#they didn’t check on their OWN inciting incident

[spnbeit-midrash]

I know that the doyalist reason is that they were still figuring out the lore and world building, but rewatching the early seasons really makes you go ‘wow, John was a bad hunter’

[sepublic]

I find it funny how some people insist the narrative should’ve portrayed Belos as sympathetic and tragic to Luz and make her “understand” him so she can see how people can be driven to do terrible things because of misguided good intentions because like. Other characters already exist for that purpose? Like Lilith, who cursed her sister but ultimately did want and need and choose family in the end. Or Gwen making Eda feel terrible about the curse because she feared for her family’s health. The Collector enslaved an entire population because they were lonely, and the Titan imprisoned an innocent child, which led to the show’s current conflict, because she was a survivor of genocide. Kikimora was someone Luz personally related to regarding their mothers. Hell Luz even understood in the previous episode why her own mom sent her to reality check camp, the whole inciting incident of the series. She’s allowed one instance where she can just call a guy out and not try to make excuses for him. Luz is entitled to setting boundaries and prioritizing her own health.

It reminds me of Steven Universe, which had an opposite but also similar problem where people bemoaned how the Diamonds were ultimately forgiven and allowed to grow, because they insisted Steven needed to see how some people just won’t listen or change. And meanwhile Marty was right fucking there. Steven and Sour Cream tried to be friends and it backfired, with the latter especially realizing he didn’t owe his dad the time of day, and cutting a toxic relative out of his life. Which is further relevant since the Diamonds are also toxic relatives. The show didn’t even try to portray Marty as sympathetic. Plus Greg did the same thing as Sour Cream too, and didn’t have to go back on that!

And sure we know for a fact that Steven Universe was forced to end fast (like TOH) because of confirmed executive homophobia, so maybe we were supposed to get something else with Marty but lbr. It just seems that people are salty about the narrative focusing on one framing, because despite their insistence that the show needs to cover all its bases for its protagonist and by extension the kids watching, it… already did??? Fandom misogyny really does mean demonizing women while excusing men.

[em-dash-press]

Story Arcs: 5 Types to Consider

Stories take readers on a journey. The details along the way differ, but many stories share similar arcs. You can study them specifically to improve your plot creation and development skills. Check out the five story arcs to consider whenever you get inspired.

1. Protagonist In a Hole

Readers often pick up books specifically because they want to read about a character who reaches rock bottom and finds their way out. It’s a story arc full of hope and encouragement. You can recreate that type of plot with the Protagonist In a Hole arc.

The protagonist should start in a happy place in their life. Things start to slowly unravel after your inciting incident. Maybe they make a series of bad choices or struggle with a lack of control over their life. After reaching their personal rock bottom, they have a heroic arc where their choices and efforts start making their life better.

At the end of this story arc, your protagonist will be in a happy place again or in a better situation than where they started.

Longer stories can also repeat the up-and-down arc, depending on how much you want to put your protagonist through for the sake of your theme.

Example: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (things always get much worse on the quest for clues before Sherlock puts them together and overcomes the mystery/antagonist)

2. Riches to Rags

Some readers also love story arcs where the protagonist starts in a moderately happy place and ends the book at their rock bottom moment. It often leads into a sequel or serves as a warning for readers that aligns with the story’s theme.

Note, this doesn’t always have to be about rich people losing their wealth. The “riches” can be a metaphor for whatever your protagonist values and ultimately loses.

Example: Cinderella, but without Prince Charming. If her story ended at midnight striking and Cinderella barely getting home in time, she would have lost her one chance at rising from her station in life. 

3. Rags to Riches

Stories can also have a singular rising arc as well. It begins with the protagonist in a situation they don’t want to be in and focuses on what they do to reach their idea of happiness. Some conflicts will happen along the way, but ultimately they accomplish their goal.

Again, this doesn’t have to be about accumulating wealth. “Riches” is whatever your protagonist defines as happiness or their life goal.

Example: Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Darcy end up married, so she gets the true love she wanted and happens to also achieve financial security for her family. She didn’t have to marry without love to provide for her family, ultimately achieving her biggest life goal.

4. Hero Storyline

Much like Rags to Riches, the Hero storyline starts in a low place for the protagonist. They’re fighting a losing battle or stuck in a place they don’t enjoy. A plot device helps them out of that place, but their ultimate weakness or a big mistake makes them crash back down again.

By embracing their most heroic action (usually involving selflessness or sacrifice), the protagonist ends up happier and better off than at the start of the story.

Example: Aladdin. He meets Genie and wins Jasmine over while gaining wealth that lifts him out of poverty. However, she finds out he’s been lying about his identity, so Aladdin loses everything. By focusing on his friends’ needs instead of his own, he reaches his ultimate happiness again to complete his hero’s arc.

5. Tragedy Always Strikes

The fall-rise-fall arc can be a bigger cautionary tale than Riches to Rags. It starts with the protagonist in a place where they’re unhappy. Things continue to worsen until hope appears. Maybe a new character or plot point makes life better for them. The protagonist experiences personal growth and gets so close to the freedom, redemption, or happiness they desire. Then a plot twist makes it come crashing down. The protagonist ends in a worse place than they started.

Example: Gone Girl. Nick Dunne is in an unhappy marriage. His wife goes missing and he’s the primary suspect for it. That’s his low point, but when the narrative switches and Amy Dunne is revealed to be doing everything on purpose, Nick gets a rising arc with the reader. They’re on his side against her scheming, but the story ends in an even worse place for him. She comes back and gains complete manipulative control over the relationship. He’s trapped with someone he hates and fears instead of someone he just dislikes.

-----

Sometimes it’s easier to write a great story by picking a story arc before you start writing. Consider the various arcs listed here to match them with a character or storyline you feel inspired to write. You’ll have built-in plot directions that make planning much easier.

[tossawary]

Rules: Share the first line of ten of your most recent fanfics and then tag ten people. Don't have ten? Not to worry, just share what you have. Tagged by @otakuchan449.

I did all of my fics, which are unsurprisingly all SVSSS, because I was curious as to the patterns. I usually like to name the POV character and illustrate their style of narration in the first paragraph, which is generally humorous, so people know quickly whether or not they're going to vibe with my style. I also like starting in the middle of a situation / inciting incident if possible, so we can hit the ground walking briskly if not running, and get to the good stuff.

23. Shang Houhua - someday unfortunately to be known as Shang Qinghua, once unfortunately known in another life as Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky - came back to himself abruptly. (if words could make wishes - WIP MBJ Time Travel AU from SQH POV)

22. If the System was to be trusted, which it generally was when it came to making Shang Qinghua’s life worse for no good reason, then today was the day! (Stepping Up - 90k Canon Divergence AU, An Ding Disciple LBH)

21. Shen Yuan was conscious when he was reborn, though he didn’t know what was happening at the time, because all he knew at first was pain and golden dust. (Sit With Your Soul - 61k SQQ & SY Daemon Fusion AU)

20. Shang Houhua was thirteen going on, uh, fourteen plus a whole other life that sometimes felt more like a dream than something that had actually happened. (hey, share the weight a little - 70k Canon Divergence AU, YQY/SQH)

19. “Shifu? Forgive the interruption, but there’s a woman here to see you?” (love to the ones I've never met - 83k Fic Companion, Dimension Travel)

18. Jiahui just needs to check that her restaurant hasn’t burned down. (forgiveness for whose sake? - 48k Fic Companion and Epilogue)

17. Luo Binghe knows he isn’t supposed to be doing what he’s doing, but given that he has no other way of getting answers, he does it anyway. (you had me at hello - 5k Non-Canon Fic Extra)

16. “My king, don’t touch that-!” (A Child Once - 101k Canon Divergence AU, Deaged SQH)

15. The world was dark, woven from a black so infinite that it looked flat, and it was full of light. (Catch a Falling Star - 122k Bingliushen Stardust AU)

14. Shang Qinghua woke up having a bad day - forget going through puberty twice, because in this transmigrator’s opinion, having to experience a new round of “first day of school” bullshit year after year was worse - and speed-walking through the Cloud Recesses wasn’t helping him get through it any faster. (Nothing to Me, Nothing to You - 60k Moshang MDZS AU)

13. Mobei-Jun’s search for Shang Qinghua had taken him to many strange places. (dreams that had never come true - 14k MBJ Time Travel AU)

12. It would be a lie to say that Shang Qinghua wasn’t too sure what had happened. (every haircut I've ever had has been a bad haircut - 5k Moshang Hurt/Comfort)

11. The situation was bad. (Babe in the Woods - 19k Canon Divergence AU, MBJ has a baby brother)

10. Shen Qingqiu was perfectly capable of piloting his own ship, but that day, like many others, found Liu Qingge leaning against a column by the hangar entrance, waiting for Shen Qingqiu as he prepared to leave Qing Jing Peak Temple. (this point of pale light - 18k Liushen Star Wars AU)

9. Liu Mingyan was the model of a refined and accomplished cultivator. (but that's fine because I like a hot mess - 3k Mingling Getting Together)

8. Shen Qingqiu had made use of many excuses over the years to avoid the presence of the man who was now his own sect leader, some of which had even been good. (the ability to remain sober and gracious - 4k Canon Divergence AU, Qijiu Xuan Su sword reveal)

7. Shang Qinghua’s head hurt and his eyes were watering and he was beginning, just maybe, to think that creating an experimental stimulant because he missed the non-organic goodness of energy drinks with an unreasonable passion had been a bad idea. (anxiety and caffeine are having a cockfight in my brain - 2k Moshang Hurt/Comfort)

6. The library’s front door flew open so violently that it could be heard even at Shen Yuan’s desk nearer to the back of the main hall, which sat in front of the way to the computer rooms. (Absolutely Ineffable - 10k Good Omens Fusion AU)

5. Once there was a summer in which upon arriving home from university, Shen Yuan was immediately told that he was being sent away to the heart of the country to stay with his distant uncle, whether he liked it or not. (The Red Cabinet - 7k Narnia Fusion AU)

4. It took… Shang Qinghua… a while to figure out that demons actually had horns in this realized version of his sellout stallion web-novel. (Horns - 11k MBJ has sexy horns AU)

3. So, apparently, a portal burning with demonic energy had opened up over Qing Jing Peak and another Shang Qinghua had fallen out of it, and the wound in the sky had unfortunately closed again pretty much immediately. (ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real - 7k Non-Canon Fic Extra, SQH meets AU SQH)

2. So, Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky, the dearly despised and fervently favorited author of Proud Immortal Demon Way, died in a vaguely humiliating fashion… and then he transmigrated. (it must follow, as the night the day - 26k Moshang Role Reversal AU, Demon SQH and Cultivator MBJ)

1. Shang Qinghua has not been having a stellar transmigration experience. (pride is not the word I'm looking for - 400k Canon Divergence AU, LBH's Mother Lives)

This serves as a pretty good round-up of all my currently posted fics! There are far too many in my WIP folders to begin including everything in there.

I've been a little out of touch with reading fanfiction lately, so please, if you wish, take this post as an opportunity to participate in this game and tag me in it! I highly recommend taking a moment to revisit and admire your own fan works! Look at all that cool stuff you did! If you only have WIPs, then I don't mind if you use WIPs. Sometimes our pieces of writing are full, intensely detailed paintings that take years to complete and sometimes they're just rough sketches we do to warmup or have creative fun when we have the time, and sharing both is nice.

