#what we’ve seen doesn’t prove anything

[twopoppies]

This fandom is so lame. Harries really desperately want to link him to any woman cause they need him to be a sex vamp so bad so they can project lol it’s disgusting. Speculating of Harry left with Olivia and what it means and all these quotes saying mhhhhh 😂 you are all insufferable. Fact is, he left during the final song as always! Sam’s boyfriend also left (he’s in front of Harry) and someone from Olivia’s team left behind Harry. So if she also left? Makes total sense? You don’t want to stay there when the lights go on and you have to squeeze he your way through a crowd and the fans 😭 it’s common knowledge- how dumb are people? Has nothing to do with Harry’s and Olivia’s potential friendship!!! Although he didn’t seem to engage much with her during the gig at all lol like it’s just desperate at this point. Let the man have friends in the industry I BEG! If this were a random male actor or singer people wouldn’t freak out this much! The double standards are sickening sometimes and so f annoying :)

I ghost wrote this.

[daloy-politsey]

“They’re trying to discharge her constructively. Do you know what Constructive Discharge means?” She asked.

As soon as I heard the term ‘Constructive Discharge,’ I knew I’d never seen it on a vocabulary quiz.

“No. What does it mean?” I asked.

She explained.

“Constructive discharge is a fancy way of saying “being forced out.” It’s not good. And if you’re not a lawyer or in human resources, you’ll probably learn what it means when it’s happening to you.”

“Oh my God. I’ve seen this my entire career and never knew it even had a name.” I thought.

You’ve seen constructive Discharge too. You may have experienced it. We’ve all made choices to avoid it.

Constructive discharge defined

“We can’t fire you, but we’ll make you so miserable you’ll quit, and then we won’t have to pay your unemployment.”

Then there’s the textbook definition:

“A constructive discharge occurs when your employer has made working conditions unbearable, forcing you to resign.”

Or as one person put it.

“I didn’t get handed a pink slip, but when you’re not wanted, people have a way of letting you know.”

HR isn’t always the secret police.

Employees aren’t always victims of evil-doers.

However, employers push employees out all the time to maintain and protect the, “We didn’t do anything wrong, YOU did,” power structure.

Constructive Discharge looks like this:

— Meeting invitations slow to a trickle, and you’re excluded from emails and generally looped out of what’s going on.

— People stop talking to you or stop talking when you walk in.

— Your emails don’t get answers, or they arrive too late to be of value.

— Suddenly, your work is not good enough, though nothing about your work has changed.

— Reviews, once good or even glowing, are now mediocre or bad.

— Instead of a bonus, you get a Performance Improvement Plan.

— Warnings and write-ups start so they can justify your eventual termination with documentation of your “poor performance”

— Your work, clients, assignments go away, or they overwhelm you with work.

— The words “Set up to fail” were practically invented to describe this scenario.

Constructive Discharge is illegal

It isn’t easy to prove you’re a target, and it’s even more challenging if you don’t even know constructive discharge is a real thing.

If you’ve ever experienced this and don’t fully understand what’s happening to you beyond knowing you’re in the process of being excommunicated, it can be hell. It’s not uncommon for the experience to leave long-lasting scars.

Talk to anyone who’s ever been through it. They’ll tell you.

Knowing constructive discharge exists and how it’s used gives you power to predict what’s coming and to protect yourself.

Seeing the endgame helps you in two ways.

You know what to expect. Having a sense of what’s coming next is enormously empowering. You can go on the offensive and protect yourself. Constructive discharge works to crush your ego, making you feel you did something wrong and deserve this treatment.

Without strategy, you end up being a miserable pawn in your employer’s endgame.

Remember, they’re almost certainly building a case to fire you in the event the hellscape they create for you doesn’t persuade you to quit.

If you’re getting pushed out, and you know what to look for you can prove constructive discharge and you can get unemployment benefits, be released from payback obligations on a signing bonus, and protect your mental health.

You’re not crazy, incompetent, or a failure. This is real and it’s carefully executed to leave you holding the bag and feeling like you did something wrong.

If they force you out, in addition to feeling horrible, you lose your paycheck, benefits health insurance, and possibly owe them money.

[aquitainequeen]

Here I am, hours later, still crying about Furiosa and Praetorian Jack. George Miller, Nico Lathouris, Anya Taylor-Joy and Tom Burke are geniuses. They completely sold me on just how much these characters loved each other.

Furiosa coming out of a nightmare, wielding a knife, to be caught by Jack. He doesn’t say it’s all right or that she’s safe, she doesn’t say it was just a bad dream. They don’t say anything. Jack eases her back down to her cot and they settle down, aware of each other.

Jack stitching up Furiosa’s shoulder in a hidden spot in the Citadel, Furiosa showing Jack the peach seed that she’s kept hidden in her hair for so long, proving that the Green Place is out there, asking him to come with her, pressing her forehead to his while cupping the back of his head, showing him her love in the manner of her people, and him returning the gesture. After fifteen years, she’s finally going home, and he’s coming with her.

And then...

Spoilers beyond here!!!

And then:

The battle of the Bullet Farm, which is where the strength and force of their love really started to batter me. Furiosa manages to avoid the ambush and get out of the Farm before the gate closes, and Jack could easily have slipped through the gate to join her, but he sees the enemy forces mustering and knows they’ll quickly be hunted down if there's nothing to stop their pursuers. He shoots off a green flare that clearly tells Furiosa to abandon him and get the hell out of there, intending to sacrifice himself so that she has a chance to escape and set off for the Green Place. Furiosa does drive off, but gets maybe five metres before she decides ‘fuck this’ and goes back in to try and save him. And she saves him from his pursuers and she saves him from falling to his death, and they get to their escape vehicle and drive off, with nary a word spoken or exchanged until they’re on the flat and heading for freedom. And even then, all that’s mentioned is what direction they should take to reach the Green Place. That's it. They don’t need anything else. They survived, they got out, they're together, they’re going to be all right.

And they almost make it. They almost get away.

When they’re captured by Dementus and forced onto their knees, there’s no special close up on them; mostly they’re on the edge of the shot while Dementus is ranting centre stage or screaming into their faces. They pay no heed to him. That love infuriates Dementus. He shrieks, he tears at them, but he can’t break them. He doesn’t matter. What matters is that they spend their last moments touching each other, leaning into each other, pressing their foreheads together, breathing deep, loving each other.

There are no parting words between Furiosa and Jack, no declarations or promises or screams of despair, but it hit me so hard and cut so deep that the second to last time we see Jack’s face, he’s craning desperately to see what’s happening to Furiosa, trying to get one final precious glimpse of her, before he’s quite literally dragged to his awful death.

We don’t see Furiosa’s reaction to her torture on multiple fronts, as she is strung up by her maimed arm and forced to watch Jack die. We’ve seen her scream and weep for her mother, but this moment is hers alone. It’s not for us.

How fitting it is that Jack saves Furiosa one last time, as his execution distracts Dementus and his crew from noticing that Furiosa has cut off her own arm to escape.

The last time we see Jack’s face is in Furiosa’s last nightmare.

Furiosa doesn’t mention Jack in her final showdown with Dementus, when she screams about her mother and her stolen childhood. But from what’s shown to us, I think that the spot in the Citadel when she imprisons Dementus and grows the peach tree in the midst of his emaciated, maggot-ridden body…is the same place where Jack stitched up her wounded shoulder, where she showed him the peach seed, where she asked him to come with her to the Green Place and he accepted, where she showed him her love in the manner of her people, where they embraced. Where she avenged herself and Jack, upon the man who destroyed their lives.

Where Furiosa now plucks the first fruit of the tree to bring to the Five Wives, whom she will bring with her to the Green Place.   

[madamspellmans-met-tet]

How Eve Best’s acting broke my heart—again.

We need to talk.

This entire scene already had me tearing up simply because of Rhaenys’ expressions.

First, Rhaenys walks up to the docks, tense, a stern look on her face. She corrects Alyn about her title, taking back control. She’s known for a long time about Corlys’ indiscretion, but this is the first time she’s confronted with it, face to face. She needs to see for herself.

Alyn struggles to meet her eye whereas Rhaenys keeps studying him as if it could help her understand. She’s had time to process her husband’s betrayal, but the scar still itches when irritated. She still doesn’t understand why, because he is so devoted to her. Their love is and always has been strong, so how could he have done it?

Then the hand to the cheek, a tender gesture. Assessing, yes, but we’ve only seen her do this with Baela and Rhaena before—which is why this was so incredibly meaningful to me.

It’s almost as if she accepts him as her own. He’s Corlys’ child, she sees him in Alyn, and she knows he’s innocent. And if Rhaenys is anything, then protective of her children/grandchildren.

“Your mother must’ve been very beautiful.”

Her husband’s betrayal made her question her own appearance; if she wasn’t comely enough anymore. If she was too old, too worn. Considering the love they shared, the only explanation for his affair was that the other woman was more beautiful than her, so much that he couldn’t resist, that he stopped thinking about her if only for a moment.

The little gulp, the sadness in her eyes. But there’s no blame, no resentment towards Alyn. And that’s what I so deeply admire about Rhaenys. She has so much self control in the face of the greatest pain that she can still see sense, can tell right from wrong. She could’ve lashed out at Alyn, could’ve asked Corlys to banish him from her sight, but instead she stands up for him.

It’s one of Rhaenys’ defining traits: compassion.

All throughout this scene, her eyes carry so much hurt. Like she’s dying inside. Eve said, “her heart [was] bleeding.” And it’s so visible.

Corlys comes into the picture. He dances around it, not wishing to bring further pain upon his wife, who he is already desperately trying to win back after his absence, even going to war just to prove his loyalty and devotion to her.

But Rhaenys is clear. She knows. Her eyes glaze with tears and Corlys can’t stand seeing it, averts his gaze, gets defensive when Rhaenys demands Alyn should be honoured for his deeds despite his origins, despite her pride.

It would bring shame on her, but she is willing to take it.

She stands by her husband.

But Corlys loathes himself for what he has done and changes the topic, almost attacking her with, “Is that why you came? To subject me to an inquisition?”

Rhaenys is shattered when she leaves, not necessarily because of Alyn and the confrontation, but because she feels like everything she’s held on to so tightly, through all the pain and loss, is slipping through her fingers. She’s coming undone, falling apart. She’s lost so much, and she’s feeling like she’s losing her husband, her marriage, too, despite the love they share.

Corlys looks after her with his lost puppy eyes, feeling helpless. How can I fix this?

that was my rambling for today. still processing. rest in peace, my queen.

