#those things were a monument to my childhood

[novelist-becca]

In my opinion the first American Girl movie about Samantha was the best one, and one of the most underrated kids movies ever

[miamicommune]

kinda miss feeling smaller in the world

[ninyard]

no but really. riko's "lessons" on grief crumbling the second kevin finds out about riko's death though!!!! all of that suppression, all of the buried feelings, all of the time spent avoiding and hiding and concealing left to rise to the surface the second riko is dead!!!

i am convinced kevin freaks out in a way he's never freaked out before, in a way that sincerely shocks anyone who witnesses it, once he finds out riko is gone. in a way that subtly begs the question about inpatient care and an extended leave of absence and rehab. in a way that nobody else really understands because it was riko of all people to trigger this meltdown, but in a way that is genuinely terrifying

that codependency, even if undercut by relief that the abuse is over, does not go away without a freak out!!

-childhood in the nest anon

oh that's such a good point. Especially if Riko was successful in not letting Kevin mourn, if Kevin never really grieved his mother because Riko said, "You have me."

Like, what if the whole basis of Kevin's avoidance of grieving his mom was based on Riko saying, "So long as I'm here, you don't have to worry about her." Imagine every time he almost cried, every time he almost said I miss my mom out loud, Riko would grip his arm or his hand or his face and say something to the effect of, "Your grief is a waste of time and the only thing that matters is me, is us, is exy."

And then Riko's dead? And oh, he remembers this feeling that he'd only felt in vague bursts before, buried so deep he couldn't even be sure he felt it at all. The words, "Riko is dead," sound like "Your mom is dead". They found her body this morning. They found his body last night. There's nothing they could've done to save her. He was dead when the ambulance arrived.

It's like this doubled grief, all the things he'd never been allowed to feel for his mom suddenly coming back up, and like, these are feelings that Kevin thought he was too young to have felt. He thought he was too young to remember, he thought he was too young to understand but now he's reminded that, no, you felt it. You understood. You just weren't allowed to feel the monumental loss that you'd faced. You weren't allowed to work through this gnawing icy pain in your heart. And now that Riko's dead, you're allowed. You're free.

But now Riko's dead. Now Riko is dead, and his mom is dead, and fuck Riko for making him feel both of their deaths at the same time because he shouldn't exist in the same world that his mother does. The pain he feels for them both should be incomparable.

I like to imagine that for just a few moments after Kevin is told, he goes into shock, completely and utterly unable to function with the knowledge that Riko is dead.

"Riko killed himself last night," David says, and Abby is by his side for backup, for protection, for Kevin's safety. Betsy is on speed dial. "They won't tell me much, but they think it happened fast."

Maybe Abby nudges him because nothing he says will be okay, or good enough, or soft enough so as to not destroy Kevin. And he hears the words. He knew they were coming. They had to come, this was always going to happen. This was always how it was going to end. But his brain goes quiet and his hands go numb and he smiles a weak smile. He doesn't feel those words at all.

"Okay," He nods, like he's just been told that it's raining outside or he's wearing odd socks. "Thank you, Coach."

"Kevin, did you..." Abby's voice is soft as she reaches out. "Did you hear what David said?"

His eyes are empty, someplace far away, but his voice does not shake as he says, "I did."

For a while, maybe, they don't let him leave the room. He's quiet, disassociating, but not yet crying. Not yet throwing things around the room like David expected. Not yet begging for a bottle of vodka.

Does Renee come to the door first, or Neil? Does Abby answer the door because David asked her to, and what snaps him out of it? Is it Renee saying, "I called Jean. I told him to avoid the news," or is it Neil saying, "Have you told him yet?" that snaps him back into the real world, back to reality, to Jean can't find out, to Jean is alone, to Neil knows, to oh my god to this is real to Riko's dead and Riko's dead and Riko's dead.

Everything is familiar and nothing is the same. His body tells him he’s allowed to mourn his mom now, but he can’t handle it, and he can’t handle Riko being dead and Jean not knowing and Riko being dead and his mom isn’t here and he just. can’t. get his head around it. It’s all of a sudden messy and loud and confusing. He can’t let himself think about how Riko probably didn’t kill himself, he can’t ask himself why Neil knew before he did. He can’t believe it. If he believes it then it’s real and it’s his fault and who has him now? That was Riko’s job. To stop him from mourning so he could keep his eye on the prize and now he has it; They won the season. He put all his focus on exy, and look where it got him. All those lessons, all that burying of his feelings and compartmentalising to deal with it later hits him at once like a fucking truck and I think Kevin had the breakdowns of all breakdowns that day.

I think whatever happened to Jean on his own in that dorm room would’ve happened to Kevin, and more. He’s lucky that he wasn’t alone, I suppose, but it still doesn’t make it any easier. He’s tall, and he’s strong, and his head isn’t in the room when he’s throwing shit at the walls and screaming like it’ll help make things make sense. He doesn’t see where the chair lands. He doesn’t see who the books are thrown at. There is a chance that not one person in that room has ever seen anyone lose their mind so quickly, and intensely before. Because it’s not just Riko, it’s his mom, it’s his childhood, it’s his future, it’s his abuser, it’s his brother, it’s his identity and purpose and fuck, it’s Riko. Who is he without Riko?

If I keep going this will just end up far too long but oh lordy lord I think you’re absolutely right

[starlesswritings]

❪ ♛ › * ✰ ❫ ⁖ ⁀ ➴ interpersonal. ░. ꒱

Vil Schoenheit never got up and close with anyone. It wasn't in his life to be able to get close with people. He was a public figure. From childhood, his personal life had slowly been stripped away from him, to be put on display, for others to swoon and fawn over the personal details that no longer were personal. That was okay. Vil was used to being in the spotlight. When one is under the lights and the flash of cameras are like second nature, things stop feeling amazing.

Perhaps that's a bad way to put it, but Vil wasn't sure how else to describe stardom. People thought it felt monumental, like a huge weight to bear, but when was born into the industry and raised like a prodigy, like a star, it was difficult to feel as if that wasn't... normal. Because, that was the normal for Vil. He worked harder and smarter so he could keep getting called back to the stage. He made himself likable. Why? So he would keep getting called back to work again.

"So. You have a few questions for me?"

"I do."

"Well, let's hear them," Vil said, leaning back with a regal air to relax a little bit, but just a little. He wouldn't want to look as if he were totally relaxed, unable to sit up straight at a moment's notice.

"You're a celebrity in this world, correct?"

"I am. I've been a model and actor, acting since I was a child."

"Oh. You started as a child... What made you keep going back for more? Wasn't it difficult?"

"Perhaps, but it's... useful."

Of course it was difficult. Nothing was ever not difficult in life. Men were not born to exist. Men were born to work. It was an intrinsic fact of life whether people wanted to acknowledge it or not. Men were useless if they didn't work. They needed a job to do. Vil had a job. It was a difficult job that had many faces, where more happened behind the scenes, and no one would ever see the full truth because he'd never tell them. That was his job. His job was to be perfect and exactly as everyone wanted him to be. That was his work. That was what made him useful.

"Do you have to be useful to live?"

"For me? Absolutely."

Why live at all if one was not useful? If they were simply wasting space and breath without making a contribution to the world, why were they there? Contributions didn't have to be something like donating large sums of money to organizations and charities that pocketed most of that cash anyway. Contributions didn't have to be sacrificing your own life to save another. It didn't have to hold that sort of weight that people recognized. It could be something foreign and unrecognizable.

Something, like smiling at the old man crossing the street as he could have needed some encouragement for the day. Lending a hand for a child who had tripped and fallen. Holding the door open for a large family. Greeting the sun and the morning air with a sense of gratitude. Allowing one's self to realize that it was okay to feel insignificant, because a lot of other people felt the same, and that just made the world turn.

"But, you aren't one of those, Vil. You're a star."

"Of course. That was just my path in life."

"Do you even like it? You're good at it, sure. But, doesn't a part of you hate your life?"

Vil flinched. The question was offensive. How dare some incompetent potato ask something like that? "Do I look as if I live uncomfortably?"

"Doesn't it ever bother you?"

"What would bother me?"

"Being recognized, for starters."

Vil laughed. "There's nothing wrong with being famous."

"Your every act is interpreted as a bigger statement. You are no longer living for yourself. You have to be under the constant gaze and scrutiny of people you've never even met, people who shouldn't be important to you, but they are. They say things about you, and it becomes so important to make sure they never say anything bad about you, right? Isn't it difficult? How would it not be, when you have to maintain a good figure that suits the audience — but your audience is the whole world? Get too thin and they'll say you're starving yourself. Gain a bit of weight and suddenly you're lazy. You think you can slouch for even a second, take a little breather, but nope! There's someone out there with their camera or the phone, and they're peering into your life like a stalker, like a faceless monster who doesn't even care that your life has been turned into a play for them to watch."

Vil wasn't sure how he had gotten into this conversation, but he wondered if there was a way to escape it. Another thought came to his mind, but he didn't want to ask, didn't want to broach upon what might have been a deeply profound subject.

"But, you can't remain quiet forever, because then, then! Someone comes along and asks whatever happened to you, as if you have to be in the spotlight under fire your whole life. You have to keep breaking records, making statements, and putting yourself out there, because you're not you anymore, you're what they asked for. If you become quiet, they suddenly think you're no good anymore, that you can't be any good because... well, why haven't they heard about you in the news? Why are their social feeds not teeming with thoughts of you, images of you, pictures and videos with your face all made up to be pretty to their standards?"

"Prefect..."

"Is it wrong to have a desire to get away from all of that?"

"What happened to you?" Vil wondered aloud, unable to help but become grotesquely curious at the person before him, speaking as if they had been in Vil's line of business for years. "Who are you?"

"I am Me. I don't know who else I am beyond that. Does it matter? Do you wish to know my star qualities? The talents I honed for years?" A bitter echo, a discordant laugh that was more like the pained cry of an animal. "Why do I have to show you? What makes you want to see me put on a show? I'm tired of that stage."

"The stage eventually calls you back," Vil reminded them. "Once you reach your audience, and you feel their support, don't you feel as if it pulls you back in?"

"You silly little dreamer."

"What did you just call me?" Vil hissed, as if he had been stung with a poison dart, straight to the heart. "I don't dream. I work. Dreaming is useless. Stupid."

"No. No, you keep working because you are still dreaming," the Prefect said with a sad smile. "You still dream, because you have hope, that things will change. If you keep working hard, that you can change the aspects of your life that haunt you. The things that torment your existence, the very air you breathe will become less stifling."

Vil wasn't sure what to say at all as the Prefect laughed. "I have given up on such fantasies. I am just selfish and stupid. I have no dream. No wishes."

