#none of the news sources i was reading were doing a good job of explaining the full historical context

[teenagefeeling]

oh no the wikipedia article on that maori treaty is very badly written :/

[ironwoman359]

A Thief's Gamble - Ch.9

Every Cloud...

Prev: Ch.8 Caught Red Handed || Next: Ch.10...Has a Silver Lining Fic Masterpost

Fic Summary: Brynjolf is certain that the only way the Thieves Guild will return to its glory days is by bringing in new, talented members. Unfortunately, Mercer doesn't agree, and it's not like Brynjolf's latest attempts at recruiting have gone well. But when he meets a stranger in the marketplace one morning, he's willing to take the risk and bring her on board....only time will tell if his gamble pays off.

Chapter Summary: The Guild is forced to lay low after being exposed by a failed heist, but then Brynjolf receives a cryptic message that sends him on an unexpected job.

Content: Brynjolf POV, Thieves Guild quest spoilers, game typical violence.

Ships: Brynjolf x Dragonborn OC (slowburn)

Word Count: 3,887

Check the reblogs for a link to read on AO3!

— — — 

Gissur’s failure ended up having a far greater impact on the Guild than Brynjolf had expected. Any hope that the heat would die down quickly was dashed as the jarl ordered extra patrols across the entire city. Afraid to run afoul of the guard, most of the Guildmembers were forced to hunker down in the ratway and wait things out. At first the air was charged with tension and whispered conversations, but after days of nothing to do, the heavy weight of boredom began to settle over the Guild. 

Brynjolf kept up appearances in the marketplace, hawking his elixir and gathering information, but even he was beginning to grow antsy. The guards who he normally worked with were avoiding him, and a quick inspection of the hidden caches around the city revealed that most hadn’t even collected their recent payments and orders. What info he was able to gather from his other sources, he couldn’t act on, and he found himself in the Ragged Flagon at the end of each day, as frustrated and bored as his Guildmates. 

“Any change out there?” Delvin asked him one night as he trudged in, and Brynjolf let out a sigh, dropping into a chair across from the old thief. 

“None,” he said. “You’d think they’d grow tired of this constant vigilance after two weeks, but they’ve not budged an inch.”

Delvin whistled. 

“I have to admit, I’m surprised that old Laila is still at it. Surely all the extra wages are gettin’ expensive for her tastes?” 

“Mjoll’s been taking advantage of the situation,” Brynjolf explained as Vekel passed by and handed him a tankard. “She’s using the incident to put pressure on the jarl, and has been riling up the citizens to do the same. Anuriel’s doing her best to counter the movement, but there’s only so much she can do without jeopardizing her position. The way things are headed now, we may have to ask Maven to get involved directly.” 

“Which usually means a hefty donation to the city’s coffers, which Maven is not going to like,” Delvin mused. “And we’re barely back on her good side as it is.”

Brynjolf sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. 

“At least we have a few contacts reaching out in other holds now. Did we manage to send anyone out to that silversmith in Markarth? We may have to write him a letter explaining that our services will be slightly delayed–”

“Didn’t you know?” Delvin interrupted. “Ariene took that job.”

Brynjolf blinked. 

“Ariene took it?” he repeated. “When?” 

Delvin winced.

“The same day Mercer sent her off to Solitude.” 

“And you didn’t think to mention this to me?” Brynjolf demanded, and Delvin held up his hands. 

“I’m sorry mate, I thought you knew. I saw the two of you together that night; I just assumed she’d told you.”

Brynjolf just shook his head. He’d had no idea; Ariene hadn’t shown any sign that she was leaving until Mercer had ordered her to. He stared down at the contents of his tankard, watching the foam slowly dissolve into the body of the ale.

Ariene had been gone for two weeks now, which should have been more than enough time for her to complete her task in Solitude and return home. Assuming, of course, that the weather had been good, that there was no trouble on the road, and that Gulum-Ei had cooperated fully. 

Brynjolf snorted. 

Vex would take Delvin up on his advances before the stars aligned so perfectly on a single job. Even Ariene hadn’t been able to completely shake the string of bad luck that followed the Guild like a shadow. She always managed to narrowly escape disaster, but her jobs so far had been far from simple. 

Still, Brynjolf had secretly been hoping she’d arrive back any day now, even though it was entirely possible that she hadn’t left Solitude yet. Now it turned out that even if she had finished her task in the capital, she wouldn’t be back on the road to Riften until she’d dealt with whatever business there was in Markarth. The silversmith had been vague in his communication, so there was no telling how long she’d be delayed.

Sighing, Brynjolf downed half his tankard in one gulp, then pushed his chair back and got to his feet. 

“Where’re you goin’?” Delvin asked.

“Training room,” Brynjolf grunted, rolling his shoulders. “Where else is there to go?” 

The training room was blessedly empty, and Brynjolf pulled his daggers out of their sheaths. Already the thoughts he’d been pushing down all day were bubbling up to the forefront of his mind. 

What if the jarl made the new guard rotations permanent? What if the Guild’s recent string of good fortune was just a fluke? What if Maven decided to withdraw her support, leaving them at the mercy of Riften’s bureaucracy?

Why didn’t Ariene tell him where she was going?

Brynjolf took a deep breath, flipping his daggers in his hands and letting all the worries swirl through his head, unhindered. 

Then, he swung.

— — — 

For two days, nothing changed. Guards patrolled the streets at all hours, members of the Guild stayed cooped up underground, and Brynjolf spent all day in the marketplace, selling very little elixir and gleaning very little intel. 

A few people came to spar with him in the evenings, which at first he welcomed. It alleviated some of his boredom, but it also reminded him of the last time he sparred with an opponent, and he had to fight to keep a blush from his cheeks every time he thought of Ariene standing inches from him, her hand warm in his and a question as sharp as their blades hovering unanswered between them. 

Thinking those types of thoughts made him lose his bouts, so he did his best to ignore them. 

Then, on the third day, a courier approached him. 

“You’re Brynjolf?” the man asked, walking up to Brynjolf’s stall in the market, and Brynjolf nodded. “I’ve been looking for you. Got something I’m supposed to deliver; your hands only.” 

The man passed him a folded piece of paper sealed shut with wax, then nodded and turned, heading into the Bee & Barb without another word. 

Brynjolf looked at the letter curiously, then cast a glance around the market. He normally didn’t like to read mail out in the open, but no one was paying him any attention, and he hadn’t had a letter come by courier in some time. His usual contacts had other methods of getting their information to him, so a courier meant something interesting. Maybe a new client, or a hot tip about a mark. 

After making sure no one was watching, he broke the wax seal and unfolded the letter, eyes widening when he realized who it was from. 

Brynjolf read the letter, a frown forming on his face. The message was vague, likely on purpose, but he couldn’t see what the point of sending it had been. Was it to let him know that Gulum-Ei had been dealt with and that she was on her way to Markarth? But it said she was heading home now; there was no mention of the other city. Besides, there was hardly a point to sending a message to precede her when she’d take just as long to get to Riften as the letter would. 

He glanced at the date, intending to gauge how long ago she’d sent it, and his frown deepened. 

First of Frostfall. 

It was still the last week of Hearthfire. The first of Frostfall was four days away.

Brynjolf read the letter again, slowly, and the more he read, the less clear it became. As far as he knew, Ariene didn’t have any experience in property at all, and her reference to some kind of deal didn’t make sense, even as a euphemism for the shakedown she’d been sent to perform. Also curious was her use of Gulum-Ei’s alias, even though they both knew his real name and had no reason to hide it. And why would she date it the first of a month that hadn’t even arrived yet– 

Realization struck him, and he scanned the letter again, his blood running cold as he did so. He grabbed the few bottles of elixir he had on display and shoved them beneath the counter, pausing just long enough to lock the stall before he hurried out of the market and towards the graveyard.  

Bursting into the cistern, Brynjolf made a beeline for Mercer’s desk, barely stopping to apologize for startling Cynric into spilling his soup. 

“I’m going to Falkreath,” he announced, and Mercer looked up from his ledgers, surprised. 

“Excuse me?” 

“I’m going to Falkreath,” Brynjolf repeated. “We just received a message from Ariene.” 

“And why exactly does that mean you need to go to Falkreath? She’s supposed to be in Solitude.” 

“She was,” Brynjolf said, passing him the letter. “But now she’s in Falkreath, and needs our help.” 

Mercer scanned the letter, frowning. 

“This doesn’t say anything about Falkreath, Brynjolf.” 

Brynjolf took the letter again, grabbed Mercer’s quill, and circled the first word on each line before handing it back.  

“Please send help,” Mercer read aloud. “Too many bandits, meet me at dead man’s drink.” He looked up at Brynjolf. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” Brynjolf insisted. “Dead Man’s Drink is the name of the inn in Falkreath. I don’t know what she’s doing there, but I know that she’s on a job for Endon, a silversmith in Markarth. Whatever that is must involve bandits somehow, and I told her she wouldn’t have to fight an army single handedly. If she’s asking for backup, I’m not going to ignore her.”

Mercer raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Guild first, remember Brynjolf?” 

“She’s part of the Guild,” Brynjolf snapped. “Besides, look at the first meaning of the letter. She got Gulum-Ei to tell her something, and if we leave her to deal with this problem by herself, who knows how long it will be before she gets back here? How many more days are you willing to wait to get the intel? Or perhaps you’d like to send another agent to Solitude? I’m sure Gulum-Ei wouldn’t mind rehashing the story for yet another Guildmember asking nosy questions.” 

“You’ve made your point,” Mercer growled. “I suppose there’s not much to do here in the meantime anyway. But I want you both back as soon as possible. No detours, you understand?” 

Brynojlf nodded, already turning away from the Guildmaster. 

It took him less than half an hour to change into traveling gear and pack his Guild armor, extra knives, and a handful of potions and foodstuffs into an old knapsack. He made his way to the stables, and after a few minutes of haggling, secured a horse for the journey. 

He decided to take the more remote southern road that led past Haemar’s Shame and into Helgen. The northern road around the mountains into Whiterun was safer, but it was already early afternoon. If he took the longer route then he wouldn’t reach Falkreath until tomorrow at the earliest, whereas if he rode his horse hard and was very lucky with the wildlife, he’d be able to take the southern pass through the mountains and reach the hold before dark. 

The late afternoon sun provided little reprieve from the chill of the autumn air, but Brynjolf was used to the harshness of the land. He didn’t particularly care for any of that “Sons of Skyrim” talk that was popular among the Stormcloaks and their sympathizers, but he was still a nord, and this was still his homeland. Riding through the forests that he’d played in as a boy while the wind made golden leaves dance above his head, it was easy to ignore the cold. 

If he’d been on any other job, he might have taken his time to enjoy the scenery, but Ariene’s message was burned into his brain, and he urged his horse faster, cutting through glades and across clearings in places where he was sure of his way. He made good time until the pass through the mountains, where a recent snowfall forced the horse’s pace to slow, but he thankfully had the road to himself until he reached Helgen…or rather, where Helgen had once stood. 

“Shor’s bones,” he whispered, pulling his horse to a halt. 

The small mountain village had been completely decimated. Most of the wall on the east side was still standing, but from his vantage point on the slope, he could see over it to the destruction beyond. 

There wasn’t a single building that had escaped annihilation. Nearly every house had been leveled, leaving behind nothing but a few splintered support beams and lopsided fireplaces sticking out of piles of ash. The stone keep, once one of Skyrim’s southernmost imperial outposts, had been reduced to a few crumbling towers streaked with scorch marks and surrounded by mounds of rubble. 

The worst thing though, was the smell. 

Once, when Brynjolf had been young and foolish and eager to prove himself, he and another footpad had tried to rob a wizard who was known to practice his craft out of a cave north of Shor’s Stone. Heads full of visions of priceless gems and ancient artifacts, they’d tried to sneak into the cave late at night, certain the old man would be sleeping and that it would be an easy heist. 

Brynjolf could still hear the lad’s screams, could still recall the thick, acrid smell of his flesh burning away as he was engulfed in a fireball.

It was that same scent, still detectable on the breeze despite the time that had passed, that revealed the true carnage of the scene before him. 

Nothing but a dragon could have done this, Brynjolf realized with growing horror. 

It was one thing to learn of the attacks, to hear stories of chaos and dragon fire second hand. It was quite another to see the aftermath for himself.

Even with Ariene’s word that she’d seen a dragon, even fought one in Whiterun, a part of him had still been unable to accept that the creatures of myth were really responsible for the attacks. The beasts belonged in children’s tales and legends, not in the real world. Yet here was the proof, plain as day and chilling as the wind: dragons had returned. 

Brynjolf caught sight of movement along the old wall, and tried to push thoughts of legend and doom from his mind. He had more pressing matters to deal with at the moment: namely that a company of bandits seemed to be squatting in the village ruins. 

He almost had to admire their ingenuity; Helgen’s destruction meant that Jarl Siddgeir would have pulled most of the guards from the area, and the remains of the walls and keep gave the bandits a stronger defense than they’d be likely to get in one of the mountain caves nearby. 

Unfortunately, their greatest advantage was now Brynjolf’s biggest problem: the main roads from both the south and the east ran directly through the village, allowing them to pick off any travelers with ease. Brynjolf was a competent fighter, but with no clear idea of how many bandits were camping out behind the wall, he didn’t want to chance an all out fight if he could avoid it.

Too bad no one else is here to appreciate the irony, he thought grimly as he weighed his options. 

If it were any other day, he would have camped out on the side of the road and waited until nightfall to try and pass the bandits by, but today was the one time that he couldn’t afford to be patient. He glanced up at the sun, which was dipping lower and lower in the evening sky. He’d have to think of something quickly, if he still wanted to reach Falkreath before dark. 

Realistically, he only had two options. 

One, dismount and leave his horse behind. If he were on foot, he was confident enough in his ability to sneak past without any of the thugs noticing him. Of course, that meant that he definitely wouldn’t reach Falkreath before the sun went down. But that left him with option two: ride around the village in a full gallop and hope that the sentries posted along the wall wouldn’t shoot him as he came by.  

Brynjolf grimaced. Neither option was particularly attractive, and the longer he sat here deliberating, the later he’d be getting to Dead Man’s Drink. There had to be another way, some hidden solution that would let him keep his speed without risking an arrow in the back. 

“If you have a choice between two locked doors, then start looking for a window.” 

Gallus’s words, his way of teaching footpads to approach problems from unexpected angles. The ability to think outside the box was what separated everyday thieves from the truly skilled…and Brynjolf was nothing if not skilled. 

He thought for a moment more, then quickly dismounted and opened his knapsack, which he’d tied to the back of the horse’s saddle. After a moment of rummaging, he pulled out a small bottle filled with a bright red liquid: a health potion.

He poured a small amount of it out into his cupped hand, then tilted his head back and dripped the potion down his face. He bent down and scooped up a handful of dirt from the path, smearing a line of it across his cheek so it mixed with the liquid into a dark red mud. He took off his cloak, rolling it up and stuffing it in his pack, then reached up and tore one of his sleeves so it hung loosely from his arm. Just for good measure, he slathered more of the dirt onto his arms and neck, adding to his disheveled appearance.

Satisfied, he mounted his horse and nudged it forward again. The ruse wouldn’t hold up under close inspection, but getting closer to the bandits was what he was hoping to avoid. Taking a deep breath, he leaned forward and squeezed his knees into the horse’s side, urging it into a gallop. 

“HELP!” he shouted at the top of his lungs as he sped towards the gates. “HELP ME! IT’S COMING!” 

He saw the bandits stir, saw confusion and alarm on their faces as they watched what hopefully looked like a half crazed man covered in blood barrelling towards them. A few were already drawing their weapons, and he sent a silent prayer to whatever divine cared to listen that these men had heard the same news out of Falkreath that he had.

“HELP! IT’S RIGHT BEHIND ME! WEREWOLF!” he screamed. 

That word changed everything. 

Other panicked shouts joined his own, and the men turned their attention to the path behind him, reading their blades and aiming their bows down the road, which was exactly what Brynjolf wanted. He urged the horse forward, not taking the time to look over his shoulder. He wanted to be long gone before the men realized that there was no creature pursuing him and that they’d let a victim slip through their fingers. 

He kept the horse at a gallop for as long as it could muster, then finally let the beast begin to slow when he was certain there’d been no attempt to follow him.  

Brynjolf chuckled as he wiped the remains of the potion and mud from his face. Even after all this time, there was nothing quite like the feeling of pulling off an impossible plan. It’d been awhile since he’d felt that rush, being cooped up in the cistern doing paperwork most days. The last time he’d really gotten to see a plan come together was when he and Ariene had pulled the frame job on Brand-Shei. He could still recall the look of triumph on the lass’s face when she’d risen from behind the crates and flashed him a thumbs up. 

Looking back, that was the moment that he’d first felt an attraction to her. He’d tried to ignore the feeling, to insist to both himself and his Guildmates that his attention was a purely professional one, but even then he’d known that he was kidding himself. There was something special about Ariene, and she had sparked his interest from the start.

Brynjolf rode into Falkreath just as the sun began to dip beneath the horizon. There was no stable in the sleepy little city, so he tied his horse to a post outside Dead Man’s Drink. He stepped into the inn, eyes already scanning the room for Ariene, and he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. 

She was standing in a corner, arms folded defensively as an enormous man in the heavy steel armor of an Imperial Legate bore down on her. 

“–told you, you’re making a mistake,” she was saying, and the man snorted. 

“And I told you that you can’t fool a true nord in his own homeland. Do you think I’m stupid, girl? I know you’re trying to get back across the border. Didn’t expect the legion to have such a strong presence up here in Skyrim did you, you filthy deserter?”  

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Ariene snapped. “I’m here from Riften on business, that’s all. No one in my family has served in the legion for at least three generations. You have the wrong person.” 

“If you really are innocent, then you wouldn’t mind going with a small guard up to Solitude to confirm with the General that you’re not the woman we’re looking for, now would you?”

“And miss out on who knows how many weeks of wages until you’re satisfied that I am who I say I am? I’m not a member of your legion, I’m under no obligation to follow your orders.” 

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” the man said.

He leaned closer to her, and Ariene took a step backward, stopping abruptly when her back hit the wall. 

“I’m in charge of the city guard here, which means that you can either go with my brigade to meet the general in Solitude, or you can wait for him to come here from the comfort of the Falkreath jail. Your choice.” 

Brynjolf strode forward, grabbing the man by the shoulder and yanking him back, the first lie he could think of spilling from his lips. 

“Is this kinsman bothering you, sister?”  

--- --- ---

Prev: Ch.8 Caught Red Handed || Next: Ch.10...Has a Silver Lining

[tau-i]

I need a real screenshotting tool. I've been using a simple alias to take images from the screen:

Solutions that wrap these two commands called in just this way are very common in Sway, but calling them in a Fish function like this can cause issues. Firstly, I always need a spare terminal to run the command: I can't invoke it through bemenu, (which is what I use as a launcher), for example.

And since I have way, way too much work to do on this OS, I also want to avoid home-rolling a more complicated solution. I don't particularly want to maintain yet another component. Things barely work as is. That said, while I'm looking into this, it would be awesome if I could grab a screencast solution. I'm looking into OBS already, and having something a bit slicker would be cool. (I'm setting aside the idea of building out a script that automates getting OBS set up for a video, and just binding it to something relevant for now)

I'm starting my investigation in the screencasts section of awesome-wayland since I can't keep on the path I set out for myself under any circumstances. You know, before writing this, my plan was to CAD up a tool? Then I ran into a bug, which I wanted to record, so I downloaded OBS, then while trying to get the video edited in blender I found something I wanted to screenshot so GPT can take a look at it...

Anyways, they list several tools, and also name the interfaces they use to do their jobs, copied here for posterity as it appears at time of writing:

You'll have to excuse the mediocre image quality. If I could take a better screenshot, we wouldn't be going down this rabbit hole in the first place. I ASSUMED tumblr allowed HTML tables but no...

Now, it seems that the wlr-screencopy-unstable-v1(docs)/wlr-output-management-unstable-v1(docs) protocol referenced repeatedly here is a hair out of date. Apparently, about three months ago, it was supplanted by ext-image-capture-source-v1 (docs) and ext-image-copy-capture-v1 (docs) as mentioned by This article. The guy responsible has a great blog post on his hard work, which is a good read. (Andri Yngvason) So the next question is has anyone moved fast enough to implement the new ones? On the pull request it looks like nobody has. Unless, of course, they're wrapping grim, which has implemented the protocol.

While looking into these, I found out about some sites that try to format the Wayland docs in a way that's actually a real pleasure to explore:

- Wayland Explorer

- Hoyon.github.io

I'll probably be taking a closer look once I start to properly explore Freedesktop and all the stuff they're up to.

That said, let's make a breif diversion to check on if SWAY itself actually implements these protocols. I use swayfx version 0.4, which is based on sway 1.9.0, and uses wlroots 0.17.0. The main issue, however, is that none of that matters because the merge request to wlroots itself is still open... So it's not clear that ANY tools currently support it. I'd have to make a custom build of swayfx, based on a custom sway build, based on a custom wlroots build... Yeesh. Guess that explains why the screenshotting utilities don't support it yet. I also was able to verify that Swayfx currently supports screencopy_manager by finding it in the output of the wayland-info utility command, which I discovered just now.

