#the more time passes the more certain i am that i should have killed myself when i turned 25

[downfallofi]

I had a thought, because I was slightly salty about being left behind while they went to Snohomish pride, that this wouldnt be as much an issue if I had my own car, and that led me down a rabbit hole of like, well, dude you could have had a car twice now, Mary at work was actually giving her old beater with a 2000 dollar bluebook value two years ago, for example. But I turned it down because I listened to my sister, and went against my judgement because of her advice; You don't want THAT car, its harmful to the environment and you would be better off buying an electric scooter!, just that sort of thing. And that got me thinking how much of my life isnt my idea, or my plan, and how much of it Ive gone along with because I deferred to people to make them happy or do what they want out of me and not live. And it's a lot. Even acknowledging that in some ways it's okay to listen to advice and there are valid points of view, but not taking a car that was offered to you by a sweet old granny, not because you didn't want it, but because you just went along with what someone else wants you to aim your life towards... decades in, where has that gotten me?

[butchvamp]

[hunnylagoon]

Right Where You Left Me

Pt 4: The Sweetest Thing to Ever Scare You (Finale)

Ellie Williams x reader

I remember when I first saw you. I remember looking into your warm almond eyes and feeling butterflies in my stomach. But soon, when I looked into your eyes, I no longer felt the same warmth that I once knew. It felt as though you had killed all of the butterflies inside my stomach but yet, I still loved you.

Premise: You and Ellie are childhood best friends until you drift apart. Funny thing about soulmates is they tend to find their way back to each other. You and Ellie try to end the tireless war between you.

Warnings: Angst / drinking / violence / not really religious mentions in this one

Part one here!

Part two here!

Part three over here!

Guys I thought I posted this two days ago but I actually just saved it to drafts. Sorry for being an idiot lmao

I think that I have unlearned how to love.

That’s not even a word but there is no other way to tell you that I have turned myself cold.

Without partying to distract me and religion to fill in gaps of emptiness, I isolate myself and begin to write once again. I'm almost certain that my body has been telling me to write, that I need to pour myself into art as opposed to a girl I was friends with a million years ago.

I figure that I need to create rather than destroy but it might take me a while to do so.

The morning after I abandoned my faith on the church floor, I had woken up and expected Ellie to be gone, however, she was wide awake and playing subway surfers on her phone. Her hair is messy and her eyes are half-lidded. 

She turns to look at me when she feels the shuffling of the bedsheets; despite her doing nothing more than smile at me it is like an understanding passed between us, war is over.

Almost.

It's like I've forgotten how to be soft, I can't manage to get the words out that I need to, and the thought of it alone makes me cringe. "Breakfast?" I ask, unsure of what else to say.

Ellie passes on it and I awkwardly excuse myself, saying that I got called in to take a brunch shift at work. Of course, this is not true. What I do is get into my car and drive and drive until I get mad at myself for burning gas. 

The war between Ellie and I had ended but it didn't register in my head, I almost fell in love with it. Without the constant arguing and passive aggressiveness, there was nothing to put a wall between us and I wasn't ready to be vulnerable again. 

So I begin to feed Ellie the ugliest parts of me; I show her everything I'm sure she will hate but she doesn't, she's patient and shows me the kindness I have been looking everywhere for. Still, I am cold to her, I don't know what else to do. 

I try to push her away all over again but this time, she doesn't let me. Ellie comes into my room when I'm studying to sit on my bed so that she can be in proximity to me. Sometimes she'll ask me if I want to go for a walk or a late-night gas station run, all of the things we used to do.

When I'm angry at her, she lets it happen, she won't escalate the fight all she does is apologize and does what she can to fix it. Everything feels like it's in order again, Joel even starts to send me little text messages to check in on me and sends me Facebook memes that make him think of me.

As of now, we are setting up for Dina's twenty-first birthday. The living room, typically a space for casual gatherings and movie nights, had undergone a transformation. Vibrant streamers adorned the walls, and an array of balloons in assorted hues scattered themselves along the floor "Are balloons too childish?" Abby asks as she walks out of her bedroom.

"They better not be after I just spent half an hour doing all of these," Cat answers, giving her a scornful glare.

"They look great, Cat," I smile and give her a thumbs-up from where I am in the kitchen dumping bags of chips into bowls. "Should I make a veggie platter?"

Cat furrows her eyebrows "If you can finish it by yourself, sure."

"Cat, we aren't children, adults eat vegetables," Abby takes a seat on the couch behind Cat, investigating the hard work she's put into making the living room look nice for just one night "Isn't it weird that Dina is organizing her own surprise party?"

I shrug, placing a wooden cutting board down on the kitchen counter "I don't blame her, I don't think we've always been one hundred percent reliable, me specifically."

"But it's not a surprise if she knows about it."

"So?" Cat asks.

"So why are we calling it a surprise party if it isn't a surprise?"

"Why not?"

"Well, why can't we just call it a party?"

"I don't think it matters," I cut in, I begin to peel carrots and slice them up into quarters. Ellie comes out of her bedroom, she took a nap after completing her physics presentation, her hair in a messy bun, and she's in her typical pyjama uniform of sweats and a hoodie. "Hey, Ellie," I smile at her.

She rubs some sleep away from her green eyes "Hey," Ellie walks over to the kitchen island where I slice and chop vegetables and sits right in front of me. Even half asleep she looks like a statue of marble carved by a skilled hand.

Abby raises an eyebrow, asking 'When did you guys become friends?' without saying it and then it hits me like the plane in Lost. Ellie still hasn't told anyone about our history, our sixteen years of friendship is invisible to the eyes of those who think they know us well.

I'm broken from my thoughts when Abby speaks up "When are you picking up the cake?"

My heart drops "I'm not?"

Cat and Abby cast one another side glances while Ellie snatches a cucumber off my cutting board "Dina was handing out duties and you said you would take care of the cake."

I freeze, unsure of what to say "Nuh-uh." I shake my head like a child denying blame for breaking her mother's favourite dish.

"Yuh-huh," Cat shoots back. "How could you forget that?"

My mind fumbles for an excuse and somehow I land on "I forgot because I went temporarily insane from Lyme disease," What am I saying? "I got Lyme disease because I go camping in secret," I don't camp "And I never told you guys that I go camping because I'm deeply ashamed of it."

Now everyone looks perpetually confused, Ellie included "What are you talking about?" Abby asks, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Okay-well," I place my knife flat on the counter by the wooden cutting board, ignoring the odd spiel I just went on "I'm going to drive to-

"You dropped your car off for a suspension repair yesterday," Abby reminds me.

"Ellie is going to drive me to get a cake," I correct myself "I will be back to finish making my veggie plate." I quickly rinse my hands before grabbing Ellie's keys from the little jewelry dish on the island and yank the sleeve of her hoodie to pull her along.

Ellie doesn't say anything, she slips into some Crocs and we walk outside to her car. "Where are we headed?"

"Uh, hang on," In Ellie's passenger seat, I go on Google Maps to look up the closest bakeries that are still open at this hour, there are two, one a couple of streets away and the other one is across town and closing in twenty minutes. "Infectious Confections," I wrinkle my nose "That's a weird fucking name."

While Ellie tries to make conversation in the car I only speak when giving her directions to the bakery. She knows something is up and I can tell by the way she keeps glancing at me. I just can't manage to get it out of my head that she's still keeping me a secret. 

She pulls up to the bakery and I get out before she even turns her car off, she pulls the keys out of the ignition and trails behind me through the doors.

The bakery itself was rustic and clean, there were two display cases and tills one of the displays held danishes, croissants, cookies, scones and whatever those little swirly flakey things are called. The other display had a big chalk menu above it that read 'Cakery' Though what was in the display case was very sparse.  

"Hi," I walk up to the till, putting on the friendly smile and customer service voice that I usually only use at work. "This is pretty short notice but I was wondering if you had any cakes left or if I could get one made for today?"

The guy behind the counter is a scrawny teenager who looks like he has had a long enough day of dealing with annoying customers "We close in half an hour, there's not enough time to bake and decorate a cake." He explains it like he's said this to a million people, he's bored of the same phrases that his manager has scripted out for him.

"Any shot that someone didn't pick up their cake?" I ask, fingers crossed in the hope that he says yes.

"Let me talk to my manager," His voice drags on, and he turns around and disappears through a commercial kitchen door. I wait patiently, hands balled together in front of me as I rock back and forth on my heels. A minute or two later he comes back holding a bright blue cake with pink detailing of bows and mustaches, there's text on it that reads 'It's a...' gender reveal cake. "This is all we have left, they cancelled last minute.

I look back at Ellie to get her opinion, her eyebrows are furrowed slightly "Maybe we good just get some of those cupcakes and smush them together and smear the icing so it looks like a cake."

I wave her off "I'll buy it," I say this only because it is 5:41 and with each passing minute I am growing desperate, also I don't want Jesse to be disappointed that I fumbled the cake and ruined his girlfriend's birthday.

Angsty teenager puts the bright blue monstrosity into a cake box and charges me an absurd total for it, I bitterly tap my card on the machine. 

As I walk back out to Ellie's car I take a brief moment to look at the sky, it's the same hue as cotton candy and looks as if it had been projected from a watercolour painting, even after I get back into the car and Ellie begins to blast her old dad rock songs, I can't tear my eyes away from it.

After five minutes of silence from my end, Ellie finally asks the question that's been burning into the forefront of her brain "Why are you being weird?"

"Why haven't you told anyone that we met before we moved in together?"

Her dark eyebrows furrow "You haven't told anyone either-

"Yes, I have."

"Who?"

"Yara, Stacy, Kayla, Mitch, Nigel, Carmen, literally everyone from my work," I admit "I just haven't told people who know you personally so it can't make its way back to you because you clearly don't want people to know."

She falls silent, searching her mind for the right words. She clutches the steering wheel tight and looks dead ahead at the car's bumper-to-bumper ahead of us. "I just know how to slip it into conversation."

"I don't think it's that hard, you can just say that we were friends, you don't need to give an intricate play-by-play of everything that happened."

"Why is it important that people know if we're cool again?"

I turn my head to slowly look at her "You are the one who always said 'If we don't have honesty, we have nothing at all'," I point out.

Silence strings between us again, I almost want to throw up.

'We're cool again' Nope, not anymore, we are so very far from cool. Instead of Ellie casting me little glances as she had on the ride there, she ignores my presence almost completely while I glare daggers at her. Was she embarrassed by me? When we went to lunch together why did she lie to Dina about where she was? When she slept in my bed why did Cat ask me if I knew why Ellie came home at eight AM with nothing, not even a key? Did she crawl through my bedroom window to walk around to the front door and pretend she was just getting home?

AND WHY DIDN'T I CALL HER OUT?

She was keeping me a secret and that realization hurt worse than any injury I had ever suffered. She hasn't even told her dead who practically raised me that we lived together. 

God, we weren't even anything and she was keeping me under wraps like I was some disgraceful secret that she would get shamed for holding. The very second she approached our house, I got out of her car, she hadn't even stopped it completely but cake in hand, I hopped out of her car door and didn't look back.

I think I've had my fair share of partying.

After that month-long bender I had where I went to clubs every night and replaced food with vodka, I never wanted to even look at another solo cup full of liquor. Instead of drinking, smoking, or doing karaoke, I hide from Ellie.

I hide from her in conversations and sometimes sneak into my bedroom just to get a bit of breathing room from all of the strangers in my house. Wherever Ellie was, I was not. If she was outside, I was inside, if she was in the living room, I was in the kitchen enjoying my veggie platter. 

Have you ever been the only sober person around in a group of people? If the answer is no, have you ever babysat a houseful of toddlers? Because it's just about the same thing.

When I'm not hiding from the girl who wriggled her way back into my good graces just to trip herself off the podium, I'm cleaning up, protecting our furniture, holding back hair as girls I've never met sob into the toilet, and stopping the drunk from doing stupid things. 

"Hey, buddy," I take my can of hairspray that this frat-adjacent man is holding behind an ignited lighter "I don't think you would look good as a burn victim," His friends moan in disappointment as I do so, they were very excited to see a makeshift flamethrower; I wasn't in the mood to have my house burn down, or have a guy with peach fuzz waste my thirty dollar hair spray. 

Thirty dollars?

Note to self for later: Make smarter spending choices (And smarter relationship choices!).

I felt a tap on my shoulder only to turn around and see Dina, she wasn't drunk, just tipsy "Smile!" She holds up a camera to her eye and clicks the shudder button before I even have a chance to react the flash goes off. A large Polaroid begins to print out, Dina snatches it and shakes it until you can see my silhouette, my eyes are wide, my hair flying behind me from the quick turn of my head and I'm holding a can of hairspray angled to look like I'm going to spray the camera with it "Cute!" She smiles, tucking it into her pocket for later "Wait, I want a group picture of the roommates."

Dina takes my hand and pulls me to one of the couches where Ellie and Abby sit with some guy, she shoes him to get up and drags Cat over to replace him, she stands me in between Ellie and Abby and lightly pushes me down to sit wedged between the two.

"Jesse, please do not do me dirty with this picture," She hands the pink Polaroid camera to her boyfriend and quickly ushers herself to the far left of the couch where she bends over to kiss Cat on the cheek for the picture. Ellie and I are stiff and awkward when the flash goes off. 

After the picture is taken, Ellue turns to face me just the slightest "Hey, I think we should talk-

"I think it's time for cake!" I push myself off the couch and usher myself to the kitchen. 

I pull the cake out of the fridge, looking at what I had done to salvage it; Below the part that said 'It's a...' I wrote '21 year old!' in chocolate pre-made Betty Crocker icing that I had in the fridge for months, it didn't look the best, but it could've been worse.

Dina, of course, cackles when she sees it. To her, it is the funniest thing she's seen all night. I stick the candles in and light it with the light I confiscated from peach fuzz frat boy and push the cake towards Dina after tucking the light back into my pocket, she is illuminated in the glow of iPhone flash all filming her.

"Make a wish!"

Age Sixteen- Grade 11

I think back to how embarrassing it felt to be thoughtful.

How fragile I felt when I would share my feelings and how frail I seem when I do it now. Ellie was always tougher than I was, in rugby, in fights, just in general. That's why I figured she would be taking it better than me when I cut contact, once again I have been proven wrong.