That somehow made Vil feel angry. If asked, he would not have been able to give a coherent answer as to what particularly had made him so upset, but he said something incredibly harsh in the moment. It was most likely deemed wrong to say something like this to someone who clearly had suffered, but his anger made him do it. His anger made him spit out the words, "Then, why aren't you dead?"

"Hu?"

"If you find your life so unbearable... If you see no point to making any effort at all, why haven't you died yet?" Vil leaned forward. "What makes life worth living if you can't get what you want? If you are hopeless, why are you still here?"

"I..."

"There has to be a point to your life. If you can't find meaning in the things that you have done, what are you living for?" Vil challenged the Prefect with his words, voice swaying them to try and think about what they had said, the darkness that was blatantly there, and wrong, in Vil's opinion. "There must be a reason you had talent and chose to work on that talent."

"Whoever said I was talented?"

"I did. When people are young, their parents tend to guide them in the direction of wherever they seem most skilled, to try and give their child a head start in life."

The Prefect chuckled. "How miserable."

"You are only miserable if you choose to be so yourself."

"I choose to be miserable? How rich. I'm choosing to be miserable?" The Prefect shouted, "How does it feel to know that there are people out there who hate you when you've done nothing but live? How do you sleep when people mock you, make fun of you, spread false rumors and lies from things that have no basis of truth at all? How does it feel to be ostracized and cast out? I'm choosing to be miserable?!"

"Who are those people to you, that they make you feel pathetic?" Vil countered, fists balled up and clenched tightly at his side. "They don't know how hard you suffer, so of course they say reckless things! They don't understand the cost to get here!"

"How am I supposed to feel when that's all I'm seeing?" The Prefect weakly beat their fists against Vil's chest, because of course Vil was taller than they were. "People I thought were my friends! People who were supposed to be teaching me! Helping me! They hurt me most, what do I care about strangers? How about my friends?!"

The brief visage of blond hair and startling green eyes entered Vil's mind, but he pushed the mental image away. That wasn't quite the same thing. But, it was a little uncanny, how similar their stories felt, wasn't it? "Teachers," he repeated softly.

"Friends. Distant family. People close to me. People far away. It's as if everyone's out to get me."

Maybe they were. Vil knew better than to stalk his social media and check for himself, how bad the hate could get. The jealousy that ate away at human hearts and corroded the brain until it was rewired for violence and destruction. He knew that people were cold and bitter on the inside. Everyone was suffering from something, but did that mean one should cave in on themselves and give up? Giving up was unacceptable. That was what kept Vil going.

Rejection after rejection. He knew he could play the part of a protagonist. He knew he would play the part well, he knew it, but no one seemed to believe he would suit well. No, they wanted someone weak. Someone who didn't know what real suffering was like. Someone innocent and bright. They thought that was beautiful because they wanted to say they found that easy to relate to.

Ha, as if sunshine, rainbows, and daisies were relatable. The human hearts suffered. There were more cries of pain and tears of loneliness than there were jubilation and triumphs of joy.

Where were the heroes who had hit below the surface of rock bottom, and still chose to do the right thing? Couldn't Vil play that part? He just wanted to stay for the last scenes. He wanted to be the ending. He wanted to see that sight, what a glorious sight that must have been. He was chasing after that hope — it wasn't a dream, it was an aspiration, it was a dedicated goal.

"Whatever you want to call it, that's a freaking dream," the Prefect stated. "It's not going to happen."

"How dare you say that?!" Vil asked, pain shooting up his spine, towards his traitorous heart. "What would you know?!"

"They already found their figure for heroes," the Prefect spat out bitterly. "What does it matter if I think you'd be a perfect hero? What does it matter if you work your hardest if they clearly don't want you to succeed in your endeavors? They don't have to actively push you down. They just have to keep doing what they've always done. Things don't... things don't change. Life is a disappointment."

It was getting somewhat difficult to keep fighting someone who was so persistent in their darkness. Their twisted mind. The pierced holes others had struck into their skull were open wounds, the happiness and positivity they should have had kept oozing out of the holes like blood, flowing outside their form when it should have been kept inside. They had lost their ability to see the happiness they could have had in life. "You can change how your life feels. It doesn't have to feel so... difficult."

"Is that what you do every time you're given the part of a villain? Again and again? Do you tell yourself that you're grateful to be even acting? Is that what you should be telling yourself?"

What was the right way to think about this, actually? To not address to overwhelming agony that Vil felt every time he was to play the part of the bad guy... that's why he had blown up. He had overblotted because he had failed himself by not properly containing his rage. His anger. The negative emotion and pain that accompanied him, a person who others thought wanted for little to nothing. He had failed himself. Life was a battlefield not against the press, the reporters, the fans, the anti-fans, but against himself. He cared most about his own opinion. Rook Hunt could tell him he was beautiful all he liked. To an extent, he believed him, but that would only go so far.

No, he wanted to feel like he was beautiful. Inside and out.

But, Vil wasn't beautiful. He had such a long way to go before he could call himself beautiful. He was just an ugly teenage boy who was trying to be something he wasn't.

"I think you should stop talking," Vil muttered in anger. He didn't want to hear what the Prefect had to say. He was curious about their past, sure, their life before Twisted Wonderland, but he didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to get involved in their pain and suffering. He didn't want to hear. He didn't want to see.

He didn't want to think about how they had parallels and how they were similar in the most uncanny of ways. It was too much to ask of him. Too painful.

"If you wouldn't listen to me, who would?" the Prefect asked, voice twinged with a sadness and a pain Vil understood. "Why do I have to scream at myself alone? Why do I have to bear all of this by myself? Do I have to be strong all the time? Are you too, just like everyone else? Can't I cry? Can't I be sad? Am I supposed to hold my bleeding hands and feet to my chest and cry on my own? When I'm left holding my own scars, the ones I made, who's supposed to tell me it's alright?"

The more Vil listened, the less he wanted to hear. Too painful. Too much. Too similar. He wasn't sure if they were making poetic imagery or talking about things they had literally done to themselves, but either way, it was too damn much. He gave the same heartless answer he gave to himself. "You are strong. You'll manage. If you don't, you're weak, and the weak do not survive in this world."

"That's what a villain would say. What do you say?"

"Don't be foolish."

"Am I the fool here?"

What a riveting question. Vil was too young to know for sure. The world was full of uncertainties and this was certainly one that was far beyond his ability to answer to a satisfactory level. He didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to try and address this difficult question in the context of a heartless world. "You lack imagination to think up a brighter future for yourself."

"Try thinking of a brighter future when no one supports what you want. No one believes in you."

"What, in Twisted Wonderland, do you think I do every day?!"

"Lie to yourself!" the Prefect said with angry confidence. Hell hath no fury like that of a person who had been hurt repeatedly, again and again, scarred by one and all as if it didn't matter who hurt them, the truth of the matter was that everyone ended up hurting them. "Stop it. What's the point? You're never going to be a hero."

That hurt, coming from the Prefect of all people. At the end of the day, Vil was eighteen years old and somewhat unstable in the mind (as were most celebrities, whether they cared to admit it or not). Such pressure from so many outlets was not healthy for anyone to endure, and Vil was religiously hellbent upon enduring his sufferings all by himself. He didn't want others to know that things bothered him, that he was affected by the things others said about him, that he was deeply traumatized and scarred by things that did not exist any more.

He was still young, still trying to learn how to cope, with his personality, and in the end something within him snapped.

"What would you know about me?!" he yelled, hands clawing their way to the Prefect's throat, pressing down hard, cutting off their circulation and all ability to breathe in an instant. Anger. Pure rage. Jealousy. He was green with envy. Tons of people liked the Prefect. They were honestly teased but genuinely adored here, in Twisted Wonderland, or at least viewed as a person of great interest. They literally came from another world. There was some pulling sway that they had. "Who are you to judge me for trying so hard? I haven't given up because I don't want to, so why are you making it seem as if I'm the one in the wrong?!"

What would anyone know about Vil's suffering? What would anyone understand about it? How dare some idiot fool tell him to stop when he had a goal he was chasing after? He was Vil Schoenheit. If he wanted something and worked really hard for it, it was only a matter of time before he got it. Wasn't that the idea?

"Vil," the Prefect gasped, struggling to remove his hands from their partially crushed throat. "Hurts."

And, just like that, the curse was broken as Vil dropped his hold over the person that lay in a heap on the floor before him. His eyes shook within their sockets, hands trembling. What had he just done? Such strength... they were sure to be hurt. No, he knew. He had hurt them. He was everything everyone had ever said about him. A bully. A monster. Evil. He was a villain. Did he really deserve to even breathe?

His mind tugged this way and that. His ego versus his conscience were having the biggest smackdown of the century. "How could I have... after all that work... my efforts... was it all in vain?"

But, wasn't everything in vain? Hadn't that been the Prefect's point all along? Nothing ever came out the way he wanted. The results did not match his work and what he desired. No matter how much he sacrificed, it was never enough. He was never good enough. It was all a fruitless endeavor that would bear an empty harvest.

"Why is it that nothing goes my way?"

"I've been asking myself that question for a long time, now."

The truth of the matter, was really quite simple. Life was unfair.

People said that all the time without really thinking about the deep meaning behind that statement. People didn't want to address just how fair the unfairness went, or what kind of damage it wrecked on so many lives, while the real villains got away, scot free without having to suffer at all. Of course, some evildoers got caught, but it was always too late, and the punishment didn't feel like enough. The consequences did not match the suffering of the innocent, of those who didn't deserve what they got or did not get.

Maybe the Prefect was right. Maybe Vil would never be able to play the part of a hero. He wasn't cut out for it, according to those who had the power to give him that role. It didn't matter that Vil thought he could do it, Vil believed in himself, because the important people did not believe in him. That made his own opinion rather irrelevant and unimportant. Was this why he sought approval from the crowds? Was this what made him ask for other opinions besides his own. Validation, from outside sources, that told him he was beautiful?

He wasn't sure. It wasn't as if he devalued his own opinion. If he did not start out by thinking himself beautiful, there was no point in even asking others if they thought so or not. That was how he viewed things. That was how he chose to live.

"I'm sorry."

"Whatever for?"

Vil bristled. "For hurting you. I should not have, it's wrong, and now you're throat's damaged." It was, there was an ugly nasty bruise already forming across a neck that he had been squeezing just moments earlier. He was not an animal. He wasn't that floppy eel, he was supposed to be better than this, so why wasn't he? Was he really just not good enough? Was that really the issue?

"Oh, it's fine," the Prefect reassured him, waving a hand with a sad and totally empty smile. "I'm used to that. Though, I usually pass out before I get that far."

Was he supposed to take those words seriously? Were they for real? Vil didn't know, couldn't tell, because the Prefect had a mask on and Vil was beginning to think he couldn't read them at all, perhaps he couldn't read anyone well. After all, he hadn't been able to read him whatsoever, but could that really be blamed on Vil or was that Rook? Was it something just unique to the frenchman?

