#context for pharos:

[tarn-ati0n]

Playing through Omega Ruby for the first time! I had a copy of Alpha Saphirre growing up, but tbh. I've always been more of a Groudon guy, lol. So it's nice to finally be able to play this version.

Anyways, here's the gang so far.

(Click for better quality)

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

Follow up question to your 40k book list; what are the mid-to-good Horus Heresy books? I know the ‘essentials’ are the first three (five if you’re feeling saucy) and Siege of Terra, but any outside that?

So, your "obligatory" reading is (as you said) the first 3 HH books, and the End & The Death 1-3. Other Siege of Terra books can be read to taste. Echoes of Eternity is pretty cool. If you want a a generally good quality (it varies) chronological experience between those two points, I would highly recommend the reading order of; - The First Heretic; Covers the censure of the Word Bearers by the Emperor and their fall to chaos. Also provides context for their fraught relationship with the Ultramarines, and shows off part of the dropsite massacre. A solid and foundational read. - Know No Fear & Fear To Tread; This will cover the assault on Calth and attempted crippling of the Ultramarines, and then the attempted corruption of the Blood Angels. In both cases the Word Bearers and Horus are capitalising on the legions' lack of knowledge about the dropsite massacre. The former book is easily one of the better HH novels. - Betrayer; The culmination of the shadow war following Calth in which Angron ascends to daemonhood and the Ruinstorm engulfs a chunk of the sector. This is possibly the contender for single best HH book, and will make you like Angron a whole lot more than you did previously. - Unremembered Empire, Pharos and Ruinstorm; This covers Guilliman setting up the Imperium Secundus, drawing Lion and Sanguinius to him, dealing with Night Lord bullshit and then the trio setting out to get back to Terra. Ruinstorm is a bit dry, but overall the context provided by these books is useful. Unremembered Empire is very solid. After these I'd recommend Master of Mankind, which shows the bedlam the Emperor and friends have been dealing with on Terra after Horus' titular heresy. Also provides a pleasantly critical look at Empy. Good book.

There are many, many, many books that you can weave in and around these, depending on what other things you might want to know, but I do believe for someone who doesn't want to read 50+ books, these 8 will feed you a chunk of info and generally decent reading.

[circuseyesofgod-if]

How would the ro’s react to a flustered mc trying to ask the ro on a date

Pharo finds it amusing, a little silly even, but endearing if romanced. Pharo's ego grows to a concerning amount when people are flustered when talking to him in any context, let alone a scenario like this, his smirk too sharp to be anything but slightly mocking. he's kind of an asshole, so he'd say yes even if he wouldn't be interested just for his own entertainment. but with a romanced MC, Pharo will make it his life mission to get them continuously and constantly flustered again and again throughout the date, he eats this kind of stuff up.

Odessa finds it cute, if a little unnecessary. she's not that intimidating is she? maybe if she'd take off those huge heels ... either way, she appreciates that even though MC was nervous or shy, they still asked her out and saw it through. if she trusts MC enough, she'll say yes and take a really long time to get ready, then try and make it seem like it was all oh so casual. if not, then she'd be honestly offended that MC didn't pay attention to her close enough to see that she doesn't fully trust them.

Vesper can't really tell right now what being flustered means, and why MC would even be flustered in front of it in the first place. but it would notice the hesitance and would touch the tank's glass in order to show MC it's okay to just relax. so what i'm saying is that Vesper would be reassuring towards MC. before it got turned into what it is now though? it would've found MC's shyness funny, because Vesper from back then rarely got flustered or nervous over anything. would definitely poke a little fun at MC, but would ultimately give an enthusiastic yes.

[raayllum]

Thought I'd do a little update to my formal Key of Aaravos analysis now that we know more about the Key (+ book) and because we have more scenes. Will also revisit some (4x04) now that we have new potential rune foreshadowing understanding. I also realized that I never talked about any of its appearances in end credit art, so I'll be doing that as well. This is, as always, operating under the assumption that rune placement can foreshadow scenes, since Callum's rune placement in his dark magic 2x08 dreams foreshadowed him doing dark magic in book 5 ocean and for Rayla (moon rune on display).

First things first I want to talk about 4x04 again now that we know the Cube unlocks a book of knowledge, which makes this sentence be more direct and overt regarding the mysteries the cube/Aaravos could answer for Callum.

For great mysteries we have Moon, Ocean, and Star on display, which seems appropriate as the Moon is related to secrets/depth, Ocean is something Callum will unlock the following season, and Star in equalling Aaravos (or the Cosmic Council) is the mystery we're trying to solve. Earth feels like a callback to other cube appearances (its 2nd first, Harrow's letter) that potentially foreshadowed books 4 to 6 (aka Earth, Ocean, and Star) being the true Mystery of Aaravos with book 7 being more of a book of revelation. We then see Callum flip the cube from Earth to Sky, likely foreshadowing that later this episode he will lose his freedom / he will spend the next 4ish books attempting to fully reclaim his freedom from Aaravos. It could also refer to Zym, who may have an important role to play.

Then we have Star-Moon-Sun trifecta which feels more apt because we know it's possible that Moon and Sun magic is required for Aaravos' machinations to invert life and death / that using Sol Regem + Sunfire elves (s6) and potentially Rayla in S7 are important elements of his plan. This could also foreshadow Callum and Claudia, two of his most present pawns, getting the Moon and/or Sun arcanums respectively.

For end credit art, there are four sketches the Key of Aaravos appears in, three of them in S2.

Heart of a Titan (2x06), in which Callum learns what the Key is and what it's called, which harkens back to its 2nd shot appearance in 1x04 (hence the three runes) and features keys:

Fire and Fury (2x07), where we see the game and key motif with it get merged further, and the scratches on the ground indicate that the cube is being pulled from somewhere. 6x02 directly picks up this thread but does not feature in end credit art (we'll talk more about it later). The rune most prominently on display is the Star rune but right side up, as well as Earth (patience, book 4) and sun (Karim, Pharos). These are also the following books (Sun, Earth) after S2.

In 2x08 Book of Destiny the cube has only dark magic sigils on it in the end credit art. This represents the closing doors on Callum's potential that dark magic poses, the hold this will give Aaravos over him without knowing, and seems to be the biggest hint pre-S6 that the cube would be associated with a literal and not just metaphorical book of destiny.

This is also one of the reasons I thought it'd be fitting for the cube to be something bad at first, and then become something good and helpful to Callum. Just as he reclaims his agency/identity, he can reclaim the cube (and book 'of destiny') from Aaravos and make it his, now, and use it for good. But first... dark magic.

I'm going to wait to talk about the final end credit Key art from S6 because I want to talk about it in context with its episode / what we know about S7 so far.

In the meantime, I'm going to make a brief pitstop to 5x08 as despite the season not featuring the Key at all, or Callum being that worried about Aaravos' hold over him (he's much happier in the beginning of S5 compared to the beginning of S6, despite the mission to stop Aaravos being in a much worse place in 5x01 as compared to 6x01), the pawn intro featuring the key and its bright light is here to remind us that's still in play. Additionally, Callum's experiences in 5x08 and what he learns about himself and his strengths/vulnerabilities are a clear turning point that makes him more worried and paranoid in S6, which we see directly with the cube in 6x01.

He starts off by pacing/looking at the Star rune, if him being with the cube wasn't enough to bring Aaravos to mind. The show then has him be nervous when the Star rune itself glows up, once again the upside down version we're more prone to associating with Aaravos (and possibly Callum is too) + a little bonus Moon rune, which feels fitting that Rayla is about to show up in like 2 seconds.

We then get Callum's hand holding/covering the cube by the Sky rune (since Sky and Star are literal opposites on the cube, how's that for thematic design) and pushing the Star rune end into Rayla's hand with Moon on full display. As a treat for me and my "Callum will sacrifice his freedom (Sky) for Rayla's life (Moon) to Aaravos (Star)" and then all those things will be inverted with Rayla helping to restore his freedom to him from Aaravos back again (just like in S6).

Then we have a couple of wide shots where the rune changes despite the fact that it shouldn't (which happens in 2x08 of Earth and then to Ocean for the actual closeup / important shots) because it's not changing position. However, both the ones presented — Earth and then Star — have their own valid meanings.

For Earth, it can contrast Rayla's continual willingness to wait (let's maybe not try to destroy the pearl right now, no I'm not going to free my parents right now) — right or wrong — in the face of Callum's growing eagerness and impatience. For Star, it's precisely because he's discussing star magic and it's book 6 stars.

Then finally we have Rayla shifting to hold the cube to the point you can barely tell she's holding it, like it's part of her body / synonymous with her, and Callum looking at her after his "Somehow, Aaravos is going to use me" fear talk (cue screaming).

Then we have Callum looking at the Ocean rune after Rayla, Earth is most prominently on display, and Star (surprise surprise) on top.

He rolls it and since Sky is on top we know Star is on the bottom (even if I don't think that's the one that hit the ground, or that these ones particularly matter - but here for posterity anyway).

Star is again on top when he picks it up, with Moon most prominently on display (I wanna see this one as Rayla foreshadowing for me, particularly since it's related to where the cube is being pulled but like, who knows). I do in all seriousness think it's interesting that Moon and Sun are most on display given Aaravos' apparent desire to invert life (Sun) and death (Moon) next season, and presumably the Key plays some kind of role in... letting him get to the place where he can do that, at least as a step one.

Then we have the big reveal at the end of the season in terms of what the Key unlocks. This also put lines that felt like foreshadowing with the cube / Callum but it wasn't clear how exactly ("That the entire world would be in danger if she let me live with this knowledge" / "Having knowledge isn't the same as knowing knowledge")

No surprise again that we see the Star rune most on display, and again we get a shot of Sun and Moon.

We see the cube flip around (it seems like Aaravos is trying to decide which one) before he settles on Earth. We don't know enough about the Earth arcanum to really say if this is going to have meaning or not; it could reference that Book 4: Earth is when this plotline really got started in arc 2; it could be that Callum is going to use the book to help cleanse corruption (like the mushrooms for Zubeia, and maybe even Lux Aurea or corrupted elves/people/animals). It could also be Earth because that would be the easiest to visually convey spreading over the book for the audience's understanding.

The white light the Book emits when the cube goes in also intrigues me. On the one hand, we know that Moon and most overtly Star magic can take on a white light (although Moon also has blue, and Star has magenta) that might be analogous to the white light the cube flashes in the pawn intro. Alternatively, the white flash there could just be an evocation of the book itself (fitting, again, if Callum is going to eventually reclaim it alongside his identity).

As a finale note, I'm also assuming we see the Ocean rune here just to emphasize the insertion of the Key > any particular meaning and they needed Earth on top. I do find it interesting though (and maybe it was just shot composition) that they didn't want to go with the rune opposite of Ocean that also could've worked, as Sun presumably ties into 1) Aaravos' machinations with the Sunfire elves / Sol Regem and 2) symbolizes the life part of his life and death plans, whereas Ocean has almost exclusively been used in reference to either his prison or Callum's dark magic use (2x08, 5x08) / inner depths of the lengths he's willing to go for his loved ones. But hey, an nb can dream

In the meantime, I'm curious if the Earth rune's prominence here and in the Cube's appearances throughout the season will eventually come to pass foreshadowing wise in S7 (or in the future), but we'll just have to wait and see!

Last but not least we have the final end credit art from 6x09

Yet again, we have Star (upside down Aaravos) and next to the book, now that they're reunited - in terms of us knowing about them, anyway. Then we have Sun and most prominently Moon on display overall, which again bodes well for 1) life and death stuff and 2) possible Rayla connection to build on their prior consistency. I would've expected Star to be most evident or even just Sun (as it is on the side display in the pawn intro with Callum facing Star), but not minding the reinforced Sun-Moon that we've seen more and more the past couple seasons either

And that's that until we get another cube sighting! Dragons out

[thefandomexpert]

So I guess you've already read pharos if you know pollux and dantioch? Or is that next on your reading list?

I simply know of them! I have a warhammy friend who has informed me about the guys; being relative newbies to the canon we like to liveblog to each other to cover more ground, so to speak, or at least share details not included in lexicanum (which is a lot). I forget if they’ve actually read Pharos but they definitely did some Scythes of the Emperor content, who’s founding chapter master is the baby ultramarine scout in this book, and are somewhat tangentially related. also polux and dantioch are only like. a little bit important to the nid problem. like a little. So I have definitely heard of them from the context of ‘basic wh40k lore u should know.’

I will probably eventually read Pharos for one reason or another, if not for the Guys then for the lore. it’s not on my immediate list because my immediate list is things important to the current chapter of Updated Codex (so, Ultramarines and Ynnead/in and around plague wars era) or things that have been specifically rec’ed.

[gerrydelano]

SKINDEEP

Rating: M Words: 13.3k Characters: Jon Sims, Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood, Danny Stoker, Sasha James, Melanie King, Caroline Brodie, Callum Brodie, Gerry Keay (in memorium)

Relationships: Gerry/Tim, Martin/Danny, Sasha & Tim, Melanie & Caroline Brodie, Danny & Tim

Synopsis: Alternate ending for Pharos by Right (inspired by this anon) where Tim doesn't manage to stop Danny from swinging the hammer while Gerry read the incantation to start the Change — i.e., Gerry is killed to save the world, and then the world goes quiet.

(Actual ending of PBR will commence after posting this because I needed to get it out of my system. Got possessed.)

To those unfamiliar, PBR is my massive Archivist!Gerry series, and this requires the context of most of it, but especially my most recent chapter. If this intrigues you at all, there's 430k more words where this came from!

CWs: Character death; Head trauma; Severe injury; Grief; An intense breakdown ft. drowning imagery; Mention of drug use

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

Jon opens his eyes to the sound of screaming, burning, and a loud ringing in his ears. He coughs against the ash in his mouth, halting in his attempt to roll onto his side as his ribs clip a hard object underneath him. He must have been thrown backwards into something when the—

When the bombs went off. The bombs went off. It’s must be over.

But the screaming. Oh, the screaming, it’s louder than the ringing and the burning and the voice that he can almost hear saying shhh, it’s alright, I’m right here! Oh, G-d, somebody help! The voice calls his name. His name is Jon. His name is his name again.

Stiffly, he rises to his elbow and coughs again, his chest sore and his legs weak and oh, G-d, his leg— there’s a gash in his leg, a large one, and he can feel the blood running down into his sock.

His name is called again, and he’s almost afraid to rub soot into his remaining eye even on the off chance that he might clear it and find the source of the sounds, the screaming, the voice. Bleary, he stumbles forward onto his less-injured leg, peering around in the smoke for a shape he might recognize.