[shorthaltsjester]

so, so many thoughts about ashton’s words and position re the gods but nothing really struck me as much as “i’d like to see them pray to us.” (or whatever the exact wording is) because yeah, that’s extremely ashton, that’s the same attitude of a person who has been hurt and broken by life in an unfair manner and tried to absorb a shard because they thought it would fix it, ignoring all warnings that it would make it worse, and then insisting it wasn’t about power, despite the fact that it explicitly was about power — the power to render their life fair. it becomes increasingly clear every time that ashton opens his mouth that, along with being an incisive translation of certain kinds of punk politics to exandria, ashton is more set on vengeance than justice, even if he insists his motivation is that the gods are a source of injustice, it seems more like what he admitted after the shard: he’s spent his life looking for someone to blame, and while he’s happy to hate himself, it took a while for them to realize they were an agent in their own story, culpable for the life they’ve lived. ashton looks at the gods and sees a metaphorical vehicle of all the harm and hurt and pain that’s befallen him due to people in positions of power and cannot (or refuses) to see that a) the gods position isn’t actually all that powerful without the mortals who choose over and over to fulfil divine will for good or evil or in between and b) the gods already have a relationship to mortals that is akin to prayer.

and this is all extremely in character, as much as a lot of ashton’s comments echo many a political stance that makes me roll my eyes, it’s always with an attitude of yes of course ashton would say that. what is mildly more irritating (or perhaps concerning) is the readiness with which aspects of the audience concur with ashton’s assessment, when we have seen countless interactions of gods with mortals that shows us that the gods, though not actual prayer, have a very similar kind of belief in mortals that they ask of those who believe in them. like, vox machina had two episodes dedicated to talking to the gods, where it was revealed that the everlight didn’t just know pike but has beholden to her as the one who brought her back into import. where vex proved herself to pelor not just through completing his challenge but by having long been an imperfect but true source of good for the family she’s chosen that they convinced pelor that vex was a suitable champion by pointing out that she has earned several of their belief, she protects the same city pelor blessed with the sun tree, she’s protective and protected, and her heart and her intelligence are equally sound when it comes to her ability to make judgements, (all things we’ve learned since c1 are important to pelor) resulting in pelor deciding he would also believe in her. where ioun pointed out that while she keeps all stories, scanlan is a storyteller, and what could she possibly cherish more than that.

each god when vox machina spoke to them was quick to correct them when vox machina suggested things like their paths being determined or their lives being beyond their control or the world being down to the will of the gods. vex apologizes to the everlight for not realizing that the gods were really beings and she tells vox machina that she doesn’t ask for the belief of all, only those who wish to give it, as the gods chose to give mortals the ability to choose as they wish upon anything, including their faith in the deities. when vox machina asks pelor to whether they should do something with vecna’s eye, he insists that they make the decision whether they’d like to destroy it or use it — he will help however they decide, but he insists it’s on them to choose the outcome. they speak with ioun, who knows their and every story, and she tells them that the gods do not choose the individual fates of mortals, it is up to every person to choose who they will and will not be, and sometimes that guides them to places the gods have predicted, but never without the choices a mortal makes to arrive there.

the concept of belief throughout the three campaigns has been an complex and ever shifting one — as it deserves. in campaign 1, it’s largely in the context of coming to understand what it means to believe in gods when they obviously do exist, but what are you believing in, and why might you choose not to. in campaign 2, jester’s presence complicated things by pointing out that it isn’t just the divinity of the gods that earns them their power but that belief itself is a kind of divinity and with yasha, caduceus and fjord we see that the role of the gods isn’t just power-granting, it comes to be an essential part of many of those who follow the gods. and in campaign 3, we’ve seen both of those explorations come up but the difficulty is we have none of the perspective of someone who actually believes — even fcg was new to worship couldn’t offer much insight on what the loss of the gods might do to people who believe in the gods not because they grant power but because like jester they were lonely and the found a friend in one, or if like yasha they were lost and were saved by one, or if like fjord the asked for help and were aided by one. to be clear i don’t think this a weakness of the story being told — i think it’s a particularly interesting aspect of bh’s position, but i do think it weakens the perspectives of thinkers like ashton who haven’t even heard what a god means to some people, let alone taken seriously the pain that losing the gods would constitute for countless people.

so, ashton might be particularly charged against the gods — even to the point of being the only one to outright make a noise of disagreement when it’s brought up that while bells hells disagree on specifics, they all agree on saving the gods — and he has plenty of reasons to have that position that can easily result in the audience going, yeah, i understand why he’s made that judgement. but that is not the same as hearing what ashton has said and going (with all the knowledge we the audience have that ashton does not) “he’s right, actually” when there are two campaigns telling you, explicitly, “he’s not.” and this isn’t me saying things can’t be revealed that complicate or recontextualize knowledge from previous campaigns, i’m just saying that, thus far, if anything, campaign 3 (especially downfall) has only cemented the degree to which the prime deities have to believe in mortals.

truly the first thought i had when i heard ashton say his line about the gods praying to mortals instead was the fact that several of his party members received a vision from the raven queen asking for help, that fcg asked the changebringer if she was scared and she said yes, that earthbreaker groon looked at imogen and saw her self-doubt And the belief that bells hells has in her anyway and kord reached through him to tell imogen that she had the potential for greatness and that the gods are counting on her. the prime deities have long been praying to mortals, they believe in the power of mortals (for good and ill) — that’s exactly what downfall was about. the power that gods still have is entirely mediated by the mortals who believe in them, who choose to believe in them. the power of mortals does not have those bounds, and while that doesn’t mean they get to sling 9th level spells at will and multiply their damage by 10, it does mean that, in this particular moment in exandria, ludinus’ power is a much more likely (and, historically and contextually proven) source of injustice than the prime deities.

beyond the magic limitations and considering the ill-fitting metaphor of the gods as being a position of power in a sociopolitical sense, the distance of the gods means that if they want to manipulate people into maintaining their position, it’s quite difficult to do. in comparison with ludinus “cult tactics” da’leth, it strikes me as odd when the parts of the cr audience react to the prime deities doing things like . allowing mortals agency (which, as every existentialist writer ever has correctly pointed, out is both a burden and gift) as if it is actually a long-con manipulation or something.

anyway, TL:DR, ashton is an a interesting character whose beliefs and ideas make sense given his placement in the story and their experiences, but an audience who has seen campaigns 1-3 and says they agree with him with their whole chest should definitely consider either a) rewatching or b) taking a critical thinking or media literacy class

[corellianhounds]

The reason Mando does so many “side quests” is because he’s poor. He has to work for everything. He lives a self-sufficient life on the road bringing money back to his tribe to support them because Mandalorians aren’t safe and can only show their faces in town one at a time or they’re perceived as a danger because of how they look and what reputation is attributed to that appearance by many people. Almost every single episode has somebody picking a fight with Mando over the armor when he’s literally just standing there. He has to fight, scrap, save, barter, trade, and work for every single thing he has because the alternative is dying, or people he cares about dying. It doesn’t matter if it’s because they’re attacked or because they literally don’t have the money to eat, most of the Mandalorians we’ve seen live hand to mouth day by day, surviving out of sheer willpower and working together

Season 1 Episode 2: His only means of transportation (/place of living) is scavenged for parts and stolen in pieces. He’s forced to negotiate with the ones who took his stuff and do a job for them so he can get it all back before then having to rebuild the ship (when he shouldn’t have to trade anything for it to begin with)

Season 1 Episode 4: He wants somewhere safe and unassuming he can lay low with the kid and agrees to scare off some local bandits so he can have lodging. His original long term plan was to stay on Sorgan for a few months— He’s willing to fight the bandits and the Walker because that village was where he was given somewhere to eat and sleep and because he had intended to live there long term

Season 1 Episode 5: The hunter that found them on Sorgan forces him to acknowledge he’s not allowed to remain sedentary. He tries to go back to his old job, working as a bounty hunter for money; he and the kid can live on the ship, though it isn’t ideal, but he needs food, fuel, and immediate ship repairs. The betrayal of the gunslinger and confirmation from a target that word of him breaking the Guild Code has reached the literal farthest reaches of the Outer Rim solidifies that he can’t be a legitimate hunter anymore and that people who recognize him or the kid (or recognize them because they’re together) will be gunning for the reward, leading to—

Season 1 Episode 6: Mando going back to the only other life and means of making money he’s known, working shady jobs with criminals in the hope of receiving payment. The job proves even more unpredictable and dangerous than the last one and puts him back at square one again.

Season 2 Episode 1: Mando is a well-rounded character who’s been given an objective outside of just surviving to the next day. He only ends up in Mos Pelgo because he needs information, and he only agrees to fight the Krayt dragon because— as a well-rounded character— he’s promised culturally important relics of his people that he holds in the highest respect. The armor of a dead Mandalorian being given the proper respect (showing the honor he has for his people) is shown to be tied in importance with the kid. At least he’s given some food for the road because it’s clear he wasn’t being paid any money in addition to it.

Season 2 Episode 2: Chasing the barest lead on information about other Mandalorians forces him to take the dangerous passage he does; he only ends up having to survive the ice planet because of the threat of incarceration if he didn’t run. He’s not being paid in money here either AND his ship is literally barely holding together. If it was a horse he’d have to shoot it.

Season 2 Episode 3: Bo-Katan is his last lead on information about a Jedi. The child needs a Jedi teacher so he’ll be safe. By this point Mando is desperate and BKK forces him to do a dangerous job in exchange for information. He’s not getting any money this season because all of the jobs he does are in exchange for information and it’s a lot easier to manipulate and force people who need a favor from you to do whatever you tell them because you have something more specific than money they can’t get anywhere else. He doesn’t have enough money to cover a good fix of the Crest but doesn’t have anything to leverage against the mechanic who did a partial job for all the money he did have left, meaning—

Season 2 Episode 4: He has to call in a favor from a friend. Karga’s willing to cover his fuel, repairs, and docking fees, but oh Mando while you’re here I have this pesky Imperial infestation and since it’ll take a while for your ship to be repaired and you’re not busy…

Season 2 Episode 5: Now he’s finally found a Jedi. Now he may finally be able to give the kid to somebody who can protect him and teach him how to protect himself. Now the kid may finally be able to live a long, safe life, even if it means it can’t be with him. Oh right except this Jedi says she isn’t really a Jedi anymore, and also she’s kind of busy, but maybe she’ll think about it if you help her do her own thing in liberating a town—

Only for Ahsoka to then go back on her deal because she has her own thing going on. Considering how important the whole Thrawn mission is shown to be later, I’m not all that convinced she was ever going to take the kid as an apprentice. She may have been on the fence and maybe considered doing it if Elsbeth didn’t give any information up, but if the whole Ahsoka show was about her search for Thrawn, it’s obvious she has a lot more involvement in that than she’d be able to afford if she took the kid as her ward. The idea that the kid’s too attached to Mando for her to take him as a student seems like a pretty convenient excuse considering she knows this guy has zero clue about anything to do with the Jedi. It doesn’t matter if she’s right or not, she could have been upfront about having more pressing matters she was devoted to.

