#there are probably other people who politically have done worse to the country than he has

[violetlunette]

Right, so I’m going to say something that will probably get me some flack but—I think Heinry’s worse than Rashta.

Notes:

*Anti-Heinry

*Slight defense—very slight—of Rashta

*Anti-Ergi

TRIGGER WARNING:

*Mentions of rape

Don’t misunderstand; Rashta’s actions are far worse, and she wrecked a lot of people’s lives. While I sympathize with her, I will never deny that she earned her villain status. However, all her actions were done out of desperation and ignorance.

At the start, Rasta had no idea what her presence would mean to Navier. She just thought the Emperor brought her into the family and that they would share him. And how would she? She was a slave isolated from the world and abused in every way by her owners. (And yet are portrayed as more sympathetic than her, but I digress.) On top of that, in their country, it wasn't uncommon for a kind to take a mistress. How would Rashta have known she was basically a homewrecker?

And then, it was only when others began manipulating her and Navier's brother tried to abort her child, that Rashta purposely lashed out at others to protect herself.

As the story went on, she was abused mentally and emotionally by everyone around her and gaslighted. She only believed one person was on her side, but he was the one behind all her pain and more. (Fuck you Ergi! I hope he gets stabbed with a yeevil fork and tossed out with the rest of the shit.)

I’m not saying she shouldn’t have been accountable, as she should have and was. And Navier's attitude towards her was justified. 

However, Heinry pulled a lot of shit as well, but unlike Rashta, he not only didn’t need to, but he knew better.

The western kingdom was not under threat from the Eastern empire, nor was his kingdom in need of anything. Heinry was just greedy. He was even going to take Navier as a political prisoner to make her fall in love with him through Stockholm. The only reason he didn’t is because of the divorce and Navier proposing marriage to him.

Then there’s his actions towards Krista. 

While not an innocent bird, I don’t think she crossed a moral line that earned her final fate. If I recall right, the worst she did was let a rumor spread. She didn’t even try to take advantage of Heinry when he was under the love potion and passed out on her lap. Yet, he forced her into suicide and had her remaining family spit on her memory. (Good job looking after your brother’s widowed wife, bird shit.)

And when you think about it, Heinry’s partly responsible for everything Rashta has done as he manipulated her through Ergi. Don’t get me wrong, Ergi’s actions are his own, but Heinry is the one who gave him the orders and helped. True, the former would have done what he did without the latter, but Heinry was the one to put him in the position to do so.

And on top of he spent a decade participating in rape by tricking girls into sleeping with him. (What they did is called buddy swap. Look it up yourself for details.)

And again, unlike Rashta, Heinry, a royal Prince raised with a royal education and more, knew better. He knew his actions were harmful and selfish but did it anyway for greed. And, again, there was no need for his actions. The Western kingdom was flourishing and under no threat from any other nation. They were said to be equal in power to the Empire, they just didn't have the name for--reasons.

Heinry wasn’t in a desperate situation where he was worried he would lose everything if he didn’t act, unlike Rashta. Worse, being a man of the world and not a slave, Heinry was well aware of the ramifications of his choices and that people would be hurt. Yet, despite all he did and unlike Rashta, he was never held accountable for anything. Why? Because he's the male lead, who's close to Navier. They get away with everything.

To sum it all up;

While Rashta's crimes were arguably worse, they were done out of ignorance, manipulation of several parties, and desperation. She had no idea what else to do other than what she did, and her choices were limited due to her gender, status, and knowledge.

Heinry’s actions were out of selfishness, greed, and of his own free will. No one pushed him to do anything, he CHOSE to even though he didn’t have to and had several options before him. Had he stayed his hand, he wouldn’t have lost anything. And again, through Ergi, he manipulated Rashta, so Heinrey has a hand in her crimes, as well.

He had choices and several options, and he chose the ones that hurt others. Yet was never held accountable for any of it and was even rewarded for being a terrible person. 

And that’s why I find him worse than Rashta.

[phightingheadcanons]

Faction info dump!!!

PLAYGROUND:

I like to think that Playground is really jungly and tight around the borders, but there are different status circles/rings. The closer to the center you get, the more sophisticated and 'New Yorkian' the place gets. In the center, or the 'heart' of Playground, is a bright, livid, city, and the people are richer there. I imagine it to resemble Tokyo. In terms of culture, things are mixed! It'd probably be mostly 🦅🦅🦅 'Murican 🦅🦅🦅 (mostly African American) sillies, though, if I'm to be completely honest. I also think that there would be a lot of Latin Americans, though. I think that the main god that is worshipped there is either Firebrand and Windforce (even though she don't wanna be worshipped).

-

LOST TEMPLE/S:

I think this is pretty straightforward, ngl. The True Eye is tje most powerful group in Lost Temple. Because of this, no one is Lost Temple isbdumb enough to outwardly argue/fight them, so True Eye pulls the strings. I believe that most people in Lost Temple are either country or Brittish. Other than the gods(?) that the True Eye worship, I thing that the main god is Illumina. Venomshank is also commonly worshipped.

-

BLACKROCK:

Russia. That's all I really have to say. Blackrock in my mind is just a mix of Russia and the U.S. in the way that people treat eachother, as awell as in weaponry, technology, and landscape, but that's probably because I think Russia is epic (I'm not saying anything about politics, I just like the language and culture, as well as the animals). Most of the inhabitants of Blackrock are Brittish, Russian, or American. Some are German, but not many. Blackrock doesn't let anyone from outside of Blackrock in, so it's not very mixed up there in terms of race. Most in Blackrock do not have a religion, due to religious practices being discouraged in favour of contant vigilance in work, but those who do it anyway tend to worship Venomshank or Icedagger. Those who worship Icedagger are often the poor, seeking out mercy. I actually don't think Subspace has full power. I believe he is a lead engineer/scientist, HOWEVER, I do think that he is secretly pulling the strings and climbing the ranks. Blackrock is lead by multiple leaders.

-

THEIVES DEN:

I don't have much to say. It is a somewhat small, highly populated faction. It's basically an oversized village, with narure filling every line in the ground and crack in the wall. It's a blossoming, healthy place. I follow the commen headcanon that MOST people fron Theives Den are Japanese, but I also think that there are a lot of Africans amd Latin Americans. I would, however, lie to state that Theives Den is incredibly mixed in terms of race, culture, etc., so much so that it's almost chaotic. There is a group in Theives Den that worships Darkheart, which often causes mischief, but isn't really anything bad. The worse they have done was steal some pies. Otherwise, there isn't really any main religion.

-

A sidenote: Ghostwalker isn't as much worshipped as he is feared, that's why he wasn't really mentioned. There are, however, those who worship and praise him. Some in Blackrock pray to him to give immortality. He, of course, ignores them and their selfish desires, which is why the practice has mostly died out.

That's all!!! Thanks for reading all of this gibberish. I hope you have a wonderful day ^^

.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

sorry i genuinely can't believe how much of an asshole people are to Ian Flynn. like for everyone who’s not a huge sonic nerd like me who doesn’t know what’s going on, Ian Flynn is the head writer of the sonic comics (which’s he’s been doing for decades) and as of recently the games. and like, I don’t know Ian personally but from all I’ve heard and seen he’s just genuinely a dude really passionate about the stuff he works on who views them as worthy of respect and also views the fans as worthy of it too. like he’s not Perfect but he respects what he works on and tries his best. like he literally has a podcast and stuff you can listen to it he's a sonic fanboy through and through he adores the series so much. so like, completely inoffensive guy. he makes decisions I don’t like sometimes but like I’m not the whole world it’s fine.

anyway bc the new game came out with Very Minor Story Changes people are doing the whole “go woke go broke!” thing (which is stupid bc sonic has always been somewhat political it’s part of it's more edgy appeal like the stuff is like, not having amy be As affectionate towards sonic and not stuff like adventure 2 having sonic beat up cops if anything it’s not woke Enough) and they’ve started blaming the whole thing on ian and saying utterly horrible awful things about the guy. and again these are like! really minor changes! ones that were probably done bc of the criticisms generations got at launch! but bc knuckles makes a Different quippy line than he did a decade ago people are openly wishing for horrible stuff, calling for his country to be bombed and saying he’s worse than cancer and all sorts of sickening stuff. because he made extremely minor changes to a ten year old game. and that’s assuming the maximum amount of responsibility on his shoulder we don’t know how much was sega and how much was like, other people working on it? like ian flynn isn’t the only guy who works on the series??? it’s so fucked. i hope the guys ok he gets so much weird harassment for anything mildly different in sonic ever and he’s done literally nothing wrong ever as far as i can tell.

[thessalian]

Thess vs US Interference

Yes, I know y'all know that Mango Mussolini is a dickwaffle of the highest order. But he's not content to make America grotesque again with his anti-DEI bullshit; he's trying to force it on the UK too.

Now, I did some reading and Googling about this before I went around blabbing it on Reddit, because the first I saw of it had the potential to be clickbait, and was far too blunt even for Trump. But the truth as I've seen it isn't much better.

You will probably see a post on Former-Twitter saying that Trump is saying that he will only do a trade deal with the UK if we drop all LGBT protections. This is ... close, and probably about what they mean, but not quite accurate. What Trump et al are saying is that if the UK wants a trade deal with the US, they have to follow Trump's lead as regards the complete eradication of hate speech laws. So honestly, it's kind of worse.

See, yes, it'll make some problems for the LGBT community - and the fact that the T portion of that acronym is already under significant threat in this country doesn't exactly help keep people from panicking. The thing is, though ... they are not the only people who get hate speech, and while I acknowledge the threat to the LGBT community (largely because I am a part of it and honestly, I'm at least somewhat the part that doesn't get any protections anyway, as asexuality is still pathologised while homosexuality is not) ... what about the threat to people of colour?

Like, seriously, we have a lot of POC here. I literally cannot imagine going so far as outside of my flat and only seeing white people. I live near Peckham, which is largely a combination of Afro-Caribbean, Filipino, and Nigerian in terms of its population. The guys who run my local corner shop are ... I think Pakistani? London as a whole is hugely diverse. However, that does not mean we don't have bigots. Of course we have bigots. Everywhere has bigots. To follow Trump's lead in terms of eradicating hate speech laws is to open these people who are just trying to live their lives to so much hate, and I just ... have lost all ability to cope at the very thought.

(Side bar: if it's not racism, it's xenophobia. Around the time of the Brexit referendum, Polish people in this country were getting a loooooooot of shit, up to and including the defacement of at least one Polish community centre.)

Also, consider faith-based hate speech. Anti-semitism accusations are how Labour ousted all their actually left-wing politicians and got the shit-show we're living with right now, and not all of those were exaggerated for a political agenda. People are already shitty about Muslims. Do we as a country need to make things worse for them?

Like I said, I see the threat this poses to the LGBT community, for very obvious reasons. But I'm sure as hell going to flag up all the other people that this is going to fuck over if it gets implemented. I own my privilege, but I feel like that privilege, shaky as it is, means that I need to think beyond my privilege, if you get me. I don't want to be at the tail end of the "first they came for--" speech, so that means that ... well, like my new favourite T-shirt says, "When one of us gets attacked, we all roll for initiative". For me, that means sounding a call to arms for everyone, not just myself.

The worst part is ... it could happen. Starmer is now getting a significant reputation for throwing anyone inconvenient under the bus. He and his government sure as hell did it with the disabled in terms of those budget cuts Labour made recently. Worst part? It was largely done because the US started yelling that everyone needed to spend more on defense. So our army gets more money while we the disabled get forced into jobs we can't do without pain, or else starve.

Thing is ... currently the UK is trying to stay neutral in all this, because the UK is a financial mess after Brexit and it can't afford to alienate anyone any more than it already has. With this, the US government is going to make it impossible to stay on the fence. Trade deals with the US will involve not just caving to Trump's demands on how we run our country, but also severely reducing our food standards. (Because, seriously, your chlorine-bleached chickens are not a thing that is allowed here, and that's one of our main fears about a US trade deal in the wake of Brexit.) That would cripple our relations with the EU. But if we side with the EU, we get hit with the tariff stick.

I don't know what happens next. Either we get another drop in living standards, which have been steadily declining since Brexit ... or we get a different kind of drop in living standards as we become overly reliant on the US for trade. And the US - or someone in that clown show they call a government, anyway - must know that we're in a vulnerable position economically, or they wouldn't be so confident that a deal will definitely happen, and never mind all the terms they put on it that have nothing the fuck to do with trade.

Basically, I wish the fucking Cheeto would stick to ruining his own country. (Sorry, Americans; it's not fair that those of you who didn't vote for him have to deal with him either, I know. Just ... come on; surely the span of the Atlantic should keep us safe from him?)

[sniperct]

What do you say to a person who's biggest gripe with the Democrats is that they also continue to hold a foreign policy that prioritizes American Supremacy (even if its a slightly nicer version) and can't find value in a party that is unwilling to let go of that?

I find this to be a bigger issue with my family members that have a closer tie to the old global south countries our family came from.

To preface this, for my own sanity I always try to look at things from a larger top down perspective, and from a 'what can be done with the way things are now to fix it or at least mitigate the harm' perspective.

This is hard one, and its a totally understandable problem to have. It frustrates me too so I can't imagine how much more it hurts people closer to it.

I believe its a societal and structural problem. US society itself is...out of touch for lack of a better term. They don't notice, don't pay attention, and are fed by a media more than happy to keep them distracted and content.

In other words, a huge chunk of the electorate has no idea the level of what's going on with the US and the rest of the world and worse, a sizable chunk of the ones that do? Are okay with it. And these are the most reliable voters.

But I believe this is a minority overall and it can be combated with information and getting it into the hands of everyone we can.

But we are seeing more and more voices in congress willing to push back on it but a big problem is most of those voices are in super safe seats. There's no risk to them, electorally, and many of their constitutions agree with them, so they're able to go out on the limb.

Politics is as they say, local. A senator from Montana or a rep from Alabama are going to have a lot harder time keeping their seats because the people who live in their states and districts are more conservative and at the moment there's just not enough voices to make the risk worth it to most of them. Even if they were inclined to lean that way, they may reason its better to keep their seat out of the hands of a republican who would be much, much worse. (like as much as I loathe manchin, he's still much better than the Republican who's going to replace him. Which tells you the bar we're dealing with here.)

There's so much inertia to work against, 70+ years of the US being a super power, that its like trying to turn a massive ship with a weak rudder.

But if they got enough calls, enough emails, enough letters, from the people who vote for them, then they might be willing to take the risk. This year we might get them to vote against something or for something good. Next time maybe it's someone who introduces legislation to make a change. In a few years maybe that legislation passes.

Democrats will at least listen and with enough pressure they'll bow. That's why campaigns to write letters and make calls are so important, we have to participate in our democracy.

But republicans won't listen to this. This is probably the one huge area where the choice is 'slightly better than status quo if we're lucky' vs 'actively make everything worse' instead of 'much better' vs 'actively worse'

[jesses-life-updates]

people tend to think trans people are special snowflakes who get pampered by society so here's being trans from the perspective of a transgender 14-year-old who has no adult support in his life. please boost this message to transphobes, it might not change their minds but it could at least make them consider the real children they're hurting.