The ones that stick out to me the most are the rust based ones, since I hope to learn rust soon, it would be nice to be able to tinker. While I'm not totally unfamiliar with C and C++, I don't do much work there, so I'm a little more hesitant. Between the two of them, Kooha looks very polished and sleek, while wl-screenrec seems to be a straightforward terminal tool that can take input from slurp for area selection. Unfortunately, out of the box, wl-screenrec doesn't really meet my needs, as it would still require a terminal window, or at least mucking around with commands. If I were looking for a project at this time, a pretty GUI wrapped around wl-screenrec or a fork would probably be a pretty quick and fun project. But, no! Bad Author! No more side-projects!

Also worth considering is scripting OBS. I've already accepted that while OBS is THE framework of choice for this sort of thing, a OBS app is out of scope. Still, it seems that chatGPT at least believes that OBS has the full set of automation available: Natively, it has command line arguments which seem less extensive than chatGPT believed. But since it is able to run selected scripts on startup, this is less of a problem than I first assumed. It supports python and lua scripting, and if push comes to shove, I could probably build out a full extension.

Anyways, back to the options.

- Kooha, as discussed, is a polished looking screen recorder that I think would work quite well for me.

- ssr-wlroots is a old fork of SimpleScreenRecorder with "Minimal support for wlroots-based Wayland Compositors". It was last updated five years ago. A abandoned project that only claims 'minimal' support is... not great.

- Wayfarer is oriented around support for GNOME, even going so far as to use the "vala" language. Which I'd never heard of, but it seems tightly coupled to that project. It does support wlroots, and have a perfectly adequate UI, with nice options. I wonder if Elementary OS uses it? Honestly, though, I'd be worried about it pulling in a pile of GNOME dependencies.

- WayRec is built off of KDE, and seems slightly abandoned, the last update was three years before publishing.

- wf-recorder is a terminal-based recorder that seems similar to wl-screenrec, but is written in C++. It is somewhat actively maintained, with last commit 2 months ago.

- wl-mirror is not meant to be a standard screen recorder, rather to be a output mirror, for cases like putting your screen on a projector.

- wlrobs is not a full screen recorder either, rather it is a OBS extension to help record Wayland compositors. on a unrelated note, OBS worked for me without explicitly installing this, so I'm curious what it does. Maybe it has better performance than what I'm using right now? It's present in "obs-studio-plugins.wlrobs.out" in nix.

- Finally, we have wl-screenrec, a Rust-based terminal recorder compatible with area selection through slurp. It has hardware acceleration for at least intel and AMD graphics, and seems to view that as its edge over wf-recorder. It has some performance data that proposes that it is more efficient than wf-recorder specifically, which is cool.

Wayrec and Wayfarer are actually not in nixpkgs, which is another strike against them, but everything else is available.

After installing, it turns out that as much as I'd like Kooha, it doesn't work out of the box. My best guess is in all this mess, I never actually checked that the ScreenCast protocol actually works on my machine at the moment. Probably, I only support the lower level wayland options, which means that wl-screenrec is my only real option. I might try wf-recorder to see if it really is that much worse, but for now...

🤷

Anyways, the real issue is I really wanted a GUI. So I have only succeeded in ensuring I have to roll my own solution after all. oor, I could try looking through a list of tools that is actually maintained like the one I only found at the END of all this at sway wiki, as opposed to the awesome-wayland list I've been using, which is archive only. And I didn't realize until this far in the post. Well, all the tools on that page are for a future exploration.

[sekhisadventures]

Twisted Paths

The Glittering Prize, the next morning

“Are you certain this is what the book said?” asked Nelen, sounding very confused.

“Yes Nelen…” sighed Laurelgosa, “I am quite certain. I read it several times myself to make certain.” replied the dracthyr woman, sounding more than a little irritated.

On the deck of the Glittering Prize was a large spell circle in sand, like a stylized clock face. At the twelve-, three-, six-, and nine-hour marks were four smaller circles. In the topmost one was a piece of pure quartz the size of a human man’s fist.

At the three-hour mark was a bag of tarts that Jaie had managed to bake the previous night at Laurelgosa’s request.

The six-hour mark had a rubber duck sitting in it. Laurelgosa had been at a loss to explain why this was important.

The nine-hour mark had a gnome sized set of robes in a glossy brass color made to specific measurements. Nitika had managed to put a rush on those to make them.

“It just seems so random…” muttered the magus, looking over the reagents again. “Why tarts? Why robes? Why a bloody toy duck?!” he asked. The quartz at least made sense, used as it was in clockmaking it had gained an intrinsic connection to the concept of time in the minds of Azeroth’s populace. Collective belief could make a very powerful source of magic… but the rest…

Laurelgosa read the instructions again, then snapped the book firmly shut. She was in her dracthyr form so she couldn’t blush visibly due to having scales, but there was a real feeling that if she could be she would be.

“SO! In order to perform the ritual, I must stand in the center on one foot, wings out, and recite my twelve favorite snack foods… and that will echo through the timeways and allow Chromie to find where and when we are, then come to our aid.” she nodded.

“Didn’t she say she could sense when Nyloc used the Perfect Chance? Why didn’t she show up when he did?” asked the mage.

She gritted her teeth, “I. Do not. Know.” she replied, getting rather short tempered. This whole ritual sounded absurd, but it was in the Chronowarden’s tome and it was all they had to contact Chromie. “I would assume that Nyloc’s paradox made it impossible for her to risk travelling here, but otherwise I do not KNOW!” she snapped.

Nelen took several steps back, raising his hands placatingly. “Alright! Sorry… Its just… I’ve never quite seen a ritual that worked this way."

Laurelgosa sighed, glancing around the deck. Jaie was there, as were Shalandrae and Dareley, and their new guests of Xhu Pai, Loren, Yvain, and Zul’zanza. All of them were watching her and waiting, some much more anxiously than others… though Zul’zanza seemed to share Nelen’s feelings that the ritual was a very unusual one.

“Very well then, let us beg-…” started Laurelgosa as she moved to step into the circle, when there was a sudden swirl of sand and with a loud pop a gnomish woman with blonde hair in tight buns on the sides of her head wearing white and black robes appeared on the deck of the ship!

“Hi everyone! I felt that aaaaaaaaaaaall the way in the distant past, good job on the spell! Don’t worry guys! Chromie is here to help!” she smiled, waving to them all. Standing there was none other than Chromie, the bronze dragon Chromazdormu in their visage form of the cheerful gnome woman.

The group looked at her, then Nelen glanced at Laurelgosa, who was frozen in mid step with her bright pink eyes locked onto the diminutive woman.

“Er… we didn’t actually do it yet…” pointed out Nelen.

Chromie blinked slowly, glancing at the circle, then at Laurelgosa. “… oh… um… w-well you were about to do it, and what I sensed was the timeline where you did finish it! I guess I just arrived a little early!” she giggled a bit awkwardly.

Laurelgosa narrowed her eyes, then she opened the book and re-read the ritual, then flipped back a few pages and read another part. “… Chromie. I am just now noticing that the writing for this particular ritual is different from the rest used in the tome.” she frowned.

Chromie’s cheeks colored, “Oh? H-how odd…” she replied.

“This ritual is not real, is it? This is your handwriting, is it not?” she asked, holding the tome out and pointing to it. “You were able to sense his use of the Perfect Chance and followed that here, and this was all for your amusement.” she finished in an accusing tone.

Chromie chuckled nervously, “Well… um… I mean… you guys wouldn’t have needed me unless you had just fought Nyloc… and I figured fighting him would’ve been really stressful, so I thought it’d be a funny little thing to cheer you all up?” she shrugged, smiling awkwardly.

Laurelgosa said nothing for a long moment. She very pointedly said nothing. She was a dracthyr, sworn to service to the aspects… but some of the dragons could be rather… eccentric. Especially the kin of Nozdormu who had to deal with timelines both apocalyptic (like Azewrath, where the Legion won the War of the Ancients) and absurd (like Azmerloth, where the dominant species was murlocs.)

She snapped the book shut loudly, then walked between Nelen and Chromie towards the door into the ship’s interior, going inside and closing it very firmly behind her. As she did Nelen just caught her saying “Typical. Bronze.” In an exasperated tone.

Nelen watched her go, then cleared his throat, “ANYWAY! I am glad you’re here Chromie, because we have a situation…” he began, then explained what had happened when Nyloc had used the Perfect Chance during their battle, how it had gone haywire, and how they had been forced to fight twisted versions of themselves before they were able to drive him away and Laurelgosa was able to use her newly acquired knowledge of the techniques of the Chronowardens to dispel the paradox and banish their foes.

Nelen had asked Laurelgosa if she couldn’t do the same with their new guests, but the dracthyr had explained that what she’d done was the equivalent of blasting someone over the edge of the ship, just temporally. She had no idea where or when their darker selves had wound up, only that they were removed from THIS timeline. If she did it again, then Xhu Pai and the others could wind up in much more dire straits than they were now.

Chromie listened to it all, then turned and looked at those four who were out of their own times… “Hmm…” she mused, leaning in and squinting her eyes as she gestured and, in a swirl of sand, her stave appeared. The same one that she’d used to send them through the timelines in pursuit of their own allies when they first went after Nyloc before Dalaran had fallen.

Chromie walked up to them each in turn, looking them over as she conjured an hourglass in her free hand, the dragon slowly getting more and more agitated as she did. “Oh… oh dear… this is not good…” she whispered.

Xhu Pai looked at her, the pandaren woman looking rather exhausted. She had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. They had managed to work out one of the ship’s spare rooms into temporary lodging for them but it had been awkward for the four of them to say the least. Laura and Zul’zanza had been out like a light, but both Yvain and Xhu Pai had a lot of trouble getting to sleep after the revelations of the previous day. “Sorry… what is ‘not good?’” she asked, feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Okay… so… normally I’d just sense your temporal signature and follow it to your proper timelines. Its how I found them when we got them back home.” she nodded to Jaie and the others. “But… you were pulled here because of a paradox. Time went all wild and the world tried to figure out what world it was supposed to be… and… well…” she sighed, “Just watch.” she nodded, holding out the hourglass next to Xhu Pai.

The hourglass floated over her palm… then slowly turned over, then turned again, then again and again faster and faster until it was a blur. Then it began to vibrate as a low hum filled the air and with a loud BANG it blew out like a lightbulb, snapping out of existence!

“… yeah… I’m really really sorry… but even Nozdormu wouldn’t be able to find your timelines like this! The paradox has warped your temporal signatures inside out and upside down and all sorts of stuff!” pouted Chromie. “If I tried to send you home, well, you could wind up anywhere in the infinite timelines of Azeroth!”

Jaie stood up and shook her head, “But… we know where Xhu Pai is from! Its that timeline you found me in! The one where my father didn’t die!” she insisted, “Can’t you just send her back there the same way you found me?”

Chromie sighed at Jaie, “No… when I say infinite timelines, I mean infinite.” she replied, shaking her head. “There’s major and minor deviations from the Titan’s Timeline in each… but there’s only one with a Xhu Pai shaped hole in it right now, and there’s billions of people on each version of Azeroth!” she explained. “It’d be like trying to… um…” she tried to think of a good metaphor.

Nelen thought on that, then raised a finger, “… like trying to find the missing bit of hay in a haystack, in a field full of haystacks?” he suggested.

Chromie nodded, “Ooo, that’s a good one! I’m gonna remember that one.” she replied. “But yeah Jaie… there’s TONS of timelines where your dad is still alive. There’s timelines where he’s alive but your mom is dead. There’s timelines where both of them are alive but you weren’t born, or they had a son, or you had a brother or sister, or Xhu Pai wasn’t born, or your ancestors stayed in Pandaria, or… you get the idea. Out of all of those, only one of them is missing it’s Xhu Pai, and trying to find that one without being able to follow her own timeline signature… well… without the right tools it’d take more time than actually exists, even for us.”

Jaie frowned, folding her arms. “… and what is the right tool?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.

Chromie sighed, “The Perfect Chance. Nyloc is using it all wrong! It was meant to fix stuff like this, not cause it!” huffed the gnome-shaped dragon, stomping her foot in frustration. “If we had that I could fix this easy peasy, but Nyloc is hiding out again and as long as he doesn’t use it we can’t track him down!” she frowned, “Infinite timelines again, he could be in any of them now.”

Shalandrae nodded at that, “Right. Wait for Nyloc to try to attack us again, maul him, take the Chance, they get to go home then?” she asked.

Chromie nodded, “That’d be our best bet… but, well… I dunno when he’ll come back.”

Yvain swore under her breath, looking away from the group as she leaned against the railing, concern writ large on her face. She wanted to go home, she wanted to see her parents again. Sure, she had one of them here, technically, but awkward didn’t even begin to describe how it felt to talk to a version of her father who was never actually her father, and a widower, and not even a dwarf anymore.

Zul’zanza said nothing, but his expression darkened behind his mask. He wanted to leave, as soon as possible, preferably before certain people realized who and what he was.

Only Loren seemed at ease, the worgen woman leaning on the railing as Morri the raven sat next to her, cocking its head at Chromie. The somnowl had returned as well but was currently in their quarters asleep. It was an owl after all, nocturnal.

Then there was a sudden soft whining sound.

All heads turned towards Xhu Pai.

The pandaren woman’s eyes were wide, her teeth gritted. “So… we can’t go back? There’s no way?” she managed, her voice sounding oddly high pitched.

Chromie shook her head apologetically, “Sorry… but this isn’t something I can fix on my own. We’d need what Nyloc stole to send you back safely.”

Xhu Pai stood there, stock still, her breathing starting to pick up. “I’m trapped here… I can’t… I can’t go home… I… I…” she stammered, then she let out a strangled cry, shoved Jaie out of her way, and ran for the gangplank down to the beach!

Jaie stumbled, then caught herself and ran after her, “WAIT! Don’t just run off! The island is dangerous right now!” she shouted after her, but Xhu Pai was moving very fast, driven by adrenaline and terror.

Xhu Pai raced off into the wilds of the Isle of Dorn on foot, her eyes wide with panic. She had been fighting it down ever since she found out the truth of her situation but finding out that the Bronze Dragonflight was helpless to get her back home was too much. The Bronze Dragons were the keepers of time itself! If they couldn’t help her, nobody could! She ran aimlessly through the fields towards a forest in the distance, her only thought to run away from… well… everything!

This wasn’t her home. This wasn’t her Azeroth. That wasn’t her Jaie. Even if she went to this world’s version of the Wandering Isle she’d probably find another version of herself there living her life!

This world had no place for her. There was no home for her to go to here. Xhu Pai Bao you say? Sorry, position filled. Better luck next timeline.

As she ran she tripped suddenly on a tree root and went sprawling on the ground, her silken outfit tearing at the knee on one side as mud caked into it. “AUGH!” she gasped, landing on the path into the forest. “Augh… nnnnhghh…” she gritted her teeth, then slammed her hand into the ground as hard as she could. “AAAAAAAAAAAUGH!” she screamed wordlessly, unable to voice her frustration or fear or anything properly. This was too bizarre to be real! It was like something out of a nightmare, where the world looks the same but everything is wrong and all your friends and family don’t recognize you anymore… but real.

She sobbed, tears soaking into her fur in terror and frustration. She felt so helpless, she could only cry now… until she heard something.

A jabbering sort of sound, like some odd unfamiliar form of speech.

She had run blindly, not paying attention to where she was headed or what was in her path… and had wound up in a wood south of Dornogal known as Boskroot Basin.

It was currently experiencing a fungus problem. A very nasty fungus problem. A fungus problem that knew how to use weapons.

Coming towards her, spears at the ready, were several squat creatures that looked vaguely humanoid… but with huge mushroom caps and bodies made of plant matter, their spear tips coated with mold. The fungarians of the Isle of Dorn. Aggressive, very territorial, and always on the hunt for food for their spores.

The food in question tended to fall under ‘anything not a fungarian.’

Xhu Pai yelped and scooted away from them, her eyes full of fear. She had no weapon, nor did she have training against a real opponent either! She couldn’t fight them!

Then there was a wooshing sound and a cloud soared down from the sky carrying a pandaren woman. “HANG ON!” she shouted, and Jaie Swiftpaw leapt off the cloud and landed between Xhu and the advancing fungus-folk.

She cracked her knuckles and slid into the ox stance, staring them down as the fungarians spread out around her, the diminutive plant people outnumbering her six to one…

Xhu whimpered, biting her lip to keep from crying out… Jaie was here… but she wasn’t here… but… her mind reeled, trying to reconcile that this woman both was and wasn’t Jaie!

Jaie however had been a part of Avalon since the War in Pandaria. She’d fought the mogu, the Iron Horde, the Legion, and more. She had learned how to focus on the fight above all else, and right now she needed to keep the fungarian’s focus away from Xhu and on her!

“Well?” she snorted, locking eyes with the lead fungarian and waiting.

She didn’t wait long, one of the fungarians squealing a battle cry and charging forward! It thrust out with its spear and Jaie dodged to the right, grabbed the haft with her left hand, and slammed her elbow down hard, then spun and kicked the fungus-creature in it’s face. It stumbled backwards with a yelp of pain, then looked at it’s weapon and let out a furious sound, the spear snapped in half!

The rest of the fungarians roared, sharing their fellow’s fury, and the remaining five charged her together!

Jaie dodged the first spear strike, grabbed the spear, and spun with it firm in her grasp, pulling it free of it’s owner’s hand and batting away another fungarian before spinning out of the way of the rest of the spears. She slammed back with her foot and sent one of the mushroom men flying into the distance, their plant-based bodies weighing practically nothing.

Three leapt at her at once and she dove under them, then as soon as they landed she lashed out and smashed her fists into the back of the heads (or what passed for their heads) of two of them, causing them to fall unconscious onto the forest floor.

The remaining fungarian spun around, only to get a face full of kneecap as Jaie leapt forward, grabbed it’s mushroom cap head, and slammed it home into her knee with a sickening splat!

The last two stared at her, then glanced at each other, then the first to attack threw down his broken spear and both of them turned and fled into the forest, screaming in fear.

Xhu Pai watched all this, then saw Jaie dust the spores off her knee before walking towards her. Xhu flinched, already on the edge of another panic attack, but Jaie took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Hey, c’mon… we need to get you back to our ship. Those guys scare easy, but they’ll come back with more of their buddies soon.” she whispered in a calm, firm tone.

“Why…” whispered Xhu in response.

“Why what?” asked Jaie.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked, “You’re not my Jaie… you barely know who I am…”

Jaie shook her head, “I became a monk because, in this timeline, my dad was killed by virmen. I want to use my strength to keep as many people as I can from having to lose a loved one like I did. You’re right, I’m not your Jaie… but somewhere that version of me is waiting for you to come home, and so are the versions of my parents of that timeline, and your own family. I can’t promise we’ll be able to get you home soon… but Nyloc is still after us, and he has what we need to get you there. Next time he comes, we’ll be ready.” she replied.

Xhu shuddered, her body shaking all over as emotion overtook her again, and she threw herself forward and clung tightly to Jaie, sobbing into her shoulder. It wasn’t her Jaie, it wasn’t the one she knew since childhood, the one she fell in love with, but… right now she needed her Jaie, and this was as close as she was going to get.

Jaie hesitated, then wrapped her own arms around Xhu Pai as she let out all the fear and anxiety she’d been holding back since the previous day, though she kept one eye open just in case. The fungarians seemed to get the message for now though.

Eventually Xhu Pai regained enough of her composure for Jaie to lead her back to the Glittering Prize, letting her borrow her old martial arts outfit to wear so Nitika could clean and mend her clothes after they got damaged in her flight.

Xhu Pai lay in the room that had been set aside for them, staring at the wall of the ship as she felt it rock gently on the waves.

She felt so confused. Her Jaie couldn’t fight like that, she could throw a punch just fine but this Jaie had fought off a half dozen armed foes without breaking a sweat. Her Jaie wouldn’t have been so calm about all this, she got wound up and shouty when she couldn’t remember where she put her farming tools after having a few too many at the inn.

Yet… when she held her in the woods, when she told her that she’d find a way to help her… that had felt like her Jaie.

“… but its not…” she whispered, the pandaren woman shaking her head. She wanted, so badly, to just be held by her lover now, to feel that reassuring touch against her body again… but as kind and willing to help as she was, that woman was NOT the Jaie she knew. She had never thought she could be so close to her and still feel so alone.

She needed an outlet for this frustration, for these emotions. She couldn’t just lay there forever.

She thought about watching Jaie fight. She had never considered wanting to become a monk, but she knew the basics of swordplay. It had been a family tradition since before her ancestors had left Pandaria.

She was still anxious though, she wanted to learn how to defend herself if this island was really as dangerous as this timeline’s Jaie had said… but she wanted something to keep the foe at least at a distance.

She couldn’t handle a bow though. She’d tried a few times when she was younger but her aim was terrible… but then she thought about what Jaie had with her when she’d saved her.

That spear… she wondered if they had any extras.

