#not strictly based on any adaptation

[spooksicl-e]

old boy but /aff

[targaryen-dynasty]

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE.

Antichrist!Aemond Targaryen x female Reader

WARNINGS: SEXUAL CONTENT—MINORS DNI; dub con, p in v, fingering (with gloves 😮‍💨), dacryphilia, choking, degrading, unprotected sex, power imbalance, female reader

WORDS: 4.7 K

NOTES: Yes, this is based on American Horror Story Apocalypse. Michael Langdon is just so *phew* that I had to adapt it to Aemond. This is so self indulgent, I'm not even sorry. @kaelabear you're getting the special taglist. @arcielee thank you for beta reading this! <3

You have lost track of how many days, months, or even years have passed since your arrival in Outpost 3, and gods, you’d give it all right away to be back in one of the holding cells the government had put you in around the time the bombs rained down over King’s Landing. 

Even though you received the status as a purple upon your arrival, therefore placing you to the upper-class elites specifically selected for survival, you couldn’t be worse off. At least there you’ve been allowed to do your own thing – as far as the confines allowed you to. 

The nutritional cubes they serve you are rationed, with Ms. Misery announcing they’ll have to ration them even further in the next days, and on top of being hungry and bored, you haven’t had a good fuck in quite the while. 

Sexual contact, or any kind of copulation, is strictly forbidden, and you’ve witnessed firsthand what it means to break Miserys’ rules – not that you’d make any moves on the other residents occupying the former exclusive boys school anyways. 

It’s only been you and your hand, sometimes even your pillow, from the very beginning on until now, and truth be told? You’re sick of it. 

At some point you’ve stopped getting yourself off, only because your body longed for physical contact, for someone else’s body on your own. 

And what certainly doesn’t help with your misery is the mysterious man that arrived just a few days ago. 

When he introduced himself as Targaryen, you knew his arrival was something that came partnered with power. As much as you would have liked to focus on his speech to campaign himself, you found it was far too difficult to care about humanity being on the brink of failure when the man telling you about it was so, so damn easy on the eyes.

Just the sight of his sharp features, regardless of a part of them being concealed by a black eyepatch, has been enough to make your mouth water. And when your eyes traveled lower, taking in the way his black slacks all but hugged his toned thighs, all was lost for you. 

You’ve been grateful that Laenor pounced on him to be interviewed first, wanting to see if he'd be worthy enough to be relocated to the so-called sanctuary, because you certainly would have jumped Targaryens’ bones right then and there. 

His alluring aura, the dominance radiating off of him – it all are factors that drive your aching body to insanity. and the nights that followed you found your relief more than once with the image of him flashing right before your eyes. 

Some time has passed in which you’ve barely seen him around, only hearing of him through the stories of the other residents that have been interviewed by him; now it’s your turn to warm the large chair standing in front of the imposing Mahogany desk. 

It’s the door behind you sliding open that lets your heart drop into the pit of your stomach, and you fidget with your fingers to stop yourself from turning around. You don’t want to be caught staring in the first few seconds already. 

You hear your name fall past his lips so smoothly it sends a shiver down your spine. You give in to the temptation and watch him step inside with an air of mellow gratification, prowling around the desk until he eventually sits down in the empty seat across from you.

“There’s no need to be nervous,” he purrs, a glint of mischief dancing in his eye. 

There comes no reply from you, instead you continue to fumble with your fingers, looking at what you assume to be your file splayed out on the desk in front of him. 

It’s the dismissive hum that rumbles in his chest that finally piques your interest, and when your gaze settles on him again, you spot him touch his chin thoughtfully as his eye skimps over the pages, seeming as if he’s reading it for the first time. 

The red gloves he wears stand in stark contrast to the otherwise colorless rest of his outfit, your gaze drawn to them like a moth to a flame. He has worn them upon his arrival already; the smooth leather shining in the dim light of the candles makes your mind wander to more indecent things. 

He tilts his head up again to meet your gaze, his smooth and calming voice ringing out. “Your genetic profile would appear to be favorable, so you can say that this interview is solely conducted as a… precaution.” Though it’s meant to be reassuring, the deliberate pause he makes doesn’t seem convincing. 

His words make you frown. “What for?” you ask, and you curse yourself for how blunt and bold your voice sounds. “Aren’t you in need of relocating the last few people that pass on good genes, now that this is the last outpost standing?” 

The genuine laugh he offers you prompts you to lean back in your seat, juxtaposing the way he leans forwards in his. Something in the arrogance that radiates off of him, and the smug smirk he has on his lips, feeds your irritation. 

“Doesn’t seem like you can afford to be picky,” you snap back at him. 

He licks his lips, and although it’s not longer than a second, your mind immediately drifts off to think about how it would feel between your legs, how he would feel between them. You try to be subtle as you shift in your seat, barely moving enough to soothe the aching that blooms at the apex of them. 

“We’re making the selections as carefully as possible,” he counters. The paper of your file is pinched between his index and thumb, rubbing it between the pads of his fingers. “We need to ensure the survival of humanity, and I’m sure you understand that we have to look for a certain level of ambition in the people we choose.”

Even though his explanation is vague, and doesn’t make much sense to you, it is strangely appealing. The word ambition is such a broad term that could mean anything from career-minded to cutthroat, yet you still have to figure out exactly what he means. 

The tension grows thicker and thicker with each passing second of silence, and you feel a warm sensation spreading inside of you from his intense gaze – which is perhaps also due to the hint of desire that gleams in his eye as he regards you. 

You try your best to ignore the way your heart races, wanting to diminish the warmth inside of you. But to no avail. 

When he rises from his seat, your heart drops into your stomach again, and your eyes grow wide with curiosity and intrigue. 

It’s a brief flicker of your eyes down his body that has you squeezing your thighs together, far too distracted by how tall he is than to notice the smug smirk that tugs at the corners of his lips. 

“Would you say that you’ve… settled here?” he asks, his voice carrying a hint of something you find difficult to decipher.  

He slowly stalks around the desk, the tips of his leather-clad fingers smoothly gliding over the dark wood. His eye lingers on your face, taking you in and assessing your reaction. His expression holds the same edge of darkness his voice does, though he isn’t hiding it as effectively as he thinks he is this time. 

Your eyes never leave his frame when he comes to stand next to you, leaning back against the desk. He’s gripping the edge of it, and even in the dim light of the candles, you notice that it’s rather tightly, almost as if he’s suppressing the urge to touch you. 

“Well, I suppose I’ve managed to adjust,” you reply. 

For a brief moment, neither of you says anything. He just stares at you with this cold precision – until you catch his eye flitting lower, trailing over your form. 

The purple gown you wear isn’t revealing at all, not that Ms. Misery would allow you to wear anything of that sort anyways. The neckline is squared with raised yet off-the-shoulder structured shoulders that leave little to the imagination – but only if you’ve been touch deprived for long enough.

And, judging by the way his jaw clenches as his eye meets yours again, you can tell it’s also been a while for him. 

The thought of it makes your blood run hot, the warmth now spreading to your cheeks. Your gaze falls to your lap, watching your fingers fumble with each other while you feel his bore into your frame. 

There’s a hum rumbling in his chest once again, but this time it sounds more like a purr, as if he finds satisfaction in your nervousness. “Are you normally this flustered in front of men… or is it just me?”

A sudden rush of excitement and embarrassment floods your veins as your mind processes his words; your head snaps back up to look at him, and you’re greeted by a teasing grin. 

“I’m not flustered,” you reply, your voice only wavering slightly, yet you know that it’s clear to him that you’re not being very honest. He’s well aware of the effect he’s having on you. 

He tsks, a dangerous glint in his eye. “I mean, I can see you,” he says, gesturing to you with his hand. “You’re licking your lips, you can’t meet my eyes for more than a few seconds, your cheeks are flushed – it’s clear your body yearns to be touched…” he trails off, smirking to himself as he briefly glances to the ground. “... by me.”

His statement catches you off-guard. A quick exhale from your nose leaves you feeling winded with the sensations of butterflies wreaking havoc within your body. 

The silence between you lingers, heavy and thick as you ponder over his words, and you decide to go all in. You glance at him sideways, before speaking. “Is that so?”

His eye darkens at your coy demeanor, and with the corners of his quirking up into a sly smirk, he reveals just a glimpse of the devil that lurks beneath the angelic exterior. “Oh, it is,” he replies with a mocking tone. “I know you’re getting off to the thoughts of me at night, sweet thing. And even right now, you’re dripping for me. It’s almost pathetic.”

He almost seems relieved as he finally reaches to trace a gentle line over your exposed shoulder, starting at the crook of your neck. His light touch and the coldness of his gloves cause you to shiver involuntarily, and makes your breathing heavy. 

As if he’s searching for something within yours, his eye narrows, and your mind races with the possibility of what such a look might signify. 

“Look at you,” he purrs, licking his pouty lips. “You’re sitting here, just waiting for me to take things a step further – all the while I could smell that sweet pussy of yours ever since I’ve stepped into the room.”

Your mouth goes dry at his words, making it difficult to swallow, and you feel yourself clench around nothing; the urge to squirm in your seat is nearly overwhelming. 

“That sweet scent of yours…” he trails off. Mesmerized by his words and confidence, you almost flinch when he pushes himself off the desk, slowly kneeling down to be on a level with you, hovering close to you like a predator pretending to pounce. 

Your breath is heavy, and with your body still facing the desk, you’re forced to turn your head to the side to meet his gaze. There are mere inches between your faces now, and you feel his minty breath fan over your lips, swollen from how often you've licked them at this point. 

He brushes a strand of hair behind your ear, and heat follows where the cold leather of his gloves ghosted over your skin. “So desperate to be touched… to be filled,” he hums. While embarrassment blossoms inside of you, there’s no amusement laced within his silky voice. It’s as if he’s just stating facts. “Or am I mistaken?” Your name topples past his lips with so much ease, it makes you imagine how it would sound moaned by him.

Your head begins to swim. His scent, his domineering aura, the warmth emanating off of him – it’s all too much and not enough. 

Meekly shaking your head, the ‘no’ you reply comes out not louder than a whisper. 

He takes in a quick breath of air, relishing in his victory. The way you submit to him, to his power and dominance, feeds something within him; a hunger that’s been growing more and more demanding from the moment he stepped into the room with you. 

“Good girl,” he purrs, slowly rising to his full height, stretching his fingers as he keeps his eye locked on you. A flush spreads over your cheeks at his praise, the subconscious urge to make him proud sending a shiver of excitement through your veins, feeding right into your desire to please him. 

He’s standing again, letting his eye drift over your sitting frame for a moment too long, trailing down your neck, over the curves of your breasts, and settling in your lap. A gloved hand comes forward to pinch the skirts of your gown between his fingers, an almost disgusted look on his features. 

“Take it off.”

“W-What?” 

“W-w-what?” he mocks, the scoff he releases filling you with shame. “Take it off,” he repeats. “Or else I will take it off of you, and that won’t be any more pleasant.”

The thought of him undressing you seems tempting. A small part of you wants to protest, to say something along the lines of ‘you can’t just demand something like this’ but the other part craves this. It feels as if it’s quintessential for your body to survive, not able to go one day longer without being touched at all. 

Rising to your feet, you smooth out the skirts of your dress before craning your neck to look up at him. He’s towering over you, hardly stepping back far enough to create any space for you to undress. 

Having always been a bit of a pain to put on, getting out of the dress was even worse. The tight fit and squared neckline leaves you with very limited mobility, meaning you’re always relying on a servant to help you get out of it. And facing these difficulties, the thought of removing it all by yourself, especially in front of him, seems almost sacrilegious. 

A thought pops into your mind, and your body is quick enough to get through with it before you can even think about it properly. 

“Care to help me?” you ask, batting your eyelashes at him. Before he can refuse, you brush your hair over one shoulder and turn around, presenting him with your back and the tightly laced corset. 

Much to your surprise, he doesn’t refuse, and you say nothing as his fingers find the lacing of your corset, gloves brushing your skin as he slowly undos the laces. 

It’s a slow process, one that builds anticipation within you, and has you squeezing your thighs together yet again. 

His caresses are light and careful at first, but they grow increasingly firm and forceful. Each tug and pull draws you closer to him, and only when you hear the same dismissive hum rumbling in his chest do you dare to glimpse at him from over your shoulder, seeing him staring at your back with his jaw set with a new purpose. 

The fabric is still pinched between his fingers when they suddenly change course, gripping the purple fabric around the lace with a bit more force than necessary. He rips open the corset in a single, harsh motion in a clear display of his impatience, the torn fabric hitting the ground with a thud, and your gown quickly follows suit. 

For a moment, you feel relief at being freed from its confines. But it’s fleeting, your skin immediately prickling as you become aware of how much of your body is exposed to him now. 

It’s weird to think that this thin layer of modesty has been enough to keep your fluttering nerves at bay, and now it’s peeled away with you knowing he’s gazing at you as if he’s been served his first meal in months. 

