#mercy/ic.

[womanlives]

wild that @tewwor would shove this in my face and not expect me to do anything about it

Mercy is happy. It’s new and annoying and weird and unexpected and she doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s got her doing weird shit like smiling at nothing and googling where flower stores are. Just in case. Today it’s got her with a spring in her step and two buckets of chicken, headed for Jie’s hideout near the southwest of town. He hasn’t answered her texts, but that’s okay. He never does. There’s no reason to worry. Not over someone who can pin her to a wall seven times out of ten.

Then she gets to his door — ajar — and sees the red seeping through the floor.

This is the trouble with being happy.

Mercy is no longer happy. Mercy is now a cat, inclined to use soft paws and slice throats. She is also fiercely — fiercely, savagely, tenderly, relentlessly — territorial. But unlike a cat, she doesn’t get that way about places. She gets that way about people.

Fuck it. Fuck training, fuck survival-sense, fuck stealth. She drops the chicken she’s picked up for Jie, pulls out her knife, and shoves the door open with her shoulder. It takes a try or two; there’s a body pressed up against the inside of it, where some poor fuck with a knife in their back tried to crawl to safety, but instead bled out and died. Good riddance. Not Jie. Not important.

The blood trail leads to the kitchen. Mercy follows it, eyes cold, face blank. The metal press of her knife in her palm is a small comfort. Her grip tightens. She whirls into the kitchen, sees carnage. Sees Jie.

Alive. He’s alive. Standing by himself — barely. He wheels towards her with a look of empty fury on his face, and she feels it: the brief furrow in his brow, the split-second where his heartbeat stutters in confusion. Hers, too. In relief and terror and adrenaline and god knows what else. It’s too much, too fast. She loses control of her mask. The cold indifference drops to the floor and shatters like the jars surrounding him. In its place are wild-worried eyes, and a scrunched freckled nose, and lips parted in a silent prayer. Alive. Alive, alive, alive alive

Mercy’s knife drops from nerveless fingers. This is the cardinal sin. Never drop your weapon. In another life she would’ve gotten flayed alive for that, but in this one she doesn’t care. She can’t get to him fast enough, can’t open her arms for him fast enough. One ropes around his waist, supporting him. The other winds up his back, cupping the nape of his neck. “Hey,” savagely soft, savagely hoarse, just on the verge of cracking because there’s too much emotion and it’s struggling to hold, “hey. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Her grip on him tightens, just a little. A comforting squeeze. Slowly, carefully, Mercy steps back, guiding him with her. She cuts a path through the shattered glass and broken bodies, through the kitchen, into the living room, angling for the couch. She can feel his blood stain her clothes and skin. Everything about her is raw and hypersensitive. She wants to burn his enemies alive and stake their heads on spikes outside and kiss each wound until he’s whole and healthy. One thing at a time.

She settles for helping him onto the couch and pressing her forehead hard against his. Her eyes close. She inhales his scent — sweat, pain, blood, exhaustion — and opens them again. They’re dilated, dark with devotion. The violent kind. Her hand reaches up to caress the side of his jaw. She’s checking his pulse. The other runs lightly along his torso, mapping his body for injuries. Heart — fine. No frontal punctures to the lungs. Or kidneys, or liver.

“How bad, baby?” Her voice comes out as barely as a rasp, she’s so fucking worried. So fucking mad.

[womanlives]

how dare you !!!!!!!!!! youre not old ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ horny people are just idiots unrelated, hows my favorite bloodboy doing today

Mercy clicks the phone screen off and sets it on her stomach. There’s still that triumphant little smirk on her face, but other than that, she doesn’t gloat. Just rests her head back against his shoulder and looks up at him. Suspicious. The blue in her eyes is patient, but — hungry, somehow. Heated. “I win. You feel like cooking or should we get takeout?”

Defeats the purpose of the bet, maybe, but she couldn’t give less of a fuck. Both of her hands capture one of Jie’s, not holding so much as exploring. Her index finger trails along the backs of his knuckles; her thumb traces lazy patterns against the inside of his wrist.

“For the record? I like that you don’t know what that shit means.” Her voice drops into a purr. “No fucking clue where you learned it, but — ” Hold on. “Did someone ask you for a backshot?” Wait a minute. No way she’s actually jealous.

They settle into one another like usual. Now he's stuck. He has to witness whatever this backshot bullshit's about.

Jie instinctively looks away when the phone's unlocked. Privacy's highly respected by him, and it's no business of his to go snooping. Except that's the entire reason why he's sat here in the first place. So he gets himself to look at the, quite frankly, mindboggling string of text messages. Why did the receiver try to spell centipede so many times?