And then the rest of season 2 is the bigger plot. Episodes 1, 3, 7, and 8 of Season 1 were plot.

Mando has to live life on the road in a dangerous and unpredictable galaxy doing dangerous and unpredictable jobs. He’s poor. He’s a survivalist. He’s desperate. He makes friends because interpersonal ties are often the only other form of currency he has, and those ties still often come with requests for favors or work in exchange for what they can do for him. Hardly anybody is giving him anything, and even when they do, he still feels obligated to pay them back.

[iinsertblognamee]

you have a what?

summary ― the matildas find out who the mysterious girl in the lobby is here for

pairing ― sam kerr x reader

warning/s ― fluff, illusions to smut

Sam pulled out her phone from her bag as the team slowly made their way into the changing rooms. A smile lit up her face as she notices the text message waiting for her. 

I’m in the lobby, love you lots xoxo

She sent off a quick ‘coming soon’ text before dropping her phone down and wiping some of the sweat off her face. 

“Yo! Did anyone get a look at the hot girl in the lobby?” Hayley asked as she walked towards her locker. Sam smirked to herself as she started to change her socks and put on her shoes. 

“Who do you think she is?” Kyra wondered, the room now filled with the rest of the team - all engaged in the conversation of the mysterious girl. 

“I think I might just go and find out after we get changed,” Charlotte said, a smirk on her face as she wiggled her eyebrows - the team giving out cat calls in response. Sam couldn’t help but shake her head with laughter, they had no clue. 

“I mean, she’s probably one of the trainer's girlfriends or something,” Lydia says, calming the crowd just a little bit. Hayley doesn’t enjoy the comment, turning her body around to face Lydia as she asks “Well? Who do you think she’s here for?”. 

“I don’t know but she’s wearing some of our training gear so she obviously knows someone here - and I know what a woman in love looks like”. 

Hayley shakes her head, a cheeky grin slapped on her face. “I don’t believe that,” she teases, Caitlin sporting a very similar one on her face. 

“I have a girlfriend - I know the look” Lydia tried to point out. 

“So you tell us, but we’ve never seen your girl” Caitlin taunts, both Hayley and her letting out giggles as Lydia opens and closes her mouth twice before responding once more.  

“She’s literally my phone background!” 

“Could be anyone” Katrina joins in, Lydia only shaking her head at the midfielder. 

“You’ve met her, Katrina” 

“You can’t prove anything,” Katrina teased. Sam was quietly enjoying the conversation around her as she grabbed the rest of her gear. Slipping her bag over her shoulder and did a quick double-check to see if she left anything behind. 

“See you girls tomorrow!” Sam calls out, a few ‘see you’s’ were thrown in but Sam was too concentrated on getting to the lobby as fast as she can. The walk to the lobby wasn’t too far, and as Sam rounded the corner her smile widened as you stood to greet her. Looking you up and down, Sam couldn’t help but feel pride when she noticed you were wearing one of her old training jumpers - if Lydia had paid more attention she would have noticed ‘Kerr’ writing on the back. 

“You changed out of your gear?” you questioned as Sam walked up to you - her arms resting on your hips as she pulls you in for a kiss.

“It was all sweaty, love” Sam insisted, a grin showing on her face as she watches you frown just a little bit. You’re bottom lip popping out - it made her want to kiss you even more. So she did. 

“The hot girl is your girlfriend?” Hayley calls out, the shout broke the two of you apart as Sam turned her head over her shoulder to catch her whole team watching the pair of you. Her hands are still placed on your hips as you give hers a small squeeze, blushing at the word ‘hot’ and pushing your face into Sam’s neck. 

“Yeah, I guess she is” Sam smiles out, bringing herself to now be standing next to you - proudly showing you off to her teammates. 

“You didn’t mention you were dating someone!” Caitlin exclaims, her eyes almost comedically wide. Sam just shrugs her shoulders, planting a kiss on your shoulder. 

You could feel everyone staring at you - and while you didn’t really enjoy the attention you knew you and Sam probably have some explaining to do. 

“I’m Y/N” you start, giving a small wave and a smile towards the group of ladies in front of you. “It’s lovely to meet all of you, Sam’s told me so much about you guys”

“Ha! Wish I could say the same” Caitlin snorts - though you both know there’s no anger behind her words. Sam lets out another shake of her head, a grin imprinted on her face. 

“Alright calm down, how about we all go out for dinner tomorrow after training? That way I can show Y/N off and you can ask all the questions your little hearts desire” Sam suggests, most of the girls nodding their heads in agreement but you note that Caitlin is still looking at the pair of you with a question in her eyes. 

“Why not tonight?” she mistakenly asks, you feel your cheeks already bruising up as your girlfriend almost beams in pride. 

“Because tonight I’m busy rocking my girlfriend’s world apart”

[ragingbookdragon]

Sometimes you wonder if a man like Simon “Ghost” Riley is truly capable of such a thing as love. You’ve seen the man snap someone’s neck without a blink, inhale and unload a clip into an oncoming squad, exhale and keep going, seen him simply stare at the bodies of dead men, women, and children, unable to spare even a word of sympathy. How does a man like that even love?

You know he can though. Or at least have gone to great lengths to try and prove that he isn’t in fact as cold as he seemingly believes he is. His heart’s numb, very numb, but it isn’t dead. He perhaps wishes it was, but nevertheless, there were still things that actually made his heart beat.

He reminds you a lot of the song “Patience” by Take That. You even told him once over reminiscing old 2000s hits in the drive back to base after a night out. You’d even played the song for him and in all his sullen silence, Simon Riley sat in the backseat, wedged up against the door with one of your thighs draped over his, listening to you belt out the lyrics with Soap and Gaz doing back-up vocals. Uncomfortable seemed to be the only term he could use to describe how it felt to be so easily seen by your eyes. You aren’t all that complicated, Simon. You’re just healing from a lifetime of heartache.

Simon “Ghost” Riley is not a heartbroken man. Sure, he’s rough, cold, maybe broken mentally somehow, but he is not “broken hearted”. But he is, isn’t he? That ache that makes him grind his teeth, and he can never really tell if it’s anger or longing that makes him feel so, but there is something about seeing people living easy lives, loving so easily that makes him some semblance of bitter. But he is healing from a lifetime of heartache, isn’t he? His dad, his mom, Tommy, Joseph, all of them. Every one of them is like a lash against his heart that drains the blood and emotion from the organ, wraps it in a cage of frigid bone that he tucks so far down inside him, he’s lost the key.

But maybe you’re the key? Your smile that makes his chest feel a funny lightness, a laugh that brightens the room, a heart that never seems to break from anything, yet manages to overflow enough care and affection that it seems impossible. Simon couldn’t take losing you. You’re a bit careless sometimes. Barely escaping by the skin of your teeth. Too many close calls. He doesn’t really know how he’d manage to survive you. Sometimes, he’s too scared to even think of life without you two doors down the hall at base.

He listens to you in your room a lot. The walls aren’t very thick. You really like 2000s alternative—he hates it, speaks to him too much. How many times can I break till I shatter? Over the line, can’t define what I’m after. I always turn the car around. All that I feel is the realness I’m faking. Taking my time, but it’s time that I’m wasting. No amount of pulling a pillow through his head will get your voice out of his brain. Somehow it feels so much more powerful when it’s not the singer’s voice in his head, but yours.

It ends up with him at your door at 0300, rambling, unable to make a truly coherent thought that explains why this 230 pound, killing machine is about to have an anxiety attack. And that, ends up with him hunkered down in your bed, under your covers, wrapped in your arms. It’s downright dangerous to dally with frat regs, but nothing has ever felt so right, so good, so healing, than listening to your heartbeat in his ear. The vibrations from your vocal cords begin luring him to sleep. Technically another old song, but 2012 wasn’t too long ago. I won’t give up on us. God knows I’m tough enough. We’ve got a lot to learn. God knows we’re worth it.

He falls asleep with his head to your chest, your humming in his ears, and for once in a long time, Simon “Ghost” Riley remembers what it’s like to look up.

[cluelessbees]

Yknow what ? I think Byler getting Murray’d would be more heartfelt than anything else.

Because like-

Murray doesn’t just call out Jopper and Jancy because it’s obvious. He points it out because he knows they’re being stupid. In their cases, it’s really just them not communicating their feelings to one another and trying to pretend they don’t exist.

But with Byler it’s like…it’s different.

Because it’s not just that is it? We’re not just watching two people pine over one another whilst being oblivious to the fact they other likes them back. We’re not just looking at two people who can’t communicate well. There’s more to it.

Because they’re two boys who have been best friends since childhood. They grew up at the peak of the AIDS epidemic. They live in a small town and they’re expected to act a certain way. It’s different for them.

I don’t think Murray is gonna waltz in acting all holier than thou and essentially out both Mike and Will to one another. He’s a smart man as we’ve seen. He’s attentive. He doesn’t just call jancy and jopper out to prove a point he knows what they both need to hear so they can get over their miscommunication hurdle.

I think he’s going to go up to them. Either both or just Mike or Will or whatever, and he’s going to talk to them about it. Because that’s what they need. They need someone to talk to them about it. And I don’t think he would start with just directly talking about it. I think he (and this is me headcanonning Murray as queer) would open up first. Like about his own experiences- to show them that he gets it, and he knows what it’s like. And then he would casually bring up the whole byler thing.

Hmmm something along the lines of...

Okay– picture a conflict Mike Wheeler sitting by himself – either on the couch or on the floor or whatever. And, he’s stuck in his head. A lot had happened. He broke up with El and he’s struggling to grasp what he’s feeling about his best friend. And there's this…weird tension between them that– he just– he can't put his finger on. But they’re off. They aren’t clicking like they used to and Mike can’t seem to fix things. 

So he sat alone, trying to understand or comprehend whatever he’s feeling whilst everyone else is god knows where in the house. Will was in the kitchen though. Mike knew that much. And then suddenly, he felt a weight on the couch seat next to him or the space on the floor beside him was no longer there and he heard the words of Murray Bauman pull him out of his thoughts with the weirdest fucking ice-breaker he has ever heard.

“Y’know…I was like you when I was younger.” 

“Really?” Mike asked – mostly out of disbelief as he scanned Murray. No way. Not a chance. 

“Oh yeah…” Murray smiled, nodding to himself as he continued. “I know it's hard to believe it, but I was this…brash, stubborn, reactive teen who loved going against authority. I was very...headstrong in my beliefs.” 

He paused and Mike turned to him. Murray had his head down, looking at his lap silently, and Mike didn’t know what to do but watch or…more– listen to the silence. 

“And…I was also in my head a lot.” Murray looked up, turning to Mike once before looking forward again. “I was angry at things – at people and at myself because…no matter how much I pretended like I loved being a freak…a part of me hated that I wasn’t normal…”

Mike felt cold. His heartbeat raced as he turned away from Murray – facing forward and staring at his lap as he continued to listen.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah…I was-- going through a lot of stuff internally that I tried pretending didn’t exist.” He paused again – taking a deep breath. “I was…in love with someone who I didn’t want to be in love with.”