"Conner, can we please just leave?" I pleaded with my then-boyfriend. The night had started fine but after a couple of drinks Ellie and I were becoming increasingly hostile to one another, it wasn't my intention to speak to her but the universe forced my hand when we were shoved into a circle of our friends and made to converse around the bonfire at the beach.

The salty breeze carried the sounds of laughter and the gentle crashing of waves, the scent of roasted marshmallows wafted through the air.

 "What, you need your boyfriend's permission or something?" Ellie held a can of berry blast Smirnoff, staring into my soul from the other side of the fire, the sparks glitter through the night like fireflies. Her words don't feel too bad but they don't feel too good either.

I cast her a glare before I looked back to my boyfriend "Please?" 

He is getting perpetually annoyed with me he shrugs away from my grasp, "Fuck off, we just got here," He mutters, Conner must think I couldn't hear it. He had already downed three Bud lights and a couple of shots of cheap vodka, now he is nursing another beer in hand. 

"Excuse me?" I say, narrowing my eyes. Everyone around the fire pauses their conversation to tune into mine. "Come on," I stand up and try to pull him along so we can have a conversation away from the prying eyes of our friends.

I can't pull the mass of the 6'2 quarterback along with me but he obliges and follows me where I yank him. As I drag him along the rest of the group giggle and makes jokes along the lines of 'Trouble in paradise' but Ellie is the only one who doesn't jump back into mindless conversation, her unnerving eyes are still on me while I chew my boyfriend out by the shoreline. 

"Why do I have to leave just because you're feeling a little bummed out?" 

I'm almost floored at out someone can lack so much empathy "Because you're my boyfriend?" I can feel myself tensing up.

"Why does that mean you can't get up and leave on your own?" He defends "You begged me to come here and now I just wanna down a couple of beers and hang out with my friends."

"You've already drank like twenty!" I retort.

"It's a fucking party!" Conner says, raising his voice "It's a party and it's summer and you're seriously trying to tell me not to have fun?"

"Fuck!" I shout in frustration "Why don't you ever call me? Why can't you ever let me in?" The argument is quickly escalating "Why didn't you tell me that you kissed Tamar and why haven't you told me that you love me?"

"Because I don't."

My words fail me. I knew he didn't, I knew that he hardly even liked me. My dad had thought so highly of him, she said he was the type of guy to rescue a baby from a burning building but as I look at him now, I figure that he eats babies.

I almost open my mouth to say something different, almost, but I don't. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I didn't, I might've been able to salvage the rotting corpse of my relationship with Ellie but I didn't. "Fine," I say, voice calm and quiet "Let's stay."

Before that night I had never really gotten drunk but the second I got back to the bonfire, I was digging through the cooler and shotgunning canned Smirnoff. "Woah," Riley laughs "Someone's finally being a bad influence."

I got myself so shit-faced that when everyone else got up to dance to the music blaring through the Bluetooth speaker, I sat by myself at the shoreline, looking bitterly out towards to ocean while the tides crash at my feet and get sucked back into the ocean. For a moment I think about jumping in and letting my lax body get washed away and sink beneath the surface until I wash up as a water-bloated corpse that some nine-year-old will find when they're beach combing.

My mouth tastes like peroxide and blood, my lungs burn with a red-hot pain. The wind is becoming increasingly harsh and I ignore the hair that is tangled into my golden hoop earrings.

"Wow, you look awful," I don't need to turn around to know who it is.

"Can you just fuck off?" I say "I don't give a shit about you, just leave me alone."

She always had to antagonize me, Ellie went out of her way to stray from the group and bother me. It had something to do with the alcohol in her system. Despite her alleged hatred for me, she takes a seat next to me regardless.

"Fuck, you're so sensitive," She scoffs "I don't know why you're dating him, I'm not even sure why you'd want to fuck him unless you're too lazy to jerk off-

My hands think before my head and I deck Ellie right in the side of her face, getting a solid hit to her cheekbone. My hand flies over my mouth "I'm sorry, I-

Ellie doesn't waste any time in lunging back at me, she pushes me down by my shoulders until my back is in the shallow of the water that moments ago just splashed at my feet and takes a swing. The impact of her punch almost knocks me sober.

I take a sharp inhale, grabbing her elbows and pulling her down to where she was the one on her back and I was the one straddling her. I land one last blow to her nose, I hear a crunch and the panic immediately sends me scrambling to my feet. My eyes go wide at the blood dripping down, her face I turn to run but Ellie is faster, she grabs me by my hair and yanks me down further into the water with her. 

"Fucking cunt!" I cry, though my scream is drowned out by the overwhelmingly loud tides crashing on the shore "Get the fuck off me!" 

Ellie is better at fighting than I am, I had never been on this side of her before, usually, I had been the one to drag her away from fights but now I am the one who is going to stumble home numb from the devastating pain.

Frankly, I'm fucking scared.

She continues to drag me by my hair until I'm knee-deep in the water with her, she almost throws her entire weight into me, dunking me beneath the surface where her bony hands snake around my neck. My eyes have gone blurry with the salt water, they sting and burn. I can't see anything, all I can do is uselessly thrash beneath her. My hands push against her face, trying to pry her off my body. 

Eventually, I manage to claw her face with my fingernails, I dig deep enough that it breaks skin and she recoils just enough for me to knee her in the stomach and let me get out from under her. Just as I try to slip away she reaches for my hair again, but instead of tugging on my hair, she rips out my gold hoop earring. I screech out in agony, hand reaching for where the metal sliced through the lobe of my ear, I shudder in pain; my cries are now jagged and harsh.

This is the exact moment Ellie begins to regret what she's done. "Fuck, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to." Her tone softens and she tries to approach me but I back away from her like a frightened dog.

"Get away from me!" Despite the pain surging in my body, I find the strength in me to hit her again, she staggers back tripping into the water. I hit her so hard that I feel a crack in my knuckle and I yelp out in the immediate shock of pain. 

I wasn't sure when the others had noticed this was happening probably because my vision had gone blurry from salt water and adrenaline but before Ellie could hit me again, she was being restrained by Riley and Kennedy while some guy who I had probably had two conversations with dragged my back to shore.

I keel over on my hands and knees and begin to start retching onto the sand. Laila rubs a gentle hand on my back, my hair sticking wet on my forehead. A seagull, disturbed by the commotion, took flight, its wings cutting through the charged air. 

Next to the pile of vomit I just heaved, blood drips down from my ear, pooling and then soaking into the sand. My neck swells from what is still the raw sensation of Ellie closing her hands around it. 

I look up at Ellie, there is blood that has dripped its way into her mouth, clinging to her white teeth. She has what almost looks like a cat scratch running down her cheek, blood begins to prick and spill from the lacerations.

She stares back at me and we don't say a word but we understand each other clearly, I never want to see you again.

"Let's go," Ellie grabs my arm as Dina begins to slice the cake "We're gonna fix this right now."

"Ellie, there are so many people here," I say in a hushed tone so people can't hear me.

"I don't mean here," She looks at me, face expressionless "Just get in my car."

"Excuse me?" I say, tone accusing "Did you just order me to get in your car?"

"Fuck," She sighs, dropping my wrist to rub her hands down her face "Please can you get in my car so we can work this through."

"There's nothing to work through," I retort "You're embarrassed by me or you still secretly hate me and that's fine, I meant what I said on winter break about the lease, the second it's up, I'm getting the fuck out of here."

"What? No, don't- just," She takes a breath, reevaluating what to say "I have a point to make but I can't make it unless you get in my car."

We stare at each other for a moment, I narrow my eyes and she is still unmoving. Every scenario runs through my head of what could be waiting for me in that car.

"Fine."

I sit silently in her passenger seat, my knees are pulled into my chest and I rest my chin on them. Ellie doesn't say anything either as she drives. I watch each traffic light pass me, every street name to try and make sense of where we are going.

I almost feel like I'm going to suffocate beneath the silence of everything going left unsaid.

When I spot the boardwalk up ahead, I know exactly where she's taking me "Ellie, why are we at the beach?" I give her a side glance "Do I need to take out my earrings?"

Heat rises to her cheeks when I say this, "Not yet," She jokes, getting out of her car and grabbing a tote bag from the back seat, and I follow in tow.

We walk past the boardwalk and onto the sandy beach, I'm already not feeling whatever she's doing; there is sand filling up my Converse and a slight wind chill, I'm really wishing I had a hoodie right now. "Can you tell me what we're doing yet?" I'm hugging myself in an attempt to stay warm "If we're still walking on the beach why couldn't we have just walked on the boardwalk instead? It literally has walk in the name." I'm already going off on one of my tangents.

She still walking ahead of me but she briefly turns around to face me "Can you just stop asking questions for a minute?"

"Okay, whatever," I mutter, trailing behind her still. I can hardly see in the night, the only light to guide us is the moon and the warm ceiling lamps from restaurants along the boardwalk. I can vaguely see Ellie's silhouette, she's outlined by the gentle glow radiating off the moon, I try my best not to stumble over things poking out of the sand that have been lost to sight by darkness. 

"Okay," Ellie stops, "Here we are."

"Where are we?" I ask "I can't see shit, I don't know where here is."

Ellie digs around in her pocket for her phone and turns on a flashlight and it reveals a small iron firepit that was cemented into a slab of concrete in the sand. She hands me her phone so I can keep the flash on her and she can see what she's doing. 

She pulls out some pages ripped out from her notebook "Can you hand me your lighter?"

My eyebrows furrowed, and I felt around in my pocket wondering if I even had one. I did, it had slipped my mind that I still had the bic lighter that I confiscated from Peach Fuzz. I hand the lighter to her and watch as she tucks the pages beneath logs that were in the firepit before we arrive, they are somewhat charred but still viable.

She flicks the lighter to ignite it and the paper catches immediately. The initial flicker grew into a tentative blaze, licking at the edges of the kindling. The crackling sound echoed through the night. 

Once she is sure the fire can survive without her feeding it, she steps away. "Alright, let's have it out."

"Like sex?" I scrunch up my nose.

"Oh my god, no, like let's talk this through." She pinches her nose bridge, taking a breath in before exhaling and putting her hand back down "We're gonna recreate the night of the bonfire how it should've been," Ellie reached back into her bag and pulled out two white claws "I snagged these from Dina's party, sorry this was kind of last minute."

I can't help the smile that grows on my face, I take one of the white claws and crack it open "I don't know how authentic this is gonna be if there isn't any canned Smirnoff."

I think back to exactly how that night played out and I take a seat on the sand, facing the crashing dark ocean. I sip my white claw, as expected Ellie takes a seat next to me, just what happened on the actual night.

"Wow," She says "You look really pretty and I'm an idiot for ever saying you looked awful," Ellie looks gorgeous illuminated by the orange light of the fire, and the breeze causes her flyaway hairs to drift in the wind. "I'm an asshole for pretending that I didn't know you, I was scared I would get hurt again and take it to heart like I did last time. I promise the second we get home that I'll come clean."

I don't know if I can deal with this sugary philosophy. She's being so sweet that it's rotting my teeth.

"Ellie," I say gathering my thoughts, it was so hard being honest with my feelings, it felt like I would get hospitalized if I showed any emotion. "I was so in love with you in high school that it killed me, and I was terrified that my parents would throw me out well, they did- but that's why I pushed you away and there isn't a day that goes by where I don't regret it." 

The surprise on her face morphs into a soft smile "What about now?" she asks "Do you still love me?"

I shrug, it's honest "I dunno, but I think there's room to try."

She looks from me to the ocean and the way the moonlight glitters off the surface "What happened next?" Ellie toys with the tab of her drink "Did you hit me?"

"Yeah," I say softly, following her gaze out to the waters "But if we're doing the night how it should've been, I'd rather just kiss you."

Ellie turns her head back to look at me. She shoves her white claw into the sand then takes my face into one of her hands and kisses me like it's her job, so tender and carefully like she's afraid I will break beneath pressure.

How weak have I become? My heart is so full of her that I can hardly call it my own.

A/N: Be grateful for this ending because I was very tempted to give you guys an unhappy one. Sorry that I forgot to post this lol, I’m sad this series is over but excited to show you all my next one which may be the angst-iest yet 👀

Thanks for reading!

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[andhumanslovedstories]

A while ago at work, I had a patient whose condition rapidly deteriorated during my shift, which I believed at the time was due to me not monitoring certain therapies closely enough. Essentially patient had parameters that their oxygen saturations should be between 88-92%. The patient was on supplemental oxygen via a nasal cannula, and was having oxygen saturations of 95% or more. The patient later became lethargic, confused, and hard to rouse. The patient was in hypercapnic respiratory failure, where they essentially were not exhaling enough CO2, the waste product of respirations. Patients who have oxygen parameters of 88-92% tend to be COPD patients, and I'd been taught where giving them too much oxygen can result in CO2 retention.

We ended up having to call a rapid response on that patient who needed to go on the bipap (non-invasive ventilator) to help them breathe effectively, and I went home from that shift feeling certain that I killed this person. That I had triggered a terminal decline that the patient would never recover from.

(Perhaps some context here: my grandfather went into hypercapnic respiratory failure and then died within a few days. Maybe he would have passed either way, I think probably he would have, but the respiratory failure was the moment his decline started accelerating. After he went hypercapnic, he was non-responsive from that point on.)

I called in sick to my next shift because I couldn't face going in. I spent the day thinking about what I'd done, what my moral obligations were, how do you atone for something when you cannot reverse the effects of the original error, and how paralyzed by shame I felt. What did I owe the patient? What did I owe the family? What did I owe myself? How many times had this happened before and I just didn't know because the decline happened after my shift ended?

It was a productive if unpleasant day of trying to sincerely examine myself and the things I'd done wrong without flagellating myself. It'd be almost easily to complete condemn myself and to stop nursing because I'm a Bad Nurse than it would have been to acknowledge the many steps that led to this patient outcome, only some of which I had a hand in. But this was my patient. They were my responsibility. What was the right reaction to have? What should I be feeling? In the course of doing my job, I caused harm to someone I swore to take care of. I still think that I am a thoughtful, hardworking, and compassionate nurse. I don't think the hospital would be better off if I quit. But I hurt someone.