Easing your trembling legs, you hold onto the desk for support. It feels like an eternity as you crouch forward slightly to steady your uneven breathing, the moment only breaking as he advances towards you, his body leaning against yours and pressing you up against the desk. It’s the only thing keeping you upright, and the moment you feel his hot breath caress your neck, your legs feel like they are about to give in. 

His thigh slips between yours, but you can’t feel his hands on your body, assuming he’s clasped them behind his back or kept them at his sides. You can tell that his chest isn’t the only firm thing that presses against your body, his cock rock hard and all but straining against your lower back, clearly finding as much pleasure in the situation as you do.

His proximity is all you’ve thought of for the past days, yet it’s not enough. You need his hands, him, to feel thoroughly satisfied. The urge to whine scratches in your throat, but you manage to swallow it at the last moment. 

“Beg for me to touch you,” he drawls, voice laced with a mixture of excitement and hunger. 

Exhaling a strained breath, you close your eyes. “P-Please,” you whimper, barely loud enough for him to hear. “Please… touch me. It’s been so long.”

“Hm.” You hear it loud and clear, the amusement, the satisfaction, causing your skin to heat up. “That’s all you’ve got?”

You tip your head back in frustration, meeting with his shoulder, a loud huff slipping past your lips. But you’re so close to getting what you want, there’s no way you’re giving up already. 

“Please, please touch me… Mr. Targaryen.” His name is spoken with a bit of hesitation. “I-I- please, fuck, need it so, so bad. Please.” That you’re not stomping your feet on the ground like an insolent child is everything, knowing it would push your chance for relief further away. 

But it seems to do the trick, because one gloved hand settles on your hip without him saying anything, while the other clasps around the outside of your thigh, his thumb brushing smooth patterns over your hot skin. 

He drags his nose along the side of your face, his breath tickling your skin, and you slightly turn your head to lean into it. “Where else do you want me to touch, mh?”

Feeling him on every inch of your body has you far too aroused to be frustrated by his on-going teasing and stalling. “Right…” you pant, peeling his hand from your hip to bring it down between your legs, “... here.”

A quiet whine slips past your lips as his fingers make contact with your sensitive clit, the cold leather of his gloves against your hot skin striking you as a welcome surprise and sending a shiver down your spine. It feels foreign, but nice nevertheless.  

You’ve fully anticipated him to pull back again, to leave you high and dry, but he surprises you again, when he drags his fingers through your swollen folds. 

“Right here, mh?” he purrs into your ear with a husky voice. 

It’s a grazing touch that alone is enough to make your mind hazy, merely humming in return. 

He’s not doing more than rubbing your clit and brushing his digits through your folds, but you’re wet enough already for it to be audible. The squelching sounds coming from between your legs are embarrassing, clearly highlighting your desperation for him, and it only gets worse when he slips a finger inside of you. 

Taking in a sharp breath, you hold onto the desk again. “God, fuck,” you whine. 

His finger is thick enough to be accompanied with a slight burning stretch, intensifying the moment he adds another. You can’t resist the urge to grind against his hand, the base of it applying just enough pressure to your clit to numb any discomfort. 

“You like that, mh?” he rasps. “So fucking wet and desperate for my fingers, dripping all over my glove.”

A string of whiny yesses leaves your lips as the pace of his fingers increases, making it incredibly difficult for your hips to maintain the rhythm. 

Heavy breaths and pants fan over your flushed skin, spurring you on and bringing you closer to the sweet relief you’ve craved for so long. He seems to sense your impending orgasm, and works you just a moment longer, before he withdraws his fingers from you, making sure the loss would make it even worse. 

But there’s no time to whine. 

“Look at the mess you’ve made,” he teases, acting as if he’s completely oblivious to the torture he puts you through, and brings his gloved hand up to your face. 

The red leather is covered in your arousal, sticky and glistening even in the dim light. As he spreads the two fingers, a few strings of it connect the leather, and you bite your bottom lip, knowing all too well what might follow. 

“Open your mouth, pet,” he commands in a stern voice. “Clean up your mess.” 

And you comply, parting your lips and eagerly embracing him pushing them inside. Your tongue swirls around the digits, the leather tasting and feeling completely different on your tongue. 

You hardly notice that his other hand has left your thigh, and even less that he’s undoing the zipper of his slacks, pulling out his hard cock. Only when you feel the pressure against your entrance do your eyes widen, and you whine around his fingers as he pushes inside. 

Even though you are stretched from his digits, it can not compare to his cock. 

He’s filling you to the brim in one, swift thrust, and with you being gagged by his gloved fingers, you can’t do more than mewl and moan. “Fuck, tight cunt taking my cock, hm? That’s it, such a good, little pet.”

Not giving you the chance to adjust to his size, he sets up a reckless pace from the very start, his impatience running thin with the way your tightness embraces him. He fucks you as if it’s a one time thing, as if you won’t make the cut, but something inside of you tells you this is merely the beginning. 

Saliva trickles down your chin as his cock drives deeper and deeper, forcing moan after moan past your lips and his gloved fingers. It’s the sounds of skin slapping against skin, his strained grunts and your muffled whines filling the room, and if Ms. Misery were to find out, you would be tortured or killed even before the next day arrived. 

Maybe it’s the risk of being caught that drives him to his next step, but he withdraws his fingers from your mouth, gloved hand coming down to rest around your throat instead. He applies just a bit of pressure, merely meaning to hold you upright and steady to make it easier for him to use you to his liking.

You scramble for hold, sweaty palms planted flatly on the wooden surface in front of you, supporting yourself as the man behind you all but fucked every coherent thought out of your brain. 

“Look at you,” he grunts, pounding into your needy cunt. The tip of his cock brushes your sweet spot, pushing high enough to knock the air out of your lungs and make you lose yourself. “All you’ve been thinking about was my cock. So desperate to be fucked by me, huh?”

You are so full with him, his scent, his warmth, everything, that breathy whines and yesses are the only things slipping past your lips. 

He drags his nose along the side of your face, clearly relishing in the way he’s fucked you dumb with so little effort already, and you almost feel yourself come on spot the moment he presses his lips to your earlobe. 

Pushing his hips all the way into yours, he stills them for a moment, bringing up a gloved hand to spit on his fingers and before dragging them harshly over your sensitive clit, and putting you straight into a frenzy. 

The tears that were brimming in your eyes now spill and run down your flushed cheeks, hitting the desk he has you hunched over. 

“No need to cry, pet,” the man behind you drawls, a satisfaction weaved in his husky voice. “You wanted this, didn't you? Wanted my cock to fuck you stupid? Or do you want me to stop?”

Your blank mind barely processes his words, but just hearing the word stop has you finding your voice again. “N-no,” you whine, arching your back and pressing your ass back against him. “Don’t-don’t stop, Sir. ‘M so, so close.”

“Close, mh? Then fucking come for me.”

With his hand now applying a good bit of pressure to your throat and his fingers strumming your clit in a reckless pattern, you feel yourself getting lightheaded as your release hits you suddenly. 

His strained groans are hushed against your neck as you spasm around him, sucking him in hungrily. He works you through it, fucking you as you quiver and shake. Grinding against him, you ride your high out in rhythm with his thrusts, gasping each time his cock pistones inside of you. 

His hips falter slightly for a moment, caught off guard by how tightly your walls are squeezing him, but he regains his composure and sets up a brutal pace again. You’re swollen and raw by now, but he doesn't stop. 

“That’s it, fuck, I’m gonna get this pathetic cunt stuffed with my cum,” he grunts, pulling his hand from your clit to plant it on your hip. 

Each rut of his hips makes your eyes journey to the ceiling, the tears on your cheeks now dry. There are hiccuped breaths spilling from your mouth, and you can’t do more than to hold onto the desk, bracing yourself for his relentless pounding. 

With a stutter of his hips and a raspy groan escaping his throat, his cock eventually spills deep inside of you, coating your walls. He fucks it into you with deliberately slow thrusts, the last spurts of his warm release filling you to the brim.

A strained groan is audible as he pulls out, tucking himself back in his slacks, and assumes the cold demeanor he’s had before. The only courtesy he grants you is picking up your dress and underwear he’s torn off you before, holding it out for you to take. 

You get the cue, and dress yourself on trembling legs. The blonde watches curiously, leaning back against the desk again. The red gloves now lay on the desk, and you catch a glimpse of his long, ring-clad fingers. 

With flushed cheeks, you briefly look at the ground before presenting him your back again. “Do you mind?” 

He nods and steps towards you, silently lacing up your corset, and whenever his skin brushes yours, a shiver runs down your spine. His skin is soft, smooth even, and the warmth emanating from them is far more pleasant than the cold leather.

But the moment is fleeting as he quickly moves to sit down behind his desk again, a new file already pinched between his fingers. You smoothen out the skirt of your dress, merely bowing your head once, and make a beeline for the door. 

It’s his voice ringing out that stops you in your tracks, though you don’t dare to turn around. 

“I expect you to come back for your second interview tomorrow. See it as an opportunity for me to gauge whether or not you truly have the right… ambition.”

“Thank you, Mr. Targaryen,” you mumble in return, a strange sense of satisfaction and anticipation already coursing through your veins. 

Hearing your name once again, you turn your head to look at him. “There’s no need to be formal when it’s just us. You can call me Aemond.”

Taglist: @heimtathurs @croatianprincess @nina2697 @malfoytargaryen @thetaygaryen @wintrr13 @winter-soldier-101 @kyuupidwrites @boofy1998 @thekinslayersswordhand @sagelovesreading @jiminie-08 @doublesparrows @at-a-rax-ia @fan-goddess @recorddust @tsujifreya @melsunshine @drwstarkeyy @kazuyatokue @moonlightfoxx @bbgmonsay @thatmysteriousblog @ashovertheriver @black-dread @watercolorskyy @nothingqueens @urmomsgirlfriend1 @lovelykhaleesiii @hypocritic-trash-baby @darylandbethfanforever9 @snowystark @connorsui @valeskafics

[vintageunknown]

The reason why critical analysis in this fandom is Like That is precisely the problem with most adaptations. An adaptation is an interpretation of the source material, not a 1 to 1 expression. Even the most faithful adaptations still make changes or take liberties but they stand on their own. Film and books are vastly different art forms and require different techniques for coherent storytelling.

Any hint of trying to take the show at what it says is always inhbited by book readers eager to affirm or dismiss everything based on past or present books. It can be quite frustrating extrapolating information based on what is given on the show when people chime in with book spoilers to reach a conclusion the show viewers aren't even allowed to anticipate.

You can't talk about Louis and Armand's developing relationship without someone chiming in about how it doesn't matter because loustat are endgame.

You can't talk about how the Marius in the show is portrayed as an abuser without someone saying he apologizes in Blood and Gold so it's all good.

You can't talk about how Daniel and Armand's relationship so far is strictly adversarial with Armand cleary not happy about Daniel's presence without someone saying they're secretly past lovers based on what is meant to happen in the books.

You can't even talk about Claudia’s many complicated beats without someone saying she called Louis naive or something in book 1,200 so she's an evil manipulator all along. Or that Lestat says something different in TVL so the Louis we see now is a liar.

It's as if no one is simply allowed to like the show without having a PhD in Anne Rice's works first. Very frustrating considering the showrunners have expressed very clearly that for all their adherence to the books, they are taking plenty of liberties. I haven't read the VC apart from some snippets here and there, but plenty of people who did have stated how incoherent the books get later on and how serial retconning ruined them so I'll take their word at face value for now.

Running to the books to invalidate what is on screen ruins the experience for everyone, including book fans. Your books have existed since the 70s and will continue to. Don't you want to open your mind to a different perspective and see something fresh? Obviously not all book fans are like this, but I've seen enough to make this post.

Let the show be what is wants to be please.

[imviotrash]

🗡️Edward Midford and Autism coding 🗡️

During my Hiatus from the Kuroshitsuji fandom, I got diagnosed with autism. It took me some time to come to terms with that and to figure myself out.

I returned to the Kuro fandom last summer, due to (what I now come to recognize as) my longtime special Interest finally getting an anime adaptation and upon rereading some of my favourite arcs, I came to the realisation that I see a lot of my (and my peers) autistic traits in Edward. What's interesting about this character is that he has a lot of autistic traits, that are not really touched upon in media. So lets get into it!

The gentleman extreme (and how everything is taken a bit too literal/seriously):

In his introduction in chapter 52 he is shown to uphold the same beliefs as his mother, scolding his sister for behaving in an unbecoming manner. He's shown to be very close to his family and strictly upholds their values of protection. At first one may assume he is just like his mother, but it is quickly revealed that he is far more ridiculous. His upholding of his gentleman status is often paired with anger, such as in chapter 58, where he scolds other men for not letting women and children go on the lifeboats first (king behaviour) and also being the one to later recommend to look for more survivors. He has a strong code of ethics and upholds it, even if it is seen as ridiculous or even dangerous.