You say URGENT? 🐛❗❗ Wait. That's what's urgent? Backshots? Isn't that missionary in reverse? When someone goes to town on another someone from the back? Or 'pound town' as the kids.. Used to say before backshots. Man I feel old.

[hauntedbythenarrative]

I am at last myself. With no ambition greater than to walk where I please and to breathe the open air. To die unmarked and unnoticed and be free.

Susan Sontag, from “The Dummy”, featured in I, Etcetera: Stories//“Lilies,” House of Light, Mary Oliver//Postcard from gone, Leila Chatti//Ophelie, Arthur Rimbaud//Advantages of Being Evergreen, Oliver Baez Bendorf//Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon (2022-))

[sh00t4th3m00n]

I just realized something and I need to fume for a second.

Ok so we all remember Mr. Puzzles' dad's reaction when Little Puzzles told him about wanting to own an amusement park:

But then he says this immediately after:

At first I was confused because I thought these two lines sounded contradictory. Like, you just said his dream of owning an amusement park was childish, but wait, now it's suddenly this elite, respectable, super-aspirational thing that's only possible with "CrEaTiVe ViSiOn," which is apparently such a high bar that Little Puzzles will "never have it?" You get what I'm saying?

But then it hit me: he's bullcrapping and 100% aware he's bullcrapping. He doesn't care about "creative vision" or think that highly of it, BUT he knows Little Puzzles DOES care about it. He cares about it a lot. And he uses it to present his shooting down of his dream in a way he knows Little Puzzles will understand and take to heart. Even if he himself doesn't share the mindset that gives it its bite because it's what'll get Little Puzzles to shut up. (And maybe this is me being overanalytical, but I feel like you can even see it in his pose when he says it. Like he's doing the "waving your hands in a sarcastically whimsical way" move, you know the one. That one line just oozes condescension.) Like it wasn't enough to voice his distaste for Puzzles' dream; he had to make him feel bad for even having it just to really cement it. Like he learned to speak Little Puzzles' language just enough to tell him his dreams were stupid.

And it makes me HATE THIS MAN EVEN MORE.

[mossytrashcan]

you’re serving cunt. two lannister children were just murdered and you’re serving cunt.

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

thinking of the way people are always talking about Aegon & Aemond are inverted parallels to Viserys & Daemon and it's funny because on one hand that correct, but on the other hand it's only correct if you're not seeing Aegon as Daemon and Aemond as Viserys. like, Aegon and Daemon say/do shitty things (often in brothels) and Aemond and Viserys punish them for it, whether through burning or exile. Aemond and Viserys see betrayal everywhere while Aegon and Daemon are relentlessly, painfully loyal. Aegon and Daemon have the same run-and-hide instinct while Aemond and Viserys cling to their perceived duties, even if they fuck up and it fucks them up. like, in some ways it's not so much an inverted parallel as the same story with different characters. not sure where I'm going with this except that Aegon is very clearly a younger sibling trapped in the body of an older sibling and it's a great tragedy for one and all.

[pitchthepeach]

Admiral Kazansky

[womanlives]

AND HERE SHE THOUGHT TODAY WOULD BE BORING. Much as Mercy loved when strangers popped off in a crowd for no apparent reason — a free distraction? a carte blanche to pickpocket without consequences? yes, please! — this time felt dangerous. For starters, the man in question was built like a brick shithouse. And his eyes sang with violence.

Distractions? All for ‘em. Brawls? Not so much. They made people (and, more importantly, the contents of their purses) up and run the fuck away.

Time to be stupid.

Mercy materialized at Brick Shithouse’s elbow as if by magic. “I’m lookin’ at you, mister.” She thought about giving him a friendly nudge, then decided against it. She’d rather keep all her teeth, thank you ever so much. She settled for a wink instead. “Should I not be? I’m just admiring the beard is all.”

Had she clocked that this was a god? Not yet. But the power emanating from every pore was starting to get her attention.

@womanlives bet you didn't realize you were secretly liking for a starter from Thor

Thor strode through the crowd, towering above all of them. He'd been sent here on an errand, one that could have easily been done by….pretty much anyone else, and it had put him in a foul mood.

"The fuck are you lookin' at?" Thor practically growled out, seeing the eyes on him. He was used to people staring at him whenever he was in Midgard, and while there were days he would hold his head high and boast that he had graced them with his presence, there were some days it made his skin crawl. And today was one of those days.

[womanlives]

i feel like there are ants in my blood. (jie/mercy)

She’s bothering him at work —if you can even call it that. Jie’s meant for better. Meant for more. She is certain of it.