I thought a lot about how this outcome happened, came up with steps to prevent it in the future, and found a new commitment within myself for continued learning. (If you've got a timeline of my particular fixations, this is about when my determination to go to grad school began.) I also thought about how much shame was making me sick. When my patient started declining and I realized the effects of my actions and inactions, one of my first thoughts was genuinely, "Everyone's going to know what I did." It was thought with absolute horror. I'd hurt someone and everyone was going to know it. They were going to know I was bad at my job and bad as a person.

And I was struck by what an unhelpful emotion that was. How much it made me, if only for a moment, tell NO ONE what was going on and what I believed to be the root cause. That it'd be better to let the decline continue rather than intervene because if I intervened that'd be admitting that I'd done something wrong. I didn't listen to that voice that told me to hide what I'd done, but I instantly understood the power of it.

There's this thing called the Compass of Shame which is about the different ways people handle their own feelings of shame--they avoid the shame, they withdraw from themselves and others, they attack others, they attack themselves. I know my own reactions to shame and try therefore not to go with my gut instincts, which are always to say I'm an irredeemably bad person and no one can know about this and if anyone does not about what I've done wrong, I deserve literally whatever punishment they could give me. I've had to learn I can both have failed to complete my responsibilities and still not deserve to lose my job or my flunk this class or give up on college or lose all my friends. But there is something appealing about masochistic shame. Like you can prevent others from judging and punishing you if you sufficiently judge and punish yourself. You'll still be a wretched monster, but no one else needs to know that.

That's actively dangerous for patients, who are the victims of healthcare errors, and it doesn't help prevent future mistakes if we are too ashamed to talk about what happened and why. We'll just keep fucking up in the exact same ways because no one else told us how they'd fucked up that way in the past and here's how we've changed the process because of that. I therefore have an ethical obligation to not internalize shame when I make mistakes at my job. I have tried to remember that while also trying my best to not make the same mistakes twice.

And then a week later, I was sent back to the same floor with the patient who'd declined on my watch. Because I'm a float RN and therefore don't have an assigned unit, I go to different floors every night (occasionally multiple floors on the same night). I see patients for 12 hours and then almost never see them again. Since I was back on the floor, I girded myself and went to go visit the patient, who to my surprise was alert and upright and about the same as I'd seen her at the beginning of my shift before they'd gotten bad. I said hi and asked how the patient was doing, and the answer was that patient was doing about the same as they'd been doing for the last month.

This was not good news for the patient, who was still medically complex, still dealing with an extremely difficult to address condition, but they were also not in the ICU, dying, or dead which is what I'd feared. And with the new knowledge that the patient was, if not okay, than at least stable as ever despite my actions, I could look back on that shift and see it differently, namely that this patient kept continuing to go into hypercapnic respiratory failure with or without oxygen. And then I looked into what I thought I'd been negligent about before and found that the scholarship on it was more complicated and divided than I'd thought. That the mechanism of action that I thought was driving the hypercapnic respiratory failure was in fact waaaaaaaaaaay more complicated than just over oxygenation, particularly in this patient who had a number of muscular abnormalities that made much more of an impact on ventilation than the oxygen would have. And while I still had to improve my practice, upon more reflection I could no longer say there was a direct one to one of my actions and the patient's decline.

I felt simultaneously forgiven, absolved, and humbled. I cannot describe to you the almost sheepish relief that rushed over me. Nothing that bad had happened. What did happen was only ambiguously my fault.

There's a power fantasy to shame sometimes, that you are uniquely bad and that your actions have monumental consequences. My actions on the job can have monumental consequences, but usually they are little things, little cares, little turns, little med doses, little therapies, little steps, little tasks, little jobs, little kindnesses or little cruelties that help a patient move forward or which hold a patient back. I'm there for 12 hours and never again. I can do a lot in that time, but I'm not gonna cure them and I'm probably not going to kill them. It's a relief, and it's a strange disappointment. We want to be important, even in bad ways.

While I can certainly fuck things up for patients, while I can certainly kill patients or traumatize them or withhold care or misuse my position, while I can do all those things, I don't actually have that much power over life and death. Everything that goes wrong isn't my fault. And sometimes something is your fault and nothing really happens except a few people have a bad night and you try not to do it again. I think that last bit is the most important part. I still should have titrated her oxygen down. I'm more careful about that now. I'm trying not to fuck up in the exact same way. I'll find exciting new ways to fuck up, and then I'll learn from those too.

[kurishiri]

alfons sylvatica . . . episode.0

— this translation may not be 100% accurate or contain creative liberties due to characterization or narrative flow purposes. if you enjoy, please consider reblogging, but don’t repost these or claim these as your own!

— cw: depiction of death.

I do so wonder, were I to say, “Life is but a tragedy,” would you disagree with me?

Well, in the end, it matters not if you agree or disagree.

Everyone is free to interpret what’s before them in their own way. Much like everyone is free to choose how they face reality.

By this, then, if I were to state my personal views on this, I would claim for certain that life is but a tragedy.

Ah, but by no means am I embracing a pessimistic perspective.

If you find reality to be unpleasant, you need only seek out an escape.

Even should an escape fail you, though——

madness will still remain your friend.

In the back alley, where twilight drew near, I happened upon an elderly man collapsed on the ground.

With my hands on my knees, I crouched down beside him. In response, the man’s hollow eyes, devoid of any sign of vitality, looked my way.

Elderly man: Ahh… it’s you.

Alfons: Yes, indeed, it is none other than me.

I do, in fact, have quite a large circle of acquaintances.

That goes especially for people like this man, who had been driven out from the light.

Alfons: Might there a final dream you wish to see?

Elderly man: ………My wife.

Elderly man: I………would like to say sorry………

Alfons: …Is that so.

For a miraculous, utterly unrealistic happening to occur in the finale, right before the curtain closed on a play, would be the universal joke of all comedies.

Alfons: See now, look there. Isn’t it great? “Your wife has come to see you.”

Elderly man: ………Ahh…ahh…

When I murmured this while touching the back of his neck, the man’s eyes widened, tears brimming slightly at the edge of his eyes,

and unable to say the words ‘I’m sorry’ until the end, he drew his last breath.

Alfons: Did she smile for you in your final dream?

A: …Or so I ask, but I can hardly say I’m very interested in the answer.

I gently closed his eyes before promptly leaving the place myself.

(Now, I say it’s about time to search for something new to kill off this boredom.)

Upon leaving the alleyway, I found myself in a twilight-colored London, filled with livelihood,

and the people, in their restlessness, couldn’t bother to pay heed to the fact that just a step in the alleyway would reveal quite a ghastly death.

That would make up the majority. ——However.

(…Oh?)

A postwoman passed me by, running the opposite direction as me,

and as she entered the alleyway where the man was lying, she suddenly stopped.

(So she realized him…?)

At first, I held no interest, but now I was curious to see what this postwoman would do, so in a daze, I stared after her.

She hesitated to step into the alleyway, which had begun to sink in the twilight,

instead looking around her before running toward some patrolling police officers who were some ways away.

(Aww, truly a fool she is. If only she simply feigned ignorance…)

(As the first witness of the body, she will be questioned and subsequently end up tardy for her deliveries.)

But if she left the body, either the police or the cleaners would have discovered it eventually.

(I take it she is the type to carry more burdens than she needs to.)

The kindest people are the easiest to hurt. Such habits are troublesome because it is much like walking into a bush of thorns.

(A pitiable soul she is.)

(Her naïve honesty will be her downfall and lead her to scenes that reek of blood…)

(Well, I suppose I can only hope this theory remains as such.)

Victor: You went out and used your ability again, didn’t you, Alfons?

The next day, the one who caught me in the hallway was the Queen’s Aide, who was laughing wryly.

Alfons: Well, now, whenever could that be? If you remain so vague like that, I’m afraid I will be unable to pin down exactly which incident you speak of.

A: You see, I am but a frugal soul who is simply using what is at his disposal.

Victor: Just as a friendly reminder, you guys’ existences are to be kept confidential, okay?

Alfons: Now, now, why so caught up in the gritty details?

A: After all, I reckon my ability is about as good as a plain old crook when put next to one like William’s.

Victor: Good lord, you naughty boy, you. It’s a no from me, I say, no!

With an air of jest surrounding his warning, his jewel-like eyes narrowed.

Although he was likely scheming a thing — or perhaps two, this respectable person’s true colors still remained ever unfathomable.

Victor: Anyway, all that aside, tonight marks the day of the mission. Have you made your preparations?

Alfons: Yes, but of course.

Crown, a villainous organization that used evil to fight evil, was going to condemn a target tonight.

It was just going to be like any other dull mission that gave me no room to show a sweet dream in one’s dying moments.

Or, that was what I thought.

As per William’s command, the target slit their own throat, and it was right after that.

The door opened, and in came none other than that postwoman.

Kate: ——!?

Drawing in a breath, I could hear the sound come from her throat.

(…Aww…)

(I know I had foreshadowed this, but even for a prediction, is this not much too soon?)

(Goodness, I just cannot help but wonder how that naïve honesty led you here.)

With blood staining her cheeks, she simply stood there, dumbfounded.

I could practically hear the sound of the cruel reality before her piercing through her gentle heart, even now.

(Oh, please, I would prefer anything over this serious air.)

A dull and boring mission turning into a stage set for a tragedy was much too common to hold an ounce of my interest.

(And if this is bound to become a tragedy,)

(why not simply make it a most amusing stage instead?)

If you find reality to be unpleasant, you need only seek out an escape. Even should an escape fail you, though…

Alfons: Well, well, to think we had an audience.

——madness will still remain your friend.

In the end, the lady, who introduced herself as Kate, was given a joke of a role dubbed as a ‘fairytale keeper,’

and it was decided that she would be staying in this den of evil for a month.

Alfons: She truly is hapless… I’m certain anyone would find themselves more at home in this world of darkness than a lady such as her.

Shrugging my shoulders while heading toward my own room, Elbert, who was walking beside me, turned to me with worry.

Elbert: …Are you alright, Al?

Alfons: Yes? Now whatever could you be referring to?

Elbert: Well… you seemed somewhat sad, if I had to say.

Alfons: Ahha! I assure you I am anything but.

A: Why, in fact, when will such an opportune moment arise again, where I will have a most interesting plaything for an entire month? Do you truly believe I have capacity for anything but amusement?

Elbert: …I see.

To me, this ordeal was naught but a new plaything, having stumbled in here, I can use to fill this life with amusement.

And to her, this ordeal was naught but the darkness of England that she did not have to witness, and a troublesome role that was pushed onto her.

(And for the both of us, if this can become an entertainment that can divert us, even for a moment, that is all it needs to be.)

Alfons: Truly… I do look forward to this.

Reality knows nothing but cruelty: it will only eat away at your heart before throwing you in the middle of the darkness.

So cease this folly act of trying to face it directly and getting yourself hurt.

(Now——may the time pass us by, much like a most amusing dream.)

← prev next →

NOTE: and this would mark the start of alfons’ route! i feel this route may probably be the least romantic-feeling out of the ones released so far; of course, that’s not to say there isn’t romance, but the way he expresses love is quite subtle and the romance may feel overshadowed by his issues. but i hope the high drama can make up for any (perceived) lack of romance!

truth be told, i feel this route may end up dividing the fandom when it comes to alfons, especially with his actions. and you may find yourself surprised at how kate ends up sort of toughing it out to the very end with him. but i do think, overall, it does take a read through of this route to really understand and delve into the parts of his character the other routes seem to only hint at.

i hope you enjoy this wild ride, if you choose to ride along with me!

masterlist🪞 ╱ ko-fi ☕️

꒰ ִ ֺ ⊹ @ tags🏷️ ⊹ ֺ ִ ꒱ @drachonia @.comment or dm to be added or removed!

[marichive]

𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 : 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄

Writing / roleplay prompts collected from the POV chapters of Catelyn Tully / Stark in A Game of Thrones , the first book of the ASOIAF saga. Feel free to adjust pronouns / etc. as needed.

tw: dark & mature themes, death, violence, suggestive / sexual content

❝ Where are the children? ❞

❝ Is he afraid? ❞

❝ He is only three. ❞

❝ He must learn to face his fears. ❞

❝ Winter is coming. ❞

❝ The man died well, I’ll give him that. ❞

❝ You would have been proud of him. ❞

❝ I’m always proud of him. ❞

❝ The poo man was half mad. Something had put a fear in him so deep that my words could not reach him. ❞

❝ It will only grow worse. The day may come when I will have no choice but to call the banners. ❞

❝ He is nothing for us to fear. ❞

❝ There are darker things beyond the Wall. ❞

❝ You listen to too many of her stories. ❞

❝ No living man has ever seen one. ❞

❝ You did not come here to tell me tales. ❞

❝ I know how little you like this place. ❞

❝ What is it, My Lady? ❞

❝ There was grievous news today, My Lord. ❞

❝ I did not wish to trouble you until you had cleansed yourself. ❞

❝ I am so sorry, my love. He is dead. ❞

❝ Is this news certain? ❞

❝ It was the king’s seal, and the letter is in his own hand. ❞

❝ I saved it for you. ❞

❝ That is some small mercy, I suppose. ❞

❝ His memory will haunt each stone. ❞

❝ She needs the comfort of family and friends around her. ❞

❝ The letter had other tidings. ❞

❝ The king is riding to seek you out. ❞

❝ We should send word to your brother. ❞

❝ And he gives us no more notice than this? ❞

❝ Where the king goes, the realm follows. ❞

❝ Please, guard your tongue. ❞

❝ Kings are not like other men. ❞

❝ Can’t you see the danger that would put us in? ❞

❝ I never asked for this cup to pass to me. ❞

❝ What is it? My Lady, you’re shaking. ❞

❝ There is grief in this message, I can feel it. ❞

❝ This is no time for false modesty. ❞

❝ My father went south once, to answer the summons of a king. He never came home again. ❞

❝ There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. ❞

❝ He must learn to rule, and I will not be here for him. ❞

❝ He must be ready when his time comes. ❞

❝ You know how he loves to climb. ❞

❝ This is hard, I know. ❞

❝ He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. ❞

❝ He cannot stay here. He is your son, not mine. I will not have him. ❞

❝ A boy with a bastard’s name . . . you know what they will say of him. He will be shunned. ❞

