#where you tell people they are broken and then try to sell them a remedy. it's snake oil.

[lovelessrage]

I feel like when the question is asked "do aros feel like they are forced to choose QPRs/some other type of non-romantic dynamic", it's often missing a very vital component, and that is that most people interpret that question to be someone strongarming you into that choice.

What is far more common is the societal impacts at play and how those affect someone's choices. For example, the complex of feeling incomplete or broken without a romantic partner often translates to feeling the same way without a QPR. Feeling failed without a relationship, or that you are missing out on a grand experience others can have but you can't, is also a type of pressure. When you measure your worth up against a checklist of relationships, that's an enforced idea. It's subtle, and it only comes into the light when you already hate yourself and feel empty and alone.

People don't often come up to you and tell you how sad and miserable you'll be directly; it is something you gain from being surrounded by an ideal of success that you feel you cannot meet. I often feel that, for a community that can often pride itself on its "awareness" of alloromantic relationships, or seeing things others don't, or offering relationship advice, there is that same side that sees these blindspots as unapplicable to them. That they are immune to amatonormativity and its variants, when they are not.

How much is want, a healthy want for this dynamic, and how much is based upon an implanted need? How much is based on this as the "aro experience", the "aro relationship", the "aro struggle" influencing what we see as necessary? How much is feeling like you can't be happy or complete without the last little checkmark?

[ikaroux]

Zhongli: The Dragon Dance. (Part 1) (EN)

Version française

f!reader

Aaaah Zhongli, my sweet Zhongli, writing about followers is really painful in itself given their longevity... I didn't come here to suffer, okay! *crying in a corner*

Les Ost pour ce chapitre :

Broken Hero Onmyoji

Rabia Honkai impact

Masterlist

The port city of Liyue was abuzz with excitement as the New Year's Eve celebration took place. The streets were brightened by the laughter and chatter of passers-by and lit by paper lanterns decorated with cut-out designs of dragons, maple leaves, herons and more. Various flowers from the region decorated every part of the city, right down to the ponds with golden carp. You could see dancers strutting a flexible dragon figure in the image of the Geo Archon in the streets. Street vendors shouted at the top of their voices, selling the merits of their goods or the deliciousness of their food. Everything seemed beautiful and magical.

You had come from Mondstadt to spend the end-of-year celebrations here, with some friends who lived in the city. They had suggested that you go and see the fireworks which would take place later in the evening, but your curiosity led you to walk through the streets of Liyue alone before joining your friends.

This year the festival organisers asked the inhabitants of Liyue and their guests to wear a mask which was offered to them by the city. You knew that the festival was to end with a kind of masked ball that would take place all over the city, with musicians placed here and there, sometimes in the corridors overhanging the streets or in the harbour by the sea.

The organisers of the ball wanted everyone to be able to enjoy a moment of joy and happiness without fear, without fear of the gaze of others.

You would walk along the wooden quays, your fox mask partially covering your face. You gazed at the reflection of the city lights on the surface of the water, a smile on your face. The street was crowded but you loved it, the atmosphere was so similar to your beloved city.

As you turned your gaze to observe the quay parallel to yours, you noticed the refined figure of a tall man. His posture was refined and elegant, he stood upright with his arms crossed behind his back and his eyes fixed on the horizon. He wore a long coat that matched his build perfectly, his hair, tied back in a simple tail, swayed in the sea breeze. He wore a golden mask with the image of a dragon.

The man seemed to notice your gaze lingering on him, turning his face towards you. The masks only hid the upper part of the faces, so you could see the soft smile on his lips. Embarrassed, you ran away, slipping through the crowd of people enjoying the shops on the harbour.

As you reached the centre of the city, the sweet sounds of the typical instruments of the region echoed through the streets. You could recognise the erhu among all the instruments that were playing.

Men, women and children began to dance happily, some laughing, others giving each other longing looks.

Seduced by the warm and loving atmosphere, your lips stretched into a wide smile before quickly disappearing as a large gloved hand reached for yours. You quickly turned to see who had surprised you, thinking at first that it was one of your friends who had found you. You opened your eyes wide when you recognised the man in the dragon mask. He pulled you to him, placing his free hand on your hip, he began to dance with you, guiding you perfectly to the rhythm of the music. You were mesmerised by his amber eyes watching you intently under his mask, the soft smile on his face making your cheeks warm.

You gradually began to relax in his arms, laughing out loud as he twirled you around before pulling you back against him, a husky laugh gently rising from his throat at your adorable reactions. After several minutes of energetic dancing, he moved his hand up your back, pulling you closer to him in a slower, more sensual dance. He gently placed his cheek on the top of your head as your face rested on his chest, breathing in the lily scent that wafted from him. As you swayed gently on your feet, he picked up a silk flower that decorated one of the columns that littered the street, supporting the upper floors of the houses. He placed the little pink button in your hair (colour), admiring how well it suited you.

Your dance was suddenly interrupted when the dull sound of fireworks was added to the melody of the musical instruments, your attention instantly turned to the play of light in the sky. Your pupils shone with a new brilliance at the sight.

Dazzled by the beauty of the fireworks, you glanced at your mysterious escort, hoping that he was enjoying the show as much as you were.

Your cheeks turned a deep red as you noticed his eyes were fixed on you, your hands still linked together. He moved his face closer to you, pushing a few strands of hair out of the way.

"Thank you for the evening. "he whispered in your ear.

Without giving you time to answer, he brought the back of your hand to his lips and placed a tender kiss on it. He reluctantly let go of you before stepping back, giving you one last look before disappearing into the crowd.

"No, wait... don't go... your name... give me your name!"

But now he was out of your sight, regret tainting your heart. Why didn't you ask him before?

"(Y/N)! "

Hu Tao's voice called to you in the distance, bringing you out of your thoughts. She was accompanied by Xiangling, Chongyun and Xingqiu who waved their hands at you, their faces lit up with big smiles. Taking one last look at the place where your mysterious date had disappeared, you finally joined your friends, ending the evening with them.

Zhongli was sitting on the terrace of his flat, a steaming cup of tea in his hands. His gaze was lost in contemplation of the liquid in its container.

He was still wondering why he had left without asking your name. Even after living for thousands of years, he still felt a little foolish.

Perhaps he should have invited you to share a cup of tea with him? Perhaps he should have taken off his mask and introduced himself to you properly?

Zhongli had rarely had regrets in his long life and today was one of those rare moments. A sigh escaped his lips, from the moment he had met your gaze on the docks, you had intrigued him. He had immediately noticed from your manner that you were not from Liyue. From Mondstadt perhaps? That's what your clothes suggested.

For some reason, you dodged his gaze when he turned his attention to you, running away from the platform that separated you from him.

Curiously, Zhongli couldn't help but follow you, speeding up to avoid losing sight of you. Eventually he caught up with you, admiring your wondering eyes for a few seconds. He would have liked to take off that fox mask to better admire you, why? He didn't know. What he did know was that at that moment he wanted to share an intimate moment with you, wanting to create a peaceful and sweet memory with a stranger whose smile was brighter than the most precious of diamonds.

Zhongli had felt an intense happiness arise in him as you relaxed in his arms. He savoured the breath you projected on him as your head rested on his chest, your warmth comforted him, your laughter fascinated him, your eyes (colour) captivated him. Why was he gone? Why had he left? He might never have the opportunity to see you again. Zhongli knew, after accumulating 6,000 years of knowledge and wisdom, that feeling desire or attraction for a mortal could become something painful for both you and him. Zhongli might not be the Geo Archon anymore, but he was still a follower with a long life expectancy...

Yes, he knew... but knowing didn't stop you from hoping.

You had a hard time to wake up, the evening of the new year having been rather animated. After the fireworks, you all went to Xiangling's house to have a last drink, without alcohol for some of you, Hu Tao, Xingqiu and Xiangling taking care of the atmosphere of your little party. You were able to talk with Chongyun about your evening, the magic that the stranger in the dragon mask had worked on you still haunting you. Chongyun had listened patiently before suggesting that you might try to look for him in town tomorrow, and even though the mask had prevented you from seeing him, his presence remained intact in your mind.

So you slept at Xiangling's house. When you woke up, she was preparing breakfast with a big smile on her face. Xiangling had prepared a home-made hangover remedy for you with your meal made of blue lily of the valley flower, sweet flower and apple juice extract.

"Thank you Xiang, it's delicious."

"You're welcome (Y/n). And you have to be in shape for today!"

"Fit? Why?"

"Didn't Hu Tao tell you? We're going to show you around the city today. And then..." -She walked over to you, her hand covering the side of her mouth as if to tell you a secret. You moved closer to her.- "We need to find your handsome stranger in the dragon mask!."

You choked on your food.

"H-How did you...I didn't...!"

"Chongyun told me about it last night before he left! He didn't like seeing you so sad so he thought we could look together today."

You sighed, desperate. You couldn't blame Chongyun, after all you hadn't told him to keep it to himself and besides this boy was far too adorable to be sulking.

After you finished eating you went to take a shower before changing your clothes, combing your hair and finally applying some light makeup to your face. Hu Tao met you downstairs at Xiangling's flat, finishing his discussion with an elderly lady who greeted you with a brief nod before leaving.

"Good! (Y/n) it's time we took care of your case."

"My case huh..."

Hu tao grabbed your arm, leading you into the sparsely populated streets of Liyue. She showed you some shops while you described your dance partner's appearance to her.

"A tall, elegant and polite man with a long coat you say? Eeeeh... Reminds me of someone."

Hu Tao paused for a moment to think before being interrupted by the deep voice of a man calling out to him.

"Hu Tao there you are, I have a small... favor..."

His amber eyes met your eyes (colour), a long silence settled between the four of you, Hu tao and Xiangling swinging their eyes towards you and then the newcomer. The man did not take his eyes off you, his mouth slightly open. It was him, you were sure, it was him!

Zhongli looked at you without saying anything, too amazed to find you so easily when he had just come to Hu Tao to ask for his help. He had recognised your eyes from the moment he saw them.

He cautiously approached you, forgetting everything around him. He took your hand in his, a gentle smile appearing on the delicate features of his face. You were even more beautiful than he had imagined. He could feel your fingers trembling with emotion in his hand, tightening it to soothe you.

"Ah- I, you..."

Zhongli paid no attention to Hu Tao and Xiangling's curious looks. He was focused on you, only on you. Drawing you to him, his hand again on your lower back, he began a few dance steps to assure you that it was really him. Your tears rolled down your cheeks as a smile lit up your face. Several minutes passed before he stopped twirling you around to the beat of his heart.

"What is your name?"

"(Y/n)"

"(Y/n), what a beautiful name." -He brought your hand still buried comfortably in his to his lips, placing the most delicate of kisses.- "Zhongli. May I invite you to drink tea with me?"

"With pleasure."

Zhongli knew that forging bonds with a mortal could be painful.

He knew but... he would take that risk.

[theslytherin-elite]

BAD COMPANY (thaddeus X hurley)

@squibbed

The evening had been a blast, even if Hurley had decided not to join. Too bad really. Thaddeus knew how to have fun without him as well, but he preferred to have him tag along. Imagine all the hustles they could of done on a night out for drinks. Imagine the money they could of made.

It was weird how hooked Thaddeus was with the aspect of achieving money, considering he came from a family of rich pure bloods. Certainly not Malfoy standard but far more than they needed. Yet it gave Thaddeus a rush, and that rush was worth more than the entire fortune.

Which was also why he had used the entire summer to find and trade magical artifacts. Something only Hurley knew of, because he didn't trust anyone else. In a way it was security; in case something happened to him, Hurley knew where they were and could keep on the work.

Please, McGonagall, don't be around; Thaddeus prayed as he snuck back inside the castle. The sixteen year old was usually quite the master at sneaking in and out of the castle walls, but now he was more than a little tipsy and things had a tendency to..go off course then.

The others had left Hogsmeade about an hour earlier, and Thaddeus saw his shot to get some work done. Besides, he needed connections. His grand plan was to get work within the Ministry or Gringotts and get ties to the people pulling the strings, find all those corrupt fuckers. Hell, Thaddeus even toyed with the idea of moving into the muggle world. The same way muggle children looked upon magic as a fairytale, Thaddeus viewed the concept of corrupt stockbrocker and traders as one.

Thankfully, Mcgonagall was no where to be seen. Except for her, Thaddeus didn't really care about any other teachers. Her? He went as far as claiming to hate her. The way she looked at him made him downright pissed off. He wasn't a man whom often let anger get in the way. He was probably far too selfish. Yet the way she looked at him, with narrow eyes and a judging manner irked him extremely. The worst was perhaps that he knew why. She viewed him as bad influence for Hurley.

It was actually a surprise that McGonagall let Slughorn change rooms and room-mates after Thaddeus wish. The old hag probably whined about it, despite not having anything to do with Slytherin. Yet, everyone knew Slughorn was terrified of that witch. Had not Thaddeus given a gift for the...favor, Slughorn probably would of never dared to go through with it.

But that was all out of the world. Now the two had a room entirely for themselves. Even if Thaddeus had to expose Hurley's "supposed" issues with being a Squib to Slughorn to get it through. "You can't imagine how it must be to be a squib. In Slytherin! Professor, imagine if something happened. How would that look? What if people complained over you?" Of course, when Thaddeus and Hurley planned this great scheme of theirs, they agreed that it was the most sensible way to get Slughorn's approval of the idea. A play on feelings always sealed the deal. The two never voiced the fact that these so called feelings weren't a play for the gallery. Hurley's feelings revolving his magical ability were bad. But it made it all too real to acknowledge that. So instead had the then 4th years laughing about Hurley's imaginary hurt.

Now, they had an entire room to hide all their stash of all things which was worthy of selling. From potions to muggle stuff, to evil remedies, to rare ingredients.

Thaddeus entered the Slytherin common room. It was...quiet. Far more quiet than it should be an Saturday night, even if it was way past midnight. They were Slytherin's after all. Not pansy Hufflepuffs, scared of staying up past ten o'clock. Well, off to bed then.

Thaddeus Nott rarely got angry. He rarely let feelings get to him. He was, in many ways, the perfect business man. Calm, cold and collected and with a smashing sense of humor (at least according to himself). Yet, as he sat foot inside his room, he felt a raging taking over him as never before.

On the edge of his bed, Hurley sat, a giant shiner to his eye, a lip severely split, cut to his cheek. He had wrapped his hand in some ripped up fabric. The other didn't look up at him even and Thaddeus's heart was pounding in anger. "Who, Hurls?" He asked, only to repeat his question as the other simply remained silent.

"Who, Hurley Corman?" anger was certainly raising in his voice. Even if the anger was directed at Hurley, he tensed and it made Thaddeus furious? Who the fuck dared to lay a hand on him? He knew now why the common room was empty. No one probably dared to stay there by now.

"Forget about it." Stop! Stop saying that piece of shit quote whenever stuff got hard, Hurley. At least that's what he wanted to say. But that encouraged an conversation neither Thaddeus nor Hurley was emotionally and maturely ready for. "Tell me who did this?" Thaddeus demanded hard and finally Hurley raised his head, and Thaddeus winced at the sight of those hallow blue eyes. The shiner was developing quickly and was already deep purple and swollen. "The 7th years. Wanted to put me in my place. Probably mad I can get their girls." He joked half heartly, doing an attempt to smile, showing off more blood than anything.

"I'll bloody kill them." Thaddeus stormed out of the room, in the heat of the moment forgetting that he could of been nice and heal Hurley. It didn't matter. What did, was tearing those sons of bitches apart. "No! Give it a rest! I don- " Hurley cut himself off as he realized it was pointless and he got up, trying to catch up with his friend, limping a head, gritting teeth through the pain.

Thaddeus wiped up his wand and blasted up the door leading to the dorm for the 7th year boys. Obviously none of them had gone to bed because they all jumped up from chairs, beds and trunks used to sit on. Thaddeus wasn't one of those kids that got into fights. He was more likely to be the one staging the fights, collecting bets. For now, it was probably a good thing because Avery was so surprised by the hard punch to his face, he only stumbled backwards.

Disgarding the wand entirely, Thaddeus proceeded to punch and kick whatever living person he got close to. "Never lay a fucking hand on Hurley again or I'll beat you to death, bring you back and posion your sorry ass and give a slow death" he snarled viciously.

The commotion brought the attention to the room, and those asleep woke up and soon the was a crowd of teenagers trying to get a view from the inside. Eventually the spectical woke Slughorn as well and soon he was pushing his way through the crowd, to end this fight. Even if he wanted to ignore it, desperately, he knew the other professors would complain once it reached their ears.

Thaddeus had obviously taken some beating too but the anger had made him stronger than he knew himself and the others were worse off than him by the time Slughorn managed to end the fight.

----

"Firewhiskey?" Thaddeus offered Hurley a glass as he pressed a cold cloth to his own black eye. He had healed the worst damage on Hurley, like the hand and given him some skele-gro for the broken ribs. He had rid him off the worst limping. Yet, Thaddeus wasn't the best healer to be truthful, so for their bruises and the cut on his lip they needed to resort to Bruisewort Balm which needed a few days to work properly.

Hurley accepted the glass and raised his eye at Thaddeus. "You know you'll be grounded indefinitely, right?" the blond man shrugged. "Well, then you better chew up a real good deal for old Slughorn to get me outta there." Thaddeus smirked, drawing a laugh from Hurley. "I'll consider it. Might be nice with some peace." he smirked, causing Thaddeus to laugh out loud, flicking him the finger.

The two sixteen year olds didn't talk any deeper about what happened, it was easier to ignore it all. They just weren't ready to do so. Nor did Thaddeus talk about how those swollen split lips of Hurley was definitely tempting.

[moonflowerlesbians]

I took a quick break from prompts to write 5000 words of pure angst. I hope you’ll forgive me. 

“we let precious time go by”

Read on AO3.

Summary: “The day will come when she returns to an empty flat, or she’ll wake to a cold pillow beside her. If she’s lucky, she’ll be there when the beast pounces. She’ll get to say goodbye. 

A piece of her will die that day, she knows. 

Dani will die that day.”