• when I came out at 13 I was yelled at by my parents until I cried

• according to transphobes it's somehow my fault that I was born with a female body

• people at school ask me what my pronouns are as an insult and call me slurs and nobody does anything about it, not even teachers care

• I came out to these people I thought I could trust and their response was to push me out of their circle of friends and harass me, constantly calling me a lesbian even though I'm not even a girl

• life seems to have lost its colour and I can't remember the last time I felt actual strong emotions

• actual grown ass adults complain about trans people on the internet just for clout and argue with each other about whether or not we deserve rights, as if that isn't the most dehumanising shit

• I've been told that my feelings don't matter by a teacher at my school because "people in countries at war have it worse"

• the prime minister of my country was on national television spreading hate speech about my people and everyone is acting like he's a saint for it, completely ignoring the other bad things he's done for this country because "he hates trans people and that's good"

• I have to stand idly by while trans people my age are committing suicide and I am so scared I will end up adding to that statistic

• there's bad apples in every group of people and just because I'm trans I have to be grouped in with every bigoted/hateful trans person when I'm just trying to keep myself alive and I'm not bothering anyone

• I am too scared to bring up my queer identity around anyone because I don't want them to think I'm shoving it in their face, it might as well be a secret even though I've been out for over a year

• i sometimes forget that I'm not physically a boy but then it hits me again when I see how much taller/deep voiced my male peers are

• I had to resocialise myself as male and change so many things about my behaviour that it's constantly at the forefront of my mind

• my chest constantly feels tight, I can't breathe deeply, my breathing is shaky and I get random rib pains every few hours

• I'm told that my gender is a "protected characteristic" but adults are doing a piss poor job at protecting me, I feel like I'm in danger because of being queer

• people at school harassed me so much for being trans that I practically forced myself back into the closet by telling them I don't care what they refer to me as (I most definitely do care)

• my identity is so normal to me but it's not normal for anyone else, I'll be talking about a girl crush I have thinking what I'm saying is normal but someone chimes in with "oh are you a lesbian?" and it brings me back to the harsh reality that being queer isn't normal

• I used to feel so much pride as a queer kid but now I just hate everything about being queer and I wish so badly that I could be just like everyone else

• more and more laws are being put in place against my people and one day I might not even be able to get gender affirming treatment

• the chemical imbalance in my brain is considered a political stance rather than just a rare condition a group of people have that shouldn't be a big deal

• I, a 14 year old boy, am more mature about gender than ACTUAL GROWN ADULTS who go on PUBLIC TELEVISION TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ME WHEN I AM JUST TRYING TO EXIST IN PEACE

• I keep being hit with the realisation that I still need to wait four years just for the chance of merely beginning to transition, which will cost me thousands of pounds and probably take more than ten years to fully transition, whereas my peers are just handed it at birth

• trans people are seen by society as "annoying" and "shoving it down people's throats" and "looking for an excuse to be special" for some fucking reason

• I have to juggle all this shit with trying hard in school and balancing life, all while my brain is not even fully developed yet. my cognitive and emotional processing skills aren't even close to being developed but i have to deal with suicidal thoughts, media pushing the idea that I'm mentally ill, internalised transphobia, constant harassment, transphobia from almost every single person in my life, feeling like a fucking freak for a chemical imbalance in my brain, and yet I STILL have to deal with normal teenage things like feeling ugly or struggling in school, and further yet I CANT TALK TO A SINGLE ADULT ABOUT MY SITUATION BECAUSE NOBODY BELIEVES ME OR SUPPORTS ME

• the cherry on top: there is absolutely nothing I can do about my situation until I turn 18, my only option is to suck it up and deal with it until either get actual help or end up killing myself

if you're an adult who thinks trans people are groomers/snowflakes/annoying/criminal, think about how your actions are impacting youth who are just trying to stay alive. you are not protecting children by making us wait longer for treatment or shielding us from supportive outlets. grow the fuck up. you're an adult, act like it. find something else to do with your life than attack an astronomically small minority of people.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Barry Blitt

* * * *

The private Alito is even worse than we thought

LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

JUN 11, 2024

You always wonder what goes on behind closed doors with the Alitos and the Thomases of the world.  Justice Thomas has sworn publicly that he never discusses politics with his wife Ginni, a full-time right-wing political operative and activist infamous for having cheered on the insurrection that tried to overturn the 2020 election in texts and emails to the likes of Mark Meadows and others.  Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, has been in the news recently for displaying at the Alito’s two homes two flags flown at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but Alito writes off her obvious activism and support of insurrectionists with, “My wife is fond of flying flags.  I’m not.”

I’m sure that without really trying, we can all write scripts for what’s really going on when the Alitos and Thomases close their doors and sit down for dinner with a glass of red and some DoorDash.

But now we have it right from Martha-Ann’s husband’s lips, what he really thinks about what is going on in this country’s politics, and where he stands.

Lauren Windsor, a progressive filmmaker and political activist, bought a ticket in her own name to the Supreme Court Historical Society dinner that was held on June 3 and carried her cell phone so she could record conversations she held with Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts.  She’s done it before, posing as a fellow conservative as she recorded conversations with right-wing politicians at public events.  This time, Windsor appears to have been posing as a Christian Nationalist Catholic when she got close enough to Alito at the dinner to ask him a few questions.

Windsor introduced herself and reminded Alito that she had asked him a similar question at last year’s Supreme Court Historical Society dinner before casting this loaded lure into the Alito political waters: “What I asked you about was about the polarization in this country, about, like, how do we repair that rift?  And considering everything that's been going on in the past year, you know, as a Catholic, and as someone who really cherishes my faith, I just don't, I don't know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end. I think it is a matter of like, winning.”

Alito bit: “I think you’re probably right,” he replied. “On one side or the other…one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working …a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So, it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”

Windsor wasn’t finished.  “That’s what I’m saying.  I think the solution really is like winning the moral argument.  Like, people in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of Godliness.”

“Well, I agree with you, I agree with you,” Alito says to her, as a woman – possibly Martha-Ann, carrying a flag signaling imminent danger, can be heard saying, “I didn’t want to interrupt…” rescuing Alito before he further eviscerates the freedom of religion clause of the First Amendment.

This is exactly what yet another conservative Christian Catholic, Leonard Leo, of the Federalist Society, sought when he helped to plant his little garden of Catholic believers on the Supreme Court.  He wanted justices on the court who would support exactly that, turning the United States of America into a Christian nation, “a place of Godliness” in the words of the well-chosen bait Windsor cast at Alito.

Behind the closed doors of a private $500 a plate dinner filled with lobbyists for Christian conservative organizations and the billionaire oligarchs who support them, Samuel Alito let his freak flag fly.  For the rest of his time on the Supreme Court, this man will do everything in his power to rewrite the Constitution the Founders so carefully crafted to guard against the religious zealotry of the monarchy they had overthrown. For Samuel Alito, the waters of religious zealotry are where he swims.

[Lucian Truscott Newsletter]

[thelreads]

I’m surprised you came to such a hasty conclusion about Garden. What about all we learned about Garden during the cruise arc? Plus that later chapter where Shopkeeper himself basically noted both Loid and Melinda as possible future targets due to their affiliation with Donovan the War Monger. He wouldn’t do that, or have such a poor opinion of conservatives, if he was siding with their government.

Garden has been very consistently portrayed as a self-contained organisation with a clear leader and philosophy (especially in the cruise arc). They are wholly independent “maintainers of the garden” whose whole deal is keeping the peace no matter how it’s done - legal or illegal - putting them firmly on the anti-war side.

The red circus, on the other hand, seems to be made up of different shoots / groups with different values. Mr Restaurant Boom Boom certainly didn’t bat an eye at causing mass civilian casualties if it meant he could take down Yor with him. So it makes perfect sense that Yor was sent after that part of the red circus - they were dangerous mass murderers. Mr Dead Daughter, on the other hand, is probably only still alive because his no-kill policy hasn’t yet qualified him for Garden’s hit list.

During the Cruise arc we learned that the Garden wants peace, sure, but it leaves a few questions that seem to point at the way they actually operate. If they wanted to just prevent war altogether they could just murder Donovan. That would prevent an eventual war, and more than that, any other person who took power that had warmongering tendencies could also be eliminated rather easily, so why don't they do that?

And here's your answer: The Garden is not necessarily pro-peace. When the shopkeeper talks about them, he says

And just a little after giving Yor the mission

So, not peace, the Garden mission is to keep the world "beautiful"

And how do they do that? By taking down people who interfere in the natural course of things. Traitors of the nation like the Yor killed at the start, or a insurgent group that wants to disrupt things. Yor is the one that thinks that they are wanting peace.

Nothing here says that the shopkeeper doesn't believe that war and violence aren't part of nature, and therefore are part of this beauty

And this is even worse if the idea that the Garden is under the government orders is true. Sure, we had this scene when Yor was talking to him after meeting Melinda

But being honest, I think that the idea the shopkeeper was trying to pass here was not that the problem was that she was conservative, I think the implication was that if she ever decides to leave or go against Donovan then Yor would have to kill her, and because of that she doesn't recommend it.

Sure, there was the exchange about political beliefs

But that could be a way to warn Yor so she doesn't seem suspicious, it never seemed to me like the people of this country were that against Donovan, pretty much the everyone we see on the streets seems to be on his side

Then there was this exchange that makes it seem like Twilight is under suspicion for being interested in Donovan political party

But look at the whole conversation, Yor just said that:

1- Twilight already met Donovan

2-That Twilight thought Donovan seemed like a good person

those could be the things that ticked off the shopkeeper. How did he managed to already get that close to him? And worse, if he met him, how was he still under the impression he seemed like a good person?

The second one could just mean Twilight was an asshole like Donovan, but the first one... A regular person shouldn't be able to do that by accident, considering how paranoid and reclusive the man is.

So, I can't exactly chalk down this possibility. But I can't deny that, no matter how good intentioned Mr. Bombcollar here is, there are a lot of people under his command that aren't as keen on not hurting kids, or innocents. But he wasn't spared because of that, it was because he was hidden outside of the country, like they said at the start of this arc.

[nappingpaperclip]

Voting is something you do in response to someone’s specific policy issues. Biden has not only chosen to not stick to his campaign policies, but also enacted some of the worse foreign policy I have seen and will soon be enacting also the worst immigration policy in recent American history

Like what are you guys talking about? No one is acting like a vote is a little treat for politicians for being a good boy lol.

‘Vote blue no matter who’ only works for congressional and local elections.

Yknow, when voting for the legislative branch whose job is to determine laws and rights, the stuff you are talking about being affected. Not the president, whose job is foreign policy and passing the budget….the stuff y’all are saying we shouldn’t “focus on” as if it’s not like, the stuff that IS affected…

You shouldn’t vote for a presidential candidate whose foreign policy is bombing civilians of other countries and participating in genocide despite voter disapproval. You shouldn’t vote for a presidential candidate who back down on campaign promises involving peoples fundamental rights. You shouldn’t vote for a presidential candidate who proves over again and again that they are not trustworthy, their words and actions will never align, and that the only opinion they care about is their investors. I’m saying this as someone who voted for Biden in 2020. I don’t think it should be controversial to say that if a political candidate starts enacting policies you don’t support and that are a detriment to human life, you should stop supporting them….

“Things will be much worse under Trump”

What specifically are u talking about? Because most of stuff y’all are afraid of changing (losing your rights) is stuff that is determined mainly by Congress and the Supreme Court. Or an executive order (which can be vetoed), and which Biden has not used to protect our rights…

“We can push him left”

If you continue to vote for a politician despite disapproving many of their policies they will not change their policies. How far does a politician have to go for you guys to think “yeah I probably shouldn’t vote for that person” ?? Does he have to kill someone with his own hands- and if so, how is ordering bombs different than that…? Or does it not matter as long as they are running against a big bad guy?

“A vote isn’t a moral tool”

A vote is a political decision that you make to pick a politician that aligns with your beliefs. It shows politicians where their voters lie on policy issues. Threatening to withhold your vote is how you show politicians that they either have to change their policy issue or get out. You can’t “push someone left” by telling everyone that you’ll still vote for them despite whatever horrible shit they have done.

The Democratic party IS falling apart. “Our president & de facto party leader is doing a genocide that much of the voter base disapproves of, and has an incredibly low approval rating while our opposition has a stronger and more dedicated voter base” IS the party falling apart. At the very least, it’s a pretty damn good reason to run someone else.

This isn’t a discussion on ethics and morals y’all, we are talking about real life policies that affect real life people. Palestinians IN MY community are affected by this. Have you talked to irl Palestinians? Poor people? Trans people? Anyone actually affected by Biden’s policies or lack of thereof?

The “moral feelings” you’re talking about is that genocide is wrong btw. Y’all keep talking about this as if we are not talking about policies personally approved by Biden that directly affect people in our communities.

Biden’s approval rating is at 38%. Who do you guys expect to vote for him? Palestinian Americans whose families are being killed? Trans people who have been fighting their rights? Poor people who are losing their jobs and houses and dying of covid? Women who needed an abortion but couldn’t get one because Biden refused to codeify it? Eighteen to twenty-something year olds who see pictures & videos of little children’s lifeless bloody bodies on their social media every day? Environmentalists who are chaining themselves to trees and getting 10+ year prison sentences on RICO charges for protesting a pipeline Biden personally approved? Ohh right, you guys are only thinking of white middle-aged middle-class liberals

“You guys are gonna make Trump win”

When Biden loses in November because the DNC is too stupid to run anyone else you all wont blame gerrymandering or the broken electoral college system, you won’t blame voter suppression & disenfranchisement, you won’t blame the DNC for refusing to run literally anyone fucking else, you won’t blame yourselves for your stubborn refusal to even consider a third party candidate, you won’t even blame Biden himself, no, instead you will inevitably blame disenfranchised people who didn’t vote and third-party voters like you do every election cycle. I want you all to know loud and clear right now: if Biden loses the next election, it’s his own fault.

It is Biden’s own fault because he took $14 billion dollars of Americans’ incomes and put it not towards covid relief, not towards debt relief, not towards free education and healthcare and housing, but to send weapons to a genocide. It will be because he bombed Yemen. It will be because he is about to pass the tightest immigration laws we have ever fucking had.

But nah, he’s “not as bad” because at least he keeps his racist & misogynistic thoughts to himself instead of being annoying on Twitter 🥴

“Who would be different”

A third party candidate.

If y’all stick to the idea that “voting third party is a wasted vote” we will never, ever make actual progress. Most people who look into third party candidates are ppl who would rather not vote than vote for Biden regardless.

If the primaries does not offer another viable candidate besides Biden I will be writing in a third-party candidate like Claudia de la Cruz or Cornel West and encourage everyone else to do the same, regardless of if u plan on voting for Biden in Nov, so at least the primaries will show Dems they should be scared for participating in a genocide.

At least research and consider voting third party because this is the best year to do it by far.

There’s some common threads I see in the anti-voting posts going around, and I feel like I need to discuss some of them. Let’s start with the biggest one:

Voting to punish evil. I see lots of variations of this. Biden is supporting Israel, therefore we can’t vote for him. Is there any viable candidate who would stop the genocide? I don’t think the anti voting crowd actually cares. They are appealing to moral feelings rather than political strategy, because strategically, you have to realize that voting is not going to change foreign policy, and that change has to be pushed by other means. It’ll probably be something in the long haul.

Democrats should run someone else. First of all, this is a shit strategy. You don’t primary your president in the second term unless your party is falling apart. This may come from people from countries where replacing the head of government is easier, but the POTUS is the de facto party head. Also, going to the lack of thought to the goal — do you know someone willing to primary Biden and able to win who would do the things you want.