When it comes to clothing, he also upholds strict values and instantly gets flustered and afraid when that standard is not upheld, to the point where he needs physical distance and shields his eyes.

From these tidbits already we can observe that he is ridiculously formal, upholding the social decorum to the very extreme. While autistic individuals are known for their non-conformity, they are also known to accidentally not conform by confirming too much and following instructions to every detail. I fall into both extremes, but I definitely stick to the latter when it comes to social interactions.

I think Edward definitely falls into that category, because he represents how ridiculous the Victorian code of ethics and etiquette can be if upheld at all times. I may dabble into headcannon territory again, but I strongly believe that knighthood and the chivalry connected to it is something like a special interest for him, which contributes to the way he acts.

Aggression and volume:

In his introduction he yells at his future brother in law. A complete overreaction and incredibly ironic considering his previous scolding regarding etiquette. This happens multiple times, especially when confronted with Ciel his gentlemanly behaviour suddenly turns into childish banter. He is usually soft spoken but can be louder if he is simply commanded to do so.

Volume control is something a lot of autistic people struggle with. For me it's especially when talking about special interests or talking to a person who interrupts me A LOT. I am quiet and do not speak often, so when I do I must make the most of it.

Based on cannon evidence, I believe that Edward may struggle with this too. He's loud to get his point across, because he believes that loudness will make others listen to him.

Spiky hair, in this economy?

So we all know Frances and her strict rules regarding men's hair, right? Everything has to be slicked back and she thinks Sebastians hair is atrocious (so do I). So why is it that her son is the only one allowed to run around with this type of hairstyle? Alexis has very nicely brushed back hair, Elizabeths is also nicely done. Isn't it strange that she makes an exception for ONE family member?

So here is where I dabble into headcannons, because I think the exception was made because he has sensory issues regarding his hair. He doesn't like it slicked back in any way and feels uncomfortable with any product in his hair.

Once again, heavily falling into headcannons, so take this one with a grain of salt.

Elizabeth and her influence:

Edward is incredibly attached to his sister. Mainly being protective of her and not trusting other men (especially his brother in law) to treat her with the respect she deserves. He knows and appreciates her skill and knows she's incredibly capable. So...why is he so attached?

Elizabeth is an important catalyst for his behaviour, because it shows the extremes of his gentleman code. His good manners instantly turn into ridiculous aggression as soon as he sees something that he views as a threat to her. Despite his behaviour towards Ciel, he does care about him, because he realises how important he is to his sister. Elizabeth is a person of comfort for Edward. He admires her talent and sees her as a valuable family member who has been through a lot of hurt.

Autistic individuals often have trouble with boundaries and attach themselves onto others quickly, which leads to them unintentionally treating them incorrectly. This is definitely the case here, since he gives little (social) agency to Elizabeth for the sake of her protection. He genuinely cares about her but is unable to set healthy boundaries, because his way of emphaphy differs from the social norm.

Masking and copying behaviour:

What is interesting about Edward is how he copies the behaviour of others. He has a role model and copies their behaviour because he desires to master it. So why does he do that?

My answer is masking. Edward genuinely admires these people, but is unsure of how to adapt their skills in his own way, so he copies them. This is something we can often see in masking. Behaviour that is seen as acceptable by society is often copied by autistic individuals to blend into society. I think for Edward it's a combination of masking and admiration. His strong upholding of the Gentleman code also fits well into this category.

Beyond that, the Blue cult arc also proves that he able to severely alter the way he behaves, if needed. Does he feel comfortable with that? Absolutely not. But he does have the great ability to do so if instructed, which proves to yet be another factor for him masking his behaviour.

Mediocrity in a Neurotypical society:

So Edward had this nice monologue about him being mediocre compared to his prodigy sister and I think it is exactly this scene, which makes me headcannon him as autistic. Because this is the exact trait I do not see often.

In media, many autistic individuals are represented as prodigies and amazingly intelligent and I can't help but hate that stereotype, because it puts unrealistic expectations on disabled individuals. I have prodigy friends who are autistic and I truly admire them, but I need people to understand that autism is a disability and not just "socially incompetent person who is going to revolutionise the world". As soon as one's interest is not deemed useful by society (which mainly includes "feminine" interests), they are not validated. Autism is only accepted by society if it proves to be impressive or useful. It is not seen as a disability, but as something to exploit.

I like Edwards monologue, because I relate and it rounds out his character really well. He accepts that he is not a prodigy, that he sucks in many regards, but that he still looks up to those who fit into the standard. His monologue is something that I've truly taken into heart, because you do not need to be a prodigy to be valid, you should not need to be extraordinary to be accepted as you are. You are allowed to be mediocre. You are allowed to treat your disability as a disability, because that's what it is.

Lastly:

Please remember that most of this is based on my personal expenses with autism. It is an incredibly diverse neuro divergency and manifests itself differently in all sorts of ways. Many of these traits may not apply to you or to anyone you know. This is just a personal observation based on my own and my companions experiences.

[fic-heaven]

Feed me some gore

Yes ma'am

Duty's Price

2. John Price

⚠️GORE⚠️/ unedited/ heavy angst/ no happy ending/ assassination/ panic attack/ stillborn/ pregnancy/ break-up/ open ending.

🐥Part 2 of the Gorey shorts I said I'd do! This time featuring Price.

Part 1

-You couldn't expect everything to go right, to make the captain fall in love with you when you were just a tool for him to put his sexual desires at ease. It's only when you are gone that he realizes how much you truly meant to him and the future he lost with you when he kicked you out of the force.

.

Your last words to Price: "I'm pregnant... You can't do this to me, John."

Price is a very sharp captain. His abilities have never failed him, and you were not going to change that.

You two spent a year having casual sex. He can't remember well how it all started, that's how little he cared. After all, it shouldn't even have happened in the first place, he was you captain and you were one of his most trusted Sargeants. His right hand after Ghost.

But a few weeks back, you begun crossing boundaries you were strictly forbidden from crossing. John called you ungrateful and greedy because it was already very grave that you two were fucking in the first place and he was letting it slide, but now you were thriving for more. Often acting jealous when he shared a few heated looks with the nurses at the base or some gal at a bar, being all clingy whenever you two were out of sight along other things. Price told you he wasn't ready, he couldn't commit to anyone when his work required his full attention.

"You are a woman, a SARGEANT, acting unprofessional like a jealous, possessive teenager." He spat making you drop your gaze to your feet like a child getting scolded after you confessed your feelings. At your stubborn silence, Price continued not knowing why he even felt like he owed you any more than a dismissal from your confession. "You can love me all ye want, but it's interfering with your work performance. As your captain I can't let this keep on, specially considering lives are literally on our hands. So you either suck it up, pretend none of this ever happen and focus on your damn job or yer out."

"But If I had the time, i wouldn't dedicate it to you, (Y/n)." That was your breaking point. That single line seemed to punch the words out of your mouth, so John kept talking to fill the silence.

If you could go back in time, you'd tell yourself to never fall for the man who treated you like you were the most precious thing only to, in the end, claim he never loved you back.

This last quip made your head snap back to him, teary eyes widening and wobbly lip trying to still as you formulated a response, and said response was what got Price to stand abruptly from his chair and straight up expulse you from the force with a loud roar. You couldn't be pregnant, you were just using that excuse to soften him up and warm him into staying with you.

Could you really be so selfish and greedy to try and baby-trap him?

A few weeks passed after he expulsed you. John never heard a word from you and he was grateful for it. As for the few questions the others asked about your absence, he gave vague responses and that as it is, was very weird. What could you have done for John Price to kick you out of the force so suddenly when you were the most obedient and efficient out of all the five of you?

It didn't matter. What matters now is getting the team to adapt to your absence and focus on a new threat that tormented the streets of London. After Price had killed a terrorist a few months back, he had received many death threats from the terrorist's sons. The eldest, most known as Bones due his strange passion for collecting many bones from the bodies of his victims and decorate his hideout with them, and the younger many called Reggie, a fat, greasy man whose whole purpose in life was pleasing his father and brother by doing atrocious things.

Something that Price haven't acknowledge but Soap would always warn him about, was that ever since you left the force, the captain became more careless and distracted. Your departure took a huge tool on John even if he didn't want to admit it, and the fact that you went radio silent on him, as much as he thanked you for it, made his chest feel oddly empty and aching. It was because of his state that him and Gaz got captured so easily.

He woke up with his hands bounded together on his lap and his feet chained to a pole. Looking around he situated himself inside what seemed to be an abandoned sausage factory. Gaz was wide awake when Price turned his gaze to his right side, grimacing from the terrible headache he was suffering. When the younger man took notice of his Captain's awakening, he sighed relived and tried to explain the situation. Soap and Ghost were tracking their location using Gaz's phone he managed to hide from the brothers when they were ambushed and brought here.

"It's only a matter of time, cap. We just gotta wait..."

"Not for longer, we're already here." A stranger's voice surprised them both followed by a pair of footsteps approaching their trapped forms.

The introduction was short and very stupid. Price was confident, putting his whole trust and patience on Soap and Ghost who had to arrive soon. He was disassociating, Price's exhaustion from these months of heavy work and your "break-up", if he could call it that, was getting to him. He slumped on the spot until something picked his interest.

"I hope we're not boring you, John. We've got something you might like." Bones said using his cane to poke Price's bullet wound from his left shoulder making him grunt in pain. "Something we haven't told you, Reggie and I-" the slender man smiled giving his brother a side eye. "-is that we are not here to kill your Sargeant right here as payment for our daddy's death, as you would have expected." He pointed at Gaz with his cane. "No, we already killed a Sargent of yours. We avenged our father in our own way, it is done. And although it would have been great to do it in front of you, we got... Carried away. So we might as well show you the fruits of our work."

Gaz and Price perked up at this, the thought of Soap laying dead somewhere not sitting right with them when Ghost was with him this whole time. Then... Who?

"You made us orphans. We wanted to kill someone from your family but it was so hard to track 'em we decided to pick someone closer to you." Bones explained casually approaching Price holding a strange wrapped, round object he picked from a dusty table nearby.

"You're right. I'm usually pretty straightforward. I guess we have been waiting to have you here for so long I'm getting carried away, pardon my... Babbling." A chilly smile crossed Bones' face, his brother crackled urging him to show Price "the surprise".

A shiver ran down Price's spine. Thinking the worst, he replied to Bones with an equally calm voice as if they were discussing the weather. "Y'keep babbling n' beating around the bush we'll end up falling asleep before dropping dead, son." He licked his canines before lazily inspecting the dark cloth covering what the tall killer was holding.

Gaz was quiet through all this, he was young, intimidated by their capturers and surely blaming himself. He wasn't experienced like Price who had lived through so many assassination attempts and captures he didn't loose his cool even when he felt dread at the mention of one of his Sargeants being killed. He was hoping, no, praying, that they got the wrong person. But his worst fear materialized before him when Reggie rushed closer with heavy steps to take the cloth off of what his brother was holding as if presenting a trophy.

The smell was worse. It was the smell what hit his senses first, a smell of rot so strong it made the old captain almost puke on the spot. He managed to hold in his puke but his bladder emptied wetting his cargo pants, lucky him none of the men noticed thanks to the color of the cloth, it snapped him back to reality when Bones shoved your head closer to Price's head grabbing you by the hair. Price looked away, in shock, fear and disgust. This was not supposed to happen.

Your head appeared in between Bones' disgusting hands. Eyes lost, hair messy and cut short by the neck where they had chopped your head off. They did a messy work, as Bones said, probably driven by the excitement and lust for the kill, your jaw was seemingly broken and it hanged limply, your wide mouth showed broken teeth and a cut tongue, clear proof that you tried to fight back.

''Why don't you kiss her, captain? Don't you love your little whore? We cut her tongue, her lips are still intact."

To say Price was mortified was an understatement. His eyes, normally half-lid, were so wide they could have popped out of his skull. His bounded hands were violently shaking on his lap, wetting them with his urine.

"Captain-" Garrick cried, his voice wavering.

"Shut your mouth." Bones growled before snapping back to John "Kiss her, Price." He ordered the shock-struck captain whose wide eyes begun watering down a river of silent tears.

"She cried for you, you know. You should have seen her, a sweet thing whailing for her captain to come save her. Got me all hard every time I saw her cry like that." The cruel man informed shaking your head side to side as if you were some short of new keychain he had gained at a fair.

"Bet I did you a favor." He suddenly said, and Price lifted his wet gaze to the killer silently waiting for him to elaborate as the only sounds coming from his mouth were short wet gasps. "I doubt a man so bounded to his duties like you would have liked to settle and have a family so soon. Specially with a Sargeant as pathetic as this one."

Price's eyebrows knit in confusion. He was really fooling himself, as if he didn't understand what this monster meant. But it only lasted a few seconds before he collapsed letting his whole weight fall to the ground with a thump followed by a loud gasp, his breathing getting quicker and raspier. He was having a panic attack.

