#which is of course not appropriate. but unavoidable.

[scottstiles]

just looooove waking up to 5 new followers and a 30 ppl less followers count….

[harmonysanreads]

Ratio looks like he'd fold after two genuine compliments and not just ones about his looks or intelligence. Bro would not be able to handle actual genuine words from someone because he's so damn used to hollow words from fans and haters alike (I don't care if this is ooc its true in my heart)

No no, I agree with you.

People tend to take compliments too lightly, let whatever escape their mouths often carelessly. The act of giving compliments can be honed into an art with practice, the gesture of taking them gracefully can be considered as a mark of maturity and class. Simply put, you can tell a lot about a person based on how they give and receive compliments.

The academic field is privy to many kinds of drama. Back-handed compliments thrive in the radius around ‘geniuses’, ‘prodigies’ and the ‘talented’. Unless you hear it from certain people, delivered in very specific tones, you won't even know just how easily positive words can be twisted to feel like insults. Ratio is intimately familiar with this phenomenon.

It took some struggle, reflection, trial and error until he understood the sheer absurdity of the situation. By then, it was more funny than hurtful to him. Oh, the scope of idiocy. Ratio prefers words in communication to be direct and transparent, though he won't deny that nuance and implication have their own charm when used appropriately.

Ratio might not appear so due to his default disposition, but he's actually quite good at complimenting — given that he finds something genuinely admirable about the person. Take his party-joining voicelines about Ruan Mei and Herta for example. But because of the factor that needs to be met to be complimented by the man, his words of appreciation are often posed as statements (e.g. his voiceline about Screwllum). Which could make his compliments hard to believe if you happen to struggle with receiving them.

Now, the first thing that comes to my mind if we're looking for ‘that’ compliment which will be successful in flustering him ; is to try to learn and understand his ideology, values, ambitions and mindset by extension. Difficult task, I know, but studying Veritas Ratio is unavoidable if we're talking about him. Of course, Ratio enjoys studying everything around him even more, so to catch someone this perceptive off-guard is a bit of a challenge.

Well, it's not possible to understand a human in their entirety, so the effort is of greater importance. Observe, question (and don't be dismayed by his sharp comebacks), reflect, apply what you learned and always try to be genuine. There is no way Ratio won't notice honest efforts.

I don't know why but I have this nagging feeling that compliments about his appearance can also do the trick. Perhaps it's because they could've become somewhat scarce since he started using the alabaster head. But don't just randomly go, "You're so handsome! Your eyes are so pretty!" True as they may be, try to point something he hasn't considered or heard, challenge him. “I appreciate the way you maintain your hair. The neatness and your choice of accessory is pleasant to the eyes.” is something that I'd probably go for. This has greater chances of working if you've made a place in his head through the first suggestion, so to say.

And when, after all that hard work, you do succeed — Ratio is a sight to see. If there was some sort of microscope to gauge the transition of human emotions when they receive compliments, it'd paint such an entertaining picture. First is a scintilla of surprise, then you get a flicker of joy which ignites into flames of emotions too jumbled to decipher — Ratio's cheeks and ears will be guilty of letting them escape. If you don't seem to get any coherent response from the scholar even after an interval of patience, just know that Ratio.exe has stopped working.

[too-much-tma-stuff]

No Body to Bury

This is a full dead spin off of another one shot I read about Danny being given flowers for his grave by a child.

-------

The Justice League had been working with Phantom for a while now, not consistently, but he showed up when they were dealing with something ~spooky~, and he’d given them a way to contact him. They called him in to consult, or to back them up sometimes because he was a bit of a power-house. At first they had thought the name was part of his shtick, after all his powers were ghostly enough and there was something satisfying about having a theme.

They had started to suspect something when the child citizen had given him flowers for his grave, and his delighted reaction. It could have just been a kid happy to get a gift, but it wasn’t, it was clearly more then that and Batman had had a flashback to one of Constantine’s crash course lesson’s on supernatural, the one on ghosts. Graves were very important to them, as were morning gifts like flowers and candles, whatever was culturally appropriate.

None of them knew where Phantom’s grave was, Batman had tried to find it, to find anything about the ghosts life and death, but there wasn’t much. Not before he became a hero in Amity park, so he could maybe guess that the other had died in Amity (if he had died), but there was no deaths that matched up with his appearance. The closest thing was a boy named Danny but he had gone missing years after Phantom showed up, and he’d never been declared dead officially. More was impossible to find, even after the GIW had been disbanded the information they had destroyed about the town couldn’t all be retrieved.

Since Batman didn’t know where Phantom’s grave was he couldn’t leave flowers on it directly which meant he had to actually give them to the ghost boy. It was a bit uncomfortable the first few times, and his kids made fun of him for being emotionally repressed but… it made Phantom so happy, and brought him closer and closer to Batman. He had already started to see Phantom as one of his kids, even if he knew he’d never get the ghost to come back to the manor. The gifts helped, he found that Phantom also liked to receive food, he even picked at it sometimes even though it seemed he didn’t need to eat. Sharing meals with him was a good excuse to actually talk some though, Batman would listen and eat his own food as Phantom picked at his and rambled about space, about recent fights he’d been in, and people he’d met.

Through all that Batman managed to learn more about the young hero, about what he valued, and what he did when he wasn’t being a hero. Apparently he spent a lot of time off world but exploring rather then being a hero to the galaxy. Batman had a feeling superman would be upset by that, that Phantom could be doing more good then he was and was choosing not to. But the ghost was clearly still a kid, or at least had been when he died, and he was plenty heroic, he didn’t need to be dealing with universal threats at maximum sixteen years old, Batman felt bad calling him in for the planetary threats, but sometimes it was unavoidable.

As they got closer Phantom started to let other things slip, that he’d had a sister, and a couple of close friends that he still watched over when he could. When Batman had asked if those people knew he was dead Phantom had fallen silent for a full minute and then changed the subject entirely, Batman hadn’t pushed it that time. If he had Phantom would have retreated, but as it was they kept having lunch together, and the boy let more and more slip. Including more stories about those friend he must have had while he was alive, it was during one of those that he let his name slip.

“So my sister said to me, ‘Danny you should-‘” his mind seemed to catch up with his mouth and he froze, Batman was still too but when Phantom started to fade from view he spoke up.

“Phantom, wait, why don’t we leave the tower and go somewhere private. We can talk secret identities, I’ll tell you mine too,” Batman promised, he thought it was the best way to make Danny feel better, besides he did trust Phantom.

Danny hesitated before fading back into full visibility and nodding, “Alright,” He agreed, looking very young and vulnerable. “Do you mind if I fly us down to earth? I’ll keep you safe from space,” He asked and Batman nodded, letting Danny grab his arms and phase them through the building and out. Danny flue quickly back down to the earth, the side facing away from the sun so it was the middle of the night, putting Batman down in the middle of an abandoned park, landing as well and going to sit on the swing set.

Batman followed, sitting down next to the young hero and trying hard not to think about Ace, another talented and powerful person who went through to much and died to young. Once he was sat down Bruce sighed and took off his cowl, showing his face to the other young hero. “I’m Bruce Wayne,” He said with a wry smile when he saw familiar recognition cross over Danny’s face.

“No way, that makes so much sense,” Danny cackled, which wasn’t the reaction Bruce was expecting. He’d ask about that later, instead he just gestured for Danny to introduce himself next.

“Danny Fenton,” the kid introduced, holding out his hand with an impish little smile. Bruce chuckled and shook it as if this was the first time they’d met instead of having known each other for nearly a year.

“I know that name,” Bruce hummed thoughtfully, back peddling a little when Danny tensed. “Sorry, worlds greatest detective and all, I did a bit of research on Amity Park when you joined us to see if I could track you down. I had ruled that out because your civilian identity didn’t go missing for two years until after you showed up as Phantom. Does that mean you’re not, well, dead?” He asked, rubbing the back of his neck at the awkward question.

“Oh, no, I’m very dead,” Danny said with a bitter chuckle, pushing himself to rock on the swing a little. “But I didn’t die for a couple of years after I got my powers, not fully. I don’t think most people understand what it’s like to die twice,” He said, looking down, already pale hands going white around the knuckles with how tight he was holding the chains.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Batman said softly, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. “But if you want to talk, I’ll listen, and I won’t break your confidence,” Bruce assured, they sat quietly for a few more minutes before Danny sighed and looked away.

“My parents were.. well probably best classed as mad-scientists. I loved them and they loved me but they were obsessed with ghosts and with discovery, it was always a tossup which was more important. I would join them in their lab to get their attention, and it was often my job to clean up after them. I ended up being micro-dosed on this stuff they called ectoplasm a lot which probably helped when the accident happened. My parents were trying to build a portal to the ‘ghost-zone’, what Constantine calls the infinite realms. It didn’t work at first, not till I stepped inside it, then it opened and it electrocuted me at the same time as flooding me with that weird glowing green ooze. It killed me and resurrected me simultaneously but not properly.

“Instead of actually bringing me back to life it bound my ghost back to my own body so I became the ghost possessing myself. That’s when I started working as a hero, while I was still partially alive.” He paused, swinging for a moment while Bruce stayed quiet and still, trying not to think about what Danny’s homelife must have been life, or how much it must have hurt to be killed like that.

“After a while the GIW showed up, they tried to catch me, but my parents had been trying to catch or destroy me as phantom for years. The GIW weren’t nearly as competent as the Red Huntress, so I avoided and ignored them. But I started to take it for granted and dismiss them, I didn’t pay enough attention, and they finally got the drop on me. I don’t want to talk about everything they did to me, but it was bad, and it was to much for my human half,” Danny stopped again and bit his lip, there was a hitch in his breathing that told Bruce exactly why Danny was hiding his eyes.

“Danny died, but it turned out that being half human was sort of holding back what I was capable of as a ghost,” He snickered with a little bit of bitter, vicious glee. “They couldn’t hold me anymore, all their little devices got left on my corpse when they forced me out and I destroyed the lab. After that I just… couldn’t go back to my life, it’s not natural. I died, they need to grieve me. That’s- that’s how it works.”

“And did they? Did you… get a burial?” Bruce asked, because he hadn’t seen anything about it in the news. His fear was confirmed when Danny took a deep breath and shook his head.

“No, I didn’t leave my body in the wreckage. I was worried… scratch that, I knew my parents would cremate me to try and keep me from coming back as a ghost, because they didn’t know I already was one. And that would weaken my connection to this world. I need to protect people, it’s half my purpose, I need a connection to this world.”

“Where did you hide it?” Batman asked, his breath catching when he saw Danny’s eyes flash a dangerous red.

“Why do you want to know?” He growled, bearing teeth that were sharper then they usually were. “You gonna give it back to my family for ~closure~? Destroy it yourself to curtail my power? I know Constantine is scared of me, he’d like that.”

Bruce immediately held his hands up in a placating gesture, of course Danny would be protective of his body. “No nothing like that Danny, I promise,” He said quickly. “But I just remember from what I’ve been told about ghosts, having a grave is important and, if you wanted, I would like to see you get a proper burial. It’s your body, you should get to control what happens to it but if you wanted a grave, a funeral, we have a protected graveyard for fallen heros. You’d fit right in,” He said with a uncertain smile.

Danny relaxed slowly, his eyes going back to green and his expression turning contemplative, looking back down as he thought about the offer. “Maybe… maybe,” He murmured. “It would be nice to have a grave, I’ve been leaving the flowers near my body in the ghost zone but… it would be nice to have a grave. I can feel the longing, the instinct. It feels bad to not have… have that, have something.

“But… I am scared. Would you be willing to- if you do an empty coffin funeral and burial for me, I’ll put my body in it, once the coffin is in the protected ground I can phase my body into it?” He asked, looking up at Batman worriedly and it was so obvious Danny was just a kid, a neglected boy who had been unlucky enough to die violently twice.

“Of course Danny, however you feel most comfortable,” Batman assured. Watching as Danny took a deep breath, more out of habit then anything, then nodded firmly.

“Then, I would like that. I know I am still here in a way so it feels weird having a funeral for me but, I still died, and I’d like to be remembered.” He murmured uncertainly.

“Of course, I understand. We didn’t get rid of my son’s grave when he came back because he still died. Being brought back, in any way, doesn’t really undo that,” Bruce sympathized, finally getting a small smile from Danny.

“Thank you Bruce, you’re a good guy. Now… do you need a lift back to the watchtower?”

“Yes please,” Bruce agreed with a sigh, finally standing up and pulling his hood back on. He had a funeral to plan.

"When we do have the funeral, can you ask your son to come? I'd like to meet him," Danny asked and Batman hummed, not sure how to explain the complicated relationship he had with Jason now.

"I'll try," He agreed, that was the best he could do really.

Part 2: here

[freaksnvans]

A 30-year-old Christian Fujoshi With a PhD's Thoughts on Team Fortress 2 Shipping.

Here I will be providing my thoughts and opinions on my personal favorite Team Fortress 2 ships. I do not know who will be interested in my speakings, but I am branching out into this beautiful fandom like a great oak tree. Haters can "suck an egg," and I do hope that saying is not an euphemism for anything of the less appropriate variety! Please be ready for a very long and verbose post.