Biden hasn’t done anything anyway. This is just a way to bat away pro arguments. There’s plenty of lists of progress on lots of things. Student loans, insulin price caps, regulations, anti-trust.

Putting the entire Palestinian genocide on Biden. I’m not saying there’s not culpability there, but understand that the entire US government is in support of Israel, on both sides. It was a miracle we got a handful of Senators to call for investigations. We should cut off aid, absolutely. Who’s running to do that? And keep in mind that Israel chose to engage. US officials would have liked a more limited response, not out of care for Palestinians, but because they know from experience that it will come back to bite Israel in the form of newly radicalized Hamas recruits.

Liberals just have no hope for change. This is a new one. Just some idea that people are stuck in a rut and that’s the reason the two party system exists. The two party system is a mathematical consequence of the way we vote. There is reason to hope for change. The change, though, whatever means you choose, will take decades. Keep working at it. The hope is not that this election will fundamentally change things. The hope is that many small political actions over the years will push things forward.

Funnily enough, I haven’t seen a whole lot of third party promotion, just lots of this rhetoric aiming to punish. When voting, ask yourself:

Is this problem I have with this candidate something that the other candidate would be better on?

Are there other political actions I can take that will help?

What things can change with a different President or Congress, and what needs to be pursued by other means?

Withholding your vote as a punishment isn’t really going to help. Biden doesn’t know who you are or why you are not voting for him, and there is no one with a chance of winning that will do everything you want. But you have other means. Protest, organize, donate, build up alternatives, advocate for a different system.

Vote to give yourself space and get a little bit. Do other things to keep things moving.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary299

7/14/24

sunday

uneventful day.

i forgot to talk about yesterday's wayy psycho news about trump getting shot at! immediately exhausted by all the conspiracist shit i am seeing crop up on either side while we know very little about this, i can't say anything for certain but to so quickly discount that anyone would do this of their own volition is ridiculous and super irritating. on the other hand seeing people say it's not fishy because there were casualties is equally strange, to see people be like, so eager to know what this was, you know. like this is not something any of us will really possess as any kind of knowledge, probably not even the people at the top. it's a nightmare, is all really. him living too, is part of that. part of what saved his life is a racist rant to say something about immigration, i think, i heard, i guess this is only supposed. but it's an insane detail. and then that fucking photo that got taken, his ability to make it a pose immediately. it is too much, it is too pregnant, i guess this is why people are eager to say it was all designed. but looking at the events, if this was a plant to make trump look good, the shooter could have done less damage to trump, taken wider shots, anything like that, or shoot him somewhere less dangerous than the head. if it's otherwise, i imagine they would not have missed. seeing people say they want to read dave mcgowan because of this drives me cuhrayzyyy.

obviously, noah dillon of the hellp is calling this "the most iconic political event since 9/11",

i suppose in some sense it is, or something. it's certainly disturbing to me that the image produced, of trump fist pumping, feels like the most "virile" fantasy of america instantiated, it's the fascistic dream actualized, it has become bodily, and to take the photo at all, to not run, to take the photo of trump doing that, to frame it as well as you can, you know, to do that is demented, the total lack of self preservation to do that, it is hideously american, super-careerist fantasy.

anyway, there's i guess a lot you can say about this, it feels like it's secured his win. it also makes me wonder if things will get worse for people who aren't the norm, or if truly nothing will happen. the right is on the rise but this country, it is hard to have any centralized action beyond just electoral shit, i think, maybe i hope, ignorantly. i guess it is ignorant, racists have always been able to accomplish more than seems imaginable, more diffuse now, the intolerant really have easier ways to communicate, keep their kids in homeschooling, creating a whole separate ecosystem, if those drives turn dominant, what becomes of all others, i guess.

but i know some people really think nothing's gonna happen.

it just all feels rather, whatever you do to look at it, dour, stupid, i dunno, nothing good will happen but the best i can hope for is a total 0. i know some people think the shooter was a lib, or like "leftist" since those are the same to some, or one woman really, it's kind of crazy to say that when he's registered otherwise after donating once when he was 17 because the dems are talking about putting trump in the "bullseye" at other times and talking up him being a threat to democracy.

anyway. ... like... #whateverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

so what else.

today i recorded vocals for one song!! tomorrow i'm gonna try another, and gonna try write lyrics for something else. i also reinstalled some stuff but idk if it really helped out. very frustrated by that, but what can i do, idk. it's a weird issue, it's like utterly new to me at this point, i do not have any idea other than maybe a windows update fucking something up? but idk what that'd do really. to be honest. maybe i need to reinstall waves? that's such a fricking pain though. it does make music harder to wanna do. maybe a good thing, so i can focus on other stuff? maybe, to be honest.

anyway, beyond the vocals, i also did write a couple other little things, one thing's set for drums, one thing i'm in process w/ drums, 2nd one is gonna be like a fucked up no wavey emo-violence thing i think. other one's gonna be like a weirdo synthy thing, i really love the chiptune melody on it, and the bass, and then i found a place for the stylophone vst i got! so that rawks. i also got an old song re-done, for this next ep, so i wanna get lyrics done for that.

i think tomorrow i should also try to basically split this one old track in half because i think basically i wrote 2 songs and they deserve to be their own things, one half's like the kinda crazy no wave pv-y emoviolence-y thing, and then the other's like a screwed up... idk, it's a crazy riff though i love that one, it's got legs enough to be a kind of simple song riding off that rhythm / riff. somehow very catchy despite being wayy dissonant. some of these feel very music video ready, which is also fun for me to think abt.

going back in to mess with the drums in one song, i was met with no crashes, it was fine... i did switch the rendering on some plugins to no open gl ui. that seems to add some stability. crazy issue to have though.

also i got some writing done, something else tiny, like a little horror-ish thing almost. it's fun to write stories that do not really have much scope, properly short, a good way to keep in practice. although i think this is too, to be honest. this stretches my voice in ways i'm not used to, i think it's making me a little more expressive in text, which makes me feel #cute. i hope to use that in some way as i write, a new poetics to explore.

anyway, it's about time to go to bed so:

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[camaro-hargrove]

They Don't Care About You

word count: 1.3k

-

He thought maybe people would like him. At the very least tolerate him.

Especially after what he did to prove himself worthy.

But Billy Hargrove does not get that luxury.

Instead he gets scars and a dad who abandons him as soon as he realised that Billy is not the same as he was before. He gets nightmares and a constant fear of not being in control. He gets fucking hand tremors and a brace to support his back and a fucking walking stick.

Susan tries, keeps him around because he pays most of the bills with hush money from the government because he’s too fucking disabled to live on his own right now.

He has to go to school to finish his senior year and all his friends have already graduated. People stare at him and it’s not like the staring they did before.

He can’t drive anymore, thinks even if he was able bodied enough that he wouldn’t because he sees crashing his car, sees Nancy shooting her gun at him while he tries to kill people. When he had no control.

Susan drives him and Max because she’s in high school now. She doesn’t look at him much and Billy gets it. He doesn’t like looking at himself much either. His hair is longer, the mullet growing out past his shoulders and he doesn’t really care much about his appearance anymore. His clothes are looser, baggier because he’s lost muscle while recovering and anything tight hurts and constrains him. Fabrics like denim on his shoulders are too rough so his beloved denim jacket stays hanging up.

“Thank you, Susan” he says every time she drives him as close as they can to the front door of the school. A fucking mantra that was drilled into him ever since Susan came into his life. He’d have said it regardless to be polite but the fact it was expected from his dad made him hate the phrase. She nods and drives off after Billy struggles to get out of the car.

He doesn’t use his walking stick much at school much to his doctors annoyance but he doesn’t want people staring at him even more. It’s why his limp isn’t getting much better and deep down the pain in his hips remind him of what he’s done and he deserves it.

Max walks ahead of him and doesn’t look back. Her friends stare at him during the hallways and track his every move like he’s going to snap and try to kill them again. He doesn’t really blame them seeing that it nearly happened even before he was possessed but maybe he’s always been possessed.

That there has always been something evil in him, something sinful, something that made his dad beat him every chance and why his mother left him. Maybe surviving everything he’s been through is punishment for something he was born with.

He sits in his classes, closest to the door but is always the last one to leave just out of convenience. It takes him a while to walk to classes so he’s always late and then once he’s in his chair, it takes him a while to actually get back up. His teachers don’t talk to him and give him glances out of the corner of their eyes, sometimes they make a move like they want to help him stand but he thinks that would be worse than not helping.

He used to be a great student, thought it was his only way out if he could get into college on the other side of the country. He was well on his way too but now he doesn’t try. He can’t concentrate anymore, the pain in his back from sitting with an uncomfortable brace hurts but then standing for too long also makes it hurt. His legs get tingly when he sits and these fucking headaches from the lights make everything worse.

He’s been forced to talk to the guidance counselor, someone who he has spoken to before when he first arrived in this hell hole of a town just to get an understanding of what kind of student he’s like. Back then it was smart, athletic, feisty and probably some sort of personality disorder that no one ever really thought to explore deeper. Now it’s quiet, disabled, not living up to his potential and still the same personality disorder that now is explored deeper.

These sessions are a waste of time, in Billy’s opinion. The counselor is nice, she is but Billy isn’t so they sit in silence a lot of the time. She tries to get him to open up about everything because everyone in this fucking gossipy town knows his dad took off and more specifically, why he took off. Billy doesn’t talk about his dad, changes the subject to the accident because it’s easier to make up lies when he still isn’t 100% sure of what happened in the first place. It’s still surface level shit, he was in an accident, he was impaled by falling debris, the fire burnt him, he saved a bunch of teenagers and that’s all he remembers. She takes notes and gives him cups of tea which Billy spills more than he drinks because of the fucking hand tremors but she never says anything, just silently places napkins and paper towel over the wet patches.

She asks if he still gets headaches when she sees him squinting and draws the blinds which he appreciates. Asks if he’s still getting nosebleeds when it slowly drips out of his nostril. He shrugs and she gives him some over the counter pill that doesn’t do shit.

The thing is he shouldn’t be taking these pills as much as he is. It’s just that the headache is constant and it never seems to go away. He gets trapped in his head and it hurts. Sometimes he sees his dad and sometimes he sees himself, himself when he was possessed by this creature he still doesn’t know what the name of. No one really cared to tell him what happened to him, just that something took over his body but he was still himself sometimes. He thinks that’s the scariest part.

Sometimes he hears clocks, he heard clocks in that other world too, when he saw a clone of himself and no one answered the phone. It reminds him of when his mum left and he was able to call her for a bit before the number was disconnected.

Chrissy dies, then Fred dies and Patrick too. He actually really liked spending time with Chrissy and Patrick. He didn’t really know Fred just that he was in a few classes but it’s still sad that he died in such a brutal way. He stays in the trailer and watches the news, Munson is apparently the devil and well that’s another thing they have in common. He pops a pill and falls into a fitful dream.

His dad is there, so is his mum. He saw her on the beach but this time she’s in Hawkins. He tries to run to her but seems to never get closer. The only person getting closer to him is his dad. His dad who towers over him like he always does, spits words of hate and tells him that no one cares about him. And it’s true isn’t it. His dad morphs into a creature of burnt flesh and a soulless expression. One with long fingers that reach towards him and he finds that he still can’t run and deep down, he doesn’t want to run at all.

He was supposed to die many times before. This is the one that sticks.

The clock chimes as it reaches the hour and Billy Hargrove is dead. His arms and legs snapped in unnatural angles with his brace bent out of shape. Blood drips from his unseeing eyes and if he was alive, maybe he’d see Max and her friends staring at his body on the floor of their shitty caravan. But they didn’t care enough to warn him in the first place.

[the-firebird69]

Hearings begin as Trump critics attempt to kick him off ballots - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/27/trump-14th-amendment-colorado-minnesota/

The people writing these articles should be strung up because they don't get a point across because most of their facts are incorrect it's irresponsible reporting and it's done on purpose and in many cases it's people who are seditious or treasonous and when I say is they can go home go to your Island and get the hell out I don't want any help from you you're sticking morons it's very upsetting did the people who wrote the Constitution and that's you idiots are sitting here fighting against it and protecting the tyranny that you're supposed to be against. There's a simple way to tell. They don't want you to have these rights of Man they simply want you to do away with the Constitution when you're smaller as you're getting and you're becoming more and more ineffective. In the laws of man are not supposed to protect you because your help getting rid of them in order to get rid of yourselves and I can see it happening and John f Tommy f that is and John f for that matter but really Tommy f is losing his power and he's your Ace in the hole and he is outmashed by the max already in space if they get the ships up the same time or if Max are up first Tommy f took their Stone chips they would be defeated by the joint venture because of your attitude demeanor and approach to just about anybody and yeah you're pushed to it and your hostile Dave my brother is a sheer genius like I am and will and Bill and we can't help it either so I'm not saying that you're wrong no I'm saying you're wrong I'm saying you can't control yourselves and sometimes you can't but I'm really saying is you're undoing the framework and foundation with your lives have been sustained by for a long time a lot longer than just the United States because it teaches tolerance it goes back to Greece and other countries where my brothers words were used and heard and yeah he was pushed to be the monster that he could be because the max want to monarchy and oligarchy and total control and rain over everybody and ironically what you guys came up with would probably work better for them then what they're heading for and some people might get hurt by them I'm sure they'll tell them you can't do it either and our way was right and you're not going to ever get it because they won't

Zues

I want to say this he's right and the above is true you wrote the Constitution the way it is written and this article is misquoting everywhere it's in the framework it's in the original body of the Constitution that says you can't make war on your country without certain things being the reason or in place and those things are not which is not really true but you can't have an insurrection against a party that is not really the empire and they're trying to do a spy job and they have to and you messed up if you're friends with him like you're supposed to be like Brian was supposed to be things would be a lot smoother

Hera

Olympus

I was going to say that they're going against him and he's the empire but he's not the reason why they didn't sign up with him is because he didn't trust him is not true they want to take his stuff and agree little bastards and they messed themselves up and it's getting much worse and today they're going down probably forever

Thor Freya

We're going in the cities and we're not coming out with anything and we're not coming out I'm almost going to say don't do it but they just keep doing it so I'm going to work the periphery

Bja

[arcanenrok]

My burning hatred for Doctor John Harvey Kellogg, whom I want to skin alive and throw into the Dead Sea, is flaring up again, so I wanted to share an analogy to get a point across.

I am assuming you have fingernails, and probably toenails, too. These are body parts, and sometimes they are a little troublesome. Perhaps they get ingrown, or you get a hangnail, or dirt accumulates under them or fungus grows in them. I imagine you would not want to deal with these problems.

Perhaps you should get them ripped off? Better yet, when you have a child, rip off their fingernails and toenails so they never have to worry about these problems. When they’re a newborn, they will be too delicate to be put under anesthesia, but it’s better to do this sooner than later, so they’ll just have to endure it, and they won’t remember the pain anyway.

Now you probably are already objecting to this idea. For one, it’s super painful. I heard that sticking sharp stuff under people’s nails was a form of torture implemented at some point. Also, you probably don’t like the idea of having body parts ripped off of you.

However, do you really need nails? I mean, I haven’t researched this, but I don’t it’s necessary to check, so let’s just get on with it and remove them. I mean, even if you didn’t have nails, you’d still be able to use your hands, right? You can live a happy and fulfilling life without nails, right? I mean, what, are you a freak obsessed with manicures? Come one, you’re totally a rabid, emotional, insecure loser for being upset about having your nails removed. Get over yourself, not having nails is a completely first world problem, some people are missing their entire limbs, and even they can get along fine and live a happy life. Besides, some people think that fingers without nails look good, you’ll be popular.