And if you don't have your own fan works to pull from, then I'd still love to see a list of opening lines from some of your favorite fics by other people. Any fandom you like! Give me those fic recs! Give me the opening lines of your favorite published novels if there's one you've been itching to gush about.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

Despite a comically high number of attempts to stave it off, Donald Trump is set to face his first criminal trial later today. It remains to be seen whether he’ll be able to control his behavior any better than he did in his civil trials for defamation and fraud. But given his inability — or willful refusal — to adhere to gag orders in the run up to the trial, it seems unlikely. First, since it’s difficult to keep track of all of Trump’s criminal charges, let’s remember what he faces in this one. Last year, a New York grand jury indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Prosecutors allege that Trump faked business records to hide $130,000 in hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels in 2016 so she would stay quiet about their 2006 affair. 

Yes, these are the same payments that, in part, led to Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, pleading guilty to federal charges back in 2018 and spending more than a year in prison. The government’s sentencing memorandum in that case didn’t name Trump but talked about Cohen arranging payments to two separate women with whom “Individual-1,” a person who later became president of the United States, had extramarital affairs. Though there was never any official confirmation, it appears that shortly after Trump left office, federal prosecutors in New York decided not to pursue charges against Trump. 

However, just because the feds stepped aside did not require New York state to stop pursuing similar charges. The 34 felony counts Trump now faces don’t refer to separate incidents but rather the multiple steps Trump took to hide the hush money payments. First, he is accused of faking a series of invoices to Cohen, saying they were for legal services when they were really reimbursement for Cohen paying the hush money. Correspondingly, Trump is alleged to have issued a series of checks to Cohen, which he falsely denoted as payment for legal services. Finally, prosecutors say that Trump then caused false entries about the payments to be created in the Trump Corporation general ledger. Trump is charged only with the falsifications as they relate to the payments to Stormy Daniels. However, prosecutors have also indicated they will be discussing the $150,000 paid to former Playboy model Karen McDougal so she too would keep quiet about her own affair with Trump.

Normally, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor, but if business records are falsified with intent to cover up or commit a different underlying crime, it is a felony. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has accused, but not charged, Trump of concealing violations of election laws and tax fraud. Prosecutors do not have to prove that Trump actually committed those crimes, or any other. All they have to prove is that when Trump falsified business records, he did it with “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” 

[...]

None of this is good for Trump

This case is likely the only one that goes to trial before the election, given that Trump has had greater success obtaining procedural delays in his other criminal cases. Arguably, this case represents the least satisfying set of charges against Trump. That’s not because what Trump did here wasn’t a real crime or that his behavior isn’t indicative of his comprehensively criminal mindset. Instead, it’s that the underlying facts are already well-known because of Michael Cohen’s indictment and plea and that as appalling as the hush money scheme might be, it pales in comparison to stealing classified documents, trying to overturn an election, and inciting an insurrection. There’s a bit of an “Al Capone went down for tax evasion” vibe about the whole thing. However, Trump — who spent most of the weekend melting down on Truth Social — is not behaving like a person who thinks this criminal trial is small potatoes or that he is guaranteed a win.

Even if he prevails at trial or gets a conviction overturned on one of the numerous issues he’s already appealed, that won’t unring the bell of everyone outside the courtroom hearing all the evidence the prosecution will present. When you combine that with the fact Trump will likely not be able to control himself during the trial, there’s a real chance for the next several weeks to be wall-to-wall unfavorable coverage. No wonder he’s so desperate to make this all go away.

Lisa Needham wrote in Public Notice that the current Donald Trump falsification of business payments criminal trial that began yesterday is NOT a "nothingburger." #TrumpTrial

See Also:

Vox: How Trump’s hush money trial went from an afterthought to the main event

[oughtnots]

The way he thought of it then was the way he would think of it later: he didn’t do anything in particular. He simply opened his mind and asked. It was only luck that something answered. Which kind of luck, Thomas would probably never know. - Thomas Jopson is a warlock hiding behind the mantle of a steward on Sir John Franklin's expedition into the Frozen North. His dalliance with Battlemaster Little doesn't distract him from his true duty—protecting Captain Crozier—especially since Thomas doesn't need much sleep these days. But as the expedition prepares to cross the last threatening mountain ridge that marks the border of the North, Thomas begins to get strange headaches, and his powers start acting up in ways that they haven't since he first made his dark pact. A pact that now, years after its inciting incident, reappears in his unwilling dreams.

my fic for 2023 @theterrorbigbang! fantasy joplittle from mine and @lieutenant-catboy-little's dnd au, with plenty of ice and meaningful touches and warlock jopson! and, of course, with beautiful art by @asparklethatisblue! if you're interested in any of those things, check it out <3

[esdithequeen]

hmmm... faraquill whet soba date

Faraquill time babey

“Hey, you come here often?”

Simon looked up at the woman leaning against her motorcycle, a playful smirk on her face, as if she didn’t already know the answer. He held out his hand to her, “A bit too often, if you want my honest opinion.” Kay took the offered hand and allowed herself to be pulled in for a kiss, “Are you sure you don’t want to go somewhere else?”

She hummed, “I’m sure. You just complain if we go anywhere else.”

    “I’m going to complain regardless.”

“I know, but at least it will be more entertaining than just ‘we could have gotten a better deal at Whet Soba’ again.” 

    “Noted, I’ll try to be more diverse with my grievances in the future.” He nudged at her shoulder, shepherding her towards the door.

Kay pushed back against him, refusing to pick up her feet and leaning into him, “Oh you will?” She drawled in a mockingly posh British accent, “How charitable. How soliticious! You really are a gentleman.”

Simon bent his head down next to hers, “I don’t sound like that.” He pulled away just as she tried to sneak in another kiss, smirking at her disappointed little whine, “Get a move on, I'm hungry.”

She complied, but not without pouting and huffing at him. The shop’s bell chimed as they entered, and Bucky started his usual slurring, “Welcome t’ Whet sso— oh, it’s you guysh. Hiiyah.”

    “Left enough alcohol for the rest of us there, Bucky? Or have you drunk through your entire stock?” Simon heckled. Bucky disappeared under the counter for a second, before triumphantly lifting two bottles of beer into the air— and then almost dropped them immediately.

They situated themselves on a small table in the corner. The quietest corner, because it was the furthest away from where Bucky stood at the counter. They sat in comfortable silence for a little while; life had been hectic and work was non-stop, so it had been a while since they had time together that wasn’t just falling into bed at the end of a long day. It was only when Simon took a swig of his drink that he noticed Kay, her head propped up on her hands, was looking at him expectantly. He squinted at her in suspicion, “What?”

“Go on.” She prompted, with a smug grin, “Complain.”

He let out an irritated sigh, “Have I ever told you how insufferable you are?”

“Multiple times, but it’s always good to be reminded.”

    “Fine.” Simon put down his bottle with a clink, “Gavin-Dono keeps insisting on using his office as a recording studio, despite me telling him on a number of occasions that whatever soundproofing he claims to have put up is insufficient, and is disturbing both me and Taka. I have warned him that if he ends up assailed by Taka’s talons it will be his own fault.”

Kay twirled a loose strand of hair around her finger, “Oh, well that explains the weird text Mr Edgeworth sent me.” She fished out her phone, clearing her throat as she put on a scarily accurate Edgeworth impression, “‘Please inform your partner that the Prosecutor’s Office will not protect him from any lawsuits regarding hawk related incidents, and that he is to take responsibility if said hawk causes injury to any persons, even if he did not incite the attack’. I just told him that Taka’s a hawk-eagle, not an actual hawk.”

He barked a laugh, “Good, I’m tired of being the only one correcting him all the time.” Their food arrived quickly, and as soon as it touched the table Kay reached over with her chopsticks to steal a bite of Simon’s soba. He levelled her with a blank stare, “Why must you do this every time?”

She shrugged, “Gotta make sure no one’s trying to poison you.”

“But aren’t you then risking poisoning yourself?”

Kay reached over to take his hand with a fake heartfelt expression, “For you, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.” He batted her hand away, compelled to finish his noodles before she could take another chance to ‘check’ them.

Once he was certain that there wasn't anything left for her to steal, he set down his chopsticks and sat back in his seat, “So… Do you know if you have any upcoming work overseas?”

“No, not unless I get called over last minute. Though, Wolfy’s been telling me I should take up some more jobs with Interpol now that the police here are a bit more under control. Said they could always use the help.”

    “Do you think you’ll take him up on it?”

“No.”

That wasn’t the answer he was expecting, in all honesty, “Why not?”

Kay gave a lazy shrug, “I just have more incentive to stay home than I did before.” Which meant she was staying stateside for his sake. Simon wasn’t sure what to think of that. Kay seemed to pick up on his uncertainty, “I’m not saying I’m never going to work overseas ever again. I love travelling, I really do, but…” She reached back over, and this time Simon took her hand in his own, “I prefer spending time with you.”

It would have been a lovely moment, if it hadn’t been followed by a very loud ‘awwww’ from Bucky. Simon let out a heavy exhale, “I think it’s time we head off, don’t you?”

“Sure. But I did bring my bike, sooo unless you feel like walking…” 

    “I’ll endure your deathtrap.” Kay pumped her fist in victory. She’d been trying to get him on that damn bike for ages. Simon stressed, “Just this once.” 

“Once is enough for me. Let’s get moving!”

[averycorvoidae]

Resentment Dump 2

I guess I can just nebulously blame *mental health,* but here's the second attempt at me trying to write something. I know, it's incredibly shit. It's hard to not give up but I swear I'm trying At least, I think I am, I don't really know what trying feels like. I feel like the more I write the more I need to understand why I'm writing. I mean, in a way where it doesn't feel like I'm putting things together that **don't** build to anything. I feel like alot of the time I write in a way that's very... wandering but obsessive? It might be the mindstate of both myself and the characters, but I don't feel like it's interesting to read. The biggest reason I just *gave up* here is I didn't know how to introduce a character in an "organic" way. Well As "organic" as an inciting incident can be. I'll include afterthoughts after the bulk of the writing.

-- Chapter 1 --

For as long as I could remember, the village had been growing. I don’t mean logical growth. Buildings and structures come out of the ground overnight. The concrete maze strangles a little more life from my village every day.

                I remember my original village well enough. I wouldn’t say I have the greatest memory, but there were clear starts and ends. I live in a house, with my parents. The front door leads to a square, with a few benches, and a fountain in the middle. Surrounding the square were various buildings: a market, the school, more houses, other small buildings complete with four roads that ran in each cardinal direction from the center. From back side of my house there was the same road, all connected in the shape of a large “O.” Outside this was another ring of buildings, then, only a few bits of road and scant buildings beyond. The rest of the space left to nature’s growths. I look out my window now, and it’s just a horizon of grey squares.

                Nobody else seems to notice. Maybe nobody else cares. The city is decaying, and I need to get out. Most of the people I remember from school left already, they were the smart ones. I was too afraid to do what I thought was blindly wander away and abandon everything.

                I haven’t done much since leaving school. There’s not much I needed to do. I don’t know if doing something would’ve helped. The cancer is pervasive, it doesn’t sit outside the village. That’s something that took me too long to realize. My parents look at me with haunted expressions, past human, ready to cry or scream in terror. Abandoned buildings keep shades moving in their windows. The trustworthy food in the markets gets smaller every time I visit. Then the strangers, some know my name, they’re always wrong. Not as far gone as the monsters in the outer tumors, these strangers freeze singular expressions on their faces, sometimes their limbs stop responding, often times hard to understand and painfully easy to smell. I wonder how many of these people regret their existence, clearly once normal, displaced and disfigured into my village.