How Did I, freaksnvans, Become Interested in Such a Thing?

An Introduction to Me.

I am indeed a Christian woman, and I self-identify as a Fujoshi. That may seem contradicting, but it is not. I ship the mercenaries from Team Fortress 2 in a good and god-honoring way, and I will not tolerate any negative speak of the Lord in my comments and/or reblogs. As for myself, you may only know me as freaksnvans. I chose that name because My favorite ship, as you may be able to discern from such a screen name, is Trucks n' Vans. The "Freak" part comes from a childhood nickname I was given in elementary school... the Freak. That is very traumatic to me, so I mustn't delve into the details. Moving on.

Where It All Started.

In 2007, I was vaguely interested in the game, having heard whispers of it from sites like YouTube as well as my male classmates. I was Thirteen years old, therefore in middle school. Team Fortress was, without a doubt, popular with middle school aged boys at the time of its release. Being curious as to what the "hype" (am I using this Gen Z slang correctly?) was, I googled Team Fortress 2. I had no, and will still never have any, interest in first-person shooter games. I do not like to kill things. I am a god-honoring woman. However, seeing the image of seven strong and mysterious men, (I am indeed disregarding the Scout, as he is not strong nor is he a man, he is a weak and pathetic boy.) I was indeed intrigued.

I, before then, had minor experiences with fandom spaces, having been interested in Harry Potter at the time. I read fan-fiction occasionally. However, I felt no interest toward fan-fiction and pairings of the homosexual variety. My favorite ship to read fan-fiction of was Dramione. I imagined myself as Hermione. My readings of fan-fiction were in fact very self-serving. I became gradually interested in Team Fortress 2 when the fandom was in its infancy. (If you are wondering as to how I never interacted with the fandom before now, or used "social media," that is because I was not allowed to at such an age, and had a fear of doing so up until adulthood. Please do not shame me.)

Back to the topic of Team Fortress! I began searching for fan art of my favorite characters - which, then, were Medic and Soldier. I longed for the Soldier to hold me in his strong arms. I secretly desired for Medic to perform cruel and unusual acts of surgery upon my body. That is a common sentiment shared upon fans of Medic now, I have found. I thought I was alone!

Anyways... At some point, I began to discover Team Fortress fan-fiction. I was extremely intrigued by my discoveries. I, being a pre-fangirl with no real interest in shipping between the mercenaries yet, read "x reader" fan-fiction. However, the extreme abundance of slash fiction made stories of the homosexual variety completely and utterly unavoidable. I naively decided to read just one story of such a kind. I do believe it was a HeavyMedic fic. It was like a fujosplosion inside my mind. I quickly became hooked on reading M/M Team Fortress fan-fiction, scouring sites such as FFN to find more.

That does seem to be how I became interested in gay pairings in Team Fortress 2.

Ok, then what are your favorites? Stop rambling, woman.

Why would you say that to me? Anyways, over the years, I have been particularly drawn to three different pairings.

the first would of course be Trucks n' Vans.

It may be obvious that is my favorite. Actually, I think I already mentioned that it is, ha ha! Anyways. Trucks n' Vans has captivated me ever since I was a young girl. First of all, Sniper is skinny and mildly pathetic, while Engineer is a beautiful fit man. He is also Southern, which I am too. I became interested in this pairing because I imagined Engineer teaching Sniper the ways of God and life in the South. He would show Sniper the beauty and joy of a good old peach cobbler. Which he clearly needs, because I do have a burning hatred for Australians. Sniper is an exception. Anyways.

I have also found great interest in HeavyMedic.

Of course I have. I was interested in this fandom from the day it was created, you silly goose, of course I love HeavyMedic. They were meant to be. Please don't tell God that I said this but I wish I was between them as they kissed. I am short enough for that, being a meager five-foot-one, and generally petite. Well, um, sorry to cut that short, but I am having an extremely bad nosebleed at the moment. Because I thought too hard about HeavyMedic with me sandwiched int he middle. I may as well complete typing this post up, because it's not that bad, but I may make typos here and there. There is blood on my keyboard. Oh Dear. LOL!

My Other Thoughts.

I do believe that Team Fortress shipping is what made me more tolerant of people leading a homosexual lifestyle. When I see gay people in the streets I no longer recoil in disgust as my parents taught me, but I remember that they are people too. Just like Team Fortress 2 in real life. I did meet lots of gay people in college, when I was learning and working toward my PhD in philosophy. Most of the men there did not interest me, because they looked too much like Scout and not enough like a handsome Soldier.

As detailed in my previous post, there are many people who hold disdain for fangirls, or generally people who ship and read fan-fiction. I did experience some of this in college and high school. In middle school, I was very secretive about my fan-fiction and fandom activities. I didn't even have any online friends. The only people I knew who had any interest in Team Fortress 2 were boys at school, who thought I was a freak of nature for being interested in gay scenarios between the mercenaries. I once had lemonade thrown on my brand-new white pants because I was caught reading a HeavyMedic fan-fiction in class. I wanted to die. Please, Lord, excuse my language...FUCK you, Jared. I have violent fantasies regarding him sometimes. As a result of that, I was called gay pee-girl for the rest of the year. I had to move schools because nobody called me by my name, and I was only known as the gay pee-girl. It was definitely worse than "freak."

That may be it from me today. There's so much blood. I think it is not just a normal nosebleed. Oh goodness

[cononeillbreastingboobily]

Thoughts and feelings about Izzy in s2ep4 and what it means to me as a fellow disabled person:

Yeah, so, that episode, huh?

You know, I already knew going into this new season that Izzy's storyline is going to hit me hard regardless of the exact little plot points it might have, but it's only now, several hours after I've watched eps 4&5 that I'm really starting to digest what his story means to me in it's current shape. This is... a bit long. I also mention a character from a different show - Isaac from Sex Education.

Izzy has always been a bit of a dick, right? That's the reason a lot of people hated him in the first season.

Well, now he is a bit of a dick and disabled. And let me tell you how fucking ecstatic I am about that.

You see, looking for disabled characters in media I consume has rarely been gratifying - if they are there at all, which already is rare, they have very little to do, and if they're even semi-important, they're almost always the epitomes of goodness. Nice, understanding, quiet, patient.

Barely there.

The first time I truly felt something change in this area was with the appearance of Isaac in Netflix's Sex Education. He's sarcastic, funny, talented, honest and mean.

The fandom of that show hated Isaac, let me tell you.

It was mostly because he took direct action to separate the main ship of the show that had many people obsessed. As you'd expect. People's ableism immediately jumped out. As you'd expect.

Because how dare he have his own motivations and wants, and to do what he thinks is right?

Barely there.

And now we have Izzy. Izzy, who also did what he thought was right, which in s1 of the show was trying to separate Ed and Stede. He wasn't trying to make himself too likeable at any point (well. when the crew almost mutinied on him in s1 he did do a last ditch effort but. you remember how well that went).

My point is that now we have someone who isn't particularly nice, and now he's dealing with a sudden loss of ability in his body, which is going to make him even worse. He's angry! Of course he is! He's hobbling around with half a leg gone, humiliated, exhausted, barely recovered from impromptu amputation, no anesthesia. And a suicide attempt! He's angry at himself, his body, at Ed, at Stede, at God if he still believes in one, and who knows who else.

He isn't suddenly going to become nicer to people just because. He doesn't need to be humbled.

(a little sidenote: I do not accept the reasoning that Izzy somehow deserved to lose his leg, that "oh what did he expect riling up Ed when he was heartbroken?" etc. He wasn't expecting to get shot in the fucking leg. Nobody fucking deserves that, and if you think that Ed shooting him in the leg and Izzy subsequently having to have it amputated was an "appropriate punishment" for "what he's done", you're just cruel and wrong. Now scram.)

But that's the point. Disabled people deserve help regardless of whether or not we are nice.

Thankfully (not from Izzy's point of view - his pride was definitely bruised in that moment) the crew saw him struggle, and acted in kind. Because Izzy is their dick. And now - also their unicorn.

And it means so much to me that we get the representation of disabled people who thrash around and rattle the bars of their societal cages, furious at the world that isn't welcoming to us, and receive love and care and an invitation to a loving community regardless.

We shouldn't have to be here just when ableds are ready to give. We aren't meek vessels for your good will. Izzy is such a painfully realistic (as far as the universe of the show permits, given it's unavoidable goofiness) portrayal of the anger of someone who's lost some of their body's past ability, and how one might deal with it.

And I really wanted to say something about that, because I'm afraid it might get lost in the discussion about the more popular and more easily digestible aspects of the show.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Andrew Joseph Pegoda, Ph.D.

Unlike its SARS-CoV-1 predecessor a decade prior, SARS-CoV-2—frequently called COVID-19 to lessen alarm—has been an on-going, global crisis starting soon after its emergence in December 2019. The tenth wave of this Level 3 biohazard is starting and the injustices continue.

Official global deaths reported by governments total 7 million. Data scientists, demographers, and economists closely eyeing excess deaths have staggering estimates of actual COVID-19 loses: 20 million by the end of 2021, 30 million by the end of 2023, and currently almost 40 million.

Deaths from this novel, highly contagious virus are sometimes unavoidable. Yet, the vast majority of these seldom-acknowledged deaths are stupid deaths, stupid deaths because they were preventable deaths.

Death tolls from COVID-19 in the United States specifically would be lower had the CDC not given into pressure from Delta Air Lines in 2021 to decrease isolation periods. Death tolls would be lower if states en masse had not rushed to abandon mask requirements in 2021 and 2022. Death tolls would be lower if Hollywood’s stories meaningfully acknowledged COVID-19. Death tolls would be lower if the public narrative had been other than “vax and relax.” Death tolls would be lower if schools and businesses devoted meaningful efforts to improving and monitoring air filtration, especially in elevators. And the recent “back to the office” push will only increase deaths.

Beyond death tolls, I am concerned about what I am naming “stupid (re)infections.”

The typical person in the United States is being reinfected yearly, and the average person has now been infected with COVID-19 more than 3.5 times. And between 20% and 50% of infections are asymptomatic (during the acute phase!).

Repeated infections are unnecessary and avoidable, if mandatory masking in public places had remained and been completely normalized (of course, with appropriate exceptions for those with disabilities that prevent wearing a mask). Hospitals should have never dropped masking requirements, certainly not cancer centers. KN95 and N95 masks are highly effective and easy to wear—a practice that could only increase utility with the corresponding decreased sickness and death. People learned to wash their hands with soap; they can learn to wear a mask.

And this leads me to what I am naming “stupid suffering.”

COVID-19 is not the flu or a cold. Every infection substantially affects the body—including possible cognitive decline and impacts on the heart, T cells, the intestines, and the overall immune system—prompting a growing number of researchers to assert that COVID-19 triggers a new illness that parallels AIDS. Impacts further down the road remain unknown. Still, many people antidotally report having at least some lingering symptoms after their initial symptomatic infection. Specifically, Long COVID, which can be debilitating, impacts tens of millions in the United States, including 6 million children, and currently has no cure. Every infection substantially increases the risk of developing Long COVID. And this stupid suffering disproportionally impacts and further weathering minoritized individuals.

Stupid (re)infections. Stupid suffering. Stupid deaths. We must do better and not allow brute luck to dominate while awaiting treatments and better vaccines.

If missions to save lives and protect best interests are sincere, bioethicists have a profound opportunity, even a categorical imperative, to help lead the way toward a COVID-19 safer future and opportunities for reenvisioned justice, for Aristotle’s the good life.

COVID-19 uniquely shows the heteronomous nature of twenty-first-century life and what little weight negative rights hold as people—especially those already disabled like me—are forced into spaces that ignore the threats.

Andrew Joseph Pegoda, Ph.D., M.A., M.A. (@ajp_PhD), is a Lecturer of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Houston and a Bioethics and Health Policy graduate student at Loyola University Chicago.

[kradogsrats]

I'd Do Anything (... But I Won't Do That)

This started out kind of weird and petty but then turned into an actual thing about the relationship of Viren's character arc(s) to the Arc 2 "I'll do anything for you" theme, because that's actually pretty important for the context of how both Callum and Claudia will have to confront the same conflict.

Pictured: Do NOT take a shot every time we get a callback to this line, you will die.

Basically, the petty part is that I think evaluating Viren's Arc 1 decisions through the "I will do anything for my family" lens is... disingenuous is too strong a word, but maybe simplistic? The "Viren doesn't reveal/offer the egg to save Harrow's life because he's too preoccupied with hanging on to his own power" take has never sat right with me because the real core problem of Viren is a lot more complex than just "he's lying (to himself)," it's a whole pattern of denying his own agency in doubling down on his mistakes. He'll make one bad/selfish decision, and it becomes a cascade of subsequent actions that he sees as being unavoidable, but that aren't necessarily even informed by the same reasoning or values as the initial decision. Like everything else in Viren's dream, Kpp'Ar's take that his choices are all oriented toward power is both accurate and not necessarily as literal as it seems.

