpet. It seemed to take Nureyev an age to cross the room, focused on crunching that comms under his heel until it was beyond repair, before Engstrom could grasp it.

And it took him far too long to realise that wasn’t what Engstrom was intending at all.

The old man’s grasping fingers finally found the neck of a half empty bottle of some heady liquor the colour of ancient bark. Nureyev saw it at the peak of its arc, catching some fragments of blue from the sign just outside the window, moving so slowly but not slowly enough.

Bianca cried out as it connected with Juno’s head, almost as awful a sound as the crunch of glass and bone cracking in harmony. Juno rolled, head clutched in his hands, blood seeping from between his fingers, too gripped to even make a noise.

And Engstrom was sitting up.

Not a complete fool and running on sheer cruelty, he didn’t lurch for the comms or try to stand. Instead he pulled a blaster from his inside pocket, small but no less deadly for it. And he didn’t bother trying to decide which to aim at, the former detective or the thief. He simply pointed it directly at Bianca.

“Stop,” he croaked, voice even fainter than before, “Or I shoot.”

Nureyev froze, hand halfway to another knife. Juno looked up with swimming eyes, having enough of a hold on himself to stop too, swaying on his knees.

“The two of you?” Engstrom seemed to be on some kind of lurid, pain fuelled high, grinning like a haunted waxwork, even as his lips swelled and his gums ran red, “Now even this is beyond my wildest dreams. Guess the two of you stuck together after you left me for dead on that damned train, hmm? And how is that working out, seeing as one of you is missing an eye?”

Nureyev tried to keep his voice calm and still, as if the two of them were still sitting at that card table from years ago. And in some ways they were, though the stakes had ballooned far out of either of their reaches.

“What is it you want, Engstrom? A ransom? The Ruby Seven? Me? You can take me if you like, I’ll stay as long as you allow Juno to take Bianca far from here.”

Juno gave a pained noise that had nothing to do with his head. Tears dripped helplessly down Bianca’s cheeks but his girl, his brave, brave girl, stayed silent.

Nureyev tried to feel none of it and just calculated. Could he get to him before his finger squeezed the trigger? Could he throw the knife fast enough, strike his wrist or, better yet, in the neck so his shot went wide? Could he find the right words to reach this bitter, broken man and appease him?

Every calculation came to the same unthinkable end.

“And why shouldn’t I have it all, Duke Rose? After everything you two took from me, why shouldn’t I have it all back including your blood, your wife’s and your daughter’s? Is that not what I’m owed after what you did?” his voice sounded like it was on the verge of breaking and his bloodshot eyes, one swollen almost shut, never looked away from Bianca, “I had thought you had more sense than this. To bring a child into our life, the life of a thief. Just more poison in the well…and look where it has ended…”

Nureyev felt bile in his throat, tearing around for more options, another way. Beg? Stall until by some miracle, Jet and Vespa could come crashing through the door? Plead? Pray? Offer him the world? Go back in time and never even set foot on the surface of Mars?

Everything around them slowed. But Juno Steel moved so, so fast.

He lurched forward and seized the barrel of the blaster between blood stained fingers. But he didn’t try and wrench it away, there was no time for that. He didn’t knock it or send it off course, what if it bounced and hit Bianca by chance?

Instead he made sure of where it would go. He turned it and pressed the barrel hard to his own skin.

The sound of the discharge was loud enough to tip the room, as if they were back on the Carte Blanche, twisted and wounded in space. Nureyev screamed, Bianca screamed, Juno screamed and neither sound could be teased out of the others.

Fortunately there was enough of Nureyev’s mind left to see what Juno needed him to do and to do it. He ran forward and brought his knife hilt down with all the strength he had left at the base of Engstrom’s skull. Fingers slackened, there was a hard, dull sound and he hit the carpet, out cold and maybe even beyond that. The blaster fell uselessly to the floor.

Nureyev cared for none of it. All that mattered was Juno, trembling in wordless agony, his shoulder smoking. He felt so light in Nureyev’s grip, light enough to come apart or simply fade away.

Nureyev felt the ghost of cold iron under his fists, felt years old bruises ache again from beating them against that door and against a future that didn’t have his detective in it.

“Just my shoulder...just hit my shoulder…” Juno managed to grit out from teeth clenched so hard they looked like to shatter, “It’s fine...it’s fine…”

The wound was a horror, a massive burn in a starburst shape but it wasn’t bleeding, just smoking and spitting. He would last, Nureyev told himself, he would last back to the Carte Blanche and Vespa would fix him, she would fix everything. But his arm hung so limp and useless, fingers not twitching and shaking like the rest of him was…

“Get Bianca,” Juno grunted, “Get Bianca, we need to go.”

Nureyev nodded, though his mind felt fractured, hairline cracks forming as he was pulled in different directions, different versions of himself pulling him apart. He stood, Juno’s good arm over his shoulders so he could take the weight of him, walking over to the chair where Bianca was tied.

“Saved me,” Bianca mumbled, looking up at the two of them with tears in her eyes, “Mamma, daddy…”

Nureyev knelt and sheared through her bindings easily, “I’m so sorry, my sweet girl, my treasure, I am so sorry…”

Bianca didn’t seem to be listening, her arms shooting up as soon as they were free, grabbing in the air. Towards both of them.

Nureyev lifted her and held her between him and Juno, taking one minute of calm in the midst of the storm they’d found themselves in. Juno’s arm tightened around his shoulder, his face buried in Bianca’s hair, leaning heavily against Nureyev. Bianca had one hand on his cheek, the other twisted tight in Nureyev’s earring. And Nureyev circled them both in his arms, like that would always be enough to keep them safe.

But it wouldn’t. Though he knew one way to ensure it.

A cold numbness descended on his mind, filing away all the adrenaline and hurt and fear with an eerie efficiency. He let Juno hold Bianca with his good arm, disentangling himself and settling the knife more easily into his palm, the hilt fitting into calluses worn onto his hands over years and years. He approached the still limp, still weakly breathing form of Brock Engstrom, everything in him trained on silencing that breathing for good.

“Nureyev,” Juno’s voice was weak and still brittle with pain, pain the pathetic excuse for a human at his feet had caused.

“Look away, dear,” he spoke words he was familiar with, though his tone was now flat and dead, “I’m going to stab Mr Engstrom to death now.”

“Nureyev, no.”

“I said look away, Juno,” Nureyev moved the knife an inch, his mind flicking idly through his decades old banks of knowledge on where to put the point to cause maximum pain.

“Nureyev, look.”

He did, turning slightly to see Juno watching him with an eye full of hurt. And their daughter, clinging to his coat, looking at him like she didn’t recognise him. Like she had no idea who he was. Like she was face to face with Engstrom again.

The knife slipped to the floor and he wouldn’t pick it back up again. The younger self bathed in the red light retreated, maybe for good this time. His shoulders slumped and he exhaled with a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

Peter Nureyev made a choice that was very unlike the man he used to be, very unlike the man he’d been brought up as. But it was the kind of choice the man he wanted to be would have made.

“See, Bee Bee?” Juno murmured, voice rough but a small smile quirking the edge of his mouth as Nureyev walked back towards them, “Your daddy’s one of the good guys.”

“Good guys,” Bianca repeated softly, reaching out to him again.

Nureyev took her, letting Juno hold his injured half and lean on him, “I suppose, my treasure.”

“C’mon, let’s get going and find me a nice place to faint,” Juno rasped, again showing off his ability to find some humour while mortally wounded that Nureyev had always admired and been baffled by in equal measures, “Bottom of the garbage chute sounds good right about now. Real classy.”

Nureyev managed a tired laugh in response, shouldering the weight of his small family as they made for the door.

Another first rule of thieving was to never assume an easy escape. So many thieves tripped up on their exit from the job, too high on the loot in their hands and the thrill of the light at the end of the tunnel. Just because you had the goods didn’t mean life would pull its punches.