❝ How can you be so damnably cruel? ❞

❝ When the time comes, I will tell him myself. ❞

❝ I can’t leave him, even for a moment. ❞

❝ I have to be with him. ❞

❝ He’s not going to die. ❞

❝ What if he needs me and I’m not here? ❞

❝ I need you too. I’m trying, but I can’t . . . I can’t do it all by myself. ❞

❝ He needs to hear them sing. ❞

❝ Don’t be afraid. ❞

❝ Swear to me you’ll sleep. ❞

❝ It’s good to know my son’s life was not sold cheaply. ❞

❝ What I am about to tell you must not leave this room. ❞

❝ You have my oath. ❞

❝ If this is true, he will pay for it. I’ll kill him myself! ❞

❝ Never draw your sword unless you mean to use it. ❞

❝ I must go myself. ❞

❝ The honor of carrying a lady like yourself is all the reward I need. ❞

❝ The captain was just telling me that our voyage is almost at an end. ❞

❝ I have not been the most valiant of protectors. ❞

❝ The moment we go ashore we are at risk. ❞

❝ There are those at court who will know you on sight. ❞

❝ It’s one thing to be clever and another to be wise. ❞

❝ A man must make his own choices. ❞

❝ Even in a place like this, one never knows who may be watching. ❞

❝ Why have I been brought here in this fashion? ❞

❝ You were not mistreated, I trust? ❞

❝ I am not accustomed to being summoned like a serving wench. ❞

❝ I’ve angered you, My Lady. That was never my intent. ❞

❝ A wife is allowed to yearn for her husband. ❞

❝ Please don’t expect me to believe that. ❞

❝ This sudden trip of yours bespeaks a certain urgency. ❞

❝ I beg of you, let me help. ❞

❝ I know things. That is the nature of my service. ❞

❝ I am soaked through. Even my bones are wet. ❞

❝ There is an inn at the crossroads up ahead. ❞

❝ I hope I have not spoken out of turn. I meant no offense. ❞

❝ Frank talk does not offend me. ❞

❝ You are far from home. ❞

❝ Your home is in my heart. ❞

❝ Take off your helm. I would look on your face again. ❞

❝ I have not been a child in many years. ❞

❝ Suspicion casts a long shadow. ❞

❝ It seems to me she is only playing at courtship. She enjoys the sport. ❞

❝ A woman can rule as wisely as a man. ❞

❝ Pride? Arrogance, some might call it. Arrogance and avarice and lust for power. ❞

❝ I, however, am innocent as a little lamb. Shall I bleat for you? ❞

❝ I promise you, my lady, no harm will come to you. ❞

❝ I do not frighten easily. ❞

❝ I am going to die here. ❞

❝ I . . . I cannot do this. ❞

❝ I’ll come back for you. ❞

❝ I don’t want to look. ❞

❝ Keep your eyes closed if you like. ❞

❝ Have you taken leave of your senses!? ❞

❝ Isn’t he beautiful? ❞

❝ The seed is strong. ❞

❝ Not in front of the baby. ❞

❝ These are not times for delicacy. ❞

❝ You’re scaring the boy. ❞

❝ We’re safe here. ❞

❝ Don’t be a fool. No one is safe. If you think hiding here will make them forget you, you are sadly mistaken. ❞

❝ No castle is impregnable. ❞

❝ Tell me the rest of it. ❞

❝ I should have been woken. ❞

❝ Isn’t it a lovely morning? The gods are smiling on us. ❞

❝ Alive, he has value. Dead, he is only food for crows. ❞

❝ It’s said that poison is a woman’s weapon. ❞

❝ He’s too fond of the sight of blood on that sword of his. ❞

❝ Stand and fight, coward! ❞

❝ My son is leading a host to war. ❞

❝ When night falls, there are said to be ghosts, cold vengeful spirits of the North. ❞

❝ Remind me not to linger here. ❞

❝ You’ve grown a beard. ❞

❝ You are as fair as ever, a welcome sight in troubled times. ❞

❝ Can you understand why I might fear? ❞

❝ The real message is in what she does not say. ❞

❝ I know the sound of a threat, even whispered. ❞

❝ They have her hostage, and they mean to keep her. ❞

❝ Our best hope, our only true hope, is that you can defeat the foe in the field. ❞

❝ You cannot afford to seem indecisive in front of men like these. ❞

❝ It is not my intent to linger here long. ❞

❝ I’ll speak any way I like, damn you. ❞

❝ I have agreed to take them as wards. ❞

❝ Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own son in his arms. ❞

❝ You should let the men see you before battle. I will give them courage. ❞

❝ And who will give me courage? ❞

❝ So this is what death sounds like. ❞

❝ I would offer you my sword, but I seem to have mislaid it. ❞

❝ It is not your sword I want, ser. ❞

❝ He . . . he killed them . . . ❞

❝ If they hadn’t tried to stop him — ❞

❝ Your men did what they were sworn to do. ❞

❝ Grieve for them. Honor them for their valor. But not now. You have no time for grief. ❞

❝ Your grief is mine. ❞

❝ I swear it, you will have your vengeance. ❞

❝ Will that bring him back to me? ❞

❝ I prayed to know what to do, but the gods did not answer. ❞

❝ I shared his bed and bore his children. Do you think I love him any less than you? ❞

❝ I will mourn for him until the end of my days, but I must think of the living. ❞

❝ I want you to live your life, to kiss a girl and wed a woman and father a son. ❞

❝ I want to write an end to this. I want to go home. ❞

❝ Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? ❞

❝ It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead! ❞

❝ There sits the only king I mean to bow my knee to. ❞

[docholligay]

You must murder five people in order to bring someone you care about back from the dead. The victims can be anyone you choose, but there can't be any element of self-defense, and they can't be about to die naturally. Could you and would you do this, if given the chance?

Oh almost fucking certainly, I'm like five steps from being a war criminal at any given time. Thank fuck I don't believe in thought crime.

I mean, there's always the chance that I'm talking tough and I wouldn't be able to do it at the end of the day, but at least unlike most people I have passing familiarity with killing an animal. So especially if the mental calculus is something like my daughter and five strangers, five people I don't care about, I'll almost certainly attempt it. I can be pushed to it.

I am, quite frankly, sitting here thinking how I would go about it, and it is VERY unflattering to me, so I'm not going to post it, because it is unkind and I am almost 100% certain I could get away with it, on top of everything else. This is not "who do I think has it coming" this is, "Who can I kill quickly and with little argument?"

I hope someone would stop me! This is evil. This is selfish. This is bad. I should be taken out. I would be fucking infuriated and horrified if someone did this to bring me back.

Now, if it's someone I love, but I think has more or less had a fair shot? I am less likely to be talked into it. I can be convinced more easily that I have an ethical-moral code, however hard I have to work for it. Even someone who didn't have a fair shot, maybe, but I know would also be disgusted if I did this for them--I have a handful of friends who fall into this category--I think that could keep me from it.

That being said, in the rip-roaring grip of grief, I've said and done things that appall me, so it's perfectly possible that I could betray my own moral code and theirs with a wildly bullshit action.

So I guess my answer is, "Yes, but I don't like that about myself."

[junebugwriter]

Trans Awareness, Remembrance, and the Dangers of Existing 

For those who still yet live. 

(Image from GLAAD.)

November 13th – 19th was the annual Transgender Awareness Week, a week that ends in Transgender Day of Remembrance. The Day of Remembrance is a day that is solemn, tragic, and rather sobering. It’s the day we take to remember our transgender siblings who were killed in acts of transphobic hate. It is a day of mourning, of gravity, and many, many tears, because of how truly painful it can be. For me, a newly self-realized trans woman, it’s even more sobering. 

Rewind to about a year ago. I was beginning to acknowledge the enormity of my gender dysphoria after 35 years of denial. It was something I was desperate to avoid at the beginning because I knew. I knew how much the world hates trans people for existing. How dangerous it is to step outside of the boundaries of the fragile social structure that we have encoded into our lives. How brittle and unsafe it can all be for someone who does not conform to the gender that we were assigned at birth.  

I wanted to look away for so very, very long. To not admit the truth of my nature. But the funny thing about the truth is that it just stays there, even if you don’t believe it. And my truth was that I was trans. My new reality was that no matter how far I go in the journey, no matter how well I might “pass” (even though passing isn’t the goal, it’s being authentic to myself), there will always be people who hate me for existing.  

I was unable to write this yesterday, due to obligations, but I wanted to write about it, nonetheless. Some friends of mine were able to hold a ceremony for the lives of our trans siblings who were taken this year. They got to say their names. They got to hold a candle for these brothers and sisters, dear people whose lives ended because someone decided that they shouldn’t exist.  

These are their names. * 

London Price. 

Lisa Love. 

A’nee Johnson. 

Chyna Long. 

YOKO. 

Sherlyn Marjorie.  

Kylie Monali. 

Luis Angel Diaz Castro. 

Thomas “Tom-Tom” Robertson. 

De’Vonnie J’Rae Johnson. 

Jacob Williamson. 

Chanell Perez Ortiz. 

Ashia Davis. 

Banko Brown. 

Rasheeda “Koko Da Doll” Williams. 

Ashley Burton. 

Tasiyah “Siyah” Woodland. 

Tortuguita. 

Cashay B. Henderson. 

Imanitwitaho Zachee. 

Maria Fer. 

Jasmine “Star” Mack. 

Unique Banks. 

Say these names in your heart. Know that theirs was a life that was beautiful and should not have been taken away by a person with hate in their heart and fear in their mind. Recognize the fact that the largest percentage of these victims were black women by far. The oldest one of them was only 41 years old, 5 years older than me. Most were in their twenties. Some were in their teens. All were beautiful. All were born with innate divinity, the same innate divinity that dwells in each of us, the same image of the transcendent God that created all of us.  

Remember them. Feel the weight of them. It’s a heavy load to bear, and much more than the community can stand. We are in an era of rapidly increasing transphobia. There is a concerted effort to mandate us out of existence legally. I honestly am somewhat afraid of coming home for Christmas this year because of my running into the wrong person while trying to spend time with my loved ones. (Then I remember it will be in Austin, and that’s probably as safe as it gets for gender-nonconforming individuals, and I relax, but it’s still by a slim margin.) 

Before the day of remembrance is Trans Awareness Week. What's funny is before the past couple of years, I would rate everyone’s awareness of transgender people as relatively low, until certain lawmakers decided to make it an enormous issue. The truth of it is that trans people have always existed. We’ve always been there. Going back thousands of years, in cultures all over the globe, you will find trans people in history, if you look for them. Even going back, a couple of decades, yeah, things weren’t great for trans people, but mostly it was because people didn’t know what we were. People lived entire lives, not being free to be themselves. Now, we have people trying to educate people so that kids like me might understand more about themselves, and in response to simply new, better information about transgender identities, people react with hatred.  

The thing about transgender people that I’m learning every day is that they are some of the bravest people I know. It takes bravery to ask yourself the hard questions about your identity. It takes bravery to live authentically as you are meant to be.  

I was afraid that I didn’t have it in me to be brave enough to be trans. 

But it doesn’t matter if I’m brave. It matters that I live. It matters that I exist. I’m extremely lucky, and privileged, to be where I am. To have lived the life I have lived is an extraordinary blessing. To have a family that still loves me and supports me is a blessing beyond measure. To have a partner who is willing to support me is an even greater blessing. So many trans kids and adults don’t have that. So many are turned out into a cold world that doesn’t want to make space for them. So many people would rather we did not exist. 

The truth is, we do exist. And no matter how much they can try to legislate us out of existence, there will always be trans people. That’s the truth that cannot be erased or ignored. Just like I couldn’t ignore the truth about my gender identity, we as a people can’t ignore the hatred and violence that is done to trans people all the time. We cannot ignore the concerted effort by a few hateful individuals whose world is so small they cannot appreciate the infinite amount of beauty that trans people give to the world just by our existence.  

I’m writing this because I want to make sure at the very least that I remember my siblings who have gone before me—those who face hatred and violence because of the small-minded hatred of bigots. Our world is so much more beautiful for us living in it.  

May we one day live in a world where we no longer need to remember the lives of those killed because of anti-transgender hatred.  

_________________________________________________ 

*Names retrieved from https://glaad.org/tdor-memoriam/. 

[mcflymemes]

AS SAID BY ALISTAIR THEIRIN

ASSORTED DIALOGUE FROM DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS

aw, that’s sweet.

excuse me while i begin projectile vomiting.

is it just me, or did i do really badly back there?

that just seems so excessive.

i don’t think we’re alone. i really don’t think we’re alone.

i once got pickpocketed.

where do you think they get all this stuff?

why do they call it a brothel? there’s no broth. or is there?

we’re not going to be mobbed, right?

now that is a big tree.

you feel that? it’s actually colder up here.

now that’s just unnecessary.

oh here i am! and there you are! you just disappeared!

can we expect more of those?

what is that smell? fish? and something else... oh, more fish.

it’s just like being home again.

i locked myself in a cage once, when i was a child. for an entire day. ahh, good times.

is this place even on a proper map?

what is this place?

uh oh. i’m terrible at puzzles.

hey you see those... thingies over on the side of that huge chasm?

maybe i should touch them. or stand on them?

nice campfire you have there.

let’s try not to get lost here.

i think there’s something ahead. something big.

looks like we’re done here.

do you think they understand everything we say?

you could be an utter moron, for all we know.

why doesn’t anyone want to hear me talk?

there’s a certain allure to danger, isn’t there?

you’re not going to tell me, are you?

i don’t know if i should take you seriously... but you scare me sometimes.

i’ve never been very good at that.

all right, forget i asked.

i so totally did not see you ogling each other before.

what an utter relief.

do i have a choice?

couldn’t you crawl into a bush somewhere and die? that would be great, thanks.

leave me alone.

i thought you’d like that.

i was looking at your nose.

why do you always go on about how stupid i am?

you’re not even listening to me.

oh, how the mighty have crumbled.

that... was so not what i meant.

what’s wrong with fraternizing?

shut up! that is none of your business.

i said shut up! i will run this sword through you, i’m not joking.

you’re... you’re drunk, aren’t you.

why can’t i be drunk all the time? i never get to be drunk.

i think that’s private.

so what would you do if someone told you that they loved you?

how would you react?

not this again. i’m ready this time.

really? no pinching my cheeks? no making me blush?

there it is, the last of them.

you appear to be getting younger by the day.

but you kill people. for money.

you weren’t exactly the best they had.

i’m not an idiot. well, most of the time.

oh, i get it. you’re not going to tell me.

if you aren’t telling me, there must be a reason.

well, that’s comforting.

i’m... i’m going to go stand over here now.

i’m not worried about that.

no, on second thought, i’ll just pass.

so how much did you charge to... you know... kill someone?

when this is over, what do you intend to do with yourself?

have you... had very many women in your time?

how do you... woo them?

i like my hair the way it is, thank you.

we aren’t talking about this, are we? did i hit my head?

what are your intentions with them?

is that a smirk? are you smirking at me?

just... watch yourself, then. i’ll be keeping an eye on you.

let me guess. they get assassinated.