Because, like... Viren's not actually a manipulator or even much of a planner—he's a very skilled opportunist. That's why all his choices wind up being based entirely on the context of past choices, and frequently make no sense when you look at them from a "hey buddy, where exactly do you think you're going with this" angle. It also contributes to why he's so desperate for control all the time, in that he acts primarily in a reactive way rather than proactively, which is always an inherently less secure position.

Pictured: The kind of statement that definitely always leads to things going super well.

Even taking the egg in the first place is a reactive decision—not that he doesn't make a choice there, or that he doesn't choose power over the threat he believes the egg poses, but he did actually walk all the way up the Storm Spire, fight five or six Dragonguard, and get kicked down a flight of stairs with the intent of destroying it. He didn't argue with Harrow about destroying it while secretly planning to take it for himself. He only even thinks of it as a weapon because Tiadrin planted the idea in his mind—as an opportunist, the temptation to leave an avenue to power open rather than close it off is what he can't resist. He sat on Sarai's last breath for ten years waiting for a chance to weaponize it to maximum effect, he can sit (figuratively... or literally, I'm not gonna stop him) on the egg for as long as it takes for an appropriate use it to appear. Tiadrin even specifically encourages that he not "waste" it, both specifically by destroying it now, and implicitly by using it too quickly and foolishly.

Pictured: Smart mom, dumb ass.

Tiadrin's angle, of course, is that the longer Viren hangs on to the egg without actually using it, the higher the chance it can be recovered. She doesn't know that Viren will leave things in a state where the assumption is that the egg was destroyed, meaning no one will think to try recovering it, but that's not really her fault and it still pays off.

The gamble Viren makes, on the other hand, is that the opportunities the egg affords will be worth the risk of it somehow falling back into Xadian hands. If the egg returns to Xadia alive, he's back to square "his name will be vengeance" in the game of We Killed the Dragon King. So yeah, you could say Viren values keeping the egg over Harrow's life, but in doing that he's actually operating largely on the exact same values and beliefs that made him argue for destroying it in the first place. It's just that his prior choice of risking humanity's security for the sake of potentially world-altering power has backfired in the context of an immediate and direct threat to Harrow's life. Really, the entire rest of s1 and s2 are him doubling down specifically on keeping the egg from returning to Xadia while also milking the opportunities coming from that course—e.g. the egg cannot go back to Xadia, therefore Callum and Ezran cannot return to Katolis either with or without it (knowing their goal is to return it to Xadia, which it will be difficult to stop them from doing once Ezran is king), and that means someone has to take the throne. If the egg can't be recovered, their only hope is a decisive first strike against Xadia, so someone has to mobilize the Pentarchy immediately. None of them are things he planned in the sense of "well, if Harrow dies then I can get his sons out of the way and make myself king, and then conquer Xadia." It's all reactive to the situation with the egg. You could argue that he'd do the same things if the egg wasn't a factor, like it's possible he's always been kind of lying in wait to push Harrow's sons aside and seize the throne... but if that was the case, he'd really do much better to make a bid for regent like any normal evil advisor would.

Anyway, all of that does still undermine the statement that he'd do "anything" for his family (which includes Harrow), and it is ultimately because of that initial choice he made to take the opportunity of power over the certainty of securing humanity's future. It's just not as simple as, "Viren says he would do anything for his family, but he won't sacrifice his own power and ambition." In the wake of his critical failure to prioritize humanity in destroying the egg, he's making choices that do prioritize humanity (from within his worldview that Xadia is an existential threat barely held at bay)... but they're still bad choices because they're all reactive to that original bad choice. It's not that he's working at cross-purposes to what he says his goals are, it's that he genuinely thinks digging his hole deeper will somehow work out positively, or at least better than the alternative would.

Pictured: Another statement that for sure indicates you're doing totally great.

Really though, I don't think you can (or are supposed to) look at the trifecta of self-individuals-world and point to one that Viren—or really any character outside of Callum, Rayla, and Claudia—puts at the top. Part of the whole point here is that elevating one of those at the expense of the others is never going to be the right choice all of the time. Obviously always putting yourself first is shitty, but we get multiple examples of over-prioritizing one of the other two as being self-destructive and dangerous. Consistency isn't supposed to be positive, here—a core part of this arc is likely to be Callum grappling with that, and that's without even looking at what's going on with Claudia.

The other thing is that "I will do anything for my family"-Viren is actually on some level a different character than Arc 1 Viren, such that evaluating one based on the context of the other doesn't actually make sense. We don't get even a hint of the "I would do anything for my family" in the series until s4, after Viren has died and been revived. Yeah, we had it earlier in the novels, but in there it's really about Claudia and her relationship with Viren, not Viren's values or actions. Arc 1 Viren and Arc 2 Viren inform each other as characters, but most of the point is the ways they aren't the same. And while Arc 2 Viren is understandably preoccupied with the concept of sacrificing for family—given that he's been stripped of everything that was in his life except Claudia, who went to terrible lengths on his behalf—Arc 1 Viren is actually quite consistent with how he's laid out in his Tales of Xadia character sheet:

Like, check out those Liberty and Glory statements—not even close to the same ballpark as Callum's "I value those close to me more than anyone or anything" Devotion and "I'm beholden to my inner circle, not some silly kingdom" Liberty, but quite accurate as the through-line on his s1-s3 actions. There's nothing in there about family, because Arc 1 Viren isn't actually meant to be associated with "I will do anything for my family," and he's not lying to himself by not acting consistently with it in Arc 1.

Arc 2 Viren is then a kind of emotional reboot back to a particular point earlier in his life—not necessarily the point before he first did any dark magic at all, but before he did his ill-defined "anything" to save Soren, which is implied in multiple places to be the point where he started in on a spiral that had tangible and fairly rapid effects on his personality and outlook. That's further emphasized by the contents of his dream in s5—seeing him behave in a genuinely loving and joyful way with Soren is shocking, and immediately raises the question of what the fuck happened and why.

Pictured: Healthy coping mechanisms.

Part of what still distinguishes Viren's "I will do anything for my family; however dangerous, however vile" from Callum's developing "I would do anything for you" is that Viren is always deliberately addressing the "things that are so unforgivable, you will never forgive yourself" facet while Callum leaves it implicit because he doesn't really understand and/or want to acknowledge that yet (and also Rayla would probably twist his nose again, which fucking hurts). In how Viren describes it to Terry, he is using that up-front acknowledgement to then essentially abdicate any emotional responsibility for... well, anything at all. The entire "however dangerous, however vile" mantra is another way of denying his own agency, because if he'll do anything, then he doesn't actually have to go through the difficult emotional process of making those decisions and dealing with the aftermath.

Pictured: H-healthy coping mechanisms?

Terry correctly pegs this questionable excuse for philosophy as "not having feelings," and generally not the best approach, because it will do things like lead to a default state of emotional unavailability to your children—oh, wait. I think it's not unlikely that Viren's emotional distancing from what "I will do anything for my family" meant contributed a lot to the degradation of it as his core value and his ensuing Arc 1 state. A lot of what's going on in his s5 dream is that he's being confronted with the consequences of "I will do anything for my family," specifically. He's being forced through an emotional speedrun of what it has cost him and everyone around him, and what has he got to show for it? Claudia, corrupted beyond recognition, proudly repeating his own words back to him.

Pictured: Whatever the opposite of daddy issues is.

Because the whole point of Viren's "I will do anything for my family" in Arc 2 is the challenge of whether he would/will do it all again. If he holds to that value the same way he did before, he'll do whatever it takes to save Claudia—however dangerous, however vile. Most of Viren's moral and emotional stuff has been based on his self-serving resignation to having "no choice." He's so tragically trapped in a chain of spiraling consequences he can never break... except oh wait, he totally can. S5 is all about Viren recognizing the dark magic feedback loop and that he has the agency to break it, and his best and only chance to avoid doing further harm to Claudia is to not be willing to destroy himself that way again, even it it means his death will cause her terrible emotional pain.

We'll see how that works out. Because let's be real: Claudia's gonna Claudia, regardless. However it goes, there's an important narrative precedent being set for both breaking free from dark magic/Aaravos and evaluating the "I will do anything for you" impulse in a more nuanced way.

[donnerpartyofone]

This has been a really hard one to talk about. I'm always very ambivalent about mourning celebrities. I try to remember that I don't know these people, that what is really mourned by most of us is the person's ongoing work, which in the best cases has helped us understand ourselves and the world in which we live. Unavoidably, though, you can start to develop the sense that you know these people personally, which isn't true or even appropriate necessarily, I mean you have no idea whether you would even like someone you've only seen on a screen or received an autograph from; but at the same time, I don't know if you can really force yourself not to feel like the deceased celebrity is a dear friend you will never get to talk to again (the last time I tried and failed was the passing of Lux Interior). Maybe this is more forgivable, and also more inevitable, if you feel like you grew up with the person.

Of course this is all about ME now, but my mother (who also died from cancer) was an extremely hip, brilliant, funny individual who for whatever reason refused to form a relationship with me. This was pretty strange, because we liked a lot of the same things--B movies, old comics, all types of camp and kitsch--but when I liked those things, it was in poor taste and punishable by exile, whereas when she liked those things, it was evidence of her cultural genius. Before I make anybody too mad I should say that I'm being a little bit unfairly reductive just so I can get to the point, which is that one of the few things we could share was Pee-Wee's Playhouse. I didn't know anything about the show's more adult origins or the fact that Paul Reubens was sort of a performance artist, but I didn't have to. Pee-Wee's Playhouse was a feast for any child's senses: stylish, hilarious, and on some subliminal level, really sophisticated. I was clued into some of what was going on just because I watched it with my mom, who always laughed at Pee-Wee's winks and nudges to the hep parents in the audience. The show might have been my first encounter with the kind of anthropological humor favored by people like David Byrne and Laurie Anderson, artists who engage subversively with cliches, stereotypes, and other memetic parts of popular culture. In Pee-Wee's Playhouse, with its sharp, edgy cast and crew, kids like me were getting into fine art without even knowing it--which is possibly the best way to learn about art anyway.

In fact, on the other side of our house, I became obsessed with Gary Panter's incredible punk opus Jimbo In Paradise, a Dantesque comic book about an innocent young guy living in a dystopian future, where he is occasionally joined by guest stars such as Nancy and Hedorah. I was about 7 when I started reading Jimbo over and over again even though I could barely understand it, and I had no idea that Gary had pretty much designed Pee-Wee's Playhouse. I'm speaking about him so familiarly because I got to know him a little bit as a grownup. I remember Gary talking about how private Paul Reubens could be. He used to do this thing where he would accept a dinner invitation from anybody who asked, as sort of a stunt, but he had to stop doing it because people became so intrusive and entitled with him. Gary said that they'd be walking around in New York and when they saw an obvious Pee-Wee fan gearing up for an offensive, Paul Reubens would sort of transform into this totally different person, putting out an aura that let you know not to fuck with him. It's crazy-making to think that someone who was so protective of the boundary between his private and public selves had to suffer that ridiculous arrest, but it's heartening that most of society eventually grew the fuck up and forgot about it. It's also helpful to remember when he turned up later on the MTV Music Video Awards and started off by asking the audience, "HEARD ANY GOOD JOKES LATELY??"

I'm glad we got one more Pee-Wee special in the past several years, but I always wished that we would see Paul Reubens in more movies. He was such a cool actor, funny, convincing, and naturally charismatic. While people are cycling through their favorite roles of his, I want to point out that he had a great role on a recent HBO miniseries called Mosaic, an intense, engrossing crime drama that I definitely recommend if you have access. Maybe I'll rewatch it, too. In closing, here's a great story that I grabbed from Facebook that should warm everybody's heart, along with the heartbreaking statement (inappropriately cropped by Instagram of course) released upon the death of the very private Pee-Wee Herman. It makes you wish you could thank him in person, for everything. The best we can do is just remember him.

[whetstonefires]

Okay so you know what just belatedly struck me?

What Miguel O'Hara is running is, in fact, a cult.

This isn't immediately obvious not just because he's structured it like a really fun law enforcement/emergency rescue/superspy deal, that's responding to real concrete visible issues with the structure of reality. Also because his investment in it isn't any of the most common things people found and run cults for; not the money or the power or the adulation.

He's his own most passionate believer.

And what he's shilling with such desperate sincerity is perfectly balanced to appeal to Spider-mans: that sense of meaning and community that Miles came looking for, that Gwen needed so bad, that all those variants were enjoying and that Hobie shrugged off. But deeper than that, the destiny story.

The soothing narrative of the narrative, that all the pain was worthwhile, necessary, unavoidable and therefore not your fault. That it means something, that you mean something, but also you never had the responsibility to fix it. It's okay.

And what you have to pay in exchange for this comfort is committing yourself to letting other people fall under the wheel of fate, to even putting your shoulder to that wheel and giving it a push. Because it has to be this way. The bad things are in a sense good.

And of course not standing aside and letting bad things happen is the whole point of Spiderman. Refusing to approach the world that way, screaming into the void and at your own worst impulses, and fighting the whole damn universe.

Your basic Peter Parker is a hero on purpose, not out of inherent nobility but by will, pricked forward by guilt and duty. That's the foundational concept on which all the Spiderman edifices are built.