Word Count: 5088

They live together thirteen years after Bly. Thirteen wonderful years in a little flat in a small town in Vermont that looks like the spirit of Christmas itself retched on every building in the wintertime. They sell poinsettias and wreaths of holly for the holidays and budding perennials in the warmer months. They find the cheapest grocer, the best plumber, the man who drives into town selling fresh eggs on Wednesdays.

They befriend an elderly woman with three toy poodles, who stops by The Leafling every Sunday morning before mass to purchase flowers for her late husband’s grave, and they try not to think of Hannah. The daycare center three doors down marches the children to the park twice a day, right past the shop, and they try not to think of Rebecca and the Wingraves. They learn the quickest route to their favorite take-away place by heart, and they try not to think of Owen.

It’s hard, though, when your world’s been shattered and everyone else is carrying on as if nothing’s happened. But, thirteen years go by, and they manage. They manage, even as Dani becomes a bit less like herself every day, and Jamie struggles to pretend everything is fine. She pretends not to notice when she finds a sock in the freezer or Dani’s toothbrush between the couch cushions. Pretends not to notice when the lines on Dani’s face grow deeper, etched into her fair skin like stone, and she pretends not to notice when Dani wakes in the dead of night to gaze out the window for hours on end, then returns to bed as if she never left.

She’d brought it up with Dani over dinner. She had grasped Dani’s hand ever so gently, running a soothing thumb over the knuckles. Dani looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. Maybe she hadn’t. A tear tracked down her cheek and dropped onto her lap.

“Please, love, please let me help,” Jamie had begged, and she had never meant anything more in her life, save the night she had accepted Dani’s ring.

Dani had observed her sadly, centuries of knowledge weighing heavy behind her eyes. “You can’t.”

“Please, Dani.” She hadn’t meant to break down, she hadn’t. She had meant to be strong, a steadfast rock in a stormy sea.

“Jamie…” Dani’s voice had been soft, resigned. “It’s her.” She looked down at her clasped hands, as if unwilling to bear witness the damage sure to show on Jamie’s face.

This was meant to be dinner, a question about a frozen sock, an easy explanation. Just a little swamped with the shop’s finances. A natural remedy she had read about in a magazine. Not this. Anything but this.

Jamie had known the day might come, when the memories they’d repressed would reappear to haunt them like Peter fucking Quint. She had hoped with every fibre of herself that the ghastly woman from that terrible night at the lake would slumber for decades yet.

Christ, how long had the Lady been awake? How long had Dani kept this from her?

Dani had seemed to sense her question. She’d become too good at that as of late.

“Only a few months.”

A few months.

Jamie’s lips had tightened into a thin line, and she forced herself to swallow back a sob, eyes closed.  

“Dani, why-?”

Why didn’t you tell me?

Why now?

Why this?

Why them?

“You don’t deserve this,” Dani had said, and Jamie’s heart shattered. “It’s my burden, not yours--”

“No. No, no--”

“--I can’t ask you to take this on. I invited her in; I condemned myself, not you.”

“Stop, Dani, stop.”

“Jamie, please…” Dani had sounded so small, so broken. “You have to go.”

“No,” Jamie had refused outright. “Never.”

“Then me. I’ll leave.”

“No one is going bloody anywhere.” Jamie had been steely calm, even as her ribcage threatened to break with the effort. “You and I are staying right fucking here. You hear me, Dani? Right here.” She hadn’t been able to hide the crack on the final syllable. Her ring caught the warm glow of the kitchen light.

Jamie took a steadying breath. “When you came home with that wee plant, you know what I thought? I thought, ‘ah, shite, she’s gone and found another lost cause.’” Here, Jamie had given a small smile. “‘And I bloody love her for it.’”

Dani wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Haven’t got a clue how you always see the possibility in everything. No one’s too far gone to save with you around, Poppins. It’s exhausting, really,” Jamie had continued. “I took your ring, and I’ve never regretted it. Not once, yeah? Not once. I knew what I signed up for: lovin’ you, relentless optimism an’ all.” Her laugh had been watery. “So, we’re not goin’ anywhere. It’s us, yeah? Always has been, always will be.”

So Dani had stayed. And Jamie redoubled her efforts to support her.

She runs the errands on the evenings where the dark feels all too familiar and returns to Dani huddled beneath a fleece blanket. She wraps Dani in her arms and soothes the nightmares away with feather-light kisses. She’s there in every way she can be, never pressing, never rushing, and never letting Dani see just how utterly terrified she is.

To tell Dani would be to ruin the careful dynamic they’ve reached. Dani is scattered, rain moving with the wind; Jamie has to be grounded, a stake dug deep into the earth. But the slopes grow muddier the longer the rain pours, and dirt washes away, gone like a rushing stream. Jamie knows she can’t keep this up forever. She’s already lost so much, and her most important person is fading fast, swept up in the rising current.

She loves Dani to the stars and back. Which is why Jamie must bear this load alone. Dani is already carrying the sky on her shoulders, and Jamie cannot burden her with this.

Call her stupid, call her noble. She calls it mercy.

She knows she’s pulling the same shit Dani did not telling her that Her Royal Lakeness was stirring. She knows, and she resents herself for it. She also knows that Dani would look at her with such guilt for causing Jamie strife. Dani would try to mask her hurt to spare her wife, and Jamie’s gut wrenches at the thought. Her brow would crinkle, lips pursed, and Jamie would yearn to kiss the stress from her face.

Jamie is rewarded for her silence. Dani is getting better about vocalizing her nightmares, telling Jamie when the Lady makes an appearance as she slumbers. They embrace beneath the covers and speak between labored breaths, where Dani finally caves and Jamie does her best to hide the way she’s become afraid of the dark. She murmurs reassurances and tells herself they’re for Dani, pressing kisses into her forehead.

Dani sleeps tucked into Jamie’s side as though it’s enough to ward off the ghosts, a formidable wall against things that go bump in the night. She sleeps, and Jamie lies awake. Her defense is slipping. She can’t keep them both afloat.

She can try. She can hold out as long as Dani will have her. She will. She doesn’t know anything else. Jamie swears, she swears on her plants, she swears on her life, she swears to anyone who will listen that she will be there for Dani, even if she can’t be there for herself.

The weeks pass and more socks freeze, more toothbrushes go missing, and Dani drifts. Some days are better than others. Some days, Jamie’s Sisyphean task is easy, and Dani meets her at the top of the mountain with a flirty smile and sunshine on her greedy tongue, with hands that grab at Jamie’s belt and tug her shirt up and over her head. On those days, they feel like themselves.

But, on other days, days when the whole world is overcast and the tide is rising, they shutter the shop and lock the doors to their second-floor flat. They wear matching pajamas, while the television set plays classic cinema. Jamie makes tea; Dani still hasn’t mastered it in a decade, and Jamie doubts she ever will. Their legs tangle in a heap, ankles sliding along calves.

Jamie comes to rest her head on Dani’s sternum, allowing the beat of her heart to remind her that they’re here. Dani is here, breathing steadily and weaving their fingers together like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Like they aren’t living borrowed years. Like Jamie’s mantra of one day at a time doesn’t feel like a splintered crutch beneath her arm, supporting the weight of an impossible situation.

Every day feels like the last, and Jamie hates it. She hates the feeling of inevitability that lurks just out of sight. The beast in the jungle, Dani had said. It prowls between streetlamps and seeks refuge in their walls, skittering away when Jamie shines a torch, only to return the instant she turns her back. The creature is waiting for something Jamie can never see, and it terrifies her. She cannot prevent what she cannot see. All she can do is wait, hopeless, at the mercy of a fucking ghost.

The day will come when she returns to an empty flat, or she’ll wake to a cold pillow beside her. If she’s lucky, she’ll be there when the beast pounces. She’ll get to say goodbye.

A piece of her will die that day, she knows.

Dani will die that day.

And, god, she feels so bloody selfish for thinking of her own fucking self-preservation when the woman she loves might one day disappear from the world, but, Christ, how can she be expected to go on like this? Just waiting for the days to pass until she’s alone again. Again.

She’s lost more people than she can count. Some to time, some to death, some to drink, some to the shelter of a warm embrace Jamie could not provide. Each loss is different, yet each brings about a sting that is painfully familiar. An old bedfellow she’s forced to accommodate. It settles in her bones, nestling into the hollow spaces between her ribs, cold and unwelcome. Once it latches on, it never truly leaves.

The ache is ever-present, a plate of steel, layering and building into a grim suit of armor that clashes and clanks and frightens people away with its noise, and, after a while, she forgets. Forgets what it’s like to be free of those reminders that she wasn’t good enough for people to stay. Wasn’t good enough for her parents, nor her foster parents. Wasn’t good enough for classmates and teachers who deemed her a waste of effort. Wasn’t good enough for women who hid themselves from the world or from their own judgment. Hell, she wasn’t even good enough for the prison system, released early on account of behavior.

She forgets how to breathe without each inhale taking the strength of someone who’s had a scarlet letter branded across her chest her whole life. Forgets how it feels to extend a hand in invitation without her own fear dragging her down, the fear that results from rejected companionship and harsh words. She forgets what it’s like to touch and be touched and to lay yourself bare before another, trusting that you are safe and wanted.

Dani had taken her proffered hand and held it to tender lips. She had glacially pried away nearly three decades of fine steel with the care of a dutiful lover, uncovering the origin of each piece as she went. She had never once flinched away, only nodded with sweet understanding and kissed Jamie a little more fervently that night.

Then, one day, Jamie had found herself the lightest she’d ever been, open and vulnerable beneath Dani’s affectionate gaze. She had breathed, and it had felt like a sigh. The old ache was not gone; it could never truly be banished. But the act of sharing her very soul, and receiving Dani’s in return, had turned bruises into mere memories and fear into excitement.

Her armor had sat, gathering dust in a corner of their life, no longer needed. She had been content to let Dani, or, rather, the security of their relationship, be her protection.

Now, though, with the ground they walk upon growing perilous, Jamie is defenseless. Her own beast hungers, prepared to strike with familiar claws, and Jamie loathes that she is reaching for her old guard. Loathes that she even considers distancing herself. That Dani cannot escape the cruelty of a fate brought on by selflessness, and Jamie is pondering how life will go on without her.

It feels so bloody selfish that it makes Jamie sick to her stomach. It’s only human to fret about the future, but this feels like an especially abominable twist of the knife. And Dani can never know. No, never. Jamie will be strong for her. She needs to be unwavering in her dedication to their love.

She manages, though it feels like standing in the middle of the road, watching a lorry drive toward her at a hundred kilometers an hour and choosing not to move out of the way. Rather, she plants her feet firmly on the asphalt and stares down what will surely splinter every bone in her body if it doesn’t kill her.

For Dani, she tells herself.

Dani, who startles at unseen reflections in their dishes and damn near scares the living daylights out of Jamie. There’s a haunted look in her eye, and, suddenly, Jamie can hear their countdown clock ticking away the seconds without Dani having to say a word. Her chest is heaving as Jamie steps in front of her, inspecting her for signs of physical harm, and blocking the faucet from her line of sight. Dani can’t meet her eye, craning her neck to see the sink.

Her voice is hoarse, ragged. “I saw her.”

No. No, no, no, no. Dreams are one thing. Dreams, Jamie can handle. Bad dreams can be banished with soothing caresses and warm tea, but this? They are both very much awake.

Breathe.

“What did you see?” Jamie seeks confirmation to calm her racing pulse.

Dani’s lip trembles, and she clutches frantically at the countertop. “Her.” It’s little more than a whisper, but the meaning is unmistakable. Dani continues, with painstaking deliberacy. “I keep seeing her.”

Christ. Keep seeing her? The sheer terror in Dani’s tone implies this isn’t the first time the ghost has appeared to her. But it is the first Jamie is hearing of it. No, not this again. Not Dani keeping from her the details of the most horrific secret of their lives.

She can’t stop to process this now. Dani is shaking, and Dani is frightened, and Dani needs her here, in this moment, not dwelling on what this means for the course of their lives.

Jamie turns the tap off and pulls the drain. “We’re gonna be okay. You can’t think the worst.” The words sound hollow, even to her own ears, but she tries, god, does she try to mean them with everything she has.

“Jamie…” Dani’s tone is warning.

Don’t lie to me.

I have to, love, Jamie thinks, I have to, or we’ll both give up, and I’m not ready.

“We could have so many more years together.”

Could.

It’s not technically a lie. ‘Could’ leaves room for uncertainty, the unpredictability of an entity so far beyond the scope of their control that they’d be institutionalized for suggesting such a thing exists. ‘Could’ allows them to pretend they aren’t trapped on a preordained path, walking side by side into inevitable grief. ‘Could’ is hope.

“It’s okay,” Jamie hears herself repeating. Distract. “I’ll do the washing up from now on, yeah? You’re shit at it, anyway.”

It earns her a weak chuckle from Dani, and it’s enough. Jamie holds her close, speaking soft comforts, though her stomach roils and knots. Dani trembles in her arms, and Jamie curls a soothing hand to the back of her head.

It’s going to be okay.

It isn’t.

It isn’t, and, deep down, Jamie knows it isn’t, but she holds onto the falsehood like it’s the only thing keeping her from drowning. She has to believe that there’s hope, that there is a chance for a future for them, because if she doesn’t, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. Her mind screams to prepare for the inevitable worst, but a part of her, that bright, sunshiney part, where she holds her fondest thoughts, tells her to pretend just a while longer.

She does. She does, because she loves Dani too much not to. They’ve been through far too much together for Jamie to withdraw now, when Dani needs her most.

She cannot control who lives and who dies. She said as much to Dani, years ago, in the forest behind the manor. Knowing that everything must come to an end dictates life’s joys. Temporality is the driving force of sanctity. The moments we hold most dear are the ones that have come to an end. They are forever preserved in amber memory, pressed between book pages, and flowing through veins. You are left warm, free to continue and free to leave more life behind in the hollows of lingering remorse.  

‘Live in the moment,’ say thousands of song lyrics. If only it were that simple. If only Jamie could simply ignore the consequences and allow herself to just exist with Dani in the life they’ve created. She can’t, though, and it is agonizing.

Instead, she dons the facade of a woman who believes that there is still good in the world, chances for miracles, despite countless experiences to the contrary. In private, she grieves a life she hasn’t yet lost.

Dani sees her shoulders shake only once, the day Jamie returns to a flooded flat and eerie silence and Dani with her face mere centimetres above the water in their overfilled bathtub. The tips of her hair are submerged, and her breath sends ripples across the surface. It’s unclear how long she’s been hunched over the side of the tub, but judging by the pool around her, quite a while. Jamie turns off the tap and draws Dani back onto her heels. Dani lets out a panicked gasp, and her eyes dart around the room before they finally flick to Jamie and back to the water.

“Do you see her?” Dani rasps, returning to her position bent over the rim.

Jamie peers into the tub, too, unsure of what she might find. She does not know whether to be elated or dismayed when only Dani’s heterochromatic reflection stares back at her.

“I only see you,” Jamie says, and it seems to pull Dani from wherever she’s been. The sleeves of her bathrobe are soaked, and she notices the puddle around her knees. She stammers an apology, but Jamie could not care less. Dani sags against Jamie’s firm grip on her upper arm.

Her voice comes subdued, as if each syllable takes monumental effort. “I’m so tired, Jamie.”

Jamie understands. She feels it, too, the toll this has taken on the both of them. The constant glances over her shoulder, always on alert for any sign of danger, living their lives like prey. She cannot hope to equate her exhaustion with Dani’s, but she understands all the same.

Dani continues, using such frightful terms as “fade away,” and it’s all Jamie can do to swallow the lump in her throat and the tightness in her chest. Dani sounds so timid, so lost, and she’s looking to Jamie for answers she hasn’t the faintest notion how to find and the soil is eroding and the current is quickening and it all becomes too much.

“You’re still here,” she says, like that will make everything alright. The wet tile seeps into her trousers, cold and clammy.

“It’s like I see you right in front of me,” Dani says softly, “and I feel you touching me. And, every day, we’re living our lives, and I’m aware of that, and it’s like I don’t feel it all the way.” She readjusts to study the water again. “I’m not even scared of her anymore. I just stare at her, and,” Dani takes a shuddering breath, “it’s getting harder and harder to see me.”

Jamie’s already strained resolve is rent in two. All of the air is sucked out of her lungs at once, and her heart constricts. She cannot help the well of tears that rises behind her eyes and threatens to spill over. She needs to be resilient, needs to set her emotions aside. For Dani.

But Dani is nodding. She’s nodding and crying and saying things like, “Maybe I should just accept that and go.” It’s excruciatingly similar to the conversation they’d had at the dinner table, all those many months ago.

And Jamie breaks. “No. No, no, no.” Her thumb rubs circles into Dani’s wrist. “Not yet.”

You can’t leave me. I’m not ready.

“Jamie…” Dani says in that same, horrid, broken tone, and suddenly, Jamie knows. Their hourglass contains mere grains. They are nearing the end, and it hurts, and the pain is so much worse than she could have ever anticipated.

Dani has all but given up, and Jamie is fucking furious.

Not with Dani. Never with Dani.

Rather, Jamie has a bone to pick with the universe and its sense of righteousness. There’s no such thing as fairness in the world, as has been proven to her time and time again. But this? This is shit, and it’s not fucking fair. Just this once, she’d like to strike a bargain. Allow her to be selfish, just this once. Allow her to remain at Dani’s side until they grow old and grey and their eyes fail and their joints creak. Allow her this one thing, and she will never ask for anything again.

The universe, in all its cruelty, remains silent, and Jamie resents it even more. She resents the set of circumstances that led them to this point, Dani tearful on the bathroom floor. She resents the world that made the woman she loves hurt in unfathomable ways. She resents that the most marvelous woman Jamie has ever met has been reduced to a shell of herself, harboring an invisible intruder.

She resents that all she has to offer is herself, when Dani deserves so much more. It’s all Jamie has, though, and maybe, this time, it will be enough.

“If you can’t feel anything,” she says, voice wavering, “then I’ll feel everything for the both of us.” Dani opens her mouth with quivering lips to speak and is cut off. “But no one is going anywhere. Okay? You’re still here.” A tear escapes, tracing a trail down her cheek.

“What if,” Dani whispers, more afraid than Jamie has ever seen her, “I’m here, sitting next to you. But I’m just really her?”