[a-dragons-journal]

Howdy Roshan! A few questions, so feel free to split up the answers:

- What things are considered sacred in Mithraism? What things are taboo?

- What myths are there about Mithras?

- What do other vampires, ghouls, and mortals think of Mithraism?

- What sects, heresies, and/or other internal theological disagreements about it are there?

-- @caninecorundum

>< :D Oh, these are excellent questions.

What things are considered sacred in Mithraism? What things are taboo?

As far as sacred items go, gold is the big one. Mithraics are big on gold jewelry - often fake, for reasons of Expensive, but a lot of us try to carry at least one item of real gold (vermeil gold or gold filled, but not gold plated, are acceptable as "real gold") that's been blessed and consecrated on us at all times, myself included. I am so mad we-the-system don't even have the money to justify something vermeil gold or gold filled. Sacred symbols include the sun (obviously), the tauroctony (see below), bulls and cattle in general, and torches (especially in pairs, one pointed up and one pointed down). More philosophically, since Mithras is the god of covenants, a solemn oath is extremely sacred to us - a casual statement may not be true (though one should never lie to a fellow Mithraic, that doesn't necessarily extend to outsiders), but a solemn oath should never under any circumstances be broken unless it violates your oath to Cult and clan.

Taboos... well, lying to a fellow Mithraic, like I mentioned, or worse, actively harming a fellow Mithraic. I'm not sure if "failing to enact justice" counts as a taboo, but I'll put it on the list; one of the duties of a Mithraic is to be the arm of justice whenever necessary, both in reward and in punishment. I'm... not sure if there's much beyond that? No dietary restrictions that I recall, no clothing restrictions I recall (unless you count the jewelry thing, but that's not strictly required, it's just very very popular and weird if you don't)... no, I think that's about it.

What myths are there about Mithras?

So, I am dead certain there are myths about Mithras outside of this, but the ones I remember are the ones we've been able to jog my memory on with referencing this world's mithraism. This world's mithraism isn't very well documented, sadly, but there's a few myths that we know of at least vaguely - Mithras being born from a stone, striking a stone with an arrow and causing water to spring forth, and of course the tauroctony. The tauroctony is kind of the central myth of mithraism; there's a carving or painting of it at the front of every mithraeum, and many Mithraics have smaller, more portable versions at home or carried with them. The tauroctony is the myth of Mithras hunting down a wild bull that was tearing up the countryside, vaulting onto its back and riding it until it exhausted itself, then riding, driving, or carrying it to a cave and ritually slaughtering it. He then cooked a meal of its meat and Sol, either the literal representation of the sun or an older god of the sun depending who you ask, came down to share it with him, finally kneeling to Mithras to show submission to him and then passing the power of the sun to him by shaking his hand.

(A thing about this myth that does not appear to have been preserved in this world's mithraism: we often forget in the modern day just how dangerous and destructive cattle can be. This may have even been an aurochs, a true wild bull; they were still around when the myth arose. Even if it was a domestic bull, a bull that was injured, diseased, or possibly even supernatural could have done a lot of property damage and injured or killed a lot of people. This isn't a story about Mithras hunting down and killing an animal arbitrarily; this is a story about Mithras doing a deed of immense danger to himself in order to protect the community.)

My gut says there are myths specifically related to each of the aspects of Mithras - justice and oaths/covenants are the ones missing from the list so far - but I don't remember what they are. The myth related to the aspect of justice is probably something about Mithras arbitrating a dispute that seems impossible and finding a solution fair to all parties? (Though one must remember that justice is not always merciful and not always kind; it is always fair, but sometimes justice is meted out by the sword.)

What do other vampires, ghouls, and mortals think of Mithraism?

Oh, the other vampires and ghouls think we're freaks. They largely view us as annoying at best and insufferable at worst. They have their own ideas about where vampirism came from, and most of them think the whole idea of Mithras cursing vampires for being backstabby little bastards is insane. Personally, I think they also don't like the fact that we have an extremely firm moral code that we expect people to adhere to, when a lot of vampires kind of... give up on having solid morals when they get Embraced. There's also another clan that thinks they're gods, so you can imagine how well they get along with us.

The general mortal public doesn't know we exist. Vampires work very hard to keep ourselves secret from the public - that's what "the Masquerade" refers to.

What sects, heresies, and/or other internal theological disagreements about it are there?

Oh, boy, I'm sure there are some. Hmm.

Well, here's one: what exactly was Mithras to begin with? Options include:

The origin story is at least partially symbolic: Mortal man who became the first vampire and also a god (or these are the same thing, given how powerful first-generation vampires presumably are) (this has the interesting implication that the literal sun created vampires)

The origin story is entirely literal: Mithras was a god or spirit literally born from a stone, which became the god of the sun after growing sufficiently in power and then created vampires as his "childer", but never literally Embraced anyone (implies that there may be multiple first-generation vampires that are Mithras's direct "childer", which doesn't make a lot of sense)

The heresy: Mithras wasn't the first-generation vampire, but was actually the Cult of Mithras's Antediluvian (that is, the third-generation vampire from which the clan derives), and either a) wasn't a real god at all (this will get you shot on sight) or b) Antediluvians are on a level powerful enough to qualify as "gods" (this will not get you physically attacked but probably will get you kicked out of your temple, especially since it implies that the other clans' Antediluvians are on the same level as Mithras and could reasonably be revered the same way)

...Actually, while trying to think of more, I may have just unlocked something: I have a gut instinct there is an extremist faction basing themself around the concept of the "sword of justice" that I've mentioned a couple times now. Like, "taking justice into our own hands (and we have a very harsh idea of justice)" kind of deal - punishing those who break the tenets of Mithras regardless of how minor the infraction, etc. etc. I may have to bring that one up to our Storytellers and get their thoughts on it, actually. Hmm.

Well, hey, noema unlocked! Fucked-Up Extremist Factions In Your Area Clan

--Roshan (fae/faer)

[artist-issues]

i don't know man. I was feeling a rare flare up of empathy for Jezebel I guess. Because she was human too. A sinner like both of us. A sinner in power, unlike both of us. Does any human deserve to be torn apart by dogs? Solomon and David did similar things, and sure they did repent so maybe you could say it doesn't count, but would they have deserved an equal punishment? Take a man's wife, take his life (probably premeditated) if David hadn't repented, doubled down, at the critical juncture, would he have deserved that type of justice? Solomon doubled down, on the worship of idols spreading through his kingdom, but he repented a bit too late. As far as we know Jezebel was not an old woman when she died, perhaps mid fifties at the latest. Solomon lived longer.

And there are too many kings that allowed the worship of idolatry, did they get punished in the same manner? I know Athaliah was removed from the temple to be executed, but the boy king was even weaker than her, once his mentor the priest passed on.

i know there's lots of kings who got their own... comeuppance, in literature terms, over the issue of false worship, and some just as horrible. Jezebel's ending is not as unique in the greatest of schemes.

Like I said, it was just a flare up of empathy. I understand why she deserved it. I also think it was a violent and undignified death. And I also know she did the same to others.

But monarchs changing the state religion also murdered the religious in the way of their goals, so shes not unique. And Ahab was okaying a lot of her decisions anyway.

but the idea of who am I to question God who gave the prophecy to Elijah? Who are you? I think it's important to question. Not like an idiot atheist who wants to play word games to show how worldly and arrogant they are. But asking questions takes me to interesting answers. Even if it's just a new angle to the situation. I don't ask questions for the ultimate why. Because we are on earth at the moment. And I don't think on heaven the answers get less complicated. Just to see a bit more of the Truth. Which is comprised of many things.

This stone walling, in your initial answer, fine go ahead. I'm grateful for the verse, I didn't have a chance today to hunt it down myself. But I find it tasteless, this stone walling, who am I to question. If you don't care to engage with certain things, go ahead. I should also do the same, but I'm not there yet.

I question because I want to and I can. I think that if I was Jezebel I would have been in a shit ton of pain unable to think anything but beg for it all to stop.

I think that if God said my brother was going to rot from the inside like Herod I would think, fine, he deserves it. My brother caused me pain, I wanted to kill him myself once, I think he should have suffered, fine it's fair. But at the same time if I had to watch, if I had to know that my brother who I hated was in agony, I would have wanted a dignified death, a painless one for him, out of my weak and shallow capacity of love for all living things.

I agree that Jezebel should have died. I even appreciate that all that was left was a skull and hands. The amount of people she had put to death, the lives she ruined, she deserved less than a funeral. The hunger and thirst for righteousness is satisfied, because evil has been cut down at last.

But I am supposed to love my neighbor. And I think all my neighbors, deserve a swift death and a proper 6x5 grave. Or a pile of ashes.

Not to say I will do these things. I too am overcome by rage and hatred and also very capable of justifying to myself why an evil person should be thrown to the pigs.

....this is why I don't engage in empathy that often.

Okay, you gotta be really careful here, man. God did not give her a 6 x 5 grave, and you're saying that's what "all your neighbors" deserve. So was God wrong, not to give her "what she deserved?"

I mean, I can see where you're coming from with the whole empathy thing. Of course it's hard to wrap our minds around, being human, and seeing what God did to a similar human. Of course there's room for understandable mental wrestling, when, like you said, He seems to kill some horrible rulers in shocking ways, but gives grace to others. Of course.

But you didn't ask me a nuanced question. You asked a question about "deserving." And the bottom line is, God alone gets to decide who deserves what.

There's a difference between asking questions to better understand Truth, because there's something you don't know yet— and asking questions despite the fact that the Truth is already plain. The truth with what Jezebel specifically "deserved" is already plain: God gets to decide what people deserve, and God decided very clearly what she deserved, so she deserved it.

There comes a point where questioning something obvious isn't intellectual or empathetic. Because you're having to bypass the simple truth to even ask it. You can't be analyzing-from-a-different-angle something you're bypassing. You have to bypass the Truth "God decides who deserves what" to ask the question "did Jezebel really deserve to die like that?"

It's just "vain reasoning." Romans 1:21. You know the answer, but you're not focusing on it, which is tiptoeing right up to the line of "knowing it but refusing to believe it." That is a dangerous place to be, and an arrogant place to be, and I can say that to you because it is a place I've been and still wander to, except for the grace of God.

I'm not saying that's where you're always at. I'm saying, that mindset is what your question sounded like. So while you call it "stonewalling," what I'm trying to do is simply answer with what's true. There really is nowhere else to go with your question, if truth is what you're after.

Please don't mistake my tone. I know it doesn't always come through online. I'm being firm, but I'm not being accusatory. You asked a question that indicates the above mindset. Maybe you didn't mean it like that, or I misunderstood. But I'm responding because I genuinely believe, and I think you genuinely believe, that what God says is all that matters at the end of the day, and we both need that reminder.

So when it comes to that, thank you for the question.

[blade-liger-4ever]

RWBY X Transformers Partnerships 4: Optimus Prime and Mercury Black - Peacemakers

"It's just....after everything I've done, it's still hard to believe a chance to change exists for a guy like me."

"There is always hope for redemption, Mercury. However, I believe you are missing one crucial factor regarding your past."

"Man, you talk in the most ancient way. Alright Boss Man, I've told you about myself, no lies. I was trained to be an assassin, made to kill others, and steal, then killed my own father. What 'crucial factor' am I missing?"

"The fact that you were an innocent child born into a hard life. I do not deny that you were forced into committing vile acts, or that, in some aspects, you perhaps enjoyed it. However, I know that you had no say in the matter, and that until you befriended young Ruby, you felt you had been caged in the occupation of an assassin. But by choosing to escape that life, and proving your reliability since then, you have shown to be capable of changing for the better. I believe you were meant for more, Mercury Black, and if you are willing, I would be grateful to help guide you on your new path."

".....You mean it? Even though we just met like, what, a month ago?"

"I refuse to lie to you on such matters, Mercury. In my spark, I am certain that you will achieve more than you could dream is possible."

"I...well, Ruby believes in me, but I - I never had an adult give me a chance like that. Until Tai and the others, but even then, they're..."

"Cautious?"

"Heh, to put it mildly."

"I assure you, Mercury, that such caution will not be exercised by myself. Should you need anything, you can always speak to me."

"....Thanks, Optimus."

Mercury is used to adapting. As an assassin, you have to be ready to switch tactics on a dime, or create a new plan on the fly when your old one goes up in flames. It'd been drilled into him (he had the scars to prove it), and even when his perspective on life had been shattered and reconstructed by Ruby, Mercury was able to pull himself together and adapt to the change in time for the Fall of Beacon.

However, living in his sort of/definite girlfriend's house with her family and now having to deal with the revelation of giant alien robots bringing their war to Remnant is more than probably even Marcus could handle.

In order to process this curveball, Mercury decides to keep by Ruby's room, detach himself from the world, and analyze the residents of Patch while this new pattern settles in his brain.

Tai is a kind man, and though he's surprisingly tame, Mercury has caught glimpses of the senior Xiao Long's fire that has been passed on to Yang. Speaking of Yang, the fiery blond is returning to her old self, albeit more restrained than before. To be completely honest, Mercury is grateful for that progress; seeing Yang in a shell-shocked, blank state had actually hurt him. Her boyfriend Neptune has perked up on account of this, and although he gets along with him, Mercury is still confused about how he's so accepting of the existence of literal alien robots. Then again, this guy's dating the Sun Dragon, so he shouldn't be surprised that Neptune was actually excited to hear that Qrow had brought home over-sized guests.

