lietomelukerh

[moutheyes]

[translation] Nam Yoon-su interview with Vogue Korea

Original article link

(T/N: did this a bit quickly as it's been a busy week for me, apologies for any errors. once again i am but a longtime student doing this for practice and fun. there were some interesting bits in here about nam yoon-su's connection to go young and his experiences on set. i find his personality quite refreshing lol. also the pictures are gorgeous.)

No Pretense, Just the Truth: Nam Yoon-Su’s “Love in the Big City”

Oct. 20, 2024 | Son Gi-ho and Kim Na-rang

Today is Sunday, but weekends probably aren’t that special for actors, right?

If you start a job, you just keep going. That's when days start to lose significance.

You filmed Love in the Big City last winter and spring, are you working on something right now?

I rested for a bit after the surgery with my dad, and I’m preparing for a movie now.

You donated a kidney to your father this past June, have you recovered? Can you drink that coffee?

It’s okay as long as I don’t drink four cups a day. Smoking is the worst so I quit. 

You were appointed as the ambassador for the Life-Sharing Campaign. It seems like you experienced firsthand the value of organs and tissue.

I was interested in it before, so I searched up videos on YouTube. Obviously I didn’t know that I would end up donating my kidney. I could actually feel my body changing during the process. My skin became dull because the kidney couldn’t detoxify properly, and seeing people have trouble going to the bathroom gave me a lot to think about.

This will make a big difference in your life.

More than anything, it improved my relationship with my father. (laughs) There are three of us, all boys, and we didn’t get along well with him. But now we talk a lot.

Love in the Big City is based on the novel by Park Sang-young, and it’s widely recognized as a Booker Prize-nominated queer romance novel. Did you feel pressured by the genre?

I started modeling in my second year of high school (T/N: equivalent of junior year in NA), and there were a lot of queer staff members around, so I never felt that sense of difference. Everyone has their own world, right? I also had a childhood friend come out to me when they turned 20. We actually became closer after that.

How did you get the role?

I was contacted by the production company and met with the directors. There are four of them—Hur Jin-ho, Hong Ji-young, Son Tae-gyeom, and Kim Se-in—and I hadn’t met anyone before, so we needed time to get to know each other. Their directing styles are all different, but thankfully they all gave me the okay.

During the meeting, did they ask if you were okay with doing a queer romance?

Not at all. If I thought that way at all, even a little bit, the meeting wouldn’t have happened.

What kind of conversation did you have then?

They were unexpectedly curious about my hardships. Looking back on why we talked about that, though, I think it’s because I had to play Go Young from age 20 into his 30s. I had to show various emotions and character growth at all those different ages.

It seems like you’re right in the middle of that ten-plus year range for Go Young.

I’ll be 30 in three years. Episodes 1 and 2 tell the story of 20-year-old Go Young, but we shot episodes 3 and 4 first. It was better to film him in his mid-20s first. Director Hur Jin-ho made it comfortable for me while filming. It seemed like he placed a lot of importance on sound. Even after giving the okay, he would sit there with his eyes closed and just listen.

I’m interested to see how four different directors, working independently, will capture your image.

I haven’t seen the final edit yet, so I’m also curious and looking forward to it. I was only able to see the parts I later had to add narration for. Like the novel, there were a lot of parts I had to describe or explain.

Was there anything you had to keep in mind while doing the narration?

I couldn’t get caught up in the emotions and had to read everything in a similar manner, using a normal tone. That way it would be easier for the viewers. The emotions are already shown on screen, so if the narration was too forceful it would be hard to handle.

In an eight-episode show, you had different acting partners every two episodes (Lee Su-kyung, Kwon Hyuk, Na Hyun-woo, Jin Ho-eun, and Kim Won-joong). It must have felt like you were filming fragments of four separate works.

It was interesting because not only the directors, but the actors, staff, assistant directors, and producers all changed as well. It was a little difficult at first. On top of that, all the directors had different styles and wanted different things from me. I think that produced a more interesting result.

It must have been a big challenge for the actors.

Yes, it was a challenge. (laughs) One week it was one director, the next week it was another director, so I had to change my own approach every time. I learned a lot through that process.

Was there a wrap party for the entire production? (laughs)

Each team had their own gathering, but unfortunately we couldn’t do a big one.

While filming Today’s Webtoon, you said you were extremely sensitive because you wanted to do a good job. And because of that, you lost a lot of weight. How did you feel while filming this drama?

I’m fundamentally a sensitive person. Of course, I can handle it so I don't affect others. This time, my main focus was on showing the changes in Go Young’s expressions and speech as he got older. For example, he was more active in his relationships when he was younger, but as time passes you can see him slowing down. Also, he changes his hairstyle and fashion. But that’s also due to the directors having different preferences.

You started out as a model, so do you have any personal views about fashion?

Nope. (laughs) I go around wearing comfortable tracksuits.

Which of Go Young’s eras are you most drawn to?

While shooting episodes 3 and 4 with director Hur Jin-ho, there’s a scene where he goes running to the hospital after finding out his mother is sick. It was around the time when my father was ill, so I definitely felt a lot of empathy.

You were also having a hard time then.

Physically I was fine, but I couldn’t say the same about my heart. I became one with Go Young when he was in front of his sick mother. I was able to grasp the emotions, so we filmed those scenes without needing to rehearse. The emotions were captured really well, so we didn’t need any other scenes to explain the situation.

It must have been a strange feeling, having real-life sadness help with your acting.

To be honest, I just concentrated on filming the scene at the time and didn’t think about my father. Thinking about it later, I realized it was easy to express those feelings because of my connection with him.

How did you feel after filming that scene?

I don’t look back once it’s over. I just come right back to reality.

In a way, that’s a blessing. Some actors have to receive counseling to separate acting from real life.

You have to keep filming, right? You can’t keep clinging to just that one scene. Of course, the on-site staff takes care of you and asks when you want to film a scene where you need to immerse yourself in your feelings. That’s the degree of difficulty. But even if it’s an emotional scene, I brush it off when it’s over and go home.

Go Young is a lively and carefree character. What about you?

Even though Go Young is straightforward, there are still times when his heart aches. Although he expresses himself in his 20s to the point where it feels aggressive, he hides his feelings more as he gets older. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t talk a lot and hides my feelings, so I can be misunderstood. When I was a model, I was shy and cautious of my surroundings, and couldn’t even greet people properly. That changed when I started acting.

Now you seem very warm and comfortable with other people.

That’s only been true for a few years. The production company head even said I seemed awkward when we met, so they thought I wasn’t interested in the work. I’m more comfortable talking to others now, but of course, I don’t like forced situations.

Like what?

It’s often described as being “fox-like.” It’s better to be honest rather than pretend to like someone in order to look good.

The longer you see them, the better they will be.

That’s right. Most of the people I see on a personal basis are childhood friends from my neighborhood, but we can’t meet that often because they’re all busy with their social lives.

It seems like you got close to all of the actors in Love in the Big City since you’re all around the same age.

It was really fun on set. But I’m not the type to contact people that often; I don’t want to meet them unless it’s from the bottom of my heart.

Kim Won-joong, who also started as a model, said in an interview with Vogue Korea that you were really reliable and helped him out a lot.

He's a top model, but since this was his first time acting, he obviously wasn’t familiar with the process. Normally no one on set tells you anything in detail. I tried to make things comfortable by telling him about that kind of stuff. Not just comfortable for him, but also for me. I wanted both of us to do well.

There are a ton of skinship scenes. How did you want those to be seen?

First I got my teeth deep-cleaned and then I passed out mouthwash. (laughs) Male actors, rather than female actors, are recommended to gargle. I’d go, “Hyung, do you want to gargle?” and then we’d laugh at each other. Man or woman, I just want it to be seen as two people who love each other.

What was the hardest part for you?

Go Young has a bit of a daredevil streak, so he usually starts the skinship. There was a scene with eight actors that required over 300 takes. Each time I tried my best to make them comfortable, and it wasn’t as hard as I thought.

You seem pretty calm when you come across some kind of difficulty.

If I don’t deal with it today, I’ll have to do it tomorrow, so my belief is that I should just get it done. Other people tell me I don’t seem to get stressed out, but I think it just piles up silently. There are times when I’m fine and it’s a normal day, and then suddenly I feel it one night.

Even if you don’t realize it, your body will show symptoms of stress.

Sometimes I suffer from gastroesophageal reflux (GERD), but that’s my problem. I want to show everyone else a smiling image. 

I guess that’s why you smile all the time. Is it hard to keep smiling?

If I frown because I’m having a hard time, it’ll affect other people. Do no harm, right? It’s a kind of principle. A while back, I received a thank you text from one of the staff. It was long and said something like, “I’ve never contacted an actor before, but I was surprised because you finished everything with a smile even when things were difficult on set.”

Is that a recent moment where you were proud of yourself?

It’s more so the DMs I received from abroad thanking me for doing the show. There was one from a Brazilian person saying, “This drama is even more meaningful because gay marriage is illegal in our country, and I’ll be sure to watch it.” Of course, there are a lot of detractors. Go Young’s mom is a Christian, and I actually received a DM from a woman who is of a similar age that said, “Youngsu-ssi, I thought you were a good person but I’m disappointed in you.” But there has been a shift in the perception of queer people in Korea over the last 10-20 years, and it’ll continue changing in the future.

How did you feel after filming?

I felt strongly that we had made something together. We finished it while discussing how we could complement each other and making revisions. Also, there were fewer characters than in other productions, so the individual actors and staff could communicate more deeply. Although I was the one acting, I feel that the end result is something we achieved together.

Is there something you want to achieve before the end of the year?

I’m not good at setting goals. I used to make resolutions about how I should go about acting, but now I just work hard on every drama that comes to me. Rather than making plans for the future, the present is more important. This morning, I grated vegetables and then did some cleaning, and right now I’m focused on finishing up well with this photoshoot and interview.

[lovinggreeniehours]

i wonder if sundelaide had time to hang out before sunday gets kidnapped o(–(

[bslack12]

Art, Art, Art, and Sports

The past two days have been probably been the most art I have consumed in that short of a period in my lifetime. Yet, despite my existence currently inhabiting Paris, this segment of time does not feature the Louvre or the Musée d'Orsay. It also does not only include happy stories and enjoyment.

Upon my first viewing of the itinerary, I knew that the class components of this stretch would be my least favorite of the trip, and it was not even close. Not only were the plans going against my preferred taste in art, but it included my participation in making said art, an anxiety inducing trigger in me that takes on of the top spots on that list. I have never been good at art and have always been told that, so I have always steered away from that field. I do not like to do things in which I know will fail, as the aversion to anything but success is what guides my life. Furthermore, I feel like there is a block in my brain when it comes to creative things; it truly feels like there is nothing clicking, a feeling which I never get anywhere else and is quite scary as much as it is annoying.

Nevertheless, when in Paris, right?

I actually consider myself quite lucky to have found a program in my favorite city and country in the world that is so geared towards my interest that I am all in for 90% of the course. So, I sucked it up and was going to make the best out of this stretch. Sunday morning started with a trip over to Saint Sulpice to take in my first mass, which happened to be in French. It was an amazing building and a beautiful service. I was able to pick up bits and pieces and connected the leftovers that did not get scratched during the reformation to what I experience back home in the United Methodist Church. It was also cool to complete another part of my unofficial Da Vinci Code hunt, finding what I assume was the inspiration for the "Rose Line" in the church. (I added another stop this morning, finding one of the Paris Meridian markers at the Louvre.)

It was then time to head over to the Atelier des Lumières for the immersive art exhibit. While I enjoyed the shows for a little bit, I was not captivated in the same way that I have been in other places. First of all, the exhibits were a little to modern for my taste in art that centers in Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods. I also just felt that, if I am viewing art in Paris, it should be firsthand, not a light projection of a painting somewhere else. However, it was much better than I thought when I first read the itinerary and the way that we were immersed in the art was way more my speed than when I though I was going to have to make something.

To continue the theme, though, we headed over to the Petit Palais to view the works housed there. This wasn't initially on my big to-do, but it was something I just stumbled on during the Bastille Day all nighter, as I saw that their collection was free admission and was connected with Beaux-Arts. I would have to say that my favorite spot there was Dutch/Flemish painters and their Baroque landscapes/still life, as I had not really seen much from this time in the other places that we went. I really enjoy how this type of art manipulates the light by darkening things out and drawing the viewer the the subject of the painting. I was also really drawn to a David piece, The Death of Seneca. The was it was positioned in the gallery was such that the painting was almost divided into two, with the glare cancelling out the other half of the frame. It added another dimension in the division between the men and the women, who were already separated by the emotions they were exuding as well as the meridian of the canvas.

The day ended with an interruption to the theme of art, although I would argue that the purity of sport and the grace in which athletes perform can be its own category of art. The Para Athletics World Championships have been in town all week and as it is the only live event of note happening in the city during my stay, it felt my duty to attend for a night. It it quite impressive to watch the para athletes perform, as they push past physical, mental, and financial boundaries to pursue competition at the highest level. It was also nice to see the event treated as any other sporting event would, not being othered because the athletes are handicapped. My favorite event had to be the universal relay, where runners from four different classes come together to run a lap.

Moving over to today, I had another early start. After waking at 7 and immediately getting ready, I headed down to the Louvre to complete my aforementioned Da Vinci Code stop, grab a quick croissant and tea, and stroll through the Tuileries before reaching the objective of the morning, La Musée de l'Orangerie. Since hearing about it on our first day in Paris, I was determined to make it here and see Monet's Water Lillies. So, I rose early and arrived at the museum when it opened. I did not realize it was so important to pre-book here, but it was not a problem as I did not have to queue for more than 5 minutes. Once I was inside the room designed specifically for the masterpiece, I was stunned by how massive they were. For some reason, I had not realized how grand the canvases were. It strikes you immediately and does not allow for any view of the room, or a singular painting, to be the same. I really enjoyed just sitting and strolling through, working my way around the 8 panels and enjoying their beauty, from close and afar. I was probably down there for over 45 minutes and it was wonderful. I made my way through the other halls of the museum, but there was not much else that was in my area of enjoyment and it was close to time to leave for Bercy anyways.

This was where my own personal hell would come to life. I would enjoy and learn about the arts all day, every day, but I usually draw a firm line on doing it myself. My mind is moving too fast to slow down and translate anything from my head into existence. Yet, I still had to sit down and do it so I gritted my teeth and tried my best. The act of spray painting itself was somewhat enjoyable but it was very frustrating not having the physical ability to replicate the quality of the examples and the work of my peers. I was very much on edge during this, especially when I had to contribute to something that I knew everyone else cared a lot more about than me. I tried my best to slow down and not rage out, but I was mentally exhausted by the end of it.

To try and work myself down, I went over to the Hôtel de Ville to finally see the Olympic Rings before a leisurly walk along around L'Île de la Cité, beside the quais of the Seine, and down Boulevard Saint Michel to Maison des Mines, where I was feeling more of myself upon my return.

[midorree]

How (I Think) Quirk-based Discrimination Works In BNHA

I've seen a lot of claims about how people interpret the quirk-based discrimination from an ableism allegory (not quite) to actually comparing it to Jim Crow laws, which is completely out of pocket. Quirk based discrimination in BNHA is very unique, especially with quirks not existing for very long in the grand scheme of things. Trying to compare it to existing forms of discrimination (that, mind you, exist in the fucking show) is simply put, not accurate in the slightest. Racism has existed for long enough for it to be embedded into our everyday lives and systems. Ableism has existed long enough that it affects how we view disabled people as people and how doctors view their disabled patients. Quirk-based discrimination has not.

PART 1: Comparing and Contrasting: Ableism

I've had this conversation a couple times with my friends, and typically we find that ableism doesn't match up with qbd. First and foremost, let's define a disability.

[Image ID: disability: a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities. A disadvantage or a handicap, especially one imposed or recognized by the law. End Image ID]

Quirkless people do not meet this standard definition unless they are already disabled. Being quirkless does not limit movements, senses, or activities in any way shape or form. Being quirkless is not a hindrance in every day life when it comes to these specific criteria.

But why would people thing that being quirkless is the same as being disabled? Let's take a look at accommodations and accessibility.

In the BNHA universe, quirks have existed for long enough that people with mutation quirks that alter their body significantly can comfortably buy clothes as seen with Shoji in some occasions.

[Image ID: Shoji is wearing baggy, patterned pants tucked into laced boots and is wearing a tank top. End ID]

He is able to buy shirts with bigger sleeve holes rather than having to fix his clothing so that he may be able to wear it himself. This is also seen with UA making a uniform so that he can fit without him having to work excessively for it.

[Image ID: Shoji wearing UA uniform. The uniform has no sleeves. End ID]

Why does this matter? Because Shoji is a perfect example of how small accommodations for people mutation quirks exists idly in the BNHA universe. Everyone has a different quirk and require different accommodations, and with Quirkless people, when it comes to buying clothes, or walking up steps, or going comfortably to a restaurant it's never a problem! Assuming they are able-bodied/neurotypical, they truly won't have a problem with getting by in day to day life.

However, there is one thing I will say is similar to ableism in this aspect: how doctors would treat quirkless people. With the opening episodes/chapters of BNHA we see firsthand how a doctor treats a child who is quirkless. Uncaring, cold, and straight to the point as to let them down as hard as they can saying "you might as well get used to it." The doctor had little to no belief that Izuku would become a hero, saying that he should pursue other careers instead. It's not a perfect match up, but I'd say in my personal experience it's pretty similar.

PART 2: Racism in BNHA

I'm not going to dwell long on this one because it's frankly very tone deaf and not very thought out to be comparing qbd to actual racism.

[Image ID: White text on a black background that states: What was worse, he would now be forces to keep his family from visiting or even living in America. It was never talked about openly, but the way quirkless were treated in the States came very close to how they handled different races with the Jim Crow laws of the past. He would never subject his Izuku to that kind of hatred. End Image ID]

There's a lot to unpack here, but let me preface this by saying this: qbd and centuries upon centuries of racial discrimination are not the same thing, especially considering racism exists in the show/manga itself. Big Yikes.

Let's start by defining what Jim Crow laws were.

[Image ID: Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws—which existed for about 100 years from the post-Civil War era until 1968—were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education or other opportunities. Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faces arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence and death. End Image ID]

So lets make a hypothetical and say quirkless people were treated like this. Okay, what would be an identifying factor in discrimination? Would quirkless people have to tell employers their quirk status? Possibly. Would the right to vote be revoked? Due to what? Would they be held back in educational places? Why would they be?

There are too many unanswered questions as to why these things would happen. The Jim Crow laws happened due to white entitlement after the enslavement of an entire race. Qbd happens because of inherent power dynamics (which I will get into later), and while racial discrimination has that factor, it has existed way longer and is more prevalent in society. What if a quirkless person was a quirkless person of color? Think on that.

There are also heroes of color that exist in the show, and racist caricatures of people of color.

[Image ID: Pro Hero: Native with a shocked expression and some sweat dripping down his face. End Image ID]

This fucker right here.

The BNHA universe has existing racism in and out of canon, seeing as the black/brown characters are underrated outside of the show, and microaggressed within the show.

PART 3: Kacchan vs Deku 3: How Did Deku Being Quirkless Affect Their Relationship And Why?

The line "not all men are created equal" really stuck with me while writing and thinking about this meta. Deku has understood and worked through social dynamics and understandings since he was four years old. He's understood that since he's quirkless, people with quirks hold power over him that he can't defend himself against. He understands this, and chooses to roll with the punches.

Bakugou also very much understands how social dynamics work, and chooses to use it to his advantage. He bullies Deku as a boast of power rather than a boast of privileged. It's been drilled into young Katsuki's head that quirkless people are weak, and that he is strong, His teachers are seen encouraging this behavior and the adults around him tend to not view him as a person, but as an existing beam of potential. Propaganda probably exists even in his Sunday cartoons. The strongest people he looks up to all have quirks, and he makes that correlation of quirk = strong at a very young age. He learns that quirkless ≠ strong. A part of me feels like this is intentional.

Izuku being quirkless would put him at the bottom of the food chain, in a sense, and anyone who had a quirk would be listened to more than he ever would. Izuku learned that not all men are equal because of the inherent power dynamics that come with having the ability to fly, or create explosions, or use fucking fire and ice on command, because he realizes he will never be stronger than Kacchan (at least for now). Even Izuku's idols who he considered to be strong and amazing and admirable were people with quirks. People with power over him.