Jamie chokes down a sob. She exhales. “One day at a time.”

They clean up the water and blow out the candles and eat a quiet meal of pasta and sauce from a jar, holding hands all the while, as if any loss of contact would be to admit defeat. Dani is here, and Jamie is here, and they are together, and when they lay in the dark that night, they do not sleep.

Jamie hovers over Dani, pressing gentle kisses to every bit of skin she can reach. Dani’s eyelids, her knuckles, her wrists. The hollow on the underside of her knee, her clavicle, the sensitive patch just below her ear. Anything to reassure Dani that she can still feel, she is loved, and she is safe. The act is not erotic, nor is it meant to be.

She pours every ounce of passion into every caress, touching Dani as if it was the first time. She endeavors to convey her message, clear as crystal, that Dani is the single most important thing in her life. Their love is all that matters. For this one night, let them forget about ghosts and manors and lost friends and be wholly present in this moment of solemn intimacy.

Jamie commits every kiss to memory, savoring Dani’s smooth skin beneath her lips. The way she sighs and whimpers when Jamie finds a particularly tender spot, the way she relaxes into Jamie’s embrace when they finally settle, a leg thrown haphazardly between Jamie’s thighs, her face pressed just above Jamie’s breast, sending small puffs of air against Jamie’s sleepshirt.

Dani sleeps, and Jamie’s mind wanders to all the words she wishes she could say. She sighs them into the night air, a hand cupping the nape of Dani’s neck.

I love you, she thinks, and I’m going to lose you, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. She inhales the faintly floral scent of Dani’s shampoo. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair that you’re going to go, and I have to go on without you. Think of me, Dani. Think of me and stay because I can’t explain to your mother what’s happened to you. Stay, because I’m not ready for our life to end.

She’s crying, now, and her tears dampen the top of Dani’s head as she tries to remain still.

You’re in pain. I see it, love, and I never, never want you to hurt. You’ve been so damn brave. You’ve fought so hard. For yourself. For us. I will be forever grateful for the time you’ve given me. You are everything I never thought I could have, my love.

Dani stirs against her with a hushed, confused noise. “Jamie? Wha-?”

“Go back to sleep, baby,” Jamie murmurs, her eyes shut tight. Dani nuzzles into her chest, and only when her breathing evens out once more does Jamie release the tension from her limbs.

Rest, sweetheart, you’ve earned it.

Three days go by, and Jamie spends them at Dani’s side. They walk the streets of their little Vermont town, and they greet the old woman with her three toy poodles. They watch the line of children toddle by on their way to the park, shepherded by exasperated adults, and share a smile. They wrap themselves in blankets and bundle on the sofa, Jamie with a book and Dani with a crochet project that Jamie’s been teasing her about finishing. The tea is hot, and the company is good, and Jamie is happy. The rain comes down against their windows, but they are shielded from the deluge, though the soil outside turns to slick mud.

The sun rises on the fourth day, and Jamie blinks awake. The pillow is soft under her head, and she is loath to move. She reaches a tentative hand to Dani’s side of the bed to pull her closer, but she finds the sheets are cold. Jamie’s stomach leaps to her throat. She sits up, peering around their room, listening for any sign that Dani has simply risen early. The clock on the bedside table reads six-thirty-eight in the morning. Beside it, a single sheet of paper folded in half.

Perhaps Dani has run to the coffeehouse to bring back breakfast. Perhaps she has gone for a walk. Perhaps she has done anything except Jamie’s worst fear come to fruition, but what Jamie knows in her soul to be true. She takes a steadying breath as she examines the thing in her hands. With shaking fingers, she unfolds the note.

The script is slanted, a mixture of cursive and print, as if written in a hurry. The ink has smeared in places, where the page appears to have been wet. Dani’s normally neat lettering is scattered.

Jamie,

I can’t risk you.

Not for one more day.

I love you.

Dani

Her heart stops.

The silence is deafening. Her whole world narrows to the thin yellow paper in her hand. Her last piece of the woman she loves.

She knows what has happened. She knows where Dani would go, where Dani has gone, deep in her core. But she has to be certain.

It is her first plane ride without Dani. She spends the six-hour flight clutching the armrest, knuckles white, as she looks straight ahead. The flight attendant has the decency to only appear mildly perplexed by Jamie’s lack of luggage. When she lands, Jamie can only nod at the cabbie’s futile attempts at conversation.

She gazes up at the daunting manor house, its brick overgrown with English ivy. The grounds lay vacant. The path to the lake is unkept, yet she treads it anyway, past the church, past the cemetery, slowing as the water comes into sight.

How badly she wants to be wrong. How badly she wants to return home and find Dani worried out of her beautiful mind.

The water is unseasonably warm, but that does not stop the chill that permeates Jamie’s bones. She swims out as far as she can bear before holding her breath and plunging below the surface. It’s nigh torturous to keep her eyes open, but she needs to see. She needs to be sure.

Everything is blurry through the liquid lens, fuzzy around the edges. Something stands out from the landscape of green and blue. A spot of porcelain and red against a backdrop of emerald.

No.

Jamie shakes her head.

No, please, no.

But it is.

And she screams. She screams out thirteen years of rage and sadness and grief and frustration and love. The sound is muted, but she does not care. Dani is gone, and she is alone and it burns and stings like nothing Jamie has ever felt.

Everything Jamie could give, she gave. It wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough. Nothing will bring Dani back.

She rises to the surface with a cry, paddling to the muddy shoreline and crawling up the bank to collapse in the shallows. Her ring rests heavy on her left hand. A reminder of promises made. Eternity.

Together. They were supposed to stay together.

It’s us. Always has been, always will be. That’s what we said, Poppins.

She gasps, taking in great lungfuls of air that Dani will never breathe again. Her hair hangs limply, plastered to the sides of her face. She shivers, but she cannot move.

She sits in the shallows of the lake at Bly Manor, and she weeps.

Dani is dead.

And Jamie is alone.

[gayenerd]

1993 interview in Blunt magazine, which was apparently a skating and snowboarding magazine and explains all the questions about skating. 

Green Day Interview, by Damon Way and Mark Waters

Written November, 1993, published in Blunt Magazine, Spring, 1994. 

 (Editor's note, May 2000: Although a lot of this stands as a pretty remedial interview, stony and silly at times, there are also parts that are quite interesting and amusing when considering the context of the events that have happened since. This interview took place while the band was in San Diego on tour, and while they were in negotiations for their contract with Warner Brothers.)

Green Day is the kind of band that music listeners hold dear to their heart. A band that is so good, the lucky few who knew about them early on can't help but wonder "Why isn't this band blaring out of everyone's cars at full volume?" Yet while these people wonder this, they also take a  certain pride in knowing that they listened to that band first. And hell, once the band becomes popular, it takes some of the charm away. It's happened a hundred times.

Green Day will be the next band to be popular enough to scare away a few fans. Mixing melody and energy with easy-to-sing tunes, Green Day has hit the winning combination. Damon Way interviewed Green Day earlier this year to find out more about this trio. The band is from Berkeley, and Mike plays bass, Tre plays drums, and Billie Joe plays guitar and sings.

Blunt: So, where do we start?

Mike: Let's start with a how-you-doing-I-haven't-seen you-in-a-while?

Tre:Yeah, man.

B: How did your tour go?

Mike: Good. I stuck Eight Ball and Droors stickers all over the U.S. Kids would ask me if I skate and I'd tell 'em 'Yeah, I'm sponsored.'

Tre: I would say 'I don't skate, man, I shred.'

B: What do you guys like best about skateboarding?

Tre: I like that high energy that makes you feel like you're fourteen again, fucking up your toenails.

Mike: I like the idea of knocking down old ladies as they're walking out with their groceries.

Tre: Most skaters steal things.

 Mike: All skaters are theives.

Tre: Well, we could say most skaters steal things.

Billie: They have these big clothes so they can walk through a store and take anything they want and they'll never know. There is so much extra space that they can even frisk and not find anything.

Tre: I know a guy in Cleveland who does heroin and wears big clothes. He steals meat and sells it on the black market and gets money for heroin. I swear to God.

B: Do you guys like snowboarding?

All: Oh yeah, man we shred.

Tre: I'm the mogul master.

B: Once again, how did the tour go?

Mike: It was wonderful, we had a great time.

Tre: We're sorry Louisville. Who else are we sorry for?

 Mike: We're sorry we were sick all over the place. We had bronchitis and walking pneumonia.

Billie: We're sorry Salt Lake City.

B: What was your best show?

Billie: Soma in San Diego.

Tre: I don't know, but we played plenty of places where skating was against the law.

B: What did you think of Soma?

Tre: The owner has a nice car and a cellular phone.

B: Are you into meeting girls on tour?

Mike: Yeah, I met my girlfriend.

Tre: Yeah, I met your mom.

B: What do you guys do on an average day up in Berkeley?

Mike: Wake up and do bong hits.

Tre and Billie: Burn bowls.

B: Do you still listen to Metallica?

Tre: Yeah, man, I still do.

Mike: I'm from the same town, I have to.

B: What other bands do you like?

Tre and Billie: Tilt.

Mike: Tilt is a great band but the Potato Men suck.

B: What bands did you play with on tour?

Tre: A band called Judge Nothing. They helped us dookie the pot.

Billie: I dookied in a girls' pot.

Mike: I pissed in her ice trays.

Tre: I put eggs behind her couch and rubbed them in.

B: What do you think of the hardcore scene?

Mike: I'm not really into pornos myself.

B: Do you think punk is coming back?

Billie: The thing is that punk has always been here it's just that MTV has monopolized the whole thing, inspiring the mainstream to look a little more punk than usual. Like how Motley Crue kicked out Vince Neil because they wanted a singer who was more punk. And Lars Ulrich shaved his head and grew a goatee.

B: So what's up with getting signed to a major label?

Billie: We're doing it man. We've been talking to Ian MacKaye and we're going to do a little thing on Dischord. We have to change our lyrics though. Make them address political issues.

 B: What do you think a major will do to you guys?

Tre: Fuck us in the ass.

Billie: Probably ream us. I'm open for a rim job, though.

B: Do you think they'll try to clean you up and throw you on MTV?

Tre: I don 't think they'll clean us up because our next record is going to have swear words in every other song.

B: Do you think you will be promoted like Nirvana was?

Billie: I hope not man. It just seems like everyone was hoping to find the  next Nirvana. I want to be completely separate from the whole grunge thing. I don't even think the whole so-called grunge people are even into being called grunge. We played in Florida and this guy with a TV camera, who was totally dressed up in a suit and was from the Fox Network was asking us, "So what is grunge and what does it mean to you?" We were like, "This sucks."

B: What do you think of Rocket From The Crypt?

Tre: I saw a guy with his whole back done up with tattoos, so I guess they must be pretty good. They got paid a lot of money so they've got to be the next Nirvana, or someones going to be really screwed because it was something like $750,000.

B: What kind of equipment do you guys have?

Mike: I've got a bunch of broken down basses. I just got a Gibson Les Paul and the neck twisted on me five days later because of the humidity in Florida. I also have a Gibson G-3 that's broken. I have the one I was playing tonight that broke during the show.

Billie: I have one guitar (a Stratocaster) and it's the one that I use all the time and it's fucked up.

B: Have you ever broken any equipment on stage?

Tre: I just kicked my cymbal stand and broke my high hat.

Mike: On this tour I've broken four basses, four straps, and my speaker cabinet. I've also blown two heads before.

 B: What other stuff are you into besides the band?

Mike: Camping and living life to the fullest.

Billie: Legalization of marijuana or anything productive. People should  just do what the fuck they want.

B: Are you vegetarians?

All: Yes.

B: Any last words?

Billie: Live hard, die young.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Protea (Part 3)

The anticipation had been steadily building. Building until the woman looked as though she were ready to burst with it. She decided that she could no longer put off going to that industrial park with her. And that is how she has come to find herself standing in the empty husk of a war-machine factory.

“Well, what do you think?” She asks with a wide sweeping gesture.

“I think that it’s...uh...abandoned.” Mai answers.

She nods, “yup! I haven’t seen a soul here since I found it. I reckon that it’s mine. Ya know, ‘cept for that it isn’t actually mine. But I have it all to myself ‘cause no one else is using it.”

“I can see that.” Mai says.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Do you like it?”

Mai gives the place another all over scan. “It’s fine, I guess. I usually don’t got to abandoned factories and industrial parks.” She cringes when the woman’s face seems to fall. “Look, it’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just that, you’re probably going to notice that I’m not enthusiastic about...things.”

“Oh.” The woman mumbles. “Guess we’re opposites then. I think most things are exciting.”

And maybe that’s the allure of this woman. That she takes joy in picking up a new thimble to toss on her pile of shiny things. Faintly, she wishes that she could be more like this woman. Perhaps life wouldn’t be so drab if the prospect of climbing over a rusty fence was thrilling.

“You said that you were going to show me your collection?”

Her smile comes back, but not quite as full as her other grins from that morning.  Mai makes a promise to try to muster up at least some enthusiasm. “Follow me, it’s up here.” she says. She leaps onto a pile of discarded and rusting metal rafters. “It’s a bit of a climb.” Everything seems to be a bit of a climb with her and Mai has a sneaking suspicion that, that is exactly how she likes it. She leaps onto a rather perilously loose ladder. It shakes and shudders beneath her weight. Mai’s stomach lurches some, the higher that the woman ascends. The girl is so small and nimble, lanky; if that ladder is wobbly and unstable even under her, Mai can’t possibly see it withstanding her weight.

“You coming!” The woman shouts down. Her voice echos about the building, bouncing from wall to wall in what must be the most bizarre display of acoustics she has ever heard from a building.

“I don’t know. Could you bring it down here?”

The woman peeks her head out of the little annex that she has squeezed herself into. “Well, sher, I would ‘cept that there’s way too much.”

Mai can already see her expression dimming further. She sighs, “I’ll be up in a minute.”

“Great. Jus’ be careful with rung five!”

The corner of Mai’s mouth pulls back into a half grimace. “Rung five. Understood.” She mumbles.

The ladder rocks and sways precariously as she makes her way upwards. She doesn’t think she has come across a ladder with this many rungs and sharp edges. Decidedly, this place is a death trap of rust and metallic decay. It is the sort of place that her mother and father alike would be horrified to find her in. And suddenly she is quite sure of her footing and quite thrilled to be her with this bizarre creature dressed in human skin. Said creature extends an arm and helps Mai the rest of the way up.

There are many descriptors that Mai could use to describe the glistening, glinting clutter all around her. But ‘nest’ is the most accurate. At first glimpse, ‘hoard’ came to mind. But ‘nest’ is definitely more befitting, right down to the carpet of straw that the woman has laid down, presumably a substitute for carpeting. It smells of sawdust and oil. And eroding metal, lots of eroding metal.

Suddenly Mai is potently aware of why the woman always shows up to work with her face smudged and her clothing streaked.

“So this is my special place. Even if they tear the place apart no one’ll find me in here. ‘S where I go when people come chasing after me.”

“Why do people chase after you?”

She hums, “lets just say that sometimes I find out some stuff weren’t trash.” She holds up a small silver brooch with gleaming rubies. Genuine rubies.

“Why don’t you sell that?”

“Cause I like it, that’s why.” She shrugs.

“You can buy so many meals with that.”

“Or I could get a job at a flower stall and buy food that way.” She grins. “And I don’t even have to sell none of my treasures.” She gestures to a pile. A notably large pile.

“How long did you say that you’ve been living in the capital.”

“Two months.”

“I take it that you started this stasch back in…”

“Hira’a. Yup!” She declares. “That pile right there is everything I brought from Hira’a.” She points to what has to be the smallest rubbish heap in the room. “Everything else ‘s from here.”

Mai blinks. “H-how?”

“I got lotsa time ‘n people here throw out lotsa stuff. Kinda wasteful.” She puts her hands on her hips. “But that’s just dandy for me. ‘Cause that means I get to bring it here.”

“Aren’t you worried that you’re going to get caught.”

The woman shakes her head. “I don’t make mistakes often. Most of this really is stuff I found just lying on the ground...or stuff that people threw at me.” She holds up a well-loved ladle. “Like this. The lady weren’t all too happy when she caught me stealing one’a her bowls of soup.”

This gets a chuckle out of her. “So she threw a ladle at you?”

“Mmhm. ‘N she was yelling at me to give it back. But I said it were mine ‘because she threw it to me.”

“There’s a difference between ‘at you’ and ‘to you’, you know that right?”

The woman shakes her head, “I’m just a dumb, dirty peasent, remember.” She flashes a goofy smile.

A clever, crafty dumb peasent. “Well which ones are your favorites?”

Her eyes light up. “Well I am fond of the ladle because I have great memories with it.” She carelessly tosses it over her shoulder and it clatters into a pile of dented pots and already broken plates. “But my favorites are from Hira’a ‘cause they have different discardings.”

“Discardings?” Mai quirks a brow.

“It ain’t trash.”

“Got it.” She has managed to coax another small snigger.

“I like these a lot.” She holds out her hands and waits for Mai to do the same before dropping a handful of colorful wooden beads and a few feathers into her palms. “I think that they used to be part of necklaces. A bunch’a different necklaces. See how this bead is shaped a little different than the others. And this one is more oblong than round.”

“I think that I got it.”

“And this one’s a little chipped. I like the plain ones the best.”

“The plain ones?”

She nods. “Yeah, because those are the ones where you can really feel the trees.”

“Feel...the trees? How do you know that those were made from trees and not bushes?”

“I can just tell.” She shrugs. “Forest things speak to me.”

“Alright then…”

“No really!” She declares. Mai fights to keep the skepticism off of her face and knows that she has failed when the woman’s eyes dim some and she changes the subject,  “I also got a bunch of colorful feathers and some bones!”

“What kinds?”

“Well this one’s from a paradise-peacock and this one’s from a humming-parrot!”

“What about the bones?”

Mai doesn’t expect her to so readily and confidently answer, “these are fragments of a tiger-monkey spine and these are from mongoose-lizard. Most of them are fishbones though.” She looks around in a frantic sort of joy before declaring, “there they are!”