You died alone, in distraught, desperate to be back to him and worst of all, pregnant. You weren't lying. You never were.

"Reggie saw her clutching her stomach after a few beatings so I gutted her like a fish. That's how I know, if you are wondering." He chuckled. "Lil babe was so uncooked it looked like a small bean, but it was unmistakable. Congratulations!"

Kyle shakes his head violently in denial feeling his Captain's sorrow, just as unable to mouth any word out of the shock of this whole situation. Both men could only whimper and babble like small babes.

"I think it was a girl, but then again it was too small... Right Reggie?" He went on to ask his brother who was standing next to a bounded panicking Gaz with the biggest grins. "I can't recall. Uuhh... Hold up."

The redhead pulled out a jar from his coat's pocket. A fucking pickle jar. And Price's eyes followed the motion as if he was pulling a gun ready to shoot him the final killing blow. The jar was bloody on the bottom, a very small bundle of red meat was inside, it looked squashed as if someone had carelessly stuffed it inside and shook it.

Reggie crouched to John's squirming and heaving body lifting his head by the hair and showing him the glass jar. Price's face was a wet mess, sweat, tears, snot and spit bathed his skin and made it hard for him to focus his stare. His blue eyes managed to pick the very small meaty figure of what had to be your biggest gift to him. There, laying on a jar and small like a tadpole, laid a fetus only a few weeks old.

The violent spams and squirms from John's tied body made Reggie step back as the captain let out animalistic sounds trying to headbutt the killer. At the sudden jerk from Reggie, the jar dropped to the ground crashing into a million tiny pieces, the small fetus lay squashed on the stoney ground. The sight caused Price to fall down again with a sob, his cheek pressed to the floor digging some small cristal shards on his skin. His head fell a few inches away from the fetus, his mind was a storm, running a mile per minute, the normal serious facade he had to put on every mission was amiss leaving instead a man crying loudly, whailing out in pain, both emotional and soon physical, John's body burned, the stress and grief striking him so fatally it left the other three men speechless at the sight of true, raw agony. For the brothers it was poetic, for Gaz it was such a traumatic scene it'll haunt him until the day he dies.

"What do you say, Cap? See any lil dick or kitty in there?" Reggie asked cruelly, Price let out a cry so uncharacteristic it didn't sound like it belonged to him at all, Reggie took it as a very acceptable answer "Nah, it's too soon to tell. Ah well I'll let it to your imagination."

Kyle was shaking, he couldn't do much other than watch as his captain laid on the ground crying with your head and babe a few inches from him as he made sounds Gaz had never heard coming from anyone, much less his normally stoic captain.

During that, Price's screams and cries were so loud he couldn't hear a word from any of the others, his senses dulled in a mist of stress and panic. It didn't take more than three minutes for him to completely black out, his heart and brain almost giving out at such levels of stress and grief. Gaz thought he had a heart attack, wouldn't shy away from confirming that he HOPED his captain died of a cardiac arrest just so his suffering would have ended right then and there.

But after getting rescued by Soap and Ghost and taken to the hospital, a nurse confirmed John had a severe panic attack. A warning sign that his years of service were numbered.

This whole ordeal ended up with the unit capturing the brothers and recovering your body. You didn't have a family, so it was the 141 who celebrated your departure from life and gave you the final goodbye. John made sure to cremate your child with you as well. A day after, he'd be on his office with an urn belonging to his nameless child and his lover who he never appreciated until your passing.

And it was with deep emptiness within his soul that captain John Price left the base, never to be found again.

.

[howtofightwrite]

Followup: Oragnized Crime Recruitment

The Godfather book and the Mafia games, specifically the first Mafia game, are the closest examples of what the Original Asker wants for his game. Goodfellas is another potential example to base the process of one's recruitment into the criminal underworld. In general, recruitment in fiction is generally based on doing jobs and earning a reputation as to one's success at doing jobs. In Goodfellas, Henry Hill started off doing simple, legal-ish errands for the local mafia before the gangsters saw his potential and entrusted him with more illegal jobs. Original Asker's character could therefore be someone who is affiliated with a mobster, but not part of the inner circle until the character pulls off jobs which makes them someone worth recruiting to the organization. Or one could go the Tommy Angelo route and save a mobster's life. -ironwoodatl01

So, it's worth remembering that Goodfellas is (in broad strokes) non-fiction. Henry Hill was a real person. (1943-2012) He was an associate of the Lucchese family. There are some historical, “inaccuracies,” with the film. Though, his arrest in 1980 for narcotics, and turning state's witness is historically accurate, though the film skims over the part where he was ejected from the witness protection program in 1987. Goodfellas was adapted from Nicholas Pileggi's non-fiction book, Wiseguy. I haven't read the book, but it's plausible that some of the historical discrepancies may have come from the book.

In this case, the OP specifically wanted to avoid a background where someone grew up in the neighborhood. Which, I mean, that is their choice, but it is a very popular recruitment method, in part because it's very effective at screening out potential cops, or even recruiting potential tame cops down the line.

Ironically, thinking back now, Mafia, the original Saints Row, and Franklin's arc from GTA5 are all potential reference points for what the OP wanted, and thinking back on it now, they were asking for input on a game, rather than prose, so I should have factored that in with the original ask. The tricky thing about each of those examples is that they're dependent on a lot of very specific moving parts in their respective stories. (Though, to be fair, I barely remember the original Mafia.) None of them are strictly realistic, but they're all internally plausible, when you start factoring in the various character motivations at work.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the Thieves Guild recruitment in Skyrim, which is one of the goofiest criminal recruitments I've seen in a non-parody. Brynjolf grabs some random psychopath wandering through and says, “ah, yes, you must be a master of pickpocketing and interested in a life of crime.” Does it make any sense? Nope. Does it go a long way towards explaining why the Thieves Guild is falling apart? Yeah, kinda, when you think about it. Does the introduction work? For some players, yes.

If the player wants to get into a questline, the justification can be pretty flimsy and still work for that player. Usually we talk about suspension of disbelief like it's a universal constant, but it's individual per member of your audience. Normally, you want to do whatever you can to ensure the suspension of disbelief is as strong as possible. However, in a game, the player's own emotional investment can help shore up weak points.

I'm going to take a quote out of context (a little), but I'm reminded of a quote from Richard K. Morgan about Halo, “[it] is full of these bullshit archetypal characters and there's no real emotional effect.” And, while he was certainly dragged for that quote (and, really the entire interview, it was a mess), he wasn't wrong. The writing in Halo isn't what does the heavy lifting, a large part of that is the player's effort to get through the story. And, in basically any other medium, this would be an exceptionally bad thing.

You won't make your novel better by forcing your audience to complete reflex tests before they start each chapter.

But, with video games, the gameplay interludes, can actually build emotional investment for the player. Even on very flimsy premises.

I've often written about how writing in different mediums requires different approaches and has different strengths. If you want gorgeous combat, then live action or animation are the best forms for you story. If you want visually striking images that linger, comics might be the right choice. If you really want to get into a character's head and live there, prose will let you do that with a level of fine control that is difficult to replicate. (And, note, there's a lot of different pros and cons, so this isn't an exclusive list.) The funny thing is, if you want your audience to do the heavy lifting for suspension of disbelief, that's one of the places where video game writing really shines.

And so we loop back to the Skyrim example. Brynjolf's approach to finding new talent is absolute clown shoes, but it's something you might not notice if this is why you wandered into Riften. It only becomes a problem when you're just there to snuff Grelod the Kind, or are looking for someplace to unload all this garbage you picked up while delving into a Dwemer ruin up in the mountains.

This doesn't mean you should abandon the idea of good writing, but if your player is on the same page as you, you won't need to worry about having something completely believable. For example, the plot-line of Mafia, or (the original) Saints Row.

-Starke

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[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #39 – Inglorious Empire: What the British Did To India by Shashi Tharoor

I honestly forget who first recommended this book to me – quite possible I just googled ‘good indian history books’ and found it that way? - but it’s been on my TBR list for functionally forever at this point. Which meant I went into it essentially blind, with no memory of what if any details I’d been given with the recommendation. Which meant I had a moderately disappointing reading experience just because I was hoping for a narrative history and not an explicit polemical/persuasive text. Still, taken on its own merits as one of those, it’s really quite a good one.

The book is an adaptation and expansion of a performance the author gave at an Oxford debate (arguing against the notion that the British Empire was a good thing) which was recorded and went viral enough to make it a commercially viable prospect. The origin story shines through in the form – aside from an introduction and conclusion, each chapter is a clear and specific argument against some specific justification offered for the British conquest and colonization of India, full to bursting with statistics and quotations buttressing every point.

I would very much like to say that most of it is devoted to stuff the average reader will know anyway (if illustrated with clear and affecting examples), but, going by the apparent public response to the original debate and some polling cited in the conclusion, apparently not! The YouGov polls about the English public’s knowledge and opinion of the Empire are bleak enough that yeah this probably is a direly needed work of public education, if mostly for people who will not at any point read it.

Still, the fact that the British Raj was explicitly and institutionally racist and reserved functionally all positions of real power and authority for white men shouldn’t be much of a surprise, nor the fact that the ‘rule of law’ was basically a sick joke as far as crimes across the colour line went, nor the fact that the extraction of wealth from India to make fortunes in Britain was the explicit goal of policy, nor the fact that resistance (especially resistance successful enough to spook the authorities) was responded to with utter and excessive brutality. All that is basically the meat of what having been a colony means.

That said, I was taken a bit aback by the sheer rapaciousness of early Company government – it’s one thing to hear about oppressive taxation, another to get quoted the census figures of how they were so extreme that enough peasants fleeing their land and homes to look for greener pastures to show up as overall population decline in the areas under HEIC control. Similarly, my understanding of how India was turned into a captive market for British goods was much more subtle and indirect than the outright smashing of looms and legal prohibition of any attempts to compete with British industries that were actually used.

Whereas I did know about the deadly famines that kept occurring throughout the Raj, but the sheer cartoonish malevolence of colonial authorities when faced with them always manages to shock me a bit. ‘Nature’s solution to overpopulation’ was a really horrifyingly opinion at the time.

The audience of the debate performance the book’s based on definitely shines through in the choice of sources – wherever possible, Tharoor quotes from or cites western (Anglo-American, generally) sources for his eye-witness accounts and always takes care to introduce and ground them in terms of western governments or academia. The quotes themselves are all helpful illustrations, though there’s probably slightly more than are really strictly necessary – I’m pretty sure by wordcount at least a chapter of the book was actually written by Will Durant.

I’m not sure if it’s because of the original format or just how Tharoor writes, but the book also just has a great love of adjectives. Seemingly every source referenced is ‘historic’ or ‘path-breaking’ unless it is merely ‘compendious’ or outright ‘invidious’. Not a bad thing, but once I noticed it I was totally unable to stop doing so.

The book is straightforward polemic and Tharoor makes no bones about his position, so I take his verging-on-idyllic descriptions of pre-colonial Indian governance (especially regarding land tenure and caste) and the probability that India would have unified into a modern nation state without colonialism a dose pour of salt. There’s a few other inaccuracies I noticed (referring to the East India Company’s theft of Chinese tea plans as the ‘birth of agricultural espionage), for example), but it was all in the realm of little asides or colourful anecdotes rather than anything load-bearing.

It is rather funny that the book repeatedly draws comparisons with French colonies to argue that India was worst off, on the grounds that Paris at least made gestures towards integrating Indochina or Algeria and their peoples into France (however inadequate and hypocritical those efforts were), whereas in India the maintenance of total domination and the clear policy that India and Indians were things to be exploited for the benefit of England never changed. Funny, because from the book of Vietnamese history I read a few months ago the perspective of nationalists in Indochina was quite the reverse, seeing the English as at least somewhat honest brokers who were willing to grant some level of (limited and inadequate) self-government, compared to the French. Grass is always greener, I guess.

Though that does get at Tharoor’s argument as to why the British were worse not just in degree but in kind to the Mughals and any other empire-builders from outside South Asia who had come before them. The Mughals became Indian, both in the simple material sense that all their taxes didn’t end up back in Samarkand and Indian merchants were intentionally ruined for the benefit of traditional central asia trade routes, and in the more cultural sense that the ruling class set down roots and intermarried with their subjects rather than establishing a cloistered ruling class. Instead, the Raj was more akin to Tamerlane’s sack of Delhi, extended across 200 years. (One gets the sense Tharoor thinks a permanent settler population moving into stolen palaces would have been preferable to the rotation of soldiers and officials arriving from the metropole for long enough to get rich before heading back to build mansions in the Home Counties.)

Also, speaking of Vietnamese history, I only have a sample size of two but it’s interesting how in both cases a class of liberal (in the western sense) intellectuals and bourgeois emerged who tried to take the colonial propaganda at its word and enter some sustainable partnership with the imperial power – and in both cases got at best ignored and at worst imprisoned, tortured and executed for their trouble.