He didn't have time to think. The Prefect sunk to the floor and lay down. It alarmed Vil. Appearances, appearances, appearances. They would get dirty. They'd possibly get germs and other sick things from the shoes that had trodden these carpets. It was always about appearances until it simply wasn't. Why was he so obsessed with how he looked? It wasn't just how he looked, but he was obsessed with his outlook, and look where it got him. Look what he did.

"Prefect!" he cried, rushing to ascertain their condition. Several raging thoughts rang in his head like poison darts hitting a bell.

This is your fault.

You are to blame.

Vil Schoenheit, you are an evil villain.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, not at all sure what to do with someone who looked like they were seconds away from dying. This wasn't acting. This was real. It was really happening, and it was all Vil's fault, so of course he had to try and save them, but what could he do? The neck was such a tender area, it was so easy to permanently damage or kill someone from the neck...

"Please, live. I'm sorry. To think that I... I would do this!"

The Prefect smiled. Not necessarily a calm or happy smile, really. It was a little bitter and had some odd sense of bite to it. Not meant to hurt, but somehow it still did. "I won't die, don't be dramatic."

"You collapsed!"

"I told you. Normal. I was surprised it didn't happen sooner," they wheezed. "This is more or less an anxiety attack rather than you damaging my airways, you know. You didn't grip hard."

But, he had. He had gripped far too hard. He had hurt them. They had been hurt and it had been his fault, so he had to bear the responsibility of that. He had to take the blame because he knew that he had done something that had most definitely aided to the Prefect falling, no matter what excuse they tried to give him. He was most aggrieved at his own actions. He was really disgusting. Really villainous. Totally nasty and not worthy of staying on stage the longest.

"Can you breathe?" he asked quietly, briefly wondering at himself, how he could let a simple questionnaire from a person who came from a different world turn into something like this. Why hadn't he taken better care to keep the situation under control? Why had he been so stupid as to even answer such personal questions in the —

Oh, but there, he was already placing blame onto the Prefect by thinking those thoughts. No. The fault was his. He had acted out. He had been in the wrong. It was him that was wrong, not the rest of the world, no matter what he thought. Because, at the end of the day, what he thought was wrong. He was just wrong. Bad. No good. There was no goodness in him, and his actions only illustrated that loudly, for one and all to see.

"I can breathe, but Vil, you aren't breathing."

He'd been doing it again.

Vil released his own neck with a soft sigh, angry red marks visible, red, and ugly.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"I'm sorry."

He woke up. Startled, because he actually remembered that dream, this time, and it made him feel a certain emotion that he could not quantify nor even begin to describe. Vil was the picture of perfection. Even when he slept, he was beautiful, and it was not something to question, argue with, or deny. Vil was a beautiful man and he did things in a manner he felt was beautiful. Beauty had so many characteristics and interpretations. Beauty could not be defined with just a single word.

The Prefect had fallen asleep on his chair. Typical, really. They were overworking themselves and stressing about nothing and everything all at once. They didn't know how to be anything else, did they?

Why was Vil thinking about that, exactly? He wasn't sure anymore, but the dream felt real. It felt raw and powerful and it was...

"Pathetic."

Why had he had that dream? Why was it a dream that he had to remember out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of other dreams he had dreamed which he could not recall even a little. Why had he remembered this dream, and was it supposed to mean anything to him? Was he supposed to take it as a deeper sign.

A flash of pale cheeks and an innocent smile.

No. Dreams were not meant to be taken as deep signs from above. It was a message from himself, to himself, about what he must do to further take steps that worked towards his goal. At the end of the day, it was just hard work wrought in reality that would get him where he wanted to be. Absolutely beautiful, to the point that everyone acknowledged it, that everyone would see it.

That he himself would feel that he had truly reached that monolithic goal.

He could do it. He knew he could do it. He had worked harder than anyone all his life so he could achieve that star that was far beyond him, to grab ahold of his wish and make it his own, to catch it, to make sure that this wish, this one wish, would never leave. He wouldn't let it leave. He couldn't. Not even the stars would be able to deny him if it was his own hard work that had gotten him there, right?

Why had the Prefect been in his dream?

Vil wasn't sure. Maybe because they just happened to be in the room while he slept? That didn't sound like a good enough reason. It was never a reason as flimsy and dull as that that made someone dream — he didn't really understand himself, did he? He didn't really understand the Prefect either. Why had they said all those things? Why had they looked so helpless and hopeless? It was really...

"Pathetic."

He repeated himself, going in an odd type of circle, his thoughts ringing in his head painfully as he drew near and grabbed the Prefect from the chair they were almost falling out of. It did not cut a graceful figure, and in any case, he didn't want their back to get twisted out of shape or for their neck to hurt later. They were clean, he knew this because he had made them wash themselves properly for the first time in their life (Vil knew his chemicals, knew his potions, and the Prefect was glowing, if he could say so himself). They would not soil up his sheets by simply lying there, and besides, he had to work. There were things to be done, so he gently laid them down and stared for a minute or so.

Ethereal.

Vil started. That was not a thought he should have had. He wasn't sure why that word had come to mind. The Prefect was the last thing that could be described as ethereal in every sense of the word. And yet, as he stared down at the sleeping figure, that word kept repeating itself in his head. Chant-like in a sense, the word kept being whispered, like a soft beckoning call, as if the word itself was a type of siren that was making him lean forward.

"What a curious creature you are, Prefect."

Of course, there was no response.

Vil kissed the Prefect's forehead with an amused puff of cold air leaving him after he rose to his full height once more. He had things to do. Work to complete. Tasks and goals to set for himself. Dreams were not for him. Maybe his dream had been for them.

Satisfied with himself in an indescribable way, he stretched his muscles and began to prepare himself for an early morning. Whenever the Prefect woke up, it would be most amusing to see how they reacted. Should he put on a show for them? No, probably not. It was more likely to create more problems than not. That dream he had dreamed was already being pushed to the back of his mind. If it had significance, that significance would show itself in real life. Not, just in dreams.

He failed to catch sight of the angry red marks on the Prefect's neck.

[stitching-in-time]

Finished Star Trek: Prodigy season 2! Overall, I loved it, it was everything I hoped for, and then some. I love time travel paradoxes and alternate universes and that kind of stuff, so this season's story arc was right up my alley, and I think they did it just right. From story, to visuals, to character development, this whole season was just mindblowing the whole way through. The very ending leaves me trepidatious for the future, unfortunately, but I still very much want another season, and I want to celebrate what a monumental achievement season 2 is, both as thing unto itself, and as an epic expansion of what Star Trek can be.

Thoughts and analysis (with major spoilers!) below!

The biggest things for me this season were how Dal and Gwyn grew as characters, Janeway and Chakotay's relationship becoming even more of a central thing, and my boy Wesley Crusher returning as basically a Time Lord to help the Protostar kids save the timeline. As a Next Gen fan, I can't begin to describe how much it means to see Wesley again, and know that he's still out there, doing good in the universe, like I always knew he would. Beverly Crusher raised a good kid! As fans, we always joked about how Wesley Crusher is a Time Lord now, and now Prodigy said, yeah, he really is! That's what the Travellers do! They're literally like the Time Lords in Doctor Who, but with more hands on helping and fixing things, and I'm like yes, perfect!! I couldn't have asked for better, honestly, and Wil Wheaton does a terrific job as manic pixie Time Lord Wesley (there's no other way to describe him lol) without losing the essence of the Wesley we knew. After the horrible, hurtful disappointment of what they did with Picard and the rest of the Next Gen crew in the Picard series, seeing at least one of my first Trek crew getting the respectful treatment their character deserves means, so, so much to me, I can't even begin. My boy Wes! I love him!! (But dude- call your Mom ffs! Janeway is such a space mom herself for calling him on that. The scene at the end where Wes and Beverly hug was EVERYTHING to me. I cried. 30 years I have waited for that!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!)

Gwyn and Dal's character arcs this year were great too. Gwyn always had the commanding presence that said 'captain' to me, from the beginning. Much as I like Dal, I felt like it didn't make sense for him to be the captain, given his personality and experience, and it kind of seemed like they gave him that because the lead character always has to be a boy, by default, in any children's media that isn't explicitly aimed primarily at girls. But seeing how it shifted this season was really wonderful. How Gwyn stepped up to be a leader, and how Dal realized that being the right hand of someone you trust and respect is just as important a role as being the one in charge, was lovely, and paralleled the relationship between Janeway and Chakotay. Gwyn and Dal are kind of coming from opposite ends of the childhood trauma spectrum; Gwyn being forced to ignore her own judgement, and obey her father's commands without question; and Dal, being undervalued by his surrogate mother, being told and shown by her that he's unimportant and uneeded. The positions that they came to here, as a Captain and her Number One, and are the direct opposite of the roles their parents forced on them, and the exact places they need to be to overcome those negative beliefs and let their true natures shine through. It's so good!! And they actually talked to each other about their relationship! (or at least tried before they got interrupted.) That's honestly way more emotionally mature of them than almost any other romantic pairing in Trek! The kids are all right!! And I love that Gwyn is taller than Dal, and nobody cares. I can't think of the last time I saw a show where a girl being tall wasn't presented as a problem for her boyfriend to be insecure and crappy about it. Not making girls feel bad for being tall, and not making boys insecure about being short, is so important, especially in a show aimed at kids. Way to break down those gendered stereotypes!!

Janeway and Chakotay got so much to do this season, and I loved every minute of it. I love that Prodigy is basically a Voyager sequel. Janeway in the Captain's chair on a new Voyager is like, a dream come true, and seeing Voyager characters again is a special thrill for those of us who grew up with them and love them. (Ngl I was thrilled that my boy Tom Paris got namedropped twice! And so much yes to having him design the Nova Flyers!!! I've always headcanoned that Tom and B'Elanna stayed on Earth after Voyager and designed ships and warp engines and stuff at Starfleet HQ so they could give their kids a more stable childhood, and I'm beyond thrilled and thankful to have that somewhat canonized!!) I kinda wish it had been Tuvok rather than the Doctor along for this voyage, since he's Janeway's best friend, but the Andorian guy (Tysis? Why can't I remember his name??) does remind me of Tuvok a lot, so it might have been an odd vibe to have two similar characters. And anyway having the Doctor along did prove useful to the mission later on. (Though I don't know what it is, but the voice Robert Picardo uses for the Doctor on Prodigy is off, somehow- it's higher pitched, and the cadence is different. If I didn't know it was him, I'd think it was a different actor, and it's pretty distracting. But luckily the Doctor was mostly just there to be comic relief, and didn't have a ton of scenes.)