When Izuku got OFA, the playing field shifted, and Katsuki was afraid and confused. Just because Izuku got a quirk, that doesn't mean Katsuki's view on quirkless people changed. We don't know if it did because its never addressed. He has made significant character development and is working to atone with Deku, but would that still happen if Deku had stayed quirkless? We don't know.

PART 4: Conclusion

The BNHA fandom has a lot of views on how qbd might work, but these are just my thoughts. These are all my opinions and if you'd like to add something feel free to! I just hate the fact that qbd is being compared to actual racism when that just doesn't apply and wanted to weigh in my two cents. Qbd, in my opinion, is all about power dynamics and how easily that can be abused.

[retrievablememories]

a strange love | yuta (m)

title: a strange love pairing: alien!yuta x black!reader genre: sci-fi/fantasy, fluff, angst, smut request: “I read a good chunk of your NCT work and really liked them. Would I be able to request a fic where a black female reader meets an alien (can be Yuta or Jungwoo) and they're both coming to terms that they're attracted to each other and have to come to terms with being attracted to someone of a different species? Can be smutty and don't be afraid to give the alien a less human biology if you don't mind.” word count: 13.1k warnings: alcohol use, cursing, near drowning experience, lots of mentions of water so this one might not mesh well with people w/ aquaphobia, non-human biology/body horror, extraterrestrial sex, lots of cum, oral sex (female receiving), tentacle dick, unprotected sex, creampie, please heed the warnings because this is an alien smutfic lmao a/n: giving the shape of water teas. i’ve actually never seen that movie 😕 but i will at some point. forgive me in advance for the nerdy references in here.

It’s funny how things happen when you least expect it. You never would’ve thought you’d be sound asleep when your entire world changed.

The night the UFO crashes in your city, you’re awoken by the tremors of its landing. The vibrations feel akin to an earthquake, and they make picture frames and other trinkets fall off your shelves and hit the floor in a clatter of noise. You jump up from your pillow at the racket, your heart pounding. You glance at the things lying on your floor and quickly register that the room—your entire home—is trembling.

There’s not much you can do at this point but ride it out, so you huddle down in your covers and hope the roof doesn’t cave in on your head. To your knowledge, your particular area isn’t known for earthquakes, which makes all of this even stranger. What could be causing one now? Is the world finally ending?

Eventually, the tremors stop. By now, your shelves have been emptied of nearly all their contents, but you’re still alive, which you’re grateful for. You wait a few more minutes to see if the shakes will begin again, but they don’t, so you climb out from the warmth of your covers to clean up your floor.

Police and ambulance sirens start blaring through the city not long after you get out of bed. That’s nothing unusual; there are usually injuries and casualties with natural disasters like these, and you expect many poor souls will be needing rescue tonight. You sigh and look at your closed blinds, watching them be sporadically illuminated by the lights of the emergency vehicles rushing past.

Once you’ve cleaned up your room and gotten back in bed, you think about checking social media for what people have been saying about the quake. There’s no doubt that the city’s residents have taken to Twitter and Instagram to document it. However, your eyelids are already starting to droop, and you’d probably fall asleep in the middle of scrolling, so you decide to tuck in and wait until morning.

Waking up the next day almost seems like a normal Sunday until you look at your blinds again and are suddenly reminded of last night’s flashing lights. Right. The earthquake. Throwing the covers back, you stumble out of bed to turn on your TV. You flip through the channels until you find a news station for your local area. You go to open the blinds, keeping your ears open for reports on the earthquake.

“Last night, we experienced unprecedented seismic activity throughout the majority of the city, caused by what appears to be an unidentified flying object, otherwise known as a UFO—”

Huh?

You turn to the TV, thinking this must be some kind of ridiculous hoax. You get ready to reach for the remote, thinking you must have turned it to one of those parody news channels by accident, but you freeze at what you see. Video footage of the city center—or what used to be the city center—plays on the screen. In place of the large historical monument that used to stand there, there’s a huge...silver and black spaceship. Or at least you think it’s a ship. It apparently sustained major damage in the landing, and now it looks more like a hunk of melted metal. The area around it has been blasted clear in every direction. Instead of green grass and pavement, there’s nothing but dirt.

The area is blocked off with yellow tape, though hundreds of people have gathered at the location to check out the object and take pictures and videos of it.

“What the fuck…” you whisper to yourself.

“We’re currently unsure where this UFO originated from, though we can confirm that it is not affiliated with any aircraft fleets owned by the U.S. military. Researchers and scientists from top universities across the country are being called in to assist in identifying this craft…”

“There’s no just way,” you mutter, grabbing your shower cap and pulling clothes out of your closet for your morning shower. “A UFO...guess that alien invasion is coming sooner than we thought.” You would like to believe it’s all just someone playing a terrible prank, but pulling off this level of theatrics is impossible.

After you get out of the shower and start making breakfast for yourself, you get a text from one of your coworkers, Alex.

10:30 A.M. Alex🍸 You seeing this shit on the news right now?

10:31 A.M. Obviously! It’s fucking wild. Do you really think it’s true? OR some elaborate government hoax? Anything’s possible. I’m betting “true,” but...

10:33 A.M. Alex🍸 I honestly don’t know. that’s why me and some of the others from work are about to head over there now. Wanna come?

10:34 A.M. The hell! I’ll pass. There could be all types of radiation n shit, I’m not tryna turn into the Green Lantern or the Hulk or somebody.

10:35 A.M. Alex🍸 lmFAO. Suit ypurself. If I gain superpowers don’t be surprised if I fly over to your house today.

10:35 A.M. You’re a mess. 💀

You spend breakfast watching more news reports and scrolling through Twitter feeds for firsthand information. People who visited the site, including your coworkers, have uploaded pictures of the UFO from various angles, inciting a frenzy of conspiracy theories and warnings that the world is about to end.

You don’t know what to make of the situation, but it stays on your mind throughout the day as you leave the house and go about completing your usual errands. The city center has been blocked off to all vehicles other than those belonging to people who’ve been called in to help, which means that traffic is sky-high everywhere else—even for a Sunday.

Sitting in a mishmash of cars, you roll down your window and sigh, looking out at the red traffic lights, and beyond that to the horizon. Things are about to get very weird for the next few weeks. Maybe months. You can only hope you’re prepared for it.

You don’t know why, but the air seems strange tonight.

It’s been 2 days since the UFO crashed. There haven’t been many more answers apart from what everyone already knows due to the ship’s destroyed state. The city has professionals out for that sort of thing, but they’re taking their sweet time analyzing the ship—though you can’t really blame them. Jumping straight into unknown alien tech seems like a death wish.

Your life has been pretty much the same as usual, though you know a few people at work who have been more directly affected by the events. One girl, Sooyoung, who lives in the neighborhood near the crash site claims the officials are thinking about having that entire area evacuate, though you don’t know why they’re beating around the bush about it if it’s true. Whatever radiation or chemicals they’re worried about has probably already leached into all the surrounding homes, and now you’re just waiting for someone to walk into your workplace with antlers or purple skin.

Admittedly, you’re morbidly curious about the case and what all of this could mean for Earth’s future, but you keep your fascination lowkey. You don’t need any of your coworkers thinking you’re the next alien-obsessed Mulder from X-Files. But then again, you’re not curious enough to visit the actual scene, so maybe you’re not the crazy one here.

You feel fine when you get home from work that day, but as you get washed up and settle into your usual evening routine, you can’t shake the eeriness gripping your subconscious. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling, either, just...foreign. Like an emotion you’ve never felt before, though you didn’t know there were even still new emotions to discover. Shaking your head, you figure maybe you should lay off the alien stuff for the rest of the week.

Before you head to bed that night, you go around the house making sure all the doors and windows are locked as you normally do. You pause at the backdoor for a reason you can’t explain, and the strange feeling grows stronger. At this point, you’re a bit frightened about what this is all about, but you can’t go to sleep without knowing. Curiosity takes over as you open the blinds and stare into the darkness of your backyard.

You don’t see anything right away. There are trees, bushes, your potted plants, and lawn chairs...everything looks normal. It’s only when you lean closer to the glass to squint that you see a figure lying in the grass. You jump once you catch sight of it, terrified that some monster or murderer has found their way onto your property. There was nothing there earlier when you closed the blinds, so whoever or whatever it is must’ve recently showed up.

You’re about ready to dial 911 when you realize the figure is curled in the fetal position and unmoving...almost like they’re unconscious. Or dead.

This is ridiculous. You feel like one of those people who always dies first in the horror movies because they went into the room the killer was obviously hiding in, but you’re overcome with the strong impulse to step outside. You grip the doorknob tightly, debating whether you should unlock it or not.

“...Fuck. Don’t let me regret this.”

You open the door with your phone in hand, the device serving as your flashlight. There’s still the screen door to get through, which you pause at for a moment. The figure remains unmoving even with the sound of the door opening.

“Hello?!” You call out to the individual, but there’s no response. Your phone’s light can’t reach them from there, which forces you to open the screen door and step out onto the porch. They’re still feet away, but from this closer distance, it seems like they’re wearing a sort of armor or full-body suit...maybe like a cosplay?

“Hope this isn’t some weirdo weeb passed out on my lawn…” you mutter, cautiously stepping onto the grass. As you approach, you can see now that the figure is likely male, though their back is to you so you can’t be totally sure. “Um, hello there? Can you hear me?” No response.

By now, you are only a few feet away from them. The person looks to be an Asian guy, with long blonde hair haloing his face. His features are angular and smooth, and he is indeed wearing some kind of body armor, its color unlike anything you’ve seen. Instead of being all one hue or even a few, it reflects the light from your phone and glows with a rainbow-like phosphorescence. The material itself looks translucent, but you can’t see through it; it creates a mind-bending optical illusion.

Your stomach suddenly drops to your feet. Is this who was in that UFO in the city center? It seems too out-there to be true, but your intuition is telling you otherwise. This can’t be fucking real.

You kneel on the wet grass next to the man and try to look for signs of life. You can hear his breathing, so he’s thankfully not dead. But he doesn’t look to be in good shape, either. He definitely won’t be able to get up on his own; he probably used the last of his energy to drag himself into your yard.

“Damn.” You turn the flashlight off and slip your phone into your sweatpants pocket. It seems like there’s no other options right now. You could call the police, but they’d probably accuse you of being in cahoots with this weird dude and drag you off to jail. Or they could cart him off for government experimentation, which sounds equally terrible. So with those things in mind, you gently maneuver his upper body until you’re able to hook your arms under his armpits and drag him towards your house.

You just really hope none of your nosy neighbors are seeing this right now.

He’s surprisingly light, and you get him inside the house fairly quickly. Once you’ve locked the door again, you pull him over to the living room so he’s propped against your couch. He still isn’t fully conscious, but his head and lips move as if he’s dreaming about something.

“What was that…?” You lean closer, trying to read his lips for some sort of clue. Surprisingly, you can make out the word water, which he mouths over and over again. “Water…” You run into the kitchen to pour a glass and bring it back to him, making sure not to spill any on the way over.

You press it to his lips, unsure if he’ll be able to drink, but to your amazement his muscles respond and he drinks quickly as you tip the glass. Soon, the water is all gone. You set the glass to the side with your palms sweating and watch as his face flutters even more. 

“Can you...hear me?”

His eyes open only slightly. This movement seems to cause him some pain, though you aren’t sure why. Maybe he has a headache since he was dehydrated? You scramble to turn the overhead light off, not wanting to make matters worse. He still doesn’t try to open his eyes any wider, though.

“Who are you? Were you...did you crash here?” You feel a little bad about asking so many questions, but you’re dying for answers as to what the hell is going on.

The man licks his lips, and his mouth parts like he’s going to answer. But his throat is still dry, and it hurts to talk.

“...Shit.” You get him another glass of water and let him drink until it’s gone again. He seems a little better after that.

“Th-this...” He clears his throat a couple times and tries again. “This is E-Earth, right?”

Now you’re the one lost for words. Although you already figured he couldn’t be from here, hearing it out loud makes your blood rush and your heart race. “Um, yes...this is Earth. Was...the UFO yours?”

He sighs, and his head falls back against the couch arm. “Yes.”

“It’s destroyed,” you say, and then feel silly about it. “But you already know that.” 

He doesn’t answer that. He just slowly glances around your living room instead, looking as if he’s never seen a stranger setup. The quietness is awkward, and you almost feel like he must be judging your taste for interior design. “Do you have a name?”

More silence. You decide he probably won’t answer until he finally says, “You can call me Yuta.”

“Yuta.” You tell him your name too, and he just nods, almost imperceptibly. He doesn’t say much without prompting, which makes it hard for you to know how to approach the situation. You don’t want to overwhelm him with questions, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to speak unless you do. “How did you end up here? I mean, in my—uh, my yard?”

Yuta shakes his head and then winces. “I crashed, and then...I just ran. The ship was melting. I just ran. I hid...I went from place to place, hiding. Don’t know how I got here.”

You wonder how he made it all the way from the city center to your home without being spotted, especially with that armor. You can only conclude that he must be stealth at hiding. Or maybe someone did spot him and the feds are about to bust down your door any minute. You take a shaky breath and try to push that anxious thought to the back of your mind.

Suddenly Yuta fixes you with a suspicious glare. “Will you reveal that I’m here?”

You try not to get offended, because you’d honestly be thinking the same if you were a newly-landed alien in a foreign land. “No. I don’t have any reason to do that. I just want to help. I’m not looking to be on anyone’s 6 o’clock news or cheap tabloid. You probably don’t believe me, but you can have my word for it...if that means anything to you.”

He’s quiet again, though you can tell he’s still skeptical.

“Um, do you need anything? More water?”

He sits up straighter at the mention of that. “Water.” You reach for the glass again, but he frowns. “Not that. I need…something more than that.” He looks around again, but when he doesn't see what he’s searching for, he attempts to stand only to slump down again.

“Slow down there, I don’t think you’re gonna make it like that. Can I help?”

You end up slinging his arm across your shoulder and letting him lean his body against you while you lead him to the bathroom. That’s the biggest source of water in the house, and you assume he must be wanting a bath or shower or something. Even aliens have their hygiene needs, you guess.

You turn the bathroom light on and have Yuta sit on the toilet lid as you turn the bathtub faucet. “Is...this what you meant?” He nods, and you put the plug in and let the tub fill up.

“Just water. Nothing else. I need to recharge,” he says, and before you can ask what he means by that, he starts undressing in front of you. 

At first, your reaction is delayed; you’re struck with surprise when you realize the armor isn’t actually a whole bodysuit, but more like...connected panels of material that can be taken off. You don’t understand the material at all, it doesn’t resemble anything on Earth you can think of—but of course, it’s alien tech. It conforms to his body as he’s wearing it but takes on a more rigid form once it’s peeled off, like actual armor.

Then, he gets ready to take the bottoms off and something finally clicks in your brain that oh my God he’s about to get naked in front of me.

“Whoa!” You spin around and cover your eyes for good measure, glad that your brown skin hides the way your face is burning right now. You step towards the open door. “Uh, I’ll just leave, sorry—”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Um, what?”

“Doesn’t really matter to me,” Yuta says, pulling the last of his suit off. He steps into the tub and sits down in it, putting his hands underneath the stream of water rushing out of the faucet. The skin on his hands seems to ripple, like it’s readjusting itself, and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck at that. You forget to be embarrassed at his unclothed state as you watch it happen.

“What’s going on with that? And why did you need the water?”

Yuta splashes his face before answering, and he turns to look at you, the droplets of water sliding off the ends of his hair. “I’m part of a Water Race. Water is my home. Our bodies have adapted to be built for living in water, and it’s dangerous to be without it for too long.”

“Adaptation? But you look like a regular human.”

“It’s just a skin.”

“A skin?” You echo in horror, a sudden flashback to Silence of the Lambs popping into your mind. “Someone else’s skin?” 

Yuta gives you a look that seems to say he can’t believe you’re asking such a stupid question. “No, it’s my skin. It’s just not my natural form.” To prove his point, he holds his hand out, and right before your eyes his human skin pulls back and morphs into something much more scaly and green. His fingers are actually more like talons, with long black nails on the ends, and there’s translucent webbing between each one.

You gasp and step back, trying to catch your breath at the sight of something so very not human. The skin reforms around his hand—you assume he has to be willing it with his mind somehow, because he doesn’t even move—and his digits look just as human as ever.

“How the hell do you hide your nails under there? Isn’t it just like...wearing a bodysuit?”

Yuta shakes his head. “No. Once the skin is on, it becomes...part of me. My hand becomes a human hand. I’m not hiding anything, it just is. It’s hard to explain.”

“Have you been to Earth before? Is that why you have a human skin, because...adaptation or some shit? This is all so wild.”

“I can shift into different skins if I want, if I gather enough genetic information on certain species’ inhabitants...but there are limitations.” That doesn’t exactly answer your question, but you figure maybe it’s best if you didn’t know. You can at least assume he’s been in contact with humans before.

“I see…” You fidget for a few seconds before speaking what’s on your mind. “Okay, one last thing...you said there are limitations. Does that mean you can’t transform into, like...a dung beetle or something?”

Yuta gives you another are you serious look and you put your hands up. “Just wondering. It was worth a try.”

You feel awkward just standing there, and you feel like maybe you should give him some privacy even if he doesn’t care much, so you leave the bathroom to find something for him to wear.

You’re not sure if you’ll find anything that fits him, so you end up settling on a light pink bathrobe and decide he’ll have to work with that for now. You slip back into the bathroom to leave it on the sink, averting your eyes from his nude form in your bathtub. “Um, here’s something to wear...not sure if anything else will fit, this is all I have for now. Sorry.” You don’t wait for him to respond— he probably won’t anyway—before slipping back out.

It’s nearing 1 A.M. at this point, which is late considering you still have work tomorrow. You sigh and curl yourself up on the couch, hoping you won’t have to stay up for very much longer.

You’re not sure when you drifted off or how long you were out, but you wake up to the sound of footsteps and see Yuta coming out of the bathroom wearing the robe you’ve given him. You have to laugh a little at the sight of him in the light pink material, though you think it suits him in a way.

“Yeah, you’re gonna need some clothes.”

Yuta raises his eyebrow. “I still have my suit.”

“Yeah, but...don’t you want something else to wear? Your ship is pretty much gone, so you’ll probably be on Earth for a while...and if you don’t want anyone realizing you’re not from here, you’ll have to wear regular clothes.”

Yuta visibly upsets at the idea of his ship’s destroyed state, even though he knows there’s not much he can do about it. “I guess. I shared which planet I was heading to before I left, but...Earth is a very big place. And my trackers were destroyed with my ship, so…”

“I’m sorry,” you say, though you don’t know how much comfort that can be. “We can look for some clothes tomorrow. It’s probably better for you not to leave the house right now, but...that’s what online shopping is for.”

“Online shopping…?” Yuta seems puzzled by the concept, but he doesn’t ask any further. Then he looks around the room again. “Is there somewhere I can rest?”

“Oh, yeah, follow me.” You get up from the couch to head upstairs where the guest bedroom is. The house isn’t huge—it was your grandmother’s before she passed it on to you—but it’s more than enough for you alone, and it should fit one more just fine. You open the door and turn on the light, illuminating the small room. “It hasn’t been used in a while, so excuse any dust. I can fix that tomorrow, but it’s getting late...” you stifle a yawn, “...so we should probably go to sleep now.”

Yuta looks at you and nods. 

“Um, well...goodnight.” You wave at him from the doorway before closing it.

As you make your way down the stairs, a sudden weariness and apprehension comes over you. An alien in your home? Escaped from a recently crashed UFO? Wearing one of your bathrobes? You’re almost positive you haven’t thought this through deeply enough, but you’re in it now. Might as well see where the rabbit hole leads to.

The next morning, you prepare yourself to go to work like you usually do. For a while, the house is so quiet that you almost forget Yuta is there until you see him standing in the kitchen entryway, still wearing his pink robe, and you almost jump through the ceiling.

“Jesus, you came out of nowhere,” you gasp, holding your heart.

“Where are you going?” Yuta asks. He steps into the kitchen and tentatively sits down in one of the dining table chairs.

“To work,” you say, and then pause. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to leave a freshly-landed alien at home alone. “Will you be okay here by yourself? I could come over on my lunch break…”

“What am I supposed to do here the whole time?” Yuta asks, sounding displeased at the thought of being abandoned for hours.

“Well...you could watch TV? There’s the on-demand channel...the fridge is available for you too, just try not to clean out my—wait, do you even eat human food?”

Yuta shrugs, crossing his arms. “Not really. It’s not a big source of nutrients for us.” 