Next Story

Previous Story

[starmoon-constellation]

REVAMP OF ALTOR HOUSE

Author's Note: We decided to do a fair bit of editing, so we're reposting the story!! We will be taking down the AO3 and previous chapters and reposting to AO3 on a brand-new fic! WARNINGS: this fic explores plurality as a whole and deals specifically with a mixed-origins plural system. If this isn't your cup of tea, don't read, as this wasn't made for you. Thanks!!

Author's Note #2: If you'd like to get tagged for updates to this series, ask in the comments and I'll create a taglist!!

CHAPTER ONE: FICTIONAL WORLD Word Count: 2,196 words Summary: Rogue Syn talks about her life before the system

Raven strolled into the console room, giving Asmodeus a grin as the demonoid stood from the pilot’s chair.

“Hey. Anything bad happen?” Raven asked, and Asmodeus scrunched zyr nose slightly.

“Kind of? I mean, I gotta a little pissed because I couldn’t get the goddamn navigation bar on the Neocities to work. Maybe you can figure it out, though.” Asmodeus said, throwing down the headset ze’d been wearing a few moments prior. Ze roughly shoved zyr hair out of zyr eyes, causing Raven to smile softly. Asmodeus was never really one for having hair in zyr face, but zyr hair was so long it was constantly draping down in front of them.

Asmodeus moved out of Raven’s way, letting the elf sit down in the pilot’s chair.

“Oh, I also gave the vessel a gummy.” Asmodeus said, and Raven nodded, watching as the control panel shifted from a charcoal grey to her signature royal purple, signifying that control had officially switched to her.

“I can tell.” Raven said lightly as controls began to light up, some green and the rest red. A fair bit of the control panel was green, more than when the vessel wasn’t under the influence of a THC gummy, causing Raven to grin to herself. Perhaps she could learn more about the constellation tonight. “What led to the gummy?”

“Pain.” Asmodeus said with a shrug. “We went on a decent walk today, and acquired another blister on the ball of the left foot.” Raven nodded again as she slid the headset on. None of them were good at handling pain.

“Alright.” The elf said cheerily, causing Asmodeus to chuckle. “Feel free to head off, Asmo. Your shift is over.”

The demonoid nodded, turning to walk out of the console room.

“Stay safe, kiddo.” Ze said before heading out of the room. Raven grinned, shaking her head. She wasn’t a kid, not any more, but it was alright. She didn’t mind the nickname from Asmodeus.

Raven grabbed a hold of the hand controls, easily guiding the vessel to keep looking at the computer screen, her eyes scanning over messages. Looked like Asmodeus had asked a question about originals having exo-memories and lore, as the constellation called it. Not that it was wrong to ask questions, it just Raven an idea of what to look for while on her shift.

She began reading over the messages, eyes scanning over a single message a couple times to make sure she got the message into the memory system.

They ‘named’ their source even if it’s technically the brain.

Raven nodded to herself, mind mulling over the message. So, non-introject members could have a “source”. Sure, it wasn’t as common as introjects, but it was possible. That would explain why so many of them had lore, especially when you added in the fact that they all had overactive imaginations.

The elf looked up when she heard the door to the console room open, nodding as she saw Pyre step into the room. The vampire was unusually stoic, as if she was just doing her job right now.

“Whatcha up to?” Raven asked, her tone light and Pyre lifted a single shoulder as she sat down in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Asmodeus told me that ze gave the vessel a gummy. I just want to keep an eye on things.” Pyre said quietly, her voice stiff as she said Asmodeus’ name. Raven nodded, looking back up at the screen that showed the stream of the Outerworld.

“Still upset with zem?” Raven asked and Pyre pursed her lips tightly.

“I don’t want to discuss it.” The vampire snapped and Raven shrugged.

“Your grave to dig.” She said quietly, not looking at Pyre. “But you gotta remember that you two share a body… and a brain. Asmo knows that you’re angry at zem. Zyr trying to make up for it.”

“I said I don’t want to discuss it.” Pyre snarled and Raven nodded.

“Suit yourself.” The elf muttered, earning herself a glare from the other woman. “Am I still on probation?”

Pyre sighed, giving another shrug.

“Somewhat. Honestly, I’m just curious to see how you handle different situations. I’m not going to blacklist you… not that I did originally. That was the Monkey Brain being an ass to you.” Pyre explained and Raven nodded.

Suddenly, the door burst open and a humanoid entered, wings tucked tight against their back.

“Hey!” The humanoid said cheerfully, and Raven smiled, turning her head to look at the new entity.

“Heya, Rogue Syn!” Raven said, a broad smile on her face. The other being emanated a happy aura, making Raven grin wider. “What’s up? It’s not your shift right now.”

“Oh I know.” Rogue Syn said. “I got a notification on my scanner that an important memory had been catalogued. I was curious, so I checked it out.”

Raven tilted her head, unsure where exactly this was going.

“I was wondering if maybe I could create my source in this world? I don’t remember much about it any more, but I’d like to preserve what knowledge I do remember.” Rogue Syn finished, and Raven nodded thoughtfully.

“Whadd’ya think, Pye?” Raven asked curiously, and Pyre nodded once.

“It’s a good idea, in my opinion. It can possibly help us understand the constellation a bit more.” Pyre said quietly and Raven nodded.

“Alright!” She said cheerfully, before turning back to Rogue Syn. “Would you like to work on it now?”

The humanoid nodded hesitantly and Raven grinned, gesturing towards the second co-pilot’s seat.

Rogue Syn slowly walked over to the seat, and stood beside it, clearly trying to figure out how to sit in the chair, seeing as it had a high back, which would definitely crush her wings painfully.

Raven realised what the issue was, and looked at Pyre hopefully. The vampire stood gracefully, nodding at Rogue Syn.

“Give me one second, I’ll go get a chair you can sit in out of the hardware closet.” Pyre said softly. The hardware closet was the “monkey brain”, as the constellation called it, referring to base instincts and behaviours that none of them could edit. It also supplied the constellation with whatever it needed within the innerworld.

Rogue Syn stood nervously, her wings flexing on her back. It was clear she was nervous and Raven let go of the controls of the vessel so she could face Rogue Syn.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Raven said softly, and Rogue Syn looked at the elf with a guilty expression.

“Is it that obvious?” Rogue Syn asked and Raven smiled softly, nodding.

“But that’s okay. It’s good to be able to feel.” Raven comforted, making Rogue Syn smile slightly.

“Thank you.” She whispered as Pyre returned, holding a bar stool.

“Here ya go, Ro.” Pyre said kindly, handing the stool to Rogue Syn. Raven smiled to herself, happy that Pyre seemed to be on good terms with Rogue Syn. The vampire didn’t get along with that many in the constellation, for a variety of reasons.

Rogue Syn smiled hesitantly, taking the stool and setting it next to the secondary co-pilot chair. She slowly sat down, tucking her legs under the stool, her wings flexing slightly as she adjusted, the appendages keeping her from toppling off the stool.

“Y’know, I’mma talk to Asmo and see if ze can design a chair that’d let you have a back without messing with your wings.” Raven announced and Rogue Syn smiled.

“That would be nice.” The humanoid whispered and Raven smiled.

“I’ll ask zem next time I see zem.” Raven confirmed, and Rogue Syn nodded. “Now… do you remember the name of your home planet?”

Rogue Syn thought for a moment, before shaking her head.

“I know the sector of space it inhabited was called the Spartan Sector. It was quite similar to your space sector.” Rogue Syn finally said, and Raven nodded as she guided the vessel into pulling up a new word file on the computer.

“I see, I see.” Raven said, her tone kind. “Well, let’s get that written down. Do you remember the name of your species?”

Again Rogue Syn shook her head.

“I think it started with an ‘m’ or ‘w’, though.” She said helpfully and Raven nodded, grinning.

“Alright! We can search up some terms later to see if anything seems close or right.” Raven explained and Rogue Syn nodded.

“What about wildlife?”

Rogue Syn thought for a moment.

“We had the little demon creatures you have.” Rogue Syn said, and Raven tilted her head.

“Cats or dogs?”

Rogue Syn hesitated.

“The smaller ones. The ones that always land upright.” She finally said, her voice filled with doubt. “They had wings horns though.”

Raven nodded, jotting everything down onto the document in the outerworld.

“What else do you remember?” Raven asked curiously, and Rogue Syn let out a shaky sigh.

“My species was the dominant one, like how humans are the dominant species here.” She started. “We weren’t as advanced as humans – we hadn’t achieved electricity, but we could still travel through space, due to our biology.”

Raven tilted her head, and Rogue Syn grinned.

“We don’t need to breathe as often as humans. We only need a breath every couple of hours. We would just carry a small tank of carbon and inhale a single breath whenever we needed to. My kind would travel the stars with our wings, and I remember we had several colonies on other planets. I lived on a planet we’d adapted to host us, rather than our home planet.” Rogue Syn explained and Raven nodded, still guiding the vessel to type everything out onto the document. “The planet I was on was about the 13th planet we’d colonised, and it was a very mountainous planet, with mountains who’s peaks almost breached the atmosphere itself.”

Raven sucked in a breath and Rogue Syn grinned.

“It was a beautiful place.” The humanoid said softly. “I lived on one of the lower peaks, in a nest I’d built myself. I had a mate, the equivalent of your male sex, who had helped me produce an egg. His name was Lysander and he was… he was perfect for me.”

“You miss him.” Raven whispered, her tone making it a statement rather than a question. Rogue Syn nodded.

“I miss him dearly. But, I’m here now, so I will do my best to live in the present, rather than residing in the past.” Rogue Syn said with a note of sadness in her voice. “I remember distinctly I was holding my hatchling when I blinked, and I was here, in this body. I was confused, but with the help of Shade, I was able to understand what had happened. I had fallen through time, through the fabric of my reality, and ended up in this one.”

Raven nodded, still typing furiously. Rogue Syn let out another shaky breath, and slowly leaned forward, wings opening and flaring outwards to keep her balanced.

“I… I named her Althea.” Rogue Syn whispered, and Raven let go of the controls to the vessel, turning to face her body-mate.

“Hey, do you wanna stop for tonight?” Raven asked quietly, and Rogue Syn looked up at her, eyes filled with tears, and nodded. “Alright. We can keep talking about this another time, okay? Go back to your island, try to relax, okay?”

Rogue Syn nodded, slowly standing and starting towards the door. She stopped halfway there, turning back towards Raven.

“Could I…” Rogue Syn whispered, holding her arms up like she was imitating a hug.

“You want a hug?” Raven asked to confirm what she was seeing and Rogue Syn nodded. Raven immediately stood, walking over to the humanoid and hugging her fiercely, squeezing the other femme slightly. “We’ve got you, honey. You’ve got a family here too.”

Rogue Syn hiccuped, sniffling as she buried her face into Raven’s shoulder for a moment.

“Thank you.” The humanoid finally whispered as she pulled away. “I’m… I’m gonna go try to get myself together.”

Raven nodded, releasing the other entity.

“It’s okay to mourn, y’know.” Raven reminded Rogue Syn, who nodded and left the room. Raven turned to walk back towards the console, only to find Pyre looking at her with a weird expression. “What?”

“You’ve grown… a lot.” Pyre said quietly. “I think I’m gonna go get some sleep.”

Raven smiled slightly. Did this mean Pyre trusted her?

“I’m not going to supervise you 24/7 anymore.” Pyre said as she stood. “But I’d still like to co-front with you, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not!” Raven said happily, feeling the urge to hug Pyre but holding back. The vampire didn’t appreciate physical contact, unless it was violent, at which point she could release her anger in the best way for her.

Pyre smiled slightly, nodding.

“Thank you.” She said quietly, and Raven grinned at her. She was just happy the two of them got along again. “Keep the vessel safe.”

“I will!” Raven said cheerfully and Pyre nodded before exiting the room. Raven returned to the console, settling in for a long, uneventful night. At least she’d had a good time with her sysmates.

[sagevalleymusings]

A Caveat for my super long Scholomance Essay

I got a few new followers from a recent reblog of mine so as a thank you and definitely not secret plot to scare everyone away, I got the motivation to push through and finish my essay on relationships in the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik. It is, and this is not a joke, over five thousand words. I cite nearly a dozen sources and I have no apologies. Okay I have one apology. Sorry to the person who I will neither be tagging nor naming who said the thing about all the other Scholomance couples being monogamous that inspired me to write ten pages of literary analysis.

Anyway, continue on with your day, or maybe...?

The Scholomance through the Lens of Relationship Anarchy I’m gonna be honest. I was shy to talk about my love of Naomi Novik’s angry anti-capitalist response to Harry Potter. Shortly after I read A Deadly Education, I read a highly critical review which addressed Novik’s diversity and said that it felt more like 90s multiculturalism than 10s intersectionality. The passage about mal hiding in locs was… bad. And having the family that El was estranged from being the Indian half seemed like having your cake and eating it too - the appearance of diversity with none of the work. I’m not going to be able to find the original review now, but I think this article from Book Riot does a good job of addressing both the criticism and explaining a less critical interpretation.

So I was quiet. I could see where the criticism was coming from but appreciated a magic school that had a different interpretation than certain others which have already been named. I decided to wait until The Last Graduate to really make any judgment calls. 

In my extremely white opinion, Novik responds to criticism in both The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves in a way that recontextualizes the multiculturalism in A Deadly Education. This book isn’t just anti-capitalist. It’s anti-imperial. Places like New York and London are given more weight because the whole Scholomance is a metaphor for imperialism. The very foundation of the way they’re doing magic is imperialist and corrosive to the soul. But I don’t want to get into all of that until I can really chew on it, since my lack of personal experience as a person of color means I need to bring receipts and a body of research if I plan on speaking at length on that subject. 

I bring it up in context to say that Novik’s The Scholomance series has received valid criticism from various fronts throughout this series. But I think a deeper reading reveals that the thing which you are criticizing was part of the point the whole time. 

I feel similarly about “the cheating subplot” in The Golden Enclaves. 

“The Cheating Subplot” is not how I would categorize it. But I’m responding to this Goodreads review and a lot of interpretations which, as far as I can tell, were influenced by it. 

To summarize, because there’s no way to talk about this without spoilers for The Golden Enclaves, Orion has pushed El away only to, as far as she is aware, be eaten by a maw-mouth. Liesel shows up, and starts trying to actively seduce El. At some point, while processing her grief, she has sex with Liesel. Then, Orion comes back, very much alive. Then he leaves again. More El/Liesel bonding ensues in an airport loo, then Orion comes back, and El and Orion probably get back together.

This has been called a cheating subplot, partly for sleeping with Liesel the first time when she “knew he was probably alive.” And the second time when he was definitely alive and just not around. And at no point does El mention she’s slept with Liesel to Orion. I have a handful of issues with this, and I’m going to address the more minor issues before we get into the meat of it. 

Does El actually sleep with Liesel the second time?

This is splitting hairs, but when I read that section, I stopped, went, “wait they didn’t have sex though” and then read the passage again, and concluded that no, they had not in fact had sex. So when I saw people claiming on the internet that sure, he was dead the first time, but definitely not the second time, I was genuinely confused. There was no second time. So I’ve copied the entirety of what could be the description of El and Liesel having sex on the plane. And Liesel was right: it helped to feel good in my body, her hands and the water running over my skin reminding me that I was whole, even if I didn’t feel that way, telling me I was still all in one piece at least on the outside.

That’s it, that’s the whole description. You can infer that they had sex, but it isn’t stated. What if, instead, they just showered together? Is it still cheating then? Some people would say yes, because you’re naked and intimate with another person. But some people would say no, because that’s not sex.

Does El really not mention it to Orion?

One of the linchpins on this argument is, it’d be fine if El mentioned it to Orion, but she doesn’t. But… does she not? 

After all, we don’t hear every single conversation that people have - just the important ones. Or rather - just the ones that our unreliable and emotionally stunted narrator considers to be the important ones. This series is narrated by El to a mundane to describe how she became a maw-mouth hunter, essentially. Is “and then I told my boyfriend I slept with Liesel” really that important of a conversation to include in the text of the book? Couldn’t we just assume they had that conversation? After all, she does have that conversation with Liesel, in a way that makes plot-relevant sense. We could infer that she’s mentioning it to Orion in the same time frame (and if it seems like a stretch to infer that, see above inferred sex scene).

But I don’t think this is a likely place for this conversation to have occurred because Novik herself says that things were too busy and chaotic for most of the book for relationship negotiating to have been a priority.

The second place El could have mentioned it was in the epilogue, when El hand-waves away several weeks of serious emotional labor into a single paragraph. That would have been the place any rational person would have mentioned their fling to a partner.

We’ve been told in this book by El that she’s perfectly happy as a narrator to hand-wave away huge chunks of the story. I think it is plausible for these two to have had a conversation off screen and for El to just not feel the need to tell us that. This brings up one of the theory points which I’ll circle back to when I get to the theory part - it isn’t enough that it’s possible for those two to have had the conversation. The audience feels the need to have this relationship norm performed for them, so they can assuage their concerns that this might be cheating. But that brings me to a new question…

Assuming their relationship is exclusive, was El under any obligation to have mentioned it to Orion?

Okay, let’s assume that El and Orion are exclusive during the periods that they are dating, with the normal caveats that would apply to any relationship. 

The first time El has sex with Liesel, Orion is dead.

Or rater, El has been presented with a situation wherein the only possible outcome is eternal torture worse than death, and the person she loved is effectively dead because he cannot be brought out from that eternal torture except through death. Point being, it is not cheating to sleep with someone after your partner dies. 

Orion comes back, and El and Orion get back together, but is El under an obligation to tell him any and all people she’s slept with while they weren’t dating?

I would argue not, because it isn’t a parameter that’s applied consistently in monogamous relationships - in fact, if anything, we’re discouraged from telling our current partner our relationships before then. And what happens “on break” in my experience depends on the people involved - some people don’t want to know, some people do. But if it’s dependent on the people involved, the only time El would be obligated to tell Orion about the first time she had sex with Liesel would be if the words “did you have sex with anybody while we were on break” came out of Orion’s mouth.

So what about the second time (which again, I would argue is ambiguous)? Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that they’re on break. Orion leaves to join his mother, who El will have nothing to do with, and before he leaves, Orion tries to ask her to promise to kill him if his mom can’t fix him. They’re saying goodbye. It is unlikely these two will ever see each other again.

So if El and Orion are on break when she sleeps with Liesel the second time, why would she tell Orion about it? They weren’t dating at the time. 

And this is the stance Novik seems to come down on as well, because in her AMA on this question she says, “if El ever wanted to hook up with Liesel again, I think probably a conversation would happen at that point.”

Because it would be at that point that she would actually be dating Orion. 

But I also think we shouldn’t assume that their relationship follows the rules we’re expecting. After all, Novik also has this to say, “To me, it's just, people have different kinds of relationships with different people.” So… Do we know for sure whether or not El and Orion’s relationship is exclusive?

Actually, scratch that, and let’s dig into the meat. When I was arguing on the internet with someone about this, they said “the only other canon Scholomance couples we see are all monogamous.”

That’s already a pretty loaded statement, to be honest. We’re already pre-disposing ourselves to assume both that the people we’ve heard about relationships from are monogamous, and that the default state of Liesel and El and Alfie and Orion is that they are all supposed to be monogamous -this person doesn’t just say “the other relationships are monogamous”, they say couples specifically. But just because a relationship looks monogamous doesn’t mean that it is.

It’s probably for this reason that my irl partner is extremely careful to shoehorn in references to the other people he’s dating whenever the opportunity presents itself, because we live together, and people assume we are monogamous unless we state otherwise. 

I want to set aside this assumption, and look closely at the text to see what norms Novik is really setting for us. To that end, I’ve scoured all three books for every example of relationship drama, and I think Novik is inadvertently saying some rather profound things about the hegemony in monogamous heterosexual relationships in patriarchal post-imperial countries that doesn’t mesh with an anti-colonial anti-capitalist agenda. In simpler, but less accurate words, non-monogamy is anti-colonial. And I think Novik’s descriptions of relationships bear this out.

All of the parents that we see are a straight couple with biological children. No one has gay parents. No one is adopted. Even these cookie-cutter relationships still have a decent amount of variability. Gwen is raising a child on her own as a widow. Liesel’s father was having an affair. But heteronormative expectations for these two bear out. To our knowledge, Gwen never moves on. She is never described as having any intimate relationship with anyone else, despite living on the kind of neo-pagan commune which in my limited experience is absolutely rife with free-love types. Gwen is the textbook perfect example of a mourning widow. She has sex with her high school sweetheart, what, one time? Certainly a limited number of times if El’s statements on the lack of opportunity are to be believed. And loves him and only him for the rest of her life.

Meanwhile, Liesel’s mother is punished for sleeping with a married man - killed for it in fact. And her father is as distant as cheating husbands have ever been stereotyped to be.

So I would still argue that all four of these examples are a body of expectations - of amatonormativity - which is, at the end of the day, rooted in the same colonial, patriarchal mesh that had them building a school on the backs of dead children. 

Meanwhile, this new generation of children are doing something different. 

Rule one about whether or not something is a date or an alliance is if they do something with you and don’t ask for fair share in return. And that’s pretty much all we’re told about relationships for quite a while - El doesn’t even notice that Ibrahim and Yaakov are already dating. 