The character who surprised me the most here, though, was Chakotay. I like him a lot better on Prodigy than I ever did on Voyager. It's not even that I disliked him before, so much as that I feel the writing wasn't always there for him, and that they didn't really care to fully flesh him out and make his characterization consistent. His love for Janeway was one of the only things about him that was consistent, and they really highlighted that aspect here. I've never been much of a Janeway/Chakotay shipper, but I'm shipping it now. I know the die hard J/C shippers are probably livid that we didn't get a kiss or a direct acknowlegement of their feelings this season, and from the way it was going, I don't blame them, I expected it too. But I feel like Prodigy's writers aren't dumb enough to tease it so heavily without paying it off- I'd wager they're playing the long game and saving it for later, what with all the insanely shippy stuff going on between them here. The pda! The longing! That reunion scene! Heck, even Starfleet command knows they have a thing going on, and that Janeway can't be normal about Chakotay! Even the kids give them looks like they know there's something going on between them! The parallels between them and Dal and Gwyn, who already are a romantic couple, make it pretty obvious that Janeway and Chakotay are like a template for them to emulate. I didn't care one way or another about whether Janeway/Chakotay became a thing when this season started, but now I'm invested. They're in love, just admit it!

I love that they added Ma'jel to the Protostar gang, it's nice to have another girl to balance things more. And the fact that they named her after Majel Barrett hits me straight in the heart. So much love for the OG queen of Star Trek!!

I really appreciated Gwyn getting the chance to meet the younger version of her father, and get the chance to recieve some kindness and care from him, at last. I hope now that the timeline is different, she'll be able to have a better relationship with him at last. (I'm still not entirely sure how Gwyn can exist now that he's not going back to become the Diviner in the new timeline, but I think maybe it's some sort of alternate timeline/parallel universe stuff?? That's the one part of the timey wimey plot I was a little fuzzy on, but honestly the rest of it is so awesome that I don't even care that much.)

One of the few things that I disliked this season was Voyager A having a 'cetacean ops' tank on board. It was fine on Lower Decks because it's a comedy, so I don't take anything that happens there too seriously. (I just thought it was a SeaQuest joke, tbh.) But for a drama series, it really bothers me that Starfleet would take wild animals from their homes and plunk them on a starship. Even though they can communicate with the whales now, so we infer that the whale consented to be there, it seems incredibly unlikely that any wild creature would chose to live in a tiny tank away from their ecosystem and others of their kind. Animal captivity is not a cool thing to be promoting in this day and age, so I hope that will go away, and we won't have to see any more of that.

The biggest problem I had with this season though, was all of the references to stuff from Picard at the very end. Worse still than animal captivity was Picard's horrible storyline about using slaves to build Starfleet ships. It's like the writers on that show had never seen an episode of Star Trek in their lives, and had no idea what it's even about. They literally referenced the Next Gen episode 'The Measure of a Man', so they must have seen it, and yet they totally ignored it's message that androids aren't property, and it's assertion that creating an army of android slaves would abominable, and against everything the Federation stands for. The whole point of that episode was that they established the legal precedent to prevent that. To turn around and have that happen is a huge betrayal of the optimistic spirit of the show, and a shows a deep misunderstanding of all of the characters. You cannot sit there and tell me that any of the characters we know would sit idly by and let the Federation institute slavery. You can't convince me that they would just go on with their lives like everything was fine while that was happening around them. You can't tell me Starfleet wouldn't have a wave of resignations in mass protest, that there wouldn't have been protests all over Earth to stop it. Just casually dropping something as horrific as 'oh, our android slaves rebelled and blew up the fleet we forced them to build for us' in the middle of a show aimed at children is deeply disturbing, and deeply wrong- allowing slavery in the Federation negates everything it is, and demolishes Star Trek as a beacon of hope for the future.

I'm very worried for Prodigy's future if it's going to take place in that awful reality, for which there is absolutely no excuse or explanation that can be had to justify it. I'm absolutely horrified to think that it might become the status quo that we're just supposed to accept, but conversely, if they don't gloss over it, if they look at it head on, in all it's horror, there's no way to deny that everything that Starfleet and the Federation stand for is a lie. There's just no good way forward with it, I fear. If the Protostar gang were to find out that someone was messing with the timeline to create that reality in the first place, and that they had to go back to stop it from happening, and erase that timeline from existence, then I could be okay with it, but I doubt they'd do another time paradox plot so soon. I'm just afraid that I won't be able to love Prodigy anymore either, because it will have let me down, just like Picard did.

I desperately hope this season wasn't Prodigy's pinnacle, and that it will continue to believe in hope and kindness and the possibility of a better future, and to fight against the cruelty and cynicism that Picard's writers poisoned the Star Trek universe with. I care about these characters, and this world, and I want to see more of them. I would love a third season, but only if it lives up to Star Trek's ideals of love and equality and compassion. Prodigy has been such a bright spot for me, I've come to love this new crew, and being able to see my beloved Voyager crew members still out there being heroic, and being happy. I hope it can continue to be that bright spot. Based on what wonderful things I've seen overall in these first two seasons, I'm going to choose to have faith that it will.

Here's hoping we get a season 3 that's just as amazing!

[2012aura]

under your mattress

summary : everyone had their secrets, yours just happen to be contained in a box under your bed.

warnings : snooping

pairing : spencer reid x black!reader

you and spencer had been dating for around a year now, and you felt as close as you humanly could. but every human has its secrets, every single last one of them, including you.

that smile plastered on your face every day when you stepped into the office fell just as fast when you stepped out those walls. those very crowded walls that you called your workplace, and sure work made you happy, the bau family made you the happiest and so did spencer. but you didn't understand happiness, before this monumental change in your daily routine. as a kid, you lived in las vegas, in one of the poorest and crime-filled neighborhoods, compared to your boyfriend. he was a child prodigy, he knew nothing other than being so, but you, oh jesus you knew. you have lived as a naive girl, an antisocial teenager, and a once-running-from-cops sort of girl. you have lived many lifetimes in this small one that you own now, you were currently twenty-one years old.

you have gone completely sober, with no alcohol, no parties, and only the occasional smoking here and there. for these unspeakable things you have done, you had a journal that you hid under your bed, it was an old shoe box from one of your childhood pairs of shoes. sure it seems weird in your mind when you pull out the now faded sparkly box of some light-up shoe you forgot the name of, but the piles of letters and notes in there explained your every thought from every living moment of your life. surprisingly this wasn't a problem, you've had roommates, and partners who never really questioned the late hours of the night when they could see that iconic box being pulled out and you sitting on the floor with a pair of soundproof headphones. it was your safe haven, and you honestly didn't want anyone to disturb that, that was until you met spencer.

he was nosy, and everyone knew it, which wasn't a bad thing, in fact in some cases it was good. but not in this one, never would it be good in this one, the things you had in that box were sacred. you thought of it like the bible, writing every waking moment you could remember, and with that came good and the bad. it was an early saturday morning, spencer decided to stay over after the movie marathon you both had last night, and you not knowing any better sat your sorry ass on the floor and began to write. you wrote how you enjoyed spencers company, how you adored him and his words and his being in general. it was different with him, it really was, no one has ever treated you with so much respect, love, and care. not even your own father could come to this point, and your absolutely adored spence for that, you worshiped the ground he walked on like he was some god. so you wrote and wrote, and even as your fingers grew cramped and numb you didn't put the mechanical pencil in your hand down.

you didn't take notice of spencers not so sleeping eyes for staring daggers into the back of your head. this night has opened my eyes by the smiths was blaring in your ears and you had no plan on stopping the sweet melodies that studied your ears at this moment until you felt the bed shift, spencer was trying to catch a peak. he knew about your journaling habit but he had never seen it up close and personal, and he had never dreamed of it, he knew this was something close and personal to you. but what person doesn't wanna get an insight into their partners' life before they were together? when you felt the bed shift you swiftly closed the journal, with the long drawstring that kept it closed, carefully placed it inside the box, and slid it under your bed, into the darkness once again. you knew nearly everything about spencer, but he knew only so much about you. you didn't talk about your family, not much anyways, you always said things like, “oh yeah my childhood was fine, had my mom and dad, and i grew up alright.” but as a profiler spencer knew there were wounds deep below the surface.

you removed your headphones from your ears and before you could speak spencer beat you to it, “easy there tiger, i'm not gonna look at your journal.” he said in a rather silly way. it made you giggle, “yeah i know spence, just didn't expect you to be up so early!” you brightly said as your climbed back onto the bed, forgetting all about the music playing on your phone. you cuddled next to him, his slim form molding into yours. you like mornings like this, the silence of the birds outside and the sun shining hitting spencers eyes just right, letting them melt into a pool that you could drown in. “want some breakfast spence, it's on the house” on the house was a joke you'd both usually make, he initially met you when you were a waitress, waiting to get into the law field but things didn't take off yet. you worked at the infamous waffle house, yup a fucking waffle house. still, you two didn't start dating until you moved your work to the bau. “sure thing baby, i bet it's gonna be delicious,” and with that you were out of his arms and making your way to your little apartment kitchen, waiting for him to follow behind.

you wanted to trust him, trust that he was just soaking in the sunlight but your mind begged you to think otherwise. so after a few seconds, you came back and peeked your head in, and he seemed to be in deep thought. “hey spence, you coming?” he snapped out of it, and just nodded his head full of curls as he got up from the bed. you spent most of the morning fooling around and eating breakfast, knowing soon enough you had to clock in while spence got to stay back. the hours before that dreadful call at twelve were spent watching your favorite movie, midsommar. spencer found it weird but jesus you couldn't deny it was your favorite. eventually, that dreadful phone call came ringing in, and you knew your lazy morning with spencer was coming to an end. you hurried and got ready, not trying to spend any more time fooling around, more than you already had been. within thirty-five minutes you were ready, your hair in its naturally curly state and you made sure to make yourself look presentable. you were grabbing your bag on your way to the door when spencer stopped you, his tall figure now standing against yours, “you sure you don't want me to drive you?” he asked. you would've said yes if it wasn't for the fact that you had to work late, “no thank you spence, gotta work a little later today! but don't wait up for me, you deserve your rest!” and with a couple of couple kisses to his lips and cheek you were out the door with your cross body bookbag and a light coat.

spencer was left all alone in your apartment, not that he minded by any means, but jesus curiosity was eating him from the inside out. he wandered to your room a couple of times, sitting in the same position as you a couple of times. every time he decided to get up and walk right back to the couch, he couldn't disrespect you like that, he just couldn't. but one look wouldn't hurt, right? how much can a book really contain if he was thinking realistically, many people only write minor things in these sorts of things. so once again he was on the same floor, now facing the bedroom door. he knew what he was doing was wrong, but he needed to know. so he started reading, and at first, there wasn't anything major. it was dated all the way from when you were fifteen and there were multiple journals and letters in this box so this could take a while. almost every passage had an opinion about one of the letters which were all numbered. he feared that maybe they were suicide notes, but as he flipped each one over they had addresses on them, mostly the same one, but some changed depending on the year. he opened number one, reading it before reading the passage about it, these were all from your father. you had told spencer your father was very much in your life and that he always had been. but these letters date back years, years before these journals were even made.

he kept reading and reading and didn't stop, his eyes reading every page rapidly because you wrote a lot with those delicate hands of yours. once he reached letter ten he stopped, it was around eight-thirty now, and he knew that you'd be arriving in a little. so he put the letters and first journal back into the box. sliding it back under the bed just as you did hours before, he let himself sit on the bed. letting everything he read sink in, and there was a lot to let sink in. a part of him felt like he didn't know you, he didn't know any of this before he decided to snoop and maybe it was a good thing he snooped. he learned a lot, about your father being in prison for all of your life, your mother's abusive tendencies, the fucked up things about your siblings and even the worst parts of yourself. he let his head fall into his hands, dragging them down his face and sighing in a stressful manner.

he didn't know you at all, he knew this idealized version of yourself that you created, this fake person. he laid himself on the bed and turned off the bedside light, nothing but the moon letting light into the room, and he soon drifted to sleep. around three-thirty in the morning he felt the bed dip, he wondered if you had just gotten in or if you had been writing for hours. he cuddled against you, no matter what he still loved you, even if what he knew was fake. maybe one day you’d feel comfortable enough to share these secrets with him but for now, these secrets would be held within his mind, until they were bought to light one day.