“...You were?” 

“Yeah…” Murray laughed to himself. “Yeah…it was– well he was…my best friend.”

Mike held his breath.

“I fell for him. And I was mad at myself for falling for him. Because even though I knew it wasn’t wrong…I just kept thinking about how I wasn’t supposed to like him. Because that’s not normal– Well ‘normal.’” Murray airquoted, rolling his eyes. Mike’s eyes were glued onto him at this point. 

“So…I grew angrier. And I took it out on myself. On him. Even though he didn’t deserve it. Even though I loved him– I just..I let my fear get the better of me and I pushed him away until I lost him…And I hated myself for doing that.” He breathed, another pause, before finally turning to Mike. “It took me a long time to realise that there was nothing wrong about loving someone.”

Murray tilted his head towards the direction of the kitchen as he raised his eyebrows – and it clicked to Mike.

“I..” Mike’s throat felt dry. “You know?”

“I had a hunch.”

“Is it obvious? Does he–”

“No, he doesn’t know. Your secret's safe with me, kid.”

“Okay– good.” Mike paced his breathing. “I just…I– I can’t lose him because of this. If he knew– if– if he knew he would–”

“He’s your best friend right?” Murray cut him off.

“What? Yes but–”

“Then. he could never hate you, Mike. Not about this.”

“How do you know that?”

“Call it…another one of my hunches.” Mike knitted his brows together.

“Look – kid, I’m not going to force you to tell him or anything. It's your choice at the end of the day. And I can’t say much, but it doesn’t take a genius to know how much that boy cares about you. And you care about him, correct?”

Mike nodded. 

“And you trust him?”

Mike nodded again. “With my life.”

“So…all I can say is…if you trust him? Then...trust him with this.” Murray began to stand up. “Take it from me. Holding it in only hurts the both of you.”

And then Murray leaves

Anyways yeah thoughts––

[vigilskeep]

hiya!! I never learned much about oghren besides what I needed to because, from what I remember, he pissed me off so bad with misogynistic comments that in both my playthroughs I kicked him out of the party as soon as the game would let me😂what would you say is the appeal of his character? it seems there’s more to him if I could’ve got past that, based on the posts of yours I’ve seen

i’m not going to make an argument for pushing through if you can’t deal with how he talks because like, it sucks and as i say, they did not do anything with it or make him get better on that. that being said, i think there is something interesting to his character and what can be done with it.

maybe i’m just desperate for dwarven lore lmao. there are three, total, dwarven companions in the series, counting one from a dlc, and i will take whatever lore i can get from my beloved orzammar

oghren operates in a really fascinating space in orzammar’s caste system. he’s born warrior caste, and once, he was everything orzammar values and a great prospect for a brilliant girl from the smith caste. then when she’s less than twenty and he’s presumably around the same, she becomes a paragon, a living legend, the voice of the ancestors. they soar up to being a noble house in a role neither of them are prepared for. oghren goes from being a very desirable match socially to an uncultured hanger-on who doesn’t even have branka’s attention as she becomes obsessed with her work (and quietly seeks a lover elsewhere in her new house). when branka goes into the deep roads two years before the events of the game, she takes the whole house—except him. and she doesn’t come back. oghren’s the single leftover of a house with no head. he’s also a berserker with ptsd, and when he loses control of himself in the proving arena and kills a young man, he’s no longer allowed to fight within the city bounds. if he left it, he’d be casteless; but inside it, he’s not far from that, unable to be the warrior that orzammar’s culture has always told him it is his only role and purpose to be.

there’s a lot of orzammar caste and gender politics in all of that. the guard who tells you about oghren says that he might have been something to be afraid of before the assembly “practically gelded him” by banning him from fighting. losing your ability to perform your caste role is emasculating and oghren’s over-exaggerated masculinity in his crude jokes is a response to that perceived shame. even before the ban, orzammar has the biggest gender inequality of anywhere we’ve spent time in thedas, and there’s a lot of implied social loss in becoming the lesser partner to his wife. both because she’s a woman and was once a lesser caste than him. in his fade nightmare, he’s drunk in tapsters, as strangers berate him for being a shame to branka’s house, dragging it down. he’s openly mocked in the same way in orzammar for all of this. for him in this dream, and in his life prior to meeting the warden, it’s easier to drink than to listen

there’s a lot to get into about how orzammar treats its warriors. they’re sent against the horrors of the deep roads, taught to harness this berserker rage, to be the only thing that stands between their home and the darkspawn, and... then what? is there a system in place for taking care of those veterans? i doubt they hold the same value once they lose the ability to perform their caste role. oghren talks a little about this, but he’s not even able to conceptualise that he should have been helped, it’s more like, how could they teach me how to fight out there like that and expect me to be able to hold back in that proving fight? a warrior’s going to do what a warrior’s going to do! but i don’t think it’s a surprise that someone like oghren turns to alcohol and i sincerely doubt he’s alone in that. compare it to someone like warden brosca’s mother turning to alcohol to deaden herself to life in dust town, and you can see that the dwarven love of drink so often played for laughs is the weight of the caste system in action

[analysisn3rd]

Sherlock Holmes is autistic. I will tell you why.

Although I feel like this is something that’s talked about a lot in the Sherlock Holmes fandom, I wanted to write about it just because I like talking about it; Sherlock Holmes is autistic. There’s a lot of things, clues, pieces of evidence, whatever you want to call it, present in the ACD canon to prove this and I will present it to you.

Autistic stereotypes and how Holmes fits into them and doesn’t simultaneously

There are many autistic traits that are considered stereotypical, but the one I mean here is the “cold, emotionless, non-empathetic, calculating machine” autistic stereotype, which Holmes does fit into, but he also doesn’t. Despite the use of this very description in several of the short stories, Holmes doesn’t fit this description quite well. It may be what people see on the surface, it may be what people are first faced with when they meet Holmes, but it’s not the truth, or, more accurately, it’s not the complete truth.

As I’ve written before in one of my analyses about Holmes, he doesn’t lack empathy. He’s quite empathetic, and he cares a lot about people (specifically Watson, Mrs Hudson and his clients), but he shows it in a different manner than others normally would. He shows it by listening to people and believing their stories and caring about them, not just for the thrill of the case or the mystery behind it. There have been several cases where everything was mostly resolved, he didn’t need to dig deeper than he had and the answer was not as unclear as it normally is, but Holmes didn’t leave it be until his client got the closure they needed. There have been other cases where he didn’t think that it was going to be an important affair, but, because he understands what his client might be feeling, he heard them out and helped them to the best of his ability. With Watson, there have been several examples of him showing that he cares about him and that he truly values him, and the same goes to Mrs Hudson.

Holmes also isn’t emotionless; he tends to express emotions in different ways than “normal” people would, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t possess them. He also reacts differently from “normal” in some situations, like how, during one of the more grim cases, he was able to take his mind completely off of it and talk, rather animatedly, about one of the topics that he was researching (which is probably to do with his research subjects being his special interests, something that’ll be talked about below)

Saying that Holmes is a “calculating deduction machine” isn’t necessarily incorrect, but I think that it takes away from his humanity quite a lot. The reason why he’s so good at deduction (well. It’s not really deduction, it’s induction, but that’s a discussion for another day) is because of his pattern-recognition ability and high attention to detail, both of which are things that are quite common within autistic people due to the way that their brains process information; something that’s called ‘bottom-up’ processing, where the details are processed before the big picture.

I will now talk about certain autistic traits and aspects of being autistic and how this is found within the Holmes canon.

Special Interests

A great portion of autistic people have specific, sometimes called rigid, interests that are also called special interests. Holmes has several of these and they’re mentioned quite a lot within the series.

The most evident one is deduction in of itself and mysteries. As we’ve seen several times within the series, when Holmes doesn’t have a case, or anything that he finds engaging like another special interest of his, he feels awful, to put it in simpler terms, and he experiences what Watson calls his “black moods”. 

Some of his other special interests are chemistry, especially when it involves forensics, which is something that he’s seen doing quite a lot and spending hours upon hours carrying out experiments to see if his hypothesis was correct or not, much like what he was doing when he initially met Watson in ‘Study in Scarlet’. 

Music is another one, which is something that he’s quite knowledgeable about, and he likes to engage with this particular interest by attending concerts with Watson and by playing the violin, where he either plays melodies to reflect his thoughts and feelings or composed symphonies that he and/or Watson enjoy.

Another is bees (and nature to an extent), which is something that he’s very interested in, considering how he took up bee-keeping during his retirement and how he’s written several monographs about it.

Aside from his special interests, he’s also had various hyperfixations throughout the stories, which he’d write monographs about as well.

Social differences

It’s very obvious how Holmes interacts with people differently compared to other characters, and the ways in which his social interactions differ is very similar to that of autistic people. 

One of the ways in which this presents is how blunt Holmes is. He’s very truthful and he doesn’t realise that what he’s saying, which he mostly means in a very literal, very genuine way, could be taken in another way. An example of this is this quote, which is from ‘The Hound of Baskerville’: “It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it”. This, amongst several other compliments from Holmes, tend to sound backhanded and they’re mostly read as him being snarky or simply mean to whoever he was saying them to, but I think that he just meant it in a very literal way.

Another way that his social differences present is how he doesn’t quite understand other people, especially women, where he tells Watson quite often that he’s the one who understands and appeals to the “fairer sex” from the both of them. His not really understanding people also shows up in how he’s never really having a friend before Watson or Victor Trevor; he’s never really understood anyone aside from them and I don’t think that anyone, aside from them, tried to understand Holmes back. I also think it’s evident that he doesn’t understand social norms by how he chooses not to comply with them. Holmes is a very logical person and if something doesn’t make sense to him, he simply wouldn’t do it and would probably deem it stupid.

Another thing that I don’t think is a social difference as much as it’s a difference in how Holmes sees the world is how he has a really strong sense of justice. His sense of morality is interesting, to say the least and I’ve discussed it before in one of my analyses of him, and his sense of justice kind of ties into it. Regardless of what he views as “right” and “wrong”, he will strongly defend what he believes and he wouldn’t let anything that he thinks is “wrong” slide. As I’ve written earlier, some cases had a fairly clear resolution and he could’ve just let them go, but it’s because he cares about his client and because he absolutely cannot let injustices simply pass without the persecutor getting punished, he solves the case until it’s completely resolved.