So it's very appropriate that Miguel was able to bring so many Spider-people to believe in his great canonical trolley problem enough to get them to turn their backs on a Gwen-on-the-bridge. And could sic them on the outlier at a word.

It makes sense; he's armed with all their rhyming personal traumas.

It's also very strongly thematically framed as bad.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

@potatoobsessed999 oh eyyy you read the scholomance books! talk to me about the scholomance books!!!

Oh, lots of thoughts!

I’ve only read the first and third ones (and read the TVtropes entry for the second), but I enjoyed them a lot! The biggest thing that sticks out to me as a very intentional theme is that, unlike most action-oriented stories, they’re not really about the protagonist defeating a main villain or groups of villains: instead, the antagonist is the status quo, the structure of society and people’s acceptance of that structure. It’s not about defeating the bad people because, essentially, everyone is the bad people, and everyone is the good people: the third book in particular focuses on both the willingness of ordinary people to do and accept horrific things and their willingness to do better when they’re shown an alternative and pushed towards it.

One of the things that the series solidified for me is the idea that ‘there is no alternative’ is the voice of evil. People will do and accept terribly evil things so long as they’re convinced that these things are the only option, or that every other possible option is worse. El’s mother stands out as the character who defies this: she will not live in an enclave, even for the sake of her infant daughter’s safety, knowing what they are built on. She will do and sacrifice anything for her daughter except going against her conscience. This makes her bargain/petition - even though she could not know and did not intend its consequences - appropriate to the story, because it’s flowing from a place of sincerity: an alternative to the evil of the current system is what she cares about most, because it’s basically the only chance for her daughter to live in a decent world. (I was going to compare the low-level use of malia to the carbon economy - pretty sure I did get that comparison off tvtropes - which is funny because if anyone in the wealthy parts of the world is managing to live a carbon-neutral life, it would be El’s mom.)

El’s fascinating because she’s such a cranky jerk while at the same time having such strong principles underneath that, and especially in the earlier parts of the first book is such a great unreliable narrator. She’s not liked, but she’s also terrible at recognizing when people are genuinely being nice to her, and tends to attribute pragmatic or self-interested motives to people who are actually being kind. She starts getting over this over the course of the book, but even in The Golden Enclaves she takes a while to realize that a woman who is willing to cross the world for her is actually her friend. The funny connection is that she also deliberately attributes selfish and hostile motives to herself that don’t line up with her actions - again, mainly in the first book. It’s like she’s deliberately trying to be more cynical than she really is.

I don’t know how much of this is from tvtropes and how much from the books that I read, but there’s a bit where one if the enclaver kids says that the Scholomance isn’t that dangerous and El just boggles, because she and the other non-enclavers are being attacked on basically a daily basis, and I thought that was a solid understanding of how privilege works: all the things you just don’t notice or think about because they’re not part of your life, to the point where it’s strange and confusing to realize that these are things other people deal with every day.

Oh, one more thing. It seems like one of the things that pushes El to be a good person is that, due to the nature of her powers, she can’t make small moral compromises (e.g., regarding use of malia): she can stick to the straight and narrow, or she can topple off a cliff. So much of the rest of the series is about where the choice to make small, apparently harmless or unavoidable moral compromises leads to making bigger and bigger ones (the mals exist because of low-level malia use worldwide, which leads to more low-level malia use to fight off the mals, leading to even more mals, leading to the enclaves with their horrific secret). While El’s dark power is stated as being important in the books in order for her to have the firepower to deal with mawmouths and other mals, I think it’s also a key element in who she becomes, because the path of the ‘lesser evil’ has been effectively closed off to her; she can choose good, or she can choose the ‘greater evil’, and she’s confronted with needing to reject the choice of the ‘greater evil’ nearly every day. This - and her mother, who raised her as someone who would reject evil - is what gives her the foundation to become the hero she does.

[allykatsart]

hi, so could you tell me what and or who Peccantum’s cult worshipped? And how they gained access to magic?

Who is Peccantum?

It's October, so I guess talk of spooky stuff is fitting lol

Keep in mind a lot of this is going to be me indulging in a darker tone than the final product. I'm throwing around ideas and depending on how Hazbin Hotel world builds (or doesn't) this could be completely disproven later.

Buuuut I wanna have fun dumping my thoughts about this somewhere! And maybe if I do that here, it won't clog up the main story I wanna tell. So, without further ado...

Cult Stuff!

Worship

This particular cult has a leader that is very charismatic. I'm tempted to say it's a cult of personality around this leader... But that's not quite it. I mean, there's gotta be a reason Dolf started this cult, right?

I think he's scared of dying, ultimately. Scared that there was an empty, meaningless void waiting for him after death. Or that eternal punishment would be unavoidable. Eventually, Dolf gets a glimpse of Hell, and it comforts him. Because he knows he's damned, but he can avoid the consequences of his actions. The afterlife can be just like his regular life! Just so long as he is clever and he's damn good at being clever.

So the cult 'worships' damnation and dying, in a way. It would also be appropriate if one of the lies Dolf tells is that "No one actually goes to heaven! Humans are all rotten to the core and carry our forefathers sins! We can do whatever we want to whoever we want and it doesn't matter, because no one is worth salvation anyways." Then going on to promise safety and protection in hell. Basically, preying on people's nihilism, vulnerability, and ignorance.

Magic

This one's a little trickier because we don't have a hard system of rules for magic in the show. We see Vox using sigils (as well as the seven deadly sins) but we see Charlie also straight up exploding people to death with fireworks. Sinners form seem to change on the dime, which might suggest that this isn't a physical realm, but the angel's weakness being angelic steel goes against it. Especially if Intent doesn't matter (which it might, but Alastor was also able to use it so....???????)

Suffice to say, magic is weird in Hazbin Hotel lol

For Peccantum, since he's all about magic, I've had to figure out some of my own rules. Firstly, each person/soul has their own brand of magic fuckery. Some come from religion, some manifest as a different form. Some souls are trained in it, some don't know it exists. Some have more, some have less. It's different for everyone and is influenced by the sinner it is attached to.

But surely that's just in hell, right? We haven't seen any human do magic (except a certain angelic necklace) right? Maybe they can't do magic!

....Yeah that could absolutely happen XD but hear me out!

We've seen at Halloween that Stolas was invited to a ritual sacrifice, meaning there is some communication between the goetia and humans. If there was.... I dunno, a book about how magic worked, or how to unleash it within a soul, and a human was able to see and replicate it....?

Again, all hypothetical lol, but it is fun to think about!

As for gaining power in the mortal world, humans can't exactly make deals the way demons do. Instead, they uh... Take it from others. Kind of like how Peccantum's magic was taken from him. He's probably done it to others too. Of course, those who practiced this would absolutely be damned for it, but that's not much of an issue for this cult. :)

[transthadymacdermot]

Tagged by @fortunatetragedy for this wip questionnaire tag game! answering for my histfic wip the nobler grave

What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

The characters! Many of them are carried over from earlier things I've written so of course

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Oughhh probably a version of either arthur mcbride or the unquiet grave! both thematically appropriate (imo) folk songs so either works

What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

Of the characters who feature in this story, it's a tie between my bestfriend Eoin O'Donnell and my daughter who has every disease Sarah Connolly... mostly because I find them both rlly interesting characters who deal with the horrible things which have happened to them in really interesting and simultaneously deeply unhealthy and also deeply understandable ways. I also really like Charles, Lord Drenning for his insane imperialist hubris which is deplorable but fun as hell to write

What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

Probably things like black sails + the terror + sharpe for similar time period and vaguely similar themes. Also there are a bunch of lesser known pieces of irish historical fiction which heavily influenced NG in many ways which I think people who like NG would probably like, and also like. Real Irish History. I write for the people who also have 6000000 crusty pdfs even god doesn't know about on the topic of nineteenth century irish governance in their google drives and those people ONLY

What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

I would say the historical stuff but honestly it's probably specifically language related... there's plenty out there on how people in the early 19thc spoke and plenty out there on hiberno-english but comparatively little on how peasants in mid-ulster in 1810 would have been talking to each other. it's not nonexistent I'm just having to do a lot of very dedicated research lmao

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

The only really significant animals are charles' 'wolfdogs,' his pack of hunting dogs which are like... mostly irish wolfhound wrt their breeding (☝️historical note: wolfhounds were mostly if not totally extinct in ireland by the time the story takes place, only a few people still had them and mostly as status symbols. so the fact that charles is using them to actually hunt is significant!). There are six of them and their names are Gaineamh, Méar, Sicín, Ciarsúr, Arán, and James. for reasons which I will leave currently only known to ppl who speak irish the man who named them (charles' kennelmaster) is viciously mocked for what he called them

How do your characters travel/get around?

Largely on foot, sometimes on horseback and sometimes in carts. The wealthier characters ride more often, and some take carriages. Trains and cars haven't been invented yet 😔

What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

Working out the details of the government committee charles is on -- fleshing out the members, figuring out What The Hell It Actually Does, who it answers to, etc. lots of reading and rereading accounts of how the government worked in late georgian britain and ireland yayyy

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) will you think draw your audience in?

Historical fiction with (hopefully) a high amount of attention to detail

People who are allowed to be very 'bad' victims because people often become deeply unpalatable and lash out after trauma and that is literally that

The bizarre psychosexual obsession between like. all of the characters

Commentary on perception of history

The unavoidable tragedy of it all

Let's Hate The British Government Together 🫴

What are your hopes for your WIP?

I'm just having fun writing it, man. don't rlly have any specific goals atp other than entertaining myself and my best friends who reply with fire emojis every time I tell them about it

Tagging @ettawritesnstudies @orphanheirs @fenatics @macabremoons @scorpiothesaint @poethill + anyone else who wants to take part :3

[banisheed]

TIMING: Recent LOCATION: The Codfather PARTIES: Eve (@technowarden) & Siobhan (@banisheed) SUMMARY: Eve and Siobhan go on a date, which is only improved by the presence of leprechauns (and oysters). CONTENT: Gun Use tw, Eye Trauma tw

There were some minor challenges in being a Warden who didn’t actively hunt for Eve. All that energy meant for prowling along the forest edge, chasing after Cat-Sith, darting around Trolls, none of it was going anywhere. Hours a day meant for hunting instead spent in front of a screen. Eve loved it, but it left her jittery. She was a member of eight running clubs in town, and all that wasn’t enough. Sometimes there was an urge for something more. While Eve often found her thrills at the Three Daggers, sometimes you needed to spend the night with someone who didn’t have quite such a rugged, heavy look in their eyes. 

Sometimes, you needed to flirt with a strange but beautiful woman on the internet, talking about soggy cakes and butter knives. Sometimes, you had to accept that the computers wouldn’t solve the impending apocalypse, only steer the right people. And if there was no new information, there wasn’t much more she could do. So Eve had put on her best fuck-me outfit, with long wide trousers that cinched at the waist, a mesh crop top, and a leather jacket on top. 

She was taking Siobhan out for dinner, first, of course. (Or perhaps Siobhan was taking her out). She wasn’t an animal. Anyway, it meant that she could figure out if Siobhan was just an internet troll, or something perhaps a little stranger. The Codfather was a good venue, and with their large outdoor fire heaters, they could even enjoy the outdoor fresh air. She arrived a couple minutes early, casually leaning against the wall of the building and checking her phone alerts for anything new. 

There was a prickling in her spine, like her shoulder blades were aspiring to be wings. Eve tensed slightly, looking around. In autumn, she could sense something every five minutes, but there wasn’t enough grassy paths in this area to blame a gnome. Sometimes fae walked the town, that didn’t mean they would require her to take any action. 

—

Siobhan walked a fine line between caring and not; dressing up was an obvious indication of care and it was unavoidable for her. If she wanted to be adored, she needed to dress the part. A tight dress typically did it but she wanted her intentions with Eve to be obvious. And so, the dress wasn’t just tight, it cut down low from her chest and revealed the curve of her breasts before stopping in a pool of dark red fabric at her bellybutton. It was the sort of thing that demanded to be pulled off or tugged down; it was the sort of thing that wasn’t entirely appropriate for a family establishment. She wanted Eve to think about it, she wanted Eve to desire it—that thing the dress encouraged—and she wanted to never give it over. There was nothing that thrilled Siobhan more than the wet-eyed desperation of a human. Her fun with Eve might end with the other naked, but her dress would stay on, that was the point. 

The unfortunate byproduct of her plan was how much she appeared to care. From the carefully selected dress to her favourite leather jacket (it could hold so many knives) to her tall black heels to her makeup, she was very deliberate. Siobhan knew that was the agreement of a date, if they could call this one: to care in a horrifically transparent way. What exactly they would be caring about would be up to them. Siobhan, for example, didn’t expect to leave this meeting knowing anything personal about Eve. If she happened to learn Eve’s hobbies or favourite colour or name of childhood pet, she’d count that as a failure. Unless, of course, she could use that information to log into her bank account. She thought Eve might be the same; she had a way of speaking online that was purposefully vague. The only truthful thing she’d been given might’ve been that Eve was tall. 