[eternal-honeyy]

What Lies Buried A Luminary Oneshot

Astarion Ancunin x fReader!

Synopsis: In Smallest Star; Unknown we learned of Ottilie, Tav and Astarion's suspected daughter, but where exactly did her name come from? Well, a tale telling of one of the duo's many small adventures together reveals this, and more.

Or, alternatively: How an act of selflessness becomes a coincidence so unbelievable that it may not be one at all in 2,800 words or less.

Note: This fic takes place within the same storyline as my fics, Smallest Star; Unknown and Crawling Ever Upward, both of which you can read here if you'd like some additional context. This story in particular occurs not too long after the events of Smallest Star; Unknown, and was inspired by an ask I received wondering about some of the then unmentioned details of the story. I hope you enjoy! :)

Luminary Masterlist

As Astarion trudged through the thick underbrush at your side, he could not help but wonder for the one millionth time why in the Hells he had followed you here.

Of course, deep down he knew the answer to such a question. That even if he wasn't quite ready to admit it, he felt concern at the idea that you might otherwise be alone for such an emotional venture.

Because that's what this was, wasn't it?

You were going off, whether he liked it or not, to clean yet another grouping of untended graves, because that was what you always did when you saw those crumbling and moss covered monuments of death and memorial.

Every. Single. Time. No matter how often it meant turning back the very way you had just came after helping to set up camp.

"Any of those graves could be his."

Was what you had said when Astarion had finally asked why you were bothering to spend so much time and energy on something as selfless and futile as cleaning off the monuments of Faerûn's long forgotten dead.

And what was he supposed to say to that if not offer to go with you?

How else was he supposed to react to that reminder of what you had lost? Of who you were searching for with every passing breath and each twitching movement of your gaze.

When you spoke of him, you were no longer his fearless leader, or even the one he so begrudgingly called a friend, but rather that same scared little half-drow girl that you had been back when your father had given you up for what he had been manipulated to believe was the better.

You did not speak often of your childhood, or rather, that loveless angry thing that had been known by the name, but even so, Astarion knew enough.

He knew that you were the child of a Lolth-sworn drow woman and a man of unknown race, and that upon your mother's untimely demise from an illness your young mind had not understood, your dear father, who you spoke of with such reverence and care, had been manipulated by his deceased wife's family to to believe that he could not raise you properly because of your drow heritage, in spite of the fact that his lover had left it behind so willingly.

And so, he had given you up, tearfully and with a great heaving sadness, to your grandmother and aunt, who had taken you far away from the sun and into the depths of The Underdark, where you had been raised from the age of seven and long into adulthood in Menzoberranzan, that great drow city where your mother had been brought up before you.

You rarely spoke of your time down there, in spite of the fact that it had made up the majority of your life, but from the little you had said, the vampire could tell that it had been a time hard lived.

Your grandmother and aunt, true to their Lolth-sworn heritage, were all but strangers to kindness, their impatience vast and their tolerance for failure so minuscule that it may as well have been nonexistent. They wanted to raise you to be the strong and unrelenting woman that your mother had failed to be, and when you could not give them that merciless and borderline cruel nature that they wished for, they made their disappointment known.

And you'd never said it aloud, but it had been a lonely life down there in The Underdark, feeling as if you were the only half-drow in all of Menzoberranzan, and being treated as such. To some, raising a child of your heritage was a greater shame than birthing a third son was to a Lolth-sworn drow woman.

So, of course, when the time had come where it was possible for you to leave, you had jumped at the opportunity, and for the first time in so very many years,

You saw the sun again.

And now, all that you yearned for was to find your father beneath its heavy, heated glare, regardless of whether or not he still lived.

You knew not of his race, nor of how he looked so many years later, so all you had to go off of was a last name, nearly forgotten and foreign on your tongue in spite of it being your own, and a first one, known only from a shred of a diary entry found in your mother's old bedroom in your teenage years.

You could only hope that it belonged to him, and that the "dearest love" that she had written about was not some young drow boy known by your mom in her youth, when she had called Menzoberranzan a home rather than a prison.

And so, at each decrepit and unkempt little graveyard or lone headstone, you stopped and spent hours upon hours of your day cleaning off the names of people who had long since become ancestors to even those that themselves no longer walked the earth.

And while Astarion did not find much sense in this strange use of your time, he found that he could not fault you for it.

So caring for long dead things, so ceaseless in your need to give memory to the forgotten,

And what was he if not just that?

Long dead.

Forgotten.

He went with you to every ridiculous headstone cleaning after you'd answered that question for him.

He dulled his blade on stone cutting through cold and dampened moss, pricked his fingers pulling at long overgrown thorns, and filled his mind with the names of those that (hopefully) rested at peace beneath their markers.

And of course, that was why the two of you were here.

Trudging through the thick wooded forest because hours prior you had spotted some long abandoned grave plot while searching for a pond to bathe yourself in.

And what else were you meant to do if not tend to those old and nature burdened stones?

"Almost there, I promise."

You said quietly, doing your best to appease your companion before those words of complaint could rise to his lips, an act of familiarity that, if not for how distracted he was with not tripping over tree roots, may have disquieted the man walking at your side.

Astarion scoffed in response, but opted to otherwise remain silent, not quite willing to admit just how okay he felt with these ridiculous misadventures as long as they were spent at your side, and as long as they were spent doing something, anything right for the first time in centuries.

And so, the two of you walked in a comfortable silence for several more minutes through twisted trees and unkempt shrubbery, until finally you came upon a sun dappled clearing, in the middle of which sat four long abandoned headstones, all of them cracked and crumbling into near disrepair.

Astarion sighed,

"My dear, these are utterly pitiful."

And though he did not see it, he felt you shrug in response from where you stood at his side, allowing a few long seconds to take everything in before you stepped forward further, pulling a bar of heavy duty soap out of your pack.

"Guess we'd better get to work then." You reasoned, kneeling in front of the closest concrete slab and inspecting it slowly before raising the tip of your dagger to the moss that covered its markings.

Astarion watched you for several moments, admiring the way that your blade slid masterfully between rough stone and soft greenery, removing the mass in one careful slice that sent it sliding to the ground with a rather unattractive sounding 'plop'.

At that, the vampire sighed again, and then moved to stand at the grave a few feet to your right, his blade at the ready, never one to be bested by the knife work of another, even if (and perhaps even especially if), that other was you.

And soon enough, the two of you were scrubbing, scraping, and slicing away at moss, dirt, thorns, and whatever else had grown to hide the memorial stones of these people, who you both soon came to find had the same last name.

"A family plot." You said upon realizing, your fingers tracing over the letters of their shared last name, that beautiful thing among them that they'd all shared, and perhaps even still did, even in death, bound by that at least, if nothing else.

"Ugh, imagine,"

Astarion muttered, his nose crinkled in disgust,

"Buried amongst your family for the rest of time. How boring"

You cracked a smile at that, your eyes rolling as you hacked away at a particularly stubborn branch of thorns,

"You would think so, wouldn't you?"

And though he knew you hadn't meant it that way, Astarion was quick to quip back,

"Well, you know me, darling. I'm not too keen on staying buried."

You had stopped the incessant seesawing of your blade at that, eyes moving upward to find his own, seeking out any sign of discomfort or sorrow, probing him for some evidence that he was upset over what you'd said.

He hated when you did that.

It made him think you cared.

It made him worry you cared.

So, instead of commenting further, he simply looked away, refusing to meet your eyes even when you called out to him quietly, that edge of concern to your voice that always made his spine stiffen and his heart lurch.

He had no desire for anyone's pity, much less yours.

The two of you sat in silence for several long minutes, until finally, you spoke up again, the sound of your blade on thorns returning alongside your voice.

"Well, as selfish as it may be, I'm glad that you didn't."

Astarion did not reply,

But he quietly muddled over the idea that he might be too, if only just a little.

After that, the very same comfortable silence from before fell upon you again while you worked, the hours passing in a haze of slicing blades, frothing soap, and pouring water.

Until finally, the job was done.

The two of you stood in the center of the clearing, a few feet away from the small cluster of monuments, your hands upon your hips, as you both admired your work.

You had done what you could to clean and repair the damaged stones, and honestly, the cleaning alone had made all the difference.

No longer did these tombstones look abandoned and forgotten, and no longer were the names unspoken and unknown.

You jotted them down in your little notebook the way that you always did, and let them float off of your tongue as naturally as your mouth would allow.

They were known to you now, and you would take them with you on all of your travels, their memory no longer faded or at risk of vanishing now that your lips knew their weight.

That was the part that meant the most to you.

You hoped that your father had received a similar kindness, if his feet no longer walked the earth as yours did.

And walk they did, though perhaps not as gracefully as you may have wanted, a fact which was only further proven by the sudden shout of surprise you let out as you stumbled forward, only just barely catching yourself upon the forearm of your far more stable and agile companion.

Astarion's mind briefly wandered, making its way back to the last night you had spent in his tent, when your hands had grasped so fearfully at him, seeking out comfort where there had feasibly been none.

Though, he was soon brought right back to reality as he heard you gasp softly, his eyes falling to your form as you crouched beside his feet.

"What is i-"

Astarion cut himself off as he took a proper look toward the space where your eyes were trained, noting for the very first time since your joint arrival the presence of a fifth headstone, several yards away from the rest, in a far more decrepit state than the others had been in.

The elf watched as you cleared away at some of the underbrush surrounding the stone, removing that which had hidden it from view before.

"Woah."