Our protagonist is willfully oblivious to most everyone around her, so we don’t know much about anyone really. The first hint of an inkling of anyone’s thoughts on relationships other than the one El’s only pretending to be in, really, is when a girl propositions her and Orion for a threesome in the library.

And that is literally the only two mentions of relationships of any kind in the entirety of A Deadly Education. I checked. 

During their senior year, more people are dating. Ibrahim and Yaakov are revealed to have been an item for an unspecified amount of time previously, Liesel starts pursuing Alfie, and Liu has her own fair share of relationship drama.

And don’t forget about Jermaine!

… Here’s the thing. I know for a fact that you forgot about Jermaine because it took me two solid weeks to find this passage again.

We knew that Jermaine from New York had spent the last year in a competitive love triangle with a boy from Atlanta over one of the top alchemists, and we all knew when in a perfect storm of gossipy delight it turned into a trio and an alliance, halfway through the first month of term.

This is in chapter 9 of The Last Graduate, right after El catches Ibrahim and Yaakov kissing, and she explains that there’s just not a lot of romance drama to be had when you’re fighting for your life every day, but that they chewed very thoroughly on the drama that they did have. Jamaal was courting a girl from Cairo “by the book,” and Jermaine had wound up in a triad.

And on that note, I want to come back to Liu’s relationships, because of a very specific line towards the end of the book.

“What was up with letting us hassle you about Zixuan all this time! Or were you trying to decide?”

Here’s the thing. There’s a strong implication in this one line that when Liu kisses Yuyan two days before graduation, she hasn’t severed her flirtation with Zixuan. That’s still on the table. She wants to want the right things. 

The Thesis

So when I say “how do we know for sure that El and Orion’s relationship is exclusive”, it is in the context of the kinds of relationships we’ve been presented with throughout the entire trilogy. And across the entire trilogy, rather than “the only other canon Scholomance couples we see are all monogamous,” of all the romances we see from the kids in the school during El’s tenure, less than half  of them are in completely exclusive monogamous relationships. And only one of the couples is heterosexual.

And I think it does bear noting that there are several hundred kids in each grade, and we don’t know the relationship status of most of them. But I want to circle back to the very first thing we learn about relationships, because I think it bears repeating. 

Rule one about whether or not something is a date or an alliance is if they do something with you and don’t ask for fair share in return. El is in an alliance with Liu and Aadhya. She winds up adding Chloe to the alliance. So… what about everyone else? El spends the entirety of Book 1 criticizing Orion for doing things for other people without asking for fair value, then spends the entirety of Book two doing things for other people without asking for fair value. 

It can be interpreted that this is a rule El made up in her head that doesn’t actually have any basis to the other Scholomance kids, but I think this is the more shallow reading. After all, if we compare it to El’s understanding of the Scholomance, she’s shown to have a better understanding of it than most throughout - even at the beginning. 

I think instead it is one of many examples of the layers that get peeled back across each book. There is the Scholomance as everyone else sees it, the Scholomance as it sees itself, and the Scholomance as it truly is. Each peeled-back layer reveals a truth about El too. In Book 1, the group’s understanding of El is one of grim prophecy - they all believe, even herself, that she has the power to undo them utterly. In Book 2, that force is used for good, and the El she strives to be shines. But in Book 3 we’re given the truth - that the El of grim prophecy and the El as a radical force for good are the same, and the system needed to be brought down.

Book 1 through the lens of El is largely devoid of romance or sexuality at all. She doesn’t see herself as capable of those kinds of feelings and therefore misses them in others. Book 2’s relationships are largely about expectations. Liu struggles with the expectation of choosing Zixuan, El struggles against her mother’s wishes, Liesel seeks an advantageous position, and Yaakov and Ibrahim are found out by accident. There’s a self-consciousness to the relationships in Book 2, an awareness of being observed. 

If Book 3 is how the relationships truly are, then the important takeaway from the addition of El/Liesel is that relationships are messy and undefinable. They happen or not, with societal expectations or not, and sometimes they’re happy and sometimes they end tragically and sometimes you do something stupid because you want to. 

And, I think critically and the reason I think there’s a deliberate amount of relationship anarchy in this book: romance is only one way of forming connections. In The Golden Enclaves, El is finally back with her Mum, previously the only person she could confide in, except this time, it feels  hollow and empty, because of all the things she’s learned and the person she’s lost. Liesel reaches out because London needs help. They meet up with Alfie there too of course, and then decide to talk to the New York Domina. Aadhya drives them there, and Chloe meets them outside to do introductions. El gets coordinates to the real entrance to the Scholomance and rescues Orion, both Aadhya and Liesel coming with. They go back to Mum’s commune and all five of them spend some quiet time together, Mum and Orion needing to heal. Then Liu calls, and the kids have to rush off to Beijing. They meet up with  Zheng, the younger cousin El has bonded with just a few months prior, and rescue Liu from a horrible fate. But in the meantime Orion can feel himself slipping away, and he leaves. Liu needs to heal, so Aadhya decides to stay with her, and Liesel and El go to Dubai - they’ve been told they’re next and want help from El.

They’re met at the entrance by Ibrahim and Jamaal. By the way, do y’all remember “by the book” Jamaal? I find it interesting that Novik mentions his grandfather has three wives (pg 308). And then we find out that Ibrahim and Yaakov, who’d had such a romance in school… couldn’t stay together. They’re from different enclaves. The systems in place tore them apart. But then, because more than just El needs to cast the spell, and the people chanting need to live there, the Dubai enclave guarantees that anyone who agrees to work on El’s golden enclave spell gets a spot in Dubai. And all of a sudden Cora and Yaakov are both with Ibrahim in Dubai now.

Afterwards El leaves for Mumbai to confront her past and it is the only time in the entire book that El is alone. And once she’s done some important self reflection, she goes to the gates of the Scholomance again, and meets up with Liesel and Alfie, Aadhya and Liu, Khamis, then most of the seniors there, and eventually Orion again, who has been in the book less than half the time and who, it is revealed, was literally dead the whole time. Orion as a living, autonomous person exists and is present in the book for seven pages.

Novik’s romances are some of my favorites, because they are always grounded in a person’s complexity. The women in her books don’t become mothers and vanish from the page the moment they find a man they like. They exist for themselves, and love incidentally to that. It’s something that feels unusual next to even feminist books like the Vorkosigan series. 

The Golden Enclaves seeks to break the systems of power that have held El et al captive through the first two books. That includes the expectation so ingrained in our society that most people don’t even know it’s there that a romance is the best and most important thing that can happen to someone.

Having said all that, I want to conclude with an additional side examination. I don’t think people are correct to interpret this as a cheating subplot, because of all the reasons outlined above, and because, like everything, the relationships in The Scholomance series are about so much more than simply X/Y. But even if the interpretation that it is a cheating subplot is correct…

Is The Cheating Subplot Really So Bad?

Young people forget what it’s like. But I’m like, five thousand in internet years, and I remember. The first girl I ever made out with had a boyfriend at the time. So did the second. And the third. 

I’m reminded of The Price of Salt AKA Carol. Or Fingersmith. Young people can call cheating a “bisexual stereotype.” But when I was younger, it was a survival tactic. 

I’m not saying that this is what Novik is trying to portray. But I can say that as someone who was part of a Star Trek mailing list back in the early days and founded AO3, Novik knows what it means to be queer. And relationships when you’re queer are messier. They’re freer. They’re defined by what you say and what you don’t say, which may seem obvious, but too many relationships are defined primarily by what a relationship should look like, and not at all by what you do or do not say.

El and Orion are dating for a year before she realizes it. That’s pretty queer. When El gets him back, there’s never an explicit conversation that they’re dating again. They have sex, but their relationship is fairly undefined. Novik has even explicitly said their relationship remains specifically undefined because El is unused to and uncomfortable with being intimate with people. And we see this, again, not just with Orion, but with every relationship, even the platonic ones. El doesn’t like so much as admitting to knowing someone’s name, because learning their name means caring about them as a person.

There’s never any discussion that El and Orion’s relationship is exclusive. That doesn’t mean that it is, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t, either. One could see this as cheating, or you could not. But even if it was… why is that something to knock a series you love from five stars to two?

That feeling that you’re having right now? That discomfort? That says that this is running against a taboo that you have. And maybe it’s a taboo that you have for a very good reason. But my point is that you’re responding emotionally, not rationally. And rationally, there’s a lot of good reasons one might have a cheating subplot. Because it wasn’t acceptable at the time to date other women for example. Or to highlight that our characters are still just teenagers, and prone to making bad decisions. Or to draw attention to the messiness that comes even from protagonists, who are traumatized, and just need a little bit of human connection, even if they know it’s stupid, and will probably hurt them in the long run.

Cheating is an extremely human thing to do. Numbers on this are pretty hard to find, but studies estimate that around 1 in every 5 people admits to having cheated on a partner. How many partners have you had? Is it more than five?

I’ve been the person being cheated with, as I’ve already mentioned. But I’ve also been cheated on. Sometimes, authors say things that are true, and it isn’t acceptance of the thing, but merely a reflection of lived experience. These characters are teenagers. Teenagers make bad decisions with little forethought. Why can’t we simply have a messy character? Why does the existence of a cheating subplot have to be treated with such vitriol and hatred?

I think the problem is twofold. A, for lack of a better word, uwu-ification of media which encourages cutesy, shallow stories, and an expectation of conformity due to capitalist streamlining and fan pressure. Uwu-ification

The world has sucked for kind of a while. Things are improving in fits and starts, but in the meantime my generation has seen multiple unprecedented generation-defining tragedies. 9/11, the war on terror, the 2008 financial crisis, COVID, the first coup attempt in 300 years, the COVID recession on top of COVID, a massive uptick in mass shootings and in specific school shootings, just to name the most prominent ones. And the commodification of attention that blossomed with social media means that even what should be good things about this generation - the absolutely incredible technical advances - still sap away at our mental health. 

On top of that, you have the decimation of the long-form essay. I’ve been working on this essay for weeks, read two books and multiple articles, and right now, it’s nine pages long.

Who the fuck is going to read this? Why would anyone read this when they could just check Twitter for a bite-sized hot take instead?

This is starting to change. Podcasts are growing in popularity quickly, and you can also find a lot of long-form essays on youtube (though they’re all, they tell me, going to Nebula). But long form essays are a huge time commitment, and a niche interest, all things told. This is, I have no doubt, exacerbated by the crimes against education George Bush installed. No Child Left Behind was a fucking travesty and absolutely has eroded critical thinking skills substantially. Engaging in that type of deeply analytical pondering takes a lot more energy for someone who wasn’t taught how to do it as a child. So we all have PTSD or at the very least chronic anxiety and on top of that we don’t have the training necessary to unpack our own trauma. Millennials and younger really just want to relax. They want to sit on the couch and enjoy something charming, and cute, and not painful (that or like, deeply terrifying and gory horror, don’t understand that one). 

And I’ve absolutely been that person. Sometimes I just want something cute and charming and fun that I don’t have to think that hard about.

Fan Pressure

But… It seems like on top of this desire for everything to be only the happy parts of Hayao Miyazaki, there’s also this really aggressive push against anything that’s not. Internet collectivism can absolutely be a force for good. I think campaigns to draw attention to people like R Kelly are a good thing.

And also, special interest groups have realized that if they pool together their collective resources, they can campaign for change they want to see. Doesn’t mean they’ll always get it, but we know that if we just use the right hashtag, and just tag enough people, someone who matters will see my tweet about how Destiel should be canon. Even if they don’t listen, they can’t avoid hearing me.

And I bring up Destiel specifically because what we’re talking about is fandom and fan behavior as it pertains to creators and creations in general. Supernatural fans have done a lot of good (raising huge amounts of money for charity) and a lot of bad. But I’m not the only one who has wondered if maybe this ability to amplify one’s voice can be… kind of dangerous. Being able to leverage your voice to call for more representation is good. But that’s not the only thing that gets leveraged.

This is no doubt exacerbated by the way mainstream media has become more and more algorithmically streamlined - catering to the widest audience means producing the same reliable and meaningless format over and over again. I could write another (whoops I’m up to ten now) pages on the finale of She Hulk and its manufactured consent to Disney-fied conformity all on its own.

So what does this mean for The Scholomance?

To bring this back around, because that was a lot of background that felt irrelevant: people want works that they consume in general to be less realistic. They want something cute and easy (or action-packed and easy, or gory and easy). They leverage this to actors and creators, who respond by providing that thing people want. This is all fine so far. But then you get this amplified by the tendency towards monopoly - stories whether they be books, movies, or tv shows, are published because they’re believed to be profitable, and something which is profitable right now is the most processed kind of junk food media you can make. 

But then you get someone like Novik who is portraying an imperialist system in her magic with the intent to destroy it, or who has time-period accurate relationships, including all the lack of consent, or who has messy romances that kind of feel like cheating, and it seems like suddenly, it doesn’t just feel like something different. It feels like a betrayal. Fans aren’t just surprised. They don’t say this one’s not for them. They say they’re disappointed, gutted, devastated. How could Novik have betrayed our trust by adding this kind of a story element… Reach out to Novik and make her change it!

And that’s… not really okay. And that’s the problem I have, ultimately. Because you don’t speak for 100% of fans. You don’t speak for me, certainly. And even if you did speak for all fans… is populism really the ultimate truth in our society? Do we only want things that appeal to the broadest group of people?

I don’t. 

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

Ok so I finally read who’s afraid of Alexander J Newell bc… not a single person said what they were actually accused of. Not only is the article unreliable but even if it’s 100% true almost none of it is a big deal? Like no one has broken it down yet so I’ll do a small thing saying why it’s not legit and then explain the “issues” that the article actually talks about

Reasons it’s not accountable

1) the “journalist” does not have a degree of any kind

2) this is posted on a site that allows anyone without any verification or credentials to post. It is also seemingly the only place they’ve posted any news articles

3) they work with the competing company and repeatedly compare them

4) go between pounds and dollars throughout the article to skew numbers in their favor

5) they use the word allegedly every other sentence. You should k ow if it’s actual or alleged before starting a a smear campaign

6) (the biggest one imo) not a SINGLE rq source is named except by pseudonym. I don’t believe that dozens of people were willing to call out Harvey Winsting and Trump but that not a single person can talk about their job sucking in normal ways

7) state easily checkable misinformation like them paying minimum wage when they actually pay above that and the living wage (sad those aren’t the same thing but that’s neither here nor there)

8) the writer is 20 which is apparent if you read this and have ever had a job. At that age my brother quit a job bc his raise was less than a dollar amount within the first year, like all jobs. That was Taco Bell. Im not saying the journalist is on that level but think how much you knew about jobs at the time. I was convinced if I didn’t have the drink cart at the retail store done on time I would be fired instantly on the spot instead of nothing happening. I knew nothing. It’s about experience.

Now RQs alleged (their words not mine) crimes:

1) they pay minimum wage. Considering this started out as an unpaid venture between friends in a disco corridor of their house wouldn’t be bad. But also easily proven untrue

2) people joining were under the impression they wouldn’t have to follow the rules on their contract and that the rules were bendable and then they weren’t. It’s a contract guys.

The big issue with the contract is they want to make money back and ad revenue and such doesn’t make a lot. If they take 50% of everything (what they’re asking) and lent you $1000 it would take 62,500 downloads (most shows don’t break 20,000) for them to get their money back that they gave you if my math according to their own numbers is right. A real evil thing for them to do to pay you and your workers paychecks as well as a budget to make the thing you want and then dare to want to break even or heaven forbid profit.

3) you can’t leave a contract early. Again. It’s a contract. That’s how that works in an adult job. Also they’re mad they can later on use the product to advertise for themselves. Like “from the producers of” type of stuff and other general intellectual property stuff. Not great but if they’re paying to have it made it makes sense halfway through they don’t want you changing networks. You don’t start a show on Disney and end it on Netflix that’s just not how the world works. They bought the product, you don’t pay for someone to build a house and then Act like it’s reasonable they want to take it after.

4) that layoffs exist and happen sometimes? Unfortunate yes. Considering how normal that is and that half the article is about how bad RQ is at making money it should not be a surprise. When a company follows laws such as “pay workers” and doesn’t have the money to do it the solution is “have less workers” sorry to say.

5) that money from productions goes to services used to make those productions (acast)

6) that volunteers exist

7) they aren’t good at advertising their own shows

8) this is actually legitimately not great but again not horrible. They expect people to work 16-20 hours a week and they end up working a WHOLE 24 a week. This is in many places known as a part time job.

9) they think the show will pay more than it will but the Patreon doesn’t get enough and when it does they were still bad with ads so the projected amount was bad. They still get that living wage it’s just not the bonus they planned for. Everyone who works in retail or any job that involves making plan that you don’t account for bonus in your budget.

10) if you try to talk to management there’s a waitlist but if you try to talk to your projects team there’s no issue. Almost as if management runs 50+ projects and the project team only runs one 🤔

11) they’re hands off and let you do their thing. I’m not kidding this is a point in there that’s supposed to be bad

That’s about it. Like no it’s not a utopia or a fun thing where you do whatever and get free money. You can unfortunately tell it’s written by a 20 year old because they think a company ALLEGEDLY holding people to their contracts, paying minimum wage for a part time job, wanting to make money, and not knowing the exact amount of hours they’ll have for you or the amount of money a project will make for your bonus is worthy of writing an article about and being scandalized.

Before believing something check sources. If you don’t want to do that, at least read the article before deciding that somethings horrible and evil. There isn’t any dodged workers comp or wage theft or anything seriously upsetting. If the lack of any named sources or credentials or the fact it’s a competing network or the use of the word alleged 1000 times and the rewrites and misquotes other people have brought up don’t mean anything, then at worst this is all true and you might be asked to work a few extra fully paid hours a week and get paid minimum wage at a part time job and have to follow the rules you agreed to with little bonus. Oh no. I wonder what that’s like, what a nightmare.

[softprincesso]

✨HOW TO BECOME A WEALTHY MIDDLE-AGED MAN✨

PT.2: Overview to understanding different saving/retirement methods, investments, and forms of income

2.1 Savings and Retirement

Welcome lovelies to (what I hope will be) a helpful series on gaining wealth and becoming financially literate and independent!

*disclaimer: while this advice can generally apply to many it will not apply to all. Everyone is in a different situation and should do their own research before they take what ANYONE says as fact or law. This is also coming from the perspective of a young, biracial, first generation female business student following a hypergamous lifestyle and who does sw so some advice may be specific to my like-minded ladies, but for the most part I just love money and want to help others find joy in their wallets as well. I am also operating in the US so things regarding accounts, stocks, and certain laws will vary by your country. Also, this is just a fun thing I wanted to do because talking about leveling up and learning and growing and money are my favorite past times. None of these pictures are mine, however I am using some links which may compensate me in some way, but I only used links which were mutually beneficial and would help you gain something as well, they are still just actual sources I use for myself.

✨THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND✨

Financial independence is different than financial confidence.

Financial Independence: “The most common sense of the term is that someone has enough wealth to live as they wish for the rest of their life without having to work.” -Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0611/declare-your-own-financial-independence-day.aspx

Financial Confidence: “We define financial confidence as having three aspects,” says Miler. “The first is awareness of how money can be a tool for helping you reach your goals and dreams. The second is financial literacy and understanding economic factors. The third is trust and knowing where to turn for financial advice.” -Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/2018/06/16/women-money-8-steps-for-growing-your-financial-confidence/?sh=2175b65e2468

While the ultimate goal is financial independence, financial confidence should be the main focus. I’ll give an example why. Imagine there are two people: Rhonda and Jill. Both of them like nice things, love to shop, and participate in the occasional splurge. Rhonda works a regular 9-5 and has a decent salary. She doesn’t have much financial knowledge (translation: financial confidence), but she has a savings account at her local bank and puts a couple hundred into retirement each year and she thinks that's enough. Suddenly, Rhonda wins the lottery. Overnight she has become a millionaire, so she quits her job, moves to LA, and goes on to live life to the fullest. She would now be considered financially independent. However, Rhonda has no idea how to manage all that money. She puts a small amount into that bank savings account and takes the rest to do what she will. One day she tries her luck at a casino, in less than five hours she has lost all of her money and has to start back at square one with no job, only a few thousand to get her through, and no-good way to explain to employers that she just wasted the last 5 years spending money on handbags she now has to sell at a depreciated value. (BTW you would not last not working with only a million dollars in LA for that long)

Now, let’s look at Jill. Jill is an independent contractor and has a relatively steady income. She knows very little about finances, but she actively learns how to manage what she has and keeps up to date on the latest money news. The day that Rhonda won the lottery was just another Thursday for Jill, the only unique point for her was that she opened a savings accounts with a high APY (we’ll say 1%) and put in $5000.00. A little later she also opened a Roth IRA and puts in the maximum yearly allowance of $6000.00. Along the way she opened a brokerage account of her own and started trading in the stock market along with investing in real estate which has given her some extra income to play with each year. Unfortunately, another housing crash occurs, and all of the money Jill invested into real estate is gone. However, since Jill learned the skills behind her choices early on, she is knowledgeable and understands the ups and downs of the market and how to invest her money in other places in the meantime. And, that High yield savings account accrued around $50 more without her doing anything and she has that to fall back on, or worst case she can take out part of her principal Roth IRA contribution. 10 years from now Jill should start to see a steady increase in her Roth IRA that by retirement will be a little over 1 million and she should be comfortable and invested enough into stocks that she gains around $200-1000 extra each month.