Anyways, interesting read, if one that makes me want something more specific and rigorous about basically any specific section of it (though, not to jump up and yell ‘Canada Mentioned!’ but every time Trudeau was used as an example of a colonial power’s leader handling the apologizing and acknowledging stuff gracefully and well I had to really try not to laugh).

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

Would A Lapras Be A Good Pet?

As Indigo Disk week continues, let’s dive into an analysis of lapras! Would a lapras be a good pet? Unfortunately, no.

For one, lapras are simply too large to be a pet. Aquatic pets often bring up more problems than land-based pets, just because providing an aquatic habitat can be expensive and require a lot of upkeep. Providing a lapras with enough space would be quite the challenge as they weigh in at nearly five hundred pounds and over eight feet tall. Wild lapras are used to large, open territories, often crossing the entire sea (Yellow, Silver). These majestic, sea-faring pokémon are not likely to be happy and healthy if restrained to a habitat small enough to be feasible in any way for the average pet owner. Add onto that the fact that lapras are adapted to live in colder environments (Shield), and you’ve got a pokémon who’s environmental needs tank their compatibility score.

Personality-wise, they score much higher marks. Lapras are remarkably intelligent pokémon, capable of understanding human speech (FireRed). They enjoy ferrying humans and other pokémon across water on their backs (Red/Blue) to the point of becoming a popular means of inter-island transit in the Alola Region (Ultra Sun). They are known to be gentle and avoidant of conflict (Gold). In the past, due to their reluctance to defend themselves by fighting, lapras became severely endangered (Gold), only recently making a bounce-back due to strict protective regulations (Moon).

This is good news, since their move pool gives lapras a pretty solid means of doing a lot of damage to you. From ranged moves like Ice Beam and Hydro Pump to moves that make use of their huge size, like Body Slam, this isn’t a pokémon to mess with. Or, well… The chances of a lapras attacking you, even if you mean it harm, are pretty low. There’s a reason that they sadly have a history of being easy marks for poachers.

You know what, let’s circle back to the aforementioned protectionary regulations that helped rebuild the wild lapras population. While these laws have worked perhaps too well, with lapras overpopulation becoming a serious problem in some regions of the world (Moon, Ultra Moon), these laws are still in place as far as we know. Would it even be legal to keep a lapras as a pet, seeing as they are a strictly protected species? There’d probably be a lot of paperwork to work through, at the very least.

Mostly just due to their size and lifestyle, lapras would not make very good pets. You know what they would make, though? Good friends. Befriend a lapras today. They’re precious!

[daenerysstormreborn]

I still think there’s a chance Dany doesn’t become a villain in the books because her characterization IS different in the show but I don’t think it’s really fair to claim the only reasons people think she’ll become a villain are misogyny and hatred of her and desire to see her get a bad ending. Yes there are Dany haters and misogynists who believe this but those are not the only reasons.

I love Dany. What I desire for her is not necessarily what I believe will happen in the story. I’m still split on what I think will happen and I’m keeping an open mind. What I want for Dany is a happy ending where she is loved and can live in peace. If I was in charge of the story, I’d have Dany participate in the battle against the Others and, in the process, really get to know and understand the people of Westeros and realize that claiming the throne could not happen peacefully. I want her to choose the path she wants deep down and not the path she was told is owed to her. She does not seem to particularly enjoy ruling. Based on my interpretation, what Dany wants is a home. She wants love and acceptance and belonging. But growing up with Viserys she’s come to believe that she is owed the throne and has a duty to rule and she doesn’t know what else to do. This isn’t because I think she’d be a bad ruler (it is hard to judge who would it wouldn’t be a good ruler when they’re young teenagers). I just don’t think it would lead to a happy ending for her. I don’t want the IT for ANY of my favs.

However. This is just what I WANT for her. There are many things in the show that are clearly made up completely by D&D, like replacing Jeyne Poole with Sansa. However, I don’t think something as major as Daenerys, one of the main characters who has been presented as a hero thus far, destroying King’s Landing is something D&D would just pull out of their asses. It’s just such a major event that effects literally every other surviving main character. It’s hard for me to buy the idea that villain Daenerys isn’t an idea that GRRM at least floated to them. It was super rushed and poorly executed, as was the rest of the show. But it’s just hard to buy the idea that these men whom GRRM trusted would do something that entirely betrays his ideas for the story. And GRRM REALLY had faith in them. He did NOT want there to be an adaption of his series but they won him over. I do NOT want this to be the trajectory of Daenerys’s character but I just can’t pretend it’s not a very real possibility.

And then there’s the original outline. Yes, many things have changed since then. But George refers to Dany as a “threat.” This demonstrates that at least at one point, he has toyed with the idea of her ultimately posing as an antagonistic force to Westeros. Is this enough evidence to say without a shadow of a doubt that this is what George will do? No I don’t think so. Not a single one of us can say what he’s going to do with this story. There’s also a very real chance that Winds is taking so long because he decided to make major changes after seeing how GoT was received by the public but I’d like to think he has more integrity than that. But again, I just don’t know.

I want Daenerys to be a hero. The ending she got in the show was so, so tragic and would be heart wrenching if it had been executed well. As a big ol Jon lover, I don’t want that ending for him either. There are characters who are obviously on different trajectories based on major changes the show made to events (Sansa), characterization (Arya), or statements GRRM made (Jaime). But I just can’t say for sure that that’s true of Daenerys. If any other Daenerys fans who are 100% convinced without a show of a doubt that she will remain strictly a hero, I would love it if you’d add onto this post and tell me why!

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello! My play group has recently begun a PF2e game and we're enjoying it, but as an almost-forever-GM running one-shots looking for The Next Big Game to run I'm definitely noticing a trend of "a small run of bad rolls has decided you lose" that stands in contrast to a more subjectively "forgiving" system like Cypher or Quest. I know any dice-based game can theoretically end up with the dice deciding "you lose tonight," but it got me to thinking about that feeling in trying new systems. We definitely love mechanics in play - i.e. I'm not strictly looking for diceless systems, but they're not off the table either - so I'd love to hear about games you like and think are on the forgiving side of the spectrum with regards to bad luck streaks. Thank you!

THEME: “Forgiving” Games.

Hello friend, I love these kinds of games a lot. Here's a few outside of Numenera, which you already seem to know about. I tried to stick with games that have some longevity, although I'm not sure how long you can play Our Haunt as a campaign.

Vaesen, by Free League Publishing.

Welcome to the Mythic North – northern Europe of the nineteenth century, but not as we know it today. A land where the myths are real. A cold reach covered by vast forests, its few cities lonely beacons of industry and enlightenment – a new civilization dawning. But in the countryside, the old ways still hold sway. There, people know what lurks in the dark. They know to fear it.

Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is written by Nils Hintze and based on the work of Swedish illustrator and author Johan Egerkrans. Vaesen presents a dark Gothic setting steeped in Nordic folklore and the old myths of Scandinavia. The game mechanics utilize an adapted version of the award-winning Year Zero Engine.

Vaesen allows players to do something called pushing the roll, although you can only do it once per any given action. You will roll a number of six-sided dice according to a skill + attribute combination, and aim to roll 6’s, which are successes. Pushing the roll allows you to re-roll any dice that did not come up as a 6, thus giving you a second chance - or a chance to be more effective, if you need more than one 6 to do what you want to do.

Since Vaesen is a horror game, however, this push doesn’t come without a cost. Choosing to Push a roll means that your character will have to take on a condition, which is represented as either a Physical or Mental injury or affliction. Take too many in the same category, and your character becomes Broken, thus requiring immediate medical attention. Conditions can be healed and cured, so how deadly your game is depends on how little (or much) rest time your characters have in between encounters.

Genesys, by Edge Studio.

Face down a dragon as a brave knight, hack into a corporate security system as an elite runner, set sail in your airship. Unlimited adventure awaits you in Genesys,  a new roleplaying system designed for a variety of settings and limited only by your imagination.

The Genesys experience begins with the Genesys Core Rulebook, which features an explanation of the innovative narrative dice system and core mechanics of the game, an overview of five different settings in which to place campaigns, and advice for Game Masters to craft a myriad of adventures with unparalleled freedom.

So I’d really like to recommend the Star Wars RPG that spearheaded this system, but as far as I understand it’s getting harder and harder to get a hold of. The core system, however, is still available on DriveThruRPG, and I really like how it handles dice rolls. The Genesys system uses a custom set of dice that have three different levels of results: advantage/threat, success/failure, and triumph/despair. These symbols typically cancel each-other out. Both positive and negative dice have a number of different symbols on their faces, and rolling more successes for example, means you’re not going to have less advantages, while rolling a higher number of threats will lead to less failures.

This means that the two most common rolls you will get will be Success with a Threat and Failure with an Advantage. Therefore each roll has both a positive and negative result. If you end up rolling extra-special dice, you might end up with a Triumph and/or a Despair, which happen regardless of any other rolls. So you could have a Failure with an Advantage and a Triumph - which might mean that maybe you don’t unlock that door, but maybe you hear someone coming and duck into a hidey-hole before they show up - and they turn out to be an ally.

Genesys is a toolkit that you can use to make your own game, but if you want a setting to go with it, you might want to check out Realms of Terrinoth (Fantasy), Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible (gonzo sci-fantasy), or Shadow of the Beanstalk (cyberpunk).

Masks: A New Generation, by Magpie Games.

Halcyon City has had more than its fair share of superheroes, superteams, supervillains, and everything in between. Your team of young supers must forge your own path amidst the pressures of a world full of people telling you what to do and who to be, and kick some butt along the way!

Masks: A New Generation is a superhero tabletop roleplaying game full of action, youthful angst, and dazzling bravery. Take on the roles of members of the latest generation of superheroes, young adults trying to figure out who they are and what kind of heroes they want to be.

MASKS is well-known and for a good reason. It’s an excellent introduction to the PbtA framework, and contains a lot of solid advice for the person who’s running the game. One of the core pieces of advice that you can take from this game to others in the same system-family is that of Soft and Hard moves. When a PC rolls a 6 or less, the ball is in your court, but as the GM, it’s up to you how bad the character fails. Soft and Hard moves are a key part of this.

While a straight-up failure may be needed once in a while, sometimes all you need to do is telegraph danger, and give your players another chance to try a different approach. This is called a Soft Move. You might place the characters in an eerie atmosphere but give them a chance to act, or present them with an NPC asking difficult questions, but give them space to answer. You might not even require them to roll at all - if you think that the hero should be able to do something, they’ll do it.

Finally, since Masks is about teenage superheroes, death isn’t really on the table. What’s at stake is their self-image, and that is reflected in the emotional damage the characters take. This chance to wrestle with why they truly are might even be something welcome for the players to dig into - I know me and my friends sometimes found moments of interpersonal conflict to be the most rewarding.

Endeavour, by Armiger Games.

You are an officer aboard the Interstellar Confederation Ship Endeavour. Your mission is to explore the galaxy. You will travel deep into uncharted space where you will encounter strange phenomena, make first contact with alien civilizations, and help those in need.

This is an optimistic-science fiction game. It is a game about a future in which humanity has progressed beyond the kinds of internecine conflicts that plague modern society. Advanced technology is common and has created a post-scarcity society throughout the Interstellar Confederation.

Stories in Endeavour generally involve some kind of moral quandary. Moreover, the futuristic setting acts as lens through which we can view contemporary social issues. The best such stories are fundamentally about the difficult choices the crew are asked to make and how they are affected by their experiences.

Endeavour is a play-set for AGON, a game about Greek Heroes setting out to make a name for themselves. You need AGON to play, but the rules for both these games take a very unique approach to solving problems.

Almost every conflict present in Endeavour is a collaborative Challenge. This means that any time an obstacle presents itself, the group has a chance to face it as a team. Facing Challenges as a team increases chances of success in two ways: in one way, since each player might be participating, there is a higher chance that one person or another rolls a high enough number to pass the challenge. However, players can also choose to aid each-other, foregoing a chance to gain Distinction but improving another player’s chance at success.

Our Haunt, by Rae Nedjadi.

We are ghosts. We are in a house we don't recognize. We have a handful of memories, and these memories are brief moments and flashes of barely something. The Living are nearby, and they encroach on our space, making their demands. Worse, there is a Thing in the Walls. It is ancient, inhuman. Hungry, yearning. Angry.

But this is Our Haunt now. This is our home, and we only have each other as family. If we take care of each other, good things will happen. We just know it.

Our Haunt uses a diceless system called Belonging Outside Belonging, or No Dice, No Masters. This can be GM-less, but it doesn’t have to be - and I definitely recommend checking other games that use this system if you want to control the level of failure.

BoB games use a token-based economy, where following certain prompts on your character sheet will give your character the ability to use other abilities listed on their character sheet. This creates a rhythm, between moves that invite interesting interactions or complications, and moves that push the story forward, or allow you to do something special.