You muttered beneath your breath, fingers tracing at the moss in search of a date that you could hope to make out without the help of your blade.

"This one is way older than the others."

You remarked, readying your dagger after a few seconds of contemplation.

"Good for one more?"

Your gaze was almost pleading as you looked up at him, and though Astarion very nearly groaned in response to your question, something about the lonely grave called out to him, filling his chest with some foreign sense of longing.

He needed to see this stone returned to some semblance of upkeep, even if he didn't quite understand why.

Not that you could ever know that.

An impatient click of his tongue, one of his favored shows of annoyance, and then,

"I suppose. Let's make it quick."

And at that, he knelt down at your side, blade at the ready, and got to work.

It took quite some time, that old headstone, the old rock all but dyed a swampish looking green by moss and time until you took an entire bar of soap to it in order to wash it clean.

But Gods, did it feel worth it when it was done.

The two of you leaned back on your forearms beside one another, gazing at the now far nicer looking stone before you.

It was different from the rest, older, as you had said, and bearing a different last name, perhaps the one that had come before the family had gained that which the rest had died with, be it through marriage or some other less traditional means.

Still, it was not the age, nor the difference in name that struck you,

But rather the apparent youth of the person that it memorialized.

"She was but a babe."

You commented softly as your hand brushed away at the ground, clearing a few stray leaves, though Astarion knew from having watched your personal little memorial rituals that you were more than likely trying to give some comforting attention to the child who rested far beneath where your hands could hope to reach.

"Three years."

Astarion replied, his own palm falling to the ground and remaining steady there, as if he could hope to heat it with a hand devoid of warmth, all too aware of how cold the dirt could be, so far below.

He hoped she had been buried lovingly, and in warm clothes that her mother had once held her close in.

He hoped she had been mourned in the way that she doubtlessly deserved.

"Not nearly long enough." You remarked, sighed as you leaned forward to brush a slight dusting of dirt off the O in her name, "Not for how long she must have laid forgotten here, unknown."

Astarion frowned at the thought, and soon found himself shaking his head in response,

"Well not any longer." He murmured, standing slowly, trying to keep his mind from racing in spite of the strange coincidence sitting before him, and in spite of his vivid former dream, the one that plagued him so at every passing evening when he hoped silently for it to return, if only for a moment. "We will remember. She will be known."

With a nod, you rose as well, standing alongside him with a subtle smile, heart clearly feeling more at ease at your companion's uncharacteristically kind words. "That's right, she will."

And then, as you always did, you spoke the title of your newest friend, this time with even more kindness than usual.

"Ottilie."

You murmured, her name falling off of your lips as if it had always been there, as if she were some long loved friend bearing a name that you said so often that it came as second nature to utter it.

Astarion sighed shakily, but nodded, his mouth twitching upward slightly as he reached out to place his hand upon the stone,

"Ottilie."

[tinystepsforward]

my therapist went to a seminar last week about childhood trauma and shame and we talked about some stuff that was helpful for me so maybe it'll be helpful for other people too.

in short, when your childhood's been Bad in a particular way repeatedly or over a period of time, fight and flight don't work, right? you can't fight it every time. you can't leave. so what you've got left is surrendering for your survival.

and if you've done that for a while, growing up, then it becomes really difficult to not just wave that white flag whenever anything related to that Bad or to the family involved comes up! bc your brain thinks that if you don't surrender you'll fucking die.

(on that note: she also told me off for repeatedly being like "but it wasn't life or death tho". if you were at a point where you had to make that choice to survive, your brain was parsing it as life or death ⁠— at least psychologically if not immediately physically.)

and it can feel really pathetic! that shame grows from the moment you first make that choice to live, bc surrendering is accepting that to live, you gotta see them as more important than you. it's humiliating. and that shame grows roots, and becomes this thing that eats your life, that what's wrong with me, why can't i do this. that maybe i don't deserve to do this.

i'm working on trying to set boundaries and/or address issues with family and i'm nearly thirty and have built a whole fuckin life for myself and it still makes me want to die every single time. but my therapist wanted to acknowledge the monumental work it takes to even get to the point where you think that you might want to set those boundaries. and i'm proud of myself, on some level. and if you're doing that work, i'm proud of you too.

[animegoil-vnc]

[ f i c ] But I know You

Before episode 8 airs and it all gets invalidated, I wanted to post this ode to everything we know about Lu Guang, from Cheng Xiaoshi's perspective. Because while we don't know facts... we actually do know a lot about who Lu Guang *is*. About 80% of this is pulled from S1 and the shorts, the rest is embellishment and conjecture :)

Read on ao3

---

“Doesn’t it ever bother you,” Xu Shanshan says with pursed lips, “that we don’t know anything about Lu Guang?” 

Cheng Xiaoshi’s head swings towards her so fast he pulls a muscle in his neck almost drops his quail eggs. “Just because he won’t tell you his zodiac sign doesn’t give you an excuse to talk behind his back,” Cheng Xiaoshi snaps. There’s a touch of acid in his voice that has her leaning back and putting up her hands defensively.

“Geez, sorry, I’m not trying to badmouth him, but you can’t tell me it’s not a little odd?” 

“Hey, now.” Qiao Ling says in warning and waves the strainer spoon in the air between them. She scoops some of the now-cooked meat from the hot pot onto their plates and adds calmly, “You know Lu Guang is a private person, there’s nothing wrong with that.” 

Xu Shanshan makes a face and opens her mouth, but Dong Yi puts a hand on her arm and Qiao Ling takes the meat from her plate and shoves it in her mouth. “Shush, my dearest Shanshan, he’s coming back.”

Cheng Xiaoshi looks up to see Lu Guang on the other side of the restaurant, making his way back from the restroom. He sinks down into his seat and mumbles, “I don’t need to know his birthday to know he’s my best friend.”

Xu Shanshan rolls her eyes but luckily stays silent, and that’s that. 

---

It’s not the first time Cheng Xiaoshi has been asked about Lu Guang. In high school, it was easy to shrug it off - he’d just met the guy, why would he know anything about his family or background? They didn’t really talk about those things. 

In college it became much harder. Oh, you met when he transferred? Where was he transferring from? It was harder to say that they didn’t talk about those things. They were rooming together, after all. How was it possible that nothing about his childhood had ever come up? How could he not even know his age? And once people realized that it wasn’t Cheng Xiaoshi just being scatterbrained or pretending he didn’t know, it turned into isn’t it a little suspicious that he won’t talk about his past? The 'even with you' was implied.

Rumors spread. Some of them were funny. Others not so much. Throughout it all, Cheng Xiaoshi doubled down on his stance that he didn’t need to know anything about Lu Guang in order to know what kind of person he was.  

Even now, Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t actually know much about Lu Guang’s life, despite being friends with him since they were sixteen. And that may not be accurate - it’s true that Lu Guang has never actually told them their age. They've only assumed he's six months younger than Cheng Xiaoshi, given they were in the same grade and Lu Guang’s birthday is six months after Cheng Xiaoshi's. That fact, gathered after monumental effort pestering between him and Qiao Ling, is already rare. 

Lu Guang has never talked about his parents or family beyond a vague shrug and an offhand comment about having a boring, normal, maybe rather serious upbringing. Cheng Xiaoshi gets the feeling he didn’t have a particularly loving family, and he knows that Lu Guang’s decision to forgo any other career prospects and join Cheng Xiaoshi in his business venture put an end to the already-strained relationship he had with his parents. They hadn’t even come to graduation, and Cheng Xiaoshi had fretted about that for weeks after, feeling oddly guilty for driving a wedge between someone who had parents, even if the relationship had been crumbling piece by piece since long before they’d even met.

Lu Guang’s life before transferring schools and meeting Cheng Xiaoshi on that basketball course is a black hole, like a book whose foreword has been stained black by a careless spill of ink. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that careless though: there's a cloud of mystery swirling about him, this sense that there's so much Lu Guang is holding back. But Cheng Xiaoshi tries not to take it personally. Lu Guang has stuck by his side and supported him in countless ways throughout the years - Cheng Xiaoshi can return the favor by not prying into what is clearly a life Lu Guang has no desire to share or even remember. 

He doesn’t need it anyway. Cheng Xiaoshi may not know much about Lu Guang’s life, but he knows who Lu Guang is. He knows Lu Guang loves cats, his favorite book is Pride and Prejudice, which is where he got their temporary cat’s name from. His music taste alternates between boring classical music as one would expect and, surprisingly, hip hop. Cheng Xiaoshi had wondered about the hip hop for a while until he realized that Lu Guang was using the steady beat and rhythmic lyrics as static noise to help him drown out his brain when it insisted on overthinking. His favorite tea is green Oolong brewed for exactly two and half minutes but he prefers coffee in the afternoon, medium roast with one single sugar cube. He has nearly non-existent spice tolerance, but somehow can handle squeezing inordinate amounts of wasabi into his soy sauce. He sleeps in loose shorts and a t-shirt in summer and sweats and an old cardigan during winter but he can’t actually fall asleep if his feet are cold so he prefers showering at night to make sure he’s warm before he goes to bed. He loves sleep but can’t seem to get enough of it and wears computer glasses because his eyesight gets strained easily after staring at a screen for too long.  

Cheng Xiaoshi knows what Lu Guang’s face looks like under the afternoon sunlight when he’s fallen asleep reading on the couch during the weekends. He knows what Lu Guang’s face looks like during the morning shift after a sleepless night, the way his eyes squint slightly as if still gritty and the way his face turns even stonier when he tries to resist the pull of exhaustion. He doesn’t get to see it often, but he’s caught a soft smile thrown his way here and there when Lu Guang isn’t expecting him to look. When caught, there’s a good chance he’ll end up blushing – for someone so calm and in control, he’s surprisingly awkward and shy when made the center of attention, even worse in front of a camera. If Cheng Xiaoshi doesn’t rile him up by making dumb jokes or poking fun at him, he’ll stand there squirming uncomfortably the entire time.

He has a good sense of who Lu Guang is in terms of morals too. He’s not always comfortable with them, because Lu Guang is pragmatic to a fault and has no qualms about lying. Sometimes it has been for Cheng Xiaoshi’s benefit, like when he lied to Qiao Ling about it being him that broke her special cups instead of Cheng Xiaoshi. But other times it hasn’t. Cheng Xiaoshi isn’t sure he’ll ever fully get over Lu Guang making him believe there was hope that he might save Chen Xiao’s mom. Sometimes Cheng Xiaoshi feels like he cares more about the mission and letting the past be than about the people they’re supposed to be helping. 