Masking

Generally speaking, Holmes doesn’t mask, and I think it’s mainly because he doesn’t really see a point in doing so; he doesn’t do it often, and the only instance of him masking is the beginning of ‘A Study in Scarlet’, when he and Watson hadn’t known one another quite well yet. He would hide parts of himself, he wouldn’t try to talk about any of his interests at all (to the point that Watson didn’t even know what he did for work until months after knowing him) and he made sure to be very neat and organised with everything, which is something that he most likely struggles with. However, once Watson found out about everything, he didn’t really bother masking again. 

Holmes’ struggles in relation to his autism

There are several things that autistic people struggle with (including communication, which I already discussed above) that Holmes also struggles with.

One of which is how he struggles with eating. I think that’s mainly because he doesn’t exactly feel hunger cues as most people would; he doesn’t exactly realise that he’s hungry until his stomach is cramping from the lack of food or he’s on the verge of passing out, which I think is a very believable conclusion considering how often he forgets to eat and Watson has to coax and/or remind him to do so. Another thing that Watson really helped him with is his injuries. I think it’s very likely that he doesn’t feel pain normally, which is something that happens to some autistic people, where they either feel it too much or too little; the latter is what Holmes struggles with. He doesn’t really notice injuries that he gets on cases because he doesn’t really feel the pain. This is most likely why he has several scars and acid burns on his hands when Watson first met him.

Another thing that I think he struggles with is executive dysfunction, especially when it comes to chores like cleaning his space and laundry, which is something that I recall Watson complaining about Holmes not doing in the beginning of one of the short stories. It’s possible that he has his own system when it comes to his organisation, but it was said in ‘Study in Scarlet’ that he was a very neat man, so I think it’s more reasonable to think that it’s just something that he always wants to start but could never really get to doing it due to executive dysfunction.

It’s also possible that Holmes struggles with sensory issues regarding his hair touching his face, which is why he always has it gelled back, and that he has them regarding facial hair, which is why he’s always described as clean-shaven (though I know that both of these could be due to other reasons as well).

I think that cocaine was Holmes’ way of self-medication. He needed something to help him through feelings of overwhelm and under-stimulation from the lack of cases, so he used it. It served as a distraction to him from his overwhelm and scarcity of mental stimulation that’s enough to keep him satisfied.

Similarly, I think that his habit of smoking was a way to keep his hands busy instead of stimming.

Due to all of the aforementioned reasons, I think that Sherlock Holmes is autistic.

[rebelspykatie]

Soulmate AU Part Three 

Part One | Part Two | Part Four | Part Five 

Steve doesn’t see him, bent over the hood of the car, elbow deep and sweat dripping from his forehead despite the cool breeze. He makes a frustrated noise and there’s an ominous clanging sound. Eddie’s never been good at sitting still, at minding his own business, especially when it comes to Steve. He feels pulled towards him, wanting to help, at his breaking point with this tension between them. 

Maybe it’s the universe intervening or maybe Eddie has no self preservation skills when he stops behind Steve and asks, “Need a hand?”

Steve startles so bad he hits his head on the hood and curses. When he turns around, he stops and sucks in a sharp breath. “Eddie.” He looks back at the hood of the car with eyebrows furrowed. “How hard did I hit my head?”

“I can help.” Eddie moves closer and peers into the car.

“With my head?” Steve is rubbing at it now and Eddie’s beginning to wonder if he’s concussed. 

“The car.” 

“Oh.” Steve steps aside, giving him a strange look, and lets Eddie work on it, undoing whatever Steve thought he was fixing and addressing the real problem. Steve’s too quiet. And Eddie’s never been good with silence, either. 

“I’m sorry I ruined your life.” Eddie says, so quiet he’s surprised Steve even heard it. It’s not what he meant to say. It tumbled out of his mouth without a second thought. Something that’s been on his mind since Steve came back to school looking like the thought of Eddie being his soulmate ripped his bright future right out of his hands.

He doesn’t pull himself up to look at Steve. He can’t. Just stays bent over, working on fixing the car, and screaming inside his own head at his stupidity. He can’t even get this first conversation right, no wonder Steve wants nothing to do with him. 

“Ruined my life?” Eddie does finally turn around at Steve’s tone. The way it sounded like a question, like he doesn’t know exactly what Eddie’s referring to. 

“I know my name’s on your wrist. I know it’s probably the last name you wanted there. Fate is a cruel bitch attaching you to me like that. I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Wheeler and that you’ll have to lie to everyone about whose name is there for the rest of your life. You deserve better than that.” 

“You-” Steve rubs the back of his head, blinking slowly, “you think you ruined my life?”

“Not showing up to school for a week was a pretty good indicator that I’m not what you expected,” he shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant even though he’s dying inside.

“Is that why you didn’t talk to me for a year after my name appeared on your wrist?” Steve glances down at the cuff on his arm. “Because you think I deserve better?” 

Eddie nods and Steve scoffs. 

“So you made that decision for both of us? What about what I wanted?”

“You were dating Nancy and we’ve never talked in four years of attending the same school. You’re a jock and I’m just a freak. Why would the golden boy of Hawkins want anything to do with me?” 

“I’m so sick of people thinking that they know what’s best for me!” Steve yells and Eddie jerks back. He’s never seen Steve snap like that. “Every single person in my life thinks they should have a say in who I should be with, but what about me? I waited eighteen years to find out what name was going to appear on my wrist. I didn’t care if it was Nancy, Tommy H, or you, or anyone else. I just wanted to find out who that person was, so I could prove to myself that fate isn’t just a bunch of bullshit like it is with my parents.”

“Steve, I-”

“I just wanted someone to love me.”

There’s a charged silence that hangs in the air, only the sound of Steve’s heavy breathing echoing in the empty parking lot.  

“Is that all you see me as? King Steve?” Steve spits out the moniker with venom. And he sounds mad, but his face is doing this thing that Eddie’s never seen before, eyes glassy and lower lip trembling. He looks ready to come apart at the seams. 

Eddie takes a moment to think about it and he already knows what his answer is. He’s had a whole year to watch Steve, unbeknownst to him. Steve’s never bullied anyone as far as Eddie knows, but it’s more than that, he’s kind and soft in ways that most of the school doesn’t recognize. Eddie’s seen it from the privacy of his trailer as Steve pulls up to take care of the Mayfield girl when her mom’s on a three day bender. Or that time he caught him carting around a whole car full of preteens that dragged him into the arcade like he was their big brother. 

His traitorous little heart has been falling for him this whole time. Quietly picking out all the ways they could fit together, even if Steve never wanted any of this. Eddie had resigned himself to yearning, to imagining a life together that was just out of reach. He doesn’t dare to hope that he’ll have more than that.

“No, you’re more than King Steve.” He nervously fiddles with a strand of hair, pulling it in front of his face. “Or, you’ve never actually been King Steve, I don’t know, man. You’re just so- uh, so wholesome and I’m this.” He waves a greasy hand at his ripped jeans and handmade hellfire shirt. “I was afraid you’d hate me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called wholesome before,” Steve huffs out a laugh, face softening with Eddie’s honesty. “You’re not a freak, Eddie. And I don’t think we’re all that different.” 

“That’s a good one.”

“No really,” Steve takes a step closer and it takes all of Eddie’s willpower not to turn tail and run. “You were right about one thing, the universe is a cruel bitch, but I don’t think that it gets it wrong very often. I was afraid that you’d think I’m boring or annoying, like you always yelled about in the cafeteria. Just another dumb jock. Thought you’d laugh at all my silly, romantic notions. But I do want those things.”

“You want romance…with me?”

They stare at each other for a moment before Steve nods. 

This can’t be happening. He must be having an out of body experience. 

“I’d like to try, at least. It may not always be perfect, or easy, but I want to try if you’re open to the idea.” Steve looks determined, nodding once like he’s made up his mind. “Eddie Munson, can I take you out on a date?”

Part Four

Thank you so much to everyone for the overwhelming support on the first two parts of this. I am truly blown away by it all. I’ve never had anything take off like this and there’s so many of you (hi, thank you for following). There were so many requests for tagging on the last post that there’s no way I could fulfill them all, so I’m so so sorry to anyone that might’ve been expecting that. I decided just to not tag anyone to be fair. 

Hope that this eases your broken little hearts some, and get ready for some extra fun fluffy goodness soon. 

[lauraneedstochill]

I debated whether I should keep my opinion on EP3 in the comments to @st-eve-barnes post (she made some good arguments btw!) but I guess I’m out of fucks to give. just like the HOTD scriptwriters ✌

big fat disclaimer: I sincerely can’t say a single bad thing about Ewan. his acting was absolutely amazing, he owned the scene, and it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have a problem with nudity (if you watched “High Life”, you know what I’m talking about; if you didn’t, please read the warnings before watching).

my problem is with everything leading up to the brothel scene with Aegon — because this is NOT how you write conflict, and because it could’ve hit way harder if only it was done PROPERLY. unsurprisingly, it started in EP2:

➡ the fact that we got absolutely no reaction to B&C from Aemond is a joke. I’ve read some people saying “well, Jaehaerys isn’t his son so why would he care” — sure, Aemond wasn’t competing to win the uncle of the year award. BUT you are telling me he wouldn’t simply be pissed about the fact that a couple of nobodies managed to sneak into the supposedly well-guarded castle and kill a Targaryen like it’s no big deal? that they dared to put a knife to Helaena’s neck, that they clearly could’ve done worse things to her? that they left a mess in his room, touched his stuff? you mean Aemond, who is definitely an annoying perfectionist who puts every thing in its specific place, Aemond who’s extremely arrogant about being the best warrior, the biggest defender, the mister-know-it-all, Aemond who clearly has anger issues — HE wouldn’t be fuming on the inside? HE wouldn’t rush to the small council meeting to know all the details? HE wouldn’t volunteer to help Aegon murder the ones responsible? it’s a pity everyone’s forgotten S1 Aemond but I have NOT.

➡ I won’t talk much about the brothel scene in EP2 (@pygmyharmoset analyzed it really well) but I will say that to me it felt very disconnected from the main plotline. yet again, there is NO ! BUILD UP ! was it so hard to at least show Aemond leaving? to let us know what mood he was in (was he agitated? fidgeting? when exactly he decided to leave? did something trigger it?). they could’ve cut out the moment of his arrival so we wouldn’t know where he was going to have the big shocking reveal later when he’s suddenly with Sylvi, all naked and vulnerable. it would’ve only taken an additional MINUTE of screentime!

➡ now, to the worst of it — and I really want you to think over what I’m about to say:

people are allowed to grieve in their own way. not everyone is lucky to have all the right tools to process trauma.

did Aegon treat Aemond poorly? was he mean and cruel to his younger brother? yes. yes, he was (newsflash: there are no good people in this show. hope this helps).