Each playbook usually also has special moves that the character can do for free, that neither earn nor spend a token. Because the use of tokens is up to the players, failure will only happen when you decide it happens, and every failure banks a potential success, so even if Our Haunt isn’t what you’re looking for tone-wise, I definitely recommend checking out other Belonging outside Belonging games.

Slugblaster, by Wilkie’s Candy Lab.

In the small town of Hillview, teenage hoverboarders sneak into other dimensions to explore, film tricks, go viral, and get away from the problems at home. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. It’s got parent groups in a panic. And it’s the coolest thing ever.

This is Slugblaster. A table-top rpg about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, and trying to be cool.

Forged in the Dark games allow you to succeed at least partially on a result of a 4 or higher, so you’re much more likely to succeed with a cost than straight up fail, and even if you do take some kind of consequence, that consequence can always be thrown off by using something called a Resistance Roll. The original system, Blades in the Dark, still felt pretty brutal if you played it as written. However, Mikey Hamm, the designer for Slugblaster, wanted to make a game about teenagers hoverboarding across dimensions, not hardened criminals surviving in a brutal city, so he made some key changes.

Kids in Slugblaster may take “slams”, but no damage is permanent. Staying in another dimension too long may trigger an unpleasant experience called peelback, but it doesn’t kill you, and if you log a bunch of doom (the game’s Stress equivalent), you don’t take a permanent condition - you worry your folks, or have to spend your extra free time doing homework. At its core, Slugblaster’s biggest threat is losing your status - you’re not really in physical danger.

Other Games to Check Out

Wanderhome, by Jay Dragon.

Spectaculars, by Scratchpad Publishing.

[askdacast]

No spoilers please, because I haven’t even started S3E4 yet (only Gaius clips), but I’m rather concerned that with the final episode of season 4 and presumably all of season 5 we are ALREADY hitting ‘Holy Week’

I’m pretty sure The Chosen crew + Dallas Jenkins have confirmed the show will be 7 seasons long?

This means the rough timeline we can expect is:

Season 5 will have the rest of Holy Week, the Last Supper, and Jesus already being arrested all within the season

If we are being EXTREMELY generous, Season 6 will be when we hit the actual crucifixion. But that, plus Easter Sunday, will take 1 episode each, and everything after that is the various epilogues within the gospels

So then what will season 7 be?? Are we going to hit Acts or keep strictly within the gospels until Jesus’ ascent back to heaven? I feel like the former has way too much content for a single season, and the latter will require a LOT of padding just to fit one season. Are we getting more??

I’m mostly just curious, how exactly is this show’s timeline going to go? And what do we have in store?

If I may be perfectly honest, I’m pretty concerned already how rushed Season 4 was. We know the gospels don’t give an exact time frame of what events happened when, but also that Jesus’ ministry lasted 3 years. Meanwhile, The Chosen feels like everything has been happening within the span of months. And I think it has clearly suffered for this pacing.

If there was any time where we should have seen more ‘padding’, a few more slower character-based scenes, or even a few more adaptations of other miracles and conversations between Jesus & the religious leaders (a la from John), I would’ve thought Season 4 would have been the perfect time for that.

But we don’t seem to be getting that since Season 4 instead opts to speed for the finish line, and to be honest I’m not sure if that was the best idea? We already have so many people complaining about how rushed Judas’ character arc is, for instance. I’m not going to comment about that yet until I’ve watched the episodes for myself, but I can definitely see where the concerns are coming from. It just doesn’t feel like we have enough time to get used to all the different character woes before the big bombshell hits.

[dduane]

Hello! I was reading your shopping list method for outlining as described on your blog, and I was curious about how rigidly or not you applied that - do you strictly stick to ten things for each stage? How do you decide which actions/events are essential? How detailed are the ten things that need to happen surrounding the key event? What do you do if there's a gap or if the essential elements don't connect very well (if that ever happens to you)? I feel like I occupy an annoying middle-ground between pantsing and outlining where I don't do either effectively, and when I sit down to try to outline a story that's been in my head a long time I end up with a list of every little scene I've ever wanted to put in, but it still feels unstructured and missing essential plot elements somehow. So if you had any further advice than what you've already shared, I'm very interested! Thank you for all of your work, including your blogging!!

Well, first of all: you're very welcome. :)

Now, as for outlining: (and here's the blog post we're referring to, for those of you who haven't seen it...)

The ten-things-that-need-to-happen-per-chapter concept isn't meant to be so much a rule as a guideline, and you should feel free to alter the numbers and proportions as suits you.

(Inserting a cut here, because this goes on for a bit. Caution: contains brutalized characters, backwards reasoning, abstractions and imponderables.)

For one thing: every novel (and indeed every story, but at the moment we're dealing with novels) has its own rhythm, bound to its internal drama arcs and the way they intersect. There may be chapters in which not a whole lot happens to the characters extemally, but quite a lot internally: or vice versa. In such cases you're more likely to end up with a lower Things That Have To Happen number than in other chapters... and this is just fine. Other chapters may wind up with more than ten, and that's fine too. You should feel free to pull things-that-need-to-happen out of where you had them slotted in at first and stick them into other chapters that are less crowded if it suits you and the rhythm of the narrative.

You may also prefer shorter chapters, which more or less suggests you'll wind up with a larger list of Things That Need To Happen In The Book As A Whole. That's just fine too. When C.J. was passing this method on to me, both of us were writers who preferred fairly long chapters—often in the 10K range—which many writers (and editors) these days would consider nonconducive to readers' shortening attention spans. But this, again, is your call. The genre of book you're writing, and/or the kind of book you're writing. may have different protocols, structures, or traditions for dealing with its own kinds of internal rhythm. Tailoring your outline to those requirements makes perfect sense.

In short: move stuff around in the list-of-lists until it feels right. :)

...How to decide the nature of the items that Have To Happen? It's tough to nominate a method while we're dealing in abstracts. But dividing them up into physical actions (movement through space and time...) and emotional interactions has worked well for me.

The physical start-here,-go-there stuff is generally easiest to work with. Again, while dealing in abstractions: a book's structure can be considered as a pile of escalating problems and increasingly difficult barriers that have to be overcome. Ideally the worst problem(s)—physical or situational—should be nearest the end, so that its/their solution will be experienced as keenly as possible for the reader's maximum satisfaction. (But more importantly, for yours.) Sometimes I look at whatever end state I'm attempting to achieve and reason backwards from that, using the results to erect mid-plot signposts (for the characters and myself) pointing in that direction. So: find and define the place your people must get to, and can't. Imagine what being there is going to be like. Stand on top of the highest barrier to it and examine the terrain. Then (re)trace your characters' necessary steps.

On the character-interaction side: You need to know your characters well enough to sit in their heads and feel their strengths and weaknesses from the inside. (While also knowing, from the outside, the characters' own ability or inability to recognize those.) When I'm considering/building the emotional events that will make up the plot, since I'm not trying to reach my destination/solution with the least possible drama, but the most, I start getting cruel. I look at my story and try to find out how much trouble I can make for my characters— what roadblocks I can throw in their way, what situations can seem maximally settled before I come up from underneath and unsettle them.

But this is absolutely being cruel to be kind—and here you get to employ the excuse that a God might to Its creations, or a smith might to the metal in the forge: "This is going to hurt right now, but it's all about making you much more than you were, and you'll thank me for it later." ...Or maybe they won't: depends on the character. Regardless, your characters prove what they're made of—who they are and who they can be—by being put through the worst shit you can devise for them that also suits the plot you've embedded them in. Exploit their weaknesses? Absolutely. Smack them down at their strongest? You bet. Do both at once? Sure, if you can. After the hammering, the resulting alloy will be that much tougher.

The characters themselves may help you sort out what moves to make. Sometimes you can look at a character you know well and mutter under your breath, "Come on, what do you need so this whole mess works out?", and get back a useful answer. For example, the protagonist's answer to "What needs to happen" for The Door Into Fire turned out to be, "I need to stop being terrified of making choices and learn how to make hard ones, even if it kills me." (Which it then nearly does, because I know how to take a hint.) That core issue I was then able to break into chunks and distribute throughout the body of the narrative, encouraging poor Herewiss to fight his way through to the result, one piece at a time. The resulting book got me nominated two years running for the Astounding Award—so this approach may have merit. :)

...Anyway. None of this is ever easy work. Your characters won't be the only ones on the drama curve. But if you stay committed to them and the story you're putting them through, my experience says you'll eventually find the core around which your plot will start to (seemingly organically) organize. After that it's just a matter of pushing the pieces around until the structure feels right.

So good hunting!

[gorbalsvampire]

On the Proxy Kiss

I wrote this in an attempt to do a plain English explanation for someone on Reddit. Maybe you'll find it useful?

The Giovanni and their associate families used to have a very formal Embrace procedure, overseen by the elders of the Giovanni family itself.

Let's make up a character: call her Alessandra Giovanni. Before Alessandra can be Embraced, she's got to spend time as a ghoul, proving she's worth it. She will be ghouled by someone who is NOT going to Embrace her, and might not even be from the same family. They call it the Proxy Kiss.

The idea is that every new "Giovanni" vampire has gone through an apprenticeship and shown they can cope with the family's activities. Each has bonds to at least two Kindred – the one who ghouled them and the one who Embraced them. Everyone has divided loyalties, and nobody gets to choose their own childer and build up a power base.

If Alessandra has two Giovanni parents, she's a prestigious ghoul. Single blooded. Stronger necromancy. That's what they believe, anyway. Also, as a Giovanni, if she gets sired by someone who isn't a Giovanni, that makes her look bad – like she didn't deserve the family blood and name.

Now let's make up another character: Bruno Puttanesca. Bruno Embraces Alessandra when he feels like it; he doesn't wait for the elders' permission, he doesn't wait for the big family meeting on the 4th of April (when Embrace rights and Proxy Kisses are traditionally assigned). He just goes for it.

This annoys everyone. Alessandra's regnant has lost her ghoul. Alessandra's sire to be has lost his future childe. The Giovanni elders have been disobeyed. And it's Bruno's fault. Alessandra was just THERE.

Why is it Bruno's fault? Because he knows the rules. Because the Giovanni do follow the Camarilla's Traditions (it's part of the Promise, their whole neutrality deal with the Camarilla).

One of those is the Tradition of Progeny – you need permission from your elder to Embrace. Normally this is the Prince, but Giovanni are strictly discouraged from being Princes. They get to do things internally, instead; their own elders decide who gets Embraced.

Another is the Tradition of Accounting. A sire is responsible for the actions of their childe. A childe cannot be responsible for anything. Under vampire law they're basically not a person yet. So even if Alessandra asked for it, manipulated Bruno into Embracing her, he should know better than to say yes.

So Bruno has annoyed the Camarilla as well, by breaking their rules and threatening the security of the Promise.

Bruno is probably going to be punished by someone. It might be the Giovanni, internally, or they might turn him over to the Camarilla and say "this one broke the law, and it's your law: what do you want done with him?"

Alessandra might be killed by the Camarilla – she's not really a person yet, she's a mistake – so the Giovanni will probably deal with it themselves. They're likely to make the vampire who was supposed to Embrace her Blood Bond her instead, or maybe she'll be passed to an elder because nobody else can be trusted.

All that's from the Revised Edition of Clanbook Giovanni. In V5, after the Family Reunion, things are a bit different.

The Giovanni aren't the boss of everyone any more, and the other families are more free to Embrace internally, and local domain law matters more. That said, it's only been a few years, and vampires are slow to adapt.

We don't know exactly when the Reunion happened (it's deliberately vague so Storytellers can do what's best for their game), BUT I think we can use the date of Revised Edition ending as a cutoff point. If Alessandra was Embraced before 2005, the rules above would have been followed.

[yamayuandadu]

How many Buddhist characters are there in Touhou, and which branch of Buddhism do they represent?