But it seemed, for once, that life had no more blows left to deal. Their escape was smooth as silk, as easy as pickpocketing a drunk man with a blindfold on. Jet and Vespa had taken out every guard on Engstrom’s payroll, Buddy was waiting for them in the Ruby Seven, Rita was running at them to fly into a hug before they’d even parked up in the cargo hold of the Carte Blanche.

Maybe it was luck. Maybe that rule had grown rusty with time.

Or maybe this was the advantage of being the good guys for once.

“Right. Now do not move, I’m doing one set of stitches so if you open them back up, better get some glue.”

“How the hell am I supposed to not move?” Juno grumbled, wincing as Vespa finished his stitches, “For how long? Can I breathe?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Vespa snarled back, slamming down her needle.

Nureyev chuckled to himself from the opposite bed. It was rather nice to know he wasn’t the most irritating patient on the ship.

The wound on the side of his head, nearly identical to Nureyev’s own, was easy to fix. His shoulder was less so, the skin blackened and flesh raw and red. Vespa could clean it, she could swathe it in bandages so it was less difficult to look at but there was no getting around the fact that it would be a long, painful time in healing.

Every time he looked at the clean bandages that stiffened Juno’s collar, every time he saw him wince or saw his teeth sink into his lip to bite back a groan, Nureyev was plunged back into that single second when he’d thought he’d lost him. When he’d thought he’d paid an awful price for their daughter’s life.

It was strange and bitterly unfair, Nureyev reflected, how you often didn’t realise what someone meant to you until they weren’t there. And how certain thieves could still be such stubborn fools and need to be taught that over and over.

But fools could still learn. People could still change. Juno had taught him that.

Bianca slept soundly by him, her head pillowed in his lap, her cloth cat tucked under her arm. How that thing had survived, Nureyev had no idea.

Mercifully, his treasure was no worse for wear, just tired, dehydrated and hungry from her time in the drone. Apparently she’d dealt far more damage than she’d taken; Engstrom hadn’t been the only one to feel her teeth. Nureyv felt a fierce pride at that but he would remain on guard for bad dreams as long as he needed to. He was determined to be there when she woke up.

Juno and Vespa were still bickering up until the second when the door shut behind her. And then they both realised in the same moment that they were as alone as they’d been in some time, since their half conversation in the hallway after the auction. Suddenly everything they’d said and hadn’t said was crowding in the space between the two infirmary beds.

Juno was the first to break the sudden blanket of silence, venturing a weak, lopsided smile and a little laugh. After a moment, Nureyev found himself snorting, giggles pressing up against his chest, like a child in class well aware he shouldn’t be laughing but unable to stop all the same. Juno cackled along with him and it had the sensation of a tap being let go, something leaking away and what was left behind behind able to breathe again.

“God, what’s wrong with us?” Nureyev chortled, wiping at his eyes.

“Uh, some bastard took our kid and we had to go get her back?” Juno ventured, running a hand through his hair, pushing it into even more disarray.

“Ah yes, of course,” Nureyev touched her lightly on the temple, “But we did it. We saved the day.”

“We did,” Juno leaned back against the wall, unsuccessfully hiding how it pained him, “And now...see, that’s the strange thing, isn’t it? No one ever tells you what happens to the heroes after the credits roll or after the story ends. So what do we do now?”

Nureyev looked down at Bianca, humming softly as he curled a lock of her hair around his finger, “Whatever we please, I think. Though these two heros need a place to sleep, actually, seeing as our bunk got dragged out into space.”

“You could come sleep in my room?” Juno offered quickly, before a light blush touched his cheeks, “I mean...if you were okay with that? I know it might be...weird.”

Nureyev smiled, lifting his eyes to Juno’s, “No. That would be nice, Juno, thank you. Bianca will be pleased. She...she really loves you, you know.”

Juno’s gaze softened and he seemed to feel the pain a little less, “Well...I love her too. You made a great kid, Nureyev.”

Nureyev chuckled, looking down at her, sleeping so peacefully and deeply like she was so sure that the people around her would protect her, “You know, I was so scared of her when I first met her. And I had been for nine months, really, I was just terrified. Everything became so complicated all of a sudden, my own body felt unfamiliar when I was so used to being sure of myself, it was...an unpleasant feeling. I went back to Brahma but I was halfway there before I even realised I was doing it, like something else was pulling me in that direction. I told myself I would find her a nice family with kind people who could take care of her and give her a good life. Where she’d want for nothing. But it was still so hard. And...then I met her. I held her in my own hands and I realised how silly it was to be scared of something so small.”

“I wish I could have been there,” Juno rasped, voice small but sincere.

Nureyev nodded, “Me too. But it felt like you were, in a way. I told you I kept Bianca for selfish reasons, back on Mars. And I wasn’t lying. I kept her because...well, because she looked so much like you. I wanted to keep part of you in my life, Juno, because I loved you.”

Juno swallowed, watching him closely, “And now?”

Nureyev looked up, “And now...now you’re someone new. Someone brave and beautiful and still so infuriatingly stupid...but someone I would be proud to call my daughter’s mother. And, well, I think I’ve fallen in love with you all over again.”

Juno had tears in his eye as he smiled, “Fool. And I love you too.”

Nureyev grinned back, “Fool.”

Juno leaned forward, ignoring Nureyev’s groan of protest, the start of his plea for him to hold still, there would be time later. The kiss was sweet all the same, more unfamiliar than he had expected but he supposed they were both very different people, after all.

People who could make something good out of this.

Nineteen Years Later -

They had said their goodbyes, there had been tears her little brother Persephone had pretended weren’t there, there had been countless promises to stay safe and keep well and remember everything she’d been taught.

But still, Nureyev followed her to the shuttle.

Juno had looked up as he’d gone, as he’d mumbled something about seeing her off, and for a moment it had seemed like he would catch his husband’s shoulder and seat him firmly back down. But he didn’t. Maybe something inside him recognised that they both needed this.

“Do you have your laser cutter?” Nureyev asked as the two of them walked down the hallway of the Carte Blanche, “Your rope? Your TV remote?”

“Daddy,” Bianca laughed, turning on her heel, having to look up and meet his eyes even at twenty years old, “I have it all, okay? You double checked my pack ten times.”

Nureyev blushed, folding his arms, “Well...a thief can never be too prepared.”

“I know, daddy,” Bianca nudged him with an elbow, “You taught me that.”

Nureyev sighed, feeling how close that last, final goodbye was and wanting to do anything he could to delay it. “You know, I looked over the plans for the facility you’re targeting and a two man con would-”

“Daddy,” his daughter tilted her head, making those voluminous curls so like her mama’s bounce, and her hand came out to take his, squeezing gently, “It’s gonna be okay. I can do this. And you know it isn’t going to be forever, I’ll always come back and visit.”

“Often,” Nureyev corrected, feeling his throat tighten as he grasped that hand that had once been barely bigger than his finger, “You’re going to visit often.”

“Sure,” her smile was brilliant, cocky and confident and infections, “When I’m not busy being the most badass thief in the whole universe.”

“I’m sure,” he had to laugh. Though he really did believe it.

Her mama’s old coat was a little big on her, the sleeves coming a little past her knuckles, she’d inherited Juno’s small stature. In some ways she still looked like a little girl playing dress up, like this was all a game to find her daddy’s lost pair of glasses or lead her little brothers on an adventure as Andromeda the Chainmail Warrior.

But Nureyev knew the solar system wasn’t going to know what hit it when Bianca Nureyev swung in on her beam of starlight.

He just had to let her go. Far easier said than done.

“I’ll call you when I land, Daddy. Auntie Rita secured the line, right?”

“She did,” Nureyev knew that look in her golden brown eyes, the look he’d never been able to deny, “But I think you have forgotten one thing?”