Oh, right. Qrow Branwen.

Although the Huntsman's reputation precedes him by a wide margin, and though the hairs on the back of his neck still tingle when Qrow's eyes land on him, Mercury's initial fear of the man has morphed into suspicion and a deal of resentment. Tai can claim he was adopted into the family all he wants to, but Mercury had been taught to look for patterns and anything unusual. And the uncanny facial resemblance between Qrow and his "honorary niece" is blatantly obvious. And the scythe weapon? Please, it takes a genius to build something like that, never mind maintaining and operating it with the ease he and Ruby exercise. So yeah, the chances of two unrelated individuals having the same genius to build an intricately designed scythe weapon are a million to one - and those odds have already been stolen by the 'Cybertronians' who'd fallen through some portal onto Remnant.

Mercury is still trying to understand that, but between monitoring Ruby and the house, he's getting there.

Wheeljack is similar to Qrow, which Mercury automatically associates with the words "dangerous" and "unpredictable". He's a good engineer, judging by the doo-hickey he's cooked up on the island, but the scars and sparky look in his eyes tells Mercury that the...'Wrecker-scientist', is just as capable of destroying as he is of creating. Ironhide is what every drill sergeant wishes he could be; the giant 'Autobot' barks orders and gives assignments at great speed, usually practiced as he takes over a task from one of the others when they move too slowly. Despite that, he's surprisingly careful when dealing with Miko - and Mercury does his best to avoid her and her explosions. She's innocent, he knows that, but by Remnant, she has too much energy for his liking.

Sideswipe is...loose. Mercury can't quite put his finger on it, but he knows that Sideswipe, in spite of his bravado and snark that rivals Yang's, is fast. If he had to bet, the younger Autobot is used to moving at speeds that allow him to dish out pain with little detriment to himself. Good qualities for sure, but the way he acts like a twenty year old and carries himself like that hits a little too close to home for Mercury's comfort. As for Smokescreen, it's obvious he's the team baby - the short Autobot has the same kind of energy for justice as Ruby, as well as the excitableness and easygoing nature. Because of that similarity, Mercury's willing to spend some of his free time with him, though there are moments of eerie silence from Smokescreen, as well as a distant gaze, that makes him wonder about the guy's inner thoughts. However, the kid brushes it off with swagger, and Mercury's too deep in his own concerns to bother trying to coax an admission out of him.

However, the one he can't seem to pin down is their leader: Optimus Prime.

The Autobot commander towers over them all, with only Ironhide standing even remotely close to Optimus' height. Optimus walks steadily, with a silent strength and confidence that Mercury has never seen in anyone else's stride. Moreover, he can feel the guy's power when he enters a room, almost as if it were a supernatural sensation. Heck, even when he's standing still, Mercury can sense that power at rest, waiting to be used and capable of unleashing itself in a breath if Optimus wanted to cut loose.

But that's not what boggles his mind the most about the Autobots' superior.

It's the way he speaks.

Optimus' voice is deep and carries far, easily putting every other male's baritone and bass to shame. And yet, despite that, despite the sheer force in his voice, Optimus always speaks in a calm tone. He always uses full sentences, never utilizes slang or contractions (That's wild), and not once - ONCE - has Mercury heard his voice rise beyond an octave. It should be intimidating, should make him question this guy's status among the Cybertronian race.

And yet...the absolute warmth in Optimus' voice reaches something inside of Mercury. It reaches in and stirs something, something like a small child, to consciousness, and makes the child want to reach out to Optimus for something like comfort, and safety.

The only time Mercury can actually remember doing that is a time when he was eight, shortly after his mother had died. And his plea for consolation had been answered with a severe punishment from Marcus.

That memory makes all of his instincts scream to stay away from Optimus emotionally. Ruby understands him, accepts him, and so far her opinion outweighs the realistic worries of her family, which has given Mercury more time to continue improving himself and showing that he has changed from his upbringing. But since he's gotten to know her, he's become friendly with the other people in her life, although he can't help but keep some of them at arm's length for a while yet. Tai lets him roam the house free, Yang's willing to spar with him while Neptune cheers and mediates on the side, while Mercury and Qrow keep their distance based off a mutual, silent understanding of Ruby's true parentage between them.

So finding himself almost unconsciously following after Optimus whenever a meeting ends is more than a shock for Mercury.

It happens to him three times. The first time is when they meet, and Mercury had still been processing the Autobots' arrival. He'd all but locked himself in the guest room, and stayed in Ruby's room for a week to figure things out. The second time was when Wheeljack had finished half of the doo-hickey out in the woods, and required new equipment that required everyone's presence. Mercury had all but run back to the cabin from the shock of that lapse, and seeing that Ruby had woken up had kept him occupied for the next five days, and given him a reasonable excuse for avoiding the Cybertronians, their leader especially. However, his time with Ruby, while relieving and rejuvenating for them both, came to a head when Wheeljack stuck his metal foot in his mouth and openly identified Ruby as Qrow's daughter when they were working on Branwen's scythe.

He knew she was going to run, knew she was going to be too fast for him. But Mercury still tried going after her, mildly surprised that Smokescreen shifted into a sporty racecar to take after her as well. It seemed that he reacted instinctively too, as the short Autobot drove off without thinking to offer him a ride, and Mercury found himself chasing air and dirt before logic made him stop.

As he stood there, Optimus entered the area from the side, and Mercury's whirling thoughts consisted of one realization that the Autobot had been nearby when the fiasco began. To his surprise, Optimus asked him what had happened, and with a quick scan of the place around him, Mercury saw that Qrow and Wheeljack had disappeared - whether to chase down Ruby or not, he had no idea.

Resisting all his better instincts, Mercury summed up Ruby's real parentage and how he and Qrow had been trying to avoid it until Wheeljack ruined it. To his immense surprise, Optimus listened with keen interest, and once he'd finished, the leader thanked him and advised they let Smokescreen find her, as (apparently) the kid had ways of bonding with "human youth". Mercury quietly scoffed at the phrasing, then mumbled about the strangeness of this alien leader.

That dour sarcasm evaporated when he looked up and saw that he was trailing Optimus' moving feet.

Certain he was losing his mind, Mercury froze and tried to think of a way to leave without being spotted. However, Optimus paused and spoke his name, the patient, quiet underlying command of "stay put" rooting him to the ground. Turning around, Optimus revealed that he was aware of not only Mercury's unconscious tailing of him, but how he'd been avoiding him for the past two weeks as well. Optimus told him that while he respected his privacy and actions, he wished to know why Mercury fears him, as he only wants to be a friend to him.

The words make everything that's been building up inside of Mercury snap, and he can't help it. He yells at Optimus, blurts out that no one can be as good as he is, that adults aren't as inherently kind like him and that anything like those qualities are destroyed somehow in short order. He lashes out that he can't figure Optimus out because he's so different, so good, and honest-to-Remnant heroic, and that no one can - can...

"...Make me feel like a kid. A defenseless kid, who never....never had what Yang has with Tai."

Mercury stuffs his hands in his pockets, then stares at the ground and hopes against all reason that the world will just go back to making sense. Optimus takes two careful steps forward, bends down, and to Mercury's shock, picks him up. His hold is gentle, and he brings the hand holding him to his chest, where Mercury notices a pale glow emanating from somewhere behind the glass before the comforting warmth of his metal body distracts him and makes Mercury relax. As Mercury processes this, Optimus quietly speaks, telling him that many people are too weak to be either good or heroic, and that yes, many can be good, but will have their better qualities destroyed. Oftentimes, the latter is a personal choice, such as the Decepticons' leader Megatron, who Optimus once considered a brother before their war broke out. As Mercury detects a faint humming inside of the Autobot's chest, Optimus adds that many can and do choose to be good, and that while some possess those qualities to greater degrees than others, it does not make the entire adult world cruel.

"Life itself is cruel, and I feel you know that better than many your age do. However, if you will allow me to, I would be pleased to help you heal and learn to trust others again, Mercury."

Mercury's not sure if this is how it feels to have a father, but even if it isn't, he's gonna fight to keep it the same way he'll fight to keep Ruby safe.

Optimus and Mercury form a close bond after this, with Optimus often making sure Mercury is both safe and emotionally well after a long day. He knows when Mercury needs a push to go to bed or otherwise take care of himself, but more times than not, Optimus can tell when he should speak sternly to the boy over his sleep schedule, as well as when to put his foot down over Mercury's regular time of training, reconnaissance, and other habits. Similarly, Mercury has learned tricks of getting Optimus to take a much needed break, usually by asking for some alone time that he's reluctant to admit he needs. They make a strong team on and off the battlefield, with Optimus helping to refine Mercury's techniques while Mercury tells him about Remnant's stars and history. The Autobot leader's fascination with learning their culture softens Mercury a tiny bit, and - perhaps - leads him to learn of Optimus' past on Cybertron....

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lord Almighty, last year drained me more than I realized! Sheesh, I thought for sure I'd get them done sooner than this!

Anyway, I had this team up in my head almost from the get-go. Mercury needs a real father, and Optimus is the manifestation of Team Dad, so it only made sense to buddy them up. For their name, I chose Peacemakers because Optimus wishes and fights for peace, while Mercury needs to find peace - though I admit, I was partly inspired by the weapon of the same name.

Pray I get more done sooner than this, folks! I love these two franchises, and I want to get back on track for this series I started so long ago. See you around, and remember the wisdom of the greatest Prime in history:

"Hold on to your dreams. The future is built on dreams."

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Glitch

Heh. I rendered it for ya, Tumblr.

I've been told (repeatedly) this isn't a problem. I should know that when you say "white" you don't mean me... unless I get a little uppity (my dad, who is much browner than me, used to call me that) about being more than one thing, then I'm definitely white. Shut up. This isn't about you.

I know. It's never about me. It's never about anyone like me. I should just put myself wherever you wanted me to be, and if I guess wrong, you'll tell me. My unearned privileges are on a yo-yo string. Depends how I dress, how I code switch, who I'm near.

I understand that people who look a certain way will get treated a certain way, and then they'll act a certain way, and when they get treated white, the way they act is super irritating. OK, fam. I get it. But I see you acting that way too. I'm in the room, you don't see me, and you say some shit, which you assume is OK because everyone looks like you. And if they're not like you, you're confident you can say whatever you want because it'd be rude for them to mention it. Like Karen-the-feminist explaining that this is not the time or the place to mention that Take Your Daughter to Work Day doesn't do much for immigrant field workers.

Every time you offer me a binary choice, you're expecting me to erase half of myself without comment. If I sit down, I'm white today. If I stay standing, I'm "brown," which is... Jesus. If you thought "Black" made a monolith out of a shit-ton of identities, see what putting me in the same box with Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans, Persians and both kinds of Indian gets you. We share a few marginalized traits but we do not all get along or need the same things.

I can't eject the white or the brown from my body on command, I can only fake it for ya to be nice. And you don't notice me doing that and think you're entitled.

I have a good dose of the autism, which I'm also expected to hide on command, so I can't help but bring media into this. You know this asshole?

He's mixed-race Creole. (And, ah, Vivzie, I'm enjoying the show, but I have... I have some notes.) I am positive this thin-skinned, narcissistic, serial-killing creep used to pass both ways, like me. I am positive he heard smiling people of both races say some real stupid shit about him and his family, to his face, and that's why he's like that. (I'm also pretty sure nobody writing for him has a clue.) But people sure do respect the serial killer and give him space. It gets better results than, "Hey, the collection of privileges you're calling 'whiteness' is a spectrum and you and I are both on it." And people react like I'm being just as much of a jackass anyway, if not more of one, although I am not literally murdering anyone about my grievance.

I am not saying I'm going to kill and eat you, my fellow activists, I'm just saying - in a gentle, loving, and metred tone - I understand.

The level of violence I inflict upon you will remain a polite reminder that I am in the room and I will not be erasing myself to conform to your language today. That seems to be difficult enough for y'all to deal with. Just, do be aware, I am still being civil. I am using my words. This is what civility looks like. Uncivil looks like drop-kicking you into a bucket of remoulade. OK? Please adjust your outrage accordingly.

(Though I have elected to share these aspects of myself with you, Tumblr void, please be aware this is only a small part of who I am, and not an invitation to define me. If you wanna talk about you, that's cool. If you wanna be friends, I will tell you how I want to be treated as we go along. I will not perform my identity in a public forum in order to justify my - polite and not-at-all murdery - request that you maybe try not to be dicks about assigning people whiteness, or brownness, or any identity that you think ought to behave a certain way.)

[lumenflowered]

[A third video file is attached. This one, again, picks up where the preceding video left off. Maria has just won a Pokémon battle against her doppelganger, and as such remains Champion. Though it is dubious whether Dee had any real desire to become Champion in the first place.

"...You did well," Maria says at last. "Very well."

"Thank you," Dee replies, an awkward sort of half-smile tugging at her features. "I knew better than to seriously think I would win against you of all people, I really am not much for battling..."

"You made it here," Maria interrupts. "Didn't you?"

"Well, yes," she admits. "...The first few badges were because I was not permitted into certain areas without first proving I could protect myself. Then... to meet you. I... I needed to meet you. To know who you were, not from what others said but from you. Does that make... any sense?"

Slowly, Maria nods. "What do you know of me, then?"

"I know that you could kill me within a matter of seconds if you set your mind to doing so and that there would be nothing I could do to prevent this." Dee winces. "I... from what else I know of you, I do not believe that you would. But I know very well that you could."

"...This is likely true," Maria admits. "Is that all?"

She shakes her head. "I know that Gehrman... he cared for you, greatly, in his own way. Far more than he ever did for me, when it became clear that I... that I was not you."

"If you know only of me from him," Maria says tightly, "I would advise you to assume everything you know of me is incorrect."

Dee shakes her head again, more emphatically this time. "No, I... there is a Hunter I once knew. A Hunter I still know, in a manner of speaking, though she no longer considers herself one any more than you do. She freed you from the Nightmare your soul haunted, and she was curious enough to look deeper into your past than she might have otherwise when she took note of your appearance being... very much like mine."