There is a shape, tall and upright, but it’s silent. A spire in the fog. Not the source of his name.

He keeps looking. He keeps listening. He crawls.

“Jon, where are you! Judith? Tim! I need help, somebody help me!”

Martin? That’s Martin’s voice, high and desperate and rough with smoke, too, there’s smoke everywhere, they need to get out of here. They need to leave, before the police arrive, before the structure collapses, before—

The screaming has transitioned into bawling, deeply pained cries for help, and only when he finally sees Martin’s shape hunkered over a spasmodic, outstretched body does it click. Danny is hurt. He was hurt in the explosion, and Martin needs help with him. Jon drags himself over to Danny’s other side and reaches out for his arm to find his sleeve wet with blood, but not torn. Danny screams again at the contact of his hand, startling Jon into letting go.

“How—” Jon coughs again. “Where is he hurt, what—”

“I-I don’t— Everywhere!” Martin panics, his hands on Danny’s chest like he’s about to start compressions. He doesn’t, of course, because Danny is horrifically alive, and there is blood seeping through his ringmaster’s jacket like the fabric has just been lain upon a dark puddle.

Jon reaches out for his hem to lift it, earning a smack from Danny’s frantic, bloody hand. He persists. He gasps.

The open wound is a perfect split down the middle of his stomach, disappearing at his groin, and most certainly extending up his chest into a V. He’d heard about the autopsy seams. He could never have imagined they would split open again.

Quickly, Jon lowers the shirt again and presses down on the wound, earning another guttural sound of agony. Martin is weeping but trying not to let it slow him down, trying to pin Danny’s arm to his side with his knees. Jon tries to do the same, but then who will get his legs? They surely go down his legs, too.

“Tim?” he hears himself croak out. “Tim, where are you?”

No answer. He could assume the worst, but he remembers that tall shape and turns around. It’s still there, standing a distance away in utter stillness, like another wax statue that hasn’t been taken down in the blast or a troupe member that refused to be exterminated, but Jon knows that sound. The sound of phantom water.

“Tim!” he shouts. “Tim, come over here and help your brother!”

No answer.

Jon turns around again and waves a hand through the smoke. There is daylight shining through a busted out window, casting beams onto the filthy, ruined floor. Tim is hovering a few yards away, staring down at the ground and soaked to the bone as water pours from the top of his head all the way down his body. He doesn’t look injured — why would he? He’s still clenching his fist around what Jon can only assume is the detonator.

“Tim!” he shouts again. “Tim, we need you to— oh.”

At Tim’s feet, there is a dark pool. It creeps slowly across the floor towards Jon’s own extended shoe, glinting red in the dusty daylight. Jon traces the seeping to its source, and meets Gerry’s open eyes.

“Oh, no… No, no, no.”

The blood is pouring fast from his head, spreading out from under the mess of his hair. His mouth is parted almost in surprise, frozen around an unspoken word, like he’s been interrupted from a dream.

This has to be a dream.

“Jon, could you please focus!”

Jon realizes he’s let go of Danny entirely. Jon stutters back around, stutters his next half-words. Nothing comes of his violent nausea. He almost wishes it would. Maybe it would wake him up.

“I— Martin, Gerry is—”

“I know!” Martin snipes, and then takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I know. I know, and I can’t think about that right now, not when— Danny is still alive, please, help me keep him that way!”

“We need… We need an ambulance, we need… Where’s my phone…?”

Jon pats at himself, feeling the tack of bloody handprints on his clothes as he goes. When he finds his phone, he finds the screen cracked, but it still works when he presses his sticky thumb to the sensor. His free hand moves back to Danny’s arm, squeezing his bicep hard.

“Y-Yes, hello? We’re at the House of Wax. Yes, that one, in— in Great Yarmouth. There’s been— There’s been an explosion, people are hurt, we need… please, send an ambulance. Send two. Send all of them! I don’t care, please, just— please, help.”

Jon doesn’t realize he’s started to cry until he’s bowed forward enough over Danny that the next time his arm flails, it clips him on the face. He recoils and nearly drops his phone, barely catching it to put it back into his pocket before he secures his hands around Danny’s arm again and holds tight. He dreads turning his head again, but he has to.

“Tim,” he says more carefully this time. “Tim, you need to move. You need to do something.”

No answer.

“Either help us, o-or go find Judith, or the Hunters, or see if any of the troupe are still alive.”

No answer.

“Anything, Tim! Can you hear me?”

No answer.

“He can’t hear you,” Martin sniffs. “I don’t— I don’t think he can hear anything.”

The water in his ears may be too much. He may be frozen in his avatar state, consumed by repulsive satiation. He may be lost, too.

When Danny’s screaming dies down into whimpers, his thrashing into mere twitches, Jon finds himself just as worried as Martin. He lets Martin take up the mantle of trying to keep his attention — Danny? Angel, can you hear me? Stay with me, stay awake! I can’t lose you here, not like this! — because what could Jon possibly say? What could he offer to either of the Stoker brothers now?

A clattering sounds from afar. Jon snaps his head up to look for the source of it, spying Judith stumbling over a pile of rubble to reach them. She’s covered in soot, clutching her arm and limping. When she reaches their pocket of the room, her eyes go to Gerry first.

“Oh, G-d.”

Jon swallows hard. “Where are the other Hunters?”

“Dead. Think they fragged each other.”

Her voice is dreamy and distant. She crosses over to Tim, and bends down to pick something up off the floor. Gerry’s walking stick, forgotten in between the two scenes. She doesn’t wipe the blood off of the handle, inspecting the head of the hammer in the light for something Jon can’t see. He watches her study Tim like a marble statue in a museum, until his eyes drop once again to meet Gerry’s.

This has got to be a dream.

“What happened to him?” Judith asks of Danny.

“I— I don’t know,” Martin struggles. “I think a lot of his old wounds opened up, but I don’t know how, I don’t see why they— Jon, how long until the ambulance gets here?”

Jon blinks. “I didn’t ask.”

Martin doesn’t chastise him, instead nodding with a tearful sound. He’s come to lean his forearm across Danny’s collarbones, his other bent to cover as much of the vertical line down his chest as he can. Like he’s holding together some little paper art project, waiting for the glue to dry. His wrist is angled strangely, and for the first time, Jon notices his gritting teeth. He’s hurt, too, and he’s fighting through it.

“I’ll go wave them down,” Judith says, starting to step over the growing lake of Gerry’s blood. A thin branch of it is close to touching the edge of Danny’s.

“What’s our plan?”

“Plan?” Jon almost mocks. “What can— What can we even do now?”

“You were all about contingency plans before,” she says dryly. “You didn’t plan for something like this?”

“Well, obviously not, Judith! Of course I didn’t think—”

Didn’t think… what? That only some of them might die? That the rest of them would have to live with it? Of course he didn’t plan for that.

“I say… let it get sectioned.” She shakes her head at the scene. “Let it all get put away.”

“How do we do that?”

“Tell them that something unbelievable happened, that they got caught in the crossfire, that you don’t know what happened to them because something was happening to you, too. Isn’t that the truth?”

It sounds too easy. “Won’t we be detained anyway until they decide we’re not lying?”

“We all need a hospital. I have a feeling we’ll be fine, when they see the rest of the scene. The choir’s dead, too.” Judith turns to Tim once more. “…I’ll put this in my car before they get here.”

She leaves with the help of the walking staff, calm and direct, and Jon doesn’t think he has it in him to be a Hunter, after all.

Tim pays her no mind, still staring stone still at Gerry’s body. He’d landed on his back, mostly, one leg tipped to the side and his hand delicately curled in the puddle. The other is resting serenely on his hip, almost like he’d been posed that way. One of his eyes is severely bloodshot, grey shining up through the darkness of it like a coin. The longer Jon looks at him, the clearer the sunlight is through the window. It’s a beautiful day outside. It’s the middle of summer. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“How did— How did this happen?”

“There was an explosion, Jon,” Martin mutters.

“No, I know, but— but the rest of us… We’re fine, we’re… Why him?”

“I don’t have an answer for you. I didn’t see what happened.” Martin lifts an arm for a split second to wipe his nose, leaving a smudge of red on his face. He stares down at Danny’s face, paler than fear has ever left it, one-track minded as ever. It’s not as if Jon can blame him. What else in this room is worth worrying about now? It’s all over. They were just in time, and they were too late.

Jon forgets until the sound of sirens. He spins around to face Tim again, to tell him that he needs to control his leaking before someone sees, but the only evidence that Tim was ever standing there in the first place is a small disturbance in the blood where it has been thinned and expanded with water.

Firefighters first, police, and then the paramedics with their stretchers and their questions and their back away, let us take over. Martin tries his best to explain the extent of Danny’s wounds, launching into the true lie that Judith encouraged without rehearsal.

“We were just walking around, and something weird started happening, there— there was music, and dancing? But it was terrible dancing, not bad to look at but bad to be a part of, we couldn’t stop, there are— there are more people lost in here somewhere, I just know it, but I don’t know where they are. There was—” A sob. “There were people without skin.”

Danny can pass very well as a mere victim of whatever supernatural nonsense had taken place, certainly. His wounds are too severe and his clothes too close to pristine over them to make any sense to the ordinary eye.

Jon is asked about Gerry.

“I—” His throat stops up with a cry. “I didn’t see. I think… I think the blast must have… I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Should he mention the Magnus Institute? Will that hurry up the Section Eight process? He doesn’t know what to do. When a paramedic asks to see his leg, he’s powerless to do anything but obey, limping out of the building with the help of a firefighter.

Martin isn’t permitted into Danny’s ambulance, the paramedics too frantic to stabilize him. Jon catches one of them noting the texture and colour of his blood in confusion, in distress, and looks down at his hands to find them more maroon than crimson in the sunlight. He sways.

While he’s being bandaged on the back of an ambulance, a stretcher carrying a body bag is rolled by and loaded into another. He watches as a series of dark, wet spots form on the ground leading up to the step into the back before the doors close.

Good. Someone should stay with him until the end. Jon only knows Jewish funerals, the strict customs that being sectioned might not care to honour. Perhaps Gerry wouldn’t care one way or another if someone were to guard his body, but he still shouldn’t be alone.

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

They bring him straight to the morgue.

Tim follows behind the man with the stretcher in silence, in absence, and cares nothing for the mess his footsteps leave behind. When the swinging door shuts in his face, he steps right through it. He watches the man handle his lover with ambivalence, with some anxiety, and waits as long as it takes for him to leave. He is going to be alone with Gerry if it kills someone else.

When there’s no one left in the room, he releases his grip on disappearance and watches the perfect stillness of the black bag. He doesn’t feel that old sense of being observed anymore. It’s his turn to stare.

He reaches for the zipper.

Pulling it down takes an eternity, his hands numb with hate. When he’s peeled back the sides to free Gerry’s face, to let his body breathe, he takes in the sight without so much as a shaken gasp. Gerry’s eyes are still open, the one damaged with the impact to his skull, the other clear as day, but catching no light. Not anymore.

Tim reaches out to shut them with his fingertips. To wipe a speck of blood from his forehead. To stroke dust from his cheek.

Gerry’s head lolls with the touch, no control left to be had. The fluorescent lights cast a shine on the blood-matted depression in his skull.

Tim’s eyes catch on the purple bruise on the side of her neck, nestled sweetly just above her collar. His fingertips drift down to touch it, to beg for a pulse. He remembers why he never bothered with prayer.

Gerry never bothered with it, either. What would he want to happen next? It’s up to Tim now. One decision he never wanted to make for her.

Tim remains by his side until the morgue doors open again, at which point he makes eye contact with a startled hospital employee. Water pours from his head and shoulders to spread across the tile floor at his feet, his hand still resting on Gerry’s lifeless breastbone. The worker doesn’t scream, staring back and breathing hard, until Tim forces two words past the outpouring of water from his mouth.

“Get— out.”

Now, they scramble to run, and he turns back to his love for one last, long glance. The next time someone interrupts him, he’ll have to leave. He can’t keep Gerry like this forever. It wouldn’t be fair.

He needs to be out in the waiting room as family when someone finally comes looking for some. He needs to be composed. He needs to be human. To handle this like a husband.

Tim reaches for Gerry’s chin to straighten his head again. Dignity.

Gently, he reaches his hands behind her neck to feel for the clasp of her collar first, and then the chain that holds her padlock. He can get the rest of his jewelry and his jacket back when they strip him for cremation. No one else should get to touch these. Not for anything.

Gerry would choose cremation. He wouldn’t want to be locked in a pine box, slow to decompose. He wouldn’t choose to leave remnants for desecration should someone feel like fucking with the Archivist just a little more. He feared the sink even more than he feared burning. He wouldn’t choose to be Buried.

That doesn’t mean it sits right with Tim. For there to be nothing left of her, just like that. Like she was never here.

He knows what Gerry wanted. He knows exactly what happened.

Tim tucks the collar and padlock into his pocket, no regard for the blood on them, and looks down at Gerry’s bloodless, peaceful face. Carefully, he bends down to place his lips over hers one last time, as if he had a final breath to give her. All he’s ever had was a kiss. He’s still colder than she is.

He zips the bag shut, but lingers just that moment longer.

When the doors open again — the same worker, this time with reinforcements and a right there, see! — Tim lets himself be seen before he revokes the privilege, disappearing with all that he can take with him. He walks past them as any live man ordinarily would, sure to brush shoulders with the one that he knows now will never forget his face. The shudder makes him stronger, and he needs it. There is nothing else left in him.

He walks back into the world in an empty hallway, and keeps going until he finds Jon and Martin in the waiting room. Jon shoots upright when he sees him, stumbling on his new injury. Tim takes a seat beside him. Jon’s questions are a blur of sound and disinterest, until a long silence passes and Tim hears him say:

“I don’t understand.”

“It was the bomb, Jon,” Martin tries. “Something must have hit him when it went off.”

“No,” Tim says, his voice foreign in his throat and his own ears. They need the truth. “It was Danny.”

Martin recoils with a curled lip, disgusted by the notion. “No, that’s not true. You don’t know that.”

“I do know,” Tim refutes. “They had an arrangement.”

“An arrange— what?” Jon shakes his head. “You can’t be serious.”

“You knew about this?” Martin demands. “You knew and you just—?”

“Choose your next words very carefully, Martin.”

Martin shuts his mouth. Jon’s better leg bounces with tension. He breaks the next silence with a question that Tim wishes he couldn’t hear.

“What do we tell the others? When, h-how?”