I think you understand why you want to be Jill.

✨HAVING ADEQUATE SAVINGS = BEING YOUR OWN LIFEGUARD✨

As discussed in Pt.1 the first goal you should achieve is securing an emergency fund that could sustain you for a couple of months if things were to ever hit the fan, and starting a retirement fund should be in your top 5 goals to complete. The saying, “the rich get richer” is popular for a reason. Wealthy people know how to make their money work for them instead of them having to work for money. An easy way anyone can do the same is by opening the right accounts for your savings and retirement.

Savings: 

All of your savings should be in a high yield saving account or split between different high yield accounts. This is an account which will reward you some interest every period for having money in your account with them. This is incredibly easy to do. You can either research/ask your bank about their high yield accounts or do some googling to find some other bank. Then transfer your money and there you go! When looking at banks understand that the highest Annual Percent Yields (APY), or the interest they will reward you, are going to be from online banks because they have less operational costs than a brick and mortar, but they will also come with their own disadvantages, like less ATMs to access or the inability to use when outside of your country so make sure to look into that. IMPORTANT: Make sure that whatever bank you choose is FDIC-insured so if the bank were to ever collapse or lose your money you have insurance up to $250,000.This won't generate a lot of extra cash, but an extra $20 every year is better than $0.

Retirement:

These accounts usually go by your current situation and what you see for your future.

401K: Probably the most known (I believe it’s only in the States but there might be something close to it in other countries) and that’s just because this is what employers usually offer if they offer anything. It is a retirement fund that your employer will set up and you can predefine how much of your paycheck you want to automatically go into it every time. Sometimes, the employers will also have a match program, and if they do you better max out the money they will contribute because that is FREE money! Most advice that I have seen has said to really only focus on this fund if your employer has that match program, otherwise I would focus on one of the accounts below. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/08/401k-info.asp

IRA: An IRA stands for Individual Retirement Account. There are three kinds…

                         Traditional: This IRA lets you put in pre-tax money and lets it grow tax-free until you make a withdrawal. Once you make the withdrawal that money is taxed at the current rate of your income at the time. Your contributions are tax deductible so you can write them off of your taxable income of that year. There are limits to how much you can contribute depending on your income, status, and whether you have another retirement fund as well.

                          Roth: With this IRA your contributions are taxed, but when you withdrawal money later on it is tax free. For those of you in a lower tax bracket than you believe you will be in the future, this IRA makes the most sense as you will pay less taxes now than you will when you are 59 ½ (The official age of retirement in the States). There are limits to how much you can contribute depending on your income, status, and whether you have another retirement fund as well.

                           SEP: Simplified Employee Pension. This is also an employer-based plan and may also work better for my self-employed gals out there. I don’t really know a lot on this one so I’ll just leave a link you can look into if it interests you: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102714/how-does-simplified-employee-pension-sep-ira-work.asp

You can have both a traditional and Roth IRA as long as you are eligible for both. Anyone with earned income (with a job or can prove a steady income) can contribute to a Traditional IRA, however with a Roth IRA, as a single you can earn up to $139,000 and contribute. Personally, if you are just getting started with all of this just set up one IRA and as you learn more you can take steps to get another or switch accounts.

https://www.investopedia.com/retirement/roth-vs-traditional-ira-which-is-right-for-you/

There are a plethora of other accounts, but they are more specialized and the top four should get you started on the right path to saving for retirement. I’m guessing that the majority of the audience reading these are women between the ages of 20-30. Trust me when I say that I love to spend money as much as the next girl, but I also would like to be completely comfortable should anything happen in my older years that screws up my marriage or job, and no one is going to secure that for you.

Also, I’m sorry this is so US-based, but once again it is all I know. I believe IRAs are more widespread than a 401K, but all that takes to find out is a Google search on your part.

Either way, make sure you have a plan going into 2021 for your savings and retirement because this economic whirlwind is far from over and there is always a chance for another recession, depression, or disaster. (Wow O, way to keep the mood light)

This was getting way too long with the investments added so look out for Pt.2.2 on the overview for investments (where the actual fun begins and I can stop being such a stick in the mud)…

VOCAB TO KNOW/RESEARCH:

Financial independence

Financial Confidence

APY

Roth IRA

brokerage account

High yield savings account

principal

401K

Traditional IRA

Once again… if in these posts I ever give bad advice, F- something up, or am just generally ignorant PLEASE call me out! Remember that just like you I am a young woman figuring everything out and while I am confident when talking about money, I am by no means a genius (only in spurts) so any chance to learn I appreciate. I hope you all learned something new today and as always…

With Love,

O

[doomed-corruption-au]

Doomed Corruption: Prologue

Peridot growled, slamming her limb enhancers on the table in rage. She could only watch as they destroyed both her extended touch stump bases, smashing them to bits. These “Crystal Gems,” whoever they were, were a menace. She could only sit there in anger as she watched the defective amethyst slam the extended touch stump base into the main power crystal in the center of the far wall.

“I’M REPORTING THIS,” she shouted. “YOU HEAR ME!? You all have-”

Then her feed cut out, meaning they only heard part of her rant.

Grumbling, Peridot minimized the live feed, which had since turned to static. She read her log over again, correcting a few errors in the text. That voice reader technology was still a work in progress, and whatever that “Steven” was, the reader didn’t recognize its voice as well as it could with gems.

Well. At least he’d given her something to work with. She looked at the list of humans he’d given her, wondering what “Sadie”s looked like, or “Lars”s or “Onion I Think”s. That one, in particular, sounded odd, but the Steven should know better than she would.

Why had those Crystal Gems defended that Steven? Was it important in some way?

Ug. Whatever. She had better things to do than wonder about some random organic species on a doomed planet, anyway.

She growled. Those Crystal Gems were going to be a problem. If only one of her plug robonoids made it to the Kindergarten, that could only mean they destroyed the rest. Just like her Red Eye. Or the Homeworld warp. Or the robonoids sent to repair the Homeworld warp.

Who were they? The way the pearl spoke, they seemed to think themselves as important. The pearl shouting “WE ARE STILL ALIVE” rang in Peridot’s ears. It sounded like it meant something.

She had to know. Setting aside her log, she stood up and stormed over to the nearest warp pad. One quick flash of light later and a short journey, she was standing in front of the Homeworld hall of records.

The building was large, holding data logs and reports that dated up to nearly 20,000 years ago, when the technology and gem glyph were first fabricated. Some logs had been written on physical material, like old stones, and were starting to fall apart with age. Gems were working to translate what they could into more modern technology, but for some of those ancient logs, it was too late.

Not what she was looking for, anyway. The logs were sorted by year. Pink Diamond owned Earth, and she was shattered just over 5,000 years ago. Peridot started there first.

There were a few other gems mingling about, but none questioned her present. Even though she had no business being there, they left her alone, assuming she was doing research assigned to her rather than coming here on her own curiosity. She should be okay as long as no one asked her anything.

The Cluster, which she did extended research on, was implanted in the Earth shortly after Pink had been shattered, with a few hundred years difference. It had been commissioned by Yellow Diamond, and took several hundred years to assemble. Once it was done, it had to incubate for a thousand times longer than a normal, average gem, meaning it incubated for 5,000 years. This was all old information to Peridot.

What she didn’t ever think to question was why the Cluster was planted in the first place.

A rebellion. Rose Quartz- she’d heard of her, but never knew she had an ARMY- and her renegade pearl. A thousand years of fighting. A second Kindergarten (where apparently the perfect Jasper was made from, amazingly). Fusions running rampant. It was a nightmare.

So that’s who they were. Traitors to their Homeworld, and allies of those who shattered Pink Diamond.

Shoving the tablet in her hands away from her, Peridot ran out of the records hall. She rushed to the nearest communicator, typing in her command as fast as possible. She earned a couple of looks from nearby gems, but once she hurriedly explained the Crystal Gems and their status on Earth, they became just as horrified.

Yellow Diamond had to know.

-

Yellow read and reread the report. The Crystal Gems were still alive. There was no way. It had to be a mistake. And she knew that the incompetent Peridot who wrote the report would not be let off easily for this mistake. She would see to that.

“My Diamond,” her pearl called out, “the Peridot you requested has arrived.”

Without looking at her, Yellow simply nodded. “Step forward.”

There was a beat of silence. During it, Yellow reread the report again. There was no way.

“...My Diamond?” the peridot asked nervously.

Yellow sighed, then finally looked her way. She moved only her eyes, and watched as the peridot stiffened under her gaze. “What.”

“Um...” the peridot was shaking badly. “Y-you asked... to see me?”

“Yes. I did.” Turning fully to her now, Yellow gave her a long glare. “Tell me, what makes you think the Crystal Gems are still alive on Earth?”

The peridot straightened. “I am the peridot assigned to check up on the Cluster, My Diamond, but all of my equipment kept getting destroyed. Most recently, one of my plug robonoids successfully made it to the Kindergarten, which was immediately destroyed by three gems and a ‘Steven.’ I tried to fight them, but they destroyed the facility’s base touch stumps and cut the power.”

Yellow hummed. “What makes you so sure they were Crystal Gems?”

“Th-they told me!” Peridot pulled up her log, flipping through them as if to re-verify this information for herself. “The pearl announced ‘because we are the Crystal Gems. We are still alive and we are still the guardians of this planet.’ I, um,” she looked around nervously, as if she were about to get in trouble, “I’d never heard of the Crystal Gems before she told me herself.”

Yellow’s glare became a frown. “What gems did you see?”

“A defective amethyst, a pearl, and a cross fusion.”

Yellow stiffened. Those definitely sounded like defective gems that would have become a part of Rose’s army. But.... She squinted. “Did you see a rose quartz?”

Peridot looked around for a second, before squeaking out a weak “...No?”

Great. “That means she either got destroyed in our attack, or she split off from the group you encountered, meaning there could be more.”

“My Diamond?”

“Great. Perfect! All these years, and they’re still out there!” Yellow stood up abruptly, slamming her hand on the arm of her chair. The peridot jumped and scuttled backward a few steps, but forced herself to remain still afterward.

Yellow ignored her. She stomped forward a few paces, hand clenched at her side, the other waving around animatedly. “I don’t understand. Our attack should have destroyed all gems on Earth. How did- WHY did her army survive?”

Before the peridot could answer, Yellow had stormed back over to her chair. She snatched up the Diamond Line communicator, rotating it so the two blue triangles aligned. After a moment of wait, Blue Diamond appeared on-screen.

She was wiping her eyes (because of course she was), trying her best to look presentable. “Oh, Yellow,” she greeted less-than-animatedly. “It’s good to speak with you again. Tell me, is something going on?”

“Yes, I’m afraid there is.” Yellow looked around, then noted the peridot still standing there. She shot her a look of fire as if she were the source of all of Yellow’s problems. “You there! You’re dismissed. Leave my chambers at once!”

The peridot jumped again, quickly slapped together some form of a solute, then shot out the door before Yellow could do much else.

Now that they were alone once again, Yellow sighed. She pressed two fingers together on the bridge of her nose, trying not to lose her cool. “Blue. I have received terrible news.”

Blue cringed. “...Yes, Yellow? What is it?”

She steeled herself before saying; “...the Crystal Gems are still alive.”

“WHAT?!” Blue shot up, standing now. Her icy look could have shot Yellow through the gem had it been aimed at her. “Yellow, there’s no way! We destroyed them!”

“I KNOW!” Yellow shouted back. “But I have a transcript of the report. I read it. Multiple times.”

Blue started to tear up again. “Oh, no, Pink...” she sobbed. “All of these years, we thought we’d avenged you...”

“Apparently not,” Yellow growled. “And I want to see to it that we finish the job.”

“But of course!” Blue glared at Yellow. “What else are we to do, sit here and continue on while knowing they’re still out there?!”

“Yes, exactly.” Yellow stood up straighter, trying to regain her cool. “I’ll send a message to White. Now I just need to convince her to join us. She’ll likely tell us to just wait for the Cluster to emerge.”

“Well, that should do it,” Blue mused, “but I’d feel much better in doing the damage myself.”

“Agreed.” Yellow closed her eyes, definitely keeping her anger in check enough to think rationally. “I will get on that immediately.”

“You better.” Blue looked away. “We leave as soon as we can.”

Yellow gave Blue a single nod. Then, the communicator went dark, and Blue’s image disappeared.

To be continued...

[jungshook69]

.:☆.°☾.Jealous.☾°.☆.:

DISCLAIMER: This doesn’t represent the members’ actions or the army’s actions in any manner it’s pure fiction. This is an original work, do not copy. The taglist is open if you want. Taglist is now closed.

WORD COUNT: 1358 words

PAIRING/S: Jungkook X female reader

GENRE: Established relationship au ; Oneshot/Imagine

WARNINGS: None

ABOUT: This oneshot is part of a 7 part BTS imagine called “Jealous”. This oneshot is a reaction imagine of how each member would get jealous of their s/o in a given situation.

7 PARTS: Namjoon || Seokjin || Yoongi || Hoseok || Jimin || Taehyung || Jungkook

STATUS: Complete

☆.。.:*・°☾.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☾☆.。.:*・°☾.。.:*・

You felt a bead of sweat travel down your forehead as your legs moved at an incredulous rate on the treadmill beneath you. Your chest was heaving and completely drenched in sweat as you tried to keep your staggered breath steady. You shut your eyes close, as you tried to engross yourself in the music blasting through your air pods.

Two minutes later you heard the familiar beeping of the machine underneath you, indicating that your hour on the treadmill was over. You hopped off and turned your attention to the rest of the folks in the gym, disconnecting your air pods simultaneously.

You watch Taehyung, Yoongi and Namjoon lifting kettle bells in the corner, Jimin and Hoseok were still running on the treadmills and lastly Jin was situated on a pec-deck machine, and your boyfriend Jungkook was seated beside the older, lifting dumbbells.

You were their personal fitness trainer and took exercise very seriously. You liked to maintain a healthy lifestyle and were incredibly proud of your toned abs that were sprawled across your abdomen, as you took a quick take of your figure in the gym mirror.

You made your way over to Jin and Jungkook and observed Jin’s figure. Now this may sound a little weird, but you never ogled anyone in the gym. You didn’t look at them with lust. When you were observing someone’s figure, who in this case was Jin in a black tank top, you always kept it professional. Your mind immediately kicked into auto drive as you begin thinking about what machine you would recommend them to work at next.

“You know Jin oppa, you don’t need the pec-deck machine.” You spoke up after a minute of thinking.

You caught Jungkook’s attention too. “What?” Jin spoke up.

“See, you already have pretty broad shoulders like Taehyung, but your shoulders are already pretty uplifted naturally. So this makes it appear as though you’re naturally toned at the chest. And trust me when I say you have a great upper toned figure already. I think you should work on your quads. So I think you should ditch the 25 minutes over here every week and swap it out for 40 minutes on the seated leg press machine.” You state your analysis.

“Okay” Jin said without a complaint, moving to switch spots for the rest of the session. This is what you loved about working with them. They always respected your decision and knew that whatever was being suggested was only to make them a better version of themselves.

You were about to move on to the trio lifting the kettle bells, when Jungkook’s feeble voice stopped you, “Noona, what about me? Do I need to change anything?” he said his eyes sparkling.

That was something you found astonishing about him. How his face represented that of a young teenage boy, his doe eyes sparkling, while his body was that of a muscle man. But recently after you had complimented him on his cute face, he had taken it the wrong way, and had decided to grow his hair out, indulging into man buns, in an attempt to make his face look more manly. You absolutely loved his long black hair, but you had kindly explained to him that he needn’t look all macho all the time to impress you. After understanding the situation he had decided to keep his long hair, as he’d fallen in love his new look.

“Noona?” Jungkook’s soft voice disrupted the array of your thoughts.

“Yeah… no… you don’t need to change anything babe, I think your routine is fine, at least for another month.” You said turning on your heels to move towards the trio in the other corner of the gym.

Before you knew it, you were assessing the three and assigning them their respective machines. You were right in the middle of checking Yoongi’s weight plates so it wouldn’t be too strenuous on his fragile shoulders, when a loud yelp echoed off the walls of the gym followed by a loud thump. You motioned the others to wait as you ran towards the source of the familiar voice.

Your eyes met with the sight of Jungkook’s left hand gripping his right shoulder, his eyebrows furrowed, his mouth partially open, gasping for air, a pained expression written all over his sweaty face. Your eyes shifted to multiple giant weight plates all on a pile on the floor, having slid of the dumbbell bar.

“What do you think you’re doing?” your voice half-laced with annoyance, half with concern.

“I was just… lifting weights” he said breathlessly.

“Yeah I can see that. But why are they out of your weight class? Why did you add on an extra 10 pounds to the barbell?” you ask.

“I just wanted to try something…”

“Well you can’t just impulsively change your weight class Jungkook. It’s gonna strain your arm muscles. No wonder you got hurt.” You said crouching down to your knees as you tried to move his arm back and forth, checking on his muscle strain.

“I just wanted to improve my frame…”

“Well you can’t do that Jungkook. We follow a level of professionalism here. There’s a reason I’m your personal trainer.” You said sternly. Nothing came in between you and strict professionalism, and Jungkook knew that. It was part of the reason as to why he found you so enticing.

“I- I’m sorry” he said chest heaving.

“You gonna tell me why you really did that babe?” you say in a softer tone. You could tell Jungkook had a hidden intention behind his impulsive action.

“No reason.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit Jeon, tell me…”

“Fine! I got a bit insecure when you were complimenting Jin hyung’s figure, so I wanted to change things up a bit…” he said sighing.

“Gguk, hey look at me…” he immediately looked up to the voice of you calling him by his nickname.

“Listen… please don’t feel insecure… it’s my job to observe and analyze your guys’ figures and ensure you guys remain healthy and fit. And the comments I throw around about your bodies during our sessions are merely to decide what’s the next step to keep you guys in shape. It’s my job Gguk, you need to understand. I am in no way comparing you guys to each other okay?” you said calmly explaining to him.

“Okay…” he said a small smile forming on his lips.

“Promise me you won’t go ahead and do anything impulsive like that again… because if you hurt yourself, your fans are gonna be really upset and worried about you.”

“Yeah…”

“Mr. Jeon Jungkook, I never thought of you as the jealous type.” You said giggling after a short pause, trying to lift the tension in the room.

“Noona… hush” he says his cheeks turning red, as he refused to meet your eyes.

You drank in his flustered and disheveled state as you bent down to his level and thread your fingers through his long black hair. His eyes visibly widened as you closed the proximity between the two of you.

“You have some guts, telling me what to do Gguk…” you said dominating the chiseled man in front of you. You watched as his Adams apple bobbed up and down nervously.

“N-Noona… someone might see us…” he gulps, his breath uneven.

“Let them” you say connecting your lips in a steamy kiss, the fear of being caught, leaving a feeling of excitement shiver through your body. You let your tongue dart out, tracing a warm trail along his soft lips. Just as he opened his mouth to give you the entrance you ever so subtly asked for, you pulled your tongue away, completely disconnecting your lips from his.

You watched his hooded eyes, blown out with lust, flutter open, as he looks at you with his mouth agape.

“Sorry baby, duty calls.” You say standing up, smirking.

“B-But…” you watched his adorable red cheeks as he struggled to form words.

“I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight.” You say winking and walking away to resume your job, leaving Jungkook’s mess of state behind.

☆.。.:*・°☾.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☾☆.。.:*・°☾.。.:*

A/N: I wanted to try something different and write Y/N as a dom character and the male lead as a sub character. Also I wanted to show that Jungkook is a perfectionist. He wants to be good at everything, and he is, owing to his competitive nature. But I just wanted to make a point that he doesn’t have to be good at everything for us to love him. We all love him no matter what, and that he doesn’t have to strain himself, just to feel loved by us.

Don’t forget to follow @jungshook69​ for more content:) You can check out more works of mine here. Have a great day:)

TAGLIST: @yzkyzkuniverse​

ENDING NOTE: Hey guys! I just wanted to say I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of love my series got. I never expected more than 3 people or so to read my story. But you guys surprised me with the amount of people who liked my series. I just wanted to say a big thank you for the support as it motivates me to work harder and give you guys better works in the future. Sending you all a big virtual hug, stay safe, and I look forward to sharing more of my writing with y’all :)

[five-rivers]

Danger First

Chapter 3

@pocketramblr (also please let me know if you would like me to stop tagging you on these, I don't want to be annoying. :))

"WAIT!" shouted Nana abruptly, as Izuku was talking to his (weirdo) teacher. "I know who that is! Quick, get ready to turn everything off!"

"Turn what off?" asked En. "We live in a formless mental void. We don't even have electricity."

"The quirk! That's Eraserhead!"

"Oh, yeah," said Yoichi, while everyone else (sans Second and Third) scrambled to grab onto the quirk. "I remember Eight meeting him, now! So, he's a teacher, huh?"