You nod awkwardly. “Huh. Well, that’s...interesting.” The stress of the situation is already making your head pound and you haven’t even left for work yet. “Uh, yeah—I think I’ll just come over later and check in...come on, I’ll at least show you how to work the remote before I leave.”

You bid Yuta goodbye once you’re about to go, though you feel more than a little hesitant about leaving him there. There isn’t much other choice, though; you can’t afford to take a day off on such short notice.

The extraterrestrial sighs, sprawling across the couch and looking at the ceiling. The TV is already playing the channel you left it on, and Yuta turns to the screen and watches as a group of humans make weird food dishes he’s never seen before.

“This is stupid.”

The rest of the week with Yuta manages to be an adventure even though he never steps foot outside the house. 

Yuta doesn’t take a liking to human food, which means he opts for spending most of his time in the guest bathtub instead, claiming that the water gives him more nourishment than meals can. You don’t know how true that is, but you’re not going to fight him on it. Less food you have to prepare, you reason...although you often end up making extra anyway and getting him to try a few bites. It feels odd to not see him eat.

Living with someone from outer space is not really as weird as you expected it might be, which surprises you. Yuta stays in his human skin whenever he’s around you, and you steer clear of the guest bathroom when it’s occupied lest you walk in on something crazy. 

You’ve taught Yuta about new concepts he didn’t know before or wasn’t overly familiar with. He’s particularly intrigued with online shopping, and you ended up buying him a bunch of outfits that you both thought he’d look nice in. He doesn’t seem to be big on technology, which surprises you considering how advanced his UFO looked even its ruined state, but maybe human tech is more primitive than what he’s used to. He’s quite fascinated with the microwave, though, and how it can heat anything up in minutes.

With you uncovering new bits of information each day, you continually wonder how different his homeworld must be from the Earth. You can’t pull much out of him about it, for whatever reasons he has for keeping the information close, but you try to let him talk about it at his pace without pressuring him.

You could probably get used to living like this. 

Maybe not your wallet, though. You’re definitely not loving how your water bill is going to look once it comes in the mail.

None of your coworkers or neighbors know—not that it’s any of their business anyway. You don’t know how long Yuta is going to stay, or what the hell you’re going to do when his people finally catch wind of his whereabouts and land a UFO in your backyard, but you figure you’ll get to that part when it comes.

On one Saturday morning, you wake up to the sound of tapping on your door. You try to ignore it, thinking it’s just some woodpecker setting up shop outside your window, but you’re proven wrong when the door swings open.

You pull the covers away from your face for a moment to see Yuta standing there looking at you. You stare at him for a few seconds before sighing.

“Why are you up so early? It’s the weekend,” you groan, pulling the covers back over your head. 

“Why do you sleep so late?” Yuta retorts, still standing in your doorway. You don’t know whether he expects you to get up and do a trick, but it’s not happening. You peel the blanket away so it’s just below your eyes and look at him.

“What?”

“It’s not fun being here alone all day, you know,” he says, crossing his arms.

“So...what? Do you want me to play with you or something?” You can’t stop your sudden laugh, but you feel bad about once it’s out. He has just lost his ride home and has no foreseeable way back until someone notices his absence. Plus, needing to stay hidden and cooped up like a criminal can’t be enjoyable.

Yuta rolls his eyes at your response and starts down the hallway again, but you jump out of the bed and follow him. “Wait, Yuta, I’m sorry. That was stupid. I know it can’t be easy living like this. I’m not sure if I can make it better, but I’m willing to try.”

Yuta pauses in the hall and turns back to look at you. “I’m tired of being in here all the time....no offense. But there’s only so much I can take. I know I’m supposed to be in hiding, but it’s not like anyone can tell the difference. Even you couldn’t. Can’t we go out for one day?”

You think about it for a moment and figure he’s right. You both were trying to be overly cautious at first, but there’s no real way anyone would notice anything unless he shifted. “I guess we could...as long as we don’t go anywhere with a lot of water.”

“I have more self-control than that,” Yuta scoffs, though his words trail off as he’s already heading back to his room to get dressed.

You and Yuta walk around downtown for a little while, although you can’t shake the lingering nervousness you feel. You both decided not to head back to the city center any time soon; there’s not much left of the broken ship anyway, with scientists carting off pieces of it for research. Just as you thought. It’s too big to transport all at once, but you’re sure the remaining parts will be gone within the next couple weeks.

Yuta is continually surprised by how many new and unfamiliar things he spots along the way—things he actually gets to see up close and in detail. Kinda hard to focus when you’re running and hiding for your life.

Eventually, Yuta slows down as you walk past a small and colorful restaurant. “What’s that?” he asks, pointing up at the sign. You stop to turn around and see what he’s gesturing to.

“That’s just a hamburger joint...you won’t wanna go in there,” you say, raising your eyebrows. Because you don’t eat food. Despite that, Yuta still seems curious about the restaurant and he hesitates to walk away. Realizing that you aren’t going to get anywhere, you go to stand next to him and peer inside. There are a few people already inside, sitting at scattered tables and eating their food. “Do you want to go in, or…? ‘Cause you have to eat something if we do. This is your idea.”

“I’ll eat, let’s just go,” Yuta says, grasping your hand and pulling you into the restaurant.

You wave at the person behind the counter who greets you as you walk in, while Yuta is busy scanning every inch of the place. You let him look over the menu for a little while, but with so many options available he isn’t sure what to get—especially when he’s not sure if he’ll like any of them—so you end up picking for the both of you.

When you finally get your food, you take it to one of the tables. You watch attentively as Yuta takes the first bite of his hamburger, and you try to stifle your giggles as you watch his face go from nonchalance to bewilderment to shock.

“This is actually...good.”

“Wait, this is really the first meal you’ve liked? Are you saying my cooking is bad? Damn.” You chuckle, shaking your head. 

“I’m not answering that.” Yuta laughs along with you, which is probably the first genuinely happy expression he’s shown since he’s been here.

Yuta has a very pretty smile, you realize. You’re a little taken aback by it. You haven’t seen much of it since you met him, but it’s here now and striking in its genuine quality. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside...which you mainly attribute to the satisfaction of doing something nice for someone else. Of course. Who wouldn’t enjoy a nice meal they didn’t have to pay for?

Things go smoothly for a while as you both eat and pretend to make boring small talk since you can’t talk about him being an alien in public. However, you feel sweat on the back of your neck when you see your coworker Alex walk through the door with his boyfriend. This city is too small for its own good sometimes. 

You try not to call attention to yourself and Yuta, keeping your gaze on your food, but he spots you anyway and waves enthusiastically. Alex gestures for his partner to go ahead and order while he comes over to your table.

“Hey, Y/N! It’s great to see you! Too bad we missed you at the UFO wreck today, though; we went out again one last time before they take the whole thing away,” he rushes out in one breath. Yuta’s eye twitches at the mention of his ship, and you’re suddenly on edge, hoping the situation doesn’t turn sour.

“Oh, uh, wow, that’s...cool!” you choke out, pinching your straw between your fingers. Before you can think of a way to divert the subject, Alex turns to Yuta.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Alex! Who’s this? Your boyfriend?” The last few words are directed at you. Alex gives you a playful grin, and you toss him an embarrassed smile back.

“Uh, no, he’s my friend! Yuta.”

“Nice to meet you,” Yuta says, though you can recognize his tone is a bit dry.

“Pleasure’s all mine!” Alex’s boyfriend calls him from the other side of the restaurant, and he turns to respond before taking his leave. “Ah well, looks like we’ll have to cut it short, but it was so great to see you guys. Enjoy your lunch!”

You let out the breath you were subconsciously holding once he leaves.

“Boyfriend…” Yuta murmurs.

“What?”

“That would be really weird. Wouldn’t it? We’re not even the same species,” he says, lowering his voice. It’s not like you don’t agree, but you admittedly don’t appreciate the way Yuta screws his face up at the thought. You prickle with embarrassment.

You scoff, taking a sip of your drink. “Well I’m not exactly eager to date an overgrown fish, so…” You almost expect Yuta to fall into another one of his moods at your words, but he actually chuckles a bit, which surprises you.

“Then it’s mutual!” Yuta sticks his tongue out and you roll your eyes.

The warm and fuzzy feeling, you soon find out, is not a one-time thing.

You don’t quite know what to make of that. You wouldn’t like for Yuta to go back to his initial broody state, of course, but you’re starting to believe this feeling can’t just be attributed to your charitable actions. You can’t stop thinking about the more playful side of Yuta you saw at the burger place that day, and the way he’s been gradually more open with you since then.

Yuta usually spends his nights splashing around in the guest bathtub, but one night he wanders into the living room and sees you putting your afro in plaits. He becomes weirdly fascinated with the process, watching you carefully and asking occasional questions. Amused by his interest, you answer all his questions and even offer to let him do one section. 

“It’s probably not the same, but I used to braid my friend’s hair often…” he says wistfully as he settles in behind you. “We did a lot of things together.”

Your ears perk up. “Oh? You sound like you were very close,” you say, resting your chin on your knees.

“Really close,” he affirms. His hands are gentle in your hair, as testament to his words. You close your eyes and relax into the sensation, and before you know it, that warmth is spreading through your chest again. You even allow yourself to wonder what it’d be like for him to do this all the time, tending to your hair and telling you about his homeworld, before you open your eyes again and quickly pull yourself out of that reverie. You probably shouldn’t get too used to this, you reason with yourself. “I think she’s what you’d call a mermaid...except the look is a bit...different.”

“Different?” you echo, wondering if you’ll get an explanation.

“They don’t have human arms or anything like that...it’s more like tentacles.”

“Ah,” you try to imagine that, though it’s hard. “That’s certainly unique.”

“Maybe you’d like it...my planet, I mean.”

“You think I would? Why?”

“I dunno, just a feeling…”

“If only I could breathe underwater,” you laugh. “You’d take me back, though? Hypothetically, of course. I’m not too human for you?”

“Will you ever let that one go? It’s probably the least I could do after setting up residence here. Maybe we’ll get you an alien costume, though, so you’ll fit in.”

“How nice of you to think of me in all my humanness. God, the universe is something else…”

You start when Yuta’s hands leave your hair. “I think I’m done?” he says, sitting back on his feet. You grab the mirror from the coffee table and look at the braid you let him do.

“Oh wow, it looks good.” You purse your lips to hide the grin about to break across your face. “Do you wanna do the rest?”

“If you’ll let me.”

“Go ahead then, my hands needed a break anyway.”

You sit back and let Yuta finish the rest of your hair, listening quietly as he tells you more about his friend from his homeworld. Her name is unpronounceable to you, but it sounds pretty all the same. They grew up together, he says, and have been on lots of adventures over the years, though he still keeps that same vagueness he always has when describing his life. He ends up getting you to tell him more about your life, which you do; you figure he probably doesn’t know a whole lot about you, either.

Yuta hands you the mirror when he’s done, and his head pops up next to yours in the reflection. “Good?”

“It’s great!” you say, and you really mean it.

You discover that, strangely enough, Yuta has an affinity for sci-fi movies. Go figure. He especially seems to like the campiness of alien films; then again, everything is campy to him because of how different it is from how extraterrestrials actually live.

You are in the middle of watching The Fly when it comes to one of sex scenes, and you try not to sweat. It’s always a little awkward to watch sex scenes with other people, but doing it with an alien gives the whole thing an extra layer of weirdness.

“Human sex is so funny,” Yuta says out of nowhere. You just barely avoid choking on your drink.

“Uh, o-okay. Do I want to know what that means?”

Yuta only shrugs and leans farther back onto the couch, looking completely unbothered about what he’s just said. “It just is.”

“...I’m sure your people must procreate some kinda way?”

“Yeah, but it’s not quite this. But when I’m in this form, I can do it as humans do.”

That makes you pause, and you’re not sure what to do with that information. Actually, your mind has already decided for itself and is trying to go to a place you don’t want it to, and you’re mildly horrified by that revelation. There’s no real reason why you should be curious about it. And yet...

“Hummm...have you done it before? In this form?” You keep your eyes glued to the screen, which is now showing a shirtless Jeff Goldblum doing acrobatics—but that’s still less awkward than looking over at Yuta right now.

“There was one time.”

There is a twinge of something in your chest. Fascination? Sure. Revulsion? Maybe not that. Dare you call it anything close to jealousy? You immediately throw that one out the door, sink further into your seat, and try not to think about what your life has come to.

“Okay, since you still won’t tell me directly if you’ve been here before, at least tell me this; did it happen here on Earth? With a human?”

Yuta shakes his head. “Some other aliens have weird fetishes. I only did it because she asked and was really adamant about it.”

“Ooookay, you know what…” You get up from the couch and walk to the kitchen, laughing awkwardly all the way. You don’t have any particular reason to go in there, but you have to do something with the nervous energy that’s about to make you jump out of your skin. You pretend to shuffle around in the fridge for a minute so you don’t look too silly getting up for no reason.

After taking a moment to calm down, you turn back to Yuta. “Okay. Hypothetically, if you wanted, could you actually…? With a human? In your natural form? Or would the parts be incompatible, or...”

“Maybe...I’m not sure. It’s not like I’ve ever tried. Why?” Yuta gives you a look that’s partway between curiosity and incredulity, and you wave your hand in dismissal.

“It’s just a question.”

Yuta leans forward on the couch, barely concealing his own amusement at whatever he’s cooking up in his mind. “Are you saying you want to try it with me?”

“You’re not funny,” you sigh, trying to ignore the way your skin is burning at that suggestion. “Remind me not to ask you anything like that again.”

When you get home from work one weeknight, you roll your eyes at the mass text sitting in your inbox, forwarded to you from Alex. Another after-work party, which means another event where someone will run through the sprinklers naked and everyone will pretend like they don’t remember it the next workday.

You don’t know how you’re going to get out of this one, especially with Yuta, who will likely want to go if he finds out, so you decide to just come out and say it and see what happens.

“Hey Yuta…” You slide up behind him where he’s sitting on the couch. “I just wanted to let you know I won’t be at home for a few hours on Saturday. I’m going to a party this weekend. It’s a friend’s party, someone from work.”

Yuta looks at you forlornly. “The same person we met at the restaurant?”

“No, but he’s gonna be there too. Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I really don’t know if it’s safe for you to go…”

“That’s not fair, the last time at the restaurant went well,” Yuta argues.

“Yes, but this guy has a pool and he’s a dickhead who likes to push people in and what if you get caught off guard and change unexpectedly?”

Yuta’s response is as straightforward as you expected it to be. “Then I’ll punch him in the face.”

You laugh at that and shake your head, coming to sit beside him on the couch. “Ugh. As satisfying as that sounds, I don’t need the extra stress of dealing with the aftermath. I don’t know, Yuta...do you think you’ll be okay? God, I feel like an overprotective mom or some shit.”

“Y/N, it’ll be fine, stop worrying. I can take care of myself,” Yuta insists, putting his hand on your shoulder and looking into your eyes. He’s a little closer than you anticipated, which makes your heart rate increase a little. You chalk that reaction up to his invasion of your personal space and shift away, groaning.

“Fine, I’ll bring you. But if shit goes down, I can’t promise an easy way out. Let’s just keep things lowkey, alright?”

“Of course I can do that! I’ve been doing it so far haven’t I?” he says, but somehow you’re not entirely convinced.

The party is filled with people you know from work and a slew of unfamiliar faces, probably your coworkers’ friends. It’s mostly a backyard party, like you already knew, although there are some people mingling within the house.

There are already a few people lounging in the pool. In any other scenario, it might be inviting to you, but now you just look at all that water with a looming sense of anxiety. Yuta sticks close to your side, saying nothing but studying everyone around him.

“Y/N!” your coworker David shouts from the backdoor of his house. He holds up his beer in salutation and you wave back at him, mildly annoyed that he’s brought everyone’s attention to you both. He hustles over to you and claps you on the back strong enough to make your bones rattle, and you wince. “Hey dude!” He reaches across you to pull Yuta into a handshake, and Yuta also winces when he grips his hand a little too tight. “Make yourselves at home, I’ve got everything you could ever need—including the booze and babes!” You both nod awkwardly before David goes off to greet someone else who’s just pulled up. You roll your eyes once he’s gone.

Yuta’s eyebrows draw together. “That was…”

“Annoying,” you finish for him.

“You don’t seem to like him. Why did you decide to come?”

“Workplace politics, if you’re the only one who doesn’t come it’s awkward, ugh. It’s just bullshit. Let’s not get into it.” You walk towards the house and Yuta follows, and you nod at a few people you know along the way.

You find Alex in the kitchen, where he offers to make drinks for you and Yuta. You cast a glance at Yuta, wondering if he’ll take up the offer; you have no idea how he’ll react to alcohol, or if they drink any equivalent of it on his homeworld.

“Um, I think I’ll pass.”

“Oh okay, straight-edge guy! That’s cool too,” Alex grins, making just the one drink for you. As you and Alex talk, the girl from your department whose neighborhood was about to be evacuated sidles up to your little group.

“I’ve never seen you before. What’s your name?”

“Oh...it’s Yuta.”

“Yuta? How cool, I’m Sooyoung.”

Little did you know that that one introduction would expand into them having a half-hour long conversation right there in the kitchen. You really don’t know how Yuta is pulling this off without spilling the beans, but then again, you do; he’s good enough at manipulating the conversation to make it seem like he’s sharing personal info when he’s really not. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he throws in things you taught him every so often.

Alex notices your changing demeanor and follows you as you walk into the living room, finally exhausted with playing third wheel. “Hm, someone seems a little spicy.”

You cough. “I’m fine, it’s just cramped in there, David should really invest in a bigger house..this place could use a remodel.” You throw a glance around the living room, not wanting to see the mischievous look in Alex’s eyes.

“Well, remodel aside, it’s not really my business, but you certainly seem to have a little green monster brewing here.”

You give Alex a long look. “Don’t. He’s my friend. He’s not even—” You have to stop yourself before you expose anything, and you shift nervously on your feet.

“Not even what? Your type? I don’t know, he’s handsome enough to me. You can’t go wrong with a pretty boy. Don’t tell Xavier I said that, though.”

“Lord, let me get the hell out of here…” You leave Alex to cackle to himself while you go out into the backyard again, holding your drink and mulling around the edges of the activity. Too busy wrestling with your own emotions, you don’t realize how close you’ve drifted towards the pool.

“Hey, Y/N?” David says from behind you.

“Yeah?” You go to turn towards him, but before you can, you feel a huge shove from behind and the next thing you know your feet are off the ground and you’re in the pool. It all happens so fast that you can barely catch your bearings, and for a terrifying moment you’re convinced you’re about to drown.

The seconds feel like minutes, and you can’t even open your eyes to tell up from down. The next thing you register is an arm around your waist, and somehow you’re being pulled up even though you’re too panicked to even control your limbs. Your head pops above the water and you cough and sputter loudly, trying to take in air. You try to blink the water out of your eyes, though it drips off your hair and makes it even harder to see.

You’re still not sure what the hell is going on until you’re hauled out of the water and sitting on the ground. Someone hands you a towel, and you hear a female voice saying you’re such an asshole, David.

You wipe the water off of your face and then you’re finally able to see; Yuta is crouching in front of you, just as soaked as you are and staring at you with a worried expression. You look back at him, disoriented and a little dumbfounded at his still-human state.

“You didn’t…”

Even though you’re still trembling with the fear of almost drowning, you’re unable to look anywhere but at Yuta for that moment—at the pure concern on his face.

“Nice going, David,” someone else says sarcastically.

“It was just a bit of a prank! No hard feelings guys, come on. Y/N?” You realize David is standing on your left, and he tries to come closer, his hands open in an apologetic gesture. You jerk away from him, holding the towel to your shaking form.

“Get the fuck away from me. You’re a fucking idiot!” you shout. “All you do is ‘play pranks’ and then you wonder why no one likes you!” That draws a few barely concealed laughs out of the people standing nearby, though you don’t think any of it is funny. David steps back, unsure how to respond and looking truly embarrassed for once in his life.

Filled with anger, you try to get to your feet but you’re still unsteady. Yuta puts his arm around you again, lifting you up and encouraging you to lean your weight on him.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

You don’t have much to say on the way back home. You insist on leaving right away even though Yuta suggests you sit and wait until the tremors subside. He obviously can’t drive you back home, so it’s all he can offer, though it doesn’t make you feel much better.

The silence itself isn’t particularly awkward to Yuta, but he is uncomfortable anyway because he knows it stems from your own discomfort. At a red light, he turns to you.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really.”