Tim stares at the floor. “In person, when we get back. I’ll do it.”

“We have no idea how long we’re going to be here,” Martin tells him. “Danny’s in bad shape. He might be stuck here for a long time.”

“If you want to stay with him, you should. I won’t.”

Martin almost looks offended, hurt, before he reins himself back in with a cleared throat. “They won’t let me see him yet.”

“It takes a long time to suture the entire body,” Jon contributes. “Those wounds went down to the muscle.”

Tim would wince if he could. Martin does, leaning forward to scrub at his face with the one hand not in a sling. He’s washed the blood off of his hands, but his clothes are still soaked in it. Jon’s are, too. Tim doesn’t feel the need to tell them that their bags are in the trunk of the car they drove here. They’ll change when they remember.

“It feels wrong to be so calm,” Jon says suddenly. “I feel like I should be throwing the biggest conniption of my life.”

“That’d be a pretty big conniption,” Martin mutters.

“It would be, yes. But I can’t seem to… access it.” His brow creases, as if in confusion. “This still doesn’t feel real.”

“It’s real,” Tim says simply. “Gerry’s dead.”

Jon’s face scrunches up in refusal as he turns away to lean into his hand. Martin stares at the floor at Tim’s feet for a while before he speaks up.

“I’m sorry, Tim.”

Tim has nothing else to say.

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

Martin bolts out of his chair when Danny stirs, fingertips to the edge of his bed.

“Danny?” he asks, tentative. “Danny, can you hear me? It’s Martin, I’m right here.”

Danny whines in protest. His arm shifts barely a centimeter before he seizes up with pain again, eyes flying open as he gasps. Martin freezes; he learned from the sore spot on his cheek. Don’t get too close.

“Look at me, over here. That’s right, right over here. See? It’s only me.”

At first, Danny says nothing. His eyes are bleary with the frankly lethal amount of sedatives they’d given him after the last time he’d lashed out at an orderly when she tried to change his bandages, his mouth slack and weak. His chest heaves with shallow breaths, but he looks at Martin and keeps his eyes locked on him. Martin will take that.

He sits back down in his chair, pulling out the magazine he’d gotten from the waiting room. It’s hard to turn the pages one-handed, his left arm still in the sling. “I was just reading this trashy thing here, but none of the gossip is all that good.”

Not that he expects a response or anything. He just wants Danny to get used to the sound of his voice again, to his presence in the room. Eventually, it feels stupid to make this kind of small talk, though. He tosses the magazine down at the very foot of the bed and leans forward on his knees.

“Can I… get you anything? Water?”

Danny licks his lips, but says nothing. Martin can hear his breath trembling.

“Okay… when you change your mind, you let me know. The doctor said we might try to sit you up a little bit today, if you’re up for it? Just a little bit, not too far. Only until you’ve had enough. I… I think it’s a good idea to try.”

It’s difficult to look Danny in the eye when he’s still so drugged out, so silent. Martin regrets looking away, though, because then all he can see are his heavily bandaged limbs. The padded cuffs around his wrists.

“I wish I could just take these off of you, but… but you hit an orderly, so—” Martin lets out a curt breath. “It’s for your own protection, too. So you don’t rip your stitches. It’s been a few days, though, and you’re doing a little better, so maybe they can start weaning you off the morphine, a-and if you’re more alert, you won’t get so scared anymore when somebody comes by to help.”

“Tim.”

Danny’s voice is wrecked from screaming, reduced to a small, thin whisper. Martin looks down at his laced hands. “Tim isn’t here.”

He takes a long moment to form a second word, licking his dry lips again. “Where?”

“He’s— Jon is… teaching him how to sit shiva.” If Martin could lower his head any more, he would. “They’re about halfway through.”

Danny’s eyes glaze over as they drift up to the ceiling. Martin gives him a moment; that might have been a confusing thing to say while he’s still only partially in his head. It was devoid of context, it was a stupid way to answer that question, dammit, he’s going to need to start over.

“What, um… What do you remember?”

There is another stretch of quiet while Danny seems to think. The sound of hospital machines chews on Martin’s bones. In the end, Danny only comes up with one murmured, deadened word.

“Crack.”

Martin’s stomach solidifies into a brick inside him. He fights the way his leg wants to shake, running his hands over his thighs and pressing down hard. “You remember that?”

Danny nods minutely. “The dancer… thanked me.”

“…But you didn’t do it for her,” Martin suggests. “You did it for Pharos. Right?”

“Right.”

An empty little echo, barely an exhale. Danny’s eyes slip shut, finally, and in the bright light from the window, Martin can see the faintest glint of a tear stuck in the corner of just one. It doesn’t dislodge to fall when he looks up again, clinging instead to his lashes. Martin aches for him in a way that perhaps no one else has it in them to ache.

“I won’t… claim to know what sort of ‘arrangement’ you and Pharos had, or why, but… I know you. I know you wouldn’t have done it without an honest reason.”

“Honest,” Danny huffs.

“I know you,” Martin says again. “I know you’d never—”

“Stop. Stop it.” Danny shifts and shock-stops again, a pained sound caught in his throat. He keeps his eyes screwed shut tight. “Please, don’t. Just stop. Stop.”

“Okay,” Martin murmurs. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

He sits in helplessness as Danny fights the pain of trying to turn away and hide, as he struggles against the wave of grief and regret that Martin can see written plain across his face. Tears build up in Martin’s throat, too; he’s only cried in private since that day, too set on being strong for Danny. No one else could stay in Great Yarmouth just to wait around for Danny to wake up or become a more cooperative patient or explain himself. Tim couldn’t stay in the city that rushed to burn Gerry’s bones.

To be so absent from the mourning process back in London makes Martin feel like a terrible friend. He can’t cite feeling less than close to Gerry as a reason for it; of course his death makes Martin want to curl up into a hole and stay there, but there’s— there’s another factor in the situation, and if no one else can stomach it, then he will. Why stop now?

“Can I hold your hand?”

Danny makes a disagreeable noise. Martin accepts the rejection as gracefully as he can, sitting back in his chair to diminish the temptation to reach out anyway.

“Maybe I could get you that water—?”

“Leave,” Danny spits out on the tail ends of a sharp breath. “Just… please, go. Go home.”

“Well, no, I won’t be doing that much. I can leave the room for a while, I’ll go down to the waiting room again, but… No, Danny, there’s no way I’m just leaving you here. It’s a three hour drive, and you’re in no shape to be by yourself. You need someone to bring you home when you’re ready.”

It must hurt like hell to cry. Martin can see the tendons in Danny’s neck standing out with how harshly he’s turned his head away, his body jolting painfully as he tries to keep himself quiet. How could anyone possibly be expected to hold all this in? Martin isn’t judging him. He wants to cry, too.

“I love you,” he says, even knowing it might even make things worse. Just on the off chance that it doesn’t. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

He stands up without waiting for a response, grabbing up the magazine from the foot of the bed. The waiting room is a better place to check his texts.

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

Every desk in the bullpen filled, but an empty Head Archivist’s office. Sasha glances towards it every now and again, still half-expecting it to creak open and to see Gerry yawning in the doorway. They haven’t erased the nap counter from the white board. They haven’t been touching the calendar, the last blue dot left behind on the day before they all left for Great Yarmouth. It’ll simply gather dust, she suspects, because what function does it serve now? No more estrogen. No more joy.

There is no joy left in Tim. It’s been wrung out of him in a way that Sasha has never seen before. Never in his wildest depressions or losses has he ever looked this grim. His eyes sink into shadows when he turns his head the right way in the light. The wet spots on his shirt could almost be mistaken for sweat if he didn’t radiate such a coldness that sitting across from him makes her want to tighten her cardigan around herself. She hasn’t seen him smile since their meeting in the safehouse, when the corners of his mouth turned up in a halfhearted attempt at saying I’ll see you soon before she hugged him goodbye the second time.

She joined in on Jon’s attempted shiva. They all had, except for Martin. Jon explained the rules; only some of the restrictions, as Gerry was not a Jew, but he said that for the time being, they were to see themselves as Gerry’s immediate family. Who else would mourn him properly? It not being his custom hardly mattered in this case; it was something where he would otherwise have nothing. According to Jon, shiva was meant to contain the grieving process into something manageable. To allow for the full depth of it to sink its teeth in, to truly sit in it, and then when the time came, face the world again with renewed strength. It was the only way he knew how to grieve, and so it was all he could do to share it.

Tim had followed the rules in silence. Sasha watched him from her low cushion and waited for an opportunity to touch him, to console him, but he never gave her one. On the morning of the seventh day, Jon took it upon himself to say play the visitor and recited a blessing in front of Tim, bidding G-d to comfort him among all the mourners in Jerusalem, and reached to help him up off the floor. “Arise,” he’d said, and Tim had.

It just wasn’t Tim’s custom, either. It’s been a week since they returned to work, and he’s still a stone gargoyle in his desk chair, empty of light and effort. Jon told her that for spouses, the mourning period will be considerably intense for at least a year.

A year. Two years. Three years, four. Eventually, the years without Gerry will outnumber the ones they had with him, and Tim will feel it like no one else. Sasha looks at him, and she feels moths crawling underneath her clothes, trapped there in her own grief.

Sasha has lost enough sisters. This one is especially cruel.

“So…” Martin begins, breaking the long silence. “What exactly are we going to… do now? Here, I mean, at the Institute.”

“The same thing we’ve been doing, I presume.” Jon sets a pile of papers off to the side. “The Unknowing was only one ritual of many potential rituals. I think it’s only natural that we should keep trying to stop as many as we can.”

“But—” Martin bites his tongue for a moment. “I mean… sure. But something has to happen next, right? I mean, Elias—”

“Elias is mine.”

Tim’s voice doesn’t even sound like his voice anymore. Sasha shifts in her seat.

They’ve talked about this already. Judith went back into the rubble to find Begging the King and bring it to her father, who studied page 77 with a thoughtful face. There was only so much he could speculate about the incantation, but the long string of words at the end made him surmise that it was an attempt to bring forth all of Smirke’s Fourteen at once, and that the results could have been catastrophic. None of them knew how far Gerry must have read, or if he’d even been reading it at all by the time Danny swung the hammer, and so it’s difficult to say that the sacrifice was worth it.

But it looks like they wiped the chessboard entirely. Elias can’t come back to the Institute and reinstate himself as Head, he can’t ‘promote’ anyone to the Archivist position and start over whatever the hell he’d been doing with Gerry the whole time, he can’t show his face while it’s still Faraday’s. Whatever game he was playing, he’s lost.

Sasha doesn’t know if she’s allowed to feel triumphant or if she should just settle for being afraid of the retaliation that could creep up on them should he switch bodies again, or send something after them, or pull another gun. She wants to believe he won’t risk it; not with Tim still around to want revenge. She’s willing to bet he’s more afraid of Tim than he ever was before.

“…Okay, but, after that.” Martin’s skepticism is hesitant, but reasonable. “I just feel—”

“Lost,” Jon suggests, sounding far away.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Sasha repeats, too. Tim has the right idea, in his almost-vow-of-silence. There’s not a whole lot else to say.

Another length of quiet sweeps through the Archives. Sasha can’t bring herself to touch her laptop, or get up for a box of folders. She can’t imagine recording statements onto her phone. She can’t imagine moving, paralyzed into her chair by the crawling sensation at the small of her back, the bend of her knees, in her sleeves.

“Hellooo?”

Sasha, Jon and Martin all jump in their seats as Divshah elbows her way into the Archives. She’s carrying a tray of coffee cups with both hands. Dread drops into Sasha’s stomach like a cement block.

“Oh, um—” Jon swallows. “H-Hello, Divshah.”

“Hi!” she chirps. “I haven’t seen you guys in a while, so I thought I’d bring something by! Scoot, scoot!”

She hops over to the bullpen and sets the tray down in front of Sasha and Tim. Sasha numbly accepts the biscotti as Divshah passes it to her, watching the cups as she distributes them by memory until there’s only one left in the very middle. Divshah takes it into her hands and straightens up to look around the room with a smile.

“Where’s Gerry?” She gasps gently. “Is he asleep?”

Sasha looks up at Tim to find him entirely unmoved. There is a droplet forming at his hairline. One glance at Jon and Martin tells her that she’s going to have to get up from her chair after all, because this conversation can’t happen in here.

“Um… Divshah, come with me really quick.”

Confused, Divshah places the last cup down on Sasha’s desk. “What’s going on?”

Sasha doesn’t respond just yet, shaking out her clothes a bit as she stands. If she doesn’t look down and around for the moths, they may just fade away.

Divshah follows her to Basira’s old room down the hall, her cheerful smile traded for something more apprehensive. Sasha shuts the door and sighs, catching her own face in both hands for a moment before she bites the bullet.

“You don’t have to bring cocoa for Gerry anymore,” she begins.

Divshah wilts. “Oh, no! Does he not work here anymore?”

“No, he doesn’t. Because, um.” Sasha swallows roughly. “Because— he died, Divshah. About two weeks ago.”

For a moment, Divshah just stares at her. She’s not like them, though, and she’s quick to blink. “What?”

“There was an accident. He… took a bad blow to the head. It happened really fast. There was nothing anyone could do.”

Instant are the tears. Divshah covers her mouth with both hands, shaking her head. “No, that’s— How could that happen? That’s not right, I don’t— He couldn’t—”

“I know,” Sasha interrupts, her own throat stopping up again. “I know, come here.”

Divshah slips into her arms like a river, clinging tight to the back of her cardigan. If there are moths around, she doesn’t seem to notice them, or care. Why would she? She’s been touched by the Corruption, too, and nothing seems to faze her. This is the first time Sasha has seen her look anything less than simply happy to be alive.

It takes a while for her to stop crying, pulling back to sniff so hard it must hurt. “How’s Tim doing?”

“Not well,” Sasha admits. “He’s really not himself right now.”

“Oh, I can’t imagine,” Divshah says nauseously. “I’m so— I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make it worse with the— with the cocoa, I just wanted to—”

“I know, sweetheart. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Sasha pets her hair; her dark roots have grown out past her ears, the bleach-fried ends freshly lopped off. “Just… He needs some space. They all do, they were all there for it.”

“Oh, G-d.” Divshah hides her face again, letting out another round of tears. “That’s— That’s awful.”

“Yeah, from what I gather, it… it was.”

She could be more comforting, probably. She could be better. Or she could be honest, and cry a little bit, too. Divshah hugs her one more time, and Sasha plucks off her glasses to bend and bury her face in her shoulder. She hasn’t done this with Tim yet. She doesn’t know how much longer she can take it.