                I don’t know when I first noticed this taint in my own body. Maybe it was somewhere in my hands. I look at them now, they’re supposed to be smooth. Whether it was scales, crevices, growths, or blackened spots, I have to keep my hands pure. It’s one of the most important things I check for. Anything wrong gets shaved. My hands are damaged now, but still pure. Whatever my skin is supposed to look like, is now covered wholly by an intricate web of scars. The homes of various tumors excised and grown over. To monitor my whole body is a constant task.

I keep my tools next to my bed. There are the simpler tools, like pliers and clamps. There’s my needle, a sharp daggerlike blade perfect for digging and precision. Finally, there’s my razor, a knife around half the length of my forearm in total. There’s nothing special about the blade. The handle is more akin to a large egg, rough and stone-cut, attached to blade by a random, odd angle. I didn’t make it myself, and for along time it confused me. As I use it more and more, it’s easier to understand, it’s not a weapon, a tool in the truest sense of the word. I can move the blade to match any angle or position it needs. What it sacrifices in power, it gains in leverage and precision. There are other tools, but none as important or well-used.

I enjoy the pain. I know the blades keep me steady, on the path I need to be on. Every slipped cut forces my attention to be just as sharp as my tools. A wayward incision leaves a reminder of what I have to deal with for sometimes days. If I hit a tendon or a nerve, my hands might spasm or go limp. In a way, I have complete control over my body. There is comfort to know that there is a baseline all I can return to, and that I have learned how to pay the price. But mainly, I thank pain for my mentality, it’s always there, in tandem alongside the corruption. I never forget my place. The danger is always present. Pain ensures my safety.

I spend most of my time in my house, I watch the neighborhood, myself. It’s hard to justify going out, things get stranger, the strangers get more threatening, and everything I trust shrinks away and disappears. I force myself to leave my house every so often, reminding myself what’s being lost, but more and more its just not safe enough. I know I need to do something though, even if it’s more out of fear rather than courage. I keep to myself; I try not to look at any one thing for too long. I lie my hands against the things I have in my clothes. The weight and feeling assures me nothing is lost. Even so, I feel like I go out shorter and shorter distances.

I need to go out today. I have to. I need to know I still can.

My room is safe enough. I know I can’t fully trust my memories anymore, but it keeps feeling like this perversion changes things when I’m not looking. When I’m in my room, it’s stable, I know where everything is. One either end, are two windows, one lets me see into the market square, and the other offers a narrow angle of the streets behind. The back window also has a door. Outside of which is a steep set of stone stairs. The only other way out is through the front door on the first floor.

The furnishing of my room is generally sparse. I have a bed far too wide for me. Next to the bed is a simple nightstand, the tools kept in its drawer. I have a dresser infront of a wall. It stores all my clothes, baggy, in various shades of beige and grey. I also have an old, partially rotten chair currently placed to view out of the front window. The room itself is far larger than a single living space should reasonably be. The room, in general, is best for pacing, where the thin carpet can barely protect the stone floor below from sounding loudly with regular, heavy footsteps. The red and purple carpet itself, was wildly oversized. The frayed ends crumpled under itself or rode up the wall at nearly each end of the room. I kept one of the carpet’s corners peeled back, so the flooring would lay bare. That corner was the only real proof of what I do.

My bathroom is near that corner. Simple, but still overly large for a single person. A sink, a toilet, and a boxed shower were all that it had. I used to clean myself over the sink. Thinking it could be easier to wash the blood away. But over time, the stains wore into the sink. For whatever reason, this disgusted me. The sink had a purpose, and I needed to find a place that could serve the purpose I needed. So I moved to that outside corner. The stone drinks in the blood whenever I have any to offer. The wall, originally the color of sand, turns a feint shade of purple before blackening closer and closer to the meeting point of both walls and the floor. At this point it feels like an altar. The blackness proves longstanding dedication to purity.

The rest of my house I don’t trust as much. My parents live downstairs, they have the kitchen. I fear the people I’ve seen them become. I don’t even know if they are my parents anymore. They go about their days like they used to, only now under constant veils of sadness and fear. It taints their words, their actions. It was a sad realization to come to, but there’s nothing I can do anymore.

I’m stalling.

I don’t want to go outside.

It’s warm today, I don’t need to wear more than the clothes I have on: simple shorts and a shirt all covered by a large nearly white poncho. A lot of my legs were showing. The heavily scarred shins hid an even more heavily scarred calf. At least my shoes would hide my feet. It’s fine. The scars are my pride, proof of my courage. One last look showed a similar sight to most days. The few people that were, kept to themselves on the periphery.

I just need to reach the fountain.

The steps leading into the kitchen are always intimidating. A suffocating corridor with no lights led down to a landing lit up by distant light reaching around the corner. The front door wasn’t too far beyond.

I started to walk around my room. I know what each step feels like. I know where the handrail is. I know to grab the handrail with my fingers, not the whole of my hand, otherwise it would splinter off into my hand. I reflexively know to curl my fingers up in a rhythm with my walking, as to avoid needing to deal with the brackets on the wall. I know what I would see when I got downstairs, just the front wall of the house, the door, and a room behind I don’t need to even look at. This took me almost four laps. I was wasting my energy.

I moved back to the door and gripped the corner. Almost pulling myself through, my left hand gripped the handrail. Every footstep I took down was meticulous. It seemed as if I was trying to savor the feeling of each step away from guaranteed safety. I had to keep forcing myself down. I extended my left pinky. Touching the rail gave a more immediate thrill. My steps gradually got faster as I threatened myself with splinters under my nail. As congratulations, I let myself free near the bottom. No splinters.

I kept my eyes on the door. If I continually made my last step the point of no return, I would at least be outside. My right hand thrust toward the doorknob. It felt… like nothing. My fingers dug into it, and all of a sudden this fear felt very silly. This was the front door of my house. This is normal. I should be safe. A twist of the wrist and a light push instantly forced regret down my throat. The air wasn’t hard to breathe, but it felt malignant. The sun glared down on the whole square, and every damned soul in it. On my, damned soul. I closed the door. Instantly, the air settled down to its normal, stagnant self. The world got so much slower. Nothing would move before I did. I had to come to terms with being such a fucking coward before I could let go of the doorhandle. Just a bloated sack of failures, scabby from being too afraid to get to safety. I let go of the doorhandle. The world sped back up, I remained, inside.

I didn’t have to turn around, so I didn’t. I just moved back to the stairwell. I don’t have to see what became of my parents, or what light is being blared from what’s left of the TV. I already know the noise, voices mangled together in a broadcast, cutting through and over each other. The noise is a soft constant that reverberates through the floor all 24 hours.

The stairs are oddly softer going back up. It’s almost like walking through clay, slowly raising my leg, just to lower it again. The stairs want to remain stone, but they make my feet feel so heavy. Then I’m back in my room. Such a goddamn disappointment. I knew I said I was going to make it, but today I just felt so sure! Tomorrow I have to, I can’t keep waiting for my haven to stop being so safe.

-- Chapter 2 --

Every morning is the same. I stir, then slowly grow a frustration until I have to rip myself out of bed. I always grab my tools and head towards the corner. Kneeling, I begin to meditate on my own body. My entire body feels suspect, but I can only cut at the tumors that have formed. My right hand grabbed the doorknob yesterday. I couldn’t risk it. I grabbed my razor, and turned it towards my right hand, looking for the best opening.

My wrist had a prominent bone which pointed directly at my thumb. I balanced the edge of the blade on the bone. I followed where the wrist pointed, but only a short while. I was hovering right above the meaty chunk of my palm. I wrenched the blade to the left. The tip was free, but now more of the blade laid under the skin. My thumb twitched, and I did my best to keep it from ruining my precision. I moved the blade all the way to the left, at the corner of my hand. I’ve done this enough times to set my hand in position easily, no matter how much it wanted to resist. I forced my fingers to relax, but raised the pinky. With a single, swift motion, I freed the skin, from palm to pink. Slowly, I moved my hand to the wall, the fabric of skin dangling off the edge of my thumb. I pressed my bloody appendage firmly against the wall. The easy part was to hewn my hand free. With my hand against the wall, I did my best  to raise the uncut fingers. My knuckle made it look like little pistons ran my body. I wish I was that easy to maintain, taking out, replacing parts, recovering the skin when I had to. It could be so much more simple to maintain my purity. Regardless, I slid the knife beneath the underside of my knuckle. Eventually it found stable purchase under skin. Another single, swift motion and a loose flap of flesh flew above my hand before landing on the ground with an unsatisfying half-splat. Finally, I freed the rest of my hand to push my thumb into the wall by itself. Putting the knife by my wrist again, another quick motion peeled the infected layers off my skin.

I freed my hand from the wall. I just sat there for a moment, reflexively clenching my fist of blood as tight as I could muster. The three flaps of skin just laid on the ground. A part of me expected them to start moving, like parasites freed from their host. They never moved, they just sat in the little puddle of blood each of them was left in. Blood trickled down my hand and just started to pour into the middle of the corner. I grabbed the handle, and I had to be cleaned. Clenching my fit makes time go by faster. I just focus on the pain. I do my best to stay still until the trickle slows into periodic droplets.

It disappoints me how much my knees hurt. I’ve grown used to the pain of cuts and scars. I always kneel, but my knees and shins can hardly hold me. I suppose that’s why I’ve always found this ritual so meditative. I must focus on myself. I become my flaws and errors. I can’t fall, the point is persistence.

The blood stopped. I opened my hand. A spray of blood hit the ground, and that was it. I rose from my knees and headed towards the bathroom to wash the blood off. Maybe it’s just how my mind works, but the water stream sounded so quiet. The cutting was so much louder. The knife makes little noise, and me even less so. It just makes me feel full in a way that makes this seem so… bleakly mundane. I can feel myself getting lost in the red flow, painting the creases of my hand a dark red, only to be washed away, spiraling down the sink. My hands look like I could live off them. The skin promises ready soil, vast planes. I noticed my knuckles again. The odd piping below my hands disgusted me. I clenched and unclenched my hands, disgusting filth. The crude machines made a mockery of the texture grafted ontop of them. The back of my hand seems to expand when I close my grasp, senseless and repulsive. I looked up to the mirror, and saw myself, grimacing at the thoughts that flooded my mind. I need to walk away.

Being back in my room comforted me. But yeah, the main character was meant to be agoraphobic, and almost entirely out of touch with reality. I have an idea for a new version. Keeps some of the same themes/ideas, but forces the character to interact with the world a bit more. Instead of watching the world rot from inside their house, I wanted to start the book with them getting off of a bus. Lets the characters more organically get to know people without being able to rely on much history Generic but ultimately useful? I'll try to write on it and see if i like it. I don't know, I might come back to this version I don't know if my writing difficulties is just me or Mental illness or Being a bad/unexperienced/unconfident writer But I just can't stop... giving up, or starting over I just get so... I look back at what I write and it's just repulsive Aimless, shitty It makes me feel sick i'm sorry

[freespeechwyngro]

Clarifying for staff, I checked and the newest member of the group is the original groomer's account, Atlas-s. They haven't posted anything and idk if they're in the Discord, but please be safe!!

Ah, the Deviantart group! They’re not in the discord.

I believe this is because this person left the group on their own accord after they received the backlash. Wyngro at that time was not accepting screenshots as evidence and did not ban them.

They attempted to return to the discord server under a new discord account and a new DA account, which was discovered and banned for “inciting drama” last time.

I guess wyngro did not think it necessary to go back and ban their old account when making the decision to ban their new one.