Bianca frowned, “But I went over the checklist…”

Nureyev grinned, it was uncanny how similar that frown was. He brought his other hand out from behind his back. The cloth cat, Kitty as Juno insisted on calling it, was looking more than a little worse for wear these days, it’s fur faded and three of its eyes missing but still, Bianca gasped in delight when she saw it.

“Of course!” she giggled, taking it happily and tucking it into the front pocket of the coat that used to be her mama’s, “I thought Idun might have wanted to keep him…”

“No, I think he realised it would be much better off with his big sister,” Nureyev nodded.

“Well, tell him thanks. And tell him I love him. Both of them, tell them I love them lots and lots. And mama too! And Auntie Vespa and Auntie Buddy and Auntie Rita and Uncle Jet…”

Nureyev was laughing before she was halfway through, “I’ll tell them. But what about your old dad?”

Bianca’s expression softened and she pounced, hugging him so tight his ribs hurt, “I love you, Daddy. Thank you for this.”

Nureyev closed his eyes and pressed his face into her hair, “I love you too, my treasure. And thank you.”

When she pulled away, it was completely, her hand slipping out of his own. He let it, though it broke his heart.

“I’ll see you soon, Daddy,” Bianca smiled, giving him a wave before she disappeared into the shuttle that had been her eighteenth birthday present from her Uncle.

Nureyev waited a long time before he turned away from the window, looking out as he had on so many journeys with his treasure, off to exciting places and interesting people and scores that would make them legends. He had no doubt that the same thing awaited her, now she was alone.

Still he watched. He watched until her shuttle joined the rest of the stars and for a little longer after that.

He knew something amazing was waiting for her.

#the penumbra podcast #tpp #penumbra #junoverse #juniverse #juno steel #peter nureyev #jupeter #tpp juno #tpp nureyev #vespa ilkay #buddy aurinko #jet siquliak #rita

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cywscross · 5 years ago

Note

got any f/f fic recs?

Okay so apparently not Final Fantasy but femslash. I’m stupid, sorry. Uhh I don’t read that many femslash compared to slash but I can name some:

NARUTO

Sing as their bones go marching in again by felinedetached (Sakura/Ino)

Instead, it goes like this: Haruno Sakura is the daughter of two civilians, from civilian families. She is nothing and no one—smart, yes, top kunoichi, yes, but she will never be on par with clan kids. She is teammates to an orphan powerhouse from a dead clan and the last remaining Uchiha.

Haruno Sakura is nothing and nobody, but she breathes and grows and thrives and the forest thrives with her.

(She opens her eyes to wood, grown from nothing, and Hatake Kakashi stares in disbelief at the tree where his student used to be.)

Or, Haruno Sakura should have had the goddamn Mokuton and this author is mad.

No one there to shame me for my youth by felinedetached (Sakura/Ino)

What she hadn’t expected was to be what is apparently next in line for Kakashi’s position—although, she supposes it was inevitable—or for the nurses at the hospital to look at her with such adoration.

Sakura’s not complaining, she just hadn’t expected it.

(She’s the medic on a team of powerhouses, the backline fighter to Naruto and Sasuke’s brilliance, and she never thought it would be her people looked at like this.)

But it is her; and as she gets glances and propositions from both civilian and ninja, from male and female alike, she wonders.

The Fair Maiden by Tozette (Sakura/Ino)

Basically: Princess Ino has been kidnapped by the terrible dragon Sakura! Brave knights Chouji and Shikamaru must rescue her from the fearsome beast. It... does not go entirely as expected.

The Shinobi version of Pride by grit (Sakura/Hinata/Karin)

The coffee sways dangerously.

“Why,” Sakura interrupts, before the chaos can get any worse, “are you in my kitchen?”

every fire is a lesson learned by blackkat (Konan/Sakura)

Just when Konan has lost hope, she meets a hero.

three birds watch and the fourth flies by grit (Minato!Sakura/Kushina)

There's a legend in her hands like clay, so she must work hard to be formidable, to be everything he was and she isn't, because what if she screws up the future, selfish enough to make space for her own?

She pours over heaps of sealing scrolls and tries not to think too hard on what happens if she fails.

Or: Timid Minato but this time around, she's Sakura.

throw it my way (all the love you keep) by amako (Sakura/Ino)

The crux of the matter is: they don't have a Hokage, the one that could be Hokage is sharing a Moment with his soulmate or whatever, and when asked to take the mantle again, Tsunade had broken a few bones. Not hers, obviously.

will to live by justdoityoufucker (Sakura/Ino)

Sakura joins the ANBU. The entire world seems a little tilted after that, but they all adapt.

Bumpy Future by Dovey (Sakura/Hinata)

It's her last year at the academy when Sakura hits her head. When she wakes up, she has a little trouble matching memories to the people in them- but she'll have to get it right eventually, yeah?

in which sakura pairs vague associations with the wrong people, and everyone is much happier because of it (Except Iruka-sensei).

the Rebel ‘verse by felinedetached (Sakura/Ino)

(Three things come after that:

The moment of realisation. The moment she realises Sasuke’s left the village, gone off to do who knows what with Orochimaru-

Her memory returns to her - she was useless against her teammate; taken down by a pressure point and unable to do anything to prevent him from getting at it.

Inner rages, throws herself around, cursing and screaming until finally, finally she calms and she says Uchiha Sasuke is a traitor.)

In which Sakura gets the character development she deserved.

shattered dreams into rhapsodies by blackkat (Kushina/Mikoto)

For the prompt "I’m a monster/guardian that the local village give sacrifices too and you’re the new sacrifice but don’t worry I won’t eat you, I’m kinda lonely"

-0-

HARRY POTTER

Four Walls (And the Right People) by blackkat (Lily/Narcissa)

“Is coming in there going to make me lose my will to live?” Lily calls, amused.

“No!” Harry protests, wounded, like she and Narcissa haven’t previously walked in on structural damage, fires, flooding, and mysteriously conjured cat-sized dragons. Sirius has been a terrible influence on them.

the girl who lived (again) by dirgewithoutmusic (trans!Harry/Ginny)

Molly tried her best. When Harry had told them, Arthur had asked excitedly, "is this a Muggle thing?" Hermione had hurried out a "no!" and a frantic history of gender diversity in the wizarding world.

"It's just that I'm a girl," Harry had said, and Arthur had nodded and asked her about how telephone booths worked. He would call her by the right pronouns until the day he died at the respectable old age of one hundred and thirty three, and he would make it seem easy.

But Molly had to try. Hermione explained things faster and higher-pitched every time Molly messed up a pronoun. Molly frowned and muttered and put extra potatoes on Harry's plate at breakfast. Harry slept in Ron's room, which didn't bother either of them but which made Hermione scowl.

Harry got boxes of sweets and warm hugs, as Molly chewed things over. For her fifteenth Christmas, the Weasley sweater she would receive would be a bright, friendly, terrible pink.

The next time Harry visited, Molly put her on Ginny's floor to sleep-- for some definition of sleep that involved Hermione hissing threats at three in the morning if Harry and Ginny didn't "shut up about Wronski feints, do you know what time it is."

-0-

GAME OF THRONES

When Warp Is Fire And Weft Is Ice by afterandalasia (Dany/Sansa)

People tell many stories about them, the Mother of Dragons and the Queen in the North.

Some of them even have a grain of truth in them.

a strangeness of sunlight by musicforswimming (Dany/Sansa)

Someone calls Sansa home, and sets her free in doing so.

Ivory and Dragonglass by madeinessos (Rhaenys/Sansa)

For the valar-morekinks prompt on livejournal: "Rhaeneys follows in her father's footsteps when she and Sansa run away together to the free cities so they can be with each other . Both ladies left a letter to their families so that their absence wouldn't spark the embers of another rebellion."