"She used an axe," Maria says. It isn't a question.

"She did indeed." Dee pauses, before something resolute passes into her expression. "You should meet her, when we are done here. I believe she will be able to answer more of your questions than I... and she does owe you an apology."

"I would not hold her actions within the Nightmare against her," Maria says unconvincingly. "In that place... I do not know that I was entirely myself."

"I was not," Dee says, "necessarily referring to that. But very well. I suppose... would you like to meet her now?"

"I." Maria looks genuinely daunted at this prospect. "I would not be averse to that at some point in the future, but... I would prefer not to quite yet."

"Ah. I see. Then I suppose—"

"You and I have far more to discuss than that," Maria clarifies. "But I would like to know who you are as well, Dee. I know that you care greatly for your Pokémon, that you have spent much of the time since your arrival researching Pokémon for Professor Oak. I know that you do not enjoy combat in any capacity."

"...It is so obvious?"

"Yes. You rather clearly do not enjoy it, but you were willing to learn how to do it rather well in spite of this. And you have directly aided me on at least one occasion that I am aware of, in spite of the fact that you outright admitted that you were afraid of me."

Dee does not quite conceal her wince. "Yes..."

"You... weren't meant to be your own person at all, were you?" Maria says softly. "You were meant to be me."

"I am not you."

"No," Maria agrees, "and I am glad of it."

She walks forward to take Dee's still-gloved hands in her own.

"Please," she continues, "tell me about you."

Maria is not much for smiling, not even when she is truly happy. It is apparent, after a few moments of quiet shock, that this is one of the places where she and Dee differ.

Dee smiles faintly, with what looks suspiciously like tears in her eyes, and the video ends.]

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

Ok, Ayn Rands in the comments.  A is A.  What an argument. I don’t see what’s there to be confused about my ask. I’m responding to the idea that you have perpetuated that anyone who engaged in these practices is inherently and undeniably evil.

Separately, the morality of rape as a practice, viewed universally, is far different than assessing an individual's moral worth, which is inherently contextual.

There mere fact that someone engages in a practice you deem immoral, does not make them inherently evil.  That's kind of the point of the show.

If society collectively accepts a problematic practice, it's far more difficult to individually fault a person for succumbing to that societal pressure and the associated negative consequences.

For instance, a farmer trying to make a living in a slave economy absent slaves, will be at an impossible competitive disadvantage.

He will not have the capital to run his farm.  It's unlikely he will be able to even subsist.  Whether someone lives or die, their entire quality of life, and their profession, could hinge on whether they owned slaves.

This is a similar argument to people who say “Rape is rape, regardless of legality, the morality of it was wrong then as it is wrong now.”

(1) First, "rape" quite literally isn't "rape" when comparing historical periods because there were completely different definitions of rape, which was my entire point.

Words change.

What we considered rape now, wasn't considered rape back then.

Even in the last 15 years, the definition of rape has dramatically changed both in common linguistics and legally.

IN the 1980s, rape was more narrowly defined as violent, forced penetrative sex.

We now live in a world where failure to affirmatively get verbal consent before engaging in non-violent, unforced sex, is considered rape.

These terms are constantly evolving.  Your definition of "rape"--and countless other words--will undoubtedly change over the remainder of human history.

Future generations will look at some of your beliefs as barbaric, no matter how morally certain you are of their worth now.  Including practices you may have taken part in. Does this make you evil?

Yes, undeniably slavery is bad. In the modern economic landscape, a lot of people will argue that the free market driven Capitalist system is just employing slavery with extra steps.

But, if you want to be rationally historical, slavery was an institution practiced by not only by one culture, but EVERYONE, commited on EVERYONE regardless of race/gender/nation etc. During the viking times, it is either you win over your enemies and take them as slaves (lest they go back and bring more people to take your people out, and of course as farm hands and more labor) OR get enslaved yourself and your loved ones. It was barely a choice, you were thrust into it by the conditions of warfare and survival. Some became "successful" and get this institution passed down to their children, who don't excatly know what to do with what they were born with except continue it as they are trained to.

No one should justify slavery, and yet it is easy to villify history seen through modern standards. I wouldn't know what exactly to do in such a scenario myself. The most righteous ways are either, try to be a harmless slave owner, or actively fight against the institution then you n your family get slaughtered by the king, or kill yourself from the get-go so you don't have to deal with society and it's problems at all!

Reducing people's inherent moral worth into binary "good" and "evil" is already an obnoxious and narcissistic practice on its own.

Reducing that moral worth on the sole grounds of whether they owned slaves--an accepted practice in many cultures in human history--is so god damn simplistic.

I am comfortable calling slavery a "bad" practice."  I am uncomfortable saying every single person who owned slaves throughout human history is inherently evil on that sole basis.

What a comfortable, naive, and privilege position you have, as you sit in judgment from your sofa, looking backwards 1000 years.

Back then, entire economies were built around slavery.  The choice of whether to own slaves, was a choice of whether to survive or to starve to death.

The world was a far more desperate and dangerous place.

When people refuse to hold any kind of nuanced judgements, you enter into a conversation where no matter what another says there will never be an understanding. A step above that is holding extreme viewpoints.

Is slavery bad? No shit. Are there shades of gray? Absolutely. Refusing to acknowledge that is forgoing nuance and acceptance of reality. Not everything is pure black and white. 

It's all just an extension of these posters' own moral narcissism (ironically).

The subtext here is that they all view themselves as amazing people.  The logical implication of their argument is that 99.9999999999999999% of all humans living before them were shittier people than they are.

How convenient a world view that everyone who lived before "you" is inferior to you, simply by virtue of their participation in antiquated (but accepted-at-the-time) societal practices, while you sit in judgment from your couch.

These naive, narcissistic fools, all pretend they would be "better" people if they were magically born into those same historical eras.

the world is not drawn in absolute moral binaries.  Yet, the vast majority of you draw people in absolute moral binaries, e.g., "everyone who supported or practiced “rape” or slavery is inherently evil."

No one is saying that Slavery is good.  It's bad.  I'm not excusing slavery.

I'm simply suggesting that historical circumstance--just like mens rea--has a role in assessing morality.

People are products of their time and place.  I have a hard time calling someone "evil" merely because they engaged in some antiquated practice, which was difficult NOT to engage in (or else suffer terrible consequences).

It's also a spectrum.  Someone might own slaves, but not beat their slaves.  And slavery varied by country and time. I feel like people are automatically treating all historical slavery as if it is American slavery.

Slaves in Roman times could be extremely educated and live fairly comfortable lives, in the case of Greek slaves.  Romans would often use Greek slaves for administrative purposes rather than manual labor (e.g., Greek Slaves would read and write letters for their masters whose vision was failing).

That kind of slavery is far less brutal than, e.g., American slavery, where you are keeping people in cages, and working them to death.

When the only realistic option in a feudal society is being a slave-owning noble or merchant, or a impoverished serf who dies at age 30 from starvation, I'm far more sympathetic to people engaging in a bad practice.

hey did you know you can make your own blog

[imperator-titus]

Be My Juice Box Ch. 10

I always try to have something to say, but I don't really right now! I should add the "just get married already" tag to this story already lol New Years Eve party at the Dekarios Tower! A brief glimpse of Morena. I tried to expand on the background for Gale/Astarion coming to Terra and staying there but I'm fairly certain I've contradicted myself at this point and I am only digging that grave deeper with every attempt to make sense of the worldbuilding. If I rewrote this story, I'd probably dedicate quite a bit of time to sitting down and figuring out what feels more right

New Years was a big to-do for Gale. It was not just the symbolic end of one year and the start of the next, but the vague birthday of magic on Terra and the day he and many Torilians ended up there.

Gale always thought he was the cause, because it just so happened to coincide with one of his experiments. Upon his first return to Toril, after figuring how to return, Mystra insisted that it was just that, coincidence, and cosmic forces were at work.

Nevertheless, Gale Dekarios was one of the protectors of magic on Terra. His tower sat on top of a wellspring of magic, through which the Weave was able to enter this plane. There were others, similarly guarded by archmages. It was through these wellsprings that one could pass from one plane to the other at the expense of a great amount of magic. 

For a while, Gale saw himself as an extension of Mystra, allowing the Weave to bless this plane in her stead. He was certain that, with enough time and effort, the people of Terra would become capable of manipulating magic.

Thus he started a satellite campus of Blackstaff, originally in the hopes of cultivating magic in this plane’s people. When Torilians like him had trouble with Terran technology, it also became a place to solve problems like Professor Dekarios getting stuck in the elevator again.

So it was little wonder that Gale was so eager to show Rowan the portal hidden deep within his tower, to be there to greet his mother as she stepped through.

“Is it not marvelous?” he asked with an odd amount of expectation, leaning in to gauge her reaction.

“It’s certainly remarkable,” Rowan answered, lacking the outward enthusiasm Gale was hoping for. She stared at it nonetheless, idly questioning why it happened or how it worked.

“Stop trying to recruit my companion for your silly little experiments.” 

In all his resplendent beauty, Astarion huffed with annoyance. With a jeweled hand on Gale’s shoulder, he pulled the man away. Just a tiny bit of doubt crept into his mind, warning him that the wizard was seconds away from pushing Rowan into the open portal.

Somewhere he couldn’t go and protect her from the scary things that lurked on the other side.

Like the plethora of people ready to kill a vampire if it was bold enough to come back after being tolerated in Terra.

Gale smirked at Astarion, but he said to Rowan, “Oh! You’ve been upgraded to companion now! That’s exciting.”

Astarion lifted a brow. “Why would it be exciting?”

“He learned it from the Tabaxi and Minotaur that run the tea and coffee place over on Thirteenth,” Rowan explained absently as she took some pictures of the portal.

“Oh, Astarion…”

“What? They are two people who live together who have a mutually beneficial arrangement. It’s the same thing.”

“They’re definitely fucking,” Rowan was the one to say, confirmed by the look Gale was giving him. “Although, I don’t really understand how… Kind of a Chihuahua trying to hump a Great Dane situation…”

Astarion rolled his eyes and scoffed. “I think I would know something like that.”

The witty retort Gale had ready died on his tongue as the portal changed, causing Rowan to practically leap back.

Through it came no other than the inimitable, the illustrious, Morena Dekarios.

“Oh! My darling boy!” she cried with joy, holding out her arms to embrace her son. Gale was more than happy to oblige.

Awkwardly, Astarion and Rowan looked in any other direction. 

“Mother, you remember Astarion,” Gale said as they parted, indicating his friend.

With a scary amount of accuracy, Astarion knew the exact moment when he had to stop finding the wall so interesting and turn on his charm. Smooth words and delicate movements came easily to him when presented with a grand dame like Morena.

Gale once told Rowan that Astarion was once quite bad at flirting, even though he’d been doing it for hundreds of years to lure in prey for his master. 

Rowan could understand, because she’d hear him say something off-putting to Gale or herself and wonder how he managed to lure anyone in with just his words.

Of course, it still worked…

But that was with friends. Almost as if being a horrible flirt was his true personality and not just a result of picking up blind-drunk nobodies who couldn’t tell that his teeth were a little sharp and his eyes were more red than brown.

But here he was, bowing flamboyantly and not-quite-kissing her knuckles with a proper gentlemanly show of respect.

“It is always a pleasure to be in the presence of such a magnificent creature,” Astarion purred, looking up at Morena through his lashes, a coy little smirk on his lips.

Despite sashaying through this dance many times before, Morena still swooned. “Oh, Lord Ancunín, you know just how to make this old lady feel youngagain.”

Out of the way, Rowan and Gale rolled their eyes.

“Mother, I have someone else I want to introduce you to,” Gale piped up, grabbing Rowan by the elbow and shooing her forward, hoping to dissuade his mother from being pulled too far into Astarion’s orbit.

“It is so wonderful to finally meet the new lady in my boy’s life. I have heard so much about you,” Morena remarked after they were properly introduced. Her dark eyes sparkled with delight.

“Only bad things, I hope,” Rowan answered. Morena laughed raucously.

“My Gale was right, you are funny! I am willing to bet you’re just as interesting.” Morena took Rowan by the elbow and started pulling her away, excitedly sharing a story about her son.

Rowan wasn’t really paying attention, as she was too busy giving Astarion and Gale a panicked look over her shoulder, begging to be rescued.

Gale merely chuckled and waved at her. When he turned to his friend, Astarion was glaring up at him.

“What is the problem? I didn’t let you kiss my mother’s hand long enough for you to slip off a ring?” Gale asked with a mix of concern, annoyance, and humor.

“Why is your mother under the impression that Rowan’s your girlfriend?” Astarion asked nastily.

Gale’s brows furrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You all crack jokes about how I didn’t figure out that the cat was getting his cream straight from the source, but you can’t see that Morena spilling all of your embarrassing childhood stories is a clear sign that she thinks you’ve invited her to meet the new bedwarmer.”

Realization dawned on Gale’s face. 

Internally, he dedicated some brainpower to rehearsing how he’d break the news to his mother. She’d be heartbroken, but he couldn’t let her live a lie, even if she spun it herself.

“Why do you care so much?” he asked Astarion suspiciously.

“I don’t,” Astarion lied.

Gale looked away and made his way back to the regular parts of his home. 

“So be it.”

“But you have to tell her it’s not true.”

Nodding, Gale’s voice remained neutral. “I agree.”

Astarion’s glare sharpened. “Because it’s not.”

Sparing his friend a passing sharp glance of his own, Gale bit back, “I said I agree. There’s no need to be jealous.”

Chuckling derisively in a failed attempt to hide how accurately the comment struck, Astarion asked in fake concern, “Has the wine gotten to your head already?”

“I do so love our chats, Astarion, but I have a mother to disillusion.”

Astarion later found Rowan fussing with the many fingerfoods she brought despite Gale’s insistence that she not worry herself.

She held out a full glass of wine to him. “Can you drink this?”

“Can I?” he purred as he took it from her delicately. With a lifted eyebrow, he feigned a sniff. “What’s wrong with it? Morena trying to poison you already?”