"How do all of you forget the one person who might be capable of one-shotting All for One?" demanded Nana.

"Doesn't his quirk not work on mutations?"

"Stop daydreaming and get over here, Yoichi!"

The quirkspace began to glow faintly, ominously red, and the ghosts pulled hard on the quirk, holding it temporarily out of Izuku's reach.

Then, the red glow abated and they dropped it back into place.

"Well, that was exhausting," said Banjo. "So, we'll have to be constantly ready for that, huh?"

"As long as he's around, yeah," said Nana.

"Why did we just do that, anyway?" asked En.

"So we can continue to masquerade as a normal, non-haunted quirk?"

"We could have just let him think he didn't have a quirk, or that the anxiety-"

"Super anxiety."

"-isn't part of it."

Yoichi gasped, as if scandalized. "You'd want us to lie to Izuku?"

"Okay, seriously, what is up with you and Nine?" asked En.

Despite not having a body, Yoichi began to visibly sweat. "Nothing, nothing at all. I just... think he's neat?"

"If you're going to lie to us, can you not do it with archaeomemes?" asked Nana.

"No, no, actually, I can get behind this," said En. "Would you say Izuku has... vibes?"

Yoichi nodded solemnly.

.

"Young Midoriya!"

Izuku shrieked and jumped back from the sudden sound as All Might suddenly emerged from an otherwise innocuous bush.

Both of them froze, staring at each other.

"Are you..." said All Might, hesitantly, sounding much more like he did in his small form than usual, "alright?"

"I... think so?"

"That's good, then." All Might coughed slightly into his fist. "I was wondering if you had a few minutes."

"Of- of course!" said Izuku, immediately.

"Then allow me to lead the way!"

All Might led him through a door labeled 'staff only' and immediately deflated. "All the staff know about my condition," explained Mr. Yagi.

Izuku nodded. Then a thought occurred to him. "Mr. Yagi?"

"Yes, my boy?"

"Why, um, why don't you teach, um, as Mr. Yagi? Instead of as All Might? Wouldn't it save your time?"

Mr. Yagi stopped and scratched his head. "I hadn't really thought about it before," he admitted. "But part of the reason I took this job, other than wanting to help train the next generation of heroes, of course, is that I want to get people used to the idea that I am going to retire." He tugged on one of his bangs. "Also, ah, I'm not sure if my qualifications to teach are quite up to par without my reputation."

"I'm sure it would be fine! You're the best, after all!"

Mr. Yagi chuckled. "I'm glad you think so," he said. Then he reached behind him and opened a door. "In any case: my office."

"Wow," said Izuku, quietly, stepping in. "All Might's office..." Who knew when he'd get another opportunity like this again? He kept his eyes wide to drink in the details.

The rather sparse details. The office was rather bare. Which made sense, seeing as All Might was a brand-new teacher. It was sort of... disappointing, as thrilling as it was.

Mr. Yagi sat down behind the desk and gestured for Izuku to take one of the other chairs. It had a lot of cushioning. A lot a lot. Izuku sank down into the fluff as Mr. Yagi fiddled with a drawer on his desk. He got the drawer open, and pulled out a notebook. A notebook of the same brand Izuku liked to use, actually.

"Since your experiences with One for All are so different from mine, I thought it might be a good idea to do some research into past holders and take a leaf out of your notebook, as it were." He passed the notebook over to Izuku, who took it with shaking hands and a slightly open mouth.

"I'll treasure it," he declared, voice wobbling.

"Not so much that you don't use it, I hope," said Mr. Yagi. "As it is, it's only an overview. The earlier holders, especially, don't have many records associated with them. Consider it a starting point. I haven't had much time to work on it."

"I can't believe you found the time to write this at all," said Izuku, flipping through the pages. The information was sparse, but each holder had a basic profile, all the way back to the fourth. "I mean, between being a hero, training me, and preparing to be a teacher, I'm stunned nothing fell by the wayside!"

Mr. Yagi proceeded to turn a very interesting color.

"Uh, nothing fell by the wayside, right?"

"Why don't you take a few minutes to skim through. If anything jumps out at you right away, we can talk about it. And then I'll let you go get changed and go home, and we can discuss more later, after you've had more time with it."

"Okay!" said Izuku. He'd start with just the basic profiles. Name, date of birth, date of death, quirk... wait, those ages... "They all died young," he said, softly.

"Hero work is dangerous," said Mr. Yagi, hand going to his side.

"There's something else, isn't there?"

"Not something you need to worry about. I took care of it, years ago." The hand holding his side spasmed slightly.

"... Six years ago?" asked Izuku, aware he was pushing his luck. But this sounded both important and relevant.

There was a long pause. "Yes," said All Might, finally. "A villain with a longevity quirk. He... had a history with the first user."

Izuku got the feeling that was an understatement. It also seemed unlikely that the only application of the villain's quirk was longevity, given what he'd done to All Might. But the subject was clearly making All Might uncomfortable, so he dropped it in favor of burying his nose in the notebook again.

(Social fumbles aside, this was the most secure Izuku had felt for... a while.)

"The sixth user had a smoke quirk?"

"Yes, it seems so. Although it doesn't seem to have been actual smoke, but a biological compound."

"I wonder if that has anything to do with all the steam you release when you deflate. Actually..." he flipped back through the quirk. "I wonder if you're using Float, too, subconsciously, when you jump."

"What?"

"I- I mean," said Izuku, "I noticed, when, um, when I grabbed your ankle and also in videos of you- Your hang time is kind of messed up? You're in the air for longer than you should be, but it isn't, like, consistent? Plus, you can change direction mid-air, which I thought was because you were shooting out blasts of air pressure with your quirk, but with me on your ankle, you definitely didn't do that. There was- there was a forum I was on where some people thought your quirk tapped into magnetic fields, somehow, but that doesn't make any sense, because you'd expect a lot more electronic interference and that similar locations would produce similar results, given the Earth's magnetic field, but they don't. But subconscious, low-level use of a telekinesis-based flying quirk would explain everything. If we take into account what you said about my anxiety after the entrance exam, then that's minor expressions of three out of four of the quirks listed here, not counting the base stockpile and enhancement quirk. Do you think the unknown quirks of the second and third users might have partially manifested for you as well? Have you experienced anything else that's atypical for a strength enhancement quirk?"

Mr. Yagi stared at Izuku.

Oh, no, he'd gone too far.

"Nothing immediately comes to mind, my boy," he said, faintly. "But... magnets? Really?"

"I told you it didn't make any sense."

Mr. Yagi rubbed his chin. "There might be something, but... it's too unclear to say either way. I'll keep an eye out. It's just... a lot to take in. I thought One for All was done surprising me."

"When has it surprised you before?"

"Oh, under the influence of certain mental quirks, you can wind up hallucinating the previous users."

"Hallucinating?"

"Yes. But being under the influence of a mental quirk is always the larger issue, so..."

"Mr. Yagi," said Izuku. "That's really the kind of thing you should let people know about up front."

"I- is it?"

.

The ghosts all stared at Nana.

"Hey, don't blame this on me! None of us explained that kind of stuff before passing One for All on."

"In our defense," said En, half raising a hand, "we were usually dying when we passed it on."

"More importantly," said Hikage, "do you think Ninth is right about the quirks?"

"It would make sense," mused Yoichi. "Although then we'd have to wonder why Blackwhip didn't manifest similarly."

"Is it too much for me to get someone to use my quirk? My extremely awesome quirk, that has no downsides?"

"It is powered almost exclusively by rage."

"No downsides."

"You-"

"No. Downsides."

.

Aizawa passed him an envelope labeled 'quirk counseling' along with the standard schedule and orientation packet he was handing to everyone else. It didn't look like any of his class mates had noticed, though, for which Izuku was grateful. He didn't want to be known as a weirdo who didn't know what his own quirk was.

He heavily suspected he was tapping into Danger Sense, somehow, but he didn't know how, and the fourth user of One for All had lived so long ago there weren't any records of him. Not easily and publicly available. Everything Mr. Yagi had written in his notebook (that Izuku had probably stayed up way too late reading... and texting Mr. Yagi about it... and comparing it to his notes... and texting Mr. Yagi about that... and reviewing old All Might compilations and theory threads... and having Mr. Yagi threaten to call his mom if he didn't go to sleep...) about the fourth user had been retrieved from the journals Mr. Yagi's mentor had passed down, according to one of the source notes in the margin.

(Mr. Yagi had really neat, small handwriting, which Izuku wouldn't have ever expected from his large, dramatic signatures as All Might, and his notes were meticulous and carefully cited. If Izuku didn't know better, he would have thought it belonged to a secretary.)

But despite Izuku's suspicions, he didn't actually know. He didn't know it's range, what it defined as danger, whether or not it 'ranked' dangers, how to distinguish it from normal anxiety, or- Well. Anything, really. And he would really like to.

He opened the envelope quietly. Inside was a handwritten note instructing him to pick one of three schedules for quirk counseling and return it to Aizawa by the end of the day. The other pages were printed, with times and possible locations. Options for both before and after the school day.

Izuku felt his eyes tearing up. This was easily the nicest thing a teacher had ever done for him... Although he was nervous about being alone with Aizawa. Some of his other teachers, when they asked him to stay after class it was... not good.

Nothing bad happened, not like in movies or TV shows or the awareness videos the school had shown sometimes. The teachers didn't hurt him, really, didn't do anything to him, other than talk or yell, mostly, but it still wasn't good.

Maybe he could ask Mr. Yagi or Recovery Girl to sit in... But he already felt bad, taking up so much of their time.

He picked one of the after school schedules. He was already staying late on the other days to work with Mr. Yagi, and if something did go wrong, he wanted to have the night to recover before he had to face Aizawa again in class.

He put it to the side, so he'd remember to give it to Aizawa before he left, then looked over the class schedule. Homeroom, Math, Hero Art History, History, and English in the morning. At least this morning. The history classes alternated with something called Heroics-Applied Science and Hero Law and Ethics. Afternoons, meanwhile, were entirely occupied by Hero Basic Training.

And every class would be taught by a pro hero. He wondered if it would be rude to ask for their autographs...

.

Shouta grunted as Hizashi flopped down onto the couch next to him on the couch in the staff breakroom. "What a morning! I just love seeing all those bright little faces at the beginning of the year. Anyone have a favorite first year yet?"

Shouta kicked Hizashi through his sleeping bag. Sadly, this had no effect on the man.

"I think mine might be the little green guy. He's the only one who was actually paying attention, and you know how rare that is, when everyone is anticipating their first heroics lesson. The rest of us just pale in comparison."

Shouta attempted to kick Hizashi again, this time for an entirely different reason. Midoriya was already All Might's favorite (probably)- he did not need more pull with the staff.

"I know who my least favorite is," said Kan. "Kid's certainly dedicated and competitive, but I wouldn't be surprised if he threatened his middle school teachers into giving him those glowing reviews. His personality needs a lot of work. How did you get Nezu to saddle me with Bakugo, anyway, Eraser?"

"I had nothing to do with it."

"Don't give me that, I was going to have Monoma. At least he's a team player."

"You're being illogical," said Shouta, zipping his sleeping bag closed over his face.

"How about you, Nemuri?" asked Hizashi, cutting off Vlad King vs Eraserhead round five hundred.

"It's hard to choose! They're all so cute and eager! Full of the passion of youth! I think they're all my favorite."

"You always say that..."

The door opened and closed.

"All Might! What about you? Any favorites yet?"

Yagi coughed. "I've only had the one class of third years so far. Don't you think that's rather... premature?"

What an incredible nonanswer.

"How did that first class of yours go, anyway? They didn't sour you to the whole idea of teaching, did they?"

"Not at all! The students were wonderful. The third years are very advanced, aren't they? For some of them, I wouldn't be shocked to see that skill level on an active sidekick."

"What can I say? We start them off right," crowed Hizashi.

"They did seem a little surprised by the scenario, however."

"So was I, t'be honest," said Snipe, who was in charge of the third years.

"Ah, was it no good...?"

"It was fine. Lesson plan was a bit rough around the edges, but you and Nezu'll be goin' over that later. But... quirk traffickin' doesn't quite seem like your thing."

"Ah, well, set-pieces," he said, using the slightly derisive underground slang for large-scale spotlight hero battles, "may be what I'm known for, but before my injury, the majority of my battles and investigations weren't publicized."

"Shield laws?" asked Nemuri.

"Generally, yes, but some of the investigations were tied to others, so we were using the organized crime secrecy laws to keep those under wraps. Simply put, my popularity isn't the only reason I keep the number one spot despite Endeavor having more completed cases than me on paper."

Shouta had known there was more to All Might than 'punchy, over-the-top, eyestrain-causing, bombastic muscle guy,' but part of his stupid, illogical brain was annoyed at Yagi for pummeling that image into imaginary dust, anyway. It seemed like the man's only two flaws were horrible interpersonal skills when not using his public persona, and his vast suite of health issues, the latter of which all heroes who operated long enough picked up.

Oh, and a possible inclination towards bribery.

Made it hard to dislike him, which Shouta wanted to do, because he was loud, flashy, and gave him headaches, literal and metaphorical. He ignored the fact that Hizashi was the same way, and had forcibly become Shouta's best friend. Clearly, there was no connection here.

"By the way, why is young Aizawa completely zipped in like that?"

"Nap time," said Hizashi, solemnly.

.

"Sir?" said Iida, raising his hand.

"Yes, young man?" boomed All Might.

"There are nineteen of us. How are we handling the odd person out?"

"Excellent question! In other exercises, we may handle it differently, but for today, one of you will be working alone! Occasionally, a hero may find themselves isolated when they originally expected help. However, for better balance, I have also arranged it so the odd hero out will be taking part in the last battle, so you'll have more time to strategize!"

But the other team would also have more time to strategize, Izuku noted. He really hoped it wouldn't be him... not that he wanted to force it on any if his classmates! He just didn't want yet another handicap on the first day of training.

All Might walked around with the box of ballots, pausing for each student to take one. He reached Izuku and held the box out to him with a wink. Izuku smiled back, reached in, and grabbed one.

A chill ran up his back and he froze, fingers wrapped tightly around the little ball. Something told him this was definitely the cursed, single-person ballot. Could he let it go? Would it be considered cheating if he picked a new one?

But All Might was already walking away. Every part of his body tense, Izuku turned his hand over and forced his fingers apart.

J.

The tenth character of the Latin alphabet. For the tenth, last, team.

He watched as everyone else started to pair up, and All Might looked at him apologetically.

Izuku approximated a smile. Plus ultra, right?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ignore career advice from established writers

“Breaking In,” is my latest column for Locus Magazine; it’s both the story of how I broke into science fiction, and an explanation of why there’s so little to learn from that story.

https://locusmag.com/2021/09/cory-doctorow-breaking-in/

When I was trying to sell my first stories, I obsessively sought career advice and memoirs from established writers. I sat in on countless sf convention panels in which bestselling writers explained how they’d butter up long-dead editors to sell to long-defunct publications.

None of them ever mentioned that as interesting as this stuff might be as an historical artifact, it had zero applicability to the market I was trying to break into.

Not only did these writers enter a fundamentally different — and long-extinct publishing world than the current one, but their relationship to the current market was fundamentally different from my own.

Editors solicited work from them, not the other way around. When they wrote something on spec, they could directly contact editors with whom they’d had long and fruitful professional associations — bypassing the who “slush reader” apparatus.

I don’t know if these established writers failed to mention that none of this applied to the would-be writers in the audience because they thought it was obvious or because it never occurred to them, but either way, it didn’t do me a lick of good.

What worked for me? Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? What worked for me won’t work for you. Not only was my path into the field pretty idiosyncratic — any generally applicable principle to be derived from it has been obsolete for decades.

But some things don’t change. I benefited immensely from the kindness — sometimes protracted, sometimes momentary — of writers who spoke to youth groups, served as writers-in-residence, guest-lectured to my summer D&D camp.

Above all, I benefited from Judith Merril, a towering writer, critic and editor who went into voluntary exile in Toronto after the Chicago police riots of 1968, and opened the Spaced Out Library, now the Merril Collection, the largest public sf reference library in the world.

Judy didn’t just serve as writer-in-residence, reading my manuscripts when I took the subway downtown to give them to her. She also did writer-in-the-schools programs, founding serious writers’ workshops that endured for decades.

My high-school workshop was one such; I kept attending it for years after I graduated (I wasn’t alone). Judy also steered the writers she critiqued into peer groups, like the still-thriving Cecil Street Irregulars, which I joined in the early 1990s.

Other writers were likewise kind and generous with their time. Tanya Huff worked behind the counter at Bakka bookstore; she sold me the first sf novel I ever bought with my own money (H Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy).

Tanya was immensely patient with me, and even read manuscripts I shyly brought down to the store, giving me encouraging — but unflinching — feedback. When Tayna quit to write full time, I got her job in the store.

Ed Llewellyn and Ed Greenwood were guest speakers at the D&D summer camp I attended. Both were incredibly encouraging when I approached them after their talks to tell them I wanted to write.

Parke Godwin was guest of honor at the first con I ever volunteered at; when I brought him his coffee, he patiently listened to me as I told him I wanted to write and took me seriously, telling me about the importance of good habits.

These writers didn’t have any career advice for me per se, but I wouldn’t have had a career without them — without them taking me seriously, even at a very young age. I try to pay them forward, by encouraging the young writers in my own path:

https://doctorow.medium.com/why-bother-f3e8416899cc

As to commercial advice, there’s very little I can offer, I’m afraid. I like Heinlein’s advice (“1. Write. 2. Finish. 3. Submit. 4. Revise to editorial spec.”).

I have a general method (“Find publications that feature work like yours, research their submission process, send your story to the highest-paying ones first”).

As for specific market advice, that’s something that you should get from peers, not the people who came before you. When I was starting out, other would-be writers and I obsessively shared notes on new markets, editorial tastes, and other nuts-and-bolts.

Writers who are at the same place in their development as you have advice that is far more likely to be applicable to your situation. What’s more, they’re also the kinds of writers you should be seeking out to join in a critiquing group — your peers.

The reality is that “breaking in” is a grind. It took me a decade from my first submission to my first professional publication; 19 years before my first novel hit the shelves.

Perseverance is the greatest predictor of success here, and support from your peers is the best source of strength and resiliency over that long road.

[human-do-a-worm]

Ramblings of an Old Soldier Part 2/?

Part 1 can be found HERE

The next day, the Unkall boy came back to the old soldier, sitting on the bench where he normally does, reading his data tablet. The boy had a rather happy look on him today.

“Ah, you’re back. I take it that my story wasn’t quite enough on its own then?”

“Not quite mister. It turned out to be more than enough for my first paper. After I turned it in, my teacher said I could go ahead and write the rest of my papers for the course since I had found a primary source willing to share their experience.”

“I see. How kind of your teacher. Back when I was in school, they would have told us to stuff it.”

“So, what other stories do you have to tell?”

“How about my time in the cycle after the Martian campaign?”

“That sounds wonderful. Let me start my recorder.”

The Unkall child pushes a glowing button on his data tablet, and a blue dot appearing on the screen indicated that the recording had started

“It was less than a month after the battle on Mars; that’s one twenty-fourth of a cycle in standard units. Reconstruction had begun on mars, and the war fleets which were now all massed around Terra had been split into five groups. Group Solar and Group Lunar were the two largest of the fleets, and as such were classed together. Group Pangea, Group Gondwana, and Group Oceana were the three smaller groups, and were classed together as well. The fleets were organized in this way by Grand Admiral Demetrius, to ensure that no one fleet would have to stand against the enemy for too long a time.”

“Since I’ve brought him up, I should probably tell you a bit about the Grand Admiral. Remember what I was saying about the preparations for the battle on Mars. All the meticulous planning done to move the civilians back to Terra, and keep morale up while being an effective fighting force? Well, that came from Demetrius, and was only slightly modified by individual units as the orders were passed down the chain. His odd decision making turned out to be one of the most valuable things that humanity had, because nobody could anticipate his plans; especially the Vrumoids. He was only a rear admiral, but after his commendation, and the first victory in the war, He was immediately promoted.”

“Back to the war now. The battle plan was simple. Keep a constant pressure on the enemy, working in a single spot, pushing the enemy back system by system, and planet by planet. Where to stop would be figured out as the fleets went along. This seemed to work very well. In most systems, Groups Solar and Lunar rarely had fire a single shot. The Vrumoids would either flee or be destroyed by one of the smaller groups before the heavy guns of the heavy class ships could be brought to bear.”

“The reconquest continued almost flawlessly until there was a single human world left to reclaim. Rexorb VI was nothing more than a rock when humanity last saw it, but after looking upon it, the armada called for the command group; Group Regal; to come and take a look. At first sight of the data scans, Demetrius broke down with laughter. Failing to find the humor in this situation, his second in command asked him what was so funny.” “These poor bastards. They’ve made this planet up to be just like Mars, hoping we’ll make the same mistakes they did. Have they never been told that it’s a bad idea to try using the tactics someone created against them? They’ve made themselves the easiest targets possible for us, and what’s even better is that they did it on a mining world. There were only a few housing units on that planet, and its riches lie deep inside. This is the perfect opportunity to try a new idea.”