“I’ll, um… I’ll go.” Divshah wipes her face, stepping away and towards the door. “Enjoy your biscotti.”

Sasha steps out after her, watching as she pauses in front of the Archives doors and looks in through the window with a tearful face before she carries on towards the stairs at a brisk walk. Good that she didn’t go back in. She has some tact after all.

That was mean to think. Sasha taps her own cheek in reprimand, to shock the tears back inside, before she goes back into the Archives with a straight face. Tim is still sitting with his back to the door, the cocoa still sitting in front of him. Jon meets her eyes with concern, arms wrapped tight around his stomach. His kurta today is pink.

“She’s gone,” Sasha tells them, sitting down.

“What did you tell her?” Martin asks.

“What else? I told her the truth.” Sasha stares down at the cocoa cooling in front of her. “She didn’t take it very well. Cried a lot.”

Jon and Martin both nod, but only Jon voices his opinion. “Good. Someone ought to. S-Someone other than us, I mean. Anyone, really.” And then he gasps. “Oh, G-d, someone has to tell Tazia.”

Sasha winces. “You do it. I can’t. Not after Divshah just now, I— I can’t.”

He pulls out his phone to scroll through his messages for the large group chat they’d made back in Venice. The only way that anyone would even have her number. The only other person that Sasha can think of that knew Gerry, really knew him, and will care that he’s gone.

Tim moves, suddenly, to take the cocoa from the desk and swipe it into the bin.

The remainder of the day moves like molasses. The moment the clock strikes 5:00, Sasha stands up and requests that Tim follow her. He rises and does, and the drive home is silent. He waits on the doorstep for her to find her key and use it, perhaps consciously stopping himself from walking straight through. Without another word, he retreats to his bedroom and shuts the door.

Sasha doesn’t know what to do with the rest of her evening. She spends most of it on the couch, texting Melanie. Danny got home yesterday, having left the hospital against medical advice, and is largely immobile in bed. He still won’t speak much, either, apparently. Sasha can’t wrap her mind around the fact that she currently lives in a world where the Stoker boys — of all people — have gone speechless.

It’s half past midnight when she hears the crash. It jolts her out of bed and into the hallway, towards Tim’s room, before an even scarier noise halts her worried footsteps entirely. A garbled wail, like a scream underwater, interspersed with loud, hacking sobs. She looks down at her feet; there’s water seeping out from under his door. When she knocks, the only response is another item shattering — the bedside lamp? A picture frame? Sasha reaches for the doorknob to find it locked.

“Tim?” she calls out against the door. “Tim, can you hear me?”

The drowning noises don’t stop for her. Every image her mind conjures up of what he might look like right now only serves to split her heart further apart. She almost doesn’t want to see, but it feels like she needs to know. She needs to know in order to fix it. She needs to be able to hold him, to shush him, to simply be with him until the pain eases. She needs him to want her to.

“Tim,” she repeats, pleading. “Open the door, let me help you.”

“No!” comes the shout, hysterical. It’s barely intelligible as a word through the slosh of water that must have spewed from his mouth alongside it. “Go— away!”

Fine, then. If he wants her to do this the hard way, then she will. Sasha leaves the hall to dig through her room for the new lock-picking kit Melanie got her for her most recent birthday. The lock on his door is simple and plain like all the others in the house’s interior, so it barely resists when she fits the tool inside it. The phantom water is cold under her bare feet as she stands in the growing puddle, until the lock pops open and she ventures inside.

The floor is almost entirely flooded, and there’s a large wet spot on the center of the bed. She was right, the bedside lamp had been thrown to the ground, pieces of glass scattered in the water. She can’t see yet what else had been broken in the dark, but she can see Tim’s shape in the moonlight through the window, curled up between his side table and the edge of his mattress on the floor. He grasps at his chest like he’s suffocating all over again, water cascading down his body at an almost threatening speed. It’s a wonder there’s any room for him to cry through the outpouring.

There is no splashing sound when she walks through the flood to reach him, the water only as real as they believe it to be. Sasha chooses to believe he could breathe through it if he wanted to. That he will, eventually, when this has run its course. It’s been such a long time coming.

She sits down on the floor under the window, her dressing gown skimming the top of the puddle. Tim jolts like he’s in the tank again, his head banging against the side table, and Sasha lets herself wince because he’s not even looking at her. He can’t yet. He’s not ready.

So, she waits. She watches as it all comes rushing out of him at once, until he’s reduced to trickles and trembling and softer cries that finally sound more like weeping than a waterfall. He leans against the mattress and she finally sees what he’s been clutching in his fist; Gerry’s padlock on its chain.

There’s still nothing to say.

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

Melanie zips up her backpack with a sigh. “Martin, come on! You’re coming with me!”

“No the hell I’m not.”

“You have to! I’m down an assistant, and you know Callum. You went to his birthday party this year!”

Martin slams his mug down on the counter hard enough that she sees some of his tea splash out of it. “I’m not going to be a part of this video, Melanie. I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”

Melanie crosses her arms. “You’re really not even going to give me a statement for it, either? You don’t have anything to say about our dead friend?”

He whirls around with a vengeance. “What do you want me to talk about, Melanie! The time I stole his keys and went behind his back and got Leitner all NotThem’d, so he compelled me and made it really clear that he’d never trust me? Or the time I nearly strangled him to death and proved him right? Or maybe for something lighter, how about the time we went to a flesh witch’s house and he hacked up his tonsils in front of me, that was a blast!”

“Okay, I get it!” Melanie cuts him off. “Fuck you.”

“Just— go do your thing, and don’t bring this up around me ever again.”

With a scowl, she turns around to snatch up her bag and storm out of the house. She hates this Martin. He’s worse than punctuation-user Martin, because now he uses punctuation all the time and he’s mean in person. Even when he had that bullet inside of him, he wasn’t quite so cutting.

She knows it’s because of Danny leaving, but it’s been three bloody months. He should be starting to level out again. He should be starting to— well, to get over it would be unrealistic to expect of him. How are any of them supposed to get over any of this?

Maybe she’s faring better because she’s the one Danny said goodbye to. The only one, because she was the only one he could trust not to beg him to stay. She’s the one who gets pulse check texts now and then, and sometimes the name of whatever continent he’s made it to. When he said he was in South America last weekend, she almost called him a liar.

Melanie doesn’t want to be angry at Martin, but it’s hard when he’s angry at her. For harboring something that he’s been deprived of. For persisting in the face of the paralysis that’s taken over the entire Archives, still, to this day. For being almost relieved by it, because Danny’s absence gave her enough space to breathe to decide on her next, long overdue project. One that he could never have helped her with.

It starts snowing halfway through her bus ride, speckling against the windows to dissolve into droplets. Melanie watches them trickle away, going over the intro to her video in her head again and again and again.

This is a video I’ve wanted to make for a long time, but it’s also one I never wanted to have to make at all. I’m going to start this by asking for some basic courtesy, because while I know this is the internet and I’m broadcasting from a channel about supernatural crap that a lot of skeptics like to make fun of, I’m going to be telling you about that close friend of mine that passed and I will not tolerate disrespect towards his memory. There will be times where I can only give so much proof, because some of the events I’m going to outline are from a long time ago, and yeah, have to do with supernatural crap that didn’t exactly leave behind a lot of clues. Long time viewers will know that the real stuff can’t always be captured digitally, and I want to finally tell you who opened my eyes and changed my entire career path with that knowledge: his name was Gerard Keay.

It was hard to deliver the lines into the camera when she first started recording. Took way too many takes, and she’s still not sure about the script. She might have to rewrite it a third time, maybe a fourth before this is over. This is going to be a big project. It’s going to be all the more difficult without Danny’s help.

One thing that makes it easier are the number of witnesses willing to appear on camera and speak on it.

Divshah wanted to tell her story the very day that Melanie asked her if she would, eager to tell the world the truth about how Gerry saved her from an abusive relationship without even knowing her name, and how he was never unkind to her, or dismissive of her disposition. She knows she’s a lot to handle, but Gerry never put out the idea that she was too much. He was accepting, and friendly, and he always put something in the tip jar.

Melanie sent Timothy Hodge an email. She plans to put a screenshot of his reply in the video, too, with his permission; he wants to put Jane Prentiss behind him, but he will admit with no hesitation that the only reason he’s alive today is because of Gerry. Gerry noticed, Gerry saw the signs, and Gerry personally saw to it that he was brought to a hospital. Gerry did that.

Next on her list is Caroline Brodie.

The snow is sticking to the grass a little bit as she walks up to the door and knocks. Caroline answers quickly, expecting her at this time. She ushers her inside and to the living room, where she sits on the couch to wring her hands in anxious hesitation.

“Thank you for doing this,” Melanie says after she’s taken out her camera and tripod. “I know it’s… out of the blue, after all this time.”

“No one could have predicted that this would have happened.”

“Still, it’s been… what, a little over a year? Since—”

Since Basira took the umbra from Callum. Since Gerry scared him to save him. Since the worst time of this family’s lives finally came to a tentative end.

Caroline nods. “Just about, yes. It feels like so much longer ago, but… also like it was only yesterday. Do you ever get that feeling?”

“All the time.”

Melanie offers a small smile, and then turns on her camera. Caroline shifts to sit up straighter, presentable, nervous.

“So, you’re making this video as… a memorial?”

“Sort of. But also… there’s a lot of people out there who have some really wrong beliefs about who he was. And people who did know him only got him in passing, he was like some… mythic figure, even to me at first. So, now that he’s not here to have his privacy invaded more, I figured it’s finally time to shed some light on the situation and kind of… clear his name.”

Tim had granted his assent, though not in so many words. He knew she wouldn’t be exploitative about it, but the real root of his reason was clear: everything is pointless now, so it didn’t matter what she did. Jon and Sasha had already given a few accounts each, full of stories and love. They’ll surely think of more to add as time continues to pass, in the absence of any contribution from Tim. Melanie won’t press him the way she pressed Martin earlier. It’s different.

Caroline wraps her mind around it, and doesn’t pry about what his name needs clearing from. “What is it you want me to say?”

“Just… the truth of your experience, I suppose? This video is about Gerry, about the person he really was, everything he did to help people… So, whatever you remember about him, I’d really like to hear it.”

Caroline nods again, clearing her throat. Melanie gives her a thumbs up when the camera starts recording, gesturing for Caroline to look at her while she speaks. It takes a long moment and a deep breath, but she does.

“I didn’t know Gerry very well. I only met him a few times, and the most prominent of those memories was the scariest moment of my life. Even scarier than losing my child was watching him— tied to a chair, and afraid. It worked, is the thing; the scary thing worked. I-I couldn’t even begin to recount it for you, what the process of… freeing him, was like, but it saved his life. It gave me my baby back.

“And just before the scary part began, I remember Gerry… sitting in front of him, just talking to him. He showed him a scar that I can still see in my mind if I think back on it — a big, black handprint on his leg — and told him that he wasn’t alone in what he was going through. That letting people notice that he’s hurt and letting them help him was the only way to heal. I remember him pulling his rucksack into his lap and showing him all these little trinkets he’d gotten from people over time, and one of them was—” She laughs wetly. “One of them was from Callum. They’d met before on a bus one day, and my son flicked a paper ninja star at him. Something I might’ve scolded him for had I been there, but then… maybe Gerry wouldn’t have flung it back. Maybe they wouldn’t have had their fun, and my son would have one less fond memory of a kind stranger who paid attention to him. Gerry kept that ninja star pinned to his bag that whole time, because he must have been short on fond memories, too. I didn’t know him well, but I know that’s the kind of person he was. The fond sort.

“And Callum listened to him. He has friends, now. Good friends who come over and stay the night sometimes, and lightbulbs don’t break in our house anymore. He’s happy. He’s healthy. He’s safe. And we’re closer than ever, we’re in a good place. That whole time was… very dark for us, so dark, and if you’re asking me about Gerry… I’d say he did his best to shine just a little bit of light on the future he wanted for my son. No one made him do that, no one made him care. He just… did. And I wish I had taken the chance to thank him for that.”

After a hesitant hand motion from Caroline, Melanie shuts off the camera and dabs at the corner of her eye. She hadn’t been there for Callum’s rescue, or his second saving, but she’d heard the stories of their respective horrors. She didn’t know about the sentimental part of it, but she believes it. She knows it.

“Thank you, Caroline,” Melanie says again, and she’s taken off guard by the swelling of pain in her throat that comes with the words. She turns her face away to roll her eyes up to the ceiling, bouncing a hand on her leg. She’s not supposed to cry, not here.

Caroline gets up and rushes back with a box of tissues, handing the whole thing to her. Melanie laughs, and accepts it, letting herself let just a bit of it out before she forces it all back inside. Another mumbled thanks, and an equally quiet you’re welcome.

“Are you done already?”

Melanie jumps, snapping her head back around to see Callum standing at the foot of the stairs. His hair is in need of a trim, his shirt baggy around his arms and hanging low past his waist. He stares at her sullenly, one hand on the banister as he sways with the clear desire to enter the room.

“I don’t know,” Caroline says to him, and turns to Melanie. “Are we?”

“I, um— I think that’s just about all I needed, yes. We can watch it over and you can tell me if you want to do another take, but I think… I always think interviews are best kept organic, you know? We never recall things the same way twice, and we can’t… replicate the same emotion.”

Caroline agrees, looking down at her folded hands before she glances back up at her son. “Were you listening?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you want to come and talk with us?”

He gives Melanie a wary look before he slumps over to the couch to sit beside his mother. He doesn’t react much when she runs a hand through his hair and rubs his back once, his eyes tracing the camera and Melanie’s belongings.

“Why can’t I do one, too?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Caroline says. “We’d be telling the same story, wouldn’t we? I don’t want your face on any more… computers, or televisions, or any of that.”

“But he died.” He says it so plainly. “Shouldn’t I say something?”

“What would you say that she didn’t say already?” Melanie prompts.

He looks at the camera again. “Turn that on.”

“Why?”

“Because if I have to say it twice, I’ll get it wrong.”

Melanie looks at Caroline for permission. Caroline hesitates a moment longer, petting Callum’s hair again.

“Are you sure, honey?”

He nods. “A lot of people… have died, for me. And maybe he didn’t die for me, but he died, and I knew him. I want to do this.”

Caroline’s eyes well up again, and after another beat, she relents. She scoots over to the other side of the couch to let Callum take her seat in front of the camera, and Melanie starts to fiddle with her equipment again. Before she hits record, Callum asks her a difficult question.