Wait, you still don’t want your nails removed? Oh, well that’s too bad, because I went back in time to popularize the practice of nail removing so that the sinful and vain practice of nail polish becomes discouraged, and so your parents removed your nails when you were too young to be able to object, as did many other parents.

You may have noticed that my tone had become a tad hyperbolic, sarcastic, and satirical in the preceding paragraphs. In case you missed it, no, I am not advocating for the removal of nails, but I think it’s a good analogy, because regardless if they said “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl” at your gender reveal party, you probably have nails, and it’s safe to assume the thought of someone ripping them off is upsetting. Hopefully I demonstrated the point that having body parts removed to prevent minor inconveniences, even if supposedly the lack of such body parts will not negatively impact your life too much, is probably something you’d want a say in, and something you’d probably say no to, and if someone went ahead with it anyway, you’d probably want them charged in court for assault.

And if you knew anything about the perverse puritan named Kellog, who I mentioned at the beginning of this post, among his other crimes, he popularized circumcision as a means to combat the “sin” of masturbation. So nowadays, circumcision is justified, because supposedly, it discourages sin, you can still function in daily life and in your sex life without a foreskin, the baby doesn’t remember the pain, and the ladies apparently prefer it. “Intactivists” have on occasion been characterized as sex obsessed freaks who are obsessed with their penises/foreskins, but it isn’t surprising for discussions about penises to mainly involve sex, as that’s the primary function of the penis, and it also isn’t unusual for someone, upon realizing that they are missing a body part, to think a lot about that body part.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the desire to not have your nails ripped off is universal among the sexes, so I like this analogy because it avoids the controversy around comparing circumcision to fgm. No one is going to disagree that ripping someone’s nails off is both pointless and harmful (I could be wrong though), so by comparing circumcision to that instead, I believe I can get the point across without clouding the discussion with additional controversy.

So I hope that the parallels were apparent to you, and that you get my point that a body part being “unnecessary” isn’t enough grounds to justify its arbitrary removal, or even tolerate it. That even if circumcision brings minor benefits, and even if its drawbacks are supposedly not so severe, that subjecting a child to it is absurd and cruel. That even if it is “not as bad as x horrible thing”, that it is still horrible enough to warrant vigilant opposition.

tl;dr, you probably wouldn’t bother to listen to my whole sales pitch about my removal of (perfectly healthy) fingernail service, so the justifications for foreskin removal services should seem equally as unpersuasive. And Fuck Dr Kellog and his shitty cereal, may he roll in his grave knowing that Tony the Tiger continues to inspire lust in the furry community and that schools are no longer segregated.

[thesummerstorms]

Arsinoë de Riva probably could have handled the Blight in Fereldan. The actual Blight parts, the managing allies and dealing with attempts on her life, etc... none of that seems too terribly far removed from Veilguard. She even is used to moving around a country hostile to Apostates while having to use magic to get shit done.

That said, she would have gotten frustrated by her team I think. Veilguard gives us a collection of experts in their field who are personally committed to the cause and/or are motivated to do good; Origins is a collection of unwilling draftees, people who have very specific agendas, and people who joined due to lack of other options. Not that they aren't skilled, but the particular dynamic would not be one that encouraged closeness or trust in Arsinoë.

I think she'd be frustrated by Alistair's lack of direction/ownership especially if she was in the position of being new junior Warden but also if she was still a Crow. Oghren wouldn't last very long before getting poisoned. She and Zevran have had different life experiences in the Crows, so he would likely distrust her if she remained a Crow. Wynne she might leave at the Circle despite the fact that it isn't smart to be running around the Fifth Blight without a healer. Morrigan 's insistence on pessimism and needling people would eventually cause issues when Arsinoë wants to just get the job done.

None of these are positive changes for her ability to bond and form trusting relationships, and in some places it would end up costing her tactically. The other place she'd trip up potentially is the Fereldan politics/convictions as they're tied to it's recent history of occupation, if she was coming in as an Antivan and not someone who had lived there.

Kirkwall? Arsinoë would probably be dead well before the endgame.

Not because she lacks survival skills, but because she has personal hang ups with the Circle and Chantry stemming from her mother and her life as an Apostate. Spite (common noun), misery, and anger are gonna get her ass.

Quite possibly she and Anders could make one another worse. That, or she'd die trying to put a blade in Meredith's throat but do so too early/without support or enough of a plan. The same idea from Veilguard that "Someone has to do something; I may not be the right person, but I'm who's left" works out a lot less positively here.

If she's still a Crow, there's probably a string of pointed assassinations first. If she didn't have House de Riva training to beat caution into her bones, then one day she just snaps. For a mage in a place where the Veil is thin that's Very Bad News... But that's just the story of Kirkwall, right?

Again, I think Veilguard's team is also uniquely situated to bring out the side of Arsinoë that wants to bond with and trust outsiders and I don't know if that would happen with the Kirkwall crew. She's absolutely going to clash with Sebastian and Aveline in a way that's less "rival route" and more "we no longer associate with one another and are maybe actively Hostile", and the lack of any unified common goal means she's going to spend more time managing relationships to make sure they stay workable/useful than actually opening herself to them fully. Add in the emotional environmental debuff that is the Gallows and you don't get the same Rook that was in the Lighthouse.

That said, it was Varric who got her to a place pre-Veilguard where she could step up and be Rook, so provided that she doesn't get cut down by a Templar too early in the game, there's, well, some hope.

Varric himself is a lot younger and has less experience to work off of though, meaning he might not know everything he needed in Veilguard to guide her, or even be interested in the "mentor" role.

For Inquisition, I would almost say that Arsinoë would be like a speed run of "how fast can you PROVE the whole organization is heretical".( Again, so many issues with the Chantry and Circle, which is bad when you are dealing with a Chantry organization as a "Herald of Andraste")

Except in game an Inquisitor who actively tries to undermine their association with Andraste can't manage to do so despite every effort. Which would be a whole different mind fuck.

I think if Arsinoë was going to make it work, she would almost have to treat it like a long term undercover contract. Not just a mask or persona, but a full on false history and name to help her separate the job from her self-identity. "This is a Contract, these are the Objectives, I cannot break character until x y and z are achieved." Saying one thing, and then personally sneaking poison into cups or subtly altering written documents when she thinks no one will notice, using the name Inquisitor as a shield and looking at doubters with big grey innocent eyes.

It would be terrible for her mental health and again, do the exact opposite of Veilguard for her ability to form meaningful, trusting relationships. That said, I think Josephine, Varric, Iron Bull, Vivienne, and Leliana would clock her pretty quickly. Cole would frighten her, not because he's a spirit because of what he sees and is willing to reveal, and would almost have to be kept away. With Josie, Leliana, and Varric she could maybe eventually lean on them at least a little, one liar or shadow to another.

National politics are more difficult for her than interpersonal or organizational ones, so she would definitely need Josephine and Leliana to know and accept what she was doing. There are many reasons she was content being Viago's knife and not his heir, and that's one of them.

In the end, the world does get saved, there aren't too many extra deaths, but the Inquisitor immediately "dies" as soon as Corypheus is out down. Arsinoë will let them martyr her cover story if it means escaping, which is then an issue for Trespasser. The mage who makes it back to Antiva or the Free Marches is now living looking over her shoulder, trying to erase her existence in order to preserve her sense of self.

Rook Introduction Hour 2/17/25

Hello, Heroes of Thedas! 🌟 It's Monday morning, which sucks, but it's also Rook Intro Hour day, which is fun! Yay!

How it works: I ask you a question about your Rook(s) and you answer it with as much brevity or verbosity as you desire. You can do this whenever you want, and I’ll reblog it + add some comments! There’s no time limit— if you want to do the older ones, they are collected here! (The post is updated on Fridays!)

Today's Question(s): If your Rook had been in the role of one of the protagonists of the other Dragon Age games, how would they have have done? Could they have saved Fereldan from the Blight? Become the Champion of Kirkwall? Led the Inquisition? How would it have changed them as a person? Impacted their emotional state?

Answer whatever you want, and have fun!

[five-rivers]

Waking the Woods

AO3

Sequel to Rumors of the Woods of the Kingdom of Amity.

For @summerssixecho and @modordracena

Danny was sorting through the pantry, hoping to get all the misplaced poisons put back in the red cabinet before his parents came home the day after next.  More inedible substances would inevitably be stored in the pantry once they came back, but Danny would do just about anything to avoid eating another bezoar for just a little bit longer.  

Also, getting poisoned sucked, but that went without saying.  

His sister, Jazz, was gone, too, but that wasn’t unusual.  She’d gotten an invitation to study at the College of Elmerton, and of course she had to go, even if it was in another country.  

Which meant that he was the only one home when he heard the knock.  It also meant that he was so startled by it that he propelled his head into the underside of one of the pantry shelves at speed.

No one knocked on their door.  Ever.  Even the paying customers were more of the ‘let ourselves in’ type.  

Danny staggered out of the pantry, head spinning slightly.  Ow.  

The knock came again, this time taking on a decidedly frantic character.  Danny shook himself, and patted his head down.  No blood.  Great!  He walked to the door, half convinced that he’d find someone who was both out of town and very lost, but determined to be polite.  Show people it was possible for a Fenton to have manners!  Not their fault he smacked his head into the shelf.  

He slid open the door and immediately got punched in the face.  

“Oh, gods, I’m so sorry– Where did the door go?”

“It slides,” explained Danny, clutching his face.  “Sideways.  Ow.”

“I’m really sorry, I was just knocking.  I didn’t realize–”

“I know, I know.”  Probably, the whole ‘nobody knocks’ thing was the only thing keeping this from happening much more often.  He peeled his hands away from his face and took in his visitor as well as he could, given his temporarily blurry vision.  

Dark skin, yellow cloak, vividly red hat that had to be violating at least a dozen sumptuary laws…  There was only one person Danny had ever met that dressed like that.

“Tucker?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Tucker, sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.  “Surprise?”

“In more ways than one.”  Danny touched his face tenderly.  “Ow.”

“I am sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Danny, deciding not to mention that he’d done much worse to himself not five minutes ago.  “Come on in.  What are you doing here, anyway?  I haven’t seen you since, uh…”  When had it been, anyway?

“Since I got apprenticed, I know.”

“Yeah!”  Tucker hadn’t been happy about it, but as his parents had said, felting was good, steady work.  People always needed cloth.  “Don’t tell me you’ve already finished your apprenticeship.”

“Uh, no.  It is sort of about that, though.”

Danny paused, halfway to the living room.  “You’re not running away, are you?”  Tucker had never seen the type, but it had been years.  

“No,” said Tucker.  “But, uh.  It’s sort of complicated.  It’ll take a little bit to explain.”

“Alright,” said Danny, continuing into the room until he could perch on the edge of his mother’s rocker.  “Go ahead.”

“Right.  So.  Every ten years or so, the weavers’ and felters’ guilds get together to negotiate with the shepherds about prices.  Tanner’s guild, too, sometimes, but not this year.  This year, my master got chosen to go.  Which meant I was at loose ends."

"So you came to visit me?" asked Danny, touched. 

"Um.  No.  Maybe I would've, but at the same time, the pages at the castle all came down with carbuncle pox–"

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that."

"So, the pagemaster asked the guilds to send apprentices to fill in for them."

"And you were sent because you were at loose ends."

"Right."

They stared silently at each other.  Just when Danny was about to prompt Tucker to continue, because that had explained nothing, the other boy exploded.  

"I was sent to give a message to the princess and she had a book out about Rangers, like the one your mom always had, and I asked her why she was looking up Rangers and she said it was for a personal project and she asked me why I could read - because apparently royalty think guild apprentices can’t read, go figure, she sounded impressed, though - and I told her that I’d always wanted to join the monastery, but money, and then, you know, she was surprised I could read, I wanted to say something impressive, not be written off, and I said I knew a Ranger family, and then she said that if I could get a Ranger to help with her project, she’d pay off my apprenticeship and recommend me to the head monk, and I said I could definitely, one hundred percent do that and you’d be happy to help.  So, uh.  Yeah.  Yeah, then I came here.  What’ve you been up to?”

Danny's jaw had dropped at some point during Tucker’s ‘explanation,’ but he gathered himself.  "The attic, I guess.  Tucker…  I'm not a Ranger."

"But your parents were."

"Not… not really."  Jazz, at least, had thought they were doing the whole Ranger thing to embarrass her.  The Fentons were alchemists by trade, if not temperament.  Rangers didn't really exist any more.

"Grandparents?"

Danny shrugged.

"Come on, Danny, you're literally my only hope."

"Why do you even want to join a monastery anyway?"

"Because that's where all the books are."

Danny rubbed his head, winced, and thought about it some more.  "This project isn't some creepy rich person thing, is it?"

"What?  No.  The princess is our age!"

"So?  I'm self‐aware enough to realize that I can be creepy about…" he trailed off, blushing furiously.  "Things."

"She's a girl!"

Danny blinked.  “So?”

Tucker stared at him.  He stared at Tucker.  

“She legitimately needs a Ranger.”

“What for?  It isn’t like there’s any magic in the woods anymore.  They’ve been mapped.”

“Apparently not,” said Tucker.  “Look, I know you haven’t seen me in a long time, and we’re not close friends anymore, but you have to at least be curious.  And you’d get to meet the princess.”

Danny sighed.  “Alright, alright.  I am curious.”  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked all those questions.  “Where am I supposed to go and when am I supposed to be there?”

“The princess wants us to meet her at the castle at noon.”

“Tucker,” said Danny.  

“Yes?”

“You want me to go to the castle.  At noon.  Today.  Looking like I just got beaten up.  And convince the princess, who has apparently done a lot of research, that I’m, what, an apprentice Ranger?  Is that even a thing?”

“An experienced Ranger.  I, uh, might have played you up a bit.”

“Tucker,” said Danny.  “You were wrong.”

Tucker hunched his shoulders.  “About?”

“Us not being close friends anymore.  You see, if we weren’t, I would be kicking you out right about now.”

“Noted.”

.

Danny did not run around like his hair was on fire for the next hour, although at one point he came perilously close to actually setting his hair on fire.  

An hour was not long enough to prepare for this.  For that matter, days wouldn’t be long enough to prepare for this.  He was an apprentice alchemist, barely, not a monster-hunter, not a warrior of any stripe, not a mage, not even a historian.  

But on the off chance that there was magic… or a creature or some sort…

He packed his travel kit with a few randomly chosen vials of caustics and poisons, making sure they were carefully separated from the vials and flasks carrying more benign brews.  Glues, solvents, and cleaners went in another compartment, salves and topicals in yet another, and things you were actually supposed to eat or drink in a fourth.  

He felt woefully underprepared.  

Tucker was really lucky he didn’t have any other friends, darn it.  

His eyes strayed back to the lockbox in the back of the storeroom.  He shouldn’t…  But odds were, the princess was delusional or just getting scammed.  He could put everything back before his parents got home.  And if the princess had found something magical, wouldn’t it be better to have something that could affect it?  Even if it was old and super questionable?

With a skill born from his parents always losing their keys, Danny picked the lock on the lockbox.  Within were two vials.  One was pale green, with a dark, glittery red mixture inside.  The other was coated with crackling, peeling red and contained a liquid that glowed green through the cracks.  The reason for these color choices was, Danny assumed, because one of his ancestors was a sadist of some variety.  