Which she was. Siobhan’s heels clicked like drops of water as she approached. She smiled in her amused, lopsided way to see that Eve also cared. If their desires were aligned, it would make the whole thing flow easily. In fact, why bother with the seafood at all at this point? Formalities could be such a bore. “You’ve brought a butter knife, I hope? If we get attacked, I am hoping you’ll protect me. I can’t get blood on these clothes.” Siobhan tugged her leather gloves off, one finger at a time, and stuffed them into her jacket. With her glamour safely in place, and her Irish accent lilting into the air, she held out her hand. “Formally then: I’m Siobhan. And you’re charmed, I’m sure.” 

—

The dress had its desired effect, for a moment. It really did leave very little to the imagination. Eve’s eyes drifted involuntarily down. This bizarre internet stranger really was one of the catches around town. Except as Siobhan walked closer, the itchy feeling in Eve’s shoulder blades grew. There must be someone in the restaurant, someone who Eve hadn’t seen enter, right? She took Siobhan’s hand, smiling. “I’m Eve. I imagine I’m about as charmed as you are.” 

Siobhan was such an Irish name. And the weirdness from before? Definitely word games.  Mathematically, it was a big coincidence. Fuck. Eve’s smile didn’t falter, even as her pulse jumped. Now there was only one reason she’d not be able to take her eyes off of Siobhan, and it had nothing to do with the dress. “Wow, you look incredible.”

“Of course I have!” Eve chuckled falsely, as she pulled the butter knife out of her pocket. “As long as you’re willing to wait three hours while I finish your would be assailant off.” The idea of flirting with a fae for the next few hours made her stomach turn, and somehow the idea of rejecting a fae without offending them felt more fraught than the demon rumbling beneath their feet. Fuck, she’d have to be so much more careful with her lies too. “I was thinking oysters? Safely no butter knives involved, for both our sakes. Shall we sit out here, away from the crowds? It offers us a bit more privacy, and I’d like to have you all to myself.” In case Siobhan tried to pull anything, of course. Also in case she had to make a quick exit. 

Eve decided right then she would never tell a soul about this night. If she survived it. “So, Siobhan, are you in a wine or cocktails mood tonight?”

—

Siobhan tried to hide her pleasure at the attention; she wasn’t some lonely old lady who needed to know she was still attractive. Except for the unfortunate fact that she was exactly that, and in the part of her brain shoved between all the other parts and cast over with darkness, she knew it. Compliments to her body didn’t mean much—it was all genetics, not her—and under the glamour it was repulsive, but she could take the silent praise and let it fill her up. Let it be something more and then it could be enough. She felt the most like herself when the attention was shallow. “I am incredible, I know.” She smiled. “You look…” She trailed off. 

There came a point in every fae’s life when they had to decide if the joke was worth the repercussions of a lie—if the fae had lived a good life, it would be multiple points. Such was Siobhan’s dilemma: she could compliment Eve honestly, or she could make her fun and suffer a little. “Average,” she said, turning her head as bile rose up her body. She covered her lips and suppressed an acid burp. She thought she’d done a good job of it, turning back to Eve as though she hadn’t moved at all. “Relatively speaking, of course.” She smiled. 

To her observation, nothing was amiss. Siobhan delighted in the brandish of the butter knife. “Watch you get sweaty for three hours?” She hummed. “I think I can manage that.” It was strange how much she felt like a younger version of herself—Fates, what a cliché. But the Siobhan who’d been freshly thrust out of Saol Eile couldn’t have managed this; there was an odd sense of freedom here. Freedom to manipulate someone into doing exactly what she wanted, but a freedom nonetheless. It was going to be fun. “I’d like that.” They were seated outside and presented menus, the drink menu being the most important. 

“Wine,” Siobhan answered quickly, unable to stand the seconds in silence where she might be misunderstood to be a cocktail person. “Let me guess, you’ll order water, won’t you? Or…” Siobhan trailed her finger down the drink menu. “…something slightly alcoholic, so as to not appear like a wet blanket, but perhaps even that you’ll only sip at.” She closed the menu with a grin. “How’d I do?” 

—

“Just average? If I’m not up to your standards, I can leave. Find someone with better taste,” Eve teased, although she almost wished Siobhan would dismiss her. Let her leave and forget this completely embarrassing night, preferably with lots of alcohol. Somehow, she didn’t think Siobhan was going to send her away. Eve was going to have to work harder to weasel her way out of this. “I’d be disappointed if all you did was watch.”

Eve listened to Siobhan’s speculation about her drink, crossing her arms and a single eyebrow raised. The annoying thing was… Siobhan was right. From the moment Eve had felt the first jitters in her spine, alcohol had been off the table. Enhanced reflexes weren’t much use if you unenhanced them. For a moment, Eve panicked and wondered if Siobhan knew. But that was almost impossible. Which meant that she was just being antagonised to get a rise out of her. Classic, wretched fae. Before Eve could reply to Siobhan, a waiter approached the table, asking for their drinks. 

“Two glasses of the Alsace Riesling white wine, please. And may we have a sharing platter of the oysters? You’re a star,” Eve told the waiter, extremely cautious not to thank anyone.  It wasn't part of her every day language anyway, but she was all the more aware of it now. Once he’d left, she looked back at Siobhan smugly. She probably wouldn’t have much anyway, but this was just to make a point.  “I’m normally a cocktail girlie, but I guess I have something a little weaker for once.”

“So, what is your deal,” Eve asked, leaning forward over her elbows. How long would she have to wait before it was acceptable to claim it was cold and zip up her jacket? The mesh top that usually made Eve feel on top of the world suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable. “First you call me a spider, then you call me a lightweight. Do you always insult your dates, or only the hot ones?” 

—

“I’m sure you can work your way into my good graces,” Siobhan said. The teasing and the white wine were a great start. 

“Was I wrong?” Siobhan folded her hands together, resting them on the table. She smiled softly. The war of wits started now; if Eve could keep up—if Eve even knew they were playing—only the conversation would reveal. She knew very little about the woman across from her, which was her preference, but the inner workings were her favourite puzzle. Was she dealing with someone simple or complex? Were Eve’s motives aligned with hers or did they exist in a realm Siobhan had yet to consider? To dissect Eve would be a joy. “I didn’t call you a lightweight. Do you always spin words to dull their meaning?” The spider was many things: the waiting predator, the clever engineer of an invisible web. Siobhan had no idea what Eve was hoping to catch, but she could tell that the woman was constructing something inside her head. Or, at least, Siobhan thought she could. She wasn’t always right with people, but someone who navigated social interactions like chess was someone she could relate to—if, indeed, that was Eve. She hoped it was; it would be boring otherwise. 

Siobhan pressed her palm to the table and smoothed out a wrinkle in the cloth. “It’s the way you ask questions. It’s interrogative, yet you’ve woven them to be unassuming.” Analysis floated around in her head: was Eve the sort of person who enjoyed being underestimated? Was Eve hoping to dissolve into the noise of humans, turning into one drop in an ocean? Did that reveal a lack of ego or an exceptionally dedicated intelligence? And could Siobhan even be sure? What if she was wrong? Looking at Eve now, it was hard to tell that she was doing anything in particular. Her responses were so quick, and so sharp, and she never agreed to or outright denied anything. Siobhan wasn’t certain, but walking the observation back would reveal weakness. “I believe you’re perfectly capable of handling alcohol, but you value your awareness more.” 

Siobhan leaned back. Eve’s reactions would tell her a lot, but if she could ensnare her date into revealing her motives, she wouldn’t have to bother with battling Eve like this. “I’m complimenting you and I only do that for the dates I like.” Siobhan was very fond of spiders; it was blasphemously high-praise for a human. “Do you always assume the worst or am I special?”

—

Eve bit her tongue. Ugh, this was all so fae. Arrogance up to her ears, morally superior just in her analysis, twisting her words in ways no reasonable human ever would, and peering deep into Eve’s soul. Siobhan may describe her perception as complimentary, but Eve could see the manipulation, because it was one she used herself. To share those perceptions was to put someone on the defensive. This had never been a date, but a power play. Rotten being. There was cold iron in her jacket that was calling to be used. Eve smiled, acquiescently. “I don’t want you to worry that I won’t keep up with you,” she admitted, having a sip of her wine. “But you caught me. You’re beautiful and charming but my expectations from this were not exactly an overwhelmingly romantic affair. Whenever, and wherever we finish, my aim is to be able to drive home tonight. I’m just not that kinda gal. I thought you might be the same.” 

“Being  called a spider is a compliment?” Eve made a point of shivering at the thought. “That never even occurred to me. They give me the heebie jeebies!”

Her thinking was changing. This wasn’t an encounter she needed to win or outsmart Siobhan at. It was just an encounter she needed to survive. It was better to relent and bend, than stand tall and shatter. Even if that meant swallowing all her pride. She raised up her hands in defeat. “You’re definitely special, and you’re also probably right. I just wasn’t expecting to be psychoanalysed before we’d even been served our evening meal. Usually deep personal truths don’t happen until drink two or three at least.” 

“So how has your week been, anyway? Anything exciting happen?” Siobhan may have been fluent in the language of half truths, but Eve knew exactly how to be a mediocre date. 

—

“I wasn’t worried.” Siobhan took a sip of her wine, mirroring Eve; supposedly it put humans at ease, though Siobhan never found that it worked. At least, if Eve noticed Siobhan was copying her—which she would, if she fancied herself even a little observant—it would probably annoy her, which would in turn delight Siobhan. She smiled just as Eve did. “Not interested in romance then? No, neither am I.” But if they were so aligned on the end-goal, why wasn’t Eve moving? Why sit here and waste time? What if Eve just wanted the oysters that badly? 

Then she shivered; Siobhan didn’t copy that. It was hard to tell if it was forced, Eve was very good at making her motions seem natural—indeed, they might as well have been natural. Siobhan could’ve been overestimating this human. But there was a small mistake Eve had made: she changed the rules. And Siobhan could tell. Eve was pulling away, forcing distance between them. Which may as well have been a normal reaction for someone uninterested in emotional intimacy except for the fact that Siobhan was sure they hadn’t been saying anything personal prior either. Again, the motive was completely lost on her, but that Eve shifted around at all meant something Siobhan did worked. Eve was getting uncomfortable, wasn’t she? Siobhan could work with that.

And what better way to make someone committed to distance uncomfortable than genuine displays of emotion? Siobhan would know, it tended to make her skin itch too. So, she looked confused, softly—like a fairytale princess being told she needed to be locked away—wounded but not insulted. She was in fact a little confused, and so the expression was slightly genuine, which she thought would help it read that way to Eve. “I love spiders,” she confessed in that same soft and wounded way. 

“There was this spider in my grandmother’s garden…” All true. “...and every day I would go out and stare at its web. It made it between two plant stems.” Also true. “I wanted to see it eat, but I never caught it in the act. And then it was gone.” Gone because she took it and put it in a jar with a fly and then it starved instead of indulging her. “I was sad. Horribly, I think.” True. “More than I should’ve been. I’d really grown attached to that little spider, in some silly way I suppose I thought it liked me too.” Embarrassingly true. “They’re lovely creatures, Eve.”

Siobhan raised her hands up as well, as if to show she wasn’t carrying anything dangerous. “You have an odd definition of deep personal truths, love. My conjecture was shallow at best; anyone can see what a spider is but discerning what type…” Siobhan took a slow sip of her wine, adopting Eve’s methodology—normally she had no qualms with being tipsy. “You’re not embarrassed about your nature, are you? I find it quite charming.” If Eve was trying to steer their conversation into the mundane, Siobhan had to wrench it back.  “Hm.” She took another sip. “So you value safety then? You’re very eager to escape to it.”

—

“Kids get attached to the strangest things. We had a slug infestation, when I was six. I used to think those little slime trails we found every morning were the slugs leaving me secret messages. Like I was a weird. I was devastated when my mum got the salt out. I don’t think I spoke to her for a week. But, anyway, I’m happy spiders make you happy. It’s just not for me.”

Eve let her face scrunch up a little as Siobhan avoided her question, put off in the way that any reasonable date would be. 

“Geez louise, lady. I’m not sure if this mysterious knowing energy works for other people, but you’re coming off a bit cocky.” It’s a bit of a turn off, Eve didn’t need to say, as she leant back, and zipped up the first couple inches of her jacket. “Safety? What, oh, because you’re going to hurt me with a butter knife? Yeah, I’m always rushing right into danger. But what about you? What’s your job like, anyway?” It was, deliberately, among the most boring questions to be asked on any date. 

The plate of oysters were brought in front of them then, delicately displayed on a layer of ice with sliced lemons and an aromatic sauce. It was a shame Eve wasn’t letting this date last long enough to enjoy them. She delicately picked up one, and held it up for a toast to Siobhan. She’d heard oysters were a high iron food. “To good food, and an average view.” 

Although Eve couldn’t hear it yet, much further down the road, there was the sound of a little chittering. 