“With that, preparations were made swiftly, and with much laughter all around. On the back side of Rexorb VI’s moon, groups Solar, Gondwana, and Oceana moved into position, mounting themselves with their primary propulsion systems poised to drop the moon from its orbit.”

The boy spoke up

“Didn’t the Vrumoid forces on the planet notice what was happening?”

Laughing, the old man responded

“Nope. That was a benefit of only showing the enemy one small and one large battle group at a time. According to Vrumoid intelligence recovered after the war, The defenders on Rexorb VI simply thought we were just deciding how to invade properly. They had no idea Demetrius was crazy enough to consider crashing the moon into the planet, and they would have to have been crazy to even guess that the rest of the fleet would just go along with it. I know Demetrius was expecting to do some explaining to the others.”

“The High Admiral may have been absolutely insane, but he wasn’t heartless. He ordered a shuttle to take one squad and an emissary to give them one final chance to surrender. They of course, believing a ground war lay ahead, refused. That was the last mistake that the Vrumoids ever made when dealing with humanity. Exactly one planetary axis revolution after the shuttle returned to the fleet, all the pushing ships’ engines fired up. Each of the ships had worked out their individual point of no return for propelling the moon towards the planet, and had an order to pull off at what their captain deemed a safe time before reaching their point of no return. By the time the last ship pulled off, The moon was going faster than its own terminal velocity.”

“When that moon hit the surface of the planet, the entire thing cracked like a geode. After observing this from one of their comm stations, the Vrumoid Empire rushed to set up peace treaty negotiations. Of course, who was the Terran representative by unanimous vote from the United Terran Council? None other than High Admiral Demetrius. They figured that if nothing else, he could get the Vrumoids to leave humanity alone. But what he got us was something so much greater.”

“As you might have learned in class, our home system and colonies were entirely located within an isolated part of Vrumoid space. We had no knowledge of the Galactic Council Alliance, at least until one of the Vrumoid delegates at the negotiations made a mistake and asked one of his compatriots what the council would think of their actions if they ever found out. After learning that there were other intelligent species in the galaxy, Demetrius demanded that humanity be granted a swath of planets and territory directly to the territory of another GCA member.”

“This single achievement is what brought humanity forward. Demetrius did what no other Terran could do; he found sentient life that wasn’t actively trying to kill us, and he made sure we could get to them with ease. If it weren’t for him, we would have never known the GCA existed, and likely would have been either wiped out or enslaved by the Vrumoids after they rebuilt their forces.”

“Of course, after we made contact with the council, and they saw what we were able to do to a far more technologically advanced species, they demanded to see our battle reports and to speak with all the commanding officers. I remember standing there by High Admiral Demetrius’ side.”

The young Unkall spoke up ecstatically

“You were a commanding officer?”

“Sure was kiddo. Leading the charge of those bikers on mars was one hell of a brave thing, and Demetrius took note. When he got the chance to promote one of his soldiers to an admiral under his command for Group Solar, he spoke loud and clear to us and said “Where’s that crazy bastard that volunteered to charge a platoon of enemy tanks using nothing but motorcycles and bombs on sticks? I have a job for you!” That was the day I was no longer a simple marksman, I was an Admiral, and a damn good one too. My group didn’t lose a single vessel to the enemy.”

“I still remember the day I went down on that rock the day before we cracked it. The Vrumoid commander must have been watching the video recordings from when I charged the tanks, because the moment I walked into the room and she looked up at me, she looked all sorts of shaken up. When I told her that this was her last chance to accept a mercy never offered by her empire, a chance to surrender; she simply said that surrender would never come until she and her warriors no longer stood upon the planet. If only she knew the irony in those words.”

“I remember being at the peace conference, and although Demetrius had only been seen rarely by the Vrumoids, mostly in transmissions intercepted from Mars to Earth, they had seen me plenty. I think I scared them more than Demetrius did, because when I talked about how my motorcycle wasn’t out of fuel yet, they started agreeing to our demands.”

Curiously, the boy tapped something into his data tablet

“Wait a minute, are you saying that you’re Admiral Sturm?”

“Indeed I am. Admiral Jakob Sturm, service number 6556-0293-422-41, former commander of the Terran expeditionary fleet codename Solar. I proudly led my sailors, soldiers, and marines through some of the harshest battles that humanity has faced, and kept my fleet intact. I wasn’t lying when I said that I didn’t lose a ship in my group to the enemy. And after serving 10 cycles in service of my species, I left honorably.”

“So what did you do after you left? I’d imagine being an admiral is a hard job to top.”

“You’re right, admiral is a hard job to beat. I served as an ambassador of Terra for a cycle before I returned to the stars. I found some of the others from back on Mars that charged with me on that day. We were a mercenary group. We mostly took escort contracts or welfare and security for anyone we deemed especially needy. We did good work for a few cycles, but then I had to give it a rest.”

“That’s around the time your name stopped appearing in records of both the GCA and Terran reports. What happened?”

“I’ve been talking for too long. I think you might be able to get a few pages out of what I’ve said today. Better to not burn up all your content at once, right? I’ll be here again tomorrow, like I always am. I’ll tell you more then.”

“If you insist sir. I’ll be here.”

“Until then, take care. I may be old, but I still expect people to stick to a schedule.”

With that, the boy stopped his recording and went home. To meet someone as important as Admiral Sturm, who seemed to have vanished from most records 8 cycles ago, was entirely unexpected. Unexpected, but it will certainly make a wonderful paper for his teacher.

[hazelcephalopod]

The Great Hunt Ch 5-6

Just so many things happen all over the place. Many of them quite dark.

Disclaimer: this is my first read thru but I’ve watched all of the show thus far and been spoiled on some book things. So… I’m going to lean into that. Enjoy figuring out what I know, and what I think I know, and what I just don’t. Also s/x I add commentary when I edit.

Spoilers for the first and second book and all of season 1 under the cut. Potential spoilers for later books -idk if they’re light spoilers or not.

Ch 5: The Shadow in Shienar

Sun

Ominous title is ominous.

Yup. Stilling is basically gentling. Next!

“Able to sense saidar, the female half of the True Source, but no longer having the ability to touch it. Remembering what was gone forever.” -Tgh on Stilling. Sounds bad

So rare Novices can memorize the names and crimes of every Aes Sedai whose been stilled for 3k years! That’s really rare then

2 Amylins in the 3rd Era have been deposed. Tetsuan, for betraying Menetheren for petty reasons -why did Menetheren get betrayed so much? And Bonwhin for trying to control Artur Hawkwing and nearly destroying TV in the process. So that’s hundreds or thousands of years ago. And Siuan is coming corned her involvement in trying to find the Dragon will get her deposed and probably stilled. Really bad

“Both of the Red, and both replaced by Amyrlin from the Blue. The reason there has not been an Amyrlin chosen from the Red since Bonwhin, and the reason the Red Ajah well take any pretext to pull down an Amyrlin from the Blue…” -Siuan on Tower politics history.

3 -at least- mentions of switchings in 2 pgs

Oh fuck Moiraine you really did cause problems. Like… I get Siuans rxn. They were going to prep him. Moiraine fully YOLO-Ed that

“Yet the world will burn, Siuan, one way or an other, whatever we do.” -(Moiraine) thinking as she talks to Siuan and explaining why she YOLO-Ed it. YWWATWW

“Let whosoever sounds me think not of glory, but only of salvation.” -Moiraine, reciting they Prophecy of the Horn

Once a generation until two years ago and you doubt?!

…oh the actions of gentling. Ok. Fair. You should

“So can Mazrim Taim, the man in Saldaea.” -Siuan mentioning the other fD who can channeld. Also mentioned Logain, whose been gentled

Holy fuck. That’s a lot

That was a seal on the Dark ones prison they broke. And the Amyrlin is the Watcher of the Seals. It’s her job to keep them safe. And none have known where they are for a long time. So not good yea?

See? Should have stayed fully out of sight! Well. Too late. At least she’s on Moiraine’s side

Mm kicking and screaming he might. Good luck!

Few names do

Lol. Safe. Sure

Girl… he needed a little more guidance. The fact he hasn’t bolted yet is kinda a miracle

That approach will scare him more! Maybe try tearing him like a person! A mature-ish person!

Did they not see the Horn?

Also… *shakes head*

Also also, that fucking dagger

“Easier to give up drinking water.” Siuan on not using magic once one has used it.

Still such a flaming… consent!

Yes it’s applicable!

I do wonder if he could just fuck off forever and ignore this shut. Like. Learn to sail and just go. Bye.

…wait… well moving on

Plots within plots!

I’m honestly not convinced that meeting will happen

What is happening? POV change?

Whitecloaks vs boat people?! (I soon learn, regrettably no. Not yet at least)

Bornhold POV? Have we met that guy?

Ok many names. Lord Capt Cmmdr Perrin Niall. Valda. Dain Bornhold.

Well. At least world news is being presented. Caemlyn is on the brink of civil war because of the whole Red vs White (pro queen and TV vs anti queen and TV) situation

Oh the guy with probably half a bit of sense is your best? Nooo /s

… makes the whoel organization more dangerous tho

So stealth mission to Tarabon. Kill anyone who sees them.

“Wild rumors, mainly, about Artur Hawkwing’s armies come back.” -Bornhold to Whitecloak Supreme Niall.

King is a figurehead. Bornhold has three days to leave for the village Alcruna on the Fields or whatever up north-ish(?) form there

Bornhold I can already tell if you had but a handful more brain cells you woulda made a better choice. Like becoming a Warder perhaps. Something actually useful

“Pardon… but who will meet me? Why am I risking war with Tarabon?” -Bornhold. Good question, but honestly the whitecloaks will probably just disavow you if you’re caught. I hope they have that much sense. Not entirely confident they do tho

Uhhuh. Oh well actually checking is nice. I’m not sure you’re any good at that but ok

The bare minimum is not killing innocents tho

Oh lovely. Worse Whitecloaks, Questioners.

Yes I’m sure the torture really makes them confess honestly

Well I’m definitely calling them Questioners then

Fuck, so they likely murdered an entire village of people. So just worse than many Darkfriends I’m sure. (Editors note- we don’t see it but pretty much convinced it happens)

I forgot it was 2k Whitecloaks. Fuck.

Are you fucking kidding me? You’re there to meddle with some townies because you… checks book… don’t like the way they govern themselves. Ok. Assholes

How about you do something useful and go help hold back those strangers instead of this nonsense?

“Taraboners claim the strangers are monsters, creatures of the Dark One. Some say they have Aes Sedai to fight for them.” -a Questioner to Bornhold.

… useless assholes. I’m surprised they recognize Trollocs. They’d take order from a Fade if they spoke their tongue and wore a helmet and swore on the Light they were “good guys”

Maybe you could find better use of that skepticism.

Bornhold is right tho.

Byar?! Nooo. That fucker?

“Stones on a board. But who is moving us? And why?

Seelfish fools I’m sure. Because they want power.

POV change, again!

“Twilight was a troubled time for Liandrin of late, that and dawn. At dawn the day was born, just as twilight gave birth to night, but at dawn, night died, and at twilight, day. The Dark One’s power was rooted in death; he gained power from death, and at those times she thought she could feel his power stirring.” -(Liandrin) uhhh.

Ok books on etiquette. I’d also ignore that tbh

Where is she going with this?

Ok. Information gathering. Hope Amalisa is terrified enough not to tell anyone about this.

Well… really like to dominate huh Liandrin?

Oh looking for the boys. G’luck

Well that usually means they exist.

Liandrin confirming the Black Ajahs existence is a bold move

This is the present right?

Well the boys better get out

And… POV shift! To Fain

… on the last page of the chapter

He got a visitor. But who?

Cliffhanger!

Ch 6

The Dark One. That’s what I’ll call that image

A dream

POV Rand

Really fucked up dream!

His friends fucked up. And Fain, baiaclally normal Fain tho

“Two red-clad Aes Sedai stepped through, bowing their master in. A mask the color of dried blood covered Ba’alzamon’s face…” -(Rand). Still dreaming (editor note: bowing became blowing with spellcheck)

& awakened with terror

Nynaeve!

White morningstars again

I mean that’s just basic respect that one

Make something easier then. But also, the boy you’ve known forever who has a terminal curse will do that

That is so sweet. But she should not be doing that alone

… tbc most of them shouldn’t. Maybe none.

No sweetie half the purpose of servants is to spy on people. Like… Maids are high on the list of doing that sort of thing

Good for her!

Well that was fucking depressing

Oh buddy

Wait does saying his name actually do something? What?!

Idk what to think of that

Nynaeve is great. Like… she’s got the most common sense here. Possibly more than Moiraine rn

Fain free and Egwene in trouble. I’d believe that

Theoretically he is right. She’s been going alone this long why stop now? (I later learn this time in wrong. But she has been going alone)

But that’s not thinking. That’s panic.

Well they found him

Well shit there’s Trollocs in here?! What?!!

Strangely that should make things easier for him

Rand still failing to sword any good

Oh shit. That’s a Fade

Ingtar!

Sneaking. Good approach

Yup. That’s vile. Poor guys

Yea don’t let your name be connected to this

Oh fuck it Liandrin

Well that’s horrible

Wait! Does that count as using the One Power as a weapon? >.>

Oh that’s fucking dark!

Oh she found Mat!

Oh no Mat! Egwene! Well at least they might not be as erm… fucked up

Still not convinced you doing that relates to this

Dancing lights!

Oh, right I honestly stopped imagining all the women in skirts. I may forget again tbh

Hey Fal Dara, maybe you shouldn’t keep your dungeons in darkness huh?

Oh dagger being gone seems, uh, not good

Ingtar!

Oh right Fain escaped. I suppose that’s not a given. So yea reminder, Fain escaped this battle

Is Moiraine doing the ignore Rand so others won’t think he’s important thing too? Like the whole giving him space thing doesn’t feel like the whole of it

What causes madness? Like that sort of those two prisoners… Not Mashadar, not like that. I think? Not the Taint -not for this. Machin Shin might. Or something else

The Fade fled. Huh

Oh noo. The horn is stolen. Oops

Oh… Darkfriends really in here huh?

What the hell? Who had the gates closed then? (I’m betting Amalisa, Koiraine or a Darkfriend)

“You really are going mad if you suspect Ingtar.” -(Rand) thinking to himself. Maybe yea

Lol. I love them but fair

That’s terrifying.

I’m with Rand. Answers!

This feels cruel and manipulative too!

‘Here is 0 advice. Do whatever. Why are you crying potential ~19 yr old Dragon Reborn?’

[all-things-mlqc]

I‘m not really far in the game but I know that every boy except Shaw, met MC/Us when they were younger. Do you think, they would‘ve love MC even if she wasn‘t this girl from their childhood and didn‘t have the Queen power? And btw what is even the queen power exactly. Like I said I‘m not far in the main story and I saw MC in a black dress etc

Hi there! I will do my best to explain my thoughts without mentioning any major spoilers for you since it’s always nice reading the plot for yourself! (I will be sure to give spoiler warnings before talking about it)

To start off, we should talk about the Queen’s power. It’s a bit confusing to us even to this day but what we can gather from what we have so far, game and anime wise, she has the ability to make other evolvers stronger. She’s somewhat of a battery or power source for all evolvers if that makes sense? Evolvers are still able to use their evols without her but she can “lend” people strength.

As for whether or not the boys would still lover her regardless of her evol, it’s hard to say for a few simply because her evol was the reason she met 2 out of the 4 of them. So if she didn’t have an evol, it’s likely she wouldn’t have met Kiro or Victor in the first place. But, hypothetically, let’s say that they did meet the same way and she did not have the Queen’s gene, then yes, I believe both Kiro and Victor would’ve still fallen in love with her.

Slight spoilers for Kiro’s past (how they met): Kiro and MC were both tested on as kids. Kiro is younger than MC and was frightened and confused at the time. He didn’t know much because he was so young when tested on by Black Swan. In fact, he 100% didn’t know MC had the Queen gene. He was simply way too young to understand or know that. He found a girl close to his age and wanted to get closer to her because she brought him comfort. It was the day he met her that he promised he would always protect her and he has continued to fulfill that promise. She was in a worse condition than he was when they were being tested on but still smiled and comforted him. With that being said, yes, it’s likely he would’ve still fallen in love with her because she brought him so much comfort and happiness during hard times regardless of her being the Queen.

Slight spoilers for Victor’s past (how they met): Similar to Kiro’s, both Victor and MC were together when Black Swan had taken them as “test subjects”. Victor met MC at a park where she was balling her eyes out as per usual. Good job MC and comforted her with pudding. Tbh, baby Victor reminds me of Killua from Hunter x Hunter. Anywho, it seems like Victor knew MC was an evolver just like him and he felt the need to watch over her because of what they both were. While he probably knew she was an evolver, it’s likely he didn’t know she was the “Queen” since he was so young. Well, Black Swan caught up with them and took them both into custody and that’s when the escape we see in game happens as well as how they were separated. It confirms in the anime that Victor’s number one goal all his life was to find that girl again. Everything he had done up to this point was for MC. I’m not really sure if he originally decided to keep searching for her because he felt responsible or if there was more to how he felt for her. Considering she did risk her life for his own, it could go either way. But it is clear that he does care for her whether or not she’s the “Queen”. He did know she had an evol but that’s all he knew.

Kiro and Victor seemed more like a traumatic experience bringing them closer which is a common way of bringing people together. If they had not met that way because MC didn’t have the Queen gene, then I’m not sure what would’ve happened.

On to Gavin, my sweet sweet Gavin. Answer is yes. 100%. Man is head over heels for this girl. He looked at her once, pointed, and said “that’s my wife”. Literally. With Gavin’s high school reputation as the frightening “overlord”, everyone was constantly scared of him. Nobody would talk to him or want to be around him because of the terrible rumors going around. How he’s always picking fights, stealing money, this and that. Long story short, none of that is true. He’s actually a vigilante of some sort but he doesn’t care to explain himself because nobody would believe him anyway. So he lived his life being feared. At least up until he met MC for the first time.

Slight spoilers for Gavin’s past (how they met): It was a rainy day and Gavin was walking around in the rain in an alley when he suddenly saw a girl squatting down, shielding a box from the rain with her own body. Gavin looked a bit closer and realized there was a kitten in the box. The girl was quietly talking to the kitten when she felt someone’s eyes on her. She turned to Gavin and then gave him a small smile. The only smile someone has given Gavin in years. The only light and comfort he had felt in so long. Not to mention his family situation. There’s a whole lot going on there if you haven’t read about it yet Because this feeling was new to Gavin, he got flustered and looked away, kicking a can on the ground in hope of a distraction. The girl continued to care for the kitten in the box only to feel a jacket being draped across her shoulders. Unable to thank him in time, MC watched as Gavin jogged across the street in only his shirt as the rain came down harder. I. Love. This. MAN. Ever since that day, Gavin found himself looking for her at school. He watched her silently and helped her whenever she needed it he helped grab a book from the top shelf when she couldn’t reach it. Coincidence he is always there when she needs it? I think NOT. He was smitten for her. Without knowing anything about her other than her kindness, he was a little puppy dog following her around to preserve the light in her. He is, what we all know and love, a SIMP. I STAN ONE MAN AND IT IS THIS SIMP THAT WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HER. Anywho, time goes by, he’s her guardian angel throughout high school and then finds out about her identity in the evolver world from his father who is in a law enforcement group that deals specifically with evolvers. I mean, gestures to Gavin. The man wanted a child with a strong evol. After Gavin found out about who she was, he knew he would need more to protect her and that’s why he became a cop. Yes, this man became a cop just so he could protect the girl he loved. SO TO SUM IT UP, YES. He already fell in love with her without knowing she was an evolver so 100% yes.

Slight spoilers for Lucien as well: As for Lucien, I feel as if his position is a bit more complex. He knew MC when she was younger as well but it seemed like they had more of a friendship rather than him caring for her romantically. The reason why Lucien is originally so intrigued by her (grown up) is because he sees her in color. Lucien is color blind so when he was able to see her drenched in bright vivid colors, he was immediately interested in her. Though I don’t know if he was romantically interested in her in the beginning or if he was just curious, he obviously grew feelings for her later when he decided to protect her and somewhat betray Black Swan. In later chapters, he makes it very clear he was in the wrong with how he saw the world and after making “necessary” sacrifices and realized how much he truly cares about MC. So as far as would he love her without her being the “Queen”, I’m really not sure. The reason they are so close in the first place is because she IS the Queen. But being able to see her in color is probably enough for him to want to get closer to her.

And finally we have the himbo punk boy Shaw. I’m not sure how much you know about Shaw but I am warning you now that there are going to be mentions of his past which DO contain some heavy spoilers.