Mai looks at what she is holding. This time she is gushing over shells both bright and bone white. She also has a small bottle of sand and a prickly and dried urchin.

“I take it that you found that yourself too?”

She nods. “Mohi lectured me for two hours about sea creature safety while the medicine lady was mixing me a remedy for the venom.” She puts her knick-knacks down and holds up a grubby hand. She lowers it to wipe it off before holding it up again to reveal a small puncture scar.

“You are a strange and fascinating character.”

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Never-ending story: Deal unveils next Brexit arguments

By Ian Dunt

The deal Boris Johnson brought back from Brussels should be a prized moment of triumph for Brexit's hardline political leaders. The war is won. No free movement, or single market, or customs union. Britain out of even the most harmless European programmes or regulators, like Erasmus or the European Aviation Safety Authority. Everything settled. Total victory.

So it's interesting that the deal isn't really the end of something at all. It is the start of it. It is the creation of a forum for further conversations, in which Britain can either pull further away from Europe or walk closer towards it. But all the dynamics we see - in terms of the structure of the agreement, the economic repercussions and the likely political motivations of future governments - point towards reintegration with Europe. The document is a testament to Brexit's victory. But it contains within it the flaws which will undermine and perhaps even reverse it as a project.

The central accomplishment of the deal is to secure zero tariffs. That's what both sides wanted and it's what they got. This shouldn't be brushed aside. If it were not the case, parts of manufacturing and most of farming would become unprofitable overnight.

But elsewhere, the deal is really quite strikingly poor, even by the standards the government set itself. The British team hoped that professional qualifications on both sides would be mutually recognised. They failed. They hoped to secure an equivalence agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and reduce the hassle of checks on agricultural goods, like the EU offered New Zealand and Japan. They failed. They tried to secure mutual recognition of conformity assessments so that domestic bodies could certify goods for the EU market, like the EU offered Canada and the US. They failed.

But then, it's possible the government never really cared about these issues, or that it didn't have the capacity to pursue them given the tight timeframe and covid. So it's worth looking instead at two areas they really did care about: the level playing field and fishing.

Level playing field

The level playing field involves policy areas like labour rights, the environment and state aid - where a government subsidises a sector in a way that disadvantages its competitors.

The EU's opening position was that the UK align dynamically with its law on state aid under European Court of Justice jurisdiction. Over the summer, it gave up on that and instead demanded a domestic state aid enforcement programme from the UK, which would lead to arbitration in the case of a breach, and tariffs if one side was found to have broken their word. And after a lot of screaming and shouting and needless fuss, that was basically what they got.

Each side has to maintain a body to oversee its subsidy control regime and a court or tribunal to try subsidy cases. If a subsidy breaches the agreement, the court can order it to be recouped. If a dispute over subsidies is not solved by consultation between the EU and UK, each party can resort to "remedial measures". There is arbitration before the counter-measures are imposed and possibly afterwards, if one party says they are disproportionate. If they find there was a breach, it can authorise a suspension of parts of the trade agreement.

On labour standards and the environment, both sides committed to not lowering protections, with a right to proportionate counter-measures in the event of a breach with a material impact on trade or investment. Those counter-measures will be subject to review by an arbitration tribunal.

But there is also an arrangement which sits above all these specific provisions. It is called "rebalancing". This is not about maintaining present standards, it's about what happens in the future. If either party decides that there have been "significant divergences" in the level playing field which are having a major impact on trade and investment, they can impose "rebalancing measures" in the form of tariffs.

After four years, if one side decides there have been too many breaches, they can trigger a review of that whole part of the trade agreement, leading to a potential suspension of the whole thing and other linked aspects, like transport. Basically, the threat of no-deal hasn't gone away, even now. It can still be imposed after a few years if the two sides diverge.

Fishing

The results on fishing follow a similar pattern. The opening EU position was that Britain should maintain the position it had in the EU. This involves a complex interplay of arrangements. Basically, the stock of fish species are divided up between countries in set quotas, which do not change. Then each year scientists provide advice on a total allowable catch.

Britain's position was that it was now an independent coastal state and it would decide what went on in its waters. Essentially it wanted to turn into Norway, which gets together with the EU every year to sort out the quota. If no agreement is reached, Norway can tell them they can't fish in their waters.

Legally, Britain's position was completely sound. But it had a problem with leverage. Britain does not eat its own fish - 80% of what it catches goes to the EU. So if the UK refused to play ball, the EU would simply apply the tariffs on fish, which are very high, and make the sector unprofitable. You could catch all the fish you want, you just couldn't sell them.

Many experts thought the UK would fail to get the EU to re-open the tortured quota question, but in fact it secured a 25% increase in the value of the EU catch in UK waters. Less than it wanted, but a decent result. There'll be an adjustment period of five and a half years. This new quota then becomes the baseline for 2026. Like Norway, annual negotiations will decide access.

But an interesting thing happens if the UK tries to block or limit EU access to its waters. The EU can retaliate by limiting access to its waters, or, more damagingly, slapping tariffs on fish, or on other goods, or even by suspending other parts of the deal. Either side can terminate the arrangement, but if they do it automatically terminates the trade, aviation and road transport sections - basically the no-deal guillotine again.

Boris Johnson claimed that after the five and a half year adjustment period is over, Britain could catch "all the fish that it wants". In fact, this is incorrect. The deal clearly suggests that after this period the quota will stay at the point of the initial reduction. Of course, the UK can close its waters if it wants to, but tariffs will go up.

This dynamic is very similar to the one experienced by countries like Norway in the EEA agreement. They technically have a way of vetoing European law. It's called Article 102 – the 'right of reservation'. Norway even came pretty close to using it over the Postal Services Directive. But if they did it, it would neutralise that whole part of the agreement. So they never do, because the consequences are too dire.

No closure

This is the great advantage the EU has. It is an advantage of size, but also of solidarity. The UK can't pick countries off and sell the fish to one of them if tariffs go up with another. The tariffs are the same for all. This is what gives the EU its strength. It's why the UK mostly capitulated. And it's why the dynamic is likely to remain the same in future. After all, this is the most messianically pro-Brexit government we're likely to see. If they didn't take no-deal in the face of EU leverage, how likely is it that a future one will?

There is ultimately no closure here. We are going to see the same dynamic in future that we have witnessed over the last four years: constant talking and bickering, with the UK facing the reality of EU leverage.

The deal sets up a new institutional structure of a Joint Partnership Council - and you'd better get used to that name, you'll be hearing it a lot over the next few years. It'll be formed of over 30 sub-councils, each focusing on a specific area of the agreement. What was once done in the Council and Commission will be done through a vast array of specialised committees and working groups. As time goes on, more of these committees will emerge, on things like financial services, as they become added to the framework of the agreement.

Every five years, the UK and EU will review the agreement, supplementary agreements and any matters related to it. That corresponds to the standard five-year political timetable in Brussels and Westminster. In other words, each new Westminster parliament, or Council president, or European parliament, is going to have their own Brexit, their own appraisal of the relationship.

This is a pulsating, living deal. The metaphor of a divorce no longer really holds. It's like a couple splitting up but then buying a new much smaller home where they'll meet up at weekends. Maybe they'll be sickened by each other whenever they arrive. Maybe they'll start to remember what they saw in each other in the first place. Divergence or integration.

For the next couple of years, Johnson will try to prove the benefits of the former. But in the medium-to-long-term, the good money is on the latter. Future Labour governments will seek closer ties on security, trade and smaller items like Erasmus. More pro-business Tory administrations without the current ERG baggage may well pursue the same. Business will lobby constantly for the UK to avoid regulatory divergence because it will increase the cost of exports to Europe. And most importantly, the EU has very broad powers in the agreement to punish divergence. It can suspend parts of the agreement, or simply apply tariffs.

So structurally, economically and politically, the winds blow in the direction of integration. It's not conspiracy or magic; it's just that people trade most with places that are close and big. And when they trade, they want less friction. Brexit has done many shocking things, but it cannot negate the objective reality of geography or trade flows.

Even in the moment of Brexit's triumph, it carries the seeds of its own failure.

[cozycryptidcorner]

Here is a monster match for the wonderful @rofax! 

“Aquarius Sun/Virgo Moon/Taurus Rising. Little bit of an astrology nerd. I like to learn about it. I also think it’s totally made up and makes no logical/scientific sense, but is also right basically 100% of the time. Idk how much you know about astrology but basically I am an eccentric bitch who wants to save the world, is emotionally precise and perfectionist, and seems to really like material things and food! WAHOO. People say my sense of humor is the best thing about me and/or I make them laugh the most, big old bleeding heart, especially for animals. Easily overstimulated ): Anxiety and ADHD are a bitch lol. No self esteem to speak of. I am an atrocity before god. Speaking of: very quiet convert to and practitioner of old (would now be considered) pagan faith. Multiple gods, ancestor worship, local spirits, etc.”

You have been matched with a Huldrekall, the shy, beautiful male counterpart of the alluring Huldra. Contrary to popular belief brought to you by the patriarchy, the Huldrekall are not, in fact, shriveled and disgusting to look at, it’s just that straight men don’t like feeling sexually threatened, not even by forest spirits that they don’t ever see. Like the females, the Huldrekall are almost intangibly beautiful, with soft, glossy hair and large, innocent eyes, and have mossy, hollowed out backs. While they might easily cover up their backs with clothing, the tails are a bit less easy to hide, as the Huldrekall and Huldras use them for balance, and thus must shift them about while moving.

Like other forest spirits, the Huldra and Huldrekall can be found among the trees at a reasonable distance from human society. Oh, they do sometimes come out of their hiding places, put on a dress, and mingle, in the guise of a mysterious visitor or a passing traveler, but their home will always be back in the forest, no matter how many broken hearts they might leave behind. Besides the occasional affair, the Huldra and Huldrekall have a symbiotic relationship with coal burners, as they are willing to watch over the kilns at night in exchange for human food and the occasional piece of clothing. The coal burners don’t get the privilege of seeing their helpers, though, but sleep easy knowing their equipment is being cared for.

Shockingly, the Huldra and Huldrekall seem to respond well to things like good manners, polite exchanges, and positive interactions, almost like they are people with thoughts and opinions of their own. Though, when crossed, the Huldra and Huldrekall are terrifying when they want to be, merciless, cold, just as a human who has been horribly slighted might act. You think that their kind are, well, people, though that’s not what the fear-mongering, power-hungry humans would have anyone believe. Despite the lower, working-class people out in the country knowing better, the city folk are quick to think that what is unknown must be evil.

You met your Huldrekall while you were out gathering herbs and flowers, deep within the forest. He was laying out in the sun on a large tree root, back towards the sky, face nestled in his arms. It takes you exactly three seconds to realize what you’re looking at before you manage to step on a stray stick, the noise snapping loud enough to make your hair stand on end. Your Huldrekall sits up like a shot, his wide, sparkling eyes a light, dusty magenta, and he looks at you, fear dancing across his face, but something else, too. Curiosity? Fascination? You can’t tell before he scampers his tall but lithe body up the tree and through the leaves, hiding from you in the greenery, yet still clearly present as you try to go about your day.

Your Huldrekall follows you as you try to focus on the herbs you need, clinging to the bark of the trees like a child might hang on their mother. At first, you try ignoring him, thinking that he’s only keeping an eye on you because of fear, but there doesn’t seem to be a single essence of tenseness in his body as he slides down from one branch to another. While you focus solely on pretending to not notice his movements, he slowly, tentatively approaches, you can feel his unabashed stare burning through your back. Still, you don’t turn around, nor give him any hint that you know that he is there, because a part of you is just as interested in him as he seemingly is in you, and you don’t want to scare him off.

While you can hear him stiffen every time you accidentally make a move too sudden for his comfort, you don’t realize how close to you he really is until you risk a glance over your shoulder. He’s right there, balanced carefully on a low hanging branch, watching you work with fascinated eyes. He also doesn’t run when he catches you looking at him, either, which you suppose is a step in the right direction, he only flinches back ever so slightly. But he’s still there.

You have to go back home eventually, even though you would like for a moment so magical as this to continue on. As you walk back to the forest’s edge, your friend disappears along the way, slinking back through the trees. You don’t even know that he’s gone until you turn around to look for him, finding nothing more than the grass and leaves, and you feel… well, disappointed, you suppose, but unsurprised. Still, your work will have you back in the forest to forage again soon enough, and a part of you hopes that you will see him when that time comes.

He finds you when it does come, in the dusty rose of the early twilight sky, looking for the petal of a particular flower that only blooms during the first light of dawn. Your Huldrekall approaches with more openness this time around, no longer poised and ready flee. There are times when he is… very close, looking over your shoulder, cheek almost touching yours, becoming more and more difficult to ignore. Almost as though he’s suddenly decided to demand attention, yet is still too shy to put anything to words.

You’re on your knees, fingers digging through the ground in search of certain roots. He’s mirroring you, sitting across the thicket, hands carefully to the side as he watches you work. Absentmindedly, you begin speaking, not really sure what to do with yourself or the strange silence. “This is used for joint pain, you grind it up into a paste, then rub it in the inflamed areas.”

“Really?” He asks, the first thing he ever says to you. His voice is smooth, soft, like a sip of cool water on a hot day, and a little tingle runs down your spine.

“Y-yes,” you manage to gain your footing again, “it can ease stomach pains too if chewed and swallowed in low quantities.”

He’s a quick learner, you’ll give him that. It probably helps that his curiosity seems insatiable, and once he starts talking, he shows no signs of stopping. The chatting isn’t unwelcome, though, and you find him to be a good conversationalist, despite his immediate lack of knowledge of anything outside the forest. Well, he actually has much information when it comes to the ancient magic of the trees themselves, even showing you how to gently tease a bit of energy from the bark if needed. Prayers must be said before and after, as the spirits of the forest don’t take kindly to pillaging.

Your Huldrekall is remarkably bright, too, able to pick up your tips and tricks with little to no trouble, able to remember just about everything that comes out of your mouth. All the little remedies and medicines you make don’t seem to matter much to him or his kind, though, because of their little magic tricks that seem to do the same, just in a different manner of execution. Still, though, he’s interested in “human way of things,” as he calls it, copying your work as you forage and search for different plants. One day, though, you go home and find a little bouquet of plants tied together with a vine, a collection that you don’t remember assembling.

You’ve started making a pretty penny selling roots and herbs from the deeper center of the forest since your kind doesn’t like going very far passed the outlying trees. Thanks to your magical guide, though, you’re able to venture out much deeper than you might risk by yourself, without having to worry about finding your way back. You could blindfold your Huldrekall, shake him about, and drag him through the trees and vines for miles, and he’d still be able to lead you back to the village where you live. It’s rather convenient, you suppose, but you don’t let anyone know just how easy it is for you, people pay you more if you act like you almost died by some giant, carnivorous flower mere hours before.

The gifts keep appearing. No longer in your basket, sometimes you find a pretty stone or dried blossom in your pockets, now, too, and though you try to figure out how he managed to slip them there without noticing, you can’t. You keep everything in a little box, pressing any flowers carefully between books of medicine, and polishing the stones if you get the chance. After letting the gifts pile up a bit, you decide to return the favor, getting a little knick-knack that you’ve kept lying around your home. You don’t really have anything you can slip it in since your Huldrekall is… well, naked, so you cut out the third party and give him the gift point-blank.

He’s enthralled by it, and by the seeming lack of shyness on your part. Even though it’s just a little cheap object you’ve managed to pick up sometime in your past, he acts like it might be worth its weight in gold. While you don’t really know what he does with it, you suppose that he must have a nest of some kind, but after that day, you begin to see more of his kind out of the corner of your eye. Up in the trees, hiding between leaves, watching with careful, weary eyes. Like him, though, they warm up to you eventually, some taking longer than others.

You fell asleep, perhaps by accident, one evening. Last night and the night before had been late ones, so your brain is clouded and your movements sluggish. In your head, you only meant to lay among the flowers for a few moments, just to restore a bit of your strength, but after you open your eyes, the sun is in an entirely different position in the sky. Your Huldrekall is nearby, sitting atop a log, his vulnerable back facing you as he plays lookout. He looks back when he hears you stirring, offering a reassuring, sweet smile. You lay your head back down and continue resting, feeling the warmth of safety emanating from him.

Sometime after that, he started to gently tug at your hand when you leave the forest, a little, reassuring squeeze, one that you don’t find unwelcome. Once, he follows you through the town, wearing fairly clean clothes from god knows where, and spends the night at your home. People look and people talk, but no one’s whispers bother you or your business, and they sure as hell don’t bother your Huldrekall. His spirit is free and magnetic, those same people who would demonize you for fraternizing outside your species soon become enthralled in his stories and words. Maybe you are a little jealous of all the attention he gets, but he makes it clear that he only has eyes for you. 

The old gods in the forest are long forgotten by man, but not by your Huldrekall or his kind. They do a sort of worship that must have existed since the dawn of time, dancing and singing towards the moon whenever it is full. You get invited soon after your acceptance by his people, and even though you are nothing more than a quiet, interested viewer at first, that is quick to change. Eventually, you end up holding hands with other Huldra, aiming your face towards the sky and singing a hymn made with a language so old that the words themselves hold power.

[joannalannister]

Anonymous asked:

Sorry if you've answered this before, I just saw your post about the beginning of the twincest and I was wondering, do you think she lost her virginity to Jaime? I don't see how could she risk Robert (or Rhaegar) finding out she's not a virgin. As we see with Marg, this is supposed to be a crime.

Are you referring to this post? Well, as I said in that post, which I recommend people read prior to reading this one, Jaime and Cersei were 15 when they met at Eel Alley, and I don’t think Eel Alley was the first time Jaime and Cersei had sex: “Jaime had never seen her more passionate,” meaning he had seen her passionate before, but that was the most passionate/sexy she had ever been.

So when did Jaime and Cersei first have sex? The text strongly implies that Jaime and Cersei had sex before Eel Alley, but we don’t know exactly when that happened. 

Quoting myself from the previous post:

We know that Jaime visited Cersei at Casterly Rock when he was 13 or 14. Maybe Cersei first started menstruating at 11 or 12, and they had sex at 13. [...] I can see them doing a lot of experimentation /  mutual masturbation that just eventually evolves into sex.