But that’s not fair, because he’s seen how much Lu Guang cares. Once, in college, they’d found a bird with an injured wing outside of their dorm. The dorm mother had scolded them for trying to feed it and told them it was best to leave wildlife alone. Lu Guang had nodded obediently, but Cheng Xiaoshi caught him the next morning trying to feed it before everyone else woke up. He’s the kind of person who pretends to be respectful and obedient but hasn’t listened to authority a single day in his life. And that’s the thing, it’s so easy to mistake Lu Guang’s sullen tone and deadpan face as indifference, but Cheng Xiaoshi is lucky enough to be one of the things Lu Guang has chosen to care about, and it sometimes overwhelms him the lengths that Lu Guang will go to for him. Cheng Xiaoshi will never take for granted the many nights Lu Guang has patiently sat by his side in bed, holding Cheng Xiaoshi after yet another nightmare despite the impact to his already fragmented sleep. Lu Guang never asks for thanks, never brings it up in daylight at all, in fact, but those quiet moments when the only solid thing Cheng Xiaoshi can cling to is Lu Guang speak volumes. Cheng Xiaoshi will spend the rest of his life trying to return that feeling of safety and belonging that Lu Guang makes him feel. 

Overall, Lu Guang is an understated person: he claims he has no skills, but he’s one of the smartest people Cheng Xiaoshi has ever met and his photographic memory made him one of the top-ranked students in college. He’s finicky and fastidious, but he can’t remember to water the plants for the life of him, and he doesn’t seem to know how to dress himself so Cheng Xiaoshi has been picking his clothes for years and making sure he doesn’t go out in the summer with a hoodie still on or in the winter without a proper scarf, gloves, and hat. He lets Cheng Xiaoshi drag him to get boba when he’d rather read a book, and agrees to learn a silly dance for fun despite the fact that he’s not coordinated at all outside of playing basketball. 

It’s nice that Cheng Xiaoshi can nitpick something at least, given how Lu Guang spends most of his time lecturing Cheng Xiaoshi. And even that, as opposed to being born out of arrogance or frustration, is actually the way that Lu Guang shows affection, even if he’ll never admit it. Being vulnerable isn’t in his wheelhouse, but Cheng Xiaoshi has learned how to pick up on the signs of Lu Guang being worried about him or, in a twisted way, trying to fill in the gaps that Cheng Xiaoshi’s lack of parents left. Enjoying being scolded by your best friend may seem like an odd relationship from an outside perspective, but it works and he wouldn’t trade a second of it.

All in all, he doesn't need a birthplace, or the name of his parents or his elementary school, or even his year of birth, in order to know Lu Guang. Nothing new he could learn about Lu Guang could change the way Cheng Xiaoshi knows who he is inside, and that's all that matters.

[anonymous-badger-238]

more questions (sanrio asks)

@nuklearis-sutotok I keep finding these lists on your blog so this means I'm doing it

sanrio asks

kerroppi: what's your comfort film?

There are so many movies that it's soooo hard for me to choose just one. I don't usually watch movies more than twice, either. But I'm gonna have to go with Forrest Gump.

chococat: what do you miss the most about your childhood?

Not having to worry about college and my future and politics and world news and everything. When I was young I didn't get it.

gudetama: which animal do you think you're most like?

My mom thinks I'm like an elephant. Guess we'll go with that, then.

hello kitty: if it were possible, which planet would you want to live on other than earth?

I'm boring so let's go with Mars.

pochacco: are you a naturally flirty person?

I don't really try that hard.

little twin stars: how would you describe your style?

It's mostly hoodies and jeans.

my melody: what is your dream job?

I'd really like to be a chemist one day.

badtz-maru: favorite place you've traveled to?

Medford, Oregon.

Washington, DC. Maybe I'm biased because I went in April and took selfies with the cherry blossoms and literally all of the monuments on the National Mall. And the weather was good. Reminds me of this song I was listening to after waking up at 5:30 am in my hotel room. What was I talking about again?

pompompurin: how tall are you? do you wish you were any taller or shorter?

I'm like 5'1 but I have these platform sandals that make me around 5'2 or 5'3 and I wear them whenever I can. I wish I were taller honestly. Then I'd be able to reach things.

tuxedo sam: what is your love language?

That's hard. I just try to support people by listening to them whenever they need help. Like I don't try to fix all their problems I just try to make them feel validated. That should be enough.

cinnamoroll: favorite dessert?

Almond cake from IKEA.

pekkle: beach or mountains?

As a born-and-raised San Diegan I am required to answer with the beach. There's always something special about that feeling when I'm jogging by Torrey Pines and taking pictures with the birds. The best time to visit is when there's the King Tides.

kuromi: if you could have any hair color, what color would you choose?

I've always wanted to dye my hair dark blue.

pandapple: what genre of music do you listen to the most?

J-pop obviously but also I'm kind of into thrash metal.

charmmy kitty: what are your favorite video games?

Pokemon and Project SEKAI.

chi chai monchan: are you more introverted or extroverted?

Honestly, I don't know. That's what I tell everyone. Going by Jungian psychology an introvert is someone who recharges by spending time alone and that's actually very true. Like I'm all for social gatherings but after that I just need some alone time.

lloromannic: what are your favorite pizza toppings?

Barbecue chicken. That's just how we roll in California.

bonbonribbon: do you have any tattoos? if so, how many?

None and I don't want to get any.

dear daniel: can you sing well?

It's not up to me to judge my own singing voice. I just sing because it's fun. And so I can mix covers and make music videos because that's my favorite part of the process.

my sweet piano: which social media app do you use the most?

Tumblr obviously and also Discord. Those are the only two socials I have.

So yeah I guess I'm done

[outofangband]

▼ - childhood HC for Morwen plz?

From this headcanon ask game here! Still accepting them

-Morwen didn’t speak until she was five or six years old. She responded inconsistently to speech from others.

-She bit Beren once when she was four and he was babysitting, hard enough that he screamed. (Beren had picked her up when she was playing with scrolls of parchment in her parents room and she was not happy about being moved suddenly).

-Very young Morwen loved to pick the seals off of scrolls. Baragund would often unseal the scroll, read it and then reseal it so his daughter could pick it off without the risk of her damaging the paper before it could be read. 

-Morwen is very good at arithmetic and enjoyed counting games. Her parents would quiz her on sums and problems and she loved to show off this.

On that note, my math headcanons for the rest of her family are: Húrin is good when he’s actually trying but he’s prone to wild guessing when he’s not, Aerin is good but double and triple checks herself so she can be a bit slow, Túrin is prone to getting easily frustrated and giving up on a calculation but his actual skill is high. Niënor had lots of time to practice as a child and is very good.

-Baragund is fairly short compared to other Bëorian men and Morwen, like Rían, was a very small child. It wasn’t until her last two growth spurts in her early and mid teens that she got much taller. Rían hoped this would happen to her too but alas she remained tiny.

-Aerin was among her first friends in Hithlum, one of the first people she became loyal to

-Morwen doesn’t speak much about her childhood in Dorthonion and she doesn’t really talk at all about her time in Brethil (I’ve written before about how I infer that her time there was not enjoyable and was possibly traumatic, beyond just the obvious post Bragollach and relocation trauma). I think she can be a bit brusque* when Húrin is talking about his mostly positive memories of Brethil. It’s a source of minor contention.

*look I know Morwen is often brusque but like, even more than usual

-The ways she remembers and preserves Bëorian customs tend to be through actions rather than sharing of memories. She never stops speaking Bëorian Taliska, even after Rían is gone. (I have more about this specifically and the ways Morwen adjusts, and doesn’t adjust to Hithlum in other posts!)

-Her reputation for being proud and stern began well before adulthood.

-Morwen would consistently refuse help or even company from most people in Hithlum as a teenager and she very rarely smiled. There were definitely those who saw her refusal to assimilate to Hadorian culture as pride in the most negative sense.*Those who did become close to her know Morwen as fiercely loyal to her loved ones

*Morwen’s refusal to assimilate is related to her pride but I don’t see this as negative about her at all. She is holding a monumental burden, trying to maintain her culture, language and traditions after catastrophic destruction and she is almost entirely alone in it. I’m not good at wording things about this but it is so important to me. Her pride and grief and pain are all so important to me

Thank you so much for the ask! I love Morwen very much and I hope this is ok!

[apidusurper]

Yesterday, in a class for my History degree in uni, we did something a little more interactive. Our professor asked us all to bring photos of us from our time in school. She's been teaching us "Memory and Monumentality" for the last semester, and it was pretty dang appropriate - I have to admit. I don’t have many photos from back then, I was really camera shy for most of my conscious childhood and teenage years. At the time, of course, I didn’t know why that was, and I suppose I never bothered to think much about it - not until yesterday at least.

I brought the only picture I had, something that was stuck to the fridge for soon to be 20 years. After cataloging it with the archive’s system, she asked us to write about the memories it brought when we looked at the picture. That way, we’d be playing both archivist and historian - in writing about it technically and emotionally. And as I stared and wrote, I noticed how much of it was a blur, a miasma of half remembered joys and stinging scorn. The times my parents yelled at me; how far away I felt from people; how the kids I’d call friends wouldn’t care for me - taking advantage of my innocence and desperation for company. Little islands of discomfort, funny how they were the only things I remembered well. That’s negativity bias for ya!

Funnily enough, that wasn’t what got me the most emotional. It was me noticing why I felt the way I did. Part of it could have been gender stuff, probably - but stronger than anything was the - at the time - undiagnosed autism. I saw and understood the world not like anyone else in my class, couldn’t understand the jokes they made, or the lies they spun. I felt like an alien, a stranger. Which only got worse after I started highschool and had to change where I was being educated! Fuck, I was such an angsty kid then lol.

Not sure why, but it made me want to tear up - had to wait until I got home to do that tho. I guess it was sympathy for little me, wanting to hold them and help them. Even if realistically, I wouldn’t change their experiences. Afterall, those happenings, good and bad, are what made me… me! And I’m pretty happy with myself.

I don’t like dwelling on the past, but it was nice to try and remember this foggy time. Maybe I’ll do some more of it again later, it puts… So, so, so much of what I did back then into perspective. Autism and - when hormones kicked in - dysphoria making me preeetty confused with everything.

Not sure if this is a vent or what, but it was nice to type out. Probably another thing to do more often! Incoherent journaling rules

[doctornolonger]

Thoughts on the Vashta Nerada? In general I mean. I think they’re interesting. Though probably very hard to write for. In my mind (that hasn’t stopped Big Finish from trying, idk). What do you think?

If I wanted to write a story about living shadows accompanied by spooky people with skeleton faces, I'd just do another Faction Paradox!

In The Ghost Monument, there's a scene where the camera focuses on a normal-looking pool of water and the Doctor explains that it's full of "flesh-eating microbes, millions of them." This line may have ruined "microorganism swarm" villains for me permanently. Come to think of it, it's the same as midichlorians (The Phantom Menace's intracellular organisms which explain Force sensitivity). Something was undeniably lost when the Force stopped being – to abuse a term – ontologically simple: understood as a monolithic entity rather than something composed of parts. To give George Lucas some credit, I do believe that he would have redeemed midichlorians if the overwhelming fan backlash hadn't prevented him from elaborating further.