Shaw is the odd man out, yes. He’s introduced later in the story and actually has a very interesting role. You mentioned you saw MC in a dark dress. Spoiler alert: That is who we call “dark MC”. And it seems as if Shaw has ties with her and is possibly(?) working with her. Then again, Shaw is actually a lone wolf himself. He does what he finds to be entertaining and benefits him. He went against his father’s orders (which is very hot because I hate that man. Eat shit military man) and has his own way of gathering information. He is very good at making relationships with people to gather intel and have people he can use if needed all the while keeping his distance. Shaw very likely only has a relationship with MC because of his line of work. It seems as if he’s actually manipulating her in a way to go according to his own plan that involves dark MC. So far, in my opinion, it doesn’t seem like Shaw has any romantic feelings for MC in the main plot. He’s just interested in her because she spices up his life with chaos and he feeds off of stimulation. Though, I am excited to see how their relationship progresses and what he decides to do when he has to choose between the two sides of MC. There are small signs of Shaw caring more about MC in later chapters now but the man is just in denial because hE dOesNt hAvE aNy wEaKneSsEs.

I hope this helps explain a few things as well as my own thoughts on their relationships if MC wasn’t the Queen. Thanks for the ask!

[incorrectbandofbrothersquotes]

You Better, You Better, You Bet - Chapter 9

As Long as You’re Mine

Ron Speirs x Juliet Fletcher

Summary: Juliet Fletcher reaches a breaking point in her life. When she is at her absolute lowest, she meets Ron Speirs, and something happens between them that neither of them will ever forget.

Word Count: 4.1K

Tag List: @vintagelavenderskies @how-are-those-nuts-sarge @iilovemusic12us @hesbuckcompton-baby @tvserie-s-world @whovian45810 @50svibes @cagzzz107 @evelynshelby @piano-isnt-my-forte​ If you’d like to be added, let me know!

A/N: Hope you guys enjoy this update!

Warning(s): None :)

Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4  Chapter 5  Chapter 6  Chapter 7  Chapter 8

AO3 link

Chapter 9 let’s go!!!

“Okay, how does this sound?” Juliet asked Ron, who sat on her bed as she put together her story of the trial. He was careful not to recline, lest he disturb her pages of notes carefully organized atop the quilt. “Meredith Fisher confessed to the murder of six-year-old Peggy Lee in front of the courtroom before her trial began. Mrs. Fisher was arrested and charged with the murder in September of last year. Her lawyer, Mr. Harvey Cooper, originally planned to plead not guilty, but in a shocking turn of events, Mrs. Fisher herself admitted to the jury she killed Peggy Lee before even opening arguments could be made.” 

“I’d read that,” Ron replied. 

Juliet huffed and looked around her room at the Blue Boar. Papers littered the floor, pens were nowhere to be found, and her typewriter was mocking her. Now that the trial was finished - with such a dramatic twist - she was hard at work, trying to ensure she reported it just right. An impossible task, it felt like.

“Okay, but would you read it because I’m your girlfriend or because of the writing?” she asked. 

“The writing,” he told her. “It’s simple, it explains everything.” 

“It feels a bit long for the lead,” she said. “Perhaps I should put the bit about her arrest in the nut graph.” 

“That does feel more like background information,” he agreed. 

She pulled a pencil from behind her ear, scratched out the sentence, and began again. “So, it’d go like this - Meredith Fisher confessed to the murder of six-year-old Peggy Lee in front of the courtroom before her trial began. Her lawyer - I’m gonna take out his name and have that later - so, Her lawyer originally planned to plead not guilty, but in a shocking turn of events, Mrs. Fisher admitted to the jury she killed Peggy Lee before even opening arguments could be made. Then I’ll go into when she was arrested, the details of the murder, then the evidence the prosecution had prepared, and finish with her sentencing date. How’s that?” 

“I think it’s perfect,” he said. 

She chewed her lip. “Should I use the word shocking? I don’t want to tell the readers how to feel.” 

“When she confessed, what was the first thing you heard?” he asked. 

“Gasps,” she answered. 

“There’s your shock,” he said. 

Juliet had to concede that point. Ron almost didn’t believe her when she told him the story. The judge had barely gotten the words “How do you plead?” out before Meredith let out a wail like wounded animal and confessed to the whole gruesome thing. She sobbed that she was sorry, but she knew she had to be punished. She wasn’t safe. And truthfully, Juliet felt bad for her. It was truly one of the most pitiful things she’d ever witnessed. 

But the one thing Juliet could never forget, the image that would stick with her for all her days, was the look on Peggy Lee’s parents’ faces. The Lees watched, dignified, proud, yet misty eyed as the person who killed their daughter begged for mercy. Their grief was profoundly felt, despite their stately manner. They said nothing. They did nothing. And they spoke to no one upon their exit from the courtroom. 

“Jules?” 

Ron’s voice brought her back to the present, his hand on her shoulder making her turn to look at him. 

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Just...it’s so unfair. If anyone had a right to be screaming and crying it was the parents.”

“They must be very English,” he said. 

“Oh, they were proper English,” she agreed. “Stiff upper lips and all. The mother did at one point hide her face in the father’s arm, but other than that, they were stoic.” 

“Thinking about including that in your story?” he wondered. 

“God, no,” she replied. “I’ll mention that they were there and offered no comments, but this isn’t that kind of article.” 

“Just the facts, huh?” 

“As usual.” 

“Juliet.”

“Yeah?”

“The article’s gonna be great,” he said.  

“How can you be so sure?” she asked. 

“Because you care this much,” he said. He accentuated the point with a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ve got a staff meeting. Are you alright here?” 

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for being so patient with me.” 

He kissed her again. “I’ll see you tonight.” 

“See you later, Ron,” she returned. 

With that, he left. Juliet started trying to condense the lead again, still feeling like it was too long. There had to be a better summary. But it was a lot to try and fit into one sentence, so she resigned herself to making it more than one line. She hadn’t chosen a headline yet, either, but she usually liked to write the article first. That way she could pick out the singular most newsworthy part and headline with that. As she organized further, the phone rang. 

“Hello?” she answered. 

“Juliet, it’s Lottie.” 

“Hey, Lottie, how are you?” Juliet asked. 

“Fine, same as usual,” Lottie returned. “Otis just rang and told me about the trial. I hope you’re hard at work.” 

“Absolutely,” Juliet assured her. “I’ve nearly got the lead down. I’ve just got to get the facts organized. I’m thinking of doing a follow up story about the shortcomings of Operation Pied Piper, since Cooper’s little tidbit did prove to be true.” 

Sad as it was, Harvey Cooper was right. There was no process for vetting the families agreeing to take the children. The committee had been in such a hurry to evacuate, they had not even considered that some children could end up in more danger than they were at home in the cities. Juliet found the whole thing fascinating, and it could open up a conversation about war time protocol - be meticulous or swift? 

“I think that’ll be fine,” Lottie said. “But have you gotten any war news? I know I wasn’t enthusiastic about it initially, but you’re the only reporter I’ve got with the Airborne.” 

Juliet bit her lip. While the prospect of war news had originally driven her to accept the Peggy Lee story, she found herself conflicted about it now. Her relationship with Ron threw a wrench in it. 

“I think it’s a conflict of interest for me to cover the Airborne,” she said. 

She could practically hear Lottie’s eyes roll. “Oh, come on, Juliet, don’t be absurd.” 

“It isn’t right, Lottie!” Juliet insisted. “I’m in an intimate relationship with one of the soldiers, there’s no freeing me from bias there.” 

“You could use it to your advantage,” Lottie said. “Obviously, you can’t use him as a source, but couldn’t he lead you to the right person?” 

“I can’t ask that of him,” Juliet said. “I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.” 

“What wrong idea?” 

It was something Juliet had already put a lot of thought into. As badly as she wanted to cover the war - and it did seem like things were ramping up even more in Aldbourne - she was hesitant. She had actually considered asking Ron for a source and then immediately hated herself for it. She would not use her relationship to get ahead in her job. She couldn’t. It just wasn’t right, simple as that.

“That I’m using him,” Juliet explained. “If I ask him to get me a source, he might worry that it’s the reason I entered the relationship, and that’s not the case.” 

Lottie sighed. “So, you just want to give up on covering the war?” 

“I didn’t say that,” Juliet returned. “I’d be happy to cover something else once I get back to London, but-”

“Forget it,” Lottie cut across her. “Just focus on the trial for now and then Pied Piper, if that’s what you want.” 

“Lottie -” 

“Good afternoon, Juliet,” Lottie said harshly, hanging up before Juliet could protest any further. 

She sighed, hanging up as well, and sitting back in her chair. She had a feeling the conversation wasn’t quite over, but she’d hear more about it on her next trip home. For now, she wanted to focus on what happened at the trial. The sentencing would be in another few weeks, so she needed to get this done. 

***

Ron was right of course. The article was published and the London Pursuit sold the most copies it had in years. It surprised Juliet a little, but perhaps people were tired of war news and what better than a dramatic murder trial for a change of pace? It was morbid, sure, but Juliet knew she’d handled it as well as she could. 

Lottie called, absolutely elated by the circulation numbers. And honestly, Juliet was thrilled too. She found Ron later that day and leapt into his arms as a display of her unmitigated excitement. She’d done it, and done it well! It was cause for celebration. So they went to London for the weekend - staying with Nancy of course, since she would have had a fit at missing an opportunity to see Ron - and they went to a nice dinner, champagne and everything. Juliet could hardly believe her luck. Everything was going so perfectly. 

And that night, as they lay together in the afterglow, she looked at his face and knew she loved him. The kind of love she read about in books and poetry. The kind that crooners sang about on the radio. She’d found it. It was scary enough to admit to herself, but she determined that she would - one day soon if the opportunity presented itself - admit it to him. 

He caught her gazing at him. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“Nothing,” she replied. “I’m just happy you’re mine.” 

***

The sentencing hearing was not as interesting as the trial itself, but Juliet was relieved to report that Meredith Fisher was going to prison for life. There would be no chance for parole, either. So justice was served. 

However, Juliet couldn’t help but notice the look on Mr. Lee’s face. Mrs. Lee had not come for the sentencing, so it was just father. When the judge announced Meredith’s fate, Mr. Lee only closed his eyes and let out a long breath. He nodded, put a hand over his heart, and inhaled again. A single tear rolled down his cheek. It made Juliet look away so that he could have that moment for himself. To take in whatever feelings came to him. To remember Peggy and take some solace in that her killer was going away. 

“I thought I’d be happier,” Juliet told Ron as they prepared for bed that night back at the Blue Boar. “But it still just feels...rotten.” 

“Nothing can bring the girl back,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“I know,” she replied. “But I just....I suppose you’re right. What else could anyone have hoped for in this situation?” 

“Right,” he agreed. 

“I’m also grateful we didn’t have to hear that lawyer make that ridiculous argument in a courtroom,” she said. “I don’t think I could bear the looks on the parents’ faces at that.”  

“That would have been awful,” he said. 

“Even so, it feels rather anticlimactic,” she said. “Especially for the prosecution who spent months putting everything together.”

“They still got the result they wanted,” he pointed out. “So what does it matter?  

She shrugged at that. She still felt unsatisfied, as if there was something more to be done. Even though logically, she knew there wasn’t. She would write an update for the paper, and that would really be the end of it. That was when it hit her. What was really upsetting her was that now that this was over, there was no more reason for her to be in Aldbourne. Especially now that she didn’t want to cover the Airborne. It meant that she would go home to London, in turn reducing her time with Ron significantly. And that was a dreadful thought. 

***

“What do you mean you aren’t coming back to London?” Lottie cried through the phone. “What about the Pied Piper story?”

“I reckon it can wait,” Juliet said, entirely unconvincing, but she hoped Lottie was buying it. Her reasons for remaining in Aldbourne had nothing to do with her job and everything to do with the man she was in love with. “And maybe with some time, I can find my own sources on war news.” 

Lottie remained silent for several minutes. “So, you’ve just changed your mind all of a sudden about covering the Airborne?” 

“Not completely,” Juliet lied. “I...I’m just not sure I’m quite finished here. And what if there’s something else about the Peggy Lee story that comes up? I could -” 

“Give it a rest, Juliet,” Lottie groaned. “I know you want to stay for your boyfriend.”

“That’s not -” 

Lottie cut across her protests. “Please do not insult my intelligence by suggesting otherwise. You want to be near him.” 

“You don’t sound quite as sympathetic as I hoped,” Juliet said, giving in. 

“You have a life in London, Juliet!” Lottie reminded her harshly. “You have a job to do, your mother is here, and you want to put everything on hold for some man?” 

“He’s not just some man!” Juliet argued indignantly. “He’s...different from any man I’ve ever known. And what we have means more to me than anything I’ve ever known.” 

She glanced down at the necklace that sparkled against her skin. A constant reminder of how much she meant to him as well. 

“Oh, come off of your cloud, will you?” Lottie snapped. 

“Lottie,” Juliet said seriously. “The whole time I was with Arthur, did you ever know me to put him before work? Or my family?”

“No, so why is this Ron fellow -”

“Because it is different,” Juliet emphasized. “This is it, Lottie. He’s the one.” 

That seemed to stump her. “Has he...proposed?”

“No, he hasn’t,” Juliet said. “I don’t even care if he does.”

Lottie scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t just carry on living in sin.” 

Juliet rolled her eyes. “Could you please pay attention to what's important here? There’s a man in my life who I genuinely see a happy future with and I just...I want to focus on that. Is that so wrong?” 

“I suppose not,” Lottie sighed, and Juliet inwardly celebrated a moment of victory. “But I can’t pay you if you aren’t working. At least be making the proper phone calls to follow this Pied Piper story. Conduct interviews of other families there who have taken in children from the cities. Part of the story is there if you know where to look.” 

“No problem,” Juliet said. “You’ll be glad to know I’ve already begun. I’ve got an interview with the Barnes family next week, who are housing a little girl. I’ll ask them about how the process went for them.” 

“Perfect,” Lottie said. She paused for a beat. “And, Juliet?”

“Yes?” 

“I really am happy for you.” 

Juliet smiled softly. “Thank you, Lottie.” 

***

Spring fully thawed the winter out by the time April arrived. Aldbourne was rather charming in bloom. But Juliet wasn’t sure if it was the flowers or that she was in love. She found herself humming a lot more than she used to - these days she didn’t even need food to start a merry tune in the back of her throat. She had more energy, despite spending rather long nights in Ron’s arms. And she found her enthusiasm for work - even though her priority shifted - a great deal easier to come by as well. 

The interview with the Barnes family went splendidly. They were also housing a couple of lieutenants from the Airborne, though they were not in Ron’s company. Juliet only exchanged brief greetings with them, as they were heading to work just as she was entering the house. She nearly melted at the connection they had formed with the girl - Ann - which was clear in their goodbyes to her for the day. She seemed particularly close to the tall redhead. 

Juliet told Ron about it that evening over drinks. 

“Yeah, that’s Winters and Welsh,” he told her. “Good officers.” 

“Do they spend much time here?” she wondered, indicating the Blue Boar.  

“Welsh does, but Winters doesn’t drink,” he said. “He spends most nights there with the family.” 

“I can tell,” she said. “I mean, it was seriously precious. She hugged his knees and he patted her on the head and I think I fell a little bit in love with him for a moment.” 

He scoffed. “Good luck, I think he has a girlfriend.” 

“Has he?” she questioned. 

“Yeah, the nurse,” he said. “She works for the regiment.” 

“You lot have your own nurse?” 

“She’s got some connection to Colonel Sink,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve never actually met her.” 

“And what about the other chap?” she asked. “Welsh?” 

“He’s engaged,” he told her. “Her name’s Kitty.” 

“You know that but not the name of the nurse?” she questioned. 

“I only know because Harry never shuts up about her,” he said. “The whole regiment knows at this point. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Krauts knew.” 

She giggled. “I think that’s sweet.” 

“It’s obnoxious.” 

“You mean, you don’t brag about me to the whole regiment?” she teased. “Romance is dead.”

“Sorry for your loss,” he retorted as he took a swig of his drink. 

“Not as sorry as I am,” she returned. “Now I’ll have to spend God knows how many hours in mourning.” 

“At least you look good in black,” he said. 

“My saving grace,” she agreed with a smile. She paused for a beat. “Seriously, you don’t talk about me at all?” 

“I do if you come up,” he told her.

“And what do you say?” she wondered.

“Whatever’s relevant,” he said. 

She rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.” 

“I prefer not to broadcast my personal life,” he said. “All they need to know is that you’re mine.” 

She smiled as she leaned over to kiss his cheek. “That’s true.” 

***

April was drawing to a close. Juliet stood in her room, preparing to go and interview another Aldbourne family about their process in fostering a child from London. These interviews were restoring the bit of faith she’d lost in covering Peggy’s story because most of the families were very kind, and doted on the children. They were proud of doing what they could to ensure the future of England. And the children were mostly happy. What happened to Peggy was a tragedy and an outlier. 

She was just getting ready to leave when Ron entered her room. A grim shadow of doubt on his features made her smile disappear as fast as it had come. Something was wrong. He definitely had bad news. 

“We’re moving out,” he told her. 

She had expected this at some point, but she still blinked in surprise. Her shoulders drooped as the reality of it percolated through her.  

“Oh,” she said. “Well...when?” 

He hesitated. “This is off the record -” 

She scowled at him, momentarily offended that he felt the need to clarify. 

“Everything between us is protected, Ron,” she said sharply. “You and I are always off the record unless stated otherwise.” 

“Sorry,” he said quickly, picking up on her tone. “I know that, I just -” 

“When?” she demanded again.

“End of May,” he said. “I don’t know when we’ll be back.” 

The if hung in the air, but remained unsaid. This was it. The moment she had been dreading since she met him. Well, maybe not that long, but since they had started getting to know each other there in Aldbourne. The war was taking him from her, like it took everything. 

“I see…” she trailed off, her annoyance easing up. That was sooner than she had hoped and she didn’t want to waste any precious time being angry at him. “Um...where - wait, I can’t ask you that.” She bit her lip. “When - oh, no, you’ve just told me, that’s right -” 

“Juliet.”

“Yes?”

“Wait for me.” 

Once again, Ron failed to disappoint her. Despite all the reassurance, she worried that when they shipped out, he would take the opportunity to break it off with her. Instead, he was asking - in his way - for a commitment from her. She held his gaze for a long moment, waiting for him to say more. But he didn’t. 

“You really want to stay together?” she asked. 

“Yes,” he said assuredly. 

“Oh, thank God,” she sighed, and she threw herself into his arms for a kiss. 

He returned the kiss with enthusiasm, his lips fiery and desperate against hers. As if he were leaving the following morning instead of a couple of weeks. But Juliet wanted the intensity. She wanted to savor every touch, every kiss, every moment she had before he was gone. She also wanted to let him know that she absolutely would wait for him. She would do anything he asked of her. She just wanted him. Forever, if possible. And if the war robbed her of that, she would at least have the memories of kisses like these. Of nights in his arms. Of his unwavering dedication to her. 

***

The arrangements were made for Juliet to return to London once Ron and the rest of the Airborne were off. On his final morning in Aldbourne, they of course made love again, only it was the after that they relished even more. Juliet etched into her brain the feeling of his embrace, the warmth of his skin, the sound of his voice. She wished desperately that she could freeze time and hold onto him for just a little longer. She had found something so wonderful and now it was being dragged away from her. 

“Jules,” he said, voice low as if there might be someone listening on the other side of the door. 

“Yeah?” 

“We’re going to France,” he said. 

She blinked and adjusted her position so she could look him in the face. “France?”

He nodded. “I wanted you to know.” 

She couldn’t explain why that felt more intimate than anything they had just done in her bed. 

“Why tell me now?” she asked, curious. 

He swallowed, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, but his arm gave her shoulders a squeeze. 

“Trust,” he said. 

She pressed her lips tenderly to his chest to let him know how much she appreciated his trust. There was no longer a need to specify on or off the record. His statements were privileged. Anything he told her would remain between them. 

For a fleeting moment, she considered telling him right then that she loved him. Because if he was going to France, there was a chance he would never come back. And shouldn’t he know just in case? But her heart told her to play it safe. If she didn’t tell him now, perhaps whatever power there was would protect him enough so that she could say it later. If there were still things left to be said, hopefully that would keep him alive. 

There were no guarantees, of course. All they had was each other and their promise.

That afternoon, the trucks began rumbling out of Aldbourne. Juliet walked Ron as far as she was allowed. Her chest felt tight as the impending goodbye hung in the air. She hated this. It was too painful. How could it be that the very war that brought them together would also be the reason for their parting? What was fair about that? Nothing, that’s what. 

A kiss from Ron drew her out of her thoughts. He held her firmly against him, almost as if he were afraid she would disappear right out of his grasp. When they parted, they were both breathless. 

“Be careful,” she said. 

His eyes searched hers. “You too.” 

Her brain was practically screaming at her to tell him now just what she felt. But she was too afraid. Too afraid it would doom him. Too afraid he wouldn’t say it back. Or even worse, say it only because of the passionate nature of the moment. It had to be when they weren’t so desperate. When they really meant it because whatever was coming was not a threat. 

“I’ll write,” she told him. 

“I’ll respond when I can,” he returned. 

She nodded. Her throat was dry and thick. The lack of tears in her eyes surprised her. How could she not be crying when she could feel her heart breaking so badly? She kissed him again. Just to prolong the last moment where he was only hers. 

“Stay safe,” she told him. 

He nodded. 

With one last kiss, they said goodbye without saying it. Juliet went to the train station and headed home to London. And Ron went to war.