Sansa in Dorne by sear (Arianne/Sansa)

Alayne Stone wakes confused, in the body of the young maid she once was. She has returned to Winterfell, before everything went wrong. All she wants now is to be free, to never be hurt again. Dorne will give her that.

Mirror of the sun by myrish_lace (Dany/Sansa)

Daenerys arrives at Winterfell to attempt to treat with Jon Snow. She's immediately side-tracked by her fascination with Sansa Stark, and the two grow closer. Told from Daenerys's point of view.

-0-0-

And these are genderswap femslash, in case you’re not a fan:

TEEN WOLF

Utterly Appropriate by wynnebat (Peter/Stiles)

There's only one person whom Stiles would marry, and whoever has asked for her hand isn't on that list.

Spin a Web of Silk by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids) (Peter/Stiles)

“Darling, will you marry me?”

Stiles stared into the eyes of the light of her life, the one who held her heart- her love.

And then she looked back at the man who had asked the question.

“Yes.”

Sugar Babies Not Sugar Vaginas by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids) (Peter/Stiles)

Stiles is a copywriter working for a service that's been contacted by a company that sells something called Passion Dust. It's so much worse than it sounds.

Free Birth Control by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids) (Peter/Stiles)

“I can’t believe they haven’t fixed the footbridge yet,” Peter said, disgruntled as she toweled off her feet, getting all the muck from the creek off of them.

“I can,” Talia said absently as she shelled peas on the front porch. “The only people who use that bridge are you, Stilinski, and Stilinski’s clients. And Stilinski does her best to avoid clients. Did you hear what she did to the woman who took out the bridge?” Talia settled further back into her chair. Peter immediately recognized it as Gossip Position, and leaned in eagerly.

“No, tell me everything.”

Ain't No Stranger (Been This Way Before) by pibroch (littleblackdog) (Peter/Stiles)

Stiles loved orgasms, and she really loved the shuddery, mind-numbing orgasms Peter had spent months meticulously and enthusiastically learning to coax out of her. She also loved the relief from cramps she’d get from a good climax or four, and Peter had no complaints about blood. Definitely a win-win, all around. - Stiles has a period from hell, and Peter has a surprise.

On The Loose by SmartKIN (Peter/Stiles)

Stiles has a job to do; Hot Lady Sniper almost ruins it for her.

The Same Damn Hunger by Twisted_Mind (Allison/Stiles)

There’s no soft jazz, no flower petals or candles, because that’s not what this is.

-0-

MARVEL

Mightier Than The Sword by aloneintherain (Johnny/Peter)

Janey Storm freezes in the doorway.

Pen is half naked. Her boney, freckled shoulders and the faded sports bra she’s had since high school are on display. Bruises from this morning’s encounter with the Scorpion haven’t had time to heal yet—purples and sickly greens tesselate over her ribs and toned stomach.

Janey can see every unedited part of Pen: her open knuckles, blood a sharp red against her pale skin; her unbrushed hair, grown out past Pen’s jaw like a tangle of weeds; her loose jeans, slung low on her hips, with fraying ends and ripped knees. Janey stands there and sees Pen Parker, a half naked, wide-eyed girl choking on her heart.

“It’s occupied,” Pen manages.

Or: a universe where Johnny and Peter were born girls.

-0-

YOWAMUSHI PEDAL

One For The Road by Atropa Belladonna (WorldsJunk) (Onoda/Arakita)

Fuck her entire life on a cactus she’s a fucking loser. Not because Onoda’s boobs are bigger than her’s - ok, they’ve always been. Actually, everyone has bigger tits than she does, she is flat as hell and she likes it. Why the hell would she want a couple of Shinkai-style jugs waving around in the wind when she’s riding for fucks’s sakes, that’s impractical as all fuck. No, Arakita is a loser because now she can’t stop thinking about Onoda-chan’s tits and no way she is perving like this on an innocent girl that is all around too good for the likes of her.

#Naruto #Teen Wolf #Marvel #Yowamushi Pedal #Harry Potter #Game of Thrones #Naruto Fanfic Rec #Teen Wolf Fanfic Rec #Misc Fanfic Rec #Harry Potter Fanfic Rec #Marvel and DC Fanfic Rec #Femslash

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brvtclism · 5 years ago

Text

⌜ CHELLA MAN , TRANS NON BINARY , HE / THEY | spoonful by grizfolk , choleric , the hacker ⌟ ⏤ blink and you’ll miss ELIJAH ‘ELI’ XAVIER - LEHNSHERR , the TWENTY year old child of CHARLES XAVIER & ERIK LEHNSHERR ( adopted ) !! they’re a UNDERGRAD student at paragon , and i’ve always found them to be pretty RESPONSIBLE & INTELLIGENT , though i’ve heard that they can also be really INFLEXIBLE & FINICKY. i don’t think getting their way is a smart thing to do - everyone knows that their power is TECHNOLOGY MANIPULATION.

hey hey hey it’s a wonderful day come and sing along with the weenies. i am weenie el , a heeping pile of melting flesh trash like in stranger things & this is my child , eli. i’m from the uk , bi as heck & a major dumbass aries. but , enough about me , here is elijah. my discord is elisademonfurby#4906. & if you wanna plot , SMASH that like button , SHOOT that message , SPRINKLE that salt. HERE WE GO.

TW ╳ abuse , abandonment

BASIC

full name: elijah daniel xavier - lehnsherr.

nicknames: eli.

age: twenty

birthday: 24

zodiac: virgo

birthplace: tampa , florida.

ethnicity: jewish / chinese.

gender identity: trans non binary.

pronouns: he / him / they / them.

sexuality: bisexual.

HISTORY

elijah was born on the last hour of september the 22nd , the first day of fall to a mutant mother & human father , lydia cohen ford & elias gao. lydia hid her powers from almost everyone around her , aside from her husband.

knowing the predicament the child would be in , though , they left eli on the stairs of nunnery , hoping they could protect them from the outside world. it was run by a small group of nuns who took children in to protect them. there were about twenty other children there , only one of whom eli befriended , also a mutant , who’s parents at died in an anti - mutant protest. they were both targeted with anti - mutant hatred throughout their time there , by other children & the nuns too.

it was at the age of five that eli was diagnosed with progressive hearing loss , something that caused him to be targeted even more. he was became profoundly deaf at fourteen , using cochlear implants ever since.

their powers began manifesting when they were five , something the nuns took note of. it started with malfunctioning computers & appliances when frustrated to being able to communicate with them. it eventually all blew up when he inadvertently caused a blender to attack one of the other children during a fight.

xavier’s institute quickly caught wind of this & came to assess the situation , bringing him back to the school. he didn’t talk much the first few months. he didn’t feel comfortable , in many ways. they were terrified of other people there , assuming the worst. but , with the help of the professors , he really began to come out of his shell & eventually adopted by charles & erik.

he officially came out as trans at the age of fifteen , and started transitioning two years later , before realising he was also non binary. they’ve always been too scared to speak about their dysphoria , even more so at the nunnery. & coming to xavier’s , he was grateful to have found such loving and supportive people.

he became curious about his birth family in his early tweens , but was afraid to tell his friends & family he was looking into it , with only one person knowing. he tried went to the nunnery first , bringing a friend along. it was a dead end. he even tried his powers , but they were nowhere as advanced as they are now. finally , he came to charles about it , hoping he could help. & just when he thought there was a sliver of hope , their father informed them that his parents were both deceased , killed in a purifier attack.

it was only recently that he found out that this was a lie , when his birth mother tried to get hold of him in recently. he hasn’t told anyone yet , not even his adoptive family. & he hasn’t responded to her either , angry about why she’d hide for so long from him.