He’s quiet for a few moments, and then he speaks again. “I know you’re mad about the pool, but...it seems like there’s more than that. Did...you not like me spending so much time with Sooyoung?”

You scoff. “You can’t be serious. I don’t care what you and that girl do.”

“You’re not a very good liar.” You’re too worn out to argue, so you merely give him a sidelong glance. Yuta sits back in his seat and watches a few cars zip past, their tail lights looking like clashing stars against the night. He’s not used to so much...manmade stuff. There was his ship and his trackers, of course, but he still has a hard time adjusting to be surrounded by so much iron and steel. His own planet is ruled by nature, by the vast oceans in all their unpolluted original essence, but Earth—or at least this portion of it—is much, much different.

He means to glance back at you, but his eyes linger for a while longer than intended. He’s not sure why. Maybe it’s because your outfit is a pretty color, or because the coils of your hair look shiny reflecting the light. He’s never put much thought into human beings before, and his limited experiences with them were mostly better left unremembered. Taking a human form was no huge deal for him; just a move that was necessary at the time.

But now, he’s seeing humanity—and most specifically, you—in a different light, and he’s uncertain what to do with this realization. People have feelings, thoughts, and dreams, like his own species, or like any other. He’s beginning to care what you think of him, how you react to him, even though he doesn’t know why this matters.

“You look pretty,” Yuta says. The compliment is the last thing you expected from him. It seems especially random after what happened at the party; here you are, soaking wet and incredibly uncomfortable. You’re a little late to put your foot on the gas pedal once the light turns green, and someone behind you honks.

“Pretty? I thought humans were weird to you.” Your mind goes back to The Fly and the subsequent conversation you had, and your hands tighten minutely around the steering wheel.

“You are. That hasn’t changed.”

“Good to know.” You don’t want to laugh, but this does make you crack a smile. “But...thanks. And...thanks for that, at the pool, you know. I should...probably trust you more.”

The rest of the ride is a little more talkative after that, and Yuta is happy that he could lighten your mood if even a little bit. Although he wouldn’t tell you, he’s becoming accustomed to your smile, and he’s more displeased than he thought he could be when it’s absent.

The thunder booms so loudly that it makes your window frames shake. It almost reminds you of the day Yuta’s ship fell out of the sky. You pull the covers tighter around yourself as if they alone could protect you from the storm’s fierceness. Storm clouds have been brewing all day, but the skies didn’t open until you and Yuta went to bed. Now, the rain and lightning is in full force. The rain pounds against your window, sounding more like hail or even bullets.

You’re startled for a second time when there’s a knock on your bedroom door.

“Come in?”

The door opens slightly and Yuta appears in the small sliver of space. “Sorry, but...can I sleep here? The storm...” He gestures to the window, where a crack of lightning strikes right after. He’s wearing a sleep shirt and loose pants, and his blonde hair is disheveled. 

“Uh, sure.” You shuffle over to make room for him. “I guess this isn’t your type of water, is it?” He huddles underneath the covers with you, facing you with his arm tucked under the unoccupied pillow.

“Not when it’s so intense like this.”

You hum in acknowledgment. “It’s scary. Does rainy weather make you think of your homeworld often?”

“Often,” he repeats. “But...I think I’d be worse off if I weren’t here.”

“Here...on Earth?”

“I mean, here with you.”

“Oh,” is all you can think to say. It’s a surprisingly personal confession, though you are grateful you’ve become someone so important in his life already, even if it’s only because you’ve given him shelter. That familiar warmth spreads through you again. 

Warm and fuzzies = gratefulness to a friend, the feeling you get when you pet a cute puppy. Right. It’s not the sensation you get when you think you might have feelings for your extraterrestrial friend, you try to convince yourself. “I’m...glad you’re here. Maybe not under these circumstances, but still.”

Yuta nods without speaking, but he doesn’t take his eyes away from you. You think he must be waiting on you to say something else.

“What?” you ask quietly when he keeps staring at you. “Take a picture, it will last longer.” Your joke does little to clear the air, and the tension keeps rising. You should probably be the first one to look away, to end whatever weird game this is and go to sleep, but you can’t. It’s unexplainable.

Yuta props himself up on his elbow, and you’re about to ask him where he’s going when he slips his hand onto your bare shoulder. You’re already covered by the blankets, but you suddenly feel even hotter with his hand on you, sliding up from your shoulder to the side of your face. “Y-Yuta…?”

You don’t know what to say or do, but you don’t object when he leans closer. Your faces are only inches apart now, like he’s hesitating and wondering if he should cross the line. The thunderstorm is intense, but this moment feels much more suspenseful than that could ever be. And then, it’s suddenly satisfying when his lips are on yours.

The kiss starts gentle. He’s careful as if he’s afraid to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable. It’s soft and sweet. Things get more heated when his tongue prods against your lower lip and enters your mouth. You don’t know when his hand made it from your face to your side, but he pulls you close with his fingers pressing into the flesh just below your breasts, and you tremble at the proximity.

When you pull away, both of you are breathing harder and unable to look each other in the eye.

“Should we be doing this?” you whisper.

Yuta shakes his head. “I don’t know. But it feels good.”

At those words, you pause for a moment before moving to kiss him again. His lips respond deftly to yours, his body crowding you in and making you feel hot and enraptured with desire from where you still lie under the covers.

His hair is very soft when you slide your hands through it, though you can’t push away the thought that suddenly manifests in the back of your mind. This isn’t really his hair, or his lips, is it? It’s all a mask to cover whatever is underneath, which is something you still don’t entirely know, yet are increasingly curious about.

Yuta’s hand drifts up just high enough to caress the underside of your breast—all still over the cover of your clothes. Abruptly, that thought forces its way to the front of your mind, making itself unavoidable, and you have no idea how to reconcile it. This is all so...very unfamiliar. And undeniably scary.

You pull away from him, your face creased with conflict, and his hand stills on your body. “S-sorry, I…um...this is...”

Subsequently, he pulls his hand away from you, though some part of you doesn’t really want that to happen. “I-it’s fine.”

You both settle back into the sheets, the tense aura from before replaced with one that’s thick with unease. The storm continues on outside, unknowing and uncaring of anything else but its own nature.

Though you would like to pretend it isn’t so, things become strained after the night of the storm.

You and Yuta don’t talk about the kiss. You expected him to say something about it that morning after, but he didn’t acknowledge it, and so you figured you just forget about it, too. What are you thinking, anyway? You’re literally from two different worlds. You don’t have the first clue about what a connection would look like between you, whether it be just sex or a relationship.

Why couldn’t you just fall for a coworker and have a bit of office drama like everyone else? Even that would be simpler.

Why did you have to let your thoughts get the best of you? You don’t have any answer for that, except for maybe your own need to come to terms with your attraction. People have never been very skilled at accepting others different from themselves, you know that much. But that usually counts for people of different ethnicities or cultural backgrounds, not two entirely different species.

You spend the whole week afterwards tearing your mind up with this monologue and trying to figure out what you should do next, because you’re quickly growing weary of coming home to a tense atmosphere. Alex can only give so much advice—not that you’d really tell him the entire situation—without knowing just how complicated everything is.

Where he used to hang out with you and help you with your hair, Yuta spends more time up in the guest bathroom again. You wonder if he thinks you’re disgusted by him. You’d probably think the same if he reacted the way you did.

Unbeknownst to you, Yuta is facing the situation with a similar amount of inner turmoil as you, wondering if he’s gone too far. He’s done many silly things in his life, but he doesn’t know how to undo this mistake. The mistake of kissing you? The mistake of seeing you as more than just another human? The mistake of knowingly flying in a faulty ship? Maybe all of it.

He feels guilty about freezing you out and pretending as if nothing happened, especially with all you’ve done to make him safe and comfortable in your home. But, at the same time, he is equally frightened to face you and discover the real reasoning for why you pulled away that night. Because you’ll never see him as someone you could like? Or maybe even love?

If that’s your truth, he’d rather leave it unsaid.

There aren’t many choices left but to face it. Whether this idea is smart or not is yet to be seen, but you suppose you don’t have many solutions left. And you are sick of being cooped up in the house.

“You sure this is safe?” Yuta asks as he stares at the scenery whizzing past. “You were all freaked out about me being near water before...now you want to go to a lake?”

You glance over at him. “Yes, it’s my parents’ lake property. It’s private, Yuta. No one will be there but us. I think we could both use a mini vacation this weekend, yeah?” 

“I guess, sure.” Yuta shrugs. His demeanor is more closed off than it was before that dreaded kiss, but you can still tell that he’s interested in the idea of getting access to a bigger body of water, even if he doesn’t outwardly express it.

The lake house is two hours out of your city. It hasn’t been used much in the past few years with both you and your parents being busy with work and life, but if there was ever a good time to use it, it’s probably now. You just hope there aren’t any squatters of the furry variety; the last thing you need is to be fighting raccoons or squirrels after stepping through the door.

Luckily, there’s really no one but you two once you reach your destination. The lake is big and pretty like you last remembered it, sparkling under the sun and throwing the rays back in your eyes. Yuta is automatically captivated by it.

“Here it is!” you say, walking along the sand and spreading your arms out towards the body of water. “It might not be much compared to your homeworld, but I hope it’s enough.” You carry your bag up the stairs to the house and turn back to Yuta, who’s still standing by the shore gazing across the water. “You can go in, you know? Get comfortable!”

That seems to snap him out of his trance, and he turns back to you, following you up the steps. “Not right now...I’ll go later.” You’re a little disappointed at that, but you simply nod and open the door to go in.

You spend the day getting increasingly more restless as you and Yuta hang out together. You go on the pier, walk around the entirety of the lake, and even take your dad’s boat out on the water, but he still doesn’t get in.

You eat dinner together later that night, although you’re the one doing most of the eating, and there isn’t much conversation to be had. You’ve both run out of things to say that don’t center around the kiss or why he refuses to get in the water.

Yuta spends a few more moments watching you push your food around your plate before leaning forward. “Why did you bring me here?” he asks.

You sigh heavily. “Do you not like it?”

“No, I do, but…” he hesitates. “Can you answer my question first?

You raise your eyebrows. “Okay, well. I brought you here because...I don’t know. I figure you deserve to have somewhere bigger to swim around in than my guest bathtub.” You laugh nervously.

He seems unconvinced. “Is that it?”

“I’d say so! Why won’t you even take one swim, is the better question? I want you to relax and be yourself.”

He furrows his eyebrows as if he doesn’t know how to reply. “You...aren’t you...repulsed by it? I just figured you wouldn’t want to see me in my natural form. Especially since…” He trails off at the end, and your palms sweat a little.

“No! I know I was weirded out at first, but...I-I guess that was the point of this whole trip, to show you that…” You grapple with your words for a moment, unsure if now is the time to fully confess what you’re feeling. “Look, I want to try, alright? I want to see it at least once. I want to accept you as a whole being, and that means, you know...all of you.”

Yuta smiles gradually at that, and you feel swept up with a sudden wave of affection you weren’t expecting. You are still a bit scared, but you don’t want to turn back now. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” you reply, clasping your shaking hands together.

Yuta nods and stands up from the dining table, gesturing for you to follow him. It’s late now, with the moon shining brightly and the last vestiges of dark blue sky giving way to black. The air outside is cool, but not uncomfortably so. You follow Yuta to the pier and watch timidly, your stomach flip-flopping, as he sheds his clothes, leaving them on the wooden deck. Then he slips into the water, disappearing underneath its still surface.

You crouch down, looking intently at the rippling water and anticipating whoever is going to resurface. The sounds of croaking frogs and crickets press in from every side, ringing in your ears so loudly that it’s hard to think straight.

You gasp when Yuta lifts from the water, his human skin gone and completely transformed into something that’s more...amphibian, if that’s any accurate way to describe his appearance. His skin is still scaly and green like you saw that first day, but in the moonlight it seems to glitter and reflect a spectrum of colors like his armor did. There are two fins on the either side of his face, translucent and shining a pale green. They slowly move back and forth as he treads on the water, as if they’re conveying an emotion to match whatever he’s thinking, and you watch them in fascination.

Yuta floats on his back in the water, the long gills on either of his sides catching the moonlight. You watch in fascination as they move with his breaths. Using the pier post to keep yourself stable, you reach out to touch them. They’re slick under your fingers, but not in a slimy or gross way. Your hand drifts to the rest of his skin, across his torso and along his sides, and every portion has a strikingly smooth texture. His alien eyes stare at you silently as you do, glittering big in the moonlight.

“What do you think?” his voice is quieter than you expected, as if he’s afraid of your reaction. He doesn’t break his gaze, though, studying your face carefully.

“You’re...amazing,” you say breathlessly. “Incredible.” 

His lips, which are green like the rest of him, form a small smile, and then he dives underneath the water. He does a few laps as if he means to impress you, his lithe marine form sparkling just below the surface of the water. You keep your hand suspended over the pier as you watch him, your fingers sliding against his body every time he passes by. You smile at his display, a laugh coming out of you at his impromptu performance.

When he’s finished, Yuta climbs up onto the pier with you and kneels in front of you, much like he did that day he saved you from David’s swimming pool. His feet are webbed like his hands. Droplets of water slide off of them onto the wooden boardwalk while others linger on the clear webbing like tiny jewels. Your hand is magnetized to his face, drawing across the scaly skin and tracing over his lips, which are just as smooth as the rest of him.

Before you can think twice about it, you lean forward and capture his lips with yours. Did you expect it to be fishy? Maybe. But it’s not that at all. He still manages to taste distinctly like Yuta, even though you’re not sure what that taste is. It’s a flavor that makes you feel...held. Yuta is surprised for a moment, but he responds to your kiss, one of his webbed hands inching close to your face. He doesn’t touch you at first, a little reluctant and yet wanting to let you lead the pace so he doesn’t scare you off.

You welcome his touch, carefully brushing your fingertips across his hand and bringing it to make contact with your skin. His own skin is still a bit cold from the water’s temperature, but it doesn’t bother you much.

The kiss soon grows more intense, and a mounting desire makes itself known in you. You won’t pretend like you’re 100% confident about all of this, but you don’t want to shun it anymore, either.

Yuta’s hand drifts to your neck, his long nails pressing into your skin ever so slightly. You dare to explore his body more, sliding your hands across his chest and over his side gills, feeling the way they contract under your hands, and farther down still. You haven’t looked down there yet, and you’re nervous over what you’ll find. But you keep going until your fingers meet something slick and hot and throbbing, seeming vaguely like a regular penis, though you quickly realize it’s more of a tentacle.

Yuta shudders and draws away from the kiss, and you feel alarmed, wondering if you’ve gone too far without thinking.

“If we’re going to do this, I should...probably shift back—”

“Don’t,” you blurt out. Yuta looks at you questioningly. “I...you should if it makes you comfortable. But...I don’t mind.” He’s quiet for a few seconds—seconds that feel much longer than they really are. You’re apprehensive of what he’ll say, but you keep your eyes on his face.

“Okay,” he agrees. “If you’ll accept me like this...okay.” 

Neither of you bother with moving to somewhere more comfortable like the lake house or even the sandy shore. Instead, Yuta peels your clothes away right there on the pier, covering every new bit of flesh with his strange and lovely mouth, his head fins ghosting across your collarbones and breasts like moths’ wings.

You tremble and grow wetter under his soft caresses, which are much gentler than you’d initially expect with his sharp black nails. His hands leave streaks of water across your body, which cools your burning hot skin.

Yuta carefully maneuvers your lower body at the same time as he bends his graceful head, bringing your sex close to his mouth and licking deeply into you. Your back presses hard against the pier, the wood scratching your skin as you cry out into the night air.

“Oh God, Yuta!” You soon realize that his tongue is much longer than any human one, and it reaches to a spot deep inside of you that makes you twist around in his grasp, your fingernails scrambling for purchase on the surface below you. He uses his tongue to pleasure that spot continuously, drawing moans and ever more wetness out of you as if he were controlling the waves in the ocean.

You find yourself coming apart on his extraordinarily long tongue, your legs shaking and then going limp with the pleasure flooding through your body. Your breaths come fast and hard. Yuta lifts his head from between your legs and pulls you carefully into his lap so his slick tentacle is pressing against you. It’s not hard like a dick would be, though it is clearly responsive to your body, and you momentarily wonder if it can even go inside you.

“Is this gonna work?” you ask, a tremor in your voice.

“It will work,” Yuta replies, and you’re not sure how, but you decide to trust him on it. 

It does, to your surprise. With your legs crossed tightly over his lower back, Yuta presses into you, wet and warm and very unexpectedly soft. It doesn’t feel like anything you’ve ever experienced before. It’s not a bad sensation, though—far from it. His tentacle is similar to his tongue in how it flexes and throbs inside you, pressing tight against that spot again and making you shiver in his arms.

You both quickly find a rhythm that works, your bodies moving together in an otherworldly combination of two beings, two species, two souls.

Yuta’s long nails scrape gently against your skin as he holds your back, guiding you on his sex and pushing his hips up into you. You sigh into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, feeling the cool scales underneath your lips. You seek a firm grip on his slick skin, bringing your body as close to his as possible.

“Yuta…” You moan his name. His hand slides to the back of your neck so he can bring your face to his again, kissing you deeply. There’s a wet squelching sound as your bodies connect, Yuta’s tentacle slipping in and out of you and pleasurably stroking your walls.

“Y/N…” Yuta whispers into your soft hair, pushing into your spot repeatedly, his thighs tensing under you as his pace increases. You grip his arms as you feel your orgasm swelling up in your abdomen. You tip your head back and Yuta’s mouth goes to your neck and farther down, his heavy breaths warming your skin and making you overheat from the inside out.

You tighten and cum around him, your voice stuttering out of you in broken gasps as he keeps thrusting into you, drawing your climax out. He pulses inside of you, which sends little shockwaves up your spine; you know he’s probably close, too.

When Yuta comes, there’s a lot more of it than you expected. His cum overflows and drips out of you with a consistency like syrup and a transparent color like precum. It makes the inside of your thighs sticky and shiny.

Yuta pulls out, and more of his cum spills out of you, leaking onto his lap and staining the pier underneath you.

“That’s not gonna get me pregnant, is it?” you say quietly, half-jokingly.

“Probably not,” Yuta chuckles.

“Probably!?”

Yuta carefully gathers you in his arms and stands to his feet, walking you off the pier and back towards the lake house. Your clothes are still on the pier, but you’re quickly getting sleepy and aren’t very worried about it; you’ll get them in the morning.

“What happens now?” Yuta murmurs as he walks up the front steps. You already know he’s referring not just to your relationship in this present moment, but to every event that will make up your future. Does he need to continue hiding, or is it really safe? How long will this last?

You close your eyes, resting your head against his chest. “We stay together.”

Yuta’s arms tighten around you as a silent affirmation of your words.

[theculturedmarxist]

Decolonization is not a metaphor

Kind of sucks for a lot of reasons, many of which I think are illustrated in their section about Occupy Oakland. (pg 25, 26)

As  detailed  by  public  intellectuals/bloggers  such  as Tequila  Sovereign(Lenape  scholar Joanne Barker), some Occupy sites, including Boston, Denver, Austin, and Albuquerque tried to engage  in  discussions  about  the  problematic  and  colonial  overtones  of  occupation  (Barker, October  9,  2011). Barker  blogs  about  a  firsthand  experience  in  bringing  a  proposal  for  a Memorandum  of  Solidarity  with  Indigenous  Peoples,18 to  the  General  Assembly  in  Occupy Oakland.  The memorandum, signed by Corrina Gould, (Chochenyo Ohlone-the first peoples of Oakland/Ohlone), Barker, and numerous other Indigenous and non-Indigenous activist-scholars, called  for  the  acknowledgement  of  Oakland  as  already  occupied  and on stolen  land; of  the ongoing  defiance  by  Indigenous  peoples  in  the  U.S.  and  around  the  globe  against  imperialism, colonialism,  and  oppression;  the  need  for  genuine  and  respectful  involvement  of  Indigenous peoples  in  the  Occupy  Oakland  movement; and  the  aspiration  to  “Decolonize  Oakland,”  rather than  re-occupy  it. From  Barker’s  account  of  the  responses  from  settler  individuals  to  the memorandum,

Ultimately,  what  they  [settler  participants  in  Occupy  Oakland]  were  asking  is whether  or  not  we  were  asking  them,  as  non-indigenous  people,  the impossible? Would their solidarity with us require them to give up their lands, their resources, their ways of life, so that we –who numbered so few, after all –could have more? Could have it all? (Barker, October 30, 2011)

These responses, resistances by settler participants to the aspiration of decolonization in Occupy Oakland, illustrate  the  reluctance  of  some  settlers  to  engage  the  prospect  of  decolonization beyond  the  metaphorical  or  figurative  level. Further,  they  reveal  the  limitations  to  “solidarity,” without  the  willingness  to  acknowledge  stolen  land  and  how  stolen  land  benefits  settlers. “Genuine solidarity with indigenous peoples,” Barker continues, “assumes a basic understanding of  how  histories  of  colonization  and  imperialism  have  produced  and still  produce the  legal  and economic possibility for Oakland” (ibid., emphasis original). 