He checked the labels to make sure they were what he remembered.  Tincture of Sanguiflora magicidium in the green vial and mana pondalorum physick in the red vial.  He triple checked his memory of their effects against the booklet in the lockbox.  Only then did he put them in their own, separate, compartments.  

He was ready to go, and absolutely sure he was going to regret this in at least some way.  

Welp!  At least it’d be interesting.  

.

Danny had never actually been to the castle before.  His parents were… Well, even if they were the absolute best alchemists in the kingdom (a disputed title) they weren’t exactly welcome around anyone who might not want their clothes ruined.  Or their houses.  Or their health.  Even beyond the Ranger thing, they were pretty eccentric.  

The castle was impressive, he supposed.  But it was just a large building.  He wouldn’t want to be a guy attacking it, he was sure.  But looking at it from the outside got old, fast.

“So,” he said to Tucker, “noon, huh?”

“You know that’s just an estimate.  Not everyone has clocks.”

“I am absolutely convinced that the royal family has at least one clock.”

“Yeah, but do they know that you have a clock?  That’s the question.  And is your clock even right?”

Danny shrugged.  

One of the guards whistled at them, and for the first time, Danny saw his face.  

“Huh,” he said, “is that Dash?”

“Might be,” said Tucker.  

“You!  Boy!” snapped Dash, who was only a little older than they were.  “Are you Tucker Foley?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“And the-” Dash sneered, “-Ranger?”

“It’s not my day job.”  Or any kind of job.  Actually, was he getting paid for this?  As much as he’d like to live off air and pleasant thoughts, he did have other needs.  At this point, though, it seemed too late to ask.  

“You’re expected.  Follow me.”

Wow.  Danny didn’t know that Dash knew any words as long as ‘expected.’  Shocking.  Maybe being around all these high-class people was starting to rub off on him.  

Not far inside the gates was a…  Alright, Danny didn’t know what was going on, but it had the energy of people preparing to go somewhere, so.  Yeah.

“Your majesty, I’ve brought the felter boy and his… friend.”

“I’m sure they have names,” said a girl who was wearing a surprisingly practical riding dress, “and I know you know at least Tucker’s.”  She turned slightly towards Danny.  “And you are?”

“This is, uh, Danny, Princess Samantha,” said Tucker, bobbing bow and elbowing Danny in the side until he got a clue and did the same.  

“I’ve told you, you can call me Sam.”

“R-right.  Sam.”

Everyone in the vicinity except the princess shot them a glare so venomous Danny was tempted to get out a bezoar (ick).  The princess didn’t notice.  She was too busy examining Danny.  He straightened under her sweeping gaze.

“You don’t look like a Ranger.”

“My parents have more experience.”  Or so they claimed, anyway.  “There’s not a lot of call for Rangers these days.”

“Well, you’re the first one to come to me with even a lick of authenticity, so I suppose you’ll do,” she said, finally.   “The Fenton line, correct?  Branch of House Nightingale?”

“Um,” said Danny.  “I suppose?”  He’d heard some things like that, but if he had any Nightingale ancestors, they were buried beneath far more common people.  

“I think you might actually be the last survivors of that house.  Do either of you ride?”

Danny and Tucker shook their heads.  

“More’s the pity, although we won’t be moving at much more than a walk with all the people who insist on coming with us despite their lack of interest in our nation’s heritage.”  She sniffed.  “You will be coming of course, Tucker?”

“‘Course he will,” said Danny, looping an arm around his shoulder.  “We used to be a team when we were kids.”

“Oh?  Goodness, that almost makes me reluctant to send you off to a monastery.  There are so few people with any Ranger training left.”

She turned away, back to her preparations, and Tucker threw Danny’s arm off and glared at him.  Danny grinned lazily back.  Served him right.  Danny could spread the misery around a little bit.  

.

It was true that the princess’s retinue did not move at a rate faster than a walk.  This was, however, at least partially because the princess kept stopping to give alms on her way out of the city.  It seemed the city’s population of beggars had learned her preferred routes.  

“Hey,” said Danny, “this was a one day sort of thing, right?  It’s okay that I didn’t pack stuff for overnight?”

“No, it should be fine, I think,” said Tucker.  “But there’s like a hundred people here.  Someone will have spare stuff.  Besides, if it goes much longer than that, we can just leave.”

Danny nodded.  “That’s true.”

.

When they finally reached the forest, they walked for another hour and a half, this time stopping so that the princess and her ladies could coo at the half-feral forest cats that sometimes watched their progress.

Alright, Danny cooed at them, too, and since he and Tucker were on foot, they had a much better chance of petting them, something he felt just a little smug about.

The first hour of that was on a well maintained road, the last was on a path that looked to be newly cut through tangled underbrush and fallen trees.  Much to the displeasure of the princess’s guards, she decided to dismount and walk next to Danny and Tucker for this part of the journey.  She called it ‘bracing.’

“We only found this because of the late storm during the drought last year,” she said.  “Father sent the fire watch to make sure there hadn’t been any bad lightning strikes close to the city, and one of them found it.  I spent months convincing Father to let me investigate.  I’m hoping that soon it will be something I can share with everyone.”

Danny cleared his throat.  “With this all being so last minute, Tucker didn’t actually get a chance to tell me what ‘it’ was.  Um, Princess Samantha.”  He had no idea how often you were supposed to address royalty by title.  It didn’t come up all that often in his life.  

Samantha’s smile faltered, slightly.  “It’s Sam.  And we’re not sure, actually.  That’s one of the reasons we wanted a Ranger.  I thought that you might recognize it from your training.”

“I don’t know how likely that is,” cautioned Danny.  

Samantha shrugged.  “It is only one of the reasons.  But you don’t have to be pessimistic.  I’m well aware that this endeavor might come to nothing.  It is one thing to hope to reclaim a country’s magical heritage.  It is another thing entirely to actually do it.”

“So… you don’t believe magic is getting used up?”

“I’m not sure.  I think it might have been…  But I have hope that magic is something that can be restored, renewed, and used more wisely.  Other places seem to have managed that, at least a little.  It would be a shame to give up on it entirely, wouldn’t it?  It was a wondrous thing.”

“Sure,” said Danny, “but there were also the monsters.  That’s what the Rangers were for, a lot of the time.”

“Even so.”  She fell silent for a while.  “Have you ever heard of the trap-rabbit?”

“No.  Tuck?”

Tucker shook his head.  

“They used to be quite common here, is my understanding.  The walls of my nursery are painted with them.  They don’t exist anymore.  It’s a sad thing, I think, for that to happen.  I would not wish it to happen even to monsters.”

Tucker made a face.  The princess saw it.  

“I have read the stories,” she said.  “In them, we strike first as often as they.”

“But those are stories,” protested Tucker.  

The princess shrugged.  “As is any history you did not witness personally.  But even we can’t return things to what they were, don’t you think learning what was is still a worthy goal?”

“It sounds like one, anyway,” said Danny.  “I’ve never really thought about it.”

They emerged into a clearing around a large pond.  On the other side of the pond was a huge tree with great, drooping branches.  The branches swayed in the wind, momentarily revealing something made of stone.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” asked the princess, stepping onto a path that led around the side of the pond.  It was made of uneven pavers and looked ancient.  

“Yeah,” said Danny.  “I didn’t know trees like that got that tall.”

“Neither did I,” muttered Tucker.  “What’s under there, though.”

“You’ll have to see,” said Samantha- Sam, skipping down the path.  

Danny started after her, and immediately tripped.  He just barely caught himself before face planting and possibly having a very expensive and dangerous accident with his travel kit.

He maybe wasn’t as recovered from his head injuries as he’d thought.  And, yes, he was counting Tucker’s accidental punch.  

It was fine.  

The stone beneath the tree was part of a structure, obviously made by intelligent hands and at least as old as the paved path.  There didn’t seem to be any way into the small building, just some words carved into the side.

“Do you recognize it?”

Danny shook his head.  “But there’s always been lots of different kinds of ruins.”  He walked around the structure, going slowly.  “Reminds me a little of shrines in old temples.  Those are open-sided, though.”

“I know,” said Sam.  “The tree doesn’t mean anything to you, either?”

“Should it?”

Sam shrugged.  Away from the shadow of the tree, her retinue was setting up camp.  They seemed more than happy to let the three of them investigate the maybe-shrine on their own.  Well.  Mostly.  A couple very formidable looking ladies were watching them like hawks, and a bald man had taken out a stool and a thick, dusty book to read in the shade.  

“I don’t think so…  It’s kind of similar to that one story, though, isn’t it?  The one about the tree of life and a sacred pool.”

“It is.  The water seems to be just water, though, and the fruit is just fruit.”  

“Might be where the story came from, though.”

“Maybe,” agreed Sam.  “What do you think of the writing?”

Gods, that was not his area of expertise.  Still, he stepped closer.  “Hm,” he said.  “It’s very writing-like.”

Sam looked at him, concern on her face.  “You can read, yes?”

“What?  Yeah.  Just give me a second.  This isn’t regular writing.”

“I’m aware.”

“You’ve gotten someone else to translate this already, right?”

“My tutor, William Lancer."  She gestured at the bald man, who briefly glanced up from his book.  "It’s good to have a second opinion.”

Danny nodded and called up his admittedly meager knowledge of this sort of thing.  He knew some, because a lot of alchemical texts were written in the old language, but he wasn’t exactly spending his days practicing it.  

“Um,” he said, intelligently.  He was starting to see what Tucker meant about wanting to impress her.  “The first binding, valued more than coin, valued more than land, but spent on it nonetheless, by those who do not own it.  When it is gone, dust is left.  Heart of the land, spend yours before your people.  We shall… wake?”  Danny paused.  “Is that ‘wake?’”

“‘Open,’” said Sam.  “We think answering the riddle might open up the… shrine, for lack of a better word.”

“Mm,” said Danny, who had usually seen it in the context of sleeping medicines.  “Is it the same on all sides?” 

“As far as we can tell.”

“Dust is, um.  Huh.”  He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing when he jostled his head.  “I think this dust might be the same dust as grave dust.  Does that help?”

“This isn’t one of those animal sacrifice things, is it?” asked Tucker.  “Or, uh, human sacrifice?”

“We thought of that,” said Sam.  

Tucker moved away from her.  

“But, ah.  Blood magic tends to be… unpleasant.  We thought we’d avoid that.”

“Might still be blood magic,” said Danny.  “I mean, blood fits, doesn’t it?  Blood relations are the first tie you have, it’s more valuable than money or land, but people still fight wars for those things, they just try to spill other people’s blood.  When it’s gone, you’re left with grave dust.”

“I would prefer not to get sacrificed,” said Tucker.  “If it’s all the same to you, your highness.”

“Tucker, if I was that desperate to get in, I’d just hire people to pull it down, or get a battering ram.  I’m not going to sacrifice anyone.  But… heart of the land?  We thought perhaps wood doves, because of the crest…”

Danny shrugged.  “At that point, it might as well be talking about your blood.”

“Mine?” asked Sam, scandalized but intrigued.

“Sure.  You’re popular, right?  Or at least, you’re royalty.  That’s sort of like being the heart of a country.”

“Couldn't it just be talking about the word, too?" asked Tucker, looking faintly ill.  "Couldn't it be that you just have to say the word blood?"

"I don't know, we've said blood a lot just now."

"But not in the old language," pointed out Sam.  

"Sure," said Danny.  "Sang."

Nothing happened.  He shrugged.  

"Maybe you need to say it," Tucker said to Sam.  

"Sang." 

Still nothing.

"Bleeding it is, then."  Sam pulled an unreasonably large knife from the vicinity of her corset. 

Tucker jumped away, and even Danny took two hurried steps back, ready to throw himself behind the corner of the building.  The ‘supervising’ adults were unalarmed.  

But the princess just pressed the blade to her thumb and held it out to the structure.  

Nothing happened.  

“Maybe you need to bleed on it?” suggested Danny.  

“You don’t want to get an infection, your highness,” said William Lancer, not looking up from his book.

“I know,” said Sam.  She pressed her thumb against the wall, just under the carved riddle.  

For a long moment… nothing happened.  

But then the walls shuddered and began to drop into the ground, leaving only the pillars at the corners to support the roof.  

“Yes!”  Sam pumped her fist and ran in as soon as the walls got low enough.  

This, finally, stirred the watchers to action. 

Danny and Tucker exchanged a glance.  It'd be bad if the princess were cursed, wouldn't it?

Danny hopped over the wall next.  The interior was… Not much of one.  He didn't know what he expected of a ten foot by ten foot building with no walls.  

"Look," said Sam, pointing up.  

"Oh, wow," said Danny, all awareness of what the princess’s minders were doing falling away from him.  The pillars might not be much to look at, but the ceiling…  Danny had just enough experience at art to understand what had gone into carving and painting it.  It was the night sky, as viewed from below trees.  Each leaf and needle was picked out in exquisite detail, perspective perfect.  And the stars… as an alchemist, even an apprentice one, Danny had to know when the stars were right.  These stars were accurate.  They were even accurate to this time of year.  Even the moon was right, its face a careful reproduction of what was really there.

“The floor, too!” said Sam, bringing Danny’s attention to the stone tiles and the small flowers and leaves painted on them as well as… were those map lines?  Danny wasn’t sure.  “This is marvelous.  Do you suppose the pillars are meant to resemble tree trunks?  I didn’t see it before, but now-!  Even if this was it, it’s worth it!”

“It is pretty,” said Tucker, finally following them in.  “Wonder what it was for.”

“It hardly even matters.  That is, it matters, of course, but look at it!”

They looked.  

And while they were looking, the walls shot back up, leaving them in pitch blackness.  

“Ah,” said Danny.  “Somehow, I feel like we should have expected this.”

“Bleed on the walls again!” suggested Tucker in a not at all panicked voice.

There was some shuffling as everyone ran into one another.  

“It’s not working,” said Sam.  

“Well,” said Danny, “at least there’s still the battering ram option?”

“That only works if there’s nothing inside the thing you care about breaking.  Do you– No, I suppose you wouldn’t.  What was the point of this, anyway?  To trap princes and princesses?”

Danny shrugged, even though no one could see him.  

“I don’t suppose any of you have flint or matches?” asked Sam.  “Candles?”

“Some,” admitted Danny.  “But you don’t really want to light a fire in a closed space like this.  Oh!  Wait!  I do have something.”  He opened the top of his travel kit.  The glowing mana pondalorum physick was immediately visible.  The red coating of the vial blocked most of the green light, but in the otherwise absolute darkness, it seemed to burn.  

“What is that?”

“Mana,” said Danny.  “Or water with mana in it.  Some of the old books aren’t super clear.  My parents saved it from way back.”

“Did they save anything else?” asked Sam, her eyes wide.  She reached for it.  

Danny pulled it back, towards his chest.  He had not anticipated curious royalty as a threat to his ‘not getting in trouble with my parents’ plan, but in retrospect he could see that was as obvious a risk as getting stuck in a weird possibly magical ruin.  

“Yeah,” he said, “there’s also the magicidium mix.  It’s, um, emergency magic antidote.  Magic killer.  So, if one of us gets cursed, you want to grab the green vial with the red stuff in it.”

“And, what, drink it?” asked Tucker.  

“Or dump it on them.  Drinking it is better, but, you know, curses…”

“Right,” said Tucker, nodding, “I absolutely know curses.”