—

Siobhan leaned forward, grumbling into her next sip of wine. She couldn’t be sure that she was getting to Eve but Eve was certainly starting to get to her. Siobhan didn’t have a lot of patience, boring things ate at her like a rash. She needed something. The slug story was probably false, though whatever truth could be extracted from it was a truth she knew Eve would never give her. Not like this, at least. Maybe she really was turning Eve off—it wouldn’t be the first time her general demeanour was repulsive to a human. That was the typical reaction. Siobhan leaned back and pushed her tongue to the inside of her cheek, halting a scoff. “Let it be said you’re annoyingly skilled at your art.” And calling it an art was praise she didn’t want to give Eve. Self-doubt didn’t suit Siobhan and Eve was an expert at sowing it. “I’m not letting you get away so easily, Eve.” And again, she refused to answer her boring question. Without hesitation, Siobhan picked up an oyster and swallowed its gooey body, denying Eve her toast out of a simple pettiness. The oyster burned—it wouldn’t sit well over time—but nothing hurt as much as Eve denying Siobhan her game. Then, a needle of ice shot down her back and Siobhan straightened up. She snapped her body around and glanced down the foggy street. The town’s constant hum was punctuated with a few clicks, almost like the failing engine of a car trying to start somewhere far but Siobhan knew the way those sounds tended to echo; tended to mimic distance. The only trace of panic left with her when she turned back around to Eve was in the disgusting transparency of desperation in her voice. “You should go.” It could’ve been mistaken for care, though all Siobhan really wanted was to make sure that Eve didn’t get eaten before she could figure out how to have fun with her. “Now, preferably.” The chittering and the clicks swelled around them. —

“Oh, I’m not an artist. I just work in IT,” Eve replied, pretending to be as oblivious as could be. “I’m not going anywhere. Are you okay, Siobhan?” The toast abandoned, Eve savored her own oysters, as well as Siobhan’s growing irritation. Maybe she was winning, after all! Which, wasn’t the point. Just survival, just getting out of here, and never speaking with this woman again. 

As soon as she heard the chittering, Eve froze, all pretence of a date vanishing from her features. If the desperation in Siobhan’s demands affected her at all, Eve didn’t show it. Just because fae couldn’t lie with their words didn’t mean they couldn’t trick with their tone. And what an impressively frightening trick this was, to lure her out here. Not just to a bad date, but a trap. Had Siobhan known all along? She wouldn’t have been so friendly, surely. Dread dug a pit in her stomach. 

Eve had a list in her head. On the nights when cleaning felt too reactive and she dreamt of returning to hunting, Eve went over it in her head. In those dreams, she had no future, only a legacy she wanted to leave behind, an incredible blaze of glory. She wouldn’t last long, but there were fae that Eve would be better suited for. The ones that didn’t have built in strength, whose abilities could be cut off before they could be used. Ones who could be tricked until Eve was in arms’ reach, who wouldn’t have time to react to the cold iron blades dragging along her throat. 

Eve had a second list too, of fae that she would never even dream of hunting deliberately. Guess which list leprechauns were on, with their height, strengths and numbers? Even before her injury, Eve’s weapon of choice for leprechauns had been a war bow, and a perch half way up a tree. Not a fight outside al fresco dining, where movement was limited. She stood up, with a quick reach into her bag to pull out a gun, sending a quick SOS to a couple wardens she knew on her phone. Even they weren’t knee deep in withercaps already, no one would be here instantly. It was one thing, to choose not to give chase, or to run when it was just her life on the line. It was another to leave a restaurant full of people at the mercy of whatever Siobhan and these leprechauns had planned. Eve quickly walked out of the al fresco area, sliding a chair to block the handles to the restaurant, trapping the other patrons and staff inside. Hopefully, no leprechauns had already made it inside.

“I’m afraid that’s not an option,” she said, her voice stiff as ice. “Call them off, Siobhan. Now.” 

—

The road writhed—no, it wasn’t the road, it was pairs of grey bodies squirming down the asphalt. What were the odds that these were the very same leprechauns that’d been harassing her? One broke off from the carpet of grey, sliding up a car, staring her down with its one eye; the other was covered by an eye-patch. So, the odds were clear then: these were certainly those leprechauns. Honestly, she wasn’t sure that one had ever lost its eye—she didn’t remember, anyway. Siobhan stood up, sighing deeply. She didn’t want to kill them; she had that time in Ireland, which was why they wanted her flesh so badly; and then she hadn’t when she first learned that they followed her, and then they stabbed her! She supposed her options were to get stabbed again, clinging to an old idea of what being fae meant, or kill them all and be done with their silly revenge plot. The logical choice was clear. 

Siobhan turned, finding Eve with a gun—tacky—and a chair, which she dragged to the doors and locked the humans inside—smart. And then telling her what to do? Eve was strangely calm. Why did Eve have a gun? Why did Eve have any sense of what was happening? Siobhan laughed. “You had that in your bag this whole time? Cute.” Siobhan pulled two knives out, spinning them in her hands. She turned to the leprechauns, who now surrounded their dining area, chittering at them. She said, in Irish, “get over yourselves.” The noises ceased. 

The eye-patched leprechaun clicked once and a wave of grey rose up around them and collapsed in. Leprechauns flew at Siobhan, and she couldn’t see Eve anymore, just grey bodies and beady eyes. The leprechauns latched onto her like sea barnacles against a ship—those oysters were still on the mind. She hissed as their razor teeth sunk into her skin and their bodies wrapped around her limbs, trying to drag her down. The knives were lost; admittedly, it was silly she thought they’d be helpful at all. Siobhan tore a leprechaun off her arm and twisted its head off its body. It cracked off with a satisfying pop—like opening a tight jar—but served only to enrage the remaining leprechauns. Siobhan kicked the head away and continued ripping leprechauns off; each time she did, another would take its place. 

The instinct to scream was overtaken by another, more learned instinct: something fae got taught young, something that made her feel like it would be a mistake to show Eve. What were the odds that her date was a warden? “You should run while you can,” she called out over the leprechaun's rage. She couldn’t see her at all; what was she up to? More than survival, Siobhan was curious about that. She ripped another leprechaun off and stabbed her thumb into its eye. It whistled in agony as she used her new grip to smash its head into the other leprechauns. When its skull shattered and its brain turned to pulp, she grabbed a new leprechaun and started over. Despite the gore, it wasn’t an effective method at all: in a moment, she’d be overwhelmed. All she wanted was to pull enough leprechauns away so she could see Eve. 

—

Eve counted, skimming the crowd with her eyes and she continued backing up, her gait more noticeably off as she walked backwards. Twenty little fuckers, more than she’d personally ever seen. This would be bad, fast. She glared at Siobhan, the threat in her look clear. But it didn’t matter. They weren’t interested in Eve, nor in the people in the restaurant. They were only interested… in Siobhan. They lunged at her like a tidal wave, drowning her. Never, in the history of ever, had a warden written an account of leprechauns attacking another fae.

It was enough to make Eve doubt her senses. What if Siobhan wasn’t fae? What if, all along, she’d been sensing the leprechauns, and Siobhan was the regular form of Rester weirdness? That didn’t feel right either, but there wasn’t time to interrogate it; the doubt was enough for Eve to act. Hopping further back, trying to give herself enough space, Eve shot one of the leprechauns at Siobhan’s ankles. It screeched, beady eyes spinning to turn to face her as its back sizzled, blood boiling from the cold iron in her bullets. It staggered, toppled away. The chittering grew louder and more aggressive as a few of the leprechauns turned from Siobhan and towards Eve. She breathed, and began to fire into the horde. 

One of the leprechauns bounded forward, slashing one of Siobhan’s blades at Eve’s ankle. Fortunately, it was the wrong ankle, and the knife just ripped through fabric and air and missing the C-curve of her prosthesis. Jolting backwards, Eve raised her hand over it, iron perspirating out her skin. The Leprechaun scowled, it’s neck jerking upwards, then its whole body straightening, and stretching up towards her hand. Magnetism dragged it off the ground, and as soon as it was airborn, flying towards her hand, Eve twisted her wrist. With a sick crunch, it impaled itself on her knife.  The lights went out in its eyes and its jaw dropped slack. 

As its grip loosened on Siobhan’s blade, Eve caught it with her other hand. She flicked her own knife, shaking off his body into the crowd. Now they really were paying attention. Eve threw Siobhan’s knife into the spine of one of the leprechaun’s on Siobhan. Hopefully she could use it, Eve couldn’t check. More leprechaun’s surged towards her, nimbly dodging her bullets, so she was barely grazing their arms and tiny legs. 

One jumped up at her. Eve tried to dodge, but it hit her square in the chest. She stumbled back, her prosthetic leg lagging behind as she toppled backwards. Eve grunted, air knocked out of her lungs as she hit the floor, along with the hard clatter of plastic and metal hitting the gravel. Another jumped up, grabbing her arm and dragging it out to the side and away from her chest. 

—

The gunshots didn’t bother Siobhan, but the idea of the gun did. It was offensive to a banshee or, rather, it was offensive to Siobhan. How much she could claim to be representative of a banshee now was debatable. Banshees didn’t get attacked by leprechauns, leprechauns didn’t attack other fae, other fae didn’t attack leprechauns. Siobhan thought about it as she watched leprechauns fall over in bloody heaps. One of her knives—so that’s where it went—sailed through the air and crunched into the back of a leprechaun on her shoulder. It clicked and fell off, landing on the hilt of the knife, sending the blade clean through its stomach. If Siobhan didn’t know any better, she’d say Eve was trying to kill her instead of the leprechauns. She was certainly very unconcerned about aiming close to her. 

Siobhan would’ve cared if it wasn’t exactly the same method she employed when fighting alongside someone, which was a rare enough event. The real threat was the leprechauns, if she hurt someone else accomplishing her goal…c’est la vie. Thanks to Eve, she could kick the few leprechauns beside her away and pick up her knife. Her favourite jacket was torn, she was bleeding, her dress now showed a little too much skin. While those were all things she imagined would happen on her ideal date, she didn’t want it to happen like this. Siobhan reached into the shattered wreck of their table and grabbed the oyster tray. She stomped over to Eve, crushing the bones of dead leprechauns under her heels. 

“Are you some kind of hunter then? That would explain the…” Siobhan swung the oyster tray at the leprechaun on Eve’s arm, sending it flying into another table. “...sudden change of mood, clearly it wasn’t…” Siobhan thrust her knife through the skull of a leprechaun climbing up her leg. “...anything I did.” A downed target was a leprechaun’s favourite, and Eve laying there was sugar to ants. The living leprechauns, all bleeding lumps of grey, rushed them. Siobhan sighed, turned to face away from Eve, crouched and screamed. 

The problem with being a perfect, sexy, issue-free banshee with great boobs and decades of practice was that it all appeared effortless and therefore seeming to be undeserving of praise. Behind Siobhan, there wasn’t a single crack in the restaurant’s glass. In front of her, the leprechauns burst like fireworks of blood. So Eve’s ears might be ringing…c’est la vie. The one-eyed leprechaun slinked away in the distance as Siobhan turned back around and offered her hand to Eve. “Imagine having to shoot at each leprechaun individually. How embarrassing.” 

—

The leprechauns tried to pry Eve’s fingers off her gun, so this one too she let become covered in iron, so that as it was drawn to her it burned. With her other hand, she tried to stab the leprechaun on her chest, and while it shrieked as the knife burned its side, it kept dancing on her, the weight of it and its companions slowly starting to crush her. Eve hissed, planning her next attach when a sheet of metal swung out of nowhere, smacking the leprechauns away.

Eve didn't respond to Siobhan’s accusations, far more focused on trying to kick the encroaching leprechauns away from her with her good leg. They were fast at dodging, but occasionally her foot connected with their chest in a way that sent them flying. From Siobhan’s mouth burst a horrific wail that rattled Eve’s very bones. It was a sounds unlike anything Eve had ever heard, but one she knew immediately. Inhumanly fast, Eve threw her hands over her ears, although it did little to shield her from the piercing pain that came with it.  Splatters of blood and tissue splashed on her legs as the leprechauns burst before her.  

Eve eyed Siobhan’s hand as if it were a trick, ignoring it to rock her weight over her biological ankle and pistol squat from there until she was upright. The fact there was still iron on her hands had nothing to do with it. Seriously. Pain bloomed in her sighed as she moved. Definitely some bruised ribs there, maybe even some cracked ones. Under her jacket, Eve was confident her arms were already starting to look black and blue. 

She spun, looking for any surviving leprechauns, but the survivors had scrammed, a couple leaving bloody footprints in their wake. Much like Eve, they had not been prepared for the full power of a banshee scream. “Terribly embarassing,” Eve agreed lightly, “although, I imagine, not as embarassing as being a fae attacked by leprechauns.”

Her gun was still in her hand. It wasn’t pointed at Siobhan at the moment, but it wasn’t all the way lowered. If Siobhan screamed again, would Eve have time to pull the trigger before her lungs ruptured too? 

—

“Would that be more or less embarrassing than being a warden on a date with a fae?” Siobhan’s response was quick, she hoped to get it out before the sting of Eve’s words settled. Eve had to be a warden: it was the simplest explanation for her behaviour. Unless she’d figured it out by the numerous fae-like things Siobhan committed on the daily, but Siobhan liked the narrative it introduced. How humorous that Eve had shown up expecting a little fun only to be surprised by her date being one of the most vile creatures to live—Eve’s thoughts, not hers. Siobhan’s gaze dropped to Eve’s torn pant leg. She frowned; the two vertical scars down her back burned in solidarity. She didn’t like it, it was one of those things that revealed a little too much about a person, the way a scar or a nervous tic did. The missing leg didn’t alter her opinion of Eve, but caused her mind to fixate on the obvious question of how—which was awfully personal, and not exactly inline with Siobhan’s goals. 