“When’s Danny coming back?”

Melanie swallows. “I don’t know yet, kiddo. But I’m still in touch with him, so when I know, you’ll know.”

“Okay.”

She readjusts in her seat and angles the camera a little lower to focus on his face, and starts recording.

“Whenever you’re ready, go ahead.”

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

He listens to the rumble of the train around him in place of any sort of music, no headphones on his person since he left. Self-deprivation, perhaps, but that was almost the point. Instead he’s filled his life with the sounds of the world around him, voices to mimic and borrow, the machinery of travel and distance. No nice little daydream to get lost in. He hasn’t earned that.

His bag is light on his lap. He’d only brought enough with him that he could carry on his person at all times, replacing things when he needed to the same way he’d swindled his way onto planes, boats, trains like this one, when he wanted to take his time instead of traveling through mirrors. Excuse me, that’s my seat. Oh, you already punched my ticket. The same way he’d grifted their way to Greece the first time he left home with Martin and—

Home. What a lost notion.

It’d be a lie to say he didn’t still daydream. His dreams are different now; no longer limited to the Circus the second time, no longer Watched by that haunting pair of silver eyes. They’re broader again, now with new hammersplat sounds and Tim is there, turning away from him. Sometimes they’re not about anything at all, ordinary dreams that he didn’t realize he could still have. Ones that leave him emptier than the ones that wake him up with chills or a shout, because he hasn’t earned those, either.

But some mornings, he would wake up in a motel without arms around him and sincerely wonder where they went. Had Martin gotten up to get them coffee? Was he showering, or off finding a vending machine? Will he be back soon?

The illusion never lasted very long. It was always a source of stinging while the rest of him stayed numb and distant, removed from the experiences he could be having in Zimbabwe and Costa Maya and Sydney if this were a vacation. If this were anything but a chance to think. Mostly, he wandered.

He’s finished, now.

The train comes to a screeching halt, and he rises with his bag to exit. His legs have had eleven months to heal, nearly ten of them spent walking, and still they ache with each step. He doesn’t need a taxi for the rest of the way, or a bus. He’ll bide his time now that there’s so little of it left.

It’s the first of July. The crickets are loud in patches of grass when he reaches the start of the lawns, and the sun warms the back of his neck. He doesn’t count the minutes on a watch, or pull his phone from his pocket. He wouldn’t search for a mirror to jump through even if he thought he could land right inside the house. He still doesn’t even know if he’ll be welcome there.

Try as he might to stay numb, his stomach twirls up into tighter and tighter knots the closer he gets to the street. The more his legs ache for him to stop and rest, just for a little bit more time. The more he wants to turn around and go back to somewhere, anywhere, that no one could ever have the chance to know him.

He can’t, though. It’s been long enough. He can’t let the world creep into August; hah. August. The worst time of Tim’s life, and death. He must have replaced the losses in his heart by now. Danny keeps coming back, against all odds. Gerry never will.

Danny stops walking to breathe against the memory, the knowledge. The shame that builds and builds heavier and heavier with every day that passes, no matter how long he’s taken to deconstruct it. Maybe that was another one of Gerry’s gifts; all that Weight. Reva told him all about the sink. Whenever they were out instead of him, that’s where he would be, without fail. That was his home in their head.

So maybe that’s Danny’s punishment, too. Every morning, he is lowered back into that tank, and he thrashes all day until someone has their twisted idea of mercy and pulls him out to let him sleep, only to start all over again tomorrow. He never drowns like Tim did. His fault, too.

It doesn’t feel like punishment enough.

He leaps away from a speeding car before it has the chance to honk at him for drifting into the road. Adrenaline tingles in his limbs, his lungs, just the barest little taste of something alive. He looks ahead at the street signs and knows he has to keep going, he has to turn left, and to do that, he needs to forget how to feel again. Just until he gets onto the doorstep.

When he does reach it, he stands there for a while. He hasn’t earned the right to knock on the door and say hello, certainly not to smile and wish for one back. But he’ll be standing here all day if he doesn’t, and he can’t waste any more time. It feels like taking, but he does it.

Melanie answers the door. Her face falls in an instant, her eyes wide and skipping over his body as if in search of wounds or changes or evidence that he’s only a mirage. He lets her process his presence in silence until she finally finds it in her to speak.

“Holy shit.”

“Hi.”

“Hi!” She laughs, backing up to usher him inside. “You didn’t tell me you were coming home.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s— Well, I won’t say anything is fine, but I’m just… really glad to see you. You haven’t been texting.”

“Sorry.”

She makes a piteous face, pausing on her way to the kitchen. He knows she’s going to offer him tea in the mug with the holographic telly on it and he’ll accept it to be gracious, not because he thinks it’s fair. For a moment, they hover in place at a distance from each other, equally at a loss for words, or affection, or mending.

“Um…” she recovers, pointing towards the hallway. “I’m… going to go get Mar—”

Again, she pauses, this time in a cold startle. Danny turns his head to face the music; Martin is already standing in the mouth of the hallway, staring at the pathetic scene with the flattest expression Danny has ever seen on him. Danny keeps his own face just as empty, careful not to betray the depth of how that expression makes him feel. It wouldn’t be fair. He has no right to beg.

“…Ah.” Melanie clears her throat. “You know what? I’m gonna— I’m actually going to head to the store, we don’t have… milk. I’m going to go get some milk.”

“Sure, Melanie.” Martin doesn’t bother to look at her. “Go get some milk.”

His voice is different. Not in tone, but in quality. His hair is different; shorter, in an unfamiliar stage of hopefully-growing back out. It was only a matter of time before Martin cut his hair. Danny remembers stopping him the first time he held scissors down to the scalp, convincing him it wouldn’t be worth it to cut it out of anger. He’s been angry, and Danny wasn’t here to stop him.

Of course he’s been angry. That is something Danny deserves.

As Melanie grabs her keys and leaves the house, Danny turns his body to face Martin fully, his bag still on his shoulder — he can’t set it down yet, he can’t make himself at home. He braces himself for the tirade, the accusation, the hatred. All things he’s earned.

Martin takes a step forward. Danny doesn’t realize he’s taken a step back until the look on Martin’s face is more hurt than hollow. This conversation will be held across the room.

“Happy Birthday,” Danny tries.

“What were you thinking?” Martin says instead of ‘thanks.’ “You disappeared.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How could you do that to me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop— saying you’re sorry, and tell me what was running through your head!”

“I couldn’t be here, Martin!” The confession leaps forth without another hesitation, prompted forward by Martin’s demand. “I couldn’t just— exist here, waiting for Tim to be able to look at me again! I couldn’t just wait around for him to feel obligated enough to forgive me, and you know my being here would have put that pressure on him. I couldn’t— I couldn’t think here!”

“So you went to Tanzania?”

“Yes! Yes, I did, and I went just about everywhere else, too, and did almost every drug known to man, and I didn’t have a lick of fun because I was running! You have to know Elias is probably after me, too, after I fucked up his plans. I couldn’t stay anywhere for more than a few days, I had to just keep moving, I barely— I barely processed any of what I was seeing, I just needed to think.”

“About what?”

“About why I did it!” The bag slips from his shoulder, and he hardly notices the sound of it hitting the ground past the blood in his ears. “You said in the hospital that I did it for Pharos and I agreed with you, but was I just agreeing because you said it? Or did I do it because I knew it’d be the best thing for Nikola?”

“You wouldn’t have—”

“But what if I did!” He can’t fight the smile as it pulls at his mouth. “What if I did, Martin?”

Martin stops arguing. Danny battles to neutralize his face again, and fails. The best he can do is continue to explain himself.

“I had to figure it out on my own, I couldn’t just— let your belief in me influence how I remembered things.”

“No one really— remembers the whole Unknowing, I mean. It was the Unknowing. You can’t try and force yourself to recall every single detail of an event like that, the whole point was to confuse us.”

Danny scoffs. “Don’t you think I know that? I soaked in that for years before you people dragged me out of it by the hair. I learned to navigate it, I learned to cause it, and you think I wouldn’t have been able to coast on that during the ritual? You think it’s that impossible that I could have just slipped back into my old role? Seriously, Martin? You still love me enough to lie to yourself like that?”

You still love me at all? Danny can’t take the words back. Martin crosses his arms, leaning against the wall to look down at the floor.

“And what conclusion did you come to?”

“A different one every day.”

He sees the minute shake of Martin’s head, the disbelieving desire to scoff as he turns his eyes back up to the ceiling. “So, what you’re saying is that this was pointless. You didn’t come back with some big epiphany, you didn’t have your come to Jesus moment in Cambodia, it was all just— a waste of time.”

“No,” Danny says firmly. “I still couldn’t just be here. I need you to understand that.”

“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t just tell me.”

“Because you would have tried to stop me, or asked to come with me, and I wouldn’t have been able to say no to you! I needed to be alone, Martin.”

“Since when has ‘alone’ gotten anyone anywhere good? You said before you did every drug known to man, h-how is that a good thing? How did that help you?”

“It helped me forget sometimes.” Danny curls and unfurls his fists. “You don’t know how hard it was to look any of you in the eye before I left. Any of you, even you.”

“I never blamed you for—”

“Maybe you should have. Maybe I wanted you to! Maybe I needed someone to blame me, because it can’t just be me blaming myself! I can’t trust myself, you know that.”

“But if no one blames you, then isn’t that a signal that it wasn’t your fault?”

“I swung the hammer, Martin! I did that. And I still don’t know for certain if I did it for Pharos or not, so no, it’s not a signal that it isn’t my fault. It just tells me that no one takes my actions seriously, even when they’re catastrophic.”

“You saved the world, technically.”

“Don’t.”

“You did, though,” Martin insists. “Adelard said that incantation could have been the end of everything—”

Danny shakes his head. “We have no idea how accurate that is.”

“And we’ll never know! Because it’s over, and because Pharos saw it coming. He trusted you.”

“And what about Gerry, then, huh? What about the one all of you actually miss? The one I took away from Tim without a second of hesitation because Pharos decided that the collateral would be worth it?”

“That sounds like a Pharos problem. And it sure sounds like you put a lot more thought into what Pharos was asking of you than you were probably thinking of Nikola in the moment.”

“G-d, you’re not even listening!” Danny can’t control his gestures, arms frenetic and jerking to grab for his own head. “Martin, I murdered the love of my brother’s life! I killed him, he’s dead because of me! No amount of justification is going to change the result! I don’t care about the incantation, I don’t care about the end of the world, I care about the world I have to live in now! I always have, that’s all that matters to me! There needs to be a consequence for what I did!”

“Is that another reason why you left without so much as a note?” Martin asks. “Inviting some kind of consequence?”

“Maybe it is! Now, are you going to deliver one or are you just going to— forgive me?”

For a long time, the adrenaline of raising his voice had kept the tears at bay. He doesn’t know precisely when they started to burn in his throat, but all at once, the notion of forgiveness creates such a deep longing in him that he can’t help the way it jumps out. He can’t retract the way it sounded; like a lie, like bait, like pleading. Danny does his best not to drop his head, muscling through as his eyes water, looking Martin in the face as if he stands a chance of challenging him. He feels like the frenzied bull in the arena, while Martin stands calm and resolute in the distance, daring him to come closer.

It’s Martin who steps forward again. Danny backs up one more step, instinct over impulse, but there’s only so far he can go before his back hits the wall. Martin is slow in his approach, reaching out with his hands first to show that they’re empty, they’re open, they’re safe. Danny is powerless to him, then, when Martin pulls him down into his arms.

“I’m going to forgive you, Danny.”

Danny sobs into his shoulder. “Why?”

“I don’t— I don’t like being angry, it makes me mean. Just ask Melanie, I’ve— I’ve been awful to her this whole time. I don’t see the point in holding a grudge against you for… for what happened to Gerry, or for you leaving to sort out your thoughts. I can’t punish you any more than you’ve punished yourself. I refuse to even try.”

“Why?”

Martin cradles the back of his head as he shakes. “It wouldn’t do any good. Not like… actually trying to fix things might.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“You’re home. That’s a start.” Martin kisses the spot behind his ear. “And don’t get me wrong, I’d love to keep you all to myself as long as I can, but Melanie’s going to be back with that milk we don’t need, and… I think the person you really need to talk to is Tim.”

For a while, the most Danny can do is weep. He hasn’t cried much since he left, if at all — hell if he remembers anymore. The wall behind him and Martin’s sturdy frame in front are the only things keeping his legs from giving out underneath him, the Weight still there and still suffocating and still too oppressive to dig himself out from. He lets Martin hold him until it makes more sense to let him lead him to the couch, and then time distorts until he’s lying with his head in Martin’s lap, breathing slower.

He hasn’t earned this, but he’s selfish. He needs it.

They decide to text Sasha, not Tim, just to make sure he’s home, and leave it at that. Danny takes a shower before anything else and changes into a fresh set of clothes from his dresser, still full of his things. He looks at himself in the mirror and wills it not to crack. The scar on his forehead. The scar on his lip. His identity in seams. He can’t face his collarbones, or his wrists.

Martin offers to go with him, and he finds the strength to say no. The most he can give is leaving his bag in the house, a promise to come back. Today, he thinks he keeps his promises.

Tim’s house is too far to walk to, so he takes the bus as close as it’ll bring him. He hopes that Sasha doesn’t answer the door, too tired for another round of what happened with Melanie and Martin. He wonders if he’s earned the right to want this to be direct. To the point. Not painless, but bearable. He can bear quite a lot before it breaks him. He could take any comeuppance Tim has to offer as long as it isn’t forgiveness, too.

It won’t be. It couldn’t be. Not this time.

With hands unfeeling, he knocks. He listens for the heaviness of the footsteps that approach the door, for a moment forgetting if Tim’s are still audible at all. When he doesn’t hear anything, he figures that no, they aren’t, and why would they be? Tim is more of a ghost than ever. Danny doesn’t know how to prepare himself for what he’ll see when the door opens.

Tim is dry, at least. His hair is down, no longer or shorter since the last time Danny saw him. They’re the same, in that regard; Danny’s hair still hasn’t grown a centimeter since he first encountered the troupe. Tim can’t cut his for anything now because there’s every chance it’ll never grow back.

His eyes are vacant, empty black holes in his head. Frightening to passersby, no doubt, but to Danny, it’s something else. Something words can’t describe, so he doesn’t try.

“Hey,” he starts, because Tim doesn’t say it first.

For a long moment, Tim doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move to let Danny into the house, or step onto the porch to join him. Simply stands in the doorway like a statue, studying him for change the way that Melanie and Martin had. Studying his eyes for traces of… what, guilt? Shame? He’ll find it in abundance.