For  social  justice  movements,  like  Occupy,  to  truly  aspire to  decolonization  non-metaphorically, they would impoverish, not enrich, the 99%+ settler population of United States. Decolonization eliminates settler property rights and settler sovereignty. It requires the abolition of land as property and upholds the sovereignty of Native land and people.

The only thing more shocking than already impoverished people rejecting the call to impoverish themselves further because of events that occurred hundreds of years before they were born is that a majority of the GA supported the endeavor, just not enough for it to actually carry.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON GA: DECOLONIZE

Although I had participated in many of the marches and demonstrations in the fall, including the stunning shutdown of the Port of Oakland, my involvement really began December 4, 2011.  That week, the Sunday GA moved from the evening to 2:00 in the afternoon.  We met in Oscar Grant Plaza (OGP), the Oakland civic center previously named Frank Ogawa Plaza.  It was renamed when it was the site of the OO encampment, which was violently evicted; it was now tenuously claimed by an ongoing 24 hour vigil and the GAs several times a week.

There were a lot of people at this GA.  I had no idea that we would be considering a highly contentious proposal.  A group of Native people were proposing renaming Occupy Oakland—to be called “Decolonize Oakland.”  A term describing colonization and expropriation was not one they wanted to claim for our movement, and they wanted their history acknowledged.

GAs began with an introduction, including the hand signals of approval (twinkling fingers), disapproval (limp fists nicknamed “Quan hands” after our mayor) and impatience (rolling arms to signal time to wrap up a rambling or off-topic speech).  Then we separated into smaller groups for the “forum discussion.”  The topic this week was “What does Occupy mean to you?”  This turned out to be ambiguous and led many groups to focus on the proposed name change.  There were many groups of about twenty people each.  In my group the participants were diverse, respectful and lively.

What was supposed to happen next was report backs about forum discussions, with people summarizing what went on in different groups.   It soon became clear that dozens of people were lining up “on stack” for a chance to speak for or against the motion.  It seemed impossible to maintain the GA agenda structure.  As I remember it, the facilitators took a straw pool to check in about changing the sequence, although some were disgruntled by this procedural move.

I was impressed by the diversity of speakers, the range of opinions, the level of passion and the skill of the two young facilitators.  At one point one of them slowed things down by reminding us all of the emotions expressed at this GA—anger, pride, anxiety, conviction, excitement—I don’t remember the specifics but I remember thinking, “I’ve gone to political meetings for decades and I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone speak explicitly about the feelings in the room.”

The defenders of the Occupy “brand” spoke about the national impact of the shared name, but I remember thinking, “if we can’t even change our name after four months, how can we change the world?”  I even got on stack to say this, but there was a very long line ahead of me and I had to leave before getting a chance (by then the GA had lasted more than three hours).

At that time the operating rules of the GA considered a 90% vote to be a consensus, approving the proposal, and allowed for amendments if 70 to 90% of the group voted in support of a proposal.  I found out later that 68% had voted in favor and that the supporters of Decolonize had separated from OO as result.  A couple of weeks later, on December 16, the GA shifted to the concept of a “living document” that could be amended on the spot, if the proposers agreed.  I wonder whether that GA could have endorsed a compromise hybrid name like Decolonize/Occupy Oakland, and what might have been different if we had–or if we hadn’t been able to even do that.

I was impressed with the GA I attended as a vivid example of “direct democracy.”  At the same time, the damage was evident.  Some supporters of the indigenous people resented disrespectful treatment of their elders, while some of their allies made accusations of racism against the people who wanted to hold onto the name of Occupy.  As I understand it, Decolonize Oakland continued to exist as a separate group and sometimes participated in shared actions with OO, but this GA prevented greater ongoing unity.

(Note: the minutes of this GA can be read at http://occupyoakland.org/2011/12/ga-minutes-12-4-11/  and the proposal can be read at http://occupyoakland.org/2011/12/emergency-proposal-3-on-queue-for-december-4-2011-ga-proposal-to-decolonize-oakland-creating-a-more-radical-movement/)

From the minutes:

F: We’re going to change this topic.  Please discuss: What does this movement mean to you?

The historical context of “occupy” doesn’t fit with the goals of this movement.

Newer people who are just discovering that they are oppressed need to respect the work and presence of those who have already been in the struggle.

People are responding to what we are doing, not to our name.  They are excited about the larger connection to the national movement.

As a daughter of Texas and as a single mom, I think we should stay in keeping with ancestors and elders to rename the space.

We, the congregation of First Christian Church of Oakland,  advocate that this movement be renamed Decolonize Oakland.  We would also advocate for CoExist in Oakland, to embrace all people.

The original intent was to occupy the seat of power.

The term occupy is racist.  In these movements across the country, few people of color are involved.  We have this opportunity to step up.

The history of Wall Street is built on the colonization of the indigenous people, and the slavery of Africans on the land.  The seats of power are within us – we do not need to use the same paradigm of “taking seats of power.”

F: Many people are speaking about a proposal in queue, and are not speaking about the topic, “What does this movement mean to you?”  Please make your comments about the topic.

This must be divine timing.  We did talk about the forum topic.  We accept the concept of “occupy” but we think that it’s time for a change that will reflect everyone’s histories and voices.

In our group, some people liked the term “occupy” because it’s a good brand and it connects to OWS.  We agree that all people’s voices should be heard, but we don’t know how to make decolonize, liberate, and occupy meld together as one.  Some people in our group preferred “liberate” than “decolonize” because “de-“ sounds negative.

This is an opportunity to hold corrupt systems accountable and to protest people who are vulnerable in these systems

F: Let’s see who would like to go straight to the vote?  Who would like to go to pros and cons?  We could try hearing 2 pros and 2 cons.  It seems like many people would like to speak.  We will hear as many as we can.

Pros

I am in support of this proposal as a white person.  I stand in solidarity with all people in the movement. We need to support this proposal on the principle of people who are left out of this movement.

We need to acknowledge that some of us have white privilege.

As Jewish person, I cannot support Palestinian people in a movement named “Occupy.”

We will only be weakened when using the language of our oppressors. The divisiveness here today is a symptom of colonization.  We need to listen to those who are most affected.  Let’s do it.

This language shows how colonized our minds are.  Let’s change the status quo.

I will vote yes on this if the people behind the proposal put their lives into increasing the movement.

I do not want to fly on the coattails of imperialism.

People can understand that we are a part of the global movement, just like “Arab Spring” or “Los Indignados.”

One way that violence is perpetuated is through language.

This issue is not just about indigenous people.  It’s about recognizing the history of the shoulders we stand on.

This proposal has pushed the envelope of this conversation.  It has made you uncomfortable – welcome to my world.  This emergency has been on hold for over 500 years. 

We are more than a brand. Let’s occupy, decolonize, and liberate this.

Cons

Feelings are more important than words.  Words change.  Occupy is used throughout the movement, so we should keep that word. We have broken the process by allowing an emergency proposal to be heard that is not an emergency. 

We have also allowed proposers to speak for 10 minutes.  I am an occupant.  I live here.  I’m not stating an opinion about the name change.  We have not had time to develop this conversation.

[...]

Vote Results:

68.5 % approval: THIS PROPOSAL HAS BEEN TABLED

YES: 198

ABSTAINED: 19

NO: 91

(After some cheering, much confusion and agitation ensued.   Several people started chanting “Decolonize Oakland” for about five minutes.) IMPROMPTU ANNOUNCEMENT(This was said in the midst of the crowd with the People’s Mic, not within the GA process). No matter how you voted, please realize something. Everyone has a place here.  We all need to recognize the power of this conversation.  We want people to come out and be part of Occupy Oakland.  Figure out what you want.  Start listening to the people!  Be about it!  I love you all!! (Another voice…partially muffled – I couldn’t hear everything amidst arguing and people have side conversation). We might  hold our own GA.  Stay connected with us.  We have more work ahead of us.

======================================================

So a movement divided and a bunch of time wasted over a name change because some people didn’t think that their cause was being acknowledged enough. And even after a vote in which most people actually supported the motion and then actually left to form their own Decolonize Oakland group or whatever, they still get libeled as a bunch of callous “settlers”.

Between DINAM and Settlers, if these are the products of Decolonization theory then I can’t see any good in it. It sounds like it wants to pretend to be egalitarian and anti-property, while at the same time privileging one group above all others and ensuring their own property rights to their land, at the expense of everyone else living on it. And yes, at the expense of everyone else living on it:

Not unique, the United States,as a settler colonial nation-state, also operates as an empire-utilizing  external  forms  and  internal  forms  of  colonization  simultaneous  to the  settler  colonial project. This  means,  and  this  is  perplexing  to  some, that  dispossessed  people  are  brought  onto seized   Indigenous   land   through   other   colonial   projects.   Other   colonial   projects   include enslavement,   as   discussed,   but   also   military   recruitment,   low-wage   and   high-wage   labor recruitment     (such     as     agricultural     workers     and     overseas-trained     engineers),     and displacement/migration  (such  as  the  coerced  immigration  from  nations  torn  by  U.S.  wars  or devastated  by  U.S.  economic  policy).  In  this  set  of  settler  colonial  relations,  colonial  subjects who  are  displaced  by  external  colonialism, as  well  as racialized  and  minoritized  by  internal colonialism, still occupy and settle stolen Indigenous land. Settlers are diverse, not just of white European  descent,  and  include  people  of  color,  even  from  other  colonial  contexts.  This  tightly wound  set  of  conditions  and  racialized,  globalized  relations  exponentially  complicates  what  is meant by decolonization, and by solidarity,against settler colonial forces.

So when they’re saying “to support us you have to impoverish all the settlers, ie, everyone that isn’t us,” they’re being very literal. It’s just more bourgeois identity politics cooked up by privileged people in academic institutions.

Into the trash it goes.

[humansofhds]

Amos Jackson III, MDiv ′23

“Healing matters to the oppressed, the disenfranchised, the poor, and the hungry. People can get justice, they can get policies and even resources, but it's the healing that actually helps them to move forward. If an individual gets justice but still carries trauma, are they really obtaining true justice?”

Amos is a first-year master of divinity degree candidate at Harvard Divinity School.

Politics and the Church

I was named after one of the minor prophets in the Bible as well as my father and my grandfather, who was named after his uncle. I'm the fourth generation of my name, but the third in my immediate family. I'm originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, but currently based in the Washington D.C. area. I’ve been here since I started college at Howard University, where I graduated from in 2019 as a double major in political science and African American studies.

I grew up in a non-denominational church and even went to pre-K there, but when I was about 13 we moved to a Baptist church not too far from our house, and that's where I really begun my personal faith journey. Growing up, no matter what happened on a Saturday night, we were going to church on Sunday at 7:45 am in the morning. 

Interestingly, the church was my introduction to politics. I remember that the first time I met a politician was while he was at church campaigning, and I can recall asking myself why politicians frequented the Black church during election season. Because of the influence of my upbringing, and watching how religion played a big role in social movements, I've always had an interest in the intersection of religion and politics. I wanted to know why this intersection was so important to politicians. “Why now? Why here? What purpose does it serve?” 

Seeking the answers to these questions is a big part of the reason I’m now at HDS. I still attend church every Sunday (now virtually) and lead a prayer call for my church every Sunday at 6 pm while also being devoted to the various social justice causes of my church, because I believe that faith requires me to go out of the four walls of the church building and be involved in the community.

Articulating the Value of HBCUs

I initially did not have the desire to attend an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) before I committed to Howard University. It wasn't until I got there that I understood the intellectual and cultural richness of the HBCU experience. The biggest benefit of all was getting my education from an African diasporic lens of learning. In comparison to other schools that might have been providing a Eurocentric or westernized form of education, I was learning about psychology, political science, and other spheres in a way that addressed them not just generally, but also their specific interactions with and effects on Black people.

Having the opportunity to be in a space where I felt comfortable and could unapologetically be myself was such a blessing. I also had the honor of being student body president and becoming an ambassador for my HBCU. HBCUs make up only 3 percent of higher education but produce 50 percent of Black lawyers and doctors. Some of the most exceptional Black leaders in this country—such as Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, Ella Baker, John Lewis, Kamala Harris and so many others—were shaped and highly influenced by their HBCU education, and being able to stand on their shoulders as an HBCU alum is a high honor.

Working on a Historic National Campaign

2018 was a very important year for me. I met the then Senator Kamala Harris at an event in D.C., and I shared with her about the disappointment I had felt the night when the 2016 election results were released. I told her how I had believed my opportunities were crushed in D.C., but the silver lining in it all had been that fact that she was elected that very same night to the United States Senate. And there I was, a year-and-a-half later, asking if I could work for her. She offered me the opportunity, and that summer I started interning in her office. Just days after graduation, I was working as a national political coordinator for her presidential campaign in New Hampshire and Nevada. Fast forward to this past September, when I joined the Biden-Harris campaign as Senator Harris’s deputy political director. These opportunities have been endless, and I attribute this to my HBCU education providing me a pathway to work for an alumna of my institution. I do, in a way, see politics as a ministry, and I am grateful that I can now answer the questions I had as a child about why religion was significant for politics. I am seeing firsthand the extent to which society is driven by their social, religious, and moral views, and I'm just saying, that really matters. 

The Road That Led to HDS

While in college I had also done an internship with the Center for Responsible Lending, which had a program called the Faith & Credit Roundtable. Part of the work we did there was train clergy to go to Capitol Hill and advocate for their parishioners and congregations regarding economic issues like payday lending, predatory lending, fair housing, and student loan debt, particularly in the Black community which, compared to other communities, has a very high debt-to-wealth ratio. Seeing the impact of that work awakened my aspirations, and I said to myself, “I can do this. I want to do this.” Incidentally, one of the directors of that program had received her master of divinity degree at Duke Divinity. She was the one that advised me to think about the possibility of attending divinity school. I, however, was under the impression that divinity school was only for those who wanted to preach or become a pastor, so I was really blind to all the opportunities that divinity school could bring. I did however end up applying to a few divinity schools, and ultimately Harvard. What solidified the decision for me was knowing that HDS provided the opportunity to take classes in all the different schools. So, if I wanted to see how religion affected public policy, I would have the Kennedy School. If I wanted to see how it affected business, I would have the Business School. If I wanted to see how it affected law and social justice, I would have the Law School. Therefore, making the choice to be in an institution that would enrich me in all of these capacities was a no-brainer.

Smelling the Roses

Something I’ve been reflecting on lately is that one of the biggest things we can do as students of ministry is to understand how healing works, and that it takes a communal effort to heal. Healing matters to the oppressed, the disenfranchised, the poor and the hungry. People can get justice, they can get policies and even resources, but it's the healing that actually helps them to move forward. If an individual gets justice, but still carries trauma, are they really obtaining true justice? People always ask me if I have plans to run for office, but I don't know about all that. I just love doing the work. If it provides an opportunity, sure; but that's not a goal of mine. I just want to pursue God's will for my life, and whatever that brings, I will take. I’m at the school I’ve always wanted to go to, doing the work that I always dreamed of doing, meeting the people I’ve always wanted to meet. So, I'm just trying to enjoy the moment right now, and be grateful and settled in the blessings that God has put in my life.

Interview by Suzannah Omonuk; photos courtesy of Amos Jackson III

[jeyne-stark]

Compliment Theon, Robb, and Sansa

Sansa:

thirteen-year-old me took one look at that TV show my father was watching, saw s1 Sansa, made the absolutely galaxy-brained call that she was my favorite character and was going to Win, and I have not had cause to be wrong about her since! I love how clever she is, even from the beginning—yeah, she’s disastrously wrong on a couple of calls, but it’s not like she’s the only person who makes bad calls (NED.) and she judges several situations correctly (like knowing that backing Arya during Nymeriagate would not end well for her)—and how much she loves stories and how she deserved so, so much better than basically every single adult she interacts with, because she’s failed by literally all of them. definitely not projection. I love how careful she’s shown to be with food supplies; logistics are so, so important during war and she knows first-hand what happens when people are left to starve. I love how much she cares about her people and her family, I love her loyalty to her people, her land, and her family. I love how she’s the one who initiates physical affection even after Fucking Everything, and I love how affectionate she is!

Robb:

made Tywin Lannister, the richest man on the continent, the one who nobody dared to cross because he’d wiped out entire houses before, run scared because Robb was kicking his butt seventeen ways to Sunday, y’all remember that, right? Tywin literally had to attack Robb when he was unarmed, without his wolf, and eating his dinner under the protection of guest-right in order to kill him. I love how much more extra Robb is than he gets credit for. Mostly, I love how he’s just…so fundamentally Good, and how he doesn’t lose that even while he’s fighting a war because it’s just so deeply ingrained into every aspect of who he is. He’s kind and caring and honorable, and he never loses that. I also love how much he and Sansa love each other, we deserved a Robb&Sansa reunion and a reunion hug.

Theon: 

ah yes, my disaster boy. I love his visible-from-orbit praise kink and his utter inability to handle any emotions, and how much he loves his mother, and I love his incredibly complicated and thorny emotions about both the Starks and the Greyjoys. He’s just…he’s trying so hard to be a good/worthy/deserving person, but he’s got two incredibly different and conflicting models of what that even is, he’s got two moral compasses pointing in two different directions, and I know from firsthand experience how hard that is to balance, and I have a bunch of good emotional support that Theon doesn’t have. Also, he’s about the only man in the series who cares about sexual assault enough to specifically order his men not to do that. I love how he’s trying desperately to hold on during the course of season 2, and how everything he does makes the situation worse, and you can see his standards for success slipping all the way down to “die well”—and then he can’t even do that. I love how he redeems himself, and how he’s healing from getting tortured and reclaiming his identity from a world that did and is doing its damnedest to take it away from him.

[a-queer-seminarian]

Edited March 30, 2020

__________

currently thinking about how Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem was hailed and celebrated by the people -- how they shouted “hosanna,” an exclamation of adoration and praise; how they waved palms and spread their cloaks for his arrival........and then turned on him. let the Romans take him and torture him and brutally execute him.

and how because this happened to Jesus, he knows intimately what it feels like when similar things happen to us. when we are welcomed at first and then, when we fail to meet expectations, we are vilified and thrown out -- Jesus gets it. God really, truly, has been there.

a Black woman is employed by a church as part of a diversity initiative, and is welcomed by all -- until she starts pointing out things that need to change, pervasive issues of racism and misogyny and cissexism that should be addressed. excitement sours into resentment, openness into anger; she is ostracized, treated rudely, isolated until the environment becomes so toxic she leaves. she is blamed for the way things “didn’t work out.”

parents promise their son their love is unconditional; he grows up hearing the promise to “love him no matter what.” but these parents are also not quiet about making their anti-gay views known. he has to wonder -- will that unconditional love survive him going out?

a trans person comes out to their loved ones, who express support, a willingness to learn and a promise to work on the new name and pronouns. but months pass by and those loved ones are still misgendering them and growing more and more frustrated, not at themselves but at the trans person -- “Why are you making life so hard?” “Why can’t you just be normal?” “Why would you even want to change your body like that?”

a congregant comes out to her pastor and some of the elders of the church, who respond with compassion and a promise that she’ll always be welcome at the church. the congregant is relieved, and even emboldened to bring her girlfriend to church a few weeks later. but the pastor and some church members confront her, horrified -- “you can’t hold hands with another woman in a place of God!” “This is not okay! If you’re going to act on your desires, we will have to take severe action.” She realized that when the pastor promised her welcome, he’d assumed she would remain “celibate”...she goes home disillusioned brokenhearted. Church will never feel safe again, she tells her girlfriend.

i and people i love dearly have lived through some of these scenarios, and that kind of pain seeps into your psyche and nests in your bones.

but i do find comfort in knowing that my God has been there too -- that the God who throughout the scriptures professed to know, really know the pain and suffering of Their people (e.g. Exodus 3:7) did experience it firsthand. it breaks my heart that Jesus, whom i love, knows this pain too....but it also brings me comfort. because he gets it -- he really, really gets it.

and the God who knows, who sees, who feels with us, is a God whose power is compassion, suffering with and being moved to act -- God does not leave us alone when faith communities abandon us; God shares our pain when others afflict us; and God will act to make things right.

as we enter Holy Week, i plan to meditate more on Jesus’ pain -- the pain of rejection, of having loved ones turn on you, of being handed over to torture and death -- and offer my deepest gratitude for that ultimate act of solidarity with all whom the world rejects and tortures.

thank you, Jesus. you share our suffering always -- give me the courage to try to share your suffering with you, so that i may be moved to act for all who suffer today.