BUT

was Aegon’s child killed because of a mistake Aemond made? is it possible that Aegon’s been harboring his resentment, that the absence of Aemond in that tragic, pivotal moment in their lives hurt him? the answer is also YES. Aegon doesn’t know how and has never seen how to cope with emotions in a healthy way, and it’s not in his power to break the cycle so he keeps repeating all the same mistakes. that’s the tragedy of it and that’s the ticking bomb planted under the foundation of their relationship.

the tragedy of that dumbass writing we’ve been presented with is that we did not see their conflict take root. we DID NOT get to see how their discontent kept growing, how they both felt caged and dissatisfied with their circumstances (Aegon realizes no one wants him on the throne and he feels helpless, Aemond is constantly being denied the chance to prove himself so he also feels helpless) — and how eventually that anger they couldn’t channel into anything else made them lash out at each other.

my first thought after watching EP3 was that there’s gotta be a scene missing between the small council meeting and the brothel scene. there SHOULD’VE been a scene with just Aegon and Aemond, they had all the reasons and opportunities for it! here, think about this:

Aemond’s comment at the end of the meeting comes off as patronizing (“It’s a brave thought” — Aemond is forbidden to leave with Vhagar so he’s glad that Aegon has to sit back, too). Aegon insists that he’s just “as fearsome”; but the thing is, he isn’t sure of it, so of course Aemond’s words stay with him, nibble at him, and it would only take a cup or two for him to get heated about it. he calls Aemond to his chambers and brings back the topic — “You don’t deem me brave, brother? You do not think I’d fight just as hard?”. it’s only the two of them, Aegon is in full armor, standing on his little wooden stool, a cup in his hands. and because he is hurting, he wants to hurt Aemond in return. so he gets off the stool and comes closer to him, sneering, “You are, no doubt, a fierce warrior,” — but then the smile falls off his face, and his voice gets quiet, pained, searing, “So tell me, where were you when my son was being murdered? I came to learn that they were looking for you, were they not? Oh, you would’ve fought them off with ease, for sure. So where were you, huh?”

and then you get the tension breaking, the emotions erupting — and, most importantly, the CONFLICT. Aegon throws the cup away, darts to Aemond, grabs him by his clothes (remember how desperately he held his face in EP9 of S1? the parallel would’ve been so beautiful !), finally screaming “Have you any idea what you’ve done? WHAT IT COST US?” — and now he isn’t talking about B&C but about Luke too. only, we’ve seen the extent of Aemond’s guilt and he isn’t about to show it now, taken aback by Aegon’s outburst, so instead of taking the blame, Aemond does what he knows best — he attacks him in return. they throw accusations at each other: Aemond reminds Aegon he was getting drunk, he himself didn’t do anything to be there for his family, he didn’t even do anything to deserve being on the throne. it’s nasty, it’s a shouting match, Aegon’s buddies eventually have to come in to pull them away from each other.

and it’s no surprise that Aegon goes back to drinking after that. and Aemond, overwhelmed and in disarray, goes back to the only place that can grant him comfort. so when Aegon finds him there and dares to humiliate him publicly and rob him of that illusion of comfort — that’s when something switches in Aemond. that’s when he decides he’s not a loyal dog anymore.

and that is, in my humble and very subjective opinion, how you properly bring someone’s temper to a boiling point. if only Ryan Condal ever cared, HA.

[danyyytarggg]

my many complaints about hotd that no one asked for (i have not read fire&blood):

- isn’t there supposed to be a war going on? besides episode 4, i feel like we’ve only gotten very small snippets of war taking place. give us more snippets of war, death, despair, of the effects of this fight for the throne (besides that of king’s landing) please. even the emotions are off. i wish there was a greater sense of urgency that comes with a war being waged. i feel like jace is the only one capturing this urgency.

- going off of the first point, why isn’t rhaenyra showcasing any of this urgency? or anger? true determination? she doesn’t even do anything and then states something along the lines of “i don’t think i can win this war.” what? why isn’t she fighting tooth and nail for her throne? why isn’t she fueled with more rage that her son was murdered, her throne usurped? i’m sorry but she truly has not been doing anything except begging to go off to fight on syrax which is admirable but very much not helping. she needs to be making moves and barely any moves are being done. and then she complains about the way the others view her. i’m not a fan of her council but also you have to prove them wrong by actions not just by words, and there are no actions but plenty of words on her end.

- rhaenyra’s hesitance to do anything. i understand her hesitance for war but its just been taken way too far in the show. by continuing to paint rhaenyra in a good light by making sure she doesn’t do anything that could be seen as bad takes away from her character and how interesting it could have been.

- overall, not a fan of aegon’s characterization and while i haven’t read fire and blood, from what ive heard about his character in the book, it is infinitely better and more interesting. he’s supposed to be the opponent of rhaenyra and yet his character is very weak and almost brushed aside in favor of a more rhaenyra versus alicent front which makes me upset. i am absolutely not a fan of aegon at all. i truly wish they did not make his character the way they did as it would have been so much more interesting if they went with his book characterization instead.

- daemon. his harrenhal arc was interesting initially but has dragged on far too long. i understand that they’re trying to flesh out a character arc for him however when there are only 8 episodes and a supposed war raging on, spending so much time and energy on this arc seems like mistake when they could have spent this time advancing and fleshing out the war more. if anything, i feel as though it was purposefully done in this way in order to give an excuse to NOT flesh out the war considering the war doesn’t seem very fleshed out in almost any front except for the happenings in King’s Landing. also, he is chasing away all possible allies, which is frustrating.

- the whole “a misunderstanding started the war” is lame. the greens were already in opposition of team black way before this misunderstanding, why is it now suddenly this one misunderstanding is the driving force for what is taking place when it never was before? trying to paint alicent in a good light by making the whole thing seem like a misunderstanding takes away from her character and how interesting it could have been.

- how locationally-isolating the show has been. everything seems so isolated to driftmark-king’s landing-dragonstone-harrenhal. i wish we could see more of what’s going on in westeros

- helaena. her character is nowhere near as present or fleshed out as i would like it to be.

- the way jaehaerys’ and lucerys’ deaths feel very much forgotten. everyone got over the deaths very quickly with little mention besides the first few episodes.

- the overall reactions to rhaenys’ death was underwhelming in my opinion.

- reaction to aegon and sunfyre being injured: team black’s reaction to aegon and sunfyre potentially being dead was underwhelming and further drives the point that despite aegon being the direct opposition to rhaenyra, the writers truly do not view him as a major player at all. team green’s reaction was also so so underwhelming. this is the guy you all have been saying is the true heir to the throne, the whole driving force behind your team’s actions, ambitions, etc - and yet, there’s barely any true, substantial reaction to him being nearly killed. it’s just been overshadowed by aemond’s ambitions and the secret of aemond being the one to nearly kill him and sunfyre. also you guys are basically down a whole dragon and there’s no reaction to that?

- i’m sorry but mysaria x rhaenyra. it’s just the idea that bothers me - the writers can’t give us a proper queen!rhaenyra arc, but they can give us another rhaenyra romance. the show continues to build rhaenyra’s character around her romantic partners. without daemon by her side, i would have liked to see her come to herself and develop without a romantic partner to fall back on. instead, she has another romantic interest to fight her battles (mysaria being the mastermind behind the plans helping rhaenyra win the throne/win over the people of King’s Landing). it just makes rhaenyra seem entirely incompetent on her own.

- alicent x criston cole. i feel like the show has been putting so much attention and tension on alicent’s relationship with criston cole when i would have preferred more focus on alicent’s relationship with her children. also, for a woman who is so strongly against sexual relations outside of marriage, about duty and honor, i feel like showing us exactly how alicent x criston cole came to be is very much important for alicent’s character? instead of showing us that they’re in a relationship without any information on its progression, making it seem so out of character for alicent.

- yeah otto left but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be showing us his POV.

- the very much lack of unity in team green.

- the very much lack of unity in team black.

what i like:

- my girl alys

[tsaomengde]

The Ones Who Found The City

Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a classic short story, and obviously I knew of it, but I'd never actually read it until recently. Well, I finally got around to it, and as many timeless classics do, it got stuck in my brain. This story is my - response? homage? sequel? pale imitation? - to it. I suggest you go and read "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" if you haven't. Not because it's actually required reading for this story - I think it stands on its own more or less okay - but because it is a classic for a reason.

---

Initially, no one is quite certain of what they’ve found when the Animus breaches the next manifold layer.  This is in and of itself expected, of course.  Exploring psychspace is by its very nature an unpredictable venture.  Each of the various infinite layers is unique and bizarre in its own way, reflecting the archetypal underpinnings of an entire species present, past, or future across an infinitude of possible realities.  The crew of the Animus, therefore, has seen things so utterly alien and inexplicable that only the rigors of their training and the care put into their psychic warding saved them from insanity.

It is somewhat disappointing, then, to find that this sub-domain is just a city.  Definitely not Terranic, certainly not, but still following the Terranic modality, with no more than a seven-degree quantum drift.

“Towers,” Thromby says into the recorder as they sit at their post at the nose of the Animus’s command center.  “Following the standard skyscrape pattern.  Unclear if they’re domiciles or business centers or both.  Coastal city, bay appears to be oceanic rather than lake.  Pleasing blend of urbanization with natural setting.”  They glance at Vigil.  “Anything on the lifescope?”

Vigil shakes his head.  “Nothing.  It’s empty.  Totally empty.”

“That’s odd,” Katrina speaks up from the helm.  “The city doesn’t show signs of decay or reclamation by nature.”

“Entropy may not work in the usual way in this sub-domain,” Teasha reminds her.  “The city itself could be the natural growth, reclaiming the artificial countryside.  We’ve seen things like that before.”

Thromby feels Katrina’s unconscious bristling at the subtle reminder that she is the newest member of the crew and thus less experienced in the vagaries of psychspace than everyone else.  Next to Vigil, who is only nineteen, she is also the youngest.  “I would expect,” Katrina says, her voice cool, “that in a sub-domain so obviously based on human archetypes, entropy and nature-versus-civilization tropes would function more or less as usual.”

“I’m certain you would,” Teasha replies, her voice equally cool.  “When you’ve been at this as long as me and Thromby, you’ll learn better.”

“Enough of that,” Thromby says before Katrina can reply.  They love Teasha, but she tends to be too harsh on new crewmembers.  A defense mechanism, they know, to insulate her from the all-too-common pain of losing them.  But Katrina has too much to prove.  The clash is natural and to be expected, and even useful at times, but now is not one of them.  “Vigil, get me readings on atmosphere, microbiome, and psychic radiation, if any.  Katrina, pick a spot on the coast and bring us down there.  I want to see if the ocean is actually an ocean or a liminality representation.  Teasha, get the Animus tuning to this sub-domain’s resonance frequency.  I don’t want any dissociation issues.”

The orders are mostly unnecessary, since everyone already knows what they’re about, but they serve their intended purpose, which is to re-focus everyone on the task at hand and redirect their nervous energies, particularly Katrina’s.  Thromby still isn’t sure she’s going to make the cut after this expedition is over, but there’s potential there.  They would be foolish to ignore someone with Katrina’s strength of identity grounding. 