“I just came by to tell you… I’m done running, now.”

The calm question comes up from inside a deep well. “Where were you?”

“Um… around.” Danny looks down at Tim’s shirt and shrugs. “All over.”

Tim hums, and still he doesn’t move. “Have fun?”

“Not especially.”

“Alright.”

Danny thought he could handle the comeuppance. “I just didn’t… think it’d be right to tell you over the phone.”

“When you left, or when you got back?”

“Either.” Danny tucks his hand behind his hip to fidget in private. “…Tim, I’m sor—”

Tim holds up a hand.

“What’s done is done.”

“Which part of it?”

“All of it. You can’t take it back. I don’t want you to try just to be disappointed that I can’t forgive you yet.”

“I don’t want you to forgive me yet,” Danny admits. “…Or at all, if you really can’t. I know Pharos said that I’m the only one you might be able to—”

“Might.”

“Exactly. And I left because… I didn’t want you to feel obligated to honour that just because he said it. I left so you could have some time to yourself, without me… pressuring you to move on.”

“You left for yourself.”

“That, too. I needed time, I thought… I thought we could both use the time. I didn’t expect to walk back into welcoming arms.”

Tim doesn’t need to say good for the sentiment to come across. He’s silent for another long while, unmoving in the doorway. A barricade between the outside world and his private space, so empty now with his loss.

“What’s done is done,” Tim repeats. “And I don’t forgive you yet. But… you’re back now. Which means we can start to try and get there someday.”

Danny’s throat closes up. “You don’t have to.”

“I know. And you didn’t have to come back, but you did.” Finally, Tim’s eyes shift to look over Danny’s shoulder at the street. “You did the one thing I couldn’t do for him.”

“I’m sorry,” Danny rushes out before Tim can stop him again. “If I could go back—”

“You can’t. He wouldn’t even want you to. What’s done is done.”

Danny drops his head. “What’s done is done.”

“Yeah.” Tim turns his eyes back to Danny’s face, his stare so deadened that Danny can feel the blood on his hands. “We can talk about this some other time.”

“Okay.”

There is a beat of quiet before the door is shut in front of him. Danny swallows the rejection and forces his eyes to stay dry, forces himself to turn around and step off the porch and head for the bus stop. One step at a time, one speculation after another; when will some other time be? What will tomorrow look like?

There’s so much left to say.

───── ⋅◆⋅ ─────

[moodymisty]

I really love when you post excerpts from the books, I gained an interest in the Warhammer books entirely because of your lore posts! I've only read 2 so far but its been a ton of fun. So thanks ❤

Omg that's the biggest honor I ever could hear, thank you for enjoying my lore dumping! And I'm happy you enjoy the books so far! I always want to post the excerpts since I feel like if I don't, I'm just spouting stuff from my ass XD Also my Master's degree in Angron-nomics denotes that I must use sources for my papers.

Anyways here's a funny excerpt from Pharos, just because I need to share it. Context is some ultramarines were preparing to fight in zero gravity.

Caias grinned. ‘We float for Macragge.’

Lethicus scowled at him. Caias’ humour was sometimes unbefitting for a member of the XIII Legion, and his levity grated on Lethicus’ more sober sensibilities. ‘Just get over there, and be ready to attack when I command.’

‘Yes, brother-sergeant,’ said Caias.

[grovermungus]

i take it this is the neurodivergent side of the internet, and so i feel it a safe place to put my rant about the library of Alexandria or rather more specifically the miss-information surrounding it. (please don’t take everything i say to be 100% accurate i am but a humble person with adhd and bad memory so ill try my best but please look into it yourself more if you want a more trusted source)

to put it plain and simple it DID NOT BURN DOWN. i cannot stress that enough. and no i do not also believe in aliens and that the world is flat, im not a conspiracy theorist im right, it doesn’t take much looking into the history to find this, many books and credible sources state as much.

there were two library’s for starters, one that was used as a place for all kinds of smart people things like philosophy, maths, and mechanics. the main library, the one everyone knows of and refers to when they bring it up, was the public library.

the library itself was built to be, and listen carefully here, the biggest collection of first edition writings in the world. the key term there being first edition. so what that means is that even if the library had burnt down (which it didn’t) it wouldn’t have mattered in the grand scheme of things anyway. the way they went about gathering books, scrolls, and tablets for the library was by sending out messages asking people to bring their first editions to alexandria, where they would copy these editions and give the copy’s back to the owners, along with some money as a thank you, or something of the sort.

but again going back to the burning, usually when people talk of this they’re referencing when ceaser supposedly “burnt down part of the library during a civil war”. to give more context going into this part you should know that some sources place the library as being part of the pharos palace, and therefor being very far from the docks. what happened with ceaser is that during the war he set fire to the boats (for what reason i truly cannot remember off the top of my head but trust that he did have one) the fire then spread across the docks and reached into the neighbouring buildings and houses. but as i have said the library was far from the docks and was therefor untouched during the blaze, as it was put out long before it would have reached the palace. the confusion is believed to have come from records of books that were stored in the dock houses being destroyed in this fire, either or books that were burnt in the near by houses.

all that being said, after the date at which this burning takes place there are still records of people going and visiting the library, which had it been burnt down would not have been possible.

there are many other instances and things that happened surrounding the library, all very interesting i assure you, the rivalry it had with the library of pergamon which lead to the banning of papyrus exports to pergamon, and therefor causing the creation of parchment, being one of them. if you want some places to find more then both kaz rowes video on the library, and a short book called very fittingly, the library of alexandria and the library of pergamon by charles river editors ((?)that is the author name given i swear) are both things i thoroughly enjoyed, and feel give great insight to the topic.

if i am in fact wrong about anything please do correct me :)

[dracononite]

Would you mind explaining what a headworld is? I'm very sure I know from seeing it around in context (it is self explanatory really) but I've never seen anyone explain it or really have any idea where it comes from (though dont worry if you can't answer that) so I'd love to hear. I have some of my own I want to develop and enjoy and figure hearing even a brief friendly tldr would help me get more into it.

Btw I love your art and characters! I looked through them all and love the atmospheres they have so much and am so interested in all the "little" settings/scenarios in there.

Not sure who first used the term or where it first popped up in general but it means a world which you've made in your head, usually populated with your own characters, places, and story! I personally use it to mean both my completely original worlds (Sparrowmage) as well as worlds derived from existing media (such as my Pokemon regions Pharos and Ikkalo). It's very useful shorthand for "my world with my original characters and story"

and thank you! Not all of my characters are part of a deep story but I love including all of them in various settings. worldbuilding is one of my favorite activities... if you have any questions about specific settings/folders/ocs, ask away!

[iapetusneume]

Director's Cut: Alar Aladi, chapters 1 and 2

So, despite not having done a Director's Cut yet for Macraggian Hospitality, I did want to at least do these first two chapters. I do want to touch on that story at some point, but I also want to pull up some of the pictures I used for reference material.

But first, story.

Alar Aladi

With war comes sacrifice, and often of small personal pleasures. When the Blood Angels wish to give Sanguinius back one of those pleasures as a surprise, the plan quickly becomes more complicated than they are able to handle. If they have any chance of success, Roboute Guilliman and Lion el'Jonson must be brought in on the idea. How does one keep a secret from a primarch with precognition? Not very well. (Takes place between Unremembered Empire and Pharos. Reading the previous fic in the Cultural Exchange series is not required, but does provide some additional context.)

So, let's start with the series Cultural Exchange in general. The idea came out of me wondering what it might look like to explore important parts of the cultures of Macragge, Baal, and Caliban. I wanted to do it in a fun and sweet way, and also very smutty. This is intended to be a more lighthearted series, even though it is set in Imperium Secundus, which is in the middle of the Heresy.

(warning, this gets really long)

Macraggian Hospitality Part 1 introduces Sanguinius to Macraggian bath houses, and also establishes the importance to Guilliman of being a good host. There's also a question of when the Blood Angels and Dark Angels stop being guests, and Ultramar becomes home. By some accounts, Imperium Secundus lasted years. (And that's what I like to think it was.)

I'll get into it a bit more when I go to write about MH, but part of the reason I did not have Lion in Part 1 was due to time constraints on my part. I knew I wasn't going to be able to write a threesome in time for the Exchange deadline. I hinted at the fact that Sanguinius, Guilliman, and Lion were already a triad, but I left it at that. Part 2 will have an actual threesome, and I'm currently working on it.

The only thing I'll really note about Part 2 without giving any spoilers to it is: they have not been a triad long. My general headcanon is that Sanguinius was already in a romantic relationship with Lion before the Heresy started, and he had a FWB thing going on with Guilliman that was certainly heading in the direction of romance but was not quite there yet. Lion and Guilliman got together while they were on Sotha. So when Sanguinius shows up in Ultramar, there's an interesting negotiating of relationships and figuring out the new normal, amongst everything else they have to deal with. Things are new and shaky, but also exciting, and I wanted to strengthen it by showing love and affection, not just lust.

Now, let me get onto the actual story of Alar Aladi!

The title is from me playing extremely loosely with an Enochian dictionary. "Alar" meaning "settled, have settled" and Aladi meaning "Sephoric Cross Earth of Water." I decided that it would be Old Aenokhian in the same way there's linguistic drift and so a direct translation doesn't mean "joining the tribe" or "naming day," but that is what it means.

This takes place between Unremembered Empire and Pharos, and that distinction is important. I think that things really start to take a darker turn with Pharos, and I wanted to keep this more lighthearted. But because of when this is set, it also means that Konrad is very much a threat that is Out There Somewhere. I mention it briefly in MH, and the perceived potential threat of him will come up again in AA.

This time, the focus will be on Baal.

I got the idea of all the people Sanguinius loves throwing him a surprise Birthday party, and decided to run with it. Sanguinius is suffering from terrible anxiety, especially after Fear to Tread, and he needs a fucking break. But he's also the Emperor, so who is going to tell him to take one?

Gonna have to surprise him!

I immediately started to think about birthday traditions and naming traditions from other cultures. Once upon a time, many cultures wouldn't name their babies even in the first year, since infant death was so common. There are also customs of waiting to name a child for a set amount of time after they are born. (I mention this with Naming Day for Macragge.) I really wanted to have some customs that made both Sanguinius and Guilliman feel more like they are of their home planets by having a custom they are able to participate in more readily. A Naming Day is not someone's birthday, and neither is one's Alar Aladi. The primarchs don't know when they were born (and don't even know if that's how it should even be described, since they were created), but here, that doesn't matter.

(As an aside, I have not decided yet how Birthdays/Naming Days are done on Caliban yet. But I do think that something that Lion cares very deeply about is the fact that he was named after the fiercest Great Beast on Caliban, and also given the title "Son of the Forest" by his people. This is something that makes him feel very of Caliban.)

Because Baal is a death world and conditions are so harsh, I decided to lean extremely hard into a name being given to someone much later in life. Here, I was inspired a bit by Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, and having an event in someone's life where they are then regarded by the community as being an adult. With the Alar Aladi, the person in question has decided to live among the community as part of the tribe, and the tribe has accepted them as one of their own. They will share the responsibility of being part of the community, but also reap the benefits of it.

I also like the idea of having a name match someone's personality. There's the idea in some cultures that a name is given to someone in hopes that maybe they will grow into it. And then there is the idea that maybe one should wait to see the personality of someone before a name is given. I embrace both with the Alar Aladi. Essentially, a person will choose the name that suits them best. Whether it's something they aspire to be, or who they feel they already are, that's their choice.

There's the option to give yourself your own name, to take the name suggested by the tribe, or to do both. (I decided on this because most Baalite BAs have only one name, but then we have Mkani Kano breaking the trend, and I wanted an explanation for that.)

And yes, sometimes people decide to keep the nicknames that have been used for them up until that point.

(From Echoes of Eternity)

So, Sanguinius' Alar Aladi is significant for more than just an average Baalite's Alar Aladi, because of course it is. He is seen by his people as a god. I see the day he got his name as also the day he became the Lord of Baal. Because of his work to unify the tribes and everything up to that point, Baalites regard his Alar Aladi as holiday.

But to Sanguinius, it's still something very private.

So there are celebrations, but he does not lose sight of the significance. This is the day he was given his name. It is intensely personal, intensely special.

But with the war going on, and the Ruinstorm, celebrations don't seem as likely. Especially trying to go to Baal.

Raldoron knows how much this means to Sanguinius, and how his silence speaks volumes. He is trying to put up a solid front. He is trying to be the strength that Imperium Secundus needs. But Raldoron also knows how much this boost of morale could be boon to everyone. ...and most of all, Raldoron loves Sanguinius so much, and wants to ease some of his burdens. Raldoron - and the other BAs in on his plan - know what happened at Signus Prime. Guilliman and Lion do not. But with the stress of the Heresy in general, it's not hard to get the two of them on board without that explanation.

I had a lot of fun with Lion's overreaction, and the consequences that came of it. Sanguinius is not going to forget about this, even after he finds Guilliman's punishment of Lion satisfactory. Things have started on a bad foot, and Azkaellon is right in that Sanguinius is extremely clever.

I want to have fun with the shenanigans that come with trying to keep a secret that's going to delight the recipient. Especially when Guilliman gets the idea that he would like to learn more about the culture of Bedwarmers on Baal (they were mentioned briefly in MH), since he's played a courtesan for Sanguinius before. How is he going to learn about it, when it isn't really written in the histories he has about Baal? Sounds like another conversation with Raldoron is needed. :)

I wasn't expecting Raldoron to get so sentimental in chapter 2. I also wasn't expecting Lion to enjoying submitting to Guilliman as much as he did.

Lion's punishment was technically extremely challenging for me in a lot of ways. I wanted to think of something unconventional. I wanted it to be intense, but in a way that was not immediately obvious. I wanted to show Guilliman thinking on his feet, and knowing the perfect way to punish Lion, and in the process showing that he knows him very well. And because I wanted this story to remain a bit lighter, I didn't want the punishment to feel too heavy. The tag on the fic for BDSM says "light BDSM," and I do mean that. Guilliman domming Lion was a first for them here, and Sanguinius doms them both in general, but it is only one aspect of their relationship.

And I didn't want it to be too heavy because they are trying to work together for a nice surprise for Sanguinius. I hope I pulled it off.

Conversely, I had trouble writing the Sanguinius/Raldoron parts because I kept squeeing too much at the cute, lol. I can't help it. I'm glad I did manage to get through the squee to something coherent.