I may be wrong but I think the DA group is able to be joined by most people with no approval process now…? Whether or not they should have banned this person ages ago when either incident happened may very well be scrutinized. However we are pretty sure this person at least didn’t go through any kind of manual approval process to get in today. We think if any wyngro staff becomes aware of this they may go ahead and choose to ban them now.

[mariacallous]

Several months after Moscow launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, Russian authorities, short on manpower, allowed the Wagner mercenary group to start recruiting inmates from Russian prisons. Many of the prisoners who agreed to enlist had been incarcerated for most of their adult lives. Pavel Zakharov, a 39-year-old from the Republic of Karelia, was granted freedom in January after purportedly spending six months on the battlefield with Wagner. Before his mercenary career, Zakharov was serving an 11-year sentence for brutally murdering his girlfriend’s mother as “revenge” for the way she had treated her daughter. Journalists from the independent media outlet Holod used court records to reconstruct Zakharov’s story. Meduza is publishing an abridged translation of their report.

On the evening of January 24, 2015, Nina Belova was celebrating her 61st birthday in her St. Petersburg apartment. Surrounded by friends and family, she didn’t notice the gray Lada sedan that was parked outside of the building. As the sun set, a man and woman inside the vehicle watched the guests leave one by one.

Once they were sure Nina was the only person still home, the couple got out of the vehicle. The woman was heavyset, with blonde hair reaching almost to her shoulders; the man was skinny and wore his dark hair in a crew cut. They walked up to the building, and the woman called Nina on the intercom.

“Mom, we decided to stop by for some tea,” she said. The woman, Nadezhda Nikolayeva, was Nina Belova’s 40-year-old daughter, and she was accompanied by her 31-year-old boyfriend, Pavel Zakharov. The two lived together in Svyatozero, a village in Russia’s Republic of Karelia.

Nina buzzed them up. But after greeting her mother, Nadezhda stopped: she had forgotten her puppies in the car, she said, and she was worried they would freeze if she didn’t cover them with a blanket. When she returned to the vehicle, Nadezhda got back inside and looked up at the glowing apartment window.

Two hours later, the light in the window went out. After another hour, Pavel came out of the building, got in the car, and asked Nadezhda if she had any napkins.

His hands were covered in blood. He pulled a washcloth-wrapped knife out of his left sleeve and tucked it under the floor mat, then threw some cash on the dashboard.

The next day, one of Nina Belova’s friends tried to call her. When she didn’t pick up after several attempts, the friend got worried and went to check on her. Finding Nina’s apartment door open, she let herself inside. She walked through the apartment to the kitchen, where she saw Nina’s body lying on the floor.

According to forensic examiners, Nina Belova was stabbed approximately 50 times. Nadezhda Nikolayeva and Pavel Zakharov were arrested four months later. He was charged with murder, and she was charged with incitement to murder.

A rocky relationship

Pavel Zakharov grew up in an orphanage. His first run-in with the law came when he was a teenager: he was sentenced to three years of probation for car theft when he was 18. After that came his first real prison sentence: four and a half years for burglary.

In March 2007, Pavel was released on parole. Four months later, he committed another crime: he and three other young men allegedly robbed four people in a park. Pavel pleaded not guilty in court, claiming he had been drunk and had no memory of the incident. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, though he was released after only six.

After that, he returned to his hometown of Svyatozero, where his sister, Olga, bred German and Central Asian Shepherds with another woman named Nadezhda Nikolayeva. Nadezhda and Pavel soon started dating. Nadezhda adored dogs: she had six of her own, and had an entire album dedicated to them on social media, where she referred to them as her “children.”

But Nadezhda also had a real child: she was raising her daughter, Lera, from a past marriage. In 2015, Lera turned 13. Some years earlier, Lera had unwittingly become the center of a conflict between Nadezhda and her own mother, Nina Belova: according to Nadezhda, Nina was convinced that she, Nadezhda, wouldn’t be able to handle raising a daughter of her own. Nadezhda claims that Nina and her own husband came to Nadezhda’s house one day and took Lera away. It wasn’t until a month later that Nikolayeva found Lera in Nina’s husband’s apartment. In response to that and several other incidents, Nadezhda cut off contact with her mother for years.

Revenge

After they started dating, Nadezhda Nikolayeva often told Pavel stories about her childhood. These stories made Pavel furious.

One involved Nadezhda’s adopted younger brother. Once, Nina had left both children at home and told Nadezhda to look after her brother. The brother ended up falling out of a window and dying. Ever since then, Nina had blamed Nadezhda for the boy’s death.

Nadezhda also told Pavel about her stepdad, who she said had raped her and beaten her when she was little. When she told her mother about the abuse, she didn’t believe her.

According to Pavel’s later accounts, in January 2015, Nadezhda confessed to him that she sometimes had thoughts of “punishing” her mother. In response, he immediately told her that they “weren’t going to talk anymore, [they] were going to act,” and told her to choose a day.

On Nina Belova’s birthday, the couple went from Svyatozera to St. Petersburg. On the way to Nina’s, they stopped at a hunting shop, where Pavel bought a knife.

At 10:00 p.m., after Nadezhda lied about the puppies and left the apartment, Nina was left alone with Pavel. When she went into the kitchen to clean the remaining dishes, Pavel followed her. They spoke for about 10 minutes. As soon as Nina began criticizing Nadezhda’s parenting skills, Pavel got angry. He pulled a knife out of his sleeve and stabbed Nina three times in the back. He then turned the kitchen light off so that they couldn’t be seen from outside. After that, he stabbed her about 40 more times.

Before leaving, he tried to make it look like a random robbery had taken place: he ransacked the apartment in search of anything valuable, but was only able to find 6,000 rubles (about $85). On the way back to Svyatozero, he changed into clean clothes and threw the bloody paper towels, clothing, and knife onto the side of the highway.

Pavel Zakharov pleaded guilty in court, though he claimed Nikolayeva hadn’t incited the murder. Nadezhda told the court that she hadn’t wanted Pavel to kill her mother, and that she and Nina had patched up their relationship in recent years; she asked them to convict her of concealment rather than incitement. In an appeal, Nadezhda said that her initial confessions had been given under duress, as she had been interrogated without a lawyer and it had lasted for almost 24 hours with no break. According to Nadezhda, after she was arrested, an investigator and several officers went to her daughter, Lera, and tried to make her pressure her mother to confess to the charges.

Pavel Zakharov was one of the men in the video; his identity was confirmed by the Telegram channel Rotonda. At the gathering, the mercenaries joked about Wagner Group capturing Alaska and establishing a “Hawaiian People’s Republic.” They also told Prigozhin how his private military company had changed their lives for the better. “Now I have the chance to work, to be useful to my country, to feel like a real man,” one of the men said on camera. “That wasn’t in the cards before.” Unlike most of the men present, Pavel Zakharov was silent throughout the video.

According to Evgeny Prigozhin, all of these pardoned prisoners were released and their Wagner contracts are over. According to Rotonda, however, one of the convicts who was released is still officially part of Wagner Group and is only on leave. Another one, 66-year-old Alexander Tyutin, who was previously sentenced to 23 years in prison for organizing the murder of a four-member family, flew to Turkey in mid-January for a vacation, according to Fontanka.

Holod was unable to reach Pavel Zakharov for comment. His relatives declined to speak to journalists, as did Nadezhda Nikolayeva’s relatives. Nadezhda Nikolayeva herself, who was released from prison about one year ago, also declined to speak.

[semper-legens]

164. Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper

Owned?: Yes Page count: 175 My summary: On holiday in Cornwall, the three Drew children are bored on a rainy day when they discover a long-forgotten secret hidden in the attic. With their great-uncle Merriman, they are soon pulled into a world of legend, when great kings walked the land and did battle with their foes. But there are enemies after their secret. Will the children find the holy grail, or lose it forever? My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Yep, it’s that time of year again, for the third time on this blog we’re talking about the Dark Is Rising sequence! That text links back to the tag that contains all my previous posts about these books, check them out if you’re interested because I’m going to try not to cover old ground when I talk about these books. I love them. They’re like a slightly more grown-up Narnia - based on English and Welsh folklore and folk traditions, featuring a struggle between all that is good and all that is evil, old magic and high magic and wild magic. That said, this book in particular is more of a mashup of Narnia and the Famous Five. Posh kids on holiday find the Holy Grail! It’s a lot lighter in tone than the rest of the series, but I love it all the same.

One of the things I’m really appreciating on this readthrough is how likeable and credible these kids are. Sure, they talk a lot more posh and formally than any kid I’d know today, but also these are kids from the 1960s, before my mother was born. I’m willing to believe kids did genuinely talk differently then. But the Drew kids bicker and snipe at each other like real kids, they make dumb choices and weird assumptions like real kids, they love and want to protect each other like real kids. The other thing I really like about the kids is seeing glimpses of the character traits that would become relevant in later books. In particular, Jane’s empathy. Jane is going to be basically the main character of the third book, Greenwitch, and arguably the inciting incident of that whole plot is Jane feeling sorry for the titular Greenwitch, an (as far as she knows) inanimate offering given ritualistically to the sea. We see this here, with her feeling sorry for the Dark characters, or her innately understanding the emotions of other characters. Sure, it’s likely a side effect of her being The Girl of the team, but it’s also a nice character trait for her to have, and one I like seeing as heroic in this kind of media.

I feel like I say this every year, but Merriman, your plans are bad. Merriman’s heavily implied to be literally Merlin, yet he can’t come up with a better plan than ‘let these random kids loose in a house and hope they trip over the plot’? It would be a bit better for me if, say, the kids just happened to have tripped over the plot and Merriman just went along with it because hey, they’re involved now. But no, it’s almost explicitly stated that Merriman’s plan was to bring these kids here and involve them in the fight against the Dark. Good going, Merlin! It’s also kind of weird in retrospect that we see Merriman more as a regular human being and less of an Old One - he’s fooled by Mrs Palk telling him the kids have gone elsewhere, and we even see him having just woken up, something I can’t really imagine of the later Merriman. It’s not too jarring, but it is a bit weird in hindsight.

And while I keep calling this the lighter of the series (because it is) I am reminded on this reread that, yeah, this book has its darker edges too. The Drew kids are fighting the tide in the climax, and if they were a little slower they totally could have died. Barney gets kidnapped, and had he not managed to snap out of it, who knows what the agents of the Dark might have done to him. The house gets burgled by the Dark, and mention is made of the Dark’s agents searching the kids’ bedroom, although this didn’t actually happen. And the Dark’s agents are totally willing to kill kids! It’s not as dark as the later books would become (I’ve overused the word ‘dark’ here horribly) but damn, it’s not all sunshine and roses either.

Next up, the next in this series, as the Dark comes rising.

[tavarillasgalen]

i think my #1 tip for querying authors would be: check agents’ socials and vet any drama surrounding their clients’ books before you take the time to customize a query to their MS wishlist and preferences. there are so many agents that i queried based on their info on their agency’s site and their MS wishlist and the like, only to wish i hadn’t when i saw their behavior on social media or when it came out that their clients’ books were misogynistic and lesbophobic or white people writing poc stories and the like. you will save yourself so much time and energy by taking the time to really in-depth research an agent and their clients prior to querying them. 

like some examples of insane behavior i’ve seen from agents on twitter: 

- acting like expecting any sort of response to a query is absurd when form rejections can be copied and pasted, and then voila, the author knows the answer is no. 

- using queries that they are CURRENTLY LOOKING THROUGH as examples of what not to do - i’ve even seen agents use screenshots! and i don’t mean queries that are rude but just... general queries. and i don’t mean the agents that will ask if people want query critiques to be posted publicly, that’s fine, i mean agents doing this from their slushpile from people who have not consented. 