Mercy lounges next to him in the club-corner, watching the pathetic excuse of a dance floor. Must be too early for the crowd. Or maybe too late? She’s lost track of time. The strobe lights keep backlighting him in reds, and greens, and purples, and blues. It’s distracting, because it looks fucking good on him. Real good.

Especially the reds.

“This a tiangou thing?” Mercy leans in when she says it — right side, mind, doesn’t want to make him flinch — so she isn’t worried about anyone overhearing. Not with the drop of an octave and the club’s bass vibrating off the ceiling. She sounds indifferent, but the pronunciation gives her away. Has she practiced saying it, tiangou, whispered to herself and herself alone, under her breath right before she sleeps, until she’s sure she’s gotten it right? No. ‘Course not. Stop asking. Fuck.

Why not highlight another sin while we’re at it. Here’s the most obvious: Mercy’s not dressed for this place. It’s a dead giveaway on what she’s after. Not a dance, not a drink. Not even to catch a bad high and end up with her face in the sink. Instead she’s in her black-stained shirt and black-stained jeans and worn-old boots whose grips don’t slip in blood.

“Or — ” Mercy sways in front of him, blocking his view of the floor. “Are you just bored?” Probably that. Hopefully that. That she can help with. One step, two steps, and she’s in Jie’s space. He’s got more than a half foot on her, so she’s gotta get close if she wants to sling an arm around his shoulders. Which she does, because everyone knows this is the classic plotters’ pose.

Also because she likes the way he smells.

“See that guy over there?” Soft, wicked, close enough for her breath to tickle his ear. She points a finger to some unfortunate fuck across the room who’s already at least two bottles deep. “Say the word. I’ll go pick a fight. You get involved, I let you pick me up, you make a show of carrying me out back — then we bail.” Pause. “Or just shoot the shit in the back lot, I guess, until you get off.” Phrasing. “Your shift.”

Blame the red goddamn strobe lights.

sundial feat. @tewwor

[antisphinx]

i want to be the girl with the most cake

[petit-papillion]

DuoLingo really hanging on F1's coattails lately. They know we need to learn/brush up on our languages to keep up with our favourite polyglot...

[tonyloom]

Spoilers TWOW

“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” she sang sadly. A foolish, giddy girl she’d been, but good hearted. She would miss her, and she would miss Daena and the Snapper and the rest, even Izembaro and Bobono. This would make trouble for the Sealord and the envoy with the chicken on his chest, she did not doubt. She would think about that later, though. Just now, there was no time. I had best run. Mercy still had some lines to say, her first lines and her last, and Izembaro would have her pretty little empty head if she were late for her own rape.

A study of Charles-Alexandre Coessin De La Fosse (French, 1829-1910)

[definitelynotarabbit]

So I've been wrestling with the whole High Cloud Quintet plot for awhile and initially I found it incredibly frustrating, because once you get into the nitty gritty there is so much canon conflicting information. However I believe I have found a unifying theory.

Excluding some specific instances of unverifiable details, such as whatever the hell is going on with the dragon heart, everything is true.

Bailu didn't dream of her past life. She does dream of it after meeting the Astral Express.

Yingxing is dead. His body is alive. Blade is a monster.

Dan Feng and Yingxing knew what they were doing and had good intentions. Their actions still made them irredeemable.

Jingliu saved the Loufu. She also massacred it's army and may or may not have been the person to doom Yingxing and make Blade. (Still researching for any details as to Yingxing's sanity post immortality pre Jingliu)

The preceptors did tell Dan Feng that he could save their species by creating new Vidyadhara. They didn't lie.

Dan Heng is Dan Feng, he is also his own person. Molting Rebirth is not even remotely the same thing as Hatching Rebirth, Dan Heng is still innocent of Dan Feng's crimes.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

@daenystheedreamer replied to the post “allyriadayne: will someone explain to me what the deal is with asoiaf lore?”:

#ok the bellegere thing has got to be grrm being horny right. he wants a princess from the summer islands right.