[twilightknight17]

This time on P3R: ...it’s October 7th.

I finally got my aggressive dialogue option.

Before we start, I don’t know all of who’s reading these posts, obviously. (I’m guessing at least one person specifically though. ^_^) I can guess that most of you know P3 already. So you know what’s here, and you can probably tell that I’ve been talking around or not emphasizing some of the worst bits of this. Especially around Chidori.

That’s been for the benefit of people who may not know P3, or at the very least, know it mostly from my enthusiasm for Ryoji and/or reading just the opening of Hours. (I’m actually kind of entertained by the idea that there’s people who don’t know P3, who want to read my posts just to basically hear me tell them a story.)

But this next part has something that I cannot downplay. So, I will warn you when I get to it in this post, but we’re going to be confronting major topics of suicide. It does not happen, but it’s going to be talked about. So please mind yourselves if you’re reading along.

Anyway.

To start off with a lighter topic, I have saved all of the dorks who wandered into Tartarus, and have managed to get a solid chunk of money while doing so. After I sell all my bits and bobs, I should have at least 200K, which should keep me going for a while.

Fuuka also warned everyone not to drink the waterfalls in Tziah, which made me laugh for inside-joke reasons.

I find it funny and also kind of brilliant that whatever costume you're wearing is reflected in the menus. That’s a really nice detail.

(They could make however many variations of the menu, but not Hamu--) *shot*

Anyway, things are normal. We head back from Tartarus, sleep, head to school, clean up from the culture festival we didn’t have… Blech. I’m also off to the shops to upgrade my stuff with my new riches, so that means a chance to chat with the antique shop lady.

Seriously, who are you?? Are you a former Kirijo scientist?

Also, it’s good to see that my fave Escapade patron has recovered!

School is as nonsense as ever, as my math teacher is absent, so here’s Mr. Edogawa to ask more things about magic.

...are you SERIOUS. Max rank on BOTH and my academics STILL won’t level up???? My friend made a joke that Pharos is stealing my braincells, but honestly??? Maybe. If he’s taking half my braincells to recover his memories, maybe that’s why I never seem to get any smarter. X’D

I’m still working on social links and hangouts. Ken needs to go visit Sojiro in the future. He seems to have a serious appreciation for coffee. I’m sure Goro would take him to Leblanc. ^_^

Meanwhile, apparently you must be level 7 friends to be asked to join a cult.

I’m not giving you 132000 yen. I JUST stopped being broke. My soul will be fine.

At least Bebe is a lovely person to be around.

We also hang out with Shinji again, because apparently even with max courage, we still can’t finish the burger challenge. So I guess I have to max everything? Ugh. More fun to spend time learning to cook.

...hm. Oh dear. XD

It’s fine. The tempura turned out good, and Shinji tells me about how he learned to cook while working part-time at a restaurant. I’m kind of impressed how close I was on my Shinji characterization in Hours with just movie context.

I love him, and it’s killing me that I can’t social link enough to save him no matter what.

Time for school again, and Mr. Ono has finally reached the Sengoku Era. It’s time to talk about the era of the samurai. It gives me the option to sleep in class, but one, I need more academic points, and I can’t imagine sleeping through this guy’s first lecture on his favorite topic ever.

……..are you KIDDING ME ASDFKJDJGS:LDF

No, no, no. We’re not acknowledging this. We’re moving on. We’re still not smart enough to link with Mitsuru, but we can talk to Yukari now that we’re charismatic! Apparently she’s been waiting this long to apologize for some of the stuff she said on Yakushima. Which, it’s fine. We were all freaking out that night.

...she says “just kidding” after, but like… no she’s not. X’D

So one thing I’ve been missing is that apparently the console in the command room has been freaking out every month or so and recording video. I saw the first two of them because I was prompted to go look, but I haven’t looked since, and now there’s a bunch. One of each member of SEES, I think.

For a sec, I thought we were going to catch Pharos on camera, but no. Just Aigis sneaking into my room. XD I will say, though, that’s the night we supposedly went to Tartarus for Q. So now I’m wondering if it was a shared dream, and we were in meta-space only mentally.

That’s not out of the realm of possibility.

We’re never going to get answers, though, because Atlus gonna Atlus.

It’s definitely creepy that the dorm has cameras in everyone’s rooms. Mitsuru’s tape has her walking around in a towel. Like… Ikutsuki. Seriously. Dude.

I’ve also found my last social link that isn’t Mitsuru! It’s the Tower, a monk who hangs out in Escapade, believes that love and true friendship don’t exist, and is overall unpleasant to be around as he drinks and smokes.

No it’s not! I swear, all of my most unpleasant social links are the ones that are around when everyone else is busy. It’s like they know I don’t want to do them unless there’s no one else available. X’D

I sigh and carry on, because it’s time for the full moon! We’re off to Iwatodai Station to deal with the next two Arcana Shadows, Strength and Fortune. Shinji isn’t with us because he said he’d be late, and Ken isn’t with us because… he wasn’t in his room, and Junpei couldn’t find him. Which seems like something to be worried about, but we gotta deal with the shadows first.

Strength is very pretty, but it’s also shielding Fortune so that Fortune can keep doing its roulette wheel bullshit and throwing buffs and damage all over the place.

I got hit early on by “300 damage to everyone” and lost everyone but Minato, but I was able to recover, and it spent a lot of turns just causing everyone to have upgraded magic damage. Which I think benefited me more than them, because Minato was immune to wind, Yukari resists wind, and everyone else was trucking along admirably.

Strength was more of the tank, so once she went down, Fortune wasn’t too bad, despite another 300-damage spin. Shinji and Ken never showed up, though.

One, for fuck’s sake, at least wait until we’re safely home, Ikutsuki.

Two, the CHILD we are responsible for is MISSING. SIR.

Akihiko realizes it’s October 4th and runs off, and Mitsuru herds the rest of us back to the dorm.

And now.

This is your warning. The next part will discuss suicidal ideation and murder, so if you’d like to skip that, head to the next set of giant bold words and avert your eyes otherwise.

Right, okay. So now that we’re all on the same page, here we go.

Ken and Shinji are at Port Island Station, across the monorail.

Ken has called him here because he recognized Shinji as the reason that his mother is dead. He’s completely devoted his life to making sure that the person who killed her faces justice. And he’s here to take justice into his own hands.

The suffering that this kid has gone through… How much pain, for an eleven-year-old to consider killing himself? But he wants Shinji to die.

Cut to the rest of us, minus Akihiko, back at the dorm. It has finally dawned on Mitsuru what the significance of the date is, and she orders Fuuka to look for all three of them, urgently. Junpei asks what’s so important about today’s date, and Mitsuru reveals that it’s the day Ken’s mom died, two years ago. And that Shinjiro is the reason she’s dead.

They were hunting a rogue shadow in the city, and failed to account for civilians.

...why were Ken and his mom awake during the Dark Hour? Are we just not gonna mention that?

Either way, it was an accident, not a murder, but Ken thinks it was on purpose. And that’s horrible.

The rest of SEES heads for the station when Fuuka finds them, and we cut back to Ken and Shinji.

Shinji isn’t going to fight.

He tells Ken that the only reason not to do this is because taking a life will end up making Ken just like him. He tells Ken that what he did tore him up so badly that he left SEES and started taking suppressants. Ken, angry as hell, just thinks he’s begging for his life, but… He’s not. He doesn’t care about himself. He’s just worried about Ken.

Takaya shows up, because got forbid he not make things worse. He thinks Ken should go for it, because goading a child to commit murder is a great thing!

“Is it not permissible to kill those who are themselves killers?” NO. That just means you’re making more killers to replace them. The cycle of revenge is pointless. Not that Takaya cares, because he’s just going to kill Ken afterwards. He wants to get rid of us, since we keep destroying the shadows, but he calls it “salvation”.

Dude really has no qualms about killing a child.

Shinjiro, realizing that, gets between Ken and Takaya, and Takaya points out that Shinji is dying anyway from the suppressants. This upsets Ken.

The point is that you shouldn’t have been living solely for revenge. :/

Takaya points out that it shouldn’t matter whether he kills Ken or not.

So this kid has been living for two years just for the purpose of killing his mom’s killer and then himself. No wonder he doesn’t want to enjoy food or spend time with us in the dorm. No wonder he asked Minato to take care of Hamburger. He literally wasn’t planning to come back. He was just going to go off and die, and we wouldn’t have found either of them until it was too late.

We’re still almost too late.

But Shinji is not down for child murder and gets a fully-voiced “fuck”, because this situation deserves it.

And Takaya shoots him.

He asks, then, who our group’s navi is. Because we have to have someone as powerful or more powerful than Chidori, since we keep getting to the full moon shadows before Strega. And it’s clear that he wants to know so he can murder them, too. Shinji won’t answer, and Ken speaks up to claim that it’s him. That his navi abilities were the only reason they let a kid join them in the first place. Which isn’t a bad lie, but Ken…!

...he doesn't even try to get away from Takaya. Just shuts his eyes.

The gun goes off, but Shinji has forced himself up, and gets in the way again. He might have made it, but not with a second gunshot at point-blank range. And THAT’S when SEES arrives, and Takaya makes himself scarce. Because he’s too much of a coward to face us all at once. What, unwilling to try to gun down the whole group, you fucking bastard?

(Tumblr crunched the quality as punishment for me trying to cram too many screenshots in the post, so you might have to open the image in a new tab. X''''D)

Everything fades to black as Ken screams.

.

.

.

.

.

If you were skipping this section, you’re clear now.

It has been maybe seven hours since Shinjiro died, and we get a classic line that basically sums up how not-okay everyone in this game is.

Somehow, the school already knows. We have an assembly where the principal talks about the horrible sense of loss everyone feels because of this terrible tragedy. But the upperclassmen in the rows in front of us won’t stop muttering about how they didn’t even know an Aragaki was in their class, and how he was probably a delinquent, and how they heard he was shot in a senseless back-alley fight. They turn around to ask if we’d heard of him, but then decide nah, we were only second-years, of course we wouldn’t.

And FINALLY I get to say something rude.

Junpei follows to back me up immediately after, and we get scolded by the teacher. It’s not fair, but… There’s nothing we can do.

No one has seen Akihiko all day, but he shows up to the gym after everyone is gone to talk to Shinji. He… blames himself for this. He says he thought that if he was strong enough, he could protect everyone, the way he couldn’t protect his sister. But now Shinji is gone too.

He promises that from now on, he’s not just going to fight for the sake of getting stronger, and his persona evolves from Polydeuces to Caesar.

It makes sense, in a sad way, that he can’t be Pollux anymore when his brother Castor is gone.

Ow.

Mitsuru calls a meeting, because we have to decide what to do with Ken. But when she sends Aigis to fetch Ken from his room (on the second floor), he’s climbed out the window and is gone.

P3 really is just validating my Hours choices years later, because I had Mitsuru commenting about how they needed to put Goro on the third floor so he wouldn’t climb out a window. I genuinely didn’t realize that she had prior experience informing her decision. XDDDD

Anyway, Fuuka wants to go look for Ken, and Akihiko says we need to give him time. Personally, I’m with Fuuka, because I don’t think we should be letting a kid who is as… uh… emotionally unstable as Ken be on his own. Who knows what he’ll do in the state he’s in?

I can’t go hunting, though, and most of my social links are unavailable due to midterms in a week, so…

You know, I know the social links aren’t tied to main story progression, but dealing with this guy immediately after what happened just makes me angry. Fuck off, dude. Your cult is not saving anyone. Not you, not me, not my senpai who would have been INCREDIBLE to have as a brother. And you’re only doing this because you have to recruit someone for your bullshit.

After Suemitsu leaves, the guy whose son he scammed comes back, pointing him out to a thug that he apparently wants to beat him up. And honestly, if my option is to stop him from getting beaten up or not, I genuinely can’t say I will. I know he’s just an idiot teenager who got sucked into a cult, but I don’t like him.

There’s quite a few of my social links that are like “why am I spending time with this person still?” At least in P5 when people were tricky to link with, I still wanted to make an effort for the perks. (Not that there were any confidants in P5 I genuinely didn’t like. Not even Mishima.) But spending time with Tanaka, or Suemitsu, or Mutatsu? Why? Why keep coming back? :/

Akihiko finds Ken at Port Island Station, processing. Ken points out that his mom’s death was reported as a car accident, and no one ever knew the truth. And no one will know the truth about Shinjiro either.

Akihiko tells him that it’s his choice, but that if he wants to keep fighting, SEES will be there for him. And Ken decides that he’s going to keep going. His persona evolves from Nemesis to Kala-nemi, and he returns to the dorm, much to everyone’s relief.

The midnight hour strikes, and Pharos comes back to chat.

“You look a little tired.” No shit, honey. You’re waking me up at midnight.

We’ve been over this, it’s because you’re stealing my braincells.

We do get to tell him that we lost a friend. He says that he wouldn’t have understood that before, but he gets it now, because he has a friend. Grief and mourning in the face of death makes more sense now that he can fear losing someone.

Thanks, Pharos. You’re important to me, too. It’ll be okay. Just... stay with me. I can’t lose anyone else right now.

[aaroncutler]

Sessão Mutual Films: O forasteiro Sterling Hayden: JOHNNY GUITAR e FAROL DO CAOS [Mutual Films Session: The Wanderer Sterling Hayden: JOHNNY GUITAR and PHAROS OF CHAOS]

February 16th: The link above leads to Portuguese-language information about the 27th edition of the Mutual Films Session, co-curated and organized by me and Mariana Shellard, which will take place between February 18th and 23rd at the São Paulo-based unit of the Instituto Moreira Salles.

The event places into dialogue two sides of the American movie star Sterling Hayden (1916-1986), who is known today for a small but potent body of film work realized between the 1950s and 1970s that includes appearances as the emotional center of John Huston’s crime-themed classic The Asphalt Jungle, vital cogs in the ensembles of two great Stanley Kubrick films (The Killing and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), and a moving autobiographical supporting role in Robert Altman’s revisionist noir film The Long Goodbye. He was also celebrated in his time as a political actor, though not at all to his liking, as Hayden’s box office success was generated in good part by his willingness under pressure to appear in 1951 as a “friendly witness” before the House Un-American Activities Committee and denounce friends and colleagues as Communists. Hayden recounts in his 1963 autobiography Wanderer that he despised himself for his actions and how he benefited from them. He became, in fact, one of the few “friendly witnesses” to denounce the witch hunts unequivocally and expose their proper darkness within the context of American history.