Danny had doubts.  But he also had better things to do, like examining the inside of the walls.  He raised the vial, glancing up as the green light was reflected off the painted stars.  For a moment, he thought he might have caught a glimpse of something else, then the moment was gone.  

“Hey, why don’t we just dump the magic killing stuff on the walls or something?” asked Tucker.  

“Because it’s probably magic that makes them move,” said Sam.  “Not magic that keeps them in place.”

The walls had writing on them.  He turned to the nearest one, and brought the vial closer.  “That’s different from the outside, I think?”

“What does it say?” asked Sam.  

“Give me a minute,” said Danny.  “It’s really hard to see.”  He squinted at the writing.  “This is a lot longer,” he said with some dismay.

“You can read it, though, can’t you?”

“Just… don’t rush me.”  Danny chewed his lip, then read slowly.  “Beat true, oh heart, with wisdom and wit, for without these passion lies silent.  Um…  Those who would be woken, must be named.  Those who would be named, must be woken…  No.  Those who are named will be woken.  Speak, therefore, the names of…”

“What names?  Ours?  Mine?”

“Give me a second.  The names of… Okay, I’m not sure if this is just a poetic way to say sleep or not.  The names of those beneath the stars, for you must know them whether it is day or night.  Say them, wake them, walk into the light.”

“You think beneath the stars means sleep?  Those are completely different!”

“And beating around the bush is completely different from avoiding a topic,” said Sam.  “But they mean the same thing.”

“Yeah,” said Danny.  “The stuff I learned from is big on metaphor, but it was, you know, formal.”

“We’re going to die,” said Tucker.  

“We’re not going to die.  Let’s start with our names.  I’m Sam.”

“Danny.”

“Tucker.”  Tucker looked around, nervous.  “Do you think it wants our full names?”

“Yeah…” said Danny, also apprehensive.  “Magic usually does.” Not that he really knew, but that was the way it was in stories.  So.  “Daniel Vladimir Fenton.”

“Oh, gods, that’s your middle name?”

“Shut up.  I know yours is Meredith.”

Sam rolled her eyes with her entire body.  “Princess Samantha Annamarie Laurel Caspera Manson of Amity, Duchess of Beau.  Your turn.”

“Tucker,” he sighed, “Meredith Foley.”

“Alright,” said Danny, “maybe it means something else when it says all.”  

“Like what?  We’re the only ones here.”

Sam had started picking at her lip.  “We are,” she agreed.  “But…  The floor, it was a map, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Danny.  “I really hope you’re good at geography.  I’m not.”

“You’re a Ranger.”

“That has nothing to do with geography.”

Sam turned, surveying the room.  “What if it’s not the map, but the trees?”

“The… sculptures?”

“They’re under the stars, too aren’t they?”

.

The next half an hour or so was spent desperately trying to name… everything.  Danny and Tucker just recited every tree name and plant name they could remember - and some animal names just in case - while Sam was a bit more methodical.  Danny and Tucker’s frenzy was only occasionally interrupted by Sam saying something like Elmerton, Casper, Axion, Floode or Eerie.  

As a result, they had no idea who it was that finally triggered the walls to slide down again.  Danny, for one, didn’t really care.  He threw himself out as soon as he was able, and the others seemed to have the same opinion.  

He knelt on the grass and tilted his head up to catch the sparse sunlight filtering through the branches above him.  In doing so, he saw that everyone who had been there before was gone.  

“We weren’t gone long enough for everyone to have left, right?” asked Danny.  

“No,” said Sam, “not at all.”  She climbed to her feet and walked past him, examining the ground.  “It’s like they were never here at all…”

Tucker gasped and pointed up.  “Look at the tree!”

Fruit hung from its branches, heavy, round, and red.  

“What is that?” asked Danny.  

“You don’t know?”

“No.  I’ve never seen a tree like that.”

The walls of the small building grated as they started rising again.  Danny, Sam, and Tucker turned back to it, slowly.  Dread bubbled up in Danny’s stomach, creeping along his spine.

“Maybe we should just go back to the city,” said Danny.  

Sam shook her head.  “There’s no guarantee the city will even be there.”

“There’s no guarantee it won’t be.”

“And there’s no guarantee that stupid thing won’t disappear one of us if we look at it funny,” argued Tucker.  “Let’s cut our losses.”

“There must be a reason for this,” insisted Sam, crossing her arms.  “They wouldn’t just make all this happen for no reason.”

Danny eyed her suspiciously.  “There’s something else, isn’t there?  Something you know about this.”

Sam tapped her foot.  “Maybe,” she allowed.  “Nothing solid, mind you, but one Ranger journal I found suggested that this place was used by the old kings to petition the woods, and that they needed both royalty and Ranger to do it.  That’s… one of the reasons I wanted someone like you to come.”

“Petition it for what?”

“I don’t know.  It didn’t say.  It was one sentence in thousands.  It could have been anything.  Good harvests, few wolves, killing the Pariah King, whatever.  It might not have even been talking about here at all.  I just thought…  If there was anything left…”

“Clearly,” said Tucker, “there was something left.”

“Right,” said Sam.  “But it didn’t say anything about making people disappear.”

“It didn’t say anything about anything, is what it sounds like,” said Tucker.  

“Yes, but…”  She trailed off.  “Don’t you think it’s more likely that we were moved?  Considering.”  She gestured at the peaceful and undisturbed clearing.  “Even the path we came in on is gone.”

Danny hadn’t noticed that, but it was true.  The border of the clearing was entirely overgrown, with no sign that people had broken through the shrubs and small trees there.

“I think,” she said, “that to get back, we have to keep going.”  She looked between the two of them, then at the building, squaring her shoulders.  “I am sorry I brought you into this, but it’s done.  Let’s at least work together to get out of it.”

There wasn’t much choice, was there?  “Alright,” said Danny.  “Let’s go.”

The words on the walls were, predictably, different than they had been before.  Danny was getting used to this already, somehow.  “This is the wisdom of the land, that when the land drinks, the people shall drink, and when the people drink, so shall the land drink, and that when the land is fed, so shall the people be fed, and when the people are fed, so shall the land be fed.  For water to be received, it must be given.  Should salt be given, then salt shall be received.  The land that is fed on blood shall also bleed.  The seed that is planted will grow.  That which wakes will be woken.  The…”  Danny paused. 

“And you were doing so well, too.”

“Listen.”

“Sorry, it’s only… at least the last one had a clear instruction.  This sounds like some kind of philosophical statement.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those.”

“I’m not done yet,” said Danny, plaintively.  “I haven’t seen this word before.  I think it’s a person?  And they’re getting whatever they’re doing done to them?  It goes on like that for a while longer.”  He ran his finger down the line.  And then it says, because the people and the land are one, only about a dozen times.”

“Why would it say it a dozen times?” asked Tucker.  

“It uses a different word for land each time.”

Sam frowned at him.  He wasn’t looking at her, but he could feel it.  “What?”

“Like, mostly it uses the word for land that has trees on it, but–”

“You mean a forest?  Or wood?”

“No, there’s a different word for a forest.  Actually, there’s specifically a word for land that has a forest on it, as opposed to just trees.”  Which Danny only knew because a lot of alchemical potions had dirt as an ingredient.  Incredibly specific dirt.  “And there’s a different word for soil.  Or for unoccupied land.  It’s… the old language is weird.”  There was a reason it wasn’t spoken anymore.  

“And that’s it?”

“No, there’s one more line.  Show your intentions: to eat, and to be eaten.  No, wait, that doesn’t make sense.  That must be feed.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” said Tucker.  

“At least it’s an instruction.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to eat the fruit.  I might do that anyway, actually,” said Danny.  “What?  I’m hungry.  I didn’t eat anything at midday.”

“But what if you eat it, and then it eats you?”

“At least I won’t be hungry?”

“I think the bigger problem here is what if it’s poisonous,” said Sam.  

“Is that really the bigger problem?  Really?”  He gestured around himself.  “I’m going to eat one of those fruits and, uh.  Water the tree.”

“You can say you’re going to pee on it,” said Sam.  “I have bodily functions, too.”

“Whatever.  If that doesn’t work, we can try something else.”

Sam squinted at him.  He got the impression it wasn’t an expression she wore often, but it suited her face very well.  “You know, I expected a Ranger to know more about all of this.”

Tucker made flailing motions behind her.  

“That’s–  In the spirit of honesty, no one in my family has done real Ranger-ing since my grandfather disappeared when my mom was a little girl.”

“The woods do disappear people, oh my gods–”

“My parents just like camping and pretending there are still monsters, and Tucker said you needed someone, so…”

Sam’s whole face twitched.  “I see.  I suppose we can’t say we aren’t similar, then, with respect to false pretenses.  But… let’s not do that anymore.  For the sake of not dying.”  She paused.  “Is the red–”

“It’s really anti-magic.”

Sam’s shoulders slumped.  “At least there’s that.  If the fruit starts turning you into, I don’t know…”

“A wolf,” suggested Tucker.  

“Why not?  A wolf, I’ll make sure to pour it down your throat.”

Danny rolled his eyes.  “And if it’s poisonous, I’ll eat a bezoar.”  

“What’s that?” asked Sam.  

“Thing that helps with poison.  It’s gross, you don’t want to know where they come from.”

“I thought we were being honest–”

“It’s a stone formed in a someone’s stomach or gut,” said Danny.  “Like a gallstone.”

Sam looked fascinated, if disgusted.  “Does… does that actually work?”

“I’m… not actually sure.  But it can’t hurt.”

“I don’t know, it kind of sounds like it could be poisonous on it’s own.”

That was what Danny said to his parents, but did they listen?  No.  

He shrugged at Sam walked away from the building and towards the shore of the pond, where the branches trailed in the water and the fruit was easier to reach.  He pulled one off and rolled it in his hand.  It felt like a plum, even if the size and color was off.  

“Danny, are you sure,” started Tucker.  

"Am I sure what?" asked Danny, opening his kit.

"What are you doing?"

Danny looked down at the beaker in his hand, then back up at Tucker.  "Testing for common poisons?"

"Oh.  I thought you were just going to eat it."

"No, that's weird."  He set up his materials and poked a hole in the fruit with his knife to get some juice.  He let it drip into the containers, then stood up to throw the punctured fruit into the pond.

"Maybe we shouldn't throw things into the potentially magic pond," suggested Sam in a way that wasn't very suggestion-like.  

Danny shrugged at her, wondering vaguely if shrugging at royalty was a punishable offense.  Something caught his eye.

“Hey, there’s a bucket here,” said Danny.  “Do you think we’re supposed to do something with the bucket?”  He walked over and picked it up.

"Maybe it's to actually water the tree," said Tucker.  

"That makes sense," said Danny.  He tossed the bucket at Tucker.  Tucker fumbled it.  

“Why me?”

“I’ve got to watch this,” said Danny, pointing at where the fruit was reacting or not reacting to the chemicals in the beakers.  “And, well…”

“Dear gods,” said Sam.  “You had better not be about to say that I’m somehow unable to fill and carry a bucket because I’m a girl.”

“No.  I just thought you wouldn’t want to.”  And she could probably make life very hard for them if they annoyed her too much.  

Sam scoffed and took the bucket from Tucker.  “I’ve got it.”  

“Alright,” said Tucker.  “She’s got it.”

.

The tests for poison came back negative, so…

Danny bit into a fruit he’d just picked and blinked.  “Oh, these are actually really good.”

“We’ll take your word for it.”

.

“Look,” said Tucker, “That thing’s not doing anything, so I’m going to see if I can find the main road.  I’d prefer it if you came with me, but…”

“Might as well,” said Danny.  

“Fine,” said Sam.  “But we’re going to take precautions to make sure we can get back here.”

“Like what?” asked Danny.  

Sam pulled out a clue of string from… somewhere.  

“Do you just carry that around?”

“Of course.  String is useful.”

.

It turned out it didn’t matter.  No matter how they left the clearing, they wound up back in it.  

.

"It's been a couple hours," said Danny as they laid on the ground under the tree.  "I probably would have died by now if there was actually poison in those fruits."

"Mhm," said Sam, contemplatively.

"Just a question, but, speaking of which, have either of you noticed the sun getting lower?"

"No," said Sam.

"Nope," said Tucker.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."  He looked up at the still-blue sky.  “You guys are going to have to eat or drink something eventually.”

“Yeah,” said Tucker.  “But I’ve been thinking, and… what if it takes us someplace worse?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny.  

“Staying isn’t an option.”

“It could be.  Maybe the fruit grows back, or there’s fish in the pond.”

“Have you seen any fish?” asked Danny.  

“No.  Why?”

“Sometimes people use fish as fertilizer.”

“We don’t have anything to catch fish with.”

“We’ve got string and the fruit.  Maybe we can find some worms, too?”

“Might as well,” said Sam.  

.

None of them were particularly skilled at fishing.  No fish were caught.  

.

Sam chewed on the fruit.  “You know,” she said, “if it weren’t for the mortal peril and all, I’d say this was pretty good.”

“It is tasty,” allowed Tucker, who was pausing to glare at the fruit between every bite.  

“No, I mean all this.”  Sam waved at nothing in particular.  “It’s nice.  Fun.”  

At least someone was having a good day.  He’d been trying to ignore the swollen lump on the back of his head and his black eye, but it hadn’t really been working.  

Under other circumstances, though… He could see hanging out with Sam and Tucker being fun.  The odds of that happening if Sam went on with princess-ing and Tucker became a monk were pretty low, though.

“I don’t think I’ve done anything without being watched by half a dozen people since I was eight.”

“Anything?” repeated Danny.

“Anything.”

Danny didn’t want to ask, but the question was there, in his head.

“Yes, in the bath, too.”  She sighed and held up the fruit pit.  “I suppose we should bury these?  Over there, maybe?”

“Can’t hurt,” said Danny.  “Anyone have a shovel?  And– Oh!”  He opened up his kit.  “We can use this!”  He held up a vial of white powder.

“What’s that?”

“Niter!”

“... Doesn’t that explode?” asked Tucker.

“Sometimes.”

“Why do we want to explode anything?” asked Sam.  

“We don’t.  It’s fertilizer.”

“But it’s white.”

“So?”

Tucker sighed heavily.  “Maybe we can use the bucket as a shovel?”

.

Sam patted down the last bucket-scrape of dirt with a gleeful expression.  They were all pretty grimy at this point, but it looked like she was enjoying it.  

The scraping sound wasn’t exactly music to Danny’s ears, but it was still something.  They ran to the building.  Three of the walls had dropped.  The one nearest to the pond had remained standing.  

Danny swallowed.  Something felt… Not wrong, exactly, but there was a strong sense of meaning.  

“Hey,” he said, before Sam and Tucker could step in, “wait.  Maybe only one of us should go in.  Just in case.”

“In case what?  We’re already in a bad way,” said Sam.  “We might as well face this together.”

Danny nodded.  “Yeah, but this feels…  Different.  If everything’s fine, you can come in, too.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny, “but you wanted a Ranger for a reason.”

“Yes, but we’ve established you aren’t one.”

“I’m enough of one for us to get here, right?  If I get stuck in there, you can always plant more pits and open it back up.”

“And who knows if we’ll be in the same place?” asked Sam.  

“Just… humor me on this,” said Danny.  “And remember, if I do get cursed, we have the magicidium.”

“There has to be an easier name for that,” muttered Tucker. 

“Sure.  Blood blossoms.  They’re called that because they’re red.”

Tucker spread his hands.  “Then why–”

“I like saying it.  It makes it sound cooler.”