Putting aside the explicitly Buddhist Byakuren and the other Myouren-adjacent characters, who are presumably either Shingon or Tendai (I'm fairly sure I've seen both claims made regarding the semi-historical Myouren; I cannot check this right now, I'm sorry), the characters at the very least based on something Buddhism-related include: Yuyuko: her name is an allusion to Saigyo, who was a Buddhist monk, based on his reverence for Kukai’s teachings belonging to the Shingon school. Keine: hakutaku is hardly Buddhist, but her school is a terakoya, which is ultimately a (derivative of a) Buddhist institution, hence the frequent use of “temple school” in translations. I do not think ZUN ever addressed if there is a Buddhist temple in the village though, let alone what Keine has to do with it. Akyuu: while we know nothing about the personal beliefs of the semi-historical Hieda no Are, the term referring to Akyuu’s ability in Touhou, gumonji, is actually a real Buddhist ceremony belonging to the Shingon tradition. Ashiyama’s “officially unofficial” Gensokyo of Humans went all out with this. Eiki: while not exclusively Buddhist, the concept of kings of hell and related imagery did enter Japan in a Buddhist context. And her backstory is pretty explicitly based on the Buddhist notion of equivalence between Enma (Yama) and Jizou. Neither of these is exclusive to a specific school. Tengu, collectively: while the matter of tengu origin is complex, the notion of tengu living in an organized society, publishing own literature, etc. is rooted in so-called tengu scrolls from the Kamakura period, which are best understood as Buddhist political cartoons of the “I drew myself as the Chad and you as the tengu” sort. Arose due to rivalry between old establishment schools, Tendai and Shingon, with new ones like Nichiren in the Kamakura period. Tojiko: while nothing in the game really points at Tojiko herself being a Buddhist, I feel like it’s worth mentioning the Soga clan was the most firmly pro-Buddhist in the period when this was still a novelty not yet firmly rooted in Japan. The first schools established in Japan by Korean and Chinse missionaries are known collectively as Nanto Rokoshu. Miko: as we learn from the game itself, the semi-historical crown prince Shotoku was very much invested in spreading Buddhism, Miko's professed Taoist beliefs notwithstanding. I’m pretty sure ZUN’s idea is partially based on the Honchou Shinsenden, where Shotoku is presented as the Buddhist version of a Taoist immortal. Narumi: while Narumi’s in-universe status is sort of its own unique thing, Jizou is a firmly Buddhist figure as already discussed above, and she keeps the distinct iconography. Once again, not really tied to a specific school. Mai and Satono: directly based on Matarajin’s attendant deities, Chōreita Dōji and Nishita Dōji. Exclusively Tendai, and limited to genshi kimyodan rites at that, basically one of the deepest cuts in ZUN’s repertoire so far. Okina: based on Matarajin, probably the single most Buddhist character in Touhou in that her inclusion opened many doors (heh) for adapting irl materials for Touhou wholesale. Pretty firmly Tendai. Eika: the Ebisu theme is certainly there, and I do wish more was done with it, but her whole gimmick is largely based on Sai no Kawara, which is pretty explicitly Buddhist and ties into the Jizou and ten kings-related beliefs. Not really connected to a specific denomination though. Megumu: at the very least named after Iizuna Gongen, who is a Buddhist deity - not exclusively, but still. Ultimately associated with Shugendo more closely than any Buddhist school. Tsukasa is based on a youkai associated with practicioners of shugendo too. Bitten: sarugami are associated with multiple strictly Tendai deities like Sekizan Myojin and Sanno. Zanmu: based on legendary Zen monk Zanmu Nichihaku who according to a legend was actually a different, earlier Tendai monk, Kaison Hitachibo. Zun seems to focus on the Zen connection.

PC-98 only has the dubiously Buddhist example of Konngara, who is clearly named after Kongara-douji, but I frankly do not see much of a reason to assume the name isn’t used randomly in this context.

All around, Touhou pretty heavily skews towards Heian and Kamakura Buddhism, ie. more towards a time period rather than a specific school. I do think it is notable Zanmu is pretty clear Zen though. We'll see if that will lead to introduction of Nichiren and Pure Land characters eventually.

[giuliettacapuleti]

No but the way Júlia and Tybalt (In Rómeó és Júlia especially but in every adaption actually) perfectly mirror each other in the way they are being stifled by the role they play due to their gender and how it fucks them up, as well as the way they completely reject their roles (specifically in Rómeó és Júlia)? We have Tybalt, who was forced to be as violent and protective of his family as possible despite the heavy implication that he was a sensitive and dreamy child, not to mention the way his views of sex and love were shaped by social conventions (and specifically his father).

I’m going by the Italian Renaissance societal mores here, even though resj presumably takes place in a quasi-dystopian or post-dystopian future/Alternate Universe. During the Italian Renaissance, male children spent very little time with a nurse because that was considered ‘feminine’, and were sent off to school at a very young age. Although family was still considered the most important thing, actual familial relationships were hard to cultivate presuming that child was away at school. Now, it could be that I’m looking way too much into this and no one even thought about Tybalt’s childhood regarding him going away to school or being taught by a tutor at home, so I could be way off, BUT my point is that the emotions regarding family were strictly based on the masculine ‘protector and provider’ aspect rather than tenderness and actually spending time with family.

You can even see this in modern western society! It is only within the past few decades that men started to spend more time with their children, and do traditionally ‘feminine’ things for their kids like changing diapers, feeding etc. The idea of a Father being a provider rather than a caregiver has even carried over to society today - men are still praised for running errands with their children and doing activities with them without the mother present. These men are just seen as being ‘babysitters’ ‘helping out mom’ when they should simply be seen as parents doing their job as parents. It’s unnecessary to go into the negative impact this has had on both men and women, but my point is that this ‘nuture vs provide and protect’ view is still prevalent today, and was 100x worse in the Itaian Renaissance Era (and presumably society in resj).

So Tybalt is burdened with the duty to protect his family, but we see he, unlike his father, actually wants to be close emotionally to his family. The best evidence for this is his relationships to women in his family. I’ve made another post about this, but basically Tybalt’s father has taught him that women are literally ‘objects’, and the goal is to sleep with as many women as possible with absolutely no emotional attachment or respect for the women they sleep with. Tybalt, per his own admission in Ez A Kéz Utolér, mentions sleeping with many women indiscriminately, and not being emotionally attached to any of them. But as the song goes on we realize that he doesn’t want that. He is in love with Júlia, and clearly does not see her as an object. He doesn’t believe any man is good enough for her (least of all him).

Now, I’ve seen it argued that he doesn’t actually see Júlia as her own person, only the ideal of her, and even has the whole ‘Madonna/Whore Complex’ going on, which is certainly a valid argument, but I’m not sure I agree with it.

I think he sees himself in Júlia - the sensitive and loving child he never got to be. It’s possible a part of him does not want to see Júlia lose her innocence (not necessarily in a creepy way), and become like him.

Don’t get me wrong, his love for Júlia is definitely creepy and a good amount of his rage comes from romantic (and presumably sexual) jealousy. He mentions that he never loved any of the women he slept with, and has only ever loved Júlia. According to his father, love is just a weakness and women are just for sex, but clearly Tybalt doesn’t agree.

Possibly the ONLY healthy relationship he has (err, had) in his life is with the Nurse - he is seen holding her hand at the ball and she embraces his body after he dies, and has to be pulled away by a servant. I believe this is possibly a nod to when the Nurse calls him the “best friend she had” in Shakespeare (another reason I love resj is the Shakespearen nods while doing its own thing).

Lady Capulet obviously loves Tybalt (judging by her reaction to his death), though his uncomfortable attraction does not seem to be reciprocated. The inclusion of his attraction to her could be another nod to Shakespeare - though it is not actually in the text, a fairly popular theory is that Tybalt and Lady Capulet were lovers (it’s possibly worth noting that Lady Capulet was likely closer in age to Tybalt than Lord Capulet). Personally I don’t think there was any inappropriate relationship in Shakespeare, but in a way it works specifically for the Capulets in resj - the relationships they have are not healthy at all: they lack boundaries, can’t communicate, and can’t express their (familial) love until it’s too late.

Obviously, Tybalt doesn’t have a healthy relationship with his aunt and has some kind of weird attraction to her, possibly as a result of only caring (in general) about the Capulets. Yet he seems to listen to Lady Capulet in a way he doesn’t to Lord Capulet - Lady Capulet orders him to find Rómeó, and later presumably to kill him (when she talks to him in his room).

So, my point is that Tybalt, despite claiming that women are just objects, has the most important (and possibly only important) relationships with women.

Anyway Tybalt is messed up and complex and the Capulets are even more dysfunctional than in romeó et juliette send tweet.

[isabella-kr]

Chapter Two: Routines

THIS STORY WILL INCLUDE MATURE THEMES, PLEASE ONLY READ IF YOU ARE 18 YEARS OLD OR OVER.

IF YOU ARE UNDERAGE, YOU CAN READ THE WATTPAD VERSION INSTEAD AS IT WILL CONTAIN NO SMUT.

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION AND DOES NOT REPRESENT THE REAL ARMY!

Chapter Synopsis: No-Face hated breaking her routine, but when it is John Price who forces you to do so, you have no choice but to obey. 

Pairing: John Price x Female!Reader (This used to be an original character, and whilst I have revised this chapter, I might have missed something; If there is any physical description (aside for her athletic build) please let me know)

Warnings! Mentions of traumatic past

Word Count: 3.7k

Note: I have changed her name from A-26 to A-326. It’s not a big change, but I didn’t want people to be confused; it will just make more sense for the number to be higher :)

Series Masterlist  I  COD:MWII Masterlist

Previous Chapter I  Next Chapter 

The first few weeks – or rather months – went by in a blur. No-Face had quickly fallen into an unbreakable routine, no day drifting away from the normalcy she had created for herself. The pace at which she adapted to her new situation was surprising, and made even Price raise his brow, but he didn’t put much thought into it; he was just glad she wasn’t stuck by his side like a lost puppy.  

At 06:00, she would wake up to the blaring alarm from her bedside table. Her hand would slap against the flat surface of the phone she was given, eagerly silencing the noisy machine. She would grumble to herself, her eyes seemingly stuck together; begging her to stay in just a little longer. She refused, practically jumping out of the bed and readying herself for the day ahead.

07:00; make her way to the mess hall and eat breakfast. Every day, without fail, she would roll her eyes at the whines of the other soldiers who would rather return to their beds. She usually sat alone, enjoying the peaceful silence that surrounded her.

07:20; enter the shooting range and – under supervision, of course – practise her aim. She cursed the first few times she had went there, missing the head of her target by millimetres. Yet she had quickly gotten the hang of it, and now she was proud to say she had not missed a single shot.

08:20; leave the shooting range and begin cleaning her weapons. The supervising officer, whom she recognised from her time of glorified imprisonment, remained in her vicinity. She was only glad he remained inconspicuous, doing his own thing to make it look as though he was in the same room by pure chance. The soldiers on base didn’t seem to pick up on the strange relationship between them, or that No-Face herself wasn’t a normal soldier; she was glad for it.

09:50; be forced to take a break by said supervising officer. Despite being her superior, he had a nervous aura around him. The poor lad stuttered over his words, and she could only assume he was much younger than her, likely with little previous experience. She wondered how good his fighting skills were – not that it mattered, as she would not attack the young man, but she had to wonder. Perhaps it was like bait, a simple ‘Hurt him. You know you can. Maybe you’ll get a chance to escape with him gone’. But she knew what would come next had that happened; she’d be dead.  

10:05; make her way to the gym to regain the muscle mass she had lost over the years. Thankfully, due to her refusal to sit still and do nothing during her time of imprisonment, she had not lost as much muscle as she was afraid he had. Her strength was compromised by the years of inactivity, but she was sure she would get it back to where it once was.  

11:25; be forced to take yet another break. She would be sure to send the supervisor a harsh glare and watch amused as he took a shaky step back. She doubted he knew what she had done in her past – the information strictly confidential – and yet he was already soiling his trousers. It was comical, to say the least.  

11:40; practise gymnastics. Her agility was the more difficult skill to get back. Although she was making progress - her movements swift and almost expert-like – she knew they would never be as they once were. Not only because they had laid mostly dormant for a decade, but because she had aged. She wasn’t anywhere near what society would deem as ‘old’ but it still affected her, and she hated her body for it.  

12:40; wallow in self-pity whilst making her way to Price’s office. Report her progress, and watch as he analysed every single word that left her mouth. The smoke from his cigar would always swim around him, and a glint would appear in his eyes every time she coughed in discomfort.  

13:00; attempt to skip lunch. She wasn’t hungry. Her stomach felt full – bloated even. Perhaps it was due to the constant stress she was under for the past few weeks, or maybe it was the overcrowded base that ruined her appetite. Beforehand, she used to think being between people was ideal, but now as they surrounded her from every corner, she has never felt more on edge.  

13:10; Have Price yell at her – not from anger or hatred, but from frustration after her supervising officer grassed on her. The captain would grab her by the forearm and drag her to the hall, watching her like a hawk to ensure she had finished her lunch.  

13:30; go for a run around the base. Her muscles were aching at this point, but she ignored the voice that begged her to stop and catch her breath.  

14:20; take a long break. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with her. She would often make herself some tea and hope the hot beverage would wake her up.  

15:00; begin a sparring session with the sergeants she had met on her first full day on base. Thomas Southwick, the taller of the two, was a nice man; he was energetic and full of life, often making jokes during their sessions. Dan Morris was more serious, his mouth always pressed into a thin line, and his eyes were blank, as though no emotion ever ran through them.  

At 15:20, John would often enter the training area and watch from the corner with a judgemental eye. His words had progressively turned less harsh, and instead of insults disguised as words of advice, he gave his support. There was still a look of hatred in his eyes, but she quickly grew to understand this would never change. The wound was far too deep to forgive.  