Hayden’s most famous film is likely the brightly colored 1954 Western Johnny Guitar, which will screen at IMS in a 4K restoration with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio (in contrast to the Academy aspect ratio within which the film has long been presented). Hayden plays the titular vagrant cowboy, who encounters a former love (Vienna, played by Joan Crawford) and must decide whether to save her from unjust persecution. The film was directed by the Communist sympathizer Nicholas Ray (1911-1979) and its screenplay was authored largely by Philip Yordan, who frequently acted as a “front” for Blacklisted writers. Today the film rings clearly as a protest against the mass hysterics of postwar American society; in interviews given at the time of its release and for years afterwards, however, Hayden himself said that he didn’t understand what Johnny Guitar was about or what he was supposed to be doing in it.

One such interview was given in 1982 to a German film crew, at a moment when Hayden was aboard his houseboat in Besançon, France and adrift in an alcoholic stupor while struggling to write a new book. The result of the week-long encounter between Hayden and the documentary filmmakers Wolf-Eckart Bühler (1945-2020) and Manfred Blank (born in 1949) is the 1983 portrait film Pharos of Chaos, which will screen at IMS in a 2K restoration made from the film’s original 16mm camera negatives. Hayden here possesses a different kind of courage from that of the lead male character in Johnny Guitar, as the former gunman traversing a landscape now appears as a lost soul struggling forcefully to stay afloat.

The February 18th screening of Johnny Guitar will be presented by the Brazilian critic and curator Paulo Santos Lima, who is responsible for articles, courses, and film series devoted to authorial studies of Hollywood stars including Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Paul Newman, and Al Pacino. The series page on the Mutual Films website includes as supplemental materials a new translation into Portuguese of material about Johnny Guitar taken from the French film historian Bernard Eisenschitz’s commanding Nicholas Ray biography Nicholas Ray: An American Journey (whose English-language translation was made by Tom Milne), as well as a discussion about the making of Pharos of Chaos.

Special thanks for the series go to a number of people, among them the German cultural critic and translator Alf Mayer, who gave permission for a Portuguese-language translation of his essay about Sterling Hayden that originally appeared (both in English and in German) in the Editions Filmmuseum DVD release of Pharos of Chaos. An important point of reference has also been the work of the American filmmaker and scholar Thom Andersen on the legacy of artists involved with the Hollywood Blacklist, including the 1996 documentary film Red Hollywood (co-directed with Noël Burch) and the 1985 academic essay of the same name. Andersen presented the remastered version of Red Hollywood to São Paulo audiences during his trip to the city in 2016. The dedications for the current series “The Wanderer Sterling Hayden” include the memory of the late Korean-American filmmaker Christine Chang, who passed away last year and who accompanied her husband Andersen on two trips to Brazil.  

[shanayaaici]

Expert Stakeholder Feedback

Talk with Araba Mercer Benson, UAL student:

NOTTINGHAM CIRCUT CONFERENCE,2017

-TALK ON ‘GIG IN A GALLERY’- CONCEPT MODEL FOR LATE AT TATE BRITAIN, FORMERLY LOUD TATE.

THE IDEA THAT IN ORDER TO DECOLONISE SPACE AND CREATE A SITUATION WHERE ART CAN BE ACCESSIBLE FROM WITHIN WHITE WALL INSTITUTIONS TO DEMOGRAPHICS WHO ARE EXCLUDED FROM THE SPATIAL CONTEXT, ACTIVATIONS OF THE ARTWORK THROUGH PROGRAMME WHICH ENCORPORATES CULTURALLY RELEVANT WORKSHOPS, TALKS, SERVICES AND MUSIC FOR THE TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC SEEKING TO BE INVITED INTO THE SPACE, TO BE USED AS A TOOL FOR INCREASED ENGAGEMENT.

EXAMPLE: LOUD TATE 2016, HOUSE OF PHAROES PERFORMANCE, GRIME MUSIC AND GRIME AUDIENCES INTERACTING WITH 18TH CENTURARY ART

ISSUE WITH THIS CONCEPT: THE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF HOSTING CULTURALLY RELEVANT ACTIVATIONS WITHIN SPACES NOT DESIGNED TO BE ACCESSIBLE. NO MOSHING IN THE GALLERY. MUSIC CANT BE TOO LOUD. AUDIENCES NEED TO BE RESTRAINED. AUDIENCE CAN COME BUT THERE PRESENCE NEEDS TO BE CONTROLLED TO SUIT THE CONDITIONS REQUIRED BY THE INSTITUTION  

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[je-suis-problematique]

Just some Pharo X Rolan things

Pharo first meeting Rolan at the grove and immediately being smitten because he finds Rolan attractive and also likes his attitude, the more sass the better. He likely encourages Rolan to stay and fight to protect the refugees and probably even strokes Rolan's ego a bit in an attempt to lowkey hit on him. Maybe in between all the running around and killing goblins and such Pharo even manages to find some time to tell Rolan and his siblings about Nescan and specifically the tieflings in Corelto. Maybe Rolan doesn't believe Pharo at first when he says he's from an entirely different world because his story just sounds so batshit without the proper context but if Elturel can sink down into Avernus on a random Wednesday then perhaps Pharo could be telling the truth. Pharo does push Rolan's buttons here and there for funsies because he thinks Rolan is cute when he's flustered but he mostly stays respectful and besides, he doesn't have that much time to spare for flirting anyway. Not at the moment at least. Cal and Lia are 100% aware of what's happening though and tease the fuck out of Rolan for it.

Pharo going out of his way to at least TRY and make Rolan's stay at the grove more comfortable by bringing him things like food and various interesting trinkets from his travels around the area. He doesn't neglect Cal and Lia either, bringing them stuff as well, but most of his focus is on Rolan. Pharo isn't the best cook but he'd try to recreate some of his mom's cooking on the road and save some for the three tieflings for example, or maybe hold onto interesting books and enchanted items he'd think Rolan might want to have. Rolan is.... not ENTIRELY ungrateful but he's not sure how to react to Pharo's attention at first. He's a bit preoccupied with everything that's been happening and his main concern is the safety of his siblings so having some human court him in the middle of all that is a bit weird but not completely unwelcomed. He can't help but wonder if Pharo has some sort of ulterior motive behind his affectionate gestures but he treats Cal and Lia alright and isn't pushy or anything so maybe it IS actually kinda nice to receive little snacks and gifts every now and then, even if he doesn't NEED the extra help. Still, Rolan keeps Pharo at arm's distance most of the time.

Pharo tries to shoot his shot with Rolan at the tiefling party with Cal and Lia's help and that goes.... not terribly wrong but also they don't immediately fuck or anything. Pharo is very shy and awkward about it but he basically just tells Rolan that he's been into him ever since they first met and that it's okay if Rolan isn't interested but that he's hoping he'll at least be willing to give him a chance. Rolan is Not Sober but he's sober enough to tell Pharo that a relationship with him will be difficult and that he doesn't trust easy and that honestly why does Pharo even bother when he could go and get laid with practically anybody else (the wine brings The Insecurities to the surface) but Pharo says that he doesn't want just anybody, he wants Rolan. The only thing that happens that night is that they hold hands and MAYBE hug.

Rolan is trans and has Trauma so he's very wary and hesitant when it comes to intimacy even though he craves it. Cal and Lia were basically the ones who decided that Pharo would be good for Rolan because Rolan himself would never openly admit to liking Pharo back. THEY were the ones to corner Pharo during the tiefling party and tell him that hey, they know he's into their brother and hey, their brother likes him back but won't ever admit it, and they're going to make sure Pharo has a moment alone with Rolan but if Pharo hurts Rolan in any way, shape, or form, they'll string Pharo up by his innards but also PLEASE just go talk to our emotionally constipated brother.

Pharo and Rolan stay in touch through letters while they're both on the road but Rolan goes radio silent after Cal and Lia get taken to Moonrise. When Pharo finds Rolan in the shadow-cursed lands their reunion isn't a pretty one and they kinda-sorta have a huge fight but Rolan apologizes after Cal and Lia are safe again. Rolan does tell Pharo that he's free to end their relationship whenever but Pharo is Stubborn and says he won't end things just because they fought or will fight more in the future. Rolan then adds that he knows he's hard to love (vulnerability whom?) but that he appreciates Pharo's resolve to see past his walls. They hold hands again. Actually they probably kiss and hold each other. Listen this bitch is a slow burn it frustrates us too since we usually don't do those.

Baldur's Gate is where things get Spicy and by Spicy I mean extremely tender sex after the whole thing with Lorroakan because when Pharo finds out. BOY, WHEN PHARO FINDS OUT. Lorroakan actually reminds Pharo a lot of Tarantino so he's extra angry when dealing with him on top of already being angry because he was abusing his partner. It's a replacing-Lorroakan's-touch-with-my-own type of situation for Pharo because, uh, knowing ourselves, it probably didn't end in physical violence for poor Rolan and we think Lorroakan might have raped him too. Surprisingly enough though Rolan was the one who initiated the intimate act, not Pharo. It was still good though. Slow, tender, romantic. Pharo relating to Rolan on a fundamental level and telling him about his own experience with abuse when he was a kid, telling him about his mom and how he witnessed her being abused too growing up. Rolan feels SAFE with Pharo and Pharo is honored.

Rolan does eventually admit to Pharo that part of the reason why he was so hesitant to open up to him was because he figured Pharo would want to go back to his homeworld after dealing with the Elder Brain/the parasite and that he would never choose to stay with Rolan in Faerûn because what if Rolan was just a temporary fling to ease the loneliness or something, what if Pharo had someone else he liked more back in Nescan? But Pharo explains that even though he still has to go and kill Tarantino his new home will always be Faerûn by Rolan's side, if Rolan will have him that is. Rolan does his best to hide the fact that he is overjoyed and even offers to help Pharo hunt for Tarantino. Hells, even Lazarus abandons Nescan to stay with Astarion. I like to think that they figure out a way to travel back and forth between the two worlds and that Pharo takes Rolan to visit Corelto one day, introduces him to Tiberius and everything, shows him what a microwave is LMAO. All is well in the end, even if their story isn't truly over yet.

[raayllum]

Been thinking about it partially as I come closer to it in fanon S6 / divergences where what I'm writing (in prose with zero constraints) vs what I think the show is actually more likely to do (such as in this case) with the Celestial elves because like

If we look at it just from a storytelling standpoint, there's a few things we want to take into consideration.

Why Skywing elves?

Despite being an aspiring and then full fledged Sky mage for most of the series (5 seasons) as his defining... career trait? with Ocean only added at the end, Callum's attachment to the Sky arcanum is incredibly important from a thematic standpoint. I talked about this in more detail in terms of how TDP writes from theme to begin with, but it would not surprise me if a lot of the series fell into place after decisions were made regarding "mage boy has Sky-Freedom powers" and "big endgame big bad is Stars and Destiny embodied," i.e. like what kind of dragon Zym would be in order for Callum to have a reason to sacrifice his primal stone, why have Callum learn Sky magic first, etc etc.

The Celestial Elves, presumably, could've been any group of elves. We know from Tales of Xadia that Sunfire elves had a chant about warding off dangerous Star dragons from the Great Orb, and that Karim-Pharos are poised to be future pawns, so there is a decent link there. It also could've been cool if the Celestial elves had had elves from all over, showing both intergroup workings and that the Stars were bringing them together in some manner.

If Sky and Skywing elves by thematic extension represent Freedom, then it makes sense for these to be Skywing elves who have perhaps forsaken notions of freedom for ideas of pre-determinism or destiny, i.e. our circumstances beset all of our choices, or that fate/destiny is real and unchangeable. To have the same arcanum and similar abilities as Callum, but to already be warped to Aaravos' will / thematic graces of destiny and fate - to amplify what he's scared of and to accentuate what he might become (at least in terms of what he's scared to become).

On that note, I think it makes sense for them

To be Antagonists

Partially this is because of precedent. Most elves, when in groups, have been more antagonistic with one or two rising to the forefront to be allies. We see this in arc 1 with Moonshadow and Sunfire elves, with the majority being antagonists especially at first (the assassins, the Sunfire soldiers) with Rayla, Lujanne, and eventually Janai being allies / exceptions - even if the Sunfire elves as a whole quickly switch to being allies as of 3x08/09. We see this again in S4 with the Drakewood Earthblood elves being mostly antagonists, Terry as more of a grey area, and only N'than (and possibly Mukho the Mushroom mage?) being downright allies. This would mean that Astrid and maybe another Startouch elf might be more sy

Plot / Misc Reasons

Of course, the biggest reason for the Celestial elves to exist is to, presumably, give exposition regarding Startouch elves to the main characters and to extradite subsequent views / philosophy about Star magic and the arcanum (arcana?). If they are loyal to Aaravos, they would likely provide a perspective on Startouch elves different than one Callum might be coming in with and give more credence / context to Claudia's assertions of Aaravos as well, given that she's the one character currently with a positive view of him. It also doesn't seem they can entirely be good guys given their 1) isolationist nature and 2) having not one but two super OP objects that the protagonists definitely need. While they may not end up being villains, I think we can somewhat safely assume they will initially be obstacles, if only in giving tests (of love) like another certain Startouch elf...

[fmp2lh-f]

Pharos and Tombs

Pharos: Pharos, originally referring to the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria, is synonymous with guidance and illumination. The Pharos of Alexandria, built in the 3rd century BCE, was a marvel of ancient engineering, standing as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Situated on the island of Pharos, the lighthouse served as a beacon for sailors navigating the Mediterranean, its towering structure crowned with an open flame that provided light to ensure safe passage. Metaphorically, the term "pharos" has come to symbolize any guiding structure or source of enlightenment, evoking notions of hope and direction through challenges.

Tombs: Tombs hold a profound cultural and historical significance, serving as repositories for the deceased and reflections of societal beliefs. Ancient civilizations, such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, constructed elaborate tombs with intricate carvings, paintings, and inscriptions. The Valley of the Kings in Egypt stands out for its royal tombs, offering insights into the afterlife beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. Tombs are not only final resting places but also tell stories of cultural practices and religious views. They range from simple burial mounds to grand mausoleums, each providing a glimpse into the funerary traditions of a particular time and culture.

Integration in Project: The idea of integrating a spaceship into an underground tomb in the context of the project creatively combines the symbolism of pharos and tombs. The tomb represents a concealed and sacred space, akin to historical burial sites, while the emergence of the spaceship adds a futuristic dimension, reminiscent of the guiding light of a pharos. This imaginative blend harmonizes ancient symbolism with advanced technology, creating a narrative that transcends historical mystique and explores the potential of the future.