There are plenty of sub-domains out there where it’s useful to be entirely certain of who you are, and not everyone can be.

---

The first day’s worth of exploration yields more questions than answers, which is normal and expected.  Thromby is indeed certain that Katrina’s initial assumption that this is a human-archetypal sub-domain is correct.  Human atmosphere, human shadow- and ontological concepts, Terranic fish in the very-real ocean.  But the iconography is sparse and mostly nonsensical.  It’s clear that the city was able to actually function as a city, but it feels purposeful, designed, in a way that actual cities outside psychspace rarely do.

“It’s a metaphor,” Vigil says as they sit around a campfire on the beach after the first day.

“Well, obviously,” Katrina agrees, and Vigil lights up – both visibly and psychically – at her concordance.  Thromby knows Vigil has been nursing burgeoning feelings for Katrina since she joined them, and has so far seen no need to make anything of it.  “But a metaphor for what?”

“We don’t have enough data,” Vigil replies.  “But I’m certain of it.  We just need to keep exploring.”

Thromby takes a bite of the fish they’ve been roasting over the fire.  It’s a pleasant change of pace to be able to eat something real, instead of the platonic nourishment suggestions dispensed by the Animus.  “Agreed.  I’m curious to see what the point of this place was.  We have five more days before we have to resurface and the expedition has been quite successful already.  I think we can spare the time.  Teasha?”

Taking a bite of her own fish, Teasha purses her lips as she chews.  “I concur, but I’m uneasy.”

Teasha is their psychometry specialist, so this makes all of them sit up a little straighter.  “Are we in danger?” Katrina asks.

“Of course we’re in danger, we’re in psychspace.  But in this particular sub-domain?  Metaphorical danger, as Vigil says.  Ideological or memetic patterning rather than physical.”

Thromby nods.  “I suspected that might be the axis of it, here.  We will need to split up to cover the necessary ground in the time we have left, so everyone stays in contact while exploring.  Mechanical and psychic.  No exceptions.”

None of them are particularly happy with this pronouncement, but they see the wisdom of it.  It’s distracting and somewhat draining to keep a four-way psychic connection going, especially over distance, but their implanted transceivers sometimes don’t function properly, depending on the sub-domain.  Electromagnetism and causality both seem to be standard here, but such things have been known to change in an instant depending on whether the sub-domain is actively malicious or not.

Thromby doesn’t feel any such malice here, though.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t present; such things are often quite good at hiding themselves.  But they’ve been exploring psychspace for seventy-eight years subjective.  They’ve learned to trust their instincts.

---

Two more days of exploration are frustratingly unrevealing.  The city is the size of a proper metropolis, and they know it will be impossible to actually explore any significant percentage of it in only a few days, but Thromby is still irritated by their lack of progress.  They find evidence of cultural signifiers, rituals, and traditions, but again, the iconography is vague and appears opaque to standard Jungian-Jingweian analysis.

Teasha spends the two days on a different investigative track than the rest of them.  “Psychometrically speaking the city is remarkably healthy,” she said on the morning of their second day.  “Most locations, metaphorical or otherwise, bear the echoes of trauma or strife, but this place seems to have been almost entirely peaceful.  Totally voluntary anarcho-communism or ordnung-socialism, perhaps, without the usual markers of systemic violence inherent to capitalistic or fascistic systems.  But there’s a thread somewhere that I keep detecting the edges of.”

“A thread of what?” Thromby asked.

“Pain, of course.”

It is on the evening of their third day in the city that Teasha calls them to her.  She uses their transceiver link rather than a psychic summons.  “To avoid contamination,” she explains.  “I’ve found the source of the thread.  Double your usual wardings and enter seclusive patterning before you come inside.”

Thromby does so, of course, though they dislike cutting themselves off from their extrasensory perception.  It feels like trying to see with only one eye.  When they arrive at Teasha’s location, however, they immediately understand why she insisted on it.  The possibility of psychic contamination here is very high.

“What is this?” Katrina asks, holding her nose in disgust.

“The point of the metaphor, of course,” Teasha replies.  She indicates the filthy cellar in which they’ve found themselves, the only part of the city so far that has seemed actively decrepit.  “I guarantee you that even if we spent the rest of our lives exploring this city we would find only this one place showing any signs of entropy.”

The cellar stinks of excrement, a combination of ammonia and fetid shit, despite the physical processes creating such smells having terminated long ago.  The floor is dirt.  There are no windows.  In one corner there are two mops, their heads stiff with drying waste, and a bucket, the metal bands around its circumference orange with rust.

“They concentrated all of the city’s entropy into a single space?” Vigil asks.

“Not entropy,” Teasha tells him.  “Cruelty.”

Katrina gapes, her hand falling away from her nose for a moment.  “Come again?”

“Something lived here,” Teasha explains to her.  “Or, more precisely, was forced to live here.  It functioned as a psychic magnet, of sorts.  The functioning of the city relied entirely upon its imprisonment and use as a scapegoat.”

“What was it?” Vigil asks.

“One of the innocence-sacrifice archetypes.  An animal or a child.  I suspect a child; an animal can feel pain and misery, certainly, but it doesn’t conceive of injustice in the same way a child does.”

Thromby feels their stomach turn a little.  “Ah.  I see.”

“See what?” Katrina demands.

“The point of the metaphor indeed,” Thromby replies.  “This entire city and all its inhabitants, predicated on the suffering on a child.  It’s a morality construct, and a good one, too.”

“A good one?” Vigil asks.  “It’s grotesque.”

“Your deontological leanings are showing,” Katrina tells him.  “From a utilitarian perspective it’s perfect.  Nothing exists without imposing an energy burden on the system in which it exists.  Even the nourishment suggestions the Animus feeds us in liminal space between manifolds is distilled from universal krill.  But this?  The concentration of all of a society’s utility burden onto a single individual.  The ultimate maximization principle.”

“And your teleological leanings are showing,” Teasha sniffs.  “You’re missing the point of the metaphor entirely, Katrina.  It isn’t about utility.  It’s about cruelty.  The cruelty is the point.”

Katrina’s nostrils flare and Thromby cuts in before she can start really arguing.  “Enough,” they say.  “A conflict here in this space could be dangerous.  We’re at the focus of the sub-domain and things have a way of rippling.  We’ve discovered the point of the metaphor, so we can go back to the Animus and leave in the morning.”

Both Katrina and Teasha look ready to argue the point with them, but then they master themselves and both nod.

“Do we have to wait until morning?” Vigil asks, looking around the cellar in transparent disgust.  “I would prefer to leave sooner rather than later.”

“You know the rules,” Thromby replies.  “We don’t transit without everyone being rested.  A tired mind is a vulnerable mind.”

Reluctantly, Vigil nods, too.  The four of them walk away from the cellar, their thoughts opaque to one another.

---

Thromby is jolted out of sleep by Teasha screaming.

They sit bolt upright and look down at Teasha in the bed next to them.  She is clutching at her head, shaking, writhing beneath the sheets.  “Teasha!” Thromby snaps.  “Focus!  Center yourself!”  They grab her by the wrists and pry her hands from her face; her nails are leaving bloody marks in her skin.

“Too much, it’s too much!” she shrieks.  “I’m lost!”

Thromby forces their way into her mind.  She previously gave them her consent for this, knowing that it might be necessary in a moment like this one.  What they see there –

“Aquinas,” they say aloud.  The implants in Teasha’s cochlear nerves pick up on the trigger word and activate, sending the kill-signal to other implants deeper within her brain.  She stops screaming and slumps, unconscious, temporarily brain-dead.  When Thromby says the word again she will be switched back on, but for the moment she is safe from the psychic contamination that was attacking her along her psychometric vector.

Which, of course, means that Thromby has to deal with this issue alone.

They dress quickly and exit the Animus into a beautiful summer day.  Pennants and banners wave atop the rigging of ships in the harbor, bells sound from the city, and people, so many people, cavort and revel on the beach, in the waves, in the streets.  There is laughter, merriment, the intoxicating psychic swell of happiness and excitement.  Thromby threads their way through the crowds in the streets – mothers carrying their infants, children running through the streets in elaborate games of some variation of Terran tag, huge parades of horse-drawn carts with animalistic balloon totems floating in the air above them.  Vendors call out to Thromby, offering delicious food, intricately made jewelry, amazing clockwork-mechanical toys, sensory-enhancing drugs, and a thousand other variegated temptations.  Street musicians play upon cunningly crafted instruments – strings, pipes, percussion, keys – and revelers cavort to the tunes.

Thromby can feel the bright sparks of all of these people in their mind.  These are real, thinking, feeling beings.  They belong to the metaphor, certainly, but Thromby could speak to them, touch them, verify their self-consciousness and interiority, even invite them to come and join them onboard the Animus and explore psychspace.  They could bring them up into the real, return home with them, have a life with them.  That is how it has to be, of course.  Thromby knows they themself may belong to a different metaphor of a different order, after all.  The real is only real because enough people agree it is.

But they do none of these things.  They just walk, stolidly, back to where they know they have to go.

Katrina is waiting for them outside the cellar, barring the way in.  Thromby has their wards up at triple strength and has been in seclusive patterning since before leaving the Animus, but they don’t need to be psychic to read her mind.  Everything she is feeling and thinking is there in plain sight – the proud and defiant way her chin is thrust out, the blaze in her eyes, the way she has her arms crossed and feet at shoulder width.  She is ready to fight.

“Let me through,” Thromby says without preamble.

“No.”

Well, that’s their respective positions, Thromby thinks, articulated clearly and easily enough.  “Why not?” they ask.

“Vigil consented.”

“Vigil is in love with you and you know as well as I do that consent is a matter of framing,” Thromby snaps.  “Move.”

“No.  I explained everything to him and he consented.  It has nothing to do with whatever feelings he might have for me.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it, but fine.  For the sake of argument, tell me how you explained it.”

Katrina hesitates, and Thromby can tell she wasn’t expecting them to actually offer her a chance to proselytize.  “The point of the metaphor is that no matter how great and beautiful the society, if it’s predicated on cruelty, it’s unjust,” she says.  “Deontological thinking, obviously, but cruelty is by definition nonconsensual.  I explained to Vigil that if he allowed it, we could collaboratively put blocks in his mind, purposefully regress him to a childlike mental state, and put him in the cellar to suffer for a specific length of time.  Then we can pull him back out, remove the blocks, and even erase the memories of the trauma.  The child-Vigil won’t, can’t, consent, but it also won’t exist for more than a day, and pragmatically speaking never will have.”

Thromby massages their temples.  “Congratulations.  Once again, you have missed the point of the metaphor.”