Sam raised her hand, stopping them.  “You know you’re the only one who can read the old language, right?  You’d be the one going in to look at what’s written there.”

“I know.  I’m the one who suggested it.”

Sam groaned, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her wrists.  “I should have learned the old language instead of Elmerian.”

Danny shrugged.  “There’s always the future?”

Both of… oh, he might as well call them his friends, at this point… glared at him.  

“Fine,” said Sam, “but if you do get cursed, I’m going to say I told you so.”

With trepidation, Danny crossed into the building.  The floor and ceiling hadn’t changed, but the only upright wall was now packed with writing.  He craned his neck back to see what was on top.  The words almost seemed to glitter.

“This is a lot,” he said.  

“Can we come in now?” asked Sam.

“Not yet,” said Danny.  “Let me translate this first.  Children of the land, know this, we, your forefathers, and we of the land have built this path to see the… obscured?”  A shadow fell across Danny’s view of the carving, making the words seem to flash.  He stood on his tip-toes and leaned closer, squinting.  “To understand the world… beyond?  Within.  The world within the woods, and you have come because they have failed and you wish to repair.”  He put his hand on the stone as he leaned still closer, nose almost pressed against the stone in an effort to see just a little better.  It slid into a comfortable depression and he continued to read.  “Let the bright magic– mana– let mana alter–”

Light flared across his vision, then everything went dark.  He yelped.  

“Danny?!”

“I’m–  Hells and heavens–”   He rubbed his eyes.  “The sun didn’t suddenly disappear after that flash, did it?”

“No.”

“What flash?”

He’d been afraid of that.  “I’ve been cursed.”  His heart did a funny twist at the admission.  

If his parents were here, they’d be thrilled.  

Actually, probably not.  If they’d been cursed, they’d be thrilled.  They’d still be upset about him getting cursed.

“What?”

“I can’t see anything.  I must have triggered it somehow–”  He shook his head, as if that would throw off his blindness.  “The word obscured.  I thought it was just the lighting, but maybe it really flashed?  Um.”  He turned around, carefully.  “I think it was just the words that triggered it, but I’m going to walk in your direction…”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tucker, “you’re going the right way.”

“Just stay straight,” encouraged Sam.  

The building was barely three strides across, but at the same time it was the longest walk he’d ever taken.  He was relieved when Sam and Tucker grabbed him.  

“Alright, so, if you guys can open my kit and get out the magicidium–”

“Blood blossoms.  Let’s call it blood blossoms.”

“Whatever you want,” said Danny.  

“They’re red, right?” asked Sam.

“Yeah, and sparkly.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Good,” said Danny, holding out his hand.  “Can you–  The cap?”

Sam pressed the vial into his hand, her fingers lingering around his as she made sure he had a grip on it.  

“I should just need, like, a sip,” he told himself.  He raised it to his lips, drank, and immediately knew that what he had in his hand wasn’t the blood blossom mixture.

With a calm he didn’t feel, he lowered the vial. 

“Can you see, now?” asked Sam.  

“No,” said Danny.  “I can’t.  What color is this?”  He held up the vial.

“Red,” said Sam.  

“The vial is red,” clarified Danny.

“Yes, that’s what you said, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Danny, closing his eyes.  “That’s- The blood blossoms are red.  But the vial they’re in is green.  This is the mana, isn’t it?”

“Uh,” said Tucker.  

“Kinda crackly glaze, glowing green on the inside?”

“Yeah,” said Tucker, weakly.  “It looked different in the dark.”

“Yeah,” said Danny, voice cracking.  “The dark does that.”

“I thought you said the red vial,” said Sam, very quietly.  “Oh, no, I thought you said the red vial.”  She sounded like she might be about to cry.

“Hey, it’s hard to tell the difference between red and green,” said Tucker, clearly intending to comfort her.    

“Genuinely, it is not.”

Someone, probably Tucker, swallowed audibly.  “You can still take the blood blossoms, though, right?”

“No!  No.  They don’t react well with concentrated mana.”

“By not reacting well, do you mean–”

“Niter isn’t the only thing in my kit that can make explosions.”  He swallowed and opened his eyes.  He still couldn’t see anything but this still felt more like facing things.  “This is fine.  I’m just blind, not dying.”  Probably.  “We’ll just be relying on more guesswork than before.  Or I can try to figure out what it’s saying by touch?”

“No,” said Sam, grabbing his wrist, “do you want to get more cursed?”

“Carefull,” he hissed.  “We don’t want to spill this here.  Where’s the stopper?”

“Here,” said Tucker, taking the vial of mana from him.  

“What else do you remember from what you were reading?  Before you were cursed?”

“I don’t know.  Something about letting magic change you to be…  Something.  And then something about guarding both sides on the next line down.  Or fighting.  Maybe something about waking up.  I don’t remember.”  

“Danny,” said Tucker, “your eyes are glowing.”

“They’re not, like, melting or anything, are they?”

“Just glowing.  The same color as the, uh, stuff.  The mana.”

“And your hair is turning white,” added Sam.  

“Oh, that’s great.  Maybe I am dying.”

“Don’t say that,” said Sam.  “Maybe- Maybe this is magic changing you, and we just have to let it run its course.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I, but it’s that or you explode, so forgive me for a little optimism!”  She’d never dropped his wrist, and now she trapped his hands between hers.  “I don’t want you to die.”

“Neither do I,” said Tucker.  “You’re my best friend.”

“We haven’t seen each other for years,” said Danny, trying not to sound choked.  “Come on.”

“Hey, some friendships are timeless, right?”

Sam sniffled.  “Even short ones.”

Gods, he really might be dying.  

“Does that mean I can tell people I’m friends with a princess?”

“Only if you want my mother trying to get you executed.”

“That’s not a n–”

The sound of the wall behind him dropping made Danny jump.  But what made him spin was that he could see light coming from behind him.  

Footprints made of flowers glowed on the ground.  A rectangle in the dimensions of the far wall was cut out of the darkness surrounding him.  Beyond it…

“Oh,” said Danny.  “Do you guys see that?”

“Do you?” asked Sam, suddenly sharp.  

“Maybe.”  He took a deep shuddering breath.  “Were there steps leading down to the pond before?  And was the pond glowing?”

“No,” said Tucker.  “But we don’t see that.”

“We see everyone,” said Sam.  “The way out.  The knights are there, someone must have sent for them.”  She laughed.  “We can get out.  They must not be able to see us, though.”

“I don’t think I can go that way,” said Danny.  “I don’t see it.”

He could only see the ancient and watchful trees that surrounded the clearing, the faintly luminous waters of the pond and the steps that led down to them.  Images of trees, not quite reflections, swayed on the pond’s glowing surface, seeming to extend into the depths.

“You should go,” he said, faintly.  “Now.  You don’t know if you’ll get another chance.”

If his heart had been twisting before, it was shuddering now.  

“No,” said Sam.  “No.  I started this.  None of this would have happened if I didn’t bring you here.  I’m not going to leave you.  We’ll go down to the pond with you.  Or at least I will.”  The last was said with an edge of challenge.

“Me, too,” said Tucker, though he seemed far less certain.  “I got you into this mess, Danny.”

“I don’t know that I’m going down to the pond,” said Danny, both touched and annoyed.  “And you don’t know if you can, if you can’t see it.”

“It’s where the path leads,” said Sam, stubbornly.  “Didn’t you read that that’s why this place was built.”

The footprints.  Danny closed his eyes briefly, and nodded.  “Walk where I walk,” he said, putting his foot squarely on the first print.  

He wasn’t sure if it was just the magic doing weird things to his vision, but as he got closer to the opening, the prints seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking straight at them, taking shapes other than a human sole.  He tried not to think about what that might mean.

He stepped out of the building.  Sam and Tucker walked out after him.  

“Wow,” said Sam, looking around.  “That’s�� definitely different.”  She waved her hand in front of her.  “It’s like the air is glowing.”

A breeze stirred the waters of the pond to lap at the lowest step.  It felt like they were beckoning him down into that even stranger forest beneath its waters.

He pulled the strap of his travel kit off over his head.  “Here,” he said, handing it to Tucker.  “Just in case.”

“We’re going to be with you,” said Tucker, trying to push it back to him.  

“Yeah, but… Let me go first, alright?”

He stepped down and forward, once, twice, and his foot broke the surface of the water–

.

A forest is not a single thing.  It is a vast and sprawling ecosystem, containing within itself multitudes.  Creatures, plants, and even decay.  Life, limited and not.  Water, from beneath the earth, from the sky, from the rivers and streams, from the lakes and the ponds.  Air and soil and stone.  Death that becomes life and life that becomes death.  The trees stretch upwards.  

Yet, it is a single thing.  

Truthfully, sometimes it is even a single life.  A thousand trees with a single root.

And, here, there was magic.  

The woods woke, stirred from slumber by the ripples of a stone thrown into still water.  

A stone is changed by water.  A stone is changed, also, by the root of a tree piercing through it, dividing it, scattering it.  A stone may be shaped.  A stone may be changed.  But this stone was clay.  This stone was flesh.  This stone was a seed that might yet grow.  This seed was a star that might yet shine.  

They were awake.  

They were awake, and, so, they would wake.  

But the people were the land and the land was the woods, and the heart of the land had long ago promised a champion to the people, a guardian at both sides of the gate.  A contract that was wisdom.

The seed was well rooted, but the star was of the air, and there was accord between heaven and earth.  This satisfied.  But the price of knowledge was always the destruction of ignorance.  

This was the past:  The sword, the spear, the fire, for evil is the reward of evil, and sown salt shall reap no harvest but salt.  Monsters met with monstrous ends, even the monsters who called themselves men.  

“I don’t want to be a killer,” whispered Danny, “I don’t want to kill people.”

Then he would not be, and the gifts of killers would not be his.  

This, too, was the past: The wall.  The tower.  The rope.  The net.  The maze.  The binding word.  The sacrifice.  The promise.  

It shall be kept.  

“It shall be kept.”

And this was the past:  The house that was built under ax and saw, a home for a gardener.  The books that became forests of their own.  Long memories and longer stories, passed on forever.  The campfire and the meal shared.  The trees tended, and new growth rising from ashes. 

“I can do that,” said Danny.  “I can be that.”

The heart of the land sent forth a gift, with passion, wisdom, and wit, and it was received.  That which gives is also given, and that which is gifted may also receive.  There were gifts.  There were expectations.  A gift must be given in turn.

And the fruit of the trees shall sustain.  And the branches of the trees shall shelter.  And that which is protected shall protect.

And this was the future.

.

Danny crawled out of the pond, gasping.  Hands - familiar, now - pulled him up and out.  

“Oh, gods, Danny–”

“What?” he managed, spitting up water.  

“There’s stuff growing on you–”

“Your ears–”

“Princess Samantha!”

Something heavy and hard jostled into their little group, knocking Danny back to the ground.  He could feel it.  The ground.  All those little lives and deaths.  The things growing, hungry, wanting, needing– All the things he could give them–

“Stop this at once!” demanded Sam, bringing him out of… whatever that was.  He looked up and around, and was impressed by how many sharp, shiny, pointy things were pointed in his direction.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but was thwarted by his body deciding it just wasn’t going to do that.  His whole body felt like it had been taken apart and put back together with new parts.

… Which might actually be what happened.  The… presence in the woods within the pond had been…  It had been an experience.  One he wasn’t keen on repeating in the near future but nevertheless ached for.  

His head didn’t hurt anymore, at least.

“Back foul beast!” shouted one of the knights with a spear, his voice reverberating within his helmet.  “You will not lay your hand on the princess–”

“I was the one touching him!  He’s not a beast– Let me go!  Tucker, say something!”

“Please don’t kill us!  Danny’s just cursed!”

“What manner of curses have you wrought upon the princess!  Release her from your geas, monster!”

If Danny wasn’t so scared right now, he’d be laughing.  Who talked like that?

But he was scared.  He needed to get away.  He needed speed, swiftness, and the agility, or at least the size, to avoid all these spears and swords.  

Which was a ridiculous thought to cross his mind, because it wasn’t like he was going to pull any of those things from thin air.  

Except he did.  Change rippled over his body, throwing off white sparks like from fireworks.  Fingernails to claws, hands to paws, ears sharp, tail -  He ran, four-footed, between the feet of the nearest knight, body stretching and contracting in his flat-out sprint as if he knew what he was doing.  

He had no idea what he was doing.  

A spear impacted the ground in front of him, and he startled sideways into a horse’s path.  Everything was so much larger than him, now.  He lashed out, claws raking across the horse’s nose, and the horse reared back, dumping its rider.  

It occurred to Danny, then, in a sort of vague, panicked sense, that whatever he’d turned into, he could cause a lot of chaos.  

The next horse he saw, he went for the eyes.  

He neglected to realize that, as small as he was, chaos might affect him more than it usually did.  

Still, he made it to the brushy edge of the clearing in what he hoped was one piece.  He crawled underneath it, hopping through thin spots whenever he was able.  A tree rose up out of the shrubby mess like a godsent miracle, and he climbed up it, sinking his sharp claws into the bark, until he got to a branch that could support his weight.  His real weight, not whatever he weighed now.  

He huddled down, trying to remember what the change felt like, trying to will it to reverse, to make him himself again–

Slowly, his body returned to normal, fur fading back into skin, claws becoming nails once again.  His clothing, sans shoes, rematerialized from somewhere.  But… This wasn’t what his body had been like when he’d crawled out of the pond.  It had been different, then.  He could feel it.  He knew it.  

The tree he was perched in was not the presence below the pond, but that was a matter of degree, not kind.  The roots of the woods were tangled and reached as far down as the branches reached up.  To stone.  To star.  

It was quiet.  Steady.  Already established.  It didn’t need things from him, not like the ground.  Not right now, anyway.  

But still, it whispered to him, and he knew.  This was no more him than the forest cat's body he'd worn moments ago.

He curled in on himself and cried.

.

Tucker found him first, over a week later.

Although, it might have been better to say that Danny let himself be found.  Shapeshifting into a cat or squirrel helped with hiding, funnily enough.  

Shapeshifting was fun, even if it wasn't worth… everything else.  At least, so long as he was in the trees.  With his feet on the ground, listening to everything beneath them, without the lightning focus of fear, he couldn't direct it.  What he was fell apart into… this.  

Not the same as he'd been as Sam and Tucker dragged him from the pond, but more like it.  A shape closer to what he was wanted to be rather than what he wanted to be.  

But he'd seen Tucker coming, and he didn't want to talk to him while hiding in the trees.  That would be wrong, he felt.  

So, he walked into the middle of the road in front of Tucker, moss and grass curling up around toes that weren’t shaped right.  His fingers were long and sharp and so were his teeth.  He had no idea what his face looked like right now.  He hadn’t been brave enough to check… assuming, of course, that he could even tell by touch.  He could have stripes right now and not know it.  

He hoped he was, at least, recognizable.  

“Danny, gods.  We thought you were dead.”

Oh, good.  At least that fear was unfounded.  

“Hi, Tucker,” said Danny.  After not talking much for a week, his voice was scratchy.  

… Or maybe that was the crying.  Who knew?

“Oh my gods.”  Tucker drew his hands down his face.  “I can understand why you didn’t come back to the city with…”  He gestured at Danny’s entire body.

“That’s not why,” said Danny, before he could continue.  “I can’t leave the woods.”

“You what?  What do you mean, you can’t leave?”