I don’t think Cersei was having sex with anyone else when she was ~13 years old. So yes, I think Cersei lost her virginity to Jaime, and I think Jaime lost his virginity to Cersei, probably sometime in their early teens. 

I don't see how could she risk Robert (or Rhaegar) finding out she's not a virgin.

The three Lannister children are very impulsive; it’s one of their Tragic Flaws. They act; they are not “still, poised, [...] tail twitching” which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it means they have done some things without fully thinking them through. 

When Cersei met Jaime on Eel Alley, I don’t think she was thinking about Rhaegar (or Robert, or anyone else). I think Cersei was afraid of losing her twin. Recall the context: “Cersei took [Jaime] aside and whispered that Lord Tywin meant to marry him to Lysa Tully, had gone so far as to invite Lord Hoster to the city to discuss dower. But if Jaime took the white, he could be near her always.” 

Recall the reason why Cersei objected to all of her childhood ladies-in-waiting, because they were “Vapid, weepy creatures, always telling tales and trying to worm their way between me and Jaime.”

The Lannister twins are very possessive of one other, and they don’t want to lose each other. That’s one of the saddest things about House Lannister - they have (almost) everything, but they’re so afraid of losing it all. (Note to self: I could talk about Tywin and Joanna here.) 

So I don’t think Cersei was thinking about the risks. I think Cersei acted very quickly and impulsively, in an effort to keep Jaime by her side, and Jaime too acted rather impulsively, making the decision about Casterly Rock rather quickly. That’s where the Tragic Flaw comes in: “nothing went as planned. [...] Instead of being together, Cersei and Jaime just changed places”. 

Could Cersei have had some really big problems because of this? Sure. How much did she know about moon tea when she was 15? Separated from Jaime and unable to trust her handmaids at Casterly Rock, if 15yo Cersei needed moon tea, would she have been able to obtain it? Things could have been even worse than they were, but either Cersei didn’t need moon tea that time or she was able to get some, somehow, and Tywin never found out, or something. 

Could Cersei’s potential future husband (Robert, Rhaegar, whoever) have found out that Cersei was not a virgin on her wedding night? Possibly, but I don’t consider it very likely, given that a pregnancy did not result. 

Prior to her marriage, Cersei could have been examined by a septa or maester or midwife to see if her hymen had been broken but 1) demanding an examination is a pretty big insult to prickly, over-proud Tywin Lannister to suggest that he’s selling ~damaged goods~ so whoever is demanding this examination would risk making an enemy of House Lannister, especially considering that Tywin has very visibly protected young!Cersei’s reputation, and 2) a girl’s hymen can be torn or broken prior to sexual intercourse, due to physical exercise such as horseback riding. A physical examination wouldn’t necessarily prove that Cersei had lost her virginity, it would only prove that her hymen had been broken. Whoever is questioning Cersei’s virginity prior to marriage would have to be able to prove that some guy took it. And that’s the thing about Jaime; because he’s her twin brother, Cersei has plausible deniability. People don’t immediately suspect Jaime, and Tywin has protected young!Cersei’s reputation successfully that she hasn’t been alone with anyone else. Jaime’s a relatively “safe” guy for Cersei to have sex with. 

But what about blood on the sheets, after Cersei is married? Blood ceremonies are not an accurate indicator of a woman’s virginal status. A woman who has never had sex before may not bleed during her first sexual encounter. Blood ceremonies are a society’s attempt to control a woman’s sexuality and put her in her ~~“rightful”~~ place as a person of lower status than a man: “Male virginity has never been prized nor expected to be proven. Virginity is one of many ways patriarchy is exerted: it is a way for women's sexuality to be controlled by the men in her culture; that her sexuality does not belong to her, but rather to her future husband.” [x] 

A large part of Cersei’s story is that Cersei’s sexuality will not be controlled by anyone but herself and will not belong to anyone but herself. Cersei defies patriarchy. She is clever enough that, if blood needs to be on the sheets, Cersei will get blood on those sheets, one way or another. 

(A real life medieval text had some interesting “remedies” for girls who wished to appear virginal, but idk if you want to read them. Some good (horrifying) stuff for fanficcers in there. And just because I can, here’s a victorian advice book, because grrm kinda draws from some ideas that are more victorian than medieval.) 

In the real world, sociologists have argued that blood ceremonies are performative, a way of demonstrating virginity in cultures that are overly concerned with primogeniture and paternity: “Virginity tests are still practised because there is still a value attached to virginity. The virgin bride is still prized as untouched, ‘unsoiled’, and thus still pure.” [x] Enough alcohol is involved in Westerosi wedding ceremonies that someone like Robert would have been easy enough to fool. I think Cersei could have fooled Rhaegar as well. Cersei is an excellent actress.  

As we see with Marg, this is supposed to be a crime.

“this” 

We need to clarify what “this” is and discuss some aspects of Westerosi culture, because it’s more nuanced than what you’re suggesting. 

First, in Westeros, a queen who commits adultery in Westeros is committing a crime; she is committing “high treason” when she has sex with someone who is not her husband, because it calls the paternity of her children into question, which could create a succession crisis, which could create a war, as we have seen. 

To paraphrase a conversation with my friend @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly, women in Westeros who have sex outside of marriage are committing a sin in the eyes of the Faith, but as long as the Faith isn't allowed to hold courts and be their own judge/juries/executioners, fornication isn’t a crime and there's nothing they can do about it. 

But this is where Cersei’s Tragic Flaw of impulsivity comes in again: she allowed the Faith to reconvene their courts and she allowed them to reestablish the Faith Militant. 

Queen Margaery is being accused of the crime of high treason. Cersei, as queen, is also being accused of high treason, accusations which she has denied. Instead, Cersei has only confessed to fornication committed after Robert’s death. 

Fornication is now a crime under the Faith, but it was not a crime when Cersei was a teenager. 

(Brother-sister incest has obviously never been widely accepted in Westeros: “incest was a monstrous sin to both old gods and new, and the children of such wickedness were named abominations in sept and godswood alike.” But note, brother-sister incest is a cultural and religious taboo, not a legal crime.) 

So when you say, “this is supposed to be a crime” I think you’re confusing things. The “this” refers to Cersei having pre-marital sex, which was not a crime when she did it. Teenage Margaery’s situation is different from teenage Cersei’s; Cersei was not a queen at the time. 

Quoting a convo with Butterfly again:

“The Faith also holds that worshipping other gods is a sin/crime worthy of death, but they can't do anything about it because of longstanding custom. However, the rumor that Viserys II poisoned Baelor the Blessed is because he was thinking of launching a holy war against Old Gods worshippers and the Ironborn.“

So, like, there’s a lot of things in Westeros that are religious sins, and giving significant political and military power to religious extremists is probably not a good idea. 

For more about Cersei and Margaery’s situation, I recommend these posts by @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

I recc’d this above but just in case y’all didn’t click the link

The Faith Militant

The High Sparrow

The High Sparrow and women

Cersei and the High Sparrow

Margaery

[hawkesvarric]

Masterlist of my D&D Characters

⚗️ ARTIFICER ⚗️

Breena Boddynock. Forest Gnome. Alchemist. Criminal. Twin sister to Brocc, a monk. She’s an inventor who sells her creations to the highest bidder, not terribly concerned with “morals” or the “law”. Currently traveling through the Underdark to return a magical hammer back to the duergar clan it rightfully belongs to. (After she stole the hammer in the first place, but let’s not split hairs here, shall we?)

🪓 BARBARIAN 🪓

Cormyn. Human. Ancestral Guardian. Archaeologist. Grew up in the wilds among a tribe of barbarians, though among the clan there were also healers and magic users. He loves learning about ancient histories and digging through the abandoned ruins lost in the mountainside. The spirits of his ancestors speak to him, telling him of the past. He has a wife, another human barbarian named Galatea, and they have a son together named Tiran. A mysterious illness overtook a large portion of their clan, including Galatea, and now Cormyn seeks a remedy to bring home to his people.

📯 BARD 📯

Bonejangles. Skeleton. Whispers. Charlatan. He woke up in his own grave and had to claw his way to the surface. No tombstone, no memories, and no name. People either feared him or tried to kill him, so he learned how to disguise his skeletal features and how to forge fake identities for business purposes. In his past life, he was a powerful warlock named Romero Marivaldi who had struck a deal for eternal life. However, one should be very careful what they wish for when striking a bargain with a fey. Has (had?) a wife named Damiana, who had her own twisted part to play in Romero’s unfortunate fate.

Altair. Human? Lore. Entertainer. Once, Altair was a half-orc named Kash. He was the son of the chieftain, training to one day take his fathers’ place. Then a dragon attacked, slaughtering most of his clan including his father. Including him. Barely managing to escape, his fathers’ adviser Grimon drug Kash’s body away from the carnage, using the last of his magic to return the boy back to life. Only the spell had unintended consequences. For now Kash was in a completely different body, that of a human. He fled once he learned of the clan’s fate, leaving Grimon behind. He took on a new persona, Altair the Wanderer, hoping to leave his past behind him.

🩸 BLOODHUNTER 🩸

Red. Human. Lycan. Haunted One. Unwilling test subject in an experiment performed by wizards on behest of the king to try and create more powerful soldiers for his armies. It worked, though perhaps better than they anticipated. Red managed to break her chains on the night of the full moon when she transformed and slaughtered everyone in sight before escaping. Now she seeks to find any others like her so they may unite and kill the king. Maybe blow the whole kingdom up while she’s at it, she hasn’t decided yet.

⚕️ CLERIC ⚕️

Keothi Ogolakanu, the Wolfkiller. Goliath. Life. Outlander. Grew up high in the mountains, longing to discover the rest of the world. But Keothi’s role was to be the clan’s healer. She had all but accepted her fate when a pack of winter wolves attacked. The goliaths fought back, but were overwhelmed by the wolves’ numbers and ferocity. They began to corner a child, teeth gnashing violently, when Keothi heard a whisper in her ear: “Protect.” She used a magic she never had before, killing the wolves single-handedly. The spirit that spoke to her was that of the Pathfinder, one of the old gods her people still worshiped. It was now her destiny to leave her clan behind, following wherever the Pathfinder’s path might take her.

🌿 DRUID 🌿

George “Pebble” Pebbleton. Half-elf. Moon. Hermit. As a child, she wandered into the woods all by herself. She has no memory of where she came from or what her name once was. A pair of bears found her and, perhaps because they could sense the magical energy inherent in her or maybe because they had just lost a cub of their own, they took her in. Of course, she still interacted with people from time to time. Travelers and adventurers, the occasional bandit, etc. It was from one of them that she heard about a local tournament being ran in a nearby town. So she decided she was ready to leave, though her bear guardians still follow her around to make sure she’s safe. On the tournament registry, she made-up the name George Pebbleton on the fly, hoping it sounded normal enough.

⚔️ FIGHTER ⚔️

Kimbatuul Sora. Dragonborn. Champion. Outlander. Sora was always a braggart, a show-off, and a ham for attention. But for good reason - she really was the best fighter in the Kimbatuul clan. Her father had a seat on the council while her mother ran the market. Life was great. Until her adulthood celebration, that is. Sometime during the night of revelry, a council member was murdered with her trademark halberd engraved with her name. Sora tried to defend herself, but the evidence against her was overwhelming. The punishment was traditionally a battle in which the accused could “prove” their innocence by withstanding a barrage of attacks from the council. However, her father couldn’t stand the idea of raising his sword against his own daughter, nor could he idly stand by and watch the others do so, so he managed to convince them to banish her instead by forfeiting his own council seat. Though alive, she was now disgraced by her own people, being deemed guilty and dishonorable for not fighting. She was banished into the neighboring woods, becoming a sellsword in order to provide for herself.

Seymour Quincy. Warforged. Eldritch Knight. City Watch. On the fringes of a magical college dedicated to cutting edge education, a team of dwarven wizards were tasked with studying the mysterious entity we call the soul. They had performed many experiments with little to no success. Either the souls wouldn’t bind to the objects chosen or they would go on a murderous rampage after being untethered to their own humanity. Just as their research grant was about to be taken back, one of them suggested using a younger soul. Hence Experiment #57 was born--er, created. After a short observational period, it was deemed a success. No unbinding, no stabbing. The experiment even seemed to possess a personality. Perhaps a bit more personality than the dwarves would’ve liked. #57 didn’t like being called a number. In fact, #57 didn’t like being referred to as ‘it’ either. He decided he ought to have a proper name--Seymour Quincy. The research team indulged him at first, still glowing from their success, but it was quickly made clear that #57--Seymour wouldn’t function the way they had hoped. They couldn’t sell him to the military as a soldier. He was physically strong, even capable of performing magic, but he was more interested in searching the woods for stray bunnies. The only times Seymour would fight were when he believed somebody innocent to be in harm’s way. For now, he has a “job” with the local city guard so the researchers can continue to observe his soul’s development and hopefully find a way of making some sort of financial returns off of him. If only he’d stop wandering off because he thought he saw a kitten.

👊 MONK 👊

Rikeo Sepret. Human. Open Hand. Gladiator. Born in the gladiator ring, Rikeo was forced from childhood to fight for nobles’ entertainment. These fights were not only brutal but to the death. He learned early on how to use his body as a weapon so as not to rely too heavily on swords and such. Rikeo also learned how to put on a show. If he was forced to have blood on his hands, then he was determined to be the best at it. His grandiose personality combined with his over-the-top combat maneuvers and his undefeated track record granted him a bit of freedom. Just enough for him to knock out the guards and escape. Now he travels, armed with only his fists and his wit.

🛡️ PALADIN 🛡️

Giselle Baldric. Human. Ancients. Folk Hero. When her hometown was destroyed by a dragon, the Baldrics took up residence in a neighboring city as humble workers. Giselle worked on the docks which required much heavy lifting, though she never minded. She loved listening to people’s stories and the docks had all sorts of interesting folk coming and going. And she loved to help others, always doing little odd tasks here and there. Locals began spreading the word that if you needed help, just look for the red-headed woman on the docks. One night, as she was about to head home for the evening, a mermaid appeared in the water. The mermaid claimed to have heard of Giselle’s heroic nature and decided that she must be the one destined to wield this sword called the Storm Breaker. Giselle took the sword from the mermaid and vowed to protect all that is naturally good in this world.

Kraven. Tiefling. Oathbreaker. Mercenary Veteran. As a mercenary, Kraven did a lot of bad things in the name of conquest. She looked out for her own interests and betrayed people along the way, even allies. None of it mattered to her, so long as she came out on top. But one day, she was hired to bring in a smuggler alive so her client could have a “talk”. She found where the halfling lived and told him to come outside. He refused. Kraven decided a little fire ought to motivate him, so she set his house on fire. Only she was shocked to discover there was an infant there. She had done terrible things, yes, but to other assholes who deserved it. This was too far. She ran inside, seeing the halfling man dead from severe burns, and recovered the child. Kraven took the baby to a local temple to be looked after, but her client was furious. Not only was his man dead, but his mercenary went in to save a child instead of her target. He placed a bounty on her head and Kraven fled into the night. To make matters worse, now she had all these...feelings. That maybe she had been a bad person before, but it wasn’t too late to change. Her magic even began to change too, her previous oath broken. Now she was lost, caught between her past and her uncertain future.

🏹 RANGER 🏹

Don’t have one who is very developed yet :(

🗡️ ROGUE 🗡️

Arkade Vrago. Tiefling. Inquisitive. Investigator. Worked with the local city watch, solving crimes and catching criminals, before opening his own private investigative business. Arkade wishes to retire peacefully on a beach somewhere, but keeps getting dragged into cases. Grumbly, but secretly nice.

🔮 SORCERER 🔮

Jono. Human. Draconic. Inheritor. Slowly morphing into a dragon, no big deal. Jono is very laid-back and chill about most things, but even he is a big concerned that one day he might not be a human anymore. He has a mysterious amulet in his possession that he is hoping is the key to stopping the progression. Oh, and he kinda accidentally got married to the Fey King’s daughter, so the Feywild’s sort of out to get him. No worries, brah!

🌀 WARLOCK 🌀

Andella “Andy” Wroth-Mooncairn. Half-elf. Raven Queen. Noble. Rich, spoiled, and bratty were the best words to describe Andy. Not that she cared what others thought. She considered herself above everyone else. Growing up in a castle named after you tends to do that. Her parents arranged a marriage for her to a neighboring lord’s son, a real nerd. But Andy had little choice in the matter if she wanted to continue living off mommy and daddy’s money. At the wedding, an undead horde led by a powerful lich attacked. It turned out that Andy’s groom-to-be had stolen a cursed spellbook per his own ambitions, but had neglected to take into consideration that the wizard might not be so much ‘dead’ after all. Before he was ruthlessly ripped apart by zombies, he passed Andy the spellbook and told her to keep it away from the lich. She barely managed to escape the carnage, running out of the castle in her bloody wedding dress and clutching the spellbook to her chest. Having witnessed so much bloodshed, she vowed to personally send every undead abomination straight back to Hell where they belonged. And that’s when a mysterious raven landed in front of her with an interesting proposal...

✨ WIZARD ✨

Mialee Zolerii. Eladrin. Evocation. Acolyte. Attends the most prestigious academy, but couldn’t exactly afford to pay for it herself. So she also works at the school as the beastkeeper’s assistant. Her ex-gf may or may not be a dragon. (Although, in Mialee’s defense, she wasn’t in her dragon form at the time, okay!) Always tries her best, but things still tend to explode around her. Currently on a semester abroad, studying any new creatures she happens to come across in her travels. Will she wrestle any of them? Probably!

Bartok Abbadon. Drow. Invention. Guild Merchant. Bartok knows he grew up in the Underdark. He remembers being a weak child who was picked on constantly until he began to show real promise in his eldritch studies. Then he was sent to Menzoberranzan with a small handful of other promising candidates to work and study in the city’s largest library. But that’s where things start to get a little fuzzy. He knows his memory has been manipulated, but still he cannot fully recall his time at the library. Small flashes of things come to him and then they are gone as quickly as they came. If he tries too hard to grab on to the memory, his nose begins to bleed. So, at some point, he decided to stop trying. Especially because his last clear memory of the Underdark was rather horrifying. The library was on fire, bodies everywhere, and when Bartok looked down at his hands, they were covered in blood. It haunted his nightmares for some time after he fled to the surface. What happened there? What were they all doing there that had to be protected so badly they needed to alter his memories? And, worst of all, what if all that flame and death was his fault? Bartok tries not to think of it now, as he has a shop to run where he sells various herbs and inventions of his own creation. His homunculus familiar, Batty, keeps him company. And that’s that, right? No way his past can come back to haunt him all the way up here...right?