She stared at her gun instead. The funny thing about dealing with a warden was the inherent social disadvantage: nothing Siobhan said would be taken with sincerity. If she showed concern, that was a trick. If she explained that she didn’t intend to harm Eve (yet), that was a scheme. It was much more complicated to get a warden to like her, let alone trust her. And now Eve knew two useful things about her: she was a banshee, and she killed a group of leprechauns. Doubtless, Eve was thinking of a way to use that to her advantage. What did Siobhan have? Considering they went out for oysters, Eve could easily claim that she was luring a fae into a trap. Siobhan hummed and picked her knives out of the leprechaun gore, wiping them clean on her ripped jacket sleeves as her mind ran through useless possibilities. 

No, Eve wouldn’t let her try to help—did she even want to help? No, Eve certainly wasn’t interested in sleeping with her. Yes, Eve was going to hold on to that gun as long as Siobhan was still here. “What do you do about them?” Siobhan asked, jerking her head towards the restaurant and the humans pressed up against the glass, gawking. “I usually go with performance art; it’s a wonder what humans will forgive if you call it art. But there’s the risk of them blabbering about it: likely this was the most exciting part of their year and to know it was art!” Siobhan shrugged, moving closer to Eve with slow steps. Eve denied her hand when she offered it, so Siobhan didn’t have delusions of being able to touch her. “It might be better to call it something mundane, forgettable. We’re exterminators and those were rats, for example.” 

Siobhan hovered by Eve’s side. She supposed she ought to just leave: Eve was expecting nothing positive from her and though Siobhan delighted in breaking expectations, she wasn’t keen on doing any work. It wasn’t her problem. “You’re hurt,” she said plainly, as if stating the colour of Eve’s hair. Eve wouldn’t let her help with that, not that she cared, and not that she wanted to, and not that Eve even needed her help at all. Siobhan was the one who was bleeding and Siobhan was the one with the tenuous relationship with her own community—could she even call them her community anymore? She’d be the one haphazardly applying first-aid to herself. Anyway, what could be the worst of it for Eve? Some bruises? Boohoo. 

“Well!” Siobhan dusted her hands off, which had the effect of splashing more blood around. “I’ll leave you to it! I know how you wardens love your busy work. Call me, don’t be a stranger, et cetera.” Siobhan backed away slowly, keeping her eyes on Eve’s gun. 

—

Eve flushed. There was no sense denying it, she’d been caught iron-handed. “Is it less embarrassing for you?” She asked. Although evidently Siobhan was not like other fae. Even from the way she’d aimed her scream away from Eve rather than allowing her to be collateral. Eve’s ears were still ringing, but at least they were still functional. 

Siobhan’s question was sensible, the moment she proposed her solutions, Eve felt argumentative. No, obviously they couldn’t sell it as a performance piece. The people in the restaurant would never buy that! Humans could be smarter than you realise, they wouldn’t fall for such a simple lie. Nor would they buy a story about extermination, or they certainly wouldn’t be happy about it. Eve couldn’t just say any random nonsense, it had to be clever, it had to be believable…. It had to be, shit, exactly what Siobhan suggested. Not that Eve would admit that. “I’ll figure it out. No need to worry.” Once the pain had wilted a little. 

“As are you.” Eve’s eyes skimmed over the cuts and bites on Siobhan’s body, the thin bodice of her dress possibly exposing more than Siobhan would like. At least Eve’s jacket zipped up, and her trousers had only torn below the knee. She ground her teeth together. It was one step too far to offer Siobhan any help, she felt, but she let the gun lower to her hip. Her instincts were all twisted up. It wasn’t often a fae saved her life. It was never. While she supposed it had been a debt repaid, as she had cleared a few of the Leprechauns off Siobhan in her moment of doubt, it didn’t sit well with her.  

She sagged against one of the tables, inhaling sharply and surveying the horror around them, blood spattered all down the street. She could drive her car up close, and scoop up the bodies. It’d rain tonight and sort most of the blood for her. It was maybe an hours’ clean. Eve set her bag down, and pulled out some stronger pain relief. Once the digging pain in her side subsided, she’d begin. Once it was finished, Eve’d go home. This was the one advantage of her solitary hunt: she could easily go a week without seeing a soul. No one other than Siobhan would ever know how close Eve had been to being bested by some leprechauns.

“Yeah, you should leave. There are more wardens en route,” Eve said quietly, although she was already reaching in her phone to call off the alert. When she next spoke, it was in American accented Irish, and the slightest hint of a tease. “Do try not to upset any more leprechauns. I hear they hold a grudge. I’d hate to scrape you off the street next.” 

—

“Oh,” Siobhan winked, “you’re not my first.” Taking a warden out on a date was the epitome of a good time, with all those delicious buttons begging to be pushed. Siobhan enjoyed annoying people; if her inherent presence was an annoyance, that gave her all the more space to play. Limitations breed creativity and so on and so forth. She could do anything she wanted with a normal human but the ways to play with a warden were limited—risky—and so, more fun. Eve was a fascinating warden in addition: in Siobhan’s experience, most wardens were terrible socializers. Something about the fae power to twist words probably shut them up. To Siobhan’s estimation, Eve fancied herself wiser than average—perhaps even the average warden—and didn’t fear conversation in the same manner Siobhan was used to. In the ninety-some years since Siobhan’s activation, that was a novelty.

She ought to kill Eve but that would be boring. There was so much game left to be played. “I’m not worried about you,” she said with a smile. “You’ll figure it out.” Which was all the better for her since she wouldn’t have to do it herself. The last thing she wanted was a group of angry humans collected outside her door accusing her of Devil worship or something of the like. It hadn’t been fun the first time it happened. Siobhan didn’t need to be told to leave but took Eve’s command anyway, spinning around and striding off. She paused when Eve’s Irish hit her ears. Though the warden couldn’t see it, Siobhan smiled. She turned her head to regard Eve through the edge of her vision. 

“Do try not to seduce any more fae, I get jealous,” she replied in perfect Irish. She swiped a leprechaun half-skill from the ground and settled the hollow cranium on the tip of her finger and spun it around. With a whistle, she was off. It was only when she was certain she was away from Eve that she crouched to whisper prayers for the dead leprechauns. Standing up, she considered that the bigger shame would be having to scrape Eve off the street. Mostly because she wouldn’t bother with any scraping—Siobhan liked her wardens in several pieces. 

Clean up was for the boring people, anyway. 

[herrlindemann]

Rockstyle - March 1998 - Interview with Paul

Ramstein, a German group, was in France on November 24 and 25 for only two dates in France. Rockstyle was there. For several reasons, first of all to follow this unavoidable phenomenon which, after two albums, has already sold more than two million records worldwide. Then their music, as well as the whole concept developed on disc, and on stage has a very strong meaning that has already seduced more than one editor. Ahh, the scene precisely, let's talk about it. Debauchery of sound, pyrotechnic effects, fire, flames, symbols, homo references, body worship... There was enough to ask a lot of questions, and enough to indulge in many digressions. By looking at this group, several elements put us, we believed, on the right direction. Indeed Rammstein, takes its name from a German city, Ramstein, a martyr city with a large Turkish population which was set on fire by some far-right group. Ah. Not only was it starting to get interesting, letting us go even more to our interpretations, just to make sense of it all, but it all had a smell of sulfur making the aura of the band even more mysterious. Our metaphysical wanderings (all these years of philosophy have to be for something, huh?) were going well: so, finally, Rammstein, it's just a group of bodybuilder neo-Nazi homos, as some press clippings suggested, or is there a simpler, rational, and less disturbing explanation? Meeting these people was going to be really important. Certain live photos, certain live images in addition to the concert reports and associated with what we already knew, namely the Manichean poetry and the lyricism of the texts, hinted at something else. On stage, wouldn't the fire be a tribute to the victims of the massacre? Would the group's answers to our questions quench our thirst for knowledge? Was fire for them a symbol of redemption? Was this simple religious Manichaeism between the angels and the demon hiding something more complex? What does this masochistic suffering represent for them? What about sex in all this?... So many questions to which we hoped to find the answer we were expecting, of course... But our hopes were far from being fulfilled, and our interview with Paul, one of the two guitarists, was going to reserve our batch of surprises.

Paul, you seem much more relaxed than yesterday, the concert tonight (Elysée-Montmarte) don't worry you too much for now?

Yes, everything is fine, and yet I only slept four hours... And I don't have stage fright. But I've been walking around Paris for four hours playing the tourist, maybe that's why I don't feel any pressure.

The romantic poetry of the texts gives us a clue to Rammstein's message?

Everyone must find their own answer. And when we translate these texts, we lose meaning and precision. 'Du hast' is a very good example, because there are two meanings to the phrase 'du hast mich', it means 'you own me', but also 'you hate me'. The whole song is based on this ambivalence of the verb 'haben' and its ambiguity. So when you translate this text it no longer makes sense, it no longer means anything. And generally in all our songs, we try to associate a necrophiliac, morbid side with another full of humor, fun...

The purpose of the texts is only that, to be funny, or is it hiding something else?

If what we are saying was funny, then yes, it would be funny, but we are not able to do that… I like texts that have an impact, that make people think. They even shock them. The effect is even greater with these comic effects, finally I think it would be more appropriate to speak of grating, very dark humor.

And where does the desire to make people think about these particular themes come from?

80% of the texts are composed by Till, the singer, and for the rest it is a group work, work which is largely inspired by the music... What is interesting is that everyone in the group listens to different things, one listens to blues, the other doesn't listen to music at all, one listens to pop, like Abba, the other industrial… We really have eclectic tastes. We just come together to make music, and we never worked to be a successful band, we have, that's good, great, but we never asked why it worked! We are all different and we complement each other, and our common goal is to make music together, that's all. We wanted to do that, we wanted there to be lots of pretty girls in the front row, and that's it! There are never pretty girls usually at metal concerts, maybe we wanted to fill this gap! Besides, it wouldn't make sense to do the same things as all these metal bands again, we're trying to move forward, to offer something else. The story is to try to stand out, it's for example to wear beige velvet pants when everyone is wearing blue jeans... There, it's you we're going to look at. Some will like it, some will hate it, but the important thing is that you got noticed. Besides, it's very easy to get hated! (Laughs)

In your videos, you develop a strong homage to films by Lynch or Tarantino, moreover you appear on the soundtrack of 'Lost Highway' with the title 'Rammstein', it's just a way to spread your passions, or you think this aesthetic is close to your vision of music?

As usual the record company didn't have a clear idea of the video we should do for 'Engel', so we decided to take a passage from the film with Tarantino, 'A Night in Hell' , and adapt it to our sauce. We had lots of ideas for special effects, morphing, and unfortunately not enough money so we made do with the means at hand. For the title 'Du hast' we chose to re-pump on 'Reservoir Dogs', and there the result turned out to be closer, 90%, let's say, to our original idea.

Between these videos and your show on stage, there are quite interesting parallels, and certain symbols keep coming back, Good, Evil, fire, explosions… All this gives a rather Biblical vision. When Till catches fire at the start of 'Rammstein', what does that mean? A rebirth?

Ah! I like it... But I don't really want to explain all these things... Too many people who aren't very smart don't understand what we're doing, and give us rather tendentious comments and desires, so... I think that to understand what we do you have to let go of your sensitivity and your intelligence… Let's say it's just provocation… The fact that Till uses pyrotechnic effects on stage is purely anecdotal. In fact he is very shy, and when he does not bite the guitarists he can even be rather diplomatic! Anyway, at first he mumbled in his corner, and since he doesn't play an instrument, he had trouble having an ease or a natural attitude when he wasn't singing, he even seemed rather stuck because he didn't didn't know what to do! So we had the idea of playing with fire. It is sure that at the beginning with just a lighter, the result was not terrible! (Laughs) Then we decided to develop all this visual aspect, with explosions, flamethrowers… Till has a diploma in fireworks, and he is the only one who knows and has the right to use all that. You really have to be careful because it's very dangerous, but with him, there's really nothing to worry about.

There seems to be a very Teutonic rigor in everything you do: the concerts are ruled like clockwork (sic), there is no dead time, everything seems to be written like a script of a movie. Do you still leave room for spontaneity and improvisation?

Yes, everything is straight, symmetrical, we like this rigor, but we are not the slaves of our machines, and everything is not done as for playback, we are organized, that's clear, but we let a certain room for freedom, even if, to be honest, we don't really like to let ourselves go to long stretches of improvisation on stage, we try sometimes, but we realize that it doesn't go with the music we make, quite simply...

Do you think Rammstein represents an evolution, or an emergence of a new metal?

We don't do metal. I don't really like metal, because I think it's a style that not only has never been able to renew itself, but also that is stuck in reverse. It's like a car, there are five gears, and if they used them, then they would see that it goes! Some are very good musicians, very good technicians, some even have the sound, have very good riffs. The problem is that they should only use one riff instead of seven, eight, because they play so fast that the music doesn't have time to settle. We, with a song of the genre we make seven! And it is much more efficient, like AC/DC, for example. It's more power pop than metal...