- demanding that if you are going to write an identity, you damn well better be said identity and it better be ownvoices, which is SO DANGEROUS for queer people and people writing about trauma. agents who are like this will often end up being shitty in other ways, like, oh, you’re married to a man? you lied about being bi. when... do you know what being bi means???

- generally treating writers with massive amounts of disrespect but expecting endless leeway when it comes to their own time. like getting pissed when a writer sends a nudge when they haven’t gotten any sort of response in months, when that’s months that that writer cannot query anyone else in the agency and has been in limbo with their story. sitting on fulls for over a year without any updates, then being pissed when they find that the writer signed with a different agent when... they didn’t reply to nudges/got mad about being nudged.

- acting like their preferences are the be-all, end-all, when... people like so many different things, and what one agent hates, another adores. goes along with things like ‘NEVER write first person, NEVER write third person with present tense, NEVER write in-media-res beginnings, NEVER introduce us to your character’s life before the inciting incident, NEVER have x amount of POVs’, etc, etc, etc, about every writing preference you can imagine..... i had one agent tell me no one would pick up my book because it was over 80k words, when... that may be true for some genres, but my book was a fantasy, so of course it’s more around the 100k mark?? and it’s one thing to state their preferences in their MS wishlist - that’s good! it lets authors know whether or not their story is a good fit! it’s another to pass their preferences off as cold, hard rules.

and on and on and on......

obviously, not all agents are like this. in fact, some agents, i looked into their MS wishlists and whatnot after finding them on social media because they seemed so nice and considerate from their socials! some agents, i saw their socials, and i was damn glad i queried them, and i put them on the list to query again, because i was like, you, yes, i quite like you. but there are quite a few incredibly entitled, full-of-themselves, rude agents out there which you wouldn’t gather from anywhere but their socials. 

it’s more than worth it to really take the time to look through an agent’s socials, how they interact with people, what their clients are like, and more, so you don’t end up wasting time customizing a query for someone you thought would be a perfect fit, only to wish you hadn’t.

[cuttoothed]

Fic for day 3 of @jonmartinweek for the prompt "Healing & Recovery". We've all been saying jmart need a lot of therapy after the finale, so...yeah.

Disclaimer: I have never been to couple's therapy. I have done some reading on it, but this is not intended in any way to accurately reflect real world therapy practices. Please just assume that anything "off" is due to the way couple's therapy is practiced in AU-land (though of course feel free to let me know if you spot anything egregious).

*

“Why don’t you start,” Judith suggests, “By telling me about the incident?”

The two men on the sofa give her identical startled looks, as if she’s uncovered something incriminating. Martin seems to regain his composure first; he clears his throat, and his hand moves to cover Jon’s, unconsciously protective.

“Sorry, wh-what do you mean by “incident”?”

“For most couples who come to see me, there’s an...inciting incident,” Judith explains. “Something that makes them realize they could use some professional support to work through things. Of course any couple can benefit from seeing a therapist together on occasion, to deal with small issues before they become big ones. But, well, it’s the same way that everyone knows they should go for regular check ups with their GP rather than waiting until they actually get sick—it’s just not something most people get around to until they need it.”

She pauses to give them time to consider that, and after a moment Jon nods, looking mildly embarrassed.

“Right,” he says. “That’s, ah, I think that’s fair.”

“There are pretty strong extenuating circumstances, though,” Martin huffs defensively. “We didn’t exactly have the option for therapy in the a—wh-where we lived before.”

“It’s not intended as a criticism,” Judith tells him. “You’ve chosen to talk to a therapist, and that’s a big step—one that many people never take. You’re ahead of the curve, Martin.”

Martin looks mollified at that; he’s clearly a bit touchy about perceived criticisms of their relationship, and Judith doesn’t want to get him on the defensive. She gives them both an encouraging smile.

“So,” she says. “Is there an incident you’d like to talk about?”

The two of them look at each other expectantly, as if each is waiting for the other to start. After several long moments of silence, Jon raises his eyebrows meaningfully, and Martin sighs.

“Fine,” he says. “So, we, uh, we recently realized that our...garden was a-a bit of a mess. So we—Jon and I—we get together with our...housemates, to figure out what kind of flowers we should plant. Fuschias or—or hydrangeas. ”

He pauses to glance nervously at Jon, who gives him a reassuring nod, squeezing his hand.

Right, Judith thinks, This is probably not about flowers.

“We agree we all want fuschias,” Martin continues, “Except Jon—he wanted hydrangeas. But we took a vote, and it was fuschias.”

“Except of course most of our—our housemates weren’t there for that meeting,” Jon interjects, folding his arms across his chest.

“Yes, but we agreed we couldn’t wait to ask every single person,” Martin says sharply, back on the defensive. Jon’s brow furrows and his mouth opens as if to say something, but he changes his mind and shuts it again. Conflict aversion is one of the most common dysfunctions Judith sees in the couples she treats; very few people want to disagree with the person they love, and even fewer know how to have a constructive conflict. She makes a mental note of it for later.

“Go ahead, Martin,’ she suggests gently. Martin looks unhappy, but continues.

“So we agree to plant the fuschias the next day, but Jon—Jon sneaks out in the middle of the night and starts, uh, planting hydrangeas. Without telling anyone.”

Without telling me, Judith hears in his hurt tone. Jon’s arms are still folded, and he’s almost squirming in his seat with the effort to not interject; Judith decides it’s a good time to invite him into the story.

“Jon, why did you feel so strongly about the hydrangeas?”

“It’s—it wasn’t that I wanted hydrangeas, I just couldn’t a-accept the idea of—of fuchsias.”

“Couldn’t allow it, you mean,” Martin grumbles. Judith lets it pass and continues to focus on Jon.

“Why is that?”

“They, uh, they spread…” Jon waves his hands vaguely. “Their—their...roots? They would get into the, uh, the neighbors’ gardens, completely take over, destroy everything.”

“Potentially,” Martin insists. “There was no guarantee—”

“There was no reason they wouldn’t,” Jon snaps.

By now Judith is not only sure that this has nothing to do with gardening, but suspects that neither of these men has ever seen a fuchsia in their lives. It’s fine, though. This is far from the first time a client has invented a story out of whole cloth so they can work through something uncomfortable without actually describing it. And this is their first session; Judith hopes in the future they’ll trust her enough to give her the real story.

“Remember,” she tells them. “We’re not here to decide that someone was objectively right or wrong, we’re here to help you understand each other and improve your communication skills.”

“Right,” Martin mutters, unconvinced. Jon’s expression is distressed, but he continues.

“There was no other choice,” he says wearily. “The only other option was—was azaleas, and I know you didn’t want that, Martin.”

“Absolutely not.” Martin sounds horrified. “But hydrangeas, Jon? Do you really think that was a better option?”

“You have to see the difference.” Jon’s tone goes stiff and incredulous, as if he’s winding up for a lecture, and Judith decides to cut that off before it starts.

“So what I’m hearing,” she says, “Is that you both had very strong, conflicting opinions on this topic. And that’s okay—it’s okay for you to disagree, even on something important. You’re not always going to agree on what the right thing to do is. Often there is no single “right thing,” so it comes down to how the different choices make us feel.”

“That doesn’t seem like a good way to make a decision that affects the wh—a lot of people.” Jon clearly considers that his opinion on not-flowers was the objectively correct one. Judith smiles.

“People aren’t computers, Jon. Even the most logical minded person in the world is influenced by their feelings—about important issues, about other people. You’d be surprised at how much of our decision making is rooted in emotion; either how we anticipate the outcome of our decision will make us feel, or how we are feeling in the immediate moment of the choice.”

A spasm of something that might be grief or pain flashes across Jon’s face, and he leans unconsciously in Martin’s direction. Martin’s arm instantly goes around him, offering comfort without thought. It’s clear that these two love each other deeply, unquestioningly—and that’s also part of the problem. When someone you love thinks that you’re wrong about something that’s important to you, it can feel like a rejection of your entire self.

“I’d like to pause this discussion for now, and try a little exercise,” she says. Jon nods, sitting back up and disengaging from Martin’s embrace; Martin looks attentively at her, though his expression is unsure.

“One of the biggest challenges we face with people we love is recognizing that they are separate from us. I know—” she says, raising her hands to stop the objections she can already see forming on their lips. “Of course you know that you’re separate people. We all know that, rationally. But emotionally, it’s natural to see the people you’re close to as extensions of yourself—it’s an evolutionary impulse to aid group bonding. It happens with friends and family, and it’s an even stronger impulse between partners.

“We have to do a lot of work to truly internalize the idea that the people we love have their own inner emotional lives that drive their opinions and decisions. But once you are able to fully grasp that truth, it makes disagreeing with the person you love feel less emotionally fraught; it’s a powerful tool for navigating conflict constructively.”

Jon is frowning, but it’s in consideration rather than disapproval. Martin still looks skeptical, his body language defensive, though he doesn’t say anything. That’s probably the best she’s going to get for now, Judith thinks.

“So,” she says. “The exercise is this: I’d like each of you to take a few moments to think, and then tell the other person something about yourself. Not a fact, but something that you feel. And I would like you to listen without interrupting when your partner tells you their feeling. Can you each do that?”

“I, ah—” Jon’s frown deepens. “That’s...rather difficult to do on demand.”

“I know,” says Judith with sympathy. “That’s why I’m here, to support you both in doing the difficult things. If it was easy, you wouldn’t need a therapist to facilitate.”

“Right,” says Jon. ��Okay.”

“Martin?”

“Fine,” he says, but his tone is reluctant. Judith gets it; vulnerability is hard enough in front of someone you love, never mind with a stranger in the room. It’s easier to pretend that it’s pointless, that you’re not really putting yourself out there to be hurt. She has the feeling that Martin is someone who would rather avoid being hurt, even if it means closing himself off.

“All right,” she says. “When you’re ready, Jon, would you mind going first? No rush, take all the time you need.” Hopefully, seeing Jon take the first step might help Martin get over some of his defensiveness.

“Oh,” he says, and for a few moments his expression devolves into one of intense concentration. Then he nods, turning towards Martin.

“Start with “I feel”,” Judith suggests.

“All right,” he says, breathless with nerves. “I, uh, I feel...responsible. For—well, for everything, basically. And for everyone. Bad things have happened to people, and it’s my fault, because I should have done something. Everything that happened, back there, it was all because of me.”

“It wasn’t you, Jon!” Martin protests. “Annabelle told us—”

Judith is about to remind him that he’s supposed to just be listening, but he cuts himself off first. Jon laughs, an ugly sound that’s more like a sob.

“And how is that supposed to help? Knowing that the—that they were using me my whole life, how does that absolve me of any responsibility for what I did? For the fact that I failed to do anything to stop them? I couldn’t even go through with the one thing that could have actually meant something, because—”

He clamps his mouth shut, his jaw locked tight; Martin looks down at his hands, his expression distraught.

“Because of me.”

“Martin—” Jon’s tone is wounded, and he reaches for Martin’s hand. Judith sees reflections of a shared pain in both their faces, though she doesn’t understand why; this would be a lot easier if they’d just tell her the truth.

But you didn’t get into this profession because it was easy, did you?

“Thank you for sharing that, Jon. I think there’s a lot more for us to explore there, but let’s give you a break and give Martin a chance to share, okay?”

Jon nods, clutching Martin’s hand in his. Martin gives a long, slow exhale.

“Righto,” he says with false, brittle cheer. “”I feel,” wasn’t it? Right. Jon, when you do something stupidly self-sacrificing for other people, I feel like everyone else is more important than me.”