[mollymauk-teafleak]

the one who blooms in the bitter snow (chapter 2)

Chapter 1 | ko-fi

Caduceus has found a new friend in the widower father Caleb and he watches him grow happier, more comfortable in himself. He dares to hope that he's finally healing from the death of his husband.

He dares to hope for too much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was one of those days when he felt like he was utterly alone in the world.

Caduceus looked up from the flowerbeds he was kneeling in front of and stretched out his back until he felt a series of dull pops, groaning in relief and raising his eyes to the sky. Still slate grey, still scattering fat raindrops down in erratic sheets.

He smiled.

He took the trowel from the loose grip of his tail and set back to repotting the seedlings in front of him. Days like this were perfect for them, nourishing and encouraging, the Wildmother welcoming them to the garden.

That was why days like this didn’t drive him inside, the way it seemed to do for the rest of the world. The cemetery around him was completely deserted, fog clustering around the stones and the bases of the taller trees, the only true colour aside from greyish green being the dull stars of the flower heads, muted but beautiful still.

Caduceus thought it incredibly beautiful. Though he could see why people thought his little corner of the city was sort of eerie on days like this.

The seedlings safe in their dark black soil, thick and healthful with the rain, Caduceus stood, shaking crumbs from his sodden knees, not caring really seeing as the rest of him was already sodden. His trusty straw hat kept the rain out of his eyes but nowhere else.

There were other odd jobs to be done in the many thick gouts of plant life that sprung up all through the place. Weeding, pruning, scattering used coffee grounds from the café, telling off those who were being greedy with space, encouraging those who were flagging.

It was the kind of work Caduceus loved more than anything, the kind that was familiar, the kind he knew he could do well. He let his mind wander as he walked between the beds, the taller plants boughed by the weight of the rain, letting it drip down perfectly for their shorter cousins below. He would often sing or hum while he worked, something he worried contributed to people’s belief that the Blooming Grove was mildly haunted, when they would hear his lowing voice on misty days.

But not today. It was past time he sent a letter to his mama back home, she worried if he didn’t send at least one a month. Well, she’d worry about him anyway but at least the letters served to reassure her that he hadn’t been hit by a bus.

Mama had always worried about him, being the youngest and smallest of her gaggle of children. And when he’d announced he was leaving the clan- something firbolgs rarely did- to  move to the city- something firbolgs even more rarely did- she’d been close to locking his bedroom door so he couldn’t go.

Caduceus smiled fondly as he knelt by a family of sweet peas whose trellis had gone lopsided. He’d always struggle to explain it to his mama, he knew that. Wanderlust was something that was supposed to be completely alien, something other. As such, there really weren’t words Caduceus could find to help his family understand why he’d decided to see some of the wider world and push the boundaries of their tiny corner where things were still allowed to grow wild.

Caduceus set his jaw, feeling a raindrop run down the back of his short despite his hat.

There were a lot of things he didn’t have words to explain, a lot of feelings and compulsions held inside him that he couldn’t categorise and sort, couldn’t make plain. Some he was less proud of.

But his mama loved him. She understood that his life was his own. And if a letter every week or so would help her feel better, Caduceus would gladly write it.

He used his teeth to bite off a length of twine from the roll in his pocket and began retying the bamboo sticks that held his sweet peas up out of the shade and thought about what he might write.

He could tell her he’d joined a yoga class and how it wasn’t as fun as doing it in the dappled sunlight of the family grove with Clara trying to trip him at every available opportunity but it would suffice. He could tell her how he’d started making little scent bags out of his leftover lavender and vanilla pods to sell at the café and Caleb had said it was the first thing he’d ever found to actually help him sleep. He could tell her about how he’d made her recipe for mushroom risotto and took the leftovers to Caleb and how he’d said it was delicious. He could tell her how Caleb texted him sometimes when he needed someone to talk to. He could tell her how he was falling for Caleb.

The slick, rain soaked wood slipped suddenly in his hands and Caduceus hissed, drawing his hand sharply back to see a large splinter embedded in his thumb, blood beading around it like yew berries.

He groaned and swept his head from side to side, irritated with himself for more than not looking where his hands were going.

He couldn’t be having those thoughts. They shouldn’t be in his mind at all, let alone in his letter to mama.

Caduceus sat back in the wet grass, not caring as rain soaked into his trousers, worrying at the splinter with his teeth and trying to draw it out.

He didn’t understand emotion as well as other people, that much he knew. His social skills would be considered stunted by most standards. But even he understood that thinking those things about someone who’d so recently been widowed, who clearly wasn’t healing well from it, who was vulnerable and anxious and broken inside, was a bad idea for everyone involved.

There was absolutely no purpose at all to longing after something that could only end in pain. Sometimes the briars were just too high, trying to clear them in the hopes that something good would be on the other side would earn yourself bleeding palms and little else.

The splinter came free with a bite of pain. Caduceus tossed it into the grass and sucked at the blood that immediately welled up in the wound. He could take a hint.

He took the long way back to the café, winding his way through the clusters of headstones. There was no neat grid system to the Blooming Grove, things were patchworked together, no size or shape uniform. Caduceus had inherited the dilapidated cemetery like that, time and disinterest having warped it into something far from neat. But even after all the care and attention he’d poured into it he’d kept it without regular squares, clear paths, any kind of uniformity. He liked it like that, he admired the way it had grown free like a wild oak tree twisting and curving erratically towards the sun of its own free will.  

That was how it had chosen to be and he wouldn’t dare tell it any different.

Lugging his bag of gardening tools over his shoulder, he rounded the next corner, finally allowing himself to imagine the honey cake he’d reward himself with when he got back inside.

And saw Caleb standing in the middle of the uncovered pathway, under the arch of hawthorn trees.

He was turned away from Caduceus so he thankfully didn’t see him freeze in ungainly surprise or his fur puff up and send rainwater flying. But, unfortunately he couldn’t miss the loud shout of shock that also leapt out of him and startled several birds from the trees above.

Caleb turned, eyes wide and fearful at first but they softened as soon as he recognised his very wet, very embarrassed firbolg friend.

“Hi there,” he called once he was close enough to be heard over the pounding rain. He looked, rather unfortunately, like a drowned rat even more than Caduceus did. Water ran in rivulets down his face, his many layers were dark and dripping and his hair was plastered to him. By the looks of things he’d long ago given up on moving it out of his eyes.

Who went out in the rain without a good hat on their head?

“Hello, Mr Caleb,” he smiled, “What are you doing out here?”

Caleb gave a wan smile, “What does anyone ever do here?” He inclined his head back towards where he’d been standing in front of one of the graves. His husband’s, Caduceus realised. He’d never looked for it before but he could see now it was one of the newest ones. In amongst some very old ones, strangely, he wondered why that was.

“Of course,” Caduceus smiled back, “I more meant everyone else seems to be hiding from the weather, not going out in it.”

Caleb looked abashed, once of the many expressions that looked unfairly adorable on him, “I know…I didn’t have any clothes right for the weather but Trinket’s at playgroup and the apartment was so quiet, I…I didn’t want to be alone…”

There was a long, stiff moment where the two of them realised how wet they were getting and how there was no sensible way to navigate themselves out of this conversation.

Eventually Caduceus just sighed and smiled a little, “Caleb?”

The human looked up, of course he always had to look up to meet the firbolg’s eyes. Rain slid down his face, looking like tears.

“It’s really good to see you,” Caduceus murmured.

The café was dark, a little naked without the music and the smells of sugar and coffee, the people at the tables. But it was calm, it was dry and it had tea. That was all Caleb needed right now.

He’d started sniffling before they’d taken five steps, his breathing wheezy and ragged by the time they reached the door. Caduceus’ fur kept him good and insulated but after one look at Caleb he’d known he had a nasty chill on the way.

Fortunately, he kept a tin of the perfect remedy for that down behind the counter, hand tied bags of muslin he would often press on customers who came in with runny eyes, sniffles and coughs.

While Caduceus poured, Caleb gingerly stripped down to his shirt, darkened with rain on the shoulders and chest but it was as dry as he could get. Still, it clung to his body in ways that Caduceus caught when his eyes flickered up from the mugs and held in his mind greedily until the guilt twisted again and made him drop them.

“So how is Trinket finding preschool now? Settling in?” he asked, a little more loudly than really necessary to cover his own thoughts.

Caleb looked up from pulling his boots off, distracted immediately by the mention of his son, leaving him with one large black boot on and one stripey orange sock with a hole in the toe.

“He was so excited to go today,” he sighed, sounding proud and sad as only a parent who’d only recently sent their only child off to school could be, “He didn’t cry at all, he let go of my hand straight away and ran through the gates. He only just remembered to wave to me.”

Caduceus smiled fondly, bringing their cups over already redolent with the smells of cinnamon and lemon, a puddle of deep golden honey right at the bottom, “He was always going to take to it like a duck to water. I’m positive he’ll be there tonight with a huge hug, ready to tell you how he missed you like crazy.”

Caleb looked so open heartedly grateful for those words that Caduceus almost couldn’t bear it. The trust it showed, coming from a man who’d spent the last four years stitching himself back together with shaking hands and was terrified of letting anyone else find loose threads.

He was especially vulnerable right now, with Trinket starting preschool- nursery school to his Zemnian father. There was a time when Caleb would rather have lost his own hands between the hours of 9am and 3pm, three times a week, rather than his son.

The fact that he was bearing it so well, still functioning through his anxiety over the loss of control when before it would have bent him double and froze him, was a testament to how far he’d come. Caduceus felt so proud of him for that, for eventually wading tentatively into bereavement therapy, for getting back into a more regular work schedule, for making so many incremental but incredibly important steps since they’d first met in this café.

Caduceus hoped he’d helped Caleb get there, in some small way.

Caleb took a deep drink from the mug though as soon as he swallowed, he began to cough, a deep wheezing cough as thick and dark as the clouds that had caused it.

Caduceus winced, “We need to get you dry and warm.”

“I’m kind of down to my last clothes here?” Caleb said, raspy voiced, plucking at his damp shirt.

“But all of the tea in the world won’t help if we don’t fix that,” Caduceus turned towards his back room, “I must have a clean blanket around here somewhere.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did have all of the tea in the world here,” Caleb went for a smile but it was interrupted by a hacking cough, one that left him shivering, “Fuck, I can’t get sick, Trinket will get it…”

“Well…that’s a possibility,” Caduceus allowed, coming back in with the softest blanket he’d been able to find, a fairly easy task seeing as he rarely bought any for the café that weren’t thick and soft as fleece, “But also you’d be sick. And that’s bad in itself.”

Caleb looked up, the thought obviously not having registered until Caduceus said it, “Well…yeah, I guess.”

Caduceus frowned, turning his back delicately while Caleb stripped off his shirt and pants that were clinging to him like a second skin, though his large ears twitched at every whisper of fabric against skin. He sighed and grabbed hold of the loose trail of hair, wringing the rain out of it sharply, hoping those thoughts would wash out as easily.

“Caleb…you know it’s okay to worry about yourself every now and again…” his distracting annoyance at himself made his tongue more daring.

“You told me to worry less,” came the slightly pointed reply, “And you can turn around now.”

There was a moment then, after Caduceus’ eyes slid down Caleb’s makeshift red tartan toga, before he sharply brought them back up again, when it seemed to occur to both men that Caleb was essentially naked in front of his friend. His friend who was quickly finding himself falling more and more for him, as much as he tried to deny it. Though Caleb wasn’t to know that, at least Caduceus desperately hoped he didn’t.

“I know I did,” the firbolg sighed, deciding even that emotionally testing conversation would be better than going any further down that trail of thought, “But you’re allowed to have a bit of…concern, let’s call it, for yourself. It doesn’t always need to be about you protecting Trinket or anyone else.”

Caleb idly flicked one of the tassels on the blanket, feet shifting awkwardly, “It is though. That’s…that’s all I’ve got left, looking after Trinket. Keeping him safe.” He flinched, face colouring red, “Sorry. That was too much. Sometimes I say things and I don’t think about whose in the room…”

“No,” Caduceus’ voice was soft, his hand even softer as he reached out and pressed Caleb’s shoulder, “You don’t have to say sorry. I’m glad you said it.”

“But it’s a horrible thing to think, isn’t it?” Caleb gripped the blanket tighter, voice taut like a drawn bow, “He’s my whole world, my Mollymauk gave everything to bring him here, I love him so much…but gods, every time I look at him…”

Caduceus sensed his words running out, wanting him to know someone was still listening. He got the heart breaking impression that Caleb had been missing exactly that for a very long time.

“What?”

Caleb shook his head, voice now clearly splintering like ice, “I just want to feel something other than grief. I just want to put it down for a little while, that’s all…”

The rain beat on the windows, marbling and warping what little light there was outside, casting it in waves across the two of them. Caleb looked up, following the ebb of it, meeting Caduceus’ eyes. The helplessness in them was worse than the sight of blood caught in his own fur.

“Please tell me I’m not wrong to want that?” Caleb murmured, his voice less than a whisper.

Caduceus was so rarely still, his ears and tail nearly always twitching as the world went by around him. But he was still now, nothing else in the world mattered to him but Caleb In front of him.

“No,” he said softly, “You’re not wrong.”

With the look in his eyes, he shouldn’t have been surprised when Caleb kissed him. But it was so sweet, so soft, so vulnerable, the kiss of a drowning man, he couldn’t help but give a brief gasp of shock.

Caleb drew back at that, pale everywhere but the tips of his ears which were bright red. The blanket slipped a little, showing a thin chest covered in rust coloured hair.

“I’m sorry…” he started, but Caduceus stopped him with one large hand, coming up to cup his face tenderly.

“You don’t have to say sorry.”

This time, Caduceus kissed him. So he could never say he was entirely blameless.

When he imagined kissing Caleb, Caduceus had always imagined himself bent slightly, compensating for their height difference. But instead, Caleb came to him by rising on the balls of his feet, practically climbing him, to bring their lips together so hard it almost hurt. Hands roved, never settling in one place. Caleb was the far less shy of the two, immediately pulling at the laces of Caduceus’ pants, letting them fall to just above his knees. His linen shirt covered him still but now the shape of his erection was even more prominent.

When they broke apart, they were both panting, lungs burning, neither of them having realised they were prioritising kissing over oxygen.

“Fuck me,” Caleb panted, pupils blown wide like a cat in the dark, “Cad, please.”

Caduceus’ heart fluttered at the nickname and he felt like a teenager again in the blush of realising what wanting truly was. The doubts he’d always nursed about Caleb not finding him physically attractive dissipated.

And fresh doubts about everything else they were doing surged up stronger than before, a tide he wasn’t going to be able to outrun.

No matter how much he wanted to.

Caduceus took a step backwards, in his mind and in the space, “Caleb, listen…”

“What?” the blanket was around his waist now, slipping open just enough that Caduceus could see…

“We can’t do this, Caleb, not right now,” he shook his head regretfully, “Not like this.”

“But…I want to?” fear had begun to creep into his eyes, an uncertainty.

“You’re upset and that’s completely understandable but…it would be too much like taking advantage. I won’t do that to you.”

“I want this, I promise,” Caleb insisted, hands shaking, “I do, I miss it. I miss you so much Mol-…”

He stopped. Caduceus stopped. Everything stopped. But it was too late.

Caduceus took another step back, pulling his trousers back up, lacing them tighter than before. Caleb, sickeningly pale, hands at his mouth as if he could stuff the words back in and have them never be said, looked like he wanted to say something.

Eventually the words came, like blood from a wound, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry Caduceus.”

Caduceus nodded, “I think your clothes will be dry now. Here’s a box of the tea but if you keep coughing, go see a doctor, okay?”

He turned and quickly busied himself behind the counter, moving around jars of coffee beans that didn’t need rearranging, resolutely not lifting his eyes.

“Caduceus, please…”

“It was good to see you, Caleb. Come by any time.”

More sifting of fabric, and a muffled sob before the rain grew momentarily louder, buoying the sound of the bell ringing out as the door opened and closed. Caduceus finally felt safe then to look up, seeing his blanket puddled on the chair, still in the vague shape of Caleb’s body, two cooling mugs on the table.

With a deep sigh, Caduceus sat by them, taking his and drinking for something to do with his hands. The rain was falling as strong as ever, so implacable and constant he wondered if it would ever stop.

And once again he felt alone in the world.

[shoutoismybaby]

Rescue

Can I get a Fantasy AU scenario with Half dragon Kirishima where he’s just sent to find some food by bakugou and during the trip he sees a group of dragon shapeshifters around a half dragon girl who looks terribly hurt (like arrows and just sword wounds) and he sees the group just leave her there sad flushing away and he rescues her and from then on they fall for each other?

***

This is sooo cute! Sorry its so long, Warnings of Blood, injuries, and bakuraka

***

Kirishima didn’t usually mind being sent out for food by bakugou. He actually enjoyed getting his own time to enjoy nature without the blonde yelling at him. He especially enjoyed talking to people in the towns he would pass by, especially if they were selling food. Sometimes, the villages would be hostile towards him. Weredragon people weren’t exactly popular at the time. Being part human and part dragon, you often got nailed with the bad rep of actual dragons. Along with having horns and smaller wings when in human form, making them easy to spot. This often led to ignorant humans attacking them unprovoked, often doing a lot of damage before the weredragon even had the time to shift. Sometimes the damage preventing them from at all.

Kirishima considered himself lucky that he had never been the target of an attack, and that he found Bakugou. His best friend and a human being who would defend him whenever, even if he would never say so out loud. Being friends with Bakugou, however, meant being away from home on a constant adventure. Not that Kirishima really minded, he really never had fit in in the village. He also liked exploring and helping out the people they came across. Which is why he often walked instead of flying when in search of food. It was harder to come across villages, yes. But he often found people in need of assistance.