PERSONALITY

he gets easily frustrated with the people around him. they’re super judgemental , like if a friend is doing something stupid , he won’t be afraid to voice that shit. doesn’t believe in astrology , which he labels as bullshit , despite acknowledging the existence of magic. he gets really bad anxiety , but he does his best to hide it. he’s generally quiet open about his feeling , but when it comes to anxiety , he views it as a weakness. super fussy. everything has to be a very specific way for him. it’s impossible to go out eating with eli.

hogwarts: ravenclaw

temperment: choleric

myers briggs: intj

EXTRA

he keeps a photo of his birth parents on him at all times.

he’ll have full on conversations with his laptop in his head sometimes.

he doesn’t like furry pets. he loves animals , but can’t stand actually owning any furry one.

fluent in sign language.

a guilty pleasure of theirs is techno music

an awful pinterest board for him here.

#sidekick.intro #╭ about. | elijah xavier - lehnsherr.

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sierrahq · 3 years ago

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Hey, I am very interested in applying, could you tell me something more about the Brains and the Local? I am having difficulty. Choosing between them? And do you have some fc ideas for the local?

hello hello ! im so excited to hear you're interested in applying , i can't wait to see who and what you bring us !

i envision a fc for the local as somebody who has a very distinct smile and slightly ' rough-around-the-edges ' vibe yet wholesome appeal to them . therefore , some ideas could be : steven yeun , stephan james , freddy miayres , carla zumbado , emilio sakraya , nam joo hyuk , miranda tapsell , jordan fisher , levy tran , lindsey morgan , julio macias , ivory acquino , ashley argota , michael b jordan , avan jogia , samantha logan !

for the local , i imagine them to genuinely be one of the happier characters , especially in comparison to the other 15 . there's an irony in knowing that they all escaped the island as soon as they could , but the local remained - and because of it . . they've probably been able to move on the most and work through their issues . they're a very pragmatic person , with a smile that doesn't come very often - but when it does , it's enough to make most people stop and turn to them in awe . they are a personable person , with a personality that is just the perfect middle . an ambivert , some might say . the local always knew they weren't going to leave sierra island , and couldn't . i imagine they came from a slightly poorer background , but what they didn't have in money - they got back in love . for a while , after the bonfire , the local had a lot of pent up anger and frustration , and a feeling of abandonment . they swore they hated the other 15 , and despised them for leaving them behind to deal with everything by yourself . the local held onto that anger for a few years , letting it brew , and letting it effect their behaviour towards others . however , unlike the other 15 - the local was able to work through it in a slightly healthy manner . they recognised they weren't doing well on their own , and needed some help . they talked through their inner turmoil with a professional and were able to move on and build an actual life for themselves in sierra - which most of the other 15 will truly be shocked to learn of . i have no doubt that the local still holds some pent up anger , deep deep down , for the other 15 but they keep it at bay . but life for them ? it might actually genuinely be good . and a part of them can't wait to show off what they've created for themselves on sierra island . i imagine they work in quite a laborious job ( on a fishing ship , or as a bar owner ) , but they are very very content with this .

as for the brains , i see them as a definite ' final girl / boy ' kind of trope , with a bit of a ' i have to do this by myself / i can only trust myself ' vibe to them . lets be honest - that night of the bonfire was probably their time to shine . they maybe took the backseat / backburner a lot before then , but then surprised everyone by taking charge of the situation and laying out the exact groundwork for what would happen . since then , they've never stopped moving and developing ideas and strategies which has significantly boosted their working career . they are a very quick-on-their-feet thinker , and some people might alike them to a shark now . the worst part though is that the brains doesn't really have a sense of loyalty . they didn't grow up with a lot of people around them , and were always quite a lone wolf . their defence mechanisms tell them that because they have so much to hide , they cannot afford anybody to come remotely close to them . the brains is an absolute workaholic , and probably an extremely studious person , too . because of this , they don't have many social skills and can come across as slightly blunt / uncaring / direct at times . truly , the brains does care . . . just very much in their own way . because of this , people appreciate their brains' work ethic , but they're not always winning prizes on likability . their relationship with the other 15 can usually feel like a bit of a power imbalance . the brains is the one that told them to never speak of That Night again , after all , so they realise that the other 15 may think they're always being closely watched and monitored by them , when this isn't always the case . they just want to ensure everybody gets out on the other side , and isn't caught - and therefore , happiness isn't part of the equation to them . the brains is very much the person that always has their walls up , and is always thinking ten steps ahead of everyone else . they do not like distractions , and they do not like surprises .

#brains faq #local faq #skeleton rp #horror rp #mystery rp

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silvaskye · 4 years ago

Text

Ok, update on the assessment.

I went today. I went at 9AM-ish and I’ve just not got back to my bedroom at 8:20PM. I’ll describe this based off if how I felt at the time, so I’m sorry if this is confusing to read.

I went to the building and they called us into the room. I was terrified. The first thing they said was that they’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not autistic. They then rephrased their statement and said “we went by the book. You show many signs now and in childhood, but you don’t meet our criteria.” My dad questioned what “the book” was, my mum started crying, and I started to question if the last three years of my life had been a lie. “The book” was the diagnosis criteria, and that basically meant that because I seem neurotypical enough, there’s nothing wrong. They’re referring me to someone else, who’s an actual psychologist. The two people who were assigned to my case were a speech and language therapist and an occupational therapist. I was panicking, because as far as I knew, we’d been wrong about everything, and the last three years of my life had been a complete lie. I brought up meltdowns, sensory issues, how I’m not consistently verbal, and several other things and they just said “well we haven’t seen it”. The person they’re referring me to then basically said that their decision isn’t actually final, and I could be autistic, and she’s actually going to help. She was taking notes in the meeting, nodding and acknowledging when we were speaking. The other two had almost reminded me of how the girls in school talked to me, which my dad described as “condescending”.

Anyways, we came home and read the reports they gave off. This is where we realised something was entirely wrong.

The first paragraph, they got a crucial detail of my trauma wrong. When I talk about how my grandad died, I always specify that he was in bed. They said he was in a chair. I brushed it off, everyone makes mistakes. They then went on to say that I didn’t have sensory issues, fake my tics, was a hypochondriac, and that I thought I had DID. All of this is wrong. The sessions were in a quiet room, and they weren’t looking for anything. I can surpress my tics, and do so unconsciously. I mentioned DID when they asked about my special interests and I said that mental health is a SpIn, then mentioned I knew a little about DID. They mixed up lucid dreaming and daydreaming, said Mara was influenced by anime characters (and I only watch one anime?). Keep in mind they talked to me about specific topics for about 5 minutes only before trying to catch me out on faking being trans. Speaking of that, they continuously said I was bisexual. I haven’t used the label since I first came out many months before I started seeing them. They referred to gyneromantic as a gender label. They continuously deadnamed me. They completely brushed over my major trauma and said I was “overreacting to a situation that others found minimal” and “couldn’t see from others perspectives”. They also said I couldn’t be autistic because I can make jokes, answer questions, refuse, and generally hold a conversation. They made it out like I was obsessed with gender dysphoria. They made it all out like I was just lying to them. They missed out so much, contradicted themselves constantly, and completely ignored things I vividly remember telling them. Like, they really fucked everything up. They said I didn’t stim or do repetitive movements, then said I was stimming and doing repetitive movements when they did something that stressed me out. They said so much that could have just put into one sentence, but then that sentence would be against what they wanted. They managaed to describe how I infodump in about five sentences one after the other, then mentioned several symptoms through the report, then just went “nope looks fine to me”. They also said that I’ve never referred to myself as gay, despite the fact that I have on many occasions. They don’t know what masking is. They got everything wrong in so many ways, they just didn’t listen at all.

My parents and I just went through it all and corrected so much. We made more notes in 30 minutes than those people did in one session.

The new doctor, when asked about her service, basically said that their word isn’t final. The two then backtracked and said that it was only in their opinion that I’m not autistic.