Jon flinches.

“Martin,” Judith says, keeping her tone level. “Let’s keep the focus on what you feel, not on what causes you to feel that way, okay?”

“Right,” Martin mutters, and glances at Jon. “Okay. In that case, I feel...like I’m not important. Like the only thing I can really do is—is take care of you. And if I can’t even do that, then what bloody use am I? That’s it, I suppose.”

“Martin…” Jon says again, softly. His eyes are wet, and he’s clinging to Martin’s hand like a drowning man to a plank. Martin swallows hard and shakes his head, but he makes no move to extract his hand from Jon’s grip.

“Thank you, Martin,” Judith tells him. “I know that wasn’t easy to share, for either of you. But this is the kind of honesty that we need, in order to build strong communication. Let’s all take five minutes—if either of you want to take a bathroom break, or get some water—and then we can talk about where to go from here. All right?”

Martin disappears to the loo, while Jon wanders around the office, looking with polite interest at the shelves of books and ornaments. Judith writes a few notes for herself, to follow up in future sessions. She hopes there’ll be future sessions. Both of these men seem deeply hurt, traumatized by events that they’re just barely alluding to, and have clearly been struggling through as best they can with less than ideal coping mechanisms, trying—and likely failing—not to hurt each other in the process. They both need individual counselling as much as couples’ therapy—maybe more. She’s certainly going to recommend it..

They clearly love each other, though. And they want to make it work. If they’re willing to put the effort in, they have better than even odds in their favor.

Martin’s eyes are red-rimmed when he returns; he sits on the sofa as near as he can to Jon, who presses their shoulders together. Judith can’t help smiling at the sight.

“How long have the two of you been together?” she asks. She always asks new clients at the end of the first session, rather than at the beginning; that way she can get a feel for the relationship without preconceptions based on longevity. The two of them look at each other properly, for the first time since Martin came back in, and matching, sheepish smiles break out on both their faces after a moment.

“So it was three weeks in Scotland,” Martin begins, ticking it off on his fingers. “And then—how long?”

“Uhh, it’s...let’s say half a year, give or take?” Jon makes a face that says he’s really not all that sure.

“Right, and then we’ve been here nearly six months. So...about a year, all in all?”

“But we knew each other for over three years before that,” Jon insists earnestly.

“It sounds as if the two of you have been through a lot,” says Judith. “And not all of it gardening related?”

“No,” Jon says with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Mostly not.”

“We barely scratched the surface today—and that’s normal. Relationships are complicated, and it takes a lot of time and hard work to build understanding and communication. But I promise you, it is worth all the effort. You both made a really strong start today—it takes courage to be that honest, even with your partner.”

The two of them give each other a long look, and the smile they trade is tentative, but genuine. They haven’t solved anything today, have only just begun to reveal their hurt and their insecurities; they have a long journey ahead to get to a truly honest, healthy place both for themselves and their relationship. Judith has a feeling they’ll persevere, though—that losing each other simply isn’t an option.

“So,” she says, “Should we make this a recurring appointment?”

Jon glances questioningly at Martin, who bites his lip and then nods firmly, taking Jon’s hand in his.

“Yeah,” Martin says. “We’ve done much harder things. We can do this.”

“Together?” says Jon, and Martin smiles.

“No matter what.”

[youngbugandtonystank]

what's the difference between what wanda did to those people in wandavision and what tony did with ultron?

I have so many asks about this. Hate asks, and people wondering what’s going on. This is the only one I’m answering.

Both of them are responsible for their actions. I’ve seen people try and take away either Tony’s responsibility for that or Wanda’s engagement and accountability. 

In Tony’s case, the Ultron program was supposed to be a global peacekeeping program to protect the people, acting as a suit around the world to prevent events like the Battle of New York. He was doing it in the name of peace and safety. Tony was rightfully scared because he was the only one who knew what was coming. Wanda intentionally enhanced that fear in him and this drove him to create Ultron with Bruce. He has responsibility for it. Same as Bruce. He owns up to this, he took full responsibility and agreed that they needed to be regulated. 

Tony Stark: A few years ago, I almost lost her, so I trashed all my suits. Then, we had to mop up HYDRA... and then Ultron. My fault.

--

Tony Stark: There's no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I'm game. If we can't accept limitations, if we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys.

--

Tony Stark: That's good. That's why I'm here. When I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands, I shut it down and stop manufacturing.

--

If people think he needs to be in jail for it, then I’m guessing the rest of the Avengers too since all of them have made mistakes and killed people too. As a matter of fact, after the events of Wandavision, I’m sure that Wanda should be in the Raft, but because she’s ‘a poor baby’ yall won’t think she deserves that. 

SPOILERS

It’s a big possibility that we don’t have all the info about what happened in Wandavision but we’re going to go with what we know so far. 

In Wanda’s case, she did it to appease her grief and pain, and I can understand why she would get to that point, she’s been through a lot and maybe she was about to lose her mind. Instead of recruiting Wanda after the Sokovia incident, they should’ve given this girl treatment for her mental health problems. She just lost her brother and passed through a very traumatic war zone, of course she needs assistance. Cap and Natasha were the ones responsible for her because they were training the ‘new’ avengers. Sam was with them and he used to be a counselor to veterans with PTSD. He could’ve helped Wanda with some of her traumas. As shown in the series, Wanda did the whole hex business before meeting Agatha, which means creating that little reality was all Wanda’s responsibility. Hayward and Agatha did exactly what Wanda did to Tony (and the avengers/other people) in AOU. They manipulated her and played with her emotional traumas. Hayward showed her Vision’s body parts and Agatha started to pull strings to know how Wanda did what she did and her real powers while orchestrating against her. 

Both of them have made mistakes. No one is better than the other. I don’t understand why some fans want to make someone responsible more than the other or blame one character for the other. While Wanda gave Tony that vision and pushed his self-destructive side to obsess over saving the world, he did create Ultron, what Tony didn’t predict was that the robot was going to corrupt itself. Same with Wanda, while Agatha and Hayward contributed to her trauma, she held hostage and isolated 3,892 people to create her perfect reality, ripping these people away from their identities and free will to fit her own fantasy. Don’t turn this into ‘omg poor her, it’s Tony fault that she’s this way'. I can’t believe I have to repeat this but you don’t see Peter Parker obsessively looking for the person who manufactured the gun instead of the criminal who actually killed Uncle Ben. Ridiculous that I have to repeat this example. 

Oh and about Vision’s body (damn yall have a gift to turn everything into Tony’s fault for some reason). I can’t believe some of you think Tony (while grieving for 5 years) would give Vision to Hayward. You’re either pulling stuff out of your asses or you didn’t pay attention to the show. Maria Rambeau founded and was the Director of S.W.O.R.D. In 2018 (when IW happened), this is where she came up with a new policy within S.W.O.R.D. to ground snapped agents in case they ever returned. Maria was diagnosed with cancer, then two years later (2020), she passed away. Then, Hayward was promoted to Director of S.W.O.R.D., in his first years (2020-2022) he refocused the organization’s work from extraterrestrial operations to robotics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, etc. There, that was the 5 years. Then in 2023 it’s when he started project Cataract, which revolved around rebuilding Vision as a sentient weapon. Tony was dead when this happened. How come yall don’t get this part? I don’t understand, do you really think his dead corpse signed some papers to give Vision to those people? LMAO

Instead of thinking Tony would give up Vision just like that, think (possibilities):

Maria was the head of S.W.O.R.D., she might have just been keeping his body safe without doing anything with him. Maybe she trusted Hayward and he, obviously, betrayed her because he’s turning her organization into something else after her death. 

One of the Sokovia Accords regulations states that the use of technology to bestow individuals (the term ‘enhanced individual’ in this book is defined as any person, human or otherwise, with superhuman capabilities) with innate capabilities is strictly regulated by the government, as is the use and distribution of highly advanced technology. Vision signed those accords ('I'm saying there may be a casualty. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict... breeds catastrophe. Oversight...oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand’) The Avengers were no longer be a private organization and they operate under the supervision of the United Nations. This means they (UN) were the ones that referred Vision’s body to S.W.O.R.D., to a trustworthy leader, Maria. 

Vision died in Wakanda, not in New York. Tony was missing for 22 days after the snap, the rest of the avengers should’ve taken responsibility for his body.  

Why is it always Tony’s fault but never consider that other parties are also involved in this? 

I want to address some other asks with this one. I know some of you are angry because people are starting to blame Tony all over again, so a few things to remember:

Tony did not create the Accords. The Accords were the result of all the collective actions the Avengers have done in their superhero careers. All of them have made mistakes and the collateral damage of that was taken into consideration by the government and 117 countries around the world. He signed the accords because he knew that he could amend them with the support of the rest of the avengers and he knew about Thanos (something big was coming). 

Obadiah Stane (it’s so bizarre for me seeing that some people don’t know who this guy is, I’m guessing that the people who are watching Wandavision are too young to remember or didn’t watch the Iron Man movies at all which is highly probable) was the one selling weapons to the wrong people, not Tony. Obadiah was the CEO of Stark industries and became second-in-command for two decades. He grew jealous of Tony and began cooperating with the Ten Rings in Afghanistan, selling them Stark Industries weapons illegally. Imagine blaming all of it on Tony when Obadiah basically murdered thousands only because he felt a little green. If someone who you trust (he had no reasons to doubt Obadiah since he was like a second father-figure for him) does something behind your back (take into consideration that people like Pepper; who was Tony’s assistant and had knowledge of all of Tony’s activities and responsibilities, Rhodey; who was the liaison between the military in the department of acquisitions and Stark Industries, and Happy Hogan; who was his personal bodyguard and Head of Security of Stark Industries, didn’t know what Stane was doing either), how are you going to know about it? Tony trusted him. And when he realized what was going on he immediately stopped all of it. He worked hard to be better and people overlook that because they want other characters to look better. 

Don’t act like Tony was the only one assisting the military. All of the avengers assisted in one way or another. Natasha (who used to be an assassin) was in the Red Room, trained in the Black Widow Program in association with Leviathan and the Soviet Armed Forces, served for KGB, etc. Bruce Banner used to work for the United States government and was commissioned to create a super serum for them. Same goes with the rest, Sam, Clint, etc. Steve Rogers was a soldier lmaoooooooooooooo like, what happened to Tony with Obadiah happened to Steve with SHIELD/HYDRA in TWS. He trusted the people working in there (SHIELD), served for them, did missions for them and as soon as he found out what they were doing behind his back he turned against them. 

Knowing all of this, how is Tony always the villain for yall? I’m guessing because Tony’s popularity in the MCU, but still, aren’t yall tired of not understanding the plot and having people repeat it to you constantly? Watch the movies if you want to understand the franchise, people. Stop following the crowd. 

Also, Wanda is not a kid, she’s a 35 year old woman in Wandavision, she was 26 in AOU and 27 in CW. Hardly a child. Tony had almost her same age (38) when he realized Obadiah was selling illegal weaponry behind his back. The only reason people don’t fully forgive Tony is because 1. he’s a man and 2. he’s a billionaire. Even if Wanda was poor she still killed and hurt many people over the course of her life. Stop trying to make Tony the villain only to downplay Wanda’s actions. 

Both have killed people, both have made mistakes. They’re both responsible for them. 