________________

So. I wrote this little reflection during Holy Week last year. We are now approaching Holy Week once again. I will be preaching (via the internet) at my home church this Palm Sunday, and so naturally I remembered, “Oh, I wrote a little something about Palm Sunday before, let’s dig that up and see if it was any good!”

I re-read what I wrote below, and was aghast. embarrassed. ashamed.

Because what I wrote has the same kind of antisemitic tinge to it that has enabled hate crimes against Jewish communities across the centuries.

“But I didn’t say ‘the Jews killed Jesus’ -- I made it clear that Romans are the ones who executed him!!” Sure, but I clearly imply that his Jewish community “let” the Romans kill him; I literally used the language “they turned on him” and rejected him.

When I wrote this piece just last year, I was so sure I was a Good Christian who Knew About The Dangers of Antisemitism In Christianity -- I patted myself on the back for knowing that the Romans are the ones who actually tortured and crucified Jesus. But I wrote this! Even while checking over everything I wrote and thought about Passion Week in particular, being aware of the horrific violent history of this week, this not-even-subtle antisemitic thinking completely flew past me.

What antisemitism continues to lurk in my theology, unchecked?

I think I’m ~so good~ at noticing antisemitism and other dangerous bigotry embedded in my beliefs and language. Clearly, I’m not.

This post spoke to a lot of people, you can see in the comments on it. Last year, I was happy to have moved them with my words. Now, I blush, knowing I let antisemitic thinking spread.

Now, I have no clue how to rethink the Passion narrative that is so central to my faith but so corrupted by antisemitism. How do we read the stories of Jesus being handed over to death without being antisemitic? We can remind the listeners that “The Jews” of Jesus’s days don’t = the Jewish communities that came after them and that continue today. We can remind the listeners that Jesus and his friends were also Jewish, and his was an intra-community struggle. But I don’t think that’s enough.

I have to preach in just six days about Palm Sunday -- a Triumphalist passage if there ever was one! How do I preach it without indicting “the Jews”? Especially now, in this time of pandemic, when people will be expecting my message to be about that very immediate crisis, rather than the timeless crisis of antisemitism in our scripture.

If anyone has articles for me, thoughts for me, I’m all ears. Here are a couple resources I’ve got so far:

I just downloaded an ebook called Jesus Wasn’t Killed by the Jews: Reflections for Christians in Lent

An article about the “Moneychangers in the Temple” that Matthew’s Gospel shows Jesus “driving out” directly after the Palm Sunday scene

A church’s reflection on Passion Week

“A Note on ‘The Jews’ in Palm Sunday’s Passion Reading”

I especially appreciate any Jewish person’s perspective, but don’t expect it -- I know y’all don’t owe me anything. I am deeply sorry for my role in perpetuating antisemitism, and I’m going to be working on doing better.

[scgdoeswhat]

Ethan and becket are both forced but at least with Ethan there’s a reason he appears so much. He’s her amazing mentor in my play or shitty boss in your play. But Becky literally hates the pen pals and it doesn’t make sense to appear if you’re not romancing him.

As someone who has also played TE (albeit with shortened versions because let’s face it, I’m Beckett trash and I can’t go two seconds without missing him) with a third MC who thinks Beckett is a fucking asshole dick, my first reaction was “why the fuck is Beckett hanging around so much if I’m picking every nasty option and want to kick his ass into Sunday?” With that mindframe, the only conclusion I could make was that Beckett was a total loner and loser, so yes it makes absolutely no sense that he’s around ever. 

… except that the plot does need him because he was the dumbass who opened the wards in Book 1 and was the only one who could rescue MC in Book 2 through teleportation.

He is still one of the few LIs you can be totally nasty with and I know from firsthand experience and from others that the interaction with Beckett varies greatly on the dialogue you choose. If you’re antagonistic the whole time, well, of course you’re always going to get the worst response from him.

That being said, I still don’t know why he would be hanging around in the first place and I’ve voiced these opinions to friends through other chat apps. Again, the only conclusion I have in this type of playthrough is that he’s a total loner and loser. 

(Sidenote - My second MC [some of you may remember plain Jane] was fine and picked all neutral options fwiw. It was like “oh cool, friend who happens to be a dude.”)

I think what troubles me with Ethan is that they’ve taken the forced LI to another level. In my playthrough, he isn’t a shitty boss at all and I’ve set him up as a mentor. I know a lot of people who aren’t romancing Ethan and between the scenes in Miami and the “have sex only” option from Book 1, plus the “longing gazes” in Book 2, these actions have made them uncomfortable and hence why I said what I did. 

I also think what makes OH2 feel worse is that they’ve seemingly taken Rafael off the table as an LI and Aurora looks to be just a roommate all the while giving Ethan a potential of … four different looks (glasses and beard combos) and diamond scenes in every chapter, if not multiple ones.

I’ve headcanoned that Dr. Feelgood manipulates Ethan’s feelings because he can since he’s a straight, chaotic bastard, but the 30 diamond sex scene from book one? I wouldn’t have minded having the option to get drunk and hang out without the sex being the only thing. 

I know people won’t hear me out on this, whether it’s from me being known as LiKe tHe UlTiMaTe BeCkEtT StAn EVARRR or from being protective of Ethan, but I don’t mind Ethan as a character at all. Feelgood would just appreciate it if he stepped off just a tad bit because he doesn’t feel him like that and he just wants to hang out with his other friends.

[mossyrossaliceinterviews]

Thao Nguyen Doesn’t Stay Down

Oct 8, 2020

By Mossy Ross

 Photo Credit: Shane McCauley

When I first listened to the title track off Thao & the Get Down Stay Down’s fifth album, Temple, I immediately hit repeat. After I finished listening to it the second time, I hit repeat again. And then again. And then again. I had a teenage urge to learn all the lyrics, so I could sing along at the top of my voice while cruising down the road. The song describes the pain of losing a home to war, an experience many of us haven’t lived through in America, and yet I still felt a deep personal connection with the song’s powerful message. Perhaps because this country is currently facing such extreme civil unrest, so the thought of experiencing war firsthand is increasingly becoming more real. But the song also touches on the turmoil we can sometimes feel in our own family lives as well. Thao Nguyen seems to be a master at crafting albums that exquisitely make complicated and painful matters a bit easier to bear.

Thao recently won a Sunny Award by CBS Sunday Morning (my most favorite of all morning shows) for the music video to her song “Phenom.” Not only is the video wildly creative and entertaining, it conveys an intergenerational rage that’s finally being collectively realized. It’s the rage of someone who has discovered it’s okay to feel sick of constantly being at the bottom of the ladder, and the message should strike fear in the hearts of corrupt politicians everywhere.

As if a timeless and timely new album and an award winning music video weren’t enough, I was triply astounded after watching the documentary Nobody Dies (available to stream Sat., Oct. 10), which follows Thao on a journey with her mom to Vietnam. The trip was Thao’s first visit to Vietnam, and her mom’s first time back since fleeing the country in 1973. It was a chance for Thao to see her mother in an environment where she wasn’t defined by being a refugee, as she often is in America. In both the documentary and the album, Thao paints a picture we don’t often see in American popular culture: the perspective of a child whose parents have lived through and escaped war.

Mossy: I watched your documentary, and it was such a beautiful tribute to your mom. Is there anything about your mother’s life and experiences that really stand out for you, that you think Americans could learn from?

TN: When I wrote Temple, it was because I wanted to offer a different narrative and rendering of someone who experienced war, and the idea of what a refugee is. And obviously in recent years, maybe throughout American history, how refugees have been reduced and the narrative that has been relayed. I think it’s really important to remember that there’s a distinction between an immigrant and a refugee. And also that someone is not just defined by this war that happened to them and their country. I think that’s why Temple was so important for me. I really wanted to capture my mom’s life before, after, and during; and just help enrich that community. I was raised in Virginia, and growing up, it was so stark the way people treated (refugees). I think that parents that are refugees or immigrants witness a lot of incredibly unfortunate encounters, where their dignity is dismissed. You watch your parents be dehumanized in either casual ways, or really serious ways. So this was one of my efforts to address and make peace with that.

Mossy: When I was watching your documentary I found myself smiling. And then I got to the story about your dad and I just started bawling. What parallels do you see between your father and the patriarchy at large?

TN: That’s an interesting question. My record before this one was about my dad. It’s called A Man Alive, and it’s just about our nonexistent relationship and all the bullshit. But what I started to understand when I was making that record, was just a facet of what it is to be emasculated in American society. And what that means for the families of the men who are emasculated. And I think that you see that a lot, especially in immigrant and refugee homes. And others, I mean, I’m only speaking from my experience. But what does a man do to assert power when he feels as though he’s denied power in society? I think it becomes a really personal and intimate, familial problem. And you know, it helps me understand his experience and what unresolved trauma that basically debilitates him, and renders him an irresponsible, reckless person. Patriarchy in general…I do think so much of it is people not knowing how to grapple with the expectations of masculinity. I could go on. (Laughs) I’ll just say it’s so detrimental in every direction, because if you’re not masculine enough, you will pay and then someone else will pay. And if you feel as though you’re  not respected enough, then the ways that men feel pressured to illicit that respect in our society is so deadly.

Mossy: You said in the documentary that when you went back to Vietnam, it helped you understand your dad’s temperament. That you understood it…but you didn’t. It’s like saying, “I do understand where you’re coming from and I empathize, but I don’t accept how you’re treating me because of it.” Which I feel is kind of where true healing from trauma can begin. How else do you deal with trauma?

TN: Well there have been different waves of awareness and lack of awareness of what I needed to be doing. I mean, I’ve done the typical things like drinking. (Laughs) I think touring helped. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life on tour, and it’s a refuge. But it also allows you to not deal with anything for a really long time. You could go your whole life without dealing with things. Of course, songwriting and making music. And really wanting to go there lyrically by being more specific with lyrics. Okay, and then therapy. But as far as music is concerned, I think it’s been really helpful to have these songs and talk about them, even under the auspice of promotion. But it’s also just connecting with people and talking about the songs. These levels of vulnerability make for a lot more humane experience. When we play live shows , if people get a chance, they’ll come up and tell me what a song has meant. And it really is so heartening and gratifying, and part of the healing.

Mossy: So you’re saying drinking didn’t work?!

TN: (Laughs) I still do it, so I’m not saying it doesn’t. Just don’t go crazy!

Photo Credit: Shane McCauley

Mossy: You have such a wonderful vocabulary, so I’m guessing you like to read. Who are you favorite authors?

TN: Thanks for saying that. Writing and reading favorite authors are how I prepare the albums and the songs. And when I’m writing songs, I never listen to music, and I only read. But I love, oh man, I grew up reading Toni Morrison and her way with language and the vivid pictures she paints and the way she renders people. Grace Paley is another writer who’s style I love. Marilynne Robinson. George Saunders. I typically am drawn to contemporary literature. And now there’s a lot of reading to be done to learn about how America has become what it is. And to that end, Octavia Butler and James Baldwin really influenced the writing of this record.

Mossy: So you’re like Kurt Cobain over here, writing songs inspired by literature.

TN: (Laughs) I wish I had a cool sweater.

Mossy: Ah, he had the best sweaters.

TN: He had the best sweaters.

Mossy: I saw on your Instagram that you support women prisoners and Critical Resistance. Why are you specifically interested in these causes?

TN: With the California Coalition of Women Prisoners, I’ve been involved with them since 2013. Originally it was because a housemate of mine was an amazing organizer, and has been with them for years. And I was home from tour for awhile and he asked me to join this advocacy group, where we went in to prisons and visited, and we were part of a legal advocacy team. So the album, We the Common is entirely about and in tribute to these people who live inside, and this organization.

Mossy: Do you need to have a law degree to do that? I wanna do that!

TN: (Laughs) You totally can! No you don’t have to have a law degree. So the people like my friend…they don’t officially have a law degree. They just know so much about the system, because they’re constantly trying to help people figure out their parole, and how to get their face back in front of a judge. So we went in conjunction with a lawyer. We were just a team that was basically working with a pro-bono lawyer.

Mossy: You mentioned connection and live performance in your documentary. How do you think the musical performance landscape is going to change since the pandemic?

TN: I don’t know what’s going to happen to the venues as they exist now. I don’t know what kind of modifications or concessions they’ll have to make. So I do think that there will be more unconventional and nontraditional venues that come up by the time we’re ready for crowds to gather. And I think there will be more multi-use spaces and art institutions and contemporary art museums. More of those kind of hybrid events. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the rock clubs. It’s so sad. But I do think that we were barreling towards a reckoning. And I liken the music industry to the restaurant industry in a lot of ways…how thin the margin is for survival. And I think people will play smaller shows, because they can happen more quickly. And I think there’s going to be a lot more direct to fan engagement. And those who have a preexisting fan base will lean more into those fans, and be less concerned with expanding.

Mossy: It’s almost like what’s happening in the music industry is symbolic of what needs to happen everywhere. More localizing and community building.

TN: Totally. And I think Bandcamp is going to take an even stronger role as leaders of a more ethical model. I think what’s happening right now with streaming services is, ah, (laughs) unbearable.

Keep up with Thao’s music and the organizations she supports on Instagram at @thaogetstaydown Stream the documentary Nobody Dies this Saturday at https://www.youtube.com/user/thaomusic

[adhdrummer]

Sheep, Sheepdogs,Shepherds, and COVID-19

My church has recently finished a sermon series over the 23 Psalm. Not only was it especially timely during such a national crisis as the corona virus, but I believe it’s an especially applicable message for those that shoulder the burden of having to lead us, especially those who lead us in the church. As the daughter of a pastor, I see firsthand the grief, the stress, and the pressure that pastors are under during this unprecedented time; they agonize whether to open, whether not to open, wishing their parishioners would simply trust the leadership that they’ve chosen and their leaders that have been placed there. During my church’s sermon series of the 23rd Psalm, our pastor provided a lot of historical and cultural context behind the task that shepherds at the time were to endure to protect and care for their flocks. (For clarification, my pastor does not happen to be my father, but I see all of the pressure my father is under and assume my pastor is under the same.) It’s made me realize that while Jesus is our shepherd and we continue to be dumb sheep that have no sense of what is good for us, it is our pastors that are the sheepdogs: working for our Shepherd as they try to lead us towards what is safe and good and right. So first, I’d like to address our pastors.

Dear Sheepdogs, I can only imagine the type of pressure that you are under right now (although, as the daughter of a pastor, I get to witness it secondhand). I know that as our pastors, you have continually tried to do what is right and what is in our best interests, not only during this pandemic of Covid-19, but throughout your careers/callings. First of all, I’d like to thank you. Thank you for your prayerful leadership, for your compassion, and your willingness to serve in a time that is stressful to say the least and to serve a people that don’t always treat you the best.  

There are a lot of great things about sheepdogs. One of their best characteristics is that they are there to protect the sheep that they have been placed in charge of. Sheep are known to have very poor depth perception. They can’t see in front of their noses, and have to rely on smell and sound to even be able to locate their mothers/babies amongst the flock. Just as sheep can’t see beyond their own noses, I’m afraid that a large majority of members of the church are the same way. Church members—you have to be able to see past your own noses. Your stubbornness and inability to think of the consequences of your impatience and your unwillingness to trust your pastors could quite simply end up killing you or someone else. Someone you sit with on Sundays. Someone you take communion with or pray with.

Another thing about sheep is that they are incredibly SELFISH creatures. Their first instinct is to surround themselves by the others in their herd so that they can put others between themselves and the threat. They don’t want  anything to happen to themselves, so they move as far to the middle of the herd as possible to put as many sheep between themselves and the threat. This is something else that has been sadly prevalent amongst church-goers and their attitudes towards reopening and their pastors. Yes, you may have the right to not wear a mask, but by refusing to wear one, you are putting not only yourself but your friends, your family, and your fellow Christians at risk. Church members are committing the equivalent of placing their most vulnerable friends, family, and community members between themselves and a wolf, all in the name of their “personal freedom.” This is where the sheepdog comes in. Sheepdogs work to protect all of the sheep; the sheep in the middle that are protected by the rest of the group, the most vulnerable sheep that are on the outside of the flock, and all of the rest. Just as the sheepdog commits maneuvers and movements to protect all of the sheep, so do our pastors. Instead of sacrificing the most vulnerable members that are older, sick, and more, pastors are doing their best to keep their vulnerable parishioners safe. The fact that pastors are not opening the physical doors of their churches is their way to circle the wagons and protect their flock. In my experience, the ones that are the most vocal about opening the physical doors of the church building are those that are older and the most vulnerable to COVID-19. That’s like the most vulnerable sheep in the flock complaining to the sheep dog for not letting them be exposed to the wolf.

The fact of the matter is that the sheepdog is the direct line of communication between the shepherd and his sheep. The role of the sheepdog is to lead the sheep in the way that their shepherd believes is best. This is the role that our pastors have over their congregations; they are delivering messages that are inspired by God to us and we are to trust their leadership when they are leading us in responsible ways. We as sheep are selfish, impulsive, and stupid creatures that continually want to do things that are against our own best interest. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t want to have to deal with the responsibility, the pressure, and the blow back that our pastors are having to deal with right now. We need to remember that our sheepdogs have our best interests at heart, and that they are in an extremely precarious situation. To my fellow sheep, let’s trust our sheepdogs to keep us safe, to make the right decisions, and to protect us from our own selfishness and stupidity. The Shepherd knew what he was doing in putting them in charge.  

[glompcat]

TROS thoughts - you thought I was done talking about this movie? Really? REALLY?

Something I really really appreciated was how the overarching thread of Ben’s arc was that it all came down to his own choices. That he was responsible for his own actions.

By having that second scene with Han (which we all know would have in a better timeline have been with his mother, but they took what they were given by the universe at large and made it work) so totally echo their scene together in TFA, we are immediately reminded in full that Ben’s pain and suffering could have ended in his very first film. That the only reason it didn’t, that all the pain he caused for both others and himself ever happened, was his own choice.

We are expressly immediately reminded throughout the film that when Sheev comes a’calling, you don’t have to listen. That you can say no, turn away and either stay in/return to the light.

I am reminded of how a few months ago MSNBC ran a limited documentary series that aired on Sunday evenings called “Breaking Hate,” named after a book with the same name. I watched the series but have never read the book, so I can comment on one and not the other.

Breaking Hate followed a man named Christian Picciolini, who is also the author of the book.

Rather than describe him and what he does myself, here is the description of the book and its author: 

Today's extremist violence surges into our lives from what seems like every direction -- vehicles hurtling down city sidewalks; cyber-threats levied against political leaders and backed up with violence; automatic weapons unleashed on mall shoppers, students, and the faithful in houses of worship. As varied as the violent acts are the attackers themselves -- neo-Nazis, white nationalists, the alt-right, InCels, and Islamist jihadists, to name just a few. In a world where hate has united communities that traffic in radical doctrines and rationalize their use of violence to rally the disaffected, the fear of losing a loved one to extremism or falling victim to terrorism has become almost universal. Told with startling honesty and intimacy, Breaking Hate is both the inside story of how extremists lure the unwitting to their causes and a guide for how everyday Americans can win them-and our civil democracy-back. Former extremist Christian Picciolini unravels this sobering narrative from the frontlines, where he has worked for two decades as a peace advocate and "hate breaker." He draws from the firsthand experiences of extremists he has helped to disengage, revealing how violent movements target the vulnerable and exploit their essential human desires, and how the right interventions can save lives. Along the way, Picciolini solves the puzzle of why extremism has come to define our era, laying bare the ways in which modern society-from "fake news" and social media propaganda to coded language and a White House that inflames rather than heals-has polarized and radicalized an entire generation. Piercing, empathetic, and unrestrained, Breaking Hate tells the sweeping story of the challenge of our time and provides a roadmap to overcoming it.