“I just can’t.”  He’d tried to leave, at the beginning, but it didn’t work.  He could walk to the border of the woods, where they opened up into the fields immediately around the city.  He was quite comfortable there, even, standing under those branches, looking out.  But he couldn’t go any further.  

“Because of the curse?”

“I guess,” said Danny.  “There’s not really anything else, is there?  There’s not something that just makes people stop for no good reason.”  

“Can you– I brought the blood blossom stuff, can you take it?  Maybe–”

“No,” said Danny, firmly.

“But–” said Tucker, pulling the green vial out of his pocket.  

Danny wanted to cringe away from it.  “Just.  No.  Tucker…  I’m not sure how much…”  He wasn’t sure how much of him was left that wasn’t magic.  “Sometimes, when curses really take hold, it doesn’t–”  He sucked his lips in and regretted it as his long teeth scrapped at them.  “What do you think happens when that stuff is put on something that is magic?”  Danny tilted his head to the side and tried to smile again.  “It’s been over a week.”  

He watched Tucker’s face shift as he realized what that might mean, and his smile fell as well.  

"I've seen my parents come through a few times," he said, just to say something different.

"Did you talk to them?"

"No." He grimaced.  "Apparently, I'm a creature now.”  He ignored that he’d said as much to Tucker just moments ago.  “It didn't seem… smart."

"That must be…"  Tucker paused to search for an appropriate adjective.  "Hard."

"Yeah."  He'd been wondering if Jazz had come home.  If she was looking for him, too, or if she was still in Elmerton.  If she knew.  But he didn’t want to ask.  

"Sam will want to see you."  Tucker bit his lower lip.  "She kind of… asked if I would look.  I was going to anyway!  But… I can tell her I couldn't find you, if you don't." 

“No, I think I’d like that, actually.  She was right.  It was fun, before.”  He sniffled.  “Maybe we can even try to find what she was actually looking for.”

“Why would you do that?” asked Tucker, aghast.  “Messing around with all of this cursed you to have weird ears and be stuck in the woods for who knows how long.  Let’s just forget–  Well, I mean, avoid anything else like this as much as we can.”

The woods leaned in around them.  “I don’t think it works like that,” said Danny.  “Things are waking up.  And I think… I think the only reason Sam was able to find the- the path was because the woods were already waking up.  And some of the things… I don’t think they’re good, Tuck.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” squeaked Tucker.  “You know your eyes are glowing again, right?”

“Are they?”  He blinked and shook his head.  “Have you been looking for me the whole time?”

Tucker laughed nervously.  “No.  There’s, uh.  Turns out that if you disappear with the princess there are questions.  Lots and lots of questions.  So many questions.”  He shuddered.  “And my master is angry at me.  And the guild is angry with me.  But I’m fine!  What- What have you been up to?  What else have you been up to?  I, uh.  Ha.  Ha?"

A wry smile twitched the corner of Danny's lips.  "The tops of the trees, I guess." 

[alycosworld]

Tainted

Scaramouche X Reader

WARNING: mentions of (nearly) sexual assault

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈❀┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

A/N: I seem to have more angst/comfort ideas for genshin but I'm not sure why...also, I'm on holiday in a foreign country! I have no work and I'll probably spend all my nights on Tumblr after exploring the city in the day, so please please please send in some requests! I'm bored and although they might take some time, they might help me get back into writing more regularly. I'm pretty sure this is gender neutral but if I made a mistake, feel free to tell me. This has NOT been checked for any errors (I'll get around to it at some point).

I'm not sure if Scaramouche is ooc, since he doesn't say anything that nice in the game or in any official works, but I definitely think he has the capacity for it. And I like soft Scar <3.

If at any point you feel uncomfortable, PLEASE DO NOT READ ON. I felt a little icky after writing the assault bit so do not force yourself to read any further or read at all. I do not want to make anyone reading this unhappy. Any victims of sexual assault or harassment, I hope you heal

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈❀┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Keep walking. Just keep walking. Get home as fast as possible.

Avoid dark spots, avoid all people, avoid secluded areas. Just get home now.

That's what you told yourself after it happened. Archons, you didn't even know how you should feel. Ashamed? Angry? Disgusted? Upset? Confused? Afraid? The amalgamation of these emotions just made everything worse. You felt sick to your stomach. You wanted to cry and scream and vomit and disappear all at the same time.

You felt like you were covered in grime and you don't even know how you managed to get away. You should've done something, anything! But in the moment, you couldn't.

Your day had started normally. You went to the Adventurer's Guild in Inazuma, doing your commissions and taking up a few extra quests to help people out. Even though you were walking home later than normal, you didn't think much of it. Until somehow, you lost your way. In the dark, things became a little more vague and confusing, so you ended up taking a left and ending up in a dark alleyway between two dimly lit buildings.

You walked through, lost in your own thoughts, until you heard some chuckling and some incoherent remarks made by someone exiting one of the buildings out a back door and into the alleyway.

Glancing up, you saw that the person was a man - quite tall and well built with flushed cheeks: he was clearly not sober. You paid him no mind, staring at the ground as you continue to walk, determined to get home to see your boyfriend, Scaramouche. Though he wasn't one to worry, knowing that you could handle yourself, you did want to see him as soon as possible.

"Well, what do we have here?" The man asked, and you looked up at him again, tilting your head in confusion but staying silent.

"What's a pretty thing like you doing out here all alone?" He asked, a suspicious smirk on his face.

"I'm going home." You said firmly, not wanting to give him any ideas.

"Oh? A handsome young thing like you, going home all by themselves? Let me walk you, I promise I don't bite." He continued, clearly not getting the hint.

"I'm alright, but thank you for the off--"

"Stop being such a fucking tease! Wearing an outfit like that, you're begging for it." He pinned you against the wall despite your attempt to politely refuse any moves he tried to make. He caught your arms above your head and harshly shoved one of his legs between yours.

"Don't like to me, hon, you know you want this." He whispered huskily. You had fought countless hilichurls, abyss mages and monsters far more intimidating and dangerous than that man that day, but you couldn't seem to move. All you could manage was a fearful 'please, don't do this'. Struggling was futile, for some reason you couldn't escape his grasp. You had fought beasts ten times this man's size but violating you like this? It made you break.

He gripped you harshly and even managed to kiss your neck a couple times, making the tears stream down your face uncontrollably, until he heard some voices. You recognised them immediately: members of the Adventurer's Guild. He must be known it too because he stopped as soon as he heard, offering you a sickening grin and scuttling away before you could react.

"We'll finish this some other time, sweetheart. I promise."

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈❀┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

You didn't get any help from the Adventurer's Guild members who you heard, instead opting to rush home as soon as possible, trying to figure out what to do next.

The only solution in your mind was to crawl into your lover's arms and tell him what had happened. You didn't want anyone else to know - you know you could trust Scaramouche and you knew he would help you.

But he didn't.

You got home and wiped your tears before entering the house, hoping to look somewhat presentable despite having experienced such an impactful event. You dropped your belongings carelessly, not flinging at the loud sound they made as they hit the floor. You immediately made your way to the guest room Scaramouche had turned into an office of sorts, for him to work on Fatui business. The bedroom door was open and empty and he was nowhere to be found on the first floor, so that was the only other place he could've been. You were relieved to see him sitting at the desk, deep in thought with some maps and other sheets of paper laid out in front of him.

"Scar, I--"

"Not now, (Y/N), I'm busy." He said hot even bothering to look up at your frazzled and shattered state.

"I know but, please, Scar. While I was--"

"If you know that I'm busy, why enter in the first place? I'm working. Leave me alone." He said harshly. You didn't say anything, instead opting to nod silently and close the door. Since this was the first time you had experienced this pain and discomfort from being touched and defiled in such a way, you decided that maybe you should put it aside. After all, maybe it was something so jarring. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe Scaramouche's nonchalance was justified. In a twisted way, you blamed yourself for overreacting and decided to just forget about the incident. If it didn't mean enough for Scaramouche to even look at you, it clearly wasn't something worth fretting over. You were just exaggerating, right?

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈❀┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

You tried you absolute hardest not to let the incident bother you, but you unknowingly started changing your habits to prevent what had occurred from happening to you again.

"Wearing an outfit like that, you're begging for it..."

You started wearing less revealing clothing, going as far as wearing gloves at some point and covering your neck with collars and scarves through the hot weather.

"We'll finish this some other time, sweetheart. I promise."

Initially, you just avoided dark or secluded places, even when you were with other people, but eventually, you were too scared to leave home at all. You didn't leave the confines of your small garden and if someone passed by, you would quickly hide yourself away. When Scaramouche had unknown guests and colleagues over, you would hide in your bedroom and make him promise not to mention you or acknowledge your existence in the slightest.

You even started taking longer showers and refused to bathe with Scaramouche, confusing him since you used to enjoy it so much. But you wouldn't let him see you in such a vulnerable state now that you were contaminated. You didn't want him to know that you had been tarnished in such a vulgar way, and you spent long moments scrubbing at the parts the stranger had touched. You were worried that Scaramouche would blame you for being assaulted - because in a sick way you thought it was your fault, despite having been nothing wrong. You had twisted the story in your mind to make it seem like you were responsible for the crime committed against you.

Eventually, Childe had to visit for business purposes, but you had become good friends with the eleventh Fatui Harbinger since he was friends with-- well, he and Scaramouche had a relationship, to say the least.

"So where's (Y/N)? Normally they're all over you and making you as embarrassed at possible." Childs grinned, and Scaramouche just frowned and narrowed his eyes.

"They're in our room. They don't really want to see anyone right now." Scaramouche said. Even though you told him not to mention you anymore, since you were so hellbent on avoiding all human interaction, he thought it would be okay to tell Childe. He was your friend too, after all.

"Is something wrong? What happened?" Childe asked, concern in his eyes.

"I don't know. They've been avoiding everyone, including me. They barely talk to me and insist on sleeping downstairs." Scaramouche confessed.

"Let me talk to them."

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈❀┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Childe exited your room after hearing what to had to say, and he was disturbed and sympathetic, at the very least. Scaramouche saw his wide-eyed, grim expression when he exited the room and immediately had questions.

"What?" Scaramouche asked.

"I'll come back tomorrow to continue our work." Childs said, referring to the business he originally came for.

"But we have to--"

"Scar?" Scaramouche stopped all his trains of thought and turned to the sound of your voice. It was hoarse but still as beautiful as ever. He knew you had been crying from your puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

"I think you have other matters to take care of." Childe winked, before giving Scaramouche an informal two-fingered salute and showing himself out.

As soon as the door closed, Scaramouche turned his attention to you, not coming too close in case you didn't want to be near him.

"Yes, Love?" He asked, more concerned than you had ever seen him.

"Can I talk to you? If you're busy, that's okay, it's not that impor--"

"I'm not busy." He shook his head, and you offered him a sad and grateful smile before sitting on the edge of the bed while he took a seat on a nearby chair.

"So, uhm, a couple of days ago I was walking home and I kind of got lost...so I tried taking this alleyway and--" You stopped yourself, meeting Scaramouche's attentive gaze before continuing.

"There was a guy. And he-- he t-touched me. I-- I didn't know what to do. I could've easily fought back but I just got scared and froze up because that's never happened to me before and he kept saying that I wanted him-- but I didn't! I swear, I didn't. I know it sounds bad since I didn't stop him but I really tried, I just couldn't. And he started k-kissing me...here," You gestured to the spots on your neck that you could still feel being violated.

"And I felt so horrible and he didn't go any further because some people were coming, so I ran home. I-I...I didn't know what to do but I felt like I should tell you because I thought you would help me, but you said you were busy so I just-- It-tried to brush it off but I just couldn't get it out of my head! And before I got away, he told me that he'd come back and finish me off and so I didn't want to go outside anymore in case I ran into him. And I started to cover up since he said I was asking for it because of what I was wearing and then I just got scared and I felt dirty. I tried so hard to forget and clean myself but it kept coming back-- I can still feel him on me! I hated it, I still hated it! You have to believe me, I wasn't trying to get him to notice me, I just..." You broke down after finishing what you had to say. You had already been crying since you told Childe, but now you were choking out sobs and your face was drenched. Scaramouche stood up from his chair and sat next to you on the bed, a safe distance away just in case you still weren't comfortable with being touched.

"I believe you. I know you're not like that." Scarsmocuhe started calmly. In all honesty, he wanted to interrupt you as soon as you said that this man approached you. His blood was boiling and he was ready to murder this man for you but kept himself in check because you didn't need senseless violence or revenge right now, you needed comfort. What hurt him the most was that you were blaming yourself because he didn't bother listening to what you had to say on what was probably the worst day of your life.

"It's not your fault you were touched like that. You are not to blame, at all. I-- I should've listened to you when you came to me - as soon as I turned you say I thought something was wrong but I didn't bother asking about it. That's entirely my fault." He admitted, which surprised you. It took Scaramouche a lot to admit his mistakes, but for you? He didn't care. You constantly put up with his sour attitude, he can definitely listen to you and admit he was wrong.

"You sure? Because I still--"

"I'm sure." He said simply.

"But why did you start avoiding me?" He asked, wanting to understand the situation entirely.

"Well, because..." You started, unsure if he would get angry if you told him. While you were contemplating, he offered you an encouraging expression. It wasn't a smile, but it was more than enough to put you at ease.

"I didn't want you to think I was tainted. Of course, you wouldn't want to be near me after that had happened." You sighed, wiping up the last of your tears.

"You really are an idiot, you know?" He said, but after seeing the clueless and almost hurt look on your face, he immediately wanted to take it back. He didn't mean to be insensitive, he just...well, he often explained positive emotions with his very wide negative vocabulary.

"No, I didn't-- uhm..." He mentally cursed himself for not knowing what to say, but you didn't interrupt him and made a small gesture for him to keep going.

"What I mean to say was, I don't think that you're tainted or anything like that. And I still...want to be...near you-- eugh!" He pretended to be grossed out at his own words in true Scaramouche fashion, but he knew you knew he didn't really mean it and was beyond delighted when he saw you giggle at his facial expression.

He sighed and acted angry as he opened his arms ever so slightly. You noticed the movement and quirked an eyebrow when he hesitated.

"Is it okay if I come closer?" Scaramouche asked, unsure if you wanted to be touched after the incident.

Your heart swelled at his care and then you slowly watched as he stiffly wrapped his arms around you comfortingly. Although you had hugged and cuddled on countless occasions, he still wouldn't stop being so robotic unless you did something. It made you laugh and he pulled away slightly to glare at you, so you decided to just pull him back in and hug back.

And when you relished in the touch of another human being, the touch of the person you love, you began to cry. The last time anyone willingly touched you was in that alleyway, and so to have someone be so gentle with you and have no bad intentions, you were overwhelmed with emotion.

Scaramouche must've felt your tears staining his clothing and skin, and quickly pulled away with poorly hidden concern in his eyes.

"Are you okay?" He asked, but you just continued to sob and nod.

"I love you!" You choked out. He sighed and gently patted your back.

"I...love you too." He said, before making another expression of mock disgust. He slowly moved to hold both your wrists in his hand and kiss down to your neck, pulling you into his lap with your legs straddling one of his.

You soon realised that he was covering up the placed the stranger had touched you with his own ministrations, effectively replacing the grime you felt you gained after the incident. After you came to that conclusion and Scaramouche was done, he didn't meet your eye, blushing profusely. It was justified since he didn't usually initiate any kind of affection acts, but you just cupped his jaw and kissed his cheek, smiiling at him with purity and a newfound confidence in the both of you.

"Thank you, Scar."