But seriously, these two literally think that autistic people are all emotionless and loveless robots and I’ve never been more pissed at someone. In the few hours that my parents were sat with me making notes about their bullshit report, we could point out several symptoms.

And also, my dad said his friend in work, who is autistic and has expressed that she can see herself in me, went through this exact thing. They even tried to make it out that she was dysphoric when she wasn’t at all.

I’ve honestly never heard stories of such incompetent “professionals”.

Anyways, from today, my parents and I will be listing several symptoms and a bunch of questions. I have a session with the new doctor in three weeks, so I’ll talk more about this then. Just know that I’m pissed but also happy because they got so much shit wrong that we can’t even trust their final judgement. Like, seriously, who misses out the major trauma and calls it an overreaction when it’s literally the cause of several problems.

They just so much shit wrong. I’m so sorry to anyone who’s also going through this- oops! Can’t say that! According to them, autistic people can’t have empathy (/j)!

#the diagnosis process #autism #autism diagnosis

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gettin-bi-bi-bi · 7 years ago

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(2 q's, pt 1) Hi, I have a couple of q's: 1) I know that saying male/female is seen as transphobic, but I like using them b/c there's no age implied. I'm in an age range where I don't know whether to refer to my peers as boys/girls or men/women, and I can't help worrying that "young lady/young man" will be seen as condescending. Should I still avoid male/female? 2) I've been questioning for a while now. Most things I've read say "you're bi if you FEEL bi" etc., and while this can be reassuring,

(2 q's, pt. 2) while this can be reassuring, I prefer to make decisions based on data points, not in terms of how I feel. I hate and kind of fear the idea/possibility of being wrong in my conclusion, so I want to make sure I "get it right". And while I would never ask another bi person how many crushes or "experiences" they've had with various genders to "test their bi-ness", and I know I don't necessarily (?) need experiences of my own, I am a bit bothered by the fact that I can't

(2 q's, pt. 3) that I can't point to a trend of "yes, here are the crushes I've had on girls" to confirm the idea to myself. I can only really say (mostly) for sure that I've had an "almost-crush" on a girl recently, and I didn't really "allow" that to become a full crush b/c she was straight. Should I just "buckle down" and identify as bi? Is my attitude horribly bi-phobic? Do my q's make me sound like a terrible person? (Ok, more than 2 q's. My apologies, and thank you for your time)

Hey, I’ll try to get through your message bit by bit...

“male” and “female” as adjectives are only partially problematic. It really comes down to context. Of course you can say things like “my male friend” if your friend identifies as a man. But yes, transphobes and te/rfs will use these words against trans people, so you should be aware of the context in which you use it. For example don’t say “male genitalia” when you mean “penis”. A trans woman can have a penis and then it’s “female genitalia”!!! A vagina can be “male genitalia” if it belongs to a trans man. And non-binary people have genitals as well which are neither “male” nor “female” because the people they belong to aren’t..... I guess you see where I’m going at here.It also gets kinda even more problematic (and it is my biggest pet peeve) when people nominalize the adjectives to “males” and “females”. This is not just te/rf-speak but also makes it sound like you are talking about animals. Humans are men or women or non-binary people - not “males” and “females”. That just sounds dehumanizing and like you are dividing us based on the shape of our genitals - at least in English it does (and in German), maybe not in every language. I don’t know.There really isn’t a clear line or a certain age when everyone should be called “man” and “woman” versus “boy” and “girl”. There are people in their 20s, 30s or even older, referring to their friends as “girls” and “boys”. It’s okay. Try not to make too big a deal out of it because it doesn’t really matter much. It’s part of growing up to be unsure of these things but it’s not a problem if you say “I’m going out with the girls tonight” and they’re all in their 20s already. Just... language is weird, my friend. Just say what you want but... yeah... be aware of the way “males” and “females” as nouns sound like. If someone talked about me as “eine Weibliche” (= “a female”) I’d probably kick their misogynist ass. You could also say “my friend” or “a person” when you tell a story about someone of unspecified age (also has the great advantage of being gender neutral on top of that). It’s really... not that difficult to avoid saying “males” and “females”.

And I fear I will not be able to give you any data points to figure out whether or not you are bisexual. We always quote or paraphrase Robyn Ochs when people ask for the definition of bisexuality, which is acknowledging your potential to be sexually and/or romantically attracted to more than one gender. It is intentional that she added “acknowleding your potential” in there because you do. not. need. to prove it. You don’t have to have a certain amount of crushes on various genders. You do not have to have sex with people of different genders. Even if you just as much as theortically think you could fall for people of more than one gender - that’s enough. That is acknowledging your potential to be bisexual!

I understand the need to “know for sure” but... you gotta accept that you may never know for sure. It’s okay to identify as something and change it later if you realise it’s not right. It doesn’t necessarily mean you were wrong before - you may just have changed or learned more about yourself. But even being wrong is not the end of the world. That’s normal. That’s human. You grow, you change, your preferances can shift and your sexuality can be fluid. Maybe, if you just accept the bi label for now - without any kind of ‘proof’ that it’s ‘right’ - you will see if it feels good or not. This can be your way of collecting data, if you wanna call it like that. Look at it as an experiment: you identify as bisexual for a certain amount of time and then when the time is over you evaluate whether or not it felt good and right to identify as bi. If it did - continue for another time period. If it didn’t - go over to the next label and evaluate that after a certain time.

And your attitude isn’t “horribly biphobic” in the sense that it makes you a bad person who harms the bi community and doesn’t deserve anything good. You’re struggling and that’s, again, human. It’s good that you are asking for help!But it does sound big time like internalised biphobia - and you are the person that suffers most from that. Here’s a list of things I recommend you try to get rid of it. It might take a long while but it’s worth it and you will find your peace one day - be it in the bi label or something else.

Maddie

#Anonymous

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feather-dancer · 4 years ago

Text

Now Ghosts he left behind Chapter 3 has been out nearly a couple of weeks suppose now is an acceptable amount of time to go on about ~*themes*~ that have been cropping up in the fic so far that aren’t at all plot relevant but are still important things I want to do justice to: LGBT+ rep and mental health particularly centred around anxiety. Understandably the following will contain spoilers I can’t avoid it, sorry!

~~~

Mental health

It probably doesn’t come as too big a surprise on the latter front, after all in the second chapter of the Strickler fic I tagged for unhealthy coping mechanisms which are loosely based on my own which also happened to have a reference at the end of the second chapter in Ghost!AU showing how far he’d come since then. Now I’ve read some excellent fics on the PTSD front, a few on dysphoria regarding the change from human to half troll but in regards to anxiety many seem to fall into the trap of thinking somebody is a bit more skittish or that it just gives you a more nervous nature. As somebody who has generalised anxiety myself, I really wish it was that simple.

In this fic’s case the anxiety is being heavily tangled in the dysphoria of the change where he’s left alone to process everything while being hit with reminders of what he no longer is thus putting more fuel on the pyre as a result. In a stressful situation (Sometimes not even then!) it can get stuck in a loop of self-created belief such as here Merlin kept him away deliberately though we know this isn’t the case and will warp reality/memories to fit like how he misremembers that Merlin also said his visions are imperfect if there’s nothing to snap you out of it then those spirals often lead to panic attacks or worse a full breakdown. Here his brain is trying to make sense of the impossible, jumping to the most logical conclusion it can come up with and through bad luck has this very wrong thought process that he’s a threat to everyone else. Having been on one or two of these they really do suck! Quite often dissociation goes hand in hand whether you’re aware of it happening or not and thus far he’s had a couple bouts that he’s dubbing blackouts currently. There is also the classic ‘background’ noise variant where for no real reason your fight / flight reflex is jammed on when it feels like it though Jim as shown by the CBD techniques at the start of chapter 3 is doing his best to keep a handle on those spiking too far and Claire mentions he taught her a few to help out to show that his friends know and he is able to talk about it without feeling the need to hide in plain sight every waking moment. If you’re forced to stealth you get frighteningly good about hiding full blown panic attacks and it’s not a healthy situation to be in.

On Toby’s end he mentions a specific situation where anxiety was likely involved before Jim was diagnosed. In it when confronted with a situation option a was bad, option b was worse and there was no good outcomes because his brain got stuck on those. He also mentions being moral support helping get Jim into a position that he would be able to go home but refused to leave him alone until he was sure he was okay. It’s worth pointing out he figured the reason everything kicked off was the ‘problem’ of coming out to Barbara and her not reacting well (Which was an understandable conclusion!) and only later realised anxiety was what made the entire thing even worse and he unintentionally did the right thing to help. Barbara also mentions Jim being on medication for it, the original ones to mysteriously stop working which are implied to be while Toby was pretending to be Jim then moved onto another treatment which was brought up via Strickler’s concern about going cold turkey. As much as anxiety freaking sucks I felt it was important to show that nothing in relation to it is treated as abnormal, it is simply life with having your brain being a bit on the funky side and that sometimes makes you think illogically. It’s not your fault when it happens.