[johannstutt413]

(requested by calligomiles) Utage/Zima

Fear is a powerful motivator. Terrified animals (including bipedal ones) will lose their senses of pain and weariness in the face of danger, either throwing every last muscle into high gear to ensure they can escape or facing their terrifier with fangs bared and knives drawn. Enough fear, however, could leave an individual paralyzed, completely incapable of responding to the stimulus as their heart races faster, faster, faster, to the point there is no control, simply succumbing to the weight of their own mortality and the gravity of the earth beneath them…

It was why Utage was so good at what she did: between being nigh-immune to fear and being god-damned terrifying herself, she could destroy her opponent’s ability to fight while never having such issues herself. Shishiou moved at times with grace and at times with utter savagery, a style none of the sword-students of Rhodes Island could exactly place. Whoever had taught her to fight, they’d done a damn good job of capturing her strengths into a form that left little to be desired except for its complete lack of self-preservation. Her regeneration, admittedly impressive, was sometimes all that kept her alive in a serious fight.

Today’s fight was nothing serious, though. Simply addressing a comment made by an Ursus girl with a red streak in her hair who was too straightforward for her own damn good.

“Are you really doing this?” Kirara, handheld bleeping as she walked behind the Nue, head-down, hadn’t heard all the details. “What’d she say that’s got you so fired up?”

“What would you do if someone told you ‘Conquerors and Kings’ was a shit game?”

If there’d been something less precious in her hands, the Aegir would have shattered it. “Ohhhh, they wouldn’t be saying much after that.”

“Exactly.” The trendsetter shook her head. “This girl’s either got a death wish, or she doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”

“...She didn’t say that about C&K though, right?” Just checking.

Utage shook her head. “No. Something more to my taste.”

“Ohhhh, gotcha.” Bleep ble- bloop! “Nice! I’m coming, Princess!”

“Sonya, please reconsider this.” The General’s own entourage, particularly her advisor who’d witnessed the inciting incident, was much more worried about the duel about to take place.

The chef added her two cents. “General, this Utage girl is reaaaaally scary. I saw her fight a red katana dude by herself one time! And she won without a Medic’s help!”

“Girls, I’ve got this.” Her ax swung like a pendulum in her off hand - luckily neither of her friends were using that side of the hall. “Ya think I’d pick a fight and just back out of it? Even if the Doctor isn’t sending us on missions right now, I’ve got to keep my skills sharp. Fighting someone I don’t have to worry about hurting too much oughta be perfect for that.”

“That’s part of our concern, though, Sonya - when does this fight stop if you can’t convince her to stop fighting?”

Zima stopped walking mid-stride. “You don’t think I’m strong enough?”

“She’s saying that there are only two other ways this fight ends,” Gummy replied. “Either you get too hurt and have to surrender, or we step in so she doesn’t hurt you that much.”

“...Whatever happens, don’t intervene. If she beats me, she deserves the victory.” The General continued walking, so her council followed, still unconvinced. She was a tough woman, sure, but to beat a monster like Utage, she needed strength like Skadi’s. Ursus muscle wouldn’t be enough to do the job.

The combatants met where the tournament fights were held, their escorts waiting in the wings. “Wasn’t sure you’d show,” Zima said, taking a fighting stance a third of the way from the center of the arena.

“I like new challenges,” Utage replied, blade drawn. “Not that you’ll be a challenge.”

“Hmm. We’ll see about-” And in an instant, her bravado was shaken.

The Nue’s face had contorted - not in a mask, like it did when she was focused, but with her genuine anger at the words Sonya had used. It hadn’t just been that she’d used a Higashi slur (unintentionally, she was speaking in Ursan at the time), or that she’d been insulted her fighting style (intentional), but that she’d done it during a training session, and no one had disagreed. A half-dozen of her fellow Guards, people she’d gone on more than a few missions with, and none of them had said a word. Well, if people wouldn’t talk, then her blade would say what needed to be expressed.

Meanwhile, Sonya had been caught in the fear-trap that made the Nue so dangerous one-on-one. It wasn’t a vague sense of danger, but a sharply personal assault, dredging back the worst moments of Chernobog and weaving the trendsetter seamlessly into them. The constant sense of being on death’s door, the near-lethal conditions and lack of supplies, the measures they’d resorted to simply to survive…the inescapable feeling that, in all of that, it was her weakness to blame for the worst of it…

All of which fell away as she deflected Utage’s first attack with her ax. “Sloppy.”

“You-” The next three slashes were much better targeted, but the General knocked each of them aside. “After what you said to me, I’ll have your head on a platter.”

“Make sure you eat the eyes. That’s where the flavor is.” Granted, it wasn’t quite the same General fighting at the moment that’d picked the fight in the first place.

Gummy winced. “She’s not wrong, but…Something’s wrong. Anna, are you okay?”

“That look Utage gave her triggered something, I think. Um, Rada, would you?” Istina ran out of words, but she reached out for the hug she was requesting, so the message got across.

“I don’t know a word of Higashi,” the Ursus was saying meanwhile, “but I can tell you don’t speak the language of war. Ever kill to survive, or is it all a game for you like your friend?”

The Nue swung hard enough to dislodge the ax from Zima’s hands. “If you don’t know Higashi, why the hell did you call me kon-chegai, then?” [Russian and Japanese don’t exactly have a word-pair that fits the bill for this situation as far as I know - something totally normal to say in the former that’s unspeakably bad in the other. ‘Of course’ in Russian (kanechna, конечно), and a not-safe-for-TV Japanese term for someone unstable (kichigai, 気き違ちがい), kind of bastardized, is what we’re going for here. Apologies for the language dive. Back to the action.]

“The hell are you talking about?” The dread was fading as Sonya’s opponent was proving less difficult than anticipated.

“I heard you say it before you started talking about my technique.” Speaking of, without her ax, the General couldn’t exactly block, meaning Utage finally got a hit in. “You were trying to start a fight then and there.”

So the Ursus simply tackled her opponent to the ground, wrenching the remaining weapon in the fight away and tossing it out of reach. No limiters now. “Whatever you’re saying, I didn’t say that. Rada asked me if I wanted sausage tonight after I’m done beating your ass.”

“...Well, shit.” The Nue kicked Zima off of her, sending her crashing into the opposite wall. “Guess we don’t need to do this, then.”

“Eh?” Kirara, Istina, and Gummy hadn’t heard any of that conversation except for the trendsetter;s last words.

Sonya pulled herself back to her feet. “The hell we don’t! I wanted to fight you! Don’t chicken out on me just because I, what, didn’t offend you enough?”

“After I launched you hard enough into that wall you left a dent?” Utage sighed, shaking her head. “You gotta learn to pick your battles.”

“I did, and you’re not close to winning this one.”

The trendsetter weighed her options. Clearly this girl was fighting her because she was bored, and admittedly it wasn’t hard to get bored when there were so many Operators and so few missions that were worth their skills…“First to fall unconscious?”

“Or first to surrender.” Her friends would probably have intervened without that clause. “Not that we’ll be giving up.”

“They’re gonna be here all night,” Kirara said, scaring the advisor and chef she’d suddenly appeared behind.

Istina nodded. “Y-yes, that’s entirely possible. Rada, I think at this point, we should call a medic to referee and return to our room.”

“You think so?” Gummy watched the first exchange of blows since the fight had started again. “Hmm…Hey, General? Have fun!”

“Hyaah! I will!” Block, swing, knock aside, dodge, swing, dislodge (got a little stuck there).

The Aegir watched that last hit before turning back towards the hallway. “Either of you play video games?”

“...You live up to your reputation.” A few hours later, and Zima and Utage were lying on the ground recovering. The Medic who’d been sent to ref the fight had noted who was taking part, realized they were superfluous, and taken a nap instead; plenty of blood was spilled, but neither of them were truly hurt at the end of the day.

“Reputation?” The Nue gave her a bemused look. “Which one?”

The Ursus smirked. “You’re tough as hell.”

“Ya think so? I’m pretty sure you still managed to wear me down. Hell, you barely even flinched from my glare earlier.”

“I lived a thousand nightmares before I made it to Rhodes Island,” Sonya replied. It wasn’t a brag. “You had me trapped in my head until you swung at me.”

Utage sighed. “Gotcha. Well done, though, seriously. Any plans for tonight?”

“Not yet. You trying to make some?” Was one fight really all it took to make up for the insults, perceived and actual, that the General slung at her earlier?

“Since you didn’t call me literally one of the three words they won’t say on TV back where I’m from and gave me such a good time?” The trendsetter shrugged. “Can ya blame a girl for wanting to return the favor?”

The rest of the Group had already gone back to their rooms, and it was too late to get food from the cafeteria, so…sure, why not? “I can’t, so what do you want to do?”

“There’s this burger place that’ll give us a free meal as long as that free meal - which we have to finish - is a five-pound burger. Sound like fun to you?” All that protein helped rebuild blood cells or something, right?

“...It does.” Honestly not what Sonya had expected. She stood up, dusted herself up, and offered the Nue a hand up. “Lead the way.”

She debated pulling her down instead, but ultimately Utage let Zima help her up. “Next stop: meat heaven.”

“Meat heaven?...That’s a church I can get behind.”

[phoenixyfriend]

I’ve been trying to figure out the best obi wan ship. They all have one slightly problematic thing this way or that. I’ve landed on the idea of obi wan and an equal is pretty top tier. But then I saw a picture of Coran from voltron. Coran and Obiwan might be a disaster but also both are dad shaped, both are bad ass, both are ginger, both have an accent. I think it could work. But another part of me is like Coran is just obi and jarjar mashed together. At the very least they hooked up.

Hey I just had restaurant ramen and Starbucks and actually feel like a human being so let's do something unnecessary but funny. I'm taking this as a challenge, anon.

Also IMO Coran has more in common with C3P0 than with JarJar

So obviously, both of these happen in Big Space, but the difference appears to be density. We see about the same complexity of culture and species interactions, but Voltron covers more galaxies. It's vaguely implied that Earth, at least, is the only planet with sapient life in the Milky Way.

I think the way I want to play this out, culturally, is that the Voltron area of the universe covers a much wider, but much more sparsely populated area, while the SW-verse is just the one very densely populated (in part because apparently humans just went Literally Everywhere) galaxy, where they didn't necessarily bother with developing the tech to go to other galaxies (except Rishi, which only sort of counts) because they haven't really even charted out their own yet. It was never contacted by the Voltron side of things because [checks notecards full of excuses] it's really far away from Altea and all that, and the Force shielded the galaxy from Galra interests because Reasons.

All this to say that the two franchises didn't interact until after the Voltron plotline was already over. We'll say it went mostly canon, except Allura survived because uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh fuck that.

We'll say that this is mid-TCW, you know, before Obi-Wan is a bundle of repressed traumas and bad coping mechanisms that's lost almost everyone he's ever loved to the dark side through death or corruption. He's still (mostly) okay! Anakin's not dark (or at least, not as dark as he could be; Obi-Wan doesn't know about the Tuskens), and Ahsoka's still in good standing and most people are alive and--and okay the army is a massive ethical violation he hates with his very soul and he misses Qui-Gon and Anakin's keeping secrets and pulling away from him every day but He's Fine, Guys.

He's Fine.

In comes a ship from not Wild Space, but beyond that. Intergalactic visitors, from the direction of the deeply concerning Force bullshit they felt a few years ago. Translation tech is decent enough on both sides that they get to talking pretty quickly. The explorer is actually a member of the Blade of Marmora, who gets the absolute most basic info (approximately this many inhabited planets, approximately this many trillions of sapients in the recorded galaxy, basic structure of the government for the past however many years, most recent conflict, etc.)

BoM person is like "cool, okay so you guys are really well set-up so I'm just gonna head back and kick this up a few rungs of the coalition ladder because this is way above my paygrade, I'll make sure you get some diplomats who can maybe help out with the whole galactic civil war situation as neutral parties."