Essentially this man has devoted his life to helping violent White Supremacists find a way home. 

He opened most every episode of his show explaining that he gets a lot of messages from family members and former friends and loved ones, begging him to reach the people they lost to these movements. To find them, the real them, the them they still love, and bring them back. He also would explain, over and over, how he really can only reach those who want to be found, but there are ways to look for those openings, make the needed connections and in the end help someone recover their humanity. 

He even worked with people who had contacted him for disingenuous reasons. He didn’t turn them away even when he knew the only reason he was there was to make them look better for an upcoming trial. After all, if he had a chance, even the slightest chance, of getting through to them, of actively reducing the number of White Supremacists in this world, he wanted to take it.

In each episode he’d interweave a story about someone other than his current active case. Often about a young man whose involvement in these movements resulted in his death or a lifetime in prison. He’d study what led that man there, and interview their family and former friends. Try to figure out what led them to where they wound up.

Picciolini never makes any secret of the fact that he himself used to be a White Supremacist. He used that as a tool to reach these lost people, the fact he had read and understood all the same propaganda bullshit arguments they were mired in, and more importantly that he was a living example that there was indeed a path out and a life possible after.

I bring this up because we live in a very particular moment right now, and one of the things the men he worked with often spoke about on the show was that one of the motivating factors that drew them deeper and deeper into that hate filled world was a sense that once you’ve done or committed to certain things, there is no going back. 

They often would not realize just how evil they had become until they hit some sort of tipping point, and once they were at that point they would either double down due to a fear there was no recovering once you are at that place, or they would wake up and do the very very hard work needed to claw their way out of the hate. 

Not all of them recovered. 

Not all of the people who managed to leave White Supremacy had people who still loved them waiting for them on the other side, and not all of the people whose stories ended in death or conviction were without loving people waiting for them to wake up and return home one day.

I was reminded of that in Ben’s story.

His choices were framed as his own. 

The bridge scene could have gone a different way. 

The text of the film expressly tells us that no one, absolutely no one at all, was to blame for every single bit of pain and suffering we saw him both incur and feel - at the very least from the moment of that bridge scene onwards. A viewer can extrapolate and apply that out as they see fit (and I would argue that the Dark Side is ALWAYS framed as a CHOICE and that this movie is very clear there is never ever any blaming others for those actions), but the film expressly told us that at least for that span of time - almost the entirety of of his existence as a character - his choice was his own.

What reached him, really reached him, was Compassion.

Both his mother’s and Rey’s.

More than that, it was being shown that another choice was possible. That you can always truly find a path out of the Dark and into the Light, simply by making the right choices.  

Rey couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t, kill him in the moment of his mother’s death. Striking a killing blow at that time simply was not right, was not fair, and so she could not do it. It was terribly kind, and showed him the incredible power that exists in compassion as opposed to hate. He had already seen her struggle, already knew her blood was Sith tainted, far more than his own, that she heard the same siren call to the Dark he did and had to fight against it all the time. And yet she still chose compassion. 

In Attack of the Clones, Ben Solo’s grandfather told us that Compassion is central to a Jedi’s life.

There is nothing more defining of the Light than compassion.

Ben had lied to himself, convinced himself that he had made his bed and had to lie in it.

Yet here was a Jedi, descended from Darth Sidious himself, someone he had seen shoot lightning out of her hands in a moment of passion so recently... choosing to so firmly stay in the Light.

Ultimately it is up to you if you forgive Ben. By having him sacrifice himself the way he did (in the end he was a support in Rey’s story more than anything else. His own story culminating in him simply being part of Rey’s story - literally fading out of existence once that role was fulfilled) he, like his grandfather, became a figure others would have to reckon with in his absence.

Personally I think it is telling his ghost was not seen with his mother’s and his uncle’s at the end.

Luke saw his father standing with Obi-Wan and Yoda, yet Rey did not see Ben with her two Jedi Masters. 

That to me suggests that she never did truly forgive him in full. The kiss, no more than a thank you and goodbye, gave the closure they both needed at the end. It was not an absolution.

In the end Ben managed to finish what his grandfather started. He got what he most wanted - to build upon his legacy and do what he did just in his own way.

He gave up his life so that the actual hero of the piece, the Seed of the Jedi Order, could live.

Did she forgive him for everything he had done?

I think the fact his ghost wasn’t in the final scene very loudly suggests that she didn’t.

Did the movie expect you to forgive him for everything?

No more than you were expected to forgive Vader, and goodness knows grappling with who he was and his legacy is the pillar upon which this entire franchise is built.

Was this a “redemption” arc?

I don’t know. I don’t think so, not in full. It wasn’t that simple or easy, really. He died so soon after his turn back to the light, so just like it was for his grandfather the real hard work needed for a true redemption was still unfilled.

Ultimately I don’t think the way his story was executed empowers glorifies or forgives fascism, in fact I think just the opposite. It shows how weak it is. It reminds those who need to hear it that there is a pathway home. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be simple, but there is a life possible after Hate.

I don’t think it was perfectly executed and am sure there are ways of reading and framing it that argue the exact opposite of my own take away.

But I also feel, in truth, that it is silly to imagine there are people who are ok with the way Vader was handled in ROTJ and not Kylo in TROS. Their arcs are too similar, and to claim their stories carry two entirely different messages seems strange to me.

***before anyone discourses on this post I want to point out that I the OP am among many other things the child of a Holocaust Survivor. Any sort of suggestion that I in any way support fascism will result in you being blocked and your comment deleted. Don’t you dare act as if I haven’t had the pain of what these movements do mapped onto my life in the most intimate ways possible. Do not twist my words to pretend I expressed anything above that in any way endorses those mindsets or movements. I know how discourse on this site works, and I want no part of it. So just... no.

[oceanmastertrash]

the tides know our names- 16/?

Summary:   After losing the throne to his brother Orm is working with Arthur to try to help Atlantis move forward. A few months after this Elara, part of an ancient order of prescient Atlanteans known as Tidewatchers, has a vision of Orm’s death. Predicting and reading the future through the tides of fate has never been easy but Elara is in for the challenge of a lifetime working with her former king to save his life.

Part: 16/?

Word Count: 5,182

Warnings: none.

Read on Ao3

start from the beginning

Author’s Note: Alright this is the last chapter for today, this one is brand new! enjoy the binge my lovelies!

“Madren messaged you,” Orm clarified, equal parts apprehensive and intrigued.

“Yep,” Elara said. “And she wants to meet you.”

Orm stared back at Elara, completely unsure if that was a good or a bad thing.

-

According to Elara, Madren was currently running the Tidewatcher sanctuary in Guatemala. Orm would have preferred to just swim there but, also according to Elara, there were a couple obstacles to that plan. First and foremost the sanctuary was on the opposite coast of Central America than their current location in Belize. Secondly, given what Henrik had told them about the tracking method Black Manta and Dr. Shin were employing, it was in their best interest to stay on land for the time being.

Orm was apprehensive about leaving the shore entirely and fully immersing into life on the surface. The reality of tackling land travel was also something he had no experience with. Elara had some knowledge but she still had to use an internet cafe to nail down the details of their travel and acquired a cheap prepaid phone to better book their surface transportation.

She also changed out of her bloody garments so as to be less conspicuous. It did Orm better than he would like to admit to see her in her fresh clothes. Elara was not the sort to look fragile, wounded though she was, but it comforted him to see her look put back together in a sense. For her part, Elara took comfort in it, she still ached and smarted if she moved the wrong way but she felt less exposed without a literal gaping hole in her shirt.

Elara contemplated renting a car for their travels, as she did have some limited driving lessons but ultimately decided, given some of the weaving of the path, they’d be better off taking public transportation. It would be a long day and a meandering journey. Elara was certain that Orm would suffer quite a bit of frustration and annoyance from the surface dwellers but there was no way to avoid that at this point.

By now the sun was setting and they decided they would begin their journey in the morning. Elara found a motel for them. It was small and probably nowhere near the standards Orm was used to but it had two beds and he at least recognized their need for rest. Elara was exhausted and while her Atlantean healing and the meds from the clinic were helping with the pain of her injuries, she knew she needed some downtime to try to recuperate.

They stayed up a little while longer as Elara did her best to explain surface concepts like the bus system they’d be employing to get to Madren and the credit card she used for most of their purchases as well as her scant knowledge of the currencies she had. Orm thought it all more complicated than it should be but at her argument, conceded that Atlantis and all it’s kingdoms and politics would no doubt befuddle outsiders as well.

After their strenuous day, Elara fell asleep fairly quickly. Orm didn’t like the idea of them both sleeping at the same time surrounded by surface dwellers on all sides but Elara had insisted that the tides would wake her if anyone were to try anything and they should both rest while they can. Orm struggled with this idea. Letting his guard down was not anything that came easy to him, especially not considering they’d already been attacked that day by a surface dweller.

Ultimately though, fatigue won out and Orm fell asleep listening to the sound of Elara breathing. It wasn’t the most restful sleep by far but it was more than he’d expected. It was not particularly lengthy either, because before too long, they were woken by an annoying melody from the cell phone Elara had purchased. It was an alarm she’d set to ensure they would get up early enough to catch the bus. While such an alarm was useful, it was very irritating and Orm loathed it on principle.

They grabbed something to eat at a nearby cafe and then waited at the bus station. Elara had explained that the bus system they were using had many other stops on the way until it eventually stopped closer to the center of Guatemala where they would then catch a smaller bus for a short stint to the town closest to the Tidewatcher sanctuary. There weren’t as many people getting on the bus this early but Elara knew they would have a lot of contact with a lot of people by the time the day was over.

Elara had booked them on one of more luxury liners instead of what the locals referred to as ‘chicken busses’ which ran more locally and, well, had more livestock on board. Elara anticipated that they’d need to use them at some point but thought it best if they put it off for now; one thing at a time and all that.

The wait was short as those around them chatted in languages Orm didn’t understand. It was hard not to feel so very far from home in this moment. Perhaps Elara sensed this from the tides but she subtly shifted so her uninjured arm was pressed against his in a silent show of support. It was a small thing but it helped. If this had been a couple weeks ago he might have been perturbed by how well she could read him but then he supposed she wouldn’t be a very good tidewatcher if she wasn’t good at picking up things like that. She wouldn’t be able to keep them safe if she couldn’t sense something like a change in mood, that could mean everything in a surprise attack. And he had to note she’d never used this to manipulate him or use him, only to help them. He admired that about her.

He was glad to let Elara take charge in the small things like where they sat. If nothing else, he was glad that he didn’t have to reveal further how little he knew of these things though he suspected she knew anyway. They sat towards the back and not very close to any other passengers so they could talk a little freer as long as they spoke quietly. She sat with her bad side to the window. It was going to hurt all day anyway but at least this way she wouldn’t have to worry about him accidentally elbowing her tender side or scraping her arm. She was careful how she held her arm so as not to rub it the wrong way but the bandaging and the jacket she wore helped insulate it more against aggravation.

Once the bus was on its way they didn’t talk at first. While Orm acclimated to the feel of things on the road and amongst surface dwellers like this, Elara took the opportunity to get familiar with the flows of the tides for the bus and their route. As the whole bus had a hectic and chaotic atmosphere to it, she thought it best to get a feel for what patterns were normal for it so she could better spot what was irregular.

After some time had passed and nothing went wrong and no one bothered them, she could feel some of the edge had dissipated off of Orm. She figured now was a good time to try conversing with him to distract him. She’d also strategically let him take the aisle seat because she figured he’d feel more able to protect them that way even if she did not feel such actions would be necessary.

“So,” she began, turning to him, “what do you know about Madren?”

Orm resisted the urge to smirk, of course she would know he was curious about the old tidewatcher even if he hadn’t said anything. He wasn’t proud of it but the idea of meeting Madren intimidated him slightly. While he’d received reports from her during his reign, he’d never met her though he’d certainly heard stories from Vulko and the other Tidewatcher elders over the years. Combine that with all he’d heard from Elara since they’d come to the surface and Madren seemed a larger than life figure to Orm and one that left a profound impression. She was regarded by many as being exceedingly eccentric which Orm had always attributed to the fact that she’d spent several decades on the surface. She wasn’t the only Tidewatcher or Atlantean to maintain an outpost up above but she’d been topside longer than any other Atlantean he’d ever heard of.

She’d acclimated to her environment in unusual ways. When he’d been king, the tidewatcher council would regularly update him on reports from Madren. She could not only sense shifts of surface dweller politics through the tides but also witness it firsthand. She was an invaluable resource but a bit of a wildcard. He’d been content enough to let her stay up here as her intelligence was always timely. He could sense at times she disapproved of his war on the surface but she never interfered which suited him just fine. The same relations between Madren and the king of Atlantis had not always been the case when his father had been on the throne. It was not a subject Orvax had been inclined to speak of which had only served to make it a subject of curiosity for Orm.

“What can you tell me about Madren and my father?” he asked calmly.

Elara raised her eyebrows. That was not the question she had been expecting. “Well you clearly know something or else you wouldn’t ask. What have you heard?”

“Oh just the standard line Orvax circulated to the courts- that he banished her to the surface for her insubordination.” Orm answered with a wry grin, “and enough from Vulko to know that no one actually banished Madren.”

Elara shared a smug grin, “That he most certainly didn’t. Anyone who’s actually met Madren would know that she is not a woman to let anything but the tides tell her what to do. And even then she’ll argue and analyze it five ways to Sunday before consenting.”

“So what really happened?”

“I suppose the diplomatic answer would be that she resented the idea of being under his thumb and subject to his tempers and scrutiny,” Elara said after consideration.

“And the non-diplomatic answer?” he pressed.

“She was tired of his bullshit,” she said straight-face.

“Sounds like she taught you well on that count,” he replied slyly.

“That she did,” Elara agreed. “But the way she tells it, Orvax was a thousand times worse than you ever were. Madren was the best tidewatcher on the council and they both knew it. Madren wasn’t afraid to call him out on his ill-conceived schemes or throw the warnings of the tides in his face if things didn’t work out for Orvax. I don’t think he would have had problems if she was skilled and humble but she was abrasive and loud about it. He knew he couldn’t properly cut off contact with her because what results he saw and liked from the tides mostly came from her leads but he couldn’t abide her publicly contradicting and undermining him.”

“No,” Orm said quietly, “he certainly couldn’t.”

Elara could sense a bitterness and a history to that statement but also that it wasn’t something he was interested in exploring in depth at the moment so she moved on as nonchalantly as she could. “Madren’s no idiot and knew something had to give. Since the tides gave her no indication that Orvax was going to change and she knew she absolutely wasn’t going to, she decided she’d relocate as a sort of truce. Orvax wasn’t wild about her training others on the surface but ultimately agreed that it was preferable to her constantly embarrassing him down below.”

Orm found himself smiling. He enjoyed the way Elara told stories. He found himself content to simply watch how her eyebrows would quirk when she found something amusing and the way she’d gesture with her hands to make a point.  She was certainly more fascinating to watch than whatever was out the window at any rate.

“Everything that was said after she was gone was pure fiction made up to make Orvax sound better once Madren wasn’t in Atlantis to dispute him. All of us tidewatchers knew the truth but it didn’t really matter. Madren said the point was that she didn’t have to deal with him anymore so she was the real winner.” Elara gave an emphatic jab of her finger.

“What about after Orvax died? Why didn’t she come back then?” At this point Orm was just enjoying hearing her talk about it but he was still curious as to Madren’s continued presence on the surface.

A small part of him wondered if Madren stayed away because she didn’t think Orm had been any better of a king than Orvax had. He couldn’t be sure though, it wasn’t as if he and Madren had ever butted heads. It could be different with Tidewatchers, but two people were usually required to have met before having a feud. Orm then felt a twang of unease at the idea that Madren had stayed away because she’d seen his future sins and decided he was just as bad as his father. It wasn’t entirely unwarranted but it also wasn’t an idea he liked to entertain.

Elara sensed a pang of anxiety from Orm but rather than address it she simply continued on. “She was formally invited back for the sake of appearances but she declined. I asked her about it a few years ago and she said that as much as she loved Atlantis, she’d come to love the surface too and she wanted to instill some of that love into the next generation of Tidewatchers. She saw enough ill will between land and sea in the tides but wanted to do what she could to abate it, to remind her fellow Atlanteans that there was much to love and protect up above. She taught me well in that regard too.”

Elara nervously tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, looking down at their feet. Orm was hardly about to declare war against the surface again but she knew that her affection for this world above was still an aberration among her people. While she’d argued with Orm about attacking the surface while they were still in Atlantis, she never would have dared to reveal her fondness for it back then. If she had, he would have just rolled his eyes and condescended.

He did none of those things now. In the brief glance she allowed herself to gauge his reaction, she could have sworn he smiled ruefully.

“Indeed she did,” he finally said quietly. Try as she might, she could sense no derision from the former king and that filled her with a quiet sort of gratitude.

It made sense to Orm. Elara had never shown the slightest hesitancy about coming to the surface. To being the one tasked with keeping him safe, perhaps, but she’d held no reservations for the surface. As comfortable as she was down below, there was an ease to her manner up here that some small part of him envied. He didn’t loathe it as he once had but now he was willing to admit that a lot of his discomfort stemmed from not understanding. He still hated their waste and how the people here took so much for granted but he could see hints of joy too. Though he would at least admit to himself that he might not have seen any without Elara’s influence.

A companionable silence fell between them for a time and Orm found himself thinking about his father and Madren. He might have once considered their relationship a mirror of his with Elara. Both Elara and Madren being the stubborn and defiant Tidewatcher while he and Orvax stood opposite as the haughty and proud king. How things had changed. It surprised him to realize that now he felt more kinship with Elara than he did with his father.

His father might have thought he was doing what was right to make Orm the best ruler he could but that didn’t change the fact that Orvax was a cold and distant father. When he did express emotions for Orm it was more anger and frustration with occasional bursts of small pride. More proud of how he had molded Orm than of anything Orm had done for himself. And Orm had spent so long telling himself that it was alright. That Orvax knew what was best but a quiet doubt had always lingered after Orvax had ordered Atlanna’s death. Justify it as Orvax had, Orm had resented his father for robbing him of the one person whom he had known to actually love him. Altanna may have loved Arthur and missed her life on the surface but she had loved Orm fiercely and protectively. Doing her best to spare him the worst of Orvax’s wrath and raise Orm to be considerate and clever and thoughtful.

That was why Orm had never sent his commandos after Tom or Arthur before Arthur came to Atlantis. The rumors of Atlanna’s bastard had certainly plagued his rule as had the knowledge that Atllanna’s human family was what had led to her death and yet Orm had left them alone. He’d certainly been advised to silence the rumors and have the Currys killed but Orm had resisted. It was the only way he could think of to honor Atlanna’s memory. As much as he hated them for essentially taking his mother from him, he knew that Atlanna had loved Arthur and Tom so he’d left them alone.

It was only when Arthur had come to Atlantis himself and challenged Orm’s right to rule that Orm could resist no longer. He was so close to achieving everything he’d been fighting so long for and he hadn’t been able to stand by and let Arthur challenge him. Add Mera’s betrayal and Orm was stung and retaliated in kind. Orm wasn’t proud of it now, it was the actions of a petty man who was hurt and he knew now he would have regretted it if his commandos had succeeded in killing Arthur and Mera.

As ashamed as Orm felt for some of his actions, Orm realized that if he hadn’t done what he had, he would not be where he was right now. The subject of a future assassination attempt and on the surface he’d spent so long despising perhaps- but he was also sitting next to a befuddling, and bitingly clever Tidewatcher who had seen his worst mistakes and still believed in him and that wasn’t something Orm liked the idea of losing. Realizing this affected him in the most peculiar way. As soon as he thought it, he felt a rush run through him and he couldn’t help the slightest tremor that hit him.

Elara sensed it, of course she did, though he couldn’t be entirely sure if she felt it physically or through the tides. In any case, she had grown so accustomed to him that, minute as it was, she felt it and she tore her gaze from the window to meet his eyes.

Concern played across her wonderfully expressive face and he could practically feel her scanning the tides for the source of the tremor.

“You alright?” She asked quietly, unconsciously leaning closer.

He had the absurd desire to lean in as well, just to be even closer to this startlingly lovely woman, but he kept himself in check, trying to school his features in the wake of such an idea.

“I’m fine,” he answered back just as softly. Not because he was worried about any of the other passengers hearing them but because he had the foolish notion that his realization was like a small, easily frightened animal- likely to flee at any loud sound or sudden motion. He couldn’t stop himself from adding, as gently but reserved as he could manage, “I just wanted to thank you.”