​(This is in regards to how TWOIAF in 2014 stated that Bellegere Otherys (Aegon IV's mistress) was the child of a Braavosi merchant's daughter and a male envoy from the Summer Isles, which was based on GRRM's notes that he'd given to E&L, but that same year when GRRM released Arya's "Mercy" TWOW preview chapter, he'd changed his mind and Bellegere was now the daughter of a Sealord's son and a Summer Isles princess; and because the books are "more canon" than TWOIAF, later editions were changed to fit:)

Anyway, I'm not sure it's just GRRM being horny that's the reason lol. There's probably a few reasons:

Bellegere has a Braavosi surname rather than a Summer Isles one, and Braavos isn't so feminist-forward that a child would have the mother's surname; and having her father's name further implies that Bellegere was not a bastard herself

There's certain racist connotations re a black man seducing an innocent backwater girl, even if he is a diplomat (or especially if?), which GRRM probably had second thoughts about

If Bellegere's Summer Islander parent educated her in the ways of their sexually free culture and religion, again the connotations are much more creepy if it's her father doing so rather than her mother (see also how the Black Pearl courtesan lineage is passed from mother to daughter)

So yeah, it's a bit hinky, but it's avoiding far greater hinkiness. When it's GRRM trying to balance problematic material (see also him thinking he should've made the Targaryens black and then going: "wait, black invading conquerers who do incest and have a streak of madness is also maybe not so good"), we've got to give him a little bit of credit, at least.

[womanlives]

They fit together like two missing pieces of a puzzle. Not like they were made to, but in spite of what made them. The armor they’ve built, the traps they’ve set, the defenses they’ve manned for so long they don’t know how to do anything else — discarded, and discarding. This isn’t battle or ceasefire. This is it. This is surrender. Two survivors covered in soot and smoke, laying their arms down at last.

Mercy shifts as Jie, at last, folds into her. She lifts her face so she can guide his own to her shoulder and her neck. “Here,” she murmurs, and says the rest through her touch. Don’t hide from me. Hide with me. Hide in me. “I’m here. I’m sorry it took so long, but I’m here.” Instinctively her arms move up his spine to cover him. Shield him. Like a black-feather swan spreading her wings.

She sways in tandem with every shake of his shoulders but does not loosen her grip. Her cheek rests against his hair, and she breathes slow, and even, so he’ll have something to match when the worst of it comes to pass.

“I’ve got you.” Another kiss, this one protective, this one fierce, this time pressed against his hair. “We’ll be okay. I’ve got you, lover.” She loses count of how many times she says it. Doesn’t care, doesn’t matter, since each time she parts her lips, she feels it more, and more. This is all so foreign, so new, and yet somehow so familiar at the same time. She does for Jie what she wishes, secretly, at night, someone had done for her. When that damnable anger sputtered out, and everything else rose in its place.

Mercy doesn’t release him until she feels the sobs lessen. Even then, it’s only just. The swan lifts her head and unfurls her wings from around his neck so she can see him, if he wants to be seen. She drops a kiss against his lips. Tastes salt, lifts. She gives him a gentle nudge with her forehead, while her eyes search his. What can I do? What can I do, what can I do, what can I do?

“Jie?” A shaking, hopeful little sigh. “Talk to me?”

Each word unearths something he's never been brave enough to face headon. Seeing past, and understanding, the habitual wrath as nothing more than a decoy from all the accumulated grief. The self exiled loneliness he reinforces despite craving community. Himself, back when he was eleven, shaking from survival against the only family he'd known; palm still stuck through with his mother's favorite kitchen knife, wracked with sob from the hurt that sank deeper than flesh and blood.

Jie wants to curl in on himself. Under the table. Under the freshly fucked up floorboards. Under the cold, compacted earth. Maybe then he'll have the strength to ignore it all again. Pretend like he's only built for fury. That he lacks any room and capacity for the other emotions.

Instead, he finds himself balled around Mercy.

Jie tells himself to ignore how wet his face feels. He just focuses on how close they burrow into each other. Both full of regrets. Full of sympathy and resentment and unspeakable sorrow. Jie cries in silence. The only part of him that moves comes from the stilted tension of chest and shoulders. That deep, indescribable ache claws its way back up. Hammers at his chest, beats his thoughts senseless. He wants to hide. She won't let him. No, he doesn't actually want to. Not without her.

[becauseimanicequeen]

Wild-ass Spare Me Your Mercy theory: the director is the actual killer, killing that man on the field to bring light to Kan euthanizing terminally ill patients. The director definitely has a personal grudge against Kan and I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed someone just to expose Kan. The director likes order (just look at way he corrected his shoes) and Kan is messing with that order by euthanizing terminally ill patients.

Even wilder theory (i.e., ignore this, lol): since I don’t trust anyone in Sammon’s stories, not even doctors or dead people and least of all authority figures and the police, the director might be Kan’s old mentor. That’s solely based on the fact that Kan’s old mentor is/was someone within the medical field, an authority figure (mentor), and (supposedly) dead, which makes him the most sus of them all for me.

Prove me wrong, show.