But I digress. In Silence and Forest, Moffat stops just short of "flesh-eating microbes". He's too much a poet for that. The Vashta Nerada are "microspores", an "infestation", a "the dust in sunbeams." He's combining ideas here, multiple angles for the old childhood terror / "familiar made uncanny" attack.* And – okay, he also says they're a "man-eating swarm". You can't win them all.

From a purely materialist perspective, a shadow isn't a thing in and of itself. It's the product of an object and a light source, and it cannot exist independently of either of those things. You might say that your shadow is "holding" something, but really that's just shorthand for "I am holding an object, so the shadow I have cast appears to be holding the shadow cast by the object in my hand." It's literally a trick of the light.

But in Peter Pan, shadows are objects in and of themselves. In that story they function not as they exist in material reality but as humans understand them: entities in their own right. Not a "light-object-patterns", a shadow. And in this lens, nothing stops them from existing separate from ourselves. This pivot from reality to the mind's understanding of reality – so to speak, from territory to map – is how ritual works across human societies, and it's what Faction Paradox is all about. In the territory, there were no days between 2 and 14 September 1752. In the map, there's enough to build an Empire.**

Even within the constaints he's built for himself, Moffat can't stop himself from having it both ways. On one hand, Vashta Nerada are allergic to light and hide in the shadows; on the other hand, they can actually encroach on the light and cast shadows themselves for spooky effect. The Doctor tells us, "Count the shadows" – a line straight out of Peter Pan. Or Interference.

*The FP series uses the same "familiar made uncanny" approach in the development of its mythology, but rather than the dust in sunbeams, its targets are the core elements of Doctor Who itself, and science fiction more generally.

**In fact, this is the only sense in which Faction Paradox can be said to be Faction Paradox. Lawrence Miles insisted that the Faction isn't interested in paradoxes at all; it chose the name Paradox not because of what paradoxes are in the territory but because of what the word means in the map: the opposite of the Great Houses' ideology of organized cause and effect.

Both of these bullets are actually the same point, and they're at the heart of what I tried to say in "Crimes Against History"…

***Apropos of nothing, a theory I'd forgotten I posted 6 years ago:

Or, since Faction Paradox may have been wiped from time at the end of the War, are the Vashta Nerada their now-person-less shadows?

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

Ooooh flower ask! Daisy, snapdragon, hydrangea, and heather -@cryingtulips

what’s your best childhood memory?

Oooh, that’s a good question :)

Anything to do with my three cousins, honestly. I have so many amazing wonderful perfect memories of them, and I desperately wish I could return to those times and live in them a while longer.

A memory that particularly stands out is from quite a few years ago; I was spending the night with my cousins (all around my age) in a hotel, and me and my Best Friend Cousin were laying on one of the beds watching Brain Games on his phone. It’s such a simple moment, nothing big or monumental happening, and I look back on it with such fondness. He really was my best friend for like, over a decade. We had such great times together :)

favourite mythical creature?

Pegasussssssss I love those bird horses <3 Ever since I read The Guardian Herd as a young girl they’ve been some of my favorite creatures!

proudest moment?

Hmm… I’m actually not too sure! I guess that I was able to train my dog to do a whole bunch of tricks? Not really a specific moment though, and it’s more me being proud of my dog, for being able to do all those things :)

what’s your favourite musical?

I’m really not a huge musical fan 😅 Hamilton is the only true one I’ve ever seen.

Do animated movies count?? If so, I think Encanto’s songs were very well-done, even if the story itself was kinda… lacking to me. But the songs were fantastic!!!

[bradenthompson]

Book Announcement: Illcontinuum! (available now)

There's something buried under Wishkah Shopping Center.

Or that was the story Junior heard growing up.

Now that Junior's an adult, all his friends have moved away, and all the remaining artifacts of his childhood have been demolished or remodeled, 

Wishkah Shopping Center is all that remains of the world he was once so comfortable living in.

Now Wishkah is earmarked for implosion, and Junior had precious little time to confirm or deny the biggest mystery of his youth.

An eclectic dirge through a sacred retail monolith, equal parts silent and expired yet lively and inexplicable, Junior finds a titanic mall fighting against its own damnation, producing "ghosts" of its previous tenants and slowly revealing the all-encompassing role it had always been playing in his life. All roads leading to the inconvenient reality that Wishkah shopping center isn't the only thing doomed.

illcontinuum.carrd.co

I thought I'd be announcing Illcontinuum was done and available four months ago, but given the release day and the personal circumstances which this book was completed under, time really is just a friendly suggestion.

This is a book that really snuck up on me, fueled largely by the feelings I needed to unpack following my graduation from college last summer. At no other stage of my life, at no graduational checkpoint, did I experience the same listlessness and grief I did in those first few weeks after unpacking my dorm and heading home for good. In my dreams I was back at college but, obviously, that dream college was exactly such. In the days before taking the podium I'd smoke weed and play arcade games downtown (ever spiral before? It's not without fun) -- unpacking, alone, what exactly I was going to miss.

And it was from those liquid lunches (I'd have a bag of funyuns or something from the vending machine) that Illcontinuum took shape. I've long dug on the notion of liminal spaces but, if you'll let me be real, I do not like the popular set of feelings this suburban phantom pain has taken. Why does it have to be scary? Hm? I'll be less of a sass; is horror, or dread, or melancholy, the only valid emotions we can explore regarding the retail/municipal monuments we leave to waste away in the crannies of our minds? I don't think so. I think in-between there's a very real warmth, and if Illcontinuum were to be listed among "new horror novels" I would worry I had done something wrong.

The end result of what proved to be a turbulent drafting process (probably the hardest time I've had writing one book) is what I think is my most complex and satisfying work. Not always clear and not always meant to be taken literally, the novel enters Wishkah shopping center within a few pages and does not leave until the curious and socially diminutive Junior is cracked open, leaking personal gooey stuff all over the tile.

I'm not sure how that last sentence came to be but I can't bring myself to rewrite it. Anyway...

While reading, feel free to replace details. Readers ought to bring themselves to the text regardless, but do not fight the moments where Junior becomes you (not You from Radiosault but you in specific) and Wishkah becomes the mall you remember but will never see again. Ask yourself what it is you'd be looking for were you given the chance to go back. And laugh a little--the book is funny.

Without further ado, enjoy Illcontinuum. And keep in mind the three initials you'll enter at the high score screen. I use BRA.

[subspaceember]

Thinking on Education

I just started reading a work on what I've learned is called "unschooling". I had never heard that term before now, however it seems to somewhat align with how I learned - or at least some of how I learned. Growing up I was homeschooled. This is something that I've given quite a lot of thought about over the years. Sometimes I've felt more or less distraught about my childhood education. I used to wonder if a lot of what I thought were social shortcomings were influenced by my homeschooling. After much further reflection - I think that disparity has much more to do with my autism and queerness, rather than simply my education; and from living in a system designed to leave people like me out - or worse destroy us. However I also know that my homeschooling adventure wasn't perfect. Namely because my parents weren't perfect. I remember fondly the aspects of my education which aligned with unschooling much better than the parts that were home-schooling. Examples include my learning how to program computers, and disassembling VCRs, and looking at mushrooms and birds, and looking them up in books. My parents did do a decent enough job providing me with access to some amount of resources for allowing me to just learn and explore what I wanted to. However, then came church.

My parents and nearly all of my family are deeply lost in stuffy Baptist churches that smell of dust and rubbery green beans and sound like casual bigotry and fluorescent lamps. I grew up in churches like that. So the lecturing and conforming that I lacked at home, I got from church. I remember Sunday school lessons taught by long-retired school teachers who smelled of gas station cigarettes and thought the paddle was the best thing to ever happen to kids. In my reflection now, church was worse than school in most regards. It pushed rhetoric and the idea that there was a "norm" I had to comply with. Then it pushed homophobia and causal racist remarks. And then it followed me home.

Growing up was confusing in many regards, because for every interesting thing I could chase down, there was something else my parents refused to let me explore. Mushrooms and plants and computers and electronics were all fine. But then then there would be something that clashed with the church. They refused to teach evolution, refused to teach anything about sex or gender, refused to comment on racism or queer identities. I remember when I first started getting curious about sex, I worked up to it, and then asked my parents about masturbating. Their response? "Never do that again." That was all I got. This was very confusing to me, why was this off-limits? I started having other questions, questions I couldn't get the answer to, I started wanting to explore what it would be like to be fem instead. But that knowledge definitely wasn't allowed (not that they had it in the first place). It wouldn't be until much later that I would learn of transitioning, and hormones and gender and sex. Because that was forbidden knowledge.

Then, there were dad's meetings.

Now I know them as alt-right neo-Nazis. The people he hung around with. We would go every Tuesday to the meeting. Men and women were not allowed to sit together. The room would be literally divided in half. Then they would start talking. What was said in those rooms was beyond causal racism and bigotry. It was hatred. They hated anyone different, anyone who didn't conform. Even back then, I knew I was a part of what they hated. While they spouted how much they hated minorities, I drew robots and circuits and plants on their printouts. Printouts that said they were going to go stand in front of monuments to long-dead racist fascists - and shoot anyone who got too close with assault rifles. On top of those words, I drew flowers.

I understand now why I felt the way I did about public school, about the system, when I was younger. The truth is, I was never born into the Matrix in the first place. So I stood outside and could criticize its shortcomings. I saw people my own age being treated as prisoners, trapped in big cement block buildings, where they weren't allowed to use the bathroom. Huh. "Weren't allowed to use the bathroom." Almost poetic isn't it. I remember first interacting with other kids, and learning that they hated reading and they hated learning. This was so strange to me! I didn't understand how anyone could hate ALL of learning! What an awful thing to say. Now there were parts of mine I did hate. The parts that weren't unschooling, and were just schooling. My mom hovering over me while I sobbed trying to finish math problems. I would have to do a big sheet of them, but instead stared out the window at birds and dreamed. I think I would have found a better love of mathematics if I was allowed to come across it organically. Same for spelling, another area in which the system said I struggled. However, I do also understand that my parents hands were tied on this. If I didn't perform well enough on a standardized exam each year, they would be forced to enroll me into public school. I hated those exams. Long slogs of math problems and questions. Then, later on, came standardized testing. For someone who grew up outside the system, the SAT and ACT were hell. It was being forced into the Matrix. I was being assimilated into a world I knew wanted to destroy people like me. I didn't really understand this then, so it left me with more questions, questions that would eventually lead me to start questioning the system, to turn against the "it is what it is" mentality.

I used to be critical of my parents for homeschooling, but now I realize it's the system that deserves that criticism. They just didn't quite escape, and live one foot in, one foot out, pulled back in by religion and tradition.