“She was very adamant I try some because it’s such a good vintage,” Rowan started to explain, pausing to eat something before rearranging the plate to hide that something was missing. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her that wine makes me sick and it doesn’t taste good enough to power through.”

“More for me,” Astarion told her with a wink. More conspiratorially, he asked, “What did Morena have to say about her beautiful brown-eyed baby boy?”

“Oh, I don’t…” Rowan looked away pointedly at the floor, clearly embarrassed.

“Gods, it can’t be that bad.”

“It was mostly just ‘I’m so glad he found someone normal’ and…” Rowan pressed her hands to her abdomen in a prodding nature. Glaring down at it worriedly, she asked, “Am I getting fat again?”

“Stop that,” Astarion told her firmly. When she didn’t seem to hear him, he grabbed her hands. 

It was, he told himself, to keep her from making a mess of the new vest and shirt he’d encouraged her to get, but it was also a nice excuse just to touch her. 

“I think you’re perfect,” he said, giving her hands a squeeze.

Rowan continued to look down, partially out of shame. Mumbling, she started to argue, “The meds made me gain a few-”

Astarion hooked a finger under her chin and tilted it up to look into his eyes.

“I said you. Are. Perfect,” Astarion repeated very deliberately, over-enunciating with his beautiful lips and tongue.

Rowan’s face went red just as a strange feeling settled in her stomach.

Astarion let go of her chin, occupying his hands with his wine glass instead.

“Besides, I’m sure Morena merely misspoke. She isn’t as well-versed in Terran speech as the rest of us.” 

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Of course I am, my sweet. Finally, someone who recognizes my genius.” Rowan giggled at his dramatic collapse, as if his ‘genius’ had been weighing him down this whole time.

Then a chime sounded, announcing the arrival of some of Gale’s other guests. As energetic music started to play and the lights changed into softer, moodier colors, Rowan smiled at him awkwardly, but playfully.

“Good hunting, yeah?” she tried to say, stumbling over the syllables a little. She imagined herself being cartoonishly bonked on the head with a big frying pan. At least that would explain how ridiculous she was being.

“You too,” Astarion responded quite cheerily before turning away. Inside, he thought, “Ugh! What a daft thing to say…”

Rowan merely smiled to herself, amused by his small mistake.

While Rowan wasn’t much for parties, she liked supporting Gale and it made her look less like a homebody. She was capable of light conversation, usually with Gale’s more academically-minded guests, but eventually, as all parties did, it became a little too much.

Morena apologized for her misunderstanding and complimented the food she brought. Gale also apologized on behalf of his mother and made certain several times throughout the night that she was fine. 

Astarion eventually found her sitting to the side, sipping away at a drink. 

If she hadn’t forbidden him from skimming her thoughts, he’d have no anxiety. He’d find that she was concentrating on staying awake, just thinking her thoughts, letting things pass her by. 

She had no clue that he was doing his own checking in, listening to the thoughts of people speaking to her to judge their intentions.

He had some idea in his head that someone would try to take advantage of her vulnerable state. A lonely widow on New Year's Eve? An easy target.

Perhaps that was projection.

If he was being honest, Astarion was disappointed that no one seemed interested in her. How was he supposed to swoop in and save her from some drunk fool who couldn’t see what a catch she was? Where was the fun if his cape didn’t snap in some ruffian’s face as Astarion dramatically whisked his companion away towards the dance floor, where they would draw shocked stares?

If she knew of his little fantasy, Rowan would offer him a wry laugh that would hide her smile. She’d tell him he was being silly, that he didn’t need to live up to this image of a grand romantic lead.

But he wouldn’t need to skim her thoughts to know that, despite her protestations to the contrary, she had that fantasy as well. A girlish desire to be swept off her feet by someone so far above her value that they may as well have been a living god. To be loved so completely after being ignored for so long. 

Their soft signs of friendly affection made her realize that maybe it wasn’t vain to want just one person to make her feel special every day.

Maybe that person wasn’t going to be an Astarion or a Gale, but what was the harm in putting a fantastic spin on things when she escaped into her imagination?

“Do you like plants so much that you’ve decided to become one?” Astarion asked her smoothly, his lips pulled into a playful smirk. 

Rowan was confused for just a split second before she chuckled. “You’re funny.”

“I can tell that you don’t actually think so, but I will take that as a compliment anyway.”

Maintaining her gentle smile, she explained, “What I really meant to say was that you’re stupid, in a silly way, but I didn’t think you’d take it kindly.”

It was his turn to laugh, something that would normally be forced, but in this moment, it practically fell out of him. “My dear, everything you say is like music to my pointyears.”

Rowan’s smile broadened briefly as he showed off his assets. “Someone’s been having fun.”

“Not until I set eyes on you.”

Despite him being at his most sincere, Astarion’s words only elicited an exasperated roll of her eyes. Rowan didn’t believe him and assumed he had some other intentions. Perhaps get her to do something for him, or just be the subject of his flirtations until he got bored. A few months ago, she would’ve assumed he was making fun of her.

Unamused, she asked, “What do you want?”

Affronted, but only for effect, Astarion placed a hand over his heart. “Must I want something? Isn’t it enough to be in your presence?”

Eying him suspiciously, Rowan wondered aloud, “Are you drunk?”

“Maybe a little.” Unintentionally, Astarion giggled. “Maybe more than a little. How about you?”

Before Rowan could answer, he took her drink out of her hand and gave it a sniff. Clearly disappointed, he scrunched his nose. “Just a soda? It’s not like you’re my driver.”

Rowan’s face went blank, almost cold, and her voice was clipped when she told him, “You’re being kind of obnoxious right now.”

Well, that stung. The air had been knocked out of Astarion’s sails.

He recovered quickly.

Rowan reached to take her drink back, only for him to move it away.

“That’s because you’re not having fun. I’ve come to save you from your mundane little evening.”

“Annoy someone else,” Rowan snapped at him. Probably the strongest emotion she’d shown to him in a long time.

Astarion only had the presence of mind to softly gasp in shock.

Somewhere, in some quiet place in the tower, Rowan found a spot where she could lean comfortably and stare out the window.

She felt bad about how she spoke to him. It wasn’t his fault, he’d only caught her in that moment when a party was becoming unbearable. 

All she wanted to do was go home, but she kept pushing herself to see it through. Gale would be so disappointed if she left early. She couldn’t live the rest of her life chained to Astarion’s home.

But she liked it there. It was comfortable and safe, not too small, not too big. She liked having a fire and she rarely had to clean, although she’d sometimes beat the magical cleaning service to the punch out of sheer habit.

And she liked spending time with Astarion, in either form. He was just a little bit clingy and touchy, and, despite not liking the touch of strangers and needing her own space, she liked that. He had a weird sense of humor and found her funny. His handsomeness made her self-conscious, feeling like a burlap sack of potatoes standing next to him, but he had a way of looking at her that made her feel like she was the showcase piece in an art gallery.

“I’m okay,” Rowan said aloud, admiring the warp of the handmade glass in the windows. “I’m sorry for being harsh.”

Astarion gaped like a fish out of water for a moment. The whole way here, he’d been constructing some grand apology. He didn’t expect her to beat him to the punch.

“How did you know it was me?” he eventually asked.

“You walk a certain way, when you don’t want to sneak up on me.”

Somehow, that made him… happy. “As adorable as it is to see you startle, I always feel awful for giving you a fright.”

With those same deliberate steps, Astarion came to stand beside her and lean on the windowsill as well.

“I… am sorry as well. I don’t know what I did wrong, I wanted you to have fun-”

“I know,” she cut him off before he could run at the mouth.

“If you want to go home and be alone-”

“I want to go home, but I don’t want to be alone.”

Astarion stared at her, a little confused. Confusion was better than having his hopes crushed.

“I like you better when it’s just us. Or with Gale. It feels… real.”

“It’s all me, my dear,” he argued, although gently. “But… I understand. I wanted to have fun with you in a crowd. I suppose not all of us were built for one.”

A moment passed where Rowan really had to think about what he said and how she wanted to respond. Astarion debated leaving her to her solitude, instead of suffocating in her silence.

When she turned to look at him, just a little up, making her eyes big, the moonlight making them shine, he was glad that he didn’t go quite yet.

“You really wanted to spend time with me?”

“Of course. You’re my friend,” he answered as if it should have been obvious. A little less assuredly, taking his anxiety out on a piece of mortar, he added, “I like you too. When it’s just us. It’s… comfortable. Like a pair of well-worn boots. We fit together nicely, I think.”

A good night’s worth of blood made his eyesight keen enough that he could see the color rise on her cheeks before she turned back to the window. Her heartbeat pounded on his eardrums, competing with the rush of fresh blood in his ears.

“What… did you have in mind?” Rowan asked shyly.

“Hm? Oh! Right.” Astarion chuckled in his own shy way. “You would laugh if I told you.”

“You don’t want to make me laugh?”

“It’s a tale of… puerile fancy.”

“Now I have to hear it.”

“I… thought I’d find you talking to someone. Someone who… would be trying to take you home, or just some quiet corner. But not because they like you, but because they think you’re plain and a little sad, sitting by yourself trying to blend into the woodwork.

“And I would swoop in! And rescue you. Whisk you away onto the dancefloor, and adore you like you deserve. Because you’re smart and witty. And you’re kind, but have a spine strong enough to tell a wizard and a vampire to go fuck themselves.

“But you don’t need rescuing. And I have known my share of valiant princes. I am more-”

“A handsome scoundrel?”

“Yes,” Astarion agreed with a face-lining grin. “You do know me so well.”

Rowan laughed, just as he said she would, but a hard lump didn’t make itself known in his stomach. weighing him down with disappointment.

“I had the same idea. But I think Gale is too careful about who he keeps around.”

“You’re right. There’s only room for one degenerate at this party.”

Steeling her nerves, she still had to whisper, “I’m not a very good dancer.”

Astarion chuckled in the back of his throat. “I know. I’ve seen you when you think no one’s looking.”

Rowan had to refrain from hitting him reflexively. Instead, she glared at him sharply.

“Don’t look at me like that. I like watching you. You look… free.”

Forgiving him for being a little spy, Rowan offered him her hand.

Astarion took it gently, as if she might change her mind or it would break from his touch. 

With one hesitant step forward, their bodies touched. His other hand hovering over her back, he asked, “May I?”

“You may,” she answered, preparing herself for the sensation. She expected him to be cold, like he was so often before he went out at night. Instead, his hand was a bit warm, or at the very least less like ice. 

They started to sway in place, like so many couples who couldn’t dance do.

“I don’t like being touched,” Astarion admitted as Rowan placed a hand on his shoulder, “but I do when it’s you.”

“I feel the same way,” Rowan said shyly. Then realizing her statement didn’t make much sense, she added, “The other way around, I mean. I like when you touch me.”

All Astarion had to do was smirk and her face went bright red.

Astarion tried to guide her into doing a more complex step, only to have his toes stepped on and their balances disrupted.

Thus bringing them closer together.

“I… never realized how warm you get,” Rowan said quietly after she gained a little confidence with a basic waltz.

“On a very good night, even my cold dead heart beats again.”

Astarion thought she stumbled, but instead, Rowan merely leaned forward to press her ear against his chest. She settled there, nestled against his collarbone, listening to the slow, steady beat of his undead heart.

This could go on for only so long before Rowan had to remind them both of why they were there.

“It’s getting late, we might miss it,” she said suddenly, removing herself from his grasp.

Astarion didn’t want to let go, but he did. Her warmth lingered on the skin he held her with.

Rowan didn’t want to go either, but she had to get away before the little seed of guilt in her stomach took root.

By the time they returned to the party, there was only a few minutes left before midnight. Everyone gathered around the very accurate clock that Gale put out for such occasions.

On the edge of the crowd, Astarion and Rowan stood side-by-side.

Astarion was wondering if he was overthinking their relationship. It had certainly changed, but was it platonic, like him and Gale? Sure, they’d tried to be more a few times over the centuries, but it never stuck…

Rowan was thinking some of the same things. Was she interpreting his flirty nature as interest? And if it was interest, how did she feel about that?

Excited, obviously. Astarion was handsome and charming and wealthy, although she still didn’t quite understand how. He had so many good qualities that made Rowan feel inferior, as if it would be some miracle that someone like him would like her, but he never made her feel like that anymore. He was a little weird and she liked that about him too.

But she was also scared. What would it be like, to try again at love? Was she ready? Was it too soon? She gave herself permission to be happy again, but she couldn’t help feeling a little guilty, like it meant that she didn’t care. Maybe it was unfair, to place the burden of being her second love on Astarion. Would he always worry if he was living up to old expectations? If he should exceed them?

People started to get excited as the clock ticked ever closer to midnight.

“Did you have someone in mind?” Astarion asked her, loudly enough to be heard over the electric buzz of partygoers but quietly enough to not draw attention.

Confused, Rowan looked up at him with knitted brows. “For what?”

People began to shout in unison, counting down the last seconds of the last day of the year.

“Don’t you people-”

The realization slammed into her. “Oh!”

Two!

Eyes lowering in anticipation, Astarion leaned towards her.

One!

Rowan leaned away, her eyes wide in shock.

Even in the low light, the hurt was obvious in his eyes as he gave her space.

Astarion accepted her answer, had an apology and some reassurances ready on his lips while those around them met in celebratory passionate kisses.

Somewhere, Gale and Morena and Tara Dekarios exchanged familial pecks of excitement for the new year together.

Reaching for his shoulder, Rowan rose to her toes. In a rather reckless and desperate way, she pulled him towards her by the back of his neck.

His apology never went voiced. The force of her lips on his threatened to cut the inside of his mouth on his own fangs.

The touch did not linger, but the tingle it left felt everlasting.

“I think… it is time to go home?” Astarion suggested uncertainly, resisting the urge to run his fingertips over his lips.

With a lump in her throat and a heat burning her ears, Rowan nodded.

In the car, after a few minutes, Rowan placed her hand in the space between them.

Very delicately, afraid that he would misunderstand this as well, Astarion placed his hand on top and curled his fingers into her grip.

Rowan took hold of his hand, her thumb pressed against his fingers.

They said nothing, choosing to look out of their respective windows as the world continued on its celestial journey as if nothing had happened at all.