“Damnit, Thromby, I’m not a child!  I have the same training and grounding in theory that you and Teasha do.  Everything I’m doing is teleologically sound, and Vigil agreed that with the steps we’re taking –”

“You’re trying to outsmart it,” Thromby cuts her off.  “That’s how I know you’ve missed the point.  You can’t outsmart this, Katrina.  There is no perfect set of circumstances you can construct to get around the simple fact that this city functions, exists, because of deliberate and terrible cruelty.  That’s the entire point of it, just like Teasha said.  Teasha, who, by the way, is currently in a coma.  I had to put her into it to keep Vigil’s misery from damaging her.”

“It’s a thought experiment,” she argues, obviously not addressing the point about Teasha because she knows she won’t win that argument.  “There’s always a correct answer for them.  The trolley, the Gettier, the –”

“It’s about fucking sin,” Thromby sighs.

“Are you joking right now?  You’re going back to the religious well?”

“Yes, because that’s what’s happening right now.  The city is a sin, Katrina.  The excesses of its beauty, its wonder, its perfection, are obscene precisely because of how and why they function.  It’s rooted in the ideology of disgust and taint.  Utility, teleology, all of these justifications and rationalizations exist and have their use, but at the end of the day, answer me one question: will you trade places with Vigil?”

Katrina hesitates.

It’s only a bare moment, less than a second, even, but it’s there.  And Thromby sees it, and Katrina sees it.

“Yes,” she says, finally.

“I knew that would be your answer.  But you know that the answer doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Katrina lowers her head.  “No.”

“You know why you hesitated.”

“Yes.”  She looks back up at them.  “But – there’s no such thing as absolute morality, any more than there’s a single objective reality.”

“Of course there isn’t.  And yet, you hesitated.”

They just lock eyes for a few seconds.  Then she lowers her gaze again.  “And yet, I did.”

Thromby steps past her and opens the cellar.

[girlactionfigure]

Jewish Defiance

Below is the speech I gave at a tiny, spirited protest of Jews - and their allies - who faced off a vast, snarling, swarm of pro-Hamas racists marching through London. Thank you to the organisers and those who turn up every week to show the indomitable defiance of the few.

This is a nice day out, isn’t it? What a lovely day out? Isn’t it nice to shlep into London when we could be doing anything else? We all really wanna be doing this on a weekend, don’t we? It ain’t what I want to be doing with my life. I don’t want to be here. I don’t think any of us wanna be here. These idiots are making us waste our time. But you wanna know what’s even more stupid? They’re wasting their time because they are not going to win. The State of Israel and the Jewish people are not going anywhere. We haven’t gone anywhere for three and a half thousand years. We’ve seen off the Romans, the Babylonians, the Nazis. We’ve outlasted all of them. And we’ll outlast these schmucks. Because antisemitic movements don’t have a long shelf life. History is not kind to the antisemite. And neither should we be. Any antisemite who transgresses should be made to suffer within the full scope of the law. They should be made to suffer consequences, socially, occupationally, legally.

Let’s be clear about who they are. We are not the same as them. They are fakes and frauds. Their calls for “ceasefire” aren’t about peace? You’re not for peace if you’re for globalising the intifada. You’re not for peace, if you’re calling for a Palestine from the river to the sea. You’re not for peace if you ignore, justify or excuse Hamas and their rocket attacks and their acts of terrorism against the Jewish People. You’re not for peace if you don’t condemn Hezbollah for firing rockets. You’re not for peace, if you don’t condemn the theocratic, Mullah regime of Iran and their complicity in all of this. You’re not for peace if you haven’t been calling for the complete and unconditional return of the hostages since day one.

If these liars on the streets of London were for peace they would be marching with Palestinian AND Israeli flags. But they aren’t. If they were for peace they would be screaming for the end of Hamas - a criminal rape gang of Islamic fundamentalists dedicated to jihad and the total extermination of all non-muslims. But they aren’t. These liars, these frauds, these Jew haters feign their tears and call for a ceasefire when the rapists Hamas are under the cosh, but they cheer when Israel is attacked. Sod them.

We on the other hand ARE for peace. There is no Jew that doesn’t want a world of peace and love. But you can’t shake hands with someone who’s trying to punch you in the face. And that is all our enemy does. Since Israel’s inception we have extended our hand in peace. But we have been met with punches, and knives, and rocks, and bullets, and car rammings, and rockets, and bombs, and rape, and torture, and murder and kidnapping. And if the world just expects us to take that. And to smile. And to say thank you world for allowing us to be murdered - then sod them. We are not the world’s punching bag, and we will not be sacrificed because of the non-Jewish world’s problems, or because of a superior, supercilious and utterly misplaced notion that they somehow own us and can dictate to Jews who we are, how we must live and how we are to die.

No one else decides our destiny. We do. When our destiny was in the hands of the world - the world bullied and slaughtered us. Zionism liberated us from the shackles of an abusive relationship with the world. And no one gets to tell us we go back into that relationship. The dynamic has changed. Get used to it. Zionism is the self-determination movement of the Jewish people. It is OUR liberation movement. Not yours. It is OUR civil rights movement. Not yours. The minute a non-Jew tries to define who the Jews are, or define Zionism or control our story - they prove exactly why we need Zionism - to liberate us - from them.

And like an abusive partner, many in the world can’t handle us being free. They can’t handle seeing us happy, thriving and getting on with our lives. Antisemites in Europe and America can’t handle seeing a Jewish minority making choices for themselves when they believe that they, the oh so cultured and civilised non-Jewish world, knows best. And antisemites in the muslim world can’t handle seeing a Jewish minority thrive outside the totalitarian confines of Islamic theocracy.

And so they come after us. Wanting to enslave us again. Not gonna happen. We will never be second class citizens or dhimmi again. And if you don’t like it that we fight back - good. I’m glad you don’t like it. Fuck around and find out. We’ll go as long as we need to.

And let me reiterate here: Jews don’t want violence. There are a million things we’d rather do. You are stopping us from achieving our full potential by making us have to fight you. We don’t want to spill blood. Jewish laws reiterate relentlessly the sanctity of blood. And then there was King David - who wasn’t allowed to build the Temple, because his hands were tainted with blood and the wars he had to fight. We are Jews and we wanna do good shit. We want to make advances in art, science and medicine for the good that it brings and for the joy of simply enriching our knowledge of this world.

Jews do not want war. But be under no illusion, if you bring it to us we will give you a war. Because there IS a time for war just as there’s a time for peace. And the time for war is when THEY come to kill us. Don’t fuck with Israel. Because our ancestors weren’t just shepherds and prophets and judges - they were warriors. And what was in them is in us. And just as they gave hell and triumphed over their enemies - we will give our enemies hell and we will triumph and we will win and then we will laugh and we will sing and we will dance - and with a bit of luck - we will make love and create more Jewish babies.

Look at the idiots out there who want to destroy us. They have to sing repetitive rhymes en masse - like morons in a cult - because they’re scared to be individuals. They’re scared to think for themselves. Scared to speak for themselves. They’re scared to be different. They’re scared to stand alone. They need nursery rhymes because they’re scared to engage in the complexities of an imperfect world. They’re morons.

Look at the numbers they have to gather in to feel brave enough to chant what they think? To shout that they want jihad and to kill every Jew between the river and the sea?

People who gather in that volume in order to shout at Jews are scared of Jews - and they should be. Because we’re fucking awesome. Being small in number is not a weakness. It is our superpower. It’s always been the Jewish superpower. It gives each of us ten times the resilience of those who rely on numbers. Never forget, no matter how surrounded you feel, strength is not in numbers, it is in your soul, it is in your heart and it’s in your resourcefulness. And we’ve got all of that. We are small in number but the things we’re each capable of are mighty. So go out every day and be mighty.

And don’t ever forget what Hamas did and what these people support. Darkness. They support darkness. There has never been more moral clarity to a fight than the one we face. What Hamas did on October 7th - demons from hell would ask them to be their teachers. And Hamas promise to do it again and again. A ceasefire is not peace. It’s a downpayment on future blood shed. It’s an investment in future war. The first step for the Middle East to even have a chance of peace is for Hamas to be gone.

Hamas are not the same civilisation as us. No peace can be made with them or anyone who thinks like them.

Our civilisation is worth protecting because it offers something good. The next time you’re in Jerusalem go and visit the Kingdom of David and you will see how precarious our origins were and how miraculous it is that we are still here and the responsibility we have to protect ourselves. David’s Kingdom was tiny. A tiny hillside that offered something new. A small outpost of light in a sea of darkness. It offered a revolution. It rejected what surrounded us. And what were we rejecting? We were rejecting the cruelty of those who engaged in child sacrifice. We were rejecting those who worshipped Moloch and set their own children on fire.

Now look at what’s happening today! Nothing has changed.

We’re facing an enemy who still sacrifice children. Deliberately. In Hamas we have an enemy who encourage their children to die, to blow themselves up, to set themselves on fire, to become so-called martyrs and shaheeds. We face an enemy whose parents praise Allah if one of their children blows themselves up with a suicide bomb to kill other children. We face an enemy that teaches their children in kindergartens, in schools, in mosques and in the home to die. We face an enemy that deliberately hides behind its own, and prevents them from seeking safety, so that they can be harmed in a war that THEY started. We should have no ambiguity and no doubt that we are on the side of good, and that good must triumph. Not just for us, but for this planet, lest that the ancient darkness faced by King David conquer every hillside and plunge the whole world into a night without end.

I want to leave you now with something important. The most important thing. What’s going on with our cruel and wicked enemies is deadly - but it’s also theatre. It’s designed to be a spectacle that scares you. It’s designed to make you crumble inside, give up and walk away. But it’s clear from your presence here today that you will not. And that none of you ever will. I wanna say that you are all fucking brilliant. All of you. You don’t even realise how brilliant you are. Seven months into the most disgusting war against us and here you all are standing tall, not backing down, ready to go on for as long as you need to. You are epic Jews, equal to any Jews of the past.

And don’t let the world spin your heads. Because mark these words: this is the best time to be a Jew in 2000 years. It is the best time to be a Jew in 2000 years. Because we’ve always had enemies. There have always been those who’ve risen up to kill us. But this time, this time we have the State of Israel. The Jewish People are home. They are in their indigenous homeland and they will never be uprooted again.

And because we have the State of Israel we will never be as vulnerable as our ancestors. As bad as things sometimes feel we will never know how vulnerable they felt when the rug was pulled from their feet. And they would be SO happy for us. We are the luckiest Jews in 2000 years. With Israel we can defend ourselves. We can fight back. We have an army. We have infrastructure. We have technology. For the first time in 2000 years the Jews can truly fight back. And if our enemies wanna bring it, they will know we can fight.

So you can be anxious now and then. But never, ever give in to fear.

In this life you can be scared. You can be messed up. You can even be fucked up. But the most important thing is to show up. Always show up and give a good account of yourself and with God’s grace we will always triumph. God bless you. Baruch HaShem.

LEE KERN