16:00; take a long walk around base. Eventually, as every single day, she would end up sitting on the floor and leaning against the brick wall of one of the barracks, watching as the sun began to set. The crisp January air bit at her skin, turning her nose cold and fingers numb, but she paid the shivers no mind.  

Oftentimes, Thomas would join her in her solitude. The tall sergeant would usually come baring snacks, sharing a chocolate or two with her as he told her stories of his deployments. There was a certain warmth that radiated off him; a kindliness she hadn’t experienced in over a decade. He was a curious one, and sometimes found himself asking questions about her past. Each attempt was quickly shut down, but a feeling of guilt creeped up on her whenever she saw his dejected expression.  

“It’s confidential,” she told him one day.  

Those two words caused his head to snap in her direction, his brows furrowed deeply in confusion. “What d’you mean ‘confidential’?” he questioned, as though the meaning of the word was alien to him.  

She hummed, the tip of her tongue wetting her lips, “I could get us both in trouble if I told you something I wasn’t supposed to.”  

This time, he was the one who hummed, handing a bag of chocolates over to her. She happily took some and popped them in her mouth. “That why you got the nervous kid following you around everywhere?”

A small laugh left her at that, “You noticed?”

“Think I’m the only one who did,” he admitted with a laugh, “probably ‘cause I’m the only one who actually talks to you.”  

A comfortable silence fell upon them after that. The sun was almost completely set, painting the evening sky in vivid oranges and reds. There was a distant screech of seagulls somewhere, and although most people on base loved to refer to the birds as ‘sky rats’, she could see the beauty in them. The freedom they symbolised was something she wished she had, and so she admired it every time a ruffle of feathers caught her attention.  

“The confidentiality thing...” he spoke, “Does it have something to do with the way cap’s been treatin’ you?”  

Her eyes widened at his words, “What do you mean?”  

“He was rude to you when you first came in,” he told her, “He’s still got that look in his eye whenever you’re around. Like he’d rather have you gone.”  

In truth, a part of her hoped her mind was fabricating those looks. She hoped she was overthinking it, that her imagination was playing tricks on her. But now that Thomas had confirmed her thoughts, unknowingly letting her know she wasn’t making them up, a certain tightness appeared in her chest.  

“So?” he looked over at her, “Does it?”  

She only nodded, a sad smile pulling at the corners of her lips.  

There were times Price himself had joined her by the barracks. His boots were the first thing she would notice – or rather hear; loud stomps moving in her direction – in her peripheral vision. The black, polished leather reflected the bright moonlight, catching her attention.  

She would hesitantly look over at him, and suddenly feel small under his hardened gaze. His arms were always crossed over his chest, and although his eyes were angled in her direction, it felt as though he was looking through her, rather than at her.

She felt herself grow tense in his presence, swallowing thickly as she analysed his posture. He looked as though he didn’t want to be there – as though he was forced to approach her by his superiors. She knew that was untrue, but the thought both amused and saddened her. The idea of his superiors scolding him enough to make him approach her was comical, but also devastating; she felt like she had some disease that he was trying his best to avoid. Except, in this case, the metaphorical disease was just her.  

“You alright?” he eventually asked, his voice gruff from the many cigars he had smoked throughout his life.  

She nodded with a small – almost silent – hum, “You don’t have to do this, sir,” she assured him.  

“Do what?” he raised a brow.  

She sent him a knowing look, shaking her head when her gaze eventually returned to the sky, “Act like you’re concerned about me. I’ll be fine, sir, you don’t have to speak to me when you don’t have to. I know you don’t like to, anyway.”  

John let out a heavy breath and moved from his spot beside her, and towards the bench which was sitting in front of her. He rested his elbows against his knees and finally looked up at her; into her eyes.  

“You’re right,” he admitted with a nod, “I don’t like talking to you. Every time I do, all I can think about is the past. But I need to get over it; you’ve changed, you’ve improved your ways, and you’re one of us now. I can’t be treating you like an outsider when you no longer are. I’m your Captain, and I’m supposed to be helping you, not making your life more difficult.”

She was taken aback by his words. That is not to say she wasn’t happy about his change in attitude, because she was. It was shocking, however, and she guessed the expression on her face made her feelings clear because the man before her let out a sharp exhale, and made sure his eyes were focused solely on her.  

“Look,” he scratched his beard, “I won’t trust you until you prove that I can; until you show me you won’t betray us the first chance you get. Until then, I-” he took in a deep breath, “Until then, I will do my best to not let our past influence how I view you.”  

Their eyes remained locked for a few, long seconds; hers focused on the blue of his iris, and whilst his remained dull, hers brightened just a little bit. A stiff, yet thankful smile pulled at her lips as she let out a pleased hum, “Thank you, captain.”  

“You’ve got nothing to thank me for,” he told her, “I’ve been acting immature; not like a captain should, so enough of that.” He got up from his place on the bench and wiped his trousers from any dirt that clung to him, “From tomorrow onwards, we’re on the same team.”  

She smiled at his words, eyes following him as he turned and began making his way away from her. His shoulders looked visibly less tense, and she could only assume this conversation was long overdue.  

“Captain,” her voice stopped him in his tracks, “Thank you... for giving me a chance.”  

His mouth opened, as if to say something, but he quickly abandoned the idea. He sent her a small nod instead, and swiftly walked away, leaving her be for the rest of the night.  

By 18:30, she was back in the large hall and eating her dinner. She enjoyed the military food; the variety was larger than what she was used to. She didn’t shy away from exploring and trying out different things even when she wasn’t hungry, and soon found herself being particularly excited about flapjacks and brownies, making sure she had some every time they were available.  

By 19:00, she was out once again, making her way to the small library in the corner of the base. It didn’t have a large variety of books, mainly holding academic, and non-fiction books, but it was better than sitting around and doing nothing for the rest of the day. In the end, she would end up staring off into space rather than focusing on the words on the pages, but the silence that always resided inside the building brought her great comfort.  

At 20:45, she always made her way to the showers, where she let the hot water envelop her aching frame. And by the time 21:20 hit the clock, she was back in her room.  

She never fell asleep right away, despite the fact her eyes begged for some rest. The sleep just never came, avoiding her like the plague as she battled with the exhaustion. It was as though she could feel the dark circles forming under her dried-out eyes, painting her skin in purples and light blues.  

02:30 - 03:00; her body would finally begin to relax, and she would fall into the very much needed state of unconsciousness. She would awaken periodically - her eyes fluttering open - but she would not fully wake up until her alarm decided to ring in the early hours of the morning.  

She had a routine.  

Which is why she was confused when, on a random Tuesday, John Price cut her sparring session short and ordered her to follow him. Sending Thomas a tight-lipped smile, she got off the thick mat and trailed closely behind the captain, her breathing heavy from the work out.  

They had made their way through the crowded buildings of the base until they reached his office. Her nerves were eating her alive by the time she entered the small room, only negative thoughts plaguing her mind. “Have I done something wrong, sir?” She asked, her back painfully straight as John made his way around the wooden desk and sat in his chair.  

He shook his head at her and gestured at the chair beside her, urging her to sit down. “We’ve been cleared for a mission next week,” he let her know, “I need to know if you’re ready.”  

She hummed in thought. On one hand, missions are what she was born for; what she was trained for most of her life. On the other hand, however, she was not exposed to them for the past decade, and despite the many hours of training, she felt as though she lacked experience.  

Yet despite her worries - despite the fear – she nodded. “I am, sir.”  

His eyes were set on her face, as if analysing every micro expression that appeared on her face. At times like these, she wished she could look into his mind and find out what he was thinking; whether his thoughts were positive, or indeed negative.  

“Alright,” he gave her a firm nod and stood up from his seat. His hand clutched onto the duffel bag that sat by his leg, and he picked it up, moving it to the sofa that sat in the corner of the room.  

She followed behind him, though keeping her distance as she focused on the black bag. When he finally unzipped it, her eyes almost popped out of their sockets.  

Her clothing, her gun – her belongings – were all in the large bag. They seemed to still be in good condition, and she had to wonder whether they were waiting for her all this time, or whether they were repaired not long ago.  

She hesitantly reached inside the bag and pulled out the first object that she could reach; her boots. The leather was thick and heavy in her hands, but the familiarity of them made her release a breath of relief.  

She looked over them, searching for any sign of deterioration; any sign that they were no longer fit for wear. She found none. They were as good as new. Even the soles were thick and sturdy; a promise that they would last for years to come. In the middle of the soles, the numbers that haunted her dreams were still proudly on display.  

“A-326,” John spoke from beside her, lighting a cigar after opening a window. He was watching her with curiosity in his eyes – with a desperate need to know more. To learn more.  

She nodded, her tongue wetting her lips as she placed the boot down, “My name. Well, more like my number.”  

He hummed, watching as she ruffled through the bag, “Laswell did say that was your name. I assumed it was only for the organisation, to remain as anonymous as possible.” 

She pulled out a belt and tugged on it, smiling approvingly at the sturdy material, “No, Sir. It was easier than having to come up with hundreds of different names. This way, there would be no repeats and... I guess it was easier to send us to our deaths when they saw just a number... and no humanity.” 

“Hm,” he replied with a puff of smoke, “They dehumanised you.” 

She gave him a nod, “I didn’t see it that way at the time. It becomes normal when everyone around you also has one. Viktor especially liked to use them. Always had this sneer on his face whenever he did, though back then I didn’t understand why.” 

“Viktor?” 

“The Director – the boss.” She explained, “At least he said he was, but I doubt it. He had too much of a superiority complex to really be the one in charge.” 

Price’s eyes never left her figure, eyes narrowing as he listened to her speak, “Think you could recognise him? I’m sure if you could, it would be vital information, and could aid us in taking the whole organisation down.” 

A soft, almost defeated, sigh left her lips, “I’m sorry, sir,” she looked up at him, “I already told Laswell this but whenever he entered the room we had to turn around or look down at the floor. He claimed eye-contact with him was disrespectful. After a few years of therapy, I realised he just didn’t want to be identified.” 

There was a pause when her fingers grabbed onto the heavy material of her mask. It was rough, and she could remember the many times it left an uncomfortable rash around her mouth; but it was useful, covering her face and protecting her from the enemies.  

“This thing blinded my men,” he let her know, gesturing at the mask in her hands.

She let out a soft hum, “Yeah, it’s made from special material. If you look at it through night vision goggles, it’ll temporarily blind you-“

“And if you take a picture, it’ll blur your face.”

“Well, more like make it flash,” she corrected, though nodded in agreement.  

“Useful,” he admitted.

Price remained quiet for the next few minutes, silently digesting everything she had told him so far. How awful her childhood must have been; how she couldn’t experience things children brought up under normal, healthy circumstances could. Even something as simple as a name was stripped away from her. And yet, in her eyes, it was a normal existence.  

John was barely half way through his cigar when she turned to look at him, “Why was I given this?”  

“We thought you’d feel more comfortable in something you’re familiar with,” he told her seriously, “Unless you’d prefer the usual military uniform, then you will be given that instead.”  

She thought about it. Hard. Both uniforms had their pros and cons, and it was difficult to decide which one would be better. Whilst her old one was more familiar to the touch, and allowed for swifter movements, it clung too tightly to her skin. She could remember the many times it dug into her body, the uncomfortable feeling distracting her during missions.

The military clothing, on the other hand, allowed for a greater storage of weapons and, if need be, a medical kit. The material was less rough, and the breathable fabric prevented overheating. The tactical gear was heavier, but more useful than the one on her old uniform.  

Sucking in a small breath, she looked over at the captain, who raised a questioning brow in return, “Do you think I could… use both?”  

He tilted his head to the side and puffed out a thick cloud of smoke, “Why?”  

“I could use parts of both,” she told him, “Some bits from my old uniform are better – like the boots, the belt, and the mask; but the trousers and tactical gear are not as good as yours. I could improve it by using both.”  

He hummed, seeing the logic in her request, “Don’t see why not,” he told her, “I’ll have it ready for you tomorrow. You can take this back to your room – aside for the weapons; I’ll be storing that – and pick what you’d like to keep and what can be discarded. Sound good?”

“Yes, sir,” she told him with a happy nod, “Mission next week, then?”  

“Yeah. I’ll brief you in tomorrow and then we’ll begin to prepare.” He paused in thought, “Are you sure you’re up for it?”  

“Yes, sir,” she assured him, “Maybe it’ll be a step in gaining your trust.”  

Her tone was light-hearted, but there was seriousness behind her words. She wanted him to trust her; to make him her acquaintance, or perhaps to befriend him. Maybe one day, even gain his respect.  

But there was also something else behind her expression – behind the need to show him he could trust her. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, and he wasn’t sure whether he was accurate in his deduction, but there was a certain sadness in her eyes. Perhaps it was the guilt peeking through, or maybe it was just nerves and he was over-analysing her every move. Whatever it was, he shrugged it off.

“Maybe.”  

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