~~~

LGBT+

When I began writing this fic one thing I wanted from the get go is that characters who are LGBT+ are not forced into a scenario created by the plot to out them to the reader/someone else nor signposted in a cheap way to score points because even when you’re with friends who know you’re not saying it every two seconds and even more so when in a stressful circumstance where your son/best friend is currently missing. With this thought in mind, Jim has always been written as Trans but prior to Chapter 3 I simply had no way to bring it up because right now he’s too busy freaking out about being a half troll to notice if anything is different and on this same coin, Claire is Bi while Toby is Pan with a bonus order of trying to figure himself out. There’s others too! Sadly much like confirming Jim is also Bi I’ve not had a way to naturally bring it up as yet if I will at all but they are being written with it in mind.

Jim was a trickier one to bring up because he’s not about to vouch for himself so it was a much easier route to instead hint drop and hope one if not all of them clicked with a reader who he is without any of them being done in a way that could come across as dickish. Barbara got the first two with mentioning Jim should know better about using a given name in regards to Not!Enrique and a second one in regards to another form of medication he’s taking but because she didn’t know if Strickler knew (Incidentally he does) thus she deliberately phrased it vaguely and was ready for the possibility of upset without outing her son because she’s a good parent!! Toby is who gets the rest through a roundabout way mentioning how bad his pre-medicated anxiety could be when he came out as mentioned in the previous section and a second time where he says he didn’t care what he looked like because Jim is always Jim to him. The final important note was how he specifically said that he would not second party exactly what happened because it’s Jim’s choice if he tells her or not. We love and support good friends in this house.

Then there was the inclusion of the river troll Trisantona who is marked as non-binary by calling themselves the child of and the kids think absolutely nothing of it and are more annoyed with their attitude than anything else. Personally I see many trolls and changelings particularly very eh about gender and wanted a little implication they are far from the first troll they’ve encountered who doesn’t fit a human binary so it doesn’t even register as unusual.

In Claire’s case she had two hints, the first bring a straight joke because it might be low hanging fruit but it’s hilarious I can’t help it while the second was her commentary on Toby’s reactions to name drops because she couldn’t resist teasing him. Small but both very deliberate.

Toby in the meanwhile has been having hint drops since chapter 2 which has only continued in how he keeps comparing reactions Claire is causing to what Jim does to him then you get him openly telling Claire about how it feels like his heart is a bunch of apartments and can the world stop having so many good-looking people in it. That ties in with the two mentions of doing research for a word he hasn’t quite got yet but he’s mostly been sidetracked by everything going on right now.

Homophobia, biphobia and particularly transphobia is rife and only increasing in this country where it feels like every week it’s only getting worse. While in the grand scheme of things it’s probably inconsequential it is important to be the change you want to see in the world. Mine? Even in this mess of an angst fic I want to showcase LGBT+ peeps who are treated as they should be with love and support by friends, family and strangers alike. Being Trans, Bi or whichever label that particular character uses it is simply part of who they are and not a character trait slapped on afterwards for easy points plus if I see one more fic where a Trans character gets outted to others without their consent because the author figured that’s the only way you can do it I’ll go feral.

In a completely unrelated note Douxie is non-binary Panromatic Ace in everything I write and anybody who doesn’t like that can suck it.

#writing #Ghost!AU

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gendercensus · 7 years ago

Text

NB/GQ Survey 2017 - the UK results

This report is very long! Click here for the TL;DR. Click here for a printable Google Doc.

Well, it’s been a wild year. Three times as many participants as usual, combined with new survey software and new spreadsheet software and health and financial difficulties, has caused some epic delay, plus a few more months of delay for the UK report - but we made it.

The survey ran from 6th February until 1st May 2017 (84 days), with 9,932 participants, of which 1,357 were in the UK. It was promoted on social networks, wherever participants were willing to share. People were invited to take part if they were not fully included in the binary of "anyone whose gender is always entirely and solely male, and anyone whose gender is always entirely and solely female.” It asked:

Which words from a list (plus a textbox) participants identified with [optional, checkboxes];

Which title from a list (plus a textbox) participants most wanted to use [optional, single answer only];

Which pronouns from a list (plus a textbox) participants were happy with [optional, checkboxes];

Whether the participant is in the UK [required];

Age [required];

How you found out about this survey [optional, checkboxes];

The spelling of nonbinary/non-binary/non binary [optional, checkboxes].

A couple more questions were asked, the results of which I’ll not review in this report - I’ll go into more detail later.

[ LINK TO EXCEL SPREADSHEET OF RESULTS HERE ]

Question 1: Which of the following best describe(s) in English how you think of yourself?

The top five responses were:

nonbinary - 64.5% (down 2.9%)

genderqueer - 33.7% (down 6.5%)

trans - 32.2% (down 3.9%)

agender - 27.6% (up 0.2%)

fluid gender/genderfluid - 27.3% 29.8 (down 2.5%)

Here’s the graph of identity words that got over 1%:

One identity word that wasn’t offered as a checkbox option made it over 1% this year both in the UK and worldwide, and will therefore be offered as a checkbox option next year: genderflux. That’s when one’s gender fluctuates in intensity without necessarily changing. (Not to be confused with genderfluid, when one’s gender changes.)

I will also be adding “binary” to the list next year - because I list cisgender alongside transgender, so it follows that I should list binary alongside nonbinary.

Some numbers I enjoyed:

23 identity words were offered in the survey.

23 identity words were typed into the “other” box more than once, and 60 identity words were typed into the “other” box only once.

That’s 106 identity words total.

People chose on average 3.7 identity words each - around the same as last year.

The most common number of identity words chosen was one - 21% of participants chose one identity label, around the same as last year.

93% of people chose between 1 and 7 identity labels - a little higher than last year.

The worldwide report looks into the shifting popularity of the top ten words for both identity and pronouns, if you’re into that sort of thing.

A note on bias

It’s been bugging me for a couple of years that the survey is probably biased. I’ve been calling it variously the “nonbinary survey”, the “nonbinary/genderqueer survey”, etc. just because those terms are the most popular and I wanted to attract as many participants as possible. Unfortunately, this means that folks who identify as these things are more likely to opt in and take the survey, and people who don’t identify as these things are less likely to realise it’s aimed at them.

I wanted to try to change things this year, but the best I could manage was changing the title to NBGQ. I couldn’t think of a title that wasn’t long and rambling, like “the survey for people whose genders are not tidily described by the binary of ‘always entirely and wholly male’ and etc etc etc.” I suspect that the small change I made didn’t make much difference, so I will keep trying to find a better name.

Question 2: In a magical world where all title fields on forms were optional and write-your-own, what would you want yours to be in English?

This question allowed only one answer, though people very occasionally sneakily used the text box to tell me about either-or situations - and those titles were counted too.