And there was nothing the horned boy loved more than being someone’s hero.

So of course, when he heard panicked voices while picking berries, he abandoned the berries right away. He jogged towards the commotion and came across a small clearing littered with what looked to be other weredragons. Knowing that some of his kind were, for lack of a better word, savages who lived in tribes and would attack outsiders, he stayed in his spot hidden behind a tree. It was while he was trying to see through the sea of about 10 bodies that he began to hear soft whimpers and cries. From in between their legs, he spotted you. Laying on the ground as though you had collapsed, well you probably had. Your body was covered in blood and various arrows stuck out all over. Your face was contorted in pain, eyes squeezed shut. Kirishima's heart began to beat rapidly, why weren’t they helping you?

“Why would you be so stupid?” Kirishima’s ears finally caught bits on the conversation.

“You weren’t raised to be so weak!” A males voice seemed to overpower the rest, he looked to be the strongest out of the group, standing closest to you but showing no motive to tend to your wounds. “You know we can’t help you.”

Kirishima's eyes furrowed, what was this guy talking about?! You had fatal wounds that required treatment immediately.

“Please,” Your soft voice cut through, cutting off all other conversations. “I didn’t see them coming and there were so many.”

“That's your fault, and now you’ve probably led them to us!” The leader of the group spoke once again, and you visibly flinched. It was then that Kirishima hunch about coming across a tribe was confirmed. Usually, tribes had a hierarchy and, due to the current hunt on dragons in certain kingdoms, valued strength above all else. And you getting attacked and so badly injured would do serious harm on your reputation. But from what it seemed, it was earning you excommunication.

“I’m sorry,” A sob racked your body and Kirishima couldn't tell if it was because of the pain or what was happening.

“Let's go.” The leader demanded. Kiri wished that he could jump into action right then. COnvince them to stay and help you, but revealing himself would only put the both of you in more danger. Especially if they were right about the human that attacked you heading towards the group. The group seemed hesitant until the leader spread his wings, beckoning for the others to follow his example. A few looked sympathetic, but took off as the man did. Once they had finally taken off, shapeshifting into dragons once in the are, Kirishima made his way over to you. You had now curled into a ball as much as you could manage without inflicting even more pain to yourself. Your wings laid over your body, in a way that was hiding your face and that revealed how broken it was to Kirishima.

Upon hearing his footsteps you only curled into yourself more, releasing a pained hiss as the arrows were moved.

“I don't want to hurt you,” Kiri said, holding up his arms as though you could see them, “I just want to help. Your injuries look really bad. They could get infected... Or worse, if you don't let me help you.”

At this, you moved your wing from your face with a wince, and Kirishima's breath caught in his throat. He didn't think you’d be so beautiful up close.

“They’re probably not far behind, it would be smarter of you if you just left me.” You muttered, refusing to look him in the eye.

“Maybe, but I couldn't call myself a man if I did that either. Let me help, please.” He begged, getting increasingly worried as he noticed the blood pooling on the ground.

“What do you plan on doing then?” You asked,

“Well, I have a mage friend named Uraraka that lives in a small village a day or two from here called Tokyo. She’s taught me and my friend some healing remedies I could use in the meantime.” Kirishima explained, kneeling down next to you.

“You're planning on taking me to a village over a day away?” You asked, “Why?”

Kirishima looked up at you and sighed,

‘I don't know if you can feel it yet, you might still be in shock. But all these wounds, their fatal and-”

“And why do you care!?” You yelled, the people in your tribe had never done anything that didn’t benefit them. So what did he think he was going to get from this situation? A girlfriend? Because if so he could think again. “You don't know me, or anything about what happened to me. Why does it matter to you if I live or not if it's only going to inconvenience you?” Kirishima was taken back at your outburst. No one had really ever yelled at him when he was just trying to help them before. Well, other than bakugou, who ended up being his best friend. Which is probably why he didn't let your outburst faze him for too long.

“I don't know why I care, but I do and I want to help you. It wouldn't feel right to leave you here to die. What happened doesn't really matter to me. Now can I check your wounds?” He asked. You hesitated before accepting that he was your only chance at survival and nodded. You're adrenalin was wearing off and you could feel it. You knew the lack of blood was beginning to hit you, you began to feel drained and so, so sleepy. But each time he moved you to count your injuries a sharp pain from all over your body reminded you that you were very much alive. And you wanted to stay that way. It was a couple minutes before he spoke again, and you felt a lot calmer for some reason. “I’m going to pick you up and put you on my back okay? Its gonna hurt a lot but I can get you to where my friend and I are staying faster if I can carry you in my dragon form.”

“Where you and your friend are staying?” You asked, words sounding slurred together. “Are you like a nomad?”

“Sort of.” He responded, standing up and beginning to think about the best way to transport you.

“What's your friend like anyway?” You asked, a yawn leaving your mouth.

“He can be aggressive and temperamental. And he doesn't really like other people.”

‘He sounds like an ass.” You interrupted, he chuckled and shook his head.

“He comes off that way, but he’s really not. Plus, he’s much better attending to wounds than I am.” Kirishima explained,

and you had meant to respond. You really did. But it was at that moment you gave Kirishima a mini heart attack because you had blacked out.

***

When you blacked out Kirishima had a mini heart attack. The poor dragon boy had thought for a minute he had already been too late to save you. But in the end, he was glad you had passed out. It ended up making the travel to the cave he and bakugou had claimed much easier.

Sadly, it didn’t help with convincing Bakugou to help him.

“Bakugou please,” Kirishima pouted,

“Your pet, your problem.”

“She’s not a pet.” Kirishima frowned, turning back into his human form, you still passed out in his arms. “Please, her wounds are fatal.”

This is what made Bakugou look down from his spot on top of the cave.

“What happened?” He asked, making his way down to the ground.

“I think she got attacked by humans,” Kirishima explained,

“Wait, you don't know for sure!?” Bakugou asked, “How do you know she's not some sort of villain?” “Well, I watched her get kicked out of her tribe-”

“She’s from a tribe?!” “And it seems that she got attacked by humans. Please, Bakugou!” Kirishima begged once more, Bakugou took his sweet time thinking it over and glanced at your limp form. “Fine, but if she ends up trying to kill us. It's your fault.” He made his way down from the cave and growled as he got a better look at your condition. “Lay her down and start cleaning her wounds, she’s going to end up needing a healing spell, but the potions I know how to make should help until we can get her to Uraraka.”

***

The next time you woke up, you could feel wind rushing through your hair. Your eyes opened to reveal the night sky, and you suddenly knew you were being carried on a dragons back. You immediately shot up, regretting it as the pain from your wounds forced you back down. It was then that your memory started to come back. It must be that weredragon boy who had wanted to help you after your tribe had left you for dead. You attempted to shift again, and felt a wrapping around wounds, possibly what had kept you alive to this point. This time, you were able to sit up, only to jump when you heard a gruff voice sound from behind you.

“Go back to sleep, we’ll be there in a couple hours.” You turned your head to see a grumpy guy with spiky blond hair. It didn't take you long to figure out that this must be the friend the boy had mentioned.

“Where?”

“Tokyo, where the mage lives.” He rolled his eyes and leaned back against the base of the dragon's neck. It was then that you realized you could probably get answers to the questions that had been brushed off before. Especially considering the wind usually made it difficult to hear humans voices for dragons.

“When I asked him, he didn't really give me a clear answer, but. Why are you guys helping me out?” You asked, watching as he seemed to get annoyed you hadn't done as he told you.

“Kirishima has a heart too big for his body, he’s always liked helping people even if it puts him in danger. Like an idiot.” You nodded your head and looked back out at the clouds and stars you were passing. “Since I answered your question. Answer mine. What kind of tribe were you a part of?”

“Well, it was,” You paused and thought for a moment. “The emphasis was on being the strongest. The stronger you were, and the better you were at hunting, the higher status you had. Which is part of the reason I got, you know, after being attacked.”

“You’re not strong?” The blonde cocked his brows,

“Not compared to the tribe, no. But I also wasn’t born in there so I was always at a disadvantage to start with.” You explained,

“You weren't born to the tribe?” The boy began to look even more questionable of you.

“No, umm. My village got destroyed when I was little, leaving me alone and afraid in the woods. Where they found me and agreed to take me in. If that clears up anything for you.” You didn’t end up receiving a verbal response, but he seemed to be thinking it through. “What’s your name?”

“Bakugou. Don’t wear it out,” He demanded, “Yours?” He asked,

“(F/n).” He didn’t respond, and eventually, the exhaustion caught up with you once more and you laid back down. Letting the stars lure you back to sleep.

The next time you woke up, it was warm and you could feel the blankets piled on top of you. You opened your eyes to see the inside of a small cabin. You sat up, realizing that the only thing left from your wounds was a dull ache. The room was empty, save for a small table holding various books and beakers filled with colorful fluids. You assumed you had made it to the mages, and it was almost night. Something you could tell by looking out the window to see the sun begin to fall. You stepped out of your bed and walked over to the window, looking outside. You seemed to be on the second floor, giving you a good view of what you remembered was called Tokyo. It was a busy village, you could see shops and people down below. Of course, they seemed to be shutting down. Trying to turn in before all light went away. Focusing more on the people you could see the blond from last night, Bakugou, who was talking to a short brunette in front of the cabin. She was handing him a piece of paper and he looked strangely calm, it didn't fit his face well. You would have continued watching, but you heard the door open from behind you. You jumped and turned towards the noise. But when your legs landed back on the floor, your knees buckled from underneath you and you began to fall.

Before you could hit the floor, however, you felt strong arms around you.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” You looked up to see the face of Kirishima, his sharp teeth appearing through his smile.

“I-its okay.” You blushed, he helped you up and sat you back down on the bed. “Thanks for saving me, again.”

“Oh,” he scratched the back of his head, “It’s not a problem.”

“How long had it been? Since you saved me?” He paused and thought, sitting down next to you.

“About three days.”

“Three days! I’ve been with you guys for three days?” You asked,

“Did you have anywhere else to be?” He looked concerned,

“Well, no”

Soon enough, those three days turned into a year. A year that you spent traveling with the small group. You, the two guys, and the mage Bakugou had invited to join you. And it ended up being the best year of your life. Always on new adventures, taking on quests for money. You had never been freer, but as the winter drew near, there was still something you wished for.

“(Y/n)?” You turned to look back into the cage, seeing Kirishima make his way over to you. “What are you doing up?”

“Can’t sleep.” You answered simply, shivering as a cool breeze moved through. You looked behind the half-dragon to see Bakugou and Uraraka cuddled up near the fire, you were happy for them. Yet bitter. You turned back to admire the stars as Kirishima sat down next to you.

“Not a comfortable enough cave?” He attempted to joke, but you just shrugged.

“No, it’s just,” You shifted, “cold.”

There was a sudden warmth through your body as he set his arm around your shoulder, and pulled you close.

“You could have just said so,” You let yourself relax into his hold, “but I don't think being so far away from the fire is helping any.”

“Probably not,” You chuckled, “but I needed some time to, think.”

“About what?” Your eyes widened at the question, you couldn’t just tell him that you were head over heels for him! But you were exhausted, and when you were exhausted you did weird things.

You backed out of his grasp, facing him with only inches between your lips. You could feel his warm breath against your skin, and you opened your mouth,

“My lips are cold, too.” You said slowly, his face turned red as his vision switched between your eyes and lips. “If you want to, you can warm the-”

You didn’t get to finish your sentence before his lips were on yours. They were hot, almost burning. But it wasn’t anything you weren’t used to as a weredragon. It was too soon when he pulled away, a dorky smile on his face.

“I’m glad you feel the same way.”

***

Requests are open!!

[tailahjanbash]

What I Learned About Being a Whole When I Was a Half

I fell in love once. It was a time of raging teenage hormones and an unrealistic view of love due to my Taylor Swift obsession. It was the ultimate pining-for-your-bestfriend-80’s film-love that would ensure disaster on my naïve heart.

Looking back now, it was like a John Hughes movie on repeat—but every time you thought the happy ending was coming, I just kept getting my heart broken over, and over, and over... you get the idea.

Eventually the movie ended. After it was all said and done, I remember crying on the bathroom floor, wondering if the pain would ever leave. I remember praying every night that God would just make it easier. That I would wake up the next morning and feel just a tiny bit less than what I felt the night before. Am I resonating with any romantics here?

Well, it’s been a few years since then, and those wounds have healed—but I’ll never forget the priceless lessons I learned throughout the healing process.

Today I want to share with you some of the things I learned about being a whole when I was a half.

1. I believed the lie.

I believed the lie that I would never find love or connect to another person as much as I did when I fell in love. I fueled this fear with what I thought was “logic” and “reasoning”, but in reality, I was just letting fear bully me.

That was the furthest thing from the truth. It doesn’t align with God’s promises or nature.

2. There’s a natural way to deal with heartbreak, and there’s a supernatural way.

The truth is, when you find the person that’s right for you, it will make complete sense why it never worked with anyone else before.

When glass breaks, it’s natural to pick up the larger shards first in order to clean up the mess. The bigger pieces are easier to identify, pick up, and throw away. Breakups kind of happen the same way. Once everything has fallen apart, it’s easy to spot the big issues, like bad communication or dishonesty. But after those big pieces have been cleaned up, we are still left with the small shards; the ones that are not always visible that contribute to the brokenness.

The smaller pieces take longer to clean up. They require precision, careful attention, caution, and accuracy.

Anyone with decent eye sight can spot large pieces of glass. Meaning—it’s common knowledge that cheating is wrong, ghosting is immature, and lack of communication is the kiss of death. Even Cosmo can give you sound advice on this.

Then we get to the shards.

This is where the world gets the healing process totally wrong.

The sin, behaviors, and emotions underneath the surface that aren’t so easy to spot— those contribute to our broken condition.

Let me put this into an example: A lot of people think that getting into a new relationship will help you forget about your old one.

This is using another person to distract you from your pain and emptiness. Not only is this unfair to the person you are dragging along with you, but you can’t heal properly this way. You need to face your demons instead carrying them into your next relationship!

That rejection, fear of vulnerability, anger, loneliness, sorrow, depression, bitterness, resentment, pain, and allll the other negative emotions that accompany heartbreak— are the shards.

A playlist, going out with friends, a new bae, drinking until you forget, and all the other remedies that the world gives you… they don’t work.

The good news is, God is dying to heal you. (Quite literally)

He can’t wait for the night you put down the bottle or turn off of the T.V., whatever the distraction is, and turn to Him for the healing.

God doesn’t leave us alone in our fragmented state and expect perfection. In fact, He promises to get down in the mess and brokenness with us to find the solution and piece us together into a new and beautiful creation.

That’s exactly what He did for me. And I know He can do it for you.

3. You’ve gotta catch the foxes

“You must catch the troubling foxes, those sly little foxes that hinder our relationship. For they raid our budding vineyard of love, to ruin what I’ve planted within you. Will you catch them and remove them for me? We will do it together.” Song of Songs 2:15

When I read this scripture, the Lord made it very clear that my foxes at the time were guys and relationships.

The bible says that satan prowls around like a lion, looking for whomever he may devour. So, it should come as no surprise that he sends distractions and uses people and/or demonic principalities to keep us from effectively serving God.

I noticed that whenever I was minding my own business, crushing my school work, and super close to God… some gorgeous boy would pop out of nowhere and ask me out. I didn’t catch on at first. I was giddy and couldn’t wait to go out.

Okay so, what happens when you start talking to someone? Your brain goes from paying attention in class to planning the next date. Your hangouts take precedence over bible study and your mind and heart become filled with this person.

Eventually I would learn that these guys were great people, but simply not meant for me. And then I would remember the instructions God gave me and immediately want to slap myself in the face. How much time and energy did I invest in something that I could have avoided had I been obedient? I could have put that time into improving my grades or making new friends.

Maybe your foxes are ungodly friendships, being overly invested in a sport or celebrity, or a sin you always find yourself going back to.

A good indicator of your hearts priorities is seeing where you spend most of your time and money. Anything that takes precedence over God is not only a fox, but an idol.

I find it interesting that the word of God uses foxes to illustrate this picture. Foxes are sly and sneaky. They operate in darkness and in shadows, and they rob you of your crop. Spiritual foxes do the same.

They rob you of spiritual growth. The more time you spend binge-watching Netflix, the less time you have to read your bible and pray. Whatever you sow, you will reap. If you are sowing unproductivity—meaning putting your time towards sleeping, laying around, and watching tv, you are going to yield a crop of laziness, procrastination, and slothfulness. The fruit of your life will be marked by these negative characteristics.

I believe there are things God wants to continue to plant and grow in you and the beautiful thing, is that he says he will catch the foxes with us—we’re not on our own in the battle against sin and temptation. The Spirit of God helps us identify our foxes and gives us the strength to catch and kill those bad habits.

4. If you can make it past the first few months, you’re in the clear.

Just like breaking any habit, it’s going to be really difficult at first. Especially if you have never truly been on your own (romantically) like I had.

Relationships are wonderful—you have someone doting over you, laughing at your terrible jokes, and telling you how beautiful you are. But pull the rug out from under the relationship and you’re left with two seriously insecure people.

It’s human psychology—you’re used to receiving love and attention, so now that it is gone, you must fill that void with affirmation.

*downloads tinder*

Just kidding.

I wanted to break that habit because it never worked; I was never truly healed. Seeking male affirmation never satisfied my heart, soul, and spirit. I realized I needed to fill that void with God’s love instead of attention from guys.

And ladies, once I made that decision, I was unstoppable.

First, I had to set barriers for myself. I literally stopped everything related to relationships cold turkey... I was serious about getting the full and complete healing I needed!

I did not allow myself to go on dates, text guys that I liked, and on nights when I was particularly sad, I would turn everything off (tv, phone, laptop) and spend time with God.

Eventually, it got easier. Once the Holy Spirit started filling the holes in my heart, they actually began healing effective immediately. Getting over heartbreak became a million times easier because I wasn’t trying to duct tape DIY my heart back together. I was giving it back to the one who created it. It’s funny…we so easily forget that the master designer of our heart knows exactly how to heal it.