[sovaghoul]

Ethics

This is probably the longest post in this series, because it's important. In the first section, I explain and define Wiccan ethical tenents. The second section will explore some common scenarios and questions. I want to stress also that the statements I make here ONLY apply to Wiccans. Other forms of Witchcraft, Paganism, Heathenry, and Occultism have their own ethical codes that may differ from this.

🕯🌒🌕🌘🕯

🔮 The Wiccan Rede

The basic ethical tenant of Wicca is the Wiccan Rede, which states, “An it harm none, do what you Will.” A simple, yet highly profound statement.

The archaic word, “An” is usually cited as meaning, “if.” However, more accurately, it should be read as “so that.” So in essence, the Rede says, “So that it harms none, do what you Will.” That changes the meaning a bit, from “you can do want you want if it doesn’t harm anybody,” to, “do the thing in such a way that it harms none.” Let’s break that down even more.

“Harm,” as mentioned in the Rede, means unwarranted, wanton damage. For example, it’s not OK to smack someone for no reason, but if one feels pain after surgery, the doctor has not done harm; that pain is an acceptable consequence of the procedure. Harm is not the same as violence, or pain, or even hurt. Overall, “harm” in the Rede refers to maliciousness, forced/coerced acts, etc., whether mundane or Magickal.

“None,” of course, not only means others around you, but includes yourself as well.

“Will,” in this case, does not mean “whatever you want.” Your Will is your sense of what is correct, just, and appropriate in a given situation, even if it isn’t what you want to do.

“Do as you Will” is not a statement of permission, it is a call to action, that you do consciously work according to your Will in any situation. You may wake up in the morning and not want to go to work, but remembering the Rede tells you that your Will is likely to get out of bed and go in anyway, because you need to be responsible and pay your bills. There is the option to stay home, yes, but making that choice will likely cause you hardship, financially if in no other way.

Notice that that the Rede makes commentary on actions that cause no harm, that you are to follow through with them and do the necessary things in ways that do not intentionally cause harm. If an unharmful option presents itself, it’s your responsibility to choose that course of action. But you may be wondering about actions that do harm. The Rede says nothing about them, this is true. It is left up to the individual to decide whether to commit actions that cause harm. This is an important caveat to the Rede that I feel is far too often, at the very least, overlooked if not outright ignored; sometimes working your Will means that someone will be harmed, such as ending a relationship, or changing careers. But will an initial harmful action prevent greater harm in the future? Are you prepared to accept the consequences of said harmful action? All things to carefully consider when a harmful action presents itself as an option. For example, if you have a vacation day available, and your mental or physical health will benefit more from staying home, call into work. You may be stressing your finances and workload a bit, but your mind and body will thank you.

If after such consideration harm is simply unavoidable, since you did in fact work your Will and your intent was not to do harm, whatever comes of it is then another consequence to be dealt with (NOT ignored or disregarded, but actually faced), and not a violation of the Rede. The Lycian Tradition of Wicca adds a second statement to their interpretation of the Rede, “an it cause harm, do as you must,” to convey this particular caveat, but it is my personal understanding that this is implicit in the Rede as it stands (Read more about Lycian Wicca here).

Related, it must be understood that the word “rede” means “advice or counsel,” not “commandment.” So although it is a call to action, encouraging one to engage in behavior that conforms to one’s Will, it is not saying, “you MUST act in this way, or else!” The consequences of disregarding the Rede’s advice are usually subjective and personal, and it is in fact part of the Rede’s advice that one think about what it will mean to ignore it.

While I agree wholly with the Rede and consider it very sound advice, I also acknowledge that it doesn’t apply to everyone. Other Pagans, Witches, and Magickal practitioners have differing codes of ethics. The Rede only gives Wiccans counsel on our conduct, and does not give us license to morally or ethically police anyone else.

So, contrary to some interpretations, the Rede does not state, “if it hurts someone, don’t do it.” Translating the Rede out of the more poetic and archaic language in which it is most commonly presented, all nuanced caveats included, you get something like, “You have an obligation to do what you feel is right in ways that cause little to no unwarranted damage. But, sometimes that damage is unavoidable, and so you must also have the responsibility and maturity to accept the consequences of your actions, whatever those actions or consequences may be, including what may happen if you act contradictory to your Will, or do not act at all.” It’s a lot of meaning to pack into eight little words, hence the power of the phrase.

🔮 The Theee-Fold Law

To move on to a secondary but no less important ethical statement, the Three-Fold Law (sometimes alternately referred to as the Law of Return or Rule of Three) is of course tied very much into the Rede, and it states that whatever is done, for benefit or for ill, comes back three-fold. This is not, however, a statement to be taken literally. Some believe the three folds are the physical, mental and spiritual levels that will all be affected; or that the levels are the self, those directly affected by the act, and the “bystander effect” of indirectly impacting others; or that equal acts will come back three separate times. But most, if not all, will agree that the Law is not saying donating $100 to charity will miraculously get you an extra $300 in your bank account.

Regardless, the point here is that none of us live in a vacuum, so everything we do, Magickally and otherwise, will have an affect on the world around us. The essence of it is, then, to be aware of your actions, and that they have consequences. Sometimes those consequences are rewards, sometimes they are burdens, but they WILL happen. Just as Newton’s Third Law states, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” “Opposite” here is not to say that good actions beget bad consequences, but instead that the reaction, the goodness or badness, moves the other way, back to the source rather than away from it. As far as “equal” in that statement goes, applying it to the topic at hand means basically you reap what you sow, and the Universe/Gods/Karma/what-have-you will not dish out excessive rewards or burdens, only what is proportionally appropriate to the initial action.

To put it in the most basic of terms, Wiccan ethics are about being proactive, mindful, and responsible in your choices, knowing your true Will and intentions, and having the maturity to face the consequences, whatever they may be.

🕯🌒🌕🌘🕯

🔮 F.A.Q.

Let’s now explore some common questions that come up when discussing the Rede.

Are Wiccans forbidden from hexing/cursing/binding and other types of harmful Magick?

Not if they deem that action as necessary and aligning with their Will. Many will reserve those kinds of spells as their last resort, and try other methods first. But there is a saying that goes, “A Witch who can’t hex, can’t heal.” Wicca in general is about creating and maintaining balance, and so to walk that middle road, we need to know where the extremes lie, or we can’t tell when we’ve come up against them.

Does the Rede require Veganism/Vegetarianism?

No. Veganism/vegetarianism is a fine choice if someone wants to live that way, and done right it can be very healthy. Some also choose this dietary lifestyle for political reasons, to protest the more extreme and atrocious livestock farming techniques and conditions, or out of concern for the impact livestock farming has on the environment. However, in nature, life comes from death, and humans are no different. After all, we’re animals and a part of nature ourselves. There’s also the argument that, since harm constitutes senseless acts, killing one animal to feed another isn’t truly harm anyway. The animals are (ideally) not being killed for fun or for sport, but to help sustain another life. This also holds true for plant life, it dies to feed another. This is all in keeping with the Dying God narrative that is central to Wicca. And in fact, many ancient Pagan traditions involve ritualistically killing and eating an animal as part of a sacrificial meal to honor the Gods.

Does the Rede include harm to self?

“None” in the Rede does include the self. However, things like smoking and extreme sports are exceptions of sorts, as long as the person is willing to accept the consequences of engaging in such practices. One has presumably chosen to engage in these actions (with the exception of addictions; those are not always under the control of the individual), and since harm is, by definition, non-consensual, it is not truly doing harm to one’s self. Damage, yes, but not harm as the Rede presents it. Addiction to, dependency on, and/or abuse of such things such as drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, the internet, etc., are serious issues and should be brought to the attention of someone in a position to help, especially some sort of professional therapist and/or counselor.

Is harm in self-defense an exception?

This is not truly harm, since it is not malicious or wanton damage, but in fact a warranted response to an imposed situation. If one is attacked, it is usually one’s Will to defend and survive.

What about non-physical harm, harmful words and thoughts?

Words and thoughts can be harmful, just as actions can. But, are one’s words intended to damage another? Are one’s idle thoughts always aligned to one’s Will? Knowing the intent and taking responsibility for the results are key here. It is not truly harm if it is accidental, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences to face, apologies to be made.

What if someone consents to harm, such as BDSM?

There is no such thing as consensual harm. Such things as violence, pain, and other hurt can be consensual, but harm cannot. BDSM only becomes harm if the person(s) in the Dominant role willfully and blatantly ignore the safewords and other “stop” signals and boundaries of the person(s) in the submissive role. Two important acronyms in BDSM spaces are SSC, meaning Safe, Sane, and Consensual, and RACK, meaning Risk-Aware Consensual Kink. Any respectable BDSM practitioner will adhere to one or both of these.

What about initially harmful actions or failure to act?

Sometimes, an initially harmful act can prevent greater and more damaging harm in the future. The wartime death of a dangerous dictator committing genocide, for example. Yes, the intent of the assassins is to bring him harm. However, his death prevents the further loss of (innocent) life.

Also, if he were allowed to continue for the sake of avoiding bringing him harm, he would continue to harm others. So, failure to act can also cause harm. This is the way the Rede is said to be a call to action, rather than a passive, permissive statement. But again, just because something drastic must be done, doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences.

Should Wiccans avoid killing insects?

This is a situation where one’s own Will, one’s own sense of what is right and appropriate, is the deciding factor. Is it more important to avoid harm to the insects, or is the potential harm to one’s self or family from such an infestation (due to bites, allergies, or even disease) the greater risk?

Should Wiccans be pacifists?

As was already discussed, “harm” and “hurt/pain/violence” are different things. There are Wiccans who choose to enlist in the armed forces and feel the Rede certainly allows it, as they believe their Will (the correct, just, and appropriate thing to do) is to defend their country.

There is a chapter in the U.S. Army Chaplain’s Handbook for respectful interaction with Pagan service members. The American Armed Forces are supposed to recognize and respect all the various religious beliefs of their members.

These are the most common areas I see people ask about, but if other scenarios come to mind, feel free to bring them up in comments/reblogs/DMs.

Next post: Theism

[clare-with-no-i]

Hi Clare! Would you consider theogony James to be a bit patriarchal, considering ancient greek society ? I'm curious about your thought.

hi hi hi! thanks for the question.

so I think it's sort of unavoidable that theogony James has some 'patriarchal' (I would probably tend to use a diff descriptor because patriarchy is to me very much a system and a theory, not so much a personality trait but I do absolutely get what you're saying) values – although I still have trouble grasping a lot of the social norms or larger sociological trends that historians have articulated about Ancient Greece, it would be both naive and plainly ahistorical to say that it was a society that allowed for women's liberation as we understand it today. so there are absolutely moments where James falls into the trappings of the Classical Athenian value systems, because to write otherwise would be to take both myself and the reader out of the setting. for example: he is – although often involuntarily, impulsively – territorial over Lily in a way that I try not to write as romantic but rather just a consequence of her being his wife, and therefore legally his property; he doesn't discuss matters of war with her because he thinks it would be overwhelming to her sensibilities as a woman. he is both comfortable with and actually repeatedly leaning toward violence at times that would be deemed inappropriate today (and rightfully so). throughout the story, we see both James and Sirius regarding non-Athenians outside of their inner circle with a sort of derision that betrays their belief in/desire for Athenian cultural hegemony and imperial growth.

that being said, it would be a betrayal of James's character to have him be 1) flagrantly irredeemably sexist or 2) a person that does not question the aspects of society that he finds problematic or unfair. in canon, he's a privileged wealthy charismatic boy with a respected bloodline; he could easily just ride out the war without getting his hands dirty. but he doesn't! he chooses to actively participate in the dismantling of a neofascist system, and he loses his life because of it. because of this, I found room to write him with parallel traits in theogony: he was raised with two strong maternal figures whom he respects and reveres; he objects to the harsh practices of banishment which brought Sirius to his doorstep; he reckons with the way that war perverts and corrodes perception of other cultures. one of the most telling moments along that vein comes in the battle of plataea chapter:

"Much, much later, James would learn the truth of it—that neither Darius nor Xerxes were sent from Tártaros to torment the Greek people, that no Persian man is lesser than a Greek just because he obeys the order of his king. That all of these kings are just men, plagued by desire and standing atop it.”

I think as well, and this is just me being self indulgent, I have no desire to write a romantic lead who has any interest in denying his partner rights, which means that I take whatever liberties I feel are appropriate to make him a person worth rooting for and a character that (at least in the abstract) resembles the James Potter we love from canon. I have written him to be more progressive in some ways than is probably fitting for the era, but one of the things I fall back on is that being born into social and financial privilege gives a person the freedom to live their own values. given his family's status and his own position as a general of the army, he can afford to skirt around some social barriers that other people may not – we see this throughout the story often through Lily, who is of course getting a very sanitized version of Athenian life as a result of James's various birthrights.

so there you go! tl;dr is yes, but only in the ways I can't bring myself to mitigate because of a commitment to (some semblance of) historical accuracy, lol.