The top 5 were:

Mx - 37.6% (down 3.7%)

No title at all - 27.2% (down 6.4%)

Non-gendered professional or academic (eg: Dr) - 12.5% (up 3.6%)

Mr - 5.8% (up 2.9%)

Miss - 4.2% (up 1.8%)

(M was not offered as a checkbox option in the survey, but I’ve included it in this graph because it got more than “gendered professional or academic title”, which was offered in the survey.)

Mx and “no title” have swapped places each year since they were both included in the survey, so the fact that they’ve done so this year is not very notable.

This year I was able to include a text box to allow people who selected “a standard title that indicates my nonbinary/genderqueer identity” to write in what they use to do so. Of the 25 people who chose that option, 60% left that box blank. Each suggested title was entered only once.

A change I would like to make next year is to specify that participants should be currently entitled to use the title they choose. A lot of people choose “non-gendered professional or academic title” and then say “I’m going to get a doctorate so that I can use Dr”. There’s also often a smattering of people who enter military titles and nobility titles. People might be writing these in thanks to the “in an ideal world” tone of the question! So I would like to make the question more clear and specific to reduce that confusion.

Question 3: Supposing all pronouns were accepted by everyone without question and were easy to learn, which pronouns are you happy for people to use for you?

The top 5 are the same as last year:

Singular they/them - 78.4% (down 0.4%)

He/him - 29.8% (up 7.8%)

She/her - 27.9% (up 3.9%)

Mix it up - 11.9% (down 0.8%)

None/avoid pronouns - 10.3% (up 0.4%)

9% of people didn’t select any of he, she or they - exactly the same as the international results.

More numbers:

9 specific pronouns were offered in the survey, along with 4 descriptions (for example, “none/avoid pronouns”).

13 pronouns were typed into the “other” box more than once.

44 pronouns were typed into the “other” box only once.

That’s 71 pronouns total.

People chose on average 2 acceptable pronouns each, the same as last year.

Most people (44%) chose only one pronoun.

About 72% of people were happy with only one or two pronouns.

The main change for this question is that last year I tried to combine the numbers for pronouns that were clearly intended to all be the same set, but with almost 10,000 participants that was just not possible. This year, the following hypothetical examples would have each been counted individually:

xe/xem

xe xem xirs

xe/xem/xirself

...etc. There were 28 totally unique write-in entries worldwide for pronoun sets beginning with “ne”, and 26 for “ze” - many of them entered more than once.

Next year I am determined to collect information on each of the five forms of neopronouns, even if that means a participant has to fill out a five question section for each neopronoun they’ve claimed for themself. Ideally I would like to somehow create a form that will do this elegantly, but I know already that I can do it clumsily using Google Forms, so we’ll see. It’s important to me to count the more popular neopronouns accurately.

Notably, the “co” pronoun set was a checkbox option that got under 1% this year, and so it won’t be included as a checkbox option next year.

The worldwide report looks into the shifting popularity of the top ten words for both identity and pronouns, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The extra questions

There is more detailed investigation of the statistics regarding age and referring sites over in the worldwide report. For this report I’ll just show how the UK compared to the worldwide statistics:

UK people were more likely to find the survey via Facebook or Twitter and less likely to find it via Tumblr. Participants from the UK were also less likely to be teens and more likely to be over 30.

Again, I’ve given an overview of the results of the questions about the spelling of “nonbinary” and umbrella terms over on the worldwide report. I don’t feel that extracting the UK-only results would be very helpful; instead I’ll work on removing bias as much as possible in future surveys.

The questions I ask

What should the third gender option on forms be called? - Still no consensus in that area. I won’t feel comfortable recommending the most popular (nonbinary) until I’ve done more work to remove bias in future surveys.

Is there a standard neutral title yet? - Not yet. Mx is looking very promising, and is consistently far more popular than all other titles, but just as many nonbinary people want no title at all. It’s really important that activists campaigning for greater acceptance of gender diversity remember to fight for titles to be optional, too.

Is there a pronoun that every nonbinary person is happy with? - As in previous years, no. The closest we have to a standard is singular they, and so I will use the data to campaign for journalists and anyone else with a style guide to allow it. But around 1 in 5 (20%) of us are not happy with singular they, and 9% of us don’t like he, she or they pronouns.

Are any of the neopronouns gaining ground in a way that competes with singular they? - No. This year the closest is “Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself” (9% in the UK compared to singular they’s 78%). Users of these neopronouns will probably not reach consensus for many years - language and especially pronouns can be very slow to settle and gain ground. Even if one neopronoun does become very commonly used, many will continue to use other neopronouns for a long time to come.

This year in review

There have been a lot of big changes.

We tripled participation! We went from consistently ~2,000-3,000 participants worldwide to TEN THOUSAND. This still boggles me. I feel a little bit overwhelmed that you all trust me with personal information about yourself, and I am excited and honoured every year to play with all the delicious data. From a happily hyperfocused human to 9,932 participants, thank you. <3

The survey now has its own social media presence! Which means people can follow me without having to put up with wittering about the survey, and people can follow the survey without having to put up with me wittering about... well, everything else. It probably helped the survey look more legit, which may in turn explain the increase in participation.

I crowdfunded to cover costs! Originally this was just going to be the survey service, but then it ended up covering MS Excel as well. This process was fraught with hiccups and bad decisions, which is probably not surprising since I’ve never done this before. We reached the £330 target in only a few days, which was wonderful, and it helped a lot.

I used a paid survey software service! Specifically, SmartSurvey. I would recommend it. They had a pay-monthly tier, which allowed me to subscribe to that with the crowdfund money and buy MS Excel in an emergency fashion to process the results when Google Sheets couldn’t handle 9,000+ responses, the wuss. SmartSurvey processed checkbox answers more helpfully, allowing me to process write-ins more easily, among many other lovely features. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a big improvement.

I used MS Excel to process the results for the first time! This was not as much fun as Google Sheets. I had to learn a whole bunch of new techniques to count everything, and some of them didn’t even have Excel equivalents at all. It is also hella buggy and crashy on Mac. Overall, it’s pretty much been a nightmare.

The results are therefore available as a MS Excel file instead of a Google Sheet this year. I am sad about this, because it’s less accessible in a lot of ways. Not everyone has access to Excel! Folks are of course welcome to download the files and mess about with the data however they want.

In a more general sense, academics have approached me with questions about the results, even occasionally asking me for advice or telling me that they will be mentioning the survey in their [academic writings]. One person even sent me a French academic paper they’d found that referenced the 2016 survey, which was fun! I do think that anyone with relevant knowledge can probably see that my work is amateur and flawed, but nonetheless I still think it can be useful - and my experience this year is that it has been useful.

Also in a more general sense, companies and organisations are clearly using the results of the survey to become nonbinary-inclusive. For example, HSBC introduced 10 new titles for nonbinary people this year and a fair few of them are popular among participants of the 2016 survey. Similarly, Bristol Water “did some research and found that [Mx, Ind and Misc] were the most popular” - they don’t refer to the survey directly but those three titles were the three most popular in the 2016 survey. I feel that the results of this survey are making it easier for companies who want to be inclusive to make changes, because let’s be honest, if it’s a choice between ignoring nonbinary people and doing expensive specialist research they’re going to ignore nonbinary people...

What I’ll do differently next year

I will probably change the name of the survey and the associated social media URLs. This will be very disruptive, but I think it will improve the reliability of future survey results by reducing bias.

I will continue to look for better survey and statistics software. Specifically, I want to ask about neopronouns in a better way, and I want software that can handle 10,000+ responses.

Closing thoughts

You are all awesome. I love that you are all willing to trust me with this stuff, and I feel very lucky to be able to do this whole thing because I find it really fun and interesting. I learn so much every time. Thanks for another great survey experience!