Looking back, I can’t believe how much of my heart was not only divided but broken. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. God had to stop me in the middle of a rebound relationship, arrest my heart, and give me these step-by-step instructions like you would an unruly toddler.

My encouragement today, is don’t be hard-headed like I was. Don’t let your heart get so tangled up in its own will and desires that it forgets God’s.

And finally, I’m not selling you a foolproof step-by-step guide on how to get over someone. Your story and your heartbreak are different than mine. But I do know heartbroken people, more than anything, want to feel like they aren’t alone. That someone understands them. To that I say, “Have you considered the one who planned this long ago?” Isaiah 22:11

For more blogs and content check out my website!

http://www.thechosengirl.info/

[dratin-dragonadetinta96]

Routine.

Ship: Barnaby x ben.

Words: 1500

Notes: Hi, people. I decided to use two theory: “Ben is the son of Death Eater” and “He is a traitor” in this fanfic. Really I dont believe these theories, but I wanted angst so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

Thanks to @hey-jacob-its-me, because her barnaben fanart makes me write. This is for you, girl! Enjoy it! :)

He discovers you. You discuss. You spell the memory charm. He hit the ground. You hide him until he wakes up.  You cry. You dry your tears. He is awake. You tell him that he fell asleep. He believes you.

Repeat.

That had been your life for the last few months. Being discovered by Barnaby again and again, your true colors being shown: Being a shitty traitor that is selling your friends to someone who would not hesitate to kill them to achieve their own goals, anything to keep your secrets from getting out. .

Well, it is not strange. Betraying runs in your family.

You are not a muggle-born, though you wish it. You are the son of some small-time Death Eaters who had sold their comrades to avoid prison. Fortunately, your parents had been smart enough to flee to the muggle world, that world they despised but it had become their only way out. Your parents had always been hypocrites.

You had changed your address, your habits and even your surnames. You could not remember the rest of your family, except your parents. When you fled, your parents did not tell anyone, not even your own grandparents, what you were going to got to avoid that somebody could track you.

Your childhood was full of horror stories about what would happen if another Death Eaters found you. You had had to hide your magic since you are a child, afraid of somebody that could discover you. Your first fears were about how your parents' companions were going to torture and murder you into the night, only a bloody body could be found.

No wonder you are terrified of everything.

Besides being terrified all the time, you grew up alone, without friends. You could not meet other children either, as muggle are not good enough for their son. It’s curious that your parents still considered  the muggle are inferior despite taking advantage of their world and living among them, their hatred and resentment was greater than ever before. Their words about “They are different”, “They cant understand you” or “You could say something that raise suspicion” were poor excuses to hide their intolerance.

Alone and scared. This was your childhood.

Hogwarts was a liberation, despite you are still surrounded by a web of lies.

You find great friendship, people who loved you despite your flaws. You discovered that the wizarding world did not hate Muggles as much as your parents said, because your friends, who did not hesitate to extend a hand, had never minded that you were "muggle-born".

However, this lie (and the betrayal caused by it) is destroying you slowly, feeling that you can not do anything to avoid it, afraid that your friend are going to discover the truth someday and the consequences that would ensue. Not only the rejection of your friends, but the danger that will befall you and your parents when your true identity will come to light.

But you deserve this.

Barnaby moves his head that is on your lap, soon he will wake up. You sigh slowly, trying to calm down to avoid raising the suspect that Rowan has. Its funny how close she are to the truth, despite the trust that MC has for you. The truth will destroy their hearts, especially Barnaby’s and you have had to find out this the hardest possible way, again and again. Whenever he had discovered your action, he tried to fix this in every way, never surrendering. Despite he could not remember another time that this had happened, his efforts to convince you that it existed another way out have increased, as if his instinct could remember it and tell him that he should not give up, he only had to try harder.

You lean on the tree, while you are running your fingers through his sloppy hair absentmindedly. If anyone saw you, They would think that you are on a date. But you can not, not while you are a traitor. Barnaby deserves better. If your break his heart now (when you are only a friend), he will not hurt so much, maybe if you are fortunate enough, he and the rest of your friends will tolerate your presence over time. But if are you a couple? No, there will be no redemption for you (really you should stop acting like if the chance of being forgiven existed, even though you were only friends. But this little possibility let you continue).

However, you have made your choices. You let R manipulate you and force you to fight agaisnt your friends. This is the lonely route that you have decided to follow and will have to continue until the final consequences.

(But, although you deserve it, it hurts so much)

Barnaby moves again. Your personal bubble where the time remains frozen is about to crumble like a chess piece.

You breathe fondly, looking at the sunset, and after sighing one last time, your mask is fixed in its original place.

Barnaby sits up slowly, passing a hand through his hair, hair that you stroked before. He closes his eyelids, achy for the migraine that ravaged him. You look down, feeling how the guilt grows inside you, despite knowing the after-effects of this charm. This was the only solution that you could think as the same time as you follow the R’s orders. R had been clear: This or the death.

His constant questions about what happened force you to focus. Your answers are vague, full of lies and poor excuses. He should suspect you, it has been too many times that he fell asleep or unconscious in your presence. Anyone distrusts you. And, however, he still looks at you reliably.

(Maybe you constantly use that spell to keep the trust and the love in his eyes. You hate seeing disappointment or sadness in them.)

Your eyes meet again. Your bodies are still touching. Barnaby doubts, scared of how you could react, though your true fears do not look like those he imagines. He frowns, taking a decision. His face is fierce, as if he had fought, not against someone in a duel, but against the fears inside him. He take your hand (the same hand that has cast so many spells on him) quickly, but gently, before he can repent for his audacity, though you doubt that he regrets, because he is Barnaby.

You want... You would want... You can not. You force yourself to remember all the reasons that you constantly recite as if it were a sacred chant. Nobody deserve a relationship based on lies, especially not him. You are only one responsible for your unhappiness, and now you do not have the right to wish “happy ending”. Your rejection will hurt him, but you hope, even if you do not want, he may meet a better person, someone that does not betray him.

The moment is broken, separating you without mercy. You look away, avoiding his confused and disconsolate gaze.

He open his mouth, He close it. He opens it and closes it again. The words do not come out, because there is nothing to talk about. You can not talk about what does not exist

(Or perhaps if you can it? But you're a coward. Coward for the truth and coward for the lie. Coward before the past and coward before the future. Coward for the good and coward for the bad. Coward before love and coward before hatred. Coward, after all.)

You stand up, not looking at his eyes yet, walking to the castle. A leaf is still in his hair, but you do not dare to tell him it. The more time you cast that spell on him, the less you feel that you have right to be his friend, even if it is for something as trivial as a tangled sheet.

Despite your refusal to look at him, Barnaby does not stop looking at you out of the corner of his eye. You do not know what he is looking for in you, although you don’t doubt he will get tired of dissembling soon and will ask “the question”. That question that, after each one of your memory charms, he always asks you as if you were the enchanted person, instead of him.

Your suspicions do not disappoint you, you have not taken five steps before those warm words come out of your mouth.

"Are you okay?"

And like every time, it baffles you. The truth is that you are not well, you have not been well for a long time. You hate yourself, you hate what you are becoming, you hate what you are doing to the only people who have accepted you and you hate that you are such coward that you do not do something to remedy this.

You think about telling the whole truth, about asking for help, about begging for a second chance, about going back to belonging to your gang without lies.

But in the end you're the same coward who does not dare to go off script.

You stop. You look at him. You give him a big fake smile. You lie. He believes you. You continue walking.

Repeat.

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.

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Its possible that it has some mistake as it was written quickly and without beta (because I wanted to upload it and I couldnt wait). So, if anyone see some mistake, you can say me.  

[baehkhun]

Cosplay Models

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Owning and paying attention to a radio or perhaps a radiogram would be a wonderful experience, particularly when it turned out capable to grab stations from around the globe. The fact that they crackled and were packed with a number of interfering noises simply didn't matter at all. Of course, there were no such thing as television with an alternative source of information.

[hegglespeggles]

Mental Illness, the Honour System, and the Commodification of Human Beings.

Hi. I’m Peggy. I have a mental illness.

    People talk a lot about mental illness. It’s kind of a Thing. It pops up when a teen commits suicide, or there is a mass shooting, but especially at Halloween, where monstrous “psychopaths” and “schizoids” charge at us with their chainsaws from the dark corners of haunted houses and our screens. Particularly, a good chunk of the discussion tends to centre on how to integrate these mentally ill people, with their strange green-skin and their funny antennae, into our society full of humans. I find a lot of this dialogue to miss the point, so like every person with an opinion and a keyboard, I’m going to offer mine.

    I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder when I was 15. When I was 19, those were both were discovered to be manifestations of PTSD from an emotionally abusive and neglectful childhood. I was hospitalized at 16 for a suicide attempt (the most successful in a chain which started when I was 12) and have been in therapy ever since. With the right combination of medications, therapy, and accommodations from my university, I am in my second year studying Music at Western University and have a part time job. I also do musicals with the campus theatre society and do a bunch of writing and composing and occasionally, stand-up comedy. I spend my summers working at an overnight camp and I want to be a music therapist when I finish school.

    I tell you all of this for two reasons. One, that I am not some waif withering away from some romantic disease, like a modern-day Victorian heroine. I am not some tortured saint who is just too delicate for this world. I am loud, and abrasive, I love my friends and strangers with the same ferocity and I give great advice. It just so happens that last week I was also spending about 4-6 hours a day staring at a very specific chink on my balcony because my brain was shutting down and I had no ability to focus and very little awareness of what’s happening around me. (This is what the psychologist-types would call a “Hypoarousal Trauma Response” and it is just as scary as it sounds.) This is a very foreign concept for a lot of people, and before I finish this I’ll probably end up trying to explain it even more, because yeah, part of what makes this such a hard concept to grasp is that even those who suffer from it have trouble describing it. Lumping us all together is difficult for the same reasons lumping cancer patients together is difficult. In the same way that leukemia, brain tumors and melanoma are all vastly different from each other, I could no sooner fully grasp what its like to have OCD, or schizophrenia, but I’m going to accept that your melanoma has different symptoms than my leukemia. Please don’t ask me what I did to catch it, or if I’ve tried this herbal remedy, or tell me that you don’t think that my medication is a good idea, because its messing with my brain. I know it does. That’s the point.

    Secondly, please understand that those with these illnesses are under no obligation to prove themselves to you. I have had many a boss or professor push for details of my diagnosis, to the point where one professor asked for the nitty-gritty of my abuse. And hey, I get it, we all love salacious gossip and exciting backstories on the people around us. But the problem is that what is your fun real-life soap opera, or your next conversation topic for Girls-night-in, that same problem is the reason that I wake up screaming in the middle of the night, or hyperventilate, shake, and vomit until I pass out. It’s the same way that while Game of Thrones is fun to watch, no one would want to live there.  I am offering my issues up as a platform and case study for discussion, and so please, I ask you to pick and prod and ask questions, (As any of my friends will tell you, I have dangerously little filter,) but the people you meet and interact with in the world, you must understand that their struggles are their own bruises to pick at and not yours. These are issues that we struggle to talk about with ourselves, let alone other humans. I understand the desire to verify the truth, but that is a job for professionals, (with all due respect,) not you.

    And that’s the crux of the issue isn’t it? Mental illness is antithetical to our society’s method of dealing with the ill. It’s not a linear healing journey, and its not always a cold that you can muscle through. Submitting the proper paperwork and showing up for disability meetings and the fighting and clawing and demanding the help with is your right (the difficulty of access to which is its own discussion) is something which is difficult and frustrating under the best of circumstances, and is infinitely more difficult when the very nature of your illness is to convince you that you are an unworthy burden, sapping any focus and energy you had to do it anyway. Perhaps more frighteningly, it is an invisible illness. There is no way to tell if someone is faking it or not, and in our empirical, productivity-based society, that is a frightening notion: if some people, not for lack of trying or desire to do so, cannot function at peak efficiency most of the time, how do we measure their worth?

    I can feel your incredulity, but I mean it. We pay a lot of lip service to being well rounded and self-care, which to my delight is becoming more and more mainstream, but for most it’s a lofty dream, on par with being a Best-Selling Novelist, or owning a home in Toronto. But check some twitter bios, and go on some first dates, or a party with lots of people with people you don’t really know, and you’ll notice we define ourselves by our careers, what we do, not who we are. So, what do I say when I spend an alarming amount of time fetal on my floor this morning because I didn’t have the energy to get up, and even if I did, my brain is screaming how burdensome I am to any system with which I interact?

    See, we grew up in this culture too. We internalized that otherness and vague discomfort with mental illness too, often long before symptoms started manifesting. So, all that frustration and confusion at how we can’t just get up and do things, we feel that too. It all adds to the melange of confusion and self-hatred. On top of that, we see the same people who wear their neurodivergence like a shiny new thing which separates them from the normies who just don’t get it. Believe me, it makes me just as angry. I would do just about anything on this earth to be one of those normies. I believe in self acceptance and loving yourself for who you are, right now, but I also must believe in the innate human lust for self improvement, and that we all must take active steps in our lives to better ourselves every day. It’s hard, but it must be done. My illness is not beautiful, but it is also not a flaw. It is a part of myself which a work everyday to improve, and that involves taking hard, humbling looks at how I interact with the world and working hard to turn that into tangible change. Again, this shows us where that tangible change gets sticky: its different for everyone. For me, that means working on my trust issues. In order to tell my friends something as small as my age and birthday, I had to be at least five glasses into a case of boxed wine and spent the next week a broken shell of a human crying in bed as a result. In a culture which vilifies mental illness, and expects objective proof of things, where do I go from here? Surely, this is not my fault, as this was a misstep in an ever-present journey to be the best version of myself that I can be. Likewise, how do I, or anyone around me, know whether I’m faking it? How do my professors know that I am not just blowing off class because I don’t want to go?

    Now of course, I’m lucky. I am a white, pretty, middle-class woman who has a very agreeable personality. This means people are more likely to give me lots of extra chances and help me out. My family had the money to put me into therapy. I’m also lucky that I’ve had lots of experience pushing through the system, first trying to access support on my own when I was 13. This means I have no fear asking for accommodation, and I have the vocabulary to describe what I need. But what about people who don’t fit the key demographic for what we expect mental illness to look like? Or people who don’t know where to start, or think that they deserve it? What about men, who are just as likely to suffer from these issues but only a fraction as likely to seek help? And while we’re at it, what about people who will experience anxiety and depression without it being a full-on disorder? I am a rare unicorn in that I have the support I need, and the self assurance to speak up when I am not getting it. But why should someone in my position, which I stress again, is an almost impossible best-case scenario, be the only person who is allowed to access support to it’s fullest? Even with a well documented diagnosis and disability accommodations, I have professors and bosses who express disappointment in my inability to function. It leaves me wanting to scream “I know! I’m angry at myself too!”

    The best way to explain it is that it feels a bit like having your insides vacuum sealed to the point where breathing feels like trying to pull against the vacuum, being blindfolded and thrown naked into a pool of maple syrup which has thumbtacks at the bottom and trying to make it to some nebulous “other side” of the pool. Meanwhile everyone in your life is waiting on the other side of a door for you and you can hear them telling you that “you should be moving faster,” and that “you don’t have it that bad.” You also don’t want to be doing this, but you don’t know where the pool stops, how to avoid the thumbtacks, or how to move faster through the syrup. You start to wonder if the pool is infinite, is this just what your life is, and how you’ll ever accomplish anything.

    That’s why I need the support. Because its handy to get an extension on a paper when all of a sudden, the pressure of the vacuum seal is too strong, and I need to remember how to breathe. Its really nice to not be penalized for not going to a rehearsal because I was busy fishing a thumbtack out of my foot. And its difficult to describe what’s happening to me when I’m blindfolded, so I have no way to describe where I am. Everyone around me is waiting for me to get to the other side of the room, but they aren’t allowed in, so they can’t see that in order to do this, I have to traverse this surrealist obstacle course. My academic accommodation is someone telling my professors that my room is a bit more difficult than other rooms, and my therapist is up in the spectator gallery, talking me through it from the PA system. Medication is like a pair of flipflops. I’m lucky to have these things, but what about someone who doesn’t know how to work the PA system? Or someone who’s superiors think they’re taking a nap in that room? What about someone who doesn’t realize their room has a pool in it, and now they’ve fallen head-over-foot into it?

    This is why I’m about to propose a mildly radical thought: If someone says they’re struggling, believe them. Give them the benefit of the doubt, that they are actually doing their best. Yes, there will be people who abuse the system, but don’t you think that letting them go, is worth helping people who need it? Otherwise, we run the risk of throwing more thumbtacks in the pool of someone who is genuinely trying to meet you halfway. Likewise, these people are not delicate flower petals who just couldn’t cope with the difficulty of their room. They’re just as capable, and strong as anyone coming out of any other rooms. Maybe their syrup was a bit deeper, or there were more thumbtacks, or to this day they aren’t quite sure of the shape of the pool and they’ve tripped and fallen back in a few times. All that does is speak about their pool. Not them. They didn’t build the room, and they didn’t ask for this room so that you would pity them. Who would want to go through a room like that? All they want is someone waiting at the door and cheering them on, without hurrying them.

    When you live in a society that is timing how quickly you can get through rooms and how far you can get, it’s a wildly daunting task to not only believe that you can get through the room, but that doing so is worth risking stepping on another thumbtack, and making sure that you’re taking the air you need. For me, I don’t know if there will ever be a point where someone releases the vacuum seal, but that is something I can live with. I like so many others, am just desperately yelling to the people on the other side of the door to wait for me until I get there. I know I won’t be able to make it through with the times that other people have, and in our society’s way of measure success, that means I’m not as good. The only way to reconcile this is for us all to realize the differences in our rooms, and that we might not be able to directly compare times. Its frustrating and complicated, that there wont be such a clear one-to-one comparison of our successes, but isn’t it that much more rewarding to know that you’re actually be timed for what you actually have to go through?

    So, my professors won’t know that I’m not faking it. My friends are waiting on the other side, and they’re probably getting annoyed at how long they have to wait for me. All I can do, all any of us can do, is call out to them that our room is a little bit weird, and that we’re still trying to make it to the other side, but it’s going to take a while. I guess I just hope that the world takes us at our word.