The Voltron Coalition does send a diplomat! They, uh, also send Coran, who isn't technically a diplomat, but he's high-level.

The thing is, okay, that Coran is mostly just... passably competent at things. He's a jack of all trades, master of none type. He knows a lot of things, actually, but his practical knowledge in high pressure situations tends to be up in the air. He knows how to fix the Castle Ship and various technologies, but all of that info is ten thousand years out of date. He was a competent fighter at one point but these days his back gives out. He's very knowledgeable regarding intergalactic politics but, again, that information is ten thousand years out of date. He's also a little prone to social gaffs in dicey situations (e.g. the inciting incident in the Voltron Show episode where he misses the single day with clear skies), but puts in so much goddamn effort to make things happen.

In this manner, he's like a warped mirror of what Obi-Wan is and could be.

THAT SAID

Coran is actually really good with teenagers, and specifically with training them.

And Obi-Wan... isn't.

Obi-Wan's snarky and snippy and sassy, and he's decent enough at teaching and he's great at being a jokey friend and all, but he's not necessarily very good at emotions. And unfortunately for Obi-Wan, the teenagers he spends the most time with are Really Full Of Emotions. He tries, bless him, but he's just... he doesn't respond well to emotional conversations at the best of times.

His son-figure saying "You're like a father to me" leads to a response of... radio silence. Guys. That's not the mark of a man who knows how to talk about his feelings with the people he cares about.

In swans Coran with the various other diplomatic envoys of the visiting extragalactic community. The entire situation is really leading to a lull in the war because nobody wants to risk pissing off this clearly well-funded, well-powered third party. As a result, many of the High Generals can interact with the envoys, even if they spend quite a bit of time eyeing the Separatist representatives on the other side of the room, because clearly Everyone Needs A Seat At This Table.

It's a very tense situation.

Obviously, Coran is exactly the weird uncle that goes around telling plausibly-exaggerated stories about Weblums and Yalmors and Balmeras. I'm going to say at least one former Paladin is there, maybe Hunk. Hunk's fun, and also very willing to help Coran make friends and seem Amicable instead of Distant by correcting some of the exaggerations. There's a nice, calm atmosphere in a bubble around Coran and his nonsense, and it's a weird situation but arguably just... you know. It's good. He's good at making people feel safe around him.

Cue the hissed argument between Skywalker and Kenobi. The actual cause of said argument isn't important, just the fact that, in a dark corner where they're less likely to cause a PR issue, Anakin and Obi-Wan are having it out. Anakin's maybe twenty, still a lanky ragebaby, all that fun stuff. Obi-Wan is a the endpoint of every too-young brotherdad. He's thirty-six but feels like he's sixty-three. He's tired, but trying so damn hard to still connect with Anakin and just--just--

Obi-Wan gives himself a few minutes to calm down before following Anakin. He doesn't even remember what they were arguing about, really, but he has to mend the bridge before it frays even more than it already has. If Anakin goes to Palpatine for advice again, he's going to... do something. Obi-Wan isn't sure what, but he just has to fix this.

What he finds is... well, Anakin did end up going to vent to a man of an earlier generation who acts like a slightly eccentric older relative, but it's not Palpatine for once.

The goofy, slightly abrasive but mostly charming, brightly-colored representative of the Voltron Coalition is standing in the little balcony that Anakin's made it to, listening as Obi-Wan's recently-knighted padawan vents. The man nods and makes noises at the appropriate times, and then asks questions that are... maybe a little too accurate.

"You said that you view him as a father, that he raised you after you left your mother."

"Well, yeah, but he doesn't think I'm ready, or--"

"No parent ever does."

"...my mom thought I was ready to become a Jedi."

"I can't speak for your mother," the representative says, "but the princess of my people, Allura... I half-raised that girl from the beginning, and after the destruction of Altea, we were all the other had left. I watched her lead battles and bring life to planets, trying to rebuild a universe out of the ashes of what we'd left behind... I saw the evidence with my own eyes, and I still, every time, I worried for her."

"Why?"

"I worried that she'd be hurt, that she wasn't ready, that she'd make a decision she regretted. Often, she did, and I had to help her back up, and while she's always come back, stronger than before... she is the closest thing I have ever had to a daughter, and I will always worry for her. Every parent does. Do you think, perhaps, that your own Jedi Master, that you consider a father, may worry because he looks at you like a son? That it's not that he doesn't trust you, but that he doesn't trust the world around you?"

Obi-Wan feels his heart in his throat.

The conversation continues in that vein. While Obi-Wan can't say he likes the fact that this stranger is putting words in his mouth, if only as hypotheticals, he can't deny that there's a part of him that relaxes as Anakin does, as every frustrated fresh-knight question gets a measured elderly-steward response that's angled to consider the interpretation that favors Anakin and Obi-Wan in equal measure. Every word encourages Anakin to talk things out and lay boundaries and express his frustrations to Obi-Wan in the plainest words possible.

There's a story in there, more than one. The representative tends to go off on tangents, ones that Anakin sometimes finds interesting and sometimes just resigns himself to. Mostly, though, it goes well, and Obi-Wan... well, he's always been 'a nosy little bastard,' according to quite a few people.

(In his defense, the terms they'd used about Quinlan's 'investigative personality' had been quite a bit stronger.)

He eavesdrops to the end, and Anakin doesn't notice at all. Obi-Wan's not sure if he should try to address Anakin's lack of awareness of the world around him. He's not technically Anakin's master anymore. The comment may be taken as a criticism of his worth and capability, rather than a sincere desire to see his padawan not die.

He approaches the representative instead. He intends to introduce himself. Instead, the first words that tumble out of his mouth are:

"How do you do it?"

The man--older than he looks from a distance, more wrinkles than the bright hair would suggest, but not quite elderly yet--turns and lifts a brow. "Hm?"

"I'm sorry, I'm--" Obi-Wan grimaces. "I'm Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. The young man you were just talking to is my former padawan, er, my former apprentice. I've been finding it harder and harder to speak with him over the past few years, and it seems that every interaction we have leads to an argument. How do you... manage that? I can't get him to listen to me at all."

"Ah, teenagers," the man sighs.

"He's twenty."

The representative pauses, and turns to him. "Are you the one he says raised him? The father?"

"Well... yes, I suppose that's one way to phrase it," Obi-Wan says, eyes darting to the side. He doesn't know how to explain the whole attachment situation to someone who barely knows what a Jedi is. He has even less of an idea of how to explain his own broken ability to speak of emotion, the parts of his mind that Bant clucks over and attributes to his own complicated relationship with Qui-Gon. "I had custody as his primary guardian from ages nine to nineteen and was the primary individual for handling his schooling, health, and general upbringing."

"That sounds to me like a very convoluted way of saying you were his father in all but name."

Obi-Wan grimaces. "I'm not exactly old enough to be his father, and I wasn't exactly the person he was supposed to learn from; I was the... back-up option."

"It seems he cares for you very much."

"He didn't have much of a choice," Obi-Wan says, with the kind of helpless smile and awkward shrug he's long gotten used to sharing with people when they ask. "And I assure you he'd have been happier with the man that was meant to teach him."

"I'd say that the 'would have' in this situation is much less important than what is," the representative says. Obi-Wan probably should have paid more attention to his name. "I wasn't in a position to define my relation to Allura or her father in the way that truly suited our situation, by... oh, tradition, social norms, public relations, take your pick. I was a very well-regarded official, of course, but I wasn't royalty, not even nobility, and I certainly wasn't wasn't legally or publicly part of the family. But for all the limitations there, I was still able to find ways to tell her and her family what they meant to me, and they in return. Your apprentice cares for you very much, and I'm sure you care back, but I'd hazard quite the guess that you've no idea how to tell him that."

"I... I shouldn't," Obi-Wan says. "I'm fond of him, of course, but I've no wish to smother him, and to simply say it would be undignified. I imagine he'd laugh in my face."

The representative raises one eyebrow and takes a sip of his drink.

"Master Kenobi," he says carefully. "Might I suggest you go find your young man, tell him you love him, and perhaps give him a hug?"

Obi-Wan's face flares red. It's been years since anyone short of Yoda has spoken to him like that.

"I'm not a child," he sniffs, trying to angle enough away that the blush isn't as noticeable. He's damnably prone to such things. "You're not that much older than me."

The man laughs, and Obi-Wan lifts his glass to his lips in a futile attempt to hid the embarrassment a little more. "Oh, not counting the stasis, I've well reached the age of six hundred and twenty-four, my boy!"

Obi-Wan chokes on his drink.

The man laughs a little more, but thumps him on the back until he's breathing normally again.

"Yes, most of the humans I've told have had quite the reaction!" the representative assures him. "But yes, even with the times adjusted to what any given local year is, I am significantly longer-lived than most species."

"No kidding," Obi-Wan manages. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and looks over at the representative. He takes in the wrinkles and bright eyes, and says, "Well, I must say you look very well for a near-human of such an age. I can only name one person in that category that has managed better, and I haven't seen her since I was a child."

"I shall take that as the compliment it's intended to be," the representative says, twisting the edge of his mustache and beaming.

The man is... well, goofy, really, and quite a bit older than Obi-Wan had thought, but he's quite the charmer. Obi-Wan faintly compares him to a few different people in the back of his mind, but nothing quite fits. For all that the man is quite the jokester and--going by some things he'd seen from the corner of his eye in the main party--a master of physical comedy, the representative is actually more competent than he looks, and for all his visible age, not bad to look at. He is also, seemingly, an expert in dealing with teenagers and young adults, something Obi-Wan himself is... decidedly not.

He really should go speak with Anakin.

And there's a war to fight.

He doesn't really have much time, even with the recent lull.

He's in no place to be looking at the clean-shaven jaw and wondering what it would feel like under his lips, or to let himself consider whether this man would be the kind to have an hours-long discussion as to the narrative forms common in other galaxies, and whether they have anything paralleled to those in Obi-Wan's own, or if this man would show the same enthusiasm over teas that he'd shown over the hors d'oeuvres inside.

He should... really go find Anakin.

"I suppose it's time to find my padawan," he says, more to fill the air than anything. "Er... thank you, both for speaking with him, and for speaking with me."

"Not a problem at all, Master Kenobi!" the representative says, and Obi-Wan realizes that there's one last thing he may have... forgotten.

"This is terribly embarrassing, but I don't believe I caught your name?" Obi-Wan says.

"Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe, at your service!" the man says, with a sweeping bow. "As you can imagine, most simply call me Coran."

"Then I insist you call me Obi-Wan," he says, and before he can stop himself, "Might I bother you with an invitation to a shared tea time? You seem a knowledgeable fellow, and I'd appreciate the chance to... eh, pick your brain, shall we say."

It's not the smoothest come on he's ever put out there, or the most easily interpreted, but... well. Perhaps it's for the best. He's rather often found his tastes going in irresponsible directions, and it'll be much easier to brush this off without diplomatic incident if there's room for Coran to politely ignore the less platonic options.

Obi-Wan hopes he doesn't.

It's very selfish of him, but a dalliance with an older gentleman... well. He does, perhaps, make such irresponsible decisions, even now.

"I do believe I'd enjoy such a thing!" Coran enthuses, grabbing Obi-Wan's hand and shaking it in large, effusive movements.

Oh, this is a terrible idea, Obi-Wan thinks, even as he exchanges comm numbers and says goodbye.

Still.

He likes the idea of having at least a little fun, sedate or less so, while they have some time to themselves.