Elara could sense something had changed in Orm but, as fast as her heart was beating at their closeness and distracted as her thoughts were, she just couldn’t put her finger on what that change was.

“Thank me?”

“I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for coming up here with me.” He said, even though that barely scratched the surface of what he was grateful for in this current moment.

He was right. He hadn’t thanked her but, if Elara was being honest, she hadn’t expected him to. She wasn’t sure if that was selling the prince short or not but when all of this started he wasn’t feeling any sense of appreciation at his glorified exile. His thanks were hardly some grand glorious gesture, but given where Orm had started, it meant something to Elara. He might have once taken something like this for granted or assumed that it was her duty and simply expected of her. She had begun this journey feeling like the tides were calling her to do this, so she may have once said that thanks weren’t necessary but many things had changed between them since they had left Atlantis.

“You’re welcome,” was all she said and before she could think better of it, she took his hand.

Orm was getting obnoxiously fond of holding her hand. He remembered seeing Elara and Calysa coming to meet them, holding each other’s arms and being very affectionate and he’d certainly seen such friendly physical exchanges among his citizens when visiting the regions but that type of physical familiarity was never something he’d had access to after Atlanna died.

Given all of her many gifts and deductions, Orm wasn’t sure if Elara knew that or not. Didn’t know if this was just her general way with people she was familiar with or if she was actively trying to compensate for his touch-starved youth. And while he wanted to believe he was special, he wasn’t sure how much it mattered in this exact moment. She was holding his hand because she wanted to, because he’d reached out to her and it felt nice.

They didn’t speak again for awhile and eventually she let his hand go with a tight squeeze before getting into her pack for snack bars. The rest of the day was more of the same. There were a few bathroom stops and a constant shuffle of passengers boarding and departing. Sometimes there would be other passengers all around them and paranoid as Orm was he didn’t feel like chatting much, just in case. Elara mostly respected this but sometimes engaged him in small talk about the food they ate or the areas they passed through. He didn’t feel like she was trying to placate him or appease him, but more felt like she was chatting for her own peace of mind and he did his best to help but obviously had little experience in the subject matter.

It was a baffling day but not as frustrating as it could have been if Orm had been left to navigate it alone. Confident and stubborn as he might have been, he had nothing on Elara’s unflappable calm. No matter how loud the bus got or unintelligible the bus driver, she kept her cool and guided them through. Hours passed in this almost mindless chatter. Elara encouraged him to try to get some more sleep, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He may not actively dislike and distrust everyone on this bus as he once had, but it was still too foreign an environment for him to get easy.

Elara, to her credit, tried to stay awake out of solidarity but she just didn’t have the same vigor she usually did. Her injury was healing well. She’d made a point to check on it before they left this morning and once at one of the bathroom stops. It would heal within a few days but it still took a lot of energy in the meantime. As there wasn’t anything pressing to distract her or keep her alert, she kept nodding off, lulled by the easy cadence of their fellow passengers and the feel of the bus rolling along down the highway.

Once she woke up abruptly when a bump in the road caused her forehead to collide with the window. Orm, who had been occupying himself counting and memorizing the other people on the bus, started at Elara’s gasp when she was woken. His warrior instincts immediately put him on edge and on the lookout for the cause. She immediately inspected the point of contact with one hand while holding the other out to him as if to give him the all clear.

“It’s fine, just a bump,” she said and instinctively tilted her head to show that no serious harm had been done.

He appeared to study it for a minute as if to make sure she wasn’t hiding any lacerations. Finally, he nodded as if agreeing with her assessment but then frowned minutely, saying almost under his breath, “this is hardly the smoothest form of transportation. It’s awfully clumsy.”

“Well it beats trekking through the jungle for days on our own.” Elara replied with her usual measure of snark and common sense as well as a signature smirk, “I know that we could handle ourselves but that would have been miserable. Just think of the mosquitoes.”

Not having much experience with the flying pests and still thinking of the realization he’d come to earlier that day, Orm wasn’t sure spending days alone with her in the jungle would be particularly miserable after all. However, he also knew she had a point and with mostly unknown adversaries out there, that would not be the wisest course of action.

“Perhaps,” was all he said in reply. He could accept these things in the name of practicality all day long, and he had, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel comfortable up here.

While passengers had left and boarded their bus for hours and no one had attacked them or even properly interacted with him or Elara besides the bus driver, he couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness and unease. Like they were too exposed. And while Elara was the one thing that was keeping him from complete uneasiness or from complaining about this clumsy earth vehicle spewing noxious fumes, it didn’t mean that he was able to feel comfortable up here.

Even Elara’s ability to balance and calm him instinctively was foreign to him. While Elara was the most familiar thing to him for hundreds of miles, he hadn’t been aware of how much he’d come to count on and trust her until surrounded by others. He still didn’t know what to make of how he was coming to regard her- it was still so strange and new to him.

Elara, of course, being as experienced as she was in interpersonal relationships and friendships might know better how to word or contextualize how he was feeling but he didn’t even know how he could put it into words to ask. And, if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure if she felt any of these confusing sensations that he did. What if she simply had grown to regard him as a friend? While that wouldn’t be the worst fate he could suffer at her hands, he could feel something unlike friendship growing in him. He hadn’t had much experience with friendship to be sure but this was just unlike anything he’d ever known. Worse still, what if she still saw all this as duty? What if she was simply doing all this to fulfill the call of the tides?

She had been the one to kiss him that drunken night but she’d also been the one to leave and shut herself off from him after that. He thought it might have been repulsion at his admission but maybe it was her own way of prioritizing duty? Her way of saying that fun or feelings would always come last. He didn’t know where that left him if that was true. So while Orm had no activity to occupy him physically on their long bus ride, he certainly had much to think of.

Elara, for her part, slept for most of it. When she woke up at the stop where they’d be changing busses she was surprised to find that she had not fallen asleep against the window but with her head leaning on Orm. He was just the right height for her head to rest against his broad shoulder comfortably. As the bus fully stopped and other passengers started getting up, she almost sheepishly lifted her head off of his shoulder. She didn’t know why it struck her so odd, maybe in their tight quarters, Orm didn’t notice? Highly unlikely, but perhaps he was still offended at the crudeness of their transport and bore it to prevent her from further injury? It wasn’t the most plausible explanation but it was all Elara could figure as they gathered their things and disembarked the bus for the final time.

Elara gingerly stretched out. If she felt cramped after hours of being in those tight seats, she couldn’t imagine how Orm felt with his much longer frame. If they’d been alone or back at the cabin she’d expect him to work through some of those fighting forms he’d been so fond of but he instead he opted for more subtle stretches. After they’d both taken advantage of a bathroom and regained feeling in their limbs, she could feel him scanning the area. He hadn't been fond of the bus but after eight something hours it was at least more familiar than this little town in the middle of Guatemala.

Elara could understand that and did her best to feel through the tides for any threat, only to be surprised at a familiar thread.

“When is our next bus set to arrive?” Orm asked, looking around dubiously.

“Actually,” Elara said, feeling more confidence in her reading, taking gradual steps forward as she mentally tugged on the tide, “we aren’t taking a bus to the sanctuary.”

“We aren’t?” he asked, confusion and alarm coming off of him.

“No,” she replied as she reached the other end of the pull and pointed to the off-roads Jeep at the far end of the street.

An older woman with long gray hair pulled back under a sun hat sat in the driver’s seat. Her eyes were fixed squarely on the two of them with an almost wicked smile on her face, clear to see even from where they stood.

“Is that...” Orm began but of course it was. Who else could have seen when and where their bus would stop?

“Yep,” Elara answered with admiration and fondness in her voice, “that’s Madren.”

[chrsitophwaltz]

MICKEY MEETS FC BAYERN (PART 1/4)

for the entire houston clownery experience click here

psa: excuse my face and the pic qualities. up until this happened i haven’t really taken pictures of myself (less than 10 in the past two years for family and work purposes and NEVER selfies) and when you meet people you’ve only seen on TV in a very unexpected circumstance, then don’t expect your brain and motor functions to work 100%.

okay. i posted part 1 of this a few days ago but i’m gonna redo it again to flush out the details. before i start, know that i arrived in houston wednesday afternoon. my original flight back home was scheduled sunday after the game (i booked my flight and lodgings months before like a good binch) but since bayern clowned again and announced the full detailed schedule really late, and put ALL the major fan stuff on SUNDAY, i grudgingly rebooked and extended one more day. how much that one extra day cost me will haunt me for a while but hey, it was more than worth it! of course, i didn’t know it would work out like that at first...

the hotel reception was around 6:30-7 pm on friday so we went there a few hours earlier to get good spots. met up with The Niko Thirst Gang (big shoutout to @screamingoranges, @saquonbrkley, and @simplyirenic! it was great meeting y’all hope we could do it again sometime) and waited patiently in the houston heat and humidity outside the hotel. finally the team bus arrived and got my shirt signed by boa, fiete, benji, leon, and thomas! made a post about it here and i also have the full reception video if y’all wanna see!

but being the greedy thirsty binch that i am, i wasn’t satisfied at all. thiago and niko weren’t there. the coaching staff were the first to go down and hansi flick, dr. broich, and even Witch Doctor™ müller-wohlfahrt were there, but NOT niko. after the bus left and all the other entourage cars were off, i was about to rage outside the hotel bc i was really banking on seeing niko that day and taking a pic with him there (my blood pressure had been raging for 4 hours and then to be let down just like t h a t...). apparently he and thiago went straight to nrg stadium from the airport for a press conference. and guess what? NRG STADIUM WAS JUST DOWN THE ROAD FROM MY PLACE 💀💀💀

anyway, come saturday and it was game day! i was so pumped since my seat was five rows behind the bayern bench! y’all know what that means: unlimited firsthand access to peak drama!!! i also had this huge ass sign asking for niko’s bottle sdhfsdjfh. the game was great (bc we beat madridies and it was just really exciting all the way) and i saw stuff that we normally don’t get from TV (e.g. ALL the angry niko antics, leon changing into his kit on the bench, etc.) at one point niko finally looked at my direction while drinking from his bottle and i’m pretty sure he saw my sign but he just kept on drinking sultrily from that goddamn bottle sjadhksfksdfdk i hate him!!!!!!!

after the game i was feeling pretty let down and desperate bc i know sunday was the team’s last full day in houston and i didn’t want my extension to be for nothing. the practice session and paulaner bbq were invite-only events (ugh) and the mall meet-and-greets won’t have niko or everyone else in them. so i set my alarm, went to bed, and decided to try my luck by randomly going to the hotel again to see if i can get something. i had no idea if it was gonna work or not. it was a shot in the freaking dark.

sunday morning. 8:30 am. i went out armed with a sharpie, my cardboarded jersey, a pack of gum, and two bottles of water.

my uber drove me to the hotel entrance and i even got the whole five star welcome sjdhfsjdfbjkds

hotel staff: ”hi! welcome to the post oak hotel!”

me: “oh lmao i’m not actually a customer i’m just here to see if the team’s still here. have they left for practice yet?”

hotel staff: “oh no problem at all. they’re still here they just finished breakfast i think”

me: “oh cool i’ll just wait here then”

hotel staff and some guy in a bayern audi fcb tour polo shirt: “it’s so hot here, though. don’t you want to wait inside?”

me:

me: “............i can do that? am i allowed in?”

bayern guy: *shrugs* yeah sure. i’ve seen you around before anyway (nice guy talk for: i know ur stalking them lmao)

just like that.

i’m in. i made it.

u n s u p e r v i s e d. totally no barriers whatsoever. with full blast A/C too!

cue happy lil me, relieved to be out of the houston heat, entering the hotel and chilling in their nice plushy seats. (if y’all have cash to burn, it looks like a real good hotel too if you get to houston sometime). i kept on looking over my shoulder bc i still can’t believe they just let me in like t h a t. i tried to make myself look as harmless and innocent as possible and saw some of the training staff milling around and chatting in german (for a moment i thought i was back in munich it was so surreal). at some point, a very sleepy and very casual javi martinez in slides came up to the reception and i nearly passed out. he looked over at me and i waved and said hi and raised my shirt (signal if he wants to sign). he shook his head no and gestured to reception and i was like “oh sure no problem!” (i was trying not to freak out even if i was sad ok)

i’ve been trying to kill time by screaming here on tumblr until about 10-15 minutes later i heard the huge ass team bus pull up out front. a few moments after that, it all started.

i saw the kitmen carrying stuff to the bus and greeted them “guten morgen!” they were so cheery lmao (idk if it’s bc they just had breakfast or bc i greeted them in german). then i saw dr. broich and hansi flick come out in their training gear (both looking hella tanned sfnsjfjsdfn) and greeted them both again. dr. broich waved, said hi, and went straight to the bus but i was able to flag hansi down for an autograph. in my excitement (he was my first catch of the day!) i forgot to ask for a pic ugh but oh well

me: “thanks hansi! and welcome to bayern!”

hansi: *handing me back my shirt and trying (and failing) to put my sharpie back in its cap* “oh, thanks so much!”

after hansi went on his merry way, i saw dieter nickles (the press conference guy) and asked him for a picture and autograph too.

me: “hi dieter! can i please have a photo and an autograph?”

dieter: “are you sure? i’m not a player...”

me: “haha i know but if it’s all the same to you...”

he seemed pretty chuffed that i knew him and happily signed and took pictures (score #2!)

that was it for a while (they were the early birds) until giovane elber himself came out. i freaked (i love him) and tried to keep my voice from shaking when i asked him for the standard photo and autograph. in my haste, the first was pretty blurry and against the light but giovane, angel that he is, was like “oh no that’s bad. let’s try again” and maneuvered me to another angle. success! i luff u, giovane ;__;

then The Voice of the Allianz Arena himself came out. i semi-shouted “stephan!” and startled him that he nearly dropped his coffee snbfsdbfsdfsb. while he was signing my shirt, i asked him if he could give me a lil soundbite and HE DID! he sounds exactly the same as he does on TV during games omfg

the younglings started to come out too. i missed a few of them because they went out in a group so i was only able to flag down sarpreet and ron. oh well! they cute af! go bayern babies! grow up and save us from clownery!!!!!!

(ignore the pen in my mouth i was multitasking lmao)

after that, the ground started to shake (just kidding) bc Big Uncle Nik was there! after i got his autograph (a very simple N.S. lmaooo) , we tried to take a picture. i say “tried,” because i’m 5′3 (and 1/2....on a good day) and he’s built like a fuckin skyscraper. in the end, since he was so nice and realized it was hopeless, he bent down to my level so we could both fit in the frame sdhfbsdjfsbdfjd COME ON SÜLEEEEE

then Pure Angel Baby Fiete came out! i already got his autograph and had a pic with him in the hotel reception, but hey, one more can’t hurt! lemme tell y’all: he looks like an angel, and IS an angel. he’s always so game for photos and even said thank you after we took the pic and i’m like “um???? no, thank YOU!!!” he laughed and i cried lmaooo

also, javi finally showed up again. i raised my pen and phone and he was like “oh sure! yeah!” my brain was fried from Beautiful Athlete Overload that i forgot NOT to take a pic from that cursed angle. javi looked like he was in a hurry though so i didn’t even try to ask for a better pic. oh well, at least here he looks like he came down from heaven (he really looked like he did huehue)

(tumblr has this stupid 10 photo per post limit thing so stay tuned for more pics in part 2!)

[beckzorz]

Out of Nowhere (1/21)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/OFC Summary: An offhand comment at work draws Jesse Kaplan into the orbit of Bucky Barnes. Bucky’s excited at the prospect of normalcy, but there’s nothing normal about falling in love with the Winter Soldier. Words: 880 A/N: Well this has been a long time coming! I started working on this on June 16, 2018, and I’m so excited to finally share it with you! It’s been a labor of love, and I hope you love it too :3

PART 1: “SYMPATHIQUE”

On the nightstand, Jesse’s phone began to buzz. She sighed into her pillow, then blearily reached for her phone, eyes still closed. She tried to turn off her alarm, but it kept ringing.

Jesse groaned and propped herself up on her elbow and tossed her braid back. A phone call, from Robin. And it was—only eight? Oh, come on. Jesse almost threw her phone across the room, but if Robin was bothering to call, it had to be some kind of emergency.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jesse, it’s Robin. Sorry to bother you so early on a Sunday.”

“It’s okay,” Jesse lied, voice as chipper as she could make it. “What’s up?”

“Marilyn broke her ankle. She’s in the hospital.”

Jesse gasped and sat up all the way. If she hadn’t really been awake before, she was now. “Oh no! What happened? Is she okay?”

“She’s holding up,” Robin said. “She had a fall, some neighbor’s cat on the stairs or something. The doctor said she’ll heal fine, but it’s going to be some time.”

“Oh, that’s awful.” Jesse pulled her knees up and held her phone between her ear and shoulder while she pulled her mussed braid apart. “Can I do anything?”

“Actually, that’s why I called.” Robin’s voice had turned hesitant. “There’s the Stark benefit tonight, and Marilyn wants you to go in her place.”

“Me?” Jesse almost dropped her phone. “But you’re the director. If she can’t go, you should!”

“Well, you actually helped organize the event,” Robin said. “Besides, you deserve some accolades. You do good work.”

“Thanks,” Jesse said. A smile tugged at her lips at the praise. “But still! I’m just the admin.”

“There’s nothing ‘just’ about it. You helped organize the event that’s getting us the award, Jesse. Besides, you wouldn’t want to disappoint Marilyn when she’s in the hospital?”

Jesse screwed up her mouth. No, she wasn’t going to deny a woman who’d just broken her ankle. “Okay, okay.”

“Fantastic. Thank you, Jesse. I’ll send you the details, and I’ll get in touch with the Stark Foundation to let them know you’ll be there instead.”

“Okay, thanks. Anything else?” Jesse asked automatically.

“No, that’s it,” Robin said. “Thanks again. I’ll see you Monday.”

“Okay, bye.”

Jesse hung up and tossed her phone halfheartedly at her feet. She stretched her legs under the sheets; her knees popped as she reached for her toes. It really was too bad. Properly bad for Marilyn—she wasn’t exactly young, and broken bones were a pain in the ass at any age. Too bad for the organization—another big event was coming up soon, and now all Marilyn’s work would need to be redistributed. And too bad for Jesse, who’d been looking forward to dancing at Central Park in the afternoon, and who would at least partially be in charge of reassigning Marilyn’s work.

Jesse sighed, pulled her hair into a lopsided bun, and swung out of bed.

I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

—

Within an hour, Jesse had gotten an email from Robin with details and, separately, an emailed invitation from the Stark Foundation. Black tie, hosted by Pepper Potts, please arrive between 6:30 and 7pm, drinks and dessert included. Jesse’s organization, the Brooklyn Children’s Education Initiative, was due to receive a donation that was almost a quarter of their yearly expenses, which was a huge deal. They almost never got big grants. It was all piecemeal work, put together by the underpaid nonprofit of which Jesse was a part. And they hadn’t even had to do the normal exhausting grant-writing.

It was all thanks to Marilyn—and Jesse had helped, if she was honest. Marilyn had been planning an event for underprivileged kids to teach them about the Great Depression, including cooking a meal out of the period and listening to a few insanely old people recount their harrowing childhoods. A couple weeks before the event, one of the planned seniors had been hospitalized, which had prompted Jesse’s offhand comment about inviting Captain America or his friend.

Marilyn had done the outreach, and by some miracle Sergeant Barnes had come through. By Marilyn’s account, the event had devolved a little when the kids recognized Barnes, but it went smoothly enough. And apparently he had been impressed by the event. It was thanks to Sgt. Barnes that BCEI was receiving any accolades at all—he’d recommended them to Pepper Potts, and here they all were. Marilyn had liked Bucky Barnes, but Jesse had never seen him in person. Just on tv, or the internet. Tumblr was littered with Bucky Barnes memes, though Jesse tried to avoid them now that she was within two degrees of separation.

And tonight would drop that to one.

Jesse bit her lip and googled Bucky Barnes in her phone. She stared at the stern headshot that popped up. It was getting easier to believe that a guy who looked under thirty-five could remember the Great Depression, but it still didn’t seem right. She had plenty of cultural memory of the Holocaust, but she sure didn’t experience it firsthand.

She shuddered at the thought. Hell looked like a lot of different things, and from all she’d heard and read, Bucky Barnes was a guy who’d seen it all.

Hopefully he wouldn’t bring it up over dinner.

Part 2